Dear Friend,
A drilling crew in Beaver County, Utah punched through 15,765 feet of solid granite.
Nearly three miles straight down.
The Department of Energy said it should take 64 days.
They did it in 16.
They hit the DOE’s 2035 performance targets twelve years early. Costs were cut in half in 18 months.
24 days later, the President signed a law that killed tax credits for solar and wind, but preserved full credits for this energy source through 2033.
The Energy Secretary who championed it? He invented the technology behind the shale revolution.
One company has been building this for sixty years. The smart money is already in. The August 18th catalyst is just weeks away.
See the company at the center of Project FORGE >>
“The Buck Stops Here,”
Kelly Maguire
Behind the Markets
Gold and Silver Recovery—3 Precious Metals Stocks for H2 2026
Authored by Chris Markoch. Publication Date: 7/3/2026.
Key Points
- Central banks bought 474 tonnes of gold in Q1 2026, the second-highest quarterly total on record, signaling sustained institutional demand.
- Nearly 90% of central banks plan to add to gold reserves in the next 12 months, driven partly by concerns over counterparty risk following Russia's frozen dollar assets.
- Silver's structural supply deficit and industrial demand from solar panels, electric vehicles, and electronics give it a distinct price catalyst heading into the second half of 2026.
- Special Report: SpaceX is offering you shares. Don't take them.
After climbing to an all-time high of more than $5,300 per troy ounce in January 2026, the spot price of gold fell to around $4,100 on July 1, capped by a 10% drop in June. That marked its fourth straight monthly decline. A similar story has played out in silver.
To say that has shaken out many weak hands would be an understatement. However, that may be shortsighted. While predicting market tops or bottoms is a fool’s errand, there are a couple of catalysts suggesting gold prices may be ready to reverse course and move higher.
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Download your free copy of Your First Trade Playbook todayThe most important data point to consider is central bank buying. These are institutions with the longest time horizon, and in the first quarter of 2026, they bought 474 tonnes of gold, the second-highest quarterly amount on record.
Why Gold Is Regaining Its Role as Sound Money
The European Central Bank’s annual report on global reserve assets revealed that, by percentage, central banks owned more gold than U.S. Treasuries or the euro at the end of 2025. For the sake of accuracy, that’s due in large part to the surge in gold’s price. At 2023 prices, U.S. Treasuries would still outweigh gold.
But here’s what many investors overlook. Unlike many retail investors, nearly 90% of central banks say they plan to keep adding to their gold reserves in the next 12 months. If gold were trading at over $4,000 an ounce and no country wanted it, central banks would sell. That’s not happening. In fact, central bank gold buying has been above historical norms since 2022.
And the key reason for that came from the U.S. government’s decision to freeze Russia’s dollar reserves after it invaded Ukraine in 2022. This raised questions about counterparty risk for countries that could end up on the wrong side of a U.S. foreign policy decision. Since gold can’t be sanctioned or seized, its appeal becomes obvious.
Governments that could have rebalanced back into Treasuries are choosing not to. That choice reveals a preference. Which is why investors may want to rethink the outlook for gold in the second half of 2026.
Industrial Demand Could Fuel Silver Prices in H2 2026
Silver plays a different role than gold, and that is part of its appeal. Roughly half of annual silver demand now comes from industrial uses, including solar panels, electric vehicles, and electronics. That gives silver a growth driver gold doesn't have.
The Silver Institute has projected a structural supply deficit for several consecutive years, as mine production struggles to keep pace with demand. When investment demand returns to a market already running a deficit, price moves can happen quickly.
Investors also watch the gold-silver ratio, which measures how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold. That ratio has been running well above its long-term historical average, a sign some analysts point to as evidence that silver is undervalued relative to gold.
The Easiest Way to Invest in Gold: SPDR Gold Shares ETF
For investors who are only interested in capturing the price action in gold, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSEARCA: GLD) tracks the price of physical gold.
Investors will have to pay fees, with an expense ratio of around 0.40%, and there are counterparty risks to consider.
