The Wolf Of All Streets - In the Trading Pit with Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist At Bloomberg

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

Mike McGlone grew up 20 minutes from the Chicago Board of Trade with a deep interest in finance and trading. Climbing the ladder quickly, Mike went from taking phone calls on the trading floor to becoming a Senior Commodity Strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence. Having spent his entire career in Chicago and on Wall Street, Mike has a keen eye for macro economic trends, in legacy markets and beyond. While his opinions are strictly his own and not financial advice, Mike believes to have strong evidence for a long-term bullish Bitcoin scenario. Scott Melker and Mike McGlone further discuss the screams and shouts of the trading pit, determining the volume of the market by the odor of the other traders, the Bloomberg Terminal, the election’s impact on the market, CBDCs' unstoppable trend, tempting the market gods, quantitative easing, the classic signs of a bear and bull market, the growing advantages of hard assets, where the market is heading, Bitcoin’s true value and more. --- ROUNDLYX RoundlyX allows you to dollar-cost-average into crypto with our spare change "Roundup" investing tool, manage multiple crypto exchange accounts in one dashboard and access curated digital asset content and services. Visit RoundlyX and use promo code "WOLF" to learn more about accumulating your favorite digital assets when making everyday purchases and earn $4 in free Bitcoin. --- EQUOS Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurrency exchange to be listed in the US. That exchange, EQUOS, has been built to institutional standards, but is available to everyone. You can trade Bitcoin and Ethereum spot, as well as Bitcoin perpetuals, and get a 5% discount on all fees, by signing up using equos.com/wolf. --- CELSIUS With the Celsius app you can earn up to 15% APY rewards on over 30 cryptocurrencies. Have crypto but want cash? Celsius also offers the lowest cost loans against your crypto with interest rates starting at just 1% APR. Enter promo code WOLF when you sign up and get $20 in BTC! Users must transfer and hold at least $200 of any coin for 30 days to be eligible for the reward. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

I'd like to thank my sponsors, Celsius, Equus, and Round the X for making this episode possible. Stay tuned later in the episode for more info. What is up, everybody? I'm Scott Melker, and you're listening to the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast, where two times a week, we talk to your favorite personalities in the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, art, music, politics, sports, basically anyone else with a story to tell. The show is powered by BlockWorks Group, a media company with over 20 podcasts in their network. You can check them out at blockworksgroup.io. If you like the podcast, you follow me on Twitter. Check out my website and join my newsletter. You can do both those things at thewolfofallstreets.io. I got to say, I'm more excited for this conversation than I have

been for quite a few of them in the past that I've been really pumped to talk to Mike. So, he's a senior commodity strategist with decades of experience now working for Bloomberg Gathering Intelligence. Mike began his career hustling his way down Wall Street to eventually become an expert trader and visionary. Having seen and experienced it all, I now have the luxury here to find out how much of Hollywood resembles the real Wall Street. So Mike McClone, man, it's awesome to have you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me. That's quite the intro. I started in the trading pits in the 80s. I've been in Chicago. I've been in New York for almost 30 years. They haven't kicked me out yet, but so far so good. Yeah, I can't wait to hear your perspective. I

think that all of us sort of have this trading places vision from the movie of what it was like in the trading pits and back in the day on Wall Street when traders were really on the floor. So kind of touched on in the intro of the Wall Street view, and that's how I've always viewed it. So I love hearing the real stories. Can you give us a bit, I guess, of your background, how you even became a trader, got into it, and we can start there. Well, I mean, it was probably one of the most quoted movies when you work in the trading pits was lines from that movie. So it was kind of fun. I think I actually didn't really see it

until a few years ago, the whole thing, because I just knew it from everybody quoting it. But now I started in the, I grew up about 25 miles south of the Chicago border trade. So boom, that was easy. I got out of college. I was just bored to death for a desk job, started there. in new york since and short term uh make a long story short i've been really um at bloomer for almost i'm going to my fifth year now and at bloomberg what i do

is i'm quantity strategist i picked up really covering cryptos three years ago right during the boom of 2017 and then you I was able to really pick the peak and then ride the decline in 2018. But the key thing I like to point out is I'm completely neutral. And I love that having been in both buy side and sell side of the street. And you can't see this in the podcast, but you can see it. I have no hair left. I'm trying to trade. They'll be able to see it. Those who watch it on YouTube will see it, so no problem. But it's the unbiasedness that I really enjoy. And as a more mature person, I can say that my primary goal is to publish on the Bloomberg Terminal and get the story right.

I'm quite bullish on Bitcoin, gold, and a lot of the macro. And my main purpose here is, like I said, getting it right. And if I don't, I won't get the readership. I won't, people won't care. So no selling product. This is the unbiased view from a Bloomberg institutional standpoint. So it sounds like you've sort of, as you said, you've done buy side, sell side. Now you're more in the analysis and information side of things. So having seen every single side of it, which part of that have you enjoyed the most? Where I am now, it's the best. I like to say, you know, when you have a P&L and you've got kids, my kids are gone now, I'm an older,

it's really tough. It can be really hard when you're down a lot of money and you have to think about those next life sales. There's tuition bills due and food bills due and things like that. That's really hard. It can be very hard. So I only view one out of 10 traders every do well, very do well. And that's why I want to warn a lot of our trading audience, stick with the buy and hold macro trading can really be difficult. And there's an army out there against you.

But what I really enjoy what I do here, because I get to use everything I've learned, almost everything I've learned in education and experience and put it to use. And I really enjoy it because Bloomberg gives, you know, we have editors, but they give me really a free hand on what I want to write about within, you know, limits as long as it's being edited properly.

And as you'll be able to hear in this podcast, I have a bit of a Southside accent. So they help with my writing, Southside Chicago, that is. But that's it. And that's one thing. So I sit in front of this terminal, which I've been using for 20 years. And there was this wealth of information. For instance, just now I was looking at U.S. debt to GDP versus the world, the price of gold and the potential peaking dollar. And I just can get all the data I want right here and then put in a good graphical format and publish on it. So it's really easy. It's fun. Yeah. I mean, I love doing the same thing,

but I do not have a Bloomberg terminal. Can you tell me why they are so expensive? Yes. I remember asking the same question and I'd like to defer that one. Let's get back into the subject. Okay. I'll pass on that one. One day I'm going to get one. I'm convinced definitely. So I want to go back to your days starting in Chicago. I mean, I think I read that you were, you know, you answered the phones or you worked at a desk or something to start and then sort of transitioned from that into trading. Can you talk about that experience and being there when there was no digital? You know, it was all literally done in the pits. My first day in the pits was in 1988 in Chicago Board of Trade.

