Best Set up for Silver Stock Profits; Post-correction consolidation & huge M&A potential
Summary
0:00 Peter Krauth 2:26 Disclaimer 2:50 Silver Speculation or Safe Haven? 5:14 Silver Price 10:30 Futures and Catalysts 14:30 …
Transcript
It's a starting gun for uh a lot more volatility and probably a lot, you know, you could see these huge gap ups when if and when something like that happens. I think the odds are pretty decent for something like that to happen. But if you know, if that were today, for example, we're at $80. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see a $15 or $20 gap up uh in the silver price on that kind of news. It would just shock the market and people would scramble more than anyone. it would be the uh the industrial consumers because they don't have it's not an optional thing for them. They need the silver. They're producing all kinds of things and so um it's very difficult to substitute. There's only a third of the silver there was 5 years ago now available for investment. So when all of these these participants jump in and want to have the physical silver for investment purposes um they they put a big squeeze on it and that's I think what happened when we you know went into the end of December and then ultimately to the end of January when it went to $121. >> Some of them are making insane cash flow right now. uh the producers obviously >> the all-in sustaining cost for an ounce of silver on average if you include byproducts so which are typically gold, copper, lead or zinc is about $20 an ounce. So at $30 silver they were making 33% profits. At $90 silver they're making 78% profits. So their profits are up like two and a half times. And um I think that we're going to start to see over the next few quarters as these miners port their profits, the market is [music] going to have to come to terms with that and realize that uh their prices have not yet reflected. Although they've moved quite a bit over the last year, [music] you know, the explorers, the developers, the producers have moved significantly. Um but there are some charts that show that the price of silver has moved up so much and so rapidly that the uh price earnings ratios in these stocks have not kept up. And so although their share prices have moved up, their valuations have actually gone down. So they've gotten cheaper as their share prices have gone up simply because profits have have gone up so much faster. 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. All investing involves risk and possible losses. [music] This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Peter, it's a fantastic to have you on the show. We're going right after Pedak and probably the craziest start to the year for silver so far. Um, as all these things because it's like warp speed. You can't even keep up with the news. And with all these things that we could talk about with silver that have changed the market and the fundamentals, are you finding after Pedak that more people are looking at silver as a safe haven or like versus like speculative or is it more just a demand investment that you're seeing so far? >> So, I'm going to say almost all of the above. um that but I will say that you're right um there is more safe haven uh I guess interest uh in silver compared to what we've seen before. It's interesting because I I think a lot of what has driven that is the fact I mean gold's gotten expensive. So at $5,000, you know, I mean, it's out of reach for many people. And especially if you look at some of the developing world, like I think we may have talked about this before, but it's only gotten more pronounced places like Turkey, Egypt, India, in Turkey and in well all three of them, you know, it's it's say it's ingrained in in them to own uh gold and silver. gold in particular, I guess I'm going to say silver certainly is becoming, you know, the alternative, it seems, because uh for example, in Egypt, they give gold when there's a newborn. Uh they give gold when there's a wedding. Uh we know that they do that in India. They have all these traditions in Turkey as well. And now, because gold's just gotten so expensive, I'm hearing of people looking to well, you know, the the jewelers, I guess, are are are getting smart. And what they're doing is they're producing things out of silver, pure silver, and then they're co they're plating them in gold. So, um, people know that that's what they're buying. It's just that it makes it more affordable. And then you have the same look. Uh, and they're both precious metals. So, interestingly enough, you know, from from that, higher gold prices are are driving higher silver prices because it's driving more demand for silver. And of course, people looking at gold having run up so much to $5,000 and saying to themselves, "Oh, wow, I need to get into this market and thinking," well, you know, 1 ounce of gold, $5,000, 1 ounce of silver, now $80 or $90. Well, that alternative is pretty attractive. I think a lot of what's driving it. >> Do you want to give some commentary? I think we're what around 83 $84 today for silver on the wild ride that we've had this year. I'm sure people, you know, last year when we talked in the summer, never would have believed that we were going to be here already. So, >> me included, [laughter] Cali, I'm willing to admit it. >> Do you feel like pretty comfortable with that 8090 range for silver short term and then like do you think I mean people are calling for 300 silver? I'm going to say that I don't think that this consolidation uh phase is over. I do think we could still probably some see somewhere around the low 70s still before this phase is over. But I think we've seen the worst of it. That big correction from 120 to, you know, once to 67 intraday within a matter of like a couple of days. That was a a more than a 40% correction if you look at the intraday prices. And uh that was pretty fast and pretty severe and I think it scared a lot of uh you know newcomers out. Um probably many of them never to return. So that I think achieved its goal. Um it kind of removed skimmed that froth off of the top and so it became more realistic. These are prices that I think we need still need to kind of digest because I mean it wasn't that long ago maybe what was it August September we were at half of these prices so that's what 8 months 7 8 months so really um it's not too surprising we're back here but I do think that we've seen the worst and we're likely to move sideways for a little while and then maybe you sort of next quarter we might see things start to gradually uh move up again. But I do think we're in a new sort of uh volatility period. Um especially now that we've gotten this um this huge runup and correction. You know, I spoke at the Metals Investor Forum and then I spoke at PDAC. One of the charts I had was really interesting. Um I thought anyways, um it's a generic chart for bull markets and it's how the asset price acts in a bull market start to finish. Um, and the first phase is the stealth phase where nobody except really this very very smart money is paying any attention and things kind of move sideways and very slowly gradually upwards very quiet and so clearly stealth stealth mode and then you move it starts to really pick up which is I think what we start to have started to have maybe um you know late 2024 early 2025 and then that trend it started to move up a little more steeply and then eventually you get this you know [sighs] piling in which is what we got when it becomes more discovered. This is the awareness phase. The big money starts to move in and the the hot money and the and FOMO starts to kick in and then you get this really steep runup um which we got from you know into late last year and into late January this year up to $120. And in that um chart uh you get this what they what the you know the author of the chart calls the first selloff. You get this correction. Well in his chart it's pretty tame and and in our case it was pretty wild but I but still I think that illustrates pretty much the same uh stage that we're in. So you get this crazy runup because everyone starts paying attention and starts to jump in and then you get this crazy sell-off that that scares the weak hands out that really don't understand this market and don't realize that it has so much higher to go. Well, that selloff leads to what in you know the case of this author what he calls a bear trap. So, it's a bear trap because the ones who get out and see this big sell-off think, "Oh my