For years, gold was dismissed as a “pet rock.” Now, it’s being discussed as a strategic U.S. asset. In the premiere episode of The Wealthion Flash Market Report, Bristol Gold Group’s Trey Reik and Windrock’s Brett Rentmeester break down what could be a turning point for precious metals following U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s surprising comments to Tucker Carlson on gold’s role in the financial system.
They also discuss the Trump administration’s market shocking tariffs, what they mean for financial markets, and how investors should position their portfolios.
Topics discussed:
- Windrock’s defensive strategy: hard assets, low correlation, and liquidity
- What Trump’s tariff strategy means for markets in 2025
- Gold reaching $15k?
- Could the U.S. revalue its gold reserves to reduce Treasury bond issuance?
- Why central banks are doubling down on gold
- Silver’s historic undervaluation and the gold/silver ratio
- Basel III’s hidden impact on gold as a Tier 1 asset
Investment Concerns? Get a free portfolio review with Wealthion’s endorsed financial advisors at https://bit.ly/4hYRGLP
Hard Assets Alliance – The Best Way to Invest in Gold and Silver: https://www.hardassetsalliance.com/?aff=WTH
Trey Reik 0:00
Hi. My name is Trey Reich of Bristol Gold Group, and we’re here with Brett rent Meester of wind rock, and we both had the opportunity over the weekend to watch a fairly long interview with Tucker Carlson and our Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant. And we’d like to show you a clip of that hour long interview and then discuss it a little bit after.
Scott Bessent 0:34
There are a lot of different stores of value. Over time, Bitcoin is becoming a store of value. Gold has historically been a store of value. I think what’s interesting is, where do we see the gold demand coming from? Huge amount is from China. Yes, where, as I said, they’re in the middle of an economic recession, slash depression. People don’t trust the Chinese currency because they have capital controls. There are 1.1 point 4 billion Chinese who won’t want to get their money out, and they won’t let them. They will let them buy gold.
Tucker Carlson 1:16
So that’s the response you think. But it’s just, do you find it interesting that even now 2025 when everything is abstract and digital, that gold is still widely believed globally to be a reliable store of value. I
Scott Bessent 1:30
think that store gold, gold has a lot of history going with it. That friend of mine’s grandmother during Russia had a financial crisis in 98 then they had a big inflation, and a friend of mine’s grandmother went out and bought 18 bicycles and put them in her apartment. And that was her store of value,
Tucker Carlson 1:52
yeah. So how’d she do on the bike investment? Great, great.
Scott Bessent 1:55
I wish I did that well. But that look gold. Gold also has other applications, a lot of applications jewelry in India, but it’s something that historically, people have all agreed on, and gold does not have gold can’t have a fiscal problem. Gold cannot have a gigantic budget deficit. Gold cannot have the a a war. So just the fact that it is this isolated thing makes it very interesting. And the fact that the entire global trading system until Richard Nixon took us off, was tied to gold,
Tucker Carlson 2:44
so you’re not anti gold. Oh
Scott Bessent 2:46
no, no, no. I they when I had my fund, I think people might have called me a gold bug.
Trey Reik 2:53
So Brett, you and I are fairly similar, I think in our interpretation of gold’s role in a portfolio, you know, in both a diversification sense and getting a little money out of the financial system and dangers that may be related. Were you surprised to hear the US Treasury Secretary be as supportive of gold as he was in that clip? Yeah.
Brett Rentmeester 3:19
I mean, I think it’s a new chapter, right prior administrations would have discussed it as a pet rock and all these other things. So I think it’s an acknowledgement in maybe a warming the public up to the idea that we need to think about assets on the US balance sheet and how they play a role in supporting the dollar or other things, and gold is certainly one
Trey Reik 3:42
of them. So one of the interesting things I thought about the interview was Tucker seemed to be relatively surprised that the US Treasury secretary was being, as you know, complimentary about Gold’s investment qualities. What’d you make of that? Yeah,
Brett Rentmeester 4:00
I think he was surprised. Why? Again, I think historically, gold has kind of been the enemy of the dollar, because it’s a place people could go that wasn’t dollar denominated. And, you know, as we know, in a world where bank reserves are minimal, holding up all these this lending, you know, if all of a sudden everybody pulled five or 10% of their money and put it in gold, the whole banking system kind of ceases to operate. So I think in the past, gold has always been public enemy number one, and the idea that they’re talking about it and discussing the merits of it does tell me there’s maybe something going on a warming up to this idea that we have to not treat gold and other assets as enemies, but maybe view them as strategic assets that we own on the balance sheet.