I was a phone clerk. I'm one of those guys sitting in the phones and Airbnb trades at the time was the world's busiest futures pit. It was a bond futures at Chicago Board of Trade. And so I would speak to institutional customers, buy or sell treasury bonds or options or everything. And that's what I did. And then eventually, but all my customers were institution. My job was to have an opinion to help them hedge or make money or hedge portfolios and things and hedge interest rate risk and commodity risk. Then I came to New York in 93. And I've been in numerous

different positions here. Not really because of my choice. I think it's been three different bank mergers since you get to Severance, you move on. And that's how I got to Bloomberg. And I just hope to stay here for a long time. So what was life like in the pits? I've heard John Najarian and other people talk about it, that it was more of a, it was, he likened it more to like a football game than actually participating in finance and said that they were actually looking for athletes like him who are huge in the jockey position and basically crush their competition physically just to get their orders in and out. A lot of ex-athletes, and I like to say, I'll give them a little bias, us, those of us who work in the trading pits of Chicago, which was a much different setup was much more obnoxious i remember coming to new york

stock exchange in the early late 80s and early 90s like well this is sissy stuff compared to what we do our trading pits were not booths they're just massive pits and there'd be 300 people and i remember the year at our futures pit had 500 people crammed in there. And at the end of the day, sometimes I could judge volume by the smell. I mean, men smell and people smell when they're trading hard. And you can tell if it was a really busy day by the smell of human beings sometimes. But it was the best and the worst. I knew that my day one, I started there, this was going to be shifted to electronics. And here we are. But I knew it was probably the best place in the world to learn business, learn markets,

really learn macro and actually dealing with people fast. And so I spent five years there and it really made my foundation to everything I do now is really trickled up from that. I'm curious about like the brass tacks though, because it seems like it would be impossible to put it in order, know that it was received, be able to get a confirmation, and then to balance all that by the end of the day. I don't even understand how it was done by human beings in that environment screaming at each other, you see the ticket, right, the ticket. I mean, it just seems like everything would be wrong by the end of the day. How is that possibly efficient?

I just told you, 100 at the market. I mean, the way it works, when you come down there as an observer, it looks like chaos. But every person is dealing with another person. You know the signals. There's been a lot of errors. There used to be a lot of errors, but you work them out. I mean, humans figure things out, like this virus. We'll get over it. We'll figure it out. But it worked well. There was things caught out. Trades could be a problem. There was a lot of human interaction. And one way

I like to describe it is down there, if you mess with someone, you got to deal with them the next day. So you didn't mess too much. I mean, obviously, there was a lot of testosterone floating around. But I have a brother who left the pits. He now is in real estate. He says compared to the trading pits, it was much more civil down there because you got to deal with these people next day. So you got to be careful. And you hear the F word a lot and things like that. But, you know, it was all very professional.

And then, of course, there's areas of it that were like you see in Wolf of Wall Street that I never was exposed to. I was always a corporate family guy. So my adult kids would tease me about that. My guys just think, just imagine what it was like, 5,000 young, 20-somethings making a lot of money. What do you think? Use your imagination. I was just never involved in that side of the business. I got my MBA at night at DePaul University. And it was just, I love that dichotomy of being in the trading pits during the day and at night learning the theory behind markets. Major difference. Just seems like the learning curve would be so steep down there.

Like you would just have no idea what was going on. It seems like one of those complete trial by fire sort of situations. But, you know, now everything obviously is moved completely online. It's funny you talk about how you had to be civil even in in that aggressive environment. And people don't have to be that way anymore. It's funny, just a total separate conversation, but how obnoxious and rude and, you know, people can be online when they don't have to face that person the next day. I mean, I'm in my 40s. So same for me. I mean, when I was a kid, if someone, if you wanted to say something to someone or troll someone, you had to actually say it to them and deal with the consequences, right?

That's one thing I really enjoy. I'm really into the new digital world and everything. But when you hear some of these unpleasant things I get on social media, I'm like, okay, so you're 17 in your mom's basement. If we were in a training pit together, I don't think you'd be speaking to me like that because it never really happened to me too often. It was just, cause it's just, I'm not the kind of person you'd usually mess with only because I was kind, but it helps to be, have to carry a big stick sometimes. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I get it all day. It's just the nature of the beast at this point. So I know that you,

yeah, you focus very heavily on macro. So I want to talk about that, especially haven't really had anyone on who can give much perspective on what to potentially expect with the election coming and how you feel that it might be affected. I mean, obviously, we have some history behind us to see how markets have performed in the months leading to elections. But dare I say the most dangerous words this time feels a bit different. I'm wondering your perspective on it. Yeah, I haven't published on this yet, but I'll give you my simple thoughts as I can do it.

I think Biden's going to be elected. Partly, I think there's a few key reasons here. First of all, economies, when you ask yourself, are you doing better than you were four years ago? Most people say no. And remember last time we had a very contentious election. It was very close because we had a Democratic candidate, the first female in history. That was kind of dicey.

I mean, I'm not for or against it. Just think of the population. It's not ready for it. Now, we have a middle-of-the-road candidate, massive amount of people behind it. And a key question, has our current president's support increased or decreased from four years ago? I suspect it's not increased. So to me,

the simple fact is we're probably going to get a Biden presidency, which means we're likely to get higher taxes on, as he says, the wealthy and corporations. And that's a good way to get votes because they don't vote as much as the middle class, which is where I'm from, in between states. So to me, it's likely going to be that case. And I don't think people have considered the fact yet that we might not have a close election, particularly if we continue to see a decline in the stock market. So how that's going to affect cryptos, I don't really know yet. We have a bunch of people in BI who cover the actual companies and blockchain,

and we're discussing this lately. I don't really know yet. But one key point i make is as far as cbdc central bank digital currencies there is a trend there that's unstoppable the way i see it right now and the way i look at it's first of all we're it's just a matter of time just like you and i use paper money and we've never really considered yeah and since we got young enough or old enough now we started using credit cards And now some of us wouldn't even bother to pay that 2% to 3% exchange or transaction fee, which is obnoxious in a zero-pay world.

But if you look at simple trends in stablecoins, let's look at Tether. It's $15 billion now. Just a couple of years ago, it was one or two. The trend is your friend. People want it. It's just a matter of time that we will be all transacting, I think, through central bank digital currencies without Visa or MasterCard or American Express tracking 2% to 3% of every transaction. They should have problems.

