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 [Music] I'm Charlotte McCloud with investing news.com and here today with me is Peter grandich of Peter grandic and Company really good to have you here once again and in your conu jersey I love it yeah I hope to be in Vancouver for a show and unfortunately I can't travel and my I picked on so many people in Vancouver for decades that I felt the least I could do was wear it for a day around a conference so the least I could do is wear it when I'm speaking to you as well well I I certainly appreciate it and so

good to have you on right now so much going on with gold and in the markets in general so of course there's there's so many factors at play right now for gold what would you pick out as the main drivers that you're watching right now well the main driver has been the just an onslaught of buying by the central banks coupled with repatriation by uh countries has been the key factor and behind that is and we'll probably talk about a little later is what was happening with the bricks and all

because we we still see net selling out of the exchange traded gold funds it's it it's a phenomena that you know I sit here bewildered sometimes uh not only that but because the the mining shares have not partaken in such a high price yet but it's it's an amazing that there that the financial service community in least in the US is continuing to be net sellers of the investment that's outperformed their two favorite Investments stocks and bonds since the New Millennium began and yet here we are

yeah I think that is quite amazing to me as well and I wonder we'll get into this a little bit more as well but just off the bat here what do you think could spark a a turnaround in that interest in Western investors well I personally Charlotte have never expected Ed the General Financial Service community and I can only speak for the US I don't have any dealings in Canada anymore for quite a while it it's cryptonite to the typical financial advisor down here their their livelihood is built on stocks and bonds

and and normally if Gold's going to go up a lot it's usually happening for reasons that may not be as bullish for stocks and bonds if you think about it since 20121 it's it's out well it's actually outperform them since the Millennium but here we are four years now since I got out of the equity Market to own gold and it's outperformed both of them including bonds and that's unheard of because when I was a young financial advisor many decades ago the sales manager would always tell you

listen if you're worried about the stock market put them in bonds because they never lose money well bonds lost money the last few years and all so I I don't fully expect the General Financial Community to ever the return to it what I do expect is that the mining gold mining companies now are basically going to print cash their free cash flows just going to be records after the records fourth quarter will be outd do out soon but now we're gold at 28 2900 the next couple quarters and they'll be one of

the few sectors that I probably see dramatic growth and earnings because the regular stock market is priced perfection even the biggest Bulls are not expecting a great increase in earnings so that will help maybe get some interest from the financial service Community but they're never going to go back and own gold in a big way they're just not yeah well I think that's that's important maybe for us all to realize at this point and I'm going to come back to the gold stocks a little

bit later before we go there maybe we take a another look at what's going on in the overall picture for gold so talking about what's going on with the price right now and drivers I know there's so much turmoil around this tariff situation so at this point it's changing day-to-day but we have can and Mexico the tariffs have been deferred for China That's not been the case and when we look at the bricks it seems like Trump is still talking about 100% tariffs on the bricks so I wanted to

make sure to bring that up to you since you follow the bricks Nations very closely do you see those tariffs being put in place and if they are is that going to deter them from their dollarization efforts well I think in recent days first it's important to talk about what has been driving it you know a couple years ago and I became so bullish on gold that I decided to own it versus even stocks or bonds one of the beliefs was and I stated back then to you and others that the the shifting of trading of gold from London New York to

Asia is going to kill the paper Market which has basically been manipulated at times and suppressed the gold market purposely or onp purposely not here it be conspiracy or whatever and with that you would eventually see the physical outweigh of the paper market and then gold could really take off that was the thesis and that's basically what's happened in recent days and weeks for whatever reason fears of tariffs actual tariffs whatever the case may be the physical Market has had such a strong

run in recent days that has caused the paper Market to really have huge issues and also people that have to make physical deliveries and all and that's that's been a need but the longer picture which you touched on is the real bullish one so the brick which couple years ago when I got behind it and aided in me wanting to own gold and I don't roofer as American because if I'm right about it it's not going to help America it's going to hurt America but they basically decided that

dollarization is here it's only going to get weaker and worse to own over time and not that they needed to create a new currency because that was always talk that came out of bullion dealers that was never something that the actual leading country spoke about but they needed to look for ways to trade without the dollar and around the the us and that really was the idea of the brics formation well if you talk to a country now and say well let me just tell you this the United States first they

