Silver Stocks 2026: Not All That Glitters… Outperforms?

Summary

• Silver Market: Silver’s surge was linked to structural deficits, rising industrial demand (solar), and sharp gold-silver ratio compression, with discussion of substitution and byproduct supply risks.
• Portfolio Construction: Emphasis on lower-cost, resilient assets and jurisdictions, avoiding marginal projects that only work at peak prices and being mindful of liquidity for exits.
• Gold Majors: NEM divestments to strengthen balance sheet and focus on free cash flow; GOLD evaluated for potential portfolio split, Nevada Gold Mines, Fourmile, and Reko Diq dynamics affecting future positioning.
• Critical Minerals: PPTA benefits from EXIM-driven, antimony-linked financing while leveraging gold upside; the TLO/LUN Eagle Mine share deal aims to create a US-focused critical minerals champion with board integration and potential US listing.
• Royalty Companies: Preference for cash-generating, low-G&A royalty models that create alpha via new royalties; cited multi-bagger returns from a Nevada gold royalty as proof-of-concept.
• Jurisdictions: Argentina improving via investment incentives and fund repatriation; Chile turning more pro-mining post-election; US permitting accelerating; British Columbia faces heightened First Nations and permitting risks.
• M&A Outlook: Expect continued divestments and intermediate consolidation; larger listings and liquidity thresholds can re-rate acquirers as generalist and tech-driven capital seeks scalable, liquid names.

Transcript

Today on Resource Talks, we're doing an end of the year review that is kind of different but really the same. Uh Joe Mumar is talking to me about why precious metals really went up this much this year and whether there's more room to grow as well as how he's invested to make the best of the bull run and how his portfolio strategy might change going into 2026. Time for me to shut up now though and uh Joe, thank you so much for being here. Thanks very much for the invite. >> The pleasure pleasures of mine. I uh enjoy these conversations to kind of right after Christmas and before the end of the year because it's it's a calmer period, if you will. So, you and I get to talk for for hours, which I'm hoping this is going to be uh the same this time. But it's it's really not being all that calm of a period in the markets, at least not in the ones that you and I follow because silver is doing what silverbacks promised it will for for the last 45 years. And uh what nobody else believed it would, but it's it is it's here. It's happening. It's now and it's up nearly I think what 200% this year. It's almost hit $80 just recently. So what's going on with silver? Do you trust the runup? What are you seeing? like as some of silver's demand is obviously on the uh tail of gold and it's sort of like a higher beta precious metal than than gold. uh but you know with with the growth in uh you know these uh carbon-f free uh uh technologies there has been more silver consumption on those like I think for for solar and that so there is more industrial demand but what we've noticed is uh I mean there's been deficits running in the silver market and so deficits for me in the gold market don't really matter because gold's completely different I mean uh in terms of supply and demand and and what drives it and there's so much gold at the surface and gold is held as a monetary tool. U silver isn't but silver you I don't know if it's half but a proportion of it is related to the gold price but then silver's got its own thing with respect to industrial demand. So that deficit does play a role in part of the demand for silver. So from what what we've seen is that uh some of the graphics that I've presented to you like in terms of the gold silver ratio like in the first part of the year the gold to silver ratio got up to about 105 and then since then it's been declining but then it had a steep fall near the end of the year and I think now it's um you know around 65 or below uh which is very encouraging but that was the the increase or the accelerated price increase in in silver over gold over the last part of the year and more recently even more so. >> And so that might be a little bit of a squeeze happening uh in the silver market like a lot of people had promised us for 40 years but it's real and it's happening and it's providing a lot of leverage. So if you look at the evaluations u I looked at some um uh that a friend of mine uh Ron Stewart does for Redcloud. He updates the enterprise value per ounce. And if you look at it, you know, a lot of the ones that are driving the average, especially for explorers and developers are silver. Uh anybody with a silver in their name, you know, they might only have 30% or 40% silver, but with silver in their name, those ones are driving the average. a lot of them and some of the M&A a lot lot of the M&A we saw last year and the year before was for silver producers um you know in Mexico at that time uh and those guys did very well as the silver price ramped up you know that was first Majest Majestic with Gateau um it was I believe uh Heckla with uh Silverrest >> uh and um and then more recently more recently I mean Pan American with one of Cypio and Mag Silver. Uh so that's worked out very well because those guys bought it before silver had actually uh did what it did for most of this year. Um so going forward the issue has also been on a silver producing issue has been how many silver dominant assets out there you know are there because that's where the leverage is. So most you know silver as we know on the supply side uh it's been constrained a bit by scrap but uh a lot of it comes from byproducts. So here's a mine that produces base metals you know lead zinc let's say and that silver price does not drive what they do. So if the silver price goes up a lot, they might not produce more lead zinc because lead zinc hasn't done as well, >> you know. Uh but on the other side is is how many silver dominant assets are there? And with the issues that we've had, geopolitical issues that we've had in Mexico, slow permitting in Peru, how many of these silver dominant assets are there outside of those two principal jurisdictions as well? And so what I've been looking for, if we get to the whole portfolio thing over the last year or so, is looking for silver dominant assets outside those jurisdictions cuz I thought those would be the unicorns out there. And we've done well on one of them right here uh in Argentina where I'm where I am right now. So um yeah, so that worked out uh very well for me, but some of that was purchased last year. >> That actually explains a lot. I was wondering where's this guy? You know, Christmas time in a t-shirt. And uh I'm glad I got that answer. I can I can hear a couple of birds in the background as well. So, that explains even more. >> Oh, yeah. >> But the I do want to talk about your portfolio strategy, and we will for sure, but ideally, I'd like to ask you what what price would you think silver tops out at? But that's not a reasonable ask. And obviously, we're very reasonable gentlemen. That's why we're in mining, obviously, after all. Maybe put differently, um, when you're analyzing mining stocks, um, or or updating some of the MPVs and whatnot, what price assumption is kind of the highest that you would dare to use for silver? What what is the price they would plug in? You wouldn't plug in the spot price or would you or would you plug in higher? What's kind of that price assumption? >> Like there's different prices that are used for models. uh you know, you have the price spot, like you say, uh and if you were a brokerage analyst trying to keep a buy on a stock when it's run up quite a bit, spot might be what you need to use to show that you still had a 10 to 15% return and can call it technically a buy. >> Um >> the other one would be if you're looking for debt and if you're looking for debt, you might have to use a trailing average of silver, which might be a lot lower. Um and it might you know uh justify hedging some of it you know at these prices. Um another price might be you know you're forced by the exchange to use an average that might be 3 years back two years back or something like that. Uh so there are different prices and then there's the consensus prices that people use the forward curve that sort of stuff you can put that in and keep changing it. uh when when I'm looking at assets, I'm I'm thinking more about where this thing could fall in the cost curve so that it can survive any kind of volatility in the market. >> So when the silver price actually does go down, which it inevitably will as commodities are cyclical, >> blasphemy, I think it's only going to go up. >> I think silver I was I was saying just blasphemy. It's I think silver only goes up. That's what I've been told. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But in terms of picking the assets, that's where, you know, they might not provide the best leverage, but they'll provide for me at least some protection under the volatility and also an underlying thematic that they might be the project that gets taken out and are, you know, uh or or makes sense to build, you know, uh you know, because they got the right people and this is the project that can get built, should be built and can survive, you know, the volatility. you you don't want a project that just makes in under this price. Granted, on the equity side, it might work very well, but you have to understand the dynamics that oh, but don't get like high on your own supply thinking that, oh, this project makes sense to build. when they start like uh you know buying their own propaganda let's say then that's probably the time to sell that project and move on to something else because that project you know may not be worth building you know might not make any sense to build uh might not get enough funding because other people looking at it technically might not think that it should be built uh but on the equity side it might still have run up because as we know the more leverage you have whether you have high debt uh or you've got a marginal producer, those can go up. Uh and I I'll give you I won't give you the company, but I'll give you an example. So, I do a little bit of side work outside the letter and people ask me questions about companies which are outside the letter, which I don't sort of comment on, but on a private basis, I could I could do a little um you know, dig deeper for them. And what I've noticed is people are asking about more leveraged plays, you know, what what are the flaws in this? What you know, so at least you go in there with why your eyes wide open. You know when to sell, you know, u you know it's going to go up probably hopefully. As long as you believe the silver price or the gold price or whatever is going to go up, this will probably go up and it might go up even more because it's coming from a lower base. So the percentage increase will be much more. But there'll be a liquidity issue when you want to sell if it doesn't because everybody will be going out that door at the same time if the silver price drops or the gold price drops. But you might have an advantage in your back pocket knowing that this project will never work and once they talk about developing it or talk about funding it, you should depart earlier. >> You know, take your winnings and go. and you know uh don't keep that volatility in your pocket because it'll it might burn a hole in it. >> Does it have to then work at like what half of spot or at what price does a project have to work? >> You look at the cost curves and you see where projects are and you sort of want to be in the lower half of the cost curves, you know, whether it's all in sustaining costs or something like that. And then also you probably want to be in a decent jurisdiction. So, if it's a decent jurisdiction, you could take a hit in the costs, which are usually labor or now power. Um, but if you're going to be in a high risk higher risk jurisdiction, you definitely want to be in the lower quartile. You need a high margin. >> So, it is it's about cost predict like you wouldn't even pl What about upside? What what about if you're determining upside and you're like, "Okay, how much money could I make on this thing? What is the higher end expectation that you'd plug in?" >> Well, here's the thing about upside. There's one upside where you just get a mind plan and you keep changing the price, right? But the problem is sometimes you don't change any of the costs >> because some of the costs do go up because that's the environment you're in. So when gold price does go up, it's it's sort of going up because people think, hey, I want to store a value because I think these other things are over inflated. Uh so that inflation might go into your costs whether it be energy, whether it be labor, uh you know, or reagents or whatever, you know, I don't know. >> Yeah. >> Uh and supply chains can hurt costs like, oh, you know, we just got a loan from the US government to build this project, but we can't buy any of the cheap Chinese stuff anymore. We got to buy from these supply chains, which are 30% higher than I would normally pay that I would have paid if I'd done the work myself. and I got the money somewhere else, you know. So all that can impact your costs. So, you know, grade helps, but then grade can be diluted through mining, especially underground mining. Grade can be unreoverable because the metal energy is bad. And the product might not be what you think it is. You might be thinking, "Oh, they're selling silver." No, they're not selling silver. They're send selling a base metal concentrate with silver in it and you're going, "Oh, good. Where's that going to go? I don't know." And how much are they going to pay for it? And then there's the payability factor depending where it goes. Uh and so you got to really think about what the final product is as well. >> Most times it's not silver. It's mostly not silver, especially with these uh um deeper epiothermals that have a lot of base metals. And so people would say, "Oh, the institute value is this, this, and this." But what's really the payable value here? You know, how much are we actually going to see? What I what I've seen out there recently that kind of rubs me the wrong way and I feel like you can put it into words why it does is you know company produces 10 million ounces someone's analyzing it online and they're like uh they're going to sell 10 million ounces this year at 80 bucks cost them 20 to make it 60 bucks profit free cash flow is going to be 600 million bucks but the company's only valued at 60 therefore there's 10 you know 10x potential like that. >> Yeah. So that I mean it it sounds like it should be right and it's simple enough that even I can understand it but it kind of rubs me the wrong way. Is that how is that how you would look at stocks or is that not do you think that not works? What do you think about that? >> Yeah, but I mean to understand the mentality of what makes stocks go up and down because they would drive the market more than I would potentially on some companies. Companies I would avoid but companies that people are asking me about why is that company going up now? >> You know what's driving it? They have no news flow, you know, and then I dig into it. It's marginal. Uh, you know, um, they haven't had a lot of operational success. They're carrying debt that's due next year, blah blah blah blah blah. But these people are still buying