[00:00:01] Speaker A: You're listening to PTC point of view brought to you by preferred trust company, the preferred custodian for all alternative investments. We're here to provide retirement savers like you with the tools you need to succeed. Need a confidence boost when it comes to investing outside of the stock market? Do you want the power to build a tax sheltered nest egg that will last through your golden years? You've come to the right place. Turn up your speakers and turn off cruise control because we're taking you on the alternate route to investing with your IRA.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hi. Welcome, everybody. We are here today with Mark Yaxley. Am I pronouncing that correct?
[00:00:44] Speaker C: You are.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Thank you. Co founder of SWP. So thank you so much for joining us today. And the reason why we brought you here is because we really need to do a deeper dive into the precious metals industry, and I'm hoping that you can help us through that process today.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: I'm glad to help.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming and myself. I am Kerry Cook, the CEO of preferred trust company. We're going to start today by talking a little bit about how individuals can invest in precious metals through a self directed IRA. And then we're going to kind of switch gears over to the precious metals industry and what people should be looking for as it pertains to a precious metals dealer and how that whole process kind of takes place.
Let's get started.
First of all, let's talk about preferred trust company for just a second because I think it's important for all of our listeners to understand exactly what a custodian is, what they do, what we stand for, and maybe most importantly, just knowing that you can actually use your self directed IRA with alternative investments and what a self directed IRA is and why it's so important and why we need to know about it. First and foremost, there is 13 trillion, $13 trillion in iras.
Half of that is in self directed iras. So obviously, alternative investments are very interesting to people. Now, what are they investing in when it comes to self directed alternative assets? And ironically, precious metals is one of the highest held alternative investments, second to real estate.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: You're listening to PTC point of view brought to you by preferred trust company.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: So, SWP, the story of SWP.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Who are you? What do you guys do? Where'd you come from?
Why do you do what you do? Why do you love what you do?
[00:02:40] Speaker C: Right. So, well, I'll start with I love what I do because I think it legitimately actually helps people. I think that there's great value in having a portion of your portfolio in assets that will gain value and stabilize your portfolio over a long period of time.
There are other ways to earn quicker returns than to invest in gold. And the first thing we usually tell our investors is don't buy gold to make money, buy gold to protect money or wealth that you've already worked hard for and you want to preserve and realize return on over time. So first piece of advice when you get into precious metals is don't expect to make a killing day trading physical precious metals. That's not what this is. This is like buying, buying real estate, which I know is another specialty of preferreds, is you're looking at long term wealth preservation, long term returns. So that's just, you know, basic one on one. If you've never even thought about investing in precious metals, how do I position that in my overall portfolio? And, you know, again, we're happy to talk about that during the conversations a little bit about us. SWP was started in 2014. I've personally been in the field since 2006. But in 2014, we decided to start an offshore company that specialized in selling precious metals and storing precious metals, because we saw that in the north american space, there was really, or in the western hemisphere, I should say. There was nobody doing it. You had to go to Switzerland or to Singapore to find that kind of expertise where company could complete transactions and store assets offshore. Now, we do work in the us domestic market. We can talk more about that, but that's really where SWP started. So we're headquartered in the Cayman island. It's not a PO box company. This is a brick and mortar business owned and operated in the Cayman Islands. And we sell and buy precious metals from our clients clients. And we also operate a vault that we built ourselves. And we store their gold and silver inside of that vault. So that's who we are at a court. It's a very, very simple business. We talk about gold and silver all day long. We move it around the world for our clients. We sell it to them, we store it for them. And Iras are a part of that business. We work with custodians like preferred to offer american investors the opportunity to own gold and silver inside their self directed at IRAs. And we're one of very few offshore companies that does that.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Why do you think you're one of very few?
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Well, that trend of having the ability to hold gold and silver in a self directed IRA in an offshore facility only began to my knowledge about ten years ago. I remember seeing it for the first time. I think it was a vault in Switzerland that was offering at the time, and you could hold one product, which was gold eagles, and it was like a game changer in our industry.
