Felix Nikolas Prehn's Podcast

We connect Europe’s unrest, factory closures, and capital flight into one financial story, then stack it against the United States to see which risks are already here and which could still arrive. We lay out a calm, three-step way to assess your exposure so you can protect your portfolio and retirement instead of reacting to scary headlines. 
• the four “cracks” under Europe’s turmoil and how they link together 
• why pay-as-you-go pensions break when demographics shift 
• the three political exits: cut benefits, raise taxes, print money 
• how inflation can hit savings without “taking” money 
• why housing afforda...

We break down the viral claim that fusion technology can turn mercury into real gold, then run the numbers that most headlines skip. We also look at why the diamond comparison misleads, what central banks are doing with their own money, and how we think about miners after a sharp pullback. 
• the physics of transmutation versus the economics of production 
• why enriched mercury costs break the “cheap gold” narrative 
• the radioactive delay problem and why it matters for supply 
• the diamond crash explained as manufactured scarcity collapsing 
• gold framed as the hard-to-produce counterweight to money printing 

A $1.2 trillion Nasdaq plunge looks like a crash, but we break down why it is a targeted AI trade sell-off with money rotating into defensive sectors. We also explain what hedge funds are doing, why junk-rated AI project debt matters, and how to think about protecting your portfolio when the S&P 500 starts moving with a handful of AI names. 
• the real meaning of AI derating and why valuations reset 
• Tesla CapEx cuts, Meta credit risk signals, and weak guidance as catalysts 
• how hedge funds short stocks and why positioning hits five-year extremes 
• what a short squeez...

Gold drops more than 3% in a day, yet central banks and top Wall Street research desks keep leaning into gold. We break down the short-term forces hitting the price, the long-term reasons demand is surging, and the practical ways to own gold without getting trapped by fees or bad storage.

• central banks buying gold at roughly five times the old monthly pace 
• how Goldman Sachs estimates hidden buying with real-time trade data 
• why Bank of America frames the trade as long gold and anything but the dollar 
• the real reason the price falls when oil rises a...

A currency reset can quietly rewrite the value of your savings while you are still playing by the old rules. We lay out a calm plan built around what holds value outside fragile promises, plus the simple tests we use to spot businesses that can survive inflation and tightening money. 

• Defining a currency reset in plain terms and why it can feel quieter than a crash 
• Explaining how savings and pensions become claims inside the system that can be written down 
• Showing why the careful saver can be more exposed than the gambler 
• Breaking down three a...

We break down why CoreWeave, a little-known AI “NeoCloud” lender-dependent business, may be the first crack in the AI plumbing that index funds rely on. We connect insider selling, distressed debt pricing, and credit default swap signals to a bigger question: whether AI is facing a borrowed-money reset similar to the dot-com era.
• CoreWeave’s business model of buying NVIDIA chips and renting AI compute by the hour 
• Founder share sales and why Form 4 insider filings matter for ordinary investors 
• How bond prices, yields, and credit default swaps can warn before stocks react 
• The dot-com “plumbing” lesson fr...

AI lending has become a case study in how Wall Street's fee machine operates. In this episode, Felix Nikolas Prehn, a former investment banker, traces the mechanics of a five billion dollar loan arranged by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan for AI chip company Volta Infrastructure. The banks collected fees but declined to hold most of the loan, placing 3.7 billion dollars on a best efforts basis for sale to pension funds and insurers. The loan carries an 11 per cent interest rate, well above the junk bond average of 8 per cent. Meanwhile Oracle's data centre debt is trading below face...

We break down a $5 billion AI chip loan that major banks arranged, took fees on, and then mostly refused to hold, because the real story is risk transfer, not technology. We show how bullish AI research, quiet de-risking by trading desks, and “best efforts” loan language can point to the same machine pushing exposure toward pensions and insurers. 

• banks earning upfront fees while offloading loan risk to institutional buyers 
• why “best efforts” changes who holds the bag when demand dries up 
• how price targets and bullish research keep the transaction machine running 
• a direct contrast between res...

Silver priced against the S&P 500 is sitting near its lowest reading in half a century, a level that has preceded every major multi-year silver rally of the past fifty years. In this episode Felix Nikolas Prehn traces two rule changes driving the shift. First, Basel 3 net stable funding requirements now force banks to hold 85 per cent cash backing against unallocated paper silver, pushing them towards physical metal and raising costs on what was once a profit centre. Second, China replaced its 25 year old silver export regime at the start of this year with tight licensing, restricting outflows from...

