What is going on with gold and silver?

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Indicator from Planet Money

Episode: What is going on with gold and silver?
Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Adrian Ma, Darian Woods
Guests: David Kotak (Cumberland Advisors), Philip Deal (US Money Reserve, former US Mint Director)

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Overview

This episode focuses on the recent volatility in the prices of gold and silver, exploring their century-spanning roles in the financial world, the reasons behind their current price swings, and what this reveals about broader economic issues. The hosts break down the long history, practical attributes, and geopolitical factors influencing precious metals, with insights from seasoned experts in trading and minting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Enduring Appeal of Gold and Silver

• Historical Origins

  • David Kotak: Gold coins originated in Lydia (600 B.C.), forming the basis for wealth storage for almost 3,000 years.

    “Lydia was the first trading country that actually put together a coin that contained gold. So gold has a history of almost 3,000 years in monetary and finance and trading and payments.” (David Kotak, 02:09)

  • Gold's physical properties—malleability and strength—make it ideal for financial purposes.

    “It can be spread extremely thinly, even down to the width of a single atom. So it has this solidity, this robustness against getting destroyed, which is helpful for preserving wealth.” (Darian Woods, 02:27)

  • The entire world’s mined gold could form a cube roughly 70ft per side, or fill three Olympic swimming pools – visually underscoring its rarity. (David Kotak & Adrian Ma, 02:49–03:04)

• Gold vs. Silver

  • Gold’s value comes largely from being used mostly for wealth storage and jewelry (~90%), not industry.

    “Gold is prized as a financial metal because it's not used in industry much. ...if the economy tanks, the value of gold is not just going to automatically dive as industry uses it less.” (Adrian Ma, 03:28)

  • Silver is more abundant (about seven times as much as gold) and more useful in industry—particularly solar panels—but this also means its price is more sensitive to the economy.

    "The nickname for it is the poor man's gold." (David Kotak, 04:05)
    “[Silver] has a lot of important practical uses today, ...that means if the economy tanks, then silver will likely tank too.” (Adrian Ma, 04:25)

• Financial Legacy in the U.S.

  • The US monetary system historically relied on gold and silver until the gold standard ended in 1971.

    “The country's first coinage act had every coin above a penny made out of them. Broadly, the US Dollar was essentially a claim on gold or silver until Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971.” (Darian Woods, 04:39)

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2. What’s Behind Recent Price Volatility?

• Geopolitical Tension & Uncertainty

  • Gold prices began rising with recent global instability, notably since October 7th, following the Hamas attack on Israel.

    “I marked the beginning of this rally ...in the immediate wake of the Hamas attack on Israel. And that's emblematic, really, of one of the forces that tends to drive gold is geopolitical tension and warfare.” (Philip Deal, 05:50)

  • Ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, tensions around Taiwan, and other international disputes have further destabilized markets. (Darian Woods & Philip Deal, 06:08–06:28)

• Central Bank Buying

  • In response to global instability, central banks have shifted from US Treasuries to gold.

    “Central banks around the world started to hold more gold than US Treasuries.” (Adrian Ma, 07:23) “Huge demand from the central banks has become a baseline.” (Philip Deal, 07:30)

  • Reliance on US Treasuries carries risks (possible sanctions or devaluation), making gold more attractive as a sanction-proof asset. (Darian Woods, 07:36)

• Private Investor Interest

  • Everyday investors, especially in China where real estate opportunities have diminished, are moving into gold.

    “As the real estate market has crashed…they’ve tended to move to gold.” (Philip Deal, 08:01)

• Speculation and the January Silver Spike

  • In January, silver saw a sharp rise due to speculative bets—possibly on demand for AI chip manufacturing—followed by a correction.

    “I think all of us who are watching it were saying, yeah, this is setting up for correction.” (Philip Deal, 08:52)

  • The correction came swiftly after stabilizing news about the US Federal Reserve's likely leadership, which reassured markets about the US dollar.

    “That correction came on January 30th. ...good news for the US Dollar is often bad news for gold and silver.” (Darian Woods, 08:58)

• Current Status

  • Despite recent corrections, gold and silver remain up for the year—a mixed outcome for investors and broader US interests.

