October 22, 2025 • 23 mins
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We unpack gold’s surge, why central banks—especially China—are buying, and how to balance conviction with risk. We share how we trimmed, built a cash buffer, and considered collars to cut downside while staying in the trade.
• Central bank demand as a structural tailwind
• China’s reserve ambitions and gold accumulation
• Dollar and U.S. policy risk shaping safe‑haven flows
• Rate cuts, inflation hedges, and market plateau
• Trimming exposure after parabolic moves
• Cash as optionality and a volatility buffer
• Using collars on GLD to cap downside
• Silver’s link to gold and industrial demand
• Energy and oil debates tied to AI growth
• Practical mindset: avoid FOMO, take profits, redeploy
Please listen in, give us your comments, give us suggestions, and we love producing good material that you want. So let us know.
Straight Talk for All - Nonsense for None
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Disclaimer - These podcasts are not intended as investment advice. Individuals please consult your own investment, tax and legal advisors. They provide these insights for educational purposes only.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:03):
Welcome everyone to Skeptic's Guide to Investing.
Today we're glad to have Clennback from his Japan um trip.
Uh it sounds like it was a goodtime, 30 days away and walking
around doing 10,000 steps a day.
He's he's looking very fit, anduh we've got to talk about the
(00:25):
latest um hysteria.
And today it's about gold, theshiny yellow metal that never
seems to be able to figure outhow much it's worth.
So it's gone hyperbolic, and uhwe're all wondering does gold
know something that we don'tknow?
(00:45):
Is there something happening inthe mainline system that is
making people run to gold as aprotection trade, as a safety
trade, as uh I'm worried aboutall my other assets, so I want
to have a little bit in safety.
So, Clint, how safe is gold?
(01:06):
And is it the place that we allshould be taking a little bit of
our NVIDIA and our Avgo and ourMicrosoft and putting it in the
yellow metal and just forgettingabout it for a while?
SPEAKER_01 (01:19):
What do you think?
So I think the key questionright now, Steve, is is it too
late to make this trade?
Uh, I think if we if it weremonths and months ago, it would
have been a great time to getinto gold.
And in fact, I did, okay.
I think I started getting intogold maybe about a year ago or
(01:43):
eight months ago, somethingalong those lines, and sort of
let it rip in my portfolio.
And so as of Thursday, uh when Igot back from Japan, uh it was
at um I I had about 18% of myportfolio uh in gold, uh, which
(02:05):
uh, you know, which is a lot,right?
And you had this big drop ingold on Friday, and you had
another drop in gold uh onMonday and on Tuesday, right?
Um, today being Wednesday.
And and so it started to kind ofscare me.
(02:28):
Like, you know, should wellshould we, you know, have we
reached a top?
Should I start trimming myportfolio so that I'm, you know,
sort of back to where the goldprice was maybe three weeks ago
or a month ago, or you know, twoweeks ago.
And so I have been trimmingevery day since Friday.
(02:50):
And so now down, you know, I was18%, now down to about 11%, and
buying some additional stocksand and sort of uh beefing up uh
beefing up cash a little bit.
So I've got about right now I'vegot about um 20% in cash in the
(03:15):
portfolio.
And you know, you might wonder,well, why do you have so much
cash in the portfolio?
Well, I'm concerned about stocksas well.
You know, are stocks, are wereaching the peak on stocks?
Uh, you know, we haven't seen,even though we've been at, there
have been days where we've beenat highs, it's really sort of
(03:36):
bouncing around on a plateau.
And so uh I'd rather not ridethe market down, right?
I'd rather have uh I'd ratherhave uh a good buffer in uh in
cash.
And so I've got about 20% uh incash.
Um, you know, that's yeah, but Ithink that's smart.
SPEAKER_00 (03:57):
I I think you're you're you're I saw somebody out
there telling us that gold isgonna hit 5,000 by the end of
the year.
And it very well could.
I heard someone else say thatyou know it could hit 10,000 in
two or three years.
And and uh yes, it could.
It could also, uh I waslistening to someone on last
(04:17):
Thursday or Friday, and theysaid we think it's gonna go back
to its um you know 48-monthmoving average, which is about
2600.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Yeah.
