This commentary is based upon client portfolio performance reports.

It is intended as supplementary material to those reports.

Investing is a means to an end and is step 3 in our financial planning process.

That end is accomplishing your financial goals per your custom financial plan.

Every financial plan has an implied required return (RR) that must be earned over the long term for the portfolio to do its part in making a financial plan robust.

Furthermore, the following is a good expectations cleanser.

It shows the top 5%, bottom 5%, and the average annual return for various global stock/global bond allocations looking back 120+ years (1901–2022).

It illustrates the historical range of possibility (extreme good annual return, extreme bad annual return, and average annual return) by different portfolio types from the least risky allocation (100% bonds on the left) to the most risky (100% stocks on the right).

With that said, let us compare how the managed portfolios have performed relative to their respective RR and to their respective comparable low cost publicly traded diversified portfolio benchmarks.

Aggressive Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

They materially outperformed.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

They materially outperformed.

Balanced Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

They materially outperformed.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

They materially outperformed.

Cash Reserve Portfolios

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They performed in line.

For the Year to Date

They performed in line.

The Equity Sleeve

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

It materially outperformed.

The Attribution

For the Quarter

Key Contributors (added value)

• Global Armaments

• West Texas Real Estate + Mineral Rights

• Japan (Dynamic Currency Hedging)

Key Detractors (subtracted value)

• High Quality US Large Companies

• Semiconductors

• South Korea

For the Year to Date

Key Contributors (added value)

• Global Armaments

• West Texas Real Estate + Mineral Rights

• Japan (Dynamic Currency Hedging)

Key Detractors (subtracted value)

• High Quality US Large Companies

• Semiconductors

• South Korea

Exited Positions

Bitcoin

Despite our long term bullish views on it, we still incorporate a quantitative risk management process akin to how commodity trading funds (CTAs) risk manage their long and short positions across equities, currencies, bonds, and commodities.

We began adding back the position in January after fully exiting between October 2025 and November 2025 (thus avoiding a double digit drawdown).

Shortly thereafter our system began to flash a bright red warning so we again exited the position at a low single digit loss (thus avoiding another significant double digit drawdown).

It is very likely we will add back exposure once our system indicates favorable conditions are in place.

Japan (Dynamic Currency Hedging)

This exposure starts with a universe of 1,300+ Japanese companies and filters out companies that treat shareholders poorly based upon shareholder yield and corporate governance screens.

The final portfolio is less than 200 companies that statistically treat shareholders better than the unfiltered index.

The next step is to determine the degree of currency hedging.

Our desired exposure is the Japanese companies themselves and thus we want to hedge the currency risk.

This position dynamically updates its currency hedge (0% hedge means full exposure to Yen and 100% hedge means 0% exposure to Yen) based on a four separate currency submodels to determine what the hedge ratio should be.

Despite our long term bullish views on this asset and even though it was a major contributor to our outperformance for the quarter, we exited this position as the “Quantamentals” began to materially degrade in no small part from the flashpoint that is Gulf War 3.

After all, Japan imports a majority of its energy and a majority of that energy comes from the Middle East and as of this writing we are still experiencing one of the largest energy shocks in history.

Over the past few hundred years in the US and the UK, energy shocks have been responsible for roughly 50% of recessions.

It is very likely we will add back exposure once the Quantamentals indicate favorable conditions are in place.

Capital Markets Exchanges

Despite our long term bullish views on these assets, we exited them as we decided to delegate more of the specific equity selection to discrete managers whose process we find highly compelling.

South Korea

This was an exposure that prior to the start of Gulf War 3 had great Quantamental signal strength. We began building the position literally the day before the start of Gulf War 3.

Fate it seemed had other plans.

Within just a week or so the Quantamentals for South Korea materially degraded to the point that we exited the position.

South Korea, like Japan, imports a majority of its energy and a majority of that energy comes from the Middle East and as of this writing we are still experiencing one of the largest energy shocks in history.

High Quality US Small Companies

This exposure consists of US Small Companies and then seeks to earn superior long term returns with lower downside risk by filtering out junk companies (overvalued and low quality companies run by poor management teams).

It filters out these factors which are a concentrated source of downside risk:

• High External Financing: companies that are over reliant on external capital through high debt or stock sales (i.e. a farmer who keeps selling his land to buy seeds for planting crops).

• Wealth Destroyers: companies that reinvest cash flow but generate economic returns below their cost of capital (i.e. borrow at 8% to earn 2% which destroys 6%).

• Value Traps: companies where intrinsic value is lower than book value (i.e. a home that seems cheap on a price per square foot basis but it has a cracked foundation, rotted support beams, etc).

This too was an exposure we were building before the start of Gulf War 3.

Within weeks the Quantamentals for US Small Companies materially degraded to the point that we exited the position.

Generally, small companies do relatively poorly in the macro weather pattern of fall i.e. accelerating inflation rates and decelerating growth rates.

It is this fall weather pattern that is becoming more likely which is a direct result of this energy shock. This is also very consistent with history.

We think highly of this manager and very much buy into its process for filtering out junk companies in the US Small Companies universe and will add back to the exposure once the Quantamentals shift in our favor.

Semiconductors

This was an exposure that prior to the start of Gulf War 3 had great Quantamental signal strength.

Within just a week or so the Quantamentals for Semiconductors materially degraded to the point that we exited the position.

Semiconductor manufacturing, like South Korea and Japan, imports a majority of its critical energy related inputs (natural gas, helium, etc) from the Middle East and as of this writing we are still experiencing one of the largest energy shocks in history.

Samsung and SK Hynix (large memory/semiconductor manufactures) hold a few months of helium which means if no new supply comes in they will run out in April or May.

That is roughly the same window when the stranded containers in the Persian Gulf start venting.

Helium is chilled to a liquid state and put on insulated ships. If they do not offload this in time the containers warm up and then the helium turns back into a gas and vents into space.

EUV lithography needs 99.9999% purity helium for wafer cooling. No substitute exists. If Korean fabs ration memory production, every NVIDIA GPU delivery slips.

Then AI buildout stalls in those regions on a supply chain input that costs pennies per GPU chip.

H/T to

Campbell Ramble

Occasional observations about markets, data, and the broader world.

By Alexander Campbell

Maintained Positions

Systematic Long/Short Extensions

The Summary

This takes tax loss harvesting 1.0 and upgrades it to tax loss harvesting 2.0.

It improves after-tax wealth compounding within a risk-managed framework and has several practical uses, including diversifying concentrated stocks, revitalizing “frozen” taxable accounts with large unrealized capital gains, and building up capital losses to offset future capital gains and thus lower one’s tax burden.

This is one of our many tools that we use in tax planning for clients.

They were in line with its benchmarks and also reduced concentrated positions with significant embedded gains and yet only realized net short term losses.

These net short term realized losses were both a blend of closing out short positions and closing out long positions which makes sense given equities were choppy for the quarter.

High Quality US Large Companies

The Summary

This exposure consists of US Large Companies and then seeks to earn superior long term returns with lower downside risk by filtering out junk companies (overvalued and low quality companies run by poor management teams).

It filters out these factors which are a concentrated source of downside risk:

• High External Financing: companies that are over reliant on external capital through high debt or stock sales (i.e. a farmer who keeps selling his land to buy seeds for planting crops).

• Wealth Destroyers: companies that reinvest cash flow but generate economic returns below their cost of capital (i.e. borrow at 8% to earn 2% which destroys 6%).

• Value Traps: companies where intrinsic value is lower than book value (i.e. a home that seems cheap on a price per square foot basis but it has a cracked foundation, rotted support beams, etc).

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It underperformed.

Key Contributors (subtracted value)

• Microsoft

• Alphabet

• Apple

For the Year to Date

It underperformed.

Key Contributors (subtracted value)

• Microsoft

• Alphabet

• Apple

Global Armaments

The Summary

This exposure focuses on companies that make armaments for nation state security.

To summarize our extensive research on this topic which we have previously written about: the entire world is rapidly rearming off an extremely low base of defense spending.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Lockheed Martin (US Armaments)

• Elbit Systems (Israel Armaments)

• BAE Systems (British Armaments)

For the Year to Date

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Lockheed Martin (US Armaments)

• Elbit Systems (Israel Armaments)

• BAE Systems (British Armaments)

Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

The Summary

This provides us with a diversified exposure to precious metals (gold and silver) by benefiting from both price appreciation of the metals and the production growth of the mines without the operational risks of mining.

Additionally, these exposures typically do well when traditional exposures do not and thus provides potent equity portfolio diversification.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Wheaton Precious Metals

• Franco Nevada

For the Year to Date

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Wheaton Precious Metals

• Franco Nevada

West Texas Real Estate + Mineral Rights

The Summary

This is West Texas Real Estate along with the associated oil, gas, and water rights.

• Vast, Perpetual Land Holdings: It is one of the largest private landowners in Texas, with approximately 870,000 acres of surface estate and 2.4 million acres of mineral interests, primarily in the Permian Basin. Additionally, this exposure is located in District 8 which is responsible for about 20% of all oil and gas production in the U.S. This land is a finite, irreplaceable asset that cannot be replicated.

• High-Margin Royalty Income: It owns perpetual oil and gas royalty interests on hundreds of thousands of acres. This generates high-margin revenue from energy production without the associated capital expenditures or operating risks of exploration and production companies.

• Capital-Light Compounding Machine: The business model requires minimal capital investment to generate revenue, leading to extremely high free cash flow. This cash can be used for dividends, share buybacks, and acquiring more royalty assets, creating a powerful compounding effect over time.

• Zero Debt: It has a pristine balance sheet with no debt, making it incredibly resilient through all economic cycles.

• Multi-Faceted Revenue Streams: Beyond oil and gas, it generates revenue from surface leases, easements for pipelines, water sales, and other commercial activities, providing diverse and growing income streams.

• Hard Asset Focus: This is a pure-play land and resource company. Its value is tied directly to tangible, finite assets rather than intellectual property or manufacturing processes.

• Inflation Beneficiaries: Its revenues from royalties and leases are intrinsically linked to commodity prices and economic activity, making them excellent hedges against monetary inflation.

• Capital-Light Business Model: It primarily leases its assets to others and collects high-margin fees and royalties, avoiding the heavy capital costs and operational risks of its tenants (e.g., oil drillers, data center operators, bitcoin miners, etc).

• Permian Basin Location: Its strategically centered in the Permian Basin, the most prolific and economically viable oil and gas producing region in North America.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Texas Pacific Land Corp

For the Year to Date

It materially outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Texas Pacific Land Corp

New Positions

US Energy Sector

The Summary

This exposure consists of companies in the oil, gas and consumable fuel, energy equipment and services industries.

Unsurprisingly, the Quantamentals for this exposure materially improved with the start of Gulf War 3.

We view this as an exposure to rent while Quantamentals remain in a positive state.

US MLP and Energy Infrastructure Sector

The Summary

This exposure consists of companies in the midstream infrastructure space which consists of pipelines and storage facilities that have less sensitivity to energy prices.

Unsurprisingly, the Quantamentals for this exposure materially improved with the start of Gulf War 3.

We view this as an exposure to rent while Quantamentals remain in a positive state.

US Utilities Sector

The Summary

This exposure consists of companies from the electric utilities; water utilities; multi-utilities, independent power and renewable electricity producers; and gas utility industries.

Unsurprisingly, the Quantamentals for this exposure materially improved with the start of Gulf War 3.

We view this as an exposure to rent while Quantamentals remain in a positive state.

US Basic Materials Sector

The Summary

This exposure consists of companies in the chemical; metals and mining; paper and forest products; containers and packaging; and construction material industries.

Unsurprisingly, the Quantamentals for this exposure materially improved with the start of Gulf War 3.

We view this as an exposure to rent while Quantamentals remain in a positive state.

The Alternative Sleeve

As a reminder, the alternatives we consider are designed to generate returns that are low to negatively correlated to both equities and bonds (they zig when equities/bonds zag).

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It materially outperformed.

For the Year to Date

It materially outperformed.

The Attribution

For the Quarter

Key Contributors (added value)

• Managed Futures

• Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with Income)

• Fully Allocated Physical Gold Bullion

Key Detractors (subtracted value)

• None

For the Year to Date

Key Contributors (added value)

• Managed Futures

• Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with Income)

• Fully Allocated Physical Gold Bullion

Key Detractors (subtracted value)

• None

Exited Positions

None

Maintained Positions

Managed Futures

The Summary

This is an exposure designed to generate absolute returns, low correlations to equities (they zig when equities/bonds zag), and help manage downside risk during risk-off events.

Below represents the different exposures that we can go long or short by asset class, region, and instrument.

As a reminder, this position uses multiple models which are each designed to capture different market dynamics.

• Price Trend: aims to perform during periods of disruption, high volatility, and outsized moves in price.

• Fundamental Reversion: detects when markets have moved too far from fair value, seeking to deliver returns during periods of lower/falling volatility.

• Carry: looks to perform during periods of flat or falling interest rates.

• Risk-Off: seeks to capture upward/downward.

With regards to deep history, there is asymmetric value in these strategies at an ultra low starting point of armament spending which leads to

1. Failed deterrence and then;

2. A resurgence in armament spending which disrupts bond markets and then;

3. Kinetic conflict which disrupts commodity markets.

The current energy shock of Gulf War 3 which is a direct consequence of failed deterrence strikes a familiar tone to those who read history and one of surprise to those who do not.

Moreover, the beauty of this investment style is the ruthless execution of its quantitive rules which means there is no psychological barriers to changing one’s mind and thus positions when the data says the world is changing.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Italy 10 Year Bonds

• West Texas Crude Oil

• Brent Crude Oil

• Gold

• Gasoline

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

Key Contributors (added value)

• Italy 10 Year Bonds

• West Texas Crude Oil

• Brent Crude Oil

• Gold

• Gasoline

Commentary

March Market Volatility

March was a super wild month driven by Gulf War 3, which caused significant volatility in energy markets.

This oil price shock is causing cost-push inflation, creating a difficult environment for bonds as bond yields rose.

Performance Drivers

While commodity trends performed well during the period, trend-following in interest rates struggled due to counter-trend reversals following the oil shock which was partially cause by investors deleveraging positions in response to the volatility spike.

Broader Market Outlook

The current environment is in an extraordinary moment for the financial system. There is a significant disconnect in the system, as the resolution to the supply shock in commodity markets remains uncertain and that volatility across most asset classes remains elevated compared to historical norms.

System Positioning

From a model perspective, the model is currently observing a broad bull trend in commodities and is positioning the portfolio to capture that momentum.

Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with Income)

The Summary

Gold is a chemical element that has historically been the premier form of commodity money because of its unique physical properties.

It is chemically stable and virtually indestructible, meaning almost all the gold ever mined is still in existence. This durability, combined with its geological rarity, gives gold the highest stock-to-flow ratio of any physical commodity, with new annual production consistently adding only about 1.5% to the existing supply.

This reliable scarcity makes gold a superior store of value, as its supply cannot be easily increased even when its price rises, thus protecting it from the debasement that has plagued other forms of money throughout history.

The Exposure

This exposure is one that we helped create and was inspired by our work in applied history.

We observed that Gresham’s Law states “bad money drives out good money” i.e. people rapidly spend the less valuable money and hoard the most valuable money.

For example, you spend in credit ledger money for consumption needs (like food) but save in commodity ledger money for savings needs (like gold).

We also considered a common criticism from fiat enthusiasts that gold does not provide a yield or income and is therefore less valuable.

Despite this not being the fatal defect that fiat enthusiasts think it is, we nevertheless considered this observation.

We ultimately merged these two observations into an exposure that we call “Gresham’s Wrath”.

It is a magnified gold exposure that also generates income.

Specifically, it is the combination of two different strategies:

• First, we get 1.5X exposure to the price of gold. For example, if the gold price goes up 10% then this exposure would likely be up 15%. Economically, it buys $10 of gold with cash and then borrows the remaining $5 to buy the remaining gold position which results in a total gold exposure of $15. As institutional investors in global capital markets, we are able to borrow at an interest rate in the low single digits. Thus, we are economically borrowing a debasing credit ledger money whose interest costs are in the low single digits to buy a debasement resistant commodity ledger monetary reserve asset.

• Second, we layer on the selling of put spreads to generate option income. This is akin to selling a fire insurance policy that lasts for 2 weeks before it expires for a price of $10 and then buying firestorm reinsurance for $1 thus pocketing $9 for the two week period. By renewing this “fire insurance policy” every two weeks we expect over the long term to generate a modest amount of additional income in a very prudent manner.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

Fully Allocated Physical Gold Bullion

At the 50,000 ft altitude of analysis, you will see that

• Gold demand from global central banks is accelerating at the same time US Treasuries are being reduced.

• Gold demand from global central banks intensely accelerated after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Gold exposure is being specifically expressed via physical deliveries which highlights growing mistrust.

• The top global fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, etc) have all lost material value relative to gold once they were severed from the gold link in 1971. In fact, the best performing fiat of the Swiss Franc (CHF) “only” lost 93% of its value.

