Speaker 1: Strap on your parachute. It's time for What Goes Up
Speaker 1: with Sarah Ponzick and Mike Reagan. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: What goes Up, a Bloomberg Weekly Markets podcast. I'm Sarah pons,
Speaker 1: a reporter on the Cross Asset team, and I'm Mike Reagan,
Speaker 1: a senior editor at Bloomberg. And you can think of
Speaker 1: me as the bon Iver to Sarah's Taylor Swift. There
Speaker 1: we go, Mike, I believe it's bony verking. I finally
Speaker 1: had a contemporary reference, and I totally bone boni vera.
Speaker 1: I believe that's how it's pronounced. Maybe I'm wrong, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure for all of us fans of the
Speaker 1: new Taylor Swift album, Mike had a good pairing for
Speaker 1: my coming back from my week off. But this week
Speaker 1: on the show, Mike, a pioneer of research on the
Speaker 1: yield curve, now has some words of wisdom to share
Speaker 1: about gold as the spot price of the precious metal
Speaker 1: trades at rerec levels. Our guests wrote a paper on
Speaker 1: gold just this month, and he says massive passive ownership
Speaker 1: could possibly lead to a period of quote unquote irrational exuberance,
Speaker 1: and as always, will close out the episode with our
Speaker 1: tradition the craziest thing I saw in markets this week.
Speaker 1: So if you saw something crazy and want to give
Speaker 1: us a heads up, give us a call on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Podcast hotline at six four six three to four
Speaker 1: three four nine, oh, and leave us a voicemail. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll play it on the show. And as far as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, you're back from vacation. Uh, listeners don't realize this,
Speaker 1: but you're also back in New York City, back in
Speaker 1: your apartment. I think the last time we recorded a
Speaker 1: podcast with you in your apartment, your neighbors started playing
Speaker 1: some jazz upstairs. So I'm kind of I'm figures across.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of hoping that happens again. If we're lucky,
Speaker 1: maybe he'll play some Taylor Swift. Trust. That's that's right.
Speaker 1: And I you know, I was watching some videos of
Speaker 1: our guests this week and I noticed he has which, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this service or this thing on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and it's not a service. It's some guy on Twitter
Speaker 1: called room Raider Sarah where they go and they look
Speaker 1: at the rooms people are doing their zoom meetings from
Speaker 1: our guests this week has one of the coolest rooms
Speaker 1: I've seen, very well appointed. But I think there's either
Speaker 1: a cello or a stand up base behind him, So
Speaker 1: maybe he'll get on and jam with the guy above
Speaker 1: you if if the jazz breaks out, that's what I'm hoping.
Speaker 1: Let's introduced our guests and see if his his room
Speaker 1: has been rated. I personally give it a high rating
Speaker 1: because I was watching his videos and I kept get
Speaker 1: getting distracted by his uh his cool room. Anyway. He
Speaker 1: is a finance professor at Duke University's Business School. He's
Speaker 1: also a senior advisor at Research Affiliates. You may remember
Speaker 1: him from the show about a year ago. He was
Speaker 1: a guest, and we're gonna talk to him a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the things he had to say
Speaker 1: back then because uh, they ended up being pretty prescient. Anyway,
Speaker 1: his name is Cam Harvey Kim. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Great to be on the show. Okay, I wanted to
Speaker 1: start enough. Sarah talked about this new paper you have
Speaker 1: out on the Gold and it's pretty fascinating to me because,
Speaker 1: as you point out in some of the discussions about
Speaker 1: this paper, Gold, we have a data set that goes
Speaker 1: back I don't know what thousands of years. Basically, you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you want to know the price of
Speaker 1: gold in Roman times, we know what it was. And
Speaker 1: one of the really interesting things, as Sarah point out,
Speaker 1: I tend to latch onto the craziest things in reports
Speaker 1: like this, and one of the craziest and most interesting
Speaker 1: things you pointed out was that the price of gold
Speaker 1: paid as a wage two soldiers in ancient Rome, if
Speaker 1: you translate it to sort of the modern value of
Speaker 1: gold today, it's basically similar to the wage that an
Speaker 1: officer in the army would be making right now if
Speaker 1: they were paid in gold, which to me kind of
Speaker 1: blows my mind, uh, since it sort of backs up
Speaker 1: one of the common theses for go old and that
Speaker 1: it's it's a good store of value. Um. Clearly it's
Speaker 1: hedged inflation on wages since Roman times, but as you
Speaker 1: also point out, it's a very unreliable inflation hedge. I
Speaker 1: guess if you're holding period is measured in centuries, it's perfect,
