Market Backdrop: Multiple guests frame a strong gold and copper bull market while warning about euphoria, discipline, and pullback risks.
Jurisdictions: Bullish commentary on the United States (Nevada, Dakotas, Idaho; uranium pockets in New Mexico), the Yukon, and British Columbia for copper-gold exploration, with permitting and First Nations engagement highlighted.
Company Pitches: Amerigo Resources (ARG) emphasized mitigated operational risk and strong copper price-driven cash flows aimed at shareholder returns.
Development Upside: Revival Gold (RVG) presented a rerate opportunity as it advances a lower-technical-risk, open-pit heap leach project in Utah toward construction.
Copper Growth: Regulus (REG) and Aldebaran (ALDE) discussed execution risks amid booming metals, including tax/regulatory shifts and constrained engineering capacity impacting study timelines.
Exploration Catalysts: Surge Copper (SURG) detailed met de-risking, BC permitting dynamics, and proactive First Nations partnerships; Torr Metals (TMET) outlined efficient, year-round BC programs and vectoring from periphery to core in porphyry targets.
Gold-Focused Juniors: Gold Terra (YGT) highlighted resource growth potential and a multi-year path to production; Relevant Gold (RGC) showcased multi-camp orogenic systems in Wyoming with recent high-grade results.
Partner De-risking: Latin Metals (LMS) and Cartier Resources (ECR) stressed capital discipline, technical rigor, and validation from strategic partners, while cautioning against promotion-heavy stories.
Transcript
Thank you for watching Resource Talks and welcome to Vancouver. I'm here for the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2026 edition, which apparently is the busiest it's ever been. A lot of new faces, a lot of new capital and probably a lot of new people who are going to get burned because this is it's mining and it's venture capital. So, it's risky. It's messy. But a lot of the companies are here to talk, you know, big game, prom is big things. elephant country, uh, District Scale, Bonanza Grade, all these nice things, right? But there's still a lot of risks. Unfortunately, most of them, or really none of them, are going to talk to you about them. And so, that's in due fashion what I'm here to do. I'll make them talk about it. I'll make them talk about risks. And before that, I'll go and talk to a couple of the talking heads that are here, some of the experts who know their things, and they they've been in the market for a while. They know what the main risks are. So, what's happening here is, as always, I'm just going to take you along for a ride with me. This is backstage. Not much to see, but let's go and walk the let's go and walk the holes. Before all that though, pause the screen and read the warning because although none of the companies have paid us for the production of this specific video, this still cannot be treated as independent journalism nor as investment advice because I do have a business or a personal relationship with each one of them, which introduces biases. It's a broad, general, and impersonal piece of information intended only for those who know and understand the risks of junior mining and venture capital, of which there are many. If you don't feel like losing money, do your own due diligence on setterplus.ca, as well as pause the screen to read all of the disclaimers. If this isn't clear, go to the last section of this video for a longer explanation. And do not consume this content if you don't agree with everything said therein. All right, Nikki, I want to talk to you about risks in junior mining. What do you think are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Not taking some money off the table. I mean, we're in a bull market and you you tend to have the the greed trade that's happening now where you're seeing equity prices escalate every day. You're seeing gold jump, you're seeing silver jump. I think we're at the beginning of a bull market, but we will have pullbacks. And so, when it goes parabolic like this, that is always a sign that at some point in time there'll be a pullback. And when there's a pullback, everybody gets scared. And that's actually to me normally a good buy signal is when you see a massive downdrop and you hop in. But now everyone's feeling like they've missed out. So you're having this feeding frenzy. That is a really good time to be taking some money off the table. >> Yeah. Might be a good time to take money off the table when they're blasting AC/DC in the background at a conference too. >> Yeah. when stays busy at the conference. >> What uh what are the main things that you think people are going to get caught in by like what are the main traps that you think uh people are missing in terms of the companies are putting money in um jurisdictions or anything else that kind of worries you? I think in this kind of environment, nobody's looking at risk. And what we would have seen even 18 months ago, if you had slightly negative news, you see a big downdraft in the share price. You only need neutral news and share prices are escalating. So, nobody is looking at risk. And to me, that is a scary thing. I think on the corporate side, the big risk is there's a lot of money circling. The ducks are cracking. The big risk are those companies that aren't financing right now. This is the time to beef up your balance sheet when everybody loves you and there's a lot of money and not be focused on your own share price. And what sometimes you tend to happen when you when you're managing a company and your own share price has gone parabolic, you think that that trend will continue. You think you can raise at higher prices. So there's there's two sides to that story. When the companies are raising a lot of money, you should be thinking about taking money off the table as an investor. >> Mhm. What about the companies that are raising money uh but still having to issue a full warrant or give less favorable terms right now? Is that a bit of a signal for you? you do or do you not care about it in a bull market? >> I I would care about that. I think the average investor in this kind of market doesn't care and we discussed this previously about about warrants. I mean, ideally, you want to see companies not have to sweeten the deal. And so, I think that bankers will push it and investors will push it because it's easier to sell if it's got a warrant or a half warrant attached to it. But at the end of the day, that negatively impacts existing shareholders if they're not exposed to that. And so you want to see you want to see management of companies that are looking at their equity like it's a precious thing and that we want to issue it at the highest possible price and issue the least amount of it. >> Yeah. Any particular topics that you're looking at right now that you think are are less risky in terms of maybe metals or different jurisdictions or a specific type of geology that's getting interested? >> For me, uh, copper is finally doing. I've been saying for the last four years, everybody said I was insane that copper was going to go between it had to be at least $68 to incentivize new production and we materially to me that's almost the easiest commodity because the supply fundamentals are so incredibly strong. Uh, gold is I don't think we're anywhere near the end with gold, but as I said, I do think there'll be there'll be pullbacks. And I think you're yet to see the generalist for me the big sell signal, which is to run away screaming, is when you see all that generalist money come shoveling into the sector. We are we have not seen that. So, we're in this this this ideal storm with precious metals, which is finally, and this is a little bit scary. The world's waking up to what a fiat currency is, and that it's based on faith. And so where do you store where do you offset that risk? And that's why you're seeing this massive enthusiasm in gold. So I think that that but gold escalating dramatically and quickly that's normally a sign of risk elsewhere in the world. So we don't want to have a $10,000 gold price in a nuclear war. >> So that's not going to help any of us. >> Yeah. All right. Neil, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for incoming junior mining investors right now? >> Uh I'd say one of the biggest risks is uh let's call it euphoria. I think everybody's sort of super excited right now. We've seen this amazing run in the gold price, silver price, copper price. There's a a risk that you're going to believe it's going to go up forever and it it never does. That would be my main concern for somebody coming into the market right now. They're going to be desperate to get exposure and they're probably going to make some mistakes in allocating their capital. >> Yeah. What are those specific mistakes though? Are they going to go into the wrong jurisdictions, the wrong geology, back the wrong people? What's that going to look like? >> I'd say it can be a mixture of all of those. Yeah, you know, there be a lot of juniors come along now with crazy valuations as in they're valuing themselves on a relative basis similar to other stories in the market and it's just unsubstantiated. But if you're a let's call it unsophisticated investor, you'll not really know what you're looking at. You'll be relying on somebody else's advice and that advice might not always be in your best interest. Right. >> Incentive. That's actually a good point. um something that people might not be thinking about a lot but in our space incentive is is one of the most important things I think which is something you like talking about as well. >> Yeah. No, 100%. I like to see my the people I'm investing in be thoroughly incentivized to see the their share price go up in the company in which they're working. Definitely. >> When you talk about valuations, um what are those valuation mistakes maybe that they're going to make plugging in too high of a spot price or just being too optimistic on the future or what? Yeah. What do you think? >> Yeah, all of those again. Um, most people don't do valuations based on what the metal price is right now. They're a lot of in a bull market. You see a lot of the valuations are relative. They're comparing themselves to say, you know, it's a gold story in the Yukon. They go, "Oh, have a look at Snow Lion. It's, you know, billions of dollars of market cap. You know, why are we not onetenth of that?" And people make that mistake. They go, "Oh, this this could be the next snow line. This could go to $2 billion, $3 billion." And that's a common error. >> Yeah. Is there um an absolute number where you say that's too much for exploration? And like if it's 100 million for example and it's prediscovery is that too much for you even in this market >> I would say no. Um $100 million junior with a not particularly any particularly great draw results or anything I would be a little bit skeptical but the valuations can go to quite crazy numbers in a bull market. That's maybe we're not there yet but you know the gold price is just remarkable right now. You know we are going to see the most amazing quarter of earnings in Q4. >> Yeah. And what those gold majors are going to do with that money, I don't really know because most of them have paid their debt off right now. So it's there's just going to be so much cash washing around the sector. And there's a lot of investors as we've seen here at the conference. There's a lot of people here with fat wallets who want to put money into the market right now. So it's there's another way to say that is there's a lot of money chasing not a lot of product which is inflation tends to drive prices up and ultimately they do reset. >> Yeah. What do you what do you think the majors should do with their money? dividends, buybacks, or just give it all to us, the juniors. >> I think they have been doing a lot of dividends and a lot of buybacks. Uh I think they should put more money not necessarily into their own exploration programs, but I think I would like to see more of it trickle down into the juniors for sure. >> Is is Centara's approach approach changing because of the state of the market and and the state of valuations? >> No, we're still doing the same thing. Cantara. I have a part-time role with Santara as like an internal uh portfolio manager focused on always trying to find the best quality gold focused explorers in North America. Um it's kind of lumpy. There's not a big long list of them that we're just waiting to put money into. We just wait till the the stars align. They look like good good projects, good people, good balance sheet. Uh they got the per permits and we always want to funnel the money into um aggressive drill programs on good quality targets. >> Yeah. >> All right. Hey, I want to talk to you about risks, uh, which I know is one of your favorite topics. What do you think? >> Diligence guy. >> What do you think is the biggest risk to newcomers or to speculators in junior mining? What's the biggest risk right now? >> Right now, it's got to be FOMO. I mean, we've got vertical charts. The mainstream is jumping in. I mean, heaven forbid Jim Kramer. What are we going to do? Right. So, I have two answers to this in terms of FOMO. How do you deal with it? One is, as far as the stocks go, just don't buy anything that's an alltime high. It is almost never a good idea to buy anything at an all-time high. Yes, it can go up, but what are the odds? The odds are always that something at an all-time high is going to have some corrections and wiggles. So, beware of chasing all-time highs. But the other answer is, I'm talking about stocks. I'm talking about the investments that we play with to try to make money in this space. Completely different thing from the bullion. Owning gold and silver as insurance, as physical wealth that you can hold in your hand, it's not a speculation. It's not even an investment. And yes, even at this point in time, it's it's not FOMO if I don't have any insurance to want to buy some. >> Mhm. >> Isn't FOMO um sometimes good though, especially if you're in a in a bull market that is different than the ones we've seen before? And I know those are four of the most dangerous words, but >> so specifically as you asked it, yes, a person who gives into FOMO or gave let's say a person who gave into FOMO in 2025 did better than I did in 2025. But in every other year since 2011, I did better than they did. >> So in my entire career, if you gave into FOMO in 2011 and in 2025, you outperformed me. The rest of the time, I probably outperformed you. >> Uh let me put it this way. This is very embarrassing. I only in my portfolio was up about 125% in 2025. The GDX beat me. Like usually I beat the index, but the Vindex beat me. How embarrassing is that? But you know what? I can deal with only making 125% of my portfolio. And the point is, yes, bull market, >> the risktakers are going to outperform, >> but how many times do you have that soaring vertical bull market? >> Yeah. In conclusion, do FOMO, don't FOMO. What do you think? >> In conclusion, discipline pays, >> right? So, for for the one year that I didn't make as much as the GDXJ, every other year I made more than the GDXJ. So over time, diligence, discipline pays. >> Yeah. All right, Nomi, I want to talk to you about risks and and what do you think are the biggest risks for junior mining companies right now in in this stage of the market? >> I think the biggest risk is jurisdictional risk. So it's the risk of whether it's tariffs, whether it's export controls, whether it's countries trying to ring fence um their local areas of mining to um restrict mining or to restrict it for certain countries or to restrict certain financing avenues to to come and work on investing in it. So it's really about that geopolitical jurisdiction risk. That said, also it's really important with junior mining companies to ensure that they have enough capital to weather those storms or that they have channels that they can tap into if those storms develop. And that's one of the most important things to look at when you're evaluating investing in junior mining companies. >> What jurisdictions uh do you like right now? I remember last time you and I spoke, you told me about Brazil. Uh that's been opening up nicely as well. What else? >> Yeah, absolutely. Brazil very nicely um has been opening up for rare earth minerals and and other types of minerals. Um, in terms of interesting areas, I actually like the United States right now. Yes, there's some really interesting new gold discoveries and projects where there used to be histories of discoveries like Nevada, like the the Dakotas, Idaho, and so forth. There's some interesting things there as well as uranium. We've got pockets of uranium, for example, in New Mexico that nobody's talking about. So, the US is becoming interesting as sort of the dark horse um in terms of new mining, old mining kind of jurisdictional uh projects. But but certainly Canada Chile as well um there have been some issues with copper and there are some actually jurisdictional problems but a lot of those are also I believe going to um sort of dissipate over the next 6 months to a year so it's it's an area to rewatch again with respect to copper with respect to lithium um Australia as well um again because of good jurisdictions there's some nice pockets of minerals that we're looking at there so the countries that are effectively a available to us from the technology technology standpoint in terms of drillability, neutral jurisdictions and and good deposits. >> What about rule of law or title ownership? Is that something you look into? Uh royalties. I mean, there's interesting jurisdictions, but the government wants too big of a piece. Is that something you look into as well? >> Oh, absolutely. For