Market Outlook: Guest argues the U.S. remains out of recession and equities are in a bull market, advising not to overreact to headlines like war or oil spikes.
S&P 500 Strategy: He promotes a rules-based approach that stays long the S&P 500 and exits on an 8% decline, avoiding shorting and minimizing trades.
Treasury Bills: When equity sell signals trigger, the model moves 100% into Treasury bills, emphasizing capital preservation during deeper drawdowns.
Model Performance: The historical model since 1957 targets robust risk-adjusted returns with few round trips, capturing early “glory gains” after major market bottoms.
Gold View: He is bearish near-term on gold, calling it overextended versus CPI, crude oil, soybeans, wheat, and housing, and disclosed selling at the peak and writing calls.
Economic Insights: Recession risk stems from overextension and potential future monetary tightening, but current evidence of tightening is lacking.
Market Structure: Broader index participation and data from options/futures inform the models, which are adapted for modern algorithmic trading.
Risk Management: The discipline accepts small givebacks to avoid major losses, prioritizing systematic signals over emotional or headline-driven moves.
Transcript
The markets are at a crossroads. Are we going to tip over? Is the market going to crash based on just higher oil prices? Maybe even a gasoline shortage that will bring the global economy to a halt. As investors, we need to figure out what is happening. Should we be worried? And I've invited a fantastic guest to discuss that with us. His name is Milton Burke. He's the founder of MB Advisors and Miltonberg Edge. and really looking forward to catching up with him because he's developed a proprietary model dating back to 1957 to help us gain an edge. I like the word play here. But uh before I switch over to my guest to help us make sense of what is going on in the markets, please hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously and we really appreciate it. Now Milton, really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Nice meeting you, Kai. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. Um, Milton, it's your first time on sore financially, so I'd really like to start very high level and just get your general assessment of the financial markets in the US economy right now. >> Well, the economy is strong. We're not in a recession, number one. I know there are people out there worried about a recession. I'm I always worry about a recession, but we're not in a recession. As far as the um stock markets go, the United States stock market is in a bull market that began basically in April 2025 after the last uh tariff based uh uh uh bare market, short-term bare market. And there's no reason at this point at this point basically we're still in a bull market despite the war in Iran, despite the worry about oil prices. The maximum decline the S&P 500 had on a closing basis so far is 3.4% off its all-time high. I don't worry about a a a major bare market until the market's down five, six or 7%, 8%. To worry about a bare market when they're down three and a half% because of the headline news. And that's something that we do. Uh because we're flexible. In other words, if I'm worried about a 50% market decline, I don't mind getting out after we're down 8%. Why should I why should I worry when we're only down 2%. I can give up, you know, off the lows in April. The market the NASDAQ is up some 40%. So to give up three, four, 5% really doesn't matter. That's the nature of this game. You want to make the gaze at the bull market, give up some of it when the bare market begins, but get out of it for the bulk of the bare market. So, at this point, bottom line, I would say we're still in a bull market until evidence suggests differently. The fact that we're in a war, the fact that the that they had a a crash in gold and so on doesn't change the view. The markets are acting well and we're not in a recession at this point. >> Perfect. No, I really appreciate that. And uh Milton, maybe just to follow up because you've been in the market since 1978 and you've seen cycles play out. You've seen crashes, you've seen inflation rises. Um like is is the setup different this time though? Are we working from a different base? Is this time different? >> Well, the only in one way it's different is the participation in the markets is far greater now than it's ever been. When I got into the business in 1978, you know, it was uh most people didn't know the SP500. There's certainly no way to invest in it. There's no such thing as an index fund at that time. Um, most people would put their money in the bank or put the money in maybe in some some municipal bonds for tax purposes, but the market has become so broad. Participation has become so broad. That's probably why markets seem to be overvalued at this point. You know, back in the 1970s, if someone would have suggested that the S&P would be trading at 22, 23 times earnings and you'd see all these great trillion dollar companies, it it would have been unbelievable. But now with more participation, we've have we have the capitalistic economy fortunately for quite a number of years. We have not turned to socialism yet although maybe that's the direction we're headed to and the economy grows and the markets grow and participation is strong. So uh in that way it's changed. Nothing has changed technically for the kind of work that I do because most of my work is based on data and technical data since they started trading um indexes since they started trading futures and now with the uh with these short-term options and so on. I get far more data to analyze than I've ever had before. So I say I created models back to 1957, but the data that's that that has been generated since the year 2000 is multiples of the data I have from 1957 till the year 2000. So that's that's a benefit as far as I'm concerned. It has changed the nature of the market in a sense because markets move more as a as a group. In other words, there's so many people buying the index which affects five of the S&P 500 for example which affects all 500 stocks. years ago when someone wanted to buy get involved in the market buy one two three or maybe 30 stocks in a portfolio. So in that sense the market action is different than it's ever been but we've adjusted for that and we've created many new models and indicators based on the new data we've been getting since the year 2000. >> We'll come to back to your model in just a second. I just want to follow up uh on on something you mentioned before we drift too far off uh is really the term recession. You used it but I I heard a we're not in a recession yet and you didn't say the yet part. I just added that. But uh I'm curious like are we headed towards a recession? And you you said you're worried about it, but we're not in one. So I'm curious like how close are we to one? >> Well, I'm worried about a recession basically because what causes recessions is an an extension of a of a of an of a of a growth phase. You know, the market the economy grows and then companies get a little loose and he says they're borrowing more money they should have borrowed and and people uh uh uh basically the consumer borrows on his credit cards or b or borrows against his mortgage, borrows against his house and spends money and get overextended and you have to correct for that. But usually the correction comes when you see some monetary difficulties. You see you see the Fed raising rates um and and you see a collapse in the bond market. You haven't seen that yet. So, I'd say that I'm always worried about a recession because we definitely are overextended. I I don't argue with those who are claiming that there's so much debt in the system, but ultimately there's going to be a problem, but ultimately, you know, can be two, three, four, five years from now before you have a big problem. I since I've been in the business, I remember the late 1980s when people were worried about the debt crisis and then in the 1990s worried about the debt crisis. I mean, you have some permanent bears have been bearish for the last 50 years because the extent of the debt outstanding of the world is is unprecedented. So, I would say yes. I'm always worried about a recession. I look for evidence. I don't see the evidence we're in a recession now. Probably you don't have to worry about the recession until you see some tightening in monetary policy. And we haven't seen that yet, at least in the United States. So, we might be on the cusp of the recession, but um I I I need more evidence before I would worry before I act upon that. I'd worry about it, but I'm not acting upon that at this point. >> I'm not seeing any tightening in monetary policy anytime soon to be quite honest. Although Kevin Worsh might throw us a curveball, but then he would also uh you know be headfaking President Trump as well, meaning like he must have told him something very different than uh what he might have told him in the job interview. So >> um coming coming back to your process and to your model there u Milton really curious um explain it to us like what is it based on? I know you it