Gold Explodes, But Lobo Tiggre Is Not Buying, Here's Why

I have not bought this dip. I have I have not participated at all. And for anybody who says I will get left behind. Yes, you're right. I will get left behind. I'm not going to chase this puppy. Not until I'm well, maybe not even not until this is also I think it substantiates what I've been saying about stagflation being my outlook here. And I know a lot of people like this, maybe short term, they think there's going to be a technical correction. But long term, Is that you? Our next guest is Lobo Tigre, founder and editor of theindependentspeculator.com. He's been on the show many times before. His last appearance with me was at the Rule Symposium earlier in July. Check out our last interview link down below. Lobo, it's great to have you back. I love to get your take on what you and other people should be doing right now in today's rally. I'm always a pleasure, David. It's always a fun conversation with you. So should is a loaded word. And maybe I should start out by telling the audience, don't listen to me. When I spoke to David in July, and gold was flirting with sub $4000 levels, I warned that the bottom may not be in and look at it now. Wow, it's off to the races. I'm certainly getting a lot of pushback from people on social media saying I'm an idiot and I missed the rally and woe is me. However, I would point out that the last time we had a big peak like this in 2011, there were rallies bigger than this one that turned out to be head fix. In fact, there were three post-September of 2011 major rallies after that correction that turned out to be terrible dips to buy. If you held on for 10 or 15 years, it worked out okay. But for most investors, yeah. May 2012 to October 2012 went up 17%. We had here from January 2012 to March 2012, 15%. And this one that we're getting right now that started in early August, July 31st, it's about 10%. People like to call me Darth whatever, it was Darth Silver, Darth Gold, whatever they call me names. I'm not actually trying to rain on the parade. I'm actually not trying to insult anybody's favorite metal. I'm just pointing to the facts here. The fact that we have a 10% rebound does not prove, I'm sorry, but it does not prove that the bottom is in. Now, most of the arguments and pushback I get on this, they're fundamental arguments. The central bank buying and the money printing and BRICS countries. Actually, I agree with all these arguments. I don't dispute them at all. The macro picture of where the world is going in the years and decades to come does not tell us what's going to happen next. And it does not guarantee that this 10% rebound has legs. And people say, well, what if you're wrong? What if it doubles from here? Okay, then I'm wrong. I mean, well, I can't be wrong to issue a warning. If I said, this is absolutely not the bottom and it is absolutely going down from here, yes, I could be wrong. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it is a mistake to assume that the bottom is in. Now, if you want to go along here, that's fine. I'm not telling anybody not to do that. I'm just saying, be careful. And when you say should, rather than tell anybody what they should do, I will answer your question, David, by saying, I have not bought this dip. I have not participated at all. And for anybody who says, ah, you'll get left behind. Yes, you're right. I will get left behind. I'm not going to chase this puppy. Not until I'm, well, maybe not even, not until. I just made a bunch of money this year selling my gold and silver stocks. I do not have to make my next bunch of money on gold and silver stocks. It could be copper or oil or uranium or some other commodity or mineral. It does not have to be in this space. So there's your answer, David. People aren't going to like it, but I'm actually not here to tell people what they want to hear. I'm trying to tell people or get people as close to the truth as we can get. Well, actually, you answered my question perfectly. I think to sum up what you said, my interpretation of what people should do, based on what you just said, is to manage risk properly. Because what you've just said was, look, here's what happened in the past with these breakouts during a bear cycle. And one should look at history as a guide to what may happen in the future as a risk management tool. So maybe don't go all in when you're chasing a rally or do whatever you want. But I'm interested to hear your take on mining stocks. Another big bump up as well since the beginning of August, up 30%. Now, when you see a move like that, and it's not 30% over the course of six months, it's 30% over the course of a week and a half, Lobo. When you see something like that, doesn't that make you think, okay, well, if such a move were to happen and continue to happen into the rest of August, presumably, that would cause capital to float back into the sector and sentiment will return instantly, 180, like that. So bullish, no, we're not. It's interesting that we're starting to see headlines. On mainstream financial media, people are starting to talk about gold getting its mojo back, its safe haven bid back, these kinds of things. So I wouldn't say that's an if, I'd say that's actually happening right now. We can see that psychology in action right now. And the nearest term, gold might