Critical Minerals Policy: Extensive discussion of U.S. industrial policy, DoD stakes, fast-41 permitting, and price floors driving capital into domestic mining and processing.
Gold: Bullish outlook supported by central bank and Tether buying, persistent deficits, portfolio shifts by major banks, and potential $5,000+ targets amid all-time highs.
Rare Earths: Focus on light vs heavy REEs, U.S. price floors, and MP Materials' role plus Apple’s recycling deal; highlights need for further support for heavy REEs.
Uranium & Copper: U.S. nuclear fleet needs ~50M lbs uranium vs minimal domestic output; copper’s structural demand from electrification and recent price strength were emphasized.
Junior Miners: Emphasis on people, cap tables, insider cost basis, and share structure to avoid “paper miners” and identify serially successful teams.
Bitcoin: Positioned alongside gold as monetary insurance with finite supply, growing ETF adoption, and complementary to precious metals exposure.
Stock Ideas: Perpetua Resources (PPTA) cited for antimony/gold permitting and strategic backing; MP Materials (MP) as a key REE player; MineHub (MHUBF) for supply-chain digitization; Abaxx Technologies (ABXX) for physically deliverable commodity exchange.
North America Focus: Preference for U.S./Canada/Mexico assets benefiting from FTAs, expedited permitting, and sizeable public-private capital inflows.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Stanberry Investor Hour. I'm Dan Ferris. I'm the editor of Extreme Value and the Ferris Report, both published by Stanberry Research. And I'm Cory McLaclin, editor of the Stanberry Daily Digest. Today we talk with Nick Hajj, editor of Underground Alpha. >> Nick is a very smart guy. He knows a lot about natural resources [music] investing. Get out your pens and pencils. You might want to take some notes because he's going to give us a lot of good details about how he operates his strategy and what kind of companies he looks for. So, let's do it. Let's talk with Nick Hajj. Let's do it right now. Nick, welcome to the show. Very happy that you could be here. >> Oh, it's a pleasure to to be here, Dan. Thanks for having me. So, uh, my co-host and I will pepper you with with questions for the next hour. But, uh, first maybe, uh, you're a new guest on the show. We we haven't spoken with you before, so maybe you could u just tell our listener a little bit about um, what you're doing now and how you got there. >> Sure. Um, well, let's start with the latter and uh, and then I'll get to the the former, how I got here. I came into the newsletter space in the mid 2000s before the global financial crash or crisis happened in 2008 and I was tasked with writing about clean technology stocks. This was 2007 postal alore inconvenient truth. You know, every day there was Chinese solar stocks on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And there wasn't a lot of expertise in wind and solar and geothermal and batteries, and I was young and hungry just out of university. And I became a self-taught expert in those things. Went to all the conferences, shook all the hands, read all the research reports, etc. And um carved out a little niche for myself in in the clean tech space, which lasted precisely until um the economy crashed a year or two later. And I started um learning about other um facets of the economy and market including um monetary policy, bailouts, central banks etc. and ended up gravitating to the natural resource space just as the sort of gold boom was ending in in 2011 and and 2012. So um have spent the past 10 years making money in a in a resource and commodities bare market. um which I'd like to to think, you know, hone my skills and and sharpen my tools. It seems to be a little bit um easier now given the environment that we're in. I worked for a Baltimore based publisher for 13 or or 14 years. I I grew a big division for them. It was called the Outsider Club. And um when I was making them enough money and uh I realized I could I could do it on my own, I offered to buy that division, which didn't work out. And so I left in in 2020 as as many folks did, not just in this space but uh across the US. There was a lot of um quitting of jobs and going out on your own and and that's what we did. So we started Digest Publishing um in 2020 and and we've grown that to you know a decent sized little publisher with a couple of letters that um cover many facets of the business. We're a little different than um some other newsletters out there in that we eat our own cooking. We write about how we're managing our own money. We've actually made money with our own recommendations. No knock to you guys or anybody else, but I see a lot of paper traders and and and newsletter writers with no skin in the game. That is not us. So, that's what I do. I manage my my money with um really an agnostic approach, but I definitely gravitate towards the the natural resources. >> Natural resources is a tough is a tough business and it's very tough to make money um in a in a long bare market. Really tough. Um, some people might even say it's impossible, but but not you would not say that, it sounds like. >> Oh, no. I mean, you know, there were fits and starts um over the past 10 years. Um, you uranium didn't have the greatest run, but we got some rate cuts in 2016 and we had a little bit of a bull market. And yeah, it's largely cyclical, of course. Um, you know, when the tide is rising, all the boats go up like like we're seeing now. But we did we did pretty good over the the course of the past 10 years by um knowing some good folks in the space, getting a real education on how resource companies are formed and financed, learning a lot about share structure and capitalization and the important of pe the importance of people and generally um avoided a lot of the missteps that that folks make when they when they come into this sector. >> Yeah, knowing the people in the space is everything, isn't it? knowing a matter of fact like just for me I've known Rick Rule for 30 years and he's he's introduced me to a lot of people in places like Vancouver and Toronto and um just knowing those people um has made the difference between potentially kind of going on my own and really finding out the hard way that most of these most of the especially the sort of nano cap stuff is really toxic. being really conservative about my natural resources picks and understanding and getting great results with the with natural resources like you know just by picking a few stocks here and there. Um it's knowing the people is it's like and there's two groups of people right there's the really good ones and the really bad ones like the ones you got to stay away from. We don't talk about those but but we talk about the fact that they exist right we [laughter] got you know so >> yeah I mean just to touch on that you know a couple of themes there that I talk about a lot you know some groups of especially micro caps or nano caps as you put it they're not trying to to mine anything but shareholders right they're they're paper miners so yeah >> they pay their salaries and they buy their luxury cars and send their kids to school but they're only raising money to do that to pay their salaries etc. Um, and then there's the really good folks that that Rick talks about, and he's been gracious with his time with me as well. Ever since I was a young lad in this business, going back to those early 2000s when I was speaking at Cambridge House conferences and things like that, Rick always seemed to take a liking to me and um, have spent some time with him and have actually invested alongside him in a couple of deals over the past few years and yeah, he's drilled it in to my head and in many others. every time he takes to the dis he's always talking about you know the Londines and the Rosies and the Robert Freedellands for example and you know success breeds success and and and the serially successful um continue to be successful and find deposits and build companies and um and build mines which is really tough to do you know um not to dive right into it but something like one in a thousand targets turns into a mine it's really really tough to do and and even if you find a good deposit there's so many extraneous factors from government to local population to red tape to cost of capital to permitting that you know it takes sometimes 20 30 plus years to go from first drill to to first pour >> right yeah I was going to touch on that too I mean the the one in a thousand and then you're waiting decades so it's um >> well I'll tell you a funny story right like um we're here in in 2025 and critical metals are all their age you guys might have seen antimony in the in the headlines recently as as one of those critical metals that the government or the US doesn't produce any >> um any amount of. We were invested in in a company back in 2012 that we sort of knew was going to be the only source of of US antimony production. That company was called Midas Gold. It's now called Perpetual Resources. It's uh it's John Paulson's company. He's the largest shareholder, the the billionaire. And you know, folks like Rick and others were saying, "Nobody's gonna nobody wants this stock at 30 cents. Nobody wants this stock at $3. they're going to be fighting over it that $30. You wait and see. Just going back to that cycle that we were talking about earlier. And lo and behold, that's exactly what's happened. So, um, that project went into permitting. It's in Idaho, by the way. And I always tell this story, the year my daughter was born, 2016, my first daughter. And they just got their permit this year, and she's nine years old, obviously, if she was born in 2016. So, nine years in permitting. But more importantly, um, the Department of Defense is writing checks to Perpetual Resources. JP Morgan, um, and Agniko Eagle just put in $250 million. And so the smart money is now here. Dan, >> off the top of your head, do you know like the share price uh, appreciation in that period of time? >> Yeah, for sure. I mean, just even in the past 12 or 18 months, it was a three or4 dollar stock in Toronto and it's over a $40 stock as as we speak. >> Wow. Yeah, it's been quite a, you know, call it year and a half, you know, 12 or 18 month period generally. And lately, of course, you know, gold had a has had a little uh, you know, hiccup here as it normally does, but really compared to the type of corrections that resources normally see, it really hasn't been that, you know, it's been nothing, right? I mean, it's it's a it's a blip. And yet I still hear people telling well it you know it's over or you know that that's it it's it's a bubble even I saw but but but mostly just it's over. I'm short gold this is you know this is only going to end one way and on the one hand of course a ballistic price chart doesn't usually resolve by going sideways right so there's a point there but fundamentally fundamentally how do you bet against gold from here? I I don't know. Fundamentally, I don't see it. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to to pick up on that. I think you saw a textbook correction over the past 30 or 45 days. You know, gold up around 42 4,300 settling down to to 39 or 4,000. I mean, that's textbook 10% correction. And um as we record today um you know, gold's had a $100 plus week. It's last time I looked at the chart it was $4,200 gold and $53 silver. So, I would point to the fundamentals as well. you know, don't tell the central banks that it's over. They just bought the most gold last month that they bought all year, for example, right? China is still buying. Brazil bought many tons of gold. Um, and other people see it as well, like Tether, the large stable coin, is now buying as much gold as some central banks. I think they're buying like two tons a month at some point this year. And they've even acquired uh gold royalty companies. So some of these big um institutions like countries, central banks and and Tether, which by the way has, you know, a greater market cap and and and is buying more US bonds than like South Korea, for example. I mean, that's a big entity for them to go into into gold and make gold acquisitions. Yep. I don't think the fundamentals are over. And and I could keep going on this for a while because the debt just hit $ 38 trillion. I don't see that slowing down um at all. Doge was an absolute failure. The debt continues to rise. The M2 money supply continues to rise. We've just got a a Federal Reserve rate cut and the market's pricing in another one for the next meeting and and on down the line. Right. So, um the fundamentals are are certainly there and and the central banks can continue to buy and and so do those Asian nations that um covet gold. They're still buying as well. >> Yeah. I mean, of course, we don't know, but I bet real money Scott Bent is has it still has it as his largest position. You know, I think he said that like um maybe last November or or even earlier, maybe like you know, summer or so of 2024. Did we find out about that? I think and I think >> I heard him just a couple weeks ago, Dan say somebody asked him about the gold price and he said, "Well, there's more buyers than sellers." and say much more than that, but that >> that was enough. Do you have a uh Nick, do you have a >> a price in mind for gold in the next say year or two? >> Oh gosh, that's a you know, crystal ball type questions. So, I mean, it's largely depends on uh well, I won't say largely, some of it depends on government actions, right? You you you listen to Rickards or these other folks and how they're going to, you know, adjust the price of gold to to pay off some amount of the debt. you know, those are sort of black swan crystal ball things that are that are sort of tough to to predict by their very nature. That's what a black swan is. Um, given what gold has done in the past 12 or 18 months, given that, you know, we just talked about its 10% correction, it could have gone all the way down to 3600 and then still been in a bull market and did not. Um, I don't think there's um, you know, and and the other thing is on a on a technical basis, all-time highs is like the most bullish technical indicator there is, right? Because there's there's no resistance ahead and and there's only blue sky. So, um, but trees don't grow to the sky is is something I I say a lot. And, um, I'm I'm hedging as as as as I'm forming the answer to this question. You know, I I think five to $6,000 gold in the next 12 to 18 months isn't sort of an unreasonable type prediction. You've seen Goldman Sachs come out and say that like um and Morgan Stanley as well has been increasingly bullish on gold saying that you know just if 1% of the of the world's reserve capital sort of goes into gold you'll see it go to to $5,000 and um it's still underowned, right? That's another thing that that Rick says a lot, but that's because it's true. So you just saw Morgan Stanley this year sort of augment their 6040 portfolio, right? from 60% equities and 40% bonds to to including some mix of gold in there. That is something new that that hasn't happened before. And and that brings in those generalists and and retail investors and and financial adviserss who are typically adverse to holding some percent of gold in the uh their clients accounts because they don't get paid for it as much. Um we're seeing that start to change. And so I think there's still drivers and and buying ahead that could take you to 5,000 bucks. Sorry for the long answer. >> No, that's a good We like long answers around here. >> No, that's great. I know it's a tough like thing to pin a pin a number on in a time and and but I was more interested in in what if the drivers how long the drivers are still going to be in place, you know, and and that retail piece of it seems like it's still not really even close to that. Um, from from my view, I don't know what you think about that, but >> yeah, I mean, I agree. They see the the folks buying uh Costco gold bars, you know, folks that know what I do, like, you know, my dentist or, you know, other parents and my kids and stuff starting to ask more about about gold and and things like that and some of the headlines that they're seeing about rare earths and the government investing in mines. So, it's tough because I look at it every day, right? and it's so ingrained in me and and has been for the past 10 or 15 years that, you know, I sort of I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid, but I see the headlines and I sort of know what's going on. So, it's interesting when I see and hear people that aren't typically interested in that stuff start to ask about it. So, I agree that that's coming. And and one other thing I would add is um I already mentioned Tether, but you I was given talks at conferences eight and 10 years ago talking about how the crypto crowd was my my line was these um these crypto soldiers are training for the gold army, right? They were they were they were learning about things like fiat currencies and what that meant and they were learning about things like counterparty risk and and what that meant and and I think there's still some of those folks and some of that money that crypto money that that's going to come into the gold space that could be another driver as evidenced by the the tether example that I sort of already cited. >> That's a good point and it's an interesting comparison gold and bitcoin isn't it? Because some people call Bitcoin you know the electronic uh digital gold. Sure. as they call it. Um, and one analyst we've had on the show, um, a quirky, interesting, brilliant guy named Hugh Henry, um, he was talking about the difference between the total market cap of Bitcoin versus total market cap of gold and the potential for those to achieve parody as a reason to be more bullish on Bitcoin than on gold. