Could Silver Stocks Outperform Copper in 2026? | Lobo Tiggre Interview
Summary
Market Outlook: A broad-based metals rally suggests the early phase of a potential commodity supercycle, with both base and precious metals participating.
Critical Minerals: Growing recognition of supply constraints, geopolitics, and electrification needs is pulling generalist capital into minerals essential for EVs, data centers, and renewables.
Copper vs. Silver: Copper is viewed as structurally solid into year-end despite volatility, while silver/gold could spike then correct; patience to buy dips is emphasized.
Uranium Rotation: The guest recently added uranium exposure on price swings, preferring buy-low setups over chasing highs.
Jurisdictions: Mexico appears to be reopening for permits, potentially improving silver opportunities, though political risk and country turns remain key sell triggers.
Strategy & Risk: Focus on taking profits, using volatility, and targeting success-in-progress and pre-production sweet spot plays; avoid FOMO and relative-valuation traps.
Safe Haven: Advocates holding physical bullion as fire insurance amid global risks; AI/data center buildout and rearmament support metals, but AI valuations pose reversal risk.
Companies/Tickers: No specific public tickers were pitched; mentions of banks or miners were illustrative only, not investment recommendations.
Transcript
Today on resource talks, Lobo Tigra will uh try to hold me back from making mistakes and and hopefully uh not wasting what looks to be an extended bull market. Or is it? Uh well, hopefully we'll figure it out. By which I really mean Lobo's going to figure it out and then he'll tell me about it and I'm going to pretend to understand it and I'll pretend to be smarter than I really am. But I am looking forward to it nonetheless. Lobo, thank you so much for being here today. >> Always a pleasure. And you know, I'm going to have to serve myself some of your humble pie there. I'm just a due diligence guy. You know, I don't know where the hell the world's going. It looks like it's in a hand basket to wear. We'll see. Whatever that means. That's right. Uh no, the pleasure is mine. And uh I know you don't have all day uh to listen to me and you've already heard all nine of my jokes at this point. So, I'll just jump right into it. But where where are we though in in the cycle for junior mining specifically? Like if we use the psychology of a market cycle that that chart is this was it hope optimism is it thrill what's going on? >> Let me actually jump sideways in my answer to your question because I've been looking at the market action over the holidays and we do have I think significant new data. Um, like my thinking has actually evolved on this over the last few weeks and particular as we're speaking. We've got like the base metals are on a rip this week. Even aluminum and lead and zinc are up. Nickel was up this morning about 10% at one point. Uh so it's at the very least it's not just you know the debasement trade and monetary metals responding to uh probable continued weakness in the dollar. It seems to be like a broad-based metals rally. Um I don't know that coin and sorry corn and soybeans have have joined in. side. I don't know that it's a broader commodities rally, but in the metal side, the mineral side, you know, apart from oil, it just seems like, you know, there's a just a real fire has has been lit under all kinds of these commodities that you and I care about the most. Um, so I'm not answering your question with where we are in the cycle. Generally, I'm positing more of a commodity super cycle thesis here, which I haven't been thinking about in those terms for a while. But if that's right, going to your question, it is it would suggest an earlier stage part of that cycle. >> If if the metals as a whole, uh, not a whole, but if the metals is a as a vaguely defined class, you know, are are let let me put it this way. I'm I'm struggling for words because this is a new idea for me here, but I think Mr. Market is catching on to the idea that these critical minerals actually are minerals. You can't grow them. You can't recycle more of them into existence. You've got to mine them and there are limits to them. There are supply constraints. Some of them come from strange countries that are not necessarily very friendly to us. So the the broadness of the interest here and the size of some of these moves has me thinking that you know the this makes me a little uncomfortable but has me thinking that the narrative here is really taking hold that we're starting to get finally the generalist investor to to sit up and pay attention to this. So, if that's true, Antonio, and if it's just starting, then that suggests that we have, you know, a pretty exciting 2026 ahead of of us. And not just on any one of my favorite metals, but really anything that that has the thorium to go with the whatever the mineral is. I mean, the the nickel moved today. Maybe we'll find out tomorrow that there are some mine disaster somewhere or Indonesia clamps some new supply constraints or something. And I just haven't seen that headline yet. Um, but it's not just nickel, you know, is copper over six pounds, silver's over 80 bucks again, gold's looking at 4500. I mean, this this is really a striking move. Uh, and it cuts across the divisions that industry insiders think about of monetary or safe haven or precious or base, you know, I think it's really interesting. And if if that's so if we're really looking at a new commodity super cycle like getting going then that suggests you know years ahead and not being technical being more of a fundamentalist that actually fits with my view of the debasement trade of the things that I've been saying in recent interviews about how all paths lead to inflation. The Trump agenda is inflationary. Europe rearming is inflationary. Russia's words inflationary and and my favorite is that um Mr. Shei over there in China seems to be taking a page from Mario Draggy and we'll do whatever it takes to get 2% inflation. Right? All of these things are bullish for anything governments can't print or loan into existence. And that definitely includes, you know, the metals that you and I have been tracking for a while and and broadly the narrative of these critical minerals. Uh, you know, that has it's it's looking like flavor of the day to me, Antonio. >> Who would have thought that there would be a time in which we miss Mario Draghi, right? >> Yes. Yes. No, you're well. >> And now, sorry, but I can't let that slide. Now there's this Draghi report where Mario Draghi, Mr. Oh, I got to get me some inflation. He's now advising Europe on how they can become more competitive and all these people taking so seriously this Draggy report about how Europe is going to compete with the US. Yeah, good luck with that. >> Well, um, the caps and our bottles don't come off, so I think we've won every every race that is uh that is possible. But it's >> hard for us to compete with that. >> You're not um you're not you're not answering the question directly and that's fine because I think I could answer it for myself based on what you told me looking at the chart that I have in front of me and I I think you don't have it. But um it says so it starts at disbelief and this belief is characterized as this rally will feel like all the others. I think we're past that point obviously and then it goes into hope a recovery is possible. That's what hope says. I think we we've already seen that a lot of the prices are beyond what they were um last year. So, a lot of the stocks are up a lot. And then it's optimism. I think that's more or less what you're telling me uh right now is that this this rally is um uh for people listening and not watching, I'm laughing because Louis was was teasing me with his cap coming off of his bottle. But optimism says this rally is uh real. And that's what I'm getting from you. I mean that's what you're saying is that it's real and it's not only us, you know, metals bugs and and and kind of the the the internet crazies who believe that. It's it's more and more people waking up to the fact that it is real. >> Yes. Not yes and no, but yes and squishy. Sorry. Um but I'm trying to I'm trying not to here. And so yes, what you just I I do think there's there's this reality. There's there's a real wake up like you and I know and our audience probably knows like if you don't grow it, you got to mine it. >> Can't even if you want windmills and solar panels and all these wonderful new things uh to save those nice blue people on the other planet or whatever we're doing here, Smurfs, um you've got to mine this stuff. You you can't have wind turbines without all these minerals. You can't have solar panels without silver and all these other things. Um the batteries, all this stuff. So, like we've known this for a while and and I remember getting quite a bit of push back a couple years ago. I started writing that eventually uh the green agenda would trump nimi thinking >> because because reality like you you've got to have these minerals if you're going to have this green agenda going forward. And so sooner or later that nimi thinking had to give way. And we have seen that now where where that's that's it's not gone. Um, but all this ENG stuff, ESG stuff has been dialed back to where people are looking like, okay, how how can we try to be friendly to the environment, but also get our minerals that we have to have. So that that's really happening. So this is real and you know now it's got tailwinds from the data centers not just electric cars and wind turbines but like this there's a whole new electrification and and IT story here that I think for all the hype in that space is also real and durable and will be years the buildout will be years in the making. It'll consume a lot of raw material. So so yeah that's very real. And then on top of that, we've got, you know, I mentioned the remilitarization of Europe. I mean, the Trump agenda, the the replacing the Monroe doctrine with the Trump doctrine, you know, that takes a lot of hardware and, you know, projecting that force and occasionally blowing stuff up, you know, that requires raw materials to replace everything. you know that all of this requires this real stuff that you know you and I have have studied and and invested in for all this time how to profit from getting this real stuff out of the ground into the market. So that's the reality but there is hype here as well and you know the AI bubble I mean even if AI is real and these technologies will go forward you know companies with with ridiculous pees you know it's going to take a hundred years for for this company to grow into their earnings and the technology changes every couple years like even even if you you only have you only have a 20 or 30 PE on an IT company who knows what the techn is going to be in five years, let alone whether they'll be able to grow into the stuff. So, there's there is a lot of potential for unwinding. Now, there's also the the helicopters, the fiscal dominance. So, a lot of money slloshing out there. I'm not predicting a market crash. I'm not saying the AI thing has to send everybody, you know, scurrying for the hills with all that easy money out there, but there is potential for reversal here. And so while the stuff that we're talking about, metals, mining, hard assets, that's real and we need them and that will go forward, that doesn't mean that the market insanity in other parts of the market can't give us, you know, counterurrens and tail spins and other things along the way. So, I'm not sure I'm being very helpful here, but if I'm new to the space, I'm very interested in getting long because this is a mega trend and I think it has years to go. >> If I'm long already and I'm profiting a whole bunch, that's great. But you should have a strategy for making sure your gains don't slip through your fingers. You know, my mentor Doug Casey had his sell half on the first double strategy. I've got my upside maximizer. Develop your own strategy. I don't care. But no profit is is really a profit until you actually realize some gains. And that doesn't mean you lack conviction and you're a traitor to the cause of your favorite metal going higher. It just means like if you're in this to make money, well, you have to actually do the making money part. So if you're new to the space, you know, I would look for exposure. If you're way long, you know, I would not want to let gain slip through my fingers. And nothing goes up in a straight line. even even if you know we have a very bullish outlook for years to come, that doesn't mean it has to go up forever without any hiccups along the way. So, you know, uh that's a that's good news for people who are looking to buy is that there's probably going to be some volatility that can be your friend and that's a reason for those long already to stay disciplined. Don't forget that you nobody goes broke taking profits. >> What? >> You don't want to you don't want to squeeze JP Morgan, bring it bring it to its knees. As a human being, perhaps I do. As a speculator whose goal is to make money, I couldn't care less. My goal is to make maximize my returns, my profits. >> Here's something that might be more telling as well. Last time you and I spoke, you told me that you were about 30 to 35% cash. And when you go from optimism to belief, belief says it's time to get fully invested. Are you fully invested right now? Do you have less cash than last time? I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth, but the answer is literally yes and no in that um haven't taken any more profits lately. I have bought some more stocks, so I have been redeploying, but I also took some money out of my portfolio and I've been paying off my mortgage. I'm almost I think I'm one more payment and I will pay off in my entire mortgage. >> And um no, it wasn't a 2% mortgage. No, it's not as high as it is now, but I'll have no mortgage, right? I'll have just an an asset uh on my books that could be liquidated and if needed or whatever, but it's an example of realizing a gain. So, I will have turned paper gains in stocks, highly speculative stocks into a nice house on the beach in Puerto Rico, you know, completely paid off. Can't lose, right? So, um now does that mean I lack conviction, all this stuff? I mean, whatever. You can you can throw eggs at me if you want to, but I've got the house on the beach. It is paid for. So So I'm I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. I just I just think it makes sense to um Well, let me put it this way. I'm I'm paying off my mortgage early and I've got more mark money in the markets now than I did a year ago. So you can't say that I've betrayed silver or whatever your favorite mineral is. I'm still massively long, but I've made so much money that I could take some out, pay off the mortgage, and still be massively long. I >> I just think that um let me put it this way. The guys on the bar stool who are sitting there like, "Oh yeah, he lacks conviction. Oh yeah, it's going to the moon. I'm staying long until they pry it out of my gold dead cold fingers when I'm dead." Whatever. Um, that's not what you hear from people like Rick Rule or Doug Casey or Jeff Gunlack, you know, going broader in the world or Howard Marx or even Warren Buff like successful wealthy investors every once in a while they they take profits, right? The