Welcome back to the VRA Investing Podcast! In today's episode, your host Kip Herriage takes us through a whirlwind Monday in the markets, recapping a day that didn't quite match recent highs but still kept the bullish momentum alive. Kip Herriage covers the latest action in the major indices, breaks down surprising moves in Bitcoin—especially with big news from Vanguard—and explains why volatility is still very much part of the crypto story. You'll get an in-depth look at the stunning rally in gold and silver, uncovering why precious metals are shining brighter than ever and how central banks and even stablecoins like Tether are reshaping the landscape. Kip Herriage also discusses what’s fueling his optimism for miners and outlines why junior mining stocks could be on the verge of big moves.

Kip Herriage [00:00:00]:
Foreign don’t look back to the market is closed. Good Monday after everyone. Kip Herriage here with the daily VRA Investing podcast. Hope you had a good day. Hope your weekend was fantastic and you wrapped up with Thanksgiving on a good note. Not a great day in the markets today. But look, we’ve had such a phenomenal run from that three week, pretty brutal sellout that we have. But you know, last week was pretty banging.

We got, we got almost back to all time highs. Again. Nasdaq is about 2 1/2 to 3% below all time highs. We’re right there. Everything’s within 3% of all time highs. And we’re also, we’ll talk about this a little bit more. Seasonality is a little spotty in the middle, middle of this month. But the early stage of December and of course the back half of December is very bullish.

I’ll walk you through a little bit of that as well. The semis led higher today. Matter of fact, the semis turned higher when NASDAQ was still down 140 points. I mean, that’s a tell. That’s a tell. There’s just not a lot of selling taking place in tech stocks. And I think that’s because that sell off is over. That’s our view.

Bitcoin got hit today. A lot of confusion about that because there’s so much buying coming into bitcoin. We just saw that. I’m drawing a blank. Drawing a blank. Todd and I just talked about this. Sorry, let me, let me, I want to reference this here. One second.

Vanguard. I don’t talk about Vanguard much. Normally it’s BlackRock. Vanguard is more of a major fund manager, do a lot of their own house in house funds. But Vanguard, who fought, who aggressively fought against adding Bitcoin as an option to their investors, has now finally acquiesced and they’re going to allow clients to start accessing cryptocurrency ETFs and start trading funds and direct ETFs tomorrow. So I think that’s going to, that’s going to lend some support. But again, you know, you have, I think the story of the day with Bitcoin was MSTR MicroStrategy or now Strategy as they call it at one point today was down 7%, closed down four and a half percent and the support level there is 80,500. That’s, that’s where we hit what two weeks ago and then it was the first to bottom market followed.

So we just don’t want to see it drop below that level, 80,500. So right now we’re just rallying back up now to 80,86,800. But when the news broke today of what Michael Saylor said, its strategy, that if they needed to, they could, they would start selling Bitcoin, that, that was a shot across the bow for a lot of people that did not want to hear that. I think he’s just stating a fact. If it got to the point that they couldn’t make interest payments on their debt, then that’s what they would have to do. And they also put just over a billion dollars into a reserve account in the, in the event that something does go wrong. And again, banks do it all the time. So it’s, it’s just new, you know, that we haven’t heard that from strategy and from Michael Saylor.

[00:03:12]:
All they said is we’re just stacking, we’re stacking, we’re stacking. And without any doubt at all in their minds that there might be alternatives they have to consider. But of course there are. And so I think that, I think the markets will look past this pretty soon. I think the vanguard news is big. But again, the question that I think is, you know, there’s a, the unanswered fear, right, is that with all of this buying in the US and globally that’s coming into bitcoin, why is it selling off? Why is it down? Why is MSTR, why is it down 62% from its highs of this year? Again, they, they own $52 billion worth of Bitcoin, okay? So they’re the big boys out there. Anytime there’s any hesitancy or doubt in their mind, that’s what you’re going to have. You’re going to have, you’re going to, going to have a sell off like, like we had today.

