Chris Whalen

Chris Whalen: Bonds, Gold, Energy, & the Coming Food Shock (September 26, 2026)

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Long term US interest rates are the highest since 2004. He thinks the rates reflect the credibility of the US and the noise from the Trump administration from Trump & Bessent.

Mortgage rates are over 7% now. We are back to where mortgage rates were 15-20 years ago. The Fed was heavily subsidising the market after COVID.

Headcount will go down in the mortgage industry and a lot of people will be exiting.

The Fed hiked 25 basis points to maintain credibility. They aren't really doing anything that impacts the economy with this hike.

The Fed has lost the ability to control the 10-year and 30-year yields unless they come in and start directly purchasing securities.

We will go back to the period before World War 1 where countries would have to compete in terms of the value of their money and gold will be the foundation of the entire system. This is the significance of China embracing gold.

When people sell Treasuries, they are buying gold. Countries will start holding their reserves in gold instead of dollars.

When you look at the Chinese, Russians and central banks around the world, it's very clear that they're allocating their money to gold instead of dollars. That's why he's still long gold & silver.

He just published a book called Inflated.

He thinks we're going back to a multi-lateral currency world instead of just the dollar. They won't use the dollar as a store of value because of the budget deficit. They know that long term the dollar will lose value.

Oil is a very diverse commodity and there are a lot of different types of refined products.

California shut down all their refineries and are now buying refined product from the Chinese and Koreans. They might stop selling.

Fertilizer prices have gone up 8x. That means farmers won't use fertilizer and crop yields will fall. This will cause higher food prices.

He expects double digit inflation. It will have huge political repercussions in the US and Europe. They don't have enough heating oil in Europe and it will be a hard winter if it's cold in Europe.

When prices get to a certain point, then truckers and farmers will park their equipment and stop working.

There could be significant demand destruction and we could even see the Fed cutting interest rates in 2027.

When you run a deficit of $2 trillion, then talking about the inflation target of 2% is kind of silly and is not a credible position.

The main job of Congress is to focus on the budget and they don't do it. They just avoid it and do other tasks.

He thinks we will eventually be means testing Social Security. The Social Security system is pay-as-you-go.

Americans want to take more out of the system than they put in and that does not work.

Our safety net is really unreasonable. In countries like Germany, safety nets are for end of life. It's unreasonable for the government to support people at the end of their life if they have substantial wealth.

Congress has totally abdicated their responsibility to the American public by letting deficits run this way.

Housing prices will continue going up in parts of the country where there is limited supply. Housing prices will go down where lots of new supply has been added. Places like Orlando have had a significant correction.

Chris Whalen: Age of Uncertainty — Falling Home Prices, Cracks in Private Credit & a Sidelined Fed (September 19, 2026)

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The FOMC hiked 25 basis points. The Fed had to do something or they would be totally irrelevant. But there isn't much the Fed can do here.

In the housing sector, we will see "death and destruction this year and next" and lots of companies will go out of business.

7% mortgages isn't that high by historical standards, but it's really high compared to post Global Financial Crisis, and it's causing a lot of stress in private equity and private credit.

Most people don't realize that the huge deficit, $2 trillion per year, is the defining driver of inflation, not what the Fed does.

Chris thinks it's ridiculous to talk about a 2% inflation target when the budget deficit is 6%+.

He thinks gold is in a holding pattern and it will move higher when there is a catalyst to take it a lot higher. Another fiscal problem, like a bad Treasury auction for the US, will probably take it higher.

He thinks there is still a shortage of these metals in the physical market.

He expects a continued decline of holdings of Treasuries outside the US as an investment vehicle.

He thinks the USD as a means of exchange of global trade and a financing mechanism will continue to be popular.

He thinks all fuel products could go significantly higher in the fall.

The Iranians are not backing down and there is no end in sight to this conflict.

Real estate and gold are good components of value preservation. You also want exposure to the fiat world to get a return on your paper. You want assets in the real world that earn a real return.

Real estate is falling fast in Florida and he expects this to spread to the rest of the country next year.

Chris Whalen Answers Your Questions on Gold, the Fed, and Retirement Risk (August 29, 2026)

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American citizens who own gold are always at risk and the only real way to mitigate the risk is to own physical gold offshore.

There is a continued demand for gold around the world, particularly with the Chinese.

The only reason the dollar has held up so well is because people use our money as a means of exchange.

All great nations fail over time. They get weighed down by the demands of their citizens who all want something today. No democracy can have sound money.

Gold was very important for the Romans. The top officials were paid in gold. They even paid taxes in gold.

The Germans used silver cause they didn't have access to gold. There was not enough gold to have coinage.

If the Fed has to start explicitly monetizing debt because the Treasury can't handle it, that's when you will see where gold becomes the anti-dollar and the price goes up.

The easiest way to own gold and silver are to invest in ETFs and stocks. They have them on their website.

The US ran budget surpluses from 1998 to 2001 because the contributions to Social Security were so large that the Treasury literally didn't have to issue long term debt. It was a result of the baby boom.

He thinks that Powell should have done less as a Fed Chairman. The Fed should have stopped easing when the markets stabilized. Mortgage interest rates went down to 1.5-2% which unnecessarily drove up housing prices. Powell will be remembered as one of the weaker Fed presidents in history.

He doesn't think that boomer retirement will force markets down as they liquidate their assets.

If you have a trading relationship with another country, then it makes sense to hold some of their currency.

Chris' portfolio allocation revealed 22 minutes into the talk:

• 65% equities
• 15% precious metals
• The rest is boring income stuff

He thinks it behooves you to get some exposure to precious metals given what we're seeing with the Fed, Treasury and budget deficit.

He thinks it's good to own some silver because it has commercial use cases.

Florida is looking to reduce property taxes and replace them with a sales tax. We could see a VAT in the US in the future to fund the budget deficit.