Nobody's ever done this before. We realized once we had established our vault in Cayman that there was an opportunity to work with american custodians. That's why we got involved. But why there aren't more doing it? Probably because there aren't that many good storage facilities. Vault operators like us in the western hemisphere, there are very few. This is something that Europeans do well. Companies in Asia do this very well, but here in the western hemisphere, there's very few companies like ours.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: It's wonderful. Opportunity strikes.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: Niche business indeed. Yeah.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: So give us a little bit of location where you guys are at, services that you provide. You've mentioned a few of them. There's a lot more on the screen.
[00:05:47] Speaker C: So a lot's changed since 2014. When we started, everything that we did was focused on the Cayman Islands. So when we were selling precious metals to our clients, we were taking delivery of 99% of that metal to the Cayman Islands and storing it inside of our physical vault that we own and operate there. Since then, we've evolved quite a bit as a company. We now deliver to homes and businesses in the US and in Canada, and we also offer ten other vaulting locations worldwide, including four in the United States. So the business has expanded a lot, and Iras is an important part of that, so not to lose focus on what we're talking about today. But, yes, the business has changed quite a bit. We offer safe deposit box storage. We offer fully segregated and allocated storage, which is when you have an IRA account, that's how your metal is stored. You have your own bin. All of the coins and bars that you bought specifically are put in that bin. That bin is sealed, put on the shelf and audited once a year. So, yeah, it's not a complicated business. Not as exciting, maybe, as some of the other stuff that you guys touch on, but it's still really important to do it well. And that's why we've excelled in our field.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's rare for us, at least in our industry, to find dealers that are also storage providers.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: Very rare.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: So why?
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Why? That's a good question. I think the model is. So I'll tell you the story. So you know this as a business operator, if you listen to your clients, they'll tell you exactly what they want.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:08] Speaker C: So we started SWP in 2014, and we were only going to be evolved. It was going to be a very simple business. We build this really safe building. We get a good insurance policy from Lloyds, and we're going to, we're going to count on third parties to deliver precious metals to our vault and we'll bill the clients accordingly. Well, about two weeks into that, a client called up and said, well, can I buy the metal from you as well? Because I'd like to only deal with one company.
And I said, well, yeah, that's pretty straightforward. That's pretty obvious. Now fast forward all of the trading lines that you need to be able to satisfy. That kind of requests were established. And now clients can buy with us and store with us, which means one less relationship that they have to manage, one trusted partner that they can work with less risk and less risk, and also the ease of transaction, the liquidity, which is super important when you want to get something done. You know, it's a live market, right. So the price is dropping, the price is increasing. I want to get this done. I want it in the vaulting facility as quickly as possible. Well, I can work with a company that can do both of those things instead of having two different relationships to manage. So that's why we did it. Yeah, I can't believe more companies haven't done that. But a lot of companies domestically in the US that do advertise that they both sell metal and store metal, don't actually own and operate the vault. Yeah, they, they farm that out to another company like ours.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Hey, good, take advantage of both sides. Yeah, that's what you should do. That's what the customers are asking for.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: So what, what are we selling right now? I say, I don't want to say pushing. I was about to say pushing, but there's so many different things out there that are being sold right now. And I have to tell you, it's a little confusing.
[00:08:44] Speaker C: Right. And I was saying this for me, I was saying to you earlier, it's actually, and I mean this, it is truthfully one of the most straightforward investments you'll ever make. There is some basic education required, and that's our job. So when you call us, first of all, on our website, we only carry about 30 product skus. Most dealers will have 200, 300 product skus, or selling rare coins, collectible coins, graded coins. We don't do any of that. And not to say there's not a market for some of those things, we just don't feel that that's where the best value is for our investors. So we focus on the best selling, most reputable, recognizable liquid products on the market. That's really where our focus is. So by eliminating 90% of the clutter, you really start to focus in on the best choices. And what does that mean for investors when they're investing in gold and silver and or platinum or palladium? Not to be forgotten, often forgotten. Platinum and palladium. They have to decide after they've decided what amount of money they want to invest. The conversation is what types of metal or what type of metal. Maybe it's one, maybe it's two. Maybe you diversify amongst the metals.