But they avoid the custody and insurance costs of owning physical metal.
Newmont Stock Offers Value If Gold Prices Rebound
Another way to invest in higher gold and silver prices is through mining stocks. Junior miners may carry the most asymmetric risk/reward for aggressive traders. But long-term investors may want to look at Newmont Corp. (NYSE: NEM), which is one of the largest miners with a strong track record of performance.
Mining stocks like NEM are down this year in sympathy with the decline in gold. However, Newmont stock is down only about 3% through the first half of 2026. And at around 12x earnings, NEM shares trade at a discount to both their historical value and the S&P 500.
Adding to its appeal, as of July 1, the stock is trading about 44% below its consensus price target of $139.35.
Wheaton Precious Metals Offers Lower-Risk Exposure to Gold
Wheaton Precious Metals (NYSE: WPM) is another way to invest in a rebound in gold and silver prices.
The company finances miners in exchange for the right to buy gold and silver at fixed, below-market prices for the life of the mine.
The success of that business model showed up in the company’s Q1 2026 numbers, which included record revenue of $901.5 million and earnings of $582 million.
As of July 1, WPM traded about 35% below its consensus price target of $154.73.
First Majestic Silver Is a High-Conviction Silver Stock for H2 2026
For investors who want direct exposure to silver prices without gold as a hedge, First Majestic Silver Corp. (NYSE: AG) is worth a look.
The company operates primarily in Mexico and generates the majority of its revenue from silver production, making it more sensitive to swings in the metal's price than diversified miners.
That sensitivity cuts both ways. First Majestic tends to outperform larger, diversified miners when silver rallies, but it can also underperform during pullbacks like the one seen in June.
For investors who believe the setup described above favors higher silver prices into year-end, that volatility may be the point rather than a drawback.
Why Gold and Silver Still Belong in a Diversified Portfolio
Most gold and silver investors aren’t speculators. They are looking for assets that can’t be printed, diluted, or controlled. Yes, gold and silver don’t produce a yield, the price is volatile, storage is expensive, and supply can’t expand quickly to meet demand. But in a world where many investors are looking to return to sound money, those are reasons to trust gold and silver, not dismiss them.
3 Stocks Building the Future of Agentic AI Payments
Authored by Chris Markoch. Publication Date: 6/26/2026.
Key Points
- Agentic AI could require blockchain-based payment systems that allow autonomous software agents to transact securely and efficiently.
- Coinbase, Circle, and PayPal are developing digital payment infrastructure that could benefit from the growth of AI-driven commerce.
- Stablecoins and programmable payment networks may become essential building blocks for the next generation of AI applications.
- Special Report: SpaceX is offering you shares. Don't take them.
The SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) IPO and the space sector are a useful reminder of the power of a compelling story in stock growth. Whether an investor can visualize the space economy of 2040 or not, every investor has to understand that the space story is still in its early stages. The same is true of quantum computing.
Yet in both cases, the underlying technology has been around for years. The same can be said for artificial intelligence and blockchain. The two ideas are mature on their own, but it’s their convergence that could become a defining technological shift.
Defining the Roadmap
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A drilling crew in rural Utah was handed a 64-day timeline to bore through nearly three miles of solid granite. They finished in 16 days - twelve years ahead of the DOE's own performance projections.
Drilling costs were cut in half in 18 months. Google signed a 15-year contract. Bill Gates reversed his position and committed $100 million. When Congress rewrote energy tax credits, this was the one source that kept them through 2033. The company behind it has been operating for sixty years.
See the company that just rewrote the DOE's timelineSomeday, humanoid robots may handle a variety of daily tasks for a large swath of the population. For now, enterprise customers and even some small- and mid-size businesses have agentic AI, or AI agents. These agents allow users to outsource and automate tasks.
But for many retail users of AI, the experience is still generative. A large language model (LLM) can answer questions, write code, or generate images. In the future, though, consumers will be able to use AI as both a personal shopper and a concierge. It will find the best flight and hotel and book the reservations for you.
