Silver Shortage & Why Gold Is Dominant Asset | Andrew Sleigh

Kellen Ainey (00:01)
Hi everyone and once again welcome back to the Ask Andrew podcast. My name is Kellen Aney and we are joined by Andrew Slay. Hi Andrew, how are you?

Andrew Sleigh (00:12)
I'm good, Kellen Thanks a lot for having me back.

Kellen Ainey (00:12)
It's been a busy couple of weeks I'm sure.

⁓ I've been very busy. I'm sure you've been very busy. ⁓ Gold markets have been pretty much everywhere. Silver markets are absolutely booming. So I'm sure we've both had our hands full to say the least.

Without a doubt. So why don't we dive right into our first question. They're a little bit more in depth here. In late September 2025, reports showed that China and India imported significant amounts of gold, even as prices hit record levels. And now, beginning November 1st, China has cut its 13 % value added tax exemption down to 6 % for certain gold purchases on the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange. What do you...

Andrew Sleigh (00:31)
Super interesting couple weeks.

Kellen Ainey (00:59)
What do these moves suggest about China's underlying demand for gold and how could the VAT reduction affect the physical gold market moving going forward?

It is a very in-depth question.

Andrew Sleigh (01:13)
That's a long question.

⁓ think ⁓ the easy answer to that is it's going to show that there's going be an increase in gold physical shipped into ⁓ China. And ⁓ so that means just demand will go higher and be more buying. So which would mean less available out there. I can't get into anything more than that because I don't fully understand all of that question with the VAT and all the taxes and how that's going to

exactly have an impact, but all of that is designed to improve and increase purchasing of gold by said parties.

Kellen Ainey (01:50)
Okay, so you just

think it's going to continue driving up the sales of gold in China, affecting more the consumer than it is the, well, the central banks?

Andrew Sleigh (02:04)
Yeah, if that VAT is geared towards the retail purchaser and it's lowered, then that's opening the gates for encouraging more purchasing. And so that's going to be ⁓ the physical demand from the institutional side, banks, the bullion banks particularly, and various countries around the world. If this VAT is going to be towards the retail purchaser, then they're just expanding the market that's one of the largest in the world to continue buying.

you know, the citizens of those countries.

Kellen Ainey (02:33)
And do you think they're kind of dropping

the VAT tax in an attempt to keep people interested in gold and silver amid the insane prices, especially gold, because the buy-in price has just tripled over the last, well, not tripled, but doubled over the last year or so?

Andrew Sleigh (02:57)
Well, it's a good question. ⁓ If I was going to freelance a little bit on my ⁓ opinion on that, ⁓ I think they're just trying to encourage the BRICS nations as well as of course their own country, China and its citizens to ⁓ buy as much physical silver and gold, gold first, silver after for them ⁓ as possible because there's a storm coming and it's going to be the hegemony of the United States dollar.

will be replaced as a dollar of trade at some point down the road. When the US dollar collapses, the citizens of the world in their countries, if their country cannot peg their currency to gold, then those countries' currencies will all be destroyed. And that means the savings of those people in those countries will be destroyed. So I think China is trying to position itself that if it as a country and its people

are armed to the teeth in gold and silver that when all this stuff starts to unravel they have a minimal effect in loss of anything and they'll commode the next world power.

Kellen Ainey (04:05)
So you're basically saying that countries are going to need to get their dollars back or not their dollars, but their currency back on the gold standards to have any level of relevance in trading around the world.

Perfect. Just wanted to consolidate that because you are right, that was a very long-winded question.

Andrew Sleigh (04:26)
And that was a good summary too, by the way.

Kellen Ainey (04:28)
Well, you know, ⁓ I do spend a lot of time talking on the phones, right? So ⁓ let's move on here.

Between VAT or sales tax in some reasons and rising physical premiums, new investors can feel discouraged and even experienced buyers sometimes hesitate. What advice would you give to both new and seasoned investors to stay confident and motivated and continuing to build their precious metals positions despite these added costs?

Andrew Sleigh (04:59)
Well, we don't have any of those in Canada. So I'm not sure what nations are having ⁓ this VAT is standing for.

Kellen Ainey (05:07)
It is

the tags that I mentioned earlier.

Andrew Sleigh (05:13)
Yeah, the value of a tax what in Italy that they're talking about?

Kellen Ainey (05:14)
It wasn't listed the

where exactly it's used ⁓ I can confirm we don't have the AT on bullying trading in Canada and I don't believe they have it in the states either but this is just more of a international level question at the same time.

