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- [00:02]
A
All right. Good morning, Doug. We're back with questions from subscribers. But first, just because it seems like it is potentially inevitable, like if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen soon. Iran, what do you, what are your thoughts on that situation?
- [00:19]
B
Well, we've talked about that a little bit in the past. And so what will Trump do? And if he does it, attack, that is to say, what will be the consequences of it? And I listen, this is pure conjecture because how can you predict what Trump is going to do? Because he's a schizophrenic, I think, and unpredictable from that point of view. But, okay, so he's got this big, beautiful armada sitting offshore of Iran. He's not going to want to back out because he doesn't want to be accused of tackle. Trump always chickens out. And there are some pluses to attacking Iran. One of them is, I think it would cause a massive secession movements and, or a civil war within Iran. So that's kind of a, that would kind of deflect, defang Iran because only half or something like that of the Iranians are actual ethnic Persians, a lot of Azerbaijanis, a lot of Kurds, a lot of Arabs, a lot of Afghans or different groups that are, that constitute Afghanistan, because that's not really a real country either. So. Yeah, and I, it'll be good for the Israelis. That's very important. I mean, I mean, what's good for Israel is good for the U.S. everybody knows that.
- [02:02]
A
That's what they say. That's what they keep telling us.
- [02:05]
B
They keep telling us that. Right. So it would kind of take some pressure off of them. So, okay, these are all good quote, unquote reasons to attack Iran. But, but wait a minute. On the other hand, it said, and I believe it, that the Iranians have thousands of missiles that can be used. Now where will they be used? Oh, wait a minute. If there's a mass missile attack on the Abraham Lincoln, there's an excellent chance a bunch of them are going to hit it. And, and what's the US Going to do if several of our ships are sunk?
- [02:43]
A
I mean, yeah, not to mention all the military bases in the area or all the oil infrastructure that's around there. You know, the Strait of Hormuz being closed, you know, there's, it just could go into total chaos. Unless they can do, unless they have planned some like, super sophisticated attack, like how somehow we got into Venezuela and got Maduro with magically. Unless it's something that's effective like that or like effective with the Israelis. And the, you know, Lebanon with the pagers, you know, and then in that series of actions that then led to them, you know, killing the leader of Hezbollah. So unless it's some like super sophisticated attack, you know, like that, I think it just is regional chaos and global economic chaos, isn't it?
- [03:33]
B
Yeah. And of course, little Marco has, has commented that he's afraid that the Iranians might attack our numerous bases around the Middle east. So perhaps we should strike first before they decide to do that. But I guess he never asked himself a. Wait a minute, what's a power from the other side of the world doing.
- [03:59]
A
With bases surrounding Iran?
- [04:02]
B
Yeah. And shouldn't Iran be a little bit paranoid with this happening? Maybe, maybe they, they have a right in today's world, the way they read these things, to, you know, to launch a preemptive strike against a country that's about to. So, yeah, this is very, this is very, very interesting. I'm, I'm kind of glad to be more or less out of harm's way and watching this stuff on my widescreen, but wind up being very inconvenient.
- [04:36]
A
Could be, definitely, if they end up doing it, because unless it's, they are, have some super, you know, whiz bang successful attack, you know, then that just decapitates or whatever right away and you know, takes the power away from the IRGC and stuff. Then you just gotta imagine it just can go over into really negative consequences because. And, and also there is a China and Russia component to it here because both of them see Iran as a pretty central piece to the puzzle. China itself, you know, because it gets, it does imports something like 80% of Iranian oil. They get cut off from oil then that's like a national security threat for them.
- [05:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we'll have to see what Trump, who bestrides the world like a colossus at this point decides to do. I'm sure he'll act in the wisest and most prudent manner possible.
- [05:38]
A
I'm glad you're sure of that. Well, you know, the thing is, you see this pattern to these things now. It always happens, you know, on Friday after markets close. That seems to be the pattern. That's when our first attack in Iran occurred. Know, we took out their nuke facilities supposedly. And then that's when the Venezuela thing occurred. Well, that occurred on a Saturday night. But I mean, it's all, you know, kind of weekend stuff so that they're very sensitive to market action with this stuff for some reason.
