Episode Details

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Francis Hunt to the show. Francis Hunt is Renegade Trader, Analyst, & Founder of The Market Sniper. Hunt observes that the South Korean KOSPI index has surged an extreme 291% in just over a year, driven almost entirely by two stocks—Samsung and SK Hynix—amid the AI boom. This narrow advance mirrors the concentrated gains in the NASDAQ but is even more pronounced. Despite the export revenues from these tech giants, the Korean won is weakening, which Hunt attributes to foreign investors withdrawing profits and domestic retail investors piling in on record margin, a classic “Shushan boy” setup. He believes a currency crisis looms for South Korea, exacerbated by higher energy import costs that deplete dollar reserves. These energy cost pressures are part of a broader stagflationary environment that Hunt argues is intentionally manufactured. He contends stagflation enriches billionaires who hold assets while impoverishing the middle class and blue-collar workers through higher living costs and eventual job losses. This, he says, socializes costs and devalues debt for the wealthy, while governments later turn to predatory taxation, such as capital gains levies, to strip further value from citizens. In this context, Hunt maintains that precious metals—gold, silver, and platinum—are the prime beneficiaries. While gold and silver have experienced a corrective pause after an enormous run-up, he views the three-wave selling pattern as a healthy reset within a long-term bullish structure. His technical target for silver stands at $333, derived from a falling wedge pattern on the quarterly chart, which he expects will resume once the current consolidation resolves. Hunt advises concentrating wealth in monetary metals rather than diversifying across commodities like copper or lithium, which may rise nominally but lag in real gold-ounce terms. He notes the gold-silver ratio could see a short-term squeeze upward but remains structurally bearish long-term. For miners, he suggests selectivity, as rising energy costs have pressured some, though those with growing ounce profiles remain attractive. He closes by urging listeners to secure a multi-jurisdictional footprint, reject fear-based narratives, and build wealth that preserves genuine purchasing power. Those interested can follow his work on YouTube and X under The Market Sniper.