Newsletter · · Ashutosh Agarwal
Gold & the Debasement Trade - Week of June 25, 2026: Gold Cracks $4,000, Buy the Dip or Peak?
Gold and precious metals newsletter for the week of June 25, 2026. Gold broke below $4,000 for the first time since October and the podcast tape split into a near-unanimous buy-the-dip chorus and a small data-armed minority calling the peak, with the cleanest trade idea being beaten-down miners rather than the metal.
Gold & the Debasement Trade
Week of June 25, 2026: Gold Cracks $4,000, Buy the Dip or Peak?
Gold broke below $4,000 this week, the line it hadn't traded under since October. From January's roughly $5,600 high, the metal is down about a quarter; silver has been cut roughly in half, from a ~$120 spike to the high-$50s/mid-$60s. The podcast tape split into two camps that barely speak the same language: a near-unanimous gold-and-silver chorus calling this the dip of the cycle, and a small, data-armed minority arguing the peak is already in. Below, what the operators are doing with real metal, then what the pundits are saying.
What the Operators and Insiders Are Doing
Start with the people who actually move bullion and build mines, because their behavior is the cleanest signal in a week this noisy.
Andy Schectman, CEO of bullion dealer Miles Franklin, says the paper price is a head-fake against record physical offtake. On Thoughtful Money he put numbers on it: "roughly 99,000 contracts. 9.9 million ounces… roughly $45 billion delivered in 5 months" of gold on COMEX, with silver deliveries already 45%+ above the full-year 2023 total. He's now offering junk silver at "75 cents back of spot" versus "$2 below spot" four months ago, "the greatest value I've seen in silver in my career." He also flagged the World Gold Council's finding that real central-bank buying ran "244 tons, or 15 times the official number," and noted 74% of central banks expect the dollar's reserve share to fall.
The miners tell the same story with project economics, not price targets. John Miniotis, CEO of AbraSilver, filed a Definitive Feasibility Study June 22 on a project he claims would be the world's largest primary silver mine, with a $4.2B after-tax NPV and 40%+ IRR struck at just $29.50 silver, "well below spot," on The KE Report. Jim McDonald, CEO of Kootenay Silver, kept his $300 silver target on The David Lin Report: "Nothing's changed. The fundamentals are exactly the same," noting silver is still up 77% year-over-year and that Russia's central bank began buying silver bullion last fall. And Fred Bell, COO of Elemental Royalty, described a portfolio NAV that roughly tripled year-over-year and daily volume that jumped from $100K to $5–15M after index inclusion on Mining Stock Daily.
The throughline: nobody close to the metal is selling. They're delivering it, mining it, and buying it.
The Pundits: Buy the Dip (the Majority)
The macro voices framed the selloff as mechanical, not fundamental, and most are leaning in.
Peter Schiff was everywhere, calling it textbook "buy the rumor, sell the fact" around the Iran war: gold "was way overbought when the war started" (Julia La Roche). He sees silver "on the road to $200" and calls anything under $70 "as good a buy… as you're going to get" (Commodity Culture), reminding listeners that "real rates are what drive gold and silver, not nominal rates." His tell on the new Fed: chair Kevin Warsh "expand[ed] the balance sheet last week" by ~$11B, hardly the act of an inflation hawk (Peter Schiff Show).
Rick Rule is the most strategically interesting bull. He admits "I'm not sure that the low is in" but is "deploying new money in the riskiest part of the sector" after trimming juniors last October (Thoughtful Money). His frame: the dollar is in "inexorable decline," he expects "concerted political pressure… to lower the nominal interest rate" within 6–18 months, and he's planning "substantial net purchases" of beaten-down miners because "the junk companies and the relatively high quality companies have both fallen" indiscriminately (WTFinance).
The miner-specific bull case is the cleanest trade idea of the week. David Erfle flagged that the bullish-percent gold miners index "hit zero," a reading last seen in late 2015 before a 250% GDX rally, with Newmont at "9, 10 times forward PE" against an S&P "at 24 times," debt-free with "$8 billion in cash" (Mining Stock Education. George Noble made the same point with leverage: "a lot of the mining stocks can go up 50% to 100%… with a flat gold price" via buybacks (Soar Financially). Brien Lundin noted GDX "crashed from 117 to 73 since the Iran war began" and pointed to the mid-July-to-mid-August seasonal bottom (Sprott Money).
On the structural bid, Clive Thompson flagged a milestone several echoed: central-bank gold "for the first time ever… has passed the amount of treasuries, 25% gold and 22% treasuries" (Commodity Culture). Lawrence Lepard argued the Fed "turned QE back on… they call it 'reserve management'" in December, with $9T+ of debt rolling over this year (What Bitcoin Did).
The Bears and the Skeptics (the Minority Worth Hearing)
Two voices broke from the chorus, and they're the ones to stress-test your thesis against.
Mike McGlone of Bloomberg Intelligence is the cleanest bear: January–February "may have been an opportunity of a lifetime to sell gold," and his warning sign is correlation, "60-day correlation between gold and S&P 500… is about 0.7. That's the highest ever," which to him signals "gold shifting to a highly volatile speculative risk asset," not a store of value (Commodity Culture). He thinks gold and silver have "put in pretty enduring peaks" (Wolf Of All Streets).
Jeff Snider offers the most contrarian diagnosis: this isn't about rate hikes, it's dollar-funding stress. Central banks like Turkey are selling gold to ease dollar shortages, and the crashing TIPS break-evens mean "we're actually legitimately at risk of disinflation." In his read, "gold is giving you a warning… the same warning we're getting from the dollar exchange value, the flattening yield curve," a deflationary signal, not a buying opportunity (Eurodollar University). Brent Johnson rhymes from a different angle: the dollar is "near the top end of that band… more damage is done at the top end," and gold sold off because "you sell the thing that is liquid" when you need cash (Wolf Of All Streets).
Levels and the Chartists
For positioning: Saxo's John Hardy is watching "$3,500 as a major chart consolidation point" with a Fibonacci backstop near $3,136 (Saxo Market Call). John Feneck relayed the sell-side targets still standing, "Bank of America… $6,000… Goldman's around 52 to 5,400… JP Morgan's around 5,000," while watching $3,500 support hold (Palisades Gold Radio). Robert Sinn flagged the Daily Sentiment Index for gold at 13, March-2020-type washout territory, and bets "the Fed is not going to hike this year" (The Competent Investor).
One side-show worth a flag: the "July 4 gold reset" meme is loud but unsupported by anyone credible. Even sympathizers like Gareth Soloway dismissed the timing, "if the elites were front-running, gold would be ripping, not falling" (ITM Trading).
The Takeaway
The structural debasement case, central banks over-weighting gold versus Treasuries, deficits near 8% of GDP, debt rolling at higher rates, went untouched this week; even the bears (Faber, Snider aside) hold their gold. The fight is purely about timing. The highest-conviction, lowest-controversy idea on the tape is the miners, not the metal: bullish-percent at zero, Newmont at single-digit multiples with a war chest, and operators issuing feasibility studies at prices far below spot. If the bulls are right about a July–August seasonal low, this is the setup they wait years for. If McGlone and Snider are right, the dollar still has room to squeeze.