- [06:06]
B
Yeah, and, and the fact That a lot of people go home for the weekends so that the news cycle is put in a bands kind of.
- [06:14]
A
That's. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point too. Yeah. And speaking of market action, we have, we got a whole bunch of questions that we'll go through there. A lot of them talk about silver and recording this on Friday. And right now, the markets, the precious metals markets at least are getting hammered where Silver's just below 100 bucks now, down 13.5% today. Gold also is down $318 now just above. That's 5059 is the spot price on it right now. So, yeah, things are getting hammered there.
- [06:49]
B
And most of the, most of the questions are about the metals.
- [06:54]
A
Yes, most of them asked about the metals. We can get into them. But I think it says something about the fact that, you know, when people are asking these questions at that time, it shows that there's like, you know, the markets are getting at least near term overextended, you know, because questions are like, how do I get in on it or cash in on it or how long should I wait before I cash in? But we can get to the question specifically. Yeah, so. So first one is, I'm curious to know what Doug's take on large premiums in Shanghai and Mumbai on physical silver. You know, how much longer can the COMEX silver prices continue to lag? Those in the east, you know, that's been. There's been this huge arbitrage in other markets versus the comex. You've seen that. So that's what the question's about.
- [07:38]
B
So the question is asked, is there enough silver in the COMEX vaults to meet its obligations if people want delivery? And a lot of people say no, there's not. Well, I don't know. But why do you think there's such.
- [08:03]
A
A difference in price between the two?
- [08:05]
B
Yeah, it's about $15 more expensive in China. So my presumption is that's the real price over there. But then again, maybe it's not the real price anymore because China has put an embargo on the export of silver. Well, without special government approval, that is to say. So who knows what the real price of anything should be? Especially after a giant run up, Everything will be different. Because look at high price levels like this, there are a lot of applications where copper and aluminum can be substituted for silver. Suboptimal. But it's economic to do that. God knows how many applications there are where there are substitutes for silver. And of course, there are other substitutes that will Be developed for silver carbon carbon fibers and nanotubes can be used for silver in the near. So look, when prices run up this far, this fast becomes chaos and some inventory will be, people will be lightening up and taking their profits in dollars. But other people will say, hey, this is the start of the big one, I better buy more because it's going higher than that.
- [09:36]
A
We got a, there's SWP sent out an email about the silver market saying that they, you know, that they were, it was kind of a special situation they had never experienced before where essentially there were so many people trying to both buy and sell, but predominantly sell actually. And that the wholesalers that they typically dealt with in doing that were offering, you know, because they were getting a gluttony of sales, were offering 15 or sorry, like 15 below spot to, to buy it back. So it seems like on the, you know, the, the holders front, you know, the individual investors that stocked up on silver, that seems like more of them were trying to take advantage of the high prices and sell and there's, you know, they can't do anything with it, you know, they can't do anything with all of it right now.
- [10:26]
B
Yeah. And especially since most of the refining goes on in China at this point, it takes weeks for your silverware or whatever to be jewelry to be melted down. So they can't tell you what it's going to be after it turns into tradable silver. So you can't have your price fixed for several weeks at this point if you're a seller of anything but good delivery type bars. So look, here's the bottom line. Just stay out of the market until it kind of normalizes and you can see what's going on. So what would I do right now? Absolutely nothing. That's what I'm doing is absolutely nothing. I mean, I don't want to step into a chaotic dog fight between all these different parties. It'll sort itself out. We'll see what happens. And the fact that we have a lot of people asking what to do is a further indication that there's something of a mania going on.
- [11:35]
A
So right now do you think, do you think that mania is like a short term mania or do you think it's meaning is do you think that silver has hit its peak and is gonna not see a top of above 117 again, which is about where it got to before, or do you think that this is just one of the short term, short term thing that, you know, on its march upward?