god, this this is over, you know, uh, silver's never going back to 100 or $120 where it uh, just recently peaked." And we're in a new bare market and that's the trap. We're not in a bare market. It's just a correction to scare all the weak hands out. And it did a good job of it. And, you know, you know, I called my book The Great Silver Bull. Well, it's a bucking bull that has bucked a lot of a lot of participants off. And frankly, now I think that um you know, the really sort of uh tried and trueue and and well-informed silver investors are are not getting bucked off. They are they are holding tight and they're continuing for this next phase, which is the mania phase. I will say this, that chart that I used has um for the stealth phase, the awareness phase, which I believe we're at the beginning of, than the mania phase. I think that both the main the the awareness phase and the the mania phase are going to be a lot lot more drawn out than they are in the chart. I mean, I did use it because it's it's practical. Um and it does help to understand where we are. Uh but uh yeah, I think it's going to play out quite differently than than that. All that being said, it's not too late. So if if anybody was wondering that, it is definitely not too late. For for the physical demand side, it's obviously pretty wild, especially the last few weeks. Uh what are you thinking um I guess throughout what we're going to see maybe even into the summer with some of these um silver delivery dates? I mean, we just saw the technical issues. I don't want to get into too many conspiracies for silver investors, but there's obviously we're getting low and I mean what what are you thinking that we're going to see or how much of a catalyst will that be for silver prices do you think? >> I mean I don't follow the futures market too closely. I do follow it to some extent because you get all this sort of uh you know updates and news feeds that come up come come along and uh keep me informed about generally what's happening. What I can see is that the that market is very very tight. Uh it really is the Shanghai that is the the true physical market because most of those contracts are are delivered uh in kind in physical silver and so um the ComX and the LBMA are are uh really much more paperheavy markets and their pricing power is dwindling. We really see that Shanghai, India, for example, has has decided that it's going to drop the LBMA pricing directive. They're going to use their own uh internal spot pricing mechanisms. So, it's all shifting east. It's really not surprising that the physical market is becoming a lot more influential. And I think that the West is going to ultimately have to just follow along. it's it's not going to be realistic to kind of have these two price you know dynamics going on long term and you know a lot of the inventories are tight they're they're staying low and I think that um it's very telling that uh deliveries are high in the west as well keeping these deliverable this deliverable silver inventories quite low um and frankly you know we've had like you said in the last few months we've had two instanc instances of uh the COMX saying, you know, there's some sort of a technical glitch and we can't trade these these these futures. Um obviously lots of people wonder about that. Uh I just think that um we're going to get it. We could very well get to a point where someone big who holds a long contract is standing for delivery and ultimately says, "I want my silver." [laughter] And that that exchange says, "I'm sorry. we just don't have that much silver available to deliver to you. We'll have to uh, you know, pay you out in in in cash. Instead, they'll say, "No, no, no. I I I really want the physical silver." And they just don't have it available. And that that is going to be a real, you know, they say that um, you know, they ring ring the bell at uh, at the top or at the bottom that that doesn't happen. Well, that's going to be a bell that um it's a starting gun for uh a lot more volatility and probably a lot, you know, you could see these huge gap ups when if and when something like that happens. I think the odds are pretty decent for something like that to happen. But if you know, if that were today, for example, we're at $80. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 15 or $20 gap up uh in the silver price on that kind of news. It would just shock the market and people would scramble more than anyone. it would be the uh the industrial consumers because they don't have it's not an optional thing for them. They need the silver. They're producing all kinds of things and so um it's very difficult to substitute. So yeah, I mean uh this market is I just think it's going to continue to get very very interesting >> on the industrial demand side. Obviously silver um is so important for so many things. Solar is not going anywhere. It's only in fact becoming a bigger demand in that market. We've talked about it before on the podcast that because it's just such a small component for a lot of these tech, it doesn't even matter if it becomes a $400 silver price because you can't replace it and it's it's such a small cost to them for the pieces. Do you want to give um some insight or any of the commentary that you have for stats coming out this year on the solar sector or tech and demand for where we're at? >> Yeah, sure. So, there's some interesting things. I mean two two points I think are worth uh remembering. 5 years ago industrial demand accounted for half of overall silver demand. Uh it now accounts for 2/3 of overall silver demand. So that in itself is interesting and and important. But the implication uh is is even sort of more important I think which is that higher higher consumption of industrial demand or a higher proportion of silver available silver going to industry means less silver available for investment demand. So we've gone from three years ago half the other half let's say of silver being available for you know to to put into ETFs or to put in to buy physical coins and bars now only a third of the silver supply is available for that. So last year at the end of the year when we saw the market become more aware of the silver market and and so and the tightness and then you know the prices starting to move up and all these uh these participants jumping in. Um I think that's key and that's part of it. That's to me uh the market realizing and rationalizing that there's only there's only a third of the silver there was 5 years ago now available for investment. So when all of these these participants jump in and want to have the physical silver for investment purposes um they they put a big squeeze on it and that's I think what happened when we you know went into the end of December and then ultimately to the end of January when it went to $121. Um, so that is unlikely to change because the Silver Institute thinks we're going to not only have uh similar demand levels proportionally here when they finally put their um the research out in in uh next month and their forecasts, but they a year ago said that they expect silver deficits to continue for the next 5 years and that we would reach um all-time high deficits at some point in the next 5 years. So that's that's one thing. If we drill down and we look more specifically at solar, I think this is really an interesting point. You know, really high silver prices are putting pressure on on the solar industry to look at ways to deal with it because it's about or even at about $40 $50 silver was about 20% of the cost of a solar panel. But uh there are these sort of counter um pressures um batteries that are used in along with solar to store solar energy because of course solar panels produce energy during the day but not at night. Um that's always sort of been it the biggest sort of argument against solar. uh well battery cost is falling by about half over the next decade and in 2025 there was about 60% of 2023 solar capacity installed. So batteries so this battery capacity to meet to meet solar capacity let's say one for one is really catching up very quickly. There was some great research by a group out of Norway called Ryad Energy and uh they see solar installations growing globally by about 3% a year but they see battery for solar growing but at about 12% a year for the next decade. So takeaway about batteries for solar it's that batteries are now making solar a a base load energy a source of base load energy. So you know you had uh what was it about a year or so ago