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MacroVoices #521 Jeff Currie: The Great Rotation
01:01:56
MacroVoices Erik Townsend & Patrick Ceresna welcome, Jeff Currie. They’ll discuss the commodity bull market, why metals are outperforming almost everything else, energy demand from AI and data centers, China stockpiling commodities, and much more. https://bit.ly/40imDo9 🔻Download Big Picture Trading Chartbook 📈📉: https://bit.ly/4tWtb9t ✅Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial at Big Picture Trading: https://bit.ly/4d1fcag 🔴 Subscribe to Patrick’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Patrick_Ceresna 🔴 Subscribe to Erik's Substack: https://eriktownsend.substack.com/
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- [00:08]
A
This is Macro Voices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high net worth individuals, family offices and other sophisticated investors. Macro Voices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics, telling it like it is bullish or bearish. No holds barred. Now here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Seresna. Macro voices Episode 521 was produced on February 25, 2026. I'm Eric Townsend, Carlyle Group Partner and former Goldman Sachs Commodities chief Jeff Curry returns as this week's feature interview guest Jeff and I will discuss the commodity bull market, why metals are outperforming almost everything else, why Jeff says they'll continue to outperform hydrocarbons and other things that are tied to affordability, energy demand from AI and data centers, precious China, stockpiling commodities and much more. Then be sure to stay tuned for our post game segment after the feature interview when Patrick's Trade of the Week focuses on a precious metals long built around the sanctions, de dollarization and hoarding theme. And as always, we'll give you our latest perspective on all the major markets
- [01:23]
B
and I'm Patrick Suresna with the Macro Scoreboard Week over Week as of the close of Wednesday, February 25, 2026, the S&P 500 index up 94 basis points to 69.46. It ends in the center of a multi month trade range. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technicals to watch in the post game segment. The US dollar index down 8 basis points trading at 97.64. The April WTI crude oil contract up 57 basis points trading at 65.42. The April R Bob gasoline up 227 basis points trading at 2 and a quarter. April gold contract up 433 basis points trading at 5226. Gold continues recovering from that short term selling pressure. The May copper contract up 310 basis points trading at 598. That March uranium contract down 113 basis points trading at 8775 and the US 10 year treasury yield down 3 basis points trading at 405. The key news to watch this week is Friday's PPI inflation numbers and next week we have the ISM manufacturing and services PMIs, retail sales and the closely watched jobs numbers. This week's feature interview guest is Carlisle Group Partner and former Goldman Sachs Commodities Chief Jeff Curry. Eric and Jeff discuss the reemerging commodity super cycle, the weaponization of critical materials, why gold and strategic metals are increasingly treated as reserve assets in a sanction heavy world and what it means for oil, natural gas and the broader energy transition. Eric's interview with Jeff Curry is coming up as Macro Voices continues right here@macrovoices.com.
- [03:21]
A
And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Eric Townsend. Joining me now is Jeff Kurit, partner at Carlyle Group and also well known as the former commodities chief at Goldman Sachs. Jeff, it's been way too long and it's great to get you back on the show. Since you're Mr. Commodities. I've got to ask you, I think what we're seeing is the stock bull market of the early 2000s is giving away to even bigger commodity bull market of the late 2000s. Is that what's happening and if so, what's the macro driver? Why is it happening?
- [03:57]
C
Oh absolutely. I think started back in October 2020 through the middle of 22. You know oil got up to like 130 and we saw a big run up in commodities during that time period. The drivers of, you know we, in fact we made a call when I was at Goldman for a commodity super cycle in October of 2020. And I'd argue every point that we made at that point in time are valid even more so today than it was then. So if you liked it then you really got to like it now. So why don't we just kind of go over the big drivers and you know from a supply perspective you out was, you know the, the under investment, you know, you know years of poor returns going back to 2014 saw capital redirected into other sectors, you know, like tech. And as a result, you know you look at like whether if it's metals or oil or you know, agriculture, most of these real assets have faced years of underinvestment with like with oil. This year is the last time you have big surge in non OPEC production. In fact it was in this coming month of March. That's it. There's really nothing behind it. Refineries, there's nothing behind it. Copper, I can go down all the metals. The underinvestment thesis, it's been in place since then, still very much in power. And when you look at metals, they've just been a straight line since 2020. Actually you look at the equal weighted, you know, commodity indices like you know, the underweight, oil and we'll talk about oil a little bit later. It's just been a straight line since, since 2020. So what were you know the, the drivers on the Demand side. And I really the same three are there. And it was deglobalization, decarbonization, let's call it electrification for current terminology. And then the third one was redistribution. So another way to say it is the, you know, the deglobalization is the war on free trade. The decarbonization was the war on climate change and the redistribution is the war on income inequality. So let's go with the first one, deglobalization. It is so much further than what I ever envisioned. You, you know, whether if it's defense spending, supply chains, you know, like to say we've weaponized the periodic table. It's gotten so severe since then with China curtailing critical mineral supply in 22 natural gas, even more recently with the US sanctions on Iranian and in Russian oil, all of it's been weaponized. So that story, that theme is just turned up in volume and that's even what's driving gold because ultimately you de dollarize because you don't want any owned any dollar assets because the Americans can employ sanctions on you through the swift system. So even gold is going up because so that de globalization theme, you know, live and kicking and you know, again actually another data point, Europe, 5% of GDP committed to defense spending. It's all commodities. So anyway, that theme as let's go to the next one. You know, we called it decarbonization in 2020 today called electrification turbocharged by the way, US I'm putting US, Europe and China record installation of renewables in 2025 and 2026. And in China, as you and I are one of our favorite topics to talk about nuclear capacity installation. China is just leading the world in that. So electrification, that story, you know, is. And then you throw data center demand on top of that electrification story is far stronger than we ever dreamed of in 2020. And then the third one, the