Title:   Michael Saylor Sells, While BTC Levels Signal Margin Call Territory; Gold to $10K
Show:    The Daniela Cambone Show (ITM Trading)
Guest:   Edward "Ed" Dowd (founder, Phinance Technologies; ex-BlackRock portfolio manager; author of "Cause Unknown")
Date:    2026-JUN-05
URL:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI1zTa6eN7c
Length:  ~26 min
Note:    Auto-transcript, timestamps mm:ss. Saved for personal study. Macro/markets interview: three converging
         2026 risks (US housing correction, bursting AI bubble, China slowdown), a bearish AI/semiconductor and
         broad-market call, Bitcoin as a liquidity canary, and a long-term $10,000 gold thesis.

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(00:00) All right, welcome back to the Dinglea Cambonet Show. Happy Friday. Joining us today, Edward Dow, a former Black Rockck portfolio manager, now founder of Finance Technologies, and the author of Cause Unknown. Ed's been spotlighting three big structural risks converging in 2026. US housing correction, the bursting AI bubble, and China's deepening slowdown with its GDP and USD terms stalling, and real estate woos dragging global growth lower.
(00:28)  At the same time, he sees gold in a new bull era with central bank buying and debt pressures pointing towards $10,000 gold long-term. Um, we're also going to cover what's going on in Bitcoin and get Ed's thoughts on that. Ed, it's always uh, you know, awesome having you on. I love our conversations. Welcome back. >> Thank you for having me back and good to be here.
(00:48) >> Yeah, obviously excited to get your thoughts on on on what's going on in gold and of course Bitcoin. Um but let's start with your warning about a significant downturn in 2026 uh driven by these you know converging risks you see um just generally your thoughts on on the US economy right now.
(01:11)  I know you see the I know you say the US GDP growth is a hallucination propped up by government spending. >> Yeah. So, what we're seeing in the housing market, our our thesis there, which we we we wrote a report last year highlighting this this issue, and it's slowly started to unwind. We're starting to see home prices, median home prices start to tank in February and March.
(01:33)  And so, home prices g nationally are starting to roll. There's still some bright spots in the blue cities. So, uh nationally, they're starting to roll over and that's 20% of the economy. uh Lieutenant Ren started plunging in uh the fourth quarter of 2024 when Trump got elected. We believe that was due to self-deportations.
(01:53) The illegal illegal aliens, the 20 million illegal aliens were propping up the rental market which propped up the housing market. That's that that extra flow is gone. Deportations are slow. They haven't really started yet, but the uh the housing market is definitely under pressure. So that that part of our thesis is is ongoing.
(02:13)  That's 20% of the economy. So that should should filter in over the next uh 6 to 12 months as construction layoffs continue. The there is some pickup from the data center spend, but we believe that's going to come to an end pretty soon as well. So our housing thesis is intact. Our China thesis is intact. We put out a piece recently showing that overall construction decline in the fourth quarter of uh 2025 and that and it's rolled over again in the first quarter of 2026 in China.
(02:44)  It's down 8% year-over-year. This is important because the real estate crisis started in 2021 due to demographic declines and a massive uh 20-year overbu. They have 20 years of supply. uh their their their new uh home permits have declined 70%. And construction, real estate construction is only down 20. Uh but that's because they had long life projects that were ongoing.
(03:10)  But this is now starting to affect the overall construction number for everything. And uh we think the acute phase of their crisis is coming and that's going to affect uh global trade in Asia and eventually the US. So that's a contagion risk. And then of course the AI the AI bubble looked like it was bursting uh in uh December, January and February.
(03:31)  And there was uh some uh some signs that it was bursting. But we've got a recent last gas blowoff top we believe uh due to the IPOs uh and uh semiconductor shortages which if you've seen the semiconductor stock move since the bottom put in in the market in at at the end of March. Uh semiconductor stocks are up 80% in nine weeks.
(03:55)  These are these are blowoff tops. We've seen this before in the dotcom era and there are shortages but shortages lead to glutes and we think this is the last gasp the last the last takeoff in the AI stocks and there's a lot of narratives in the AI field that are coming out that show there is no ROI.