- [11:59]
B
Well, I think that silver is Mainly an industrial metal. So it's tends to move with gold for one set of reasons, but not for another set of reasons. So just don't play with silver right now because if you sell it, you're gonna have to sell it at a discount and you don't want to buy it after it's run up in industrial metals. Run up so far. So that's one thing and gold is something else. But I think they both reached a new equilibrium level. Not sure exactly where it is yet, but it's much higher than it was a few months ago. And I think it's indicative of a lot of chaos in the monetary system. For instance, the fact that for many, many years, I mean decades interest rates in Japan were next to nothing and now they've exploded upwards. So what's the meaning, what's the meaning of that on the world situation? Because Japan's a major player.
- [13:08]
A
Yeah.
- [13:10]
B
And Japanese people that own Japanese government bonds have taken a real massive haircut from almost nothing interest rates to I don't know what long term rates in Japan are right now.
- [13:25]
A
3%, 3 point.
- [13:27]
B
Something, something in that order. Yeah. So people have lost a lot of money on Japanese government bonds and people that were borrowing Japanese yen and buying high yielding investments abroad may be forced to liquidate those investments, which is not good for foreign stock markets. So it's a chaotic situation. But you know, here's another problem that we have. It's that in the past the answer to this question would have been easy and that gold and silver were cheap. So you can hide there, but okay, we're still in a bull market. I think they're going higher, but it's not like they're cheap anymore. They're not. So.
- [14:19]
A
Right. It's not the no brainer it was even a year ago.
- [14:23]
B
No, no, it's not. So where do you go? And even, even though a lot of these gold and silver stocks are still very cheap. I think they are relative to the metals and earnings they're going to be coming out with. They've moved up a lot. And some of them are, some of.
- [14:42]
A
Them are technically cheaper than they were a year ago though, based on the.
- [14:46]
B
You know, based upon the earnings they're going to be reporting. That's right. And, and they're. Yeah, exactly. But it's even true of oil where a lot of these oil stocks have gone up even though oil is actually, is kind of cheap. So it's.
- [15:05]
A
Right. And especially to go back to the Iran thing, if that, if that kicks off, then oil's gonna will stop being the laggard that's been.
- [15:15]
B
Yes. Yeah. So I'm actually, I'm. I'm more and more friendly towards oil and natural gas at this point. Although, you know, cold winter in the U.S. american natural gas prices are higher than they otherwise would be. But oil, natural gas and, and uranium has moved up too, so.
- [15:37]
A
Right, yeah. That in one of our, one of the stocks in our portfolio, Petrobras is up 30% in the last month and that pays a real dividend.
- [15:47]
B
Yeah. So I guess going back to an aphorism of the market and of course it's like the bible where you can find something to prove almost anything that happens. But I think the thing to think of right now is be right and sit tight. And if you've been doing what we've been doing, you've been right. All right. So at the moment, chaotic situation. Sit tight until things. Because the trends on our friend in all areas, we're not short silver, short gold, short oil, which a lot of people are. We're on the right side of the trend. Just, just sit tight. Okay. And wait for the chaos to smooth out. It's the best answer I can come up with.
- [16:34]
A
Okay, well, next question here is says I know Doug and many others store their wealth in gold. Does physical silver fall in the same category as a store of wealth now that India has monetized? It said like others in this group, I have a lot of physical silver. I'd like to swap it for gold when the time is right. This seems to be a big strategy. People have this idea that they buy silver, wait for the gold silver ratio to get to some better point, swap to gold, and then, you know, magically. Not magically, but end up with many more ounces of gold than they otherwise would have had. So the person says, I'm, I've even thinking of worst case scenarios where the coin dealers won't be able or willing to make such trades because everyone who has silver might want to do the same thing at the same time. How should we approach this issue when or if this time comes is the question. I'd say I think this is what's happening. People are already trying to do it, which is why these dealers are having a glut of silver and they're already offering below, you know, way below spot. So what do you think, Doug?
