Chris Casey: Ask Me Anything | U.S. Solvency Crisis, Market Top & The Real Risks Ahead
Summary
Macro Outlook: Expect a de facto default via monetary printing, making inflation the key transmission mechanism of fiscal stress and a primary portfolio consideration.
Inflation Hedges: Emphasis on positioning in assets that hedge inflation as the likely policy response to rising debt and interest burdens.
Precious Metals: Despite strong recent performance, gold and broader precious metals still have attractive long-term prospects given debt-driven inflation risks.
Natural Gas: Presented as an overlooked way to play soaring electricity demand from AI, data centers, EVs, and crypto; favors pure-play equities over futures for operating leverage and potential dividends.
Cannabis: Deeply discounted sector with potential upside; key catalysts include rescheduling (e.g., to Schedule III) and the SAFER Act, which would ease taxes, banking, and interstate operations.
60/40 & Bonds: Traditional 60/40 is challenged in interventionist, inflation-prone environments; near-retirees should be cautious with long-duration bonds and consider income-producing alternatives.
Risk Management: Use hedging, de-risking, and disciplined rebalancing; avoid all-in market timing except at extremes, with current valuations flagged as stretched.
Transcript
In today's day and age, we know where this is headed. There's only one solution. It's a de facto default. It's massive monetary printing to satisfy debt obligations as they come due. That will happen. And because of that, inflation really is kind of the roundabout way to play the fiscal situation. Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Wealthy. I am Mario Rodriguez, the channel's executive producer, and today we're doing something a little different and ask me anything with a good friend of the channel, Chris Casey, founder of Windrock Wealth Management. Chris, it's always great to have you back on Wealthian and her second time doing an MA AMA, sorry, and ask me anything. How are you, sir? >> Yeah, great. Great to see you again, Mario. >> Great to see you, too, sir. So, we had a ton of questions come in from viewers uh for you about how to protect your portfolios in what feels like a very strange market. You know, big runs in stocks, then strong volatility returning, what we saw last week, right? Worries about inflation, insolveny, things you've touched upon, AI, AI mania, and you know, a lot of confusion about what to actually do. And uh just before we jump in, a quick reminder. If you're watching this and wondering how it all applies to your specific financial situation, Chris and his team at Windrock offer a free, no obligation portfolio review at wealth.comfree. Just select wingrock in the form. Again, it's completely free with no commitment. Just go to wealth.comfree. Chris, sir, are you ready to jump in? >> Let's do it. >> Fantastic. Let's do it. So, let's start with a relatable one that I basically just uh talked about. It's a question that comes from Lauren in Florida and she wrote, "Markets feel nervous again." I can definitely attest to that. I am feeling nervous as well. After a big run this year, what's the simplest way regular people can protect profits without hiding all cash? Great question. You touched on this on a video we did some weeks ago. What do you think, Chris? >> Yeah, we did do a video on this a couple weeks ago, and there's a couple different categories. People, first of all, they do have a right to be fearful. Um, that's absolutely true. Given the US fiscal situation, they should absolutely be nervous. In our video, we touched upon some major categories, right? It's it's hedging, so it's looking at investments that'll do well as your other investments go down. It's d-risking and diversifying. So, it's changing the nature of your assets, getting more defensive. Um, it's being very um disciplined in your execution of rebalancing and things like that. So, those are those are things everyone should um should consider. Um, you know, if you if you do that in your end, it's, you know, I wouldn't say you should do that all the time because you really want to look at market extremes. And you could argue we're at one right now. We're at about a 39 on the Schiller PE ratio. We're at about a 3.3 on the S&P price to sales ratios. These are indications of extreme tops where you should be absolutely nervous. So, but what you should not do because too many people do this uh fairly frequently. We talk to people all the time about this. They get so nervous that they freeze up and they're out of the market completely. And studies show time after time again that it's you make your returns more so by being by the time in the market versus timing the market. So I only consider really timing at what I consider extreme levels. We probably are at one right now. So it's a great question. I would definitely look at some measures to derisk, institute some uh discipline your portfolio and just hedge your portfolio as well. >> Yeah, it is it is feeling jittery, right? You could see that last week on Thursday after Nvidia reported its latest quarterly earnings the day before it beat the streets predictions the market started rallying on Thursday and all of a sudden it just went the other way. Kind of feels like a market tub. >> It feels a little topsyturvy. Yeah. When you have reversals like that and and you know little news or little um news blurbs, you know, really move the markets. That's a sign that maybe it's fatigued in a way in general. >> Yeah, it is tired. But you're absolutely right in the sense that it is very important to commit to a strategy, stick to it, and think very long term and remain committed uh to the markets unless it's it's really extreme. But as you say, perhaps we're in that extreme right now. Okay. Um let's go to a level deeper into macro worries. And this is Brandon from New York for our second question. and he asks, "You recently talked a about a US solveny crisis coming. What do you think the first real warning sign will be that things are starting to break?" Great question. >> Yeah. Well, I think the first warning sign we've had for some time, right? So, just do the simple math. Look at the debt levels, look at the revenue levels, look at expenditures, and you quickly realize there's no way to deal with this situation in our lifetimes without really dramatic um events, which will never happen from political perspective. Um that's one sign. I think the next big sign though, and we've had this periodically, but not consistently, is when uh mandatory spending, so non-discretionary spending, spending that's going to be done regardless, exceeds that of revenue. And when you have that for federal government, that I think is a really bad fiscal indication. Right now, we're sort of close. I think the US government took in around 5 trillion last year. Um, and that uh non-discretionary spending was over four. So, it's good. 80 80 plus percent of overall spending. It has exceeded 100% threshold at periodic times in the past. Another sign I think is when that line item for interest expense you can't ignore anymore on the budget. Um and and we have that right now. I mean the depending on how you measure it interest as a percentage of uh overall fiscal expenditures is probably a good 15 plus percent. Somewhere in the 15 to 20% range. If you measure on revenue it's obviously even higher. So that's another key indication. Ultimately, all this is going to be expressed in long-term rates. So I think the last key indication will be a replay of what happened in the United Kingdom several times both this year and back in I believe October of 2022 when interest rate long-term interest rates spiked dramatically given fiscal concerns. I think that'll probably be the last thing you're we have. Now the problem is that it could happen quite quickly. So you have to prepare for it to today. >> How do you prepare for it? can't help but ask that question. >> Well, you you have to look at the other side of what happens to get out of this fiscal situation. So, >> in with saying government and you know, a society that embraces free markets, you'd have a very different answer. You know, you have spending cut to the bone, etc. In today's day and age, we know where this is headed. There's only one solution. It's a de facto default. It's massive monetary printing to satisfy um debt obligations as they come due. That will happen. And because of that, inflation