Recording date: 17th December 2025

Olive Resource Capital's leadership team has delivered a nuanced precious metals outlook for 2026 that challenges conventional wisdom whilst identifying specific opportunities backed by fundamental analysis. In this latest Compass podcast, President and CEO Sam Pelaez alongside Executive Chairman Derek Macpherson presented a framework emphasizing selectivity over broad-based precious metals enthusiasm.

The firm's highest-conviction call centres on platinum, which Macpherson identified as his top commodity pick for 2026. The case rests on three pillars: persistent market deficits, tight physical supply, and anticipated policy shifts. "The market's in deficit. It's a small market and it's tight," Macpherson explained, before highlighting a critical catalyst: "I think we're going to see some of these EV mandates are going to get rolled off. More ICE engines by 2030 or 2035 are going to evaporate." This reassessment of aggressive electric vehicle timelines supports continued internal combustion engine production, sustaining autocatalyst demand for platinum and palladium. Olive maintains significant positioning in the PGM complex to capture this opportunity.

The macroeconomic foundation underpinning precious metals remains robust despite consensus recession fears. Pelaez articulated the firm's contrarian economic view: "I think the global economy surprises to the upside. The general consensus is bearish. The GDP now for the Atlanta Fed is over 3%. The Treasury and the Fed are injecting liquidity right now. China is on an expansionary fiscal policy." Macpherson reinforced this perspective, noting unprecedented global deficit spending: "China's got a trillion dollars worth of stimulus, the US is spending money like it's going out of style. The Europeans all went into deficit spending to fund their defense efforts."

This liquidity-driven environment creates favourable conditions for hard assets, though Olive's leadership expects commodity market leadership to potentially rotate from precious towards industrial metals. Gold maintains its portfolio role despite moderated return expectations following 2025's exceptional 60% advance, with Pelaez noting that reduced speculation in precious metals need not preclude continued gold strength supported by central bank buying and monetary accommodation.

Perhaps most controversially, both executives expect silver to disappoint investors in 2026 despite positive fundamentals. Pelaez explained: "Every person on the planet seems to be uber-ultra-mega bullish silver. I'm not saying I think silver is going to go down necessarily, but it's going to be the most disappointing because the expectations for it are so high." Technical analysis suggests silver "has already corrected up to the average" based on 25 years of volume-weighted data against gold, with "the biggest move in silver" having "already occurred literally over the past eight weeks."

Macpherson acknowledged tactical opportunities, expecting a "blowoff top in silver at a higher price than where we are right now," but anticipates year-end underperformance following silver's characteristic pattern of spiking then rolling off. Olive maintains silver exposure to capture near-term momentum whilst preparing to reduce positions.

The firm's strategy emphasises diversified mining equities as preferred investment vehicles, highlighting Ivanhoe Mines with its PGM production "coming online at a perfect time when the market is moving higher." This approach provides leveraged precious metals exposure whilst managing single-commodity risk through companies with multiple revenue streams and operational catalysts.

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