Video News/New Orleans Investment Conference 2026

(Kitco News) - Gold’s drop alongside tech stocks on Oct. 30 reflected investors meeting margin calls, but in a true credit upset, precious metals remain one of the few places to hide, according to Danielle DiMartino Booth, CEO and chief strategist at QI Research. “That tells you margin call,” DiMartino Booth told Kitco News anchor Jeremy Szafron at the New Orleans Investment Conference, adding that trouble “always starts in the credit markets.” The former Dallas Fed adviser described private credit as a “black box” regulators cannot see into and said 82% of hyperscaler debt sits in off-balance-sheet vehicles. She also said the bankruptcy cycle is already at recessionary levels. DiMartino Booth argued that more than 100% of U.S. GDP growth is now coming from the AI trade, leaving households to spend what they have on essentials such as healthcare, rent and groceries. She said the Federal Reserve’s recent rate hike was “a real boom for the top 10% of Americans” while raising costs for everyone else, and she questioned whom Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is making policy for, criticizing his use of jobless claims, which she said capture only one in four unemployed Americans.