The Charts Of The Week: New Fed Chair, Kinross, Amazon Loves American Copper, Yields Jump, Andean Porphyries & Swelling Copper Inventories
The inaugural 2026 edition of Charts Of The Week
We begin this week’s Charts of The Week with a 10 basis point jump in the 10-year US Treasury Yield at the end of the week:
U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield (Daily)
The proximate cause of the jump in yields appears to be the market adjusting the odds of Trump tapping Kevin Warsh to be the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Six weeks ago, Hassett was all but a foregone conclusion to get the nod from Trump. Since then, Hassett’s odds have plummeted to below 20% while Warsh is breaking-out to above 60%:
What has caused this change in expectations for the next Fed Chair?
Major outlets like Reuters, AP, the Financial Times, and Barron’s are reporting that Warsh has gained in market odds after Trump signaled he may keep Kevin Hassett in his current White House role.
In addition, one source reported that "Trump was impressed by Kevin Warsh in an interview for Fed Chair last month, telling associates he was struck by his acumen and good looks, according to sources."
This could be a classic Trump misdirection, something we’ve become all too familiar with over the last year. However, it rings true and Warsh does make a much more credible Federal Reserve Chair than Hassett.
Here is a 2015 video of Kevin Warsh at the Brookings Institute explaining why Fed QE has benefited the wealthiest Americans and contributed to economic inequality:
In recent appearances, Warsh has expressed a more hawkish tone with regard to monetary policy. However, it’s possible that Warsh has come around and changed his mind due to new developments in the labor market, housing, and AI.
Jared Dillian weighed in on the prospect of Warsh as next Fed Chair:
This is probably the correct take, but part of me wonders if Trump is about to regret a Fed Chair appointment for the second time in his life.
If Trump confirms that Warsh is his guy later this month, I may have to reconsider some of my outlook for 2026. This could potentially be a less bullish development for precious metals.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean bearish.
After all, nothing stops this train.
Turning to precious metals, gold reached a new all-time high at $4643/oz and silver managed to vault above $93/oz (another all-time high) before settling the week back below $90/oz:
Gold (Daily)
Gold remains in a healthy uptrend, but it is evident that the upside momentum is beginning to wane. It should be noted that historically gold tends to cool off during February/March, particularly after the Chinese New Year (mid-February).
Meanwhile, silver continues to take no prisoners:
Silver (Daily)
Still no sign of a blow-off top in silver. In fact, it’s one of the healthiest, and most relentless uptrends I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness. With that being said, I am still in favor of a longer period of oscillation (price acceptance) in the $80-$90 range. A move above $100/oz that happens too soon would risk an emotional climax, and a dreaded blow-off top.
It should be noted that the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) issued a notice on January 16, 2026 that reduces the maximum number of open positions per day for silver futures contracts. Effective January 20, 2026 (from the night session on Jan 19), the daily intra-day open position cap for a range of silver futures contracts has been set to 3,000 lots for non-futures firm members and non-broker offshore participants and customers.
This latest adjustment to position limits comes after a January 9th announcement set a daily intra-day position limit of 7,000 lots for silver futures. These steps are designed to dampen speculative excess and stabilize the silver futures market at a time when trading activity has been elevated.
The silver price has doubled since early November.
Turning to gold miners, Kinross Gold (NSYE: KGC, TSX:K) announced that it is proceeding with the construction of three organic growth projects: the Round Mountain Phase X and Bald Mountain Redbird 2 projects in Nevada, and the Kettle River-Curlew project in Washington. These projects are expected to meaningfully extend mine life and will benefit long-term costs within Kinross’ United States portfolio.
Kinross Gold (Daily)
National Bank Financial analyst Shane Nagle said that the announcement helps to better define KGC’s long-term growth profile, prompting him to raise his price target on the large Canadian gold producer.
“We reiterate our Outperform rating, supported by an attractive valuation, strong FCF yield supporting increasing shareholder distributions, above-average sensitivity to gold prices and relatively low/improving geopolitical risk profile….. Thursday’s technical reports provide more conviction in mine life extensions and long-term growth outlook for the company beyond development of Great Bear. Our target has increased slightly as we now model lower costs and higher EBITDA for 2026.
Strong balance sheet supports continued capital returns: Kinross has completed its 2025 share repurchase program, achieving its target of US$600-million and reducing its share count by 2.5 per cent. The company will continue to prioritize its strong balance sheet, liquidity and capital return program. Kinross is expected to be in a net cash position of US$1.10-billion as of Q4/25.”
National Bank has an outperform rating on Kinross with a C$52 price target.
Given what has transpired in the first two weeks of 2026 with regard to U.S. mining, somehow I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that Kinross announced significant investments in three of its Nevada and Washington gold projects.
Speaking of U.S. mining, Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) made a splash last week when it announced a strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that will see AWS become Nuton® Technology’s first customer following the breakthrough industrial-scale deployment of the innovative bioleaching technology at the Johnson Camp copper mine in the U.S. last month.
The news release states:
“Under the two-year agreement, AWS will use the first Nuton copper ever produced in components of its U.S. data centres, while also providing cloud-based data and analytics support to accelerate the optimisation of Nuton’s proprietary bioleaching technology at Gunnison Copper’s Johnson Camp mine. Data centres use copper in a wide variety of applications, including electrical cables and busbars, windings in transformers and motors, printed circuit boards, and heat sinks on processors.”
