Bert Dohmen: Gold Price Going "Much Higher," Silver to Play Catch Up
Summary
Gold Outlook: Strong long-term bullish case through 2030 driven by monetary debasement and sovereign debt concerns, with a potential catalyst from any move toward gold-backed U.S. Treasuries.
Silver & Miners: Silver seen as having significant catch-up potential versus gold; favors diversified silver miner ETFs for upside with reduced single-name manipulation risk.
AI Sector: Transformational but potentially in a bubble, with rising job losses and financing challenges for heavy capex commitments during recessionary conditions.
Cryptocurrencies/Bitcoin: Expects a prolonged meltdown with all cryptos ultimately trending toward zero, citing extreme leverage, margin calls, and lack of intrinsic value.
Macro/Deflation: Warns deflation is the central bank nightmare and sees a path to 0% policy rates in a deep downturn, with weak demand for long-term sovereign bonds.
US Treasuries & Gold Link: Suggests gold-backed Treasuries could restore global demand and trust, indirectly supporting a structurally higher gold price.
Stock Selection: Endorses NVDA as the premier AI play given its moat across chips and software, but cautions on valuation and broader high-multiple tech names.
Transcript
I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Bert Dolman, founder and CEO of Dolman Capital Research. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, it's my pleasure to be with you. >> Yes, really good to be catching up with you once again. We are catching up from our last interview all the way back in I believe June. So, a lot has happened since then. I know one of the issues that you really emphasized at that time was the inaccuracy of the US jobs numbers that we were getting and I wanted to pick up on that once again because we we did just get the latest US jobs number but it's after the government shutdown where of course we had a lack of availability of data. So I wanted to begin with those jobs numbers. Anything you would pull out or maybe from the government shutdown situation as well? Well, I think we're not getting any this statistics now because of the shutdown of the government, but I think that's really a blessing because the numbers are so wrong and so misleading. So, let's do away with those numbers and have people find the real numbers and the real numbers come from private companies. You know, there are several companies that really publish good statistics and um they're much much more trustworthy than those from the government. The numbers from the government you can never trust. We have become just like China. If you believe Chinese economic statistics, you better watch out that somebody will not sell you the broken bridge. Uh so we don't believe those numbers. We do our own research and in fact it's really interesting the BLS numbers Bureau of Labor Statistics their numbers the ones that they publish and make the headlines on on TV are seasonally adjusted. They never tell anyone how they make those adjustments. And we wrote several times and said they probably just called the White House economist and said what number would you like for jobs? You know, that's about how accurate it is. Totally tainted. And to Mr. Trump's credit, he fired the head of BLS because these numbers were so corrupt. And um but who knows? I I don't think they'll get much better, but because the government is government, it's always the same, you know, and you cannot trust what they put out. So, we look at our own statistics. We look at what's actually happening in the economy. We see now reports from uh our clients, business owners and so on. Their businesses are just falling off the cliff over the last 3 four weeks. So that is a real economy. Uh so when small businesses start having trouble then the big companies will follow. And um one thing we haven't heard much talk about is what may be causing this you know and I think it is AI is very good I mean it's I I call it technology it's magic you know it's really amazing we use it not only for for search which most people use AI for but for actually doing projects it's amazing how powerful it is And and that will mean that a lot of people at companies even tech companies will be superfluous. But we saw it as about I think it was about a month ago there was Microsoft released earnings and revenues revenues and earnings were new record highs. And at the same time they said we're going to let 15,000 people go. really they're they're at the forefront of AI and business is fantastic and they're letting 15,000 people go. Now, can you imagine what other companies that are not a record high what they're doing when they start using AI, you know, when we're just at the the first stages. So it's a the estimates now are being increased all the time by uh by institutions of how many people will lose jobs. We said about a half a million might lose jobs in the next couple of years in the United States. But now we have to look at millions millions of people who lose jobs. And um now usually in uh technological advances like this, the last one I guess you could say was the com bubble u there were other things that compensated you know like building website building out the internet you know so the people just transferred their jobs you know from one area to another area but this time around I don't see that I think the people that uh that no AI, they will have a lot of job offers. People that don't, they will not have any job offers. There's nothing to replace it. So, and that that would really raise a spectre of deflation. We have not had deflation for a long time. And this is the nightmare of central bankers. The central bankers always say we can handle inflation. All we have to do is reduce money supply growth. But we cannot handle deflation because the deflation they can put the money out there [clears throat] through the banks for example. But if the banks don't lend the money out, money supply will not grow. The economy will not grow. It's just that simple, you know. And so and bankers will not make the loans if they don't think they're going to get the money back. It's just that simple, you know. So that's why deflation is really the nightmare of central bankers. And we now have we have millions and millions of people worldwide. This is not just US worldwide losing jobs. This is going to be a big big problem worldwide. >> Okay. I think we've got a number of topics there that we need to pick up on. And I want to first ask you a little bit more about AI because when it comes to AI, I've been hearing a lot about the concerns about whether there's a bubble in AI stocks. I haven't been hearing so much about the job losses that you've been going over, but are you also looking at the AI bubble angle? Well, there definitely is a a lending bubble and you know good question is um these commitments that the AI companies are making for future expenditures and so on that area where they going to get the money from you know when you're in a big recession it's even for AI companies it's going to be hard to go to a bank and get the loan and now we're on top of that we're we're seeing the start of the meltdown in the crypto area. The cryptos have finally doing what we have been forecasting. All the cryptos eventually will go to one to the same price which is zero which is the intrinsic value. Uh there's no intrinsic value of anything like Bitcoin and so on. And that is going to cause a major calamity because these people we just saw the prelude uh this month in the Bitcoin crash. Bitcoin was down 35% in just a couple of weeks. Uh this is just a prelude because so much leverage receives you know there's nothing to say about is Bitcoin worth it or not. So has nothing to do with that. But when you buy anything with a three or four or five times leverage, I don't care what it is, you know, it's going to implode and kill the lender. I mean, the the borrower. This is incredible the leverage that's being used by some of these well-known companies. I won't mention the names but it is really outrageous to think that these grown people don't think that this is dangerous. Yes, we saw it here in just a couple of weeks there was a meltdown. A meltdown. Millions of crypto accounts, Bitcoin accounts were closed because [clears throat] the people couldn't meet the margin calls. Yeah. And this is just a start. Can you imagine when the real selling starts? >> Well, that that's quite a a statement when it comes to Bitcoin. So, you see all cryptocurrencies eventually going to zero. Is this decline that we're seeing right now in Bitcoin? Are you looking at that as the start as that move down to zero for Bitcoin? >> Yeah, but it's not going to happen in the next year. You know, it takes time for these things for people to lose lose total interest. say okay Bitcoin really and all these cryptos really do not have any intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is when there's something of value. What do you do when you buy Bitcoin? You give somebody unknown your money $100,000 let's say for for Bitcoin. Okay. What do you get? You get a digital token, a number. You get a number. What can you buy for that number? You go to to Safeway and try to get a loaf of bread with that number, you won't get it. You you try to get beer for it, you can't get it. Okay. So, what what is the value of this this thing? This precious thing. They call it liquid gold. I mean, what a misnomer that is. You know, we saw it [clears throat] here. The liquid gold went down 35%. in a couple of weeks, you know. So, it certainly wasn't liquid gold, was it? >> No. No. I think we're we're probably >> I I think eventually in a few decades when books will be written about it, people will write say how this was the biggest financial scam ever in the history of mankind. How could people ever fall for this? >> We'll we'll have to