That will require a level of trust and infrastructure that’s still being built. But as with much of technology, change is coming fast. The good news for investors is that there’s still time to get in on stocks that are key to this buildout.
The Purest Play on AI Agent Payments
Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. That makes it a proxy for Bitcoin and other digital assets. Not surprisingly, COIN is down over 50% in the last 12 months as the crypto winter waits for a thaw.
But this is where the opportunity lies for patient investors. Coinbase holds a unique position in the digital asset ecosystem.
Coinbase has been pushing directly into "agentic commerce," including work on payment protocols designed to let AI agents transact autonomously using stablecoins.
In that sense, Coinbase is the most direct publicly traded proxy for AI agents that need blockchain rails—payments, wallets, and digital assets—to transact, and it is likely to be at the forefront of that space.
The Coinbase analyst forecasts on MarketBeat give COIN a consensus price target of around $250, which would imply upside of more than 60% from the stock’s closing price on June 24.
Built From the Ground Up for the Agentic Economy
If Coinbase is the exchange layer, Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) may be the rails themselves. Circle is the issuer of USDC, the world's second-largest stablecoin with approximately $77 billion in circulation as of Q1 2026—a 28% year-over-year increase.
In May 2026, Circle launched its Agent Stack, a full suite of developer tools designed specifically for the agentic economy. The product lineup includes a Nanopayments protocol capable of facilitating high-frequency, sub-cent, machine-to-machine payments, which is not possible on traditional banking rails. It’s one way Circle is rebuilding financial infrastructure that was designed for people, with manual onboarding and approval flows that autonomous software cannot easily navigate.
The business fundamentals support the thesis. In Q1 2026, Circle reported $694 million in revenue, up 20% year over year. USDC on-chain transaction volume surged 263% YOY to $21.5 trillion in the quarter. That’s an indication of the stablecoin economy at scale.
CRCL went public in 2025 at $31 per share and briefly traded above $260 before pulling back. Shares were trading near $80 as of mid-June 2026. The Circle analyst forecasts on MarketBeat have a consensus price target near $134, implying roughly 85% upside from current levels.
The stock doesn’t come without risks. Circle's reserve income is tied to the Fed's rate policy. In addition, the company faces competition from Tether as well as regulatory uncertainty around stablecoin legislation.
A Sleeping Giant Wakes Up to Agentic Commerce
PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) operates a two-sided network connecting more than 430 million active consumer and merchant accounts worldwide. It also issues its own stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), now available in 70 countries and deployed across 13 blockchain networks.
In October 2025, PayPal launched its Agentic Commerce Services suite, including "Agent Ready," a payment solution designed to let AI shopping agents transact on behalf of consumers, and "Store Sync," which makes merchant catalogs discoverable by AI agents.
PayPal also acquired Cymbio, a multi-channel orchestration platform, to deepen that capability. The company has since partnered with Hey Savi to launch the first agentic commerce app in the U.K.
PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin is also being extended into AI infrastructure finance.
Through a partnership with USD.AI, PYUSD is being used to fund GPU purchases and data center development, with transactions denominated in stablecoin and disbursed directly into PayPal accounts.
The PayPal analyst forecasts on MarketBeat show a consensus Hold, with a consensus price target around $56. That suggests healthy upside from current levels, but it may underweight PayPal's optionality in the agentic commerce buildout. The risk here is execution: PayPal is a large company attempting a significant pivot in a competitive market. Patient investors may find the risk/reward compelling.
The Risk Investors Need to Understand
In fairness, many people would consider AI’s current limitations when it comes to making payments a good sign. There will be resistance to the idea and likely regulation.
However, many consumers once swore they would never do online banking. Meanwhile, at least one generation is likely to go through life without writing a single check or even knowing how to do so. That's the way technological shifts work.
Along the way, there were many stocks that made investors significant profits, including investors who didn’t “trust” the technology. This is why investors with a long time horizon should look at stocks leading the way in building the financial infrastructure for agentic AI. The future will be here before we know it, whether we can see it or not.
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