really is kind of the roundabout way to play the fiscal situation. It's any inflation hedge ultimately is going to is going to be what protects you, >> right? But it's a little a little bit like um the government's kicking the can down the road, so we better hedge that devaluating or debilitating currency. You know, it's it's funny. I was just thinking before we started recording, we're talking about Argentina, and it feels very much like a lot of countries, including the US. You mentioned the UK right now with what happened when Liz Truss was the uh prime minister and uh feels like a lot of the first world is becoming or looking to the past of the South American government's you know piron of Argentina of massive fiscal spending very high regulation and look what happened right >> I say it's even beyond that though Mario it's it's beyond >> you think that imagine that rule of law. It's sound currency. There's a lot of similarities between >> regulation. Yeah. >> World economy. >> Yeah, it is definitely scary and worrisome, I would say. Yeah. Okay. Um let's go to the third question, Chris. And uh let's stay on the macro theme and something that both you and I um enjoy, admire and are uh adherence of which is uh the Austrian school of economics. And uh this is from Nathan in California. By the way, this also is related to the previous question and your answer. So Nathan asks from an Austrian crack a boom crack up boom or a malinvestment perspective what uh Ligon Visas talks about. Do you think we're already in that final phase where people start dumping currency for anything real or not yet? What would you watch to know we've crossed that? >> Yeah. Um, and by the way, you the last uh sentence you mentioned is the definition of a crackup boom. That's where people because it's that's a misused term quite a bit. I see it misused by a lot of different financial pundits. It is considered the point where people have zero demand for money and so they're dumping it for any kind of assets. Think, you know, Vimar Republic where they've got a a wheelbarrow of cash going to buy cigarettes or what have you. You know, that's kind of thing that's going on. Are we there yet? Well, obviously we're not there yet. We're we're not even close. I mean, you could quibble and argue about uh inflation data, you know, all all day long. Uh but ultimately, it may be uh inaccurate, but it's not completely wrong. And so therefore, until we have the CPI back at 9 plus% like we did a couple years ago, until we have it well into the teens, you're not even thinking about any type of crackup boom, uh at least here in the US. >> Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes absolute sense. Um going back to Argentina again, right, they also were experiencing 50 uh 60 70 and uh before MLA entered I think it was almost 300 annualized inflation which is crazy, right? Yeah. Okie dokie. So uh question four, let's pivot from theory to something many viewers are invested in directly. This is Kevin from Pennsylvania. Everyone keeps saying that the 6040 portfolio is dead. Yeah, here at Wilson we definitely hear that a lot. Do you believe that? And can it make a resurgence in a different macro market environment? What do you think, Chris? Any chance the 6040 can come back? >> Yes. And and by the way, by 6040, you know, stocks, bonds, classic mix, you know, is it dead right now? I think it's dead in any >> Thanks for clarifying. Yes. >> Yeah. any situation where you have massive um government intervention in the the stock and bond markets, right? That's that's effectively where you need to look at different alternative assets um for sure. But on the other hand, it's also slowly dying just based on investment portfolio theory developments throughout the last, you know, I'd say two centuries really. It's only been about uh like 35 years since I think the prudent investor rule was fully adopted in the United States. So um and that basically is incorporating modern portfolio theory where you're looking at the portfolio as a whole, right? Because before that any individual investment would be could be considered too risky or what have you and would not be considered acceptable or prudent >> to be within a portfolio. But when you're looking at as a portfolio as a whole, it's a whole different mindset, right? So that's basically there's been a lot of good developments in investment theory that have been codified in law to extent it was relates to fiduciaries. So that's been a nice natural development over the years as well. Um, when does a 6040 in my opinion make the most sense? And I think you you hit the nail right on the head. It's when you have an economy that's coming out of um dire economic circumstances, socialism, embracing free markets. That's really when you're going to see the 6040 excel. So, we've seen that with the four Asian tigers, right, after World War II. We've seen it with the Cold War with Eastern Europe. We've seen it throughout history time and time again. It could be the Maji Republic or Maji Restoration in Japan, what have you. And I think we're seeing it right now with El Salvador and Argentina. So, is it I'd say it's not necessarily dead. It's dead in certain environments. It's certainly dying. That's not necessarily It's also just a a development in theory. I think it's in a beneficial one, >> right? So, it's more like a sleep in the States until capitalistic free market conditions return, so to speak. >> Yeah. Although you still will have a lot of mainstream advisors, you know, won't consider any any kind of alternatives and they their misconception is that they're not allowed to or what have you when they they should be open to other things. I mean, it's amazing how many adviserss won't even consider precious metals to this day, you know, they just don't feel it's appropriate, >> right? And potentially they'll end up recommending it at top. >> Yeah, that's true. That's true. They'll turn around then. Yeah. >> Right. Great. Great answer. Okay, question five. Um, so let's uh talk about portfolio mix. And this comes from Marianne in New York. She asks for regular investors. Chris, how much of a portfolio do you think realistically belongs in alternatives? You just mentioned alternatives uh like gold, real assets, private petty, etc. versus plain stocks and bonds, which are what the 6040 6040 traditional portfolio holds. What what do you think uh Chris? >> Yeah, that's a hard one to answer. I mean, I could tell you from like our clientele, I'd say uh so-called uh alternatives could range from 5 10% of portfolio to well over 50%. That's that wouldn't be unusual. It's very specific to the client's risk tolerances, obviously very specific to their stage in life, etc. So, it's a hard one to answer, but like I mentioned the previous question, it should at least be considered. Everyone should be considering these, >> right? Is there an alternative asset that is your favorite right now? You think has the most amount of upside with the least amount of risk? >> I don't know if any particular investment is alternative investment I'd say right now is better than I can't really think of anything. I can't comment on most of the particular securities anyway, but I'd say anything that's that you're looking at hedging inflation like we talked about because ultimately the US is going to have to reignite inflation when they deal with the debt situation which is coming to a head. It may be a couple years. I think it's sooner than that, but at some point, especially when you see interest rates rise, that's the signal to me, long-term rates rise, that everyone really needs to really start reassessing uh their so-called mainstream portfolios and looking at alternatives. >> Right. Right. When you were talking about the solveny graces, I was reminded of Ferguson's law. Have you heard of that? >> I don't believe so. >> Just to share with viewers since, you know, it's it's really interesting. It's basic. a statement by this I think 17th or 18th century economist and he says that when a nation's servicing of its death debt is larger than what they uh spend for their military expenses then uh it's it's a back pronosticator and it's particularly for great powers it's actually right if a great power starts spending more on servicing their debt that they spend on their military budget they will cease to be a great power and as As you know, worryingly the states is in that condition right now. >> Oh, well past that already