see how this plays out. I think we'll all be keeping a really close eye on that. And I want to go back to what you were saying about deflation as well. This is the the worst nightmare for the central banks. And before we turn the camera on, you're talking about this Fed meeting that's coming up in December and how people are placing so much importance on it. And you're you're not necessarily seeing it the same way. So what are you looking for at that December Fed meeting? >> Well, they're they're playing games again. You know, they're trying to make people now answer well. Maybe it's not a sure thing. Maybe the Fed won't cut rates and so on. Getting people on edge. It's all it's a kabuki theater. That's what it is. You know, they know they're going to cut [clears throat] and they also know it won't have any effect. Would it make any any difference to a borrower if he's paying a quarter% more interest than he paid before? Would it make any difference for you if you would to get car loan and suddenly somebody said, "Oh, I got a deal for you. was a quarter% less interest. Would you even listen to somebody saying that? No. No. It's crazy. That's crazy. What matters is that the Federal Reserve is lying again. They've been saying they've been practicing QT quantitative tightening all year, which is such a lie. We have money supply N2 growing all year long is now at a new record high. We have bank loans growing and it's now at an all-time high. You don't have those growing when there's tight money. They are declining when you have tight money. So, but there are enough people who believe this stuff. >> Well, okay. And that's very interesting because the Fed has also said, "All right, now QT is coming to an end." So, they weren't even practicing it properly before and now they say it's coming to an end. What What do you see happening next? Well, the the next thing is, you know, you have to differentiate between short-term rates and long-term rates. Always long-term rates are the balance. Uh short-term rates, I think eventually because if a recession gets too bad, uh like a depression, uh you're going to have 0% interest rates. Yeah. And uh so this is basically you know it's a first step going to zero again which we did have last was about 8 years ago something like that. So we're going to have that bond prices a big problem uh for the Fed for the US Treasury. Actually the US Treasury needs to sell long-term bonds. Nobody wants to buy long-term bonds. And many times commentators will say, "Well, US, they don't have confidence in the US." No, nobody wants to buy long-term bonds anywhere, you know, not non Japan, non China, not anywhere because they don't trust any government. There's no government you can trust right now, you know, untrustworthy. I mean, we we really have the worst governments in the world, uh, but um worldwide. So, uh, what what's going to happen? I think something that Trump should consider is, um, this would be very interesting. Um, it make US treasury bonds backed by gold. Wouldn't that be a shocker? Suddenly, the US would be the only Treasury bond that is backed by gold. That would make US bonds the most desirable asset in the world probably. Yeah. And that could happen. But how much would you have to raise it to? Well, in order to back all the US Treasury bonds that are outstanding now, you would have to raise the price to around $20,000 per ounce. So that is a good target rate to look at for for gold. you know, $20,000 would back all the uh US bonds with gold. So then I think that would and I think it's kind of within the mentality of Trump. He likes to come with big surprises and can you imagine the US suddenly has the only Treasury bond in the world backed by gold? >> He he does like to come with surprises and that that would certainly be a big one. And I think with the US right now, one of the issues it's having with countries around the world is a lack of trust. So do you do you think if they would back treasury with gold that would increase the trust that other nations around the world have in the US and bring them back in once again? Well, other nations would start investing in US Treasury bonds because then if it's backed by gold, the the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, which is considered the central bank for central bankers, it's located in Basil, Switzerland, and they have they issued they they have classified gold as zero risk for for banks. Okay, that that's quite a bit. So, you have an investment that has zero risk. I've never known many investments that have zero risk. Okay, but this is official. So that means that banks do not have to put up reserves against their gold holdings, which makes it really amazing. It's a beautiful asset. They can have their surplus cash sitting there in gold. They don't have to put up any reserves for that. So gold is really a fantastic asset. There's no way that this so-called liquid gold, which is a fairy tale, can compete with that, you know. And I mean, gold has been around [clears throat] for, you know, for 3,000 years. It's been uh basically money. 3,000 years is a long time for something to uh to keep its place. It's a store of value. If you want to keep your value, yes, it'll have ups and downs depending on you and emotions. The ups and downs in markets always funk is up. It's not due to events or external factors. Ups and downs in markets are caused by human emotions. You know, it's a fear and greed. Fear [clears throat] and greed. That's that's what makes Walmart film their hearts. [snorts] And when we issued the forecast in 2020 before the whole decade, which is normal in our business, you know, everybody in our business has to give the forecast for the decade. And is that the closest we'll get to is if you look at the 1930s, the Great Depression, and we're going to have something similar. Yeah. We're going to have all the things that we had at that time. Famines, wars, turmoil, social upsets, turtles in the street, governments being overthrown by the people and so on. Uh when you look around, isn't that what we're having except now we have a genocide on top of that which we didn't have since the 1940s. So, you know, it's really something how how history that doesn't repeat exactly but it rhymes. You know, I think Mark Twain said that history is not repeat but it rhymes. >> Yeah, that's that's very interesting. Are there any other parallels you would pull out between what we're seeing now and previous times that you think investors should really be aware of? Well, I think human emotions are always the same. You know, the vied that's always the thing. You know, I would advise and I have advised our our valued subscribers. Many of them have been with us for decades. You know, I think we have the greatest loyalty of any subscribership in the financial business. And um I would say you know um just be be sure that you know what's what's happened before and that you don't fall into the same traps. When you see the majority on one side of your friends, you want to be on the opposite side. When you suddenly see that your opinion is the majority opinion, you know you're going to be wrong. So you better see where you were wrong. And that's what we do every time. And for example, late September uh this year we were looking for a good uh year end rally to start in November and November 7 as it usually does. And then our work showed uh in late in September, ah that's not going to happen. We're going to have a big correction in November. And we're so we said it will change our mind and the facts change we change with it and we're going to have a big correction in November and probably led by the crypto currencies. We had it. We had it. So our work showed that we use advanced technical analysis. Technical analysis is looking at money flows. What shows your money flows? All the analysts that you see on TV, they only talk about if they even mention technical indicators like they mention RSI and MACD and some of these things, but they all these indicators don't include the important factor which is volume. You want to know how much money you when you when you only look at price. That's all you know. And they can the output traders they can fool you as many times as they want to only looking at price. You want to know how much money went into changing that price whether it's up or down. Yeah, that's that's one main thing. So we have developed what we call the doman the money flow index and we showed in all the charts always what the for example last couple of months we've been seeing the money flow index uh declining declining in all the major indices while the indices were making new highs that shows us what's called distribution. Distribution is when stocks are being sold by the big smart money to the naive late comers. You know that's that's what it shows you money is going out when the prices are going up. Ah there you go. So the market is under distribution that that it's just that simple. So when the market is under distribution you don't want to be buying you know and Warren Buffett they figured that out many years ago. I don't think he had a moneyful indicator, but he was from Nebraska. I remember I was in graduate school as hearing years ago and there was an article about him and nobody had ever heard of him, but there was a magazine called the Midwest Investor and and talked about him started as a hedge fun only with friends and family and and how he invested and so on. I said, "He's a smart guy. He's going to go places, you know, and he really did, you know, but he goes on a different value. He goes on to totally value system, you know, which is a very good system. Right now, nobody cares about that. The valuations are so extreme and all these stocks. I mean, can you buy the stocks like Palanteer 200, 300 price earnings? Nobody thinks about that. Oh, well, it's going up. If