'Late Stage Bull Market'; Trader Reveals Next Asset To Fall 40% | Gareth Soloway

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Don't get too excited yet for everyone watching. Now, this could be really good, but we have to recognize that we need to stay above this level for at least a week. I still think five years from now, gold is much much higher.

[00:00:12]Bitcoin is a tricky one, man. It is really tricky. And last we talked, I was bullish. Uh I'm now at these levels on natural gas. It's one of the few assets that I'm willing to step up and put some money behind.

[00:00:23]>> Which is going to fall first, stocks or Bitcoin?

[00:00:27]>> Chicken or the egg, huh? Um, >> Gareth Soloway is back with us. He's the chief market strategist and president of Verified Investing. He's going to give us his outlook on the stock market and the economy and importantly why he's short on the S&P right now despite the fact that the S&P is at an all-time high. He's also short Bitcoin. So, he's going to reveal his downside targets for both stocks and Bitcoin and at what levels he would buy back. How far do they have left to go down is what we're going to discuss. Gareth will reveal also his outlook on gold and what the FOMC is going to do next as well as how the economy will perform. Will there be a recession this year? Let's find out.

[00:01:02]Gareth is going to give us his odds and we'll look at the odds from uh from a prediction market. Our sponsor today, Koshi. This video is brought to you by Koshi. It's the largest prediction market in the United States. And like a sports book, you're trading peer-to-peer on real world events from economic data to political outcomes. And the price moves based on public opinion, not a house. Go to the link in the description down below or use the code Lynn scan here on the QR code here. New users can get $10 when they deposit and trade $10.

[00:01:32]For example, you can put $50 down on a recession odd like I just mentioned in the introduction and you'll potentially make $262 if the odds swing into the yes camp. So, click on the link down below to learn more and get started. Gareth, welcome back to the show. Good to see you.

[00:01:50]>> Hey, thanks David. Great to be here. The S&P 500 is at new all-time highs. Oil is uh back up above $100. It's important to distinguish between the S&P 500's overall index versus subsectors and companies that have not done well. So, take the software index for example. I uh I'm going to look at uh I'll pull up my screen for just a minute and I'll let you share yours. This is the IGF expanded tech software ETF. So as of today, year to date, it's down about 20%.

[00:02:28]Now, this comes on the back of a lot of developments within the AI space that have rendered services within the software sector obsolete and some speculate this could only get worse for the sector. I'm just listing one example. There's other such examples within the stock market that have not done well. So when we talk about a bull market for the entire market, um it doesn't really apply to the entire market. It really just applies to the index. And my first question is as a trader, do you do you look at this as a bull market because the entire thing is up and we're at new all-time highs? Or do you say to yourself like what David just showed, certain subsectors have already been falling and aren't really getting any better. And so it's really a a market of stocks, meaning certain things are doing better than others. And we really shouldn't approach this with greed and optimism.

[00:03:23]>> Yeah. I mean, I I think the key is this.

[00:03:26]It is a bull market just because the indexes continue to make new all-time highs. NASDAQ has just pierce 25,000.

[00:03:34]But for me, there's degrees of bull markets. There's what we call a late stage bull market which is where we see certain sectors driving the upside.

[00:03:43]Allah dot in 2000, right? If you looked at all of the stocks universally in that 2000 high, it really started to see a lot of lagards, right? We had the dot names, the Amazon.coms, those were the ones propelling the market to new all-time highs. And when you look at the markets today, Meta's gotten crushed, Microsoft's gotten crushed. I mean, there's a lot of lagards like in the software index or in the ETV that you mentioned, the ETF. And that's telling us that this is a late stage bull market. So again, this is one where I would get more cautious. I look at major macro trends. The major driver of the economy right now is this capex spending. Literally $700 billion in a year just from the big players out there. I mean, think about that as a stimulus. I mean, we go back to COVID and there was massive stimulus, but we're seeing that and that's keeping these companies running and it's also keeping up the stock market. But again, just like 2000, I would just caution people that when things topped, those stocks finally came in and it took the whole thing down and many were already weak. Last thing I'll say here is notice in 2000 we pierced 5,000 on the NASDAQ.

[00:04:58]We pierced it by about 150 points and then the markets topped out. We've just crossed 25,000. Let's see what happens in the coming weeks here.

[00:05:07]>> Gareth, let's get your uh outlook on the S&P. But before that, comment below, by the way, what Gareth's going to say and what his outlook is going to be. And uh stay tuned for his outlook. Before that, what are the biggest drivers of the stock market right now? A couple of weeks ago, he might have said Iran. Is it still Iran? Uh is it oil? Is it the FOMC? Um is it earning season, which is what we're in the midst of? What do you think?

