Luke Gromen: "All Roads Lead To Gold"

I think all roads lead to gold when you look at it. Whether it's deflation, whether it's inflation, we had deflation with where we are. Uh, you quickly have credit risk to western sovereign bonds, western bond market, and that's not going to be allowed to happen. If you have inflation, obviously, um, and so what I feel very strongly about is we are in a new secular regime where, you know, over time, stocks should keep going up in dollar terms and keep going down in gold terms.

Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Tagert. Today's guest has long warned that the US and most other countries are hurtling into a global sovereign debt crisis, one that's increasingly forcing them to quote, "get busy inflating or get busy dying." To get an update on where things stand on his timeline, where all this is likely headed, and what investors should be tracking most right now, we're fortunate to welcome Luke Groman, founder of macro research firm Forest for the Trees, back to the program.

Luke, thanks so much for joining us today.

>> Thanks for having me here, Adam. It's great to be with you again.

>> Hey, it's always a pleasure, my friend. Um, again, uh, I hope, uh, I hope you and your family are staying warm through this brutally cold weather that the mid, uh, mid-part of the country is getting. Um, you look good. So, whatever heat system you have in your house looks like it's working.

>> Thank you. Yeah, we're doing, we're doing good. We've, I'm a belt and suspenders and, you know, Velcro guy. We've got, we got gas heat. We got geothermal heat. I got wood burning stoves. I got solar panels. I got it all. So, yeah.

>> Oh, wow. We're in good shape. We're in good shape.

>> Okay, good. As I was just telling you before we, uh, we turn things on here, I'm in Reno, Nevada now, and it's colder than California, and I might need to swing by your place then to stay a little bit warmer. U, but all right, look, let's, let's, uh, let's get into the heart of the matter here, Luke. Folks have been very excited to hear that you're coming on the program. Um, and I guess why don't we just sort of start with where I, I, you know, kick the intro there off, the global sovereign debt crisis. What's your current assessment of where we are in that right now?

>> Uh, I think we're in an acceleration phase of that, uh, for multiple different reasons and there's a number of different crosswinds. Um, you know, for a long time people said, well, the US is just going to be Japan and Japan's just fine. Well, we can sort of crumple that statement up and throw it in the trash heap of, you know, permanently high prices and, you know, um, you know, transitory inflation, no inflation, you know, subprime is contained, you know, all of these sort of nonsensical things. And it took longer than expected, but Japan's starting to have an issue now. Um, and something I've highlighted repeatedly, uh, to clients, you know, we actually put it up on, on, on my X feed last week. I said I thought it's the most important chart in macro potentially right now, which is the 10-year Treasury yield minus the 10-year JGB yield compared to the yen against the dollar. And it shows that essentially, um, the yield differential between the 10-year Treasury and the 10-year JGB, Japanese government bond, is shrinking meaningfully and that historically has implied a much stronger yen. But instead, the yen's weakening against that. And this has happened, that divergence, which had held for at least five to six years before, only really started happening in the third quarter of 2025. So, not that long ago. And my interpretation of that chart is the bond markets more broadly are beginning to discount that the rate that puts Japan, and therefore much of the rest of the world, into a debt spiral isn't that far north of here. Um, higher JGB yields driving a weaker yen is completely contradictory and counterintuitive to every, what every economics textbook would tell you, um, for developed countries, for developed countries. Now, if we went down and talked to friends in Brazil or Argentina or, uh, any number of other countries that have had a southern democrat say, "Hey, no, no, no, Turkey." You go ask a, you go ask a Turk that chart panel like, "Oh, we recognize that one." You go to Latin America, "Oh, we've seen this before." But the issue is it's Japan. And so that's why I say it's an acceleration. And then within that, you have, um, a number of different things that are complicating that. You've got, uh, the Chinese seemingly, um, you know, trying to, trying to shove the JGB market over the cliff, putting on dual-use export goods tariffs or, or controls, excuse me, which all else equal will, you know, I saw one estimate that that 40% of Japan's, uh, imported goods come from China. So you start having, uh, supply issues there. You start having upward inflation pressures. That's not going to make the bond market in Japan happier. Um, you look at, uh, what's going on in resources where we've seen all of a sudden in the last, I mean, really just in the last three months, four months, >> kind of a, a starting gun being fired in earnest to a global scramble for actual physical commodities, not paper claims on those commodities, actual physical supplies of those commodities. And obviously, we've seen, you know, silver and copper and a whole number of other metals, um, gold, etc., rally sharply in the last, you know, three, four months. And then further complicating all of this is what's going on in AI, which seems to be moving much faster than expected, um, in a number of different ways and ultimately undercutting, you know, a key underpinning of, of western and global sovereign bond markets, which are tax receipts. And I, I can't speak to Japan, but I can tell you in America, America, half of tax receipts come from employment. And so we're seeing this dynamic of a snake eating its own tail where, uh, these hyperscalers are spending/borrowing more and more money at a faster and faster rate to undermine the tax base of the United States government faster and faster, um, at a time when, you know, 10-year Treasury yields are kind of ticking back up again despite lower oil prices and, uh, being pulled higher on some level, uh, by Japanese government bond yields. So, we're in this sort of, um, acceleration phase that, you know, I think some of what we've seen with Bitcoin is the leading indicator of what it implies. Uh, it's telling you that that liquidity, etc., is getting tighter. Um, and I think it's probably going to stay relatively spicy, so to speak, for the first, you know, for, for the next, you know, three to six months in terms of what that means for markets.

>> All right. Um, you're like an interviewer's dream here, Luke. You just gave me like six or seven, uh, different threads here to pull on. Um, let me go back to your, the chart that you mentioned, and I, I will have superimposed that, that chart while you were talking about it. Um, so I just want to make sure I fully understand what you, you say you think is going on there. Um, you know, which is, uh, uh, given its inflationary pressures and and woes that, um, uh, you know, Japan's going to be sort of faced with a decision here, um, is, you know, hey, do we, do we raise interest rates to fight inflation? Um, but if so, you know, do we, do we hit a ceiling there where, given how hyperendebted our country is, right? They've got the highest debt to GDP ratio of any developed country, they hit that point where the economy starts breaking under those higher interest rates. I think you're saying that breaking point might actually be a lot lower than, than folks have been expecting up until now. So, Japan is, is potentially getting squeezed into that rock and a hard place, which is, we either got to just eat this, this, this, you know, rising inflation, um, or we got to rise interest rates and, and potentially therefore crater the economy. So, am I capturing that threat level correctly?

>> Yeah, that's essentially what it's saying, right? They are reaching the point where they have to choose to save the bond market or save the currency.

