Blow Off Top Then Crash in Gold and Bitcoin and Global Markets | Henrik Zeberg and Jimmy Connor

Henrik, thank you very much for joining us today. How are things in Copenhagen? They are cold. We're getting close to Christmas. So yeah, I've just been for some time in Marbella, Spain. It was really warm. And getting back here, it's cozy but cold. Yeah, that's why I can never go away to any place warm in the winter, because when you come back to the cold climate, like I'm in Toronto, it's just too much of a shock. So I never do that. Now, I have never had the pleasure of visiting Copenhagen, not yet anyhow. And I'm kind of curious about how's the local economy there? How's the economy in Denmark? How would you characterize it? I mean, we are very dependent on what happens in the rest of the world. I mean, we're such a small country, just past 6 million inhabitants or population of 6 million. So it's a small country. I think we're probably one of the canarian in the coal mine. So if something happens, you'll probably very soon or very fast see it here. We don't have big issues here. So the economy is good and okay. Working fine for now. Unemployment is not moving up strongly or anything like that. So I think things are fine. Housing market is a bit frothy, I would say, a little bit. Very expensive to live in Copenhagen and also in Denmark in general, I think. But things seem fine here still. And many countries in Europe have an issue with immigration. Any issues there with immigration? Yeah, we start to see that there are different fractions here and that's something that comes up. And it's also something that will be, I think, is more and more on the agenda of the political parties, both left and right. So yeah, definitely. And it's something that is paid more attention to also by ordinary citizens and people that I talk to. So let's move on now and talk about the economy. And I can't believe 2026 is just around the corner. And I'm sure you would agree with me when I say that 2025 was a remarkable year. And we had this massive pullback back in April due to the uncertainty associated with the trade wars and tariffs, etc. S&P was down 20% at one point and then it had a massive rally. Next thing you know, it was up 30% from its lows. And one thing we've seen this year is that the S&P just continues to climb this wall of worry. It doesn't matter what's going on in the economy or the financial markets. You could have war in the Middle East or war in Europe, the potential for a regime change in South America and the market just keeps going higher. And when I look at the economy, some elements of the economy look very strong. Others look very weak. And when you look at the U.S. GDP right now, it's growing at 3%, which is quite robust. The unemployment rate is ticking higher. It's at 4.4% now, but historically that's still a low number. I just saw these numbers out of the National Retail Federation for the shopping over the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. All time record, it came in at 203 million people were out shopping over those four days and that exceeded 197 million people last year. But then there's other elements of the economy that I keep hearing about. And it looks like the economy is starting to suffer. And Challenger Grey and Christmas said the number of layoffs we saw in the month of October was historical. Companies announced the layoffs of 153,000 workers in the month of October alone. And so I want to get your thoughts on what you think of the economy right now and help me make sense of all this so I know how to position myself for 2026. What's your take? Well, I think it's taken longer to see the slowdown that we have. As you know, my business model suggests that we should see a slowdown over this year. And we certainly have, because it crossed over when it sent the signal in November of last year. And just to first comparison, it did the same thing in November as well. And then it lasted a year, a little more before we saw the recession back in 2007 in December setting in. I think this year also, we started out the year by hearing Paul saying, oh, the economy is so strong. The labor model is unprecedented strong. And then came August. And all of a sudden, all that strength was just a mirage. And it wasn't there. And it hadn't been there, actually. So we saw the revision in the job numbers. And it's been at a standstill or a stall page, I would call it, at least since summer. We have to understand that when it's an economy of this size, the global economy, the US economy, it doesn't just roll over immediately like a speedboat or turn direction. It's something that is a slow move. And we're definitely seeing that now. I think, first of all, GDP is a lacking number. So lacking because of when they calculate the number, it's the end of the month or the end of the quarter. And then it has to get out through the media and so on. You'll see that this is something that goes some months back. Also, it's based on a lot of numbers that are coming out. But these numbers can also be revised. And when the final number of GDP comes out, you'll see that it's getting revised. For instance, back in Q4 2007, you saw that that was also revised quite considerably at a time where the Fed thought everything was fine in October of 2007. And the recession started in December of that year. So I think we can look to the GDP numbers. We need to look to the leading indicators, first and foremost. And they have been telling us for a long time that things are not great. And these are especially related to the housing market. The housing market in the US has been frozen solid at this point, as I see it. The affordability for consumers in terms of being able to live in their own homes have just been crashing. So I think this is one of the things that puts pressure on the consumer, which we see also then in the consumer sentiment, which is now at rock bottom levels, the same as the affordability. That doesn't play out overnight. The consumption will then slowly start to weaken, which we are seeing. And we can see also that in the durable goods and other retail control indexes we saw here just the other day. So we are starting to see that slowing. And now today, we actually saw the number of, what's it, minus 32,000 private ADP in the ADP number just a few an hour ago or something. So I definitely see the slowing. And I think these people just maybe have an anticipation that that's something that happens overnight. It is something that happens slowly. And all of a sudden, it's like now it's as bad so that the recession sets in. I think we are on the, I mean, there are some of my imminent recession indicators that are beginning to flash now, which means that we are very close to something. The economy is stalling, as I see it. And the stock market is having a party, which it has had all year almost. And every dip has been bought up, and we are continuing higher. So I don't think we have much time left before we see the recession. I will say that recession by latest Q1 of 26, that is, I think that is almost a given at this point. Just repeat that again, a recession by Q1 of 2026? Yes. When the NBER will come out six, nine, 12 months from now, and then