Palisades Gold Radio

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Willem Middelkoop to the show. Willem Middelkoop is an author and is the Founder of the Commodity Discovery Fund. Middelkoop asserts that the “big reset” of the global financial system, a thesis he developed over a decade ago, is now unfolding in real time. He points to the accelerating decline of U.S. hegemony, evidenced by the collapsing petrodollar system and waning international support, particularly in the Middle East. This shift from an era of cooperation to confrontation is driving a fundamental change in capital flows, with generalist investors beginning to move away from paper assets like U.S. Treasuries toward hard assets. He notes that foreign ownership of U.S. debt has fallen below thirty percent, a situation he describes as “Weimar Lite,” where the Federal Reserve is increasingly forced to monetize government debt. This environment explains the strong performance of gold, which is being reintroduced into the monetary system without official decree, primarily through record central bank purchases. China alone is buying sixty percent of the world’s annual mine production outside its borders.

While Middelkoop does not foresee a hyperinflationary collapse, as the U.S. retains powerful tools like revaluing its gold holdings, he believes a new financial crisis is likely in the coming years. In such a crisis, he expects central banks to play the “gold card,” driving a significant revaluation. This outlook informs his investment strategy, which focuses on hard assets including real estate, physical gold and silver, Bitcoin, and high-quality equities. Shifting to the mining sector, Middelkoop highlights the exceptional opportunity in gold producers, which are generating record free cash flow yet trade at historically low valuations.

His fund, however, specializes in discovery investing, concentrating on a select portfolio of world-class tier-one and tier-two discoveries. He emphasizes that the key to outsized returns is maintaining a long-term position in a major discovery, allowing value to compound over decades as the deposit is developed into a producing mine. This patient, concentrated approach involves taking significant stakes in companies after the initial discovery hype and supporting them through to production.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:01:00 – Financial Reset Discussion

00:04:00 – US Losing Superpower Status

00:09:08 – Central Bank Gold Purchases

00:13:00 – Empire Decline and Debt

00:18:45 – Weimar Lite Scenario

00:23:00 – Gold Revaluation Process

00:28:00 – Mining Sector Opportunities

00:35:00 – Discovery Investing Strategy

00:42:00 – Portfolio Construction Advice

00:47:22 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Commodity Discover Fund: https://www.cdfund.com

X: https://x.com/@wmiddelkoop

Willem Middelkoop: https://substack.com/@wmiddelkoop

The Big Reset: https://www.cdfund.com/download-the-big-reset.html

Willem Middelkoop is the founder of the Commodity Discovery Fund and also an author. He became a well-known personality through his work as a stock market commentator for the Dutch business television channel RTLZ.

Middelkoop predicted the credit crisis’s onset in his book “Als de dollar valt” (If the dollar falls) in 2007. Subsequent publications were “De permanente oliecrisis” (The permanent oil crisis) – 2008, “Overleef de kredietcrisis” (Surviving the credit crisis) – 2009, “Goud en het geheim van geld” (Gold and the secret of money) – 2012, and The Big Reset – 2013. In total, he sold more than 100,000 copies of his books.

The Commodity Discovery Fund was established in the summer of 2008. It started with three million euros and 22 participants. By the end of 2023, it had grown to about 2,000 participants and €104 million in assets under management.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Matthew Piepenburg to the show. Matthew Piepenburg is Partner – Von Greyerz Gold Switzerland, Author – Gold Matters. Piepenburg argues that despite 2026 volatility, including war, a historic gold correction, and US government debt surpassing $40 trillion, the secular gold bull market remains in its early chapters. He sees shakeouts and price interventions as features, not an end, and believes conditions today are stronger than the 1970s run, driven by $265 trillion global debt, negative real rates, and currency debasement.

He contends that governments and central banks have narrowed options and increasingly rely on hidden QE, misleading inflation and employment data, and dollar debasement to manage debt, while Main Street suffers a real recession and middle-class erosion, and stock market gains mostly benefit top wealth.

Piepenburg highlights central bank gold accumulation at record levels, especially after dollar weaponization, as a sign gold is replacing Treasuries as global collateral. He notes the shift in physical gold flows from Western exchanges to Eastern central banks and sovereign funds, and the development of Shanghai-Hong Kong physical settlement, challenging paper price discovery. He expects continued eastward shift, not dollar collapse, but a significant repricing.

