Tavi Costa: On The Cusp of The Next Depression, The Gold Reset & Financial Repression

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Tavi Costa to the show. Tavi Costa is Founder & CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. Costa argues that the U.S. is approaching a fiscal breaking point, emphasizing that current bond yields are unsustainable when measured against record debt levels. He notes that with over a quarter of U.S. debt rolling over in the next twelve months at higher rates, the situation is becoming increasingly asymmetric. He predicts eventual intervention through yield curve control or other mechanisms to suppress yields and weaken the dollar, which would benefit hard assets, mining, and emerging markets.

Costa sees a global sovereign debt dilemma eroding confidence in instruments backed only by military strength rather than tangible assets. He believes this paradigm shift echoes the 1940s but with even higher equity valuations today. Gold’s resilience alongside rising yields signals, in his view, that the market is pricing in an inevitable monetary reset or remonetization of gold. He highlights that gold backing for U.S. Treasuries has fallen from fifty percent to just three percent, implying a massive revaluation would be needed to restore discipline. Geopolitical conflicts are seen as symptoms of overwhelming debt, further fueling the thesis for hard assets.

Costa’s investment strategy focuses on a few concentrated macro themes: mining, Latin America, and energy. He structures his mining portfolio using a three-tier framework combining cash-flowing producers, strategic developers, and bold exploration companies. He finds silver miners particularly attractive due to strong balance sheets and high free cash flow yields. Costa cautions against chasing critical metals purely on narrative, advocating a first-principles focus on business quality. He is launching Azuria Capital with a mining fund embodying this approach, aiming to capitalize on what he views as a generational opportunity in the resource space.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:38 – US Treasury Markets Signal

00:05:05 – Global Debt Issues Explored

00:08:25 – Sponsor Message Bellasets

00:09:14 – Emerging Markets Comparison

00:18:20 – Sponsor Message Palisades

00:19:09 – Gold Reset Thesis

00:27:20 – Geopolitics and Wars

00:32:40 – Latin America Investment Shift

00:35:40 – Portfolio Construction Framework

00:43:20 – Mining Investment Pitfalls

00:49:50 – Azeria Capital Launch

00:57:36 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

X: https://x.com/tavicosta

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/otavio-tavi-costa-76368628

Substack: https://tavicosta.substack.com

Otavio (“Tavi”) Costa is the Founder and CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. He invented a macro model that identifies the current stage of the U.S. economic cycle through a combination of 16 factors.

His research is regularly featured in financial publications such as Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, CCN, Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Real Vision, and Reuters. Tavi is a native of São Paulo, Brazil, and fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Before joining Crescat, he worked with the underwriting of financial products and international business at Braservice, a large logistics company in Brazil.

Tavi graduated cum laude from Lindenwood University in St. Louis with a B.A. degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and a minor in Spanish. Tavi played NCAA Division 1 tennis for Liberty University.