(04:15)  Fortune put out an article saying businesses are not seeing the ROI from the a from their AI. Bloomberg put out an article from the consultant firm Bane saying there's no ROI and uh so we think we think the narrative is shifting but the the price momentum is uh is not stopped yet. We think it's it's it's we're we're in the danger zone here in the next couple months.
(04:39)  So the AI bubble we believe is going to burst. The other thing that's interesting is I don't know if you saw, but Google issued 80 billion in equity uh uh private placement last night rather than using debt. So we think the debt markets are are are telling uh the AI companies that it's too expensive to use debt.
(04:57)  So now they have to use equity. Uh the private credit markets and the private equity markets are under duress and the private credit markets are effectively frozen. uh there's a lot of gating of private credit funds and now there's there's um there's redemption. So debt financing has gotten very expensive. Now they're going to equity and so what we have for the markets is a very dangerous setup of AI fundamentals slowing uh but the stocks doing the exact opposite at the moment.
(05:27)  We have we have uh supply coming. We have three major IPOs with lockups. So there's a lot of supply coming and all the MAG 7 they're spending so much money their stock buybacks are going to lessen. So we see we see a lot of stock supply coming AI fundamentals shifting. We see semiconductor moves like they're ending moves.
(05:46)  They're not they're not beginning moves. When you have Micron go from 60 billion market cap 13 months ago to one trillion market cap. It's unsustainable. Semiconductors are notoriously cycl cyclical. So that's where we are. We think the uh stock markets are painting a picture that is totally false given what is going on in the real economy and the most recent move in the indexes since the lows in April has been all AI driven.
(06:14)  40 45% of the S&P 500 is AI or AI Jason. >> All good points and I have I just if you don't mind I'm going to go through some of them. Sticking to AI a second I just had Michael Ged on who brought up an interesting point. he built a a company or was building a company uh based around you know he hired a or built AI agents and one thing he found is it's actually not necessarily cheaper like he's finding it quite expensive to build out these AI agents is that going to be a shock to many companies that oh wait a second it's it's it might not be cheaper
(06:46) using AI than perhaps outsourcing >> yeah that's that the AI spend is so an so uneconomical at the moment that companies are are quickly uh shutting off their uh their token use. One company and I believe it was Amazon spent 500 million in one month and they realized oops we made a mistake and they're shutting that off.
(07:10)  Other companies are seeing the same thing. Uber blew through its token budget in four months and a lot of companies are reporting it's cheaper to use humans than AI at the moment which >> that's my qu Yeah, that >> that's a problem. We we know this administration wants a strong uh market. So I guess how much longer can this illusion last? >> You know, I'm not going to try to call top.
(07:39)  That's a fool's er but I would look the valuations every everybody you see you've seen this everywhere all over the uh the Twitter sphere and in financial newsletters the cape ratio the Schiller ratio the Berkshire Hather measurement. It's a historical high valuations. And so if you were to like get an inheritance and put your $1 million inheritance in the stock market today, you're likely guaranteed a 0% return including dividends for 10 years, which incl which implies a a tremendous draw down between now and then.
(08:13)  So stocks are just too expensive and everything has to go perfectly at this point for them to continue to to to go a lot higher. I'm not saying they can't, but I I wouldn't I wouldn't own this with your money. >> The dollar is being weaponized. New alternatives are rising fast, and the people with real power are quietly moving into hard assets while the public stays distracted.
(08:36)  And the more distracted you are, the less action you take, which is exactly how most wealth is lost during transitions like this. That's why we built the private wealth playbook. It's free and it gives you a clear step-by-step path to protect your wealth, privacy, and retirement for decades to come.
(08:55)  Click below or go to dannyreport.com and claim what's rightfully yours. I'm meeting so many um people who reach out to me in their 70s, in their 80s, and I, you know, I'm not I'm not an adviser, but when they tell me how much they're exposed to the stock market, you know, at this stage in life, I I mean, I'm greatly concerned for them, Ed.
(09:20) >> Yes. And you know, look, I I uh on my private website at dad.com, I do offer some consulting services and I've had great conversations with a lot of people that age and most of the people that I'm talking to have already reduced their exposure to the equity markets and they've already been following me.