And I was just knocking that around with my colleagues just before we spoke. So I don't know what's going to take the end. So that's one thing I see happening. And I don't know how the election is going to affect that. But I'm happy to listen to your views or anybody else's because I need to write about it soon. I the very top end, I think that it's bullish in the fact that people will learn to have a wallet, they'll learn to transact digitally, they'll just be familiar with something that right now is probably the greatest barrier to entry for them to come in, right? They just don't know how to do it and they're scared of it. The flip side of that obviously is privacy. We love cash for a reason. And you're not going to be able to privately transact with a

central bank digital currency. They want your taxes, they take the taxes out of your wallet. They want to know what transactions you've had. They can see every single one, every deposit. So my hope is that that would also, in theory, although I don't like it, would be bullish for things like Bitcoin, where people would now be familiar with transacting digitally, but would seek the option that allowed them a bit more privacy and control over their transactions. But that's sort of my top view of it. I don't know how you feel. I think that's the key thing. Governments love it because of the tax man. You can track it directly. That's the thing about paper money. It's hard to track. It's a simple lesson my father taught me, who's an accountant, said, you know, when it comes to doing paper transactions, you can hide that from the

IRS. Not that you want to, but you can much easier. When anything hits anything electronic, IRS is going to see it. So I'm sure governments, that's why I think it's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of how it's worked out with certainly in this country with our rules of independence and freedom. But I'm not really, I don't know how that's going to happen, but I just don't see how we're going to stop it. In terms of, you touched on it, the expectation of what will happen after the election, but then how that would affect Bitcoin.

What's your view on the correlation or inverse correlation of Bitcoin to other assets, I guess, historically and now? So right now it's point out that on a 12-month simple basis, and most measures, 52 weeks, Bitcoin is the highest correlation ever to gold. Now, we'll start with 12 months. It's about 0.7 on a one scale, which is pretty high. On 52 weeks, it's about 0.5 or so, which is not so high, but it's the highest ever. So to me, that's a trend that's going to continue. And it's partly because Bitcoin is becoming more digital version gold.

Now, there's a fact. The correlations are picking up. And I think it's really disengaging from the equity market. What I see happening right now is there's a transition from equities going up and Bitcoin going up. So here's the fact. When the stock market stops rising, or when it enters a bear market, and I didn't say if, at some point it will.

I just don't know when. That will encourage more QE, more debt to GDP, which is a classic bullish foundations for gold and Bitcoin now, because Bitcoin is becoming more of a digital version of gold. The significance I find with Bitcoin that I find really unique as a commodity strategist, I've never seen a commodity that has limited supply that will not be impacted by higher prices, i.e. as of next year, Bitcoin annual supply is going to drop to 2% for the first time in history. And that's significant because that's the historical average increase in gold supply.

And then it's going to continue down and never go up despite price going up. So for me as a strategist, the price is going down. The only thing that matters then when I try to determine where this price is going is adoption and demand. And all my indicators are positive as they are for gold. So you started with correlations. I'll end there. I think what's happening is we're in the middle

of that inflection point where Bitcoin is becoming less pulled lower when the stock market drops or pulled higher when the stock market goes up and it's becoming more like gold, which is going to be more inverse. And I think in the next five, 10 years, as we at some point, we get a bear market in the stock market and a bull market,

accelerated bull market in gold and Bitcoin. I just don't think people need to think the way I like to characterize Bitcoin is it should go up like it has been the last 10 years, but nowhere near the same velocity. Well, that's the sign of a mature market and asset, though, correct? I mean, when a bit of the volatility disappears as much as it's not fun for traders, that's actually what you're looking for if you're looking for a store of value, correct? I mean, when a bit of the volatility disappears, as much as it's not fun for traders, that's actually what you're looking for if you're looking for a store of value, correct? Exactly. And that's one thing I like to show a lot in the terminal. I point out how Bitcoin volatility has been going down, stock market volatility has been going up. And one good example, if you look at annual volatility in Bitcoin, 260 day. It's the lowest ever versus the NASDAQ. It's about two

times the NASDAQ 260 day volatility. Now that's weekdays because apples are apples. It's the lowest ever. And so where's that going? At some point, it means to me, Bitcoin is becoming less risky versus the NASDAQ. And I like to use NASDAQ partly because it's the main, about the same price. NASDAQ peaked about 12,000 about the same time Bitcoin peaked about 12,000. They're both just above 10,000 now as we speak. And at some point, I suspect there'll be a disengagement which will favor Bitcoin. So let's look at like 2017,

they both met about the same level. They've been one-to-one since Bitcoin versus NASDAQ. That was around 6,000. And at some point, Bitcoin should break out higher, I think, based on historical measures, based on the NASDAQ stock market being essentially the most expensive ever versus GDP. And this volatility indication that, as you pointed out, Bitcoin is becoming a mature asset and its volatility is declining. It's interesting. I don't think retail traders think about volatility at all, right? Because,

especially in crypto, there are technical analysts and they look at a chart and hope that they're right. Can you talk about the importance of looking at volatility in general and why it's such a leading indicator for what's likely to happen? Well, that's some of my background. As I matured in the trading pits, I was an options trader and became the New York is an over-the-counter options trading pits, I was an options trader and became the New York as an over-the-counter options trader. When you're an options trader, volatility is what matters the most. To me, it's all about volatility.

So here we have like a volatility weighted. So volatility weighted is a way you can measure performance. For instance, if you have something, an asset like the dollar that trades with an annual volatility of 5%, if it goes up 5%, an asset that's correlated that trades with volatility of 10% should go up twice as much. So that's why I like the characterizer right now. So if you look at Bitcoin on the year, it's up about 50% and gold's up about 23%. Now this is to, we are to September 24th. Now, volatility weighted,

Bitcoin should be up more. I get that because it trades about four times typically that of Bitcoin, but that's a key thing for, it also gives you some great indicators. So if people aren't looking at it, great. It gives me more value. If the younger traders aren't looking at it, it's great. They're probably much more algorithm driven, but it gives me more value. So one of the key indicators I had for Bitcoin breaking down when it was on its way down in April was volatility. And this was 2018. Volatility, 30 day volatility dropped to its lowest in I don't know how long. And then when it broke back up, volatility got really was too low. But here's the big picture for volatility. VIX. VIX Volatility Index, is a measure of volatility on S&P 500. One of my key indicators,

one of my best calls I had was in 2008, was the VIX bottom at an all-time low in 2007. Now you look like a 200-day average. And all's it did, one thing to remember about volatility, it's always mean reverting. Not prices, but always mean reverting. What happened in 2018?