example, Mexico is still um can present problems on that accord as well. I mean, obviously huge silver producing country. Um but oftent times new projects get into either permit issues or issues with that very thing with with basically not not knowing whether the land that they believe they are able to mine on they can actually mine on. Um so we definitely look at where there have been histories or accumulating possibilities of those sorts of things happening and Mexico is one of those places. Yeah. >> Right Nicole I want to talk to you about risks. Uh you've been in industry for a very long time. You've seen booms and busts uh and on the ground here in Vancouver. What are you what are you seeing right now? What are the biggest risks to capital allocators in the space right now? >> You know, I think um in I I think probably in every jurisdiction uh you have to be careful of um assets and management team. Of course, it always comes down to the assets. Um you can't move the rocks from where they are. So, you need the right management team to be able to exploit those assets wherever they may be. Um of course, jurisdiction is always a big concern for people. uh you could get through the permitting process perhaps really quickly in other jurisdictions, but you're not necessarily going to have to or be able to hang on to to that mind. So, so those are the biggest risks. Um and also keep an eye out for projects that have been around for a while and maybe have a new name and get dressed up with a new um some new lipstick. >> Oh, yeah, for sure. Especially that last part. Uh what about the Yukon specifically? You're you're here essentially representing the Yukon with the Yukon Mining Alliance. uh what are the specific risks to the Yukon and how is that being managed with the new administration? >> You know, we had a panel about that this morning. The government of Yukon put on a panel and it was very wellreceived and I think you know nothing happens overnight with with any kind of government. Uh but certainly from everything that we're hearing from the Yukon party, um they understand how important the mining industry is to the to the territory of Yukon and its constituents. And the Minister of Economic Development was we had a meeting with her yesterday and she was saying particularly she wants to make sure that there's not a disconnect between global investor views and what's going on in the Yukon and constituent views and and communicating what the those benefits are are really important. Um in Yukon, you know, the risks are infrastructure, right? Permitting timelines as as they are with any of the Northern Territories because they're they're new. Um but one of the opportunities is, you know, uh the majors in the world haven't done any R&D. They have done very little exploration. Every day they're in business. They're out of business by a day. So companies like our membership, the exploration companies in our membership are the R&D for the you for these bigger companies. And once you kind of get that happening, you get that development site of development um in the minds of some of these companies with the deep pockets that infrastructure will come. So um we like what the government was saying and we have a lot of I mean the capital is there. We raised over 400 million in in financing for our membership collectively uh last year. So, so we see that uh we see that carrying on. So, very happy. >> What else do you think is going to change uh now that we're talking about the Yukon and then I came up uh last year, hopefully come out this year as well. Uh but what do you think is going to be different? What what what has changed over the last 12 months? >> Well, we're starting to see some more alignment. Um we've got some potential uh other companies that might uh become YMA members, you know, um Selkerk Copper for example, you know, that's that's uh uh the first mining the first mine I think that's that's owned by First Nations. So So we're starting to see that. Um you know, we had uh the Victoria um uh incident. Uh I think the dust has kind of settled on that. And one of the big things about that is that the independent report said, you know, there is no fatal flaw with with heat leaching in that area of the world. So I think that's gone a long way to uh ease the concerns um and the risk profile of of the companies. >> Right. Aurora, I want to talk to you about risks. Um you and I did a deep dive not too long ago and talked specifically about what about the market as a whole. What do you think are the biggest risks for mining and junior mining companies right now? >> The risks in terms of people looking at the investment market and Okay. I think one of the big risk is the whole um uh bus around it. Uh because it may attract people that are not willing to put in the time that they need to put in to do good due diligence. You have to do that. You have to understand the metal. You have to understand the company. You have to understand the people behind the company. And that takes time. So my word of caution just would be do that. Uh it's your money that you're putting on the table. And uh this could be a highreward uh move in terms of investment, but it's also high risk if you don't do that uh basic work of understanding exactly what is moving the potential appreciation of the investment that you're considering. >> So no FOMO. If you see something and you like it, take your time and research it. >> No FOMO. Don't do that. >> What are some of the biggest traps that you've seen over your career people fall into when it comes down to these companies? What should they be looking out for? Uh some of the big traps are exactly uh thinking that you may be missing on timing that you may be coming in a month too late, a week too late and that you need to do a fast decision on how to allocate your money. Uh this is not the type of environment where you can really uh do anything without putting in the work that is required. It's a very costly exercise to do it without without proper due diligence. >> And again, you and I spoke uh very recently. We did a deep dive on on ago and update, but I'll ask you anyways. What are the biggest risks for Americ? >> Um I don't want to elute the question. I don't think we have a lot of risks operationally. We have worked very hard for the last 5 years uh to mitigate operational risk uh to understand what could be hindering our production profile and to uh line up solutions before the problems occur. Uh the copper price uh behind us uh close to $6 per pound is very conducive for significant operational cash flow generation the year and the biggest risk would be not to know what to do with that uh money and we know what to do which is returning it to shareholders. Well, not a lot of risks here. All >> right, John, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Well, Antonio, we're in in just kind of a wild market right now. Everything's moving up. So, one of the things that I think I would remind investors that are coming into a big show like this and looking a lot of things is a surge tide like this will move all boats, but not all boats will float or for very long. So, I think what you need to be careful about is is jumping just buying things indiscriminately without doing your research. You should take a look at it. Make sure companies have solid assets. Make sure they have reputable management, preferably management that's had success before. And it doesn't hurt to check with peers, other investors or other companies and see what they think of projects as well because there in an environment like this, unfortunately, there can be projects that really don't have much merit that just catch the catch the the tide on it and take off. So, you want to want to do your homework, be careful, and watch out cuz everything will rise right now, but you want to be on something that holds that gain instead of loses it quickly. >> Yeah. Some of them might rise only for a short little while until the holes in the boat let a lot of water in and then it sinks. What are those holes that you've seen? You've had a a lengthy career here. What What are those holes that you see often? Well, what are the things that bring that bring ships down? The things to watch for in a market like this is if somebody has a project that's never been drilled before, the type questions that that can be a fantastic opportunity. That can be that that 10bagger we all look for. But make sure you're asking questions of do they have a permit? How long will it take for them to drill? Uh what's the data really say? Is it a drillable target or not? Because those are the ones to be a little careful. They they offer that romance of tremendous upside, but but you can lose all your money on those two. So those are the one just ask good questions take a look for making sure the data is solid and that there's really a plan that they will deliver results in this market. >> What are the potential challenges for uh the two of your companies Alberon and and Regulus? Maybe we can start with Alberon. What are the potential risks or challenges there and how are we managing those? >> Okay. Um perhaps what I'll start with is kind of risks that apply to both of these and in our market overall. It's very exciting that we're seeing these these never seen metal prices. gold at what we're seeing, silver, copper. Um, that's fantastic and we it gets us all excited about our markets. But one risk that we we commonly see in the industry at this point in time is that countries might start thinking about raising the the the tax scheme on how they do things. They might talk about extraordinary taxes, changing rules because they see that companies potentially are making windfall profits. So that's something you we have to just monitor and watch and make sure we're working with countries so that things are done reasonable. We're we're all for everybody benefiting from this and no one benefiting extremely on it, but we need to make sure it doesn't u make it so that you can't work that the rules change on that. Another risk that we face on both of our projects right now is that this can drive up prices. It can make it hard to find people. It can make it hard to find drill rigs. Uh it's it's a boom. So So everything's going up. So we have to manage our costs as as well on the on the projects and make sure we have access to the teams we need. Right now it's very difficult to get a good group to do a a resource estimation or or say a P pfs like we're doing right now. And you're getting in line and you you may be waiting months for them to have the time to dedicate to your project. So we announced that we're we're finishing a study a PFS study by a certain period of time and we don't have access to the people and it's delayed and that frustrates everyone. So it just it's just competition for resource. It's it's a good problem to have, but uh that's something we have to watch out for. So >> all right, Hugh, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for junior mining speculators right now? >> Well, at this stage in the market, right, it's price risk because there's a lot of enthusiasm and folks are jumping into companies that maybe they haven't done the homework on that they might otherwise have done. >> Mhm. That's a that is a short answer. What does that mean though that the the homework? What should they be looking out for? Some things are worth overpaying for, right? >> They they absolutely are. It's the things that are not worth overpaying for that bite you though. So, it's worth taking the time even in a frothy market, even when there's a scramble to find a a seat on the bus, as I like to put it, to get into the game. It's be careful about making sure you're backing the right teams, making sure the right geographic uh uh locations, and also think in terms of your own uh timelines. Are you a an investor that needs to be in and out in a six-month time frame or a one-mon time frame or are you an investor that's for the the long term for the two, three year, foury year time frame? And that's really important as to which kind of companies you're getting involved with. >> Part of your job is hiring those right people. What are you looking in what are you looking for in the right people? >> Commitment, right? Because in a frothy market when there's lots of opportunity and there's a lot of money being spent in the sector, uh guys will move from one project to the next or one company to another. So you really want those that are committed to your project and invariably those are the folks who are local to the area you're in and have reasons uh beyond their job and their contribution to the community to stay involved. So we look for those kinds of people, those that will stick with the project through thick and thin and make a difference. >> What about yourself personally as Revival? What's the biggest risk for you right now and how are you managing that? >> Well, people is a risk uh for us cuz of course we're building uh we're in the development phase uh and a really good time in the gold cycle, but it's going to be challenging, I think, for companies like ours to continue to attract good people as we build up our team and move towards construction. So, that's definitely a risk for a company that's in the development stage of its business. But, I think uh the the the technical risks um at our stage are are are pretty pretty manageable. Uh look, we're on private ground in Utah. So this is a good geographic location with a really good uh property position. We've got a relatively simple process, open pit, heat leachch, uh which is well understood and which has been successful on this uh property before. And so for those reasons, we have relatively lower technical risk. Uh execution risk is always a factor and over the next two years as we move towards a construction decision, uh we'll be eliminating those systematically as we go. And of course that's the reward for investors. Currently revival gold trading at about 0.15 times NAV and our peers in the production uh uh stage now at about 7 to8 times NAV. Uh that's a very big rerate opportunity for investors taking the risk of execution over the next two years with viable gold today. >> And that's the pitch that you're going to be giving investors here. What are you doing today? You're in nice and early. Well, I guess for you it's not nice and early because on the East Coast it's like what? It's 10 11 o'clock. So yeah. What are you What are you up to today? Are you meeting any people? >> Yeah, we're uh we're visiting a lot of our investors, some of the corporates that are based out here in Vancouver and generally a there's a buzz here around uh some of the M&A activity that's going on. Of course, Peter Moron's announced today the sale of Ally to the Chinese. Another example of how it's not just a North American phenomena. It's a global phenomena. The interest in gold and gold mining uh is global. Leaf, I want to talk to you about the risks of junior mining right now and specifically the risk to capital allocators right now. What do you think are the biggest risks? >> Uh well, I would say valuations in the sector are uh they've run a lot, but um I I still I don't see anything that's kind of too crazy just given where uh metal prices are. like um typically on the valuation side of things, you would start to get a bit concerned about um that getting risky when the implied uh metal prices that are kind of embedded in equity valuations would be at significant premiums to where kind of current spot prices are. But um I think like across the precious metals and kind of major base metal uh complexes, equity valuations are still kind of implying um you know, look through long-term commodity prices that are quite reasonable compared to where things are at uh right now. So I'm not even though things have run quite a lot, I'm not too um stressed about uh you know valuations across the board. There's obviously going to be you know big variance and um you know opportunities that will be at different sort of implied uh multiples and so forth. But um I would say the bigger risks for uh that are maybe um you know in the market right now for for newcomers into the space is just um you know unfamiliarity with um there's going to be a lot of like investors who are looking at the space for the first time just given um you know a lot of momentum a lot of uh great returns in the last last year or so. So people chasing those returns and uh you know lack of familiarity with the uh some of the the people in the in the business the the personalities the players and projects that in many cases like some of these projects have a long history and uh there's you know critical in information technical information that uh is um you know broadly known to the market but maybe is not known to kind of newcomers into the space. So I would just uh yeah caution people who are new to the space to do your homework and uh you know find some trustworthy friends and people like you good good sort of uh you know analysts and folks in the industry that can help uh help lead people in the right direction there. >> I appreciate the compliment there. Uh what about the what would you cuz that's what you've done throughout your career is look at different projects and different companies a lot. What is the first thing that you're looking out for on on a project level? I think uh that's maybe not straightforward for a lot of people. you know, you hear, oh, that's a we have a huge gold deposit there, but oh, maybe it's refractory or what what are you looking out for? >> Yeah, I think for me, probably the technical side is the anchor. Um, you can't change the rocks for the most part, whereas uh you know, like political dynamics do change