Unchained - What’s the Better Bet? Stocks or Gold? - Ep. 916

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Is gold the ultimate hedge against inflation and sovereign risk? Or are stocks the better long-term wealth builder thanks to innovation and earnings growth? In this heated and highly entertaining episode, Ram Ahluwalia (Lumida Wealth) and Vinny Lingham (Praxos Capital) dive deep into the macro landscape to debate the relative merits of gold vs. the S&P 500. Along the way, they explore: Gold’s decentralization vs. Bitcoin Why share buybacks might be distorting wealth creation The role of inflation, AI, fiscal dominance, and central banks The logic behind each of their portfolios And to make things more interesting? They make a $10,000 bet on whether gold or the S&P 500 will perform better over the 9 months. Token2049 Binance Ram Ahluwalia, CFA, CEO and Founder of Lumida Vinny Lingham, Co-founder of Praxos Capital Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 📈 4:30 Why Ram argues stocks are the stronger long-term play 🥇 7:18 Why Vinny says gold is more decentralized than even Bitcoin 💵 12:08 Why Ram believes earnings make stocks the superior investment ♻️ 16:37 Why Vinny thinks stock buybacks are harmful for society 🌍 27:30 Is this still the best time in history to be alive? ⏳ 33:23 Whether its too expensive now to buy gold ⚡ 40:40 What Vinny predicts will trigger the next major macro crisis 🤝 42:56 The $10,000 bet: gold vs. the S&P 500 🤖 48:33 Whether we’re still early in the AI boom 🎤 54:15 Closing arguments from Ram and Vinny Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're over three right now, so you can't bet that it won't go to four. I will bet you that it will not go to four. I will have to do that. If you look at the charts around into money supply, it appears that Bitcoin and gold are the two best assets to own in a market where there is infinite supply of the currencies. The story of human history has been the story of human discovery, innovation, entrepreneurship, and forming cooperative enterprises to serve others

and make the world a better place. My point is like on the long enough time scale, something's going to break. Hi, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for what should be a really fun discussion. I am Steve Earlitz executive editor here at Unchained. And you're two very special guests, Ram Alawalia from Lumida Capital and then Vinnie Lingham from Taxus Capital.

Thanks guys for joining. This conversation, we're going to really debate the merits of goal. versus stocks, the S&P 500. For those of you that are regular watchers of the show, it stems from a debate that Vinny and Rom had during our episode, I believe, about two weeks ago. And it was so exciting that the debate actually carried on in our private chat during the live stream.

So afterwards, we all kind of decided it would make sense to give them the proper venue to really kind of hash it out. So really excited to do that. We're going to start in a minute, but just quick disclaimers, as always. nothing that you're going to hear should be seen as investment or financial advice for all necessary disclosures. Please check out our website. I'm Shanecripto.com backslash bits and dips. The crypto world is buzzing. On October 1st and 2nd,000 people will be at token 2049 Singapore,

the largest crypto event in the world, featuring headline speakers like Eric Trump, Vlad Tenive, Tom Lee, Bollagy Srinivason, and our Arthur Hayes. Visit asia.tokin249.com now to get 15% off tickets with the code unchained. Finance is the world's number one crypto exchange, trusted by over 290 million users. With industry leading liquidity, security, and a wide range of digital asset products, finance is the place to buy, sell, trade, and earn crypto. Download finance today to get started. With that, let's just kind of get into it.

I mean, you guys really sort of went added in a fun way about the various merits of stocks versus gold, how they perform during periods of inflation, during periods of crisis. Right now, everything seems to be doing well, although gold is sort of lapping in some ways, stocks and Bitcoin, up, I believe, 43 percent. So far, year to date, a pretty sizable jump. But, I mean, Ron, as you know, too, indices are setting all-time high records. on a daily basis as well. So I think there's a lot of questions.

A lot of people watching and listening are wondering, what should we do with our money? What's the right type of allocation? What are the real kind of driving feces that should impact investment decisions? And that's what this whole conversation is about. So, Ram, why don't we start with you? I have questions prepared and we'll go through all them. And then for everyone listening, too, I am reserving some time to take audience questions as well.

So please keep them coming. I might sprinkle them in during the discussion, but I'll try to save some time at the end as well to dedicated to audience questions. But with that, Ram, let's dive in. Give us, like, quote, unquote, your opening statement. Like, why are you so bullish on stocks? Well, first of all I'd say,

I'm glad that we're having a debate. We need a culture where people who have a debate that's collegial and be intellectually honest, especially in the wake of, like, Charlie Kirk's murder. I think it's important to have like a civil debate. You can remain friends and have an honest conversation about that. So thank you, Vinnie, for joining me.

Really appreciate and respect Vinnie's views too. It should be fun. Hopefully we both walk away, have you learned something. We can make a better decision. The second thing is I want to know who Martin Chakrelli is in this debate. I hope that's me. So a lot of debates happening recently. So this will be fun.

So let me light up for you. I think there's an economic case. to be made for stocks over gold and I think there's a principled case for assets other than gold, including Bitcoin, by the way. So I'll start off with stocks. The stocks, the S&P 500 index has a stronger track record than gold. And there's no, there shouldn't be surprised there. And the reason why is stocks are productive assets. They generate earnings, they generate free cash flow. they can invest in new projects, they can buy back their own stock, their companies that can adapt and pivot around the world.

Gold is not that. Gold is a commodity. Gold is benefiting from the fact that China is buying gold. China has changed the purchasing behavior from primarily buying treasuries to finance their exports to buying gold. So the gold trade is really about front-running China. Now, that's a tactical consideration. It's not a long-term multi-decade consideration. So I think that matters.