because they're not looking at the financial statements. They're not looking at the history of the operation. They're not looking at, you know, how much is it this going to cost and not potentially looking at the life of mine. It's a very small asset potentially that nobody cares about. um all that might not be what people are thinking. So that stock might go up regardless, but for the investor that wants to make sure they can sell it, because there's one thing about, you know, making a return on paper and recognizing it is knowing when to get out. Um and so what I do in the letter is try to well, we do all the due diligence. go on those site visits, talk to management, follow the stock to make sure we're picking the right one. So, we're not worried that, you know, if something happens, the management doesn't know how to deal with it or something ridiculous will happen. The return might be less, but the probability that there'll be a big impact like a fatal flaw that'll show up uh is is is zero for me. Uh and so those the probability of those scenarios if you look at that way u that bottom scenario doesn't exist >> you know uh with with the stocks I pick which is the idea which is the idea I mean there might be a black swan issue with the geopolitical jurisdiction but that's also what I try to avoid >> jurisdictions I do want to talk about as well by the way that's on my list um but Just going back to the type of bull market we're in right now, is this a structural or a speculative bull market? And and that makes me sound way smarter than I than I really am. So what I what I really mean by that is is fundamentally on this run here, what what is fundamentally supported versus, you know, just a quick kind of hype that's going on? Like should following what you're just telling me here, should silver be 50 or 80 or 180 an ounce? And what do you think? Well, I mean, I guess the differences between a voting machine and a weighing machine is Warren Buffett says, you know, in the near term, it's a voting machine. People are voting silver up. This is the one they want. Uh, but in the long run, it'll be a weighing machine and the weight will be on the industrial part because as silver goes up, you know, will it will it be substituted for? because technically uh there's a lot of people smart enough to see that oh you know if silver is going to be this long-term is there a way of uh creating a technology where we don't need it you know and that's the same thing that happened with cobalt with with batteries uh when that got harder to get and was more dependent on the DRC uh people are looking a lot of different and and that's the problem with with a lot of battery metals is it's a supply and demand technical risk. On the demand side, they can engineer that specific element out of their out of that battery, you know, if they have to. on the supply side, there's more technologies there that like especially in lithium that can extract it cheaper and from lower grade sources than what you're thinking about mining, you know. Uh and so there there are a lot of technical issues to critical minerals that can change the de dynamics more so than than we understand. uh you know uh because people are constantly thinking about that because if they're what are the next 5 million EVs going to have in their batteries that might not be the same as the next 5 million after that you know cuz the technologies and and that's that that holds back people from actually buying EVs because they think if I hold the car for 10 years is that battery going to be worth anything because suddenly you know the parts aren't going to be for it or I'm you know it's almost having like a a negative on my mortgage mortgage is that, you know, the car is not worth anything because the battery is not worth anything, you know, and I got to stick a new battery in it, but, you know, they don't make them anymore. So, that that is a little bit of a technical risk for some people buying these EVs that are constantly looking for the next it's like having an iPhone, you know, it's sort of like, okay, do I want to hold that iPhone for 20 years? No. You know, I'll probably sell it in three years or the the the phone company will give me a new one. But but that's basically what you want to do with your car. >> Yeah. And and then when we're looking at long-term supply and demand and you've got mines that last for 20 years, that's the kind of dynamics that are being impacted here, not so much in precious metals, but definitely in criticals. >> Well, with that though, where I mean, and assuming that this is kind of a real, you know, deficit driven market that we're in right now, where do you expect uh cracks to start showing up or stress like is it inventories? Is it the premiums or the backradation contango type of Let's look at this uh specifically with a market I'm quite confident talking about uh because I did work as a market analyst for Phelps Dodge which is now Freeport back in the 2000s. So the things to look at uh you know back in those days which is quite a 25 years ago is is that the market was easier to see what the global inventory was because we had the London Metal Exchange. We Shanghai was just starting um and then we had the ComX U and then the inventories that companies built up because copper price was uh what was it 55 cents per pound when I started working as a trader. Um the problem was that all these companies were starting to curtail production like we did at Phelps Dodge. BHP did it. Cadelo because they were stateowned would accumulate production. So they keep their people employed but they wouldn't sell it. So they kept hundreds and thousands of tons of inventory at surface. But what they told us we knew how much was there so it was visible. So I can look at the global market inventory and I know what it is within a couple of percent. And then I take that number and I say well how many weeks of inventory is that? So in terms of demand how much is that? And if I got below four weeks you know the price could spike in my in my model at that time I got below one week. the guy who was my boss who was you know ended up being the copper the copper man of the decade art me would look at those models and go that's impossible but the problem is we were always underestimating China we were overestimating the US and Japan but the underestimation of China just blew that model apart and so I was getting these ridiculous numbers and and then you know reality struck when gold and when copper went from 55 cents and hit you know well over three bucks Phelps Dodge doubled. They uh did a a split and it doubled again. That's the leverage these stocks provide, you know. But what I'm saying is now that's harder to do. It's harder to know global inventories because especially in copper, 50% of the smelter capacity is in China and you do not know how much they're holding. you would have to go to every smelter and some people do that and that's what you pay for and find out but that information isn't available to everybody. Uh and then you have uh a market that the produc that the consumer holds inventory. So the things to look at in terms of supply and demand for one product which are concentrates are the treatment charges and what's bullish about copper is the treatment charges are negative right now. So the smelters are paying you the mind for you concentrating. Why? Because I got to feed this smelter. I can't shut it off. And that's why the Chinese sort of put a put a you know a slowdown on the smelter expansion and copper because they were driving their own they were killing themselves. >> Depends on the copper I'm sorry for interrupting here but does it depend on the copper um concentrate quality? Like would you want it to be necessarily above 25% uh and and have no nasties or would they pay for >> finicky you could get finicky uh but this is not a finicky market >> you know uh if if the TCRC's were like 80 and you had an arsenic rich concentrate or it was like 15%. You knew there were two smelters in the world that would take it. >> Mhm. and you know your treatment charges would be over the average because nobody else wants it and you had to give it to somebody. That's not necessarily the case right now because now they're negative. But for you, let's say you've got an arsenic rich concentrate. If I can't blend it, then I can't take it. There is no price for it. >> Yeah, that's actually an undervalued or an underrated point that I think not is not really talked about in podcasts or anything like that. uh because they couldn't put it in >> think about the end product, the end product that the mind produces. We all think about gold because it's fungeable. So, it's just a product that's the price and it's 99% payable. 99.8 whatever. It just goes to a gold refinery that takes it from 99.7% to 99.99999%. So there's not much value add and they don't pay you I mean they don't take much off of what they pay you in terms of a price. >> Mhm. >> But there's a much bigger difference if you're producing let's say gold in a what we call a pyite concentrate or sulfate concentrate because then then I want I want the sulfur. You know I don't you know gold's nice but really for to run my smelter I need the sulfur to heat the thing up. Uh, and I'm not going to pay you for the gold because I can get pyite from somewhere somebody else, you know. So, I might give you 80% for it, you know. I might And then you're only you're doing that because you don't want to build a pressure oxidation plant because it's too expensive. It take you 10 years to permit or something like that, you know. So, you want to just sell the concentrate, but the payability will be the same, >> you know, because you're selling it to somebody else. So, those are the sort of things you got to look at. You can't just look at like you said, hey, look at the grade of this thing. It's the highest open pit grade uh you know out there, you know, uh you know, nobody come and look at look at all the other ones. No one's near it. And he goes, "Okay, well, what are they going to produce?" And oh, okay. So, that's why, you know, and then you go, "Well, will there ever be an M&A bid for that one?" Probably not. Uh and then we okay so they have to build it and they have to and then that worked out from somebody like Pretium that was pure gold. The big issue was the resource risk. They did two or three years of that proved that it made money and then it got bought out by new crest. Some projects require that you know and so when you buy one of those and you're thinking oh the gold price is going to go up. This is going to make sense. You're going to have to hold it for a little bit before you get that liquidity moment where somebody buys it. H what is that for silver though? Is that I mean just connecting it back to what we just talked about. Is there something like that in the silver market as well? >> Yes. I mean because people are looking for okay what what's the product going to be? Do I have the ability to uh smelt it? Uh if it's a low sulfidation epiothermal thing in Patagonia and these guys don't want to use cyanide, I got to take it to another plant. Do I own that plant or do I have to do a some kind of uh toll milling agreement? And those can be very ownorous because they know they've got you by the proverbials and then they'll say, "Well, it's either us or you ship it out. Take that road out to the coast and ship it to wherever. That's the cost you're going to pay. We'll take half of that in the toll milling." Uh, you know, so that's the sort of thing you got to think about. you know, where is this going to go? You know, one, you got to go through all the minations of finding out whether they're actually going to be able to produce that product, which is a lot of detail in itself, but then, okay, where is it going to go? Who's going to do anything with it? >> Mhm. >> You know, because I mean, that's the problem with a lot of the critical mineral policies out there that they're looking at the mines, which is good, but then where is it going to go? Is is there any point of producing a copper concentrate project in the US if it just goes to Asia to smelt? That's why the new technologies are are coming up that are looking at avoiding the smelters. >> So when you take it to a smelter, you're not always going to get a negative TCRC. you're going to get 60 bucks, 70 bucks per ton, 6 or 8 cents per refined pound of copper that you're going to have to pay out. And then transportation costs, delay in recognition of revenue. What if you had a process and you could actually leech those sulfides and produce copper right there? Cathodes stay domestic. No supply chain disruptions, blah blah blah. Uh, you know, that's the technologies the big companies are working on. as much as they're looking at saving money in mining with more tech, high energy, looking at communition circuits, looking at all that other stuff, how do we, you know, tweak this and and because you're dealing with a lot more volume now as the grades go down, those little tweaks make more sense in terms of have a bigger impact in terms of power costs and all that sort of stuff. Uh that make everything cheaper. But then you look at, okay, I've already got this stuff above ground. How do I extract what's already there and turn it into revenue and avoid reclamation? Like I know there's germanmanium and g gallium in that slag. How do I get that out of there? I know there's some really lowgrade copper in that run of mine ore. How do I leech that? you know, and then all that sulfide underneath my oxide or my enriched SXCW plant, can I actually treat that domestically and leech it? And that's what the Newton technology that Riotento has been developing for 30 years has been trying to do. I mean, and it's not one sizefits-all for those kind of projects. It's a long-winded answer, but there you go. But so would you would you then um pay well the the the number of of times for an MPV that you would pay. So you you'd pay more more of the MPV for a company that doesn't have to send its its final product to Asia for smelting. It's kind of like you're you're essentially asking two questions. What is the what are you producing? Is it actually or what are you selling? Is it actually silver that you make your revenue from? And where are you sending it to? And based on the answers to those two questions, that would determine what kind of premium um or discount you would be looking for. Is that right? >> Yeah. And the product like is it going to be our stick rich is going to have mercury? Is it whatever? And then you sort of reduce the amount of people that would actually take it. >> And when you reduce that then then you get them having sort of uh the power leverage, the cost leverage, the price leverage over you as a seller >> because there's only so many buyers that you'll get. uh with respect to what you were saying about product where is it going to go so when I look at jurisdictions and I know you're going to ask me that specifically but I would say that um you know when jurisdictionally I also look at jurisdictions that can sell to either supply chain because as we're segmenting the world right now you know you and you want to look for a multiple bid for this asset you know you know they could go into production you know it's got the right people, but it's nice to have an underlying bid in there. So, but not just a western bid, maybe an eastern bid. Uh, so you want to pick those countries that could potentially have both. And that's