look at the point in time when the recession started in 2008, they pointed it out, I think it was December 2008, they pointed out that the recession started in December of 2007. I think when we look back in a year from now, you will say that the recession started one of the months of January, February, March. That is what my business life indicator is clearly indicating at this point. So Scott Besant recently did an interview and he said he does not see a recession in 2026. He did admit that there are pockets of the economy that are weak, for example, housing. So you disagree with him totally? Completely. I mean, I honestly I have difficulties to see how people cannot see this. I mean, there are so many clear signals at this point. I can show maybe a chart or two here if you want. But we are definitely seeing something that is going to accelerate. The thing is, these things are not just happening overnight. It's something that is in the process. That's why the momentum of the economy, just like the momentum of a supertanker, if it starts to turn and it turns, it takes a lot for it to turn in the right direction again. And for now, it seems like we are just in a situation where things are going to continue to be, let me see here. This is the unemployment level in the US. And if you look at that simply and you'll see, well, you don't need to know much about economy to see when we have these rounding bottoms in the unemployment level and we have the momentum, as I talked about, pushing higher, well, then you get a recession. And there's not so much to say about it. That's the feedback loop. The consumer is feeling bad. They will consume less. And when they consume less, well, then there will be less jobs available. And when there's less jobs, there'll be more people unemployed and so on and so forth. And that is happening right now. And the Fed is overly hawkish at this point, which is a very big problem. And they have been overly hawkish for way, way too long. So one of the things we really don't know what's going on, because of the government shutdown, which was, I believe, 42 days, we really have no idea what's going on with the economy and also with the unemployment numbers. And the non-farms, for example, the last numbers we saw were for September. They came in at, it was a big increase. It was an increase of 119,000. 119,000 jobs versus a loss of 4,000 jobs in August. They're canceling the October numbers. They just said, ah, the hell with it. We don't need them. And we're not going to see the November numbers until December the 16th, I believe. So there could be so much going on there. I mentioned that the number of layoffs in the month of October was massive. So it's going to be interesting to see what this unemployment rate is when it comes out. We have the slowdown, as we have every time we get into a recession. And again, now they're trying to hide the numbers. That's not going to hide the reality of things. And today, as I said, we have the ADP numbers. First of all, let me say, in terms of the non-farm payrolls, the 119,000 is the first revision. It's the first print. And you'll see revisions on those. So we have to remember that the 19,000 and the minus 13,000 in June, they were actually, I think it was 144,200 or something. They were brought down considerably. Over the last five years, we have seen, on an average, the revision to be around 65,000. And in a slowdown, you often see them much, much bigger. And right now, if you look to the private jobs, we just had that number today. It was a minus of 32,000. And if you look at, again, the trend here, there's no doubt about the trend of this. I mean, the trend is down and lower. So that people think that things are great here because the stock market is doing well or because somebody says that he doesn't see it because there's only pockets of it. Well, if one pocket is the entire labor market, then I will agree with him, because that is what we see now. We have seen the leading indicators, the housing market weakening. Consumer is now in the gutter. We haven't simply seen anything like this. And this is going to be a recession that is the most easiest to spot that we've ever had, I think. And it's going to be one of the worst as well. And just in case somebody is listening and not watching, the chart you're showing right now is the ADP number. Can you just tell us what that's indicating? Yeah. So the ADP, National Employment Report, that measures the level of non-farm private employment. And we can see how after the COVID situation in 2020, when it just rocketed higher because we had all that stimulus coming in. And all businesses in the US and around the world were just over-delivering and actually performing at much higher just because of the stimulus. So if you stimulate an economy, there will be a high demand. And when there's a high demand, businesses will have to deliver, and so on and so forth. It takes a while when it's such an extreme stimulus, as we got back in 2020 there, before we see that coming full cycle. But that is what we see right now. And there is no need for businesses right now to hire people in. Because if we look at the capacity, the utilization of that capacity we have in the US, well, the latest number is now at 75. I actually had to update that. 75 was the latest number we got here now in December. That is a very, very low number for capacity utilization. Why would you hire people in if your capacity is only utilized three-fourths of the capacity? Why would you hire people in? You wouldn't. That's the thing. So I think people are misunderstanding that just because things are not happening just after we saw... I don't think one bit, first of all, that it was the tariff that created the situation. I think it's the economy that has been rolling over for longer. My November crossover was before that. But the tariffs have not helped. It's not those who created it, but it has not helped, absolutely. But right now, you see the businesses around the world, and in the US in particular, why would they hire people in? And that is what we start to see. We don't see the spike in the initial jobless claims, which we should see. But that can have to do with the severance payments or whatever you have, or packages if you lose your job. But we do see the continuous jobless claims. If you look at that, actually moving up and has reached an uncomfortable high level here, which also is not a good thing. That means that people, when they lose their job, they find it hard to find a new job. Again, people can say, we don't think this is going to develop into something bad. I say, I think it develops into something bad. Because right now, who will be the ones that actually comes out and does the change to this? Why would it change at this point? The cycle right now is in the wrong direction, so to speak. Yeah. And just to continue on with this theme of unemployment, Amazon came out last month. They were one of the companies in the month of October that announced some massive layoffs. They're the second largest employer in the US. They employ 1.5 million people. They said they want to automate 75% of their business by 2033. And they also want to double their revenues by 2033, but maintain