MacroVoices #521 Jeff Currie: The Great Rotation

[music] This is MacroVoices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high net worth individuals, family offices, and other sophisticated investors. MacroVoices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics telling it like it is. Bullish your bearish, no holds barred. Now here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Sarrezna. MacroVoices episode 521 was produced on February 25th, 2026. I'm Eric Townsend. Carlyle Group Partner and former Goldman Sachs Commodities Chief Jeff Curry returns as this week's feature interview guest. Jeff and I will discuss the commodity bull market. Why metals are outperforming almost everything else? Why Jeff says they'll continue to outperform hydrocarbons and other things that are tied to affordability, energy demand from AI and data centers, precious metals, China stock piling commodities, and much more. Then be sure to stay tuned for our post-game segment after the feature interview when Patrick's trade of the week focuses on a precious metals long built around the sanctions, de-dollarization, and hoarding theme. And as always, we'll give you our latest perspective on all the major markets. And now Patrick Sarrezna with the macro scoreboard week over week as of the close of Wednesday, February 25th, 2026. The S&P 500 index up 94 basis points to 69.46. It remains in the center of a multi-month trade range. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technicals to watch in the post-game segment. The US dollar index down 8 basis points trading at 97.64. The April WTI Crude Oil contract up 57 basis points trading at 65.42. The April Arbob Gasoline up 227 basis points trading at 2.25. April Gold contract up 433 basis points trading at 52.26. Gold continues recovering from that short term selling pressure. The May copper contract up 310 basis points trading at 5.98. March Uranium contract down 113 basis points trading at 87.75. And the US 10-year treasury yield down 3 basis points trading at 405. The key news to watch this week is Friday's PPI inflation numbers. And next week we have the ISM manufacturing and services PMIs, retail sales, and the closely watched jobs numbers. This week's feature interview guest is Carlau Group Partner and former Goldman Sachs commodities chief Jeff Curry. Eric and Jeff discuss the reemerging commodity super cycle, the weaponization of critical materials, why gold and strategic metals are increasingly treated as reserve assets in a sanctioned heavy world. And what it means for oil, natural gas, and the broader energy transition. Eric's interview with Jeff Curry is coming up as macro voices continues right here at macrovoices.com. And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Eric Townsend. Joining me now is Jeff Curry, partner at Carlau Group and also well known as the former commodities chief at Goldman Sachs. Jeff, it's been way too long and it's great to get you back on the show. Since your Mr. commodities, I've got to ask you, I think what we're seeing is the stock bull market of the early 2020s is giving away to even bigger commodity bull market of the late 2020s. Is that what's happening? And if so, what's the macro driver? Why is it happening? Oh, absolutely. I think started back in October 2020 through the middle of 22, you know, oil got up to like 130 and we saw a big run up in commodities during that time period. The drivers of, you know, in fact, we made a call when I was at Goldman for a commodity super cycle in October of 2020 and I'd argue every point that we made at that point in time are valid even more so today than it was then. So if you liked it, then you really got to like it out. So why don't we just kind of go over the big drivers and you know, from a supply perspective, you know, was the under investment, you know, years of poor returns going back to 2014, saw capital redirected into other sectors, you know, like tech. And as a result, you know, you look at like whether it fits metals or oil or agriculture, most of these real assets have faced years of under investment with like with oil. This year is the last time you have big surge in non-oPEC production. In fact, it was in this coming month of March. That's it. There's really nothing behind it. Refineries, there's nothing behind it. Copper, I can go down all the metals, you know, the under investment thesis. It's been in place since then still very much empowering. When you look at metals, they just been a straight line since 2020. Actually, look at the equal weighted, you know, commodity indices like, you know, the underweight oil, and we'll talk about oil a little bit later. It's just been a straight line since 2020. So what were, you know, the drivers on the demand side. And I really, the same three are there. And it was de-globalization. De-carbonization, let's call it electrification for current terminology. And then the third one was redistribution. So another way to say it is the, you know, the de-globalization is the war on free trade. The de-carbonization was the war on climate change. And the redistribution is the war on income inequality. So let's go with the first one, de-globalization. It is so much further than what I ever envisioned. You know, whether it's defense spending, supply chains, you know, like to say, we weaponized the periodic table. It's gotten so severe since then. With, you know, China curtailing critical minerals supply in 22 natural gas, you know, even more recently with the US sanctions on Iranian and in Russian oil, you know, all of its men weaponized. So that story, that theme is just turned up in volume. I mean, that's even what's driving gold because ultimately you de-dollar eyes because you don't want any own any dollar assets because the Americans can employ sanctions on you through the Swiss system. So even gold is going up because that so that de-globalization theme, you know, live and kicking and, you know, again, no, actually another data point, you're a 5% of GDP committed to defense spending. It's all commodity. So anyway, that theme is, let's go to the next one. You know, we called it de-carbonization in 2020 today. All of the electrification turbocharged. By the way, US, I'm putting US, Europe and China, record installation of renewables in 2025 and 2026. And in China, as you and I, they are one of our favorite topics to talk about, nuclear capacity installation. China is just leading the world in that. So electrification, that story, you