    “As of this recording, even after the corrections, gold and silver are still well up for the year, which is happy news for those holding onto the metals. Maybe less happy for the United States.” (Adrian Ma, 09:24)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Gold’s Scale in Perspective:

  “If you took all the gold that's ever been mined in the entire world and made one large cube out of would be about 70ft by 70ft by 70ft.”
  — David Kotak (02:49)

• Gold as ‘Plan B’:

  “Central banks around the world started to hold more gold than US Treasuries.”
  — Adrian Ma (07:23)

• The 'Poor Man's Gold':

  “The nickname for it is the poor man's gold.”
  — David Kotak (04:05)

• Speculation’s Role in Silver Volatility:

  “I think all of us who are watching it were saying, yeah, this is setting up for correction.”
  — Philip Deal (08:52)

• Lighthearted Moment:

  “That's right. I was making money. Making money.”
  — Philip Deal, on leading the US Mint (05:38)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Historical context & gold fundamentals – 02:09–03:28
• Gold vs. Silver / Practical and financial uses – 03:50–04:25
• US monetary history and metals – 04:39–05:10
• Geopolitics & central bank demand surge – 05:50–07:30
• Private investor drivers, China focus – 08:01–08:29
• January 2026 price swings and speculation – 08:52–09:24

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Tone, Language, and Style

The episode is approachable, lightly humorous, and explanatory. The hosts balance historical context with modern analysis, peppered with metaphors and anecdotes for clarity. Industry expert guests add credibility with concise, memorable explanations.

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This summary covers all major themes, expert insights, and memorable quotes from the episode, providing economics newcomers and enthusiasts with a crisp understanding of why gold and silver prices matter now more than ever.

Transcript

[NPR Announcer]

Npr.

[Adrian Ma]

The prices of gold and silver are on rollercoaster rides. Gold has been rising over the last few years. Silver shot up like a skyrocket in January, but then both plunged in price and sputtered around the end of the month.

[Darian Woods]

Is somebody hoarding gold bars? Is there a rampant demand for candelabras going on? This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darian Woods.

[Adrian Ma]

And I'm Adrian Ma. Today on the show, the long and short history of precious metals, we talk with some traders about what this volatility in gold and silver is saying about the state of the world.

[NPR Announcer]

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[Wix Advertiser]

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[Philip Deal]

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[Adrian Ma]

To explain what's happened with gold and silver over the last month, we spoke with David Kotak. David co founded Cumberland Advisors, a money management firm. And David starts the story in 600 B.C. in Lydia, a kingdom that was where modern day Turkey is now.

[David Kotak]

Lydia was the first trading country that actually put together a coin that contained gold. So gold has a history of almost 3,000 years in monetary and finance and trading and payments.

[Darian Woods]

David says gold is both malleable and strong. It can be spread extremely thinly, even down to the width of a single atom. So it has this solidity, this robustness against getting destroyed, which is helpful for preserving wealth. And with a bit of heat, it can be subdivided for payments.

[Adrian Ma]

Also, there isn't much of it.

[David Kotak]

If you took all the gold that's ever been mined in the entire world and made one large cube out of would be about 70ft by 70ft by 70ft.

[Adrian Ma]

Another way you might have heard this explained is that you could fit all the gold ever mined into about three Olympic sized swimming pools, which is not that much when you think about it.

[Darian Woods]

Gold hits this kind of sweet spot for storing wealth. If it were too rare, too few people would actually be able to afford any and not many people would trade it. But if it were too common, it would be really cheap and pretty hard to store.

[Adrian Ma]

And here's something kind of counterintuitive. Gold is prized as a financial metal because it's not used in industry much. Sure, it's used in some electronics, but about 90% of gold is used for jewelry or as a financial asset. And that means if the economy tanks, the value of gold is not just going to automatically dive as industry uses it less.

[Darian Woods]

Now, silver is similar to gold, but on the podium of financial metals, it gets a silver medal. Everything about it is just not quite as good for wealth storage. You know, it's malleable enough to use as coins, but it's more reactive and not as strong.

[David Kotak]

The nickname for it is the poor man's gold.

[Darian Woods]

And there's a lot more silver in the world, about seven times as much as gold. And that's a big reason why silver is priced a lot lower. That could actually be a good thing for everyday commerce. Silver coins were how people collected wages and bought bread in ancient Greece.

[Adrian Ma]

And silver has a lot of important practical uses today, like a silver paste that goes into solar panels to collect electrons from the sun. But as we said, that means if the economy tanks, then silver will likely tank too.

