February 28, 2025 – Buckle up for a wild ride through today’s markets with Jim Puplava and Mish Schneider! They dive into the tech wreck—Nvidia’s earnings stunner that still tanked 6%—and ask: Is this a dip to buy or a sign of bigger trouble? Gold’s shining at 28% gains, silver’s gearing up, and junk bonds are defying the odds. Bitcoin? Hold your stomach (and maybe your kidney, per Michael Saylor)! From tariffs to inflation, robotics to quantum computing, they uncover hidden gems and bold predictions. Want the full scoop on where your money’s headed? Tune in!
Mish's website: MarketGauge.com
X profile: Michele 'Mish' Schneider (@marketminute) / X
To speak with any of our advisors or wealth managers, feel free to Contact Us online or give us a call at (888) 486-3939.
Key points discussed in today's show:
Tech stocks, especially the Mag 7, are slumping (Nvidia down 6% despite strong earnings).
Gold and silver surged in 2024 (up 28%), with gold eyed at 2825 and silver at 31.50 as buy zones.
Junk bonds are oddly strong, hinting no recession yet despite a risk-off market.
Bitcoin’s volatility persists, dropping to 78K—altcoins like Ripple shone earlier.
Tariffs under Trump could spark inflation or brilliant trade deals; jury’s still out.
Unloved tech (e.g., Dell, Adobe) and sectors like robotics and quantum computing offer opportunities.
Oil holds at $68-70; discipline, not drilling, rules the day.
Government spending waste (e.g., $4.7T untracked) raises economic concerns.
Transcript: Mish Schneider Interview
Jim Puplava:
Well, stocks are having a rough week this week with stocks down 5 or 6%, especially in the tech space as the Nasdaq is down about 5 or 6% this week. Well, is this just a pause, a correction? Where do we go from here? Joining me on the program is Mish Schneider from Market Gauge. Mish, I want to begin our discussion with the Mag 7 stocks. And the thing that really struck me with Nvidia's earnings, they blew away estimates, but the stock was down 6%. And as I look across my screen of all the seven Mag stocks, they're down anywhere from 10 to 20%. Let's begin with that.
Mish Schneider:
I know you and I have probably talked about this in the past, but when you get a situation like you got where pretty much everybody on the media, all the analysts, apparently a lot of the big traders, although some of the biggest traders weren't really even in a lot of the Mag 7 stocks, like a Buffett, for example. But when you start to get something so crowded like that, you have to wonder about things like valuation and you also have to wonder about things like herd mentality. So you know, as a trained commodities trader who understands that sometimes having a logical contrarian view makes more sense than following the pack, it seemed to me that Nvidia already was priced into the market, was that the semiconductor space had topped out. That did happen in July. And even though it was kind of trying to rally over the last couple of weeks, it still wasn't really going anywhere where it needed to. So that told me that the Nvidia earnings was probably going to be a sellable event, at least for the short term. And so what really came out of those earnings was that the growth, even though it blew out the numbers, as you said, the growth is essentially slowing down. And that makes sense. I mean, it's just the nature of things and that's what people I think fail to look at. At some point, things have sort of maxed out in terms of their growth potential. We already know that Capex was something that all these companies were talking about. So I think Nvidia down here now, now people are going to start to talk about buying the dip. And I think that's really what we have to discuss is what would you prefer to buy at this point under current conditions? The dip in the Mag 7, which are very chip-oriented with the potential of tariffs still going through on chips. We know Trump has been talking about that a lot over, or would you like to buy the tech and potential AI, even possibly robotics and quantum computing stocks that already have been beaten to a pulp and now have a really good base and a much more, I think, controllable risk.
Jim Puplava:
Yeah, we got out of a lot of our tech stocks last summer. And what we're doing, Mish, is we're looking in the tech space and the AI space, but we're looking at some of the companies in that space that have already gone through their corrections that are down 30, 40% rather than, you know, am I going to buy Microsoft because it's down 10%, I still think it's expensive.
