Latest / Merryn Talks Money / In Gold We Trust: What Surging Metals Say About a Shaky Economy
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Welcome to the Marin Dogs Money News Roundup, where we
- 0:19Speaker 2: talk about the biggest moves in the markets this week
- 0:21Speaker 2: and what's driving them. I'm Maren zum Zap, Web Editor
- 0:23Speaker 2: at Large at Bloomberg UK.
- 0:25Speaker 3: Wealth, and I'm Joined Stairpek, Senior report of Bloomberg and
- 0:28Speaker 3: authored the Money Distilled newsletter.
- 0:30Speaker 2: He missed out award winning. He doesn't want me to
- 0:32Speaker 2: tease him anymore.
- 0:33Speaker 3: Just I just feel that people are board. It's just
- 0:36Speaker 3: they've had enough.
- 0:37Speaker 2: No one's ever going to be bored with your awards.
- 0:39Speaker 2: You're not gonna happen, right listen, speaking of awards, I
- 0:43Speaker 2: should have an award, Yes, you should have an award. Yes,
- 0:46Speaker 2: you know. I was looking up some of my articles
- 0:48Speaker 2: about gold this morning, not because I think about myself
- 0:51Speaker 2: a lot or anything like that, but because I just
- 0:52Speaker 2: wanted to see how long we've been writing about gold.
- 0:55Speaker 2: At twenty years, it really such a long time, and
- 1:00Speaker 2: I pulled out a few. A few two thousand and
- 1:03Speaker 2: six was one of the most one of the most
- 1:05Speaker 2: sort of prescient ones I found in nine, two thousand
- 1:07Speaker 2: and seven, thousand and eight, thousand and nine, literally every
- 1:10Speaker 2: single year. You will regret it if you do not hold.
- 1:13Speaker 2: You will regret it if you do not. All going.
- 1:15Speaker 2: We're in a lurly sometimes and ups and downs along
- 1:18Speaker 2: the way. Here we are now.
- 1:21Speaker 3: Yeah, and honestly you're both very good at calling the top.
- 1:24Speaker 3: In twenty eleven, I assume Ember, I'm gonna take that.
- 1:27Speaker 3: I was, yeah, no, you know, an editors later for
- 1:29Speaker 3: money weeks saying you should maybe tape off. It's new,
- 1:32Speaker 3: and I always clean up all that's really Yeah, you
- 1:35Speaker 3: knows nothing.
- 1:36Speaker 2: This is the greatest ball market of well ignore her.
- 1:38Speaker 2: Just to be clear, listeners, I won't be able to
- 1:40Speaker 2: do that again. There is no way I'll gather the
- 1:42Speaker 2: top right twice. It will come and I will miss
- 1:45Speaker 2: it almost definitely.
- 1:47Speaker 3: Oh that's a shame. I was hoping you were going
- 1:49Speaker 3: to tell us something.
- 1:50Speaker 2: But I'll try, John, I'll try anyway. The little pool
- 1:53Speaker 2: back today over four thousand dollars and then down a bit,
- 1:55Speaker 2: but by the way, actually up in stunning towns today slightly,
- 1:59Speaker 2: but a little bit. And then there's silver. Yeah, John
- 2:02Speaker 2: has been waiting for silver for so long, John.
- 2:06Speaker 3: I have I mean purely as a spected but yeah,
- 2:09Speaker 3: it's fifty dollars, is I mean, I suppose it's the
- 2:14Speaker 3: thing I've been looking for. Is that's quite a body
- 2:16Speaker 3: in signal in some ways, or it's a breaking new
- 2:19Speaker 3: ground signal, and they'll be very interesting to see where
- 2:21Speaker 3: it closes today, because if it closes below fifty today,
- 2:25Speaker 3: having gone up through it, then I'll probably be more
- 2:28Speaker 3: bodied than this. Maybe the beginning. Well, you know, it's
- 2:32Speaker 3: the resistance, it's the option.
- 2:36Speaker 2: Absolutely full proof that stuff.