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I think Bitcoin certainly has a lot of potential. Do you do you agree or disagree? >> Oh, I I agree. I'm a I'm a Bitcoin owner and I own it in the same way that I own gold. So, I have my insurance gold and I have my insurance Bitcoin that's in my safe next to my guns and bullets, as I say. Um, it's, you know, I I don't touch that stuff. I don't want to sell it. I don't trade it. I just stack it, right? There's a box of gold and then there's a USB stick or a a cold cold storage wallet as it's called that that has my Bitcoin and then I layer it into my accounts as well. So, I'll own the GLD and uh and I'll own one of these Bitcoin ETFs that has popped up in the in the past 12 or 18 months, you know, lots of and which have been the fastest growing ETFs, by the way. So, yeah, I own both of them for for the same reasons, right? And and and that's why I don't get like the Peter Schiff arguments about gold versus Bitcoin and I and I don't get the you got to do one or the other. Like, you should totally be doing both. and I do and and that's what I've been preaching for a long time and and I own them in sort of similar ways as I just laid out there. But yeah, just to reiterate, I mean, you know, God or whatever you believe, the universe only created so much gold. It's it's in the ground and it takes a certain amount of capital and human ingenuity to get it out of the ground and extract it. And and similar with Bitcoin, the way it was designed with the 21 million um cap, you know, some people argue that, you know, that could potentially be augmented or lifted and you could get some dilution. But just taking it what it is, it's it's a finite currency. It's anti- fiat. It's not controlled by the government. It can't be printed. We're not handing it out. And it gets increasingly harder to produce the same way gold has gotten increasingly harder to produce as we've, you know, mined out all the high-grade stuff. and we've got to go deeper and and lower grade. It's the same with the Bitcoin havingss and the the the increase in the calculations and the energy needed to produce those bitcoins. So, in my mind, I mean, that's a that's a two-track road. It's one is gold and and one is Bitcoin and and I own them both for sure. >> Yeah. You'd think that either or mindset like especially you mentioned Peter Schiff, which um you know, we we should have him on the show. I I hate to talk about the guy when he's not here, but I would think the idea of competing forms of money would appeal to someone who is really into gold, right? >> Well, and really and really into capitalism and libertarianism as well. I mean, competition is key. Yeah, for sure. >> Well, he's got, you know, again, you're talking about a gentleman that's not here. He does have a problem. >> Yeah. We don't That's right. >> We'll we'll we'll talk to him about it someday, maybe. >> I just saw him last week in the New Orleans Investment Conference, by the way. There was a lot of good folks down there. >> Yeah, man. And I haven't been to that thing forever. Um I went to it was the first thing I ever did with um when I worked for Agora Financial long long ago in like 1998 and uh it was the last year that Jim Blanchard was there. Oh, >> he died he died some months after that. >> At least you got to see him. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I got to meet him. Um anyway, just little blast from the past there. Y >> um but yeah, it's a great event. I I um I'd love to I'd love to go back there sometime. So, let's talk about um you know, we we we have we we have we all have thoughts about gold, but but really your expertise is really in investing in in the mining se, the natural resources sector. Within that general category, do you have any kind of a specialty or a focus or a uh you know just a strategy generally? Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so at the end of the day, I I like to build myself as a generalist, but I do have a specialty in um evaluating share structure and people as it pertains to the smaller end of the spectrum of of the mining world, that is junior miners. We talked a little bit about the the people already. So, um, I was, uh, lucky enough to to get a mentor in the space, you know, 13, 14 years ago, who taught me the ropes, just like you were saying about Rick Rule, showed me how companies are capitalized and, uh, put together. And so, my expertise, if I have to put myself in a in a box or or into a corner, would be, um, I like to say I'm I'm a BS detector. Uh Rick Rule doesn't like when I when I cuss on the air, but I can look at a company. I can sit with the the management for for 10 or 15 minutes, go through the the structure and the slide deck and sort of have a good sense of what their intentions are and and if it's a well ststructured company and and I can take you through some of those things if you'd like, but that's primarily how I've been trained in the space because I'm not a geologist. I can't see underground. and and while I know about the different metals and minology and host rocks and different types of deposits and jurisdictions and I've learned all that over the past 10 or 15 years and what I really look at first when I'm introduced to a new company is I go right to the to the either in the presentation the share structure slide or on the website the stock info slide and I want to see you know how many shares are are outstanding to whom were they sold at what price and did they come with warrants and and how were those warrants priced and and when do those warrants expired? What's the this is an important one. What's the insider ownership and and did they pay real money for those shares? You know, in a lot of these early stage junior mining deals, um the founders can issue themselves shares at any price they they want. I mean, I've seen deals that were built on a house of sand at 0.01 cent per per share for the founders stock, right? I mean, just to so your readers understand because I we're getting a little bit granular. You know, if somebody's got 01 cent paper or even one cent paper, just to make the the math easier, at 2 cents, they've doubled their money. They don't have a lot of incentive to stick around and and and build a company alongside the other shareholders that they've raised money from, right? You wonder sometimes where the selling is coming from in those deals. And and it's those largely it's those early shareholders. And uh also important is where those shares are held. So you need them to be registered and held in their name. They need to be reporting insiders. None of this stuff where um they're in their wives name or their their mother's name that don't have to report. And again, I'm getting a little bit granular, but that you asked what my experience. >> We like granular do >> and that's that's what it is. Like I'm not content even just to see that share structure slide. I want the CEO or the CFO to email me a full cap table. That's something you your listeners can ask for. Let me see the full capitalization table. Every share that was sold at what price and and and who you think owns it. And so that's super important in the in the early stage mining space. And then back to people is you know have they done it before? This is um a hard industry as you said. It's tough to make money and unless the commodity prices are really going in your favor. And so you have to have expertise in multiple things to to run an early stage mining company. You have to be good at the metals obviously. And you got to have some sort of mining or ge geologic or engineering background. But you also have to be good at capital markets and know when to raise money and know how to keep your share structure intact and not blow it out in case you need to pivot and know where that next round of funding is coming from because um you know these stocks aren't making any money before they produce anything. They're just burning money either you know drilling or developing or or whatever it is. So, you need to make sure that those people are are able to do that. And hopefully, um, they've done it before, right? Um, you know, if you're building a nickel mine in in Brazil, I don't want you to be coming from, uh, a crypto miner in Toronto, you know what I mean? Like that sort of stuff. And you sort of see that in the early stage um [clears throat] world because you get these different booms and busts like we had cannabis and then we had crypto and and and some of those folks those you know entrepreneurs that they're serial entrepreneurs they're not serially successful they just you know jump to the latest sector and and raise money. So um yeah to wrap it up there that's my expertise is in evaluating people and share structure. You have reminded me of one of the most remarkable slides and moments in a in a mining company presentation that I've ever seen in you know almost 30 years more than 30 years actually of investing in mining companies. Um, I've covered Altus Minerals since 2009 and I think they're some of the very best people in the business. And they did something I'd never seen anybody do before, which is they produced a slide that called out the contrayclical nature of their capital allocation, right? They allocate when when the capital has dried up and the pricing is really great and then they harvest when the pri you know when the pricing soarses and it's sort of great the other way and uh you know it has risen dramatically and I I've never seen anyone do that but that's what you want right you you want somebody who can allocate like that over a long period of time >> true contrarians are hard to find >> yeah and and what is Rick told is like Like the one thing Rick has said, Rick Rule has said many, many times over the years, you're either a in natural resource investing, you're either a contrarian or a victim. And of course, what's the reality? The reality is that the capital, it's just it's stingier. It's just not there, you know, near the bottom when you really ought to be allocating it. But it pours in, you know, when another thing Alas did was show me the incentivization prices like I think they did copper actually and they pointed out well at the time they said the incentivization price was probably about five bucks a pound. Meaning that's when capital should be employed to to produce the stuff, right? But they said realistically though the capital comes pouring in double the incentivization price, right? So, you know, 10 bucks. That's when we're going to get that moment like you said. You know, they're clamoring for it at $40 a share. They could have bought it at 4 cents or 40 cents, but you know, it's um it's human nature, isn't it? It's just the way it goes. >> I was just going to say human nature is is incredible. It it really doesn't change. You know, um biology evolves, but but I'm not sure psychology does. And um you know, one of the one of the folks uh that I was fortunate to befriend in the newsletter space was was Mr. James Dyn, I don't know if you remember that gentleman or not. And you know, he wrote the book on on mass psychology, which is definitely on the shelf right behind me here. And yeah, booms and busts and and tulips and all that. Human nature is is tough to fight against. >> Yep. But if you can do it, um, you know, there's a there's a fortune to be had. And you know it's it's that way to some extent in the stock market but it's it's a the point here is that it's an essential skill as a natural resources investor right. >> Absolutely. >> Sure. Um >> this might not be a psychology point but in terms of capital pouring in a lot of news recently or last couple months with the government US government sure >> taking stakes in companies. Um, what do you make of that trend? And I mean, is it healthy? What do you What do you make of this sudden rush from from the government to get involved here? >> This is going to be a real long answer, so get your get your drink. I think I'm going to wet my whistle even before I tackle it. >> Okay. All right. Just getting you going here. Yeah. I told you that I started my career in the clean tech space um in the in the United States and and in fact in the in most of the developed world we wanted to cut our emissions and um to do that we were content to export um emissions intensive industries specifically mining and the refining and and smelting and and production of lots of the commodities that we need as a country for um our industry and and for our defense. Um, I'm talking about lots of metals, uranium and copper and and rare earths. So much so that over the past two decades and we've lost lots of production and we've lost lots of expertise. Like uh the US has something like uh 100 nuclear reactors give or take. We use something like 50 million pounds of uranium a year. You know, as recently as 2016 2017, we were mining precisely this amount of uranium, zero. and we were content to to import that from other places. And the same thing happened with um rare earths and and other critical minerals minerals and and metals. I I already mentioned antimony. You know, some you know 65 to 85% of the production and perhaps more importantly the refining and processing uh of these metals was outsourced to to China. So what happened was the the world's emissions didn't go down. we missed every cop target there was, right? Because China continued to to emit. All we did was uh export the production and expertise and and this is sort of something that I've staked my entire career on and and ultimately has led me here to speaking with you gentlemen is I saw very clearly after the the global financial crisis when I started learning about metals and and resources and um uranium and all those sorts of things. And I started scratching my head thinking, well, if you guys want to build more nuclear and we need more clean energy, it's going to need a lot of copper and it's going to need a lot of steel. Like all that stuff needs very real input, stuff you can drop on your foot. And there was no capital uh monetary capital or brain power capital being applied to that in the in the western world. Like I said, we were content to export that all out. And that's, you know, largely what's led us to to where we are now, right? Where