Gianni Kovacevic: Silver, Oil to Break US$100, but This is the Real Speculation
Summary
Silver Market Dynamics: The podcast discusses the recent surge in silver prices, emphasizing the correction phase and the potential for silver to close the gap with gold, driven by both its precious and industrial demand.
Investment Strategy: Investors are advised to focus on preservation of capital, particularly in junior mining shares, and to be wary of companies without tangible resources.
Industrial Demand for Silver: The growing industrial applications of silver, particularly in solar and electronics, are highlighted as key drivers for its robust demand growth.
Oil Price Outlook: The discussion suggests that oil prices could return to triple digits due to the loss of US dollar value and historical price ratios, presenting a contrarian investment opportunity.
Lithium Market Potential: The podcast highlights the current bull market in lithium, driven by strong demand growth and the potential of direct lithium extraction (DLE) as a future supply source.
Geopolitical Impacts: The impact of geopolitical tensions, such as China's export controls on lithium, is discussed as a factor that could influence market dynamics and encourage domestic refining capabilities.
Contrarian Investment Themes: The speaker emphasizes the importance of contrarian investing, focusing on undervalued sectors like lithium and oil, which are expected to benefit from future market shifts.
Transcript
[Music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Janney Kvasc investor and author of My Electrician Drives a Porsche. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, it's our we catch up about once a year at this point. I live in Croatia, so nice to tap shoulders and um you know see what's going on in the world. Middle of October here in 2025. Yes, it is time for our pretty much annual catchup and there's a lot going on since we last spoke. When we were emailing back and forth ahead of this, you mentioned one of the topics you're keen to talk about is silver. And since that's so hot right now, I thought we would begin there and start with a broad question. This this record setting run that we've seen in silver this year. What do you think are the drivers behind that? What are you seeing? Well, people that watch this show, they they've probably seen a lot of interviews and a lot of talk about all these themes. And, you know, everyone can sympathize with the fact that it it lags gold, but it catches up. >> Yeah. >> And so, we're seeing that now. Today is a big correction day. It's healthy. I think people have been waiting for it. uh they went straight up and finally the really big money and the really wise people, they've got all their indicators and they you know it it's now corrected a little bit. That's healthy. I I I think that in the longer run it's going to continue to close the gap on gold. We got to a 100 to1 ratio on gold silver that was not going to stand right. So, that has now been um closed and I I think it would be reasonable to to sort of uh anticipate that that's going to close the gap even further. We did pass the old all-time high of silver went to about $53 54 somewhere there and now it's corrected. So, the the the question the real question for all the people that watch this show, I'm guessing they own or or look at Junior Mining Shares is not FOMO, but preservation of capital. Everyone knows in your heart of hearts a lot of companies have no silver. They've got silver in the name. Maybe there's good intent. Maybe there's good scientists and everyone loves a good discovery. But for a for an amazing worldass discovery in any commodity, you don't need a high commodity price. You get rewarded for that. Usually, it's got to be one hell of a bare market that you don't get rewarded. So, if someone finds the new mega discovery in silver, irrespective of the price, that stock's going to go higher. What I'm talking about is those dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of gold and silver juniors, the the penny dreadfuls. They don't have any gold. They don't have any silver. It doesn't matter. You know, it's nice to participate and it's it's things have now moved up, but it's preservation of capital that everyone knows in their heart of hearts is not sustainable. You have to have something. It starts at the top of the pecking order. Uh Rick Rule's been saying lately the the quality companies even though they've doubled they're cheaper they're cheaper today because the margin gold has went up so much higher they're still a buy you know so that's where people need to look I think it's more of a school bus probably drifting higher and then you have just the optionality plays which I love people that know that I've always I've always loved that optionality play particularly companies that have ounces or pounds of copper in the ground um in good management they own the project that's option ality that's never going to expire on you and I love those plays and those have all been rewarded now you know there's a bit of lag there but all these other hundreds of companies just be honest with yourself if there's there if there's no resource and never was a resource and it's been a lifestyle company you know the old saying goes if it walks like a duck if it talks like a duck and it looks like a duck it's a duck be careful preserve your capital and um this this correction is going to be beyond us and then we're we're going to see what happens in the uh the next legs >> I think those are really important words for everyone to remember, especially on days like today. And looking a little bit further at silver. So, we know that it's a metal that has a dual nature. It's got its precious side, and you mentioned the the ratio between gold and silver. It's also got its industrial side that's coming into focus. And I really wanted to go over this with you because it gets over into that critical minerals angle. It feels like we are seeing awareness pick up that this is something that's really key for silver. So I wanted to get your take on silver's critical mineral status and the growing importance there. >> Yeah, that's going to continue. That's going to go from the bottom left to the upper right of your screen demand for that. And we've already seen that where before long time ago it was money and and always had industrial application and that's now been flip-flopped where it's it's more of this industrially important everyone not understand in um in the solar industry and certain in connection points in in in high-tech electronics and and and so on and so forth. That's going to continue to have very strong very robust demand growth. So we will eventually come back to that the real commodity scarcity and people like Keith Nummire I think he was always for years and years and years he would talk about the the geological scarcity you know as I said right now we're now at about what 80 82 to1 something like that gold to silver just geologically speaking that has to close the gap so if you can appreciate that the demand of silver for as money is going to keep having more demand growth but more importantly industrially its application. It's it's used and and consumed can be recycled eventually, but but it's it's out of the system. You know, it would be just more more evidence, more reinforcement that we if the gold price would climb higher and higher, it could we see $100 silver for those reasons? Yeah, that that's how it gets