where South America comes in. You know, South American can sell to either one. They can sell into the US supply chain, the European supply chain, or China. Um, the problem is if you get into some jurisdictions like Canada or something like that, it's hard to figure out if the Chinese can come in. That's an issue with some of the uranium assets. Uh, you know, that, you know, the Chinese in a in a heartbeat would come in and probably buy a lot of those and put them into production. They're not allowed to do that. They're not allowed to do that in Australia either. >> Yeah. So that's sort of and and then also, you know, if you're a TSX listed company and you want to sell to the Chinese like what happened with the with Solaris in Ecuador, you're going to have to change your dynamic, your share structure, your your ownership, your management team, uh you know, where they're located to be able to close that transaction. So all of those are other risks you got to look at uh you know, in terms of uh you know, which company you're looking at. would what would be the the bear trigger for silver that that you think a lot of people might refuse to say out loud? You know, I was just thinking about the the joke that I made earlier where it's like, "Oh, I've been told that silver only goes up." Of course, it doesn't and it's going to turn eventually. What is that trigger going to be? >> Well, I mean, some of it will be taking money off the table uh for some uh and that might drive some herd mentality to go to the other leg. uh uh and so that could have a negative impact and that should be supported by the industrial demand hopefully because the industrial demand might go down uh and the scrap supply go up in a in a rising price environment. you know, uh uh you that's those are the sort of dynamics we'll see because like we said about gold versus silver. There's much of more real supply demand dynamics with silver as opposed to gold. Uh you know what's driving gold price is people looking at real uh US interest rates and when that falls the US gold uh ETFs go up. If you look at central bank buying, that supports the gold price when it actually should come down because now the banks are saying, "Oh, you know, we're we're worried about the tariffs and potential increase in inflation." And if that happens, that usually is a negative for gold. But then the central banks are sort of supporting that goal. So every time it should have slumped, it didn't slump. So every time it flatlined, it was waiting for a new pickup. Then suddenly, well, we're going to have another rate cut. Boom, that went up. and then flatline flatline when it should have come back it didn't come back >> next another so we showed three different jumps in the gold price this year first Q1 another one around the Colorado gold shows uh you know Q3's Octoberish and then now that's been another one and now has been that people were looking at the the reserve chairman and saying oh you know what we're not sure if we're going to get another one, but then they're looking and saying, "Well, he's not going to be around next year." So, and everybody they're interviewing has said there's going to be at least two cuts next year. So, boom, we're going again, you know. Uh, so that's driving the gold price. silver will tag along, but then the industrial demand might weigh on it. You know, just like sort of like the jewelry demand would weigh on the gold price and increase the platinum price because now people are looking for platinum jewelry and maybe even silver jewelry, you know. Uh but the gold price has got a different dynamic as as a monetary issue you know uh diversification uh and that but definitely if there is you know a negative with respect to not a negative but an idea that rates are going to go up that'll definitely drive out gold ETF buying in America in the US which has been some of the big support the biggest growth has definitely been Asia, uh not so much Europe, uh but the biggest demand source has been the US. Not the biggest percentage growth, but the biggest demand overall source. ETFs on gold, I mean uh silver, sorry. D a lot of what you said deficit um driven just like uh platinum deficit driven price rise because actually platinum did better than gold as well as palladium so far. Didn't do as well as silver but uh it didn't have the same sort of u sort of speculative bent. there weren't people for 45 years saying that platinum is going to go to the moon. Uh so that platinum has just been going on in its own dynamics and palladium has been tagging along because of the substitution issue. Um gold has that substitution issue with silver but silver might have another dynamic in terms of substitution with respect to the carbon neutral technologies that it gets used for. So there's a lot more going on with silver uh that could potentially drag it back and not I won't say reality but definitely you know revert to the mean >> out of the precious metals is which which one of the four would you well I suppose there's more but let's call it platinum platium gold and silver they're completely different in my opinion in terms of markets and they behave differently but which one of the four do you see most potential in right now? uh uh because you know uh uh how do I put this? I'm not smart enough to know which one's going to do better than the other. Uh so I'm just going to bet on all of them. So in our portfolio, we've got PG exposure, we've got silver exposure, but the most by far we've got is gold exposure. Why? Because in terms of liquidity, there's more liquidity in gold. There's less in silver and there's very little in PGEs. So, I'm not going to overexpose the market uh the portfolio to PGEs, but I'm going to pick the one that I think is the best. >> Um uh I'm not going to overexpose the market, uh the portfolio to silver, but I'm going to pick a couple that I think are really good. Uh with gold that's more liquid, I'll pick more than a couple. copper >> because the market the market will always be there like if you look at the financings gold financings you know are up significantly year on year >> will PGE financings you know be up next year if something happens with the platinum price or the palladium price probably not but if you pick the right project lower quartortile that can be built and you have the right people that could build it and put it into production to be sold later. That might be the asset to hold, which is what I hold. >> Copper is is much more liquid than that. And then I was I was actually thinking about copper's obviously not a precious metal, so that's not where I'm going with this, but it's I'm I'm thinking about I was thinking about, okay, what's underperforming right now and what's more liquid? Uh because the things we're talking about are not very liquid on the whole, although gold might be, but silver is not that liquid. And it's already done very very well this year was like copper is up what 30 40%. Yeah. >> Then there's also other stuff like nickel. Uh oil is not done uh very well either. I know you don't necessarily do oil but is there something else? What do you think could be the next bull market here? Is is it copper, nickel, oil, something else? >> Yeah. Well, I'm looking at uh you know uh and this is an issue. I talked to somebody else about this earlier is that the markets are going up and blah blah blah blah blah. um is it time to take some money off the table? And then I'm looking, well, I sort of got out of my way to pick these certain companies, you know, to have protection if the market does turn, but then I'm thinking in terms of M&A bid, they could still get bought. Uh so I continue to hold them. Um, if you do not pick the right companies, let's say, and you're picking leverage, th this might be a top, you know, this might be a place to take money off the table. Uh, you know, whether it might be the medals or whe whether it might be uh the companies, but in terms of the companies, there's at least other companies to put your money in that might be higher quality. Uh, you know, um that you know, if they fall, you should buy those. That's always what you should have in the back of your mind is do your homework uh and then pick certain companies and when they do come back for hopefully the wrong reasons, you put your money in those. Uh the problem is a lot of people put it in the leverage which is tends to be marginal assets that have a hard time raising money. Uh and when they do raise money, the equity that they raise is usually high cost. They'll put a lot of warrants on it or something like that or raise at a discount. uh a lot of the companies in our portfolio did raise money not once this year and not insignificantly but some companies raised twice and significantly why because the market was there uh you know and the question is will the market continue to be there because when I did a graphic let's just say for companies in one jurisdiction which was British Columbia and if you looked at that and you look at the returns for these 75 companies that I found that operated in in the province You know, the average returns underperformed the GDXJ, but the top 20 companies outperformed the GDXJ. And these were mostly development companies. One of them went into commercial production. Uh but everybody else didn't do so well and everybody else uh didn't raise a lot of money. Uh so the ones that could raise money that had the liquidity and this is the asymmetry of the market they got they got it all and then that's why you have this dichotomy sometimes when you talk about the market and you go oh it's great you know everyone's raising money and then you have this one guy in the corner that says oh uh I couldn't raise anything. What what about you though then Joe in that case like how did your portfolio change to reflect those I suppose changing market conditions this year right did it did it did was there a lot that you changed in order to perform did you perform well uh so yeah talking about what you did with your own money this year >> so I mean in terms of performance is obviously I mean I'm not you know trying to boast or anything like that but we've done well but the outsized returns uh was an M&A of a royalty of a company we've held for quite a while and that was like um you know 15 times. We had two position one was 15 times one was four or five times. Um and then we sold that one and kept the spin co and that spin co had gone up another 70% since it came out. Um and then in terms of the other companies that have done well, they're more recent buys from from uh this year um that were silver uh and jurisdictionally was was one that I think is going to improve which we can talk about. Uh copper in Kazakhstan I think you have been there. >> Uh uh silver in Argentina which is one I talked about and then PGs in Brazil those have done all very well. Uh uh but another one that did really well uh that I bought a couple of years ago is rare earths uh in South America. Uh that's done phenomenally. >> Uh you know uh and that's a very small market. It goes back to my point that it's not a it's not a big enough market that I would just go nuts and change the whole mark uh portfolio into rare earth. But I realize the market that exists for it now trying to refine uh which company I pick uh took a lot of time took a big site as a tour to pick it but I was very happy with it and continue to hold it but but for the longest time it wasn't doing anything >> until mostly this year. >> Yeah. Um rare earths in in South America that's Brazil I assume. >> Brazil and Chile. Yeah. >> Okay. Interesting. Yeah. What was the what was the biggest percentage gainer that you had this year? >> Uh well, I mean closing or you mean >> no the money you made. So or or well maybe it's maybe if you haven't closed out that position yet. How high is it now? >> Uh oh. This is open positions. >> Oh well no it doesn't matter like if if you close that 10x position tell me about that. or if you have an open >> this is the issue we always have in the letter to talk about you know how do we calculate return so we have the closed positions and the biggest closed position from last year that had the biggest return would be that royalty company that junior royalty company and in terms of companies in the portfolio the biggest one would be a silver developer and a uh copper developer uh those would be the biggest ones >> what are we talking about though in terms of return. So, is is it a 10x? Is that something that you think is >> Oh, no. It's more like a a triple. >> Okay, good. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's a triple where the GDXJ went up 150 that went up 300, 350, >> right? Oh, that's good. Um >> Yeah, but but that's the problem is that some of these things, you know, if you want the 10 banger, that's a little bit of a longer wick. You would have had to start it off earlier. Yeah. Yeah, >> like another one that's done very well which is I think a four bagger or five bagger was one uh gold in Australia uh a developer advanced explorer in Australia. Uh that's done very well uh as well. Uh but but I I'm just trying to beat consistently the GDXJ on the precious metal side. That's how I benchmark myself. And when it goes up 150% it's got to be pretty good. The problem with expiration is it's not leverage. Like if the gold price goes up, it's not as if your Explorer Co is going to go up because it'll go up more on a good drill hole, but the cost of capital goes down because now if it needs money, it can raise money. Uh the problem is when you get an explorer in a bad market and it doesn't hit anything, it's constantly raising money at lower lower prices and then you get the liquidity trap. In a good market doesn't mean that stock's going to outperform. it still has to drill and get good results. And so that's another thing I look at is not only can it raise capital, how much is it spending? Not that let's say, oh my god, they're spending $20 million this year. That's great. But oh my god, it's cost them a million or a million and a half per hole. That's not what I'm interested in. You know, that's why I'm looking at how much it costs people to drill per meter. I constantly ask people, well, what's your budget to drill? you know, uh how much of that drilling is effective? Meaning that how much do you have to drill 800 m to get to where you want to get to? You know, uh and then how many of those holes can you drill in a year? You know, uh how much do you have to raise to do that? Because if you don't hit that same hole, it doesn't matter what the copper price is and the gold price is, you're you might be raising at the same or much lower price than you raised last time. Uh so those are the sort of things I think about with uh explorer exploration companies. Uh you know it's not only the land package size what they're looking for the infrastructure if they could build it and the infrastructure a good infrastructure like what you saw at Kazakhstan means I could have a lower cut off grade means I could have a lower head rate. Uh, but if I'm looking, you know, at the Andes, which is still quite a distance from where I am here in Argentina, um, you know, I'm going to need quite a good headrade. Uh, especially if I'm in the Argentine Andes and I have to take it east. I know right now with the uh, election of a right-wing presidentele right now in Chile, he made his first visit to Argentina with Malay. There's talks about can they start taking mineral west. I don't know how long that would take. You