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Well, for more on what's ahead for the precious metal, we are joined by Bloomberg intelligence senior macro strategist Mike McGlone. Mike, it's always great to see you here. You just heard what Inez was talking about that $2,700 target on gold and this uptrend that we have seen. That fun metric that now a bar of gold is a million bucks. That's, that's the one that's been making the rounds here. Do you think that we are going to continue to see this momentum?

Yes, but I think Inez covered it very well. Geopolitics, the key thing I'm looking for though is, to me it's a matter of time it gets to 3,000 and it builds it's building a good support level around 2,400, it's moving up to 2,500, might hang out there for a little while. It's a little stair step rally, but the bottom line for gold is number one, the geopolitics, the unlimited friendship between President Xi and President Putin. And the bottom, and I think the key significance is, Inez mentioned US ETF holders are just starting to bottom. They were way, they've been getting hammered for almost three years and just starting to roll over and I love this metric, this mantra that you know, buy the dip, minions are all over the place, they look at risk assets and I think at some point they're going to start looking at gold because gold is beating the total return of the S&P 500 on a one, two and three year basis. And at some point that performance is going to be overwhelming. But the bottom line for gold is it typically outperforms the S&P 500 when it's at a severe discount which it is now, when unemployment rises and the yield curve, which is steeply inverted, disinverts. So all the, all the inclines for gold are quite strong upward, particularly if we start getting a little bit back and fill in the stock market, which would mean somewhat disinflationary forces.

I'm thinking Mike of other possible near-term catalysts on the radar, you know, maybe a J. Powell speech on Friday morning or the next big jobs report we'd be getting in early September. Would those make your radar? You think those would possibly have an impact there?

Yes, I think, Josh, you mentioned earlier about unemployment. Unemployment going up is a significant factor. Bloomberg intelligence expects 4.5% by the time they get to the September meeting possibly and it's really quite significant. Unemployment's never bottomed from such a low level, 3.4% a year ago, without going to 6%. That's 100% probability since 1947, regardless what you do with monetary and fiscal policy. And the key thing that needs to be mentioned is the unstoppable rising deficit spending in this country and there's no sign of that ending. So that's another big force for gold. But overall, I don't think Powell's going to say anything other than hint at a 25 basis point rate cut, partly because we still have core CPI at 3.2% quite high and we still have L vegan equities. And to me that's the key thing, if you look at the US stock market to GDP, basically about two times market cap to GDP, that's about the most expensive since the 1920s and 30s. And that to me is the number one force for inflation or deflation if it goes down and that's part of the reason I think we're seeing gold starting to pick up and catch up to start.

Is there any reason that gold would not, you know, what would be the risk to that continued trajectory? I mean, I was looking at some of that futures positioning here. It seems like people are, they have definitely been getting into gold. So at some point does that become stressed, stretched? Does that become a risk?

Yes, Julie, I think you nailed it. They're already pretty stretched right now. Gold managed money net positions, I.E. hedge funds, futures, what I used to do, are about 44% of total futures open interest. That's very high. Typically it doesn't get much above 48, so it's quite high, but it's reflective of a bull market. Counter to that, it's the opposite in corn. That's a bear market. But I think the number one thing that can hurt gold in the short term is a sharp decline in the stock market when you hit stops and that's, there's plenty of stops there, there's a lot of longs. But some form of major shift on a global basis to day taunt. So remember what's happening now is we have a complete reversal of the day taunt we saw last 30 years from the fall of the Soviet Union, completely reversing the other way with China becoming a bit of an adversary with that unlimited friendship. That would be, I think, a big shift for getting out of gold, but right now it's all pointing towards buy going gold on dips. And let's remember the deepest pockets on the planet have been buying gold and that's central banks led by China.

Mike, you know, Julie mentioned that fun stat, which has been making the rounds, a bar of gold worth a cool $1 million, Mike. Do we know, have a sense just how strong the physical bar buying has been, Mike? Do we have line of sight there and who's been doing the buying?

Well, I guess I mentioned the World Gold Council. They nailed that, they covered that very well. But I really appreciate you bringing back the bar of gold. The first time and the only time I really held a bar of gold was at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York and I was hanging out with Alan Blinder. I'm reading his book right now, The Monetary and Fiscal Policy of United States 61 to 2021. He points out a lot of what happens in the US as you get this massive fiscal spending and that's usually brilliant for gold. So that to me, I think it's a bit of a milestone. It's probably a good resistance level, but the bottom line for gold is to me, mantra I've been like to saying for a few years now is why buy gold with the US stock market on a tear and 5% T-Bills in the US. The potential for a little bit of reversion in that mantra, meaning stock market going down a little bit, T-Bill yields going down a little bit, and the bottom line is volatility in the stock market volatility, VIX volatility index at 200 and 100 day moving averages, it's just starting to bottom from the lowest level in about six years. So if stock market volatility continues upward, gold is a pretty strong go to.

Interesting. And by the way, speaking of Alan Blinder, he's going to join our Jennifer Schaumberger out in Jackson Hole later this week as part of Yahoo Finances coverage. So a little, little connection there. But Mike, finally I want to ask you about silver also. If it is getting some of these same benefits that gold is getting during, during this rally period.

On a volatility adjusted basis, it's lagging and should continue to lag. So I think the problem with silver, it's more connected with copper now. It's much more of an industrial metal. Copper has a problem. Just look at China bond yields. China bond yields right now, the tenure, they're at 2.17%. It's what, 170 basis points less than the US. That's a sign of significant disinflationary forces out of the number one demand pull force on the, on the planet for industrial metals. And so to me that's a problem with silver. Um, and of course, we've known that forever, the gold and silver ratio typically moves up, particularly when the planet and the globe is heading towards a bit of a recession, which all commodities are pointing that way now. So I think it's gold and commodities, basically, it's gold versus everything else at the moment. Silver's kind of being left by the wayside.

Mike, always great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.