What's weighing on gold and silver prices? eToro CEO talks retail investor adoption of AI

Hello and welcome to Market Domination Overtime. Let's get to Yahoo Finance's Jared Blickery with all the trading action. Jared. Thank you, Josh. Photo finish for the majors here. Dow just eking out a very, very small win. 32 points for about seven basis points. You can see the very choppy intraday action behind me there. Here's a NASDAQ composite up a tiny bit more, 14 basis points, and a very similar chart. And the S&P 500 finishing up one tenth of one percent. And let me just show you a year to date real quick because we have been within striking distance of that December 31st, 2025 close for three straight days and have come very close to becoming positive on the year once again, but just missed it by a hair today. So neither here nor there really, just thought I'd throw that stat out. And let's check out the sector action. Large caps here. Financials in control today, they were up over one percent. So was real estate. Industrials managed to close at a record high there. They were up about half a percent. And that'll do it for your outperformers. To the downside, we got consumer staples down nearly one and a half percent. And then materials and energy, each of those off more than one percent. Here's what the NASDAQ 100 looks like into the close. A couple standouts in the upper right. Walmart down 3.76 percent, but in the lower left, Apple up about 3.17 percent. NVIDIA in the upper left up over one percent. And then you got Alphabet, Microsoft, and Tesla each down more than one percent. And I pointed this out earlier in the broadcast here. Here's what software looks like. And this is not dissimilar from what it's looked like this year, pretty red and a lot of dark red. Here are the semiconductors and a much different story. Although we did see some losses by Micron and AMD, each of those off by more than two percent. And then SanDisk, which has been the high flyer, off about more than five percent there. Taking a look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average. We went through the mega caps, so I'll just focus on some of the outsized winners and losers. Home Depot down two, IBM down one and a half, United Health down one. But financials, the leaders of the day, we had JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and American Express each up more than one percent. American Express up two percent. And I did want to show, here we go, here's my leaders, show you that in some of my sentiment indicators here, we got solar, that's the TAN ETF that was leading up three percent. Then we got biotech, gambling, and then transportation. Transportation warred back today after that drubbing it took last week. And then what didn't work today, Korean stocks, software, Bitcoin, and small oil. So go figure, Josh, kind of a day of have and have-nots and really not that much happening at the index level. All right, thank you, Jared, appreciate it. Well, stocks closing flat after a volatile session. AI jitters have hammered markets in the last few weeks. Joining me now, we got Brian Kirschman. He's a portfolio manager at GQG Partners. Brian, it's good to see you. So one trend you know here, Brian, you talk about how the tone of the AI conversation, it's now shifted, you say. How has it shifted, Brian? Is it investors, are they just asking tougher questions now, Brian, is that it? Yeah, I think if you go back to October, November of last year, there's been a difference. As you mentioned, there's been a shift in tone. Prior to that, it's basically a situation where the more you invested in AI, the more you're pursuing some of those returns on a longer term basis, the more you're rewarded. Whether you showed any sort of outcome or not, the more you spent, the more you got. And conversely, if you weren't spending enough, so like an apple, for example, at that point in time, wasn't spending, it was perceived as falling behind and actually got punished by the market. That tone changed, though, at that period of time where people started scrutinizing, okay, well, where am I getting a return on this? And at first, it was more the revenues. Am I showing some sort of revenue growth on the back end of that? And you saw some differentiation in those November prints at that point in time. What I think we're transitioning to now is show me the earnings. Show me the free cash flow, because that's honestly what's going to sustain that ability to continue to spend on a longer term basis. I think investors are just getting a little bit more discerning at this point in time who actually is going to show you the earnings going forward. What's so interesting, Brian, is the theme of these sort of AI disruption fears, right, and how it keeps moving. First, it was software, which has been shelled, but then you saw wealth management, and then even trucking at one point. Brian, you saw that. I mean, how as an investor do you try to navigate that? You go to bed at night thinking you've got your money parked in a relatively safe place while you're dreaming away the night. Sam Altman throws a grenade at your vertical, right? You wake up, you've been hit hard. How do you try and navigate