- [17:37]
B
Once again, when everybody's thinking about these things, it's on everybody's mind. It's clearly a chaotic situation. I don't think you should get involved. So if you want to make the switch. This is not the time to do it, I don't think.
- [17:52]
A
Right. And then especially if you're waiting for some specific gold silver ratio number, like a lot of people have a number in mind, there are some common ones out there waiting for that number and that number shows up. It's going to be a chaotic situation again because a lot of people are following that strategy. You know, when it gets to, there.
- [18:10]
B
Is no magic number between ratios of, of these things. I mean, look, you can make arguments that there's a magic number for natural gas prices relative to oil prices because the energy content of natural gas is so many BTUs per dollar and of oil is so many BTUs per dollar. Okay, that makes sense. You can make an argument for ratios between food products, between chicken and beef, although they don't train chicken anymore. They used to, but they don't. But you know, it takes so many bushels of corn to grow a chicken and so many more to grow beef and there's so much protein on a chicken and so many beef. And so you can make these ratios up and they make sense. And these things usually trade that way besides. But silver and gold, I'm not sure that people say, well, in fairly recent history, last couple hundred years, it's been around 17 to 1 or whatever because the US government fixed it at that level. It was arbitrary. So there is no magic ratio between the two of them because they're both high tech metals and gold is money and silver is mainly, mainly an industrial thing. So I mean they're an indicator, the ratios between these things, just like the ratio between the dollar and silver, that's a ratio too, right? Yeah, I mean it's, it's a question of judgment. But once again, when things are wild and crazy, be right and sit tight. And you own this stuff, you know, don't, don't sell it because you're going to get a discount when you sell it and you're probably going to have to pay a premium when you buy something else. So just don't do anything. Hey, there's more life than trading this stuff, so do something else.
- [20:12]
A
Right. Not only that, but the tax implications of the sale, you know, you have to deal with those too. Right?
- [20:17]
B
That's, that's, that's true. At least Americans do. And if Americans don't report these things, I mean, you put yourself in a potential jackpot.
- [20:29]
A
Yeah. Yep. Let's see. Next question here. That one was, the next one was basically the same about switching them and how long you should wait before you switch them? Wait until the markets are not chaotic, I think is the answer to that question. Question for Doug. Based on the portfolio stocks that you've. They've done very well and you've taken a Casey free ride on the stock, what's the long term strategy once the stocks go 2 for 1 or 5 to 1 or 10 to 1, is it holding forever or exit at the right time and use the proceeds to buy physical gold? So this is a portfolio question for specifically what we do within crisis investing. And I think we, My, my comment on that would be we, we look at them all independently. You know, sometimes it's let them run and you know where you feel like it's. Until you feel like it's the value, most of the value has been exercised from it and there's an opportunity to sell. But there isn't like a 5 to 1 or 10 to 1 or any specific number that we hold ourselves. That's not a ratio we hold ourselves to.
- [21:32]
B
Yeah, and it actually depends on the kind of stock that you've got too. I mean, some are really big industrial businesses that, you know, keep operating regardless of. Kind of regardless of what the metal prices do. And others are small speculative country companies that people might hear about as much about as XYZ Gold as they do about Agnico Eagle. And they both try to draw as much dollars because people think, well, hey, they're both gold companies. So XYZ Gold goes way, way up because of all the buying and barely moves Agnico Eagle, same on the sell side. So some of these really are crappy little companies and others are successful businesses, although operating in a crappy business because mining is not a particularly good business as a business in today's world. I mean, you gotta, gotta go back to my favorite TV series, well, recently of all time, Deadwood, which is basically about the discovery of the Homestake mine. And it went from nothing to like owning a gold mine in a couple of years. It was wonderful though. I mean, the whole thing became a gigantic operation in a couple years. That's not the way it works today. I mean, you find a gold deposit, I mean, you've got, you've got a liability as much as an asset.
- [23:03]
A
Right. I think you said that's where your problems begin once you have a discovery.
- [23:07]
B
Yeah. So it's, it's a different business than it used to be.