idea is to make money. Uh, not just watch stock charts. Yeah, >> I think I will throw eggs at you because eggs are down like 70% on the month. I mean, they're practically free in the US at this. It's a generational low in eggs at this point, so might as well throw them. I've noticed that the the cage-free eggs that were costing me 15 16 bucks in the store during that, you know, when when Trump got into office and was complaining about the eggs, >> they're now down to like six bucks. So, >> that's still too much. You should ask for a bigger discount. true thing. I can see it in my life. Thank you, Mr. Trump and whatever the secretary is who supposedly controlled the egg prices. >> Um, you should you should ask for a bigger discount. You should say, "I've got a a copper top friend. He told me you're ripping me off. Eggs should be cheaper." And they're going to agree, of course. Um, >> well, I think 27 thinks I could go there, but that would be a distraction. >> Well, no, I think this sets sets the stage nicely here, Lobo. And and the conclusion is we are in a bull market, a real bull market, but not a brainless bull market, which is >> I mean, it makes me nervous to say that. I agree with you. It makes me nervous to say that. You know, we've got record prices at least nominally for copper, silver, gold. Uh lots of things are are up and and normally I'm pretty cautious. I'm the guy who gets booed off the stage for saying uranium just went to triple digits. It pulled a hockey stick. correction is is not only likely u but highly probable. That's my usual mo. So here I am saying yeah everything's going up but I I remain quite bullish. >> Now if you think about it okay you know at least at least at least give me this. If I was the permable who every day says it's going to the moon then you could ignore me. But I'm not the permable. I am the guy who every once in a while says, "Hey, you know, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't hurt to take some profits. Things that go vertical don't go vertical forever." Uh, in fact, I've even done that in the gold space in 2000. I got a lot of hate for gold going up. Sorry, not 2000, in 2020 for gold going up over 2000. I got a lot of hate for for saying, you know, that taking a bit of profits wouldn't be a bad idea. And then it corrected and consolidated for three years. >> I've lost the track of what I was saying. Um >> well the point where I was going with this at least is that um I wanted to I wanted to ask you or or go go and talk about something that one of our mutual friend or speech that one of our mutual friend uh gives often and that's uh it's Rick Roio often talks about not wasting bull markets. So I guess I'll open the second part of the conversation a bit more broadly here but how do I do it? How do I not waste this bull market as um as as a as a retail investor myself? Well, hey, that's what we've just been saying. And and Rick himself has said that he has recently sold in late 2025. Rick was on all kinds of interviews saying that he didn't just take profits. He sold completely closed out some of his possessions and he sold enough stock. As I as I understood what he said, he sold enough of his junior mining stocks to go risk-free on the entire balance of his portfolio. like his stocks, his his portfolio was up enough that he could sell um enough money or get enough money back off the table so that all of the rest of his stocks in play. Like if he lost them all, he couldn't lose. He the profits he's taken covers everything else he has left on the table. And and as I recall, he you know, the numbers were pretty amazing. He was saying he sold like 25% and that covered everything else. That implies that his whole portfolio is at 400x. Uh, I don't have access to that, but congratulations, Master Rule. You know, um, I I think that's we've already talked about this, so we don't need to beat that to death. It's it's a pet peeve of mine. It's a big thing. Like, you you've got to realize gains, and you can't let gains slip through your fingers. Uh, again, upside maximizer is my way of taking the emotions out of that. I have I have math to help me do that. Um, but you also if if the thesis here is right, then you you don't want to be caught short. If you're looking at this new, you're you're not long. You know, I mentioned that a little bit before, too. But I think the thing there is not to just rush out and buy anything. It it's like I I think it's u I have a mental block or something. I cannot pay an all-time high price for anything. I have to wait for a dip. And if that means I miss it and it just goes screaming up higher, well then I miss it. Like there's another Doug Caseyism. You can't kiss all the girls. Uh to which I add, you only get a black guy if you try. So So one gets away from you. So what? There's a lot of girls out there or boys or whatever. You know that you don't have to bag every winner. And if that one gets away, there's always another one. And markets don't go up in straight lines. There's always a point of fluctuation. Another Doug Casey is make friend make volatility your friend. So how do we not let this slip through our fingers? One is go long but use volatility. Markets fluctuate. You know it don't don't give into FOMO but wait for those chances to buy. And if we're right about this having, you know, this being a super cycle that has some longevity to it, then you not only do you have time to profit, you have time to be patient and wait for something to present you with a value proposition. Uh, you know, buy high and hope to sell higher is not the formula. It's buy low, sell high. >> You know, the best thing would be, you know, some big scare like gold crashes right down to it drops 500 bucks. Imagine gold drops 500 bucks in a week down to $4,000. $4,000 would be so much money for the companies to, you know, they'd be printing cash, but markets would panic. I mean, investors would puke if gold dropped 500 bucks in a week. So, that's that's exactly what the kind of thing that Doug Casey means by making volatility your friend. If gold crashes to a level at which the gold companies are making money handover fist, but the stocks are on sale like they're going out of business, that's the market handing you a gift on a gold platter. That's a a good point about contrarianism maybe because I'm thinking, shouldn't you be a contrarian? Are you inclined to be a contrarian in this market? Because it seems like it's been an an easy year. It seems like it's been an easy market. That actually sounds scary to see as well, but why complicate things by by being a contributor or are you still inclined to do it? >> Yes. I mean, so so in fact, the the last few stocks I've bought have been uranium stocks that during uranium spot price fluctuations recently because it does. Uh gold and silver were going up. I already own gold and silver. Felt no FOMO. I haven't I have I haven't bought any gold or silver stocks in uh four months, actually. So, you can say, "Oh, he lacks conviction, blah blah." I I'm already long. So So no, I don't I don't want to chase anything. That's that is what I'm doing with my own money. The last few buys were uranium because I could buy something that objectively looked like a chance to buy low even at this stage. Even with uranium, you know, fluctuating 70 80 bucks. It's back up again now. Uh but on those fluctuations, there were opportunities to objectively do something at least looks like buying low. Um and I think that there's good chances that we'll see this oh copper top in the copper space coming up. Nothing goes in a straight line that you do have this tension between critical minerals and AI and all this hype and Dr. Copper being you know the PhD in economics uh and we have a world in which the president of the country with the largest economy in the world um is trying to change everything. He's trying to retool the economy and Whether you agree with that or disagree with that, I just my thesis isn't pro or contraump. My thesis is simply that um reshoring manufacturing to the United States is at the very least a bumpy ride. And it's not just tinfoil hat lobo saying this. Just look at the latest ISM data. US manufacturing is, you know, it's had a horrible year. It's negative again, right? This isn't easy to do and therefore there's room for more volatility. So, am I going to rush out and buy a copper stock while copper's, you know, just risen over six bucks? No. I'm going to wait for the next fluctuation. Um, and you know, let me put it this way, Antonio. This may sound self- serving, and maybe it is, but it is the answer to your question, right? I don't do phone. I am never going to chase anything that's just hit an all-time high or a 52- week high. And if that means I miss something that goes even higher, that's okay. Um, and where I'm going with this is like if you look at my track record, which is available for free on the website, you'll notice there are very few tenaggers in there's only one that comes close. Um, but you'll also notice that unlike the the mantra in this space that, you know, you need to if you're going to be a speculator, we're told you need to understand you're going to lose money on most of your stock picks and that the 10 baggers and 20 baggers will more than make up for it. And on average, you'll come out ahead. That's what I was taught. But that's how this business is. But if you look at my track record, I have actually won came out ahead on something like twothirds of my picks. So, personally, you're asking me what I'm doing. Personally, what I'm doing is exactly that. I'm being cautious. I'm not chasing highs. I'm waiting for volatility to be my friend. And the result of that is fewer 10bggers, but a lot more winners. I hate losing money. So, I'm okay with a with a portfolio that res results in doubles, triples, and five baggers and a lot fewer losses. I'm fine with that, you know. And if all you want is 10 baggers, maybe I'm not your guy. Um, don't listen to me. But if you hate losing money, you know, maybe think about what I'm saying. >> I do have a a question about copper as well, which we'll get to in a second. But it is making me think though about when when you say you hate losing money. Um, you you only lose money. This is going to be like a huge thought, but you only lose money when you buy something that's too expensive for what it is and then it goes back to its intrinsic value. >> No, not necessarily. That that puts the odds against you. If you're buying low and you're hoping to sell high, there's usually, as Rick likes to say, the unanswered question. We're exploring, we're building the mind, we're we're expanding production or whatever the deliverable is, right? Um, but other things can happen. You can, you know, Cobra Panama can happen to you or or you know, the the legendary endangered mosquito gets discovered on the flagship property of your Moose Pasture Inc. Junior, right? And and suddenly your your stock tanks. So, and that can happen even when the underlying commodity is rising. So, it's it's it's not quite that simple. But if you buy high and hope to sell higher, you're you're you're starting out the game with the odds against you. >> Whereas, if you insist on a value proposition, then you're helping the odds to be in your favor. >> Well, and that's exactly where I wanted to go with this is do you value things differently now? And I I asked you almost the same question last time, but I didn't follow up properly because I know you typically like seeing a kind of a decent discount to NAV, but those are becoming increasingly rare. And in the few cases where discount to NAV is still present, it's probably because the company is of lower quality. So how do you deal with valuations in this bull market? >> Uh so the answer is mostly no, but not entirely. So when it's producers, you know, and and you're you should have a a NAV multiple, even if you know, a low one, but something. And if you've got a discount to nav, the market is telling you there's something wrong with that company. For pre-producers, you're looking at NPV instead. And there it is normal to have a discount. Even in a bull market, if if the company is already being more than valued for the NPV of the project it's building, it's being paid in advance. And you could say, oh, well, the price has gone higher than in the, you know, the assumption in the feasibility study. So, the MPV is really higher. Um, there's something to that, but there's a reason why the the assumption in the study is conservative because, okay, the prices are higher now, but what if they fluctuate? You've got you're building a mine with, you know, a good mine has at least 10 years, if not 15 or 20 years of mine life. And over that time frame, you know, spot prices are not going to remain that much high or above cost. You know, even if the spot prices do continue rising, you know, your your spot price of your commodity that you're producing is somebody else's input cost, right? So, iron will go up, fuel will go up, you know, tires will go up. So, uh you can't it is a mistake to just uh adjust somebody's feasibility study for spot prices. But anyway, um, so the market should give a discount because there is always execution risk if you're building the mine or you're still in advanced exploration. Things can go wrong. And so there there are possibilities, but the but the there's sort of a margin compression here. In a bare market, you can get, you know, good-looking projects for 10 cents on the NPV dollar. In a bull market, you might be paying 50% of NPV or or but you should not be paying 100% of NPV even if metal prices have gone up. And there are still, I think, opportunities like that on the table right now. Um, but I I just told you that personally I haven't bought a gold or silver stock for months. And this is why I'm I'm just not willing to make that compromise. And I can tell you um I won't throw anybody by name under the bus, but let's just say in earlier in my career, there were times when metals prices were on a tear and all the company valuations were going nuts. You mean juniors with nothing, never mind a feasibility study with an MPV. They didn't even have a discovery yet. And they're trading for a couple hundred million dollars. And and what happened is you get into this thing where nothing is on sale. There is no buy low. So what do you do? You got a newsletter to write. You got to come up with something. So you get into relative valuations. Oh well, this Moose Pasture Inc. Jr. is only trading at 100 million and all the other Moose Moss Juniors are trading at 200 million. So this is cheap. It's only 100 million compared. But they're all worth zero. So you can play my it's worth zero clip that you like so much here. Um but but they're they literally have no value. Well, maybe the furniture and a few of the trucks could be sold or something, but you know what I mean. So, you know, that relative valuation game, um, it it gives you something to write about if you don't care about investment outcomes. But my experience with that was horrible. Like you when we went there, the outcomes for shareholders were were not good. So, personally, I'd rather see the girl go dance with some other guy because I got there too late than to pay too much to try to take her away from the other guy and then, you know, turns out she's married anyway or whatever. I don't know. I'm I'm