Tony Greer (02:55):

My second starting point is basically the federal reserve is inflating assets. And if you have assets, you’re going to do fine. If you don’t have assets, you’re going to have a problem. So those are the two starting points that I wake up with in the morning and go from there. And they’ve been a very, very benefit way of looking at the markets, I would say since the age of central planning has become really part of the mechanism by which the markets are running. So with the idea that the federal reserve is actively trying to inflate assets to get us into an economic recovery out of economic malaise, you’ve got to stay long assets and figure out how to position yourself in a bull market.

Tony Greer (03:45):

So that’s my regular basis. Do I get bearish? Yeah, there are times that I get bearish and thinking that stocks can pull back and I adjust the sales accordingly. But I’m generally want to be a guy that’s buying stocks when the rate spikes up to 25 or 30 and the S and P pulls back to moving average support levels. So that’s the starting point from how I look at the markets every day. We can go from there.

Clay Finck (04:10):

Now you mentioned the federal reserve and how we live in the age of central planning. The federal reserve came out a couple weeks ago stating that they want to start tapering in 2022 and have three interest rate hikes. And I’ve heard varying opinions on whether they can do that or not. Could you please give the audience your take on what we heard from the fed and whether they will actually be able to implement this policy to try and bring inflation back down to normal levels.

Tony Greer (04:39):

You hit on the right code there. What the federal reserve likes to do is create an impression on the markets. And I feel like what they do by saying, coming out, for example, in the last FOMC meeting, the market was expecting a pretty hawkish meeting to deal with the inflation that we’ve been seeing. It’s very clear that since Biden reappointed Powell that inflation, let’s say their posture toward inflation has slightly changed. It’s gone from being something that they call transitory to now transitory is out the window and it’s going to be persistent inflation. And we’ve got to figure out how to tame that beast.

Tony Greer (05:21):

So like would be expected of a central banker. Jerome Powell came out and said that the last meeting he was typically, it was hawkish meeting results where they’re talking about two or three rate hikes next year, and a pretty even handed taper plan to cut down on asset at purchases that they’re adding to their balance sheet. So he comes out and those are the results of the meeting. And then we go into the press conference and he’s a little bit less hawkish in the press conference. He’s talking about the risks in the economy, the risk in the inflation story, etc. But I think what generally the federal reserve is trying to do is price in the most negative scenario for the markets in your head right away. So automatically you think, whoa, two or three rate hikes next year. That’s not going to be good for the stock market. Probably not going to be good for tech stocks, which have been really, really launching on this free liquidity trade that we’ve been in for several years now, since coming out of the great financial crisis, we can call it, in 2008.

Tony Greer (06:30):

The markets are indeed addicted to some level of fed liquidity. But that goes back to my initial thesis, Clay, is that the fed is actively inflating assets. And when you look back over time, even though we’ve had several challenges to the tape, we had the ever grand bankruptcy to contend with earlier this year. We just had the Omicron variant to contend with. We had the FOMC to contend with. And when you look by back at it, the S and P goes through periods of volatility and then comes out usually with a rally to the top side.

Tony Greer (07:05):

So I feel like that’s what Jerome Powell has done pretty masterfully since he’s been in office, whether you like him or not. That’s neither here nor there. But it’s fair to say that he’s managed the stock market incredibly all given what he’s got to go on. So even navigating through the backside of the lockdown market collapse, straight to new highs and looking like we’re going to just continue right on that trend higher, to me, that’s a function of the federal reserve inflating assets. And now even though we’re pivoting toward a little bit more of a hawkish fed to address the inflationary themes that you see on the screen, I think that it’s still going to be something that is driving stock markets and driving commodity markets higher.

