Larry Lepard: Gold Stocks, Silver, Bitcoin — Prices to Double in 2026?
Summary
Sound money advocate and author Larry Lepard shares his thoughts on what’s driving gold, silver and Bitcoin prices, as well as …
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Larry Leard, sound money advocate and author of The Big Print. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, thank you. Nice to be with you again. I know we did this last year and I always look forward to it. >> Yes. So, we did it last year. We we tend to meet up about once a year of this time. And so we're going to follow up on some themes from last year. A lot has happened. >> Yeah. >> At that time, you were talking about the gold price coming to 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 level in this cycle, and we've gone past 3,000 and 4,000. I know we're in a little bit of a pullback right now, but definitely getting close to that 5,000 number. And I thought to begin by asking you, what is the quick move of the gold price telling us about what's going on in the world right now? >> Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think it's it's pretty simply explained by the fact that gold smells the coming monetary debasement. Um you know there it's we can go we could drill down a lot on it but at a larger picture level the you know the Federal Reserve is trapped. The credit based system that we have requires continual expansion of the money supply and inflation in order to prevent it from collapsing. um they have been trying to reduce the Fed's balance sheet and keep money tight, but they've already had to somewhat pivot on that. More than somewhat, they've started to pivot on that. Um they the tightening cycle that that Powell began in 2022 has ended. They've been cutting rates um and continued to cut rates. They just did so a week ago. And now they've announced they're going to stop the tightening of the balance sheet and actually go neutral. And they even went so far as to say they would probably have to start adding to it which is as we all know printing money. Um I wrote a book about that called the big print. And so I you know that that set of facts combined with what I think is happening in the world is everybody's becoming aware of this. I mean I think a year or two ago you or I or most of the people at this conference gold investors etc. we were all aware of this issue. I mean this was not like you know headline news to us. It was just that nobody else was paying attention to it and that's why we were buying gold and gold stocks and we believe this was coming and and now we're kind of being proven right. Right. It's it's it's arrived and you know you see it probably the best thing the best way I you know look at seeing is what's in the main media and you know you've now got JP Morgan calling this the monetary debasement trade right and you've got you know um Morgan Stanley saying you know the new allocation for you know investors should be 40% B or 60% stocks 20% bonds 20% gold I'm like what you know I mean that's a different that's different it used to be zero gold and so you know you got guys like Muhammad Alan is a very high-profile institutional investor saying this monetary debasement trade is a big thing and likely to run for a while and so I I think it's just awareness on the part of many many people that they will have to continue to grow and print money and that that will lead to more and more uh inflation and that in light of that you know inflation they want to have things that the government can't print and the the three leading cate you know um forms of that are gold, silver, and then Bitcoin. So, government can't print them. >> Well, we're here at the New Orleans Investment Conference, as we've been saying, and you haven't prevent presented yet, but you're nice enough to post your slides. So, I want to pull out a couple of things from slides that you have. And the first one is related to the Fed. I know you started to talk a little bit about the Fed and when you're looking forward to 2026, one of the things that it looks like you're you're seeing for next year is Fed Fed capitulates. So, I wondered if you could talk about that. It sounds very concerning and how you see that playing out exactly. >> Sure. So, so they have a math problem. You know, they have a lot of debt and they either let the debt collapse and we have a depression or they continue to print money to keep servicing the debt with new capital for the to pay the make the interest payments. And um and in particular, we also see a big changing of the guard coming at the Fed. So J Pal who is the Fed chairman who wants to be Paul Vulker trying to be a tough guy. Um his term ends in May of next year. Um, and you've had some really unusual things like you've had the president of the United States calling him a saying interest rates are too high, saying he's too late. You've had enormous pressure put on the Fed to lower rates. And frankly, when you know interest expense for the federal government is running at $1.2 trillion a year, the the budget deficit is $1.8 trillion a year. So the interest is really contributing to the deficit. I mean, the the government, the US federal government really needs lower rates or else interest is going to continue to consume a big piece of their revenues. And so, um, with the Fed chairman turning over, that's another thing I think is driving the price of gold is that everyone says, "Okay, money may be semi-tight right now because interest rates, while they've come down, they're still, you know, moderately high." Um, boy, we can see what's coming. You know, the there's going to be a new Fed chairman. Um, Trump has made it very clear he wants lower rates. All the all the potential candidates are talking lower rates. his most recent Fed board appointee, this guy Steven Moran, was talking taking them down another 200 basis points. I think Trump tweeted that interest rates should be 1%. So, you know, okay, fine. But the market listened and said, "Oh, okay. I get it. That's where we're going. I know what that means. More inflation." And, you know, therefore, we got to protect ourselves, buy gold. >> Well, and I wonder, so we talked a little bit about what you were previously expecting for the gold price. Have you adjusted your Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. >> What was it when we talked last year? It was like 200 I think when we were talking last year. I'm just guessing. That's my memory. >> And we thought maybe I said it would go to 3, four, five. Yeah. So, >> so it's actually gone a little further and faster than I thought it might have happened. It's like it's like we're really in it now. As you know, we touched I think 4,400. We're at 4,000 plus or minus right now. >> Yeah. No, I I've kind of revised my projections. I mean, and and that's an interesting thing because a lot of people think, well, okay, it's gone up this much. It's got to come back. You know, nothing nothing goes to the sky forever. It's going to correct. I think that's the wrong way of looking at it because I think what's really happened here is is conditions have changed. We we're in a phase change where you know basically we now have um a knowledge and that this is this is this debasement must continue to occur for a long time and we're in my opinion we're still only in the first second or third inning of of the debasement. And so you know I I now think gold goes to 5,000 and then 10,000. I mean ultimately it could go to infinity if the dollar fails. That's a tail case and not likely to happen tomorrow. But but I think you know 4,000 5,000 yeah that's easy. I mean we're already at four and you know 67 next year possible. I mean it's it's hard to say. I mean it depends a little bit upon policy and what they do and and and I I do want to caution people. I the one thing that could blow up this thesis and make me look wrong or make all of us look wrong is if the government were to get really responsible and yeah right and you you react the way most people do which is that's a joke that'll never happen and yet you know in investing never say never because you know I at some point somewhere in the future the government might get