Rick Rule: Gold Strategy, Oil Stocks I Own, "Sure Money" in Uranium
Summary
Gold: Guest expects long-term US dollar debasement and continues to save in physical gold, emphasizing volatility and the need for disciplined accumulation.
Portfolio Shift: Sold 25% of junior gold stocks to de-risk and rotated into physical gold and senior producers (Franco-Nevada, Wheaton Precious Metals, Agnico Eagle) for beta exposure and longevity.
Oil & Gas: Bullish on hated oil equities due to chronic underinvestment and attractive dividends, seeing a multi-year re-rating from hated to tolerated as the key catalyst.
Exxon Mobil (XOM): Called the finest oil company, trading at an estimated 40% discount to NPV with a ~4% dividend, and believes intrinsic value could double over three years.
Canadian Energy: Prefers Canadian oil and gas names for discounts versus U.S. peers, high-quality management, and superior inventory depth, while acknowledging political risks.
Uranium: Sees a structural supply deficit, surging baseload and non-carbon demand, and a shift to term contracts that lower cost of capital; Cameco (CCJ) touted as the bellwether despite potential drawdowns.
US Community Banks: Small, well-run community banks (<$2B AUM) viewed as pathologically cheap earnings machines and a top risk-reward opportunity.
Market Dynamics: In liquidity crises everything sells, but policy responses (money printing, low rates) historically support gold, which tends to rebound faster.
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Rick Rule, proprietor at Rule Investment Media. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you >> Charlotte. Thank you for having me back and congratulations for the well-deserved growth of your channel. I've been watching over five, six years. you've done a great job. >> Oh, thank you so much. We're so close to the 60,000 level and maybe we'll get there with this conference, but thank you. And we've got so much to get into today, but where I thought we could start, as is appropriate with this conference, is with gold. So, of course, we've seen gold on its historic run. Right now, we're in a pullback. And I'm seeing many people who are looking at this as an opportunity to buy. Some people who are concerned about maybe this is it for gold. So, I thought if we could start if you could contextualize where we're at in the gold cycle right now. >> Sure. I I think it would be useful for people listening to this to listen to the interviews that you and I have done together for 5 years. Uh I I realize that most people won't do that. So, let me summarize it. First of all, in the very near term, uh I sold 25% of my junior gold stocks. I did it because by selling 25% I was able to get the other 75% for free. In other words, I sold off 25% of my upside to eliminate 100% of my downside. That's for the speculative part of my portfolio. The other part of me, Charlotte, has been saving in gold, maintaining liquidity in dollars, but saving in gold since the year 2000. I haven't sold an ounce of physical gold. And in the 25% of my junior gold stocks that I sold, half that money went into gold and three gold senior gold producers. In other words, I bought beta and I sold alpha. I believe, as you and I have discussed before, that looking forward for the next 10 years, the US dollar loses 75% of its purchasing power in real terms. Which means, I suspect that over 10 years, the gold price, the nominal gold price, the US dollar quoted gold price will increase to match the decline in purchasing power of the dollar. Does that mean that I think gold will go up three-fold in 10 years? Perhaps. Yeah, you know, nobody's going to get this right. Uh the whole game is to get close. So, if you aren't in gold, you need to begin systematically saving in gold. You absolutely have to. You also have to understand the inherent volatility in the gold price. It will not be stair steps to heaven. It will decline 25%, 30%, sometimes 50%. In a bull market, you have to be prepared for that. So, it's a nuanced it's a nuanced question. >> I I agree. And I think for those who have been following our interviews or your interviews elsewhere, this won't be a surprise and it will be things that they've heard before, but I think it is good to go over. And I also I want to hear more about your selling the 25% of your junior mining portfolio because I read your post on X and I thought that was pretty interesting. I' I've got a number of questions, but I thought I would start with what made you decide to sell? What was the trigger? And and how did that play out? Did you sell all at once or was it a process? How did that go? >> Uh, answer the second question. I asked the broker to be aggressive. We were in a period five weeks ago where there were no asks. There were all bids. And I've learned in the market to do what's easy. Uh, if there's no bids, be a bid. If there's no asks, be an ask. And the sector was white hot. There were so many junior financings. And when a company's financing, they're telling you that your cash is worth more than their stock. Well, they should know what their stock is worth. Since they were selling, I decided I would sell some, too. But what was most important to me was personal. Uh, I've been a heavy investor in the sector since 2020. And I was at a period of time where I could, by selling a quarter of my position, recoup all of my capital and pay the capital gains tax and have the rest for free. I can be very patient, Charlotte, with that remaining 75%. Because it stands me zero after tax was a personalized decision. And I think the other angle that we should talk about, so you sold and then you redeployed that money elsewhere, and I believe it went into physical gold, some of the larger royalty companies, and into oil stocks. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that. Why were those the buckets you decided to put that money into? >> I believe gold will do well in the next 10 years. Uh, and I think the market will go to alpha, which is to say, I think the market will get more speculative. For my own portfolio purposes, I think I wanted to own D-risisk beta as opposed to alpha. So, I bought gold, Franco, Nevada, wheat and precious and Agniko Eagle. I brought the highest quality companies I could deliberately going against the market trend because that's who I am, but also personalizing it. I bought oil because oil's hated. And as you and I have discussed in many of your interviews, the easiest speculative money in the world is buying hate. Buy what the market despises. Uh when that market moves from hated to tolerated, that's the easiest money that you'll ever make as a speculator. And the oil business is roundly hated right now. And it's a great business. We'll we'll get a little bit more into oil, but before we go there, so you went into these these larger companies, large minor and royalty companies, which typically, as you mentioned, we hear that those move first and then the rest down the chain. Is there a point in this market where you would be comfortable selling those large gold companies? >> I I don't know the answer to that, Charlotte. I would suspect Listen, I'm old. I've been lucky. I'm rich. My suspicion is that the sell decision on those three companies and my gold will be made by my estate. I'm assuming that they will not be sold in my lifetime. >> I think that's a very very fair answer to the question. And on the note of gold stocks, you know that I like to bring in audience questions for you and I thought this was one that you would probably give a good answer to. The question is, if there's a recession and a related credit crisis, what is the expected impact on gold and gold miners in the short term as well as in the longer term? And I think this is something we've gone over before. >> 1987 and 2008 answers that question. In a liquidity crisis, in a panic, everything gets sold because the investor doesn't make the sell decision. The margin clerk does. And the margin clerk doesn't care about your preference. So in a real selloff uh everything gets sold. What happens is that the policy response to those liquidity crises is always good for gold. It's always money fritting. It's always artificially low interest rate. So gold sells off with everything else, but it comes back much more quickly. >> And the oil angle. So this is another one. If people have been following, they will know that you've been talking about the oil equities for quite some time. So that should also not be surprising that that's what you decided to do with some of your money. I wondered if you could speak a little bit more specifically about any of the names that you like right now. >> Sure. Um the place you start is Exxon. It's the finest oil company in the world. I believe it's selling at a I believe it's selling at 60% of net present value. Meaning it's selling at a 40% discount to what it's worth while paying a 4% dividend. So there's no time value of money problem owning it because you get paid a dividend. I believe that worldwide the energy industry the oil industry specifically is underinvesting in sustaining capital by about $2 billion a day which means that the production levels that we enjoy today are not going to last. Which means the oil price at least the nominal oil price goes up. I believe specifically that what Exxon is worth, not what it's selling for, what it's worth will double in the three-year time frame. So, I'm buying a double at a 60% discount or 40% discount to net present value for the finest company in the world. Uh, taking a little more risk, a little uh I own Chevron because they're a more efficient refiner and marketer. I own a little bit of accidental uh because of proved undeveloped locations, but they got a lousy balance sheet, but I still own it. Uh in the US natural gas business, I own Devon and I own Equitable, but where I'm really adding positions is in Canada. Uh I understand the political risks, which are huge, but as cheap as the US industry is, the Canadian industry is selling at a discount to the US industry. And there's very high quality management teams there and many more approved undeveloped locations. In other words, there's a better growth runway in Canada. Names there. Uh I think you have to own Canadian Natural. You cover the waterfront. Uh I own Suncor because I have no reserve risk in my lifetime. I have no reserve life risk in your lifetime at Suncor. Uh I own Freehold Royalty. I own Prairie Sky. I own Arc, which I consider to be the best run oil company in North America. I own Tormolene. Uh what else do I own? I own PO. I own Bircliffe. And that's it. Uh I could go down the quality trail and make more money, but I don't need to. Uh this is a portfolio that I would be surprised if it didn't double or triple in a reasonable time frame. I get paid a ridiculous dividend on that basket of stocks and they're hated. All I need, we've talked about this for years, Charlotte, all I need to do is buy hate and let that sector move from hated to tolerated. That's the easiest money a speculator can make financially, not psychologically, but financially. >> Well, and speaking speaking about time frame for oil, maybe