buggling the metaphor there. But what I'm saying is my experience is that what typically happens in the newsletter writer industry is when things get pricey, we stop paying attention to actual valuations and go to relative valuations because you can write a story that looks good. Um, and my experience is that that does not do well for investors. So, I'm not doing it. I' I'd rather sit on my Well, no, I don't just sit on my hands. And so if I if I haven't been able to buy gold and silver stocks recently, what have I done? I've rotated to uranium. And I'm expecting actually to do a lot more in the copper spaces here. I'm not doing it today at six bucks, but nothing goes in a straight line. I do think volatility will be my friend here. And you know what? If if the world goes, you know, so smoothly and everything goes so wonderfully smooth and there's no popping of the AI bubble or even deflating, everything's going great and copper and and all these critical minerals just go in a nice steady line upwards. Well, in that really nice safe world, maybe the bid will go out of safe haven assets like gold where, you know, everything is calmed down. you know, that Putin and Trump made up and Putin and she made up and everybody's singing Kumbaya and the lambs are sleeping with the lions and everybody's going doing great. Um, you know, in that world, maybe gold will get cheap again and I'll be able to buy something there. You know, markets fluctuate. There's I don't want to quote Jim Kramer, but there is always an opportunity somewhere if you're willing to be patient. And I'd rather do that than go around chasing and giving into >> FOMO. Would you still pay north of 100 million for an exploration company though? One that doesn't have an MRE or even one that's you know there might be historic work there but there's you know no confirmed new like current discovery would you still pay north of 100? Let's let's let's be more specific. If there's no clear evidence of a deposit no. And I wouldn't care if it's, you know, those famous guys who always make money. I don't want to throw any names out there, but I think you know who I mean. Uh, famous mining investors can attract capital and and lower the cost of capital and push exploration aggressively that that there is some kind of value to that. Uh, but I don't assign any market cap to that. So the answer is no. I wouldn't buy anything on the basis of oh this famous guy's got pilot we're going to explore here. there's there is no valuation there for that. >> Um sometimes you you mentioned historical sometimes there are historical resources not 43101 but done by like Chevron in the 1970s or something or you know you know what I mean or or even a quality Canadian explorer um and post 43101 but for some reason it's not considered current. Um I I don't want I don't want to throw an specific example out there, but there are resources out there that are not 4301. They can't officially say they have anything, but you can see it. The data is there. And if you you know search archives, you can actually find the old data, what the old estimates were. So I would be willing to provide, you know, extend some provisional valuation to something like that. But if it's just exploration, we've got an anomaly. Well, you know, anomalies are like armpits. Most everybody's got at least one, usually two, and hopefully not more. But but you know, I just I don't assign any value to that at all. I But I maybe one thing to clarify here is that personally, like me myself, not necessarily for all newsletters or or people, but me, like I don't invest in pre-discovery exploration anyway. Um because it just you you never know who's going to do it. It can take a long time. even the most successful people it can take a decade or more you know Ron Parat somebody like that between discoveries uh and so the best way to do that is with the prospect generators where you have other people's money offset the expenses and then you can be very patient so I mean I didn't even do that because as a newsletter writer with all these people looking over my shoulder saying what have you done for me lately you got to be patient with these guys right so so there is a personal aspect to My answer to your question, if I was a private investor and nobody was looking at my portfolio and my results, I could be a lot more patient and I I might own I probably would own, let me put it that way. I probably would own a basket of prospect generators. And so to your qu you know, would I think it's worth 100 million or 50 million or whatever just because of these? No, probably not. >> Um but when you're when you're in the sub50 million range, we're talking peanuts anyway. Um, so the company is worth nothing, but if they discover anything, it's going to be worth a lot more than 50 or 100 million if you know anything worth discovering. So if I'm patient and I'm willing to wait for the the proven successful people to put other people's money to work in a prospect generator, I would I'm not saying I would value the company. I'm saying I'd be willing to buy the stock. H is prospect generators are in large part about managing risk though. Is that what you should be optimizing for in a in a bull market? And that might actually be a good question in and of itself. What's going to be the best way to not waste the potential of a bull market? Is it the cashrich explorers over your discovery place or PPSS or optionality place or prospect generators? >> Well, potential doesn't exist so you can't waste it. Um, but to not to dodge your question, if you have a company that's self-funded exploration, owns 100% of the asset, they have nothing, but they have they have the land 100% and they maybe there's a famous investor or a famous minor on board and that helps them raise 30 million bucks or something. So, they got a big treasure to go out and and just drill baby drill and they and they get lucky and they make a discovery. that stock will absolutely outperform the prospect generator that's already in advance given away 60 or 70% of the project to the larger company that's earning in no question that self-funded uh exploration in a you know in a bull market they make a significant discovery that stock will outperform. The problem of course is that they are spending their own money. What if they don't hit uh you know and what if the bull market turns around? You know they they can they can go the way of the dodo really quick. Whereas the prospect generator, the risk managers, you know, they're they're still chugging along there. It was other people's money that got blown on those drill holes. Sorry, it didn't work out. They get the project back. they turn it over, look for another one, or they or they learn from the failure of those people who so kindly spent that money, that high-risisk exploration money, right, to find better targets and then go out and find some. I think I think our friends the Polloquins at at the Almaden companies um if I recall correctly some of their projects in Mexico were like that where you know they did initial prospecting other companies came and explored drenching maybe some drilling handed it back didn't see what they wanted majors are famous for this you know they'll put a couple holes half a kilometer apart they don't both hit not big enough for us they walk but one of of them hit a spectacular hole and so the junior goes back and figures out what's going on there and finds a mind big enough for a junior or a mid-tier or something. Anyway, um I I think I've seen cases like that in companies like that where they've they've got the project back, thank you very much, and then gone on to make a significant discovery. So um we were asking your question if I recall was in this market like this would those self-funded you know exploration stories outperform the prospect generators. It would be hard to say other things being equal because they're not equal. But if a prospect generator and one of these self-funded companies made similar discoveries, you know, something that looks like a 5 million ounce gold project that could be taken over, uh, I would guess that that the self-funded one would do better than the prospect generator, but you're taking a lot more risk that way. >> Well, it was it was more of a question uh, how do you not waste potential and and and what what what makes most sense to bet on as a category? Is it still your, you know, the those favorite prospect generators of yours or is it is it something else that makes more sense in a bull market? And that's riskreward that I'm I'm thinking about, not necessarily only upside. I guess my answer is that that's really not a market cycle thing. Like you're you're if you're retired on a fixed income and you're interested in the space and maybe getting some leverage to it, but you really can't afford to lose your nest egg. I really think that's much more important than anything else, you know. So, you're gonna you're going to lean towards the commodity itself rather than any mining companies at all. Or maybe if not a commodity ETF, then maybe a royalty play. That's really solid. Give you a little bit more leverage, but a lot less risk. Uh, you know, if you're if you're 19, no kids, got some extra money, swing for the bleachers. Sure, you're probably going to skew towards you know these very early stage things prediscovery place maybe there is something in between so but that's my answer to your question I I think bull market bare market that's going to be much more important to you than the market cycle >> but the other thing on that was triggered by I was just saying there's another way to play the exploration place I said personally I don't invest in or speculate on pre-discovery place that doesn't mean that I ignore discovery completely. There's a there's a misconception uh out there in our space that the discovery is like that drill hole that they make the discovery hole and the stock goes up 10 times. Uh that actually doesn't happen. It I've seen stocks double or thereabouts on a single drill hole that looks like a smoking hot discovery. But that first part of the Lan curve, that discovery phase, it's not one drill hole. It's the whole process from that discovery hole to the followup to defining a resource and as they're going along and you know one hole to two to now we have a half a kilometer strike and it keeps getting bigger you know that adds a lot of value and as a company has a real discovery there is consistency and predictability in those results I call that success in progress and that is after the pre-production sweet spot success in progress plays are one of my absolute favorite things to invest in because I don't have to guess who's going to make a discovery. It's, you know, like our friend Rick Rule says, don't confuse the inevitable with the im imminent. I don't have to worry about any of that. This is something that's actually happening, right? You can see it. They made the discovery and now they've confirmed it and it's getting bigger. And that's a bandwagon you can jump onto and make, okay, maybe maybe not your 20 baggers or 50 baggers or something, but in a bull market it could be a 10 bagger. in a in a less excited market, it could be a double or a triple, but with much much less risk. And you know, that's not a bad thing. >> What about if we flip that, though? Because a a good asset isn't necessarily a good speculation or a good bet. So, is there is there a segment of the industry that you think could create that trap where again, it's a good project or a good asset, but it's still a bad bet for this market specifically. >> Logically, that makes sense. Uh, and and I guess, you know, if if I'm saying I don't want to buy high and hope to sell higher, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. Like a good asset that's been priced in, everybody loves it. I'm probably not going there. Think one caveat for that is like if you've got an asset that's an obvious winner uh you know let's say a degra mining hemi discovery in Australia or um you know some of these big takeovers we've seen recently and which which leads you to my the answer to the question but like something like that if they had to build it themselves >> you know they'd have to raise a whole bunch of money or or you know hedge with a loan or they in the equity component there would be dilution. So if if the thing has been paid for in advance if the market is giving advanced credit for the full value of the project. So that limits your upside whereas the dilution is guaranteed one way or the other. Either you know a bigger company comes in and participates and buys a chunk of it. So your your ownership is reduced or new shares basically amount to the same thing. All those new shareholders now have a stake in your discovery and uh they weren't there before. So that dilutes your your share. So one way or the other, if if the value of this great asset that everybody loves has been paid in advance and now we're going to build it, you're going to you're going to suffer that at least risk of loss of value and and perhaps share price. >> Mhm. >> But if it really is that good, the takeover potential is huge, which was really my first answer. So, like you can see something that looks fully valued, but to the bin counters that run the big companies, um, you know, they're much less concerned to my my view of their track record is that they're much less concerned about extracting a discount or a bargain. That's not their their most they're much more concerned with ticking off the boxes of political risk, you know, profitable operation, district potential, like it's not just the one mine we're buying, but there's the one mine and there's the three more targets on trend, that sort of thing. Uh, you know, infrastructure, rule of law, all all these things that the your bigger companies are looking for. Um, so you could have an asset that looks fully valued compared to the MPV and the feasibility study and it still goes up 50% overnight if there's a big takeover offer. Well, if it's a if it's a the larger the asset, the smaller the premium is likely to be. Um but you know if if if you make 50% on a stock that that was otherwise capped and it goes like that suddenly you know within you know a few months of you buying it or something that's not a bad way to make money. >> So so the so the answer is like it would seem logically that you know a a an asset that's loved and understood you know fully priced it's done that's the end of the story. Uh but but never underestimate the power of a takeover. >> Do you have your eightball with you? >> I do. >> Right there. Ready. You still haven't uh taken it out of the package. I uh I like the commitment there. >> People say that, but you know, if you go to the toy store, you can see on the backside like you could you it's supposed to be you can test it. So you turn it up and you can see the the little triangle floating around in there. So you don't have to take it out of the package. And here in Puerto Rico, everything you take out of the package, it's exposed to humidity and all kinds of stuff. So anyway, >> but you live on the beach and and the cap of your bottle comes off, which is fun. >> Life's a beach. >> You you to the best of your your eightball reading abilities. Where are we going to be in the cycle at the end of this year? Having said everything we said so far, >> having said what we've