[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Lobo Tigra, CEO of independentspeculator.com. Thank you so much for being here. >> Always a pleasure, Charlotte. >> Really good to be catching up with you. We're at very exciting times in the precious metals market. And I wanted to open up with a question from one of our audience members because I think it aligns with what you were writing about in your newsletter this past weekend. So the question is, how long do you expect


this gold and silver bull market to last? It seems too good to be true at this point and it's making me wonder. >> Yes, crystal ball. like you know honest answer is nobody knows but to be more useful there are two general scenarios one is we are in fact in that blowoff top phase it's going vertical that doesn't mean it's over >> and it could easily like as crazy as it sounds gold and silver could both double from here like next week or next month if we're I mean if we're in that


vertical stage you look at January January of 1980 right and those that $855 was an intraday peak, not a not a monthly or a weekly. It was an intraday peak. So, if that's what's happening, it will be over soon. Now, it may be over soon after going much, much higher. It could be over soon and last Friday was the top. We won't know until we know. Uh the other scenario though is that we're nowhere near the top for all the reasons that I'm sure all of your many guests and you know have you know


the central bank buying the dolization trend the uh electrification trend the data centers nuclear power which uses silver too by the way you know it's all linked together like all these reasons um those are legitimate reasons for the bull market to continue. So, believe it or not, even at these levels, I'm usually the cautious guy. When something has pulled a hockey stick, I'm the one unpopular on the group W bench for saying, "Hey, you know, correction is likely." My base case is actually that


we will go into a period of consolidation here, and then there will be another leg much higher. Um that said, the the vertical the screaming action we've seen in the price charts and particularly silver last week, you know, it's it's hard to look at those charts and not be a little bit concerned that it might be too much too fast and at least some measure of correction is is due. So what to do with that? I have a specific idea for that. Like if you're convinced that we're going in that blowoff top and it hasn't


peaked yet, the thing to do is actually to buy the blue chips to buy the biggest most well-known names. Yeah, I don't need to spell them out. you know who they are because the Johnny come lately, the people who are hearing about gold for the first time on CNBC and you know all these these generalist investors they compiling in they will go to as Doug Casey used to say those go-to stocks they will go to those top royalty and gold producers and and that will be where that money goes first. So if it's


an if statement, but if that's what you think, if you're convinced that we're in that blowoff top phase and it's not behind us, that's the way to play it right now because a blowoff top may not last very long and there may not be time for it to trickle down to the juniors and mid-tiers and so on. But the the money coming in will go to those names first. If like me, you think we're in that consolidation or we're looking to go into that consolidation phase before a much larger move up later,


then maybe not so exciting. But the thing to do is actually to wait. Like sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. The idea is to buy low, sell high, not buy high and hope to sell higher. So, if I'm right about a period of consolidation when remember when gold went screaming up to 2000 in 2020, I got a lot of hate then for saying it might correct, but it did and it corrected. I don't know if we got it officially into, you know, down 20% for a bare market, but it corrected 10 15% easily after 2020 and consolidated for


three years before moving up again. It also did a bit of a correct and consolidated at 3,000, not much at four. But what I'm saying is if you think that consolidation before the next move higher is what's happening, then the thing to do is to wait for volatility to be your friend there. There will be buying opportunities. There's no need to chase stocks that are hitting all-time highs. You could get much lower entry points in the months ahead. And if not, if that doesn't happen, um, you know,


you can't kiss all the girls. I think that gives us a good idea of where you think things could be going and also what you're doing. And I am really getting a lot this time around that personalization is so important. You have to figure out what is right for you. So I'm wondering there's these two two scenarios. Is there any thing that would push you more in one direction than another when it comes to you know the the upward momentum for gold and silver or a downward move? Well, believe it or not, I'm I'm a