you had these the magnificent 7 saying okay we're building out all these data centers and now AI is driving even more of that requirement. Well uh a lot of utilities are telling them we don't have the power that you need so you're going to have to kind of manage to find this source of power on your own. Um I think it was Microsoft that uh was able to kind of lock up the unused power at 3M island in the US. Nuclear power is uh is base load and it's fantastic because it's clean. And the thing is that nuclear takes 15 years from decision to to to execution and to be able to start drawing on that power. Solar takes a year and a half. That's onetenth of the time and it's pretty cheap and it's the cheapest form of additional energy that a utility can add. So solar is not going anywhere. batteries are making it base load. They're making it um a lot more accessible. And we've seen that the the the tech companies uh that are looking for green energy sources have really taken up solar to the tune of five times more last year than they were nuclear. So, it's great. I mean, you know, if you've got the land, you can build out your own solar farm right next to your data center. You're completely independent of the utility. Um, there's very low maintenance on this. I just think that even if silver, you know, stays high and expensive. All the other tech applications like you mentioned, Cali, are interesting because they use such small amounts, it's really not all that of an impact on the price of the final product. Uh, but it would have more impact on a solar panel because a lot of silver goes into them. So, um, I just think that it's going to get rationalized somehow. uh perhaps solar panels become subsidized. Um companies will just I think you know find ways to continue using them nonetheless. So uh anyways these are some of the big I think takeaways for um for the impact sort of on the industrial side and and what to look for. >> I think if anyone saw the solar farms in China they would be buying solar. They're they're [laughter] massive. >> That's that's absolutely true. Yes. It's pretty phenomenal what uh what they've been doing with with this technology. >> So, I'd love obviously we've set up a great story for silver um to switch gears into the miners now because a lot of them are still trading pretty undervalued like that. They're trading around the prices of $20, $30 silver. Some of them are making insane cash flow right now. Uh the producers obviously what what are you seeing a after Pedak like what's the sentiment out there for silver stock socks? You're right. Great points. I mean, the all-in sustaining cost for an ounce of silver on average if you include byproducts, so which are typically gold, copper, lead, or zinc, is about $20 an ounce. So, at $30 silver, they were making 33% profits. At $90 silver, they're making 78% profits. So, their profits are up like two and a half times. And um I think that we're going to start to see over the next few quarters as these miners port their profits, the market is going to have to come to terms with that and realize that uh their their prices have not yet reflected. Although they've moved quite a bit over the last year, you know, the explorers, the developers, the producers have moved significantly. Um but there are some charts that show that the price of silver has moved up so much and so rapidly that the uh price earnings ratios in these stocks have not kept up. And so although their share prices have moved up, their valuations have actually gone down. So they've gotten cheaper as their share prices have gone up simply because profits have have gone up so much faster. So, I think that's what we're going to start to see in the next few quarters. And I think that really actually uh is the opportunity over the next couple of years. It's moved from silver to silver miners. Um and uh you know, I'll give you a couple of examples. There's a scarcity premium for silver miners because there are so few. And if you look at uh how they are priced, so the price to net asset value for some of the say the four top names and gold producers is 1.3 times the net asset value. That's what they trade at. The uh the multiple for uh the top four silver producers is actually two times. So instead of 1.3 times, so nearly double um or 2.1 times, sorry. So nearly double what a gold miner gets and that's again I believe because of the scarcity premium there are so few the money that comes to this market has less names to go into. So they just bid up um what there is available. Uh if you look at and it's not me saying this but I'm happy to repeat it. Um there's a guy who runs a fund uh the $3 billion Jupiter Gold and Silver Fund. His name is Ned Naylor Leland. He's the fund manager. He pointed out recently that silver producers are trading at two times NAV but the developers are still only trading at two times NAV. So to go in this market from developer to producer is a 10x. We haven't even talked about what the juniors can do. Some with discoveries and small producers that are really getting a big kick from uh these much higher silver prices and especially after they can they do some some great work to to control their costs and so on. Um I think we're going to start to see a lot more M&A as well. This is definitely a space to be watching very closely. With silver prices the way they are, have you looked at a different like investment plan now that some projects that probably didn't make sense at 20 $30 silver but say 8090 they they make lots of sense. So have you like have you changed some of your fundamentals of what you look for now? Are you more open to different um exploration stories as this silver price continues to rise? >> Absolutely. I mean, you know, we can rationalize a lot more easily lower grade projects because they're suddenly a lot more um profitable. And then you can also rationalize projects that are uh open pitable, let's say only realistically, economically versus being underground projects because again, yes, depending where open pit can be more difficult to permit, but the costs are very low typically with open pit. So you can you can treat uh much lower grade bore. So yes absolutely Cali these these kinds of things are um becoming more attractive. It does open the the opportunity to you know to invest in in projects that prior were just sort of uh marginal. Uh that's really changing pretty quickly >> with I know Mexico is you know old news a few weeks ago but has that changed again for are you looking at different jurisdictions or like mainly focusing the US and Canada right now because of that or do you think that that will is a long-term play that you know is the great dip to buy in the Mexico space or what are your thoughts? >> You know I do think it is an opportunity frankly uh Mexico is not going anywhere anywhere in terms of silver supply. They're more than 20% of the global supply, which is just phenomenal, like more than twice as much as the next uh biggest producer. You know, regardless, there have been some really interesting changes where silver is um in abundance. And so, they're very positive changes to some degree. You've got some changes in places like Ecuador. Uh you've got some clearly positive changes in Argentina. You've got also clearly positive changes in Bolivia and in Chile. And um I've been as soon as I saw that uh there was a swing to the right in Bolivia, I became bullish on Bolivia. Although I did have a couple of companies that had already been operating there um for for several years. So th those were already in the portfolio. Uh there was one that I was looking to add that was a higher risk exploration play and that it was pre-discovery and that's done really well and uh as soon as I saw that the um administration had changed you know and swung right um I went ahead and and recommended that and that's done really well. So there's a lot of buzz actually I'm going to say probably more than anywhere for Bolivia if you look at South America and uh you know just quickly Cali it's not hard if you and I've followed this closely enough for long enough and that is that if you look at where can you find silver well there's not that many places if you look at a map um you know there's a bit in Europe um and a lot of these are are uh poly metallic deposits so they're really not sort of pure silver investments you have Morocco. Other than that, you have uh the Americas. And if you look at a map of the Americas, it's almost exclusively along the the the western coast