At the end of 2017, the VIX again, 200-day average, dropped to its lowest ever in the history of index. So my indications was volatility is going to mean revert in the stock market. And it just looks for a reason. So that's how we look at it. I look at it as, when it's that low, it'll find a reason. And that's what happened. And since then, we've had volatility increasing. We've had this massive decline in the stock market. Now, Bitcoin followed, but gold's been rallying. So that's why

I think we're getting that divergence where we're going to have an underperformed period in the stock market and gold and Bitcoin to continue to rise. But it all started, my signal started at the end of 2017 with the VIX dropping to the lowest level ever. And that's a measure of volatility. So there's a big picture and there's narrow picture. So it's just different ways to look at it. Well, in the crypto community, I've been willing to die on the hill of no correlation between the S&P and Bitcoin.

I'm one of the few who's actively trading. It's been willing to stand on that. It's more actually my argument, if you need to find something that Bitcoin has been more inversely correlated to the dollar, if you look at price action, but by that same argument, so is everything else, right? I mean, you look at it, it's kind of what you talked to, but you know, dollar down Bitcoin up, you look at the charts of the two, and it's literally, you know, opposing peaks and valleys

the whole way across. So here's a question for us, you, me and the audience. If we wake up tomorrow and the S&P 500 is down 10%, where do you think all assets are? We all know that answer. It's down 5%. It's just, that's the way it is. So here's the fact is things like the Bloomberg Commodity Index, it has the highest correlation to the S&P 500 ever on a 52-week basis on a 12-month basis. Same with copper, the highest correlation. Why? Because that's all that has mattered for the last 10, 20, 30 years. And that is partly because we all know what's happened. We have massive amounts of QE. The world's decline, especially the Fed, has plunged pressured interest rates lower, helping support the stock market. But we're at a point where I think we're near an apex. So correlations are all high when stock markets drop, but we're at that point where I think at some point we're going to have a disconnect,

which I think in the next five, 10 years is really going to favor, favor solid stores of value like gold, Bitcoin, real estate. I mean, it's happening and, you know, precious metals and maybe, maybe some stock, you know, in, you know, more income producing equities. And maybe tech stocks. But yeah, if you, that's one thing I've been doing a lot of lately is I've been analyzing the, the S&P 500 relative to the world, S&P GDP relative to US GDP, and it's near the highest levels ever. So yeah, maybe we can, maybe it's different this time. Amen, if it is. But that's when I think prudent relative value investors are reallocating and seeing the value of Bitcoin.

Now, we're seeing that a lot with MicroStrategy as one good example. We're seeing that with other people getting in hedge funds. We're seeing that in gold. But if you look at things like gold, historically, the average portfolio is so overweight equities. They have virtually nothing in gold compared to they did in the 70s and 80s. And I think that pendulum is going to swing back if you and I hopefully have a conversation like this 10 years from now. Well, I certainly hope so. It'd be really good for me and every narrative that I've been pushing

for the last few years. It would make me look great. So let's talk about, you've touched on QE. You know, it's obviously not a new phenomenon. We've seen a decade of increasing QE and money printing, whether people were talking about it as much or not, I don't know. But it seems like it's gone parabolic now. And it would be fair to say it's too late to stuff the, you know, you know what, back in the horse at this point, right? I mean, there's no way to pay this debt, is there? Well, that's a key thing. We all know that. I think all, everybody really gets it. There is. Oh, there's clearly a way. The debt's in dollars. And all you have to do is print dollars. Okay. Pay the debt with the money that you're printing. Right. Yeah. The debt will be paid and the U.S. government will never default. And I did say never.

I'm not worried about that because it'll just be paid in, just pay more money. That's all it is. It's obligations of the U.S. government. The key point I like to make about QE, and I'm glad you brought that up, is what was unconventional, very unconventional in 2008, has now become conventional. It's just expected.

And then there's one thing I have to do as a strategist, analyze what I get wrong to focus on what I get right. One of the key things that really got wrong this year was I fully expected the most amount of QE ever, partly because those of us who read Ben Bernanke's book, The Courage to Act, we all knew that was just going to, the minute the stock market goes down, that's just what the government Fed does,

especially if it sees a recession. Why not? Because that's what they're supposed to do, particularly when we're in a significantly deflationary environment. I say deflation, let's look at the world's most significant commodity. In 2008, it was 145. Now it's 39. That's deflation. Now, there's inflation in financial assets. So to me, that's one thing I got wrong. I fully expected the market to think that too, but it didn't. It took that as a wonderful thing. We buy the stock market. So I never thought we'd make new highs and here we are, but it's still,

I was right on gold. And I still think gold and Bitcoin will be primary beneficiaries. And Bitcoin right now is, I'm very happy of what it's doing based on what's happening to QE. First of all, we all know QE is not going to end. And what it's going to take to end, even Fed Chairman Powell says they don't see an end to it. It's going to take markets at some point. So might as well just allocate it properly. Take your loose pieces of paper when you're in, put them in assets that are safer, diversify. Be careful with buying equities at the all-time high. And also a key thing I like to point out is debt to GDP. Right now in the U.S., it's about 140%. It was really about 100% average there from 2012 to this year.

And it kept going up despite the biggest expansion in U.S. history. So where's that ending? It's not. There's no way to stop it. Then let's look at human nature. What politician is going to get elected by telling populists, we're going to increase austerity, we're going to increase your taxes and reduce your benefits? We need a depression, right?

Classic human nature. It's, there's been every, I mean, even on your program, I've read and heard about some of your guests talking about these resets going back to the Greek times, and it will be a reset. Hopefully it won't be too bad, but as prudent investors and citizens, we're supposed to be prudent with our money and be careful with what we earn as a piece of paper that we can still pay our taxes and put it in prudent investments. debt to GDP, but a trend is going to end without something other than some pretty significant discombobulation in markets. Roundthex.com is one of my favorite companies in the entire crypto space. What they do is take all your small purchases and round them up to the nearest dollar and invest that spare change into any of over 30 crypto assets of your choice.

