TF Metals Report

Here's a link to this year's macrocast. If you're interested in following the precious metals in 2026, please take time to look this over and then join us at TFMR! tfmetalsreport.com/blog/13502/sco…

🚨Crews at risk in the Gulf🚨 Just heard from a crewmember on one of the 3,200 ships stuck in the Persian Gulf. A ship called the local port authority requested permission to dock as they had run out of water. They were denied permission! Multiple ships are in the same condition, with stores, food and fuel running low. Ports are overwhelmed and security is such that they are refusing permission for ships to dock. Crews cannot get off and reliefs cannot fly in. What is being done to address this matter @POTUS @SecWar @SecDuffy @DOTMARAD @IMOSecGen @IMOHQ.

I'm currently in Dubai and the banks are getting weird. Citi and Standard Chartered literally evacuated their offices this week. Told staff go home, work remote. HSBC closed their Qatar branches. Hedge funds are in "contingency mode." That's a polite way of saying they're bricking it. Analysts are saying customers could pull out $307 BILLION if this goes on another month. $307 billion. Let that number sit for a second. Bank withdrawals are "elevated" — that's the official word. A guy I know who works at Emirates NBD told me they've had more wire transfer requests in the last two weeks than in all of Q4 last year. Iranian accounts? Those are getting flagged and frozen quietly. No announcement. The UAE central bank just launched their biggest support package since COVID. That's not a good sign — that's a panic button. People are moving money to Singapore, Switzerland, anywhere that isn't in Iran's flight path. The dirham is pegged to the dollar so it looks stable. But that peg costs money to defend, and everyone's watching it.

Up to five years to rebuild. This madness MUST STOP SOON or the destruction upon humanity in the months to come will be almost unimaginable.

The selloff in silver over the past 15 days has been one of the most extreme moves we’ve seen in history. Only two other episodes are comparable: One marked a major peak, the other a major bottom. Personally, I have never seen a true peak in precious metals under conditions like these: · Supply historically constrained · The capex cycle still near record lows · Large new discoveries virtually nonexistent · Stagnant production · No meaningful new projects coming online More importantly, the entire industry still represents only ~1% of global equity markets. Let’s dive into a few ideas: tavicosta.substack.com/p/gold-time-to…

A rate hike won't address an oil supply shock - the Fed learned this lesson the hard way several decades ago, so it's good to see that's not their kneejerk response:

If Netanyahu is saying this, expect that the White House will soon begin or has already begun looking for an “off ramp” in the conflict against Iran.

LOL And almost 1MM views

Scorpio Gold Drills 24.69 Metres Grading 0.75 g/t Gold, from 230.12 Metres at Black Mammoth, a 250 Metre Step-Out from Goldwedge, at the Manhattan District, Nevada $SGN.V tinyurl.com/26lyjyw3

Remember, if the big banks are "offering" you a way to make money, you're the exit liquidity.

The good news is that the CME has had no "technical issues" during this silver crash.

Gold Miners Bullish Percent Index Reading of 3.7 out of an index of 0-100. What a complete collapse in sentiment. From a contrarian perspective, sentiment may be getting washed out.