continue to rebound. But that doesn't prove that the bottom is in either. And the fact that sentiment turned, sentiment can turn on a dime again. If something blows up in the Middle East, and the bore has been very bad for gold. So if something blows up in the Middle East, and gold goes into reverse again, that sentiment can vanish just as quickly as it appeared. So no, sentiment, I've had people ask me that too. A month or two ago, the gold stock sentiment indicator was at like zero, not just a record, but it was at zero. You remember that? And people are like, well, how can it go any lower? You can't go lower than zero, there's a buy signal. No, just because sentiment is in the gutter doesn't mean it has to go up. It's not like sentiment is a commodity. And if the price doesn't go up, it won't be produced anymore. You can stay in a bad mood for a long time. One thing I've noticed after interviewing so many investors, economists and market analysts over the years is that experts rarely ask themselves, what should I buy in the very beginning of the investment making decision process? In fact, they actually begin the process with a different question altogether, which is, why would I own it? Before they allocate capital to any asset, they want to understand the role it plays in a portfolio, the trade-offs, and whether it aligns with their long-term goals. And I think that's a pretty thoughtful approach. So if you've been hearing more discussions about physical gold and silver, and you're wondering whether or not they fit into a long-term financial plan that's right for you, well, it's worth taking the time to understand how they work before making any investment decisions. And that's why I partnered with Augusta. Today's sponsor, Augusta Precious Metals, has an experienced education team that offers personalized, one-on-one educational web conferences where they'll explain the different ways people own physical gold and silver, including how purchasing precious metals is different from owning a gold IRA. They'll help answer your questions and help you understand your options better. Whether you ultimately decide precious metals are right for you is entirely your decision. So if you'd like to learn more, visit lintrustgold.com, link in the description down below, or scan the QR code here, or text LIN to 35052 to request Augusta's free guide. Remember, the best investment decisions don't come until you start to understand why you should own something. I will say that the—and I'll just be very transparent about this because I work in media—I would say that the media has been a very good contrarian indicator. Let me tell you what that means, okay? I, as a reporter, I talk about things when they're either down a lot, when there's a lot of volatility, or when they're up a lot. When things are just consolidating sideways, there seems to be relatively lower interest on something from the general public. Case in point, Bitcoin, right? And case in point— Either way makes headlines. Over the last July. Yeah. And so it doesn't make a headline when I'm talking about gold in mid-July or mid-June when sentiment is despondent relative to six months ago, and gold's just going sideways. But now, all of a sudden, it's up 30% of GDX, and everyone wants to talk about it. So in the past, I've realized that whenever the media gets excited about something, that's usually the top of a hype cycle. So I'm not saying one thing or another, but I've just noticed something here. It makes sense. Anybody with experience as an investor knows that you have these cycles, and when you get to the blow-off top phase, you have a crowded trade that everybody wants in on, and everybody's talking about. That's not the buying opportunity for a contrarian. And so many gold enthusiasts like to think of themselves as contrarian investors. And yet, when it's their favorite horse that's winning the race, no, no, that doesn't apply to us. It's got to keep going off to the moon from here. But again, to answer your question, does this make me want to buy? No. I don't know if I'm a genetic mutant or something, but I just don't seem to feel FOMO. I'm telling you, there's no way anybody outside of my head can verify this, but I'm reporting to you that when I see things like this, the emotion I feel is not, oh my gosh, there it goes, I got to get me some of that. Whenever I see a hockey stick that I didn't participate in, my immediate response is, well, I missed that one. Time to look for something else. As Doug Casey taught me, you can't kiss all the girls. So bottom line, I'm not interested in chasing the gold and silver stocks here. Some of my clients did actually buy the dip, and they're doing great. Congratulations to them. I've no problem with that. My whole idea is to teach people to be independent speculators, not to be the guru. But personally, no, I haven't participated at all. I'm not crying into my beer over that. There's always going to be another opportunity. And here's the thing, David, what we're really talking about here is the greater fool theory. Gold and silver, way above its previous all-time highs, nominally at least, gold likewise, you can't rationally call that a cyclical low. It's relatively cheap. It's well off recent peaks. Both of them are fine, no argument with that. But you can't call that a blood in the streets, buy