Mastering the Gold Market: Gold Investment Strategies with Ronnie Stoeferle

Ronnie Stoeferle 0:00
Recession is on the horizon because, you know, markets are now pricing in four to five rate cuts for next year what that happened in a time of, you know, the economy doing really well. Obviously we’re seeing, we’re seeing that inflation rates are cooling off dramatically. But I think that’s that’s also a sign that the economy is not doing so well because recessions are always disinflationary.

Jimmy Connor 0:30
Hi, and welcome to Wealthion. My name is James Connor, and I’m with Bloor Street capital and we have a YouTube channel of the same name. Today, my guest is Ronnie Stoeferle and Ronnie is the managing partner and also Portfolio Manager at Incrementum AG, which is an asset manager based in Liechtenstein. In addition to managing money, Ronnie and his team also published the in gold we trust report, which is the Bible for anything and everything to do on gold. Ronnie, thank you very much for joining us today. How are things in Vienna?

Ronnie Stoeferle 1:00
Thank you very much. Jim’s. Pleasure. Pleasure, I have to correct you, if I may. You said it’s the Bible for gold. And I always say, Well, gold is not a religion, it’s just something that really protects your hard earned money. It’s an important piece of your of your portfolio, but it’s not the solution to all our problems. And I really want to differentiate that because we want to make a solid coat case for gold based on you know, your overall portfolio and not treated as a as a religion. So I always have to kind of react when people say it’s the Bible of gold. So sorry, for that little, little comment.

Jimmy Connor 1:43
No, I’m glad you brought that up. Because a lot of people will see once we start talking about gold, you’re gonna think, oh, no, another gold bug, and they’ll stop watching. But you’re not one of these pundants, who’s calling for a collapse of the US economy or a collapse of the US dollar and hyperinflation, you are simply suggesting that gold is an asset class, and it should be part of your overall portfolio mix. Yes,

Ronnie Stoeferle 2:07
I think that’s that’s important. I mean, we, we wrote many 1000 pages of research about the topic of gold. And, you know, gold doesn’t work in every environment. But it really works well, in times of, you know, recessions. That was basically the, for the 2023. In gold, we trust report, where we crunched the numbers in which phase of a recession, gold works best gold works really well. In an environment of a weak dollar also works very well as an as an equity hedge. And usually works really well in times of deeply negative real interest rates. So that’s basically it. And I’m not sure if gold is really an asset. So I am always a bit hesitant. When there’s a comparison between gold and equities. I think it’s, you know, those are two pillars of of a portfolio. I rather would like to compare gold to other fiat currencies. Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s just the hardest currency, you know, compared to the US dollar, the Japanese yen, the euro, whatever. I think that’s really the way that I’m thinking about gold.

Jimmy Connor 3:16
I understand. And, Ronnie, before we do the deep dive on gold and how it can benefit your portfolio. Why don’t you first spend a little Why don’t we spend a little more time on this report in gold we trust. And I just want to convey to the audience. It’s just not a 10 or 20 page report on gold. It’s far more than that. It’s full of fundamental analysis, technical analysis. Maybe you can just provide a little more context to this report.