redistribution, and that really goes to fiscal policy and the need to redirect capital into lower income groups to deal with the civil unrest and the problems that are associated with which are all over the world right now. And when we think about the spending and this is the argument and you and I have talked about in the past, Eric, is when you money goes to the lower income groups, you get a proportionately larger spend on commodities. So you put it together, you know, demand even an oil surprising to the upside for many different reasons. We'll talk about oil later, but we're seeing it across the board. And I just want to address one last point here before we leave this Topic is a lot of people are going to go, you know, Curry, you're so wrong on oil. Yes, I was so wrong on oil. It went down. And we think about commodities, all the ones that have a atomic number associated with them that are in the periodic table. And I like to say the weaponization of the periodic table have gone straight up. Anything that has a carbon hydrogen into it have really struggled. What's carbon hydrogen? Hydrocarbon. So oil, gas and coal, carbohydrates like corn, wheat and so forth. What do these organic chemistry commodities all have in common? Affordability. They drive inflation. And when we think about what, you know, the primary driver of every politician in the Western hemisphere in the western west is get inflation down at all costs. And so we think about what happened is that we go back to 22, 23 and we saw that the drop of inflation was globally synchronized. It occurred against record demand of commodities, very strong US GDP growth, relatively good GDP growth in China. So it really could not have been demand, it had to have been supply because again, globally synchronized, strong demand. So where do they get the supply? Turn a blind eye to Russia, Iran, Venezuela. Hey guys, turn up the volume. And then you look at immigration. Where did, how did you get the wages down? I just tell anybody, go back and look at immigration across us, Canada, Europe and the rest of them. It's a line going straight up. Get your wages down. How did you get the food prices down? We don't care about what's, you know, the palm trees in Philippines or, you know, the land in Latin America. Just harvest as much as you possibly can. Turn a blind eye to environmental regulations. So they did that. Now what problems are all these countries facing with right now? Well, US went into Venezuela, you got a problem in Iran, you got a problem in Russia. You're not doing that trick again. These guys are producing at max. Then you look at, and so you're, now you're turning them off again. And then you look at what happened with, you know, with immigration, you know, by the way, places like Canada were up, I think like two or three acts. And here in the UK was up like 100%. US was up 50%. And now you're getting the backlash from that. So, you know, I'm not going to say, you know, I'm not. I know there's a lot of sensitivity around immigration. I don't want to put it down, but I think the key point here is those CH commodities, those affordability, anything associated with affordability was forced out. Eventually you're running out of those Tricks, there's no more insurance policies. Next time around, you're not going to be able to open the floodgates on immigration. You're not going to call up Iran going, hey, we don't care, start exporting again against sanctions. This is not happening. Anyway, I think you get the point here is that story started back at the beginning of this decade. It continued on in the, in the metal space, in the organic chemistry, the CH commodities, grains and oil and food and fuel. It was delayed. And I think what we're witnessing right now, and especially with the hype of AI settling down, that commodity super cycle is reasserting itself. And as you point, I think it's not, it's, it's a continuation story and it's only going to get bigger as we go to the end of this decade, I think. Where are we in this right now? We're in the foothills of the Himalayas.
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A
Jeff, a quarter of a century ago you wrote a piece called Revenge of the Old Economy. You were diagnosing what went wrong with the dot com bust and so forth. You told me off the air. You've recently written a piece, I'm not sure if it's titled the Revenge of the Revenge of the Old Economy, but basically the same theme is back. Why is it recurring now? What's the new piece about?
- [12:45]
C
And we just base, I basically was a cut and paste of what we wrote back quarter century ago, a few years back.
- [12:51]
A
How's that?
- [12:52]
C
Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, all right. But the, but I think let's talk about what we observed there. By the way, at the time I thought it was a one off and I'd seen something that, you know, and now I realize it's a cycle. So let's go. What I thought about it in 2001 is that the story we told was due to poor returns in the, in the old economy. And by the way, the stat that we had for it in, in, you know, 2000, 1999, was that US EMPs destroyed 27 cents on every dollar they were given during that decade of the 1990s. So they, they, they returned, they kept 73 cents of it. You know what that number is in the 2010s, all the way up through 20, 21, 54 cents was destroyed. That means they kept 46 cents of it. So you know, that's the type of wealth destruction that occurred back in the 1990s on that slide. So all the capital chased where the returns were, which was the new economy. Eventually you choked off so much investment into the Old economy, you got shorted. And by the way, that bull market really started in the late 90s, early 2000s and then took a breather around September 11th. And then the whole thing came crashing down in late 0102 and then you had that rotation. The story why we called it the revenge of the old economy was pretty simple. Lack of investment in old economy. You starved at the capital it needed and then you're off to the races. Then you throw in a demand shock like China on top of it and then it got turbocharged. Now let's go back and I'm going to say at the time I thought, oh, it's unique. Then we started realizing, no, this stuff happens all the time. And what are the two most important industries in the global economy? Technology and energy. If you can't, you know, if you can't turn the lights on, nothing ever happens. If you don't innovate, you never progress. So technology and energy are the two most important sectors and all we do is rotate over time between technology and energy. And in fact I saw somebody put up this chart going what are the big themes in investing? You look at it, you know, they don't really absorb, they call it, oh, it was China or something like that. But reality, you're always rotating between those two. And let me give you. So I really realized it was about 2022 or 2023. It's not old economy, new economy, it's actually asset light, asset heavy. And by the way, in what is a commodity super cycle or a asset heavy boom or an old economy boom, it is nothing other than a capex cycle, really simple. And you look at some of these charts we have, just look at the CapEx cycle and that's. These are, you know, 25, 30 year cycles. And that's what, what, what happens here. But I want to go back to the nifty 