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 I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Jay Martin, CEO of BAC Media and host of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> I'm happy to be here, Charlotte. Looking forward to this. >> So happy to have you back once again. We are heading into the end of 2025 into 2026. And of course, we know that the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is coming right up in January. So, we're going to get into that, but I thought we

should start by setting the stage because so much is is different and changed from the last time we spoke about a year ago, especially when it comes to gold. So, I thought we could begin there and get your take on where we are in the cycle for gold after this historic year that we've had. Yeah, that's the million-dollar question. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because depending on who you talk to in the sector, you'll hear from investors that think the industry is already getting too frothy, too hot, too

much mainstream coverage and all of this. And quite frankly, I I chuckle a little bit, Charlotte, when I hear that because what that really shows me is that it's been so long uh since the last good market in the gold sector that investors have quite literally forgotten what a good market feels like. And as soon as they see any mainstream financial media press coverage, they assume that means we're near a top. Uh but obviously you can reflect on the cycle of any other asset that we've seen

run over the last 10 years and that's we're not even close. And in fact in many of the generalist investor groups that I'm a part of you'd be shocked at how infrequently if at all gold is even mentioned as an asset class that people should consider. You and I being inside the circle. We're much more sensitive to that and so we feel the industry heating up. We see the cash coming in, the share prices appreciating, but you know, one step outside of the immediate circle of precious metal investors, and it's still

a conversation that hardly at all happens on the margins at best. Um, and and the way this gold market has rolled out has been incredibly textbook. It's been slow. It's been methodical. Uh, it's required a lot of patience from investors. Anybody who is looking at share prices today and thinking, "Oh, it's it's getting a little hot. It's moving a bit quickly." Should just remember how impatient they felt in 2023 when central banks were buying up physical gold at record numbers and the

physical price started to move, but the equities were flats and investors were complaining, what's wrong with the market? Why is the price of physical decoupled from the equity prices and all of this? And then towards the end of 2023, we saw the best-in-class royalty companies begin to catch a bid. And six months later, the best-in-class producers begin to catch a bid. And the whole way along, investors were complaining, how come the explorers aren't catching a bid yet? What's going

on? Why is this? So if I were to step back and look at this from that time horizon, it's actually been very patient and methodical, which is great news because often market cycles, you know, the the um the the down cycle reflects the upcycle and so you want a very slow, patient, methodical trickle of capital into the sector. That's often reflected in the back half as well. So >> great, great observations, I think, and a good reminder for everyone who is maybe feeling a little bit nervous right

now and it ties into a theme that I saw coming up. I was mentioning to you before we turned the camera on. I'm just back from the New Orleans investment conference and one of the topics that was coming up there is concern around the mainstream attention gold is getting people wondering is this still a contrarian investment because people are so used to to being on that side of the trade. So, anything you would add there on the the contrarian nature of gold at the moment? >> Well, yeah, you look at that coverage

and how the gold sector is being explained and people are confusing this gold rally with just the next asset rally and they're comparing it to any previous rally they participated in. Maybe that was AI, maybe that was crypto, whatever. And gold's just next in line. This is the next asset that we should get into and then out of. And that's why they're calling it the debasement trade. They've got the first part of that right. But the second part doesn't make sense because if you think

about the mechanics of a trade, it means you have some cash. You trade that cash for an asset that's undervalued. Once that asset appreciates, you trade it back for cash. But the mission behind the debasement trade is that we're trading out of cash that is being debased into something that cannot be being gold. Well, at what point in that process are those investors going to trade that non-debased asset back for the debased one? like the second half of that trade won't materialize the way

people are thinking about it now. And you can't fault them for thinking about gold that way because that's how investors have been conditioned. But as people will learn, the gold market's a little bit different. And a hot gold market isn't just the next asset rally. It's a smoke signal for some bigger tectonic shifts that are occurring. And we're watching those. And so I think the first half of the debasement trade as people are qualifying in is occurring, but midway through they'll realize they