When gold is more of a trade than it is a strategic asset allocation, right? Gold has benefited from Europeans and international investors saying they want to diversify from the U.S. I'm actually making Vinnie's argument here. But that's very different than talking about the role of stocks in a portfolio. Stocks over the long run have outperform gold. They will continue to outperform gold. And I think very tactically, where we are now, very tactically, notwithstanding the bid that China has, now it's probably the exact worst time to buy gold because it's overextend and it's overbought.

So I wouldn't want to be buying gold where we stand today. And gold has other deficiencies, right? For those that remember, none of those around during the Great Depression, but in 1933, the president at the time, FDR, essentially made it illegal to hold gold in your safe deposit box, and they forced a conversion from the fair market value price of gold to a much lower price of gold. It essentially is a way of government taking wealth from its own citizens. And it wasn't until 1974 that it was then legal to own gold bullion. And so when you're owning gold in an ETF, you don't actually own gold.

You're owning a claim through an ETF process that then has a claim on a custodian that has some gold in a vault. So it's just not as secure as, say, a decentralized digital asset that is portable, that's protected by cryptography, as opposed to the promises of some sovereign. So that's my opening statement. I'll pass the bold of any. Well, thanks, Brown. I should have been writing out notes because there's a bunch of things you said that I'd like to contest. But from memory, let me try and let me try and debunk some of these things. First of all, you know, I agree that gold was illegal for a long period of time.

I think we're in a different era now where gold is held very widely across multiple countries, Asia, so you have China, India, obviously throughout Europe as well. And so you've got this sort of decentralization of gold holdings. I get the ETF claims on gold. But I think if we get down to sort of brass tax around this, like I think gold is almost as probably even more so decentralized in holdings as something like Bitcoin, probably more so, right? More people around the world hold it. They have it physically in their vaults and they're safe.

They have gold coins. There are tons of gold dealers on every street corner. So gold is very decentralized. It really is. And it's disconnected from the internet. It's a physical item. And if properties cannot be changed, Bitcoin can actually be changed. Gold can't be changed.

Bitcoin, the developers are having a war right now between knots and core because there's some changes that need to happen on the node software and there's a big argument about it. But it's a community consensus-driven protocol. It is not a, you know, it's not atomically secure. Gold cannot be changed. You could maybe get a large headroom collider and try and change one atom at a time or something like that, but it can't be changed. I think we know that. So I think when it goes to stocks versus gold as a sort of strategic defensive reserve, think about things differently.

I think about the world right now in terms of finite assets and infinite assets, right? So Fiat is an infinite asset. You can print as much of it as you want. You can just load up $2 trillion of the debt, which is what the US is doing every year, and put that fiat currency into the market. And then that currency gets used to buy things. Now, when you're buying a stock, you're buying a future claim to the cash flows that that company can generate from a combination of current money supply in the system and future money supply.

So stocks do exceptionally well because stocks that are, highly capital efficient at harvesting fiat out of the system will do really well. Stocks that aren't, obviously won't. And when you have this money still chasing finite assets, things like property does well, gold does well, silver does well, commodities, anything that's fixed in nature that cannot be, you know, we can't produce more of resources, etc. And so this is where the debate comes in, right? Is gold a sponge for excess liquidity or not?

And if you look at the charts around empty money supply, you know, it appears that Bitcoin and gold are the two best assets to own in in a market where there's infinite supply of fiat currencies. And that's not just U.S. dollars. That's foreign currency as well. The Chinese have been buying gold like crazy and so the Indians. And so you've got this global demand. So, you know, when you say it's overboard, I actually spoke to a gold trader, a friend of mine who spent 20 years trading gold. And he was talking me out of my position at 2,700,

because he said gold was overbought. He's been a trader for 20 years. He knows this market. We're at 3,800 right now. He's been absolutely wrong for the past thousand bucks. And I think he'll continue to be wrong because there's been a paradigm shift in the macroeconomic view, rather macroeconomic structure of the world right now. And I think that we're just going to see excess equity pouring into stocks, you know, real estate assets, you know, the real question is like how hard do you want to go? The hardest finite asset on earth is gold. And then you could argue maybe Bitcoin and then stocks and then, you know, well, real estate, then stocks, et cetera, because you can't create more of all these things, right?

There's only one Apple. There's only one Google. There's only one Tesla right now. And, and, you know, these companies can screw up as well. I mean, you know, Enron was a good example of how a company screws up. Their cash flows can go down. They may not produce good products. So, yeah, yeah. You know, like, I think when it comes to absorption of excess liquidity, stocks are great, but they're not guaranteed because it's still people in government and regulations that

interplay there. So governments can use rules that make it harder for companies to operate. They can ban certain things. I mean, look at what TikTok's going through, et cetera. So equities have some level of risk, but for me, the low. is risk asset right now if you want to preserve placing power and wealth is gold let's go point by point let's go point by point there's a lot here and each of these points deserve kind of dwelling upon right so first off just something decentralized my point like gold has been around for millennia

human beings as a civilization have looked at gold as a store value my point around gold is not that it's not decentralized my point around gold is that if you access it through an ETF or you put in your safe deposit of the bank or you custody it, you're making a trust assumption on a sovereign. And even the United States government has in the past in 1933, they made it illegal to hold gold and it was a forced expropriation of positive and upon citizens. And this has been done around the world, by the way. Argentina in 2001, they devalued their local currency. And, you know, one day people went to bed.

They thought they had ex-Argentine Paces in the account. They woke up the next day and it was slashed by significant amount. So if you own gold, unless you hold it in a secure area and you're not disclosing it in some way, which puts you into other issues with the state, you know, you are trusting a sovereign. I'd rather trust. cryptography for security. If you want to move money, if you've got to flee the jurisdiction you're in due to some destabilization, you better have a portable asset. I'll share a story with you. I have a friend who was born in Iran. His parents left Iran over the northern border.

