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 I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Peter Gridge of Peter Grwich and Company. Thank you so much for being here. Always good to have you. >> Always a pleasure to speak to you, Charlotte. >> Really excited to get into this conversation looking back at 2025 and forward to 2026. I thought we could start by setting the stage a little bit because I was just reading a post on your blog. You're talking about how you're wrapping up the best one-year and

[clears throat] 5-year performances of your investing career. So, I think we've we've had quite a few conversations over the years. People can probably imagine how you got those results, but could you could you walk me through that and and share your thoughts there? >> Well, a lot of it had to do back in 2021. uh I made a decision that maybe onetenth of 1% of all people made a similar one and that was that for capital gains purposes only for at least 3 years and then it was extended into

the fourth that gold would outperform both the US stock market and bonds and as a macro strategist for a planning group with well over a thousand active clients I can tell you the number of clients who actually listen was one besides me. So, I knew it wasn't a popular thought, but for me anyway, uh I sold all general equities but one and uh no bonds, own no bonds and bought physical gold on the belief not because the world was coming to an end or I was going to be able to buy a loaf of bread

when others couldn't just for capital gains appreciation it could go up more than both stocks and bonds and through today actually it's up 36% with the Dow up about 36%. And the 10 years actually lost value over that time. And that's a shock because as a young stock broker 40 years ago, we would train people want to make money, you buy stocks. People don't want to lose money, you buy bonds. But unfortunately, bonds lost. And so I pretty well rode the physical gold ownership until earlier this year when I

switched to major gold producers cuz I felt their free cash flow would afford their stocks go up more percentage than the physical gold. And then of course I completely backed up the truck now uh on junior resource stocks by literally owning just three major junior resource stocks and the rest of my po personal portfolio is in cash money market T bills and CDs and that's because of a very dire to say the least outlook for the next few years for general investing. Yeah, I was going to say in in that blog

post that you wrote, so we we covered the good news, which is your your performance so far and maybe maybe the bad news is the outlook moving forward to 2026 2027. You do have a dire outlook there and I'm wondering if you can explain what you see coming and talk a little bit more about how you're preparing. >> So none of us who look into a crystal ball become anything of an expert other than to eat a lot of broken glass. So, I don't know for certain or near certain what's going to happen, but I am

concerned that of all the things I look at now and having been fortunate to sidestep or andor avoid the last three major downturns, seems to me that the issues facing us now, if you added all the three of them previous ones are not as bad as what we have going forward. I'll try to be brief and I'll try to be quick. from the most fundamental standpoint is uh we are in the bubble of all bubbles. Uh and we've seen that both in AI until as you and I speak today there's finally some air truly leaking

out of that bubble. We've seen it with things like crypto where you know mass sums of people have come cultlike and believe there's only one way and that's up up and away. And yet a lot of things economically and politically and socially don't support that uh thesis that that should be able to continue. The political concern is probably just as severe here in the US. I can't speak for Canada, but here in the US, I don't think we've ever been more divided than perhaps in our civil war. I I honestly

don't believe both parties, if there was a crisis tomorrow, could go in a room and try to even work it out. I think it would just magnitude the fingerpointing and blaming of each other and literally nothing would get done during that crisis as it developed. Socially, we have a lot of uh critical issues going on. We have about the top 10% wealthiest of Americans owning about 86% of all our assets. The next 40% of Americans own the remaining 14% and the bottom half own little or none. And there's a thing that a lot of people

talk about called the K economy. It's true that top to 10% Charlotte, they don't make their own food. They don't drive their own cars. They don't fly commercial. They live a different lifestyle than 90% of Americans do. And they have been blessed not to be impacted as the vast majority. In fact, they've profited a lot from the thinness of the stock market move. But nevertheless, they were able to participate in the fullest when others weren't able to. The problem that now

has created is that so many more people are threading water at best or slipping or falling. Their ears are now open to uh people who cry basically from a socialist, communist, whatever you want to put a tag on it these days, blaming and saying you're suffering because of those folks up at the top. So, we're going to have a war of classes as long as we're going to have a war of ages as well between the young and the old and all. And so, when I look at and there's so many more things to talk about, I

