thank you I'm Charlotte McLeod with the investing News Network and here today with me is John bennick portfolio manager and consultant at fennec Consulting thank you so much for joining me online today it's great to have you here great to be back thanks Charlotte really nice to be catching up with you and just to remind our audience our last interview was at the beginning of March at pdac and really A lot has changed since then but one of the most obvious things is the situation in the banking
sector which started to develop I think just a couple of days after we spoke so I want to start there with you and get your thoughts on how we've seen that play out and what may still be to come because I think people still have so many questions about this whole situation sure so um as some of your guests know I actually spent a lot of my time in the financial sector uh prior to getting you know fully into the mining sector um about seven and a half years ago so I think I have a good perspective on uh
what's happening out there in uh financials because I still stay in touch with a lot of Executives there and I do a lot of reading I think it's important for people to read things to kind of you know get different opinions right not just mine but other people's opinions and and people that are in positions of power like a Jamie Diamond at JP Morgan where I used to work right like JP Morgan is the largest bank out there with over three trillion in assets and Amy diamond in April following the
financial uh melee that we saw um from March 8th to the end of the month came out with this letter to shareholders and basically said expect more pain in so many words so you have to respect words like that coming from someone who's in that position right in my opinion and Market is not respecting that at all because you see Powell and and and yelling and a bunch of other people in positions of power just say the US economy is strongly resilient and so is the banking system are we completely disagree
um so when you look at March 8th through the 12th we had silvergates we had Silicon Valley Bank and we had uh Signature Bank all go out within four days I mean unbelievable because if you look back Charlotte in 2008 Lehman Brothers went out on a weekend and then it was weeks before the next one fell right so this is extremely quick price action you have to be on your toes as an investor and I'll tell you I mean as a professional investor for over 30 years it's it's hard for me to keep up with
the pace so I can only imagine for the average client you know with all this information what are they doing how do they process it that quickly Etc right so we um we upped our position in gold and silver stocks heavily after March 8 and we are simultaneously shorted financials and we remain short all those financials right now and that's worked out great um as I've told you before I have a real-time update service that I offer clients and we put out something on uh First Republic FRC at ten dollars
you know saying that the bank looked shaky and uh you know just told people that we were slightly short of the stock and that went out as you know uh and JP Morgan interestingly picked up the uh the assets so um we we have been um shorting stocks since the year 2000 so I have a lot of experience in that part of the world uh I refuse the short mining stocks just uh because I think it's disingenuous if I'm going to be talking to your listeners about why this stock and why that stock and why go long
then I think I can find playbird things to short right so like I'm looking at financials to shore right now I'm looking at semiconductor shorts uh right now because there's just so many opportunities out there that look wobbly to me in the broad market so to answer your question in a nutshell I don't think this is over yet I think you're going to see more financial pain in that sector as we move forward and so I completely disagree with you know Powell's comments March 22nd and May 3rd
at the FED meetings where he just pounds the table on this strong and resilient message okay thank you for going into that and so more being to come is the takeaway there the other thing I picked up in what you were saying is how quickly things are happening now compared to how they did in the past I think we've spoken about this before I've heard other people mention how much more quickly things move now why do you think that is just briefly algorithmic buying and selling it's that
simple I mean um if you look at uh how quickly things happen from let's say the 2000 to 2003 correction the 0809 correction the 2011 brief correction because of the debt ceiling you know talks um and you fast forward to 2023 things are much much faster now in terms of trading use an example of like March of 2020 right you know try to keep up with the pace on GDX you know just as the as the big bad you know ETF in our sector right look at that drop that you saw February 1st let's call it to April 1st
of 2020 and ask yourself as an investor if he warrants invested then how can I keep up with this thing going from over 30 to 17 a change here within a matter of a couple of weeks it's really hard to look at the daily price action on some Investments right now and understand how you're going to keep up with that and so I think you need to align yourself with a professional whether it's myself or someone else that's going to understand what you're your risks are you know risk reward you know scenario is what your
risk tolerance is what your time Horizon looks like these are all important factors in deciding you know whether it you know this this is an appropriate investment or not yeah it's definitely an extremely fast-paced world that we're living in now and let's move over to talking about gold and silver prices because I mentioned things have changed since our last conversation a couple of months ago prices for gold and silver are definitely on the list especially when it comes to Gold I think when we spoke
in March it was just above 1800 and since then we've seen it spend quite a bit of time above 2 000 and of course we've seen gold goal past 2000 a couple of times in the past before this time is feeling different we've stayed here longer how are you feeling about gold and silver prices right now uh very uh good in general but I will say they're they're completely different in terms of the price action right now if you look at gold it just closed on Friday at uh the eighth consecutive week