said, you know, the the new thing that I've been saying and a central point to the thesis of this conversation is it's starting to look like a broad commodity super cycle, right? It's not just precious metals. It's not just monetary metals. It's not even just critical minerals that are in scarce supply. It looks like, you know, this is becoming a a rising tide that is lifting all ships. If that's true, then as a as a group, we're looking at high sub substantially higher prices by the end of this year. Uh here here's one. Here's your here's your eight-ball one. You know, I I may be completely wrong, but if I'm if I'm looking at my eight-ball and guessing, it feels to me like silver wants to take out triple digits. Silver just wants to hit 100 bucks and gold wants to go to 5,000. uh doesn't mean it will. I can absolutely be wrong, but it it it's just it's not a technical analysis. There's no line I'm drawing on a chart. There's just sometimes when I'm looking at the volatility and the market action and I get this feeling and I had this feeling when gold was heading up to 3,000 that I wanted to take out 3,000 and then correct and that was right. I had this feeling about 4,000. doesn't guarantee I'll be right this time, but for whatever it's worth, if you want to guess, not a prediction, but if you want to guess, my guess is that we probably see triple digit silver before we see a and that could lead to a big correction and that could that could spread to everything. Like >> I'm amazed. >> Like nobody nobody wants to be caught when the water goes out and see who has no shorts. Another Warren Buffett thing. if it looks like the water's going out, everybody starts heading for their the beach and their towels and stuff. So, we'll see. >> I'm amused because I'm reminded of the post that you made. Um there's about a video that says something like silver is going to be 4,000 bucks. I bet my reputation on it or something like that. And I'm like, okay, how do how do I put that into the title? Lobo said S&P ratio one to one. >> Like I I actually did not say that. >> Yeah. Uh, I I I don't think like if you clicked on that thing, that clickbait headline and listened to the whole illegal clip, if they I don't know if they stole it from you or somebody else >> probably. >> Uh, but I didn't actually even say that in the clip. It was just totally made up thing. So, uh, but you know, tripledigit silver 10 years ago would be like tinfoil hat stuff, but now it's only 20% higher from where we are or 25% higher from where we are. That's not a huge move. Um, and you know, any silver bull can tell you that if you adjust silver for inflation, even using the CPI as a conservative case, you're not just looking at tripledigit silver. You're looking at plus $200 silver. So, could that happen? Absolutely. There's no reason why it couldn't. Will it happen? I don't know. Markets are different. Would I be surprised to see it happen? Not at all. Just as you and I are speaking, there was a again not tinfoil hat low, but it was Bank of America put out a call this morning saying that silver could go over $300. So, makes me a little nervous as a contrarian when mainstream outlets like that pile on. But it also fits with the narrative like if if we are looking at this commodity super cycle that we've been talking about in this interview. Uh things like this seemingly wild and crazy call by Bank of America fit in perfectly with that. But another tinfoil hat thing might have been telling someone that silver will take 45 years to cross 60 again, right? Uh so I mean markets do fluctuate like that. Markets can be funny that way, I suppose. >> Yeah. So, >> you you you mentioned last time >> that hits on my favorite theme, and I won't pound it too much, but just remember, you know, it may go to the moon, but nobody goes broke taking profits. >> You you mentioned though last time, and you touched upon it here, you said you're still not buying copper stocks. And and last time, you also said you you were waiting to rotate into copper. Well, copper's over. >> That has changed. That has changed. I've got I have I'm not sure I remember when we we last spoke. I did buy some copper in 2025 and there is copper on my shopping list right now for the independent speculator. Um I had a price target. It went up. I always give my clients 3 days head start and the stock went up during that time before I could get there and it hasn't come back to my price target. So I haven't actually bought that one yet. Um, but I did make the decision to take the plunge and I'm hoping volatility will be my friend. If not, I'll have to decide whether I can with discipline change my price target and not be chasing it or just look for another girl to ask out to dance. >> Yeah, but $6 copper sounds exciting. It sounds like um Yeah, it sounds like Robert Freedelland's going to be right after all. uh you know 10 bucks copper I think is what he's talking about. Um potential wise though silver or copper depends on what you mean by potential I think silver has higher potential for gains this year. >> I think the gains in copper are more likely or no no more solid like silver and gold could spike today as we're speaking and then go into correction mode for years without breaking the story at all. That's what happened in 2020. Like in 2020, 2021, everybody's saying, "Oh, this is it. It's going to be 2011 all over again. They're going down." And they were wrong, right? That by the way, if that did happen now, if if 4,000 is the new 20,000 or the new 30,000, I think again that would be the volatility that that is our friend and creates buying opportunities for anybody who's looking to buy. That's actually the ideal outcome. A blowoff top is not ideal. a a a consolidation period is ideal for for those looking to buy. And that's actually my default case. I I think we do go into, you know, maybe, like I say, gold wants to hit 5,000, silver wants to hit 100, and then we go into a correction phase. I think that would be just fine for for those long being able to take profits and those looking to go long being able to take advantage of the panic afterwards. Um, but to answer your question, I think silver and gold have the potential to go screaming up and then back down and then then scaring everybody. I don't know how that it goes across the course of this year. Whereas copper, there may be some volatility in the near term, but I'm highly highly confident that it ends the year substantially higher and I'm willing to say that even at $6 copper, but when I started thinking about this, it was $4 and change. >> We are talking junior mining here though specifically today. So, what if I added something to that? Copper juniors or silver juniors? >> Um, probably silver juniors in part because there are very very few copper juniors. I mean, copper is big business and if you are a copper junior, you're hoping that some major you're going to find something big enough for a major to come on. I mean, >> oh, there's plenty of >> very, very rare to happen. There was Sherwood copper back in the day. There was a Tikico back in the day, but a small high-grade copper story that a little company can move forward with. Well, Capstone built itself up, but it's rare. Mostly, you're looking for something big that's going to interest a major um because those are the mines that that matter, the the big copper deposits. So, and and I'm so I'm picky. Like, you're hoping for that, but a lot of stuff, you know, it just doesn't stack up. It's just too low grade or it's too inconsistent. Um, it it doesn't have the kind of scale that you need to move forward with a with a copper project big enough to matter. So, you know, the the world of copper juniors is pretty slim pickings, >> whereas silver, you know, just add an animal to it. you know, silver centipedes, silver potato bug, silver tardigrade, you know, there's all these companies out there. Just add an animal to silver and you've got a mining company and people will pile into it. So, at least you have more choices there. And you didn't ask, but it's starting to look like things are are opening up a little bit in Mexico, which is very good for anybody interested in silver, cuz you know, it got pretty scary for a while. I am not giving the all green. I have not started buying silver plays in Mexico yet. But if I'm looking for silver and the government here continues on the path, they have started issuing some permits. They're saying the right things. We'll see what happens. Um I have I have sources in Mexico that tell me that the that the kleptocrats in charge of Mexico may have realized that they'll make more money if they let the nice Canadians and Americans build the mines and then nationalize them. um which means that you get a shot at the pre-production sweet spot before you can be expropriated. So, you know, that could work out. Anyway, I'm I'm I'm addressing your question about silver juniors and I'm saying that there's potential here for some buying opportunities in the silver space if political risk changes. And by the way, you know, Trump's policies, what just happened to Maduro, you know, this could be seen as a as a a a not so thinly veiled message to Latin American countries that you want to be friendly to to gringo corporations in the natural resources space. We'll see what happens. >> You mentioned an exiting strategy multiple times that maybe ties nicely into that. Um because I'm thinking is it a a micro you know t taking profits? Do you do that from a micro micro or or a macro perspective? So top down or bottom up is are you looking for the dollar to turn around for real rates to go up or anything like that in order to start exiting a position or a country to go sour or is it just oh I made x amount of money and then I'm exiting >> micro no I'm not looking for the broader market like nobody's smart enough to do that every this is a common like nobody can reliably bottom tick and top tick a market u Doug Casey tells a story about having bought a handful of stocks at the very bottom back in in the mid70s. Uh but it was luck. It was because he was a broker and a client had placed this order and then welched on it. So he decided he believed in what he said and he bought the stocks himself and it just so happened that he bought him ticked that like nobody can do that. So I don't I don't claim to be smart enough to know when the dollar is going to make a major macro shift or whatever. So no. Uh but you did mention countries. If a country turns south, then that countrywide becomes a thing. Like if there's a coup d'eta or a virently anti- business president gets elected or something like that, that is enough for me like to categorically get my money out of potential harm's way there. >> Mhm. >> But the answer to the question is that generally no. I don't think I'm smart enough to time markets or figure out what's going to happen in the future. So I use my my upside maximizer strategy and that's the micro. So, I I don't I don't know when gold or silver will top, but as we go screaming up, I've got big wins. I I set triggers for my upside maximizers. And if the market rolls over, those triggers will be activated, and I will either take profits or sell depending on how scared I am at the time or how greedy I am am at the time. Um, so far like last year there was a bit of consolidation and a bunch of those were triggered for me. Uh, and generally speaking I I took some profits. I did not exit. Uh, I think the only one I exited was a was a pre-production sweet spot play that went into production. Uh, um, so so yeah, what I'm saying is instead of thinking I can figure all this out, I just let the math do it for me. And so if it's just one company, something happens to that company bad and and in my upside maximizer is triggered, then it just affects that one company. But if the market as a whole or that commodity as as a class turns over, then all of those triggers will get called >> and that will get me out of the macro without me having to predict it. >> Talking jurisdictions, I know you travel a lot for research and and due diligence on on the ground. Where are you going this year? What do you have planned? Well, it's kind of a sad story, Antonio. I I've victim of my own success here. I have a team and I've trained them and they're brilliant and they're really hardworking and they love getting out there and kicking rocks. And so these days I tend to be mostly the one that goes to the conferences. I'm the I become the talking head for the company. Uh and the guys go out there and kick the rocks for me. So, I don't actually have a whole lot of rock kicking on on plan this year. Like, if I go see a project, it's probably just because I really want to. >> Uh maybe it's one I've owned for a long time and now they're building the mine and I want to see it. Uh but the team the team is out there. We have ideas in Canada, US, Argentina. Again, you know, there's an interesting jurisdiction. Speaking of uh really glad to see Malay have some electoral success in the Congress and be able to do more with legislative backing now. So yeah, one of the guys is headed back to Argentina soon. And you know, we'll see that we're pretty uh you know, opportunistic about this. And and by the way, dear audience, uh we don't wait for the companies to invite us necessarily. Uh we have a travel budget. We pay for our own travel. Uh, I have been known to go and see projects without telling management. Sh, don't tell them. Um, you know, when I can figure out where they are and and and go ask the locals what they think before anybody knows that I'm there. Full service due diligence we are. U, but yeah, it's mostly my team now that that fans out around the world and takes care of that for me. >> That's probably a good uh good good of a note as any to end the conversation on. Um, yeah, I think a lot of questions. What are we not talking about though? We talked wide ranging. So, we talked about a lot of stuff. What did you want to talk about that I haven't brought up yet though? >> I just Okay, if I'm going to give you a final capping thought that's not a sales pitch, I I want to say that there is a lot of risk in the world today. And we're talking about making money on junior mining stocks and their various metals and things. Completely different thing from owning bullion. uh if you don't have any gold or silver or both physical bullion in your personal possession, uh you should and at that point you shouldn't care how much the the gold dollar exchange rate is or anything else. When when there are fires burning around the world and fire insurance is available, you don't really ask how much it costs. You you want to have fire insurance before there's a fire that affects you. afterwards, you know, you'd be willing to pay anything for it, but it's too late. So, metaphorical way of saying like, let's not confuse our our our money-making strategies with the simple prudence of owning safe haven assets and having, you know, something socked away for a rainy day. The the world is pretty scary place and who knows how things might suddenly change. And uh I'm not a financial adviser, yada yada yada, but I really do think everybody should have a rainy day fund in a physical asset that you can be long that nobody else can be short. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate you doing this and hopefully speak again soon. >> Thank you, Antonio.