Matthew discusses possible US gold revaluation, either marking gold certificates to market or letting gold run, as a form of “gold QE” that would further debase the dollar. He sees miners as leveraged opportunity after sentiment lows, and stresses patience and education. For high-net-worth investors, physical gold outside the banking system in Switzerland and Singapore serves as wealth preservation. He closes that gold won’t get one rich quickly but protects from getting poor.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:01:10 – Volatile Year Market Overview

00:03:48 – Gold Bull Market Status

00:08:20 – Mining Sector Investor Interest

00:18:55 – Global Debt & Demographics

00:28:30 – Inflation & Conflicts

00:35:55 – Central Banks & Gold Holdings

00:45:30 – Gold Revaluation Mechanics

00:54:17 – Gold & Gov’t Debt Doubling

01:01:12 – Preparing for Coming Risks

01:07:34 – Von Greyerz Storage Services

Guest Links:

X: https://twitter.com/GoldSwitzerland

Website: https://goldswitzerland.com/

Articles: https://signalsmatter.com/

Book (Amazon): https://tinyurl.com/pvpfmy8c

Matthew Piepenburg is a Partner of Von Greyerz and the author of the popular book, “Rigged to Fail”. Matt is fluent in French, German, and English. He is a graduate of Brown (BA), Harvard (MA), and the University of Michigan (JD). His widely-respected reports on macro conditions and the changing behavior of risk assets are published regularly at SignalsMatter.com

Stijn Schmitz welcomes back Michael Oliver from Momentum Structural Analysis MSA to the show. Michael Oliver opens the discussion by highlighting what he considers the most explosive signal in his decades-long career: the historic undervaluation of gold and silver miners relative to gold. He explained that for decades, the XAU index averaged around 25% of the gold price, but this ratio has collapsed and is currently trading near 9%.

Oliver pointed to a critical technical breakout occurring in the GDX-to-gold spread, which is moving above a 13-year resistance range. This breakout, he argued, is a powerful signal not just for miners to vastly outperform the metal, but also for an impending dramatic price advance in gold itself, as the spread only rises during precious metals bull runs.

The conversation shifted to the broader macroeconomic backdrop, where Oliver identified a “nuclear” government bond crisis as the primary catalyst. He warned that the US Treasury market is far larger than the stock market and is now slipping into quarter-century lows in price, reflecting extreme distrust among investors. Oliver stated that central banks will have no choice but to print money aggressively to defend their debt markets, which will further degrade the currency unit and propel gold higher. He believes this environment will force large asset managers to rotate out of an overvalued stock market, where key financial sector ETFs are showing imminent technical breakdowns, into a vastly underpriced commodity sector.

Regarding other commodities, Oliver maintained that silver is the single most explosive market, being historically repressed relative to gold and the broader money supply. He suggested that if silver merely caught up to the rise seen in other metals since the 1980s, a price of $500 would not be shocking. On oil, he argued it remains vastly underpriced relative to both its historical highs and the decay of the dollar, predicting a broad repricing of commodities as an asset class. Finally, Oliver cautioned that the US dollar index is on the verge of a sharp decline, breaking down from a year-long consolidation, which could accelerate gold’s rally and inflict further damage on US equities.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:01:08 – Miners Relative Value to Gold

00:02:27 – GDX Spread Chart Analysis

00:05:44 – Breakout Implications for Miners

00:08:30 – Precious Metals and Bond Crisis

00:11:15 – US Government Bond Market Crisis

00:16:30 – Financial Sector Momentum Breakdown

00:19:03 – Capital Rotation and Liquidity

00:21:38 – Gold History Versus Stocks

00:25:15 – Silver Explosive Upside Potential

00:28:20 – Inflation & Debt Expansion

00:31:00 – Commodities Oil and Asset Shift

00:41:45 – Dollar Index Implications

00:43:35 – Platinum Group Elements Outlook

00:44:52 – MSA Details & Dollar Crisis

Guest Links:

Website: http://www.olivermsa.com/

X: https://twitter.com/Oliver_MSA

Amazon Book: https://tinyurl.com/y2roa7p5

Email: mailto:michaeloliver@olivermsa.com

Email MSA above, and they will send you this week’s report for free, which covers many of the topics from this interview.

J. Michael Oliver entered the financial services industry in 1975 on the Futures side, joining E.F. Hutton’s International Commodity Division, headquartered in New York City’s Battery Park. He studied under David Johnston, head of Hutton’s Commodity Division and Chairman of the COMEX.

In the 1980s, Mike began to develop his proprietary momentum-based method of technical analysis. He learned early on that orthodox price chart technical analysis left many unanswered questions and too often deceived those who trusted in price chart breakouts, support/resistance, and so forth.

In 1987 Mike technically anticipated and caught the Crash. It was then that he decided to develop his structural momentum tools into a full analytic methodology.

In 1992, the Financial VP and head of Wachovia Bank’s Trust Department asked Mike to provide soft dollar research to Wachovia. Within a year, Mike shifted from brokerage to full-time technical analysis. He is also the author of The New Libertarianism: Anarcho-Capitalism.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Henrik Zeberg to the show. Henrik Zeberg is Head Macro Economist at Swissblock. Zeberg believes the equity rally is entering its final phase, with a major market top likely within the next quarter. He warns this will not be an ordinary correction but a significant downturn, driven by a weakening US economy that many market participants have yet to recognize. The consumer is in a particularly fragile state, with depleted savings, rising credit card delinquencies, and housing affordability at crisis levels, all pointing to an imminent economic rollover.