Trey Reik 4:50
Scott Besant has talked about monetizing, you know, America’s assets, and that has led in gold circles to. To a certain amount of speculation that what he’s talking about is revaluing the gold on the Treasury and Fed’s balance sheet, which is currently valued at $44 and if you revalued that to current market prices, you’re talking about, you know, 800 billion, something like that. And if they did that, theoretically, they could repo that with the Fed and and the Treasury might have to issue 800 $900 billion less of treasuries this year, in a year where I think they have 11 trillion they need to roll so do you do? You give much credence to that, or you think that’s contributing to gold strength,
Brett Rentmeester 5:43
you know, I really don’t give too much credence to it, or think it’s contributing too much. And you know, part of the reason is it’s a known thing, you know, we know it’s being held under value. We don’t really know that we have it all. I mean, that is right, it’s the bigger question. But assuming we do, people have known we’re carrying it at below what it’s worth. Does that really move the needle? It seems like it’s positive, but it doesn’t seemingly move the needle. I think to move the needle, it would really have to be more of a strategic building of gold and silver on the balance sheet and letting the value rise accordingly, and then maybe at a much higher value, there’s a story to tell and a kind of a way out of all the Treasury issuance,
Trey Reik 6:28
with respect to gold’s recent strength, in the past three to six months, there’s been a lot of attention paid to Central Bank buying, and I think that’s an important component in stabilizing the gold price, but central banks don’t generally buy an upticks, and this has been a pretty aggressive market. So do, what do you attribute gold’s recent strength? I assume you would agree with me that it’s been a bit surprising.
Brett Rentmeester 6:53
Yeah, well, you know, I think it might be that more people it’s more common knowledge now the predicament that most global economies are in relative to debt levels and just the unsustainability of the path, it’s something we’ve been talking about since we founded our firm post the 08 crisis. But the reality is, we’ve gotten into such a habit, especially in the western economies, of just printing money and kicking the can, and everybody feels good with stimulus that that a lot of people haven’t slowed down to really look at what’s going on under the hood. And I think the numbers are so big and so staggering now that more and more people are waking up to the fact that we can’t keep spending at these levels and printing money like we are, and there’s a real risk ahead. And I’m not just talking about the US. This would apply to Europe, Japan, China, you know, modern economies that they asked the question, okay, if something failed, if currencies went bad, Where can I hide out? And they start going through different areas. And you know, one of the few areas where you have no counterparty risk, no real leverage, it’s an asset you can own directly, or things like precious metals, gold and silver. So I think there’s just more an acknowledge of an acknowledgement of that. And then, to your point, I think central banks, with the basil three rules coming into play, you know, gold can play a more prominent role on their balance sheets. And I think we’re going to see that as well.
Trey Reik 8:21
You’re talking about Basel three now, yes, yeah, and that’s coming in June. We’ve been reading about that for a good seven or eight years, but apparently it’s finally going to happen. That’s right. So do you at Winrock have a methodology for what you think gold is worth?
Brett Rentmeester 8:42
Yeah. I mean, we, we use some other people’s methodology generally. And listen, there’s, there’s upside methodology, like the famous Jim Sinclair, where, you know, you kind of figure out the amount of money in the system, and you figure out, if you backed reserves at a certain level, what kind of numbers you could get. And clearly, in some distressed world where there’s truly a currency issue, those numbers are, you know, very high, right? 10s of 1000s of dollars are higher, but more realistically, you know, I think it’s kind of like a Bitcoin or some of these other assets. The value is hard to ascertain and project. But it seems like if you use a little bit of that thinking of money printed and out there in the system, that you could justify much higher levels than we’re even at today. At the $3,000 mark doesn’t mean it will be a straight March there, but the idea that gold could be, you know, five to $15,000 in the next three to five years is kind of a range that we think is very reasonable, depending on what transpires.