Once you've answered that question. Maybe you have an allocation, for example, of 60% gold, 40% silver, which is pretty typical. That's probably something you see on average with investors. Then you start focusing in on the products, and that's what I think is a little bit overwhelming for some people. What is the best product to buy it? What is the best product to. What's the best deal? What's the worst deal? And those are things that we help our clients with. And usually we base that on what we call the premium or the total spread, which is. It's simple math. It's calculating above the international spot price of gold or silver. How much am I going to pay for this barcoin?
And we will generally point our clients in the direction of the products that have the lowest premium or total spread on the buy sell transaction, because one day they might liquidate, take a distribution. So you have to think ahead a little bit. But that is the conversation we'll have. And it's super simple math. We walk you through it. We'll even tell you which products have the best total spread, and we'll try to educate you. And once you've made that purchase and you know the money is then sent from preferred, like you said, it's a buy and hold type investment. You don't have to revisit this all that often unless you're going to continue contributing to the IRA, which, like you said, is probably a good idea.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Continue buying, hopefully. Why would you stop?
You're hoping they don't, right?
[00:11:04] Speaker C: Well, there might be a time. There might be a time. Precious metals do appreciate in value. And I think one of the mistakes a lot of precious metal investors do make is they. They're very loyal to gold and silver. You've come across in dealing with some of the clients that we have, they forget there is an exit strategy and they should plan ahead. And they should know that, hey, if this investment triples or quadruples in value, well, hey, maybe I should think about liquidating some of that or taking a distribution if the timing is right for that.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's the whole point of this, right? We're planning for retirement.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: I think we've talked about this. Why you're different. But over the last year, I have had an opportunity to take a deeper dive into the precious metals industry as a whole. From a custodian's perspective of clients buying metals at what I believe to be a price that is a little too high. So when we talk about you being different, one of the reasons why I've asked you to come here today is because I have noticed that you guys are quite different when it comes to pricing and delivery. Delivery, I think, is a no brainer. Right. Because you solve the problem because you started as being storage, you solve the problem by also selling it. So moving it to the storage side of things, you kind of alleviated some of that. Now, granted, there are time delays and those sorts of things. So can we focus our attention more on pricing for just a second? Sure. And what is reasonable pricing for metals, keeping in mind that everybody needs to make money along the way. I don't discredit that whatsoever. But what is the right price to pay if you're a client out there looking to invest in metals?
[00:12:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So it can vary a little bit depending on the market conditions. When the demand for precious metals is very high, the premiums on those products will increase with that demand. So because there's a higher. It's like anything. It's a basic supply and demand rule. There's a higher demand for any particular commodity. The manufacturers, the wholesalers, the retailers will all be able to earn a little bit more. So those are very healthy years for precious metal dealers. But the variation should not be 10, 20, 30. You mentioned earlier, 60% above the spot price. That's ridiculous. That's theft. It's outright theft. And when dealers like myself, ourselves, see that, it legitimately makes us angry to know that there are players in the industry that are taking advantage of people. So the answer is, what should people be willing to pay? I would say on gold products, the range would be somewhere between a premium of 3% and on the high end, the very, very highest end. Maybe it's those gold eagle coins that everybody loves in America. Happens to be one of the most expensive products they could buy. That's about 10% on the high end. On the high end, in a hot market that can come down, in a cool market, that'll be like five or 6% for those 1oz gold eagles. And you could get gold bars for as low as 2%, one and a half percent over spot, which is super reasonable for a physical commodity.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:55] Speaker C: Considering all the manufacturers, the refining, the transportation, all that.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:59] Speaker C: On the silver side, silver is always going to cost you more. In premium terms, you're probably going to have a range of somewhere from about four or 5% up to about 15% for some coins in a hot market. But if you're paying above that, you're really cutting into your return. So that's why we talked. We talked earlier, touched on the idea of keeping your premium low, keeping your total spreads as low as. Because as an investor, first of all, less premium you're paying, the more money you can invest in product.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Agree?
[00:14:26] Speaker C: The more ounces for your dollar. My mentor taught me. Right.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: And also it takes you less time to have your Roi earned on those products. So you definitely, especially in an IRA, I think it's extremely important to try to reduce your premiums as much as possible. Yeah. And we guide our clients through that process of picking those products.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: So why do you think there's other precious metals dealers out there domestically charging so much? Why are they charging?