go has data going back to 1957. Um explain it a little bit to us and where are we right now? I gladly explain it to you and this, you know, I'm glad to have this opportunity to explain something because it's really very unique. Most of your viewers never seen anything like it. Here there's a guy, you know, was in the business for a long time and he's claiming he's modeled the mark since 1957. He's claiming that the model has generated total return of about 18.5% since 1957. It's only had about 54 trades over the period. So less than one trade per year, round trip, meaning buy and sell ESP for 100. So, you know, how's that even happen? Is that even possible? And and someone would have asked me, you know, when I first started in the business said, "Of course, it's impossible." And anyone's claiming that I seem sort of a charlatan. So, I'd like to sort of explain exactly what I've done. First of all, I you know, I I my main work I've done all these years with with institutional investors. I managed the largest gold fund in the United States in the 1980s. I worked for hedge fund. I partner in a hedge fund. I worked for some of the greats in this business. I worked for Stanley Ducken Miller, George Soros, Michael Steinhardt. I was a money manager at Oppenheimer. So I've been involved but mostly in institutional side. I think retail investors when it comes to stock are really very very lost. They're hearing all these talking heads giving different of opinions. They they chase after the glamorous stocks and and and ultimately they don't really outperform the market. So I try to create a simple method using the models I use for institutions to create a method which in which the individual investor can be invested in in the SP500 can benefit to the great gains that capitalism creates the great wealth that capitalism creates but to sidestep what you get a bare market. So let me show you exactly what I've done and um I think I'm sharing my screen. So uh you see this screen now number of trades per year. So first of all a retail investor doesn't want to have to trade six, seven, eight, nine times a year. He doesn't want have to watch the market every day. Doesn't have to carry his his phone and see, you know, watch the ticker each day. So, we created a model number one, as you can see, this is the number of trades per year for our model. Now, the model basically invests 100% in the S&P 500 when it's long and 100% treasury bills when it's when it's not long. The market it doesn't go short. Basically, you're in you're invested in index fund when when the when the models are bullish and you're invested in a uh in the treasury build when the model is not bullish. You're not going to go short. And this shows the number of trades per year. As you can see, there many years where there's zero trades, you know, see 58, 81, 83. So, basically, there's one round trip, one round trip every 1.24 years for retail invest. No, that's fine. But how much money is he making? The S&P on a total return basis returns about 10% peranom. And we're claiming that this model returns 18 and a half% peranom, which which is a a significant difference. Let's see how this is done. So, I just want to show you the long-term chart. This is the chart going back to 957. Every B means you're buying the S&P 500 in an index basis. Every cell means it doesn't mean you're going short. Sell means you're going to get out of your S&P 500 and invest in treasury bills, liquid assets, treasury bills. This shows basically that of the times you invested in the S&P 500, 90.9% of the trades were profitable. And the gain peranom when you were long was 21.6 21.6%. Overall though, since 20% of the time you're not in the SP500, 20% of the time you're in treasury bills, your overall gain is 18.5% peranom. And the total profitable trades, including the time you're in in T bills, which is always profitable, is 95.4% peranom. 96 95.4% of the trades are profitable. Let's let's get under the hood and see exactly what this is. I broken up the SP500s from 1987 into periods of five-year periods. And you'll notice you get a buy. This is 1957. You got a buy signal and a sell signal. What triggers a sell signal. We'll get to the buy signals in a moment because the buy signals are based on on 2,000 robust models. But the sell signals are very very simple. This is what we said. We we say the following. An individual investor doesn't mind gerating long-term gains in the market and giving up some 8% early on in a beer market. He doesn't want to sit through a decline of 15% or 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% which you've seen in the past but he wants to hold get bulk of his gains in a bull market and get out early in a bare market. So we said our sell signals are not based on modeling and frankly because I wasn't able to model the tops. I found it very very easy at least based on the work I do. I found it very very easy to model market bottoms. I found it very difficult to consistently model market tops. Many times you get a sell signal in the market and the SP goes up another 20 30% and you've seen it. I'm sure you've seen it many of the people who spoke on your show who got bearish you know in April of last year. Now the market's up 35%. This happens all the time. So we couldn't model the tops. What we decided to do is we want to get out of the market where the decline is more than random. Now a 3% decline in the market or 4% to 5% decline in the market usually is very very random. It's just a corrected process that takes place takes in a bull market. So we we the the level we're using is 8%. If you if the market is down 8% you get out on the on the assumption that this 8% is the beginning of a greater decline. If it's not if the market only goes down another 1% to 9% our models will will will get into the market on the buy side. Why do we say that? Because when I say we've modeled the market since 1957 what we've done is we've modeled every decline in the market of 8% or greater. In other words, we have buy signals on every single decline in the market of 8% or greater uh but not at 5% or greater. So, so if we if you the way this model works is you get into the S&P 500 where you get a buy signal, you just hold it. You don't worry about the headlines, you don't worry about news, you don't worry about war, you don't worry about inflation. All you worry about is will the market decline 8%. If it doesn't, I'm still remaining long. That keeps you in bull markets. You know, we have instances where we're long for three years in a row. Even though the market corrected three, four, five percent during that period. So that's how we get out of the market. Not based on any genius model where say let's get out 8% because if the market's going to go down 30%, we don't mind giving up the first 8% and being in T bills for the next 20% or next 22%. But this is just the five-year charts that basically showing you in this case you got a sell signal market at 8%. You got a buy signal two days later. In other words, sometimes you're down 8% and the market doesn't go down further. But in 196 1966, as you can see, you're down 8% and the market continues significantly lower. That's the basic of the model. But I really want to show you the robustness of the model. We don't have much time left to show you exactly how this model works. You know, there's always a headline. There's always a let me do this just a little up a little make a little bigger. This is um the this is the market. This is like this is say this is the market in 1997 Asian Asian Asian financial crisis. April 8th 1997 we get a buy signal. Why do we get a buy signal in April 8th 1997? What took place? So just to let you know we're only going to show you one signal we get. We get multiple signals generally at market lows. Let's click here and get this signal. See what it is. We'll get this right here in n on that date of April 1997. The NASDAQ five-day rate of change was above 5%. was up 5%. The NASDAQ's 5day rate of change was the greatest in 30 days. And the NDX was up 1.2% for three days in a row yesterday, one day ago. Basically, as you can see, this took place on October 23rd, 1990, early on in a bull market. Took place in December 27th, 1991. Early on in a bull market took place in April, 1997, which is the signal I just showed you. So, basically, just those three indicators together, there's every time it took place in history. See, it took place in March 13, 2009. Again, in 116, 2020. This is just one of our models. So, just to show you, we we we got to the um we got to the uh uh uh to to to the market. We showed a situation April 8th, 1987. We got a buy signal. That buy signal did only didn't only work in April 8th, 1987. Worked five times in the past. Let's get another crisis. Look at the bottom. Let's look at the bottom in 2009. Um here, March 10th, 2009. Okay, global financial crisis, right? Everyone was worried about a great depression. We had a great recession, but people worried about a great depression, worried about deflation. You had Bernanki panicking. March 10th, 1989, we got a buy signal. Let's see exactly what took place in March 10th, 2009. March in 2009, the NASDAQ had declined at