had that a little bit wrong. They're not going to want to go back to the debased asset they traded out of and they'll begin to understand the bigger shift happening in the marketplace that is led by the gold price. >> Great point. That is a little bit of a misnomer there, at least in in the second half of the phrase. And I'm wondering, so we know that gold is a a long-term hold for most of the people I think that we're speaking to right now, but there is a lot of questions right

now about the next trigger for the leg hired that will come next. And I'm wondering what you see because there's of course so many drivers of gold right now to choose from. Yeah, I think if you get back to kind of the bedrock bed bedrock foundation of this gold market and recently, let's not go too far back, but say 2021 2022. Uh these are the preliminary buyers of physical and mass quantity and they provide that foundation right now with which this market's being built on top of and that's very slow, very patient,

very long-term capital being central banks. It's important to understand the incentive for that transaction to have occurred. Central banks began buying gold because they were making two core assumptions. The first assumption was that the US dollar would continue to be devalued and the second assumption was that US geopolitical strategy would be less predictable in the future than it was in the past. So unless those two assumptions are no longer true, the gold thesis from that standpoint is still

intact. That will keep the gold price elevated and that will continue to produce quality quarterly earnings for all the gold producers which will mandate the biggest institutions in the world to have an allocation to this industry that is one of the only to be generating significant amounts of cash right now. And so it always takes a few quarters of earnings reports before Wall Street begins to develop mandates for increased exposure to an industry. And we're getting there now with the gold

sector and will continue to be because a lot of the projects that we're watching today were put into production at $2,000 gold, $1,800 gold, you know, and so we could knock $500,000 off the gold price and they're still more favorable than they were 6 years ago. I don't think that's going to happen. But the point is it takes, you know, three, four, sometimes five quarters of earnings before major institutions are mandated to move in because their shareholders are demanding it. And so, you know,

that's another large, patient, long-term capital player that's just beginning to enter the sector right now and add some buoyancy to the equities. >> Well, and talking a little bit more about how gold is going mainstream. People are waking up to how well the gold stocks are performing. We mentioned we're looking forward to VRC in January. Do you have any early indications that maybe the the crowd of people who are attending is going to be bigger, is changing in terms of the makeup of who

will be there? Anything you're seeing at this point? >> Last week I had to rent an additional exhibit hall for the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. So there's there's an indicator and that's just an expression of new interest coming to our sector, right? My conference is a good gauge of investor sentiment because it's a retail investment conference, right? We will get around 8,000 investors there and lots of advisers, analysts, and institutional money, but the majority of

my attendees are retail investors, Charlotte, folks like you and I who have a day job but also invest some capital in the junior mining sector. And so when we see our audience begin to swell a little bit, that's an indication of sentiment. And our numbers forced that uh decision last week. And I was very opposed to it. By the way, I've really held the line at containing my conference to a very conservative size for the last few years because of how difficult the last 13 years in the business have been. And I don't want to

overpromise uh any of our clientele and and and show attendees, but we couldn't ignore the numbers this year. Now, you could hear that and say, "Oh, that's another frothy signal." But just for context, we are still less than 50% my conference less than 50% the size that it was in 2010 and 2011 um during the last bull market run. less than half the size still even with this expansion. So we are seeing a lot of new capital come to the sector. It's great to see it's it's well earned and I think

um they're in a good place. I can feel really good about driving attendees to this conference this year because I have a lot more confidence in the management teams in the junior mining sector than I did in 2010 and 2011. Right? That was a bit of a disastrous year to get into this industry. Right now is the exact opposite of that. Right? We're becoming favorable. Political sentiment is shifting towards our industry, which we haven't seen in 12 years, both in the US and Canada. The political narrative is

now supporting the extraction industries. The critical metals list in the US now has 60 metals on it, up from 35 in 2018. Um, and so our industry is suddenly in favor politically. And that will continue to attract more capital because people want to invest where it's safe and supported. and it hasn't been mining for a long time, but that's coming back very quickly now. >> Certainly, we're we're starting to see so many positive changes for gold and the mining industry in general. And I I