low in order to later sell high type of opportunity. And if the idea is to, with discipline, patiently wait for opportunities to pounce on something that's objectively selling low, then it's okay to miss some opportunities. If the greater fool theory works out, if buying high and selling even higher works out for gold enthusiasts this time, great. I won't feel jealous. I won't feel envious. Congratulations to you. I have no intention of participating in that. I've just made a bunch of money, and I don't want to lose it on something that could unravel on me. I'd rather wait until I see something that looks like an objective opportunity, a legitimate opportunity to buy low and redeploy with gusto into that. Would you describe yourself as a perma-bear? Sorry, not perma-bear. What am I saying? Sorry, that was a 40-year slip. That's actually a good question, David. Somebody posted a cartoon of me, an AI-generated cartoon of me wearing a bear suit saying, never buy anything. I've known you a long time, you're definitely not a perma-bear. If someone were to say to you, you're a perma-bull when it comes to the precious metals, because maybe you're short-term, and I know a lot of people like this, maybe short-term, they think there's going to be a technical correction, but long-term, they're going to hold gold forever. Definitionally, you're a perma-bull. Is that you? Yes, but I dispute the definition. It's actually a funny thing. Despite that Lobo in a bear suit costume meme, it's really funny and also kind of sad at the same time that, say, in 24, when I was saying gold was my top pick, and I was really, if not pounding the table, you know me, I don't do that, but I was most enthusiastic about gold. People were accusing me of being a perma-bull, and you gold bugs are always saying, buy gold, and I've lost so much money buying gold stocks. I hope people will at least remember that in the future when they call me a perma-bull, that I was willing to say bearish-sounding things now, or vice versa. It's very sad and funny how short the people's memories are out there, but the answer to your question is absolutely yes. People say, well, how high can gold go? 10 or 15 years ago, $5,000 was a dream price, we've already hit that, so maybe it's already all priced in, the top is in. My answer to that is, well, how much money can governments print? There's no limit to the debasement trade. It is kind of funny that Wall Street only discovered the debasement trade last year. We've been talking about it since 1971, but anyway, my point is that longer term, fiat always gets devalued. I can't see anything changing that, so I would remain long-term bullish until the economic universe changes. If governments abandon their experiments with fiat currencies and we actually go back to a economic world and we'd have to rethink things, but as long as governments think they can fund their political aspirations by printing and debasing, I see no upper limit to gold or silver at all. Well, please allow me to present to you this piece of news. This is from today, on the 18th of August, Tuesday, we're speaking, and the NASDAQ is down about 1%. Yeah, it's just bad day for stocks, bad day for gold as well. It's down about 1%. I mean, it's not terrible, but it is still down. Over the last couple of months, there's been a very close inverse relationship between gold and the long end of the interest rate curve, so the 10-year and the 30-year. Today seemed to be a day when bonds are selling off, which means yields are going up. When yields go up, gold goes down. So here's from FT, long-term borrowing costs across major economies hit multi-decade highs on Tuesday as inflation concerns, deficit fears, and surging AI bond issuance put pressure on government debt around the world, and this is really around the world. Japan, they've reached multi-decade highs on their yield as well. The yield in the U.S. 30-year treasuries rose as high as 5.34, its highest since 2007. It's been below 5% at the start of the last month. A suspicious year. Absolutely. In the UK, the 30-year gilt rose as much as 0.04% to 5.86%. The point is, if this continues, it can't be great for precious metals unless the narrative changes and somehow gold starts trading opposite to bonds. But so far, that's not the case, and historically, that hasn't been the case. And a lot of analysts, including analysts at big banks, have been downgrading their gold forecast for later this precisely because of concerns of interest rates rising again. Anyway, I'll stop here. I'll let you analyze this concern. Yeah, multiple threads to pull on there, but the first one I would say is they oughtn't to be worried about gold. They should be looking at equities, risk assets. If the so-called risk-free premium spikes, the case for buying risk assets really goes away. That's the bigger trade here. I mean, I'm not dissing gold, but the entire gold sector is a tiny fraction of tech stocks or anything else of the overall marketplace. So if people want to worry about this, I really think they should be worrying about the stock market rally and how long it can go on in the face of higher rates. And this isn't Loboism. This isn't a tinfoil hat gold bug idea. This is perhaps one of the most tried-and-true Wall Street-isms out there. It's basis of your 60-40 portfolio back in the day, stocks