50, let's start there. And why do I want to use the term asset light? So we begin the 1960s, we have excess commodity supply from the rebuild from the second World War. This put downward pressure on interest rates. So you got low and stable inflation. And boy, equity markets like low and stable inflation leads to low interest rates. You know, you had LBJ browbeat Arthur Burns get interest rates down as much as you possibly can and then he started spending and so that you laid the foundation of those low interest rates. Now what do low interest rates do a lot of people think low interest rates should lead to Capex boom because money's cheap. No, it leads to a duration Boom. You go, you, you want to buy growth way out in the future when interest rates are low. And what were the nifty 50? McDonald's, Coca Cola, they're all brands franchise. Think about McDonald's, it's identical to Microsoft. It was infinitely scalable at zero marginal cost because it was a franchise. So it had that long term growth story. It was all the same stuff in that nifty 50 as the dot com boom was in the 90s because it was all long term growth. Technology companies again, software, infinitely scalable, zero marginal costs. And then the 2000 and tens when you had the low and stable inflation it was like Google. And so you look at the rotation in like 1968, Coca Cola was the most valuable company in the world and like Exxon was at the bottom. Fast forward to 1980 after you ran out of commodity supply. You had a huge inflationary shock. Exxon was at the top and Coca Cola was lower down. But I think the point here is don't underestimate the demand shock. What was the demand shock that caused that inflationary boom in the, in the 70s? It wasn't, you know, OPEC just turbocharged it with the Arab oil embargo. But the real cause of it was LBJ's Great Society. Remember guns and butter. And then we go into a period of a commodity boom. You redee, bottleneck the energy and then you go into the, you know, the 80s and the 90s, interest rates low, you get the dot com boom. Now it's Microsoft at the top, Exxon at the bottom. And then you run out of supply. And then your big demand shock was, was China. Note that all those demand shocks were policy. It was LBJ in the late 60s with his, you know, war in Vietnam plus the, the, the war on poverty. The Chinese one was a decision by policymakers to let them into the wto. And then you get to the, the, the twenties. It was Covid, you know, it's a shock to the system on their investment. Now what is it going to be this year? 2026? Big beautiful bill. Germany with by the way, you have a fiscal policy bonanza this year. You've got big beautiful bill. You have Germany, you have Japan, you have China. I think we, we haven't seen this big of a global synchronous pop to the system actually I would argue since COVID And look what Covid did. So I'm taking a long think about why these cycles here. So just, I think the way we like to think about it now is it's a Rotation between asset light, asset heavy. Asset light is usually tech. Asset heavy is usually energy and commodities. Now, there's one last twist, and I know I'm dragging on here, so bear with me, is that if you can think about the asset light booms being driven by bits and the asset heavy booms being driven by atoms. One thing that is really different, and this is the core, the twist and the piece we put out yesterday, is this time the bits meet the atoms. And how do you get the bit atoms? Think about what is AI compute. The technology companies are becoming asset heavy. They're putting steel in the ground, and as they put steel on the ground, the bits meet the atoms, you get a bit atom commodity called AI Compute, by the way, you know, it sits on your Bloomberg screen. You can trade it AI Compute. It's in, I think, dollars per hour and you have cryptocurrencies or mining where you're burning vast amounts of atoms to get a bit. So we're in a new world where the bits meet the atoms. So yeah, that may be a normal rotation, but I think we're in an exciting new world. And, and I think it's just going to create even more demand for the physical world. Think about AI requires less labor, more commodities. So this one's going to be bigger than the ones in the past. But I think around the long answer to your question, these are big cycles. We're in the beginning of a new one. I'd say it's the bottom of the first inning.
- [20:41]
A
Jeff, you mentioned China several times. I want to come back to that and I'll get to AI and energy demand in just a minute. But first, let's just touch again on China. They are stockpiling everything like it's going out of style. Actually, let me correct myself. They're stockpiling everything as if they are preparing for either war or major sanctions and embargoes. Is that what's driving this? Are we headed imminently toward a US China conflict? And what will it mean in terms of commodity markets if it happens?
- [21:14]
C
By the way everybody's hoarding, it goes back to the geopolitical going back. What was one of the key drivers to this super cycle call? It's the deglobalization and deglobalization and the war on free trade. You can't get it. And if I'm China, think about this. I'm China. I watched the US go into Venezuela, just cut my oil. I put a hundred billion dollars into that country to develop all that oil, and they just Stopped it. And the Russian escort to the tanker just got stopped, pulled over. My supply is being curtailed. And by the way, we wrote a piece recently talking about Venezuela, Russia and Iran. These guys are all Chinese colonies. I mean, let's just be blunt about it. But I think the key point here is if you are a consumer of oil, you're China, you're India, you are Europe. World's really dangerous because the US Just cut your supply off. You know, there's these sanction orders, particularly if you're India or China. So what are you going to do? You're going to hoard. What did President Trump just announce the vault he's hoarding critical minerals. I can go down the list. I mean, if you're sitting there and you're a procurement officer in one of these companies, you gotta be going, hey, how does my supply chain look like for tomorrow? So I think what you're arguing, whether you want to say you're preparing for war or whatever, bottom line, the world's more dangerous. And let's put gold into this story. Why is gold to the moon? You're hoarding gold. Why are you hoarding gold? Because owning dollars is dangerous. So it's all of the same story. Look at the US in the comex. It's hoarding all of the world's copper into the comex. Why? Fears around tariffs. So the list goes on and on and on. So you're absolutely right. China is hoarding all sorts of commodities. But we're seeing this everywhere, and people go, oh, what's going on in China is going to end tomorrow. Let me remind all these listeners that the US hoarded oil like this in the 1980s, late 70s, from 77, I think the like 88 or 89 for over a decade. It doesn't stop. And so when we think about how long this can go on, it can go on for an incredibly long time. And by the way, we. I don't. In fact, I do want to get into this oil glut narrative. I've never seen a. A narrative take hold with zero credibility or evidence behind it, you know, because this stuff is demand, it's real demand. And I think gold is the one that's most symbolic of it.