But you know, look, if you’ve, if you’ve owned or traded bitcoin at all, what you know is this is what bitcoin does. This is it’s always been an extremely volatile asset. And why, why would things change now? I do think the volatility is going to continue to lessen. But remember that volatility works two ways. You know, we don’t like it on the downside, but we sure do like it on the way up. And I think bitcoin is going to maintain that. There’s now less than 5% of all bitcoin left to be mined. Less than 5,90,95.5% of all bitcoin has already been mined, which I think is pretty Stunning.

All right, let’s talk about, I also want to talk about gold and silver. I mean what a, what a move. Gold. Now last trade. Gold here. Silver. Look at silver. What a beast.

Gold 42.64 up 9 bucks from the day. Silver up a dollar 30. It hit as high today as 59.43. Almost, almost hit 60. Of course these are all, all time highs. I think what we’re looking at here folks, more than anything is just what we’ve been talking about here with you. We now have true price discovery taking place in precious metals. This is something that did not happen.

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This is something that was not even, you couldn’t even say that with a straight face up until really this year because every time gold would get in a big move like the movies had this year and silver they would be whacked lower by the, but the, by the cartel, the banking cartel that just did not want to see. Because again you start getting these kind of moves in gold and what do people say? What’s wrong? What’s happening in the global economy? And there’s certainly those fears out there, obviously the level of debt we have in the money printing. But that is why gold is, that is a reason why gold is going up. Demand is through the roof. Central banks buying it, governments buying it. And now tether, Tether’s now the second largest. Stablecoin is now the second largest buyer at least this year of gold, which I think is pretty, a pretty stunning development. And there are a lot of copycats out there.

[00:06:13]:
So right now bitcoin is a bit passe and gold is the, is, is the new kid on the block. And this is, this is what everybody must own. And really as we’ve been telling you now for a very long time, you know, we first recommended gold at 350 announced in 2003 in the same letters. This is my second letter I ever wrote. Second and also with gold, I recommended silver at $5 an ounce. So we have, we’ve now it’s in the VR portfolio. We’ve never recommended selling. We now it’s now a 10 backer, both gold and silver.

We have gains of more than 1,000% in gold and silver. Honestly I, I don’t know that I ever thought I would say those words. But again our long term goals much, much higher. $15,000 an ounce for gold, silver. You know, again I think, I think it’s, it’s probably, probably, probably going to happen this year in 2026. The silver will break the hundred dollars. That’s the kind of momentum behind it. And again, it’s got a great supply demand story.

[00:07:12]:
Bottom line is they’re both going higher and the miners are really going higher, especially the junior miner, all of them, really. But the junior miners are so cheap. And I think it’s important to understand, at least I think, you know, based on everything I know about this, this industry, it’s important to remember these, these, these management teams have been just completely beaten up over the last decade, really since the top in 2011, 2012. They just been beaten up and battered and it makes them very gun shy about merger and acquisition activity, makes them very gun shy about, about using any form of financial engineering to try to grow their company. Just saw this morning, by the way, Barrick is looking to do an IPO of their North American mining operations. That’s financial engineering. And I think again, that’s the beginning. We’re starting to see the beginning of this, but it’s only the beginning.

And these big boys are going to get more and more confident and using their assets and this massive balance sheets they have now with gold at Word. I mean this, they’re printing money, literally printing money here. The average production cost for my mining cost for these companies is less than fifteen hundred dollars an ounce. Some and some that we work with or in this $700 range. I mean this is absolute printing money. And I do think, I think 2026 is going to bring a surprise in this group and I think it’s going to bring a lot of consolidation, a lot of mergers and acquisition activity. And that’s when these juniors, once, once the first big junior deal is done, the big surprise where they acquire a company for five times its current market cap. Because those deals are coming.

I think that’s really what’s going to open people’s eyes. They just, they really are shocked, frankly when you talk to them that gold is staying above $4,000 now. Say even they can’t believe it. So they’ve been a little gun shy. But that’s all going to change. We love the group and it looks great on the charts. Everything about gold, silver and the miners look, and of course, look who’s president. What do we know about Trump? Trump loves gold, always has.

