AI Bubble About to Pop? Uranium, & Precious Metals Stocks Could Outperform the Market Crash
Summary
Precious Metals: Long-term bullish on gold (and cautiously on silver) after a frothy run, with a near-term consolidation; rotate from broad ETFs into high-quality development/exploration names.
Gold Stock Highlight: USAU (U.S. Gold Corp) praised for its CK Gold Project economics in Wyoming; still seen as undervalued even after a multi-bagger move and a recent pullback.
Uranium/Nuclear: Strongest policy tailwind globally with growing demand including SMRs; structural undersupply persists, potential for $200/lb uranium within 1–2 years, with supply constraints at Kazakhstan and slower ramp at CCJ.
Energy Mix: Bullish on natural gas as a major winner alongside nuclear in meeting rising power needs; crude at ~$60 is seen as unsustainably low absent a global recession.
Critical Minerals: Long-term need for North American onshoring in rare earths/antimony/tungsten remains; near-term caution after a US–China “ceasefire,” using corrections to build positions in the best stories.
Cybersecurity: Still favored as essential spend, with expectations of a new consolidation wave; seen as a durable secular growth area.
AI/Semiconductors: Cautions on AI-driven speculation and concentration risk, highlighting NVDA’s outsized valuation versus GDP as a bubble signal and deteriorating market breadth.
Market Strategy: Raise cash, trim extreme winners, and focus on “needs” (defensives) over “wants”; prepare for a possible 20–30% correction amid high debt, sticky inflation, and higher-for-longer long-term rates.
Transcript
Nothing goes up or down in a straight line, including gold. So, we're we're at a time right now, which for savvy investors is actually pretty nice because now you can buy stuff for, you know, a quarter or a third off of what it was a month ago and some good companies. Even now, uh going forward, I I still insist that within a year or two, you're going to see a minimum $200 pound uranium price. And we're still going to have a tight market and we're still going to be under supplied. When you look at the macro situation and the broad markets, it by most measures, the overvaluation and and silliness on Wall Street exceeds anything that's come before it. Um, give you an example. In the late 90s, the big darling internet, you know, age stock was Cisco Systems. And at its peak, Cisco represented all by itself, its market cap, 4% of US GDP. Do you know what Nvidia represents right now? It is current, it's just hit 5 trillion valuation. So, you're talking something like 15% of US GDP. the overall output of the whole economy officially represented the market cap of one stock Nvidia be raising some cash rotate your your you know most extreme winners maybe uh in the precious metals move take some money off the table uh especially if it's in the general stuff like the ETFs and whatnot but then look at those individual stocks that have got the superior long-term exploration stories and the best management agement and be adding to them. >> For disclosure purposes, our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services, or products. Nothing on our site or this podcast should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. [music] All investing involves risk and possible losses. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. >> What What do you do to diversify for the end of the world? I [laughter] don't know. Well, you I mean you look at different short positions. You look at you look at what type of individual stocks and stories out there are going to stay relevant or become more so if we do see hard times for the economy. I mean, one of my favorite statistics, maybe you've heard me say it before, if you go back to the Great Depression, from the top of the market in 1929 until it bottomed in the spring of 1932, the stock market was down 89%. But one out of three public companies were higher in price during that time. And why were they? Well, you know, Homestake Mining is the famous one for, you know, gold bug example. Um, but you know, people need food, they need utilities, they need to be able to turn a light on, uh, and things like that. So, I think that people are going to have to, you know, distinguish between wants and needs. And, you know, one theme that's kind of sounds a little bit corny, but, you know, buy needs and sell wants >> when it comes to the stock market. >> Um, you know, that's one thing. Uh, and there's look, there's always going to be innovation. No matter how bad things get, there's still going to be markets. There's still going to be liquidity. Um, and so you got to ask yourself, well, what is still going to survive, if not do better if, you know, all of a sudden people realize that this AI thing really is more flims flame than it is real? >> Chris, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. for investors or following that has not tuned in before. Chris Temple is the founder of the National Investor and he is a wealth of information and knowledge uh for our podcast. So I think the best place to start is um gold and silver. Gold's had quite a tumultuous couple weeks. >> I mean look, both of them and for somewhat different reasons, Cali have got great long-term fundamentals. Okay. Uh, I told people, you get my newsletters. It's probably been going on a month ago when I thought gold was just getting too bubbly that I told people to start taking some money off the table among other things. for kind of redeploying from some of the bigger names into some of the uh uh better exploration stories that haven't been run up a lot yet because we're going to go through a period of consolidation now for both gold and silver but I think on the other side more so for gold possibly for silver uh we'll see new highs again still you know silver caught up kind of uh in in a big hurry uh in the recent past to gold and and made its own new nominal high, certainly not in inflation adjusted terms like gold did. But now both of them have sold off because they got a little bit too frothy. And as we saw yesterday too with the Fed, you know, there is still a chance at least on the surface that the Fed is going to keep things a little bit tighter than the markets thought was going to be the case. And you know, therefore, we've seen long-term interest rates pop back higher. Take a look at the chart of the US dollar which has been putting in a very methodical bottoming process and could turn higher. I mean we're back within a whisker of triple digits on the US dollar index. Um I don't think fundamentally that's going to be justified for a long time but you know nothing goes up or down in a straight line including gold. Um, so we're we're we're at a time right now which for savvy investors is actually pretty nice because now you can buy stuff for, you know, a quarter or a third off of what it was a month ago and some good companies. >> It feels like, you know, a sale compared to a couple months ago because you didn't know really where to jump in for some of the mining companies. Are you thinking in the short term um like for the end of this year that the exploration like a discovery story or a producer is like the best place when you're looking in the precious metal space or what are your thoughts? I >> I want to look company by company right now at fundamentals. I pulled back significantly when it comes to the overall exposure, but generally speaking, I did that by telling our audience to cut back on our exposure to ETFs, which I add more as trading vehicles or like waiting vehicles. If I like the precious metals, we'll get heavier into ETFs. If I think we're going to have a correction or one starts, we'll pull back a little bit. But generally speaking, with a couple recent exceptions where I told people to sell a couple of different names entirely because I just didn't see any more surprises to come. I think everybody knows everything about them. We already made money. Let's get out. Um I think you want to stick with the better development stage stories uh and the ones that have got a better than even exploration story. I mean, you look at a stock, for example, that I added back to my list a few years ago, US gold. I mean, the stock's up something like five times what it was when I put it back on my recommended list. It was up like six or seven times, and it's corrected a little bit, too. Okay. But when you look at its economic assessment for the CK project in Wyoming, even at its high price of a few weeks ago, it's still undervalued. when you look at what the net present value of the resource is, which is grossly understated. I mean, every time they've come out with a updated economic assessment, you have to put updated in quotes because they're using a gold price way below the current market. They're not including a lot of the good stuff to come. So, that that's a that's a Cadillac of a development stage story. And you know, when you see some selling in it right now along with everything else, you want to buy a little bit more or buy some, you know, period. If you don't have any yet, you know, a couple of really good uh exploration stories out there that have got some major blue sky potential, but they're relatively underfollowed. You look at a Formation Meadows or a Tectonic or North Peak Resources in Nevada. I mean, North Peak and and and Tectonic especially have projects that nobody really was paying any attention to for years and all of a sudden you got each of these companies major projects in the hands of good season and management with a lot of you know successes in their background. So I'm excited at the prospect of those things long term. You may need to have some patience. You know, I I think that we're going to grind sideways to lower potentially still for the metals near term. Uh barring any surprises that come out of left field to scare people right back into gold again, which is always possible. I mean, if you look at a chart of the gold price, you can go down as low as 33 or $3,400 um and still be in a long-term uptrend. I don't think that we're necessarily going to see that extreme. I'm looking at more like 3,800 because that was another minor breakout level. 