of the Americas. It's along the Rockies and the Andes and up into the Yukon. Uh there's not that much in the east. It's pretty rare. You have some to some extent in Australia, but it's all along the west. And so that's that's where you find it. You find it, as I say, in Idaho, in Nevada, Arizona, California, and then if you go, you know, then of course Mexico, and then Mexico, it's going to be again mostly in the west. After that, if you go uh further south, you've got Ecuador, Colombia, you've got Chile, and uh you've got Bolivia. So these are the places where the silver is, and that's where we need to look. And um thankfully most of sort of or a lot of I'm going to say the geopolitical risk in these places um seems to be fading. So it's it's a good time actually. It's a it's a it's a promising time to invest in silver u opportunities in those places because a lot of that risk is seems to be going away. >> We've talked about the the traditional 6040 portfolio hasn't worked for a while. I'd love to know um I'd love to know how your portfolio has been doing in the silver space for the last year. Um especially for new investors that are looking at getting into silver. Some of the returns have been insane. [laughter] >> Well, you're right. In fact, uh so um last summer I uh I hired a young guy who's very um very smart, very mature, um really understands this space. His name is Ted Butler and he's now a senior analyst with us and he handles most of the research and writing for one of uh our two silver newsletters. And interestingly enough, the 60 portfolio was part of he spoke at metals investor forum and at PDAC and interestingly enough that was his focus was the 60/40 portfolio which I won't go into all of the details but he really started paying attention to about four years ago almost and saw that it was broken. I mean 2022 uh just less than four years ago now uh mid say mid 2022 um the 6040 portfolio had its worst uh it had its worst year in I think something like 90 years. It was just an absolute mess. Uh it was I think down something like 17 or 19%. that is if you ask you know uh mainstream that's not supposed to happen. Bonds are supposed to you know zigg when stocks zag and uh that didn't happen. Just having maybe 10 or 15% allocation to gold and silver since then would have absolutely saved a portfolio. So you know uh his talk was the illusion of diversification and I've got to say that you know you can be diversified in different ways. People ask me how how do I diversify and I tell them it's the barbell strategy. Um it you can adjust. So you can adjust your risk very easily. any any way that's how I feel comfortable and um you know I I believe that's probably the way to be diversified for the next probably the next 10 years. Commodities um are really really really historically cheap. So we've seen precious metals move already. I think we we've now started to see the energy sector move with oil uh with nuclear and I think that uh we're going to see the base metal start to move and we're going to see agriculture start to move. Um but you you asked me Cali about how you know the portfolio had performed. Um it was it was our best year last year by far. We had about 30 positions in the portfolio. Most of them doubled. many of them were up uh five times and we even had some that were one was one of them was actually up eight times uh in 2025. So most of that has continued this year. I'd caution people not to expect the kinds of returns that happened last year. That was an outlier. Uh but that said, I do think that we're in a very on an ongoing very positive environment for for silver stocks. The opportunity was silver for the last couple of years. the opportunity ahead is the silver stocks because um their profits have not been priced in yet and I think that's coming. >> What are a couple of your favorite silver stocks that you've seen for the start of 2026? >> You know, if you look at um if you look at what's out there in different categories, I really like Santa Cruz silver. Um this is mostly a Bolivia play. They have one mine in Mexico. They're actually bringing a a a fifth uh source of revenue. Uh the one of one of their sources of revenue is where they have processing facilities and they actually buy um ore from art artisal miners. The other four are mines. Of the other four, one of them is uh going to likely be online later this year. They are the largest underground mining company in Bolivia. They are very significant to the um to the country's economy. They've been operating there for years. Very very wellrun company. I like that one a lot. Skina resources which uh actually presented at the metals investor forum. This is a uh now fully permitted project in BC. uh they really have to just build out over the next year um finish construction and then start producing. This is going to be an open pit project which um is really world class. I mean there are so few like this and really high grade too for open pit. In fact, they're going to be producing it's more gold than silver. However, just the silver is close to 10 million ounces a year, which would be 1% of the global annual silver supply. So, that is really one that is um I'm going to say very notable. You've got uh companies like Abra which um uh on the on the in the range of about uh 300 million ounces of silver equivalent in Argentina. They um recently got approval for a an investment plan that is was issued by the government of Argentina which makes u operating um the mine in Argentina a lot more favorable. They have they've they remove foreign exchange restrictions. They they lower their royalties, their taxes, etc. So that's become uh suddenly very interesting. Um, you've got a company operating in Peru. Ser Pasco recently uh got had some really interesting news that u they're going to get support from the department of defense in the US because they have strategic minerals in addition to silver. This is one of if not the world's largest above ground um mineral uh inventories. And so their cost to mine because the these um this ore is above ground is going to be very very low. So this should be a really profitable operation. And uh like I say the they've gotten some some clear support from the Department of Defense. I think it's to the tune of about $5 million. And this opens the door to them potentially getting a loan uh as they move towards going into production of as much as $300 million again from uh the US which would be interesting because it would be non-dilutive to shareholders and um probably at very favorable rates. So there's no guarantees, but uh some really interesting projects for and companies uh for for your viewers to look at. >> Peter, I won't keep you all day. You've been a wealth of information, but um for close, what would you tell investors um and following to pay attention to I guess like what are some of the key catalysts that you're really going to keep your eye on for the next few months as we go into the summer and spring? Yeah. So, I mean, we I think watch for volatility. I do think that uh the silver price is going to get uh you know, sort of kicked around more up and down than than it has up until the last say few months or so, the last couple of quarters. >> But, uh use that volatility to your advantage. you know, if you're not uh involved that much or if you're not involved at all yet, uh watch it closely and um use dips to buy uh as much for the silver itself as for the silver miners. Um, again, you know, I think I I did what I could to make the case that uh and and for the reasons why that uh the miners are are extremely cheap still the next few quarters and the next couple of years should be really good as the market comes to terms with um you know starting to really price in these phenomenal profits. All we need is for silver to move sideways at 80 or $90 for a couple of years and these companies should really rerate uh to much much higher levels. So you don't need to have silver go from say $80 right now or to to 100 or $120. If these miners can keep mining at I remember one one minor telling me about two years ago, he said, "Peter, if we could just get the silver price above $30, we'd be so happy." [laughter] and here we are at, you know, above $80. So, they should be really happy and um I think their shareholders will be really happy. So, again, use that volatility to your advantage. Um get involved. I think that it's not only not too late, but I think it's crucial to have exposure to this to this sector. >> [music]