least 10% and bottomed one day ago. What does bottom one day ago? It means that it held its low for one trading day. It was up one day after its its low of 10% or more. Now in this case it was down like 45%. But the point being as low this model works anytime the the NASDAQ is down at least 10% and holds low for one day. Second is that the S&P 500 was up on that same day but volume increased on the day. Two simple indicators so far. NASDAQ down at least 10% bottomed one day ago and the S&P is up on the day on increasing volume. Third component is that there was 19 times as much volume on the stocks that were trading on the upside to the stocks trading on the downside. In other words, you like take the the New York Stocks Exchange, look at all the stocks on New York Stock Exchange, look at the number of stocks that are trading up on a day, number of stocks trading down on a day, take the volume on the up stocks, take volume in the down stocks, and it has to be 19 times as much volume on the upside as the downside. And let's look at the history. Signal on November 1st, 1978, right before a 14% rally in 234 days. Signal on March 10th, 2009, right before 69% gain. signal in November 20th, 2011, right before a 78% gain. Signal on December 26, 2018. And a signal this year, April 9th, 2025. So these are signals. I don't want to call them perfect, but there are some draw downs. So here, here it's 5% in this particular instance. But the point is we've looked, we've analyzed the market in a way no one has ever done. >> We've analyzed every decline of 8% 18% of 8% or greater. And we've created models that get you in close to the bottom. We realize one of the greatest problems retail investors have is they don't get in on time. They're so afraid of a bare market, so afraid of depression recession that it takes two months or three months until they're conf confident enough to get into the market. But we used to call it the glory gains. The glory gains of bull market take place within the first months, actually within the first 10 days quite often. So this is a model that is built to get into the market within days of a low. I just fig you know I'd like you um Kai to give me some give me some favorite bare market you've had and we'll show you what we saw at the time. What was your you know when would you have found it most difficult to get into the stock market? Well, well, we're trying to draw parallels to 20201, right? So, um and and the tech the.com crash, right? Um >> Okay, let's look at that. Let's do that. Let's look at that. Okay, >> so we're going to look at October 7th, 2002. Oh, right. Which was the actual final low in the S&P 500. What happened that day? Doesn't show the SP declined 18% to it lowest low to today's close. In other words, it was down at least 18% and today was the lowest low in the bare market. So number one, you want it to be the lowest low of the bare market. Number two, we have an oscillator which ranges from 100 plus 100 to minus 100. In this case, the oscillator was about 25%. Doesn't show the number here, but the oscillator was was at excuse me at minus 75%. And the S&P had the S&P only showed two highs on the day. >> So really, it's the it's the overall oscillator giving the signal. Basically S&P had only two highs in the day, 52 week highs. It was down at least 18%. This is the day of the low, but our oscillator was at at at an extreme low. Let's see whenever this took place. August 12th, 1982, which is one day after the low of that great bare market. August 31st, 1998. One day after that low, though, the market tested the low in in in in October. Um September 21st, 2001, you had a 21% bare market rally after this signal. October 7th, 2002, which is this current signal, the market 19% before its next next pullback of 7%. But I want to point out something very, very, very important. The bare market rally. This is very, very important to talk about for retail investors. They're going to say, well, there's a bare market rally. That's not who wants to get in for a bare market rally. But based on the method we're doing, you get in over here, the market gains 21%, you get out the first 8% decline. So you don't gain the full 21% but even in this bare market you gain some 16% or or 15% in this rally and then you get the >> If I may jump in here, David, I think I was going to have I have a follow-up question for you which fits in perfectly now though. Like how do you distinguish between like a durable bottom versus a maybe a deadcat bounce. One of my favorite terms by the way. >> Okay. Well, I'll tell you how we we do it. This is a deadcat bounce. August 5th, 2001. Look at look at the history. In this case it was a durable bull market case durable market. This is case was not. >> But basically what we really do is look at the history. If this ever signals again if this this particular ever signals again I'll know in one of the last six times it signal it was not during a durable bare market. So you really can't know. We're only working on probabilities. Not every one of my signals is going to always lead to a bull market but most of them will lead to some sort of a rally. So if the market only rise 8% and then declines 8% into the continued bare market, we'll get out flat or down one or two%. Realize this has happened in a model. It's not this model going back to uh to this. I'll show you. Oh no, actually let me show you. Uh this is the this is the uh these are the actual trades actual trades in history. These are the actual trades. So you'll see there's some losses 3.12% in a 38 day trade. We went long on August 3066. It was not a durable rally. The market declined and we got out and it was a 3.2% loss. Uh we had a one and a half% loss in 2000. We got along on March 1st, 2000 which was right near the top of the market. We got out April 14th after 8% decline down one and a half%. So, you know, we're going to have instances where we're not it won't be a durable move, but guess what? Our discipline is to get out at an 8% decline. So, we're not going to be very much affected even if the market goes goes down another 60 or 70% whatever you say. Now, one caveat here is this works very well with the S&P 500 because SP stock markets have generally have broad tops. They don't crash from the top. The crashes take place after the decline has begun. For example, in 1987 and in 1929, the great crash took place after the market was already down 10%. In gold, you saw just in April of this year, excuse me, in January of this year, gold peaked and the next day was down, you know, 25%. So, if that would happen here, we wouldn't be out on time. But we're not, we didn't build this model on gold. We did build this model on on an index. The index has 500 stocks in it. So, it's very highly unlikely that index will create a crash off the top. Usually, crashes take place in a bare market once the decline has begun. >> Which >> this is just a a summary of all our trades. So you'll see the the the five weakest trades. The worst loss we have ever had was 3%. 0.15 1.5. You see very minor losses on the trades. The five largest gains was 65% you know 79%. In this case you held it for 1,270 days. So the benefit of this is for retail investors is you buy the S&P 500, you hold on to it. Don't worry. Doesn't pay to worry. Go go go go go go to the beach. Do your work. watch a movie and when it's time to sell the sell the market, we'll tell you to get out of the market. When it's time to get in, we'll tell you to get in and it's not you don't have to hold your phone and hold your computer and worry about the market on a daily basis. That's why we created this. We have thousands of clients already, you know, we they're so far they're satisfied. I I I show you an idea of what I I think we're done, but I'll show you an idea of what they look like, what the reports look like to the clients. And that would be right here. for example, uh >> while you pull it up, Milton, just real quick, like the market has changed completely over the last few years. AI and algo trading has really kicked in as well like how does that fit into your models and how do you adapt for let's say >> this way, let's put it this way, in April of this year, you know, the SP was down 20% or 18% and the Russell was down more and we the models work perfectly. We got a one B, we got bicycles April 4th. Let me let me show you this because I actually have this prepared for you. Let me show you this uh if I have it here. Uh, okay. Milton's chart by date. Oh, not in the final. I'm sorry. Here. It's going to be here. Let me just show you something fascinating. Uh, April. Look at this. This is our April. This is our April signals. I'll just show you some of them. This is this is April took place. You already have this institutional. You have all these things you're worried about, you know, with the with the algorithms and so on. On April 4th, we got a buy signal. April 7th, we got a buy signal. See, this is April 4th. One of the two April 4th buy signals. One of the two April 7th buy signals. One of the four April 8th buy signals. One of the 57 signals on April 9th. One of the two signals on April 10th, one of the four signals on April 11th, one of the