think one I should also make which has been critical to my decision-making. I voted for Trump, but I was neither a magnet person or someone that suffers from hatred of him. But I believed he made one very big critical error that'll come back and it is starting to come back and bite him in a trade war which wasn't necessary. He decided to go in with a big stick instead of an olive branch. And I have to look no further than your beautiful country. Listen, Canada was my second home away from

home. I was there every third or fourth week for 25 years. Most more of my friends that I still speak to today are Canadian than even in the US. And for a lot of years, you could cross the border and not even know you crossed the border because there was so much commonality. But as my Canadian friends tell me now, Pete, we still love you, but we can't stand America anymore. And that's part of what the Trump's hard nose that he took. And let's not forget some of his spokesperson like Lnik and Navaro who

early on were so arrogant and you know 90 deals in 90 days. Trump even said one day, I'm going to break the kneecaps of the brick members. And here we are as we approach the end of the year, Charlotte. And there's no major deal to point to. There's no real significant. All the hundreds of billions or trillions that were supposed to come here hasn't come. In fact, China has actually done better and had its best year exporting despite supposedly we going, you know, tough as nails with them. So I can spend the next

several hours, Charlotte, pointing out other factors, but those are just some of the reasons why I think you need to make capital preservation now, not capital appreciation the dominating part. And the older you are or the gray more gray hair or less hair you have, the more concerned if you're going to have to be because you won't have a lot of years to make up for it if I'm bright or half right that the markets maybe don't crash. I'm not in a crash camp. But I do think it's going to be far more

difficult to get the returns that people have grown accustomed to and therefore they will be overextended and as soon as they can't achieve what they've gone accustomed to then all the problems underneath come up from underneath the carpet and then we have you know much tougher times. >> Let's let's talk a little bit more about that capital preservation angle because it does sound like that's going to be so important for for people to pursue. What's the best way to do that in your

view? Is that gold, silver, precious metals? Are there any other things that you would put in that basket? >> They are. I've used this analogy. It's not a far from perfect, but just to give people some idea. Take your age and that should be your liquid part of your portfolio, meaning not at risk of principle. That could be simple money markets, that could be CDs, that could be T bills. And again, for Canadians, it'd be different. uh and the younger you are, the more risk tolerance you could take and still

have somewhat of an appetite for capital uh appreciation because you'll have years to make up for it if there is indeed difficult times. One of the numbers that are out that concern me greatly, I'm still part of a I'm a macro strategist to a a planning group here in the US and a lot of our clients are basically early 50s as the youngest and many in the 60s and 70s. Seniors now own twice as much equity than they did as a percentage 20 years ago. At a time when even the most bullish forecaster doesn't

say equities are cheap, they just give reasons why it should continue to go higher. [snorts] So if we're right about the equity market and it underperforms now compared to how it's performed for recent years, they have a lot more risk at it at a time when they have a lot of things not going right for them. A, they retired. B. Now, statistics tell us that if a married couple is 65 years old, one out of four chance that one of them at least is going to live to 100. So that's 35 more years of not working and hoping

to live off your assets to sustain a lifestyle at a time when now seniors are more concerned about running out of money than they are passing away. And so I just think there's a lot of conservative things that most people should do. Now, of course, uh some of that protection requires, uh medals. People forgot for a long time ago when I decided to make it as a capital gain opportunity, it was a beautiful premium to buy gold at 1,500 and 2000. It was great insurance. In fact, if I may, I used to sit for a lot of years with

couples and I would say to them, I want you to buy gold and hope it doesn't go up. and Charlotte, every single one of them, at least the husband or the wife or both would go, "Mr. Granwich, why would you want me to buy something that you don't think is going to go up?" And I would tell them, "Because if it does go up, chances are what you own a lot here, what you show me, is going to go down." Now, that hasn't been the case the last couple years. We've had both

the equity market rising and the gold price rising. I don't think that's going to continue. I don't think gold doubling or tripling from here as well, but I don't think it has the downside risk that the general equity market does. So, owning gold as an insurance policy is worthy. It's still okay as an appreciation policy, but I think the more opportunity is going to come in the companies that mine it and explore for it than actually owning the physical metal itself. Well, and of course, gold

