Transcription
Look out. Gold goes to seven, you know, silver goes to 200, Bitcoin goes to 180. I mean, that's that's kind of what I see.
>> What are you buying right now? I'm pleased to welcome back the show Lawrence Aart, managing part of Equity Management Associates. We're going to talk about the global economy. We're going to talk about Bitcoin, gold, what's next for markets, how do we survive uh basically this correction? Uh, is it going to continue? Do we get back in? Do we stay out? Lawrence has been right before. And I'm going to explain exactly why. Lawrence, good to see you again.
>> Really nice to see you, Dave. I always enjoyed talking to you.
>> I've enjoyed talking to you as well. My audience has enjoyed talking to you. On my screen now is um is uh an interview that you and I did back in 2024. Now, you've been on the show a couple times since 2024, but I want to bring up this specific video because this turned out to be a pretty much dead-on call. You you call for $150,000 Bitcoin and 5K gold,
>> and my forecast is much higher. I mean, I think we're going to 5,000 easily and then maybe 10 or 15. But to be honest with you, I'll give you the spread. I mean, to my way of seeing end of calendar 2024, we could be at 100. We could be at 300. I have no idea. I doubt we're below 100. I I highly doubt that. That's, you know, from 60, that's a 40% move or a little higher. That should be pretty easy.
>> Bitcoin didn't quite reach.
>> I missed the Bitcoin call. Yeah.
>> Yeah. By the way, Bitcoin was was 60 or something, wasn't it? as I recall.
>> Well, I'll find out exactly when that was. So, in '04, gold was uh so this was 2024. Uh April 2024, uh gold was still at uh just over 2,000. So, you basically call for gold to double. Uh Bitcoin at the time was yeah, around 660K, I think. Um Bitcoin uh dece March, April, there we go. Yeah. 40, 49K, 50K. I missed the Bitcoin call. Yeah, I missed the Bitcoin call. I thought we'd go to 150. I was wrong. We went to 125, but you know,
>> let's revisit this. Why did you think Bitcoin was going to triple at the time and gold double, which turned out to be pretty much spot on, by the way, off by a little bit. Um, timing timing we can never get perfectly, but uh the direction was right and the level was right before they retraced.
>> Yeah. So, I I think it was just the monetary debasement trade was just becoming more and more obvious. And as I recall, we actually did that right before I released my book, which was in February of 25 and since we did that in the fall of 24. And what I was kind of seeing just reading all the economic tea leaves was that they just had to keep printing money and the deficit had to continue growing. Um, you know, and since then, that's that's really kind of all we've seen. I mean, and what what really turbocharged the move in both Bitcoin and gold, you know, uh, last year was when Doge failed. you know that I think there were a lot of people when Trump came in the beginning of last year thought okay you know they're going to they're going to balance the budget you know get responsible etc and you know a couple months of that and Elon said hey I'm out of here this isn't going to work and uh you know everyone kind of realized gosh they're just going to continue spending money running deficits and printing the money and and and that's what I think that's the the primary reason why gold you know woke up and took off like a scalded dog and Bitcoin kind of did too
>> yeah so a lot of people gave up on Bitcoin recently. Have you?
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, they're giving up on it now. I mean, this is this is the way of the world. It's a it's a really hard asset, David. It just I mean, you know, I'm I'm pretty sure we're right about it. You know, I'm never 100% sure of anything in life, but I'm pretty sure we're right about it. But, you know, it's had it's had a lot of draw downs over time. 90% 80% 70% 60%. This one's a little over 50% now. I I will make a point that they're getting slightly smaller each one. Um but, you know, this is this is the nature of it all. And you know, I I remember when last draw was 15,000 and it's at, you know, 60 now. And 60 was kind of the old high before it went on the run up to 125. So,
>> you know, I think that when this one ends, and we'll talk about that in a minute, you know, when this one ends, I I feel like we're going to, you know, 150, 180, 200 something, you know, on the next run up, it's always out.
>> I got I got your forecast in 2024 and 2025 in bull markets when the price was on its way up. Now that the price has been on its way down, what is your updated forecast now for both Bitcoin and gold? Let's do Bitcoin first in that order.
>> Uh which you want to do first? Uh
>> let's do Bitcoin first and then gold.