Look at the, look at the Oval Office now and the way that it’s set up, it’s gold everywhere. So right president at the right time for this group and we got the global money. Printers just aren’t going to stop. They can’t stop. Money printing is only going to pick up because that’s the way it works. And again, that’s why really, as we said for a long time now, you know, you just got to own inflation related assets. They’re all going to keep going up. Housing stocks, obviously, Bitcoin and of course precious metals and miners.

These are, these are all great investments. I think it’s best just to pick and choose what you think is going to go up the most or like we do have a diversified portfolio of each of these, which, which is how we’re structured here at the vra. All right, what else today I, this morning I’m not going to cover all of this because it’s fairly lengthy. But this morning I, I wrote up our views for our macro forecast for December and the full year. I’ll cover some of that with you in a moment. Let’s talk about seasonality first. This is number one on the list because it’s right, we’re in it right now. It’s interesting.

This is all from Stock Traders Almanac. I’ll go back with you guys a very long time. Seymour Hirsch, his son Jeff Hurst, now his dad passed away a couple of years ago. His son now is running the company. Great father son team. And they’re the original, they’re the OG of analytics on Wall Street. Mr. Hirsch was.

And, and still, you know, they’re, they’re still, they’re still number one in my book. Well, they put it out today. The, the first day of December is actually not a good date. We actually kind of saw it today, didn’t we? We had losses across the board. The biggest loser date, Russ 2000 small caps down 1/4%. Dow Jones down 9/10 of a percent. Nasdaq only down 410 SB 500 down a half a percent. But again the semis, which is what we care, we care about most here.

Semis today up 410 of a percent today. But today is actually a down day, a high probability down day. And we saw that. But now things start to change tomorrow for tomorrow through the end of the week, high probability that the markets again if seasonally holds up, the markets will gain. And then when we get into next week we go through a period where it’s a little, little bit of a mixed picture but it’s by and large lower to flat. And that’s, that’s until about the 13th, 14th of the month. And then we have our, our month in, beginning of the melt up as the, as the Santa Claus rally really starts to kick in. So you know, that’s kind of how we’re going to trade it Here with our options strategies here, parabolic options.

[00:11:56]:
As far as the VRA portfolio is concerned, you know, look, we’re, we’re using, we’re using dips to, to add to our positions. That’s what we think is, we think we’re in this stage now where dips are going to be short lived and dips again. Buy the dip. That’s, that’s today. Today was a buy. You know, at one point today Nasdaq was down for 200 points. Again finished down 89 points but again semis higher and internals weren’t great today. But when you have the kind of fear that’s out there and again we, we see it even today, you know, we’re just a couple percent away from all time highs.

But the fear of greed index is back. It’s still an extreme fear. Got a reading of 23. You know, after the last five days we had, you would think that would be back in the 30s, 40s, right? 23. Also the AI investor sentiment survey is, came in last week with 32% bulls and 43% bears. 9% more bears than bulls. Again, I think that’s shocking. But if you’re a contrarian, this is, this is the kind of stuff that gets you salivating, you know, on the long side.

So the semis are getting a bit leading. We think that’s going to continue. But as far as our macro forecast against seasonality looks very good this year. We think next year is going to be extraordinary year. The Fed’s projected to cut rates of course at the December 10th meeting. We think there’ll be at least three cuts at least three cuts next year because who’s going to be Fed chair Kevin Hassett? Odds on favorite I think I saw today is 67% odds on this is on Calcium Poly Market, the prediction markets. The count that has it will be the new fetch here. Trump says he’s made up his mind and that they’ll be announced soon.

[00:13:39]:
Frankly, as I said last week, there’s no reason for Pal to stick around, is there? He’s going to be a lame duck. Hasset will be the de facto Fed chair. He’ll, he’ll be the man everyone will be looking to Pat to Hassett to see what he says and what he’s thinking rather than Jay Powell. Look, if, if Jay Powell wants to give us a Christmas gift. As I said last week, when this announcement is made, at the same time Jay Powell, she just announced that he’s stepping down and Hastick can step right into the job and so you know, what are the odds of it happening? Don’t know. Probably not great. That’s on my Christmas list. That’s my wish list for Christmas.

