I see your point, and agree with you in a way. But the major difference between BTC and fiat currencies e.g. USD is government backing. This is a double edged sword, in that whilst the US government back the USD (in that you can pay your taxes with it), they can also interfere big time and dilute its value. People have had enough and that is one reason I have recently dipped my toe into BTC; one reason was watching this video. The clarity of thought and expression of this video is scary.

Personally I hold dollar mostly in USDC on blockfi as they are also paying 8.6% interest.

I wish there was more depth and analysis on Australia with some of the highest household debt in the world and housing prices at astronomical levels. If commodity prices continue to slide as Raoul suggests, this will further burden the Australian economy, which relies heavily on mining. China, their largest trading partner, has imposed tariffs on Australian goods such as barley, with further posturing towards wine and dairy. While the virus has had relatively low health impacts to date, the economic conditions are troubling.

Fact is, at ground level, if you are an average joe, Australia is your best bet. Not saying it will be rainbows and unicorns, but you are much better off than anyone in Europe or USA

He has 10s and 5s.

I wonder the same !

Nano Ledger X

Ledget Nano S, it's a hardware wallet and it's one of the safer ways to keep your crypto, bitcoin, for example.

Ledger Nano X

Just an fyi, buy ledger nano s or x, from only the original website. Do not buy it from third party! Cheers 🍻

Ledger Nano X

Listen to Hugh Hendry talk. Deep OTM calls

Tony Y, selling deep OTM money calls yield next to zero profit (but do carry some risk), and since central banks buying stock buoys the market, this is a backward solution. Buying OTM calls means you need a severe move upward to profit. Central banks are trying to cushion fall, and this is likely wasted money.

john g. and by a 'severe move upward' you mean something that would be supported by ... say a central bank? could buy bull spread if you think that's the direction where equity markets are heading.

My guess: the fed can print dollar, but they cannot 'give / lend' it away to the chinese and emerging market corporations

I'd bet they have to open more swap lines to riskier markets

Think this may be the next event that Raoul has called as 'Dollar collapsing under its own weight'.

This is a really good point, and I'd love to hear Raoul's response

Two months ago I was killing it working as a travelling nurse practicing in a highly specialized cardiac elective procedural arena. I've been unemployed for going on two months now and can tell you with 100% certainty how not ALL unemployed workers are taking home $1,000/week! I went from making $4k/wk to an UE insurance benefit of $774/wk... My spending on clothes, eating out, travel, entertainment and much more has stopped. This weekend I walked around lower downtown Denver and this normally bustling overcrowded environment was a freaking ghost town. The lines to enter retail establishments are an indicator not of high consumer demand but of businesses enforcing social distancing by limiting entry. I bet people who dream of normalcy anytime soon will be profoundly disappointed.

David, I totally get your situation. I am in Medicine as well. Many of us have taken a pay cut. But, that paycut is only significant enough that I will not be upgrading my car or flying business for next couple vacations. None of my colleagues are cutting back on essesntials. Hell, Peloton sales have surged. So I agree that Many high earners have taken some hit. And very few High earners have taken significant hit. Regarding stores, they are full. There is a line for checkout too.

AFAIK most states in US have a cap on how long unemployment benefits can be availed. If Donald Trump loses elections and Senate is still republican then hopes of any more stimulus will evaporate. Already Senate republicans are against providing more help to the common people.

Savings rate in the US has gone up to 13% which is highest it has been in almost 40 decades (https://www.statista.com/statistics/246268/personal-savings-rate-in-the-united-states-by-month/). Also, outstanding credit balances have decreased by 30% (https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/current/). This leaves me thinking that a large chunk of people are still a) paying back debt b) saving; which in turn means less revenues to business and less cash flow to pay back debts -> insolvency.

BTC is not a currency and will not be for a long while. Its just speculation instrument and any news will effect it like a stock. No one would be able to use a currency that flies up and down every hour. Plus, there are scalability and other problems.

