The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

Something a little different this week.

On Monday I gave a talk for UK Finance called Making Sense of It All, about the multiple contradictions at work int he economy: rising bond yields yet equity markets grinding higher, huge investment in AI despite limited profit, and the growing squeeze on the materials needed to build AI infrastructure. (Many thanks to Duncan and Rhiannon for inviting me to speak).

I’ve taken the deck and put together an online version - the first time I’ve ever attempted such a thing - I hope you will find...

After an extraordinary run which started in 2022 below US$20/oz and ended in January this year at US$122, silver has been working its way downwards. We have had a correction of almost 50%. Today we’re at $58/oz having been as low as $55 in July. We are almost certainly going to go back and retest that low, I would say, and silver is very much in a downtrend.

$50 has been a huge line in the sand that goes all the way back to 1980 and for decades silver could not get above that number. Then, late last year, it cu...

It’s my pleasure to sit down with with the man who “gold pilled” me back in the day with his book, The Collapse of the Dollar.

James Turk, founder of GoldMoney, has spent five decades working in banking, finance and investments, making the case that gold is not an investment or another commodity, but money in its purest form. We discuss why he believes the US can no longer repeat the Volcker rescue of the 1980s, the relationship between sound money and liberty, and why he expects gold eventually to return to the centre of global commer...

Good Sunday to you,

We have a fantastic interview for you today. I sit down with legendary Canadian investor Frank Giustra to discuss gold, government debt and why he believes the world is entering the most dangerous geopolitical period of our lifetime. You can either watch the video or listen as a podcast via Spotify et al.Frank made his fortune in mining and natural resources, before founding Lionsgate Films, the world’s biggest independent film studio. His track record as a businessman and investor is superlative. We discuss why he believes this is no ordinary metals bu...

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I don’t know if it’s my own little online bubble, but every time I open my phone at the moment I am being swamped with bearishness and negativity.

Never mind all the political and social stuff, it’s financial as well. The problem I have is that a lot of the bearish arguments are well reasoned.

In a nutshell: too much concentration in the S&P 500, which under the surface is looking very mucky, bond yields...

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Good Sunday to you,

I have a lot of charts for you today, and fascinating ones too, but we begin with a little story.

John James Cowperthwaite was the financial secretary who oversaw Hong Kong’s extraordinary growth in the 30 or so years after World War Two. It was one of the greatest periods of economic expansion the world had ever seen. I’m not sure it has ever been equalled.

In the span of litt...

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The yields on 10-year US treasuries are rising. They’ve hit their highest level in nearly 20 years.

What does that even mean? And more importantly what are the implications? A lot of people are getting their knickers in a twist.

And why has gold’s promising little rally hit a wall?

And what about UK gilts, they’ve rocketed slap bang in the middle of the Labour Party conference, when they’re all promising more spending...

There are so many ways to bring down the cost of new build in the UK, chief among them reduced regulation, planning and taxation. So I was most disappointed, putting it mildly, to see Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new initiative, Your First Home, which will give government-backed equity loans of 20% to first time buyers, who will now be able to buy new build property with just a 2.5% deposit. Initially, that 20% will be interest-free.

This is just another means to saddle young people with debt. As if student loans weren’t bad enough.

Unlike period prop...

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Good morning to you and a big welcome to the many new subscribers, both paid and unpaid, who have joined the Flying Frisby this week.

We are now the Number One riser in Finance and Number Two in the UK, so we must be doing something right.

If you have not yet received your Britain On Sale report, you can access it here. (Any issues getting hold of it, DM me or reply to this email...

Good Sunday to you,

I finally went to see Odyssey last night. I’d been intending not to, after everything I’d read on X, but my daughter persuaded me, and I actually quite enjoyed it.

Maybe not an A+ movie, but a pleasant enough way to spend a few hours. I didn’t feel violated by all the casting, in the way that purists were, although Helen should have been stunningly beautiful, which she wasn’t. To use the parlance of the incel rugby player, she was a three-pinter.

And what people see in Z...

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Bitcoin is both volatile and cyclical.

You get periods of extraordinary gains. But then you get periods of extraordinary losses. But …

If you can buy during low points in the cycle, that volatility can work in your favour.

And the house view is that we are within a month or two of the low point right here and now.