five signals on April 22nd, one of the only signal April 23rd. The point being is a very robust model. I'm just showing you one signal on one date. But you know if you want to the institutions get all of this all this work they you know they've seen these in April in April alone we sent them 80 80 model buy signals. The retailers don't have to worry about that. We get the first buy signal and they buy. But the point is we've we've we've we've created the models. We just finished creating these models in September of 2025. So, we've taken into account all the algorithmic trading, all the program trading, all the crazy stuff that's going on now that never never happened before. And it's been very successful for us. And uh I think it'd be very successful for retail investors. And we're just hoping that people uh uh recognize that as a retail individual investor, they don't have to worry. They don't have to bother worry so much about the market. As long as we live in a capitalistic society, markets will grow, economies will grow. As long as in a capitalist society, there will be corrections in bare markets. That's part of the game. As long as you know you're not going to sit through a whole bare market hoping that it turns back up and you have a program to follow a systematic program. I think it'd be greatest for any any retail investor and the institution investors are also happy with this but they need more handholding because they're in the market every every day and you give multiple signals confirming signals and things to worry about. But the retail investor shouldn't worry. You just stay in the market until it's obvious that the market has stopped and at this point we're in a bull market. It's not obvious the market has stopped. Despite the fact there's a war in Iran, despite the fact oil prices go up, despite the fact inflation hasn't come down as much as it should, the fact is that the market is still acting well. It's only down three and a half% from its highs. Down 8%, we'll get out and then we'll worry maybe we'll get a crash down 50%. Who knows? >> Well, as long as the S&P 500 is the US retirement savings plan, I'm not too worried personally. >> Yeah. >> Right. So maybe maybe on that note, um bonus question though for you, Milton, because you shared something interesting with me. you you used to manage the Oenheimer Gold and Minerals Fund back in the 1980s. Uh, one of the largest or maybe the largest, hadn't had a chance to verify yet, but probably the the largest uh, gold mining and mining fund at the time. Um, run us a bit through it like do you see any parallels to what we're doing today? Bit of a bonus question there. >> Well, I I I I tell you, you know, I never looked at I was never a gold bug. I looked at the gold as a as a a very strange commodity. Why is it strange? Because, you know, copper oil gets used up. Even copper gets used up and most of them grains get used and every single ounce of gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world is still above ground. It doesn't it doesn't get consumed. So therefore you have a supply increasing each year. However, there's a great demand for gold because since gold doesn't deteriorate. Gold doesn't oxidize and gold is beautiful and gold people like to give gold to their wives and girlfriends. Gold is a lasting lasting commodity. It's always in favor. So I look at gold as a commodity and I look at the I I analyze the way I analyze the commodity but I do know that gold will hold its value over the long term but gold has bull markets and bare markets and very often the bull markets take it way above it the the price it should be at and that's where we were in this that's where we were this year let me show you a little chart on gold because this is for institutional work this is um this is gold um relative to the US CPI now this is at the peak in 198 1980 when gold declined you some some 70% off that peak. This is a peak in 2011. This is the current peak. So gold relative to CPI is very very high. And in Weimar Republic in Germany when gold was increasing relative relative to the to the rich mark gold relative CPI was not it was just matching the CPI. You see it was gold was increasing a thousand of percent in in their terms but it wasn't really getting above the CPI. You know, you could be with an ounce of gold could buy a suit of clothing in 1920 and it could still buy a suit of clothing in 1925 despite the great inflation, but it couldn't buy five suits of clothing. So, the point being is gold often gets overextended. We believe gold is overextended. This is gold relative to crude oil. This is when this is when oil is trading at zero. Okay, this is when oil was trading in in the 70s and and gold relative to that as highest it's ever been in history. Uh this is gold um by soybeans. No, no reason for gold to trade so much above soybeans. They're both commodities. They both move up with inflation over the long term. There's gold relative to wheat. This is gold relative to housing. Now, it's not quite where it was in 1980. Gold relative to housing, but it's still almost there. So, the point they're making is that gold is a commodity and gold is is a good thing to hold for the long term, but it depends when you bought it. If you bought it up here, if you bought it up here, if you bought up here, it didn't do as well as if you bought it someplace down here. And we just think that gold, this is gold GDP in all currencies. Now I ask you a question that gold right here. This look like the beginning of a move or the end of a move. People are saying, "Wow, you got to buy gold because of inflation." Yes, but this is not the beginning of the move. The beginning of the move was right here. You don't want to buy gold at the end of a move. Buy it at the beginning of a move. So this is really our view on gold. We got out I personally got out of gold and people don't believe me, but I had I show people my my my check receipt. I got out of the gold on on June on January 30th, the day of the high. I I sold my personal gold. >> Fantastic. I institutionally institutionally we wrote a report you know write writing gold and silver calls the dated January 30th you see >> day the high my institution report writing gold and silver calls why I said the peak is in sell gold's at the peak we did a 4% short position in gold and silver you know we sold it naked calls using the peak priceund I think it wasund used $110 strike price for for silver use a 5600 strike price for gold and we made a quick quick 4% over a month for institutions so this is what we do gold is a commodity it's a great commodity because it's always going to hold its value, but it's going to fluctuate. You want to buy it where no one is buying it. You want to buy it when it's when it's cheap relative CPI. You want to sell it, you want to buy where you can buy one suit of clothes with it, and want to sell it where you can buy two, three, or four suits of clothes with it. And that's where we are now in my opinion. >> Absolutely fantastic, Milton. Really enjoyed this conversation. Way too short. We could we could speak for hours. Uh really really enjoyed this. Um where can our audience find more of your work? And of course, we'll link to it down below as well. >> Well, the the the my work can be found right here. It's it's uh www.mmildenbergedge.com. That's for for it's retail investors. We have a product. We only charge them $10 a month. I really want to trying to help the retail public. Institutional uh letter is way above most people's, you know, we get we take institutional prices. So that would be Miltonberg.com ww.miltonberg.com. But the retail fellows be w.milenbergedge.com and it's uh we update twice a month. You know, as you saw, this report says, for example, model is still fully invested. This is February 17th. Model is still fully invested. When it comes to sell, we tell you to sell. When it comes to buy, we tell you to buy. And we give the data. >> Fantastic. >> Nice meeting you, Kai. And uh I hope I be helpful to some of your viewers. >> Oh, I I sure think so. It's always good to get a different perspective on the markets, and everybody's got a different model, which makes it which makes a market, which is exciting, right? Uh Milton, tremendously appreciate it. Thank you so much. And uh everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in to Sora Financially. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Milton Burke. I sure have. Very different approach and his models seem to be absolutely right. Uh hope he's wrong a little bit about the gold price, but I do get where he's coming from and we shouldn't be too enthusiastic of where we're at. The question though is is is it different this time? Uh because we haven't really touched on like monetary reset and all those things that might be influencing prices. But uh from just his model perspective, I fully get where he's coming from. Makes a lot of sense. And if you enjoyed this, hit that like and subscribe button. Helps us out tremendously. and go check out his websites as well. Thanks so much for tuning in and take care out there. And uh don't let investment decisions be run by your emotions. Take care.
