Transcription
Hello everyone. Welcome to VRIC Media, your most trusted voice in metals and mining. I'm your host, Daryl Thomas, and today we had the pleasure of interviewing Gareth Soloway of Verified Investing. Gareth, we need your help because a lot of folks are panicking right now. Markets are down significantly as of this recording, which is on November 4th. Uh we know that there could be a headline or some catalyst that that may drive the markets higher and such. And so uh these markets feel like a house of cards. So we definitely need some uh sanity uh to be uh preached to me and the audience today. Uh so uh first off uh I would love to get your overall take on the economy. We had Amazon cut jobs. You I think UPS cut jobs as well as uh we're in the midst of a shutdown. Uh things feel a lot slower. Um want to get your take there.
>> Yeah. So I do think that the economy is slowing faster and faster and I think the government shutdown is obviously adding to that. Although the idea is that once it reopens and all the employees get their essentially get their the money their back pay then it could stimulate a little bit but I don't think that that alone is going to get us out of the trajectory of the economy. Right? We've seen the the repo market from the Federal Reserve. That's the emergency lending arm of the Federal Reserve. Banks have been coming to them. We know that there per Jamie Diamond, he said, you know, if there's one cockroach, there's many cockroaches. The idea here is that these banks could be in some trouble or at least the possibility that trouble could be brewing. And I think these are things that again, the markets haven't priced in. We're basically at all-time highs. A down day today, but again, you know, price to perfection where any sort of bump could create a big retrace in the markets.
>> Got it. Yeah, because I was thinking about the uh the recent job losses and then we had the big revision that was back at the end of end of the summer and such and so it's that's definitely been a concern of mine. Uh so >> yeah, go ahead. >> I was just going to say too, you know, one thing that that's kind of jumping off at me is that, you know, you look at the capex by the AI stocks and people are now saying that that is 90% of GDP right now. And and so you have to look at it and say, "Okay, well 90% of GDP is just the capex spending. What is the rest of the economy really doing?" And it really tells us that the majority of the economy and the majority of Americans are already feeling like we are in a recession. Uh yet stock prices don't reflect that because they've been driven higher by the likes of Nvidia, AMD, and these other AI plays. But a lot of people out there, they are feeling like it's a recession. You're right.
>> Yeah. So, uh, obviously these MAG seven stocks have been keeping the, uh, S&P, uh, elevated and many of these broader indices elevated. Uh, could you walk us through what are you seeing there? Are you seeing those start to break or are they going to continue to, uh, hold up, uh, this house of cards? And so, love to get your get your perspective there.
>> It's a really interesting thought process here. And and for me at least, I'm seeing the SMH, which is the semiconductor ETF. I think we have put in a major high here and we could be looking at a 40% correction in the semiconductors and I want to show you this chart and how I arrive at that conclusion because everything I do is always based on technical analysis therefore its probabilities right so this is what we're looking at this is the chart the weekly chart of the SMH which again is the semiconductor ETF I'm going to throw my my weekly 200 moving average on this chart now what we see here is that here's your 200 moving average right um and we went away from it in 2020. This was your COVID low. We rallied up and then we corrected here. We went up again and we came back to home base. And that's how moving averages work. They very similarly are like pulling price back home. Now, watch this. If we look at the furthest away the 200 moving average got from the from or from price and we do a measurement here, look at what you get here, folks. This is absolutely remarkable. 102% above the 200 MA. Now, if we go over here and we say, "Okay, here's your high in 2024 before this 40% drop in the SMH. Let's find out how far away we got there." And lo and behold, 102% away. Now, again, you know, you guys probably see where I'm going with this. How far away were we from the 200 weekly moving average as of last week's high? Let's do that measurement here. Let's bring it up. It's 102%. And so the idea here is as a technician I see that okay if this 102% matches this which matches this and each time we saw a big correction from that extension move the idea is we should be due for some sort of correction on the semis and the reason I'm mentioning that is because the semis are the crux of why the stock market has rallied right I mean that's Nvidia that's AMD that's Broadcom I mean these trillion dollar names that's carried the market that's carried the day
>> yeah yeah for Sure. Yeah, I was actually in um I was actually in uh Taiwan semiconductors uh after liberation day and I actually got out of the position when it performed significantly well and uh it just kept going up and so you know I was looking at that like wow u you know I wasn't expecting uh this to continue rallying like this and so it's it's kind of interesting just just looking at uh even that with the SMH charts as well because I'm sure TS
>> and one thing I'm just seeing on the on the Taiwan semi chart is it looks like you might have a head and shoulders pattern formation here. Here's a shoulder. Here's a higher head and then a shoulder over here. Now, you haven't broken the neckline yet, but if this breaks right here, now you're going to get that bigger drop to the downside on Taiwan Semi. So, Taiwan Semi could be topping as well, just along your same point of while it's gone up and it seemed to defy gravity like all these names have, at some point we know they got to pay the piper, right? they all retrace at some point.
>> Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, let's say we get this uh 30 40% correction in uh many of these tech names. Many folks have the mindset of buying a dip and such. And so, uh, what what's kind of your take on that and what what should investors be careful for careful of uh in with that mind that mentality?
>> Yeah. So, I think that this is the key, right? and you're so right on this is that we've seen Vbottoms over and over again play out. You know, whether it's small drops on the S&P, big drops. I mean, the COVID drop in March 2020, that was a Vbottom. The liberation selloff low right here on the weekly chart. Look at that Vbottom. And so, we really have basically the markets have conditioned investors. And by the way, a lot of investors have only come in since CO, right? this was there was this huge awakening of younger investors coming into the market. You know, again, I don't want to feel sound like an old fogy here or anything like that, but there was a time where you could have a bare market that lasted and you didn't see a new all-time high for years and years, but we've got accustomed to it being almost within a month of a big drop. And I do just mention to people that that won't last forever. I mean, look at Japan. Look at the US and the dot era. When these collapses occur, they can be so detrimental. It can take I mean NASDAQ took 15 years to recover. Now a lot of people will be saying oh well it's a different market. I disagree. I think human emotion is what runs the market and greed and fear and so if it happened before it can happen again. And I do caution people about being too aggressive to buy the dips now.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Okay. So, you know for folks that you know typically watch some of these episodes they may they may say well the Fed is going to cut rates more. uh uh the money printers are going to come on and such. The Fed's going to come with the helicopter money and save the markets and so um what would be your caution there? Uh what what's your perspective on on that particular argument?
>> Yeah. So for me at least when it's that particular argument, right? And I think one of the things that that I'm very particularly aware of is that it's not always as easy to just print money forever because essentially what you're doing is you're diluting the under under underlying fiat currency. And so the buying power of the dollar starts to depreciate more and more and there will be implications to that. And so it doesn't it's not as clear-cut as saying oh well if they just print us out of this they can't always just print us out. Look at Zimbabwe. Look at some of these Venezuela, right? I mean these are countries where they did that. Are their economies doing great? Are their people doing great? The answer is no. When you crush the dollar, you will inevitably hurt the buying power of US citizens and they will struggle to afford basic goods. I mean, there's a reason why inflation picked up. It's because they printed too much money in in the co era, right? and and that's a reason why we're now paying the price for much higher prices and the the kind of the inaffordability of the housing market, groceries, and all these other things. And so I would just caution people is that it's not as easy as just saying, "Oh, well, we'll print our way out of it." There are repercussions to doing that.
>> Yeah. Gotcha. So, and one of those those uh consequences of money printing is the uh price of gold measured in dollars uh moving up. So, if we can move over to gold. Uh, gold has been facing some pressure uh lately. Obviously, it had a huge move. I've been telling folks like gold moved up about $1,000 over the course of what three three four months. That's a huge move for gold. Gold does not move like that. And so, uh, then it's cooled off and I've been kind of wondering are we consolidating now or is this or are we under some pressure because right now you we do have layoffs. we do have uh a government shutdown um where folks are may need to tap into some liquidity and such. I don't know how many of those folks may own gold or whatnot, but I'm wondering if some of those uh economic pressures could be uh headwind for gold in terms of people needing to sell those that gold to get liquid.