>> Right. And

>> and you think they will choose the bond market when forced?

>> Correct. I think they will let the bond market, uh, I think they will save the bond market and it's always important to highlight that it's really, um, in nominal terms, right? They will cap yields with printed money. You're going to get killed in bonds on a real basis, um, and inflation will pick up, but the currency will, will be the, what takes the nominal hit, not the bond market. And it's, it's tricky, especially because the second derivative to that is that the Japanese have been running surpluses for 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, >> and, you know, where have they invested a lot of those surpluses? There's a reason why the American markets are so big and so dominant.

>> And so that's sort of another playbook that Japan has an alternative, right? If Japan, so Japan has a net international investment position as a percent of GDP. So that's, you know, what do Japanese people own of foreign assets versus what foreigners own of Japanese assets on a net basis, and as a percentage of their GDP, I want to say it's 65, 70% of their GDP to the positive. >> And so that amounts to a giant piggy bank they can break in an emergency. And so unlike, you know, while this chart that I highlighted before is so familiar to, you know, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Turkey, all of these, uh, developing or emerging markets that have had bond market crisis, sovereign debt crisis, currency crisis. Uh, none of those countries had this net international investment position to the positive piggy bank that Japan has, which gives them the alternative of, you know, in case of emergency, break piggy bank, which looks like sell Treasuries, sell US stocks, and basically hand the baton of the crisis off to the Americans, right? And that will send US yields up, that will send US stocks down, you know, go back to, you know, send the dollar down, and we'll go right back to those fun days immediately following liberation day, which lasted what, seven days until the US Treasury market began dysfunctioning. So that's why I say it's a real acceleration is, is we can see this chart. We know what this chart means. We know Japan's choices. We don't know what choice they're going to make in the short run, but we know it's not good for risk assets until they make a choice. And then we can see, you know, we, we know which choice they're likely ultimately going to make, right? Which is, you know, save the bond market, sacrifice the currency. Um, but between here and there, uh, it, to me, that's why I think it's such an important macro chart because that, it'd be bad enough if it was just Japan, but through the net international investment position, this is crucially important for American markets, American bond yields, etc. You know, and importantly, it tells you in the next crisis, American bond yields aren't going to go down much. They might go down for a little bit, but like we saw in April of last year, they're going to go down for a little and then they're going to take off higher like a scalded cat until taco liquidity, whatever you want to call it, uh, happens.

>> Okay. And that's the thread I wanted to pull here, which is I didn't want people to just think, okay, well, Japan has a problem. This is Japan's problem becomes our problem here, right?

>> Yeah.

>> Um, and, and I don't get, I mean, I get the sense that this is, this is not, you know, a small to medium-sized problem for us. It's a big one. Um, this is one that not only will likely roil, uh, US financial markets, global financial markets, but US financial markets probably, you know, uh, disproportionately. Um, but also, you know, America's borrowing costs, right? The, the whole thing that we're desperate to try to bring down right now may indeed go the other direction.

>> No, that's right. And it's fascinating to me amongst a number of different things. If you look at the two-year Japanese government bond yield, uh, over the last five years and you overlay it to gold, it's the same chart. It's literally this. They're tied at the hip. And so you've got Japanese people looking at this going, "Oh my gosh, buy gold. I don't, you know, and at the same time in America, because we are sort of, we look at the dollar in the same way that the Catholic Church once upon a time looked at the earth as the center of the universe, right? And they shamed and tortured and killed anyone who said that the earth wasn't the center of the solar system. Um, Americans think the dollar is the center of the solar system and we torture and and harass anybody who says otherwise, but we're wrong. Anyone that does that, Americans are still are googling how to sell gold with gold at $5,000 up fast into all this. The Japanese are looking at this and going, buy gold. And buy gold is the right reaction to all of this, uh, because it's a global interlinked sovereign debt problem that's accelerating.

>> Okay. Sovereign debt problem is accelerating, which, you know, drives a flight to safety and, hey, you know, where can I just protect my wealth as part of the sovereign global debt crisis. You talk about inflation being the main means at which the sovereign nations try to combat the debt problem. Um, it's really not solving it in the long run, but they're sacrificing their currencies, just the way that you said that Japan would, right? Um, so again, it, those are all, you know, it's buy gold to be safe and buy gold to protect against that, that, that rampant inflation that'll be likely accelerating. Um, we have seen for a while now in China that the populace there has gotten the message to buy gold. And I know I saw some tweet that you recently put out there. I don't know if you want to expound on or not, but, but it basically was sort of a, you know, a communication to the Chinese folks, hey, if you don't like the wine, that's okay. Buy gold. It's going to help the one anyways. Um, and then you're just saying the Japan folks have gotten the memo here. The US. Yeah. I mean, very recently people said, "Wow, gold has gotten so high and silver. I'm gonna go raid grandma's, you know, cabinets and dresser and and sell all that that I can." But there has been a beginning, I think, of a, a wakening up of the American retail investor, the regular, regular American to go buy some gold, whether it's at Costco, right? Um, or, you know, institutions are finally starting to talk, at least, at least talk about. And I think I think part of this is initially happening saying, hey, look, we're kind of looking at the history and the future of the bond market. We had a great 40-year tailwind. We don't feel like we're going to have that going forward. And many reasons, you know, as Lucer is telling us, we don't think bonds are going to be super great. So let's take some of that 40% of the 60/40 portfolio and put it in another risk-off asset, gold. Right? So the West is starting to wake up to this. And basically, why I'm kind of stacking all this on top of one another is it sort of sounds like everybody is getting the memo, buy gold. Do you, a, do you see it the same way and, b, do you expect that that message to continue to spread? Do you, do you see the, uh, the demand for gold to continue going forward or do you see a different outlook for it?

>> No, I think, I think all roads lead to gold when you look at it. Whether it's deflation, whether it's inflation, we had deflation with where we are. Uh, you quickly have credit risk to western sovereign bonds, western bond market, like, and that's not going to be allowed to happen if you have inflation, obviously. Um, and so really gold is nobody's counter, no gold >> y >> owned in physical form or an allocated physical form is nobody's, has no counterparty risk, and that's basically one of the only assets, um, that you can say sort of has that, a monetary asset, certainly. So, um, I think that's exactly what we're in the early days of watching, which is just this awakening to, um, it's not that they've run out of room to kick the can. They can always kick it further, but they can't kick it any further without really debasing the currency.