there. And so there's also the inflation trade, the the amount of um spending power that the US dollar has lost, but that is a very important driver and maybe even more important than the money application cuz the more expensive silver gets, you know, some people tend to not buy these coins. Who's going to be buying uh 1 oz silver coins for $100? Less people. >> Exactly. And one thing I've heard just on the industrial note is that as the price rises, we could potentially see large industrial users come into the market and say, "All right, I I need to guarantee my supply of silver. I need to do a deal to to make sure that I have that." Do you think that that is something that that we could eventually see? >> Oh, absolutely. And we we've seen it now this this goofy sort of physical market where people can't even, you know, the get the silver, right? So that that that makes sense to me where if you're have it an application it would make a lot of sense and that's yet another um unconventional let's say consumer because if people were doing before handtomouth that is something that maybe will will that last for a long period of time no but certainly that could exacerbate the situation the next month 6 months in the sort of near to near to medium term >> and if we look at price you mentioned you know that tripledigit silver kind of level is that what do you see in the future? Is that what you're looking toward at this point? >> Well, there's a few reasons for that. So, we look at how much value how much the the US dollar has lost. So, everyone knows that and that's a reason it's inflation and that's why everything else has become more expensive. We look at for the uh the the geological scarcity between gold and silver, right? And then we we look at just this um uh ratio which if it was to get to say 50 to1 or 60 to1 all of that reinforces the case for to see a $100 price on for silver. You know I I don't think anyone would would look at silver back at $10 or $20. I think those days are gone just like you're never going to see a Big Mac at 50. You know it's a a new new pricing paradigm. The one that really doesn't make sense is oil. How can oil be trading at these prices, you know? So, yes, I would I would think that in the near to medium-term, we should see a $100 something uh silver price, but what will the uh oil price be on that same day? I think higher. >> Well, and let's talk a little bit more about that. I I think that people maybe have been disappointed to see oil prices at the levels that they are. What do you think would be a a fair price for oil in the future? Well, I was someone that was talking for years and years and years when I did all these lectures around the world talking about energy and I would always just to frame it for people. I would talk about uh a country like China that has needs and they are now moving away slowly but surely from um the internal combustion engine. So just to recap globally of final energy usage about 20% was the electrification 80% was fossil fuels. Okay. heavily dependent with um with oil and all the things that are refined from a barrel of oil. China's now at 30% electrification uh 70% fossil fuels that's happened very quickly in the last sort of like let's say less than 10 years the rest of the world is running around 22%. Right? So I was someone that was saying if the demand of oil is contracted if you don't have new customers there's going to be some oil that might be stranded there is such a thing as the best situated barrel of oil. there's such a thing as the worst situated barrel of oil. But all that demand supply stuff which does matter in the long run it will matter. You can swipe that aside for now because if you have oil at $60 a barrel and with the amount of the with what's happened to the US dollar and what's happened to a Big Mac and what's happened to everything in your life, everything is more expensive. You know, I would imagine we see ketchup there as well. It was traditionally between 10 and 20 barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold. And that was when 1980 when the gold gold price made its all-time high at that time. And um I've said this the last few times that Ronald Reagan when he was running for president back then he was even talking about that when OPEC raised the price of oil back then January 1980 they raised it to $35. And he was saying what they're telling us is it's not it they don't want to be part of this the US dollar that just keeps losing its value. They want to be able to trade 10 barrels of oil to get an ounce of gold. So right now it's what is it 60 65 68 barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold. For that reason, even though fundamentals matter, but not for now, there's going to be a repricing there. I think oil goes back well above $100. And in the medium term, call me crazy, but you can look back at this interview, but because of these ratios and the loss of the spending power of the US dollar, I mean, could we see oil not based on those fundamentals that I used to talk about supply and demand, but because of these other ratios, could we see oil at $200 a barrel? Maybe. Maybe. I think that's something that you can't discount anymore. So, I think that's something people need to be looking at. It's something that's unloved and it even though I'm someone that has not been a buyer of, you know, oil shares, I'm looking at it. This is a very interesting contrarian trade and I usually sit in the chair of the contrarian. I I I don't like these things. You know, Don Cox would always say, "Never invest in a story on page one. That's the efficient market." You got to look at the story on page 16 that's headed to page one and all these little things. That's why I like them. Uh, and now as a segue into this um really the energy storage, we're talking about batteries. We could talk about sodium ion batteries. Is that going to really have a problem for lithium right now? And of course lithium. This is the unloved. This is the hated commodity. Yet it today as we speak, middle of October, it's in a bull market. People need to be never mind talking about it. You need you as a speculator need to be very very current and you need to have it on your wish list. It should be on a piece of paper on your desk, a little watch list, not on your computer, handwritten, maybe five, maybe 10 symbols, but most importantly, the index, the LIT on on on New York or NASDAQ, it's the lithium and battery tech ETF since April up 90%. Now, that's a bull market and no one's talking about it. And just like it happened with gold and then silver followed, the producers doubled and then all the all these juniors and developers just went like this like a hockey stick. They lag. You're going to see the highest quality names in lithium people that have development projects or projects that could be shovel ready in the next 18 months. I think those are the next junior shares that are going to have a hockey stick hockey tick type a hockey stick type of um action. >> Wow. So, we have we have a lot to dig into here, especially because I don't usually get to talk about lithium on this channel. So, I think that people know that it has become this unloved part of the market as you're saying and this turnaround is happening and people aren't noticing. Can you help me situate a little bit more for people who are less familiar with the sector? Where are we in the lithium cycle at this moment? >> So, we went through lithium 1.0 boom. We