Highlights

Bill Murphy of GATA.org and the host discuss the prospects for the PMs sector in 2017. According to Bix Weir, a 1/1 gold / silver ratio is merely a matter of time as emerging technologies increasingly rely on silver as an essential engineering component. Case in point, silver is key to smog correction devices, which are in high demand in China due to the rise of the increasingly affluent middle class. Just as the Dow Jones Industrials sets a new all time benchmark of 20,000, weak dollar comments from the new Administration's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is supportive of domestic exports and inadvertently the PMs market. The new Administration has plans on the table to revamp the crumbling domestic infrastructure - raw material purchases and related jobs / activities could boost national price levels to the benefit of PMs investments. The technical case supports the nascent silver bull market thesis - the silver index is nearing a Golden Cross on the weekly chart, which typically results in explosive moves upward. Moreover, the XAU is leading the metals charge on a relative basis - another indication that institutions and deep pocket investors are anticipating a multi-year PMs price advance. Once silver closes above $21 with conviction, Bill Murphy expects new bull market records, echoing the sentiments of Paul Wong, senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management (Bloomberg.com, 2017).