- [23:47]
A
Jeff, I definitely want to come back to gold and silver and the oil glut. But first I want to go a little bit deeper on what you said before about AI and the bit atom connection. It seems to me like AI is something that has become an existential, if you will, an arms race of AI technology Its military implications. Implications are so strong that you can't just say, oh, well, AI started to take off too much energy, let's scale it back. They can't scale it back because it's an arms race. So I think we're going to get into AI becoming the bad guy on the public stage that used up all the energy and made everybody's electric bills double. Is that a realistic fear? And if so, how do you see it playing out?
- [24:32]
C
By the way, the digital demand for power is just a steady upward trend. It was crypto before AI. It was big data, it was cloud big data. It keeps going back. This been going on for two decades. People talk about it. It's just a steady upward trend. It's just becoming so large now that it, it's, it's now starting to put some demand growth in places like the US where we haven't seen it before. Am I willing to say it's going to be the primary driver? I mean, at the edge we're talking, you know, moving from flat to 2 to 3% or maybe even 4% starts to put a lot of pressure on it. But I think that people are underestimating the technological innovation and the ability to do this stuff. You know, I look at the. I always compare AI to the shale revolution. You know, on the eve of 2014 or 13, on the eve of the collapse in oil prices, you know, everybody was investing in shale because it was going to be the demand. Everything's going to be there wasn't the demand that destroyed shale. What destroyed shale is the engineer pumped out three times more than what anybody ever thought they, you know, I have to say, don't bet against an engineer. Give them enough time and money, they will solve the problem. By the way, in 2013, they loved energy and they hated tech. By the way, there was a tech supply glut back then. You didn't. It was peak PC demand. Didn't want to go near it, just wanted energy, energy, energy. But the reality is, boy, did those engineers create an oil supply glut in 2014 and 15. I think when we think about what's going on in AI today, I would argue, you know, by the way you look at AI compute, yeah, it's going down because of obsolescence, but that price has weakened from like three bucks down into like, to the $2 range. And part of it is they just get better and better at. So I would be cautious about AI by the way, everybody's focused on the oil supply glut today and nobody thinks there's an AI computer glut. I'd be a lot more worried about an AI compute glut because these engineers are so bright than I would be of an oil one.
- [26:36]
A
You're worried about an AI compute glut. Too much computing capacity, including the energy to run that computing capacity. Or do you just mean too many computers?
- [26:45]
C
Too many. But the price of compute goes down. By the way, if it goes down, they'll even use more of it and use more energy. But the ability to. By the way, every single one of these technological revolutions always ends in tears for the equity guys. Always. You and I live through the shale one. And by the way, the shale one looks identical to the AI one. Even the SPVs, the structures of the financial engineering identical. It's like they took the pitchbooks from the shale guys, rubbed out the names of the energy companies and wrote in all of these OpenAI and the rest of it and just redid it. Because think about, they had the MLPs. The only difference is the oil guys went downstream into the MLPs here. The data center guys go upstream into the power guys. Other than that it looks identically the same. So you know, I look at, that's why. So when I say an AI compute, but I'd be less worried about energy collapsing than I would about the price because remember, there's a commodity called AI compute, it H100. You can look at silicon H100 on your Bloomberg terminal. You know, it's gone up to 242, but it's still well off the $3 range. So I think the key point here is I would be, I'd like to say don't bet against the engineers. Give them enough time and money. They can really surprise you on that theme.
- [28:12]
A
I'm convinced that the give them enough time and money for the AI compute demand ultimately is going to lead to a really increased nuclear renaissance because that's the right technology solution for AI energy demand. The problem is until we get off of conventional light water reactor technology onto something better and that's going to be a while. It takes just too darn long to build a new nuclear power plant. I think it's going to create a natural gas boom. It's an interim boom, you know, from now until we can really build out the nuclear. I think we're going to have to figure out how to build more energy some other way. And I think natural gas is the obvious benefactor. Would you agree? And if not, why not?
- [28:55]
C
100% agree with that. And by the way I'll be very careful while I say the price of compute's going down, it doesn't mean, I'm saying that it's going to lead to less energy demand. I just think they're going to get more efficient at it. But when we think about the demand out there, ultimately when we think about AI, where are the bottlenecks going to be? It's going to be the natural resources and the data that you feed the LLM models. That's it. Everything else, the margins are going to get crushed. And so you want to own the commodities and particularly power and you want to own the, the, the, the data that gets fed into the LLMs. And so if you're thinking about power, you know the place that you're going to get the, the, the most efficient increase in power is going to be through nuclear generation. So I absolutely agree, but that's not going to happen for another two decades or a decade. So what's your best bet for today? It's going to be natural gas. It's the easiest, fastest way to bring on powers. But I know people who put that trade on last year and it's been a really rough rocky road. We went up to $7 recently and came crashing back down to 320 of where we are today right now. But I think the, you know, the key message there though is I think you're absolutely right. You start to get the summer of this year, summer of next year. I think natural gas is going to see a lot of upside.
