This article nails a feeling I’ve heard a lot lately - not panic, just a quiet “something’s off.”
A yellow flag isn’t about calling a crash. It’s about noticing the small shifts: leverage feels normal, stories get louder, and liquidity starts doing more of the work than fundamentals.
By the time it turns red, most decisions were already made. Good risk management is boring - and emotionally hard - because it asks you to slow down when everyone else is speeding up.
"The only reason they get to keep living like kings is because I got my fingers on the scale in their favor. I take my hand off...and the world gets really fair really quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do. But they don't."
I'm a retired investor, new here from The Compound. I've tried to gather many of the signals you track, so I'm here for one stop shopping. I'm a boring allocator, but still want to play defense when I can. I invest in ETFs, but not the bond portion. For bonds I only buy US Treas, Agency, or CDs and then hold them forever. My thought is my coupon is locked in when I buy, and if the price goes down I don't care since I'm not selling. I also moved a bit of my money market dry powder to CAOS today to play a little defense. Opinions welcome, but not necessary.
Thanks for the quick reply. Been busy with the grandkids today. You are helping with the info on Repo, MBS, Japan, Insider Trading, etc. all in one place. Primary signal is nice, but laying out all the info that goes into it helps paint the picture. So far so good, I just need a bit more time to absorb it all and integrate it.
Ironic the company I worked for Sandpiper was acquired by Digital Island in 99-00. I don’t recall DI going bankrupt but we did acquire Exodus the largest data center player who was in Chap 11 or 7. Football fields of empty data centers in Orange County and NoCal. I stayed thru the Cable and Wireless acquisition and departed in 03 sold my shares at $3.40 quite a dip from the peak .
Thank you Garrett. I did get into both FNV and WPM. I have thought about getting into OR, but I believe I will follow your lead into the upstream. I do have exposure to Halliburton and Kinder Morgan. Is there one or two that you have more conviction in?
Thanks especially for the discussion of bonds and cash.
2019 I sold half of my stocks and bought "professionally managed" bonds- what someone my age was "advised" to do.
About a week ago I threw in the towel on them since they did not even beat money markets over that interval (crash with stocks but grow too slow to recover even with "falling" rates that don't do anything to the longer maturtities.) so the good news is I have a substantial cash position.
The bad news is that silver and gold are telling me that cash is rapidly debasing (something you have been telling everyone for a long time). I did not find you at the start but I did find you around May and took action to build a pretty large commodity position.
I will say I am having a hard time taking profits on the advice you gave me (metal and miners) since that would raise my cash position even farther and, well, I think that cash is debasing so pulling money out of metals and miners and into cash is .....difficult.
I did sell of my SLV options last week when each 2027 Jan $36C contract I bought in May for $400 went to about $5k. It is much higher now but who would have guessed. Selling paper silver like SLV was not easy but miners and PSLV and PHYS are harder for me to take profits on.
Thank you for this update Garrett. I follow your advice and trying to get better at my analysis to align more with your research. I have done quite well with SLV, SILJ and CEF (based on your recommendations - except the SLV. I have been in that for a while). I've been looking for the opportunity to get out of SLV as you have raised the red flags on that one not being backed by physical silver. I have thought about rotating into the silver miners to capture gains once they start reporting as Silver has exploded to the upside during the 4th quarter. Is this thinking in line with additional gains or is there more to it. Can you explain better what could be done with gains from SLV?
This article nails a feeling I’ve heard a lot lately - not panic, just a quiet “something’s off.”
A yellow flag isn’t about calling a crash. It’s about noticing the small shifts: leverage feels normal, stories get louder, and liquidity starts doing more of the work than fundamentals.
By the time it turns red, most decisions were already made. Good risk management is boring - and emotionally hard - because it asks you to slow down when everyone else is speeding up.
Thank you. You articulated exactly how I feel, and probably explained it better than I could... Thanks for reading...