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Do you want the honest, unfiltered answer? Any industry, I'm sure, in your field, you mentioned earlier, not all custodians are created equally. It's the same in our industry. There are greedy people that are out in our industry. They take advantage of elderly investors generally. When you're talking about self directed iras, these are more mature people. These are people that are 50, 55, 65 years old. And if they don't have a basic education or understanding of precious metals, they do become someone easy prey for a precious metals dealer who's looking to rip people off.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: So it's really unfortunate. And the good news is it doesn't have to happen. There are good, legitimate you, like you said, you've looked into these relationships that you formed, and the numbers don't lie. That's the nice thing about metal is.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: If you look at the spot price and you calculate the difference and you put that in percentage terms and you stick to those rules we just talked about, you'll be okay.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: Great.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: You'll be fine.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad to know that there are precious metals dealers out there like you guys, that are not preying on the elderly, because that's the last thing that preferred trust wants to stand for. I know that we are not here to give investment advice, but we know the difference between right and wrong. And so we need to make sure that we're working together to combat against that, to make sure that that's not happening to people. And I don't want that to happen to anybody.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: I appreciate that about you.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: When we think about our parents and we think about, you know, somebody preying on them, it just. It's. It's aggravating. It's aggravating. So we're here to stop that. And I'm glad that we're working with somebody that is not doing that to those individuals. So. So thank you for taking that. That high road. And maybe you can teach some of the domestic precious metals dealers that we can come down on price and we can still make money.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: Well, and that's an important point. You know, we are based in the Cayman Islands.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Speaker C: Most of our staff is actually either american or canadian, ironically. But we do deliver to us domestic vaults. So if you wanted to store your self directed IRA metals in Delaware or in Texas, those are also vaults that we can deliver to. So.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Great.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Don't feel that you need to be pigeonholed into offshore IRA storage with us. We also service domestic clients.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Wonderful. Yeah. I don't know that any of our viewers will care where they're buying from. Right. But where. Where it's housed is important. So I'm glad to hear that you guys have expanded that horizon to make that option available domestically as well. Interesting, because you started as storage, and now you're like, do you think you'll ever come to the US?
[00:17:15] Speaker C: Oh, that's a good question. Being incorporated in the Cayman Islands and being regulated by the Department of Commerce and Investment in Cayman has advantages, a lot of it on the corporate tax side, obviously, Cayman is a tax free jurisdiction, a little bit like Nevada in the sense you have reduced taxes here. So there are advantages in doing that. It is well regulated, but I would say it's not overly regulated, which is actually a good position to be in as a business owner and operator, you can imagine it allows us to have a little bit more flexibility. And also our clients privacy and confidentiality is something that a lot of precious metal investors are looking for. And so that is an advantage that we have over our competitors, which in certain states have to disclose a lot of information about their clients transactions. We don't have to disclose any of that. Now, I know with qualified funds, there's obviously a record held with the custodian, and there has to be. But from the dealer side of things, it does allow us to offer a little bit more privacy and confidentiality.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: I like that I like. That gives them another option. Yeah, it definitely gives them another option.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: If it's important to them, then why not?
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Why not, right.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Why are precious metals a good investment?
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Sell me. I want you to sell me on why I should invest in precious metals.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: Two part answer. 2008 financial crisis. So let's go back. This is a real life example of what precious metals do. 2008 financial crisis ran through about 2011. The average investor lost about 30% to 40% of their net worth, either in the housing market, the equities market. Crushing.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:18:39] Speaker C: Especially for older, elder people, fixed income earners. Terrible. Gold during that three year period went up 140%. Silver went up 400%. So if you owned or you, why.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Did it go up?
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Because gold and silver. When did gold and silver do well? Gold and silver do well during times of crisis. It's unfortunate, but bad news is good for gold and silver.