3,400 was a big breakout point if you remember Cali back in the summer. Dude, so many projects now moving forward in the US. We we've talked with Apollo um California, San Bernardino has drastically changed even in the last 6 months. Obviously, US gold, Wyoming kind of one of the best places to be, but do you find that almost all jurisdictions now uh are basically mining row mining in the states? >> Much as we would like, Minnesota regrettably is still troubled, especially in the Iron Range where you've got Northmet and Twin Metals and still regrettably a lot of resistance to that. It shouldn't be, but there is. Um, you know, you mentioned Apollo. Um, a lot of people uh, and you and I both have talked with both U Ross Mroy and Andy Bowing, you know, in in the recent past. People don't realize that California has got this one county there with right now 90 different active mining projects. Majority of them are gravel and road fill and stuff like that, but you've got Equinox Gold. You've got MP materials that really put uh, San Bernardino County back on the map. So, so some of these jurisdictions really are good. I think in a broad sense we have a better policy tailwind for extractive industries generally than at any point in our lifetimes. But there's still a lot of roadblocks out there. We we need tort reform desperately in this country. uh because when you're asking people even in an environment recently where okay commodities are looking better the Trump administration's on board especially with uranium and nuclear but beyond that with base metals with critical materials with rare earth etc. You're still looking, if you're an investor at putting money in these things, you're still looking at many years and a lot of risk before you're ever going to get a return. And maybe it's somewhat less bad than it's been, but we we still have a lot of work to do in the US to clean up this whole process, streamline it, accelerate things. It's an economic and national security imperative. And we're going to learn the hard way still that we should have taken this a lot seriously with a lot more money and a lot more policy a lot faster than what's happening. >> Well, I feel like you guys are doing a better job than here in Canada. Speaking of uranium and nuclear, saving saving us in Canada with Gamo, do you want to talk about just what your thoughts are? that feels like a huge um push for the nuclear side and again we've had some discussions about uranium that it's time to shine and it looks like that's going to be kind of the next trajectory for it. >> You've heard me say more than once Cali that of all of the non-gold commodities out there, my number one favorite for a while now has been uranium and that's been for a lot of reasons. Uh nuclear energy generally worldwide has got the best policy tailwind. It's got overwhelmingly more support than any other commodity, any other energy alternative does. You've still got a lot of people don't like fossil fuels trying to do away with those. Not under the current administration here, of course. Um, but elsewhere you do. You've still got Germany idiocy over there of blowing up nuclear reactors. A lot of us have seen that online recently on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever while they're strip mining for coal. I mean, how how how ash backwards can you get? Um, but with the with the exception of Germany, which is hypocritical because they're buying energy from France, which is generated by nuclear power. Um, with that exception, everybody's on board them and in this country, Democrats, Republicans alike, overwhelmingly understand that this is the best way to meet whatever your goals are of zero carbon emissions, of uh, increasing energy availability for AI and data centers and whatever. just because the whole world continues to see its its demand for energy go up inexurably every single year. Um whether you're a developed nation or a developing nation, everybody needs power. Everybody needs juice. So I think that the deal with Brookfield and Camo/Westinghouse uh and the US government right along line with what the president has been trying to do down here. That's the best story of all of them as far as the administration getting behind a certain energy story and again because it already had a significant policy tailwind and significant public acceptance um even before Trump came back into the White House. So I think what it also does, and I was talking to a couple of Canadian colleagues earlier today, you know, it's it's part comical and part aggravating when you see what has now become a cartoonish uh so-called relationship between President Trump and Canada. You know, uh Premier Ford in Ontario runs an ad, you know, featuring the late President Ronald Reagan that Trump doesn't like. Oh, we'll throw another 10% tariff, you know, on Canada. I mean it's just just stupid stuff. But I I really have thought all along and even more so now looking at this deal that a lot of that is for you know public political jocking or whatever dopey stuff it's for because under the surface we have got still a very integrated and tight relationship between businesses between the US and Canada and this is one huge example of that. I mean, some detractors might say, "Well, technically it's Westinghouse. Westinghouse isn't a Canadian company." Well, it's kind of half a Canadian company because Chemico owns half of it or whatever the exact number is. It's going to be a boost to chemical. It's going to be it's going to help everybody. As far as for uranium projects, I mean for the last while I had been looking at um US projects because I felt you know Canada might have a better project but our permitting and moving things along is painful. Now with that chemco um push forward, do you think that that will kind of bring back more investment into possible on the Canadian uranium side or is that entice you more on the US side that you would look at that or? >> Well, it entices me for both, especially if it's a good overall project. You know, I I um every so often I sit down with Scott Melby, who I know, you know, he's the head of the Iranian Producers of America. He's the vice president of UEC. He's the CEO of Uranium Royalty Corporation. And he's pretty much the smartest guy in the US. You know, he's right up there with Gitel or even more so with his international connections and and experience is being an expert on this whole industry. and he was one of the first ones to tell me many months ago and I'm hearing this increasingly now Cali that you know when we've all seen these charts showing and I was just in a meeting last week down in Palm Beach an energy policy meeting the President Trump's son Donald Jr. was there. He was our dinner speaker and we were talking about these things there and everybody including at this meeting they've got these charts showing uranium supply and demand and this huge gap going forward for for you know how as far ahead as you want to look and it's getting worse rather than better. Okay, two things about that. Number one, most of those charts that have been put out by the industry only contemplate the new reactors and projects that have been announced, whether it's by China, the US, whoever. Okay? There are more that are going to come on board. Number one. Number two, none of them for the most part contemplate the added demand for uranium that's going to be coming from industries and all manner of players the world over from small modular reactors. You know, these smaller mini nuclear power plants that might, you know, be there to power a big warehouse complex, a big underground mining operation, their their underground and above ground power needs. um a small town, whatever the case may be, those are going to require more uranium as well. So for every chart you've seen, folks, that shows this yawning gap between supply and demand going forward, it's worse than that. Which means for investors, it's better than that. Which means for investors that you want to find the best stories are going to be the next upandcomers after the, you know, Camo's still got some [snorts] production to bring back out of mothballs. Energy Fuels does, UEC does, you've got a few other bigger projects coming on board. You add all of that together and in just the next three to five years, we're going to be learning starkly it's still not nearly enough. Meanwhile, you still have got some constraints to production. Kazakhstan, uh, for people who have followed that country and its, uh, its industry, they they stole a lot of lowhanging fruit from the future. And so, they're not going to be the big lowcost player going forward that they have been in the past. They're going to be disappointing as far as their production. Kamico is going to has given warnings that its overall production may be less than what they had said before. it's taking longer to ramp back up because you need acid, you need other inputs, you need labor and not all of those things are out there. So, you've still in those respects got the same challenges and headwinds that we have in the mining industry generally. Gross underinvestment for many years. Now all of a sudden, almost like someone flipped a switch in relative terms, now we need all of this uranium that we've kept in the ground or been getting from foreign countries. You can't get it that fast. So even now, uh, going forward, I I still insist that within a year or two, you're going to see a minimum $200 pound uranium price, and we're still going to have a tight