responsible and this trade won't be such a great trade or this positioning won't be such a great position but but for now anyway I feel very highly confident that you know we're going to this is these things are going to perform quite well, for the next couple of years until until they master, you know, um they solve this monetary problem. Um and I and I don't see the solution on the on the horizon yet. So, >> well, yeah, and it's good to talk about what could take the wind out of the sales here. I'm sure though if if there was going to be more responsibility as you're talking about that would be something that would be telegraphed, it wouldn't happen like that. >> Well, that's right. That's exactly right. We'd see it. I mean, one things that could do it though actually is just a change in demographics. There's some good data I just re looked at recently. I mean, the reason social security and Medicare are the way they are and they contribute so much to the deficit is that the boomer population in the United States is large, if they mess with it, everyone's going to get voted out. Boomers are getting older. There are going to be fewer of them. There are more Gen X and millennials and others voting. Eventually, those boomers aren't going to have that much voting power and they are going to have to reform those things. And so, so there, you know, there will be some kind of fiscal discipline coming at some point in the future. But, you know, my sense is that could be several years away. and and and I think right now we're really in the heart of you know what I think is going to be a very attractive period for the things that we own. >> Well, and I I have to check in with you on silver as well. If you've if you've adjusted up your gold price, I imagine >> that's a great question. So, I love silver as you know it's in a structural deficit has been for a number of years. It's a dual metal. It obviously has a monetary role and it has a gold role and the fact that it's finally come along and hit a new alltime high. It's really important. when gold was going up and silver wasn't moving, I was like, "Okay, we're still not in it yet because we got to get silver going." I mean, there's no real precious metals bull market without silver just going crazy. And and as we all know, silver took out the all-time high of 50, which had been hit twice. And, you know, yeah, so my new view on silver is probably, you know, next 6 months 75 is a very realistic target. Um, I think 100 150 are realist. I've seen people talk multiple hundreds of dollars and even $1,000 for silver. I don't know. I mean, that's that's a that's a long way out, but but I think, you know, inflation adjusted the old inflation adjusted high for silver was like, you know, $150, $200 an ounce. So, you know, I think getting to 100 is going to be easy. And the thing that's interesting there, um, is I managed a fund that invests in gold and silver stocks. And, you know, these silver miners, a lot of them have costs to mine an ounce of something between $20 and $30. And, you know, if the price of silver goes to $120, that's a heck of a profit margin. And so, these stocks are going to be very, very attractive things to hold. and that's why I hold them. So, >> yeah. And we will we'll go over and talk about the stocks. But before before we do, I want to talk about another one of your slides that I found quite interesting. And it's as we're talking about the the prices of the commodities. So, it's it's looking at the gold price and the Bitcoin price from 2018 to now, I think, and you overlay them. And of course, it's it's different time scales or not time scales, right? >> Yeah. Magnitudes because gold bitcoins move more. Yeah. So, >> and so what what do you want people to take away? Well, it's a there's a very important thing here. Um, so they if you look at them correlated and I'm I'm kind of taking the more modern period. I mean, in the beginning, Bitcoin was just going nuts and it's it's kind of unfair. It was it had an unfair advantage. So, let's kind of take 2018 to present, you know, last six, seven years. Um, Bitcoin and gold have really traded in lock step. I mean, they both represent protection from monetary debasement that can't be printed. Okay, that's first thing. Second thing is Bitcoin's performed more. It's it's it's gone up more than gold and percentage- wise. Um but um it's also been much more volatile than gold. So on the on the upswings it goes up faster, but on the down swings it goes down faster too. Okay. And then the third point that I think is very important from the chart to take away is that gold is more widely distributed. Everybody owns it. The central banks are buying it. And I think it's going to be the first go-to solution for most people to protect themselves from monetary debasement because Bitcoin's new and it's riskier and it's volatile. Not everyone believes in it. I understand that. I didn't believe in it at the beginning either. And and so when monetary debasements start to show up, gold tends to move first. It just does. And so the really best part of this chart if you look at is you look at like 2019 and 2020 when the POW pivot occurred because of the repo blowout. And then when we had COVID and we printed a ton of money, gold took off like a rocket ship. I mean, everyone's like, you okay, I know what this money printing means. Buy gold. And they did. and it went up some Bitcoin was flatlined for quite some time. There was a real lag and then one day Bitcoin woke up and said, "Oh, you know what? This is protection too and they came into Bitcoin and it just it went up even more percentage-wise than gold." But there was a lag between the two. And then of course when we started tightening in 2022, you know, gold went flat to down. Bitcoin collapsed. Bitcoin went way down. And so, you know, it went from 65 to 15. And so, you know, this is a volatile form of sound money. Um, but I think the thing people need to understand is it really, in my view, digital assets, digital secure assets that are immutable and have a limited supply, I think that which is what Bitcoin is, I think that really is the future. And so, and the volatility is because we're in an adoption period. And it reminds me very much of what happened when Amazon got started. And if you go back and you look at a stock chart of Amazon, you know, originally they're selling books. And now of course they sell everything, right? And so the stock's up 212,000% since inception. And yet they had a 90% draw down, a 70% draw down, a 50%. I mean, you know, it regularly people were like, "Oh, this Amazon thing, they're not making any money. It's not working." And it would sell off similar to Bitcoin. And so, you know, Bitcoin, while it's much more volatile, it is creating higher highs and higher lows. It's it's going up and to the right. So, so that's why I think, you know, part of what I'm going to talk about in my speech here today at the show is that if if you're a sound money advocate, as I am, and as all gold and silver people are, and I applaud them for that, for the choices, you know, you should consider if you want something that's potentially got more alpha, more upside, um, with attendant volatility, you should consider a small allocation of Bitcoin because it's it in my opinion on a raw performance basis, it's going to outperform gold in terms of percentage up. And you've been coming here for years at this point talking about gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Are you finding that the the attitudes are changing? Are people warming up? >> It is. It is. You know, there's some people who are still pretty angry or, you know, hate Bitcoin because they're gold, silver partisans and they think it's God's money and no other money could ever exist. And and I get that. And and or they think that they've been, you know, true sound money advocates and these Bitcoin guys are trying to steal their thunder. Or they look at Bitcoin and they conflate it with all the other crypto which is complete and fraudulent. I call everything that's not Bitcoin. It's a shitcoin. It's no good. I mean, I don't own Ethereum, all that other stuff. It's no good in my view. Bitcoin is actually