Milton Berg: Don’t Fear the Headlines Yet
Summary
Transcript
The markets are at a crossroads. Are we going to tip over? Is the market going to crash based on just higher oil prices? Maybe even a gasoline shortage that will bring the global economy to a halt. As investors, we need to figure out what is happening. Should we be worried? And I've invited a fantastic guest to discuss that with us. His name is Milton Burke. He's the founder of MB Advisors and Miltonberg Edge. and really looking forward to catching up with him because he's developed a proprietary model dating back to 1957 to help us gain an edge. I like the word play here. But uh before I switch over to my guest to help us make sense of what is going on in the markets, please hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously and we really appreciate it. Now Milton, really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. >> Nice meeting you, Kai. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. Um, Milton, it's your first time on sore financially, so I'd really like to start very high level and just get your general assessment of the financial markets in the US economy right now. >> Well, the economy is strong. We're not in a recession, number one. I know there are people out there worried about a recession. I'm I always worry about a recession, but we're not in a recession. As far as the um stock markets go, the United States stock market is in a bull market that began basically in April 2025 after the last uh tariff based uh uh uh bare market, short-term bare market. And there's no reason at this point at this point basically we're still in a bull market despite the war in Iran, despite the worry about oil prices. The maximum decline the S&P 500 had on a closing basis so far is 3.4% off its all-time high. I don't worry about a a a major bare market until the market's down five, six or 7%, 8%. To worry about a bare market when they're down three and a half% because of the headline news. And that's something that we do. Uh because we're flexible. In other words, if I'm worried about a 50% market decline, I don't mind getting out after we're down 8%. Why should I why should I worry when we're only down 2%. I can give up, you know, off the lows in April. The market the NASDAQ is up some 40%. So to give up three, four, 5% really doesn't matter. That's the nature of this game. You want to make the gaze at the bull market, give up some of it when the bare market begins, but get out of it for the bulk of the bare market. So, at this point, bottom line, I would say we're still in a bull market until evidence suggests differently. The fact that we're in a war, the fact that the that they had a a crash in gold and so on doesn't change the view. The markets are acting well and we're not in a recession at this point. >> Perfect. No, I really appreciate that. And uh Milton, maybe just to follow up because you've been in the market since 1978 and you've seen cycles play out. You've seen crashes, you've seen inflation rises. Um like is is the setup different this time though? Are we working from a different base? Is this time different? >> Well, the only in one way it's different is the participation in the markets is far greater now than it's ever been. When I got into the business in 1978, you know, it was uh most people didn't know the SP500. There's certainly no way to invest in it. There's no such thing as an index fund at that time. Um, most people would put their money in the bank or put the money in maybe in some some municipal bonds for tax purposes, but the market has become so broad. Participation has become so broad. That's probably why markets seem to be overvalued at this point. You know, back in the 1970s, if someone would have suggested that the S&P would be trading at 22, 23 times earnings and you'd see all these great trillion dollar companies, it it would have been unbelievable. But now with more participation, we've have we have the capitalistic economy fortunately for quite a number of years. We have not turned to socialism yet although maybe that's the direction we're headed to and the economy grows and the markets grow and participation is strong. So uh in that way it's changed. Nothing has changed technically for the kind of work that I do because most of my work is based on data and technical data since they started trading um indexes since they started trading futures and now with the uh with these short-term options and so on. I get far more data to analyze than I've ever had before. So I say I created models back to 1957, but the data that's that that has been generated since the year 2000 is multiples of the data I have from 1957 till the year 2000. So that's that's a benefit as far as I'm concerned. It has changed the nature of the market in a sense because markets move more as a as a group. In other words, there's so many people buying the index which affects five of the S&P 500 for example which affects all 500 stocks. years ago when someone wanted to buy get involved in the market buy one two three or maybe 30 stocks in a portfolio. So in that sense the market action is different than it's ever been but we've adjusted for that and we've created many new models and indicators based on the new data we've been getting since the year 2000. >> We'll come to back to your model in just a second. I just want to follow up uh on on something you mentioned before we drift too far off uh is really the term recession. You used it but I I heard a we're not in a recession yet and you didn't say the yet part. I just added that. But uh I'm curious like are we headed towards a recession? And you you said you're worried about it, but we're not in one. So I'm curious like how close are we to one? >> Well, I'm worried about a recession basically because what causes recessions is an an extension of a of a of an of a of a growth phase. You know, the market the economy grows and then companies get a little loose and he says they're borrowing more money they should have borrowed and and people uh uh uh basically the consumer borrows on his credit cards or b or borrows against his mortgage, borrows against his house and spends money and get overextended and you have to correct for that. But usually the correction comes when you see some monetary difficulties. You see you see the Fed raising rates um and and you see a collapse in the bond market. You haven't seen that yet. So, I'd say that I'm always worried about a recession because we definitely are overextended. I I don't argue with those who are claiming that there's so much debt in the system, but ultimately there's going to be a problem, but ultimately, you know, can be two, three, four, five years from now before you have a big problem. I since I've been in the business, I remember the late 1980s when people were worried about the debt crisis and then in the 1990s worried about the debt crisis. I mean, you have some permanent bears have been bearish for the last 50 years because the extent of the debt outstanding of the world is is unprecedented. So, I would say yes. I'm always worried about a recession. I look for evidence. I don't see the evidence we're in a recession now. Probably you don't have to worry about the recession until you see some tightening in monetary policy. And we haven't seen that yet, at least in the United States. So, we might be on the cusp of the recession, but um I I I need more evidence before I would worry before I act upon that. I'd worry about it, but I'm not acting upon that at this point. >> I'm not seeing any tightening in monetary policy anytime soon to be quite honest. Although Kevin Worsh might throw us a curveball, but then he would also uh you know be headfaking President Trump as well, meaning like he must have told him something very different than uh what he might have told him in the job interview. So >> um coming coming back to your process and to your model there u Milton really curious um explain it to us like what is it based on? I know you it go has data going back to 1957. Um explain it a little bit to us and where are we right now? I gladly explain it to you and this, you know, I'm glad to have this opportunity to explain something because it's really very unique. Most of your viewers never seen anything like it. Here there's a guy, you know, was in the business for a long time and he's claiming he's modeled the mark since 1957. He's claiming that the model has generated total return of about 18.5% since 1957. It's only had about 54 trades over the period. So less than one trade per year, round trip, meaning buy and sell ESP for 100. So, you know, how's that even happen? Is that even possible? And and someone would have asked me, you know, when I first started in the business said, "Of course, it's impossible." And anyone's claiming that I seem sort of a charlatan. So, I'd like to sort of explain exactly what I've