versus bonds. I think this is a big deal. And there are multiple things that could blow up in the night here as we go forward. And we all know that the occupant of the White House does pay attention when the bond market gets yippy. So there could be big changes afoot here. Stepping a bit sideways to the macro here, this is also, I think, it substantiates what I've been saying about stagflation being my outlook here. We've got weak or weakening labor conditions, not just in the US, but in many countries. Who knows about Chinese data, but the growth in China has recently sparked concern. There's plenty of economic weakness out there, and the war certainly doesn't help. The oil squeeze doesn't help. And you've got stubbornly high inflation at the same time. So it sure looks like stagflation to me. And this brings me back to your question of gold. Well, we all know what did best during the stagflation period of the 1970s. So in the near term, the fear that higher market rates will force the Fed's hand, the Jeff Gundlach theory that the Fed just follows the two-year and so on. And I know you asked about the 30-year, but it trickles down. So if higher rates are going to force the Fed's hand at some point that they have to do something, despite Warsh being appointed to do the opposite, things could get pretty interesting in Washington if that happens. But if you look at the charts, it tends to be the fear or the anticipation of rate hikes that's a headwind for gold. But once the rates actually start rising, the fear trade is on. And it's common enough for gold to go up with the interest rates. We've seen that recently. But to me, the clearest example of this was 2004, 2005, where there was a stair-step Fed hiking rate that coincided with gold rising. So it's A, that whole thing about gold not paying interest is a silly way to look at gold. Of course, if you stuck cash in a drawer instead of some interest-bearing vehicle, it wouldn't pay interest either. But at least gold doesn't evaporate with inflation the way cash would stuck in a drawer. Gold is not like shares of Acme or Coyote or any other company. It's not that kind of asset. So it's not apples to apples to compare gold to stocks or other things like that that have yield. But I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole. My main point is that despite this incorrectness of comparison, the market's been trained to do this. Traders, I think, for two generations, maybe going on three, if we go back to 71, have made this mistake, despite the data showing that it's not true. So near term, yes, it could be a headwind for gold. That might be what's happening today. Longer term, no. I think that that leads us to a stagflationary path. And ultimately, not someday, not 10 years from now, more like what happened after the COVID lockdowns, the coming inflation turned out to be good for gold after all. And I think the setup here is actually quite constructive for gold. So for all those people calling me a bear, your permeable question is spot on. I'm not a bear. I'm just saying I'm not sure that the bottom is in. And we'll see. I don't know. I don't claim to know. I'm saying I don't know, and I don't believe that anybody else does. Therefore, caution is warranted. That's all I'm saying. We need to think about what conditions the stagflationary environment could exist in because that determines what assets we buy. Yes, inflation in the 70s and early 80s was very good for gold. I'm trying to think if it's still going to be good this time around. I guess if there's a lot of money printing into the stagflation because of the stag part of the economy being very slow, and the Fed needs to resume either QE or some sort of yield curve control or buy assets, then that could boost all assets. I'm thinking if that's not the case, perhaps there's another way because then yields go up, which is bad for stocks, puts pressure on gold. What do you think? Well, maybe before we decide, we still don't know what the Fed's reaction function is going to be. It'll be very interesting to see what happens at next month's meeting. The Oracle tea leaf readers out there are going back and forth on whether the Fed will raise rates or not. Currently, the latest week data has drastically reduced the market odds of a Fed rate hike in September. But just two weeks before, it was the opposite. There was a majority view that the Fed would raise rates. So what do we know? We know that the president put someone in the office he thought would cut rates. That's what he wants. I don't think either side would argue that. Beyond that, we just don't really know. What has Walsh done so far? Nothing. I mean, literally nothing the Fed has held. But at some point, you've got to fish your cut bait. If they continue to do nothing, nothing, nothing while conditions deteriorate or get hot, that amounts to an action anyway. If inflation is really reheating again, the oil has gone back up again, and if that shows up in inflation numbers again and other things heat up from the money printing and all that, and the Fed does nothing, that is, in fact, easy. Or contrary-wise, if the labor situation deteriorates and they do nothing, well, that's actually tightening. So at some point, he's got to do something and we'll know a lot more. We just don't know right now. And how much power does he