Dollar Doomsday: Will We See a Recession in 2024?

Andrew Brill 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Wealthion. I’m your host, Andrew Brill. As we wait for the next round of economic indicators to figure out where the economy inflation is headed. My guest today has some insight as to where it’s all going for the rest of the year. And we’ll get into that right now.

I’d like to welcome Chris Casey to Wealthion. Chris is one of our RIA partners with WindRock wealth management. Chris serves as a trusted adviser to a diverse range of business owners and professionals advising them on financial issues impacting their companies, and their personal wealth. WindRock has a unique approach to managing wealth. And we’ll get into that and where things are headed. Chris, welcome to Wealthion.

Chris Casey 0:45
Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew.

Andrew Brill 0:47
So I got to ask, I was reading a little bit of your bio, your bio on WindRockWealth.com. And your plan B is to be a professor, tell me about that?

Chris Casey 0:59
Well, that was my plan B, if you ask anyone I know like my sisters, they would they would say it’s it’s not viable, because they said on patient support. But ya know, I it’s just something I toyed around with while I was in school, probably to evade the job market for as long as possible. But one of the findings is that.

Andrew Brill 1:17
So let’s talk a little bit about finance and WindRock, you guys are not your traditional investment advisors, you have a lot of things that you’re not just about the market, you’re about some alternative investments. Explain to me just a little bit about WindRock philosophy,

Chris Casey 1:33
Well, we definitely try to blend the best elements of what I would call kind of a family office type model, along with the traditional RIA registered investment advisor independent firm. And we do believe a couple of things. One is that, especially in today’s environment, you need to consider alternative investments, you should have more of an absolute return mentality. So don’t be worried about benchmarking every little thing as far as the alternative side goes. And that’s really it. It’s it’s really not necessarily philosophy that we have in all conditions. But it’s one that we definitely embrace right now in this current environment.

Andrew Brill 2:10
So let’s talk about the current market a little bit your your view on the economic situation, or how things are playing out and and not we’ll get into your outlook. But what do you think, what do you think of things right now? It seems like we can’t get in, we have inflation somewhat under control that last 1% is being really, really stubborn. The jobs report just came in way above expected. What’s your take on the economy as we sit right now?

Chris Casey 2:38
Well, see we had an earthquake in New York City. Yes, we did. We have an eclipse here in a few hours. It’s what more signs do we need that there could be trouble down the road. And if this is 1000 years ago, you know, people will be writing for the hills. But right now investors seem to take a mentality of I wouldn’t call it necessarily irrational exuberance. But I would call it irrational complacency. No one’s very concerned about the markets, financial markets, no one’s very concerned about the economy. There’s even headlines now let’s say all these people have predicted a recession, let’s say 912 months ago, are now kind of throwing in the towel and saying we won’t have one, they have a different view, I do think we could be in some really rough times and 2024, I do think it’s very likely we could have a recession. I think there’s some very ominous signs pointing that direction. And on top of that, we’re going to have potentially some strife with the upcoming election. And then even at the end of the year, I think eventually, we’re really gonna be talking about a solvency crisis for the United States dollar. So

Andrew Brill 3:41
what are some of the things you said, you see some of the signs? What are some of the signs you’re looking at that? Have you a little bit concerned? I mean, I was concerned Friday when I felt my house shake, of course, but you know, I don’t want to see the economy shake. But there were two totally different, I think views. Some say that we’re in a recession. Some say that, you know what, there’s no soft landing, there’s no landing at all, which means we’re probably not going to have a recession. So what are the signs you’re seeing that kind of point you into that trouble you see in 2024?