Zeberg explains that the current cycle mirrors past business cycles, where high rates and inflation eventually stall growth. However, this time the situation is exacerbated by the massive debt accumulation enabled by years of quantitative easing and artificially suppressed rates. The unwinding of these distortions will be severe, combining elements of both the 2000 tech bust and the 2008 financial crisis, but likely worse due to opaque private credit risks and the psychological impact of recent inflation on consumer behavior. Gold is expected to face headwinds initially as a liquidity crunch and a strengthening US dollar cause a pullback, potentially to $3,100 or lower.

However, once the Federal Reserve is forced to intervene aggressively with yield suppression, gold will enter a powerful rally, potentially rising fivefold in a few years and outperforming equities dramatically. Zeberg sees this as a buying opportunity for physical gold, recommending dollar-cost averaging. Silver and gold miners will also benefit, though they may suffer during the initial downturn. Zeberg advises listeners to prepare for a significant stock market decline, suggesting that taking profits now and developing a contingency plan is prudent.

While the US dollar may be the best near-term safe haven, precious metals and commodities will be the ultimate beneficiaries when the Fed steps in for real. He encourages following his work through Swissblock’s services and his Substack for ongoing analysis.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:01:04 – Macro Picture and Equity Rally

00:03:22 – Drivers Behind Market Top

00:05:27 – State of the Consumer

00:09:00 – Inflation and Business Cycle

00:13:50 – Debt-Loads Gov’t & Consumers

00:18:35 – How Bad Recession Could Be

00:21:45 – Equities and NASDAQ Decline

00:24:05 – Chain of Events in Crash

00:27:26 – Government Debt Intersection

00:33:54 – Energy and Oil Crisis?

00:37:00 – Gold Fate in Liquidity Crunch

00:44:24 – Gold Pullback Expectations

00:45:20 – Gold Miners & Upside?

00:49:20 – Stock Market Topping

00:55:00 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Substack: https://henrikzeberg.substack.com

X: https://x.com/HenrikZeberg

Website: https://swissblock.net/

Henrik Zeberg is a Macroeconomist (M.Sc. Econ) from the University of Copenhagen. He is a Business Cycles student, Elliott Wave practitioner, and Chartist. He is the Head Macro Economist at Swissblock where he writes the Zeberg letter a comprehensive monthly macroeconomic report.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes back Art Berman to the show. Art Berman is The Energy Realist. Berman explains that the initially feared catastrophic disruption from the Iran War has been partially offset, with production losses revised down to roughly 5 million barrels a day, though he stresses this remains a historically massive number. The absence of immediate global economic collapse is attributed to significant demand destruction, particularly in China, and the critical role of inventories. Using an analogy of a savings account versus a paycheck, he distinguishes between strategic and commercial reserves, noting that ample inventories have cushioned the market, preventing oil prices from spiking as they did during the Ukraine war when stocks were dangerously low. However, he warns that this cushion is finite and being drawn down at an alarming rate, with his comparative inventory model suggesting severe price pressures could materialize by November.

The discussion highlights the profound risks associated with shut-in production, where wells may never return to prior output levels due to complex subsurface physics. Berman describes the situation as a permanent “phase shift,” arguing the global oil system is fragmenting into distinct geopolitical blocs and will never revert to its pre-war state. He emphasizes that alternative supplies are not a simple solution because crude oil quality varies dramatically; light U.S. shale oil cannot easily replace medium-grade Persian Gulf crude required by many refineries.

Looking at the longer term, Berman frames oil as a mature, declining resource, stating that civilization must eventually adapt to the end of perpetual growth, a transition that will fundamentally reshape society.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:44 – Iran War Energy Disruptions

00:03:00 – China Demand Destruction Analysis

00:05:24 – Diesel Prices Regional Impacts

00:06:52 – Stocks Versus Flows Distinction

00:09:04 – Savings Account Analogy

00:18:14 – Global Inventories Assessment

00:22:37 – Persian Gulf Production Losses

00:33:15 – Lost Production Focus

00:39:51 – Phase Shift Market Scenario

00:50:53 – Refinery Tightness Crack Spreads

00:59:03 – Comparative Inventory Tool

01:21:20 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Website: https://artberman.com

X: https://x.com/aeberman12

Art Berman isn’t your run-of-the-mill energy consultant; he’s a full-blown disruptor in a realm riddled with myths. With 40 years in petroleum geology and an intriguing twist – a degree in Middle Eastern history – Art slices through energy complexities with academic rigor and market savvy.

Forget what you thought you knew. This man’s comparative inventory approach is a guiding light for traders, investors, and policymakers. And he doesn’t just spend his time consulting. Art is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Houston, your go-to expert witness, and an electrifying keynote speaker who doesn’t mince words.

In a sector awash with misinformation, Art’s your source for gut-punching, data-backed truths. His clientele spans from ambitious investors to globe-spanning corporations, all seeking decisions steeped in reality, not fantasy. Love him or hate him, one thing is certain: Art Berman is an undeniable force in the energy sector.

Away from the charts and graphs, Art enjoys Baroque music and psychology and spending family time with his wife, kids, grandkids, and his dog, Lily. So, are you ready for the unvarnished truth? Look no further.