Andrew Sleigh (05:31)
Okay, so speaking just in the broadest ⁓ spectrum, ⁓ whatever country may introduce some kind of taxation, at least kicking something around with some kind of heritage tax where you have inherited money from wherever, from like a family member from long ago, ⁓ any kind of taxation that's brought into play in any country, you have to think of it in terms of A, if it's

You can introduce any tax you want to and going forward that may increase the cost of buying something. ⁓ The alternative is you stay in currency, whatever country you're in, and that currency is losing purchasing power at an accelerating ⁓ rate every year. So for an example, if you have a million dollars and you stay in whatever currency that represents,

in whatever country, eventually, your million dollars will be worth nothing. You'll have no purchasing power. years prior, you would take the million dollars and buy whatever gold, silver, and yes, you pay whatever tax. There might be a sales tax, VAT tax, whatever kind of tax the government is dreaming up. And let's call that 10 % for a number.

So you have a 10 % additional cost on your million bucks worth of, ⁓ so that means you're roughly buying 900 grand worth of metal and you're paying a hundred grand with a tax. Timeline that out a few years, what do you have more at the end of the day? You're 900 grand to whatever future value that is and you retain your value. Or if you stayed out of the metal market because you didn't want to pay tax, you have nothing to show for it in the future and you are impoverished, you lose the million. So,

you have to focus on what this long-term, I would say not even long-term anymore. This is going to be a short to midterm type of timeline where currencies are all going to start to fail. And if you remain in currency, you will lose what you have. Or you pay a tax, whatever country that's in and reposition in the metal. And then, you know, all you've lost is whatever that percentage is in tax. That's how I would look at it.

Kellen Ainey (07:49)
Now just to confirm, you even said the staying in

currency. Would you apply that to US markets as well, just stock markets in general?

Andrew Sleigh (07:59)
⁓ every market in the west

Kellen Ainey (07:59)
wanted to clarify that for our viewers

as well. No, I do agree and I've seen it where a lot of our clients even in 2022 they couldn't get over the gold prices and they believe they are going to come down, they were going to come down. Gold has absolutely skyrocketed to the point where a lot of central banks feel like they've missed out. So we've kind of hit this endgame situation and you're not wrong. I don't see it being a down the line scenario.

It's more so it's really on our doorstep right now.

Andrew Sleigh (08:37)
I don't think the bullion banks ⁓ are feeling too much like they're missing out. Not that I'm correcting you, but just for the audience is that every time they are, you know, we have a down day, they're loading up.

Kellen Ainey (08:51)
not so much the bullion banks. I was saying the

banks that didn't buy into bullion. They're feeling like they had missed out. No, bullion banks are as happy as they could be right now.

Andrew Sleigh (09:03)
well, yeah, the banks that haven't been participating in this, I don't know if they're completely unaware. ⁓ So they are not even aware that they're swimming in shark-infested waters or... ⁓

they are just going to be sacrificial lambs. So I know that when this gets going, that there will be the general public sooner or later when this financial crisis occurs, ⁓ there's going to be an awful lot of people that wake up and realize that the cruise ship, gold and silver have left the dock. well, then it's, when you're watching the ship leave the harbor, you're not on it.

Kellen Ainey (09:38)
Well, it's also just, go ahead, sorry.

Andrew Sleigh (09:48)
And that's going to be a very sad situation for individuals. The banks not buying it, I could care less really. Good for them. So because they're going to just fade into an oblivion anyway. they don't have a future right now.

Kellen Ainey (10:02)
believe me, wasn't trying

to garner any sympathy for the major banks of Canada.

Let's move on here. So gold and silver have been swinging aggressively this year with silver outperforming gold. Up more than 100%. We can believe it, you can believe it, but the people who didn't buy it still can't believe it. With the headlines now saying gold and silver are slipping on profit taking ahead of key US data, what's your view? Is this the moment for investors to book profits or is there a bigger picture people should be paying attention to?