Tony Greer (07:50):

I think my big theme for 2022 is going to be how commodity markets really, really shine in the next year because there’s so many underlying bullish scenarios across the commodity complex that I think that where oil and gas drove markets this year, quite a bit, semi my conductors drove markets quite a bit. Technology retail was a big sector this year. I think next year that the commodity markets can be even more of a market driver. So I’m looking for the energy markets to be a driver of the stock market. I’m looking for the home builder sector to be a huge driver in the markets. That’s how I’m operating right now, Clay. I’m trying to figure out what the bully markets are that I can latch myself onto and tactically trade along their path go going higher. That’s been my strategy and it’s been working out for the last couple of years. I’m going to continue it until the stock market looks like it has a real, real problem with rates going higher. For me, if there’s no bond market dislocation to the downside, meaning where rates go flying higher in a large magnitude and unexpected form, very easy for me to stay bullish stock market.

Clay Finck (09:09):

Do you believe that the fed can effectively take the actions they say they’re going to take in 2022? Are you just taking a wait and see approach and go from there?

Tony Greer (09:20):

Yeah. The game, Clay, is to decide whether the markets can bear two or three rate hikes. That’s going to be the deciding factor. So if we get economic data that’s really positive and beating expectations and inflation keeps sizzling along at the pace that it’s sizzling at, then the markets will be able to bear higher interest rates. So if the bond market takes inflation to task and the bond market sells off, and traditionally we’ve seen in periods of inflation where rates can rise, it’ll be interesting to see… I think there’ll be a very violent rotation in the stock markets if yields are actually allowed to rise the way that the fed share is telegraphing them. And I think it could be a totally positive thing for stock markets. For example, in 2015, 2016, we were hiking rates left and right. And stock market only went up because there was economic strength beneath the markets. And so raising rates wasn’t a problem.

Tony Greer (10:22):

So here we’ll see if that’s a similar case where if the fed manages to get one or two rate hikes on the tape next year, I would be shocked because they may sell the story that they’re looking for two to three. And what happens invariably is that all it takes is one or two bad, weak economic data points to have the market expectations go to say, oh, one rate hike this year only, right? Because the data isn’t strong enough, etc. We just got a bad employment number or something like that. And so the market will waive towards expecting only one rate cut, a rate hike, excuse me.

Tony Greer (11:01):

And then we’ll get an inflationary number. CPI will come out next year at 13.8% and the bond market will sell off. The markets will say, whoa, this is probably a three rate hike year, just to battle this inflation and stocks maybe sell off a little bit. Technology usually bears the brunt of it in a rising rate market because we’ve only seen growth over value in this cheap money period of abundant liquidity, where technology has really been in the lead. Maybe not this year, but the past several years we’ve seen FAANG stocks and the Nasdaq could really get out in front. I would imagine a rising rate environment that that changes quite a bit.

Tony Greer (11:44):

And the reason that that’s likely to change, Clay, is that portfolio managers have big funds, plain vanilla funds or mutual funds and what have you, where the bulk of the American fund investor lies. They’ve all been positioned for pretty dramatic deflation over the last decade or so. They belong tech stocks. They want no part of the energy market as you can tell, right? There’s a Larry Fink war on fossil fuels is very, very serious in the United States and needs to be taken seriously. So those haven’t performed. Metals and mining has been a mixed bag where industrial metals and mining has done much better. Precious metals and mining have done nothing on the year. For example, GDX down 12.5% on a year. That’s deflationary.

Tony Greer (12:32):

And if we change to a period of inflationary trading, I would imagine that a lot of the technology stuff that has been running on excess liquidity is going to back off dramatically. And then you’ve got to consider that the five biggest stocks in the stock market are tech stocks. And that there’s probably going to be net-net a pullback in the stock indices if Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook back off because of higher rates. Now that’s not to say that that’s going to happen, but if that does happen, it’s not necessarily going to mean that metals and mining stocks have to back off or that oil and gas stocks have to back off at all.

Tony Greer (13:16):

The ESG carbon capture movement is leading towards a very, very obviously pending energy disaster in Europe, in terms of heating the continent. It’s going to become an issue very soon. They’ve got national gas stockpiles at all time, historic lows. They’ve got a rallying price of energy because they’re trying to get baseload energy, power from wind and solar, and it’s just not getting them there. And the price of natural gas rallying is making it more expensive to create energy in Europe. All of these is because of their strict adherence to you getting that carbon neutral plan in place. And it’s going to cause a major crisis where there is going to be mass starvation and likely a lot of people freezing to death in Europe.

