The Competent Investor

The Competent Investor brings you deep-dive conversations with the world's top investors, economists, and market strategists. Every episode unpacks the macro forces shaping markets, reveals actionable insights, and delivers conversations that compound your understanding of where capital is flowing.

The Competent Investor is a business podcast hosted by Tom Bodrovics, with 117 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Tom Bodrovics hosts The Competent Investor, a business show with 117 episodes published.

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  The Competent Investor

  Tony Greer: Banana Skins & Moon Shots | Waiting for the Bond Market to Capitulate

  Oct 2, 202644 min

  Tom welcomes back trader Tony Greer to the show. Tony describes the current market as one of the most challenging environments he's ever navigated. He explains that a "perfect storm" of colliding weather systems is making trading exceptionally difficult. Elevated energy prices, driven by conflict with Iran and a persistently high diesel crack spread, are causing real-world inflation that isn't fully captured in headline data. This is exerting immense pressure on the bond market, which has broken out of a long-standing range to the downside, sending yields sharply higher. Greer points out that this dynamic is crushing the natural resources sector. A strong U.S. dollar, itself a product of higher rates, is knocking down commodities like gold, uranium, and rare earths, which have seen their recent rallies completely reverse. He notes that institutional money has likely fled these trades entirely. Meanwhile, the equity market is being led by a narrow group of technology stocks, particularly in semiconductors and AI, which seem completely detached from rising rates and fuel costs—a situation he finds unsustainable and reminiscent of the dot-com bubble, highlighting a sentiment top where a random retiree brags about her Nvidia stock. Looking ahead, Greer is adopting a defensive posture focused on survival. He is "slapping singles" by trading small, being disciplined with stops, and waiting for a clear macro signal. His immediate plan is to look for pullbacks in leading tech sectors for a safer entry. He dismisses the idea that the Federal Reserve is in a pickle, arguing its control over money supply and expectations gives it immense power to eventually engineer a turnaround. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:02:20 - Market Whipsaw and Challenges 00:04:22 - Inflation and Diesel Prices 00:07:00 - Bond Market Tailspin 00:09:10 - Bond Market Focus 00:14:30 - High Rates Market Pressure 00:17:55 - Fed Position and Policy 00:21:05 - Market Resilience and Sentiment 00:24:26 - Icarus Prints Explained 00:29:00 - Energy Crisis and Oil 00:36:11 - Impact on Miners and Firms 00:38:02 - AI Bubble and Passive Flows 00:41:10 - New Gold ETFs YASU 00:44:55 - New Financial Order & Real Assets 00:55:36 - Favorite Lessons & Mentors Guest: Tony Greer — Trader, Editor of 'The Morning Navigator', and Co-Founder of 'The Macrodirt Podcast' After graduating from Cornell University in 1990 Tony followed in his father’s footsteps to a Wall Street trading operation. He quickly learned his career path would be vastly different. He says, "I would not be sitting in the same seat on the same trading desk managing the same risk for the same firm for over 30 years." We have clearly entered a new era in financial markets. He began in the treasury department of Sumitomo Bank on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center downtown Manhattan. Tony was an FX trading assistant while the Quantum Fund was breaking the Bank of England in 1992. In 1993 he joined Union Bank of Switzerland as an FX and commodities trader, spending half a year as a Vice President in their Zurich treasury department. Then returned to New York City early in 1995 to join J. Aron & Company, the privately held commodity trading arm of Goldman Sachs. He managed risk for the Goldman Sachs Commodities Index, in precious and base metals trading, and futures and options trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. He started his first venture in 2000 – Machine Trading which happened right before the tech bubble burst. That decision was his first excruciating life lesson in market timing. It turned out to be an extremely valuable learning experience. He believes there is a massive opportunity with both the unprecedented situation in global markets and in the way financial news is consumed. In 2016, he started TG Macro, LLC. Conference Website X Substack YouTube The Competent Investor Markets, macro, and the minds that move money. Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles. RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app. Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter. X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary. YouTube — Full video episodes.