Andrew Sleigh (10:40)
Oh, by far a bigger picture. If people are just trading, you know, thinking about trading, taking profits, then let the traders do that on the paper markets. As far as people who are stacking physical metal, your play is not to trade. Your play is to stack and get your assets off the grid and out of harm's way. And don't worry about, you know, where it's going up and it has a pullback and you're going to sell and...

try and buy back later. That's all hindsight. It's easy to do that. as you know, Kellan, look at what's available. We now have allocation going on from the Canadian mint. So we can't just order whatever we want from Maples and stuff anymore. And bars have been virtually non-existent from the mint this year. So inventory of silver is very problematic. so somebody that takes profit, ⁓

today at whatever price and then silver and gold continue to move up for another couple of weeks. So what does that client do now? Do they buy back in or they're like, well, I want to have a pullback and buy lower. Well, maybe the lower never happens. Not that it's never going to happen, but, you know, gold and silver could continue to go up another whatever, let's say 30%. And then the client buys in.

Kellen Ainey (11:53)
Exactly. No, exactly.

But I would even say that I had a lot of clients that were looking for silver to fall below $50 USD and kind of maintain a below position of $50 USD to buy in at. And it's maintained its position and done even better over the last week. So now the question is, is it going to maintain the position that it's in right now currently? Or is it going to go and return back to $50?

Andrew Sleigh (12:07)
and then it has its retrace.

Kellen Ainey (12:30)
But regardless, I don't see it dropping back to that sub 50, that $40 USD evaluation. Now it may do that. Again, I don't have the crystal ball. You don't have the crystal ball, but the date on the, like the writing on the wall has been saying that silver skyrocketing for years at this point, coming down to the scarcity of it, coming down to the industrial usage. I believe from 2022 to 2023, it rose from 5%. So there's another 5 % taken away from.

the investing side of things.

Andrew Sleigh (13:06)
So, you you have this 45 year cup and handle that's been now broken. That's extremely bullish and a fairly rare sign. And it's the largest cup and handle formation of, for not only silver, but almost any asset that anyone can even think of. And that's tremendous pressure for something to go up. You know, in, you're talking about, let's say the odds are it's going to go up, not down. Now, nothing goes up without a break and a breather. We had that.

a couple of months back. But the trend will be upward. ⁓ And as you just said, the scarcity, ⁓ the volume that's being bought around the planet, these are very real. ⁓ A couple of weeks ago, the largest Indian mint apparently ran out of silver.

So you like you put that's Indian Mint and then you have the the Royal Mint in Britain that ⁓ this is two months old information. I don't know what the latest is but you know they were only minting silver Britannia coins not a single other product.

Kellen Ainey (14:14)
I believe it was similar with the Royal Canadian Mint as well. I can't speak to that, but I was speaking with a contact of mine and majority of the silver that they were receiving was just being all dedicated to the new mintage of the 2026 Maple. Because as you know, there's been a shortage of the 100 ounce bars. The 10 ounce bars have been hit and miss, but the big problem has been that 100 ounce Royal Canadian Mint bar.

Andrew Sleigh (14:14)
You know, no bars of any sort. And so what's going on there?

Kellen Ainey (14:38)
And I've tried to source, I've asked about sourcing anything like that. And it's just all silver is being dedicated towards those maples.

Andrew Sleigh (14:49)
Well, ⁓ the demand for the Maples has not been high enough to redirect all those buyers. I think the buyers were redirected to the COMEX. Like in thousand ounce denominations, they were taken inventory. Nobody can prove any of this because nobody will answer that question. But the retail demand has not been that high that they've had to redirect ⁓ silver that came in to go to manufacturing silver Maples.

Kellen Ainey (14:53)
Exactly.

Andrew Sleigh (15:16)
It's not been that busy to suck all that inventory out of the mint. When you have nothing but the Britannia's being made, I think, and this is the first time in history, it's slow around the world on the retail side. It's really very busy at the institutional end that are wanting all the thousand ounce buyers. I think the thousand ounce buyers are being redirected. And therefore if they're being redirected,

Kellen Ainey (15:38)
those. Yeah.

Andrew Sleigh (15:46)
They're just maintaining the inventory of thousand ounce bars they need to make the coins, but they're sacrificing the hundred ounce, 10 ounce, five ounce, whatever they make at Red Evermint. And I think that's what's going on. The U S mint only made 20 % of the Eagles this year so far that they made last year. 20%. Like, like that's astonishing number to me. ⁓

Kellen Ainey (15:54)
Exactly.

Wow.

Wow, that is very, that's...

Andrew Sleigh (16:12)
The Perth mint was out of silver two months ago. They had none to sell. So you have all that plus the Indian mint. And then of course the Rand mint was out of silver. I mean, this has never happened since you and I've been working at this company. And so ⁓ these are all abnormal. And it's not that the retail, at least in the Western countries has been that busy that has sucked the inventory out. It's been the institutional side.