Ronnie Stoeferle 3:41
Yeah, well, I started writing this, this piece called in gold we trust in 2007, when I was still a young young analyst in a Viennese bank. I didn’t have any clue about gold. I just had this mining stock that did tremendously well and went to my boss and said, Well, can I write a little special piece on gold? And he said, Go ahead. And that was the first thing gold we trust report. And now 17 years later, I’m still writing the report. It’s probably the most widely followed publication on gold worldwide. We had 2 million readers last year. Today, actually, we published the Mandarin edition. So it’s also available for our Chinese friends republished in German, English and Spanish. And you know, this is last year’s edition called showdown modern foreign 100 pages. I’ve got a fantastic team 20 People working in this report, more than 20,000 hours of you know, reading, writing, crunching the numbers doing the layout, I think it’s really important that the report is laid out. Well, you know, it’s, we do all our charts on our own. We use quite a lot of side comments from, I don’t know from from Teterboro to Winston Churchill to Homer Simpson, so it should to also be, to some degree entertaining, because our readers give us their most valuable thing, which is their time. So so many people really enjoy and and really have a great time reading our reports and yeah, so I, you know, after so many years, gold still fascinates me, there’s every day something new that I learned about gold, I just returned from Dubai. And I have to tell you talking to, you know, rebek, Asian, gold investors and traders gives you a completely different perspective. So, I love the topic of gold, because as I’ve said, it’s, it’s not a religion, it’s not the solution of all our problems. But I think that everybody should, at least on some of these, some goals in the current setup that we’re in. So yeah, that’s, that’s basically it. And we’re already writing on the 20/24 edition of the report. And just one more thing. It is not only one report that we publish, once a year, usually end of May, we do have monthly chart books on gold, it’s a monthly gold compass can be downloaded totally for free on our web page, you don’t have to register on anything. We do have special publications, where we measure the purchasing power of gold, for example, at the Munich Oktoberfest. So gold measured in beer, but also gold measured in, in iPhones. And the next one, and we’re all really excited about that. Because we’re, we love going skiing as good Austrians, obviously, we measured the purchasing power of gold, in ski tickets. So you know, the lift tickets are getting more and more expensive, you’ve got inflation, it’s roughly 7% over here in Europe, but measured in gold, actually, prices are fairly stable. So that’s kind of the research that we’re doing. It’s not only, you know, super quantitative and serious, sometimes it’s also really, really fun. And therefore, we really enjoy what we do.

Jimmy Connor 7:06
Now you’re so right about lift tickets. It’s amazing how the prices of lift tickets have exploded in recent years, like to take my family skiing in the US like it cost me a fortune.

Ronnie Stoeferle 7:18
Yep. But perhaps it’s just, you know, the, the weakening purchasing power of the of the US dollar measured in, in certain goods. I think that’s that’s the way to approach it. And as I’ve said, measured in gold prices are actually fairly stable in many different kinds of topics. And for example, you know, if it’s a standardized product, like like beer, for example. That’s a big difference compared to iPhones, where, you know, if you compare to the current version of the iPhone to the, to the first edition of the iPhone, I think it came out as $499. Now, the most recent one cost, I think 1500 But But obviously, you know, the technical stuff, you know, all the cameras, you know, the the old all those services that are nowadays included in smartphone that’s that’s completely different. Yeah, so So actually, technology obviously would be deflationary, as we know, but within our monetary system, deflation cannot be accepted. But I think that, you know, having this viewpoint of it’s not the price is rising, but rather the purchasing power of the euro, the US dollar, and so on. Just constantly falling. I think that gives you a completely different perspective on many, many, many things.

Jimmy Connor 8:38
Very good points. So let’s move on and discuss this report in more detail. The title of this report is the showdown. What’s the significance of that title?