Amazon’s (Nasdaq:AMZN) Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst said:
“Amazon’s Climate Pledge goal to reach net zero carbon by 2040 requires us to innovate across every part of our operations, including how we source the materials that power our infrastructure. This collaboration with Nuton Technology represents exactly the kind of breakthrough we need—a fundamentally different approach to copper production that helps reduce carbon emissions and water use. As we continue to invest in next-generation carbon-free energy technology and expand our data centre operations, securing access to lower-carbon materials produced close to home strengthens both our supply chain resilience and our ability to decarbonize at scale.”
Nuton's modular bioleaching system works by extracting copper from primary sulphide material using naturally occurring microorganisms. This modular approach, combined with digital tools, enables rapid scaling and tailoring of the technology to different mineralized material bodies, reducing the pathway from concept to production.
Gunnison Copper’s Johnson Camp mine in Arizona is now the lowest-carbon primary copper producer in the U.S. on the mine to refined metal basis widely used by industry.
Gunnison Copper (Daily)
Rio Tinto and Amazon made all the headlines, but Gunnison Copper’s role in this was not lost on Mr. Market; GCU shares rose 34.86% for the week as investors appreciated that Gunnison Copper is one of a small number of U.S. junior copper producers able to produce 99.99% pure copper cathode at the ‘mine gate’.
Gunnison Copper's Chief Executive Officer and President Stephen Twyerould said:
"Having the first Nuton copper produced from Johnson Camp used in AWS's U.S. data centres is a significant milestone for this innovative technology's ability to deliver lower-carbon, domestically produced and used copper. This collaboration highlights how innovation, digital optimisation, and Made-in-America copper production can strengthen U.S. supply chains, while supporting the growing demand for critical minerals powering modern infrastructure."
Gunnison Copper has a big year ahead, including an updated PEA (expected in Q1 2026) for the company’s flagship Gunnison Copper Project (832 million tonnes at .31% copper in an open-pit).
Turning to nickel, US nickel junior Homeland Nickel (TSX-V:SHL) saw its shares soar +135% for the week:
Homeland Nickel (Daily)
There was no company specific news release that triggered the rise. However, as noted earlier in this article, and in recent Substacks (here and here), it was a big week for critical minerals and mining in the U.S.A.
SHL has managed to consolidate a portfolio of nickel laterite mining claims/projects in Oregon, USA. In a news release dated November 4, 2025 Homeland Nickel stated:
“In 2026 Homeland will work toward updating the historical resources at Red Flat (18.8 Mt grading 0.84% Ni) and Cleopatra (39.5 Mt grading 0.93% Ni) and define initial resources at Woodcock Mountain, Josephine Creek and Eight Dollar Mountain.”
Turning back to copper, Andina Copper (TSX-V:ANDC, OTC: PMMCF) announced the appointment of Joseph Salas as Vice President - Exploration and Gustavo Zulliger as Principal Consulting Geologist, adding significant technical expertise and extensive regional experience to the Company’s executive and technical teams.
Andina Copper (Daily)
Following Monday morning’s announcement of the new additions to the ANDC technical team, Andina shares rose 21.2% for the week.
Joseph van den Elsen, President and CEO, commented:
“We are delighted to welcome Joseph and Gustavo to the Andina Copper team. Their combined technical expertise and regional operational experience will be invaluable as we enter a catalyst rich period with strong, exploration driven news flow being generated across all three of our projects. Drill bit exploration continues at pace at Piuquenes and Cobrasco, and follow-up exploration will shortly commence at Mantau. With significant concurrent programs running across our highly compelling project portfolio, 2026 promises to be an exciting time for Andina Copper shareholders”.
The first results from the company’s maiden drill program at Cobrasco are expected imminently, and based on last week’s trading investor expectations are clearly quite bullish. As a reminder, the Cobrasco Project in Colombia’s Chocó Copper Belt is a significant new copper-molybdenum porphyry discovery. The first drill hole (CDH001 in 2022 by Rugby Resources) returned an impressive porphyry copper interval, of 808 meters at 0.42% copper with high-grade bornite mineralization. The project covers a 3 km² geochemical anomaly and remains open in all directions.
Situated within a major Andean porphyry gap – between some of South America’s largest copper districts – Cobrasco stands out as one of the few untested, district-scale porphyry systems in the region.
Finally, we can’t be too optimistic after the recent run that metals have had. There are mounting signs that copper may have gotten over its skis a little bit with the recent rally above $6/lb:
Global visible copper inventories continue to trend higher as copper futures remain in backwardation—this is a sign of potential stockpiling by Trump 2.0 and/or China. Meanwhile, in a recent research note Goldman Sachs sees copper moving lower and trading near $5/lb in 2H 2026.
One thing is for sure, 2026 is shaping up to be a fascinating year from a macroeconomic and geopolitical perspective. Thank you for being a reader of Goldfinger Capital and I look forward to continuing to deliver my very best insights right here!
Disclosure: Author owns shares of Gunnison Copper, Andina Copper, and Homeland Nickel at the time of publishing and may choose to buy or sell at any time without notice. Gunnison Copper has compensated Goldfinger Capital for the production and dissemination of corporate interviews, so some information could be considered biased.
DISCLAIMER: The work included in this article is based on current events, technical charts, company news releases, corporate presentations and the author’s opinions. It may contain errors, and you shouldn’t make any investment decision based solely on what you read here. This publication contains forward-looking statements, including but not limited to comments regarding predictions and projections. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. This article is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always thoroughly do your own due diligence and talk to a licensed investment adviser prior to making any investment decisions. Junior resource companies can easily lose 100% of their value so read company profiles on www.SedarPlus.ca for important risk disclosures. It’s your money and your responsibility.