market, and we're still going to be under supplied. >> I want to talk a little bit about the one-offs. Obviously, critical minerals has been the number one thing of 2025 that we've heard all the way. Lithium even has, you know, had a bounce back now, which is been a long time coming for that. Um, do you still think going into 2026, the end of this year, like we're going to see those antimony and tungsten one-offs um leading the way? As far as some of these embargo type or you know unique stories like uh you know animous and stuff like that, I was telling people several weeks ago to start taking some money off the table in anticipation of what we just saw in the news and that is this seeming ceasefire uh between the US and China in what I've called this World War II over commodities and currencies which is not over. this is just a ceasefire. But keep in the back of your mind, as much as I still like these kind of stories long term as well, and there is still no question that going forward, the US and Canada need to immediately ramp up by multiples the investment, the policy and whatnot to be able to produce these rare earth magnets, animary products, tungsten, you name it, all of them right here within our own four walls. Um people finally were waking up to these particular stories. A lot of rare earth animony related stocks had huge runs. A lot of that was hot money from investors chasing the story. And it it shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure out that when Trump, at least at the moment, talked China into, okay, we'll get a we'll give you a one-year grace period as part of a few other little tit fortat things and we'll drop our broader bargo for a year. Well, a lot of these stocks were already selling off in anticipation of that. They did on the news. They bounced a little bit to, you know, during the day today. I would be very careful of those things in the near term. Um there's no question that the world is realigning. There is no question that the age of globalization is ending and that we're going to see different types of alliances emerge. We're going to see more regionalization and localization of mining and supply chains and things like that in the future. But it's not all going to happen overnight. Uh, so these are still actionable stories going forward for the long term. But for the here and now, and I warned people about this, both Trump and President Xi had political reasons and practical reasons for whatever all of their other heated rhetoric might have been to stand down at least for a little while. Give everybody a breather. Don't panic the markets too much. You know, Professor Steve Hanky, a great libertarian economist, one of the smartest people out there, has made the point, and I believe accurately so, and I'm not proud of this as an American, that if China really wanted to, and they were just going to walk away from Trump and really put the screws to us as far as critical materials and rare earths and so forth, they could they could have our economy grind to a halt inside of a year. Um likewise the other part of our mutual assured destruction. Some people remember that MAD term from you know the old Cold War days of the US and Soviet Union. You nuke us, we'll nuke you. Well, China's weakness is their debt structure and everybody being insolvent in that country. And it's worse than anything that the US has right now. We got a bad fiscal situation. and theirs is the worst on the planet. And so there are things that the US can do to China to harm that, which is what we've been doing. And that is tariffing their export so that they can't export as much. Now, the interesting part of this, you know, and and some of the proTrump press today as I've watched at Cali here in my country, oh, president made made a good deal again. He got China to relent on rare earth. Well, I got two news flashes for you. Number one is China, unless anybody has forgotten, is wrapping up their, you know, every five years they have this big game plan for the next five years that they trot out. They just doubled down on their model of being the world's lowcost manufacturer, which is completely the opposite of what the US says it wants China to do, which is to get its own consumers to be stupid and run up their credit cards like Western consumers. That's not their culture. Okay? So, China's doubling down on their productionbased economy. That's going to continue to keep these open wounds going forward rubbed raw as far as them having their biggest current count surpluses and biggest trade surpluses of anybody on the planet. That's number one. Number two, for anybody that thinks President Trump got the upper hand, did you hear anything yet out of this that China has promised to stop buying oil from Russia? No more than India, which President Trump, you know, a press conference a few weeks or so ago blurted out that, "Oh, yeah, I just had a conversation with India. They're going to stop buying Russian oil." To which India replied, "Well, that's news to us." So, a lot of his jockeying and and negotiating is in the press and making statements and hope somebody takes them seriously. It's not a way to run foreign policy. It's not a way to run trade policy, but not to ramble on anymore and get on the political soap box. You know, we're standing down right now on some of the stickier issues between the US and China. Hopefully, the ceasefire holds for a little while, but the long-term story has not changed. So, it's too assuming people took some good profits on rare earth and anemmon stuff like that in the recent past. You know, I'll say the same thing, although it's a little riskier right now that I did a few minutes ago about the gold stocks. use this opportunity as a correction to build or start, you know, [clears throat] whittling away at a shopping list and buying some stuff that maybe is down by 30 or 40 or 50%. But that are the best legitimate stories cuz I saw some pretty nonsense stories in some of these critical metals go up a lot in share price grossly prematurely compared to their what their fundamentals are. those always seem to show up every few years in a different um mineral. >> Um before we got into the interview, we were talking about diversification as this market seems a little um one day we're going this way, one day we're going another way with political issues and everything changing so rapidly. What what are like some of the other sectors? I know you said it's more of picking a specific company, but in what other sectors are you looking at um like drone and defense and aviation or some of the companies that are going to utilize all the energy and minerals that all these mining companies like what are the sectors that you are thinking might pull through over the next you know 3 to 6 months? When you look at the macro situation and the broad markets, it by most measures, the overvaluation and and silliness on Wall Street exceeds anything that's come before it. Um, give you an example. In the late 90s, the big darling internet, you know, age stock was Cisco Systems. And at its peak, Cisco represented all by itself its market cap 4% of US GDP. Do you know what Nvidia represents right now? It is current, it's just hit $5 trillion valuation. So you're talking something like 15% of US GDP. The overall output of the whole economy officially represented the market cap of one stock, Nvidia. And not that Nvidia isn't a huge company, not that it's not an important company, but that's an example of how you've got a lot of liquidity out there that has been maniacally chasing itself. And I think in some respects chasing its own tail. You know, there's been a lot of characterizations recently of all of this, the the broader AI boom. You got company A says we're going to invest X in company B. Company B says we'll invest in company C. Company C says, "Oh, goody. Now we can invest in company D." Company B says, "Wow, this is great. We're going to invest in company A." And then you you you continue this. And this is what a lot of the so-called investment is all about, you know, and and look, as hamfisted and I think lacking of any good critical thought and depth of knowledge is a lot of what President Trump says and does represents. The one broad thing that he obviously does get is that he needs whether it's real or imagined, he needs to produce all of these lofty goals, all of these lofty promises of investment, etc. Cuz he knows if we can't keep all of these bubbles afloat on Wall Street and things collapse, then all the rest of his agenda collapses with it. Because a lot of the Republicans on Capitol Hill, if we did have a market bust and things turn bad or all of the crypto stuff, you know, goes bad, which the Trump family is up to here in, okay, you watch how fast those Republicans who are all in lock step now run away like rats leaving a sinking So, he knows he's got to make all these promises and all these deals. Some are legit, no question about it. And I'm I'm not trying to overstate this, but the only thing that's going to save us now and keep us plotting along is ever more speculation, ever more, you know, real and imagined wealth creation. And the president's trying to do it, but I I think that we're already so far gone as far as how much debt is out there. And look, the the response of the markets to the Fed meeting yesterday tells you all you need to know. The Fed has cut interest rates now a total of 150 basis points since last September. And yet the 10-year Treasury yield is a bit higher right now than it was last September when they started cutting. So whatever the Fed does to cut short-term interest rates, long-term rates are not coming down. And if they get too silly about it and the markets really come to the understanding that the Fed has run up the white flag on its 2% inflation target, especially when the president