their current workforce. So just think about that. So by doing this, they think it's going to result in hiring 500,000 people less. So they want to double their business with the same number of people that they have. And you got to wonder, what does AI mean for the economy overall? I don't know what's going on in Denmark, but in Canada, youth unemployment is at 15%. In the US, it's at 11%. A lot of people are saying this has to do with AI. So AI is eliminating entry-level jobs. Any thoughts on that? No, but absolutely. But that's what people are saying, AI is going to be fantastic. And let me just put that first. As with everything, there is a short-term perspective, a middle-term, and a long-term. And if you look at the short-term perspective, if you are a business and you're just looking there and you can say, usually, I would hire two people in for this task here. Now, I am actually just going to hire one in, because this guy can actually be double as productive. See, in the bigger scheme of things, that's fantastic, because that means that every business can then be more productive. But in a world and an economy where the demand is declining and businesses can't fill the capacities, well, then it's not a good thing. That's a bad thing for the economy. And that's what people don't understand. In the short-term, AI can actually be a bad thing. In the long-term frame, I think it's going to be something that is going to propel the productivity and everything for the human race as long as we can master it and stay on top of it. But it's going to be fantastic. Short-term, it's not going to be fantastic. And to think that the businesses that you have will just, because they earn more money, it's going to help. And then, all of a sudden, that investment that they will come out and that will just bring more people into work. Well, there is a certain truth to that, but at least it will take a while. But then again, it will also not employ all the people that are losing their jobs. And the problem right now, and this is why I brought this chart up here, is that if you look at the average weeks of unemployment, you can see that that is rising right now. And if you look into the financial crisis, before the financial crisis, an average unemployment was around 16 weeks. Now, it has risen to around 24 weeks. And this is before a recession. That's one observation. That means 50% higher, a longer time, people will, on an average, be unemployed, which means everything else being equal, that they will be more disconnected to the labor market, which is a bad thing. You will lose your competences. There will be a lot of things. And you have to think 80% of, let's say, 30% of the people who are in this, say, lose their job, they will have even longer than 24 weeks. They will have maybe 50 weeks or something. So this becomes more of a structural issue. And that is actually what we can see here. If you look at the level, how it's been rising in the US over the last many, many years into the financial crisis, and it's just elevated at this point. It's higher than any point since 1948 to 2009, which is a problem. That is simply that people are becoming more alienated to the labor market. So this requires a shift. It is a fantastic shift. If you look from humankind, in a bigger perspective, it's like in the, I know that you're probably driving automatic cars there, but people with a stick there, you have to kind of, to get into the next gear, you kind of push down the clutch, and you'll see that there's a little loss of momentum. That is what we see also here now in the economy. It's 15 years into a higher gear, more productive, more strong in the long time frame. But in the short time frame, there's a loss of momentum. And that's what we're looking at. We're looking at a generation of people, you and me. I mean, if it weren't for us sitting using computers on a daily basis, we would probably also feel that this is about AI, but that's a little difficult. And the job I had five years ago, all of a sudden can be taken care of by a computer. I mean, these things are a serious challenge to the 70, maybe not all 70, but the bottom 20, 30% of the economy, especially in the US, where you have a lot of manual jobs that will then be taken over by this. So yes, great long-term perspective. Short term, medium term, not so great. And actually, bad thing, because people will find it increasingly difficult to find a job, which is what carries the economy at this point. And I read an article in the New York Times recently by Jason Furman. He's a professor at Harvard. And he suggested that if you remove all the CapEx and all the spend associated with AI, there'd be zero growth in the economy. And right now, the government's telling us the economy's growing at 3%. So I don't think you'd need to do that. I actually did a calculation on that. And I just took away the public spending in the US. And I then also eliminated the inflation in the numbers as well. And you'll actually see that there's been a stall speed in the US after corona. There's been a stall speed for two or three years now, below 1%, just around 0% to 0.5% in terms of growth. And then, as you also said, if you take the other way as well, then you will see that there will be an economy that has a completely different character and is at a different state than most people understand. Henrik, once again, just for the sake of people who might be listening, the chart we're looking at right now describes what? The US economy, which means that if you look at when people are becoming unemployed, how long will they stay unemployed? And you can see that if you go back to the 70s, it was all the way down in 12 weeks, 10 weeks, and something. And it's been fluctuating up and down. But there is a clear shift as we go into the financial crisis. And we can see it moving higher and going all the way up to, I can't even see how high it was, up at 40 weeks after the financial crisis. It has come down again. But we are still now at around 24. And we are clearly at a higher level than the highest points we have seen since 1948, which is, as I said, that's a structural problem for the economy. There can be more short-term cyclical problems. But this is structural. This means that there is a large part of the labor force that is actually becoming irrelevant or disconnected to the job market. In the future, that may be what we see. But right now, with the way things are run, it is a problem for an economy that people can't find a job or becomes irrelevant for the market. And this, I don't hear a lot of talk about that in the news or anywhere. But this is a big problem. And as you mentioned also, youth unemployment and so on. I mean, if that starts to spike as well, then we will have young people not getting connected or not getting into the labor market, which is an even bigger problem. Because then you never get started at all before you find yourself obsolete almost. Yes. And just to add to your point, 70% of the economy is based on the consumer. When I say the economy, I mean in the U.S. And so if they're not spending money, if they don't have money, well, the economy is just going to decline significantly. Now, just to further reinforce