think it's important to note though, so you mentioned this influx of people who are coming into the sector. And we've both heard I think many times when gold is doing well, that tells you that something not good is happening in the world. And you talked a little bit about this when you're speaking about drivers of gold, but maybe if you have any further thoughts on what gold is telling us about the world, what people who are coming to the conference, coming into the sector might be picking up on right

now. >> I think people understand that we're going through a massive tectonic shift geopolitically and most people are having a hard time understanding that and that's because it's a very complex thing to understand. What is clear is that my entire life has been an era of increased access to a wider variety of cheaper and cheaper goods. That was the era of globalization. And any company or any country, if you had the cash or the credit, you could buy whatever you wanted from whoever had it. That era is

definitely over. What happens next will be a lot harder to predict. It's not going to be quick or simple, but it will be different. It's a reshuffleling of the geopolitical chessboard. And all that means for commodity investors is that those same companies and countries that could previously buy whatever they wanted from whoever had it can no longer have that certainty. And that's why we're seeing an expansion of the critical metals list. Silver all of a sudden is on the critical metals list.

That's because politicians can no longer be certain they can procure the supplies they need to build the economies they're mandated to to build. Whether that's, you know, military development, we're looking at delivery timelines from Loheed Martin now consistently two to five years behind schedule. That's supply chain issues that are causing that. And so that's the big shift. And [snorts] you know, this arrives in people's lives in different ways. Um, most commonly it's through, you know,

uh, consumer price inflation. They're just paying more for stuff and they're not sure why. But when they dig one or two levels beneath the surface, what they'll find is that supply chains are going to continue to be disrupted because the sort of collection of geopolitical allies and adversaries is shifting very quickly. And it's very hard to predict who's going to land where. And in an era of uncertainty, you're going to have to pay more for the things you want certainty over. And raw

materials, the building blocks of everyday life, if it wasn't grown, it was mine, are sort of front and center in that. And so, you know, I think that's why a lot of people are picking their head up, looking around and saying, "What's going on out there? Regional conflicts, civil unrest, trade aggressions, all these sensational headlines." And a large percentage of those people end up turning their attention to the raw material sector because it's my core belief if you dive

beneath any of these hyperbolic headlines, what you'll find is the core motivations are supply and demand of raw materials. That's what's triggering all of this activi activity whether it's trade aggressions or hot war conflicts etc. So a big percent of people come to our sector for that reason. >> Well and I was going to ask you where you're seeing opportunity right now beyond gold and the precious metals and it sounds like certainly critical minerals is on your list but it it gets

tricky. I agree definitely they're coming to the four but as you mentioned there's so many critical minerals now. We've got silver on the list in the US, many, many more. And I think it can make it difficult for people to approach, okay, I want to invest in critical minerals. Where do I go? So, how do you go about sorting that out for yourself? >> I think you have to get really clear on where you want to build a competitive advantage, and you can't be everywhere at once. And so, um, I like to have most

of my portfolio built around, uh, core thesis that I have a lot of confidence in. So I am disproportionately exposed to copper, silver, and uh and gold. Um and we can dive into those. Uh but you know, I also think a metal like nickel is positioned incredibly well right now. Uh because the market's been flooded with, I believe, an unsustainable supply of very cheap and very dirty nickel from Indonesia. And that's why the nickel price looks sort of opposite to every other hard commodity price that you

might look at these days. It's a very unique situation, but that's not a sustainable situation. And this has created a lot of very cheap Australian and Canadian nickel companies, but it's a asset that you got to be very confident in sitting on for 3 to 5 years for that situation to turn around. Um, right now, Charlotte, honestly, given all the uncertainty in the world, I like things that are steadfast. And so I don't get into too many obscure metals because um you know a lot of the you

know the rare earth thesis for example rare earths aren't rare. We we know this. They're very abundant in the earth's crust. The choke point is actually the refinement right? And so if you misunderstand this, you know why the supply is scarce, you'll probably make some poor judgment in your investment thesis. And so watching that sector, what you want to watch for is the refinement, not the supply and the mining. and these more obscure critical metals. The more obscure you get, you know, what you're