appoints a new Fed chair one or chairwoman if it turns out to be that that's going to be even more accommodative. Where do you see long-term interest rates then? >> Central banks own more gold now than treasuries. The the debt chart is terrifying basically. Um, I know you call them the lag seven. [laughter] I don't know what we call them anymore, but with all this trajectory, you know, for the end of the year, what are your thoughts like for an investor when they are looking for a one-off specific company, what is some of the key pointers that they should pay attention to or should we all just fasten our seat belts and see how the end? Some sometimes I use this uh god godfather themed graphic uh showing Don Corleó and it wasn't him that said it because he was in the hospital in the movie when this happened. But you know you ask yourself is it time to go to the mattresses that means get out of sight get out of your home. Hide you know until the coast is clear. That that's what the mafia referred to by going to the mattresses. You had your safe houses to go to if there was a mafia war. Well, by the same token, I think that the best course of action right now is to not be in a hurry to buy much of anything and to be raising cash, as I've been advocating that our members do for some weeks now. Be raising some cash, rotate your your, you know, most extreme winners maybe uh in the precious metals move. take some money off the table. Uh especially if it's in the general stuff like the ETFs and whatnot, but then look at those individual stocks that have got the superior long-term exploration stories and the best management and be adding to them. You know, uh we mentioned Apollo a few minutes ago. You know, Apollo is not terribly far from a development uh decision and then potential financing. That's the other big move typically of course on the Lan curve. Uh one is when you have uh the an initial discovery. The other is when you're actually going to be developing it and the economics all of a sudden looks like it's going to be real. So that's still out there. Not to mention the the wild card of course as you know Cali of the Cinco deio project in Mexico if they can uh finally get that turned on as well. So, um, there's a lot of good individual stories out there that didn't run up a lot in this last move. Um, we're going to have to go through again some backing and filling and correction, but the long-term picture is still very, very positive. >> The whole defense and cyber security. I know you talked to us um through investor ideas back in early spring. Is it still a sector that you're still looking at heavily? >> I still like cyber security stocks. I've got three on my recommended list right now. They're all three still there. A couple of them have done fairly well. You know, one of them is just kind of plotted along and flatlined business-wise. That's a sector that is going to go through a new wave of consolidation in the months and few years ahead as well. I think we saw this several years ago, the cyber security stocks, but that's a needed area. I think that there are some uh I'll tell you one of the the my favorite commodity themes right now uh once again is old energy. Uh, I think that crude oil around $60 a barrel is totally unsustainable. It's not going to stay down there unless we have a depression globally. Then it'll get worse before it gets better. But that's way too low a price. I love natural gas going forward because between Canada and the US, we're going to be exporting a lot of it besides adding to our own production as you know because natural gas is going to be the other big winner out of our energy policies here. you know, on top of nuclear and the energy secretary, Chris Wright, has made very clear that that the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting to meet our drastically increased needs for electricity and energy more generally, the two big winners are nuclear and natural gas. So, nuclear power stocks and uranium stocks have already had decent runs to respond to that. And natural gas stocks in relative terms have been awall. and I don't see that lasting. So, that's a great area that's got a lot less risk than other things. >> As we come to a close for the end of this year, I know you started this year with does the math makes sense. Do you um as you've watched this year, do you have a new model that you think you're going to head into 2026 with? >> I don't know yet. I I don't know yet. Um I haven't given that a lot of thought. I mean that that you know the the math one is still very appropriate my opinion and again all you have to do is look at the aftermath of the Fed meeting yesterday and the massive borrowing needs on the parts of governments all around the world not just the US uh the relatively limited supply of capital going forward it's going to require central banks to keep the accelerator to the floor and keep liquidity out there and the thing to keep in the back of your mind now is that all this is going to do is maybe give us stagflation. Uh we're not going to have good economic growth going forward because too much and too many segments of the economy, Cali, are choking on all of this debt and all of the chronically high prices. You know, Paulo was asked yesterday how can he, and I'm paraphrasing the reporter's question in his press conference, how can he be so dismissive of inflation and claim that it's actually pretty close to his 2% target if it wasn't for the tariff part of it, which is silly when you look at all the consumer sentiment measures, uh, and consumers are not feeling good about things and consumers are really still struggling under high prices. and he had to half admit that we really do have this bifurcated economy where 60% give or take of the US population that doesn't have you know a bucket full of AI stocks and cryptocurrencies or whatever they're living handtomouth and they still are very acutely feeling it the inflation so one of the things I fear going forward is that this already raw political divide in the US is going to get more toxic socially and you're going to have a lot more push back from people who just can't make ends meet. Uh we're seeing some threats of that right now with this government shutdown and we're only a day or two from people not getting their, you know, food stamp and uh SNAP and related a lotments for the month of November. I don't want to see what that's going to do in a lot of highly populated areas over the next month if this doesn't get solved real fast. So, you know, the math is still lousy um because there's too much debt, too much inflation, and regrettably, I don't see it getting worse. So, again, back to you, one of your original questions, I think that the wisest thing to do right now on investors parts is to be raising some more cash, not be in a hurry to do much. Uh, I wish we would have a 20 or 30% blowoff in a relative short period of time to the NASDAQ and maybe a little bit less the S&P 500. Sober people back up a little bit. Everybody shake themselves out of their stuper and then go back and look at the market again and say, "Okay, what's real?" And then you'd have a healthier, more constructive environment because right now things are just stupid. >> I love your honesty, Chris. Um, for anyone that's new, please tell them where they can find uh the national investor, how they can subscribe, how they can reach out to you, and then any closing remarks. Um, you know, investor sees as the year comes to a close, they should either run for the mattresses or start buying again. [laughter] >> Well, the the simple answer to the first part is just simply go to nationalinvestor.com. You'll see a lot of recent commentaries there, coverage on some companies, a lot of uh general macro stuff there, all kinds of things. Links to my social media accounts on the front page as well. Uh and if you want to get all of my uh specific recommendations on stocks, ETFs, allocation and whatnot, click on, you know, the membership. Um otherwise again I I I think Cali for the near term look this stock market advance has gone farther than anybody should have reasonably thought was possible but even with a company that's you know here to stay like an Nvidia when you see the dynamic of so much passive money just mindlessly piling into all of these same places. Okay it's it's a big warning signal. Another big warning signal is that even just a few days ago as all the major indices were hitting fresh highs, the breadth figures had broken down. And what I mean by that is that it's nice to see, you know, the S&P 500 was up, you know, 30 points a day or 50 points a day or whatever. But when two out of three stocks are down, and that's consistent every day, it tells you that internally the strength of the market is breaking down. and not all the time and certainly not in the recent past, but ultimately that does lead to a correction. And again, we are grossly overdue for one. I I showed people the gold chart when gold was getting up near 4,400 and I said, "Sorry folks, I still love gold long term, but we need to be taking at least some money off the table cuz nothing goes up parabolic like this without coming right back down." All right? It's got to correct. It's got to, you know, have some period of retrenchment or correction or whatever. Um, the stock market still thinks it's it's exempt from that law of technical analysis and gravity, but it's not. And I can't tell you when it's going to happen. I don't have a crystal ball or a cricked out Delorean. Um, but that is the thing I'm worried about going into the end of the year is that too many of these chickens are are going to come home to roost. And uh you want to be out of harm's way, be building that cash reserve, and pray for that long overdue 20 or 30% cyclical bare market because because then you can go and have fun again.
