Darrell Fletcher – Copper’s Surge, NatGas Holding $4, and Gold’s Safe Haven Strength
Darrell Fletcher, Managing Director Commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets joins me to share trading desk insights on the major commodity markets, copper, natural gas, oil, and gold, all moving under the weight of global trade tensions and policy uncertainty.
We begin with copper, which continues to quietly trade above $5.20/lb on COMEX, hitting all-time highs relative to the LME. Darrell highlights the widening US-global pricing gaps across copper, aluminum, and steel, all pointing to pre-tariff stockpiling and a structurally shifting US market. He notes that tariffs appear priced in almost 1:1, and the copper forward curve remains in contango, suggesting a sustained bullish structure.
On natural gas, Darrell sees a “guarded” market, with prices hovering near $4 amid disciplined supply, mild weather, and stronger-than-expected LNG demand. While storage remains 10% below the 5-year average, it’s not yet flashing a major supply crunch—but a hot summer could quickly change that balance.
Oil remains the quiet outlier, grinding below $70 with OPEC+ gradually returning supply and bearish sentiment weighing on the outlook. The $65 level is a key support zone, if broken prices could drop sharply.
Lastly, gold continues to outperform, holding above $3,000 and benefiting from growing global uncertainty and a lack of clear policy direction. Darrell notes it remains the one asset without counterparty risk, and in today’s environment, that makes it especially attractive.
I got out of NFG hours before the fall, but I think there is more funny business going on than what people have been discussing in the recent articles. I will leave it at that. DT
I have decided to dump it. The sector is in a far better position than most realize right now so there’s no reason to risk trapping capital on one of the few boats that might not rise with the tide.
I thought that and did that about a year ago with IPT.
That’s quite the apples-to-oranges comparison. I’ve continued to buy IPT and will probably buy more this week.
It’s about dogs, not spples and oranges.
For you it’s about price risk. For me it’s about actual risk versus reward.
IPT Q4 and year end earnings should be out soon.
When buying for leverage most seem to forget that leverage works in both directions. Anything that can go 10x quickly can drop 80 or 90 percent quickly without any company-specific bad news.
Here’s monthly Silver:Gold and IPT to illustrate the point:
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24SILVER%3A%24GOLD&p=M&yr=20&mn=0&dy=0&id=p74189429751&a=1939423987&r=1743044071109&cmd=print
Here is some IPT company specific negative news.
They do private placements that only benefit insiders.
After years of drawing salaries, IPT insiders choose not to invest in the company and hold very little of company shares.
They have a Davidson family accounting firm doing their books which seems like a conflict.
Your first claim is demonstrably untrue and your second one is meaningless. Management has enough skin in the game for a bunch of geos past retirement age. Most young people shouldn’t speculate in junior miners and older people have no good reason to. Their incomes are already tied to the health of the company.
I get the feeling you don’t realize that the likes of AG and CDE fell almost as much as IPT since topping in ’20/’21. All three fell more than 80% but less than 90% and only IPT suffered significant dilution (due to the Plomosas deal). If not for that it might have fallen less than its much larger counterparts.
The chart above tells the story for those who can read it. No it doesn’t guarantee anything but it also does not show any reason to conclude that history won’t repeat.
Matthew whenever I see IPT mentioned here, I will have something negative to say about it.
Hey Matthew. Has the Plomosas deal not turned IPT into more of a zinc play now and has it become an issue with getting it up and running properly??? ….. I sold mine when it just seemed to be lagging still and wanted to buy more EMO instead. Always watching IPT for signs that it will start to play catch up. Might miss start of the big move but tired of waiting while other plays were moving
Wolfster, there’s been plenty of dilution and for many, uncertainty because of the acquisition, which obviously affected the company’s performance for awhile. I think that’s behind us for the most part at this point but there are warrants well above the current level.
As for Plomosas I’m not aware of any issues getting it running properly. The company knew from the start that there was plenty of work to be done. Revenue from Zacualpan is well over double the revenue from Plomosas but that will probably change soon.
As for leverage, last year’s 171% move on silver briefly outperforming gold tells me it’s intact. See my chart above. The company has always required silver to outperform gold to do well. The same hasn’t been true of large silver miners because most of them mine a lot of gold, in some cases more gold than silver.
We are currently set for the strongest bull market in at least 20+ years (my opinion) so the warrants above will probably pose little if any issue. The only obstacle appears to be the stock market. Silver:Gold might move up from here if stocks manage to move up from here but it would be much better if stocks would get their next big decline out of the way. That would set the stage for silver to beat gold convincingly and for a long time. But it’s nice to see silver outperforming gold today while the stock market is down. Since history rhymes more than repeats maybe the stock market won’t need to reach a major low for silver to start to shine. The writing’s on the wall after all.
Believe it or not silver has outperformed gold since the two bottomed in 2022 and more so since the two bottomed in 2020.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SLV%3AGLD&p=W&yr=5&mn=6&dy=0&id=p29816339072&a=1752398645
Here’s the same chart but with IPT and SILJ added for an interesting comparison.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SLV%3AGLD&p=W&yr=5&mn=6&dy=0&id=p20214667803&a=1752398645
SPY:GLD was even able to achieve a single close above its daily KAMA on its initial bounce from oversold.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SPY%3AGLD&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p62955953457&a=1922510607
Not a pretty monthly picture:
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=SPY%3AGLD&p=M&yr=13&mn=0&dy=0&id=p59623657212&a=1084718636&r=1743101503022&cmd=print
https://www.tradingview.com/x/2vx53KJy/
DOLLAR : Afternoon Breakout!