Best Set up for Silver Stock Profits; Post-correction consolidation & huge M&A potential
Summary
0:00 Peter Krauth 2:26 Disclaimer 2:50 Silver Speculation or Safe Haven? 5:14 Silver Price 10:30 Futures and Catalysts 14:30 …Transcript
It's a starting gun for uh a lot more volatility and probably a lot, you know, you could see these huge gap ups when if and when something like that happens. I think the odds are pretty decent for something like that to happen. But if you know, if that were today, for example, we're at $80. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see a $15 or $20 gap up uh in the silver price on that kind of news. It would just shock the market and people would scramble more than anyone. it would be the uh the industrial consumers because they don't have it's not an optional thing for them. They need the silver. They're producing all kinds of things and so um it's very difficult to substitute. There's only a third of the silver there was 5 years ago now available for investment. So when all of these these participants jump in and want to have the physical silver for investment purposes um they they put a big squeeze on it and that's I think what happened when we you know went into the end of December and then ultimately to the end of January when it went to $121. >> Some of them are making insane cash flow right now. uh the producers obviously >> the all-in sustaining cost for an ounce of silver on average if you include byproducts so which are typically gold, copper, lead or zinc is about $20 an ounce. So at $30 silver they were making 33% profits. At $90 silver they're making 78% profits. So their profits are up like two and a half times. And um I think that we're going to start to see over the next few quarters as these miners port their profits, the market is [music] going to have to come to terms with that and realize that uh their prices have not yet reflected. Although they've moved quite a bit over the last year, [music] you know, the explorers, the developers, the producers have moved significantly. Um but there are some charts that show that the price of silver has moved up so much and so rapidly that the uh price earnings ratios in these stocks have not kept up. And so although their share prices have moved up, their valuations have actually gone down. So they've gotten cheaper as their share prices have gone up simply because profits have have gone up so much faster. 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. All investing involves risk and possible losses. [music] This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Peter, it's a fantastic to have you on the show. We're going right after Pedak and probably the craziest start to the year for silver so far. Um, as all these things because it's like warp speed. You can't even keep up with the news. And with all these things that we could talk about with silver that have changed the market and the fundamentals, are you finding after Pedak that more people are looking at silver as a safe haven or like versus like speculative or is it more just a demand investment that you're seeing so far? >> So, I'm going to say almost all of the above. um that but I will say that you're right um there is more safe haven uh I guess interest uh in silver compared to what we've seen before. It's interesting because I I think a lot of what has driven that is the fact I mean gold's gotten expensive. So at $5,000, you know, I mean, it's out of reach for many people. And especially if you look at some of the developing world, like I think we may have talked about this before, but it's only gotten more pronounced places like Turkey, Egypt, India, in Turkey and in well all three of them, you know, it's it's say it's ingrained in in them to own uh gold and silver. gold in particular, I guess I'm going to say silver certainly is becoming, you know, the alternative, it seems, because uh for example, in Egypt, they give gold when there's a newborn. Uh they give gold when there's a wedding. Uh we know that they do that in India. They have all these traditions in Turkey as well. And now, because gold's just gotten so expensive, I'm hearing of people looking to well, you know, the the jewelers, I guess, are are are getting smart. And what they're doing is they're producing things out of silver, pure silver, and then they're co they're plating them in gold. So, um, people know that that's what they're buying. It's just that it makes it more affordable. And then you have the same look. Uh, and they're both precious metals. So, interestingly enough, you know, from from that, higher gold prices are are driving higher silver prices because it's driving more demand for silver. And of course, people looking at gold having run up so much to $5,000 and saying to themselves, "Oh, wow, I need to get into this market and thinking," well, you know, 1 ounce of gold, $5,000, 1 ounce of silver, now $80 or $90. Well, that alternative is pretty attractive. I think a lot of what's driving it. >> Do you want to give some commentary? I think we're what around 83 $84 today for silver on the wild ride that we've had this year. I'm sure people, you know, last year when we talked in the summer, never would have believed that we were going to be here already. So, >> me included, [laughter] Cali, I'm willing to admit it. >> Do you feel like pretty comfortable with that 8090 range for silver short term and then like do you think I mean people are calling for 300 silver? I'm going to say that I don't think that this consolidation uh phase is over. I do think we could still probably some see somewhere around the low 70s still before this phase is over. But I think we've seen the worst of it. That big correction from 120 to, you know, once to 67 intraday within a matter of like a couple of days. That was a a more than a 40% correction if you look at the intraday prices. And uh that was pretty fast and pretty severe and I think it scared a lot of uh you know newcomers out. Um probably many of them never to return. So that I think achieved its goal. Um it kind of removed skimmed that froth off of the top and so it became more realistic. These are prices that I think we need still need to kind of digest because I mean it wasn't that long ago maybe what was it August September we were at half of these prices so that's what 8 months 7 8 months so really um it's not too surprising we're back here but I do think that we've seen the worst and we're likely to move sideways for a little while and then maybe you sort of next quarter we might see things start to gradually uh move up again. But I do think we're in a new sort of uh volatility period. Um especially now that we've gotten this um this huge runup and correction. You know, I spoke at the Metals Investor Forum and then I spoke at PDAC. One of the charts I had was really interesting. Um I thought anyways, um it's a generic chart for bull markets and it's how the asset price acts in a bull market start to finish. Um, and the first phase is the stealth phase where nobody except really this very very smart money is paying any attention and things kind of move sideways and very slowly gradually upwards very quiet and so clearly stealth stealth mode and then you move it starts to really pick up which is I think what we start to have started to have maybe um you know late 2024 early 2025 and then that trend it started to move up a little more steeply and then eventually you get this you know [sighs] piling in which is what we got when it becomes more discovered. This is the awareness phase. The big money starts to move in and the the hot money and the and FOMO starts to kick in and then you get this really steep runup um which we got from you know into late last year and into late January this year up to $120. And in that um chart uh you get this what they what the you know the author of the chart calls the first selloff. You get this correction. Well in his chart it's pretty tame and and in our case it was pretty wild but I but still I think that illustrates pretty much the same uh stage that we're in. So you get this crazy runup because everyone starts paying attention and starts to jump in and then you get this crazy sell-off that that scares the weak hands out that really don't understand this market and don't realize that it has so much higher to go. Well, that selloff leads to what in you know the case of this author what he calls a bear trap. So, it's a bear trap because the ones who get out and see this big sell-off think, "Oh my