Excellent screed Mr. Baldwin!
Thoughts on how to hedge? Vix calls? Index puts?
SH and SPXS.
"The only reason they get to keep living like kings is because I got my fingers on the scale in their favor. I take my hand off...and the world gets really fair really quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do. But they don't."
The latter part of this quote is so brilliant... I quote it often...
https://themoneyprinter.substack.com/p/really-fair-really-quickly
"They say they do but they don't" always got me for some reason. Like...damn...why'd you have to say that, Will? haha. Thanks, Garrett.
I'm a retired investor, new here from The Compound. I've tried to gather many of the signals you track, so I'm here for one stop shopping. I'm a boring allocator, but still want to play defense when I can. I invest in ETFs, but not the bond portion. For bonds I only buy US Treas, Agency, or CDs and then hold them forever. My thought is my coupon is locked in when I buy, and if the price goes down I don't care since I'm not selling. I also moved a bit of my money market dry powder to CAOS today to play a little defense. Opinions welcome, but not necessary.
How can I help?
Our primary signal is just a basic equation...
Thanks for the quick reply. Been busy with the grandkids today. You are helping with the info on Repo, MBS, Japan, Insider Trading, etc. all in one place. Primary signal is nice, but laying out all the info that goes into it helps paint the picture. So far so good, I just need a bit more time to absorb it all and integrate it.
You got me with that Viagra and popsicle metaphor. Patriots or Sea Eagles?
Ironic the company I worked for Sandpiper was acquired by Digital Island in 99-00. I don’t recall DI going bankrupt but we did acquire Exodus the largest data center player who was in Chap 11 or 7. Football fields of empty data centers in Orange County and NoCal. I stayed thru the Cable and Wireless acquisition and departed in 03 sold my shares at $3.40 quite a dip from the peak .
Hey. You’re right… Exodus went into Chapter 11… but the successor to DI and Dali went bankrupt, I thought… Weird times.
Thank you Garrett. I did get into both FNV and WPM. I have thought about getting into OR, but I believe I will follow your lead into the upstream. I do have exposure to Halliburton and Kinder Morgan. Is there one or two that you have more conviction in?
Thanks for this article.
Thanks especially for the discussion of bonds and cash.
2019 I sold half of my stocks and bought "professionally managed" bonds- what someone my age was "advised" to do.
About a week ago I threw in the towel on them since they did not even beat money markets over that interval (crash with stocks but grow too slow to recover even with "falling" rates that don't do anything to the longer maturtities.) so the good news is I have a substantial cash position.
The bad news is that silver and gold are telling me that cash is rapidly debasing (something you have been telling everyone for a long time). I did not find you at the start but I did find you around May and took action to build a pretty large commodity position.
I will say I am having a hard time taking profits on the advice you gave me (metal and miners) since that would raise my cash position even farther and, well, I think that cash is debasing so pulling money out of metals and miners and into cash is .....difficult.
I did sell of my SLV options last week when each 2027 Jan $36C contract I bought in May for $400 went to about $5k. It is much higher now but who would have guessed. Selling paper silver like SLV was not easy but miners and PSLV and PHYS are harder for me to take profits on.
Thank you for this update Garrett. I follow your advice and trying to get better at my analysis to align more with your research. I have done quite well with SLV, SILJ and CEF (based on your recommendations - except the SLV. I have been in that for a while). I've been looking for the opportunity to get out of SLV as you have raised the red flags on that one not being backed by physical silver. I have thought about rotating into the silver miners to capture gains once they start reporting as Silver has exploded to the upside during the 4th quarter. Is this thinking in line with additional gains or is there more to it. Can you explain better what could be done with gains from SLV?
Yeah, by traditional metrics, the miners still look cheap. We'd want to focus on the ones with no debt. Or royalty companies with no debt.
Me? I'm rotating into upstream oil and gas for the first time in a very long time.
Who do you like in the upstream?