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  The Competent Investor

  David Murrin: Surviving the Shocks and Brutality of the West's Arrogance

  Sep 29, 202636 min

  In this discussion, global forecaster David Murrin outlines his view that conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Pacific are not isolated but a coordinated confrontation between democracies and an axis of autocracy led by China. He traces China's rise to a multi-decade strategy developed after the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, which involved seducing the West into moving its industrial base to China. This was coupled with systematic intellectual property theft and a military buildup, including island bases and anti-ship ballistic missiles designed to push U.S. aircraft carriers beyond their effective combat range. This area-denial bubble, now augmented by hypersonic weapons, has eroded decades of American military dominance. Iran has adopted similar tactics, using resilient missile architecture and cheap drones to challenge U.S. forces and allies, while depleting Western interceptor stockpiles that would be critical in a Pacific conflict. Murrin argues that higher defense budgets alone are insufficient; the West must prioritize innovation and adaptability over rigid systems. He points to Ukraine as a model of rapid adaptation, where lessons are immediately applied, unlike the slow-moving Western military-industrial complex. However, he warns that cognitive warfare, particularly from Russia, has induced societal paralysis in Western nations, leading to delayed responses and a dangerous collective delusion. This has left countries like the UK with degraded militaries and insufficient political will to rearm, making NATO vulnerable to mass-produced drone threats from a newly industrialized Russia. Economically, Murrin sees the world trapped in a hegemonic war cycle peaking around 2030, driving sustained inflation, higher commodity prices, and pressure on bond markets. He advises avoiding bonds and dollar-denominated assets, favoring precious metals as a safe haven. Despite the dire outlook, Murrin emphasizes building resilience, trusted sources of information, and hope, believing that free societies can ultimately prevail if they confront reality and demand protection from their governments. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:47 - China's Coordinated Strategy 00:05:09 - Dismantling US Military Dominance 00:09:11 - Innovation Over Defense Budgets 00:11:49 - Trump's Questioned Motivations 00:14:05 - UK Defense Negligence Exposed 00:17:01 - Gray War and Cognitive Warfare 00:19:44 - Cognitive Warfare on Populations 00:22:45 - Ukraine Visit and Adaptability 00:29:18 - Market and Economic Outlook 00:35:24 - Financial Reset and Multipolar World 00:37:45 - Investment Technologies Discussed 00:40:50 - Resilience and Mindset Advice 00:46:54 - Concluding Thoughts Guest: David Murrin — Global Forecaster and Author David Murrin began his unique career in the oil exploration business amongst the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the southwestern Pacific islands. There, he engaged with the numerous tribes of the Sepik River, exploring the mineral composition of the region. Before the age of adventure tourism, this region was highly dangerous, very uncertain and local indigenous groups were often hostile and cannibalistic. David's work with the PNG tribespeople catalyzed his theories on collective human behavior. In the early 1980s, David embarked on a new career, joining JP Morgan in London. Watching his colleges on the trading floors, he quickly identified modern society also behaved collectively. He was sent to New York on JPMs highly rated internal MBA equivalent finance program. Once back in London, he traded FX, bonds, equities, and commodities on JPMs first European Prop desk. In 1991, he founded and managed JPMs highly successful European Market Analysis Group, developing new behavioral investment techniques which were utilized to deploy and manage risk at the highest level of the bank. In 1993, David founded his first hedge fund, Apollo Asset Management, and, in 1997, co-founded Emergent Asset Management as CIO. His primary role was overseeing trading across all fund products as well as being particularly active in the firm's private equity business. He co-founded Emvest, Emergents African land fund, in 2008 and acted as its Chairman until its sale from the group in 2011. In addition, through Emergents Advisory Business, David was responsible for the critical fund-raising for Heritage Oil, allowing it to expand significantly by investing in its Uganda exploration program. He took full control of Emergent in 2011, combining his management of the Geomacro fund with the role of Chief Executive Officer until 2014. David has been described as a polymath and his career of more than three decades has been focusing on finding and understanding collective human behavioral patterns including deep-seated patterns in history and then using them to try and predict the future for geopolitics and markets in today's turbulent times. He has a remarkable track record. Davids advisory and future trends speaking are based on his direct investment experience combined with a framework that can be used to explain and qualify decisions within an investment team, aid risk assessment and reduce biases in collective investment decisions. In the desire to share his observations and predictive constructs, David has written four books. X Website Instagram The Competent Investor Markets, macro, and the minds that move money. Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles. RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app. Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter. X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary. YouTube — Full video episodes.