AI Bubble About to Pop? Uranium, & Precious Metals Stocks Could Outperform the Market Crash
Summary
Transcript
Nothing goes up or down in a straight line, including gold. So, we're we're at a time right now, which for savvy investors is actually pretty nice because now you can buy stuff for, you know, a quarter or a third off of what it was a month ago and some good companies. Even now, uh going forward, I I still insist that within a year or two, you're going to see a minimum $200 pound uranium price. And we're still going to have a tight market and we're still going to be under supplied. When you look at the macro situation and the broad markets, it by most measures, the overvaluation and and silliness on Wall Street exceeds anything that's come before it. Um, give you an example. In the late 90s, the big darling internet, you know, age stock was Cisco Systems. And at its peak, Cisco represented all by itself, its market cap, 4% of US GDP. Do you know what Nvidia represents right now? It is current, it's just hit 5 trillion valuation. So, you're talking something like 15% of US GDP. the overall output of the whole economy officially represented the market cap of one stock Nvidia be raising some cash rotate your your you know most extreme winners maybe uh in the precious metals move take some money off the table uh especially if it's in the general stuff like the ETFs and whatnot but then look at those individual stocks that have got the superior long-term exploration stories and the best management agement and be adding to them. >> For disclosure purposes, our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services, or products. Nothing on our site or this podcast should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. [music] All investing involves risk and possible losses. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. >> What What do you do to diversify for the end of the world? I [laughter] don't know. Well, you I mean you look at different short positions. You look at you look at what type of individual stocks and stories out there are going to stay relevant or become more so if we do see hard times for the economy. I mean, one of my favorite statistics, maybe you've heard me say it before, if you go back to the Great Depression, from the top of the market in 1929 until it bottomed in the spring of 1932, the stock market was down 89%. But one out of three public companies were higher in price during that time. And why were they? Well, you know, Homestake Mining is the famous one for, you know, gold bug example. Um, but you know, people need food, they need utilities, they need to be able to turn a light on, uh, and things like that. So, I think that people are going to have to, you know, distinguish between wants and needs. And, you know, one theme that's kind of sounds a little bit corny, but, you know, buy needs and sell wants >> when it comes to the stock market. >> Um, you know, that's one thing. Uh, and there's look, there's always going to be innovation. No matter how bad things get, there's still going to be markets. There's still going to be liquidity. Um, and so you got to ask yourself, well, what is still going to survive, if not do better if, you know, all of a sudden people realize that this AI thing really is more flims flame than it is real? >> Chris, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. for investors or following that has not tuned in before. Chris Temple is the founder of the National Investor and he is a wealth of information and knowledge uh for our podcast. So I think the best place to start is um gold and silver. Gold's had quite a tumultuous couple weeks. >> I mean look, both of them and for somewhat different reasons, Cali have got great long-term fundamentals. Okay. Uh, I told people, you get my newsletters. It's probably been going on a month ago when I thought gold was just getting too bubbly that I told people to start taking some money off the table among other things. for kind of redeploying from some of the bigger names into some of the uh uh better exploration stories that haven't been run up a lot yet because we're going to go through a period of consolidation now for both gold and silver but I think on the other side more so for gold possibly for silver uh we'll see new highs again still you know silver caught up kind of uh in in a big hurry uh in the recent past to gold and and made its own new nominal high, certainly not in inflation adjusted terms like gold did. But now both of them have sold off because they got a little bit too frothy. And as we saw yesterday too with the Fed, you know, there is still a chance at least on the surface that the Fed is going to keep things a little bit tighter than the markets thought was going to be the case. And you know, therefore, we've seen long-term interest rates pop back higher. Take a look at the chart of the US dollar which has been putting in a very methodical bottoming process and could turn higher. I mean we're back within a whisker of triple digits on the US dollar index. Um I don't think fundamentally that's going to be justified for a long time but you know nothing goes up or down in a straight line including gold. Um, so we're we're we're at a time right now which for savvy investors is actually pretty nice because now you can buy stuff for, you know, a quarter or a third off of what it was a month ago and some good companies. >> It feels like, you know, a sale compared to a couple months ago because you didn't know really where to jump in for some of the mining companies. Are you thinking in the short term um like for the end of this year that the exploration like a discovery story or a producer is like the best place when you're looking in the precious metal space or what are your thoughts? I >> I want to look company by company right now at fundamentals. I pulled back significantly when it comes to the overall exposure, but generally speaking, I did that by telling our audience to cut back on our exposure to ETFs, which I add more as trading vehicles or like waiting vehicles. If I like the precious metals, we'll get heavier into ETFs. If I think we're going to have a correction or one starts, we'll pull back a little bit. But generally speaking, with a couple recent exceptions where I told people to sell a couple of different names entirely because I just didn't see any more surprises to come. I think everybody knows everything about them. We already made money. Let's get out. Um I think you want to stick with the better development stage stories uh and the ones that have got a better than even exploration story. I mean, you look at a stock, for example, that I added back to my list a few years ago, US gold. I mean, the stock's up something like five times what it was when I put it back on my recommended list. It was up like six or seven times, and it's corrected a little bit, too. Okay. But when you look at its economic assessment for the CK project in Wyoming, even at its high price of a few weeks ago, it's still undervalued. when you look at what the net present value of the resource is, which is grossly understated. I mean, every time they've come out with a updated economic assessment, you have to put updated in quotes because they're using a gold price way below the current market. They're not including a lot of the good stuff to come. So, that that's a that's a Cadillac of a development stage story. And you know, when you see some selling in it right now along with everything else, you want to buy a little bit more or buy some, you know, period. If you don't have any yet, you know, a couple of really good uh exploration stories out there that have got some major blue sky potential, but they're relatively underfollowed. You look at a Formation Meadows or a Tectonic or North Peak Resources in Nevada. I mean, North Peak and and and Tectonic especially have projects that nobody really was paying any attention to for years and all of a sudden you got each of these companies major projects in the hands of good season and management with a lot of you know successes in their background. So I'm excited at the prospect of those things long term. You may need to have some patience. You know, I I think that we're going to grind sideways to lower potentially still for the metals near term. Uh barring any surprises that come out of left field to scare people right back into gold again, which is always possible. I mean, if you look at a chart of the gold price, you can go down as low as 33 or $3,400 um and still be in a long-term uptrend. I don't think that we're necessarily going to see that extreme. I'm looking at more like 3,800 because that was another minor breakout level. 