- [23:11]
A
Okay, let's see. I'm a new subscriber to crisis investing after having made several buys based upon hints from the Free publications that are paying off really well. However, now that I am a paid subscriber, I see several stocks that are not available to me on my platform, Robinhood. So I'm looking for a good broker to sign up with. Any suggestions? I'll just say I use interactive brokers. It's the easiest and it gives you act for me and give access to global markets. So I find that to be the most useful. Yeah.
- [23:42]
B
For Canadian stocks. I prefer to use Canadian brokers frankly because with your account in Canadian dollars so you don't suffer the currency transaction. But you know, the difference in commissions that you pay with different brokers can be very substantial. I mean. Yeah, a couple brokers that I use in Canada that are very good have minimum commissions of oh, I don't know, $200 or more so that you can't. It doesn't make sense to buy anything other than a pretty, pretty large size trade.
- [24:26]
A
Right. That's, that's the advantage of interactive brokers. That's where I do my kind of playing more with the interactive brokers than with my actual Canadian broker.
- [24:36]
B
Yeah. Anyway, I, I hate to recommend any particular broker because you know, maybe what's his name, the guy.
- [24:45]
A
Dave, David Webb. Dave Rogers Webb.
- [24:47]
B
Maybe. Maybe he'll be right and maybe not all brokers, but maybe some brokers or a lot of brokers will go belly up. And I don't want to recommend any brokers. But look, if you can open up a Canadian account with a Canadian broker for Canadian stocks, that's the way to fly.
- [25:06]
A
Okay. All right. Another question about should we exchange physical silver for gold? We already answered that. I think not now at least. See, next question. Do you also own in big producer and royalty names like Wheaton Precious Metals, Franco, Nevada and the like? And do you consider those kinds, those kind of companies, part of the crappy little mining stocks that you are looking to sell at the top, hopefully at 10x or 100x or are you referring solely to the junior mining explorers and developers that are much more speculative?
- [25:46]
B
Well, I was a founding shareholder of Wheaton way back when. I think I paid 30 cents a share for it back then. Well, foolishly I second guessed myself and sold that on the way. It should have just, should have just held on. I was a founding shareholder B2 also, which is a major, almost a major company. I paid 30 cents a share for it. I don't know what B2 is trading at now. $10 or something.
- [26:19]
A
I'll look it up. I'll look it up. While you continue to Answer. But. So you, you've owned those big companies too, not just the juniors. And you don't consider them the same thing?
- [26:29]
B
No, they're. They're not. I mean, on the one hand, the little baby companies are basically burning matches. I mean, it's just good luck that I continued to own B2 because Clive Johnson is an old friend of mine. So I held it for that reason. Wish I'd put that theory into practice with, with Wheaton because I knew those guys before it became a major company. But look, generally speaking, these small companies are not heirlooms. They're burning matches, generally. So you're going to want to sell them. Which ones will turn into another Wheaton or B2? Well, we can't be entirely sure some of them will, but they're basically. Most of these things are trading sardines. But now that we're in a bull market, you want to. Hold on. Trading sardines are just as good as eating sardines during a bull market. And we're in one.
- [27:30]
A
Yeah. Okay. It looks like B2 Gold is at a little over five bucks right now.
- [27:37]
B
Oh, okay.
- [27:39]
A
From 30 cents is pretty good.
- [27:41]
B
Should have done better considering everything. But one of the problems with these small. With these smaller companies is that to get capital, they have to sell more shares. There's a lot of dilution along the way, and that accounts for it. But at this point, I think B2 is looking to buy back shares. So instead of having more shares every year, hopefully they'll have less shares every year, so.
- [28:09]
A
And Doug, do you use any other physical precious metals storage facilities besides SWP Cayman?
- [28:17]
B
No. I used to have a safe deposit box in Hong Kong, but. But I don't go to Hong Kong anymore, so I had my attorney close it out and send the contents back to me. So if I hadn't had an attorney in Hong Kong, I don't know how I would have. I would have had to have flown there and declared it when I crossed borders and it would have been a real nuisance. So. But yeah, there is an outfit in Singapore, but I've never worked with them.