[00:05:31]>> Yeah. So, so there's two drivers, and this is what everyone's gotten wrong uh about the Iran situation and the straight being closed is that most people look at oil and say, "Wow, 100, $105, $110 a barrel. How the heck is the markets making new all-time highs?" And the answer is simple. And it's it's almost ridiculously simple. And that answer is that as long as the US economy is hanging in there and as long as earnings are strong, that's all the market cares about, right? So, the market doesn't care about other things.

[00:05:59]I mean in all fairness the whole world could be disintegrating around us as long as earnings in the US economy are good then investors are willing to pile in the US stock market and it's probably even drawing money in from overseas right now because of its resiliency and its self-sufficiency to the US oil or the massive amount of US oil that we have. So I think that's really what people have to understand. Now listen, will high oil prices ultimately cause issues in the economy? The answer is yes. But until that shows up, the investors are fully aware and they're just keeping their blinders on and focusing on the data right now.

[00:06:35]>> How would you rank consumer strength right now, Gareth?

[00:06:39]>> So the consumer strength, so this and this is again this comes down to this new K-shaped recovery, whatever you want to call it, is that you have basically 70% of the US feels like they're in a tough spot. They're in a recession, right? Especially the lower 50%. anyone in that I own asset group that's in the stock market, they are just excited and in loving it and continuing to spend.

[00:07:03]And so with the capex spending of the big cap mega caps on AI and then this group of people that have lots of, you know, money invested in the markets, that's keeping the engine running in the US, but it won't happen. It won't stay forever. And again, this kind of same thing was going on in the.com era right at the end where you had the people that were invested in the markets doing amazingly well, buying Ferraris, buying all this other stuff. But once that ends, it all goes south really quickly cuz once that high-end consumer pulls back a little bit, there's no one else to fill the void and everything comes tumbling down. The FOMC kept rates unchanged this week. Gareth, there were four descents uh eight four and four descents. This is the most number of descents since 1992.

[00:07:49]And importantly, three of the uh four descents except for Steven Myron. Three of those descents came from governors who felt that uh the Fed shouldn't even be hinting at easy. It's not that they dissented or voted no to the fact that they kept rates unchanged. They voted no to the fact that certain statements made by Powell and the other governors hinted that they would ease if data showed that they should ease. And um I'm not sure how you would take that as a as a as a trader given how hawkish that that sounds.

[00:08:24]>> Mhm. Yeah. So, so the way I look at it is this is that the Fed with Jerome Powell leaving the helm and he's going to stay on as a governor, right? So, we know that he's going to be there anchoring and I actually think that's a positive for the market because the market is craving stability with the Federal Reserve and that independence.

[00:08:42]And with Jerome Powell saying he was going to stay on, it kind of signals that, okay, you know, Kevin Worsh can't come in and just do whatever Donald Trump, the president, says that he needs to do. There's going to be push back.

[00:08:53]And I think the governors being as hawkish as they were is also sending that signal to Kevin Worsh that, hey, you can't come in here and just say, hey, we're going to cut rates. We have a vote. And remember, people out there watching, the chairman does not get to decide. It's a voting member that gets to decide. So the votes have to acrue and that again I think is something that number one it pushes back on that independence. It gives the Fed more looks at being independent but it also shows that all right we're going to push back and make sure that things are done right here.

[00:09:25]>> Okay. Are you concerned about really high inflation or do you think this is only temporary?

[00:09:32]>> I'm I'm concerned that the spike in inflation is high because of oil. Right.

[00:09:37]So we're definitely going to see this follow through. I mean, it was one thing if this oil spike had been a week or two or even a month. It's now going into its third month, right? We've been through two months, we're into the third now.

[00:09:48]This is going to have long lasting implications because the producers are not going to eat this cost constantly.

[00:09:53]Um, the other aspect, and I think eventually that spike will come back in, but my worry is that the long-term inflation is going to stick around. And we already saw this, right? We saw that even after everything and all the hikes from 2022, inflation came back to about 2.7% and it's now starting to go up. We didn't get back to 2%. And the issue remains is that as long as the US government is spending like a drunken sailor with a trillion in additional debt being spent basically every quarter, it's going to put more and more emphasis on printing money to eventually deal with that debt. And that's going to create a long-term sustainable inflation bug that probably keeps inflation much much higher than 2% which is where everybody wants it.

[00:10:37]>> So if we're going to get a huge spike in inflation um from the oil price, maybe it doesn't stay very long, but there is a spike.

[00:10:46]Would you call this year 2026 a year of inflation hedging?