know, is, and then you throw data center demand on top of that electrification story, it's far stronger than we ever dreamed of in 2020. And then the third one, the redistribution. And that really goes to fiscal policy and the need to, you know, redirect capital into lower income groups to deal with the civil unrest and the problems that are associated, which are all over the world right now. And when we think about the spending, and this is the argument, and you and I have talked about in the past, Eric, is when you, money goes to the lower income groups, you get a proportionally larger spend on commodities. So you put it together, you know, demand, even in oil surprising to the upstripe for many different reasons. We'll talk about oil later, but we're seeing across the board. And I just want to address one last point here before we leave this topic is a lot of people are going to go, you know, curry, you're so wrong on oil. Yes, I was so wrong on oil it went down. And we think about commodities, all the ones that have a atomic number associated with them that are in the periodic table. And I like to say the weaponization of the periodic table have gone straight up. Anything that has a carbon hydrogen into it have really struggled. What's carbon hydrogen? Hydrocarbon, so oil, gas and coal, carbon hydrates like corn, wheat and so forth. What do these organic chemistry commodities all have in common affordability? They drive inflation. And when we think about what, you know, the primary driver of every politician in the western hemisphere and the west west is get inflation down at all costs. And so we think about what happened is that we go back to 22 23 and we saw that the drop of inflation was globally synchronized. It occurred against record demand of commodities, very strong US GDP growth, relatively good GDP growth in China. It had to have been supplied because again globally synchronized strong demand. So where did they get the supply? Turn a blind eye to Russia, Iran, Venezuela, hey guys, turn up the volume. And then you look at immigration. Where did we, how did you get the wages down? I mean, just tell you, if I go back and look at immigration across US, Canada, Europe and the rest of them, it's a line going straight up. Your wage is down. How did you get the food prices down? We don't care about what's, you know, the palm trees and Philippines or, you know, the land in Latin America just harvest as much as you possibly can turn a blind eye to environmental regulations. So they did that. Now what problems are all these countries facing with right now? Well, US went into Venezuela. You got a problem in Iran. You got a problem in Russia. You're not doing that trick again. These guys are producing at max. And then you will look at, and so you're now you're turning them off again. And then you look at what happened with, you know, with immigration. You know, by the way, places like Canada, where I think like two or three acts and here in the UK was up like 100 percent. US was up 50 percent. And now you're getting the backlash from that. So, you know, I'm not going to say, you know, I'm not doing, I know there was a lot of sensitivity around immigration. I don't want to put it down. But I think the key point here is those CH commodities, those affordability, anything associated with affordability was forced out. Eventually you're running out of those tricks. There's no more insurance policies next time around. You're not going to be able to open the floodgates on immigration. You're not going to call out Iran going, hey, we don't care. Start exporting again against sanctions. This is not happening. Anyway, I think you get the point here is that story started back at the beginning of this decade. It continued on in the in the metal space in the organic chemistry, the CH commodities, grains and oil and food and fuel. It was delayed. And I think what we're witnessing right now, especially with the height of AI settling down, that commodity super cycle is reasserting itself. And as you point, I think it's not it's a continuation story. And it's only going to get bigger as we go to the end of this decade. I can say, where are we in this right now? We're in the foot hills of the Himalayas. Jeff, a quarter of a century ago, you wrote a piece called Revenge of the Old Economy. You were diagnosing what went wrong with the dot com bust and so forth. You told me off the air, you've recently written a piece. I'm not sure if it's titled the Revenge of the Revenge of the Old Economy, but basically the same theme is back. Why is it recurring now? What's the new piece about? And we just basically, I basically was a cut in pace of what we wrote back quarter century ago. A few years back. How's that? OK, all right, all right. But I think let's talk about what we observed there. By the way, at the time, I thought it was one off. And I'd seen something that's-- and now I realize it's a cycle. So let's go what I thought about it in 2001 is that the story we told was due to poor returns in the old economy. And by the way, the stat that we had for it in, you know, 2019, 1999 was that US EMPs destroyed 27 cents on every dollar they were given during that decade of the 1990s. So they returned, they kept 73 cents of it. You know what that number is in the 2010s all the way up to 2021? 54 cents was destroyed. That means they kept 46 cents of it. So you know, that's the type of wealth destruction that occurred back in the 1990s on that slide. So all the capital chased where the returns were, which was the new economy. Eventually, you choked off so much investment into the old economy, you got shorted. And by the way, that bull market really started in the late '90s, early 2000s. And then took a breather around September 11th. And then the whole thing came crashing down in, you know, a late '102. And then you had that rotation. The story, why we called it the revenge of the old economy, it was pretty simple. Black of investment, no, the economy, you started to the capital that it needed and then you are off to the races. Then you throw in a demand shock like China on top of it and then it got turbocharged. Now let's go back and I'm going to say the time I thought, oh, it's unique. Then we started realizing, no, this stuff happens all the time. And what are the two most important industries in the global economy, technology and energy? If you can't, you know, if you can't turn the lights on, nothing ever happens. If you don't innovate, you