• Over the past 109 years, the gold supply has increased from 38,387 tones in 1914 to 212,582 tonnes in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 1.59% per year which favorably compares to the USD supply of 26 billion in 1914 to 212,582 billion in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 8.61%. Thus, the real rate of annualized USD Fiat debasement is closer to the high single digits as opposed to the low single digits so commonly cited by fiat enthusiasts.

The Performance

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Quarter

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Equity Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

Relative to the World Bond Benchmark

For the Year to Date

It outperformed.

New Positions

Foreign Exchange (FX) Strategies

The Summary

This seeks total returns thru a systematic approach in FX markets whose return stream has a low correlation to both stocks and bonds.

FX Investing 101

When you go to the airport and exchange USD for say Mexican Pesos (for that nice vacation you are going on) the Mexican Pesos you receive do NOT earn interest.

However, when you are an institutional investor who exchanges currencies in the Foreign Exchange Marketplace (FOREX) you have the ability to earn a yield on that currency you are buying depending on the instrument you chose to express the trade (foreign bills, bonds, FX forward contracts, etc).

Conversely, this means if you sell a currency you are effectively borrowing at the interest rate specific to that currency.

Ultimately this means as an institutional investor, you have the means to short currency A (and pay the interest rate tied to currency A) while taking the proceeds and then buying currency B (and earn the interest rate tied to currency B) thus earning the spread between the two.

Below is an example of combining multiple currency trades where you go long the higher yielding currency (lending rate) and go short the lower yielding currencies (the borrow rate) and thus collect the spread.

The Strategy

It primarily generates returns by capturing the “carry”—the spread between high-yielding and low-yielding currencies—by taking long positions in the highest-yielding currencies and short positions in the lowest-yielding ones.

This is done over 14 different currency pairs and uses foreign exchange forward contracts paired against the USD.

Because these trades require little cash outlay, the fund’s assets remain invested in US Treasury bills or equivalents.

Critically, it is USD neutral, meaning it maintains an equal percentage of currency exposure in long and short positions relative to the USD i.e. it is NOT taking a bet on USD relative to other currencies.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

This is why we do Applied History.

Financial historians have observed a specific fiscal point that serves as the death knell for imperial hegemony: the moment when a nation’s interest payments on its national debt equal or exceed its expenditures on national defense.

Spanish Empire

The Spanish Empire:

Causes of Decline

• Over-reliance on Debt Financing: Spain relied on a complex and expensive system of debt to finance its expansive military goals.

• Fiscal Structural Issues: The tax system was highly regressive, relying on the lower classes while the nobility and clergy were largely exempt. The system was also fragmented by regional exemptions (fueros).

• Inflationary Pressures: The influx of American silver caused a “Price Revolution,” which increased price levels and undermined the purchasing power of state revenues.

• Rising Debt Service Costs: By the late 16th century, interest payments on long-term bonds (juros) consumed over 40% of annual revenues. By 1687, these payments absorbed 87% of Castilian revenues.

• Punitive Borrowing Terms: Serial defaults forced the crown to borrow at increasingly high interest rates, sometimes reaching effective rates of 20%.

• Vast Strategic Commitments: The empire faced immense costs to maintain forward-deployed infantry (tercios), secure global trade routes, and fight prolonged wars against the Dutch, the Ottomans, and the French.

Outcomes

• Serial Defaults: Between 1557 and 1662, the Spanish crown defaulted on its debt eight times.

• Erosion of Military Readiness: Mounting debt service obligations dwindled the resources available for the military, leading to endemic payment delays and supply shortages.

• Loss of Military Predominance: Spain’s famed tercios were eventually surpassed by innovative military tactics from rivals, and its naval advantage was eclipsed by the English and Dutch.

• Geopolitical Retreat: Fiscal constraints led to the formal recognition of Dutch independence in 1648, the independence of Portugal in 1640, and the ceding of territory to France in 1659.

• Economic Contraction: The “Golden Age” of growth in the 16th century was followed by a contraction in the 17th century, partly due to investor lack of confidence and currency debasement.

British Empire

The British Empire:

Causes of Decline

• Wartime Debt Accumulation: Fighting the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars drove the national debt from under 100% of GDP to a peak of 173% by 1822. Similarly, World War I increased the national debt by a factor of twelve, reaching 172% of GDP by 1927.

• Rising Debt Service Costs: In the early 19th century, debt service consumed more than half of gross central government expenditure. In the interwar period (1920–1937), interest payments consistently exceeded military spending, peaking at 7.5% of GDP in 1923.

• Post-War Economic Pressures: Following World War I, the economy contracted due to fiscal and monetary tightening while interest payments climbed.

• The “Ferguson Limit”: Britain crossed the Ferguson limit (where interest payments exceed defense spending) during three distinct periods: 1857–1861, 1869–1884, and most notably 1920–1937. It crossed again in 2010 following the global financial crisis and subsequent shocks.

Outcomes

• Strategic and Military Retrenchment: To return within fiscal limits in the 1920s and 30s, Britain adopted the “Ten-Year Rule” (a spending freeze for armed services) and reined in defense expenditure.

• Hard Power Contraction: Fiscal constraints led to a reduction in troop numbers and the near-extinction of the Royal Air Force by the mid-1920s. In 1931, pay cuts led to the Invergordon Mutiny, which forced Britain off the gold standard.

• Geopolitical Concessions and Appeasement: Britain participated in international arms-control agreements (like the Washington Naval Treaty) to avoid unaffordable arms races. The policy of appeasement in the 1930s was partly driven by the fear that higher armament spending would jeopardize economic recovery.

• Transfer of Global Primacy: The Washington Naval Treaty marked the effective transfer of military primacy in the Western Hemisphere to the United States.

• Decolonization and Financial Repression: After World War II, Britain jettisoned costly colonial commitments (e.g., India, Middle East) to manage its finances. It also used “financial repression” to inflate away the real value of war debt and interest payments.

• Gradual Decline to “Militarily Inconsequential”: While Britain remained a great power through most of the 20th century, the sustained breach of the Ferguson limit starting in 2010 led to a state where it eventually became militarily inconsequential.

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire:

Causes of Decline

• Fiscal Dependency and Foreign Debt: To modernize its infrastructure and military in the 19th century, the Ottoman government became increasingly dependent on high-interest foreign loans from British and French creditors.

• The “Ferguson Limit”: By the 1870s, interest payments on foreign debt consumed more than half of government revenues, far outpacing military expenditures. The empire crossed this limit several times between 1872 and 1915; in 1875, debt service exceeded military spending by a factor of 2.7.

• Inability to Modernize: Legacy revenue methods were insufficient for the costs of modern statehood. Chronic underfunding left the empire unable to keep pace with rapid technological changes in European artillery, logistics, and training.

• Economic Erosion: As global trade patterns shifted from Eurasia to the Atlantic, the empire’s economic base—formerly dependent on trade route customs and tariffs—eroded.

Outcomes

• 1875 Default: The empire’s fiscal crisis culminated in a formal debt default in 1875.

• Diminished Sovereignty: In 1881, the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) was established, placing European creditors in charge of vital revenue streams like tobacco taxes and customs duties. This reduced the empire to the “poor periphery” of the global economy.

• Military Decay and Mutinies: Pay for officers and men frequently fell months into arrears, leading to 17 army mutinies by 1908.

• Territorial and Diplomatic Loss: Underfunded forces suffered humiliating defeats in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), resulting in the loss of productive lands. Weakness also undermined diplomatic credibility, as allies doubted the Porte’s capacity to fulfill commitments.

• Vicious Cycle of Underinvestment: The fiscal rigidity imposed by foreign creditors created a cycle of underinvestment in heavy industry and transportation, further weakening the empire’s strategic position.

Austro–Hungarian Empire

The Austro–Hungarian Empire:

Causes of Decline

• Fiscal Fragmentation: The constitutional Ausgleich of 1867 created separate parliaments and tax bases for the Austrian and Hungarian halves of the empire, leading to a dysfunctional “confederal” budget that relied on custom revenues and unpredictable annual appropriations.

• Chronic Deficits: These institutional arrangements resulted in persistent budget deficits and a mounting public debt.

• Prioritization of Debt over Defense: The empire consistently violated “Ferguson’s Limit” by spending more on debt servicing than on military modernization.

• The Ferguson Limit: With the exception of a few brief years (1869–1873, 1878, 1909, and 1913), the Dual Monarchy remained in excess of the Ferguson limit for its entire existence. By the start of World War I, debt service consumed nearly 20% of the imperial budget, while defense spending lagged at just over 15%.

• Internal Nationalism: Fiscal constraints limited resources, forcing the empire to prioritize certain regions, which exacerbated ethnic resentment and nationalist tensions, particularly in Hungary.

Outcomes

• Military Under-Equipping: The empire struggled to provide its forces with sufficient modern rifles and artillery before and during World War I.

• Failure of Deterrence: Fiscal and military weakness left Vienna unable to deter regional rivals, such as Belgrade, from pursuing reckless policies.

• Naval Decline: The Imperial and Royal Navy could not maintain pace with regional rivals during the pre-war dreadnought arms race.

• Strategic Weakness: The empire became known as the “second weakest among the great powers,” spending just enough on the army to ensure it remained vulnerable.

• Revolution and Dissolution: Like other empires that succumbed to fiscal crisis, the Austro-Hungarian Empire eventually faced imperial dissolution following the protracted conflict of World War I.

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire:

Causes of Decline

• Chronic Deficits: In the mid-19th century, Russian finances were characterized by “chronic deficit”.

• Rising Borrowing Costs: In the decade leading up to 1885, the empire’s cost of borrowing doubled.

• Wartime Fiscal Strain: Protracted global conflict eventually became unsustainable, leading to fiscal crises that culminated in revolution.

• Peacetime Arms Race: The fiscal strains of the peacetime arms race prior to World War I became domestically intolerable, which may have tempted the empire to risk war.

Outcomes

• Fiscal Stabilization: Under Finance Minister Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (1892–1903), the Tsarist system was stabilized by bringing it back into compliance with Ferguson’s Law, ensuring defense spending outpaced debt service.

• Military Readiness: On the eve of World War I, the Russian Empire was on a sound fiscal footing, with defense spending significantly higher than debt servicing.

• Imperial Dissolution: Despite being compliant with Ferguson’s Law before 1914, the empire could not survive the fiscal crisis brought on by a protracted global conflict, resulting in revolution and debt default.

The United States

The United States:

Current Challenges

• Surpassing the “Ferguson Limit”: In 2024, U.S. net interest outlays reached 3.1% of GDP, exceeding defense spending (3.0%) for the first time in nearly a century.

• Rising Debt Burden: Federal debt is projected to exceed 120% of GDP this year, a level higher than the peak following World War II.

• Sensitivity to Interest Rates: Unlike historical Britain, which held much of its debt in long-term annuities, modern U.S. debt has a short average maturity (69 to 73 months), making it highly sensitive to rising interest rates.

• Mandatory Spending Pressures: Entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are the largest federal expenditures and are becoming more expensive due to an aging population and unfavorable demographics.

• Unplanned Fiscal Shifts: As recently as 2020, the government projected interest payments would not exceed defense spending until 2028; however, this “tipping point” arrived years early.

Outcomes and Projected Future Impacts

• Sustained Violation of Ferguson’s Law: Current projections indicate a continued breach of the Ferguson limit, with net interest payments potentially doubling the defense budget by 2049.

• Erosion of Hard Power: Rising debt service costs create a “vicious circle” that pulls scarce resources away from national security, research, and advanced military technologies.

• Vulnerability to Rivals: History suggests that remaining above the Ferguson limit for an extended period signals geopolitical weakness and emboldens rivals to challenge the great power’s global leadership.

• Failure of Deterrence: Reduced defense outlays undermine the credibility of a great power’s deterrent, potentially increasing the payoffs for aggression by revisionist states.

• Need for a “Productivity Miracle”: Without radical reforms to entitlement programs, the only plausible way for the U.S. to return within the Ferguson limit may be through a massive productivity boost, such as one driven by artificial intelligence.

Throughout history, from the waning days of the Spanish Empire to the twilight of the French monarchy to the modern day United States, this specific fiscal limit has signaled a transition from dominance to decline.

In the modern context of the United States, as interest payments consume an increasingly vast percentage of gross domestic product, the options available to the sovereign narrow dramatically.

In such environments, the only politically palatable exit from crushing debt burdens is the deliberate, systematic debasement of the currency.

Looking back at the past and then at the present, one might conclude something akin to King Théoden.

Nonetheless, we should not forget that:

Faced with the inevitable erosion of fiat purchasing power, the conventional reflex of the capital allocator is to seek refuge in hard assets.

John Maynard Keynes famously dismissed the gold standard as a “barbarous relic”.

However, the mere accumulation of physical gold bullion is a static defense.

It offers preservation, but not necessarily real wealth creation.

By learning from the historical precedents of the quinto real and tax farming, we will demonstrate why precious metal royalty/streaming companies are asymmetric, capital-light, compounding choices especially in light of lessons learned from applied financial history.

The Quinto Real and Tax Farming

To grasp the profound economic superiority of the precious metal royalty/streaming business model, it is necessary to examine how empires historically maximized wealth extraction without bearing the operational risks of conquest, logistics, and administration.

The blueprints for modern precious metal financing were drawn centuries ago, forged in the mountains of the New World and refined in the administrative corridors of early modern Europe.

The fundamental challenge of resource extraction has always been the immense capital requirement and the inherent operational danger.

The solutions devised by historical sovereigns mirror the financial mechanisms utilized by today’s leading royalty/streaming companies.

The Caustic Conquests of the Conquistador

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Empire stumbled upon the greatest concentration of precious metals in human history, most notably at Cerro Rico in Potosí, Peru.

Between the years 1500 and 1800, these mines produced an astounding 150,000 tons of silver and 2,800 tons of gold, amounts that fundamentally altered global trade dynamics and triggered the prolonged inflationary period in Europe known as the Price Revolution.

This is what happens when you have a high stock-to-flow ratio i.e. a lot of new supply relative to the size of existing supply.

The operational realities of this extraction were brutal for those doing the actual physical work.

Still, the popular historical imagination often pictures the conquistadors returning to Europe drowning in boundless wealth.

As we say ad nauseam:

The financial reality was far grimmer.

The Spanish Crown, conversely, engaged in a far more lucrative financial arrangement.

The Crown retained the ultimate rights to the land and demanded a fixed percentage of all treasure extracted—a 20 percent top-line tribute known as the quinto real, or the royal fifth.

In the later Spanish expansions into the Americas, the Crown did not finance the ships crossing the Atlantic, it did not provision the miners, and it did not operate the smelters.

It simply collected a royalty on the gross production of the enterprise.

The quinto real was a mechanism of pure, frictionless leverage.

If a mining expedition failed due to disease or logistical collapse, the Crown lost nothing, having invested nothing.

If the expedition succeeded, the Crown collected its top-line revenue.

Tax Farming: Privatizing the Imperial Toll Road

A parallel evolutionary step in the development of the streaming model was the practice of “tax farming,” utilized extensively in early modern France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire.

Rather than building a sprawling, expensive, and often corrupt state bureaucracy to assess and collect levies, sovereign powers would auction the right to collect taxes to private financiers or syndicates, such as the Ferme Générale in France.

The mechanics of tax farming were remarkably similar to modern streaming agreements. The financiers would pay the state an upfront lump sum—providing immediate, non-dilutive capital to the sovereign, which was frequently utilized to fund wars or alleviate immediate debt burdens.

In exchange for this upfront capital provision, the financier acquired the right to collect and keep the future tax revenues from a specific region, trade route, or commodity monopoly for a set number of years.

While tax farming eventually fell out of favor due to the political optics of private wealth extraction and the eventual centralization of the nation-state, its underlying financial architecture was most appealing to the perspective of the investor.

Modern precious metal royalty/streaming companies are the descendants of the quinto real and the tax farmer.

They represent a financial model that strips the toxic, capital-intensive elements away from resource extraction, leaving only a pure, high-margin, capital-light revenue stream that compounds relentlessly over time.

The “Barbarous Relic” Strikes Back

To fully appreciate why these modern capital-light extraction models that sit atop the debasement resistant monetary medium that is gold are especially important in contemporary portfolio construction, one must understand the macroeconomic forces driving gold’s rediscovery.

The global monetary system is currently undergoing a profound phase transition, driven by the weaponization of finance and the inescapable mathematics of sovereign debt.

The Weaponization of Fiat Reserves

For decades following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the prevailing economic orthodoxy held that fiat currencies, managed by independent central banks, had rendered physical precious metals obsolete.

Keynes’s derisive classification of the gold standard as a “barbarous relic” became the accepted wisdom of the financial establishment. Gold produced no yield, incurred storage costs, and was viewed as an anachronism in an era of digital, frictionless capital flows.

However, the geopolitical events of recent years have shattered this illusion.

The decision by Western powers to freeze the foreign exchange reserves of the Russian central bank as punishment for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine served as a stark realization for sovereign states globally.

Consequently, global central banks have accelerated their demand for physical gold at an unprecedented pace, specifically opting for physical repatriation and delivery to highlight a growing mistrust in ledger-based fiat systems.