[00:10:51]>> Yeah, I mean to some extent. I mean I think the the big spike you would call it transitory, right? I mean that word is so charged these days but you know that spike is because of oil directly once oil eventually comes back down to let's say $70 or $60 a barrel which it will um especially with the midterms lurking there's this pressure on the president to get some resolution in there to bring these oil prices down but once you get that down you still have the issue of what's going on even prior to those oil price spikes and that's where I think you get this longer term high-end inflation probably between three and 4%. Which again for the average American who's already struggling, that's a huge deal. 3 to 4% prices going up every year across the board and it's going to be unsustainable as well. But the government again is showing no signs of cutting back on spending. In fact, they're spending even quicker. Now, before we move on to your uh outlook for individual securities and and stocks, let's get your outlook on the economy. This is from Kashi prediction. Market traders are placing an 18% chance of recession this year. In fact, the the chances have gone down since the Iran war uh broke out, not up.

[00:11:59]It seems that traders are placing odds that um some sort of resolution will be met this year. But anyway, recession odds this year are pretty low as of today. Gareth, uh do you first of all agree with this kind of u outlook, this prediction? And second, how would you how would you trade on this?

[00:12:18]>> Yeah. And so I do I do partially agree with this and I'll tell you guys this is that basically we are in an economy where as long as these mega caps are willing to spend 100 to$200 billion every year the massive stimulus engine is going to run and looking at everything going on you have to say that okay this is probably why we haven't been in a recession yet because there's so much capex being spent on the AI buildout data center centers picks and shovels all the infrastructure right it really does filter through a large portion of the economy. Now, there's other parts of the economy that many would argue are already in a recession, but at least on the baseline of what will actually be classified as a recession. At most, it would be at at the very end of the year, but I would say you push it out more towards 2027 at this point. And the real kicker is going to be when do these institutions, these big players like Meta and Amazon and Google and Microsoft, when do they start pulling back on their spend? That's going to be when the the the recession hits, right? Once they start they they let's say they go from 200 billion each or 150 billion each even to 100 that's a massive amount of sucking out of the economy of money and that's when you'll get in that recession. Jerome Powell himself even said at the FOMC meeting that the um well one of the reporters asked him how he would assess the economy and he mentioned that data centers and AI capex have been good have been major drivers of the economy so far. So um that that that's a view shared by the Federal Reserve itself.

[00:13:51]Okay Gareth let's maybe pull up a chart.

[00:13:54]Can you please pull up a chart of let's start with the S&P 500 first? We promised the audience we would get we would give them levels. So, let's start by giving levels.

[00:14:04]>> Yep, absolutely. So, we've been following this parallel channel now on the S&P going back to the COVID lows and we can really see how the lows going to every major pullback bounced right along this lower period, right? And then the high of 2021 was right up against it. We hit this high here in 2025 and that kind of put in the top for a pullback to the midpoint of the channel. Now, we've pushed above it, but don't get too excited yet for everyone watching. Now, this could be really good, but we have to recognize that we need to stay above this level for at least a week to really solidify the breakout. And the reason I draw your attention to that is simply look back. If you go to the low end of the channel, we came below by a couple days right here very clearly. And we even came below right over here. If we bring back to the lows of the bare market, we had two closes below, a gap down, and then a close above, then a close back below. And so a parallel channel is essentially giving us a zone where the markets can hit resistance or support. We want to be a little bit lenient to just say, okay, sometimes these levels will pierce, but it does have me on high alert. Like we should know in a week from now, is this a real breakout or was this a fake out? And if it's a fake out, there's a lot of downside to be had over the next course of the months or in the remainder of the year. And just on that same note, look at the NASDAQ. the NASDAQ a amazing parallel. This the NASDAQ's now up something like 21 22% off the lows of March 30th. So basically in one month 22% upside. But look at what it's slamming into right up here at the highs of the day. And so these type of things are getting my attention. While we could break out, I'll clearly say that's a possibility. But again, it has to be shown to me. I have to see this maybe next Friday and look and say, are we still above this level or have we come back below? If we've come back below, you may have a major top in the making in the S&P and the NASDAQ.

[00:16:02]>> When did you start switching to a more bullish stance this year?

[00:16:06]>> Yeah. So, so it's not and I want to caution on that once we got this big pullback, right? So, once we had the retrace into this level, that's where I started to go long with members at Verified Investing where we said, "All right, we hit the midpoint. Now listen, this rally has been beyond belief, right? I didn't expect this to go up as much as it did. I don't know honestly if there was anyone out there that was calling for a 22% rally in the NASDAQ in one single month. But again, I want to make sure people understand I'm not bullish, but I'm also a chartist. And so I have to follow this right now. I respect these resistance levels that we're looking at until proven otherwise.

[00:16:42]But as a technician, I must be open to that possibility that it could get through and continue up if it shows itself that it can.

[00:16:50]>> So you say you started getting bullish uh or at least long with your members when the stock markets started falling at like at what at what point during this during during that decline after the Iran war started, did you did you start looking at that and say this is over? So, I put out a video on my own YouTube that that the headline said when we when we hit this midpoint, I said the headline read buying with both hands.