Speaker 1: but otherwise it's not as a reliable uh store value
Speaker 1: inflation hedge as people might think. Walk us through basically
Speaker 1: the main points of that paper along those lines, because
Speaker 1: I really find it to be a really fascinating look
Speaker 1: on something that has been a cornerstone of financial assets
Speaker 1: for forever pretty much. Sure, and essentially two papers, um
Speaker 1: and my paper of two thousand thirteen in the Financial
Speaker 1: Analyst Journal with Claude Herb we actually did this exercise
Speaker 1: that you described that the Romans kept great records and
Speaker 1: you could figure out exactly what a Roman centurion was paid,
Speaker 1: and we actually have the coins so you can figure
Speaker 1: out what the gold content or the silver content actually is,
Speaker 1: and we worked out that they were paid thirty eight
Speaker 1: troy ounces of gold a year and and you're right
Speaker 1: that that's approximately the wage of a US Army captain.
Speaker 1: So that means that gold has held its value. Um,
Speaker 1: we've got another example of a loaf bread from the
Speaker 1: time of Nebuka desert, so it's even earlier, and that
Speaker 1: translates into about five dollars and fifty cents um in
Speaker 1: terms of the gold equivalent today, which is about what
Speaker 1: I pay at a boutique bakery for a high end
Speaker 1: a loaf of bread. So over the very long term,
Speaker 1: gold is something that holds its value. So another way
Speaker 1: to think about this is that the inflation adjusted value
Speaker 1: of gold is approximately constant are three times, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't degrade. But the problem is that gold is volatile.
Speaker 1: So gold has the same volatility as the SNP five.
Speaker 1: So there can be large swims in value where it
Speaker 1: is a poor inflation hedge for decades or potentially centuries,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden it's a good inflation
Speaker 1: hedge for a decade or maybe a century. So it's
Speaker 1: very unreliable in terms of hedge and inflation. So we've
Speaker 1: seen this pretty mad rush to gold in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: I mean your paper recently you looked at the inflation
Speaker 1: adjusted price of gold near the highs of nine eighties,
Speaker 1: right at the levels that we saw back inn. If
Speaker 1: gold currently is priced at such high levels relative to inflation,
Speaker 1: should investors rightly be believing that this will actually be
Speaker 1: a good inflation hedge going forwards. So again, our analysis
Speaker 1: and our most recent paper which was just posted, actually
Speaker 1: it was the day of gold's all time high that
Speaker 1: we posted this paper. And so uh, and this is
Speaker 1: also with claud Urban and taught us Wisconta. And we
Speaker 1: do not then gold um gold in I guess uh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty in today's prices was about two thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred and in two thousand eleven, in August it was
Speaker 1: about two thousand, one hundred, So we're very close to
Speaker 1: the all time high in UH inflation adjusted terms. So
Speaker 1: we hit an a nominal high UH, not taking the
Speaker 1: inflation into a camp, but in nineteen eighty it was
Speaker 1: It was definitely bad news for investors. If you're buying
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, over the next five years, you lost
Speaker 1: fifty If you're a buyer in two thousand and eleven
Speaker 1: in August, over the next five years, you lost twenty
Speaker 1: eight percent. So what you see, and this is in
Speaker 1: our paper, what do you see are these fluctuations. So
Speaker 1: we look at the average inflation adjusted price, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you're above and sometimes you're below, but there's a tendency
Speaker 1: to revert to the mean, and right now we're way
Speaker 1: above that average price. So think of that average price
Speaker 1: as the constant inflation adjusted price of gold. Sometimes you're above,
Speaker 1: sometimes you're below, and today you're way above. Okay. One
Speaker 1: of the things you talk about is UH. You know,
Speaker 1: you sort of quote Warren Buffett and describe them as
Speaker 1: as bandwagon type of investors who pile into gold because
Speaker 1: it's had such a good run sort of. I guess
Speaker 1: you could consider them momentum investors to some degree. Um
Speaker 1: and you talk about how um the ETFs holding gold
Speaker 1: perhaps play uh, playing a large role in this this
Speaker 1: boom in the prices. Now to me, I would think, well,
Speaker 1: if ETFs are here to stay, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: permanent new source of investors and speculators in gold. Would
Speaker 1: that suggest to sort of a permanent higher inflation adjusted
Speaker 1: price or would it suggest more of the violatility you're
Speaker 1: talking about? Would it perhaps accentuate the volatility when there
Speaker 1: is all this money in e t f s chasing gold.