was one of the topics I wanted to touch on with you. Because of all the factors that you've outlined, we can definitely see why the price has risen so high. Where would you place us in in the cycle for gold? It sounds like we've gotten so far in gold and and now it is time to look over to the companies. How how would you explain it further? >> So, the first thing I would tell everybody, which the real bulls don't like to hear either, I'm not a mega bull. So the mega bulls don't like to

hear this either who talk 10,000 20,000 and my response to that is 10,000 five or 10 years from now is okay 10,000 next year chances are life itself become much harsher that even the gains that you might have made from gold you've lost out because of what's gone even worse in life itself. [snorts] So the the target price you have and when is critical. I I I just think that uh gold can appreciate further. There are a lot of reasons why it should continue. The single biggest reason people need to understand from

day one and what made me make the switch. I concluded back in 2021 that America was going to lose its place in the world as the number one economic and military power. And obviously it was China that I betted on that would assume that assume that position. And the fact that China had gone into these relationships known as bricks was going to be beneficial because a it would look away from the dollar and also the US economy and work [clears throat] among themselves and not be totally dependent on the US as many countries had for for

a lot of years. That's why I believe Trump made a mistake taking this big stick into this trade war versus an olive branch. But the other thing that was clear to know was the huge sums of gold that was being purchased by central banks. Let's understand one thing. The the crypto people don't like this, but it is a fact of life. They're the people that have most of the money, the central banks, and they haven't touched crypto. They went to gold. Right or wrong, you can debate that with bit Bitcoin cult

members till the cows come home. But the bottom line is that's where they went and they went without knowing that this is not something they can trade. There's not going to be a bigger group that they're going to be able to sell this to and lock the profit away and go on. They were acquiring it because they recognized one day, somehow somewhere the way out of this debt implosion that's happening worldwide is not going to be a replacement of just another new fiat currency. It's going to have to be

have some sort of hardness or hard asset to it. And something that worked for a couple thousand years versus something that's only been around 10 or 20 was their choice. And and it's clear now because we've gotten some evidence now that they've begun testing in earnest a process called the unit where gold is making up 40% of it and the rest is of the currencies and that is in the time frame that we've been looking for and it's still a couple years away and I'm not in the camp that they're going to

introduce a new world currency but they are going to set up mechanisms that they'll be able to trade with themselves and not use the dollar and therefore that's also bullish. for gold in itself. But the other thing that's really bullish and I'm surprised that the Ardent bulls haven't spent more time on this in their advertisements and all and that is the major financial service firms in the United States talking about adding gold into a normal portfolio. I mean I I'm in this going to be in 42

years Charlotte and they treated it like kryptonite for 41 years. They didn't want to touch it. Now we have major firms talking about splitting the difference between bonds in the 6040 portfolio to have as much as 20%. Man, if you want to get crazy about large gold numbers, tell me you did see the future in most financial service firms in the US started buying physical gold for their portfolios to get to 20%. We will have a 10 or $20,000 gold price. But just that in itself that it's no longer treated with such dislike and

distaste by financial service firms, that's another one of the the bullish reasons. What I just want people to understand is this has been a tremendous move up almost somewhat parabolic including silver. Now we have had a great year. It it's not likely to have the same type of year next year. But even if it didn't go up at all, even if you saw the future and said, "Peep, I'm able to sit with you on December 12th, 2026, and tell you gold and silver is exactly where it was when you and I spoke on December 12th,

2025." And I would say, yeah, the shares still probably made money, especially the producers, because the free cash flow that you're going to get at $4,400 gold when in Canada where it's almost $6,000 the gold price, and they're pulling it out of the ground anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000. And they're still only using the analysts are only using $3,100 now as a long-term price for gold. and copper still at under four for many of them trading at five and a half. The amount of money that's going to be

made by producers and Charlotte, they don't have the troubles that technology or retail has where tomorrow everything can change in a store. Their two biggest fixed costs look like they're not going to go up a lot. Energy cost to operate their mines and wage cost to facilitate the people they need to produce and get the metals out of the ground. So free cash flow for producers should remain very strong at a time if I'm right about the market where earnings growth in other sectors waines and now these money