And his mom essentially created like some headdress and put these emeralds in her headdress. And then they'd sold their local business. And that's how they transported the wealth and they got through the security, right? They got lucky. If they were interdicted, they'd be in jail, they wouldn't have left around who knows what their life would have been. A decentralized digital asset doesn't have that kind of deficiency. So that was the first point around gold. You're making, for the vast majority of people, you're making a trust assumption on the sovereign. Now, I think it's okay to make those trust assumptions today. I think things are actually more stable than people think. I don't think the Civil War about to happen.

Okay, trying to put things into perspective here. But there is a principle-based distinction between security from cryptography and security from trust in the sovereign. There's a big difference between the two. Now, second point, you made a point around Infinite versus Finit finance assets. I think it's a fantastic point. This is why Fiat devalues over time. This is why inflation goes up. This is why Coke used to be five cents a bottle, and now it's $3 a bottle.

So the reason why stocks are interesting is like real estate. they are real assets, which means that they reprice with inflation. They're a real asset. It's not fiat. Fiat's a sinking asset. Real assets reprice in real terms, meaning purchasing power adjusted terms. So what I'm looking at here is a stock of Apple. This is the share is not standing for Apple.

You can see the share accounts come down from $26 billion to $14 billion over time. it's almost cut in half. So not only so they're infinite assets, they're finite assets, and then they're finite assets that decrease over time. We call those buybacks. In this year alone, there will be one trillion dollars of stock buybacks.

This is the magic of earnings. So it's not just about harvesting fiat from the system. It's about earnings. When you have earnings, you can buy back her shares. When you have earnings, you can plow back into new investments of productive and grow more earnings in the future.

Gold is a commodity can't do that. It's an inert metallic object. It has got some, there's some value there, I've acknowledged, some cultural value there. But the gold supply is increasing year over year. It is an inflationary supply. Each year, the growth of the supply of gold is about 1.5%. You know, that's inflationary.

if you own good companies that generate free cash and earnings that don't have to dilute their investors by issuing shares, you own a better asset. So I'll pause there. I think there are other topics we should get into, but wanting to keep it kind of focused. So I'd love to just barring to sort of maybe an altruistic type of view on this. Or wouldn't say altruistic, but like maybe a non-capitalistic view. I think one of the problems to share buybacks, in my opinion, is, it actually deprives the state and the country of taxes, tax revenue.

So we have the situation where instead of having dividends being distributed to people, and I come from South Africa originally. And in South Africa, share buybacks are actually illegal for a long time. They weren't allowed to be done. Companies couldn't buy back their own shares. I don't know whether that's changed or not since I left, but to buy back shares was a big process. It just wasn't done.

And what happens when you do share buybacks is you inflate the price or you increase the price, obviously, of the share, and you don't distribute the money to the investors, and they don't pay taxes. So they just get this, this capital, this tax-free kind of capital gain return over time. And this is what's causing, I think, the left to really get, and I say the left, because I'm an independent. So I just look at things from an apolitical view here. the left gets really upset about taxing the rich, taxing the wealthy, et cetera, because what's happening is we're using cash flows from these companies to basically push the price of the shares up

and then people are able to take lines of credit with their banks and not sell the shares and effectively live tax-free. And so that's causing an imbalance in society where we actually do have these massive government deficits. Now, government overspends, for sure. There's no argument there. But it's a combination of the two things where I think that the, you know, depriving the state that runs everything, you know, of tax revenue and effectively, I think actually causes a lot of inflation in a sense because now the government has to print more money, which weakens the middle class and the lower class is an issue for me. I think that's a big, fundamentally a big issue with stocks is we've created this mechanism where we can extract value from, you know,

almost like a vicious cycle. We're extracting value from the economy. We're delivering it to the wealthy, who own the stocks for the large part. And maybe it's also the people who are retired or have long-term stocks. They see this massive capital appreciation, but that's being funded right now

by massive federal deficits. And let's just talk about the US. I can't comment to other countries. I haven't lived in any other than South Africa. But I think that what you've just explained right now is why I'm bullish gold, is because we are in this vicious cycle, which no one is able to see through

and realizing that we're destroying the U.S. middle class. And the middle class is basically being wiped out. The people who don't own assets are suffering, and we can't extract tax revenue from shareholders, and we're giving them this unfettered growth in capital appreciation without paying any taxes, and we're opening up the books to exactly what I've said now. And by the, I bank with a private bank,

and I know how this stuff works. And I can get really cheap, so for plus one five lines of credit against assets. And other people can't get access to this cheap credit. And so this is a very big problem because of the stock buyback issue. You've given me a great layup. I've got a great swing here about to come through. Okay.

Yeah, a few things. So the number one, you're making a policy statement. You're saying, hey, buybacks are bad. The reality is, buybacks are legal and permitted in that world. You just made the point that, yeah, People get wealthy with buybacks. I prefer buybacks rather than company spending unproductive projects or spending on corporate jets. So for a company, this is a corporate finance decision to buyback shares or issue dividends.

And it's more tax efficient to do a buyback than a dividend. I don't want ordinary income tax. Apple scuttle their Apple car project. That means they're not investing. Therefore, they've got excess capital. Therefore, they should buy back shares. they're making a rational decision. Now, second point, second point. Hey, one's like a second point. There's a lot of people on the left. I know you're independent that say, hey, this is bad,

is creating wealth inequality. By the way, I made it. And yeah, I own stock and I got a private bank, but let me tell you what's better for you, right? Everyone on this call isn't Warren Buffett. They're not Stanley Druckin Miller. They're not George Soros. Anyone listening right now is not that. They want to create wealth. They're listening in to make a better decision for themselves. And over the vast span of stocks, the data shows that's an excellent way to grow wealth because you're investing, if you invest in the S&P 500 or you pick great businesses, you're owning a claim on the growth of the economy. And the driver of that growth, it isn't like fiat. That would just be, that would be no gain in real income, actually. That

It would just be inflation, repricing assets. That's not actually what it is. It's innovation, right? Google, Meta, Navidia, and other companies are creating legitimate innovation, which reduce costs in the economy, like marketing costs or distribution costs, and create a higher quality of life. So you're buying into innovation and earnings growth, and that's a great story. I want to own that.