talking about is emerging technologies or advanced weaponry or um you know very specific magnet applications that uh are used uh that's what these metals are used for. And any emerging tech, innovative tech is subject to pivots and re-engineering. And so the supply side of these metals is just a lot less certain. And so, you know, the gambler of me likes to likes to make some bets every now and then, but my core portfolio is like gold, silver, copper. I'm very strong there. Um, I'm not as

exposed to uranium, although I think it's a great bet and I that's just an example of I stick to what I can focus on every day and I can I have a very big competitive advantage in gold, silver, copper because I obsess over those markets. You know, we have tons of uranium exposure at my conference, but as a personal investor, I don't obsess over that industry as much as I feel like I would need to to have that competitive advantage and uh invest capital aggressively. >> Well, I think it's it's great advice to

stick to what you know makes a lot of sense. And if we're talking about things that are steadfast, copper, I think certainly fits the bill. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what you see coming for copper and how you're [clears throat] approaching it because I've been hearing about copper as a good story for years now and it has seemed like it has been in the long term. Maybe now though it's it's coming forward a little bit in terms of when we might start to see a little bit more

activity in copper. So how are you looking at it? There's there's two main uh convictions you'll hear on the copper sector in my experience and the the bull copper case would say we are about to see unprecedented demand for this metal on the heels of renewable energy AI data centers and this is going to put pressure on the copper price like we've never seen before and demand's going to go through the roof. The bears would say yes probably. But in the meantime, we're probably facing a globally coordinated

recession and that's going to absolutely crush demand. So, you know, those hopes and dreams are they're just fallacy. They're not actually going to materialize inside of this decade. [snorts] What I like about copper is that you can look at 50 years of supply and demand dynamics that will help you make sense of those two opposing points, which are probably both true. And what you'll see if you go back to copper supply and demand fundamentals from 1970 and go decade over decade, 1990, 1980,

1990, 2000, 2010, is you'll see that we've increased our copper demand by about 4 to 6 million metric tonses every decade with remarkable consistency for the last 50 years. And why that's important is because over the last 50 years, we saw massive technology innovation and disruption. So anything we're forecasting in the future from a tech standpoint has happened in the past. The dawn of the internet, the personal computers, smartphones, like urbanization of China, we saw all this,

right? That happened over the last 50 years. So whatever happens in the future, we can look at the past and say, well, it actually didn't cause tremendous spikes along the way. It was still very consistent. And to the downside as well, we may be faced with a globally coordinated recession in the near future, but guess what? We've had like three of those in the last 15 years. So we can look at that as well. and say despite those events both to the upside and to the downside our copper demand growth has been very consistent

if you step back to a decade over a decade approach which I think is a smart take for an asset like copper. Now the interesting part of the story is that supply actually met demand like right on the nose in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and then in 2010 a little gap began to open up that got very wide in 2015 and really began to broaden in 2020. And that's just a factor of us not reinvesting in new supply uh beginning in the 2000s. And so that is now materializing in front of us. It takes about 10 to 20

years to get a copper mine online. We stopped investing in copper supply about 15 years ago and now we're living in that reality and it's going to take a few years for us to close that gap. So, I'm very bullish on the copper sector, but I'm very clear on my time horizon. And so, if anyone's rushing in thinking, I see the supply and demand gap, this is a no-brainer. It's a no-brainer eventually, that doesn't mean it's a no-brainer in six months. And people have to be very clear on that. So,

copper will do very well this decade. Uh, but there's going to be volatility along the way, but it's a very sure bet. >> I agree. Time horizon so important. And I wonder if briefly you can talk to me a little bit about what you see coming for silver because of course it's a precious metal. It does have that steadfast angle, but it's known for its volatility. So, how do you deal with that in your your approach? >> Silver is a complex one, right? Because you have many driving forces uh