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  The Competent Investor

  Peter Alexander: China | America's Fiercest Competitor or Enemy

  Sep 23, 202629 min

  Peter Alexander, an American investor with 30 years of on-the-ground experience in China, argues that Western perceptions are polarized and often miss the nuance of China’s strategic direction. He was prompted to speak publicly by a sense of civic duty, seeing a need for a more balanced, non-conventional perspective amid a debate dominated by collapse narratives or hegemonic rivalry. Alexander traces the shift in American attitudes from indifference to resentment after the 2008 global financial crisis and the Trump era, noting that China’s resilience-focused policies—like massive debt restructuring rather than consumer stimulus—are often misread as economic weakness. He explains that China’s model emphasizes building strategic optionality: developing alternative financial infrastructure like the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and gold settlement mechanisms not to replace the dollar, but to mitigate risk of sanctions, as seen after Western actions against Russia and Iran. This multipronged approach, from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to BRICS, reflects a longstanding effort to create a multipolar world without direct confrontation. Alexander challenges the narrative of an imminent Taiwan invasion, suggesting the 2027 timeline was a manufactured controversy Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:33 - Wife's Push Into Debate 00:05:37 - Journey From Wall Street 00:08:12 - Changing US Attitudes To China 00:14:30 - No Stimulus Debt Restructuring 00:20:07 - Deconstructing Rivalry Essay 00:25:53 - Manufacturing Outsourcing Dynamics 00:34:54 - Surveillance State Misconceptions 00:38:28 - 1996 Geopolitical Awakening 00:44:41 - Strategic Optionality BRICS 00:52:15 - Gold Settlement System SIPS 01:11:26 - Gold Attitudes And Standards 01:29:30 - AI Development Realities 01:47:48 - Party Politics And Purges 01:57:26 - Concluding Thoughts Guest: Peter Alexander Peter Alexander is a veteran of China’s financial markets with a career that began as a China analyst on Wall Street before relocating to Shanghai in 1996. During his first decade in China, Peter led the local business units for several large American financial groups. It was during his last corporate position, project managing the establishment of a joint venture, where he recognized the growing demand for genuine unfiltered and independent China market insights. It was at that point, in 2004, when Peter established Z-Ben Advisors, a boutique advisory practice servicing C-suite and portfolio decision makers. Peter’s clients include globally recognized investors, managers and multinationals. Throughout Peter’s tenure residing in China, he’s maintained a minimal public profile preferring to exclusively center on direct client engagement. That changed in 2025 as it became clear that the rise and growing reach of “China macro influencers” were dispensing with grossly errant, or at a minimum woefully incomplete, views on China. To counter this, Peter began accepting media requests making numerous appearances on CNBC and Bloomberg where he pointedly counters or expands upon the conventional China talking points. Substack Essay The Competent Investor Markets, macro, and the minds that move money. Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles. RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app. Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter. X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary. YouTube — Full video episodes.

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  The Competent Investor

  Rick Rule: Unlocking the Power of Compounding in Resources and the Importance of Long-Term Thinking