The petrodollar system built in 1974 tied Saudi oil sales to the dollar and recycled the proceeds into American assets. Felix Nikolas Prehn explains how the recent missile strike on Riyadh's main airport has accelerated a quiet shift in Saudi Arabia's security and financial alignments. With defence pacts now signed with Turkey and Pakistan, and calls going to Paris and Islamabad rather than Washington, the episode examines whether the other side of the original bargain still holds. It covers Saudi Arabia's sale of roughly 11 billion dollars in US treasuries in a single month, the fixed riyal peg maintained since 1986, the...

I break down the growing signs that the US Treasury is leaning on the bond market while long-term yields keep rising anyway. Then I connect that bond math to real life: mortgage rates, inflation pressure tied to AI spending, and how concentrated the stock market has become. 

• how Treasury yields act as the price of money for mortgages, loans, and pensions 
• why foreign demand is fading and why the Fed is no longer the default buyer 
• what Treasury buybacks signal and why shifting to short-term bills changes the risk 
• Morgan Stanley’s R versus G framework an...

A monetary reset is already under way, according to Felix Nikolas Prehn, a former investment banker who traces four concurrent developments back to a single cause. European central banks are shipping gold home from New York vaults for the first time in decades. Norway's sovereign wealth fund has proposed cutting roughly 80 billion dollars of US treasury holdings. Twenty one of the world's largest banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citi and Bank of America, have announced a joint US dollar stablecoin set to launch in 2027. Meanwhile the US president has publicly pressured the Federal Reserve to cut rates ahead of its...

Japan's 30-year government bond yield hit a record 4.18 per cent, a event Felix Nikolas Prehn argues is a dress rehearsal for what awaits the United States and other heavily indebted economies. The episode traces the so-called widow maker trade, which bet against Japanese bonds for three decades and has now finally paid off, wiping more than 200 billion dollars from Japanese equities in a single session. Prehn draws parallels between today's AI-driven speculation and the NASDAQ bubble of 2000, noting that global yields have reached levels not seen since 2007 or earlier. He examines how the dollar has lost roughly 88 per cent...

The US Treasury's decision to double its debt buyback programme and run it through to early November is the focus of this episode. Felix Nikolas Prehn, a former investment banker, traces how the government is creating new money to purchase its own long-dated bonds at the same time as Japan, historically the most loyal foreign holder of American debt, sold roughly 88 billion dollars of US bonds in a single month. He sets out how real world inflation since 2020 has, in his view, exceeded 100 per cent, and notes that the dollar has lost roughly 93 per cent of its value since 1971...

A missile strike in Saudi Arabia kicks off a chain reaction that can end in higher inflation and a weaker dollar, even if you never follow foreign policy. We connect the 1974 petrodollar deal, the Saudi riyal peg, central bank gold buying, and what to check in your own holdings before the market reprices risk. 
• the missile strike as a currency and portfolio story 
• why oil spikes hit gas, groceries, heating, then investments 
• the 1974 oil for dollars arrangement and why it supports the US dollar 
• how the Saudi riyal peg forces Saudi rates to shadow the Fed 
• w...

We break down why America’s jump in borrowing costs signals a credit reset that can ripple through mortgages, pensions, and stock valuations long before mainstream headlines change. We connect cracked corporate bond charts in AI-linked giants to broad market weakness, then map out why silver and long-term bonds could become opportunity zones if the Fed is forced to respond. 

• defining the credit reset in plain English and why yields reprice everything 
• showing how higher Treasury yields collide with $40T in government debt 
• walking through the three policy doors and why inflationary money printing is tempting 

The Federal Reserve is losing its grip on long term interest rates, according to senior Goldman Sachs traders who describe the central bank as more passenger than driver. Felix Nikolas Prehn walks through the mechanism: technology companies building AI infrastructure are on track to issue more debt than the US government next year, with borrowing approaching 1.3 trillion dollars. That wave is absorbing global savings, pushing bond yields higher and creating inflation before any productivity gains arrive. Meanwhile, central banks have doubled annual gold purchases to over 1,000 tonnes, absorbing roughly a third of new mine supply and thinning the market...