So that's a. That's the best real life example I can give. The second best real life example was Covid. So going back to this is like early 2020. I hate to bring up the word, it feels taboo now to even say, but early 2020, March 2020, the markets crash. They go down like 20, 30% in like a two week, three week period. Everyone's panicking. The world is shutting down. It's a government mandated shutdown. This time it's different from 2008 because now it's a government saying, we're closing everything.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:28] Speaker C: Trade is stopping. Oil crashes. Gold goes up 35% a week, silver goes up 50% a week. So those are real life examples. You can go look at those on the charts and you'll see. You'll see the spikes. They have a negative correlation to the equities market. So diversification. And on a long term basis, why gold and silver? It's wealth preservation. So gold and silver don't pay you interest, they don't pay you a dividend. They might cost you money to put in storage facilities. So a lot of people are like, well, why would I do that? You do that because you're not buying gold and silver to make money, you're buying gold and silver to preserve money. And you're like, well, when. Go back to 2008 and 2011. Go back to the COVID crisis. That's when gold and silver were preserve capital that you've already earned.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: So you're not buying it to make money, you're buying it to preserve money.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: So I would say to you, you know, a phenomenal example of why you should buy gold and silver is you take those crisis moments, which are going to keep happening. You know that. That's just natural progression of the world. Right. We're going to have those crisis moments. But when you're 65 years old and you just retired, and a week later, the pandemic happens. If you would have had 20, 30%, I don't know, maybe people have more in precious metals, you'd be feeling a lot better, wouldn't you?
[00:20:42] Speaker C: You would. And that's the message. Don't wait for the next crisis to happen, because that's what most investors do. The crisis occurs, then they rush into gold and silver. The price has already gone up, premiums have gone up, because everybody wants it all of a sudden.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:20:53] Speaker C: It's a fairly small market, so when demand escalates by 50%, the whole market squeezes. Supply becomes difficult to get. So prepare yourself, prior, and if you want to know what that ideal number is, there's a study that was done by the CPM group out of New York, and it was based on data from the 1970s up through the early two thousands on the ideal amount of gold and silver to hold in a well diversified portfolio, which means equities, real estate, bonds, cash.
It was between 18% to 22%.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: All right, so I wasn't too far off.
[00:21:24] Speaker C: You weren't. You actually know you're right on.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: So really, everybody should be planning to have precious metals in their portfolio.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: Yes. And sadly, only about 3% of Americans own physical gold and silver. It's. It's. It's really a number. It used to be much higher.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: And it's not because digital currency. Currency came along. It's not because bitcoin arrived on the scene that people stopped buying gold. It's simply a lack of education. Our industry needs to do a better job of educating investors on how easy it is, because there is a misconception. It's hard. It's actually so easy.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Yes. We just proved it.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: I couldn't do this if it was hard.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Trust me, it's easy.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: And there's also a misconception. You have to be wealthy. And that's the first thing, or second thing I would dispel is that we have clients who are 18 years old. Our minimum is $5,000 to invest. But a lot of dealers, you know, your local coin shop doesn't have a minimum. You can walk in there and buy 1oz of silver. So I would encourage people to start young. I wish I'd started younger. I started when I was 26. It served my family very well, but I would have started when I was 16. If I had known it was a great investment.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think you've proven that it's a good investment.
Does SWP have a minimum purchase requirement? And I want to ask why you have a minimum purchase requirement.
[00:22:38] Speaker C: Okay, I'll give you the honest. So we do. It's either 3oz of gold or 200oz of silver, which is more or less about $5,000. Okay. Why do we have a minimum? We would love to service everyone who wanted gold and silver, but from a profitability standpoint, it is not profitable to sell 1oz of silver as a company. The margins, yeah, the net margins on a dealer who's not ripping people off is about 2% on a trade.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:05] Speaker C: So you know, if you're selling $25 worth of silver, 2% of $25, I, you know, you're talking pennies on the dollar. It's not enough to survive. So we've figured that that is the number that we're comfortable with. And also you have to think of it from the investors point of view. If you're always, I'm not saying don't do this to get started, but as a mature investor, if you're just buying one coin at a time, you're gonna end up paying the highest product premiums. Whereas if you can bundle purchases together, get 10oz instead of getting ten coins, you get 110 ounce bar or 100 ounce silver bar or a thousand ounce silver bar. When you go up in scale, it's like buying anything in volume. You save money, you save premium. So it's actually an advantage for investors to try to save up a little bit and bulk their purchases together. Otherwise the dealer will kind of nickel and dime them on those small purchases.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: I know you're saying 5000 is a lot, but I'm just going to put something in perspective. I'm going to go back to the. If you pass on the cup of coffee every single day for 365 days, you can make a $6,000 contribution.