As we were writing this, France pulled the last of its gold from New York, marking the first time since the late 1920s that France has stored no gold with the US.

Reuters reports on the matter stated that “politics were not involved”.

Furthermore, the structural depreciation of fiat currency is accelerating.

While central bankers frequently cite low single-digit inflation targets, a broader historical analysis reveals a more severe debasement.

Over the past century, the global supply of gold has increased at an annualized rate of approximately 1.59%, constrained by the geological difficulty of extraction.

Conversely, the supply of the United States dollar has increased at an annualized rate of over 8.6% during the same period. The true, real rate of fiat debasement is significantly higher than official consumer price indices suggest, rendering the pursuit of hard assets not merely a speculative endeavor, but a mathematical necessity for the preservation of purchasing power.

It’s a monetary illusion to say goods/services like housing or college tuition are getting more expensive (the numerator).

In reality, goods/services only seem more expensive because fiat currency is losing its purchasing power (the denominator).

The Structural Flaws of Traditional Mining

The prevailing assumption among generalist capital allocators is that investing in a gold or silver mining company provides leveraged, equity-based exposure to the price of the underlying metal.

If the price of gold rises by 10%, the operating leverage of the miner should theoretically cause its equity valuation to rise by 20% or 30%.

The historical record, however, exposes this assumption as a perilous fallacy.

The traditional mining business is plagued by a structural paradox that routinely destroys shareholder value during the exact macroeconomic environments where it is expected to outperform.

The Cruel Paradox of Gold Miners in Inflationary Environments

During periods of material monetary expansion and fiat debasement, the nominal price of precious metals naturally rises.

In the immediate, short-term aftermath of a price spike, a miner’s revenues will increase, driving a sudden surge in profitability because the costs associated with pulling that specific ounce out of the ground were incurred in the past.

However, this profitability is fleeting.

Driven by the prospect of higher margins and pressured by shareholders to demonstrate growth, mining management teams inevitably seek to expand existing operations or acquire new, lower-grade deposits that were previously deemed uneconomical.

This expansion requires vast amounts of physical capital and industrial inputs.

New acreage must be secured, massive earthmoving equipment must be purchased, replacement parts must be stockpiled, and specialized labor must be hired.

In an inflationary macroeconomic environment, the competition for these finite resources triggers a severe, cascading spike in input costs.

The cost of diesel fuel, steel, cyanide for leaching, electricity, and human capital all surge simultaneously.

Therefore, the very macroeconomic forces that drive the price of gold higher generally drive the cost of extraction higher, and historically, input costs inflate at a faster rate than the end commodity.

The mining industry is thus structurally trapped in a classic boom-and-bust cycle.

By the time the new, highly capitalized mine expansions finally come online and surge new supply into the market, the commodity cycle has often peaked. The gold price retreats precisely as the miner’s cost structure hits its zenith, resulting in catastrophic margin compression, impaired assets, and massive value destruction for equity holders.

In the chart below, you can see what the All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) of extracting 1 ounce of gold in USD and how it has increased over time.

The Burden of Capital and Operational Risk

Beyond the inescapable inflation paradox, traditional miners face a gauntlet of existential threats that cannot be accurately modeled on a discounted cash flow spreadsheet. The extraction of precious metals from the earth’s crust is an exercise in immense operational hazard.

Miners must navigate intense geopolitical risks, as their assets are immobile and frequently located in resource-rich but economically unstable jurisdictions.

Governments facing their own debt crises frequently alter tax regimes retroactively, demand larger equity stakes in domestic projects, or outright nationalize mining assets.

Furthermore, miners are burdened with unpredictable exploration expenses, volatile labor relations, and immense post-production liabilities, such as mine reclamation and environmental remediation. A single environmental disaster or a prolonged labor strike can bankrupt a highly leveraged mining operation entirely.

These compounding vulnerabilities explain why the broader equity market has largely abandoned the sector.

Despite the critical nature of the commodities they produce, the entire mining segment of the S&P 500 Index represents a trivial 0.2% weight, consisting of merely one copper miner and one gold miner.

The traditional mining model is an exercise in Sisyphean capital destruction: billions of dollars must be continually pushed back into the earth simply to maintain flat production profiles, leaving paltry amounts of free cash flow to be distributed to shareholders.

The Modern Royalty/Streaming Model

If traditional mining is the grueling, capital-destructive work of the conquistador, the royalty/streaming business is the modern, highly refined manifestation of the crown.

It is a financial innovation that elegantly and completely separates commodity price exposure from operational cost inflation.

The Mechanics of the Financing Model

The royalty/streaming business model operates entirely on a principle of capital provision and contractual rights.

A royalty/streaming company does not operate mines, it does not hire geologists or truck drivers, and it does not purchase earthmovers. Instead, it functions as a highly specialized financier, providing liquidity to an industry that is generally starved for capital.

When a traditional mining company requires hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars to construct a new mine or expand an existing operation, it faces a severe financing dilemma.

Traditional debt financing from commercial banks is highly risky; a temporary drop in commodity prices or a delay in construction before the mine is fully operational can lead to immediate insolvency.

Conversely, equity financing via the public markets is often highly dilutive to existing shareholders, permanently impairing their per-share value.

The royalty/streaming company steps into this void to provide the required upfront capital. In exchange for this non-dilutive, non-recourse funding, the financier receives one of two distinct contractual rights :

1. A Royalty (e.g., Net Smelter Return - NSR): The right to receive a fixed percentage of the gross revenue generated from the mine’s future production. The NSR is calculated net of minor downstream costs such as transportation, refining, and smelting, but crucially, it is calculated before any of the mine’s operating costs or capital expenditures are deducted.

2. A Stream: The right to purchase a fixed percentage of the mine’s future physical metal production at a predetermined, deeply discounted price.

The mathematical discount inherent in a streaming contract is often staggering to those unfamiliar with the sector.

A typical streaming contract might grant the financier the right to purchase future gold production for $400 per ounce, or silver for $4 per ounce, while the spot market prices trade at multiples of those figures.

This deep discount is not a market anomaly or an exploitative practice; it is simply the present value of the massive upfront capital provided to the miner, amortized over a 20-to-30-year mine life, incorporating a required double-digit rate of return (typically in the 12% to 15% range). The streaming company earns that discount over time through the power of compounding.

Fixed Costs and Free Optionality

The defining brilliance of this financial architecture is its total insulation from operational expenditures and cost inflation. If the global price of diesel fuel doubles, if the cost of steel skyrockets, or if the mine’s unionized workforce strikes for a 20% wage increase, the traditional mining operator absorbs the entirety of the financial blow. The streaming company, however, continues to pay its contractually fixed delivery price of $400 per ounce.

Thus, as the spot price of gold or silver rises in an inflationary regime, the royalty/streaming company’s profit margins expand dramatically and immediately, making it the ultimate beneficiary of monetary debasement. Unlike the miner, whose margins could compress due to rising input costs, the royalty/streaming company’s costs are contractually frozen.

Furthermore, royalty/streaming companies acquire what can best be described as “free, asymmetric optionality.”

Royalty/streaming contracts are typically tied to vast geographical land packages rather than just the initial, delineated mine footprint.

Over the decades-long lifespan of a mine, the operating company will continually use its own capital to conduct further exploration drilling. If the operator discovers a massive new deposit on the property, the royalty/streaming company’s claim automatically extends to the new discovery. The royalty/streaming firm gains years, or even decades, of extended cash flow without having to invest a single additional dollar in exploration, drilling, or development.

Conclusion: An Allocation of Applied History

As the timeline advances through the latter half of the 2020s, the global macroeconomic architecture bears a striking resemblance to the most volatile periods of the 1970s and the early 20th century.

In its place, a multipolar world has emerged, characterized by the frantic onshoring of supply chains, the weaponization of central bank reserves, and an explosive, energy-intensive technological arms race in artificial intelligence.

Simultaneously, the sovereign debt profiles of many nations have crossed the historical rubicon where mandatory interest expenses rival the funding required to maintain geopolitical deterrence.

Allocators should consider assets that exhibit true asymmetric optionality: businesses that capture the upside of rising commodity prices without absorbing the crushing, simultaneous inflation of operating expenditures and capital requirements.

Select precious metal royalty/streaming companies are not merely derivatives of the mining sector; they are the most highly refined expressions of capital-light economics ever engineered in the hard asset space.

Select Exposures

These are the characteristics of our precious metal royalty/streaming investments.

Exposure 1

• Royalty and Streaming Financier: It provides upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for either a royalty (a percentage of the mine’s future revenue) or a stream (the right to buy future metal production at a fixed, low price). It is a financier, not a mine operator.

• Holds a Vast, Diversified Portfolio: Its assets include hundreds of royalties and streams, primarily in gold, but also silver, platinum group metals, and other commodities. This diversification across different assets, geographies, and operators significantly reduces single-project risk.

• Maintains Exposure to Oil & Gas Royalties: Uniquely among its peers, it also holds a significant portfolio of oil and gas royalties. This provides an additional layer of commodity diversification and a hedge against different economic cycles.

• Gains “Free” Optionality on Exploration: A core part of its model is acquiring royalties on vast land packages. If the mining partner discovers more resources on that land, its royalty interest applies to the new discoveries without it having to invest another dollar in exploration or development costs.

Exposure 2

• Pioneered the Precious Metals “Streaming” Model: It specializes in streaming agreements. They make a large, upfront payment to a mining company and in return receive the right to buy a percentage of that mine’s future gold or silver production at a deeply discounted, fixed price (e.g., ~$400/ounce for gold).

• Targets By-Product Metals from Base Metal Mines: A key strategy is to provide capital to miners of base metals like copper or zinc. These miners often treat the gold and silver produced alongside their primary metal as a secondary “by-product.” It unlocks the value of these precious metals for the miner, securing the stream for themselves.

• Secures Contracts on Large, Long-Life Assets: It focuses on partnering with major mining companies on large-scale, low-cost mining operations. This ensures their streams are tied to assets that will be producing metal for decades, providing highly predictable, long-term cash flow.

• Creates Massive Margin Expansion: Because its purchase price is fixed by contract, its profit margin expands dramatically as the spot price of gold and silver rises. Unlike a miner, its costs do not inflate with the price of the commodity, a key feature for an inflation hedge.

• Offers a “Pure-Play” Streaming Investment: It focuses exclusively on precious metals streaming, primarily gold and silver. This provides us with direct, high-leverage exposure to precious metals prices without the complexities of other commodities or royalty types.

What they have in common:

• Buy Low ; Sell High: Royalty/Streaming companies provide upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for the right to receive a portion of future production (typically gold, silver, or other precious metals) at a fixed, discounted price or as a percentage of output.

• Avoids Cost Overruns: Unlike traditional miners, royalty/streaming companies do not operate mines themselves; they earn revenue streams based on the exploration and production activities of third-party operators/miners.

• Capital Light Businesses: These companies are considered "capital-light" because they avoid the significant capital expenditures, operating costs, and post-production liabilities associated with direct mining operations.

• Positive Asymmetric Optionality: This structure offers "asymmetric optionality": revenues can increase both from higher metals prices and from increased production at the underlying mines, while the company itself bears minimal ongoing costs.

• Inflation Protection: Precious metals generally perform well in inflationary environments, and these companies provide magnified exposure to these price movements, making them potentially inflation beneficiaries.

• All-Weather Resilience: They can perform well in various economic regimes (high/low growth, high/low inflation), not just during inflationary periods.

• Long-Duration Assets: Many agreements are tied to long-life mines, sometimes with decades or even centuries of production potential, providing enduring revenue streams.

• Optionality and Scarcity Value: As new mine discoveries become rarer and existing high-quality assets more valuable, holding royalties/streams on these assets becomes increasingly advantageous.

• Mine Diversification: Royalty/Streaming companies often hold interests in multiple mines and jurisdictions, reducing concentration risk and increasing the stability of cash flows.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

It is intended as supplementary material to those reports.

Investing is a means to an end and is step 3 in our financial planning process.

That end is accomplishing your financial goals per your custom financial plan.

Every financial plan has an implied required return (RR) that must be earned over the long term for the portfolio to do its part in making a financial plan robust.

Furthermore, the following is a good expectations cleanser.

It shows the top 5%, bottom 5%, and the average annual return for various global stock/global bond allocations looking back 120+ years (1901–2022).

It illustrates the historical range of possibility (extreme good annual return, extreme bad annual return, and average annual return) by different portfolio types from the least risky allocation (100% bonds on the left) to the most risky (100% stocks on the right).

With that said, let us compare how the managed portfolios have performed relative to their respective RR and to their respective comparable low cost publicly traded diversified portfolio benchmarks.

Aggressive Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They underperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They underperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

Balanced Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They underperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They underperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their moderate portfolio benchmarks.

Cash Reserve Portfolios

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They performed in line with their cash reserve portfolio benchmarks.

For the Year

They performed in line with their cash reserve portfolio benchmarks.

The Equity Sleeve

The Performance

For the Quarter

It underperformed the world equity benchmark.

For the Year

It was in line with the world equity benchmark.

The Attribution

For the Quarter

Key Contributors (added value during the period)

• High Quality US Large Companies

• Japan (Dynamically Hedged)

• Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

Key Detractors (subtracted value during the period)

• Bitcoin

• Global Armaments

For the Year

Key Contributors (added value during the period)

• Global Armaments

• High Quality US Large Companies

• Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

Key Detractors (subtracted value during the period)

• Bitcoin

• West Texas Real Estate

The Systematic Long/Short Extensions

This takes tax loss harvesting 1.0 and upgrades it to tax loss harvesting 2.0.

It improves after-tax wealth compounding within a risk-managed framework and has several practical uses, including diversifying concentrated stocks, revitalizing "frozen" taxable accounts with large unrealized capital gains, and building up tax losses to offset future gains.

For a deeper dive, checkout the post below:

They were in line with its benchmarks and also reduced concentrated positions with significant embedded gains and yet only realized net short term losses.

Going long means making money when prices rise. This is buying low then selling high.

Going short means making money when prices fall. This is selling high then buying low.

These net short term realized losses were primarily from closing out short positions which makes sense given stocks went up for the quarter.

Exited Positions

Bitcoin

Despite our long term bullish views on this asset, we still incorporate a risk management framework akin to how commodity trading funds (CTAs) risk manage their long and short positions across equities, currencies, bonds, and commodities. We began reducing the exposure in October and completely exited in mid November. We are pleased with this process as this position kept falling after we exited while the US Large Cap equities we rotated into continued to increase in value.

It is very likely we will add back exposure once our same risk management framework indicates favorable conditions are in place.

For our long term views on this asset, checkout this post.

Japan (Unhedged)

Despite our long term bullish views on this asset, we exited this position as the currency headwinds from a weakening Yen relative to USD continued to increase in strength despite the material progress the underlying Japanese companies continued to produce.

We ultimately rotated into a different type of Japanese exposure which is discussed in the new positions section.

For our long term views on this asset, checkout this post.

West Texas Real Estate

Despite our long term bullish views on this asset, we exited one of our positions in this space as the incoming bottom up quantitative signals from Mr. Market began to indicate unfavorable weather patterns for this exposure.

Maintained Positions

High Quality US Large Companies

The Summary

This exposure consists of US Large Companies and then seeks to earn superior long term returns with lower downside risk by filtering out junk companies (overvalued and low quality companies run by poor management teams).

It filters out these factors which are a concentrated source of downside risk:

• High External Financing: companies that are over reliant on external capital through high debt or stock sales (i.e. a farmer who keeps selling his land to buy seeds for planting crops).

• Wealth Destroyers: companies that reinvest cash flow but generate economic returns below their cost of capital (i.e. borrow at 8% to earn 2% which destroys 6%).

• Value Traps: companies where intrinsic value is lower than book value (i.e. a home that seems cheap on a price per square foot basis but it has a cracked foundation, rotted support beams, etc).

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position outperformed the world equity benchmark.

For the Year

This position was in line with the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

For the Quarter

The primary contributors to this outperformance were our exposures to

• Alphabet

• Apple

• Merck

For the Year

The primary contributors to its performance were our exposures to

• Alphabet

• Nvidia

• Broadcom

Global Armaments

The Summary

This exposure focuses on companies that make armaments for nation state security.

For our deep dive into this topic, checkout this post:

To summarize our extensive research on this topic which we have previously written about: the entire world is rapidly rearming off an extremely low base of defense spending.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top three contributors to this underperformance came from

• Rheinmetall (German Defense)

• BAE Systems (British Defense)

• AeroVironment (US Defense)

For the Year

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top three contributors to this outperformance came from

• Rheinmetall (German Defense)

• Palantir Technologies (US Defense)

• RTX (US Defense)

Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

The Summary

This provides us with a diversified exposure to precious metals (gold and silver) by benefiting from both price appreciation of the metals and the production growth of the mines without the operational risks of mining.

Additionally, these exposures typically do well when traditional exposures do not and thus provides potent equity portfolio diversification.

Exposure 1

• Royalty and Streaming Financier: It provides upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for either a royalty (a percentage of the mine’s future revenue) or a stream (the right to buy future metal production at a fixed, low price). It is a financier, not a mine operator.

