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 [Music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investinnews.com and here today with me is Will Middleco, founder of Commodity Discovery Fund. Thank you so much for being here. Nice to be back. Yes, really good to be catching up with you here at PDAC. Exciting time already. Every year here we do. We seem to we seem to meet here. It's been we've made it to day two of the convention. So I feel like I can ask you, you know, what what is your sense of sentiment here? The the vibe maybe on the show floor.

Well, actually it's a two-sided market. Um the producers, the gold producers, I'm just uh I had two conferences back to back. I'm I'm just returned from Miami where was at a Beimo conference. That's a larger conference focusing more on the producers. The producers have a license to print money now. They're very happy. Have huge free cash flop, have huge profits. But when you look at the juniors, this is more like an explorer geologist uh junior conference. And if you look at the juniors, most of them

are still trying to survive actually. And we still invest in great companies making good discoveries and where the ounces in the ground are valued as low as $7 per ounce while above ground is worth almost 3,000 ounces. So, it's it's a bit of a strange market, but I think the bull market has started and you see more happy faces. Well, well, let's let's hope so. Certainly, I think you hit right away on that that disconnect, right, where the large companies very happy, the juniors,

I know not so happy. Do we just need to be patient and and wait for that to play out? Okay. Yeah. But this time, if you compare to previous cycles, I've been in the industry now for 20 years. We were used to have more like V-shaped recoveries and this is more like a U-shaped recovery takes long. Uh but in the end, you can't ignore when gold is trading at $3,000 pounds close to you can't ignore that the value of in the ground uh it should go up, you know, and it will take maybe few more quarters and

then the generalist investors will see what the amount of free cash flow is, how much money is being made into the space. some investors who are heavily involved with tech will well we'll see a sector rotation maybe tech is topping out and and I think this will be a long a very long bull market but it may may take a bit of time uh bull market has climb a wall of worry they often say so make it may take another few months or quarters but then everybody wants to get Yeah, I think I think we can all feel

that that you as as you were mentioning for sure. So, but but bullish on gold and the large miners doing well. You of course you focus on discoveries. Are you skewing toward gold and precious metals in this environment or how is that breakdown? Well, uh the start of our fund actually we were called the gold discovery fund. We later changed that to the commodity discovery fund because we don't care where the large discoveries are being made. could be uranium, could be copper, but we always had over 50% of our

exposure in in gold and over 60% in precious metals. We're increasing that a bit. Uh so we go towards 75 80% maybe precious metals because it is the strongest market out there. But look at copper is still strong. Look at uranium is still strong. So we also want to keep exposure to these markets. Uh but we're h very happy uh with the current portfolio and and we changed our investment strategy a bit. We used to have too many names in our portfolio and now our top 40 is 80% of our portfolio

and that's really we focus on the largest undeveloped mining projects, mining discoveries worldwide and almost metal and must. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. So good to go into that. Let's let's take a look at gold because we haven't talked for about a year which means that at that time we were still just beginning this this run in gold and people were wondering is this real? What's going on? So of course we've seen gold get past 25 2900. We pulled back a

little right right at this moment. But what are the main factors you're looking at as gold? Well, you know, you always have the gold funds and the gold bucks who buy who always buying gold, but what's more important for the general gold market is what do the general investors do? What do the sovereign investors do? What do the central banks do? And when when central banks are starting to flee towards gold, which has been happening in the last three years, that's very telling because

these are the guys who are allowed to print money. So if they if they start to buy gold, that's a sign. And institutional investors only buy gold when there's a smell of war in the air, when there's a smell of chaos. And there's a lot of chaos. There's a lot of madness. Look what's happening coming from the White House on a daily basis. So expect more chaos. Expect more flight to do. And when I just uh was present at the keynote of Rick Sprout, a well-known investor in our space, Canadian

billionaire, he said when they start to open up Fort Knox, a lot of eyes will be opened. So I I I think he's right. I think US has played a great number of tricks to keep the gold price well managed to to avoid a gold price explosion. But we might get that gold price explosion now because there's there's an awful lot going on. And yeah, there is a whole lot going on right now. And maybe we talk a little bit more about this Fort Knox situation, which is very interesting. I know Trump

