History and finance go hand in hand. Many of the problems we face today have been faced before. Our CEO Jan van Eck recently joined the Meb Faber Show to help provide historical context for current market themes. For example, the last time investors faced rising inflation with surging commodity prices was the 1970s. Jan outlines the importance of owning real assets and commodities in this type of environment and reiterates our view that we are in the early innings of a new commodity super cycle (8:24).
Jan also touched on another one of his key points from his market outlook: Growth and disruptive technologies like crypto are attractive, though richly valued. From a historical perspective, Jan discusses the parallels between gold and crypto (14:25, 32:47). In fact, at one point in time, it was illegal to invest directly in gold bullion, so people invested in gold miners instead. Sound familiar?
Other highlights of the discussion include:
- 22:57 – New economic models and being the first global asset manager to issue an NFT.
- 27:26 – Parallels between crypto and the wild cat banking era of the 19th century.
- 49:46 – Things he’s excited and nervous about as he looks out to the future.
- 54:24 – The importance of critical thinking and what he teaches students.
- 56:08 – Jan’s most memorable investment.
You can listen to the full podcast here: Meb Faber Show Episode #416: Jan van Eck, VanEck – Thematic Investing, Gold & Digital Assets, and Financial History.
Originally published by VanEck on 1 June 2022.
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