Transcription
My next target on gold is about 5175. That's my next target for gold. And that would be this last pop and this last rally that I we were just showing on the 2007 comparison. And then after that, we could see gold pull back 30 35%. Which would bring it back down to about 3,400. And then after that pullback, it would meet that 200 day moving average or whatever the blue line is.
Yeah, it would meet a long-term moving average. It would it would meet the average pullback that gold has after a big reset and then it it'd be off to the races to 7500 is the first target.
[music] [music] [music]
Welcome back to Metals and Miners. I'm your host, Gary Bone. Today we're exploring the intersection of markets, precious metals and miners, and technical analysis with Christopher Muan, founder of the Technical Traders. Chris, it's an honor to have you back on Metals and Miners. Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Gary. Always a pleasure.
All right. So, Chris, you've been a successful technical analyst, trader, and investor in the markets for many, many years. It looks like we're entering a time of max uncertainty for the markets. Many are tuning into your work to hunt for insights in the markets to help keep them on the right side of their investments. What do you hope for those tuning into this conversation today that they're going to walk away with after listening to our discussion?
Yeah. There's there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there. I think for people walking away, I think it's to try to pay attention to the time frames I'm touching on because I'm going to always be jumping between short-term I think this, but longer term I think this and it could be opposite direction. So I always I find I jump from time frame to time frame. So I think people just need to be open to some of the ideas I have which might not favor what they want. I mean, it might people might be, you know, perma perma higher prices for precious metals and we might see a bit of a roller coaster ride actually in the not so far future before it goes a whole lot higher. I'm very bullish on metals long-term, but I do think we're coming into a little bit of a headwind um going forward. So, I think it's just to be open that, hey, yes, I do think metals are going to go much higher. I think I have about a $7,400 gold target, but I think we're going to have a bit of a roller coaster ride before then. silver as well and so are miners.
But um, yeah, I think I I think one of the things too is I focus on the charts. I focus on what price, sentiment, volume, uh money flows between various assets are doing because all assets are related in some way. If one assets going down, that money coming out is going into something else. So everything I do is not based around the Fed. It's not based around um central banks buying. It's not based around any of those big news things that that really grabs everybody um and and makes them really focus. I focus purely on price where money flows are going the mindset and shift which when people are really bullish and every and majority people are overly bullish it's actually a bearish indicator to some regard and and so my stuff is priced on is focused on price analysis and historical price action. what has happened in the past in similar situations and I follow price. I don't predict it. So, um that's the biggest thing. I don't try and pick tops or bottoms. I just let the bottom be formed and then I jump on board a little later. I let the top be formed and start to sell off and I move out saying, "Okay, well, that was the top. I'm out." Uh so, I think that's it. I I follow the market. There's always a delay and um it's price based.
Well, I'm looking forward to diving deep into uh each of these topics with you. I think volatility um doesn't shouldn't scare uh metals and miners investors. They've been dealing with volatility for quite a long time. I know you're talking about much sharper volatility, but even still, just since October, we saw that six sigma decline um in gold and silver followed suit, although then they became very resilient, more resilient than a lot of folks even thought. But my point is is volatility comes with this sector especially considering the time how small it is etc. Feel free to use any charts at any time that you want. I'm going to start with oil here. There's two very different camps when it comes to oil. One camp is saying that the western economies led by the United States understand the hugely negative impacts to the markets of having higher oil prices and to the consumer and to the economy which ultimately leads to lower tax revenues if oil was allowed to go past a certain threshold. So they're doing everything in their power pulling every lever to ensure that oil is staying lower whether that be production from the United States or production from the Middle East etc. So then you have the other camp which is saying well capex and oil is significantly down for years which leads to lower supply. Rig counts are down which leads to lower supply. The peranium basin is rolling over leads to supply uh lower supply. The gold to oil ratio has never been this high in favor of gold without a mean reversion. So you got these two very polar opposite camps when it comes to oil. I do like talking about oil because it's such a huge component for miners. Which camp are you in? Bullish oil, not bullish oil, and why?
I'm in the not bullish oil. I mean, oil has been in a downtrend for for quite a while. In fact, if we look at the charts, it it I mean, the price action alone pretty much kind of says it all. If we look at the daily chart of oil and we zoom back several years, I mean, it's just down and to the right and we are threatening a big breakdown of $55 per barrel, which if this is broken, we're probably going to $45 a barrel. So, that that's what the chart is pointing to. And we are really at the cusp here for the um for the for the price of crude. It might have a little bit of bounce. It might pause here for a couple of days trying to find support one last time, but overall there's just neverending selling pressure. It uh is getting squeezed to the downside. This might be a leading indicator that uh people see that there's going to be a lot of supply and or there's going to be a slowing of the economy and people are going to start closing their wallets, stop traveling, um, you know, stop purchasing products, oils used in a gazillion products. So this could be a sign that you know eventually the economy might come to a grinding halt and um we'll see that the demand kind of dry up even more. So obviously this is good for mining companies. Cheap cheap cheap fuel make a big difference but overall oil is telling us that it's not expecting much supply or much much demand um going forward.
