Alex Frangos

so important to generating electricity and transmitting electricity.

You then have possibility of tariffs coming into effect on copper, which would raise the price of copper coming into the US.

And then in general, when interest rates are being cut, as the Fed is doing, that tends to boost metals prices because

Investors see metals as more attractive.

They're a bit of a hedge against inflation.

I mean, it really is the year of metals.

You look at gold and silver, both had spectacular records and just surging into the end of the year.

People are riding these things higher and pushing them higher and higher.

People are trying to cash in on the frenzy and the prices.

They're taking in grandma's silver to the silver dealers and

At a market level where people trade these futures contracts, that's been going on as well.

So today we have one of the biggest exchanges where contracts connected to gold and silver get traded.

The CME raised margin requirements on traders, meaning how much money they have to put down in order to trade these contracts.

The money's there in case someone doesn't deliver on one of their contracts.

And they raised the requirement to keep the exchange safer.

And that's caused prices to reverse quite a bit.

So it's a wild ride.

I'll try. But basically what the White House has come up with is a formula not based on what the tariffs are imposed by other countries, but taking The goods trades deficit of a country and dividing it by the amount of goods that the U.S. imports from that country and getting a percentage and then chopping that in half and saying this is what our reciprocal tariff will be.

I'll try. But basically what the White House has come up with is a formula not based on what the tariffs are imposed by other countries, but taking The goods trades deficit of a country and dividing it by the amount of goods that the U.S. imports from that country and getting a percentage and then chopping that in half and saying this is what our reciprocal tariff will be.

The logic that the White House is giving for this is that the trade imbalance contains all of the various indicators. tariffs and non-tariff barriers that other countries impose that the White House sees as negative for the U.S.