over time, management issues can be can be changed. Uh those are those are big risks for sure. I'm not saying uh they're they're not to be uh taken very seriously in terms of a um an investment assessment and valuation assessment and all that stuff but um but yeah me personally when I'm looking at stuff I uh the the first thing I will look at is the uh the technical side of stuff. Oh, the um the resource how the you know the kind of details of the resource estimate um and then metal energy the the details of the mineral uh recovery um flowheet and just you know the broad assumptions that go into uh what's being proposed in the mining project. Is there anything that um is uh that lacks credibility or is um yeah kind of um really novel or record setting in the way that you don't want it to be so to speak. Yeah. So, >> what are those risks for Surge specifically? Uh, is it what are your biggest risks? Is it technical? Is it something else that kind of keeps you up at night? And how are you managing those? >> Yeah, I mean um honestly I I think one of the selling points of of Surge and our bird project is that it is uh we we do see it as a relatively lowrisk simple uh project uh relative to other uh similar projects. So this would be like large scale open pit uh copper projects and um uh so yeah I mean things that we have identified uh over the over the years that were um were risks that we wanted to get a handle on were things like uh the flow sheet so the metallurgical recovery flow sheet um and we we've done that. So, in terms of how we've managed that, like um we we had a big um a big MET program over the last couple years that was specifically designed to address um you know, areas that we were uh areas of concern that uh were were visible to us when we first got a hold of the project. Um so, yeah, as a general statement like you manage a lot of these things just through very direct deliberate technical programs to um you know, do the proper investigations into into areas uh of of uncertainty. Um yeah and then you know permitting in BC is uh is all it's a it's a heavy duty undertaking and historically it's something that has uh you know had long timelines associated with it. So I think most investors would identify that as a uh as a you know um notable risk for projects in BC. there's a very distinct um kind of uh interplay between the you know government regulatory system and uh indigenous nations first nations uh kind of stuff and it's a very dynamic area in BC there. So um uh I I we see it more as an opportunity than a risk. It's a there's a very um I think you know progressive direction that um BC is going in in that regard. We're uh we're certainly supportive of that. And so the way that we are um managing those risks is through early engagement. It's a bit of a cliche, but uh I think we demonstrate that in spades. and um uh yeah, sort of treating our First Nations stakeholders as partners in what we're trying to do and incorporate their uh sort of views and and questions and stuff like that into how we're thinking about uh design choices so that the uh you know development of a of a project of this scale is done in a sustainable way, stuff like that. >> All right, Philipe, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the main risks for the junior mining sector as a whole right now? the the enthusiasm and the hype that's built into this bull market is attracting a lot of money. That money is not doing homework and there's unfortunately there's going to be uh pump and dump stores. So, u it's it's not a level playing field and so there's an element of risk there. There's also an element of risk being built into the industry because there's a lot of money coming to it. There's a lot of good work that's going to be done, but the talent pool, you know, is is is starting to be very very thin. Uh trouble finding drillers. If you want to build a deposit, well, there's only so many metallergologists, only so many engineers, only so many HR people, health and safety specialists, and environmental specialists. So, so you're not going to see, and this is counterintuitive, right? you're not going to see as many projects being developed and being acquired into these 10bagger type stories, right? And there that in there in lies a risk. The risk um that is related to deception dis the the the sh the retail market being disappointed that there's not a lot of five and 10 baggers being, you know, growing left, right, and center. >> What's the main thing to watch out for in those? Like if I was just coming into the market and I don't want to be one of the victims essentially, what am I looking out for? >> You're looking at story. Okay, if you're a newbie, look out for stories that are too good to be true. >> Try to bet and this may sound corny, but bet on people. It's a people business first. And it's it's the same in other industries. So bet on people, people that have track records, people that are being sponsored and chaperoned by, um, strategic, uh, investors, uh, like large companies, uh, producers because these larger companies have done their homework. And if they've decided to invest in a a junior company, well, there's a reason for that. You know, they they've that junior company has undergone a lot of rectal exams to get to that point. Last uh last night at dinner, someone told me to good for to look for good capital allocators because while we might have spoken about the lack of capital two years ago, now there's too much capital. People who shouldn't have capital have capital. >> Yeah. And those type of people prospect with the drill. So look for projects where the drilling can be extremely efficient. Uh where most of the money is going into the ground and not into promotion. uh money in the ground is money being spent diamond drilling, advancing engineering studies, uh building value into the project so that the project it can move forward and ultimately become a mine. That's where the real value is being created. So uh try to under I I would say the investors have to look out for and do their homework on stories where money is being well spent or well invested in in really good exploration. >> What's the biggest risk for uh you as a company right now? What's the biggest risk for Cartier and how are you working on it? >> The biggest risk is that the value of our story not being uh captured or not being uh uh told in the right places and landing in in in the right investment pools uh because uh the these uh these uh other stories that are essentially pumps and dumps are dwarfing ours. Uh, and our team is highly technical, so not too much on promotion and and we're trying to get out there as much as we can to to make sure our story, which is a valuable story, gets told in the to the right people. >> You got a lot of meetings at this conference. >> Oh, yes. a lot of meetings, corporates, uh, retail investors, um, and and and you know, trying to make ways into other markets such as Europe and Asia and and and and move away or not entirely move away from North America, but try to go to where smart money is. >> All right, Gerald, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks to capital allocators in the junior mining space right now? >> Well, if if you want to talk about risk, you can never own enough physical gold. in this market >> but going from physical gold to explorer and people that are buying gold shares in the market I think it's very important there are they are risk right when you talk about risk you can have geopolitical risk >> you can have management risk project risk there are so many risk so when you look at project you have to be careful do take your time do your due diligence buy a little bit of share watch the stock and uh before you take a big position but don't take a position on the first day. >> Yeah. >> Unless it's gold terra. >> What are the uh That's pretty funny. What What are the biggest risks you've seen throughout your career or the biggest mistakes people making? Like what's the what's the main thing they bet on and then it end up disappointing them? >> Well, I I think people forget I think the biggest risk is to go after a project which has no infrastructures. I >> I think if if you look at it from a very simplistic point of view, right? and and um some people didn't do their homework on engineering uh on valuation on upside you know when you buy something you buy a company that produce gold for example >> you buy a company like >> like it's amazing I mean I wish all the best when you buy an asset I don't want you to go under but when gold price was $250 an ounce the risk will kill you there's no risk there was no margin and today there's a bit more margin when you do this. Correct. >> So, so I think I think it's all relative, but will the gold price stay at 5,000, go to 10,000, or settle back at 3,000? >> That's could be a risk on its own. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, if I calculate everything on my project to put in production, I will use something below $2,000 or around $2,000 to make sure it works. >> But I'm not going to use 5,000. >> That's kind of another risk, right? >> Yeah. What's the biggest risk for Gulterra specifically right now and how are you managing that? >> Uh I think in general I think Golder has been managing its risk extremely well. We uh we went through the downturn of the market uh where nobody was interested in the gold business or the gold explorer and developer. Uh for some time in 2025 our valuation was barely $10 an ounce. Now it's about $30 an ounce. Of course these are gold in the ground in situ but gold terra could be a three four five million ounces company one day >> and we could be in production in 5 years four five years from now so what will be the goal price how much will it take to build a mine you know those are all the things that we're going to be able to present in 2026 with all the work we've been doing and I think the risk of investing gold terra there's always risk you cannot get away from risk there's risk but are we playing our cards properly. Are we is our project description will be reflective and acceptable for all the stakeholder in yellow knife for example. So we know what we have to do because we've built mines before. It's not the first one. >> All right, Ian, I want to talk to you about risks. Uh what are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Uh the risks is price entry and uh it's a market that would give you anything you wanted at any price with warrants. And right now that market's improving a lot and it's a lot harder to find ways into deals because there's a lot more competitive money trying to get into good projects. >> Yeah. I thought you'd say the risk is that you'd make so much money that you wouldn't uh you wouldn't have anything else to do with your time. >> No, actually it's it's the risk of selling early. This is where the stage we're at. So interesting perspective. When I sold Kaden in 2014, IO Eagle was $40 a share. And there was nobody in the world that I knew because we were taking shares versus cash that told me would go to $300 a share or even speculate near that. And then about six months ago when I was around 150 a share, I heard a lot of really smart people taking profits and selling it. They couldn't believe it was there 170 and it's now 300 a share. If you follow our cycle and how our cycle operates, our cycle operates in two really important factors. One is price of oil. It affects the profitability of majors more than anybody realizes and it'll affect the PE ratios, the multiples, the profit margins, and the price of oil is still very low. So, we have a lot of time left even with the big companies. But when you go into a new cycle, a bull cycle, the major miners move first, the mid tiers move second, then everybody comes down to the casino to go and invest into these juniors and make their best bets cuz that's where the best return comes. So my question for you or rhetorically is if a Nikico go into $300 a share which it is at today and that's way above anyone's expectations what will the bull market look like in juniors what will that euphoria look like when the general public really comes in to speculate on that and the other part why I think this is not near a peak in the sector is the mines are not being found you can have whatever wave of cycle you want there's no big copper mines being found there's no big gold mines being found a lot of mines are not being found and that's going to underpin the market for a lot longer than people realize. >> Yeah. Is that going to happen? That uplift in price that you're talking about, is that going to be across the board or are we still going to see some companies being left behind? >> Uh, you know what? Um, when every penny stock worthwhile is trading at a dollar or better, that's usually a signal towards the end and everything gets to that point. So, I think you're going to see all boats rise with the ship. Um, a very seasoned entrepreneur will market a company just as well as a new brand new person that doesn't have track record. Uh, on that topic, look for people with track records. Look for people who've done it before. Try to quantify areas, you know, geopolitically with assets that you understand in terms of basic metals. But if you can find people with track records, that's going to be people that have done it again and again and might do it again. They have better shots to take and risk reward. What's the biggest risk for you personally right now as uh not your portfolio, but Capernico as a company? What is the biggest risk? How are you managing it? >> It's a great great question. Um we're in the permitting process for a massive massive next permit that's coming in here soon. We're actually ahead of schedule with our permits, which is great and that's encouraging, but there's an election in Peru in April, so that puts a natural risk on anything. Um three out of the four candidates are extremely promining and the fourth is would be fine for mining as well. We've never seen disruption. We think we've seen things slow down with presidents that were far left before in Peru. But when presidents are on the right side, which three of these candidates are, we could see things accelerate. So, our biggest risk is timing. We're well funded. We have access to capital that's in the money warrants that we could push to get exercised. Uh we have a lot of interest in the company right now, but uh right now we're just planning to go drilling in April and drill consecutively for 18 months and test some of the best copper expiration targets we could find globally. >> All right, Jim, I want to talk to you about risks first. the risks to capital allocators in Junior Mining right now. What do you think uh people are going to do wrong? >> I think that uh as a lot more capital comes into the industry that the main risk is just that there won't be enough service providers in order to handle all of the demand. So, I think that particularly for junior explorers, you have to be very careful right now to ensure that you've got drillers lined up, helicopters, camp services, and all of these uh industries that have for the last 10 years just not built up to the scale that we're going to need in order to successfully execute their campaigns this summer. >> Yeah. Well, I know how you could know that when you look into a company, how could I know that? How should I ask the company? Do you have a driller lineup or Yeah. How can I know if they have the right drilling company or the right helicopter company? >> Absolutely. Uh that's where you ask the management and make sure that they've got uh that they have their logistics lined up in order to execute their programs well in advance, especially this year. >> Yeah. >> What's that biggest risk for you? Do you have a service provider risk or or any kind of anything that keeps you up at night? >> This is one of the advantages of the Yukon, which is that we have very close personal connections with a lot of the service providers. We've worked with them for years. our management and employees, many of them live in the Yukon. So, we're able to ensure that we've got all of that lined up and those decades of relationships built up. As well as these are there are a lot of First Nation companies where we're working with them on their traditional territory. So, they have a vested interest in ensuring that that benefit stays as close to home as possible. >> It is a bull market. So, capital is not often a risk. What is that for you right now? Do you have money? Is that a risk for you? Right now, we are well funded and we've got everything we need to execute this summer. >> All right, Rob, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the main risks for the junior market as a whole right now? >> Well, I think when you see a cycle flip like we have, and we we now are, I think, undoubtedly in a bull cycle, right, in a bull market, and so the money's flowing in, I think it's very easy to to act hasty on money and and potentially make mistakes. Um, that's just a natural phenomenon that happens when you're in a cycle like this. Uh but I think what you really got to avoid is is seeing those those transpired expenditures into the lifestyle type things. Um that's something that we take a lot of pride in avoiding all the time. Um but as the market grows and as the junior market continues to get more excitement from generalists and from other investors uh and that money flows in, what we do is we run the risk of eventually pushing these new investors that are coming into the market away. So that to me is the big risk for the junior sector is if we don't take this money and do well with it and we're not well inentioned in how we actually spend the capital to to achieve