Pre-market data are pointing lower for the metals this morning, and most of our portfolio is going to be pointing down with them. Opening your brokerage app this morning will feel like stubbing your toe, stepping on a Lego with bare feet, and getting salt blown in your eye.
I recommend skipping it.
This morning hurts
Miners amplify every move in the metal price, in both directions. That leverage is the reason these shares climbed as far as they did. It is also the reason they fall this hard on a morning like this one, with Treasury yields climbing.
Today is not the day to remind you how often I tell you to keep cash on hand. Emergency fund first. Dry powder second. But I am going to be a total jerk and remind you anyway, because today is a day that brings it home.
Today is also probably not the day to sell in a panic to raise cash. It is, however, a day to remember when our stocks come back up and the enthusiasm is running hot, because that is when it will next be time to build up the cash supply. We all hope that day comes, and comes soon, as it has been doing all year, up and down like a roller coaster. Heck, it may come this afternoon.
Remember today. If you don’t have enough cash, consider generating it at the next opportunity.
Dollar-cost averaging earns its keep on days like this
If your cash supply is adequate, great! Personally, I dollar-cost average every single market day. It’s done automatically by my broker. When prices fall like this morning, the same dollars buy me more shares and my average cost drops. A red day like this, well, it’s a sale day! You know how much fun it is to buy something good on sale.
Sure, dollar-cost averaging does not erase the loss. It dulls it, the way a local anesthetic does. It is glass-half-full thinking on a day like today.
In my case, the cash I deploy for my daily stock purchases comes from my weekly options premiums, much of which I earn on Mondays like today.
Today I get to sell some puts
Another way to dull the pain is to deploy some cash collateral (if you have plenty) to sell put options on some of these positions that you have wanted to accumulate. We have a variety of optionable securities in our Crisis Investing portfolio and the monthly table notes which stocks have useful option chains. Selling puts brings an immediate return on the cash, and if the puts get assigned on Friday, you will be buying the stock at a price you are, as of today, happy to pay.
I presented my version of the option wheel to Crisis Investing premium subscribers in the monthly issue on July 31 of this year (2026). I run the wheel every week. As a result, these sorts of down days on a Monday morning don’t bother me much. As long as they don’t happen too many weeks in a row, I get to have fun selling some puts at lower strikes and higher premiums than usual. Translation—I get more immediate cash in, and if the puts are assigned, I’ve bought the stock at a lower price.
Indeed, for those who run the option wheel, today is an opportunity. It’s not perfect. If I deploy all my option cash collateral this week and our markets keep falling for two months, the option wheel turns far slower or stops for a while. That’s how the wheel rolls.
The inflation thesis is solid
Nothing in this morning’s market prices changes the logic behind our positions. Governments spend more than they collect. Central bankers manufacture the difference. Each dollar buys a little less than the one before it. A contrary day does not change that.
Treasury yields are rising in part because buyers want compensation for inflation. Higher yields compete with gold, which pays no interest, and that is a headwind for the gold price in the short run. But that same inflation raises demand for gold while eroding the dollars gold is priced in. And that’s a strong, long-standing, continuous tailwind for the gold price. This month has been blustery, with the winds coming from different directions but I expect the prevailing tailwinds will dominate again soon.
A down day in a gold stock does not change the ore body, and it does not change the printing press. Prices will wander as the emotions of the players go up and down. The currency debasement keeps marching onward. Our case for owning real assets will be no weaker at the close today than it was at the close on Friday.
Opportunities
We will keep seeing days like this. I cannot tell you where a bottom is. What I can tell you is that we try to size positions so that a bad day is survivable, we hold cash so that a bad day is an opportunity, and we own these companies in part for the comfort they provide to us as those who run governments and central banks destroy the currencies.
If your positions are not comforting, but rather keeping you awake tonight, that is something worth fixing. If you plan on needing cash soon, today is a bummer day and this morning is a nasty reminder. Start planning on enlarging your cash cushion so that it is a nice pillow you can rest your head on again.
Sincerely,
John Hunt, MD
Editor, Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing
I know that Doug & Matt are geniuses who walk on water and are legends in their own minds; but you might want to tell them that their dog shit penny gold mining stocks are dead money until there is a sustained drop in petroleum distillate prices.
Great article for a morning like today!
I was already lining up trades to spend some "dry powder" on under-allocated mining positions. Also gonna scoop up some physical gold