managers are going to look around and go why do these mining companies keep showing up on these earning reports that we're getting each quarter and we're seeing that now. If you talk to some of the major producing companies they'll tell you that they're hearing from what we like to call generalist money managers. people that aren't always just focused on mining now are interested and speaking of these companies openly and adding them uh to their portfolios and there's nothing on the horizon to

suggest that that free cash flow is going to stop anytime soon. >> Great takeaways on gold and the companies and just a small follow-up. So it sounds like going forward if you want to focus on the gold mining companies, you probably do very well. But for yourself, it also sounds like you're moving down the chain toward the juniors. So anything you would add on on that note for investors who might be interested in in going further down the chain? >> Well, I've gone down all the way down to

the chain. My portfolio only consists now of junior resource first. I had the physical meadows and the majors which are still going to do well but my entire exposure is limited to junior resource stocks and they are not close to fairly value to what the metal prices have done. There's reasons for that and some may continue somewhat but they have the most leverage now even if the medals stay at this level and the reason that is is the majors who have all this that we just spoke about and agree are going

to make all this money and grow their organic growth pipeline is very limited. they're going to greatly need to go out and acquire [clears throat] ready assets or soon to be assets versus trying to start projects on their own that may be 10 or 20 years away before it adds to their bottom line. So, as good as M&A's already been in the metals of mining, I suspect 2026 will be the banner year for them. And what I think also is also changed for the good is it used to be gold companies just looked for gold. But

what a lot of the gold companies led by Bareric and others now have recognized if you can find gold with a copper component or vice versa. Now the hard cost of bringing copper out of the ground which tends to be costly and more challenging at times if there's a gold component and there's a copper gold mix. Now it's become very advantageous. It helps uh with the financing and making driving costs lower and all. And you're noticing now some more of the majors talking about gold and copper in the

same breath. Something 20 or 30 years ago you never heard from the majors. >> Well, and I think copper is uh a good one to talk about as well. I remember it was uh one that you were feeling bullish on when we spoke midway through the year. Is your outlook for copper still the same? Do you have any concerns? I know with copper people often talk about if the economic situation turns for the worse that could be negative for copper. So what's your your overall outlook? >> So that was correct. That was an useful

cycle when there was ample above ground supply because if the economy slowed, there was enough copper out there so people didn't need to own it and it fell down in price. What's changed? First, you you get very concerned in this business, especially after 42 years, when a metal when a market does what you exactly thought it would do for a very long time, cuz you keep looking at, okay, there's got to be something coming down the road that it's going to turn this on me. But the bottom line is it's

done everything that I would want it to do this year. It started under four. It got to above five, which I felt by the end of the year, the supply and demand scenarios are only getting better. We're now hearing from major copper producers who were very dependable a few years ago now having marked increased difficulties keeping up with the expected amount of copper that they hope to deliver. We're having such difficulties with copper prices where smelters are paying now to get people to bring copper to them and

all. So the supply and demand scenario is the most bullish it's ever been since I've been involved in it. And quite frankly, when you add the political and social risk now of major mining companies, I think that's something that isn't often spoken about, but we should take a moment on it. I was a big player 15 years ago in West Africa. I helped finance some of the companies that ended up developing mines there. And I decided almost 10 years ago never to put a dime there again because I felt within 10 or

15 years, nationalization was going to become a way of the world in those countries. And we're seeing that now. And the reason I bring that out, not to pat myself on the back, but to say is you can't do what we could do 20 or 30 years ago. You and I could have been at a gold show 20 years ago, spin a globe, go like this, and go, "Yeah, we can go mining there." Not anymore. And the problem, especially with copper, is some of the places that over in the world where we wanted to go have tremendous

social, economical, and political challenges now. So these majors are not about to spend billions because that's what it ends up costing really to produce a major copper mine unless they can get much higher prices and some sort of more certainty and they just can't in certain areas of the world anymore. That's why I other than one holding I've limited my holdings to North America and even there there may be a couple places I wouldn't go. I wouldn't go anywhere in California and feel that I would have

money. But that's another bullish thing that we need to touch on. When I used to go to the mining shows in Vancouver, almost every year there was a protest outside by the groups that were protesting free the owl, free the turtle, whatever it might have been, environmentalists, and the politicians were standing outside with those people voicing their concern to the miners in the convention hall. Now this year, those same politicians are going to be in the convention halls with the mining companies talking about all that they