done. First of all, I you know, I I my main work I've done all these years with with institutional investors. I managed the largest gold fund in the United States in the 1980s. I worked for hedge fund. I partner in a hedge fund. I worked for some of the greats in this business. I worked for Stanley Ducken Miller, George Soros, Michael Steinhardt. I was a money manager at Oppenheimer. So I've been involved but mostly in institutional side. I think retail investors when it comes to stock are really very very lost. They're hearing all these talking heads giving different of opinions. They they chase after the glamorous stocks and and and ultimately they don't really outperform the market. So I try to create a simple method using the models I use for institutions to create a method which in which the individual investor can be invested in in the SP500 can benefit to the great gains that capitalism creates the great wealth that capitalism creates but to sidestep what you get a bare market. So let me show you exactly what I've done and um I think I'm sharing my screen. So uh you see this screen now number of trades per year. So first of all a retail investor doesn't want to have to trade six, seven, eight, nine times a year. He doesn't want have to watch the market every day. Doesn't have to carry his his phone and see, you know, watch the ticker each day. So, we created a model number one, as you can see, this is the number of trades per year for our model. Now, the model basically invests 100% in the S&P 500 when it's long and 100% treasury bills when it's when it's not long. The market it doesn't go short. Basically, you're in you're invested in index fund when when the when the models are bullish and you're invested in a uh in the treasury build when the model is not bullish. You're not going to go short. And this shows the number of trades per year. As you can see, there many years where there's zero trades, you know, see 58, 81, 83. So, basically, there's one round trip, one round trip every 1.24 years for retail invest. No, that's fine. But how much money is he making? The S&P on a total return basis returns about 10% peranom. And we're claiming that this model returns 18 and a half% peranom, which which is a a significant difference. Let's see how this is done. So, I just want to show you the long-term chart. This is the chart going back to 957. Every B means you're buying the S&P 500 in an index basis. Every cell means it doesn't mean you're going short. Sell means you're going to get out of your S&P 500 and invest in treasury bills, liquid assets, treasury bills. This shows basically that of the times you invested in the S&P 500, 90.9% of the trades were profitable. And the gain peranom when you were long was 21.6 21.6%. Overall though, since 20% of the time you're not in the SP500, 20% of the time you're in treasury bills, your overall gain is 18.5% peranom. And the total profitable trades, including the time you're in in T bills, which is always profitable, is 95.4% peranom. 96 95.4% of the trades are profitable. Let's let's get under the hood and see exactly what this is. I broken up the SP500s from 1987 into periods of five-year periods. And you'll notice you get a buy. This is 1957. You got a buy signal and a sell signal. What triggers a sell signal. We'll get to the buy signals in a moment because the buy signals are based on on 2,000 robust models. But the sell signals are very very simple. This is what we said. We we say the following. An individual investor doesn't mind gerating long-term gains in the market and giving up some 8% early on in a beer market. He doesn't want to sit through a decline of 15% or 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% which you've seen in the past but he wants to hold get bulk of his gains in a bull market and get out early in a bare market. So we said our sell signals are not based on modeling and frankly because I wasn't able to model the tops. I found it very very easy at least based on the work I do. I found it very very easy to model market bottoms. I found it very difficult to consistently model market tops. Many times you get a sell signal in the market and the SP goes up another 20 30% and you've seen it. I'm sure you've seen it many of the people who spoke on your show who got bearish you know in April of last year. Now the market's up 35%. This happens all the time. So we couldn't model the tops. What we decided to do is we want to get out of the market where the decline is more than random. Now a 3% decline in the market or 4% to 5% decline in the market usually is very very random. It's just a corrected process that takes place takes in a bull market. So we we the the level we're using is 8%. If you if the market is down 8% you get out on the on the assumption that this 8% is the beginning of a greater decline. If it's not if the market only goes down another 1% to 9% our models will will will get into the market on the buy side. Why do we say that? Because when I say we've modeled the market since 1957 what we've done is we've modeled every decline in the market of 8% or greater. In other words, we have buy signals on every single decline in the market of 8% or greater uh but not at 5% or greater. So, so if we if you the way this model works is you get into the S&P 500 where you get a buy signal, you just hold it. You don't worry about the headlines, you don't worry about news, you don't worry about war, you don't worry about inflation. All you worry about is will the market decline 8%. If it doesn't, I'm still remaining long. That keeps you in bull markets. You know, we have instances where we're long for three years in a row. Even though the market corrected three, four, five percent during that period. So that's how we get out of the market. Not based on any genius model where say let's get out 8% because if the market's going to go down 30%, we don't mind giving up the first 8% and being in T bills for the next 20% or next 22%. But this is just the five-year charts that basically showing you in this case you got a sell signal market at 8%. You got a buy signal two days later. In other words, sometimes you're down 8% and the market doesn't go down further. But in 196 1966, as you can see, you're down 8% and the market continues significantly lower. That's the basic of the model. But I really want to show you the robustness of the model. We don't have much time left to show you exactly how this model works. You know, there's always a headline. There's always a let me do this just a little up a little make a little bigger. This is um the this is the market. This is like this is say this is the market in 1997 Asian Asian Asian financial crisis. April 8th 1997 we get a buy signal. Why do we get a buy signal in April 8th 1997? What took place? So just to let you know we're only going to show you one signal we get. We get multiple signals generally at market lows. Let's click here and get this signal. See what it is. We'll get this right here in n on that date of April 1997. The NASDAQ five-day rate of change was above 5%. was up 5%. The NASDAQ's 5day rate of change was the greatest in 30 days. And the NDX was up 1.2% for three days in a row yesterday, one day ago. Basically, as you can see, this took place on October 23rd, 1990, early on in a bull market. Took place in December 27th, 1991. Early on in a bull market took place in April, 1997, which is the signal I just showed you. So, basically, just those three indicators together, there's every time it took place in history. See, it took place in March 13, 2009. Again, in 116, 2020. This is just one of our models. So, just to show you, we we we got to the um we got to the uh uh uh to to to the market. We showed a situation April 8th, 1987. We got a buy signal. That buy signal did only didn't only work in April 8th, 1987. Worked five times in the past. Let's get another crisis. Look at the bottom. Let's look at the bottom in 2009. Um here, March 10th, 2009. Okay, global financial crisis, right? Everyone was worried about a great depression. We had a great recession, but people worried about a great depression, worried about deflation. You had Bernanki panicking. March 10th, 1989, we got a buy signal. Let's see exactly what took place in March 10th, 2009. March in 2009, the NASDAQ had declined at least 10% and bottomed one day ago. What does bottom one day ago? It means that it held its low for one trading day. It was up one day after its its low of 10% or more. Now in this case it was down like 45%. But the point being as low this model works anytime the the NASDAQ is down at least 10% and holds low for one day. Second is that the S&P 500 was up on that same day but volume increased on the day. Two simple indicators so far. NASDAQ down at least 10% bottomed one day ago and the S&P is up on the day on increasing volume. Third component is that there was 19 times as much volume