our goals as as junior mining and junior explorers. That's when we run the risk down the road of having another market down cycle where it's very hard to get new people to come in because they've already lived through that risk. They've gotten beaten up by it and you know it leaves a sour taste in their mouth. So I see that as kind of a really the the the outlay of what I've seen from the last cycle which was the first bull cycle I I had experienced in the kind of the 20067 and up through 2011 and and you know that's where a lot of that capital got a bad taste in their mouth and they weren't coming back to mining and in between that and now we had a lot of other alternative investments come online for them to pick and choose from as well. So I think that we want to make sure we retain new shareholders for the long term. >> Mhm. You're hopeful though that that's going to happen or you sound hopeful to me but that would be a first. I mean right that every cycle is the same u more or less. >> Yeah. And again I you know I can only speak for relevant gold so I can't speak for the whole entire sector and how people will act but I can tell you that you know for us we don't really change the way we do things. We stay very diligent, very systematic in our approach. We spend our money wisely like it our it like basically it's ours because as Brian and I collectively now own the largest share position it is and that's been through hard dollar investments. So, you know, spending the money wisely, doing the right aggressive exploration, you know, programs it because that's what you need to do in these times. It's a good opportunity to ramp things up and start to unlock value at a much more rapid pace. But you still got to be careful on how you spend that capital to ensure that you're protecting shareholder value. >> What is the biggest risk for you as a company right now though? What do you and then what are you doing to manage it? >> Yeah, I mean I think I think I mentioned one thing to you at Beaver Creek which is a risk for the industry and a little bit less of a risk for us which is human capital. It's getting very hard to find the right qualified people. Thankfully, we've got that pretty well mitigated. Um, and I I like to think of risk from the beginning of the company and what we've really done with relevant as we've went from a concept and thesis to now proven multicamp uh origenic exploration engine across a 200 km belt in Wyoming. You know, that leap happened through systematic work and diligence. And that systematic work is actually what you're doing is derisking. And so, we've d-risked a lot of the technical risks. We've derisked a lot of permitting risks and streamlined those things. We've derisked the financing risks and our ability to raise capital even in the down markets. If you look at our 5 years from the inception of the company on $27 million raised, we've paid less than 1% in total cash, finders fees, and warrants. I mean, that's pretty unheard of in a down market. So, it's staying true to that fiscal diligence and and eliminating the financing risk now that the market is here. Um, and that's one of our goals is to start looking at a much longer vision of of how we plan to develop the portfolio and make sure that we're catalyzing and capitalizing ourselves appropriately to to eliminate that future financing risk wherever we can. >> Yeah. I uh had to get uh Chris to to pull you off the booth. So, it seems like uh there's a lot of meetings and everything happening. You got a a lot of meetings in here. >> Yes. Very very busy show. Uh pretty much from top to bottom every day uh fully swamp. But that's good. We put out some news last week both from our drilling at Apex where we confirmed another very large origenic system that is fertile with gold. We also then put out some samples from our Lewis project where we extended our burr trend. Now that's where we drilled in 2024 where we had six of six holes intersect numerous uh sheer hosted gold panels. So extending that trend 2 and a half km to the south now as well as identifying parallel zones and having high-grade gold as well as high-grade silver, copper and lead. So we we had 2200 g silver come back with our gold. Uh you know 25 uh g per ton gold, 2200 g per ton silver, 12.7% copper, 4.3% lead. I mean just a beautiful system that's that's evolving at Lewon. So as we look to this year and we look to ramp up our drilling, um we've got some pretty incredible systems to put holes into. >> All right, Keith, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks to capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Oo, maybe getting carried away. I don't know. the the commodity cycle that we're seeing right now, the 60% rise in gold over the last 12 months is a wonderful thing. Uh I get very impressed when I see people buying gold at $5,000 cuz those people are thinking to themselves that they're going to get a 20% return or else they wouldn't be putting their hands in their pockets and buying gold, physical gold that is. So I find it remarkable that people have that much confidence and that makes me have confidence in the in the market that's ahead of us. The risks are the same as they always were to be perfectly honest. like don't invest your money with people that don't know what they're doing. Try to get aligned with groups that have maybe in the past given you good returns. Uh we are very closely aligned with people like uh Jeff Phillips, like Rick Rule. Those are people that I trust. Those are people that have always done well by me. I've always made money when I've invested in the stocks that they've provided provided marketing advice on, let's say. And uh and I think investors should always align themselves with people like that cuz nobody's got time to be looking at all these things in great detail. If you randomly go into the market right now and start buying things just cuz this is a hot market, you're probably going to do yourself some harm. Uh you need to stop and think about what you're doing. Get aligned with the real companies, the companies that are actually going to deliver and that's where the real money is going to be made over the next few years, I think. >> What are the biggest traps that you think people might fall into while they're deploying capital, pinching your money? just heading with the wrong companies, listening to the wrong stories, believing the wrong people. Uh you need to diversify, you don't just go into gold, you go into copper, you go into silver. You need to look a little bit at some of the things that are becoming very popular right now. Looking for things that are undervalued, a little bit of uranium. Diversification of what you're investing in is always very key. And then you'll catch a little bit of everything, but you won't get uh let's say you won't damage yourself by being invested in one thing, I guess. >> Yeah. What about lead metals in particular? What are the biggest risks for you guys right now and how are you managing that? >> I see us as a very low risk investment. Uh I think the risk that we have is exploration risk. That's the risk that's attached to every single company. Uh for our investors and for people that are looking at Latin medals, they have the additional comfort of looking at the partners that have come to invest in what we're doing. Uh people like Numont, people like Anglo Gold Ashanti, uh the private company Mashika that's currently invested with us. All of these companies got very very high standards and they don't come and invest millions of dollars if the projects are not worth it. If they don't see that there's real real exploration success ahead. Uh you know when I think about companies like Angloante it has to be a 5 million ounce potential target or else they're never going to get the permission from their uh senior management to make those kind of investments. So that doesn't guarantee success. Exploration always carries our risk. But but at least if you can reduce the risk by being invested with companies where you have that kind of background due diligence. It's free due diligence. You don't have to look at a company like us. If another company's already spent a lot of time looking at it and made an investment. >> Alexandria, I want to talk to you about uh the risks of junior mining right now. What do you think are the biggest risks for uh speculators and and investors in the space right now? >> Yeah, but right now because of the price of the metals, there is definitively a lot of new companies that are trying to mine the market. uh it is what it is. So a lot of riskical asset and new promotion team and new teams. So that's the biggest risk in my point of view. Uh the real real people and the good teams and the the people that they're there for long term will probably outperform everyone. But that's that will be the biggest risk for a new investor. You get in but try to get out as soon as possible. >> What what should I be looking out for if I'm a if I'm a newcomer to the market? What is kind of the most important thing or or or traps that I should be looking out for? >> Definitely the team and I will look at project that they are close to another mine because a new discovery to get into a mine you have one over 1,000 project. So it's really hard. But if you have the extension of a already producing asset, if you have a discovery, your chance of success of getting bought out it's way higher. >> Yeah. What about uh for yourself? What are the biggest risks for you as as Kim buy as a company right now? >> We're fully financed. We have 13 million in a bank account. We just did a discovery in our flagship project. So, the biggest risk it will to don't continue to have a good result and uh being out of cash at a low price, let's say, and having to finance. So, the the biggest risk it will be that. But right now, we're fully financed for one year and all what we want to do. >> Mhm. and and uh you and I will do a follow-up interview to the results that you had because because you know more about the project now and there's a lot to be talking about there. Uh what about the conferences? You do you have a lot of meetings here? What are you doing? You're manning the booth. What's happening? >> Yeah, it's it's crazy busy. So I have meetings every hour for two days interviews to tell to the people where we are and where we're going. So it's very busy, very positive, and I'm very happy to be in that type of market. All right, Kobe, I want to talk to you about risks and specifically the risks of the junior mining market uh as a whole right now in this type of in this type of environment. >> Well, in this very very frothy environment, it's uh you know, how much longer do we have to go? People are saying that this is a 5-year bull market and I you know I just personally I don't really uh manage our own risk as if you know this market's going to stay frothy for 5 years. >> But that's a lithium thinking. Well, it's it's for everything. Like lithium's catching a bid right now. Gold is catching a bid. Silver of course is incredibly hot right now. And you know, we're seeing a lot of uh you know, the codes really come out of the woodworks. And uh what I mean by that is uh there's deals that are getting funded right now and you know, brokers are contacting me. I'm sure I'm sure you've seen it too where they're like this is my allocation in this deal and people they're getting filled and people are subscribing cuz the market is hot. the mentality, you know, especially in this part of the world, um, is there's a deal, I got to participate in it because the markets are hot right now and people aren't doing due diligence on what the actual opportunity is. So, it's it's somewhat scary in that way. >> Is that the risk to investors though? I mean, if there's newcomers to this market, what is the biggest risk to their capital? What should they be watching out for? >> I think just stay disciplined. like this is uh there's a lot of garbage out there and there's more and more garbage coming to fruition right now in in markets like these. >> Yeah. >> What about you specifically as uh Libra and Athena? What are the uh what are the risks for you guys specifically? How do you mitigate those? >> Sure. I mean, well, look, for for us, you know, for me in particular, I I grew up in uh markets, right? You know, these are what what's happening right now is what the old-timers used to tell me what the good times felt like. I think I think this is what they were trying to describe to me way back. Um, but you know when you're in such bare markets for so long, you learn to be incredibly lean and I think it's about maintaining that discipline. So, you know, for us, we try and share our GNA between the companies that we're involved in uh to the extent that we can. You know, my business cards are double-sided. We share a booth as you could see right here. Um, you know, for Libra in particular, you know, it helps having partner funded exploration. And you know, we have the deal with Cobalt Metals and that's $33 million. So, you know, if we ever if times ever get tough again, we need to stop doing what we're doing. We'll still have that news flow. And same thing with Athena. You know, we've got uh Mammoth Minerals earning in on our uh Australian project. Uh sorry, the the Aussie company, Mammoth Minerals, is earning in on our Nevada project. And uh you know, these companies are generating news flow and catalyst for us. Um, so if times get tough again, uh, you know, we can always take a step back and still have that news flow to to feed to the hungry market. >> Conference has been busy for you guys. I can hear your team pitching. How's it been for you so far? >> It's been uh it's this is wild. Uh, you know, what I'm used to when I go to these conferences is more service providers asking me for my money instead of the other way around. And now it's like there's actual people that um I think are more willing to open their wallets and uh and start investing in the space. >> There's real people, not only service providers like myself. Uh I'm going to take that as a half a compliment. I'll try not to get into >> No, Kobe, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time. >> Yeah. Thanks so much. >> All right. M I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks in junior mining or in the market as a whole right now? >> Yeah. So I think some of the biggest risks that we're facing in junior mining uh it's really the efficient use of exploration of capital uh where are we going are we going into meaningful jurisdictions and with that what is the end goal here to the expiration that's being done. So of course end goal being we're looking for something we're looking for something that's economically viable and we're looking for something that's district scale potential that provides that meaningful return for investors and as well for the company. Mhm. >> What would you be looking out for if you were new to the industry right now? What do you think would be the biggest traps? >> We are >> uh some of the biggest traps I'd say is not just looking towards where you're where you're seeing perhaps some of the highest showy samples um core that's being taken, but but really looking towards the jurisdiction itself and where it is, where it's located, what's the accessibility, and then what kind of commodities that they're looking for as well. And are those commodities that like what the end goal is. Is it going to be takeover? Is it going to be you want to take it to mining yourself? And just keeping those end points in mind with what you accomplished with your exploration program. >> What are the biggest risks for tour medals right now specifically and how are you managing those? >> So for tour metals with it, we're early stage exploration. So the targets that we're going after, these are brand new copper gold targets in southern British Columbia. Uh it's a very meaningful jurisdiction. So we're in British Columbia's and Canada's largest copper producing belt. So we're where you want to be jurisdiction-wise, but it's early stage. So it's managing the expectations of what are we looking for? This is the first ever drilling of large scale porefree systems. Uh with there often the first ever drilling is going to end up within the peripheral zones of those systems. So it's it's managing the expectations that we're going to end up within the periphery before we can vector into the core. Uh that is the point that we're at here. But with that we can do very efficient use of capital where we're located. We can operate on tight exploration budgets, put more money into the ground simply because we don't have exploration camps. We have direct highway access to all of our exploration targets and we operate out of nearby towns and cities with year round operation potential. after a long day uh as today we also have to think about efficient use of caffeine. So I'll shut up now and let you get to it. But thank you so much for your time. >> And as always, thanks to everyone for watching Resource Talks. I have a couple of more things to say though. The fact that this company was interviewed here today does not mean that they're necessarily a good or a bad company. I'm not here to endorse nor attack anyone. I am simply here to ask some questions. If you find that I have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, which will happen as I'm not an experienced interviewer, please let me know and I will try to correct that mistake in a future interview. As mentioned at the beginning, please understand that mineral exploration and development is an extremely risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation. 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What Could Break Mining Stocks in 2026?
