Yes, I'd like to see Fred with an update!

Bring back Fred, please!

Too many wise grandads losing money on RV. I'd suggest interviewing more 26 year old long-only disciples: "bull market dude".

Fred is giving misleading information about crypto currencies -- I suggest that if anyone here is interested in looking into crypto they should look into Andreas Antonopoulus, Tim Draper (one of the most successful VC investors in history), and Dan Larimer -- these are experts on the subject. His bias against it and his positions in precious metals make him unable to take a critical view of this new technology and what it has to offer. I hold both precious metals and some cryptos (yes there alot of crap coins out there, but there are some excellent ones too, must do research).

Subscriber 2010-2016. Hickey was a perpetual gold miner bull and was short tech various tech stocks that have had massive gains during this period. Smart guy but good luck trading with him.

Just relistened to this interview. It does seem very prophetic.

Wow! This seems prophetic given recent developments.

Does anyone know the best way to reach out to Fred in regards to his newsletter subscription?

Samsung just publicly announced chips designed for cryptocurrency mining and other semi players ramping the AI/Crypto effort, I tend to agree on NVDA. Excellent interview!

The one place where I disagree is Palo Alto. Particularly if you're a long term investor, I don't consider this a good time to pour money into a market sector as mature as next gen firewalls. Their business model is under threat from a combination of: 1) major cloud providers who want to provide network security as part of their own seamless interface, and 2) newcomers who are hoping to completely cut security boxes out of the middle of the network in favor of distributed security models. What I've been hearing on the ground is that the new cloud-based solutions from major next gen firewall vendors (Palo Alto included) are excruciatingly difficult to deploy. Cloud networking is a rather different paradigm; these companies are evidently struggling to pivot their engineering organizations into a world increasingly based on radically different network topologies, where, furthermore, solutions must be entirely in software (because the Amazons of the world will not open up their hardware stacks--if anything, they're in the process of building even deeper moats by growing in-house custom silicon design shops). And, in classic Innovator's Dilemma fashion, the dominant firewall players seem to be viewing cloud technologies as "checkbox" requirements coming from production management, rather than the manifestly important strategic initiatives they should be considered. While I absolutely expect there eventually to be a cyclical (and someday even a secular) trend reversal away from renting cloud resources, we aren't likely to see that first derivative zero crossing soon. This is seemingly a case of history rhyming: we're overbuilding cloud capacity in much the same sense that we overbuilt backhaul fiber around the dot com boom. Consequently, we're liable to see an extended period of deflation in the cloud space until the obsolescence cycle draws some insolvent firms too deep into ponzi territory. Against the dominant cloud vendors, the next gen vendors are at a competitive disadvantage. Amazon et al. will: 1) back their native solutions with custom silicon (simultaneously boosting throughput, reducing latency, and reducing power consumption relative to the outside competition, who are forced to run as software on rented general-purpose hardware); 2) provide a uniform experience vis a vis the rest of their cloud offerings; and 3) leverage the network effects attendant to hosting an ecosystem of niche offerings from hundreds of cloud startups (i.e., all the little cloud tools vendors will prioritize supporting the cloud vendor's in-house solution over those from third parties). Furthermore, I contend we are at the tail-end of what has been a great multi-decade run for hardware firewalls. We are approaching a phase transition similar to what has happened in the storage industry. The entrenched players are poised to be victims of an inexorable migration from hardware to software. The barriers to entry for pure-software solutions are falling--partly as a consequence of Moore's law, and partly as a consequence of the ability to stand on the shoulders of giants (by leveraging the explosion of open source software libraries as an effective foundation). Furthermore, a pure-software security solution can provide at least an order of magnitude more functionality than hardware boxes in the core of the network: enforcing policies closer to the communicating applications permits writing richer, more nuanced policies; and, it gives richer, higher fidelity insight into the behavior of the system than can be discerned from a box sitting at a distance from the computers running applications. Beyond sales narrative, the economics are acting as a wedge pushing this market towards software because: 1) the economies of software R&D give it a cost structure advantage, 2) the cloud's inherent preference for software-only solutions is a forcing function, and 3) with greater visibility into behavior, and vast burst processing power via the cloud, come opportunities to apply machine learning to the problem of policy construction and maintenance (thereby reducing labor costs). While the entrenched players could step up to the plate and build software-only solutions, my experience says that's unlikely to work well. The skill sets required will prove an impedance mismatch with the DNA of a formerly hardware appliance-centric software engineering team. Full disclosure: I'm affiliated with a disruptor in this space, so feel free to take my perspective with a suitable grain of salt :)

This was a very interesting interview with some excellent perspective. However from a production standpoint - the audio was incredibly inconsistent. One minute, I can barely hear what Fred is saying, the next the audio is blasting through my speakers as if he is shouting. Please, please apply some kind of volume leveling process, or improve the way in which your guests are recorded!