reliable digital scarcity. Hard to get your head around that. Can you know how can we have something that's digital that's scarce? Never existed before. You know, you have a you have a computer file, you have a video, you have an audio, you have anything. You can make a million copies of it. It's digital. But they they crafted a system that proves it has these 21 million coins with proof of work so that you there will never be any more than that. And that because money really is a ledger. And that's the other thing gold people, they tend to look at Bitcoin, they say, "Well, what is it? You can't feel it. You can't touch it." Well, guess what? You know, you've got digits on your computer of your bank account balance. You can't feel or touch that either, but you know they're dollars, right? And and we haven't been paying for things with gold coins for a long long time now. So, so what really what you've got is gold is a ledger that that you know is constrained by, you know, God and geology, right? He only made so much of it. And Bitcoin is a ledger that's secured by computer code. There's a computer code that everyone can see, that everyone can verify, that's been running for 16 years. It's totally immutable. It can't be changed that says if you own one Bitcoin, you own one Bitcoin. And therefore, you know what's happened is the marketplace has said, "Oh, I like that. I'll I'll buy some of that." And as long as more and more people continue to buy it, it's going to go up. And my view is that that adoption curve has been very very solid. And that's why the reason why Bitcoin will outperform gold. They'll both go up with monetary debasement because the dollar is just getting worth less every time they print more of them. It's like, you know, putting water in your beer. The beer gets less strong. But Bitcoin will go up faster because it's also got this adoption curve. And you know, to be, you know, and also to be fair, young people aren't buying gold. I mean, it's sad, but they're not, right? They should be, but they're not. And so, you know, we live in a digital world. Things are becoming more digital. You know, Bitcoin is easy to store, easy to move. Those advantages are are, you know, causing it to continually grow. You know, adoption is growing. So, >> okay. Always good to get your thoughts on that. And I'll let us go over now to the gold and silver stocks. So, again, looking back to last year, you gave us some good advice. You told us don't don't sell your gold and silver stocks now because you're about to get paid. Yes. >> And hopefully everybody listened to that. So I'm curious though, I've heard a lot of talk here about when gold and silver were really moving a couple of weeks ago up to those new highs. Some people did take profits. So what what is your approach in this scenario? Did you did you do any of that or you just want to >> depends you know stock by stock, case by case. I mean I think you look I mean so the the general gold stock indices are up about 100% year to date. We're what we're 10 months into the year and now 11 months start of the 11th month. Um, my fund was up 130% through September. So, so yeah, we had a lot of gains. Um, but you know, and some stocks went too far too fast and I started lightening up on those or selling some of those. But, um, you know, these stocks were criminally undervalued last year. I mean, just criminally undervalued. And so, so they've now doubled. And my view is they're kind of they're they're cheap. They're still not fully valued, but they're not as cheap as they were. Obviously buying a year ago would have been better, but um I look at the multiples of cash flow. I look at the potential for growth, etc. And I still feel pretty good about owning most of these stocks. I haven't sold a lot of them. I've only sold a few of them, and the others I've just kind of sold maybe a touch at the margin. So, um I I I'm very confident that we'll have another doubling in those stocks in the next kind of year or two, which by any measure, I mean, you know, the S&P is up 18%. I mean, if you know, and and maybe I'm wrong, maybe they only go up 50% from here, but that's still pretty good performance. And so, you know, I I feel like if you look at historical gold stock bull markets and and how these things have traded, they tend to have a couple of good years in a row. And and maybe then at some point they'll become overvalued and maybe then at some point, you know, governments will get more fiscally responsible. Maybe gold will check back, whatever. Those things do lie out there in the future somewhere. But I actually don't think they're out there in the next 12 months. I feel like we're I feel like we're right in the middle of it right now and it's going to keep going and and it's sad because and I think a lot of people have been saying to themselves and they were saying this all this year, well gosh, they're up a lot. Maybe I'll wait until they pull back. Well, they haven't pulled back. They haven't given you and some people are probably looking at it today and going, "Oh, I don't know. It's gone up so much so fast. I I can't really buy it. I'll wait for a pullback." And actually, you're having a little bit of a pullback right now. I mean, they're down kind of 10% off the highs or maybe 15% some of them off the highs. I mean, my view is that might be all you're going to get. I mean, maybe they come to 20% off the highs. I don't think they get 30. If you do, great. And you can you can buy them there. But I, you know, I I think we're going to, you know, we will, as we move through the year, as the Federal Reserve transitions to QE and, you know, maybe yield curve control and money printing. You know, the metals themselves will catch another leg up. you know, gold will go through 4,500, George 5,000, silver will go to 60 or 70, you know, and these stocks will all go up another 30% pretty easily and then maybe more, you know, over the next 12 months. So, >> well, I think that's exactly what people are wondering looking at this small pullback that we're having right now is should I should I buy now? Should I add more? And what's the best way to position? So, anything else you'd share? Well, I say if you don't have any position in this stuff and you're looking to get some, I would I would buy some just right now. Just get in it because this could be all we get for a pullback. But maybe if you're worried that they're going to go lower, maybe you buy half or a third or whatever and and you you hold the rest hoping that you get something lower and if it turns out two months from now they really haven't gone lower, they've kind of gone sideways, you might just say out the heck with it. You know, I'm going to I'm going to, you know, I'm going to invest in the whole thing. you know, the I I I would say the the the the best leading indicator I think for where they're going is the silver price. So, silver is the most volatile. It's it's it's kind of the you know, it's it's just starting to take off. I mean, you know, watch silver very carefully in my view. Um, you know, because silver will tell us how quote unquote on this thing is. And so, we went through I think we went to 53, maybe 54, we came back to 50, then we were like 48 or nine for a while. I don't know where we are this morning, but we're somewhere around 50 plus or minus. We go through that 54, 55, 60. It's back into game on, you know, we're going to go to 70 and then all the other stuff will move to. So, I I watch silver very much as a leading indicator. >> Okay. Yeah, that that's a good one as well because I think people are also wondering in this pullback, all right, when is that going to end? So, we if we keep an eye on silver, don't >> silver is a good a good clue. It leads what's going it's it's the leader right now. What's going on? It's gone up more than gold this year. Silver stocks have gone up more than gold this year. So, it to me, you know, it's it's it's your it's your best indicator. >> Okay. And here, as we're getting toward the end, here's my fun question that I'm trying to ask everybody. What if you look forward to 2026, what would your pick be for a top performing asset? >> Uh, that's a tough call. Um, I