In today's episode, Tyler breaks down the VRA's comparison of this new bull market to the 1995-2000 Dot-Com Melt-Up and why we see this market heading a whole lot higher. If you’re concerned about an “AI bubble,” you’ll want to stick around for today's chart analysis. Plus, Tyler dives into the record runs in precious metals and the miners, highlighting silver's first ATH in over 14 years. Tune into today's podcast to learn more.

Don’t look back because the market is closed. Good Wednesday afternoon, everyone. Tyler Herriage here with you for today’s VRA Investing podcast. Hope you all had a fantastic day out there today. It’s tough to have a bad day when you’re hitting all time highs in the market, that is for sure. But I’m getting a little bit of a late start here today as we just got off a fantastic Lost Soldier oil and gas webinar that was this evening here. So for our VRA members and and regular listeners, you know, you’ve heard all about this project. I’ll touch on it briefly, maybe here in a minute.

If you have any questions about it, go ahead and email us about those as well. But we’ve got a great podcast here for you today. Got a lot to cover here, so we’ll jump right in in a second. But of course, we’ll cover today’s market action, the internals and the sectors where we essentially got the inverse of yesterday’s action, which I’ll recap all of what we’ve seen in the last 48 hours and touch on a little bit of what I did yesterday in the podcast. I’ve got two fantastic charts here that you certainly will not want to miss. You know, especially if you’re worried about an AI bubble out there. You really, you know, stay tuned for these, these charts that I have to share here. Then, of course, we can’t forget about the continued biggest winners of the year when we get to our precious metals updates, the VRA Commodity Watch, which of course means gold and the miners, which had strong days here again today.

[00:01:58]:
So again, a lot of exciting stuff out there. Q4, this is that time of the year we’re gearing up here for Q3 earnings which will kick off next week with the big banks. So stay tuned for that. We’ll get out of this share buyback blackout period for many of these companies, which, you know, quickly just means that until companies release earnings, unless they had a previously scheduled buyback plan in place, this is the blackout time. They’re not allowed to buy back stocks that were unplanned during this time period. So that can, you know, affect the liquidity for certain stocks. Absolutely. And then once we get to the back end of it after these companies release earnings, just more fuel to the fire, more liquidity for these companies.

So a lot of exciting stuff coming up as we head in are in the fourth quarter of 2025 and what a year it has been. Quickly here. I’ll say this again because I’ve said it a lot. But back in April of this year, if you had told many Wall street analysts that the Nasdaq would be hitting all time highs up more than double digits on the year, you know, remember March and April when tariff mania was going on, if you told some of these so called, you know, financial gurus out there, something like that, or especially the financial mainstream media, you would have likely been laughed out of the room in a lot of those rooms, not all of them. There’s some great tech analysts out there as well, certainly. And they might have agreed on certain companies, but the Nasdaq having double digit gains by this time again, they wouldn’t have taken you too seriously. But that’s exactly where we are today. It’s exactly what Kip and I and the VRA has been saying really all year now.

[00:03:47]:
So it’s been a phenomenal year. Going to be a great end to the year as well. So first and foremost, Lost Soldier Oil and Gas. I’ll touch on it quickly here because it is a private company but a fantastic company. Kip and their CEO Mark Bruner co go way back, especially in developing oil and gas projects. Their first, you know, one of their first projects they worked on together and one of Mark’s biggest winners was a company called Ultra Petroleum, which at one point was the top performing stock in the world. A $10,000 investment in Ultra Petroleum over the course of nine years turned into $11 million. That’s almost unfathomable.

Those kinds of gains, just absolutely incredible. And now Mark is back with a new oil and gas discovery here. So it began just a few years ago as a wildcat well after Mike Pennell, a geologist who we lovingly call Moses, especially the Lost Soldier team. Lovely love, lovingly, excuse me, calls Moses, after wandering around Wyoming and talking about this project for nearly four decades, finally able to get it developed. I won’t get into the full story here, but you know, a lot of people might ask, well, why hadn’t somebody else done this? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, the story makes a lot of sense once you do your due diligence because this used to be in the area of Jeffrey City, Wyoming, was formerly a uranium mine there during the Cold War era. So for a long time drilling for oil and gas was off limits in this area now and then permits were issued. You know, I don’t want to get the number wrong, so I won’t say it, but just years ago and teams got in to try and develop early on or at least you know, stake their claim in this area. Some of these are federal lands projects as well.