>> Bitcoin first. So I feel like we're carving a bottom here in Bitcoin. A lot of the good u analysts that I follow and the the economic or the models that I follow. There's one in particular that's very useful called the power law model. Um suggests that you know we're close to the bottom if not at the bottom. So, you know, whether we end here at 59 or 58 or we wick down to 54, I I don't think we're going to see a number that starts with 40. I mean, I feel like the bottom will be here. We may, for all I know, we've hit it or, you know, I think we hit 58 last week. Um, but maybe we go to 54. I don't know. You know, from a time point of view, it feels to me like this kind of wraps up in the next 3 to four months. I mean, we're about 9 months into this. Most of these Bitcoin bare markets seem to last about 12 months. So, you know, if you take 3 months from now, I mean, what would that be? September maybe, you know, it's over and we start going up again. Um, but it could be shorter. I don't know. Uh, gold kind of the same story. I mean, I don't know. Could we, you know, we're in the low fours. I mean, could we go down to 3,800, 3,900? Yeah, sure. I mean, I it's entirely possible, but um I think that after we do, you know, we we'll go back and we'll challenge that. I think the high was about 5,400. Maybe it touched 55 briefly, but I mean I I feel like, you know, next year we'll be at 6,000, maybe seven. you know, by next timing calendar next year. So, um, you know, and silver, same story, even more volatile, right? Silver hit 120 and and lost half its value. You know, it's down to 60 now, kind of like Bitcoin. And, uh, you know, I I feel like silver, you know, I'm with Michael Oliver. I mean, I think silver's going to 150, north of 200. But again, you know, when you're in these draw downs, it's hard to know how long they last, and sometimes they last longer than you think, and a lot of people are getting discouraged. A lot of people are kind of throwing stones at each other. But I think it's encouraging. The mainstream press has had several articles that have come out and said, "Oh, the the debasement trade is dead." And I was and I kind of I looked at it and I chuckled. I thought, "Oh, that's a good contrary indicator because, you know, okay, the debasement trade is dead." Well, have they balanced the budget? No. You know, are they spending less money? No. They just, it looks like the uh the a war or the, you know, the skirmish, whatever you want to call it, in the Middle East added about 80 $80 billion to the budget this year. So we're going to be solidly over two trillion this year in budget deficits. So you know they they can't stop printing money and until they do you know the debasement trade lives in my opinion.
>> What is the debasement trade? What was it in 2024? What is it now?
>> Yeah. So the debasement trade is just the thesis that you know the government because they are running a large deficit they have to basically more or less monetize it. And to keep the bond market calm, they have to print money. I mean, that's this is at a, you know, at a big picture level. It's more sophisticated than that. And, you know, the amount they're printing is varying and the ways they do it are varying. But, as you'll recall, before Jerome Powell left u his his position uh last December, he pivoted and they started printing money again. Um, it it looked like QE, they were they started growing the Fed balance sheet, which is adding reserves into the banking system, which then gets, you know, a multiplier effect and grows M2. Um, and they they they renamed it as they always do. You know, the job of the Fed, I mean, I I say this over and over again, the job of the Fed is to create inflation and lie about it, right? Yeah.
>> I mean, it's it's really simple. They got to create enough inflation to keep the system running because they don't want the system to collapse. And in an ever growing system with a lot of credit, you got to make more money or else you can't pay back the credit and it would collapse. But in turn, everyone hates inflation. So, they have to lie about the inflation. And you know, we can talk about the new guy, Wars, and how he's going to accomplish that. He's he's kind of come with a new with a new flavor, a new, you know, a new formula, which is kind of what they always do. Whenever one thing's not working, they'll try something else. So,
>> one thing I've learned from talking to countless investors over the years is that people spend a lot of time searching for certainty, the perfect signal, the perfect entry point, the perfect moment to act. But markets rarely work that way. In fact, many of the smartest investors I've interviewed weren't successful because they waited for certainty or the perfect entry point. They were successful because they acted when they had conviction. And that's especially true when it comes to something like gold. Many people have followed the gold story for years. They understand the macroeconomic backdrop. They see why central banks continue to accumulate gold and they understand the concerns surrounding government debt, deficits, and currency debasement. But understanding an investment thesis and actually positioning for it are two very different things. Today, more investors are deciding to take a closer look. Some are purchasing gold directly. Others are moving a portion of an IRA or a 401k into a gold IRA. That's why today I partner with Augusta Precious Metals. What I appreciate about Augusta is their commitment to education. They explain how their process works, answer your questions, and help you evaluate whether or not precious metals make sense for your particular set of goals and situations. No pressure, no hard cell, just information so you can make an informed decision. So, if you'd like to learn more, visit lintrustgold.com link down below in the description or scan the QR code here or text lin to35052 to receive Augusta's free information guide. How do you explain the fact that the inflation uh numbers have started picking up as Bitcoin and gold started falling?
>> Well, I think that actually is a good indicator of of why Bitcoin and gold are falling. So, and I think it also represents a misunderstanding on the part of a lot of market participants of what's going on. I mean, there is no doubt that inflation has been running hot at both a PCE level and at a PPI level. Um, and some of that is was tariff related earlier. Now, it's probably some of it's a piece of it's war related in the sense that the price of oil took a big, you know, boost when we decided to go to war. Um, and so what what you see in the marketplace is that, you know, a large percentage of the the market now thinks that the Fed's going to raise rates to tame inflation. I mean, in any kind of historical setting with inflation heating up again, I mean, they never achieved their 2% objective, right? I mean, they, you know, it went to nine on COVID, it came back down to in the threes, mid to high 3s. They haven't even gotten into the twos yet. They want to they want to get it to 20. And so, you know, I think what the market is thinking is, well, gosh, these these inflation numbers are hot, we're going to have to raise interest rates. And if they raise interest rates, that means, you know, bonds are more attractive and real interest rates are higher. And hey, we don't need monetary debasement. The dollar is as good as gold, you know. I mean, and and by the way, the dollar is rallying versus foreign currencies. So, you know, that's kind of what's going on now. I think that narrative is wrong. I I mean, not not short term. I mean, it's possible he raises rates. I think it's unlikely. Um and I think we've seen some clues of that. You know, Basant and others have said things and even Wars before he became Fed chair said, you know, we could live with maybe, you know, you know, we don't want to look backwards in terms of inflation numbers. We want to look forward and with all this AI productivity that's coming on, we think we're going to have lower inflation. Oh, and by the way, we might be measuring it incorrectly. We should use this new thing called the Dallas TRIM PCI where they take out the outliers. And it turns out that number is closer to 2.3% instead of the 3 point some odd percent that you know the CPE is showing. So, so I think they're going to have to cut rates, but the market doesn't think that yet. And so with the market seeing, oh, they're going to raise rates. That's going to hurt gold and silver. The money is going to get stronger. You don't need to protect yourself from debasement.
