Gold Miners: The REAL Boom Hasn’t Even Started | Markus Bussler
Summary
Gold/Silver Bull Cycle: Ongoing bull market driven by structural factors with potential fifth-wave upside, but expect a volatile correction before the next leg higher.
Central Bank Buying: Persistent official-sector accumulation (notably China) cited as the primary driver of the physical gold market over rate policy narratives.
Junior Miners: Guest rotated out of large producers into juniors for higher torque, while cautioning on greenfield risk and advocating staged buying during corrections.
Key Producers: Agnico Eagle (AEM) praised as best-in-class earlier in the cycle, with Newmont (NEM) and Barrick (GOLD) catching up; potential reshaping of Nevada Gold Mines stake highlighted.
M&A Dynamics: Unconventional deals discussed, including Fresnillo (FRES) activity around Canadian assets and decisions regarding MAG Silver (MAG), plus a share-financed acquisition involving New Gold (NGD) raising dilution concerns.
Jurisdiction Focus: Preference for consolidation in safe jurisdictions like Quebec/Abitibi, while selectively accepting West Africa (Ivory Coast, Ghana) risk for value; avoidance of higher-risk states like Mali/Burkina Faso.
Risk Management: Use conservative base-case gold prices (e.g., $2,500/oz) for project evaluation; beware leverage as market selloffs can trigger gold liquidations via margin calls.
Outlook: Best may be ahead for juniors if the cycle plays out into 2026, but investors should plan to trim into euphoria and remain disciplined on valuations.
Transcript
Special coverage from the Deutsche Gold Mesa is brought to you by First Majestic Silver. There's no substitute for silver. Hello and welcome back to Frankfurt. Welcome back to the Deutsche Go and of course, welcome back to Soar Financially. My name is Kai Hoffman. I'm the Edj Mining guy over on X and of course your host of this channel and I'm really happy to be reintroducing our good friend Marcus Busla to the channel back introducing him back to you. Marcus, you're a journalist over at Daka. Tremendously appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us here. >> Oh, my pleasure. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. I really enjoyed your presentation. You gave the lunch keynote today. Um, what was your main takeaway from the presentation? Let's start there. >> The main takeaway, the main takeaway is that we still in the middle of a bull cycle. Um uh the best is still to come especially for junior miners and um but um there might be come a point in next year or in 2027 um that you have to put some money aside, put some money out of the market and um uh look a little bit from the sideline. >> Oh, there you go. Okay. I appreciate it. That was a good executive summary of what we're going to talk about. But let's start maybe at the at the bottom. Let's let's work our way up um to to where we're at today. Gold has moved, silver has moved. Maybe just just work out like in from your point of view like what really drove this rally and what is driving it right now? >> Uh I think it all starts with central central bank buying. Um back in 2010 2011 um central bank swept switches from the net seller side to the net buyer side. especially the Chinese people, bank of Chinese um um doing some big gold purchases and um this changes a lot for the gold market for the physical gold market and this was the main driver at the beginning and um Kai you know we have so many problems in the world the problem in the US that problem in European countries as well especially France and um there's so many problems and people asking themselves do you want to be in fiat currencies and or do you want to be some real assets like gold and silver and I think this is what brings some investors some smart money back to the market. >> Yeah. Well, you you highlight the central bank buying. Other guests have mentioned number one reason is Fed interest rates scenario and the US debt situation like based on your the facial reaction. You don't say it's the most important factor. >> Remember um when does this bull market started? It start 2015. We hit a lower in 2015 with $1,50. We never see this again. So this is the start of the bull market. Uh we have a high interest rate in this in this cycle. We have low interest rates in this cycle and gold steady climbs. So I don't see the interest rates really as a main driver or the low interest rates or the change in Fed policy as a main driver of the gold price. I don't see it. >> So So moving forward, let's extrapolate that a little bit. You said, okay, gold and silver might rally next year as well. They might put in great performance. Um but what could derail the gold and silver train right now? >> The derail >> derail it. >> Ah okay. >> What we see now is many many investors say okay uh the gold has an great performance and they use gold instead of the US dollar as a kind of a cash reserve they use. So imagine the stock market isn't cheap anymore. We can say it's expensive. Okay. So at one day maybe it crashes it corrects in a in a hard way and what happens is you get a margin call. >> So you have to cash out of your gold position to cover your margins >> and this could be really hit the gold market as well. >> So a crash in the general market can reflect in the gold market. >> It's interesting because we've just seen a crash in the Bitcoin market. Uh >> it's a crash. No, let's It wiped out a lot of investors because they were >> 20 times leveraged, which is of course like a very risky thing to do. >> You do this. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> Right. Um but do you think we've seen actually some of those Bitcoin investors come over to gold? Have you seen something like that? >> I tell you one thing. Um everybody says there's a competition between Bitcoin and gold. I don't see this because I don't see a typical gold investor who is um a little bit of oh the all the world is coming to to an end and take this money and use the oldest currency in the world um going into the crypto market which is pretty new not a lot long history and um of course it's very more volatile than gold is I don't see this uh investor type is the same so I don't think so but I think in bitcoin is risk capital >> and I think risk capital competes to junior miners or mining companies. So I see probably some going from from risk capital follows the money. So when you can make money and junior miners or in in mining companies in general uh it's coming back to to this sector. This is what I see. >> Let's talk miners and junior miners in a second. Let's stay on uh gold itself or gold and silver because the volatility has been >> extreme like I'm using that cautiously like 3 4 5% move. silver, seven, eight% moves uh in a single day. Um it's starting to take on like me um characteristics when it comes to trading like we've seen in the Bitcoin space. Are people starting to play gold overleveraged, 20x leveraged? Are they applying the same tactics now? >> Uh maybe, but they will be washed out in this correction we are right now in because um I think this is far from being over. I guess we seeing lower prices in gold, let's say like 3,500. Seeing lower prices in silver as well, let's say 41 to $43. And if you are leveraged with 20 times, it's you get washed out. And uh I guess this will calm down the whole sector and uh is building the fundament for the next um leg up. >> Fantastic. You used Elliot wave theory a little bit in your presentation. I know you're not an Elliot wave theory expert, but you you call you you mentioned that we're in the fifth wave. We we on the fourth wave. We in the fourth wave. Uh if you have a classic wave is is impulsive to the upside is five waves. So >> the first wave is up, second wave is correction, third wave is up, fourth phase is correction, fifth wave is up and we are now in the fourth wave kind of a correction and usually in the precious metal space um the fifth wave up in the wave is the most strongest. So if I'm correct with my count, I only have to count to five. It's not too too terribly good. But um if I am correct, the best is yet to come. This is what I mean. But again, this would be somewhere at the end of the cycle. >> Okay. And you said the end of the cycle is in 27 >> 2026. Let's let's let's see how how >> I want an exact date of course, right? >> Look at looking back, but I compared it in the presentation with what happens 2011 and um at the beginning of 2011, the gold had taken soda taken hit and then it doubled >> in a couple of months. If it's the same time frame, we might see a top in 2026. >> Yeah. >> But let's see how it plays out. >> Yeah. >> A little bit too early to say. >> Good point. Good point. But what we're seeing playing out right now is the performance in the gold and silver mining stocks. Absolutely. It's absolutely fantastic to be in this space. Um run us a bit through like what is sentiment right now. Let's start at high level here. >> Um I think some demand was a little bit overheated, a little bit overbought. Um this is now the correction is coming to a real good time. I think some people getting washed out on this. Some of these h let's say high speculative money coming back and see just knowing nothing about junior miners and just seeing hey there you can make money and they started to to come in the sector to make money without doing any due diligence and looking at what's really behind the stocks and um they get washed out and this is really helpful. I think >> that's it's interesting because that's why we're hosting this conference. We're trying to educate as well so we can the new money actually stays around as well cuz we we've been to a phase and you you highlighted it perfectly in your presentation of no liquidity in our space. There was no liquidity, >> right? Uh but we want to keep that money in the space. We don't want to burn them. How do we do that? >> Yeah. Teach them. Um teach them. Um >> of course it's it's not the easy the most easiest place to to spend your money. Um if you spend your money in a car maker, you just have to how many cars will they say? What's their margin? what's their producing cost and um the prediction is pretty easy. So you can do your math and say okay it's valued it's undervalued it's overvalued. Um of course car makers is maybe a bad example because some of them are more like tech companies right now if you look at the um EV sector. However, it's not the the most easiest place to be because you have to do like um geology. You have to do about mythology and you have to do it's it's a people business. You have to know the people behind the deal and you have to to know what they are thinking, what's the plan is and is it a real project? Will it become a mind? If I think if you have a project which will become a mind, you can sit out a correction. And there are these let's say um companies around you can make money with but you have to get out at some point. >> Yeah. Like where's the money right now in this space? Like let's look at the royalty companies, the producer, the bigger producers, the mid tiers, you got the developers, the juniors like who who's getting most of the excitement or most of the money right now? I mean we we got um the first phase of this bull market is totally going to the big producers and I highlighted acne eagle as maybe the best in class and uh even some of the big names like Baric and Newman underperformed acne for a long long time. So you see now some generalists coming back to the market and they say uh precious metals um what was it? It was Newman, it was barric gold. Now what's Barry mining? probably the same. So I buy this. So you see um Newman and Barry catching up to to to Miko a little bit and um but there's also on the small producer size going on a lot and highlighted these turnaround stories. Um Kinros for