in the states. By servicing debt, if you simply mean interest, we're already past that. It's it's already a really negative indicator already. >> Correct. Correct. I know we were talking about something else, but since you talked again about uh solveny and you know, hedging thought it was important to share that with viewers. So, um let's uh go back to uh speaking of alternatives and we have a very direct question about gold and this is Martin in Georgia and uh he asks Chris, gold has ripped these past two years. Boy, hasn't it? Right. Would you still buy or add at these levels or is that getting too risky? Not sure you can answer that, but what do you think, Chris? >> Yeah, well, gold obviously has done quite well. I think it's up like 100% over two years, over 50% year to date. So, um, whenever something runs like that, that's a reasonable question, right? Is this still time to buy? Have I missed the boat? I don't want to buy. No one wants to buy at the top, right? Gold is no longer cheap. It's not cheap uh in the sense of when you're looking at gold and historical basis relative to various monetary metrics in the US. Now, it's not expensive either. It's kind of in that middle zone, but it's getting towards the the expensive side. So, in that sense, you could argue we're getting to near a top. However, I think this time is different and that those are, you know, fatal last words obviously, but the reality is the debt situation here, if you're looking beyond it, if you're looking at how they're going to ultimately service it, if you're looking at the inflation that's going to ensue, then I think you can make a very good case that precious metals are cheap right now. So, there's some contrary indicators. Um, if anything, you want to be careful how you do it whenever something's run up this much. But the long-term prospects, I'm sure, look good for any kind of inflation hedges. it more and more seems like there is just no fiscal responsibility, right? They don't care and they'll just kick keep kicking the can down the road and spending what they have to spend. And um more to the point, all of these uh offbalance sheet liabilities that the government has which just amount to way way way more and what they uh owe right now. Yeah, it is it is absolutely crazy. Okay. Um let's go to a specific sector where you have strong views. We you you were in an interview with Maggie Lake about uh this and it's natural gas. So this is a question from Javier from Texas and he asks you've called natural gas a big big overlooked play for normal investors. What's the safest way to get exposure without touching wild future contracts? What do you think? Yeah, it's a good question about commodities in general because if you like a commodity, how are you going to go about investing in it? And you know, futures is problematic. First of all, a lot of people don't have access to futures. You got to stay on top of it. You got to roll them over continually. Um, even if you're right about, for instance, the spot price, maybe the futures, the curve on that is so dramatic, you're not really making money even if the spot price rises dramatically. So, there's a lot of problems with futures. In general, when you're talking about commodities, um, we tend to favor equities, the e the pure play equities. Now, there's there's some benefits to it as well because effectively when you have an equity, the producer of a commodity versus a commodity, you inherently have operating leverage. So, you have some leverage, which means you should have a more pronounced um return relative to the commodity itself when you invest in the equity. All things being equal, that's kind of the theory. Um the other nice thing about equities, especially with uh uh producers in the commodity space, you'll see this frequently, is that they're paying dividend yields. >> And so it's a great way to um earn some money, earn a return while you're waiting for the ultimate investment thesis to play out that the so-called commodity will go higher. So in general, I think I'd favor equities. Now, that's not without risk, right? Because equities ultimately are will trade like stocks. They are stocks, right? So they when there's a stock market downturn doesn't matter how good the particular investment thesis is about these particular stocks everything gets hurt in that kind of liquidity crisis. So in general I think we favor equities um I think it's a safer way to play commodities. Is the nat gas sector cheap like relative to earnings or it has a big dividend yield? Is it cheap by itself or is it more that you're thinking how to express a macro view or a view on the commodity itself? >> Yeah, the investment thesis that we mentioned in the podcast earlier this year on natural gas is really a way to play the artificial intelligence trend, really the data set, really the electricity demands on the grid. It's not just AI, it's >> non AI data center stuff. It's electric vehicles. It's cryptocurrency mining. All this is a dramatic demand for production, distribution of electricity in the United States. And >> in my mind, you know, nuclear gets a lot of attention right now. >> I think natural gas is a really safe way to play this. It's considered green. You could build these plants quickly, etc. Whether or not natural gas is is uh cheap or not right now or has dividends, you'll find a mixed bag. Um there's there's a number of natural gas plays out there. You're going to find anything from those that pay nice dividends to those that have no dividends, those that um but there's a lot more to it. You want to look at, you know, what they're actually producing. Do they have access to any kind of arbitration opportunities with exporting this, etc. There's it's a little bit more complicated, but you will find a mixed bag of of different valuation metrics within the natural gas uh sector. >> Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. Thank you, Chris. And now another question and uh this is about a sector that has been painful for a lot of viewers and myself included actually. You are uh interested in the sector which has elicited interest again in me I have to admit Chris thank you and you also had an interview with Maggie Lake about this and that is Pavis. So Linda in California writes Chris I watched your Canavis piece which I just mentioned. Do you think the sector is going to turn in say the next 12 months and what's the one signal you watch you'd watch for a real comeback? >> Yeah, we did a we did do a podcast earlier this year I think in June or so on cannabis uh stocks. You know the thesis there was that these things have been beat up so much even if they got to their 52- week highs I think you're looking at doubling or tripling your money. So it's was just a you know a great valuation play. Now, um, the key factor for me, I can't say timing on this, but the key factor, I think there's a couple things that could happen, but for me, the key is to reclassify cannabis. It's a no-brainer. >> It does not meet the criterion for a schedule one drug. There's there's no way it should be. Um, there's rumors that Trump wants to move to schedule three, which would be great for these companies. The other um development could be a passage of what they now call the safer act, which is just kind of banker reform to help these companies. But rescheduling really is the key because that gives them I think immediate tax relief. It allows them to cross state lines and if you're able to do that, the banking situation isn't that big of a deal. It'll solve itself. You'll have other for sources of capital, but that really reclassification is the key. Um unfortunately, I don't think there's any guide points guidepost to see when this is going to happen. It could happen from a 3:00 a.m., you know, uh, >> Twitter social. >> Yeah. Like Trump could just say, "Hey, I'm ordering so and so." Um, and it seems like it's long overdue there. This reclassification process supposedly started under Biden. They've had some hearings. I think the last one was scheduled for last January. They never did it. As far as I know, it hasn't been rescheduled. So, to me, that's really the key, but it's not a bad time to at least get in a little bit probably right now looking at the cannabis sector, >> right? And it seems to me what you're saying also and we can think about this is that it's highly likely it will happen at some point. Both sides of the aisle essentially agree that it shouldn't be