Kellen Ainey (16:38)
The most, to your point, the most

difficult times we had with sourcing was of course COVID due to logistics. And then you have the border issue as well, ⁓ just because a lot of metals are sourced out of the States and now with all the tariffs that are introduced into play. But we've never actually ran into the issue of not being able to source the metals itself. Whereas there is, and I had a...

I had an individual reach out to me asking, and he already knew the information, he knew the answer to it, saying, how's it looking on the silver? Has it been difficult to source? And this was four or five months ago. And I said at the time, yeah, it's been more difficult, but nothing crazy yet. And then the next two weeks, we just reached a point where we barely had any products. We were really getting any silver we could just to sell it to our clients, right? Because the Royal Canadian Mint stuff wasn't available. The PAMP stuff wasn't always available.

So we were now coming up with different products, of course, and it's still very, very good metals, but it does just show that the stress on the mints.

Andrew Sleigh (17:46)
Where would the Canadian industry be if we had extreme trouble getting silver maples and gold maples from the Canadian mint? If the coinage was as difficult to get as the bars, where would we be? That's a really awful scenario.

Kellen Ainey (18:00)
Not in good position.

It's the worst case scenario

in that sense.

Andrew Sleigh (18:11)
You know, by far all of, most of the sales go to gold maples and silver maples by far. And so I can live without having the hundred ounce bars and 10 ounce bars. You know, we can manage without that. It's, it's inconvenient for some people, but it's not the end of the world. But if we couldn't get gold maples and silver maples, that would be close to end of the world. And, and that's not something that, and now we're back on allocation.

So why did the Canadian Mint put the industry in Canada, well, nationwide, for North America, why did the Canadian Mint put us back on, put everyone on allocation when it's slow? And they're never going to answer that. So we don't, it's a blessing and a curse. One, ⁓ we're allocated X amount of coins per whatever, week two.

Kellen Ainey (18:55)
That's not a happy answer to be honest with you.

Andrew Sleigh (19:08)
⁓ So if we sell more than that, we have to source it from secondary market. so that puts ⁓ costs ⁓ up. And ⁓ the blessing is that a big player can't come in and just buy all the silver and gold maples for like four or five months of production and have us all be run dry.

Because if you're not on the allocation list, you can't buy. They will not give it to you. So that's the only good part about this because there has been shenanigans this past year where, you know, like the COMEX bought, well, it's suggested. We don't know for sure, but this is the educated guess on all this. But, you know, they bought all the kilos of gold from the RCM and there's been none available all year.

Kellen Ainey (19:56)
Yep, we've had a lot of big,

we've had difficulty sourcing them to say the least, but that's where it's, do need to kind of protect the more, I don't want to say local business cause this is, and this is a ⁓ national issue, but that's where you do got to protect more of the local businesses. You got to protect the Canadian businesses. You got to protect the Canadian chain of custody for the metals as well. So, because to your point, exactly. AMARC, COMEX, all the big players can just come in and buy up all the stock that we have.

or not we, but the Royal Canadian Mint.

Andrew Sleigh (20:27)
First and foremost, it should be available to Canadians first. We supply outside that second.

Kellen Ainey (20:32)
Exactly, exactly.

So that is all the questions we had today, Andrew. ⁓ We do have a little bit more time if there was anything specifically you wanted to speak to, anything that caught your eye around the world.

Andrew Sleigh (20:47)
Well, I've been studying and trying to find more information about the shortages. so when they started talking about that, you know, two months ago, approximately, I was like, really? I don't know if that's really, you know, a thing or not. as more information developed, like we mentioned earlier about the ⁓ British Mint only selling the Britannia coin, the Royal Canadian Mint having basically only silver maples available.

very little bars. ⁓ Perth mint being out. The Rand mint in South Africa was out ⁓ of silver for making their silver Krugerrand, waiting for product to come in. The US mint only making 20 % of their eagles ⁓ compared to last year, which means in other words, an 80 % reduction of eagles, which is crazy. And then of course, ⁓ the ⁓ latest news being the largest Indian mint is now out of silver.