actually have? What if the FOMC historically overrules Walsh in September? That would be quite something to see. So I think it's dangerous to assume we know what's going to happen. But to your question about stagflation now, how might it be different? History never repeats, but it can rhyme. I think that another thing that we do know is before the war in Iran, the U.S. was at wartime levels of deficit spending, and that's only going up. The White House has new ideas for tax cuts with no pay-fors, and they want to increase the military budget to $1.5 trillion at a time when the deficit is running $2 trillion. So that financial largesse was there before the war, and now the war gives us all the more reason to spend even more. War is the health of the state, as they say. So I'm babbling a bit here, but the point of all of this is I think it does support my stagflationary view. And whatever gold does or doesn't do in the near term, this environment, I think, is actually bullish for anything real, anything governments can't print. That includes monetary metals, obviously, but I think it includes real estate. I think it includes other commodities. Again, anything governments can't print, it should go up in terms, at least nominally, of fiat currencies. A lot of this rests on what's going on in Iran. So Iraq's Syria oil pipeline to bypass Hormuz is four years away, $15 billion away. The pipeline plan supported by the U.S. administration as a way to reduce the importance of the Strait of Hormuz in global oil supply is being reviewed and its feasibility assessed by a consortium, which includes Chevron. The U.S. is touting the project as making Hormuz irrelevant. However, the actual pipeline construction would need at least four years to complete, sources directly involved told Reuters. So I think the key here in the meantime, there is no alternative for oil to exit the GCC. There's a new Tina trade for the market. Yeah, exactly. It's funny how pipelines tend to produce pipe dreams in multiple ways. Look at Keystone, how many dreams have been shattered by that bad boy. So Scott Besant got on the news to say that the Strait of Hormuz would be irrelevant in two years. I think that's insanely optimistic. I can't think of any senior member of the current administration who does not follow leadership in exaggerating to support the cause. Even if I was fully on board and wearing a MAGA hat right now, I would try to be objective and try to distinguish hyperbole from reality. And just because I was on board with this, I wouldn't want to drink the Kool-Aid. And I would, as an investor, want to make sure that I was making my decision based on what we know or as close to truth as we can get, rather than what we're being told by people with a political agenda, even if I agreed with that agenda. So take that grain of salt in mind. So Besant is saying two years. Okay, let's give him two years. Let's say that the American Yankee can-do ingenuity gets in there, and we accelerate all these projects, project warp speed, and we do the same thing, and we make the Strait of Hormuz irrelevant in two years. I think that's dramatically optimistic. But if we do that, that's still two years. That means higher oil prices and all the knock-on consequences of that for two years. I don't think the markets could take that for two months. They go up when they think there's a solution coming, whether it's a memorandum of misunderstanding or just a tweet that sounds optimistic. The markets go up, and then the moment that disappears, they go down again. So if two months might be a bit much, because the market seems quite willing to be credulous. But let's say for the rest of this year, oil remains in the range that it is now. That's a huge problem. Oil doesn't even have to go higher. It just stays where it is now. And the knock-on effects economically are huge. I mean, we're already talking about stagflation from what's already been done. It stays there in the danger zone, as it were, never mind two years. I think that the objective takeaway here is that even if there's no more shooting in the war, which it's hard to believe is going to happen with the Houthis doing their own thing. But let's say the US and Iran are in the stalemate mode, and there's no more shooting, then the kinetic part of the war is in fact over. Let's say the war is over kinetically. That doesn't mean everything's fine. The oil is still not flowing at the rates that it needs to. Yes, I know many ships are going out without transponders. But all the experts that I've seen, and I'm not a shipping expert, but the ones who are, all of them say that the flow is much less than is being optimistically suggested by the administration. None of the experts agree with the administration on how much oil is getting out. So what I'm saying is, and this is a key takeaway here, you can get mad at me for not supporting the president if you want, but I think you need to look at the data. And the data is telling us that oil is likely to stay higher for longer, even if percent is right. And I doubt that he is. And that has economic and investment implications that we should take seriously. I think the long-term picture remains someone wants to hedge themselves against inflation, against stagflation. That person is probably not a short-term trader. That person wants to preserve