Speaker 1: So basically what we do in our paper is the
Speaker 1: show that there's a very strong correlation between the real
Speaker 1: price of gold, or the inflation adjusted press of gold,
Speaker 1: and the number of Troy ounces that the leading gold
Speaker 1: ETFs hold. So this time might be different, as you say,
Speaker 1: So we didn't have any gold e t s and
Speaker 1: retail investors the whole gold It was very difficult to do.
Speaker 1: You can buy coins, but they're very expense of relative
Speaker 1: to the bullion price. You can buy bullion, but then
Speaker 1: you have to vault it and pay for that, and
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to buy and sell gold. So the
Speaker 1: e t s made it a lot easier for investors
Speaker 1: to actually hold gold and UM. And they do think
Speaker 1: that in the diversified portfolio, people should have some real
Speaker 1: assets and gold is one of those real assets, and
Speaker 1: other commodities, real estate, things like that makes sense. The
Speaker 1: problem is the following. The problem is that this strong
Speaker 1: correlation between the price and the holdings of the gold
Speaker 1: ETFs is very suggestive of the following type of behavior.
Speaker 1: As the price goes up, investors buy more, and that
Speaker 1: the price goes up even more, investors continue to buy.
Speaker 1: And this is the opposite to what I teach. So
Speaker 1: what I teach is a good investments strategy is to
Speaker 1: buy low and sell high. It appears what's going on
Speaker 1: here is that investors are buying high. And I do
Speaker 1: quote buffets of famous line and and that is um.
Speaker 1: He's referring to gold investors as bandwagon investors, and he says,
Speaker 1: as bandwagan investors join any party, they create their own
Speaker 1: truth for a while. And what that means is that
Speaker 1: you see the price going up, you jump on the bandwagon.
Speaker 1: You buy some of the gold DTF, and the gold
Speaker 1: TTF has to purchase gold and the price actually goes up,
Speaker 1: and that is creating their own truth. Their investment thesis
Speaker 1: is validated as the price goes up, but the party
Speaker 1: just doesn't last forever. So I do worry about this.
Speaker 1: You mentioned, Uh, this is like a momentum effect and
Speaker 1: not quite um trend fall Followers are really careful on this,
Speaker 1: and that when the trend is really really strong, they
Speaker 1: d risk. So this is much different than a bandwagon
Speaker 1: effect where people just piling into this risky asset. And
Speaker 1: to be clear, this is just like a risk asset.
