Raw Transcript: Market Top Alert: Is 40% Crash Next? Trader Reveals Why He’s Short | Gareth Soloway

This is a classic kind of Ponzi in a way to keep the positives going here. We are teetering on a level of a retrace or a pullback that could be a lot bigger than expected. What I think is happening right now is so much bigger and will end in so much of a worse scenario that I don't think any of us can even fully grasp it. And at least 60 to 70% of this country is already in a recession. We could have reached a top by now. This is according to our next guest, Gareth Soloway. He is the uh president of verified investing. What's next for stocks, Bitcoin, and gold? Well, he's not the only one calling for a top. We're going to find out why and what's next. Gareth, welcome back to the show. Good to see you. Hey, so good to see you, David. This is this is a interesting period in the markets. No doubt. No doubt. Let me just start with this article. Not often you see uh somebody making this claim, AI could be causing a quiet time in the labor market. Uh says Trump top economic adviser Kevin Hasset. I think there have been mixed signals in the job market. Um adding that he has really seen really really positive signals in the output markets. Uh he noted that GDP rose at a strong pace in the second quarter of 2025. There could be a little bit of almost quiet time in the labor market because firms are finding that AI is making their workers so productive that they don't necessarily have to hire their the new kids out of college and so on. All right. Well, I don't know to what extent this is true, but I have seen similar reports of, for example, the big uh consulting firms like McKenzie um losing a few clients because those clients uh are now going to AI backed uh consulting firms that are a lot cheaper and leaner. Um so maybe in some industries this this this is definitely possible. I don't know if you're What do you think? Do you think that AI is causing a the stock market boom that we've seen so far, but at the same time simultaneously causing the labor market slowdown and so the rest of the economy is kind of slow? So number one, AI definitely has contributed to the stock market going up. In fact, the data, and remember, I'm all about the data in the charts. The data says that over the last two years, 75% of the upside in the S&P is directly related to the AI stocks. So, the AI stocks have been carrying this market higher. However, I don't agree that the reason the labor market is semi-weak right now is due to the AI boom. I think eventually that's going to be more and more the case, but the fact of the matter is is that there's so much uncertainty out there amongst the business side. Sure, the stock market's always just been going higher and higher and higher, but in reality, people are suffering underneath inflation that still has not gone away. It's higher than even the reports in my opinion have said and that is making consumers slow down their spending. Go ask Cava. Go ask Chipotle. Go ask any of these other ones. And that is causing people to pull back. And once consumers pull back, these companies have to stall out on hiring. They just do. Do you think that uh the Fed which is about to stop quantitative tightening is going to inject more liquidity through the end of QT and through rate cuts continuous rate cuts and that is going to propel the overall stock market much higher. In other words, the AI bubble and we can talk about whether or not there is a bubble is going to get even bigger. So ultimately I think the AI bubble is at a point where it's having an inflection scenario. Right? So, I'm in the camp that the stock market has topped for at least a 10% 15% correction. In fact, last time I was on, which was I think it was a couple months ago, a month and a half ago, we talked about how a start to a 10% correction could be in October. Uh the market right now topped out right at the end of October and we're down not a bunch off the all-time highs, but really I do think this is now the downshift of it and I want to go over some of these reasons because these are fascinating. Right? So, not only are we going to look at the charts on the semis and the AI plays and show you I'll show you why a top is likely in, but think about this valuation metrics, right? Factoring in, you know, a lot of these big contracts these AI companies are getting, the price of the stock is going up to where it's reflecting what they'll get in 5 years by 2030. So, essentially, they're pricing in revenue they won't even receive for the next 5 years. That again is telling you you're pulling forward a lot of the price action and the upside in the stock. Next, we have to talk about how money is being shuffled back and forth, right? So, you have, you know, AMD getting a billion, multiple billions of dollars from Open AI, but in response, they're giving them warrants to buy a 100 million shares of AMD. You have Nvidia giving Open AAI X amount so that OpenAI can buy borrow chips or buy chips from Nvidia. This is a classic kind of Ponzi in a way to keep the positives going here when in reality it's not as robust right now. Like literally, you're hearing companies say, "AI is great, but I'm having trouble monetizing it right now." Now, I think AI is the future, right? But it's at this point, is it really worth the valuations? And then this is another big one. The data centers, data centers are being put on hold right now. Now remember the AI bubble or the pop in these AI stocks has been specifically because all of these data centers need to be built and they all need