(09:38)  So, the conversations are very light and enjoyable. I'm not trying to convince anyone that's 90% exposed to equities at age 80 or 70 or 60 in retirement. I'm having conversations just saying, "Hey, you have 40% cash. You're like Warren Buffett. That's great. You know, I'm not going to tell you to raise even more cash.
(09:59) " Uh, and I I just basically tell them, "You've made a smart move. Take advantage of the deals when they come." But if if you know, the people that are 90% exposed aren't going to, you know, take up take me up on my services because they a lot of these people will leave, unfortunately. What were your initial thoughts on the SpaceX IPO when you heard the news? >> So, if you look at the numbers, it's a 15% growth company pricing at 100 100 times revenues.
(10:26)  They switched the story from space to AI because they put XAI in there. Um, it's it's it's overvalued. They've changed the rules to get it listed. A lot of people are saying it's it's it's unethical. I think what's going to happen, it's going to come out um at two trillion. And you know, I was talking to a money manager yesterday.
(10:47) He's he asked the question, do you think this thing could be a trillion market cap inside of 12 months? I said, easily. Meaning a 50% loss. It's it's uh it it's it's over it's overvalued and there's no growth there. And look, if if they're if they're pricing it off an AI multiple, AI, I believe, is a commodity.
(11:06)  and we're starting to see that that the the switching cost between these engines is is effectively zero. >> Want to circle back to your point on China and and what you see as a slowdown um in its growth. Is this something that the Trump administration wants? Well, yeah, I did a I did a um I did I did a uh a media hit on Friday with Bannon's war room to talk about uh China because I think there's a misunderstanding.
(11:39)  There's there's this belief that that China is going to overtake the US and we've looked at the numbers. We've done we we put we have a report for sale at our website financetchnologies.com, a China report. We've done a deep dive and China peaked uh as a percent of US uh uh priced in US dollars at 80% of our GDP in in 2019. Since 2020 priced in US dollars, their GDP is 60% of the US.
(12:06)  Their GDP growth since 2020 priced in US dollars has been effectively zero. They've been printing 5%. So that we believe peak China is in the rearview mirror. They have a demographic disaster. uh and now the acute phase of their real estate crisis is hitting. So, you know, when Trump went over to China recently and uh President Xi Xi talked about that trap that I can't pronounce the the the city's trap or whatever it was called saying that we need to work together and implying that US was the weaker economy.
(12:40) It's the other way around. They are they are in deep distress and uh Trump's tariffs on China are the right move because they are basically exporting deflation. They're uh they're in a deflationary death borrow much like uh Japan was in the 90s and uh the different the difference is is that Japan exported their way out of that problem.
(13:03)  Uh but they are onetenth the size of China. China has been ex to make up for their uh internal uh downturn. They've been exporting like crazy since 2021 and that's why we're having trade wars and that's and and the tar the tariffs are affecting them. >> So will that how will that it will be good news for Europe and the US if there's a slowdown in China? I mean is there a benefit? >> Well, so there it's a razor's edge.
(13:31)  You don't want them to collapse because that will have contagion effects across the globe. So we actually and I had this discussion with Steve Bannon. We have to kind of work with them uh because you want to you know look I I don't want to be you know we put out a report that they're entering the acute phase of their crisis.
(13:51)  If nothing's done that's going to happen. So I'd like to be wrong and have the US and China work together to figure out how to like structurally uh help them restructure uh and and and complete some good trade deals. That doesn't look like it's happening at the moment. And so unfortunately our our predictions look like they're going to come true.
(14:11)  So we don't want them to, but we need the US and China and Europe to all work together to prevent their collapse. I know that sounds crazy, but that that's that's what you want. >> What do you make of reports of China uh you know moving away from the US dollar? We call it whatever you want, whether they're developing, you know, alternative um, you know, trade, weapons, whatever you want to call it.
(14:41)  I mean, do you think they are really truly moving away from the dollar? >> I think a lot of it's uh PR and hype and bluster and yes, they're trying, but it's it's very hard to do. The dollar system is very ingrained globally. Uh the other problem is uh the the yuan is very overvalued and they're depreciating uh their their uh currency about 10% a year.