the points that you're making, I recently read an article in The Economist. It was titled, What if the AI stock market bubble blows up? And in that article, they basically said the AI crash would destroy 8% of household wealth. And of course, a lot of the people that are spending money now, they're doing so because they feel rich. Their house has gone up in value. The stock market has gone up in value. But if that were to change suddenly, then The Economist suggested that it would cut consumption by 500 billion or 1.8% of GDP. Thoughts on that? We can take a look at it. We can see how the, if you look at the price, see if we got that here. So prices, I think it is. If you look at how it actually is declining already. And when we see that, we see that the momentum of the U.S. house price index here, and you see the decline we have here, and we see the similar decline here. Every time we have declines in the housing price, this is a year on year price. So you will see that it's still at 1.7, but there is a clear downward momentum. And at the same time, we see the unemployment level moving up. I mean, that is a bad cocktail, because if people are feeling, you have two things that are really important in life. Two things, as you know, that will be your house, the value of your house. It don't make you feel rich or not so rich. And then it will be the, it will be whether you have a job or not. And the recessions that are those shallow ones are the ones where the housing market does not take a hit. Those are the ones we had in 2001, which was a dot com and crash that we saw a lot of devastation in the stock market. But actually, the recession was not that bad. The same was for the 1990s, the early one in 1990, I think, or 91, it says the start of that was also a rather shallow one. But if you look to the double recession we had in the early 80s, that was a severe one. And we have one now, and we have the financial crisis, obviously, and we have one that is also now seeming to become a recession. Because we are, the consumer is depressed. And that's what I looked at here before. So the consumer is just in the gutter. And their house, the value of their homes are starting to see also taking a hit. And they can't sell their homes. If we look at the existing homes sold from a, and this is one of the most, again, one of the things I don't understand why people don't mention. And when they talk about how strong the economy is back in the early days of, let's see how we can put us here, let's put us over here. So the existing home sales here, we see that, we can see when that takes a tumble, that's normally when we get into a recession. And we have seen that tumble in that one. So meaning very few homes are actually being sold. This is an absolute number of 4 million around that level, which is a level we have seen all the way back in, let's say, 94, when it was at a spike there. But the US economy was 80 million fewer people at that time than it is today. And also we saw it back in 78 when it was even smaller, the US population, which means that if you look at this and you say, how many homes are sold per, as part of the population, it is right now in the worst gutter that we have ever seen. And this is at a time where the unemployment level is low. Now go figure if things are now turning out and those businesses that do not want to build more capacity by hiring in more people, and they rather use AI. And if you start to see an unemployment spiking here, what is going to happen to the home prices then? They are going to plummet even further. You're going to see a negative development in that. And I think you're already seeing that in a lot of parts. I've seen some interesting charts saying that there are certain areas in the US where you start to see that. You don't have it nationwide just yet, but it definitely looks like it's becoming. So yes, and we know it from ourselves. If our home is starting to depreciate in value, we don't feel as ready to go and take a loan on to build some kind of refurbishment of the house or buying a new car or whatever it is. That is the way we work and act. And God forbid, if we also lose our job, then it's even worse. But I think we're seeing that, unfortunately, a lot of factors coming together here and into, at the same time, what is the worst bubble in the stock market we have ever seen. So we have a cocktail that is just becoming toxic, and it looks like we're very close to see what comes out of that. Before I get your views on the S&P and the NASDAQ, I want to continue on with the economy. And one thing that continues to frustrate the hell out of me is inflation. And the governments in both Canada and the US, they want you to believe they got it under control. But the CPI or inflation has been trading above the Fed's 2% target now for, I think it's 57 months. You might as well round it up and say five years. And if you look at food inflation, just in the past year, the price of coffee is up 30% year over year. Ground beef is up 15%. The price of bananas is even up 10%. And in my mind, the thing saving us right now is the fact that oil is hanging in around $60 a barrel. So the price of oil or energy is down on the year. But what are your thoughts on inflation? If we get this massive pullback in the economy, like you're suggesting, what's going to happen with inflation? It's a change between what is inflation and what is price level. So what you mentioned here was price level. And I think that is correct. Price level has risen by 20% or something like that, depending on country, depending on region and so on, around that level from 2020, which is a lot. But that is exactly what kills the consumer. It does that slowly. I mean, for some time, you may survive. You may have some extra cash, especially from all the stimulus that came in during or after COVID. But eventually, you will have to earn that money to meet that kind of extra cost that you'll see on a daily basis. That is why we see the housing market simply being frozen solid. But right now, the inflation level is not that high. I know it's higher than the 2%. And people kind of say it's higher than 2%. But the 2% is something that has been picked out of free air. And it's not a calculated number that it needs to be. An economy that works at around 3% inflation is OK. It's not a problem. And we can actually see, if we go back in time, we'll see that there's been times where the economy has been thriving at around 3%. So this about the 2% is kind of a stigma that we need to get it down to 2%, otherwise it's a problem. The real problem here, as I see it, is that inflation is lagging, which means that the things I'm talking about with the housing market and with the labor market starting to roll over, if that happens, you're going to see the opposite of inflation. You're going to see deflationary development. This has pressure on inflation. I'm not one bit worried about inflation in the short term, because I think you've got more worries about the actual potential outcomes of the economy rolling over. And I know people feel it. And they feel that the price level has risen. And that's what they're talking about. But it's like the bathtub. The price level is how much water