So nobody honestly, nobodyreally knows, right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
And that's what I'd like to talk about is that do we
think the gold is doing whatit's doing because of a safety
trade?
Do we think it's doing what it'sdoing because it's a precursor
to inflation trade?
Because people are saying as welower interest rates, we know
(04:54):
inflation's gonna go back up.
And so the gold buying is reallyjust a way to try to add another
hedge to inflation.
I know that there's all kinds ofstudies about gold being
worthless and being dead moneyfor 10 years, 12 years, 15
years.
Um, I think those people alsoforget that stocks was dead
(05:16):
money from 2000 to 2006 orseven, and then after the 2008
crisis, it was dead money until2012-13.
So stocks also go into deadmoney for a period of time.
And I think it's um I I alsothink there's a lack of
(05:36):
confidence in governments andfiat currency.
I mean, so which of those is thereason that gold is gone in your
mind?
Give me a percentage.
How much is fiat inflation andhow much is nervous?
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
You can't give a percentage because they're all,
you know, there's sort ofoverlapping reasons there.
Um what's the number one reason?
I I think uh the number onereason uh that gold has been
going up is because China andsome other central banks uh have
been buying gold.
Yeah, I I I think I think that'sthe number one reason.
(06:18):
I think that's a I think that'slikely to continue.
I don't think they're gonna sellgold.
I think it's it's likely tocontinue that they keep
purchasing.
So that's that is, I think, anunderlying um underlying
positive uh tailwind, right, forfor gold.
(06:42):
And I think that ties intogeopolitics uh in that
eventually uh China is lookingforward to a day when uh it can
try to um you know obtain um youknow hard not just hard currency
status, which it doesn't rightnow um still, but you know,
(07:03):
status as one of the majorreserve currencies.
Um and so you know they they cando that only if they open up
their current and capitalaccounts.
And in order to do that, theyneed to create some confidence
that people don't already havein in the Chinese authorities.
(07:27):
And so to do that, you know,they intend to back that up with
gold.
So and they've been doing that.
So I think that's a reason tohold uh hold gold.
So that's that's the first thingI would say.
Um second thing I would say isuh I think that I think that
(07:50):
there are there's a lot,including myself, uh there's a
lot of concern about policy,policymaking uh in the US
especially.
And I think that's putting umyou know that's that is raising
(08:10):
questions about the dollar,right?
Uh and I think uh I don't see Idon't see questions about policy
um diminishing um you knowthroughout the rest of the Trump
administration.
I just don't just don't see it.
(08:31):
And I see uh continuedpossibility, probability of
political unrest in the UnitedStates.
And I think that's likely to putsome pressure on the dollar as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
So Yeah, I mean I I think that when we we we might
be trying to make it morecomplicated than it is.
If the US is lowering rates,people are going to probably go
for other places where ratesmight be higher or getting
higher.
And so I I always wonder if we,you know, if we just look at the
(09:12):
direction of where we're going,which is lower rates, I think
lower rates are inflationary.
And I think most people believethat.
Um for your first point aboutChina being a buyer, I've
believed that gold is a goodinvestment because all of these
countries are adding to theirgold reserves.
(09:33):
So if if we look at it and say,you know, listen to some of the
people on the news who say goldis a horrible investment, it
doesn't pay you anything, it'snot, you know, it's it's not, it
doesn't make sense as aninvestment.
It's really just a fear tradeand it doesn't have any.
And then I ask, well, why areall these treasuries of all
(09:55):
these countries buying goldthen?
Don't they have PhDs and peoplewho are trying to maintain their
current accounts?
And and and why would they notbe smart enough as you are that
they wouldn't buy gold, theywould buy something else.
And it it it really does comedown to China and the the one, I
(10:16):
believe.
Because China wants it to be areserve currency, they want
everything to be denominated.
Right now, I believe thatforeign transactions, somewhere
around 70% of all transactionsare in dollars.
And I look at that number, and Ithink that number scares China
(10:36):
because I think they want to beconsidered a reserve currency,
they want to be considered thereserve currency.
And right now their percentagebacked by gold is somewhere less
than 1%.
And I think that the US, well,not exactly fully backed, is
only backed by six to sevenpercent.