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When I was a kid, they told us, save us save your money right put it in a savings account put it in a bank let it grow you cannot save money anymore well that's a key thing you can't it's it's like a lot of our your guests and people i listen to is i remember getting passbook savings and my mother was great about it i was in the 70s i was getting 12 13 percent this was awesome i mean put my paper about money in there and um but that's the key thing i point out to my kids now you must if you it's almost imprudent to not allocate some of your earnings to as much as possible now buy some physical property if you can't afford that now which most of my kids can't yet they're adults but you have to put in some things like Bitcoin and gold. Yes, the stock market, but more the physical assets,

because my thought is Bitcoin is becoming prudent because of what we're doing with our money. And it's not really wrong. The whole world's doing it. It started in Japan. I mean, I traded JGBs 20 years ago when they first went to zero interest rates. And now it's Europe. If we expect this trend to end,

then just look at the domino. So money used to pay an interest. And that's a key. If we expect this trend to end, then just look at the domino. So money used to pay an interest. And that's a key thing I always like to point out when people say, look at this piece of paper versus gold. Gold's here and this dollar's here. Well, that's not a proper measure because that dollar used to earn interest and it added to the value, but it doesn't anymore. And that to me is why it's so important to take that money, save it, but it's where you save it. Passbook savings, you don't get it. You have to open up an account and allocate some to cryptos, maybe some equities. And as I tell my kids, borrow as much as possible, lock in those rates and buy property. Yeah. I did that literally like this

month. Just bought a huge lot because why not? I mean, debt is so incredibly cheap. I mean, first of all, people don't realize it's funny. I took a home equity loan and it's one of those things I've been meaning to do for so long anyways, because obviously a prudent person takes a home equity loan when they don't need it because they won't be able to get it when they do, right? But yeah, I mean, getting, you know, debt at sub 3% to buy something that appreciates faster, it's just such a no brainer. But I think it's just so important for people to realize that, I mean, money is not for saving anymore. It's really for spending or buying something that you can save. But you know, most people haven't gotten there with Bitcoin being a part of that.

You clearly have. I clearly have. And the people listening to this likely have. But how do your colleagues, how do you know, what's the sentiment around Wall Street, do you think, about Bitcoin? Because in 2017, they were laughing at us. Yeah, well, that's perfect. I mean, you never get a good valued asset when everybody agrees with you.

That's what I want to hear. It's a lesson I learned day one in the pits. When everybody disagrees with you, here's a lesson I like to say. When I'd have a trade idea and I'd show it out to seven customers on the phones and they all say, oh, Mike, you're an idiot. It's a good, dumb idea. I knew it would work. When they all agree with me, it never worked. And to me, that's a similar case right now.

I'm sensing there's a wave coming. People are starting to get it. Partly to understand, okay, dollars are a great form of money, but not a good store of value. Bitcoin is not a good form of money. Or gold is not a good form of money. But potentially, Bitcoin could be one of the hardest stores of value in history. It could be. And maybe it'll fail.

But I'm not willing to bet my whole... That's why I say you should have some portion into it. To me, I was just on a crypto breakfast this morning where people are starting to understand it's coming. An ETF is just a matter of time. If you use one key indicator, and that's

just increasing open interest in US listed futures, That's a sign of liquidity coming into space. Backed futures are coming. It's just a matter of time that has enough depth. But when an ETF is launched, where's the price of Bitcoin going to be? So it needs to fail for this not to happen. And by failing, the price needs to go down a lot. And I don't know what's going to take for that to happen. All my failing, the price needs to go down a lot. And I don't know what's going to take for that to happen. All my indicators are positive. So my sense is, quick answer is, I mean, quick summary is, everything's coming that way, but it generally doesn't happen as

fast as people want to. But when it does come, it happens all at once. Yeah, and then they're going to flood in. And I think that there's a lot of institutional money that just can't get in at this price and this market cap anyways. It's just not big enough, right? So, I mean, they can laugh at it in that regard. But I mean, it's really hard to move a significant amount of money if you're a pension or some kind of institutional fund. You can't really be that exposed. Find that narrative very unique that it's almost self-fulfilling that market cap will increase. Yeah, I mean, it's got to get there. Yeah, it's got, it's, well, it doesn't have to, but it should because the more it goes higher, it creates more demand. That's a unique thing I've never seen. I mean, you have FOMO, but supply will not increase.

But every time the price goes up and we have greater market cap, there's more people who can get in. That's very unique. I've never seen that. And when you don't increase supply. So what's it going to take for that to go backwards? At the moment, I don't know. But I can really see the potential upside. I wonder what the price equivalent will be at that market cap where they can really come flooding in.

That's the thing. What's the inflection and it just the point is every time the market cap increases it opens up to a broader scope and audience which is very unique and again let's just put ourselves 10 years from now it has to at least at least fail or something some kind of legislation or something i can't predict or just keeps doing what it's been doing, which I think is more likely as the world goes digital. As we, in the next 10 years, I think we can all agree, we'll probably see a bear market, the stock market at some point, maybe it only lasts two years. Typically they last a couple of years, not just a correction. And that to me will be the key reset. Once we get past that

period, the bear market is when I think in the stock markets, I think we'll see a bit of a nadir. I'm sorry, once we get near a bottom in the next bear market, the stock market, we'll see a bit of a peak in gold and Bitcoin. And we're nowhere near even the beginning of the stock bear market. Because that to me is the flow that's needed. Because the whole world knows you can't get any money, you can't earn in fixed income anymore. So you've had to be in the stock market now we push prices so high that it's just inconceivable they continue at the same pace and then normal history means that you have to have mean reversion so basically mean reversion is inevitable at every market it's just a matter of patience. Well, if, um, unless it's changed

this time, which is one of those famous words in wall street, right. I don't think it's changed. Yeah. The timing, but I mean, yeah, right. Exactly. Which I touched on earlier. I mean, but you know, you're a trader, you've been down there. The hardest part is determining when that's going to happen. Right. I mean, usually, and especially with something as volatile as Bitcoin, I've seen people who are strong, strong believers, $100,000, $500,000, a million-dollar Bitcoin, but have lost almost all their Bitcoin trying to trade around their position.