um like again going back to Rick, either the prices have to go up or or the lights go out. And that's across many commodities because um the US is reliant on them. So antimony for example, the US doesn't produce any of but we need it to um for military uniforms. It stops things burnings, right? We need it for missile guidance systems. We need it for other critical applications. And the same thing with these other metals. And so for me, it was always one of those when, not if questions. And so um over the course of the past decade, it's still been tough to permit these projects. I gave you the example of nine years. My daughter's nine years old and and one of the projects I was invested in went into permitting the year she was born. We weren't permitting these things. We weren't funding these things. And now you've got uh the Department of Defense, the military complex, and the United States government with their backs against the wall. So, uh it's sort of like a coiled spring. And that's also again why the one of the reasons why the resource market is cyclical. You get that underinvestment. Uh you get that lack of brain power and and commitment to the industry. And then the cure for low prices is what it's always been, low prices, right? So you had that bare market and and that's now played out and then you have Trump come into office and and start a trade war with China and China says, "Okay, pal, like we're going to turn off the spiggots to to the rare earths and and these other metals." And you get what you've seen over the past 12 to 18 months with copper going from four to six. Um and gold and silver doing what it's doing and you know the explosion of not not necessarily rare earth prices, but certainly the equities related to to rare earths. And so, yes, what we've seen now is a capitulation to to our side, you know, um the folks who were previously scolding us and and and and smacking our noses are now patting our tushes, right? I mean, and and you want me to talk about if it's socialism or not, I think, but I don't really care because um I'm government agnostic. I don't lean left or right. I I I I worry about myself. I'm a true individualist. And so I sort of knew in a grand sense how this was going to play out. I couldn't tell you exactly how um or when, but I think we're seeing that now. It's playing out now and it's playing out by the government uh almost being forced to to do many things, right? To to cut the red tape, to expedite the permitting, which is what we're seeing with the fast 41 permitting and and other tracks like that. I mean, good lord, I've seen projects permitted in 30 or 45 days that would have taken a year in in in in previous administrations or in previous years in the US. And then um there's a couple other things going on. You mentioned they're taking direct stakes. They've done that with a number of companies now. MP Materials on the rare earth side, Trilogy Metals on on the base side with the large Amler Road project up in Alaska, Lithium Americas, they've they've taken a direct stake in and so that when those announcements come like those stocks have doubled and tripled and quadrupled and secupled in a matter of days and weeks like I think Trilogy Metals went from something stupid like $2 or $3 to eight or nine dollars in in three or four days after the government made that announcement. So, you know, if you weren't ahead of the puck, I'm sorry, but uh you know, a nod to my Canadian Resource friends, you got to be Wayne Gretzky and sort of know where where it was going to go and and and and that's where it is. So, and then the last thing is that the price floors. So, not only are they cutting the red tape, not only are they taking direct investments, in the case of the rare earth steel, they even set a price floor. Um because again, going back to the China in the beginning of this answer, we were content to externalize all those costs. And believe me, there's costs associated with mining and refining and doing it cleanly, right? You want to do it in the US, you got to add carbon scrubbers and you can't dump the the the effluent in the river like they do in China, right? You got to those costs, those external costs of the past two decades, we now have to internalize in the US. And so if we want to do that here, if we want to produce those metals and we want to refine those metals, it comes at a higher cost because we're not just going to spew the the the byproducts into the air and into the waterways. We have to account for those costs and and and somebody had to do it, right? So and and really to get meta or philosophical on you, you know, one of the reasons I believe the US is in the reserve currency and will continue to be is something I heard Dennis Gartman say in my formative years. two words, aircraft carriers. And if you want to keep your military as as strong as it is, you know, the strongest, most wellunded military in the world, you need all those inputs, right? All the things that that I've just gone through. And when you have a trillion dollar military budget, throwing 400 million to empty materials doesn't really uh seem like that big of a deal. >> Sorry that again, a long answer, but uh that's what's happened over the past decade. And and here we are. >> No need to apologize. As I said, we like long answers. They tell us a lot. >> Yeah, you explained it all in just a couple minutes there, which is which is great. Yeah, it's uh >> Yeah, >> it's been a long it's been a long journey to this point as as you point out. Yeah, >> for sure. Yeah. 15 year overnight success. Yeah, >> that's right. It's interesting. Um just as you spoke and you talked about, you know, uh your Canadian friends getting ahead of the puck like, you know, Wayne Gretzky. Um, obviously you can't do that after the price has run up. As soon as they announce these things, it's like over if you don't own the shares, but they did um, you know, part of the the big beautiful bill. This is all part of the big beautiful bill and it started this um, strategic what's it called? The office of strategic capital or something like that at the Pentagon that is doing out in the first round a hundred billion dollars and I I bet there will be more after that. And that's what all these things are with MP materials and all the rest of them. Um, but they made a list, didn't they? They published a list of what they were calling the critical materials. Antimony's on there and gallium and germanmanium and lithium and nickel and graphite and you know rare earths. >> Yes. >> And and a bunch of them. >> Um, so one could I mean I'm just spitballing, right? We're just a couple guys talking here. one could potentially put together an OS, you know, an office of strategic capital portfolio, right? You could look for domestic situations, um, where you're, you know, producing or exploring or doing something with with each of the metals on that list. >> Just a thought. >> I think banks are are doing that. So, in the past month, I think you saw JP Morgan announced a trillion with a T, a trillion dollar um investment. Not not all of that is going directly into the miners. Some subset of it is, but you know, they're talking about a trillion dollar investment in the critical metals and the infrastructure and the processing and all that. So, I think you're going to see, you know, bolt-on and and additional capital start coming into the sector in addition to the government. You know, there's been other um large money groups like ABN Capital announced a fund recently. I'm pretty sure the Qataris announced a fund recently. So, yeah, that money is is going to come. The the the the generalists, the banks, the folks who haven't been in the sector um are going to come into it and they are coming into it with these announcements that we're seeing. And so that's what's going to give the sector continued buoyancy and you know with any with any luck actually make a dent in uh how far behind we've gotten as a country here in the US. So um one other thing you said Dan is you know it's tough to get ahead of the puck. I I don't think you're behind it yet. I mean certainly it was good to to to be in relatively ahead of it but the inertia is so great that like I said you know we need 50 million pounds of uranium we produce less than one right so >> totally agree yes >> so much more has to come that um this is something that >> you know uh can I don't want to say explode but that can go up for many years to come. I mean, we had a 12 or or 15year base out, a der of capital, a der of expertise, and that's not solved with a couple of, you know, couple of hundred million dollar government checks. Um, you have to have real action, right? And you have to have continued investment. And there's things people aren't even thinking about yet. Like everybody, not everybody, but we've mentioned MP materials here a few times, and that was a really big deal, right? Like I mentioned the price floor, I mentioned the capital investment. The other thing that happened that same week was Apple signed a big deal with MP Materials to start recycling um the rare earth materials. That was a couple of hundred million dollar deal too. What a lot of generalists don't get is uh and people who haven't spent a lot of time in the sector is the nuance, right? So just taking rare earths as an example, you know, there's a group of of a dozen or more rare earth elements that are divided up into heavy and and light rare earths. And it's mostly the heavier rarers, the europium, the yitrium, the disprosium that are needed for these military applications um of which MP materials doesn't produce any. Those are NDPR guys. They're neodymium praisodmium guys. Those are the the light rarers. They produce precisely zero heavy rare earths. So um we still got to like solve that problem. And if it took 400 million and a price floor for the light rarers, what is what are the heavy rare earths going to going to look like? And so I think that's where you I think that's where you'll see additional capital and government support and some of these uh individual or private investment funds like JP Morgan, you'll start see them going into those avenues and by creating a portfolio is which is what you alluded to is that's what I'm trying to do and then and that's what I have been doing. So positioning in these companies that can solve these problems that have assets um maybe not in the US but in you know a free trade agreement companies. I think that um you know geology spans borders and you're not going to be able to solve all our problems with the the resources that we have in the United States. I think you'll see um money from the government, the US federal government go into assets that are located in Canada and and Mexico and and other South American countries because it's easier to produce there. It's a faster timeline to produce there. Um and we can uh make inroads through these trade negotiations that we're having. So, um yes to to to what you're saying and and that's what I've done. I have a portfolio of copper, nickel, base metals, rare earths, the companies that um I think can help solve this problem and that have already received um government support. Like I'm in a tiny prospect generator in it's a US prospect generator primarily with assets in Nevada. There's one in Oregon where you live and and one in Idaho. And this is a tiny company. I'm not even going to mention the name. less than a hund00 million market cap, but they were already able to secure fast 41 permitting for one of their assets in Nevada. And so, yeah, um, and I think that's one of my goals is to get in those projects, get in those those stocks that have a decent shot of of getting that government support and that fast 41 permitting. I think that's what you were alluding to there. Well, I just suspected that of all the people in the world, Nick Hajj would be able to flesh out the idea that you could build a portfolio. I mean, you know, that's why we're talking to you, Nick. Exactly. You're exactly right. >> I appreciate that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I um I actually just this morning saw a little presentation by um Brent Johnson at Santiago Capital that he he went into the whole thing about the office of strategic capital if I'm getting that right OSC or OCS something like that at the Pentagon and that money actually it comes out of Pentagon XM bank ex you know export import bank and goes through asset managers which I didn't know that that's interesting to me Because, you know, normally you would have government bureaucrats throwing money at their friends or whoever else, but the money is going to asset managers and they raise money and then the government gives them money too. Um, you know, they'll match what you can raise up to a certain amount and that, you know, their incentive to deploy it is a whole lot better than a bureaucrat, right? >> Sure. >> So, it if if and you know what's his name? um the guy who founded Cberus Fineberg um is is behind a lot of this Steve Fineberg. So you know one of the biggest PE firms on the planet they've you know had controlling stakes in like national defense related companies and stuff. So, so you know, I'm not crazy about the idea of this, you know, it's almost fascistic, right? Um, you know, fascism, the the root means to bind, right? So, they want to fascism wants to bind, you know, government with business and everything together. That's the idea behind that word. I'm not crazy about this, but it has a prayer in hell of working. And it's a followable. you can follow it and form a strategy as an investor based on this. And I, you know, talking to you is one of the things that that we can do to help investors do that. Um, and plus I've got my own designs. I heard I heard that pitch this morning. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I like this." You know, if the government insists on throwing money at something, like I insist on getting some of it into my pocket and into my pockets, right? >> You know, it's it's like you say, it's agnostic. It doesn't make you a Trump supporter or detractor or anything like that. And that's not important. What's important is recognizing the situation in the world and and uh taking care of yourself and your loved ones and your readers and and everybody, you know, based on that, right? >> I don't think I could have said that any better. That's very close to to my worldview, right? I I deal with it as it comes. In my 20s, I think as many people are, you know, I was young and full of piss and thought I could change the world and I quickly learned that I couldn't. So, I just take the world as it comes to me. And, you know, it it might be messed up. I got a sign behind me that says investing in Bizarro World, right? That's that's the name of my podcast for a shameless plug. But, yeah, I don't try to change it. I just read and react like a like a good defensive corner or something like that. >> We knew so much more when we were young, didn't we? >> We sure did. [laughter] >> I knew so much. Now, I don't >> It's amazing how much Yeah. You don't know. You >> thought we knew. That's right. >> Yeah. [laughter] We know less and less now. That's right. >> Yeah. Yeah. We know less with each passing year. Um, so, okay. Are there any names? Like you mentioned a little company so small you don't want to name it. You got anything you do want to name for our listeners? It can be one name. I don't, you know, anything off the top of your head that you really, you know, have been excited about recently. >> Oh man. Um, sure. I'll do it and I'll tie it all together. So, and biased again. I told you at the top, I eat my own cooking. I invest in these companies. There's a company called Minehub. M I N H U B. So, it's more of a technology company. They don't mine anything. What they do is they um track things. So, um they partnered with the largest copper mining company in the world, Codelco, and then they onboard all the Cadelo's suppliers and partners, right? Their fuel suppliers, their transporters, their trucking contractor. And so they can get a sense in in data terms um I won't say on a blockchain but in in digital terms how much fuel is being burned how much emissions are being generated how much concentrate is being produced how much ore is being crushed what's the percentage of recoveries and they're putting all that into into they're digitizing it essentially and that's important for a lot of reasons so the first one I'll start with is battery passports like right now you go and buy a car and there's a sticker on the window that's called a Monrroni sticker and it tells you, you know, the cost of the car and the expected fuel mileage, etc. Soon, uh, batteries are going to have what's called a battery passport. It's either going to be a sticker on a window or there's going to be a QR code that you can scan. This is already the law of the land in Japan, um, and in Europe. And you mentioned the big beautiful bill. in order to get um your EV incentives, your tax incentives uh through that bill, a certain percentage of the the inputs of the battery have to come from North American free trade agreement countries, Mexico, US or or Canada. But there's no way to track that. At least there there isn't until Minehub comes along. Like mining is an antiquated industry. We're still doing um mining logs and then things with with pen and paper and and and pencil, right? And scanning them. So this is a way to digitize that information. So when when Volkswagen for example's got to put a battery passport on their latest EV, all this data has been tracked from ore to smelter to refining to final product. The other reason it's important is I'm sure you and your your readers have read stories of you know the LME being short a certain amount of metal. Even in the recent weeks, they were short some silver or I'm sure you've read these uh articles about um a cargo ship showing up to to to a metals exchange and whoops, it's painted rocks. It's not really nickel or or metal or something like that. This can't happen when when you're tracking the ore and the the concentrate from the mine through the shipping all the way to the to the final destination. Um Minehub does that. the stock has tripled in the past year and and one of the reasons it's done that is because there's another company called ABAX which is a larger company that's invested 19% into MineHub. AAX is run by a gentleman named Josh Crumb who's comes from the resource desk at at Goldman Sachs. He's a very sharp individual and what he's done is created a brand new commodities exchange. So you're familiar with the COMX, you're familiar with the LME. What you're not familiar with is the ABAX exchange which is just launched in the past sort of 12 18 months and they do physically deliverable contracts. So you buy a Comx copper contract, you don't have to take delivery, you can sell that contract, right? And and profit on the difference. AEX does physically deliverable commodity contracts. They started with um gold and lithium and they'll be going into into other commodities. But in order to offer uh a physically deliverable commodity contract, you have to have all the input data to to prove where that commodity came from and that you actually have it. So that's why ABAX has been buying chunks of this company called Minehub that I'm talking about. Um the other reason it's important in in mining is the cost of capital. You mentioned Dan how it's tough to raise money. No one wants to lend to to to miners. What this does is it brings mining out from the opaque nature that it has into a a transparent nature by by having that data. So, in the most recent example, um, MineHub can facilitate financing. They're partnering with banks and and lending institutions to say, "Here's this cargo ship full of I'll just stick with nickel. We verified where it came from, that it's there, what the grade is, and you [clears throat] can get lending on that nickel while it's still on the ship." as opposed to to having to wait. That might not mean a lot to to some of your listeners, but that's hugely important in the game of of mining and and capital raising and and capital allocation. If you can get lending sooner in a more transparent fashion, then you can redeploy that capital and and grow or or whatever it is you need to do. So, um hopefully I explained that that that fairly well, but this this tracking of the emissions and the ore and the inputs and all that stuff, I think is going to be hugely important for all those facets that I outlined. emissions and cost of capital and and so Minehub is a tiny copy company company as well. Again, I I own it, but that's been one of the stories that that really resonates with me and and I think is easy to tell and and is easy for people to get. >> That is cool. That's a really cool story. And it looks like um I'm just looking at the over- the-counter ticker Minehub Technologies looks like about 65 million in market cap US. >> Yeah, it's a small company for sure. >> Pretty small. Yeah. So you are are most of your is most of your universe that you cover pretty small >> sounds like it. >> Yeah. Yes and no. So I write a monthly macro letter and the the things that are in there are not small. Like if I want to buy copper I'll either buy, you know, Freeport or BHP or I'll buy a copper ETF. I'm not doing like the tiny >> not small. >> Correct. So in that sense, I'm expressing themes and uh via large entities, right? Like I'm not going to do a deep dive on BHP's earnings and all that stuff, but if I think copper's going up, I'll buy BHP, right? So >> yeah, I do >> in that sense, in that sense, I don't do the small stuff. And then in my weekly letter, um underground alpha, I definitely do smaller stuff. So the the bulk of it is it's under hundred million dollars market cap but we we go up to you know half a billion billion dollar market cap. So there is some some larger stuff in there. Um and then the the other thing I do is uh is private placements like I write a lot of checks directly into companies. So and those sometimes are very tiny you know five 10 million market caps on on the TSXV exchange. So, I manage multiple portfolios, but I'm really just managing all my wealth in different ways, right? I've got my IAS and my converted Roths or whatever where I'm buying those BHPs and those ETFs, and then I've got my full service brokerage account where I'm, you know, taking delivery of physical certificates from financing companies directly. So, um, yes, the bulk of what I do is is on the smaller end, but but I allocate capital to the whole spectrum. when you finance companies directly um is it something like this is something you just do and write about or do you actually have you know a group of investors who participate with you? Is it just your own capital I guess is the real question there. >> Yeah, it's funny how it started. So it started with just my own capital and you know folks I knew in the space um that were doing deals and financing companies and would invite me in and being the newsletter writer that I was I wanted to get it to a broader audience right like how can we form a letter or a product around that so um in 2015 I did that I formed a private placement service uh that's still in existence today it's called private placement intel and we do as you say we have a group um of accredited investors that um access deals that that that me and my partner are are investing in. Um, yeah, you got to be accredited, of course. And it is a small group. That's important to to say because I just said that, you know, we're investing sometimes in five or$10 million market cap companies. Well, a $5 million company is only going to be raising a million, two million, three million bucks, right? So, you can't have thousands of people on that list. They're not going to get the allocation that they want. So, we keep it small. It's under 250 people. It's a high price product. Um, and yeah, we write checks alongside each other, sort of like an investment group. >> That's really cool. People have talked about doing that around here, but um, never really never did it. Never. >> Well, when you're when you're a smaller company or an individual, you're able to be more nimble than larger institutions, I suppose. >> You're telling me. Okay. [laughter] I mean, look, I have no complaints. I you know I have the greatest gig in the world and I have for you know 20 odd years. Um we we've hit uh the moment when it's time to ask our final question which is the same for every guest identical question no matter what the topic. Um even even for non-financial guests that we have you know once a blue moon same identical question and if you've already said the answer please feel free to repeat it okay but it's really just I I would just like you to give our listener a takeaway so if you could leave them with just one thought one idea one takeaway today what would it be um worry about yourself not extraneous factors I I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about generations and generational cycles. I don't know if you've come across some of those books by Oh, yeah. William Strauss and Neil How for example, The Fourth Turning. >> I got one. >> And I think that >> Yep. It's on my shelf as well. I firmly believe that that we're in the thick of that. It's pretty easy to see looking around you what's happened in the past couple of administrations in this country and the protest we're seeing from both the left and the right. And it's easy to get wrapped up in that tribalism and and and whatever else is going on. Like I said, I was hopeful and and full of piss in my 20s, but as I as I aged and matured, I became very independent and individualistic and I focused on myself and my family and and that's what I preached to to my readers and and anyone else who's willing to listen. Those politicians on either side aren't there for you. you see how they enrich themselves on both sides of the aisle while, you know, the middle class continues to erode and we get this K-shaped um recovery ever since COVID and the the vast wealth inequality. So, I I firmly believe you need to focus uh inward and on your family and do what's best for you and be an asset owner because, you know, given the non-transiatory inflation that we've seen since 2020, um your costs are are going up and incomes aren't rising as fast and that a that inflation that's eating away at your way of life. And then your spending power is able to be owned at least in some respects in your account by owning the things that are inflating, i.e. gold at 4,200 and silver at 53 and copper over $5. So, you've got to be an asset owner. I I read a lot about this hustle economy and having a side gig. If your side gig isn't owning assets, you're going to need a third job. So, worry about yourself and own the assets. >> Well said. Thanks for that, Nick. And thanks for being here. Really great to talk to you. I had a great time. >> Yeah. No, that was fantastic. I love running my mouth and you guys let me do it. So, thank you. [laughter] We we yeah we we like your style. Run run run run away. That's fine. You know, we like we like people who just who know something and are willing to tell us all about it because our one of the big reasons we do this at all is because on the mainstream and even not so mainstream, you get about five or eight seconds. And I did that a bunch of times on like Fox Business and a couple other things. and and uh you know they give you 5 seconds or 7 seconds or whatever and then they cut you off and it's ridiculous. You can't you can't spell out anything that's meaningful in that amount of time. It's a terrible terrible forum. This is much better. We want people like you. We want ideas like you have and we want to hear all of it. Don't ever apologize for a long answer with us. All right. >> I'll keep that in mind and and hope your listeners got something meaningful today. >> Oh, I'm sure they did. I hope they were taking notes. Uh, thanks a lot, Nick. We will definitely be calling you back at some point in the fairly near future. >> Great. I look forward to it. >> Folks, the White House is on a stock buying spree that is comparable to a hedge fund that has raised billions. And the stocks in question are surging as a direct result. 200% within 24 hours in one case, 90% in another. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, which is why we're hosting an urgent financial summit, the stocks that save America, on Tuesday, November 18th. That's tomorrow. This event will feature a man you may know well, 50-year investing titan Rick Rule, along with my guest today, Nick Hajj. Together, they'll reveal why the success of some stocks could now be a matter of national security. how a select group of US companies could soon play a historic role in rebuilding the nation's industrial backbone and the wealth of regular people and the name and ticker of a free stock recommendation they believe could soar as this story accelerates. A stock I personally love by the way. If you enjoyed today's episode, this briefing will be a mustsee followup. Now head over to www.whousetocks.com white housetocks.com to learn more and reserve your spot. Again, that's www.whousetocks.com. Don't delay. That was a lot of fun. I I've never spoken with Nick before, but man, he's very knowledgeable and a lot of fun to talk to and a good talker himself, as we as we pointed out. [snorts] >> Yeah, that was fun. I love that. I mean, the last thing on my mind now is his last answer about uh just trying to navigate this crazy world and uh multiple uh you know, income streams essentially. And that that's where I ended up too. Like that's how I ended up here. Like uh you know, I had my job writing and editing. And I was like, listen, I need to figure out how to this is not I'm not keeping up with any costs no matter how uh hard I try. I think, you know, just things out of your control. Um, eventually I'm like, "All right, I need to put some I need to figure something else out." And having your money work for you and create things when you're not having to actually put in any uh physical labor at least, uh, is so valuable. And yeah, that kind of aligns with the way I think about a lot of things. and um he seems like he's a guy you want to be following if you want if you're interested at all in natural resource investing. I would say there's no substitute for a well-connected guy [laughter] in natural resources. If the if the person that you're talking with, you know, claims to be knowledgeable in natural resources and they don't know everybody, uh you know, be careful because that is the key. And the fact that he focuses his strategy on that, right? knowing the people and understanding the incentives by knowing the full cap table like he was talking about. >> Uh that's one of the more brilliant things I've heard because I've always felt like oh boy I I just I really need to know more geology. I'm like maybe I need to know more of that. [laughter] >> You know I need to get those cap tables from every CFO in the industry. That's what I need to know. >> Yeah, I loved hearing too the cap table thing. It reminds me of like looking at insider buying and >> selling of like I was just writing yesterday about this Coreweave stock, the AI data center and all the the CFO has been selling hund00 million dollars of shares in the last month. Um, [snorts] >> hello. That means something, right? >> Nice work if you can get it. [laughter] >> Um, yeah, that's that's that sort of stuff is awesome to hear. And >> yeah, really smart guy, really tight focus, you know, as an investor. It sound it's that's it's um it's a good recipe right there. Well-connected smart guy, tight focus when it with the strategy. That's really a good combo. Great conversation. That's another interview and that's another episode of the Stansbury Investor Hour. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we really truly did. Opinions expressed on this program are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Stanbury Research, its parent company, or affiliates.
