This is Worse Than We Thought - New Risk to Your Retirement

That hot new meme coin your nephew likes? The private equity fund your cousin told you about? Up to now, maybe you thought you couldn't get in on those kind of investments, and maybe you shouldn't have. But if being told what you can or cannot do is something you don't like, well, this next news is for you. Well, your 401k just changed. President Trump just signed a new executive order that opens the door for private assets, meaning alternative assets that aren't publicly traded can now fit inside those defined contribution tax deferred retirement accounts. Your 401k or your 403b or your IRA or your TSP, whatever you have. Now this is being sold as more freedom and more potential upside for everyday people, but this is a clear case where potential upside also brings risk. I mentioned this was coming a few weeks ago, but now that the order is here, I'm starting to feel like we were focused on what we could do rather than what we should do. So let's look at the executive order quick. I mentioned previously this order would include a number of private assets, gold, crypto, real estate, but what we're looking at here really focuses on riskier assets, private equity, real estate, and digital assets. But there's a big focus here on crypto. This is an order to enhance financial opportunities for all Americans by becoming the crypto capital of the world. We're going to make America wealthy again by embracing digital assets. So this is a shift. We all understand the risk of crypto. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's sh**. But this is more than just the simple risk of the Bitcoin market flipping. This also opens up the risk of private assets that aren't publicly traded. It could be a crypto project. It could be a private equity fund that received some kind of wild valuation that just isn't based in reality. So higher risk, less transparency, less liquidity, and valuations that are easier to manipulate. This is a major shift. It's a fundamental change in a system built around liquid regulated assets. And if you think that this is just a what if, something that might be too early to worry about, well, the language says implementation is coming within 12 months. Okay, so let's say the floodgates open to private assets and all the volatility that comes with that. Well, portfolios are going to suddenly get riskier. We're looking at a totally different risk profile. Portfolios that used to be built around stable liquid public securities would be mixing in assets that can suddenly lose a huge amount of the value. Or worse, they can change value without a market. Now, that might be fine for some people, but let's be realistic here. This probably crosses the line into gambling. Now, another angle here is that gold is one of these assets as well. It's an alternative asset, private asset that could hypothetically fit into the same model. Just not risky like the others. So ignore for a minute that gold has actually outperformed the equity markets over the past two years, making it seem a little bit more like a growth asset. It could actually be a solid risk off choice. With the risk profile opening up in these accounts, privately held gold could have a much bigger role as a counterbalance. And again, with the new rules, it could be held right along with the rest of your standard portfolio. So interesting idea. Americans hold around $8 trillion in 401k plans alone. So any kind of small shift in allocation, even just 1% more into physical gold would add massive buying. So we're talking about tens of billions of dollars here going into actual physical metal. And if that were to happen, well, physical gold would most likely represent a long term hold, meaning tighter supply, higher demand, and at least hypothetically higher price. So no arguing here the fact that this would bring more risk into retirement accounts. Alternative assets are not stable by design. And if you look at the executive order, it isn't talking about stable assets. It's talking about better returns, allowing American workers to build wealth the way that wealthy investors do, which is by taking more risk. Now, not everyone will choose to add gold to the mix, but it does make sense that some will. And if this trend of mainstreaming physical gold continues, if regulators keep making room for it, well, like I said, demand will build. And if demand builds, so does price. Okay, I'm going to come back to this in a minute, but let's shift gears to another executive order from earlier in the year. This one is titled Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential. And it reads, the state of Alaska holds an abundant and largely untapped supply of natural resources, including, among others, energy, mineral, timber, and seafood. President Trump wants to develop Alaska's resources to the fullest extent possible, fully availing itself of Alaska's vast lands and resources for the benefit of the nation. And that leads into today's sponsor. With no debt and approximately $2.96 million in cash and cash equivalents as of March 31st, 2025, and a project in Alaska, the sponsor of today's video is U.S. Gold Mining. They trade on the NASDAQ with the ticker symbol USGO. As of July 31st, this stock was trading around 40% below its all-time high. Their flagship Whistler Gold Copper Silver project includes three gold deposits with the combined estimated mineral resource of 6.5 million ounces gold equivalent in the indicated category, plus an additional 4.2 million gold equivalent ounces in the inferred category. There's more info on the Whistler project and the gold and copper resource estimate available in U.S. Gold Mining's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and its SK1300 technical report summary initial assessment for the That has an effective date of September 12th, 2024 and they are available under its profiles at sec.gov and cedarplus.ca One shareholder owns 80% of the company so this is a very unique scenario. Probably the most critical development and a potential value driver comes from the Trump administration's attitude toward Alaska. This is Mike Dunleavy, Governor of Alaska with President Trump and here he is with CEO of U.S. Gold Mining Inc. on their Whistler project in Alaska. Tim Smith, the CEO, came to U.S. Gold Mining from Newmont, a 100-year-old gold producer. They're one of the largest gold mining companies in the world. He also worked for Kamenak, which discovered the coffee deposit in the Yukon and advanced the resource until Goldcorp acquired it for $520 million Canadian, which was one of the most significant buyouts of the past decade. While we're talking about different projects where outcomes can be different, this is the reason he was recruited to become CEO of USGO so that he can utilize his skill set and work towards similar goals for U.S. gold mining. So let's button this up. You have gold recently at $3,400 an ounce. It's the best performing major asset class in 2025 so far. You have Trump's massive executive order that benefited the state of Alaska. You have one major corporate shareholder owning 80% of USGO stock and you have a CEO that is fit for this role. So that's what we're looking at. Be sure to do your homework on USGO. They trade on the NASDAQ and you can find the links for the company in the description and on screen. Okay, back to the original topic of democratized access to alternative assets. This could be a good thing. It could be a great thing. It just depends on the parties involved. But also, depending on the parties involved, this is a situation where things could really go off the rails. And it's hard to overstate why this is such a big deal. We're talking about people's life savings. This is a backdoor risk against the money meant to carry somebody through the rest of their life. Now, people are still going to have that residual feeling that a retirement account is controlled, that it's safe. But there are so many ways this could go wrong. A fund manager could load up on private equity zombie funds. Individuals could dive into a meme coin. With traditional stocks, equities, you see the price and you can sell anytime. But think of the Bernie Madoff scare where lots of people lost lots of money. That was a case of no transparency. Well, that same issue is now going to be opened up to a lot of everyday people. Or at least it could be. It really wasn't my intent to sound an alarm here. It was more to say that this could be something that leads to gold standing out even more. Okay, let's call it good there. Let us know what you think of riskier alternative assets finding their way into your 401k or your IRA or your pension fund, your 403b, your 457 plans, federal TSP, all of those. Is this something to be afraid of or just one more way to get ahead? Let us know. And then while you're in the comments, be sure to hit the like button if you found any of this interesting. Be sure you're subscribed with notifications turned on if you want to hear more on the topic. And if you're still here, thanks again for watching. I always appreciate your time. Take care.