Tony Greer (14:07):

I think that that might be where the ESG pendulum swings back towards some sense of normalcy in terms of generating base load power and being able to use coal and maybe nuclear. But right now they’re going the other way in Europe and closing down all the nuclear plants that would be tremendously beneficial to them. So with an energy crisis blatantly brewing in Europe, it’s easy to stay bullish fossil fuels here. We are at record low investment in new exploration in production. And yet only a week before Thanksgiving, we saw a global record in gasoline demand. So it’s going to be interesting to see where we wind up getting all of this gasoline from if investment in the United States is highly discouraged, right?

Tony Greer (14:54):

We went into the Biden administration with an energy independent company, and we are now one year into the Biden administration with gas prices doubled. We are begging potential enemies to give us more gas, Saudi Arabia, Russia. We have no idea how they are positioned to treat the United States. And if we’re begging them for energy, if I were Vladimir Putin or Mohammad Bin Salman, I could tell you that I wouldn’t supply it for any reason at any price other than the market price or higher. So we’re seeding our energy policy strength to countries that don’t like us, and that’s going to create an issue. As you can see, crude oil goes 77 bit on my screen as we’re discussing this. Up a couple percent on the day, excuse me, half a percent on the day, but getting its legs back underneath it. That’s the kind of thing that I expect could be driving the stock market as we go into 2022, Clay.

Tony Greer (15:51):

I think that European energy fragility colliding with the carbon neutral policies is going to keep commodities in the spotlight. And that’s where the pivot to hard assets comes in during the inflationary times like I think we’re going to see next year. And so now we’re going to really just figure out how to manage the push and pull of higher yields on the markets I think that that’s a good way to look at 2022.

Clay Finck (16:18):

It seems in my mind that the federal reserve is metaphorically walking on a tight rope, where on one hand they can’t allow inflation to run too hot. Whereas on the other hand, the stock market is essentially dependent on the federal reserve purchasing more assets and growing their balance sheet. So they’re continually working to find that right balance between the two. And it’ll be interesting to see if CPI inflation in 2022 starts hitting double digits.

Tony Greer (16:47):

Definitely going to happen, Clay, because energy prices, the price of gasoline doubling is a big deal. The price of natural gas being up 4X here in the United States and 100X in Europe is a big deal because food costs are 30% energy at a minimum. So food costs are going right along with the energy costs that may be a delayed reaction, but they’re going. You’re going to pay double for a loaf of bread. You’re going to pay double for a dozen eggs. You’re going to pay double for a gallon of milk. Double. So that’s where the rubber meets the road on the inflation trade is that the grocery bill gets exorbitant. The gas bill gets exorbitant. The heating bill gets exorbitant. And then the fear is that it takes away from discretionary spending. And then you see some weakness in retail or weakness like that. And then what happens is the federal reserve has to come in and say, we’ve got to add some accommodation to this economy here, etc.

Tony Greer (17:46):

So that’s why I always, number one, take it with a grain of salt when a federal reserve comes out and gives their expectations because eventually the world changes beneath their feet and something happens where they don’t stick to the plan. But the double digit headline inflation numbers are coming. And I think that’s unavoidable. That’s one of the base cases that I’m approaching 2022 with, is that we’re going to see that headline inflation and the upside in the bond market is going to be limited. Meaning the lower end of the range in yields is probably going to be limited and not visited that often, if that’s fair.

Tony Greer (18:27):

We’ve come off a couple of confuse using periods in the bond market where we’re seeing headline inflation start to bubble up. We’re certainly seeing headline inflation take over. And yet you look at the 10 year yield, and 10 year yields are at 130 or 140 and you’re like, Jeez, that’s not a very inflationary scenario for the bond market. Then you look at short term paper and I just want to get it up on my screen here today so I can speak intelligently with you. Two year yields basically have roofed, right? Two year paper has gone bitless to the point where we are right now, pressing the high yield of the move that we’ve seen. So in two year notes, we haven’t seen yields at 75 basis points where they are now since the lockdown slide in March of 2020. So two year yields, Clay, are your beacon for the inflation trade being on like Donkey Kong or the inflation trade just consolidating and going along of sideways.

