jaro gruber ;-): 2025

Monday, December 22, 2025

all-time-high in SILVER + gold + copper TODAY

the current inflationary cycle speeds up, my dears! why? there is the next all-time-high in SILVER price today. okay, it is just a nominal all-time high per 1 troy ounce in USD at $69.45, not an inflation adjusted or an relative all-time-high against some other tangible asset like gold. but the 'nominal only' view is the way how most people look at prices of anything, isnt it? whats the danger in this approach? you now the price of everything and the value of nothing, isnt it?😇

i've started this blog post abt SILVER, but later came also the price of GOLD above its october 2025 record mark and COPPER is already higher than its all-time-high from last friday, too. i didn't look-up zinc, nickel, lead, molybdenum and other metals yet ... anyway, i 💖Ag, Au, Cu. why? there are two possible reasons. well, my last name is 'gruber' which indicates my ancestors worked in one of the many underground mines (= 'grube' in german) in the east slovakian ore mountains. the 2nd explanation would be that my stock market portfolio is still heavily commodities-oriented (maybe around 80%), although i've increased or bought new positions in many of the so popular american technology, big data + AI stocks recently (google, oracle, nvidia, broadcom, arista, cisco, HP, dell, amazon, open, iren, quantum computing, AT&T, poet, meta, tesla, ... and added some stocks of the german software company SAP, too.

the former all time high in SILVER before 2025 was the hunt brothers' short-squeeze intraday spike of $50 in 1980. in 2011 came the price close to this 'magical treshold' to approx $48. this year started the silver price at $28.97 and moved in the range from $28.29 to $69.45, thus there were many all-time-highs down the road recently, you know?

the 2025 year ranges for my 3 favorite investment metals till dec, 22th:

Ag, silver, 28.29 - 69.45 USD per troy ounce (@comex)
Au, gold, 2,595.90 - 4,447.82 USD per troy ounce (@comex)
Cu, copper, 9,524.67 - 11.940 USD per metric ton (@LME, intraday 'cash'). you will find also charts and tables with Cu prices per day closing / monthly average or futures with different runtimes. the most relevant 3 months copper future at LME quoted at $11.925 today. there are copper prices at comex too, but in USD per pound. the price range in 2025 was from $4.24 to $5.96 (intraday high in july 2025). therefore be carefull what values are you going to compare in the internet / AI or better look just at the order of magnitude than at the last decimal digit of your current quote😇

what abt inflation? lets measure prices by gold + the official american CPI (consumer price index) provided by the u.s. government. the real inflation at shop counters is much higher, isnt it?

#1 all-time aka 100 years silver chart

source: miningvisuals.com

the hunt brothers price manipulation in 1980 explained by google's AI here

#2 CPI adjusted prices ~ CPI = consumer price index ... remember, the hunt brothers' peak of $50 in january 1980 (equals $208 in 11/2025) was just a rigged paper market value for very short time. you could buy silver at $35 (equals $146 in 11/2025) easily back then in 1980 ...

folks, you can use the u.s. CPI calculator provided (aka

manipulated?) by the u.s. government alone, cant you?

#3 the gold-silver ratio (by longtremtrends.com) used to be between 25 and 100. right now it equals 64.6 (gold $4437.11 and silver $68.68). heaven & hell! silver is still quite cheap compared to gold in historic measures, isnt it? lets wait with selling of silver stock till this ratio moves in the range around 50, will we?

longtermtrends.com ~ gold-silver-ratio

#4 top silver producers in Q1 and Q2 2025.

source miningvisuals.com. here are details for top silver

producerrs in Q2/2025 (includes the swedish boliden)

i've bought few shares in the companies i've had no postions yet in the last 2 weeks: fresnillo, southern copper, buenaventura, zijin + boliden. i've also bought 2 small tranches in glencore + the polish copper miner KGHM at my lynx broker in order to see their progress (i have these 2 in my old stock portfolio at a bank with extremely high trading fees. thus i do not look up the developments there and that portfolio is more or less on maintenance modus without any trading movements).

