Gold’s leadership was on display last year, but it’s a new phase in 2026
Before beginning this article, it is time to introduce a short note to precede my posts:
Never will you read one word of my material that has been edited or altered, let alone written by, AI. It is unfortunate that this even needs to be stated, but it’s out there, folks. Content written by machines. Outside of ‘quant’, you cannot automate real market analysis.
Gold’s utility includes…
- Inflation protection? Yes, over the long-term because central banks and governments are agents of inflation over the long-term. Over any shorter-term phase, it’s inflation utility is suspect, or secondary to other items like silver and commodities.
- Disaster protection? Yes, if you define disaster as the economic condition we are heading headlong toward as a result of the above. War? Terror? Pestilence? Please.
- Insurance? Yes, look no further than its leadership role in 2025, as it alone kicked off the next macro phase while most markets tanked on global trade fears.
Gold’s little bro, silver, appears to be basing in wait to signal the next cyclical upturn in commodity-related stocks. A majority of risk has long since been taken out of the silver price, but in not yet testing the rising 200 day moving average (orange) a downward magnet could be in force, regardless of whether the precious metals complex rallies in the short-term.
Silver (more cyclical and inflation sensitive, i.e. commodity-like) will tend to lead gold during cyclical upturns, especially when inflation is in play.
As to silver taking over leadership from gold, personally, I got a bit whipsawed by the up and down volatility on May 11-15, as the spike and breakout failed. On the first down day for the Silver/Gold ratio (May 14) we quickly established these guidelines for a pullback, per an NFTRH+ subscriber update:
The Silver/Gold ratio is taking a clubbing today and the daily chart shows the breakout is intact and it also shows what is needed to keep it that way.
- Comfortably intact: Top of the green box.
- Less comfortable, but still intact: Horizontal green breakout line [now red-dashed on the chart].
- Less comfortable still, but still alive: a test of the 50 day average.
How silly of me to note options 1 and 2. These are the precious metals, so of course they’d push the limits! The Silver/Gold ratio halted its decline at option #3 and thus far holds it.
Hence, we’re intact as long as that marker is intact. Should it break down, the ratio and the commodity trades in its wake will have to wait for the correction to complete. It’s your move now Silver/Gold ratio, break down or hold and break upward.
But it will be wise not be an overly gold/gold miner-centric bug for a while, going forward. If silver leads, the implication is that the best of the commodity (and especially the critical minerals) rally is yet to come. In general, commodities are expected to out-perform the monetary metal in the coming months/years.
2001: Gold bottomed and led to the upside, commodities caught on within a couple years and then led gold right up to the crash of 2008.
2008: Gold bottomed first and led the recovery in silver, commodities and stocks markets. The precious metals then blew out into a harsh bear market in 2011.
2016: Gold bottomed, turned up, pulled the gold miners and silver with it, leading commodities and stocks that year. Then the precious metals took a long, hard correction to the initial leg of the bull market that is in force to this day.
2020: Gold tanked, bottomed and led to the upside, pulling the miners and silver up with it. They of blew out mid-year, handing off to commodities and stocks, and began the next harsh corrective leg of the bull market.
2024-2025: Gold began what would eventually become obvious even to the casual public, a major bull market leg. Its price remained firm and rallied during 2025’s tariff/trade war hysterics, followed by the miners and silver, which we managed in real time as it took over leadership in June. You can see that phase on the chart above. This pivot in leadership launched a bull run in many commodity related stocks, particularly in minerals critical to ever-expanding technological boundaries.
If the Silver/Gold ratio remains biased to the upside a tailwind will be in play for stocks, commodities and likely, gold and gold stocks, if history is a good guide. But as we have been noting in NFTRH since the precious metals got cracked (as anticipated) in January, gold miners are now nothing special in 2026 (unlike 2025).
The bottom line is that we have shifted the view to favor commodities, and especially critical minerals, while also remaining constructive on precious metals (beyond the current correction) and sure, even the stock market. Our focus on Semiconductors and AI networkers, for example, more than helped weather the precious metals correction’s storm.
Meanwhile, I hold favored items waiting to be increased and a watch list of items waiting to be added, pending the drama (okay, I am a chart nerd, I am into this stuff) of the ratio’s fate.
There is a whole world out there and it is definitely a top-down manager’s market as it shifts and cycles. And that is what I do. Manage the top-down, because as the NFTRH FAQ has noted for many years now:
What do you consider most important?
NFTRH is more about getting the ‘top down’ macro right than about individual equities. After all, if the market’s swings are managed correctly, stock, and especially sector picking is the relatively easy part.
We’ve been doing that again in 2026, as we did in 2025. But the focus has shifted away from a gold-centric one. The strategy goes like this… Macro > Sector > Stock Picking.
Gold goes like this: Value. That’s all, a heavy chunk of long-term value. I think that value will be marked up significantly in the months and years to come. But price-wise, it’ll probably lag a bit.
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