- [30:10]
A
Jeff, let's go back to gold and silver. We just had a, I don't know what to call it, a gut wrenching correction, $1,200 correction in gold. The catalyst probably that triggered it was the market misinterpreting the Warsh nomination. I think it was really just the market was so overstretched it needed a correction. I thought with something of that magnitude, surely it would take months and months and months to consolidate before we could move higher. But the news, I think this week, at least so far as we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon, is gold has moved above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement. The old adage in technical analysis is once you're past the 61.8, you're probably headed to 100% retrace. If we get a weekly signal, if we're above 5,166 on gold and I'm looking at 5,224 as we're recording, if we're above 5,166 at the end of the week it says to me that maybe this is already recovering and headed higher. Could that be true this soon after such a big correction?
- [31:17]
C
Absolutely. And you think about the period in the 2000 super cycle, it was incredibly volatile. I like to point out that these super cycles are just sequence of price spikes. They go oh, it's down. And then you catch. Because here's the way I like to think about what happens, particularly in silver in this case is the system gets overstretched, investors buy it and they run the price up so high and demand's pushing up against supply constraints. Eventually the demand gets so high demand collapses underneath it. Then it falls off the supply constraints comes crashing back down and then people go oh my God, this is cheap. They start buying again and boom. Smashes into the supply constraint again, explodes and it just does that over and over and over. And by the way, that discourages the investment because everybody gets scared. Oh it's going to collapse again, it's going to collapse again. And so you don't get the investment on a long term basis. And that's why, you know, the initial phase of these super cycles, they get really. By the way, you remember like aluminum and power back in 2001 and 2002 it was that same type of dynamic. It was like you're going up and down and up and down and it makes it nearly. You don't trade this stuff and you don't unless you absolutely have to. And so I think you know, that's this is going to be what you're seeing in gold and silver is we're going to see this across the commodity complex. And that's what all these super cycles becomes a common feature of again the equities by the way, the equity trade for the, for the metals and energy, it's been a nice smooth, easy ride. So by the way, if you, if you want this nice easy smooth ride, own the equities, don't own the commodity but the commodities it's going to be, it's going to be a rough rock. Like we're just talking to natural gas. Seven bucks to 3:20. And by the way, we all it takes is, you know, get you throw in some more weather and you know, put some data center demand on, you'll be up the races on that one too. So you know, I think hang on. And on gold this I don't see how you come up. It's not as price sensitive as silver or natural gas. And the underlying theme there in this environment, it's like the Swiss franc. As strong as it is, there's. There's no end in sight. And I, you know, where the demand is coming out of not only people hedging themselves against the debasement trade, but you have de dollarization going on by central banks all over the world afraid to own dollars for sanction reasons. And then you got to own the stuff for diversity reasons in your portfolio. Everybody's still underinvested. This space, you know, I like to point out the metal space. 200 billion a market cap, you know, so you know, you start throwing money and it's explosive anyway, I think this is a feature of a, of a Subaru cycle and expect to see a lot more of it. And I we're going to go higher.
- [33:53]
A
Let's talk about silver. Some people have suggested the dynamics there are different because silver had really gotten ahead of itself before the correction. Some people thought that that was really a result of the people who were pimping it, the Wall street silver and all that kind of stuff. And maybe after that blow off that we saw, certainly it is recovering, but it's not recovering on a percentage basis as strongly as gold is. And it was outperforming gold before the correction. What do you see ahead for silver?
- [34:23]
C
I mean, you're back to 91 right now. Yeah, it briefly got up above 100 and hit I think 120 at the high long run. It's a turbocharged version of gold. I mean that was one of our favorite picks back in 2020 when we first made the super cycle call because it, you know, it has the same underlying precious metal dynamics as gold, but it's a key input to all this electrification. Back then we called it decarbonization. Today we call it electrification solar panels and it's a core input to all of that electrical equipment that places like China make. And again, China short this stuff, which is part of the reason why China has been, you know, a big buyer of it. And again, the demand from corporates to afford it and things of that nature. I'm not in the forecasting business anymore, but some of those banks. I think it's B of A. Michael Wibner, I think what does he have, like 170 or something like that? And he's been doing this as long as you and I have. So I think there's a, you know, the potential here. There's a significant upside still.
- [35:26]
A
Jeff, let's come back to the inflation outlook, which you mentioned earlier in your first answer with all of this appreciation that we're seeing in gold and silver, what are we really seeing? Is the price of gold going up because of greater central demand? Are we really seeing the value of the dollars that gold is priced in going down?
- [35:48]
C
I think it's a combination of both. The initial surge, the de dollarization occurred the first time the Trump administration used sanctions against the Russians back in 2018. That was a shock to the system. And you realize you own US Bonds, you got problems. Then it. Then after you look at when it got turbocharged as soon as the US seized the Russian central bank assets in 2022 after the invasion, you're off to the races. That is de dollarization. You don't care. You're getting rid of your dollars because you don't want to get sanctions imposed on you. And at this point, emerging markets are doing this all over the world and now they just continue to add to the reserves. That has nothing to do with the debasement demand, which is mainly from investors. That's what you're talking about. But you put the two together. I like to point out dollar. Yeah, it's trading what, 1.34 against the pound sterling? Well, 1.17 against the euro. The only currency out there that it's just been slaughtered by is the Swiss franc. I think it's trading 0.77 against the dollar. So there, yeah, I think the story you're talking about, the rest of them, it's not that big of a shift. And when we think about the dollar, you know, it's, it's weakened, but in nowhere. Think about an.08 at the end of that commodity super cycle. It was trading 1.61 against the year, the euro. That was the peak of the dollar against the euro. So we're at 1.17 today. That's a long ways to go. So the answer to your question, there's been a little bit of it, but this is real. Like, hey, all these currencies are in a bad shape. Another way to think about this is this is not the dollar being singled out as being the bad character. This is fiat currency being singled out as the bad character.