J Pal, if you’re listening, make Kip Herridge happy. Go, go ahead and just step down when has it’s added and it’ll be hugely bullish for the markets. Can you imagine if that comes out of out of left field and no one knows about it the kind of melt up move we’re going to have higher and maybe that’s the reason Powell won’t do it because he’s just going to be shamed by the, by the thousand point advance of the Dow Jones when, when if you were to step down unexpectedly. But at the end of the day bottom line is Hassler being the job soon enough. The Fed’s going to cut rates at the December 10 meeting barring some surprising development. And we want to be long these interest rate sensitive groups, that’s how we’re structured here. Housing, semis, technology, small caps, precious metals, miners and Bitcoin. A, a portfolio made up of these various sectors should do quite well into year end and to and throughout 2026.

[00:15:17]:
That’s how we’re playing it here. Also today, quantitative tightening. The, the Fed’s quantitative tightening program ended today. So that what you hear that noise in the background you hear is the money printer going brrr. Because it’s own again. It has to keep going. It can’t stop going. I think the days of, of rate increases at least in, in the, over the next three to five years.

I just don’t, I think, I think we’re going back to 0% raise. We, we’ve been there once quantitative easing. We’ve been there. We, we’ve seen plenty of that. You know the Fed’s balance sheet is down to just, just under $7 trillion in asset. They call it assets, right. All they do is print it. It’s very, very, very good.

If we did that, we’re locked up for forever. You know the Secret Service has come to get us. They’re the ones that enforce enforcement currency fraud. But of course the Fed gets to do it and then pay themselves enormous wages. Have 800 economists on the Fed’s payroll again all with funny money. But hey, good, good gig if you can get it right. But look, Powell is leaving. I think we’re going to have a long term cycle of much lower rates and again we’ve seen in the past what that’s going to do for the markets and for all asset classes and then I think that I’ll kind of wrap with this.

[00:16:35]:
I think one of the really big things that not enough people are talking about is Trump’s one big beautiful bill. I spent some time this weekend going through it to make sure I got this right. And I, I was even surprised by some of the things. I was like, oh, that’s right, I forgot about that. So let’s go through a few of the things that are going to fully kick in. Some already have. But what’s going to fully kick in beginning on January 1, 2026, one month away, these are all hugely pro growth policies. Corporate taxes slashed to 15%.

This is gonna, I mean, we already have record highs in, in share buybacks. This is going to be extremely positive for the, the earnings interest rate, excuse me, the earnings outlooks for these companies. And they’re already sitting at five. This will be the fifth straight quarter that we’ve had earnings growth of better than 10%. Again, we’re still on record looking for 13% for Q3. In addition, again, the one big beautiful bill will have a permanent extension of 2017 tax cuts, including doubling child tax credits to $2,200. No taxes, not on all, but on many Social Security payouts. Why are retirees paying any taxes on this? Trump tried to get that done, but because of the way he had to structure it with the cycle they’re in, boy, don’t ask me to explain this, but it was a congressional issue that it would have had to been a new bill to get this passed.

Of course, Democrats would never have gone for that. Can’t give Trump too much credit for anything, but many, many folks, it’ll be a majority of retirees that are on Social Security will not see their Social Security benefits tax, and that’s about time for that. Same thing with overtime pay. You know, it’s not all overtime pay, but it’s quite a bit of it. Again, it all helps. The standard deduction for single filers will increase to 16,000 7:50 and the soft cap is being raised to 40,400. Of course, the blue states love that. And the bottom line is you’ll have also huge expensing, complete expensing for new manufacturing facilities and other corporate expensing in year one.

Again, this is going to be massively positive for corporate earnings. And I just don’t think a lot of this is built in. We know it’s going to reduce corporate taxes over the next two years by $129 billion. And as Tyler told me, these are direct liquidity injections for the American company. And the consumer is also going to accelerate consumer spending. We need that, don’t we? And of course, consumer spending. I mean, Black Friday. Wow.