never progress. So technology and energy are the two most important sectors. And all we do is rotate over time between technology and energy. And in fact, I saw somebody put this chart going, what are the big themes in investing you look at it? You know, they don't really, certainly they call it always China or something like that. But reality, you're always rotating between those two. And let me give you, so I really realized it was about 2022 or 2023. It's not old economy, new economy. It's actually asset light asset heavy. And by the way, in what is a commodity super cycle or a asset heavy boom or an old economy boom, it is nothing other than a capex cycle, really simple. And if you look at somebody's charts, we have just look at the capex cycle. And that's these are, you know, 25, 30 year cycles. And that's what what happens here. But I want to go back to the nifty 50. Let's start there. And why do I want to use the term asset light? So we began the 1960s. We have excess commodity supply from the rebuild from the second world war. Let's put downward pressure on interest rates. So you got low and stable inflation. And boy, equity markets like low and stable inflation, light leads to low interest rates. Now you had LBJ, browbeat, Arthur Burns, get interest rates down as much as you possibly can. And then he started spending. And so that you laid the foundation of those low interest rates. Now what do low interest rates do? A lot of people think low interest rates should lead to capex boom because money is cheap. No, it leads to a duration boom. You go, you, you want to buy growth way out in the future when interest rates are low. And what were the nifty 50 McDonald's Coca-Cola? They're all brands. Franchise. Think about McDonald's. It's identical to Microsoft. It was infinitely scalable at zero marginal cost because it was a franchise. So it had that long term growth story. It was all the same stuff in that nifty 50 as the dot-com boom was in the 90s because it was all long term growth technology companies. Again, software, infinitely scalable, zero marginal cost. And then in the 2010s, when you had the low and stable inflation, it was like Google. And so you look at the rotation in like 1968, Coca-Cola was the most valuable company in the world and like Exxon was at the bottom. Fast forward in 1980 after you ran out of commodity supply, you had a huge inflationary shock. Exxon was at the top and Coca-Cola was lowered out. But I think the point here is don't underestimate the demand shock. What was the demand shock that caused that inflationary boom in the in the 70s? It wasn't, you know, OPEC just turbocharged it with the Arab oil embargo, but the real cause of it was LBJ's great society. Remember guns and butter and then we go into a period of a commodity boom. You debottle like the energy and then you go into the, you know, the 80s and the 90s. Interest rates low. You get the dot-com boom. Now it's Microsoft at the top. Exxon at the bottom. And then you run out of supply and then your big demand shock was China. Note that all those demand shocks were policy. It was LBJ in the late 60s with his, you know, war and Vietnam plus the war on poverty. The Chinese one was a decision by policy makers to let them into the WTO and then you get to the 20s. It was COVID, you know, it's just shock to the system on the Arab. Now what is it going to be this year? 2026? Big beautiful bill, Germany with, by the way, you have a physical policy, bananas at this year. You've got big beautiful bill. You have Germany, you have Japan, you have China. I think we haven't seen this big of a global synchronous pop to the system. Actually, I would argue since COVID and look what COVID is. So I, you know, I'm taking a long thing about my these cycles here. So just I think the way we, I could think about it now is it's a rotation between asset light, asset heavy, asset light is usually tech, asset heavy is usually energy and, and commodities. Now there's one last twist and I'm, I'm, I'm dragging on here. I could bear with me is that if you can think about the asset light, boom, being driven by bits and the asset heavy, boom, being driven by atoms. One thing that's really different, and this is the core of the twist and the piece we put out yesterday is this time the bits meet the atoms. And how do you get the bit atoms? Think about, think about what is AI compute? The technology companies are becoming asset heavy, they're putting steel in the ground. And as they put steel on the ground, the bits meet the atoms, you get a bit atom commodity called AI compute. By the way, you know it sits on your Bloomberg screen, you can trade it. AI compute, send, I think dollars per hour. And you have cryptocurrencies or mining where you're burning vast amounts of atoms to get a bit. So we're in a new world where the bits meet the atom. So they have that maybe a normal rotation, but I think it's, we're in an exciting new world. And, and I think it's just going to create even more demand for the physical world. Think about AI requires less labor, more commodities. So this one's going to be bigger than the ones in the past. But I think around the long answer to your question, these are big cycles. I'm going to go ahead and start the question. I just wanted energy, energy, energy. But the reality is, boy, did those engineers create an oil supply glutton 2014 and 2015. I think when we think about what's going on in AI today, I would argue, you know, by the way, look at AI compute. Yeah, it's going down because of obsolescence. But that price is weakened from like three bucks down into like two dollar range. And part of it is they just get better and better at. So I would be cautious about AI. By the way, where everybody spoke it's on the oil supply glut today. And nobody thinks there's an AI compute glut. I get a lot more worried about an AI compute glut because these engine errors are so bright than I would be of an oil. You're worried about an AI compute glut too much computing capacity, including the energy to run that computing capacity. Or do you just mean too many computers to to make the price of compute goes down. By the way, if it goes down though, you can use more of it use more energy. But the the ability to by way, every single one of these technological revolutions always ins and tears for the equity guys always knew and I lived through the show one. By the way, the show one looks identical to the AI one, even the SPBs, the structures of the