fundamentalist. Like, I try to look at the world, what's going on in the world, you know, and by the way, we look at the geopolitics and all the things that going on in the world make me very bullish. Um, that's that's the way I look at things. And then I want to I'm not a trader, you know, I want to buy something that should benefit if I'm right about the trend and then hold on to it until Rick Rule's unanswered question is answered, right? They build the mine or the discovery turns into


whatever size deposit it's going to be or, you know, whatever the unanswered question is. So, you know, that's the normal me. But in this market, if we're if the question is, are we in that blowoff top? Well, actually, price is the way you answer that. That blowoff top is a period of of rapid like vertical gains. And so, if we had if you had this conversation a month ago, my answer would be it doesn't look like we're headed into the blowoff top yet. It really looks like, you know, we've


gone up a lot. We probably go into this consolidation period. two weeks ago. I mean, I still think we're headed for consolidation, but it's starting to look more blowoff topy. Just this last uh yesterday, it's Sunday today. Just yesterday, I published, you know, I'd say right now it looks 50/50. The the the price action has gone so vertical in the last days, if not, you know, the last month and the last year that it's starting to look like a blowoff top. And you know, I honestly I


hope it isn't because I my my fundamental view is otherwise. And and if it is the blowoff top, then the next thing that happens after a blowoff top is a bare market. But Mr. Market doesn't care what I hope or want. So we got to look at the data. And right now the answer to your question is like it's been changing and and if we have this conversation a week from now and it's gone screaming up even higher then that would actually make me think that yeah we really are in that blowoff


top face and it would change my marching orders. It would change what I would look to buy. it would change what profits I would look to take and how much because I'm assuming not assuming I'm expecting a longerterm bull market consolidation then another move up later. If that's not what we get if what we get is the blowoff top now then what comes later is a bare market. So, if we get the blowoff top, then I'll probably do a lot more selling when when it turns over, when it rolls


over, instead of just, you know, recovering my initial investment, I probably take the much larger chunk or maybe even exit some positions entirely that have completely exceeded my expectations as Rick says, right? Um, because that's what follows a blowoff top. So, so for the audience that's thinking, oh, this guy's talking bear. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if it's the blowoff top, this isn't me saying this, this is history. What follows a blowoff top? We all know


what happens after the blowoff top. So if that's what's happening now, it should change how you look at your profit taking. >> Yeah, I think there's a lot of nuance here to pay attention to and things are moving quickly so they could be adjusted at a later date. I do want to talk a little bit more about taking profits and I'm wondering, you talked just now about how that could change moving forward. To what extent have you taken profits already, let's say, in gold and silver


stocks? >> Not as much as Rick, um, but enough. Uh, let let me put it this. I think we've talked about this before. Um, you know, it's very hard for anybody to know where the top is. Not just the markets, but even the specific stock or whatever. I'm a buy and hold guy. I buy something because they're building the mine, and I sell when they built it, right? or I buy something because I see success in discovery like in process that first part of the LAN curve they're clearly


charging up that first ramp in the Lan curve and they get to the top of that part then that's time to sell they're going into the boring engineering phase that's that's not when I want to own the stock right so in general that's the way I look at things but at times like this you really need to think about how your your profit taking will be if it starts looking like we're in that blowoff phase and the next thing is a bare market, then you would want to take more profits than you would if we're


still in the ramp up phase. And then the type of company makes a difference. If we're looking at, you know, some crazy junior that's got some exciting results, but they don't actually have a deposit yet. We don't actually know if the thing has any value at all, but it's it's got exciting headlines and the stock is way up. I would I would lean on taking a lot more profits from something like that because it could go basically to zero. Not quite zero, but it could come crashing way down if if the very next


press release is disappointing. Or let's say I got lucky with some um company that's doing really well in some kind of scary political jurisdiction or one that maybe wasn't so scary when I bought the stock but has gotten scarier since then. Well, then you know if if um you know the market turns and I'm taking some profits, I might I might not just take profits. I might sell everything. Like prices are up, I've got a chance to get all of my money and some profit off the table and eliminate my risk. I might