[00:05:49]:
So we got in, drilled a wildcat well, the first people out there to do it. And long story short, it’s now a full on discovery here again just outside of Jeffrey City, Wyoming. And this is where things get really exciting because this is now has become a discovery of monumental importance for the US Energy infrastructure. You know, with data centers booming the way that we’ve seen where we’re now looking at, I believe in 2025, 5% of all US energy demand will be for data centers. That’s expected to more than double by 2030. And natural gas is one of the cleanest ways to do it out there. And this what we have here with Lost Soldier Oil and Gas is, you know, the largest natural gas field discovered in the western US in four decades now. So again that’s why I’m running a little late today.

Fantastic presentation from Steve Richards, Tony Letito and the team. I’m sure Mark Bruner will be on the next one as well. He’s out there working hard right now. So if you have any questions or if you’re interested in getting involved again, this is a private company, send us an email and we’ll direct you to the team over there to get all of the info that you need. But very exciting, very glad to be a part of this project. You might have heard Wayne Allen Root talk about this at length as well. You know they’re advertising with him and working with him on, on getting the word out there about this project and what it can do for the great people of Jeffrey City, Wyoming, which is a. Since essentially after the uranium mine shut down, you know, it dwindled to just a very small population there.

[00:07:34]:
Well, Jeffrey City is about to be put back on the map, that is for sure now. So back to our markets on the day to day where I do want to get back to some of the discussion that we had yesterday because we are at all time highs here again and just four days away from the three year anniversary of the 2022 Biden bear market lows which we called to the day. We just published our book the Big Bribe, which you heard me talk about yesterday as well. And during that time frame we were in the throes of a bear market. But Kip and I just couldn’t believe what we were seeing under the hood of this market. So to quickly, you know, recap of where we were at the time, you might have seen, I believe it was yesterday or the day before Paul Tudor Jones talking about, you know, the AI bubble out there. Well, at the time in 2022 when we released our book calling for a massive bull market, he was saying that the US Was headed into a recession. You know, in hindsight, obviously we didn’t get one.

And there’s plenty of naysayers out there today. And Paul Tudor Jones, I mean, brought that up because just this week he was saying, well, it looks a lot like 1999 out there. Well, you know, 1999 is when we went parabolic into the peak of 2000. So, you know, I guess you could be saying there’s some upside left. We’re here to say there’s a whole lot of upside left. This is really 1996. And you’ll see that here in a minute because I got a, also got a question last night from, from a friend who’s not involved in the markets, you know, getting in there, you know, got a retirement account but not too active in it. And it was getting worried, you know, saying, I’m hearing that it’s the AI bubble.

[00:09:21]:
The AI bubble. The AI bubble heard. I’ve heard this from many people now at this point. And you know, I wanted to bring it up because a lot of people compare an AI bubble to just the dot com bust side of things. You rarely hear about the dot com boom, right, when the Nasdaq rallied over 580% during that time frame. All you hear about, you know, namely from the financial mainstream media is the rhetoric of the dot com bust and how you should be careful and you know, all of these things about really fear mongering people out of the market, which is why so often, you know, I just heard a great, you know, we talk about this here often on the podcast as well, that you want to hold on to your winners, especially in an environment like this, which can be tough to do because psychologically speaking, that might go against your instincts. You know, you want to take those profits, keep that money safe. Well, I’m here to tell you that your money’s far safer in the market, generally speaking, and especially over the long term than in the US dollar, especially when you have the money printer running full steam ahead, hitting all time high after all time high on M2 money supply.

So while inflation may be coming down, right, it’s not at 9% like it was just a few years ago, but it’s still underreported from where it really is. And see, the, the inflation story is different from the currency debasement story. We actually think that we’re headed into a disinflationary environment and ultimately a deflationary environment for things like tech. Right. Innovation and of itself is a deflationary occurrence. So you, yes, you’ll, your dollar might be able to buy more along the way, but it is continuously being printed into nothingness. You know, things especially to the Federal Reserve, which, you know, since 1913, at the creation of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar has lost essentially all of its purchasing power. Right.

[00:11:27]:
Even going back to, we like to Compare it to 2003 when Kip first recommended gold at $350 an ounce, which, you know, a hundred thousand dollars invested in gold at that time. You know, with gold at all time highs today is worth north of $1 million. Well, in a money market account, your purchasing power, you’ve actually lost money on that hundred thousand dollars. Think about what a hundred thousand dollars could have bought in 2003 compared to what it can buy today. So it’s exactly why we talk so much about owning inflationary assets. So let’s take a look here at this chart quickly. Like I said, we’re going to make it a quick podcast today. So here we go.