chips. Okay? So these stocks go way up. But this is the kicker. Microsoft has halted two data centers. Micron's halted a data center from being built. Why? Because there's no power. They have to get power. And you can't just suck it from the grid. Because you and I, David, we're going to be paying triple our electric bills if they suck it from the grid. So you literally will crush retail or the average person if you fund or or pump the energy into these data centers. And then lastly, and this one is the most amazing, the hyperscalers, and this is where this is something Michael Bur said and I did research on it myself. The hyperscalers are using a depreciation on chips for seven years. That is ridiculous. What we're seeing from the data is that in two years, a chip that was bought at full price is worth just 10% of what it was because of the advancement it's in technology and also the load it's under as it's being run over and over for two years straight. And so the depreciation when you spread it out over seven years, it's very little per year. So their earnings are much greater. But in reality, these chips folks, it is not a good scenario. you eventually essentially are these hyperscalers are overestimating their profits by a significant margin. All right. So again, I'll let you comment on that, David, and then I'll show the chart of the semis and why the top is likely in. Yeah, maybe just pull up a chart. We can comment on it together. Uh the issue that you're raising has been ongoing for quite some time now and nobody knows to what extent this will continue or when it will stop. And so how do you as a trader make an actual play or investment decision based on this knowledge knowing that well most people probably would agree with you but most people probably also say we don't know when the music stops right and and that's the scary thing about it is that if you ask the average person they would all say that essentially we're in a bubble but they're still buying because they don't want to miss out on it and they believe that they can dump before the music stops. And that's something I heard over and over again in crypto in 2021 in and in many other assets when the top was being put in. Now, let's look at a chart here because again, you guys know I'm all about the charts here. So, number one, this is your weekly chart of the SMH. So, the SMH is the SM, the VanX Semiconductor ETF. It essentially encapsulates Broadcom, Nvidia, AMD, all of these players. Now, look at this. This is your 200 weekly moving average, right? And so this is going back to 2021. And what we see here is that in 2021, in 2020, March of 2020, we started at the 200 weekly moving average. We rallied. Now, let's look at how far we got above the 200 weekly moving average when it was at its highs, right? And look at this. We got 102% away. And then what ended up happening? We had this big 45% retrace in the semiconductors. All right? So, let's take it a step further. in 2024. Look at how far we got away from the 200 moving average. Let's find out how far on a percentage basis. Let's do it right from that level and we go up here and 102% above the weekly 200 moving average and then a 40% correction in the semis. Now, David, what do you think? How far away a few weeks ago when we topped out on the semis do you think we were on the SMH? 102%. Look at this guys. This is incredible here. All right. And again, I'm a data-driven trader. And so what I look for is I look for synergies in charts. We bring this up here. Boom. Look at this. 102% 102% 102%. In other words, the way moving averages work is that it's a home base. When something gets too far away, like a rubber band, it eventually has to snap back. And that's what we're seeing here. And so based on this chart, we should be due for a sizable correction in the semiconductor trade. The global financial system is rapidly moving on chain. And today's sponsor, Cool Wallet, is a name worth watching. Cool Wallet builds next generation cold wallets designed for a world where real world assets, payments, and savings live on the blockchain. Their flagship credit card- sized hardware wallets combine CCAL6 plus secure element protection, mobile first usability, and a unique 2 plus one factor authentication system that requires your phone, your biometric ID, and your card to approve every single transaction. So, here's a cool wallet go card. It's an easy to use onthe-go card-sized hard drive that stores your private keys and literally fits inside your wallet or purse. 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And then you also look at other factors, right? So 90% of GDP right now is being estimated to be just the capex spending from these big players. So now imagine that those big players just cut back on spending a little bit in the capex and all of a sudden we're in a recession here in the United States. So there we are teetering on a level of a retrace or a pullback that could be a lot bigger than expected. This teetering of the stock market um especially from the tech side has already started in the last couple weeks. You saw multiple days of really bad sell-offs. I think just last Friday that it was the biggest single day selloff since April. Now, what you talked about earlier, the 10 to 15% drop that we can expect, big bank leaders, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said the exact same thing in Hong Kong a couple weeks ago. He said it's likely there will be a 10 to 20% draw down in equity markets sometime in the next 24 or 12 to 24 months. Morgan Stanley, CEO, also agreed we should also