(10:57):
And so when you look at that andyou say, how do they get to six
to seven?
They just need to buy more.
They're a buyer, but they don'tproduce any gold.
It's amazing to me that Chinaimports oil and imports gold.
Things that you would think thatbeing next to Russia, they
should have similar, you know,democraistics of the earth and
(11:22):
the crust, then that they wouldbe able to get these things.
But they're not.
And so as the economy grows forChina every year at whatever the
government number is, five,seven, you know.
Which is a fake number, butwhich is a fake number, but
let's just say it's it's apositive number, and as it
becomes bigger, the that meansthat the economy is bigger, and
(11:45):
therefore the amount of goldthey need is going up, right?
So, as a country, if you don'tproduce it, then you need to buy
it.
And so, therefore, I think thedemand that China is going to
have is a 20-year demand, not atwo-year demand.
Oh, I agree with that.
There's no question about that.
So they want to be consideredlegitimate, and legitimacy comes
(12:09):
when the world adopts yourcurrency as the choice.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
So, you know, that that was my thesis, my most
important thesis for buying goldand holding it over the last
year.
Okay.
What's happened is that peopleare starting to catch up with
that thesis, and they're gettingexcited about it now after the
(12:37):
price of gold has soared somuch.
And especially over the lastmonth, gold has gone hyperbolic.
And it's just crazy whathappened in the month through
Thursday.
It's just crazy the the amountthat it's risen.
And so, you know, you've got allthese folks about a month ago
(13:00):
who you know were getting asevere case of FOMO, right?
Fear of missing out.
And they start plunging intogold and and it driving the
price up.
And you know, at that point,those who are you know, the
smart money, and I I like tothink of myself as smart money.
I don't know, Steve.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
Maybe maybe there's there's different types of
efficiencies in the market.
There's weak, semi-strong, andstrong.
And and so I would put you asthe semi-smart money, not the
truly smart money, but I think Ithink somewhere in the middle of
semi-smart is where uh I I Ithink the semi-smart money would
(13:41):
look at how much it's risen overthe last month and say, I don't
think it's gonna, I think Ithink now I think there's a
greater likelihood that it'llfall than it is that it'll rise
more.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Okay.
So yeah, I mean, if at somepoint it starts to to to rise
again in a moderate way, it maybe worthwhile, you know,
increasing my holdings again.
Uh, but right now I I feel, youknow, and I know a lot of people
would say 11%, that's that'sstill a lot.
(14:16):
And and and it is.
So I'm not giving up on the goldthesis.
I'm just you know taking myprofits, right?
From the loss.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
I think it's smart.
I mean, I I look at a name likeOclo, um, the the nuclear, um
they they use uh smaller nuclearreactors, and uh there's no
revenue for the company, andthere's probably no revenue next
year.
And the question is just howmuch they're gonna lose, not how
much they're gonna make.
(14:46):
Right.
And you know, it's up 625% yearto day.
So, you know, I I look at thatand I say, geeze, gold's up 30
or 40, you know, in the lastmonth.
It's got another 570 to gobefore we get into you know
ArcLo territory.
I mean, I I think that assetsare going up strictly because
(15:10):
people have money and are usingthat money in those games to uh
leverage themselves with uh calloptions and other ways to get
exposures to upside.
And I think the the thing thatwill mitigate that is that when
you have a six percent down dayor a five percent down day, all
(15:31):
of a sudden you realize thatthis this isn't a one-way,
one-way uh street.
It's a two-way street.
Yeah, I think that realizingthat I've been encouraging
everyone to to to put a littleaside and then be prepared when
it when it comes back.
Um, and I think that it will.
(15:54):
And I I believe, and we're gonnatalk about this in our next you
know, rare earth podcast, but Ibelieve this discussion with
China in the next two to threeweeks is gonna tell us a lot.
It's gonna tell us a lot abouthow we're gonna get along with
China.
And if rare earths are notavailable from China, the who's
(16:15):
gonna be affected, the AI tradeis gonna be affected because
they need they need thosemagnets for a lot of the boards
and and uh the chips that wemanufacture.
So I I think that it's wise tobe prudent and it's wise to be
skeptical.
I believe that overall we knowhow this story goes.