a schedule one drug. Is that right? >> Yeah. That's the other advantage. You you would presumably there's bipartisan support for that. It's a little disconcerting in my mind that the most recent um budget and pass when it was resolved, they slipped in that anti-hempemp provision that prevents hemp companies from manufacturing anything into or having anything manufactured into THC derived drink. Now, there's a year on that. Hopefully, it's a mood point. Once we have rescheduling, maybe we'll have this reformed. I did view that as a negative, a setback. Um but hopefully that that gets resolved. Okay, so uh let's do our next question and it's a little fun, a little provoke provocative. This is Mark from Arizona, Chris, and he asks, "Chris, what's one unconventionable and conventional move you think more regular investors should at least consider but almost never hear about from mainstream advisors?" Oh, well, if you look at what mainstream advisors are all about, right, they probably have all the planning stuff down because that's primarily how they compete with each other is, you know, trying to get better planning because they, in my mind, they kind of do and say effectively kind of the same thing. So, um, uh, as far as, you know, their core belief, if you look at across the spectrum, all mainstream advisors, what do they always talk about? And I think that the one overriding theme would be in the market all the time, right? It's you got to be fully invested. said you can't time the market. Everyone's heard this from people. They've heard it from people on TV, etc. And in general, like I mentioned, that's good advice. It's not good advice when you're at so-called inflection points, when the market could turn dramatically, when you're at, you know, record high debt levels, when you're at record high valuation levels. That may not be the way to look at it. Um, so that's probably the the one consistent advice you're going to hear from a mainstream advisor that needs to be broken on occasion. Great thoughts. Great, great thoughts. Okie dokie. Um, all right. So, let's now speak directly to viewers who are closer to the finish line or just approaching retirement. And this is Daniel from New York with an interesting question because my parents are in that boat precisely. If you're like five or 10 years from retirement and worried about US solvency inflation and maybe an AI bust on top of it, what are the top two, three changes you'd make to a normal pre-retirement portfolio right now? >> Yeah. Well, the the classic advice when you're at that stage when you're looking at retirement, it's, you know, so-called short to intermediate future. Um, obviously they gravitate towards having people with more and more bonds in their portfolio. That's that's just traditional advice and unfortunately >> um that may be the worst advice you could have at this time in history because as we mentioned with the debt situation >> if it affects interest rates across the board. Yes, higher interest rates are going to hurt stocks but they devastate bonds. We saw this in the 1970s with high inflation, high interest rates, you had stocks basically tread water with inflation, right? So there was no real return over like a 10-year period in the 70s in the United States. However, bonds were decimated. They probably lost like a half to twothirds of their value. So um it's ironic, but as people think they're becoming more conservative, you know, these terms this nomclature has to change because reality if they do that and interest rates spike, they're doing the exact opposite of what they should have. So for this particular um viewer, I'd say uh you want to look at some income producing alternatives to bonds. Maybe it's just alternative investments that are structured with uh in in a debt um sit a debt type structure. U maybe it's high dividend paying stocks. Maybe it's other things. But I think you want to avoid the traditional advice and be very very careful especially with bonds, especially with longdated bonds if you're going into retirement. And if this scenario plays out, >> another uh key differentiator from from you guys at Win Rock to a mainstream, I can't agree more with you. There's nothing worse than bonds in an inflationary uh economy or in the if we have we're not seeing inflation right now, but we're definitely seeing the seeds uh for for its comeback with that question. So, um, Chris, we have la last question, just, uh, one more, and it's actually from me, and I'm a big reader. I love reading books. So, I wanna find out what your favorite books in economics, politics, or investment, you know, the the most um the ones that shape your thinking the most. What were the what are your favorite books and your the most impactful books for you in your life? >> Oh, geez. Well, on economics, there's so many classics. So if you look at any Austrian economist, if you look at anything put out by the MIS Institute, I think that's all great stuff. I mean, if you're looking at something that relates to uh the theory of the business cycle, America's Great Depression by Murray Rothbart is by far probably the best thing you could read as far as investing and uh politics, all that other kind of stuff. I love reading biographies of people I follow or like in that particular space. I think that's always a great way uh to learn about things is just reading biographies. And frankly, that's how history was originally presented. That's how the Greeks thought. Um and then that leads me to my next point. I guess I would all these topics, history, politics, even investing, all the, you know, economics. I'm sorry. They're all wrapped into history. So if you just read history, you're going to capture all of that. And surprisingly, you may be surprised um that the issues we face today are the exact same issues that have been faced time and time again by different societies. And so I think history is key and not just, you know, recent history. I think the ancient history is is fundamental. It's it's pivotal to learn ancient Greek uh history, ancient Roman history, because we're seeing those exact same issues play out right now. Um and there's a lot of economics in it. Uh I was reading a biography on Sman Chase who's former Secretary of Treasuries, former Supreme Court uh chief justice here in the United States uh appointed under Lincoln uh secretary of treasury ran the Treasury Department during the civil war and inflation skyrocketed under him when he issued the greenbacks. One of the surprising things to me just in reading history was that there was a lot of people that knew this was going to happen that basically flat out said that hey and I didn't realize they had that sophistication or knowledge or learn from their own history because we had a similar situation during the revolutionary war with the continental dollars or continentals but um I think history encompasses all these things and you'd learn quite a bit by just doing that. >> Love it. I'm huge fan of history and financial history. just out of top of your head, one of your favorite books on on history, financial history that you'd recommend? >> Oh, financial history. Um, I think anything in a crisis is worth reading. Uh, a crisis period. Uh, so I mentioned before America's Great Depression, Murray Rothbart. That is basically >> that's a great book. Yeah. >> Yeah. basically just a review extensive review of the Great Depression uh sources and you'll get a lot of um you know the theories about how they should have acted during the time too. So I I think that's probably the best book as far as a real crisis period because it was the biggest crisis economic crisis the US has ever faced. >> Yeah, absolutely. A recent one that I read on 1929 is Andrew Ross Orkins, more pop. It's a lot about the characters involved, right? Very similar to his earlier book on the 2008 2009 uh great financial crisis. Um, too big to fail. But, uh, it was a very interesting read and I think I read it in a couple days. So, I recommend that one to you and viewers. Okay. Well, Chris, this has been >> Go ahead. Sorry. >> No, I was gonna check I'll check it out for sure. >> Oh, yeah. definitely do. Um, so Chris, this has been fantastic. Thank you for walking through all these questions from our viewers and to everyone who's submitted a question and uh to those that we didn't have time to get to. Thank you very much. This channel really is a community and it's possible only by all of you, all our viewers. We're definitely going to keep doing these these AMA with Chris and these partners and our other endorsed registered investment advisors. So if you have any questions for these future ask me anything please write to us at info wealthy.com and again if today's discussion raised questions about your own portfolio don't forget you can get a free portfolio re review with Chris and his partners at Windrock by going to wealth.comfree again that's wealth.comfree Chris thanks again so much for joining joining us. >> Thank you Mario >> to Beirus. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you next time. [Music]