we can speak a little bit more about that. You mentioned they've got the dividends, so in a way that covers you. We have guests on our channel from time to time talking about oil and I think that people enjoy the content but I also see a lot of comments when it comes to those when about the time horizon is too long it's going to it's not right now. So what are you looking at as your time frame? >> It's interesting that people thinks that their time preferences matter because they don't. The oil market doesn't care about your time preference nor do the gold market. It's only you that cares about your time preference. Everybody wants a short-term sure trade and those don't exist. So, it's like wanting the tooth fairy. What I've learned in 50 years in the business is that a suitable time frame for being right is five years. I wish a suitable time was one year. Uh but I haven't known any successful one-year investors. I'm perfectly cognizant of the fact that the oil price might go lower and oil stocks might go lower. I've done that a lot of times in my career. What I've learned is that sometimes stuff is cheap enough. When it's cheap enough, you buy it. If you're wrong by a year, that's okay. I don't know if you remember this interview, but years ago, I said that the success in my life was that I preferred to ask myself questions where the answer began with when, not if. Too many people ask themselves questions where the where the answer begins with if. uh which is a very risky question for me. If I'm a year and a half early, but I get a triple or quadruple, that triple or quadruple pays a lot of rent. I have to be right. The arithmetic around oil means I have to be right. I just don't know when and I don't care. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think people do focus so much on getting it exactly right and that's not really what you have to do. While we're on the topic of energy, I wanted to bring up uranium because I don't think we've talked about it for a little while. And I wanted to get your sense of where we are in the uranium cycle right now. If you could help me situate us. >> Charlotte, you and I have been so right on uranium for five or six years that the the prudent thing for both of us to do would be to shut up and rest on our loyals. But people by now care what we have to say. The easy money in uranium has been made. The easy money was when you and I were talking about it at $20 saying it had to go to 60 or 70. It did. So those stocks were up 400%, 500%, you know. Okay. The shore money is in front of us. Uh the shore money has to do with the fact that world energy demand is going to double in 25 years. 25 years world energy demand is going to double. We're going to need all kinds of energy. We're particularly going to need base load power. That's uranium. And we're going to want non-carbon generating power. That's uranium. We're in a structural deficit around uranium today. And we are not shutting down plants that had been scheduled to shut down, which means the the deficit gets worse. Meanwhile, we're building new plants like mad. Uh most importantly, and this is may be subtle for some listeners, the structure of the uranium market is going away from reference to spot to spot and going to term. And that means that unlike any other commodity in the world, uranium producers are going to be able to lock in production volumes where they understand how much they're going to be able to sell and at what price. There will be a revenue certainty in uranium that doesn't exist in any other commodity in the world, which will lower the cap the cost of capital. There's no other commodity in the world that has that market structure. >> So if you if you want to make money in uranium today, if you if you didn't listen previously, but you're hearing that the shore money is still on the table, what's the best way for somebody to do that? >> Just buy Camo and and and feel understand that Kamako may fall 35%. It may fall 35% but it's the bell weather for uranium and uranium is a 15-year no bagger but I mean no-brainer. It might not be uh a no-brainer in 12 months >> but 12 months doesn't matter. I mean it might matter to your listener but that's because your listener's out of touch with reality. >> Well and speaking about Kamico any thoughts on the recent deal between Kamico US government Brookfield for the the nuclear reactors? Uh what I like about it is it's indicative of the return to public favor for uranium. Six years ago in the Biden administration, uranium speculators like me were vilified. They hated us. Now these morons want to subsidize us. Now I would caution your listeners to know that this is a political promise. Politicians lie when their lips are moving. So this might happen, this might not happen. But the truth is that Westinghouse's technology will become the premier processing technology in the world. Uh Westinghouse will win, which is Brookfield and Kamako. Brookfield has wonderful demonstrated expertise worldwide in project finance and Kamako is the technology leader in uranium. Whether or not this initiative wins, that combination will win. Don't hold your hat on $80 billion coming from the US government. It might happen. It might not happen. What will happen is that uranium will be an an increasingly important part of the energy scene over the next 15 or 20 years and Westinghouse will win the technology race. >> I think that's a a good way for everybody to look at it in their heads. I've got another viewer question that I thought was fun. And I know I know we've just been talking about how