(16:38):
And when I think about goldpotentially correcting to 2600,
I think taking a third off or aquarter off like you did is a
very good idea.
I I don't think we should expectthings to grow to the sky.
I don't think trees do that.
I don't think we should expectour stocks to do that and our
(16:59):
positions.
If it's gone up, great.
Take some of your profits andreallocate and diversify so that
you're well positioned if thereis a pullback to take advantage
of it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
Yeah, too many people uh just get this uh fear
of missing out, and they justkeep piling into something that
eventually is going to drop, andand then they all get upset,
embarrassed, whatnot, when allof a sudden there's a huge
pullback.
And I'd rather not I'd rathernot um I'd rather not be that
(17:37):
person, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:38):
Yeah, can I can I just propose one other choice,
which um I've been listening toum Thoughtful Money and Adam
Taggart, and he's a pretty bigproponent of gold, and he owns a
pretty good amount of it, andhe's hedging his gold with a
collar.
And I think it's you know thereare options on GLD.
(17:59):
So if you if your exposure togold is in the ETF, it's buy a
put, sell a call, maybe at5,000, buy a put at 3200, and
say, okay, um, those numbers arefor the overall price of gold,
and the ETF price will bedifferent.
(18:20):
But you get the idea 20 down, 20up, and you've then immunized
yourself against a move back tothe moving average, and you've
positioned yourself so that if acaller expires and it hasn't
done anything but gone up to4500, you reset it to 5500 and
(18:41):
20, 3500.
SPEAKER_01 (18:43):
Yeah, the only the the only problem with that is um
you know by selling some of it,I'm developing cash that I can
put into others to put intostocks, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
Right into but you also already have cash, so yeah.
Um it's yeah, I I think that I Ilike to be a middle child, as
I've told you.
I like to do things that arekind of in the middle.
You sell a little, hedge alittle, and then all of a sudden
you feel like you've donesomething.
So there's a there's a realbenefit to getting off your seat
(19:17):
and doing something.
I think sitting there andworrying is not the right
choice.
I mean, we spend 90% of the timeof or the things we worry about
never occur.
The 10% of things that do occurthat we worry about, the outcome
is usually better than weexpect.
Our worry is killing us, it'screating our anxiety and all of
(19:41):
these things.
And you shouldn't have thisanxiety if something's up 35%.
It's it you should just begrateful and say, okay, I I I
flipped this coin and it went myway.
Now what I'm gonna do is to tryto immunize myself and make
myself stronger so that I can goout and find the next
(20:03):
opportunity.
Right.
I think that by doing that, youare you know you're always in
the dynamic of growth modeversus fear mode.
You're not gonna get very far infear, you will get further with
growth.
SPEAKER_01 (20:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:19):
Anything else we want to say about gold?
SPEAKER_01 (20:22):
Um, no, I think uh yeah, I would also say that you
know the silver trade uh wasparalleling gold and has been
paralleling gold.
So I just say that, and and thenand a lot of people were saying,
well, gold's up, so maybe Ishould put more in silver now.
I'm not sure that that's such agreat idea.
(20:43):
I think you should look at goldand silver as the same part of
the same complex.
SPEAKER_00 (20:48):
Yeah, the thing about silver is silver has a
little more purpose, right?
It has plating and other thingsthat it it does have a demand in
the market.
I I've been listening to a lotof people talking about the
relationship between oil andgold, and that it's way out of
whack.
And that what it means is thatprobably all of these servers
and all of the uses that we'reseeing for some of the
(21:11):
technology is gonna require moreenergy.
All of the crypto miningrequires energy.
Therefore, oil is eventually,and with peace in Gaza, that's
gonna lower the price of oil andit's gonna create a buying
opportunity, and the nextcommodity to buy is oil.
I I think it's it makes a lot ofsense.
(21:32):
It's a long-term play.
Um, there's different ways tobuy it with futures contracts or
with um, you know, producers,but I I kind of believe in the
energy trade, and I believe thatoil will play a part in this
whole AI revolution.
So I think it's uh just like youneed uh servers and and and you
(21:54):
need energy to run the servers,you're gonna need oil to provide
that energy.
SPEAKER_01 (21:59):
So Steve, that's not sure.
