EP27: Profitable Strategies in Precious Metals Investment with Greg Allen

When we see people being leveraged, interest rates being elevated and a triple top on the dollar, it's every sign that we're looking for when we're looking to buy gold. But one thing I would like to mention that I think is even more attractive than gold at the moment is silver. Gold is more steady. Don't get me wrong there, gold is steady, Eddie. So if you're looking for something that's going to be a hedge against inflation and you're not going to have to worry as much about volatility, you're looking for gold. But if we're looking at in terms of capital appreciation and just the capability to make money in a market right now, silver is much more attractive than gold.

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Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to Think Outside the Stocks. I am your host Madhvi Jain and we are doing another episode. It's a very interesting episode. We are going to talk about gold today. If you have been buying the gold coin, that may not be the best option to buy gold in your portfolio. And today's our guest, Greg Allen. He's going to talk about what is a better way of buying buying gold actually. But before we go ahead, I do want to mention that this is information and education purpose only. Whatever we are providing as an education on this podcast, please be sure to do your own due diligence on it. Consult your tax professionals, your lawyers so that you can implement this strategy in your financial structure. Greg, welcome to Think Outside this Talks.

Thank you so much for having me on Maadvi. I'm really excited to join you on this and I think it's going to be great for everyone listening and just to enlighten them a little bit on the precious metals markets.

Absolutely. And Greg, I typically like to introduce my guests with three fun facts and you actually have many. So I'm going to start with those fun facts. Right? So the first fun fact Greg is in gold business and Greg actually played pro hockey and he worked at the development in Toronto, Maple Leaf and Hockey Canada. So that's his first interesting fact. The second is that he during his high school wrote a thesis about Nixon shocks. Now, Nixon shocks, if that's the first time that you are hearing about it, it has a lot to do with the gold and how gold prices have fluctuated in this country, at least the beginning of that. So we will talk about it in our show today. If you haven't heard about it, don't worry about it. The third interesting fact about it is that he has a photographic memory. And that's a very interesting point because I have never met anybody who actually has photographic mem. Greg just shared with me is that suit that he's wearing is from the serial suits with Harvey and Michael Ned. And the suit actually was made for Harvey, which is a very, very interesting thing. So with that, let's start this conversation with Greg Allen about gold today.

Thank you for that amazing intro. Well, if you want to get into the suit story just right off the top because you mentioned it, really kind of neat thing the way it fell into my lap. When I finished playing hockey and I was going back to get my education, I ended up working part time for a bespoke tailor. And the bespoke tailor that I worked at made all of the suits for the TV show suits. So before I left to pursue my career, I was able to pick up some suits that the TV show either didn't approve or didn't let Gabriel, the actor that plays Harvey keep and I was able to keep a few of them. So whenever I have an event such as like a podcast or a webinar, I always try to dress to impress. And the Harvey suits are my go tos.

That's a good conversation starter.

Yeah, 100%. It's definitely, it's a really good way to break the ice for sure.

Oh my God. I just can't imagine that you actually, you know, are involved in that process. So next time if we have, you know, suit recommendation, you know that if you don't get in touch with Greg for gold, at least get in touch with him for a suit recommendation. Just kidding. I don't want all the suitcases to come to you, Greg, because we are talking more interesting. That is gold, right? So let's talk a little bit about your photographic memory and then we will jump into possibly the nicks and shocks and how you got into the gold investments.

For sure. I mean, the photographic memory. When we were talking a little bit before the podcast, my wife said to me, oh, you've got to put that, that little tidbit in there. And it's something actually my grandfather had as well. Definitely very, very useful. But my wife's not a big fan of it from time to time. That's for sure.

That's surprising, that. And she asked to add that in, be sure that it's discussed. That's funny.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely just, you know, when you think about yourself and fun facts, it's always hard. Right. You rack your brain and you want to be unbiased and that typ of things. So I think it's something that's a little bit more unique and something good to.

Absolutely. And going advertising and going back to the suits. Right. And you know, reconnecting the dots back to Mike. I think Mike has the photographic memory, so it's kind of good coincidence. Right.

I. I should, I should have gotten Mike suits, not Harvey. But true.

But yeah, I don't think I have met anybody in person on the TV serials or the movies maybe, but not in person who does actually have that capability. So there, there you go. So let's talk about Nixon shocks. You wrote a thesis around it when you were in high school.

Yeah.

Did you know that you're going to go in the gold business then?

Basically the Nixon shocks. And my thesis to do with that was supervised by really esteemed professor at the University of Toronto. When I was doing some graduate studies, one thing that I had already started to do before the end of my undergraduate studies was intern at precious metals firm. And when I was interning at a precious metals firm, I thought to myself, well, hey, if I'm going to do any type of graduate work to further my education, it's probably best that I do something that I'm actually going to use. Right. And so the thing with the Nixon shocks is basically that one event and that one decision by Richard Nixon is what formed a lot of the way monetary policy occurs today. And it definitely changed the gold market, the silver market, it changed the precious metals market forever.