is there in the bathtub. And what comes out of the whatever you call that is the rate of inflation. And right now, the inflation rate is actually coming down. I know it sounds, even though we have these jumps up and down. You can look to inflation. They can also do a really good job on that. And they can see that there is actually a downward pressure on that. But if you look at it further also, you go into the previous times, you'll see that into the financial crisis, which was here, inflation actually rose. It's a lagging indicator, which means that when the economy rolls over, you'll still see some inflationary pressures. That is what we see now. And people are confusing price level with inflation. Because at 3% level right now, at the state we're in, in the business cycle, it's not a problem. That is not a problem for the economy. And the problem is more that you have an overreaction to that now from the Fed. You can see into the financial crisis. It was up at 5 point something percent. Was inflation a problem by the end of 28? Absolutely not. It was quite the opposite. Was it the problem at the end of the dotcom recession? No, it was not. Inflation was down at 1%. So people are confusing that. And that is actually a problem. Because right now, that creates an environment where the Fed, from political reasons, cannot be more than, you know, they need to be hawkish on it because inflation kills the consumer. We know that. And that's unfortunately what has been happening. But the Fed right now is overly hawkish. And you just look at it from a perspective, we say inflation minus the Fed fund rate. And if you look at that right now, at today, you can say that we are actually in the period where the Fed is overly hawkish, especially when you look at how strong the unemployment level is coming up. But when unemployment level is coming up to this degree, and we know the Fed has a dual mandate, they should actually way before now have been starting to stimulate the economy. That is, however, something because they look in at what I would call outdated data and at least lagging data. And they have the inflation as one of their key targets and the policy mandate. It's actually becoming a problem. And that's the problem we see right now. They sit and they talk about inflation, which most likely is going to roll over. And then they are becoming overly hawkish, which then kills the consumer even more. So the Fed is actually in the very process of creating one of the largest policy errors ever I've seen, that I think we ever got to see. They probably going to see that they will be doing whatever they can to solve inflation when the housing market starts to drop, which I think it will, when the unemployment number starts to come up, which I think they will. There's a reason why we don't see them for October and why the November will come last. It's not because they're great. It's probably because they are not so good. And that's also what my model is suggesting. So the Fed is overly hawkish at this point. And even with a 25 basis cut here now, that's not going to bring it into the dovish area. The problem has been the whole thing, the reason here, that they were, the whole situation here where they were overly dovish for a very long time, going all the way back to 2009. For a long time, they were, Fed inflation was higher than the Fed fund rate. And that was the reason why we have seen the everything bubble and everything building up. But now, the Fed should have been falling way before that. Inflation is not a problem. And no matter what the Fed does at this point, it's not going to inflate the market all of a sudden, because people are in the process of losing their jobs. Businesses are in the process of cutting capacity because they are just running at 75%. So inflation is not what you see there. And that is what people misunderstand these days, I think. And if we get this slowdown in the economy, like you're suggesting, where do you the unemployment rate going? If it's currently at 4.4%, are we going to 5%, 6%? And I guess what I'm asking is, how severe will this recession be? Much, much higher. First of all, I mean, you're going to see a, I mean, it's difficult to calculate how, but I see no reason why it would be lower than what we saw into the spike of unemployment in 2009, 2008 and 2009 there. I think you're going to see a massive loss of jobs. I think you're going to see growth being negative for a long time. I think you're going to see horrendous stock market drop. So I don't have a number that I can give you in terms of unemployment, but I would say it's probably going to go above and north of what we saw back into the financial crisis. Okay, so why don't we move on now and look at the financial markets, beginning with the S&P. The last time you and I spoke, it was in July. And at that time, you were very bullish. I think you, your target on the S&P was 6,800 to 7,000. We're pretty well there now on the S&P. Where do you see it going in Q1? I think I'll say, Henrik, where's the, where's the blow off top? And I don't know what they are talking about, because when I started to talk about the blow off top, that was in 2022. And if we look at this development that I, we have seen here, this is the very definition of a blow off top. This is, I don't know how many percent that is actually is, but we can take it. If I get it to the 7,800, that's 115% ever since 22. That is extreme in three years. I mean, that is absolutely extreme. So this is the blow off top. And of course you have had these small declines, but if you look at these monthly candles here, they are just insane. And if you look at it on a three month basis, you can see how we had smaller candles here, and then they just got bigger, bigger, and now they're just insane. So we are getting closer and closer to my target. My target will still be around 7,800. I think that is where we will see a top. We can be there, just hang on. I think we can be there by December. We can be there this month. We can be there next month. I don't think we get far into 26. We have a hanging man here on this monthly candle. It's not necessarily a good thing. I don't think it's going to top here, but we are getting very, very close. And if we get closer, if we move in closer on the S&P here, then we'll see also that we actually have a, if you look at my setup here, is that we are in a situation where we could end it up here around 7,500, as I said, to 7,800. But on a weekly chart, we have definitely something that is not looking good. We have a divergence here, which is something we only see into major tops, especially when the economy is deteriorating at the same time, which we definitely see signs of. So I think we're in really the final innings of this. It's taking a bit longer than I expected. We are still going to the levels that I see, but now the signals are coming out and we just need now everybody to be pulled right back up again, and then the real economy rolling over. So I will say 7,500, 7,800 is going to be the target. With a rotation, you can see small caps doing really well into this final phase, and you'll see probably crypto having an extreme run. I think it started just the other day, because now