just do that entirely. If it's some other company, let's say it's um it's a a growing producer that's profitable and they have, you know, they've put the first deposit on production and they got three more just like it coming online. So, you see the growth there and they're making money. I'm not really worried about it. Well, then I might not take so much profit. I might just only recover my initial investment and leave the rest of the money on on the table. So, I'm


afraid one size doesn't fit all here. and you know my own risk tolerance. Oh, that too. Yeah. Like if I'm retired on fixed income and I really can't afford much risk to my nest egg, I'd probably be more careful about taking more money back off the table and and then you don't have to worry about it once you're what what Rick calls the beyond the point of no concern, right? That it's it's the best thing in the world to be able to speculate for big gains but actually have no risk. You've got your


initial capital back off the table. Whereas if I'm 19, you know, no kids, swing for the bleachers, you know, if I lose everything, I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and do it again. So, um, definitely one size doesn't fit all. But the takeaways, I think, are first and foremost, like you you must have a strategy. You must think through what are my exit strategies, how will I take profits, who what kind of investor am I? you you don't want to just be making a a decision willy-nilly, you know, with no


basis. You should have this plan in advance. And in markets like we're in now where you you're being handed huge profits like every week we've got more money that these things keep going up. Um you should think that through and and you know to those very enthusiastic people on social media, it is not treason to take profits. It is not lacking conviction to take profits. Um, my summary is I have taken profits substantially. I've gone mostly risk-free and I've paid off my mortgage.


Paid off my mortgage and I have more money in the market now than I started with. So, like people are saying, "Oh, you gave up. You sold too early." No, I didn't. I've got more money in the market now than I started with. But having taken some profits on the way up, I paid off my mortgage, right? >> Congratulations. you know, like how cool is that? I can not just sleep at night. I can sleep at night with a roof over my head completely paid for. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. And I


think you answered a question that I was going to ask, which was, you know, when this gold and silver bull market is eventually ended, would you expect to be out of all your gold and silver stocks? And it sounds like no, because for you, you're not buying them with that expectation of the price going up. There's the company story to follow along. >> Well, yes. And I mean, okay, >> no, I can't imagine. Well, I can imagine. I'm a pretty imaginative guy. I think it is unlikely that I would ever


be completely out of the market even in a bare market. By the way, that pre-production sweet spot that we've talked about before, that's my favorite, you know, type of in speculation, those tend to work even in bare markets. So there are some stocks that I could see holding on to in even in a bare market, but clearly one would rotate. And this is actually the subject of my talk that I just gave here at the V-Rick. Like what to do when everything you love is dear. If the idea is to buy low and sell high and everything you


like is high, yeah, sure it might go higher. I'm not saying it won't, but if the idea is to buy low, then you can't buy what's already high. And fortunately, you know, not all markets are in perfect sync. And right now I've actually been rotating some of my profits into the oil patch is I I I still like uranium and copper. We can talk about that too if you want. But the thesis on those is so obvious that the stocks are also at 52- week or all-time highs. Many of the better ones are being


recognized by the market. So I'm I'm waiting for volatility to be my friend there. Whereas in the oil patch, and Rick has been saying this for some time, others too, that oil is hated, right? you know, so that's fine, but it's also been sliding for years. And so what's changed for me is that I I can't say the market has bottomed, but there are legitimate opportunities to actually buy low in the oil patch, which I just don't see almost anywhere else. So if the, you know, if the idea


is to buy low, there is an opportunity. And here's the thing. If if your process, if your method is to constantly buy low, sell high, take some profits as you go, that will naturally rotate you into the next thing that you buy low. So, I don't know where gold and silver peak. If if it's if they double from here, I will still make more money because I'm still long. But if they're done, if the peak was actually last Friday, I'm already rotating into other areas and I can't lose. It's like I've already