• Holds a Vast, Diversified Portfolio: Its assets include hundreds of royalties and streams, primarily in gold, but also silver, platinum group metals, and other commodities. This diversification across different assets, geographies, and operators significantly reduces single-project risk.

• Maintains Exposure to Oil & Gas Royalties: Uniquely among its peers, it also holds a significant portfolio of oil and gas royalties. This provides an additional layer of commodity diversification and a hedge against different economic cycles.

• Gains “Free” Optionality on Exploration: A core part of its model is acquiring royalties on vast land packages. If the mining partner discovers more resources on that land, its royalty interest applies to the new discoveries without it having to invest another dollar in exploration or development costs.

Exposure 2

• Pioneered the Precious Metals “Streaming” Model: It specializes in streaming agreements. They make a large, upfront payment to a mining company and in return receive the right to buy a percentage of that mine’s future gold or silver production at a deeply discounted, fixed price (e.g., ~$400/ounce for gold).

• Targets By-Product Metals from Base Metal Mines: A key strategy is to provide capital to miners of base metals like copper or zinc. These miners often treat the gold and silver produced alongside their primary metal as a secondary “by-product.” It unlocks the value of these precious metals for the miner, securing the stream for themselves.

• Secures Contracts on Large, Long-Life Assets: It focuses on partnering with major mining companies on large-scale, low-cost mining operations. This ensures their streams are tied to assets that will be producing metal for decades, providing highly predictable, long-term cash flow.

• Creates Massive Margin Expansion: Because its purchase price is fixed by contract, its profit margin expands dramatically as the spot price of gold and silver rises. Unlike a miner, its costs do not inflate with the price of the commodity, a key feature for an inflation hedge.

• Offers a “Pure-Play” Streaming Investment: It focuses exclusively on precious metals streaming, primarily gold and silver. This provides us with direct, high-leverage exposure to precious metals prices without the complexities of other commodities or royalty types.

What they have in common:

• Buy Low ; Sell High: Royalty/Streaming companies provide upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for the right to receive a portion of future production (typically gold, silver, or other precious metals) at a fixed, discounted price or as a percentage of output.

• Avoids Cost Overruns: Unlike traditional miners, royalty/streaming companies do not operate mines themselves; they earn revenue streams based on the exploration and production activities of third-party operators/miners.

• Capital Light Businesses: These companies are considered "capital-light" because they avoid the significant capital expenditures, operating costs, and post-production liabilities associated with direct mining operations.

• Positive Asymmetric Optionality: This structure offers "asymmetric optionality": revenues can increase both from higher metals prices and from increased production at the underlying mines, while the company itself bears minimal ongoing costs.

• Inflation Protection: Precious metals generally perform well in inflationary environments, and these companies provide magnified exposure to these price movements, making them potentially inflation beneficiaries.

• All-Weather Resilience: They can perform well in various economic regimes (high/low growth, high/low inflation), not just during inflationary periods.

• Long-Duration Assets: Many agreements are tied to long-life mines, sometimes with decades or even centuries of production potential, providing enduring revenue streams.

• Optionality and Scarcity Value: As new mine discoveries become rarer and existing high-quality assets more valuable, holding royalties/streams on these assets becomes increasingly advantageous.

• Mine Diversification: Royalty/Streaming companies often hold interests in multiple mines and jurisdictions, reducing concentration risk and increasing the stability of cash flows.

The Performance

For the Quarter

Exposure 1 underperformed the world equity benchmark and Exposure 2 outperformed.

Key Contributors

The outperformance came from:

• Wheaton Precious Metals

The underperformance came from:

• Franco Nevada

For the Year

These exposures materially outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top contributors to this outperformance came from

• Wheaton Precious Metals

• Franco Nevada

West Texas Real Estate

The Summary

This is West Texas Real Estate along with the associated oil, gas, and water rights.

• Vast, Perpetual Land Holdings: It is one of the largest private landowners in Texas, with approximately 870,000 acres of surface estate and 2.4 million acres of mineral interests, primarily in the Permian Basin. Additionally, this exposure is located in District 8 which is responsible for about 20% of all oil and gas production in the U.S. This land is a finite, irreplaceable asset that cannot be replicated.

• High-Margin Royalty Income: It owns perpetual oil and gas royalty interests on hundreds of thousands of acres. This generates high-margin revenue from energy production without the associated capital expenditures or operating risks of exploration and production companies.

• Capital-Light Compounding Machine: The business model requires minimal capital investment to generate revenue, leading to extremely high free cash flow. This cash can be used for dividends, share buybacks, and acquiring more royalty assets, creating a powerful compounding effect over time.

• Zero Debt: It has a pristine balance sheet with no debt, making it incredibly resilient through all economic cycles.

• Multi-Faceted Revenue Streams: Beyond oil and gas, it generates revenue from surface leases, easements for pipelines, water sales, and other commercial activities, providing diverse and growing income streams.

• Hard Asset Focus: This is a pure-play land and resource company. Its value is tied directly to tangible, finite assets rather than intellectual property or manufacturing processes.

• Inflation Beneficiaries: Its revenues from royalties and leases are intrinsically linked to commodity prices and economic activity, making them excellent hedges against monetary inflation.

• Capital-Light Business Model: It primarily leases its assets to others and collects high-margin fees and royalties, avoiding the heavy capital costs and operational risks of its tenants (e.g., oil drillers, data center operators, bitcoin miners, etc).

• Permian Basin Location: Its strategically centered in the Permian Basin, the most prolific and economically viable oil and gas producing region in North America.

The Performance

For the Quarter

It underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The underperformance came from:

• Texas Pacific Land Corp

For the Year

It underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The underperformance came from:

• Texas Pacific Land Corp

Capital Markets Exchanges

The Summary

These are essential, high-margin “toll roads” for the economy. They have immense operating leverage, meaning once their infrastructure is in place, revenue from increased trading volume flows directly to profits with minimal extra cost. Furthermore, their revenue is naturally hedged against inflation, as it’s tied to the nominal value of transactions, and they benefit from strong network effects and high regulatory barriers that create a durable competitive advantage.

Exposure 1

• Market Technology/SaaS Provider: It licenses and sells its critical trading, clearing, and surveillance technology to over 130 other exchanges, regulators, and financial institutions worldwide. This is a high-margin, software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.

• Listing Services: It operates a critical US stock market, where companies pay initial and recurring fees to list their shares for public trading. This creates a durable, long-term revenue stream.

• Data & Indexing: The company collects vast amounts of proprietary market data (like quotes and trades) and sells it to a wide range of customers. It also creates and licenses its influential indexes to providers of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other financial products for a fee based on the assets under management (AUM).

• Trading & Clearing: It earns transaction fees from the buying and selling of securities (stocks, options) on its exchanges and provides clearing services to ensure those trades are settled.

Exposure 2

• Proprietary, High-Demand Products: Unlike other exchanges that just trade other companies' stocks, it owns unique, indispensable products that it created. Key examples include:

  • The VIX: This index is the globally recognized standard for equity market volatility. It has a monopoly on VIX options and futures, which are essential for hedging.

  • SPX Options: It has exclusive rights to options on the S&P 500 index, the most important benchmark for the U.S. stock market.

• Leader in Secular Growth Trends: It is at the center of the explosive growth in index options and derivatives used for sophisticated hedging and income-generating strategies, including the recent rise of Zero-Days-to-Expiration (0DTE) options.

• Pricing Power: Because it owns these exclusive, must-have products, it has significant power to set the fees for trading them, protecting its high margins.

What they have in common:

• Consistent Trading Fee Generation: Exchanges, as toll booth operators, are the only consistent beneficiaries of trading activity over time. While most market participants are engaged in a zero-sum game, exchanges reliably earn fees from every transaction, regardless of market direction or participant success.

• Recurring Revenue from Data Sales: Exchanges own and sell vast amounts of proprietary market data to traders, hedge funds, and media outlets. This is a high-margin, recurring, and growing revenue stream.

• Asset-Light, High-Margin Business Model: Like royalty/streaming companies, exchanges operate with minimal capital requirements and have high cash operating profit margins. They are largely insulated from balance sheet vulnerabilities since they do not require significant borrowing or capital investment.

• Breadth of Economic Exposure: Unlike royalty/streaming companies, which are typically tied to a single commodity or sector, exchanges benefit from a broad array of economic activities. They participate in every market large enough to require centralized, regulated trading—including equities, bonds, commodities, derivatives, and increasingly, digital assets.

• Resilience and Adaptability: Many exchanges are among the oldest continuously operating businesses, having adapted to technological and regulatory changes over centuries (for example the London Stock Exchange has its roots in Jonathan’s Coffee-House circa 1698). Their business model remains robust and relevant, even as new asset classes (such as digital assets) emerge.

• Beneficiaries of Volatility and Innovation: Exchanges often see increased earnings during periods of market volatility and uncertainty, as trading volumes and spreads rise. They also stand to benefit from innovations like blockchain and digital assets, which can significantly expand the universe of tradable instruments.

• Limited Competition and Regulatory Moats: There are typically only a handful of regulated exchanges in each country, often due to regulatory preference for fewer, more easily supervised entities. This limited competition supports pricing power and high profitability.

The Performance

For the Quarter

Exposure 1 outperformed the world equity benchmark and Exposure 2 was in line with the world equity benchmark .

Key Contributors

The outperformance came from:

• Nasdaq

The in line performance came from:

• Chicago Board of Options Exchange

For the Year

These exposures materially outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top contributors to this outperformance came from

• Nasdaq

• Chicago Board of Options Exchange

New Positions

Japan (Dynamic Currency Hedging)

This exposure starts with a universe of 1,300+ Japanese companies and filters out companies that treat shareholders poorly based upon shareholder yield and corporate governance screens.

The final portfolio is less than 200 companies that statistically treat shareholders better than the starting index.

The next step is to determine the level of currency hedging.

From the perspective of a US investor, when one buys a Japanese stock you are impacted by both the local performance of the Japanese company in its own currency (Yen) i.e. just the stock performance as well as the performance of USD relative to the Japanese Yen.

Given that we don’t want the currency performance of USD relative to Yen to pollute the expression of the position, this exposure dynamically hedges this foreign currency (FX) risk.

This position dynamically updates its currency hedge (0% hedge means full exposure to Yen and 100% hedge means 0% exposure to Yen) based on a four separate currency models to determine what the hedge ratio should be.

At year end, the hedge ratio was at 75% which means the foreign currency performance exposure is only 25%.

The Alternative Sleeve

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark and the world bond benchmark.

As a reminder, the alternatives we consider are designed to generate returns that are low to negatively correlated to both equities and bonds (they zig when equities/bonds zag).

The Attribution

The top contributors to this outperformance came from:

• Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with a Twist)

• Gold Bullion (Fully Allocated Physical Gold Bullion held at the Royal Canadian Mint)

For the Year

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark and the world bond benchmark.

The Attribution

The top contributors to this outperformance came from:

• Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with a Twist)

• Gold Bullion (Fully Allocated Physical Gold Bullion held at the Royal Canadian Mint)

New Positions

None

Exited Positions

None

Maintained Positions

Managed Futures

The Summary

An exposure designed to generate absolute returns, low correlations to equities (they zig when equities/bonds zag), and help manage downside risk during risk-off events.

Going long means making money when prices rise. This is buying low then selling high.

Going short means making money when prices fall. This is selling high then buying low.

During Q4 2025, this exposure got updated to include European Interest Rates, European Energy, and European Agriculture.

Previously, the exposures were North American Interest Rates, North American Energy, North American Agriculture, North American Metals, and North American Livestock.

With a larger opportunity set across North America and Europe we think the merits of the strategy have been materially improved.

Below represents the different exposures that we can go long or short by asset class, region, and instrument.

As a reminder, this position uses multiple models which are each designed to capture different market dynamics.

• Price Trend: aims to perform during periods of disruption, high volatility, and outsized moves in price.

• Fundamental Reversion: detects when markets have moved too far from fair value, seeking to deliver returns during periods of lower/falling volatility.

• Carry: looks to perform during periods of flat or falling interest rates.

• Risk-Off: seeks to capture upward/downward.

With regards to recent history, this type of strategy materially protected our capital in 2022 when virtually every long only vanilla stock and bond investor got crushed.

With regards to deep history, there is asymmetric value in these strategies at an ultra low starting point of armament spending which leads to

1. Failed deterrence and then

2. A resurgence in armament spending which disrupts bond markets and then

3. Kinetic conflict which disrupts commodity markets

This is a pattern we identified in our aforementioned deep dive into global armaments.

Moreover, the beauty of this investment style is the ruthless execution of its quantitive rules which means there is no psychological barriers to changing one’s mind and thus positions when the data says the world is changing.

In fact, the long term evidence of this strategy’s veracity is the human tendency to under-react to long term real world fundamental change (we tend to assume the recent past will continue into the future).

The following chart shows current exposures as well as recent exposures which highlights the adaptive nature of the strategy.

Exposures

Commodity Exposures

Interest Rate Exposures

The Performance

For the Quarter

These exposures underperformed the world equity benchmark and underperformed the world bond benchmark.

Key Contributors

The positive contributors were the exposures as seen below:

• Silver

• Gold

• Copper

• Platinum

• Sugar

The negative contributors were the exposures as seen below:

• Live Cattle

• Cattle Feeder

• Natural Gas

• WTI Crude

• Cocoa

For the Year

These exposures underperformed the world equity benchmark and underperformed the world bond benchmark.

The year was split into 2 halves: Pre-Liberation Day and Post-Liberation Day.

Pre-Liberation Day trend following did well but Post-Liberation Day there were significant counter trend reversals which were historically abnormal both in terms of speed and magnitude.

Shortly after Liberation Day, global growth expectations materially decelerated as well as commodity prices and naturally equity prices given the expectation that material tariffs would slam the breaks on growth, consumption, and therefore prices.

Yet for the rest of 2025, equities roared higher which normally indicates growth accelerations and yet if one allocated to growth oriented commodities (things used in industry like oil, gas, copper, etc) one would have performed poorly with the exception of precious metals (like gold and silver) which normally do well when growth concerns abound.

The equity rally overall was a greater reflection of its concentrated exposure to companies materially tied to the CAPEX boom in AI spending instead of a broad reflection of broad economic reality.

Key Contributors

The positive contributors were the exposures as seen below:

• Gold

• Silver

• Live Cattle

• Cattle Feeder

• Platinum

The negative contributors were the exposures as seen below:

• Cocoa

• WTI Crude

• Gasoline

• Soybean Oil

• Canadian 10 Year Bonds

Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with a Twist)

The Summary

Gold is a chemical element that has historically been the premier form of commodity money because of its unique physical properties.

It is chemically stable and virtually indestructible, meaning almost all the gold ever mined is still in existence. This durability, combined with its geological rarity, gives gold the highest stock-to-flow ratio of any physical commodity, with new annual production consistently adding only about 1.5% to the existing supply.

This reliable scarcity makes gold a superior store of value, as its supply cannot be easily increased even when its price rises, thus protecting it from the debasement that has plagued other forms of money throughout history.

For a deeper dive into why we allocate to gold checkout the post below:

The Exposure

This exposure is one that we helped create and was inspired by our work in applied history which we define as a practical tool that uses the laboratory of the past to better understand and navigate the complexities of the present and future.

We observed that Gresham’s Law states “bad money drives out good money” i.e. people rapidly spend the less valuable money and hoard the most valuable money.

For example, you spend in credit ledger money for consumption needs (like food) but save in commodity ledger money for savings needs (like gold).

We also considered a common criticism from fiat enthusiasts that gold does not provide a yield or income and is therefore less valuable.

Despite this not being the fatal defect that fiat enthusiasts think it is, we nevertheless considered this observation.

We ultimately merged these two observations into an exposure that we call “Gresham’s Wrath”.

It is a magnified gold exposure that also generates income.

Specifically, it is the combination of two different strategies:

• First, we get 1.5X exposure to the price of gold. For example, if the gold price goes up 10% then this exposure would likely be up 15%. Economically, it buys $10 of gold with cash and then borrows the remaining $5 to buy the remaining gold position which results in a total gold exposure of $15. As institutional investors in global capital markets, we are able to borrow at an interest rate in the low single digits. Thus, we are economically borrowing a debasing credit ledger money whose interest costs are in the low single digits to buy a debasement resistant commodity ledger monetary reserve asset.

• Second, we layer on the selling of put spreads to generate option income. This is akin to selling a fire insurance policy that lasts for 2 weeks before it expires for a price of $10 and then buying firestorm reinsurance for $1 thus pocketing $9 for the two week period. By renewing this “fire insurance policy” every two weeks we expect over the long term to generate a modest amount of additional income in a very prudent manner.

Finally, at the 50,000 ft altitude of analysis, you will see that

• Gold demand from global central banks is accelerating at the same time US Treasuries are being reduced.

• Gold demand from global central banks intensely accelerated after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Gold exposure is being specifically expressed via physical deliveries which highlights growing mistrust.

• The top global fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, etc) have all lost material value relative to gold once they were severed from the gold link in 1971. In fact, the best performing fiat of the Swiss Franc (CHF) “only” lost 93% of its value.