what increasingly probably looks to a lot of folks like kind of a minefield? I think what's interesting in this market, I think we can all agree that there was elevated valuations coming into a lot of this. The market overall was at a pretty high valuation, and I think as you go through and you see some of where these disruption points are coming through, it's almost an excuse sometimes to say, okay, let's sell off a little bit of this because we're coming in from such a frothy level. But realistically, what we want to do is try to go back to, okay, where am I getting real solid earnings, real solid free cash flow? Where can I get a high single digit, low double digit return and not pay too much for that? Level of returns over time. And realistically, it also comes back to where am I not necessarily seeing as much of that capital intensity? And ironically, where I'm finding lower valuations, good returns, good free cash flow, and a little bit less capital intensity are things like consumer staples, things like energy, things like utilities, even things like telecom, which is interesting because in prior cycles, those have been the cap at X intensive areas. But if I compare that to say the hyperscalers, that's about a third the cap X intensity on a cap X to sales basis. And those are also areas that can't necessarily be disrupted by everything that's going on within the AI ecosystem. And you're not afraid of that overspending happening. So those are areas that we're definitely finding more interesting, and they're getting a little bit of love, I would say, within the last couple of months as well. Do you, Brian, do you actively kind of screen for that? I'm just curious whether that's a variable. Like, do you think to yourself, hey, before I put money to work, I think this name or this vertical would be somewhat more relatively resilient to getting blown up by an LLM. Yeah, so what we think about when we're looking at any one of these stocks is we're fundamental bottom-up investors. And at the end of the day, it's really three levers that I think about when I buy a stock. It's what is that earnings growth or free cash flow growth? What is the dividend yield I'm gonna get from that? And what is the multiple compression risk that I face with that company over time? That could be because the headroom isn't necessarily there, how much you can continue to grow at the pace that you're growing, or that could be because of some sort of disruption risk. And if I kind of use those three sort of vertices, if you will, to think about a stock, that's where we end up in the portfolio we have now. It's a collection of the businesses that I believe gives us the highest probability to achieve a high single-digit, low double-digit total return, and not necessarily get punished by either valuation compression or disruption fears. Finally, Brian, I'll just ask you a question about gold since you mentioned it. You say maybe could be losing its safe haven status. That's interesting. How come, and if that's true, would you say, all right, there's other places, Brian, investors should look for downside protection? There's kind of the old moniker, when you go to a party, you have to know who you're going to the party with, and I think that you need to see that with gold. And what's interesting about gold is, although classically it had been a safe haven place to park, sort of capital, when things got a little bit volatile, you've seen that gold has had very high correlations to the AI trade and a lot of the tech trade of things that have been going on more recently. And what's interesting there is that when those names or those areas start to feel pressure, if you have the same investor base that's feeling that pressure on the tech side that's also invested in gold as sort of their hedge, if you will, you're going to see that downside pressure happening on that side as well. So in some instances, you have to go to some of these areas that are a little bit less loved. They're still putting up really good fundamentals. They're coming at really attractive valuations. They're giving you really good cash flows, but they're a little bit less loved and less sought after. And I think that's really what you need to notice and need to see and look for, especially in these periods of incredibly high volatility. Brian, great to have you on the show today. Thank you. Excellent, thank you so much. Well, gold and silver are pulling back sharply to start the week that's coming despite ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and acting more like a rates trade than a traditional safe haven. Joining me now, we've got Ben McMillan. He is, of course, Chief Investment Officer, IDX Advisors. Ben, great to see you. Listen, gold's slipping today, but we know, we've talked about this. This has been a powerful rally. We hit that peak above 55.95. Do you see that rally? Does it continue in 2026? What do you tell clients? Yeah, I mean, I think it's exactly, I think last time we spoke was kind of early, beginning of this year. And we were saying after a parabolic run, a little bit of risk coming off the tables to be expected. And I think that's exactly what we're seeing. And I think actually the last