Tony Greer (19:32):

Days like today, when two year yields are popping off to new highs, two year paper has gone bitless. That is an acknowledgement that inflation is hitting the tape. It makes sense that crude oil is up on the day to day. It makes sense that the dollar’s falling today. It makes sense to be that base metals are rallying with the weaker dollar. So that’s the dynamic that we’re going to wrestle into 2022 also. But if you approach it from the perspective of the energy inflation is already here and it’s going to cause inflation in other markets that aren’t visible yet. For example, the price of ammonia, which goes into fertilizer is up 5X on the year, right?

Tony Greer (20:16):

Now one or two things is going to have to happen. Either the price of natural gas is going to have to come off so that ammonia gets cheaper to make. But if it doesn’t, your cereal box is going to cost 15 bucks. One of the other got to happen. I don’t know which one, but one of those things has to happen. And I’m going to bet on the serial box trading 15 bucks. And just because, unless we get natural gas prices… For example, over in Europe, for the last five year average, they’re paying 20 Euro per megawatt hour for electricity. That’s now up to 200 Euro per megawatt hour. So we’re approaching a level where it would be wise for landlords to alert their tenants and say, We’re not going to spend two million to heat the complex this weekend, just to let you know. So be prepared because we’re turning the heat off. We haven’t even gotten to that scenario yet, but it feels like it’s coming because not everybody can afford to pay 200 Euro per megawatt hour [inaudible 00:21:21]. That’s 10X the usual energy cost, right?

Tony Greer (21:24):

So that’s a brewing crisis. Here in the US, the price of gasoline, we’re going to get to that level where it maybe gets to the point by next summer where $6 or $7 at the pump is maybe prohibitive to summer travel. And then maybe the people will make some noise about that. Because of the carbon neutral practices that governments are instituting shooting in a very hasty and we don’t care about how we get their fashion, there are smart ways to do that. There are smart ways to wean yourself off of carbon emissions. You can do this very slowly and very methodically. And you’re probably going to have to restart a couple of nuclear plants. But you can get baseload electricity power back down to the levels that it was at during, call it the Trump administration.

Tony Greer (22:12):

And so as the prices get away from that, you’re going to have this ripple across society that is going to not be able to pay for their electric and not be able to pay for their grocery bill. So that’s the risk that’s out there in the calendar year, next year. And then what’s going to be the results if we have economic weakness, right? If we have weakness due to prohibitively high commodity prices where your disposable income goes almost to zero, because you spend so much of your incoming revenue on heat, food, and electricity, that there’s not much room for anything else. So what’s going to happen at that point if the economy weakens because of that more accommodation from the federal reserve, right?

Clay Finck (22:57):

Have you seen any talks of VBI, whether that be in the US or other developed nations?

Tony Greer (23:03):

Well, I feel like the Biden administration tipped their hand and they’re going to be one stimulus plan after the next, right? You seem okay to send checks to people’s homes. Clay, one of the things that you brought up before we started recording is the labor issue. I don’t go too deep as we spoke about, Clay. I don’t go too deep into economics because I’m not an economist. I’m a trader. So I like to react to what markets are telling me. I don’t know how it’s going to go with universal basic income or how we’re going to navigate this from the federal reserve side. I’m just here to be able to react to what the market tells me. And what the market has been telling me lately, for example, as we just touched on with two year yields carving a new high for the move that this inflation trade is on, that the energy crisis trades are in play. And that 2022 is going to be the year that we actually visit the crisis.