capital. And you and I have talked about this exact issue for several years since I started working with you. Here is a chart of the S&P versus gold. And it really depends on the timeframe that you measure this in. Starting from 2005, gold has outperformed. Starting from 2020, gold has outperformed. That was not the case if you start from, let's say, 1989 or 1990. So it really depends on the timeframe. But you can make the argument that both have an adequate long-term hedges against inflation. I'm talking about multi-decades, not on a short-term basis when gold actually trades opposite of CPI. But anyway, I'll leave this chart up here and I'll let you comment on whether or not you would put your money in the S&P 500 or something like gold or a hard asset for a long-term hedge. Well, so there's two different things to keep in mind here. And we've talked about this before. Bullion is one thing. And the stocks are a completely different thing. I don't see gold or silver bullion as an investment or speculation at all. I see it as savings. I literally have no savings account. I don't have any. I don't own CDs. When I have extra money to put away for the long-term, I buy bullion. And all those people who hate me for hating gold or there's one guy who likes to post on YouTube videos that I do, this man hates silver. He goes around posting that all the time. I have more silver here than I have gold by volume. This guy hates silver. That's his mission in life to go around posting this man hates silver. But I haven't sold an ounce of silver or gold this whole cycle. The last time I sold any gold, I had a big... Well, many moons ago, I had a financial meltdown Y2K. And I fed my family with my bullion, which is what insurance is for. But more recently, but still many years ago, I had a house-buying opportunity, which is what savings are for. I'm curious as to how you made that personal finance decision to not have cash but have it in bullion, which is less liquid than cash. How did you come to that? Many years ago, it wasn't quite that. But right now, it's hard to answer this without sounding arrogant, David. But right now, with my net worth, with my cash flow, of course, I do have firms, Federal Reserve notes, and other fiat currencies, and regular bank accounts. But those are current accounts. Those are checking-type accounts to cover daily expenses. But it doesn't take much. I've paid off my mortgage. I've paid off my car. I actually don't have that many expenses. So if it was inconvenient for me to dip into my bullion savings to cover some urgent need, there'd be a cost to that. But I see that as a good thing. If it is easy to dip into your savings, if you've got those bank accounts where you can transfer funds from your savings to your checking account all the time, you really don't have a savings account. It's going to get raided the moment anything gets uncomfortable. If somebody were to ask you, how much of my net worth should be in fiat cash versus a hard asset, like gold, or perhaps in a hard asset, like property, how would you answer that question? Basically, how much cash should we- If things go wonky, if things get really scary, you can go to a pawn shop and liquidate your bullion. You might take a beating, but you will get money for it, or you will get liquidity for it if you need to. Sorry for the incorrect use of the term money. Whereas real estate, that's much harder to move if you have an urgent need. So I will give you the Casey answer that my old mentor, Doug Casey, gave me back in the day. And that is a prudent position would be, if you can manage it, if you're still building out, don't freak out about it. But a prudent position would be to have a year's worth of living expenses in bullion in your immediate physical control, not necessarily under the mattress. And the office safe is a dead giveaway. I always joke that I don't tell anybody which palm tree my stash is buried under. But it should be in your physical control. A bank safe deposit box is not good enough. Because we all know that in 1933, when things got bad, the policeman and the bank manager was there when you open your safe deposit box. And if you had gold bullion, they took it. So at least a year's worth of expenses. And if you really want to be comfortable, two or three years worth of living expenses in bullion would be a sort of thing that helps you sleep at night. Even if a Mad Max scenario has happened, you'd still have the ultimate form of liquidity to fall back on. But we're getting off the side of the side point here, David. I was saying that to answer your question for the chart you just put up, there's no question, I'm always interested in adding to my bullion stash. I'm a stacker and that hasn't changed in my entire adult life. But as a speculator, I'm trying to make money buying low and selling high in the markets. Would I buy the S&P as a long-term hope? That's not my wheelhouse. I'm not an expert in telling what the main… And it's gotten so concentrated now. I don't know anything about AI, not on a technical level. So I don't feel competent to make judgments in those areas. So the answer is I'm very unlikely to put a large chunk of my wealth into something that I don't understand. I'd rather stick to my wheelhouse. And when the time is right, or when, if not gold and silver, then maybe uranium on an