you sold off a chunk of your junior mining portfolio, but the question is, if you had to pick only two junior miners to double up your investment on, what would they be? >> Don't have to. I I I mean, I I I respect the question, but I can't answer it. >> Okay. Well, that's that's an answer in and of itself. I I want to also because you're wearing the Battle Bank shirt, we need to we need to get an update on where things are at because I think I think it's been moving since we last spoke. >> Mercifully, uh Battlebank stems from an earlier effort of ours called Ever Bank. Uh we built a brand new bank, one of the world's first online banks. We opened for business in 1999. By 2014, we built that business to 28 billion in deposits, 275,000 shareholders. We sold the bank. We began the process in 2021 of starting a new bank. Uh and we were 4 and a half years waiting for regulatory approval. A different story. Uh about 3 months ago, rather than continue the regulatory route, we bought a little bank so that now we're bankers. And rather than getting approval to start a bank, we had to get approval to add a bunch of money to an existing bank, which was not hard to get. What'll be different about this bank? Well, unlike many banks, we're proven successes at banking to begin with. So, good people. But we're a very different bank. I would define ourselves in American Parliament is a community bank. Canada doesn't have those, but a community bank. But where community is uh defined by ideology, by need, by aspiration, the attendees at this conference are our target market. these people, people who subscribe to Agora publications, self-actualized investors, uh, fairly conservative investors. Most community banks are defined by geography, and our bank is defined by ideology and aspiration. We've done it before, among other things, uh, we'll do, we'll be polite to you. We'll pay interest on your checking account. If you're interested in interest, check out Battle Bank. will allow Americans and Canadians, by the way, we'll serve Canadians from day one. Uh we'll allow you to save federally insured in 20 currencies, not just the US dollar or the Canadian dollar. Unlike any other bank in the United States and Canada, we will make retail loans secured by your holdings of physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Our principal initial lending product will be secured precious metals loans. So that you uh if you are like me and you save in gold, but you need access to your capital, you don't have to sell the gold and pay your capital gains tax, you can have a line of credit secured by that to take advantage of timely opportunities that occur from time to time. Uh I I would describe those as principal differences. Uh ours will be a conservatively managed bank. We're not going to uh lend long chasing higher interest rates and fund that in overnight deposits. those time spreads brought down, as an example, the Bank of BC, brought down Silicon Valley Bank, it brought down the US savings and loan industry. We're not going to do that. Uh we'll be a fairly cautiously run bank. We're not going to try to be all things to all people. We're going to provide the range of goods and services that the attendees to the New Orleans conference aspire to. >> And is is there a launch date at this point? We're are we still waiting? >> We're launched. Uh right now we're shaking the bank in with the money of the founders. We have one chance, Charlotte, to make a good first impression. So we're checking out all of our systems with our own money. Uh beginning in December, we begin to offer banking services to our shareholders. There's 340 of them. Uh beginning in January, we begin to offer banking services to our wait list. There's 19,000 people worldwide who have made application to Battle Bank. specifying which of our which of our products and services are of interest to them. To the extent that any of this is of interest to you, your listeners, they should go to battlebank.com and tell us what it is that we do that we can do for them. >> Okay, that's what I was looking for. I think people we always get comments on the videos, people asking when they can get involved. So, we'll look forward to that. And getting toward the end here, I'm asking this question to everybody at the event hopefully. What is your pick for top performing asset of 2026, commodity or otherwise? >> I don't have one. I I really don't. That's not the way I think. Uh top performing asset that I follow, risk-to-reward, there's two. Uh oil and gas is probably number one. Smallcale focused community banks in the United States, uh less than $2 billion AUM is number two. They're dirt cheap. uh most of them are poorly run, a few of them are well-run. So a well-run community bank in the US, a fairly small community bank with a focused community and a focused strategy. Uh these things are earnings machines and they are pathologically cheap. >> Okay, perfect. I think that's a good place to wrap up unless you had any final thoughts you would leave people with. >> Only one. Uh, if you care about my thoughts around natural resource stocks, you can find them for free. >> Go to ruleinvestmentmedia.com. List your natural resource stocks. Please, no crypto, please no pot stocks. Please no tech stocks. Just resource stocks. I'll personally rank them 1 to 10. No cost, no obligation. >> Perfect. And as usual, we'll have that link in the video description for people to check it out. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Charlotte. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Recrule.
