And we say goodbye to 2025...

Good Day... And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! Well, it's the last day of 2025... Good riddance as far as our local sports teams, and as far as my frequent visits to the Emergency Room at the Hospital... I've gotten to know the folks at the Jupiter Medical Center Emergency Room quite well! The folks at the St. Claire in Fenton Hospital are always changing, so they don't recognize me when I arrive, which could be a good thing or a bad thing... The Searchers greet me this morning with one of my all-time favorite songs: Love Potion No. 9... 

Well, one day a humongous upward move, the next day a bigger downward move, and that was followed by a nice move in Silver, and one in Gold that was cut short by the SPTs, I'll explain... Gold was up over $35 yesterday until it wasn't... The SPTs came in and shorted the heck out of Gold, thus making Gold's rally a measly $2... Silver on the other hand saw that the SPTs were a non-event, and it gained $4.06 on the day to close at $76.28... Gold closed at $4,335...

I have something very important for you to read if you are a Silver holder or a Silver holding Wannabe in the FWIW section today... No peeking! Almost caught you skipping ahead, didn't I? Oh well, I doubt it will hurt if you do...  

The dollar was up in the early trading but ended the day flat as a pancake (Head East), with the BBDXY at 1,201... That's a 8.5% loss for the dollar ytd... that is if it doesn't lose more in the last day of trading in 2025... Really though, I don't expect much to happen today, as most trading desks will close up shop early to get home and get ready for a night on the town... Be Careful out there...

My wife's father used to call New Year's Eve "Amateur Hour"... And I used to tell my kids that for every minute past midnight the clock ticks the more hazardous the roads become...  So... Be Careful!

The price of Oil slipped a bit (actually only 19-cents) , but that brought it back to a $57 handle on Tuesday... The 10-year Treasury is beginning to make me sound like a broken record as it closed the day with a 4.12% yield... B-O-R-I-N-G!  

In the overnight markets last night... Well, it appears that to end the year the metals will have a game off day... Silver is down over $4 and Gold is down $28, this is getting to leave me with a rash... game on, game off... But Gold & Silver have put I yeoman work this year no matter what the SPTs do to them today... 

The dollar is floundering around 1,202 as many currency traders won't be showing up to their desks today... I know when I was on the trading desk, I came in late and left early on 12/31... And I imagine that many of my former cohearts will do the same today... The dollar is down over 8% this year, and I would think that it will down at a larger percentage next year... But that sounds too much like a forecast for 2026, and I shy away from those... 

The Chinese renminbi was allowed to gain some more ground VS the dollar overnight, and trades this morning at 6.9871... When I began offering renminbi to investors at the old EverBank World Markets trading desk, the renminbi was around 5.00, so it has a long way to go to get back to that price, I would say... And knowing the Chinese preferences I would suspect that to get back to a 5 handle will take a very loooooonnnngggg time! 

The price of Oil remained trading overnight with a $58 handle and the 10-year's yield is at 4.11% yield... downa BP or two this week to end the year... I suspect that the Fed Heads have been manipulating the yield to end the year... I know, I know, they aren't bond buyers any longer, yeah right, and my first wife was a young Elizabeth Taylor! 

On 1440 the new service that I rely on each day for they tell you what's happening without bias, which is so difficult to find with other cable news services... Well, on 1440, they highlighted the forecasters thoughts for 2026... They were all in agreement that AI will be the story of 2026... 

I have to say that even my son, who's a High School Teacher, says that AI makes his life much easier, but has to be on the lookout for cheaters in class... But I reminded him of something I wrote about a couple of months ago, and that was that you have to be careful with the answers you receive from AI because they were entered by someone, and who knows if that "someone" was that smart? I'm just saying...

It could end up much like Wikipedia... Not as used as much now VS when it was first introduced.... But, I believe in the end, it will be used extensively, so get ready for it!

One of the forecasts comes from my former publishers and friends, Mary Anne and Pamela Aden aka the Aden Sisters who had this to say: "For now, the metals will remain very strong by staying above $4,100 for gold, $57 for silver, 650 for the HUI, $1800 for platinum and $1550 for palladium. During strong bull markets, the downward corrections generally tend to be moderate. That will be strongly reinforced if the metals hold above these levels on any further weakness. "

For 2026, the forecasters thought that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will be one of the few Central Banks to hike rates in 2026... The BOJ has been disappointing the markets for decades, why would anything be different in 2026?

It was reported in the WP yesterday that 2025 was NOT a good year for at least 717 companies that filed bankruptcy... This was according to data from S&P Global Markets Intelligence... That's 14% more bankruptcies filed in 2025 than in 2024, and the highest tally since 2010...  Did tariffs have anything to do with these bankruptcies?