taken my profits, right? So I win if it goes up, I can't lose if it goes down. And I've already started to rotate into other sectors. So if it turns out that the next thing is a bare market for years, well, I'm already deploying into new buy low things. So I'm not pretending that I know how this is going to play out. I'm not making a prediction here. What I'm making the case is if you focus, if your method is to look for opportunities to buy low, that will naturally almost automatically rotate


you out of things trading high into new things trading low. And that will, you know, you you know, wash, rinse, repeat. It will it will move you forward. You don't have to know where the top is. You just look for opportunities to buy low. Let's talk a little bit more about oil in that case because I think you've brought it up a little bit before and said it's not the time right now. So now it is the time. Where where are you looking to focus when it comes to the oil sector? >> Okay, let's be very careful here. Um I'm


saying that there are opportunities to buy low in the oil patch now, which I'm not seeing almost anywhere else. I haven't actually bought anything new yet. like the new edition of the independent speculator just went out last uh Monday and I put a shopping list on there and the guidance wasn't here's the stocks I want to buy and here's the price which is normally what I do here's here's my entry level and this time I said here's stocks I'm looking at buying and I will set the price when we get the


next big volatility because we've been seeing all these spikes up and down in oil oh there's going to be peace in Ukraine oh oil goes down oh there's going to be oh no peace in Ukraine oil goes up again or oh's doing this oh oil goes down you know it's been doing these crazy spikes up and down. So for years really on the way down. So I don't know where the bottom is. I think it's cheap enough now. It's hated enough now rule that I see good opportunities to buy low. But my guidance isn't so buy today.


My guidance is buy on this next volatile spike downwards negative spike. You know the the chances are almost zero that there won't be one. So, I'm I'm I'm looking at the at a market signal, a market volatility signal as opposed to a specific price as for what kind of companies, you know, there's a lot to choose from, but when you're looking at a cyclical low like oil's been sliding for years, and I think what we've talked about before, we've discussed this is, yeah, I


get it. I I agree with Rick, but I don't want to catch a falling knife. And what I'm saying now is I'm not sure the knife has hit the floor and it's lying there, but it's pretty close if it's not there. Close enough for me. So that's the difference. Um, and if you're going to do that, if you're if you're if if I'm right about that, if Rick's right about that, you know, we're looking at a cyclical low, sure, if you find some junior with an exciting


exploration play that makes a new discovery, you can have, you know, a 20 bagger, maybe 100 bagger could do that, but but nobody knows that in advance. the the risk there is quite significant from my view is like why bother with that risk if the the consistently profitable well-known dividend paying oil stocks have the potential to double triple or more if we're right about a cyclical low I'm okay with merely doubling my money or tripling it if my risk is not nil but very low like very low risk decent reward is much more


interesting to me then very high risk and and you know amazing reward but you know what are the odds. So it's funny I'm I'm a speculator but I'm not a wild gambler. I'm pretty cautious and sometimes I I'll swing for the bleachers but in general if there's a if there's an obvious no-brainer type pick with low risk you know why bother swinging for the bleachers you a double or a triple is not bad. >> I think that makes a lot of sense. So, thank you for going into that and we'll


check back on oil and see how that develops. I also want to ask you about the status of copper. So, we've talked about gold and silver. They're at these all-time highs. Copper also getting to record levels this year. So, were you able to get you the entry points that you wanted for the copper companies you were looking at? >> Yes and no. I did buy uh one copper stock last year and that was because there was a company specific fluctuation. This is probably giving it away. I'm not I I generally don't give


away stock picks because that's what people pay me for. It seems disrespectful. Uh and I don't want to be a tout, but I thought this one had some it was oversold. Like there was some legitimate concerns about the stock, but the the the sell-off was completely disproportional. So, at that point, you know, I'm a copper bull and okay, most other stocks are trading high, but this one is oversold. So, it became in my in my mind kind of a no-brainer. I um and by the way, it's done well. But