participating in that market, both industrial and monetary incentives to invest in silver. And then as a consequence of there being very few silver primary mines, the supply actually doesn't respond to price the way most commodities would. Right? We're right now rushing to get new copper mines online because of the price. Gold producers the same because of the price, but most silver comes from gold mines. And so you can't actually have that reactive nature. Uh there's only like nine silver companies on the NYC. It's a

very small market. And that's largely why it's so volatile. It's it's sort of the the meto uh metal. When gold starts to run, silver uh investors look for leverage in the silver sector and they get it because it's a much smaller industry and so bets go a lot further to the upside and the downside. Um you know, I I think about it like this, Charlotte. The the shore money is made in the gold sector, but the big money is made in the silver sector. And you know that's proven true over the last couple

precious metal cycles. I believe it'll be true in this one as well. Um but because of that volatility, it's definitely a smaller piece of my portfolio relative to my gold positions. Um more volatile, but uh that's where the big money is typically made. >> I haven't heard it said quite like that before. I like I like how you phrase it there. All right. So So these themes and more are going to be expressed on stage at VRC in January. Is there anything you can share at this point about the

lineup? Any highlights that you are really looking forward to? >> I I'm so excited for this year's event, Charlotte. It's uh we have we have about 120 keynote speakers coming out to the conference. Uh six stages this year at the show surrounding our exhibition hall that'll have around 300 mining companies looking to tell their story and and raise some money. So if you're looking to allocate capital to this sector, the reason you come to the VRIC is to sit in the front row, hear from dozens of

capital allocators in the sector. Anybody on stage, we bring them out because they have a solid track record of allocating cash to the junior mining sector and I want to know where they're putting their money in 2026. So that's what they talk about on the podium. We have a bunch of workshops, five workshop rooms where we get very specific into individual equities, what these investors are buying and why and their thesis on a variety of metals. And then on our main stage, we cover the biggest

macro and geopolitical themes that matter to commodity investors. And so you'll hear a wide array of, you know, trade war conversations, geopolitical breakdowns and analysis. Um, as long as it ties back to the supply and demand of raw materials, I want it covered at this conference. It truly is the Super Bowl for the for the mining sector. And um, vicia.com for tickets. Uh, general admission in Charlotte is actually free if you just want to come take a seat, talk to companies. Uh, you're our guest. You do

have to register and, you know, answer a couple questions, but you can get in the door, no problem. For anybody who wants extra access, you want to meet Robert Kiyosaki and give Rick Rule a high five or whatever, uh, meet Nomi Prince, Danielle D. Martino booth, grab a VIP ticket. It gets you guaranteed seating in the speaker hall, which will absolutely be full this year, but this will get you the best se seats in the house and a guaranteed seat uh ticket to the keynote uh speakers reception, which

is sort of a highlight of the event. Um, on Sunday night after the conference, we have a little private gathering for all the keynote speakers. I hope to see you there. And our VIP ticket holders where they can just kind of spill some wine and get to know each other in a more intimate and quiet setting. So, that's a highlight for the VIP ticket holders for sure. But, January 25, 26. I'm looking forward to it. >> January 25th, 26. We'll have all the details in the video description so

people can find out more. Hopefully, sign up. I'm really looking forward to it. And I will let you go for now. I have one final fun question that I will ask before I let you go, which is looking forward to 2026, what would be your pick for the top performing commodity of the year? [snorts] >> 2026 top performing commodity. I'm going to go with silver. I'm going to go with silver. If you're making me pick one if that's what you're making me do, I'm going to go with you. If you want to add

to it, feel free. >> No, no. I'll I'll play that game. That That's fun. I think um I think as mentioned earlier the the sure money is on gold but the big money is on silver and I think we're going to see that materialize in 2026. So if I had to pick one to go all in with the purpose of maximal return and accepting the risk, I'm going with silver. >> Okay. Well, perfect. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about the market BR. Great to have you as always. >> Thank you, Charlotte. Appreciate it.

>> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is J Martin. >> Thank you for watching. [music] If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below.