Crypto currencies are not currencies because the transaction costs are too high as is the volatility. Crypto currencies also have the energy consumption problem which is being worked on. I believe Etherium is working on converting to a less energy consumptive security model called stake holder verification. I am not a technology guy. Like gold, individual crypto currencies cannot be created in unlimited amounts out of thin air like fiat currencies (e.g. the dollar) can. While there can be proliferation crypto currencies through creation of new ones, there is a network effect that favors the first movers. So the major crypto currencies that solve the energy problem could wind up being a popular store of value like gold except that is more easily held and transferred than gold. That possibility attracts speculators and traders which will make for a bumpy ride. When the crypto market matures and volatility calms down, crypto transaction costs will come down just like credit cards (and probably lower). In that event, crypto currencies could just as easily act as a currency as the dollar except it will have the added advantage to holders that governments will not be able to inflate the value away. That is the value proposition as I see it.

After watching this insightful conversation betn Fred Hickey & Tommy Thornton, all on a sudden, it seemed, probably I should re-listen to the conversation betn David Zervos and Raoul Pal (link below) esp. for what is going on in the DJI every week and with the impact of deregulation / repatriation. I think Raoul Pal should bring another conversation with David Zervos, even as a short form. Looks like many of us are missing a big picture of deregulation. https://www.realvision.com/rv/channel/realvision/videos/cc107eae3c294b9194af1213e2be57fb

Literally, every single word was important. Top quality interview.

High quality interview, on both sides. Hickey's clearly knowledgeable. The only area I may have pressed him further is when he referenced the high quality companies that "would be of extreme interest to me" on a pullback. 2017 saw virtually no vol, but we've seen plenty in 2014, 2015, 2016, etc. Maybe he was recommending purchases, but for as long as I can recall, he's pretty much recommended gold miners on the long side and not much else. Maybe the pullbacks weren't enough. Still found him to be a very good source of information.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. I was very excited to meet with Fred and we got along very well. He's a genuine nice guy, disciplined, and smart. One of my primary goals for the interview was to find out what companies Fred liked regardless of price. What I discovered was very informative as he said he looks at software over hardware and he threw out a bunch of companies he liked on the long side - of course at the right price. Blackberry, Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Google etc and he even thought Twitter would eventually be acquired. I pressed him on his thoughts on Apple and the FANG stocks and his encyclopedia like memory recalled how there were 5 stocks in 1999 had similar attribution. I did the interview as a tech investor (like many of you) who wanted to get the most from a person with his knowledge and experience. His comments on Bitcoin were within two days of the top and on the day of the crazy Long Island Ice Tea Company changing to a block chain business and subsequent spike in the stock from $2-12. If you're a bull or bear on Bitcoin this type of insanity should give you some pause as it perhaps is ahead of itself as a mania. Lastly, I want to personally thank Raoul, Damian, Grant and the many RV people behind the scenes who gave me the opportunity to interview Fred.

RVTV needs to get Chamath Palihapitiya on; Fred Hickey's polar opposite. Both are genius'. Chamath is a huge believer in Elon, Bezos,.... and comes from poverty (btw he is a billionaire+ now). Ideally, Chamath would be interviewing Fred :)

A thoroughly brilliant interview which I enjoyed very much. It brings to mind the old proverb - Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. This guy has seen it all and the young generation needs to learn more of the past to avoid its mistakes.

Great interview. Gold and Tesla insights spot on!

This is an extremely valuable conversation! Massive thanks!

Anyone knows how and where to find out more about Fred's newsletter? He is a better trader for his gold calls than most people gives him credit for.

Please have him back if he will. Thanks!

A great interview from RV, I learnt a hell of a lot. My key take important aways: 1) Gold - I love Harry Dent and agree with a lot of what he says in his books. However, I have never agreed with his view on Gold. In this interview, the comments on Gold Miners reflect much more accurately what I think will happen in a downturn i.e Gold will go up in value and so will the miners. I've never heard of the HUI Gold Miners index, that alone was worth watching this interview for! 2) IT Security and Blackberry - I have been wondering for a while who are the successful companies in IT security and the many names he mentioned along with Palo Alto Networks I'd never heard of and I will do more research on them. Blackberry is the last name I would have thought of and when he mentioned the CEO's background I decided to dig deeper into their offerings and understand which kind of customers they have and the rate of take up. Fantastic insights

Bitcoin insight: Store of value and price volatility is relative. The question to ask in this era of hacking and political influence is: is bitcoin secure from hacks and political influence (political hacks)? What other assets are capable of this? an asset of this type has never existed before.

Are we sure when stocks take a dive that gold goes up? Or is it gold goes down less? And I seem to remember gold stocks getting creamed in 2008.