And that's why the United States stock market has been. in other markets globally because of a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, is we've created this perversive incentives for executives to deploy cash to buybacks not, you know, and obviously not dividends in a mess. We've also disincentivized, uh, in a big way for for multiple reasons, FTC issues or whatever else, but we, we don't have this culture of MNA that we had many, many years ago, uh, decade ago because, you know, when you get your pay package and your incentive package from the

board, the compensation committee at whatever public company you're at, one of the issues right now is that like, well, should I use money to buy back shares and pump the price, you know, pump my bags, or go and buy a couple of startups, be more innovative, et cetera. We're talking about the use of excess capital. Yeah, we're not talking about the use of ordinary course of business, R&D stuff. We're saying excess capital. And excess capital is not being used pumped into the sort of startup ecosystem. And what, what actually winds are happening, is they're diverting the capital to share buybacks. And I think that's actually harming the tech ecosystem in a big way as well,

because we have too many companies where the executives have rather buyback shares and pump their bags, basically, then be innovative. Again, X is capital. They're running some R&D and whatever else. Look, I'm just coming from a different perspective. I'm coming from a perspective that I'd like America to succeed on the back of meritocracy, and I'd like to America to succeed on the back of, you know, a lower federal deficit and less money printing. And, and, but what I'm seeing right now,

and why I'm into gold is that I think that something's going to break and we're going to have a crisis of capital. And at that point, we're going to point to, you know, hard assets like gold. And I think you're going to see companies falter and earnings drop and, you know, We could be a major recession. And maybe that's a better buying opportunity in the future. So right now, I wouldn't be buying stocks. I'd be rather buying gold. And maybe I care less about, you know, gold confiscation and the same thing happening in the 30s again.

I think that's way behind us right now. At least living in America, maybe other countries is different. So I'd rather just sit in a barbell approach, basically, treasuries and gold and just wait. And treasury is like, you know, shorter, not long term. Longton treasures, I think, I'm in big trouble. And wait for a better buying opportunity. I think the Buffett indicators flying high, everything looks really good. We're priced to perfection until the bond market pukes and basically the bond vigilantes get in and punish the government because they cannot keep spending at this level.

And even the shutdown right now, basically, that's slowing down the deficits. But the only way that we reopen is we're spending more money. And that's going to push the price of gold and Bitcoin and everything else. But again, the party is going to end, Rom. No matter which way you look at it, the party for stocks is going to end in particular. But I think the global economy is very interconnected. I just think that I can't predict what is going to happen to break the economy. I do think that gold is the hardest asset on us.

Ron, before you rebut, do need to just take a very quick break to hear from the sponsors who make a show possible. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tom Lee, Vlad, Ted, Pauolo Ardoino, Valje Srinivason, Arthur Hayes. These are just some of the headliners at Token 2049 Singapore, the largest crypto event in the world, happening October 1st and 2nd. Over 25,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and 300 speakers will converge for an unmissable week. Token 2049 will take over all five floors of Marina Bayes Sands, transforming it into a pop-up city with 1,000 side events, nonstop networking and immersive experiences, all leading into the Formula One Grand Prix weekend.

Ticket prices are rising this week. Visit asia.tokin249.com and use code unchained for 15% off tickets. Finance is the world's number one crypto exchange, trusted by over 290 million users globally. With world-class liquidity, security, and a wide portfolio of digital asset products, finance makes crypto easy for everyone. Whether you're new to crypto or a professional, finance offers a simple user experience. Learn with Finance Academy, browse hundreds of tokens, and track your portfolio on an easy-to-use dashboard. For experienced users, finance pro provides industry-leading services and bespoke trading products. With some of the lowest

fees and deepest liquidity in the market, it's no wonder over 290 million users choose finance for everything crypto. Buy. Sell, trade, earn live crypto download finance today and begin your journey into the future of finance disclaimer finance is not available in certain countries including the u.s check its terms for more information finance dot com slash en slash terms all right so i want to pick up rama i'm going to come to you i promise but i do want to just maybe just also tease something vini said which is which is interesting uh i mean the party's going to end that they stop are unsustainably high. They're propped up by massive deficit spending that is going to, I think, as the most objective observers, become exacerbated with this new domestic policy bill and the trillions of dollars that are going to come from that. But at the same point in time, I've been hearing these doomsday scenarios for years at this point. And stocks continue to go up and they have this big new driver of innovation in the form of AI and everything that entails. So I, I,

I'd like, I mean, Ron, we have. I told you're the neutral moderator, Stephen. What happened, buddy? The neutral. I have neutral. And my last name means honest. It's a great segue for me. So I agree.

I agree. I just shared a screenshot here if you can share that. So there's never been a better time to be alive. Okay. The only better time to be alive than today is tomorrow. If you had to take a step back and ask yourself, what moment in human history would you rather be born into? The answer is today or tomorrow.

Things had been worse socially and politically. During the era of where the civil rights era was a tremendous amount of political and social chaos. Philadelphia was burning. You had the million dollar march. A president was assassinated. MLK was assassinated. So even though this feels like there's a lot of stress happening, it's not like it was back then. You don't have a Vietnam War.