>> So, how are they going to cut rates into a 4.2% CPI?
>> They have a task force for that, David.
>> They do. Yes.
>> Yeah.
>> One of the things that Yeah. I mean, so Worst comes in and he does a couple of really things I thought were pretty hilarious. I mean, first of all, he says, "We're not going to give you any guidance. We're just going to leave you in the dark." Kind of like what Greenspan used to do. He just did it with gobbledygook language. Um, that's kind of a changing of the rules, which is they always do when things aren't working out for them. They just change the rules. And then the second thing he said is we've got these task force. They're going to study all these things, including the balance sheet, inflation measures, communications, etc. And so, you know, he's going to he's appointed a committee to study inflation. And I guess, you know, I I'm guessing that what that committee is going to conclude is, you know, yeah, these numbers are high, but the numbers aren't right. It's actually running lower than than these numbers. They're going to lie about it, and that's going to allow them to cut rates. And
>> what is the Go ahead.
>> What is the incentive? What is the incentive to lower rate interest rates, lie about inflation, lower interest rates? What What do they gain from this?
>> Yeah. So, so it it it ties in with the Trump administration. It ties in with Bent. It tries ties in with they're all kind of supplyers where you know they think we need to reshore our industry. We need to create supply and that you know you don't actually bring prices down by restricting supply. If you raise interest rates you you you know you dampen capital investment by dampening capital investment that dampens supply and less supply means in all other things you know inflation goes up. They're they're making the Allen Greenspan 1996 argument, which is if we cut interest rates, that will lead to more investment. More investment will lead to more supply. More supply will then bring inflation down, even though you can't see it today. So, I I envision a world where they can say something along the lines of, "Hey, yeah, we know the numbers are hot, but that's backward looking, forward-looking. We're going to create supply by bringing rates down and stimulating investment in new technologies, AI, productivity, the kinds of things that are going to make inflation come down." That's the spin. I mean, and and they you know what they really want to do? I mean, and they kind of have to do this, David, because you know, they've got a problem, right? There's too much debt to GDP. We've got 124% debt to GDP in the United States, and that's not counting the off balance sheet stuff. And so as a result of that, we kind of look like we did coming out of World War II where the and the way we got out of that World War II is one, we had yield curve control, but different subject, but more importantly, we grew, you know, interstate highways, GIS building houses, car, everyone got a car, you know, radio, TV, all that stuff. So, so coming out of World War II, you know, we grew our way out of the debt burden. And I think that's kind of what the Trump administration hopes to do. And, you know, to be honest, I mean, be fair, they they can kind of do that. They probably can. And I mean employ un unemployment will actually be low. But I you know I I think it's going to be very hard to have that growth without having inflation. If you go back and you study that World War II period, there was huge inflation during the war and in the 50s and it wasn't until the early 60s that they really got it under control. So you know it's um I think we live in an inflationary world and I think more and more people are coming to understand that and that as they do, you know, they're going to think, hey, maybe I should have some of this debasement train. The funny thing is, you know, gold and silver went up a lot. Bitcoin went up a lot. It's still not front page news. I mean, it's still if you go and, you know, Ronnie Stoley has great charts on this in his all his uh incremental reports. You know, gold and silver holdings by the average investor are still extremely low. Gold and silver mining holdings are extremely low. Even Bitcoin holdings are extremely low. I mean, you know, the average investor right now is chasing SpaceX. I mean, I had all my friends and, you know, a lot of people I know call me say, "How do you get SpaceX? How do you get SpaceX?" Right? because you know it's the bright it's the new bright shiny object and it's going to change the world and and AI is important. It is going to change the world but this this sounds I was around I I invested a fund I was managing a fund during 2000 when we had the the internet bubble and it reminds me so much of that because I you know you knew the internet was important. You knew it was going to change the world and it did. What you didn't know is how and so that people were throwing money at things like pets.com you know and you know Amazon wasn't even you know on anybody's radar screen. And of course, Amazon changed the world, but pets.com went bankrupt. So, and I I feel like that same kind of pattern is going to play out in AI. AI will change the world, but we're not quite sure how yet. And throwing money at some of these new ideas isn't necessarily a good thing to do in my opinion.
>> Have you rotated into AI stocks and tech stocks at all in the last two years?