Chris Casey 4:14
Well, I think it’s important to point out first of all that a lot of people, a lot of pundits, a lot of economists, a lot of government officials will talk about whether or not we have recession, and for the most part, they’re reading tea leaves, right? They’re just looking for particular signs. I mean, Greenspan was famous for this, you may remember articles about him, like in the bathtub, studying steel production, output. If you’ll have a theories of what causes a recession, you can’t weave all these indicators together, it’s not really going to be meaningful, either magnitude or timing, or probability. And the I particularly subscribe to the Austrian School of the business cycle, which blames the Federal Reserve or any central bank for recessions explains all phenomena that we see With a recession, and probably the best indicator of whether or not it’s playing out in the Federal Reserve of business himself is the the inverted yield curve. Typically when the yield curve inverts. So the short term rates are higher than longer term rates, you will see a recession anywhere from say six to 22 months after that we’re at Ratlam 15. So we’re right kind of in the kill zone of where we would expect something. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away. But it would argue that people should be more concerned than less conservative.

Andrew Brill 5:32
I know that a lot of people say that. You don’t know about a recession until you’re either in one or past one. Are we? At that point where go Oh, my God, we’re gonna look back and say, Yeah, yep, we were definitely in a recession. Everyone was wrong.

Chris Casey 5:48
Yeah. And typically, the Federal Reserve is one that’s the most wrong. I mean, is recall Bernanke in January of oh eight is on record as saying we don’t see a recession happening. So if anyone sees it in, in hindsight, it’s the Federal Reserve. There are a lot of indicators, which are at recession levels, right? You look at these cracks in the labor market. Now, whether you look at job openings, you can look at various indices, like the leading indicators, you can look at PMI. You look at the inverted yield curve. For me, it’s the strongest as well as the destruction of my suppliers and the decrease in my supply year over year. But whether or not we’re in one right now, I can’t say but you it’s definitely possible.

Andrew Brill 6:34
Now, there, I know, there, there’s cracks in some things, but the labor market, there were three over 300,000 jobs created in the last report that came out just this past week. Are those real jobs are people settling? You know, I had spoken to someone that said that there’s a skill differential, like the jobs that are open, don’t match the skills of the people who are looking for jobs are people now settling and that’s why we’re creating seem to be employing so many more people is like, you know, I don’t have the skills to do that job or my skills are way above that job. But I’m going to take that job because I need one.

Chris Casey 7:16
Yeah, this the underemployment phenomenon, which I think is definitely there. I’m not a labor economist or labor experts. But I do see headlines are some analysis where even whatever you see, it’s always suspect. We try not to be focused on any given month, we tried to a much longer term perspective. But it’s a pretty typical fact pattern, right? You’ll see a great jobs growth, job creation, reported number, and then not too long in the in the, in the future, then retracted. Right, it’s been modified or adjusted down significantly. I saw some headlines for this latest one where you’ll a lot of its temp workers, a lot of its migrants. It’s not necessarily you know, the type of blue collar white collar full time jobs you would expect? So I can’t answer that for sure. But but I do. I, uh, you any given month with with some suspicion?

Andrew Brill 8:12
So I don’t want to be gloom and doom. But how bad can this be? You obviously, I mean, you look at a year at a time and you’re looking out through 2000, the end of 2024. How bad can this be? And there’s people that saying the stock market’s just going to continue to go up. There’s some that say, Well, this is going to be bad, and there’s going to be a retraction. How bad can this be?

Chris Casey 8:38
Well, it could be bad through there are indications that would suggest it could be very bad. And I’ll give you a couple a couple of points. One is that if you’re just looking at the money supply growth, and it’s been negative now for good 15 months, that’s rarely happens in the last 60 years. It’s rarely happened, right? It’s never happens where on a given month, it’s a negative over 6%. That has happened repeatedly recently. It also has not happened where it’s been a full 15 straight months where it’s been negative month in month out. The last time that it happened was a Great Depression. Another point but so can to the Great Depression is that the overall destruction of my supply. So from 2020 Over the next couple of years, the Federal Reserve increased device supply by around 50%. Right? We go from 15,000,000,000,002 around 2122. Well, now they’ve destroyed they’ve they’ve destroyed around $2 trillion of money. So we’re down around 12%. That’s pretty much the exact same magnitude that was done in the Great Depression. So there are some signs I’m not saying that’s the level we’re gonna get at. Those are some very disturbing similarities that are out there. So

Andrew Brill 9:52
we look at the markets and we worry that they could go down What does it mean for financial markets? I mean, there’s Look, our viewers worry about it, you know, our viewers range in age and in our demographic, somewhere between 45 and 65, seven years old. So we have people who are still working really hard and probably have 20 years left to work to the people who are in retirement or thinking about it, you know, maybe I can retire. How bad can the markets be? And what can someone do to protect themselves? Right?