know this president new one will only be there for five years. Uh but you know that would be a huge boon for those projects that are in development stage. You know whether it's Los Pachchon uh potentially the Vunia district all that sort of stuff uh to take it west as opposed to east. >> Uh you know that would be a big big deal. Yeah, I'm still kind of disappointed in trying to work through what you said earlier, which is that I I shouldn't expect a 10x that quick. I thought it was you just buy a stock, they do a drill program and you get a 10x. That's kind of what I was promised. >> Well, you could you could I mean, there was a company in British Columbia recently. I don't know if it was a 10x, but it was significant. It was four to five times big, but you were coming from a micro price and then they hit an intersection, you know, and then the stock went wild and then actually when they released the results, it didn't go up until people started finding out about it the next day. So, if you saw the result, saw its market cap, you could have bought it and then people were piling on later. >> Uh, but it I mean it's got its issues, whatever. But that company was having a hard time raising money before that. Mhm. >> Nobody would have money. So that's that's that's the explorer play. People weren't giving them money. U they're going back u you know obviously you want to see where they were drilling before to make sure they weren't redrilling a hole. Uh but you know it it it just goes like oh my god let's go. And then people just pile on. Uh is something I would add to the letter? I don't know. I've got a call with the guy later uh this Christmas uh a break between New Year's. you know whether it's worth it. I don't mind paying more knowing that it is something >> as opposed to chasing it and then finding out it's nothing. >> Yeah. I visited one of those BC stories this year as well which also had a similar trajectory to the company you're talking about. Um a little bit different but it also had a it it I mean it it did well uh that way too. And I was only half joking. I think explorers are often or or at least for the most of us they're kind of like lottery. I think there's a few people out there who know how to do it well and have done so consistently through bare and bull markets. Um, looking forward though, what do you think is going to be your best performer from here on out? What are you going to be chasing? Um, I'm seeing and and really I'm I'm going to extend this question to a bit of a rant, but I'm seeing more and more M&A. I'm seeing more combinations of companies um than I'm seeing acquisitions really. So, more more M's than A's. But is that a strategy? Does that should be a portfolio? Should that be a portfolio strategy going into 2026? You know, buying stuff that you think are takeover targets. Is that something you see as a having good potential or or do you see something else as having more potential? So I I wouldn't take it as a strategy, but I would take it as as a mental construct that you have to have the idea that it could be taken out because if it if you keep that construct that it could be taken out or it could get debt, let's say from a bank that there's a certain level of due diligence required for that to happen. And if you apply that kind of due diligence in your head, you'll always be picking the right projects and potentially the right people because the right people might be with the wrong project but still make it work. And the wrong people could be with the right project and still not make it. And that's a problem for us as equity holders. When I worked for corporate development for Numont, that wasn't an issue because we weren't con we would end up being management. So the quality of management mattered less than the quality of the asset, right? And so when you think about M&A, you got to think about the quality of the asset. You know, is this something somebody would want? Does it have the size? Does it have the life of mine? You know, uh is it like not going to be hugely capital intensive? U you know is, you know, metallurgically is it going to work? Is it some kind of metallurgy that's only lab level that nobody will want to do? you know, uh, is that what makes it, you know, that all that sort of stuff is what a potential suitor would think. You don't necessarily need the M&A to get a liquidity event, but if you have the mental construct of picking the right ones, you can still do well. And what you really want is the one that does well and then gets taken out because the takeout might be a 30% premium, but hopefully it's over a 200 300% return for you. All that's doing is generating a liquidity moment for you. And then you walk away. And in this market, you might even keep shares of the suitor like I did with that Spinco company. We got cash and shares of the bigger royalty company. I kept that that kept going. So my return is actually higher than what I told you. >> We are actually maybe seeing um a bit of a d&A happening as well. I mean you talk about it uh in your in your presentation at the rural classroom >> um what new uh what five bill 4.5 billion dollar plan to divest of assets which you talk about you know buy old major assets optimize rerate we've seen discovery silver we've seen fuerte do that other companies like that is that going to be a strategy going forward >> yeah because I mean this well we've taken two different strategies here one strategy is newmont they had debt. Their shareholders were telling them to clean up their balance sheet. Uh, one way of doing that is using your own cash, paying it down, but then that's the cash that they want in dividends or share buybacks. And that's the other thing that was happening is returning more to shareholders. That's generating more demand for their shares. Um, so that's one thing, but how do you generate the cash to do that? Well, you generate your own cash, free cash flow, which has been expanding, but also free up management, lower your own GNA. Well, how do you do that? Well, let's get rid of some of these other assets that are just taking up time that don't make much money. So, let's focus in on the big ones that drive everything. And all these other ones that are on the satellites don't matter. What you can get away with in Nevada is by having a lot of central processing plants is these things which would be individual mines for somebody else is now the Nevada gold mine complex. So now we call it one mine when it's not one mine. It's a bunch of mines. >> We did the same thing at Phelps Dodge. You call it Naomi North America one minds. uh so you know to try and basically mask individual performances of assets that were really running by themselves. So what you tend to do now is like what's that asset in the middle of nowhere that jurisdictionally we're not in we got to carry this GNA you know do we really need to do that? No. Let's pitch it. Okay. What about this other one? Are we overexposed in this other area? Yeah. Well, in this market where the gold price is going up, there's a bid for those assets. You know, in another market, there may not be a bid for those assets. And so, they sold a lot of it, you know, before, but they were selling it to the Chinese. Uh they were selling it to uh smaller intermediate companies that wanted to grow, but they wanted to buy a produ producing asset. They didn't have to worry about permitting. They didn't have to worry about capital cost escalation because a lot of companies were having those issues. So they weren't into development. They wanted to buy producing assets and that was an overhang on the entire M&A sector for people that held development assets. But if you look at the tail end of that and this wasn't an important asset for them that wasn't driving the $ four and half billion dollar divesture but the coffee project which is the open pit heat bleach project in uh western Yukon was no bid they couldn't sell it nobody wanted it so it took a change in the market a significant change to say you know what that might be one that makes sense in this market so guys got together and they didn't sell it for much. >> No. >> I mean, and they and and they didn't really get a lot of cash for it. What they did do is get it off the books in terms of the liabilities and any risks associated with it. Boom. It's gone. That's another big issue for them is what they carry in terms of liabilities on these assets. And I know from my experience, every quarter we had to talk about that with a bunch of people and it was a pain in the ass. So, you want to make it clean as possible. uh and and you were talking about divestments. And so now what we see with Bareric, the same thing happening, you know, you have an activist investor coming in because everybody's talking about gold. What's the big gold companies? You know, what's the ones in the US? Bareric is one. Okay. You know, but we don't like all the stuff in Africa and we don't like this big copper gold project in Pakistan. So why don't we split the company? So then probably the former CEO wasn't wasn't uh probably uh in love with that idea, departed very quickly because he was doing the Colorado Gold shows. He was there and then the you know in a couple of weeks he was gone. >> So you take that and then we talk about almost like what I talk about in for my subscribers is a bit of a dandrand goldification of Bareric. Uh, basically you're taking all the Africa stuff and potentially putting it in a different portfolio, putting Rico Dick in there, and then where do you get the bid from that? You're not going to get that bid from probably Western companies, but you might get that from the Middle East. You might get that probably from China. Uh, you'll probably get somebody else bidding for that. But on the other side, you're going to get, you know, the majority ownership of Nevada gold mines. you're going to get four mile which is 100% bare you know was it somebody put it at 35% of their value going forward incredible deposit you know so those sort of things you put together you know who does that makes the most sense for pneumont you know because then they get pneumont back they get Nevada back the dumbest thing that they did was to give up operatorship of Nevada you know but everything else that they've has increased their share price, their policy on dividends, share buybacks, generating free cash flow, not overexposing themselves to high geopolitical risk jurisdictions. That has done well for them and they've outperformed Bareric in that sense. So now it's sort of like the deal has gone the other way. Now it might be Numont's turn to uh now they have a new CEO uh coming in. Uh so uh yeah, I I I think that's the way that one's heading, you know. Uh and uh you know, I think it makes s a lot of sense because it's not about growth for these guys. It's about generating the the most free cash flow you can and giving it as much as you can to generalist investors. So they're not they don't have those there's not a lot of institutional equity out there that's just precious metals anymore. There's a lot of family offices, you know, uh, out there that like precious metals and are looking, but they're doing their own due diligence now. They're not giving their money to anybody anymore and paying any fees because, you know, and a lot of these guys aren't outperforming the GDXJ, you know, that went up 150% or whatever. So now what these guys are looking at, oh, you know, what else can I invest in? Liquidity matters for some of these people, you know, uh because a lot of these people made a lot of money on AI. Silicon Valley has done that and a lot of these venture capitalists are looking at critical minerals but the liquidity isn't there for all these smaller companies but it is for the bigger ones uh for uh you know for all these other guys that are putting money in whether it's the governments uh you know that that help Trilogy and South 32 with the asset in Alaska u that are also supplying a lot of capital there's there's different sources of capital coming now for projects that have different mentalities ities on what they think value is. So if you go in thinking that value is this, it's not what those guys put their money in for. Like it might not be the same reason Tether is in is in uh Elemental, you know, a a a junior cash flowing royalty company that did a merger with EMX that we owned. Um so we continue to own that one. But you know you got to think about the construct also of the share structure and who owns what you know uh and what's driving their strategy. You might have an idea but you know you'll never own enough potentially to ever drive to to make a difference for their strategy. like they'll talk to you like they'll talk to me but I'm you know I can make suggestions but I'm I'm I can maybe have more influence on a explorico than I'm going to have in a bigger company that's you know owned by an activist investor or somebody else. I am still thinking about the dandran goldification of beeric that the term that you I think you coined or just brought up which is interesting because these assets are eventually going to end up maybe in different companies just kind of like what new mod is is doing or has done when when majors are when they sell are they mostly selling those low margin distractions that's kind of how they sell it or are they really selling headache you know politically permitting political headache permitting headache metallergy headache whatever they might be. So, are they are those things bargains or are they are they booby traps, I suppose? Yeah. How do you see that? >> It it's I hate to say this, but it's it's everything. Uh and it all depends on the timing. I mean, let's say we go back to the pneumont thing that was a strategy that was we've got this debt. How do we get rid of it while conserving our free cash flow to increase shareholder returns uh through dividends and buybacks? Well, how do we do that? divest. What are the impacts of divestment? Cash in, headache out. Headache doesn't mean only, oh, this was a problematic asset. But this is an asset that we spend too much time thinking about that doesn't generate much on the portfolio. It could generate something for somebody else's portfolio. And this I mean this for us is that for them because it's a much bigger thing because they produce a half a million ounces a year. We produce six or seven, >> you know, and this produces maybe 150,000 ounces. For them, it's material. For us, it's not, you know, it could be as simple as that. And that's a bargain. And that's what the intermediates should be buying. The problematic ones could be, you know, oh my god, you know, this is big, this is nice, but this is going to this going to take a long time to build. Something like that. Or this is a liability that the new asset that looks like a short mine life, something that I don't want environmentally, the impact. I don't want anybody talking about this. So, I'm just going to get rid of that. I don't care. and then I'm willing to sell it for nothing because really I just want it off the books. >> It doesn't matter to me. Uh and so when people think that, oh, they're waiting to make a return on the equity, a lot of times when I bought and sold for the company, it was because we wanted the asset. When we stopped wanting the asset, the return on the equity didn't matter because we were looking for something that would be material in the asset. the idea behind the share return wasn't part of the um of the of the of the overall strategy, >> you know, it was just about okay well why do we still own shares of this company get rid of we don't need this you know it's not like oh we're going to wait for the next catalyst or something like that sometimes you have to do that but you're looking for more for a liquidity issue when I sold I would just sell over months I'd let the company know you got a month to find me a buyer and then I'll start selling, you know, uh, and I don't really care about the return. >> Mhm. >> But now what companies are finding like with Agniko and that that sold Warla, that share position basically gave them a lot of inflow of cash which they used to re uh deploy into more companies. You know, one of them was Perpetual, the the Stimnite project in in Idaho. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm just thinking about the strategy of buy the buyers, the the mid tiers or the bigger the bigger the bigger small companies, if you will, that that are buying the assets. the the the buyers, the intermediate companies in this kind of market, if you're a strong believer in precious metals, will provide you the the beta, the leverage at the same time, potentially do the M&A, they'll dilute, but they'll grow >> and then people will look at, oh, they're going to fill this new space. And there's this liquidity thing that goes on that as these guys that are big investors, they can't invest in companies less than a billion dollars some of them. >> That's right. >> So, it's almost like these guys have to breach this threshold to get noticed. And when they get noticed, then you strangely find that they keep going up because now these other guys think that they're a bargain. You might not think that they're a bargain, but these other guys think that they're a bargain because they're looking at the valuation of these other companies and go, "Wow, this is cheap. I'll buy that." And they can deploy a lot more capital than we would be able to. >> Mhm. >> You know, so we might make the first three bagger, four bagger, but these guys are just looking for a double and the next guys might be only looking to outperform the S&P, you know, but they'll put a lot more money into it. And then suddenly this becomes a very liquid stock that trades you know millions and millions of dollars a day. But if you look at the footprint these guys have these big investors that made a lot of money from AI whether it's the venture capitalists or other investors is in the mining world it's hard for them to invest because the liquidity is not there. there's only a few companies that they may be able to to own because they'll own too much of it. Their minimum investment would be too much of a chunk of that company. Um, and they can't own a bunch of little things in a lot of companies. That just doesn't work for them. Uh, so when you get to the next step for some of these intermediates and merging and they say, "Oh, you know what? and then doing a main listing in New York or on the NASDAQ had a big impact on on some of these companies, you know, to show that, oh yeah, we're we're a NASDAQ listed company. Like that's what Elemental did. So, they had an OTC listing. uh EMX had an NYSC listing, but together when they merged, they went out of their way to do a share consolidation, get the share price up, show the liquidity, and now uh they they trade on the NASDAQ. And the NASDAQ's done very well for another royalty company like Royal Gold. So, uh and then Tether is, you know, one of these tick sort of companies, uh with stable coin. So that that's the kind of exchange they can talk to their own investors and invest it in Tether or any of these other things that they have and say, "Oh, you should invest in this one. It's listed on the NASDAQ as well." >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's many different ways to to to skin that cat there, I suppose. um in terms of strategy for 2026, but it it seems like these assets don't always unlock or these transactions don't always unlock the underlying value and the assets. Sometimes maybe they just kind of repackage risk if that makes sense. >> You you mean in terms of the junior now we're talking about the risk profile and what does a junior get out of it. >> Yeah. of buying these divested assets whether it be discovery silver uh that's right I forget >> with the one near Timonss uh or I mean even Blackwater that was Artemis that's done very well >> buying that project uh and then restarting it I I forget who had that was it I am gold I can't remember who had that new gold it was new gold that had that project they couldn't build it they didn't want it and then Blackwater has become a phenomenon part of that is a rising gold price was lowgrade hard rock, cheap power, cheaper power. Uh so that that ended up working very well in that environment. For Discovery, their problem is that they had a a silver asset, which should have been a good idea in the silver market, but it was open pit and Mexico had a problem with open pits. And so by doing this asset and discover and rebranding themselves and they hadn't even really changed their name at that point very well. Uh they they're now a sort of a a one g bulk tonnage deposit in Ontario. Uh which which definitely did well for them. You know that was a bit of a strategic move for them. the Hemllo thing uh where uh Beric said, "Okay, this has got I don't know this kind of mine life. Uh this doesn't really matter to us. We don't have anything else in Canada. Let's just pitch this." They got a buyer for that. In this kind of market, they could find a buyer for that. Last year, they might not have found a buyer for that cuz that buyer might have been interested in the project, but couldn't get anybody else interested in raising the capital to buy it. So they might have paid less for it last year, but they might not have been able to pay for it at all. Uh so now they've got the money and they can raise capital in this market. So Hemllo producing asset already permitted tailings facility underground um and you go in there and you keep producing and hopefully you do more exploration. The theory would be that Beric didn't do a lot of exploration. They were just running this mine into the ground and looking to reclaim it whatever in five or six years. So here we go in with a big program and we could show an increase in mind you know so that's the idea I mean recently Talon did the same thing with Lundine so Londinine sold the eagle mine nickel and copper in Minnesota to a smaller company Talon that has another nickel and copper asset in Tamarak in uh they have it in Minnesota their project or sorry is in Michigan uh the Eagle Mines in Michigan. So what does Eagle what does Londine do? Well, Londinine strategically and I visited their asset Cerronis in Chile more into copper now bigger emphasis in South America. Uh you know they've divested a little bit of the Vunia thing that's a new company but they're investing a lot in exploration caserones. They've done very well at Candeleria. They've had history of success at Chapata. So now the idea is focus entirely on caserones and grow that mine plan. But they're still interested in critical minerals. They're still interested in that exposure to the US. So they've done an all share transaction where now they own 19.9% of Talon. They've taken board seats. So now the CEO of Londin Mining, Jack Lundine, is now on the board of Talon. Uh the general manager of Eagle Mine is now the new CEO of Talon. So now they've integrated these companies and created a bit of a critical mineral company in the US, you know, which makes makes sense. Do a share consolidation and then do a major listing on the US and create that champion there. And so that's a bit of the strategy that uh people will employ in this market because of what's happening in the background. New US funds for critical mineral projects, you know, lower cost of capital. But when you do that, you got to make sure as an investor, you're not investing in a project that's that's on this part on the high end of the cost curve. Because the problem is all this dynamic can't change the price of nickel, can't change the price of copper, can't change the price of platinum and platium. That's still a market price. So you still want to be on the lower end of the cost curve. So those are the sort of things you want to think about. So even though you get cheaper cost of capital, it's still got to make sense that you can actually produce the asset can produce revenue that can still go, you know, create a definite margin that makes money, you know, cuz we're still in the west where we still need to make money. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Um it's also making me think more about exploration, just uh straight up exploration the way we know and whether we're going to see more more of that in 2026. And and really why I'm thinking about that is you know the market rewards exploration better today than it did maybe 12 months ago when we would have done a a similar interview you and I I think but is that going to be a I mean is that a a knife with two edges where on the one hand side it could be a lot of worthless projects that are going to be promoted as the next great you know green fields discovery. Uh do you see that as a major risk? Yeah, exploration is always a risk. uh uh because you know I as a geologist and more technical people hopefully we have the hubris to know that you know we don't know all we can do is reduce the risk by picking a right jurisdiction picking the right management that has access to capital picking the right property that's lower more cost effective to test and potentially have will generate uh you know has a big enough land package let's say you you know, those components, but we don't know what the drill bit will give us. We shouldn't know, otherwise we're redrilling an old hole. >> Um, so that sort of stuff will always be a risk, but you try to, you know, mitigate as much risk as you can through management, through jurisdiction, through capital structure, access to capital, um, that sort of and picking the right commodity. So if you pick a illquid commodity, you know, um that's got no bid and then there's just no impetus for them their ability to raise capital is harder, you know, and that just makes the share price or sit there. So all of those sort of things come in especially for expiration. But you know, in terms of what I'm going to do in 2026, a lot of that will be advanced expiration, expiration and advanced expiration. Some of these guys will have deals with companies like majors and I always look for that as a part of the portfolio to say okay even if the markets go to pot they'll still have news flow because this company's earning in >> to one set so I can leave that alone and all I have to do is worry about raising capital for this other one >> you know uh that's the sort of thing I would look for in let's say a grassroots explorer usually uh with respect to advance uh some of the stuff that looks risky to me that I've stayed away from normally that I visited recently which I can't talk about uh is this thing could be huge uh and huge is what the big companies are looking for so that's a completely different mantra um so one I might be looking for something huge where the company is paying for which is fine and they end up with 30% of hopefully an asset for a large copper company. The other one might be better for a tier two company or developer that you know I don't know uh but you know they can get results they can create tonnage blah blah blah blah blah this other one might just be like like that asset that was bought by uh uh that we had that 15 times return which was a 1% NSR on the Silicon Merlin project. Silicon Merlin went from zero because nobody knew about it. Anglo Gold Ashanti drilled the crap out of it four million ounces at at Silicon. Then they found another deposit which was three times bigger. All of that made that royalty worth a lot more without this company putting a scent into it, you know. So that's why I own some cash flowing royalty companies. But what I don't do, what I don't want to do is own a cash flowing royalty for beta. I want them to continue to generate royalties because that's really where the alpha is. >> And in what we do, what I do is I'm constantly looking for the alpha. But to have a little bit of the beta in the background that gives me access to capital that they don't have to go back to the markets is good. I don't need them to make twice the cash flow. I just need them to cover their GNA and cover their prospect generation and hopefully they'll capture something that'll deliver the alpha. >> That's that actually goes back to another one of the points that you you made in that presentation during the real classroom and that's the the sentiment evidence if you will. So it's it's >> it's there. I mean the room's filling up again uh at you know figuratively and and literally as well. So more retail interest. That's also where explorers get rewarded more. That's where what I just said comes from. It's just there's just more people with the rooms filling up again. Is that >> Yeah. But I mean the problem is is that when you're looking for a project company asset like I told you like I'm getting a lot more requests about other companies and so we're creating more companies which is not always a good thing. So, it's harder to pick in a bull market because you might look like a genius, you pick this one, everything goes up, but it's hard to pick quality in a big company because you you're sort of you're not necessarily for me because I've been in it long enough on a technical aspect, jurisdictional, I could filter better. Uh hopefully, and then also management wise, I can filter better. I live in Vancouver and I see a lot of these people. Uh uh but it might be harder for somebody that's just dipping their toe into the sector, seeing the returns, goes, "Oh, my friend just made a 10 bagger on this thing, you know, which one do I go want with? Oh, this one's only $5 million. God, I'll put 20 grand in this." You know, and then they get disappointed and then they're not in it the next time. So that's why I'm I'm you know I'm a you know because the brokerage firms are not or the newsletter writers u a good let's sort of like u capital allocator sometimes. So you know we we get paid you know some of these guys get paid fees. So when they get paid fees, they're less concerned if the thing goes up or down. >> They're more concerned about getting the fee. And so the more that they put out, the more fees they make. Are they filtering? No. Because if you filter, you'd make less money. >> That's uh Yeah, that's sales sign. Um that's a sell sign for you. And that that's that's a fair warning there. Do you don't get paid in fees, I don't think. Right. >> No, no, we we make our money from subscribers. hopefully the portfolio return and some consulting I do on the side, >> right? >> Uh you know that sort of stuff and we cover our travel costs. That's the only that the company would cover but with the obl with the knowledge that if I don't like it, I'm not going to do anything or say anything. Um on the other side, I try to cover my travel costs with uh with conferences. So when I go to a conference, if they cover my cost, let's say to Peru or to Argentina or Chile, then I could do site visits from there that the company would cover. >> Uh so that's how we try to cover and keep our GNA low. >> Okay. So like business class and Michelin store, restaurants