it's going up, you got to buy it, you know. No, it's going up. Maybe you should be selling it short, you know. But see, this is the thing. And you want to look at valuations, you know. If somebody wants to sell you a used car for half a million dollars, you know, if it's an old junky Ford, would you buy it? You say, "No, it's overvalued." >> Yeah. I think there's there's some interesting investor psychology out there right now with that buying at these very high prices. >> Yeah. Yeah. I know you turn on financial TV that's all you hear by this by that by that and you know and that's what's going to happen now you see in early November we said get out of stocks right now we're going to have a big GC correction okay so now uh we're coming to the next phase of that forecast we said okay so uh good year and rally is going to start in December we gave the the reasons why technically and fundamental year So um you see what what they had to do the alco traders they had to get prices down of the favorite stocks two level there were more bargains okay uh when so when they force the public to sell to panic at at the bottom then they go in and pick them up okay they buy these stocks at much lower prices for the next rally that they that they produce okay I mean it's sheer market manipulation You know, we used to say probably 60 70% of the market is manipulated. That is for the last, you know, we've been in business for 48 years, but um so but now I say it's probably 100% manipulated. 100%. Forget all the all the fundamentals that they talk about. Oh yeah, this happened and people are afraid of war and people are afraid of this and people are afraid. No, people are only afraid. They look at their bank account and when their bank account is empty, then they start getting worried. >> Well, and I think that can be very discouraging for people to hear that the manipulation is so rampant right now. And to [clears throat] be clear, so for you, when you look at that, the way to get around that and actually profit or protect your money is to be contrarian and be on the other side of what other people are doing. >> Yes, exactly. And we're making very good money this year. And of course you know that's for our subscribers how we have made the money and but we don't take a lot of risk. People always forget about forget about risk. He say no I only only want to focus on making money you know and no you want to reduce risk that should be a priority one any anything that you buy is it risky you know if it's very risky don't do it you know risk is such an important component of successful investing you don't want to expose yourself to stupid crazy risk you know buying stocks and you know that this year the Stocks without any earnings have out outperformed by a factor of 10 the stocks with good earnings. You mean this is incredible. 10 times because stocks with no earnings and you know there actually stocks without sales and we've looked at those and they go even up faster. Stocks. Can you imagine stocks with no sales? I mean they don't have a business and people are buying them. Well, that is that is crazy to hear those statistics. And I want to go back to gold and make sure we cover gold because our audience has a really strong interest there. And for the gold price, since we last spoke, the price has gone way up. It's gone to all-time highs. We're in a little bit of a pullback right now. And I'm wondering what you can tell me about what you see coming for the price because many people are looking at what's happening. They're wondering, can the gold price go lower or how long will we stay in this pullback time before we move on to the next leg up? What would you share about gold? >> Well, Charlie, I have to go back to 1980. That was the peak of the last big bull market in gold. Gold went from about 120 to $800 an ounce in 1980. And at that time, everybody was looking for 3,000. And then we came out with a sell signal when it start dropping. Went through 694 which was our get out point. At 694 we said sell. It just broke 694. So we were going to go into a bare market. We did a cycle study of gold prices over the last 400 years. That meant that you took prices in the US for 200 years but to get the the earlier 200 years we had to go to Britain. go to get the 400 years. And so we found out that there were certain dependable cycles and we based on that we we said okay this bare market in gold from 1980 it's going to last 20 years bare market. People thought it was crazy cuz I was looking for 3,000 and said it's going to it's going to go be 20 years and lo and behold the bottom of that bare market was in the year 2000. exactly 20 years later, which was even amazing to us because cycles are not that accurate. You know, they all usually few years to the left or to the right. But then we said, we also said 1980 and that will be followed by a 31-year bull market. And then we even wrote, we have no idea what would cause a 31-year bull market in gold. Well, now we know infinite money printing. Not only in the U US but all the governments are printing money. I I just read a headline in an article yesterday that all major German cities are near bankruptcy. German cities are near bankruptcy. I mean this has never happened before. They're usually very prudent money managers you know and all the major cities are near bankruptcy in Germany. this can you imagine what other countries are looking like for France and Italy what they must be looking at so uh yeah but anyway so our target is 19 I mean 2030 for gold of course it doesn't give you a price target okay so a price I mean we can guess like everybody else is doing so you you hear 10,000 20,000 100,000 a million dollars an ounce that's BS Yes. Show me. Show me your evidence for reaching their preference. I always ask people for evidence. Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence that Bitcoin has intrinsic value and they can't. Even the greatest fans cannot. Okay. So without evidence, I don't believe it. I mean if we kind of you know we have good evidence supporting which is based again on long-term cycles which can be wrong. Um and then uh you know we still have good opportunities but now we see fundamentals for gold really supporting much higher prices for a number of years right because we see this I mean $37 trillion debt in the US nobody ever would have believed that I remember years ago this was god probably about 1979 I gave a talk at the the YPO um the young prisons organization And uh and I said, you know, we're going to have a deficit this year of $5 billion. This is unsustainable. 5 billion. [laughter] And you know that billion that that's pocket change a billion, right? Now it's trillions. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That number sounds so small now. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, so I think it's clear then that for gold, the the long-term outlook is really strong. I'm I'm wondering if we look a little bit more short-term for gold. People are wondering, all right, there's going to be a next leg higher for gold. What could be the trigger to get it moving again? Is there anything you're looking at in particular? I think keeping in mind that there are so many drivers behind gold right now that that could be that that next leg. >> Here's another thing for something as good as gold and silver. silver. Don't forget silver. Um, you know, you have to take a longerterm view. Who's on the short-term trading side? It's the manipulators. They're doing the trading. I have a good friend here. He's considered the father of high frequency trading. He started high frequency frequency trading I think about 45 years ago. And um so he told me that um for trades they would they would be very happy to make six or seven cents per share profit on a trade, you know, but they they do it a million times and it really adds up. And uh so uh [clears throat] this is the small margin. So they're not interested in what the market's going to do next week or next month. No, they're this is all very very shortterm. Okay. So now if they are very short-term they can enter 90,000 trades per second with their highspeed computers. Trades not shares trades per second. You know how do you how do these people trading with their laptop think they can outperform with their laptop these high-speed computers? Do you think that's reasonable? >> No. It seems impossible. >> Yeah. Yeah. You can't. Okay. So that means that you have to shift to an area where they are not okay that's a longer term and especially when you have a great asset like gold and silver you know it's the you have to get away from the shortterm view I used to be a very good short-term trader I still have an alltime record in an option contest um that um was traded with real money that actually sent the trades after reaching a certain profit level we had to and the copies are traded to to the to the sponsor of the contest. But um so that was my younger days. But you know as time goes on and so on you get more conservative and so on and especially the the changes that we've seen in the market you know in most people don't even notice and we had a an uptick rule which was great in preventing market manipulation and that came out after the 1929 crash. Joe Kennedy had a team of traders working with him and they were manipulating stocks downward. They were doing what's called bare raids. They would knock stocks down u by just selling each massive amount short. Okay. And then they made him head of the SEC in 1932 because he knew how to how to manipulate the market. He said, "We want you to to have a way to stop the manipulation." He came up with the optic rule. He said, "The way would have had an optic rule, he could not have done what we did." And the optic means that you're going to only sell short if on an uptick of the stock price. Okay? And so that was in effect from 1933 to 2007. Worked very, very well. in 2007 very quietly, no publicity. Okay, it was an item. Oh, SEC has done away with the optic rule. Ah, I said, okay, we know the SEC is, you know, they're not working for for the public. You know, they're working for other people. And so, said, okay, so something is going to happen next year. The market is going to crash next year. That was 2008. So that was already a tool because the these alco traders in Wall Street, they wanted to be able to sell short without waiting for an uptick. And that's what they did in 2008. Yeah. Isn't it beautiful how how these things work? You know, so never make the mistake that the markets are fair, you know, where billions of dollars can be made in a day by knowledgeable traders. How can we expect them to be fair and to be to be truthful? No. No. You you attracts a lot of the wrong people, you know. And now with the AI may get a question. I don't know. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, what I think is uh very strange is that we all know the vulnerability what can be done with AI and for example you see videos here of Warren Buffett and Elon Musk you know they're AI videos it's not these people talking and sounds like them looks like them but it's not them okay so why don't we have a simple law the federal law that passed that if AI is used, you have to put it in large letters, large enough so you can read it that this was produced with AI and it's not the actual person talking. Well, I mean disclosure disclosure is the best rule that you can have, you know, then people can judge do they want to hear it or not, you know, and um so it would be so simple to pass. So why don't they pass it if it's so simple? Huh? Why? Yeah. Not because they're not thinking of it. >> Yeah. >> So, so we really need to be thinking long term instead of trying to make these short-term profits. And gold is good for that as you're saying. And you also said we shouldn't forget silver. So, if we look at your long-term outlook for silver, what would you share there? Is it is it similar to gold in that we've got that 30 2030 kind of time range for the the bull cycle? >> Yeah. Right. right now I mean we didn't do a cycle study on silver so I don't know but they really march in unison and the silver has a lot catching up to do well gold was rising here for the last number of years and silver was not you know so now the ratio of the gold price to silver has really gone out of the normal and I think silver has a lot of catching up to do so I I would expect the gains in silver especially silver miners to be bigger than that for gold and the miners have more risk. Uh but so that's why you know I like an ETF uh for the miners because you're diversified across a number of different companies you know I I don't like anything uh you're one company people always want I want to buy Lividia Palenteer and all this stuff you know but you're you making yourself a target for these manipulators they manipulate individual stocks and that that is the problem You don't want to be their victim, you know. So, you want to be diversified, which is much harder to manipulate for them. So, they focus on manipulating a specific stock because they it was long or short. When they see, oh, everybody's long that stock, they manipulate the stock down. If they see everybody short, they may put stock upward. That's very simple for them, you know, individual stocks. So I I don't like individual stocks at this point. Uh because the manipulation, you know, if we had an effective SEC, they would stop the manipulation. They have all the rules necessary. That doesn't mean new new laws to pass. Manipulation is against the law that we just need somebody to enforce it. >> Yeah. Well, well, that enforcement I think can be a pretty big issue sometimes. And speaking a little bit about manipulation, do you I know there's a lot of concern especially when it comes to silver about manipulation of the the price of the metal and also for gold as well. Is that something that you think about or that you're worried about gold and silver price manipulation? Uh I think silver is definitely manipulated and easier to manipulate because and you know there have been many court cases with the major banks you know with the their own traders are manipulating the markets you know and then they get fined a couple of billion dollars which may seem like a lot of money for them at sp change cuz if they can make that in a few days you know with their manipulations then they go back right doing the same thing again, you know. So, uh, yeah, they get fined and that's it. You know, the fine is is a bargain for them. And, uh, so gold is a bigger market, much bigger. It's a market of the central banks. And I I think that that is much harder for them to manipulate. You've got you've got I mean there certain elements like gold leasing. Most people that buy gold, they don't have any idea what gold leasing is. Gold leasing is a factor in manipulating gold price. You know, they borrow the the gold from central banks and they pay a leasing rate of let's say 1% per year and then they they go and sell the gold and start speculating with them. And so someday they're going to have to return that gold that they borrow. But this is also manipulation. you know the goldies 1% you know they're not taking much but the precious metals are fascinating I remember when when I was about 24 years old I started I want to trade the markets and high leverage because I had very little I think I started with $400 and I said you know um SEC required about 70% margin and um and I knew that in in Switzerland they only required 10%. So I flew to Switzerland and started trading there and [laughter] so you know when you're young you do crazy stuff like that you know so so the the big gallery all the American big American brokerage firms had spectator galleries in the back you see the ticker tape you could read the news wire and so on and you really met some interesting people who were also trading their own money and Um usually they were wealthy. There was one one person from France. He was related to to the Roshild family and another one Hercules. He was a the silver trader from India. He was India and and his silver had a big first run up from 125 to $2.90 which was used and he was selling it short all the way up and he was sweating you know because he was losing so much money. And then a managerial game came one day to close out the shorts and sort of big marching calls. And that day silver broke and he was convinced. He said there's so much silver in India and every household has silver and they're selling it like crazy now because silver is their replacement for a bank account. They don't trust the banks in India. Yeah. Okay. So he said I have silver and then just in time uh silver broke and he was saved. So these are really interesting experiences you can have as a trader trading your own money. >> Yeah. Yeah. Great story. Great story. And as we're getting toward the end here, I have what? Well, hopefully it's a fun question. We'll see if it's a fun question. It's one that I'm trying to ask people, everyone I speak to, as we get toward the end of the year. and it might be a little bit too shortterm for you, but I'm wondering what you think the top performing asset of 2026 will be. It could be a commodity or or otherwise, whatever you're thinking right now. >> It looks like gold might be it. >> Yeah, could be gold. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think that's a probably there's a chance that silver would outperform. >> Definitely. I think that could happen. >> Yeah. All right. Well, before >> but but the important thing the important thing with this two metals is in my opinion at least the risk is so much lower than with other investments. Look at all I mean I love Nvidia as a company. They've done a fantastic job and in my opinion they have a moat around their their technology. They do everything from making the chips, the software, everything. And so this is the premier company in AI. But still it has a very high valuation and they will knock it down from time to time. But if anybody wants to diversify technology, that is one company I would I would buy. Anything else? these companies selling at with these very high PE ratios 100 to1 200 to1 300 to1 I wouldn't touch yes you can make a lot of money but you can lose a lot of money too and I'm always more worried about the money I can lose than the money I could potentially make >> well I think that's a great place to wrap it up unless you had any final thoughts you would leave investors with >> well I think one way to keep track of what we're thinking and what we're doing. Again, this is a very important change at the beginning of November. Um, we do have the Wellington letter which we publish twice a month usually. Uh, and 25 pages single space. So, you get about 50 pages of research, well done research and and contrarian views of the markets, things that you don't hear on TV. And um and so uh that is a good place to start to to educate yourself. Most people don't like to read anymore especially younger people. There is such a big mistake. Reading is the most important thing you can do. There's no other way to get knowledge than by reading. I tell my five grandchildren I will say if you want to be a leader you have to be a reader. >> Well I I love that. I think that that is that is the point that we will finish up on today. This was really great. Hope to have you back once again in 2026. But thank you so much for coming on today. >> Thank you for the opportunity. Okay. Have a very nice new year. Okay. >> You as well. Once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Burke Dolman. >> Thank you for watching. If you like this [music] video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a [music] comment below.