>> Okay. I, um, I interview regularly Andy Sheckchman, who's the co-founder and CEO of Miles Franklin. I don't know if you know Andy or not. Um, my opinion, very knowledgeable guy about just the internal plumbing of, of the bullion market because he's, he's in there on a daily basis buying, selling, etc. And he has really been shocked by the flows of, um, of bullion in and out of the major exchanges like the LBMA and the COMEX. It's just at higher levels he's ever seen in his career. And not only are the volumes unprecedented, but the, um, amounts that are being stood for delivery are unprecedented. And, and some of them are so high that he has trouble thinking it's anybody other than a sovereign player, um, that that's able to basically kind of purchase that much and take that much delivery in one fell swoop. Um, does that surprise you in any way or does it make sense to you that that countries out there are, yes, their central banks are buying them publicly, but but also kind of on the sly, they're just taking more and more of this stuff?

>> No, it makes perfect sense. Um, you know, something we've highlighted, um, for clients two or three times in the last, you know, two or three weeks has been, um, the United States's single largest export in October and November, which are the latest trade data, um, was non-monetary gold. And the, uh, Forbes magazine, their trade editor wrote that that was the last week he wrote that those are the first two consecutive months in at least 20 years and probably ever that the United States's single biggest export was non-monetary gold. It was just by way of comparison, it was bigger than aircraft.

>> Just to help a slow mind like mine understand this. So we're, it's not an import of gold to America. It's an export outside of the country.

>> Well, just in that direction, yes. Um, there's imports coming in too.

>> Uh, but I think it's really important signpost from the standpoint that like we've never seen this before, um, in terms of these sizes of these flows.

>> Uh, earlier, you know, in the first quarter of 2025, a year ago, uh, we had so much gold coming in here in the first quarter that it literally turned GDP negative by like four percentage points. So, you took a $30 trillion economy and turned it negative 4%. Because that's how much gold was coming in. So, from, you know, where mainly mainly the UK, I would suspect, but who knows? So we've seen these flows pick up and, you know, the question is why, why, why is the United States exporting a bunch of gold and maybe more interestingly is where? So when you look at the data where, you know, the United States has probably never in its history exported, had its number one export be non-monetary gold for two straight months, um, where is it going? Well, it's mostly going to Switzerland. Okay, well, that makes sense. They're one of the biggest refin, it is the refining hub of the world, right? 90% plus of global gold refined is is refined in Switzerland. Okay. Well, let's now dig into the Swiss numbers. Where's Swiss been exporting gold to?

>> Yeah.

>> China, the UAE, Turkey, um, India and France. And it's the Chinese and then Hong Kong too, which is also China, >> right? And so to me, what that tells us is America is exporting gold through Switzerland to China. Why would we be doing?

>> So the global flight of of of ounces of physical from west to east continues.

>> It does and it makes me wonder, right? What happened in October? This is purely speculative on my part. Remember the trade, the new trade deal went back into place in October, >> and our leaders got up and told us, "Hey, the Chinese have resumed sending us rare earths and critical minerals." If I'm the Chinese, I ain't taking paper anymore for that stuff.

>> Interesting.

>> I think I think some element, and forget what I think. De facto, America runs a huge trade deficit. That is a fact. Another fact is that our biggest export for two straight months in the two latest months of the data, beginning when a trade when a trade deal started, uh, was gold. De facto, the United States settled part of its trade deficit in October and November in gold. And I think that is a, when you listen to what US officials like Trade Representative Greer and others have said at, including at Davos, Greer came out and said, "Listen, we're going to start settling, we want to move towards a Hamiltonian economic system with a neutral reserve asset." Like, um, I think part of the reason we're seeing gold's price move is I think trade is bidding up gold. When you look at US trade deficit and compare it to the size of the global gold market, >> uh, >> the US trade deficit dwarfs it. Dwarfs it. The price has to move so much.

>> C, >> can I ask a really basic question here? This might be naive. U, but this is fascinating. So, assuming that's true, right? That that they're moving to this model and, and, and would like to have this neutral asset to settle trade in. It would benefit the government to have the price of that asset increase because it means I need to give you less ounces in return for whatever I'm buying from you. Right? And so historically, people that have followed the precious metals industry have have grit their teeth, I think, for understandable reasons that precious metal prices are suppressed because the government wants to keep it down. It doesn't want to, you know, have it reflect the decline in purchasing power of the dollar or whatnot. Could this be flipping the script where all of a sudden the government actually wants a higher gold price?

>> 100%. I think it's exactly what's happening. I don't think people have understood why the price of gold has been managed and and and suppressed for years and it was to direct flows into US financial assets and in particular to Treasuries. If gold got too big relative to the Treasury market, then that's going to create a network effect for gold. It's not going to flow into Treasuries. It's not going to flow into US stocks. And that's ultimately going to result in, um, you know, a weaker dollar. It, it's going to result in, um, weaker US, you know, demand for US Treasuries. It's going to result in higher rates. Well, think about what this administration and for, and the Biden administration before it. What do they want? They want to make more stuff here. They want a weaker dollar. They want, you know, they want all of, you know, they don't want the Chinese buying our stocks. Okay. Well, if we don't want the Chinese buying our stocks, and the Chinese don't want to buy our Treasuries, as we saw from the headline today, even where they're they're openly telling their banks to reduce exposure to Treasuries. And the Chinese, by the way, were said we're going to stop buying Treasuries 13 years ago in 2013, and really have been winding them down ever since. Um, the only thing left over to big enough is gold. And so I think exactly, I think it's a win-win where, okay, Chinese, you know, surpluses against the US on the margin for at least some goods go into gold. Price of gold goes up a lot. The Chinese have been telling their people to buy gold since 2002. So the balance sheets of China and their banks, which needs some repairing given what's happened in real estate there, is going to go up a lot. That works for them. Uh, they can control that asset. We're not gonna steal it because it's in their country. That works for them. It's inflation protected. That works for them. Um, and for the Americans, we need a weaker dollar. That works for us. We want to reshore it. Got to have the weaker dollar before we do that. We want the Chinese out of our country. That does that in terms of their money buying our assets. Uh, that works for us there. And, you know, the nice little kicker at the end of it is once a gold price gets high enough, there's a provision on the books. Treasury can revalue the gold. It's just money creation using gold and buy back most of the Treasury market, certainly the duration, so you can control long-end rates. It's a win-win-win. I, I think gold is the unspoken pivot of any deal that might already be struck, at least in, in the framework between the US and China. It has to be. It's the only asset big enough and critically for who cares what I think. Watch the flows. It's happening. Watch the price. It's happening.