actually So, boy, they're they're they're all they're really it probably won't be gold just because gold's so big. So, so here's what I would say. I I sincerely believe that in 2026, Bitcoin could double and go to 200. Silver could almost double and go to 100 or 80 or 90, up from 50. And gold stocks could double from where they are. I mean, I still think we're on the cheaper side for the gold stocks. And and by the way, we're really on the cheaper side. I mean, we're, you know, these gold stocks. So, one of the things people don't understand is the operating leverage in gold. And these gold stocks were cheap when gold was 33,000, right? Well, you add another $1,000 to the price of gold, their mar their profits go up a lot. And so, so even though the stock prices have moved, you know, the profits have grown, too. So, you know, and and and that's they trade a lot based on where people think gold's going to be in the future. If gold's going to 5,000 or 10,000, they're silly cheap today. I mean, now I don't know if it's going to 10, I'm pretty sure it's going to five. And so, you know, I think, you know, I think with a bull market, you know, you just you get in, you you be right, and you sit tight and and and you ride it. Now, you know, when when do when do we get out of it? I mean, we get out of it when everybody and their brother is talking about it. I mean, this Morgan Stanley thing, that's the beginning of them talking about it, but it's not still not widespread. There's a my my quarterly report is on my website, emma2.com. My last quarterly report, there's a great chart in there. It show it was a survey of of investment managers in the United States. How much gold do you own? Zero. 40% own zero. Do you 0 to 2% 20% own 0 to 2%. So 60% of investment managers own less than 2%. I mean, it's basically nothing, right? And then the at the high end, it was like, how many of you own own more than 7%. And it was like 5%. So, I mean, we're not, you know, this is not this is not an overcrowded trade. This is not showing signs of bubbliness or evidence of a top. I mean, you know, this is kind of just everybody waking up to maybe the maybe you need gold. I mean, I know in my case, I have a lot of friends who are just traditional investors. They know I'm the gold guy. They're calling me up saying they have no gold. They're calling me up. saying, "Yeah, maybe I should get some of this." Huh? Right. And so that's not over. I mean, and and what's going to happen to them is they're eventually going to say, "Well, yeah, I should get some of this." Or or the other thing that happens is a lot of money is managed algorithmically. So, so there are people on Wall Street and other places, money managers who who they literally look at all the results and they say, "What's what's performing the best?" And they're going to say, "Okay, well, the NASDAQ's up, you know, 20% and the S&P is up 14%. And gold's up 40%, gold stocks are up 100%. How come we don't have any of that, >> right? You know, I mean, they don't even know anything about it. They don't like it. Maybe they dislike it, but god damn it, they've got to own what's performing or else they're going to underperform, right? So, so, you know, we've still we still haven't seen all that, Charlotte. We that's all that's all still in front of us in the next year, you know. I mean, trust me though, there will come a time when I'll get nervous and there'll come a time when I won't want to be as long this stuff, but I that's I mean, I you know, bull markets try and throw off all the riders. I think the hardest thing to do, and I I know this because I know it with my partner, I know with a lot of people have looked at this, god damn, it's so hard to buy something that's up so much. And I'm like, no. Yeah, that's right. And that's why you're it's hard to do it, but that's why you're going to get paid if you do it, right? I mean, and when it feels easy, like, oh, this is a no-brainer. or I got to buy more gold after, you know, it continues to go up because we all know it's going up forever. Whoa, let's let's hang on a second. Maybe it's not. Let's slow down. Right? There's still, you know, they say the the saying the old Wall Street saying is bull markets climb a wall of worry, right? And there's I mean I when I talk to gold people, we've been so beat up for so many years. We had so many tough tough years, tough quarters, tough, you know, it's it's been a hard area to be in. And they they kind of like to see a little bit of daylight. Oh, thank God I'm going to sell. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm not sure that's really the right thing to do. I think we might actually we might actually be right about this debasement. And and if it's a trend, a meaningful trend, I think it is. It doesn't end in 6 months or a year. It it it will run for several years at least. So So that's how I see it. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think you hit on something that has been coming up at this conference. Everybody who is in gold wants to be a contrarian. So maybe when they see it going and other people like the Morgan Stanley's coming in, they get nervous like, "Oh, am I am I mainstream now?" Like, >> yeah. Well, but that's, you know, that that's investing, right? I mean, what what happens is, you know, you want to you want to do what's right before everyone figures out what's right. [laughter] And a couple years ago, we all figured out that this was right because they were going to print money. Every I mean, we got to get comfortable that other people are going to come figure it out, too, cuz frankly, they're the ones who are paying to drive up the prices. Now, what we have to watch for is does everybody think it's right? and it's a total no-brainer and you know dumb money is coming into it and blah blah blah. I mean that's that lies ahead. I mean there there will be a time maybe to to transition out but like I say I I think that time is not this year. It's not now and it's probably not a year from now. It might be a couple years from now. That's my guess. >> Okay. Well, I will I will release you back out onto the show floor. This was great. Unless you had any final thoughts. Maybe we talk about where to find the book. >> No, no final thoughts. Yeah, I'll mention the book. So, um I have haven't been able to get a mainstream publisher of the book. I don't know if you've read it. Um, I'm giving you a copy, but the book is kind of edgy and um and it it attacks the Federal Reserve. It attacks the monetary system. I Let me tell you why I wrote it. This is important. I wrote it because I think a lot of people in the world are hurting and are feeling like they're getting screwed economically and they don't understand inflation. And I I wrote it in a in a in a way and with a tone where I wanted people to understand what's going on and why it's not them not working hard enough. It's a system that's designed to hurt them. And and then I wanted them to understand that given that there's actually a way that they can fight back and that is to buy these sound monies and to advocate for sound money because you know what will in my opinion fix a lot of the ills in our society is when we return to sound money. So that's that's why I wrote the book. The book can be found on Amazon. It's hard coverver paperback uh ebook you know Kindle and then um also audio. I had great guy read it. It's about 13 hours long. So um you know but as I said no no publishers picked it up. They all looked at some pretty interested and I've sold 45,000 copies. So, it's which I hear is not bad for a self-published book, right? And yet, you know, um I'm pretty sure it's too edgy for the average for the average publisher to to publish it. So, you'll see. I I you know, I don't pull my punches. I I I call it the way I see it in the book. So, and some people like it and say it's fun read. It's got a 48 rating on Amazon, 48 out of five. So, it's it's doing okay. >> Very nice. Very nice. Well, we'll have the link in the video description so I appreciate that. >> Well, amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Really nice to see you again. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Larry Leard.