Mish Schneider:
Well, this is why I love talking to you because you and I have a very similar viewpoint on things and I totally agree with you. Actually, if I can plug this for one second, I wrote my Outlook 2025; it was published in December. Right. So here we are at the end of February and I already talked about this and I gave a list of 10 stocks that I thought were the best stocks, IBM being one, which by the way, has had a really good year comparatively to let's say an Nvidia or a Palantir. But yeah, where can you look that hasn't really quite emerged yet, but could in the tech space? So I know before we talked about Dell as one. I've also no position yet, but I've been looking at Adobe would be another. I mean, it does have, it is still the premier company to go to if you're looking at things like Photoshop and they're doing some AI with that kind of stuff. Or do you want to go more into the quantum computing space, in which case the stock called Quantum Computing really basically has just now sold off tremendously from its highs and is sitting on major, massive support. Or, you know, sticking with that theme, do you want to go into the robotic space? A stock like Symbotic, which has had struggles with earnings but yet again is down so low. And it is the future of warehousing, using robotics to basically save a lot of money on fulfillment and inventory efficiency. I mean, yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking at. Does that mean I'm in a big rush? No, but it does definitely mean that the opportunities may have flipped a little bit from watching the high flyers to watching the things that could emerge from here.
Jim Puplava:
Well, let's talk about another sector that's doing well. And I want to talk about gold and silver, one of the best performers in 2024. I mean, everybody thinks of Mag stocks, but gold was up 28%, silver was up almost an equivalent amount. And this year they're off to another good start. What's your take on gold and silver at this space?
Mish Schneider:
Well, I have two thoughts on that. One is the relationship to one another as terms of measuring the idea of inflation picking up. And the other is just the play in and of itself. So, yeah, gold has been obviously the easier of the two because it just really basically would rocket off, consolidate, rocket off, consolidate. We had tons of headlines about all types of buying from central banks to actually consumers buying gold coins and bars. And what has happened at this point now with gold in particular is that I think the public got again, almost like an Nvidia stock, got a little too exuberant about gold, was just going to go straight to 3,000 and make no stop. So instead gold does what gold has been doing for years. It gets to a new high and then it sells off and then all the bears come out. And that's when I get interested, is when the bears come out. Right. So right now the bears are out thinking that we're going to have this massive correction in gold because we're trading back under 2,900. But meanwhile, I think that if this could get down any closer to, let's say 2825-ish, between 2800 and 2825, it's a great buy opportunity. I still think the future of gold is up. It's just doing what gold is doing. It's not parabolic. I mean, it was for a while from December to recently when it got to the highs on the basis of fears from the Trump administration and tariffs. But now I think it has to go up for other reasons and that would be the return to inflation. And that's why the second point is the relationship to silver. And we know that in an inflationary time, silver outperforms gold. And we haven't really seen that happen yet. And I say yet because at this point, silver is still around 90 to 1 in terms of the ratio. In other words, gold is trading 90 times the price of silver. In 1980, for example, it was 17 times the price of silver. So we need to see. I still think silver looks good. It's sitting on major support here, around 31.50. But if we can start to see that silver pull up, let's say back over 32 as a start, and then eventually over 34, then I think we're in a situation where we go from selling strength and buying weakness in the metals to just buying strength and almost getting into a compound type of situation when it comes to the precious metals where you add on the parabolic move and then when you start to see the signs of exhaustion, like any good commodities trader knows, you start to take your profits.
Jim Puplava:
I want to talk about something that's a little bit of an anomaly and you made reference to it, and that is the strength of junk bonds. And essentially what is a risk-off market right now?
Mish Schneider:
Yeah, I've never, I shouldn't say never, but since I've been a student of junk bonds, I haven't seen anything like this where the typical ways you measure risk-off is the performance of the long bonds versus the S&P 500 and versus the junk bonds. And in both cases, the long bonds have been outperforming. Right. And so that's generally a risk-off situation. But while we've gotten a bid in the long bonds as a flight to safety, the junk bonds have stayed extraordinarily firm. So essentially we can speculate why. I mean, I just spoke to one gentleman who said, well, that's because it's, you know, that's the new safety play. And I'm like, I can't imagine that the philosophy is you're safe if you're buying companies with poor balance sheets and yet they have, you know, they pay high debt, high interest, and so they're safe. I don't see it that way. I see it differently. I see that the junk bond traders are essentially saying that they're not worried about a recession. They actually think that at this point the rates on the, the interest rates, forget about what the long bonds are doing, are going to stay pat. And number three is, I think what they're saying is that we're not going to have some great credit default, which a lot of people are fearing for the next big crash. So it's giving me some sense of peace on this market dip that we've experienced.