Ronnie Stoeferle 8:49
Well, you know, we always tried to come up with a light motif that basically describes or summarizes the whole, the whole report which is not so easy, but last year, for example, we had the topic of stagflation before that we had the loss of trust, the erosion of trust, we had the monetary climate change, and this year it’s it’s the topic of a showdown and we all know it from the game of poker, you know, it’s the final laying down of once cards face upwards. And and and we said, you know, in markets there at the moment, three different showdowns. It’s the showdown in monetary policy where we all know that, you know, we’ve we, the Federal Reserve has basically hit the point where they must choose between fighting inflation and financial stability. So if they continue to be hawkish, if you continue to tight Road, probably financial markets, you know, the economy, real estate markets illiquid. markets like private equity and stuff will revolt. And then on the other hand, if they choose financial stability over fighting inflation, they will probably risk losing the credibility that they have rebuilt over the last couple of months. So this is the showdown in monetary policy, the second showdown is the shoulder on east versus West. So basically the g7 industrialized nations birth versus the Western world, especially from the viewpoint of gold, where not only central banks, but also the private demand is more and more being influenced by emerging markets. So so my thesis is that the price of gold is more and more influenced, or made actually in in Shanghai, in Dubai, and in Mumbai, and to less and less degrees in in New York, and London, and in Zurich. So I think we should in the Western world, we should really focus much, much more on the structural demand coming from emerging markets. And we all know that the gold affinity not only in China and India, they are responsible for for 50% of global gold consumer demand, but also in countries like Turkey, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and so on, is much, much higher than in the Western world. And the third showdown is actually in the gold price itself, because we know that, you know, actually, given the fact that real interest rates have risen, so significantly, you know, 350 basis points in basically 18 month, the price of gold should be significantly lower. So, if we would have talked like, one and a half, two years ago, and you would have told me, you know, we are having like positive real rates now. But it’s not the absolute level, but rather the direction and the momentum of this enormous surge of real rates. I would have told you that gold would probably be trading at 15 1600. Now we’re trading at 2000. And that’s it’s an enormous sign of strength. And therefore, we said that that actually, once we hit New all time highs in US dollar terms, because that’s really important. I think that most of the viewers are probably from the US but but over here in Europe, we’ve seen so many new all time highs in Euro terms. For a Japanese investor, you know, gold is up 25% In Japanese yen terms. It’s it’s like the perfect uptrend. Yeah, from the lower left to the upper right. Gold and Japanese yen terms. So so we said that once we hit New all time highs in US dollar terms as well. And you face of this bull market will will actually start. So those are the three showdowns monetary policy, east versus West, and the showdown in the price of gold.

Jimmy Connor 13:00
So let’s spend some time on these three different showdowns beginning with monetary policy. And after much research, you and your team believe that the US is heading into a recession. And I want to just look at the indicators that you’re looking at. Because when I look at the US economy, I look at GDP growth, the non firms jobless rate, the performance of the s&p this year, to me, everything looks pretty good. What indicators are you looking at that tell you the US is heading toward a recession?

Ronnie Stoeferle 13:31
Well, I have to admit, we’ve been wrong with that call. Yeah, we, you know, we went into the year and we’re already you know, pretty concerned regarding an upcoming US recession. And, you know, let’s face it, China isn’t doing very well, broad parts of Europe are in a recession, especially Germany. But then when it comes through us, it’s basically the last man standing. But that’s also due to this enormous amount of fiscal stimulus. I think that’s, that’s, you know, if we really want to simplify it, that’s, that’s, that’s the main reason why the US is still doing so well. You know, running an 8% budget deficit in the time of full employment, that’s we’ve basically never never seen something like that. Now, I think, you know, the indicators that we follow, for example, is credit growth. It’s normally once the momentum of credit growth weekends, that’s already a sign that we’re moving into a recession, but now we’re even seeing negative credit growth. So actually, credit is contracting, which is a big, big warning sign, then it’s obviously the yield curve inversion, and the steepening that we’ve seen recently. It’s a leading economic indicator, which is a an indicator that we follow very, very closely. It is now down 19 month in In a row, so this is always associated with recessions. Maybe it’s different this time, I wouldn’t bet on it. Yeah. Then other indicators, like more market based indicators, have a look at the copper gold ratio, for example, it clearly shows you that that, you know, the the economy is not doing so well have a look at commodities in general. You know, it’s doesn’t look too, too bullish to me. So So from my point of view, we’re clearly late cycle. Obviously, we’ve got an election year coming up. So the Democrats will try everything to, you know, to avoid the R word. And, and, and I think, with the wording, they will probably become quite creative. And then, on the other hand, Republicans will, will, will, will, will try everything to talk down to the US economy. However, I would say that, you know, a recession is not the end of the world, obviously. And I think, you know, the markets are already kind of seeing and I think that goal is already is already telling us that, that, that that gold is basically that the that the recession is on the horizon, because, you know, markets are now pricing in four to five rate cuts for next year. What that happened in a time of, you know, the economy doing really well. Obviously, we’re seeing, we’re seeing that inflation rates are cooling off dramatically. But I think that’s that’s also a sign that the economy is not doing so well, because recessions are always disinflationary. So therefore, I would say a recession is on the horizon, perhaps we are already in recession, because usually, once it’s officially announced, the worst is already over. And I think the price of gold, which is usually up 10.6%, over the course of recessions, I think the price of gold is kind of confirming