That's my, my, forget it. No, dollar-cost average. Like, you might be doing, I used to love, you know, in the trading pitch you learn real quick. So if you lose down there, at least we'll call locals, you lose your house, wife divorces you. It happens a lot. And you only hear about the one out of 10 that make it. The other nine, their story is not told because they're not telling no one's bragging about

losing. That's just life in trading. I look at these cryptocurrencies, and certainly I'm at this stage as a strategist, as I'm not addressing trading. It's okay to trade a little bit around the position, but there's times to overweight and underweight. Now, 2017 was a time to lighten up, definitely. I mean, we all know it's parabolic. And I think just like gold this year,

we're supposed to be looking at overweighting depending on how you measure that. And that's up in visual investing. You touched on a point earlier that's really interesting. You talked about being wrong this year and you sort of said it casually and you were like, this is one thing I was wrong about as an analyst, whatever, and you brushed past it. I always talk about or think about how, to me the the core competency of a trader is to

basically be unaffected by wrong or right right just be profitable be wrong small and be right big I guess how did you learn that lesson because when you're young and you're trading for almost everyone I've ever met you lose money because you want to be right the best way I've learned a lesson is to not trade. So I have, I have a, the 19 year old has been playing around with markets a little bit and maybe been trying to teach him the lessons that then one lesson I learned is you're always when you're right,

you never have enough in a position and you're wrong. You always have too much. And, and I'm sure this, I can see a smile on your face. Everybody who's listening to us gets that. And that's why I like to think, I've learned as a former trader, it can be such a mentally taxing thing to do, to be caught up in positions. And I found that I wasn't good at it. It took away from so many different productive things in life that I found it's better just to, hey, I think gold is undervalued, Bitcoin's undervalued, and equity markets overvalued. Just stick with anytime I get more funds,

focus on those, put it away and forget about it. And if it's too much that bothers me, then it's too much and I should lighten up. If it gets stupid high, then you take some off the table. But right now it's just meh. Yeah. I mean, invest and rebalance. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but people have such a hard time doing it. I find in this market too, that people are basically all in as traders and are not trading around a core position, which I find, you know, problematic. I'm curious as to what you think a proper portfolio allocation is for someone

who insists that they must trade. What percentage of their portfolio should they possibly be trading with? Well, what I'm hearing now, I think standard for anybody now is 1% to 2% allocation to Bitcoin, depending on how you measure that of your investable assets and then trickle up from there. Now, that could be, there's people like, we'll say they're up to 10%. And a lot of people listen to this program I think are closer to 10% but at some points they might be leveraged up to 100% remember when you talk about leverage those of us who come from futures market excuse me that's part of life it does I remember you should get you know you'd your margin was five six 10%, and you're trading everything else.

Here's one lesson I want to say to people about leverage trading is when you buy a home, who puts 100% down? No one. Some people do, except some crypto people who held on and never traded. You put down 20% or less. That's a leverage position. Leverage is okay as long as you manage it properly. But I think I'm not, I'm just not an advocate of the trading partly because when they're done that and didn't do it well. I mean, but you said nine out of 10 people completely fail and I've seen that it's actually 95% so we can cut that 10th person in half. And

why do you think that is? Is it because of the emotions getting the best of them? Is it because they- So let's look at the equity market now. FOMO, everybody's getting in, Mr. Portnoy and everything. When you have people like that tempting the market gods, it's a lesson you learn in trading bets. Never tempt the market gods. Like, oh, how easy this is, how I made so much money,

because they will always get you. Because there's the market gods out there how easy this is how i made so much money because they will always get you because there's a there's a you know it's the market gods out there i've learned that lesson the house always wins well always if you if you know if the markets just you know never world number rule number one is you never get fired for taking some profits but here's a little lesson i learned for instance about apple i bought an apple just a few years ago on the dip and i made 200 and like no time to me that, that's a problem. Something's wrong there. That's too easy. And I learned that lesson, so I lightened up a lot of it. When it's too easy, something's wrong. Typically, you need to have pain. Some of the best people who made a lot of money in Bitcoin just

held on. That's where we came up with the word HODL because they dropped a lot of their assets and just hang on. But's where we came up with the word HODL because they dropped a lot of their assets. Just hang on. But you have to believe in the fundamentals and don't trade. Just allocate. Yeah, people joke that those people were lucky who were early, but I say that they had the strongest hands in history to hold through that sort of volatility and price

and to maintain that level of belief. You can say that they were lucky that they found out about it in 2010, but to not sell it at $500 but to not sell it at $500 or to not sell it at $1,000. You know, I mean. You don't hear the stories. You do some, but it's not public headlines. We have all the people who said,

bought it at one or two and sold it at 10. One good example is my son, who's in medical school now, introduced it to me in 2011 or 12. And I was like, man, what is it? Silly internet money? He started mining everything and then he forgot about it and threw away his laptop. Tons of stories.

Are they lost in Mt. Gox? And no, he's doing fine. It's probably better. He'll graduate medical school soon. But just those are the majority. And that's the majority. You have to have a lot of dust on the road. You have to have a lot of, unfortunately, I don't say the word bodies before the few that survive can tell the story.

So you heard about it first in like 2011 from your son, 2012, when did you decide to take it seriously? Um, it's hard to say exactly. Oh, when it, when it first met the price of gold, which I think was 2013, um, the per ounce price of gold. That's when I thought, Oh, something's going on here. And then, of course, it dropped. It got up to around, I think gold was around $1,000. Yeah, a little bit more. And then it dropped all the way down to $200 to $300.

And then I kind of gave up on it. And as I came here in 2016, then I started really blaming it. And certainly, as we've had this consolidation period around $10,000, to me, that's what you need is you need a period of disdain, which we've had, underperformance, which we've had, and a correction from the peak, which we've had. Those are classic signs in markets where people are supposed to be allocating. And it's a period of massive breakout rallies that you got to be careful and maybe lighten up a little bit. But overweight when you see the stain, which is what I like and see now.

And then underweight a little bit when you, when it just, when you feel like you're making too much money. When your Uber driver is telling you about the shares that they bought in Bitcoin, right? Classic science. Well,

that's what, you know, the, you know, they say they came back to Joseph Kennedy, but I find that that's different so i find uber drivers some of the smartest best people i've ever experienced they're just for example then yeah but sometimes it's the taxi drivers a bit they speak at the english that i'm kind of concerned they usually don't yeah i remember the first time

in new york in 1990 i told the taxi driver don't take me to new york stock exchange he didn't understand me and he didn't know where it was like I'm like, okay, this isn't good. Yeah. That's not the car that you want to get into. We have GPS. How impressive were taxi drivers before GPS, by the way? Most people probably don't even remember that you literally needed to know, especially in New York City. I mean, imagine being a taxi driver in New York city and knowing every street in Staten Island and Brooklyn and Queens. It's the knowledge in London. That's what I love about the, uh, the taxi,

the black, black drivers there. Every street. It's incredible. Yeah. My dad, yeah. My dad used to rave to me about, uh, the, the, the drivers in London, how incredible they were. Yeah. They're always the best. because they know how to get tips. Just speak with your customers and get a better tip. So I'm curious, you obviously, you know, commodities is your specialty, commodities strategy there.