Could Silver Stocks Outperform Copper in 2026? | Lobo Tiggre Interview
Summary
Transcript
Today on resource talks, Lobo Tigra will uh try to hold me back from making mistakes and and hopefully uh not wasting what looks to be an extended bull market. Or is it? Uh well, hopefully we'll figure it out. By which I really mean Lobo's going to figure it out and then he'll tell me about it and I'm going to pretend to understand it and I'll pretend to be smarter than I really am. But I am looking forward to it nonetheless. Lobo, thank you so much for being here today. >> Always a pleasure. And you know, I'm going to have to serve myself some of your humble pie there. I'm just a due diligence guy. You know, I don't know where the hell the world's going. It looks like it's in a hand basket to wear. We'll see. Whatever that means. That's right. Uh no, the pleasure is mine. And uh I know you don't have all day uh to listen to me and you've already heard all nine of my jokes at this point. So, I'll just jump right into it. But where where are we though in in the cycle for junior mining specifically? Like if we use the psychology of a market cycle that that chart is this was it hope optimism is it thrill what's going on? >> Let me actually jump sideways in my answer to your question because I've been looking at the market action over the holidays and we do have I think significant new data. Um, like my thinking has actually evolved on this over the last few weeks and particular as we're speaking. We've got like the base metals are on a rip this week. Even aluminum and lead and zinc are up. Nickel was up this morning about 10% at one point. Uh so it's at the very least it's not just you know the debasement trade and monetary metals responding to uh probable continued weakness in the dollar. It seems to be like a broad-based metals rally. Um I don't know that coin and sorry corn and soybeans have have joined in. side. I don't know that it's a broader commodities rally, but in the metal side, the mineral side, you know, apart from oil, it just seems like, you know, there's a just a real fire has has been lit under all kinds of these commodities that you and I care about the most. Um, so I'm not answering your question with where we are in the cycle. Generally, I'm positing more of a commodity super cycle thesis here, which I haven't been thinking about in those terms for a while. But if that's right, going to your question, it is it would suggest an earlier stage part of that cycle. >> If if the metals as a whole, uh, not a whole, but if the metals is a as a vaguely defined class, you know, are are let let me put it this way. I'm I'm struggling for words because this is a new idea for me here, but I think Mr. Market is catching on to the idea that these critical minerals actually are minerals. You can't grow them. You can't recycle more of them into existence. You've got to mine them and there are limits to them. There are supply constraints. Some of them come from strange countries that are not necessarily very friendly to us. So the the broadness of the interest here and the size of some of these moves has me thinking that you know the this makes me a little uncomfortable but has me thinking that the narrative here is really taking hold that we're starting to get finally the generalist investor to to sit up and pay attention to this. So, if that's true, Antonio, and if it's just starting, then that suggests that we have, you know, a pretty exciting 2026 ahead of of us. And not just on any one of my favorite metals, but really anything that that has the thorium to go with the whatever the mineral is. I mean, the the nickel moved today. Maybe we'll find out tomorrow that there are some mine disaster somewhere or Indonesia clamps some new supply constraints or something. And I just haven't seen that headline yet. Um, but it's not just nickel, you know, is copper over six pounds, silver's over 80 bucks again, gold's looking at 4500. I mean, this this is really a striking move. Uh, and it cuts across the divisions that industry insiders think about of monetary or safe haven or precious or base, you know, I think it's really interesting. And if if that's so if we're really looking at a new commodity super cycle like getting going then that suggests you know years ahead and not being technical being more of a fundamentalist that actually fits with my view of the debasement trade of the things that I've been saying in recent interviews about how all paths lead to inflation. The Trump agenda is inflationary. Europe rearming is inflationary. Russia's words inflationary and and my favorite is that um Mr. Shei over there in China seems to be taking a page from Mario Draggy and we'll do whatever it takes to get 2% inflation. Right? All of these things are bullish for anything governments can't print or loan into existence. And that definitely includes, you know, the metals that you and I have been tracking for a while and and broadly the narrative of these critical minerals. Uh, you know, that has it's it's looking like flavor of the day to me, Antonio. >> Who would have thought that there would be a time in which we miss Mario Draghi, right? >> Yes. Yes. No, you're well. >> And now, sorry, but I can't let that slide. Now there's this Draghi report where Mario Draghi, Mr. Oh, I got to get me some inflation. He's now advising Europe on how they can become more competitive and all these people taking so seriously this Draggy report about how Europe is going to compete with the US. Yeah, good luck with that. >> Well, um, the caps and our bottles don't come off, so I think we've won every every race that is uh that is possible. But it's >> hard for us to compete with that. >> You're not um you're not you're not answering the question directly and that's fine because I think I could answer it for myself based on what you told me looking at the chart that I have in front of me and I I think you don't have it. But um it says so it starts at disbelief and this belief is characterized as this rally will feel like all the others. I think we're past that point obviously and then it goes into hope a recovery is possible. That's what hope says. I think we we've already seen that a lot of the prices are beyond what they were um last year. So, a lot of the stocks are up a lot. And then it's optimism. I think that's more or less what you're telling me uh right now is that this this rally is um uh for people listening and not watching, I'm laughing because Louis was was teasing me with his cap coming off of his bottle. But optimism says this rally is uh real. And that's what I'm getting from you. I mean that's what you're saying is that it's real and it's not only us, you know, metals bugs and and and kind of the the the internet crazies who believe that. It's it's more and more people waking up to the fact that it is real. >> Yes. Not yes and no, but yes and squishy. Sorry. Um but I'm trying to I'm trying not to here. And so yes, what you just I I do think there's there's this reality. There's there's a real wake up like you and I know and our audience probably knows like if you don't grow it, you got to mine it. >> Can't even if you want windmills and solar panels and all these wonderful new things uh to save those nice blue people on the other planet or whatever we're doing here, Smurfs, um you've got to mine this stuff. You you can't have wind turbines without all these minerals. You can't have solar panels without silver and all these other things. Um the batteries, all this stuff. So, like we've known this for a while and and I remember getting quite a bit of push back a couple years ago. I started writing that eventually uh the green agenda would trump nimi thinking >> because because reality like you you've got to have these minerals if you're going to have this green agenda going forward. And so sooner or later that nimi thinking had to give way. And we have seen that now where where that's that's it's not gone. Um, but all this ENG stuff, ESG stuff has been dialed back to where people are looking like, okay, how how can we try to be friendly to the environment, but also get our minerals that we have to have. So that that's really happening. So this is real and you know now it's got tailwinds from the data centers not just electric cars and wind turbines but like this there's a whole new electrification and and IT story here that I think for all the hype in that space is also real and durable and will be years the buildout will be years in the making. It'll consume a lot of raw material. So so yeah that's very real. And then on top of that, we've got, you know, I mentioned the remilitarization of Europe. I mean, the Trump agenda, the the replacing the Monroe doctrine with the Trump doctrine, you know, that takes a lot of hardware and, you know, projecting that force and occasionally blowing stuff up, you know, that requires raw materials to replace everything. you know that all of this requires this real stuff that you know you and I have have studied and and invested in for all this time how to profit from getting this real stuff out of the ground into the market. So that's the reality but there is hype here as well and you know the AI bubble I mean even if AI is real and these technologies will go forward you know companies with with ridiculous pees you know it's going to take a hundred years for for this company to grow into their earnings and the technology changes every couple years like even even if you you only have you only have a 20 or 30 PE on an IT company who knows what the techn is going to be in five years, let alone whether they'll be able to grow into the stuff. So, there's there is a lot of potential for unwinding. Now, there's also the the helicopters, the fiscal dominance. So, a lot of money slloshing out there. I'm not predicting a market crash. I'm not saying the AI thing has to send everybody, you know, scurrying for the hills with all that easy money out there, but there is potential for reversal here. And so while the stuff that we're talking about, metals, mining, hard assets, that's real and we need them and that will go forward, that doesn't mean that the market insanity in other parts of the market can't give us, you know, counterurrens and tail spins and other things along the way. So, I'm not sure I'm being very helpful here, but if I'm new to the space, I'm very interested in getting long because this is a mega trend and I think it has years to go. >> If I'm long already and I'm profiting a whole bunch, that's great. But you should have a strategy for making sure your gains don't slip through your fingers. You know, my mentor Doug Casey had his sell half on the first double strategy. I've got my upside maximizer. Develop your own strategy. I don't care. But no profit is is really a profit until you actually realize some gains. And that doesn't mean you lack conviction and you're a traitor to the cause of your favorite metal going higher. It just means like if you're in this to make money, well, you have to actually do the making money part. So if you're new to the space, you know, I would look for exposure. If you're way long, you know, I would not want to let gain slip through my fingers. And nothing goes up in a straight line. even even if you know we have a very bullish outlook for years to come, that doesn't mean it has to go up forever without any hiccups along the way. So, you know, uh that's a that's good news for people who are looking to buy is that there's probably going to be some volatility that can be your friend and that's a reason for those long already to stay disciplined. Don't forget that you nobody goes broke taking profits. >> What? >> You don't want to you don't want to squeeze JP Morgan, bring it bring it to its knees. As a human being, perhaps I do. As a speculator whose goal is to make money, I couldn't care less. My goal is to make maximize my returns, my profits. >> Here's something that might be more telling as well. Last time you and I spoke, you told me that you were about 30 to 35% cash. And when you go from optimism to belief, belief says it's time to get fully invested. Are you fully invested right now? Do you have less cash than last time? I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth, but the answer is literally yes and no in that um haven't taken any more profits lately. I have bought some more stocks, so I have been redeploying, but I also took some money out of my portfolio and I've been paying off my mortgage. I'm almost I think I'm one more payment and I will pay off in my entire mortgage. >> And um no, it wasn't a 2% mortgage. No, it's not as high as it is now, but I'll have no mortgage, right? I'll have just an an asset uh on my books that could be liquidated and if needed or whatever, but it's an example of realizing a gain. So, I will have turned paper gains in stocks, highly speculative stocks into a nice house on the beach in Puerto Rico, you know, completely paid off. Can't lose, right? So, um now does that mean I lack conviction, all this stuff? I mean, whatever. You can you can throw eggs at me if you want to, but I've got the house on the beach. It is paid for. So So I'm I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. I just I just think it makes sense to um Well, let me put it this way. I'm I'm paying off my mortgage early and I've got more mark money in the markets now than I did a year ago. So you can't say that I've betrayed silver or whatever your favorite mineral is. I'm still massively long, but I've made so much money that I could take some out, pay off the mortgage, and still be massively long. I >> I just think that um let me put it this way. The guys on the bar stool who are sitting there like, "Oh yeah, he lacks conviction. Oh yeah, it's going to the moon. I'm staying long until they pry it out of my gold dead cold fingers when I'm dead." Whatever. Um, that's not what you hear from people like Rick Rule or Doug Casey or Jeff Gunlack, you know, going broader in the world or Howard Marx or even Warren Buff like successful wealthy investors every once in a while they they take profits, right? The idea is to make money. Uh, not just watch stock charts. Yeah, >> I think I will throw eggs at you because eggs are down like 70% on the month. I mean, they're practically free in the US at this. It's a generational low in eggs at this point, so might as well throw them. I've noticed that the the cage-free eggs that were costing me 15 16 bucks in the store during that, you know, when when Trump got into office and was complaining about the eggs, >> they're now down to like six bucks. So, >> that's still too much. You should ask for a bigger discount. true thing. I can see it in my life. Thank you, Mr. Trump and whatever the secretary is who supposedly controlled the egg prices. >> Um, you should you should ask for a bigger discount. You should say, "I've got a a copper top friend. He told me you're ripping me off. Eggs should be cheaper." And they're going to agree, of course. Um, >> well, I think 27 thinks I could go there, but that would be a