Silver Bulls Are About to Get Ambushed — Rick Rule Has Been Preparing for This for 6 Weeks

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]Mostly, I went into the bigger silver producers. And one silver producer in drag, I went into Wheaton Precious, which is 45% gold pardon me, 55% gold, 45% silver, but it still has a silver constituency. I did that because I thought that the silver stocks were a better speculation than silver price relative to value. If the silver price went up, the silver stocks would do well.

[00:00:25]If silver went sideways, the silver stocks could still do well because they were priced in the market assuming 42 to $45 silver in a $75 world. And perversely, if the price of silver went did well because of the associations around with the silver equities, I suspected that the valuations of the silver equities could fall less. Right. So, I had the same upside. I had much better performance in a sideways market and ironically, a better performance in a down market. Mhm. Uh turned out that the market liked my call better than it liked silver. The silver stocks have done fairly well and silver has traded fairly sideways. I had no way of anticipating that. I was making [clears throat] a 3-year bet, not a 3-week bet. Mhm.

[00:01:06]Now, I wanted to ask you, too. I read this article this morning. I'll read a little bit of it to you, Rick. Uh you know, an unidentified buyer or it could be a syndicate uh is quietly accumulating December 2026 COMEX COMEX call options, but they're doing it at 15,000 or 20,000 dollar strikes. Um and now it's uh it's a pretty it's a 5.5 billion dollar bet by December 2026 call option at about 15,020 grand gold. Uh you know, do you pay that any of mind?

[00:01:39]Like how like that it's a pretty big play. You know, you're betting 5 billion dollars on 15,000 dollar gold. Is that even feasible? Like is there going to be a monetary collapse? What What do you read that? How do you read that? I don't know how to read it. And you know, I've been as I grow older >> [laughter] >> quite a bit older in my case now.

[00:01:58]I care less what other people do.

[00:02:00]Right.

[00:02:01]>> I pay attention to facts that I have or or probabilities that I have.

[00:02:08]Um not that I don't respect other people's opinion, but I have no way of knowing who those people are, if they really exist, what their motivations are, what they know. Mhm. There've been several times in my life where I've had an asset and I've sold it.

[00:02:23]And I sold it to people who paid a very full price.

[00:02:26]And I thought at the time I sold it, those guys are much smarter than me. If they can pay that price and still make pretty good money, they're much smarter than me.

[00:02:35]It turned out in almost every case that they made a mistake.

[00:02:37]>> [laughter] >> They just paid too much.

[00:02:40]And so I try to the extent that I can to keep my own counsel. Or if I pay attention to somebody else, I only pay attention if I know them well enough and if I can interview them uh as to their motivation and their assumptions. Mhm.

[00:02:58]It's tempting because of the drama.

[00:03:00]Yeah.

[00:03:01]>> To think of some hyper smart syndicate that knows everything about everything.

[00:03:06]Let's say a Nancy Pelosi, you know, who gets to front run Congress.

[00:03:10]But I don't know her. She's not on my speed dial. Uh when, you know, whenever a health care bill comes out that's going to make somebody a billion dollars, she doesn't call me up and tell me. She just does it. And so I pay very little attention to circumstances like that. Probably to my detriment.

[00:03:28]But everybody needs to know how they do what they do, uh provided that they do something well.

[00:03:35]Up to this point, the conversation has shifted from simple silver price predictions into something much bigger.

[00:03:41]How capital actually moves when confidence in the financial system starts changing. Earlier, you heard why silver equities could outperform even in a flat metal market because investors weren't pricing in the long-term upside yet. Now, that idea connects directly to this massive $5 billion options bet on gold reaching levels most people still consider impossible, but the important takeaway isn't just the number itself.

[00:04:05]It's the mindset behind it. The speaker is warning against blindly following dramatic headlines or assuming that smart money always knows something hidden.

[00:04:15]Real macro investing comes down to probabilities, incentives, and understanding who's taking risk, not chasing narratives. And that matters for what comes next, because the final part of this discussion is where the conversation moves from speculation into what these trades may actually be signaling underneath the surface of the global monetary system. Six or seven weeks I've been increasing my liquidity.

[00:04:37]Okay.

[00:04:38]>> Um I've been doing that because I'm afraid of the fiscal aftermath of the war.

[00:04:44]Uh I'm afraid that the war, too, the higher oil prices will act like a tax, and all taxes are bad. If you withdraw liquidity from the economy, particularly in period where credit is already under stress, you increase the risk of a liquidity-driven crisis. Mhm. I've been through four in my life.