I'm not sure I agree with you onenergy.
Um, but you know, we can leavethat for a different podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
All right.
So um thanks everybody forlistening.
We appreciate you and appreciatehaving Clumb back.
And uh please listen in, give usyour comments, give us
suggestions, and we loveproducing good material that you
(22:29):
want.
So let us know.
All right, everybody, have agood day.
Welcome everyone to Skeptic's Guide to Investing.
Today we're glad to have Clennback from his Japan um trip.
Uh it sounds like it was a goodtime, 30 days away and walking
around doing 10,000 steps a day.
He's he's looking very fit, anduh we've got to talk about the
(00:25):
latest um hysteria.
And today it's about gold, theshiny yellow metal that never
seems to be able to figure outhow much it's worth.
So it's gone hyperbolic, and uhwe're all wondering does gold
know something that we don'tknow?
(00:45):
Is there something happening inthe mainline system that is
making people run to gold as aprotection trade, as a safety
trade, as uh I'm worried aboutall my other assets, so I want
to have a little bit in safety.
So, Clint, how safe is gold?
(01:06):
And is it the place that we allshould be taking a little bit of
our NVIDIA and our Avgo and ourMicrosoft and putting it in the
yellow metal and just forgettingabout it for a while?
SPEAKER_01 (01:19):
What do you think?
So I think the key questionright now, Steve, is is it too
late to make this trade?
Uh, I think if we if it weremonths and months ago, it would
have been a great time to getinto gold.
And in fact, I did, okay.
I think I started getting intogold maybe about a year ago or
(01:43):
eight months ago, somethingalong those lines, and sort of
let it rip in my portfolio.
And so as of Thursday, uh when Igot back from Japan, uh it was
at um I I had about 18% of myportfolio uh in gold, uh, which
(02:05):
uh, you know, which is a lot,right?
And you had this big drop ingold on Friday, and you had
another drop in gold uh onMonday and on Tuesday, right?
Um, today being Wednesday.
And and so it started to kind ofscare me.
(02:28):
Like, you know, should wellshould we, you know, have we
reached a top?
Should I start trimming myportfolio so that I'm, you know,
sort of back to where the goldprice was maybe three weeks ago
or a month ago, or you know, twoweeks ago.
And so I have been trimmingevery day since Friday.
(02:50):
And so now down, you know, I was18%, now down to about 11%, and
buying some additional stocksand and sort of uh beefing up uh
beefing up cash a little bit.
So I've got about right now I'vegot about um 20% in cash in the
(03:15):
portfolio.
And you know, you might wonder,well, why do you have so much
cash in the portfolio?
Well, I'm concerned about stocksas well.
You know, are stocks, are wereaching the peak on stocks?
Uh, you know, we haven't seen,even though we've been at, there
have been days where we've beenat highs, it's really sort of
(03:36):
bouncing around on a plateau.
And so uh I'd rather not ridethe market down, right?
I'd rather have uh I'd ratherhave uh a good buffer in uh in
cash.
And so I've got about 20% uh incash.
Um, you know, that's yeah, but Ithink that's smart.
SPEAKER_00 (03:57):
I I think you're you're you're I saw somebody out
there telling us that gold isgonna hit 5,000 by the end of
the year.
And it very well could.
I heard someone else say thatyou know it could hit 10,000 in
two or three years.
And and uh yes, it could.
It could also, uh I waslistening to someone on last
(04:17):
Thursday or Friday, and theysaid we think it's gonna go back
to its um you know 48-monthmoving average, which is about
2600.
SPEAKER_01 (04:28):
Yeah.
So nobody honestly, nobodyreally knows, right?
SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
And that's what I'd like to talk about is that do we
think the gold is doing whatit's doing because of a safety
trade?
Do we think it's doing what it'sdoing because it's a precursor
to inflation trade?
Because people are saying as welower interest rates, we know
(04:54):
inflation's gonna go back up.
And so the gold buying is reallyjust a way to try to add another
hedge to inflation.
I know that there's all kinds ofstudies about gold being
worthless and being dead moneyfor 10 years, 12 years, 15
years.
Um, I think those people alsoforget that stocks was dead
(05:16):
money from 2000 to 2006 orseven, and then after the 2008
crisis, it was dead money until2012-13.