and so on, right? >> Well, I truth be told, I do fly a lot business because I upgrade. So, in terms of me flying anywhere, I tend to do like premium economy, but a ticket that's easily upgradable with my e upgrade points to business. >> Okay? >> Because the amount I travel, and I've just done economy down to Argentina with my family, I couldn't do that for the four and a half times around the world I travel per year. I would not do that in a >> Is it Is it worth it though? I mean, I've never flown uh this is a bit of a peasant question, I suppose, but I've never flown business class myself. Never upgraded or anything. You know, I've been we did 12 site visits this year. I think about 10 mining shows. So, quite a lot of travel as well. Um just all economy though. And uh is it worth it? Business class. >> Uh for what I do, >> it's a must. Uh because I I actually do work in business. Uh so, uh I've got everything there. Um um I don't have to worry about somebody grabbing my spot, you know, or something like that or somebody putting their chair back and then my computer gets stuck in the seat. U it's impossible to work. Uh and so because we deliver the letter every Sunday, some of those Sundays I'm traveling and so it's a real hassle sometimes like I had on this economy trip, there was no Wi-Fi for the entire trip. So if I didn't deliver the letter, which we did before we left, that would have been a risk and that's a risk I can't take. So whenever I do any travel, I tell the company, you know, you got to be okay giving me at least premium economy and then I can apply for an upgrade. So there's certain airlines I would travel with that would that I have the points with to actually do the upgrade. >> Mhm. >> So we don't do as well >> as a letter like some other people. I there there's less froth than what I do. Uh so like I was telling you about those returns. Yes, I did make a 15 bagger on that company, but I'd owned that company for eight years. You know, the other ones that I've done three times or whatever I bought last year, you know. Um, but you know, uh, but I'm not getting paid by anybody, you know, uh, in terms of, hey, talk my company up or blah blah blah blah blah, you know, because, uh, what we try to do is make sure that when we present, you know, I don't need a company that embarrasses me because my reputation, whatever it is, I try to uh, I I hold that in high regard. If nobody else does, I do. uh and so I don't want to be associated with companies that uh might do something that might embarrass me. And so that part about management scrutiny and all that is very important. So I'm willing to pay more for that. That's not a problem. Uh because I don't want the downside where they do something that does embarrass me and then they say, meaning my subscribers, "Well, Jesus Christ, you know, what the hell happened there?" And then I go, "Oh, yeah. I I sort of knew that, but I knew the share price would go up, but I knew that that guy was problematic. So, I can't own the problematic person, you know. Uh so, and then when you look at risk return, the same way you could get a 10bagger sometimes is you is you can end up with nothing. Yeah. You know, that's the risk profile. That's the volatility of the market. You know, it's not asymmetric that it's going to be zero or a 10bagger. is going to be 10 beggger or zero or negative. Uh so you got to think about that. There's downside to this. Obviously, not everything's going to go up. But in this market that's so buoyant, uh the sentiments problem, everything is going up. >> So it's hard to know if you do it by returns or valuation that that's the one to own because everybody's got the same valuation. >> Yeah, it goes back to incentives. Actually, this is a fascinating conversation that we could probably do a whole podcast on in and of itself, but it goes back to incentives. So, the person you're hearing about a company on um or from, what's their incentive? Are they being paid uh you know, per piece? Are they who who's paying them? What what's what's really going on? Do they have a position? How much do they pay for that position? So on and so forth. >> Yeah, we're we're basic. Humans are very basic uh in terms of what's your incentive, what's driving you. >> Mhm. It's it it's it's usually not uh you know for the good of the world, let's just say. Uh it's it's mostly materialistic, which is fine. I got no problem with it. But then I got to look at how they're compensated. So you can get a company that you go, "Oh my god, there's a banker. He's the CEO. He knows how to sell this company. It needs to get sold." But then if you look at the way he get paid, it doesn't really matter what price he sells the company. What matters is that he sells the company cuz then he makes five times his salary. >> And they go, "Whoa." So if he sells it for a 30% return, a 50% return, or a merger of equals, he gets paid the same. Yeah. Then where's my sentin? Because I'm still dealing with that equity denominator. >> That's right. >> And the asset numerator, >> you know, that's how I make my money. But if he makes his money, we're not aligned, you know, that way. And and the other issue is is the independence because we know that whatever a company's going to tell us is going to have the best bent on it. And that's what they're supposed to do cuz they're selling. And we did that at Numont. You know, I worked, you know, with Pneumont and sometimes I helped out the IR people at Phelps Dodge. We talked about the market or, you know, a positive bent as we could. Don't use that word, use that word. Um, but then when you look at it, you got to think, well, not what are they telling me, it's what are they not telling me? So if it's high grade, does that mean it's low tonnage? >> If it's big, does that mean it's low grade? You know, uh is if they're talking about institute value, is there a problem with metal urging? You know, all those sort of things are what you got to take a look at. >> Yeah. >> Then when you're thinking about something >> in what they tell you, look for what they're not telling you. Um, that's actually >> again, they're going to put they're going to put the best foot forward, but you're not interested in that foot. You want to look at the one they're hiding. >> Yeah. Um, and there's even more money to be made in feat than it is in mining, but that's probably a different topic in and of itself. >> Yeah. And the more a company raises and the more times it raises, the more fees these guys make. >> Mhm. and and investment bankers, especially in the resource sector, aren't a great filter. >> Yeah. Joe, >> is there a segment that you think is is still overlooked today um within the things that we're talking about, prospect generators or royalties or brownfields? Um something else that that you think is is overlooked relative to the the metals prices? Well, when you have a positive market environment, access to capital, then a pure explorer will get more time uh from investors than in a a bare market because a pure explorer will have to raise its own money. Uh a pure explorer will have to go to the market. Uh people will take notice or won't take notice. Much more risk. So when the market is bad, people will go to the prospect generators or the royalty generators or those sort of companies. But when the market is good, then they want 100% of the project. They don't want 30% or 40% or an NSR. They want all of it. Uh because, you know, they they're able to do it themselves. Uh but the downside is that if the market turns and they have to raise money again and the market's not there, the prospect generator or the cash flowing royalty guy can raise the money or has the money to spend, but the other guy won't, you know, uh and that's why a lot of these guys nowadays don't raise money for one field season any money for multiple field seasons. >> Mhm. uh you know and remember that when you raise flow through there's a expiry time on that money. So if they raise a lot they're going to be drilling a lot which is great for news flow you know but they're not going to have that money next year it doesn't roll over. Uh so you got to know how much hard dollars they have. So once you know the hard dollars, you know exact you got a better idea how much you're going to have to raise next year or for the next field season because they might have let's say 30 let's say 20 million 20 million and 15 of that is flow through. So you know that they have to spend all of that by a certain date which might be in 12 months. Okay. So what are they going to do next year because now they got 5 million of hard dollars. 1 million might be GNA. So that's only a $4 million program, but nobody wants a $4 million program since you just spent 15 last year. So you so you know they're going to raise. So even though working capital wise they might look healthy and they probably are lots of news flow, but you know when they start getting good holes, share price goes up, cash flowing non-cash flowing companies will always be in the market to raise capital. >> Yeah. But also the capital raises that we see this year does look like uh you know late cycle behavior if you will. So things are getting big. >> You got to look at the structure of the financing. So if the market is good and people are still issuing warrants and they're still taking a a decent discount to their share price, then you got what's wrong with that project? Uh because in this market, if you got a good asset that everybody wants exposure to, they'll be raising close to their price with no warrants. And now what's nice about the new life sort of financings, they could trade it right away. And so now with the life at least, there's more due diligence done because there's no four-month hold. So it comes free trading right away. Mhm. >> Uh so it's more like the ASX uh in terms of that which is better because then people have to do more homework on these guys. >> Yeah. Is it still reasonable even to use warrants in um in this m in this market this day and age? >> Well, some people still have to issue them because that's the only way people will uh give them money. >> But isn't that already telling you enough about the company that they >> Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It's like reading the tea leaves. If you look at the financing that people do, when they do it, the timing, how much they raise, how they do it, that sort of gives you an idea. Okay. If we think about what we do as gaining value through share price accretion, share price is two things. A numerator, the asset, which is most of the due diligence, and the denominator, which is the share structure. Both are direct linked to the management team. What assets they pick, how they develop them, what comparative advantage they have in terms of advancing them, and then in terms of the denominator, what access to capital they have, how they time their capital, who are their shareholders, uh you know, who's willing to give them money when when times are bad, when the retail market's not there. That all comes into it. those people are able to raise significant quantum of cash. That's the asymmetry in the market that continues to this day. That's why the P50 and the mean of a lot of the raises and the valuations are so a skew. That curtosis is generated by those management teams. >> Yeah. So what you don't think it's it's late stage financings that we're seeing right now? I mean the size of it all and everything fewer people I've seen companies that I own I've seen companies that I own that have taken a second trip to the financing trough. Why? Because they can you know and you never know when the market's going to turn. But in terms of what they raised, still a significant quantum the price they raised a significant increase from the last time and still a significant increase to my entry level. >> Mhm. So am I sad about that? No. Cuz I know that money is going to generate catalysts whether they're exploration catalyst or development catalysts. And I believe now that you know with respect to the orphan period that we all talk about that orphan period if you pick the right development asset those and that's what we have had. We've had a silver developer do very well a rare earth developer do very well and a copper developer do really well. Uh and the incentive there is that there's fewer developers out there that make sense that could do it themselves as well. >> Mhm. Yeah. So that's what that's that's what I'm thinking about next year and kind of reading the tea leaves again is like who who raises capital? How do they raise it? If everybody's able to raise capital without warrants, is that maybe a top signal? Um, even even the people, >> yeah, but if if you look if you do an asset with a shaky management team that you knew that you would never invest in and they're raising money with no warrants and a small discount, uh, no flow through, no nothing like that, then that's saying something. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> We might have already seen that. I haven't looked at all the financings. Uh, but I've seen a lot of people get funded that already suggests a bit of a top. >> I think they're going into a commodity price that still buoyant if they change the US Federal Reserve chairman. Right now, we're baking in two more cuts potentially next year. If we don't get those two cuts, that could turn the gold market, at least in the US. Will it change the central bank demand? No, probably not. So, there will still be some support for the gold price. Um, silver price, we talked about the idea of substitution, the idea of scrap, u the idea of people trying to take uh some money off the table. But in terms of the assets, I come back to the fact that there's not a lot of silver dominant assets in the development phase or advanced exploration outside of Mexico and Peru. Yeah. >> And if you're concerned about those jurisdictions, uh, you know, there's not a lot to choose from. >> I Well, and we still haven't gotten to jurisdictions, so I hope we still have more time to go. >> I I've I've interwoven that into the conversation. >> One last thing though, um, you know, when is it going to get toppy? And you might recognize that on you know based on the financings but if we are seeing what you just said about you know tech bros potentially coming into this space and and any kind of rotation I'm not particularly big on that but any kind of rotation from tech bitcoin whatever it might be into mining even very very small there's going to be a lot of new kind of uneducated retail coming into the space so things might get way sillier than you would have you know things things can look silly to you and then you know two years down the line they look 20 times times sillier, but you know, >> but look at the valuations for the S&P. Look at the valuations of a lot of these AI companies, the kind of PE ratios they have. They've already gone silly over there. >> Yeah. >> We look a lot less silly. >> Mhm. >> Right. In terms of cash flow multiples and things like that. So, they might look at it that way exactly like you're thinking, but for them to invest again, it's a liquidity issue. they can't dip their toe into some of these pools. They're not big enough. >> Uh and you know, they have to have, you know, you know, almost an oceansized liquidity for them to consider investing. And so these guys have to get higher and higher. And that's what I was talking about before is that that's what we might see is that some of these company going up a