Gold at $4,383: Why Silver and Mining Stocks Have Further to Run

Most investors watched gold surge from roughly $2,000 to nearly $5,600 across the past two years and assumed they had already seen the bull market. That assumption may cost them the most profitable phase of the entire cycle.

The six-month correction that ran from early February through late July was not the top. According to analysis from Don of goldsilverdata.com, speaking on Palisades Gold Radio, it was a standard transition between the cycle’s first upward wave and its second. As of early September 2026, with gold trading near $4,383.50 and silver near $66.12 on Kitco spot quotes, the market sits at the launchpad for what he describes as the wave where mining equities finally begin outperforming the metals themselves.

Here is the framework for reading where physical metals and mining shares are actually headed, alongside a disciplined entry strategy for the waves that remain in this bull cycle.

Charting the path to peak euphoria using the SGR framework

The current precious metals cycle is estimated to have originated around late 2019 to early 2020, with a projected lifespan of roughly nine years running through 2028-2031. Don structures it into three distinct upward waves.

Wave One closed at the peak reached in January of this year. Wave Two, which he anticipates launching in November or December, is characterised as the most accessible phase for investors because mining equities begin to outperform the underlying metals. Wave Three is the volatile, euphoric finale where peak valuations arrive and where navigation becomes hardest.

The current cycle’s three-wave structure fits a broader pattern visible across previous precious metals bull market phases, where the second wave consistently rewarded investors who had endured the corrective drawdown between Wave One and the re-acceleration.

The near-term picture involves one more corrective leg. Don projects a floor in the $4,100-$4,200 range for gold, with $3,950 cited as an approximate support level and $3,750 as an absolute threshold. Breakout levels already surpassed, specifically $2,000 and $3,000, are not expected to be revisited.

Applying the silver-to-gold ratio

The silver-to-gold ratio (SGR) measures silver’s price as a percentage of gold’s price, rather than the conventional raw ratio. Don and Michael Oliver both favour this percentage expression. At current prices, silver at $66.12 against gold at $4,383.50 represents roughly 1.51% of gold’s value.

That number is the key to the leverage silver holds in this cycle. Historically, silver has pushed toward a 3% SGR during precious metals bull markets. The projected move from 1.51% to 3% tells you exactly how much room silver has to run relative to gold, and you need to grasp this mathematical relationship before you allocate a single dollar.

Applying the framework to Don’s conservative three-year gold projection of $8,000 produces the following scenarios.

Don’s base case for silver lands at $200-$250, built on a roughly 3% SGR midpoint. Michael Oliver’s target sits near $500, with high-end scenarios stretching toward $1,000. Gold’s own Wave Two target is around $6,500, with a long-term figure near $15,000 across the remaining waves. Silver reaching $200 from current levels near $66 would represent roughly a 200% return, which is why the leverage matters so much for positioning.

Decoding the mining equity valuation lag

Here is a puzzle worth sitting with: metal prices are at record highs, yet the companies pulling that metal out of the ground trade at some of their cheapest multiples in years. Producers currently average around 9-10x free cash flow, with some quality names sitting below 5x.

That disconnect is not random. Four recurring mechanisms keep miners compressed early in a bull cycle.

The mining equity lag visible in current free cash flow multiples reflects structural dynamics that persist across every major precious metals cycle, not company-specific failures, and that distinction matters enormously when you are deciding whether today’s discount represents a valuation opportunity or a fundamental warning.

1. Operational leverage and investor scepticism: Miner earnings are highly geared to metal prices, but early in a bull run investors doubt higher prices will last and refuse to capitalise forward earnings fully.
2. Cost inflation risk: Energy, labour, and consumables can eat into the revenue benefit of higher metals, so investors discount forecasts until sustained margin expansion shows up in reported results.
3. Capital allocation history: Past cycles of value-destructive acquisitions and shareholder dilution keep the sector on a show-me footing until management proves discipline.
4. Generalist perception: Mainstream investors treat miners as tactical trades rather than core holdings, suppressing valuations until broader institutional ownership arrives.

The interpretive point is straightforward. The lag means you are looking at an asset class generating record free cash flow while still priced for doubt, a valuation mismatch you can act on before institutional capital shows up.

In a debt-crisis environment, mining companies are effectively printing real money by extracting the monetary metals themselves. That scarcity of quality producers is what is expected to drive premium valuations as the cycle matures.

The catalysts for that re-rating are specific: several quarters of proven free cash flow at higher metal prices, improved capital discipline through debt reduction and rising shareholder returns, and broader institutional participation as mainstream funds benchmark against mining indices.