Jimmy Connor 17:12
that view. So that’s a good overview of monetary policy, I want to move on to the second element of the showdown, which is geopolitics. And you and your team have written a lot of both the BRICS and the impact that this will have on the global economy. Maybe you can just expand on that.

Ronnie Stoeferle 17:31
Yeah, well, you know, it’s this big showdown between the very saturated, perhaps also a little bit arrogant establishment and the hungry upstarts. So, we are seeing that, you know, in 2020, already, the BRICS nations have taken over the g7 nation in terms of share of global GDP measured measured in, in purchasing power parity, and now we’re seeing six new countries joining the BRICs. So it’s Argentina, it’s Egypt. It’s Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. So I would say there is from a from a Gu political from a geo strategic point of view, those are very, very important countries. Yeah, they are, they will be responsible for roughly 50% of all global oil exports. So So I would say the the analogy is a little bit like, you know, two brothers whether, you know, the smaller brother, the younger brother is growing up very, very quickly. And and, you know, he’s becoming stronger and stronger. But the big brother doesn’t realize it. Yeah. And indeed, he doesn’t enjoy the fact you know, that the ones little brother is now perhaps even stronger than he is. And I think that it’s not only gold, it’s obviously also commodities trading in general, it’s some sort of critical stance when it comes to the US dollar when it comes to also US Treasuries being you know, the major, the major reserve for for most emerging markets, but I think when it comes to the topic of gold, we’re clearly seeing that gold plays a plays a major role for, for for emerging markets. Because you know, that last year in 2012, we saw the highest amount of central bank purchases in gold ever. So they bought roughly 1100 tons of gold. And the trigger obviously, was the decision by the Western countries to freeze the dollar and also the Euro reserves of the Russian Central Bank and I think this will really go down in in monetary history. And since then, we’re seeing an enormous amount of gold purchases from the, from the, especially the eastern central banks, I think this is really, really a main main driver these days. So so so I would say, as we’re seeing that investors demand is still quite slow. And, you know, for example, we’ve seen outflows in gold ETFs over the last couple of quarters. So actually, central banks have put in some sort of a floor for the, for the, for the gold price, some sort of, you know, central bank put for the price of gold. And, you know, those numbers are significant. And for the, for the, for the first three quarters this year, they’re already they have already bought 800. Tom, so, so actually, I think, what was the number compared to the time previous to, you know, the Russia Ukraine war, central bank purchasing, especially from emerging markets, is 2.6 times higher. So I think that due to the sanctions, were basically the Russians, but also many other countries that are perhaps slightly critical to us policies, they are realized that, you know, F assets, paper assets can become worthless pretty quickly. So they said, Well, we have to diversify into something else. And I think you need something that is neutral that is traded 24/7, that doesn’t have any counterparty risk, that cannot be inflated at will. So gold was the obvious choice. And I think, really, this the central bank buying is a complete game changer for for for the gold market at the moment,

Jimmy Connor 21:56
Ronnie, let’s move forward and talk about a possible recession and just operate under the assumption that the US is going into a recession. You and your team have done a lot of research on what assets Perform Well, during a recession. Why don’t you take us through your findings?