Speaker 1: Look in March of the stock market tanked, gold plummeted,
Speaker 1: and the new gold bitcoin lost over its value. And
Speaker 1: then when we got to risk on, people got more
Speaker 1: comfortable that we're gonna get through the COVID nineteen. Uh,
Speaker 1: the stock market goes up and gold goes up. So
Speaker 1: this is just a speculative tool. And as for speculation,
Speaker 1: there will be some winners and there's going to be
Speaker 1: some loosers. I was looking at total assets in g
Speaker 1: l D which is a really popular GOLDDTF just now
Speaker 1: well recently hitting a record high above eighty billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty unbelievable. But Cam, I want to get
Speaker 1: your take because I feel like whenever we hear from
Speaker 1: investors lately who are now bullish on gold, pretty much
Speaker 1: every single time, they point to the level of real
Speaker 1: interest rates right now tenual real yield at negative one
Speaker 1: percent or so, at record lows. How do you factor
Speaker 1: this in to any analysis on gold and what we
Speaker 1: might see as it pertains to volatility in real assets
Speaker 1: when you consider the fact that we do have real
Speaker 1: interest rates at levels pretty much never seen before. So
Speaker 1: we've addressed this and there it is true that since
Speaker 1: let's say two thousand and four, there is a strong
Speaker 1: negative correlation between the price of gold and the level
Speaker 1: of real or or nominal interest rates, so that correlation
Speaker 1: is really clear. However, that correlation is unstable, so if
Speaker 1: you go back before two thousand and four, that correlation
Speaker 1: could be zero or it could be positive. So looking
Speaker 1: at the most recent data, you need to be really
Speaker 1: careful because that correlation could be what we call spurious.
Speaker 1: So I'd be very very careful on this. I'm much
Speaker 1: more faith in our analysis of the holdings of gold
Speaker 1: e t s. That kind of makes sense. They're holding
Speaker 1: more gold, they gotta buy more gold. And uh, the
Speaker 1: price it is positively correlated with that. So yes, there
Speaker 1: is using the most recent data um this negative correlation
Speaker 1: between the rates and and gold prices. But I would
Speaker 1: just be pretty pretty careful on that. Okay, one more
Speaker 1: question on gold and then I think we want to
Speaker 1: move on to the yield curve. And I know you know,
Speaker 1: a guy like you, you like to study the math,
Speaker 1: the statistical relationships, and the and the hard data, So
Speaker 1: this might be a question that is not answerable from
Speaker 1: that sort of approach, But I'm just curious if you
Speaker 1: have thoughts on it. And it's something that's I've never
Speaker 1: quite been able to wrap my head around when it
Speaker 1: comes to gold. Is what explains the appeal of gold
Speaker 1: over literally centuries? Like you said, why why is it
Speaker 1: that Roman soldiers were willing to get paid in gold
Speaker 1: way back when and that value of that pay day
Speaker 1: is the same as it is today. I mean, does
Speaker 1: it all relate back just to the simple sort of
Speaker 1: physical demand for gold that it's it's a shiny, pretty metal,
Speaker 1: it's good for jewelry. Is it all? Does it all
Speaker 1: hinge around that? Do you think? Or is it just
Speaker 1: impossible to explain? It is true? That gold has been
Speaker 1: around for thousands of years, and I think part of
Speaker 1: it is that it does have this usefulness. So gold
Speaker 1: seventy percent of gold is using jewelry. Um, it's used
Speaker 1: in some electronic parts also, so there is actually utility
Speaker 1: directly associated with gold. But I think part of the
Speaker 1: story is the safe haven to this, uh, this mystique
Speaker 1: that gold is the ultimate safe haven. So in in
Speaker 1: our research we actually um reject that hypothesis. And we've
Speaker 1: got this great example UM called the Hawksknew Horde and
Speaker 1: it's from the countryside of England. Somebody's repairing offense and
Speaker 1: they dropped their hand. They look down and pick up
Speaker 1: the hammer, but they see a gold coin. They scrape
Speaker 1: the ground and they see more gold coins. Uh. This
Speaker 1: this's can only happen in England. But they immediately go
Speaker 1: to the university and seek out an archaeologist and they
Speaker 1: excavate and they find this treasure chest field with gold
Speaker 1: and they dated to the time that the Romans were
Speaker 1: leaving England. So basically this was the safe haven. So
Speaker 1: some family, uh, they took their wealth, they buried it
Speaker 1: in the field, in the treasure chest. And the fact
Speaker 1: that we discovered it recently shows that it failed as
Speaker 1: a safe haven, that family never got access to it.
