0:02 JP Morgan just closed their short
0:04 position in silver at what looked like
0:06 the exact market bottom on Friday. And
0:08 now they're pinning the whole thing on
0:10 the Fed chair story. So what on earth
0:12 just happened in the silver market
0:14 because it wasn't normal. It wasn't
0:16 orderly. It didn't feel like price
0:18 discovery. It felt like a trap door
0:20 opened. And what really gets me is that
0:22 the mainstream coverage is telling you
0:24 the neat, clean version, the version
0:27 that fits in a headline while ignoring
0:29 the mechanics that actually force
0:32 markets to break. If you hold silver,
0:34 gold, mining stocks, or even precious
0:37 metals ETFs in a retirement account, you
0:40 deserve the full story and the actual
0:43 chain of events, not the bedtime story.
0:46 So, here it is. First, I asked my editor
0:48 to put the screenshot on the chart so
0:50 you can see it with your own eyes. The
0:53 positioning shift happens right into the
0:56 low. That's item number one. Then we had
0:58 the wonderful coincidence of the London
1:01 Metal Exchange going offline on Friday.
1:02 One of the most important venues on
1:04 earth for industrial metals pricing and
1:07 hedging. And then almost comically,
1:10 HSBC, a major short participant in the
1:13 London market, also had systems issues
1:16 at the same time. Meanwhile, over in
1:19 Chicago, ComX through CME Group raised
1:21 margin requirements right when the
1:23 market was stretched, crowded, and
1:26 leveraged. And the timing, they waited
1:28 until Asian markets were closing into
1:31 the weekend because Asia is roughly 12
1:33 hours ahead of the US East Coast. And
1:35 then the market gets rattled with a
1:38 shiny new narrative about a Fed chair
1:41 shift. Now, are these proven coordinated
1:44 actions? I can't prove intent. I'm not
1:46 in the room. But I can lay out the
1:48 sequence, the incentives, and the
1:51 mechanism, and you can decide whether
1:53 you believe in coincidences because the
1:56 outcome was not a small move. We just
1:58 saw one of the biggest silver crashes in
2:00 decades. A brutal flush that either
2:03 becomes an incredible opportunity or it
2:05 scares people out right before the next
2:07 leg. If you want to get better at
2:09 spotting these opportunities, you can do
2:11 that with the Buffet Academy. You'll get
2:13 exclusive weekly videos showing the
2:15 exact stocks I'm buying and why. Plus,
2:18 the Millionaire Blueprint, a repeatable
2:19 framework to building wealth and
2:21 investing skill. It's linked in the
2:24 pinned comment. So, let's step back. On
2:28 Thursday, silver hit about $120. On
2:30 Friday, it crashed to roughly $78.
2:34 That's a $42 dump, about $35 in
2:36 basically no time. It was the worst day
2:39 in silver since 1980 by many measures
2:41 people used to compare these events.
2:44 Gold fell hard, too, down around 12% at
2:46 the lows. And across the complex, you
2:48 had an enormous amount of market value
2:51 wiped out in a blink. Mining stocks got
2:54 absolutely torched. The big minor ETFs
2:57 were hit. Silver miners hit even harder.
2:59 Companies didn't suddenly lose the metal
3:02 in the ground. The assets didn't vanish.
3:04 But the paper value got obliterated
3:07 because of how positioning and leverage
3:08 get forced out when the plumbing is
3:11 turned against the crowd. And here's
3:13 what you need to understand. Mainstream
3:16 coverage is acting like this was simply
3:19 a reaction. Like markets politely
3:21 repriced based on a new piece of
3:23 information. That's not what this looked
3:25 like. This looked like an engineered
3:29 flush or if you prefer softer wording, a
3:32 mechanically forced liquidation event
3:34 that benefited the players position to
3:37 survive it. And a month ago, I made a
3:39 video about the December silver crash
3:42 when we hit $84. I laid out a pattern
3:47 1980, 2011, 2025. Same playbook, same
3:49 mechanisms, same types of players,
3:52 similar outcomes. Some people watched
3:55 it, some people ignored it. Well, they
3:57 just did it again. But this time it was
3:59 bigger. And if you understand the
4:02 trigger and the tool they used, it
4:04 actually strengthens the underlying
4:07 thesis rather than weakening it. So, I'm
4:08 going to break down three critical
4:10 things for you quickly because it's
4:12 freezing out here and I'm trying not to
4:15 drop my camera into the snow. First,
4:17 what actually triggered the massacre and
4:20 who actually won. Second, why this crash
4:22 didn't solve anything about supply and
4:26 demand. If anything, my previous thesis
4:28 is stronger now. Third, what moves you
4:30 might consider from a risk and
4:34 positioning standpoint. Not advice, not
4:37 do this now, but a way to think so
4:39 you're not just being whipped around by
4:42 noise. Now, put the move in perspective.
