TWO Red Hot Sectors — PLUS, “TICKERS!”

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Today, we’ll discuss two hot sectors, gold and military technology. Both are subjects about which people write long books, but I’ll spare you the long book and give you a few short points to consider.

I’m focused on these two topics because this coming Thursday, June 4, at 1:00 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time, Paradigm Press has a special broadcast for subscribers, live from Philadelphia.

As part of Paradigm’s ongoing America 250 effort, my colleague Jim Rickards (an old Philadelphian) will host an afternoon LIVESTREAMabout what’s going on in the world. His guest list includes yours truly and numerous other of our great editors.

And yes… We WILL offer investment names and stock picks. I can hear the chant of “TICKERS” now!

Be There on Thursday the 4^th

It’s now the beginning of June 2026, with only a month until Independence Day. So, this Thursday, June 4, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, the team from Strategic Intelligence will broadcast a live – and FREE – summit call from Philadelphia, former home of Benjamin Franklin and birthplace of the 1776 American experiment.

As America moves into its 250th year of national existence, we’ll ponder what drives markets at this point in history. Obvious motive forces include the Iran war, the associated global energy shock, persistent inflation, a broad affordability crisis, critical minerals and materials, gold, AI-driven power shortages and the future of the Trump agenda.

The host this Thursday will be Paradigm’s Aaron Gentzler, along with macro-economist and New York Times best-selling author Jim Rickards, plus me, Dan Amoss, Zach Scheidt, Matt Badiali, Adam Sharp and other colleagues. Together, we’ll share our latest research, investment ideas and market outlook.

And don’t worry; this won’t be a dry-as-dust economics talk. Expect fast-moving conversation, lively debate, behind-the-scenes stories and practical insights – aka Tickers! – that you can use immediately.

Throughout the event, we’ll present actionable investment ideas for you to consider. And again, just to be clear, there’s no cost to view the broadcast. We won’t ask for your credit card number! This event is on us… and it’s just us.

That is, the event is built around your Paradigm Team getting together to dissect world and national events, and share thoughts on the markets with our wonderful subscribers. To see the full agenda and reserve your spot, click here to view the special event page.

What’s the Story with Gold?

Now, let’s move along and discuss our favorite monetary metal, gold. Price-wise, gold began this month at $4,514 per ounce, well inside the range where it has traded for the past six weeks or so, between about $4,450 to $4,550. At current levels, the price of gold is down about 12% since February 28, when the kinetic war with Iran kicked off. Here’s the chart:

Price of gold is down about 12% in past three months.

Then again, this recent price of $4,514 is what gold posted back in… check notes… mid-January of this year, which at the time was a pop-the-champagne record level. So, if you have a time horizon of years versus a few months, gold is doing well.

Along these last lines, the current price of gold is up by over 34% from its price last year, in June 2025, about $3,350 per ounce back then. And that one-year price move says more about gold and its long-term relationship to the dollar than it says about three months of wartime, range-bound price-drift.

My point is that the gold price has been steadily rising for four years, and for a variety of reasons. One main factor is U.S. sanctions against Russia, which were prompted by the Ukraine conflict that began in February 2022. Back then, the U.S. froze Russian state assets and many nations looked on with shock, if not horror, and deliberately began to de-dollarize.

Broadly, this move out of dollars is reflected in substantial gold buys by central banks across the world. And central banks don’t buy gold to trade in and out; they’re holding for the long haul in a generational, macroeconomic, strategic-level trend.

Don’t just take my word on this last point. No less than London’s Financial Times, not exactly a gold-bug of a newspaper, says much the same thing in an article published today, June 2:

“Gold has overtaken U.S. government bonds as the world’s top reserve asset following years of relentless buying by central banks and a historic rally that has seen prices nearly double over the past two years.”

Meanwhile, from the standpoint of gold markets in general, U.S. government spending is out of control. Just this year (FY-2026), about 40% of federal outlays will be “funded” (some might say, “fake-funded”) by debt and accounting gimmickry. And so, the national debt – now over $39 trillion – increases while interest payout also climbs. Indeed, right now, annual national debt interest is a larger outlay than the entire defense budget.

Long-term, if not in the medium- and even short-term, the dollar’s purchasing power is steadily declining. It’s not out of line to say that we already see this reflected in rising inflation numbers for energy and food, and the Iran conflict and global oil mess just accelerated an ongoing, long-term process.