- [37:39]
A
Let's come back to the oil glut narrative that you said you wanted to debunk. I couldn't agree with you more that the notion that there's a fundamental oil glut is crazy. I think that the long term fundamentals for oil are extremely bullish. But hang on, between now and the midterm elections, President Trump really doesn't have anything more important on his agenda than keeping energy in affordability prices low through the elections. So it seems to me like there's likely to be a lot of invisible hands at work trying to keep energy prices low for the next six months. Would you agree with that or are we looking at fundamentals that nobody can manipulate?
- [38:18]
C
I'm going to answer that question is I think there is going to be a tipping point where it can't be manipulated. But there's no evidence. How do you manipulate it? I look back at this and I asked myself, how did this happen? I've been doing this 30 years. I've never seen a narrative without any real fundamental evidence. And when you look at the actual fund of the real data, inventories are low. Do you know they're in the OECD countries today? They're lower today than they were a year ago. A lower than a year ago. That's. That's the real data. Yeah, you may have the satellite data some and even there they showed that the inventories floating at sea have turned over. The curve has been very backward dated. You and I both know a backward data curve is bullish. Refining margins are really wide. Spreads are. Yeah, the OSPs of the OPEC countries have come off, but they come off from relatively high levels. I'm just going, what are they looking at? And I don't know where the narrative, how did they get started and where did it come from and how did it get it go on for 18, 19 months? You know, when we think about AI in the productivity gains, you know, the one thing is that is that you got to verify the results of AI. We don't know if it is telling the truth or not. And as people in workplaces start using it more and more and more, you need more humans to actually verify that what there's doing that's not measurable is right. And you can think of it about the same way in markets. You have more markets being traded by algorithmic trading than we've ever had before. They tee off sentiment numbers and things like that that can drive it down. Because every other measure that you and I know says this oil market is bullish, except for the flat price. But the flat price can trade off the sentiment. But there's nothing there left to verify it because it's too expensive to verify it. And I think that's, you're going to see that in the productivity. The workshop's going to go, hey, the cost to me to verify this is so much. And the potential for an error becomes so great. They're just going to quit using it. And it's the same thing going on in oil that is being driven by algos trend followers and the, you know, sentiment to a point where it cannot correct itself unless you can get down underneath and go at the micro level and create enough upside to it. Maybe it's the, you know, an invasion in Iran or something that gets us out of this trap. The price level is driven by liquidity, not by fundamentals or anything like that. And the liquidity's been drained out. People are just, they don't want trades. Another thing is that a lot of people have lost a lot of money traded in oil, whether it be short or long, over the last two years. But to answer your question, it's going to happen. When is it going to happen? And there'll be a crude awakening. And so, you know, it's, you know, is it between now and the midterms? Is it, you know, a potential with Iran? It could be, but I think it's definitely, it's not a question if it's a question of when.
- [41:09]
A
Jeff, final question. You told me off the air that you're expecting an explosion of liquidity. What's that about? And the other thing I wanted to follow up with you on is you've been in touch with our good friend Josh Crumb, founder of ABEX Technologies. Those guys were doing some really exciting stuff specifically around liquid natural gas and futures trading and so forth. Do you have any update? Because we've had a lot of interest on our listeners for an update on what ABEX is up to.
- [41:39]
C
Yeah, I think this discussion just goes hand in hand. You know, when we think about the liquidity explosion, I like, you know, what we've seen in the genius act. Web 3.0, I don't like the word crypto. Call it DLT, distributed ledger technology or whatever it might be in AI. You put those three together, it's just like the CFMA act of 2000 and Web 1.0 that unleashed a liquidity explosion in commodity markets like we'd never seen before in the 2000. Why? Because the technology allowed you to go downstream and trade things we could never trade before because of web 1.0 was big data. And what we're on the cusp of right now, you put, you know, Web 3.0 combined with AI, combined with the Genius and Clarity Act. I think you're ready to unleash a liquidity explosion like the world has never seen before. And what's really going to be allow us to get down really what it's going to do is allow us to go downstream and trade things that we've never traded before. And how is it going to do? It is, is, is. Crypto was never made for human beings. It was made for machines. It's clumsy, it's hard to do. We're going to have AI bots trading crypto or trading, you know, tokens. I don't like the coins, I don't like the crypto. I like the d, the, the technology. I like the tokens that are in commodities like gold and silver. Real world assets, tokenized real world assets that we can partition into levels that are going downstream unlike ever before. I'd like to point out in the first wave, like when I was at Goldman Sachs, we could never trade plastic because we couldn't get downstream enough into the plastic markets because they're so fragmented. When you put AI and crypto together we're going to be able to go and make markets there and we take somebody like Abex and it's doing this in natural gas and getting into markets that you couldn't make before. The technology has allowed us to make market in natural gas. LNG hubs all over the place, getting into lithium carbonate power markets that are further downstream. So you know I'm really excited about the future of trading. You know I'm a, I'm an ned A you know, a non executive director at Abex and you know, I think the technology is extremely well positioned as we go into what we have to say, a liquidity explosion.
- [43:55]
A
Well Jeff, I can't thank you enough for another terrific interview. Before I let you go, please tell our listeners what you do at Carlyle Group. I know it's only institutional so you can't help our retail audience directly. But for our institution institutional listeners, what services are on offer there?
- [44:10]
C
I'm with the energy teams and do work with like the aerospace and defense team and going back to this, this super cycle theme and theme around deglobalization, let's forget you know, Carlyle cut its base in the aerospace defense sector. So Carlyle is extremely well positioned as we go into this commodity super cycle. Whether if it's energy team, you know, it's got a long history of developing assets in the upstream and refining and obviously given the defense spinning going around the world. So I'm super excited about the opportunities at Harlow.
- [44:45]
A
Patrick Seresna and I will be back as Macro Voices continues right here@macrovoices.com. Now back to your hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Ceresna.
