The "Multi-Market Cycle Opportunity" in Metals

Ed Coyne, Senior Managing Partner at Sprott, took time talk with Sumit Roy, Senior ETF Analyst at ETF.com, at the celebration of the 2026 ETF.com Awards from FutureProof Ctywide. Sprott Silver Miners & Physical Silver ETF (SLVR) won the award for Best New Commodities ETF. Coyne and Roy discuss the growing popularity of metals investing and highlighted Sprott Silver Miners & Physical Silver ETF (SLVR), Sprott Energy Transition Materials ETF (SETM), and Sprott Active Metal & Miners ETF (METL). 

For the latest standardized performance and holdings, please visit SLVR, SETM or METL. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Video Transcript

Sumit Roy: Ed, it's so nice to see you. You're the perfect guy to talk to, because over the past several months, metals have been absolutely exploding. We talked about this a second ago. Everything from gold to silver to copper has been rising.

Why have metals been rising so broadly over the past several months?

Ed Coyne: Over the last year or year and a half, the markets have started to wake up to the realities of what's going on. If you're talking about gold, you're talking about it as a monetary metal. And you look at how much debt we have, both here and abroad, and how much currency we're printing.

I always say we're not in a gold bull. We're really in a fiat bear market. The world has woken up to that reality. And when you think about things like stablecoin and other technologies out there that are looking for things like gold to back a part of the value of what they're creating, it's really getting a bigger seat at the table when it comes from a currency standpoint.

That speaks to the gold story. Think about things like silver, which is still a precious metal, but it's really bridging the gap over to the critical material side of the equation. And the world is starting to wake up to that reality as well: we need more silver, and it's getting harder to get.

And then you move on to the critical materials. We like uranium and its supply-demand dynamics. As more reactors remain open and new reactors come online, the supply-demand dynamics for feedstock uranium are continuing to grow. And we love that story.

We also really like copper. Nothing happens, including this video, without copper. We need more of it, but the readily accessible supply has largely been exhausted. Those are the four metals the world sees as a multi-market cycle opportunity.

Sumit Roy: Is the narrative for each metal different? You talked about gold, which is the debasement trade. Silver is a hybrid. Copper is tied to the electrification of the economy. Are they all different, or are there certain threads that connect all of them, like deglobalization?

Ed Coyne: There are some differences in each of the stories, but the bottom base core is simple supply and demand dynamics. We need more of each one of these. Take silver, for example. Silver has had its fifth year in a row of consumption exceeding production. The supply-demand dynamics are not going away anytime soon unless we put a freeze on AI, data centers, printing money and taking on more debt.

Then maybe the supply and demand rebalance, but we don't see that happening anytime soon. The core ecosystem is that we need more of all these metals. There aren't enough of them. We think the price has to go up to incentivize CapEx and investment. That's the common theme.

Gold, for example, is a monetary metal. Silver is the bridge metal going into the critical materials. Each one of them has its secondary story of why they're unique right now.

Sumit Roy: And of course, the age-old question when it comes to investing in these stories, when it comes to metals, is: do you buy the physical? Do you buy the miners? What do you think?

Ed Coyne: I always tell people if they're new to the investment theme, invest in physical first. You're trying to get exposure to the space. The miners and the equities themselves are stocks. They go up, they go down, they have management.

You look at mining. You've got property issues. You face the risk of jurisdictional issues and potentially nationalization of mines. That's more of a risk-on allocation. If you think about the physical market, that's a risk-off market. If you think about the equity or mining market, that’s a risk-on opportunistic allocation. You should think of them as different trades in the market.  

I always tell investors that if you're looking at the space right now, start with the physical market first. Get comfortable with that. And then, as you look to diversify your portfolio within this universe, start thinking about the equities.

Sumit Roy: Sprott, of course, is synonymous with metals. You have so many metals ETFs out there. Let's talk about specific ETFs. You were even nominated and have won the Best Commodity of the year award for SLVR. Let's talk about that one, and some others that you might want to throw out there.

Ed Coyne: The Sprott Silver Miners & Physical Silver ETF (SLVR) is exciting, and it was great to win that award today. What's exciting about it is that it shows you that the world has woken up to this narrative. They understand that silver is not just gold’s little brother or little sister. It has its own personality and supply-demand dynamics.
It's stepping out of gold’s shadow. Yes, it will still trade a little bit in lockstep with gold's direction. But as silver is consumed more from a tech standpoint, that demand will start to have its own driving forces on the physical side, as well as from miners themselves.

Silver, in general, both on the physical and the equities, is getting its own personality and really stepping out of gold's shadow. I think that's why that's happening, why investors are looking at it, why the performance is happening.

Sumit Roy: And that's a unique fund, right?

Ed Coyne: It's very unique.

Sumit Roy: Pure-play, silver miners. 

Ed Coyne: That's correct. There aren't that many of them out there. From a liquidity and quality standpoint, Sprott has over four decades of experience in the mining and metals spaces. If you're going to take a very specific allocation, like silver miners, you'd better do it with someone like us who knows what they're doing. We’ve been doing it for a long time, and it's part of a broader ecosystem of metal products.

Sumit Roy: I'd love it if you could, lastly, touch on this unique fund you have, the Sprott Critical Materials ETF (SETM). 

Ed Coyne: We like that one because the feedback we've received from advisors is that they love our vehicles and our thematic approach to copper, uranium, rare earths, battery metals, and so forth. But they only have so much room on their balance sheet to represent the many funds they want to use.

SETM is unique in that it's a core allocation with about a third of the portfolio giving exposure to the creation of energy, which is predominantly uranium for nuclear and silver for solar. Then, about a third of the portfolio is focused on energy movement, predominantly copper.

A third is in energy storage, which is predominantly battery metals and rare earths. With one-stop shopping, SETM gives you the entire ecosystem of critical materials in a single fund. For investors who want a more active approach, we have the Sprott Active Metals & Miners ETF (METL), which will take a more active approach within the same ecosystems.

For example, right now, it has more steel in it because we're having a more active conversation and allocation in that space. We like those two ETFs right now because they give you the full allocation and that narrative.

Sumit Roy: Fantastic. SETM and METL. Everyone should check those out. Thanks so much for your time. 

Ed Coyne: Thank you. I enjoyed it.