financial engineering identical. It's like they took the pitch books from the shell guys rubbed out the names of the energy companies and wrote in all of these open AI and the rest of it and just redid it. Because think about they had the MLPs. The only difference is is the oil guys went downstream into the MLPs here. The data center guys go upstream into the power guys other than that it looks identically the same. So you know, I look at that's why so I say it AI compute glut. I'd be less worried about energy collapsing than I would have the price because remember there's a commodity called AI compute it's H 100 you can look at silicon H100 on your Bloomberg terminal. You know, it's gone up onto 242 but it's still well off the $3 range. So I think the key point here is I would be I'd like to say don't bet against the engineers give them enough time of money. They can really surprise you on that theme I'm convinced that the give them enough time and money for the AI compute demand ultimately is going to lead to a really increased nuclear renaissance because that's the right technology solution for AI energy demand. The problem is until we get off of conventional light water reactor technology onto something better and it's going to be a while it takes just too darn long to build a new nuclear power plant. I think it's going to create a natural gas boom it's an interim boom you know from now until we can really build out the nuclear. I think we're going to have to figure out how to build more energy some other way and I think natural gas is the obvious benefactor. Would you agree and if not why not? 100% agree with that by why I'll be very careful while I say the price of compute's going down it doesn't mean I'm saying that it's going to lead to less energy demand. I just think they're going to get more efficient at it but the when we think about the about the demand out there ultimately when we think about AI where the model next going to be it's going to be the natural resources and the data you feed the LLM models. That's it everything else that Rajas are going to get crushed and so you want to own the commodities and particularly power and you want to own the data that it's fed into the LLM. And so if you're thinking about power you know the place that you're going to get the the most efficient increase in power is going to be through through the nuclear generation. So I absolutely agree but that's not going to happen for another two decades or decade. So what's your best bet for today it's going to be natural gas is the easiest fastest way to bring on powers. But I know people who put that trade on last year and it's been a really rough rocky road we went up to $7 recently and came crashing back down to three 20 or wherever we are today right now. But I think the you know the key message there though is I think you're absolutely right you started to get the summer this year summer next year I think natural gas is going to see a lot of upside. Jeff let's go back to gold in silver we just had a I don't know what to call it a gut wrenching correction $1200 correction in gold the catalyst probably that triggered it was the market misinterpreting the worst nomination. I think it was really just the market was so overstretched it needed a correction I thought with something of that magnitude surely it would take months and months and months to consolidate before we could move higher. But the news I think this week at least so far is we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon is gold has moved above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement the old adage in technical analysis is once you're past the 61.8 you're probably headed to a 100% retrace. If we get a weekly signal if we're above 5166 on gold and I'm looking at 5224 is where recording if we're above 5166 at the end of the week it says to me that you know maybe this is already recovering and headed higher could that be true this soon after such a big correction. Absolutely and do you think about the period in the 2000 super cycle it was incredibly volatile I like to point out that you know these these super cycles are just sequence of price spikes. Yeah I mean they go oh you know it's down and then you catch because here's the way I like to think about what happens particularly in silver in this case is the system gets overstretched investors buy it and they run the price up so high and demands pushing up against supply constraints. Eventually the man gets so high demand collapses underneath it then it falls off the supply constraint comes crashing back down and then people go oh my god this is cheap they start buying again and boom. Smashes into the supply constraint again explodes and just does that over it over and over and by the way that discourages the investment because everybody gets scared. Oh it's going to collapse again it's going to collapse again and so you don't get the investment on a long term basis and that's why the you know the initial phase of these super cycles they get really by way you know the way you remember like aluminum of power back in 2001 and 2002 it was that same type of dynamic it was like you're going up and down and up and down and it makes it nearly you don't trade this stuff and you know unless you absolutely have to and so I think you know that's this is going to be what you're seeing in gold and silver is we're going to see this across the the commodity complex and that's what all these super cycles it becomes a common feature again the equities by way the equity trade for the for the metals and energy is been a nice food easy ride so by the way if you if you want this nice easy smooth ride on the equities don't own the commodity but the commodities it's going to be it's going to be a rough rock like we're just talking to natural gas seven bucks to three twenty and by way way all it takes is you know get you throw in some more weather and you know put some data center demand on you'll be up the races on that one too so you know I think hang on it like gold this I don't see how you come up it's not as price sensitive is silver or natural gas and the underlying thing there in this environment it's like the Swiss Frank is strong as it is there's there's no end in sight and I hear that when the demand is coming out of not only people hedging themselves against the debatement trade but you have de-dollarization going to buy central banks all over the world afraid to own dollars for sanction reasons