went through lithium 2.0 O boom and one has to really look at what is the temperature of the commodity. Okay, we need to have demand if you're it takes care of itself. Now if you've got robust demand on any commodity eventually any over supply takes care of itself. But did you know that keer growth rate the demand growth rate for for lithium is like 20 or 25%. The entire market's going to double in the next 3 and 1/2 years. So you don't have to worry about any overhangs. This is incredible. This is So this will relay into the lithium shares. So where's this lithium going to come from? It's going to come from big oil. We're not talking about the Solars of South America. I'm not talking about Hard Rock Mining. They have put their bet on direct lithium extraction. And that's where I would speculate that's the future of lithium demand. So it that's going to come from a a brine source. It's the often abandoned oil well infrastructure. The briney water cuz the oil is no longer really there is pumped up. You lift what are otherwise relatively low grades of lithium very easily. You lift it 30 or 40x and then you run that really pregnant lithium briney water through a process to give you a lithium product that's going to go into a battery of the future. This is what we're talking about. Rio Kinto, Exxon, Oxidental, Coke Shell, Chevron, don't bet against big oil and gas and they're not interested in hard rock mining. They're not going to go do the Solars even though it's water constrained and you're not going to be able to expand that too much in Chile. This is where the future of lithium is going to come from. That's how I'm speculating. So then as a speculator, if you look at just a barometer, I believe that's where we're going. You have three companies. is a company like Standard Lithium in Arkansas, more than a $1 billion market cap. Uh E3 Lithium, $100 million market cap in Alberta and Lithium Bank has a $25 million market cap in Alberta. Two worldclass projects and the the people that did their research on the last project was Schlumbar like the the gold seal for oil and gas. So, I can speculate that the next step to be shovel ready, lithium bank is going to have a shovel ready project in the next 15 months. The Alberta government just gave them $3.9 million for many of the mechanisms or the the studies they need to achieve the feasibility study. So, we're talking about I think a company like Lithium Bank is going to close the gap on E3 and then E3 and Lithium Bank collectively are going to close the gap on standard lithium. When you have a market cap of $25 million with two world-class projects in what is the strongest commodity growthwise, lithium and you have about 78 million in cash, that's the speculation you need to be looking at. This is something that if you missed it with silver, you missed it with gold, never mind those penny dreadfuls that have no resource, you need to be looking here. This is the speculation you want to look at the rest of 2025 all the way through 2026. What could derail this if we stop using lithium? And what's going to make us do that? Well, how much impact is the sodium ion battery going to have on lithium demand? That's the question. Now, can I just continue to answer that? Answer my own question cuz >> please. Yes, absolutely. Go ahead. So all what I just talked about big oil moving the chains forward DL is the future keer growth rates growing by by uh 25 20 to 25% the lithium market's going to double by 2030 what it looks like after 2030 we'll see but this has no matter what happens with the sodium ion battery it doesn't derail that the next 18 months and it doesn't have to be a lithium 3.0 0 boom or mania just that the market normalizes. It's going to be better for lithium shares. That has nothing to do with what happens there. But CL, the Chinese company, which is the world leader, they do cars, they do batteries, backup battery systems. They've announced that they're going to start commercially producing the sodium ion battery. This is Contemporary Amperage Technology Limited out of China. Huge company. And people will say, well, that's that's the death of lithium. No, it's not because with with the the the backup battery systems are also growing by 20 and 25%. The amount of batteries and battery technology that has to be um developed in the next 15 years, this is not going to be done by CL with the sodium ion battery. Okay. Now, what it looks like uh 2035, you know, frankly, I don't care. I'm speculating in lithium today in October of 2025 because I think that they're the stocks are going to catch up with something like LIT and they're going to they're going to outperform the market. So, am I going to sell my lithium shares when that happens? Absolutely. Do I care what the lithium market looks like in the mid 2030s? No, I don't. But that's the setup right now. And it's, you know, not every company is going to follow that strategy. Now, could that change? Maybe. We'll see what it looks like. We'll have to look at the results and how much commercial success they can have and can they build billions and billions of those batteries and do they stand the test of time. Meanwhile, the whole world an army of people are working on all kinds of batteries uh lithium ion lithium ion phosphate solid state batteries. It's going to be basically many different types of technologies just like there's many different types of cars, many different types of backup battery systems. uh and I I think for that reason it does not derail lithium demand growing by a very strong number. Now, if it's not 25%, I mean, a very strong number. The market's going to grow and the lithium price will recover and that'll reverberate into the highest quality names. But you have to follow DLE, direct lithium extraction, cuz that's where most of the action is going to happen. And I'm going to follow guess who? The oil and gas companies and their investors. And they are way bigger. the amount of money, the capital that follows big oil and gas and companies like Schlumbumberge, you know, they outnumber the mining investors. Sorry, today's right now it's a hot market, but we know that's fickle and half these people are just, you know, they're not here for the long ride. They're here for a short ride, you know, but oil and gas, that's where the big money is. So, I'm going to follow that's why I'm following DLE and lithium in that context. I think that gives a a great idea of your strategy and also your time horizon which I know that when people are talking about companies that also really helps to have an idea of what you're looking at there. Just a little bit more on the oil and gas side. So we understand how you're approaching the lithium stocks right now when it comes to the oil and gas stocks where we're in this scenario where maybe we go to triple digit oil prices again as you're outlining. What would your approach be there? Are you going to be looking to oil and gas companies that are doing DLE or or how are you thinking about it? >> Well, that's going to be simply I would say you you follow the leader. you're going to there's going to be the sort of imagine in the gold space if you were simply following things like new montico eagle and and you know you don't have to do too much analysis on it and the name of the game if which I typically don't buy o big oil shares the name of the game Charlotte is to turn a dollar into $2 maybe three it's very hard to do to double your money in the stock market is