Based on what you're looking at here, if it does break below that 55 um threshold and it goes lower, what would you anticipate in terms of time for it remaining low before it would turn around and become a buy in your opinion?
Um, [sighs and gasps] it really depends on how the price falls. like if it goes into a waterfall selloff like something we see over here where this is the daily chart where where price just precipitously falls like a fairly steep percentage point like here we saw about a 20% drop in oil here if we were to see let me just get the chart over here um, you know a 20% drop if it was to have a very sharp 20% drop to about $45 per barrel which is what the chart is pointing to we could see a knee-jerk reaction bounce back up and so if we were to look at that price action. This drop could actually happen technically within a few days. It could happen in a five or 10 day window very very easily to be honest and then it might get oversold and have a knee-jerk reaction bounce and then and then it's going to just chop around and figure out what it's going to do. Is it going to build like a bare flag and then potentially maybe bounce and kind of work out a bottom or we really can only take it kind of one chart pattern at a time. That's the only way the technical analysis allows us to to kind of go. Um, so I think it could be pretty quick and painful and catch a lot of people off guard.
At the very least, we can point to maybe at least a quarter, if not two, into 2026 based on what you're seeing currently that if it breaks down below 55, you could expect it to languish for that period of time, a quarter to two quarters minimum.
Yeah, you can see these vertical time bars on here. They're they're going up and down. Each one of those is a quarter. So, yeah, I would say potentially within the next three months, we could probably see a very sharp sell-off and probably a knee-jerk reaction bounce back up to maybe the 55, which will become resistance at that point.
Oh, boy. Okay. All right. Well, let's move over to the Mag 7, Chris. They had quite the runup the last several years. Many believe that they're in a bubble and that there's troubling signs for them as we flip the calendar into 2026. I've spoken to some uh folks who believe that um starting in 2026 there's going to be profit taking selloffs because by the smart money because they don't have to pay taxes until 2027. So that's a quite a ways out and so they're expecting um a softening to a possible cascading down in the first half of 2026. My question is is it's really twofold here. Do you expect to see a softening and or cascading down of the MAG7s stockcks that have AI in their name in the first half of 2026? And as a sidebar, do you expect uranium to get pulled down in that since a lot of its rise has been tied to the huge AI demand that's been projected?
Yeah. So, I think the AI or the Magnificent 7 space is a pretty crowded play. I think it pretty much sucked any almost every investor into it, whether you're savvy investor or just somebody who's never traded before and you want to get into AI stocks. It has pulled a lot of money out of investors and non-investors into that. And of course, that's helped drag the indices higher for the last couple of years. When we look at the the daily chart here, we we definitely have some volatility. We've we had a bit of a pause here and then we rallied up and we've sold down and we've kind of bounced back up and it is definitely showing volatility.
Almost looks like a head and shoulders.
Yeah, this this could very much so be a head and shoulders pattern. Uh, we could we if the market gets traction for a holiday rally, we actually could see this being a rally. This is a bull flag and we might actually see it go right back up and and hit this this top level again which for this is this is the MAGS ETF. So this is the basket of the Magnificent 7. So, we could still see a pretty decent move up in this pocket as a whole, which is about a three or three and a half% move, which doesn't sound huge, but that will definitely drag the indices higher into the end of the year. So, I do think uh there will be a cascading type of sell-off eventually in in the magnificent 7. And I think a good way to look at this could be if we go back to the QQQ and if we were to just I don't know my chart will load back there, but uh if we were to go all the way back to the tech bubble and look at the NASDAQ, I think we're going to go into a very big cascading time window here. Like charts, don't freeze up on me. Something that could drag out actually quite a while. We could see initially a very big drop and then I think it could go into this cascading where it just has these bounces. Now, I'm not saying it's going to take three years to unfold, but when you say cascading, I just see it kind of constantly rolling over and making lower lows. I think we'll see this unwinding because everyone moved into the tech space back then and then of course it's just a big unwinding of these people all hitting their thresholds of like I have to get out now like at certain at different points. So, I do think we're going to see that eventually and the Magnificent 7 will get hit which will pull the NASDAQ down probably the most.
Are you seeing that this year in 26 or you don't know time frame?