and then you got to own the stuff for diversity reasons in your portfolio everybody's still under invested this space you like to point out the metal space two hundred billion a market cap you know so you start throwing money and it's explosive anyway I think this is a feature of a super cycle and expect to see a lot more of it and I we're going to go higher let's talk about silver some people have suggested the dynamics there are different because silver had really gotten ahead of itself before the correction some people thought that that was really a result of the people who were pimping it the Wall Street silver and all that kind of stuff and maybe after that blow off that we saw it was certainly it it is recovering but it's not recovering on a percentage basis is strongly as gold is and it was out performing gold before the correction what do you see ahead for silver I mean you're you're back to 91 right now yeah it briefly got up above a hundred and I get 120 at the high you know long run you want to turbo charge version of gold I mean that was one of our favorite picks back in 2021 when we first made the super cycle call because it you know it has the same underlying precious metal dynamics as gold but it's a key input to all this electrification back then we call the decarbonization today we call it electrification solar panels and it's a core input to all of that electrical equipment that places like China make and again China short this stuff which is probably the reason why China has been you know a big buyer of it and again the demand for corporates to afford it things of that nature I'm not in the forecasting business anymore but some of those banks I think it's be a very Michael women I think let's he have like 170 or something like that he's been doing this as long as you and I have so I think there's a you know the potential here there's a significant upside still Jeff let's come back to the inflation outlook which you mentioned earlier in your first answer with all of this appreciation that we're seeing in gold and silver what are we really seeing is the price of gold going up because of greater central demand are we really seeing the value of the dollars that gold is priced in going down I think it's a combination of both the initial surge the D dollarization occurred the first time the Trump administration used sanctions against the Russians back in 2018 that was a shot to the system and you realize you own us bond you got problems then it then after you look at when it got turbocharged soon as the U.S. sees the Russian central bank assets in 2022 after the invasion they're off to the races that is D dollarsation you don't care you're getting rid of your dollars because you don't want to get sanctions and votes on you and at this point emerging markets are doing this all over the world and now they just continue to add to the service that's not that has nothing to do it the debatement demand which is mainly from investors that's what you're talking about but you put the two together you know I like to point out dollar he has trading what 1.34 against the pounds sterling well 1.17 against the euro the only the only currency out there that it just been you know slaughtered by is the Swiss bank I think it's trading 0.77 against the dollar so there yeah I think a story you're talking about the rest of them it's not that big of a shift and when we think about the dollar you know it's it's weekend but in nowhere think about an o8 at the end of that commodity super cycle it was trading 1.61 against the euro that was the peak of the dollar against the euro so we have 1.17 today that's a long ways to go so the answer your question you've been a little bit of it but this is real like hey all these EOT currencies are in a bad shape and no way to think about this is this is not the dollar being singled out as being the bad character this is EOT currency being singled out as the bad character let's come back to the oil glut narrative that you said you wanted to debunk I couldn't agree with you more that's the notion that there's a fundamental oil glut is crazy I think that the long term fundamentals for oil are extremely bullish but hang on between now and the mid term elections president Trump really doesn't have anything more important on his agenda than keeping energy and affordability prices low through the elections so it seems to me like there's likely to be a lot of invisible hands at work trying to keep energy prices low for the next six months would you agree with that or are we looking at fundamentals that nobody can manipulate I'm going to answer that question is I think there is going to be a tipping point where it can't be but there's no way but how do you manipulate I look at back at this and I ask myself how did this happen I've been doing this 30 years I've never seen a narrative without any real fundamental evidence and when you look at the actual fund of the real data inventories are low to another in the OECD countries today they're lower today than they were a year ago a lower day the year ago that's well that's the real thing yeah you may have a satellite data some even there they show that the inventories floating at sea have turned over the curve has been very backwardated you and I both know a backer day to curve is bullish refining margins are really wide spreads are early yeah the OSP's of the OPEC countries that come off but they come off from relatively high levels I'm just going what are they looking at and I don't know where the narrative how did they get started and where did it come from and how do you get it go on for 18 19 months you know when we think about AI in the productivity gains you know the one thing is that is you is that you got to verify the results of AI we don't know if it is telling the truths or not and as people in workplaces start using it more and more and more you need more humans to actually verify that what they're doing that's not measurable is right and you can think of it about the same way in in markets you have more markets being traded by algorithmic trading that we've ever had before they tee off sentiment numbers and things like that they can drive it down because every other measure that you and I know says this oil market is bullish except for the flat price but the flat price can trade off the sentiment but there's nothing there left to verify because it's too expensive to verify it and I think that's like you're going to see that in the