Larry Lepard: Gold Stocks, Silver, Bitcoin — Prices to Double in 2026?
Summary
Sound money advocate and author Larry Lepard shares his thoughts on what’s driving gold, silver and Bitcoin prices, as well as …Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Larry Leard, sound money advocate and author of The Big Print. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, thank you. Nice to be with you again. I know we did this last year and I always look forward to it. >> Yes. So, we did it last year. We we tend to meet up about once a year of this time. And so we're going to follow up on some themes from last year. A lot has happened. >> Yeah. >> At that time, you were talking about the gold price coming to 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 level in this cycle, and we've gone past 3,000 and 4,000. I know we're in a little bit of a pullback right now, but definitely getting close to that 5,000 number. And I thought to begin by asking you, what is the quick move of the gold price telling us about what's going on in the world right now? >> Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think it's it's pretty simply explained by the fact that gold smells the coming monetary debasement. Um you know there it's we can go we could drill down a lot on it but at a larger picture level the you know the Federal Reserve is trapped. The credit based system that we have requires continual expansion of the money supply and inflation in order to prevent it from collapsing. um they have been trying to reduce the Fed's balance sheet and keep money tight, but they've already had to somewhat pivot on that. More than somewhat, they've started to pivot on that. Um they the tightening cycle that that Powell began in 2022 has ended. They've been cutting rates um and continued to cut rates. They just did so a week ago. And now they've announced they're going to stop the tightening of the balance sheet and actually go neutral. And they even went so far as to say they would probably have to start adding to it which is as we all know printing money. Um I wrote a book about that called the big print. And so I you know that that set of facts combined with what I think is happening in the world is everybody's becoming aware of this. I mean I think a year or two ago you or I or most of the people at this conference gold investors etc. we were all aware of this issue. I mean this was not like you know headline news to us. It was just that nobody else was paying attention to it and that's why we were buying gold and gold stocks and we believe this was coming and and now we're kind of being proven right. Right. It's it's it's arrived and you know you see it probably the best thing the best way I you know look at seeing is what's in the main media and you know you've now got JP Morgan calling this the monetary debasement trade right and you've got you know um Morgan Stanley saying you know the new allocation for you know investors should be 40% B or 60% stocks 20% bonds 20% gold I'm like what you know I mean that's a different that's different it used to be zero gold and so you know you got guys like Muhammad Alan is a very high-profile institutional investor saying this monetary debasement trade is a big thing and likely to run for a while and so I I think it's just awareness on the part of many many people that they will have to continue to grow and print money and that that will lead to more and more uh inflation and that in light of that you know inflation they want to have things that the government can't print and the the three leading cate you know um forms of that are gold, silver, and then Bitcoin. So, government can't print them. >> Well, we're here at the New Orleans Investment Conference, as we've been saying, and you haven't prevent presented yet, but you're nice enough to post your slides. So, I want to pull out a couple of things from slides that you have. And the first one is related to the Fed. I know you started to talk a little bit about the Fed and when you're looking forward to 2026, one of the things that it looks like you're you're seeing for next year is Fed Fed capitulates. So, I wondered if you could talk about that. It sounds very concerning and how you see that playing out exactly. >> Sure. So, so they have a math problem. You know, they have a lot of debt and they either let the debt collapse and we have a depression or they continue to print money to keep servicing the debt with new capital for the to pay the make the interest payments. And um and in particular, we also see a big changing of the guard coming at the Fed. So J Pal who is the Fed chairman who wants to be Paul Vulker trying to be a tough guy. Um his term ends in May of next year. Um, and you've had some really unusual things like you've had the president of the United States calling him a saying interest rates are too high, saying he's too late. You've had enormous pressure put on the Fed to lower rates. And frankly, when you know interest expense for the federal government is running at $1.2 trillion a year, the the budget deficit is $1.8 trillion a year. So the interest is really contributing to the deficit. I mean, the the government, the US federal government really needs lower rates or else interest is going to continue to consume a big piece of their revenues. And so, um, with the Fed chairman turning over, that's another thing I think is driving the price of gold is that everyone says, "Okay, money may be semi-tight right now because interest rates, while they've come down, they're still, you know, moderately high." Um, boy, we can see what's coming. You know, the there's going to be a new Fed chairman. Um, Trump has made it very clear he wants lower rates. All the all the potential candidates are talking lower rates. his most recent Fed board appointee, this guy Steven Moran, was talking taking them down another 200 basis points. I think Trump tweeted that interest rates should be 1%. So, you know, okay, fine. But the market listened and said, "Oh, okay. I get it. That's where we're going. I know what that means. More inflation." And, you know, therefore, we got to protect ourselves, buy gold. >> Well, and I wonder, so we talked a little bit about what you were previously expecting for the gold price. Have you adjusted your Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about that. >> What was it when we talked last year? It was like 200 I think when we were talking last year. I'm just guessing. That's my memory. >> And we thought maybe I said it would go to 3, four, five. Yeah. So, >> so it's actually gone a little further and faster than I thought it might have happened. It's like it's like we're really in it now. As you know, we touched I think 4,400. We're at 4,000 plus or minus right now. >> Yeah. No, I I've kind of revised my projections. I mean, and and that's an interesting thing because a lot of people think, well, okay, it's gone up this much. It's got to come back. You know, nothing nothing goes to the sky forever. It's going to correct. I think that's the wrong way of looking at it because I think what's really happened here is is conditions have changed. We we're in a phase change where you know basically we now have um a knowledge and that this is this is this debasement must continue to occur for a long time and we're in my opinion we're still only in the first second or third inning of of the debasement. And so you know I I now think gold goes to 5,000 and then 10,000. I mean ultimately it could go to infinity if the dollar fails. That's a tail case and not likely to happen tomorrow. But but I think you know 4,000 5,000 yeah that's easy. I mean we're already at four and you know 67 next year possible. I mean it's it's hard to say. I mean it depends a little bit upon policy and what they do and and and I I do want to caution people. I the one thing that could blow up this thesis and make me look wrong or make all of us look wrong is if the government were to get really responsible and yeah right and you you react the way most people do which is that's a joke that'll never happen and yet you know in investing never say never because you know I at some point somewhere in the future the government might