Wealthion, Released on 12/7/22

Like it or not, central bank policy remains a principal driver of asset prices in the financial markets today. This year the Federal Reserve and many other central banks reversed years of easy monetary policy and began hiking interest rates & tightening their balance sheets. One of the worst years ever for stocks & bonds has ensued. As recently as last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell answered comments for the public at the Brookings Institute and, given how they interpreted — or possibly misinterpreted — what they heard, the markets roared higher in response. So given its outsized influence, it’s always wise to pay close attention to the dynamics at the Fed and assess what it’s most likely to do next. To help us in that, we welcome noted Fed-watcher Axel Merk, President and Chief Investment Officer of Merk Investments to the program today.

Axel Merk is the Founder, President, Portfolio Manager, and CIO at Merk Investments LLC. He is an expert on qualitative research and macroeconomic trends. Mr. Merk is also an expert on macro trends, hard money, international investing, and on building sustainable wealth, and he is a pioneer in the use of strategic currency investing to seek diversification. He is a speaker and author on topics ranging from the economy, gold, and currencies to sustainable wealth and personal finance, as well as a regular guest and contributor to the business media around the world. Mr. Merk is an Author of the book Sustainable Wealth: Achieve Financial Security in a Volatile World of Debt and Consumption.

Adam Taggart is the Founder of Wealthion. He is also Co-Founder and former President of Peak Prosperity. Adam is an experienced Silicon Valley internet executive and Stanford MBA. Prior to partnering with Chris Martenson (Adam was General Manager of our earlier site, ChrisMartenson.com), he was a Vice President at Yahoo!, a company he served for nine years. Before that, he did the ‘startup thing’ (mySimon.com, sold to CNET in 2001). As a fresh-faced graduate from Brown University in the early 1990s, Adam got a first-hand look at all that was broken with Wall Street as an investment banking analyst for Merrill Lynch. Most importantly, he’s a devoted husband and dad.

  Fed, inflation, recession, stocks