not easy but if this happens and I believe it will happen something like a to see 100 on the oil price again Leaving fundamentals aside, I've always been someone that's been very negative on that. I believe in electrification. I I saw what happened in China. I just told you that they they moved a mountain. They're now own 30% of final energy is electrification. And they are slowly but surely going away from fossil fuels, you know. But if that happens, if oil was to go for for these ratio reasons, the loss of spending power in the US dollar and these other reasons, which I think it will, and that's why it's going to go to $100, you know, if you buy a high quality oil name, you're probably going to turn a dollar into $2 and you can sleep very well at night. You're not losing too much sleep on what could happen with their projects or this or that. It's margin. they're going to be making a lot of cash and and all these the the bigger pool of global investors are buying these things and they're following them. So that's how I would analyze it and you don't need it. I mean Warren Buffett and Charlie Mer used to used to talk at his big annual meeting and Warren would how do you analyze a stock and I'm paraphrasing here and Warren Buffett well you know and Charlie says no no no enough of this. You know when the trade is so obvious you don't even need a you shouldn't even need a pencil and paper to write it down which is what I'm talking about. If oil goes to 80 bucks, you're owning a a big oil and gas name. You're going to turn a dollar into two, maybe $3, period, in my view. That that that's that's the trade. If it never moves higher, it's going to be a boring trade, but that's the speculation. So, that's that's as far as I would go with the analysis on that. >> Got it. Got it. So, we we are keeping it simple there. And just one one more question on lithium. A little bit of current events to throw in here because I know that we there's a lot going on with China and the US right now. We've seen China put export controls on on lithium products. I'm wondering if we can get your take on that. If you see that as something that's going to help the market, help prices, or do we enter more of this kind of bifurcated market that we're we're seeing in I think a lot of commodities right now. >> Yes. Well, let's see how that happens. I mean, they're going to they're going to meet now, M. President Trump and G are going to meet, I believe, at the end of October. Correct. At the end of the day, they're going to have to come to some sort of um agreement. And we haven't talked for a while, but imagine this. The greatest political cartoon in history. You have two drunks going down an alley leaning on each other. Political cartoon, of course, I'm being ridiculous. On the back of one of the drunks is China. On the back of the other is USA, and they're leaning on each other. The fact is, for certain things, they're codependent. And to do tit for tat, it it basically is going to hurt both economies. But the I would say the Chinese have a little bit more leverage, a little bit more than than the than the Americans. But at the end of the day, cooler heads have to prevail because if it gets really ugly, you know, they it's an own goal. people that play soccer or play hockey when you score in yourself. But what we've done collectively, the West, Europe, Canada, America, you know, we had the ability to do this. We can mine all the rare earths and all the lithium. You can't refine it, though. Like, what a what a what an own goal that is. Like, how embarrassing is this? Like, we knew this was coming a long time ago. When you're talking about titanium and the the most sophisticated ways to fabricate titanium, you got to talk to Russia. Russia. When you're talking about enriching uranium, we don't do we have to do that. This is Kazakhstan. This is Russia. Can we enrich uranium? Of course. But we don't do it. I mean, it's it's a total own goal. So, if they put a siren on this, something can get done, but it's going to take 2 3 4 5 years. But for now, it at least now they understand there's an alarm on it. if they could even just for a few years, just for a few years keep the wolf from the door, you know, but that is tremendously bullish because it is going to happen. They're not going to be lazy anymore. They're not going to rely on them. We are going to have that the ability to mine but also to refine the these rare uh rare elements or or lithium and the ability to enrich uranium somewhere in the west. It's probably not going to be in the the lower 48 states, but somewhere somewhere friendly they're going to make a deal with someone and or or whatever. But we'll see what happens there. And this is going to be very good for companies that have projects in these jurisdictions, which is why I love Alberta for lithium run by oil and gas companies. To me, the setup is there and and it's going to be from basically all levels of government and industry. the when government gives the green light for these guys to go ahead roll it out on a fasttrack basis, you have a totally different uh financing sort of um appetite from big business and they're the ones eventually are going to build it. It's not going to be run by the US government, all these refining um and enrichment facilities. It'll be run by by companies, but they'll have the business case to do it. >> So, we will get there in the end. I think that's very reassuring to hear. I see what you're laying out there. I think we've done a really good job of covering where you're putting your money right now, what your strategies are. Any final thoughts that you would share with investors before I let you go, I'm really appreciating the contrarian views here. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, so just to recap, we have to, you know, the markets haven't a correction today and some people haven't participated, but we have to do an accounting the the no matter how high a commodity goes, and I used to do this for copper, where I'd say copper could reach a new all-time high, but when it rolls over, and it always does because no one wants to pay long-term high prices for copper, right? And even it goes down 10, 15, 20%. And it stays there for a while. You go back into dispondency a little bit, the market gets bored. People, you know, there's traders in the market and it's you cannot have action like that where gold's going up 2 3% every day forever. That's not going to happen. It's not sustainable, you know. Oh, so if you look at your portfolio and being honest with yourself, if a company has no resource and no prospects to a resource, not even a discovery hole, but they they're they're in the great place or they got close or they're going to they're going to finally spend some of the money, you know, in the ground. And look at that ratio. How much money do they spend on marketing and how much money do they spend on drilling? Not today cuz they're talking a big game. But the last two bull markets we had cuz some of these companies have been floated for you know 20 years even more back in the old 205 206 boom that we had. You know how much money do they actually put in the ground? Cuz today if they don't have anything you know euphoria will eventually wear off and they will they will trend toward to the to their original pl place where they started. So you have to look at that now. Thank be thankful that things have actually been um uh floated higher and a lot of value or wealth has been created. So people that own these shares or own accounts with junior shares, they will rotate that money into other things. And I believe they're going to rotate it into things that that are tangible that are unloved as we talked about. I'm not going to re react that again, but things like oil and things like lithium. >> Well, perfect place to wrap it up. we can see how everything connects. Thank you so much for coming on to share your thoughts today. >> Thank you, Charlotte, and happy invest or successful investing to you. >> Thank you very much once again. I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Janney Kvasc. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below. [Music]
