Hello there.

2025 was a crazy year, and we think 2026 will be even more wild. Elon Musk sure seems optimistic, but there are a lot of people who aren’t convinced. You know what we’re sure of, though? There will be great memes regardless. This is a golden age for memes.

This week, we’ve got…

Let’s get crackin’.

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The precious metals market just delivered a textbook manipulation play, and the timing couldn't be more suspicious. Silver dropped nearly 15% last week after CME Group hiked margin requirements to an eye-watering $25,000, forcing retail traders into liquidation while bullion banks quietly covered their shorts. And here’s the open secret: this engineered selloff happened literally hours before China's silver export ban officially kicked in, restricting what Seeking Alpha calls approximately 70% of global physical supply.

The disconnect is wild. While COMEX paper silver got hammered, Shanghai prices stayed elevated, and physical premiums spiked. This isn't your typical correction but rather a forced liquidation designed to save deeply underwater institutions from an actual supply squeeze. We're watching a real-time decoupling between paper and physical markets.

So, paper traders getting margin-called lost this round, but who won? Well, time will tell, but for now, physical silver investors, mining royalty companies like Metalla Royalty (MTA) and Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM), plus ETFs tracking physical metal like Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV), could see outsized upside as this paper-physical split plays out.

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Remember when Wall Street thought Trump was just trolling about tariffs? Pepperidge Farm remembers. And Wall Street was hilariously wrong. The US effective tariff rate went from a chill 2.5% to over 15% in less than 12 months, marking the highest levels since your great-grandparents were complaining about the New Deal.

The wild part? The S&P 500 still ripped 18% higher in 2025, mostly because AI companies are printing money faster than the Fed during a crisis. But make no mistake, this isn't temporary election-year posturing. Analysts are basically unanimous that 15% is the new normal for 2026, which means "Made in America" is about to become a lot more expensive (and a lot more common).

The playbook for investors is shifting hard. Companies with domestic supply chains, reshoring beneficiaries, and firms that can actually pass costs to consumers without getting murdered on earnings calls are the new darlings. Import-heavy retailers and anyone still pretending globalization is coming back? Good luck with that.

Elected officials have had a tremendous amount of success in the market recently.

We want to keep you updated on what they’re trading and when so you can leverage that intel as you plan out your own portfolio.

Data provided by AltIndex.

Remember to always DYOR.

That’s all for today. Write us and let us know your thoughts on the market, the newsletter, or the weather—we’d just love to hear from you.

Till next time,
— Brandon and Blake with Invested Inc.