Chris Casey 10:28
Well, at any age, no one likes to take a big drawdown in the markets, right, especially when you’re nearing retirement, you just can’t afford that. So I think people, especially in that situation should be especially concerned, as far as what to do about it. To the extent you are in equities, I would be very defensive. You know, what’s that mean? I would avoid companies that are highly cyclical, those industries I would avoid, I would avoid companies that are highly indebted, or barely known, so called zombie companies that are prolific throughout the the Russell 2000. I would, I would actually favor high dividend yielding stocks, as long as that dividend yield is sustainable. And there’s different ways to measure that. But to me, that’s always a good strategy. Because number one, you’re earning money as you’re waiting for a appreciation right? Number two is that those prices can only diminish so far, to the point where that yield really goes up, assuming that yield is sustainable, or the dividends are sustainable. So in general, yeah, there’s there’s plenty of opportunity, you just have to be very defensive in the markets. So

Andrew Brill 11:33
let’s talk about the interest rates. It’s obviously the one topic a lot of people are talking about. They now seems that everything that I’m reading now is like, oh, maybe two cuts, we began the year at six or seven, then we will whittle that down to three. Now we’re down to two, where do you see interest rates going in? 2024? Well,

Chris Casey 11:56
I’m not sure. But I would argue that the only people that are less sure than me would be the Federal Reserve. I don’t think they know. And I think they’ve proven time and time again, that they’re extremely reactionary, right. They, whether they’re predicting something for instance, every year, they’re coming out with their range of what they think GDP will be, or rates, they’re always wrong. And that’s just wrong. But typically, the the accurate number is ultimately outside they’re very range, right? So in looking at how they reacted with inflation over the last couple of years, right, it was transitory. Now, what wasn’t them, you know, everything they do is reactionary. So I don’t think they know, they’re really trying to have their cake and eat it too. Right. So I think what they’re trying to do is they, they, they want to so called curb inflation, that’s definitely but the same time they want a high stock market. Everyone talks about the dual mandate for the Federal Reserve how they was really triple bandaid on in a way called dual mandate, because you have to have reasonable interest rates, lower price level, you know, low unemployment. But the fourth undocumented mandate would be that they want a high stock market and some mistaken belief that it’s good for the economy, but they’re constantly trying to push that and Jawbone the market up. And I think that’s what they’re doing here. They’re always dangling the idea of they’re going to cut rates. But whether or not they do I don’t think, you know, we

Andrew Brill 13:17
seem to have a robust economy right now, it seems that way. When you look at a bunch of the numbers, am I am I wrong in saying that? Or does it look that way?

Chris Casey 13:25
There are some numbers that interface value, you’ll seem fine, that would indicate that we’re not in a recession. However, a lot of those would be like less than labor market earlier, allows what you call lagging indicators. So you know, there are things that are the last to change.

Andrew Brill 13:45
Do you see they look at the CPI and they they look at the numbers, you know, people spending money, they can’t get that number down? I think it’s around 2.8 2.9. They wanted it to if that starts to creep up, do you see a scenario where they can actually raise interest rates, a quarter of a point or an eighth of a point just to try and try and inch that down a little bit more?