over 2000 I believe which is insane um the price action since what we talked about you know March 8th through 12th right look at the week of March 13th on GLD just so as a proxy for the price of gold and you'll see a huge spike in that in that ETF and that was the beginning of a rally right and we haven't seen it really weighing that much uh since then which is very bullish for every single related um now I think we came within five bucks of the all-time high of 2075 so I mean it's it's unbelievable what we've seen
with gold since our last meeting because you're right we did talk around 18 12 an ounce I went back and looked and um you know I had said on your show that I thought 1790 would hold which it did so we're making a series of pirate lows as we call it in gold which is very bullish on the long-term chart and I think we're going to easily get to that 2100 level uh here within probably you know two to six months which I think is extremely bullish for the whole sector meaning the mining sector mining stocks in general
when you look at sober it's been a different story we have you know pretty significant resistance in that 26 and a half to 28 kind of level and we tested that recently and failed again so um it's really frustrating for me and other investors uh because we want to see that level broken and I think we're going to get that this year again within six months but the big round number to look for is 30 bucks when you get to 30 silver and you break that with some authority meaning a couple of closes
above Fury analysis go time and silver stocks and investors are going to wish they were positioned because it will happen faster than people expect it's what we always definitely hear about silver and if we look at I know that you follow the charts quite closely if we look at support and resistance for gold a little bit more specifically what do you see there so um I don't I don't think a pullback into the 1900s would be out of the question at all and I don't think that would be unhealthy again
remember like just a pedapper talking at 1812 so if you're talking even 1900 gold it's still a much higher price than just a couple of months ago and um what I like to see that of course not you know I love to see us you know hold above 2000 here even 1950 and then be able to springboard to that 2100 plus level within the next couple of months um so I figure your major support levels are that 17 90 to 1800 range we talked about before and then you know somewhere in the high 18s hopefully that would
hold maybe like in 1850 um even uh but look I mean even if we make uh you know even if things go to 1850 I think you're still going to hit 2100 here within six months or so which is a different kind of you know take that I've given your listeners over the last two years because of what happened March 8th and Beyond things definitely change for precious metals March 8th and it has not changed in my view other than you know people that are buying the broad Market are doing this you know they're crossing their fingers and
saying maybe I can eat out another five to ten percent in the s p or the NASDAQ here and to me that's just foolish Behavior after looking at the rally that we've seen since March 20th of 2009 it's been 14 years pretty much up straight you know straight up in the broad Market with different little hiccups here and there like 2011 and 2020 but look at the overall record of like something like the NASDAQ and you're like wow you know this this thing is really moved already and and maybe I should be thinking about
putting my money into some other sectors and I would argue do something like our sector was very attractive yeah right so the whole banking situation hugely important for gold and silver as I think we can tell we do also have all the other factors impacting the precious metals as well including the Fed so let's check in on the FED we had a 25 basis point rate hike at the beginning of the month as we look forward to the next meeting it seems like people are mostly looking for a pause at that time
I'm curious about what you see there and then maybe we can even take it further and and look at what the FED may do further out into 2023 sure so just in summary when we sat that last time pre-marks 22nd's meeting I had said that we probably would see a 25 base Point hike which is what we got and there was a 72 probability of that at the time um I said May was questionable because we just didn't know I mean given um it's hard to look out even two or three months in this market frankly with
the FED already going so far right um and we saw another 25 basis point hike there interestingly we also saw another hike from the ECB in Europe literally the day after that so you know it's showing investors that these different central banks mean business does that mean that they're not going to pause or cut of course not I mean they are going to pause I think that you see that in the June 14th numbers right now that the pause is likely to happen in June but I would argue that the broad
Market is already kind of pricing this in like you know you're seeing a huge rally in Tech like unheard of in certain names uh year to date and very high beta stuff which to me is really really worrisome and reminiscent of 2020 2000 into 2001 right no one saw the tech you know bust like like that that happened and that magnitude back then I can tell you that um I met with great growth managers Great Tech managers back 23 years ago and they were all pounding the table on Intel and Microsoft and all the rest and
if you look at what happened to Charlotte from that period of time let's just call it 01 to say 2011. like a 10-year record you may have made your money back in things like Intel and Microsoft if you got bad entry points so you're literally flat for a decade that doesn't really get anyone excited right so um that's the downside risk I think that you see in certain sectors of the market right now is that you could have you know many months or a couple of years maybe where you just don't even get back
to where your investment was and if you look at some things like Netflix topping out last year at 701 dollars a share I mean go back and look at your favorite growth OR tech stocks It's Not Unusual to see these things really really pounded here from all time highs so you know that's kind of what we're looking at is is the Fed is is definitely coming more on our side as mining investors but you know many of my contemporaries as you know and probably interview we're calling for cuts it's
really this last September so you know we have to call like we see it and and the way we see it right now is you have to look at every meeting individually and um you know I think the pause will happen in June it's too difficult to really look too far out past then but if you look at the Futures it is showing you know some type of cut you know in the next number of months following June 14th right and maybe we can talk a little bit more about the broad markets you know you've talked about some of the
