Gold Just Proved the Point

Hi ,

I personally bought $7,340.85 worth of gold in 2025. A small position that’s done quite well.

Last week, after a year of attention for its gains and records, gold once again took the spotlight. On Thursday, the so-called “safe haven” metal touched a new all-time high, only to fall sharply the very next day — its largest single-day drop in over a year.

That whipsaw is why my position is small.
Gold moves on expectations. My portfolio doesn’t.

Why has gold been on such a tear?  

Investors buy gold for many reasons, but the recent frenzy stemmed from bets on the weakening dollar and rate cuts on the horizon. In other words: inflation.

Also last year, my partners and I acquired over $100 million of commercial real estate including apartment buildings and mixed-use properties. All cash-flowing assets that are designed to reprice over time, not react to headlines. 

There is a huge allocation gap there, I know, and it’s intentional. These two investments are meant to serve very different purposes. 

Real estate is my way of participating in inflation. It reprices rents and generates cash flow while it appreciates. 

Gold is a simple insurance. Nice to own, but not to rely on.

Over the last few years, a lot of smart, high-earning investors have reached for gold because they think it’s an easy way to opt out of inflation risk. 

History explains why. Governments turned to gold in moments of stress. It financed wars. It officially severed its ties to the U.S. dollar in the 1970s.

But experienced investors know inflation isn’t something you hide from. It’s something you structure around — and gold alone can’t do that.

Most inflation doesn’t arrive as a dramatic currency collapse. It shows up gradually — in higher rents, rising replacement costs, and everyday expenses that reset and rarely move back down. In other words, through participating assets like real estate. 

In this issue, you’ll learn:

• Why rent wins over gold as the most important driver of measured and lived inflation.

• The structural reason real estate continues to work after inflation headlines cool.

• Learn more how my team structured our $100m commercial real estate portfolio to reprice through inflation

• A practical Playbook for building an inflation-resilient portfolio without relying on predictions.

This issue is about the difference between feeling safe – and being safe.

— Walker Deibel
WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author of Buy Then Build
Founder, Build Wealth

SHIFT YOUR STACK

Gold Simply Reflects Inflation, Real Estate Participates. 

Why gold keeps getting inflation wrong — and why systems don’t

People reach for gold when they’re unsure what else to trust. It tends to reflect unease more than conviction. When inflation feels persistent and the headlines are endless, confidence in fiat currencies begins to wear. 

The truth is gold is just a sentiment trade disguised as a safety play.

So, if inflation is what you're worried about, the real question to ask is “What assets actually move when inflation moves?”

Let’s start with how inflation is measured. Housing makes up more than 40% of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — far outweighing any other category. Necessary goods like transportation, health, and food and beverage round off the other sectors. 

And housing doesn’t just reflect inflation. It’s actually part of what drives it. Rents and housing costs rise slowly, often annually, keeping inflation elevated long after other prices cool or shift. 

We feel housing inflation most because it’s the typical household’s single biggest expense.

Real estate doesn’t move in lockstep with inflation, but the prices move in the same direction. As wages rise and replacement costs increase, rents reset through lease renewals, constrained supply, and higher-priced new construction. 

Gold operates differently. Its value depends on what the next buyer expects inflation might do, not on where inflation already is.

Rent-based assets generate income that adjusts over time. That cash flow can be reinvested, used to service fixed obligations, or redeployed as conditions change. Real estate appreciates as its cash flow adjusts for inflation. Gold isn’t that flexible: it doesn't have cash flow. It preserves value only if you sell it, at market price in the moment. 

Debt widens the gap. In inflationary periods, long-term fixed-rate debt becomes an advantage: rents and operating income can rise with inflation, while the real burden of fixed nominal debt payments declines, effectively eroding the real value of the loan and benefiting the property owner relative to the lender. Gold has no built-in repricing mechanism.

Gold may still have a role as a small, insurance-like hedge. But it isn’t a system to rely on. The assets that actually protect purchasing power aren’t the ones people rush to in fear. They’re the ones already embedded in the working channels inflation moves through.

If you want to hedge inflation, start with what actually works with it.

Now contrast that with gold.

Gold doesn’t support cash flow nor benefit from wage growth or rising replacement costs. It just sits there waiting for the next guy to pay more.

Cash flow matters more than spot price appreciation.

Real estate is structurally linked to inflation:

• It generates income tied to rents that reset with inflation.

• It benefits from leveraging inflation and erodes the real cost of fixed-rate debt.

• It compounds over time through appreciation and reinvested cash flow.

Real estate is a business. It is participating in the system and benefiting from it. Gold just sits back and waits. 