MAG silver does not exist any more as it was taken over by pan american silver (PAAS) in september 2025. it was not possible for me to buy shares in san cristobal mines (a private company), volcan (there are some clearing issues at the madrid exchange, so you can just sell existing shares there => you have to buy volcan directly in peru). my trial to buy hindustan zinc in india was a disaster and a nice learning experience at the same time. i've applied for access to all asian markets at my broker just to learn, that only indian citizens are allowed to buy shares listed at indian exchanges. crazy, isnt it? well, at least india cannot steal money of foreign citizens / investors as the usa, switzerland + EU regularly do (e.g. russian + venezulean assets recently). well, the price of hindustan zinc moved up like crazy in the last few weeks, so i'm not sure it would be smart to buy it right now, anyway ...

#5 my top portfolio holdings are mining companies and mostly Cu, Ag, Au based, you see?

top down: amerigo resources (Cu), hudbay minerals (Cu), first majestic silver (Ag), agnico eagle mines (Au), hecla mining (Ag), coeur d'alene mines (Ag+Au), endeavour silver (Ag), wheaton precious metals (Au+Ag), avino silver mines (Ag), pan american silver (Ag+Au), discovery silver (Ag), globex mining (explorer with many very small projects for many different metals in canada).

#6 what were my top movers on a record day like today?

#7 probably a suprise for few of my dear readers. NO, it is not gold, silver, copper which rise in price or value. it is the other way round: the value of all major currencies is going down => stop measure the value of anything in dollars, euros, yens, swiss francs or the like. start to evaluate in real tangible assets or timeless values ... most suitable measurement for financial assets will most likely be gold, wont it? for emotional assets & values s.th. completely different. lets hope we will discover it soon 😆💕🍀

in case of money, what does all these lines + columns with numbers and letters below created by google's gemini AI in my google account today mean? every major currency loses its buying power against gold and silver aproximately 11% per year!!! even the "stable currency" swiss franc loses 9% per year, which is just a little bit slower then the remaining valuta(s). so please do not tell me again dollar, yen, swiss franc is strong and euro is weak or vice versa, will you? all of them (USD, CAD, YEN, GBP, CHF, ...) just fell apart with different speed😉

gold price increase by currency created by google's gemini AI

silver price increase by currency created by google's gemini AI

addendum december 23th, 2025: all 3 metals Ag, Au + Cu are even a little bit higher then yesterday. of course, as long as the trend up is intact, there have benn and there will be many, many new all-time-highs down the road, wont there?

december 24th, 2025: in the asian markets climbed Au+Ag up the ladder further. Cu starts at LME+comex later in the morning ...

folks, i'll update the final price ranges 2025 on december 31th. promised 😇

Sunday, December 21, 2025

xmas in thailand

well, today is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, isnt it? we dont care because we spent this christmas in cape panwa, at the southeastern part of the phuket island in south thailand, you know? well, lets turn my blog back to 2019, the last time we've been to thailand, which still is one of our most favorite countries in the world. lets enjoy few views at the former capital and in europe not too well known city of ayutthaya 🌞

our hotels cape panwa private + clean beach => TH is nice 😄

... more insights + pictures coming soon ....

any insights out there?

unlike the buddhist north, south thailand has also a huge muslim population. here on phuket abt 15-20%, at our place cape panwa much more
colors, colors, colors ..
huge contrast between the clean + nice + friendly luxury hotel and heaps of trash in the streets + beaches + in the see .. .soooo sad, if you asked me
massage, massage, massage ...
a crazy difference between the low and high tide out there. we can swimm only during the high tide. we have a table with 'best time toi swim' in our room, so it is easy to plan our day
food is still cheap (3-6 euros per lunch/dinner outside the hotel and even in the hotel i'll get the regional thai dishes bellow 10 euros. drinks, especially alcoholic beverages like beer is more expensive than in munich / germany in both, the supermarkets and in restaurants
labor still quite cheap, so the massage + pedicure + tailor + laundry + other services still much cheaper than comparable services in germany ...
it is better to exchange money (euros) in the many currency exchange booths than to exchange in banks or withdraw baht from ATMs ... of course, do not change at the airport or in the hotels
the thais are more christmas crazy than we europeans, if you asked me
what abt our cape panwa hotel above the kantary + panwa bays?