Rick Rule: Gold Strategy, Oil Stocks I Own, "Sure Money" in Uranium
Summary
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Rick Rule, proprietor at Rule Investment Media. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you >> Charlotte. Thank you for having me back and congratulations for the well-deserved growth of your channel. I've been watching over five, six years. you've done a great job. >> Oh, thank you so much. We're so close to the 60,000 level and maybe we'll get there with this conference, but thank you. And we've got so much to get into today, but where I thought we could start, as is appropriate with this conference, is with gold. So, of course, we've seen gold on its historic run. Right now, we're in a pullback. And I'm seeing many people who are looking at this as an opportunity to buy. Some people who are concerned about maybe this is it for gold. So, I thought if we could start if you could contextualize where we're at in the gold cycle right now. >> Sure. I I think it would be useful for people listening to this to listen to the interviews that you and I have done together for 5 years. Uh I I realize that most people won't do that. So, let me summarize it. First of all, in the very near term, uh I sold 25% of my junior gold stocks. I did it because by selling 25% I was able to get the other 75% for free. In other words, I sold off 25% of my upside to eliminate 100% of my downside. That's for the speculative part of my portfolio. The other part of me, Charlotte, has been saving in gold, maintaining liquidity in dollars, but saving in gold since the year 2000. I haven't sold an ounce of physical gold. And in the 25% of my junior gold stocks that I sold, half that money went into gold and three gold senior gold producers. In other words, I bought beta and I sold alpha. I believe, as you and I have discussed before, that looking forward for the next 10 years, the US dollar loses 75% of its purchasing power in real terms. Which means, I suspect that over 10 years, the gold price, the nominal gold price, the US dollar quoted gold price will increase to match the decline in purchasing power of the dollar. Does that mean that I think gold will go up three-fold in 10 years? Perhaps. Yeah, you know, nobody's going to get this right. Uh the whole game is to get close. So, if you aren't in gold, you need to begin systematically saving in gold. You absolutely have to. You also have to understand the inherent volatility in the gold price. It will not be stair steps to heaven. It will decline 25%, 30%, sometimes 50%. In a bull market, you have to be prepared for that. So, it's a nuanced it's a nuanced question. >> I I agree. And I think for those who have been following our interviews or your interviews elsewhere, this won't be a surprise and it will be things that they've heard before, but I think it is good to go over. And I also I want to hear more about your selling the 25% of your junior mining portfolio because I read your post on X and I thought that was pretty interesting. I' I've got a number of questions, but I thought I would start with what made you decide to sell? What was the trigger? And and how did that play out? Did you sell all at once or was it a process? How did that go? >> Uh, answer the second question. I asked the broker to be aggressive. We were in a period five weeks ago where there were no asks. There were all bids. And I've learned in the market to do what's easy. Uh, if there's no bids, be a bid. If there's no asks, be an ask. And the sector was white hot. There were so many junior financings. And when a company's financing, they're telling you that your cash is worth more than their stock. Well, they should know what their stock is worth. Since they were selling, I decided I would sell some, too. But what was most important to me was personal. Uh, I've been a heavy investor in the sector since 2020. And I was at a period of time where I could, by selling a quarter of my position, recoup all of my capital and pay the capital gains tax and have the rest for free. I can be very patient, Charlotte, with that remaining 75%. Because it stands me zero after tax was a personalized decision. And I think the other angle that we should talk about, so you sold and then you redeployed that money elsewhere, and I believe it went into physical gold, some of the larger royalty companies, and into oil stocks. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about that. Why were those the buckets you decided to put that money into? >> I believe gold will do well in the next 10 years. Uh, and I think the market will go to alpha, which is to say, I think the market will get more speculative. For my own portfolio purposes, I think I wanted to own D-risisk beta as opposed to alpha. So, I bought gold, Franco, Nevada, wheat and precious and Agniko Eagle. I brought the highest quality companies I could deliberately going against the market trend because that's who I am, but also personalizing it. I bought oil because oil's hated. And as you and I have discussed in many of your interviews, the easiest speculative money in the world is buying hate. Buy what the market despises. Uh when that market moves from hated to tolerated, that's the easiest money that