• Over the past 109 years, the gold supply has increased from 38,387 tones in 1914 to 212,582 tonnes in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 1.59% per year which favorably compares to the USD supply of 26 billion in 1914 to 212,582 billion in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 8.61%. Thus, the real rate of annualized USD Fiat debasement is closer to the high single digits as opposed to the low single digits so commonly cited by fiat enthusiasts.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark and materially outperformed the global bond benchmark.

For the Year

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark and materially outperformed the global bond benchmark.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

It is intended as supplementary material to those reports.

Investing is a means to an end and is step 3 in our financial planning process.

That end is accomplishing your financial goals per your custom financial plan.

Every financial plan has an implied required return (RR) that must be earned over the long term for the portfolio to do its part in making a financial plan robust.

Furthermore, the following is a good expectations cleanser.

It shows the top 5%, bottom 5%, and the average annual return for various global stock/global bond allocations looking back 120+ years (1901–2022).

It illustrates the historical range of possibility (extreme good annual return, extreme bad annual return, and average annual return) by different portfolio types from the least risky allocation (100% bonds on the left) to the most risky (100% stocks on the right).

With that said, let us compare how the managed portfolios have performed relative to their respective RR and to their respective comparable low cost publicly traded diversified portfolio benchmarks.

Aggressive Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed their aggressive portfolio benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their aggressive portfolio benchmarks.

Moderate Portfolios

Relative to the Required Return (RR)

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their RR benchmarks.

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They materially outperformed their moderate portfolio benchmarks.

For the Year

They materially outperformed their moderate portfolio benchmarks.

Cash Reserve Portfolios

Relative to Comparable Portfolio Benchmarks

For the Quarter

They performed in line with their cash reserve portfolio benchmarks.

For the Year

They performed in line with their cash reserve portfolio benchmarks.

The Equity Sleeve

The Performance

For the Quarter

It was materially positive and in line with the world equity benchmark.

The Attribution

Key Contributors (added value during the period)

• Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

• Global Armaments

Key Detractors (subtracted value during the period)

• West Texas Real Estate

• A Defense and Aerospace Component Manufacturer

• Japan

New Positions

A Systematic Long/Short Extension

This takes tax loss harvesting 1.0 and upgrades it to tax loss harvesting 2.0.

It improves after-tax wealth compounding within a risk-managed framework and has several practical uses, including diversifying concentrated stocks, revitalizing "frozen" taxable accounts with large unrealized capital gains, and building up tax losses to offset future gains.

For a deeper dive, checkout the post below:

They were in line with its benchmarks and also reduced concentrated positions with significant embedded gains and yet only realized net short term losses.

Going long means making money when prices rise. This is buying low then selling high.

Going short means making money when prices fall. This is selling high then buying low.

These net short term realized losses were primarily from closing out short positions which makes sense given stocks rallied up for the quarter.

Exited Positions

A Multinational Military Technology and Armaments Manufacturer

We exited this position because our other exposures to global armaments already had a material exposure to this same company and we didn’t want undue concentration.

A Payment Processing Company

We exited this position because our other exposures to US Large Caps already had a material exposure to this same company and we didn’t want undue concentration.

A Defense and Aerospace Component Manufacturer

We exited this position as the incoming bottom up quantitative signals from Mr. Market began to indicate unfavorable weather patterns for this exposure.

Maintained Positions

High Quality US Large Companies

The Summary

This exposure consists of US Large Companies and then seeks to earn superior long term returns with lower downside risk by filtering out junk companies (overvalued and low quality companies run by poor management teams).

It filters out these factors which are a concentrated source of downside risk:

• High External Financing: companies that are over reliant on external capital through high debt or stock sales (i.e. a farmer who keeps selling his land to buy seeds for planting crops).

• Wealth Destroyers: companies that reinvest cash flow but generate economic returns below their cost of capital (i.e. borrow at 8% to earn 2% which destroys 6%).

• Value Traps: companies where intrinsic value is lower than book value (i.e. a home that seems cheap on a price per square foot basis but it has a cracked foundation, rotted support beams, etc).

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The primary contributors to this outperformance were our exposures to

• Alphabet

• Nvidia

• Apple

Global Armaments

The Summary

This exposure focuses on companies that make armaments for nation state security.

Our deep dive into the state of global armaments:

North America

The latest US defense budget proposal continues a trend of significant growth, pushing toward the trillion-dollar mark.

An analysis from the American Enterprise Institute shows the 2026 budget request continues a steep climb in spending, reflecting a strategic shift toward a world of renewed great power competition and away from one tuned for the global war on terror.

But beyond the headline numbers, a closer look reveals a clear and large bet: the Pentagon is prioritizing the development of next-generation technology over the mass production of weapons we have today.

In the proposed 2026 budget, every branch of the military sees a funding increase.

This spending surge is heavily weighted towards Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E).

The top two largest funding increases by account are for Air Force RDT&E (+$15.4B) and Space Force RDT&E (+$10.5B).

Key program winners include:

• Classified Programs: The largest single increase, with a staggering $13.8 billion boost.

• Nuclear Modernization: Programs like the B-21 Raider bomber (+$5.0B), Sentinel ICBM (+$2.1B), and the Columbia Class Submarine (+$1.6B) are receiving massive investments to overhaul the nation's nuclear triad.

Moreover, it appears the US is seriously considering focusing security concerns in the Western Hemisphere as opposed to focusing efforts on countering Russia and China.

This is a radical departure from past policy and has significant implications for Europe and Asia Pacific.

Europe

European nations are being compelled to dramatically increase defense spending due to a confluence of direct threats and shifting alliances.

The primary catalyst is the evolution of the war in Ukraine, which has transformed into a futuristic “drone war”. This new form of warfare, characterized by swarms of lethal drones, is no longer confined to Ukraine.

Russia is actively testing NATO’s resolve by sending drones and fighter jets into the airspace of member states like Poland, Romania, Estonia, and Denmark, sending a clear message that what is happening to Ukrainian cities could happen to them.

This urgent need for rearmament is magnified by a significant shift in U.S. policy under the Trump administration.

The U.S. has largely withdrawn from direct military support for Ukraine, effectively making the conflict “their problem” for Europe to solve. President Trump now speaks of NATO as a third party, signaling a retreat from America’s traditional security role on the continent.

With the U.S. stepping back, it is “crystal clear” that European nations must fill the void by both funding Ukraine’s war effort and rapidly rebuilding their own depleted militaries.

The current level of European aid to Ukraine is 0.1% of their annual GDP i.e. a “minor effort,” necessitating a massive acceleration in both financial support and weapons production.

Our applied history framework illustrates that a failure to deter is a broadcast of weakness which is an invitation to an aggressor to achieve its geopolitical goals by kinetic means.

Europe’s current military posture is perceived as weak, and Russia’s repeated airspace violations are a direct consequence of this lack of a credible deterrent.

Europe faces a stark choice: either rearm on a massive scale to “impose more pain on Russia” and enable a serious negotiation, or be forced into a diplomatic compromise from a position of weakness.

Asia Pacific

China significantly underreports its defense budget.

While official figures claim around $229 billion (as of 2022), intelligence communities estimate the true spending to be closer to $700 billion, comparable to the United States’ defense budget. This discrepancy arises because China omits several major categories of expenditures from its official military budget.

These uncounted expenditures include:

• Coast Guard and People’s Armed Police: These forces are used for military purposes, such as ramming Filipino vessels in disputed waters, but their costs are not reflected in the defense budget.

• Military Research and Development (R&D): China reports negligible spending on military R&D, despite clear evidence of advanced military development.

• Mobilization, Retirement Pensions, and Base Construction: These significant costs are also excluded from the official figures.

• Intellectual Property Theft: China extensively steals intellectual property, particularly from the U.S., allowing them to copy designs for aircraft, ships, and missiles. This theft de-risks their development process, leads to fewer failures, and significantly reduces their R&D costs, effectively operating as an uncounted subsidy.

• Military-Civil Fusion: China’s policy blurs the lines between civilian and military spending, with commercial industries like shipbuilding also contributing to military capacity. This includes substantial government subsidies to prop up military-related industries.

These hidden costs and practices mean China’s military spending is much higher and more efficient than publicly stated, especially when factoring in the lower cost of labor and the concentrated focus of their military efforts on the Asia-Pacific region.

If this strategy of economic sleight-of-hand feels familiar (to those who read history), it should.

We’ve seen this playbook before, in the smokestack-filled skies of 1930s Germany, right before the world plunged into war.

The Echoes of Territorial Ambition: Germany in the 1930s

Germany similarly engaged in secretive rearmament efforts in the 1920s and 1930s, circumventing the Treaty of Versailles which forbade them from building a military air force.

Key methods of concealment and obfuscation included:

• Military-Civil Fusion: German aviation engineers secretly designed military aircraft under the pretense of producing civilian planes. For example, the Heinkel He-51 was officially a training aircraft but functioned as a fighter plane, and the Junkers Ju-52, a civilian airliner, was developed to be a troop transporter and bomber.

• Offshore Testing and Training: To further hide their intentions, these newly designed military aircraft were tested in Soviet Russia. This secret collaboration allowed Germany to develop military bases deep in Russia and train a new generation of fighter pilots and air force officers (similar to China and Russia now).

By 1936, Germany’s aviation factories outstripped those of Britain and America combined, demonstrating the success of their covert and heavily funded rearmament program. By 1939, the Luftwaffe became the largest and best-equipped air force globally with 4,000 advanced warplanes.

Both China and Germany employed deceptive financial and operational strategies to mask the true scale of their military buildup, allowing them to rapidly expand their military capabilities while presenting a different public image.

On the whole, the entire world is rapidly rearming.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top three contributors to this outperformance came from

• Palantir (US Defense Tech)

• Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. (US Defense Tech)

• RTX Corporation (US Defense Tech)

Japan

The Summary

This exposure focuses on owner operator companies that serve the local Japanese market.

Our deep dive into Japan:

We have chosen an exposure that starts with a universe of 4,000+ companies and filters out 99% of those companies.

Then, the investment is allocated to approximately 30-50 companies with the following characteristics:

• Authentic Japanese Exposure: Unlike common Japanese exposures which are heavily weighted to large multinationals with significant global business, this exposure targets companies with locally sourced revenues i.e. genuine exposure to the Japanese economy.

• Alignment of Economic Interests: By focusing on owner-operators (management personnel who have significant ownership stakes in their businesses), we get exposure to management that is incentivized to maximize return on equity, return on invested capital, and shareholder returns.

• Compelling Opportunities at a Bargain Price: Generally, the Japanese market is cheap relative to its developed-market peers which minimizes the risk of overpaying. This cheapness does not mean we are buying low quality. In fact, we are paying a low price to buy high quality businesses (high profits, strong balance sheets, little debt, management incentive alignment, etc) which materially improves the risk adjusted return potential.

Why is the owner operator attribute so important in Japan?

Great question!

• Traditional Lifetime Employment System: This model discourages risk-taking and innovation within established companies. Thus, Japanese entrepreneurs gravitate towards an owner-operator model (management personnel are large shareholders), giving them the freedom to pursue new business ventures. As such, Japanese entrepreneurs are motivated to maximize returns for shareholders (us).

• Innovation: Japan is a significant source of innovation, ranking third globally in patent filings behind China and the USA.

• Foreign Competition: This is limited in Japan due to language barriers and closed corporate structures that restrict information flow.

• Mature Economy: Its declining population and aging society disincentivizes global competition from entering the local Japanese market. Thus, Japanese entrepreneurs have competitive moats over their stagnant corporate peers at home and distant investors abroad when it comes to opportunistically implementing and monetizing innovative ideas and business growth plans.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top three contributors to this underperformance came from:

• Digital Garage

• IG Port

• Internet Initiative Japan

Digital Assets: Bitcoin

The Summary

Bitcoin (BTC) is the hardest money ever created, emerging at the precise moment the global long-term debt cycle is showing terminal signs of stress, offering us a rational and essential tool for preserving wealth in an era of unprecedented monetary debasement.

Yes, we are aware Bitcoin is not an equity but we assign it to the risk sleeve for risk management and portfolio management reasons.

Our first principles look at Bitcoin is the foundational reason for our exposure:

The summary of what we find most compelling:

• Absolute Scarcity: Bitcoin achieves absolute scarcity with a mathematically enforced hard cap of 21 million coins, a feature no physical commodity has ever had. This predictable and finite supply makes it a superior long-term store of value, as a higher price only increases the network’s security, not the creation of new coins.

• Decentralized, Trustless Ledger: The network is a decentralized and trustless ledger, where transactions are verified by cryptographic proof and energy rather than by fallible third parties like banks or governments. This design allows anyone to send value directly to another person without permission, creating a neutral settlement asset free from counterparty risk.

• Closes a 150-Year Technological Gap: For 150 years, a “speed gap” has existed between fast digital transactions and the slow, physical settlement of hard assets like gold, necessitating centralized intermediaries. Bitcoin closes this gap by being the first scarce, bearer asset that can be settled globally at nearly the speed of light.

• Enables Individual Sovereignty: By allowing users to be their own bank, Bitcoin provides a powerful tool for individual sovereignty, enabling wealth to be held and transferred without permission. This censorship-resistance makes it a “monetary lifeboat” for those living under authoritarian or high-inflation regimes, as value can be stored in a key phrase and accessed anywhere in the world.

• Immutable and Antifragile: The network’s decentralized consensus makes its core rules, especially its 21 million coin supply, immutable and resistant to change. Furthermore, Bitcoin is antifragile—it grows stronger from attacks and disorder, as each failed attempt to compromise it only serves to prove its resilience and harden its security.

These characteristics are especially attractive in the context of a world reversing from globalization back to regionalization with growing distrust between multiple layers of society (nations, central banks, governments, citizens, etc).

Moreover, history shows monetary debasement often accelerates when governments aim to restructure society but want to avoid the short term pain required and thus succumb to the temptation to create more money.

The Performance

This position underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Precious Metal Royalty/Streaming Companies

The Summary

This provides us with a diversified exposure to precious metals, benefiting from both price appreciation and production growth without the operational risks of mining. Additionally, these exposures typically do well when traditional exposures do not and thus provides potent equity portfolio diversification.

Exposure 1

• Royalty and Streaming Financier: It provides upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for either a royalty (a percentage of the mine’s future revenue) or a stream (the right to buy future metal production at a fixed, low price). It is a financier, not a mine operator.

• Holds a Vast, Diversified Portfolio: Its assets include hundreds of royalties and streams, primarily in gold, but also silver, platinum group metals, and other commodities. This diversification across different assets, geographies, and operators significantly reduces single-project risk.

• Maintains Exposure to Oil & Gas Royalties: Uniquely among its peers, it also holds a significant portfolio of oil and gas royalties. This provides an additional layer of commodity diversification and a hedge against different economic cycles.

• Gains “Free” Optionality on Exploration: A core part of its model is acquiring royalties on vast land packages. If the mining partner discovers more resources on that land, its royalty interest applies to the new discoveries without it having to invest another dollar in exploration or development costs.

Exposure 2

• Pioneered the Precious Metals “Streaming” Model: It specializes in streaming agreements. They make a large, upfront payment to a mining company and in return receive the right to buy a percentage of that mine’s future gold or silver production at a deeply discounted, fixed price (e.g., ~$400/ounce for gold).

• Targets By-Product Metals from Base Metal Mines: A key strategy is to provide capital to miners of base metals like copper or zinc. These miners often treat the gold and silver produced alongside their primary metal as a secondary “by-product.” It unlocks the value of these precious metals for the miner, securing the stream for themselves.

• Secures Contracts on Large, Long-Life Assets: It focuses on partnering with major mining companies on large-scale, low-cost mining operations. This ensures their streams are tied to assets that will be producing metal for decades, providing highly predictable, long-term cash flow.

• Creates Massive Margin Expansion: Because its purchase price is fixed by contract, its profit margin expands dramatically as the spot price of gold and silver rises. Unlike a miner, its costs do not inflate with the price of the commodity, a key feature for an inflation hedge.

• Offers a “Pure-Play” Streaming Investment: It focuses exclusively on precious metals streaming, primarily gold and silver. This provides us with direct, high-leverage exposure to precious metals prices without the complexities of other commodities or royalty types.

What they have in common:

• Buy Low ; Sell High: Royalty/Streaming companies provide upfront capital to mining companies in exchange for the right to receive a portion of future production (typically gold, silver, or other precious metals) at a fixed, discounted price or as a percentage of output.

• Avoids Cost Overruns: Unlike traditional miners, royalty/streaming companies do not operate mines themselves; they earn revenue streams based on the exploration and production activities of third-party operators/miners.

• Capital Light Businesses: These companies are considered "capital-light" because they avoid the significant capital expenditures, operating costs, and post-production liabilities associated with direct mining operations.

• Positive Asymmetric Optionality: This structure offers "asymmetric optionality": revenues can increase both from higher metals prices and from increased production at the underlying mines, while the company itself bears minimal ongoing costs.