a really beautiful, clean and nice place to be. huge seaside rooms and few luxury bungallows with own pools, beautiful arranged garden, a funny 100m tram line from the hotel down to the beach, enough sunbeds + sun umbrellas for all geusts at the beach (and probably also at the 2 pools), free of charge shuttle service to the panway bay down the hill to their sister hotel 'kantary' (it is approx 9 minutes walking distance)
a private beach, which is cleaned every morning by 2 employees and during the day by me .. you will always find some plastic brought by the waves or left over by tourists
the most guest are from GB, russia + germany, if you ask me. sometimes you also hear some french + italian speaking folks
there is a former aristocratic house from approx 1910 directly at the beach, which looks like a museum and functions as a beautiful dining place in the evening. you have to make a reservation, the prices + offers are similar to the main breakfast + dinner restaurant
next bay to our hotel is a tin smelter and refinery company called 'thaisarco' with an adjacent insustrial port or at least a terminal. yes, there are always 3 or 4 ships at the open sea in front of our hotel awaiting loading or unloading, many of them have the LPG signs (liquefied petroleum gas such as propane or butane). there have been tin mines on phuket before, today there is just a tin museum .... tin mining reminds me on the past riches of the ipoh city in malaysia
anything else? yes, we miss some thai temples here. there is just a small chapel-like tempel down the road between our hotel and the public beach and some symbolic mini indoor temples in buddhist houses / bussinesses, but real thai temples are in phuket city and the like

day trip #1

chalong temple
big budha statue
city of phuket ~ town gallery 'hall' aka view point above the city, one of the many chinese temples, the historic streets with 150-200 years old buildings in sino-portuguese style (or often called also sino-european), as the bussiness & trading district used to be chinese, you know? it looks similar to the old city centers in malaysia. they've called it colonial style... many many weed shops (it was legalized here after covid)

day trip #2

elephant jungle sanctionary ~ a retirement place for mostly old elephants, which couldnt any longer work and would probably be killed otherwise

boat tour to phi phi islands (koh phi phi) ~ day trip planned
jhkljkplkjp

cape panwa ~ panwa bay ~ view from our favorite roof top restaurant

hippie + weedhead restaurant by day ... we wouldnt go in

if we'd see this first => TH is dirty & ugly 👹

conclusion nice vs. ugly? it depends where you look 😄

hippie restaurant by night

makes sense, isnt it?

town hall, phuket city,

before xmas 😃

two of us

after xmas 👺

more pictures LATER here.

Sunday, November 30, 2025

nitra + 1,000 km across slovakia, SK

nitra (neutra, nyitra) in slovakia was the city / area which i almost always left behind without really see it. not so this time 😃

my other looooong & short stops at my almost 1,000 km across slovakia, SK this time?

pressburg (bratislava) ~ 2 days of mobile work, family, friends ~ western SK
königberg (nova bana aka new mine) ~ minig city / area in the carpathians similar to the area where my parents were born. although i've been already in few cities of this former mining district altsohl (zvolen) + the beautiful neusohl (banska bystrica) + the unesco heritage schemnitz (banska stiavnica) + the gold mining city with the oldest still operating mint in the world kremnitz (kremnica) before, i will definitely stop by in königsberg (nova bana, újbánya, seunych, regiomontum) some day in the future. it will even be quite easy as the city is directly at the highway from bratislava to my home. okay, even 36 years after the 'color revolution' which replaced the socialist bussiness model by a capitalist one, the highway ends ways before my homelands in the east. capitalism isnt automatically better than socialism, is it?😅 ~ central SK
moldava nad bodvou (moldau, szepsi) ~ a city with a significant hungarian minority. all other cities mentioned here were formely german settled or with a huge german population. even today there is still a german minority as not all germans were expelled out of their homelands after the lost WWII ~ southeastern SK
jasov (jossau, joß) ~ eastern SK
medzev (metzenseifen) ~ eastern SK
schmöllnitz (smolnik) ~ eastern SK
einsiedel an der göllnitz (mnisek nad hnilcom) ~ our family graves ~ eastern SK
göllnitz (gelnica) ~ here we were just to drink few beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺in the evening as there is no nice pub / restaurant in einsiedel anymore ~ eastern SK
neutra (nitra, nyitra) ~ see below

well, this time i could work two days online from my brothers place + visit ice-hockey training of his son at the slovan bratislava youth team + meet few members of my family + visit our family graves in eastern slovakia + ...

yes, there was already snow in late november. the closest pass (pacansky kopec) over the mountains at 1,000m high was closed for the winter⛄and i had to elude via moldava (moldau) + the gypsy colony jasov (jossau, joß) + medzev (metzenseifen) to the 800m high pass stos (stoss) which is regularly cleared and open all winter.