If you look at BTC as a store of value rather than a medium of exchange, the transaction issues aren't worrisome because volume would be a tiny fraction.

With 7 transactions per second that gives monthly slightly less than 20Mil transactions capacity. IOW, if 20Mil people use it just to store a part of their monthly paycheck (not withdraw, just store!) they would have to wait a full month until it gets on the blockchain... That's not even a store of value.

@Mark, thats what drives the price of Bitcoin higher. There are plenty of other cryptos for people to store smaller valuations if it takes too long to get onto the blockchain, especially as hyperinflationary scenarios plays out around the world, but if you want Bitcoin, just like if you wanted gold in the 1970s, you have to keep increasing the bid. Bitcoin over time becomes the anchor that other cryptos draw value against, similar to nations against a fixed anchor asset like gold.

Appreciate you sharing your viewpoint / advice. I would love to hear your thoughts on if Litecoin could have much more upside. Last time, people jumped into Litecoin to have fast transactions. If mimblewimble works, I see major upside for this coin which gets about as much attention as a lost drunk in the middle of the sierra desert.

The current Bitcoin blocksize is actually good for Bitcoin. Let the market vote with its money. Please put your money in Bitcoin Cash if you believe larger blocksize is the key to the future of Bitcoin.

All I'm trying to say is that there was no real discoussion about BTC scaling, it was heavily censored hence the state it's in right now is not something the founder envisioned or what a sane developer would do. We may talk that it's economically good or bad, everyone has their own oppinion. I'm not saying buy into that or this coin. The point is that BTC is not what appears to be from the first glance. If you are aware of the pitfalls and willing to take a bet... go do it(I do, but less than before, now I'm not willing to bet as much as in 2015). I know, it's all madness of the crowds kind of a thing. But we know how these end up. My wish with this was to spread knowledge about the fact that 1MB is not sane and it was never envisioned by the one who invented BTC. It's like saying that the modem speed from 1990 is good for today as you can still get data through, and we'll optimise web pages and content and make better compression for 4K to fit into the 1990 modem speed. The reason is not to switch to a different coin, the reason is that if it again comes to talks to raise block sizes that more people are aware that this is a normal thing and something which improves it for everyone. Same as you want a 4K tv not a CRT(but CRT has deeper black some will cry!). Tech improves, fact. Making transactions expensive might sound short-term nice, but that excludes people from using it. And the more people use it the better it is for everyone. Velocity of money is good, right? Like said, I'm not trying to debate is there a better coin, just saying that BTC could have been more(and still can be), and the "technical" reasons that "1MB is enough", or more is "bad" are fallacies from the eye of a seasoned developer. And THAT was used in the scaling wars as "facts" to keep the 1MB. Rarely anyone was trying to keep the 1MB "because scarcity is good" or something like that, all the "facts" were around "technical issues" like "you want to run it on a raspberry pi" which don't hold water for someone who knows the technicals. But with a bit censoring it's easy to sway people if you suffocate the technical guys which are the minority. I'm just pissed that a few idiots destroyed what could actually have been a saving straw for many more. For us entitled people it's easy to pay 1, 5, 10, 50$ transaction fees. For someone in EM that's a whole day wage or more. Gold they can buy a fraction, it won't cost them much more, that is, they can sell smaller denominations for more as well later. They don't loose the additional "markup" on small quantities. And if all those guys poured into BTC... we would be way higher now.

Smaller block size = higher security. BTC is optimizing for security not transaction volume. Security is what makes it a superior store of value.

Assuming it’s a call option on the 5 yr...

I had the same sort of question, no answers. Is it a call option on the 5 yr future (ticker: ZF)?