4:45 Silver hits the high, then it's down 35%
4:47 in a heartbeat. Gold drops hard, too.
4:50 And the public narrative becomes it was
4:53 the Fed chair story. Okay. Was that a
4:55 catalyst? Sure. A match can light a
4:58 fuse. But it wasn't the bomb. The bomb
5:00 is the mechanism that forces
5:02 liquidation. The thing that turns normal
5:05 selling into a waterfall. And that's
5:07 where margin comes in. Because here's
5:09 the dirty secret of modern markets. The
5:11 crowd doesn't get taken out by being
5:14 wrong. The crowd gets taken out by being
5:16 leveraged at the moment the rules
5:18 change. I went digging through CME
5:21 silver margin data and I genuinely
5:23 couldn't believe what I was seeing. I
5:26 searched around and found almost nobody
5:28 talking about it in a serious way. And
5:30 that's insane to me because this detail
5:33 is not a footnote. It's the lever that
5:35 can move the entire structure. And
5:37 before anyone clips this and screams
5:40 conspiracy, let me be clear. I'm not
5:41 claiming I have proof of illegal
5:43 behavior. I'm saying the pattern is
5:45 consistent. The tool is known. The
5:47 incentives are obvious and the results
5:49 keep repeating. So, let's walk through
5:51 the playbook. We've now seen this
5:53 structure multiple times. In 1980, you
5:56 had a speculative mania and the Hunt
5:58 Brothers story. Silver ran hard. Then,
6:00 the exchange implemented rule changes
6:03 that restricted buying and effectively
6:05 forced liquidation. Silver collapsed
6:07 massively. The little guy got kicked
6:10 out. The big guy survived. In 2011, you
6:12 had the post-financial crisis precious
6:16 metals run. silver hits around 49ers,
6:18 CME raises margin requirements
6:20 repeatedly, multiple times in a short
6:23 window and you get a violent flush. Same
6:26 mechanism. When margin rises, the
6:28 leverage crowd must either add cash or
6:31 sell. If they can't add cash, they sell.
6:33 And the selling forces more margin
6:36 calls, and that forces more selling.
6:39 It's a domino chain. Then December 2025,
6:42 silver hits $84 during thin holiday
6:45 liquidity. Margins get raised again.
6:48 Silver dumps. And I said at the time, if
6:50 you keep seeing the same levers pulled
6:52 in the same moments, it's not random.
6:55 It's a system. And then January, silver
6:58 hits $120 and then the story drops.
7:01 Trump nominates Kevin Walsh as a new Fed
7:04 chair, a traditional hawk, the kind of
7:06 name that suggests less money printing
7:08 and tighter conditions. Tight money is
7:10 bad for gold and silver, says the
7:14 headline logic. Fine, that's the match.
7:15 But then the market does what a crowded
7:18 leverage market does. Stops get hit,
7:20 liquidation kicks in, algorithms pile
7:23 on, and the trap door opens. And it's
7:25 very convenient when that happens to
7:28 coincide with outages in key venues and
7:30 a margin hike that makes it dramatically
7:32 harder for the marginal participant to
7:34 stay in the game. Again, I can't prove
7:36 intent, but I can tell you the mechanism
7:39 is real. Now, what is margin really and
7:42 why is it such a weapon? Silver trades
7:44 in two big worlds, the paper market and
7:47 the physical market. The paper market is
7:50 futures, mostly comics. In the paper
7:52 world, you're not buying silver bars.