Right, let's talk about that then in a very simple form. What was the events leading to it? For sure, what exactly happened and how did it impact?

One major thing that I want to just distinguish first, right. Is the Nixon shocks happened in 1971. And the reason they're referred to as the shocks is because all of the trading Partners. All of the countries that traded with the US Were shocked by the decision to end Bretton Woods. So what Bretton woods was was a gold exchange system for the US Dollar. Not to be confused with the gold standard. The gold standard ended in 1933. What that meant was that worldwide, you could exchange US dollars for gold at a price of $35 an ounce. Meaning no matter what happened, if you wanted to take $35 and go to a bank, you could get an ounce of gold.

I see.

And so the significance of this, number one, was that because the. Even in. Under a gold exchange system, the US Currency was valued and tied to a physical asset due to this, they weren't able to manipulate their currency, so to speak. Not that that's something that, you know, the average diplomatic strategy employs. But what ended up happening was all of the trading partners with the US at the time, including Canada, but a big one being Japan and China, were manipulating their currency to be able to attain more favorable trade deals with the United States. And so ultimately, Nixon decided to end Bretton woods because he felt that the US Was being taken advantage of on a world stage in terms of global trade.

I see.

So what we see happen here in the lead up to this is the core decision to do it was that at one point, there were more US dollars in circulation in 1970 than gold reserves.

Absolutely.

And so what this meant was if everyone cashed in their US Dollars for.

Gold, there will not be any gold.

No. They wouldn't be able to exchange it. Right. So what they end up doing is ending the whole gold exchange system right. Now, the crazy thing about that is what happens when they end that the significant factors are you effectively put monetary policy decisions and major economic decisions in the hands of the Fed. Right. And they're the Board of Governors at the Federal Open Markets Committee. And so while this can be a fantastic thing, right, because you can take measures to. To assist in unemployment, you can add stimulus to the economy if you need to, you can tighten. The general issue becomes when you add stimulus and you print money, you devalue the currency. And what happens when you print money and you devalue the currency? You get inflation. Specifically, what we saw through the 70s was stagflation and then hyperinflation. Right? Like, keep in mind, only nine years after this, in 1980, we see prices of metals spike, we see inflation spike, and we end up with precious metals increasing by thousands of percent. Quite literally. We saw gold spike from $35 to almost $1,000 in a decade.

Wow.

The Main reason for this is the devaluation of the dollar. Right. And that's something that I want to really get across to everyone. There's a lot of people out there that will tell you a million factors that go into the value of gold, the value of silver, the value of platinum and palladium. Ultimately, the most important thing to consider when you're looking at these markets is that gold shares an inverse relationship to the US Dollar. All that means is that when the dollar goes down in value, gold and silver go up.

Right.

When the dollar goes up in value, gold and silver go down. One of the best ways that you can research and look into is it the right time to buy gold or not, is by following the forward guidance from the Fed. Right. Because the Fed doesn't make decisions on monetary policy and blindside us all. They typically are pretty forthcoming in their, in their minutes to the meeting. Right. If we follow that and we look at the charts of the dollar, we're able to establish a trend in the dollar. And so if we know that the trend in the dollar is moving down, it's a safe bet to buy gold and silver because we know they're going up. And it's especially something that we've all experienced since 2020. Right. If you look at the inflation over the last few years, $100,000 has lost roughly $27,000 worth of purchasing power in three years. Right. And at the same time, we've seen gold move from roughly a low of 1250, 1300 an ounce in March of 2020 up to today. Significantly, it's back over $2,000 an ounce. And so the primary reason for this is the dollar. Obviously there's other factors, but the most important thing would be the dollar.

Wow. What? Quite well explained, Greg. I really appreciate it because I had seen over the period of years how the gold has fluctuated and in 1970s to that decade. Right. Just shows that there's a humongous change. Right. It got increased, but never really totally understand that what really happened behind it. So thanks so much for explaining that. I was going to ask a question to you that what is the relationship of a dollar and gold and how does it fluctuate? And you explained that quite well as well, that it's actually inversely proportional. Right. What it means is that, you know, dollar goes up, the gold goes down, the gold goes up and dollar goes down. Right. So that's kind of the way it works. So thank you so much for explaining that. Now, given that it looks like, you know, when we invest in gold, we are betting against the dollar. It's kind of, you know, a way to put it, which is kind of sad, but still that's the truth because you know, it hates, it's just a currency and it has a fluctuation and there's so much pressure with brics and everything that's going on that's putting pressure on the dol able to, you know, have that currency of purchasing the oil that's there, there is that impact there. So that's, there's a lot of things that keep that kind of a moving scale for the dollar to hold its place in the, in the world's market. Right. So that kind of helps to understand. So given that you also talked about the inflation and the correlation, so to me it looks like, you know, gold is a good hedge against that inflation, right? Because if inflation, if it is outrageously high last few years we have seen that and I always tell my investors that, hey, you know, you think that your money is safe in the bank, but it's eroding to inflation just by keeping it there, its purchasing power is reducing year after year. So even though it's, it's the dollar value is there, you're purchasing power is reducing. So you got to think about that and investing in something which is risk managed, right, which has a little bit hed for your money. So the next question I will ask you, Greg, is that, you know, everything is cyclic, right? There's a market cycle, there's an up and down, the recession, the inflation. So how does gold behave in this cycles of market? Let's talk about that for sure.