>> God, this is so fascinating. Um, so a ton of questions coming out of this, but I guess first and foremost, um, gold and especially silver just had, you know, massive price run-ups. Uh, they've had a correction. Um, gold's hung in there actually surprisingly well. It's back above $5,000. I think it's close to $5,100 the moment we're talking here, Luke. Um, and one of the fears that has been expressed over the past week or so is that corrections been going on is, oh, is this going to be like what we saw in 2011 or in 1980 where, you know, we had this blow-off spike and then basically we gave it all up and then the precious metals just kind of did nothing for a long time. Um, I think you think this time is different for the reasons that you just mentioned, Drew.

>> Oh, yeah. It's, it's night and day. It's, it's apples and oranges. Um, we were trying to get gold out of the system. We were trying to get the world to buy our Treasuries and and get, you know, recycle their surpluses into our financial assets and get our factories out in the process. That's what we were trying to do, uh, in 1980. And from a policy standpoint and, and, um, from a, from a, you know, in 2011, we were trying to sort of maintain that system. Uh, it's a matter of national security for the United States for the price of gold to go up, not down. In 1980, it was a threat, starting to become a threat to national security if it kept going up. You can read as much when Volcker said, "Gold is my enemy."

>> Yeah.

>> Um, 2011, that was still, you know, Wall Street still dominated policy circles in Washington and so gold's going up and up and up and up. It helped, you know, they didn't mind it. 2008 to 2011 because it told them, you know, it was giving off a message of of inflation and etc. that helped them get out of that crisis. They needed to inflate for a while, but once it got to a certain level, they didn't like that as much, uh, in terms of of the message. They need it higher now for multiple re, if, if they want to reshore, if America does not want China to make the majority of its weaponry for America within five years, then America needs the price of gold a multiple of where it trades today, you know, 60 to 60% higher to, to a multiple, 160 to I don't know, 400, 500% higher. I don't know what the right number is. I can offer different perspectives on that, but that's it. It is so different now versus those periods of time. Now, people say, oh, it's never different. This time it is. You're right on that level. It isn't different this time. 1973 to 2020 was the only time in world history where the debt of an insolvent sovereign served as the primary reserve asset for global trade. That was the anomaly. We're just reversing that. And so it's really, I think, the biggest, you know, in 2017, I called it the biggest mean reversion trade in history. Um, you know, a couple different presentations I did with gold at whatever $1,100, $1,200, $1,300 bucks. So, um, I, I, I think gold, I think it is, it is different than the last 50 years, but it's no different than what it was the prior 5,000 years. And ultimately, when you look at the imbalances as exist, the United States needs gold way higher than it trades today.

>> Okay. This interview is, is very complimentary of one that just recorded last night with Michael Levery, and I think yours is going to come out before his. Um, you know, Michael talks about mercantilism and, and similar to you, you know, Luke says, hey, the globalism era that we all grew up in, that's the historical anomaly. You know, the world, the world ran on mercantilism. It's now running back on mercantilism, and we get to realize that that shift has gone on. So for you, obviously back, $1,300 was was the best time, but, um, $1,300 an ounce, but it, it sounds like you're saying, you know, this is an all-in the pool moment for people who want to invest in gold, which is there's very big, uh, trends of foot that are likely to be driving gold higher from here, perhaps several multiples, two, three, four times from where it is right now.

>> Yeah, look, I, I, the chart I've used many different times shows the, um, you know, and I think Michael Every's got a great point. I agree with mercantilism, you know, mercantilism, globalism, that's all over. That means the Americans aren't going to export paper for stuff anymore. The Americans have to export real goods. Americans don't make anything real after 40, 50 years of that old system. The only thing they, and if that system was over, you know what the number one of the number one symptoms would be? The America's number one export being non-monetary gold because we got nothing else to send that anyone wants, uh, from a, from a competitive standpoint, uh, from a cost perspective, at least till the dollar, right? The Chinese make the Chinese make a nuclear power plant, gigawatt, one gigawatt, gigawatt's the same here or there. Chinese cost of that's 80, 83% cheaper than America. So the, if globalism is over, >> the dollar needs to fall against the yuan by probably 60 to 80%. That's the, that's the meaning of the end of globalism. That's the meaning of the end of mercantilism. Gold would be the release valve for a lot of that. Well, you can look at it as when you look at US foreign held debt, right? So, if we go back in time, a chart I've shown a number of different times, the US, um, market price of US official gold, assuming it's all there, I do, but who knows? But let's assume it is for sake of discussion. The market price of gold of the United States, 8100 tons of official gold as a percentage of the foreign held portion of US Treasury debt outstanding today, with the massive run that we've had, it's at 14 or 15%. So the market price of US official gold as a percentage of all foreign held Treasuries is 14, 15%. By way of comparison, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and our unipolar moment in history started, it was 20%. So gold would have to rise by another 30 to 38% just to get to the 1989 price of gold relative to our foreign debt. And that assumes debt never rises. Our foreign debt never ever rises again. Now, if we want to go back to the long-term average of that percentage, that was 40 to 60%. Going back 60, 70, 80 years. So let's just use 50% for them, for in the middle of it. 50% from 15, you need what? Three and a third, right? 3.3 times here, $17, $18, $20,000 gold just to get back to the long-term average. Now, >> if we had an honest to goodness dollar crisis, real lack of faith, and there's plenty of which we're all looking at that could trigger that. It's not my base case. Uh, but in 1980, the US official gold against its foreign held debt was 130%. That's up almost 10x from here. Gold would have to go to $45, $50,000 an ounce to be the same gold price as gold in 1980 relative to our foreign debt. When you look at it that way, that's most people just have no, no concept of how much the debt has gone because it's such a big number. It's, it's hard to fathom. So I look at that and go, yeah, it should do. You know, gold to me, I think needs to be 10 to 20%, you know, 25% everybody's portfolio, uh, and, and the reality is most people own maybe two, maybe maybe in America.

>> And, and that's on average, yeah. That's if you average it all, right? Which means there's a small number of people that own higher and then everybody else owns,

>> nothing. Owns nothing. Owns nothing.

>> Um, all right. You, what's fascinating about that point, which I think is a very important point, um, is the video before this one, um, on this channel was with Tavi Costa, who brought up that exact same chart. And I hadn't heard of the, I know you said you mentioned it, but I, I hadn't been on my radar until he brought it up. And then here you are in the exact next interview bringing it up again. So to me, I pay, I pay attention when I start seeing, um, smart people look at the same data.

