The Competent Investor

Tom Bodrovics welcomes Danielle DiMartino Booth to the show. Danielle DiMartino Booth is CEO & Chief Strategist for QI Research. She discusses the growing stress in credit markets, the wave of debt issuance tied to the AI trade, and whether the Federal Reserve can or should intervene as economic deterioration spreads beyond the riskiest corners of high yield.DiMartino Booth argues that credit markets are showing clear indigestion, with triple-C spreads gapping wider and bankruptcy activity showing no abatement. She notes that job creation has averaged just 41,000 per month over the past year, a pace never seen in the postwar era outside recession, while more than 200 businesses have closed monthly for six straight months. She contends the AI buildout depends on constant debt issuance, likening it to a hamster on a wheel, and warns that the math behind data center spending and token revenue does not work. She also questions whether Fed Chair Warsh will concede that financial conditions are tight, suggesting he will hold his position absent a major bleed in the S&P 500 or investment grade credit.For investors, DiMartino Booth sees the post-midterm period as a testing ground for whether the current Nasdaq correction sticks or reverses, with historical midterm-year strength offset by risks from a decisive Democratic wave. She expects the Fed to remain reactive rather than proactive, and cautions that any easing cycle would likely arrive only alongside a breaking event, potentially driving rates straight to the zero bound. She highlights the alternative data and balance sheet task forces as the most promising sources of meaningful policy change.Timestamp References:00:00:00 - Introduction and Credit Market Concerns00:01:48 - Fed Liquidity and IPO Market Pressure00:03:02 - Bankruptcy Cycle and Real Economy Deterioration00:05:42 - Weak Job Creation and Recession Signals00:07:20 - Midterm Election Outcomes and Market Impact00:11:01 - AI Debt Issuance and Data Center Economics00:13:06 - Warsh, Financial Conditions, and Fed Task Forces00:16:40 - Forward Guidance Debate and Fed Communication00:18:21 - Fed Rate Policy Effectiveness and Zero Bound Risk00:21:35 - Future of Data, Balance Sheet, and Closing RemarksGuest:Danielle DiMartino Booth — CEO & Chief Strategist for QI ResearchDanielle DiMartino Booth is CEO and Chief Strategist for Quill Intelligence LLC, a research and analytics firm.DiMartino Booth set out to launch a Research Revolution, redefining how market intelligence is conceived and delivered, with the goal of not only guiding portfolio managers but promoting financial literacy. To build QI, she brought together a core team of investing veterans in analyzing the trends and providing critical analysis of what drives the markets.Since its inception, commentary and data from DiMartino Booth's The Daily Feather have appeared in other financial sources such as Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business, Institutional Investor, Yahoo Finance, The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, TD Ameritrade, TheStreet.com, and more.A global thought leader on monetary policy, economics, and finance, DiMartino Booth founded Quill Intelligence in 2018. She is the author of FED UP: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America (Portfolio, Feb 2017), a full-time columnist for Bloomberg View, a business speaker, and a commentator frequently featured on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, Fox Business News, BNN Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and other major media outlets.Before Quill, DiMartino Booth spent nine years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, serving as Advisor to President Richard W. Fisher throughout the financial crisis until his retirement in 2015. Her work at the Fed focused on financial stability and the efficacy of unconventional monetary policy.DiMartino Booth began her career in New York at Credit Suisse and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, where she worked in the fixed income, public equity, and private equity markets. DiMartino Booth earned her BBA as a College of Business Scholar at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.X Substack Website YouTube 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Tom Bodrovics welcomes Adam Hamilton to the show. Adam Hamilton is Founder of Zeal LLC.com. Hamilton, a gold market specialist with 26 years of professional experience, discusses gold's recent breakdown below $4,000, the dynamics behind the correction, and the outlook for gold and gold mining stocks.Hamilton attributes the breakdown to a combination of factors, including a hawkish tone from new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh that fueled rate hike expectations and a stronger dollar, as well as a New York Times report about potential joint US-Israel airstrikes on Iran. He describes a "backward war trade" in which geopolitical escalation raises oil prices, which in turn lifts inflation expectations and Fed rate hike odds, boosting the dollar and pressuring gold. Despite this, Hamilton views the selloff as overdone, noting gold's strong seasonal winter rally period from late October to late February and the fact that gold miners remain wildly profitable with trailing P/E ratios of 11 to 13 times earnings, the lowest valuations he has seen in his career.For investors, Hamilton emphasizes that gold allocations among Western investors are vanishingly low at roughly one third of one percent of S&P 500 market capitalization, suggesting significant upside potential if allocations merely rise to one or two percent. He identifies the AI bubble as the biggest risk to stock markets, which could temporarily drag gold down in a panic but would likely be followed by a strong rally. Hamilton remains bullish on gold long-term, viewing current levels as a bottoming process and recommending a minimum five to ten percent gold allocation in prudent portfolios.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro: Adam Hamilton on Gold Markets00:00:34 - Gold's Breakdown Below $4,00000:03:26 - Potential Catalyst for Gold Plunge00:06:50 - Anomalous Backward War Trade00:10:29 - France's Debt Crisis Impact00:12:15 - High Rates as Gold Tailwind?00:16:19 - Gold Seasonality and Tax Loss Selling00:18:27 - Gold Miners' Profitability at $4,00000:21:16 - Risk of Diesel Shortages for Miners00:23:28 - Who's Buying at Oversold Levels?00:25:59 - Fed Rate Cuts: What Would Trigger?00:28:06 - Midterm Election Impact on Trump00:30:05 - Biggest Market Risks: AI Bubble00:33:40 - Adam's Products and Contact InfoGuest:Adam Hamilton — Founder of Zeal LLC.comAdam Hamilton founded Zeal LLC in early 2000. He started investing in stocks when he was 12 years old, using money from summer jobs. He grew up fascinated by stock markets, dreaming of making a living in this unique realm where compensation is not limited by time on task like most other professions.After growing up in a small-town banking family in rural North Dakota, Adam left for school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. While watching the markets and trading, he studied finance, accounting, and entrepreneurship. Adam went on to be a Big Six CPA and consultant after graduation, never stopping learning.By early 2000, Adam finally had enough experience and capital to found Zeal at 25 years old. Rather than hide his research and trading work in a hedge fund, Adam wanted to help others thrive in the markets. So he started sharing his now-world-famous market research work through very-affordable newsletters.Customers raved, and many millions of dollars of newsletter sales later Adam was blessed to become a self-made millionaire. He is very thankful to be living his dream, and plans to research, trade, and share wisdom through newsletters for the rest of his life. Adam is a Christian saved by Jesus Christ. He and his wife are greatly blessed with 2 children, and they live in Colorado.https://zealllc.com/ https://zealllc.com/essays.htm 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Tom Bodrovics welcomes Trader Ferg to the show. Trader Ferg is Full-time Trader & Author of the Trader Ferg Substack. The discussion centers on emerging markets, energy commodities, and the shifting global order, beginning with Brazil's surprising election result and its implications for investors.Trader Ferg argues that Brazil remains attractive despite the market's sharp selloff, since a divided congress limits extreme policy shifts and the country is well positioned as a commodity giant benefiting from China trade settled in local currencies. He extends this into a broader thesis: the just-in-time globalization model is breaking down, pushing nations toward hoarding, diversification, and resiliency. This favors coal in the near term, renewables and nuclear later, and oil services, where a decade of consolidation and an empty drill ship order book create an air pocket of pricing power. He also highlights Asia's roughly 1.8 trillion dollar surplus, which is increasingly recycled away from US Treasuries into gold, commodities, and emerging markets.For investors, Trader Ferg sees opportunity in bombed-out sectors with consolidated supply, Chinese equities trading at depressed multiples, and emerging market exchange operators and banks positioned for a weaker dollar. Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction and Brazilian Election Surprise00:06:26 - Just-in-Time Breakdown and Volatility as New Norm00:11:02 - Bali Fuel Shortage and Resiliency Lessons00:15:11 - Coal, LNG, and Energy Resiliency Strategies00:20:18 - Europe's Energy Crisis and Germany's Poor Positioning00:29:31 - Asian Surpluses and US Treasury Market Implications00:36:11 - Oil Services and Commodity Investment Themes00:40:51 - China Equities, AI Approach, and Dutch Disease00:53:09 - Portfolio Diversification and Position Sizing00:42:00 - Closing ThoughtsGuest:Trader Ferg — Full-time Trader & Author of the Trader Ferg SubstackTrader Ferg is a Full-time trader for going on 8+ years now. He has a habit of hanging out in hated corners of the market that are considered uninvestable. He enjoys sharing his research and thoughts about possible trades and markets.https://traderferg.substack.com/ https://x.com/trader_ferg 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