And it's a great question, right, Because I think one thing I've heard you mention on past podcasts too is looking at protecting your downside, right, Looking at, at your value store. And so it's very important when you're considering investing, right? All markets are cyclical, as you were saying, they move up and down and you want to make sure that you're diversified properly, right? Because ultimately that's the key to your success. So one thing that I would reference when looking at cycles of gold and what happens with the price of gold through recessions and also through a bullish economy, is that the CMP group did a 50 year study, okay, from 1968 until the end of 2018, so start of 2019. And what they studied was a mixture of different portfolios with different balances of allocation, right. So typically they were looking at traditional portfolios. So we're talking portfolios that would have everything from The S and P T bills or cash and physical gold. Okay? And what they determined was that over 50 years, a portfolio that was diversified into gold, which they deemed 20 to 25% for conservative investors and for aggressive investors, and they deem an aggressive investor as someone who has multiple streams of income, 5 plus streams of income for aggressive investors. They were talking about portfolios with allocations in a range of 10 to 15%.

Okay?

And given that the study showed over 50 years, an average return year over year was roughly 8.3% having gold in your portfolio. Now, the significant thing about the study is it actually showed that having more gold in your portfolio was consistently more profitable, right? However, the downside to having, for instance, 80% of your portfolio in gold is that you miss out on the opportunities to speculate on certain things with a portion portfolio, right? And while no one would recommend that you go in and speculate with half of your money or more speculating with a small percentage of your portfolio, while you may have 8 out of 10 or 6 out of 10 be losers, those 2 or 4 out of 10 that end up being successful can you pretty significant returns. But the, the major thing to consider when you're looking at how gold is going to perform in these different economies is we have to consider the mindset of investing in gold, right? Because while you're liquid, it's not something to consider like a stock that you're just going to buy and sell. One day you're going to buy it, you're going to sell it the next day to make a profit, because you can do that. But really the value of gold is that it's a value store. And what that means is that as a value store, it is guaranteed to increase with the cost of goods, right. As we see inflation. So a really good analogy to explain, you know, what does that mean? Because these are all, all, you know, great terms, but unless we put it in, you know, simple everyday words, you're thinking to yourself, well, why do I need a value store, right? The significant thing about that is it would mean that let's say, if we're talking 100 years ago, 1923, a house, let's say, costs 1500-2000, right? We, we all wish that was the case today, but I know we all.

Wish we could go into that house.

But if you bought $1,500 worth of gold in 1923, that was a full house value wise worth of gold, that same amount of gold that you bought in 1923 would buy you the same house.

Today, I see.

Even though obviously that house is much more expensive.

Right.

And the same thing would be true. Let's say you go to buy that house today and it's 650,000. If you put that same amount into gold today, it'll buy you the same house a hundred years from now. And obviously, there's peaks and valleys in every market. Right?

Right.

But generally speaking, this is the primary reason why people are protecting themselves or using gold as a hedge. Right.

I love, love how you explained it. That's a very simplified explanation, actually, much easier to understand. So given that. Right. I mean, it's considered that it's a good hedge against inflation. And again, you know, looking at the charts there interesting period. Right. I mean, there is that period from that 70s to like, what you explained, the next decade. It just jumped from that $35 to thousand. Right. But there was a period where, you know, looking back around 2011, 12, and if you look at, you know, somebody who purchased in, in 2012 and somebody who's purchased maybe recently a couple of years back, it's kind of shows lateral movement. It doesn't show that gold moved a lot. I mean, did people lose money or just, you know, over the period of time that inflation kind of took over? So can you explain what that means and how has that impacted the gold value?

For sure. And I think this is a great question because when we look at the gold market, something that, you know, you hear a lot of people say when they look at the chart is, hey, gold has been to almost $2,000. Before it was at 19, almost $1980. Right. It's just above 2,000. But is it 1980, 80 for all of 12 hours in 2011?

12 hours, that's, that's interesting to use.

The point at the same way. Right. Gold and silver actually trade in tandem. Gold, the first mover, and silver follows. So also in 2011, silver went to 49.82 an ounce.

Okay.

And in 1980, silver went to almost $50 an ounce as well.

Right.