- 2:38Speaker 3: Yeah, ful proof, feel proof.
- 2:40Speaker 2: All right, what's the what's the signal? I mean, what's
- 2:43Speaker 2: the message we're getting from precious metals here? Because, by
- 2:45Speaker 2: the way, it's not just silver, and they're not just gold,
- 2:47Speaker 2: as palladium, as platinum. All the precious metals are massively
- 2:51Speaker 2: outperforming everything else. And the Turkish portfolio that we wrote
- 2:55Speaker 2: about the other day, equities are in gold amazing, but
- 2:57Speaker 2: equities in gold they're not a post to go up
- 3:00Speaker 2: together like this.
- 3:02Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I suppose this is why it's getting
- 3:05Speaker 3: called the debasement trade, and the debasement trade is the
- 3:08Speaker 3: Turkish portfolio basically image you can't trust the stuff that
- 3:13Speaker 3: is denominated in the currency anymore.
- 3:15Speaker 2: You can't trust ca can't trustpond. You need real stuff.
- 3:20Speaker 3: I mean, I do think also it is there is
- 3:23Speaker 3: a bit of you know, it's going up, and it
- 3:26Speaker 3: keeps going up, and it's gone parabolic, and I don't know,
- 3:30Speaker 3: I don't know about you, but I think in the
- 3:31Speaker 3: post bitcoin era, where you know, it's an asset, went
- 3:36Speaker 3: from you know, twenty thousand dollars to one hundred thousand
- 3:38Speaker 3: dollars and the one.
- 3:41Speaker 2: Really ready reminded that only one of your hostsholds bitcoin.
- 3:45Speaker 3: Yes, i'd silver for them, but yeah, if that can
- 3:50Speaker 3: rock it like that, then I think there's there's much
- 3:53Speaker 3: more of a sense that well, actually, this guy's the
- 3:55Speaker 3: limit for anything. So although I do, you know, I
- 4:00Speaker 3: have more faith in gold's fundamentals, whatever they are, than
- 4:04Speaker 3: they're doing, for example, backcoins, I can also see how
- 4:08Speaker 3: the fact that everyone's seeing these things happen in the
- 4:10Speaker 3: past gives the momentum trades much more.
- 4:12Speaker 2: Rumors maybe, and retail investing is really picking up right,
- 4:15Speaker 2: retail flows into ETFs and also retail into physical We
- 4:19Speaker 2: keep hearing about various outlets having shortages of physical gold
- 4:22Speaker 2: and sover because the rush is so intense, and either
- 4:25Speaker 2: that's a massive FOMO. I think one of our competitor
- 4:29Speaker 2: organizations referred to retail bias going in this week purely
- 4:33Speaker 2: at FOMO, which I think is patronizing.
- 4:36Speaker 3: It is kana patronizing, especially after recent years. I don't
- 4:40Speaker 3: think you can I really don't actually think you can
- 4:42Speaker 3: call the kind of retail invest the money has always no.
- 4:47Speaker 2: I mean, I think there is maybe just more of
- 4:50Speaker 2: a sense among all investors at the grounds are the
- 4:53Speaker 2: ground is shifting under our feet. The monitory ground is
- 4:55Speaker 2: definitely shifting. Have we known about god a lot of Diajohn,
- 4:58Speaker 2: I've talked quite a lot of people about the ideas
- 5:00Speaker 2: that Roger Lee had when he was on the podcast
- 5:03Speaker 2: a few weeks ago talking about the fiscal event coming
- 5:05Speaker 2: for the UK, and he was talking about it being
- 5:08Speaker 2: not a certainty, but definitely not a non zero possibility
- 5:11Speaker 2: that the UK would have an unpleasant fiscal event. That's
- 5:14Speaker 2: nice economists euphanis euphemism, if we but when you think
- 5:18Speaker 2: through it, it's very hard to imagine what prevents a
- 5:21Speaker 2: fiscal event, what prevents the UK hitting some kind of
- 5:24Speaker 2: fiscal wall, And the only thing that stops it is
- 5:26Speaker 2: a phenomenally successful budget in November and it's hard to
- 5:31Speaker 2: see how we can have a phenomenally successful budget in November,
- 5:34Speaker 2: because it's hard to see how the Parliamentary Labor Party
- 5:38Speaker 2: would accept the spending cuts and the manifesto busting tax
- 5:43Speaker 2: rises that would be necessary to make it what he
- 5:45Speaker 2: would consider it to be a successful budget in fiscal terms.