god, this this is over, you know, uh, silver's never going back to 100 or $120 where it uh, just recently peaked." And we're in a new bare market and that's the trap. We're not in a bare market. It's just a correction to scare all the weak hands out. And it did a good job of it. And, you know, you know, I called my book The Great Silver Bull. Well, it's a bucking bull that has bucked a lot of a lot of participants off. And frankly, now I think that um you know, the really sort of uh tried and trueue and and well-informed silver investors are are not getting bucked off. They are they are holding tight and they're continuing for this next phase, which is the mania phase. I will say this, that chart that I used has um for the stealth phase, the awareness phase, which I believe we're at the beginning of, than the mania phase. I think that both the main the the awareness phase and the the mania phase are going to be a lot lot more drawn out than they are in the chart. I mean, I did use it because it's it's practical. Um and it does help to understand where we are. Uh but uh yeah, I think it's going to play out quite differently than than that. All that being said, it's not too late. So if if anybody was wondering that, it is definitely not too late. For for the physical demand side, it's obviously pretty wild, especially the last few weeks. Uh what are you thinking um I guess throughout what we're going to see maybe even into the summer with some of these um silver delivery dates? I mean, we just saw the technical issues. I don't want to get into too many conspiracies for silver investors, but there's obviously we're getting low and I mean what what are you thinking that we're going to see or how much of a catalyst will that be for silver prices do you think? >> I mean I don't follow the futures market too closely. I do follow it to some extent because you get all this sort of uh you know updates and news feeds that come up come come along and uh keep me informed about generally what's happening. What I can see is that the that market is very very tight. Uh it really is the Shanghai that is the the true physical market because most of those contracts are are delivered uh in kind in physical silver and so um the ComX and the LBMA are are uh really much more paperheavy markets and their pricing power is dwindling. We really see that Shanghai, India, for example, has has decided that it's going to drop the LBMA pricing directive. They're going to use their own uh internal spot pricing mechanisms. So, it's all shifting east. It's really not surprising that the physical market is becoming a lot more influential. And I think that the West is going to ultimately have to just follow along. it's it's not going to be realistic to kind of have these two price you know dynamics going on long term and you know a lot of the inventories are tight they're they're staying low and I think that um it's very telling that uh deliveries are high in the west as well keeping these deliverable this deliverable silver inventories quite low um and frankly you know we've had like you said in the last few months we've had two instanc instances of uh the COMX saying, you know, there's some sort of a technical glitch and we can't trade these these these futures. Um obviously lots of people wonder about that. Uh I just think that um we're going to get it. We could very well get to a point where someone big who holds a long contract is standing for delivery and ultimately says, "I want my silver." [laughter] And that that exchange says, "I'm sorry. we just don't have that much silver available to deliver to you. We'll have to uh, you know, pay you out in in in cash. Instead, they'll say, "No, no, no. I I I really want the physical silver." And they just don't have it available. And that that is going to be a real, you know, they say that um, you know, they ring ring the bell at uh, at the top or at the bottom that that doesn't happen. Well, that's going to be a bell that um it's a starting gun for uh a lot more volatility and probably a lot, you know, you could see these huge gap ups when if and when something like that happens. I think the odds are pretty decent for something like that to happen. But if you know, if that were today, for example, we're at $80. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 15 or $20 gap up uh in the silver price on that kind of news. It would just shock the market and people would scramble more than anyone. it would be the uh the industrial consumers because they don't have it's not an optional thing for them. They need the silver. They're producing all kinds of things and so um it's very difficult to substitute. So yeah, I mean uh this market is I just think it's going to continue to get very very interesting >> on the industrial demand side. Obviously silver um is so important for so many things. Solar is not going anywhere. It's only in fact becoming a bigger demand in that market. We've talked about it before on the podcast that because it's just such a small component for a lot of these tech, it doesn't even matter if it becomes a $400 silver price because you can't replace it and it's it's such a small cost to them for the pieces. Do you want to give um some insight or any of the commentary that you have for stats coming out this year on the solar sector or tech and demand for where we're at? >> Yeah, sure. So, there's some interesting things. I mean two two points I think are worth uh remembering. 5 years ago industrial demand accounted for half of overall silver demand. Uh it now accounts for 2/3 of overall silver demand. So that in itself is interesting and and important. But the implication uh is is even sort of more important I think which is that higher higher consumption of industrial demand or a higher proportion of silver available silver going to industry means less silver available for investment demand. So we've gone from three years ago half the other half let's say of silver being available for you know to to put into ETFs or to put in to buy physical coins and bars now only a third of the silver supply is available for that. So last year at the end of the year when we saw the market become more aware of the silver market and and so and the tightness and then you know the prices starting to move up and all these uh these participants jumping in. Um I think that's key and that's part of it. That's to me uh the market realizing and rationalizing that there's only there's only a third of the silver there was 5 years ago now available for investment. So when all of these these participants jump in and want to have the physical silver for investment purposes um they they put a big squeeze on it and that's I think what happened when we you know went into the end of December and then ultimately to the end of January when it went to $121. Um, so that is unlikely to change because the Silver Institute thinks we're going to not only have uh similar demand levels proportionally here when they finally put their um the research out in in uh next month and their forecasts, but they a year ago said that they expect silver deficits to continue for the next 5 years and that we would reach um all-time high deficits at some point in the next 5 years. So that's that's one thing. If we drill down and we look more specifically at solar, I think this is really an interesting point. You know, really high silver prices are putting pressure on on the solar industry to look at ways to deal with it because it's about or even at about $40 $50 silver was about 20% of the cost of a solar panel. But uh there are these sort of counter um pressures um batteries that are used in along with solar to store solar energy because of course solar panels produce energy during the day but not at night. Um that's always sort of been it the biggest sort of argument against solar. uh well battery cost is falling by about half over the next decade and in 2025 there was about 60% of 2023 solar capacity installed. So batteries so this battery capacity to meet to meet solar capacity let's say one for one is really catching up very quickly. There was some great research by a group out of Norway called Ryad Energy and uh they see solar installations growing globally by about 3% a year but they see battery for solar growing but at about 12% a year for the next decade. So takeaway about batteries for solar it's that batteries are now making solar a a base load energy a source of base load energy. So you know you had uh what was it about a year or so ago