[00:24:07] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: And your minimum is 5000. Do you know what I hear more often than not from the younger generation? I don't have enough to invest with. You've just proven that wrong. You absolutely do have enough to invest with.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: I used to invest in my wardrobe when I was younger. That was my big problem. That was your thing.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: That was your thing. So I mean, at any age 18 and above, you can do this.
[00:24:31] Speaker C: I think so.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: This is a possibility.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: And honestly, if you can't afford the 5000 with SWP, and like you said, it's not that much money, then go to your local coin dealer and start getting those coins. But if you're a mature investor, it's not that much money, honestly.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Describe to me your typical client.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: You ready?
[00:24:49] Speaker C: That's a generalization right there.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: That's a generalization.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Our demographic average age is 55. So it's on the, it's on the mature side. About 80% male, 20% female. Mostly Americans and or Canadians. But we service the american investor base. That's our bread and butter. These are people that are generally business owners, entrepreneurial, contrarian in nature. That's probably what the biggest thing that sets them apart is. They don't necessarily love the government.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:18] Speaker C: And or the banking system. They're looking. That's why they're in the alternative investment field. They're looking for tangible, hard assets like real estate, things that they can own and hold themselves, uh, because they don't necessarily trust paper contracts, third parties leverage programs, commingled assets. So some of the smartest people I've ever met in my life.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Actually it's. That's been the biggest blessing is the exposure to very intelligent contrarian thinkers who make you second guess.
[00:25:44] Speaker B: They do, don't they?
[00:25:44] Speaker C: Things, yes. And they're not always right. Don't get me wrong.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: I know, but their conspiracy theories sometimes make you go, hmm.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Make you stop and think. Yeah, they really do. I hope that that answers the question.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's, that's a typical, that's a typical client. That makes sense.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: Why do people, why did domestic clients want an offshore storage option? So it boils down to they're uncomfortable for a variety of reasons in their domestic situation. So for Americans, we'll focus on Americans because it can change. If you live in Mexico, you might worry about security, physical security. It's not that safe in the states. Generally, the biggest concern is government overreach. A large government, a bloated government, a struggling financial, from a financial point of view. So people are worried about government overreach. They're worried about confiscation. We don't necessarily push that dialogue out to our clients. I don't personally believe that the us government is going to start kicking down doors and stealing people's gold. But the point is, why do people go offshore? Typically, it's because they have a concern. And for other people who aren't necessarily concerned about government overreach or thinking someone's going to steal their golden, it's that they don't want to have all their eggs in one basket. They want to be geodiversified. So it's geodiversification is a simple concept of mitigating risk by placing assets in other jurisdictions. And there are certain jurisdictions in the world that are perhaps better positioned to safekeep those assets, the Cayman Islands being one of them, Singapore being another, Switzerland being another. So if you're a somewhat wealthy american, maybe you don't want to have all of your assets here in Nevada or in Florida or in New York. And so you might start looking at other parts of the world where you could put some of those assets. And that's one of the reasons that our clients come to us.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it makes perfect sense if you really start breaking it down in that regard. Makes perfect sense.
You've been doing such a good job of running this little podcast. You should just keep going, read your question.
[00:27:38] Speaker C: I'm excited. So does SWP have a presence domestically? Yes. Well, so I'll start by saying our head office and all transactions are processed through our Cayman Islands head office.
So what does that mean for somebody buying or selling? It means we're not reporting your purchases or your sales or your storage. For non IRA, this is non qualified. We're not reporting to any foreign or local authorities. So in Cayman, we don't have to declare to any local authorities what our clients are buying and selling, which in certain states, you have to report that. But we do drop ship through a us based supplier to homes and businesses in the US. We drop ship to four vaults here in the US. We offer storage store clients in four vaults here in the US. So we don't have a physical presence in the US, but we do service american investors. Yes.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: So there's a domestic presence.
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess you could say we service them, but the presence is not. We do not have an office here in the United States. No.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Okay. That's all right. We're okay with that. We're still getting the education.