get responsible and this trade won't be such a great trade or this positioning won't be such a great position but but for now anyway I feel very highly confident that you know we're going to this is these things are going to perform quite well, for the next couple of years until until they master, you know, um they solve this monetary problem. Um and I and I don't see the solution on the on the horizon yet. So, >> well, yeah, and it's good to talk about what could take the wind out of the sales here. I'm sure though if if there was going to be more responsibility as you're talking about that would be something that would be telegraphed, it wouldn't happen like that. >> Well, that's right. That's exactly right. We'd see it. I mean, one things that could do it though actually is just a change in demographics. There's some good data I just re looked at recently. I mean, the reason social security and Medicare are the way they are and they contribute so much to the deficit is that the boomer population in the United States is large, if they mess with it, everyone's going to get voted out. Boomers are getting older. There are going to be fewer of them. There are more Gen X and millennials and others voting. Eventually, those boomers aren't going to have that much voting power and they are going to have to reform those things. And so, so there, you know, there will be some kind of fiscal discipline coming at some point in the future. But, you know, my sense is that could be several years away. and and and I think right now we're really in the heart of you know what I think is going to be a very attractive period for the things that we own. >> Well, and I I have to check in with you on silver as well. If you've if you've adjusted up your gold price, I imagine >> that's a great question. So, I love silver as you know it's in a structural deficit has been for a number of years. It's a dual metal. It obviously has a monetary role and it has a gold role and the fact that it's finally come along and hit a new alltime high. It's really important. when gold was going up and silver wasn't moving, I was like, "Okay, we're still not in it yet because we got to get silver going." I mean, there's no real precious metals bull market without silver just going crazy. And and as we all know, silver took out the all-time high of 50, which had been hit twice. And, you know, yeah, so my new view on silver is probably, you know, next 6 months 75 is a very realistic target. Um, I think 100 150 are realist. I've seen people talk multiple hundreds of dollars and even $1,000 for silver. I don't know. I mean, that's that's a that's a long way out, but but I think, you know, inflation adjusted the old inflation adjusted high for silver was like, you know, $150, $200 an ounce. So, you know, I think getting to 100 is going to be easy. And the thing that's interesting there, um, is I managed a fund that invests in gold and silver stocks. And, you know, these silver miners, a lot of them have costs to mine an ounce of something between $20 and $30. And, you know, if the price of silver goes to $120, that's a heck of a profit margin. And so, these stocks are going to be very, very attractive things to hold. and that's why I hold them. So, >> yeah. And we will we'll go over and talk about the stocks. But before before we do, I want to talk about another one of your slides that I found quite interesting. And it's as we're talking about the the prices of the commodities. So, it's it's looking at the gold price and the Bitcoin price from 2018 to now, I think, and you overlay them. And of course, it's it's different time scales or not time scales, right? >> Yeah. Magnitudes because gold bitcoins move more. Yeah. So, >> and so what what do you want people to take away? Well, it's a there's a very important thing here. Um, so they if you look at them correlated and I'm I'm kind of taking the more modern period. I mean, in the beginning, Bitcoin was just going nuts and it's it's kind of unfair. It was it had an unfair advantage. So, let's kind of take 2018 to present, you know, last six, seven years. Um, Bitcoin and gold have really traded in lock step. I mean, they both represent protection from monetary debasement that can't be printed. Okay, that's first thing. Second thing is Bitcoin's performed more. It's it's it's gone up more than gold and percentage- wise. Um but um it's also been much more volatile than gold. So on the on the upswings it goes up faster, but on the down swings it goes down faster too. Okay. And then the third point that I think is very important from the chart to take away is that gold is more widely distributed. Everybody owns it. The central banks are buying it. And I think it's going to be the first go-to solution for most people to protect themselves from monetary debasement because Bitcoin's new and it's riskier and it's volatile. Not everyone believes in it. I understand that. I didn't believe in it at the beginning either. And and so when monetary debasements start to show up, gold tends to move first. It just does. And so the really best part of this chart if you look at is you look at like 2019 and 2020 when the POW pivot occurred because of the repo blowout. And then when we had COVID and we printed a ton of money, gold took off like a rocket ship. I mean, everyone's like, you okay, I know what this money printing means. Buy gold. And they did. and it went up some Bitcoin was flatlined for quite some time. There was a real lag and then one day Bitcoin woke up and said, "Oh, you know what? This is protection too and they came into Bitcoin and it just it went up even more percentage-wise than gold." But there was a lag between the two. And then of course when we started tightening in 2022, you know, gold went flat to down. Bitcoin collapsed. Bitcoin went way down. And so, you know, it went from 65 to 15. And so, you know, this is a volatile form of sound money. Um, but I think the thing people need to understand is it really, in my view, digital assets, digital secure assets that are immutable and have a limited supply, I think that which is what Bitcoin is, I think that really is the future. And so, and the volatility is because we're in an adoption period. And it reminds me very much of what happened when Amazon got started. And if you go back and you look at a stock chart of Amazon, you know, originally they're selling books. And now of course they sell everything, right? And so the stock's up 212,000% since inception. And yet they had a 90% draw down, a 70% draw down, a 50%. I mean, you know, it regularly people were like, "Oh, this Amazon thing, they're not making any money. It's not working." And it would sell off similar to Bitcoin. And so, you know, Bitcoin, while it's much more volatile, it is creating higher highs and higher lows. It's it's going up and to the right. So, so that's why I think, you know, part of what I'm going to talk about in my speech here today at the show is that if if you're a sound money advocate, as I am, and as all gold and silver people are, and I applaud them for that, for the choices, you know, you should consider if you want something that's potentially got more alpha, more upside, um, with attendant volatility, you should consider a small allocation of Bitcoin because it's it in my opinion on a raw performance basis, it's going to outperform gold in terms of percentage up. And you've been coming here for years at this point talking about gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Are you finding that the the attitudes are changing? Are people warming up? >> It is. It is. You know, there's some people who are still pretty angry or, you know, hate Bitcoin because they're gold, silver partisans and they think it's God's money and no other money could ever exist. And and I get that. And and or they think that they've been, you know, true sound money advocates and these Bitcoin guys are trying to steal their thunder. Or they look at Bitcoin and they conflate it with all the other crypto which is complete and fraudulent. I call everything that's not Bitcoin. It's a shitcoin. It's no good. I mean, I don't own Ethereum, all that other stuff. It's no good in my view. Bitcoin is