Chris Casey: Ask Me Anything | U.S. Solvency Crisis, Market Top & The Real Risks Ahead
Summary
Transcript
In today's day and age, we know where this is headed. There's only one solution. It's a de facto default. It's massive monetary printing to satisfy debt obligations as they come due. That will happen. And because of that, inflation really is kind of the roundabout way to play the fiscal situation. Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Wealthy. I am Mario Rodriguez, the channel's executive producer, and today we're doing something a little different and ask me anything with a good friend of the channel, Chris Casey, founder of Windrock Wealth Management. Chris, it's always great to have you back on Wealthian and her second time doing an MA AMA, sorry, and ask me anything. How are you, sir? >> Yeah, great. Great to see you again, Mario. >> Great to see you, too, sir. So, we had a ton of questions come in from viewers uh for you about how to protect your portfolios in what feels like a very strange market. You know, big runs in stocks, then strong volatility returning, what we saw last week, right? Worries about inflation, insolveny, things you've touched upon, AI, AI mania, and you know, a lot of confusion about what to actually do. And uh just before we jump in, a quick reminder. If you're watching this and wondering how it all applies to your specific financial situation, Chris and his team at Windrock offer a free, no obligation portfolio review at wealth.comfree. Just select wingrock in the form. Again, it's completely free with no commitment. Just go to wealth.comfree. Chris, sir, are you ready to jump in? >> Let's do it. >> Fantastic. Let's do it. So, let's start with a relatable one that I basically just uh talked about. It's a question that comes from Lauren in Florida and she wrote, "Markets feel nervous again." I can definitely attest to that. I am feeling nervous as well. After a big run this year, what's the simplest way regular people can protect profits without hiding all cash? Great question. You touched on this on a video we did some weeks ago. What do you think, Chris? >> Yeah, we did do a video on this a couple weeks ago, and there's a couple different categories. People, first of all, they do have a right to be fearful. Um, that's absolutely true. Given the US fiscal situation, they should absolutely be nervous. In our video, we touched upon some major categories, right? It's it's hedging, so it's looking at investments that'll do well as your other investments go down. It's d-risking and diversifying. So, it's changing the nature of your assets, getting more defensive. Um, it's being very um disciplined in your execution of rebalancing and things like that. So, those are those are things everyone should um should consider. Um, you know, if you if you do that in your end, it's, you know, I wouldn't say you should do that all the time because you really want to look at market extremes. And you could argue we're at one right now. We're at about a 39 on the Schiller PE ratio. We're at about a 3.3 on the S&P price to sales ratios. These are indications of extreme tops where you should be absolutely nervous. So, but what you should not do because too many people do this uh fairly frequently. We talk to people all the time about this. They get so nervous that they freeze up and they're out of the market completely. And studies show time after time again that it's you make your returns more so by being by the time in the market versus timing the market. So I only consider really timing at what I consider extreme levels. We probably are at one right now. So it's a great question. I would definitely look at some measures to derisk, institute some uh discipline your portfolio and just hedge your portfolio as well. >> Yeah, it is it is feeling jittery, right? You could see that last week on Thursday after Nvidia reported its latest quarterly earnings the day before it beat the streets predictions the market started rallying on Thursday and all of a sudden it just went the other way. Kind of feels like a market tub. >> It feels a little topsyturvy. Yeah. When you have reversals like that and and you know little news or little um news blurbs, you know, really move the markets. That's a sign that maybe it's fatigued in a way in general. >> Yeah, it is tired. But you're absolutely right in the sense that it is very important to commit to a strategy, stick to it, and think very long term and remain committed uh to the markets unless it's it's really extreme. But as you say, perhaps we're in that extreme right now. Okay. Um let's go to a level deeper into macro worries. And this is Brandon from New York for our second question. and he asks, "You recently talked a about a US solveny crisis coming. What do you think the first real warning sign will be that things are starting to break?" Great question. >> Yeah. Well, I think the first warning sign we've had for some time, right? So, just do the simple math. Look at the debt levels, look at the revenue levels, look at expenditures, and you quickly realize there's no way to deal with this situation in our lifetimes without really dramatic um events, which will never happen from political perspective. Um that's one sign. I think the next big sign though, and we've had this periodically, but not consistently, is when uh mandatory spending, so non-discretionary spending, spending that's going to be done regardless, exceeds that of revenue. And when you have that for federal government, that I think is a really bad fiscal indication. Right now, we're sort of close. I think the US government took in around 5 trillion last year. Um, and that uh non-discretionary spending was over four. So, it's good. 80 80 plus percent of overall spending. It has exceeded 100% threshold at periodic times in the past. Another sign I think is when that line item for interest expense you can't ignore anymore on the budget. Um and and we have that right now. I mean the depending on how you measure it interest as a percentage of uh overall fiscal expenditures is probably a good 15 plus percent. Somewhere in the 15 to 20% range. If you measure on revenue it's obviously even higher. So that's another key indication. Ultimately, all this is going to be expressed in long-term rates. So I think the last key indication will be a replay of what happened in the United Kingdom several times both this year and back in I believe October of 2022 when interest rate long-term interest rates spiked dramatically given fiscal concerns. I think that'll probably be the last thing you're we have. Now the problem is that it could happen quite quickly. So you have to prepare for it to today. >> How do you prepare for it? can't help but ask that question. >> Well, you you have to look at the other side of what happens to get out of this fiscal situation. So, >> in with saying government and you know, a society that embraces free markets, you'd have a very different answer. You know, you have spending cut to the bone, etc. In today's day and age, we know where this is headed. There's only one solution. It's a de facto default. It's massive monetary printing to satisfy um debt obligations as they come due. That will happen. And because of that, inflation really is kind of the roundabout way to play the fiscal situation. It's any inflation hedge ultimately is going to is going to be what protects you, >> right? But it's a little a little bit like um the government's kicking the can down the road, so we better hedge that devaluating or debilitating currency. You know, it's it's funny. I was just thinking before we started recording, we're talking about Argentina, and it feels very much like a lot of countries, including the US. You mentioned the UK right now with what happened when Liz Truss was the uh prime minister and uh feels like a lot of the