example, Ken Ros was one of these unloved childs nobody really wants to have in the portfolio is one of the best performing stocks right now. same as IM gold, highly low margin producer, but with the with the gold price on the rise, you you get your margin back and all these things happened and um but people start to looking um as even as retail investors re-entering the market. Um you see, as you mentioned, liquidity is going up in the junior stocks. This means there's more interest in the junior stocks. So money is coming back to to the junior stocks right now. So, one big takeaway for me from the Beaver Creek conference was that I need to change my thinking because $4,000 gold changes a lot. All of a sudden, a lot of projects that were absolute garbage are all of a sudden cashmaker money makers. They produce free cash flow theoretically. Like, how do you adjust for that? Like, how do you because I know you look at 1400 companies pretty much on a daily basis as well or more even. Like, how do you adjust for that new price environment? I really um it's interesting because I talked to many companies and um I like the companies CEO saying to me we can't rely on $4,000 gold. So I don't make any um math on $4,000 gold. Um I think it's fair enough to say let's let's use $2,500 as a as a as a base case scenario. And um of course there's upside at the at the spot price, but I don't use $4,000 because >> if you got a project only working at $4,000 gold and um you could easily correct to 3,500. What is it? 15% correction. Um so and your whole business model crashes. So I don't want to be in this company. >> So you actually agree with analysts because I've been criticizing them a little bit because a lot of the analysts like Raymond James uses $2,900 gold longterm for their analysis. But you agree with them that they should be using conservative prices. >> Hey Kai, if we stand at if I'm wrong, okay, and we entering the year 2028 and we're standing at $10,000 gold, I'm happy to to adjust my what they just said, but um as long as as I stick to my model and I say let's let's be a more conservative and um uh >> just a little don't get too much excitement in this. >> Yeah. Okay. No, fair enough. And we've been whacked over the head way too many times as well. We're still a bit cautious. Yeah, we're still portfolio look like right now we talked about it on stage. Um I know you sold some of the or you took some profits out of the bigger companies. Run us a bit through that process. Where are you deploying your capital right now? >> Uh yeah um I really sold a lot of my my um producer stocks. Um I bought back a couple of months or a year ago. I sold my whole Anneuo position for example. I didn't sell it because I don't think Anneuo won't go up anymore or the upside is done. Um but I think that the junior mining stocks have more upsides to give to me than the Agniko or Barracks or um yeah all I really sold close to all sold my Pan-American silver stocks. Um not because I think it's a bad company, not because I think it's it's the upside is done. It's just I see more value or more value creation for my portfolio in some smaller stocks and some junior stocks. define those for us like what is a junior stock for you? Where do you draw the line? >> Junior stock is uh I use many people say this is a junior stock is exploration company and the development stuff is a development stock. I I take it in one pot term. So so development stage and um exploration stage is is one pot and of course you get this green field exploration no all done. It's it's very high risk capital because you can't control whether the drill it's it's another category for me. It's not even junior stock. This is the real Greenfield exploration company. >> Yeah. Is it >> I own some. Yeah. >> Okay. Is it I was going to say is it time to look at green field yet? >> Absolutely. As long as you're aware of the risk. >> That's the really problem because at this point of stage um many investors coming in this space only seeing the upside and u if you are long enough in this sector you know the downside risk. Um it might look cheap on paper and um but as long as you don't get a drill holder, as long as you don't know what's in the ground, you get a very very high risk. And um you know, if you get um 10 green field operations, maybe one really gives you this excitement you you wanted to see. >> You you mentioned another interesting fact that you're actually quite agnostic when it comes to jurisdictions. Um you mentioned a couple jurisdictions in Africa and other places as well. Like what gets you excited right now? Are you looking already like at higher risk jurisdictions that give you higher torque perhaps? >> Absolutely. I think so. Yeah. Um you get the cheaper stock or the cheaper the company is in in higher risk polit. Um if you look at West Africa for example, I don't want to go to Mali and I I don't want to go to Pikina Faso. It's it's Vagnner troops controlling the region. I I don't want to deal with >> I think they have a new name now, but yes. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> They rebranded it. >> Okay. Yeah, they rebranded. Yeah. So, the the friendly wet risk. Yeah. Okay. So, no, I want to deal with this risk because it's not the typical mining risk. It's out of my uh control. And um but everybody's going to the Ivory Coast now. >> Mhm. >> Um you won't go to the Ivory Coast 20 years ago, but you want to go now. Um it sounds fairly okay. >> Of course, you have a risk. You have a political risk on this side. That's why you can watch it. If you see um there's gone something strange going on, you can cash out if you want. Um same with Ghana. Ghana is politically stable over the last couple of years and u I can take this risk. I know there's a risk. Um um it's not the Congo, it's not Mali, it's not the na, it's ner um and it's it's not it's not Mali. But um there's some risk, but um it's it's it's in my eyes it's okay to to do some business there. >> Yeah. Are you excited about certain like mining regions in general? Like I know there's certain trends like are you looking at the Tethian belt or are you looking at certain areas like in Ontario or Quebec? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you excited about certain trends that you're seeing in this space? >> Oh yeah. I mean um there's a lot going on. Um if you look at Quebec and um uh the ABTP um this is home of Agniko and everything uh every who operates there could be taken over by Aiko because this is this is their their home field. Um so um I was surprised for um buying probe for example because maybe probe is not a com company um ano was interested in otherwise it would make a higher bid I guess. Um but I see some of these strange deals going on there. Um but there's a many companies of the bigger companies looking for safety restrictions. Um we heard this Newman rumor. Newman says we want to buy these um um shares of Baric in Nevada gold mines and uh if you are Bareric and say I I sell my shares what's what's what's what's in the what's left in the company? Pakistan. >> Mali. >> Mali. Yeah. So >> the fun stuff. >> Yeah. So we see really I guess the big uh merchant acquisitions will happen in the safety restrictions. Yeah. >> You you mentioned one of the red flags you mentioned um in your presentations that maybe there are some warning signs that this sector might already be in in in the in its end stages. Um what were some of those red flags? I just mentioned these um well let me tell you from another way going back to 2010 2011 there have been a lot of strange um takeovers taking place and u a lot of projects getting taken over never coming to production and uh because this doesn't make sense these were takeovers made on the prediction the gold price will be on the rise forever. So, and now we see we starting to see some merchant acquisition and um we saw this um Fresnillo probe that doesn't make sense at the first site because you say, "Hey, Fresno is a Mexican company. They have all their producing mines are in Mexico." Maybe one a little bit um yeah devest the risk in cases of of your restrictions and go to to um Canada. So you can argue it makes a little bit of sense, but it's not what you really expected to see. Finilo buying a gold >> and they passed on their share of Max Silver. >> Yeah, absolutely. That's what I didn't understand. Um Paname were buying Max silver. I expected to to make a bigger offer for see a bigger offer from from Brainilo, but nothing happens. And uh I guess in the very next day they sold all their shares in in Max Silver. So very weird. And we saw this takeover from Kerr to from New Gold. Um, of course, uh, Rainy River, New Fn are good minds. Um, but this is really something you see a synergy in curb acquiring these assets. Well, will they make money for them? Absolutely. Of course, they are highly profitable right now after a big phase of investments in these two mines. Um so it makes case in some it makes sense in some cases but it's not what you really expected to see to occur buying um new gold especially not with with shares because um this is a huge dilution for kerine but as precious metals stay there it makes sense but these are little bit red flags because these are um yeah takeovers you wouldn't expect um the other thing is um see what what's happened in this first order this in this wave we just got This upwave in in in gold and silver was a little bit too enthusiast. It was too fast, too high, a little bit too much overboard. And think what would happen if we go to to 80 or $80 silver and everybody is partying on the rooftop and um cheering out loud and uh this would be the time I would say cash something in. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Go cash something out. >> Maybe that's a you know some parting advice. You have a big retail following of course as well and we have a strong retail audience too. like what are some of the parting advice you have for investors? Should they uh dollar cost average into the space right now? Should they wait a little bit longer and then jump in with both feet to the not financial advice of course? >> Absolutely. Um I mean the fourth wave is something of the most unpredictable waves in Elliot wave and again I'm not an Elliot wave um professional but um looking at some other guys who really do this very well and um I think you can't predict we it's it's not for sure we go into 3,500 or 241. So I would start buying a little bit now and um as as we go forward just um doing more buying in in the junior mining space and uh I don't see this there's no guarantee. So um yeah everybody wants to sell at the top and buy at the bottom but uh in indeed nobody really can do this. >> I usually do the opposite. >> Yeah it usually never work. It doesn't you know I'm not a great trader. I'm a good investor but a bad trader. So absolutely Marcus, where can our audience follow more of your work? >> Where? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. At the air, of course. Um it's our print magazine and uh of course at Goldfolio, our newsletter or my newsletter and um um you can also use YouTube to find it. Um the Auxtonire and Marcus left. So >> fantastic. Awesome. Marcus, really really appreciate you joining us here in Frankfurt. Always appreciate you coming out and can't wait to have you back next time. >> All right. >> So thank you so much for that. Everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in. Tremendously appreciate the support here at the Deutsche Goymas. I've met a lot of you watching here. Uh tremendously to see you guys come out from North America, from the Benelux visiting us here in Frankfurt. It means a lot. Thanks so much for doing that. And if you haven't done so, hit that like and subscribe button and we'll be back with more here from Frankfurt. Take care out there.