[00:17:12]And the idea here is I expected a bounce and I and we did get a bounce. And honestly, I sold most of my longs already um on this move up just because again, it it was the the logic behind are we going to continue to go like this was I mean the odds were 3% that it would continue up like this. Now, it did pan out that way, but now I'm back into more of a short standpoint where we're up into this. were extremely extended.

[00:17:34]We're looking at stocks like Intel. I don't know if you've seen Intel lately, but Intel is now piercing or today it pierced a $100 a share. It's now a $500 billion company. About a year and a half ago, this stock was questioned of whether or not it would be even in business, but once the government got behind it and took a stake, it got kind of favored. But it's now at a point where it's trading at a forward PE of like 80 to 90 and it's getting to the ridiculous level. So, sure, it's having a great move here. incredible 100 plus percent rally, 150% rally from the lows of March. But at these points, this is where you're starting to see that irrational exuberance that we saw absolutely in the late 90s, early 2000 time frame where it was actually a blowoff top, not a continuation move.

[00:18:21]>> Can you go back to the uh S&P one more time?

[00:18:24]>> Yep. It seems like you called the bottom, which is something that is almost almost impossible for most people to do. Can you walk us through the technicals of the chart that you're looking at and how you decided to go, I guess, go long um with both hands and feet right there.

[00:18:45]>> Yeah.

[00:18:46]>> I mean, it could have been absolutely it. It's been falling for weeks.

[00:18:50]>> So, so yeah, walk us through the process.

[00:18:52]>> Yeah. So, and this is this is the combination of once people get good enough at reading charts and by the way there's no 100%. I'm not right as as clearly right. I mean heck earlier when we talked a few months ago I was like ah definitely recession by year end. Now it's looking like with the capex spend that may not happen. So let's be clear on that. I'm not always right. But the reason why I was so eager to buy is because I've learned that when you have a parallel like this and you see how important impressive the lows are and how it holds that low and holds the highs. It came right into the midpoint.

[00:19:22]See the dotted line right here? That's a midpoint retrace, a 50% retrace. And also what I was doing is I was looking at the US oil chart. So if we bring up the US oil chart here at the time, oil was into major resistance right up here.

[00:19:37]And so this is a chart of of crude oil and you can see it's it's behaving perfectly. But in technical analysis, and this will be a great just educational piece, when you have an up ups sloping parallel and you have this drop into the parallel and then we go up, down, up, down, and we break down.

[00:19:54]Basically, what I was doing is I was saying, all right, oil's into the upper band of the parallel. So, oil should fall. The stock market on the S&P was right into that midpoint on the channel.

[00:20:05]Let's go back to the S&P. So, we were right here at that particular time, right? So, right at that point where we're getting that blowoff kind of top in oil and the combination of those kind of said, "Okay, guys, this is the time oil's going to come back in." People were calling for $200 a barrel oil, all of these things. And essentially going back to oil and it was actually right here. This was a secondary call for a short on oil that I nailed. But this was the blowoff top on oil right there. And that's really what it comes down to is kind of putting the pieces of the puzzle together, saying oil is likely topping.

[00:20:37]People were getting overly bullish. $250 a barrel. It's not going to happen. Not with the US producing like it is. Plus, understanding the psychology of the president and his kind of way of saying, I have to figure out how to get oil prices down by the midterms and get inflation down. All of those kind of combined to saying, okay, let's go long at this level. Now, again, to be full and fair disclosure, I'm out of 99% of those longs at this point and more inching into shorts. when something falls, it doesn't matter if it's the S&P 500 index or Bitcoin or a stock, you know, maybe you don't have the same amount of history uh for that particular stock to to address or find a midpoint.

[00:21:17]And and so the question is what do you do then to decide what the turning point should be? Generally speaking, we can take this very part in investing, right?

[00:21:28]is like so like there's there was no guarantee as we know nothing in the market is guaranteed that we were going to stop here like oil could have gone to $200 a barrel but number one I'm putting odds every time I make a trade it's all about probability and so what I was doing is I was saying okay probability here of a bounce we were oversold I started to see comments on YouTube when I started to get bullish oh Garrett's crazy the markets are going to keep coming down oil's going to $200 a barrel all of those are indicators that perception or emot emotion has gotten too far ahead of the retail with the retail crowd. And it's a great contrarian indicator. It's one of the best indicators out there is human emotion amongst retail investors. And so things like that really tell me. Now listen, anytime you flush through, you got to be willing to take the pain. If it continues down, I mean, that's just what it is. Just like up here, I'm shorting the market and we're now above it just a little bit. The question is, will we pull back here? Will we have a fall? Will we come back within this channel? Or are we going to continue to squeeze higher? And I'll be watching the comments because if you know you get a ton of bullish comments, chances are it's near market top.