⁓ And just following some other analysts around the world, ⁓ I do believe that when the next round of purchasing comes to the public, so the retail spikes up a little bit and we have a run on buying silver, I do think we are going to see a shortage come around in the near future. I don't know when, ⁓ but I'm not thinking it's a year or two away. I think we're going to see this

very soon. ⁓ And it's super interesting time. I do suggest to people that, you know, with allocations, that means there's restrictions on what dealers can get in Canada to sell for product. The number one issue for people is going to be the availability of silver maple coins, in my opinion. Like that's the first thing we've seen before being here that sells out first. And so if you are

in the silver market or thinking about getting into the silver market. That is what I would be picking up first and foremost, because ⁓ once we struggle to have those in stock, premiums are going to skyrocket on that. then you're going to have, during the trucker convoy, when it all hell broke loose and people were buying all over the place, we were rationing maples.

Kellen Ainey (23:09)
Well, we were even buying them back at a bub spot because we just,

we needed the Maples to sell, right? So at that point that'll dictate the market to be flat out paying premiums to you when you sell them.

Andrew Sleigh (23:23)
That's right, we are almost 10%.

Kellen Ainey (23:23)
Yep. Well, and that was still better because we needed the Maples, right? We

couldn't get them anywhere else. We were basically paying our purchasing prices.

Andrew Sleigh (23:34)
Yeah. And you know, maples back then had soared to $12 overspot. So there's that kind of room to do that. But anyway, this is the kind of thing that we'll start to rear. And I do think we do have a shortage coming. And I would encourage people to look after picking on maples and sell them, buy them rather, and then go to their other, you know, if their second choice is say a gold maple or

or ⁓ whatever other product, then buy those later because they won't sell out as fast. ⁓ What else on top of that? What else am I looking at that I'm worried about, concerned about? ⁓ Just this past week, the Japanese government bond market carry trade, they call it, which I don't fully understand all the mechanics of that, but I do understand from what the analysts are talking about that this is a

major crack in the financial system that's widening, which they could be using as a trigger to shut down the financial system of the world when they're ready to deploy it. if people choose to ignore that and the emergency meetings that the Fed is having with the banks and the states because they're having problems with liquidity. we also have coming up here on December 10th, I believe it is, the Fed is meeting

determine if they're cutting interest rates or not.

Kellen Ainey (25:03)
believe it is the tenth you're correct.

Andrew Sleigh (25:07)
And so if that's cut in any large way, which I suspect it could, if it doesn't, I think you're going to see the markets collapse before Christmas. And if they do, then you're going to see, you know, gold move shockingly upward as a result of that, because that's just the Fed's now lost control. The confidence in the Fed is gone. And then you're going to have institutional money.

thinking, you know what, the Fed doesn't know what the hell they're doing. And ⁓ they're going to start moving to safe harbor, which is traditionally always going to be gold, then silver. ⁓ So we have a very interesting week coming around the corner. And I'm glad that we're here at ground zero to witness it. ⁓ things are happening. They're very quiet. The public media won't talk about it at all.

but there's a lot of stuff happening. while we have a ⁓ little pullback, any pullback that you have in the market is doing nothing but giving you a buying opportunity. That's what the bullion banks and big money is doing. And to win at this game, the individual should be doing the same thing.

Kellen Ainey (26:19)
more.

Andrew Sleigh (26:24)
And that's all that I have off the of my head today.

Kellen Ainey (26:26)
Well, that was a, it's a wealth of knowledge. So we're more than happy to hear it. ⁓

Well, I believe that's everything for us today, Andrew. So once again, thank you for joining us, answering some of our questions for our viewers. Like I said, you are a wealth of knowledge. any, any, any information an investor can get is always good information. But ⁓ once again, thank you. And how can our clients reach you?

Andrew Sleigh (26:53)
yes, thank you. So anyone wants to speak to me and ask me a question or they can either email me at deathofthedollar at SprottMoney.com. So deathofthedollar at SprottMoney.com. You can call the toll free number on our website, 1-888-861-0775. My extension is 230 and be happy to entertain any questions that somebody has. And thanks again, Kellen, for hosting the event and ⁓

And we'll see you in a week or we'll see you almost in a week. I'll be up in the office.

Kellen Ainey (27:24)
About a week or so, correct. Before

we do go, we wanted to thank our viewers for, ⁓ well, pretty much all the viewership this year. Wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year if we don't record another podcast before the end of the year.

Andrew Sleigh (27:40)
Absolutely. Happy holidays to everybody.

Kellen Ainey (27:41)
All right, well you have yourself a good one, Andrew.

Cheers. Bye bye.

Andrew Sleigh (27:46)
Thank you, you as

well. Take care of yourself.