Is that how Bloomberg officially considers Bitcoin or does it just happen to be on your radar? Is there a crypto department? It's on Bloomberg's radar less so because they're really concerned with the lack of robustness in the data. Bloomberg was looking at things at coinmarketcap.com and data people told me they were shocked by the lack of due diligence and robustness and things like that. So they're starting to bring data on the terminal, but Bloomberg has been reluctant as a firm because of space is very dicey.

Now, I've been a major person pushing this ahead. I'm the main person in BI who covers cryptos, and we're going to be bringing in more resources. So the opinions you hear are mine as a strategist, and that's what I'm supposed to do. I write my view on the terminal using data, and this is why. But I have to be careful

I don't give that investment advice. So when we say Bloomberg, I say I work for Bloomberg, but I'm a research strategist working for Bloomberg. People sometimes say, oh, they heard that from Bloomberg. I'm like, well, that was from this guy

named Mike McGlone who wrote Bloomberg. And I might have different opinions from someone else on gold and the dollar for someone who sits right next to me. Both will publish it. And that's what I love about this firm. And we let the reader decide versus I've been at other shops and the senior guy would say, oh, no, you're going to need to be bearish gold because I am. I'm like, really? That's my favorite. I think my favorite kind of financial fake news is when something's reported like Goldman Sachs says, as if they've taken a position when

then you read it and it's like some random analyst said something. Right. And it's never presented that way. Right. One of my favorites was that Warren Buffett was buying gold. That was one of my favorite false headlines of late. Yeah. A little fake news, right? Yeah. I know he's buying Barrick, which has yield and the guy still probably would never own a bar of gold. Well, I'm glad you brought him in because he's classic example of he always liked to point out the good way to measure US stocks is that the market capitalization of US stock market versus GDP. Now I've simplified that I'm just using the price of the S&P 500 market cap of the S&P 500 versus GDP. Now, I've simplified that. I'm just using the price of the S&P 500,

the market cap of the S&P 500 versus GDP. It's the highest ever. I'm like, okay, well, do you want to be overweighting equities here or do you want to be overweighting gold and cryptos and Bitcoin? And my view is more the latter. What's your take on the rest of cryptocurrency beyond Bitcoin? Does the buck stop there for you or do you have interest in any of the other coins? Simplistic analysis, too much supply is a problem. So I'm coming around a little bit to agreeing with Ethereum might becoming a bit of the Bitcoin of the space

in terms of the macro because of DeFi and DEXs and stuff and the platform might be winning, but there's so much competition. And, you know, it's the platform not being winning, but there's so much competition. So let's simplistically look at the amount of cryptos on coinmarketcap.com. Over 7,000. Last year, it was 3,000.

The year before, it was 1,000. It's just, I get it. It's fine. But as a simplistic strategist, massive amount of supply, ease of entry. Virtually everybody I speak to, we've got a great team, we're smart, we've got a better version of so-and-so.

I'm like, okay, that's the problem. And so, I mean I speak to, we've got a great team, we're smart, we've got a better version of so and so. I'm like, okay, that's the problem. And so, I mean, look at, so here's a key fact. If you look at the current trends in market cap of Ethereum and Tether, Tether will become number two in marketcap.com by next year. That's a fact, if the trends continue. What's more likely is that Tether market cap appreciates and Ethereum, they continue to do the same.

So at some point, I expect we're going to see Bitcoin number one and Tether number two. Why? Because what I call cryptocurrencies are really mostly, most of them are

highly speculative digital assets. They're not currencies. Currencies are meets. It's a misnomer. Yeah. And there's just so many of them. But that's why I like to differentiate so I like to see Toshio Nakamoto didn't really create money he created digital version of gold in

Bitcoin and tether is to me is becoming a great form of money you can knock it around for transaction is based on the world's reserve currency and you're gonna want to spend it use it but saving okay if I got a little extra tether're going to want to spend it and use it, but saving, okay. Only if I got a little extra tether dollars, I'll put it in the Bitcoin and let it sit there. So tether is the answer for the dollar in that ecosystem. And you don't really need anything else. I mean, Ethereum, as you touched on, it is really interesting because it's actually being used. I mean,

it's inefficient and gas fees are ridiculous, but it is actually being used. And I think that DeFi isn't going anywhere. Have you dug into DeFi at all as a general trend? I mean, I'm not talking about the yams and potatoes and hot dogs and all the insanity, but as a new form of banking, decentralized finance itself. I don't see what's going to stop it. To me, it's just a matter of time. I like to look at the $9 billion or so, depending on how you measure it. Now, I like to look at the trends as this is a good

indication of where things are going. I love the technology. I love new and efficient technologies that make life better. I've got an electric car, solar panels. To me, that's what it is. It's just global. It helps some of the lower tiers part of society get in the game. And to me, it's just a matter of time. I just don't know as much details. I watch it

as partly an indication for overall prices. My first connection is to Ethereum and Bitcoin. But in the broad market, though, I still see as oversupply. But I just, I'm watching, I'm listening to programs like yours to learn more. Do you think it reeks a bit of the sort of internet boom in the late 90s, early 2000s? I mean, it kind of, to me, I see those echoes that there's just going to be this grand culling and like 99% of these will disappear. But the ones that rise, you know, the Amazons will, will do exceptionally well, but maybe, um, too early to figure out which ones are going to do that. Amazons versus pet.pets.com. I remember being part of that. I remember one of my colleagues

in my trading desk lost up to $400,000 in this internet company back in 2000. That didn't work out so well. No, it didn't. She just wasn't in the right one. It was as not as part of, you know, leaving the business and being in the business, investing her own money and being part of the business, not as a trader. Just that's the way it is. Crazy. Never, never be all in. That's the way it is. Crazy. Never be all in. I think that's the lesson there. So, I mean, you've basically weathered every single storm in the past few decades, right?

I mean, you've been through that boom and bust, the global recession, and now, obviously, we've had this COVID scare and whatever's happening here. Do you think that COVID, having that experience, do you think that COVID was just a catalyst for something that was coming anyways? Or do you think that it really was the reason for this sort of dip? And, you know, I'm talking about markets, obviously, economies different. I had no clue about COVID coming. And it did. I was bearish in markets. I was bullish gold, bullish Bitcoin, bearish crude oil and commodities. Anyhow, COVID could just accelerate in that process. That's the way I like to say it is now that we've had it, should I get less bearish crude oil and more bullish gold? Probably stay the same in gold.