7:54 You're buying a contract, a promise of
7:57 exposure, and you do it with leverage.
8:00 So, you might control $100,000 worth of
8:03 silver with $10,000 posted as margin.
8:06 That leverage makes moves bigger. It
8:08 also makes you fragile. And here's the
8:10 key. The exchange can change margin
8:13 requirements. They can say, "Actually,
8:17 we don't want 10% anymore. We want 20%
8:21 or 30% or 40%." And when they change
8:23 that requirement, they force every
8:25 leverage participant to make an
8:27 immediate choice. Option one, deposit
8:30 more money right now. Option two, sell
8:33 your position right now. If silver is
8:35 ripping and everyone is already maxed
8:38 out on margin, most people don't have
8:40 extra cash sitting around ready to wire
8:42 in, so they sell. And that selling
8:44 pushes the price down, and that triggers
8:46 more margin calls, which triggers more
8:48 selling, which triggers more forced
8:51 selling. and the waterfall feeds itself.
8:53 This is why these moves look like a
8:56 failure. They look like panic. But a lot
8:58 of that panic is mechanical. It's
9:01 compulsory. People are not choosing it.
9:03 They're being forced. And if you want a
9:06 cynical way to put it, margin is a way
9:08 to legally change the rules of
9:11 participation in the middle of the game.
9:13 So what happened Friday in the paper
9:16 world is leverage got flushed hard. Some
9:19 leveraged silver ETFs got obliterated
9:20 down the kind of numbers that teach
9:23 painful lessons fast. And I'll say this
9:25 bluntly, leveraging something like
9:27 silver into a crowded trade when you
9:30 know margin can change is madness.
9:33 That's not bravery. That's volunteering
9:35 to be the exit liquidity. Now the
9:37 physical market is different. Physical
9:41 silver is bars, coins, real metal. It
9:43 moves slower. It's driven by
9:47 availability, real demand, real supply
9:49 constraints, premiums, and logistics.
9:51 And here's the part that matters. You
9:54 can pressure paper price, but you can't
9:57 print physical silver into existence.
9:59 So, if there's a real supply problem, a
10:02 paper flush doesn't fix it. It doesn't
10:04 create new silver. It doesn't suddenly
10:07 reduce industrial demand from solar
10:10 panels, electric vehicles, and data
10:13 centers. It doesn't change the fact that
10:15 a lot of analysts have been tracking
10:18 persistent deficits in available supply.
10:20 In other words, paper can reset
10:23 sentiment. Physical eventually resets
10:26 reality. And that's why, in my opinion,
10:29 this crash actually strengthens the
10:31 thesis rather than destroying it. It
10:33 looks like the paper market is being
10:36 stressed and reentered by force. And as
10:39 paper participation gets punished,
10:41 physical becomes the only thing that
10:43 matters long-term. Now, one of the
10:45 smoking guns for physical tightness is
10:48 premium behavior. What people are paying
10:51 above the quoted spot price in places
10:54 where physical demand is intense. The
10:56 premium in Shanghai, for example, the
11:00 amount buyers pay above paper price, has
11:02 been very elevated. That's not what you
11:04 see in a market that is overflowing with
11:07 easy supply. So what does this mean
11:10 going forward? Well, historically, the
11:12 aftermath depends on whether the move
11:15 was purely speculative or whether it
11:18 collided with real fundamental demand.
11:20 In 1980, you could argue it was heavily
11:22 speculative. When it popped, it took a
11:25 long time to recover because the Y
11:27 wasn't industrial necessity. It was
11:30 mania and a corner attempt. In 2011, it
11:33 was partly a fear trade. Fear fades.
11:36 Markets move on. The recovery took time.
11:39 In December 2025, there was real demand
11:42 underneath and the recovery was faster.
11:45 It didn't take years, it took weeks, and
11:48 then it ran again. So, the question now
11:50 is, is this going to behave more like
11:54 1980 and 2011, long recovery, or more
11:57 like December, faster recovery? I
12:00 personally lean toward faster recovery
12:03 if the physical squeeze remains real.