Yeah, I do. I mean, I got a whole string of kind of I I could zip through a couple very interesting things. So, I think eventually we're coming into one of these, which is a multi-year bare market. This is the tech bubble. This is the spy monthly chart. We saw a multi-year selloff after the tech bubble. We saw the, you know, the two-year selloff for 2008. Uh, and then of course, it wasted 13 years. Eventually, we're going to have another financial crisis. It's just the way the markets move. And I think people need to be aware that a lot of things are aligning for this to happen. Very similar to the price action in 2000 in 2008. In fact, if we take a look, I don't want to get too far off onto a rant on this, but let's just look at these two charts for a second, Gary. The left one here is the S&P 500 weekly chart. And if you look down at the bottom, you can see it's 2003 to 2007 high. Now, the yellow line up here is the price of gold. Now, both stocks and gold rallied significantly, the same as what we're seeing on the right hand chart, which is the S&P 500 and gold over the last several years. What I think could happen here is eventually we start to see the stock market put in a top and start to move down. And as we talked about earlier, money rotates from one asset class to another. So as the stock market starts to sell off and drops 20% potentially over the next month or quarter in 2026, that money is going to come out of equities and it's going to go into whatever asset is performing well, which the yellow line here is gold. And of course, it shot higher. And so I think we're going to see something very similar to that where gold shot like shot up 34 or 35% uh while stocks pulled back. And the the really interesting part here and I think you and I may have touched on this. I'm not sure if you and I have touched on this in the past but down below here I've got multiple charts. I've got gold miners, we got silver, we've got platinum and platium. And what happens is suddenly they they all came to life. We saw a big move up in um platinum, platium and miners. Um all of these we saw money move into to all of them. The stock market started to sell off on the top chart and everybody started to pile into everything precious metals related. And when they all shoot higher that that's going to be the major warning sign when we see the stock market sell off and everybody pile into the precious metals and mining space. That to me is a big red flag that okay, not only has the stock market topped, but it probably means the economy is going to top over the next quarter or two. So, we'll see the economy data start coming in negative, but it also means the precious metal space is also about to top because when we go into a recession, when we see mass selling, almost everything gets sold off. Doesn't matter how strong of an investment it is and how bullish you are on it, which everybody is at that point. Everybody thinks precious metals are the only thing to hold and they're going to go to infinity and beyond. Uh that's usually when it tops out and then eventually they all crash and they they sold off 30 to you know 70% depending on which asset it was. So that's the scenario that I I feel like could play out. And I mean I know a bunch of your followers are going to say the same question because I get it all the time. They're like well 2007 and 8 is nothing like today. And my argument is, you know, every market correction, every bare market that comes in, they all look the same because they're based on price action. It it doesn't matter. This one was a tech bubble, this one was a financial and housing crash. Like price goes up because people are bullish or price goes down or um goes up because it's bullish or goes down because they're bearish. And it doesn't really matter what the news is. It's always going to be a different environment and different news.
Can you go back to the previous chart that you just had up there?
Yeah.
Yeah. So, two things. You said this is this is the type of price action you're expecting. Are you expecting this in 2026 or sometime out in the future? And the second question is if you look at the top chart that you're hovering over with the yellow. Yeah. The you can keep the the previous Yeah, keep that lookup.
All of all of the the miners, palladium, etc. They all, you know, shot down and stayed down for a little bit longer, but gold snapped back uh a little bit quicker than everything else did. You know, people were you see Yeah, you're uncovering it there. And actually, you could see is what's the next one down is behaving they're they're all behaving similar, but the gold and then that one you're hovering over.
The gold miners. Yeah.
Gold miners. They seem to respond better than the rest. Yeah. And and go gold gold naturally I think holds up better. It's to my whole theory and from from talking to lots of investors is gold tends to hold up the best when everything sells off. It's more stable. It uh kind of has longer term more investors in it. So people move into gold and they don't really think of selling it. They're like no I'm buying it as a defensive insurance play. Whereas people who get into miners and silver and um, you know, platinum and platium a lot of times they're more speculative. So they will get pulled down more percentage-wise and sell off. I guess one of the interesting things here is we're starting to see the move up. If we just scroll back just as the stock market was about to peak, which I think it's going to peak out hopefully in January um of this year, we're seeing precious metals start to come to life. And if we look at on the right hand chart here and overlay those same charts, you can see we've finally seen miners have taken off plat silver, platinum and platium. So it's now become somewhat of the crowded trade. Whoever's open to the concept of buying precious metals have been moving in and they've moved in across the board. It doesn't matter what the stock is. If it says mining in the name, they are buying it. It could be base metal miners, it could be copper miners. Uh pretty much everybody's moving into the space. And so now all I think we need for that last big push, which silver could rally like 50 60%, so could platinum and platium. Miners could rally higher. Um, I all we need is for the stock market to start to sell off and for all that money to be like, well, I'm dumping stocks and I'm I'm moving to the precious metal space.
So that essentially starts the clock for you. Once once you start to see it selling off and the rotation start, that starts the clock. You want to you want to ride it up a little bit and then get on out before the inevitable cascading crash comes for all the asset classes.