Ronnie Stoeferle 22:12
Yeah, well, you know, we’re clearly not in the soft landing camp or in the no landing camp or in the Goldilocks camp. So what we did in the in the previous in gold, we trust reports, we basically said, you know, every every recession has five distinct phases. And each phase has different characteristics. So we came up with this so called incremental recession phase model, and crunched the numbers and just researched, you know, what works best in each phase of a recession. So, gold on average, is a pretty decent recession hedge. So in every recession since the year 1971, on average, gold is up 10.6%. And it’s actually up in every phase of the recession. While silver, the s&p 500 and commodities aren’t really good recession hatches, on average, is they tend to perform much, much better in later phases of the recession. So this is probably the moment when when the Federal Reserve and also, you know, politicians really start panicking. That’s that’s the point, when, you know, this whole reflation really sets in, then you can get a little bit more aggressive. But in the in the in the in the first couple of stages of a recession. You don’t want to get too aggressive. What’s interesting is that mining stocks actually did, on average pretty well over the course of recessions in every recession, in every recession phase, but in phase three, so So you know, you can read up, basically also, you know, how we calculating the model, and all the results in our in gold, we trust 2023 report, but to put it in a nutshell, gold is a really, really good recession head show. If you think we’re moving into recession, yeah. Gold is probably a pretty reliable insurance against that.

Jimmy Connor 24:08
So you mentioned earlier that we are seeing record buying from central banks in 2022. And also in 2023. We still haven’t seen the final numbers from 2023, but it’ll probably be a new all time record. And that’s great, but we’re not seeing follow through with the miners. And gold itself is up 10% on the year give or take. But a lot of the gold producers are underperforming. I think Newmont the world’s largest gold producers down 15% on the year, that situation is a little unique because they just did acquire new crest so they’re trying to digest that. But Barrick the second largest gold producer in the world, it’s flat on the year. Why do you think we’re not seeing much interest in the gold miners? And do you think there’s a sense of complacency out there with gold and Gold equities?

Ronnie Stoeferle 25:01
Well, I would say over the last couple of weeks it changed. And you can see how quickly it actually happens in the, in the, in the mining space, and especially also in the junior space. My you know, I can tell you my inbox inbox is full with financings for junior miners and, you know, well, you know, let’s say in October, you know, companies were not able to finance even at, you know, with really, really good terms. So, it clearly has improved over the last couple of weeks, I would say. But still, it’s, it’s a tough year out out there for the for the in the mining space, especially in the in the junior space, but also for the developers. So the main reasons, obviously, cost of capital have risen significantly. Second, is the fact that there’s very little risk appetite, you know, if if you get like for 4.55%, for fixed income, you know, if you’re taking some credit risk, you can get up to 7%. And that’s, that’s opportunity costs for gold, but also for the for the gold miners, we all know that the management teams in the mining space could be slightly better. So I think they’ve, they’ve lost lots of lots of trust over the previous cycles, they destroyed quite a lot of shareholder value. Then another topic is obviously, you know, political risks. We’re seeing it now in in Panama with First Quantum, for example. And then I would say, you know, developing and, you know, building a new mine, and I have to say, I’m on the board of directors of two mining companies in in Canada, one of them is Tudor gold with one of the largest gold discoveries of the last couple of decades. And the second one is a spin off of Judah gold, gold, stone metals. And it’s just not easy, you know, with all the permits required with, you know, all the legal framework of also, of course, dealing with First Nations and so on. It’s complicated, it’s costly, and it takes very, very long. So you know, everything that can go wrong usually goes wrong in the mining space. So it’s a it’s a tough space. I still like it a lot at current valuations. I think many companies have actually done a really good job over the course of the bear market. So we’re very, very active. We’re investing we’re researching. We’re talking to management teams. So on average, we meet 120 management teams in the mining space. And I have to tell you, I mean, that’s that’s our job, you know, separating out you say that the wheat from the chaff. There’s some tremendous opportunities in the mining space at the moment, and we’re really excited.