I sat down with Matthew Piepenburg, Partner at Von Greyerz Gold Switzerland and author of Gold Matters, for a conversation that ranged from French riots to the COMEX silver squeeze. What struck me most was his framing of today's gold setup as fundamentally stronger than the 1970s bull market.I asked Matt about the sentiment he encounters as he travels between conferences and clients across continents. His answer was blunt: "The big themes at a 30,000 foot level are geopolitics, of course, and inflation. It's from family offices to a groom, a polo field. I mean, people talking about this everywhere." He described a middle class that has shifted "from the aspirational to the desperation," feeling poorer no matter what they do.When I pressed him on whether the US is in a Wile E. Coyote moment, he didn't hesitate. "America is already over the cliff. We just don't know it yet." But he was quick to add that this isn't the end of America—it's the end of its hegemony. The pattern of debt leading to currency debasement to social unrest is, as he put it, "history in math."On the metals themselves, Matt argued that supply and demand still matter enormously. With only about a billion ounces of gold freely traded against a thousand times larger market cap in stocks and bonds, "only a small move in demand in that very tight supply would crank up the price." He sees the recent silver shakeout—silver losing 35 percent overnight in January—as manipulation, not natural price discovery.His parting advice carried the weight of someone who's seen cycles before: "Your best revenge against a completely mismanaged system is a good life." Save in gold, spend in fiat, and don't wait for a politician to save you.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction and Global Investor Sentiment00:05:20 - Voting, Politicians, and Self-Reliance00:10:26 - France's Political Turmoil and Debt Crisis00:19:25 - Viewing Markets Through a Gold Lens00:26:09 - America's Wile E. Coyote Moment00:32:30 - Treasury Appointments and Gold Revaluation Speculation00:41:57 - Cantillon Effect and Positioning for Inflation01:24:28 - Closing Thoughts and Final AdviceGuest:Matthew Piepenburg — Partner - Von Greyerz Gold Switzerland, Author - Gold MattersMatthew Piepenburg is a Partner of Von Greyerz and the author of the popular book, "Rigged to Fail". Matt is fluent in French, German, and English. He is a graduate of Brown (BA), Harvard (MA), and the University of Michigan (JD). His widely-respected reports on macro conditions and the changing behavior of risk assets are published regularly at SignalsMatter.chttps://twitter.com/GoldSwitzerland https://goldswitzerland.com/ https://signalsmatter.com/ https://tinyurl.com/pvpfmy8c 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

I've had Rory Johnston on before, but this conversation felt different. The oil market Rory describes isn't just tight—it's structurally broken in ways we've never seen.We started with the SPR, and Rory's view is more aggressive than most. "I have a very low theoretical bottom of the SPR relative to a lot of analysts," he told me. "I think functionally the floor is zero barrels." The draws have ended for this tranche, but DOE is soliciting the final 40 million barrels, and Rory expects we'll blow past the 250-260 million barrel level everyone assumes is sacred.Then we got to what Rory calls "arguably the most interesting thing in the oil market right now." For his entire career, if you got a barrel to tidewater, it was functionally a global market. "Now that's all broken." Shipping a barrel from the Persian Gulf to China used to cost $2-3. Now it's $25-30. Tanker day rates have gone from $100-200k to $1.5 million.The result? "Rather than having one big global oil market now, we have a dozen Balkanized regional oil markets that have trouble interacting with each other." The North Sea is screaming shortage while West African crude trades at historic discounts—consumers and exporters squeezed simultaneously.I asked about the WTI-Brent blowout, and Rory dropped a stat that stopped me cold: the spread is wider than when WTI went negative in April 2020. "That's a wild stat." It's not manipulation—it's the cost of shipping injected directly into the differential.On diesel, Rory was blunt about silver bullets: "You either need to fix the war in Russia and Ukraine or you need to end the Iran war. Neither of those seem especially