Gold Miners: The REAL Boom Hasn’t Even Started | Markus Bussler
Summary
Transcript
Special coverage from the Deutsche Gold Mesa is brought to you by First Majestic Silver. There's no substitute for silver. Hello and welcome back to Frankfurt. Welcome back to the Deutsche Go and of course, welcome back to Soar Financially. My name is Kai Hoffman. I'm the Edj Mining guy over on X and of course your host of this channel and I'm really happy to be reintroducing our good friend Marcus Busla to the channel back introducing him back to you. Marcus, you're a journalist over at Daka. Tremendously appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us here. >> Oh, my pleasure. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. I really enjoyed your presentation. You gave the lunch keynote today. Um, what was your main takeaway from the presentation? Let's start there. >> The main takeaway, the main takeaway is that we still in the middle of a bull cycle. Um uh the best is still to come especially for junior miners and um but um there might be come a point in next year or in 2027 um that you have to put some money aside, put some money out of the market and um uh look a little bit from the sideline. >> Oh, there you go. Okay. I appreciate it. That was a good executive summary of what we're going to talk about. But let's start maybe at the at the bottom. Let's let's work our way up um to to where we're at today. Gold has moved, silver has moved. Maybe just just work out like in from your point of view like what really drove this rally and what is driving it right now? >> Uh I think it all starts with central central bank buying. Um back in 2010 2011 um central bank swept switches from the net seller side to the net buyer side. especially the Chinese people, bank of Chinese um um doing some big gold purchases and um this changes a lot for the gold market for the physical gold market and this was the main driver at the beginning and um Kai you know we have so many problems in the world the problem in the US that problem in European countries as well especially France and um there's so many problems and people asking themselves do you want to be in fiat currencies and or do you want to be some real assets like gold and silver and I think this is what brings some investors some smart money back to the market. >> Yeah. Well, you you highlight the central bank buying. Other guests have mentioned number one reason is Fed interest rates scenario and the US debt situation like based on your the facial reaction. You don't say it's the most important factor. >> Remember um when does this bull market started? It start 2015. We hit a lower in 2015 with $1,50. We never see this again. So this is the start of the bull market. Uh we have a high interest rate in this in this cycle. We have low interest rates in this cycle and gold steady climbs. So I don't see the interest rates really as a main driver or the low interest rates or the change in Fed policy as a main driver of the gold price. I don't see it. >> So So moving forward, let's extrapolate that a little bit. You said, okay, gold and silver might rally next year as well. They might put in great performance. Um but what could derail the gold and silver train right now? >> The derail >> derail it. >> Ah okay. >> What we see now is many many investors say okay uh the gold has an great performance and they use gold instead of the US dollar as a kind of a cash reserve they use. So imagine the stock market isn't cheap anymore. We can say it's expensive. Okay. So at one day maybe it crashes it corrects in a in a hard way and what happens is you get a margin call. >> So you have to cash out of your gold position to cover your margins >> and this could be really hit the gold market as well. >> So a crash in the general market can reflect in the gold market. >> It's interesting because we've just seen a crash in the Bitcoin market. Uh >> it's a crash. No, let's It wiped out a lot of investors because they were >> 20 times leveraged, which is of course like a very risky thing to do. >> You do this. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> Right. Um but do you think we've seen actually some of those Bitcoin investors come over to gold? Have you seen something like that? >> I tell you one thing. Um everybody says there's a competition between Bitcoin and gold. I don't see this because I don't see a typical gold investor who is um a little bit of oh the all the world is coming to to an end and take this money and use the oldest currency in the world um going into the crypto market which is pretty new not a lot long history and um of course it's very more volatile than gold is I don't see this uh investor type is the same so I don't think so but I think in bitcoin is risk capital >> and I think risk capital competes to junior miners or mining companies. So I see probably some going from from risk capital follows the money. So when you can make money and junior miners or in in mining companies in general uh it's coming back to to this sector. This is what I see. >> Let's talk miners and junior miners in a second. Let's stay on uh gold itself or gold and silver because the volatility has been >> extreme like I'm using that cautiously like 3 4 5% move. silver, seven, eight% moves uh in a single day. Um it's starting to take on like me um characteristics when it comes to trading like we've seen in the Bitcoin space. Are people starting to play gold overleveraged, 20x leveraged? Are they applying the same tactics now? >> Uh maybe, but they will