guy's kind of summed it up well. You're seeing now with gold and silver, kind of a new AI premium built in. So it's not only just store of value. Silver, of course, has its industrial use case, but now there's this kind of AI premium on top, which brings with it volatility. So we're telling investors, listen, this is going to have probably more volatility than you're used to. Although if you look back 10 years, gold and silver have had volatility. But the important thing to remember is that the structural tailwinds are in place. You've still got all the big buyers, e.g. the central banks across the world. You've got even now India starting to recognize silver as collateral. So there's this continuing move away from the dollar into gold and silver, and that's not going to slow down anytime soon. And Ben, in terms of where gold prices head from here, so it's a poly market. It looks like they have odds that gold prices will be at 4,600 by the end of the month. Then Bloomberg has a note from Jeffries. I'll read this one to you because it's interesting. They raised their 2026 price forecast, Ben. They go to 5,000. They were at 4,200, saying we continue to see two main supportive macro factors for gold. Here's what they said. Inflation and dollar debasement, they say. Investors and central banks concerned about these factors have only really one option, hard assets. What do you make of that? That's exactly it. I mean, that is the freight train that's not going to slow down anytime soon. So, you know, everything else is kind of ancillary, you know, even the kind of AI premium, but this is part of the debasement trade. And again, I mean that, you know, dollar debasement happens over decades. You know, this isn't quarters at a time. And so we're much closer to the five, you know, end of the year at 5,000 per ounce in gold, because again, it's just, we see central banks voting with their dollars. You know, they're selling treasuries, they're buying gold, and that's just not going to slow down anytime soon. Did the Warsh nomination, by the way, you saw that. Did that sort of shape impact long-term gold expectations for you? You know, that was interesting because the market obviously responded to that, you know, very hawkishly. And he's, you know, he was kind of famously anti-QE in 2010, but I told investor, I said, listen, back in 2010, it was easy to be anti-QE because, you know, we hadn't, America hadn't maxed out its credit card yet. Now you have to find a way to, you know, keep rates, you know, kind of firm. I mean, we just can't afford the debt. He's, you know, he kind of floated the idea of yield curve control, which I think is interesting. He's also very notably vocal about AI being deflationary, which I agree with. I mean, you know, we're seeing it happen real time with kind of agentic capabilities disrupting software. That's going to be very disruptive, but very deflationary long-term, which, you know, of course could lead to decreasing rates. So I think the market's kind of coming back away from that overly hawkish narrative a little bit. When talking about gold with clients, do you tell them that I like the metal and the miners? Yeah, absolutely. You do? Yeah, absolutely. Because the miners, you've got two things. First of all, a lot of gold miners also mine other things. So when you look at, you know, it's interesting about the AI trade, so to speak, is that it's starting to bump up into the physical world. So silver, copper, you know, eventually uranium, rare earths, the miners have exposure to all that. So we're telling clients it's not just gold and silver, it's the miners, gold, silver miners, you know, as well as miners more broadly. What do you make of the moves in silver, by the way? Well, here's what's interesting about silver. So obviously it had a parabolic run, you know, coming off a little bit was not expected, but the way it did so- I mean, folks were saying it was trading like a meme stock. Well, it was, and the way it was trading, especially at the very end of the month, you had this, you know, this kind of hammering of trades during the illiquid market hours, it really looked a lot like there was manipulation going on under the hood. We know that there were some big players out there that had short positions. The, you know, the comics, I think, had 300 to one in terms of, you know, paper to physical delivery. When you look at the physical market, you know, most of the sell-off happened in the paper futures market. Shanghai Physical, you know, barely traded down at all. And so I, you know, this really had echoes to past, you know, manipulation within the silver market we had, you know, in the 2015 era. So I think that represented a buying opportunity for investors, and I think we've seen that. You know, investors are looking at this and saying, all right, the very fact that this traded down the way it did in what looks to be a, you know, manufactured fashion is supportive of the longer term narrative to own it. We talk precious metals, but let me get your thoughts on crypto too. Bitcoin's down about 20% this year. What is going on there, Ben? What explains this? You know, Bitcoin's interesting. I think, you know, we've talked to a lot of