welcome the possibility that there will be draw downs 10 to 20 15% draw downs that are not driven by some sort of macro cliff effect. It's just natural part of the cycle. The point they were these guys were making is that a 10 to 50% draw down even in a bull market is quite common. So are you then structurally bullish then still? Well, so so as a shorter term trader because I'm looking for these pullbacks. I have to be more on the negative side in the near term. I certainly have more shorts out there. I've been attacking names like Nvidia on the short side and some of these other players as well. SanDisk has been a ridiculous mover recently. we've seen it just go parabolic. Uh these are the types of things I live on in terms of their retraces. But let me show you this chart. This is the chart of the S&P and I'm going to show you why we likely have re reached a top in the S&P here. Now again, we're talking about some of these Goldman Sachs players and other big players saying next 12 to 24 months. I think we've already topped and I think it's going to happen a lot faster. What I'm going to do is I'm going to flip over to my weekly chart and what we're going to do is we're going to go back to 2020. This is your COVID low right here. Now take a parallel trend line. So we're going to use a trend line and connect it through all of these lows. Now what do we see? We see all of the lows, right? All of the lows essentially from the bare market low of 2022 through these subsequent lows. This was your liberation day sell-off low. They all line up in a perfect line. The beauty of charts. Now drag a parallel line up to your bull market high in 2021. And what do we notice? Look at where we just tagged right up here. Now, in 2021, we had a bare market draw down. Notice how at the highs, we get pullbacks that are major and at the lows, we get these big moves to the upside. And so, as a technician, my thought process is very logical that if the last time we hit here, we got this big correction and then from here we went up and then we hit here and we went up again, what do we expect off of this? A bigger correction. And again, I think it's already started. I think the top is already in on the S&P. And the markets are now chopping because the buy the dippers are so willing, they've been conditioned, they've been brainwashed by big institutional money, by the government, by whoever to think that the markets can never have more than a 2 to 3% drop. And they'll be very surprised at a 10 to 15% correction. All right. Which tech stock looks the most overvalued to you? You mentioned you're shorting Nvidia, but yeah, let's Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. Wait way way to throw just a random question at me right now. I got to really ponder here. Listen. Um for me, I gota I got to be on top of the short on the semis, right? So So I would more choose the broad base. I think Nvidia with earnings coming up on Wednesday, it's a little risky because it could always pop 10 or $20 on earnings before coming in. But when I look at a chart like this and we look at that 200 moving average, you know, this has so much potential downside that again, I've shorted quite a few of the semis. I mean, just to name a few that I'm currently dabbling in. I mean, look at this chart of SanDisk as a retrace. Listen, I I'm not, by the way, SanDisk, great company, all of that. But when I see a chart that's gone this vertical on the weekly chart, I just want to pull back, let's say, to right in here, and I'll take my 20 30% gain on that. So, so in general, I would look at those. On the other side of the coin, keep in mind there are stocks that are defensive, right? So, money, and this is important, folks, money doesn't just run from the markets in the beginnings of tops in markets where we're starting to come in. And you can see this in ' 07 when we topped out is that we had a pullback, then we had a strong bounce, and then a pullback and a strong bounce because buyers have been conditioned to buy that dip. The biggest falls occur at the end of cycles when everyone's throwing in the towel and panicking. So, in other words, you know, if you're looking at the S&P again, notice how, and again, I've got all these lines on here. We can get rid of them. But basically, you're starting to chop here, right? We have this draw down. We had the draw down here, made a move back up, draw down, but look, lower high. And now the question is, will we come down and make a lower low on the S&P? But ultimately, again, the beginnings of tops are slower because you have people that have been conditioned to buy the dip and then it'll speed up as we go lower. Let's move on to uh Bitcoin. I'm going to come back to uh get Gareth's um end ofear forecast for the S&P. So stay tuned for that. We're going to get your forecast at the end of the discussion. By the way, make sure to follow Gareth. Links down below. He's got a great YouTube channel as well where he and his colleagues go over technicals almost every day. It's almost every day now. Gareth, right? That's right. Yes, I I really strive to teach people just pure technicals. I say no BS, just the charts. Yeah, for sure. So, uh follow there and watch our last discussion to make sure that uh uh he's not kidding when he's been calling uh for the top for quite some time, but uh it's probably finally starting to roll over. All right, let's move on to Bitcoin now. Gareth, uh big big draw downs in Bitcoin now firmly below 100K, now below 95K. And um and uh I I I I personally uh bought a little bit more at 100K and I joked to my friends cuz