[00:22:32]>> Yeah. Comment below what you think of Garrett's uh timing as well as what he's doing now. So Gareth, when you're shorting something, let's just take this example. You're shorting the S&P right now. What is your exit plan? Whenever you short something, and let's use this as an example. Do you expect it to pull back to the midpoint before you start covering your shorts? Uh or or something else here.

[00:22:54]>> Yeah. So, so as I'm I'm someone who legs in and legs out generally, right? So, the first target would be a pullback here on the S&P 500. Former resistance, former all-time highs here, become technical support. So, what you'd expect is if it does, let's go like this, comes back in, it hits here, it's probably going to bounce. Then at that point, I would look to reshort that parallel again on a bounce and look for another leg lower, right? And eventually filling this gap down here, maybe the midpoint.

[00:23:23]But the idea is is like listen, I'm horrible at timing to the to the penny of getting in a trade, but what I can do is generally pick a general top and as long as I kind of leg in in that scenario. So that's what I've been doing on these shorts is kind of saying, "Okay, let's inch in a quarter position here. Okay, now we're up another 100 points on the S&P. Let's inch in another uh quarter." And just building that core position and then as it falls, same thing. legging out slowly on the way down, keeping some skin in the game, but also being smart about taking some profits.

[00:23:54]>> Yeah, hedge uh shorting is very uh risky, especially for retail investors >> who who may get margin cult if if it doesn't go the right way. Do you ever hedge your shorts with anything?

[00:24:06]>> So, in general, the hedging that I use is small small starter positions, right?

[00:24:11]So again, you know, if you have a million-doll account and you only put a h 100,000 behind a short on the S&P, you've still got nine more of those hundred thousands to put behind that short. And that's without even going into leverage, right? So, I think that's the way I'm more of a hedger is that I don't like, you know, there's some strategies where you say, "Oh, well, I'm going to buy some puts here so I can hedge my and and the my issue with that and why I don't do that is because if I'm right 80% of the time, which is about what I'm right, so it still means 20% of the time I'm wrong. But if I'm hedging on every one of those 80%, then that's taking away from my gain. And yeah, sure, it saves me on the 20% where I'm wrong, but it doesn't equal out what I would have made on the winners that I was right on. And so, for me at least, I don't do that, but I do inch in to positions. I never go full in leverage like to the hilt because honestly, the second you do that, you give control to the markets, and the markets will make you pay. I've had that happen to me so many times in my early career is where you think you're going to be dead on on this call and you put all your money plus leverage and then the markets almost sniff that out like an entity and they just burn you alive right there.

[00:25:16]So, you're short the S&P right now. By extension, would you also be short gold and Bitcoin given how both have seemingly performed as risk assets in the last couple of months? I'll let you start with gold. Yeah, you have on the chart.

[00:25:31]>> Yep. And so, so the first thing is gold's already significantly off of its highs. I am still bearish on gold. I still think it's going lower, but I'm still holding my long-term holdings and then I'm basically neutral on gold in terms of swing trading. And so, so to answer your question is if we were closer to an extended move, then I would be much more on the short side. I'm more bearish by just bias, meaning I'm not buyer here. But if we pull back to key levels, I have a key level at 3,900 right here. and then 3500 that would be the level where I would really be eyeing uh buying more long-term holdings. And I guess to put put it in perspective is even though I think there's downside in gold in the near term because like you said there's it's a risk asset, right?

[00:26:14]It's trading like a risk asset like silver as well. I still think 5 years from now gold is much much higher and until I see some fiscal responsibility in the government, I'm going to continue to want to buy gold on big pullbacks and silver to be fair.

[00:26:28]>> Okay. Can you walk us through some key levels, Gareth, for for gold right now?

[00:26:32]>> Absolutely. So, if you're a bull right now on gold, you want to see this upper parallel attacked, and that would be around 5,000. If we could break back above 5,000, that would be the breakout, and you'd probably go revisit your all-time highs and maybe even go higher.

[00:26:47]On the downside, notice the low end of the parallel here is equal right to this low pivot. So, this 3,900 zone right here would be your first major support.

[00:26:58]So, you have your resistance and support. And you can see it's kind of in the middle of those two. And that's why I'm not really in a trade in it right now is because it's not a great riskreward assessment in the short term.

[00:27:07]I mean, long-term holdings are long-term holdings, but short-term swing trading, I'm just neutral on this. I do worry that if we do get a bigger stock market flush, we'll get down to 3500 on gold.

[00:27:18]But again, that would be the we'd need to see something like 20% draw down in the NASDAQ probably to get us there.

[00:27:24]>> Bottom line is, are you trading gold like it's a risk asset?