  Sep 17, 202644 min

  Rick Rule, president and CEO of Rule Investment Media, argues that a sustained decline in the purchasing power of the US dollar is inevitable due to the staggering $40 trillion in on-balance-sheet and $120 trillion in off-balance-sheet liabilities. He explains that while short-term interest rate hikes may temporarily strengthen the dollar, the political class will ultimately choose to inflate away these obligations rather than default, setting the stage for a replay of the 1970s inflationary era. In this environment, he positions physical gold as the primary savings defense, with high-quality gold stocks like Franco-Nevada and Agnico Eagle serving as a leveraged investment layer that historically outperforms bullion. He warns that speculative junior mining stocks require significant work, expertise, and psychological tolerance for volatility. The discussion extends to the broader resource sector, where decades of underinvestment have created structural supply deficits in commodities like copper and uranium. Rule notes that these deficits cannot be quickly resolved, making price rationing inevitable. For uranium specifically, he highlights strong fundamentals driven by Japanese reactor restarts and long-term contracting, though he cautions that the market’s progress is often misaligned with speculators’ short-term expectations. Regarding silver, he emphasizes that its major price moves are historically led by generalist investor inflows following gold’s momentum, rather than industrial demand alone. He also sees contrarian value in Canadian oil and gas, citing geopolitical tensions and fiscal necessity. Rule concludes by advising investors to distinguish between savings, investment, and speculation, urging them to limit speculative holdings to the number of hours they can dedicate to diligent research. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:15 - Dollar Value and Washington 00:05:23 - Deflation Versus Inflation Forces 00:08:13 - Gold Commodities and Resources 00:10:50 - Gold Stocks in 1970s 00:13:20 - Interest Rates Impact on Gold 00:16:48 - Geopolitics and Energy Security 00:21:47 - Uranium Market Dynamics 00:27:06 - Uranium Production Deficit 00:34:08 - Silver Supply Realities 00:39:51 - Canadian Oil and Gas 00:42:40 - Investing in Resource Companies 00:52:36 - Resource Bull Market Outlook 00:55:05 - Wrap Up Guest: Rick Rule — Investor, Speculator, Founder & CEO of Rule Investment Media Rick Rule has dedicated his entire adult life to many aspects of natural resources securities investing. Besides the knowledge and experience gained in a long and focused career, he has a global network of contacts in the natural resources and finance sectors. Mr. Rule is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and is regularly interviewed for radio, television, print, and online media outlets concerning natural resources investment and industry topics. Prominent natural resources-oriented newsletters and advisories frequently quote him. Mr. Rule and his team have expertise in many resource sectors, including agriculture, alternative energy, forestry, oil and gas, mining, and water. X Website YouTube Classroom Battle Bank The Competent Investor Markets, macro, and the minds that move money. Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles. RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app. Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter. X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary. YouTube — Full video episodes.

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  The Competent Investor

  John Rubino: The Debt Spiral Endgame Has Begun | Are You Prepared?

  Sep 15, 202642 min

  Tom Bodrovics welcomes back former Wall Street analyst John Rubino for a discussion on the incoherence between Federal Reserve and Treasury policies, with the Fed signaling possible rate hikes while the Treasury intervenes to suppress long-term yields. Rubino argues this contradictory approach signals a loss of confidence in fiat currencies and points toward a global debt spiral, exacerbated by $10 trillion in U.S. debt refinancing this year and reduced foreign demand, particularly from Japan. He sees precious metals as ultimate beneficiaries once governments resort to aggressive yield curve control, leading to a monetary reset likely backed by gold. Silver benefits from both monetary and industrial demand, especially in solar and batteries. Copper also stands to gain from electrification and AI-driven power needs. Rubino highlights diesel prices and the Iran conflict as underappreciated inflation drivers, and warns of a frozen housing market with three groups of potential forced sellers: baby boomers, Airbnb owners, and Wall Street landlords, which could trigger a 30-40% price decline. He also flags private equity risks in commercial real estate and insurance. For investors, he recommends starting with large-cap miners and gradually moving down the market cap ladder, using dollar cost averaging and put options for protection. Despite near-term recession risks, Rubino points to optimistic developments in longevity research, next-generation batteries, and cheap solar energy as potential long-term positives. Overall, the discussion emphasizes an accelerating global debt crisis, incoherent policy responses, and the need for defensive positioning in hard assets. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:00:13 - Fed and Treasury Incoherence 00:06:40 - Higher Rates Impact on Gold 00:09:50 - Silver's Dual Industrial Role 00:12:38 - Diesel Prices and Recession Risk 00:15:07 - Geopolitical Energy Disruptions 00:18:05 - Agriculture Drought and El Nino 00:23:50 - Monetary Reset Discussion 00:27:14 - AI Catalyst and Concerns 00:30:38 - US Debt Spiral Bailout 00:32:29 - Housing Market Freeze 00:38:18 - Private Equity Risks 00:41:23 - Copper Miners Investment Strategies 00:45:34 - Picking a Portfolio of Miners 00:54:22 - Recession & Future Risks Guest: John Rubino — Former Wall Street Analyst, & Publisher John Rubino Substack John Rubino is a former Wall Street financial analyst and author or co-author of five books, including The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops. He founded the popular financial website DollarCollapse.com in 2004 and sold it in 2022, and now publishes on Substack. Substack Books The Competent Investor Markets, macro, and the minds that move money. Website — Full episodes, charts, heatmaps, and guest profiles. RSS Feed — Subscribe in any podcast app. Substack — Exclusive deep dives and newsletter. X / Twitter — Real-time market commentary. YouTube — Full video episodes.

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