There’s plenty more data to break down when it comes to these assets. For even more details on how they stack up, read our full report HERE.

CAPITAL IN THE WILD

How I’m Participating in Inflation

If you’re curious about the $100M+ commercial real estate investment I referenced in the opening, here’s what you need to know:

In December 2025, my partners and I closed on seven apartment and mixed-use buildings in St. Louis’s Central West End through my fund, BuildLegacy I. This is where I allocated significantly more capital than I did to gold — intentionally.

This seed portfolio includes some of the best cash-flowing assets in a supply-constrained, demand-driven neighborhood, financed with long-duration, fixed-rate debt. As inflation plays out, rents reset, income grows, and the real burden of that fixed debt declines over time. Inflation is working inside the system.

That’s the difference between owning a hedge and owning a system.
Gold sat in my portfolio last year without much fanfare. This real estate portfolio by contrast participates.

That distinction is the framework behind the playbook below.

THE PLAYBOOK

How to Engineer an Inflation-Resilient Portfolio in 3 Steps

Inflation isn’t going to disappear. It will keep playing a role in our lives and our economy. So the move is going to be how to move with it, not fight it. 

The mistake most investors make is treating inflation protection as something to steer clear of. To opt out and stay on the sidelines. 

The advantage is to build a portfolio that functions when inflation is stubborn.

Step 1: Allocate by Function, Not Asset Labels 

Stop thinking in terms of stocks, bonds, gold, or even real estate.
Instead, think in terms of what each dollar is meant to do with inflation.

A simple framework to follow:

• Inflation Engine (30–50%) Assets that reprice with inflation and generate growing cash flow (real estate, operating assets).

• Liquidity Bridge (20–35%) Assets that provide steady income and optionality without mark-to-market volatility (private credit, asset-backed lending).

• Crisis Hedge (0–5%) Assets held strictly for the tail risk (here is where gold belongs).

Among high-net-worth and family-office portfolios, crisis hedges like gold are typically capped at 3–5%. It’s enough to protect against monetary disorder. Never enough to drag long-term compounding.

Step 2: Prioritize Cash Flow Over Mark-to-Market Comfort

Inflation punishes idle capital. The antidote is cash flow that keeps capital moving while prices adjust.

Assets that pay you while inflation plays out can create breathing room. Assets that require a sale to “work” do not.

Look for cash-flowing real estate, operating assets, and contractual income strategies to provide:

• Income that offsets rising expenses

• Pricing or rents that can reset

• Capital which stays deployed while conditions change

Assets that require a sale to generate returns may feel safe, but they rarely protect purchasing power over long inflationary periods.

Step 3: Use Debt To Your Advantage or Don’t Use It at All

Debt isn’t automatically dangerous in inflationary environments. In fact, inflation can make debt effectively cheaper if it’s collateralized by the right assets.

Fixed-rate, long-duration debt can become an advantage only when attached to assets that reprice and produce income. Ask what kind of asset the debt is attached to, debt is unforgiving when misused.

Debt works when:

• The asset reprices (rents, indexed contracts, pricing power)

• Cash flow services the obligation

• Inflation erodes the real value of the liability

Debt fails when:

• Cash flow is absent or static

• Repricing is discretionary

• Returns rely on future multiples, not income growth

This is why conservatively leveraged real estate often outperforms “safer” inflation hedges over full cycles. 

When evaluating inflation-resilient investments, look for cash flowing assets that reprice with inflation and use fixed-rate debt to increase your purchasing power. As inflation helps your investment’s income rise and the value appreciate, it ultimately drives the value of that liability down.

You don’t need to predict which prices rise. You need a portfolio that maintains options when costs rise. If an asset traps capital for years, it isn’t protecting purchasing power in real terms.

Inflation rewards ownership of systems that reprice, pay, and compound.

WEALTH STACK REBELLION

“People who buy gold are betting against human ingenuity.”
— Warren Buffett

Participate! Do not retreat.

When investors rush into gold, they’re responding to uncertainty.  It’s a fear that the system may fail or currencies may erode. That instinct is understandable. But durable wealth has never been built by standing outside the economy and hoping for preservation.

The investors who come out ahead own productive systems. They own housing. They collect rent. They generate cash flow that adjusts as prices rise. Their portfolios can’t operate in fear. 

Inflation is going to endure. Your portfolio has to operate while it does.

Real purchasing power is protected by assets that reprice, pay, and compound over time. Not by what captures attention in moments of fear, but by what sits inside the economic mechanisms inflation is moving through.

That’s how wealth survives inflation and grows through it.

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