>> I really haven't. No. And I missed I missed all the tech the technology stuff. I mean, I'm kind of a onetrick pony. I I think that the you know the the the basement trade is the trade of our decade that we live you know we hit peak deflation in 2020 and we haven't and until I see something that suggests that they are going to solve you know the overspending problem and that they're going to solve unound money and that they're going to you know behave in a responsible fashion. I'm going to ride the debasement in the inflation trade because I think it's I think it's got years to run maybe decades to run. Now, don't get me wrong, though. I'm not a perma, you know, in that direction. I mean, at some point in time, things will change. They may cut the deficit. They may reset the currency. You know, there are a lot of things that could happen that would change this and it wouldn't be the best place to be. But for now, you know, I I I've been saying in other uh podcasts I've been doing, I really do feel like we're in the third or fourth inning of a nine inning baseball game, you know, and and until I see change on the spending side and the and the budget side, I I I don't think there's any reason to to not be where we are, which is, you know, betting on debasement. You know,
>> what what is the end game of this debasement?
>> Well, boy, don't I wish I know I knew. I mean, it could end so many different ways. I mean, I I think, you know, I mean, look, they could try to make the money sound, balance the budget, cut back, you know, they could do a 1929. I mean, you know, just liquidate everything. But boy, that would be incredibly painful. I mean, the stock market would come down. I mean, cash would be king. The price of everything would fall. I mean, it would be just a deflationary holocaust. But that's that's one of the possibilities. I I don't think that's a very likely possibility because the Fed is deathly afraid of inflation. Bernaki taught us that and I think when push comes to shove and the markets might not function, you know, they're going to print the money to keep things going. But that's one that's one alternative. I mean, let's call that a 3% shot or 5% shot. I think the other alternatives are all just kind of a how at what rate are you going to debase and how bad is it going to get and then when are you going to eventually do something vulkar-l like which I don't think you can really do what he did which is put interest rates up at 20% because everyone would go bankrupt but I think what you could do is you could say we're going to reset this thing you know we're going to go to a gold back treasury bond like Judy Shelton has proposed or we're going to you know we're going to in some way make these fiat currencies be tied to something that can't be printed. And if you know gold, silver, bitcoin are kind of natural thing. You could put oil in there, other things. I mean you could do a commodity basket. I mean even evil John Maynard Kane's put proposed something called the bankor which was a kind of a an artificial but limited supply of of a certain form of credit. And you know the so so there have to be kind of a monetary reset in a way. And it's interesting because Scott Bent, who's now our Treasury Secretary, before he got that job, said something along the lines of, "Look, he he even admitted, and he's a gold bug, by the way, he even admitted he said, you know, this monetary system, this credit system is kind of a problem, and it seems to me like we're going to at some point have to deal with it, and it might involve some kind of a reset akin to what we did at the Plaza Accord or in Breton Woods. And if and when that occurs, I want to be at the table." So, so you've got the Treasury Secretary of the United States kind of aware of the problem and you know they've got four more, you know, two and a half more years in office and my sense might be that they're cooking up some plan to do some kind of a reset. You know, I don't know. I mean, if they're not, they should be cooking up that plan because
>> reset of what? the currency against a sound, you know, against a sound measure. Like say, we're gonna we're going to reset. The dollar is going to be worth $20,000 an ounce of gold and we'll buy or sell gold at that price.
>> Bring your gold, we'll give you 20,000. You know, give us 20,000, we'll give you an ounce of gold, and we're going to we're back on a gold standard. I mean, I think that that's actually a possible a possible outcome at some point in the future. I don't know if I'm not saying I know that 20,000 is the right number. It's one of the numbers that's kicked around.
>> You know, arguably it could be it might need to be higher. I mean if that's the case everybody might you know bring in their dollars and say give me the gold you know because they know 40 you know
>> how is it the basement trade similar or different from the sell America trade that's also been trading basically getting uh away from American equities into foreign markets as well as getting into cash and gold.
>> Yeah, that's a great question. Um I think they they're they're a little bit of the same um the same idea. I mean, you know, the let me just think it through. I mean, you know, you and I both know and we you can if you do any of the if you Google the charts on, you know, where's the US stock market using the Buffett indicator, I mean, the US stock market by any historical measure is crazy crazy at the high end of the valuation range. Now, what people will say is, yeah, it's different this time and we live in a new world and you know, there's a lot of monetary stimulus and that's just the new normal. we're going to we're going to trade up there for a long time. And so far they've been right. I can't argue with them. I mean, I've thought this market's been overvalued for a long long time. But, you know, I think there's a chance that at some point in time things start to break and and you know that that you know, if the money isn't as free flowing, if they don't, you know, if they don't print the money as as necessary, well, then you know, they're going to have one heck of a a problem on their hands. I mean, you asked earlier though, how could this resolve itself? I mean, one of the ways I could see it resolving itself without some kind of a crisis and and a big print, which is kind of the title of my book, would be that we could just end up having high inflation for a bunch of years. I mean, the economy is pretty good. People are working, but inflation just continues to be high, just relentlessly high. And I think that if if that's the case, eventually what's going to happen in my opinion is in America and probably in other countries too, Canada, but certainly in America, you're going to find, you know, pro sound money candidates starting to get political traction. I mean, a guy like a Thomas Massie or a Warren Davidson are going to say, "Hey, this inflation is horrible and we know why it's happening. It's happening because of the Federal Reserve and they're printing their money. We need to transition to a sound money standard and here's my plan." and you know they're gonna get elected because everyone's suffering from inflation. So
>> I'm not saying that's a super high probability outcome, but it's it's one of the paths that we could go down.