first world is becoming or looking to the past of the South American government's you know piron of Argentina of massive fiscal spending very high regulation and look what happened right >> I say it's even beyond that though Mario it's it's beyond >> you think that imagine that rule of law. It's sound currency. There's a lot of similarities between >> regulation. Yeah. >> World economy. >> Yeah, it is definitely scary and worrisome, I would say. Yeah. Okay. Um let's go to the third question, Chris. And uh let's stay on the macro theme and something that both you and I um enjoy, admire and are uh adherence of which is uh the Austrian school of economics. And uh this is from Nathan in California. By the way, this also is related to the previous question and your answer. So Nathan asks from an Austrian crack a boom crack up boom or a malinvestment perspective what uh Ligon Visas talks about. Do you think we're already in that final phase where people start dumping currency for anything real or not yet? What would you watch to know we've crossed that? >> Yeah. Um, and by the way, you the last uh sentence you mentioned is the definition of a crackup boom. That's where people because it's that's a misused term quite a bit. I see it misused by a lot of different financial pundits. It is considered the point where people have zero demand for money and so they're dumping it for any kind of assets. Think, you know, Vimar Republic where they've got a a wheelbarrow of cash going to buy cigarettes or what have you. You know, that's kind of thing that's going on. Are we there yet? Well, obviously we're not there yet. We're we're not even close. I mean, you could quibble and argue about uh inflation data, you know, all all day long. Uh but ultimately, it may be uh inaccurate, but it's not completely wrong. And so therefore, until we have the CPI back at 9 plus% like we did a couple years ago, until we have it well into the teens, you're not even thinking about any type of crackup boom, uh at least here in the US. >> Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes absolute sense. Um going back to Argentina again, right, they also were experiencing 50 uh 60 70 and uh before MLA entered I think it was almost 300 annualized inflation which is crazy, right? Yeah. Okie dokie. So uh question four, let's pivot from theory to something many viewers are invested in directly. This is Kevin from Pennsylvania. Everyone keeps saying that the 6040 portfolio is dead. Yeah, here at Wilson we definitely hear that a lot. Do you believe that? And can it make a resurgence in a different macro market environment? What do you think, Chris? Any chance the 6040 can come back? >> Yes. And and by the way, by 6040, you know, stocks, bonds, classic mix, you know, is it dead right now? I think it's dead in any >> Thanks for clarifying. Yes. >> Yeah. any situation where you have massive um government intervention in the the stock and bond markets, right? That's that's effectively where you need to look at different alternative assets um for sure. But on the other hand, it's also slowly dying just based on investment portfolio theory developments throughout the last, you know, I'd say two centuries really. It's only been about uh like 35 years since I think the prudent investor rule was fully adopted in the United States. So um and that basically is incorporating modern portfolio theory where you're looking at the portfolio as a whole, right? Because before that any individual investment would be could be considered too risky or what have you and would not be considered acceptable or prudent >> to be within a portfolio. But when you're looking at as a portfolio as a whole, it's a whole different mindset, right? So that's basically there's been a lot of good developments in investment theory that have been codified in law to extent it was relates to fiduciaries. So that's been a nice natural development over the years as well. Um, when does a 6040 in my opinion make the most sense? And I think you you hit the nail right on the head. It's when you have an economy that's coming out of um dire economic circumstances, socialism, embracing free markets. That's really when you're going to see the 6040 excel. So, we've seen that with the four Asian tigers, right, after World War II. We've seen it with the Cold War with Eastern Europe. We've seen it throughout history time and time again. It could be the Maji Republic or Maji Restoration in Japan, what have you. And I think we're seeing it right now with El Salvador and Argentina. So, is it I'd say it's not necessarily dead. It's dead in certain environments. It's certainly dying. That's not necessarily It's also just a a development in theory. I think it's in a beneficial one, >> right? So, it's more like a sleep in the States until capitalistic free market conditions return, so to speak. >> Yeah. Although you still will have a lot of mainstream advisors, you know, won't consider any any kind of alternatives and they their misconception is that they're not allowed to or what have you when they they should be open to other things. I mean, it's amazing how many adviserss won't even consider precious metals to this day, you know, they just don't feel it's appropriate, >> right? And potentially they'll end up recommending it at top. >> Yeah, that's true. That's true. They'll turn around then. Yeah. >> Right. Great. Great answer. Okay, question five. Um, so let's uh talk about portfolio mix. And this comes from Marianne in New York. She asks for regular investors. Chris, how much of a portfolio do you think realistically belongs in alternatives? You just mentioned alternatives uh like gold, real assets, private petty, etc. versus plain stocks and bonds, which are what the 6040 6040 traditional portfolio holds. What what do you think uh Chris? >> Yeah, that's a hard one to answer. I mean, I could tell you from like our clientele, I'd say uh so-called uh alternatives could range from 5 10% of portfolio to well over 50%. That's that wouldn't be unusual. It's very specific to the client's risk tolerances, obviously very specific to their stage in life, etc. So, it's a hard one to answer, but like I mentioned the previous question, it should at least be considered. Everyone should be considering these, >> right? Is there an alternative asset that is your favorite right now? You think has the most amount of upside with the least amount of risk? >> I don't know if any particular investment is alternative investment I'd say right now is better than I can't really think of anything. I can't comment on most of the particular securities anyway, but I'd say anything that's that you're looking at hedging inflation like we talked about because ultimately the US is going to have to reignite inflation when they deal with the debt situation which is coming to a head. It may be a couple years. I think it's sooner than that, but at some point, especially when you see interest rates rise, that's the signal to me, long-term rates rise, that everyone really needs to really start reassessing uh their so-called mainstream portfolios and looking at alternatives. >> Right. Right. When you were talking about the solveny graces, I was reminded of Ferguson's law. Have you heard of that? >> I don't believe so. >> Just to share with viewers since, you know, it's it's really interesting. It's basic. a statement by this I think 17th or 18th century economist and he says that when a nation's servicing of its death debt is larger than what they uh spend for their military expenses then uh it's it's a back pronosticator and it's particularly for great powers it's actually right if a great power starts spending more on servicing their debt that they spend on their military budget they will cease to be a great power and as As you know, worryingly the states is in that condition right now. >> Oh, well past that already in the states. By servicing debt, if you simply mean interest, we're already past that. It's it's already a really negative indicator already. >> Correct. Correct. I know we were talking about something else, but since you talked again about uh solveny and you know, hedging thought it was important to share that with viewers. So, um let's uh go back to uh speaking of alternatives and we have a very direct question about gold and this is Martin in Georgia and uh he asks Chris, gold has ripped these past two years. Boy, hasn't it? Right. Would you still buy or add at these levels or is that getting too