clients. I, you know, I think the precious metals just kind of sucked a lot of air out of that trade. You know- Meaning you think folks were like, okay, the party's over there, so that's where- The party's over there. We're going to, like you said, it's trading like a mean style. You've seen some of the hot money go into precious. Now that said, I'd be surprised if Bitcoin doesn't make its way north of a hundred grand, you know, by, you know, mid to late summer. I think the, you know, the tailwinds are intact. What are those tailwinds that you see, Ben? The debasement trade, you know, going back to that. You know, and also I think too increasingly building on blockchain rails more broadly. You know, we've talked about this a lot of different times, but we are, you know, with the Genius Act and things like that, you know, we're quickly coming to a point where capital efficiency is going to start to matter a lot. And, you know, blockchain is still the most efficient way to move capital around the world. It's taken a while for the bigger banks to get there, but those rails are in place. And I think that's going to be supportive of Bitcoin. You know, now granted, I thought that a year ago, but I think now we're finally getting to the point where blockchain technology is going to start to make its way to Main Street. Final question, when you're talking to clients and they're like, Ben, all right, how do I put together this portfolio? I want, you know, gold, silver, crypto. How should I allocate? What do you tell them? What's your advice? So we're big fans of diversification. I mean, we actually even launched an ETF to do exactly that, but we tell them to, you know, you want to own, generally you want to own gold, silver, and the miners as well. You probably also want to own Bitcoin, Ethereum to a lesser degree. I would tell them to risk weight that and, you know, think of it as a longer term trade. So meaning, you know, don't trade it as an active exposure, but dollar cost into it, just like you would with your clients. And, you know, it's part of your real assets bucket or your alts bucket. Ben, great to see you as always, especially on set. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Josh. And scan the QR code on your screen to check out Yahoo Finance's Prediction Markets Hub that's powered by Polymarket. Coming up, Etoro's CEO joins to discuss the company's latest results. That's next on Market Domination Overtime. Shares of Etoro surging after topping estimates for the fourth quarter, the company strengthening its footprint as it accelerates product innovation and AI adoption. Yahoo Finance's executive editor, Brian Sazi, sits down with Etoro CEO, Yoni Assia, with a closer look at what the company says is, quote, pivotal moment for financial services. We are building now products in Etoro at five to 50 times faster than we used to build. So when we talk about the Etoro super app of being able to enable any type of financial services eventually to our customers across the globe in many different jurisdictions where financial services might be very different types of products, whether it's the savings markets in Australia or the insurance market in France or the ISA market in the UK, suddenly we have capabilities to run faster, to develop faster for our customers, and we've done more than that. We've actually opened the platform to enable our pro investors, now 5,000 of the smartest investors in the world, I would say, and definitely on the Etoro platform to actually build their own apps and publish those apps to our customers. So it's not only about our 1,500 people in Etoro being able to run faster and develop faster, it's about giving those capabilities of launching new products and innovating to our customers as well. Yoni, I'm glad you brought up the apps. I am really intrigued by this app store. I don't think enough people are focusing on this app store, what it can mean for Etoro. What type of apps do you see coming and how might they reinvent your platform? So first of all, there are already 800 app builders out of the 5,000 pro investor, already 800 started building apps, about 1,000 apps are in pipeline. I'll just give you a couple of examples. Somebody wrote an app called Invest With Titans. It looks at your portfolio. It brings Cathie Wood, Warren Buffett, I think Benjamin Graham, and some other titans. You can actually select the titans. They are trained on those titans' personalities and how they invest, and they start commenting about your portfolio. And they give you sort of their insights from their point of view on your portfolio. And the funny thing is the guy who built the app actually also created a toggle between making it polite or making it aggressive. So you have Warren Buffett and Cathie Wood arguing about Bitcoin there, or Tesla. So, and this is an example of one app. We have others that actually created swap activities, so the ability to swap one asset to another. So why sell your Tesla and buy Google if you actually wanna do the same transaction of just swapping between them? So we're unleashing a lot of these capabilities. Some of them are quantitative trading capabilities that I would tell you two years ago are unimaginable. Then