Bert Dohmen: Gold Price Going "Much Higher," Silver to Play Catch Up
Summary
Transcript
I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Bert Dolman, founder and CEO of Dolman Capital Research. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, it's my pleasure to be with you. >> Yes, really good to be catching up with you once again. We are catching up from our last interview all the way back in I believe June. So, a lot has happened since then. I know one of the issues that you really emphasized at that time was the inaccuracy of the US jobs numbers that we were getting and I wanted to pick up on that once again because we we did just get the latest US jobs number but it's after the government shutdown where of course we had a lack of availability of data. So I wanted to begin with those jobs numbers. Anything you would pull out or maybe from the government shutdown situation as well? Well, I think we're not getting any this statistics now because of the shutdown of the government, but I think that's really a blessing because the numbers are so wrong and so misleading. So, let's do away with those numbers and have people find the real numbers and the real numbers come from private companies. You know, there are several companies that really publish good statistics and um they're much much more trustworthy than those from the government. The numbers from the government you can never trust. We have become just like China. If you believe Chinese economic statistics, you better watch out that somebody will not sell you the broken bridge. Uh so we don't believe those numbers. We do our own research and in fact it's really interesting the BLS numbers Bureau of Labor Statistics their numbers the ones that they publish and make the headlines on on TV are seasonally adjusted. They never tell anyone how they make those adjustments. And we wrote several times and said they probably just called the White House economist and said what number would you like for jobs? You know, that's about how accurate it is. Totally tainted. And to Mr. Trump's credit, he fired the head of BLS because these numbers were so corrupt. And um but who knows? I I don't think they'll get much better, but because the government is government, it's always the same, you know, and you cannot trust what they put out. So, we look at our own statistics. We look at what's actually happening in the economy. We see now reports from uh our clients, business owners and so on. Their businesses are just falling off the cliff over the last 3 four weeks. So that is a real economy. Uh so when small businesses start having trouble then the big companies will follow. And um one thing we haven't heard much talk about is what may be causing this you know and I think it is AI is very good I mean it's I I call it technology it's magic you know it's really amazing we use it not only for for search which most people use AI for but for actually doing projects it's amazing how powerful it is And and that will mean that a lot of people at companies even tech companies will be superfluous. But we saw it as about I think it was about a month ago there was Microsoft released earnings and revenues revenues and earnings were new record highs. And at the same time they said we're going to let 15,000 people go. really they're they're at the forefront of AI and business is fantastic and they're letting 15,000 people go. Now, can you imagine what other companies that are not a record high what they're doing when they start using AI, you know, when we're just at the the first stages. So it's a the estimates now are being increased all the time by uh by institutions of how many people will lose jobs. We said about a half a million might lose jobs in the next couple of years in the United States. But now we have to look at millions millions of people who lose jobs. And um now usually in uh technological advances like this, the last one I guess you could say was the com bubble u there were other things that compensated you know like building website building out the internet you know so the people just transferred their jobs you know from one area to another area but this time around I don't see that I think the people that uh that no AI, they will have a lot of job offers. People that don't, they will not have any job offers. There's nothing to replace it. So, and that that would really raise a spectre of deflation. We have not had deflation for a long time. And this is the nightmare of central bankers. The central bankers always say we can handle inflation. All we have to do is reduce money supply growth. But we cannot handle deflation because the deflation they can put the money out there [clears throat] through the banks for example. But if the banks don't lend the money out, money supply will not grow. The economy will not grow. It's just that simple, you know. And so and bankers will not make the loans if they don't think they're going to get the money back. It's just that simple, you know. So that's why deflation is really the nightmare of central bankers. And we now have we have millions and millions of people worldwide. This is not just US worldwide losing jobs. This is going to be a big big problem worldwide. >> Okay. I think we've got a number of topics there that we need to pick up on. And I want to first ask you a little bit more about AI because when it comes to AI, I've been hearing a lot about the concerns about whether there's a bubble in AI stocks. I haven't been hearing so much about the job losses that you've been going over, but are you also looking at the AI bubble angle? Well, there definitely is a a lending bubble and you know good question is um these commitments that the AI companies are making for future expenditures and so on that area where they going to get the money from you know when you're in a big recession it's even for AI companies it's going to be hard to go to a bank and get the loan and now we're on top of that we're we're seeing the start of the meltdown in the crypto area. The cryptos have finally doing what we have been forecasting. All the cryptos eventually will go to one to the same price which is zero which is the intrinsic value. Uh there's no intrinsic value of anything like Bitcoin and so on. And that is going to cause a major calamity because these people we just saw the prelude uh this month in the Bitcoin crash. Bitcoin was down 35% in just a couple of weeks. Uh this is just a prelude because so much leverage receives you know there's nothing to say about is Bitcoin worth it or not. So has nothing to do with that. But when you buy anything with a three or four or five times leverage, I don't care what it is, you know, it's going to implode and kill the lender. I mean, the the borrower. This is incredible the leverage that's being used by some of these well-known companies. I won't mention the names but it is really outrageous to think that these grown people don't think that this is dangerous. Yes, we saw it here in just a couple of weeks there was a meltdown. A meltdown. Millions of crypto accounts, Bitcoin accounts were closed because [clears throat] the people couldn't meet the margin calls. Yeah. And this is just a start. Can you imagine when the real selling starts? >> Well, that that's quite a a statement when it comes to Bitcoin. So, you see all cryptocurrencies eventually going to zero. Is this decline that we're seeing right now in Bitcoin? Are you looking at that as the start as that move down to zero for Bitcoin? >> Yeah, but it's not going to happen in the next year. You know, it takes time for these things for people to lose lose total interest. say okay Bitcoin really and all these cryptos really do not have any intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is when there's something of value. What do you do when you buy Bitcoin? You give somebody unknown your money $100,000 let's say for for Bitcoin. Okay. What do you get? You get a digital token, a number. You get a number. What can you buy for that number? You go to to Safeway and try to get a loaf of bread with that number, you won't get it. You you try to get beer for it, you can't get it. Okay. So, what what is the value of this this thing? This precious thing. They call it liquid gold. I mean, what a misnomer that is. You know, we saw it [clears throat] here. The liquid gold went down 35%. in a couple of weeks, you know. So, it certainly wasn't liquid gold, was it? >> No. No. I think we're we're probably >> I I think eventually in a few decades when books will be written about it, people will write say how this was the biggest financial scam ever in the history of mankind. How could people ever fall for this? >> We'll we'll have to see how this plays out. I think we'll all be keeping a really close eye on that. And I want to go back to what you were saying about deflation as well. This is the the worst nightmare for the central banks. And before we turn the camera on, you're talking about this Fed meeting that's coming up in December and how people are placing so much importance on it. And you're you're not necessarily seeing it the same way. So what are you looking for at that December Fed meeting? >> Well, they're they're playing games again. You know, they're trying to make people now answer well. Maybe it's not a sure thing. Maybe the Fed won't cut rates and so on. Getting people on edge. It's all it's a kabuki theater. That's what it is. You know, they know they're going to cut [clears throat] and they also know it won't have any effect. Would it make any any difference to a borrower if he's