All That Matters: Shiny Signals

Ross: Welcome back to All That Matters. It’s February 2026, and one story that’s been dominating the headlines is precious metals. Gold. Silver. Vertical charts. Non-stop questions. You can’t turn on the news without hearing about it.

Mike, you were ahead of this. You wrote a blog earlier this month breaking it down but let’s talk through it again, in real time. What’s actually driving this move?

What’s Driving the Move? 

Mike: When gold and silver started going parabolic, that was the first question we heard from our clients and advisors: What’s going on? So, I sat down and tried to simplify the four reasons I believe were behind the move:  

1. Worries about global debt and money printing. Gold and silver always live in the world of global debt and money printing. Central banks like owning hard assets, and when debt levels rise, those concerns never fully go away. That’s always part of the story.  
2. The role of the United States on the global stage. There are international investors who are questioning where we’re headed long term, so some capital has been moving out of U.S. assets and into things like gold and silver. Again, not new, but it matters. 

Where things get more interesting are reasons three and four. 

3. The financial industrial complex around gold and silver: ETFs, leveraged ETFs, futures contracts, even crypto projects that are backed by physical metals. That creates competition for the asset. When people start worrying about supply, prices can move — fast. 
4. The “memeification” of gold and silver. We’ve seen this movie before. GameStop. AMC. Retail investors piling in together, chasing momentum. One of the clearest tells this time was options activity — millions of call options bought on silver in a single week. That’s short-term trading behavior, not long-term asset allocation. 

The surge of competing investors and the “memeification” of the asset is how we saw gold run to 5,500 and silver hit 120. And it’s also why, just as quickly, gold fell back to 4,600 and silver dropped into the 70s. These moves cut both ways. 

What Should Investors Do? 

Ross: What Mike said about cutting both ways really matters. We’ve lived with a backdrop of rising sovereign debt for decades. We’ve lived with trade tensions and shifts in global power. None of that suddenly changed this year – even if it’s gotten louder. So why did the gold chart suddenly look like a vertical line? What changed was leverage, retail activity, and a sharp increase in FOMO. 

So, the key question for our clients and advisors becomes: What do you do with this? If you’re a long-term investor with a diversified portfolio, how should you think about precious metals? 

Mike: I attempted to consider every reason a wealth management client might consider owning gold or silver, and I kept coming back to five:  

1. The price is going up. From a client’s perspective, this is unfortunately the most common reason and also the worst one. Chasing performance is pure FOMO, and that’s often how investors ended up buying high and selling low.  
2. A belief that the world is slowly shifting away from U.S. dominance. If that’s part of your long-term worldview, it might support a small allocation – and it’s worth a conversation with your Baird Financial Advisor. But that’s a decades long thesis, not a three-month trade. 
3. The fear of a collapse in the U.S. dollar. If that’s your concern, it likely raises bigger questions about everything else in your portfolio as well. It’s not a very practical framework for long-term financial planning.  
4. Prepping for a “financial apocalypse”  – owning gold bars for doomsday. That might feel comforting in theory, but in reality, it’s unlikely you’d be able to use these assets for everyday purchases like rent or groceries.  
5. The best reason: diversification. Wanting an asset that behaves differently than the rest of your portfolio is a real conversation to have with your advisor. 

Some of these reasons can sound a bit cynical, but they reflect what we often see in practice. Interest in gold and silver is frequently tied to broader concerns about uncertainty in the world. The key for our clients is making sure any allocation is intentional, well‑understood, and aligned with your long‑term financial plan – not driven by fear or headlines.   

Gold, Silver, and FOMO

Ross: Gold doesn’t have cash flows. Silver isn’t driving economic growth. Precious metals are stores of value that investors hope will hedge against calamity, inflation and geopolitical risk – sometimes useful, sometimes not. Longterm investing requires optimism, but it also requires surviving periods of volatility.  

All of this warrants a conversation. There is a reasonable argument that the post COVID world may look meaningfully different from the one we’ve lived in, and in that context, certain alternative assets may have a role. Diversification can make sense over 10, 15, or 20 years. But what we’ve seen lately isn’t that. It’s a short-term surge driven by stories of easy money. 

That brings us back to FOMO. We’ve spent years talking about bubbles in AI and tech stocks. And yet silver recently looked more like a bubble than almost anything else. 

There’s a quote from Morgan Housel that really captures it: “Having no FOMO might be the most important investing skill. Being immune to the siren song of other people’s success – especially when it’s sudden and extreme – is practically required to do well over time.” 

If you can look at gold and silver and say, “Maybe this has a small role – but I don’t need to chase it,” that’s a win. 

Mike: You don’t have to own everything. A chart going straight up is not a reason to buy. Be clear about why you own what you own and how it fits into your plan. Gold and silver fell hard after their recent peaks. Losses were real. You don’t want to learn that lesson the hard way. 

Ross: Thanks for the conversation, Mike. And thanks to everyone watching. We’ll see you next month for another episode of All That Matters.