Gianni Kovacevic: Silver, Oil to Break US$100, but This is the Real Speculation
Summary
Transcript
[Music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Janney Kvasc investor and author of My Electrician Drives a Porsche. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Yeah, it's our we catch up about once a year at this point. I live in Croatia, so nice to tap shoulders and um you know see what's going on in the world. Middle of October here in 2025. Yes, it is time for our pretty much annual catchup and there's a lot going on since we last spoke. When we were emailing back and forth ahead of this, you mentioned one of the topics you're keen to talk about is silver. And since that's so hot right now, I thought we would begin there and start with a broad question. This this record setting run that we've seen in silver this year. What do you think are the drivers behind that? What are you seeing? Well, people that watch this show, they they've probably seen a lot of interviews and a lot of talk about all these themes. And, you know, everyone can sympathize with the fact that it it lags gold, but it catches up. >> Yeah. >> And so, we're seeing that now. Today is a big correction day. It's healthy. I think people have been waiting for it. uh they went straight up and finally the really big money and the really wise people, they've got all their indicators and they you know it it's now corrected a little bit. That's healthy. I I I think that in the longer run it's going to continue to close the gap on gold. We got to a 100 to1 ratio on gold silver that was not going to stand right. So, that has now been um closed and I I think it would be reasonable to to sort of uh anticipate that that's going to close the gap even further. We did pass the old all-time high of silver went to about $53 54 somewhere there and now it's corrected. So, the the the question the real question for all the people that watch this show, I'm guessing they own or or look at Junior Mining Shares is not FOMO, but preservation of capital. Everyone knows in your heart of hearts a lot of companies have no silver. They've got silver in the name. Maybe there's good intent. Maybe there's good scientists and everyone loves a good discovery. But for a for an amazing worldass discovery in any commodity, you don't need a high commodity price. You get rewarded for that. Usually, it's got to be one hell of a bare market that you don't get rewarded. So, if someone finds the new mega discovery in silver, irrespective of the price, that stock's going to go higher. What I'm talking about is those dozens and dozens, maybe even hundreds of gold and silver juniors, the the penny dreadfuls. They don't have any gold. They don't have any silver. It doesn't matter. You know, it's nice to participate and it's it's things have now moved up, but it's preservation of capital that everyone knows in their heart of hearts is not sustainable. You have to have something. It starts at the top of the pecking order. Uh Rick Rule's been saying lately the the quality companies even though they've doubled they're cheaper they're cheaper today because the margin gold has went up so much higher they're still a buy you know so that's where people need to look I think it's more of a school bus probably drifting higher and then you have just the optionality plays which I love people that know that I've always I've always loved that optionality play particularly companies that have ounces or pounds of copper in the ground um in good management they own the project that's option ality that's never going to expire on you and I love those plays and those have all been rewarded now you know there's a bit of lag there but all these other hundreds of companies just be honest with yourself if there's there if there's no resource and never was a resource and it's been a lifestyle company you know the old saying goes if it walks like a duck if it talks like a duck and it looks like a duck it's a duck be careful preserve your capital and um this this correction is going to be beyond us and then we're we're going to see what happens in the uh the next legs >> I think those are really important words for everyone to remember, especially on days like today. And looking a little bit further at silver. So, we know that it's a metal that has a dual nature. It's got its precious side, and you mentioned the the ratio between gold and silver. It's also got its industrial side that's coming into focus. And I really wanted to go over this with you because it gets over into that critical minerals angle. It feels like we are seeing awareness pick up that this is something that's really key for silver. So I wanted to get your take on silver's critical mineral status and the growing importance there. >> Yeah, that's going to continue. That's going to go from the bottom left to the upper right of your screen demand for that. And we've already seen that where before long time ago it was money and and always had industrial application and that's now been flip-flopped where it's it's more of this industrially important everyone not understand in um in the solar industry and certain in connection points in in in high-tech electronics and and and so on and so forth. That's going to continue to have very strong very robust demand growth. So we will eventually come back to that the real commodity scarcity and people like Keith Nummire I think he was always for years and years and years he would talk about the the geological scarcity you know as I said right now we're now at about what 80 82 to1 something like that gold to silver just geologically speaking that has to close the gap so if you can appreciate that the demand of silver for as money is going to keep having more demand growth but more importantly industrially its application. It's it's used and and consumed can be recycled eventually, but but it's it's out of the system. You know, it would be just more more evidence, more reinforcement that we if the gold price would climb higher and higher, it could we see $100 silver for those reasons? Yeah, that that's how it gets there. And so there's also the inflation trade, the the amount of um spending power that the US dollar has lost, but that is a very important driver and maybe even more important than the money application cuz the more expensive silver gets, you know, some people tend to not buy these coins. Who's going to be buying uh 1 oz silver coins for $100? Less people. >> Exactly. And one thing I've heard just on the industrial note is that as the price rises, we could potentially see large industrial users come into the market and say, "All right, I I need to guarantee my supply of silver. I need to do a deal to to make sure that I have that." Do you think that that is something that that