paying a quarter% more interest than he paid before? Would it make any difference for you if you would to get car loan and suddenly somebody said, "Oh, I got a deal for you. was a quarter% less interest. Would you even listen to somebody saying that? No. No. It's crazy. That's crazy. What matters is that the Federal Reserve is lying again. They've been saying they've been practicing QT quantitative tightening all year, which is such a lie. We have money supply N2 growing all year long is now at a new record high. We have bank loans growing and it's now at an all-time high. You don't have those growing when there's tight money. They are declining when you have tight money. So, but there are enough people who believe this stuff. >> Well, okay. And that's very interesting because the Fed has also said, "All right, now QT is coming to an end." So, they weren't even practicing it properly before and now they say it's coming to an end. What What do you see happening next? Well, the the next thing is, you know, you have to differentiate between short-term rates and long-term rates. Always long-term rates are the balance. Uh short-term rates, I think eventually because if a recession gets too bad, uh like a depression, uh you're going to have 0% interest rates. Yeah. And uh so this is basically you know it's a first step going to zero again which we did have last was about 8 years ago something like that. So we're going to have that bond prices a big problem uh for the Fed for the US Treasury. Actually the US Treasury needs to sell long-term bonds. Nobody wants to buy long-term bonds. And many times commentators will say, "Well, US, they don't have confidence in the US." No, nobody wants to buy long-term bonds anywhere, you know, not non Japan, non China, not anywhere because they don't trust any government. There's no government you can trust right now, you know, untrustworthy. I mean, we we really have the worst governments in the world, uh, but um worldwide. So, uh, what what's going to happen? I think something that Trump should consider is, um, this would be very interesting. Um, it make US treasury bonds backed by gold. Wouldn't that be a shocker? Suddenly, the US would be the only Treasury bond that is backed by gold. That would make US bonds the most desirable asset in the world probably. Yeah. And that could happen. But how much would you have to raise it to? Well, in order to back all the US Treasury bonds that are outstanding now, you would have to raise the price to around $20,000 per ounce. So that is a good target rate to look at for for gold. you know, $20,000 would back all the uh US bonds with gold. So then I think that would and I think it's kind of within the mentality of Trump. He likes to come with big surprises and can you imagine the US suddenly has the only Treasury bond in the world backed by gold? >> He he does like to come with surprises and that that would certainly be a big one. And I think with the US right now, one of the issues it's having with countries around the world is a lack of trust. So do you do you think if they would back treasury with gold that would increase the trust that other nations around the world have in the US and bring them back in once again? Well, other nations would start investing in US Treasury bonds because then if it's backed by gold, the the BIS, the Bank for International Settlements, which is considered the central bank for central bankers, it's located in Basil, Switzerland, and they have they issued they they have classified gold as zero risk for for banks. Okay, that that's quite a bit. So, you have an investment that has zero risk. I've never known many investments that have zero risk. Okay, but this is official. So that means that banks do not have to put up reserves against their gold holdings, which makes it really amazing. It's a beautiful asset. They can have their surplus cash sitting there in gold. They don't have to put up any reserves for that. So gold is really a fantastic asset. There's no way that this so-called liquid gold, which is a fairy tale, can compete with that, you know. And I mean, gold has been around [clears throat] for, you know, for 3,000 years. It's been uh basically money. 3,000 years is a long time for something to uh to keep its place. It's a store of value. If you want to keep your value, yes, it'll have ups and downs depending on you and emotions. The ups and downs in markets always funk is up. It's not due to events or external factors. Ups and downs in markets are caused by human emotions. You know, it's a fear and greed. Fear [clears throat] and greed. That's that's what makes Walmart film their hearts. [snorts] And when we issued the forecast in 2020 before the whole decade, which is normal in our business, you know, everybody in our business has to give the forecast for the decade. And is that the closest we'll get to is if you look at the 1930s, the Great Depression, and we're going to have something similar. Yeah. We're going to have all the things that we had at that time. Famines, wars, turmoil, social upsets, turtles in the street, governments being overthrown by the people and so on. Uh when you look around, isn't that what we're having except now we have a genocide on top of that which we didn't have since the 1940s. So, you know, it's really something how how history that doesn't repeat exactly but it rhymes. You know, I think Mark Twain said that history is not repeat but it rhymes. >> Yeah, that's that's very interesting. Are there any other parallels you would pull out between what we're seeing now and previous times that you think investors should really be aware of? Well, I think human emotions are always the same. You know, the vied that's always the thing. You know, I would advise and I have advised our our valued subscribers. Many of them have been with us for decades. You know, I think we have the greatest loyalty of any subscribership in the financial business. And um I would say you know um just be be sure that you know what's what's happened before and that you don't fall into the same traps. When you see the majority on one side of your friends, you want to be on the opposite side. When you suddenly see that your opinion is the majority opinion, you know you're going to be wrong. So you better see where you were wrong. And that's what we do every time. And for example, late September uh this year we were looking for a good uh year end rally to start in November and November 7 as it usually does. And then our work showed uh in late in September, ah that's not going to happen. We're going to have a big correction in November. And we're so we said it will change our mind and the facts change we change with it and we're going to have a big correction in November and probably led by the crypto currencies. We had it. We had it. So our work showed that we use advanced technical analysis. Technical analysis is looking at money flows. What shows your money flows? All the analysts that you see on TV, they only talk about if they even mention technical indicators like they mention RSI and MACD and some of these things, but they all these indicators don't include the important factor which is volume. You want to know how much money you when you when you only look at price. That's all you know. And they can the output traders they can fool you as many times as they want to only looking at price. You want to know how much money went into changing that price whether it's up or down. Yeah, that's that's one main thing. So we have developed what we call the doman the money flow index and we showed in all the charts always what the for example last couple of months we've been seeing the money flow index uh declining declining in all the major indices while the indices were making new highs that shows us what's called distribution. Distribution is when stocks are being sold by the big smart money to the naive late comers. You know that's that's what it shows you money is going out when the prices are going up. Ah there you go. So the market is under distribution that that it's just that simple. So when the market is under distribution you don't want to be buying you know and Warren Buffett they figured that out many years ago. I don't think he had a moneyful indicator, but he was from Nebraska. I remember I was in graduate school as hearing years ago and there was an article about him and nobody had ever heard of him, but there was a magazine called the Midwest Investor and and talked about him started as a hedge fun only with friends and family and and how he invested and so on. I said, "He's a smart guy. He's going to go places, you know, and he really did, you know, but he goes on a different value. He goes on to totally value system, you know, which is a very good system. Right now, nobody cares about that. The valuations are so extreme and all these stocks. I mean, can you buy the stocks like Palanteer 200, 300 price earnings? Nobody thinks about that. Oh, well, it's going up. If it's going up, you got to buy it, you know. No, it's going up. Maybe you should be selling it short, you know. But see, this is the thing. And you want to look at valuations, you know. If somebody wants to sell you a used car for half a million dollars, you know, if it's an old junky Ford, would you buy it? You say, "No, it's overvalued." >> Yeah. I think there's there's some interesting investor psychology out there right now with that buying at these very high prices. >> Yeah. Yeah. I know you turn on financial TV that's all you hear by this by that by that and you know and that's what's going to happen now you see in early November we said get out of stocks right now we're going to have a big GC correction okay so now uh we're coming to the next phase of that forecast we said okay so uh good year and rally is going to start in December we gave the the reasons why technically and fundamental year So um you see what what they had to do the alco traders they had to get prices down of the favorite stocks two level there were more bargains okay uh when so when they force the public to sell to panic at at the bottom then they go in and pick them up okay they buy these stocks at much lower prices for the next rally that they that they produce okay I mean it's sheer market manipulation You know, we used to say probably 60 70% of the market is manipulated. That is for the last, you know, we've been in business for 48 years, but um so but now I say it's probably 100% manipulated. 