Jim Puplava:
Let's talk about another asset class, cryptocurrencies. Let's talk about Bitcoin. One thing about Bitcoin, you better have a strong stomach if you're going to be in it, because when they... to liver.
Mish Schneider:
To both of a liver. Wait, was it kidneys or liver that you were supposed to sell, according to Saylor, if you needed the money to stay in Bitcoin? Did you hear that little story?
Jim Puplava:
No. Go ahead and tell it.
Mish Schneider:
Oh, well, let me see if I... I forget which body part it was because I... Let me see what body part it was because I actually saw it on Twitter this morning. He said, Saylor said, who obviously has to be hurting a little bit, is that if you want, you should sell one of your organs. And I thought he said a kidney. Yes, sell your kidney. It was his quote. "If you need money, sell a kidney, but keep your Bitcoin." Caution strategy. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor. Okay, so that's how committed this dude is. He's encouraging people to sell body parts. So, you know, short of that sensational headline, which I'm still cracking up over, let's look at the actual Bitcoin itself. So it's a very technical instrument. I mean, one of the things I love about Bitcoin is how technical it is. And I started out this year thinking that the altcoins would be the better play. And that certainly turned out to be the case. If you were a buyer of particularly Ripple XRP, if you were a buyer of Chainlink, you know, these made spectacular moves as we started the year and then when they started to level off with the fact that Bitcoin could no longer get past 100K kind of gave me a clue. And what's interesting is I don't know if this was a stroke of brilliance or luck, but I had been in my Coinbase wallet long tons of cryptocurrencies, made like 300%, and sold everything four weeks ago and went to cash in my Coinbase wallet, which is incredible. So why? Because I started to see it was too toppy, it couldn't get back over that hundred. And I started to see that maybe we were topping out headlines versus the price, right? All these bullish headlines and it wasn't moving the needle any further up. So that's the history of it. Now, right here today, Bitcoin went to the 200-day moving average like a lot of instruments have and is getting a bounce. So it's possible that we are at our lows. The low today, when I say today, I mean Friday the 28th, being close to 78,000. You know, that 77,000, 78,000 to 80,000 now is giving us a good base. You know, going back to Michael Saylor, maybe he would have been better off by saying you have a great opportunity to buy it if you're not already in or to add to your position. But your risk really now would be kind of clear. I would want to see this thing hold up these levels and I also would want to see it prove a little bit more, get back through 86,000 just to prove that this isn't just a one-day oversold bounce.
Jim Puplava:
So as we look at some of these other areas, let's talk about some macro things. We got the PCE out today, and we also have things that, you know, the Trump administration is talking about, tariffs that change almost every single week. But let's talk about some of the implications of those tariffs. I think they're necessary if we're going to try to rebuild our industrial base. But let's talk about the inflation part of that.
Mish Schneider:
Well, yeah, two things that came out of the PCE was that people were really cutting back on spending. But that's different than things costing more money. That's number one. And number two was that wages went up substantially, actually. So even with more money in their pocket, supposedly people are pulling back. Friday the 28th, by the way, is this call to arms. It was all over social media to not spend any money on anything corporate. Right. So, no Walmart, no Costco, no Amazon, no fast food, no buying gas, because people are starting to get really tired. So that could be a big response to tariffs and inflation that basically keeps it more tepid, or it could be some desperate move because they really can't control what's coming. The key to me here with Trump and that administration with the tariffs is that I think the jury's out on whether this is a stroke of negotiating brilliance where he calls for these sustaining tariffs and then retaliatory tariffs, if they retaliate, to get everybody to the table to make some kind of really good sort of trading agreement, in which case that would be the brilliant side, or the not-so-brilliant side is that while he's ignoring our deficit, our government spending, and then forcing prices to go higher without the ability to really make things in America as quickly as he would like, and consumers getting tired as prices go up, which of course means then the inventory starts to decrease because people are sitting, the companies are sitting with a lot of stockpiling, which of course then could lead to a shortage. If there's any kind of geopolitical situation, we don't know; there's a lot of unknowns, in which case this won't look so brilliant. It will look like he was obviously ignoring the bigger issues we have at home, which of course would be the spending and the deficit.
