5 Assets That Doubled During Every Depression (And Why Nobody Owns Them)

Finance-focused summary (what the video says)

The video argues there are “two ways” to make money in markets:

1. Growth game: buy good companies and hold while share prices rise.
2. Crisis game: own assets that can perform when prices crash, funding tightens, or the macro regime flips.

It proposes “5 assets that doubled during every depression,” but repeatedly cautions that crisis performance may require long holding periods and can be painful for years.

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Framework / “3 tests” used to judge each asset

Each asset must pass:

• Test 1 (crash resilience): Did it hold up when the market “properly broke”?
• Test 2 (not just growth): Does it run on something other than equity growth—i.e., does it work even if share prices fall?
• Test 3 (multi-crisis): Has it survived more than one kind of crisis (not just one bad year)?

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Baseline market drawdowns (context for “crisis game”)

• Dow Jones: -89% from 1929 high → 1932 low
• S&P 500: -83% from roughly the same stretch
• S&P 500 (modern examples):
  • Oct 2007 → Mar 2009: -56.8% (17 months; biggest drop since WWII)
  • 2020: -33.9% in 33 days
  • 2022: -25.4% (with inflation running alongside it)

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60/40 portfolio illustration (stocks vs bonds by crash type)

Assumes $100,000 split 60% stocks / 40% bonds:

• If stocks fall ~50%:
  • In a deflation-style crash: bonds “hold,” portfolio lands around ~$70,000
  • In an inflation-style crash (like 2022): bonds also drop; example given:
    • bonds down ~25% → portfolio around ~$60,000 (implying $40,000 “gone”)

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Asset #1: Gold mining exposure (Homestake → modern proxy)

Core claim: A gold miner stock/sector gained massively through the Great Depression because costs fell while the gold price was fixed.

Key historical + modern numbers and instruments

• Homestake Mining (historical):
  • +474% (1929 → Jan 1933) while the Dow collapsed
  • Price move cited: $65 (1929) → >$300 (1933)
• Another producer mentioned:
  • Dome Mines (Canada): +558% over the same stretch
• Transition / current proxy:
  • Barrick Gold bought Homestake in 2001 for $2.3B
  • Homestake shareholders received ~half a Barrick share per share held
• ETF holding today: GDX (VanEck gold miners ETF)
  • Barrick cited as a major holding (~7.39% in GDX)
  • Video notes GDX underperformance in later years:
    • 2013 alone: -54%
    • 2011 peak → Jan 2016 bottom: -80%+
• “Right now” timing and levels:
  • GDX returned ~+155% in 2025
  • GDX around $94, about 20% below its ~$117 high

Stated performance comparison (example portfolio)

• Example investment: $100,000 in 2017
  • Josh buys gold miners
  • James buys S&P 500
• Through end of 2024:
  • James: ~$302,000
  • Josh: ~$177,000
• In 2025:
  • Gold miners more than doubled
  • Josh ends ~$450,000
  • James ends ~$356,000
  • Net: Josh ends ahead by ~$95,000

Disclosures / implicit caution

• Emphasizes that crisis strategies can lag for years (even when “right”).

Instruments/tickers mentioned: GDX, Barrick (company; no ticker given), S&P 500.

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Asset #2: Long-term U.S. Treasuries (insurance for deflation scares)

Core claim: Long Treasuries do well when the “stampede” into safety happens during deflation/rapid-growth fears—but can fail in inflation regimes.

Key numbers and instruments

• Definition: long-term = 20 years or more
• 2008 example:
  • S&P 500 fell ~37%
  • 10-year Treasuries returned +20.1%
  • TLT: “up more than +40% by December 2008”
• “3 tests” summary:
  • Runs on panic, not growth
  • Worked in deflation and also during 2020 pandemic scare (cited as all-time high)
• Problem year: 2022 inflation crash
  • TLT lost 31.24% in 2022
  • Example: $100,000 at start of 2022 → ~$68,800 by year-end
• Recent macro/rate pressure caution:
  • Sep 2026: TLT closed at lowest price in its history
    • “More than half below” 2020 level (also)
    • Down >20% over last 10 years (even counting interest)
  • Macro triggers mentioned:
    • Sep 16 (year implied): Fed raised rates 3.75 → 4%
    • Day before: 10-year yield topped 5% first time since 2007
    • Oil above $100/barrel
  • Conclusion: buying TLT now is framed as betting on a falling-price (deflation) crash rather than the current inflation path.

Instruments/tickers mentioned: TLT, 10-year Treasury yield (no ticker), oil.

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Asset #3: Consumer staples (habit-based demand)

Core claim: Staples are “habit” goods; people trade down but keep buying, so sector drawdowns can be smaller.

Key numbers and instruments

• ETF: XLP (consumer staples sector fund)
• Holdings mentioned (examples): Walmart, Costco, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola
• 2008 example:
  • S&P 500: -37%
  • Consumer staples: -15.4% (best-performing sector that year)
  • Dollar Tree: best-performing stock in the S&P 500 of the year with +60.8% (as stated)
• Math argument (breakeven required after drawdown):
  • If portfolio drops 37%, needs +59% to get back to even
  • If drops 15%, needs +18% to get back to even
  • At ~10%/year, +59% ≈ ~5 years, while +18% ≈ under 2 years
• Long historical resilience mentioned via Procter & Gamble (since 1837)

Instruments/tickers mentioned: XLP, Dollar Tree (ticker not provided), Procter & Gamble (company), Coca-Cola (company), Walmart (company), Costco (company).