>> Um, all right. Let me ask you this then, and then we'll, we'll get off gold onto a few other topics. Um, so I mean, as long as the US is, is still the world reserve currency, right? Even if we're shifting towards this, this world where we're starting to settle trade and, and other assets, um, you know, Triffin's dilemma, you'll always run a trade, uh, deficit, whatever. So, so we will be always making payments and maybe, maybe, um, on a net basis, sending more gold out than we're receiving for as long as we have a trade deficit. Obviously, keeping our gold stores flush becomes a real matter of national importance. Um, how do you see the US prioritizing that? Um, and is that, is that part of the undercurrent of the story of what's going on with Venezuela and Greenland and things like that with the US expansionism?

>> I, I, maybe, maybe I, I think a lot of what's around Greenland in particular, I think there's some, um,

>> I don't know. I don't know how much gold, if any, there was there. I assume there's some, but I don't,

>> Right. Right. Yeah. I'm sure. You know, I, I think I think Greenland, I think the bigger issue is actual, actual physical critical minerals. Um, the, you know, CNN reported last summer that, you know, the United States ran through 25% of its, uh, THAAD, T H A A D, high-end air defense missiles in 11 days of medium intensity combat defending Israel. So we went through a quarter of our stores in medium intensity, right? And so, you know, to me, I think a lot of what I'm watching around Greenland, Argentina, Venezuela are two things. It is an admission that our, um, industrial base, that this prior economic system, globalism, mercantilism, whatever, has hollowed out our defense industrial base so badly that we are in a critical emergency around these critical minerals and so we are doing what we can to grab them. I think there's some other issues around, you know, uh, um, navigable water, whether that be up in the Arctic Circle, whether down.

>> And I'm sorry, I, I don't, I don't want to dive too deep on that stuff only because it's, it's a big, important discuss.

>> Yeah, it's a big, it's a big.

>> If we, if we don't want to just watch our gold leave our shores to other people, what do we do to make sure that we keep building our stores?

>> Let the price rise.

>> So keep what we have, but just make it more and more expensive. Just, you know, just let the price rise, right? Just keep. So by way of comparison, you know, people say, well, oh, China, mercantilism, their globalist merkantal. >> China would sit down at that same table with, with Michael Every or anyone accusing them of mercantilism and say, look, we shipped all this stuff and, oh, by the way, we're not necessarily manipulating our currency. We've got factories that are like literally running dark, running on AI. We have made massive productivity enhancements and so we're just more productive than you.

>> Y.

>> And that's just a fact. Um, but, you know, Mr. Every, Mr. accusing us of globalis, you know, and I'm, I'm not, pick Michael's a friend of mine still here, but anyone accusing them of global, you know, mercantilism, >> China imported 975 tons on net of gold last year. And so if I'm China and I suspect this is what they're saying to Trump and Besset and what they said to Yellen before them was, listen, stop. We are importing 975 tons of gold. The issue is not us overproducing with the left hand. The issue is that you are overvaluing the dollar relative to gold with the right hand.

>> Mhm.

>> We ran a 1.2. So think about this. The Chinese ran in 2024 a $990 billion surplus with the world. It was the biggest surplus in world history as a percent of global, uh, trade, global manufacturing output. Biggest ever, $990 billion. Okay. China needs to strengthen it. This is they're manipulating their currency. Blah, blah, blah. Mercantilism, blah, blah, blah, blah. The yuan strengthens sharply against the dollar. Biggest move against the dollar in a long time. First half of 2025 was the worst drop in the dollar in 55 years. And yet in 2025, guess what? China's trade surplus with the world was $1.2 trillion, up nearly 25%. Despite a much stronger currency, okay, what's the real issue? The real issue is the dollar is wildly overvalued against gold. What? And I, I highlighted this in 2024. I highlighted again in 2025. If you take the $1.2 trillion trade surplus of China and divide it by the 975 net tons of gold they imported, it values that gold to balance their trade. At $38,220. At $38,220, China runs a flat balance of trade. What's the implication? The dollar gets way laid, >> right? >> The gold is now the reserve currency. America, you know, they whine about this, these, these American economists whine about this mercantilism. The, listen, there's two sides of the same coin. If you want the Chinese to stop being merkantal, price your currency appropriately. The, the dollar is so overvalued against gold relative to what we make useful in the real world. And that's the issue. And so when we say globalism's over, yeah, I agree with Michael on that. What's that mean? I don't know if $38,220 is the price, but I think gold is going to somewhere between $5,000 where it trades today and $38,220 to balance the Chinese. That's until we actually until the dollar gets weak enough that people, you know, say, "Hey, I can actually make more of a living as an engineer making something instead of like trading monkey JPEGs back and forth, or I can, you know, day trade my stock account and make more than an engineer can." You get the dollar weak enough that we can make stuff here. And that's how you do all of those things is you settle in gold and you just let us trade deficits bid gold to the moon until the dollar is appropriately valued, which is probably, I don't know, by the end of the cycle, I think DXY trades it in the 60s, maybe lower. That's where this has to go.

>> And, and what general time frame are you talking about here? Because I just don't want folks to get the impression that Luke is saying, okay, gold's going to $40,000 an ounce tomorrow. Right. Are we talking a half a decade? Are we talking two decades? Like, just, just finger to the wind, what, what wouldn't surprise you?

>> See, I don't think it matters. Like, this is a problem with a lot of American investors. They only buy stuff when it goes up, right? This is American investors only buy stuff that goes up. Now, you know, I think it's going to happen. I think it has to happen over the next five to 10 years. You know, and you say, "Well, gosh, is that fast enough?" Here's the reality. I put up a chart yesterday that showed if you look at the S&P total return, right? So this is the S&P with dividends reinvested. Gold has outperformed S&P total return over one year, two year, five year, 10 year, 20 year, and 25 year basis. Basically, my entire career, I'd have made more money sitting in gold than in owning the S&P 500 total return. The only time it worked was in 2011. If you bought it 15 years ago, S&P total returns killed gold since then. Other than that, sort of every major, and, and that was before we really started this change. Like I think we are in the very early innings of it. It is a matter of national security for the US to settle trade deficits at least partially in gold because we need the price of gold higher. We need the dollar weaker. We need defense industrial production back here. We don't want to be reliant on the Chinese to both finance our military and make our military. It's a bad idea. And so the only release valve is gold. And so I think ultimately, look, where's it going? I think it's probably going $15 to $25,000 probably over the next 10 years. You know, when you look and say, okay, a triple over 10 years, that's not bad. A quadruple or a quintuple over over 10 years, take that all day long. Um, now from here, I think it's going to be more volatile than it has been because I think we're getting into that that part of the cycle. Um, and look, if I'm wrong, then the Western sovereign debt is unsustainable. And oh, by the way, the only thing you're want to own in that case, too, is gold.

>> Is gold. Yeah. Yep. Assets that can't have their intrinsic value inflated away.