So stocks also go into deadmoney for a period of time.
And I think it's um I I alsothink there's a lack of
(05:36):
confidence in governments andfiat currency.
I mean, so which of those is thereason that gold is gone in your
mind?
Give me a percentage.
How much is fiat inflation andhow much is nervous?
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
You can't give a percentage because they're all,
you know, there's sort ofoverlapping reasons there.
Um what's the number one reason?
I I think uh the number onereason uh that gold has been
going up is because China andsome other central banks uh have
been buying gold.
Yeah, I I I think I think that'sthe number one reason.
(06:18):
I think that's a I think that'slikely to continue.
I don't think they're gonna sellgold.
I think it's it's likely tocontinue that they keep
purchasing.
So that's that is, I think, anunderlying um underlying
positive uh tailwind, right, forfor gold.
(06:42):
And I think that ties intogeopolitics uh in that
eventually uh China is lookingforward to a day when uh it can
try to um you know obtain um youknow hard not just hard currency
status, which it doesn't rightnow um still, but you know,
(07:03):
status as one of the majorreserve currencies.
Um and so you know they they cando that only if they open up
their current and capitalaccounts.
And in order to do that, theyneed to create some confidence
that people don't already havein in the Chinese authorities.
(07:27):
And so to do that, you know,they intend to back that up with
gold.
So and they've been doing that.
So I think that's a reason tohold uh hold gold.
So that's that's the first thingI would say.
Um second thing I would say isuh I think that I think that
(07:50):
there are there's a lot,including myself, uh there's a
lot of concern about policy,policymaking uh in the US
especially.
And I think that's putting umyou know that's that is raising
(08:10):
questions about the dollar,right?
Uh and I think uh I don't see Idon't see questions about policy
um diminishing um you knowthroughout the rest of the Trump
administration.
I just don't just don't see it.
(08:31):
And I see uh continuedpossibility, probability of
political unrest in the UnitedStates.
And I think that's likely to putsome pressure on the dollar as
well.
SPEAKER_00 (08:49):
So Yeah, I mean I I think that when we we we might
be trying to make it morecomplicated than it is.
If the US is lowering rates,people are going to probably go
for other places where ratesmight be higher or getting
higher.
And so I I always wonder if we,you know, if we just look at the
(09:12):
direction of where we're going,which is lower rates, I think
lower rates are inflationary.
And I think most people believethat.
Um for your first point aboutChina being a buyer, I've
believed that gold is a goodinvestment because all of these
countries are adding to theirgold reserves.
(09:33):
So if if we look at it and say,you know, listen to some of the
people on the news who say goldis a horrible investment, it
doesn't pay you anything, it'snot, you know, it's it's not, it
doesn't make sense as aninvestment.
It's really just a fear tradeand it doesn't have any.
And then I ask, well, why areall these treasuries of all
(09:55):
these countries buying goldthen?
Don't they have PhDs and peoplewho are trying to maintain their
current accounts?
And and and why would they notbe smart enough as you are that
they wouldn't buy gold, theywould buy something else.
And it it it really does comedown to China and the the one, I
(10:16):
believe.
Because China wants it to be areserve currency, they want
everything to be denominated.
Right now, I believe thatforeign transactions, somewhere
around 70% of all transactionsare in dollars.
And I look at that number, and Ithink that number scares China
(10:36):
because I think they want to beconsidered a reserve currency,
they want to be considered thereserve currency.
And right now their percentagebacked by gold is somewhere less
than 1%.
And I think that the US, well,not exactly fully backed, is
only backed by six to sevenpercent.
(10:57):
And so when you look at that andyou say, how do they get to six
to seven?
They just need to buy more.
They're a buyer, but they don'tproduce any gold.
It's amazing to me that Chinaimports oil and imports gold.
Things that you would think thatbeing next to Russia, they
should have similar, you know,democraistics of the earth and
(11:22):
the crust, then that they wouldbe able to get these things.
But they're not.
And so as the economy grows forChina every year at whatever the
government number is, five,seven, you know.