Speaker 1: So there is this mystique of a safe haven. There
Speaker 1: is this, uh, this myth the gold is a short
Speaker 1: term inflation hedge when it isn't. So I think that
Speaker 1: gold is is very poorly understood. But you're correct that
Speaker 1: given that it's got such a long history and is
Speaker 1: part of our history, that uh, that it gets treated
Speaker 1: differently and people are willing to ignore the evidence. This okay,
Speaker 1: And we really can't have you on the show, as
Speaker 1: Mike alluded to, without discussing the yield curve. You are
Speaker 1: one of the pioneers of doing research on the subject.
Speaker 1: Your dissertation on the subject is also very very widely cited,
Speaker 1: and we had you on the show to discuss it
Speaker 1: last mayor so. And of course, after the yield curve
Speaker 1: inverted last year, we did achieve or accession. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: this could all be seen as hoopla or whatever you
Speaker 1: might want to call it, considering the fact that no
Speaker 1: one could predict the coronavirus. However, is it safe to
Speaker 1: say that sure, I mean, the inversion of the yield
Speaker 1: curve did its job in predicting a recession. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you're correct that last year. Uh, it was code bread
Speaker 1: on the yield curve, So we had an aversion for
Speaker 1: a full quarter. And my model um over the period
Speaker 1: since in nineteen sixties, every time the yield curve inverted,
Speaker 1: U of recession followed and there were no falls signals.
Speaker 1: So it was seven out of seven and it got
Speaker 1: the number eight signal, which suggested recession. And you're correct,
Speaker 1: we're obviously in a recession right now. Did deal curve
Speaker 1: predict the coronavirus? No, obviously not. I will never know
Speaker 1: the counter factual. We do know that recession was largely expected,
Speaker 1: at least from the Duke's CFO survey where up to
Speaker 1: of the CFOs so a recession would start by the
Speaker 1: first quarter of So again we won't Actually no, we
Speaker 1: can never know the counter factual. UM. But I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: we didn't know there was going to be an oil
Speaker 1: embargo in nine three either. So the indicator is eight
Speaker 1: for eight. I'm counting it as a win. Cam I'm
Speaker 1: putting it in the wind column. Sometimes you get lucky
Speaker 1: and sometimes unlucky. Uh, I'll take some of that, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know how lucky it is to have a
Speaker 1: recession to be able to predict it. But I will
Speaker 1: I'll count it as win now cam obviously, now as
Speaker 1: we do start to take baby steps to to get
Speaker 1: the economy reopened and back on track, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of very uh you could call it uh exuberance in
Speaker 1: the stock market, not just the gold market. You never
Speaker 1: seen this really rip wearing rally in stocks um recently, Lee,
Speaker 1: we have seen the long end of the curve sort
Speaker 1: of come off the floor a little bit and rise
Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit of steepening in the curve,
Speaker 1: and that has everyone sort of turning their attention to
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve will have the Jackson Hole Symposium at
Speaker 1: the end of the month, And I think I feel
Speaker 1: like the bond market has really been speculating. I guess
Speaker 1: you can call it speculating, wishful thinking, hoping uh that
Speaker 1: the Fed will resort to some sort of yield curve
Speaker 1: control to keep that long end low in order to
Speaker 1: keep barring costs slow and keep this recovery going. As
Speaker 1: a yield curve student like yourself, does, what's your reaction
Speaker 1: to that, to the notion that the FED could potentially
Speaker 1: artificially bend the curve to to its wishes. Is that
Speaker 1: is that a good thing or a bad thing. So traditionally,
Speaker 1: the FED has had control over the short term part
Speaker 1: of the yield curve UH, and they would engage in
Speaker 1: open market operations and UH deal with the FED funds rate.
Speaker 1: But we're in extraordinary times where this time around we've
Speaker 1: got unlimited quantitative using and that means the whole curve
Speaker 1: is being influenced by the Fed. Will this be morphing
Speaker 1: into yield curve control? I certainly hope not. These acts
Speaker 1: are distortive. I don't think it's a great idea to
Speaker 1: have these really low or negative interest rates. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense that in some countries you can get
Speaker 1: a mortgage where it's a negative rate, so you get
Speaker 1: you get paid every month to take out a mortgage.