>> AI is expected to create un basically unparalleled levels of wealth inequality with a few people basically creating billion dollar companies with one or two people at the helm of the company and nobody else. That's a projection. Um, and it's it's a it's a great equalizer, but also unequalizer at the same time in the sense that everybody now has the tools to make themselves more wealthy. And at the same time, we're going to get a few pockets of people creating so much more wealth than they did before. Case in point, Elon Musk with the new SpaceX IPO. I wonder how that's going to change investing forever.
>> Yeah. Well, it's certainly investing is always evolving and and the old rules, you know, are good guidelines, but they're not the new rules. The rules are always changing. I mean, you know, AI will be deflationary. AI will, you know, some people say, I mean, I've heard the argument that, hey, Larry, it's all good. Don't worry about it. AI is going to bail us out. The productivity enhancements are going to be so substantial that we're not going to have a problem. But I, you know, I I push back on that and I hope that's true. True. I mean, I hope it does enhance our productivity a lot, but I push back on that a little bit because all the people who lose their jobs if they're replaced by an AI agent, so to speak, are going to find, you know, they they still have, you know, car loans and house mortgages and, you know, they and they need to find a new line of work. And of course, they will. I mean, this is like, you know, all the weavers in medieval England when the, you know, when the loom was invented, you know, they they they they transition. But um you know it's AI is an interesting it's an interesting development and it's a posit it's a net positive development and you know humankind will make its way through it but but it you know it it it adds to the deflationary tone of all these technical developments and and yet we we live in a monetary system that was really created kind of 1913 and and you know maybe 1944 with Brentton Woods that requires continually expanding credit to function. And so when you've got kind of a deflationary technology thing contrasted with a economy that needs growing credit, something's got to give, you know.
>> Yeah.
>> So that that's the underlying problem. And and that's why, you know, I think Mike, it's it's so hard to know the variables because you got so many moving pieces. You don't know what policy makers are going to do. But we can look at the history of it all. And we do know that when push comes to shove, rather than letting the economy go to, you know, to tank or the market tank even, you know, the Fed and and and their ilk, they come with the with the money fire hoses, you know what I mean? They just they print money and and it and it prevents things from tanking. I mean, 08 was an example. It prevented things from tanking. COVID was another example. Things would have tanked if they hadn't printed all that money. Um, but I I think there's a chance that we've got another one of those kinds of events coming. I mean, and I don't know, maybe it's if if AI the bloom is off the rose there. Maybe it's some of the private credit stuff in the United States. I mean, who knows what the catalyst is, but I think that, you know, I do think that we're pretty I I know that from the things I look at, I see a lot of leverage in a lot of places, and that always implies that you got to create, you got to grow the money supply or that leverage isn't sustainable. So, you know, that print, my big print, I mean, I I may be wrong on the timing. I was rushing to get my book out in early 25 because I thought it was happening imminently. Yeah,
>> turns out I was completely wrong. Here we are, you know, a year and change later and it hasn't happened yet. And for all I know, it could take a few more years. I mean, I have to live with the fact that I could be wrong. But I think I think mathematically and directionally I'm correct that they've got to print the money and and the time is coming.
>> Maybe they're doing it in different ways and other forms as we speak. Right now, the debt is growing in basically all major G7 countries. Everyone's spending more on basically everything especially defense which seems to be the trend around the world global rearmament and so debt to GDP in the US is expected to reach 120% by 2036 according to the CBO. Uh deficits are widening in Japan and so in Europe as well. So the the the basement trade is happening maybe through the form of more government spending fiscally not monetarily. What do you think?