Which is a fake number, butwhich is a fake number, but
let's just say it's it's apositive number, and as it
becomes bigger, the that meansthat the economy is bigger, and
(11:45):
therefore the amount of goldthey need is going up, right?
So, as a country, if you don'tproduce it, then you need to buy
it.
And so, therefore, I think thedemand that China is going to
have is a 20-year demand, not atwo-year demand.
Oh, I agree with that.
There's no question about that.
So they want to be consideredlegitimate, and legitimacy comes
(12:09):
when the world adopts yourcurrency as the choice.
SPEAKER_01 (12:14):
So, you know, that that was my thesis, my most
important thesis for buying goldand holding it over the last
year.
Okay.
What's happened is that peopleare starting to catch up with
that thesis, and they're gettingexcited about it now after the
(12:37):
price of gold has soared somuch.
And especially over the lastmonth, gold has gone hyperbolic.
And it's just crazy whathappened in the month through
Thursday.
It's just crazy the the amountthat it's risen.
And so, you know, you've got allthese folks about a month ago
(13:00):
who you know were getting asevere case of FOMO, right?
Fear of missing out.
And they start plunging intogold and and it driving the
price up.
And you know, at that point,those who are you know, the
smart money, and I I like tothink of myself as smart money.
I don't know, Steve.
SPEAKER_00 (13:18):
Maybe maybe there's there's different types of
efficiencies in the market.
There's weak, semi-strong, andstrong.
And and so I would put you asthe semi-smart money, not the
truly smart money, but I think Ithink somewhere in the middle of
semi-smart is where uh I I Ithink the semi-smart money would
(13:41):
look at how much it's risen overthe last month and say, I don't
think it's gonna, I think Ithink now I think there's a
greater likelihood that it'llfall than it is that it'll rise
more.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Okay.
So yeah, I mean, if at somepoint it starts to to to rise
again in a moderate way, it maybe worthwhile, you know,
increasing my holdings again.
Uh, but right now I I feel, youknow, and I know a lot of people
would say 11%, that's that'sstill a lot.
(14:16):
And and and it is.
So I'm not giving up on the goldthesis.
I'm just you know taking myprofits, right?
From the loss.
SPEAKER_00 (14:25):
I think it's smart.
I mean, I I look at a name likeOclo, um, the the nuclear, um
they they use uh smaller nuclearreactors, and uh there's no
revenue for the company, andthere's probably no revenue next
year.
And the question is just howmuch they're gonna lose, not how
much they're gonna make.
(14:46):
Right.
And you know, it's up 625% yearto day.
So, you know, I I look at thatand I say, geeze, gold's up 30
or 40, you know, in the lastmonth.
It's got another 570 to gobefore we get into you know
ArcLo territory.
I mean, I I think that assetsare going up strictly because
(15:10):
people have money and are usingthat money in those games to uh
leverage themselves with uh calloptions and other ways to get
exposures to upside.
And I think the the thing thatwill mitigate that is that when
you have a six percent down dayor a five percent down day, all
(15:31):
of a sudden you realize thatthis this isn't a one-way,
one-way uh street.
It's a two-way street.
Yeah, I think that realizingthat I've been encouraging
everyone to to to put a littleaside and then be prepared when
it when it comes back.
Um, and I think that it will.
(15:54):
And I I believe, and we're gonnatalk about this in our next you
know, rare earth podcast, but Ibelieve this discussion with
China in the next two to threeweeks is gonna tell us a lot.
It's gonna tell us a lot abouthow we're gonna get along with
China.
And if rare earths are notavailable from China, the who's
(16:15):
gonna be affected, the AI tradeis gonna be affected because
they need they need thosemagnets for a lot of the boards
and and uh the chips that wemanufacture.
So I I think that it's wise tobe prudent and it's wise to be
skeptical.
I believe that overall we knowhow this story goes.
(16:38):
And when I think about goldpotentially correcting to 2600,
I think taking a third off or aquarter off like you did is a
very good idea.
I I don't think we should expectthings to grow to the sky.
I don't think trees do that.
I don't think we should expectour stocks to do that and our
(16:59):
positions.
If it's gone up, great.