You don't have that statulation. It's hard for us to conceive of that because we weren't there. Okay. Now, this chart shows why there's never been a better time to be alive. The story of human history has been the story of human discovery, innovation, entrepreneurship, and forming cooperative enterprises to serve others and make the world a better place. From the wheel to the printing press to penicillin to barbed wire fences met good neighbors, to the Model T, to the airplane from the Wright brothers, to the semi-connection from Fairchild,

to the operating system. That's the marker of human progress. So this shows the S&P, this is total job openings, is one color here. That's the line in white and the S&P 500 is a line in red and ChattGPT release data here. I'm still trying to analyze this, by the, I don't know because this is causality or coincidence, but I think it's worth talking about. So AI is driving higher productivity. We haven't seen the current productivity rates in the economy since the late 90s. in the late 90s is when we saw another incredible innovation emerge called the Internet.

That emerged in the late 90s. And productivity is the only free lunch in economics. It's the only time a company can raise increased earnings and pay more for a labor. So for you, either an owner of capital or provider or labor or both, both sides win, it's win-win. That's why productivity growth is the ultimate tonic. It can also combat inflation. So AI is here. AI is real.

We're still in the early days of adoption. The adoption is real. We are seeing ROI and AI spend. The Dumeurs are wrong around that. Google's got double-digit cloud growth. So does Amazon. Meta's got ROI in their ad spend. So you're going to keep seeing more of that.

And companies are seeing real benefit. I spoke to the CTO, one of the CTO is at Bank for America. Apps, like used to take six months to launch, internal apps. not take six weeks, do all the coding productivity gains. So this is going to improve real outcomes for Americans. It will make Americans wealthier. It will make Americans that own stocks wealthier. So this is a great thing.

And then in five, six, seven, ten years, you're going to see the onset of humanoid, which will take this the next level. You're going to see driverless cars become more ubiquitous, which will reduce fatalities. improve productivity. You're going to see the cost of housing construction diminish from humanoid also. So all this improves quality of life. You know, 50 years ago, you didn't have this kind of quality of life. Everyone's got a washer, dryer, a subscription to Hulu, Netflix, Paramount, access to travel and leisure, access to content and entertainment, access to the gym. So it's just

human nature. Human nature likes to, you know, we have amygdollars biologically. We have the fear center of the brain. We're hardwired to look for risks and we're oversensitized to risk. And there are bull markets and bear market, sure, but most of the time you're in a bull market. You're in a bull market. If earnings are going up, if interest rates are steady, if inflation is steady or declining, fiscal deficits are actually good for corporate earnings. I wish the government would be more restrained, but the sky's not falling. The United States is the least dirty laundry shirt in the world. There's no other government-issued bond that's better than United States.

So the world is good. This is where the center of innovation is happening, and you're better off participating in that economic transformation by owning stocks. Vinnie, I want you to respond to that, but in addition, just to kind of get down to some practicalities for our listeners, stocks are up 40x percent so far year to date. Can you, as you're replying to Rom, just talk about where that demands coming from. You mentioned the decentralized nature of gold ownership. There's a lot of people watching central banks and looking at what their gold purchases. are vis-a-vis U.S. Treasuries. Where is that demand coming from? And really, this is a, so far, it's a bumper year for gold. How's it going to continue? People don't want to feel like they're buying into the top. There's a lot of, okay, so there's a lot of passive buying in the market that's

happening right now. I, you know, unfortunately, I'm on my iPad. My computer had some water damage, so I can't share some charts. But I saw a shot. I think Luke Grovin posted it where it shows you know, basically gold is, sorry, long-term treasuries are being offloaded by foreign governments in favor of gold. And you can see that very clearly happening that basically, you know, U.S. treasury as much as you, as rum, as you'd say, it's, you know, it's the best in the world. Nobody wants it. People are dumping it. They're buying gold. And central banks are buying gold in mass. I agree. I agree. I opened with it. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the fact that central central banks are rotating into gold right now and not U.S. Treasuries.

I don't think gold is even close to top. I think I'll make a prediction. Yeah, I think we had $10,000 per ounce within the next two years. So I think on a risk of justice basis, gold's only up 20%. Clarification. I don't own U.S. treasuries. I'm saying U.S. bonds versus other sovereign bonds. U.S. is that you can't versus Europe.

That's the point. There's going to be a crisis. There's going to be a credit crisis. There's going to be a crisis of collateral. The global debt to GDP ratio is 370% last I checked. It's off the charts. And so I think at some point people to say, and we're seeing this. The gold is sending a warning right now to us.

As well. Japan's 250%, but it's all, they own the debt themselves. It's all government on debt. So it's all internally owned and controlled. There's a failed auction, which is what you were saying. You're saying you're getting a failed auction one day. Oh, it's not about it's not about being a failed auction. think it's just about the fact that that purchasing power is going to drop from the local currencies

on a global scale and gold holds the value. So you're saying, okay, so if there's a failed auction, a central bank can always choose and monetize this debt. So that's why they'll never be a failed auction. Just what happens. Exactly. You're a tremendous honest debt. There could be an influxing power.