Jim Puplava:
Yeah, a lot of people are getting upset with what DOGE is doing, but I am just absolutely amazed. I never knew that government employees had not come back to work after COVID, but when you take a look at some of the amount of money like the Treasury spent, 4.7 trillion. They don't have any receipts; they don't know where it went. I mean, it's just absolutely astounding. And it's good that we're trying to attack this, because we either attack it now or it's going to be forced on us.
Mish Schneider:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, government spending waste is huge, but there's always fallout. Number one is, from what I'm reading, the amount of money that DOGE has cut back on unsaved, we have yet to see that really materialize, and it hasn't really been enough. That's one thing I'm hearing, and that's not to criticize it. That's just stating the fact. And the other is, if we wind up with our unemployment numbers going up, what does that do to the whole house of cards when it comes to the economy? And then what does the Fed do, going back to inflation? Because now they'll probably be forced to pivot, which I actually think they might in March cut the rates, just like we've seen Europe do, in which case now we're going back to inflation and we have this sort of vicious cycle. Does that make sense?
Jim Puplava:
Yeah, and it's something, you know, one of the key things in the election, number one issue was inflation. Now there, you know, we've seen eggs go up, but nobody's telling the story that we killed about 100 million chickens because of the bird flu.
Mish Schneider:
Yeah, well, that's just it. And that's kind of the fun that Mother Nature has with us. You know, that's always something to be aware of when it comes to raw materials, is what has Mother Nature got in store for us? And this is not to be a climate change activist or anything like that. This is just the fact that we've seen fires out of control this year. We've seen flooding, we've seen threats of tsunamis, we saw a huge hurricane season. We've seen droughts. And so really, essentially what I'm saying is that when it comes to any of these raw materials, especially in the food space, or in this case, a virus that went rampant in the bird population, these things may have temporary impacts because eventually they reverse. But still, it takes a while for that to work through, and that's exactly what we're seeing in the egg market.
Jim Puplava:
I want to talk about another asset, and that's oil. We've been in that kind of upper 60s, lower 70s range, and it was thought that oil prices would come down, Trump would go, drill, baby, drill. But, you know, Mish, I don't see oil companies going out and saying, let's produce more so we could drive the price down. They've been very disciplined. They're buying back stocks, so they're not acting in the way that would, at least in my opinion, would bring oil prices down. If they're going to bring oil prices down, it's going to have to be something on the recessionary front.
Mish Schneider:
Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, here's the thing, is that there's oil drilling and then there's the refinery capacity. Right. And from what I've learned from reading is that here in the US, our capacity to refine shale oil is limited compared to our capacity to refine, say, the oil we've gotten from Canada, for example. And so also a lot of these companies do not want to spend money increasing their refining capacity for shale oil because it will cost billions and billions of dollars. And a lot of the CEOs have come out and expressed that eventually oil, I mean, we used to say on the Commodities Exchange, when I was trading in the oil pit, how many dinosaurs were there, exactly? Because, you know, so besides the supply, number one, which right now is obviously still ample, but number two is, you know, China is really beating us in this race to EVs and alternative energy and solar energy and we're kind of being left behind. That's very old school. And these CEOs don't want to spend the money because they can see the future too. So that's why, I mean, at $68, $70 a barrel, we also now have OPEC saying that they were being pressured to raise production. Now they're saying we're not so sure we want to do that. That means to me that from a technical standpoint, if we start to see oil getting back over like $72, and I'm talking WTI, that could be a breakout that people aren't exactly expecting. And then of course, the whole conversation about inflation and pinching the consumer and all of that comes back into play.
Jim Puplava:
Well, if we take a look at the economy right now, even though some of the numbers have been weak, especially fourth quarter GDP came in at 2.3, down below the 3% range. But there's enough going on in the economy. I just don't see a recession in the short term, do you?