How do you look at Black Friday spending and not think that’s good news? 9% year over year growth for Black Black Friday spending. I know that people like to pick it apart, talk about, you know, buy now, pay later. Well, I just had a guy offered me, I’m looking to make a jewelry purchase for my wife. Don’t tell her. This guy offered me at Jared Jewelers, offered me no interest for six years. Now if I’m paying no interest for six years, that’s up to $100,000 on purchases, folks. If I paid no interest, I’m not going to buy my wife anything worth that amount, trust me. But not that she’s not worth it.

[00:20:05]:
She is. That’s just, that’s, that’s not part of our budget. But why would I go just put it on a certainly credit card worse than you do or just pay for it outright. When I can fund, I can, I can set this up for payments, no interest over five years and take the, the money I would have spent and invest it again. This is why, you know, having a mortgage still makes a great deal of sense because your money can do, can go to work for you. So much better in the stock market, especially in this kind of stock market. So bottom line, this is all happening and Trump and Bessant are so aware of this. They want the markets melting up and the economy soaring into the midterms.

We, we, we know if you, if you know Trump, you know, this is what he’s got everything structured for. And again, there’s so much more in the one big beautiful bill. I don’t think the majority of market strategists have factored this in as one of the big reasons. Matter of fact, probably the biggest reason that we’re so aggressive with our, with our forecast for 2026 again, we’re looking for 30% gains in the SPF 100 and maybe 50 gains, 55o in Nasdaq and wouldn’t be surprised if, if we’re on the low side there. So again, lots to look forward to. We are aggressively bullish as we head into 26, 2026. And when you start talking about the, the amount of money that’s out there, that ocean of liquidity, you know, and again, very few people talk about this. 22 over.

Tyler just told me 22.3 trillion dollars in M2 money supply. We know there’s also a record seven and a half trillion in money markets and that 35 trillion in home equity which again you’ll hear no one talk about. And that’s why it’s so important that rates are coming down because that home equity is going to start freeing up and it’s going to start coming back, circulating back into the economy. I mean the average home equity is 70%. Again these are all, all time highs. So all of this adds up to animal spirits coming back into the economy. When you add to it that guess what next year is our 250th birthday. There’s gonna be a lot of birthday parties all across the country, not just D.C.

all over the country, regional, big regional parties. I’m sure we’ll all wind up participating in those to some degree. And the bottom line is this is gonna have animals red pilled animal spirits running amok. And again that’s our forecast for 2026. We’re bullish on December, the beginning and the last two weeks primarily and of course essentially especially from from from now until end of April. That’s the most seasonal, seasonally bullish time. And then we’ll see if seller May and and go away holds up next year. It has not held up well over the years.

[00:23:04]:
All right, let’s take a look under hood today and let’s see, let’s see what happened. Not great internals today. NYIC 2 to 1 negative advanced decline. NASDAQ just over 2 to 1 negative down volume. NYC 62.6% down volume on NASDAQ right at 62%. And our sector watch today also not Great. We had eight sectors finish lower. Three three finished higher.

Led to the downside by utilities down 2.3%. Race did pop up a bit today. Healthcare down 1.4% to the upside energy of 9/10 and that was really about it. But again today is known as being a negative. A bearish day according to seasonality going back to 1950 by the way folks. But again the next four days should be just the opposite of that. That’s what we think is going to happen here in our commodity watch today. Again covered this bit earlier a gold.

Kip Herriage [00:24:02]:
I mean again there’s just no reason not to own this group and own it physical only folks. Physical only. Gold today up 10 bucks an ounce. 42.64 silver up a dollar 30 an ounce. That’s 2.2% at 58.45 copper today, flat on the day, $5.28 a pound. Crude oil today up $1 a barrel. At 59.53 a barrel. And finally today, bitcoin’s recovered.

Last trade now 86,500. That puts it down 5.2% over the last 24 hours. All right, folks, that’s it for the day. Hope you had a great day and even better night. We’ll see you back here again tomorrow after the close.