- 5:48Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, No, I mean, and I think, I mean
- 5:51Speaker 3: the think that's one thing that is interesting politically was
- 5:54Speaker 3: actually the Japanese election, and I think one of the
- 5:58Speaker 3: things that give the impetus to Gold and the rest
- 6:01Speaker 3: of them this week was the idea that basically Japan
- 6:05Speaker 3: elected a female prime minister soon to be probably female
- 6:09Speaker 3: prime minister who is more dubbish or perceived to be
- 6:13Speaker 3: more dubbish and more like ABB and that she'll encourage
- 6:16Speaker 3: more money print and she'll encourage the Bank of Japan
- 6:20Speaker 3: to keep interest rates low. And whether that's true or not,
- 6:23Speaker 3: I think that's given a bit of an impetus to
- 6:25Speaker 3: the overall debasement trade. And I think, you know, I
- 6:30Speaker 3: do think the idea that will end up getting yield
- 6:32Speaker 3: curve control basically, which is what we're talking about when
- 6:35Speaker 3: we're talking about returning to QE.
- 6:39Speaker 2: He is just keeping interest rates low. Even in the
- 6:41Speaker 2: free market, they wouldn't be low.
- 6:43Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to print money buy gilts rather to
- 6:46Speaker 3: stop them from blowing up. Basically you can see that.
- 6:49Speaker 2: Yeah, and again this is what Roger was talking about
- 6:52Speaker 2: having this conversation that you know, you get to anati point,
- 6:54Speaker 2: my guilt yields start to rise beyond the level where
- 6:57Speaker 2: it is sustainable for the UK taxpayer to keep the
- 6:59Speaker 2: show on the road. And at that point you need
- 7:01Speaker 2: a massive battle que to keep us down, at which
- 7:04Speaker 2: point the Bank of England, in order to hang on
- 7:05Speaker 2: to some tiny vestige of what remains of as right
- 7:08Speaker 2: put Haitian, would have to demand some kind of physical
- 7:12Speaker 2: restraint from the government. And that's where things could conceivably
- 7:15Speaker 2: go horribly wrong, or on past performance from these MP's
- 7:17Speaker 2: will definitely go horribly wrong.
- 7:20Speaker 3: Well, I mean, well, imagine that Bank England not it's
- 7:23Speaker 3: all okay, imagine the Bank England. Can I take trying
- 7:25Speaker 3: to take the IMF ton't with you, k I mean,
- 7:27Speaker 3: I just don't think that would be possible. I think
- 7:29Speaker 3: that there would be a reasonable argument that the central
- 7:34Speaker 3: bank can dictate democracy what it can do, and then
- 7:38Speaker 3: of course what happens is everything does go pear shaped.
- 7:41Speaker 3: And you know, I mean that was the point calling
- 7:44Speaker 3: in the IMF in the seventies. It was together kind
- 7:46Speaker 3: of neutral referee to make it happen, to make it happen,
- 7:50Speaker 3: and I'm just not sure. I don't think the Bank
- 7:52Speaker 3: England could play that role with someone.
- 7:54Speaker 2: But at some point time, the town only comes when
- 7:56Speaker 2: you when the population accepts the town. And I wonder
- 8:00Speaker 2: of you know, retail purchasing of gold at the beginning
- 8:03Speaker 2: of the acceptance of the turn. Yeah, there's a problem
- 8:07Speaker 2: and something has to change, and you know, a contractionary
- 8:11Speaker 2: seeming disaster has to be part of that change anyway
- 8:15Speaker 2: to depressing. Let's not talk about that anymore.