(15:05)  So a lot of uh their trade partners probably understand that and don't want to b you know have a a whole lot of reserves in yuan. >> What's your take on the Japan story? You know they're trying to prop up the yen. It's not working. How big of a story is this to follow Ed? Well, look, you remember in 2024 there was a uh uh a yen carry trade problem and uh they were they were raising rates.
(15:32)  They stopped raising rates, but it looks like they have to raise rates this time because inflation >> is uh is is is going crazy in in in uh Japan. So my my feeling is we can't we don't want to see a yen carry trade problem. Uh and that's why the US uh opened up dollar swaps to Japan when the Iran war started.
(15:54)  But we're getting close to Japan's reserves, oil reserves going the wrong way and that could cause a balance of uh trade payments crisis. So we got we got big issues in Japan. I just feel like the the global risks are just so immense at this point that uh you got to be cautious here. And and look, you know, I'm I let's talk about the Iran war uh situation for a quick second.
(16:18) >> Okay. >> The oil price and the stock and the US stock market are telling me that a deal is imminent. That's what ever since Trump announced the ceasefire, the oil market and the equity markets have gone, you know, the opposite way. Equities up, oil down. So, it's discounting a a resolution. if we don't get one.
(16:42)  Uh our second scenario, we had two scenarios. The first scenario is playing out. We, you know, oil kind of peaks in May. There's a deal structured, then inflation rolls over and we have demand destruction. We have some consequences from from the war that add to our negative thesis already, but it's manageable.
(17:01)  If we do not get a resolution, uh the price of oil uh may go up quite a bit because the oil companies, the executives are saying that in two to three weeks, we hit critical levels in some of these uh strategic petroleum reserve funds and that oil could go to 150. If oil goes to 150, uh it's probably going to 200 and that's a disaster scenario.
(17:22)  Uh we see if that happens, we see inflation peaking out in August, headline inflation at 11%. Scenario one, we had it peeking out at 5% and that looks like it's in play. So, we need a deal soon and the and so if we don't get one, uh, look out. >> Let's um, speaking about immense risks here, let's talk Bitcoin for a second as we're speaking today under uh, you know, down 6% today as we're speaking.
(17:50)  Lots of pressure here on Bitcoin. Uh, your take on what's happening here? So, Bitcoin peaked in October of last year. And in this most recent move, it it in in three weeks, it's gone from 81,000 to 67,000. That's a 17% decline in three weeks. And technically, it looks like it wants to go find a new low at the moment.
(18:11)  It may rally from here, but uh the NASDAQ and Bitcoin have a strong correlation. Historically, 95%. Bitcoin is a risk on trade. So recently that's decoupled a little bit which implies one of two things. Bitcoin needs to rally back up to to make the correlation hold or the NASDAQ has to move down a lot for the correlation to hold.
(18:34)  So given Bitcoin's decline, it makes me concerned that global and and Bitcoin has always been a global liquidity canary in the coal mine. So what what it says to me is that Bitcoin is being sold to fund and chase uh you know momentum stocks particularly NASDAQ and semiconductors which means the liquidity situation isn't as good as everyone thinks because if this was truly a liquidity driven market rise Bitcoin would be participating right now.
(19:04) >> What do you make of Michael Sailor selling 2.5 million of Bitcoin? It's f his first sale since 2022. I mean, should we be reading into this or is it was it simply to fund preferred dividends? I mean, >> is there a bigger story here or >> Oh, there there there are people. Look, I I Sailor's stock has been a disaster for the last year and a half.
(19:29)  Um, he's selling some Bitcoin to to to pay some dividends. There is a thesis that he gets a margin call. I don't know whether that's true or not, but at at these levels, it's margin margin call. People have said in 74,000 Bitcoin is margin call territory. We're now at 67,000. We'll we'll see if that continues to unwind the Bitcoin space, but it just it just it just doesn't bode well for global liquidity that Bitcoin is struggling in my humble opinion.
(19:57)  And that all the liquidity that's left is focused on AI and semiconductors. And I want to point out something that is pretty pretty alarming. Semiconductors is a percent of the S&P 500 is 17%. That's one industry. Um and uh and and and Nvidia, the stock Nvidia is market cap 5.4 trillion is bigger than the whole healthc care sector of the S&P 500.