on the stocks that were trading on the upside to the stocks trading on the downside. In other words, you like take the the New York Stocks Exchange, look at all the stocks on New York Stock Exchange, look at the number of stocks that are trading up on a day, number of stocks trading down on a day, take the volume on the up stocks, take volume in the down stocks, and it has to be 19 times as much volume on the upside as the downside. And let's look at the history. Signal on November 1st, 1978, right before a 14% rally in 234 days. Signal on March 10th, 2009, right before 69% gain. signal in November 20th, 2011, right before a 78% gain. Signal on December 26, 2018. And a signal this year, April 9th, 2025. So these are signals. I don't want to call them perfect, but there are some draw downs. So here, here it's 5% in this particular instance. But the point is we've looked, we've analyzed the market in a way no one has ever done. >> We've analyzed every decline of 8% 18% of 8% or greater. And we've created models that get you in close to the bottom. We realize one of the greatest problems retail investors have is they don't get in on time. They're so afraid of a bare market, so afraid of depression recession that it takes two months or three months until they're conf confident enough to get into the market. But we used to call it the glory gains. The glory gains of bull market take place within the first months, actually within the first 10 days quite often. So this is a model that is built to get into the market within days of a low. I just fig you know I'd like you um Kai to give me some give me some favorite bare market you've had and we'll show you what we saw at the time. What was your you know when would you have found it most difficult to get into the stock market? Well, well, we're trying to draw parallels to 20201, right? So, um and and the tech the.com crash, right? Um >> Okay, let's look at that. Let's do that. Let's look at that. Okay, >> so we're going to look at October 7th, 2002. Oh, right. Which was the actual final low in the S&P 500. What happened that day? Doesn't show the SP declined 18% to it lowest low to today's close. In other words, it was down at least 18% and today was the lowest low in the bare market. So number one, you want it to be the lowest low of the bare market. Number two, we have an oscillator which ranges from 100 plus 100 to minus 100. In this case, the oscillator was about 25%. Doesn't show the number here, but the oscillator was was at excuse me at minus 75%. And the S&P had the S&P only showed two highs on the day. >> So really, it's the it's the overall oscillator giving the signal. Basically S&P had only two highs in the day, 52 week highs. It was down at least 18%. This is the day of the low, but our oscillator was at at at an extreme low. Let's see whenever this took place. August 12th, 1982, which is one day after the low of that great bare market. August 31st, 1998. One day after that low, though, the market tested the low in in in in October. Um September 21st, 2001, you had a 21% bare market rally after this signal. October 7th, 2002, which is this current signal, the market 19% before its next next pullback of 7%. But I want to point out something very, very, very important. The bare market rally. This is very, very important to talk about for retail investors. They're going to say, well, there's a bare market rally. That's not who wants to get in for a bare market rally. But based on the method we're doing, you get in over here, the market gains 21%, you get out the first 8% decline. So you don't gain the full 21% but even in this bare market you gain some 16% or or 15% in this rally and then you get the >> If I may jump in here, David, I think I was going to have I have a follow-up question for you which fits in perfectly now though. Like how do you distinguish between like a durable bottom versus a maybe a deadcat bounce. One of my favorite terms by the way. >> Okay. Well, I'll tell you how we we do it. This is a deadcat bounce. August 5th, 2001. Look at look at the history. In this case it was a durable bull market case durable market. This is case was not. >> But basically what we really do is look at the history. If this ever signals again if this this particular ever signals again I'll know in one of the last six times it signal it was not during a durable bare market. So you really can't know. We're only working on probabilities. Not every one of my signals is going to always lead to a bull market but most of them will lead to some sort of a rally. So if the market only rise 8% and then declines 8% into the continued bare market, we'll get out flat or down one or two%. Realize this has happened in a model. It's not this model going back to uh to this. I'll show you. Oh no, actually let me show you. Uh this is the this is the uh these are the actual trades actual trades in history. These are the actual trades. So you'll see there's some losses 3.12% in a 38 day trade. We went long on August 3066. It was not a durable rally. The market declined and we got out and it was a 3.2% loss. Uh we had a one and a half% loss in 2000. We got along on March 1st, 2000 which was right near the top of the market. We got out April 14th after 8% decline down one and a half%. So, you know, we're going to have instances where we're not it won't be a durable move, but guess what? Our discipline is to get out at an 8% decline. So, we're not going to be very much affected even if the market goes goes down another 60 or 70% whatever you say. Now, one caveat here is this works very well with the S&P 500 because SP stock markets have generally have broad tops. They don't crash from the top. The crashes take place after the decline has begun. For example, in 1987 and in 1929, the great crash took place after the market was already down 10%. In gold, you saw just in April of this year, excuse me, in January of this year, gold peaked and the next day was down, you know, 25%. So, if that would happen here, we wouldn't be out on time. But we're not, we didn't build this model on gold. We did build this model on on an index. The index has 500 stocks in it. So, it's very highly unlikely that index will create a crash off the top. Usually, crashes take place in a bare market once the decline has begun. >> Which >> this is just a a summary of all our trades. So you'll see the the the five weakest trades. The worst loss we have ever had was 3%. 0.15 1.5. You see very minor losses on the trades. The five largest gains was 65% you know 79%. In this case you held it for 1,270 days. So the benefit of this is for retail investors is you buy the S&P 500, you hold on to it. Don't worry. Doesn't pay to worry. Go go go go go go to the beach. Do your work. watch a movie and when it's time to sell the sell the market, we'll tell you to get out of the market. When it's time to get in, we'll tell you to get in and it's not you don't have to hold your phone and hold your computer and worry about the market on a daily basis. That's why we created this. We have thousands of clients already, you know, we they're so far they're satisfied. I I I show you an idea of what I I think we're done, but I'll show you an idea of what they look like, what the reports look like to the clients. And that would be right here. for example, uh >> while you pull it up, Milton, just real quick, like the market has changed completely over the last few years. AI and algo trading has really kicked in as well like how does that fit into your models and how do you adapt for let's say >> this way, let's put it this way, in April of this year, you know, the SP was down 20% or 18% and the Russell was down more and we the models work perfectly. We got a one B, we got bicycles April 4th. Let me let me show you this because I actually have this prepared for you. Let me show you this uh if I have it here. Uh, okay. Milton's chart by date. Oh, not in the final. I'm sorry. Here. It's going to be here. Let me just show you something fascinating. Uh, April. Look at this. This is our April. This is our April signals. I'll just show you some of them. This is this is April took place. You already have this institutional. You have all these things you're worried about, you know, with the with the algorithms and so on. On April 4th, we got a buy signal. April 7th, we got a buy signal. See, this is April 4th. One of the two April 4th buy signals. One of the two April 7th buy signals. One of the four April 8th buy signals. One of the 57 signals on April 9th. One of the two signals on April 10th, one of the four signals on April 11th, one of the five signals on April 22nd, one of the only signal April 23rd. The point being is a very robust model. I'm just showing you one signal on one date. But you know if you want to the institutions get all of this all this work they you know they've seen these in April in April alone we sent