[00:27:27]Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to right now. That's what it's proven to be. And I truly believe gold will bottom out when it flushes out all the weak hands that bought it because they thought it was easy money risk on trade to the upside when it was back in this period.

[00:27:42]And so, you know, you know, I know you've covered gold since your kido days way long ago, right? And so, you know that usually gold doesn't behave like this. And so, it became it morphed into something. It's not normally, it doesn't react normally that way. And I'm a true believer that it's going to have to be so boring and so bad that all of those weak hands have to get out and it's going to leave the hardcore buyers, the hardcore followers, and that's when it'll start making its next bull move.

[00:28:09]>> Another thing to to point out, I don't know if you can do this, but if you overlay the gold price with the US 10ear yield, you'll notice um very um close inverse relationship right now. Um okay, there we go. And this is important because according to economists in and and traders and investors like yourself, inflation expectations uh while they've been going down in the market still remain top of mind for a lot of investors and the Federal Reserve. If inflation goes up and the 10 continues to track inflation, we're looking at a scenario in which yields go up, which drives precious metals down.

[00:28:45]>> So let's take a look there. Um >> yeah, so for some reason it's not coming up on my chart with the overlay. I don't know if you have it on easy access. Um, >> yeah, let me let me just let me just do it real quick. Um, so this is I I I put on Micron on the screen by the way. I wanted to bring up Micron later. I'll do that right after this because that's a stock that you perfectly called the timing. And you know, one could say coincidence, but let's let's just go over that one more time. Uh, new price scale. Yeah, here we go. 10-year yield versus the gold price.

[00:29:18]and and um if you're somebody who believes that bond vigilantes is going to kick in and and sell off bonds and push up yields if the Federal Reserve doesn't change anything this year, then you're probably looking at a very bearish scenario for gold. If you assume this relationship holds, take a look at the screen, Gareth, and get your comment here. Yeah, and I think you have to the biggest thing that strikes me number one is that so number one is you do see the gold kind of inversely moving in in and with the bond yield there. But the more important thing to me is what is the bond market telling us? Because if you look at the stock market, the stock market's telling us everything is perfect. There's never going to be a problem again in the world. And if you look at the bond market, the bond market's hanging eerily near that 4.5% yield on the 10-year. And that is not where people would say is a is the bond market saying the all clear. And I do just want to mention to people is that the stock market can kind of get carried away with itself. A lot of retail money for instance today is the first of the month. So you have retail money coming in the market um after payday um driving markets up today. The NASDAQ piercing five uh 25,000 like we said. But I think you also have to just be aware that the bond market is telling us there needs to be a caution flag on this move. Most investors are ignoring it.

[00:30:33]Okay, going back to Micron, you were on the show mid-March and you had told me and my audience that you were short Micron. Now, you had just looked at the chart. I think it was sometime here.

[00:30:47]Immediately 2 days after you made that call, uh it started going down and it fell about 33%. This was because Google announced a new AI model, um, a new quant turbo AI model that needs less memory and therefore less RAM. And that was all over the news. Um, you may or may not have known about that announcement ahead of time. I'm pretty sure you didn't, but you did, but you I was giving you kind of a a back door, but that there you go. Gareth didn't know insider information about Google.

[00:31:22]The point I'm trying to make is even without knowing that announcement, you had suspected that it looked a little overbought. Walk us through this.

[00:31:30]>> Yeah, absolutely. So, let me show you guys here. We'll bring up the chart.

[00:31:34]I'll bring up my charts again on Micron Daily. And and and in all fairness, Micron has gone vertical since then, right? I mean, so it's had another leg higher, which has just been incredibly impressive. But I will go on record and saying I'm bearish on Micron again. But let's talk about this. So, basically, this is what we had. We had this double top right here and notice how it pierced much like the NASDAQ and the S&P are piercing its high parallel right now and then you saw this big reaction here. In addition, there was a great negative divergence on the RSI daily chart. You made a higher high but the RSI was showing lower. And so listen again it all comes back to how many probabilities or what's the probability of the trade.

[00:32:12]The more factors I have the more ultimately the higher the probability is. Now, just looking at this, and I hope you don't mind me going into this next portion here, but look at the parallel. This is one of the best parallels I've seen in a long time. Low pivots, high pivot, and look, we got we hit it here, rejected, and then today again, we're piercing it. There is huge resistance up here on the chart of Micron. I think you start to come back in, and I think, you know, we can check back by year end, but I bet we come down to the low end of this parallel, David, and we're all the way back to 350. That would be a $200ish drop on Micron back to the low end of that parallel. I do think by year end we're back down there.

[00:32:51]>> Okay, let's move on to Bitcoin. Is Bitcoin the same story as gold right now?