It might be that the very low was on July 1st at $58,000. It might be...

One of the best things you can do with your time is hire a boat that you can sleep on and float up a river for a few days.

Time stops.

Absorb the weather, whatever form it takes, but sunny is best. Breathe in the air. Sleep as the boat gently bobs up and down. Contemplate. Talk. Play games. Eat. Swim.

Peace descends and nothing much matters any more.

I’ve done this several times on the Thames and, having just spent a few days in Serbia, I now plan to do...

Yes, physical gold is a safe haven, but gold also attracts a lot of speculative capital, particularly the paper markets. Gold futures are among the most traded futures in the world, and there is nothing physical about them. So when there is a panic, gold tends to sell off along with everything else as liquidity dries up and everyone rushes to cash.

The US dollar is actually the safe haven, except that it isn’t, because you are bleeding 7 or 8% of value every year to money supply growth.

I am getting so many messages at th...

Today’s post is short and simple.

Investing is often best done that way.

The short of it is this: a new commodities supercycle has begun. It’s going to last several years. You want to be long natural resources and natural resource companies.

The declining purchasing power of national currencies muddies the waters, but I should say that the eventual price of commodities, metals, grains, meats, fossil fuels, softs such as coffee and cotton, is lower. This is especially the case if you measure them using a constant unit of account such as g...

I have been banging the drum for copper for some time, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Gold has the glamour, but many, including veteran investor Rick Rule, now see the greater opportunity in copper.

In summer 2024, I highlighted three copper companies Amerigo Resources (ARG.TO) at around C$1.75 and Arizona Sonoran Copper (ASCU.TO) at C$1.36 and QCCU (QCCU.V) at 12c . Amerigo and Arizona Sonora both hit C$8 on Monday meaning gains of ~350% and ~500%. QCCU, on the other hand, is still at 12c. You can’t win them all.Back in Ma...

Good Sunday to you,

This week I’m talking to the goldbugs’ goldbug, Alasdair Macleod.

I’m more of a continued decline, muddle through guy, but Alasdair, as you shall see, is very much in the outright collapse camp and he sees that outright collapse coming soon, as you shall hear - within the next 18 months!

Alasdair has spent decades studying financial markets, monetary history and the role of gold, and his argument is uncompromising: gold is money; pounds, dollars and euros are credit. I could not agree more. Confidence in fiat currencies is app...

Good Sunday to you,

I am being impersonated again, so if you receive messages from someone that looks like it could be me, it isn’t. Please block and report. (Also feel free to message me so I can report them too.) Many thanks …

We have another Money, Markets and More for you today with Joshua Saul, founder and CEO of The Pure Gold Company, who tells us what gold and silver investors are actually doing after one of the most extraordinary runs in precious metals in recent years.Joshua is in the unusual position of s...

Apologies for the double email this Sunday, but we have another Money Markets and More, in which I sit down with precious metals analyst and forecaster Ross Norman to discuss the precious, China and why he believes the forces driving the precious metals bull market are structural.

You can either watch the video above, or listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify et al.

Ross has spent decades analysing the precious metals markets and has repeatedly won the LBMA’s annual gold forecasting competition. Few people know the mechanics of the physical gold market better, which makes hi...

Last week I walked some of Britain’s oldest path, the Ridgeway, which runs across south central England. It’s literally a ridge, and would once have been a vitally important path when the valleys on either side might have been impenetrable marsh or forest.

I walked 56 miles in 4 days, starting in Avebury and ending in Goring.

Lots of amazing views of Britain’s brown and pleasant land. Red kites galore. And, early on Day 1, I even saw a brown hare, something I hadn’t seen for many decades. At one point it sprinted (should say gall...

Good Sunday to you,

In the last of this series of interviews recorded at ARC, I sit down with retired (for now) businessman Toby Baxendale to discuss British industry, regulation, sound. money and why he believes Britain is making it increasingly difficult for entrepreneurs to succeed.

Toby built a successful business in the meat and fish industries, employing hundreds of people before selling the company. He believes Britain’s long-term prosperity depends on creating an economy that rewards production, investment and entrepreneurship once again.

Enjoy! (You can listen to the audio via Spotify et...

Your mid-week commentary will be later than usual this week. I have something quite special planned. In the meantime, here is another episode of Money Markets and More.