them 80 80 model buy signals. The retailers don't have to worry about that. We get the first buy signal and they buy. But the point is we've we've we've we've created the models. We just finished creating these models in September of 2025. So, we've taken into account all the algorithmic trading, all the program trading, all the crazy stuff that's going on now that never never happened before. And it's been very successful for us. And uh I think it'd be very successful for retail investors. And we're just hoping that people uh uh recognize that as a retail individual investor, they don't have to worry. They don't have to bother worry so much about the market. As long as we live in a capitalistic society, markets will grow, economies will grow. As long as in a capitalist society, there will be corrections in bare markets. That's part of the game. As long as you know you're not going to sit through a whole bare market hoping that it turns back up and you have a program to follow a systematic program. I think it'd be greatest for any any retail investor and the institution investors are also happy with this but they need more handholding because they're in the market every every day and you give multiple signals confirming signals and things to worry about. But the retail investor shouldn't worry. You just stay in the market until it's obvious that the market has stopped and at this point we're in a bull market. It's not obvious the market has stopped. Despite the fact there's a war in Iran, despite the fact oil prices go up, despite the fact inflation hasn't come down as much as it should, the fact is that the market is still acting well. It's only down three and a half% from its highs. Down 8%, we'll get out and then we'll worry maybe we'll get a crash down 50%. Who knows? >> Well, as long as the S&P 500 is the US retirement savings plan, I'm not too worried personally. >> Yeah. >> Right. So maybe maybe on that note, um bonus question though for you, Milton, because you shared something interesting with me. you you used to manage the Oenheimer Gold and Minerals Fund back in the 1980s. Uh, one of the largest or maybe the largest, hadn't had a chance to verify yet, but probably the the largest uh, gold mining and mining fund at the time. Um, run us a bit through it like do you see any parallels to what we're doing today? Bit of a bonus question there. >> Well, I I I I tell you, you know, I never looked at I was never a gold bug. I looked at the gold as a as a a very strange commodity. Why is it strange? Because, you know, copper oil gets used up. Even copper gets used up and most of them grains get used and every single ounce of gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world is still above ground. It doesn't it doesn't get consumed. So therefore you have a supply increasing each year. However, there's a great demand for gold because since gold doesn't deteriorate. Gold doesn't oxidize and gold is beautiful and gold people like to give gold to their wives and girlfriends. Gold is a lasting lasting commodity. It's always in favor. So I look at gold as a commodity and I look at the I I analyze the way I analyze the commodity but I do know that gold will hold its value over the long term but gold has bull markets and bare markets and very often the bull markets take it way above it the the price it should be at and that's where we were in this that's where we were this year let me show you a little chart on gold because this is for institutional work this is um this is gold um relative to the US CPI now this is at the peak in 198 1980 when gold declined you some some 70% off that peak. This is a peak in 2011. This is the current peak. So gold relative to CPI is very very high. And in Weimar Republic in Germany when gold was increasing relative relative to the to the rich mark gold relative CPI was not it was just matching the CPI. You see it was gold was increasing a thousand of percent in in their terms but it wasn't really getting above the CPI. You know, you could be with an ounce of gold could buy a suit of clothing in 1920 and it could still buy a suit of clothing in 1925 despite the great inflation, but it couldn't buy five suits of clothing. So, the point being is gold often gets overextended. We believe gold is overextended. This is gold relative to crude oil. This is when this is when oil is trading at zero. Okay, this is when oil was trading in in the 70s and and gold relative to that as highest it's ever been in history. Uh this is gold um by soybeans. No, no reason for gold to trade so much above soybeans. They're both commodities. They both move up with inflation over the long term. There's gold relative to wheat. This is gold relative to housing. Now, it's not quite where it was in 1980. Gold relative to housing, but it's still almost there. So, the point they're making is that gold is a commodity and gold is is a good thing to hold for the long term, but it depends when you bought it. If you bought it up here, if you bought it up here, if you bought up here, it didn't do as well as if you bought it someplace down here. And we just think that gold, this is gold GDP in all currencies. Now I ask you a question that gold right here. This look like the beginning of a move or the end of a move. People are saying, "Wow, you got to buy gold because of inflation." Yes, but this is not the beginning of the move. The beginning of the move was right here. You don't want to buy gold at the end of a move. Buy it at the beginning of a move. So this is really our view on gold. We got out I personally got out of gold and people don't believe me, but I had I show people my my my check receipt. I got out of the gold on on June on January 30th, the day of the high. I I sold my personal gold. >> Fantastic. I institutionally institutionally we wrote a report you know write writing gold and silver calls the dated January 30th you see >> day the high my institution report writing gold and silver calls why I said the peak is in sell gold's at the peak we did a 4% short position in gold and silver you know we sold it naked calls using the peak priceund I think it wasund used $110 strike price for for silver use a 5600 strike price for gold and we made a quick quick 4% over a month for institutions so this is what we do gold is a commodity it's a great commodity because it's always going to hold its value, but it's going to fluctuate. You want to buy it where no one is buying it. You want to buy it when it's when it's cheap relative CPI. You want to sell it, you want to buy where you can buy one suit of clothes with it, and want to sell it where you can buy two, three, or four suits of clothes with it. And that's where we are now in my opinion. >> Absolutely fantastic, Milton. Really enjoyed this conversation. Way too short. We could we could speak for hours. Uh really really enjoyed this. Um where can our audience find more of your work? And of course, we'll link to it down below as well. >> Well, the the the my work can be found right here. It's it's uh www.mmildenbergedge.com. That's for for it's retail investors. We have a product. We only charge them $10 a month. I really want to trying to help the retail public. Institutional uh letter is way above most people's, you know, we get we take institutional prices. So that would be Miltonberg.com ww.miltonberg.com. But the retail fellows be w.milenbergedge.com and it's uh we update twice a month. You know, as you saw, this report says, for example, model is still fully invested. This is February 17th. Model is still fully invested. When it comes to sell, we tell you to sell. When it comes to buy, we tell you to buy. And we give the data. >> Fantastic. >> Nice meeting you, Kai. And uh I hope I be helpful to some of your viewers. >> Oh, I I sure think so. It's always good to get a different perspective on the markets, and everybody's got a different model, which makes it which makes a market, which is exciting, right? Uh Milton, tremendously appreciate it. Thank you so much. And uh everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in to Sora Financially. Hope you enjoyed this conversation with Milton Burke. I sure have. Very different approach and his models seem to be absolutely right. Uh hope he's wrong a little bit about the gold price, but I do get where he's coming from and we shouldn't be too enthusiastic of where we're at. The question though is is is it different this time? Uh because we haven't really touched on like monetary reset and all those things that might be influencing prices. But uh from just his model perspective, I fully get where he's coming from. Makes a lot of sense. And if you enjoyed this, hit that like and subscribe button. Helps us out tremendously. and go check out his websites as well. Thanks so much for tuning in and take care out there. And uh don't let investment decisions be run by your emotions. Take care.