00:00 Speaker A

Gold right now is on pace for its best annual gain since 1979. Gold has rallied 40% year to date. This is after a rally of about 27% last year. I mean, this is unbelievable when you look at what has been happening with gold. So much of this, of course, is because of the Fed easing and expectations that the Fed will continue to ease. But you also have that weaker dollar that was just talked about as well. That has also been contributing to gold prices going higher. You’ve seen the dollar index down 10% year to date, and then you’ve got central banks that have been adding gold positions and that have been really accelerating their gold positions quite a bit since 2022. So all of this is very bullish for gold going forward. Um, you do have some analysts that are talking about watch out for a pullback, but nonetheless, I mean, you have some price targets that are going into the 4,000 uh into the second half of next year. so the street’s still bullish on gold.

01:21 Brian

And at the same time and as you have gold hitting the records and you have this sell off uh that a lot of folks awake to on cryptocurrencies, notably Bitcoin, Ethereum getting hammered. It’s hard to figure out what the next catalyst is in crypto. After a big year.

01:42 Speaker A

Yeah, it is. And this is one of those moments where investors look at crypto and they say, oh yeah, that’s right. It is very volatile. I mean, we have seen uh Bitcoin in this sort of trading range uh between 110 and 120. Uh, but still, uh, you’re looking at a Bitcoin that’s down right now and as you mentioned Ethereum and it has been though a bull a bullish year for crypto. I mean, Bitcoin is up 20% year to date, not as much as gold, but still nonetheless. Look, um this month tends to be seasonally um weak for Bitcoin. So, as far and it tends to be better a bit better for all coins, but nonetheless, October should be a better month for Bitcoin. But keep in mind that crypto tends to sort of uh be a precursor for what happens with equities. So not a good sign that we are seeing uh this pullback with crypto in general.

02:58 Brian

Tim, do you view Bitcoin like stocks in the sense that if stocks were to pull back here, perhaps you buy that dip. Do you do the same as it pertains to Bitcoin and crypto widely?

03:14 Tim

Well, I think, you know, taking a step back, Brian, when we look at the value of crypto or you look at the value of gold, we really think they solve the same issue right now, which is is a store of value and and really helping mitigate a lot of the risk that you see with the deficits, the big beautiful bill and the Fed cutting uh into this environment. We do, however, Brian, we view them very differently in the portfolio. Gold, we view more on the risk control side where Bitcoin is clearly and crypto is a risk asset. Uh I do think one of the things that’s been so interesting, I think really opening up uh, you know, this crypto world to more investors, you know, the volatility, a lot of them, they just can’t stomach that, right? But when we look at some of the innovations in the ETF landscape, I look at an ETF like QBF, you’re getting 74% participation on the upside in in Bitcoin, but then you have a 20% floor in place against losses. That is significant and in our asset allocation models, that really gives us the ability to hold that in different places and increase the allocation, which with everything going on, we think those those asset classes like gold and Bitcoin are so important and really opens up the spectrum for investors who may be more risk-averse that wouldn’t have been able to hold otherwise. So, we’re continue to be bullish on the asset class, you know, we’ve been that way for for a very long time now, Brian, and this is just new avenues as way to hold it.