abandoned their allies including Canada when they left Afghanistan then in the K Ukraine war they froze the assets they were the lead reason to freeze the assets of the Russians and then they took the interest which was entitled to be theirs and give it to their enemy and now the new guy in the block meaning Trump he's basically said if you don't play with us he's going to beat you down to the pulp they're not going to try to get into a wall of words with him but that's a marketing piece for those that want

bricks and I think it's going to backfire in him uh speaking that way now he does a lot of these things to position himself you know the odd of the negotiator and all but that's a very very bullish factor and they recognize that whatever they do eventually in size they're not going to be able to do it with just a fiat currency they're going to need something of a real asset just either between themselves or it ever grows someday to be something that others could be involved in that aren't part of the pack

and that's the reason for the accumulation of a gold listen the central banks have not bought all this gold and repatriate for a trade because who do they trade it to they're not going to be able to flip and make that money so they have bought it on the belief that somewhere down the road gold is going to play a more important role on how we live now I may be passed by the time that comes but it's coming okay okay I think that gives us a good look at what's going on with with the bricks in this situation as it

plays out I want to take a look at Trump a little bit more broadly just because there's so many headlines going on right now I was just attending the Vancouver resource investment conference a couple of weeks ago and that was happening really just in the middle of the inauguration time so it was hard to hard to get opinions on what Trump was going to mean for gold the mining sector there's a lot of talk about people feeling optimistic about uh work on efficiency cutting spending U but I'm

curious to get your thoughts now that we're a couple of weeks in at least you know what can he actually accomplish out of all these these many promises made well in terms of the medals he's a net net positive uh he's definitely uh recognizes the the the absolute shortage here in the US of critical medals and the recognition of what they have to do about it and who basically controls that second I all I know people in Alaska who during the uh last several years were not optimistic and faced a lot of

challenges from the federal government many now feel that that's imped me is is out of the way uh or certainly going to be less less volatile on it so in in terms of that and also exploring here in the US that he's going to be much more supportive to where Biden or whoever was controlling Biden you know was turning down these critical uh minerals in Minnesota and all these other places he's definitely a net net positive for expiration and all where the difficulty comes and I'm not saying this because

you're Canadian Canada was my home away from home for several decades I I think we owed them a little bit more slack if you want to call it on this tariffs and trade War because they've been just a phenomenal alley and they're we're the two biggest trading partners but this is the way that this man operates I'd be offended if your Premier were sitting up there and say you know the United States should come part of Canada we should just make it one of our provinces I would say who are you to say that well

that's how Canadians must feel when he talks about this 51st state and all and I think it's a negotiation point and quite frankly I think with a change in government to a more conservative government at all I think he's going to be more open to dealing with Canada than the current person that's sitting there yeah we are we are really in flux in Canada right now as we uh approach that leadership change which I'm sure is coming later this year okay so so that gives us kind of kind of an idea of

what's going on with Trump and and gold and resource sector I want to go back to the gold price because I remember we talked this past summer and you had told me at the time you know you are are not generally a person who is out there talking about $5,000 gold and things like that but you were kind of changing your mind and that was no longer sounding foolish to you which was pretty interesting to me so 2025 what are you thinking happens with the gold price yeah as we started to get to 23 and 2400

and my target was hit which was uh 2536 when goal was 1300 uh I then said you know this is not crazy anymore about five ,000 but let's get to 3,000 first you know and that's just a round number there is anything specific about it uh but but it was a number that I felt we were going to get to without ever going below 2,000 again and then when we get there kind of address where we could be well we're not that far away from it as we speak and at the rate we're going here especially if

these shortages continue we could be there rather quick the one thing I'll just say is and I think you know this for me is I've never owned it because I want to be able to buy a loaf of bread when nobody else can I want to keep it right next to my ammo in my log cabin in the woods I'm not in that camp you know and that the whole world's going to fall apart and all because even if you have gold the ones who don't but survive they're going to try to take it from the people that have it so I never get into