Yeah, you nailed it, Gary. So, yeah, for for the precious metal space. So, once that happens, the clock starts. I I think everybody in precious metals should be under should should understand that, hey, locking in some profits. This this is icing on the cake. This could be the last big run before we have a significant pullback. And the pullback that we have might not be um I mean I think it could be fairly severe. I mean if if we take a look at this gold chart. I I've got this this is a monthly chart of gold and I've gone through the the super cycle that started in early 2000s. Then we had a multi-year pause while everybody moved into more so stocks and real estate. And then we had the 2008 crisis which gold rallied leading into that warning us that something bad is going to happen. And then gold sold off 34%. And then we went into a multi-year rally. Uh now we had a new super cycle start in 2019. It broke out. We had a multi-year pause in the in the last several years where everybody moved into stocks and real estate. And now gold has shot up telling us something is broken. Something bad is about to happen. And then we're going to see the stock market and everything I think go through a similar scenario in terms of there's going to be different [clears throat] news, different reasons. But I think we're going to see gold. My next target on gold is about 5175. That's my next target for gold. And that would be this last pop in this last rally that I we were just showing on the 2007 comparison. And then after that, we could see gold pull back 30 35%. Which would bring it back down to about 3,400. And then after that pullback, it would meet that 200 day moving average or whatever the blue line is.
Yeah, it would meet a long-term moving average. It would it would meet the average pullback that gold has after a big reset and then it it'd be off to the races to 7500 is the first target and then after it hits that it'll create another pattern that will give us a target a whole lot higher. But I usually just measure the markets one leg at a time or else you you know I could measure these all the way up to like 12 15,000 but that that makes people start to
Want to ride out roller coasters when I mean you can take full advantage of these price swings. essentially.
Yes, I'm sorry. So, essentially just to frame what everything you've just said here is based on the the correlation with the markets in previous downtimes 2000 to 2003, 2000 to 2007 through 2009. Um, we're starting to see a similar pattern emerge. We can expect this to play out over the coming months, but not years before that there's going to be a major issue in the general markets, which is going to cascade into the metals and minors. And you want to sidestep that. And then once it comes back down and roughly touches the long-term moving average, at that point we can expect a massive reversal taking place as folks are piling in or begin piling in to the metals and miners.
Yeah, I think you summed it up really well. Long story short is just before the 2000 peak, we're seeing we're seeing a sim similar scenario. These red boxes are the times of a market and economic reset. And then after that, we go into this multi-year rally. And this multi-year rally will take us to 7,400, 7,500 and beyond. Um, so it's going to be a really it's going to be a fun ride going up here, I think, over the next few months. And then I think it's going to be an exhilarating ride down for those who don't, you know, start to lock in gains or they're not at least mentally prepared. Some people might just want to ride it out, right? You can do it, attack it however you want, but um, yeah.
What signals are you looking for? Is it strictly flows coming out of um the S&P or are you looking for other signals to let you know, hey, this thing is starting?
Yeah, it'll be it'll be a mix of a lot of different things. So, for sure it'll be what are the what are the money flows doing in and out like into the stock market and out of the stock market. I like to gauge the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. Those are the two power houses for money flow. So, I like to follow what's going on with gold, what's going on with the bond market, currencies. Um, there's a few other assets and sectors that I like to track and follow to to get a feel what the sentiment is. Um, and then of course it still always comes down to number one is price action. You need the price to put in a topping pattern and start to roll over and break down. And and then once price has broken down or is about to break down, that's when we really start diving into the data and being like, okay, is this a pause or is this like a massive uh reversal and people are dumping pricing? And so when price trend turns down, it it even it doesn't even matter technically if the some of our data is still bullish. If price breaks down, we still exit because we have position and risk management in place. Um, sometimes price will sell off even when everything else is really strong and you just have to follow price because price is the only way we get paid. And if it's falling, I mean you we have to benefit from falling prices or not hold it. So price is the number one thing that that tells us when to start diving deeper into the data to say, okay, is this a reversal or how how is this market uh performing?
All right, so Chris, let's move over to silver for a second here. There's obviously there's two camps on silver as well. You know, one camp was saying, uh, $50 threshold soon as it gets to that number or thereabouts, that thing is going to come crashing down. It did sell off very hard alongside that six sigma event with gold back in October, but it not only held up strong and was resilient, it's rebounded and it has actually led gold up higher and is around 63 $64 today. There are some um who point to the fact that some metals in the past like lead, zinc, aluminum and copper all moved to different pricing thresholds and then even though they might have bounced around, they stayed up there where silver has not. So you have gold and copper and lead and zinc and aluminum who were lower back, let's call it around 2000 or late 90s and now have enjoyed a whole new price threshold.
And silver at the beginning of this year was back down around 20 to $25 in 2025. So, is silver going to make a move at some point that's going to we'll call it mimic what copper, zinc, aluminum, lead, and gold has done and move into a new price threshold and relatively stay in that new zone.