Gold pulled back roughly 20 per cent from its highs, yet central banks bought a record amount in a single quarter, spending some 40 billion dollars on the metal. Felix Nikolas Prehn connects this buying spree to a broader pattern: Bank of America data showing productivity and consumer confidence falling together for the first time since 2008, despite 1.5 trillion dollars already spent on AI. He examines the concentration risk inside the S and P 500, where 70 per cent of this year's gains came from just ten AI related stocks. He outlines the BRICS backed Unit settlement system, designed to bypass SWIFT and underpinned...

Sulphuric acid may be an obscure commodity, but its sudden disappearance from global markets matters. Felix Nikolas Prehn explains how Russia's export ban, following China's earlier cut, removes the two largest suppliers of a chemical essential to fertiliser production. The remaining supply depends on Middle Eastern sulphur shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, the same chokepoint carrying a fifth of the world's oil. With crude above one hundred dollars a barrel and Chevron's chief executive stating that price buffers are exhausted, Prehn argues that energy and food inflation will arrive together. He then examines how Washington's sanctions programme is...

Gold and its role during supply side inflation form the core of this episode. Felix Nikolas Prehn, an economist and former investment banker, traces the parallels between the current environment and the 1970s oil shock, when gold rose from roughly 100 dollars to 850 dollars. He argues that raising interest rates does not address inflation driven by energy input costs and instead punishes borrowers while leaving the underlying price pressure intact. The episode examines how 8 trillion dollars of US government debt must be refinanced at higher rates, why the debt to GDP ratio now matches post war levels, and how that...

The US strategic petroleum reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1982 after 26 consecutive weeks of withdrawals. Felix Nikolas Prehn, an economist and former investment banker, argues this drawdown is not about supply shortages but about suppressing the oil price to keep inflation figures manageable while the government prepares to print more money. He links the reserve depletion to two other developments: the US Treasury doubling its own debt buybacks to four billion dollars per operation, and the fact that three private companies, SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI, are now valued above 45 years of public tech listings combined. Household exposure...

The dollar reset now under way is not a dramatic redenomination but a slow widening gap between official inflation figures and actual living costs. Felix Nikolas Prehn traces the chain from mortgage rates approaching 8 per cent to the bond market repricing risk at levels last seen before the 2008 crisis. He outlines Bill Ackman's argument that rate rises may be feeding rather than fighting inflation, because AI capital spending and embedded financing costs pass straight through to consumer prices. The episode then examines how the government is changing the PCE calculation method, which one Wall Street strategist estimates could shave...

Money supply in America is growing at its fastest pace since 2022, reaching 23 trillion dollars, and Felix Nikolas Prehn argues this matters more for stock prices than the economic headlines suggest. The episode sets out why high oil prices now benefit American shareholders rather than draining the economy, given that the United States produces roughly 66 per cent more crude than Saudi Arabia. It examines the collapse in real estate job openings, which halved between July and August to their lowest level in the available data, and explains how that weakness may give the Federal Reserve cover to stop raising rates...

Financial repression is the mechanism by which governments keep interest rates below the rate of inflation, quietly transferring wealth from savers to the state. In this episode Felix Nikolas Prehn traces the policy from a recent presidential admission that inflation will pay off the national debt very rapidly to a Bank for International Settlements study showing the same method erased 2 to 3 per cent of GDP in debt each year after the Second World War. He sets out why the four conventional options for addressing 40 trillion dollars of US debt, raising taxes, cutting spending, defaulting or debasing the currency, leave...

Global bond markets start to fracture at the same time gold takes a sharp hit, and we connect those headlines into one coherent debt story. We walk through why gold can drop at the start of a crisis, how financial repression quietly erodes purchasing power, and what to look at in your portfolio before the herd catches up. 

• Japan’s record 30-year bond yield as the first domino for global borrowing costs 
• France-led European bond selloff spreading to major economies as the “safe room” warms up too 
• US debt interest costs surging while the “strong economy” narrativ...

Bond yields are climbing simultaneously in Japan, Europe and the United States, and Felix Nikolas Prehn argues these are not separate headlines but a single debt crisis unfolding across the developed world. Japan's 30-year yield has reached an all-time high while carrying debt of roughly 260 per cent of output. France's bond selloff is spreading to Italy, Belgium and Greece, and even German yields are rising. In America, annual interest on federal debt has reached 1.25 trillion dollars. Gold has fallen alongside these moves, which Prehn attributes to dollar strength, a crowded trade and forced selling through margin calls on the...

