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*                       FIEND'S SUPERBEAR MARKET REPORT                     *

*                                 January 27, 2026                          *

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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 a Parabolic Rally Finally Blinks

After weeks where precious metals seemed to move in only one direction, today finally delivered what bull markets always do sooner or later: a real shakeout.

Gold and silver have been sprinting higher in a way that doesn’t allow the market to “digest” gains. That kind of price action tends to end the same way every time — not with a gentle drift lower, but with a sudden air pocket: a fast drop that scares out weak hands, triggers some margin calls, and forces late buyers to decide whether they actually wanted the position… or just the headline.

Today’s reversal doesn’t invalidate the trend, but it does change the character of the tape. The rally has entered the phase where volatility becomes part of the cost of admission.

The real message from the metals isn’t “up” — it’s “nervous”

When gold and silver behave like this, it’s tempting to treat it as a simple inflation trade. But the psychology looks bigger than that. This is what a market does when confidence is being quietly questioned.

Not confidence in any single data point. Confidence in the system:

  • Confidence that inflation will glide down on schedule
  • Confidence that policy makers are still steering, not reacting
  • Confidence that currency stability is a given
  • Confidence that markets can price risk accurately while politics keeps moving the goalposts

That’s why it’s so notable that the dollar remains under pressure even as the bond market is no longer collapsing. In a “normal” world, a stabilizing rate environment would usually support the currency. Instead, the dollar looks like it’s being treated as the release valve.

The Fed meets Wednesday — and the market expects a pause

The Fed decision this week looks almost predetermined: no rate cut.

But that doesn’t mean the meeting is unimportant. It may be more important than a cut, because this is the kind of moment where Chair Powell is forced to address the disconnect that everyone can see:

  • Precious metals screaming “credibility risk”
  • The dollar sagging as investors position for more instability
  • Financial conditions still loose enough to keep speculation alive
  • And a political environment that is increasingly willing to drag the central bank into the mud

If someone asks Powell directly about the violent repricing in gold and silver, the answer will matter — even if it’s a non-answer. When a market starts moving like this, investors don’t need the Fed to confirm their fears. They just need the Fed to fail to calm them.

Shutdown risk is back — and markets keep treating it like background noise

The other major overhang is the looming government shutdown risk at the end of the week.

What’s striking is how conditioned Wall Street has become. Shutdown threats used to be treated like an actual macro event. Now they’re treated like weather: unpleasant, but not “market-moving” until it becomes operationally disruptive in a way that breaks something visible (air travel, payments, data releases, liquidity plumbing).

The danger in that kind of complacency is obvious: when markets stop respecting political risk, they eventually price it in all at once — usually after the “event” has already arrived.

Bonds aren’t joining the party

While precious metals are still acting like they’re sniffing out future trouble, the long end of the Treasury market is behaving differently: it’s stabilizing, but it’s not rallying the way you’d expect if the economy were sliding into a clean, disinflationary slowdown.

That matters.

A truly deflationary scare usually produces a powerful bid for long-duration bonds. If yields are instead hovering stubbornly high — with the 30-year repeatedly struggling around the 5% neighborhood — the bond market may be saying something uncomfortable:

Not “recession is coming tomorrow,” but “the cost of capital isn’t going back to the old world.”

That’s the environment where metals can surge even if the Fed isn’t cutting, because the market begins to worry about the long-term math: deficits, refinancing, and the political appetite for “easy answers.”

What to watch next

If this week is going to deliver a real regime shift — rather than just another scare-and-rebound — it will likely show up in three places first:

1.     Does silver hold key psychological levels after the first real break?
Parabolic moves can survive pullbacks. But once the two-way volatility starts, you want to see whether buyers return quickly or hesitate.

2.     Does the dollar break support while stocks remain calm?
That combination often signals capital rotating out of currency risk rather than simply chasing “risk on.”

3.     Does the Fed sound like it’s in control — or cornered?
This is less about the rate decision and more about the tone: confidence vs. defensiveness, clarity vs. vagueness, leadership vs. messaging.

Bottom line

This looks like the moment the metals market stopped being a straight line and started becoming a battlefield. That’s not bearish by itself — it’s simply what happens when a rally becomes big enough that it scares people, even as it attracts them.

In other words: the trend may still be up, but the ride is no longer smooth. And when markets get like this — with shutdown risk rising, the Fed under political fire, and the dollar weakening even as yields stabilize — it’s usually a sign that the system is more fragile than the stock indexes are admitting.

 

 

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