Uh, it's it's tough to say. I mean, I think silver's silver's been leading the way. You know, when we looked at the chart of 2007, how everybody suddenly moved into everything precious metal space, whether it's mining, platinum, platium, silver, we're we're seeing the same thing happen now. And what happens because investors want to make more money is they naturally go, okay, well, forget forget gold. It's kind of slow and and kind of boring. Let's move into the faster moving stuff. Which, you know, I think a lot of people in the precious metal space are also into uranium. So, whatever is moving faster, they naturally go in. And silver has led the way. it's already broken out. It's showing much more strength and momentum than gold is. And so that's and it's a small market. So when when a small group of people say, "Hey, I'm actually going to sell my gold. I'm going to move over to silver now that, you know, it looks like we're on this big big rally mode." Um to me, this is this is one of those sentiment things saying, "Okay, the mindset is starting to shift from trying to take advantage of the rising tide and precious metals to now people are going going moving over to the precious metals saying, I want to make more money. like how can I make more, right? So now they're pushing their money into like you know all black or red or whatever. They're they're moving it to more specific leverage plays, not not just uh, you know, kind of the whole pocket of gold and silver. So this to me is telling us that we're in a high momentum phase. People are looking to make the most money and this is primed and ready for a very strong pop and rally. I think the next target for silver is about 68 and then I think it goes about 71 and and I think we could go up to about 84 or so based on on technicals. Um
Is is that 84 around the time that you're expecting the gold pullback at 52ish?
I think I think gold could hit like 5200. I think silver would probably be testing like the $80 mark somewhere in there. It'll be volatile. we're going to have these these blowoff phases and you know the silver chart definitely shows a really clear picture when you look at the the monthly chart and you go back in time. I mean, silver, you know, you could pretty much give this chart to a fifth grader and be like, what happens next, right? [laughter] It's not the most bullish side or sentiment. It's like what goes straight up usually comes straight back down in this space. Uh, so the question is where is this peak? And I'm not saying it's going to come all the way back down, but I do believe we are in a parabolic move. I think it's we're in a feeding frenzy. And I think we're in that perfect storm for uh gold or gold and silver really to move higher. I think we could see silver have this crazy another green bar or two. This is the monthly chart. And then eventually I think we're going to see a very strong pullback. And I think the new range for silver at some point here will be somewhere between probably like 84 and you know probably 50. That'll be the new big range that it trades in. Right now, it's obviously been trading in pretty pretty massive range, but I I do believe it'll end up getting stuck above the 50 mark with lots of volatility after this next move.
Well, that answers the question uh the several questions I had. You did mention uranium and I appreciate that. I wanted to go back to that real quick. Do you see uranium being tied correlated heavily to the MAG7? And if the MAG 7 start that cascade downward, uh do you expect uranium to also cascade downward or do you see a disconnect there? And even if the MAG 7 uh you or when the MAG 7 begins its decline, >> uranium energy, all forms of energy are so needed that uranium will uh disconnect from that.
I don't think that it will disconnect. I really don't. I think um when you go back and say you overlay all the stock indices, all the global indices around the world, overlay them with the S&P 500, if you go back to every major bull market and bare market and you know, economic reset in the world, they pretty much all move together. Now, some countries, you know, indices might top a month or two early or a month or two later or bottom, but they're pretty much all the same. The whole world really does move as a hive mentality. when everybody starts to get nervous, there's just mass selling and everything slows down and then eventually it everybody becomes really bullish and they open up their wallets again and uranium and uranium stocks are I think are the same thing. If the obviously we go into a recession, people just start to sell stuff. I mean Apple I think back in the day was trading at something like$ 110 or $115. It had very strong growth in financials and it fell all the way to $4 in the tech bubble. Um, so it doesn't matter what the fundamentals are or what the story is. When people are scared, they just sell. And when nobody wants to buy, but everybody wants to sell, the price just free falls until it finds some sucker who wants to buy it in a bare market at a at a lower price. And so I do think everything across the board has a repericing event. I don't there may be one sector that bucks the trend and goes absolutely parabolic, but that's like picking the needle in the hay stack. There's like 2,700 ETFs. which sector ETF is gonna is it going to be or what one stock is it going to be? I never ever want to look and try to pick that. I'd ra much rather just say, "Hey, the tide's going down. I'm going to bet on a falling market and profit from it and you know, you don't have to worry about it." So, I do believe when the economy tops, uranium, everything is going to get pulled down with it. Um, there might be the occasional asset that does well, maybe the dollar rallies, maybe gold holds its value. I'm not sure how it's going to happen. And the key is to just understand what's at play, be able to identify trends, and always trade with the trend. And you don't know if it's going to rally for 30 years or if it's going to, you know, top out tomorrow. But you need a game plan. And you can't fall in love with with an asset because it will take your money. It will eventually take your money when it goes dormant for five or 10 years. You'd be like, "Wow, why did I waste all that time holding on to something that's been dormant when you put it
Chart you have up there right now?