you had these the magnificent 7 saying okay we're building out all these data centers and now AI is driving even more of that requirement. Well uh a lot of utilities are telling them we don't have the power that you need so you're going to have to kind of manage to find this source of power on your own. Um I think it was Microsoft that uh was able to kind of lock up the unused power at 3M island in the US. Nuclear power is uh is base load and it's fantastic because it's clean. And the thing is that nuclear takes 15 years from decision to to to execution and to be able to start drawing on that power. Solar takes a year and a half. That's onetenth of the time and it's pretty cheap and it's the cheapest form of additional energy that a utility can add. So solar is not going anywhere. batteries are making it base load. They're making it um a lot more accessible. And we've seen that the the the tech companies uh that are looking for green energy sources have really taken up solar to the tune of five times more last year than they were nuclear. So, it's great. I mean, you know, if you've got the land, you can build out your own solar farm right next to your data center. You're completely independent of the utility. Um, there's very low maintenance on this. I just think that even if silver, you know, stays high and expensive. All the other tech applications like you mentioned, Cali, are interesting because they use such small amounts, it's really not all that of an impact on the price of the final product. Uh, but it would have more impact on a solar panel because a lot of silver goes into them. So, um, I just think that it's going to get rationalized somehow. uh perhaps solar panels become subsidized. Um companies will just I think you know find ways to continue using them nonetheless. So uh anyways these are some of the big I think takeaways for um for the impact sort of on the industrial side and and what to look for. >> I think if anyone saw the solar farms in China they would be buying solar. They're they're [laughter] massive. >> That's that's absolutely true. Yes. It's pretty phenomenal what uh what they've been doing with with this technology. >> So, I'd love obviously we've set up a great story for silver um to switch gears into the miners now because a lot of them are still trading pretty undervalued like that. They're trading around the prices of $20, $30 silver. Some of them are making insane cash flow right now. Uh the producers obviously what what are you seeing a after Pedak like what's the sentiment out there for silver stock socks? You're right. Great points. I mean, the all-in sustaining cost for an ounce of silver on average if you include byproducts, so which are typically gold, copper, lead, or zinc, is about $20 an ounce. So, at $30 silver, they were making 33% profits. At $90 silver, they're making 78% profits. So, their profits are up like two and a half times. And um I think that we're going to start to see over the next few quarters as these miners port their profits, the market is going to have to come to terms with that and realize that uh their their prices have not yet reflected. Although they've moved quite a bit over the last year, you know, the explorers, the developers, the producers have moved significantly. Um but there are some charts that show that the price of silver has moved up so much and so rapidly that the uh price earnings ratios in these stocks have not kept up. And so although their share prices have moved up, their valuations have actually gone down. So they've gotten cheaper as their share prices have gone up simply because profits have have gone up so much faster. So, I think that's what we're going to start to see in the next few quarters. And I think that really actually uh is the opportunity over the next couple of years. It's moved from silver to silver miners. Um and uh you know, I'll give you a couple of examples. There's a scarcity premium for silver miners because there are so few. And if you look at uh how they are priced, so the price to net asset value for some of the say the four top names and gold producers is 1.3 times the net asset value. That's what they trade at. The uh the multiple for uh the top four silver producers is actually two times. So instead of 1.3 times, so nearly double um or 2.1 times, sorry. So nearly double what a gold miner gets and that's again I believe because of the scarcity premium there are so few the money that comes to this market has less names to go into. So they just bid up um what there is available. Uh if you look at and it's not me saying this but I'm happy to repeat it. Um there's a guy who runs a fund uh the $3 billion Jupiter Gold and Silver Fund. His name is Ned Naylor Leland. He's the fund manager. He pointed out recently that silver producers are trading at two times NAV but the developers are still only trading at two times NAV. So to go in this market from developer to producer is a 10x. We haven't even talked about what the juniors can do. Some with discoveries and small producers that are really getting a big kick from uh these much higher silver prices and especially after they can they do some some great work to to control their costs and so on. Um I think we're going to start to see a lot more M&A as well. This is definitely a space to be watching very closely. With silver prices the way they are, have you looked at a different like investment plan now that some projects that probably didn't make sense at 20 $30 silver but say 8090 they they make lots of sense. So have you like have you changed some of your fundamentals of what you look for now? Are you more open to different um exploration stories as this silver price continues to rise? >> Absolutely. I mean, you know, we can rationalize a lot more easily lower grade projects because they're suddenly a lot more um profitable. And then you can also rationalize projects that are uh open pitable, let's say only realistically, economically versus being underground projects because again, yes, depending where open pit can be more difficult to permit, but the costs are very low typically with open pit. So you can you can treat uh much lower grade bore. So yes absolutely Cali these these kinds of things are um becoming more attractive. It does open the the opportunity to you know to invest in in projects that prior were just sort of uh marginal. Uh that's really changing pretty quickly >> with I know Mexico is you know old news a few weeks ago but has that changed again for are you looking at different jurisdictions or like mainly focusing the US and Canada right now because of that or do you think that that will is a long-term play that you know is the great dip to buy in the Mexico space or what are your thoughts? >> You know I do think it is an opportunity frankly uh Mexico is not going anywhere anywhere in terms of silver supply. They're more than 20% of the global supply, which is just phenomenal, like more than twice as much as the next uh biggest producer. You know, regardless, there have been some really interesting changes where silver is um in abundance. And so, they're very positive changes to some degree. You've got some changes in places like Ecuador. Uh you've got some clearly positive changes in Argentina. You've got also clearly positive changes in Bolivia and in Chile. And um I've been as soon as I saw that uh there was a swing to the right in Bolivia, I became bullish on Bolivia. Although I did have a couple of companies that had already been operating there um for for several years. So th those were already in the portfolio. Uh there was one that I was looking to add that was a higher risk exploration play and that it was pre-discovery and that's done really well and uh as soon as I saw that the um administration had changed you know and swung right um I went ahead and and recommended that and that's done really well. So there's a lot of buzz actually I'm going to say probably more than anywhere for Bolivia if you look at South America and uh you know just quickly Cali it's not hard if you and I've followed this closely enough for long enough and that is that if you look at where can you find silver well there's not that many places if you look at a map um you know there's a bit in Europe um and a lot of these are are uh poly metallic deposits so they're really not sort of pure silver investments you have Morocco. Other than that, you have uh the Americas. And if you look at a map of the Americas, it's almost exclusively along the the the western coast