Take some of your profits andreallocate and diversify so that
you're well positioned if thereis a pullback to take advantage
of it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:12):
Yeah, too many people uh just get this uh fear
of missing out, and they justkeep piling into something that
eventually is going to drop, andand then they all get upset,
embarrassed, whatnot, when allof a sudden there's a huge
pullback.
And I'd rather not I'd rathernot um I'd rather not be that
(17:37):
person, right?
SPEAKER_00 (17:38):
Yeah, can I can I just propose one other choice,
which um I've been listening toum Thoughtful Money and Adam
Taggart, and he's a pretty bigproponent of gold, and he owns a
pretty good amount of it, andhe's hedging his gold with a
collar.
And I think it's you know thereare options on GLD.
(17:59):
So if you if your exposure togold is in the ETF, it's buy a
put, sell a call, maybe at5,000, buy a put at 3200, and
say, okay, um, those numbers arefor the overall price of gold,
and the ETF price will bedifferent.
(18:20):
But you get the idea 20 down, 20up, and you've then immunized
yourself against a move back tothe moving average, and you've
positioned yourself so that if acaller expires and it hasn't
done anything but gone up to4500, you reset it to 5500 and
(18:41):
20, 3500.
SPEAKER_01 (18:43):
Yeah, the only the the only problem with that is um
you know by selling some of it,I'm developing cash that I can
put into others to put intostocks, right?
SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
Right into but you also already have cash, so yeah.
Um it's yeah, I I think that I Ilike to be a middle child, as
I've told you.
I like to do things that arekind of in the middle.
You sell a little, hedge alittle, and then all of a sudden
you feel like you've donesomething.
So there's a there's a realbenefit to getting off your seat
(19:17):
and doing something.
I think sitting there andworrying is not the right
choice.
I mean, we spend 90% of the timeof or the things we worry about
never occur.
The 10% of things that do occurthat we worry about, the outcome
is usually better than weexpect.
Our worry is killing us, it'screating our anxiety and all of
(19:41):
these things.
And you shouldn't have thisanxiety if something's up 35%.
It's it you should just begrateful and say, okay, I I I
flipped this coin and it went myway.
Now what I'm gonna do is to tryto immunize myself and make
myself stronger so that I can goout and find the next
(20:03):
opportunity.
Right.
I think that by doing that, youare you know you're always in
the dynamic of growth modeversus fear mode.
You're not gonna get very far infear, you will get further with
growth.
SPEAKER_01 (20:18):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (20:19):
Anything else we want to say about gold?
SPEAKER_01 (20:22):
Um, no, I think uh yeah, I would also say that you
know the silver trade uh wasparalleling gold and has been
paralleling gold.
So I just say that, and and thenand a lot of people were saying,
well, gold's up, so maybe Ishould put more in silver now.
I'm not sure that that's such agreat idea.
(20:43):
I think you should look at goldand silver as the same part of
the same complex.
SPEAKER_00 (20:48):
Yeah, the thing about silver is silver has a
little more purpose, right?
It has plating and other thingsthat it it does have a demand in
the market.
I I've been listening to a lotof people talking about the
relationship between oil andgold, and that it's way out of
whack.
And that what it means is thatprobably all of these servers
and all of the uses that we'reseeing for some of the
(21:11):
technology is gonna require moreenergy.
All of the crypto miningrequires energy.
Therefore, oil is eventually,and with peace in Gaza, that's
gonna lower the price of oil andit's gonna create a buying
opportunity, and the nextcommodity to buy is oil.
I I think it's it makes a lot ofsense.
(21:32):
It's a long-term play.
Um, there's different ways tobuy it with futures contracts or
with um, you know, producers,but I I kind of believe in the
energy trade, and I believe thatoil will play a part in this
whole AI revolution.
So I think it's uh just like youneed uh servers and and and you
(21:54):
need energy to run the servers,you're gonna need oil to provide
that energy.
SPEAKER_01 (21:59):
So Steve, that's not sure.
I'm not sure I agree with you onenergy.
Um, but you know, we can leavethat for a different podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (22:08):
All right.
So um thanks everybody forlistening.
We appreciate you and appreciatehaving Clumb back.
And uh please listen in, give usyour comments, give us
suggestions, and we loveproducing good material that you
(22:29):
want.
So let us know.
All right, everybody, have agood day.
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