Jeffrey Christian: There’s A Lot Of Upside To Gold

McAlvany Weekly Commentary

If You're Not Afraid, You're Not Paying Attention We Are Halfway Through The Next Leg Up On Gold Financial Markets Are Divorced From Economic Reality "There is increased awareness around the world about the increased political—international politics and domestic politics—economic and fiscal risks. And there's an increased concern that it's getting worse. There's a myriad of factors that are causing people to, A) be concerned about the risks they're facing today and the probability that the risks will be greater tomorrow." —Jeff Christian Kevin: Welcome to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. I'm Kevin Orrick, along with David McAlvany. David, our guest today, Jeff Christian, I have a personal memory of this. Almost 30 years ago, the Platinum Guild flew me out to New York to meet with Jeff. We were supposed to have lunch and talk about the gold market and the platinum market. That lunch never worked out. I met with his assistant, we had a great lunch, we talked about those things. But as I was thinking about this interview, Dave, I was thinking of your dad starting this firm back in 1972, and then you've got other names, Jeff Christian goes back to the 1970s. It reminds me a little bit of the dwarves in Lord of the Rings, where you've got the Mines of Moria and the dwarves and all the history. This is an industry that really is generational, and the guys who are really committed to it, they've been around for a long time. David: It's fascinating to me that there are views of the commodity space which are somewhat derogatory if you're talking about the folks on Wall Street today. There seems to be something that has become very pure, the math that allows us to make all of these decisions. And yet you go back a generation, and it's not that math was absent, it was still there. There was still quantitative analysis, but people were connecting dots across the board. So your Gary Cohns and your Lloyd Blankfeins and the folks that were running Phillips or started Glencore or Trafigura, these guys and gals are trading commodities and they're interested in geopolitics, they're interested in public policy, they're interested in a lot of things more than just a mathematical equation or an econometric model. Kevin: Well, and it seems to work. David: And it does factor in, but again, if you think about the old ways and you want to go back to the mines, it's different. It's a different level of interest, a different kind of complexity. Math certainly factors in, but there's more to the story. And I think that's what I appreciate about the commodity space and about the gold space too. When you go back far enough, you find these folks who are interested in economics and geoeconomics and geopolitics, and that's certainly the case with our guest today, Jeff Christian, who runs the CPM Group. * * * Jeff Christian, thank you for joining us on the commentary today. We look at the gold, silver, and platinum yearbooks every year. We've been in the metals business for 53 years. We've done this podcast for 17 years every week, and I can't believe that we haven't had you on to talk about the supply and demand fundamentals. You've had a voice in these programs through the years, just from behind the scenes, because we find those yearbooks to be invaluable. And for anyone who's listening, who wants to dig into the fundamentals of the gold, silver, and platinum market. Those books are available. They're available for 150, 200 bucks, and they can be found in the link provided in the show notes. Jeff, tell us about your history. J. Aron, the CPM Group, the Goldman Sachs Group, and surprisingly to some, the leadership at Goldman Sachs made their way through J. Aron, whether it was Gary Cohn or Lloyd Blankfein, give us some of your history and the history of the company. Jeff: Yeah, sure. Okay. It's funny because several years ago, somebody gave me a book that basically said the problem with Goldman Sachs— The book ...