Did you miss the 'Insolvency Phase'? Gold is a hedge in deflationary times because it is nobody else's liability. Deflation increases debts, so there are bankruptcies. Deflation destroys the banking system, especially when the yield curve is flat negative a long way out. Gold hedges two things: inflation and counter-party risk. Deflation will bankrupt companies (lower demand, higher debt), consumers (lower wages, higher debt) and countries (esp. Eurozone). Ironically, gold only falls in Goldilocks conditions, when there is growth, positive real interest rates (because there are real investment opportunities) and no chance of insolvency in paper assets, be those stocks or non-sovereign bonds (yes, local govt bonds can default). There is proof that there are diminishing real investment opportunities from stock buybacks. Yes, it is corruption, but also an indicator of the actual state of the western economy, even as the infrastructure crumbles (red tape, eco rules, H&S blackmail, etc.).

Governments can ban Bitcoin but have no power to prevent its transmission. The network can't be shut down. Whereas Roosevelt did ban the conversion of gold into paper money, which severely restricted its economic utility as a currency. We don't need paper money. We just need the internet and someone on the other end of a transaction who recognizes the value of Bitcoin.

Well, first of Raoul could be wrong and stocks could continue to rise. Imo this is not as unlikely as it's conveyed here. In either case, BTC and gold seem likely to rise in any outcome.

3Ayasoq2wkRjW8a1wdnDNGCifFK3pHs9ps

Google gold price and inflation index and divide one into the other

buying and owning bitcoin makes the most sense as he suggested

deribit offers options - but as he said, buying and owning is going to powerful

My understanding, not an expert: Strong dollars means all other countries including poor ones have to pay more for imports. The higher it goes the more painful it will be for these countries and because more people are seeking refuge/debt settlement they need dollars which will only increase the pain in a positive feedback loop. Strong dollar good for USA because they can’t basically print as much as they want and pass on the inflation to other countries desperate for dollars. And they will print because they don’t want a strong dollar as it’s harmful globally

My understanding is there is $12T in foreign dollar-denominated debt. As the USD rises relative to the debtor nations' currencies, this makes those loans even more expensive.

Jubinflation

I'm currently in a very similar allocation with my 25% AUD sitting in USD waiting for this potential solvency/deflationary event to occur and if it does I'll load up on some more tech and gold/uranium miners. I doubt the gold miners will be dragged down as much in the next leg down as the next leg would be more of a ''fundamental'' down where only the insolvent businesses and corporations will go bust.

Starting? I love Hedgeye, but hasn't Raoul and Realvision been doing it longer?

FNV, Gold and New have too much exposure to non North American jurisdictions. I agree with Marin Katusa on the importance of having miners with positive dollar swap line countries. In other words, these 3 miners you selected are riskier than you may think! Check out the Katusa research on the dollar swap lines.

I didn’t know that, and it’s an excellent suggestion. The risk you run is that if/when a true BTC ETF launches, or any similar vehicle more liquid than GBTC, the premium will vanish, and a discount may appear instead. Allied to the small but real possibility of GBTC being robbed/hacked and failing. But you’re still long BTC, which is not a terrible place to be.

You don't want to hold these very long. The costs are high. These are short term trading vehicles.

Why not use a call option

Agree. $2,000/Mo isn't going to get people out supporting most businesses. They will go belly up as Raoul suggests. Online, sheltering and some basic necessity suppliers will survive. The rest will be in a world of hurt for some time to come.

Buy a little bit on Gemini app. One you buy a little, you will want to learn more and the more you learn, the more you will buy. Seek out key people on Twitter and follow them and also there are great podcasts out there for you to discover. Before you know it, you will have your Bitcoin off the exchanges and in your own cold wallet and maybe you will be running your own Bitcoin node to support the Bitcoin network. Don’t waste your energy with the alternative coins. Bitcoin is the digital gold.

Cash app is probably the easiest way to buy bitcoin, Coinbase is a pretty nice/simple exchange to start with after that if you want to expand.

I find Square's Cash App to be the easiest way to buy BTC. That's what I would recommend to a beginner.

Don't buy anything until you do your research. I am a long time Bitcoin investor and a believer in Bitcoin. The best resource about Bitcoin and crypto, in general, is a YouTube channel called DataDash by Nicholas Merten. He has tons of "how-to" videos and does daily updates on Bitcoin, crypto and their relations to broader markets. There are plenty of exchanges that allow you to buy Bitcoin with USD/EUR/GBP and a few other currencies. I use Bitstamp, but as mentioned below there are several good exchanges focused on American citizens like Coinbase, Gemini, Robinhood or Square.

