Takeaway: "To start, I’d put 10% of investable assets in gold."

“HOW THE HELL DO I PROTECT MYSELF FROM THE COMING CRASH?”

That was just one of dozens of questions concerned viewers asked investor and bestselling author Jim Rickards during our recent live Q&A conversation hosted by Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough.

This was the iconoclastic Rickards' latest visit into the HedgeyeTV studio. On this occasion, he came to discuss growing market risks covered in his disconcerting new book The Road to Ruin. In it, he lays out a scenario where regulators, lawmakers, and central bankers have quietly been building the authority to enact asset freezes, close financial market exchanges, and confiscate assets to deal with the coming financial crisis.

Agree or disagree, he stitches together a compelling narrative. Our viewers also wanted to know how to structure their portfolios to protect themselves against the coming carnage.

Here’s his advice:

“Set your individual home equity and business equity to one side,” Rickards says. Think of the rest as your investable assets. “To start, I’d put 10% of investable assets in gold,” he says, but not some synthetic ownership of gold through ETFs. In other words, own the real thing—actual physical gold.

 

Importantly he added, make sure to put it in safe non-bank storage. “Do not keep it in a bank. Because when you want your gold, most of the banks are going to be closed,” he says.

The other reason to own gold is (contrary to popular belief), it performs well in a deflationary environment. “During the greatest period of sustained deflation in American history, 1927 to 1933, prices fell 50% and gold went up 75%,” Rickards says.

The remaining 90% of allocation assets Rickards recommends is spread among metals like silver, fine art, land, and private equity/venture capital investments where he “knows the entrepreneur.”

WANT MORE?

Click here to watch the Rickards interview in its entirety.