Chris Casey 14:11
I do see that, by the way that the 2% target is very strange. There’s absolutely no academic literature. Why should we tuba science, in fact, I think was Yellin at the time. It said it’s 2% because they want a margin before you get to zero and there’s nothing wrong with zero. I don’t know why they’re so scared of it. So I could see that scenario happening. But probably a bigger concern is I can see rates increasing, simply because the amount of debt that’s being rolled over by the federal government, right, so almost a third of the federal debt that’s being rolled over this year. And that’s those very serious issues for the fiscal situation for the US government. And it should raise rates across the board in general. But

Andrew Brill 14:55
if we raise rates, it’s now going to cost the government more money to service the debt, which is going To increase the debt automatically, yeah, it’s

Chris Casey 15:04
a really negative debt spiral. Let me just put some numbers to that of what you’re talking about. So at the end of 2022, the average rate of interest for the federal government, which has $34 trillion in debt, right, was around one and a half percent. That’s very low. It’s great. It’s a year later, it’s around three. And now when you’re rolling it over a third of it, you can easily see it being north of 4%. You’re paying an effective rate of north of 4% on 34 trillion. Now, you’re talking about a major line item in the budget that far exceeds most programs, including fonts. If

Andrew Brill 15:40
2%. Is that cut, like a fictitious number, and we’re not sure why they say 2%. Is inflation actually under control right now?

Chris Casey 15:50
Well, I suspect it’s not. I mean, there are some good numbers, right? They’ve been happening for a while. But I think a good examples, look at the 1970s and 1970s, look at 1974 75. Inflation was very, very high. Well, then it took some time off over a couple of years. But by the end of the decade, we look at 7981, it’s at nine or 11%. I’m not saying we’re going to get there, per se. But I’m just saying that the battle against inflation is not over.

Andrew Brill 16:19
So when you’re you’re, I don’t want to ask you for a prediction. But where do you think in? You know, looking at all the numbers, where do you think interest rates end up by the end of the year? I’ve heard, you know, foreign three quarters, so little right around there, four and a half, which would mean a three quarter percent cut. I saw this morning, a point 6% Cut? Where do you think it’s going? What do you

Chris Casey 16:42
think the markets in the media is probably a little too focused on what the Fed would do per se versus what interest rates are doing. So the Fed doesn’t control all interest rates, obviously, it influences heavily the short term interest rates because that’s what they’re buying, right. So whether or not they cut or not. And by the way, typically, they actually follow the market. So even in this latest cycle of of raising rates, it typically we’re following what the markets already doing. I would suspect, just based on the Treasury rollovers that are happening this year, I would suspect based on the deficit that’s likely to happen and the new issuance of debt, that rates should probably stay where they are, if not be increased from these levels.

Andrew Brill 17:22
Would bonds be a good buy? At this point? If you think that rates are going to go up? Or if rates are staying around? Where they are, is, would this be a good time to buy bonds? Well,

Chris Casey 17:34
it is nice earning not five plus percent or 5%. That’s great. However, I think people should be very concerned about buying anything in the long end of the spectrum. If you don’t believe me, as you know, Silicon Valley Bank is you can be set up for a big downfall if you do that. So if rates are increasing, you may want to stick to short term and keep rolling it over. That’s not to give investment advice. But I would be very nervous about the long end of the bond Rich

Andrew Brill 18:03
is with the debt the way it’s going and the the way the country has to borrow money. You know, there are countries that that are downgraded, and they’re not doing well as the United States in that position where, you know, our rating could be downgraded, and our bonds are not worth as much. Well, it’s

Chris Casey 18:23
already happened, right? It’s it. I think we went from like a plus to a or wherever the rating was it happened about a year ago, and actually happened right after the oil crisis, I believe, originally by s&p. But if you’re talking about serious downgrading, like something that actually affects interest rates, what the options are going for? Yes, I do think we’re at a solvency crisis. I mean, are we will be, and it’s something that people aren’t really talking about. But just look at the numbers. So for instance, right now, we have 34 trillion in debt United States. And they take in, forget about the budget, what really matters is the tax revenue, they take it, and they give any given year, it’s around four to 5 trillion right recession, you’re gonna take easily 20 25% off those revenue. So let’s say it’s $5 trillion. That’s no different than someone who makes 50,000 a year and has 350,300 40,000 in credit card debt. It’s never going to be repaid. And the only thing they’ll do is go right back to the same playbook inflate their way out. That’s the only recourse they have because they can’t they’re not going to overtly default, but they’ll covertly default by just printing more money. So

Andrew Brill 19:36
but printing more money creates a much different problem and that there you’re just adding you’re kind of throwing fuel on the fire.