Yeah. Exactly. that basing pattern. But look um here not all bare markets are created equal. You know the great depression the 1929 through 1933 drop you know and the NASDAQ drop of 02 uh of 2000 to 2002 to 2003 they behave very similarly. Um, of course, the 2008 deflationary crisis was dramatic across even more asset classes, but the the late60s into the 70s, it was a it was more rolling, you know, smaller bare market moments. It was not the equivalent of what happened with the NASDAQ in 2000 or 2008, you know, with the crisis we experienced or the 1929 to 1933. So, um, are, you know, I guess the question I want to ask you, Chris, is do you see a massive historical, you know, crash coming moment like 1929, like 2000, 2008, or do you see more of a, you know, 1968 through early 1970s or mid to late 1970s rolling recessions that are not as deep?
Yeah, I don't know. In a way, I kind of want one to be fast and sharp and painful and then rebound with a vengeance and be over and done with, but uh a long rolling one will be painful. Um yeah, I I don't know. I mean, I do think there's going to be something very big and bad. It's going to it's going to be a wakeup call to almost everybody in the financial almost everybody period because it's going to affect them their business. It's their their their job if they're working for somebody, their real estate, their portfolios. It's it's going to devastate a lot of people and this the world to me is so crazy right now. Something needs to break to reset things. Like every the stuff going on is completely ludicrous. You know, you look at this big cycle, this banner cycle. This is something I think is pretty interesting because this is the year we're coming into 2026. Samuel Benner, he was a farmer and he did this back in the 1800s, this cycle chart, and he's called some pretty major crashes. The tech bubble, we had the 2007 market top. We had 2019 end up being a big mass um kind of panic with COVID and we have another high and a major market topping in 2026. Now obviously this is big big picture give or take a year or two. You don't know when these cycles may top or bottom but it is saying 2026 is the year of a major market top. You should be selling into these good times selling at high pricing preserving your capital preserving your lifestyle. And this is what I've been talking about for probably two and a half years saying guys something big is coming. And I am always saying like get ready for a huge massive correction. Eventually it will happen. Eventually I'll be right. But I mean, we've been long this market. We've been riding up precious metals since 2019. We've been long the markets. We're still long the markets here, the equities markets. Just because I'm bearish saying get ready doesn't mean you you dump everything. You got to still wait for the market.
Right. And being bearish versus being like, what's the word or phrase I'm looking for? But, you know,
Being defensive, right?
Being defensive versus versus like historically bearish. If you look at like this, you line where the where 2026 lines up, it lines up with the mid70s, whereas 2035 matches up with COVID, NASDAQ, and in 99, and then the the Great Depression starting in 29.
Yeah. Yeah. For all for all we know, like you go back to like the tech bubble, 2000 here, it was a massive kind of a double cycle high and and that took like that was like a three and a half year bare market. 2007 was a one one type of cycle high and it was a very swift bare market, yet it was severe, but it was over very quick. It was like a one-year selloff and then boom, it recovered. And that's kind of what we're going into now. I think it could be very quick, very swift and painful. Percentage-wise, I still think it could be like 30 to like 50%.
Yeah.
But it might be might be short short-lived. It might stabilize and find a bottom quicker. And and the whole thing is like I'm trying to protect people from getting caught on this and because I I work with thousands of investors. Most of my investors are 50 plus. They have millions of dollars. They have a great lifestyle. They're retired or close to retiring. And they just don't want to lose half their money and change their lifestyle and they're worried, right? And so I'm like, as long as we have a game plan to identify when the trends change, we can not only avoid this, but we can profit from a falling market. A market falls about four to seven times faster than it rises. So, a one-year bare market, you can you can avoid it with a strategy like what I have, but you can also profit from it and make a lot of money while everyone is losing their shirts. And uh, you know, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to protect as many people as possible who are in a similar boat as me. I like what I like my lifestyle. I like the money that I've earned. I've worked hard for it and I don't want to give it back. In fact, I want to I want to make more money through the chaos. It's pretty thrilling experience when everything's collapsing and your account's going the opposite direction. So, there's there's a lot of excitement in 2026 and it is going to be a roller coaster ride for probably most people.
There's a movie, Chris, that you're making me think about about a wall and somebody on that wall and how we need somebody on that wall. [laughter] Do you know the movie I'm talking about?
No.
No. It's A Few Good Men.
Oh, okay. Yep. Yep. You want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.
Well, you're on that wall and we appreciate it. We really do. Thank you for being on the wall and thank you for looking out for people.
Right on.