- 8:17Speaker 3: It's really interesting that again, and we've talked to this before,
- 8:21Speaker 3: but it used to be the sexty forty portfolio and
- 8:24Speaker 3: a few talks putting any gold inn there you wear
- 8:26Speaker 3: out on the frenies. And the other day I saw
- 8:28Speaker 3: it retali Or, who obviously is a bit fringy, but
- 8:32Speaker 3: he was saying it was fringly as the biggest edge
- 8:36Speaker 3: one can be. But you're seeing fifteen percent.
- 8:38Speaker 2: Is what you should Stanley. Didn't they put out a
- 8:40Speaker 2: thing saying twenty percent.
- 8:41Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're kind of like, hang on, We've been telling.
- 8:44Speaker 2: You this for years, and now suddenly you're twenty percent
- 8:46Speaker 2: here and twenty percent there, and you know, but then,
- 8:48Speaker 2: if you think about it, why would you put any
- 8:50Speaker 2: bonds into a portfolio if you don't if you don't
- 8:53Speaker 2: trust paper anymore, you don't want cast and you don't
- 8:56Speaker 2: want bonds, and you have to replace the you know
- 8:58Speaker 2: what felt like the risk free element with something else.
- 9:01Speaker 2: What's it going to be?
- 9:02Speaker 3: Well, the other interesting was, and I don't know if
- 9:04Speaker 3: you've seen this, but MEB Faber, the guy from Cambria, aid,
- 9:07Speaker 3: I think it is. He. Yeah, he's very good, and
- 9:10Speaker 3: he's always putting out stuff about portfolio construction and all
- 9:14Speaker 3: the rest of it. He was making the point the
- 9:16Speaker 3: other day, if you'd constructed the sixty forty portfolio, but
- 9:18Speaker 3: it's about substituted points for gold since like nineteen seventy
- 9:23Speaker 3: three or something like that, you'd have exactly the same
- 9:26Speaker 3: return slightly higher for gold, actually slightly higher, but go gold.
- 9:30Speaker 3: And he did it for another couple of things, and
- 9:32Speaker 3: his basic point was that you know, you could just
- 9:35Speaker 3: have substituted gold entirely. Oh, going for actually the Turkish
- 9:39Speaker 3: option for sixty forty Turkish.
- 9:42Speaker 2: Entering entering, isn't it? We probably now overthinking, but I
- 9:45Speaker 2: keep thinking about I would dominate. Was saying the other
- 9:48Speaker 2: day Dominic for his Beyond the Podcast back goal that
- 9:49Speaker 2: we did earlier in the week about how gold is
- 9:52Speaker 2: there pretty much the only way you get to touch eternity.
- 9:56Speaker 3: Yally, that's a good line. I love it, a good one.
- 9:58Speaker 2: I loved it. Did I think we were getting a
- 10:01Speaker 2: bit religious on the board, you know, but it was
- 10:04Speaker 2: rather a lovely lie. I weren't going to touch my
- 10:06Speaker 2: rings was.
- 10:09Speaker 3: Platinum. I'm not even sure where that comes from.
- 10:12Speaker 2: That was very fashionable when both of us got married.
- 10:14Speaker 2: My wedding ring and the days platform platinum. I've been
- 10:16Speaker 2: touching another ring. But when we got married, John and
- 10:18Speaker 2: I obviously we got around the same time. I think
- 10:24Speaker 2: very fashionable to have a platinum ring.
- 10:25Speaker 3: Yea, it was. And the fortunate now much more of
- 10:27Speaker 3: fashion victim than you arguement for the classics.
- 10:29Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, well I think you know, we don't
- 10:31Speaker 2: know what classical victims we are until it until it
- 10:33Speaker 2: becomes clear. Now listen, before we go onto one more thing,
- 10:36Speaker 2: stand duty. As you know, no that I'm not going
- 10:38Speaker 2: to talk about that. Actually I just got us in trouble.