Gold Could Hit $6,000 in the Next 12 Months
Summary
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Stanberry Investor Hour. I'm Dan Ferris. I'm the editor of Extreme Value and the Ferris Report, both published by Stanberry Research. And I'm Cory McLaclin, editor of the Stanberry Daily Digest. Today we talk with Nick Hajj, editor of Underground Alpha. >> Nick is a very smart guy. He knows a lot about natural resources [music] investing. Get out your pens and pencils. You might want to take some notes because he's going to give us a lot of good details about how he operates his strategy and what kind of companies he looks for. So, let's do it. Let's talk with Nick Hajj. Let's do it right now. Nick, welcome to the show. Very happy that you could be here. >> Oh, it's a pleasure to to be here, Dan. Thanks for having me. So, uh, my co-host and I will pepper you with with questions for the next hour. But, uh, first maybe, uh, you're a new guest on the show. We we haven't spoken with you before, so maybe you could u just tell our listener a little bit about um, what you're doing now and how you got there. >> Sure. Um, well, let's start with the latter and uh, and then I'll get to the the former, how I got here. I came into the newsletter space in the mid 2000s before the global financial crash or crisis happened in 2008 and I was tasked with writing about clean technology stocks. This was 2007 postal alore inconvenient truth. You know, every day there was Chinese solar stocks on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And there wasn't a lot of expertise in wind and solar and geothermal and batteries, and I was young and hungry just out of university. And I became a self-taught expert in those things. Went to all the conferences, shook all the hands, read all the research reports, etc. And um carved out a little niche for myself in in the clean tech space, which lasted precisely until um the economy crashed a year or two later. And I started um learning about other um facets of the economy and market including um monetary policy, bailouts, central banks etc. and ended up gravitating to the natural resource space just as the sort of gold boom was ending in in 2011 and and 2012. So um have spent the past 10 years making money in a in a resource and commodities bare market. um which I'd like to to think, you know, hone my skills and and sharpen my tools. It seems to be a little bit um easier now given the environment that we're in. I worked for a Baltimore based publisher for 13 or or 14 years. I I grew a big division for them. It was called the Outsider Club. And um when I was making them enough money and uh I realized I could I could do it on my own, I offered to buy that division, which didn't work out. And so I left in in 2020 as as many folks did, not just in this space but uh across the US. There was a lot of um quitting of jobs and going out on your own and and that's what we did. So we started Digest Publishing um in 2020 and and we've grown that to you know a decent sized little publisher with a couple of letters that um cover many facets of the business. We're a little different than um some other newsletters out there in that we eat our own cooking. We write about how we're managing our own money. We've actually made money with our own recommendations. No knock to you guys or anybody else, but I see a lot of paper traders and and and newsletter writers with no skin in the game. That is not us. So, that's what I do. I manage my my money with um really an agnostic approach, but I definitely gravitate towards the the natural resources. >> Natural resources is a tough is a tough business and it's very tough to make money um in a in a long bare market. Really tough. Um, some people might even say it's impossible, but but not you would not say that, it sounds like. >> Oh, no. I mean, you know, there were fits and starts um over the past 10 years. Um, you uranium didn't have the greatest run, but we got some rate cuts in 2016 and we had a little bit of a bull market. And yeah, it's largely cyclical, of course. Um, you know, when the tide is rising, all the boats go up like like we're seeing now. But we did we did pretty good over the the course of the past 10 years by um knowing some good folks in the space, getting a real education on how resource companies are formed and financed, learning a lot about share structure and capitalization and the important of pe the importance of people and generally um avoided a lot of the missteps that that folks make when they when they come into this sector. >> Yeah, knowing the people in the space is everything, isn't it? knowing a matter of fact like just for me I've known Rick Rule for 30 years and he's he's introduced me to a lot of people in places like Vancouver and Toronto and um just knowing those people um has made the difference between potentially kind of going on my own and really finding out the hard way that most of these most of the especially the sort of nano cap stuff is really toxic. being really conservative about my natural resources picks and understanding and getting great results with the with natural resources like you know just by picking a few stocks here and there. Um it's knowing the people is it's like and there's two groups of people right there's the really good ones and the really bad ones like the ones you got to stay away from. We don't talk about those but but we talk about the fact that they exist right we [laughter] got you know so >> yeah I mean just to touch on that you know a couple of themes there that I talk about a lot you know some groups of especially micro caps or nano caps as you put it they're not trying to to mine anything but shareholders right they're they're paper miners so yeah >> they pay their salaries and they buy their luxury cars and send their kids to school but they're only raising money to do that to pay their salaries etc. Um, and then there's the really good folks that that Rick talks about, and he's been gracious with his time with me as well. Ever since I was a young lad in this business, going back to those early 2000s when I was speaking at Cambridge House conferences and things like that, Rick always seemed to take a liking to me and um, have spent some time with him and have actually invested alongside him in a couple of deals over the past few years and yeah, he's drilled it in to my head and in many others. every time he takes to the dis he's always talking about you know the Londines and the Rosies and the Robert Freedellands for example and you know success breeds success and and and the serially successful um continue to be successful and find deposits and build companies and um and build mines which is really tough to do you know um not to dive right into it but something like one in a thousand targets turns into a mine it's really really tough to do and and even if you find a good deposit there's so many extraneous factors from government to local population to red tape to cost of capital to permitting that you know it takes sometimes 20 30 plus years to go from first drill to to first pour >> right yeah I was going to touch on that too I mean the the one in a thousand and then you're waiting decades so it's um >> well I'll tell you a funny story right like um we're here in in 2025 and critical metals are all their age you guys might have seen antimony in the in the headlines recently as as one of those critical metals that the government or the US doesn't produce any >> um any amount of. We were invested in in a company back in 2012 that we sort of knew was going to be the only source of of US antimony production. That company was called Midas Gold. It's now called Perpetual Resources. It's uh it's John Paulson's company. He's the largest shareholder, the the billionaire. And you know, folks like Rick and others were saying, "Nobody's gonna nobody wants this stock at 30 cents. Nobody wants this stock at $3. they're going to be fighting over it that $30. You wait and see. Just going back to that cycle that we were talking about earlier. And lo and behold, that's exactly what's happened. So, um, that project went into permitting. It's in Idaho, by the way. And I always tell this story, the year my daughter was born, 2016, my first daughter. And they just got their permit this year, and she's nine years old, obviously, if she was born in 2016. So, nine years in permitting. But more importantly, um, the Department of Defense is writing checks to Perpetual Resources. JP Morgan, um, and Agniko Eagle just put in $250 million. And so the smart money is now here. Dan, >> off the top of your head, do you know like the share price uh, appreciation in that period of time? >> Yeah, for sure. I mean, just even in the past 12 or 18 months, it was a three or4 dollar stock in Toronto and it's over a $40 stock as as we speak. >> Wow. Yeah, it's been quite a, you know, call it year and a half, you know, 12 or 18 month period generally. And lately, of course, you know, gold had a has had a little uh, you know, hiccup here as it normally does, but really compared to the type of corrections that resources normally see, it really hasn't been that, you know, it's been nothing, right? I mean, it's it's a it's a blip. And yet I still hear people telling well it you know it's over or you know that that's it it's it's a bubble even I saw but but but mostly just it's over. I'm short gold this is you know this is only going to end one way and on the one hand of course a ballistic price chart doesn't usually resolve by going sideways right so there's a point there but fundamentally fundamentally how do you bet against gold from here? I I don't know. Fundamentally, I don't see it. >> Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to to pick up on that. I think you saw a textbook correction over the past 30 or 45 days. You know, gold up around 42 4,300 settling down to to 39 or 4,000. I mean, that's textbook 10% correction. And um as we record today um you know, gold's had a $100 plus week. It's last time I looked at the chart it was $4,200 gold and $53 silver. So, I would point to the fundamentals as well. you know, don't tell the central banks that it's over. They just bought the most gold last month that they bought all year, for example, right? China is still buying. Brazil bought many tons of gold. Um, and other people see it as well, like Tether, the large stable coin, is now buying as much gold as some central banks. I think they're buying like two tons a month at some point this year. And they've even acquired uh gold royalty companies. So some of these big um institutions like countries, central banks and and Tether, which by the way has, you know, a greater market cap and and and is buying more US bonds than like South Korea, for example. I mean, that's a big entity for them to go into into gold and make gold acquisitions. Yep. I don't think the fundamentals are over. And and I could keep going on this for a while because the debt just hit $ 38 trillion. I don't see that slowing down um at all. Doge was an absolute failure. The debt continues to rise. The M2 money supply continues to rise. We've just got a a Federal Reserve rate cut and the market's pricing in another one for the next meeting and and on down the line. Right. So, um the fundamentals are are certainly there and and the central banks can continue to buy and and so do those Asian nations that um covet gold. They're still buying as well. >> Yeah. I mean, of course, we don't know, but I bet real money Scott Bent is has it still has it as his largest position. You know, I think he said that like um maybe last November or or even earlier, maybe like you know, summer or so of 2024. Did we find out about that? I think and I think >> I heard him just a couple weeks ago, Dan say somebody asked him about the gold price and he said, "Well, there's more buyers than sellers." and say much more than that, but that >> that was enough. Do you have a uh Nick, do you have a >> a price in mind for gold in the next say year or two? >> Oh gosh, that's a you know, crystal ball type questions. So, I mean, it's largely depends on uh well, I won't say largely, some of it depends on government actions, right? You you you listen to Rickards or these other folks and how they're going to, you know, adjust the price of gold to to pay off some amount of the debt. you know, those are sort of black swan crystal ball things that are that are sort of tough to to predict by their very nature. That's what a black swan is. Um, given what gold has done in the past 12 or 18 months, given that, you know, we just talked about its 10% correction, it could have gone all the way down to 3600 and then still been in a bull market and did not. Um, I don't think there's um, you know, and and the other thing is on a on a technical basis, all-time highs is like the most bullish technical indicator there is, right? Because there's there's no resistance ahead and and there's only blue sky. So, um, but trees don't grow to the sky is is something I I say a lot. And, um, I'm I'm hedging as as as as I'm forming the answer to this question. You know, I I think five to $6,000 gold in the next 12 to 18 months isn't sort of an unreasonable type prediction. You've seen Goldman Sachs come out and say that like um and Morgan Stanley as well has been increasingly bullish on gold saying that you know just if 1% of the of the world's reserve capital sort of goes into gold you'll see it go to to $5,000 and um it's still underowned, right? That's another thing that that Rick says a lot, but that's because it's true. So you just saw Morgan Stanley this year sort of augment their 6040 portfolio, right? from 60% equities and 40% bonds to to including some mix of gold in there. That is something new that that hasn't happened before. And and that brings in those generalists and and retail investors and and financial adviserss who are typically adverse to holding some percent of gold in the uh their clients accounts because they don't get paid for it as much. Um we're seeing that start to change. And so I think there's still drivers and and buying ahead that could take you to 5,000 bucks. Sorry for the long answer. >> No, that's a good We like long answers around here. >> No, that's great. I know it's a tough like thing to pin a pin a number on in a time and and but I was more interested in in what if the drivers how long the drivers are still going to be in place, you know, and and that retail piece of it seems like it's still not really even close to that. Um, from from my view, I don't know what you think about that, but >> yeah, I mean, I agree. They see the the folks buying uh Costco gold bars, you know, folks that know what I do, like, you know, my dentist or, you know, other parents and my kids and stuff starting to ask more about about gold and and things like that and some of the headlines that they're seeing about rare earths and the government investing in mines. So, it's tough because I look at it every day, right? and it's so ingrained in me and and has been for the past 10 or 15 years that, you know, I sort of I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid, but I see the headlines and I sort of know what's going on. So, it's interesting when I see and hear people that aren't typically interested in that stuff start to ask about it. So, I agree that that's coming. And and one other thing I would add is um I already mentioned Tether, but you I was given talks at conferences eight and 10 years ago talking about how the crypto crowd was my my line was these um these crypto soldiers are training for the gold army, right? They were they were they were learning about things like fiat currencies and what that meant and they were learning about things like counterparty risk and and what that meant and and I think there's still some of those folks and some of that money that crypto money that that's going to come into the gold space that could be another driver as evidenced by the the tether example that I sort of already cited. >> That's a good point and it's an interesting comparison gold and bitcoin isn't it? Because some people call Bitcoin you know the electronic uh digital gold. Sure. as they call it. Um, and one analyst we've had on the show, um, a quirky, interesting, brilliant guy named Hugh Henry, um, he was talking about the difference between the total market cap of Bitcoin versus total market cap of gold and the potential for those to achieve parody as a reason to be more bullish on Bitcoin than on gold. