While many precious metals investors realize the massive amount of paper trading leverage taking place in the gold market, they should see what is going on in the silver market. In a previous article, I provided data showing that an amazing $9.8 trillion of notional gold paper trading took place on the world’s exchanges in 2016 versus $42 billion in actual physical gold investment. This was a paper to physical ratio of 233 to 1.

However, the amount of paper trading leverage in the silver market is much higher than that.

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A new day is dawning for precious metals. Gold and silver – the world's oldest money – are "connecting" with the newest money, digital cryptocurrencies. The final outcome of this nexus is unpredictable, but it is foolhardy to ignore what is taking place.

Central governments around the globe have waged, against their own citizens, a virtual "War on Cash." Efforts by Sweden to become "cash-free;" progressive "downsizing" of Eurozone currency units; a currency recall in India that affected 1.3 billion people; solemn talk about eliminating $100 and even $50 bills in the U.S. - all in the supposed fight against "drug dealing and tax evasion."

It's really about people control.

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The first 100 days of the Trump administration have brought some surprises and disappointments – as well as some new threats and new opportunities for precious metals investors.

Among the disappointments was President Trump’s inability to push Obamacare repeal through Congress. The White House intended for the GOP’s replacement to reduce the deficit and lay the groundwork for tax cuts.

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Investors are under-estimating inflation risk. As a consequence, they are under-pricing inflation protecting assets including precious metals.

The Federal Reserve has given itself the objective of engineering an inflation rate of around 2%. However, there are many ways in which real-world inflation can potentially outpace the Fed’s 2% target.

Firstly, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauges are flawed. The so-called “core” rate of consumer price inflation strips out food and energy costs. The core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index has also been criticized for underweighting housing and medical costs.

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