• Inflation Protection: Precious metals generally perform well in inflationary environments, and these companies provide magnified exposure to these price movements, making them potentially inflation beneficiaries.

• All-Weather Resilience: They can perform well in various economic regimes (high/low growth, high/low inflation), not just during inflationary periods.

• Long-Duration Assets: Many agreements are tied to long-life mines, sometimes with decades or even centuries of production potential, providing enduring revenue streams.

• Optionality and Scarcity Value: As new mine discoveries become rarer and existing high-quality assets more valuable, holding royalties/streams on these assets becomes increasingly advantageous.

• Mine Diversification: Royalty/Streaming companies often hold interests in multiple mines and jurisdictions, reducing concentration risk and increasing the stability of cash flows.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top contributors to this outperformance came from:

• Wheaton Precious Metals

• Franco Nevada

West Texas Real Estate

The Summary

This is West Texas Real Estate along with the associated oil, gas, and water rights.

Exposure 1

• Vast, Perpetual Land Holdings: It is one of the largest private landowners in Texas, with approximately 870,000 acres of surface estate and 2.4 million acres of mineral interests, primarily in the Permian Basin. Additionally, this exposure is located in District 8 which is responsible for about 20% of all oil and gas production in the U.S. This land is a finite, irreplaceable asset that cannot be replicated.

• High-Margin Royalty Income: It owns perpetual oil and gas royalty interests on hundreds of thousands of acres. This generates high-margin revenue from energy production without the associated capital expenditures or operating risks of exploration and production companies.

• Capital-Light Compounding Machine: The business model requires minimal capital investment to generate revenue, leading to extremely high free cash flow. This cash can be used for dividends, share buybacks, and acquiring more royalty assets, creating a powerful compounding effect over time.

• Zero Debt: It has a pristine balance sheet with no debt, making it incredibly resilient through all economic cycles.

• Multi-Faceted Revenue Streams: Beyond oil and gas, it generates revenue from surface leases, easements for pipelines, water sales, and other commercial activities, providing diverse and growing income streams.

Exposure 2

• Modern, Focused Asset Base: It controls approximately 220,000 surface acres and 8,000 gross mineral acres in and around the Delaware Basin, a highly active sub-basin of the Permian. Its holdings are strategically located to service modern energy development.

• Explicit Focus on New Infrastructure: It was structured from the start to capitalize on the infrastructure needs of the 21st century. It has an explicit strategy of leasing its land for data centers, Bitcoin mining facilities, and other large-scale industrial projects by offering unique advantages for them such as abundant and cheap natural gas for power generation, extensive water resources for cooling, an unregulated power grid, and low existing populations so there is little to no competition between citizens and business for access to said resources.

• Strategic Water Business: A core part of its strategy is its water business, including providing produced water management (e.g., saltwater disposal) and developing water infrastructure, which are critical services for energy producers in the region.

What they have in common:

• Hard Asset Focus: Both are pure-play land and resource companies. Their value is tied directly to tangible, finite assets rather than intellectual property or manufacturing processes.

• Inflation Beneficiaries: Their revenues from royalties and leases are intrinsically linked to commodity prices and economic activity, making them excellent hedges against monetary inflation.

• Capital-Light Business Model: Both primarily lease their assets to others and collect high-margin fees and royalties, avoiding the heavy capital costs and operational risks of their tenants (e.g., oil drillers, data center operators, bitcoin miners, etc).

• Permian Basin Location: Both are strategically centered in the Permian Basin, the most prolific and economically viable oil and gas producing region in North America.

The Performance

These exposures underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top contributors to this underperformance came from

• Texas Pacific Land Corp

• Landbridge

Capital Markets Exchanges

The Summary

These are essential, high-margin “toll roads” for the economy. They have immense operating leverage, meaning once their infrastructure is in place, revenue from increased trading volume flows directly to profits with minimal extra cost. Furthermore, their revenue is naturally hedged against inflation, as it’s tied to the nominal value of transactions, and they benefit from strong network effects and high regulatory barriers that create a durable competitive advantage.

Exposure 1

• Market Technology/SaaS Provider: It licenses and sells its critical trading, clearing, and surveillance technology to over 130 other exchanges, regulators, and financial institutions worldwide. This is a high-margin, software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.

• Listing Services: It operates a critical US stock market, where companies pay initial and recurring fees to list their shares for public trading. This creates a durable, long-term revenue stream.

• Data & Indexing: The company collects vast amounts of proprietary market data (like quotes and trades) and sells it to a wide range of customers. It also creates and licenses its influential indexes to providers of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and other financial products for a fee based on the assets under management (AUM).

• Trading & Clearing: It earns transaction fees from the buying and selling of securities (stocks, options) on its exchanges and provides clearing services to ensure those trades are settled.

Exposure 2

• Proprietary, High-Demand Products: Unlike other exchanges that just trade other companies' stocks, it owns unique, indispensable products that it created. Key examples include:

  • The VIX: This index is the globally recognized standard for equity market volatility. It has a monopoly on VIX options and futures, which are essential for hedging.

  • SPX Options: It has exclusive rights to options on the S&P 500 index, the most important benchmark for the U.S. stock market.

• Leader in Secular Growth Trends: It is at the center of the explosive growth in index options and derivatives used for sophisticated hedging and income-generating strategies, including the recent rise of Zero-Days-to-Expiration (0DTE) options.

• Pricing Power: Because it owns these exclusive, must-have products, it has significant power to set the fees for trading them, protecting its high margins.

What they have in common:

• Consistent Trading Fee Generation: Exchanges, as toll booth operators, are the only consistent beneficiaries of trading activity over time. While most market participants are engaged in a zero-sum game, exchanges reliably earn fees from every transaction, regardless of market direction or participant success.

• Recurring Revenue from Data Sales: Exchanges own and sell vast amounts of proprietary market data to traders, hedge funds, and media outlets. This is a high-margin, recurring, and growing revenue stream.

• Asset-Light, High-Margin Business Model: Like royalty/streaming companies, exchanges operate with minimal capital requirements and have high cash operating profit margins. They are largely insulated from balance sheet vulnerabilities since they do not require significant borrowing or capital investment.

• Breadth of Economic Exposure: Unlike royalty/streaming companies, which are typically tied to a single commodity or sector, exchanges benefit from a broad array of economic activities. They participate in every market large enough to require centralized, regulated trading—including equities, bonds, commodities, derivatives, and increasingly, digital assets.

• Resilience and Adaptability: Many exchanges are among the oldest continuously operating businesses, having adapted to technological and regulatory changes over centuries (for example the London Stock Exchange has its roots in Jonathan’s Coffee-House circa 1698). Their business model remains robust and relevant, even as new asset classes (such as digital assets) emerge.

• Beneficiaries of Volatility and Innovation: Exchanges often see increased earnings during periods of market volatility and uncertainty, as trading volumes and spreads rise. They also stand to benefit from innovations like blockchain and digital assets, which can significantly expand the universe of tradable instruments.

• Limited Competition and Regulatory Moats: There are typically only a handful of regulated exchanges in each country, often due to regulatory preference for fewer, more easily supervised entities. This limited competition supports pricing power and high profitability.

The Performance

For the Quarter

These exposures underperformed the world equity benchmark.

Key Contributors

The top contributors to this underperformance came from

• Nasdaq

• Chicago Board of Options Exchange

The Alternative Sleeve

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position outperformed the world equity benchmark and the world bond benchmark.

As a reminder, the alternatives we consider are designed to generate returns that are low to negatively correlated to both equities and bonds (zigs when equities and or bonds zag).

The Attribution

The top contributors to this outperformance came from:

• Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with a Twist)

New Positions

None

Exited Positions

None

Maintained Positions

Managed Futures

The Summary

An exposure designed to generate absolute returns, low correlations to equities (zigs when equities and or bonds zag), and help manage downside risk during risk-off events.

Going long means making money when prices rise. This is buying low then selling high.

Going short means making money when prices fall. This is selling high then buying low.

Below represents the different exposures that we can go long or short by asset class and instrument.

This position uses multiple models which are each designed to capture different market dynamics.

• Price Trend: aims to perform during periods of disruption, high volatility, and outsized moves in price.

• Fundamental Reversion: detects when markets have moved too far from fair value, seeking to deliver returns during periods of lower/falling volatility.

• Carry: looks to perform during periods of flat or falling interest rates.

• Risk-Off: seeks to capture upward/downward.

With regards to recent history, this strategy materially protected our capital in 2022 when virtually every long only vanilla stock and bond investor got crushed.

With regards to deep history, there is asymmetric value in these strategies at an ultra low starting point of armament spending which leads to

1. Failed deterrence and then

2. A resurgence in armament spending which disrupts bond markets and then

3. Kinetic conflict which disrupts commodity markets

This is a pattern we identified in our aforementioned deep dive into global armaments.

Moreover, the beauty of this investment style is the ruthless execution of its quantitive rules which means there is no psychological barriers to changing one’s mind and thus positions when the data says the world is changing.

In fact, the long term evidence of this strategy’s veracity is the human tendency to under-react to long term real world fundamental change (we tend to assume the recent past will continue into the future).

The following chart shows current exposures as well as recent exposures which highlights the adaptive nature of the strategy.

Exposures

Commodity Exposures

Interest Rate Exposures

The Performance

For the Quarter

These exposures underperformed the world equity benchmark but outperformed the world bond benchmark.

Key Contributors

The positive contributors were the commodities exposures as seen below:

The negative contributors were mostly the interest rate exposures as seen below:

Gresham’s Wrath (Gold Bullion with a Twist)

The Summary

Gold is a chemical element that has historically been the premier form of commodity money because of its unique physical properties.

It is chemically stable and virtually indestructible, meaning almost all the gold ever mined is still in existence. This durability, combined with its geological rarity, gives gold the highest stock-to-flow ratio of any physical commodity, with new annual production consistently adding only about 1.5% to the existing supply.

This reliable scarcity makes gold a superior store of value, as its supply cannot be easily increased even when its price rises, thus protecting it from the debasement that has plagued other forms of money throughout history.

For a deeper dive into why we allocate to gold checkout the post below:

The Exposure

This exposure is one that we helped create and was inspired by our work in applied history which we define as a practical tool that uses the laboratory of the past to better understand and navigate the complexities of the present and future.

We observed that Gresham’s Law states “bad money drives out good money” i.e. people rapidly spend the less valuable money and hoard the most valuable money.

For example, you spend in credit ledger money for consumption needs (like food) but save in commodity ledger money for savings needs (like gold).

We also considered a common criticism from fiat enthusiasts that gold does not provide a yield or income and is therefore less valuable.

Despite this not being the fatal defect that fiat enthusiasts think it is, we nevertheless considered this observation.

We ultimately merged these two observations into an exposure that we call “Gresham’s Wrath”.

It is a magnified gold exposure that also generates income.

Specifically, it is the combination of two different strategies:

• First, we get 1.5X exposure to the price of gold. For example, if the gold price goes up 10% then this exposure would likely be up 15%. Effectively, it buys $10 of gold with cash and then borrows the remaining $5 to buy the remaining gold position which results in a total gold exposure of $15. As institutional investors in global capital markets, we are able to borrow at an interest rate in the low single digits. Thus, we are effectively borrowing a debasing credit ledger money whose interest costs are in the low single digits to buy a debasement resistant commodity ledger monetary reserve asset.

• Second, we layer on the selling of put spreads to generate option income. This is akin to selling a fire insurance policy that lasts for 2 weeks before it expires for a price of $10 and then buying firestorm reinsurance for $1 thus pocketing $9 for the two week period. By renewing this “fire insurance policy” every two weeks we expect over the long term to generate a modest amount of additional income in a very prudent manner.

Finally, at the 50,000 ft altitude of analysis, you will see that

• Gold demand from global central banks is accelerating at the same time US Treasuries are being reduced.

• Gold demand from global central banks intensely accelerated after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Gold exposure is being specifically expressed via physical deliveries which highlights growing mistrust.

• The top global fiat currencies (USD, EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, etc) have all lost material value relative to gold once they were severed from the gold link in 1971. In fact, the best performing fiat of the Swiss Franc (CHF) “only” lost 93% of its value.

• Over the past 109 years, the gold supply has increased from 38,387 tones in 1914 to 212,582 tonnes in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 1.59% per year which favorably compares to the USD supply of 26 billion in 1914 to 212,582 billion in 2023 which is an annualized increase of 8.61%. Thus, the real rate of annualized USD Fiat debasement is closer to the high single digits as opposed to the low single digits so commonly cited by fiat enthusiasts.

The Performance

For the Quarter

This position materially outperformed the world equity benchmark and materially outperformed the global bond benchmark.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

Our financial system feels…fragile.

We see persistent debasement eroding our savings, debt levels reaching astronomical heights, and a growing sense that the system benefits insiders at the expense of everyone else.

In other words, The Cantillon Effect is real:

These aren’t just temporary issues; they are long term symptoms of a deep, structural problem with the very foundation of our money.

In a lot of ways, they are features structurally woven into the current fiat system.

To understand Bitcoin’s value, we won’t start with complex code or speculative charts.

We will start by asking a fundamental question: What is money, and why is ours broken?

Money is a Technology

Money is simply a tool.

1. Its nature is being a ledger for keeping track of who owns what.

2. Its purpose is being a facilitator of trade.

3. Its ideal state is one that is most “salable” i.e. one that best holds its value across the dimensions of space, time, and scale.

4. Its state can be measured across its properties of divisibility, portability, durability, fungibility, verifiability, scarcity, and utility.

Regarding its nature , there have been two ledger types over the millennia:

• Commodity Ledgers (e.g., Gold): Governed by the laws of nature.

• Credit Ledgers (e.g., The Dollar): Governed by the promises of humans.

For a deeper dive into What is Money, checkout the deeper dive below:

Let us explore how the best money is the most “salable” good i.e. the one that best holds its value across the dimensions of space, time, and scale.

Across Space

The monetary medium’s ability to be easily transported over distances.

It must pack a lot of value into a small weight and size.

This is why Rai stones were extremely poor in this regard. The largest stones never moved at all; ownership was simply transferred by public announcement, a system that could only work on a small island where everyone knew one another.

Gold, being dense and valuable, is highly salable across space. A small coin could represent a significant amount of purchasing power, making it easy to carry for trade across empires and continents.

Across Time

The monetary medium’s ability to hold its value into the future.

For an asset to be a reliable store of value, it must be durable and, most importantly, scarce.

This is why apples or fish make poor money—they rot and lose all value quickly.

Gold, being chemically inert and virtually indestructible, excels in this regard; almost all the gold ever mined still exists today.

Across Scale

The monetary medium’s ability to be conveniently divided into smaller units or grouped into larger ones to match the value of any good or service being traded.

This is why Cattle are a poor money because you cannot buy something of little value by paying with a fraction of a live cow.

Gold and Silver are excellent because they can be melted and minted into standardized coins of various weights and denominations, or combined into larger bars.

Historically, silver was often used for smaller, everyday transactions, while gold was used for larger purchases, creating a bimetallic system that covered all scales of trade.

The invention of paper money backed by gold further solved this problem, allowing a single monetary asset (gold) to facilitate payments of any size.

The Historical Winner

In regards to the time dimension, the key to holding value is having a high stock-to-flow ratio—a large existing supply (stock) relative to new production (flow).

History is a graveyard of monies that failed this test.

Shells, beads, and even giant Rai stones served as money until new technology made them easy to produce, destroying their scarcity and the wealth of those who held them.

This is the easy money trap: anything easily produced AND used as a store of value will see its production increase, and if its supply can be easily increased, it will destroy the wealth of its holders.

Gold won this technological war because it is chemically stable (all the gold ever mined still exists) and geologically rare, giving it the highest stock-to-flow ratio of any physical commodity.

Its supply has reliably grown at only ~1.5% per year, making it resistant to debasement.

What Broke Our Money?

If gold was so effective, what broke our money?

It was a technological mismatch that emerged in the 19th century.

The latter half of the 19th century, a period known as La Belle Époque in Europe and the Gilded Age in the United States, was one of the greatest eras for human innovation and prosperity, and it occurred under a hard money regime: the international gold standard.

Because money held its value or even appreciated, it incentivizing saving and long-term investment.

This vast accumulation of capital financed a wave of world-changing inventions, including electricity, the internal combustion engine, the automobile, and telecommunications (telephone/telegraph).

With a stable monetary unit uniting most of the global economy, international trade flourished, and capital was allocated to productive ends, creating an explosion of productivity and improving living standards worldwide.

With the invention of the telegraph, the speed of transactions (sending information about a payment) became nearly the speed of light.

However, the speed of final settlement in the underlying monetary medium itself (physically moving and verifying gold) remained stuck at the speed of ships and trains.

The speed of information transfer vastly exceeded the speed of physical transfer.

This speed gap created an inescapable arbitrage opportunity and irresistible temptation for centralized intermediaries.

To move value quickly, people had to trust banks with their gold and trade paper claims instead.

This centralization of gold as the monetary medium is an understandable solution to this logistical problem (mismatch in transaction speed vs settlement speed).