Today, I sit down with former Conservative minister Steve Baker to discuss sound money, inflation, taxation, gold and why he believes Britain’s monetary system is fundamentally broken.

You can either watch the video above or listen via Spotify, Apple Podcasts etc

Before entering politics, Steve served as an engineering officer in the Royal Air Force before working as an aerospace and software engineer. He la...

Good Sunday to you,

Today I talk to Toby Young, now Lord Young, journalist, author, and founder of the Free Speech Union discuss Britain: how it works, its economic outlook, inflation, the expanding state, free speech and whether the UK is heading towards a financial crisis.

As a member of the House of Lords, Toby offers a unique perspective on the direction Britain is taking politically and economically. We finish by discussing where he’d invest one hundred grand today.

As always you can watch the video above or listen via Apple Podcasts, Sp...

In this latest Money Markets and More, I sit down with Francis Foster, co-host of Triggernometry and author of Uneducated: My Life as a Teacher and Why You Should Never Become One, to discuss Venezuela, socialism, inflation, the pound, and why he believes Britain is heading towards a financial crisis.

You can also listen to this interview as a podcast in the normal way.

Before becoming a comedian and broadcaster, Francis spent twelve years as a teacher. In fact, he wanted to call his book 12 Years a Teacher - a title I loved - but...

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Sorry for the delay with this week’s piece, I have been travelling.

But our Summer of Gold continues today with what is, for me and many readers, our biggest position: Metals Exploration (MTL.L). It has also been one of our biggest winners.

However, this year the shares have gone nowhere. Today they trade in the 13-14p range, having touched 19p earlier in the year. They came down as the fizz came out of gold an...

In this next episode of Money, Markets and More, I sit down with Liv Boeree to discuss AI, risk, poker, game theory, incentives, state power and better decision-making.

I thought this was a terrific interview and I hope you enjoy it.

You can either watch the video above, or listen to the interview as a podcast in the normal way.

Liv argues that, while AI could bring huge breakthroughs in health, drug discovery, efficiency and human flourishing, thi same technology can also be used to cause serious harm. We discuss regulation...

The inaugural CPAC UK runs from July 16-18 in London. Speakers include the former PM, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees Mogg and Yours Truly . No Count Binface as far as I’m aware. Flying Frisby readers can get 25% off with this link.

A few weeks ago Josh from the Pure Gold Company asked if I'd be interested in recording some long-form interviews. It sounded like a good idea, so at ARC a fortnight ago we sat down and recorded six conversations. Season One, if you like.

The focus is not just gold or markets, al...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com

The S&P 500 is close to all-time highs, but it’s looking wobbly.

After magnificent runs, gold and silver are both washed out and trending lower.

Bitcoin is all but dead and buried.

Rates are rising the world over so you can forget about government bonds - that particular bull market is over.

Oil and gas have turned down now Trump and Iran have their deal.

Remind me what uranium is ag...

I was on a panel with veteran geologist Brent Cook earlier in the week and something he said rather struck me.

“It’s shaping up to be a brutal summer for mining companies.”Brent Cook

Looking at the chart below, it’s hard to disagree.

The Gold Miners Bullish Percent Index has fallen to zero.

Not 5 or 10, but zero. That’s lower in the in the crash of 2008 and during the Covid panic. It has only ever reached this level during the darkest days of the great gold bear market of...

Imagine you are in the circus, watching a tightrope walker who’s been on the sauce.

He sways, the crowd gasps, he sways again, more gasps, and yet somehow he doesn’t fall. This goes on and on and eventually you get bored watching.

That, it seems to me, is Britain.

Public debt is now knocking on £3 trillion. (Remember you could have spent a million pounds every day since Jesus was born and still not have spent a trillion - that’s how incomprehensible a sum a trillion is). Interest payments now run at over...

Hello,

A quick note about The Flying Frisby.

For several years I’ve offered a Lifetime Membership. The idea was simple: make a one-off payment and never have to think about subscription renewals again.

A surprising number of readers have taken me up on it.

However, I’ve decided to withdraw that offer permanently at the end of June.

The timetable is as follows:

• Lifetime Membership remains available at £550 until midnight on 15 June.

• From 16 June, the price rises to £650.

