The Equity Markets Are Insane Right Now | Jan van Eck

**Jan van Eck** (0:00)
The equity markets, and if you've seen semiconductors who have doubled in the last 12 months or more, or memory stock companies, the stocks of memory companies, excuse me, I mean, there's insanity going on in the equity market. So I do want to really, Adam, you and I have never, ever experienced the kind of appreciation that sectors of this market are providing and the related profit growth. So I want to walk through that.

**Adam Taggart** (0:38)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. When market uncertainty is as high as it is now, I often emphasize that the most useful people to interview are asset managers. Because they don't have the luxury of merely having an opinion on the road ahead, they've got to commit capital to their convictions and be judged upon the results.
Today, we've got the great fortune of having the return appearance of one of the most respected capital allocators in the business, Jan van Eck.
Jan is CEO of Van Eck, an asset management firm with over $230 billion in assets under management, invested across its wide families of ETFs and funds, spending equity, bond, commodity digital and regional asset classes. As we've done the past several quarters now, Jan and I will spend the next hour discussing his Q3 macro and market outlooks, as well as where he sees the biggest opportunities for investors right now. Jan, thanks so much for joining us today.

**Jan van Eck** (1:34)
It's great to be back Adam. We're really looking forward to these quarterly catch-ups.

**Adam Taggart** (1:38)
Me too, as is our audience. They've really gotten to look forward to them. Folks are very excited that you're here, Jan.
Happy 250th, by the way. We're talking just a couple of days after the nation's great celebration there on the 4th. I hope you and your family had a good one.

**Jan van Eck** (1:55)
I love history and two of my four children were born on the 4th of July, my twins.

**Adam Taggart** (2:05)
Sam and John, is that their names?
Wait a second, it's John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They both died on the 4th of July.

**Jan van Eck** (2:15)
Actually, one is named Theodore, but he's named after a president, but not a founder. It would have to be who hated each. My twins get along great, but Jefferson and Hamilton, I guess.
Right.

**Adam Taggart** (2:32)
But I think Jefferson and Adams both died on the same day, and it was July 4th.

**Jan van Eck** (2:40)
Fifty years after the signing of the Declaration.

**Adam Taggart** (2:43)
Declaration.

**Jan van Eck** (2:44)
To the day, it's so spooky that people never really mention it.

**Adam Taggart** (2:49)
I know. It really is one of the great coincidences of fate. But anyways, and last time you were on, if I recall correctly, actually you recommended a book for folks to go read.
I know you said 1776 was a book that you really liked about the founding of the country, but there was another one. I'm blanking on the title. But you are a big student of history, but of American history in particular.

**Jan van Eck** (3:11)
Yeah. I think it's, you know, so many people don't really kind of know the basics, and it's great to, a great excuse to go over the basic principles of our country, which of course are freedom, but also the balancing of power within the government, right? So that we don't go too crazy and the different branches kind of interact. And in a way that survived for 250 years, it's kind of amazing. The book that I was recommending or do recommend is Founding Brothers by Joseph Thomas.

**Adam Taggart** (3:42)
That's what it was.

**Jan van Eck** (3:43)
Because it kind of gets at the principles that people believed, but also a little bit the personalities without focusing too much on one founder or the military stuff, which, you know, I don't think is of lasting interest.

**Adam Taggart** (3:58)
Okay. I think I talked over you a bit. It's Founding Brothers by whom?

**Jan van Eck** (4:02)
Joseph Ellis.

**Adam Taggart** (4:04)
Joseph Ellis. Okay. Last part of this, folks, and then we'll get to the real meat of the discussion that you came here for.
But, you know, I've been, like many people, been reading up and brushing up on my Revolutionary War history leading up to the fourth. And it's amazing because there was, there was, you know, kind of just as much, I guess you could say disagreement and political friction and stuff going on back then as we've had sort of throughout American history.