Monthly Portfolio Review, January 2026
Great Month! Except for that final day
Now that was a learning experience.
It’s easy to say, “Bull markets have stomach-churning corrections, so be prepared.” But when something is rocking the way silver and gold have in the previous few months, it’s also easy to succumb to the idea that prices will always rise.
The inevitable result:
What Happened?
Three things:
When an asset’s price spikes, that creates profits for traders to protect. Some sell a portion of their holdings, which causes others to sell, and so on, until the correction runs its course. That clearly happened on Friday.
The paper metals exchanges raised their margin requirements on silver contracts, a move that has, in the past, caused sharp price declines. Guess the trick still works for them.
President Trump named a new Fed chairman who might not be an enthusiastic rate cutter. This took some of the “hyperinflation, here we come,” excitement out of precious metals.
What’s the Real Silver Price?
If you want physical silver, you have to pay a lot more than the paper spot price. From this morning’s APMEX silver coin page:
Meanwhile, on Asia’s physical exchanges, prices remain way above the Comex close. So focus on physical, not paper.
Portfolio
January 30th’s brutality notwithstanding, this was a great month for our Portfolio. Copper and Uranium had nice runs (more on them in a separate post this week), which expanded our 100% club membership to 33 of 69 total positions (including the “Removed From Portfolio” list).