that stuff I treat it as a capital appreciation potential it's still an important part of that and I think one of the philosophy that I have overall to tie this into my over overall view is it was pretty okay to be a capital appreciation person for the last 40 years markets basically went up other than some sharp short-term vicious but not longlasting bare markets I think that's changing and I think Capital preservation now is going to overrule capital appreciation and therefore gold will still stay in in my opinion should

be part of most people's portfolio but maybe the percentages that I want had or or thought people should have were lower uh if and when we touched the 3,000 but right now there's no reason to get concern in fact I personally and again I don't want to skip if you going anywhere but I actually took some of my physical buling and sold it so I can buy more Junior resource stocks which is why my hair is receded since we last spoke but uh the bottom line is I don't think there's any major reason to be concerned

yet about ownership of gold as long as you're long not short okay yeah I think that gives a very good idea of where your head is at and I'll I'll ask you a little bit more about the juniors in just a moment if we look at what's going on in the overall Market do you think you know it's it's been such such advancements there and now we're seeing this concentration in all the the major tech stocks is this something that comes to an end this year how are you feeling about the overall Market

situation so what I learned a long time ago and you had to lose a lot of money to learn this it's not how much you make it's how much you don't lose which is going to separate you from the winners from the losers so the good thing I feel about even though I've been overall bearish on the market is I never went shorted and therefore what I did put my money in actually did as well if not better which was the the physical gold and all I think the there's two issues and I think this is very important Char a lot of

people don't talk about this so please give me indulge me a minute or too the market that I entered in 1984 as a young stock broker doesn't exist anymore 90% of the trading was retail investors institutional was minimal and there was no such thing as computer trading it just wasn't and people bought stocks for what the really the original reason where the stock exchange was there where you could buy and sell part ownerships of businesses now over half the money almost 55% they say is in passive funds

which means these are funds that are not being actively managed and they're basically being invested to track indexes or indices therefore the manager he or she doesn't have this the right to go and buy or sell individual stocks now as long as the Market's going up more money pours into those uh because over half the money of new money keeps going in and they are kind of come like a self-fulfilling prophecy I give you an example the biggest indic that they use is something with an S&P 500 Index

there's like 400 70 of them well of the 470 410 have Apple stock in it so basically as new money is keeps coming in versus going out Apple gets bought it's one of the things that kept that narrow group up because they make up such a significant Port but that will work in Reverse if and when people start to believe it's no longer beneficial to be in passive funds that are betting on something long it'll be the same way because a manager will not be able to go in I don't want to sell Apple here it's

a very good company they won't have no choice now the rest of the money about 75% of that is in computer-driven related programs algorithms some of them are just simply trades based on Words and headline stories and some of very sophisticated programs that include Futures and options and all of that the smallest part of the pie now in the stock market is people like me from 40 years ago that bought part ownerships of businesses and therefore I always tell people of my age you know I'm 68 but basically 55 and over those

of us with gray hair and no hair it's not the market we grew up in you can't invest in the same manner that you did those are very very important parts and then there's one other and this will not get me invited to Christmas parties here at the financial service firms in the US but it's a fact of life almost 50% now of financial advisors giving advice in the United States warrant born when I started in this business now that doesn't make me any better than them but there is a lack of real experience

because for the most part half of these folks basically experienced a one-way Street they learned how to drive on it they do very well they put the gas in pedal and the OD time when something went bad this thing called the fed put came along as a tow truck fixed everything and was back to driving one way if and when and I don't know when that'll be Charlotte but if and when the Market ever goes to a two-way street or worse yet a traffic circle I feel that the lack of experience that people have

will be a hindrance and cause more downside that mother mother otherwise happen so I I just take this attitude now that I for whatever's left of my life and career in this business is that I'm G to be a live chicken versus a dead duck okay I really like that that driving metaphor that you use that makes it very clear to me and I think this takes us maybe back around to what's going on with the gold stocks so for a long time I've been talking with you and other experts about the disconnect

between the gold price and the gold stocks and when are these gold stocks going to finally start moving so you're talking at the beginning of the conversation about how good the balance sheets of the larger miners are looking are we starting to see that Gap close and and at what point do the Juniors hopefully start to catch up so the Juniors have two big negatives that still exist and I'll get to them in a moment but let's start with the good part of the checklist first of all the price is just crazy I mean the amount of