3,400 was a big breakout point if you remember Cali back in the summer. Dude, so many projects now moving forward in the US. We we've talked with Apollo um California, San Bernardino has drastically changed even in the last 6 months. Obviously, US gold, Wyoming kind of one of the best places to be, but do you find that almost all jurisdictions now uh are basically mining row mining in the states? >> Much as we would like, Minnesota regrettably is still troubled, especially in the Iron Range where you've got Northmet and Twin Metals and still regrettably a lot of resistance to that. It shouldn't be, but there is. Um, you know, you mentioned Apollo. Um, a lot of people uh, and you and I both have talked with both U Ross Mroy and Andy Bowing, you know, in in the recent past. People don't realize that California has got this one county there with right now 90 different active mining projects. Majority of them are gravel and road fill and stuff like that, but you've got Equinox Gold. You've got MP materials that really put uh, San Bernardino County back on the map. So, so some of these jurisdictions really are good. I think in a broad sense we have a better policy tailwind for extractive industries generally than at any point in our lifetimes. But there's still a lot of roadblocks out there. We we need tort reform desperately in this country. uh because when you're asking people even in an environment recently where okay commodities are looking better the Trump administration's on board especially with uranium and nuclear but beyond that with base metals with critical materials with rare earth etc. You're still looking, if you're an investor at putting money in these things, you're still looking at many years and a lot of risk before you're ever going to get a return. And maybe it's somewhat less bad than it's been, but we we still have a lot of work to do in the US to clean up this whole process, streamline it, accelerate things. It's an economic and national security imperative. And we're going to learn the hard way still that we should have taken this a lot seriously with a lot more money and a lot more policy a lot faster than what's happening. >> Well, I feel like you guys are doing a better job than here in Canada. Speaking of uranium and nuclear, saving saving us in Canada with Gamo, do you want to talk about just what your thoughts are? that feels like a huge um push for the nuclear side and again we've had some discussions about uranium that it's time to shine and it looks like that's going to be kind of the next trajectory for it. >> You've heard me say more than once Cali that of all of the non-gold commodities out there, my number one favorite for a while now has been uranium and that's been for a lot of reasons. Uh nuclear energy generally worldwide has got the best policy tailwind. It's got overwhelmingly more support than any other commodity, any other energy alternative does. You've still got a lot of people don't like fossil fuels trying to do away with those. Not under the current administration here, of course. Um, but elsewhere you do. You've still got Germany idiocy over there of blowing up nuclear reactors. A lot of us have seen that online recently on Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever while they're strip mining for coal. I mean, how how how ash backwards can you get? Um, but with the with the exception of Germany, which is hypocritical because they're buying energy from France, which is generated by nuclear power. Um, with that exception, everybody's on board them and in this country, Democrats, Republicans alike, overwhelmingly understand that this is the best way to meet whatever your goals are of zero carbon emissions, of uh, increasing energy availability for AI and data centers and whatever. just because the whole world continues to see its its demand for energy go up inexurably every single year. Um whether you're a developed nation or a developing nation, everybody needs power. Everybody needs juice. So I think that the deal with Brookfield and Camo/Westinghouse uh and the US government right along line with what the president has been trying to do down here. That's the best story of all of them as far as the administration getting behind a certain energy story and again because it already had a significant policy tailwind and significant public acceptance um even before Trump came back into the White House. So I think what it also does, and I was talking to a couple of Canadian colleagues earlier today, you know, it's it's part comical and part aggravating when you see what has now become a cartoonish uh so-called relationship between President Trump and Canada. You know, uh Premier Ford in Ontario runs an ad, you know, featuring the late President Ronald Reagan that Trump doesn't like. Oh, we'll throw another 10% tariff, you know, on Canada. I mean it's just just stupid stuff. But I I really have thought all along and even more so now looking at this deal that a lot of that is for you know public political jocking or whatever dopey stuff it's for because under the surface we have got still a very integrated and tight relationship between businesses between the US and Canada and this is one huge example of that. I mean, some detractors might say, "Well, technically it's Westinghouse. Westinghouse isn't a Canadian company." Well, it's kind of half a Canadian company because Chemico owns half of it or whatever the exact number is. It's going to be a boost to chemical. It's going to be it's going to help everybody. As far as for uranium projects, I mean for the last while I had been looking at um US projects because I felt you know Canada might have a better project but our permitting and moving things along is painful. Now with that chemco um push forward, do you think that that will kind of bring back more investment into possible on the Canadian uranium side or is that entice you more on the US side that you would look at that or? >> Well, it entices me for both, especially if it's a good overall project. You know, I I um every so often I sit down with Scott Melby, who I know, you know, he's the head of the Iranian Producers of America. He's the vice president of UEC. He's the CEO of Uranium Royalty Corporation. And he's pretty much the smartest guy in the US. You know, he's right up there with Gitel or even more so with his international connections and and experience is being an expert on this whole industry. and he was one of the first ones to tell me many months ago and I'm hearing this increasingly now Cali that you know when we've all seen these charts showing and I was just in a meeting last week down in Palm Beach an energy policy meeting the President Trump's son Donald Jr. was there. He was our dinner speaker and we were talking about these things there and everybody including at this meeting they've got these charts showing uranium supply and demand and this huge gap going forward for for you know how as far ahead as you want to look and it's getting worse rather than better. Okay, two things about that. Number one, most of those charts that have been put out by the industry only contemplate the new reactors and projects that have been announced, whether it's by China, the US, whoever. Okay? There are more that are going to come on board. Number one. Number two, none of them for the most part contemplate the added demand for uranium that's going to be coming from industries and all manner of players the world over from small modular reactors. You know, these smaller mini nuclear power plants that might, you know, be there to power a big warehouse complex, a big underground mining operation, their their underground and above ground power needs. um a small town, whatever the case may be, those are going to require more uranium as well. So for every chart you've seen, folks, that shows this yawning gap between supply and demand going forward, it's worse than that. Which means for investors, it's better than that. Which means for investors that you want to find the best stories are going to be the next upandcomers after the, you know, Camo's still got some [snorts] production to bring back out of mothballs. Energy Fuels does, UEC does, you've got a few other bigger projects coming on board. You add all of that together and in just the next three to five years, we're going to be learning starkly it's still not nearly enough. Meanwhile, you still have got some constraints to production. Kazakhstan, uh, for people who have followed that country and its, uh, its industry, they they stole a lot of lowhanging fruit from the future. And so, they're not going to be the big lowcost player going forward that they have been in the past. They're going to be disappointing as far as their production. Kamico is going to has given warnings that its overall production may be less than what they had said before. it's taking longer to ramp back up because you need acid, you need other inputs, you need labor and not all of those things are out there. So, you've still in those respects got the same challenges and headwinds that we have in the mining industry generally. Gross underinvestment for many years. Now all of a sudden, almost like someone flipped a switch in relative terms, now we need all of this uranium that we've kept in the ground or been getting from foreign countries. You can't get it that fast. So even now, uh, going forward, I I still insist that within a year or two, you're going to see a minimum $200 pound uranium price, and we're still going to have a tight market, and we're still going to be under supplied. >> I want to talk a little bit about the one-offs. Obviously, critical minerals has been the number one thing of 2025 that we've heard all the way. Lithium even has, you know, had a bounce back now, which is been a long time coming for that. Um, do you still think going into 2026, the end of this year, like we're going to see those antimony and tungsten one-offs um leading the way? As far as some of these embargo type or you know unique stories like uh you know animous and stuff like that, I was telling people several weeks ago to start taking some money off the table in anticipation of what we just saw in the news and that is this seeming ceasefire uh between the US and China in what I've