And so what we have to consider here is we go back to the dollar, we look at monetary policy and the dollar, because that explains everything. If you look on a chart, you will see the dollar actually bottomed to 72 on the index. Now, that's not saying that our purchasing power went way, way, way, way down or went way, way, way up. It's simply looking at the basket of currencies that are trading on the U.S. dollar index. Right. And so what we know when we look at the index is any reading below 80 is typically going to show you those all time highs in gold and silver. So we wonder, why did we see the dollar crash? Why are we seeing these assets Spike? Well, remember 2008 and the accommodative monetary policy that we saw? Because of that, the national debt previous to this was in the neighborhood of $5 trillion. Right. If we look at it now, it's over $30 trillion. And you say, where did we go down that road? Right. The dovish monetary policy where we printed $10 trillion basically began when we saw these spikes in gold and silver. So what happens when they print trillions of dollars? Well, we dilute the value of the dollar. The value of the dollar comes down, we see gold and silver spike up. Now what you can also track is as they start raising interest rates again. Because when we go from a zero interest rate and we stimulate the economy, we then get inflation starting to come back. As the economy comes back. Right?

Right.

So then they started raising interest rates because the Fed's target is 2% inflation per year.

Right.

Every time there's an increase in the interest rate, there is a temporary bump in the value of the dollar. So the value of the dollar increases on the index.

Right.

And so you can track the fall of these prices along with the hike of interest rates. And so where I'm going with this is when we're considering buying, we ultimately want to look at what's happening with the dollar. And so if we look at things right now, one of the reasons why we look at the price and we think to ourselves, hey, it's a great time to buy is because we know that currently 99.4% of CME Fed watch experts. So when we talk about experts, we're talking about executives that work on Wall street, people on boards of governors, this type of thing. Right. 99.4% of them are forecasting for interest rates to stay unchanged at the next meeting.

Right.

Okay. The significant thing about this means that if interest rates remain unchanged, we're not going to see that bump in the dollar. Additionally, 12 of the 19 are in favor of cutting interest rates only two times, but of cutting interest rates twice in 2024. So what this means is we're going to have elevated interest rates above 5% through to 2025 if they stay true to their work.

Mm.

If we have these elevated interest rates, but they're not hiking them, it does two things. When we have elevated interest rates, it takes investment options that most people would consider, like for instance, real estate, a lot of real Estate investors are starting to reconsider entering the market at this point because your mortgage rates are through the roof. Right. And that's when we start getting other people looking at gold. But also we know if they're not going to be raising interest rates through to 2025, we're going to start seeing that downward momentum in the dollar. Because on the charts right now we've got a triple top. So if we see the downward momentum in the dollar, we all know what's going to happen. Right? The dollar goes down, gold and silver go up.

That is very, very interesting. Right. You're tracking the moment of the interest rates hike with the gold as well. So as the dollar gets more stronger and stronger, the becoming weaker and the other way around. So that's interesting as well. So given that, you know, the current market cycle, you are, and kind of you are alluding to that, but is this a good time to buy gold or is this a time to actually sell gold?

That's a great question based on the technicals. And also what we're seeing with today was a big day, right. It's coincidence. We're recording the podcast today, but we had the PCE reports come out. We had, we're able to see what, what's happening with inflation. One significant factor is that not only when we look at inflation, but when we look at the consumer index reports, what we see is inflation came in at 3.7%. Right. This is slightly down from expectations. It's a good thing, Right. If we can remember, inflation was almost at 10% not too long ago. Right?

Yeah.

But the significant thing about the reports that came out today, the consumer survey from the University of Michigan indicated that inflation is actually expected to increase to over 4% a year from this month. So meaning next year for the September report, because it comes out in October, they're forecasting 4.1%. They're also showing that that number for inflation does not include consumer goods like oil or automobiles and this type of thing. And when we look at oil and automobiles and other factors, not only is inflation higher than what most people actually see in the 3.7%.

Right.

But were able to find out that most people right now are buying consumer goods with debt. People are leveraged. And so when we see people being leveraged, interest rates being elevated and a triple top on the dollar, it's every sign that we're looking for when we're looking to buy gold.

I see.

But I see one thing I would like to mention that I think is even more attractive than Gold at the moment is silver. Gold is more steady. Don't get me wrong there. Gold is steady, Eddie. So if you're looking for something that's going to be a hedge against inflation and you're not going to have to worry as much about volatility, you're looking for gold. But if we're looking at, in terms of capital appreciation and just the capability to make money in a market right now, silver is much more attractive than gold.

That is very interesting, Greg. You know, you have a photographic memory. I'm beginning to think. Do you have a telepathy now? Because I was going to ask that, you know, gold gets so much of importance in the precious metal world. So I was going to ask you that what other options we have, you know, in silver, platinum, and you are right on the track there. So let's talk about more on silver investing. And if you want to, may add the platinum or any other precious metal investing as well, would love to hear that perspective.

