Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
June 29, 2026
Editor’s Note: We’ll be at the Rule Symposium on Natural Resources from July 6th through 10th. The in-person event is sold out. But you can still attend virtually by signing up at this link. If you register by July 3rd, you can use code VA50 at checkout for $50 off virtual attendance. Click here to register.
The free version of the 370th episode of Investing in Bizarro World is now published.
Here’s what was covered:
Macro Musings - Gold, silver, the dollar, yields, sector rotation, China, and critical metals.
The main market story was gold breaking below the $4,000 level. Gerardo noted that gold had dropped under $4,000 before bouncing back near $4,033, while silver briefly broke below $60 and looked like it might head toward the mid-$50s before rebounding toward $58. The selloff brought out exactly the kind of capitulation you would expect from newsletter writers, gold accounts, permabulls, permabears, and everyone who suddenly decided they might be “done until September.”
Nick’s technical read was more cautious than it has been in recent weeks. He said gold has broken its short-term trend line near $4,000, even though his long-term bullish thesis remains intact. The key support level he is watching is around $3,930. If gold retests and breaks that level, he thinks the next major support could come much lower, around $3,400 to $3,440. That does not mean the gold bull market is over. It does mean the near-term chart has weakened.
The bigger macro setup is messy. Bond yields are giving mixed signals. The short end of the curve is still pointing toward the possibility of rate hikes, with the market pricing in at least one, and possibly two, quarter-point hikes by the end of the year or early next year. That cuts against the market’s earlier expectation that Kevin Warsh would arrive as a dovish Fed chair ready to deliver rate cuts on demand.
At the same time, the 10-year yield has been moving lower, which suggests inflation may be coming down on its own and the economy may be slowing. Oil has continued to fall. Copper has dipped below $6 at times. Aluminum has softened. Agricultural commodities have also weakened. That gives Warsh room to say inflation is easing without having to force the issue with immediate hikes. He may not be able to cut rates unilaterally, but the words that come out of a Fed chair’s mouth still matter.
The dollar is the other major problem for metals. The DXY pushed above 101, reaching levels not seen in roughly a year. That is very different from the dollar weakness many expected under Trump’s second term, especially with debt still rising, money supply still expanding, and DOGE having failed to deliver meaningful fiscal discipline. A strong dollar is pressuring almost everything: Bitcoin fell below $60,000, silver broke below $60, gold cracked $4,000, and platinum group metals were hit hard in the short term.
Gerardo’s response was to add context. Gold near $4,000 is still a phenomenal price. A year ago, gold around $3,200 looked great. Silver in the high-$50s may feel painful after the recent run, but a year ago silver was around $35. If the next consolidation zone is somewhere between $3,800 and $4,000 gold and the mid-to-high $50s for silver before the next leg higher, that is still a strong long-term setup. The point was not to ignore the near-term bearish break. The point was to remember how far the metals have already come.
Both hosts emphasized that investors do not have to be all in or all out. Nick can be short-term bearish on gold while still holding core positions. Gerardo can remain mostly invested while recognizing that his risk tolerance is much higher than most people’s. The right answer depends on portfolio size, time horizon, cash needs, position sizing, and whether the underlying thesis for each company is still intact.
Market Takes - The junior resource market is acting better than the headline gold and silver moves might suggest. Gerardo noted that when gold broke below $4,000 and silver looked like it might head toward $53 or $54, many junior explorers did not get hit as hard as expected. The selling was more severe in producers and index-linked names like Perpetua Resources, where deleveraging and ETF-related flows matter more. In the small-cap exploration space, many names appear to be holding their recent bases or slowly recovering in volume and price.
Nick tied that into algorithmic selling. More than half of investable capital is now reportedly traded algorithmically, and when key technical triggers break — a moving average, a trend line, a copper support level, or a gold breakdown — selling can become automatic. That kind of selling hits ETFs, futures, and larger liquid vehicles first. It does not necessarily hit “Moose Pasture Copper Corp.” in the same way. That is one of the few advantages human investors still have: the ability to know what something is worth when the machines only know what the chart says.
Copper remains the better-looking chart, though even copper is short-term bearish and needs to hold around $5.90. Gerardo said he would happily take $5.95 copper for the next several years, but Nick warned that the metal could get volatile again depending on the Commerce Department’s Section 232 copper report. Last summer, copper fell roughly $1.30 in a single day during tariff turmoil. That kind of volatility can happen again if Trump threatens tariffs, pulls back from tariffs, or does some third option.