Speaker 1: Does that or look at Japan? Yeah, look at Japan.
Speaker 1: That that's a great example of gild per control. Their
Speaker 1: bond markets gone, so Japanese government bonds are just bought
Speaker 1: by the Bank of Japan. Is that the model that
Speaker 1: we actually want? So it is a very unusual situation.
Speaker 1: We're in a deep recession, yet the stock market has
Speaker 1: completely blown it off, and you're correct, you see some
Speaker 1: green shoots in the bond market also, So I really worry. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I said, irrational exuperance in gold, but a minimum,
Speaker 1: it's uh, kind of a rose colored glasses effect where
Speaker 1: people are not looking at the structural damage that's been
Speaker 1: done to our economy, the potential cost of the QUEI,
Speaker 1: the potential cost of having to pay back all of
Speaker 1: the fiscal stimulus that's been completely ignored, and to me,
Speaker 1: that's very worrisome when you've got markets like this. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll likely hear more about yield curve control next month
Speaker 1: at the FED meeting. Cam looking at the yield curve
Speaker 1: though right now, is there any signal that you can
Speaker 1: actually take away from it? And combining that with other
Speaker 1: signals that you look at. You mentioned the Duke CFO
Speaker 1: survey any recent results from that as well. So the
Speaker 1: yelk curve is positively sloped, which means that it's signaling
Speaker 1: economic growth, and I believe that's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: So the recovery is not going to be V shaped,
Speaker 1: but it will be a very strong recovery. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's consistent of with the Yelk curve signal. Remember,
Speaker 1: the slope of the yeel curve is telling us about
Speaker 1: expected future growth, so it's not just signaling recessions. It's
Speaker 1: also signaling a growth. So we will see that growth.
Speaker 1: But I doubt given the slope that that growth is
Speaker 1: going to be robust. Uh. And yes, it might be
Speaker 1: that we get these really big numbers, but I think
Speaker 1: people need to understand the following. If you started a
Speaker 1: hundred and you dropped by if the next quarter you gain,
Speaker 1: you're not back to hundred, You're only at s. So
Speaker 1: so we need to carefully look at this. It'll be
Speaker 1: a while before we actually get back to where we started. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, markets don't seem to factor that in. So
Speaker 1: these head evaluations in the equity market, UM, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people believe they're just unsustainable in the
Speaker 1: long run. You're not in the camp of believing in
Speaker 1: some sort of permanent higher plateau invaluations. I take it. Uh, No,
Speaker 1: I'm not. And as you know, it's a very uh
Speaker 1: diverse uh situation. There's a lot of dispersion. So the
Speaker 1: behavior at the top ten stop sent SMP five hundred
Speaker 1: much different than the other four hundred ninety. So what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is a sur urge in growth stocks and
Speaker 1: relative to value stocks, and that difference between the growth
Speaker 1: and the value stocks. Uh that that basically we haven't
Speaker 1: seen that ever before. So what's happening to growth stocks
Speaker 1: seems to me very similar to what's happening with gold Well.
Speaker 1: I think it's that time. It's that time, Mike stand
Speaker 1: clear of the craziest things we saw in markets this week?
Speaker 1: All right, Sarah, you're back from vacation. You had two
Speaker 1: full weeks to come up with a crazy thing hit us.