This centralization combined with government price controls on gold (a fixed exchange rate i.e. a government declared price that is defined as X units of national currency per unit of gold) instead of a gold price determined by the free market were fatal flaws in the international gold standard.

This design gave governments the power to sever the link to gold and create money through political decree (fiat), which they all did, culminating with the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971.

Thus, we were left with a fiat monetary system—a credit ledger controlled by government fiat.

This system suffers from two critical weaknesses:

1. Systemic Debasement

Without the anchor of scarcity, governments have always succumbed to the temptation of expanding the money supply to finance spending without direct taxation.

Remember, if the Sovereign wants to increase/change spending for whatever reason the choices are some combination of the following:

Direct Taxation (relatively transparent)

Often unpopular and a last choice of the Sovereign.

Borrowing (relatively transparent)

Often popular and 1st/2nd choice of the Sovereign if Mr. Bond Market permits it.

Creating New Money (relatively opaque)

Often popular and 1st/2nd choice of the Sovereign since it is done opaquely and its downsides are not immediately felt since “no one” is immediately feeling pain.

Spend Less On Something Else (relatively transparent)

Often unpopular and a last choice of the Sovereign since some interest group(s) will lose out on benefits.

This system creates long-term debt cycles where debt builds to unsustainable levels, and the only way out is through high inflation and currency devaluation.

The 2020s are shaping up to be a decade of this type of inflationary deleveraging, similar to the 1940s.

2. Rising Short Term Thinking

Unsound money that constantly loses value discourages saving and encourages debt and instant gratification.

Fiat Enthusiasts would proclaim it incentives investment and production while conveniently ignoring the glaring evidence of the civilization level innovations that occurred in the hard money era of the 19th century.

Why save (or think long term) for a future when your savings are a melting ice cube?

Bitcoin: A Modern Monetary Medium

Bitcoin is a direct competitor to both the the current fiat system and the historical gold standard.

It’s not just an asset; it’s a new kind of monetary network.

It’s a Decentralized Ledger

Bitcoin is more similar to a commodity ledger in that it is governed by nature thru the means of mathematics and energy (proof-of-work).

In other words, it is not a centralized credit ledger that is governed by the promises of people.

Critically, there is no central entity that can arbitrarily change the rules or inflate the supply.

It Achieves Absolute Scarcity

Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million units, hard-coded into the protocol and enforced by a global, decentralized network of users.

It’s the first time humanity has had an asset with absolute, predictable scarcity.

Its stock-to-flow ratio is mathematically destined to surpass gold.

It Closes the Speed Gap

Bitcoin is a scarce, bearer settlement asset that can be transferred anywhere in the world, without a trusted intermediary, at nearly the speed of light.

It combines the scarcity of gold with the speed of a modern fiat settlement system like Fedwire, and makes it open and accessible to anyone.

An Applied History Case for Bitcoin

Merging these perspectives creates a powerful applied history case for owning Bitcoin.

A Powerful Store of Value

This is the primary case.

In an era defined by systemic currency debasement and unsustainable debt, owning the scarcest liquid asset in human history is a powerful tool for wealth preservation.

It is potentially an anti-fragile asset whose value proposition is strengthened by the very monetary disorder that threatens traditional assets.

It is potentially an ultimate escape from the easy money trap.

An Instrument of Individual Sovereignty

You have ability to hold and move value without permission from any government or corporation.

For the billions living under authoritarianism or hyperinflation, this is not a abstract benefit—it’s a lifeline.

A decentralized monetary storage and movement system with 99.98%+ uptime for 15+ years is no small feat.

For those in developed nations, it is a powerful check on the ever-expanding surveillance and centralized control of the traditional financial system.

A Potential Neutral Reserve Asset

Bitcoin could potentially be a new, global, and neutral monetary standard.

Its open-source nature allows anyone to build on top of it, creating a permissionless ecosystem for innovation.

The Lightning Network, for example, enables instant, near-free global payments on top of Bitcoin’s secure settlement layer.

This network effect is a powerful driver of long-term value.

Overall

By providing a monetary medium that reliably holds value (it is scarce) and moves value without centralized permission (decentralized) where both the speed and settlement of the scarce asset are matched (digitally native), Bitcoin increases the incentive to save and invest for the long term—the very foundation of capital accumulation and human flourishing.

The current monetary fiat foundation is built on the sands of ever-expanding debt and political promises.

Bitcoin’s foundation is built on the bedrock of verifiable scarcity, mathematical truth, and individual sovereignty.

Owning Bitcoin is light years away from pure speculation.

In fact, it is a most prudent decision as seen thru an applied history framework that illuminates it as a substantial advancement in the technology that is money.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

For the taxable investor, after-tax returns are the only returns that matter.

A common tool for minimizing the tax drag headwind is tax-loss harvesting (TLH).

TLH means selling investments at a loss so that those realized losses can offset realized gains.

Since realized gains cause tax bills, this effectively means you can reduce your tax bill.

For example:

The hypothetical long-term loss from the sale of XYZ partially offsets the long-term gain from the sale of ABC.

This example assumes a capital gains tax rate of 15 percent. This rate varies by filing status and income.

The offsetting loss results in a tax savings of $600 ($750-$150).

This is effectively tax loss harvesting 1.0

The concept is simple: sell positions at a loss to offset gains elsewhere.

But there's a fundamental weakness in the traditional, long-only approach to TLH.

The very reason we invest in equities—the fact that they tend to go up over time—becomes its Achilles' heel.

Over time, the number of positions with losses tends toward zero.

Your portfolio becomes "frozen”.

Furthermore, the portfolio’s diversification can begin to degrade as certain positions that have done really well become an ever larger portion of your portfolio.

Moreover, you are likely still paying fees for a strategy that effectively has no management i.e. no longer trades and is thus frozen because all positions have gains.

Traditionally, this meant you had to make a choice.

Tax Efficiency

Choose tax efficiency (low to no realized gains and thus low to no taxes) while letting go of risk management (letting the portfolio diversification degrade and still paying fees).

Or

Risk Management

Choose risk management (moderate to high realized gains and thus moderate to high taxes) thus preserving diversification but letting go of tax efficiency.

Upgrading TLH 1.0

A traditional long only TLH 1.0 approach is akin to a canoe with a single oar.

Over time, the single oar is frozen from being used since all remaining positions have gains and thus an active risk manager is frozen out from rowing anymore. The canoe begins to drift aimlessly.

A more robust TLH approach is akin to a longship with multiple oars on both sides.

What are these additional oars?

• Shorting

• Margin

By including the ability to use margin along with the ability to go both long and short we now have the means to perform what is called a long/short extension.

This is TLH 2.0

Let us consider an example.

For every $100 of net investment, the portfolio holds $130 in long positions and $30 in short positions for a combined gross exposure of $160.

This structure, commonly used by institutional asset managers to enhance returns and control risk, fundamentally addresses the frozen portfolio problem.

• Long positions are more likely to generate tax losses when markets decline.

• Short positions are more likely to generate tax losses when markets rise. This is something a long only approach cannot do.

This dual oar approach to sailing a taxable portfolio means the strategy can harvest tax losses in virtually any market environment, not just during downturns.

The result is the potential for more significant and consistent tax benefits over time, year after year.

Moreover, by adding margin we literally have more capital at work to harvest tax losses on both sides of the portfolio (long and short).

In the previous example:

• the long only approach had $100 at work.

• the long short extension approach had $160 at work.

Tighter Risk Management

Adding margin and shorts might sound like it ratchets up the risk, but this structure is designed with risk management at its core.

In the previous example, the net exposure remains 100% (130% long - 30% short), with a goal of maintaining similar levels of return and risk relative to the market.

The portfolio construction process is risk-controlled, using tracking error targets and controlled industry exposures to stay aligned with the market.

This is essentially like using lane keeping assistance technology to keep your car (the portfolio) within the desired lane (the market).

Potential Active Stock Selection Value Add

Moreover, outperformance may be had thru the active stock selection process.

Let us look at a simplified example.

• ABC company

  • Market Benchmark Weight is 1%

  • Portfolio Weight is 2%

• XYZ company

  • Market Benchmark Weight is 1%

  • Portfolio Weight is 0%

If ABC company outperforms XYZ company this means additional performance has been earned because there was an overweight to the company that relatively outperformed.

This is further magnified because there is more money at work since we have $160 gross exposure in this long short approach versus the $100 at work in a long only approach.

More importantly, the upgrade of TLH 1.0 to TLH 2.0 does not require compromising on the original point of the portfolio’s purpose which in this example was to maintain equity market exposure.

Use Cases

TLH 2.0 is a powerful tax planning solution for a range of use cases.

1. Thaw "Frozen" Taxable Accounts

Many investors have long-only taxable accounts that have stopped generating meaningful tax benefits, have degraded diversification, and continue to incur management fees. By adding a long/short extension:

• The account can "thaw" its frozen ability to generate consistent tax benefits.

• The account can “thaw” its frozen ability to maintain diversification.

2. Thaw “Frozen” Concentrated Stock Positions

If a large part of your net worth is tied up in a single, highly-appreciated stock, selling it could trigger a massive tax liability.

This approach can specifically address this problem.

• The concentrated stock is used as collateral to build a diversified long/short extension around it. Upon deploying the extension, the portfolio’s diversification is materially improved. Then, losses consistently generated by this extension are then used to offset the gains realized from selling down the concentrated stock over time.

• This allows for a gradual, tax-neutral transition into a diversified portfolio. The long/short extension adds immediate diversification which helps reduce the concentrated stock risk during the concentrated stock’s divestiture period.

3. Prepare for a Future Capital Gain Event

Business owners or investors anticipating a large, future capital gain—such as from the sale of a business or other major asset—face a substantial future tax bill from that single event.

• The long/short extension can be used proactively in the years leading up to the sale to accumulate tax losses.

• When the realized capital gain event occurs, these accumulated tax losses can be used to offset this large capital gain, potentially saving a significant amount in taxes and preserving more of the hard-earned proceeds from the sale.

TLH 2.0

The evolution from long only TLH 1.0 to a more robust long/short TLH 2.0 represents a significant leap forward for taxable investors.

By embracing a structure that can generate tax alpha regardless of market direction, investors can pursue more effective compounding of after-tax wealth.

It is a compelling solution that rejects the false binary choice of either tax efficiency or risk management into one that is both while simultaneously enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of a financial plan.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

What if I told you the economy is slowing… yet investors are cheering?

Sounds backward, right? But it is happening in plain sight.

Look around. Fewer “Help Wanted” signs. Quiet shifts at your favorite restaurant. Friends delaying big purchases.

You’re not imagining it. The data says the slowdown is real:

• 73,000 jobs added in July (well below expectations)¹

• 258,000 jobs erased from prior months after revisions¹

• 4.2% unemployment, the highest in two years¹

• 1.97 million continuing jobless claims, the most since late 2021²

• Weak factory data pointing to manufacturing cutbacks³

And yet, the S&P 500 keeps breaking records. It’s already up more than 8% year-to-date.

So what is going on? Let’s break it down into three big reasons that are possibly driving the market right now.

1) Lower rates are on the table

Thanks to the recent swath of weak numbers, investors are speculating that the Federal Reserve could start slashing interest rates later this year.⁴

Think of the Fed as the country’s financial thermostat. If the economy is cooling too much, it turns up the heat.

Lower rates make it cheaper for companies to borrow and invest. They also make bonds less appealing, which pushes more money toward stocks.

Imagine a seesaw. On one side: stocks. On the other: bonds. Lower rates tip the balance toward stocks.

That is why bad economic news can sometimes push markets higher. Investors are betting the Fed will step in.

2) A few giants carry the market

The “Magnificent 7” — Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla — have powered much of this year’s rally.

In the second quarter, analysts project these companies will see their earnings jump 14.1% year-over-year. The other 493 stocks in the S&P 500, by comparison, expect to report earnings growth of 3.4%.⁵

Because the Magnificent 7 make up such a large share of the index, their wins can lift the market even if many companies are struggling.

This concentration means a diversified portfolio might not mirror headline market moves, and that's actually a good thing. It shows you’re not betting everything on a handful of tech giants.

3) Money is still flowing in

Years of stimulus and government spending have left plenty of cash in the system. That money has to go somewhere.

Investor sentiment matters, too.

Over the past decade, many have been conditioned to buy the dip because markets have often bounced back quickly. Combine that with the ease of app-based trading, and rallies can feed on themselves.

Think of it like a campfire. The wood is already stacked. It only takes a small spark for the flames to rise.

The bottom line

These three forces, rate cut expectations, a handful of dominant companies, and strong investor sentiment, can push markets higher even when the economy might be slowing. All of them are tied to expectations and human behavior, not just today’s numbers.

That is why chasing headlines is risky.

It is also why emotional decisions can derail a well-built plan.

Markets will always swing. Your plan should help keep you steady.

Sources:

1. BLS, 2025 [URL: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf]

2. Department of Labor, 2025 [URL: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf]

3. ISM, 2025 [URL: https://www.ismworld.org/supply-management-news-and-reports/reports/ism-report-on-business/pmi/july/]

4. Reuters, 2025 [URL: https://www.reuters.com/business/jpmorgan-brings-forward-fed-rate-cut-forecast-september-2025-08-08/]

5. FactSet Insights, 2025 [URL: https://insight.factset.com/are-magnificent-7-companies-still-top-contributors-to-earnings-growth-for-the-sp-500-for-q2]

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

What is Money?

It sounds like a simple question with a simple answer.

Still, we must warn you:

Let us first start off with its nature.

Its Nature: Money is a Ledger

At its core, money is fundamentally a ledger. A ledger is a summary of transactions used to keep track of who owns what.

The earliest known written ledgers, dating back over 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, were clay tablets used to track commodities, marking the first known instances of humans writing down lists of ownership, credit, or transactions.

Even before writing, ledgers existed in memory and oral form, implicitly maintained whenever someone owed something to another.

There are two competing ledger systems:

The Commodity Theory of Money

This is where money naturally arises from a salable commodity to overcome barter inefficiencies.

Humans utilize a "trust-minimized" method by allowing nature and its physical laws to maintain the ledger. Physical exchange of highly salable commodities settles the ledger on the spot, and no human authority can debase the money by mere decree.

The Credit Theory of Money

This is where credit is fundamental and money arises from debt obligations within a social structure.

Ledgers are maintained by humans, either informally within small, trusted groups (kinship, friendship, honor) or formally by a centralized administrative state and the rule of law for larger groups (like banks). These human-controlled ledgers are historically prone to long-term degradation, defaults, and devaluations.

Both theories describe ways to maintain a ledger, but with different "maintainers of the ledger".

The choice between these systems often depends on the prevailing level of societal trust.

High-trust environments favor convenient and efficient human-administered credit systems.

Low-trust environments (e.g., between strangers or after financial system failures) lead people to rely on trust-minimized commodity monies for their payments and savings, despite potential inconveniences.

Ok so it is a ledger system but what is the need that drives it?

Its Purpose: A Facilitator of Trade

Money emerged naturally to address the inefficiency of barter, specifically the "double coincidence of wants”. For example, if you have cows and want fish what are the odds of finding someone who wants cows and has fish and BOTH of you meet up and happen to have a double coincidence of what each other want?

Thus, money is a solution to the problem of a “double coincidence of wants” and is the most “salable” good—the one that best holds its value across the dimensions of space, time, and scale.

It makes all other economic transactions more efficient.

Now that we have identified what money is i.e. a ledger and its purpose is to facilitate trade we can now discuss the different characteristics by which we measure the quality of money.

Its Properties

Money should be evaluated based on several ideal properties.

Divisibility

The capacity of money to be broken down into smaller units, suitable for transactions of varying sizes.

Historical Example (Gold)

Gold's main weakness as a sole form of money was its limited divisibility, often requiring the parallel use of silver coins for smaller, everyday transactions. Early U.S. monetary policy, such as the Coinage Act of 1792, established a tri-metallic decimal system that designated gold for larger denominations ($10 Eagle) and silver for smaller ones ($1 Dollar) to address this challenge. The advent of banking systems and paper banknotes significantly enhanced gold's effective divisibility by allowing paper claims representing various denominations of gold to circulate.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

The USD, as a fiat currency, is highly divisible into numerous denominations of physical banknotes (e.g., pennies, dollars) and digital ledger entries. Its divisibility allows for transactions ranging from micro-payments to vast sums in the digital realm.

Portability

The ease with which money can be transported over distances, implying that it must condense significant value into a manageable weight or form.

Historical Example (Gold & Shells)

Shells, especially when made into wearable jewelry, offered good portability as they didn't require being carried in hands. Gold, due to its high density and value-to-size/weight ratio, has historically been highly portable for large sums, making it suitable for central bank reserves and for individuals transporting wealth. In contrast, Yap's enormous rai stones, weighing thousands of pounds, were rarely physically moved, serving more as a localized ledger than a portable medium of exchange.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

Physical USD Fiat is highly portable and widely accepted globally for physical transactions. Digitally, fiat currencies are even more portable, moving as electronic ledger entries across vast distances instantaneously through telecommunication systems, making large-value transfers effortless.

Durability

The capacity of money to endure over time without degrading through rot, rust, or breakage.