• At midnight on 30 June, Lifetime Mem...

Let’s start with a quick market update after Friday’s brutal action

The last few days have not been pleasant for owners of gold, silver, miners or indeed bitcoin. Friday saw on 8% fall in silver. How January’s euphoria has reversed. That’s silver for you.

My ongoing thesis that gold, silver et al go nowhere for a year remains in place.

The structural backdrop for gold’s bull market also remains: growing government debt, huge fiscal deficits, ongoing central bank accumulation, de-dollarisation. But the heat needed to come out of the market, an...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com

I was going to write about money transfer company Wise (WISE.L/WSE.US) this week.

The company recently listed on the Nasdaq, demoting its London listing to secondary, and the prospects looked rosy. UK-listed companies trade at lower valuations because they are listed in the UK. America not only has greater depths of capital, it values tech, growth and success. In the UK they get ignored, taxed or regulated - or all three.

And there is...

Following on from last week’s piece about the extent to which I use AI, I’ve had a surprising number of messages asking which AI I actually use and what for.

I should immediately stress that I am not some sort of AI guru. I know people use Claude to write code, automate businesses and build entire internal operating systems. That is beyond me. I can’t code. I’m a one-man band, who occasionally hires freelancers. I’m self-taught. But here’s what I actually use and what for.

I stress the best method of al...

Following my recent pieces on Namibia, several readers got in touch asking pretty much the same question: Fine. But how do you actually invest there?

Frontier markets are notoriously difficult to access. Interesting companies are privately owned, illiquid, unlisted or buried on obscure exchanges your broker has never heard of, or they carry their own small company risk that does not reflect the broader themes of the country.

To try and answer the question properly, I spoke to economist Rowland Brown, founder of Cirrus Capital, the country’s largest stockbroker, to discuss the best ways to...

My youngest daughter, who is supremely intelligent, refuses to use AI. She doesn’t want it plagiarising her, she says, and she doesn’t want her mind to get lazy. She’s currently taking her finals at Cambridge, where, she tells me, almost everybody is using it for everything. But she won’t. And good for her.

Another friend won’t touch it either, because she is so fiercely protective of her privacy and doesn’t like AI and social media having so much access to our inner lives.

But these people are exceptions. Almost everyone I k...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com

There’s a lot more to AI than software.

AI requires electricity, transformers, substations, cooling systems, data centres and more. That all means copper. Lots and lots of copper.

Right on cue, the copper price hit fresh highs last week at $6.68/lb, before pulling back.

So today I am going to take a long overdue look at copper. Was last week’s action just a spike that will soon fade away? Or was it part of s...

Namibia sits on the south-west coast of Africa. Below Angola, above South Africa, with Botswana to the east.

Portuguese explorers first reached the coast here in the 1480s. No natural harbour, brutal surf, cold Atlantic fog, the Namib Desert running straight into the sea, little access to fresh water. They planted crosses to mark their claims, turned around and went home again, never to return.

Today that coast is known as the Skeleton Coast because of shipwrecks and whale bones.

Three hundred years later, having decided there was too much tropical disease in...

As I’m sure you know, it is all but impossible to destroy gold. Yes, yes, nuclear explosions, blah blah, mercury, aqua regia, but to all intents and purposes gold is permanent. It’s been here since before the earth itself, and it’ll be about long after it’s gone, shining away.

That also means that all the gold that has ever been mined still exists. Some of it has been lost, of course, but it’s still there somewhere, even if it’s sitting in sunken Spanish galleon off the coast of Tobago.

There are ju...

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It is always nice to be a national of a country that is leading the pack. It makes one proud to be a world leader.

When it comes to cracking sovereign debt markets, however, you do not want to be leading the pack.

But that is where we are in the UK.

Even Mohamed El-Erian is tweeting about it.

Yields on 30-year gilts, ie UK long-term government borrowing costs, hit 5.75% this week, the...

Something of a thought experiment today, motivated by the fact that I don’t want to go through another bear market in mining. I’m done with them. The false dawns, the endless grinding declines, the frustration.

You might remember me saying, mid bear market a few years ago, “One more bull market and I’m done.”

So the question I’m asking today is, “when can we expect this bull market to end?” It might already be over, for all I know. Or there might be another five years in the tank.

I’m asking this...