12:05 But what I can tell you is this. You
12:09 will likely see more of these events. A
12:11 former London Metal Exchange market
12:13 maker, one of the guys who actually
12:16 lived inside the casino, has said for a
12:18 while that in a structurally stressed
12:21 market, you can see 20 30% dumps that
12:24 are not fundamental. They're mechanical.
12:26 Until the market reaches a point where
12:28 silver demand is meaningfully reduced,
12:31 whether through substitution, technology
12:33 changes, or price induced demand
12:35 destruction, volatility is part of the
12:37 package. And that brings us back to what
12:39 the mainstream narrative is missing.
12:41 They're saying Kevin Walsh crashed the
12:44 market maybe as a headline, but the
12:47 deeper truth is Walsh was the match. The
12:50 fuel was leverage. The accelerant was
12:52 margin. The outcome was forced
12:54 liquidation. Because when the dollar
12:56 spikes, metals priced in dollars often
12:59 drop. A hawkish Fed narrative can
13:02 strengthen the dollar. And if the metals
13:04 trade is the most crowded trade on the
13:06 planet, if everyone and their
13:09 grandmother is long, if retail is in,
13:12 hedge funds are in, institutions are in,
13:14 then you don't need much to trigger a
13:16 liquidation event. Crowded trades don't
13:20 end gently, they end violently. And once
13:22 the liquidation starts, algorithmic
13:25 systems don't think. They respond. They
13:28 hit stops. They pull bids. They chase
13:31 momentum. They amplify the cascade. And
13:33 here's the part that should make you pay
13:36 attention. Brokers and exchanges have
13:39 visibility into positioning, leverage,
13:43 and liquidation levels. They see where
13:45 risk is concentrated. They know where
13:49 forced selling is likely to kick in. Am
13:51 I saying that's abused? I'm not claiming
13:55 that. I'm saying the visibility exists.
13:57 And that alone changes the game for the
14:00 participant who doesn't have it. Now,
14:02 later in the Friday chaos, there were
14:04 reports and headlines flying around
14:07 about strategic metals policy, about
14:09 support being cut, about this or that
14:12 being ending. Some of those claims were
14:14 disputed. Some officials called things
14:16 misleading. But markets don't wait for
14:19 clarifications. Algorithms react to
14:22 headlines. The cascade was already in
14:24 motion. And once you're in waterfall
14:27 territory, truth arrives late. The tape
14:30 moves first. So again, put it together.
14:32 A hawkish fed chair narrative, a
14:35 stronger dollar impulse, a crowded
14:37 metals trade, high leverage in paper, a
14:39 margin hike that forces selling,
14:42 headline turbulence, outages, and thin
14:45 liquidity at the worst possible moment.
14:47 You don't need a cartoon villain to see
14:49 how that recipe produces a crash. You
14:51 just need to understand mechanics. Now,
14:53 I want to slow down and make the margin
14:56 weapon crystal clear. Because if you
14:58 take nothing else from this video, take
15:01 this. Margin is not a side detail.
15:03 Margin is the steering wheel. When the
15:06 exchange raises margin, it removes the
15:08 weakest hands. Not because they changed
15:10 their mind, but because they can't fund
15:12 the position. That's why technical
15:15 analysis often fails during these
15:17 events. People draw lines and say
15:20 support here, resistance there. But when
15:22 liquidation is forced, those levels
15:25 don't matter. The selling doesn't stop
15:27 because a line is drawn. The selling
15:30 stops when the forced sellers are done.
15:33 And that means if you're trying to trade
15:35 the exact bottom with leverage, you're
15:38 playing their game. And in their game,
15:40 the house always wins. So, what do you
15:43 do with this? First, you stop confusing
15:47 paper volatility with physical reality.
15:49 Second, you stop letting headlines trick
15:50 you into thinking you understand
15:53 causality. Third, you get serious about
15:56 risk management, which is boring, until
15:58 it saves you. Because the number one
16:01 riskmanagement rule is position size. If
16:02 you're in something so big it messes
16:05 with your sleep, you're too big. If a
16:08 10% move ruins your week, you're too
16:11 big. If a 30% flush wipes you out, you
16:14 weren't unlucky. You were overlevered.