For sure. So one tool that we've used in the metals markets for over 100 years now is called the gold to silver ratio. This, I would say, is probably one of the most, if not the most important factor when you're looking at what metal to buy. Right, Right. So what we look at with the gold to silver ratio is how many ounces of silver you can buy for every ounce of gold. So it's really, really simple.

Yeah.

If you're listening in right now, we can all do it together on a calculator. It's really easy. If we take the price of gold at close Today, it was $2,006.60, and we divide it by the price of silver at close today, which was $23.19, you're gonna get 86.86 to 1.

Right.

Meaning you could buy almost 87 ounces of silver right now for every ounce of gold.

Every ounce of gold.

Now, saying that number out loud is, you know, most people are like, well, what does that mean? Right. We look at the averages in the gold to silver ratio. Right. And so what we know is in the 20th century, the average was 40 to 1.

Really?

It closed as tightly as 14 to 1, but the average was 40 to 1.

Right.

The average for the 21st century thus far is creeping up a little bit closer to 51. Between 45 and 50 to 1. Okay. But what we know is every time this ratio is wider than 80 to 1, silver typically outperforms gold 4 1/2% to 1.

Right.

Additionally, the other things that, you know, a Lot of people are looking at in silver right now, which make it attractive are all of the green energy applications and the fact it's the second most useful commodity in the world. Right. Every solar panel you see, every electric car that you're seeing for their batteries, they're using silver in all of our electronics. More significantly, Elon Musk actually just bought a silver mine because they're struggling to actually produce enough silver to make Teslas right now. And so that's where silver can be a really, really, really attractive play. Now, platinum as well. You mentioned platinum, Right. Have you ever looked at platinum values? Because I know most people have, and that's why I mention it.

That's very interesting. As it comes from the culture, we focus more on the gold. Platinum has been picking up over the period of few years now. But, you know, pretty much gold is what. What we look at, so. So tell us more about the platinum.

Some exciting things about platinum that we see is it's again, a value proposition, and I know I'm using that word a lot here, but typically, when we look at the historical charts, platinum trades at a value higher than gold. Right. And if we look at the market right now, we've got gold at over $2,000 an ounce. Platinum is $914 an ounce. Right. Believe it or not, all of the platinum that's ever been mined in world history could fit into a suburban house.

Really?

That's how rare of a metal platinum is.

Wow.

Most people don't know that platinum, you know, we know there's demand there for. For jewelry, a lot of the demand will come from catalytic converters and these things in automobiles. But one thing that's very attractive about platinum, when we look at the reports and what's moving forward in the future, the World bank just came out with their forecast and their predictions for the next year. And platinum moving into 2024. Right. And what we see is they're forecasting $1350 an ounce for platinum.

Wow.

And so Significantly, that's almost 40% in returns they're calling for right there. You know, it's not every day you see opportunities like that in precious metals markets. Right?

Yeah. So if you rank them, you know, from top to bottom on the preference of investing, how would you rank these three metals?

I would say at the end of the day, gold is always the ultimate crisis commodity. Right. It's always the first mover. The reason for that, you have central banks buying gold, you have regular banks buying gold, and because they're the main purchasers, and we all Know that typically when we look for safety, the first thing the end user, the consumer does is buy gold.

Absolutely.

So I think it's hard to take that away from gold, but I would say silver is a close second. It really depends on your investment objectives though, at the same time. Right. Because the ranking system is going to be different based on whether you're in a phase of your life or you have the mindset of preserving your capital, or whether you want a more aggressive option that you have preservation in but has more opportunity for upward momentum. Right.

Love that. It's kind of a diversification in the, even in the precious metals. Right. You don't have to get stuck to the same metal over and over again. So just on the final thought, on the investing side, what is the typical percentage that the wealthy of, you know, the top percent of America is thinking about in terms of precious metals? And what is the generally, you know, people that you, you see that, that they have been thinking about in terms of their, their portfolio value of general investment?

That's a great question. So I guess one thing, when we look at the top 1% or even if we go to the top 0.1% for a good example. Right. Ray Dalio is a good example. The founder of Bridgewater, largest hedge fund. Right.

Right.

If we look at his portfolio, and this is someone who's multi, multi, multi billionaire. For those of you who don't know Ray Dalio.

Right.

He has seven and a half percent of his portfolio in gold.

Interesting.

And so for someone that operated a hedge fund and is by all accounts considered an aggressive investor. Right. If you look at his returns over the years too, seven and a half percent significant. Right. Most people wouldn't think a billionaire would have that much money in precious metals.

Yeah.

Again, the one thing I want to reference is that CMP study that I mentioned earlier. I'm noticing a lot of people diversifying their portfolio are typically staying in the range of 20 to 25% in the current time.

I see.

That's not to say that it's always been this way. That's been the recommendation. But typically you find investors tend to like some more aggressive strategies. Right. Because there's more exciting things to do, to be frank. Right. I would say on average we see 20 to 25% from investors who are looking to be safe and passive. I would say the more aggressive you get and the more income streams you have, that allocation percentage goes down a bit, but it still would stay around 7 and a half to 10% at the low end.

