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*                       FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET REPORT                     *

*                                December 22, 2025                          *

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*                       e-mail: fiendbear@fiendbear.com                     *

*                    web address: http://www.fiendbear.com                  *

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Fiend Commentary

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When Money Stops Feeling Like Money

Overnight trading has silver flirting with $70 an ounce and gold hovering around the mid-$4,000s (with futures even higher). Those numbers still look unreal on paper. But the move doesn’t feel like a simple “metals rally” anymore. It feels like something deeper: a broad, growing discomfort with how the system is being held together.

Here are a few reasons this rally has become so extreme in 2025 — and why it may be setting the stage for even stranger outcomes in 2026.

1) People aren’t buying metals… they’re buying an escape hatch

When gold and silver act like this, it’s rarely just “inflation fear.” It’s the sense that the rules have changed:

  • Inflation doesn’t have to go to 9% again to be dangerous.
  • It just has to stay stubbornly above target while policy becomes looser anyway.

That combination quietly tells savers: cash isn’t the finish line, it’s the starting line. When enough people feel that, metals stop trading like commodities and start trading like a vote against the credibility of the plan.

2) The market is starting to treat debt as a “permanent condition”

We’ve gotten used to big numbers, but we’re now talking about a U.S. debt load that’s already in the upper-$30 trillions and visibly marching toward $40T. The important part isn’t the headline — it’s the math. Debt works when:

  • growth is strong, and
  • rates are manageable, and
  • confidence is intact.

When confidence starts to wobble, investors demand higher compensation to hold long-term bonds. That pushes yields up, and the whole machine starts needing even more support. It becomes a loop.

Gold and silver thrive in that loop.

3) The “help the public” narrative is turning inflation-friendly again

Talk of using tariff revenue to send out checks or rebates may sound pro-consumer — and it might be popular — but it also feeds a suspicion that policy is sliding back toward short-term relief over long-term discipline.

The public hears: “cost of living is still high.”
Markets hear: “more spending pressure and easier money are coming.”
Metals hear: “someone will pay — and it won’t be the printing press.”

4) Silver is doing what it always does in the late innings: it tries to outrun gold

Silver tends to lag early and then go vertical once the crowd finally notices. A jump from the high-$40s to near-$70 in a short stretch is the kind of move that attracts attention from people who don’t normally watch metals.

That’s when the rally changes character. It stops being “smart money positioning” and becomes a public event.

So what extremes are possible in 2026?

If $70 happened when very few were seriously talking about it a year ago, it forces an uncomfortable question: what else is the market capable of if this psychology continues?

Here’s the cleanest way to think about $100 silver without getting lost in jargon:

  • Triple digits don’t require the world to end.
  • They require two things: gold staying high and silver catching up.

At today’s neighborhood prices, the gold/silver ratio is still around the mid‑60s. If gold simply holds around $4,500 and that ratio drops to about 45, silver math lands right around $100.

Is there resistance at $100? Absolutely.

It’s a psychological wall. People will sell “because it’s $100,” just like they sell “because it’s $50.” But if policy stays loose, deficits stay large, and the public keeps looking for protection, resistance becomes a speed bump — not a ceiling.

My real takeaway for year-end and 2026

When the easy conclusion is “everything will keep going up,” that’s exactly when it gets dangerous — not because the trend must reverse tomorrow, but because complacency becomes the fuel for sharp, sudden air pockets.

The bigger picture is this:

  • If the path ahead is rate cuts plus balance sheet support while inflation never truly goes away,
  • then 2026 won’t just be about prices rising…
  • it’ll be about confidence shifting.

And confidence shifts are what create “impossible” numbers.

 

 

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