distraction. >> Well, no, I think this sets sets the stage nicely here, Lobo. And and the conclusion is we are in a bull market, a real bull market, but not a brainless bull market, which is >> I mean, it makes me nervous to say that. I agree with you. It makes me nervous to say that. You know, we've got record prices at least nominally for copper, silver, gold. Uh lots of things are are up and and normally I'm pretty cautious. I'm the guy who gets booed off the stage for saying uranium just went to triple digits. It pulled a hockey stick. correction is is not only likely u but highly probable. That's my usual mo. So here I am saying yeah everything's going up but I I remain quite bullish. >> Now if you think about it okay you know at least at least at least give me this. If I was the permable who every day says it's going to the moon then you could ignore me. But I'm not the permable. I am the guy who every once in a while says, "Hey, you know, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't hurt to take some profits. Things that go vertical don't go vertical forever." Uh, in fact, I've even done that in the gold space in 2000. I got a lot of hate for gold going up. Sorry, not 2000, in 2020 for gold going up over 2000. I got a lot of hate for for saying, you know, that taking a bit of profits wouldn't be a bad idea. And then it corrected and consolidated for three years. >> I've lost the track of what I was saying. Um >> well the point where I was going with this at least is that um I wanted to I wanted to ask you or or go go and talk about something that one of our mutual friend or speech that one of our mutual friend uh gives often and that's uh it's Rick Roio often talks about not wasting bull markets. So I guess I'll open the second part of the conversation a bit more broadly here but how do I do it? How do I not waste this bull market as um as as a as a retail investor myself? Well, hey, that's what we've just been saying. And and Rick himself has said that he has recently sold in late 2025. Rick was on all kinds of interviews saying that he didn't just take profits. He sold completely closed out some of his possessions and he sold enough stock. As I as I understood what he said, he sold enough of his junior mining stocks to go risk-free on the entire balance of his portfolio. like his stocks, his his portfolio was up enough that he could sell um enough money or get enough money back off the table so that all of the rest of his stocks in play. Like if he lost them all, he couldn't lose. He the profits he's taken covers everything else he has left on the table. And and as I recall, he you know, the numbers were pretty amazing. He was saying he sold like 25% and that covered everything else. That implies that his whole portfolio is at 400x. Uh, I don't have access to that, but congratulations, Master Rule. You know, um, I I think that's we've already talked about this, so we don't need to beat that to death. It's it's a pet peeve of mine. It's a big thing. Like, you you've got to realize gains, and you can't let gains slip through your fingers. Uh, again, upside maximizer is my way of taking the emotions out of that. I have I have math to help me do that. Um, but you also if if the thesis here is right, then you you don't want to be caught short. If you're looking at this new, you're you're not long. You know, I mentioned that a little bit before, too. But I think the thing there is not to just rush out and buy anything. It it's like I I think it's u I have a mental block or something. I cannot pay an all-time high price for anything. I have to wait for a dip. And if that means I miss it and it just goes screaming up higher, well then I miss it. Like there's another Doug Caseyism. You can't kiss all the girls. Uh to which I add, you only get a black guy if you try. So So one gets away from you. So what? There's a lot of girls out there or boys or whatever. You know that you don't have to bag every winner. And if that one gets away, there's always another one. And markets don't go up in straight lines. There's always a point of fluctuation. Another Doug Casey is make friend make volatility your friend. So how do we not let this slip through our fingers? One is go long but use volatility. Markets fluctuate. You know it don't don't give into FOMO but wait for those chances to buy. And if we're right about this having, you know, this being a super cycle that has some longevity to it, then you not only do you have time to profit, you have time to be patient and wait for something to present you with a value proposition. Uh, you know, buy high and hope to sell higher is not the formula. It's buy low, sell high. >> You know, the best thing would be, you know, some big scare like gold crashes right down to it drops 500 bucks. Imagine gold drops 500 bucks in a week down to $4,000. $4,000 would be so much money for the companies to, you know, they'd be printing cash, but markets would panic. I mean, investors would puke if gold dropped 500 bucks in a week. So, that's that's exactly what the kind of thing that Doug Casey means by making volatility your friend. If gold crashes to a level at which the gold companies are making money handover fist, but the stocks are on sale like they're going out of business, that's the market handing you a gift on a gold platter. That's a a good point about contrarianism maybe because I'm thinking, shouldn't you be a contrarian? Are you inclined to be a contrarian in this market? Because it seems like it's been an an easy year. It seems like it's been an easy market. That actually sounds scary to see as well, but why complicate things by by being a contributor or are you still inclined to do it? >> Yes. I mean, so so in fact, the the last few stocks I've bought have been uranium stocks that during uranium spot price fluctuations recently because it does. Uh gold and silver were going up. I already own gold and silver. Felt no FOMO. I haven't I have I haven't bought any gold or silver stocks in uh four months, actually. So, you can say, "Oh, he lacks conviction, blah blah." I I'm already long. So So no, I don't I don't want to chase anything. That's that is what I'm doing with my own money. The last few buys were uranium because I could buy something that objectively looked like a chance to buy low even at this stage. Even with uranium, you know, fluctuating 70 80 bucks. It's back up again now. Uh but on those fluctuations, there were opportunities to objectively do something at least looks like buying low. Um and I think that there's good chances that we'll see this oh copper top in the copper space coming up. Nothing goes in a straight line that you do have this tension between critical minerals and AI and all this hype and Dr. Copper being you know the PhD in economics uh and we have a world in which the president of the country with the largest economy in the world um is trying to change everything. He's trying to retool the economy and Whether you agree with that or disagree with that, I just my thesis isn't pro or contraump. My thesis is simply that um reshoring manufacturing to the United States is at the very least a bumpy ride. And it's not just tinfoil hat lobo saying this. Just look at the latest ISM data. US manufacturing is, you know, it's had a horrible year. It's negative again, right? This isn't easy to do and therefore there's room for more volatility. So, am I going to rush out and buy a copper stock while copper's, you know, just risen over six bucks? No. I'm going to wait for the next fluctuation. Um, and you know, let me put it this way, Antonio. This may sound self- serving, and maybe it is, but it is the answer to your question, right? I don't do phone. I am never going to chase anything that's just hit an all-time high or a 52- week high. And if that means I miss something that goes even higher, that's okay. Um, and where I'm going with this is like if you look at my track record, which is available for free on the website, you'll notice there are very few tenaggers in there's only one that comes close. Um, but you'll also notice that unlike the the mantra in this space that, you know, you need to if you're going to be a speculator, we're told you need to understand you're going to lose money on most of your stock picks and that the 10 baggers and 20 baggers will more than make up for it. And on average, you'll come out ahead. That's what I was taught. But that's how this business is. But if you look at my track record, I have actually won came out ahead on something like twothirds of my picks. So, personally, you're asking me what I'm doing. Personally, what I'm doing is exactly that. I'm being cautious. I'm not chasing highs. I'm waiting for volatility to be my friend. And the result of that is fewer 10bggers, but a lot more winners. I hate losing money. So, I'm okay with a with a portfolio that res results in doubles, triples, and five baggers and a lot fewer losses. I'm fine with that, you know. And if all you want is 10 baggers, maybe I'm not your guy. Um, don't listen to me. But if you hate losing money, you know, maybe think about what I'm saying. >> I do have a a question about copper as well, which we'll get to in a second. But it is making me think though about when when you say you hate losing money. Um, you you only lose money. This is going to be like a huge thought, but you only lose money when you buy something that's too expensive for what it is and then it goes back to its intrinsic value. >> No, not necessarily. That that puts the odds against you. If you're buying low and you're hoping to sell high, there's usually, as Rick likes to say, the unanswered question. We're exploring, we're building the mind, we're we're expanding production or whatever the deliverable is, right? Um, but other things can happen. You can, you know, Cobra Panama can happen to you or or you know, the the legendary endangered mosquito gets discovered on the flagship property of your Moose Pasture Inc. Junior, right? And and suddenly your your stock tanks. So, and that can happen even when the underlying commodity is rising. So, it's it's it's not quite that simple. But if you buy high and hope to sell higher, you're you're you're starting out the game with the odds against you. >> Whereas, if you insist on a value proposition, then you're helping the odds to be in your favor. >> Well, and that's exactly where I wanted to go with this is do you value things differently now? And I I asked you almost the same question last time, but I didn't follow up properly because I know you typically like seeing a kind of a decent discount to NAV, but those are becoming increasingly rare. And in the few cases where discount to NAV is still present, it's probably because the company is of lower quality. So how do you deal with valuations in this bull market? >> Uh so the answer is mostly no, but not entirely. So when it's producers, you know, and and you're you should have a a NAV multiple, even if you know, a low one, but something. And if you've got a discount to nav, the market is telling you there's something wrong with that company. For pre-producers, you're looking at NPV instead. And there it is normal to have a discount. Even in a bull market, if if the company is already being more than valued for the NPV of the project it's building, it's being paid in advance. And you could say, oh, well, the price has gone higher than in the, you know, the assumption in the feasibility study. So, the MPV is really higher. Um, there's something to that, but there's a reason why the the assumption in the study is conservative because, okay, the prices are higher now, but what if they fluctuate? You've got you're building a mine with, you know, a good mine has at least 10 years, if not 15 or 20 years of mine life. And over that time frame, you know, spot prices are not going to remain that much high or above cost. You know, even if the spot prices do continue rising, you know, your your spot price of your commodity that you're producing is somebody else's input cost, right? So, iron will go up, fuel will go up, you know, tires will go up. So, uh you can't it is a mistake to just uh adjust somebody's feasibility study for spot prices. But anyway, um, so the market should give a discount because there is always execution risk if you're building the mine or you're still in advanced exploration. Things can go wrong. And so there there are possibilities, but the but the there's sort of a margin compression here. In a bare market, you can get, you know, good-looking projects for 10 cents on the NPV dollar. In a bull market, you might be paying 50% of NPV or or but you should not be paying 100% of NPV even if metal prices have gone up. And there are still, I think, opportunities like that on the table right now. Um, but I I just told you that personally I haven't bought a gold or silver stock for months. And this is why I'm I'm just not willing to make that compromise. And I can tell you um I won't throw anybody by name under the bus, but let's just say in earlier in my career, there were times when metals prices were on a tear and all the company valuations were going nuts. You mean juniors with nothing, never mind a feasibility study with an MPV. They didn't even have a discovery yet. And they're trading for a couple hundred million dollars. And and what happened is you get into this thing where nothing is on sale. There is no buy low. So what do you do? You got a newsletter to write. You got to come up with something. So you get into relative valuations. Oh well, this Moose Pasture Inc. Jr. is only trading at 100 million and all the other Moose Moss Juniors are trading at 200 million. So this is cheap. It's only 100 million compared. But they're all worth zero. So you can play my it's worth zero clip that you like so much here. Um but but they're they literally have no value. Well, maybe the furniture and a few of the trucks could be sold or something, but you know what I mean. So, you know, that relative valuation game, um, it it gives you something to write about if you don't care about investment outcomes. But my experience with that was horrible. Like you when we went there, the outcomes for shareholders were were not good. So, personally, I'd rather see the girl go dance with some other guy because I got there too late than to pay too much to try to take her away from the other guy and then, you know, turns out she's married anyway or whatever. I don't know. I'm I'm buggling the metaphor there. But what I'm saying is my experience is that what typically happens in the newsletter writer industry is when things get pricey, we stop paying attention to actual valuations and go to relative valuations because you can write a story that looks good. Um, and my experience is that that does not do well for investors. So, I'm not doing it. I' I'd rather sit on my Well, no, I don't just sit on my hands. And so if I if I haven't been able to buy gold and silver stocks recently, what have I done? I've rotated to uranium. And I'm expecting actually to do a lot more in the copper spaces here. I'm not doing it today at six