[00:28:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: All right, I have one more question.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: That I think might. I don't know if you're going to be able to describe this verbally in a way that I think we visually might need to see this. I want you to take the gold from the mine to the home.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: In the most simplistic way, because I think one thing, you know, we spent a little time beating up the pricing. Right. But the reality is it gets to that price for certain reasons. Would you agree? And sometimes. Yep. The elevation of those prices changes at certain times for a reason. So explain to me kind of how we get to the value of a metal from mine to home.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: Wow. That is a tough question, but a good one. So the process, the supply chain. We'll start with the supply chain is actually pretty straightforward. So mining. So there's these large multinational companies, some smaller, some bigger, that mine in Canada, the United States, China, Africa.
Those are strong mining jurisdictions. These guys work really, really hard, and they do, unfortunately, destroy quite a bit of earth to uncover minerals and metals and rare earths and things like that. It's a reality. I don't think anyone's proud of having to do that, but it's reality. So they pull it out of the ground. The next stop for that very raw product is going to be a refinery. So, like the us mint, the Royal canadian mint, Hamp, Swiss, Credit Swiss. Well, Credit Suisse has another refinery, but another company. But these refiners take that raw ore and refine it into 99.99% pure metal. And I've been to these places before. It is probably one of the most impressive transformations of anything. They take this something that doesn't look like it's worth anything.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:32] Speaker C: To when it. When they. They put that finished product in your hand at the end of a 60 step process.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:30:38] Speaker C: It's one of the most beautiful and powerful things you've ever held, because, you know, inherently, it's very valuable. You just know when you have it in your hand, and because when you grew up, you probably saw your grandmother with a gold necklace and your grandfather at Goldberg. So, as humans, we recognize the value in precious metals, and when you have it in your hands, you really understand why it is valuable and so rare and important. So from there, from the refinery, it will go to a distributor. There's. In the United States, there's probably five really large distributors, basically one in the east Coast, New York, Florida, Texas, west Coast, northwest. And those guys will sell to retailers like us, and then we will sell to retail investors. So it's not a very long supply chain, but during that supply chain, a lot goes down. And between every step, you have transportation of the material. It's a physical commodity. It costs money. So that's where that premium, like in that we talked about earlier, like that two to 3% for gold. That's where everyone earns a living, believe it or not, from the mine to the. To the retail onto the investor. So it's very tight margins, I can tell you that. But it's important to know that even with all of that happening, you can still get a good deal and not pay 60% over spot for your product.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. Any other questions I should ask you? Anything you really think people need to know that we're not addressing.
[00:31:58] Speaker C: Oh, jeez. Well, I would. I would say this if you want to learn more about gold and silver, we did an educational video series called Inside the vault, which is filmed inside of our vault in the Cayman Islands. And it addresses all of the most simplistic 101 precious metal subjects traveling with precious metals, buying gold or silver, buying bars or coins, understanding premiums. You know, you name it, we touch on iras, go check it out inside the vault on YouTube. It's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Why would you ever let people in your vault?
[00:32:29] Speaker C: Why would I let people in the vault? So we don't let everyone in the vault.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Okay. This isn't like an open door.
[00:32:34] Speaker C: No, no, no.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: This is.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: No, it's not. The policy certainly isn't for everyone. But we felt it was important to be transparent and to show people these places actually do exist. It's a real thing. It's not just a false promise on paper. This is where your metal is stored. So that's why we do it.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: All right, so does that mean I have an invitation?
[00:32:51] Speaker C: You do have an invitation. So I'm hoping to see you in the Cayman Islands in two months from now.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: I should come to the Cayman Islands two months, check out this vault.
[00:33:01] Speaker C: You will be impressed, I can tell you that. You will. I was very impressed coming to your facility today, coming to your offices here in Nevada. And I think you will also be impressed with our facility in Cayman Islands.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: All right, so thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We hope everybody has a great day.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us for another episode of PTC Point of View, where retirement savers meet alternative investments. Know someone who's struggling with a retirement strategy? Tell them about our show. Can't wait for the next episode. To learn more, visit our
[email protected], or give us a call at 888992.