called this World War II over commodities and currencies which is not over. this is just a ceasefire. But keep in the back of your mind, as much as I still like these kind of stories long term as well, and there is still no question that going forward, the US and Canada need to immediately ramp up by multiples the investment, the policy and whatnot to be able to produce these rare earth magnets, animary products, tungsten, you name it, all of them right here within our own four walls. Um people finally were waking up to these particular stories. A lot of rare earth animony related stocks had huge runs. A lot of that was hot money from investors chasing the story. And it it shouldn't have taken a rocket scientist to figure out that when Trump, at least at the moment, talked China into, okay, we'll get a we'll give you a one-year grace period as part of a few other little tit fortat things and we'll drop our broader bargo for a year. Well, a lot of these stocks were already selling off in anticipation of that. They did on the news. They bounced a little bit to, you know, during the day today. I would be very careful of those things in the near term. Um there's no question that the world is realigning. There is no question that the age of globalization is ending and that we're going to see different types of alliances emerge. We're going to see more regionalization and localization of mining and supply chains and things like that in the future. But it's not all going to happen overnight. Uh, so these are still actionable stories going forward for the long term. But for the here and now, and I warned people about this, both Trump and President Xi had political reasons and practical reasons for whatever all of their other heated rhetoric might have been to stand down at least for a little while. Give everybody a breather. Don't panic the markets too much. You know, Professor Steve Hanky, a great libertarian economist, one of the smartest people out there, has made the point, and I believe accurately so, and I'm not proud of this as an American, that if China really wanted to, and they were just going to walk away from Trump and really put the screws to us as far as critical materials and rare earths and so forth, they could they could have our economy grind to a halt inside of a year. Um likewise the other part of our mutual assured destruction. Some people remember that MAD term from you know the old Cold War days of the US and Soviet Union. You nuke us, we'll nuke you. Well, China's weakness is their debt structure and everybody being insolvent in that country. And it's worse than anything that the US has right now. We got a bad fiscal situation. and theirs is the worst on the planet. And so there are things that the US can do to China to harm that, which is what we've been doing. And that is tariffing their export so that they can't export as much. Now, the interesting part of this, you know, and and some of the proTrump press today as I've watched at Cali here in my country, oh, president made made a good deal again. He got China to relent on rare earth. Well, I got two news flashes for you. Number one is China, unless anybody has forgotten, is wrapping up their, you know, every five years they have this big game plan for the next five years that they trot out. They just doubled down on their model of being the world's lowcost manufacturer, which is completely the opposite of what the US says it wants China to do, which is to get its own consumers to be stupid and run up their credit cards like Western consumers. That's not their culture. Okay? So, China's doubling down on their productionbased economy. That's going to continue to keep these open wounds going forward rubbed raw as far as them having their biggest current count surpluses and biggest trade surpluses of anybody on the planet. That's number one. Number two, for anybody that thinks President Trump got the upper hand, did you hear anything yet out of this that China has promised to stop buying oil from Russia? No more than India, which President Trump, you know, a press conference a few weeks or so ago blurted out that, "Oh, yeah, I just had a conversation with India. They're going to stop buying Russian oil." To which India replied, "Well, that's news to us." So, a lot of his jockeying and and negotiating is in the press and making statements and hope somebody takes them seriously. It's not a way to run foreign policy. It's not a way to run trade policy, but not to ramble on anymore and get on the political soap box. You know, we're standing down right now on some of the stickier issues between the US and China. Hopefully, the ceasefire holds for a little while, but the long-term story has not changed. So, it's too assuming people took some good profits on rare earth and anemmon stuff like that in the recent past. You know, I'll say the same thing, although it's a little riskier right now that I did a few minutes ago about the gold stocks. use this opportunity as a correction to build or start, you know, [clears throat] whittling away at a shopping list and buying some stuff that maybe is down by 30 or 40 or 50%. But that are the best legitimate stories cuz I saw some pretty nonsense stories in some of these critical metals go up a lot in share price grossly prematurely compared to their what their fundamentals are. those always seem to show up every few years in a different um mineral. >> Um before we got into the interview, we were talking about diversification as this market seems a little um one day we're going this way, one day we're going another way with political issues and everything changing so rapidly. What what are like some of the other sectors? I know you said it's more of picking a specific company, but in what other sectors are you looking at um like drone and defense and aviation or some of the companies that are going to utilize all the energy and minerals that all these mining companies like what are the sectors that you are thinking might pull through over the next you know 3 to 6 months? When you look at the macro situation and the broad markets, it by most measures, the overvaluation and and silliness on Wall Street exceeds anything that's come before it. Um, give you an example. In the late 90s, the big darling internet, you know, age stock was Cisco Systems. And at its peak, Cisco represented all by itself its market cap 4% of US GDP. Do you know what Nvidia represents right now? It is current, it's just hit $5 trillion valuation. So you're talking something like 15% of US GDP. The overall output of the whole economy officially represented the market cap of one stock, Nvidia. And not that Nvidia isn't a huge company, not that it's not an important company, but that's an example of how you've got a lot of liquidity out there that has been maniacally chasing itself. And I think in some respects chasing its own tail. You know, there's been a lot of characterizations recently of all of this, the the broader AI boom. You got company A says we're going to invest X in company B. Company B says we'll invest in company C. Company C says, "Oh, goody. Now we can invest in company D." Company B says, "Wow, this is great. We're going to invest in company A." And then you you you continue this. And this is what a lot of the so-called investment is all about, you know, and and look, as hamfisted and I think lacking of any good critical thought and depth of knowledge is a lot of what President Trump says and does represents. The one broad thing that he obviously does get is that he needs whether it's real or imagined, he needs to produce all of these lofty goals, all of these lofty promises of investment, etc. Cuz he knows if we can't keep all of these bubbles afloat on Wall Street and things collapse, then all the rest of his agenda collapses with it. Because a lot of the Republicans on Capitol Hill, if we did have a market bust and things turn bad or all of the crypto stuff, you know, goes bad, which the Trump family is up to here in, okay, you watch how fast those Republicans who are all in lock step now run away like rats leaving a sinking So, he knows he's got to make all these promises and all these deals. Some are legit, no question about it. And I'm I'm not trying to overstate this, but the only thing that's going to save us now and keep us plotting along is ever more speculation, ever more, you know, real and imagined wealth creation. And the president's trying to do it, but I I think that we're already so far gone as far as how much debt is out there. And look, the the response of the markets to the Fed meeting yesterday tells you all you need to know. The Fed has cut interest rates now a total of 150 basis points since last September. And yet the 10-year Treasury yield is a bit higher right now than it was last September when they started cutting. So whatever the Fed does to cut short-term interest rates, long-term rates are not coming down. And if they get too silly about it and the markets really come to the understanding that the Fed has run up the white flag on its 2% inflation target, especially when the president appoints a new Fed chair one or chairwoman if it turns out to be that that's going to be even more accommodative. Where do you see long-term interest rates then? >> Central banks own more gold now than treasuries. The the debt chart is terrifying basically. Um, I know you call them the lag seven. [laughter] I don't know what we call them anymore, but with all this trajectory, you