Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Revisiting precious metals

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post or any other post should be construed as personal investment advice.  If you want investment advice, hire a financial advisor.

 

Several months ago, when gold was over 5000 and silver was over 100, I mentioned here on this blog that the metals had gotten too pricey for me.  I wasn't jumping on the bandwagon.  

All I know is that the precious metals are not cheap right now, and I won't be buying any time soon.  Oil is cheap, and a few other things are "cheap enough," but I'm not jumping on the gold/silver bandwagon. 

https://jefftanyard.blogspot.com/2026/01/1005000.html

In fact, the charts had gone parabolic, suggesting a pullback was imminent just as soon as bullish momentum died off.  And, in fact, that's what happened.

Gold got a buzz cut, falling by about ten percent, and silver's barber missed the hair completely and outright decapitated it with a wild thirty percent crash. 

https://jefftanyard.blogspot.com/2026/02/gold-and-silver-get-haircuts.html

I attempted to identify support lines in order to get an idea of where the PMs might bottom out before starting the next leg up.  

For gold, I identified support at 4079.64, 3610, and 3140.36.  Here's what gold has done recently:

 


As you can see, it basically hovered around that first support line for several weeks before spiking up in recent days.  Is the recent spike a bullish breakout?  I don't know.  It might be too early to tell.  This Hormuz business has created too much uncertainty.  But the chart is encouraging for bulls.

Now let's look at silver.  I identified support at 81.46, 69.25, and 57.04.  Here's the recent chart:

 

 

Silver blew right past the first Fibonacci line without any hesitation.  In June, it did the same thing with the second line.  But the third one seems to have held.  Silver bounced around that support line for several weeks just as gold did with its line.  And then, also like gold, it spiked up recently.  Again, I don't know if it's a breakout or not, but the chart is encouraging for bulls.

So gold seems to have found support at the 61.8% retracement level, and silver seems to have found support at the 38.2% retracement level.  Emphasis on "seems," because we can't count out the possibility of a Fed rate hike in September, and that would shake everything up.  And, of course, the Hormuz situation is a constant annoyance for folks trying to make sense of financial markets, and there's no telling when or how it will conclude.

I bought some shares of a mining stock last Friday.  Not much.  Just dipping my toes in the water.  But I'm watching the PMs with renewed interest now. 

Tuesday, August 4, 2026

The numbers are in

SpaceX has released its first quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded company.  Here's the breakdown.

https://s21.q4cdn.com/184289198/files/doc_financials/2026/q2/SpaceX-Reports-Second-Quarter-2026-Results.pdf

SpaceX Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results


• Demonstrated the power of extreme vertical integration, delivering revenue growth of 92% year-over-year across Space, Connectivity and AI


• Completed two successful Starship V3 flight tests in the past 90 days, advancing towards full and rapid reusability


• Closed multiple industry-leading Cloud Services Agreements resulting in $14.1 billion of contracted sales


• Announced agreement to acquire Cursor for $60 billion to accelerate the AI enterprise opportunity


• Released our most powerful AI model yet with Grok 4.5 in July


• Delivered 66% revenue and 79% income from operations growth year-over-year for the Connectivity segment, driven by a doubling of Starlink Subscribers and continued momentum in Enterprise & Government


• Awarded over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield

 

After hours, the reaction on Wall Street was a bit wary.  The stock had gained about ten percent during normal trading hours in anticipation of the earnings release, and then it gave that ten percent back after hours.  Why the pullback?  Capex.  SpaceX has significantly increased its AI capex, doubling it from what it was in the first quarter of 2026.

 

 

Non-GAAP earnings estimate for this quarter was a loss of 26 cents per share, and SpaceX recorded a loss of only 9 cents a share.  So they beat earnings, something to keep in mind three months from now when they report again.

Speaking of their next report, Non-GAAP estimates for the third quarter of this year are for a profit of 8 cents per share.  Yes, an actual profit, not a loss.  From Schwab:

 


UPDATE:  The numbers for projected non-GAAP earnings have changed.  I guess Schwab doesn't update this stuff until the following business day.  You'd think the whole update process would be fully automated and happen in something approaching real time, but I guess not.

New numbers:

 

 

So there we go.

Just to be clear, I don't own shares of this company, I've never owned shares, and I have no current plans to own shares.  The valuations are still too rich for my blood.  If that changes, I'll let you know.  Until then, I'll just sit on the sideline and enjoy watching better men than me reach for the stars.

Monday, August 3, 2026

SpaceX reports earnings

On Tuesday after the market closes, SpaceX will report its quarterly earnings.  This will be the first earnings report from them since they went public.  I'm looking forward to it, and I suspect I'm not the only one.

For the record, I don't currently own any SpaceX shares.  I've never owned any.  I have no plans at this time to purchase any.  My interest in this stock, a least until the earnings report comes out, is purely due to my excitement about the things the company does.

On August 6th, some of the shares currently in IPO lockup will be freed.  The owners of those shares will then be able to sell them if they wish.  Elon Musk's shares don't leave lockup until next summer, so he can't sell his shares for another ten months.  This tiered lockup calendar is a little weird, but it does inspire confidence when the main owner must keep all his shares for a full year after the IPO's debut.

What am I expecting tomorrow?  I have no idea.  Probably some new contracts with customers and subcontractors announced, though I couldn't begin to speculate on the details.  I can say with some confidence that Wednesday's trading volume for the stock will probably be higher than its average of 111 million shares, but that's pretty much the only limb I want to climb out on.  The stock might spike higher Wednesday, it might crash, or it might be more-or-less unchanged.

In any event, I'm looking forward to reading the report and seeing what I can glean from it.