>> Um, okay. So, this is super helpful. All right. So, let me, let me take it over to a new asset category, um, in this future that you're describing here. Um, what role, if any, do you ascribe to or what importance, if any, do you ascribe to Bitcoin and or US stable coins?

>> Um, I still think Bitcoin can serve as a neutral reserve asset for the people. With that said, it is trading as levered tech, levered, you know, high beta tech. Um, and, you know, I, I sold most of my Bitcoin in mid-November, uh, in the mid-90s, thousands at, you know, 23, 24 ounces of gold. We sit here today, it's, I don't know, $70,000 and it's 14 ounces of gold. I think it's going below 10 ounces of gold. Um, and, and maybe lower than that. Uh, you know, until we get some sort of nuclear printing. Um, stable coins for me, I think stable coins are a, a hail mary to try to save the treasury market. They aren't a silver bullet to do it. They're a hail mary to do it. And the thing that, what, what I have trouble understanding is if you're an American or an American, you know, in, in the American system, you can put your money in T-bills and make whatever you're making today, uh, three and a half percent, I don't know, whatever you're getting, 4%, 3 and a half percent. Why would I hold a stable coin at zero? That makes no sense. Genius Act says it can't pay yield. So that's,

>> if you're, if you're in the US, totally get it.

>> Totally doesn't make sense.

>> If you're in Indonesia, I get it.

>> If you're in India. Yeah. If you're in Indonesia or Turkey, but here too, if you go to an Indonesian or a Turk and you say, "Hey, do you want a 0% yielding stable coin backed by a T-bill or do you want a 0% yielding stable coin backed by gold?" I would bet you nine out of 10, if not more, of the of the Indonesians and Turks will say gold. It's not even a choice. Like I saw an article, gold got killed here whenever it was, two weeks ago, down $500 in a day, whatever.

>> Yeah.

>> People in Singapore, granny's in Singapore were standing in line for six hours to get physical gold. Take a number, go to the back of line, wait six hours, get gold.

>> U, just culturally, it's just so different. And it, it reminds me a little bit of that scene in Something About Mary, right? Where they're like, you know, the, the hitchhiker, the, the psycho hitchhiker they pick up, right? And he's like, "My I have a new idea. It's for, they have se, it's eight minute abs, but I'm going to do seven."

"minute abs." And then Ben Stiller is like, "Well, what if they do six-minute abs, right?" And he just flips out. And to me, the stable coin thing is like six-minute abs. No. Right. It's a, to me, it's the, the, the, the stable coin foreigners is like, okay, well, we're going to use stable coins to enhance the dominance of the dollar system. And everyone in there, even Tether, is out there setting up a gold stable coin. And you know, the Chinese are setting up a gold st, everyone's setting up a gold stable coin. You go for like 7 billion people, every non-American in the world that has either, you know, seen personally or lived through a currency crisis, is going to take gold over a 0% yielding gold stable coin, over a 0% yielding T-bill stable coin, you know, six days a week and twice on Sundays.

And the other issue with the stable coin dynamic then is, is go back to that net international investment position dynamic I talked about with Japan. The United States is on the other side of that same coin. Um, you know, I've seen people talk about, well, we're going to run the Soros imperial dollar cycle again like we did in the '80s. We're going to squeeze the dollar higher and flows are going to come here and bond yields are going to go down. Inflation is going to go down. There's just one problem with that scenario. The setup is 180 degrees different today than it was then.

Mhm.

In other words, if you look at the US net international investment position in 1984, when we ran the Soros imperial dollar cycle, it was positive 10% of GDP. In other words, Americans had more money overseas than foreigners had here. So when we raised rates, strengthened the dollar, all that American flow came back here. Then you can have that virtuous cycle, that Soros imperial dollar cycle. Contrast that to today. Compared to the positive 10% of GDP net international investment position in '84 when the original cycle was run, today, US net international investment position is negative 87% of GDP. In other words, foreigners own, uh, $26 trillion more in US assets than we own of theirs. And they have borrowed, BIS estimates, up to $90 trillion in dollar-denominated debt globally, non-financial debt.

So you start strengthening that dollar. Guess what happens to the servicing of their debt? It goes up. What do they sell? What do you think they're going to sell? Okay, they're going to sell $26 trillion of Treasury bonds, starting with Treasury bonds. So you're going to get what we've seen repeatedly over the last six years, which is in a crisis, 10-year Treasury yield goes down for a cup of coffee, then it takes off like a scalded cat as everyone hits that bid to get dollars. Stocks are going to get killed in that too. American stocks, which back are receipts and the treasury market and funding and consumer.

And that's when you tie it back to the st, the second part of the stable coin. Okay, you're going to try to basically like, I remember there was a, you know, we talked about it being a possible, possible strategy. It'd be a stupid strategy, but a possible strategy if they wanted to be stupid, which was, let's go to the Europeans and say, anybody that does not take dollar stable coins won't get a dollar swap line in the next crisis. And basically try to force all of those dollar deposits in Europe into dollar stable coins. And that sounds really smart on the surface until you get to the other side of the ledger. You have to look at the other side of the accounting ledger, the balance of payments ledger. Sounds really smart on the one side of the ledger. On the other side, Europeans own multiple trillions of dollars of Treasuries and dollar-denominated assets. That's what that net international investment position, along with the Japanese and the Chinese. Guess what they're going to sell if you don't give them the swap lines? Guess what they're going to sell to get dollars? They're going to dump your assets. They're going to dump your Treasuries. So you're, that's why I say it's more of like a hail Mary. Like, great, you know, the Nigerians or some African countries that, you know, Bessant threw out there. Great. Like, at the end of the day, it's not a lot of money. So to me, the whole stable coin is going to fix it, I don't think so.

Okay. All right. Um, and just starting to wrap up here, and I do want to note that you've been kind enough to join us for our spring conference. So folks are going to get another bite at the Luke apple in about a month here as well. Um, but just to bring it down to, you know, the road we can see directly in front of us, 2026. Um, what kind of year are you expecting for the markets this year? Um, you know, we've had three pretty darn good years so far. Um, I've been raising some concerns about 2026, and one of it is just statistically, right? To get four years of high double-digit growth is, is quite rare. Not impossible. But I'm curious, given your outlook, I mean, a lot of what we talked about here is going to take place over the next decade plus. As you look at kind of the markets in the here and now, what are you projecting?

