Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Aug. 17, 2026
Editor’s Note: I’ve been speaking at the New Orleans Investment Conference every year since 2012, and with metals and miners running, I think this year’s gathering could be one of the most important yet. Take a look at the 2026 lineup and reserve your seat here before the conference fills up. —Nick
The free version of the 376th episode of Investing in Bizarro World is now published.
Here’s what was covered:
Macro Musings - Gerardo was back this week, the summer doldrums are starting to fade, and the metals complex continues to improve.
Copper remains the strongest of the three major metals we follow. It has backed off slightly from the all-time highs above $6.90 per pound that Nick discussed last week, but the longer-term chart remains extremely bullish. Gold is also repairing itself. It successfully defended the $4,000 area during the summer correction, never reached Nick’s next downside target around $3,930, and has since moved back toward the $4,350–$4,375 area that Nick has been watching as the next important technical hurdle.
Nick thinks gold needs to hold that area before the chart can really reestablish its bullish trend. If it does, $4,500–$4,550 becomes the next logical target. Volatility has also increased, meaning $50–$100 daily swings should become increasingly normal as the market works through this range.
Silver has improved substantially as well. Two weeks ago, Gerardo said it needed to defend roughly $55–$56. It has since traded into the mid-$60s and briefly touched approximately $66.
The macro improvement continues to come from the dollar rather than the bond market. Treasury yields remain elevated, particularly farther out on the curve, while the DXY has broken below 100. Nick said gold is increasingly taking its cue from the dollar rather than moving inversely with Treasury yields as tightly as it did earlier in the year.
Nick also pushed back on the criticism Kevin Warsh has received for refusing to provide the kind of forward guidance markets became accustomed to under previous Fed chairs. Financial media outlets have complained that Warsh’s communication is confusing or inadequate, but Nick pointed out that the market itself seems relatively comfortable. The S&P 500 has continued hitting record highs, copper recently reached record highs, earnings have been strong, and market leadership is broadening beyond a handful of AI and technology stocks.
Inflation continues to oscillate rather than collapse. After running above 4% earlier this summer, the latest monthly readings have moderated toward the mid-3% range. Nick expects inflation to remain around there for a while because oil, war, tariffs, currencies, and other inputs continue moving in both directions.
The Fed futures market increasingly agrees that Warsh will sit tight. Nick said the probability of no September rate hike had risen to roughly 65%, compared with around 50% a month earlier, while the chance of a quarter-point hike was down to about 34%. October is now also leaning toward no action. The market is currently pricing the next quarter-point hike for December.
Weak employment gives the Fed cover to wait. July nonfarm payrolls reportedly fell by 23,000, while economic growth remains modest. Nick’s expectation is therefore relatively simple: probably no Fed action for the next couple of meetings.
Market Takes - The bigger policy story may be what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is doing outside the Fed.
Gerardo described Bessent’s recent actions in foreign currency and bond markets as a form of quasi-QE. The administration has little ability to force long-term U.S. yields materially lower given the debt situation, so Gerardo expects Bessent to continue finding creative ways to intervene elsewhere.
Nick agreed that Treasury intervention has contributed to the weaker dollar. If the U.S. Treasury is using taxpayer dollars to support another currency — in this case the Japanese yen — the dollar mechanically becomes weaker against that currency. A softer dollar has the added benefit of supporting stocks and other assets heading into the midterm elections.
The result so far has been exactly that: record stock prices, higher copper, improving gold, and generally better conditions for asset owners.
The critical-minerals theme also took another major step forward after last week’s episode.
Nick noted that after Trump met with mining and processing executives, the administration announced roughly $3 billion of new support across critical-mineral supply chains. That included direct investments, loans, and other support for companies involved in strategic materials including scandium and tungsten.
Money is also beginning to flow toward the human-capital problem. The U.S. does not have enough mining engineers, metallurgists, or rare-earth separation expertise to rebuild these supply chains at scale. Gerardo highlighted significant new support headed toward institutions such as the Colorado School of Mines, where enrollment in relevant engineering programs has declined dramatically from previous levels.
Both Nick and Gerardo view that as constructive. The U.S. cannot seriously reduce Chinese dominance of critical and strategic minerals without dramatically increasing not just mines and processing plants, but the number of people who actually know how to build and operate them.