I see I see. And then very interestingly. Right. And a common knowledge, a common perception people have is that they can buy gold using the cash. But you are doing something very interesting. And a lot of people actually do not realize that they could purchase gold in a retirement account too. Right. So can we talk about how can, you know, they purchase gold in cash and how can they do it in the retirement account? And by the way, listeners, you know, if we are to go deeper into the topic with how to invest in gold, it's going to take at least an hour long discussion. And we are doing actually a webinar with Greg to dig deeper into how to invest in it. But Greg, if you can just give us a five minute or few minute overview of investing in cash and investing in ira, that will be really helpful for sure.

So when you're investing in cash, there's really two different ways it occurs. And this is depending on, on the investor. It depends whether you want to take physical possession or you want to have it stored at a facility.

Right.

Typically speaking, once we get in increments above 50,000, I find most people would rather store it than have it at home. Just for the simple fact of insurance and protection. Right. We also have to consider liquidity. But if you're investing in cash and you want to take it home, we have an E commerce site. It's literally as simple as clicking a button. You can choose to pay by wire, by credit card or by cash. We do offer discounts, obviously for wire and cash because there's no processing fees on a credit card. And typically speaking, we deliver that product within five business days.

I see.

So within two business days, the product is packed in the warehouse and we ship it FedEx 48 hour insured anywhere within the United States.

I see.

And so the nice thing about this, you don't have to worry. They actually mark the box as hardware because they, they don't want anyone knowing what's in your box. Thinks there's tools in there.

Right.

But it's really quick. It takes only five business days to get it right. Then if you choose to do it in storage, one attractive thing that we offer our clients is a storage facility called International depository services or IDs. This also applies to the retirement account. It's approved by all of the retirement custodians in the country. Now the significant thing about this is it's actually owned and operated by Dylan Gage. Dylan Gage is the purchaser for the United States Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint, and virtually every other government mint around the world.

Right.

We are a registered dealer with them. Okay. And they're only institutional facing. But the significance thing about this is when you buy for storage, your metal is literally put on a pallet and walked over. It's in the same building as where the depository is.

I see.

And where this is significant is for liquidity. When you want to sell, it's same day. I know I've referenced this before, but I had a customer just last week trying to fund a property renovation. So she wanted to sell a little bit from her silver portfolio. She sold at 11am on a Monday. She received the money for the sale before 5pm same day. It's literally quicker than if you settle a trade in your stock account.

That's. That's really, really easy. Yeah, that's good to know. So essentially, they purchase a physical precious metal with you and that gets stored there. And whenever they're read to kind of come out of it, they can make a sale immediately too. Is that something they can actually visit and check it out where their gold is stored or how does it work?

Yes. So we've got locations of IDS both in Texas, in Delaware, and up in Canada. We don't typically have any customers that want store in Canada. The significant strategy that would go into choosing the depository is depending on what you're using the account for.

I see.

We mainly see people choose Delaware because there's no inheritance tax, so it's for estate planning matters.

Right.

Texas is typically for people that just want ease of liquidation. But you have access to a program called Vault Direct. When your metal is in the vault, it's just like having a log into your brokerage account. You see all of your metal in there. You have access to click a button to buy and sell it right there and then. And it's insured by Lloyd's of London while it's in the depository. And at the same token, it is the cheapest depository that you could possibly find. Like, quite literally, if you were to Invest Metal at IDS, it costs $15 a month or $185 a year, regardless how much metal you have. You could have $1 billion worth of metal there for $185 a year.

And if I were to go as a retail customer, how much will it cost me to kind of store? Would I even have access to this?

The typical retail customer doesn't even know this exists. Right. But if you were to just, let's say, walk off the street, the typical retail Customer starts at 65 basis points for under A quarter million in storage with a minimum fee of $600 a year. So obviously this goes up as you invest more. The storage fees are lower. The lowest you can get if you're not affiliated with a company like ourselves would be 45 basis points.

I see, I see.

Now it changes a bit as we get into IRAs, because I do want to mention the IRA real quickly. Like you said.

Absolutely.

We are approved and we work with most of the custodians around the country. Some of the best that we work with, I'm sure your listeners would know, like Advanta IRA and in Florida Equity Trust, located out in Ohio. But they're one of the biggest.41 billion in assets under management, New direction, Kingdom Trust and so on and so forth. With all of these custodians, we are full service. So if you don't have an account at an IRA custodian and you're looking to open an account, we actually open up IRA accounts at these custodians in house. If you're looking to transfer from another investment, we can handle and help you with the paperwork and make sure that transfer gets done. But once that IRA is funded, it is quite literally as simple as the click of a button to both buy and sell your metal. Only thing we notice with IRAs, which I want to make clear to everybody, is you are not allowed to take possession of your metal when it's within an Iraq. That's only if you're buying in cash. If it's within an ira, then it has to be held at a storage facility.