productivity that the workshops going to go hey the cost to me to verify this is so much and the potential for it ever becomes so great they're just going to quit using it and is the same thing going on in oil that is being driven by algos trend followers and the sentiment to a point where it cannot correct itself unless you can go down underneath and go at the micro level and create enough upside to it maybe it's the you know an invasion in Iran or something that gets us out of this trap the price level is driven by liquidity not by fundamentals or anything like that and the liquidity has been drained out people who just they don't want to trade and I think a lot of people have lost a lot of money traded oil whether it's short or long over the last two years but at the answer your question it's going to happen when is it going to happen and there be a crude awakening and so you know it's you know is it between now in the midterms is it you know a potential with Iran it could be but I think it's it's definitely it's not a question if it's a question away Jeff final question you told me off the air that you're expecting an explosion of liquidity what's that about and the other thing I wanted to follow up with you on is you've been in touch with our good friend Josh Crumb founder of Abix Technologies those guys were doing some really exciting stuff specifically around liquid natural gas and the futures trading and so forth do you have any update because we've had a lot of interest on our listeners for an update on what Abix is up to yeah I think the the the discussion just goes hand in hand you know when we think about the liquidity explosion I like it you know what we've seen in the genius act web 3.0 I don't like the word crypto call it DLT distributed ledger technology or whatever it might be in AI you put those three together it's just like the CFMA act of 2000 and Web 1.0 that unleashed the liquidity explosion in commodity markets like we'd never seen before in the 2000 why because the technology allowed you to go downstream and trade things we could never trade before because of web 1.0 was big data and what we're on the cusp of right now you put you know Web 3.0 combined with AI combined with the genius and clarity act I think you're ready to unleash a liquid a liquid explosion like the world has never seen before and what's really going to be how is it going to do it is is crypto was never made for human beings it was made for machines it's clumsy it's hard to do we're going to have AI bots trading crypto or trading you know tokens I don't like the coins I don't like the crypto I like the technology I like the tokens that are in commodities that gold and silver real world assets tokenized real world assets that we can partition into levels that are going downstream unlike ever before I like to point out in the first wave like when I was at Goldman Sachs we can never trade plastic because we couldn't get downstream enough into the plastic markets because they're so fragmented when you put AI and crypto together we're going to be able to go and make markets there and we take somebody like like a vex and it's doing this in natural gas and getting into markets that you couldn't make before the technology is allowed to make market in natural gas LNG and it's all over the place getting into lithium carbonate power markets that are further downstream so I am really excited about the future trading I'm a I'm an NED a non-executive director at at a lot of the ad-backs and you know I think the technology is extremely well positioned as we go into what we have to say I look really de-explosion well Jeff I can't thank you enough for another terrific interview before I let you go please tell our listeners what you do at Carlell group I know it's only institutional so you can't help our retail audience directly but for our institutional listeners what services are on offer there I'm with the energy teams and you work with like the aerospace and defense team and going back to this super cycle theme and theme around the local organization I'll forget you know Carlell cut its base in the aerospace defense sector so Carlell is extremely well positioned as we go into this commodity super cycle whether if it's energy team you know it's got a long history of developing assets in and you know the upstream and refining and obviously given the defense spending going around the world so I'm super excited about the opportunities at home Patrick Sarasna and I will be back as MacRavoyces continues right here at macravoyces dot com now back to your hosts Eric Townsend and Patrick Sarasna Eric it was great to have Jeff back on the show listeners you'll find a download link for the post game trade of the week in your research round up email if you don't have a research round up email that means you have not yet registered at macravoyces dot com just go to our homepage macravoyces dot com and click on the red button over Jeff's picture saying looking for the downloads Patrick for this week's trade of the week let's focus on Jeff Curry's theme of de-dollarization and impact on metals how are you thinking about positioning here and what's the most compelling way to express that view Eric coming at a Jeff's interview my key takeaways that gold isn't trading like a simple inflation hedge anymore it's increasingly behaving like a geopolitical reserve asset in sanctions heavy world where supply chains and critical inputs are getting weaponized reserve diversification into bullion become structural not cyclical so for this week's trade of the week I want to look back at bullion the gold correction is arguably come and gone and after a meaningful 20% peak to trough reset this becomes less about timing a perfect entry and more about maintaining a core long exposure with a volatility dampener in case we get one more retest of those lows this is where the options market helps gold continues to carry a fat right tail skew which means you can sell relatively expensive upside to subsidize downside protection and create a more asymmetric overlay so for this week's trade of the week I'm looking at the 90 by 120 color overlay on the GLD the gold ETF is trading of $476 at the time of recording using the May 15th 2026 expiration we are buying the 430 strike put for $8 and selling the $575 strike call for $5 that's a net $3 debit or about $300 per color per 100 shares what you're buying is a defined risk envelope 10% below the price at 430 you've effectively