They are less convinced Washington is choosing the right companies to fund. Nick cited Westwater Resources as one company receiving renewed market attention after the government announcements despite being a name he personally would not invest in. That creates another opportunity: if indiscriminate federal support can move weaker companies sharply higher, quality companies with legitimate projects and management teams may have considerably more upside as the theme develops.
The larger takeaway remains the same as last week: this is still early. Government policy is accelerating, capital is arriving, and Washington now clearly recognizes the problem, but creating an entire domestic mining, processing, metallurgy, and manufacturing ecosystem will take years.
Bizarro Banter - Politics became increasingly polarized, military readiness became harder to ignore, AI got stranger, and Gerardo returned from vacation with some pent-up ranting to unload.
Gerardo started with the increasingly strange political landscape heading into the midterms. On the Democratic side, socialist and progressive candidates continue making gains in certain urban enclaves, while more extreme candidates are being tested elsewhere. On the Republican side, Trump-backed candidates continue dominating primaries, often requiring candidates to seek the president’s blessing to remain politically viable.
Nick pointed to the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary as an example of where the more aggressive socialist wing met resistance. Francesca Hong ran on a far-left platform and campaigned alongside self-described socialist Hasan Piker, but ultimately lost to a more conventional Democrat.
Nick thinks the actual constituency for these socialist candidates is worth understanding. Despite being marketed as a working-class movement, support tends to come disproportionately from highly educated voters in relatively low-paying professional or academic fields rather than traditional blue-collar workers. That may place a natural limit on how far the movement can expand outside urban and university-heavy areas.
Gerardo’s broader frustration was that neither party offers much of a practical alternative. Traditional fiscal conservatism is largely absent from the Republican Party, while parts of the Democratic Party are responding to legitimate affordability problems with policies Gerardo and Nick believe would create different problems rather than solve the existing ones.
The discussion then moved to government corruption, the Epstein files, Todd Blanche, and the increasingly blurred lines between public information and private financial advantage.
Nick and Gerardo both objected to the idea of people paying for advance access to market-moving presidential statements. Nick argued that presidential communications are inherently public information and should not be available early to paying subscribers or investors. Given Trump’s ability to move markets with a single announcement, there is obvious value to hedge funds and traders in receiving those statements before everyone else.
Nick also joked that the repeated Sunday ceasefires during the Iran war had become almost predictable enough to trade, repeatedly arriving just before global futures markets opened and producing Monday rallies.
That transitioned into a much more serious issue: U.S. missile inventories.
Nick cited reporting that the United States has used more than 1,500 Patriot air-defense interceptors during the Iran war and that replacing them could take more than two years. Current inventories are reportedly fewer than 1,700 missiles, meaning the U.S. has burned through an extraordinary portion of its stockpile in only a matter of months.
That matters far beyond Iran. Fewer air-defense missiles change the strategic calculus around Ukraine, Taiwan, China, Russia, and North Korea. They may also force U.S. aircraft and service members closer to hostile territory if longer-range weapons become scarce.
And it loops directly back into the critical-minerals thesis. Those missile systems require gallium, germanium, tellurium, rare earths, and numerous other strategic materials that the United States still cannot adequately source or process domestically.
Gerardo also highlighted reports of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln enduring extraordinarily long deployments and difficult conditions, including multiple sailors reportedly jumping overboard. His larger argument was that maintaining the world’s strongest military requires more than spending money. It requires sufficient equipment, ammunition, logistics, leadership, and reasonable conditions for the people actually serving.
Before moving into the premium section, Nick closed on a more personal note with the passing of “Jim the Barber,” his childhood barber in Elkton, Maryland. Jim was 95, a former Marine, and spent decades running the kind of small-town barbershop where everyone knew everybody. Nick remembered paying $6 cash for a haircut there as a kid versus roughly $35–$40 today — one final reminder that official inflation statistics do not always capture how dramatically the cost of everyday life has changed over a generation.
Premium Portfolio Picks - (You need to subscribe to Investing in Bizarro World Live to get this section.)
0:00 Introduction
2:27 Macro Musings: Copper Still Leads. Gold Repairs. Dollar Below 100. Inflation Oscillates.
9:39 Market Takes: Bessent Intervention. Fed Hike Odds. Weak Jobs. Asset Prices Rise.
17:05 Bizarro Banter: Political Extremes. AI Acceleration. Missile Shortage. Critical Minerals Funding.
43:08 Premium Portfolio Picks: (You need to subscribe to Bizarro World Live to get this section)
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