different liquidity level whether it's mid tiers combining whether it's pneumont buying the other half of bareric or whatever and them still doing well and when you're thinking wow that's getting kind of toppy that's our knowledge of not these other people's thinking >> what's toy >> but still I would say if you want to avoid any issues because asymmetry is the life the game we play. Still do your homework, you know, uh still look at what people want. And if we're talking about Silicon Valley, they're less interested in precious metals, more interested in uh critical minerals. And then also they have another layer of that that they're interested in the application of technologies high techch to mining. So if you're still old stage tech that's not their investing scheme. They're interested in the cobalts of the world the private companies that are sort of applying AI to exploration and mining. Um they're not interested potentially in the Rio Tintos or the Freeports of the world. >> Yeah. >> The the uh the crypto guys, they're interested, especially the stable coin guys, interested in tethering, tethering currency exchanges. Like they're not looking at Bitcoin like that as a separate thing that has its own life. it they're more tethering to okay the US dollar Canadian US dollar euro US dollar whatever we just need to replicate that then they're doing gold so gold tether has been one of the biggest buyers of gold recently you know that at a level of what central banks do why because they're setting up their own reserves to support their own tether gold coin or whatever they call it but now that interest has now like um now trickled into equities. Their equity model is more for precious metals, but the model they like is the royalty model. They love the royalty model. Why? Low GNA structure, big revenue stream, you know, lower technical risk, uh and they just hold it and just keep adding. So, uh so different strokes for different folks. The only thing I would recommend people do when they get into this, we've got a lot of players in it now, which is good in terms of liquidity, but you really have to understand their motivations as well. They won't have the same motivation as an investment banker working for a brokerage firm, high netw worth retail, uh, or anybody else. They'll have different motivations. >> Yeah, jurisdictions. Uh, we might as well start talking about that. Otherwise, uh, it's never going to Otherwise, we'll be talking for 4 hours or something like that, which I think we did one time, or was it three three and a half hours? Uh, which I don't mind, by the way, but I I know you you you've got nice weather there in Argentina to go and enjoy. Which countries changed this year for you? Uh, better or worse? Let's start with better. What changed for the better in 2025? >> I had a list. Uh, there we go. Uh so uh last year I came to Argentina three times I think it was uh in support of the the government in Mendoza uh because when I worked here Mendoza was like off limits and had been basically up to recently nobody wanted to work there because the government and the people didn't want projects. They still ban cyanide. They still banned acid like in terms of doing an SXCW for a copper project, but now there's more interest in in copper and more in concentrate projects. So in a certain part of Mendoza, there's a lot of interest. That's suggestive of where that province is that was formerly against mining. Also the people that are supporting it are interesting and it's the wine wineries that are supporting it you know uh and a lot of people that were against mining before and why is that if you look at Mendoza Mendoza when I lived there in the '9s was did very well very you know the best infrastructure versus let's say San Juan to the north better infrastructure higher population did very well with tourism did very well with the wine as well. But now as Mendoza has gotten bigger, their tax base can't pay for the infrastructure required. San Juan through mining has done much better. You drive the road that goes from Mendoza from to San Juan, the the quality of the road changes a lot going into San Juan. Uh and so you notice that it's palpable. And so now Mendoza wants that. But the wine companies don't want to pay more taxes. Tourism can't afford it. So they have to let a new player in. The oil and gas industry in the southern part of Mendoza hasn't been doing well. >> I mean the big project right now in terms of oil and gas is Vakam Muerta, but that is in New Kent, couple provinces to the south. It's not in Mendoza. So they're also not getting that benefit. And so now they're looking to mining. So that's good for Argentina. But statewise is one thing. The bigger deal for me is I'm investing in companies in Argentina that are in the best provinces. The best provinces are San Juan, Salta, Huhoui, and Santa Cruz probably on the bottom end. So I've loved Salta for the longest time. I've worked there. I live there. Um, and that project is in Salta. So, Salta is very good for mining and has been for lithium for the longest time. But now the problem has been that it needed big companies, Chinese state-owned companies, the Rio Tintos of the world because it was hard to repatriate funds out of Argentina. Uh, a smaller company could not get a bank loan. Nobody would lend to any company in Argentina because repatriation funds were difficult. Under this new rehe plan that the new government MLE has put together reduces corporate taxes which is nice. Uh eliminates duties which is huge but more most importantly for the developers and the smaller companies. It allows the repatriation of funds and now suddenly they have access to capital that they didn't have access to capital before. And now there's more money potentially that could flow in that doesn't have to be from the biggest to the biggest. >> It could be from the smallest or the intermediate companies could build projects. >> Um and so I see I see projects that I hadn't seen the god. Aguar has been around for as long as bahod deera never been built. Now Glenor is talking about putting that into the rehy plan. They're talking about putting pachchon in. Asulus I think is already in it. Ringcon a lithium project has already been accepted. Um so a lot of these projects are trying to get into the Riki plan now uh because you have to qualify >> but everyone's trying to get into it uh as fast as possible. >> Yeah. >> So I think that's a positive for Argentina. What you know when are these projects going to take off? When is copper going to I have no idea. But it's a positive in terms of exploration and development for Argentina. On the other side of the Andes, Chile has been held back by the left-wing government there. It's been harder to permit, harder to deal with water issues, harder to deal with a lot of things. I've talked to the the guy who was the president, I believe, of the Chamber of Minds there a couple years ago when I was at PAK, and he basically said, "Well, they stopped talking to the leftwing government." They said, "Well, you know, we're just going to wait till he's changed." That change has happened. So, the new president left way of of Chile has now swung, which is typical of a lot of these countries and not unusual now in in other countries, whether it be Belgium or the US or Canada, has switched to the right. And uh you know now suddenly a lot of guys are looking up on Chile. You know as Chile is forcing a lot of other companies to divest their land holdings if they're not going to explore or develop. Uh it's opening up inroads for smaller companies to look at exploring and developing projects in uh Chile. The desalinization plants that are being developed in a lot of the major drainages are help people uh look in water because they can't touch the water from the Andes. Nothing potable uh and compete with the farms or agriculture. Uh they're going to have to get it from somewhere else. So they either got to wait for that del uh built or at least put their hand up that they want some of it. uh and power solar power in Chile has been a phenomenon for them you know so they've been doing very well since uh Argentina cut off the natural gas back in the late '9s u so those are two I would suggest Kazakhstan where we've both been that's been improving you know Ivanho Electric has gone there and I see a lot more bigger companies there um and I would say uh the US federally the US has been problematic to permit taken a long time now that they're making it easier to permit exploration development with fasttracking forcing people to actually meet their timelines with respect to permitting the government point. I think that's a positive. We've seen the share price impacts from companies like Trilogy because of it. Um the issue would be for me is that some projects who have both let's say uh local first nations opposition ranching tourism and a lot of other opposition locally. I don't think the federal government can change that. Uh so those projects may never get built. other projects that was just a technical issue like what why the reason that they gave a permit for the road to uh Trilogy in South 32 then took it away you know that didn't make any sense and so that got changed and that that that I think is a positive uh and then accelerating the development of the projects that make sense and then loaning them money that could be the perpetu in uh stimite in uh in Idaho it could be hopefully like a copper nickel nickel copper project like Talon's got tamarack in Minnesota which is not in the boundary water drainage all those sort of things make us a little bit more uh uh palatable than it used to be >> negative which I know you're going to ask >> yes >> u British Columbia has gotten more problematic >> especially for expiration I did a piece about that uh for my subscribers a couple weeks ago. Uh, and I'll do a piece about that for a Rick Rule event about the Golden Triangle. Uh, so that has gotten more problematic because, uh, the majority of British Columbia when it was formed, British Columbia at the time was led by people that never made agreements with the local First Nations. They interpreted all the ground in British Columbia to be like uh unseated meaning that nobody owned it. >> Yeah. >> So we owned it. You know, we being the the people that took the company over. Now we have to make these discussions saying, "Okay, we're on unseated territory, blah blah blah." But now everything's coming to roost because we have to make all these First Nations agreements. And the question becomes when you introduce the ISO 169 a key the dripa uh the declaration of the rights of uh indigenous people here. What does that look like? Does that go from consulting people to requiring their consent to having vetos? That's what's got everybody worried. >> Mining companies, explorer explorers always had agreements with First Nations Group. They always because otherwise they couldn't get access. Everybody knows if you talk to anybody in exploration here, here being British Columbia about some areas, they'll tell you, "Oh, no, you you can't work there. That drainage they don't want touched." So they'll look at that negatively if you start staking ground there. They'll look at your company and go, "Oh yeah, we won't deal with them." So that's why don't touch that one. >> Um but now we these companies now have to go consult them and now they have to look at it and sometimes they don't get back to you. So before you could stake ground and know you had it like that. Now you could wait 3 to 6 months and not know. and they hold that money that you just paid. I mean, it's not a ridiculous amount, but you don't get that cash back until you find out if you get it or not. And that could be a long wait that didn't exist before. That's right. >> And then the other problem is it could be no, which definitely didn't exist before, you know. Uh, so yeah, that's a problem. >> Do you feel like British Columbia is uninvestable? No, I mean that company I just talked about that did very well, they have their ground. They drilled it. They made their agreements with First Nations. So if you can invest in a company like that, make sure that they have all their agreements. When they say, "Oh, when we still got to talk to those guys, well, when that when is that happening?" you know, inquire a lot more, you know, uh because that, you know, because once these guys, and I don't mean this in a negative sense, but I do mean it in a negative sense, get the power that the BC government, which is leftwing, is giving them, they might apply it when they didn't think about applying it previously. >> Mhm. >> You know, when you give somebody a gun, they might shoot it off one day. They're not just going to keep it in their desk. And the problem is right now is we're supplying that. And that's not necessarily their issue. It was the people that colonized originally that never made any agreements. This is not a problem in Ontario. This is not a problem in Quebec. You know, it's a problem when we say, you know, 95% of the ground in BC is unseated. We're having a problem right now in Vancouver with building houses. You know, some people, you know, well, we thought we owned the land. Now we don't own the land. And well, hang on a second. I got my house on that. >> Yeah. >> Uh, you know, and and and can you build a pipeline? You know, that's continues to be an issue. You know, like Alberta can build that pipeline up to the border, but then until BC gets its agreement sorted out, they can't connect it to the ocean. And that's gotten a bigger deal now because if you look at this mining sorry uh projects office that Canada has developed you know most of that's liqufied natural gas and most of that's British Columbia. So the British Columbombian government which is leftwing are saying like oh stop that pipeline so we can make agreements on these other LG projects with other first nations groups because if you push that one suddenly we can't push these because that's like you know another $5 billion whatever you know but but a lot of money are going into these LG projects some of them are mining but the big ticket items are still energy and those big ticket items depend on the same things that the mining companies depend on, you know, these First Nations agreements, these benefits agreements. Uh, and if you don't have them, that's more problematic, especially in British Columbia, parts of the Yukon, which are unseated. So you know uh ask >> is it are those issues issues as in are they manageable or are they complete deal breakers? >> I can't get into the head of some of these people. I don't know what their thinking is. And it could be something sacred to them uh that is non-negotiable. I don't know that I I have nothing sacred. M >> so I I I we don't have that kind of a personality, you know. We we haven't been around that long in terms of this territory. They've been around forever, you know, uh and I don't know. It's just a whim. What we want to avoid is the whims and say, you know what? Yeah, I shot a moose there 10 years ago. I'd like to shoot it again. Hang on, buddy. We want to put a pipeline here and this is going to be important. Uh that for me is like that Alaskan road, you know, that it was okay. They didn't talk to three groups that maybe have 50 people that live there and they don't actually live there. Uh and then suddenly they decide that they don't want it because they weren't consulted. >> That can't happen. >> Yeah. >> You know, but some of these things