remember it was 120 and it fell 20% and I felt well yeah and and I joke to my friends every time I buy that's a topping indicator anyway that's kind of a joke but let me get the more professional take here. So, so the professional take is, you know, number one, the high was very easy to spot here, and I think we even talked about this a few months ago when this occurred is you have this high. This is your 2017 bull market high connected to your 2021 first high and it literally gave us each hit of this line right up here. Right? So, very obvious that this has been resistance. If we do go back up there, if we can break through that, that's where some of these players that are calling for these ridiculous price targets, maybe at that point I'll start to say, "Okay, that's valid because we've taken out the resistance line." Now, on the downside, we are at a pivotal level. I actually did buy some on Friday just below uh 94,000. Very small, what I call a nibble. Technical term, by the way, a nibble. Um, it just basically means that I'm inching in with like one toe in the water because it could go lower, but I want to get some skin in the game. The reason why is the bull market uptrend. You have this low through these lows here through this low and then look at where we are. So again, I wanted it could break and I want to be clear on this, but at least I'm at a support technical level where it made sense to start a small position. If it goes lower, where could this ultimately go? And the answer is essentially, and by the way, the the negative here is that the stock market is still so overdone. If the stock market falls and panic ensues, people just sell Bitcoin unfortunately. But that's just what we've seen. But the level you're looking for Bitcoin, and this is where I will add quite a bit of my exposure here, is what we're going to do is we're going to look at, let me see here, right in here. There's a big area of support around 70 to 3 to 75,000 right here. See all these tops? and then we broke out and then it became support right in here. So that becomes my next viable level. But I'll say this, if Bitcoin, there's going to be a massive battle here between bulls and bears. Massive. If the bears win, it goes to 73 to 75. If the bulls can hold the line here, hold the line, we can go up to back to 127, 128, maybe 130,000. Okay. Well, comment. Let's pull the audience. Comment below what you're doing with Bitcoin and where it's headed. More to the downside or more to the upside. Where are the risks lying? Comment down below and don't forget to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. Now, Gareth, you said that uh if the bulls hold while you're you're you're kind of you're you're signaling risks in the semiconductor space, and as you know, these two sectors have been intertwined. Before we talk about what's next, let's talk about what happened this year. Why do you think Bitcoin underperformed a lot of the semiconductor stocks this year and the tech sector overall? I mean, Bitcoin's basically flat on the year year to date. The NASDAQ is still up. Yes. And you're 100% right. And my thinking is this is that I think that Bitcoin became kind of a boring asset recently. Um, and I know that seems crazy to say, but when you looked at what was going on with some of these stocks, right? Some of these chip stocks where they were going up 30, 40, 100%. It almost seemed like those were the new altcoins, right? Where they were just getting these ridiculous moves to the upside. Regetti, which is a supercomput. I mean, look at the gains that those have had. And speaking of which, if we look at Regetti, look at look at the risk that's being taken off this. I mean, this thing is now down 50 plus% from its highs. But earlier this year, this was a huge huge huge runner where Bitcoin all of a sudden was like, eh, right? I mean, it wasn't as sexy as some of these others. Now, I think another factor is that you have bigger money. We're starting to see institutions not buying as aggressively. And when you take out the institutional buyers, that is problematic for Bitcoin. Now, the reason we're seeing this is because a lot of these uh these crypto companies that were starting to build reserves in Bitcoin and ETH, they're not able to get funding because the altcoin market has really stalled out. They're unable to borrow money to continue their purchases. We're even seeing this with Micro Strategy. Micro Strategy is unable to borrow the same level of money that they were to make these big purchases. So Micro Strategy is still buying but it's much smaller orders than they were in the past because lending conditions have changed. So again a combination of this I think the last factor is derisking. I think that again if you look at before a stock market tops so in 2017 Bitcoin topped in in I believe it was December. In January the stock market topped, right? So we're seeing and by the way in 2021 November Bitcoin topped and then in late December the stock market topped, right? And so when people derisk, they focus at least big money, institutional money, they focus on the highest risk assets first, which is crypto. So de-risking there, the idea is it spreads like a bad cold to the stock market ne next. And I think we're on the verge of seeing that. And Bitcoin versus the stock market. Then the other way to look at it is let's say Bitcoin and the stock market, tech stocks in particular, let's say these two asset classes have historically held a very close correlation and Bitcoin has outperformed the stock market in the past bull cycles, but it hasn't