And I don't see why I should get bullish crude oil because it's just going away. And COVID just created a global recession. But to me, one thing I think about is the way I look at it is it's really a good example of human nature and something that was kind of way overdue. We needed a bit of a global, in its global basis, a bit of a reset, which is happening in consumer spending and especially in this country. Now, it's all being offset by fiscal monetary spending, but I think it's just a sense that you just need that period where consumers pull back, markets reset, and then we all go back up. The problem is the market didn't reset. That's why I'm confused. And it hasn't, but I think it will.

So you don't consider the March bottom to be a true bottom for a bear market or recession? No, it's not a bear market. It's a. Right. Well, that's a correction in a bull market. That's all this. A bear market typically, you know, how you define it is it goes down. Years. 30, 40% stays down for years and people give up just like Bitcoin. And here's a good bear market. Gold.

It went up to about 1900. It dropped to a thousand and it stayed down for five years. It did. And it took, now it's been nine years since we took out that old high. People, when I was talking about gold, you have bullish gold five years ago, they thought I was an idiot, which is fine. It was just meant, you know, I just take this great, cool. I know I'm going to be right then. So to me, that's a good bear market. Now the equity market is the most extreme example of a bull market I've ever seen, even worse than the internet bubble 2000. So which I think means the reset is going to be that much more painful. And hopefully not, maybe I'll be

wrong. But the way I like the point is, if I'm outperforming equities with this rock, that's gold and stick with the rock. It's pretty, pretty simple. But I mean, in that context, the 2017 bubble for Bitcoin and the subsequent 80 plus percent drop was really not abnormal, correct? No, it was just like the internet bubble. Just like the internet bubble. But remember, yeah, internet bubble, and that went down and stayed down for almost 10 years. And I remember Bitcoin did that 2013 to, it peaked at 13 or so and then stayed down. And it took till 2017 to take out that high.

So four years. So it should, can take more longer to take out the, it could take longer to take out the 2017 high, but no, that was a good bear market that got overdone and many ways in the Aztecs in the stock markets more, like I said, in terms of global GDP, it's more of a value now than it was in 2000. Yeah. What are your favorite signals of, I don't want to say tops and bottoms because trying to call those as a fool's errand, but obviously when you're in a bear market, what are your favorite signals of capitulation that

the weak hands are being shaken out that people have truly given up? Are there any? It's a classic right now. I'm hearing from a lot of money managers I know and I used to work with that it's phone. Well, if they're not in the equity markets, their clients fire them. It needs managed money people. So that's classic, which is a sign that, you know, it's coming to an end soon. To get fired because you're not making as much as your neighbor is who's in Amazon is, I mean, as a manager is very, very disconcerting.

But, you you know these things can last a while you never can pick p but i mean people that that's probably been those money managers experience for years in theory so yeah that was i remember in 1999 um 88 we had a little correction but classic signs that uh boy if you're not in it yeah you're you're an idiot everybody was a fool who wasn't buying pets.com. And then we all became less foolish. I want to just go back real quick, right before we end to the idea of the election here. I think I agree that Biden is likely to win based on the same factors that you are. And maybe that would be cause some sort of correction or maybe dip

after the election. But in the coming months, don't you think that it would behoove the existing administration to make sure that the stock market doesn't drop or do everything in their power to avoid that? That's why I was kind of joking with one of my funny managers friends. Those people who don't want President Trump to get elected should sell these other stocks because the stock market going down and lack of fiscal stimulus tilts it tilts the bias towards the biden election so oh yeah it was very simple i was teasing around hey if you you know you want to biden win sell your stocks in that context it just kind of surprises me that the dollar has been ripping so hard this week that's a short-term. One thing to remember about the dollar is it's risk off globally and that's always goes to the dollar. But big picture,

what's been driving the dollar for the last 10 years? The US equity market outperforming the rest of the world. That's shifting. So it's a little transition. That's where you have to decipher the difference between the transition and the big trend is if the US equity market starts underperforming, which at some point it will it always has it you know goes through cycles um then the dollar will fall and then of course remember the dollar trade weighted broad dollar so i measure it because that's really the big picture way to do it at some point it should um potentially peaking which is good for gold and bitcoin but one thing always remember about the dollar it's measured versus other paper money i like to measure versus gold and so you look at the trade weight in broad dollar it's the

same level it was um it's come back same level it was at the beginning 2016 and then um gold's up about 80 that's the virgin strength means gold's just looking ahead to at some point being valued remember dollar denominated gold If you look at gold in terms of every other currency on the planet, it's much higher. It's so funny. That was one of the most eye-opening things for me was one day somebody posted

a stock market versus Bitcoin, stock market versus gold, stock market versus dollar chart. And you're like, stocks never stop going up. But in reality, it's just the value, the buying power of the dollar going down

when you put it against any of these hard assets. It just does not look the same, right? Well, that's going down when you put it against any of these hard assets. It just does not look the same, right? Well, that's the key thing. Gold's a store of value. I mean, you can buy the same men's suit or home in the same amount of ounces as you could thousands of years ago, typically, or 100 years ago. It has been doing what it's supposed to do. So I'm going to be publishing tomorrow on debt to GDP versus U.S. debt to GDP. Gold's unchanged for 13 years now.

It's just going up with debt. And debt right now is 140%. This year, in terms of debt to GDP, gold's a mess. It's just gone up the same amount that debt to GDP increased. That's why I look at people say, oh, gold's going to go down. I'm like, what are you not understanding about the foundation for gold? QE, debt to GDP. That's the foundation below the price of gold. All right, man. Well, I know we're up against it here. So where can everybody find you and keep up with you after this? Well, I'm on LinkedIn most notably because of professional exposure with the Bloomberg muscle on Twitter, Mike McGlone11. So just look for me there. And I'm happy to link with people and to share emails and things.

So you can find me on LinkedIn. Awesome, man. I appreciate you taking the time. And we're going to have to do this again after the election and see where it all shakes out. Looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to listening to your programs

because they really make my weekends. I learn a lot and I really appreciate it. Well, thank you. I mean, it's because of guests like you. I just sit here and listen and learn. That's my goal. It's like a free college education. It's amazing.

Well, thank you again.