Mish Schneider:
Well, that's, you know, going back to our junk bond point, I think that's why what junk bonds are telling us is that we're not heading into a recession at this point. Of course, you know, you always have to say price rules the narrative. So at this point the price is really to me dictating the narrative of yeah, this is a correction. Things were overvalued, commodities have sold off, but they still have based out compared to where they were. And on top of that though, the economy is still limping along. We're okay and it's possible that we will see greater growth if we can work through all of these things, get good trade agreements and really do the reshoring that Trump is hoping that we would do and get this economy humming and more self-sufficient. Yeah, when was... But like I said, if I see any change in that, I would change my tune. But right now that's kind of, you know, we're doing okay, let's put it that way.
Jim Puplava:
Well, you know, as I look at this market and as you and I were talking about the Mag 7 stocks obviously taking a beating right now, but there's other opportunities in this space where there's been a lot of companies that have been hit hard. They're down 30, 40%. I don't care if you're looking in the consumer space or even you're looking in the technology space. So I guess there's a lot of opportunities out there if you just know where to look.
Mish Schneider:
Absolutely. You know, when you hear on the media now that they're talking about a stock picker's market, that really means that, A, you have to have some kind of a theme that you're looking at that you think has potential. Whether it's, you know, tech stocks that have been unloved that could be loved or whether it's in the EV space outside of Tesla or whether it's the vanity trade based on consumer habits shifting from diet drugs or whether it's on robotics or whether it's on quantum computing, any of those areas or recession-proof type stocks, things, companies that have pricing power, you know, like a Chewy, for example. It's a stock that people don't think about but no matter what is going on in the economy, people take care of their pets. Or whether it's a Salesforce that reported poorly but yet still has a big presence in the AI space. So yeah, you're absolutely right. If you know where to look right now and you can look at a chart that doesn't look like it's been to the mountaintop and now it's coming down, but rather it's already been in the valley and is starting to come out of the valley, that in the... And matched with a theme that you think is the future would be the intelligent way to invest.
Jim Puplava:
And finally, we talked earlier about gold and you know, you talked about the level if it could get around 2800, somewhere around that area and hold. What about the gold stocks? Because even though the bullion's done well, the stocks have been a laggard and if you report and take a look at some of the earnings that came out in the fourth quarter, these companies are minting money and at 2800 or 2900 they're going to be minting more.
Mish Schneider:
Exactly. So let's talk about the miners. Right. So I, because I think that's what you're really asking about, some of the gold mining companies like Newmont, you know, right now again I think these look very bullish. I do. Here's a classic example of something that was in the valley and now is emerging more towards the hill. Although it may have, you know, have a little fits and starts along the way. But if we look at gold miners alone, I mean they basically bottomed out. They bottomed out last year in April. They tested those lows in the beginning of January and now even though they have come off a little bit from their highs, what they're really showing is that they're coming off into major support which tells me that they're back into a buy opportunity again with a low risk. If we can get those miners to start to accelerate, that's another sign outside of the silver-gold ratio that there's a lot of room for growth and a lot of money to be made in the whole precious metals and gold mining stocks.
Jim Puplava:
Couldn't agree more. Well listen, Mish, as we close, if our listeners would like to find out more about the work you guys do at Market Gauge, you put out a lot of stuff, tell them how they could do so.
Mish Schneider:
I'm kind of hard to miss but on X it's at MarketMinute. I have a Substack page. Now I'm on LinkedIn so those are probably the three places. Marketgauge.com though is our website and if you go there, if you want to see how I'm thinking for the year and my top 10 picks plus my runner-ups and what I just think of with a whole macro, that would be right on the website. When you first go on, it comes up as a banner, "Mish's Outlook 2025."
Jim Puplava:
All right, well listen, stay well and come back and talk to us again.
Mish Schneider:
I will. It'll be very fascinating to find out whether or not inflation picks up, whether we're looking more recessionary, whether this is a stagflation, which makes it very tough. I think the jury's out on all of that yet. But we certainly hopefully covered for you the signs to watch for.
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