Well, this has been an incredible discussion. I want to welcome everyone who's tuning into the fantastic interview we're having with Chris Vermuan, founder of the technical traders. Before we wrap up with our final set of questions for Chris, I want to direct everyone who's interested in the metals and mining sector to dive into our Substack at metalsanders.substack.com. Join the quickly growing community and receive a free report. It's titled, "If you don't own gold, you know neither history nor economics." That's a famous quote by investing legend Ray Dallio. That's the name of the report you'll receive. I'm positive that you've been enjoying the conversation Chris and I have been having. Please let him know. Hit the like and subscribe button and leave a comment below the video. All right. So, Chris, we're going to finish off the discussion with the asset ranking lightning round. You and I talked about it before we started recording. I'm going to ask you to rank a few assets, one to 100. 100 being an extreme buy, one being an extreme sell. And then just give one to two sentences as to why you take the position. We'll roll through these as quickly as we can because it's a lightning round.
Sure. And how long are we holding these positions for?
Yeah. Think about for the next 6 to 12 months max.
Okay.
Yeah. On a scale of one to 100, is gold a buy or a sell? And why?
Um, I would say it's 100. It's a buy. I think it's where the money is going. Sentiment, economic cycles, stock market cycles, currency stuff. I think everything favors favors physical assets.
Okay. So then the next several are going to probably fall similar in line, but let's go through them. Gold miners,
I would say 50. I like them. I ranked them 50. I think gold is a more steady. you you've got more chance to make money, I think, in gold in this this push. If we have to hold for a year, I think gold could still be at this price or higher. We could hold >> miners might struggle a bit because the stock market will pull down and it might pull the miners down a little bit with it.
Okay. Physical silver, you could think six months if you want.
Yeah. I I would say silver is like a 100 as well. It's more volatile than gold. I think it's going to pop and rally percentage- wise really well. So, I like both of them right now. I like them a lot.
Okay. Do you look at silver miners similar to gold miners?
I do. Yeah.
Okay. All right. So, let's move to copper then.
I don't know copper too well. I would I would give it I would I would just put it at a zero just because I don't know it. I don't trade it really. So,
Okay, that's fine. So, we'll bypass that one. Let's go to uranium.
I like uranium. I I for myself would put it at a zero right now not to buy, but I want to buy it after a reset because I think it's going to go ballistic. As we saw that big chart, it has put in a massive base and it is going to go ballistic I think on the next bull market rally.
Okay, wonderful. Let's go to oil.
I would say oil is a zero. Like I don't think you want to hold it right now. Um I think the economy is going to weaken. And I don't know when it's going to find a bottom. It could it could flounder for 6 12 months.
Okay, let's move over to the general markets. We'll start with the NASDAQ.
Zero. I don't think I would want to invest everything like as a short-term trader, we're long, but we also get out quickly, right? So, a long-term investor, I would steer clear of the stock market right here.
Okay. So, you feel the same way about the S&P?
I do.
Okay. So, let's move over to treasuries. We'll start with short-term treasuries. um one to 100 and why?
Um I'd say about a 50. I I think I think um treasuries are going to hold their value. I think they're I think we're going to see the interest rates stay sideways or fall a little bit and I think we could see the bond prices go up. So, and you earn interest on it. There's it pays out. So, I like that. I like all of them across the board. Doesn't matter if they're short or long term. I kind of like them all as a very defensive type of play.
I wouldn't I wouldn't pile into them, but I think they're a good way to pull money out and um not go through too much volatility.
So, you like long-term treasuries as well?
I like long-term treasuries, I think, more just because I follow them and track them better. I think they've got a nice play to them.
Okay.
So, I'd put them at like a 75.
Okay. Um on a scale of 1 to 10, each representing a percentage, and we'll use the government numbers, and I believe it's around 3 to 3.2% 2% right now. Where do you see inflation being around the midterms in November of next year?
That's not my thing. I don't know. [laughter]
Okay.
I don't really track it too much. I think inflation will probably be where they are now in no in November. I still think they're going to linger for a bit, but I do think we're going to see it eventually fade and and drop down. Oil is going to be a big chunk of that. If oil drops, inflation drops quickly, but
Yeah. Okay. 1 to 10 probability we have a recession or worse in 2026.
1 to 10. I would say I feel like it's, you know, 80 8 out of 10 that we're going to have some type of recession start. I I think it's I think we're here. I think it's just a matter of time. I think this is the year.
This is it. Okay. All right. Lastly, the recommended portfolio allocation. It's been 6040 forever. 60% stocks, 40% bonds. Really no mention of gold whatsoever. And it's understandable from a financial advisor perspective. They don't make any money on that. So, they don't recommend it, you know, and that's understandable. But, you know, we're in a we'll call it a long-term cycle here where gold is preserving purchasing power. It's uncorrelated to the broader stock markets. It's a really important piece. Do you recom you know if if you were recommending a portfolio allocation of gold? What would be a rough p percentage you know zone that you would feel comfortable saying you know what this is this is the amount of gold you should everyone should probably hold.