Speaker 1: What's the craziest thing you've seen? All right? So maybe
Speaker 1: this is just a story of and it it hits
Speaker 1: well this year. It's kind of got a bit of
Speaker 1: humor to it, also a bit crazy. On Wednesday, um
Speaker 1: Penn National Gaming stock took a hit, But the reason
Speaker 1: it took a hit was after Dave Portnoy, who is
Speaker 1: the founder of Barstool Sports, posted a video of himself
Speaker 1: on Twitter saying that he was sick and that was
Speaker 1: the reason why he hadn't been streaming recently. He said,
Speaker 1: do I have COVID? He wasn't sure, but he kind
Speaker 1: of assumed that he did. Anyway, just the idea that
Speaker 1: one person getting sick in the year of can hit
Speaker 1: a stock to the extent of two percent in a
Speaker 1: day like that's that's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's crazy enough
Speaker 1: one person, but with that particular person, the fact that
Speaker 1: that guy can move the share price is um I
Speaker 1: like you said, that's that's in a nutshell right there. Nutshell,
Speaker 1: you can't escape it. Pretty good? How about you, Cam,
Speaker 1: Have you seen anything crazy and markets this year? I
Speaker 1: know it's been a very normal quiet year and markets. Uh,
Speaker 1: but what's popped out at you recently? That's crazy. The
Speaker 1: thing that's popped out that to me is very unexpected,
Speaker 1: and that is Berkshire Hathaway being long Gold. So given
Speaker 1: the history of Warren Buffett and how negative he's been
Speaker 1: on Gold when it's above um or a very kind
Speaker 1: of rich value, it's very surprising that Berkshire took this
Speaker 1: position and indicates to me that there's at least a
Speaker 1: minimum and disagreement within their portfolio management team. I take
Speaker 1: it he's not a bystander in this case, or is he?
Speaker 1: Sounds like you might be. He's become what he wants mocked.
Speaker 1: Perhaps that is interesting, though, I I can't remember wherever
Speaker 1: hearing Buffett long Gold, but he's been he's been sort
Speaker 1: of barrish about the whole the whole recession and economy
Speaker 1: this year anyway. But well, that's pretty good. Two good ones. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll give you mine, Sarah. Mine actually was
Speaker 1: given to me courtesy of our chief Crazy Things correspondent,
Speaker 1: Vildonna Hirich. When you go on vacation, she has no
Speaker 1: choice but to but to cough them up to me.
Speaker 1: She sends them to you instead it to me. It's
Speaker 1: pretty good. No help for me this week, though, you're
Speaker 1: on your own. This is from a website Action network
Speaker 1: dot com. It's written by Daryn Ravelli's he's a pretty
Speaker 1: famous sports business journalist. Uh And it reports that an
Speaker 1: unopened case of nineteen eighties six nineteen eight seven Flair
Speaker 1: basketball cards, not even based baseball cards, money basketball cards
Speaker 1: recently sold at an auction for one million, seven hundred
Speaker 1: at Andy nine thousand, seven hundred and seventeen dollars, So
Speaker 1: almost one point eight million dollars for a big unopened
Speaker 1: box of basketball cards. Contained inside that big box there
Speaker 1: were twelve boxes with thirty six packs each. So I
Speaker 1: forget how many comes in a pack, maybe twenty, so
Speaker 1: a lot of cards. But still for nineteen eight six
Speaker 1: eight seven basketball season, one point eight million dollars UH
Speaker 1: for those cards. Sarah, that's not the crazy part, though.
Speaker 1: Here's here's what I think is the craziest part. You ready,
Speaker 1: I'm ready. I think whoever paid that it was a steal.
Speaker 1: They got a bargain, um. And here's why. Because that
Speaker 1: particular year, a certain basketball player from North Carolina who
Speaker 1: did not go to Duke was a rookie in the NBA,
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan's And based on these past openings of these boxes, UH,
Speaker 1: there's typically about thirty six Michael Jordan's rookie cards in
Speaker 1: this and since this documentary about Jordan's on on ESPN,
Speaker 1: they've been selling UH in their neighborhood of eighty thousand
Speaker 1: to ninety seven thousand dollars each per card. So this
Speaker 1: this guy whoever, or this man or woman whoever paid
Speaker 1: one point eight million for these cards. If they get
Speaker 1: that many Jordan cards, theoretically they're looking at about a
Speaker 1: three million dollar UH asset right there with those thirty
Speaker 1: six cards. So the buyer knew what he or she
Speaker 1: was doing. Gotta steal. Well, we'll have to leave it there,
Speaker 1: Kim Harvey, thank you so much for joining the show today.
Speaker 1: Great to be back on the show What Goes Up.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week. Until then, you can find
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