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Asset #4: Farmland (rent + scarcity, cyclic risk)

Core claim: Farmland provides:

• Rent income (less tied to stock market moves)
• Land value tends to rise over long periods due to scarcity and population/food demand

Key numbers and instruments

• Since 1991, US farmland averaged ~10.2%/year (index referenced)
• 2007 → 2009:
  • Farmland returns: ~+30% nearly
  • S&P 500: ~-16%
  • At worst point: S&P down more than half
• “3 tests”:
  • Test 1 (crash resilience): best result cited
  • Test 2 (rent-based): passes because rent isn’t a share price function
  • Test 3 (multi-crisis): passed two cleanly; damaged during:
    • Great Depression crop price collapse
    • Dust Bowl, land values dropped; some owners lost land
• Current rough patch (timeline + returns):
  • 2024: first negative year since index started; -1% mentioned as starting baseline
  • 2025 (video says “Last year”): +0.2%
  • Framed as a cycle: looks like 30 good years then 2 flat rather than a collapse
  • Cause: when farmers earn less, they can’t pay as much rent; land values follow.
• Investability / access:
  • Index tracks big private farms owned by institutions
  • Not directly buyable
  • Public REIT proxy: Gladstone Land (LAND)
    • Share price cited: ~$9.60
    • Company value: ~$400M
    • Dividend: ~6%, paid monthly
• Says there are only two publicly traded farmland REITs in the US (other not named).

Instruments/tickers mentioned: LAND (Gladstone Land), farmland index (unnamed), REITs.

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Asset #5: Pawn shops / collateral lending (First Cash / EZCorp)

Core claim: Pawn lending performs when liquidity tightens, because customers trade assets for cash; demand rises and the business is protected by collateral.

Key numbers and instruments

• Business model:
  • Borrowers pawn valuables (e.g., gold chains, rings, watches)
  • Shop loans cash on the spot, keeps collateral
  • Typical repayment window: ~30 days (plus fees)
  • If not repaid, shop sells the item
  • Revenue comes from:
    • fees on loans repaid
    • resale of forfeited collateral
• 2008 claim:
  • During S&P -37% period, First Cash told the SEC that same-store revenue at pawn + short-term loan stores was up 19% YoY
  • Expansion during stress:
    • opened 16 more pawn stores in Mexico → total 521
    • “Everyone else was closing. They were opening.”
• Multi-crisis test logic:
  • Pawn has existed “thousands of years”
  • Runs on people running out of money, not on bond price direction
• Current operational momentum (timeline):
  • “Last quarter” (relative to video time):
    • revenue up 29%
    • money out on loan across shops up 63% total
    • same-store basis: 22% growth
    • US shops: 12th quarter in a row of double-digit growth
    • “Three straight years” of growth
• Store footprint / competitors:
  • First Cash: 3,300+ stores across US, Latin America, UK
  • EZCorp: described as “purer version” (no consumer lending arm)
• Framing of credit mechanics:
  • “No credit check” and “nobody chases you” for repayment (as stated)
  • Collateral-based, not unsecured debt
• Implication: behaves like a “crisis-insurance slice,” not a prediction about which inflation/deflation regime wins.

Instruments/tickers mentioned: First Cash (ticker not provided), EZCorp (ticker not provided), SEC (source, not an instrument).

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Why “nobody owns them” (portfolio behavior / implementation risk)

The video attributes low ownership to behavioral underperformance:

• You may need to be “wrong for a decade” to be right for a year.
• Examples cited:
  • GDX trailed S&P from 2017–2024, then outperformed in 12 months
  • Long bonds (TLT) down >20% over last 10 years
  • XLP (stated as “roughly half the market’s yearly return”)
  • Farmland had first losing year in 2024

Advice/caution:

• Don’t bet everything on one “cunning protection asset.”
• Recommended approach is a “slice” built slowly over months when “nothing’s on fire,” analogous to homeowners insurance.

Explicit non-recommendation/disclaimer

The video explicitly says it is NOT telling viewers to sell index funds tonight and pile into pawn shops, and frames the thesis as holding part of a portfolio for crisis regimes.

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Key “assets that hold up in different crash types” (mapped by regime)

• Deflation / falling-price crash insurance: Long Treasuries (TLT)
• Inflation-risk / panic vs inflation uncertainty: TLT warned against in inflation regimes (e.g., 2022)
• Stable consumption demand (trade down): Consumer staples (XLP)
• Rent + scarcity: Farmland (via REIT LAND)
• Liquidity stress / collateral demand: Pawn lending (First Cash / EZCorp)
• Gold-linked profits under fixed gold price (historical mechanism): GDX

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Presenters / sources mentioned

• Presenter(s): “I” (unnamed narrator) and comparison protagonists Josh and James.
• Institutional fund managers named:
  • VanEck (for GDX)
  • BlackRock (for TLT)
  • State Street (for XLP)
• Corporate/news source named:
  • SEC (First Cash commentary filed with the SEC)
• Company named:
  • Barrick Gold (via acquisition of Homestake)