[Darian Woods]

Even so, silver is pretty good as a financial metal, and it has the history. The US Monetary system was based around silver and gold right from the start. The country's first coinage act had every coin above a penny made out of them. Broadly, the US Dollar was essentially a claim on gold or silver until Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971. The Civil War was the only major exception to that. And now the free market just determines how much the metals cost.

[Adrian Ma]

All right, so that is a quick fact sheet on gold and silver. And these facts have literally been known for millennia. So what has changed recently to send the gold and silver market into a jumbled joyride?

[Darian Woods]

Yeah. For the recent history, we spoke to Philip Deal. Philip is president of US Money Reserve, which is a company that sells gold and silver. In the 1990s, Philip was the director of the United States Mint. He was in charge of American coin production.

[Philip Deal]

That's right. I was making money. Making money.

[Darian Woods]

I'm sure he's used that line before.

[Adrian Ma]

I'm sure it never gets old. Philip says gold started rising in value about two and a half years ago.

[Philip Deal]

I marked the beginning of this rally back on October 7th in the immediate wake of the Hamas attack on Israel. And that's emblematic, really, of one of the forces that tends to drive gold is geopolitical tension and warfare.

[Darian Woods]

Philips says that there were real concerns that this conflict would spread in the Middle east, which it has. And then on top of that, we've got the Russian war in Ukraine and China asserting that it owns territory in the South China Sea and Taiwan. And that was before the US captured Venezuela's president and ramped up its rhetoric on acquiring Greenland.

[Philip Deal]

The geopolitical uncertainty and the outright conflict has grown around the world.

[Adrian Ma]

That uncertainty has led to the first big cause of gold prices going up. Central banks around the world buying up gold. Turkey has been a big buyer and so has Poland. And China might be the number one buyer, but it keeps its numbers secretive.

[Darian Woods]

But here's what we haven't mentioned. Gold. And really any precious metal has a big downside. It doesn't accumulate interest. It might cost change in value, but it's not out there doing productive work like, say, a loan to a company. Precious metals just sit there. And that's why for the last 30 years, central banks have held onto more of something special. It's something widely accepted. It's traditionally held most of its value and paid interest. We're talking about U.S. treasury bonds.

[Adrian Ma]

But recently a switch happened. Central banks around the world started to hold more gold than US Treasuries.

[Philip Deal]

Huge demand from the central banks has become a baseline.

[Darian Woods]

U.S. treasuries can be sanctioned and a country's access to U.S. dollars can be limited. A dollar might lose value to inflation. And there's a small but not zero chance the US government could even default. Gold can get around those problems.

[Adrian Ma]

That leads to reason number two for gold's rise. Everyday investors buying up gold, they're nervous about the stability of the world, too. Philip points to people in China buying.

[Philip Deal]

More gold, for example, the Chinese in particular, as the real estate market has crashed. Because the Chinese do not have a lot of options, those of us in the west have to invest overseas. They've tended to move to gold.

[Darian Woods]

Central bank purchasers and private investors, particularly in China. These are the forces that have pushed up gold over the last few years. And over that time, silver wasn't quite as.

[Adrian Ma]

That brings us to January. Why was there this huge upswing in silver followed by a crash in silver and gold? Philip says this massive rise in silver in January was largely speculation, people making bets that the price will rise in the future, maybe as a second best substitute for pricey gold, maybe as an input into lots of computer chips for AI data centers in the future.

[Philip Deal]

I think all of us who are watching it were saying, yeah, this is setting up for correction.

[Darian Woods]

That correction came on January 30th. That's the same day that Donald Trump announced he'd nominate Kevin Walsh for chair of the US Central bank, the Federal Reserve. Kevin Walsh is generally seen as a more traditional Fed chair pick than some of the other potential candidates, and that was reassuring to markets that the US Dollar would likely be preserved. But good news for the US Dollar is often bad news for gold and silver.

[Adrian Ma]

As of this recording, even after the corrections, gold and silver are still well up for the year, which is happy news for those holding onto the medals. Maybe less happy for the United States.

[Darian Woods]

This episode was produced by Angel Carreras, with the engineering by Siena Lofredo. It was fact checked by Sarah Juarez. Kate Concannon edits the show and the indicator is a production of npr.

[Boise State Public Radio Announcer]

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