Government debt levels in the United States and other major economies have reached a point where the only politically viable exit is sustained inflation funded by money printing, according to Felix Nikolas Prehn, economist and former investment banker. The episode traces how the US used the same approach after the Second World War and in the 1970s, and how Japan has run a version of it since the 1990s. Felix examines the rapid growth in M2 money supply, the concentration of stock market gains in a narrow band of AI related companies, and the risk of an eventual correction...

We lay out what it means when a US president says inflation can “pay off” the national debt and why that turns savers into the funding source. We break down financial repression, the deadline created by high rates, and how to choose the side of the trade that benefits when dollars buy less. 
• the full quote and why it signals policy intent 
• why politicians avoid tax rises, spending cuts, and default 
• financial repression as rates below inflation 
• how savers quietly cover the bill through lost purchasing power 
• the post World War II precedent for inflating debt away...

Scary headlines sound like a sell signal, but I walk through the “second half” of each story and why it can point to opportunity instead of panic. I connect oil, housing, Fed policy, investor fear, and money supply to one simple question: which way is the money moving?

• high oil prices as a potential tailwind for US producers and energy supply chains 
• why the biggest winner from expensive oil can be America 
• using quality signals like revenue, profit, and cash flow instead of buying “oil” broadly 
• S&P 500 concentration risk and why most constituents can be down while t...

We connect the sudden jump in US mortgage rates to the bond market and lay out why the Fed can look tough while inflation pressures keep building underneath. We also explain how a change to the PCE inflation calculation and quiet Treasury liquidity moves can create a growing gap between official numbers and real-life bills. 

• how the 10-year Treasury yield drives 30-year mortgage rates 
• why investors, not the Fed, set the price of borrowing for homes 
• Bill Ackman’s argument that higher rates can raise prices through embedded financing costs 
• how AI spending and supply shortag...

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks 

We connect a 44-year low in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a larger setup that looks like manufactured calm today and a harsher inflation bill later. We also trace how debt buybacks, private-market megavaluations, and stock market concentration can quietly shift risk onto ordinary savers while “skilled money” positions for the next phase. 
• strategic petroleum reserve drawdowns as a tool to suppress oil and diesel prices 
• why “refilling with Venezuelan oil” doesn’t solve the near-term problem 
• the inflation trap logic: push rates down while inflation stays higher 
• Treasury buybacks explained as debt support that functions like money p...

We lay out why a Fed rate hike during an oil shock can squeeze the economy without fixing the real cause of inflation. We connect the dots between supply-side inflation, government debt refinancing, and why central banks are quietly buying gold while cash holders fall into an inflation trap. 

• why oil-driven inflation behaves differently than demand-driven inflation 
• how higher diesel and fertilizer costs flow into food prices and the wider economy 
• what stagflation means and why the 1970s still matters 
• why rate hikes can punish borrowers while prices stay high 
• what the long-term charts say abou...

A sulfuric acid export ban sounds boring until we trace how it can choke fertilizer supply, reduce food output and collide with $100 plus oil to drive a sharp inflation shock. We connect that real-world squeeze to dollar weaponization, hedge fund leverage in Treasuries and why professional money is positioning around gold and volatility. 
• Russia and China export cuts as a fertilizer supply trigger 
• Why sulfur and the Strait of Hormuz matter beyond oil 
• The double whammy of energy inflation plus food inflation 
• How governments respond when food prices spark unrest 
• Dollar weaponization and why countries move...

We connect a worrying divergence between falling productivity and falling consumer confidence to the biggest AI spending boom on record, and we explain why that threatens the stock market’s most crowded trades. We also lay out why central banks are buying gold in size, how a gold-linked BRICS settlement “unit” could shift global money flows, and what a 1940s-style debt playbook would mean for everyday purchasing power. 
• Bank of America’s productivity and confidence chart breaking down together 
• $1.5 trillion spent on AI with little economy-wide productivity gain 
• AI leaders calling to slow development and what that implies for...

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks 

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks 

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks 

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks 

Support the show

👉 Claim 99% Off the Financial Freedom Program. Use coupon 99PC at checkout https://felixfriends.org/stocks