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I think Bitcoin certainly has a lot of potential. Do you do you agree or disagree? >> Oh, I I agree. I'm a I'm a Bitcoin owner and I own it in the same way that I own gold. So, I have my insurance gold and I have my insurance Bitcoin that's in my safe next to my guns and bullets, as I say. Um, it's, you know, I I don't touch that stuff. I don't want to sell it. I don't trade it. I just stack it, right? There's a box of gold and then there's a USB stick or a a cold cold storage wallet as it's called that that has my Bitcoin and then I layer it into my accounts as well. So, I'll own the GLD and uh and I'll own one of these Bitcoin ETFs that has popped up in the in the past 12 or 18 months, you know, lots of and which have been the fastest growing ETFs, by the way. So, yeah, I own both of them for for the same reasons, right? And and and that's why I don't get like the Peter Schiff arguments about gold versus Bitcoin and I and I don't get the you got to do one or the other. Like, you should totally be doing both. and I do and and that's what I've been preaching for a long time and and I own them in sort of similar ways as I just laid out there. But yeah, just to reiterate, I mean, you know, God or whatever you believe, the universe only created so much gold. It's it's in the ground and it takes a certain amount of capital and human ingenuity to get it out of the ground and extract it. And and similar with Bitcoin, the way it was designed with the 21 million um cap, you know, some people argue that, you know, that could potentially be augmented or lifted and you could get some dilution. But just taking it what it is, it's it's a finite currency. It's anti- fiat. It's not controlled by the government. It can't be printed. We're not handing it out. And it gets increasingly harder to produce the same way gold has gotten increasingly harder to produce as we've, you know, mined out all the high-grade stuff. and we've got to go deeper and and lower grade. It's the same with the Bitcoin havingss and the the the increase in the calculations and the energy needed to produce those bitcoins. So, in my mind, I mean, that's a that's a two-track road. It's one is gold and and one is Bitcoin and and I own them both for sure. >> Yeah. You'd think that either or mindset like especially you mentioned Peter Schiff, which um you know, we we should have him on the show. I I hate to talk about the guy when he's not here, but I would think the idea of competing forms of money would appeal to someone who is really into gold, right? >> Well, and really and really into capitalism and libertarianism as well. I mean, competition is key. Yeah, for sure. >> Well, he's got, you know, again, you're talking about a gentleman that's not here. He does have a problem. >> Yeah. We don't That's right. >> We'll we'll we'll talk to him about it someday, maybe. >> I just saw him last week in the New Orleans Investment Conference, by the way. There was a lot of good folks down there. >> Yeah, man. And I haven't been to that thing forever. Um I went to it was the first thing I ever did with um when I worked for Agora Financial long long ago in like 1998 and uh it was the last year that Jim Blanchard was there. Oh, >> he died he died some months after that. >> At least you got to see him. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. I got to meet him. Um anyway, just little blast from the past there. Y >> um but yeah, it's a great event. I I um I'd love to I'd love to go back there sometime. So, let's talk about um you know, we we we have we we have we all have thoughts about gold, but but really your expertise is really in investing in in the mining se, the natural resources sector. Within that general category, do you have any kind of a specialty or a focus or a uh you know just a strategy generally? Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so at the end of the day, I I like to build myself as a generalist, but I do have a specialty in um evaluating share structure and people as it pertains to the smaller end of the spectrum of of the mining world, that is junior miners. We talked a little bit about the the people already. So, um, I was, uh, lucky enough to to get a mentor in the space, you know, 13, 14 years ago, who taught me the ropes, just like you were saying about Rick Rule, showed me how companies are capitalized and, uh, put together. And so, my expertise, if I have to put myself in a in a box or or into a corner, would be, um, I like to say I'm I'm a BS detector. Uh Rick Rule doesn't like when I when I cuss on the air, but I can look at a company. I can sit with the the management for for 10 or 15 minutes, go through the the structure and the slide deck and sort of have a good sense of what their intentions are and and if it's a well ststructured company and and I can take you through some of those things if you'd like, but that's primarily how I've been trained in the space because I'm not a geologist. I can't see underground. and and while I know about the different metals and minology and host rocks and different types of deposits and jurisdictions and I've learned all that over the past 10 or 15 years and what I really look at first when I'm introduced to a new company is I go right to the to the either in the presentation the share structure slide or on the website the stock info slide and I want to see you know how many shares are are outstanding to whom were they sold at what price and did they come with warrants and and how were those warrants priced and and when do those warrants expired? What's the this is an important one. What's the insider ownership and and did they pay real money for those shares? You know, in a lot of these early stage junior mining deals, um the founders can issue themselves shares at any price they they want. I mean, I've seen deals that were built on a house of sand at 0.01 cent per per share for the founders stock, right? I mean, just to so your readers understand because I we're getting a little bit granular. You know, if somebody's got 01 cent paper or even one cent paper, just to make the the math easier, at 2 cents, they've doubled their money. They don't have a lot of incentive to stick around and and and build a company alongside the other shareholders that they've raised money from, right? You wonder sometimes where the selling is coming from in those deals. And and it's those largely it's those early shareholders. And uh also important is where those shares are held. So you need them to be registered and held in their name. They need to be reporting insiders. None of this stuff where um they're in their wives name or their their mother's name that don't have to report. And again, I'm getting a little bit granular, but that you asked what my experience. >> We like granular do >> and that's that's what it is. Like I'm not content even just to see that share structure slide. I want the CEO or the CFO to email me a full cap table. That's something you your listeners can ask for. Let me see the full capitalization table. Every share that was sold at what price and and and who you think owns it. And so that's super important in the in the early stage mining space. And then back to people is you know have they done it before? This is um a hard industry as you said. It's tough to make money and unless the commodity prices are really going in your favor. And so you have to have expertise in multiple things to to run an early stage mining company. You have to be good at the metals obviously. And you got to have some sort of mining or ge geologic or engineering background. But you also have to be good at capital markets and know when to raise money and know how to keep your share structure intact and not blow it out in case you need to pivot and know where that next round of funding is coming from because um you know these stocks aren't making any money before they produce anything. They're just burning money either you know drilling or developing or or whatever it is. So, you need to make sure that those people are are able to do that. And hopefully, um, they've done it before, right? Um, you know, if you're building a nickel mine in in Brazil, I don't want you to be coming from, uh, a crypto miner in Toronto, you know what I mean? Like that sort of stuff. And you sort of see that in the early stage um [clears throat] world because you get these different booms and busts like we had cannabis and then we had crypto and and and some of those folks those you know entrepreneurs that they're serial entrepreneurs they're not serially successful they just you know jump to the latest sector and and raise money. So um yeah to wrap it up there that's my expertise is in evaluating people and share structure. You have reminded me of one of the most remarkable slides and moments in a in a mining company presentation that I've ever seen in you know almost 30 years more than 30 years actually of investing in mining companies. Um, I've covered Altus Minerals since 2009 and I think they're some of the very best people in the business. And they did something I'd never seen anybody do before, which is they produced a slide that called out the contrayclical nature of their capital allocation, right? They allocate when when the capital has dried up and the pricing is really great and then they harvest when the pri you know when the pricing soarses and it's sort of great the other way and uh you know it has risen dramatically and I I've never seen anyone do that but that's what you want right you you want somebody who can allocate like that over a long period of time >> true contrarians are hard to find >> yeah and and what is Rick told is like Like the one thing Rick has said, Rick Rule has said many, many times over the years, you're either a in natural resource investing, you're either a contrarian or a victim. And of course, what's the reality? The reality is that the capital, it's just it's stingier. It's just not there, you know, near the bottom when you really ought to be allocating it. But it pours in, you know, when another thing Alas did was show me the incentivization prices like I think they did copper actually and they pointed out well at the time they said the incentivization price was probably about five bucks a pound. Meaning that's when capital should be employed to to produce the stuff, right? But they said realistically though the capital comes pouring in double the incentivization price, right? So, you know, 10 bucks. That's when we're going to get that moment like you said. You know, they're clamoring for it at $40 a share. They could have bought it at 4 cents or 40 cents, but you know, it's um it's human nature, isn't it? It's just the way it goes. >> I was just going to say human nature is is incredible. It it really doesn't change. You know, um biology evolves, but but I'm not sure psychology does. And um you know, one of the one of the folks uh that I was fortunate to befriend in the newsletter space was was Mr. James Dyn, I don't know if you remember that gentleman or not. And you know, he wrote the book on on mass psychology, which is definitely on the shelf right behind me here. And yeah, booms and busts and and tulips and all that. Human nature is is tough to fight against. >> Yep. But if you can do it, um, you know, there's a there's a fortune to be had. And you know it's it's that way to some extent in the stock market but it's it's a the point here is that it's an essential skill as a natural resources investor right. >> Absolutely. >> Sure. Um >> this might not be a psychology point but in terms of capital pouring in a lot of news recently or last couple months with the government US government sure >> taking stakes in companies. Um, what do you make of that trend? And I mean, is it healthy? What do you What do you make of this sudden rush from from the government to get involved here? >> This is going to be a real long answer, so get your get your drink. I think I'm going to wet my whistle even before I tackle it. >> Okay. All right. Just getting you going here. Yeah. I told you that I started my career in the clean tech space um in the in the United States and and in fact in the in most of the developed world we wanted to cut our emissions and um to do that we were content to export um emissions intensive industries specifically mining and the refining and and smelting and and production of lots of the commodities that we need as a country for um our industry and and for our defense. Um, I'm talking about lots of metals, uranium and copper and and rare earths. So much so that over the past two decades and we've lost lots of production and we've lost lots of expertise. Like uh the US has something like uh 100 nuclear reactors give or take. We use something like 50 million pounds of uranium a year. You know, as recently as 2016 2017, we were mining precisely this amount of uranium, zero. and we were content to to import that from other places. And the same thing happened with um rare earths and and other critical minerals minerals and and metals. I I already mentioned antimony. You know, some you know 65 to 85% of the production and perhaps more importantly the refining and processing uh of these metals was outsourced to to China. So what happened was the the world's emissions didn't go down. we missed every cop target there was, right? Because China continued to to emit. All we did was uh export the production and expertise and and this is sort of something that I've staked my entire career on and and ultimately has led me here to speaking with you gentlemen is I saw very clearly after the the global financial crisis when I started learning about metals and and resources and um uranium and all those sorts of things. And I started scratching my head thinking, well, if you guys want to build more nuclear and we need more clean energy, it's going to need a lot of copper and it's going to need a lot of steel. Like all that stuff needs very real input, stuff you can drop on your foot. And there was no capital uh monetary capital or brain power capital being applied to that in the in the western world. Like I said, we were content to export that all out. And that's, you know, largely what's led us to to where we are now, right? Where um like again going back to Rick, either the prices have to go up or or the lights go out. And that's across many commodities because um the US is reliant on them. So antimony for example, the US doesn't produce any of but we need it to um for military uniforms. It stops things burnings, right? We need it for missile guidance systems. We need it for other critical applications. And the same thing with these other metals. And so for me, it was always one of those when, not if questions. And so um over the course of the past decade, it's still been tough to permit these projects. I gave you the example of nine years. My daughter's nine years old