Summary
Transcript
Thank you for watching Resource Talks and welcome to Vancouver. I'm here for the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2026 edition, which apparently is the busiest it's ever been. A lot of new faces, a lot of new capital and probably a lot of new people who are going to get burned because this is it's mining and it's venture capital. So, it's risky. It's messy. But a lot of the companies are here to talk, you know, big game, prom is big things. elephant country, uh, District Scale, Bonanza Grade, all these nice things, right? But there's still a lot of risks. Unfortunately, most of them, or really none of them, are going to talk to you about them. And so, that's in due fashion what I'm here to do. I'll make them talk about it. I'll make them talk about risks. And before that, I'll go and talk to a couple of the talking heads that are here, some of the experts who know their things, and they they've been in the market for a while. They know what the main risks are. So, what's happening here is, as always, I'm just going to take you along for a ride with me. This is backstage. Not much to see, but let's go and walk the let's go and walk the holes. Before all that though, pause the screen and read the warning because although none of the companies have paid us for the production of this specific video, this still cannot be treated as independent journalism nor as investment advice because I do have a business or a personal relationship with each one of them, which introduces biases. It's a broad, general, and impersonal piece of information intended only for those who know and understand the risks of junior mining and venture capital, of which there are many. If you don't feel like losing money, do your own due diligence on setterplus.ca, as well as pause the screen to read all of the disclaimers. If this isn't clear, go to the last section of this video for a longer explanation. And do not consume this content if you don't agree with everything said therein. All right, Nikki, I want to talk to you about risks in junior mining. What do you think are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Not taking some money off the table. I mean, we're in a bull market and you you tend to have the the greed trade that's happening now where you're seeing equity prices escalate every day. You're seeing gold jump, you're seeing silver jump. I think we're at the beginning of a bull market, but we will have pullbacks. And so, when it goes parabolic like this, that is always a sign that at some point in time there'll be a pullback. And when there's a pullback, everybody gets scared. And that's actually to me normally a good buy signal is when you see a massive downdrop and you hop in. But now everyone's feeling like they've missed out. So you're having this feeding frenzy. That is a really good time to be taking some money off the table. >> Yeah. Might be a good time to take money off the table when they're blasting AC/DC in the background at a conference too. >> Yeah. when stays busy at the conference. >> What uh what are the main things that you think people are going to get caught in by like what are the main traps that you think uh people are missing in terms of the companies are putting money in um jurisdictions or anything else that kind of worries you? I think in this kind of environment, nobody's looking at risk. And what we would have seen even 18 months ago, if you had slightly negative news, you see a big downdraft in the share price. You only need neutral news and share prices are escalating. So, nobody is looking at risk. And to me, that is a scary thing. I think on the corporate side, the big risk is there's a lot of money circling. The ducks are cracking. The big risk are those companies that aren't financing right now. This is the time to beef up your balance sheet when everybody loves you and there's a lot of money and not be focused on your own share price. And what sometimes you tend to happen when you when you're managing a company and your own share price has gone parabolic, you think that that trend will continue. You think you can raise at higher prices. So there's there's two sides to that story. When the companies are raising a lot of money, you should be thinking about taking money off the table as an investor. >> Mhm. What about the companies that are raising money uh but still having to issue a full warrant or give less favorable terms right now? Is that a bit of a signal for you? you do or do you not care about it in a bull market? >> I I would care about that. I think the average investor in this kind of market doesn't care and we discussed this previously about about warrants. I mean, ideally, you want to see companies not have to sweeten the deal. And so, I think that bankers will push it and investors will push it because it's easier to sell if it's got a warrant or a half warrant attached to it. But at the end of the day, that negatively impacts existing shareholders if they're not exposed to that. And so you want to see you want to see management of companies that are looking at their equity like it's a precious thing and that we want to issue it at the highest possible price and issue the least amount of it. >> Yeah. Any particular topics that you're looking at right now that you think are are less risky in terms of maybe metals or different jurisdictions or a specific type of geology that's getting interested? >> For me, uh, copper is finally doing. I've been saying for the last four years, everybody said I was insane that copper was going to go between it had to be at least $68 to incentivize new production and we materially to me that's almost the easiest commodity because the supply fundamentals are so incredibly strong. Uh, gold is I don't think we're anywhere near the end with gold, but as I said, I do think there'll be there'll be pullbacks. And I think you're yet to see the generalist for me the big sell signal, which is to run away screaming, is when you see all that generalist money come shoveling into the sector. We are we have not seen that. So, we're in this this this ideal storm with precious metals, which is finally, and this is a little bit scary. The world's waking up to what a fiat currency is, and that it's based on faith. And so where do you store where do you offset that risk? And that's why you're seeing this massive enthusiasm in gold. So I think that that but gold escalating dramatically and quickly that's normally a sign of risk elsewhere in the world. So we don't want to have a $10,000 gold price in a nuclear war. >> So that's not going to help any of us. >> Yeah. All right. Neil, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for incoming junior mining investors right now? >> Uh I'd say one of the biggest risks is uh let's call it euphoria. I think everybody's sort of super excited right now. We've seen this amazing run in the gold price, silver price, copper price. There's a a risk that you're going to believe it's going to go up forever and it it never does. That would be my main concern for somebody coming into the market right now. They're going to be desperate to get exposure and they're probably going to make some mistakes in allocating their capital. >> Yeah. What are those specific mistakes though? Are they going to go into the wrong jurisdictions, the wrong geology, back the wrong people? What's that going to look like? >> I'd say it can be a mixture of all of those. Yeah, you know, there be a lot of juniors come along now with crazy valuations as in they're valuing themselves on a relative basis similar to other stories in the market and it's just unsubstantiated. But if you're a let's call it unsophisticated investor, you'll not really know what you're looking at. You'll be relying on somebody else's advice and that advice might not always be in your best interest. Right. >> Incentive. That's actually a good point. um something that people might not be thinking about a lot but in our space incentive is is one of the most important things I think which is something you like talking about as well. >> Yeah. No, 100%. I like to see my the people I'm investing in be thoroughly incentivized to see the their share price go up in the company in which they're working. Definitely. >> When you talk about valuations, um what are those valuation mistakes maybe that they're going to make plugging in too high of a spot price or just being too optimistic on the future or what? Yeah. What do you think? >> Yeah, all of those again. Um, most people don't do valuations based on what the metal price is right now. They're a lot of in a bull market. You see a lot of the valuations are relative. They're comparing themselves to say, you know, it's a gold story in the Yukon. They go, "Oh, have a look at Snow Lion. It's, you know, billions of dollars of market cap. You know, why are we not onetenth of that?" And people make that mistake. They go, "Oh, this this could be the next snow line. This could go to $2 billion, $3 billion." And that's a common error. >> Yeah. Is there um an absolute number where you say that's too much for exploration? And like if it's 100 million for example and it's prediscovery is that too much for you even in this market >> I would say no. Um $100 million junior with a not particularly any particularly great draw results or anything I would be a little bit skeptical but the valuations can go to quite crazy numbers in a bull market. That's maybe we're not there yet but you know the gold price is just remarkable right now. You know we are going to see the most amazing quarter of earnings in Q4. >> Yeah. And what those gold majors are going to do with that money, I don't really know because most of them have paid their debt off right now. So it's there's just going to be so much cash washing around the sector. And there's a lot of investors as we've seen here at the conference. There's a lot of people here with fat wallets who want to put money into the market right now. So it's there's another way to say that is there's a lot of money chasing not a lot of product which is inflation tends to drive prices up and ultimately they do reset. >> Yeah. What do you what do you think the majors should do with their money? dividends, buybacks, or just give it all to us, the juniors. >> I think they have been doing a lot of dividends and a lot of buybacks. Uh I think they should put more money not necessarily into their own exploration programs, but I think I would like to see more of it trickle down into the juniors for sure. >> Is is Centara's approach approach changing because of the state of the market and and the state of valuations? >> No, we're still doing the same thing. Cantara. I have a part-time role with Santara as like an internal uh portfolio manager focused on always trying to find the best quality gold focused explorers in North America. Um it's kind of lumpy. There's not a big long list of them that we're just waiting to put money into. We just wait till the the stars align. They look like good good projects, good people, good balance sheet. Uh they got the per permits and we always want to funnel the money into um aggressive drill programs on good quality targets. >> Yeah. >> All right. Hey, I want to talk to you about risks, uh, which I know is one of your favorite topics. What do you think? >> Diligence guy. >> What do you think is the biggest risk to newcomers or to speculators in junior mining? What's the biggest risk right now? >> Right now, it's got to be FOMO. I mean, we've got vertical charts. The mainstream is jumping in. I mean, heaven forbid Jim Kramer. What are we going to do? Right. So, I have two answers to this in terms of FOMO. How do you deal with it? One is, as far as the stocks go, just don't buy anything that's an alltime high. It is almost never a good idea to buy anything at an all-time high. Yes, it can go up, but what are the odds? The odds are always that something at an all-time high is going to have some corrections and wiggles. So, beware of chasing all-time highs. But the other answer is, I'm talking about stocks. I'm talking about the investments that we play with to try to make money in this space. Completely different thing from the bullion. Owning gold and silver as insurance, as physical wealth that you can hold in your hand, it's not a speculation. It's not even an investment. And yes, even at this point in time, it's it's not FOMO if I don't have any insurance to want to buy some. >> Mhm. >> Isn't FOMO um sometimes good though, especially if you're in a in a bull market that is different than the ones we've seen before? And I know those are four of the most dangerous words, but >> so specifically as you asked it, yes, a person who gives into FOMO or gave let's say a person who gave into FOMO in 2025 did better than I did in 2025. But in every other year since 2011, I did better than they did. >> So in my entire career, if you gave into FOMO in 2011 and in 2025, you outperformed me. The rest of the time, I probably outperformed you. >> Uh let me put it this way. This is very embarrassing. I only in my portfolio was up about 125% in 2025. The GDX beat me. Like usually I beat the index, but the Vindex beat me. How embarrassing is that? But you know what? I can deal with only making 125% of my portfolio. And the point is, yes, bull market, >> the risktakers are going to outperform, >> but how many times do you have that soaring vertical bull market? >> Yeah. In conclusion, do FOMO, don't FOMO. What do you think? >> In conclusion, discipline pays, >> right? So, for for the one year that I didn't make as much as the GDXJ, every other year I made more than the GDXJ. So over time, diligence, discipline pays. >> Yeah. All right, Nomi, I want to talk to you about risks and and what do you think are the biggest risks for junior mining companies right now in in this stage of the market? >> I think the biggest risk is jurisdictional risk. So it's the risk of whether it's tariffs, whether it's export controls, whether it's countries trying to ring fence um their local areas of mining to um restrict mining or to restrict it for certain countries or to restrict certain financing avenues to to come and work on investing in it. So it's really about that geopolitical jurisdiction risk. That said, also it's really important with junior mining companies to ensure that they have enough capital to weather those storms or that they have channels that they can tap into if those storms develop. And that's one of the most important things to look at when you're evaluating investing in junior mining companies. >> What jurisdictions uh do you like right now? I remember last time you and I spoke, you told me about Brazil. Uh that's been opening up nicely as well. What else? >> Yeah, absolutely. Brazil very nicely um has been opening up for rare earth minerals and and other types of minerals. Um, in terms of interesting areas, I actually like the United States right now. Yes, there's some really interesting new gold discoveries and projects where there used to be histories of discoveries like Nevada, like the the Dakotas, Idaho, and so forth. There's some interesting things there as well as uranium. We've got pockets of uranium, for example, in New Mexico that nobody's talking about. So, the US is becoming interesting as sort of the dark horse um in terms of new mining, old mining kind of jurisdictional uh projects. But but certainly Canada Chile as well um there have been some issues with copper and there are some actually jurisdictional problems but a lot of those are also I believe going to um sort of dissipate over the next 6 months to a year so it's it's an area to rewatch again with respect to copper with respect to lithium um Australia as well um again because of good jurisdictions there's some nice pockets of minerals that we're looking at there so the countries that are effectively a available to us from the technology technology standpoint in terms of drillability, neutral jurisdictions and and good deposits. >> What about rule of law or title ownership? Is that something you look into? Uh royalties. I mean, there's interesting jurisdictions, but the government wants too big of a piece. Is that something you look into as well? >> Oh, absolutely. For example, Mexico is still um can present problems on that accord as well. I mean, obviously huge silver producing country. Um but oftent times new projects get into either permit issues or issues with that very thing with with basically not not knowing whether the land that they believe they are able to mine on they can actually mine on. Um so we definitely look at where there have been histories or accumulating possibilities of those sorts of things happening and Mexico is one of those places. Yeah. >> Right Nicole I want to talk to you about risks. Uh you've been in industry for a very long time. You've seen booms and busts uh and on the ground here in Vancouver. What are you what are you seeing right now? What are the biggest risks to capital allocators in the space right now? >> You know, I think um in I I think probably in every jurisdiction uh you have to be careful of um assets and management team. Of course, it always comes down to the assets. Um you can't move the rocks from where they are. So, you need the right management team to be able to exploit those assets wherever they may be. Um of course, jurisdiction is always a big concern for people. uh you could get through the permitting process perhaps really quickly in other jurisdictions, but you're not necessarily going to have to or be able to hang on to to that mind. So, so those are the biggest risks. Um and also keep an eye out for projects that have been around for a while and maybe have a new name and get dressed up with a new um some new lipstick. >> Oh, yeah, for sure. Especially that last part. Uh what about the Yukon specifically? You're you're here essentially representing the Yukon with the Yukon Mining Alliance. uh