Chris Casey 19:43
I totally agree. It’s it’s not the resolution you need. What they should be doing is cutting spending, you know, trying to restructure debt to longer term we had that opportunity years ago. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t issue no 50 year bond or what have you, and do what you can to grow the economy. quickly as possible, you know, cutting regulation, cutting taxes, that’s really the only prescription that that would work.

Andrew Brill 20:07
So talk to me a little bit more about the dollar. And there seems to be many other countries, China is having financial issues, a lot of countries are in a recessionary kind of position. And the US is the only one that’s saying, Oh, our economy’s Great. And how is that when everybody else is struggling? Well,

Chris Casey 20:28
it’s been a long time now where people keep calling the dollar, you know, the, the least dirty shirt in the closet, right? Where it’s true. How, however, things are changing, right? The US through through sanctions and whatnot, has made people very hesitant whether it’s trying to try his best example, about investing in the US and holding treasury bonds in particular. And when you do that you’re decreasing demand for the dollar. And so right now, the dollar is a relatively strong basis. But it could be years around once it falls against other currencies, it could fall pretty hard.

Andrew Brill 21:07
And it’s there’s other countries obviously, trying to dig out and trying to become stronger. How does that work where they buy our our treasuries or the bonds that were that we’re selling, and our money is actually going to them? Well, you

Chris Casey 21:23
know, we talked about there’s other countries, you know, they were trying to have a stronger currency, I would. We just saw that about a year ago with the BRICS countries, right, there’s that rumor that they’re going to maybe accept a gold or specie back type currency, I would suspect that no one’s going to do that. Because if they do that, yes, their currency is much value much more highly. Yes, it’s probably very beneficial for the economy. But central bankers don’t want to do that. They don’t want to relinquish the control of the money supply. They don’t want to give up all the tools, or it’s really the only tool it’s a hammer in their, in their toolbox. And that’s what they will be doing. So I would suspect any competing currencies, looking to get stronger, probably won’t embrace such radical stuff.

Andrew Brill 22:08
So I want to talk about debt a little bit. And you mentioned it, obviously, that the country’s $34 trillion. But it seems that credit card debt in this country is up a car loans defaults are up. So clearly, it’s it’s obvious that people are borrowing against credit cards, which is probably one of the worst things you can do. And they’re having a problem paying back the dead. This has to be an indicator of how the economy is doing as well. Is it not?

Chris Casey 22:39
I believe so. And it’s not just credit cards, right? You’ll see that with auto loans, what have you. I mean, it’s across the board. That’s really outrageous. And you probably seen this yourself, I noticed, you know, just six months ago, I was probably getting inundated with new credit card offers. And now they’re just dried up, they’re not doing it. So I wouldn’t be surprised if banks are cutting backs, if currently, both on the lines of credit. And new offerings and racing, you see with racer rates are out of control, the credit card center charging,

Andrew Brill 23:07
yeah, and look, I get I get offers all the time, either, you know, lower your interest rate or take more time to pay and like, No, thanks, I’ll pay my credit card bill off every month. Because it to me, it’s just the you know, it’s just like using cash. It’s like, Look, I’ll just up just pay this off. Because the 29% is just absurd. But it gets a lot of people into a very, very desperate hole. It

Chris Casey 23:31
certainly does. I mean, it’s one of the easiest things you can do is just that, you know, cut down your credit card debt. Back US government, though, I mean, even though that rate is nowhere near where we’re at, it’s the same sort of a debt spiral. It’s the exact same thing, because it’s, it’s just something that can never be paid back. And it’s what a lot of households and people find themselves it. Is