Tony Greer (24:01):

I may have gotten away from the question here, but with the Biden admin looking to apply stimulus as a solution to a lot of the problems and the federal reserves still building their balance sheet, and we’re still adding on to our national debt, that’s where I don’t get nervous about the Central Bank, the federal reserves losing control of the markets, right? If the Central Bank controls supply, they don’t really ever lose control. And as you can see by the S and P price of 47, 75, 3 ticks or so from the all time high, they haven’t exactly lost control of the stock market either. There are times that they lose control like we saw in the unprecedented lockdowns of March 2020. And then markets get back on their feet with lot of help from the fed, with a lot of help from Janet Yellen at the treasury. And so we’ve got that two-headed monster of monetization and stimulus supporting the markets at every turn.

Tony Greer (24:56):

And that’s the reason that I want to continue to be a buyer of stocks when the [inaudible 00:25:02] enters the 30s and maybe a seller of stocks when the is sitting there at 15 and the stocks are at their highs. And we’re just waiting for that next scary headline that’s going to cause a pullback. So I guess I may have gotten away, like I said, from the question, but it feels like this admin is going to tackle a lot of the problems by generating more and more stimulus. And that’s very inflationary dynamic to me. So unless that it changes, my position towards trading in this market is not going to change.

Clay Finck (25:31):

It sounds like you’re expecting a higher inflation environment in 2022. So what are your thoughts on diversifying into those hard assets such as commodities and which commodities do you believe will benefit in that environment?

Tony Greer (25:47):

Yeah. I’ve recommended that my clients have commodity exposure across energy base metals and grains. Once the energy price goes on a run like this, it’s a huge input into base metal making and a huge input into farming. So it makes sense to be long, some forms of those hard assets across the board, if you ask me. So you can buy things the things that I’ve recently tactically traded my way into by waiting quite honestly for a dip in these markets. For example, by guiding clients into buying the natural resources, ETF, right. The ticker is IGE and it’s made up of a lot of metals and mining, a lot of energy. It’s a pure natural resources play and it covers those three sectors that I mentioned, base metals, grains, and energy rather well. So I try to guide my clients into things like that.

Tony Greer (26:44):

I think it’s important to have exposure to the base metals markets, given the pivot toward electronic vehicles and carbon capture. Those commodities, aluminum and copper, and some of the call a more, I guess, less easily mine, rare earth minerals, for example, those are all really huge inputs into the electronic vehicle infrastructure with battery creation, things like that, right? We need lithium, cobalt, copper, silver, aluminum. When you look at those charts, you look at aluminum and copper, just to take two bigger base metals, for example. You see charts that are trending higher, prices trending higher. Prices are trending toward all time highs, which is relevant because when you look at inventories, you see that inventories of copper, especially trending toward all time lows and that’s across delivery points. That’s Comex copper, London copper, Asian copper delivery points.

Tony Greer (27:46):

Inventories are shrinking toward historic lows. Now we are trying to pivot into a world of carbon neutral, and electronic batteries, and electronic battery infrastructure. And in order to build all of that, we need tons and tons of copper, aluminum, lithium, cobalt, etc. Right down the list. As a metaphor, we’re going into creating this new energy infrastructure and the copper shelves are empty, but we’re doing it anyway, right? That’s the thing that you got to remember about US energy policies, that we are shooting ourself in the right foot by closing the pipeline, shooting ourselves in the left foot, by releasing the strategic petroleum reserve that as you can see has no effect on downside price in oil. And so US energy policy is clearly shooting ourselves simultaneously in both feet and knowing that we’re doing it. That’s a very clearly telegraph trade for me in base metals, for example.

Tony Greer (28:46):

So it gives me confidence to stay long copper and long aluminum because the Biden administration isn’t backing off on creating electronic vehicles. Rather, they’re mandating that the whole federal fleet be comprised of electronic vehicles. That’s a big start, right? That’s a big starting client for Teslas of the world and any other company that’s going to make electric vehicles. The problem is as the demand grows, they walk into the commodity store and there’s nothing on the commodity shelves, for example, copper, aluminum with inventories dwindling. So what does that mean? You got to pay the market price. And paying market price into all time highs with low inventories, you tell me what you think is going to happen, Clay.