money that majors are going to make with a selling going forward here at 2,800 maybe up to 3,000 out you know several months they're just going to be cash machines for several quarters and that was important because at the end of the day they will use their their currency their stock as their buying power to get new reserves they're gonna they're not going to allst Grassroots production they're going to go look at companies make acquisitions strategic deals and all and that will help the Junior market

but the two big things that still anchor the Junior market down and have held it back it's not an excuse it's a fact of life I've lost money in these things to understand them one is crypto cryptocurrency uh has taken the person or persons that might have otherwise went into the Junior market 20 or 30 years ago and they're now in the crypto Market that's where their excitement that's where their speculation mcoin I mean what's a men coin it's like you and I come out tomorrow and say hey we

started our coin you want to buy it and it's just who wants the greater fool Theory there's no value there there's no instagr value I can't use it for anything else but that's where the hard speculative money has gone and I don't think it's coming to Juniors anytime soon again the only way it's going to come is that slows down and people start to see how well the majors are doing and as they go down the food chain and start making Acquisitions and suddenly 50 cents stocks of $2 that'll track it back

and the other thing is I'm here to argue that I think the junior resource Market is smaller today than it was 20 years ago I don't think there's as many players as there were there certainly aren't as many institutional players that once existed and therefore it's more of a challenge for junior resource companies to get financings and recognition and all of that kind of stuff and that's still a challenge but everything else has clicked now for them and the one thing that stopping it is is

the Log Jam when the Mages finally not only just merge with themselves but really go into the Junior market with action that'll be when when when we'll see the the market take off and it it won't matter it could be a gold company it could be a copper copper and gold is probably the best two you can have right now and there are a lot of more companies like that now silver still lags it's no offense it's still like kissing your sister to a lot of people but uh and then you know some of the off

metals and all even uranium uh but that's really what steel faces the junior resource Market it's still a challenge it's not easy uh you know I there I see the same some of the same folks that I remember 20 30 years ago I the speaker conferences they're still kind of saying the same things about it but it's been very very hard to make money in that unless you're the person in the private placement Arena and that kind of stuff or else it's been been a challenge okay really good overview and

and talking a little bit more about challenges for the juniors I follow you on Twitter or X I guess we should call it now and one of the points you've been posting about I think recently is about the challenge for juniors in terms of marketing themselves getting their story out there and of course we don't want to see them be overly promotional but you also don't want to see a company just doing nothing and not getting the story out there so how how do you want to see companies balance that what should they

be doing are there any good examples you see well their biggest challenge is they lost their biggest Avenue to the end user meaning the person that ends up buying the junior resource stock and that was 20 years ago there were thousands of Peter granes who had a book of business part of it all of it and bought Juniors and therefore if that Acme resources got me interested they got my 50 to 500 clients invested they dinosaurs there still may be a handful of financial advisors doing that but no no one does it because he can't can't

make money commissions are basically gone out of out of the equation and all the second thing is is regulatory down here in the US some of the discount brokers now won't even allow you to buy a stock even if it has an OTC symbol but trades on a Canadian exchange and all and then of course the regulatory to where they basically can't say anything about that project and you go to the probably the regulatory people hey all I got is Sizzle well we don't allow Sizzle well I don't have anything else we're

all hoping we find something it's a lot harder to be a junior Resource company than it was 10 20 30 years goals and also the fact of where you can go the world has shrunk you know 30 years ago you and I could have you would have been a baby but we would have spun a a a globe and we could a finger land in almost any country get we can go soring there not anymore that's the other Challenge and financing it's like I said there's just not as many people doing these things and and and that's the

challenge for it and and people who invest in the Juniors have to give them Credit First of all it's a business where failure is the norm anyway one out of 10 is going to find a project develop it and sell it or make it into a mine the rest are just not going to do it and so in a where a business's failur is the norm that management team also has all these other issues now pressing them and then the last part is the people that invest in them or speculate in them because speculating is really what

they're doing because speculating is really gambling they become much more shortsighted they don't give the time that normally one used to give to these companies it it's almost like if not in a day or a week if news hasn't broken and something's wrong and part of that is because they basically don't have high commission so they can get out of these things for just you know with a penny or two cent move so there it it's far more difficult to be I'm not defending them you know I still have