[00:32:57]>> Bitcoin is a tricky one, man. It is really tricky. And so the the tricky thing with Bitcoin here is number one, last we talked I was bullish. Uh I'm now neutral on Bitcoin. You can see it's trended higher. It's held this beautiful consolidation pattern. It's now coming into this 80 to 85,000 level. So upside wise is somewhat limited. But again, what is the bigger pattern? Well, if we know technical analysis, we know down moves followed by sideways chop like this, which slightly inclined eventually goes to the downside more often than not, right? So this is a bare flag. When we look at this bigger pattern, this tells me Bitcoin eventually is going to fall more. It's just a matter of time.

[00:33:36]It was an easy buy here because we had such panic down here. And again, it was more like, okay, markets are getting to levels where we should see a bounce, etc. But overall, now we're starting to enter that phase where the b the bare flag is now taking precedence. And I do think this goes lower, which kind of meshes with my overall stock market call that we should see further downside or a pullback here in the NASDAQ and the S&P as well. I think last time you were on the show, you had you had given me a sentiment that felt to me like you were uh constructively bullish, meaning you you weren't you weren't buying with both hands and feet, but at the same time, you didn't think the floor on Bitcoin was much lower than it was at the time.

[00:34:15]And I think you had said something in the high 60s uh or low7s. Now that we've gone to nearly 80,000, I wonder if you've changed the floor, a b change your outlook overall. like you said that does seem to be a steady uptrend, a bullish pattern. Yeah. So, so believe it or not it's it's been consolidating but this is actually a net bare flag just like what we saw over here, right? So, if we look at what happened here, we had this down move and then look almost identical sideways consolidation and then we fell again and you're doing that same pattern. Now, this one's lasted a lot longer, but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the stock market has rallied back as much as it it has. Um, my feeling now is that at this point the upside is minimal unless we get above 85,000. If we get above 85,000, there's a breakout there to be had, maybe all the way to 100,000. But as long as we stay around this 80 to 85,000 um, and stay under it, I'm now more bearish and expecting another leg lower in Bitcoin. And I do honestly think we're probably headed back to about 50,000. That's my next target.

[00:35:20]50,000 on Bitcoin.

[00:35:22]>> Yeah. What is that? That is a That's about a 50% drop. 40% drop.

[00:35:30]>> Yeah. About about my target would be about 38% down. 30 37% down, right? Yep.

[00:35:37]>> Yeah. And listen, I mean, it just I I really continue to hope Bitcoin survives and becomes that digital gold, but it certainly isn't behaving like that. If anything, it's telling us there's a leading indicator here. Um, if you compare it to the chart of gold, it's night and day, right? I mean, way off alltime highs at this point. and and when gold was running up, Bitcoin was actually coming down. But I still think that at least my hope is that there's some future for Bitcoin. It just has to flush out again with the markets and with risk assets. And the big question is when does that happen again with capex? Can capex keep it up enough? Um it certainly hasn't worked well. I mean, think about the divergence here. When was the last time we had all-time highs and such an amazing move on the stock market and Bitcoin was basically down 40 50% from its all-time highs? I mean, this is this is wild stuff on Bitcoin and it really shows you that there's some existential issues that Bitcoin has to work out amongst other players. And the fact that sentiment amongst Bitcoin investors and crypto investors overall on Bitcoin is so low right now and I guess attention on Bitcoin is so lackluster. Wouldn't that in itself be a contrarian bias signal to you Gareth?

[00:36:48]>> And you're right about that. That's the one one thing that I'm still trying to grapple with is that saying that okay well maybe if the NASDAQ does start to come in let's say we do have a bigger correction on the NASDAQ could money rotate into Bitcoin? It's definitely a possibility. Um, but again, it has to prove itself because his history I always look at the the probabilities based on what historically has happened and that hasn't happened. When when the NASDAQ drops 10% or 15%, technically we almost always see Bitcoin go lower. I would love to see a rotation of capital, but until I start to see that, I can't assume it. So what we're saying is Bitcoin uh is down for a reason and it's not because you know it's not because from a technical perspective it looks overbought. We should be buying with both hands and feet right now. It's down for a good reason. What is that good reason that we should be aware of?

[00:37:36]>> Well I mean you know listen came in in 2025 gang busters right? Um there was so much hope that the president was going to be a huge, you know, uh proponent of a fan of crypto and and arguably he was, but he also seemed to do things in my humble opinion that were not great for crypto. I don't like the fact that they pushed out multiple coins and did a bunch of kind of rug pullish type stuff.

[00:38:00]Um it just wasn't healthy for crypto overall. um we still don't have a Clarity Act that's passed that's and even the Clarity Act that's being proposed is not wildly bullish for crypto. And so I think I think there's this glut right now where investors in crypto are kind of saying okay well should my money be in Bitcoin or in ETH or in Salana or should it be in the semiconductors which are going nuts to the upside. And so I do think there's been a rotation out of kind of the boring I hate to say boring but boring Bitcoin trade into some of these higher exciting ones. The question is when things get scary in those, will we see a rotation back to Bitcoin or not?