and Elon Musk, they are saying a lot of things. They're going on a lot of directions. What why are they going in in this Fort Knox direction right now? Are they signaling that they really do care about this? This is a president who has campaigned for a few things. Draining the swamp, getting rid of the corruption, but also he's in favor of great transparency. And so is Elon Musk. And when you say transparency, it reminds me actually about Gorbachev, the former Russian pre president who who

started his glassnost which was also about openness and transparency. It took Gorbachov to open up that closed Soviet system. It took him a few years, but six years later it collapsed because that system couldn't stand transparency. And I'm a bit afraid that the US system might get very unstable because of too much transparency. So when you open up the vaults and you find maybe it's not there or it's not all there or the quality is different, people might start to lose trust in the

financial system in the dollar. So be careful what kind of worms you you you're opening up. Yeah, that could get very interesting and certainly very unstable. I know I know you're following on closely with what Trump is doing and there's there's a lot of elements to follow there. You know, you started to talk about the the efficiency measures and things like that. What is your take on on how well that's going? Well, I think it's it's it's like the same story there. It's very good that

some light is shed on the waste and fraud which is obviously is there but when you do it in such a drastic and and dramatic way um there's there's a risk things get unstable and and this is this is Elon Musk you know this is his approach this is what he has done with Twitter you just go in and you throw everybody out and then you start building again. But a government isn't a company. So if you do that with a government, there's now talk about maybe closing down 120 offices of the IRS. You

know, first study it, make a plan, and then execute the plan. So there's a lot of risk involved with the current uh form of uh yeah action. And and that's that's that's bothering me a bit. Yeah. Any I want to ask about the tariffs as well, although I know there's been a lot of back and forth and and uncertainty as well around the tariff situation. How do how do you see that playing out keeping in mind that it does keep I think the tariffs is just a way uh to start negotiations.

Yeah. And then you can skip the tariffs because tariffs um are jacking up prices as well. And I think we might see a return of inflation. I'm from the Netherlands. We just today had our new inflation number. It's already 3.8%. It's almost 4%. So we could have this pick up in inflation worldwide to see a second wave of inflation. Maybe an even stronger wave. So that's that's risky. So, um I I'm not that worried about terrorists, but it might um it might um cause a recession because

the economy is quite fragile and terrorists don't help it. I know from from following you on your Twitter account, you're following Trump's activities very closely. So, any any further thoughts on the US economy under under this new Trump administration? Well, that that's that's that's the problem for him. He is he is um he started in January with a an economy an American economy was already slowing down and I think we're already in recession and um I'm afraid that the

way he is he is cutting budgets and because of all the drastic Dutch actions it sure will be in a recession a severe recession. session uh very soon and that that's maybe that's his largest risk. Yeah. Yeah, I can I can see what you mean. And I also want to ask you what's going on with the bricks. I know you mentioned you're you're not too concerned about the tariffs. We have had Trump say he's looking at 100% tariffs on the bricks. They they've been very concerned with their dorization efforts

and I know a lot of people in the sector follow that with with regard to gold. So where are the bricks in all of this? I I've been speaking and writing about the bricks and the the power of the bricks and the development of this alliance since at least 2016 when I revised the big reset which can be downloaded for free at our website for people who are interested. At first people criticized me and even Margaret the he used to be uh prime minister in the Netherlands and he said the bricks is just a well they just talk it we

don't have to take that serious well when you start to have tariffs of 100% against the BRICS countries you show you take them very serious so this shows to me that the US is afraid of the BRICS alliance and he should be afraid of the bricks alliance signs. But when you start to punish them and threaten them with 100% tariffs, that's a sign of weakness. That's not a sign of strength. Actually, that shows you no, you're losing. And you have to become a a bully. It's it's bully politics. you

know you and the more bullets you are um using the more countries like uh the one who are in the BRICS alliance understand they have to move away from the dollar they they need to hatch they know the US is weak and the US is showing it with its actions so the BRIX alliance is very powerful in my opinion it's only starting China is leading But it won't go away. It will get stronger. Yeah. Really, really interesting that what was intended to be that show of strength ends up being something

completely different. So, thanks for going into that one. Anything further you would say about the bricks? I know this is a complex situation, but if there's any other dynamics there that you're watching or developments that you're looking there. Well, we came from this globalized world at the end of this uh of um the late 80s where communism collapsed and we all started to live together happily on this planet. But now we have seen an end of this trend towards more globalization and now we're in this well we have this