we could eventually see? >> Oh, absolutely. And we we've seen it now this this goofy sort of physical market where people can't even, you know, the get the silver, right? So that that that makes sense to me where if you're have it an application it would make a lot of sense and that's yet another um unconventional let's say consumer because if people were doing before handtomouth that is something that maybe will will that last for a long period of time no but certainly that could exacerbate the situation the next month 6 months in the sort of near to near to medium term >> and if we look at price you mentioned you know that tripledigit silver kind of level is that what do you see in the future? Is that what you're looking toward at this point? >> Well, there's a few reasons for that. So, we look at how much value how much the the US dollar has lost. So, everyone knows that and that's a reason it's inflation and that's why everything else has become more expensive. We look at for the uh the the geological scarcity between gold and silver, right? And then we we look at just this um uh ratio which if it was to get to say 50 to1 or 60 to1 all of that reinforces the case for to see a $100 price on for silver. You know I I don't think anyone would would look at silver back at $10 or $20. I think those days are gone just like you're never going to see a Big Mac at 50. You know it's a a new new pricing paradigm. The one that really doesn't make sense is oil. How can oil be trading at these prices, you know? So, yes, I would I would think that in the near to medium-term, we should see a $100 something uh silver price, but what will the uh oil price be on that same day? I think higher. >> Well, and let's talk a little bit more about that. I I think that people maybe have been disappointed to see oil prices at the levels that they are. What do you think would be a a fair price for oil in the future? Well, I was someone that was talking for years and years and years when I did all these lectures around the world talking about energy and I would always just to frame it for people. I would talk about uh a country like China that has needs and they are now moving away slowly but surely from um the internal combustion engine. So just to recap globally of final energy usage about 20% was the electrification 80% was fossil fuels. Okay. heavily dependent with um with oil and all the things that are refined from a barrel of oil. China's now at 30% electrification uh 70% fossil fuels that's happened very quickly in the last sort of like let's say less than 10 years the rest of the world is running around 22%. Right? So I was someone that was saying if the demand of oil is contracted if you don't have new customers there's going to be some oil that might be stranded there is such a thing as the best situated barrel of oil. there's such a thing as the worst situated barrel of oil. But all that demand supply stuff which does matter in the long run it will matter. You can swipe that aside for now because if you have oil at $60 a barrel and with the amount of the with what's happened to the US dollar and what's happened to a Big Mac and what's happened to everything in your life, everything is more expensive. You know, I would imagine we see ketchup there as well. It was traditionally between 10 and 20 barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold. And that was when 1980 when the gold gold price made its all-time high at that time. And um I've said this the last few times that Ronald Reagan when he was running for president back then he was even talking about that when OPEC raised the price of oil back then January 1980 they raised it to $35. And he was saying what they're telling us is it's not it they don't want to be part of this the US dollar that just keeps losing its value. They want to be able to trade 10 barrels of oil to get an ounce of gold. So right now it's what is it 60 65 68 barrels of oil to buy an ounce of gold. For that reason, even though fundamentals matter, but not for now, there's going to be a repricing there. I think oil goes back well above $100. And in the medium term, call me crazy, but you can look back at this interview, but because of these ratios and the loss of the spending power of the US dollar, I mean, could we see oil not based on those fundamentals that I used to talk about supply and demand, but because of these other ratios, could we see oil at $200 a barrel? Maybe. Maybe. I think that's something that you can't discount anymore. So, I think that's something people need to be looking at. It's something that's unloved and it even though I'm someone that has not been a buyer of, you know, oil shares, I'm looking at it. This is a very interesting contrarian trade and I usually sit in the chair of the contrarian. I I I don't like these things. You know, Don Cox would always say, "Never invest in a story on page one. That's the efficient market." You got to look at the story on page 16 that's headed to page one and all these little things. That's why I like them. Uh, and now as a segue into this um really the energy storage, we're talking about batteries. We could talk about sodium ion batteries. Is that going to really have a problem for lithium right now? And of course lithium. This is the unloved. This is the hated commodity. Yet it today as we speak, middle of October, it's in a bull market. People need to be never mind talking about it. You need you as a speculator need to be very very current and you need to have it on your wish list. It should be on a piece of paper on your desk, a little watch list, not on your computer, handwritten, maybe five, maybe 10 symbols, but most importantly, the index, the LIT on on on New York or NASDAQ, it's the lithium and battery tech ETF since April up 90%. Now, that's a bull market and no one's talking about it. And just like it happened with gold and then silver followed, the producers doubled and then all the all these juniors and developers just went like this like a hockey stick. They lag. You're going to see the highest quality names in lithium people that have development projects or projects that could be shovel ready in the next 18 months. I think those are the next junior shares that are going to have a hockey stick hockey tick type a hockey stick type of um action. >> Wow. So, we have we have a lot to dig into here, especially because I don't usually get to talk about lithium on this channel. So, I think that people know that it has become this unloved part of the market as you're saying and this turnaround is happening and people aren't noticing. Can you help me situate a little bit more for people who are less familiar with the sector? Where are we in the lithium cycle at this moment? >> So, we went through lithium 1.0 boom. We went through lithium 2.0 O boom and one has to really look at what is the temperature of the commodity. Okay, we need to have demand if you're it takes care of itself. Now if you've got robust demand on any commodity eventually any over supply takes care of itself. But did you know that keer growth rate the demand growth rate for for lithium is like 20 or 25%. The entire market's going to double in the next 3 and 1/2 years. So you don't have to worry about any overhangs. This is incredible. This is So this will relay into the lithium shares. So where's this lithium going to come from? It's going to come from big oil. We're not talking about the Solars of South America. I'm not talking about Hard