>> And I think that's exactly what it is, right? Is so gold is usually a safe haven asset. So when things get bad, people want to buy gold. But the problem is is people have been buying gold and it's a larger part of their portfolio. And so when we see the stock market decline sharply or the crypto markets decline sharply, there will be some margin calls in those groups which will then cause people to have to sell some of their gold to cover those margin calls. And I think again this is where leverage comes in. People have gotten way overleveraged in the stock market. In fact, I was looking at margin numbers. People are borrowing more money than they've ever borrowed before to invest in the stock market. That's great when it just goes up, but when it corrects, that creates margin calls and that money has to be found somewhere. And again, I think this is where the case for a pullback in gold comes in. And so, you can see on the chart here, this was my first target on this pullback here at 39.48. We obviously hit it, we bounced, now we're starting to break lower. My next target is 38.45. After that, we're looking at 36.95. And the big level where I will be accumulating in a major way is this max draw down level at $34.85. At that point, we're almost back $1,000 lower on gold. Now, a lot of people will be hearing this and saying, "Oh, it's never going to go there." I want to show you guys something that's really, really cool here. Let's take a look at um at gold. We'll split the screen up here, and I want to show you guys going back to the um the period here. Let's go all the way back on the weekly to 1979. All right. And this is one of the coolest things. This is how I actually basically called the top on gold um back when we were getting to those high levels is I looked at the chart and I'm just going to clean this up a little bit here, but I looked at the chart of gold in 1979 and it was identical to the chart that we were currently forming. Now, you might say, well, how is that even possible? I mean, that was 45 years ago. But look at this. Look at how gold behaved going into this period. So you have this essentially you have in 1979 this beautiful move up. Then we had this consolidation phase. In 2025 we had the move up the consolidation phase. Then literally in 1979 we had nine months of upside in gold. So nine consecutive months of up 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and we had this big correction. Look at over here. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and lo and behold, we're now correcting. And so we are mimicking the 1979 to 1980 top in gold. Now I do want to make this clear is it is different this time. Yes, the pattern is repeating in 1979 and 1980 Vulkar was raising interest rates 18% 15. I mean it was just incredible versus now the Fed is cutting rates. All right. also that the GDP debt to GDP was 30% back then, it's 130% now. And so for the thesis here is that while the pullback is going to be deeper than most people think, um I actually think it's we hit new all-time highs in 2026. And so I think it's going to be much more shallow versus in the 1980s. We didn't actually hit new all-time highs, I think, for like 20 years on gold from that top in 1979, 1980. So, I don't think the pullback will last as long, but I still think we'll retrace. And I just want to show one other thing here on this chart is that if we look at how deep the pullback was before we kind of got our first big bounce in gold, it basically went back to essentially that major pivot high right here where we consolidated, right? And so here you can see it pulled back right there. Okay. So the idea here is the same thing could be replicating where we pull back to about 3500 and then we start our next leg to the upside. And so anyways, at least that's my view on it is that I'm a big long-term bull on gold. I've been holding gold for years and years and years. It's great to feel like it's finally paying out. I'm sure many people feel like that. But it doesn't mean it's immune to pullbacks. We just have to be realistic about it and then buy those dips. Our project is right in the southeastern corner of Wyoming in the space of four years. Fully engineered, fully permitted.
>> The ASIC is what caught my eye. 937 per ounce,
>> 110,000 ounces perom. First year of production is the most impressive. 132,000 ounces of gold, 24 million pound of copper. You really want these things front end loaded like that. US Gold Corp is a near-term lowcost gold producer in Wyoming. To learn more, go to usolc.com. [Music]
>> Okay. So, uh, there's a lot of uh a lot of headlines. I mean, we've had multiple high targets uh from the the big institutions that align with uh your uh projection that gold will ultimately hit all all-time highs, new all-time highs in 2026. Uh we also have the narrative of the debasement trade and then you also have TINA which is there's no alternative. And so, uh, just thinking about all of that, um, in terms of,
>> okay, like you mentioned back in the 80s, they had the debt to GDP was a lot lower and they they could raise interest rates to pay someone, you know, 18% yield on on a US bond or or whatnot. And other nations began to dump gold and and accumulate treasuries for a significant amount of time since then. And so, just thinking about that, like what is the alternative now? like I don't think the Fed is going to raise rates that high. Um I mean it would cause a lot of economic damage and uh it would be political suicide I think. Uh but just kind of curious in your thoughts on that.