what are the specific risks to the Yukon and how is that being managed with the new administration? >> You know, we had a panel about that this morning. The government of Yukon put on a panel and it was very wellreceived and I think you know nothing happens overnight with with any kind of government. Uh but certainly from everything that we're hearing from the Yukon party, um they understand how important the mining industry is to the to the territory of Yukon and its constituents. And the Minister of Economic Development was we had a meeting with her yesterday and she was saying particularly she wants to make sure that there's not a disconnect between global investor views and what's going on in the Yukon and constituent views and and communicating what the those benefits are are really important. Um in Yukon, you know, the risks are infrastructure, right? Permitting timelines as as they are with any of the Northern Territories because they're they're new. Um but one of the opportunities is, you know, uh the majors in the world haven't done any R&D. They have done very little exploration. Every day they're in business. They're out of business by a day. So companies like our membership, the exploration companies in our membership are the R&D for the you for these bigger companies. And once you kind of get that happening, you get that development site of development um in the minds of some of these companies with the deep pockets that infrastructure will come. So um we like what the government was saying and we have a lot of I mean the capital is there. We raised over 400 million in in financing for our membership collectively uh last year. So, so we see that uh we see that carrying on. So, very happy. >> What else do you think is going to change uh now that we're talking about the Yukon and then I came up uh last year, hopefully come out this year as well. Uh but what do you think is going to be different? What what what has changed over the last 12 months? >> Well, we're starting to see some more alignment. Um we've got some potential uh other companies that might uh become YMA members, you know, um Selkerk Copper for example, you know, that's that's uh uh the first mining the first mine I think that's that's owned by First Nations. So So we're starting to see that. Um you know, we had uh the Victoria um uh incident. Uh I think the dust has kind of settled on that. And one of the big things about that is that the independent report said, you know, there is no fatal flaw with with heat leaching in that area of the world. So I think that's gone a long way to uh ease the concerns um and the risk profile of of the companies. >> Right. Aurora, I want to talk to you about risks. Um you and I did a deep dive not too long ago and talked specifically about what about the market as a whole. What do you think are the biggest risks for mining and junior mining companies right now? >> The risks in terms of people looking at the investment market and Okay. I think one of the big risk is the whole um uh bus around it. Uh because it may attract people that are not willing to put in the time that they need to put in to do good due diligence. You have to do that. You have to understand the metal. You have to understand the company. You have to understand the people behind the company. And that takes time. So my word of caution just would be do that. Uh it's your money that you're putting on the table. And uh this could be a highreward uh move in terms of investment, but it's also high risk if you don't do that uh basic work of understanding exactly what is moving the potential appreciation of the investment that you're considering. >> So no FOMO. If you see something and you like it, take your time and research it. >> No FOMO. Don't do that. >> What are some of the biggest traps that you've seen over your career people fall into when it comes down to these companies? What should they be looking out for? Uh some of the big traps are exactly uh thinking that you may be missing on timing that you may be coming in a month too late, a week too late and that you need to do a fast decision on how to allocate your money. Uh this is not the type of environment where you can really uh do anything without putting in the work that is required. It's a very costly exercise to do it without without proper due diligence. >> And again, you and I spoke uh very recently. We did a deep dive on on ago and update, but I'll ask you anyways. What are the biggest risks for Americ? >> Um I don't want to elute the question. I don't think we have a lot of risks operationally. We have worked very hard for the last 5 years uh to mitigate operational risk uh to understand what could be hindering our production profile and to uh line up solutions before the problems occur. Uh the copper price uh behind us uh close to $6 per pound is very conducive for significant operational cash flow generation the year and the biggest risk would be not to know what to do with that uh money and we know what to do which is returning it to shareholders. Well, not a lot of risks here. All >> right, John, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Well, Antonio, we're in in just kind of a wild market right now. Everything's moving up. So, one of the things that I think I would remind investors that are coming into a big show like this and looking a lot of things is a surge tide like this will move all boats, but not all boats will float or for very long. So, I think what you need to be careful about is is jumping just buying things indiscriminately without doing your research. You should take a look at it. Make sure companies have solid assets. Make sure they have reputable management, preferably management that's had success before. And it doesn't hurt to check with peers, other investors or other companies and see what they think of projects as well because there in an environment like this, unfortunately, there can be projects that really don't have much merit that just catch the catch the the tide on it and take off. So, you want to want to do your homework, be careful, and watch out cuz everything will rise right now, but you want to be on something that holds that gain instead of loses it quickly. >> Yeah. Some of them might rise only for a short little while until the holes in the boat let a lot of water in and then it sinks. What are those holes that you've seen? You've had a a lengthy career here. What What are those holes that you see often? Well, what are the things that bring that bring ships down? The things to watch for in a market like this is if somebody has a project that's never been drilled before, the type questions that that can be a fantastic opportunity. That can be that that 10bagger we all look for. But make sure you're asking questions of do they have a permit? How long will it take for them to drill? Uh what's the data really say? Is it a drillable target or not? Because those are the ones to be a little careful. They they offer that romance of tremendous upside, but but you can lose all your money on those two. So those are the one just ask good questions take a look for making sure the data is solid and that there's really a plan that they will deliver results in this market. >> What are the potential challenges for uh the two of your companies Alberon and and Regulus? Maybe we can start with Alberon. What are the potential risks or challenges there and how are we managing those? >> Okay. Um perhaps what I'll start with is kind of risks that apply to both of these and in our market overall. It's very exciting that we're seeing these these never seen metal prices. gold at what we're seeing, silver, copper. Um, that's fantastic and we it gets us all excited about our markets. But one risk that we we commonly see in the industry at this point in time is that countries might start thinking about raising the the the tax scheme on how they do things. They might talk about extraordinary taxes, changing rules because they see that companies potentially are making windfall profits. So that's something you we have to just monitor and watch and make sure we're working with countries so that things are done reasonable. We're we're all for everybody benefiting from this and no one benefiting extremely on it, but we need to make sure it doesn't u make it so that you can't work that the rules change on that. Another risk that we face on both of our projects right now is that this can drive up prices. It can make it hard to find people. It can make it hard to find drill rigs. Uh it's it's a boom. So So everything's going up. So we have to manage our costs as as well on the on the projects and make sure we have access to the teams we need. Right now it's very difficult to get a good group to do a a resource estimation or or say a P pfs like we're doing right now. And you're getting in line and you you may be waiting months for them to have the time to dedicate to your project. So we announced that we're we're finishing a study a PFS study by a certain period of time and we don't have access to the people and it's delayed and that frustrates everyone. So it just it's just competition for resource. It's it's a good problem to have, but uh that's something we have to watch out for. So >> all right, Hugh, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks for junior mining speculators right now? >> Well, at this stage in the market, right, it's price risk because there's a lot of enthusiasm and folks are jumping into companies that maybe they haven't done the homework on that they might otherwise have done. >> Mhm. That's a that is a short answer. What does that mean though that the the homework? What should they be looking out for? Some things are worth overpaying for, right? >> They they absolutely are. It's the things that are not worth overpaying for that bite you though. So, it's worth taking the time even in a frothy market, even when there's a scramble to find a a seat on the bus, as I like to put it, to get into the game. It's be careful about making sure you're backing the right teams, making sure the right geographic uh uh locations, and also think in terms of your own uh timelines. Are you a an investor that needs to be in and out in a six-month time frame or a one-mon time frame or are you an investor that's for the the long term for the two, three year, foury year time frame? And that's really important as to which kind of companies you're getting involved with. >> Part of your job is hiring those right people. What are you looking in what are you looking for in the right people? >> Commitment, right? Because in a frothy market when there's lots of opportunity and there's a lot of money being spent in the sector, uh guys will move from one project to the next or one company to another. So you really want those that are committed to your project and invariably those are the folks who are local to the area you're in and have reasons uh beyond their job and their contribution to the community to stay involved. So we look for those kinds of people, those that will stick with the project through thick and thin and make a difference. >> What about yourself personally as Revival? What's the biggest risk for you right now and how are you managing that? >> Well, people is a risk uh for us cuz of course we're building uh we're in the development phase uh and a really good time in the gold cycle, but it's going to be challenging, I think, for companies like ours to continue to attract good people as we build up our team and move towards construction. So, that's definitely a risk for a company that's in the development stage of its business. But, I think uh the the the technical risks um at our stage are are are pretty pretty manageable. Uh look, we're on private ground in Utah. So this is a good geographic location with a really good uh property position. We've got a relatively simple process, open pit, heat leachch, uh which is well understood and which has been successful on this uh property before. And so for those reasons, we have relatively lower technical risk. Uh execution risk is always a factor and over the next two years as we move towards a construction decision, uh we'll be eliminating those systematically as we go. And of course that's the reward for investors. Currently revival gold trading at about 0.15 times NAV and our peers in the production uh uh stage now at about 7 to8 times NAV. Uh that's a very big rerate opportunity for investors taking the risk of execution over the next two years with viable gold today. >> And that's the pitch that you're going to be giving investors here. What are you doing today? You're in nice and early. Well, I guess for you it's not nice and early because on the East Coast it's like what? It's 10 11 o'clock. So yeah. What are you What are you up to today? Are you meeting any people? >> Yeah, we're uh we're visiting a lot of our investors, some of the corporates that are based out here in Vancouver and generally a there's a buzz here around uh some of the M&A activity that's going on. Of course, Peter Moron's announced today the sale of Ally to the Chinese. Another example of how it's not just a North American phenomena. It's a global phenomena. The interest in gold and gold mining uh is global. Leaf, I want to talk to you about the risks of junior mining right now and specifically the risk to capital allocators right now. What do you think are the biggest risks? >> Uh well, I would say valuations in the sector are uh they've run a lot, but um I I still I don't see anything that's kind of too crazy just given where uh metal prices are. like um typically on the valuation side of things, you would start to get a bit concerned about um that getting risky when the implied uh metal prices that are kind of embedded in equity valuations would be at significant premiums to where kind of current spot prices are. But um I think like across the precious metals and kind of major base metal uh complexes, equity valuations are still kind of implying um you know, look through long-term commodity prices that are quite reasonable compared to where things are at uh right now. So I'm not even though things have run quite a lot, I'm not too um stressed about uh you know valuations across the board. There's obviously going to be you know big variance and um you know opportunities that will be at different sort of implied uh multiples and so forth. But um I would say the bigger risks for uh that are maybe um you know in the market right now for for newcomers into the space is just um you know unfamiliarity with um there's going to be a lot of like investors who are looking at the space for the first time just given um you know a lot of momentum a lot of uh great returns in the last last year or so. So people chasing those returns and uh you know lack of familiarity with the uh some of the the people in the in the business the the personalities the players and projects that in many cases like some of these projects have a long history and uh there's you know critical in information technical information that uh is um you know broadly known to the market but maybe is not known to kind of newcomers into the space. So I would just uh yeah caution people who are new to the space to do your homework and uh you know find some trustworthy friends and people like you good good sort of uh you know analysts and folks in the industry that can help uh help lead people in the right direction there. >> I appreciate the compliment there. Uh what about the what would you cuz that's what you've done throughout your career is look at different projects and different companies a lot. What is the first thing that you're looking out for on on a project level? I think uh that's maybe not straightforward for a lot of people. you know, you hear, oh, that's a we have a huge gold deposit there, but oh, maybe it's refractory or what what are you looking out for? >> Yeah, I think for me, probably the technical side is the anchor. Um, you can't change the rocks for the most part, whereas uh you know, like political dynamics do change over time, management issues can be can be changed. Uh those are those are big risks for sure. I'm not saying uh they're they're not to be uh taken very seriously in terms of a um an investment assessment and valuation assessment and all that stuff but um but yeah me personally when I'm looking at stuff I uh the the first thing I will look at is the uh the technical side of stuff. Oh, the um the resource how the you know the kind of details of the resource estimate um and then metal energy the the details of the mineral uh recovery um flowheet and just you know the broad assumptions that go into uh what's being proposed in the mining project. Is there anything that um is uh that lacks credibility or is um yeah kind of um really novel or record setting in the way that you don't want it to be so to speak. Yeah. So, >> what are those risks for Surge specifically? Uh, is it what are your biggest risks? Is it technical? Is it something else that kind of keeps you up at night? And how are you managing those? >> Yeah, I mean um honestly I I think one of the selling points of of Surge and our bird project is that it is uh we we do see it as a relatively lowrisk simple uh project uh relative to other uh similar projects. So this would be like large scale open pit uh copper projects and um uh so yeah I mean things that we have identified uh over the over the years that were um were risks that we wanted to get a handle on were things like uh the flow sheet so the metallurgical recovery flow sheet um and we we've done that. So, in terms of how we've managed that, like um we we had a big um a big MET program over the last couple years that was specifically designed to address um you know, areas that we were uh areas of concern that uh were were visible to us when we first got a hold of the project. Um so, yeah, as a general statement like you manage a lot of these things just