As I sit here today, I think we're going to have another good year, but I think over the next three to six months, it's going to be really bumpy. Um, and I think the message of the message of Bitcoin, I've repeatedly said over the last five, six, seven years that Bitcoin's just the last functioning smoke alarm of liquidity. It's telling you what's coming for. And, you know, and I think it's telling us once again. So when Bitcoin gets cut in half in, you know, whatever October to, you know, a week ago, right? So that's, uh, shoot, I mean, that's two, three, three months, three and a half months. That means liquidity is contracting.

Something wicked this way comes, at least for a moment. Again, nothing can be allowed to be, you know, we can't have another 2000 to 2002 without literally the United States and other Western sovereigns defaulting, nominally defaulting on their Treasuries. Not going to happen. Uh, same thing with even an '08. You can't have an '08 where it starts in '07 and goes through to early '09. Like any, you know, anything is going to be a very compressed timeframe of any kind of risk-off, just by virtue of where Western sovereign debt sits.

So.

Is that because of the reaction function of the central planners, meaning they're just going to leap to to address whatever is causing the issue?

Well, it's because, yes, and it's because of the setup, you know, the way they've allowed the system to evolve. It is a certainty. It is a certainty that the United States Treasury market will sell off in any sort of deflation after some modicum of, of, of, of bid to the long end. And we've seen that five, six times going back to 2019, which is like, oh, risk off, 10-year Treasury yields go down a little, and then about a week to two weeks in, they stop going down and they start going up, even though stocks keep going down faster and faster. That is a certainty. That is like a balance of payments identity for two reasons. Number one, for what we talked about before, which is foreigners are long $26 trillion of dollar assets on a net basis. That includes $9.5 trillion of Treasuries. When you are in a crisis, you sell what you can, not what you want to. What do you sell to get dollar liquidity because you've borrowed $90 trillion or whatever on the other side? You sell Treasuries. That's the structural component. The tactical component of that is that in October, uh, the Fed came out with a white paper, and this is something we've been writing about for years, but it's fascinating to see it come from the Fed. They noted that 37% of the issuance of the United States in notes and bonds, so any basically everything other than T-bills, everything on the on the longer duration Treasuries, 37% of issuance was bought by the foreign investors in the Cayman Islands.

Okay.

Those are US hedge funds.

Yeah.

That is the basis trade that is levered enormously. And the way that trade works, as again, we've seen repeatedly over the last five, six years, is these hedge funds, uh, when volatility picks up anywhere, they get a tap on the shoulder at 2 in the afternoon saying, degross. Here's what the VAR, you know, the VAR value at risk model or whatever they're using, you need to degross. Okay. What do you start hitting the sell button on? You start hitting the sell button where you're levered 20, 50 to one on on these these basis trades. And so tactically, 10-year Treasury yields start going up because they're selling what they can, and then it just feeds on itself. And then that also, for, you know, feeds on risk-off, etc. And it's so like, it is, you know, we've been harping on that and people have been very skeptical. I don't think they're as skeptical anymore after it's happened five or six times in the last six years. If you get risk-off, the Treasury market is going to start, 10-year yields are going to start going up within five to 10, maybe 15 trading days at most. And once they, once yields start going up, as stocks go down, you can set your stopwatch. You can just go, okay, you know, set the countdown. They're going to come in with something that is whether it's Trump tacoing, whether it's dollar liquidity, whether it's swap lines, whether it's not QE, whether it's RMP, reserve management purchase, whatever BS name they come up with, what, you know, uh, uh, uh, the BTFP, you know, bank term funding, what, you know, buy the effing paper, whatever they call it, they always come in. And that's why is they have, they they cannot because the Treasuries are the underpinning of all the collateral of everything.

So they can't allow that to happen.

Okay. So, um, totally get that, you know, we live in this world where the reaction function of the central planners is now measured in nanoseconds, right? Um, so I just want to make sure I understand your general forecast here. So, is it sound and look, you know, it's all probabilities here, nobody knows for certain what's going to happen. But it sounds like you think that there is some trouble in liquidity land and Bitcoin is the canary killing over that is letting us know about it, or that the last smoke alarm still functioning, use your analogy. Uh, and so it sounds like you're more than not expecting some sort of risk-off event in the markets at some point, and generally the first half of this year to be then very quickly followed by prodigious central planner rescuing.

Uh, in short, in short, yes. And if I'm wrong, I think it'll be another case of last year where, you know, S&P was whatever up 17% or 20% or something.

Gold was up 60, right? So in real terms, the S&P got crushed last year.

But because everyone measures in dollars instead of gold, they're like, oh, I had a great year. You know, you lost purchasing power against gold. And I think ultimately that's, you know, my base case is, yeah, we get some sort of risk-off in dollar terms in the next three to three to five months, six months, uh, followed by a lot of liquidity in dollar terms. You know, my, my, that's always there's, you know, those winds can shift based on on what happens. But that's how I'm seeing it today. What I feel very strongly about is we are in a new secular regime where, you know, over time, stocks should keep going up in dollar terms and keep going down in gold terms.

Right. Right. It's, stocks become a nominal trade versus a real trade.

That's right.

Okay. Um, so thank you. Look, this is awesome. And I'm going to wrap it up here, but a couple last quick questions. Um, you have made such a strong case for gold over the course of this discussion. Um, 10 to 20% of a portfolio is not nothing, but I'm a little surprised it's not higher, given your kind of all roads lead to gold conclusion here. Um, why is it not higher?

I think it's not higher because, you know, I don't know who's who's going to watch this, right? And so, you know, if you're just, you know, an individual investor, um, you know, it's possible to be too big, right? And and it's an acknowledgement of, hey, we're now in a new volatile regime. I think the volatility from gold is going to remain higher in coming years than what we've seen. The other thing I think it's really important as well for the average investor, and I've noticed this a lot, is and I don't know if it's a reflection of culture today or if we've always been like this as a society, but very black and white, right? It's like, well, I, you know, I either want to be 0% gold or 100% gold, or I'm a Bitcoin maxi or I'm a Bitcoin hater, or I'm a, you know, a stock guy or I'm, right? Like, this is an extreme, extreme statement, but I'm 100% in agreement with you, right? Where people, they're very binary, where we should really live in the gradations. Yeah. And and like if any, and and oh, by the way, the context in which we're discussing this is we're at the end of a 100-year debt cycle. We are at the end of a 60-year currency system. We are at the rise of a great power competition. We are in, you know, a Thucydides trap of sorts. Uh, we are in a situation where, look, America is in a lot of ways losing to China in a lot of ways, in a way that we haven't seen in a long time in this country. We're politically split. Faith in the American government is at, at 100-plus year lows. Wealth inequality is at 150-year highs. Lead over production, as Peter Turchin calls it, at 150-year highs. Right? So you've got all of these dynamics.