bucks, but nothing goes in a straight line. I do think volatility will be my friend here. And you know what? If if the world goes, you know, so smoothly and everything goes so wonderfully smooth and there's no popping of the AI bubble or even deflating, everything's going great and copper and and all these critical minerals just go in a nice steady line upwards. Well, in that really nice safe world, maybe the bid will go out of safe haven assets like gold where, you know, everything is calmed down. you know, that Putin and Trump made up and Putin and she made up and everybody's singing Kumbaya and the lambs are sleeping with the lions and everybody's going doing great. Um, you know, in that world, maybe gold will get cheap again and I'll be able to buy something there. You know, markets fluctuate. There's I don't want to quote Jim Kramer, but there is always an opportunity somewhere if you're willing to be patient. And I'd rather do that than go around chasing and giving into >> FOMO. Would you still pay north of 100 million for an exploration company though? One that doesn't have an MRE or even one that's you know there might be historic work there but there's you know no confirmed new like current discovery would you still pay north of 100? Let's let's let's be more specific. If there's no clear evidence of a deposit no. And I wouldn't care if it's, you know, those famous guys who always make money. I don't want to throw any names out there, but I think you know who I mean. Uh, famous mining investors can attract capital and and lower the cost of capital and push exploration aggressively that that there is some kind of value to that. Uh, but I don't assign any market cap to that. So the answer is no. I wouldn't buy anything on the basis of oh this famous guy's got pilot we're going to explore here. there's there is no valuation there for that. >> Um sometimes you you mentioned historical sometimes there are historical resources not 43101 but done by like Chevron in the 1970s or something or you know you know what I mean or or even a quality Canadian explorer um and post 43101 but for some reason it's not considered current. Um I I don't want I don't want to throw an specific example out there, but there are resources out there that are not 4301. They can't officially say they have anything, but you can see it. The data is there. And if you you know search archives, you can actually find the old data, what the old estimates were. So I would be willing to provide, you know, extend some provisional valuation to something like that. But if it's just exploration, we've got an anomaly. Well, you know, anomalies are like armpits. Most everybody's got at least one, usually two, and hopefully not more. But but you know, I just I don't assign any value to that at all. I But I maybe one thing to clarify here is that personally, like me myself, not necessarily for all newsletters or or people, but me, like I don't invest in pre-discovery exploration anyway. Um because it just you you never know who's going to do it. It can take a long time. even the most successful people it can take a decade or more you know Ron Parat somebody like that between discoveries uh and so the best way to do that is with the prospect generators where you have other people's money offset the expenses and then you can be very patient so I mean I didn't even do that because as a newsletter writer with all these people looking over my shoulder saying what have you done for me lately you got to be patient with these guys right so so there is a personal aspect to My answer to your question, if I was a private investor and nobody was looking at my portfolio and my results, I could be a lot more patient and I I might own I probably would own, let me put it that way. I probably would own a basket of prospect generators. And so to your qu you know, would I think it's worth 100 million or 50 million or whatever just because of these? No, probably not. >> Um but when you're when you're in the sub50 million range, we're talking peanuts anyway. Um, so the company is worth nothing, but if they discover anything, it's going to be worth a lot more than 50 or 100 million if you know anything worth discovering. So if I'm patient and I'm willing to wait for the the proven successful people to put other people's money to work in a prospect generator, I would I'm not saying I would value the company. I'm saying I'd be willing to buy the stock. H is prospect generators are in large part about managing risk though. Is that what you should be optimizing for in a in a bull market? And that might actually be a good question in and of itself. What's going to be the best way to not waste the potential of a bull market? Is it the cashrich explorers over your discovery place or PPSS or optionality place or prospect generators? >> Well, potential doesn't exist so you can't waste it. Um, but to not to dodge your question, if you have a company that's self-funded exploration, owns 100% of the asset, they have nothing, but they have they have the land 100% and they maybe there's a famous investor or a famous minor on board and that helps them raise 30 million bucks or something. So, they got a big treasure to go out and and just drill baby drill and they and they get lucky and they make a discovery. that stock will absolutely outperform the prospect generator that's already in advance given away 60 or 70% of the project to the larger company that's earning in no question that self-funded uh exploration in a you know in a bull market they make a significant discovery that stock will outperform. The problem of course is that they are spending their own money. What if they don't hit uh you know and what if the bull market turns around? You know they they can they can go the way of the dodo really quick. Whereas the prospect generator, the risk managers, you know, they're they're still chugging along there. It was other people's money that got blown on those drill holes. Sorry, it didn't work out. They get the project back. they turn it over, look for another one, or they or they learn from the failure of those people who so kindly spent that money, that high-risisk exploration money, right, to find better targets and then go out and find some. I think I think our friends the Polloquins at at the Almaden companies um if I recall correctly some of their projects in Mexico were like that where you know they did initial prospecting other companies came and explored drenching maybe some drilling handed it back didn't see what they wanted majors are famous for this you know they'll put a couple holes half a kilometer apart they don't both hit not big enough for us they walk but one of of them hit a spectacular hole and so the junior goes back and figures out what's going on there and finds a mind big enough for a junior or a mid-tier or something. Anyway, um I I think I've seen cases like that in companies like that where they've they've got the project back, thank you very much, and then gone on to make a significant discovery. So um we were asking your question if I recall was in this market like this would those self-funded you know exploration stories outperform the prospect generators. It would be hard to say other things being equal because they're not equal. But if a prospect generator and one of these self-funded companies made similar discoveries, you know, something that looks like a 5 million ounce gold project that could be taken over, uh, I would guess that that the self-funded one would do better than the prospect generator, but you're taking a lot more risk that way. >> Well, it was it was more of a question uh, how do you not waste potential and and and what what what makes most sense to bet on as a category? Is it still your, you know, the those favorite prospect generators of yours or is it is it something else that makes more sense in a bull market? And that's riskreward that I'm I'm thinking about, not necessarily only upside. I guess my answer is that that's really not a market cycle thing. Like you're you're if you're retired on a fixed income and you're interested in the space and maybe getting some leverage to it, but you really can't afford to lose your nest egg. I really think that's much more important than anything else, you know. So, you're gonna you're going to lean towards the commodity itself rather than any mining companies at all. Or maybe if not a commodity ETF, then maybe a royalty play. That's really solid. Give you a little bit more leverage, but a lot less risk. Uh, you know, if you're if you're 19, no kids, got some extra money, swing for the bleachers. Sure, you're probably going to skew towards you know these very early stage things prediscovery place maybe there is something in between so but that's my answer to your question I I think bull market bare market that's going to be much more important to you than the market cycle >> but the other thing on that was triggered by I was just saying there's another way to play the exploration place I said personally I don't invest in or speculate on pre-discovery place that doesn't mean that I ignore discovery completely. There's a there's a misconception uh out there in our space that the discovery is like that drill hole that they make the discovery hole and the stock goes up 10 times. Uh that actually doesn't happen. It I've seen stocks double or thereabouts on a single drill hole that looks like a smoking hot discovery. But that first part of the Lan curve, that discovery phase, it's not one drill hole. It's the whole process from that discovery hole to the followup to defining a resource and as they're going along and you know one hole to two to now we have a half a kilometer strike and it keeps getting bigger you know that adds a lot of value and as a company has a real discovery there is consistency and predictability in those results I call that success in progress and that is after the pre-production sweet spot success in progress plays are one of my absolute favorite things to invest in because I don't have to guess who's going to make a discovery. It's, you know, like our friend Rick Rule says, don't confuse the inevitable with the im imminent. I don't have to worry about any of that. This is something that's actually happening, right? You can see it. They made the discovery and now they've confirmed it and it's getting bigger. And that's a bandwagon you can jump onto and make, okay, maybe maybe not your 20 baggers or 50 baggers or something, but in a bull market it could be a 10 bagger. in a in a less excited market, it could be a double or a triple, but with much much less risk. And you know, that's not a bad thing. >> What about if we flip that, though? Because a a good asset isn't necessarily a good speculation or a good bet. So, is there is there a segment of the industry that you think could create that trap where again, it's a good project or a good asset, but it's still a bad bet for this market specifically. >> Logically, that makes sense. Uh, and and I guess, you know, if if I'm saying I don't want to buy high and hope to sell higher, I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. Like a good asset that's been priced in, everybody loves it. I'm probably not going there. Think one caveat for that is like if you've got an asset that's an obvious winner uh you know let's say a degra mining hemi discovery in Australia or um you know some of these big takeovers we've seen recently and which which leads you to my the answer to the question but like something like that if they had to build it themselves >> you know they'd have to raise a whole bunch of money or or you know hedge with a loan or they in the equity component there would be dilution. So if if the thing has been paid for in advance if the market is giving advanced credit for the full value of the project. So that limits your upside whereas the dilution is guaranteed one way or the other. Either you know a bigger company comes in and participates and buys a chunk of it. So your your ownership is reduced or new shares basically amount to the same thing. All those new shareholders now have a stake in your discovery and uh they weren't there before. So that dilutes your your share. So one way or the other, if if the value of this great asset that everybody loves has been paid in advance and now we're going to build it, you're going to you're going to suffer that at least risk of loss of value and and perhaps share price. >> Mhm. >> But if it really is that good, the takeover potential is huge, which was really my first answer. So, like you can see something that looks fully valued, but to the bin counters that run the big companies, um, you know, they're much less concerned to my my view of their track record is that they're much less concerned about extracting a discount or a bargain. That's not their their most they're much more concerned with ticking off the boxes of political risk, you know, profitable operation, district potential, like it's not just the one mine we're buying, but there's the one mine and there's the three more targets on trend, that sort of thing. Uh, you know, infrastructure, rule of law, all all these things that the your bigger companies are looking for. Um, so you could have an asset that looks fully valued compared to the MPV and the feasibility study and it still goes up 50% overnight if there's a big takeover offer. Well, if it's a if it's a the larger the asset, the smaller the premium is likely to be. Um but you know if if if you make 50% on a stock that that was otherwise capped and it goes like that suddenly you know within you know a few months of you buying it or something that's not a bad way to make money. >> So so the so the answer is like it would seem logically that you know a a an asset that's loved and understood you know fully priced it's done that's the end of the story. Uh but but never underestimate the power of a takeover. >> Do you have your eightball with you? >> I do. >> Right there. Ready. You still haven't uh taken it out of the package. I uh I like the commitment there. >> People say that, but you know, if you go to the toy store, you can see on the backside like you could you it's supposed to be you can test it. So you turn it up and you can see the the little triangle floating around in there. So you don't have to take it out of the package. And here in Puerto Rico, everything you take out of the package, it's exposed to humidity and all kinds of stuff. So anyway, >> but you live on the beach and and the cap of your bottle comes off, which is fun. >> Life's a beach. >> You you to the best of your your eightball reading abilities. Where are we going to be in the cycle at the end of this year? Having said everything we said so far, >> having said what we've said, you know, the the new thing that I've been saying and a central point to the thesis of this conversation is it's starting to look like a broad commodity super cycle, right? It's not just precious metals. It's not just monetary metals. It's not even just critical minerals that are in scarce supply. It looks like, you