Trey Reik 9:46
And what would be your response to investors who think, as usually happens, whenever gold starts going up, that they missed it. You know, we’re starting to hear that a little bit. More frequently, gold’s one of those funny assets. If it’s going up, people feel they missed it. If it’s going down, they say, I told you so. And if it’s not moving, there’s no urgency. So there’s never an investor’s mind. You know, because of that familiarity with the asset class, there’s always a reason not to buy it. And the current reason is, you know, I missed it. It’s up to too much. What? What will keep gold going in the next year or two? You think,
Brett Rentmeester 10:25
yeah, I mean, clearly not investment advice, but just general thinking. You know, I think that’s always how people feel when any asset moves up. And you’re right, it seems to be magnified in gold and silver, and it, quite honestly, it is harder to buy today than it was a year ago and three years ago. I think the mindset is you should have a core position and at minimum, kind of dollar cost average in and honestly, you know, we’re migrating a little more towards silver in the equation, given the big gap between gold and silver. People have different views on that, but the ratio of the two is near and extreme. So in times like this, we may overweight the asset that’s underperformed on the theory that, over time, these ratios come a little back into historical alignment. So that’s another way to do it, is to try to look for the areas that are a little more undervalued relative to historical norms, and then coming up with a plan and yeah, maybe not doing it all today, if you’re brand new, but getting a core amount that matters and building on on it. Last week,
Trey Reik 11:29
gold was down about one and a half percent, and silver was down 13.3 so as you point out, the gold to silver ratio at one point this morning was at 102 which is very, very high. So are you suggesting, as I think you are, that it makes a lot of sense to take a look at the silver side here, because that’s very likely to balance out at a lower ratio in the near future. Yeah,
Brett Rentmeester 11:58
I think so. I mean, I don’t know when the ratio will correct, but we’re general believers in reversion to averages and ratios that make sense. And I think Trey, you’d be better than me to say, but I think it comes out to the ground, out of the ground at about 15 to one plus or minus and so and silver gets depleted. I think silver gets hit because people think of it as also an industrial use. So if there’s fear of recession, you know, it gets pulled down. But the reality is, all the gold that’s ever been mined is pretty much out there. That’s not true for silver, I think, you know, again, not investment advice. Talk to your own advisors, but silver is probably one of the cheapest assets, given the environment we’re in out there, and it really hasn’t kept up with gold, but I would not be surprised if it played catch up
Trey Reik 12:45
in the years ahead. At Winrock, do gold equities play a part in your approach to portfolios? Yes,
Brett Rentmeester 12:53
they do. I mean, in addition to physical gold and silver, we do, like some of the mining companies, we use some actively managed strategies. And obviously, in periods like this where gold’s gone up a lot and mining costs are somewhat contained with what’s now lower oil, etc, you know, the margins of those companies should be reflective of some great gains. Are
Trey Reik 13:15
you comfortable mentioning a name or two? Well,
Brett Rentmeester 13:17
I mean, we generally do it with, we generally invest with a diversified portfolio where we’re not the ones. We’re hiring an investment manager to pick the name. So I’d rather not speculate on an individual name. But I think we stray away from the really speculative, you know, stuff at the bottom, trying to find mines and etc, and, and so it’s kind of the middle of the market, up up to the big companies, and we rely on an active manager that’s very deep in the space, you know, to make those specific judgments Great. Focus more on just having an allocation there and believing
Trey Reik 13:55
so I have this theory called the negative survivorship bias, and that’ll be the last question I’ll pose on gold stocks. But you know, gold mining is one of the only industries in the world where you not necessarily best suited to pick the largest participants, right, because it’s so hard for Barrick and and Newmont to replace their reserves. So I assume what you were sort of agreeing with that and saying it’s the middle part of the structure where the greatest opportunities lie. That’s
Brett Rentmeester 14:29
probably accurate. Yeah, I think that’s an accurate statement. Terrific.
Trey Reik 14:32
So with, I don’t think any conversation can conclude without a little bit of tent mention of tariffs. So we’ve had a pretty tumultuous week. We’re two and a half months into President Trump’s second term. Do you think, you know, how is this whole tariff thing going to play out? Do you think is it inflationary? Is it supportive of the dollar? What are you guys expecting over the. Next nine to 12 months?