Sorry, but things won’t get better anytime soon, and this coming Thursday Jim Rickards, plus, Dan, Zach, Adam, Matt and I will all have more to say about gold and its price trends, as well as solid gold mining plays.

Meanwhile, many miners are spinning cash and growing earnings based on the current price of gold, let alone what can happen as the gold price begins to move up even more. Because frankly, we’re just beginning to glimpse the long-term profitability of well-run gold miners in the current price range for yellow metal.

The MilTech Boom (No Pun)

In other news – well, it’s not “new” news but it is meaningful – military tech is accelerating, soaring, booming, exploding, and overall lighting up the investment horizon. And of course, I’ll address some angles on this at the Thursday event.

Definitely, I’ll discuss America’s shipbuilding problems because there’s serious money going down not just to the coastline constructors, but also to companies all across the country. The two most important Navy builders are General Dynamics (GD) and Huntington Ingalls (HII). And for now, to keep it simple, I’ll just say that when it comes to big vessels with which to fight big wars, there’s nobody else.

That is, do you want submarines? It’s only GD and HII because no other company can even approach being qualified to build such vessels. Indeed, aside from these two names, just one other company in the entire U.S. economy is even qualified to cut into a submarine hull for maintenance, let alone build the beasts.

Submarine under construction. Credit U.S. Naval Institute.

Meanwhile, do you want large warships? Only HII can build aircraft carriers, let alone service them with refueling, and HII even has a lock on decommissioning the ships.

Or consider destroyers, namely the Arleigh Burke-class; again, it’s GD and HII. And yes, sure, the U.S. economy has “boatyards” that construct smaller vessels, such as for offshore oil work. But good luck finding companies with yards capable of anything sizeable, let alone suitable for warfighting.

Or go to a list of other vessels like amphibious assault ships (LPDs) or aviation-oriented assault vessels (LHAs). Again, it’s GD and HII and nobody else on the domestic horizon is even close to competing. And absolutely, there’s nothing simple about a military-scale shipyard.

Ingals shipyard at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Credit HII.

Then again, on Thursday we’ll have a list of investable suppliers for items like engines, electrical and combat system components, and nuclear power systems. On that last point, we’ll likely soon see long-lead buys for President Trump’s proposed “battleships,” which are really more like heavy battle-cruisers despite the official Navy designation (BBGN).

And don’t laugh or kid around about those battleships. I’ve discussed them in other articles and recently, no less than the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) had very kind words about bringing this new class of vessel into existence.

On the aviation side, the U.S. is in the midst of a massive air power buildout that includes buying more legacy systems like the venerable, and much-improved F-15E, plus F-35s and the F-47 under development, and likely a new Navy aircraft called F/A-XX just now.

Notional image of proposed F-47 aircraft. Credit WarWingsDaily.com.

Plus, the U.S. is developing and fielding an entire menagerie of drones that range from tiny things that can be tossed like a javelin or fired from a mortar tube, to great big birds the size of a Boeing 737.

Meanwhile, along with ships and airplanes come munitions that range from families of underwater weapons like torpedoes and mines, through short-, medium-, long- and very-long-range missiles that do everything from intercept drones to kill orbiting satellites. And some of these weapons cost as much apiece as the ship or aircraft that might fire it.

Then there are all manners of electronics, and plenty of software to run it all and manage the battle. And okay, of course… this already involves phenomenal levels of AI, because how else do you think that the U.S. could have attacked over 800 targets per day in Iran during the March kinetic phase of the war? Hint: most targeting packages were prepared using AI, with final sign-off by a real person, or two or three levels of real people.

And on Thursday, I won’t neglect to mention the exotic metals and related materials that go into many of these MilTech platforms, munitions and electronics. This means rare earths, along with a host of other elements from the periodic table, that range from antimony and helium to tellurium and zirconium.

Periodic table, highlighting rare earths. Credit U.S. Geologic Survey.

In fact, this last aspect of MilTech is among the most critical of all because if you don’t have certain elements with key, specific metallurgical and/or electronic properties? Well, good luck making the overall weapon system work. Again, it gets technical in a hurry, and people write books about these things. But on Thursday I’ll explain and discuss who is doing what out in the investable economy.

And with that, let’s wrap it up. Allow me to bid you well, and thank you for subscribing and reading.

Best wishes… and Be There On Thursday!

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