Rock Mining. They have put their bet on direct lithium extraction. And that's where I would speculate that's the future of lithium demand. So it that's going to come from a a brine source. It's the often abandoned oil well infrastructure. The briney water cuz the oil is no longer really there is pumped up. You lift what are otherwise relatively low grades of lithium very easily. You lift it 30 or 40x and then you run that really pregnant lithium briney water through a process to give you a lithium product that's going to go into a battery of the future. This is what we're talking about. Rio Kinto, Exxon, Oxidental, Coke Shell, Chevron, don't bet against big oil and gas and they're not interested in hard rock mining. They're not going to go do the Solars even though it's water constrained and you're not going to be able to expand that too much in Chile. This is where the future of lithium is going to come from. That's how I'm speculating. So then as a speculator, if you look at just a barometer, I believe that's where we're going. You have three companies. is a company like Standard Lithium in Arkansas, more than a $1 billion market cap. Uh E3 Lithium, $100 million market cap in Alberta and Lithium Bank has a $25 million market cap in Alberta. Two worldclass projects and the the people that did their research on the last project was Schlumbar like the the gold seal for oil and gas. So, I can speculate that the next step to be shovel ready, lithium bank is going to have a shovel ready project in the next 15 months. The Alberta government just gave them $3.9 million for many of the mechanisms or the the studies they need to achieve the feasibility study. So, we're talking about I think a company like Lithium Bank is going to close the gap on E3 and then E3 and Lithium Bank collectively are going to close the gap on standard lithium. When you have a market cap of $25 million with two world-class projects in what is the strongest commodity growthwise, lithium and you have about 78 million in cash, that's the speculation you need to be looking at. This is something that if you missed it with silver, you missed it with gold, never mind those penny dreadfuls that have no resource, you need to be looking here. This is the speculation you want to look at the rest of 2025 all the way through 2026. What could derail this if we stop using lithium? And what's going to make us do that? Well, how much impact is the sodium ion battery going to have on lithium demand? That's the question. Now, can I just continue to answer that? Answer my own question cuz >> please. Yes, absolutely. Go ahead. So all what I just talked about big oil moving the chains forward DL is the future keer growth rates growing by by uh 25 20 to 25% the lithium market's going to double by 2030 what it looks like after 2030 we'll see but this has no matter what happens with the sodium ion battery it doesn't derail that the next 18 months and it doesn't have to be a lithium 3.0 0 boom or mania just that the market normalizes. It's going to be better for lithium shares. That has nothing to do with what happens there. But CL, the Chinese company, which is the world leader, they do cars, they do batteries, backup battery systems. They've announced that they're going to start commercially producing the sodium ion battery. This is Contemporary Amperage Technology Limited out of China. Huge company. And people will say, well, that's that's the death of lithium. No, it's not because with with the the the backup battery systems are also growing by 20 and 25%. The amount of batteries and battery technology that has to be um developed in the next 15 years, this is not going to be done by CL with the sodium ion battery. Okay. Now, what it looks like uh 2035, you know, frankly, I don't care. I'm speculating in lithium today in October of 2025 because I think that they're the stocks are going to catch up with something like LIT and they're going to they're going to outperform the market. So, am I going to sell my lithium shares when that happens? Absolutely. Do I care what the lithium market looks like in the mid 2030s? No, I don't. But that's the setup right now. And it's, you know, not every company is going to follow that strategy. Now, could that change? Maybe. We'll see what it looks like. We'll have to look at the results and how much commercial success they can have and can they build billions and billions of those batteries and do they stand the test of time. Meanwhile, the whole world an army of people are working on all kinds of batteries uh lithium ion lithium ion phosphate solid state batteries. It's going to be basically many different types of technologies just like there's many different types of cars, many different types of backup battery systems. uh and I I think for that reason it does not derail lithium demand growing by a very strong number. Now, if it's not 25%, I mean, a very strong number. The market's going to grow and the lithium price will recover and that'll reverberate into the highest quality names. But you have to follow DLE, direct lithium extraction, cuz that's where most of the action is going to happen. And I'm going to follow guess who? The oil and gas companies and their investors. And they are way bigger. the amount of money, the capital that follows big oil and gas and companies like Schlumbumberge, you know, they outnumber the mining investors. Sorry, today's right now it's a hot market, but we know that's fickle and half these people are just, you know, they're not here for the long ride. They're here for a short ride, you know, but oil and gas, that's where the big money is. So, I'm going to follow that's why I'm following DLE and lithium in that context. I think that gives a a great idea of your strategy and also your time horizon which I know that when people are talking about companies that also really helps to have an idea of what you're looking at there. Just a little bit more on the oil and gas side. So we understand how you're approaching the lithium stocks right now when it comes to the oil and gas stocks where we're in this scenario where maybe we go to triple digit oil prices again as you're outlining. What would your approach be there? Are you going to be looking to oil and gas companies that are doing DLE or or how are you thinking about it? >> Well, that's going to be simply I would say you you follow the leader. you're going to there's going to be the sort of imagine in the gold space if you were simply following things like new montico eagle and and you know you don't have to do too much analysis on it and the name of the game if which I typically don't buy o big oil shares the name of the game Charlotte is to turn a dollar into $2 maybe three it's very hard to do to double your money in the stock market is not easy but if this happens and I believe it will happen something like a to see 100 on the oil price again Leaving fundamentals aside, I've always been someone that's been very negative on that. I believe in electrification. I I saw what happened in China. I just told you that they they moved a mountain. They're now own 30% of final energy is electrification. And they are slowly but surely going away from fossil fuels, you know. But if that happens, if oil was to go for for these ratio reasons, the loss of spending power in the US dollar and these other reasons, which I think it will, and that's why it's going to go to $100, you know, if you buy a high quality oil name, you're probably going to