>> I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. I mean they governments do continue to spend enormously and I mean and um yeah but the the point I guess I would make is that when you take on a debt it it it represents something that you have to service on a go forward basis. I mean, you can roll the principal over as we usually do, but you have to pay interest on it. And that interest is real and and if if it doesn't get paid, it defaults. And right now, the US is a $1.3 trillion a year interest bill and only going up. And the US debt is only going up. And so, you know, that um that government spending is what leads to the need to create the money to keep the whole structure alive. That's the that's the underlying problem. And you know there's and by the way a lot of money needs to be created. There's and there's not enough liquidity. I mean it's interesting. You know I I don't know if you've looked at the capex numbers for this whole AI space but you know they're talking about this year $600 billion being spent on AI infrastructure buildout. Next year they're talking about a trillion and I saw an estimate this morning that said by you know the next 5 years it was like 8 trillion. And so, you know, we're we're we're really spending a boatload of money on AI. And boy, it better give us some productivity because we're spending a lot of capital on it. And so,
>> and and that capital comes from somewhere else. And and that that's part of what creates tight liquidity. I mean, I think it's
>> to me it's interesting that um I think some of what has taken the air out of Bitcoin and gold and silver is, you know, people are thinking, "Okay, those worked last year. That's great, but that's over. Let's move over into this AI trade, you know. Give me some SpaceX. Give me some Intel. Give me some Nvidia. Do you know what I mean? And okay, you know, and by the way, if you did that 6 months ago, particularly with Intel, you you'd be rewarded, but would have been rewarded. But um I I just I'm not sure that's going to continue, you know, and and I think I think at the end of the day, if if these cracks start to surface, you know, um these the the Fed is going to is going to end up being dovish. And I I think I already think they are doubbish. I think the market's got it wrong. I think the market thinks he's going to tighten and he's not. And in fact, I think he will loosen. I'm not sure when. There's a meeting in July, there's a meeting September. I mean, there's an election in November, you know. I mean, there's some there were some interesting tells, David. You know, he said some hawkish things at his first press conference. He, you know, he let the dot plot stand and it was showing tightening and uh everybody viewed him as being hawkish. And somebody asked Trump over in France and they said, hey, how do you feel about Kevin's uh you know, first press conference? He said, you know, he's my guy. It's all good. And to me, that kind of told me, you know, the fix is in I mean, they you know, he's he he sets up the task force. Um and and the task force is a really interesting, you know, u gambit, right? I mean, he creates a task force. The task force gonna, you know, tells him, "Come back to me and tell me that inflation is lower than reported." And they're going to come back and tell him that. And then he can blame them and say, "Hey, look, I got this expert task force and they're telling me inflation's lower than reported. We actually need to cut rates."
>> Yeah,
>> you guys are all thinking we need to raise rates, but no, no, we we need to cut rates. When that happens, our stuff's going to go ballistic. I mean, our stuff right now is acting like they're going to cut rates and make real rates go higher and all that good stuff, but but and when when the market wakes up, I mean, it's like a 90% chance they're going to the the prediction market is showing like a 90% chance the Fed increases interest rates this year in the remaining remaining six months of this year. And I'm telling you, I'm here to say I don't believe that's going to happen. In fact, I think it's probably the same equivalent chance that between now and the year end they're going to actually cut rates. And so when the market, so if the market believes that first thing and then I'm right about that second thing, when that shift takes place, look out. Gold goes to 7, you know, silver goes to 200, Bitcoin goes to 180. I mean, that's that's kind of what I see. But but I, you know, but hey, to be fair, I could be dead ass wrong. I mean, maybe they will raise rates. Maybe I'm wrong. Um I I but I do know that behind it all mathematically, if you know, if they raise rates, fine. I don't think it'll last that long because something will break and if something breaks, you know, then we're back to where we were in 208, 2008 and 2020, which is, you know, turn on the printer. So, so, you know, it's it it the path it's obviously the path is unknown to all of us.
>> Maybe they
>> Yeah, but the tighten Yeah. Maybe they tighten them break the economy, then we get loosening.
>> Absolutely. That's that's certainly one of the scenarios. And there's there are people saying that he was brought in to do that. you know, he was brought in to to tighten it, break it, have, you know, declare a crisis and then print like crazy. And, you know, that may be true.
>> Well, he was brought in to lower the rate and the economy just headed in a different direction
>> than the original plan.
>> Yeah, maybe. I mean, I Yeah, who knows? It's
>> who knows? I mean, I the clues I've seen from I mean, you listen if you read I mean, Bent said something recently Bent said something along these lines. said, he said, you know, we could have a stronger dollar with lower interest rates. And I thought to myself, why would he say that unless he was actually thinking that there is a plan to have lower interest rates? I mean, just making that comment to me is like the guy's like a bad poker player. It's like that's a big tell from what I can see. So, you know, I don't know. We'll see. We'll just have to see. I you know,
>> what are you buying right now? Anything?
>> Oh, yeah. I know exactly what I'm buying. So, I'm buying u I'm buying Micro Strategy. I just bought some this morning. Uh it's gotten beaten up terribly and everyone thinks Sailor's going to get liquidated, which is ridiculous. Anyone who does the just do your basic homework, you see that's not true. Um I've been and I've been buying silver miners. I mean, the silver miners, you know, so as you all a lot of people are precious metals investors. Um silver was stuck below 50 for 30 years.
>> As we're talking about strategy, I'm going to leave this on the screen.
>> Oh, yeah. Right. This this strategies uh Michael Sailor Strategy launches a Bitcoin monetization program that allows the company to sell BTC to fund operations. Ran Neer had a good tweet about this just summarizing uh the main points here. um framework includes five components of board approved USD reserve policy, revised ST stretch dividend policy, dividend uh digital credit securities repurchase program, class A a a uh a yeah, class A common share repurchase program and BTC monetization program number five has people talking potentially a permanent Bitcoin selling strategy yet to be determined, but they already sold Bitcoin a couple couple weeks ago.
>> Yeah, they sold like 32 of them which is a joke. I mean, he's got 800 plus of them. 800,000 plus of them.
>> That's right.