forthcoming." China could ease things by loosening teapot refinery exports, potentially shaving 30-50% off the $100 crack spread.His biggest surprise? The "Beijing swing"—China cutting crude imports by 5.4 million barrels a day. "China is the single most important reason that we did not hit $200 a barrel oil."With midterms ahead, Rory's advice: "Hold on for the ride. This is going to be an exciting month."Timestamps00:00:00 - Introduction and Guest Background00:00:17 - SPR Drawdown and Tank Bottoms00:02:02 - Global Oil Reserves and China00:05:13 - Crude Grade Spreads and Shipping00:12:09 - Tanker Market Crisis Explained00:16:39 - War Risk Insurance Premiums00:19:15 - Iraq's Surprising Production Recovery00:21:44 - WTI-Brent Spread and Manipulation00:27:44 - White House Efforts to Lower Prices00:32:08 - Could Oil Hit $200 a Barrel?00:35:20 - 2026 Oil Glut Outlook00:38:10 - Product Shortages in Emerging Markets00:39:56 - Export Bans and Diesel Markets00:44:22 - Tradable Assets and Spreads00:49:30 - Biggest Surprises: The Beijing Swing00:52:34 - Concluding ThoughtsGuest:Rory Johnston — Commodity Market Research - Specializing in Oil & GasRory Johnston is a Toronto-based oil market researcher, the founder of Commodity Context, a lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, host of the Oil Ground Up podcast, as well as a Fellow with both the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines.He is a leading voice on oil market analysis, advising institutional investors, global policy makers, and corporate decision makers. His views are regularly quoted in major international media including the Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Reuters, BNN Bloomberg, CBC, and Financial Post, and he frequently appears on numerous market and industry podcasts (e.g., Bloomberg’s Odd Lots, Hidden Forces, etc.).Prior to founding Commodity Context, Rory led commodity economics research at Scotiabank where he set the bank’s energy and metals price forecasts, advised the bank’s executives and clients, and sat on the bank’s senior credit committee for commodity-exposed sectors.https://www.commoditycontext.com/ https://x.com/Rory_Johnston 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Peter Schiff, CEO of Euro Pacific Asset Management, argues that the US economy is trapped in a self-perpetuating doom loop driven by massive deficits and rising interest rates, which he believes will inevitably lead to a sovereign debt crisis or hyperinflation. He explains that as the Federal Reserve raises rates to combat persistent inflation, the government's interest expense balloons—potentially consuming half or all of tax revenue within years—forcing even larger deficits that fuel more inflation.Schiff contends the Fed is far behind the curve, with real rates falling as inflation accelerates, and that any further hikes will only worsen the fiscal situation. He highlights a brewing disaster in the housing and banking sectors, where trillions in unrealized losses on low-yielding mortgages threaten lender solvency, a situation he views as far worse than the 2008 crisis. This, combined with a reverse wealth effect as home prices eventually reset lower, will act as a severe headwind for the economy.Schiff predicts Democrats will win the midterms and pass even larger deficits, accelerating the fiscal and inflationary problems.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:37 - Sovereign Debt Crisis Risks00:03:25 - Inflation and Rate Hikes00:08:04 - Market Reactions to Data00:09:34 - Stock Market Breadth Concerns00:11:50 - Mortgage Market Crisis00:22:10 - Housing Wealth Effect Reversal00:26:16 - Fannie Freddie Privatization00:31:04 - Government Deficits and Taxes00:42:24 - Gold Silver Investment Opportunities00:49:20 - AI Impacts and Outlook00:59:28 - Midterms & Concluding ThoughtsGuest:Peter Schiff — CEO of Euro Pacific Asset Management, and Chairman of Schiff GoldPeter Schiff is an honorary chairman of SchiffGold, founder of Euro Pacific Asset Management, and host of The Peter Schiff Show. Peter is an economic forecaster and investment advisor influenced by the free-market Austrian School of economics. He is one of the few forecasters who accurately and publicly predicted the 2007 housing market collapse and subsequent 2008 financial crisis. His latest best-selling book, The Real Crash: America's Coming Bankruptcy - How to Save Yourself and Your Country, warns that the 2008 crisis was just the prelude to a larger sovereign debt crisis in the United States that may lead to a collapse of the US dollar. Peter recommends long-term investment in foreign markets with sound fiscal policies, as well as global commodities including buying gold, silver and other physical precious metals.Podcast Website Website X YouTube 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