AI scare or copper if the current tariff scare goes into reverse, something will present itself to me sooner or later as a legitimate buy low opportunity. And that's where I expect to move most of my cash. Perfect segue to other assets. Copper has presented an opportunity already to other groups like BHP. Apparently, copper's BHP portfolio outshone everything else. BHP, the world's largest mining company, reported booming growth for the year to June as copper overtook iron ore as its primary profit driver for the first time on an annual basis. The Australian group said that profits generated from its copper mines rose by 48% to $18 billion. This would make sense if copper production stayed even if it stayed flat, the price of copper has soared to new all-time highs. Earlier, later down in the article, it says demand for copper has been driven by increased investment in data centers and energy networks. BHP expects that annual copper demand will increase to 50 million tons by 2050 from the current 34 million tons. That's a very optimistic forecast. They're not alone in making this optimistic forecast. Where do you stand on this optimistic forecast? Actually, I don't think that's optimistic at all. Even if the AI bubble bursts and so on, once the hype settles, it's metaphorically like the internet bubble. Once it pops, the internet didn't go away. All that fiber that got overbuilt, it eventually got used. I do think that the data center buildout continues. I also think that the electrification continues. Even though there's pushback on electric cars in North America, not in the rest of the world, I think that's a fairly reasonable, let's say, middle-of-the-road copper forecast. Keep in mind the timeframe too. It's not saying it's going to double next year. But I think the main point here for the audience, what do we do about this? The idea is buy low, sell high. You're just telling me that copper is hitting all-time highs. That doesn't make me want to buy. I will remind the audience, if they've watched our interviews, they know that copper was my top pick for this year, last year too. That's right. And I did add a bit of copper, not enough, but I did add some to my portfolio selectively. But where I'd be on this is, what this article hasn't shown yet is that the latest moves, there's actually a copper squeeze going on again. London's getting empty, inventories are being moved to the US ahead of anticipated Trump announcements on copper tariffs. This happened last year. And then when the tariff announcement came out, and it turned out not to cover the kind of copper that we're talking about, it covered finished products, pipes and things like that, the copper price fell off a cliff. So I would warn, people may be tired of hearing me warn them about things instead of, yeah, yeah, go out and buy this. But if you want to accumulate wealth, you can't just make money on lucky bets. You also have to not lose money on bad bets. So if you don't like what I'm saying, I hope you at least appreciate that it's offered in your best interest. So what I'm saying now is I'm very bullish long-term. I don't think this forecast is wacky or exaggerated at all. But it's 2050. In 2026, does that mean copper has to keep going up, or these margins have to keep expanding? No. In fact, there's a very near-term fuse that's about to hit the keg, and either Trump will or won't deliver, and copper could go either way in the very near term. And I don't think anybody knows what that's going to be. I'm not even sure Trump knows what he's going to do on this. And I'm not saying he's ignorant. He may not have made up his mind yet. And even when he does make up his mind, he can change it. So I think it's extremely dangerous to think, ah, the fix is in, the tariffs are in, and copper can only go up from here. Longer term, right now, very high risk bet. Stig Brodersen Yeah. And down below in this paragraph here, the miner described copper as its biggest growth opportunity and said that the cash generated by its existing operations spending could fund growth projects. The copper growth is entirely self-funding over the next five years, Finance Chief Vandita Pant said on a media call. Now, let's talk about the fundamentals, because I've heard this exact kind of phrasing with every single asset class that has peaked with a new all-time high during my career. It's easy to make this kind of statement when things are hitting new all-time highs. Ditto gold, ditto Bitcoin, ditto Dogecoin. So I want to ask you if the fundamentals for copper actually support this statement. Is he right? I couldn't say without looking what they've modeled, and I don't know what price assumption they use for that statement. If they have let their model be swayed towards spot prices, then no, I think that statement is not defensible. If they're still using a conservative long-term price, like, sorry, I don't know about BHP's past. It's such a large company that it's not the sort of thing I would typically own, and I haven't done a deep dive on it. But let's take Barrick, for example, which I do know better. Famously, before he was ousted, Bristow, he would use a very long-term low gold price before deciding to build any mines. Even when gold was over 2,000, he was building mines if they made money at 1,200. For a long time, I remember 1,200 to 1,300 was