some of these guys do blog sponsorships for me but it's much more difficult for the typical Junior resource stock NOW part of it that's changing like your company and all that builds a good following has a lot of uh internet where most people gone even us old grayhair Baldhead folks have been brought into this computer world and you know to websites and all and and that take time but that's building and you know listen if I may there used to be big newsletter writers in the junior resource business

famous ones I never considered myself famous one but I wrote four of them well if you think about what it used to be to put a newsletter I'd have to think it out type it up give it to the printer to types set it print it wait till drrive fold it stick in an envelope and two to three days later get it out to your readers or clients now in a few seconds sitting at a keyboard everything goes out that's the upside to this business and so everything's going to be driven now through uh the internet now the days

of newsletter r no offense to the shows and still be if if if if companies aren't using social media for their promotional marketing they're up against it all really interesting topics and just a small followup on the financing environment right now I think a lot of the time when I ask about how is financing for juniors how is it for them getting money I hear that well the good companies will will get money and and that'll be okay the ones that aren't good just won't do you think that's true

is it just that the good companies will eventually get the money that they need yeah they will but the bad companies never die even though they should there's probably several hundred companies that be better off that they'd all merge together but a lot of these things become a lifestyle companies these Juniors you know they get a project they finance it enough you know they're basically a one or two man or woman operation if it doesn't work out they change the name they restructure it

and they do it again and you know and when things are tough and lean they take what little you know that Capital was going into better deals and so forth I think a lot of them have run out of that we're not seeing a lot of reorganization deals done anymore you know you used to be you used to see a property and then you see a different name and say where did I see this property before and then you realize it used to be in another company five or seven years ago that has slowly died and I think that'll

eventually be beneficial for the Junior market okay okay I think we've got a pretty good idea your your thoughts on the gold landscape right now but I want to talk about copper as well we've spoken about your your outlook for copper as well and I think earlier in this conversation you mentioned if you want to own stocks of gold copper is something that probably looks pretty good so copper is pretty interesting I think a lot of people have a a positive outlook but then different time Horizons

for when they start think it will start doing well so what is your outlook for copper in 2025 so the reason that is and I know some some of those people who may not be as bullish as I am is because there used to be ample supply of it so when the economy slowed down copper always went down and you wanted to be out of it the problem is there isn't the ample Supply anymore there's not enough above ground Supply that we can just say don't find new mines and we can live off what we have for three or five years

that's not the case anymore so that's where I think some of those less than bullish people may be missing it now the electrification story has clearly down it's not the everybody and anything going to it and that probably took some of the luster out of some of the bullishness for copper because that was part of the selling point the problem remains is is that the grades have shrunk dramatically around the world it's going to need a much higher copper price than even now well above five to

go to some of the areas where you used to mine when it was only two or $3 of copper price and second going back to what we talked about earlier it's still much more difficult to go to a lot of places and the fact that you know this critical mineral and you know tariffs and all who's going to control what and everything so my opinion is this it has demonstrated tremendous support on either side of four I don't suspect it'll be much lower than four anytime soon even if the economy slows a lot

what it is doing it's building a beautiful base between four four and a half to my view is that sometime in the second half we're going to move towards $5 and that'll be a key factor we've never really gotten above that we might have briefly approached it at that point in time if you tell me copper is $3,000 Gold's $33,000 or something copper is $5 I'm really hoping some of these Juniors that have copper and gold that I own are going to be a lot higher than they are now yeah yeah I would certainly hope so

at that point and okay so that's a really interesting point about copper you mentioned that tie to the economy and people do tend to refer to it as as Dr copper will tell you how the economic health is but so for you it's more we should be focusing on that short supply situation now and that's maybe more important for copper yeah true just like a commodity and there's not a lot of out of it there's a great more demand for it and quite frankly there's less and less Optimum places to go and find it and so

that's when you find some of these copper projects in North America that have outstanding grade they're going to get a premium hopefully uh for their for their project okay yeah I think that does help shed some light for me on those those different copper time Horizons that I keep hearing about so really helpful and any other metals Commodities that you are interested in right now or following because it's it's just such an interesting set of circumstances right now so everybody still asks me about