The longer-term copper setup remains intact. Nick said we are maybe halfway or 60% through the commodity supercycle, while the U.S. and West are only perhaps 10% into the process of reshoring the metals and supply chains they need. Copper, rare earths, tungsten, antimony, uranium, lithium, and other strategic materials remain central to that process. Short-term charts can weaken without invalidating the multi-year resource thesis.
China continues to prove the point. Gerardo noted that China again flexed its dominance by restricting heavy rare earth magnets and related supply chains. Finding deposits is hard enough. Extracting, separating, processing, and refining rare earths is much more complicated. Building the workforce and technical base to do it at scale is harder still. Japan has been trying to diversify away from Chinese rare earth dominance for 15 years and still reportedly had roughly 80% of certain rare earth supplies restricted over the past year.
Energy Fuels (NYSE: UUUU)(TSX: EFR) was the major example on the U.S. side. Gerardo highlighted the company’s recent $725 million funding commitment from the Federal government and its move to spend roughly $1.9 billion on an acquisition designed to complete more of the critical metals supply chain. Nick added that Energy Fuels now has multiple pieces in place: mines and projects in places like Australia and Madagascar, monazite sands, processing through the White Mesa Mill in Utah, and now a route toward turning separated elements into magnets. In Nick’s view, Energy Fuels may now have more of the full rare earth supply-chain puzzle than MP Materials.
That matters because this is not a one-month or one-year theme. It is a decade-long strategic reset. China is still buying gold, adding to its holdings for the 19th straight month. It is still controlling rare earth exports. It is still forcing the West to confront how dependent it has become on foreign supply chains for the metals, magnets, fuels, and materials needed for energy, defense, electrification, and AI infrastructure.
Generation Mining (TSX-V: GENM)(OTC: GENMF) was another freebie. Gerardo highlighted the company’s Marathon palladium-copper-zinc project in Canada, which just received a C$200 million commitment from the Canada Infrastructure Bank. His point was that critical metals security is not just an American issue, and not just a China issue. Canada is also stepping up to support projects with scale, mine life, infrastructure, and strategic value.
Nick added detail: Generation Mining is in the Underground Alpha portfolio, and he owns shares. The company has now secured nearly all of the expected capex needed to build the project — roughly C$969 million against a feasibility-study capex estimate of about C$992 million. Wheaton Precious Metals is involved. Major banks are involved. It is the first time the Canada Infrastructure Bank has invested in a critical metals project in Ontario. The feasibility study showed a net present value a little over C$1 billion using older price assumptions, but at current spot prices Nick said the NPV is more than C$2 billion, while the market cap is only around C$200 million. He sees a clear valuation disconnect.
Uranium also made the cut before the premium portion. Nick highlighted $17.5 billion in federal support for long-lead nuclear items, specifically tied to Westinghouse AP reactors. The challenge with nuclear is always the chicken-and-egg problem: plants cost so much because there is no scale, and there is no scale because plants cost so much. Federal capital may help break that loop. Combine that with fast-tracking uranium permits, support for small modular reactors, and new government funding, and the nuclear trend remains highly investable.
Gerardo put the bow on it with a breaking headline that the U.S. government is now greenlighting critical metals plants on military bases. You do not have to be a hedge fund guru to see where the trend is going. The U.S. needs more of this stuff. The West needs more of this stuff. The job for investors is to identify the companies that can find it, develop it, finance it, process it, and get it to market.
Bizarro Banter - The political and societal section started with the White House reflecting pool, which has somehow become a perfect metaphor for the country. Gerardo described the National Guard guarding the reflecting pool and arresting people for taking paint chips while the government still cannot get the water from green back to blue. After a botched paint job, Secret Service vehicles reportedly drove over the fresh surface before the sealant was dry. The result: a swampy reflecting pool during the 250th year of the United States.
Gerardo tied that into a broader reflection on the country. He has been watching documentaries on Ulysses S. Grant and Thomas Jefferson, reading founding-era documents, and comparing that period of ambition and institutional design with the present moment. The contrast is not flattering. Politicians are dysfunctional. The Supreme Court is making major decisions. The reflecting pool is literally a swamp. And yet Gerardo remains optimistic that America may be four or five years away from a major rerating if the country can get through this Fourth Turning phase and rebuild something better.
Nick noted the obvious hypocrisy: if Kamala Harris were spending tens of millions of dollars on White House decorations, lawn work, and reflecting-pool renovation, Trump and MAGA media would be screaming. Instead, the country is being told to accept it. Pools are hard to maintain, sure. But the symbolism is hard to miss.