risky? Not sure you can answer that, but what do you think, Chris? >> Yeah, well, gold obviously has done quite well. I think it's up like 100% over two years, over 50% year to date. So, um, whenever something runs like that, that's a reasonable question, right? Is this still time to buy? Have I missed the boat? I don't want to buy. No one wants to buy at the top, right? Gold is no longer cheap. It's not cheap uh in the sense of when you're looking at gold and historical basis relative to various monetary metrics in the US. Now, it's not expensive either. It's kind of in that middle zone, but it's getting towards the the expensive side. So, in that sense, you could argue we're getting to near a top. However, I think this time is different and that those are, you know, fatal last words obviously, but the reality is the debt situation here, if you're looking beyond it, if you're looking at how they're going to ultimately service it, if you're looking at the inflation that's going to ensue, then I think you can make a very good case that precious metals are cheap right now. So, there's some contrary indicators. Um, if anything, you want to be careful how you do it whenever something's run up this much. But the long-term prospects, I'm sure, look good for any kind of inflation hedges. it more and more seems like there is just no fiscal responsibility, right? They don't care and they'll just kick keep kicking the can down the road and spending what they have to spend. And um more to the point, all of these uh offbalance sheet liabilities that the government has which just amount to way way way more and what they uh owe right now. Yeah, it is it is absolutely crazy. Okay. Um let's go to a specific sector where you have strong views. We you you were in an interview with Maggie Lake about uh this and it's natural gas. So this is a question from Javier from Texas and he asks you've called natural gas a big big overlooked play for normal investors. What's the safest way to get exposure without touching wild future contracts? What do you think? Yeah, it's a good question about commodities in general because if you like a commodity, how are you going to go about investing in it? And you know, futures is problematic. First of all, a lot of people don't have access to futures. You got to stay on top of it. You got to roll them over continually. Um, even if you're right about, for instance, the spot price, maybe the futures, the curve on that is so dramatic, you're not really making money even if the spot price rises dramatically. So, there's a lot of problems with futures. In general, when you're talking about commodities, um, we tend to favor equities, the e the pure play equities. Now, there's there's some benefits to it as well because effectively when you have an equity, the producer of a commodity versus a commodity, you inherently have operating leverage. So, you have some leverage, which means you should have a more pronounced um return relative to the commodity itself when you invest in the equity. All things being equal, that's kind of the theory. Um the other nice thing about equities, especially with uh uh producers in the commodity space, you'll see this frequently, is that they're paying dividend yields. >> And so it's a great way to um earn some money, earn a return while you're waiting for the ultimate investment thesis to play out that the so-called commodity will go higher. So in general, I think I'd favor equities. Now, that's not without risk, right? Because equities ultimately are will trade like stocks. They are stocks, right? So they when there's a stock market downturn doesn't matter how good the particular investment thesis is about these particular stocks everything gets hurt in that kind of liquidity crisis. So in general I think we favor equities um I think it's a safer way to play commodities. Is the nat gas sector cheap like relative to earnings or it has a big dividend yield? Is it cheap by itself or is it more that you're thinking how to express a macro view or a view on the commodity itself? >> Yeah, the investment thesis that we mentioned in the podcast earlier this year on natural gas is really a way to play the artificial intelligence trend, really the data set, really the electricity demands on the grid. It's not just AI, it's >> non AI data center stuff. It's electric vehicles. It's cryptocurrency mining. All this is a dramatic demand for production, distribution of electricity in the United States. And >> in my mind, you know, nuclear gets a lot of attention right now. >> I think natural gas is a really safe way to play this. It's considered green. You could build these plants quickly, etc. Whether or not natural gas is is uh cheap or not right now or has dividends, you'll find a mixed bag. Um there's there's a number of natural gas plays out there. You're going to find anything from those that pay nice dividends to those that have no dividends, those that um but there's a lot more to it. You want to look at, you know, what they're actually producing. Do they have access to any kind of arbitration opportunities with exporting this, etc. There's it's a little bit more complicated, but you will find a mixed bag of of different valuation metrics within the natural gas uh sector. >> Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. Thank you, Chris. And now another question and uh this is about a sector that has been painful for a lot of viewers and myself included actually. You are uh interested in the sector which has elicited interest again in me I have to admit Chris thank you and you also had an interview with Maggie Lake about this and that is Pavis. So Linda in California writes Chris I watched your Canavis piece which I just mentioned. Do you think the sector is going to turn in say the next 12 months and what's the one signal you watch you'd watch for a real comeback? >> Yeah, we did a we did do a podcast earlier this year I think in June or so on cannabis uh stocks. You know the thesis there was that these things have been beat up so much even if they got to their 52- week highs I think you're looking at doubling or tripling your money. So it's was just a you know a great valuation play. Now, um, the key factor for me, I can't say timing on this, but the key factor, I think there's a couple things that could happen, but for me, the key is to reclassify cannabis. It's a no-brainer. >> It does not meet the criterion for a schedule one drug. There's there's no way it should be. Um, there's rumors that Trump wants to move to schedule three, which would be great for these companies. The other um development could be a passage of what they now call the safer act, which is just kind of banker reform to help these companies. But rescheduling really is the key because that gives them I think immediate tax relief. It allows them to cross state lines and if you're able to do that, the banking situation isn't that big of a deal. It'll solve itself. You'll have other for sources of capital, but that really reclassification is the key. Um unfortunately, I don't think there's any guide points guidepost to see when this is going to happen. It could happen from a 3:00 a.m., you know, uh, >> Twitter social. >> Yeah. Like Trump could just say, "Hey, I'm ordering so and so." Um, and it seems like it's long overdue there. This reclassification process supposedly started under Biden. They've had some hearings. I think the last one was scheduled for last January. They never did it. As far as I know, it hasn't been rescheduled. So, to me, that's really the key, but it's not a bad time to at least get in a little bit probably right now looking at the cannabis sector, >> right? And it seems to me what you're saying also and we can think about this is that it's highly likely it will happen at some point. Both sides of the aisle essentially agree that it shouldn't be a schedule one drug. Is that right? >> Yeah. That's the other advantage. You you would presumably there's bipartisan support for that. It's a little disconcerting in my mind that the most recent um budget and pass when it was resolved, they slipped in that anti-hempemp provision that prevents hemp companies from manufacturing anything into or having anything manufactured into THC derived drink. Now, there's a year on that. Hopefully, it's a mood point. Once we have rescheduling, maybe we'll have this reformed. I did view that as a negative, a setback. Um but hopefully that that gets resolved. Okay, so