>> So, so what they did here is really, really smart. And what he basically said is, look, we've got a big stack now. And when we were growing and and you know, that was that was an important thing for us to do was to get to this size. But now that we're at this size, you know, we're going to be like a bank. We're going to we're going to buy what's, you know, uh, cheap and we're going to sell what's dear. And so, you know, if you guys want to I mean, he's he's basically what he did was he he put down a challenge to all the hedge funds. He said, "You want to go ahead and short, you know, our stock, great, cuz if we sell below book, if we sell below our fair value, we're going to buy it back." And, you know, it's and everyone thinks that, oh, if he sells some Bitcoin, it's going to affect the total market. I mean, he's 4% of the total market, and what he'd have to sell to do some of the things he's talking about is like, you know, less than a tenth or two ten of a percent. So, you know, he's he's he's really he's really maturing the strategy and and no pun intended that that he's got and and he's he's he's he's put himself in a very strong position where he can react to whatever the market conditions are and he's going to and he's pointed out and I believe it this to be true that he will react intelligently. So, I think strategies are screaming by here. I bought some more uh personally this morning. So, um, but anyway, the the, you know, the the other thing I'm buying a lot of that's equally screaming and probably will move first is the silver miners. I mean, we were talking about, so silver, the peak on silver, as as you know, was $50 for, you know, 40 years, right? the Hunts got it there and 2011 got it there and we broke out of it last year and we squirted up to 120 went way ahead of itself and now we're correcting back into the 60s and and but this is you know you don't have a 40-year top that gets broken and then you settle down 50% above that you know it's just not the way these markets work. I mean and uh so silver in my opinion and and the stocks you know with with this retrace from 120 and the silver price to 60 stocks got hit hard. I got a lot of good silver stocks down 50%. And they weren't overexpensive. They weren't overly priced, by the way, at the peak. I mean, they still the stocks have always been kind of they've traded as if people don't believe the prices will stay where they are. And so, there's some real bargains in the silver miners right now and and we've been buying those too aggressively. So, because I feel like on the next runup, you know, they'll all make new highs. So, um, yeah, it's but I mean again, you know, it one thing I I think is very important to emphasize, David, when you're in this debasement trade, you got to have a multi-year time frame. And you can look really wrong for a month or two or, you know, somebody's going to listen to this video and they're going to get on Twitter two months from now and silver's going to be at 50 and they say, "The guy's an idiot and he was wrong." But, but I challenge I think a year from now, the odds of silver being here are extremely low.
>> Yeah. By the way, I I this is completely off topic, but I think it ties into what we're talking about. I pulled my audience. How many of you bought the SpaceX IPO right after it happened? Pled my community as they're pretty active and engaged.
>> 90% voted no.
>> You got a small community, David.
>> 5.7,000 votes. So, that's quite almost 6,000 people voted.
>> Yeah.
>> And 90%
voted no. Uh David followers are level-headed investors. I is one of the comments. You know the top comment when everything feels like a scam, it is a scam. We're not dumb enough to be exit liquidity for big money.
>> I love that. That's a great comment. That's absolutely correct. I mean, there's so many VCs. I mean, I know of people who bought private rounds, you know, last year. I mean, they were doing private rounds and and they're all under lockups, right? And I back I was around in the 2000.com bubble days. And boy, there was nothing that killed a stock more than when all the insiders who were locked up, suddenly the lockup date expired and they could sell and they're thinking, "Good God, I got 10x my money here or some big number and they're like, get me out now. I don't care if it's down 10 20%."
So yeah, I I you know, look, there's a piece of the SpaceX business. It's a really good business. I mean, the Starlink business is a beautiful business and it will last for years and it will grow because the notion of having everybody on the planet have a, you know, fast internet connection, that's a really great idea. And um, you know, there's a price at which I'd want to own SpaceX, but it's not close to today's price. Today's price is way too high.
So, >> China's buying more gold apparently gold imports and >> Yeah. Did you see that? Yeah, I saw this news. Let me just pull this up and uh I just want >> a lot more, right? >> Yeah. >> Surged to the more the most in two years. Imports were about 163 tons last month, the highest since March 2024.
So, as other people are selling as the price is going down, China's importing more. Uh I I wonder if they're a good leading indicator or contrary indicator here.
>> I think they're good leading indicator. I mean, I I think that, you know, I mean, look, they're very smart. They've got the world's most productive economy in terms of making stuff. um we've got it in terms of financial stuff, but um yeah, no I I mean they're smart and you know I think they're making a bet that gold is going to play a very important role in the future monetary system. I mean, you know, one of the things we see going on here just at a big picture level is just kind of the, you know, the the US has been in the lead in terms of economically, financially in many, many respects for decades and decades. And and, you know, 2000, China gets into the WTO and kind of starts building a manufacturing base. And, you know, they're they're a hell of a competitor. In fact, they are in the lead probably manufacturing wise today. And, um, you know, so, you know, we've got to counter that. and you know and and and they know they're they're smart about about fiat money. I mean they know that they've been debased in terms of the dollar and this is why they set up the Shanghai gold exchange and this is why they're settling in you know their own currency and then giving people a chance to buy gold because you know a lot of parts of the world are coming to realize that you know the dollar is just it's it's it may be the leading currency but it's not an economically sound currency from a holding value point of view.