of the Americas. It's along the Rockies and the Andes and up into the Yukon. Uh there's not that much in the east. It's pretty rare. You have some to some extent in Australia, but it's all along the west. And so that's that's where you find it. You find it, as I say, in Idaho, in Nevada, Arizona, California, and then if you go, you know, then of course Mexico, and then Mexico, it's going to be again mostly in the west. After that, if you go uh further south, you've got Ecuador, Colombia, you've got Chile, and uh you've got Bolivia. So these are the places where the silver is, and that's where we need to look. And um thankfully most of sort of or a lot of I'm going to say the geopolitical risk in these places um seems to be fading. So it's it's a good time actually. It's a it's a it's a promising time to invest in silver u opportunities in those places because a lot of that risk is seems to be going away. >> We've talked about the the traditional 6040 portfolio hasn't worked for a while. I'd love to know um I'd love to know how your portfolio has been doing in the silver space for the last year. Um especially for new investors that are looking at getting into silver. Some of the returns have been insane. [laughter] >> Well, you're right. In fact, uh so um last summer I uh I hired a young guy who's very um very smart, very mature, um really understands this space. His name is Ted Butler and he's now a senior analyst with us and he handles most of the research and writing for one of uh our two silver newsletters. And interestingly enough, the 60 portfolio was part of he spoke at metals investor forum and at PDAC and interestingly enough that was his focus was the 60/40 portfolio which I won't go into all of the details but he really started paying attention to about four years ago almost and saw that it was broken. I mean 2022 uh just less than four years ago now uh mid say mid 2022 um the 6040 portfolio had its worst uh it had its worst year in I think something like 90 years. It was just an absolute mess. Uh it was I think down something like 17 or 19%. that is if you ask you know uh mainstream that's not supposed to happen. Bonds are supposed to you know zigg when stocks zag and uh that didn't happen. Just having maybe 10 or 15% allocation to gold and silver since then would have absolutely saved a portfolio. So you know uh his talk was the illusion of diversification and I've got to say that you know you can be diversified in different ways. People ask me how how do I diversify and I tell them it's the barbell strategy. Um it you can adjust. So you can adjust your risk very easily. any any way that's how I feel comfortable and um you know I I believe that's probably the way to be diversified for the next probably the next 10 years. Commodities um are really really really historically cheap. So we've seen precious metals move already. I think we we've now started to see the energy sector move with oil uh with nuclear and I think that uh we're going to see the base metal start to move and we're going to see agriculture start to move. Um but you you asked me Cali about how you know the portfolio had performed. Um it was it was our best year last year by far. We had about 30 positions in the portfolio. Most of them doubled. many of them were up uh five times and we even had some that were one was one of them was actually up eight times uh in 2025. So most of that has continued this year. I'd caution people not to expect the kinds of returns that happened last year. That was an outlier. Uh but that said, I do think that we're in a very on an ongoing very positive environment for for silver stocks. The opportunity was silver for the last couple of years. the opportunity ahead is the silver stocks because um their profits have not been priced in yet and I think that's coming. >> What are a couple of your favorite silver stocks that you've seen for the start of 2026? >> You know, if you look at um if you look at what's out there in different categories, I really like Santa Cruz silver. Um this is mostly a Bolivia play. They have one mine in Mexico. They're actually bringing a a a fifth uh source of revenue. Uh the one of one of their sources of revenue is where they have processing facilities and they actually buy um ore from art artisal miners. The other four are mines. Of the other four, one of them is uh going to likely be online later this year. They are the largest underground mining company in Bolivia. They are very significant to the um to the country's economy. They've been operating there for years. Very very wellrun company. I like that one a lot. Skina resources which uh actually presented at the metals investor forum. This is a uh now fully permitted project in BC. uh they really have to just build out over the next year um finish construction and then start producing. This is going to be an open pit project which um is really world class. I mean there are so few like this and really high grade too for open pit. In fact, they're going to be producing it's more gold than silver. However, just the silver is close to 10 million ounces a year, which would be 1% of the global annual silver supply. So, that is really one that is um I'm going to say very notable. You've got uh companies like Abra which um uh on the on the in the range of about uh 300 million ounces of silver equivalent in Argentina. They um recently got approval for a an investment plan that is was issued by the government of Argentina which makes u operating um the mine in Argentina a lot more favorable. They have they've they remove foreign exchange restrictions. They they lower their royalties, their taxes, etc. So that's become uh suddenly very interesting. Um, you've got a company operating in Peru. Ser Pasco recently uh got had some really interesting news that u they're going to get support from the department of defense in the US because they have strategic minerals in addition to silver. This is one of if not the world's largest above ground um mineral uh inventories. And so their cost to mine because the these um this ore is above ground is going to be very very low. So this should be a really profitable operation. And uh like I say the they've gotten some some clear support from the Department of Defense. I think it's to the tune of about $5 million. And this opens the door to them potentially getting a loan uh as they move towards going into production of as much as $300 million again from uh the US which would be interesting because it would be non-dilutive to shareholders and um probably at very favorable rates. So there's no guarantees, but uh some really interesting projects for and companies uh for for your viewers to look at. >> Peter, I won't keep you all day. You've been a wealth of information, but um for close, what would you tell investors um and following to pay attention to I guess like what are some of the key catalysts that you're really going to keep your eye on for the next few months as we go into the summer and spring? Yeah. So, I mean, we I think watch for volatility. I do think that uh the silver price is going to get uh you know, sort of kicked around more up and down than than it has up until the last say few months or so, the last couple of quarters. >> But, uh use that volatility to your advantage. you know, if you're not uh involved that much or if you're not involved at all yet, uh watch it closely and um use dips to buy uh as much for the silver itself as for the silver miners. Um, again, you know, I think I I did what I could to make the case that uh and and for the reasons why that uh the miners are are extremely cheap still the next few quarters and the next couple of years should be really good as the market comes to terms with um you know starting to really price in these phenomenal profits. All we need is for silver to move sideways at 80 or $90 for a couple of years and these companies should really rerate uh to much much higher levels. So you don't need to have silver go from say $80 right now or to to 100 or $120. If these miners can keep mining at I remember one one minor telling me about two years ago, he said, "Peter, if we could just get the silver price above $30, we'd be so happy." [laughter] and here we are at, you know, above $80. So, they should be really happy and um I think their shareholders will be really happy. So, again, use that volatility to your advantage. Um get involved. I think that it's not only not too late, but I think it's crucial to have exposure to this to this sector. >> [music]