done so this time. Is that an undervalue signal for Bitcoin? So I I I think eventually and this is why I nibbled a little bit is that I still think eventually Bitcoin outperforms the stock market in that in that it still is a reserve digital gold asset. So when fear hits and de-risking starts, it's going to impact price. But once the dust settles, people are going to look and say, "Okay, the stock market needs to come way, way, way, way lower." But Bitcoin can be a recipient of some of that money flow. And I think again while Bitcoin I want to be very clear I still think Bitcoin can go to 7375 maybe even lower but I will be a buyer incrementally on the way down to accumulate a longerterm hold position. Are you a little more optimistic or less optimistic about the altcoin space people? The altcoins are tough because again they're always you know what's the latest hot altcoin out there that's now the newest technology right I mean um Ethereum if we look at ETH here I mean ETH is still to me needs to come down a little bit more I've isolated my buy price here for a swing trade on ETH to between 28 and 2700 we are getting very very close that should be a huge amount of support but I really think again I hear so many things like oh ETH is clunky oh Salana's better oh wait there's this new one Hyperlid oh wait now there's Zcash cash, right? It's just this rotating wall where I don't have the knowledge base. Like Bitcoin's easy for me to understand. It's an alternative to golds and it's an alternative to fiat currencies, right? But with these altcoins, it's like, well, what what's their specialty and when will the better technology come out for a different coin? And so, I would remain very careful on long-term holds in altcoins. I mean, obviously, small positions is like, you know, it's your money shot, right? this year hoping for that big score. But aside from that, I focus mainly on Bitcoin for myself as a holder. Let's talk about gold. And again, we'll come back to uh we'll come back to uh Bitcoin and get his forecast. Uh gold is still firmly above $4,000. And right now, it's just sort of consolidating. It's interesting how uh I I've noticed even on my channels, it's a pretty good barometer of retail interest. Uh the gold videos are starting to win in interest. People were excited about gold a month and a half ago when it first started skyrocketing to above $4,000. Now that it's basically firmly forming a base around $4,000, people have accepted this is the new normal is my interpretation of events. Is this the new normal? Is $4,000 the floor now? So, I I personally think there's a little bit more downside to gold. I'm I'm still listen I have a a huge amount of gold that I bought for a long-term portfolio that I'm going to hold and I'm going to keep holding that regardless. But I'm also a swing trader, right? So I'm looking to see, okay, where could it pull back to? And one of the things we saw is we saw this top back in October, this first retrace, big bounce, and it stalled out right in here and now it's starting to come in. And I'm going to show you something here. This is a really, really cool chart on gold. This is the 1979 versus 2025 chart and it's almost identical. So in 1979 we had this first bull move and then we had this sideways consolidation. In 2025 we had this first bull move and sideways consolidation. We then in 1979 starting right here nine straight up candles in a row on the weekly. So nine weeks up in a row before the big correction began. And we had this time in 2025, nine straight up weeks as well, starting right here before we started this correction. Now, the reason why I think we still have to go a little bit lower on gold is that number one, there's too many weak hands in the trade still that not enough people have been flushed out. The markets just generally want to flush out the weak hands before it bottoms out for its next bull run. The other thing to go over is look at what happened in in 79. Where did we pull back to before we started to get a big bounce? the former pivot of the consolidation. If we look at that right here, it's right in here in 1979. We pulled back there and then we started to move up here. We have it right in here. And that tells me that we could come back as low as 36 to 3500 before the next bull move. Now, important here, and this is big because I'm sure you're going to get a lot of comments of people saying, "Oh, it's different than 1979." You're 100% right. It is different. The difference is in 79 in the 80s vulkar was raising interest rates. Right now Powell's cutting rates right in 1979 debt to GDP 32% 130% now. Uh now we have a government that just keeps spending money recklessly. Back then they actually had you know bipartisan agreements to make fiscally responsible things. And so the difference here is that in 79 we didn't see those all-time highs again for basically 20 to 30 years. Right? in this period. Now, I think by next year, we're back at all-time highs. And so, it is different. It's just the initial emotional reaction will be the same, but then gold should head back to new all-time highs. 5K next year to me is a no-brainer. 