What Does 2026 Hold For Copper, Gold, Silver And Crude Oil?

2026 has started with a bullish bang for my Dr. Copper trade, even though a single trading session when half of Asia is still getting over its New Year's Day hangover is hardly an optimal sample size. Yet as I see LME spot copper trade at $12500 a metric ton, I feel exhilarated as this is precisely the breakout I flagged for my friends and readers a month ago before riding a 30%+ return on FCX, the world's largest NYSE listed copper and gold producer, as well as the red metal tracker COPX.

With the US Dollar index on the ropes at a tad above 98, an epic build out in AI infrastructure and EV assembly lines ensures that copper demand will be white hot as the world's largest mines in Chile, Peru, Zambia, DR Congo and Indonesia are all supply constrained due to labour strikes, mine accidents, awful logistics, geopolitics and big mining's aversion to exploration capex. So I view my copper trades as far safer than my occasional flutters in silver since their intrinsic volatility adjusted returns are both higher and more sustainable than the risk calculus available in silver mining shares.

Trump's $150 billion“big beautiful bill”, Merz's rearmament/infrastructure program and President Xi's trillion yuan fiscal lollipops to revive consumer spending in the Dragon Empire all add to bullish omens in copper, though the red metal could be temporary collateral damage if the precious metal markets freak out when the 10-year US Treasury bond yield spikes to 4.50% as the imminent return of the bond vigilantes in Chicago's futures pits tell me they will in Q1 2026. So remain long yen and short TLT as a macro hedge but eager to sell gold put spreads when the 14-day RSI is 56 or lower while the vol spreads on Auric align with the macro stars dear Brutus. A safe haven asset that is now also China's reserve currency, a hedge against dollar debasement and other financial pathologies of Trump 2.0 as well as the ultimate dowry incentive for untold million Hindu brides waiting for Mr. Right has got to be something special and that is exactly what gold has been for me in the past 2-years, with Newmont mining and Agnico Eagle as easily the best managed miners on the planet.

The post Powell era at the Federal Reserve promises an inflation risk premium on asset markets, which makes me a perma bull on gold but I will only buy when the price/second derivative risk calculus is in my favour as diving head first into a whirlpool can boomerang badly when Dr. Auric has a temper tantrum as he did last October as UB40 crooned so aptly – wise men say, only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you Dr. Auric, as you set your glide path for $5200 an ounce in '26.

The outlook for Brent crude is looking bleaker than ever even as we trade at $61 a barrel. Venezuela's output is only 900,000 barrels a day. So Trump's CIA drone strikes on Maduro's tankers and terminals will do squat to reduce the 3.8-MBD supply glut and billion barrel floating storage metrics of the global wet barrel market as long as OPEC does nothing to reduce the death spiral in prices.

The Iran mass protests echo the people's uprising against the fuel tax in 2019 and Mahsa Amini's murder by the religious police in 2022 but the sordid reality is that the Ayatullahs regime will not hesitate to massacre its own people in their determination to wield absolute power from Khamenei's Mullahbunker in Tehran. May God protect the beautiful young men and women of Iran from the venom of their fanatic rulers. Zan, zindagi, azadi – Javid Shah – Raza Koroush Pahlavi.

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