Gerardo Del Real,
Editor
May 13, 2026
Gold is back above $4,700, silver is flirting with $90 and looks ready for another shot at $100, copper just printed new all-time highs, and lithium continues its move higher.
Oh yeah — the major indices are at or near all-time highs too. Everything is awesome. Or is it? Let’s peek under that pretty hood.
Inflation just came in at 3.8% — nearly 4% — and for the first time in three years, it’s running higher than wage growth here in the United States.
The Producer Price Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, well above the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% increase in March.
Yes, energy is a driving force behind that, but it’s not just energy. It’s also tariffs, which are both in place because of policy choices — but that’s another conversation for another time.
Back to the people those policies affect.
U.S. household debt is now at $18.8 trillion. Total household debt is up $4.6 trillion since January 2020. Mortgage debt is at a record $13.2 trillion. Credit card debt is the second-highest it’s ever been. Same for student loans.
So if consumers are maxed out on credit cards, mortgage equity has already been tapped, and student loan debt continues climbing, how does it end?
Well, we can hope those homes with all that debt attached to them continue rising in value, which in turn provides more equity homeowners can tap if needed. The problem is that’s only likely to happen with lower rates, not higher rates.
How’s that going? The 10-year is sitting at 4.5%, which has become a pivotal level. The administration seems to keep trying to talk it down by announcing a victory in the war every time the 10-year hits 4.5%.
So we can hope rates come down, we can hope home prices rise enough to unlock more equity, and we can hope inflation slows in the coming months.
Hope — or the promise of it — will get you elected president in this country (right, Barack?), but it is not a strategy, certainly not a sustainable one.
The bulk of the country is feeling the pinch. Unfortunately, the people in charge are not.
Commodities were already entering a supercycle, with structural deficits materializing everywhere. That was before this war and before the consequences of not securing the Strait prior to launching it.
I don’t know when the war ends or how long the economic effects will last.
But I do know I’m going to position myself on the other side of it by owning the things we need that they can’t print out of thin air.
The next several years are going to mint fortunes for owners of commodity stocks, from producers down to explorers. I’m going to make sure we stay positioned accordingly in the pages of Junior Resource Monthly, Junior Resource Speculator, and Private Placement Intel.
I hope you’ll join me for the ride.
Let's get it,
Gerardo Del Real
Editor, Bizarro World