know, this is becoming a a rising tide that is lifting all ships. If that's true, then as a as a group, we're looking at high sub substantially higher prices by the end of this year. Uh here here's one. Here's your here's your eight-ball one. You know, I I may be completely wrong, but if I'm if I'm looking at my eight-ball and guessing, it feels to me like silver wants to take out triple digits. Silver just wants to hit 100 bucks and gold wants to go to 5,000. uh doesn't mean it will. I can absolutely be wrong, but it it it's just it's not a technical analysis. There's no line I'm drawing on a chart. There's just sometimes when I'm looking at the volatility and the market action and I get this feeling and I had this feeling when gold was heading up to 3,000 that I wanted to take out 3,000 and then correct and that was right. I had this feeling about 4,000. doesn't guarantee I'll be right this time, but for whatever it's worth, if you want to guess, not a prediction, but if you want to guess, my guess is that we probably see triple digit silver before we see a and that could lead to a big correction and that could that could spread to everything. Like >> I'm amazed. >> Like nobody nobody wants to be caught when the water goes out and see who has no shorts. Another Warren Buffett thing. if it looks like the water's going out, everybody starts heading for their the beach and their towels and stuff. So, we'll see. >> I'm amused because I'm reminded of the post that you made. Um there's about a video that says something like silver is going to be 4,000 bucks. I bet my reputation on it or something like that. And I'm like, okay, how do how do I put that into the title? Lobo said S&P ratio one to one. >> Like I I actually did not say that. >> Yeah. Uh, I I I don't think like if you clicked on that thing, that clickbait headline and listened to the whole illegal clip, if they I don't know if they stole it from you or somebody else >> probably. >> Uh, but I didn't actually even say that in the clip. It was just totally made up thing. So, uh, but you know, tripledigit silver 10 years ago would be like tinfoil hat stuff, but now it's only 20% higher from where we are or 25% higher from where we are. That's not a huge move. Um, and you know, any silver bull can tell you that if you adjust silver for inflation, even using the CPI as a conservative case, you're not just looking at tripledigit silver. You're looking at plus $200 silver. So, could that happen? Absolutely. There's no reason why it couldn't. Will it happen? I don't know. Markets are different. Would I be surprised to see it happen? Not at all. Just as you and I are speaking, there was a again not tinfoil hat low, but it was Bank of America put out a call this morning saying that silver could go over $300. So, makes me a little nervous as a contrarian when mainstream outlets like that pile on. But it also fits with the narrative like if if we are looking at this commodity super cycle that we've been talking about in this interview. Uh things like this seemingly wild and crazy call by Bank of America fit in perfectly with that. But another tinfoil hat thing might have been telling someone that silver will take 45 years to cross 60 again, right? Uh so I mean markets do fluctuate like that. Markets can be funny that way, I suppose. >> Yeah. So, >> you you you mentioned last time >> that hits on my favorite theme, and I won't pound it too much, but just remember, you know, it may go to the moon, but nobody goes broke taking profits. >> You you mentioned though last time, and you touched upon it here, you said you're still not buying copper stocks. And and last time, you also said you you were waiting to rotate into copper. Well, copper's over. >> That has changed. That has changed. I've got I have I'm not sure I remember when we we last spoke. I did buy some copper in 2025 and there is copper on my shopping list right now for the independent speculator. Um I had a price target. It went up. I always give my clients 3 days head start and the stock went up during that time before I could get there and it hasn't come back to my price target. So I haven't actually bought that one yet. Um, but I did make the decision to take the plunge and I'm hoping volatility will be my friend. If not, I'll have to decide whether I can with discipline change my price target and not be chasing it or just look for another girl to ask out to dance. >> Yeah, but $6 copper sounds exciting. It sounds like um Yeah, it sounds like Robert Freedelland's going to be right after all. uh you know 10 bucks copper I think is what he's talking about. Um potential wise though silver or copper depends on what you mean by potential I think silver has higher potential for gains this year. >> I think the gains in copper are more likely or no no more solid like silver and gold could spike today as we're speaking and then go into correction mode for years without breaking the story at all. That's what happened in 2020. Like in 2020, 2021, everybody's saying, "Oh, this is it. It's going to be 2011 all over again. They're going down." And they were wrong, right? That by the way, if that did happen now, if if 4,000 is the new 20,000 or the new 30,000, I think again that would be the volatility that that is our friend and creates buying opportunities for anybody who's looking to buy. That's actually the ideal outcome. A blowoff top is not ideal. a a a consolidation period is ideal for for those looking to buy. And that's actually my default case. I I think we do go into, you know, maybe, like I say, gold wants to hit 5,000, silver wants to hit 100, and then we go into a correction phase. I think that would be just fine for for those long being able to take profits and those looking to go long being able to take advantage of the panic afterwards. Um, but to answer your question, I think silver and gold have the potential to go screaming up and then back down and then then scaring everybody. I don't know how that it goes across the course of this year. Whereas copper, there may be some volatility in the near term, but I'm highly highly confident that it ends the year substantially higher and I'm willing to say that even at $6 copper, but when I started thinking about this, it was $4 and change. >> We are talking junior mining here though specifically today. So, what if I added something to that? Copper juniors or silver juniors? >> Um, probably silver juniors in part because there are very very few copper juniors. I mean, copper is big business and if you are a copper junior, you're hoping that some major you're going to find something big enough for a major to come on. I mean, >> oh, there's plenty of >> very, very rare to happen. There was Sherwood copper back in the day. There was a Tikico back in the day, but a small high-grade copper story that a little company can move forward with. Well, Capstone built itself up, but it's rare. Mostly, you're looking for something big that's going to interest a major um because those are the mines that that matter, the the big copper deposits. So, and and I'm so I'm picky. Like, you're hoping for that, but a lot of stuff, you know, it just doesn't stack up. It's just too low grade or it's too inconsistent. Um, it it doesn't have the kind of scale that you need to move forward with a with a copper project big enough to matter. So, you know, the the world of copper juniors is pretty slim pickings, >> whereas silver, you know, just add an animal to it. you know, silver centipedes, silver potato bug, silver tardigrade, you know, there's all these companies out there. Just add an animal to silver and you've got a mining company and people will pile into it. So, at least you have more choices there. And you didn't ask, but it's starting to look like things are are opening up a little bit in Mexico, which is very good for anybody interested in silver, cuz you know, it got pretty scary for a while. I am not giving the all green. I have not started buying silver plays in Mexico yet. But if I'm looking for silver and the government here continues on the path, they have started issuing some permits. They're saying the right things. We'll see what happens. Um I have I have sources in Mexico that tell me that the that the kleptocrats in charge of Mexico may have realized that they'll make more money if they let the nice Canadians and Americans build the mines and then nationalize them. um which means that you get a shot at the pre-production sweet spot before you can be expropriated. So, you know, that could work out. Anyway, I'm I'm I'm addressing your question about silver juniors and I'm saying that there's potential here for some buying opportunities in the silver space if political risk changes. And by the way, you know, Trump's policies, what just happened to Maduro, you know, this could be seen as a as a a a not so thinly veiled message to Latin American countries that you want to be friendly to to gringo corporations in the natural resources space. We'll see what happens. >> You mentioned an exiting strategy multiple times that maybe ties nicely into that. Um because I'm thinking is it a a micro you know t taking profits? Do you do that from a micro micro or or a macro perspective? So top down or bottom up is are you looking for the dollar to turn around for real rates to go up or anything like that in order to start exiting a position or a country to go sour or is it just oh I made x amount of money and then I'm exiting >> micro no I'm not looking for the broader market like nobody's smart enough to do that every this is a common like nobody can reliably bottom tick and top tick a market u Doug Casey tells a story about having bought a handful of stocks at the very bottom back in in the mid70s. Uh but it was luck. It was because he was a broker and a client had placed this order and then welched on it. So he decided he believed in what he said and he bought the stocks himself and it just so happened that he bought him ticked that like nobody can do that. So I don't I don't claim to be smart enough to know when the dollar is going to make a major macro shift or whatever. So no. Uh but you did mention countries. If a country turns south, then that countrywide becomes a thing. Like if there's a coup d'eta or a virently anti- business president gets elected or something like that, that is enough for me like to categorically get my money out of potential harm's way there. >> Mhm. >> But the answer to the question is that generally no. I don't think I'm smart enough to time markets or figure out what's going to happen in the future. So I use my my upside maximizer strategy and that's the micro. So, I I don't I don't know when gold or silver will top, but as we go screaming up, I've got big wins. I I set triggers for my upside maximizers. And if the market rolls over, those triggers will be activated, and I will either take profits or sell depending on how scared I am at the time or how greedy I am am at the time. Um, so far like last year there was a bit of consolidation and a bunch of those were triggered for me. Uh, and generally speaking I I took some profits. I did not exit. Uh, I think the only one I exited was a was a pre-production sweet spot play that went into production. Uh, um, so so yeah, what I'm saying is instead of thinking I can figure all this out, I just let the math do it for me. And so if it's just one company, something happens to that company bad and and in my upside maximizer is triggered, then it just affects that one company. But if the market as a whole or that commodity as as a class turns over, then all of those triggers will get called >> and that will get me out of the macro without me having to predict it. >> Talking jurisdictions, I know you travel a lot for research and and due diligence on on the ground. Where are you going this year? What do you have planned? Well, it's kind of a sad story, Antonio. I I've victim of my own success here. I have a team and I've trained them and they're brilliant and they're really hardworking and they love getting out there and kicking rocks. And so these days I tend to be mostly the one that goes to the conferences. I'm the I become the talking head for the company. Uh and the guys go out there and kick the rocks for me. So, I don't actually have a whole lot of rock kicking on on plan this year. Like, if I go see a project, it's probably just because I really want to. >> Uh maybe it's one I've owned for a long time and now they're building the mine and I want to see it. Uh but the team the team is out there. We have ideas in Canada, US, Argentina. Again, you know, there's an interesting jurisdiction. Speaking of uh really glad to see Malay have some electoral success in the Congress and be able to do more with legislative backing now. So yeah, one of the guys is headed back to Argentina soon. And you know, we'll see that we're pretty uh you know, opportunistic about this. And and by the way, dear audience, uh we don't wait for the companies to invite us necessarily. Uh we have a travel budget. We pay for our own travel. Uh, I have been known to go and see projects without telling management. Sh, don't tell them. Um, you know, when I can figure out where they are and and and go ask the locals what they think before anybody knows that I'm there. Full service due diligence we are. U, but yeah, it's mostly my team now that that fans out around the world and takes care of that for me. >> That's probably a good uh good good of a note as any to end the conversation on. Um, yeah, I think a lot of questions. What are we not talking about though? We talked wide ranging. So, we talked about a lot of stuff. What did you want to talk about that I haven't brought up yet though? >> I just Okay, if I'm going to give you a final capping thought that's not a sales pitch, I I want to say that there is a lot of risk in the world today. And we're talking about making money on junior mining stocks and their various metals and things. Completely different thing from owning bullion. uh if you don't have any gold or silver or both physical bullion in your personal possession, uh you should and at that point you shouldn't care how much the the gold dollar exchange rate is or anything else. When when there are fires burning around the world and fire insurance is available, you don't really ask how much it costs. You you want to have fire insurance before there's a fire that affects you. afterwards, you know, you'd be willing to pay anything for it, but it's too late. So, metaphorical way of saying like, let's not confuse our our our money-making strategies with the simple prudence of owning safe haven assets and having, you know, something socked away for a rainy day. The the world is pretty scary place and who knows how things might suddenly change. And uh I'm not a financial adviser, yada yada yada, but I really do think everybody should have a rainy day fund in a physical asset that you can be long that nobody else can be short. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate you doing this and hopefully speak again soon. >> Thank you, Antonio.