>> Yeah. So I agree with you. I I it's it's far different than the 1980s um in the way it is and I think that's why the the base case for me is this is a pullback where we should see new all-time highs in 2026. So, yes, it's going to be a pullback where it could come back as much as, you know, another I mean, we're trading around $3,900 and change. So, we could come back another $400, $500. But at that point, I think you have to buy it because you're right. What's the alternative? I mean, are you going to go into treasuries when they're cutting rates? So, you're going to get a minimal return on those. I mean, what 4% 3% whatever it's going to be, especially when fiat's getting printed like crazy by the Federal Reserve. Um, debt to GDP, like you mentioned. I think those are other factors where central banks are telling us what to do. They're all buying gold, right? And so while gold is reacting emotionally, so you're getting this selloff and you'll probably have the margin calls causing more selling pressure, people taking a little bit off the table for profits, inevitably the trajectory should be much, much higher. And I still think gold, we could be looking at gold in a few years at 10K. I don't think that is out of this realm considering a a a recession in the US or globally. The amount of printing that would have to be done to get us out of that would be massive and gold would be the main recipient. I mean Bitcoin to some extent I think as well but that's more of a risk on riskoff asset right.
>> Yeah. Yeah definitely. Yeah. I do want to get to Bitcoin here shortly. Uh but could we start uh could we transition to silver and get your perspective on silver? Absolutely. Let's take a look at silver here. Yeah. So, silver, and this is, by the way, this is just a a remarkable chart as well on silver. So, a lot of people were thinking silver would rip higher um way way past this 55ish level. But look at this chart. This is a parallel. So, parallel meaning that this bottom line is perfectly parallel to this top line. This is your low in 2008. So, your financial crisis low. This is your low in COVID. If you take that line, right? So, let's let's just go back to that and say, alright, here we draw this up and we bring this to the high of the bull market in 2011. It gave us precisely our high in 2025. Now, just like with gold, I think that, you know, you're going to get a pullback here, especially with an industrial pseudoindustrial metal like silver, but I would start looking to buy once we get back to about the $43 level. All right, you have a level here and you have an ups sloping trend line in this range here. But these are both levels where I would start to really heavily accumulate. Basically, once we get below 30 uh 43, I'm buying all the way down as far as it wants to go um for that next leg up because I still think again, yes, it's industrial, but it's still a metal, right? So, it has to be denominated in terms of dollars. And if dollars are depreciating, by default, silver should go up.
>> Yeah. Uh so uh yeah even with that industrial demand that's uh it's very bullish. Uh just the industrial demand has been picking up significantly uh over the last uh 5 years. The mining output has been uh not meeting the demand. And so now we got this issue where folks are uh industries are wanting to take delivery of the metal and such and willing to pay higher than the futures price uh for spot and such. And so it seems like the um like it could be a silver squeeze with but this time with industrial demand and you still have the the uh investment demand as well.
>> That's right. That's right. I agree 100% with you. So I do see silver potentially at $100 in a few years. Um it's just a matter of you got to flush out the weak hands. And this goes for gold. A lot of people get very upset when you're talking about any asset that they're long pulling back. But there was a point where you saw that parabolic move in gold and silver. And that's where you start to get people that are thinking, "Oh, this is the easy investment, right?" And for those of us that have been long-term gold holders, there's no such thing as easy in gold, right? Or silver. So, you know, those people have to be flushed out, get the weak hands out, get it back to its hardcore level, and it'll start grinding higher again and make new all-time highs.
>> Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh, so we like to transition to Bitcoin. So recently the United States uh surpassed uh $38 trillion in debt and a trillion dollars was added within 3 months uh which was uh a significant fast pace and such. Um gold has been holding up fairly well in in these economic storms. Uh Bitcoin has been compared to gold as the digital gold. um it seems like it has not been been holding up and just looking at the behavior of how the asset is performing uh to have a uh more objective look at it and so uh just wondering if it has has Bitcoin decoupled from the uh risk on equities and and such. I mean even some of the equities have been have been NASDAQ and S&P have been hitting all-time highs. Um, but Bitcoin, I mean, I think it reached the all-time high um, here recently uh, in the last few months, but um, it's just kind of been just rolling over and you know, folks haven't been posting about it as much and so I'm just I'm just curious your thoughts on there and what the charts are telling you.