Don projects free cash flow multiples rising to 10-15x before the bull market ends, with 30-35x plausible during Wave Three euphoria. The HUI Gold Bugs Index, currently near 800-830, has an accumulation target of 1,000-1,200. As a benchmark for peak valuations, he cites a projected Newmont share price of roughly $7,000, implying around a 25x earnings multiple. The read for you is that depressed miners here are better understood as delayed-reaction assets than value traps.

Weighing physical deficits against structural market risks

The physical silver market gives the bull case real substance. According to the World Silver Survey 2026, the market ran a deficit of 40.3 Moz in 2025, the fifth consecutive year that demand outstripped supply. The survey forecasts a wider deficit of 46.3 Moz for 2026, pointing to continued structural tightness.

The World Silver Survey deficit projections published by the Silver Institute confirm a sixth consecutive annual shortfall for 2026, with the forecast gap widening to 46.3 Moz as industrial fabrication and investment demand continue to outpace primary mine supply and recycling.

That is a genuine tailwind. Persistent deficits, year after year, argue that silver is under-owned relative to gold and carries superior upside in a continued precious metals bull market.

The silver physical market dynamics that produced five consecutive deficit years also involve a structural tension between reported exchange inventories and actual deliverable supply, a distinction that affects how you interpret headline deficit figures and position-size against spot price targets.

The limits of the industrial bull case

The bearish reality lives on the industrial side. Industrial demand made up 657.4 Moz in 2025, roughly 58% of total consumption, but it fell 3% year-on-year as solar manufacturers accelerated thrifting and substitution away from silver. At the same time, recycling climbed to a 12-year high of 197.6 Moz as higher prices pulled secondary supply into the market, and mine production rose 3% to 846.6 Moz.

Silver’s dual role as both a monetary metal and an industrial commodity is what creates this tension. The same feedback loops that respond to high prices, substitution, recycling, and new mine supply, are what cap the extreme targets.

Several cautionary factors sit alongside the physical data:

• Jurisdiction risk: changes to tax, royalties, permitting, or nationalisation can impair asset values.
• Cost inflation: rising energy and wage costs compress margins for marginal producers.
• Capital allocation risk: poor management decisions can leave miners lagging the metal even as prices rise.

Understanding this tension keeps your expectations grounded. It prevents you from anchoring blindly to the $500 or $1,000 silver headlines while ignoring the supply realities that make those numbers highly path-dependent.

Constructing a staged portfolio across seniors and juniors

Knowing where the metals are headed is only half the work. The other half is deciding what you actually buy, and here the gap between senior producers and junior developers dictates everything about how you size positions.

Senior producers such as Newmont and Agnico Eagle offer diversified operations, sturdier balance sheets, and lower volatility while still carrying meaningful leverage to metal prices. Total return potential for the majors is cited at around 5-7x over the cycle. Junior miners and developers offer asymmetric upside, potentially several-fold, but carry concentration, financing, and liquidity risk that can overwhelm even a strong macro backdrop.

Risk management and base rates

The scarcity here is stark. Only about 15 silver mining companies globally hold market caps above $100 million, with roughly 10 considered genuinely high quality. Fewer than 25-30 combined quality gold producers operate in safe jurisdictions. Don requires developers to show a minimum 10x return potential before they earn a place in the portfolio, precisely because project-level risk is so high.

Junior mining selection criteria become decisive in a cycle where only a fraction of developers hold assets capable of meeting a 10x return threshold, and the factors that distinguish a funded, permit-ready project from a perpetual capital-raise story are often invisible in headline metrics alone.

Michael Burry is referenced for the analogy on asymmetric early-entry conviction: the biggest gains go to those who build positions before the crowd recognises the setup, provided they can survive the wait.

The practical framework is a barbell. Anchor a core allocation in senior producers and streaming or royalty companies for structural exposure, then add a satellite allocation of select juniors, sized modestly and diversified across jurisdictions.

The discipline that protects you is simple to state and hard to follow: buy the dips, not the spikes, and stage your entries as projects de-risk. Don assumes 7 out of every 10 selections will meet expectations while 3 disappoint, a base rate you must build into position sizing so no single failure is ruinous. Size by survival probability, not just by upside.

Executing strategy as the bull market matures

The pieces align at a single point. The transition into Wave Two, the expected expansion in mining equity multiples, and the physical tightness confirmed by five consecutive years of silver deficits all converge on the same conclusion: the corrective phase now is the entry window, not the exit.

The most reliable path to capturing this cycle’s upside runs through quality producers generating real free cash flow, not speculative explorers chasing a discovery. Juniors have their place as satellite bets, but survival probability, not headline upside, should govern how much you commit.

The decision in front of you is whether to position during this correction or wait for momentum to return and pay up for confirmation.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Financial projections are subject to market conditions and various risk factors, and forward-looking price targets referenced here are speculative and subject to change.