Purchasing power goes down. That's the issue. What's that side? purchasing part. Yeah, it's called inflation. This is why you need to have enough fiat. And this is why the carry trade in Japan is going to unwind pretty badly because we have a situation where the Japanese cannot lower rates. They have to raise rates or at least maintain where they are. Inflation is seeping into the economy. And the U.S. has to lower rates because the economy is suffering right now with high rates. And so the- Yeah, there are parts of the economy suffering from high rates,

commercial real estate, the market is seeing an all-time highs. But again, my point is like on a long enough time scale, something's going to break. Boomers are benefiting from higher rates. If you raise their stay up. The income is going up. Yeah, they've got 30-year bonds and they've got 20-year bonds. And these bonds, so look, there's a big chunk of the market right now where we've got like a $700 billion whole. in the Fed's balance sheet because a bunch of banks are holding long-term, you know,

bonds which were held to maturity and marked it at, not marked to market, right? They're marked at, you know, they're, well, they're held it marked it. They're marking it to the not market to the notional value of the bonds, not marked to market, which creates about a $700 billion hole. You know about this around. This is not news. And so, guys, like, I, you know, I've spoken and I've read a lot of macroeconomics, no one person in the world has a complete view of what's going on in the entire world.

Okay, this is not possible. There's just too many nooks and crannies in the macroeconomic plumbing of the world. So even the best macroeconomists, they're often wrong because they're trends and there's policy. So share this spring real quick. Steve, can you share that? So I'll make Vinnie's point here, by the way. So I think this point is legitimate. And the issue with the debate, by the way, it's very easy to say it's zero or one.

It's not really bad. Like, Dini is right that gold as a percentage of central bank reserves increasing. And I think that's going to keep increasing, actually. And the gold trade is really front-running China. That's what it is. That's the big trend. I think if you look at the obvious thing and focus on the primary trends, you'll do okay. So, you know, gold as a percentage of international reserves was coming down here.

And this is the age of U.S. American hegemony when everyone got on board with U.S. and Bretton Woods and the World Trade Organization and really trust in the United States. And so the demand for gold decline because the demand for treasures going up here, that's reversed. This is Viti's point. So, like, I agree with that point, right? This is also the point, again, told in a different kind of way. Okay. Now, there's a difference, though, between, you know, confidence in the United States and treasuries.

I'm not a big kind of bonds as well versus. is what will do well in the long run. What will do well in the long run? Stocks that grow. Sure. But run, like, this is where the long run stuff comes into question.

Like, if you bought stocks in 2009, okay, after 2008 crash, you would have done way better and if you bought them in 2007 or six, right? Just because there's this huge dip in the market,

there's a liquidity crisis, etc. All I'm saying is that maybe I'm just, I've got time to time the market. I just think that buying into something that's going to preserve purchasing power for me and not be exposed to excess market risk right now is my preferred way forward. Now, I get that I'm trying to preserve wealth and other people are trying to create wealth and it's a very different mindset.

But my advice to a lot of my friends is, look, if you know that you're going to get, you know, maybe, you know, even if you say goals, there's just to do 10% a year for the next couple of years and wait around for a crisis to happen. That, for me, is better than putting all your engines into stocks and watching a 40-50% drawdown, which is what I'm expecting to happen at some point. I don't see a 45% drawdown happening. You've got to have some shock to the system.

The no crisis is going to happen. That's caused OA. But it's inflated. It's inflated right now. Vinnie, if I could come back to the second, Ron. Vinnie, I'd love it if you could just explain what you think that catalyst would be. that would lead to this drop because I know some people are looking for.

So I think we should keep an eye on the carry trade between Japan and the Uris. That's one. I think we need to look at what happens at the long end of the curve in the bond market and what happens with inflation in the Uris. This is multifactorial. There's no one factor that you can take in the car. And the long end is going to blow out. If inflation goes up and rates come down,

the long end's going to blow up. I think, okay, a few things. One is we did have a carry trade online. It happened in August of last year. Yeah, I know. And best time to buy stocks was then. Another time that happened was in the second week of February in 2007. It comes and it goes.

Those are both viable opportunities. So the value of an asset in equilibrium is ultimately a function of this claim of earnings discounted. There's always that someone's got cash to go. But, bro, I mean, are you familiar with fiscal dominance, right? Do you believe we're in a fiscal dominance is why actually built stocks? Okay, but do you think the fiscal dominance lasts forever? No. And unfortunately, so what happens where it ends?

What happens when it ends? I will assess it at that time. It's not happening now. I'll assess it. The great thing about a government is they announce in public what they're doing. They debate it in public. You have elections. And Argentina, for example, they elected someone, or,

not elected, but they're shifting away from the lay, you can start to see that coming and you can de-risk ahead of that. Right now, the United States is saying full core press, deregulation, privatized Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, increased federal spending, that's all bullish. If we see a change in policy, like the reason in part why we had the correction in February is because every single policy level is going the exact opposite direction. So markets corrected, right? Right now, it's full steam ahead. In fact, Trump is saying when he brings rates down to 1%. He's not the Fed, of course.

Well, but this is the point. Marin's in right now, and we know come May, he's going to be trying to drop rates. And that's his name from. No, no, but, but so do you think, so the market's always forecasting six months ahead. And as it gets six months towards, you know, closer to Marin's term starting in May, Do you think that a spike in inflation is going to stop them from cutting rates? I don't. I think inflation goes to three and a half, four percent, four and a half.

They're going to cut rates. I think inflation is going to go up the level again. Well, we're over three. We're over three right now. So you can't bet you can't bet that it won't go to four. I will bet you that it will not go to four. I will happily do that with you. Okay.

I'll take a bit live here. Within 12 months from now, I'll bet you $10,000, so we'll see inflation hit a four. trading places, though, with you. Actually, it's got to be $10,000 in gold or that's all you have to pay or vice 4%. Okay, 4%? One year from now, you think, okay, let's get a thousand.

Make it a thousand. It's fine. I like, I think you're, okay, let's define that first. Let's define it very good. Okay. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, uh, CPI or, you know, or PCE hits four percent. One of the three, one of those three measures.

At one point or at the terminal point in 12 months or which one? At some point in 12 months. No, I'll do it at the end of 12 months. But so the years of thing, there's reflexivity, right? So if it happens in the next two months and they make adjustments, then maybe you can cause correct. But my point is inflation is going to go up. I don't know when it happens, when it hits.