a year ago I would tell you, okay, now I built my quantum because I have access to AI so they can do it. And now suddenly our investors can build their own quantitative trading strategies. So it really expands everything you can do on eToro over time. And those apps will be published for the rest of the customers in eToro to be able to use them. Yoni, I was a former, I think I've told this before, I used to be a stock analyst for 10 years and I am blown away by the things you're telling me. I can't believe we've arrived at this point. I mean, how do you think this technology will, I mean, I still remember writing research reports by hand and like playing in like Excel spreadsheets. I mean, how do you think this technology changes the next decade for the retail investor? I think over the next decade and probably much sooner, every retail investor is going to basically have something you would compare to a hedge fund and a family office in their hands. So they'd have quants, research analysts, all agents measuring 24 seven what's happening in the markets, understanding your interests, your personality. By the way, also your expenses, your goals. So you'll have an army of family office and hedge fund quants working for you, all driven by AI. AI will become the best tool a retail investor can imagine. The gaps that we started bridging between institutional investor access back in 2007 to retail investors by lowering the costs, by making it simpler to access, now that bridges, it's not only about the access, it's the tools. A retail investor is going to have the same tools like the most sophisticated hedge funds in the world and capabilities like what the wealthiest families in the world have in their family office. So I think that's where the market is going to consolidate all of that to be agent led and agents are going to be your family office. I am truly blown away by this moment. If I'm right, I just wanna switch gears to the crypto front because I think you are a level-headed person in this space. If I'm right, you got involved in crypto in 2013. You've seen a lot of different market cycles. What is your, I guess, what's your message to the retail investor out there that is concerned about they bought Bitcoin around 100,000, 90,000, 80,000 and now it's well below. Like, what do you say to them? Huddle, huddle, never give up. I've been in this market since 2011, actually. My biggest mistake always throughout the cycles was selling too early. Luckily, I already did that mistake, I think, on Apple shares and Amazon in 2005 or six. So at least I learned that hard lesson early on. I think crypto is a cyclical market. It is amazing, by the way, how cyclical it is. We launched Bitcoin in 2013. Then in 14, it crashed from 1,200 to 150. Then we saw another all-time high in 2017 crashing. Then again in 2018, another all-time high. In 2021, then crashing again. In 2022, another all-time high. In 2025, then crashing again. In 2026, a four-year cycle that is on the clock that is, in my view, a potential buying opportunity to buy the deep. I think in a world where AI manages most of the money in the world, AI's gonna trade crypto much more easily. He will understand crypto better. He does understand probably crypto today already better than traditional money. So I think we have always taken a long-term view. We've seen the markets, and the markets are cyclical and volatile in crypto. But in times like these are when the opportunities arise. I think it's a Buffett statement. When there's blood in the street is where the buying opportunities are. Lastly, Yoni, this 24-7 trading that you mentioned on the earnings call, when does that launch and how does that change the business? Today. For real. Wow. Today. So we launched 24-7 gold today. Actually, a couple of days ago, announced it today. But what we've seen, which is, I think, remarkable, is stocks moving to 24-5 last year and gradually more and more and more stocks being 24-5 and the entire market infrastructure in the U.S. sort of facilitated in building that. What we're seeing over the weekend is actually prices being formed in crypto markets. So prices in crypto markets now are forming gold and silver prices and other commodities and even stocks over the weekend. And if you have price for those stocks, you can trade those stocks and commodities on Saturday and Sunday as well. So because we are and have always been both pioneers on crypto and on equities trading and securities trading, we've been able to basically copy crypto markets into capital markets to enable 24-7 trading. And I do expect to see many more assets moving 24-7 in 2026. Always good to see you. E. Toro, CEO Yoni Asya. Well, I look forward to talking to you and following all these AI developments, man. We'll talk to you soon. Always a pleasure. Thank you, Sazi. That's gonna do it for today's Market Domination Overtime. Be sure to come back tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern for all of your coverage leading up to and after the closing bell. But don't go anywhere. On the other side of the break, it's asking for a trend, and I've got you covered for the next half hour with the latest and greatest market-moving stories. Stay tuned.