100%. Forget all the all the fundamentals that they talk about. Oh yeah, this happened and people are afraid of war and people are afraid of this and people are afraid. No, people are only afraid. They look at their bank account and when their bank account is empty, then they start getting worried. >> Well, and I think that can be very discouraging for people to hear that the manipulation is so rampant right now. And to [clears throat] be clear, so for you, when you look at that, the way to get around that and actually profit or protect your money is to be contrarian and be on the other side of what other people are doing. >> Yes, exactly. And we're making very good money this year. And of course you know that's for our subscribers how we have made the money and but we don't take a lot of risk. People always forget about forget about risk. He say no I only only want to focus on making money you know and no you want to reduce risk that should be a priority one any anything that you buy is it risky you know if it's very risky don't do it you know risk is such an important component of successful investing you don't want to expose yourself to stupid crazy risk you know buying stocks and you know that this year the Stocks without any earnings have out outperformed by a factor of 10 the stocks with good earnings. You mean this is incredible. 10 times because stocks with no earnings and you know there actually stocks without sales and we've looked at those and they go even up faster. Stocks. Can you imagine stocks with no sales? I mean they don't have a business and people are buying them. Well, that is that is crazy to hear those statistics. And I want to go back to gold and make sure we cover gold because our audience has a really strong interest there. And for the gold price, since we last spoke, the price has gone way up. It's gone to all-time highs. We're in a little bit of a pullback right now. And I'm wondering what you can tell me about what you see coming for the price because many people are looking at what's happening. They're wondering, can the gold price go lower or how long will we stay in this pullback time before we move on to the next leg up? What would you share about gold? >> Well, Charlie, I have to go back to 1980. That was the peak of the last big bull market in gold. Gold went from about 120 to $800 an ounce in 1980. And at that time, everybody was looking for 3,000. And then we came out with a sell signal when it start dropping. Went through 694 which was our get out point. At 694 we said sell. It just broke 694. So we were going to go into a bare market. We did a cycle study of gold prices over the last 400 years. That meant that you took prices in the US for 200 years but to get the the earlier 200 years we had to go to Britain. go to get the 400 years. And so we found out that there were certain dependable cycles and we based on that we we said okay this bare market in gold from 1980 it's going to last 20 years bare market. People thought it was crazy cuz I was looking for 3,000 and said it's going to it's going to go be 20 years and lo and behold the bottom of that bare market was in the year 2000. exactly 20 years later, which was even amazing to us because cycles are not that accurate. You know, they all usually few years to the left or to the right. But then we said, we also said 1980 and that will be followed by a 31-year bull market. And then we even wrote, we have no idea what would cause a 31-year bull market in gold. Well, now we know infinite money printing. Not only in the U US but all the governments are printing money. I I just read a headline in an article yesterday that all major German cities are near bankruptcy. German cities are near bankruptcy. I mean this has never happened before. They're usually very prudent money managers you know and all the major cities are near bankruptcy in Germany. this can you imagine what other countries are looking like for France and Italy what they must be looking at so uh yeah but anyway so our target is 19 I mean 2030 for gold of course it doesn't give you a price target okay so a price I mean we can guess like everybody else is doing so you you hear 10,000 20,000 100,000 a million dollars an ounce that's BS Yes. Show me. Show me your evidence for reaching their preference. I always ask people for evidence. Show me the evidence. Show me the evidence that Bitcoin has intrinsic value and they can't. Even the greatest fans cannot. Okay. So without evidence, I don't believe it. I mean if we kind of you know we have good evidence supporting which is based again on long-term cycles which can be wrong. Um and then uh you know we still have good opportunities but now we see fundamentals for gold really supporting much higher prices for a number of years right because we see this I mean $37 trillion debt in the US nobody ever would have believed that I remember years ago this was god probably about 1979 I gave a talk at the the YPO um the young prisons organization And uh and I said, you know, we're going to have a deficit this year of $5 billion. This is unsustainable. 5 billion. [laughter] And you know that billion that that's pocket change a billion, right? Now it's trillions. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That number sounds so small now. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, so I think it's clear then that for gold, the the long-term outlook is really strong. I'm I'm wondering if we look a little bit more short-term for gold. People are wondering, all right, there's going to be a next leg higher for gold. What could be the trigger to get it moving again? Is there anything you're looking at in particular? I think keeping in mind that there are so many drivers behind gold right now that that could be that that next leg. >> Here's another thing for something as good as gold and silver. silver. Don't forget silver. Um, you know, you have to take a longerterm view. Who's on the short-term trading side? It's the manipulators. They're doing the trading. I have a good friend here. He's considered the father of high frequency trading. He started high frequency frequency trading I think about 45 years ago. And um so he told me that um for trades they would they would be very happy to make six or seven cents per share profit on a trade, you know, but they they do it a million times and it really adds up. And uh so uh [clears throat] this is the small margin. So they're not interested in what the market's going to do next week or next month. No, they're this is all very very shortterm. Okay. So now if they are very short-term they can enter 90,000 trades per second with their highspeed computers. Trades not shares trades per second. You know how do you how do these people trading with their laptop think they can outperform with their laptop these high-speed computers? Do you think that's reasonable? >> No. It seems impossible. >> Yeah. Yeah. You can't. Okay. So that means that you have to shift to an area where they are not okay that's a longer term and especially when you have a great asset like gold and silver you know it's the you have to get away from the shortterm view I used to be a very good short-term trader I still have an alltime record in an option contest um that um was traded with real money that actually sent the trades after reaching a certain profit level we had to and the copies are traded to to the to the sponsor of the contest. But um so that was my younger days. But you know as time goes on and so on you get more conservative and so on and especially the the changes that we've seen in the market you know in most people don't even notice and we had a an uptick rule which was great in preventing market manipulation and that came out after the 1929 crash. Joe Kennedy had a team of traders working with him and they were manipulating stocks downward. They were doing what's called bare raids. They would knock stocks down u by just selling each massive amount short. Okay. And then they made him head of the SEC in 1932 because he knew how to how to manipulate the market. He said, "We want you to to have a way to stop the manipulation." He came up with the optic rule. He said, "The way would have had an optic rule, he could not have done what we did." And the optic means that you're going to only sell short if on an uptick of the stock price. Okay? And so that was in effect from 1933 to 2007. Worked very, very well. in 2007 very quietly, no publicity. Okay, it was an item. Oh, SEC has done away with the optic rule. Ah, I said, okay, we know the SEC is, you know, they're not working for for the public. You know, they're working for other people. And so, said, okay, so something is going to happen next year. The market is going to crash next year. That was 2008. So that was already a tool because the these alco traders in Wall Street, they wanted to be able to sell short without waiting for an uptick. And that's what they did in 2008. Yeah. Isn't it beautiful how how these things work? You know, so never make the mistake that the markets are fair, you know, where billions of dollars can be made in a day by knowledgeable traders. How can we expect them to be fair and to be to be truthful? No. No. You you attracts a lot of the wrong people, you know. And now with the AI may get a question. I don't know. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, what I think is uh very strange is that we all know the vulnerability what can be done with AI and for example you see videos here of Warren Buffett and Elon Musk you know they're AI videos it's not these people talking and sounds like them looks like them but it's not them okay so why don't we have a simple law the federal law that passed that if AI is used, you have to put it in large letters, large enough so you can read it that this was produced with AI and it's not the actual person talking. Well, I mean disclosure disclosure is the best rule that you can have, you know, then people can judge do they want to hear it or not, you know, and um so it would be so simple to pass. So why don't they pass it if it's so simple? Huh? Why? Yeah. Not because they're not thinking of it. >> Yeah. >> So, so we really need to be thinking long term instead of trying to make these short-term profits. And gold is good for that as you're saying. And you also said we shouldn't forget silver. So, if we look at your long-term outlook for silver, what would you share there? Is it is it similar to gold in that we've got that 30 2030 kind of time range for the the bull cycle? >> Yeah. Right. right now I mean we didn't do a cycle study on silver so I don't know but they really march in unison and the silver has a lot catching up to do well gold was rising here for the last number of years and silver was not you know so now the ratio of the gold price to silver has really gone out of the normal and I think silver has a lot of catching up to do so I I would expect the gains in silver especially silver miners to be bigger than that for gold and the miners have more risk. Uh but so that's why you know I like an ETF uh for the miners because you're diversified across a number of different companies you know I I don't like anything uh you're one company people always want I want to buy Lividia Palenteer and all this stuff you know but you're you making yourself a target for these manipulators they manipulate individual stocks and that that is the problem You don't want to be their victim, you know. So, you want to be diversified, which is much harder to manipulate for them. So, they focus on manipulating a specific stock because they it was long or short. When they see, oh, everybody's long that stock, they manipulate the stock down. If they see everybody short, they may put stock upward. That's very simple for them, you know, individual stocks. So I I don't like individual stocks at this point. Uh because the manipulation, you know, if we had an effective SEC, they would stop the manipulation. They have all the rules necessary. That doesn't mean new new laws to pass. Manipulation is against the law that we just need somebody to enforce it. >> Yeah. Well, well, that enforcement I think can be a pretty big issue sometimes. And speaking a little bit about manipulation, do you I know there's a lot of concern especially when it comes to silver about manipulation of the the price of the metal and also for gold as well. Is that something that you think about or that you're worried about gold and silver price manipulation? Uh I think silver is definitely manipulated and easier to manipulate because and you know there have been many court cases with the major banks you know with the their own traders are manipulating the markets you know and then they get fined a couple of billion dollars which may seem like a lot of money for them at sp change cuz if they can make that in a few days you know with their manipulations then they go back right doing the same thing again, you know. So, uh, yeah, they get fined and that's it. You know, the fine is is a bargain for them. And, uh, so gold is a bigger market, much bigger. It's a market of the central banks. And I I think that that is much harder for them to manipulate. You've got you've got I mean there certain elements like gold leasing. Most people that buy gold, they don't have any idea what gold leasing is. Gold leasing is a factor in manipulating gold price. You know, they borrow the the gold from central banks and they pay a leasing rate of let's say 1% per year and then they they go and sell the gold and start speculating with them. And so someday they're going to have to return that gold that they borrow. But this is also manipulation. you know the goldies 1% you know they're not taking much but the precious metals are fascinating I remember when when I was about 24 years old I started I want to trade the markets and high leverage because I had very little I think I started with $400 and I said you know um SEC required about 70% margin and um and I knew that in in Switzerland they only required 10%. So I flew to Switzerland and started trading there and [laughter] so you know when you're young you do crazy stuff like that you know so so the the big gallery all the American big American brokerage firms had spectator galleries in the back you see the ticker tape you could read the news wire and so on and you really met some interesting people who were also trading their own money and Um usually they were wealthy. There was one one person from France. He was related to to the Roshild family and another one Hercules. He was a the silver trader from India. He was India and and his silver had a big first run up from 125 to $2.90 which was used and he was selling it short all the way up and he was sweating you know because he was losing so much money. And then a managerial game came one day to close out the shorts and sort of big marching calls. And that day silver broke and he was convinced. He said there's so much silver in India and every household has silver and they're selling it like crazy now because silver is their replacement for a bank account. They don't trust the banks in India. Yeah. Okay. So he said I have silver and then just in time uh silver broke and he was saved. So these are really interesting experiences you can have as a trader trading your own money. >> Yeah. Yeah. Great story. Great story. And as we're getting toward the end here, I have what? Well, hopefully it's a fun question. We'll see if it's a fun question. It's one that I'm trying to ask people, everyone I speak to, as we get toward the end of the year. and it might be a little bit too shortterm for you, but I'm wondering what you think the top performing asset of 2026 will be. It could be a commodity or or otherwise, whatever you're thinking right now. >> It looks like gold might be it. >> Yeah, could be gold. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think that's a probably there's a chance that silver would outperform. >> Definitely. I think that could happen. >> Yeah. All right. Well, before >> but but the important thing the important thing with this two metals is in my opinion at least the risk is so much lower than with other investments. Look at all I mean I love Nvidia as a company. They've done a fantastic job and in my opinion they have a moat around their their technology. They do everything from making the chips, the software, everything. And so this is the premier company in AI. But still it has a very high valuation and they will knock it down from time to time. But if anybody wants to diversify technology, that is one company I would I would buy. Anything else? these companies selling at with these very high PE ratios 100 to1 200 to1 300 to1 I wouldn't touch yes you can make a lot of money but you can lose a lot of money too and I'm always more worried about the money I can lose than the money I could potentially make >> well I think that's a great place to wrap it up unless you had any final thoughts you would leave investors with >> well I think one way to keep track of what we're thinking and what we're doing. Again, this is a very important change at the beginning of November. Um, we do have the Wellington letter which we publish twice a month usually. Uh, and 25 pages single space. So, you get about 50 pages of research, well done research and and contrarian views of the markets, things that you don't hear on TV. And um and so uh that is a good place to start to to educate yourself. Most people don't like to read anymore especially younger people. There is such a big mistake. Reading is the most important thing you can do. There's no other way to get knowledge than by reading. I tell my five grandchildren I will say if you want to be a leader you have to be a reader. >> Well I I love that. I think that that is that is the point that we will finish up on today. This was really great. Hope to have you back once again in 2026. But thank you so much for coming on today. >> Thank you for the opportunity. Okay. Have a very nice new year. Okay. >> You as well. Once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Burke Dolman. >> Thank you for watching. If you like this [music] video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a [music] comment below.