might have legitimate reasons, but legitimate reasons black that area out. let us go around with respect to a pipeline and if it's legitimate reasons black that area out nobody will stake it but what I don't want to see is that some of these First Nations group giving that to somebody else that they might have a deal with that they might gain a royalty from >> you know negotiating that can't happen that company that staked that ground should get that ground they can't make an underlying agreement with somebody else. That's not how this should work. But the problem is that might be how it works. >> Yeah. Is it manageable though again to ask uh is it what are you looking for? If you're looking into like you really love the um the project that BC Explorer Co has what is it that you're looking for their relationship or agreements or what what is it that you're again looking for there? >> I'm looking for impact benefits agreement. I'm looking for good relations with the First Nations that are all that all that ground they have. They've got an agreement with that with those people. Not five people and we don't know these people. No, that can't happen. Uh that's a risk. But that's sort of like an underlying risk on metallergy. Could be an underlying risk on mining dilution. Could be any kind of risk because then if you know that you can buy them on the exploration stage, see it go up, but know in the back of your head you got to sell before everybody else does. >> Why? Because they still don't have all their First Nations agreements. Like I've got a company up in the Yukon. I'm pretty convinced, rightly or wrongly that they can get an IBA and a benefits agreement. I'm pretty convinced that it's not going to be an issue, you know, and when it comes out, it might be a major catalyst for the share price, but for me, it's it's like a major catalyst for them, but not necessarily me because I'm convinced that it should happen, you know, but that might drive the share price up anyway because, you know, maybe people aren't buying it because of that, you know. Um, so it's something that has to be weighed into whatever you do. Is it a deal breaker depending on the project? That's the extra level of due diligence you got to do because the local government, the NDP and the provincial government has made things very strange. The next time we have elections, will the NDP win? There's a new sort of consortium of more center to write people that hopefully can form a group that's palatable for for voters that can uh yeah that that can form government and could they retract all the policies of the NDP? Yes, probably. >> Uh uh but that might take a little while but in the interim right now that's something to think about. >> Yeah. What what is a jurisdiction that you think might surprise you next year? Is this a place where you thought never touching that, but it's kind of going in the right direction and you think it's it's going to turn? I suppose it's it might be again in um South America given the the move from left left leading or completely. >> That's definitely uh Chile and and Argentina definitely switching and that's definitely related to uh government elections that you can't know until they're done. But there was definitely uh a uh a move like when I was in Chile and I've been in Chile a few times. Um knowing that it's going to swing to the right. Knowing that it was swinging to the right, I I I invested in a company in Chile, >> knowing that those issues that they had before may not be issues anymore. Um, and with respect to the one in northwest Argentina, I knew that was a great province, but it's hard to buy a developing asset when you can't repatriate funds. Where are you going to get the money from? I knew this was going to change. So, that's helped. Uh, and now we don't need M&A. They could build it themselves. Um, so that has been a positive for Chile and Argentina. If we go back to problematic, the problematic is is we're not alone in seeing the move in gold price, silver price, and other commodities. Jurisdictions see that and when they see the increase in revenue because they everyone can read hopefully uh the financials and they can see how much money some of these companies are making. So they're saying, well, you know, Jesus uh shouldn't we shouldn't we make more? And so now I see a lot of jurisdictions that I thought were safe like in Africa that suddenly I don't know what the policy is anymore. Do they want a bigger stake? How are they going to negotiate the bigger stake? What does that look? Could could somebody be, you know, this project in this province, I mean in the state like I'm I'm talking about places like Namibia that I thought were like great. like could new regulations make them not necessarily uninvestable but problematic for M&A that people go well why would I give 50% of the asset away why do I need to because some of these com countries even here in Argentina uh this uh this one project in in Patagonia that's getting built a small heat bleach 80% of the labor has to come locally uh and with any kind of mining There's certain parts of mining that there's just no local people. That wouldn't be 20%. Uh, you know, I mean, sorry, not 80%. I mean, they could probably get away with getting people outside that would fill that 20% and enough employees that would maybe be 80%. That might not always be possible in terms of the labor uh skill sets, you know, that you need that you need to train. And that's what this company has had to do knowing that to get the permit to build the project they had to train a bunch of people. I mean at Newmont we had to do that in Ghana. There was no way we were flying in expats you know for that long. We trained locals to drive the trucks to work at the plants to do all that. And that's an investment you make for the long term knowing you've got a 20 plus year mind. But those sort of issues come in uh in terms of creeping nationalism uh when people start saying, "Oh, wow. Look, look at how much money these guys are making. We should get a bigger piece of the pie." And so stable jurisdictions that have a mining law that people follow and don't change every couple of years that that can be important especially when you're investing in development especially when you're in investing in a producing asset because that could change uh you know in a heart rate heartbeat in some jurisdictions. Would >> would you dare go into some of the warridden jurisdictions like East Africa? Uh there's there's a lot of geological potential there, but there's there's yep challenges. >> Yeah. Um I guess I guess the way I think about it is if the big companies are there, if there's M&A, I I can take that risk of going to a place. But you know, when I went to Egypt, granted there was M&A there, Sukari, that got bought out by Anglo Shanti. Um, I looked at it and I thought, geez, I mean, there's a lot of military involvement. There's a lot of, you know, government involvement, not necessarily good that I found it kind of problematic in terms of who do you know, you know what, you know, uh, security issues, all that sort of stuff. I saw that on the ground and that stuff would never hit the newspapers. >> Mhm. >> You know, you would not know unless you knew. Um, and so that got to be problematic, you know. Um, I had one company recommend this one jurisdiction that I thought in in East Africa. I thought, "Oh, yeah, that looks interesting. Exploration level, you know, same belt, blah blah blah blah blah, you know, they held back their private placement because there was a war." And I thought, you know what, that's fine. I'm not going to do this again. Mhm. >> Uh, you know, because I mean I I just got all giddy about the geology without thinking long term in terms of, you know, could this happen? Yeah, it definitely could happen. Um, do I want to be woken up in the middle of the night it happening and having a bunch of subscribers ask me about it? No. I don't want to be a like a political observant in my letter. Uh, I don't want that to be what the letter is about. You know, yes, we look at macros. Yes, we look at government involvement, which is more so now in terms of capital, but I don't want to be looking at, you know, where the next military coup is, map out where all the ISIS camps are. That's not what I want to get into. >> Mhm. Do you think given where the market is, is that even a thing, what do you think about different geologies in different markets? Like would you go chasing after porefree specifically now because they require more capital and capital is easier to come by. Is that is that even in kind of in your thinking process? Does it matter >> in terms of deposit style? >> Yeah. Deposit style relative to the type of market we're in. >> Yeah. Okay. If we take copper, let's say I'm bullish on copper, which I still am. Uh how do you leverage yourself to copper? go by stage, >> you know, and I'm in all stages. >> Yeah. >> But on the cash flowing part, I'm in a royalty company. Okay. So, I'm not in a producing company yet. Um uh and but I'm in exploration and development. >> Uh so, but then I look at okay, what size could it be? So on the size scale uh with respect to some exploration companies I'm looking for big I'm looking for porefree size that could that a big company would want right but also there's a lot of intermediate M&A as we were talking about but it's also in the copper sector >> they don't need the huge project a smaller project would still have a material impact so I also look at those because we've seen some incredible valuations for highgrade smaller tonnage projects, you know, but problematically some of those underground projects the capital intensity has been a lot higher than people thought. You know, think about what happened with Forand recently with their capital changes. Um the project in Blackbute in Montana with Sandfire. Um so that can be problematic. They go, "Oh, well that's going to be underground, low throughput, high grade, blah blah blah." And then you think, "Oh my god, the underground development is a lot more than I thought." You know, you know, access is going to be whatever. Uh so maybe open pit's better. Uh so how many open pit projects are there? You know, that so that's some of the thinking uh that I'm doing with respect to copper and then what's the product? Is it a concentrate? Uh where does it get shipped to? Are there is there infrastructure to take it out? Um or is it cathode? Like that's problematic to find cathode. But if I do get cathode, I get it in the jurisdiction I want. I hold on that like dear life, that's the one I want. Uh yeah. Um is it is it market dependent though? So would you go chasing again more for for VMSs because it's a slow market or more pree because it is or is the strategy that you just outlined that's just always your strategy or does that change with the market as well? Yeah, like one of them's a scarred uh one of them could have VMS sort of implications. Most of them on the expiration ST or P freestyle that would be more uh available to a big company. Um yeah, VMS's are like scarns is they could be problematic in terms of continuity. So continuity is the big issue with those because when you're dealing with grade it usually is a continuity issue. uh and their issue would be you know has they been faulted you know usually with VMS deposits you know they they tend to form in layers cumulate layers and they tend to form in clusters and if they've been geologically if they're old which most of them are they'll get folded and faulted and so the drilling tends to it needs to be more intense uh scar deposits have their own geology and how they work um you know understanding the shoots of high-grade the structural components very different from pferries um so each one has its different motivation I'm looking more for you know um if it's a certain deposit style do these people understand that deposit style what is the upside in the deposit style u how dense do they have to drill to prove it out because some of these projects you can have to drill it out a lot denser than you want and then you find that they can't access capital to drill it any denser than they can uh you know and that can get problem for problematic for gold deposits as well when they have a high variability grade v variability and the QP the qualified person requires much denser drilling to put it into indicated let's say for a feasibility study or pre-feasibility studying the market doesn't want to give them the money to drill it because suddenly those 8 m centers are too you know, suddenly it's got to be 100,000 meter drill program. Uh, and the market just they sell on the sculping study. Okay, that's it. I'm out. Uh, so there's a lot of thought into it and it's not as much about the deposit, but some is dealt with the deposit in terms of continuity and that scars BMS's versus porefree, which could take wider spacing to uh justify its resource. Mhm. >> That's not necessarily the case for VMS or scars. Uh and especially if it's got a gold scarn or byproduct credits because those also might have a different variability than the copper might not always be in the same place, >> right? >> So yeah, lots to think about. Uh and >> that's a that's a two-hour podcast for you right there. There's always lots to think about. Uh what am I forgetting to ask you though? What is um I mean the presentation you did there was pretty good. We we touched upon I think a lot of the topics in there and just an overall 25 recap 26 outlook. What are we forgetting? What else should we be talking about? >> I I would say one of the big things is um the you know resource sector thought of as a alternative investment sector. So people are looking at alternative investments and that could be gold physical but now spilled into equities. But as I told you with Silicon Valley venture capitalists versus the cryptocurrency people versus the government in terms of financing these companies, they're all looking at different commodities. The cryptocurrency guys are definitely focused on precious mostly gold. The Silicon Valley uh venture capitalists concerned mostly about critical minerals. uh and the uh government is mostly critical minerals. Uh so different strokes for different potential capital focus. Um so the capital available to some companies like a critical mineral company may not be available to a gold company. Mhm. >> Uh so the way perpetua was able to get its letter of intent from the export import bank which was for a significant part of the upfront capital required for an open pit high-grade but metallurgically complicated requiring a pressure oxidation circuit autoclave to uh to extract the gold was driven by the low cast of capital low cost of capital from the 10% or less of antimony had that's what dragged the government in. It wasn't the gold. Uh so the combination of having a critical mineral that the government wants like antimony, you can get gold antimony deposits, but you make your money off of the gold and the gold is going up, but the cost of capital is going down because of the antimony. That's a perfect environment right now. >> Mhm. probably a topic in and of itself and probably a podcast in and of itself and and knowing how how how how much I like to annoy people probably a topic that we could spend two or three hours on as well. Um, but let's leave it here. Happy New Year, Joe. I appreciate you stopping by. Thank you so much for everything you do. >> Thanks, Antonio. Happy New Year and we'll see you in Vancouver.