Uh, [sighs and gasps] I guess it depends on what you consider your portfolio, right? Like your net wealth, your just your active trading portfolio, long-term investing. Like there's it depends if you blend in the value of your businesses, real estate, right? So, if I was to just break out my what I own, stocks, bonds, and like precious metals with um just that, forget values and everything else. Um, I'm probably I'm for that. probably around 5% of all of that is is in precious metals.
So, it's I mean it's I mean it's not huge, but it's it's bigger than the average investor. I don't now I don't trade precious metals for big returns. I trade it for peace of mind, some stability. If all hell goes to break loose, that 5% I'm hoping goes through the roof to counter losses elsewhere. Um I don't really trade it for returns and and and stuff stuff like that.
Understandable. All right. And so obviously, you know, once the um the recession does its worst and you start to pile into the minors, you'll be trading those in order to reap the benefits that you're discussing here.
Yeah. So my my my under my the way I see things is if if and when we go through the next financial reset, which could be coming in 2026, uh once that does start to bottom, I'm going to be very excited for miners. I'm going to be excited for uranium stocks and I'm going to be really excited for actually like AI and robotic stocks. I think I think there's going to be we're going to come out this world after a recession. It's going to be a very different world. I mean between AI and robots now doing houseworks and chores and I follow it very very closely. It's it's mind-blowing and uh there's going to be some new sectors probably that are going to come to life.
All right. Well, Chris, would you share a key takeaway that you want everyone who's paying attention here to keep in mind? It could be about anything that you want it to be, including AI and robotics, and then after that, let everybody know where they could learn more about your work, how they can connect with you, etc.
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is a lot of people don't realize how quickly the markets can collapse, how quickly you can get underwater and get stuck with losing positions. And people hit that threshold very quickly where they're like, I'm down too much. I just can't get out now. and then the market keeps going down a lot more, maybe another 20 or 30% and then takes five or 10 years to come back, right? I think people need to just know like you don't have to ride the market gyrations. You don't have to ride the downward slopes, right? If you follow price and you can identify uh trends, you know, when a trend is turned down, you could look at the weekly and the monthly charts. There's ways to identify it. So I think the biggest takeaway is if you love the way your lifestyle is now and your your trading account, your investment account sizes, you need to have some insurance plan, some strategy that will tell you when to pull the plug and just move to cash and be happy avoiding chaos and earning interest while everyone else you know is is is crying every day and panicking, right? I think a lot of people some a lot of new investors have no idea what a bare market is like. In 20 2008 there was like 7,100 suicides in the United States directly linked to falling stock prices. That's just the ones they caught that were reported like based around that doesn't doesn't there's probably three times or four times that much. And how many marriages did it blow up and relationships and partnerships what we're going into eventually we're going to have one. eventually we're going to hit one and people just need a game plan and if they don't they're going to be like wish that they did like how how did I not know how how does somebody not protect us from that that's what I do right and that's what I offer at my website the technical traders and I share my portfolio the exact positions I put on I talk about my precious metal positions when I'm buying we did a recent trade in gold we recently got long silver for this rally up with one of our strategies I talk about my real estate when we're buying or selling real estate uh businesses, all kinds of different stuff. There's more to life than just stock prices, right? Like I sold my business, one of my health product, my my health businesses in 2007. I saw the music coming to an end and I was my dad and I had started a health business. I said, "Dad, I'm like I I I see bad times coming. Let's just sell the business." Like it was it was doing well. I'm like, "Let's sell it." And then the world fell apart. And that business, the guy who bought it, unfortunately, never recovered. Um, and but if you understand these and you're an entrepreneur, man, to know these cycles, when to move into a new business, when to buy a business in distress for pennies on the dollar just before a 10 or 15 year bull market cycle, and then potentially sell it and retire, you know, businesses are how you make a ton of money. You buy a distressed business, you make it run in pur like a machine, and then you sell it for 5 to 10 or 20 multiple and cash out. Like, you can make so much money versus just plopping it in a stock that goes sideways for 10 years. So, there's a ton of ways to make money through these cycles. And the stock market and precious metals are just one tiny sliver of how to how to build true wealth. And that's what I share in my newsletter. All these different avenues to take advantage of cycles in the world.
Well, that's exciting. And I think everybody should uh tune in to what you have to share and either learn or gain some um some new insights because they u may be relevant to to their lifestyle. Chris, thanks for coming on to Metals and Miners for being so generous with your time, analysis, and ideas. I always love spending the time with you, and this one was no different. I look forward to having you back on sometime soon. And everybody else, thanks for watching.
Thanks, Gary.
I want to direct everyone who's interested in the metals and mining sector to dive into our Substack at metalsanders.substack.com. Join the quickly growing community and receive a free report. It's titled, "If you don't own gold, you know neither history nor economics." That's a famous quote by investing legend Ray Dallio. That's the name of the report you'll receive. [music]
[music] [music]