AJ Signal, a former military strategist and current geopolitical risk advisor, outlines a framework for predicting conflict by monitoring five logistical signals that nations cannot easily fake: medical mobility, energy, finance, and munitions. He explains how, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the movement of blood banks to the front line served as an undeniable indicator of imminent war, because the cold-chain logistics for blood are too complex to be a bluff. Applying this lens today, he observes the U.S. military moving blood supplies into both Europe and the Asia-Pacific, which, combined with other indicators, suggests preparations for a potential ground operation against Iran.The discussion then turns to the “Toyota Hilux Index,” a pattern where a surge in shipments of these versatile, easily maintained trucks often precedes militia activity or civil war by six to twelve months. On energy, Signal details how attacks on critical but remote pumping stations along Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline have effectively disabled a key bypass for crude oil exports, demonstrating the new vulnerability of critical national infrastructure to low-cost drone warfare. He notes that the real choke point in global energy is shifting from oil wells to refineries, which are being systematically targeted in both Russia and the Middle East, taking years and billions of dollars to repair.Financially, he points to a massive movement of physical gold by central banks and institutions, including the Netherlands recalling its reserves, as a sign of eroding trust in the U.S. dollar and the current financial system. This is complemented by a surge in gold accumulation by China and private entities like Tether.Finally, he warns that the convergence of these signals—blood logistics, vehicle shipments, refinery attacks, and gold repatriation—paints a picture of a world structurally preparing for prolonged conflict, with inevitable knock-on effects including higher fuel and food prices, potential fertilizer shortages, and increased global instability.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:10 - A.J. Signal Background00:02:57 - Five Lanes of Signals00:03:59 - Medical Blood Supplies Ukraine00:08:31 - Current Blood Movements00:21:57 - Energy Strait of Hormuz00:25:08 - Pipeline Attacks Analysis00:35:27 - Oil Prices and Refineries00:58:22 - Finance Gold Settlements01:06:57 - Munitions Supply Chains01:10:34 - Concluding ThoughtsGuest:AJ Signal — Strategic Geopolitical Risk Analysis & InsightsAJ Signal is a strategic geopolitical risk analysts, advisor and defence writer covering conflict, international relations and game theory. He has with 21 years across military, corporate security, intelligence, risk, crisis and disaster management, and has advises multinationals companies on risk and crisis strategy. His work has been published in The Times and the Jerusalem Post, featured on LCI/TF1, and cited by name in US Congressional Research Service. He publishes Signal, Not Noise!, a Substack Bestseller and Rising publication in World Politics. He is currently writing a book on Sanctions Capitalism.X Substack/Discount 25% Off Link 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Michael Pento, President and Founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies, joins Tom Bodrovics to discuss his increasingly cautious market outlook. Pento’s model currently sits in sectors three and four, indicating stasis or slight reflation, but he anticipates a shift to sectors one and two by 2027. He has neutralized his portfolio for the first time since December 2021, reflecting his bePento argues that the Federal Reserve is raising short-term rates while long-term rates are also rising, creating pressure on a "triumvirate of bubbles"—credit, real estate, and equities. He attributes this to inflation remaining above target for over five years, foreign creditors abandoning US Treasuries in favor of gold, and the unwinding of the yen carry trade. The US savings rate is near historic lows, limiting demand for government debt while deficits remain massive. He warns that AI-related debt issuance, potentially a trillion dollars this year, is fueling inflation and competing with Treasuries for scarce savings. He dismisses the idea that renewed quantitative easing could solve the problem, calling such measures palliative and likely to trigger a stagflationary environment.Pento predicts the next recession will cause deficits to balloon from two trillion to four-to-six trillion dollars annually, with the Fed unable to lower rates effectively without igniting double-digit inflation. He notes that total non-financial business debt, equity market capitalization relative to GDP, and housing affordability are all at or near record extremes, making the coming downturn potentially severe. Pento emphasizes that the Fed’s traditional tools—lowering rates and expanding its balance sheet—will not work this time because investors now understand the inflationary consequences. He concludes that the US is trapped by overfinancialization and fiscal irresponsibility, with no easy exit from the coming credit crisis.