Andrew Brill 23:51
it for the country. Chris, is it as simple as cutting back spending and cutting things that, you know, raising taxes a little bit just to dry and bring a little bit more money in? Is that how we get this under control? Well,

Chris Casey 24:06
I personally think that the the problem is so big, that it almost doesn’t matter what you do, it’s a major problem. So it would take the most draconian you know, the it’s just politically not feasible to do what needs to be done. Number one is just to get a handle on entitlement spending, right that’ll that’ll never happen in a political climate, no matter who’s in control of Congress, no matter who’s in the White House. So I’m pretty pessimistic on the long term fiscal chances US government. But yeah, it’s it’s a pretty easily it’s pretty easy formula. It’s just that something you could pass. So

Andrew Brill 24:42
if we’re that worried about our government and our fiscal health, do we all just run out and buy gold?

Chris Casey 24:49
Well, somebody has been because it’s run up quite a bit. You know, it’s been a good year. Precious Metals are, you know, always a good head. As any kind of instability in general currency, financial, what have you, they’re always a good hedge against inflation. But we’ve, even though those two causes which you can see have diminished over the last couple of years, right, because we’re fairly long in the tooth with Ukraine war, you know, Felician has gone down from its highs from a couple of years ago. So what’s what’s really motivating what’s what’s creating that demand? And one thing you’ll notice that central banks are probably surprisingly the second year in a row where they’re hitting record high purchases of precious metals. Now, natural contrarian, I consider that a bad sign, right. But maybe they learned their lesson they were loading UK was famous for unloading all their gold in 2001, which was the last time you weren’t the worst possible time to do it. But I think they wised up and they’re buying quite a bit of gold. But I think there’s more than that. I suspect. It’s not the retail investors yet. But they will come down eventually, and start buying. It’s probably a guessing the more the so called smart one. Right. So family offices is the hedge funds, I think they’re loading up on gold, because they see the end game here. What happens with fiscal situation in the US,

Andrew Brill 26:12
I gold is up 10% This year $500. In the last calendar, you know, 52 weeks, is what is driving is just is demand for going that high, or people just saying hey, look, this is a good investment. And it’s just not going to go down that much.

Chris Casey 26:31
Yeah, well, I mean, again, we’re doing this without even much of a retail presence, I mean, go to any registered investment advisor and ask you how much gold their clients have? And the answer is probably zero to 1%. At most, right. So there’s, there’s a lot of upside from a demand aspect. Silver may even be more attractive. If you know this, the Gold Silver ratio right now is over 80. Whatever that happens, those high levels from the 80 120 it’s been, it starts looking really attractive, and silver has different supply and demand dynamics and gold. You know, every every ounce of gold that’s ever been mined exists right now somewhere where Silver’s actually consumed, like in a trot electronics, solar, what have you. The other aspect is its silver, its supplies byproduct of other mining. So to the extent you have inflationary recession, I would imagine that that supply of silver dries up as people are cutting back on copper and what have you other the other main mining ores that they’re looking at? So in some way, Silver has a much better supply and demand dynamic going forward.

Andrew Brill 27:38
So if somebody wanted to buy gold or or add that to their portfolio at this point, what percentage are they looking at? Or is that something you advise them to would advise them to do? Yes,

Chris Casey 27:51
it’s not just how much gold but it’s also in what fashion and in how you storage, for example. So I can say the vast majority of our clients have precious metals. You know, it could be fairly significant significant, I mean, like 10 plus percent, depending on the situation, everyone’s situation is different. And then it also matters. How are you going to own it? Are you going to buy it on ETF? Are you going to own it physically, we’re big believers, they should always on the physically, you should always be able to access it if necessary. So that’s what we do for clients.