can to bring these mines to bear because how much countries realize now they've let the ball drop in terms of critical minerals and regular minerals and Canada and the US are no different in that. And this is a uniqueness which is another bullish factor >> [clears throat] >> uh for the mining situation that politics and mining has come on the same side of the coin. now. >> Yeah, it does seem like a shift that is really starting to actually happen. And you're right, I haven't seen a protest

outside a mining conference for a little while. So, these are these are trends that we will keep an eye on. I also I know you mentioned silver briefly. I wanted to go in a little bit more depth there and see how you're feeling about silver because I remember years ago, I think you weren't really very bullish on silver. When we talked in July or so, you you were feeling better about silver. And I'm wondering, you know, we've seen this big move in silver in last half of the year. Even in the last

couple of weeks, really, it's gone way up. Were you expecting this? Did you see this coming for silver? >> So, you're right. As a manager and then as a person that was involved with mining companies, I would speak at the typical metal show and then asked about silver and I would use this line, owning silver was like kissing your sister. And I would get booed by the silver buns even though I was a metals bull overall. I wasn't saying short it and all, but it always was second class to me versus

gold. However, earlier this year when it briefly broke under 30, I took a hard look and said, "Wow, the fundamentals have just dramatically improved for silver." And the spread at the time between silver and gold warranted to move silver up to the same level as gold and then weeks later say it could actually outperform gold for quite a while, which it has. It's had a very strong nearly parabolic move here and it is deserving of and probably in need of a consolidation. Not saying it's going

to lose 20 or 30% from here, but not go in a straight line continuously here without building more of a base here would probably be the best case. And as you and I speak, we have really just one more week of week of decent trading. Once we get to the 19th of December and we have triple witching here in the US and everybody goes home that Friday, the next two weeks, there's not a lot of people around and your markets can move a lot more one way or another because of that. But in earnest, the second week in

January is when normally everybody kind of gets back and we get going again. I do think that there was uh two huge big changes for silver. won in the medals in general, which was the other reason, another one of many reasons I got bullish for a lot of years. Uh me and a few other people, especially when I was a money manager, we were called cooks because we talked about gold and silver being manipulated and things of that nature. And uh then of course 10 or 15 years ago, we saw a lot of indictments.

Some people were charged. But the biggest story was that London and the US were no longer controlling the physical market. It had moved to Asia and therefore their paper effect of limiting and suppressing boat metals dissipated to the point where it disappeared. And now the argument, no one's ever going to be able to prove it 100% unless a true smoking gun is shown. But apparently uh those people who played the short side of that market in those two main markets, London, New York, were caught

on the wrong side and that helped propel the silver up here. What I think it's done both, and we've seen that in gold already. What I think it's done is it it it's no longer going to be a a place where a lot of people going to go play. It'd be too dangerous for them to go back to their old ways, even if they're still around to do that. the physical markets become so dominant in Asia and that's the area of the world where they're using phys physical metals for their economic and monetary purposes.

That's a lot to go up against. Plus now as I told you earlier the financial service firms some of us we feel might have been in bed with these people are now talking about owning the physical metal. So [snorts] that's a a depressant that used to hang greatly over the silver market as well that I believe is gone or is at least dissipated to where it's not going to have the influence that it once had. And therefore that's bullish as well. So in a in a perfect world, which almost never exists if you

stay in this business long enough, but in a near-perfect world, some consolidation now of both these moves into the first quarter of next year is not harmful at all. And quite frankly would be very beneficial. And I would say then that more interest will turn to the share side of it because hopefully at that same time both the crypto market and the general equity market is peaking maybe rolling over or actually turned down somewhat in the first quarter and that will attract it because Charlotte

what's killed the junior resource market more than any other one thing is the crypto market and not because of what crypto stands for but the people who went to play it if it didn't exist were a lot of people that would have ended up in the junior resource market. And therefore, I argue that the junior resource market currently up until now recently is smaller now than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Uh it really hasn't had really any great bull market since 2010 and 11. So, a lot of the players that

might have existed moved on to other things or passed on or what have you. And now we're just starting to see people come back to that market first through the majors, then the middle ones. And now we're starting to see and a good sign is the financings are being done uh not best efforts, but guaranteed. There aren't warrants. There's they're closing in a matter of days. There's real sense of an interest returning, not yet to the level that once used to exist, but much better than