and and one of the projects I was invested in went into permitting the year she was born. We weren't permitting these things. We weren't funding these things. And now you've got uh the Department of Defense, the military complex, and the United States government with their backs against the wall. So, uh it's sort of like a coiled spring. And that's also again why the one of the reasons why the resource market is cyclical. You get that underinvestment. Uh you get that lack of brain power and and commitment to the industry. And then the cure for low prices is what it's always been, low prices, right? So you had that bare market and and that's now played out and then you have Trump come into office and and start a trade war with China and China says, "Okay, pal, like we're going to turn off the spiggots to to the rare earths and and these other metals." And you get what you've seen over the past 12 to 18 months with copper going from four to six. Um and gold and silver doing what it's doing and you know the explosion of not not necessarily rare earth prices, but certainly the equities related to to rare earths. And so, yes, what we've seen now is a capitulation to to our side, you know, um the folks who were previously scolding us and and and and smacking our noses are now patting our tushes, right? I mean, and and you want me to talk about if it's socialism or not, I think, but I don't really care because um I'm government agnostic. I don't lean left or right. I I I I worry about myself. I'm a true individualist. And so I sort of knew in a grand sense how this was going to play out. I couldn't tell you exactly how um or when, but I think we're seeing that now. It's playing out now and it's playing out by the government uh almost being forced to to do many things, right? To to cut the red tape, to expedite the permitting, which is what we're seeing with the fast 41 permitting and and other tracks like that. I mean, good lord, I've seen projects permitted in 30 or 45 days that would have taken a year in in in in previous administrations or in previous years in the US. And then um there's a couple other things going on. You mentioned they're taking direct stakes. They've done that with a number of companies now. MP Materials on the rare earth side, Trilogy Metals on on the base side with the large Amler Road project up in Alaska, Lithium Americas, they've they've taken a direct stake in and so that when those announcements come like those stocks have doubled and tripled and quadrupled and secupled in a matter of days and weeks like I think Trilogy Metals went from something stupid like $2 or $3 to eight or nine dollars in in three or four days after the government made that announcement. So, you know, if you weren't ahead of the puck, I'm sorry, but uh you know, a nod to my Canadian Resource friends, you got to be Wayne Gretzky and sort of know where where it was going to go and and and and that's where it is. So, and then the last thing is that the price floors. So, not only are they cutting the red tape, not only are they taking direct investments, in the case of the rare earth steel, they even set a price floor. Um because again, going back to the China in the beginning of this answer, we were content to externalize all those costs. And believe me, there's costs associated with mining and refining and doing it cleanly, right? You want to do it in the US, you got to add carbon scrubbers and you can't dump the the the effluent in the river like they do in China, right? You got to those costs, those external costs of the past two decades, we now have to internalize in the US. And so if we want to do that here, if we want to produce those metals and we want to refine those metals, it comes at a higher cost because we're not just going to spew the the the byproducts into the air and into the waterways. We have to account for those costs and and and somebody had to do it, right? So and and really to get meta or philosophical on you, you know, one of the reasons I believe the US is in the reserve currency and will continue to be is something I heard Dennis Gartman say in my formative years. two words, aircraft carriers. And if you want to keep your military as as strong as it is, you know, the strongest, most wellunded military in the world, you need all those inputs, right? All the things that that I've just gone through. And when you have a trillion dollar military budget, throwing 400 million to empty materials doesn't really uh seem like that big of a deal. >> Sorry that again, a long answer, but uh that's what's happened over the past decade. And and here we are. >> No need to apologize. As I said, we like long answers. They tell us a lot. >> Yeah, you explained it all in just a couple minutes there, which is which is great. Yeah, it's uh >> Yeah, >> it's been a long it's been a long journey to this point as as you point out. Yeah, >> for sure. Yeah. 15 year overnight success. Yeah, >> that's right. It's interesting. Um just as you spoke and you talked about, you know, uh your Canadian friends getting ahead of the puck like, you know, Wayne Gretzky. Um, obviously you can't do that after the price has run up. As soon as they announce these things, it's like over if you don't own the shares, but they did um, you know, part of the the big beautiful bill. This is all part of the big beautiful bill and it started this um, strategic what's it called? The office of strategic capital or something like that at the Pentagon that is doing out in the first round a hundred billion dollars and I I bet there will be more after that. And that's what all these things are with MP materials and all the rest of them. Um, but they made a list, didn't they? They published a list of what they were calling the critical materials. Antimony's on there and gallium and germanmanium and lithium and nickel and graphite and you know rare earths. >> Yes. >> And and a bunch of them. >> Um, so one could I mean I'm just spitballing, right? We're just a couple guys talking here. one could potentially put together an OS, you know, an office of strategic capital portfolio, right? You could look for domestic situations, um, where you're, you know, producing or exploring or doing something with with each of the metals on that list. >> Just a thought. >> I think banks are are doing that. So, in the past month, I think you saw JP Morgan announced a trillion with a T, a trillion dollar um investment. Not not all of that is going directly into the miners. Some subset of it is, but you know, they're talking about a trillion dollar investment in the critical metals and the infrastructure and the processing and all that. So, I think you're going to see, you know, bolt-on and and additional capital start coming into the sector in addition to the government. You know, there's been other um large money groups like ABN Capital announced a fund recently. I'm pretty sure the Qataris announced a fund recently. So, yeah, that money is is going to come. The the the the generalists, the banks, the folks who haven't been in the sector um are going to come into it and they are coming into it with these announcements that we're seeing. And so that's what's going to give the sector continued buoyancy and you know with any with any luck actually make a dent in uh how far behind we've gotten as a country here in the US. So um one other thing you said Dan is you know it's tough to get ahead of the puck. I I don't think you're behind it yet. I mean certainly it was good to to to be in relatively ahead of it but the inertia is so great that like I said you know we need 50 million pounds of uranium we produce less than one right so >> totally agree yes >> so much more has to come that um this is something that >> you know uh can I don't want to say explode but that can go up for many years to come. I mean, we had a 12 or or 15year base out, a der of capital, a der of expertise, and that's not solved with a couple of, you know, couple of hundred million dollar government checks. Um, you have to have real action, right? And you have to have continued investment. And there's things people aren't even thinking about yet. Like everybody, not everybody, but we've mentioned MP materials here a few times, and that was a really big deal, right? Like I mentioned the price floor, I mentioned the capital investment. The other thing that happened that same week was Apple signed a big deal with MP Materials to start recycling um the rare earth materials. That was a couple of hundred million dollar deal too. What a lot of generalists don't get is uh and people who haven't spent a lot of time in the sector is the nuance, right? So just taking rare earths as an example, you know, there's a group of of a dozen or more rare earth elements that are divided up into heavy and and light rare earths. And it's mostly the heavier rarers, the europium, the yitrium, the disprosium that are needed for these military applications um of which MP materials doesn't produce any. Those are NDPR guys. They're neodymium praisodmium guys. Those are the the light rarers. They produce precisely zero heavy rare earths. So um we still got to like solve that problem. And if it took 400 million and a price floor for the light rarers, what is what are the heavy rare earths going to going to look like? And so I think that's where you I think that's where you'll see additional capital and government support and some of these uh individual or private investment funds like JP Morgan, you'll start see them going into those avenues and by creating a portfolio is which is what you alluded to is that's what I'm trying to do and then and that's what I have been doing. So positioning in these companies that can solve these problems that have assets um maybe not in the US but in you know a free trade agreement companies. I think that um you know geology spans borders and you're not going to be able to solve all our problems with the the resources that we have in the United States. I think you'll see um money from the government, the US federal government go into assets that are located in Canada and and Mexico and and other South American countries because it's easier to produce there. It's a faster timeline to produce there. Um and we can uh make inroads through these trade negotiations that we're having. So, um yes to to to what you're saying and and that's what I've done. I have a portfolio of copper, nickel, base metals, rare earths, the companies that um I think can help solve this problem and that have already received um government support. Like I'm in a tiny prospect generator in it's a US prospect generator primarily with assets in Nevada. There's one in Oregon where you live and and one in Idaho. And this is a tiny company. I'm not even going to mention the name. less than a hund00 million market cap, but they were already able to secure fast 41 permitting for one of their assets in Nevada. And so, yeah, um, and I think that's one of my goals is to get in those projects, get in those those stocks that have a decent shot of of getting that government support and that fast 41 permitting. I think that's what you were alluding to there. Well, I just suspected that of all the people in the world, Nick Hajj would be able to flesh out the idea that you could build a portfolio. I mean, you know, that's why we're talking to you, Nick. Exactly. You're exactly right. >> I appreciate that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I um I actually just this morning saw a little presentation by um Brent Johnson at Santiago Capital that he he went into the whole thing about the office of strategic capital if I'm getting that right OSC or OCS something like that at the Pentagon and that money actually it comes out of Pentagon XM bank ex you know export import bank and goes through asset managers which I didn't know that that's interesting to me Because, you know, normally you would have government bureaucrats throwing money at their friends or whoever else, but the money is going to asset managers and they raise money and then the government gives them money too. Um, you know, they'll match what you can raise up to a certain amount and that, you know, their incentive to deploy it is a whole lot better than a bureaucrat, right? >> Sure. >> So, it if if and you know what's his name? um the guy who founded Cberus Fineberg um is is behind a lot of this Steve Fineberg. So you know one of the biggest PE firms on the planet they've you know had controlling stakes in like national defense related companies and stuff. So, so you know, I'm not crazy about the idea of this, you know, it's almost fascistic, right? Um, you know, fascism, the the root means to bind, right? So, they want to fascism wants to bind, you know, government with business and everything together. That's the idea behind that word. I'm not crazy about this, but it has a prayer in hell of working. And it's a followable. you can follow it and form a strategy as an investor based on this. And I, you know, talking to you is one of the things that that we can do to help investors do that. Um, and plus I've got my own designs. I heard I heard that pitch this morning. I was like, "Oh, yeah. I like this." You know, if the government insists on throwing money at something, like I insist on getting some of it into my pocket and into my pockets, right? >> You know, it's it's like you say, it's agnostic. It doesn't make you a Trump supporter or detractor or anything like that. And that's not important. What's important is recognizing the situation in the world and and uh taking care of yourself and your loved ones and your readers and and everybody, you know, based on that, right? >> I don't think I could have said that any better. That's very close to to my worldview, right? I I deal with it as it comes. In my 20s, I think as many people are, you know, I was young and full of piss and thought I could change the world and I quickly learned that I couldn't. So, I just take the world as it comes to me. And, you know, it it might be messed up. I got a sign behind me that says investing in Bizarro World, right? That's that's the name of my podcast for a shameless plug. But, yeah, I don't try to change it. I just read and react like a like a good defensive corner or something like that. >> We knew so much more when we were young, didn't we? >> We sure did. [laughter] >> I knew so much. Now, I don't >> It's amazing how much Yeah. You don't know. You >> thought we knew. That's right. >> Yeah. [laughter] We know less and less now. That's right. >> Yeah. Yeah. We know less with each passing year. Um, so, okay. Are there any names? Like you mentioned a little company so small you don't want to name it. You got anything you do want to name for our listeners? It can be one name. I don't, you know, anything off the top of your head that you really, you know, have been excited about recently. >> Oh man. Um, sure. I'll do it and I'll tie it all together. So, and biased again. I told you at the top, I eat my own cooking. I invest in these companies. There's a company called Minehub. M I N H U B. So, it's more of a technology company. They don't mine anything. What they do is they um track things. So, um they partnered with the largest copper mining company in the world, Codelco, and then they onboard all the Cadelo's suppliers and partners, right? Their fuel suppliers, their transporters, their trucking contractor. And so they can get a sense in in data terms um I won't say on a blockchain but in in digital terms how much fuel is being burned how much emissions are being generated how much concentrate is being produced how much ore is being crushed what's the percentage of recoveries and they're putting all that into into they're