Brett Rentmeester 15:02
Yeah, well, I think maybe starting at the top, I think people have been surprised by the strategy of just kind of coming out against every country and it not being reciprocal. I think most people expected this to be a negotiation, a grand negotiation, and maybe are supportive of that, that, hey, if you’re charging me tariffs and I’m charging you, maybe we’ll threaten each other and then actually sit down and we’ll end up with no tariffs or of a free market solution. I think that’s what most people hope for on the other side, if countries not going to let go of a tariff and they’re going to charge 20% on everything, then the idea of a reciprocal tariff seems somewhat reasonable. You’re going to charge 20% we’ll charge 20% I think what, what’s gotten the market a little unglued is it hasn’t really been this exact reciprocal thing. There’s a lot of other math and fuzzy things in the gray zone that seem more like a blunt kind of negotiation tactic. So I think we’re still hopeful that there’s, this is a grand negotiation, and in a couple months, we come out the other side and are feeling good about it. I think the problem is, we’re in an over levered global economy. We have some of the highest equity us valuations ever. And you know, any pin prick in this bloated balloon could be, you know, a mortal wound. So does this trigger, you know, I was, for example, I was with a business owner recently, and they get everything from Vietnam, and they’ve got 35% margins. So their margins disappeared overnight on paper. And so do we get businesses to freeze up and not make any decisions? And then, you know, we lead to a recession. So I think the longer this goes on, the more risk for collateral damage and that that, combined with a massively overvalued US stock market, is a dangerous backdrop. On the other hand, maybe those things won’t fall apart, and they’ll be able to kind of hobble through this, get enough big wins along the way. I think China will be the difficult piece. I think a lot of other countries, it seems like they will come to an agreeable point, but so I think volatility remains high, and really that we’re in this critical window the next two months. Let’s call it to see how we navigate it, I’d say we’re still hopeful that it’s more of a negotiating tactic, and we get, you know, in a lot better spot here in a couple months or shorter, but there’s a very real risk that this spills over, if, if there’s any unforeseen hiccups,
Trey Reik 17:27
would it be fair to say that Winrock portfolios are defensive, or have you made any changes or how you’re playing this? Yeah, I’d
Brett Rentmeester 17:37
say we came into this period very defensive. Part of it is because, because we believe in kind of reading the macroeconomic indicators. Of course, there’s a million of them. You can make a lot of mistakes, but two things jumped out to us in the fall of 2024 that have made us much more defensive into this period, even though it seemed early back then. One was the long standing inverted yield curve, or short rates were higher than long rates. And then the, you know, the the RE acceleration of a vertical curve, a lot of times, that’s, that’s been an indication that weakness lies ahead with a little bit of a lag. The second is us, money supply growth had contracted and is still kind of at low levels of growth. That’s another factor, because I we are believers that this market runs on liquidity more than anything. So we came into this period defensive. We fully intend to be more aggressive. I think it’s a little premature. I mean, it’s great to think, hey, particular stocks 30% off its highs. What a bargain. But the reality is, some of these, you look back, they’re not even they were higher than that a year ago. So if you weren’t buying them a year ago, is it that tempting to buy them right now? Not sure. I think we’re waiting to see if there’s more carnage. And I can tell you, in prior periods where things fell dramatically, like COVID, we were very aggressive buyers and voted up on a lot of energy, which we hadn’t owned prior to that. So I think a best case scenario would be we get another bite at the apple on really discounted assets. And right now you’re starting to see some but again, you know the risks to the downside or that we trigger some collateral damage are very real too. So I think it’s a little bit of a wait and see mode right now. Sounds
Trey Reik 19:22
to me like your thinking is very similar to Mr. Prince at Bridgewater, who I read an essay that he wrote very recently, and he mentioned that one of the worst things you could do, one of the worst sort of panic moves you can make, is to raise too much cash in times like this, and that it’s much better to prepare for a range of outcomes and have a portfolio that can perform well under a range of outcomes. Is that sort of the approach that you’re taking?
Brett Rentmeester 19:54
Yeah, I think, like any advisors, there’s going to be diversification across asset classes, and that. Going to be true. I think where we differ is compared to at least the industry is still very reliant on the stock and bond market, and maybe hedge funds is their core components. We have a lot of hard assets, a lot more than average, and we also have a lot of unique private investments we get involved with. So we have, quite honestly, less reliance on whether the US stock market is up or down doesn’t mean it doesn’t impact us, but a lot less reliance than the average investor, and the bond market, to us, has been a placeholder for cash, and we generally are rolling short term treasuries. We’re not, you know, we’re not finding the bond market overly attractive on a long term basis. It serves a role, certainly in the near term, as a place to preserve capital and earn a little bit while you wait and find other opportunities. But I I’d say that’s our level of how we think about diversification.
Trey Reik 20:48
Excellent. Well, in these tumultuous and exciting times, if viewers would like to contact you to review their portfolios and talk about services that Winrock offers, what’s the best way for folks who are interested in learning about windrock to get in touch with you?
Brett Rentmeester 21:07
Yeah, I think the best way is our website, windrock wealth.com It has all our contact information, but also has a whole library of research, including interviews and articles we’ve done, including a number of them on gold and other assets. So think that’s good place to
Trey Reik 21:23
start. Excellent. Brett, thanks for your time and best luck for the rest of the year. Okay,
Brett Rentmeester 21:29
you as well. Take care. Bye, bye.