[00:38:38]>> And what are investors going to rotate to next? Let's leave it open-ended for the last segment.

[00:38:46]>> All right, we're notating the short term, at least in the short term, I am long natural gas. Um, again, just as a trade, I'm looking for a potential breakout here above this 288 level. I like this short-term downtrend. We broke above it. Um, I do think there's a catch-up trade between oil. If oil comes in, you may see natural gas start to get some money flow in that rotation of capital. Historically, that has somewhat happened uh with the two uh energy sources. I also think that the data centers are at a point where the nuclear energy is not ready to power them and oil is much more expensive relative to natural gas. And so, you have to wonder if maybe natural gas would be a potential energy source for these data data centers that need so much energy.

[00:39:28]And so there are some at these levels on natural gas. It's one of the few assets that I'm willing to step up and put some money behind. Aside from that, I'm just patiently waiting a lot of cash on the sidelines or shorts on the stock market and just waiting for these these markets to kind of come back in until I can start going long gold, going long silver and stocks again.

[00:39:47]>> By the way, which is going to fall first, stocks or Bitcoin?

[00:39:52]>> Chicken or the egg, huh? Um uh I would say that the stock market will drop more initially than Bitcoin because Bitcoin already has a lot of money that's exited. Um but I think if the stock market keeps falling, Bitcoin suddenly starts to panic or investors in Bitcoin will panic and it'll play catch-up. But but I would say the stock market's more due. Like if if you ask me right now, would you rather be long Bitcoin at this price or the stock market overall? I would choose Bitcoin. Bitcoin already discounted significantly. the the market is I mean literally case in point so many signals of a of a dotcom bubble. I want to show you guys one more chart here because I think this really explains it. Let's go back to the NASDAQ composite. And one of the one of the things and some people in the comments say this. They're like, "Oh, the markets will never go down because we have so much liquidity in the market." Okay.

[00:40:41]Well, let's let's test that theory.

[00:40:42]Let's let's divide the NASDAQ by M2 money supply. All right. When we do that, look at what we get here. If we go to our monthly chart, you actually have the NASDAQ a slightly above the dot high when you divide it by M2 money supply.

[00:41:00]And I think that's telling. I think people don't recognize that is that you've now gotten to a place where it is massive in terms of the valuation of the NASDAQ relative to money supply.

[00:41:12]>> My personal assessment is that look, I I I agree. Both look a little frothy, but you know, Bitcoin, the stock market's frothy. Bitcoin probably has those reasons for why it's off its all-time highs by a lot. And it's down on the year versus golden stocks, which are both up. Now, the point is sentiment.

[00:41:29]It's low. And historically, after a bull cycle has has ended, which is, you know, 18 months ago roughly, sentiment has been, in my experience, a pretty good gauge of when the bottom is. And and I'm not calling up this bottom. I'm just saying this this this just feels completely 180 from where we were one year ago when it seems like people were scrambling to throw their money at Bitcoin at about $100,000 and above. Um I personally bought a few more uh well not a few more but a bit more bitcoins at around $100,000. I tend to I tend to buy at the top which is why I'm not a professional trader. Use me as a contrary indicator guys. Um, and right now I feel like uh no one's talking about getting into Bitcoin, >> right?

[00:42:15]>> So take that as a like I just said, I think like you know you the sentiment is a great indicator. And I also would also say this is let's say the NASDAQ just keeps going up at some point risk money will go back to Bitcoin and propel it up probably as a catch-up trade. And so you could be right in that respect too is way too much bearish sentiment if the NASDAQ and the maybe the key is this.

[00:42:36]Can the NASDAQ stay strong enough to get eventually to lift Bitcoin? And I think once Bitcoin breaks out, it goes very, very quickly.

[00:42:44]>> Okay, Gareth, thank you so much. Tell us where we can find your work. Tell us a little bit more about verified investing and what you're working on right now and where we can find it.

[00:42:53]>> Yeah. Um, just come over to verified investing.com, check it out. It's, you know, we really try to focus on the charts and the macro data, not this hype and nonsense that we see all over social media. And so really again, we try to make our decisions on trading based on the charts which just are pure. I mean there's there's really no bias in a chart. A chart is a chart as we say. Uh so check us out at Verified Investing.

[00:43:13]And David, thank you so much for having me, buddy. It's always a great discussion. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. I know you're a really busy guy, so we're thrilled you're able to make time for us on a Friday afternoon. Well, happy start of May, Gareth. We'll see you next time.

[00:43:28]>> You too, buddy. Take care >> and thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.