- [28:47]
A
Yeah, they're pretty good from what I've heard. And then there are lots of vaulting facilities now. Yeah, but what do you. What do you think? About what? So what the idea of a safe deposit box, though, obviously you didn't have a. You thought that was a good idea in the past. Do you think that's a good idea today?
- [29:07]
B
You know, banks are like informal arms of the government these days, so that. I wish There was a better alternative. I mean, what's, what's safe and secure from the long arm of whatever people in the government want to do. Prefer not to use them. But where can you go? You can go to a private storage facility. Okay, that's fence post.
- [29:37]
A
Fence post 47 or something like that, you know, on the farm.
- [29:41]
B
Yeah, exactly. I mean, the midnight gardener or something. Yeah, there's something to be said for that, actually. But you know, it's funny. One of the reasons why as a class of things, ancient Greek coin, ancient Roman coins especially, have not done as well as they should, is that they're always finding hordes of these things that are buried that were buried in ancient times. And the guy forgotten. Forgotten. He dies, he gets killed, which is why he's burying them. So that. That might happen too.
- [30:20]
A
Right?
- [30:22]
B
That might happen to a lot of. A lot of bitcoin that people have in. In their hard wallets.
- [30:28]
A
Yeah, that's true. You know, I think this is a problem with all this, but I. At the same point, I personally would feel better about midnight gardening with gold than I would about putting it in a safety deposit box at a bank. Personally, today. That's me. Just because like you said, they're arms of the state and you know, there are. There was some example in California, I think, was it last year or the year before where they went in and they cleared out all the safety deposit boxes in there. Remember that?
- [30:54]
B
Yeah, right. That's right. Because that's right. And then you have to. Then you have to battle for.
- [31:00]
A
You have to prove that you have real title to it, but it was in your possession, theoretically. So. Yeah, that's right.
- [31:08]
B
And. And some bedbug might say, well, wait a minute, what are you doing with all that? I mean, where'd you get the funds for it and how can you prove it? And so forth. So safe deposit boxes aren't. Aren't what they used to be as a place to store things.
- [31:22]
A
Okay, last question from this guy. Are there any financial newsletters that you actually use to get informed on specific investments?
- [31:31]
B
Huh? Well, what do I like? I enjoy reading Doomberg for things on. In the energy markets. Yeah, he's. Yeah, whoever writes Doomberg, we don't know who that is. I don't know.
- [31:50]
A
Anyway, we. We know someone who knows.
- [31:53]
B
Oh, well, anyway, the writing is good. The thinking is good. So. So I, I do, I. I do like his thoughts on energy. And you, you do have told me.
- [32:06]
A
That you like a lot of Jay Taylor's ideas that he comes up with.
- [32:09]
B
That's right. Jay Taylor has a lot of stuff that's, that's that. That he writes about. So I read Jay's letter too, definitely. And what else in the oil space? Who is it? Is it Rosen, Swig and Garing?
- [32:27]
A
Yeah, Yeah, Y.
- [32:29]
B
So I read their letter. They're pretty much. They take, they take contrary views to Doomberg. I mean, the two, they don't think alike as far as a lot of things. So I like to read both of them. But who else is there that's in the.
- [32:50]
A
I know the only one I know that you read, that you read that definitely offers specific recommendations is Jay Taylor. Because even those other guys, they still are just macro, right? Not. They're not making picks.
- [33:06]
B
Yeah, I read Adrian Day's newsletter also. We're very old friends, but Adrian doesn't do a lot of recommendations at all. I mean, it's mostly big picture with a few recommendations. And who else is there writes a newsletter?