put a floor under your position on the upside you stay long up to 575 which is roughly 20% upside from here you're paying a small debit to dampen downside volatility while still keeping meaningful upside over the next 90 days if gold resumes its primary trend this is particularly useful for those investors that feel maintaining a strong overweight is necessary which always comes with some concentration risks bottom line stay core long gold at a low cost collar to dampen volatility in case we get another shake out and use the skew to your advantage to keep the hedge asymmetric and inexpensive Patrick every Monday at Big Picture Trading your webinar explains how retail investors can put on our most recent trade of the week for those listeners that want to explore how to put on these trades in greater detail don't miss out on a 14 day free trial at Big Picture Trading dot com now let's dive into the post game chart tick all right Eric let's talk markets what are you views here on these equities Patrick the market was feeling pretty heavy flirting with the 100 day moving average support for several days this past week for now we've bounced off of it that's a little bit reassuring I guess but the market is still trading sideways at best and a resumption of the uptrend remains uncertain I don't have any strong timing views about what happens next just concern that if we do retest the 100 day and it doesn't hold there's no obvious support until the 200 day moving average down at around 6600 on the S&P so hopefully we can stay above the 100 day but if not look out below well Eric the story has actually been the same on the S&P 500 for the last couple weeks for so for months we've been in a tight trade range and there has been no resolution and that's because the market is actually torn under the surface it has a huge substantial correction occurring in the financial sector and in the software stocks while we continue to see what I have on page for the semiconductor ETF chart breaking to fresh new highs within vision just beating on its earnings as well on page five I have the Cospi the South Korean index which is going full on parabolic and so we have the the stories of these the AI story working on the semiconductor side but yet on the software side getting hammered the mag sevens remain weak and this is structurally heavy weight now video did beat on its earnings but there isn't any extraordinary upside in fact it's relatively flat at the open and so we have a scenario well what is going to drive in S&P 500 breakout and and really at this stage it would really take many of these very overbought mag sevens to to feel the need to mean revert and and actually potentially rally for a short period of time and that is really my mind the puzzle to solve you know if we find ourselves in two three trading sessions with Nvidia giving back all of its gains that will be a structural blow to the semiconductor story and that could be what turns the tide but it's too early to speculate at this stage we're in this trade range the market is very heavy but we are going to really need to see something give out for the cell cycle to kick in it is noteworthy that near 6800 on the S&P only 150 points lower are a lot of systematic trading trip wires that could really have flows pivot to the cell side so it really is important for the bulls if they want to maintain this primary trend to keep this market less 50 day moving average and progressing higher or Eric what are your thoughts here on the dollar the upswing stall did about 98 on the Dixie at least temporarily but there's also no indication yet of any reversal to a lower swing trade so the jury is still out but absent to war I think the rally is probably running out of steam here the thing is absent to war is not exactly to say I didn't going to happen because let's face it the very real possibility exists of a US attack on Iran and I think that would be dollar bullish at least in the short term well Eric it's interesting that the strength that we've seen in that US dollar over the last month has done nothing but 50% retrace back to the 50 day moving average and so the primary downtrend is still intact if for whatever reason we're given a catalyst for the dollar to have a breakdown we could easily find ourselves heading for either double bottom retests or even a hit in the 94 95 handle on the downside but with us actually trading right at this 98 handle there is the window that if for whatever reason there's a risk off impulse in the dollar is bid you could have a burst above that 50 day which could pivot flows simply on a technical basis really we're at a really important falcon point of of where we're going to determine what's next this 98 level is incredibly critical in my mind and it's going to really be where we're going to find out whether the prevailing downtrend remains the path of least resistance all right Eric let's touch on oil here well the rally and crude oil appears to have stalled because the fears of a strike on Iran haven't happened yet until the deal is reached though or an Iran strike is completely off the table I expect the geopolitical premium to stay in the market and I think that's what got us up here to this price level in the mid to high 60s in the first place in the short term and only in the short term there's no supply crisis unless that Iran conflict creates one so there's plenty of room for prices to come back down to the low 60s or high 50s if the Iran strike comes off the table completely longer term though the fundamentals are bullish especially after the election window yeah Eric when talking about oil it's actually challenging to do a technical flows analysis when you got such a huge geopolitical headline risk that could really change the trend very very quickly overall overall of the last two months oil has been very well accumulated all supports and selloffs have been held everything is in good trend but really I think the next big move on crude oil will be a headline driven at this stage everything technically remains bullish and if the news in any way spooks oil traders we could have a quick surge higher very reminiscent of what happened last June when the nuclear bunkers were hit by the oil nuclear bunkers were hitting Iran last time this stage were still very nice and clean in that bull trend and we want to respect that trend even though the risks are high here from that headline risk or Eric we got to talk about gold here what are your thoughts