just 12 months ago. Well, and I guess this is coming as we see this this decline in the Bitcoin price. So, would you say that I guess maybe do you think that will continue and do you think that will keep playing into that transfer of people hopefully back into the mining and junior resource sector? >> So, I get a lot of hate email cuz I call it Bitcon and that itself generates mail from people who are great believers in it. But when you look at what's transpired there, first the NFTts, if

you remember, it was just a few years ago when people were raving that the next big thing was buying art or real estate online somewhere's in space. Well, they're down 95%. That that industry doesn't even exist anymore. The worst thing cryptocurrencies is memcoins. No offense, Charlotte, but give me a pile of, you know, dog dew. I can at least put that in my backyard and make fertilizer out of it. The only thing a memecoin has going for it is the greater fool theory that somehow someway

you can convince somebody to pay more for it because there's no other use for it other than that. That's getting beaten up now. Uh even the Trumps and all of their involvements. They're down 50 75 80% from their highs. Now there's a lot of competition to Bitcoin. There's a lot of other cryptocurrencies. And it's starting to be viewed now even within the cryptocurrency community that maybe Bitcoin doesn't have all the things necessary to be the next big thing and that there's alternatives to

that. It's technology and all that other stuff. And then of course it's promoted by the the greatest snake oil salesman of all time that even Bernie Maid off is probably impressed by as he reached this news stories of what this man has been able to do and created a Ponziike scheme by turning a technology company into simply just a buyer of Bitcoin because that somehow helps the market propel and keep going higher. So I I I think we've seen the peak in them. Keep this in mind. Go look at all the predictions

from all these household names in that community. We were already supposed to be at a million or 10 million or 100 million some predicted as a price and it really couldn't get get above much or stay even above a 100,000 and it's petering out. And so that's to me a bullish factor for the junior market and the m metals and mining industry in general for 2026. And all the hate mail can come now. Well, hopefully hopefully not too much. I don't think from our crowd you would you would get too much

hate mail on that. Well, good to see how how that all connects and it's all coming back to mining. Before I let you go, I have a couple of questions that I'm trying to ask everybody that I'm speaking to as we come toward the end of the year. So, if we look forward to 2026, what would your pick for top performing asset be? It can be a commodity, but it doesn't it doesn't have to be. It'd be hardressed to get anything passed that's not related to metals and mining. Most sectors look fully priced.

There isn't we're probably still a year away, I think. So, it probably be the tail end of 26 or early 2027, but if oil was to get down to around $50 or so or under 50, I think it would come compelling. Unfortunately, many of the shares related to oil is still trading as if oil was 80 or $90. I don't think there's any one particular. I would probably say that I'd be happy with a double-digit return for gold and silver from here, meaning 10 to 20% higher would be fine. Uh that

certainly would be better than losing 10 or 20%, which I think there's ample opportunity things like AI and crypto and all. I certainly believe a lot of the crypto can still be down 25 to 50% from here during the course of 2026. And so I think that takes you to what my advice to our clientele is. It's not how much you're going to make, but how much you don't lose, which is actually going to separate the winners from the losers. And I think that's the attitude that's going to best serve people for 2026.

>> Well, perfect. And that was going to be my my last question to you. Best advice for investors next year. So, we wrapped them both up unless you had anything final that you wanted to add for people. >> Well, I do add one thing and and it's a it's it's sarcasm, but it has a lot of meaning underneath it and that is my clients have been advised, be a live chicken versus a dead duck. This is not going to be the time to be riskoriented. Uh error on the side of caution and listen, this is what I hear from a lot

of even longtime clients. Pete, I know you're right, but I'm praying you're wrong. And you know what? Praanish could be wrong. We could have another banny year in equities and the metals could turn down and all, but taking the position I'm taking, I won't cost people a lot of money. And when you after 42 years, a good year is not costing people money. >> Well, I think that's that's great words to wrap up on. So, thank you so much for coming on to talk and hope to have you

back in the new year. >> Thank you, Charlotte. God bless you. >> Of course. Once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Peter Grandich. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit [music] the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below. [music]