other opportunities have not materialized. I I had a a pretty lengthy copper shopping list and I didn't get filled on any of them. There there were two in specific that I even set price targets and I didn't get filled and they they run away from me and I'm just I don't know if I'm a mutant. I don't feel FOMO but I'm or I'm just pathologically averse to chasing stocks. I refuse to to chase them. So like my friend Doug Casey said, you can't kiss all the girls and


if these ones danced away from me, I'm not going to run after them. Uh one more thing on this. If you remember last summer when there was a scare in the copper space about the tariffs and copper went gonzoil and then the tariffs came out and it wasn't copper, it was finished copper products and oh and copper fell off a cliff and then it recovered later in the year and it's you know new all-time high at least nominally. But I was that was exactly the kind of opportunity I was hoping for. Copper falls off this little cliff


and I'm thinking great I'll be able to get filled on my copper stocks. No, no such luck. the stocks held up and there they wobbled a little bit but they didn't sell off anywhere near as much as the metal did. So as a potential buyer or as a wouldbe buyer at that time I found that rather frustrating but it tells you how obvious the opportunity is in the space which makes me even more reluctant to chase it. Um and what I've been saying now is you know what if copper never corrects and none of these


stocks come back in range and I end up short and not buying any of them that's okay. I'm not gonna chase them. Can't kiss all the girls. And why do I need to do that when there are actual buy low opportunities on the table, right? It's just not necessary to buy high and hope to sell higher when there are bonafide buy low opportunities. That having been said, that little known country just to the south of where we are right now is, if nothing else, a source of change and uncertainty in the world these days.


And volatility can be our very best friend. So, I'm actually well, I'm not the sort of person who feels FOMO anyway, but even if I was, I would, you know, tighten up and and bear out because if there's one thing that I'm highly confident we will see more of this year, that's more volatility in the markets. So, the last big scare in the copper space didn't give me the buying opportunities I was hoping for, but I think we'll see more. And I will be surprised if I don't get a chance to buy


some great copper companies at at least better prices, acceptable prices, not not all-time highs. >> Okay. Well, we'll follow up with you on that as well. And for now, we'll wrap it up. I know you don't like to be promotional for yourself, but can you let us know what you have on offer for these interesting times, where we can find you? >> Sure. Well, thank you very much for that. Obviously, I'm the due diligence guy on X. The website is independentspeculator.com and I have a free weekly letter called


the digest which you may or may not agree with everything I say but it's free and uh we won't spam you with advertisements. You get one email per week but I'll say one more thing in this environment you know you may not agree with me where the markets are going or which is your favorite commodity is that's fine. I I don't proclaim to be the future knowing guru. What I do claim to be as a due diligence guy and there's no amount of money any company can pay me to give them a positive rating when


they don't deserve it. So like my good friend Rick Rule, I have a sort of rating service. You know, he rates your portfolio. I rate companies and we have a database which has about a thousand companies in it and we take requests from clients and we're not always right, but we're always independent. I work for my readers. my readers only, not the companies. And so far, the companies that get a thumbs up or I'm a wolf, so it's a clause up, have outperformed the ones with a clause down. So, it seems


like there's some utility in my independent evaluation. So, I bring this up just because Rick's service is the closest thing I know of that in this space. I don't know of anything else like this in this space. And the point is, you don't have to agree with me on almost anything. All you have to believe to do business with me is that I'm not a crook. I don't want to quote Richard Nixon, but I think I just did. But if that's true, then I can help you with your due diligence. Like I'm bearish


platinum. Let's say you love platinum. Well, I'm still going to evaluate the platinum company to the best of my ability. And my team, I have a whole team that helps me do due diligence. We do site visits. We go, you know, travel around the world kicking the rocks on our reader behalf. So maybe that's of interest to people. You know, if if you're personally not going to go around the world kicking rocks, you can hire me and my team to do it for you. >> Well, I think that could certainly be of


use to many people. So, we'll have your links in the video description. People can take a look if they would like to. And we'll finish there. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about what's going on in the markets right now. >> Thank you, Charlotte. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Lobout Trag with independent speculator.com. [music]