Historical Example (Gold & Shells)

Gold is exceptionally durable; it is chemically inert, does not rot, rust, or corrode, and can be remelted repeatedly, making it practically indestructible for long-term storage of value. Shells also proved to be long-lasting and durable forms of early money. Conversely, feathers were considered "not very durable".

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

Physical fiat currency, like paper banknotes, is not inherently as durable as gold and degrades with physical use, requiring replacement by mints. While digital fiat currency itself doesn't physically degrade, its purchasing power has historically degraded over time due to inflation and the expansion of the money supply by a combination of commercial banks and central authorities (central banks or ministries of finance).

Fungibility

The quality that ensures individual units of money are identical and interchangeable, meaning one unit is as valuable as any other unit of the same denomination.

Historical Example (Tobacco & Cocoa)

Cocoa beans were relatively fungible. However, tobacco, used as money in the early 1600s in Virginia, was not perfectly fungible due to quality differences, leading to issues where lower quality tobacco would circulate while higher quality was hoarded. Minting precious metal coins aimed to standardize units and improve their fungibility, though debasement by rulers could compromise this over time, making purer coins less fungible with debased ones.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

The USD Fiat and other fiats, are designed to be perfectly fungible. One USD Fiat is interchangeable with another, whether in physical or digital form, and bank reserves held at the US Central Bank are also fungible.

Verifiability

The ease with which a recipient can confirm that the money is genuine and valid.

Historical Example (Coinage)

The minting of precious metal coins by recognized authorities, with standardized size, weight, and fineness, significantly enhanced verifiability and facilitated commerce. Features like an emperor's face stamped on a coin or ridges on its edges helped prevent shaving of the metal and provided a degree of assurance regarding its quality and content.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

For physical fiat, security features like watermarks and special inks aid in verification, though counterfeiting remains a concern. For digital fiat (bank balances), verification relies on the centralized ledger systems of banks and central banks, which maintain and reconcile account balances. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are designed to provide central banks with "absolute control" and "technology to enforce" rules, allowing for easy verification and tracking of all transactions by the issuer.

Scarcity

The characteristic that the money supply does not increase rapidly. This is often the decisive factor between competing commodity monies and is best measured by the stock-to-flow ratio (existing supply relative to new annual supply).

Historical Example (Gold & Commodities)

Gold has the highest stock-to-flow ratio among commodities, typically around 50x or above, with its above-ground supply increasing by approximately 1.5% per year. This inherent scarcity makes its value resistant to rapid debasement. Conversely, various forms of money like shell money, tobacco, cocoa, and rai stones eventually failed as money when technological advancements allowed their supply to be rapidly expanded, breaking their scarcity.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

Fiat currencies, such as the USD, are not naturally scarce. Their supply can be rapidly expanded by central banks, commercial banks, and governments "out of thin air". The U.S. broad money supply has grown at an annualized rate of around 7% since 1960, indicating continuous debasement. This flexibility is often used to smooth out economic volatility or finance government spending without direct taxation.

Utility

The money is intrinsically desirable in some way, serving a purpose beyond its monetary function, such as for consumption or aesthetic value.

Historical Example (Shells, Cocoa, Rai Stones)

Shells and gold had aesthetic utility as ornamentation or wearable wealth, providing "intrinsic desirability". Cocoa beans had the utility of taste. Rai stones, while not consumable, were primarily aesthetic, serving to display and record wealth.

Modern Example (USD Fiat)

Modern fiat currency generally offers no intrinsic utility; it is not consumable and not directly redeemable for anything else that offers utility. Its utility is derived solely from its widespread acceptance as legal tender within a jurisdiction and its foundational role within the established financial system.

Recent Historical Considerations

The shift from commodity-backed money (like gold) to fiat currency was significantly influenced by technological developments, particularly the rise of telecommunication systems. This created a "speed gap" where fast transactions could outpace slow physical settlements of gold, giving centralized banks and governments immense power over monetary ledgers. This power has historically been used to expand the money supply, financing wars and other government expenses by diluting citizens' savings in a non-transparent way.

Remember, if the Sovereign wants to increase/change spending for whatever reason the choices are some combination of the following:

Direct Taxation (relatively transparent)

Often unpopular and a last choice of the Sovereign.

Borrowing (relatively transparent)

Often popular and 1st/2nd choice of the Sovereign if Mr. Bond Market permits it.

Creating New Money (relatively opaque)

Often popular and 1st/2nd choice of the Sovereign since it is done opaquely and its downsides are not immediately felt since “no one” is immediately feeling pain.

Spend Less On Something Else (relatively transparent)

Often unpopular and a last choice of the Sovereign since some interest group(s) will lose out on benefits.

Never forget the following:

With all that said, let us see how gold scores under this “characteristics of good money” framework.

How Good is Gold at Being Money?

Gold excels across most attributes considered ideal for money.

Divisible

While historically limited in divisibility, requiring silver for smaller transactions, banking systems and paper banknotes enhanced gold's effective divisibility.

Portable

It packs a lot of value into a small weight, making it easy to move across distances, especially in physical form (coins, jewelry).

Durable

Gold is highly resistant to decay, rust, or breakage, making it easy to preserve purchasing power across time.

Fungible

Individual units of gold do not differ significantly from each other; one is as good as any other.

Verifiable

With coinage, widely recognized authorities could standardize units in terms of size, weight, and fineness, adding a degree of verifiability.

Scarce

Its high stock-to-flow ratio ensures its supply does not increase quickly, which is crucial for maintaining its value. Moreover, gold serves as "nature's decentralized ledger," meaning no human or group controls its supply or can easily "cheat" by flooding the market with it. This scarcity makes it highly resistant to debasement, unlike fiat currencies which can be expanded at will by issuers. Its long-term value is subject to the firm laws of nature, rather than the fallibility of mankind.

Salable

Gold is considered the "most salable good" in a society, meaning it's universally desired and can reliably be traded for other goods or services, enabling value to be transported across both space and time. Its liquidity, or widespread acceptance and holding, contributes to its salability.

Monetary Premium

Gold carries a significant monetary premium, an additional value above its pure utility, because many people hold it as a form of savings. Only assets highly resistant to increases in supply relative to existing supply can sustain this premium over the long run.

Commodity Ledger System

As a commodity money, physical gold represents final settlement, where its value does not depend on memory or the promises of a centralized entity. It provides a trust-minimized method of maintaining a ledger, where physical exchange settles transactions on the spot between non-trusted parties. This makes it useful in times of low societal trust or war.

Time Tested

Gold outcompeted all other commodity monies throughout history, reaching the modern era as usable money because it could maintain high enough stock-to-flow ratios against advancements in human technology.

In essence, gold's value as a store of wealth stems from its inherent, natural scarcity and durability, making it a reliable hedge against the debasement of human-managed fiat currencies. While it has lost its role as a primary medium of exchange due to technological advancements favoring faster digital transactions, it retains its importance as a foundational reserve asset for central banks and a physical hedge for individuals seeking self-custody and long-term value preservation.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

The top down and longer term positive attributes that we see include:

Demographic Shifts and Wealth Transfer

We expect a significant wealth transfer as Japan’s older generation passes on their savings to younger generations. This transfer, amounting to approximately $5-$6 trillion, is anticipated to boost domestic demand and economic activity as younger generations inherit and spend this wealth.

Labor Market Changes

The shift from seniority-based to merit-based pay is transforming Japan’s labor market. As the war for talent intensifies, companies are increasingly offering better pay and career opportunities to attract and retain employees. This shift is expected to enhance productivity and increase incomes, further stimulating domestic demand.

Corporate Efficiency and Profitability

Japanese companies, especially under the leadership of so-called “salaryman CEOs,” have demonstrated remarkable efficiency and profitability. Despite stagnant top-line sales since the mid-1990s, these companies have managed to significantly increase profits. This indicates strong internal management and cost-cutting capabilities, positioning them well for future growth when combined with potential new investments in technology and human capital.

These factors among many more collectively create a compelling case for the continued growth and potential of Japan’s equities.

Source: Jesper Koll, UBS Global Wealth Report 2023, Wilkinson & Pickett & The Equality Trust, OECD, Bank of Japan, US Federal Reserve, Japan Labor Force Survey, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Bloomberg, Census Bureau, METI, Ministry of Finance, Milken Institute

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

Let us examine the question of armament spending thru our applied history framework, which we see as a practical tool that uses the laboratory of the past to better understand and navigate the complexities of the present and future.

Thousands of years of military history show that robust armament spending is fundamentally linked to preventing conflict. It builds the military strength necessary for effective deterrence, discouraging potential aggressors who calculate that the costs and risks of challenging a well-armed and resolute nation are too high.

Weakness or insufficient investment in defense, conversely, makes conflict more likely by lowering the perceived barriers to successful aggression.

Once kinetic conflict starts, as invited by a lack of deterrence, there is often a reactive surge in armament spending particularly in democracies that may have reduced spending during peacetime. This is driven by the immediate needs of the war: replacing lost equipment, producing munitions, mobilizing personnel, and developing or deploying necessary technologies to counter the enemy.

With this backdrop, what do we see today?

We see the retreat of globalization and the reemergence of regionalization.

We see that armament spending is at multi century lows due to the flawed assumption that we had reached the End of History (a very influential book in the halls of power that was published in 1992 i.e. victory day for Cold War 1, that said we are now at the End of History because liberal democracy is the final form of government for all nations).

We foresee that unchanging human nature will likely remind us all that failure to deter invites kinetic aggressors and when its invitation is accepted it is often accepted by multiple invitees which then reignites a reactive surge in armament spending.

The current invitees that have accepted have been China, Russia, and Hamas/Iran so far.

Sources: Department of Defense, Worldbank, Marzian and Trebesch (2024), Hedgeye Risk Management

Sources: American Enterprise Institute

Using our applied history framework, which we see as a practical tool that uses the laboratory of the past to better understand and navigate the complexities of the present and future, let us examine more precisely how various financial markets behaved in past periods of nation state kinetic conflict.

The first age of globalization and what happened between its hegemon Great Britain and its rising power and challenger Germany is an excellent starting point.

Notice the material percentage increases in armament spending that also coincided with large increases in government borrowing relative to GDP. Then notice over this buildup period before the start of World War 1 (1914) that those who held their sovereign’s bonds had losses between 23% and 30%.

Source: Niall Ferguson in Pity of War

This of course bodes poorly for bond exposures during the build up period. Now, let us examine what happens after the war starts.

Notice the massive increase in the money supply across all participants from 110% for the UK all the way to 1,102% for Russia. This all took place over just six short years and thus shows the absolute decimation of one’s purchasing power over the period. A similar conclusion can be seen in cost of living indices as well. This should not be a shocking result when one sees the magnitude of deficit spending over the war period and the cumulative amount of debt incurred to fight it.

It was not just men’s bodies that were conscripted to fight. It was also the population’s collective purchasing power and wealth that was conscripted to fight for victory.

Source: Niall Ferguson in Pity of War

However, it is false to say that performing your patriotic financial duty means you must accept being debased and rendered poorer.

There were plenty of other exposures you could have taken that provided immense value to the war effort and also resulted in your wealth growing in real terms.

Source: Niall Ferguson

Clearly having long exposure (making money when prices rise) to select equities and select commodities while having short exposure (making money when prices fall) to select bonds would have done immensely well. Why?

Long Select Equities

Wars cannot be won with words alone so companies that make more guns, tanks, shells, etc are incredibly valuable. Those who can make more gear at reasonable cost and at reasonable quality can empower the armies to achieve their objectives.

Long Commodities

Supply disruptions combined with increased demand causes prices to skyrocket which then incentivizes reordering production for its highest and best use.

Short Bonds

In many ways, a modern war is between each nation’s industrial base i.e. a war of the factories. Thus the nation than can produce more relative to the other increases the odds for victory. To produce more and quickly means to borrow more money and or to create more new money. This results in the accelerated debasement of the currency and as such the real value of bonds are eroded away.

Thus, there are better ways to build portfolios in the context of a wider aperture of potential conditions that are only visible if one looks deeper into the historical past and thus perceives the conditional factors that favor or disfavor certain exposures.

Whether its equities, bonds, or commodities there is a danger in the assumption of permanent unchanging exposure as opposed to a conditional one based on an applied history framework.

Perhaps it was simply random chance how equities, bonds, and commodities behaved as they did during WW1.

Let us now explore other conflict periods like WW2 and the Korean War.

Equities

There are a mix of equity markets that did well (naturally those countries who won) and those that did not do well (naturally those countries who lost).

For bonus points, if your equity exposure was tied to producers of key war time materials (like US Steel which produced steel or Anglo-Iranian which produced oil) you performed exceptionally well.

Bonds

As previously discussed, the vast majority of cases show that bonds lose material value leading up to and into the conflict period.

This is absolutely true for the loser in the conflict and is often the case even for the victor.

Remember, the sovereign not only conscripts its people but also its people’s purchasing power.

Commodities

There are dramatic commodity price moves (both sharp rises and sharp falls) thru the entire lifecycle of the kinetic conflict (start, middle, end).

Again, the combination of a top down applied history framework with a bottom up quantitative process to determine when to go long (making money when prices rise) and when to go short (making money when prices fall) proves vital.

Source: Global Financial Data, Niall Ferguson

Thus, we are left with the conclusion that there are strong tailwinds to global rearmament given our applied history framework.

Moreover, our ability and willingness to go both long (making money when prices rise) and short (making money when prices fall) across multiple asset classes of equities, bonds, commodities, and currencies gives us a greater opportunity to compound wealth in service of each financial plan despite what normally would derail it.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.

Let us quickly summarize our risk management process for how we sail our managed portfolios.

As a reminder, a long position (the most common type) means you make money when prices rise. A short position (far less common) means you make money when prices fall.

One of the biggest mistakes investors (both pros and amateurs) make is selling winners too soon and bag holding losers too long.

How many of you have stared at your cost basis (deep in the red) and just held the position hoping it comes back to breakeven?

Hope is not a strategy.

Our risk management process is designed to increase the odds we keep winners longer and exit losers sooner while minimizing one’s feelings about any given exposure so that staying calm and rational is easier for the commander, the crew, and the passengers.

In the simplest sense, we have two completely different risk assessment models that operate at very different altitudes of analysis:

1. Top Down Macro Fundamentals (#Macro: High Altitude and Slow Moving)

2. Bottom Up Quantitative Indicators (#Quant: Low Altitude and Fast Moving)

Green = All Clear

Red = Warning

Risk Scenario A: #Macro Green and #Quant Green

When both the #Macro and the #Quant say green, then consider adding a long position or buying more of the existing long position up to the maximum size permitted. You are probably correct in your analysis and possibly more right than you realize.

Risk Scenario B: #Macro Green and #Quant Red

When the #Macro says green but the #Quant says red, then don’t enter a long position. If you have an existing long position then exit (perhaps you started in Scenario A but it degraded to Scenario B). The macro weather might be changing adversely before the #Macro detects it. Additionally, you might be mistaken in your #Macro analysis and the #Quant is detecting adverse developments.

Risk Scenario C: #Macro Red and #Quant Green

When the #Macro says red but the #Quant says green, then consider adding a long position but make it a minimum position. The weather might be changing favorably before the #Macro detects it. If the #Macro eventually concurs and says green, then increase the long position to levels fit for Scenario A. Conversely, if the #Quant then degrades and says red then exit as the weather conditions are likely transitioning to Scenario D.

Risk Scenario D: #Macro Red and #Quant Red

When the #Macro says red and the #Quant says red, then don’t take a long position. If you have an existing position then exit the entire position.

Summary

Effectively, the #Quant model serves as a “thesis validation check” because the input into the #Quant’s risk models are critically NOT from your own perspective.

It helps you exit losers sooner (or avoid buying into a loser) which is most valuable when YOU do not understand why the position is performing poorly.

It also helps you stick with winners longer (or avoid selling a winner too soon) which is also valuable when YOU do not understand why the position is performing so well.

Just because YOU don’t understand something does not mean it is therefore a mystery for EVERYONE else.

For some, their process attempts to buy the bottom akin to the axiom “the early bird gets the worm”.

Of course, no one talks about the cost of buying too early (it wasn’t the bottom that you thought it was) akin to the hawk preying upon the too eager early bird.

For us, the nature of our process means we will not likely buy the bottom but we also don’t ride the position to the bottom. In other words, we are not the first mouse.

Finally, most other investors/allocators are only able and willing to express their investment positions (however they determine WHAT TO DO) in some combination of long equities and credit which is akin to a canoe with only two oars.

We on the other hand can go long or short across equities, credit, rates, currencies, and commodities along with options for all of the aforementioned.

Disclaimer

This website is not an offer or solicitation in any jurisdiction in which the firm is not registered. Information presented is for educational purposes only. It should not be considered specific investment advice, does not take into consideration your specific situation, and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities or investment strategies. The services, securities and financial instruments described on this website may not be suitable for you, and not all strategies are appropriate at all times. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Independent advice should be sought in all cases.

TYME Advisors is a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investment Advisor . Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Information about the firm including the Customer Relationship Summary is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. Information about our privacy policy is located here.