actually reliable digital scarcity. Hard to get your head around that. Can you know how can we have something that's digital that's scarce? Never existed before. You know, you have a you have a computer file, you have a video, you have an audio, you have anything. You can make a million copies of it. It's digital. But they they crafted a system that proves it has these 21 million coins with proof of work so that you there will never be any more than that. And that because money really is a ledger. And that's the other thing gold people, they tend to look at Bitcoin, they say, "Well, what is it? You can't feel it. You can't touch it." Well, guess what? You know, you've got digits on your computer of your bank account balance. You can't feel or touch that either, but you know they're dollars, right? And and we haven't been paying for things with gold coins for a long long time now. So, so what really what you've got is gold is a ledger that that you know is constrained by, you know, God and geology, right? He only made so much of it. And Bitcoin is a ledger that's secured by computer code. There's a computer code that everyone can see, that everyone can verify, that's been running for 16 years. It's totally immutable. It can't be changed that says if you own one Bitcoin, you own one Bitcoin. And therefore, you know what's happened is the marketplace has said, "Oh, I like that. I'll I'll buy some of that." And as long as more and more people continue to buy it, it's going to go up. And my view is that that adoption curve has been very very solid. And that's why the reason why Bitcoin will outperform gold. They'll both go up with monetary debasement because the dollar is just getting worth less every time they print more of them. It's like, you know, putting water in your beer. The beer gets less strong. But Bitcoin will go up faster because it's also got this adoption curve. And you know, to be, you know, and also to be fair, young people aren't buying gold. I mean, it's sad, but they're not, right? They should be, but they're not. And so, you know, we live in a digital world. Things are becoming more digital. You know, Bitcoin is easy to store, easy to move. Those advantages are are, you know, causing it to continually grow. You know, adoption is growing. So, >> okay. Always good to get your thoughts on that. And I'll let us go over now to the gold and silver stocks. So, again, looking back to last year, you gave us some good advice. You told us don't don't sell your gold and silver stocks now because you're about to get paid. Yes. >> And hopefully everybody listened to that. So I'm curious though, I've heard a lot of talk here about when gold and silver were really moving a couple of weeks ago up to those new highs. Some people did take profits. So what what is your approach in this scenario? Did you did you do any of that or you just want to >> depends you know stock by stock, case by case. I mean I think you look I mean so the the general gold stock indices are up about 100% year to date. We're what we're 10 months into the year and now 11 months start of the 11th month. Um, my fund was up 130% through September. So, so yeah, we had a lot of gains. Um, but you know, and some stocks went too far too fast and I started lightening up on those or selling some of those. But, um, you know, these stocks were criminally undervalued last year. I mean, just criminally undervalued. And so, so they've now doubled. And my view is they're kind of they're they're cheap. They're still not fully valued, but they're not as cheap as they were. Obviously buying a year ago would have been better, but um I look at the multiples of cash flow. I look at the potential for growth, etc. And I still feel pretty good about owning most of these stocks. I haven't sold a lot of them. I've only sold a few of them, and the others I've just kind of sold maybe a touch at the margin. So, um I I I'm very confident that we'll have another doubling in those stocks in the next kind of year or two, which by any measure, I mean, you know, the S&P is up 18%. I mean, if you know, and and maybe I'm wrong, maybe they only go up 50% from here, but that's still pretty good performance. And so, you know, I I feel like if you look at historical gold stock bull markets and and how these things have traded, they tend to have a couple of good years in a row. And and maybe then at some point they'll become overvalued and maybe then at some point, you know, governments will get more fiscally responsible. Maybe gold will check back, whatever. Those things do lie out there in the future somewhere. But I actually don't think they're out there in the next 12 months. I feel like we're I feel like we're right in the middle of it right now and it's going to keep going and and it's sad because and I think a lot of people have been saying to themselves and they were saying this all this year, well gosh, they're up a lot. Maybe I'll wait until they pull back. Well, they haven't pulled back. They haven't given you and some people are probably looking at it today and going, "Oh, I don't know. It's gone up so much so fast. I I can't really buy it. I'll wait for a pullback." And actually, you're having a little bit of a pullback right now. I mean, they're down kind of 10% off the highs or maybe 15% some of them off the highs. I mean, my view is that might be all you're going to get. I mean, maybe they come to 20% off the highs. I don't think they get 30. If you do, great. And you can you can buy them there. But I, you know, I I think we're going to, you know, we will, as we move through the year, as the Federal Reserve transitions to QE and, you know, maybe yield curve control and money printing. You know, the metals themselves will catch another leg up. you know, gold will go through 4,500, George 5,000, silver will go to 60 or 70, you know, and these stocks will all go up another 30% pretty easily and then maybe more, you know, over the next 12 months. So, >> well, I think that's exactly what people are wondering looking at this small pullback that we're having right now is should I should I buy now? Should I add more? And what's the best way to position? So, anything else you'd share? Well, I say if you don't have any position in this stuff and you're looking to get some, I would I would buy some just right now. Just get in it because this could be all we get for a pullback. But maybe if you're worried that they're going to go lower, maybe you buy half or a third or whatever and and you you hold the rest hoping that you get something lower and if it turns out two months from now they really haven't gone lower, they've kind of gone sideways, you might just say out the heck with it. You know, I'm going to I'm going to, you know, I'm going to invest in the whole thing. you know, the I I I would say the the the the best leading indicator I think for where they're going is the silver price. So, silver is the most volatile. It's it's it's kind of the you know, it's it's just starting to take off. I mean, you know, watch silver very carefully in my view. Um, you know, because silver will tell us how quote unquote on this thing is. And so, we went through I think we went to 53, maybe 54, we came back to 50, then we were like 48 or nine for a while. I don't know where we are this morning, but we're somewhere around 50 plus or minus. We go through that 54, 55, 60. It's back into game on, you know, we're going to go to 70 and then all the other stuff will move to. So, I I watch silver very much as a leading indicator. >> Okay. Yeah, that that's a good one as well because I think people are also wondering in this pullback, all right, when is that going to end? So, we if we keep an eye on silver, don't >> silver is a good a good clue. It leads what's going it's it's the leader right now. What's going on? It's gone up more than gold this year. Silver stocks have gone up more than gold this year. So, it to me, you know, it's it's it's your it's your best indicator. >> Okay. And here, as we're getting toward the end, here's my fun question that I'm trying to ask everybody. What if you look forward to 2026, what would your pick be for a top performing asset? >> Uh, that's a tough call. Um, I