5K next year is a no-brainer. Which asset has more downside risk in the short term, gold or Bitcoin or stocks? And uh if you were to draw support on these assets on a percentage basis, which one should move lower more? Yeah. So, so I think I think probably probably Bitcoin percentage-wise has more downside risk here just because it's more volatile. So, if we look at that for instance, so here we have the gold chart, but let's flip over to uh let's quickly flip over to Bitcoin. Let's bring that up and just take a look. So, if Bitcoin goes down to my 75,000 target uh or 73,000 target, that would be a decline from current levels of about 23%. Uh if gold breaks down to my 3600 level or so, that's about a 12% drop. And then on the stock market, we've talked about that 10 to 15% draw down. And again, that would bring us back. By the way, where am I getting 10 to 15%? It's our former pivot high right here. All right. So, right around 6,100. This former high as we broke down. Once we break out, that becomes technical support. So, Bitcoin has the most risk. Um, the stock market to me is the most uncertain where it could turn out that we're at a cycle high and we could see as much as 30 40% downside over the next few years. Even though I do think that 10 to 15% gives us a bounce. Gold to me is the place where if I have to allocate money at any of these targets that we've talked about, I would probably do the most on gold because it's the least risky. Um, and then probably secondarily Bitcoin at this point. Are you more structurally bullish on gold than Bitcoin? It sounds like you are. Uh, and if you are, I'm wondering why. So, the main issue with Bitcoin is that, you know, you have a lot of leverage built into the system. People can invest with large amounts of capital. And I it also concerns me when you have entities like strategy, Micro Strategy, formerly known as um where they have so much and they've leveraged themselves. And I just as a as someone who analyzes risk for a living on trades, it does make me a little nervous that certain holders hold so much Bitcoin and if they get into trouble and have to liquidate, they could literally cause Bitcoin to crash more than what the crashes we've seen have been. Gold is much more diversified. Central banks are owning it. they're not going to panic, right? The central bank is not going to get wiped out. They can just print their own money anyways. So that ultimately there's more security, at least to me, in gold's price. Um, to me, at least that's how I view it. Let me just share with you this post by Dre Dallio. Uh, and it kind of goes back to what you were saying earlier, stimulating into a bubble. Yes, this is not 197 1979. The Fed chair is not raising rates. They're cutting rates. And according to Ray Ray Dallio, they're doing so into a bubble. Stimulating into a bubble is a is a title of this particular post. Did you see that the Fed's announcement that it will stop QE and begin QE? While it is described as a technical maneuver, any way you cut it, it's an easy move that is one of the my indicators to pay attention to in order to track the progression of the big debt cycle dynamic that was described in my last book. Well, he go he later goes on to describe what this big debt cycle is and how the change in the real money stock um is going to maybe impact markets. How do you think it will impact markets? Uh Gareth, we are looking at Sorry. Sorry. I was going to say I think he's he's dead on in that. So the the biggest concerns to me is that historically when you have expansions in the US debt during expansionary periods when they're bringing in the government brings in more revenue, we pay down that debt, right? And then when we go into recession, they spend more, right? And because they have to stimulate and then we run up our debt, then we pay it down. That hasn't happened in this latest cycle. We've just been adding debt, adding debt, which ultimately creates a bigger bubble. And what we know is the bigger the bubble, the bigger the bigger the collapse, right? I mean, you look back at the the financial crisis and what happened in real estate and the collapse there. what I think is happening right now is so much bigger and will end in so much of a worse scenario that I don't think any of us can even fully grasp it. And I do reckon back to and I hate I hate to bring this stuff up but you know you look back at we're now approaching a hundredyear cycle from the Great Depression and people tend to say that every you know every generation some you know someone in that generation has to go through it. Well, most of those that went through the Great Depression are no longer with us. And it's like we've forgotten those lessons, that being careful about money, not overspending, not running up massive debts because we haven't gone through that period. We've always been where the government just bails us out, right? Sends checks to Americans during COVID, spends more money, does this, does that. That again is not healthy. And it's a patient that is on the on its deathbed. It just again is being kept alive with drugs. you know, the uh the notion of the bubble getting bigger and bigger, that keeps a lot of people up at night and um and especially the younger traders and people who are newer to the space. I've I I've heard this comment from um some veterans in the industry. They haven't yet experienced a major major decline or bubble burst. Maybe they weren't around in 2008 or 2001 and you saw what happened after COVID uh stimulus recovered the market very quickly. So to anybody who's trading the markets right now, what would your cautionary advice be if you were to give one? Or maybe you're super bullish. I don't know. So no, I am definitely cautionary. I mean, it's hard to see what is going on. And I think listen, anyone watching this interview, you know, if you really look at what's going on, the dysfunction in in the government, the spending, the the the policies, the everything, how are you not a little nervous? We have to all know