Hot take: gold and silver are negative carry assets.
And right now, that matters more than most buyers realize.

We’re in an environment that feels bullish on the surface:

Prices near or at all-time highs
Heavy retail demand
Dealers moving inventory quickly
Silver taking longer to settle than it used to

But beneath that surface is a setup that quietly creates one of the most common and most painful mistakes in precious metals: FOMO-driven over-allocation.

What’s Actually Happening in the Physical Market

If you’re watching physical metals closely, especially silver, you’re seeing a few things at the same time:

Inventory turns are fast
Dealers are cash-positive but inventory-thin
Refinery settlement windows are longer than people are used to
Metal is moving, but not instantly

None of this means “the system is broken.”
It means working capital is tight and demand is real.

And that combination doesn’t usually cause crashes.

It causes bad decisions.

The FOMO Trap Nobody Talks About

Here’s how it usually starts:

Someone plans to put 5% of their savings into gold or silver.
Prices move higher. Delivery slows. Everyone’s talking about it.

Suddenly:

5% becomes 25%
25% becomes 50%
“Some exposure” becomes “all in”

And often, this isn’t surplus money.
It’s savings. Bonus checks. Years of effort converted all at once.

That’s where the risk enters. Not from the metal itself, but from position size.

Gold and Silver Are Negative Carry Assets (That’s Not an Insult)

Gold and silver don’t pay you to wait.

There’s:

No yield
No income
Storage costs
Insurance
Settlement friction when you need speed

That’s what negative carry means.

Negative carry is not a flaw.
It’s a feature that demands discipline.

The problem is that most people don’t enter a negative carry trade intentionally.
They fall into it and only realize it during a pullback.

Where the Real Pain Happens

When prices pull back, not even a crash, just a normal correction, life doesn’t pause.

Bills still exist.
Emergencies still happen.
Liquidity still matters.

And for people who over-allocated, metals become the first thing sold, not because they failed, but because everything else is already spoken for.

That’s when gold and silver get blamed for a mistake they didn’t cause.

The Difference Between Discipline and Disaster

Negative carry does one thing extremely well:

It exposes whether your position was sized correctly.

If your metals represent a small, intentional fraction of everything you’ve generated in your life, you’ll forget they exist.
If they represent too much, they’ll become a source of stress and eventually, forced selling.

The people who do well in metals over decades aren’t better at timing tops or bottoms.

They’re better at allocation.

Gold and Silver Are Not Emergency Funds

Precious metals are long-duration assets.

They’re meant to be carried quietly:

Through boring markets
Through pullbacks
Through delayed settlement
Through periods when nothing exciting is happening

They’re not meant to be liquidated to solve short-term problems.

If you buy metals like something you expect to keep, negative carry stops being scary.

If you buy them because of hype, negative carry becomes unbearable.

Final Thought

This market isn’t dangerous because prices are high.

It’s dangerous because people are buying more than their lives can afford to carry.

Gold and silver don’t punish impatience they reveal it.

Buy accordingly.

— David Souri
Aurora Gold and Silver, LLC

Gold and Silver Are Negative Carry Assets | Why That Matters More Than Ever Right Now