actually So, boy, they're they're they're all they're really it probably won't be gold just because gold's so big. So, so here's what I would say. I I sincerely believe that in 2026, Bitcoin could double and go to 200. Silver could almost double and go to 100 or 80 or 90, up from 50. And gold stocks could double from where they are. I mean, I still think we're on the cheaper side for the gold stocks. And and by the way, we're really on the cheaper side. I mean, we're, you know, these gold stocks. So, one of the things people don't understand is the operating leverage in gold. And these gold stocks were cheap when gold was 33,000, right? Well, you add another $1,000 to the price of gold, their mar their profits go up a lot. And so, so even though the stock prices have moved, you know, the profits have grown, too. So, you know, and and and that's they trade a lot based on where people think gold's going to be in the future. If gold's going to 5,000 or 10,000, they're silly cheap today. I mean, now I don't know if it's going to 10, I'm pretty sure it's going to five. And so, you know, I think, you know, I think with a bull market, you know, you just you get in, you you be right, and you sit tight and and and you ride it. Now, you know, when when do when do we get out of it? I mean, we get out of it when everybody and their brother is talking about it. I mean, this Morgan Stanley thing, that's the beginning of them talking about it, but it's not still not widespread. There's a my my quarterly report is on my website, emma2.com. My last quarterly report, there's a great chart in there. It show it was a survey of of investment managers in the United States. How much gold do you own? Zero. 40% own zero. Do you 0 to 2% 20% own 0 to 2%. So 60% of investment managers own less than 2%. I mean, it's basically nothing, right? And then the at the high end, it was like, how many of you own own more than 7%. And it was like 5%. So, I mean, we're not, you know, this is not this is not an overcrowded trade. This is not showing signs of bubbliness or evidence of a top. I mean, you know, this is kind of just everybody waking up to maybe the maybe you need gold. I mean, I know in my case, I have a lot of friends who are just traditional investors. They know I'm the gold guy. They're calling me up saying they have no gold. They're calling me up. saying, "Yeah, maybe I should get some of this." Huh? Right. And so that's not over. I mean, and and what's going to happen to them is they're eventually going to say, "Well, yeah, I should get some of this." Or or the other thing that happens is a lot of money is managed algorithmically. So, so there are people on Wall Street and other places, money managers who who they literally look at all the results and they say, "What's what's performing the best?" And they're going to say, "Okay, well, the NASDAQ's up, you know, 20% and the S&P is up 14%. And gold's up 40%, gold stocks are up 100%. How come we don't have any of that, >> right? You know, I mean, they don't even know anything about it. They don't like it. Maybe they dislike it, but god damn it, they've got to own what's performing or else they're going to underperform, right? So, so, you know, we've still we still haven't seen all that, Charlotte. We that's all that's all still in front of us in the next year, you know. I mean, trust me though, there will come a time when I'll get nervous and there'll come a time when I won't want to be as long this stuff, but I that's I mean, I you know, bull markets try and throw off all the riders. I think the hardest thing to do, and I I know this because I know it with my partner, I know with a lot of people have looked at this, god damn, it's so hard to buy something that's up so much. And I'm like, no. Yeah, that's right. And that's why you're it's hard to do it, but that's why you're going to get paid if you do it, right? I mean, and when it feels easy, like, oh, this is a no-brainer. or I got to buy more gold after, you know, it continues to go up because we all know it's going up forever. Whoa, let's let's hang on a second. Maybe it's not. Let's slow down. Right? There's still, you know, they say the the saying the old Wall Street saying is bull markets climb a wall of worry, right? And there's I mean I when I talk to gold people, we've been so beat up for so many years. We had so many tough tough years, tough quarters, tough, you know, it's it's been a hard area to be in. And they they kind of like to see a little bit of daylight. Oh, thank God I'm going to sell. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm not sure that's really the right thing to do. I think we might actually we might actually be right about this debasement. And and if it's a trend, a meaningful trend, I think it is. It doesn't end in 6 months or a year. It it it will run for several years at least. So So that's how I see it. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think you hit on something that has been coming up at this conference. Everybody who is in gold wants to be a contrarian. So maybe when they see it going and other people like the Morgan Stanley's coming in, they get nervous like, "Oh, am I am I mainstream now?" Like, >> yeah. Well, but that's, you know, that that's investing, right? I mean, what what happens is, you know, you want to you want to do what's right before everyone figures out what's right. [laughter] And a couple years ago, we all figured out that this was right because they were going to print money. Every I mean, we got to get comfortable that other people are going to come figure it out, too, cuz frankly, they're the ones who are paying to drive up the prices. Now, what we have to watch for is does everybody think it's right? and it's a total no-brainer and you know dumb money is coming into it and blah blah blah. I mean that's that lies ahead. I mean there there will be a time maybe to to transition out but like I say I I think that time is not this year. It's not now and it's probably not a year from now. It might be a couple years from now. That's my guess. >> Okay. Well, I will I will release you back out onto the show floor. This was great. Unless you had any final thoughts. Maybe we talk about where to find the book. >> No, no final thoughts. Yeah, I'll mention the book. So, um I have haven't been able to get a mainstream publisher of the book. I don't know if you've read it. Um, I'm giving you a copy, but the book is kind of edgy and um and it it attacks the Federal Reserve. It attacks the monetary system. I Let me tell you why I wrote it. This is important. I wrote it because I think a lot of people in the world are hurting and are feeling like they're getting screwed economically and they don't understand inflation. And I I wrote it in a in a in a way and with a tone where I wanted people to understand what's going on and why it's not them not working hard enough. It's a system that's designed to hurt them. And and then I wanted them to understand that given that there's actually a way that they can fight back and that is to buy these sound monies and to advocate for sound money because you know what will in my opinion fix a lot of the ills in our society is when we return to sound money. So that's that's why I wrote the book. The book can be found on Amazon. It's hard coverver paperback uh ebook you know Kindle and then um also audio. I had great guy read it. It's about 13 hours long. So um you know but as I said no no publishers picked it up. They all looked at some pretty interested and I've sold 45,000 copies. So, it's which I hear is not bad for a self-published book, right? And yet, you know, um I'm pretty sure it's too edgy for the average for the average publisher to to publish it. So, you'll see. I I you know, I don't pull my punches. I I I call it the way I see it in the book. So, and some people like it and say it's fun read. It's got a 48 rating on Amazon, 48 out of five. So, it's it's doing okay. >> Very nice. Very nice. Well, we'll have the link in the video description so I appreciate that. >> Well, amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. Really nice to see you again. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Larry Leard.