- [33:25]
A
I know a lot of people that write newsletters, but I can't say there are any that I take that I take ideas from. I mean, I, I really like personally like macro stuff. Luke Gromen, he's got Forest through the Trees as his newsletter. I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's. It's excellent. Yeah, he does, he does. It's. That's a great job. It's more macro rather than specific picks, but. But sometimes that's the stuff that's more useful, you know, to my thinking anyway, than like somebody giving you a stock recommendation, you know, for us, I just want to make sure we're thinking soundly to make our own recommendations.
- [34:02]
B
Anyway, as far as finding stocks that are interesting, I mean, I've always find that the one girl tells another, tells another network of people that are involved in the business is very helpful, but I know most people aren't involved in those networks of people that are involved in the mining business and stocks that play in that. But I think that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we going to be more serious about analyzing the 2000 crappy little mining stocks out there with the use of AI drawing attention to them that way?
- [34:43]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Well, what we're. We're doing is we do have a process for that now and where every day, basically, you're analyzing the best drill results that are reported and using that to help filter out in some of the juniors. So, yeah, I'll be sending you the next. The next draft of that from the latest real results. Later today. So you can really use these tools to help a lot in terms of just understanding the universe of what's out there. You still, once you get it to that, there's still a huge funneling process you have to go through after that. But it does do some narrowing of some of the ones that should be paid attention to.
- [35:21]
B
Yeah, there's still companies out there that have a million ounce resource and only a few million dollars of market cap. But those, I mean, a year ago they existed. Now they don't really exist so much. The ones that are out there are dogs and most of the dogs have fleas even worse.
- [35:44]
A
Yeah. Okay, let's see. Next question is. I remember the feeling of the gold bull market around 2009 and silver around 2011. Today the public interest in both is higher. I appreciate that there are major factors driving the price of both higher now, but the rises are almost parabolic. Who is calling a pullback in prices what could slow the rise in prices? What are Doug's thoughts? Well, now this was sent to us on the, you know, last week. So this is obviously a person who's been through a couple of these cycles and could feel what we were feeling where it's like, wow, these things are going up so much it makes me nervous. So.
- [36:23]
B
Yeah, anyway, you know, another old saw of the market, the cure for high prices is high prices. So these things swap themselves out.
- [36:35]
A
But there have been a lot of people calling for a pullback and lower prices. And even I heard, you know, a lot of the people at the, you know, the Vancouver conference that just happened, you know, saying stuff like that, that, you know, that the move had been a lot and that you should be careful and take some profits and stuff like that. So I think a lot of people talk about it.
- [36:56]
B
That's just good prudent advice. You know, you get a double, take your money off the table. And there have been a lot of doubles out there so far. So yeah, in fact, if you, or maybe you want to wait for a triple and take your money off the table. I mean if you're more aggressive, that's nothing wrong with that in a bull market.
- [37:14]
A
Yeah, but you sleep really well if you just take all your, your, your, if you do the Casey free ride we call it, if you take, you know, get a double, you take your money off the table.
- [37:23]
B
But, but, but the problem, the problem that we've got today is we're really, I think at the edge of a major monetary crisis with what's going on in various places. Not least of which is Japan at the moment. And so you take your money off the table in mining stocks. Okay, fine, but exactly where are you going to put it? Well, you can leave it in dollars, okay. But that means you got to leave it in the bank. And maybe that's not okay.
- [37:52]
A
And you're almost guaranteed to lose 10% a year.
- [37:56]
B
Yeah, that's really not so. Okay, so it's, it's, it's a real problem. Well, look, for what it's worth, Argentine real estate is still very cheap. I mean, it has been for, for like decades. I know, because I own a bunch of it. And it's still very cheap or even cheaper. So if you want to diversify internationally, very good idea. And put some money someplace where things are absolutely cheap, not just relatively cheap. I'm a big fan of Argentine real estate. Uruguayan real estate is not so. Not so terribly cheap. Not relative to Argentina.
- [38:43]
A
Right?
- [38:44]
B
Yep.
