Weekly Economic Update 01-30-26: Gold & Silver; Durable Goods; Factory Orders; Consumer Confidence; and Producer Price Index

Gold and silver are taking off as the dollar weakens and inflation returns.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Georgia Institute of Technology or the Georgia Board of Regents.

It has been a little while since I commented on gold and silver, and since the last time I did, there have been a lot of new subscribers and a lot of movement in the precious metals market. As such, I thought perhaps some commentary was warranted.

Those who know me personally, as well as long-time subscribers, know that I have been a big fan of both gold and silver for a very long time. When the government can print fiat currency at will, it will do so. And, in doing so, will rapidly steal the value of that currency from those who hold it. Since 2020, the U.S. government has increased the money supply by 45%. Understand what that means. Nearly one-third of all dollars ever created in the history of our country have been created in the last 6 years.

If I knew nothing else, that alone would justify the recent price movement in both gold and silver. And, for those who may not follow gold and silver, those price movements have been dramatic. Over that same time period, gold is up 217%, and the price of silver is up a whopping 413%.

You see, the U.S. government isn’t just stealing from its own citizens. It is stealing from everyone in the world who holds dollars. And since the end of World War 2, most international transactions are done in dollars, and countries hold dollars as a “solid foundation” for their own economies. But now, the trust in the U.S. dollar is collapsing. Global actors aren’t buying gold and silver because they want to…they are doing it because they are terrified of holding anything else.

Gold serves as a store of value. Plain and simple. In January of 1980, the median new home price was $63,253, and gold was $675.3 per ounce, so you could purchase that home for roughly 93 ounces of gold. In December of 2025, you could buy the median new home for….93 ounces of gold. December’s gold price was around $4,500 per ounce, and the median home price was $419,900.

Why has silver moved relatively so much higher than gold? Well, one reason is that the price of silver has been artificially held down for decades by the short-selling practices of major money center banks. (Frankly, gold has been too, but not as bad.) In fact, the price you are seeing in silver today isn’t even the real price. That is the price people are willing to pay for “paper silver” - a promise of some actual silver somewhere that you can’t physically touch. In China, you can’t purchase a physical ounce of silver for less than $140 per ounce. In Japan, you are looking at about $150 minimum. This isn’t a bubble…it is a beach ball finally surfacing after being held underwater for decades.

Once again, I don’t give investment advice. But I told my readers back in late 2024 that “silver has some upside potential should you be so inclined to purchase precious metals.” Turns out, that was quite the understatement.