And we will go over all these details during the webinar too. So if you are interested in understanding how this cash versus the IRA purchase works, we are doing that webinar on the 7th of November at 6 CST. So, you know, make sure that you join us for that webinar. But before we actually go there, Greg, I'm going to ask a question, you know, as in culture that I was mentioning you, that we buy gold during Diwali, right, The Festival of Lights, and we just simply go to the store and purchase a coin. So we've been doing it in the wrong way. And if, if yes, what is the reason behind it and why would I think about buying instead of, you know, going to your website and buying a physical gold from you?

For sure. And I'm really happy you asked that because this is one of the major questions we get asked every day. If I'm buying precious metals, what do I buy? Do I buy bars? Do I buy coins? Do I buy rounds, right? Because unfortunately, there really isn't anyone out there that's telling you exactly what to do.

Right.

One thing I would say, most investors get misled into thinking that either a coin or even collector coins could be the best option. When we look at metal, we want to buy the product that not only most closely follows the market, but we want to pay the smallest premium possible with any investment, right? So thinking of this, we look at the way these products are made and the premium that goes into it, a lot of people will quote, for instance, spot price. I'm sure you've heard, or you know what spot price is too, right? Spot price is not actually a price for physical metal. It is a futures contract. And it is for unsmelted, Oregon, literally big buckets for silver. Those contracts are for 5,000 ounces of unsmelted ore. So the process that metal goes through from unsmelted ore to becoming a finished product is simple. They refine it, they take the impurities out of it, and then they, for instance, in a bar, they'll pour it into a mold. The bars that we offer are lbma, London Bullion Market approved and COMEX approved. These are two certifications that are like, pardon the pun, the gold standard to have because we know that they're tradable on the open market, right? So with a bar, it's poured into a mold, they stamp it with the min mark. They'll actually put a serial number. All the bars we sell have serial numbers so you can verify they're authentic. And some of them from certain mints will have a QR code on the back. These are the lowest premium product because it's the least amount of work that goes into taking unsmelted ore and making it into a physical metal product.

Right.

Then above the bar, you're going to have rounds around to. Most people will just look like a coin. The difference is it has less intricate details. So for instance, the most popular would be a buffalo round, right? You won't have the laser etching, but you'll have a buffalo stamped on the coin and you'll have the ribbing and engraving around the side. That will be slightly more expensive than buying a bar. But you're able to buy them in smaller quantities, obviously. And at the same token, it's not as much as paying for these for a coin. So the coins, for instance, like the American Silver Eagle, the Gold Eagle, the Canadian Maple Leaf, the South African Krugerrand, these coins have the most intricate minting process, much more than a bar or around. So, for instance, what most people don't know is every American eagle is actually even laser etched. It's laser etched for security reasons. If you took a microscope and you look at a silver eagle, you'll see there's a mint mark made with a laser, very tiny on the coin to authenticate it. They're beautiful. But the downside is you're going to pay a significant premium to buy a coin over buying a bar.

Right.

And so when it comes down to it, we ultimately want to make sure that if we're investing in something that we are going to invest in something that ideally makes us money but definitely.

Doesn'T lose us the money. Yeah, makes sense.

And so sometimes what people won't know going into it is that if they buy a coin, when they go to sell it, they're not going to make the premium back that they originally bought it at.

Right.

When you buy a bar, the premium is so razor thin that you're not overcoming really anything. And so what I want people to take out of this is if you're buying coins, a lot of the time, actually not a lot of time, 100% of the time, there is a significant premium you have to overcome. And to illustrate this point, I cannot say names in public, but one significant official that is in charge of all metals investing for one of the largest IRA custodians in the country told me upfront, the average premium that dealers that are using their services and selling to their clients are charging on coins is 70 to 130%.

Wow. Wow.

Ludicrous, right?

That's, that's very interesting out of this podcast.

Please, please, please do not buy coins. Whether you're buying it from me or not, don't buy coins, please.

Thank you so much. That is enlightening, actually. And you know, we in India, when we actually buy gold jewelry, there is something called making charges. So to me it really feels like those making charges and better the coin is, I think that making charges and higher and it' almost feels like, you know, when you buy a brand new car, the moment it's on the road, it's lost its value. So it's, it seems very similar. So thank you so much for enlightening us with that and with that we are kind of coming to the end of the show. I typically ask few more questions about and I'm going to quickly ask it and you know, see if you can answer because we are already such a long episode. But I hope people is going to listen to this entire episode because there's just so many gold nuggets into it. Pun intended. The question I typically ask is that, you know about diversification. You know, think outside the stocks. It's just not the show, but it's actually the think outside the stocks mentality. Right. I would love to know that. How do you, Greg, think outside the stock in terms of diversification, in terms of protecting your wealth, whether it's in, you know, estate planning, whether it's infinite banking, whatever strategies that you use. Please throw some light on that.