- [38:45]
A
Okay, one last question for you here, Doug, is this is an interesting one. And this gets to why the miners are still undervalued. I think it's why do mining companies use antiquated metals pricing in some of their own reporting? An example, on January 21, silver traded at $90 an ounce. On that date, gold and silver issued an exploration update that included the following passage, net reserve and resource growth. December 2025, update. 73 million ounces of silver, 145 grams per ton. A 4% increase in silver ounces from the prior estimate. Net of depletion with reserves estimated using a silver price assumption of $26 an ounce. Why $26? Why not update the price to something closer to the current price?
- [39:37]
B
Well, $26 does seem a little bit low. But they're running a business, you know, they've got to be really conservative. Anything can happen. So it's arbitrary. There's no reason why, you know, that's like, that's not like an industry standard. I don't know why they picked $26. I think it's a little bit reasonably on the low side, even if you're trying to run a business at this point.
- [40:02]
A
But yeah, the corporate incentives are do not disappoint the street. Right. So you have to set the street expectations low. So then you, you know, you overachieve on them. It's kind of that kind of game you got to play a little bit.
- [40:17]
B
Make yourself into an over overachiever. Right. You won't have egg on your face. Everybody will think that, you know, you're a smart but conservative guy.
- [40:27]
A
Right? Yeah, I think that's the biggest reason. But it also shows why, you know, even when the, you know, the outside analysts are that, you know, they use much more conservative pricing as we talked about, I think last time we talked. So that's why these things are still cheap relatively.
- [40:45]
B
That's right. And you know, anything can happen because back in 2001 silver was selling for 45450 an ounce. Which means that that's not ancient history. It's 25 years ago. Okay, but it's not ancient history. And I remember I wrote a whole newsletter on silver back then where among other things I pointed out that at 450 an ounce, which it was, it was cheaper than it was back in 1970 before the monetary crisis hit. That's amazing. This is 30 years later. It's cheaper in real terms than it was. So anything can happen. I don't think it's likely to happen with silver though. I don't think it'll collapse down to $26 or something like that because you got to remember that during the 60s the US government alone had a two billion dollar inventory of silver. It's all gone. And back then the main use of silver, the biggest use was photography. Nobody uses it that for that anymore. That's all gone. So the world is, the world has changed.
- [42:01]
A
But isn't like something like half of the production now goes in solar panels, you know, something like that. Some outrageous number that's expected to, you know, double demand if the price was, you know, stayed reasonable. You know, the demand is expected to double.
- [42:16]
B
But almost all the solar panels in the world are made in China too. So it's, it's like a kaleidoscope, constantly changing inputs and major changes in inputs too.
- [42:29]
A
All right. Yeah. The last thing we had was just a comment said that liked we were talking about perestrochia. I can't say, I cannot say that said we discussed that and you were searching for the. Another Russian word from that era. I believe that you may have been thinking of glasnost.
- [42:46]
B
I was. Glasnost and perestroika just before the, under Gorbachev, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Openness and restructuring. I think as I recall, somebody's got to correct me on that too.
- [43:03]
A
It didn't work.
- [43:05]
B
Well, Russia's a lot better than the Soviet Union was, that's for sure.
- [43:09]
A
It is, it is now. But it went through some real serious nastiness for a while.
- [43:14]
B
Yeah, yeah, it did so. But it was, was mostly nonviolent. I wonder what's going to happen when the US Goes through its own period of restructuring? And who's going to come out on top?
- [43:27]
A
Our own oligarchs, I'm sure.
- [43:31]
B
Anything, anything can happen, which is a good reason to have a crib in another country until things if they get wild and woolly in the U.S. just wait until they blow over.
- [43:42]
A
Yeah, I agree. All right, Doug. Well, I think that's all for the questions for today. Thank you very much and have a great weekend. We'll be back next week with more.
- [43:51]
B
Well, I look forward to it and look forward to seeing what happens over the weekend. Maybe we'll have lots of free entertainment or maybe not. So free entertainment, depending, right?
- [44:02]
A
Exactly.
- [44:03]
B
All right.
- [44:03]
A
Thanks, Doug. Take care.
- [44:05]
B
Thanks, Matt.