Andrew Brill 28:23
But it’s that gold isn’t considered the like equity is like a regular stock. It’s that’s sort of a buy and hold on to it for a really long time sort of thing, isn’t it? That’s just

Chris Casey 28:34
good mentality to have it. And by the way, it’s probably a good mentality to have with, with most investments, I think. But yes, you know, the, the biggest detraction from gold people always say is the opportunity costs, right? Because it’s not, it’s not putting out any kind of dividend or yield, versus, you know, what treasuries do however, given the situation, I think everyone should be looking at precious or considering precious metals.

Andrew Brill 28:59
So let’s talk a little bit about our upcoming, you know, elections and the rest of the year. The Fed says they don’t really whatever they’re going to do with interest rates they want they don’t want to do a close to the election. How quickly do you think people think June July? Look, July is not far from me. It’s only four months from the election. So if they don’t really want to touch interest rates before the election, we’re getting really close to that danger zone, aren’t we? We

Chris Casey 29:29
are in July is also one or two months before the conventions, which is a big deal, right. Like I said before, I don’t know if they’re gonna do anything and suspect they don’t know. I suspect nothing’s going to happen this year. They’re just trying to talk the markets up. That’s how I think it may play out. How

Andrew Brill 29:48
is this election affecting our financial markets? You know, there’s some that I know something one president is better for the markets, the other president is worse for the markets. How do you see it playing out at this particular point in time?

Chris Casey 30:02
Well, it’s hard to say because I actually suspect that it’s not so much a matter of who wins. But who runs, I’m not convinced that President Biden will be the nominee, I, I strongly suspect he will be replaced at convention, I could see that happening, it’s the most natural time to do it. And Trump, I don’t know, it’s, first of all, I have to pay him a compliment. His stamina for his age is amazing. I mean, to run for president to oversee a business empire. And to deal with all these litigious matters at the same time is, is absolutely amazing. Anyone that’s ever been involved in litigation, knows extremely stressful and time consuming. So I don’t know how he does it, first of all, but they are determined not to have him run. So we have to see how that plays out as well. Are

Andrew Brill 30:50
there and you followed the markets a lot longer than I have? Are there market predictors that can tell us who may win this election?

Chris Casey 30:58
Well, I think the best indicator as far as election is looking at the gaming houses, right, where you could actually bet on it. Because we’re at the polls. The polls are terrible for the last 1015 years, right. Since you can’t you can’t call household anymore. They’re extremely suspect. I like the gaming houses and the odds they placed because that’s real money at stake. Right. That’s that’s real money people are putting down. It’s not a prediction with someone that doesn’t have skin in the game. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of indicators out there. That’s probably the best one. I

Andrew Brill 31:33
think we need to call up a sportsbook and say, hey, look, you know what, let’s start betting on how much and when the Fed is going to start lowering rates or raising rates for that matter, because it’s it seems to be a huge game in in the media, and with everybody that’s investing is like, oh, no, it’s coming down. No, it might be going up. No, it’s gonna stay the same. I feel like there’s a parley at stake here.

Chris Casey 31:55
You know, let’s talk offline. But getting started. It’s you right? I’m actually surprised that doesn’t exist. If it does, I’m sure. Mr. Pelosi would be great at it. What

Andrew Brill 32:06
are we looking at for the rest of this year? Right now, the stock market last week, had a little bit of a blip. We had a great first quarter. And I’m not sure it wasn’t profit taking at the beginning of the second quarter, in the first week of the second quarter. Or if it was concern over what the Fed Chairman Powell was saying or what other presidents have Feds were saying, you know, where are we going for the rest of the 2020 24? And I know that you don’t have the crystal ball, but from everything you’re seeing, what is your outlook? And what are you doing for your investors?

Chris Casey 32:42
Well, it’s an easy there’s a lot of danger signs, right? We’ve already talked about everything from you know, the my supply destruction to the inverted yield curve, to election chaos. There’s a lot, there’s a lot of problems out there to the solvency US government. I think everyone should be have a defensive mindset, you have to be defensive in order to play offense down the road as well. So that should be first and foremost on everyone’s mind is capital preservation. So

Andrew Brill 33:11
Chris, one of my last questions is, how is somebody making money today? I, you know, I’ve, I’ve heard the saying, you’re gonna make you have to do something else with your money to make money, you’re not going to get rich at your vocation. So how are we making money today?