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:27 - Current Market Model Position00:04:34 - AI Debt Bubble Pressures00:05:51 - Treasury Rate Competition00:10:11 - Foreign Creditors Shift to Gold00:11:52 - Japan Carry Trade Issues00:13:42 - Energy Costs and Japan00:18:42 - Fed and Treasury Tools00:21:00 - Real Estate and Wealth Effects00:30:00 - Concluding ThoughtsGuest:Michael Pento — President and Founder of Pento Portfolio StrategiesMichael Pento is the President and Founder of Pento Portfolio Strategies with more than 30 years of professional investment experience. He worked on the floor of the NYSE during the mid-90s. Pento served as an economist for both Delta Global and EuroPacific Capital. He was also the portfolio creator and consultant to Delta/Claymore's commodity portfolios, which were distributed through Claymore/Guggenheim's sales network.Website E-Mail X 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Jaime Carrasco, Senior Portfolio Manager at Harbourfront Wealth Management, argues that rising global interest rates signal a deepening credit crisis rather than a healthy economy, likening the situation to water overwhelming the Titanic. He views the current pullback in gold prices not as a weakness but as a strategic opportunity to build positions, emphasizing that central banks continue to accumulate physical gold as a hedge against the ongoing debasement of fiat currencies.Carrasco contends that the real problem is not assets becoming more valuable but the purchasing power of money eroding, a trend he expects to accelerate as governments are forced to print money to manage unsustainable debt levels. He draws a sharp distinction between owning real assets and holding credit-based derivatives, warning that the latter could prove worthless in a systemic reset reminiscent of the 1930s.Carrasco highlights the precious metals sector, particularly producers like Agnico Eagle, as one of the few areas trading at a discount to intrinsic value, offering a value proposition similar to Warren Buffett’s investments in the late 1990s. He sees a massive opportunity in silver, noting the historically extreme 70-to-1 gold-silver ratio compared to an 8-to-1 mining ratio, and points to growing industrial demand and Asian physical buying as catalysts for a rebalancing.Geopolitically, Carrasco favors Latin America for its resource wealth and relative insulation from the credit and energy crises afflicting Europe and other regions. He stresses the importance of patience and a disciplined asset allocation, recommending a significant weighting in precious metals and direct share ownership. For investors, the core message is to recognize the long-term monetary shift underway and position accordingly in tangible assets and well-managed producers before the broader market fully acknowledges the scope of the developing storm.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:56 - Gold as Crisis or Opportunity00:03:43 - Fiat Currency Devaluation00:09:03 - Positioning in Real Assets00:14:48 - Gold Pullback as Opportunity00:22:50 - Interest Rates and Bonds00:29:00 - Gold Silver Ratio Opportunity00:35:48 - Asset Allocation Strategy00:40:00 - Geopolitical Risks Latin America00:45:00 - Portfolio Construction Details00:55:10 - Volatility Versus Risk01:00:00 - Timeline for Positioning01:07:34 - Concluding ThoughtsGuest:Jaime Carrasco — Senior Portfolio Manager & Senior Investment Advisor at Harbourfront Wealth ManagementJaime Carrasco is Senior Portfolio Manager & Senior Investment Advisor at Harbourfront Wealth Management. From 2014-2018 he worked as Director of Wealth Management and Associate Portfolio Manager for ScotiaMcLeod. Before this, he worked for Macquarie Group, CIBC Wood Gundy, BMO Nesbitt Burns, Gordon Capital, and Merrill Lynch.Jaime is a leading Canadian investment professional with 25 years of experience providing wealth management and investment counsel to affluent families, businesses, and institutions. He has garnered a reputation for questioning and challenging the status quo and exploring the most innovative investment strategies.Jaime, whose mother tongue is Spanish, also speaks Italian and French. He completed a BA in political science and economics at the University of Toronto in 1988. While a student, he worked for CS Yacht, a company that built luxury sailboats, thus spending his summers as a skipper for the Canadian establishment members. Jaime credits this experience and having survived sailing through Hurricane Bob in 1991. This experience taught him lessons that have become a metaphor for his financial investment strategies."Like one's financial wealth, sailing is not about controlling the wind, but rather about adjusting the sails."X LinkedIn Website E-Mail 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.