bifurcation of the world economy and we treat China as our enemy. I don't think China is an enemy. Maybe China is an enemy to the US dollar system which makes China an enemy from the American point of view. But I will say in Europe China is not our enemy. China has been around for 10,000 years. China never conquered Europe. Um and and we in Europe shouldn't be like a fasil state of the US. We should have our own policy. And what's happening now with Trump threatening to leave NATO actually

for Europe, for us in Europe, that's a good thing because finally we have to start thinking about our own policy and not just follow the US. So there's there's a lot going on there. Many moving parts. Actually, you could say the big reset has started. Uh it also reminds me of Neil House book, The Fourth Turning. Every 80 years, you get a new system. It's right 80 years after 1945, which was the end of the Second World War, which was the start of the dollar system and the dollar hagimony.

So we're in for a large change, and we're getting it now. And let's hope we we survive without too much chaos. Let's let's certainly let's hope for that. And on that note, so we've talked about your approach with the fund looking for discoveries, but there's so much going on in the world. We've only talked about a very small part of all this this chaos. What other things can investors do to be prepared for this? Well, when I give presentations, I always give them four reasons why

commodities will do very well. And one is the geopolitical side, the other is the monetary side, the debasement of currency. Uh you have on ongoing inflation, I think which will come back. But then if if you forget all these monetary geopolitical reasons, just look at supply and the demands. We we we entered the era of shortages and and that's the main reason you should position yourself as an investor in commod of towards commodities and gold is only part of that picture. But if you study uranium, if you study

copper, Robert Freeland gave a keynote speech in Miami and he said we need to find six escandidas which is the largest open pit copper mine in the world. You need to find six of those or even open six of those every year to be able to have enough copper for the next 25 years. So commodities are valued at such well rock bottom prices and with everything ongoing now in the area of shortages arriving we should do very well. We survived the downturn. We started our front at the top of the last cycle. We survived the downturn and will

do very well in the bull markets and that bull market which is starting now might take decades to complete. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So just a small followup here. So got gold, copper, uranium. These are the three that I think you've mentioned in this conversation. Are those your top three when it comes to commodities? I have some battery metals like lithium. Um lithium is a difficult market but demand for lithium if you study lithium what always strikes me 10 years ago 15 years ago lithium was a 5 billion yearly

market the value of all metal traded this will grow towards 100 billion maybe 200 billion a year because lithium is the lightest metal is used in almost every battery and that will continue to be so so we'll need dozens of new lithium mines and and that's why we study it quite a bit. It's a difficult market to invest because it's just like Bitcoin. It has a huge boom and bust cycles. Um but it's important for us as investors. Okay. Really, really good to go through all this with you and I I will let you

go back onto the floor here. There's lots to do and see any final thoughts you would leave investors with. Um well, we didn't touch on silver. Please, yes, please go for And I know people like to hear about silver. Uh silver is my largest position. Uh physical silver. Um I I fully agree with Eric Sprout who was a silver buck and who has made clear in the last 20 years that the amount of silver which has been sold in paper isn't backed by physical. So if we get more and more eyes on the

Fortnox story, if we get more and more eyes on the story, if is if there's is there enough precious metal to back all these paper claims, this could get explosive and you could see $100 silver in in in a few days. And I don't think it will stop there. And within the the next decade, we'll see silver prices way over $100 per ounce. And so if you're looking for something not to speculate, but to secure your pension, your old age, buy physical, put it away. Good to get your outlook there. I know

silver has been a frustrating one for for many people. So one day it will run and if if you're not in it, you won't win it because the market will close down very rapidly, right? So you got to be in it to win it and and that's why I think that shares uh which have exposure to gold or silver will do very well in the end because I had a billion web store for years. I started in 2008 in the Netherlands, sold 2011. So I know I know that part of the business. If there's a jump in demand,

that window to get the physical stuff will close very soon. And what can you do then is buy the ETFs or them or or the shares. So that that will happen one day. One day. Okay. We will we will wait for that day for silver. Thank you so much. This was really good. Very good to have you. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investing.com and this is Will with Commodity Discovery Fund. [Music]