know, for the end of the year, what are your thoughts like for an investor when they are looking for a one-off specific company, what is some of the key pointers that they should pay attention to or should we all just fasten our seat belts and see how the end? Some sometimes I use this uh god godfather themed graphic uh showing Don Corleó and it wasn't him that said it because he was in the hospital in the movie when this happened. But you know you ask yourself is it time to go to the mattresses that means get out of sight get out of your home. Hide you know until the coast is clear. That that's what the mafia referred to by going to the mattresses. You had your safe houses to go to if there was a mafia war. Well, by the same token, I think that the best course of action right now is to not be in a hurry to buy much of anything and to be raising cash, as I've been advocating that our members do for some weeks now. Be raising some cash, rotate your your, you know, most extreme winners maybe uh in the precious metals move. take some money off the table. Uh especially if it's in the general stuff like the ETFs and whatnot, but then look at those individual stocks that have got the superior long-term exploration stories and the best management and be adding to them. You know, uh we mentioned Apollo a few minutes ago. You know, Apollo is not terribly far from a development uh decision and then potential financing. That's the other big move typically of course on the Lan curve. Uh one is when you have uh the an initial discovery. The other is when you're actually going to be developing it and the economics all of a sudden looks like it's going to be real. So that's still out there. Not to mention the the wild card of course as you know Cali of the Cinco deio project in Mexico if they can uh finally get that turned on as well. So, um, there's a lot of good individual stories out there that didn't run up a lot in this last move. Um, we're going to have to go through again some backing and filling and correction, but the long-term picture is still very, very positive. >> The whole defense and cyber security. I know you talked to us um through investor ideas back in early spring. Is it still a sector that you're still looking at heavily? >> I still like cyber security stocks. I've got three on my recommended list right now. They're all three still there. A couple of them have done fairly well. You know, one of them is just kind of plotted along and flatlined business-wise. That's a sector that is going to go through a new wave of consolidation in the months and few years ahead as well. I think we saw this several years ago, the cyber security stocks, but that's a needed area. I think that there are some uh I'll tell you one of the the my favorite commodity themes right now uh once again is old energy. Uh, I think that crude oil around $60 a barrel is totally unsustainable. It's not going to stay down there unless we have a depression globally. Then it'll get worse before it gets better. But that's way too low a price. I love natural gas going forward because between Canada and the US, we're going to be exporting a lot of it besides adding to our own production as you know because natural gas is going to be the other big winner out of our energy policies here. you know, on top of nuclear and the energy secretary, Chris Wright, has made very clear that that the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting to meet our drastically increased needs for electricity and energy more generally, the two big winners are nuclear and natural gas. So, nuclear power stocks and uranium stocks have already had decent runs to respond to that. And natural gas stocks in relative terms have been awall. and I don't see that lasting. So, that's a great area that's got a lot less risk than other things. >> As we come to a close for the end of this year, I know you started this year with does the math makes sense. Do you um as you've watched this year, do you have a new model that you think you're going to head into 2026 with? >> I don't know yet. I I don't know yet. Um I haven't given that a lot of thought. I mean that that you know the the math one is still very appropriate my opinion and again all you have to do is look at the aftermath of the Fed meeting yesterday and the massive borrowing needs on the parts of governments all around the world not just the US uh the relatively limited supply of capital going forward it's going to require central banks to keep the accelerator to the floor and keep liquidity out there and the thing to keep in the back of your mind now is that all this is going to do is maybe give us stagflation. Uh we're not going to have good economic growth going forward because too much and too many segments of the economy, Cali, are choking on all of this debt and all of the chronically high prices. You know, Paulo was asked yesterday how can he, and I'm paraphrasing the reporter's question in his press conference, how can he be so dismissive of inflation and claim that it's actually pretty close to his 2% target if it wasn't for the tariff part of it, which is silly when you look at all the consumer sentiment measures, uh, and consumers are not feeling good about things and consumers are really still struggling under high prices. and he had to half admit that we really do have this bifurcated economy where 60% give or take of the US population that doesn't have you know a bucket full of AI stocks and cryptocurrencies or whatever they're living handtomouth and they still are very acutely feeling it the inflation so one of the things I fear going forward is that this already raw political divide in the US is going to get more toxic socially and you're going to have a lot more push back from people who just can't make ends meet. Uh we're seeing some threats of that right now with this government shutdown and we're only a day or two from people not getting their, you know, food stamp and uh SNAP and related a lotments for the month of November. I don't want to see what that's going to do in a lot of highly populated areas over the next month if this doesn't get solved real fast. So, you know, the math is still lousy um because there's too much debt, too much inflation, and regrettably, I don't see it getting worse. So, again, back to you, one of your original questions, I think that the wisest thing to do right now on investors parts is to be raising some more cash, not be in a hurry to do much. Uh, I wish we would have a 20 or 30% blowoff in a relative short period of time to the NASDAQ and maybe a little bit less the S&P 500. Sober people back up a little bit. Everybody shake themselves out of their stuper and then go back and look at the market again and say, "Okay, what's real?" And then you'd have a healthier, more constructive environment because right now things are just stupid. >> I love your honesty, Chris. Um, for anyone that's new, please tell them where they can find uh the national investor, how they can subscribe, how they can reach out to you, and then any closing remarks. Um, you know, investor sees as the year comes to a close, they should either run for the mattresses or start buying again. [laughter] >> Well, the the simple answer to the first part is just simply go to nationalinvestor.com. You'll see a lot of recent commentaries there, coverage on some companies, a lot of uh general macro stuff there, all kinds of things. Links to my social media accounts on the front page as well. Uh and if you want to get all of my uh specific recommendations on stocks, ETFs, allocation and whatnot, click on, you know, the membership. Um otherwise again I I I think Cali for the near term look this stock market advance has gone farther than anybody should have reasonably thought was possible but even with a company that's you know here to stay like an Nvidia when you see the dynamic of so much passive money just mindlessly piling into all of these same places. Okay it's it's a big warning signal. Another big warning signal is that even just a few days ago as all the major indices were hitting fresh highs, the breadth figures had broken down. And what I mean by that is that it's nice to see, you know, the S&P 500 was up, you know, 30 points a day or 50 points a day or whatever. But when two out of three stocks are down, and that's consistent every day, it tells you that internally the strength of the market is breaking down. and not all the time and certainly not in the recent past, but ultimately that does lead to a correction. And again, we are grossly overdue for one. I I showed people the gold chart when gold was getting up near 4,400 and I said, "Sorry folks, I still love gold long term, but we need to be taking at least some money off the table cuz nothing goes up parabolic like this without coming right back down." All right? It's got to correct. It's got to, you know, have some period of retrenchment or correction or whatever. Um, the stock market still thinks it's it's exempt from that law of technical analysis and gravity, but it's not. And I can't tell you when it's going to happen. I don't have a crystal ball or a cricked out Delorean. Um, but that is the thing I'm worried about going into the end of the year is that too many of these chickens are are going to come home to roost. And uh you want to be out of harm's way, be building that cash reserve, and pray for that long overdue 20 or 30% cyclical bare market because because then you can go and have fun again.