you'll ever make as a speculator. And the oil business is roundly hated right now. And it's a great business. We'll we'll get a little bit more into oil, but before we go there, so you went into these these larger companies, large minor and royalty companies, which typically, as you mentioned, we hear that those move first and then the rest down the chain. Is there a point in this market where you would be comfortable selling those large gold companies? >> I I don't know the answer to that, Charlotte. I would suspect Listen, I'm old. I've been lucky. I'm rich. My suspicion is that the sell decision on those three companies and my gold will be made by my estate. I'm assuming that they will not be sold in my lifetime. >> I think that's a very very fair answer to the question. And on the note of gold stocks, you know that I like to bring in audience questions for you and I thought this was one that you would probably give a good answer to. The question is, if there's a recession and a related credit crisis, what is the expected impact on gold and gold miners in the short term as well as in the longer term? And I think this is something we've gone over before. >> 1987 and 2008 answers that question. In a liquidity crisis, in a panic, everything gets sold because the investor doesn't make the sell decision. The margin clerk does. And the margin clerk doesn't care about your preference. So in a real selloff uh everything gets sold. What happens is that the policy response to those liquidity crises is always good for gold. It's always money fritting. It's always artificially low interest rate. So gold sells off with everything else, but it comes back much more quickly. >> And the oil angle. So this is another one. If people have been following, they will know that you've been talking about the oil equities for quite some time. So that should also not be surprising that that's what you decided to do with some of your money. I wondered if you could speak a little bit more specifically about any of the names that you like right now. >> Sure. Um the place you start is Exxon. It's the finest oil company in the world. I believe it's selling at a I believe it's selling at 60% of net present value. Meaning it's selling at a 40% discount to what it's worth while paying a 4% dividend. So there's no time value of money problem owning it because you get paid a dividend. I believe that worldwide the energy industry the oil industry specifically is underinvesting in sustaining capital by about $2 billion a day which means that the production levels that we enjoy today are not going to last. Which means the oil price at least the nominal oil price goes up. I believe specifically that what Exxon is worth, not what it's selling for, what it's worth will double in the three-year time frame. So, I'm buying a double at a 60% discount or 40% discount to net present value for the finest company in the world. Uh, taking a little more risk, a little uh I own Chevron because they're a more efficient refiner and marketer. I own a little bit of accidental uh because of proved undeveloped locations, but they got a lousy balance sheet, but I still own it. Uh in the US natural gas business, I own Devon and I own Equitable, but where I'm really adding positions is in Canada. Uh I understand the political risks, which are huge, but as cheap as the US industry is, the Canadian industry is selling at a discount to the US industry. And there's very high quality management teams there and many more approved undeveloped locations. In other words, there's a better growth runway in Canada. Names there. Uh I think you have to own Canadian Natural. You cover the waterfront. Uh I own Suncor because I have no reserve risk in my lifetime. I have no reserve life risk in your lifetime at Suncor. Uh I own Freehold Royalty. I own Prairie Sky. I own Arc, which I consider to be the best run oil company in North America. I own Tormolene. Uh what else do I own? I own PO. I own Bircliffe. And that's it. Uh I could go down the quality trail and make more money, but I don't need to. Uh this is a portfolio that I would be surprised if it didn't double or triple in a reasonable time frame. I get paid a ridiculous dividend on that basket of stocks and they're hated. All I need, we've talked about this for years, Charlotte, all I need to do is buy hate and let that sector move from hated to tolerated. That's the easiest money a speculator can make financially, not psychologically, but financially. >> Well, and speaking speaking about time frame for oil, maybe we can speak a little bit more about that. You mentioned they've got the dividends, so in a way that covers you. We have guests on our channel from time to time talking about oil and I think that people enjoy the content but I also see a lot of comments when it comes to those when about the time horizon is too long it's going to it's not right now. So what are you looking at as your time frame? >> It's interesting that people thinks that their time preferences matter because they don't. The oil market doesn't care about your time preference nor do the gold market. It's only you that cares about your time preference. Everybody wants a short-term sure trade and those don't exist. So, it's like