>> Okay. So, Lawrence, are you Did you sell winning any gold, by the way, at $5,000?
>> No, I didn't. I Well, so I've got my personal gold that I'll always hold. I got a personal I tell you what I did sell. Um, so last year we had a bunch of silver stocks that we bought. I mean, I like I give you I'll give you one name, Aino, which I love. We bought that thing at like less than a dollar. I went to 12 last year. Okay. So, we had a we had a 12 bagger in it briefly. And uh you know, as much as I love it, I still think it's going to be a lot more valuable in 5 years. We lightened up a lot. And uh but here's the thing. It's back to five or six now. I think I'll check. I think it checked today. Yeah, it's back to six now. And so so you know, we're I've been personally in and in the fund, we've actually been buying back some of what we sold. So in general in general we you know we are buy and hold people with a multi-year time frame but if something gets ahead of itself in our opinion you know we will we will sell into it a little bit to create some liquidity and try find something else that's cheap and the silver you know a few of them got ahead of themselves
>> once it hits our target 5,000 6,000 whatever the case may be does that prompt you to load up lighten up a little bit on on >> a little bit I mean if we if we see another, you know, look, I I think that right now the silver and gold stocks from where we are today should double, easily double within the next 18 months. I feel that very confidently. And you know, right now they're they're, you know, fairly to underpriced. I mean, at that point in time, depending on what happens to the metals, they'll start to be getting into the slightly, you know, fair values, maybe even slightly overpriced. Now, you know, in a real bull market, they can get to be very overpriced. I mean I and by price let me tell you what I use as a measure. I often just look at the market cap compared to their their mind profit or their IBITa. She goes, "How much cash does this thing flow off?" And you know, back a year ago, we were buying things at three times. It was ridiculous, you know, and now we're still, you know, buying things at four and five times. And but in a real bull market, sometimes things have I mean, in 2011, there was stuff trading at 20 times even. Didn't make any sense, but it happened. And uh you know so so as as things get more expensive you know we will lighten up but we'll also be looking at the macro conditions and kind of deciding all right, you know, do we see the budget getting balanced do we see fiscal responsibility is there is there maybe some talk of you know returning to a more of a sound money standard I mean if if those things start to come true you know then we would we would lighten up some and or do other do values emerge in other places of the world things that look you know cheap or good put our money I mean, you know, one of the problems you sell it's like kind of okay what am I you're selling but what for you know, what are you going to get oh yeah, give me dollars okay fine that's nice but what am I going to do with them you know, because I know they're getting diluted so it's it's a little tricky but um we'll just we'll just have to play it you know, by ear as we go along but I I I feel very confident that we've got another good run coming in gold and silver and gold and silver mining stocks and that you know, we should be up 100% within the next kind a two year I give myself some time two-year time frame I think it happened sooner but certainly within two years and at that point in time we'll kind of step back and assess you know, where are we
>> what's going on what's government doing you know, do we want to these are more fairly priced do we want to sell whatever
>> Okay. Well, thank you so much, Lawrence. Uh you've been before uh you you um you've had a good track record and uh hopefully you'll be right again. We'll follow you and learn more from you. So where can we do that, Lawrence? Where can we follow you?
>> A couple things. One, I wrote a book on this topic if people are interested. I'm always selling the book. I don't make much money, but I think it's a helpful book. It's called The Big Print. It's on Amazon. Um, two, I'm on Twitter just under my name, Lawrence Leard. I make a lot of noise. Generally, I'm just railing against the investment banks. I think fiat money is the scourge of our age and we need to return to a sound money standard. Sound money would restore um would would make the world a much better place. If we go back to sound money, the world would be a better place. Leave it at that. And then I have a website called Equity Management Associates. the tick. Um, it's www.ema2.com. We write a quarterly letter. Um, my partner David Foley and I write a quarterly letter. It's 20 pages long. It's kind of a macro overview and it's free. So, you can just go there and every quarter we say, "Okay, this is what happened. This is what we think is going to happen. This is how we see it. This is what we're buying. This is what we're selling." And um, and then it's got my fund results and all that kind of stuff in there. So, you can see all that. That's if you go to the website and you scroll down, you can actually put your uh email address in there and uh you'll you'll get it every quarter and we'll never spam you. That's the only thing you'll get. And you know, it's got Mailchimp. So if you don't want to get anymore, you just unsubscribe. So um so that's that's kind of what we got. And you know, I I I do a fair number of interviews. So if you w if you follow my Twitter feed, you know, you can always kind of find stuff there. And some of them are some of them more silver oriented, some are Bitcoin orient. I mean, they're all different topics with you. Uh, it's probably a little more gold and silver, but you know, Bitcoin's in there. It's a little balanced. So,
>> Okay, good. Thank you very much, Lawrence.
>> Oh, thank you, David. I enjoy talking to you. I I think I'll probably see you at a couple of these upcoming conferences. I know invited to that you're going to be at. So,
>> Yeah, that's right. Okay, I'll see you soon for sure in person. And uh and uh for now, follow Lawrence below, check out his book.
>> Great. Thanks. Take care.