this ends badly. No one just wants to take their medicine now, which means we're all going to be forced to take it later on. And so what I would say is number one, you're right, is that so many new investors came out into the markets starting in CO. And ever since CO, we've only had Vbottom recoveries where we've seen new all-time highs within a month. I I'm old enough, you know, I started in 99 trading uh to remember it took 15 plus years for the NASDAQ to make new all-time highs. I said that at one point over the last year and I literally got almost laughed offline for people saying, "You're ridiculous. The market will never take that long." And then I I said to them, "Well, look at Japan. Look at the NIK how long it took it. It would have topped out in the 80s and it literally took till pretty recently to make a new all-time high." This can be the forecast. So, don't think it's so easy. Um, and again, it's just a warning because money is scarce. We all work hard for our money and sometimes protecting ourselves is the best thing. And then lastly, I'll just say, David, is that, you know, I would say at least 60 to 70% of this country is already in a recession, right? I mean, if you have lots of money in the stock market, you're doing great. Who cares about inflation if you're like that? Most other people that don't, they are feeling the pinch. And we've heard this from a lot of players, you know, the Walmarts, the Targets, etc. People are struggling out there, and it's just because the market has gone up that it's keeping the recession at bay. Once that falls and the high-end consumer stops spending, in my opinion, it doesn't matter what capex is for AI, it's coming down. Yeah, it is a scary thought when you think about it. But what what what stays what what keeps you disciplined as a trader. What are the rules that you follow? So the rules all all my rules come from me getting smacked so many times from the markets, right? So So you know, you get burned. For me, some people can get burned once and they're like, "Oh, I'm going to learn that lesson." For me, it's like, "Oh, I got to get burned five times at least." But ultimately, it's it's the market showing me that as soon as I let my discipline go, I usually take losses in the market. And that happens to this very day. I mean, let's be fair, I still make dumb decisions. We all do. Um, I just make a lot less than I used to. And so, I'm able to be a profitable investor and trader. But it's the discipline. Otherwise, it's the threat of getting smoked in a trade. And as I get older, I want to hold on to the money I've made because I'm getting closer to retirement, right? And so, you just have to learn that. And so I unfortunately I think a lot of the younger generations are going to have to go through that and you know I do my best to help educate but I know right now it seems like oh the markets will never go down so just you know Gareth's kind of crazy but I do warn you that it is coming and it's probably going to be a lot worse than even I think. No, don't retire just yet Gareth. We still need you. We still need you to give us your give us your guidance during times of volatility and uncertainty. Speaking of what people have been saying about you, uh you know what? I like to flip over to the comments every once in a while. This is our last video that was published exactly uh one month ago. Um two years ago, I see the money printer will never stop. Burr. Yep, I see that one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's let's address that one. The money printer will never stop. This is somebody What do you think about that? Yeah. So So the answer is you're probably right because our US debt is as high as it is. But remember, there's always going to be a pivot point when essentially money printing dilutes the currency to a point where other players will not buy our debt anymore. And then you and I will suffer the consequences of a collapse in our US dollar and our buying power. And we're already seeing it. I mean, look at look at what's going on with a lot of the costs out there. The dollar has gone down significantly in the last 12 months and it likely will be continuing lower even once we see kind of fear come in. Now, usually fear brings in people to the dollar. Um, central banks are diversifying at breakneck speed away from the dollar because the they don't want the US to have as much control as they have in the past on policy in their own countries. And so, listen, it's starting. Dolorization is starting. It's coming. Uh, again, you know, you have to just be aware that assets, all assets can go down in fear, but ultimately focus on the ones that again will diversify you away from US dollars. Gareth, let's uh let's wrap it up here for now. And uh if you have any comments and questions, please do comment down below and we'll be sure to ask Gareth next time he's on the show. Where can we follow you in the meantime, Gareth? Just come on over to verifiedinvesting.com. Guys, all charts, no BS. It's the data, right? So when I look at the data, that's where these viewpoints come from. And again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope the markets can continue up for everyone. But for me, I've got to protect my assets, my family, etc. And I'm doing just that. So come over to Verified Investing and check us out. We'll put the link down below. So, make sure to follow Gareth there. Appreciate your time as always, Gareth. We'll speak soon. Take care for now. Thank you so much, Dave. Appreciate it. Thank you. 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