TRUMP: DON'T KNOW IF WARSH WILL EVER MOVE INTO FED BUILDING

Seven clocks are running. None of them negotiable. All of them counting down to the same weeks. The planting clock. Mid-April is the biological deadline for corn and soybean planting across the US Midwest. Every day that passes without nitrogen becoming affordable and available narrows the window for corn. USDA projects corn falling to 94 million acres from 98.8 million. Soybeans rising to 85 million from 81.2 million. The seeds that go into the ground in the next three weeks determine America’s grain harvest in October. The decision is irreversible. The USDA clock. March 31. Prospective Plantings. The report that converts farmer intentions into official data. Every acreage number, every corn-soy ratio, every nitrogen-dependent calculation becomes a published fact that traders, governments, and food agencies will use to model global supply for the next twelve months. The number arrives in twelve days. The FAO clock. April 3. The Food Price Index. The first global reading that captures post-Hormuz commodity prices across cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat, and sugar. The 2022 peak was 159.7 in March 2022 after Ukraine. This reading will incorporate oil above $100, urea at $610, LNG halted, packaging repriced, and freight surcharges of $500 to $1,500 per container. The number that determines whether the UN declares a food emergency arrives in fifteen days. The pharmaceutical clock. India’s API inventory buffers are two to three months, measured from the war’s onset on February 28. Late May is the depletion window. Methanol at 87.7 percent Hormuz exposure feeds the solvent chain for paracetamol, ibuprofen, metformin, and antibiotics. Once buffers deplete, the shortage becomes a patient access crisis for the 47 percent of US generics that originate in India. The China crude clock. FGE NexantECA confirmed China is drawing commercial reserves at up to one million barrels per day. The draw sustains refinery operations for four to six weeks from March 19. Mid-April to late April is the exhaustion window. After that, China faces three options: accelerate Russian pipeline imports, reroute at massive premium, or crack open the strategic petroleum reserve. The third option reprices every commodity on the planet. The helium clock. SK Hynix and Samsung hold two to three months of helium inventory. Late May to early June is the depletion window. South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar. Ras Laffan is offline. If helium buffers deplete before alternative supply arrives, semiconductor fabrication faces rationing. The AI hardware supply chain hits a physical wall measured in months, not quarters. The insurance clock. Solvency II requires 30 to 60 days of zero incidents before P&I clubs can reinstate war risk coverage. Even after a ceasefire, the insurance normalisation takes six to sixteen months based on the Red Sea precedent of 26 months and counting. The logistics system lags the financial relief rally by the longest duration of any clock in this crisis. Seven clocks. The shortest expires in twelve days. The longest runs for over a year. The planting window, the USDA report, the FAO index, the drug buffers, the Chinese crude draw, the helium inventory, and the insurance cycle are all counting down simultaneously. None of them pause for diplomacy. None of them respond to presidential directives. None of them read sealed packets. The calendar is the only actor in this war that has never lost a negotiation. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Cash Dubai crude (balance of the month) just broke above $170 per barrel. To my knowledge, no crude has ever commanded more than $170/bbl before.

The amount of panic in my inbox over this #Gold sell-off is a good contrarian indicator. If you are losing sleep over a short-term dip, you aren't looking at the big picture. Gold is still up double-digits in almost every major currency this year. Don't let recency bias shake you out of a generational bull run. The data speaks for itself. 👇

Silver < $70. Warned a month ago that Jane Street becoming the biggest marginal price setter guarantees a rug pull

Who buys Qatar's LNG exports?

U.S. officials have detected unidentified drones above Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C. over the last two weeks, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live, according to three people briefed on the situation who spoke to the Washington Post. Officials have not determined where they came from, two of the people said, though the military is monitoring potential threats more closely because of the heightened alert level due to the Iran War. Multiple drones were spotted over Fort McNair on a single night in the last 10 days, the official said, prompting increased security measures and a meeting on how to respond at the White House. The drone sightings prompted officials to weigh relocating Rubio and Hegseth, two of the people briefed said. The senior administration official said the secretaries haven’t moved. Their quarters on the base were publicly reported by multiple outlets in October.

🚨🇮🇷 Iran just hit 9 countries in a single night, including 7 of the wealthiest nations on earth This was Tehran's answer to Israel striking the South Pars gas field, the world's largest, earlier today. The most intense retaliatory barrage of the entire war, and Iran is now the only country on the planet simultaneously attacking seven of the richest nations by GDP per capita: 🇮🇱 Israel: Ballistic missiles and cluster munitions over central Israel. Two killed in Ramat Gan. Four Palestinian women killed in the West Bank by an Iranian missile. 🇶🇦 Qatar ($110K GDP per capita): 14 ballistic missiles fired. Ras Laffan LNG hub suffered "extensive damage" confirmed by QatarEnergy. 🇦🇪 UAE ($100K): 13 ballistic missiles and 27 attack drones intercepted. Iran threatening imminent strikes on energy facilities. 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia ($35K): Evacuation orders issued for Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex. Waves of missiles intercepted over Riyadh. 🇰🇼 Kuwait ($75K): Ballistic missiles intercepted. U.S. facilities targeted again. 🇧🇭 Bahrain ($65K): U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters under continued assault throughout the war. 🇴🇲 Oman ($32K): Drone strikes on industrial zones. Workers killed. The last neutral Gulf state is now taking fire. 🇯🇴 Jordan: U.S. bases struck as part of the widening multi-front campaign. 🇮🇶 Iraq: U.S. Embassy in Baghdad under nightly drone siege. Combined GDP per capita of the Gulf states under attack: over $417,000. These are some of the most prosperous, developed nations on earth, and Iran is hitting all of them simultaneously while its own economy collapses. This is Operation Madman at full throttle: torch the region's wealth until the world demands the war stops. Source: @rami_hashimi / Reuters / @itswpceo

Cool map showing the energy disruptions in the Middle East. @SoberLook