It is a very toxic mission. You know, if anybody tells you they know how exactly the path is going to go as it plays out, like run in the other direction, including me. Like, I have no idea. And so for me, I've been advising people, you want what we've called this Jacob Fugger portfolio, or Fug. It was he was a Dutch merchant from the, I don't know, the Renaissance, and was at the time the richest man ever in history. He might still be as a percent of GDP of the world. The point is, is he said, I want a quarter of my net worth in gold, a quarter of my net worth in cash, a quarter of my net worth in, what would today be stocks, and a quarter of my net worth in real estate, and then I rebalance. And that's how he was able to maintain his wealth. And what he's really talking about as it relates to today there, um, and oh, by the way, Dalio's portfolio, all-weather portfolio is sort of a model. It was sort of modeled based on that. Um, what he's really talking about is taking away the tail risks that kill you as an investor. If you're a wealthy person, if you are in a good position financially, there's really only two things from a markets perspective that kill you. It's, you know, a depression when you're levered and hyperinflation. And what this portfolio does is it takes away your two tail risks, right? Let's, and again, I don't think we're going to have a depression or we're going to have a hyperinflation, but let's look at these two, like wealth-destroying, life-destroying outcomes. In the Fugger portfolio, you have a depression, your cash is going to do well. Your gold is going to do well because it's nobody's liability. Your real estate's going to get killed. Your stocks are going to get killed. You live to fight another day. You go to hyperinflation. Gold's going to do great. Stocks are going to do great. Real estate's actually not going to do great, and cash is going to go away on a real basis. You, you live to fight another day. And so if you take away these two tail risks, which I think are much fatter, admittedly, than they've been in a long, long time, that's where you want to, that's where you want to be. And so that's why I say, you know, you 10 to 20% for gold. Like I, you know, could it be 25%? Sure. Um, you know, if it's 25%, should 5% of that be in Bitcoin? Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I wouldn't put it in there today, but, you know, I think it's, you know, I could be wrong on that. So that's why I think about that number. I think it's so important as an investor, given the context we're operating in. People just say, "Well, we're in America. What could possibly go wrong?" And like, that's what literally everybody has said like right before, you know, right before the wheels come off the cart. And, you know, it's not like I'm saying the wheels, you, the wheels have been, where we, where we are heading, like we know the direction we're heading. When you get on a road, don't be surprised when you arrive at the destination if you don't take the opportunity to get off the road that you're on. And we refuse to get off the road. And so, like, I don't know when we're going to arrive at the destination, but it stands to reason at some point we're going to. And so that's why I think it's important, you know, it's a nod to path and it's a nod to the volatility along the path, rather than, you know, trying to like, you know, get, you know, a maxi all in one direction. That's just not the way, in my opinion, you want to try to position yourself for the context of the environment that we're in.

Okay, great answer. And in answering it, you answered the question that I was going to ask, which was really the important one, which was, okay, so whatever your allocation of gold is, what are you putting the rest in? So you just gave us that model. So thank you very much. I, I want to note that I, I just was listening to a clip the other day from Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway fame, who attributed a vast majority of his success to not asking what could go right, but what could go wrong and protecting against the catastrophic risks. And he was like, if I have any superpower, it's just doing that. He started off as a, as a weatherman in the army and, you know, he was supposed to be sort of, you know, coming up with forecasts that the pilots would then go fly by. And instead of trying to get the port, the forecast exactly right, he really focused his time on just making sure I could identify the conditions that could kill a pilot, right? That would like ice up the plane or or cause the plane to have to fly so far, run out of fuel. And he's like, if I, if I was really good about avoiding those two things, the rest took care of itself, right? And he very much brought that discipline to Berkshire. And of course, the rest is history. Berkshire has been one of the most fantastical companies to invest in in history. All right, Luke. Um, thank you. This has been absolutely wonderful. For folks that would like to follow you and your work between now and your next appearance here on Thoughtful Money, where should they go?

Uh, they can check us out fft-lc.com for more information about our uh, institutional and mass market products and then uh, on X at Luke Groman.

All right. And Luke, when I edit this, I'll put up the links to your website and your X handle there. Folks, the links will be in the description below this video, so you can get there with one click as well. All right. All right. Well, in wrapping things up here, folks, please join me in expressing your gratitude for how much Luke has shared with us here by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below, as well as that little bell icon right next to it. Um, and if you would like to get some help in managing your finances for the road ahead, especially if it follows the path that Luke thinks it may, um, I highly recommend that you get guidance from a good professional financial advisor on that. Um, in particular, one that takes into account the macro issues that Luke and I have discussed here. If you've got a good one that's doing that for you, great. Don't mess with success. But if you don't, or you'd like a second opinion from one who meets that criteria, consider scheduling a free consultation with one of the financial advisors that Thoughtful Money endorses. These are the firms you see with me on this channel week in and week out. To do that, just fill out the very short form at thoughtfulmoney.com. Only takes you a couple seconds. Again, these consultations are totally free. There's no commitments involved. It's just a service these firms offer to be as helpful to as many people as possible. And lastly, as you heard me mention a couple times now, Luke is going to be one of the featured faculty at the Thoughtful Money Spring online conference, which is coming up on Saturday, March 21st. Don't worry if you can't watch live that day. Everybody who buys a ticket is going to get sent replay videos of the whole event. All the presentations, all the live Q&A within just a couple hours after the conclusion of the event itself. It is going to be phenomenal. In addition to Luke, we have just an unbelievable lineup of talent. Doing this from my head again, but Lacy Hunt will do his excellent graduate-level kickoff with all the charts that he brings every year. Uh, we'll then have first-timers Ed Dow and Michael Oliver and Matt Taibbi. We'll have Luke, of course. We'll have Brent Johnson. We'll have, um, Judy Shelton. We'll have Danielle D. Martino Booth. We'll have Grant Williams. We'll have Stephanie Pomboy. We will have Michael How. We'll have Darius Dale. We'll have David Haye. We'll have Andy Scheckman. We'll have Melody Wright. As you can see, this is just an incredible list of talent. Uh, so make sure that you, uh, get your tickets now if you can so you can get it at the lowest early bird price that we're offering. To do that, just go uh to thoughtfulmoney.com/conference. And, uh, if you are a subscriber to our, uh, premium Substack, you'll get an additional $50 off of that low early bird price using the discount code that I've already sent to your email. Um, all right, Luke, again, like I said, my friend, uh, it's just such a joy, a privilege to have you come on. Thanks so much, and I can't wait to see you at the upcoming conference.

Looking forward to it. Thanks for having me on.

All right, and everybody else, thanks so much for watching.