Chris Casey 33:26
There’s always opportunities, no matter how bad things are, there’s always an opportunity somewhere, right? There’s a lot of things that we’ve liked and have liked over the years. And I think investors should think about, it could be anything from private credit, which I think is great when you own some interest. It could be precious metals could be cryptocurrencies, which people should embrace. There’s always opportunity out there but there is I think, even easier to avoid the real problem areas because there are some areas you know, avoiding anything where it’s heavily indebted. Anything is highly cyclical. Obviously, commercial real estate is going to be a mess for some time. But there’s there’s always opportunity. So

Andrew Brill 34:12
I want to ask you about cryptocurrency since you brought it up. You guys at WindRock have been a proponent of cryptocurrency for a long time. You’ve been in it you I you know are a proponent of it. What do you see out of cryptocurrency? There’s so many different opinions. But what are you guys obviously because you’re, uh, you know, you talk about it. What do you see from cryptocurrency? This year, next year and into the future? Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:38
we actually wrote about Bitcoin in particular back in 2014. So you’re right. We’re kind of an early adopter. We’ve had a number of clients invest in cryptocurrencies over the years. I’m not the real in house expert, my colleague Brett is I think that was an interesting time because we’ve had a great run up with the Bitcoin halving that’s occurring you you could argue that a lot more of run up to take place. But on the other hand, just like anything, even some safe things, there’s a downturn in the market is one of the first things that sold right because everyone’s trying to be liquid. Everything’s there’s always a sell off and saw this in 2020, gold Bitcoin everything sold off. So I would say it’s it’s definitely something to have on your radars screen. But whether you’re investing right now, it’s probably different conversation. Last

Andrew Brill 35:27
thing I have to ask you about is oil, oil 85 to $90 a barrel, a lot of geopolitical issues overseas. Where is oil going? And how is this going to affect us?

Chris Casey 35:43
Well, you know, we bought oil. A lot of back, you know, when they went negative SW WTI, went negative number of years ago. I one thing I’ve noticed that I probably have come to appreciate over over the last couple years is that myself, and probably the market in general is a little too focused on the demand side of the equation and not paying enough attention to the supply side. And we have a real war going on right now. Because real supply destruction is taking place, there’s like, there’s a massive amount of capital that’s not being deployed in exploration or distribution. That’s why you see it with for instance, one of the best returning assets this year, are MLPs master limited partnerships, because you know, there’s no new pipelines being built. So I can’t see my oils going per se but I do like the energy sector for this very reason that there’s a massive amount of supply destruction or lack of supply being brought online. So in general, we’d like

Andrew Brill 36:45
energy, I think in the in the first quarter energy was the best performing sector was it it was Yeah. So there you go. So you guys have been spot on. And, you know, I appreciate what you guys do. And hopefully, if you’ve, you know, enjoyed what Chris has said, you will reach out to WindRock and you know, go to Wealthion.com. And we will point you in the direction of WindRock and Chris is one of the guys you’ll be speaking to to help you preserve and grow your wealth. Chris, where can we find you on social media?

Chris Casey 37:15
Oh, well, obviously our website is probably the best place to go. It has we catalog all of our research and papers there and speaking opportunities is WindRockWealth.com. We’re on Twitter, or X, right now too. But I unfortunately can’t remember the handle. I think it’s at WindRockWealth, but yeah, fine was on your place.

Andrew Brill 37:34
We will we will get that up on the screen for you. And we will make sure that you know people can find you on x I like you still call it Twitter, but that’s gonna be that’s gonna be it’s gonna be a long time before we can just say oh, yeah, well, you can find my next. But we appreciate your time. We appreciate your insights. I think, you know, everybody can can listen to you and grow their wealth and preserve their wealth and we appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Chris Casey 38:03
Thank you, Andrew.

Andrew Brill 38:04
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