wanting the tooth fairy. What I've learned in 50 years in the business is that a suitable time frame for being right is five years. I wish a suitable time was one year. Uh but I haven't known any successful one-year investors. I'm perfectly cognizant of the fact that the oil price might go lower and oil stocks might go lower. I've done that a lot of times in my career. What I've learned is that sometimes stuff is cheap enough. When it's cheap enough, you buy it. If you're wrong by a year, that's okay. I don't know if you remember this interview, but years ago, I said that the success in my life was that I preferred to ask myself questions where the answer began with when, not if. Too many people ask themselves questions where the where the answer begins with if. uh which is a very risky question for me. If I'm a year and a half early, but I get a triple or quadruple, that triple or quadruple pays a lot of rent. I have to be right. The arithmetic around oil means I have to be right. I just don't know when and I don't care. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think people do focus so much on getting it exactly right and that's not really what you have to do. While we're on the topic of energy, I wanted to bring up uranium because I don't think we've talked about it for a little while. And I wanted to get your sense of where we are in the uranium cycle right now. If you could help me situate us. >> Charlotte, you and I have been so right on uranium for five or six years that the the prudent thing for both of us to do would be to shut up and rest on our loyals. But people by now care what we have to say. The easy money in uranium has been made. The easy money was when you and I were talking about it at $20 saying it had to go to 60 or 70. It did. So those stocks were up 400%, 500%, you know. Okay. The shore money is in front of us. Uh the shore money has to do with the fact that world energy demand is going to double in 25 years. 25 years world energy demand is going to double. We're going to need all kinds of energy. We're particularly going to need base load power. That's uranium. And we're going to want non-carbon generating power. That's uranium. We're in a structural deficit around uranium today. And we are not shutting down plants that had been scheduled to shut down, which means the the deficit gets worse. Meanwhile, we're building new plants like mad. Uh most importantly, and this is may be subtle for some listeners, the structure of the uranium market is going away from reference to spot to spot and going to term. And that means that unlike any other commodity in the world, uranium producers are going to be able to lock in production volumes where they understand how much they're going to be able to sell and at what price. There will be a revenue certainty in uranium that doesn't exist in any other commodity in the world, which will lower the cap the cost of capital. There's no other commodity in the world that has that market structure. >> So if you if you want to make money in uranium today, if you if you didn't listen previously, but you're hearing that the shore money is still on the table, what's the best way for somebody to do that? >> Just buy Camo and and and feel understand that Kamako may fall 35%. It may fall 35% but it's the bell weather for uranium and uranium is a 15-year no bagger but I mean no-brainer. It might not be uh a no-brainer in 12 months >> but 12 months doesn't matter. I mean it might matter to your listener but that's because your listener's out of touch with reality. >> Well and speaking about Kamico any thoughts on the recent deal between Kamico US government Brookfield for the the nuclear reactors? Uh what I like about it is it's indicative of the return to public favor for uranium. Six years ago in the Biden administration, uranium speculators like me were vilified. They hated us. Now these morons want to subsidize us. Now I would caution your listeners to know that this is a political promise. Politicians lie when their lips are moving. So this might happen, this might not happen. But the truth is that Westinghouse's technology will become the premier processing technology in the world. Uh Westinghouse will win, which is Brookfield and Kamako. Brookfield has wonderful demonstrated expertise worldwide in project finance and Kamako is the technology leader in uranium. Whether or not this initiative wins, that combination will win. Don't hold your hat on $80 billion coming from the US government. It might happen. It might not happen. What will happen is that uranium will be an an increasingly important part of the energy scene over the next 15 or 20 years and Westinghouse will win the technology race. >> I think that's a a good way for everybody to look at it in their heads. I've got another viewer question that I thought was fun. And I know I know we've just been talking about how you sold off a chunk of your junior mining portfolio, but the question is, if you had to pick only two junior miners to double up your investment on, what would they be? >> Don't have to. I I I mean, I I I respect the question, but I can't answer it. >> Okay. Well, that's that's an answer in and of itself. I I want to also because you're wearing the