But the question is, it won't get to 4%. Look, I think in the next three months, you can have it. You can have an economic collapse. The inflation goes down. That can happen as well. What's your view? I don't think it's predictable at this point. Like what am I betting a gallon for or guess?

I don't know. In 12 months' time, inflation will be below 4%. High conviction. High conviction. It's possible if there's a collapse. It is a crash. This is my point. It is a crash.

Inflation obviously goes down. You're going to have a temporary whiff of inflation now. do the impact of tariffs, but it's a one-time shock. That'll be behind this come January. Again, there's so many factors that go into the way the economy is being run right now. I don't think you can predict, you know, a point in time. You have a view. How do you have a view on gold if you don't have a view on inflation?

Okay, I'll bet you that I'll bet you that gold breaks $5,000 within the next 12 months. I think I actually told you that I think there is a bid for gold. So the difference I'm making is that I'm making the view that stocks should be the primary asset you have in the portfolio. What do you think stocks will return over the next 12 months? I think you could see from where we are now. I think you could see a 7 to 15% return in stocks where we are now. Okay. I will bet you that gold will outperform from today in 12 months, the S&P.

I don't know. I think I'm making a different kind of argument. I'm making a claim about asset allocation role in the portfolio and timing and all this other stuff. So it's like, I don't know, maybe that's true. I would say, I want to be surprised, China's buying stuff. But this is my point. But this is my point. Like my point is that if you want, you know, for me, the safest bet for the next 12 months is gold because I think it will outperform SMP and I think it's got less downside than stocks. I'll make a trading places wager on that one just for fun. Keep it interesting. Have you guys seen trading places?

$1. Yeah. The two guys over from this guy's life. I'd be more interested in making the 4% inflation bet. I would do that with a little more volume. All right. So I thought about a Vinnie. I'll take you up on that.

Okay. In one year's time, I'll make the claim that the S&P 500 will beat gold. We have to define that, defined as XAU divided by USD. In one year's time, S&P will beat that. second we got to set up a

polymarket for this we can track the real time probably yeah that was my exact close could be the next thing is so I'm wrong just just just just put this on the channel and tag polymarket though you're $7,000 I'm getting with that

10,000 okay I got 10 grand 10 grand that goes as of as of today's date there's a second on until there let's paper it in a contract let's make sure there's no contingencies or miss we're right but I don't even get the intention of what

trying to say here. We need a contract. We put it to a new. How about instead of 12 months, though, we'll do it in nine months. Nine months I'll have a better view on. Let's do 12 months from today. Nine months on. You're a long-term guy.

Let's do 12 months. Long term is 10 years. Not less to or three years. Exactly. So why y'all gave for three extra months? So we'll do, say, July 16th. It's July 4th, July 4th, Independence Day. Done.

I'll run a drive for Independence Day. Yeah, you know, I'm going to be a fan all summer because the summer gets a little woozy. Well, I guess it's rosy everything. My final. Fine. Summer, fine. So July 4th. Oh, there we are.

No contract. No contract. We can put this up on the tweet and I can just agree for my account and that's it. I like, Ron, I have one more question for you. Just relate to stocks because we spent a lot of time talking about innovation as a driver and and walk this through sort of the canonical history of that. I know there's a concern, though, about essentially how much CapEx is being expended on AI and that it's writing some pretty big checks that are going

to have to be cashed in in the next couple of years. Right now, there are some firms that are making bank just because they're providing infrastructure to do all this, the old picks and shovels argument. But at some point, like, stock expectations, price expectations, are rooted. in this huge sort of utopia of innovation that comes from everyone having their own chat by assistant what happens if that doesn't occur yeah then bad things happen in the the bubble burst and vennie's right now lose my vet next year that's what'll happen right so what you know the dot-com bubble burst when earnings estimates were missed right so global crossing sea gate computer all

these companies fireer complex exodus communications they failed to meet in investor expectations. Right now we're not there. In the video, for example, is beat, race, Corruth winning deals. Meta getting ROI on their KAPEX spend, meaning the KAPEX spend is productive. So productive means they make money when they invest in the KAPX. When AWS invests in KAPX, what does that mean? We need another data center and they rented to Meta, who also makes money? The value chain is making money. That's not going to stop. So now you've got defense spending is starting to incorporate AI.

Healthcare hasn't really started. Financial service has about that AI, they're going to keep spending too. So, yeah, I think we're still early any. This is like 1996 for AI. 1995 with Netscape Navigator. That was a chat GPT moment. I think you're still early on in the transformation and adoption of AI. I think nine months, I think I have a pretty good setup here, actually.

I like that. Vinny, all of me to avoid the negative seasonality from August, September. So thank you for that. That was great. Getting a little bit, a little bit more edge. July 16, it would have been a little bit better. But let me show you a little bit more on gold. So gold, look, you know, we agree that China's the bid and central banks are buying gold, right?

Well, it's not just the bid. It's the treasury unwind. That's the issue. Yeah. So the rest of the world, the rest of the world, is unlining its positions in U.S. treasuries and taking positions in gold as, you know, called a pristine collateral. And that's what they're doing. Yeah, it's true. I mean, central banks are, especially those that are antagonistic United States and shell-shocked Europeans

that don't understand America first are also rotating to gold. But that's the bid. And then you have momentum traders. And just remember one more thing like central banks are not equipped to go buy Bitcoin, right? So if there's a crisis in the world that happens anytime the next 12 months, they don't have the mandates, they're not allowed to buy it, they will be a gold rush because they can't buy Bitcoin physically. So they have to basically buy gold and add it to the balance sheets in the reserves.