This is the dot com melt up that we’ve talked so much about where 1995, you’re just going from the beginning or the end of 1994 to the peak just after 2000. The NASDAQ rallied 585%. Just incredible numbers there. And of course, this is the 1999 era that I’m talking about, where it went absolutely parabolic there. Well, here’s a chart that will show you why we’re closer to this range here. And I want you to keep in mind, look at this chart. Okay. There are multiple pullbacks along the way.

[00:12:41]:
Each one a fantastic buying opportunity if you’re willing to stay in the market. You know, this is why so many people say time in the market is better than timing the market. Now they don’t have the VRA investing system to help them out with that.

When you’re getting to these peak levels and you know, being able to take some profits along the way. And what we like to do here is we use leverage ETFs in the VRA investing system to really generate profits and then use those profits to add to our favorite long term plays, what we call our VRA Tim Baggers. That’s how we approach it here at the VRA. So again, a 580% rally. If you’ve been with us here for a while, you know that we think that this innovation revolution meets roaring 2020s meets the Trump economic miracle.2.0 has the potential to not only compete with the dot com rally, but actually exceed it both in terms of percentage gains and the length of this bull market as well.

So let’s take a look at where we are today. Like I said, the Biden bear market lows were just what, three years and four days ago? Okay, so from the bear market lows here to today, to today’s all time highs, okay, the Nasdaq is up 128%. Does that seem anything like this? Right. Again, incredible move. And again there, there’s always going to be pullbacks and corrections, even a technical bare market in there. That’s why we don’t like to use terms quite as frivolously as others might. When you talk about a bare market, they use it as more of an arbitrary defining term.

[00:14:33]:
Oh, 20% is a bear market. 10% is a correction. All right, that’s a good rule of thumb, but it doesn’t really tell you anything as far as investing goes. Okay. A 10% correction takes place on average every 18 months. So if you’re not in this market yet, you’re feeling like you missed out, keep watching the VRA investing podcast because we’re going to tell you exactly what we’re doing with our money here, when we’re putting it to work and when we’re pausing a little bit because we are at, you know, overbought readings here. That’s why I said yesterday after yesterday’s pullback that, you know, we were looking for a pause that refreshes. You know, I also said that we could see a day like today right after.

So I’m not being wishy washy here. We are an environment where we’re buying the dip. Okay, so yesterday would be an example of buying the dip. But I also said this is not a sell the rip environment either. So, you know, at all time highs that really, at extreme overbought levels, you’re approaching the market with caution if you’re already in the market. But if you’re not in this market yet and you’re ready to start putting some money to work, you might be, you know, getting in at an all time high here, but over the next 12, 18 months, two years, you’re going to be very happy with that purchase in our opinion here. So again, to not sound wishy washy in any way because there are so many of these financial gurus out there who love to intentionally speak vaguely about the markets, about their position oh, it could do this, it could do that. You know, to kind of, you know, for, for lack of a better term, off the top of my head here to, to pad their info so they can come back to those clips later and say, oh, see, look, I said this.

[00:16:17]:
Oh, look, I said that. That’s not what we do here at the vra. We are buying with conviction in this market and the VRA portfolio has proven that. Where through Q3 of this year. Where the NASDAQ through Q3. So just through the end of September, the NASDAQ had returned just over 17%, a little bit higher. Now that we’re back at all time highs, the VRA portfolio is up over 41% so far in 2025. And we’re not done yet.

A lot of people might take off for the rest of the year and say, oh, you know what, that’s pretty solid. We’re going to beat the market this year, most likely, so let’s take a vacation or two. Um, no, we’re, we’re here locked in with you every day. And that’s why we love doing this here. We’re here to serve the retail investor who’s been so unloved and just ridiculed. Right. Compared to money managers out there who consistently underperform the market every year is exactly why Kip founded the vra. So again, we are in a buy the dip market here and not a sell the rip to the other side.

[00:17:24]:
I liked Ryan Dietrich said that the other day and that that really resonated with us here. This is when you want to hang on to your winners and focus on monthly dollar cost averaging. You don’t have to go all in, you know, cannonball into this market at once. If you aren’t in it, set some of that money aside, put a little bit to work every month. When you see a pullback, put some money to work into your favorite positions. So again, good example there of just how early we are from the bare market lows. 180, 228% rally. This is what we think we have in store for us here.