- [45:02]
B
Eric, it was Great to have Jeff back on the show listeners. You'll find the download link for the post game Trade of the Week in your Research Roundup email. If you don't have a Research Roundup email, that means you have not yet registered@macrovoices.com just go to our homepage macrovoices.com and click on the red button over Jeff's picture saying Looking for the downloads.
- [45:25]
A
Patrick for this week's Trade of the Week, let's focus on Jeff Curry's theme of de dollarization and impact on metals. How are you thinking about positioning here and what's the most compelling way to express that view?
- [45:37]
B
Eric Coming out of Jeff's interview, my key takeaway is that gold isn't trading like a simple inflation hedge anymore. It's increasingly behaving like a geopolitical reserve asset in sanctions heavy world where supply chains and critical inputs are getting weaponized reserve diversification into bullion structural, not cyclical. So for this week's Trade of the Week, I want to look back at bullion. The gold correction has arguably come and gone and after a meaningful 20% peak to trough reset, this becomes less about timing a perfect entry and more about maintaining a core long exposure with a volatility dampener in case we get one more retest of those lows. This is where the options market helps. Gold continues to carry a fat right tail skew, which means you can sell relatively expensive upside to subsidize downside protection and create a more asymmetric overlay. So for this week's Trade of the Week, I'm looking at the 90 by 120 caller overlay on the GLD. The Gold ETF is trading at $476 at the time of recording. Using the May 15, 2026 expiration, we are buying the 430 STR for $8 and selling the 575 strike call for $5. That's a net $3 debit, or about $300 per caller per 100 shares. What you're buying is a defined risk envelope 10% below the price. At 430 you've effectively put a floor under your position on the upside. You stay long up to 575, which is roughly 20% upside. From here you're paying a small debit to dampen downside volatility while still keeping meaningful upside over the next 90 days if gold resumes its primary trend. This is particularly useful for those investors that feel maintaining a strong overweight is necessary, which always comes with some concentration risks. Bottom line Stay core long gold, add a low cost collar to dampen volatility in case we get another shakeout and use the skew to your advantage to keep the hedge asymmetric and inexpensive.
- [47:57]
A
Patrick Every Monday at Big Picture Trading, your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week. For those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail, don't miss out on a 14 day free trial@bigpicturetrading.com now let's dive into the post game chart deck.
- [48:16]
B
All right Eric, let's talk markets. What are your views here on these equities?
- [48:20]
A
Patrick the market was feeling pretty heavy flirting with the 100 day moving average support for several days this past week. For now we've bounced off of it. That's a little bit reassuring I guess. But the market is still trading sideways at best and a resumption of the uptrend remains uncertain. I don't have any strong timing views about what happens next, just concerned that if we do retest the hundred day and it doesn't hold, there's no obvious Support until the 200 day moving average down at around 6600 on the S and P. So hopefully we can stay above the 100 day but if not, look out below.
- [48:55]
B
Well Eric, the story has actually been the same on the S&P 500 for the last couple of weeks. First of all, for months we've been in a tight trade range and there has been no resolution and that's because the market is actually torn under the surface. It has a huge and substantial correction occurring in the financial sector and in the software stocks. While we continue to see what I have on page four, the semiconductor ETF chart breaking to fresh new highs with Nvidia just beating on its earnings as well. On page five I have the Cosby, the South Korean index which is going full on parabolic. And so we have these stories of these the AI story working on the semiconductor side but yet on the software side getting hammered. The Mag 7s remain weak and this is structurally heavyweight. Now Nvidia did beat on its earnings but there isn't any extraordinary upside. In fact it's relatively flat at the open. And so we have a scenario, well, what is going to drive an S&P 500 breakout? And, and really at this stage it would really take many of these very overbought mag sevens to, to feel the need to mean revert and, and actually potentially rally for a short period of time. And that is really in my mind the puzzle to solve. You know, if we find ourselves in 2, 3 trading sessions with Nvidia giving back all of its gains, that will be a structural blow to the semiconductor story and that could be what turns the tide. But it's too early to speculate at this stage. We're in this trade range. The market is very heavy, but we are gonna really need to see something give out for the sell cycle to kick in. It is noteworthy that near 6,800 on the S&P, only 150 points lower are a lot of systematic trading trip wires that could really have flows pivot to the sell side. So it really is for the bulls, if they wanna maintain this primary trend, to keep this market above this 50 day moving average and progressing higher. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts here on the dollar?
- [51:07]
A
The upswing stalled at about 98 on the Dixie, at least temporarily. But there's also no indication yet of any reversal to a lower swing trade. So the jury is still out, but absent to war. I think the rally is probably running out of steam here. The thing is, absent to war is not exactly to say it ain't going to happen because let's face it, the very possibility exists of a US attack on Iran. And I think that would be dollar bullish, at least in the short term.
- [51:36]
B
Well, Eric, it's interesting that the strength that we've seen in that US dollar over the last month has done nothing but 50% retrace back to the 50 day moving average. And so the primary downtrend is still intact. If for whatever reason we're given a catalyst for the dollar to have a breakdown, we could easily find ourselves heading for either double bottom retest or hit in the 94, 95 handle on the downside. But with us actually trading right at this 98 handle, there is the window that if for whatever reason there's a risk off impulse and the dollar is bid, you could have a burst above that 50 day which could pivot flows simply on a technical basis. Really, we're at a really important fulcrum point of, of where we're going to determine what's next. This 98 level is incredibly critical in my mind and it's going to really. We're gonna find out whether the prevailing downtrend remains the path of least resistance. All right, Eric, let's touch on oil here.