through very direct deliberate technical programs to um you know, do the proper investigations into into areas uh of of uncertainty. Um yeah and then you know permitting in BC is uh is all it's a it's a heavy duty undertaking and historically it's something that has uh you know had long timelines associated with it. So I think most investors would identify that as a uh as a you know um notable risk for projects in BC. there's a very distinct um kind of uh interplay between the you know government regulatory system and uh indigenous nations first nations uh kind of stuff and it's a very dynamic area in BC there. So um uh I I we see it more as an opportunity than a risk. It's a there's a very um I think you know progressive direction that um BC is going in in that regard. We're uh we're certainly supportive of that. And so the way that we are um managing those risks is through early engagement. It's a bit of a cliche, but uh I think we demonstrate that in spades. and um uh yeah, sort of treating our First Nations stakeholders as partners in what we're trying to do and incorporate their uh sort of views and and questions and stuff like that into how we're thinking about uh design choices so that the uh you know development of a of a project of this scale is done in a sustainable way, stuff like that. >> All right, Philipe, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the main risks for the junior mining sector as a whole right now? the the enthusiasm and the hype that's built into this bull market is attracting a lot of money. That money is not doing homework and there's unfortunately there's going to be uh pump and dump stores. So, u it's it's not a level playing field and so there's an element of risk there. There's also an element of risk being built into the industry because there's a lot of money coming to it. There's a lot of good work that's going to be done, but the talent pool, you know, is is is starting to be very very thin. Uh trouble finding drillers. If you want to build a deposit, well, there's only so many metallergologists, only so many engineers, only so many HR people, health and safety specialists, and environmental specialists. So, so you're not going to see, and this is counterintuitive, right? you're not going to see as many projects being developed and being acquired into these 10bagger type stories, right? And there that in there in lies a risk. The risk um that is related to deception dis the the the sh the retail market being disappointed that there's not a lot of five and 10 baggers being, you know, growing left, right, and center. >> What's the main thing to watch out for in those? Like if I was just coming into the market and I don't want to be one of the victims essentially, what am I looking out for? >> You're looking at story. Okay, if you're a newbie, look out for stories that are too good to be true. >> Try to bet and this may sound corny, but bet on people. It's a people business first. And it's it's the same in other industries. So bet on people, people that have track records, people that are being sponsored and chaperoned by, um, strategic, uh, investors, uh, like large companies, uh, producers because these larger companies have done their homework. And if they've decided to invest in a a junior company, well, there's a reason for that. You know, they they've that junior company has undergone a lot of rectal exams to get to that point. Last uh last night at dinner, someone told me to good for to look for good capital allocators because while we might have spoken about the lack of capital two years ago, now there's too much capital. People who shouldn't have capital have capital. >> Yeah. And those type of people prospect with the drill. So look for projects where the drilling can be extremely efficient. Uh where most of the money is going into the ground and not into promotion. uh money in the ground is money being spent diamond drilling, advancing engineering studies, uh building value into the project so that the project it can move forward and ultimately become a mine. That's where the real value is being created. So uh try to under I I would say the investors have to look out for and do their homework on stories where money is being well spent or well invested in in really good exploration. >> What's the biggest risk for uh you as a company right now? What's the biggest risk for Cartier and how are you working on it? >> The biggest risk is that the value of our story not being uh captured or not being uh uh told in the right places and landing in in in the right investment pools uh because uh the these uh these uh other stories that are essentially pumps and dumps are dwarfing ours. Uh, and our team is highly technical, so not too much on promotion and and we're trying to get out there as much as we can to to make sure our story, which is a valuable story, gets told in the to the right people. >> You got a lot of meetings at this conference. >> Oh, yes. a lot of meetings, corporates, uh, retail investors, um, and and and you know, trying to make ways into other markets such as Europe and Asia and and and and move away or not entirely move away from North America, but try to go to where smart money is. >> All right, Gerald, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks to capital allocators in the junior mining space right now? >> Well, if if you want to talk about risk, you can never own enough physical gold. in this market >> but going from physical gold to explorer and people that are buying gold shares in the market I think it's very important there are they are risk right when you talk about risk you can have geopolitical risk >> you can have management risk project risk there are so many risk so when you look at project you have to be careful do take your time do your due diligence buy a little bit of share watch the stock and uh before you take a big position but don't take a position on the first day. >> Yeah. >> Unless it's gold terra. >> What are the uh That's pretty funny. What What are the biggest risks you've seen throughout your career or the biggest mistakes people making? Like what's the what's the main thing they bet on and then it end up disappointing them? >> Well, I I think people forget I think the biggest risk is to go after a project which has no infrastructures. I >> I think if if you look at it from a very simplistic point of view, right? and and um some people didn't do their homework on engineering uh on valuation on upside you know when you buy something you buy a company that produce gold for example >> you buy a company like >> like it's amazing I mean I wish all the best when you buy an asset I don't want you to go under but when gold price was $250 an ounce the risk will kill you there's no risk there was no margin and today there's a bit more margin when you do this. Correct. >> So, so I think I think it's all relative, but will the gold price stay at 5,000, go to 10,000, or settle back at 3,000? >> That's could be a risk on its own. >> Yeah. >> Right. So, if I calculate everything on my project to put in production, I will use something below $2,000 or around $2,000 to make sure it works. >> But I'm not going to use 5,000. >> That's kind of another risk, right? >> Yeah. What's the biggest risk for Gulterra specifically right now and how are you managing that? >> Uh I think in general I think Golder has been managing its risk extremely well. We uh we went through the downturn of the market uh where nobody was interested in the gold business or the gold explorer and developer. Uh for some time in 2025 our valuation was barely $10 an ounce. Now it's about $30 an ounce. Of course these are gold in the ground in situ but gold terra could be a three four five million ounces company one day >> and we could be in production in 5 years four five years from now so what will be the goal price how much will it take to build a mine you know those are all the things that we're going to be able to present in 2026 with all the work we've been doing and I think the risk of investing gold terra there's always risk you cannot get away from risk there's risk but are we playing our cards properly. Are we is our project description will be reflective and acceptable for all the stakeholder in yellow knife for example. So we know what we have to do because we've built mines before. It's not the first one. >> All right, Ian, I want to talk to you about risks. Uh what are the biggest risks for capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Uh the risks is price entry and uh it's a market that would give you anything you wanted at any price with warrants. And right now that market's improving a lot and it's a lot harder to find ways into deals because there's a lot more competitive money trying to get into good projects. >> Yeah. I thought you'd say the risk is that you'd make so much money that you wouldn't uh you wouldn't have anything else to do with your time. >> No, actually it's it's the risk of selling early. This is where the stage we're at. So interesting perspective. When I sold Kaden in 2014, IO Eagle was $40 a share. And there was nobody in the world that I knew because we were taking shares versus cash that told me would go to $300 a share or even speculate near that. And then about six months ago when I was around 150 a share, I heard a lot of really smart people taking profits and selling it. They couldn't believe it was there 170 and it's now 300 a share. If you follow our cycle and how our cycle operates, our cycle operates in two really important factors. One is price of oil. It affects the profitability of majors more than anybody realizes and it'll affect the PE ratios, the multiples, the profit margins, and the price of oil is still very low. So, we have a lot of time left even with the big companies. But when you go into a new cycle, a bull cycle, the major miners move first, the mid tiers move second, then everybody comes down to the casino to go and invest into these juniors and make their best bets cuz that's where the best return comes. So my question for you or rhetorically is if a Nikico go into $300 a share which it is at today and that's way above anyone's expectations what will the bull market look like in juniors what will that euphoria look like when the general public really comes in to speculate on that and the other part why I think this is not near a peak in the sector is the mines are not being found you can have whatever wave of cycle you want there's no big copper mines being found there's no big gold mines being found a lot of mines are not being found and that's going to underpin the market for a lot longer than people realize. >> Yeah. Is that going to happen? That uplift in price that you're talking about, is that going to be across the board or are we still going to see some companies being left behind? >> Uh, you know what? Um, when every penny stock worthwhile is trading at a dollar or better, that's usually a signal towards the end and everything gets to that point. So, I think you're going to see all boats rise with the ship. Um, a very seasoned entrepreneur will market a company just as well as a new brand new person that doesn't have track record. Uh, on that topic, look for people with track records. Look for people who've done it before. Try to quantify areas, you know, geopolitically with assets that you understand in terms of basic metals. But if you can find people with track records, that's going to be people that have done it again and again and might do it again. They have better shots to take and risk reward. What's the biggest risk for you personally right now as uh not your portfolio, but Capernico as a company? What is the biggest risk? How are you managing it? >> It's a great great question. Um we're in the permitting process for a massive massive next permit that's coming in here soon. We're actually ahead of schedule with our permits, which is great and that's encouraging, but there's an election in Peru in April, so that puts a natural risk on anything. Um three out of the four candidates are extremely promining and the fourth is would be fine for mining as well. We've never seen disruption. We think we've seen things slow down with presidents that were far left before in Peru. But when presidents are on the right side, which three of these candidates are, we could see things accelerate. So, our biggest risk is timing. We're well funded. We have access to capital that's in the money warrants that we could push to get exercised. Uh we have a lot of interest in the company right now, but uh right now we're just planning to go drilling in April and drill consecutively for 18 months and test some of the best copper expiration targets we could find globally. >> All right, Jim, I want to talk to you about risks first. the risks to capital allocators in Junior Mining right now. What do you think uh people are going to do wrong? >> I think that uh as a lot more capital comes into the industry that the main risk is just that there won't be enough service providers in order to handle all of the demand. So, I think that particularly for junior explorers, you have to be very careful right now to ensure that you've got drillers lined up, helicopters, camp services, and all of these uh industries that have for the last 10 years just not built up to the scale that we're going to need in order to successfully execute their campaigns this summer. >> Yeah. Well, I know how you could know that when you look into a company, how could I know that? How should I ask the company? Do you have a driller lineup or Yeah. How can I know if they have the right drilling company or the right helicopter company? >> Absolutely. Uh that's where you ask the management and make sure that they've got uh that they have their logistics lined up in order to execute their programs well in advance, especially this year. >> Yeah. >> What's that biggest risk for you? Do you have a service provider risk or or any kind of anything that keeps you up at night? >> This is one of the advantages of the Yukon, which is that we have very close personal connections with a lot of the service providers. We've worked with them for years. our management and employees, many of them live in the Yukon. So, we're able to ensure that we've got all of that lined up and those decades of relationships built up. As well as these are there are a lot of First Nation companies where we're working with them on their traditional territory. So, they have a vested interest in ensuring that that benefit stays as close to home as possible. >> It is a bull market. So, capital is not often a risk. What is that for you right now? Do you have money? Is that a risk for you? Right now, we are well funded and we've got everything we need to execute this summer. >> All right, Rob, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the main risks for the junior market as a whole right now? >> Well, I think when you see a cycle flip like we have, and we we now are, I think, undoubtedly in a bull cycle, right, in a bull market, and so the money's flowing in, I think it's very easy to to act hasty on money and and potentially make mistakes. Um, that's just a natural phenomenon that happens when you're in a cycle like this. Uh but I think what you really got to avoid is is seeing those those transpired expenditures into the lifestyle type things. Um that's something that we take a lot of pride in avoiding all the time. Um but as the market grows and as the junior market continues to get more excitement from generalists and from other investors uh and that money flows in, what we do is we run the risk of eventually pushing these new investors that are coming into the market away. So that to me is the big risk for the junior sector is if we don't take this money and do well with it and we're not well inentioned in how we actually spend the capital to to achieve our goals as as junior mining and junior explorers. That's when we run the risk down the road of having another market down cycle where it's very hard to get new people to come in because they've already lived through that risk. They've gotten beaten up by it and you know it leaves a sour taste in their mouth. So I see that as kind of a really the the the outlay of what I've seen from the last cycle which was the first bull cycle I I had experienced in the kind of the 20067 and up through 2011 and and you know that's where a lot of that capital got a bad taste in their mouth and they weren't coming back to mining and in between that and now we had a lot of other alternative investments come online for them to pick and choose from as well. So I think that we want to make sure we retain new shareholders for the long term. >> Mhm. You're hopeful though that that's going to happen or you sound hopeful to me but that would be a first. I mean right that every cycle is the same u more or less. >> Yeah. And again I you know I can only speak for relevant gold so I can't speak for the whole entire sector and how people will act but I can tell you that you know for us we don't really change the way we do things. We stay very diligent, very systematic in our approach. We spend our money wisely like it our it like basically it's ours because as Brian and I collectively now own the largest share position it is and that's been through hard dollar investments. So, you know, spending the money wisely, doing the right aggressive exploration, you know, programs it because that's what you need to do in these times. It's a good opportunity to ramp things up and start to unlock value at a much more rapid pace. But you still got to be careful on how you spend that capital to ensure that you're protecting shareholder value. >> What is the biggest risk for you as a company right now though? What do you and then what are you doing to manage it? >> Yeah, I mean I think I think I mentioned one thing to you at Beaver Creek which is a risk for the industry and a little bit