I mean, look, let's not, you know, again, I say to this, you know, I'm a total independent. I think some of the stuff that the Trump administration is doing right now is actually very, very good for the U.S. economy. And I think we're going to see some really positive things flowing through, you know, with regards to productivity, deregulation. I'm really happy and excited to see those things happen. But we still have a macroeconomic issue. We're burning through $2 trillion plus per year. I was very disappointed to see Elon leave in terms of his, with those trying to cut off the stuff.

We need more. We need more cost cutting. We need big things in line. But there seems to be no world to do this. And this is the problem. And so, you know, from a purely macro perspective, the rest of the world is losing faith in the U.S. government's ability, regardless of which administration is running it,

to not run up the debt. And they're dumping bond. They're dumping U.S. treasuries. They're dumping long-term treasuries in favor of short-term and goals. And that's what they're doing. So a few things I agree. We've all seen a national debt run up, run up, run up, since we were kids.

Stock market keeps running up and up and up. But this time is different, Rob. This time is different. Because this time we have the highest debt to GDP ratio we've ever seen in the U.S. Over 120%. High debt to GDP. The only way out, by the way, is inflation. So the only way out of this problem that we have is to inflate the value of all our assets

in dollar terms. So in real terms, it's going to go down. That's one way out. The other way has to activity growth and entitlement reform. Productivity growth is going to lead to massive job losses. And that's just the way it's going to be right now. I think short term, long term, you may recover re-scale. We also have an overhang in terms of the boomers.

The models keep on horse and buggies. Easy paths create a new product of jobs. But we had a different demographic structure back then. We have an aging population and we have negative population growth or, you know, So, like, these are two factors, which I think you have to take into account. It is different this time. The problem with the history books is we think this time it's going to be the same. And this time, actually, it is different.

But we have to wrap up. I think, yeah, I think that's a good segue. Thank you, Vinny, into closing arguments. Rom, I think you went first with opening arguments. So, Vinny, I'll let you just please continue. Any final thoughts you'd like to share. I think clearly we're going to be doing this at least. once more before we settle that.

So, so, so, you know, my closing argument is this. As you can see, the dollar is losing its value, it's weakening. And as a result, you know, assets, again, finite assets like gold, Bitcoin, all rallying on the base, back of that. The dollar could strengthen at some point. But if we're going to go into a cutting cycle where we cut more, rates more and more, which it looks like is most likely, you can expect it to be a massive runup in, in gold. Bitcoin and stocks. I think until there is some sort of economic, whether it's a U.S.

centric one or a global emerging crisis or something like that, and which case stocks, you know, they're all interconnected. Things just get hit hard. So as someone who's taking the view that I want to preserve wealth and I want to hold on to purchasing power, I'm going to take a view of being barbell, which is basically cash short from treasuries and gold for the most part, with obviously some crypto exposure as well. And I think that everyone is in a different stage of their life. So what I'm doing is not necessarily the same for someone who's worth less and needs to invest more aggressively.

But I'm taking the risk of approach. I think gold is the best risk of approach you can take in your portfolio right now. Go ahead, Rob. Okay. Over the last 20 years, the NASDAQ has gone up 1,500%. Goals gone up about half of that, 7161%. I'm not picking arbitrary timeframes, even the same study over five decades or three decades.

They're going to find that common stocks outperform gold. Okay, that's one over the broad arc of human history. Okay, gold is not a front of asset. And by the way, Bitcoin's competing for more attention for the reasons we discussed earlier. That's one. What does the NASDAV mean or the SMP? It means you're betting that Microsoft be bigger, Neta, Google,

Google, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, and then hundreds of other companies. Because they're growing their businesses, and they'll continue to grow because they're really well-won. They're leaving market positions. The world in terms of innovation technology, that's not going to change. The second point I'll make around gold is this. Tactically, now, if you can share my screen, Stephen. Oh, there's some typing there in the background, but you share my screen real quick.

So if you take a look at this is a chart of X-A-U-S-D gold, this is the bet we're making, actually. It's around this index, X-A-U-S-D. I'll give Vinny one out right now. Vinny, you want to take the out? You can take the out, okay. But here, this is the relative strength on gold. You can see, this is what I mean, tactically we're overbought.

The last time we had this level of being overbought was in April 2024 is right around here. And still in a bull market, but it's just a terrible, terrible, terrible time to buy tactically. You'd rather buy when there was, you know, the RSI was oversold and in your uptrend. Like somewhere near here. These are better entry points. I think this entry point on goal is just downright terrible. In fact, maybe even is terrible to the day. Like the gold is down today as the S&P is literally up today. Right. I think it's a terrible entry point. Like you can be longed the gold trade and say, Yeah, I don't think I want to buy that.

Meanwhile, you look at other securities in the market, like meta, meta looks viable. I'm pretty sure this will go up alongside meta's earnings. I could probably tell a similar story with other securities out there. So I think tactically, I think tactically I have an edge where we initiate the bet today. So why don't you give me better? You know, you want better eyes? You want better or not?

We did one for one, right? You make you the argument, my timing's bent, so why don't you give you better odds? Well, that's why I'm on my side of the bet. You can join my side. Stephen can get the other side. I'm good. I'm going to have that money to bet and still be wired. Let's do polymarket.

Let's get a polymarket bet going to track this bet. Okay. It'll be interesting to see what the market probabilities are. But I think where we are, nine months, July 4th, you got to pick is it's a Friday before July 4th of the Monday, Africa. get precise. I got to rhyme,

but we get, we get, we get, we go with this all the way. We'll work out those details. But yeah,

Vinnie, Rom, this was really enjoyable. I hope everybody watching, listening, enjoyed it as well.

We'll definitely do it again. And, yeah, thanks everyone for your time and your attention.