digitizing it essentially and that's important for a lot of reasons so the first one I'll start with is battery passports like right now you go and buy a car and there's a sticker on the window that's called a Monrroni sticker and it tells you, you know, the cost of the car and the expected fuel mileage, etc. Soon, uh, batteries are going to have what's called a battery passport. It's either going to be a sticker on a window or there's going to be a QR code that you can scan. This is already the law of the land in Japan, um, and in Europe. And you mentioned the big beautiful bill. in order to get um your EV incentives, your tax incentives uh through that bill, a certain percentage of the the inputs of the battery have to come from North American free trade agreement countries, Mexico, US or or Canada. But there's no way to track that. At least there there isn't until Minehub comes along. Like mining is an antiquated industry. We're still doing um mining logs and then things with with pen and paper and and and pencil, right? And scanning them. So this is a way to digitize that information. So when when Volkswagen for example's got to put a battery passport on their latest EV, all this data has been tracked from ore to smelter to refining to final product. The other reason it's important is I'm sure you and your your readers have read stories of you know the LME being short a certain amount of metal. Even in the recent weeks, they were short some silver or I'm sure you've read these uh articles about um a cargo ship showing up to to to a metals exchange and whoops, it's painted rocks. It's not really nickel or or metal or something like that. This can't happen when when you're tracking the ore and the the concentrate from the mine through the shipping all the way to the to the final destination. Um Minehub does that. the stock has tripled in the past year and and one of the reasons it's done that is because there's another company called ABAX which is a larger company that's invested 19% into MineHub. AAX is run by a gentleman named Josh Crumb who's comes from the resource desk at at Goldman Sachs. He's a very sharp individual and what he's done is created a brand new commodities exchange. So you're familiar with the COMX, you're familiar with the LME. What you're not familiar with is the ABAX exchange which is just launched in the past sort of 12 18 months and they do physically deliverable contracts. So you buy a Comx copper contract, you don't have to take delivery, you can sell that contract, right? And and profit on the difference. AEX does physically deliverable commodity contracts. They started with um gold and lithium and they'll be going into into other commodities. But in order to offer uh a physically deliverable commodity contract, you have to have all the input data to to prove where that commodity came from and that you actually have it. So that's why ABAX has been buying chunks of this company called Minehub that I'm talking about. Um the other reason it's important in in mining is the cost of capital. You mentioned Dan how it's tough to raise money. No one wants to lend to to to miners. What this does is it brings mining out from the opaque nature that it has into a a transparent nature by by having that data. So, in the most recent example, um, MineHub can facilitate financing. They're partnering with banks and and lending institutions to say, "Here's this cargo ship full of I'll just stick with nickel. We verified where it came from, that it's there, what the grade is, and you [clears throat] can get lending on that nickel while it's still on the ship." as opposed to to having to wait. That might not mean a lot to to some of your listeners, but that's hugely important in the game of of mining and and capital raising and and capital allocation. If you can get lending sooner in a more transparent fashion, then you can redeploy that capital and and grow or or whatever it is you need to do. So, um hopefully I explained that that that fairly well, but this this tracking of the emissions and the ore and the inputs and all that stuff, I think is going to be hugely important for all those facets that I outlined. emissions and cost of capital and and so Minehub is a tiny copy company company as well. Again, I I own it, but that's been one of the stories that that really resonates with me and and I think is easy to tell and and is easy for people to get. >> That is cool. That's a really cool story. And it looks like um I'm just looking at the over- the-counter ticker Minehub Technologies looks like about 65 million in market cap US. >> Yeah, it's a small company for sure. >> Pretty small. Yeah. So you are are most of your is most of your universe that you cover pretty small >> sounds like it. >> Yeah. Yes and no. So I write a monthly macro letter and the the things that are in there are not small. Like if I want to buy copper I'll either buy, you know, Freeport or BHP or I'll buy a copper ETF. I'm not doing like the tiny >> not small. >> Correct. So in that sense, I'm expressing themes and uh via large entities, right? Like I'm not going to do a deep dive on BHP's earnings and all that stuff, but if I think copper's going up, I'll buy BHP, right? So >> yeah, I do >> in that sense, in that sense, I don't do the small stuff. And then in my weekly letter, um underground alpha, I definitely do smaller stuff. So the the bulk of it is it's under hundred million dollars market cap but we we go up to you know half a billion billion dollar market cap. So there is some some larger stuff in there. Um and then the the other thing I do is uh is private placements like I write a lot of checks directly into companies. So and those sometimes are very tiny you know five 10 million market caps on on the TSXV exchange. So, I manage multiple portfolios, but I'm really just managing all my wealth in different ways, right? I've got my IAS and my converted Roths or whatever where I'm buying those BHPs and those ETFs, and then I've got my full service brokerage account where I'm, you know, taking delivery of physical certificates from financing companies directly. So, um, yes, the bulk of what I do is is on the smaller end, but but I allocate capital to the whole spectrum. when you finance companies directly um is it something like this is something you just do and write about or do you actually have you know a group of investors who participate with you? Is it just your own capital I guess is the real question there. >> Yeah, it's funny how it started. So it started with just my own capital and you know folks I knew in the space um that were doing deals and financing companies and would invite me in and being the newsletter writer that I was I wanted to get it to a broader audience right like how can we form a letter or a product around that so um in 2015 I did that I formed a private placement service uh that's still in existence today it's called private placement intel and we do as you say we have a group um of accredited investors that um access deals that that that me and my partner are are investing in. Um, yeah, you got to be accredited, of course. And it is a small group. That's important to to say because I just said that, you know, we're investing sometimes in five or$10 million market cap companies. Well, a $5 million company is only going to be raising a million, two million, three million bucks, right? So, you can't have thousands of people on that list. They're not going to get the allocation that they want. So, we keep it small. It's under 250 people. It's a high price product. Um, and yeah, we write checks alongside each other, sort of like an investment group. >> That's really cool. People have talked about doing that around here, but um, never really never did it. Never. >> Well, when you're when you're a smaller company or an individual, you're able to be more nimble than larger institutions, I suppose. >> You're telling me. Okay. [laughter] I mean, look, I have no complaints. I you know I have the greatest gig in the world and I have for you know 20 odd years. Um we we've hit uh the moment when it's time to ask our final question which is the same for every guest identical question no matter what the topic. Um even even for non-financial guests that we have you know once a blue moon same identical question and if you've already said the answer please feel free to repeat it okay but it's really just I I would just like you to give our listener a takeaway so if you could leave them with just one thought one idea one takeaway today what would it be um worry about yourself not extraneous factors I I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about generations and generational cycles. I don't know if you've come across some of those books by Oh, yeah. William Strauss and Neil How for example, The Fourth Turning. >> I got one. >> And I think that >> Yep. It's on my shelf as well. I firmly believe that that we're in the thick of that. It's pretty easy to see looking around you what's happened in the past couple of administrations in this country and the protest we're seeing from both the left and the right. And it's easy to get wrapped up in that tribalism and and and whatever else is going on. Like I said, I was hopeful and and full of piss in my 20s, but as I as I aged and matured, I became very independent and individualistic and I focused on myself and my family and and that's what I preached to to my readers and and anyone else who's willing to listen. Those politicians on either side aren't there for you. you see how they enrich themselves on both sides of the aisle while, you know, the middle class continues to erode and we get this K-shaped um recovery ever since COVID and the the vast wealth inequality. So, I I firmly believe you need to focus uh inward and on your family and do what's best for you and be an asset owner because, you know, given the non-transiatory inflation that we've seen since 2020, um your costs are are going up and incomes aren't rising as fast and that a that inflation that's eating away at your way of life. And then your spending power is able to be owned at least in some respects in your account by owning the things that are inflating, i.e. gold at 4,200 and silver at 53 and copper over $5. So, you've got to be an asset owner. I I read a lot about this hustle economy and having a side gig. If your side gig isn't owning assets, you're going to need a third job. So, worry about yourself and own the assets. >> Well said. Thanks for that, Nick. And thanks for being here. Really great to talk to you. I had a great time. >> Yeah. No, that was fantastic. I love running my mouth and you guys let me do it. So, thank you. [laughter] We we yeah we we like your style. Run run run run away. That's fine. You know, we like we like people who just who know something and are willing to tell us all about it because our one of the big reasons we do this at all is because on the mainstream and even not so mainstream, you get about five or eight seconds. And I did that a bunch of times on like Fox Business and a couple other things. and and uh you know they give you 5 seconds or 7 seconds or whatever and then they cut you off and it's ridiculous. You can't you can't spell out anything that's meaningful in that amount of time. It's a terrible terrible forum. This is much better. We want people like you. We want ideas like you have and we want to hear all of it. Don't ever apologize for a long answer with us. All right. >> I'll keep that in mind and and hope your listeners got something meaningful today. >> Oh, I'm sure they did. I hope they were taking notes. Uh, thanks a lot, Nick. We will definitely be calling you back at some point in the fairly near future. >> Great. I look forward to it. >> Folks, the White House is on a stock buying spree that is comparable to a hedge fund that has raised billions. And the stocks in question are surging as a direct result. 200% within 24 hours in one case, 90% in another. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, which is why we're hosting an urgent financial summit, the stocks that save America, on Tuesday, November 18th. That's tomorrow. This event will feature a man you may know well, 50-year investing titan Rick Rule, along with my guest today, Nick Hajj. Together, they'll reveal why the success of some stocks could now be a matter of national security. how a select group of US companies could soon play a historic role in rebuilding the nation's industrial backbone and the wealth of regular people and the name and ticker of a free stock recommendation they believe could soar as this story accelerates. A stock I personally love by the way. If you enjoyed today's episode, this briefing will be a mustsee followup. Now head over to www.whousetocks.com white housetocks.com to learn more and reserve your spot. Again, that's www.whousetocks.com. Don't delay. That was a lot of fun. I I've never spoken with Nick before, but man, he's very knowledgeable and a lot of fun to talk to and a good talker himself, as we as we pointed out. [snorts] >> Yeah, that was fun. I love that. I mean, the last thing on my mind now is his last answer about uh just trying to navigate this crazy world and uh multiple uh you know, income streams essentially. And that that's where I ended up too. Like that's how I ended up here. Like uh you know, I had my job writing and editing. And I was like, listen, I need to figure out how to this is not I'm not keeping up with any costs no matter how uh hard I try. I think, you know, just things out of your control. Um, eventually I'm like, "All right, I need to put some I need to figure something else out." And having your money work for you and create things when you're not having to actually put in any uh physical labor at least, uh, is so valuable. And yeah, that kind of aligns with the way I think about a lot of things. and um he seems like he's a guy you want to be following if you want if you're interested at all in natural resource investing. I would say there's no substitute for a well-connected guy [laughter] in natural resources. If the if the person that you're talking with, you know, claims to be knowledgeable in natural resources and they don't know everybody, uh you know, be careful because that is the key. And the fact that he focuses his strategy on that, right? knowing the people and understanding the incentives by knowing the full cap table like he was talking about. >> Uh that's one of the more brilliant things I've heard because I've always felt like oh boy I I just I really need to know more geology. I'm like maybe I need to know more of that. [laughter] >> You know I need to get those cap tables from every CFO in the industry. That's what I need to know. >> Yeah, I loved hearing too the cap table thing. It reminds me of like looking at insider buying and >> selling of like I was just writing yesterday about this Coreweave stock, the AI data center and all the the CFO has been selling hund00 million dollars of shares in the last month. Um, [snorts] >> hello. That means something, right? >> Nice work if you can get it. [laughter] >> Um, yeah, that's that's that sort of stuff is awesome to hear. And >> yeah, really smart guy, really tight focus, you know, as an investor. It sound it's that's it's um it's a good recipe right there. Well-connected smart guy, tight focus when it with the strategy. That's really a good combo. Great conversation. That's another interview and that's another episode of the Stansbury Investor Hour. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we really truly did. Opinions expressed on this program are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Stanbury Research, its parent company, or affiliates.