it's evident that the Fed is going to come in and cut, and they are running off the currency tightening. We have the TTAA funds coming in now after the US shutdown. All these things, and the dollar is still declining, and all these things are going to bring about a fantastic flow of top that rise, whatever kind of percentage that is for the S&P here. But let's say up to, it could be 13%, 14%, 15% even on the NASDAQ and the S&P. So I just want to clarify, so your blow-off top, the level you're looking for now is 7,500 to 7,800 on the S&P? Correct, yes. And do you have a timeline associated with that? Are we talking Q1, first half of the year? As I said, no, not first half. I'd say it would be, again, it could be as soon as even this month. I know it sounds crazy, but the final blow-off tops are always insane. You can look to the Nikkei in 1989, you can look to the NASDAQ in 2000, and you can see those extreme candles at the very end of it. And if I have to say, I'd probably say it's going to be in January. So I'd probably say January could be the time where we reach this. We have a spike into it and the reversal, and then I think you're going to again, people will not see and feel it from immediately there. They're probably going to see the first decline and then everybody will think, oh, that was just another dip. And now we go up again, and then you'll see a lower high into May, and then you can see the real decline. But the top could still be as soon as in January. All right. You mentioned Bitcoin, and we've had a big pullback here in the last month or two months. It got as high as 125,000, went down to 85,000. Now we're trading in the low 90s. Where do you see this going? We saw in 2017, and we had a fantastic rally into that top. And I think we're going to have that again here this time around. I think we're going to have a, let's see, did I stop sharing here? That we see a fantastic top like in 2017, where it just went up for some time. And also in 2021, you saw that it had a fantastic three, four weeks run. And then you're going to see a rotation into the small caps or crypto, that means into altcoins. And you're going to see a top there as well into maybe late January, maybe early February. But that's as far as it takes. I think it's going to be faster and stronger than most people anticipate here, because we're starting to see the things that can kill this bull market here. We're starting to see the talks about the AI situation with NVIDIA and so on. We've seen the micro strategy also now starting to, oh, interestingly enough, starting to build a US dollar reserve. Interesting when you don't like fiat and then you just have to build a fiat reserve anyway. That sounds interesting. And we have the whole situation with Tether, where we just saw that the S&P rating agency was giving them a week, which means that they cannot see through. Is there really backing for the Tethers in terms of US dollars, or is this just a mirage? I think we are seeing some of the things that in the aftermath is going to be the things that people say, oh, this was the thing that actually killed it all. It will not be, because the real thing is that it's the economy that rolls over and then you have it. But there will be some of the big loses there. But again, we have to differentiate between short term, medium term, and long term. Short term, which means the next few weeks here into early January, I think we can have a fantastic bull run. And I see Bitcoin going to $140,000, $150,000 even, but I don't see much over that. And that will be enough. I mean, that will be quite strong from here. And I'm glad you brought up micro strategy. The name now is actually strategy. I'm not sure why they changed it. We've had a massive like this stock. Oh, my God. So it got up to $400. Last time I looked at it, it was at like $180 or $185. Do you think there's hope for those people that micro strategy or strategy? Yeah, again, that depends on how what we mean about hope, because I think the market is going to prove everybody wrong right now. And I think you're going to see that the market will then accelerate. And I think strategy is going to make new highs and people, especially if Bitcoin covers a hundred thousand, then you'll see people will be flocking into it and chasing it and talking about how much the genius of that Mike Sayer is. And then you're going to see the final blow off top there. So in that timeframe, yes, everybody, there is hope. But in the larger perspective, no, absolutely not. I mean, it speaks for itself. When somebody who hates fiat as much, and they are starting to build a fiat reserve, that's because reality is starting to bomb. Reality is that you cannot pay your loan, your mortgage payment, whatever it is with Bitcoins. They try to tell you that it's going to be, but you can't. And when you leverage up like what strategy is, at some point it's going to go terribly wrong. And if Bitcoin is going to reach the levels to the downside that I expect, then there'll be no more strategy. So I could see, again, just imagine these crazy runs. We have the most insane bubble in the world. We have, you know, everything is stretched. We have to think in those terms when we say how far and how high can it go. And I could see strategy going above 800 and above 1,000 in price, in a five, six times up, in no time. Because you will see that everybody will now be running into it when Bitcoin recovers 100,000. And, you know, Mike Sayre will again be looked upon as the saver of the world, and the same with Bitcoin. But that's going to be the final end of it. And the negative divergence on that is actually just quite extreme. So if you take a weekly chart on Bitcoin and you look at the since March of 24, you'll see how the momentum of the tops of the move has been lower and lower and lower. And everybody talks about how strong it has been and so on. It's not strong. It's actually technically weak. And as I see it, I have to say, and I will say it here, I saw a story coming out saying it's it's worthless. I will be a little more kind and I'll say it will be a collector's item in a few years. So I just want to clarify, you threw it a lot of numbers there. But once again, Bitcoin is trading in the low 90s. And you think it's going to stabilize here, it's going to rip to as high as 140,000. And then all hell is going to break loose and we're going to have a breakdown in the economy and Bitcoin is going to get destroyed. If you look back in the four times you've had a larger pullback in Bitcoin, it was about 70 to 90 percent. This time around is a real recession setting in. A real recession is not going to be kind to Bitcoin. You will have that the stock market is going to decline. If my model is correct, then we're going to see a very massive top. You're going to have a massive decline in NASDAQ. And NASDAQ is only as outperformed by Bitcoin in terms of upside and downside. So I think you're going to see Bitcoin crashing quite a lot. And you see there is actually when we have days like the last few weeks here, all of a sudden, I mean, what brought Bitcoin down from $125,000 to $80,000, $45,000 in a matter of two weeks? What was it? It wasn't really a big thing. I mean, there wasn't