be washed out in this correction we are right now in because um I think this is far from being over. I guess we seeing lower prices in gold, let's say like 3,500. Seeing lower prices in silver as well, let's say 41 to $43. And if you are leveraged with 20 times, it's you get washed out. And uh I guess this will calm down the whole sector and uh is building the fundament for the next um leg up. >> Fantastic. You used Elliot wave theory a little bit in your presentation. I know you're not an Elliot wave theory expert, but you you call you you mentioned that we're in the fifth wave. We we on the fourth wave. We in the fourth wave. Uh if you have a classic wave is is impulsive to the upside is five waves. So >> the first wave is up, second wave is correction, third wave is up, fourth phase is correction, fifth wave is up and we are now in the fourth wave kind of a correction and usually in the precious metal space um the fifth wave up in the wave is the most strongest. So if I'm correct with my count, I only have to count to five. It's not too too terribly good. But um if I am correct, the best is yet to come. This is what I mean. But again, this would be somewhere at the end of the cycle. >> Okay. And you said the end of the cycle is in 27 >> 2026. Let's let's let's see how how >> I want an exact date of course, right? >> Look at looking back, but I compared it in the presentation with what happens 2011 and um at the beginning of 2011, the gold had taken soda taken hit and then it doubled >> in a couple of months. If it's the same time frame, we might see a top in 2026. >> Yeah. >> But let's see how it plays out. >> Yeah. >> A little bit too early to say. >> Good point. Good point. But what we're seeing playing out right now is the performance in the gold and silver mining stocks. Absolutely. It's absolutely fantastic to be in this space. Um run us a bit through like what is sentiment right now. Let's start at high level here. >> Um I think some demand was a little bit overheated, a little bit overbought. Um this is now the correction is coming to a real good time. I think some people getting washed out on this. Some of these h let's say high speculative money coming back and see just knowing nothing about junior miners and just seeing hey there you can make money and they started to to come in the sector to make money without doing any due diligence and looking at what's really behind the stocks and um they get washed out and this is really helpful. I think >> that's it's interesting because that's why we're hosting this conference. We're trying to educate as well so we can the new money actually stays around as well cuz we we've been to a phase and you you highlighted it perfectly in your presentation of no liquidity in our space. There was no liquidity, >> right? Uh but we want to keep that money in the space. We don't want to burn them. How do we do that? >> Yeah. Teach them. Um teach them. Um >> of course it's it's not the easy the most easiest place to to spend your money. Um if you spend your money in a car maker, you just have to how many cars will they say? What's their margin? what's their producing cost and um the prediction is pretty easy. So you can do your math and say okay it's valued it's undervalued it's overvalued. Um of course car makers is maybe a bad example because some of them are more like tech companies right now if you look at the um EV sector. However, it's not the the most easiest place to be because you have to do like um geology. You have to do about mythology and you have to do it's it's a people business. You have to know the people behind the deal and you have to to know what they are thinking, what's the plan is and is it a real project? Will it become a mind? If I think if you have a project which will become a mind, you can sit out a correction. And there are these let's say um companies around you can make money with but you have to get out at some point. >> Yeah. Like where's the money right now in this space? Like let's look at the royalty companies, the producer, the bigger producers, the mid tiers, you got the developers, the juniors like who who's getting most of the excitement or most of the money right now? I mean we we got um the first phase of this bull market is totally going to the big producers and I highlighted acne eagle as maybe the best in class and uh even some of the big names like Baric and Newman underperformed acne for a long long time. So you see now some generalists coming back to the market and they say uh precious metals um what was it? It was Newman, it was barric gold. Now what's Barry mining? probably the same. So I buy this. So you see um Newman and Barry catching up to to to Miko a little bit and um but there's also on the small producer size going on a lot and highlighted these turnaround stories. Um Kinros for example, Ken Ros was one of these unloved childs nobody really wants to have in the portfolio is one of the best performing stocks right now. same as IM gold, highly low margin producer, but with the with the gold price on the rise, you you get your margin back and all these things happened and um but people start to looking um as even as retail investors re-entering the market. Um you see, as you mentioned, liquidity is going up in the junior stocks. This means there's more interest in the junior stocks. So money is coming back to to the junior stocks right now. So, one big takeaway for me from the Beaver Creek conference was that I need to change my thinking because $4,000 gold changes a lot. All of