Jimmy Connor 27:58
And given your positive stance on gold as an investment, what percent are you recommending to investors that they allocate toward gold or gold equities?

Ronnie Stoeferle 28:10
Well, I would say that, you know, the one to 2% that many, many, many banks actually advise. That’s, that’s not enough. From a portfolio point of view, it doesn’t make any difference. So I would say it should at least be eight to 10%. Perhaps even more, but that’s that really depends on the age of the investor. It depends on the other asset classes, it depends on your time horizon, it depends on you know, the your risk tolerance and so on. But there was a there was a great study coming out from from Bank of America, which basically said that 71% of all advisors in the United States have zero to 1% Exposure to gold, and 27% of them have one to 5% Exposure to gold, so it is definitely not a crowded trade. This is also something that is confirmed by ETF demand. We’ve seen outflows over the last couple of quarters. So I think it’s even though we are trading at or close to all time highs, it is still something that is it’s kind of climbing this wall of worry, especially from from Western financial investors, it’s still not something where I would see an enormous amount of bullishness also having a look at you know the price forecasts from from all the major banks and you know, the the outlooks now coming out. I’ve been studying you know, the 2024 outlooks from from all the major banks and gold isn’t a big topic. It’s basically you know, everybody’s around I think about, you know, now’s the time to invest in bonds. So so that’s a pretty good sign from my point of view. So to to, you know, to answer your question, I think there’s no perfect number for your gold allocation. It probably depends on your bearishness. It depends on the rest of your portfolio, but it should definitely be significantly more than, you know, one to 2%. Because even if gold would go through the roof, and everything else in your portfolio, wouldn’t do so well, you know, this very, very small allocation wouldn’t make a big difference for the portfolio. So I would say, between eight to 15%, something like that.

Jimmy Connor 30:42
So let’s look at your target prices, both long term and shorter term, as we look out into 2024. Where do you see the price of gold going?

Ronnie Stoeferle 30:52
Well, I would say 2300. That’s, that’s like the next big target. But of course, you know, once we were above New, all time highs is really where the momentum kicks in. This is the point in time when CTAs and you know, more short term traders will really get into, into gold. So So you know, as I’ve said, by any metric, gold is not a crowded trade, yet, it can become a crowded trade. But But I think, you know, Jimmy, if we we’ve had this major top in August 2020, which was an eight year cycle top. And since then, we’ve basically seen a very volatile sideways consolidation. And from a technical point of view, those sideways consolidations are basically the best cyclical correction pattern that we know in technical analysis. And I think, given the fact that, you know, us real interest rates have risen. So significantly, gold should have corrected much, much more. So I’m interpreting that as a real sign of strength. And therefore, I think that once we really break out above the the the old old time highs, then it can get can go really quickly. So 2300, that would be the next major top, but our long term target for the end of this decade is 4800. US dollars. We’ve announced that in our 2020 report, based on a very simple monetary model, and you can you can read everything about that model in the 2020 report. And I still think that, you know, 4800 bucks by the end of this decade is quite realistic. Yeah, actually, there was a technical trader from UBS, who put out a really good piece and, and he forecasted up to 1000 US dollars for the price of gold as the the target for this new bull market. 1000. That’s, that’s pretty optimistic. But as I’ve said, it’s so far, it’s not a crowded trade, we don’t really see investors demand from the Western world, we are seeing this very stable and strong. demand coming from Central Banks, we kind of put a floor under the gold price. And therefore I think it’s yeah, it’s a really good setup that we’re seeing for the next couple of years.

Jimmy Connor 33:24
And given that the money supply has doubled in the last four years, those are not a rageous target prices by any means.