- 10:40Speaker 2: We're not gonna talk about that, but we're going to
- 10:41Speaker 2: talk about stamp duty.
- 10:43Speaker 3: And that was the show.
- 10:46Speaker 2: After the show and the on the the cuts that
- 10:49Speaker 2: you guys don't get to listen to. So Kenny bad
- 10:53Speaker 2: Knock in that speech that apparently went down very very well.
- 10:55Speaker 2: We went there sleeve and because we don't do that
- 10:57Speaker 2: kind of political stuff, but went down very well. She
- 10:59Speaker 2: talked about just getting more stamp duty crossboard.
- 11:02Speaker 3: Yeah, well actually not across the board. Second homes, yeah,
- 11:06Speaker 3: sating Tom still have it, and the commercial property so
- 11:10Speaker 3: but I mean, but yeah, basically the stuff that normal
- 11:13Speaker 3: people are used to paying.
- 11:14Speaker 2: Yeah, and this makes sense, and we will loath stamp duty.
- 11:17Speaker 2: It's the most inefficient stamp, most inefficient tax. It's a
- 11:20Speaker 2: ruined lives that makes it impossible to buy first time
- 11:23Speaker 2: because you'll come up with such a lumpzone because you
- 11:25Speaker 2: can't add stamp duty to your mortgage. It prevents all
- 11:27Speaker 2: the people's downsizing. You might say it shouldn't, but it does.
- 11:30Speaker 2: It's a psychological barrier to other people selling their houses
- 11:33Speaker 2: and buying another house that don't want to buy that stamp.
- 11:36Speaker 3: So I didn't have any downsizing money once you paid
- 11:38Speaker 3: you know, twenty odd grind for whatever they're downsizing from, right,
- 11:42Speaker 3: I mean, I think you know, there's there's very rational
- 11:45Speaker 3: economic reasons for it.
- 11:46Speaker 2: So you know it just comes up the market.
- 11:48Speaker 3: Yeah, it means it's terrible. And the other thing is
- 11:51Speaker 3: just like, I mean, one of the things I find
- 11:53Speaker 3: interesting is as soon as you talk about this, because
- 11:56Speaker 3: everyone's been so brainwashed, it's like, oh a, well, if
- 11:58Speaker 3: you give up the you know, five million, nine billion
- 12:00Speaker 3: whatever's going to be at that point from stamp duty,
- 12:03Speaker 3: how what are the tax seeking the raise? Like, look,
- 12:07Speaker 3: you're going to encourage growth because there's say you increase
- 12:10Speaker 3: the number of transactions by twenty percent, that means increasing
- 12:13Speaker 3: the amount of money going down the economy, increasing the
- 12:15Speaker 3: number in new kitchens getting fitted. You're get to more money.
- 12:19Speaker 2: Yeah, you all that kind of thing.
- 12:21Speaker 3: So it's you're not you don't have to replace it directly.
- 12:25Speaker 3: And also there is this other option called cutting spending,
- 12:28Speaker 3: which unlike you know, the Labor Party, the Tories are
- 12:31Speaker 3: well than happy to do ideologically. So one thing you
- 12:34Speaker 3: can be sure.
- 12:34Speaker 2: Of is they haven't done that for years? Well? Yeah, absolutely,
- 12:38Speaker 2: I mean so we're we're going to have to call
- 12:40Speaker 2: the new Tory Party. Yeah. Is wanting to cut taxes,
- 12:43Speaker 2: well say they are, but you know it's a tough
- 12:45Speaker 2: gig cutting not cutting taxes, cutting spending in the UK.
- 12:48Speaker 3: It is, although I suspect it's not going to be
- 12:53Speaker 3: as difficult come the next From the physical event, I
- 12:56Speaker 3: feel austerity kind of like drum somewhat, but yeah, come
- 13:01Speaker 3: the fiscal event.
- 13:04Speaker 2: Okay, do you know what? She should move on to?