16:16 Now, I'm going to talk about moves you
16:18 might make. I'm not giving you financial
16:20 advice. I'm giving you a framework. If
16:22 you believe the physical thesis, you
16:25 might prefer exposure that doesn't get
16:27 margin called out from under you. That
16:29 could mean less leverage, longer time
16:31 horizons, or instruments that don't
16:33 mechanically explode under force
16:35 volatility. If you don't have the
16:37 stomach for silver volatility, gold
16:40 historically tends to be less wild. And
16:42 Friday showed that silver down
16:45 monstrous, gold down heavy, but not the
16:47 same kind of carnage. If you're in
16:51 miners, understand miners are equities.
16:53 They get hit by equity liquidity events,
16:55 too. They can be great in the long run,
16:58 but in a flush, they often get punished
17:00 regardless of fundamentals. That's not a
17:02 moral statement. That's a correlation
17:05 and liquidity statement. And if you're
17:07 holding any of this in retirement
17:10 accounts, 401k, savings, bonds, cash,
17:13 broad ETFs, you need to understand that
17:15 we're in a world where the plumbing
17:17 matters more than most people think. The
17:20 next few years may be defined by the
17:22 biggest monetary and market regime
17:24 shifts most investors have lived
17:26 through. What you do with information
17:28 like this can matter more than being
17:31 right on direction because preserving
17:33 wealth isn't about predicting the next
17:36 headline. It's about building a
17:38 structure that can survive the forced
17:41 moves. Now, before my hands freeze off,
17:43 let me tie the story back to the
17:46 beginning because I started with JPM the
17:49 bottom and the Fed chair excuse. When
17:51 you see a market bottom ticked
17:54 perfectly, you should ask, "Who had the
17:56 ability to buy when everyone else was
17:58 forced to sell? Who had the balance
18:01 sheet to absorb panic? Who benefits from
18:04 a margin-driven flush? Usually, it's not
18:08 the retail trader. Usually, it's the
18:10 participant who can survive the rules
18:12 changing. And that's why I want you to
18:14 stop consuming the mainstream narrative
18:17 like it's a full explanation. It's not.
18:20 It's usually a label slapped on a move
18:23 after the fact. The real explanation is
18:25 incentives and mechanics. And if you
18:28 want to learn pattern spotting, not as
18:30 astrology, but as a practical how
18:34 markets actually behave skill, I'll run
18:36 a live session for you guys on Saturday.
18:39 There'll be a link below, free seat, no
18:41 nonsense. It's going to be in depth.
18:43 It'll open your eyes to how these setups
18:45 form, how they trigger, and how you
18:49 build a plan that isn't based on vibes.
18:51 Secondly, we have a daily and weekly
18:54 free medals newsletter link below as
18:56 well, and a bunch of you are already on
18:58 it. It's got humor, but it's also
19:01 grounded in data. And listen, the point
19:03 of all this isn't to make you angry. The
19:05 point is to make you dangerous.
19:07 Dangerous in the good way. The way
19:10 prepared people are dangerous. They
19:12 don't panic. They don't get shaken out
19:14 by the obvious trap. They don't gamble
19:17 with leverage when the exchange has a
19:19 legal lever to pull against them. So,
19:21 let me summarize the three critical
19:24 points one more time in plain English.
19:26 The trigger wasn't just a hawkish Fed
19:29 chair headline. The trigger was leverage
19:31 meeting a margin hike in a crowded
19:33 trade. The crash didn't fix the physical
19:35 supply problem. It flushed paper and
19:37 sentiment. And the move you make next
19:40 should be based on structure, time
19:42 horizon, position size, and whether you
19:45 can survive volatility without being
19:47 forced out at the worst moment. That's
19:50 it. That's the real story. If you want
19:52 to build real investor instincts, the
19:54 kind that spot opportunity and chaos,
19:56 join the Buffet Academy. You'll get
19:59 exclusive weekly videos, my decision
20:01 process, and the frameworks for thinking
20:04 like a top 1% investor. It's linked in
20:06 the pinned comment below. If you got
20:09 value from this, share it because very
20:12 few people understand how this works and
20:14 even fewer people are willing to say the
20:16 quiet part out loud. Markets don't just
20:19 move on news. They move on positioning,
20:22 leverage, and who gets forced to sell.