dangers that you see there out for investors who aren't maybe paying attention to the full picture we have the FED has started to say now maybe we'll see just a little little mild baby recession coming what can you say about about those factors and how investors can put that together and not get hurt yeah well um I think it's it's important for people to lose a little money of their own right it by little I need a little you know try to buy in small increments if you're a newer investor because this
is as I just said you know a 14-year Plus or heli in the broad Market you don't want to be you know going all in here I mean you had your opportunity right so that's where I tell people in real estate as well it's like I've I've sold all of my real estate in the last two years and the reason is I don't need to get out at the peak I don't want to be selling into a bad Market which I think is coming for Real Estate over the next two years I mean you can't raise rates like we've seen right now an
unprecedented amounts and not feel some pain in the real estate market so yeah I would say um right now we're looking at a a really interesting scenario a really interesting period of time in history where you know as investors we have to be cautious right you have to build some cash here um and by the way money markets are yielding 4.5 or higher right so it's like you've got opportunities out there to make risk-free money where if we were to interview you know last you know may we'd be looking at one percent or less
in the same money market account right so um we're taking our time with you know dipping our toe in the water here getting more invested especially in gold and silver stocks we still like copper as well because copper just seems to have massive shortages out there and as we've talked about your show before I mean a little less than half of the world's production is coming from Chile and Peru and both countries have had some you know setbacks over the last few years politically and we think that you
can't just flip a switch and and get more copper right so you know there's there's going to be uh probably a run on copper two five dollars plus we think next year and that's why we're positioning in some copper stocks right now okay yeah and let's move into getting some updates on your portfolio so at the beginning of the conversation you mentioned when you saw all the banking crisis unfolding you started to look more at gold and silver stocks so curious to hear more about that because
our audience does have a strong interest in the precious battles of course yeah sure so let me let me go through a couple of the names that I mentioned last time so I always like the scorecard myself I think six of the eight are up from where we talked two months ago um three of them transition metals uh after math silver and Forum energy medals are all doing financings now or have done financings uh what that means to your investors is they're what they're raising cash right they're
they're the Junior market is always looking for money it's just a problem not a problem it's it's a fact right like I mean you have to deal with it as an investor and so um you know I would always you know one of the questions we ask companies is how what is your cash balance currently and what are your cash needs over the next six to 12 months so you're not surprised right um I think you know when we go down the list of the names that I mentioned in the gold and silver space we talked
about Serato gold briefly that's gone from I think 54 to 63 um and I'll give you all your listeners the tickers and the show notes so it's just easier but sir throttle gold on April 17th that's a really good production news they produced more than expected or guided and they also came over the lower aisc lower cost you know per ounce which was bullish I think they were around 10 30 an ounce in the fourth quarter so very very doable there and have just a great amount of news flow in
March and April if you look at their website um going over to ascendant resources that is more of a gold silver copper play with some base metals very well Diversified it's in Portugal I mentioned it on your show I think around 14 cents Don Durette is actually put a position on that stock since then we we met recently and you really love the story um you know the stock is well positioned in terms of news as well and they have a due diligence meeting coming up I believe in a few weeks so you know when
you have a due diligence meeting that's another kind of thing Charlotte that's kind of advanced but when you ask a company hey when you when are you having people to your site you know companies don't spend thousands of dollars to invite you know analysts for for for Giggles uh they usually invite them to say hey look how great you know we're doing and look at how much more advanced this is than you fake um and there's adolescents will sometimes go back and do something you know in terms of rating the stock up by
or raising their price Target right so I think analysts are way behind the ball here on some of these Junior names um and as a former analyst myself like I I say that carefully but but strongly that you know it's time since March 8th action in the financial sector it's time for analysts to get more bullish and I'm hoping to see that action you know more as we move forward in in the year um to talk about some other names that we talked about in your show last time just to Circle up uh Stillwater
um is still one of my favorite uh um stocks out there it's very heavy nickel and Palladium um it's again in Montana which is great jurisdiction they had solid news flow a few months ago when we met last and uh the stock has just faded frankly we talked about it at 15 cents it's now at 13 by the us and we bought more last week just above 12 pretty much the low of the year um and we're out there trying to buy more shares pretty much every week because at these prices um I think that you could see some type
of action in the stock over the next few months I mean they're just you know in a great jurisdiction connected to a major like savanya Stillwater uh I've known that jurisdiction for for nine years with three different you know stocks that I've owned so um and then lastly Copper Lake we talked about and that stock was one of the two that has lost some some some uh price action but you know I think it's you know April 19th they put out their news and they said we've rolled eight holes