Thank you all for your help. Much appreciated!

Sorry ... 3.6% real rates ....

It would be unseemly to let that nitpicking stand alone. This was a terrific presentation (the votes tell the story) as has been all your recent coverage .

David, just curious, but I thought when the FED buys fallen angel bonds they are buying them on the open market, i.e. from other bond holders not from Ford directly. So Ford won't be helped at all by this action, only the bag holder bond holder (the .01% again) gets relief. Thoughts? [always enjoy reading your comments on the board by the way!]

Very good point. I expect Ford and others to be bailed out by the government as essential. This puts Ford’s bonds in good hands to delay any forced bankruptcy proceedings until the government is ready and possibly any more downgrades. Only time will tell what the US government will end up buying. DLS

Not really my expertise. I own physical. But for trading, sounds fine but out of my expertise as I said.

Royal Mint? UK? Or which market? I personally stay away from GLD and I bought physical last year in anticipation of this printing stage...just did not realise we r going into deflation first...

Listed in UK and Europe. To me the problem with Gold ETFs has always been counterparty risk (ETF issuer), custody risk (HSBC and JPM custody most physical Gold ETFs) and liquidity risk of not finding a buyer in times of market stress (market makers step away). I feel this as good as solves for those as you are buying and giving custody to Her Majesty's Royal Mint so no Banks involved. You have allocated bars in vault (so it's tangible Gold you own with no further claims on it) and you can turn up on demand to redeem the ETFs and take physical delivery at any point directly from the vault.

one issue - this assumes banks like HSBC or COMEX/LBMA are not using Royal Mint to loan themselves physical gold. I have read some reports from Bullion Star in Singapore that RM is leasing some bars to the banks. I think physical in your own vault or gold miners is still a better option.

Just to close the loop on this. The bars are allocated Gold and the bar numbers allocated are printed every day on the Royal Mint website. They are bankruptcy remote even if the Royal Mint were to default and there is no lending of this inventory. Feels about as safe as is out there for an ETF anyway.

You think that can't happen? But before we get to a zombie apocalypse and we're hunkering in caves (that's not this crash; it's the next one), there are intermediate failures that could affect ETFs. There are already issues between the physical and paper pricing, and between locations. ETFs can change their rules. Markets can temporarily suspend trading. Brokers at which you hold positions can go phut in times of deep distress. New taxes and capital controls can be applied. Funds may suddenly be unable to move easily between you in one country and your brokerage in another. Nothing beats holding some in your hand.

For those outside of US some cryptocurrency exchanges allow some access to FX trading. I.e.,https://blog.kraken.com/post/4200/eur-gbp-usd-and-more-fx-trading-is-going-live-on-kraken/

I do all my FX trading on IG index. All of the financial spread trading firms offer good charting packages and tight spreads although they will be a little wider for EM FX pairs with higher margin requirements. You can decide what value you want to trade on a pip so you can manage risk and sizing quite effectively.

Thank you both for the replies.

Because they HAVE to discount more printing ahead and thus will look through it. Deflation = MOAR printing = higher gold, not lower. Common misperception, in my view.

I appreciate the reply Raoul. But wouldn't that suggest gold & bitcoin rebound quicker from a stock market crash rather than that they hold up during it. Margin calls don't discriminate, you need to liquidate assets to pay it, and that will be your most liquid assets.....

Margin calls may not discriminate but the buyers will. People will not buy a currency that is being printed like there is no tomorrow, they will buy Bitcoin. The margin calls will in my humble opinion seem irrelevant in comparison to the inflow of capital.

Like Raoul said, "Gold has no creditors." In a mass wave of insolvency, assets with no default probability are king.