- 13:07Speaker 2: Abolishing stamp duty in the equity markets. It's a logical
- 13:11Speaker 2: next stage. I mean, now I think about it, I'm
- 13:13Speaker 2: rather surprised she didn't. An interesting report of one of
- 13:16Speaker 2: the brokers earlier today pointing out that actually a very
- 13:18Speaker 2: large number of people are put off investing in the
- 13:21Speaker 2: UK market because of the stamp duty. You always think
- 13:23Speaker 2: it's kind of niche and marginal, but it's really not.
- 13:25Speaker 2: People know that they pay more to invest in than
- 13:28Speaker 2: they do in other countries. Well, and it very off putting.
- 13:30Speaker 3: Why colleagues, because it's huged an interesting piece this morning
- 13:33Speaker 3: about Astrazen because it's going to upgrade its US listing,
- 13:38Speaker 3: and it's going to go from a d RS to
- 13:41Speaker 3: the kind of full blowing US lesting. And basically what
- 13:45Speaker 3: that means is you're going to have a almost like
- 13:47Speaker 3: a taste case market where people can buy in America
- 13:50Speaker 3: not be the stamp duty. And that'll just easy because
- 13:55Speaker 3: most broadcasts with all so you know, we'll start to
- 13:59Speaker 3: get a better that kind of cross country comparison and
- 14:02Speaker 3: maybe it will be an easier case to make than
- 14:04Speaker 3: it currently has been. Yeah, I mean, I can see
- 14:07Speaker 3: why she didn't mention it because it's such an easy
- 14:09Speaker 3: thing for the opposition that didn't say it's tax counts
- 14:12Speaker 3: for the rich. But I don't think that also very
- 14:14Speaker 3: contact with reality for now.
- 14:16Speaker 2: I don't think so, because, as we say over and
- 14:18Speaker 2: over and over, pretty much everyone in work in the
- 14:19Speaker 2: UK now has an equity portfolio, whether they know it
- 14:22Speaker 2: or not. So that is a tax car for everyone,
- 14:24Speaker 2: and it's also one that might actually drive activity in
- 14:27Speaker 2: the UK, might actually drive some growth, and certainly would be,
- 14:30Speaker 2: as we said so often, would be a signal to
- 14:33Speaker 2: the rest of the world that well, we might not
- 14:35Speaker 2: look like it, we are actually open for business. Some
- 14:38Speaker 2: business anyway, business that fits inside our regulatory environment.
- 14:41Speaker 3: And to be fear of Rachel Reeves, I'm pretty sure
- 14:43Speaker 3: that she probably is on board by that. It's just
- 14:47Speaker 3: been told enough times exactly right.
- 14:49Speaker 2: We can hope, John can't.
- 14:50Speaker 3: We can hope.
- 14:54Speaker 2: I hope that you're all enjoying your gold and silver
- 14:57Speaker 2: profits and your bitcoin profits.
- 14:59Speaker 3: Well, if it's plenty. It was a bit of that,
- 15:00Speaker 3: which is quite nice.
- 15:01Speaker 2: Yeah, send us more, send us questions, and don't blame
- 15:04Speaker 2: us when it all goes wrong. Thanks for listening to
- 15:08Speaker 2: this week's Marrin Talks Money debrief. That wasn't financial advice.
- 15:11Speaker 2: By the way, we do not give financial advice. Thanks
- 15:13Speaker 2: for listening to this week's Marin Trooks money Debrief. If
- 15:15Speaker 2: you like our show, rate review and subscribe wherever you
- 15:18Speaker 2: listen to the podcasts and keep sending questions or comments
- 15:20Speaker 2: to Marror Money at Bloomberg dot net. You can also
- 15:22Speaker 2: follow me in John on Twitter or x I'm at
- 15:24Speaker 2: Marin OSW and John is John Underscore Steppeck. This episode
- 15:27Speaker 2: was hosted by me Marren Sumset Web. It's produced by
- 15:30Speaker 2: Summersadi and Moses and