Patrick in my opinion this week's move above 51 66 5166 which is the 61.8 5 and I see a lot of the current of the correction that just occurred back on January 30 that move is that occurred this week already is unexpected and very significant what we need to see here and I should say as I'm recording we're above 5200 if we can stay up here above 51 66 and even better yet above 5200 and close there on Friday so that we end up with a weekly close above that 61.8% that's a pretty good technical sign that we might already be moving toward an upside resolution to this correction and frankly that's faster than I expected I thought it was going to be several months before this correction played out considering how brutal it was and how it shook so many weekends out of the market well Eric we did talk about this during our trade of the week and overall like view the long term trend of gold to be very very bullish and it's very likely at this point that that loan year 4500 that was established during the market correction is very likely to be the lowest gold is going to trade but it is very common for after such a blow off on the upside for there to be multiple months of consolidation before the bull continuation pattern so the one thing we just want to make sure to highlight here is that while the primary trend is up while the macro conditions are very bullish one simply needs to make sure your duration matches the realistic time frame is going to take for gold to make a new breakout I think that if gold is destined to make fresh new highs very much is a second quarter story and anticipating some consolidations and maybe even a retest of a 50 day moving average as a possible outcome here on gold over the next few weeks overall dips should be bought and used as a tactical opportunity all right Eric what are your thoughts here in uranium the uranium stocks moved nicely higher this week but not with the gusto that I was kind of open for the daily slow stochastic are high again but they're not over bought yet so hopefully we can see this move continue and continue a bit farther but I wouldn't be surprised if we do get another swing trade lower into next week will the entire pullback on the u 308 has been just a traditional retracement so the primary trend of higher highs higher lows above all moving averages remain intact and so I'm going to give the bulls a benefit that doubt that there will be a re resumption on the upside trend here Patrick before we wrap up this week's podcast let's hit that 10 year treasury note chart finally touching on that 10 year yield we continue to see pressure on interest rates lower as bonds are doing well here we're coming right to that 4% critical level this is this is a level that was tested numerous times last year back in April and October and and each time we broke below 4% even on a temporary basis it spurred a very rapid recovery we're going to get a very important tell here as we come and test those critical levels again well we see the same type of gusto and velocity on yields to rise or will we see that they stay down here on a sustained basis and that we're entering some sort of a different interest rate regime period the tell is going to definitely be on how we react off of a test of this 4% level folks if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of big picture trading the details are on the last pages of the slide deck or just go to big picture trading dot com Patrick tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup when this week's research roundup you're going to find the transcript for today's interview as well as the trade of the week chart book we just discussed here in the post game including a number of links to articles that we found interesting you're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup that does it for this week's episode we appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make this program even better now for those of our listeners that write or blog about the markets and would like to share that content with our listeners send us an email at research roundup at macro voices dot com and we will consider it for our weekly distributions if you have not already follow our main account on X at macro voices for all the most recent updates and releases you can also follow Eric on X at Eric's Townsend that's Eric's belt with a K you can also follow me at Patrick's Resna on behalf of Eric Townsend and I thank you for listening and we'll see you all next week that concludes this edition of macro voices be sure to tune in each week to hear feature interviews with the brightest minds and finance and macro economics macro voices is made possible by sponsorship from big picture trading dot com the internet's premier source of online education for traders please visit big picture trading dot com for more information please register your free account at macro voices dot com once registered you'll receive our free weekly research roundup email containing links to supporting documents from our featured guests and the very best free financial content our volunteer research team could find on the internet each week you'll also gain access to our free listener discussion forums and research library and the more registered users we have the more will be able to recruit high profile feature interview guests for future programs so please register your free account today at macro voices dot com if you haven't already you can subscribe to macro voices on iTunes to have macro voices automatically delivered to your mobile device each week free of charge you can email questions for the program to mail bag at macro voices dot com and we'll answer your questions on the air from time to time in our mail bag segment macro voices is presented for informational and entertainment purposes only the information presented on macro voices should not be construed as investment advice always consult a licensed investment professional before making investment decisions the views and opinions expressed on macro voices are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect those of the show's hosts or sponsors and host Eric Townsend and Patrick Sarresna shall not be liable for losses resulting from investment decisions based on information or viewpoints presented on macro voices macro voices is made possible by sponsorship from big picture trading dot com and by funding from forth turning capital management LLC for more information visit macro voices dot com [Music]