a sudden, a lot of projects that were absolute garbage are all of a sudden cashmaker money makers. They produce free cash flow theoretically. Like, how do you adjust for that? Like, how do you because I know you look at 1400 companies pretty much on a daily basis as well or more even. Like, how do you adjust for that new price environment? I really um it's interesting because I talked to many companies and um I like the companies CEO saying to me we can't rely on $4,000 gold. So I don't make any um math on $4,000 gold. Um I think it's fair enough to say let's let's use $2,500 as a as a as a base case scenario. And um of course there's upside at the at the spot price, but I don't use $4,000 because >> if you got a project only working at $4,000 gold and um you could easily correct to 3,500. What is it? 15% correction. Um so and your whole business model crashes. So I don't want to be in this company. >> So you actually agree with analysts because I've been criticizing them a little bit because a lot of the analysts like Raymond James uses $2,900 gold longterm for their analysis. But you agree with them that they should be using conservative prices. >> Hey Kai, if we stand at if I'm wrong, okay, and we entering the year 2028 and we're standing at $10,000 gold, I'm happy to to adjust my what they just said, but um as long as as I stick to my model and I say let's let's be a more conservative and um uh >> just a little don't get too much excitement in this. >> Yeah. Okay. No, fair enough. And we've been whacked over the head way too many times as well. We're still a bit cautious. Yeah, we're still portfolio look like right now we talked about it on stage. Um I know you sold some of the or you took some profits out of the bigger companies. Run us a bit through that process. Where are you deploying your capital right now? >> Uh yeah um I really sold a lot of my my um producer stocks. Um I bought back a couple of months or a year ago. I sold my whole Anneuo position for example. I didn't sell it because I don't think Anneuo won't go up anymore or the upside is done. Um but I think that the junior mining stocks have more upsides to give to me than the Agniko or Barracks or um yeah all I really sold close to all sold my Pan-American silver stocks. Um not because I think it's a bad company, not because I think it's it's the upside is done. It's just I see more value or more value creation for my portfolio in some smaller stocks and some junior stocks. define those for us like what is a junior stock for you? Where do you draw the line? >> Junior stock is uh I use many people say this is a junior stock is exploration company and the development stuff is a development stock. I I take it in one pot term. So so development stage and um exploration stage is is one pot and of course you get this green field exploration no all done. It's it's very high risk capital because you can't control whether the drill it's it's another category for me. It's not even junior stock. This is the real Greenfield exploration company. >> Yeah. Is it >> I own some. Yeah. >> Okay. Is it I was going to say is it time to look at green field yet? >> Absolutely. As long as you're aware of the risk. >> That's the really problem because at this point of stage um many investors coming in this space only seeing the upside and u if you are long enough in this sector you know the downside risk. Um it might look cheap on paper and um but as long as you don't get a drill holder, as long as you don't know what's in the ground, you get a very very high risk. And um you know, if you get um 10 green field operations, maybe one really gives you this excitement you you wanted to see. >> You you mentioned another interesting fact that you're actually quite agnostic when it comes to jurisdictions. Um you mentioned a couple jurisdictions in Africa and other places as well. Like what gets you excited right now? Are you looking already like at higher risk jurisdictions that give you higher torque perhaps? >> Absolutely. I think so. Yeah. Um you get the cheaper stock or the cheaper the company is in in higher risk polit. Um if you look at West Africa for example, I don't want to go to Mali and I I don't want to go to Pikina Faso. It's it's Vagnner troops controlling the region. I I don't want to deal with >> I think they have a new name now, but yes. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> They rebranded it. >> Okay. Yeah, they rebranded. Yeah. So, the the friendly wet risk. Yeah. Okay. So, no, I want to deal with this risk because it's not the typical mining risk. It's out of my uh control. And um but everybody's going to the Ivory Coast now. >> Mhm. >> Um you won't go to the Ivory Coast 20 years ago, but you want to go now. Um it sounds fairly okay. >> Of course, you have a risk. You have a political risk on this side. That's why you can watch it. If you see um there's gone something strange going on, you can cash out if you want. Um same with Ghana. Ghana is politically stable over the last couple of years and u I can take this risk. I know there's a risk. Um um it's not the Congo, it's not Mali, it's not the na, it's ner um and it's it's not it's not Mali. But um there's some risk, but um it's it's it's in my eyes it's okay to to do some business there. >> Yeah. Are you excited about certain like mining regions in general? Like I know there's certain trends like are you looking at the Tethian belt or are you looking at certain areas like in Ontario or Quebec? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but are you excited about certain trends that you're seeing in this space? >> Oh yeah. I mean um there's a lot going on. Um if you look at Quebec and um uh the ABTP um this is home of Agniko and everything uh every who operates there could be taken over by Aiko because this is this is their their home field. Um so um I was surprised for um buying probe for example because maybe probe is not a com company um ano was interested in otherwise it would make a higher bid I guess. Um but I see some of these strange deals going on there. Um but there's a many companies of the bigger companies looking for safety restrictions. Um we heard this Newman rumor. Newman says we want to buy these um um shares of Baric in Nevada gold mines and uh if you are Bareric and say I I sell my shares what's what's what's what's in the what's left in the company? Pakistan. >> Mali. >> Mali. Yeah. So >> the fun stuff. >> Yeah. So we see really I guess the big uh merchant acquisitions will happen in the safety restrictions. Yeah. >> You you mentioned one of the red flags you mentioned um in your presentations that maybe there are some warning signs that this sector might already be in in in the in its end stages. Um what were some of those red flags? I just mentioned these um well let me tell you from another way going back to 2010 2011 there have been a lot of strange um takeovers taking place and u a lot of projects getting taken over never coming to production and uh because this doesn't make sense these were takeovers made on the prediction the gold price will be on the rise forever. So, and now we see we starting to see some merchant acquisition and um we saw this um Fresnillo probe that doesn't make sense at the first site because you say, "Hey, Fresno is a Mexican company. They have all their producing mines are in Mexico." Maybe one a little bit um yeah devest the risk in cases of of your restrictions and go to to um Canada. So you can argue it makes a little bit of sense, but it's not what you really expected to see. Finilo buying a gold >> and they passed on their share of Max Silver. >> Yeah, absolutely. That's what I didn't understand. Um Paname were buying Max silver. I expected to to make a bigger offer for see a bigger offer from from Brainilo, but nothing happens. And uh I guess in the very next day they sold all their shares in in Max Silver. So very weird. And we saw this takeover from Kerr to from New Gold. Um, of course, uh, Rainy River, New Fn are good minds. Um, but this is really something you see a synergy in curb acquiring these assets. Well, will they make money for them? Absolutely. Of course, they are highly profitable right now after a big phase of investments in these two mines. Um so it makes case in some it makes sense in some cases but it's not what you really expected to see to occur buying um new gold especially not with with shares because um this is a huge dilution for kerine but as precious metals stay there it makes sense but these are little bit red flags because these are um yeah takeovers you wouldn't expect um the other thing is um see what what's happened in this first order this in this wave we just got This upwave in in in gold and silver was a little bit too enthusiast. It was too fast, too high, a little bit too much overboard. And think what would happen if we go to to 80 or $80 silver and everybody is partying on the rooftop and um cheering out loud and uh this would be the time I would say cash something in. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Go cash something out. >> Maybe that's a you know some parting advice. You have a big retail following of course as well and we have a strong retail audience too. like what are some of the parting advice you have for investors? Should they uh dollar cost average into the space right now? Should they wait a little bit longer and then jump in with both feet to the not financial advice of course? >> Absolutely. Um I mean the fourth wave is something of the most unpredictable waves in Elliot wave and again I'm not an Elliot wave um professional but um looking at some other guys who really do this very well and um I think you can't predict we it's it's not for sure we go into 3,500 or 241. So I would start buying a little bit now and um as as we go forward just um doing more buying in in the junior mining space and uh I don't see this there's no guarantee. So um yeah everybody wants to sell at the top and buy at the bottom but uh in indeed nobody really can do this. >> I usually do the opposite. >> Yeah it usually never work. It doesn't you know I'm not a great trader. I'm a good investor but a bad trader. So absolutely Marcus, where can our audience follow more of your work? >> Where? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. At the air, of course. Um it's our print magazine and uh of course at Goldfolio, our newsletter or my newsletter and um um you can also use YouTube to find it. Um the Auxtonire and Marcus left. So >> fantastic. Awesome. Marcus, really really appreciate you joining us here in Frankfurt. Always appreciate you coming out and can't wait to have you back next time. >> All right. >> So thank you so much for that. Everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in. Tremendously appreciate the support here at the Deutsche Goymas. I've met a lot of you watching here. Uh tremendously to see you guys come out from North America, from the Benelux visiting us here in Frankfurt. It means a lot. Thanks so much for doing that. 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