>> Yeah, it does. And I agree with you. like you know you look at the performance of the stock market and there's been a divergence where Bitcoin has been much much weaker than the stock market and usually they go up together and they fall together and the thing is is you didn't see Bitcoin making new all-time highs when the S&P was making new all-time highs but today the stock market's falling and Bitcoin's getting smoked so it's like it's the worst case scenario right where it's not performing with the markets to the upside but then tagging the markets when the markets drop it drops now again one of the things to keep in mind here is that if you Look back at 2017 in the bull run and 2021. Interestingly enough, Bitcoin topped out 4 to 6 weeks before the stock market. So, it was almost like a leading indicator. And the question is today is the 4th of November, right? And the high on Bitcoin was basically it looks like October 6, so essentially a month ago. And so I wonder if Bitcoin wasn't seeing selling by bigger players that knew the market was coming. they were de-risking in Bitcoin first and then looking to now unload into equities. That's what I would say. Now, a couple things to note here on the chart is we do have a major technical trend line coming into play around 93 to 94,000. basically the beginning of the bull run which started here in October of 2023 when Bitcoin was about 26,000. You can see it continues to rise, but every time it comes back to this line, it tags it and goes back up. And so we're getting closer to that level here. And that's going to be the big test for Bitcoin bulls. Can that level hold? If it holds, then we're really still in an uptrend on Bitcoin since the beginning of this bull market rally from the 2022 lows and starting here in 2023. But if this breaks, that's really bad for Bitcoin. So again, as a technician, I'm watching this 93 94,000 level. I will probably play it as a swing trade for a quick trade, but I'm really more focusing in does it hold or does it break. If it breaks, we probably go to 75,000 on Bitcoin. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but remember, Bitcoin in its correction phases has really 70% draw downs. That's not unusual. This wouldn't even be a 50% draw down if it gets back to 75,000. So, again, overall, Bitcoin weak um showing itself as a weaker asset than the markets right now. Maybe a leading indicator, but watch the 93 to 94,000 level.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and I know you don't want to be that I told you so guy, but I mean, uh, if 75,000 sounds crazy, I mean, people were calling calling you crazy back in what, 20, what was that, 2021, 22? Yeah.
>> And they were like, Gareth, this is not going back to I forgot your price target, but it ended up hitting I think it tagged 14,000 uh in that downtrend.
>> Yeah. When it was when it was 69,000. Yeah.
>> Yep. Yep.
>> That's true. And the thing is is people have to remember is that, you know, one of the things I've trained myself on from now over two decades of trading is I'm very logical, right? Logical to the point my my wife gets annoyed at me, right? She's like, "You're too logical. I want to see more emotion." I'm like, "Well, this is how I am. I'm a trader, right?" Um, but ultimately people get very emotional about things that they're long and they can't understand why it would correct. But if you take a step back and you look at charts and you look at crypto, it's very clear that it does have these drawdowns. It has these four-year cycles. it has big draw downs and so you just have to go with that and if the charts are telling me that then that's what I'm going to say.
>> Yep. You got to trade with the chart not with your heart and then you and then you also have to look at like I think your time horizon. So if you are parking money into these assets for the long term uh obviously it's in the uptrend over the long term whether you look at Bitcoin, gold, you know, and such. And so um you know if you're in the long term then you shouldn't be worried about the the near-term uh performance and such. And so, uh, that's
>> so true.
>> So, I I do want to go over to the rare earths. So, uh, I played a little bit of the rare earth. I was able to make some money. I got out of it and, uh, you know, these stocks have just been getting pummeled lately. And so, just just wanted to see what the charts are saying and if you have any uh, are you touching these? Are you touching these falling knives or what are you thinking here?