Uranian because you remember a few years ago when no one wanted it it was probably my biggest single bet I ever made in the junior resource Market uranium was under 20 things like Cho were under nine but in January of 2024 when uranium went above a 100 I got out and I've never gotten back in I did note a few weeks ago when there was a sharp selloff that if it would continue lower I would look at it again it hasn't yet it still may even though uranium has a phenomenal supply and demand scenario

the difficulty there Sharon is it's is the the difficulty that existed since day one there's so few producers there's actually only a handful that you could actually play and no other every other metal has dozens if not hundreds of different producers at all and therefore if you're going to play it uh whether you're bullish now or in the future you have to overweight in the producers and the and the people that only because the rest are just you know hopeful just like Junior Gold companies which most don't

end up succeeding that but it has a bullish the the one metal that a lot of people aren't speaking about at the moment but it's turned up very nicely and I've invested in it through a couple plays and that's zinc but it's not a metal that's going to go roaring through the roof where everybody needs it but it has some very bullish fundamentals I I just think that the important thing to recognizes is that there's no longer ample supplies of metals that they used to be sitting out there and second now

countries are starting to become defensive of what they have because of their needs for it and therefore it's going to be more challenging to go and get new Supply yeah exactly okay very interesting I'm going to have to look into zinc a little bit more because for sure it's not one that I've I've heard mentioned very often I think before I let you go I wondered if you could give me a sense of how your portfolio is looking overall right now you mentioned you took some money out of gold to go

further into the junior so I'm curious how that's playing out for you so Charlotte no one and I underline no one should own my portfolio because no one should be just in cash gold bullion and juniors that's a no no for anybody but I'm able to take that risk and all the other reasons what I say to General people we I'm still part of a Planning Group here I'm still part of a macro the the overall group has over a billion dollars in management My Philosophy is this the stock market is priced to

Perfection call it a speculative bubble call it whatever you want if the Perfection doesn't continue it has a good chance to lose a good bit and my view is if you haven't been in by now or you've been in and the older you are the less you should have to that exposure of the retreat the other factor is again I said it to you earlier in the interview Capital preservation now managing what you have and the reason most people are still not caught up in that is because they're spending more than they make

less is more this we have three big problems in the US let me just name them I know you're out of time but let me just name them our debt crisis a retirement crisis and an infrastructure and natural disaster crisis and As Good As Trump is in the eyes of some and as good as he might have been in other areas even he is beyond fixing those to a point where I don't believe they're not going to impact us in a difficult Manner and most Americans are not prepared for the fact that two-thirds of

Americans are working without a paycheck have little or no savings are are going to have to work well into their older age and in fact Trump has clearly not have any consideration to austerity he's willing to spend and borrow because he thinks he can you know build the economy and drive it through the roof and all and then the third is our infrastructure which is absolutely crumbling and our natural disasters which when I wrote about this a year ago I got people wrote me what are you crazy as look what just happened in Los

Angeles that's going to be a half a trillion dollars by the time it's done and all we can't afford one or two Mor those so there are a lot of things to be concerned about but I think the overall attitude is less is more spend less than you make and then once you're' situated and and hopefully not stressed out then you can look at speculative things where trying to turn a dollar two into two three or four but remember for everyone that turns a dollar into two three or four more turn $4 doll into 321 and I've

been one of them yeah I do think unfortunately that is true so that's that's a good place to wrap it up but I'll put it back to you one more time and just ask if there's any final thoughts on your mind right now as we're heading into 2025 well for me it's the Twilight of a career uh I only say that and I'll go back to that again and I don't want to say that just because somebody's a lot younger you don't deal with them but I don't think you're going to get any

discount for lack of experience so I think it's very important wherever you're getting your information from whether you're handling it on your own but you're reading from others and all that the people have demonstrated uh an ability to stand above others you know when everything's going great everybody looks like a genius but where they half Geniuses when everything was going bad and so I think people's experiences and expertise is going to be more critical now than any other time in the 40 years

that I've been around this investment Arena yeah I think I think that's great advice to end on it's it's a little bit of a time frame PR caution right now so thank you so much for for coming on to talk about what's going on in gold and much more and let me just say this for my last time go knucks thank you so much perfect note to end on once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is thank you for watching 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 [Music]