JM, I have one suggestion (related to gold/miners; I don't really understand how bitcoin trades--seems more risk-on than risk-off to me). For many folks, real rates are key variable for gold: their direction perhaps more important than their level. Lots of proxies for real rates but I like the 10 Year TIPS market: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFII10 Anyway, if u remind yourself what gold (/gc) and miners (gdx) did in 08, and then look at the real yields in the link, you'll see that the sector was constructive until real rates turned up in Mar 08, and then gold/miners sold off. They bottomed (well before the market, in Oct) when real rates turned back down. If u look at the very brief episode in March this year, the selloff in gold/miners perfectly corresponded to that spike in real rates. Its almost uncanny. Now if I were only smart enough to be able to foresee the spike in real rates, or predict their turn back down, I think I could get somewhere. My guess and hope is that Raoul's judgment above is basically right... it makes sense to me: perhaps in 08 there were doubts about policy (willingness; boldness), and such doubts have been removed now, and so investors will maintain a firm bid. (Btw, if u listen to them debate, Luke Groman suggests u must stay invested, while Brent Johnson seems to suggest u may get better prices in a pull back). Bottom line for me: I'm not sure precisely how real rates spiked so severely in March 2020, but I presume the Fed viewed it as unfortunate, and further, that they will do anything they need to do, to keep real rates from getting out of hand for any length of time. We're talking treasuries here; funding the government. I'm carrying nearly my full allocation of gold exposure now, assuming I won't get a fire sale and that the market won't shake me out of my position. If any body has any further ideas related to these issues, I'd love to read them.

Wade, I agree real rates matter and that is my concern. With deflation coming/here real rates are going to spike again (which is the reason Raoul believes bond rates will need to go negative - to counteract this spike). If that is the case gold/miners will drop on the spike (however briefly) before the Fed cranks the printer up again. This is the disconnect for me on what Raoul is saying, I agree with him that more printing will cause gold & miners to rise but it feels like the thesis jumps ahead to the end game and misses the step in the middle imho.

U didn't listen?

Excuse me; what I wanted to say is that in that scenario, the price manipulation (even in the treasury bond market) could be very difficult to manage (if possible).

1. Yes but its a premium. Try Pantera's fund maybe? 2. I am long dollars vs lots of currencies already. 3. Read JK Galbraiths - The Great Crash of '29 and Lords of Finance and Richard Koo's Balance Sheet Recession. The last debt deflation was 1930 to 1933. 4. They have been doing whatever it takes for a decade now. They will get more extreme and thus gold and bitcoin will go up, as will the dollar. Equities? Who knows. I avoid them for now.

Raoul Would appreciate your thoughts on GBTC also. Just looking to have a small l/t holding of bitcoin Vincent

GBTC is an indirect claim on BTC. As Raoul points out in the video, it is best to actually take possession in this climate. This is much easier to do for BTC than it is for gold. (There is a later comment thread here concerning this.)

As a retail investor, I never understand why would I buy GBTC instead of buying BTC directly and storing it into a Hardware wallet. It's like buying GLD vs physical gold - except that BTC is very liquid in itself. Can anyone explain what makes GBTC superior despite the premium & counterparty risk?

Holding BTC directly has nearly only upsides vs. GBTC. Only GBTC upside: you can easily buy & hold it without having to learn about how to store and use BTC. GBTC faces several problems though: Premium to NAV (currently around 30%!) could swing around wildly, influencing your returns on an already very volatile asset even more. And if a normal bitcoin ETF gets approved that easily can create & redeem shares (which GBTC can't, that's why it has such a big premium in the first place), that premium will disappear in an instant, leading to certain losses. Though there's currently no potential ETF on the horizont within the next months.

Yeah - loved this. But wow - 25% BTC, Raoul has some serious “cojones” as they say in Latin America. A lot of guts. Guess he feels like he really understands the space, and he may be able to lose that much and be OK. My risk tolerance on BTC is much, much lower.