(20:27)  Um the these these relationships don't last forever. Um, Bitcoin, uh, semiconductors are also now 30% of the NASDAQ. So, basically, the only game in town is semiconductors and and AI stocks. And I I've been talking to money managers. Most are underperforming. They can't keep up with their benchmarks. Some are chasing, some are sitting out.
(20:48) It's to be an active manager right now is a disaster because you have to basically be overweight. Yeah. the very narrow part of the market that's working. >> All right, let's uh let's bring it home on gold. Your technical road map still pointing to $10,000 gold uh longterm. What's the path there for you? Um Ed.
(21:11) >> Yeah. So, LA last year, the beginning of 2025, uh I did a couple um podcasts where I said gold was going to go to 4,000. it it by the end of the year went it went to 5,500 I believe and peaked out after it peaked out um people were asking me is this a parabolic top is it over and I said at the time no I think it's going to consolidate which is very healthy and that's what it's done so you know if you look it's not down yes >> if it was a parabolic top the losses would be a lot greater right now so it's consolidating sideways which technically
(21:45) is very healthy I don't know when how long that consolidation will last but I know when it's done, we're going to see $10,000 gold by 2030, which was I also made that call at the beginning of 2025. So, that call is intact. The fundamentals continue uh banks continue to accumulate, central banks continue to accumulate gold.
(22:08)  Commercial banks are accumulating gold because they made it tier one capital in July in the US. And uh we have voracious appetites on in retail in India and China and of course throughout the rest of the western world. So long-term gold fundamentals are good. That means that silver should follow eventually. But silver is way more volatile and it and is an industrial metal.
(22:32)  So be careful if we get if our economic downturn call is correct, which I believe it is. Si silver could be hurt more. Gold. Gold is I think long-term fun. >> You you mentioned a lot of wild cards. Could be any given Sunday. I >> Absolutely. Look, this this I you know I I did say uh on a um one or two podcasts when the markets were at their lows in the beginning of April, I said I have I have a I have a feeling that uh Trump is going to um you know issue a ceasefire or try to negotiate and that the stock market could rally and we could see new
(23:12) all-time highs. Well, we've seen new all-time highs, but it's been a very unhealthy concentrated new all-time highs. And the risk is I I I don't like calling crashes, and I'm not going to call one, but when when this corrects, I think the speed of this is going to alarm a lot of people. And remember, though, you never you never crash from the top.
(23:34)  We'll get a pullback, then a rally, and then that if that rally fails, that's when you got to worry. >> All good thoughts. Um, on a lighter note, Ed, I have to tell you, I thought of you uh uh during bedtime reading the other night with my sons who are totally into ocean uh ocean animals, ocean stories. And for some reason, the Bermuda Triangle came up.
(23:57) And then it was the first time they're hearing of the Bermuda Triangle. And of course, their curiosity and all these questions were coming up. And I was like, "Okay, I know apparently ships and planes went missing over the Bermuda Triangle, but they're like, "How, mom? How did that work?" And I was like, "Why do I wish why do I think Ed Dow would have a better explanation of the Bermuda Triangle?" >> Oh, that's a hard one.
(24:23)  Look, um, >> right, >> that's that, you know, look, as a child, I would watch Leonard Nemoy's In Search of and and that it was investigating anomalies across the world. The Bermuda Triangle was one of them. And it's been a mystery for for for decades. Where where do these ships go? Where do these planes go? Is there some sort of space-time vortex? You know, I I've come to believe that there's a lot of strange things in this world that we don't know about.
(24:53)  And uh you know, we're just and and you know, what's going on in the last and look the the White House is now talking about alien disclosure. There's a lot of things of how this the reality of our world is structured that I think has been hidden from us or uh been uh you know misunderstood for decades. >> Well, I'll make sure I'll let them watch the tail end of of this of this interview.
(25:16)  They'll be happy I brought up the Bermuda Triangle and I'll do my best to try and answer their questions. Um Ed Dow, thank you so much. It's always a treat having you on. >> Thank you for having me on, Daniela. >> And thank you all for watching. Happy weekend. We'll have more great content uh coming your way.