[00:05:01]Uh and if you go into a circumstance where other people don't have liquidity, it's very handy if you do.

[00:05:07]That gives you the tools and perhaps the uh the courage to take advantage of a circumstance rather than being taken advantage of, you know, by it.

[00:05:17]Um I have much more liquidity than I would have in normal circumstances.

[00:05:23]And I think I'm done raising liquidity, and probably my next move will be to revisit and increase my positions in that select group of gold mining companies, which I believe are takeover targets. I think you're going to have a continued wave of amalgamation in the gold mining business. Mhm. You're seeing very, very, very strong producer cash flows.

[00:05:47]You're seeing a very rapid uh drawdown of debt levels. You're seeing confidence return to the gold market. And you're going to see the institutional investor change from asking the gold mining companies to increase returns to shareholders by way of buybacks and dividends.

[00:06:03]And you're going to see them asking them to at least maintain if not grow their production.

[00:06:08]The only way they can do that is through acquisition. It takes 10 years to do it through exploration.

[00:06:12]So, I think we're going to have an M&A boom in the gold sector. Uh I'm already reasonably well located uh that that way. Well, reasonably well positioned.

[00:06:21]But, I think my next move will be to increase those positions. I also intend to walk the floor of my own conference July 6th through 10th in Boca Raton, Florida. Nice.

[00:06:32]>> I'm uh interviewing every company right now in the pre-conference interviews.

[00:06:36]And there are some pretty good bargains out there in the mining space. So, I look forward to taking advantage of those. It won't take 6 months in the rest of the world if the conflict goes on. The price moves that you've seen so far, Ivan, are anticipatory moves, which is to say people are hoarding, people are buying oil in anticipation of a shortage.

[00:06:55]But, the world has had floating inventory, and many nations in the world, Japan and China among them, have fairly large strategic reserves, which they're running down.

[00:07:04]But, make no mistake, those places that have been less prudent will start running out of oil very quickly.

[00:07:13]And then they'll have to ration oil by price, not in anticipation, but rather in reaction.

[00:07:19]I'm not a geopolitical analyst, so I don't know if the war lasts or if so, how long it lasts. Right. But, we are really truly on the cusp, like maybe a week or 10 days uh away from seeing many countries in the world have to ration oil by price.

[00:07:37]And that'll be a very different circumstance than the circumstance that you've seen up till now.

[00:07:45]Mhm. What about uh you know, I wanted to ask you too cuz we last time we had you on here, you explained to everyone you sold your silver, but you didn't sell uh all your silver and you know, go into bonds or whatever or into different equities. You you put a decent amount of that into silver uh you know, mining stocks or is it producers? What did you go for? Just straight explorers, producers? What what did Mostly I went into the bigger silver producers. The one silver producer in drag, I went into Wheaton Precious, which is 45% gold uh pardon me, 55% gold, 45% silver, but it still has a silver constituency.

[00:08:24]I did that uh because I thought that the silver stocks were a better speculation than silver price relative to value. If the silver price went up, the silver stocks would do well.

[00:08:35]If silver went sideways, the silver stocks could still do well because they were priced in the market assuming $42 to $45 silver in a $75 world. And perversely, if the price of silver went did well because of the associations around with the silver equities, I suspected that the valuations of the silver equities could fall less. Right.

[00:08:56]>> So, I had the same upside. I had much better performance in a sideways market and ironically, a better performance in a down market. Mhm. Uh turned out that the market liked my call better than it liked silver. The silver stocks have done fairly well and silver has traded fairly sideways. I had no way of anticipating that. I was making a three-year bet, not a three-week bet.

[00:09:15]By now, you probably understand something most investors never fully grasp. The real edge in markets often isn't predicting a headline. It's understanding positioning, liquidity, and how people behave under stress. This conversation wasn't just about silver or gold prices. It was about why experienced investors prepare for volatility before everyone else sees it coming, whether that means holding extra liquidity during a potential credit squeeze, or positioning inside sectors likely to consolidate when capital gets tight. And underneath all of it is a much bigger theme, confidence.

[00:09:51]Confidence in energy markets, in monetary systems, and in how quickly conditions can shift when liquidity starts disappearing globally.

[00:10:00]Because if oil shortages begin moving from anticipation into actual rationing, then the next phase won't just affect commodities or mining stocks. It starts changing how entire economies function in real time. And once that transition begins, a lot of trades that looked extreme suddenly won't feel extreme at all.