Awesome. And. And I'm glad you asked this too because as you said. Right. Diversification really is the key to success. Even though I own a metals dealer, despite what some people might think, 100% of my money is not in precious metals. I am diversified. My investments are spread across gold, silver and platinum in my precious metals part of my portfolio. Infinite banking is a tool that I've only run into in the last couple of years. I actually learned about it originally on social media and started speaking with my friends about it. So whole life policies and infinite banking strategies play a huge part of my portfolio.

That's excellent.

And I would say outside of that, the other areas that I typically invest in and that interest me would be real estate. So, you know, I have experience in commercial, multi residential and. And then as well even down to REITs, real estate, investment trust. Sometimes it can be a great way to earn income. Right.

I love that. Thank you so much for sharing it. And typically I go in the rapid fire round after that. Just quick answers to just some fun questions. Right. So I'm gonna go and ask if you are ready for the rapid fire round.

For sure, I'm ready.

Absolutely. So what is that one moment that you recollect from your gaming days when you actually played for the team? Right. In the hockey team. Tell me a memorable moment from that time.

I guess when I look back at moments of playing, there's a lot. I was very lucky to play with a lot of successful players. But I guess probably the most memorable moment, and as I'm thinking of this, I'm getting goosebumps on the back of my neck, was the first time I played in front of like a stadium crowd. Right. I remember I was at the time, I was 18 and we were playing a game in Quebec City up in Canada.

I've been there. Yep.

And we were playing where. At the Pepsi Forum where the Quebec Ramparts were playing at the time. But this is where the old Quebec Nordiques used to play. And when we. You walk, when you walk out of the dressing room, you walk through a tunnel and you walk onto the ice.

Right?

And I will never forget. I came out for warm up. And already in our warm up, which is more than half an hour before the game starts, there were 14,000 fans sitting in the stands. And it was my first experience.

I got goosebumps just listening to it.

Just to walk out and look up and see and hear the crowd and you know when, when they play the national anthems and you go into that, the feeling and the rush, you get the, there's really, there's nothing else like, it's like it.

Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that memory. The next question, that one famous person that you have met that you remember.

One famous person that I've met that I remember. That's a really good question. I'm trying to think of who, who my favorite would be. I would probably say favorite famous person that I've met would be Connor McDavid.

Okay.

Hockey player, currently best hockey player in the world. Also lucky enough to call him a friend of mine. We played together there for a brief amount of time. But great person. I would say that I'm more often drawn to that in terms of celebrity instead of the traditional.

Absolutely.

Celebrity. But that's just me.

Thank you so much for sharing that. And the last question is, is a favorite place to go to, whether it comes to travel or with family, that one favorite place you always have in the back of the mind that yes, I want to just be there.

Okay. So I'm happy you asked it because this just, the answer to this just changed for me in August of this year.

Okay.

Favorite place in the world that I know I will go back multiple times before I die is Saint Tropez in, in the French Riviera in the south of France. It is to me when you go to go on vacation, it's the most beautiful experience. Being out on the water, the weather's incredible, beautiful old towns, great shopping, great food. It's got everything.

Thank you so much for sharing. I'm going to look that up and, you know, see, make it a part of my bucket list. But anyway, with that, our show is coming to an end. How can they get in touch with you if they want to just reach out to you and people remember. We are also doing the webinar on 7 November, which is going to be in time for Diwali. If you're thinking of buying, purchasing physical gold or into your IRA retirement account, Diwali is going to be, I think, 12th of November, this year. So we are going to do that webinar 6pm CST on the 7th of November. And the show Notes is going to be having a link to register for that webinar. But Greg, meanwhile, if they want to get in touch with you, how can they reach you?

Best way to get a hold of me, I would say, would be by email. My personal email is Greg. My first name, it's G R E g@allen housemetals.com and so everybody knows, just so they spell, it's my last name. A L L E N. House, like the house you live in and metals plural with an S. Really easy.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And if you want to, you know, know more about gold, just, you know, put a subject line, think Gold so that you, you know, he knows that you, you are thinking gold and you're thinking gold with us.

So, and not to cut you off as well, but just to get it out there as well, I would please encourage you to reference Think Gold from the podcast because anybody that is reaching out to us in response to the podcast will also receive a. A discount. And so make sure you reference that podcast because without that, there won't be any discount. Really, that's offered.

Thank you so much for offering that discount to our audience today, Greg. And again, thank you so much for all the golden nuggets. I've learned a lot from you today and I'm looking forward to that webinar on how they can actually purchase gold from cash and from the retirement account. So thank you so much for being on the show again.

Awesome. I really appreciate you having me on. I know we went over a lot for a podcast, but I'm really excited to get to the webinar where we can show people some visuals and charts and really go through what we talked about today in depth.

Absolutely. Thank you so much again. You have a good one.

You too.

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