uh let's do our next question and it's a little fun, a little provoke provocative. This is Mark from Arizona, Chris, and he asks, "Chris, what's one unconventionable and conventional move you think more regular investors should at least consider but almost never hear about from mainstream advisors?" Oh, well, if you look at what mainstream advisors are all about, right, they probably have all the planning stuff down because that's primarily how they compete with each other is, you know, trying to get better planning because they, in my mind, they kind of do and say effectively kind of the same thing. So, um, uh, as far as, you know, their core belief, if you look at across the spectrum, all mainstream advisors, what do they always talk about? And I think that the one overriding theme would be in the market all the time, right? It's you got to be fully invested. said you can't time the market. Everyone's heard this from people. They've heard it from people on TV, etc. And in general, like I mentioned, that's good advice. It's not good advice when you're at so-called inflection points, when the market could turn dramatically, when you're at, you know, record high debt levels, when you're at record high valuation levels. That may not be the way to look at it. Um, so that's probably the the one consistent advice you're going to hear from a mainstream advisor that needs to be broken on occasion. Great thoughts. Great, great thoughts. Okie dokie. Um, all right. So, let's now speak directly to viewers who are closer to the finish line or just approaching retirement. And this is Daniel from New York with an interesting question because my parents are in that boat precisely. If you're like five or 10 years from retirement and worried about US solvency inflation and maybe an AI bust on top of it, what are the top two, three changes you'd make to a normal pre-retirement portfolio right now? >> Yeah. Well, the the classic advice when you're at that stage when you're looking at retirement, it's, you know, so-called short to intermediate future. Um, obviously they gravitate towards having people with more and more bonds in their portfolio. That's that's just traditional advice and unfortunately >> um that may be the worst advice you could have at this time in history because as we mentioned with the debt situation >> if it affects interest rates across the board. Yes, higher interest rates are going to hurt stocks but they devastate bonds. We saw this in the 1970s with high inflation, high interest rates, you had stocks basically tread water with inflation, right? So there was no real return over like a 10-year period in the 70s in the United States. However, bonds were decimated. They probably lost like a half to twothirds of their value. So um it's ironic, but as people think they're becoming more conservative, you know, these terms this nomclature has to change because reality if they do that and interest rates spike, they're doing the exact opposite of what they should have. So for this particular um viewer, I'd say uh you want to look at some income producing alternatives to bonds. Maybe it's just alternative investments that are structured with uh in in a debt um sit a debt type structure. U maybe it's high dividend paying stocks. Maybe it's other things. But I think you want to avoid the traditional advice and be very very careful especially with bonds, especially with longdated bonds if you're going into retirement. And if this scenario plays out, >> another uh key differentiator from from you guys at Win Rock to a mainstream, I can't agree more with you. There's nothing worse than bonds in an inflationary uh economy or in the if we have we're not seeing inflation right now, but we're definitely seeing the seeds uh for for its comeback with that question. So, um, Chris, we have la last question, just, uh, one more, and it's actually from me, and I'm a big reader. I love reading books. So, I wanna find out what your favorite books in economics, politics, or investment, you know, the the most um the ones that shape your thinking the most. What were the what are your favorite books and your the most impactful books for you in your life? >> Oh, geez. Well, on economics, there's so many classics. So if you look at any Austrian economist, if you look at anything put out by the MIS Institute, I think that's all great stuff. I mean, if you're looking at something that relates to uh the theory of the business cycle, America's Great Depression by Murray Rothbart is by far probably the best thing you could read as far as investing and uh politics, all that other kind of stuff. I love reading biographies of people I follow or like in that particular space. I think that's always a great way uh to learn about things is just reading biographies. And frankly, that's how history was originally presented. That's how the Greeks thought. Um and then that leads me to my next point. I guess I would all these topics, history, politics, even investing, all the, you know, economics. I'm sorry. They're all wrapped into history. So if you just read history, you're going to capture all of that. And surprisingly, you may be surprised um that the issues we face today are the exact same issues that have been faced time and time again by different societies. And so I think history is key and not just, you know, recent history. I think the ancient history is is fundamental. It's it's pivotal to learn ancient Greek uh history, ancient Roman history, because we're seeing those exact same issues play out right now. Um and there's a lot of economics in it. Uh I was reading a biography on Sman Chase who's former Secretary of Treasuries, former Supreme Court uh chief justice here in the United States uh appointed under Lincoln uh secretary of treasury ran the Treasury Department during the civil war and inflation skyrocketed under him when he issued the greenbacks. One of the surprising things to me just in reading history was that there was a lot of people that knew this was going to happen that basically flat out said that hey and I didn't realize they had that sophistication or knowledge or learn from their own history because we had a similar situation during the revolutionary war with the continental dollars or continentals but um I think history encompasses all these things and you'd learn quite a bit by just doing that. >> Love it. I'm huge fan of history and financial history. just out of top of your head, one of your favorite books on on history, financial history that you'd recommend? >> Oh, financial history. Um, I think anything in a crisis is worth reading. Uh, a crisis period. Uh, so I mentioned before America's Great Depression, Murray Rothbart. That is basically >> that's a great book. Yeah. >> Yeah. basically just a review extensive review of the Great Depression uh sources and you'll get a lot of um you know the theories about how they should have acted during the time too. So I I think that's probably the best book as far as a real crisis period because it was the biggest crisis economic crisis the US has ever faced. >> Yeah, absolutely. A recent one that I read on 1929 is Andrew Ross Orkins, more pop. It's a lot about the characters involved, right? Very similar to his earlier book on the 2008 2009 uh great financial crisis. Um, too big to fail. But, uh, it was a very interesting read and I think I read it in a couple days. So, I recommend that one to you and viewers. Okay. Well, Chris, this has been >> Go ahead. Sorry. >> No, I was gonna check I'll check it out for sure. >> Oh, yeah. definitely do. Um, so Chris, this has been fantastic. Thank you for walking through all these questions from our viewers and to everyone who's submitted a question and uh to those that we didn't have time to get to. Thank you very much. This channel really is a community and it's possible only by all of you, all our viewers. We're definitely going to keep doing these these AMA with Chris and these partners and our other endorsed registered investment advisors. So if you have any questions for these future ask me anything please write to us at info wealthy.com and again if today's discussion raised questions about your own portfolio don't forget you can get a free portfolio re review with Chris and his partners at Windrock by going to wealth.comfree again that's wealth.comfree Chris thanks again so much for joining joining us. >> Thank you Mario >> to Beirus. Thank you all for watching. We'll see you next time. [Music]