Tony Greer (29:26):

We have a chance for the prices to go really parabolic if they’re going to jam this transition on the tape without being careful, cautious, tactical, and pragmatic about it. So to me, that’s a trade that lines up really, really well. You’ve got headline irresponsibility and a fundamental story in the markets that is very bullish in and off itself. So those two stories colliding, the irresponsible energy policy colliding with ESG and carbon capture colliding with the implementation of the electronics across the energy and power platform, there’s no place to go for base metals, but up. Unless of course he scraps the whole idea and we say, we’re going back to burning coal, which is what China’s doing. They’re increasing their energy efficiency dramatically during this period by looking at carbon capture and saying, “No, we’re not going to part that heavily in that. We’ll have some emissions guidelines, but we’re not going carbon neutral by 2050.”

Tony Greer (30:28):

In fact, they’re opening up 100 coal mines next year, right? Because coal is the cheapest source of fossil fuel there is. And Larry Fink decides that he doesn’t want any here. And so China is just stepping in and filling that void and saying, “Yeah. You know what? We’ll start propelling ourselves with coal [inaudible 00:30:45]. Costs us nothing.” And we’ll try to keep pushing Larry Fink to doing more and more ESG because we own all of cobalt and lithium that they’re going to transfer all of this over with. So it’s very much a realigning of global power via energy policy, if you will.

Tony Greer (31:05):

So that to me is a really, really great telegraph trade to leg into and stay confident about. Because like we said, unless like, where do I get out of that trade? When Joe Biden comes out and says, Listen, we’re going to beg carbon neutral. It’s getting too expensive at the pump. We got to find a better way of doing this. Until he does that be long commodities, hard assets, because the inflation is going to be absolutely scalding at one point.

Clay Finck (31:29):

I’m curious what the best approach is for individual retail investors to play the commodities trade in an inflationary environment. Is it to go long a few commodity funds or picking an ETF that has a basket of commodities? What do you think the best route is for the retail investor?

Tony Greer (31:47):

That’s why I started with the IGE ETF, Clay. That’s a very broad bullish ETF that covers a lot of heavy industry that’s pulling commodities out of the ground. That to me makes sense as a starting point. You get your blanket commodity coverage with an ETF like that. Then you can branch off into the subspecialties. If you are into energy, you can buy XOP, that’s the oil and gas ETF. It’s very heavily weighted in exploration and production with… I should say, XOP is more evenly weighted across the energy industry with exploration and production across natural gas, and then also refiners and some oil services companies. So I think XOP is a great broad energy exposure to have on if you remain bullish fossil fuels, which I do. You can look at XME, the industrial metals and mining ETF, which will get you long a lot of the base metals mines like Freeport-MacMoRan, which is a stock that I’m a specialist in. Alcoa, some of the chemical companies, etc. So that’ll get you the base metal exposure.

Tony Greer (33:02):

And then DBA, which is the Deutsche Bank Invesco AG ETF. And what that is, Clay, is honestly being long grains. You’ll get exposure to corn, soybean, bean meal, wheat, bean oil. All of the basic AG inputs and your long, pretty much just the AG commodities, plus some cash instruments that fill out the ETF where you get good exposure to the grain markets. And to me, that one particular third leg of the commodity trade across energy base metals and grains, that’s a really important leg to have on in your portfolio, if you ask me, Clay, because that’s the one that’s going to go up and go up commensurately with your grocery bill.

Tony Greer (33:48):

So if you get along the AGs and these higher energy prices and higher commodity costs lead to runaway grain markets, which could be a scenario that we’re dealing with. All it takes is a couple of months of bad weather for the harvest to go to shit and grain prices to go bizarre. So the reason I like being in DBA also is because if I get crushed in my DBA trade, in my hedge, that’s beautiful, man. That means that commodity prices are going down. That means that my box of cereal is still two and a half, three bucks. That means that the gallon of gas is two bucks. That’s fine. That means that everything is going in the right direction. I’m happy to lose that money on that trade. That means that we’re pivoting back into civilization where we’re using the energy that we have as a natural resource to refine civil and make food prices cheaper and make heating your home cheaper and things like that.