the threshold for them. And this is something that I've written about and spoken about extensively. Here's the fundamental for you to take away. The fundamental is you need to look at long-term average prices, not spot prices. And the temptation in a bull market to let that price assumption influence your model is very high, but it's very dangerous. Unless you've got a mine that's only going to last a year, using the price over the last year is extremely risky. And these copper projects, these tend to be multi-decade projects, 30-, 40-, 50-year mine lives. You can't use spot for that. Over the next 50 years, how much inflation is there going to be? Who the heck knows? But it's not going to be good. So the fundamental takeaway here is you want an extremely conservative price assumption, whether it's copper, gold, silver, uranium, oil, anything. You want a very conservative price assumption for any project that's big enough to matter. And if it makes money on that conservative price assumption, even a ridiculously low-looking price assumption, great. It'll be all that much more cash cow if prices go up, or prices go up faster than cost. Don't forget that inflation affects costs too. So that's a key takeaway, is never let your enthusiasm for a commodity sway you away from time-tested principles like conservative price assumptions and feasibility studies. Uranium, let's finish off on there. You're doing something with uranium, am I right? Well, the penultimate stock I bought was, no, the anti-penultimate stock I bought was uranium stock. But as it happened, in January, we had that spike, and I decided to take profits. I sold all my gold and silver stocks, and that left me with almost an entirely uranium portfolio. So when I say that I've got a lot of uranium on my portfolio, that doesn't mean that I've been on a buying binge. Most of these I bought years ago, and I'm in the black on them in a big way too. But the reason why I'm excited about uranium right now and the guidance that I'm offering is, personally, it's not that I'm not doing what I'm saying. It's just that I've already done it. I already own a lot of uranium stocks. But if I didn't, I really, really like the uranium setup. It's not dirt cheap. At $85, $90 a pound, it's nowhere near a cyclical low. But here's the thing. The long-term contract price has been steadily ratcheting up this year and before. And the spot price, there was a silly spike in January, I think for extraneous reasons. And then ever since then, the spot price has been trailing the real market, the long-term contract price. And this is important, David, because don't just trust tinfoil hat crazy Lobo. Go look at the charts. The spot price always catches up with the long-term contract price. It can zoom ahead, it falls back. It can lag behind, it catches up. And right now, for what is getting to be an unusually long period of time, the spot price has been trailing the long-term contract price, which has shown no weakness at all. Therefore, that doesn't prove that spot has to go up. But the odds look pretty good. I mean, when the odds are in your favor, that's an interesting speculation. So if I didn't own any uranium stocks today, I think this would be a very interesting opportunity. The next move in the spot market, which moves the share prices of the companies, like nobody stuffs uranium under their mattress. We're talking about stocks here. The stocks move with leverage to the spot price. The spot price's next big move is likely to be upwards. And it rarely just goes to the long-term contract price and just parks there. It goes up afterwards. It follows, and it goes beyond. Markets get overbought and oversold. So I think the odds favor spot uranium getting overbought in the not-too-distant future. And that should make for a lot of excitement in the stocks, because those have become almost flavor of the day. The administration of the United States is certainly pushing the uranium story in a way that fundamentally matters. And the mainstream media have picked up on this. Unfortunately, it's become something of an AI play, a picks-and-shovels play for AI as well. And I say unfortunately, because that's really not what it's all about. The number of reactors being built without the AI hype bakes the upward price in the cake. Absence of a still event. So anyway, what I'm saying is, there's an opportunity on the table right now that I don't see in any other metal or mineral commodity where the charts are telling us, I'm not a chartist, but let's say that the history is telling us that the next likely move is a significant snap upwards. And there's potential for short-term gains there. Excellent. All right. Let's end the discussion here. Great talk. Lobo, where can we learn more from you and get your mining picks? IndependenceSpeculator.com. Thank you very much. I have a free weekly digest that I encourage everybody to go to. Price is good. No spam. You get one email per week. And yes, if you want to know where I'm putting my own money, that's what the Independent Speculator is for. Okay, we'll put the link down below. So please do make sure to follow the IndependenceSpeculator.com. Thank you so much, Lobo. Appreciate your time and appreciate your updates as always. Thank you, David. Thank you for watching. Please do like and subscribe. Follow Lobo. Links down below.