Brilliant. Fully agree with Fred on bitcoin, but looks like many RV viewers don’t :) His previous calls on gold and silver miners have been great, so hoping for a repeat. Very interesting insights on tech. I’m buying put options on Nvidia. That stock is perfectly hyped at the moment.

Even more wisdom accessible the second time viewing.

Excellent interview. I would like to subscribe to his newsletter but can not find the webpage to do so. RV please advise. Thanks HM

Fantastic interview. One of the best. Bring him back again this year.

It is particularly nice that Mr. Thornton, unlike other hosts, asks his question and then allows time, without interruption, for a response.

What it bitcoin is the new gold?

One of the very best intereviews ever! I shall watch this a few more times as Fred has made me seriously reconsider my view of the markets! Top drawer!!

Nice Job, Tom! Always enjoy Fred's views

Wonderful interview. Might have been nice to have access to it-- especially gold commentary-- when actually filmed as the metal has been doing pretty much exactly what he said it would.

Sad, completely ignorant about crypto - I hope real vision followers do their own due diligence. Fred bitcoin has never been hacked --

"bitcoin is the cherry on top of the everything bubble" "this bitcoin mania is really a very small part of the world" I think Fred is hypocritical re: the cryptoasset space. He did not give any deeper analysis and arrogantly likened it to the dot.com bubble. I would enjoy an interview discussing the secondary economic effects of the rise of crypoassets. Otherwise an interesting interview, thank you.

" There are no short sellers to cover anything anymore. " The ETFs can be shorted and are.

Wow fascinating stuff!! I heard from a CTO at a big tech company that blockchain is not viable at scale because the transaction costs will be high!

Very informative, thanks!

Love this interview! Pleasantly surprised to get so much history on the gold market from the title of the episode.

He truly does not understand Bitcoin. Can this guy please do his research? Everything else is pretty spot on.

Classic wisdom, deep knowledge. Thanks Fred (from a subscriber).

A++ Love, love this interview. Fred, u are one of the few sane people in an insane mkt. I admire your honest character, smarts & integrity. I am in the R Pal camp where the dollar will get stronger with repatriation, increased rates etc. so I feel commodities will temporarily head lower then higher. I have never seen a rigged mkt. like this caused by corrupt central banks: Greed is the inventor of injustice as well as the current enforcer. - Julian Casablancas; The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure. - B.C. Forbes

Does someone know the link or email to subscribe to Fred Hickey's newsletter? I cannot find it on internet and there is no link on his twitter account.....

Good interview. Freds conviction is high because he has seen this before but he did not account for the Central Bank influence. He alluded to it but did elaborate. Perhaps this is why he has the Gold

Buying December FOMC meeting has been money in the Bank for 5 years (wish i could post my chart)

One of the best interviews I ever watched in RVTV, well done 👏🏻👌🏻

This market needs more commentators like this who can accept excellent companies are not good investments at stupid valuations Congrats Fred

Hickey has been bearish and wrong AAPL for at least the last 2 years. And his point about AAPL running up before each gen release and then falling afterwards is sorely confounded by general market movements. There is only one case of about 7 major generations of iphone where his point holds and that is the Sep 12 iphone 5 release.

Great interview! Keep it up RV, great job

Brilliant all round , great to see 'longtime' RV favourite Fred again Liked the finale chapter too on gold 👌

Great insights from Fred. Good to see it wasn't just bearish and negative comments. But bullish on Blackberry and with an adjustment in the valuation bullish on Google, Facebook, Pal Alto. Bring him back soon for follow up.

Great interview. We need more interviews that focus on individual atocks.

Thank you for this interview. I add my compliments for a conversation that is necessary for such a time as this.

Holy crap! This is what what Real Vision is about. This is what I want. It's great. Tom, I subscribe to Hedge fund telemetry, thanks for all the money. Best investment I ever made. Paid for the subscription before I had to pay for it.

Excellent interview. Enjoy discussions that discuss specific stocks. Probably liked it because I agree with the appraisal on today's market and have also been looking at Blackberry. Good job.

tommy great job.......

tommy great job.......

gr8

absolutely superb

Excellent.

Great interview by both participants!

Excellent interview! Exciting to hear of Blackberry’s comeback 👍🏽 go team Canada

Wow! Fantastic interview Fred - you really covered a lot of interesting ground (tech, crypto, gold, Fed, etc). I gleaned a lot of very good information here and think it will hold me in good stead for 2018 - a lot of directions I can go with my investment money (short semi's, tech, crypto; long gold; and wait for the bottom to get back into tech). As I said, FANTASTIC interview!!! :-)

Great interview. Thanks you

Awesome.

Could be useful if the date this was filmed was included in the description.. .

Wake up slackers. Its a good one.

love the consistency on posting the videos early, thank you.