Raoul probably bought at a lower level, let's say averaging around $4000, so the value in dollar terms has already doubled. Also, what are the true possibilities of Bitcoin going to zero? It has already survived three horrific bear markets and the macro environment has never looked brighter for it. I see it the same way, as a very cheap call option to a turmoil in FX markets. Nothing really makes better sense for Raoul's thesis and I think the biggest problem Bitcoin is facing right now is the availability for the institutions and pension portfolios.

This is of his liquid wealth. Someone else mentioned that he stated in another video his BTC holding was 2 to 3 % so he's 20 to 15% liquid. I believe he has a decent junk of real estate.

The thing is: if you're in the crypto sphere, you really can't see how BTC could ever lose any value over the long term. I don't think there's a convincing case for that to happen. I haven't heard of one

Sorry, meant during the bounce. It seems that they´ll go down last....

I bought EUR $1 Dec 2020 puts. Happy with that timeline

checked out the put options for Dec and for some reason Saxo wants margin....hm...

Good golly man. Seriously, are you criticizing a roadmap about the future for exact timelines.

Which camp are you in now?

If only markets were logical.

Hi Michael, could you comment on your thoughts?

Read A Peek into the Future on RV

Thanks.... unfortunately that's reserved for Pro-members ;-)

Would be good if they could make the reports pay-per-use so you can source what information you need rather than committing to the full membership which maybe outside of most retail investors budgets.

It's Eurodollar calls.

No, not the GE calls. He was talking about the five-year bonds. Maybe he meant the options on the ZF futures (5 Year US Treasury Note)?

You should be able to store at home, coins or bars if you want to go down that route

Goldmoney lets you buy on their site and store in their vault. There's also PAXG - ownership of your physical gold via an Ethereum ERC20 token (vault in Switzerland)

I don't honestly see what makes https://www.paxos.com/paxgold/ better than GLD, as both introduces counterparty risk.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

a futures contract is physically settled?? In theory yes, in practice never as Brokers will close out clients *long* /GC positions before expiry date if they believe there's a risk that might occur. No Broker wants their clients ending up with obligations to take delivery and a big truck turning up at the doorstep. Always remember it's those that are *short* /GC contract that are able to initiate delivery not the *longs*.

I am starting to allocate into UK oil majors and miners (BP, Shell (after div announcement), Glencore, BHP). Was 80% in cash from Oct 19, 20% gold from 2014. I agree totally with Raoul's $ thesis and further $ strength very likely over next 3-6 months. However at some point we are going to get a much weaker $, probably only after the FED take FF's negative which seems inevitable to get real $ rates down and steepen the yield curve. There is no other way out of this and the result of this huge debt deflation and resulting policy response has to be a much weaker $ eventually. If you are a longer term value investor you have to be looking at some exposure to commodity producers at these current levels. I differ from Raoul in that I believe zero or negative nominal rates will be relatively supportive for US equities over the next 1-2 years. CB's will keep nominal rates too low as $ starts to fall and velocity of money picks up from these ultra low levels and they won't be able to control the reflation. The absolute killer for pretty much all financial assets will ultimately be fiat weakness and eventually much higher nominal rates that will be necessary to defend them. So equities a good inflation hedge until higher rates kills them with cyclicals and physical producers outperforming in the reflationary stage before the whole system collapses on itself in one giant shitshow.

would also add that if we do start to see a substantial $ weakening you should look at EM physical producers and general indices. I know Raoul v keen on India longer term..I would add Mexico and Brasil also.

Initially, that exacerbates the dollar shortage...

Check out Neil Howe's book "The 4th Turning" or look him up on YouTube. RP is a big fan of Neil's work on the demographic and social cycle.

Fundamentals trump technicals.

Your read of the technicals seem rather subjective (most technical analysis is), but also with a shorter timeframe. Look at the bigger timeframe... we're intermediate overbought sure, but we're in a MASSIVE multi-year uptrend in bonds (or downtrend if you're talking about the yield). If anything, wait until we're at oversold levels, watch how they react at the support levels - and then jump in. If you want to play the big time frames, you gotta be patient to catch 'em.