and we're waiting for some more results and so with Juniors you know as we've talked about before Charlotte it takes weeks sometimes for these results to come around because there's still delays at the lab in terms of you know results and it is frustrating to investors but I would just say hold in there um the stock looks really attractive here at .036 um I think it has a very large bid ass spread so I'd be careful in terms of how you buy it that's why we buy multiple times on a stock like that rather than
just once or twice um in terms of some new names I've mentioned this on your program before but I got really more interested in this stuff again recently and that's U.S gold usau is the ticker um fantastic name first off and in the environment we're in right like it's it's on the NASDAQ um you know I think the stock has got probably 10 million shares uh fully diluted out there very small float um I think you know again it ran to 748 this year it's trading at 4 you know 19
today so serious pullback I don't think the pullback is Justified and you've got major support in this stock between 350 at four dollars a share another one um that I've been looking at here is uh Canadian critical which is um a newer name for us as well recently we've been adding to the position um they are um they have two projects of note uh one is Terry and the other one is bull River bull River um is the larger of the two but Terry gets absolutely no credit whatsoever um and you know if you look at Terry
they spent less than 1.5 million Canadian for that project and I think it's worth at least four to five x that right now um if someone were to buy it from them but the idea is um look at the news flow right on May 1st they talked about renting an or Sorter and as I put out to my followers why would a company rent an or sort or if they don't you know they don't plan to use it so there's going to be some you know some news there I think um you know over the next coming weeks and uh the stock is just languishing
under three cents here it's unbelievable to me um but you know I think there's uh there's news of a new strategic investor they just announced about uh five six days ago there's a lot of positive things happening in some of these Juniors if people take the time to go in to two websites you know subscribe to the newsflow and just follow it that way that's what I do you know so it's in your inbox in the morning right as soon as you're ready to get to to get started you may have you know four or five you
know releases like that in your inbox as opposed to just you know searching for it uh or being late to the game okay those are some great updates and as you mentioned we will have the names and tickers we'll leave them in a comment below the video so everybody can see them I want to follow up on a comment you made about analysts maybe not recognizing the opportunity in the Juniors yet and I'm curious to hear from you about what you think might prompt some increased interest because I hear
so many different ideas about this do we need a higher gold price do we need more discoveries do we need more M A activity what is your view on when when these other people might start to pay attention uh it's a couple of different things I mean I think the financial uh crisis that we're talking about is a big one because people will start to see um that oh my gosh you know this thing is really underpriced versus other investment opportunities right not necessarily how is it price versus other
mining stocks it's like what we call a sector rotation Charlotte you know um right now Tech is super hot right if you look at you know an index it might make up 20 to 25 percent of the index well how much does mining stocks as a whole make up uh you know how much of that is in in index it's super small it's under one percent so you can pick your favorite index the Dow the NASDAQ the s p the Russell they're all less than one percent it's insane so my thinking over the years has been when we
get a turn which I think we're we're moving towards right now right you have an outside event like the financial collapse you have uh the Russian war going on longer than people expected right that's 15 months now you have other things that are you know happening in the Press like the debt ceiling issue or the possibility as you mentioned of a small recession I think it could be bigger than small you know I mean these are real things that are going to change behavior and we're not there yet but it
feels like we're gonna get there sooner than people think I think so within you know six to 12 months it's sort of my goal that you know the sector has gotten some fresh blood and again go back and look at the your favorite mining stocks in March uh look at gold look at Silver they all got bumps in volume which is very bullish okay I think you've done a really good job of highlighting how all those different issues are stacking up and I think we will see the play out and it's probably sooner than later as you said
as we're finishing up here are there any final thoughts that you would leave the audience with yeah like I touched on and I try to touch on on your show you know try to align yourself with a professional you know we offer a newsletter we offer the real-time service um a few other things on our website FedEx Consulting but whether it's us or someone else you really need to spend some money at this point and align yourself with somebody who does this full-time because you know I meet people
all the time on the road um at Gatherings you know that have serious money in the broad market and they just don't understand what they own right they don't understand they just think these mutual funds are oh I owe 10 things no you don't you own 10 mutual funds that have 600 stocks on them so you know what is the 600 names that you own I really don't know it's like you know talk to your financial advisor or get a new one you know it's like if they don't understand what your your dreams
and goals are then you should be aligning yourself with someone new you know and I think you know I'm telling you this from working with financial advisors my whole career before doing this so you know in 0809 it was like um there were great advisors who picked up the phone and were proactive with clients and then there were some that just you know hidden their shell and that's and that's not really you know what a client needs right now they need a bit of hand holding and a bit of reassurance in my opinion
yeah I have been hearing more and more that an active approach is what you need to have right now so I think that's nice advice for us to close on today great yeah thank you so much for for joining me and once again I'm Charlotte McLeod with the invest in youth Network and this is John fennek with FedEx Consulting [Music]
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