a big thing going on. Now imagine if you have a credit crisis, if you have the dollar going to 110, the Dixie 110 or 215, and you have massive defaults and you have the stock market cracking. Who in their right mind would think that Bitcoin will survive that when it can drop by $45,000, 30 percent, 35 percent in a matter of no time due to nothing? I think people are talking about all their diamond hands and so on. It will prove and come out that it's all paper hands when it comes to it. And I don't see Bitcoin as the savior of the financial system. There's no way you'll have something like that saving the financial system. The financial system needs saving, without a doubt. It needs a monetary reset. We need to get to a new, sound monetary future. But that's not going to be Bitcoin, I'm sorry to say. And I have to be a little more harsh on it now because I think, honestly, people out there need to understand the reality of things. I hear so many people sitting and thinking, oh, but Bitcoin is going to stand. And I'm just like, well, look at the declines we have had without any reason. Why would you then think a severe crisis could bring Bitcoin to its high? And then they come with something with money printing. And you can just look through the charts and say, NASDAQ dropped in the financial crisis a lot, even though there was massive money printing. The NASDAQ dropped also in the 2001 crisis, even though there was massive money printing. Why would you think Bitcoin would do any better than that? And that's what I think. So people are, unfortunately, being led by all these Bitcoin maximalists and DeFi and whatever it is. And I think this is just the narrative of a bubble. That's the narrative. You and I are old enough to remember also the bubble of 2001 and the .com. And we had all this with the new economy and all this. And it's not about how much money you make anymore, how much you spend on marketing and all these things. It's about how many clicks we see and all this. I mean, this is the very definition of the narrative you need to see in a bubble. And that's what we have. All right. So let's move on and talk about gold now. Gold, it had a pretty good 2024. It was up 25%. It's already up 50% in 2025. Looks like it's got a lot of momentum. What do you think? I think, yeah, I've been wrong on how high gold could come. I have no doubt about that. It could go. I didn't see that. I didn't see how much it would rise before. I have all along been expecting gold to come into a massive bull market after this. What I think we're seeing here is the prelude to what is coming after. And when I mean after, that's because I look into the decline we're going to see here first, the crash. There are different kinds of crashes to the market. If you look to the 2022 crash or the decline that you had there in the stock market, it was really driven by an inflationary situation where stocks was declining because inflation was rising. That's not a good thing for the consumer. And hence, it was not a good thing for the stock market. What we can see now is that the decline we could see here next one that comes will probably be a deflationary bust, which means it'll be similar to what we saw in 2008. In deflationary bust, there will be organizations, countries, private organizations, hedge funds, and so on that will be needing liquidity, if I get it right. You will go see the floor is going to open up. You'll see a lot of value dropping into that. And liquidity will be needed. That is also why Bitcoin will drop. The Fed will not step in and close those gaps immediately. First of all, they can't get out to it. And especially if we have what I can see as a private credit crisis developing, and you'll see the more opaque structure of that potential setup there, you'll have a lot of holes opening up everywhere. Liquidity will be needed. Liquidity meaning US dollars. And it doesn't mean gold. It doesn't mean Bitcoin. In that setup, I don't think gold will do well. And I still think you're going to see a massive decline first. But the rally that we have seen is telling us that it's setting up for something quite extraordinary. And if you look to a ratio like SPX versus gold, so SPX gold ratio, it has clearly broken lower. And that we have only seen four times in a century. That was in 1929, when there was a speculative bubble, and gold started to outperform the stock market. We saw it again then in 1971, when we had Nixon coming out and doing the temporary, we call that abandonment of the convertibility of dollars to gold. And then we had in 2000, when we had a speculative dot-com bubble. This time, I think we have a combination. You have what you had in 71, where it was a starting, a beginning to a losing faith in the financial system. Because that is what happens when all of a sudden, you can just print money. It's just not connected to gold any longer. But that we have now as well. And we have a situation also where you have a speculative bubble. So I think you have the double of that. And if you look to that ratio, then that decline could suggest that gold by far could outperform the stock market in the coming 10 years. So I think you will see gold will do extremely well over the next many years. But does that rule out that you cannot see gold declining in dollar value? No, because in a deflationary crisis, you probably see that you need real dollars. So I still think there's going to be somewhat of a pullback. And then you'll see it going to rise. But yeah, definitely gold is going to outperform Bitcoin. And again, we need to start short, middle, and long term. Long term, you're going to see gold by far outperforming Bitcoin and by far being a very, very solid asset. And by the way, into the next, you can say, next many, many years, when we through the first part of this crisis, I think you're going to see commodity companies in general will do fantastic. Do you have a gold chart by chance? I probably have a gold chart. Let me see if I can get something up here. Let's see if I have. Let me see. I have something I call for. Yes, I have one here, which is the where we had the old top here back in 2011. We had the decline. Then we probably had something of a move higher, which this consolidation here was really a long one and strong one. And when it broke here, that is obviously very, very important. It does not take away that you can see a big decline. And I think you are actually going to see that big decline. I don't think we are in a situation where you just see this going higher if the Dixie is going to the 120, which I think is going to go to. And I think liquidity will be everything. But in the greater scheme of things, I mean, everything is correcting also. But in the bigger scheme of things, if this is going to happen, then this move here is going to be absolutely fantastic. And I think if you're going to see that, let's see if I have a little gold long-term chart here somewhere. Let's find it now. But I definitely think we'll see that this move here will bring us into above 10,000, 15,000. And I think into the 2030s, you'll see gold. There are credible calculations that can suggest that gold can go even to as high as above $30,000 per ounce. But again, I would wait to see what happens into a deflationary bust. But bottom line is, any significant pullback, it's a buying opportunity. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, this has been strong, stronger than I expected, no doubt about that. Wrong on the short-term outlook, no doubt about that. But let's see if the pullback comes, and then we'll see that. Because I think gold will be part of also redefining the monetary set of the regime that we have when that comes around. And when will that happen? That will normally come about when the time when we start to see potential backflation. The moment when the dollar starts to decline in a strong manner, you'll see that there will be some kind of need for a reshuffling of things. What I talked about earlier, there will need to be a sound monetary system to support the economy and the world. And that will, again, as I see it, become where gold will have its place. And it will not be Bitcoin. It will be gold. And we'll just have to see what will the pullback that I expect here mean. People see that, and there are a lot of my fellow analysts out there that think that it's just going to keep going higher here. And I think maybe that's the dangerous perception at this point. But again, I was wrong before. So let's see how it goes this time. Yeah, I would agree with a lot of your points. I think it's a reflection or a referendum on what's happening within the global economy from a fiscal point of view. If you look at the U.S., just the U.S., $40 trillion in debt. They're trying to get these interest rates down so their interest payments can become lower. They're paying a trillion dollars a year in interest payments. But it's just not the U.S. It's anywhere and everywhere in the world. Like there's just things are out of control. And then if you look at inflation, to me, this is the real issue. I know you think inflation is going lower. I don't think it is. And I think this is telling us there's serious problems out there. We continue to see these central banks around the world buy 25 percent of all gold production. That's been the big trend in the last three or four years. Now we have new players stepping in. You mentioned Tether earlier. It's estimated they have bought or acquired 80 to 100 tons of gold here just in the last six months. OK. The other thing Tether is doing, they're also buying Bitcoin, but they're a lot more aggressive when it comes to gold bullion. They're also buying gold royalty companies. They've already taken positions, I believe, in three or four royalty companies. The other thing that I find quite interesting now is you're starting to see some U.S. funds get involved in the gold space. There's a big firm out of New York called Elliott. They own a large stake in Triple Flag Precious Metals. He just took another stake in Osisko Royalties. And they also went activist on Barrick Gold. So when you see something like this happening, of course, you see a lot of headlines on it. Then you get other funds looking at it. Right. So I think myself, gold, this is just the beginning. And I would agree, if you see any significant pullback, you've got to get long. And I know a lot of people like to draw parallels between gold and Bitcoin, and they refer to Bitcoin as digital gold. I see none whatsoever. Until central banks and governments start buying Bitcoin, never going to happen. But you can look at also, you can look at certain charts, you can look at the ratio between Bitcoin and gold. And it's quite clear that there is, I think there's going to be another top in that. And that's where I think I will challenge, say, Bitcoin short term again could outperform gold quite a lot. And I think even gold will drop. But in a longer time frame, there's no doubt about which horse I would be betting on. Now, I didn't ask you about silver. Gold's up 50% on the year. Silver's up over 70. Any views on silver? Well, there's the move that we see. I think there's a level around 65 that I think it's going to respect. And again, I have to say, it feels a little uncoordinated also with gold. Gold was up, and then all of a sudden silver spikes now. And silver is really an industrial product. And if you look at it, it's not really resonating with what we see in the economy in terms of. So I think there is a lot of people have been front running the inflation narrative. And I know I hear what you're saying. I just don't think the inflation will be what can carry it through a financial crisis, but also a very sharp deflation. But I take the point. And again, I think both silver and gold will be completed on much, much, much higher levels than we are today. Again, silver and gold have been front running things a little too much, I think. So I think there's going to be a pullback. But let's see. So we talked, we discussed a lot of things here in the last few minutes, Henrik. And I want to thank you very much. I just want to summarize a few of your points. So you're still bullish on the S&P. So right now, let's just say the S&P is at 6,800. You see it going up to 7,500 or 7,800 here in the next couple of months. Could be a lot faster. You're bullish on Bitcoin. So it's currently trading in the low 90s. You see that ripping up to 140,000. And you're still bullish on gold. I'm sorry, did you throw out a target on the gold price here in the short term? I think in the short term, I don't know. But we need to see when the dollar starts strengthening. And after that bottom is in on the dollar, which I think is going to be around January as well, then when you see that, then I think it's over for the rally, both in gold and silver and Bitcoin for that matter. But I think then you're going to see it. So I'm not sure that if gold is going higher, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. I think silver can go to 65, but I think gold is going to drop a lot, actually. And I hate to say it, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it way below 3,000. Yeah, but that's on the back of an economy in the fall terrain. Back of the decline. But short term here, I mean, what I've seen over the last few weeks since we had the top there, I think that is still a correctional structure. So I would not be betting too much on that move. Can be wrong, let's see, because the only thing that will be driving it really will be when the dollar starts to rally. And if that rallies, then gold will probably not be faring so well. And just the last point, you think the U.S. is going into a recession and that's going to happen by Q1 of 2026? I think when we look back in time at some point, it'll be January, March, February or March, that will be the beginning of that month. And if I had to guess, I'll say February. Well, this has been a great discussion and I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today. If somebody would like to follow you online or read your research, where can they go? Yeah, so first of all, I'm very active on X and they can find me at Henrik Seberg. We also at SwissBlock, we also publish a lot of macro work for institutional clients. And then I have a sub stack also that people can follow. So try to go look me up there. Henrik, once again, thank you and good luck in 2026. Thank you. Likewise, James.