So that’s why we say we’re still in the early innings of this bull market. And look at this. Look how unloved this market is. The fear and greed. We just hit all time highs. The fear and greed index is at neutral here, okay? Until we’re at extreme greed for weeks and potentially months on end, we’re not looking at a top in this market. I mean, if you remember the 2021 bull market that really capped off the decade long bull market after the financial crisis. Of course Covid in there was a shock to the system.

[00:18:30]:
You know, that’s an, an extraneous event. Can’t do a whole lot about that in hindsight. Fantastic buying opportunity though really. You know, in that environment you’re getting stock recommendations from your Uber driver, right? Getting stock recommendations from, you know, the waiter at a restaurant back then. NFTs, if you don’t remember those, the non fungible tokens where they were using images, I mean really just something that could have been generated on Microsoft Paint from back in the day. They were selling images of a rock that went for over $4 million. You know those are essentially worthless today. You remember the SPAC craze, all of these things.

Red hot IPO market. We’re seeing none of that in this market right now. And that tells us the IPO market is heating up. Right? But not outrageous like we’ve seen in the past. So until we start seeing those signs and when we do start seeing those signs, we’ll be talking about it here. So quickly, the market action on the day, again the inverse of yesterday’s action. Yesterday we started a little slightly higher for our major indexes, finished close to the lows of the day to today. You know we started out mixed to positive and finished at or near the highs of the day.

So we got a NASDAQ all time high up 1.12% at 23,043. I mentioned yesterday the semis led lower which is not what you want to see. Well today we got back those, those losses from yesterday. The, the semiconductor index. Sox dollar sign. Sox up a massive 3.4% on the day to day hitting all time closing high there for sox. And SMH just about getting back all of its losses from yesterday as well. Up 2.68%.

[00:20:17]:
I go ahead and mention that because that’s the one we quote here most often. It helped that there was a rumored announcement here. Another big deal for Nvidia, this time with Xai Elon Musk’s AI from over at Twitter, which will be used with Grok. I know we got a lot of big Grok fans here. Excuse me. This will reportedly be a 20 billion dollar deal with the Nvidia committing $2 billion to it for an asset backed deal, a purchase lease agreement for Nvidia GPUs on two data center projects for XAI. So that certainly helped, you know, the AI trade today and the semi trade today. Next up, the semis were up over 1% or excuse me.

Small caps up over 1% today for the Russell 2000 to2483. Next up, the S&P 500 did hit an all time high today as well finishing up 0.58% to 6753. And the Dow Jones essentially flat on the day to day. Our internals positive across the board here. Good to see positive on the nyse. No big beat there but good to see. Then just about just shy of of 2 to 1 positive on the Nasdaq 52e highs and lows coming in just below 4 to 1 positive also good to see. And then volume nicely positive on the NYSE and over two to one positive on the Nasdaq.

[00:21:45]:
For our sectors on the day today we finished with 7 out of our 11s and P500 sectors higher on the daytoday with 3 all time highs. We had tech hitting an all time high. Industrials all time high and then another one here that’s you know, really flown under the radar. Utilities all time high here again today. Then for our laggards we had energy, financials and consumer staples. Finally here for today, our V commodity watch. Gold getting in. Futures trading getting up to $4,080 an ounce.

Big day today now at $4,043 an ounce. And GDX just pennies off its intraday all time high. But it was an all time closing high here for gdx. Let me just get the final number here. Closing up 2.83% on the day today. As you know we love the miners here. If you’re bullish on gold you really want to own the picks and shovels in the ju. That means junior miners as well.

[00:22:50]:
Next up silver now lower on the day because we are in now it’s so late we’re into futures trading again but did hit another 52 week high here. I gotta zoom out. This might be. I’m gonna make sure I don’t miss the all time high. That is an all time high from silver for the first time in over 14 years. The all time previous all time high from 2011 was $49.51 an ounce. Today at the highs got up to $49.54 an ounce. As we say here often new highs beget new highs and once you’re into blue sky territory, all time highs.

There’s no better reading than that. It’s very bullish going forward. So silver another one that we have here in the VRA portfolio. Next up copper now at $5.06 a pound and oil holding above $62 a barrel at $62.22. Finally here for today, bitcoin. You know, hanging right around those all time highs today did get back above $124,000 of Bitcoin now at 123 362A Bitcoin folks.

That’s all that we have time for here today. Please be sure to subscribe to receive our VRA podcast every day at the market close.

You can, you can sign up@ VRAletter.com click the podcast link at the top and we’d love to have you with us. Thanks again for tuning in. Until next time, we’ll see you back here tomorrow for the close.