turn a dollar into $2 and you can sleep very well at night. You're not losing too much sleep on what could happen with their projects or this or that. It's margin. they're going to be making a lot of cash and and all these the the bigger pool of global investors are buying these things and they're following them. So that's how I would analyze it and you don't need it. I mean Warren Buffett and Charlie Mer used to used to talk at his big annual meeting and Warren would how do you analyze a stock and I'm paraphrasing here and Warren Buffett well you know and Charlie says no no no enough of this. You know when the trade is so obvious you don't even need a you shouldn't even need a pencil and paper to write it down which is what I'm talking about. If oil goes to 80 bucks, you're owning a a big oil and gas name. You're going to turn a dollar into two, maybe $3, period, in my view. That that that's that's the trade. If it never moves higher, it's going to be a boring trade, but that's the speculation. So, that's that's as far as I would go with the analysis on that. >> Got it. Got it. So, we we are keeping it simple there. And just one one more question on lithium. A little bit of current events to throw in here because I know that we there's a lot going on with China and the US right now. We've seen China put export controls on on lithium products. I'm wondering if we can get your take on that. If you see that as something that's going to help the market, help prices, or do we enter more of this kind of bifurcated market that we're we're seeing in I think a lot of commodities right now. >> Yes. Well, let's see how that happens. I mean, they're going to they're going to meet now, M. President Trump and G are going to meet, I believe, at the end of October. Correct. At the end of the day, they're going to have to come to some sort of um agreement. And we haven't talked for a while, but imagine this. The greatest political cartoon in history. You have two drunks going down an alley leaning on each other. Political cartoon, of course, I'm being ridiculous. On the back of one of the drunks is China. On the back of the other is USA, and they're leaning on each other. The fact is, for certain things, they're codependent. And to do tit for tat, it it basically is going to hurt both economies. But the I would say the Chinese have a little bit more leverage, a little bit more than than the than the Americans. But at the end of the day, cooler heads have to prevail because if it gets really ugly, you know, they it's an own goal. people that play soccer or play hockey when you score in yourself. But what we've done collectively, the West, Europe, Canada, America, you know, we had the ability to do this. We can mine all the rare earths and all the lithium. You can't refine it, though. Like, what a what a what an own goal that is. Like, how embarrassing is this? Like, we knew this was coming a long time ago. When you're talking about titanium and the the most sophisticated ways to fabricate titanium, you got to talk to Russia. Russia. When you're talking about enriching uranium, we don't do we have to do that. This is Kazakhstan. This is Russia. Can we enrich uranium? Of course. But we don't do it. I mean, it's it's a total own goal. So, if they put a siren on this, something can get done, but it's going to take 2 3 4 5 years. But for now, it at least now they understand there's an alarm on it. if they could even just for a few years, just for a few years keep the wolf from the door, you know, but that is tremendously bullish because it is going to happen. They're not going to be lazy anymore. They're not going to rely on them. We are going to have that the ability to mine but also to refine the these rare uh rare elements or or lithium and the ability to enrich uranium somewhere in the west. It's probably not going to be in the the lower 48 states, but somewhere somewhere friendly they're going to make a deal with someone and or or whatever. But we'll see what happens there. And this is going to be very good for companies that have projects in these jurisdictions, which is why I love Alberta for lithium run by oil and gas companies. To me, the setup is there and and it's going to be from basically all levels of government and industry. the when government gives the green light for these guys to go ahead roll it out on a fasttrack basis, you have a totally different uh financing sort of um appetite from big business and they're the ones eventually are going to build it. It's not going to be run by the US government, all these refining um and enrichment facilities. It'll be run by by companies, but they'll have the business case to do it. >> So, we will get there in the end. I think that's very reassuring to hear. I see what you're laying out there. I think we've done a really good job of covering where you're putting your money right now, what your strategies are. Any final thoughts that you would share with investors before I let you go, I'm really appreciating the contrarian views here. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, so just to recap, we have to, you know, the markets haven't a correction today and some people haven't participated, but we have to do an accounting the the no matter how high a commodity goes, and I used to do this for copper, where I'd say copper could reach a new all-time high, but when it rolls over, and it always does because no one wants to pay long-term high prices for copper, right? And even it goes down 10, 15, 20%. And it stays there for a while. You go back into dispondency a little bit, the market gets bored. People, you know, there's traders in the market and it's you cannot have action like that where gold's going up 2 3% every day forever. That's not going to happen. It's not sustainable, you know. Oh, so if you look at your portfolio and being honest with yourself, if a company has no resource and no prospects to a resource, not even a discovery hole, but they they're they're in the great place or they got close or they're going to they're going to finally spend some of the money, you know, in the ground. And look at that ratio. How much money do they spend on marketing and how much money do they spend on drilling? Not today cuz they're talking a big game. But the last two bull markets we had cuz some of these companies have been floated for you know 20 years even more back in the old 205 206 boom that we had. You know how much money do they actually put in the ground? Cuz today if they don't have anything you know euphoria will eventually wear off and they will they will trend toward to the to their original pl place where they started. So you have to look at that now. Thank be thankful that things have actually been um uh floated higher and a lot of value or wealth has been created. So people that own these shares or own accounts with junior shares, they will rotate that money into other things. And I believe they're going to rotate it into things that that are tangible that are unloved as we talked about. I'm not going to re react that again, but things like oil and things like lithium. >> Well, perfect place to wrap it up. we can see how everything connects. Thank you so much for coming on to share your thoughts today. >> Thank you, Charlotte, and happy invest or successful investing to you. >> Thank you very much once again. I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Janney Kvasc. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below. [Music]