I'm finished with 2025... I'm not going to write any more on the markets, as they are all manipulated and massaged to make everyone think that all's ok on the Western front!  Except for those 717 companies that filed bankruptcy in 2025... So, I'll just head to the Big Finish and say goodbye to 2025 may you soon be forgotten! 

The U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday did indeed show home prices rose in Rocktober as I thought they would and said so in the Pfennig yesterday... A 1.2% rise and with the Fed Heads willing to cut rates further in 2026, homes should continue to rise in price...

To recap... it was game on for the metals yesterday, after experiencing game off on Monday. Silver gained over $4, and Gold gained just $2 after the SPTs took away over $35 of its earlier gain. The forecasters are out in full force and 1440 along with Yahoo Finance, wrote them down and printed them on their sites. And even the Adens chimed in with a forecast for Gold & Silver... 

Oh, and one more thing for Silver traders to think about... from Bloomberg.com "Oh, and China announced that they were raising the margin on metals again, for the second time in a week! Bloomberg.com reported this and said, "Precious metals have been rocked this week in a tumultuous end to a historic year. Silver has been especially volatile, with futures soaring to a record above $82 an ounce early on Monday, followed by a sharp retracement." this new rate of margin goes into effect after the close of business today...

Here's your snippet: "On Jan. 1, China’s new export-licensing regime takes effect, putting government gatekeepers between 121 million ounces of annual silver exports and the rest of the world. That means 60%-70% of the globally traded refined supply will require Beijing’s permission to leave the country.

Wall Street spent Monday hyperventilating about margin hikes on silver traders. CNBC trotted out the usual suspects warning about “speculative excess.” The X platform was full of people who couldn’t spell backwardation six months ago suddenly explaining why silver is overvalued.

The playbook you’ve seen before China doesn’t invent new tricks. It just runs the old ones on new commodities.

If this feels familiar, it should. China doesn’t invent new tricks. It just runs the old ones on new commodities.

In 2010, Beijing started “licensing” rare-earth exports. Not banning them, mind you. Just requiring paperwork. Approvals. Quotas that somehow never quite met demand. The effect was surgical; as prices spiked up to 4,500%, Western manufacturers discovered they couldn’t build smartphones or missiles without Chinese permission — and a generation of supply-chain executives learned Mandarin the hard way.

The rare-earth squeeze wasn’t dramatic. It was bureaucratic. Death by a thousand forms filed in triplicate.

Silver will see the same treatment starting Jan. 1. Chinese refiners will need government approval to export. The qualification thresholds are 80 tons of annual production capacity and $30 million in credit lines. That’s not a regulatory standard. That’s a velvet rope designed to keep most current exporters on the wrong side.

China just nationalized the silver trade without nationalizing a single mine."

Chuck again... this is HUGE folks! I told you yesterday that the Shanghai Metals Exchange didn't allow fools and knaves like the SPTs, and now they've weaponized their Silver...  This changes everything I said yesterday, about the COMEX and their allowing short trades in the millions of ounces... Are you ready? Strap yourself in, and keep those arms and legs inside at all times.... And I asked Ed Steer what he thought and he replied: "It's another weapon in the arsenal that China/BRICS+ can use against the west...like they're currently doing with rare earths."

Market Prices 12/30/2025: American Style: A$.6687, kiwi .5740, C$ .7295, euro 1.1748, sterling 1.3458, Swiss $1.2619, European Style: rand 16.5995, krone 10.0590, SEK 9.1912, forint 327.44, zloty 3.5907, koruna 20.5965, RUB 81.42, yen 156.61, sing 1.2854, HKD 7.7842, INR 89.87, China 6.9871, peso 17.95, BRL 5.4753, BBDXY 1,202, Dollar Index 98.27, Oil $58.25, 10-year 4.11%, Silver $71.68, Platinum $2,015.00, Platinum $1607.00, Copper $ 5.62, and Gold... $4,311

That's it for today and this year... here's something that I think I'll make a tradition in the Pfennig: 

Should old acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot

In the days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne

And surely, you will buy your cup

And surely, I'll buy mine!

We'll take a cup of kindness yet

For the sake of auld lang syne 

Have you ever heard Lisa Kelly from Celtic Women sing it?

Chuck again.... (you can't get rid of me that easily!) I also hope you have a Wonderful Wednesday and a celebratory New Year's Eve tonight... I also hope that everyone gets home safely...  I have one final thought for you this morning: "May dreams arise with the first sunrise of the year" The GREAT Percy Sledge takes us to the finish line today with his song: When A Man Loves A Woman... Please remember To Be Good To Yourself!