Ronnie Stoeferle 33:32
Exactly. And the big question is obviously, you know, first of all, you know, people calling for $10,000 Gold, I’m not sure if I want to live in in such a world, it probably would go hand in hand with you know, yeah. Let’s say a quite a volatile environment to be diplomatic. But then on the other hand, probably, you know, what’s the price of a beer gonna be in that environment? Yeah. Significantly higher. So, so my take has always been, gold is not there to make you rich quickly. It is really there to preserve your purchasing power over long periods of time. It’s there to you know, for this kind of big shifts from one monetary system to another monetary system. This is really the time when you want to own gold. Now for for US investors. That might sound a bit strange, but you know, if you talk to my grandparents, for example, they had for currency reforms. Yeah. And if they wouldn’t have owned any gold, they would basically have lost everything through every currency reform. So so therefore, I think this is the reason why you want to own gold, protecting your purchasing power over long timeframes. And I think that gold did its job really, really well over the last couple of years over the last couple of decades and that actually over the last couple of centuries.

Jimmy Connor 35:01
Very interesting points, Ronnie. And I just want to summarize your whole thesis. So to make sure I have it correct, but you’re saying that the US is going into recession, you think the Fed is going to panic because of that, and they’re going to cut rates, especially going into an election year? And that’s going to result in a lower US dollar. And that’s going to propel gold higher.

Ronnie Stoeferle 35:25
Yes. Yeah. That’s sounds about right.

Jimmy Connor 35:29
And then, of course, if you add in geopolitical risks, that can also accelerate the move in gold. Yes.

Ronnie Stoeferle 35:37
But then I think, you know, people over estimate the, you know, the political or geopolitical impact on on the gold price. Yeah, I think we we crunch the numbers and such geopolitical events, most of the time only really have short term consequences for the price of gold, of course, wars or inflationary wars mean, you know, more that mean lower rates, usually. But I think, you know, just panic buying gold, because there’s a new war and new conflict. That’s that’s not the right motivation, actually. But I think that, you know, what’s what’s really important is to say that, you know, we’re seeing this, let’s say the love trade, I don’t know who came up with that term. I think it was Frank Holmes, who said that there’s the fear trade. And this is basically the reason why so many people on the internet, try to, you know, recommend go, but there’s also the love trade. And this is really the fundamental physical demand for gold in emerging markets. And as I’ve said before, if you travel to Dubai, if you travel to Vietnam, to China, of course to India, you can really see how important gold is for the daily lives of those peoples how important it is for asset allocation. And I’ve said that a couple of times, the best questions after a keynote, that, that we’re ever asked there, where we’re in Turkey, because, you know, you know, the Turkish Lira isn’t one of the I would say one of the strongest currencies, Turkish people are just used to double or triple digits, inflation. So for them, you know, gold is not like, you know, a satellite investment, it’s actually the foundation of their portfolios. It’s really a building block for portfolio construction. So one of our main thesis is obviously, that the Great Moderation is over, that we are moving into an environment of more inflation, volatility of more macro volatility. And I think therefore, also in the Western world, gold will become less of a, you know, a satellite investment and an alternative asset or something like that. But just, you know, it will be quite normal for many investors out there to say, well, you know, you should have at least 510 15% of gold in your portfolio.

Jimmy Connor 38:09
interesting comments, Ronnie, Ronnie, as we wrap up, I can see you have a very extensive library, you must be a voracious reader. Are you reading any interesting books at this time?

Ronnie Stoeferle 38:22
Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, have. I got five, five new books delivered today? My wife. My wife doesn’t know because she says, you know, you’re ordering too many books. But I’m reading you know, there’s like I always have, you know, when I’m traveling, I’m traveling, traveling with three, four books. So there’s, for example, there’s the Belfer guest on Stephen spike, the world of yesterday also really good English translation, beautiful book about the hyperinflation and what it does to society what it does to to politics, then I’ve got that that’s a great book. It’s called same as ever. Morgan house so he, he wrote the psychology of money, which was a tremendous book. I just for a report that we’re writing, I just got my book Austrian School for investors again, and there’s also we published that in 2014 wrote quite a lot about Bitcoin already back then. And it’s still a really good read. I hope it doesn’t sound arrogant, but I really enjoyed writing this book and we got tremendous feedback. And then there’s another one here, it’s called Breath by by James nester. I’m really into I’m doing lots of sports and I just did a, a Wim Hof, you know, the Iceman seminar over the weekend, you know, with ice, ice, swimming, and also breathing techniques. So that was super interesting. So I look forward to to reading that book over the next couple of weeks.

