Introducing the topic: what's next for gold, silver, platinum, palladium after Friday's sharp decline, and explaining price differences between Shanghai, Mumbai, London, and New York.

Starting with the US dollar: it's off 8.4% from its cyclical high in January 2025 but up 40% since its 2011 low and 7.6% higher than 2021 levels.

The dollar may decline in the long run, but it also may do well. All monetary systems eventually fail except the current one.

Time matters: short-term trends can last 3-5 years within longer-term cycles. In 1997 predicted gold would drop, said prices below $300 were unsustainably low but short term could last 5 years.

Can be very bullish about silver prices in the long run rising above last year's $40 average, while saying prices won't rise sharply from the intraday high of $121.79 last Thursday.

Speculative fervor drove prices: short-term people seeing gold/silver prices rising, worried about economic/political factors, poured into metals, then dumped when prices reached high levels.

Much more bullish on long-term annual average prices than on speculative spikes and peaks.

Gold prices spiked sharply higher from $4,400 to $5,000+ within January - clearly a speculative spike.

Gold price still in upward trend but some speculative fervor has been burnt out.

Silver price still in bull market, averaged $40 last year, will average more than $40 this year, but not $200 or $121 on sustained basis.

March COMEX silver futures have 499M ounces open interest, most rolled into May/July, will apply upward pressure on prices due to buying back, not because COMEX running out of silver.

Longer-term fundamentals and economic/political factors still there and will continue to exert upward pressure on precious metals as investors look at world and say they're worried.

Platinum prices came off sharply, back to beginning of year levels, but still more than double year ago.

ETF data: Gold ETF investors bought 3M ounces in January (buyers 18 of 22 days). Silver ETF investors sold 30M ounces in January (sellers 15 of 22 days).

Price differences between Shanghai/Mumbai and COMEX due to circuit breakers in Asian markets halting trading when prices move too far, while COMEX is free unmanaged market.

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