less of a risk for us which is human capital. It's getting very hard to find the right qualified people. Thankfully, we've got that pretty well mitigated. Um, and I I like to think of risk from the beginning of the company and what we've really done with relevant as we've went from a concept and thesis to now proven multicamp uh origenic exploration engine across a 200 km belt in Wyoming. You know, that leap happened through systematic work and diligence. And that systematic work is actually what you're doing is derisking. And so, we've d-risked a lot of the technical risks. We've derisked a lot of permitting risks and streamlined those things. We've derisked the financing risks and our ability to raise capital even in the down markets. If you look at our 5 years from the inception of the company on $27 million raised, we've paid less than 1% in total cash, finders fees, and warrants. I mean, that's pretty unheard of in a down market. So, it's staying true to that fiscal diligence and and eliminating the financing risk now that the market is here. Um, and that's one of our goals is to start looking at a much longer vision of of how we plan to develop the portfolio and make sure that we're catalyzing and capitalizing ourselves appropriately to to eliminate that future financing risk wherever we can. >> Yeah. I uh had to get uh Chris to to pull you off the booth. So, it seems like uh there's a lot of meetings and everything happening. You got a a lot of meetings in here. >> Yes. Very very busy show. Uh pretty much from top to bottom every day uh fully swamp. But that's good. We put out some news last week both from our drilling at Apex where we confirmed another very large origenic system that is fertile with gold. We also then put out some samples from our Lewis project where we extended our burr trend. Now that's where we drilled in 2024 where we had six of six holes intersect numerous uh sheer hosted gold panels. So extending that trend 2 and a half km to the south now as well as identifying parallel zones and having high-grade gold as well as high-grade silver, copper and lead. So we we had 2200 g silver come back with our gold. Uh you know 25 uh g per ton gold, 2200 g per ton silver, 12.7% copper, 4.3% lead. I mean just a beautiful system that's that's evolving at Lewon. So as we look to this year and we look to ramp up our drilling, um we've got some pretty incredible systems to put holes into. >> All right, Keith, I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks to capital allocators in junior mining right now? >> Oo, maybe getting carried away. I don't know. the the commodity cycle that we're seeing right now, the 60% rise in gold over the last 12 months is a wonderful thing. Uh I get very impressed when I see people buying gold at $5,000 cuz those people are thinking to themselves that they're going to get a 20% return or else they wouldn't be putting their hands in their pockets and buying gold, physical gold that is. So I find it remarkable that people have that much confidence and that makes me have confidence in the in the market that's ahead of us. The risks are the same as they always were to be perfectly honest. like don't invest your money with people that don't know what they're doing. Try to get aligned with groups that have maybe in the past given you good returns. Uh we are very closely aligned with people like uh Jeff Phillips, like Rick Rule. Those are people that I trust. Those are people that have always done well by me. I've always made money when I've invested in the stocks that they've provided provided marketing advice on, let's say. And uh and I think investors should always align themselves with people like that cuz nobody's got time to be looking at all these things in great detail. If you randomly go into the market right now and start buying things just cuz this is a hot market, you're probably going to do yourself some harm. Uh you need to stop and think about what you're doing. Get aligned with the real companies, the companies that are actually going to deliver and that's where the real money is going to be made over the next few years, I think. >> What are the biggest traps that you think people might fall into while they're deploying capital, pinching your money? just heading with the wrong companies, listening to the wrong stories, believing the wrong people. Uh you need to diversify, you don't just go into gold, you go into copper, you go into silver. You need to look a little bit at some of the things that are becoming very popular right now. Looking for things that are undervalued, a little bit of uranium. Diversification of what you're investing in is always very key. And then you'll catch a little bit of everything, but you won't get uh let's say you won't damage yourself by being invested in one thing, I guess. >> Yeah. What about lead metals in particular? What are the biggest risks for you guys right now and how are you managing that? >> I see us as a very low risk investment. Uh I think the risk that we have is exploration risk. That's the risk that's attached to every single company. Uh for our investors and for people that are looking at Latin medals, they have the additional comfort of looking at the partners that have come to invest in what we're doing. Uh people like Numont, people like Anglo Gold Ashanti, uh the private company Mashika that's currently invested with us. All of these companies got very very high standards and they don't come and invest millions of dollars if the projects are not worth it. If they don't see that there's real real exploration success ahead. Uh you know when I think about companies like Angloante it has to be a 5 million ounce potential target or else they're never going to get the permission from their uh senior management to make those kind of investments. So that doesn't guarantee success. Exploration always carries our risk. But but at least if you can reduce the risk by being invested with companies where you have that kind of background due diligence. It's free due diligence. You don't have to look at a company like us. If another company's already spent a lot of time looking at it and made an investment. >> Alexandria, I want to talk to you about uh the risks of junior mining right now. What do you think are the biggest risks for uh speculators and and investors in the space right now? >> Yeah, but right now because of the price of the metals, there is definitively a lot of new companies that are trying to mine the market. uh it is what it is. So a lot of riskical asset and new promotion team and new teams. So that's the biggest risk in my point of view. Uh the real real people and the good teams and the the people that they're there for long term will probably outperform everyone. But that's that will be the biggest risk for a new investor. You get in but try to get out as soon as possible. >> What what should I be looking out for if I'm a if I'm a newcomer to the market? What is kind of the most important thing or or or traps that I should be looking out for? >> Definitely the team and I will look at project that they are close to another mine because a new discovery to get into a mine you have one over 1,000 project. So it's really hard. But if you have the extension of a already producing asset, if you have a discovery, your chance of success of getting bought out it's way higher. >> Yeah. What about uh for yourself? What are the biggest risks for you as as Kim buy as a company right now? >> We're fully financed. We have 13 million in a bank account. We just did a discovery in our flagship project. So, the biggest risk it will to don't continue to have a good result and uh being out of cash at a low price, let's say, and having to finance. So, the the biggest risk it will be that. But right now, we're fully financed for one year and all what we want to do. >> Mhm. and and uh you and I will do a follow-up interview to the results that you had because because you know more about the project now and there's a lot to be talking about there. Uh what about the conferences? You do you have a lot of meetings here? What are you doing? You're manning the booth. What's happening? >> Yeah, it's it's crazy busy. So I have meetings every hour for two days interviews to tell to the people where we are and where we're going. So it's very busy, very positive, and I'm very happy to be in that type of market. All right, Kobe, I want to talk to you about risks and specifically the risks of the junior mining market uh as a whole right now in this type of in this type of environment. >> Well, in this very very frothy environment, it's uh you know, how much longer do we have to go? People are saying that this is a 5-year bull market and I you know I just personally I don't really uh manage our own risk as if you know this market's going to stay frothy for 5 years. >> But that's a lithium thinking. Well, it's it's for everything. Like lithium's catching a bid right now. Gold is catching a bid. Silver of course is incredibly hot right now. And you know, we're seeing a lot of uh you know, the codes really come out of the woodworks. And uh what I mean by that is uh there's deals that are getting funded right now and you know, brokers are contacting me. I'm sure I'm sure you've seen it too where they're like this is my allocation in this deal and people they're getting filled and people are subscribing cuz the market is hot. the mentality, you know, especially in this part of the world, um, is there's a deal, I got to participate in it because the markets are hot right now and people aren't doing due diligence on what the actual opportunity is. So, it's it's somewhat scary in that way. >> Is that the risk to investors though? I mean, if there's newcomers to this market, what is the biggest risk to their capital? What should they be watching out for? >> I think just stay disciplined. like this is uh there's a lot of garbage out there and there's more and more garbage coming to fruition right now in in markets like these. >> Yeah. >> What about you specifically as uh Libra and Athena? What are the uh what are the risks for you guys specifically? How do you mitigate those? >> Sure. I mean, well, look, for for us, you know, for me in particular, I I grew up in uh markets, right? You know, these are what what's happening right now is what the old-timers used to tell me what the good times felt like. I think I think this is what they were trying to describe to me way back. Um, but you know when you're in such bare markets for so long, you learn to be incredibly lean and I think it's about maintaining that discipline. So, you know, for us, we try and share our GNA between the companies that we're involved in uh to the extent that we can. You know, my business cards are double-sided. We share a booth as you could see right here. Um, you know, for Libra in particular, you know, it helps having partner funded exploration. And you know, we have the deal with Cobalt Metals and that's $33 million. So, you know, if we ever if times ever get tough again, we need to stop doing what we're doing. We'll still have that news flow. And same thing with Athena. You know, we've got uh Mammoth Minerals earning in on our uh Australian project. Uh sorry, the the Aussie company, Mammoth Minerals, is earning in on our Nevada project. And uh you know, these companies are generating news flow and catalyst for us. Um, so if times get tough again, uh, you know, we can always take a step back and still have that news flow to to feed to the hungry market. >> Conference has been busy for you guys. I can hear your team pitching. How's it been for you so far? >> It's been uh it's this is wild. Uh, you know, what I'm used to when I go to these conferences is more service providers asking me for my money instead of the other way around. And now it's like there's actual people that um I think are more willing to open their wallets and uh and start investing in the space. >> There's real people, not only service providers like myself. Uh I'm going to take that as a half a compliment. I'll try not to get into >> No, Kobe, this has been great. Thank you so much for your time. >> Yeah. Thanks so much. >> All right. M I want to talk to you about risks. What do you think are the biggest risks in junior mining or in the market as a whole right now? >> Yeah. So I think some of the biggest risks that we're facing in junior mining uh it's really the efficient use of exploration of capital uh where are we going are we going into meaningful jurisdictions and with that what is the end goal here to the expiration that's being done. So of course end goal being we're looking for something we're looking for something that's economically viable and we're looking for something that's district scale potential that provides that meaningful return for investors and as well for the company. Mhm. >> What would you be looking out for if you were new to the industry right now? What do you think would be the biggest traps? >> We are >> uh some of the biggest traps I'd say is not just looking towards where you're where you're seeing perhaps some of the highest showy samples um core that's being taken, but but really looking towards the jurisdiction itself and where it is, where it's located, what's the accessibility, and then what kind of commodities that they're looking for as well. And are those commodities that like what the end goal is. Is it going to be takeover? Is it going to be you want to take it to mining yourself? And just keeping those end points in mind with what you accomplished with your exploration program. >> What are the biggest risks for tour medals right now specifically and how are you managing those? >> So for tour metals with it, we're early stage exploration. So the targets that we're going after, these are brand new copper gold targets in southern British Columbia. Uh it's a very meaningful jurisdiction. So we're in British Columbia's and Canada's largest copper producing belt. So we're where you want to be jurisdiction-wise, but it's early stage. So it's managing the expectations of what are we looking for? This is the first ever drilling of large scale porefree systems. Uh with there often the first ever drilling is going to end up within the peripheral zones of those systems. So it's it's managing the expectations that we're going to end up within the periphery before we can vector into the core. Uh that is the point that we're at here. But with that we can do very efficient use of capital where we're located. We can operate on tight exploration budgets, put more money into the ground simply because we don't have exploration camps. We have direct highway access to all of our exploration targets and we operate out of nearby towns and cities with year round operation potential. after a long day uh as today we also have to think about efficient use of caffeine. So I'll shut up now and let you get to it. But thank you so much for your time. >> And as always, thanks to everyone for watching Resource Talks. I have a couple of more things to say though. The fact that this company was interviewed here today does not mean that they're necessarily a good or a bad company. I'm not here to endorse nor attack anyone. I am simply here to ask some questions. If you find that I have failed in asking a question that you would have liked to hear an answer to, which will happen as I'm not an experienced interviewer, please let me know and I will try to correct that mistake in a future interview. As mentioned at the beginning, please understand that mineral exploration and development is an extremely risky business. Losing money is the norm and should be the expectation. This is a very complex sector and the performance of individual companies typically depends on many different moving particles including company specific factors like geology, financing ability and many others really as well as particles that are outside of the company's control like geopolitics, macroeconomics, commodity prices and many more. Most of which are nearly impossible to fully understand. Moreover, these companies that typically get interviewed on resource talks are in the pre-revenue stage, which means they rely on the public markets for the financing of their operations, which could result in shareholder dilution. 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Some people even believe that to be rule number one on Wall Street. Nobody really knows. None of us know whether any of the company's activities will result in a success. Again, given that we're talking about high-risk activities where most of the times it ends in failure. Also, unfortunately, try as I may, I won't always catch all red flags or all challenges with the companies. So, even if I did ask a few tough questions in here, don't rely on this being all of the tough questions. Again, these are complicated startups with many moving parts and I am conflicted given the nature of this business. Therefore, I cannot guarantee the quality of anything presented in this video and you cannot hold me responsible for any losses or damages stemming from the way you decide to use this interview. 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It is setplus.ca, where you do your research. That's where you find a company's official filings. And I encourage you to read and analyze the management information circular, the financial statements, the management discussion and analysis, and whenever available, the NI43101 technical documents. If you don't understand everything in those documents, the chances of you losing money are even higher than they normally are in the space. And as mentioned earlier, the chances of even the best analysts in this sector lo losing money are extremely high since this is venture capital and it is not for everybody. I'll leave you with one of Charlie Munger's quotes which I wish I had listened to more often earlier on which says quote if you don't understand it don't do