>> So, number one, I love touching a falling knife, right? because I I you know people get scared of that and they say don't do it. I'm a believer that if you have enough technical factors and you do it small, right, a lot of people go all in and then they're like, "Oh, no, it didn't work." Right? But if you nibble versus going all in at the right technical levels and you dollar cost average, then you can catch the bounce. And so, just to show you on MP, right, MP materials here, incredible run. I mean, just absolutely incredible. There's a very key gap fill around 48.50. I might start nibbling there. Now listen, I have to leave it open that there's a massive gap here that it could eventually fill. So I would see myself adding to this in this range around 39 and then again at around $30. But if I could bring my average by dollar cost averaging right into this line, right? If I start here, I buy here and add here, then my average would be somewhere right around there. You'll get a bounce on these. There's no doubt about it. Buy the dippers will be back. It's just a great flush. So there will be trading opportunities in these. These are one of my favorite type of scenarios because when things get so parabolic, the retraces are massive, but the bounces after the retraces are equally as massive. Like you could see 50% gains on some of these things. Um so again, I love them. Um just not quite yet as a buy.
>> Yeah. Gotcha. And then uh can we look at one ticker LEU? Uh so uh Centress Energy uh they do uranium enrichment and uh I had bought them back in uh during liberation day. They hit about uh 48 bucks some and some change. 50 bucks, 55 bucks, something like that. And this stock just ripped to the upside to over $400. Uh I didn't own that that way up. Um but I was just kind of thinking like, okay, is is this is this sustainable or what? Like this seems like a it's trading at at meme status and and so um just wanted to see what the charts say on this one. So, this one's interesting because in the near term, see this trend line here that goes back to the August 2025 lows. Notice how it kept on tagging this line over and over again, right? So, over and over here, it just tags it. And then look at today. It opened below, but it's recapturing that trend line. And so, it technically speaking, this is still holding this support line. Now, if this breaks, that's where things get a little bit more nasty. But in terms of this, this wouldn't be something where I would say, "Oh, it's it's falling off a cliff." It's actually holding on to the edge of the cliff right now. Um, but again, just be careful because I do worry that we're at the starting point of a bigger correction. Um, and if it does fall, where would I buy this? I would start looking at the lows in April, right? So, the lows here, this would be a really nice trend line. Look at this. So, let me get rid of these other ones here so we can just kind of keep it as clean as possible. So, we're going on the assumption here that it's going to break lower. Um, where would I buy it? Very clearly, this area here. You have this hit here, right in here. And then look at this area. If we draw a trend line from this top, it basically merges right over with that same level. So, you have this area of support with this ups sloping trend line of support merging together. That to me is the buy level right there. That should be a big bounce off that level.
>> Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Thank thanks for covering that. Uh so any other general thoughts on just where we're at in the markets and how are you positioning yourself? Are you uh getting into cash? Are you uh playing puts? Are you what what's what's G up to? Are you buying are you buying?
>> So So a couple things. So number one, um I do have shorts out out there. No doubt about it. I've been kind of anticipating u the drop in the market coming. We've been so overbought. I love that Michael Bur came out with these big short positions via puts in Nvidia and Palunteer. Um and and so definitely have shorts out there. I also have longs, but they're more in defensive names. You know, like a Fizer that is trading at a forward PE of 8 pays a 7% dividend. It's not flashy. It's not going to make me 100% like some of these AI stocks, but it's a way to just say, okay, these money flow may see kind of a a readjustment from some of these big players into these kind of defensive names and they could actually have a 5 10 15% move uh while also paying a very hefty dividend. And I think again for me, that's kind of where I'm I'm angled at this point is to play it more safe. Um definitely have some cash on the sidelines because like we looked at some of these charts like MPLEU if they flush enough then absolutely I want to be buyers at those levels. Uh just got to be patient.
>> Yeah. Yeah. You got to have dry powder to take advantage of those opportunities. Uh and as my friend Rick Rule says, you got to have it gives you the courage. You got to have the courage, you know, to to get in and uh and take advantage of those opportunities. So that's right.
>> Appreciate you for coming on the show, Gareth. network with people, connect with you, uh find more about your services and everything. Uh plug the audience.
>> Hey, sure. Absolutely. And thank you for having me on. So, verified investing, it's where I like to say it's no BS, just charts. Meaning that we focus on probabilities, not hype and all that craziness that is all over the internet these days. It gives me honestly, it's the only way I've been able to be a profitable trader by focusing and using the charts, which is again probability. So, just check us out at verifiedinvesting.com.
>> All right. you all. If you all got the information, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Also, click the link that is pinned in the comments below to the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Love to see you there. And thank you, Gareth, for coming back on the show.
>> Thank you so much.