Battle Bank shirt, we need to we need to get an update on where things are at because I think I think it's been moving since we last spoke. >> Mercifully, uh Battlebank stems from an earlier effort of ours called Ever Bank. Uh we built a brand new bank, one of the world's first online banks. We opened for business in 1999. By 2014, we built that business to 28 billion in deposits, 275,000 shareholders. We sold the bank. We began the process in 2021 of starting a new bank. Uh and we were 4 and a half years waiting for regulatory approval. A different story. Uh about 3 months ago, rather than continue the regulatory route, we bought a little bank so that now we're bankers. And rather than getting approval to start a bank, we had to get approval to add a bunch of money to an existing bank, which was not hard to get. What'll be different about this bank? Well, unlike many banks, we're proven successes at banking to begin with. So, good people. But we're a very different bank. I would define ourselves in American Parliament is a community bank. Canada doesn't have those, but a community bank. But where community is uh defined by ideology, by need, by aspiration, the attendees at this conference are our target market. these people, people who subscribe to Agora publications, self-actualized investors, uh, fairly conservative investors. Most community banks are defined by geography, and our bank is defined by ideology and aspiration. We've done it before, among other things, uh, we'll do, we'll be polite to you. We'll pay interest on your checking account. If you're interested in interest, check out Battle Bank. will allow Americans and Canadians, by the way, we'll serve Canadians from day one. Uh we'll allow you to save federally insured in 20 currencies, not just the US dollar or the Canadian dollar. Unlike any other bank in the United States and Canada, we will make retail loans secured by your holdings of physical gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. Our principal initial lending product will be secured precious metals loans. So that you uh if you are like me and you save in gold, but you need access to your capital, you don't have to sell the gold and pay your capital gains tax, you can have a line of credit secured by that to take advantage of timely opportunities that occur from time to time. Uh I I would describe those as principal differences. Uh ours will be a conservatively managed bank. We're not going to uh lend long chasing higher interest rates and fund that in overnight deposits. those time spreads brought down, as an example, the Bank of BC, brought down Silicon Valley Bank, it brought down the US savings and loan industry. We're not going to do that. Uh we'll be a fairly cautiously run bank. We're not going to try to be all things to all people. We're going to provide the range of goods and services that the attendees to the New Orleans conference aspire to. >> And is is there a launch date at this point? We're are we still waiting? >> We're launched. Uh right now we're shaking the bank in with the money of the founders. We have one chance, Charlotte, to make a good first impression. So we're checking out all of our systems with our own money. Uh beginning in December, we begin to offer banking services to our shareholders. There's 340 of them. Uh beginning in January, we begin to offer banking services to our wait list. There's 19,000 people worldwide who have made application to Battle Bank. specifying which of our which of our products and services are of interest to them. To the extent that any of this is of interest to you, your listeners, they should go to battlebank.com and tell us what it is that we do that we can do for them. >> Okay, that's what I was looking for. I think people we always get comments on the videos, people asking when they can get involved. So, we'll look forward to that. And getting toward the end here, I'm asking this question to everybody at the event hopefully. What is your pick for top performing asset of 2026, commodity or otherwise? >> I don't have one. I I really don't. That's not the way I think. Uh top performing asset that I follow, risk-to-reward, there's two. Uh oil and gas is probably number one. Smallcale focused community banks in the United States, uh less than $2 billion AUM is number two. They're dirt cheap. uh most of them are poorly run, a few of them are well-run. So a well-run community bank in the US, a fairly small community bank with a focused community and a focused strategy. Uh these things are earnings machines and they are pathologically cheap. >> Okay, perfect. I think that's a good place to wrap up unless you had any final thoughts you would leave people with. >> Only one. Uh, if you care about my thoughts around natural resource stocks, you can find them for free. >> Go to ruleinvestmentmedia.com. List your natural resource stocks. Please, no crypto, please no pot stocks. Please no tech stocks. Just resource stocks. I'll personally rank them 1 to 10. No cost, no obligation. >> Perfect. And as usual, we'll have that link in the video description for people to check it out. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Charlotte. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Recrule.