Jimmy Connor 39:59
Well Are you into ice swimming?

Ronnie Stoeferle 40:04
I kind of got into it. Because you know, you know, taking a very, very cold shower in the morning, I still hate it. Now I am able to do it like three to four minutes. But it’s really, you know, the positive effects on you know, not only your health but also your, let’s say your mental health there are a tremendous so so so so I did some some some ice swimming. And it’s not easy and it’s it’s can also be quite quite dangerous, but it is something that I really enjoy exploring so so therefore I kind of, you know, trying to I’m always trying to challenge my, you know, my my borders and get out of the comfort zone. It’s just you know, it broadens your your perspective and your horizon.

Jimmy Connor 40:52
There must also help get your mind off the markets. Yes.

Ronnie Stoeferle 40:58
That’s if you’re plunging into ice cold water for a couple of minutes. You don’t think about, you know, the s&p 500 Or what Mr. Powell is gonna do or say next.

Jimmy Connor 41:11
Well, Ronnie, that was a fascinating discussion, I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today. If someone would like to learn more about you and the services you and your firm offer, where can they go? Yes, we are.

Ronnie Stoeferle 41:23
So we are in an asset manager, managing six investment funds, most of them I would say in the commodity space, gold, silver mining, but also Bitcoin are our topics that we that we really enjoy investing in and our performance of our funds was pretty spectacular this year, I have to say, it’s been a good year. So that’s incremental.li, where we also offer wealth management services for high net worth individuals, primarily from German speaking countries. And then for the in gold we trust report, which is the research report that that my team and I put out, it’s in gold, we trust dots report available in English and German, in Spanish. And also in Mandarin, you can download all our publications. So the big report 400 pages, there’s also compact version. And there is the monthly chart books, the special chart books, the special publications, you can download everything 100% free of charge, you don’t have to give us your your email address or anything that wouldn’t be possible without the support of our premium partners from the industry that basically said Well, actually we like the stuff that you do. There’s not enough sober and honest research in the gold space. So they are supporting us. So we are able to put it out 100% for free. And then I’m also quite active on Twitter. My handle is at Ron stowaway fella and I’m putting out you know charts but also you know stuff about music and some sports and you know, just just trying to to also connect with people from all over the globe. And yeah, so that’s that’s basically it.

Jimmy Connor 43:08
Ronnie once again. Thank you that was a great discussion. Look forward to the next conversation.

Ronnie Stoeferle 43:13
Thank you very much James. All the best to you and your your people watching this. I really enjoyed it and wish you all the best take care. I

Jimmy Connor 43:22
hope you enjoyed that discussion with Ronnie store fully and I want to remind you of another new show that we have on Wealthion called Speak up with Anthony scare Moochie Yes, the one and only the mooch is now on Wealthion And you can see him live this Friday at 11am. This is your chance to ask the mooch himself any questions you want on personal finance or the financial markets once again this Friday at 11am. If you are trying to figure out how to prepare for your financial future, consider having a discussion with a Wealthion endorsed financial advisor at wealthion.com. After providing some basic information Wealthion will put you in touch with an advisor. There’s no obligation whatsoever to work with any of these advisors. It’s simply a free service that Wealthion offers to its viewers. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel wealthion.com We have some amazing content coming out in the coming weeks. They’ll help you prepare for your financial future. Once again, thank you for spending time with us today and we look forward to seeing you again soon.