From there, the conversation turned to New York and the rise of democratic socialism. Gerardo said he is a capitalist and leans libertarian, so he has obvious concerns about socialism as governing policy. But he also understands why it is gaining traction. People are tired. They are taxed heavily, paying more for everything, working multiple jobs, dealing with crime, watching politicians enrich themselves, and feeling like the current system does not work. That same dissatisfaction fueled MAGA in 2016. “What do we have to lose?” works as a political message when voters believe the existing system has already failed them.
Nick agreed that people have been losing faith in the system for a long time. Wealth inequality, political self-dealing, rising costs, weak accountability, and government programs that spend more without solving problems have created fertile ground for extremes on both sides. He understands why some voters gravitate toward Trump, and why others gravitate toward Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, or other self-described socialists. But he warned that fascism has not worked, socialism has not worked, and eventually governments run out of other people’s money.
Washington state taxes came up through Nick’s recent interview with Rick Rule. Rick has been talking publicly about meeting with realtors in Florida because of new taxes in Washington. Nick said it is a difficult decision to leave a place you like, but people in higher-tax states like Washington, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts are clearly considering it. He sees more million- and two-million-dollar listings in Spokane County and Seattle, and Rick said people in his circles are moving to places like Idaho and Florida.
The underlying issue is not just taxes. It is spending. Nick said governments keep spending more on education and welfare programs, but the outcomes have often failed to improve. Test scores remain poor, fraud has been exposed in multiple programs, and the answer from the left often seems to be more spending and more taxes. He said there may be cases where revenue needs to rise, but it has to be done intelligently, not by vilifying everyone who has done well or built a business.
The Supreme Court section started with Gerardo’s frustration over the Monsanto/Roundup decision. He framed it as another example of corporate power being protected while ordinary people are left with the consequences. In his view, if a company poisons people or causes cancer, victims should at least have the ability to argue their case in court. Blocking that path is, to him, a sign that the highest court in the land has become activist in its own way.
Nick connected that to Citizens United and the broader legal protection of corporations. He also made it personal, discussing Gore-Tex maker W.L. Gore in Maryland, where he grew up, and allegations around forever chemicals affecting local water and residents. His mother-in-law worked for Gore, lived across from one of its manufacturing plants, and later suffered kidney problems tied to contaminated water. He expects the legal process to drag on and suspects affected residents may settle for a fraction of what they deserve. To him, it is part of the same pattern: corporations can delay, outspend, and outlast the people harmed by their actions.
The hosts also discussed areas where Nick believes the Supreme Court may get things right, especially around the Second Amendment, cannabis users owning firearms, and carry rights in public-access businesses. He also believes the Court will check Trump on issues like ending birthright citizenship and firing Lisa Cook, arguing that the checks and balances from eighth-grade civics still matter even if the system is deeply imperfect.
The most personal part of Nick’s rant involved girls’ sports. As a father of two daughters who play sports, he said he expects the Court to side with states like Idaho and West Virginia that want to prevent biological males from competing in girls’ sports. He also referenced a disturbing Washington wrestling case and argued that this is one of the common-sense issues where the left loses people who might otherwise be sympathetic to other parts of its agenda.
Gerardo closed the section by saying he dislikes plenty about both the left and the right. The system needs restructuring, reinvigoration, critical thinking, community, common sense, and less money in politics. He also pushed back against the tendency to call everything racist, antisemitic, or hateful when someone raises a legitimate concern or asks a hard question. His point was that wrong is wrong and right is right, regardless of who is involved. The reflex to shut down discourse by assigning labels is part of the tribalism that has to be overcome if the country is going to find practical solutions.
Premium Portfolio Picks - (You need to subscribe to Investing in Bizarro World Live to get this section.)
0:00 Introduction
2:41 Macro Musings: Gold Breaks $4,000. Silver Cracks $60. Dollar Above 101. Yield Confusion. Fed Cover. Short-Term Bearish.
12:07 Market Takes: Junior Resilience. Algorithmic Selling. Copper Support. China Rare Earth Squeeze. Energy Fuels. Generation Mining. Uranium Funding.
24:25 Bizarro Banter: Reflecting Pool Swamp. Fourth Turning. New York Socialism. Roundup Ruling. Supreme Court Checks. Tribalism.
56:59 Premium Portfolio Picks: (You need to subscribe to Investing in Bizarro World Live to get this section)
PLEASE NOTE: There are now two versions of this podcast.
- Bizarro World Live — Pay less than $3 per episode to watch us record the podcast live every Thursday and get Premium Portfolio Picks every week. Plus an archive of all premium episodes. Subscribe here.
- Bizarro World Free — Published the Monday after the live recording with no Premium Portfolio Picks.