Tony Greer (34:46):

But right now we’re doing the opposite of civilization here. So you have to have the right exposure in your portfolio. So I guess the way for me to put it is I’m in this DBA AG trade, almost hoping that it goes wrong. But if the grocery bill side of the trade goes wrong, the reality side, and I’m going from 300 to 400 to 500 to 600 bucks a month, a week, whatever it is, next year, DBA is going to be a lot higher. And my position in that is going to pay for the extra grocery money that I need. So I think that’s a really smart way to be involved. That’s a very pure hedge. Like I said, if that thing goes down, that’s because grain prices are getting cheaper and it’s going to be easier for you to get your hands on them at a low price.

Tony Greer (35:30):

The other two sectors of the market that I consider to be hard assets are obviously the precious metal markets. That’s gold and silver, which haven’t been performing and the fifth leg of that quasi heart asset, because it’s not a hard asset, but it is an inflation hedge cryptocurrency. That’s another part to me of the inflation hedge in a way I can protect myself because we’ve seen a lot of inflation in the Biden administration due to, excuse me, a lot of factors, right? The energy policy is one direct source of inflation, stimulus from the treasury is another obvious source of the inflation, expanding our national debt is inflationary. So that’s everything that this admin is doing right now.

Tony Greer (36:14):

And if you look back at what the traditional inflation hedges have been gold, for example, how is gold doing? Crappy gold is not doing anything in this environment, in this inflationary environment. Why? In my opinion, because Ethereum is up 400% for the second year in a row. And Bitcoin is up 65%, which is still on a massive run from where the 50K is and the Bitcoin now are high 40s. That’s been the right inflation hedge because when I look back, the inflation started right when Trump left office and Biden took office. What’s been the best performer since then? Cryptocurrency and oil and gas, right? So it’s really, really intuitive to me that cryptocurrency is rallying as an inflation hedge be because people will exchange their Fiat currency for pretty much anything right now. I think that that’s another great place to hedge against inflation. Just because it’s proven to be a great hedge while the traditional hedge gold has done absolutely nothing.

Tony Greer (37:12):

So that’s where I’ve forced myself from being maybe skeptical Bitcoin player to being a believer because I can’t look back over the last two years and see all the inflation that we’re seeing and see two year yields jump out of the gym like they are now to signal more inflations coming, and not personally feel the need to get ahold of some crypto. So that’s the fifth leg of my set of inflation hedges, if you will, going around the horn from energy to base metals, to grains, to cryptocurrency and precious metals.

Tony Greer (37:48):

And so I think that a mixture of all of those, in whatever form suits your logic application to what’s going on, I have a very negative bent on our energy policy and it makes me very bullish energy. Other people aren’t as bullish energy with the same set of facts in the background, right? People think that the inflationary side of the coin is going to really put a damper on economic activity. And so I think that the more inflation we see, the more the stocks are green light go to rally, the more hard assets are going to rally. And so I still see this trade continuing into 2022 in a very non-linear and [inaudible 00:38:30] path, if that’s fair to say.

Clay Finck (38:32):

Got it. A lot to think about going into 2022. So Tony, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Before we close out the episode, where can the audience go to connect with you?

Tony Greer (38:43):

My website is www.tgmacro.com. There’s probably a little bit of a history about me and my company on there. You can subscribe to my newsletter there. You can find me on Twitter @TgMacro and you can send me an email at tony@tgmacro. If you have any questions, I’d be happy to answer them about the markets or about my product or anything like that. And I can’t thank you enough for having me on. Clay, I really appreciate you giving me a new audience to reach out to.

Clay Finck (39:10):

Awesome. I’d love to have you back on the future, Tony. Thank you so much.

Tony Greer (39:14):

Say when my man I’ll come back anytime. I love talking about commodity markets.

Clay Finck (39:18):

All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Please go ahead and follow us on your favorite podcast app so you can get these episodes delivered automatically. And if you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out our website, theinvestorspodcast.com. There you’ll find all of our episodes, some educational resources we have, as well as some tools you can use as an investor. And with that, we’ll see you again next time.

Outro (39:41):

Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday we teach you about Bitcoin and every Saturday We Study Billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.