Porter Stansberry warns that the United States is on an irreversible path toward a major fiscal and societal crisis by 2029, drawing a historical parallel to the downfall of the Knights Templar. He explains that when a sovereign becomes insolvent, it inevitably turns on its creditors, and the largest creditor to the U.S. government is not bondholders but the recipients of unfunded Social Security promises. The root of this decay, he argues, is the abandonment of the gold standard, which has enabled unchecked money printing and triggered the Cantillon effect—where newly created currency flows first to the wealthy and connected, systematically eroding the middle class and destroying the single-income household. This monetary debasement has fueled profound cultural and moral collapse, manifesting in diseases of desperation, addiction, and a loss of faith in American institutions.Stansberry identifies the legal doctrine of "disparate impact" as the American version of Marxism, arguing it has corrupted everything from education and law enforcement to banking, leading to urban decay and institutional inefficiency. He contends that the banking system is now acutely vulnerable due to massive unrecognized losses on bond portfolios, a situation made untenable by the rise of AI, which will soon allow depositors to effortlessly seek market-based yields, triggering bank runs. To survive the coming reset, Stansberry outlines tiered investment strategies. For the very wealthy, he recommends buying deeply undervalued timberland.For most investors, he advocates a "permanent portfolio" that replaces traditional bonds with property and casualty insurance stocks to hedge against inflation and volatility. For those still accumulating wealth, he details a "honeycomb" portfolio—a concentrated, seven-sector strategy centered on gold and enhanced with modest leverage to maximize returns while minimizing risk. He concludes that the window to prepare is closing, urging immediate action before the crisis becomes obvious to everyone.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Introduction00:00:54 - Friday the 13th Origins00:02:03 - Social Security Crisis Warning00:06:53 - Cantillon Effect Explained00:07:53 - Disparate Impact Doctrine00:22:06 - Banking System Risks00:28:19 - AI Transforming Banking00:33:14 - Permanent Portfolio Strategy00:41:26 - Honeycomb Portfolio Approach00:44:10 - Being Pro-Active00:57:20 - Concluding ThoughtsGuest Links:X: https://x.com/porterstansbWebsite: https://www.porterstansberry.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/porterstansberry/Substack: https://substack.com/@porterstansberryPorter Stansberry is one of the most recognized voices in independent financial publishing over the past quarter century. He built Stansberry Research from a single newsletter into a company that went public at a $3 billion valuation, then walked away to start over on his own terms.In 1999, Porter Stansberry launched what would become Stansberry Research with a borrowed laptop and $36,000 in seed financing from publisher Bill Bonner. The operation began in a modest Baltimore apartment, where he wrote his first newsletter, initially called the Pirate Investor, and built a subscriber base through the quality and directness of the analysis itself.The model was simple in concept and difficult in execution: deliver genuinely useful investment research to individual investors who had no access to the same quality of analysis available to institutional clients. That founding principle shaped everything that followed.Before starting his own firm, Porter had already established a foothold in financial publishing by becoming the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the world's oldest English-language financial newsletter. The role gave him a grounding in the tradition of long-form, independent financial analysis, a tradition he would spend the next two decades expanding.Porter Stansberry departed from MarketWise in 2020 and founded Porter & Co. in April of that year. He left the institutional structure of a public company behind and returned to the model he had started with: a small, editorially-independent team producing research without compliance committees, corporate mandates, or outside investors determining the agenda.Guest:Porter Stansberry — Founder of MarketWise, OneBlade, and Porter & Co.Porter Stansberry is one of the most recognized voices in independent financial publishing over the past quarter century. He built Stansberry Research from a single newsletter into a company that went public at a $3 billion valuation, then walked away to start over on his own terms.In 1999, Porter Stansberry launched what would become Stansberry Research with a borrowed laptop and $36,000 in seed financing from publisher Bill Bonner. The operation began in a modest Baltimore apartment, where he wrote his first newsletter, initially called the Pirate Investor, and built a subscriber base through the quality and directness of the analysis itself.The model was simple in concept and difficult in execution: deliver genuinely useful investment research to individual investors who had no access to the same quality of analysis available to institutional clients. That founding principle shaped everything that followed.Before starting his own firm, Porter had already established a foothold in financial publishing by becoming the first American editor of the Fleet Street Letter, the world's oldest English-language financial newsletter. The role gave him a grounding in the tradition of long-form, independent financial analysis, a tradition he would spend the next two decades expanding.Porter Stansberry departed from MarketWise in 2020 and founded Porter & Co. in April of that year. He left the institutional structure of a public company behind and returned to the model he had started with: a small, editorially-independent team producing research without compliance committees, corporate mandates, or outside investors determining the agenda.X Website Instagram Substack 📈 The Competent InvestorMarkets, macro, and the minds that move money.Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles.RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app.Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter.X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary.YouTube — Full video episodes.