- [52:40]
A
Well, the rally in crude oil appears to have stalled because the fears of a strike on Iran haven't happened yet. Until a deal is reached though, or an Iran strike is completely off the Table, I expect the geopolitical premium to stay in the market, and I think that's what got us up here to this price level in the mid to high 60s in the first place. In the short term, and only in the short term, there's no supply crisis, that Iran conflict creates one. So there's plenty of room for prices to come back down to the low 60s or high 50s if the Iran strike comes off the table completely. Longer term, though, the fundamentals are bullish, especially after the election window.
- [53:21]
B
Yeah, Eric, when talking about oil, it's actually challenging to do a technical flows analysis when you've got such a huge geopolitical headline risk. That could really change the trend very, very quick. Overall, over the last two months, oil has been very well accumulated. All supports and sell offs have been held. Everything is in good trend. But really, I think the next big move on crude oil will be headline driven. At this stage, everything technically remains bullish. And if the news in any way spooks oil traders, we could have a quick surge higher. Very reminiscent of what happened last June when the nuclear bunkers were hit in Iran last time. This stage, we're still very nice and clean in that bull trend and we want to respect that trend, even though the risks are high here from that headline risk. All right, Eric, we gotta talk about gold here. What are your thoughts?
- [54:20]
A
Patrick, in my opinion, this week's move above 5,166, 5,166, which is the 61.8 Fibonacci retracement level of the correction that just occurred back on January 30, that move that occurred this week already is unexpected and very significant. What we need to see here, and I should say, as I'm recording, we're above 5200. If we can stay up here, above 5166 and even better yet, above 5200 and close there on Friday, so that we end up with a weekly close above that 61.8% fib level. That's a pretty good technical sign that we might already be moving toward an upside resolution to this correction. And frankly, that's faster than I expected it. I thought it was gonna be several months before this correction played out, considering how brutal it was and how it shook so many weak hands out of the market.
- [55:21]
B
Well, Eric, we did talk about this during our trade of the week. And overall I view the long term trend of gold to be very, very bullish. And it's very likely at this point that low near 4,500, that was established during the market correction is very likely to be the lowest gold is going to trade. But it is very common for after such a blow off on the upside for there to be multiple months of consolidation before the bull continuation pattern. So the one thing we just want to make sure to highlight here is that while the primary trend is up, while the macro conditions are very bullish, one simply needs to make sure your dur matches the realistic timeframe it's going to take for gold to make a new breakout. I think that if gold is destined to make fresh new highs, it very much is a second quarter story and anticipating some consolidations and maybe even a retest of a 50 day moving average as a possible outcome here on gold over the next few weeks. Overall, all dips should be bought and used as a tactical opportunity. All right Eric, what are your thoughts here on uranium?
- [56:36]
A
The uranium stocks moved nicely higher this week, but not with the gusto that I was kind of hoping for. The daily slow stochastics are high again, but they're not overbought yet. So hopefully we can see this move continue and continue a bit farther. But I wouldn't be surprised if we do get another swing trade lower into next week.
- [56:55]
B
Well, the entire pullback on the U308 has been just a traditional retracement, so the primary trend of higher highs, higher lows above all moving averages just remain intact. And so I'm going to give the bulls a benefit of doubt that there will be a re resumption on the upside trend here.
- [57:13]
A
Patrick, before we wrap up this week's podcast, let's hit that 10 year treasury note chart.
- [57:17]
B
Finally touching on that 10 year yield. We continue to see pressure on interest rates lower as bonds are doing well here. We're coming right to that 4% critical level. This is a level that was tested numerous times last year back in April and October and each time we broke below 4% even on a temporary basis. It spurred a very rapid recovery. We're going to get a very important tell here as we come and test those critical levels again. Will we see the same type of gusto and velocity on yields to rise or will we see that they stay down here on a sustained basis and that we're entering some sort of a different interest rate regime period. The tell is gonna definitely be on how we react off of a test of this 4% loss level, folks.
- [58:08]
A
If you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of big picture trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to bigpicture trading.com Patrick tell them what they can expect to find in this week's Research Roundup.
- [58:22]
B
Well, in this week's Research Roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview as well as the Trade of the Week chart book we just discussed here in the Post game, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more more in this week's Research Roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make this program even better. Now, for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners, send us an email@researchroundupacrovoices.com and we will consider it for our weekly distributions. If you have not already, follow our main account on Microsoft X at Macro Voices for all the most recent updates and releases. You can also follow Eric on X at ericss Townsend. That's Eric Spelt with a K. You can also follow me at Patrick Ceresna on behalf of Eric Townsend and myself, thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week.
- [59:32]
A
That concludes this edition of Macro Voices. Be sure to tune in each week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds in finance and macroeconomics. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from BigPicture Trading.com the Internet's premier source of online education for traders. Please visit bigpicturetrading.com for more information. Please register your free account@macrovoices.com Once registered, you'll receive our free weekly Research Roundup email containing links to supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research team could find on the Internet each week. You'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and research library. And the more registered users we have, the more we'll be able to recruit high profile feature interview guests for future programs. So please register your free account today@macrovoices.com if you haven't already. You can subscribe to Macro Voices on itunes to have Macro Voices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week free of charge. You can email questions for the program to mailbagrovoices.com and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our Mailbag segment. Macro Voices is presented for informational and entertainment purposes only. The information presented on Macro Voices should not be construed as investment advice. Always consult a licensed investment professional before making investment decisions. The views and opinions expressed on Macro Voices are those of the participants and and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors. Macro Voices, its producers, sponsors, and hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Ceresna, shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on Macro Voices. Macro Voices is made possible by sponsorship from BigPicture Trading.com and by funding from Fourth Turning Capital Management, LLC. For more information, visit macrovoices. Com.