[Music] [Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and here today with me is Gerardo delal co-owner at digest publishing thank you so much for joining me great to have you Char thank you for having me back couple of years in a row now yeah and you know I was looking back at our previous interview and I realized we haven't actually spoken for the last year so we have a lot to catch up on and I wanted to start by asking you if you can catch me up on just any key changes you've made to your portfolio or maybe


you haven't maybe it's stayed mostly the same man you know that's a that's a really loaded question let me let me explain to you why I know it's a great question by the way there's just a lot of layers to it so I think last year when we were here we joked on air that my favorite Commodities last year weing lithium and uranium right and true to form I had a phenomenal year with the lithium and the uranium names and it speaks to your influence and the Inn influence that this year we actually


have lithium and uranium companies amongst the gold crowd right so I think I think people might have watched your interview and and and took a hint but no look jokes aside I think um the lithium space let start there is undergoing a consolidation that's really healthy the spot price shot from 20,000 to 80,000 in really short order it's now pulled back from 80,000 at 20,000 and so a lot of the equities one example last year my favorite Equity was Patriot battery medals which is up 100% from last year


this time last year it's up 100% but it was up 300% up until recently before a recent pullback so I think the pullbacks been healthy I think the consolidation is nearing a bottom I think this is an excellent time for contrarians that missed the first run up in lithium to actually gain exposure to the next leg up because I think it's a out to turn um so that's the lithium part of it so absolutely still love lithium uranium was something that you know luckily we caught really early and we were able to


position subscribers and I was able to pos position my portfolio um ahead of that initial leg up and I think now we're in the midst of the second leg up we just hit a 15-year high in the uranium spot price we have funds now dedicated the Sprat bun just dedicated exclusively to allocating Capital to storing phys uranium and the utilities which are the single largest consumer of uranium still have it rolled over the new contracts and so when they come into the market the $75 spot price is going


to go triple digits in a hurry so I would encourage anyone that's listening to really do their homework in the lithium space and the Urus space if they haven't yet done so here's the big change to my portfolio I'm actually excited about gold this year folks and so I know last year I said it wasn't time yet and you know not not to you know pound the table on that but it wasn't time yet I actually think it's time now it's really time to get in there and look at he's beaten down


producers developers and explorers and pick the creme de La Creme whatever your favorite jurisdiction is whatever your favorite management team is and start adding exposure because I think we're on the verge of a breakout in the gold price that's going to lead to new all-time highs and the reason I say that is cuz even the most ardit of gold bugs they're fed out they can't figure out why with all of the turmoil going on around the world gold hasn't been able to break out to new highs I think we're


on the verge of that okay okay many many points to follow up on here so last year I will say I was caught off guard by talking about lithium and uranium fine but lithium I was not ready for that at this conference so this year I'm a little bit more prepared to talk about lithium so we we'll see how this goes so you talked a little bit about what's going on in the market and I wondered if you could kind of situate us a little bit more because you mentioned this consolid that's happening but we know


that long term there's supposed to be this huge demand for electric vehicles so situated is a little bit more the market I I I would say this listen I think the run up from that 20,000 to that 880,000 spot price was en large fact due to China misallocating how much they were going to need and there's a thing that happens with critical Metals where you get to a point where it's not what you pay for the supply it's having the supply and China got in a position where they had the capacity to to to


produce you know these batteries but they didn't have the input they didn't have the lithium and at that point you have to feed the factory and you have to feed the customer base and they were willing to pay any price and I think that's why you got that rise exponential from 20 to 80 I think that was overbought but they didn't really have a choice this year we're seeing the opposite happen China actually has enough nium enough capacity their their their needs are met for the time being


but the West is now making the exact same mistake whether it's you know the us whether it's Canada and I think that's about to turn because you're seeing the Toyotas of the world saying they're going they they're ex Expediting and expanding their Factory they're investing $8 billion the inflation reduction act which regardless of how you feel about politics and the administration and the comically named legislation right because it's a funny name you print money to lower


inflation right but there's some really good uh critical minerals legislation in there that provides tax incentives big ones for companies to build these gigafactories and these battery making manufacturing facilities in North America and those are starting Quebec where Patriot battery Metals is located is seeing an influx millions of dollars of capital come into the region so all of those factors tell me that the West is about to make the same mistake that China made last year being let's build factories let's expand


capacity let's be able to produce all of these batteries that's all fine and great but you still need the inputs and and without lithium that doesn't happen and I think we're about to see that ramp up in volatility once again all right and you know for lithium I think one of the first things people figure out when they start trying to understand the market is that there's not there's not a single Price Right lots of different types of prices going on and so we don't need to go into all the differences


there but I wondered if you could share any details on how investors can help sort this out and understand it ultimately this I pride myself on being a simple guy right so the simplest way for me to determine what the real price in the market is is to listen to The Producers conference calls so like an albam Marl or a pillur um it's it's not hard because they disclose all of it so if you listen to a quarterly earnings call they'll tell you you what their quarterly sales price was the average price that's the


real market price you know the price that China reports is China's spot price what they are able to Source lithium for that to me is irrelevant to the West it's irrelevant to most of the world that's what China is able to Source its lithium for and sometimes those numbers can be dubious right whether it's their GDP numbers whether it's the price that they're paying for and they have an incentive to drive that price lower so they can continue to stock bile and so so I would encourage everyone to to take


20 to 30 minutes of their time pick their favorite producer and see what they're actually selling or lithium for and and that's that's the right price that's that's the true price right okay yeah I know that's that's a great tip I think that would that's very helpful so let's talk about your approach to the sector so we know that you like Patriot battery Metals talked a little bit about the ups and the Downs there where else are you focusing because you mentioned


this is this slump is perhaps a buying opportunity I really love of the James Bay Region in Quebec I love the whole region now I I'll I'll qualify that by saying I think out of the hundreds of explorers that have popped up maybe five or six will succeed right and it's it's really important in this next leg up because I think now it's a stock picker Market it was different the first leg up the whole region caught fire because of patriot and all of the capital that was coming in and if you just said James Bay


and lithium spadine and pegmatite your stock went out those days are over you actually have to deliver now even the Patriots of the world have had pullbacks despite spectacular results and it's because people are dissecting as they should a little bit more of what's under the hood and in Patriots case they have the goods they're going to do great but there's a lot of other companies that um claim to have the next great discovery and all of the Patriot like you know signs very few


of those are going to succeed but there's a couple I mean I can give you a name if if you'd like if if you would like to then please go ahead Q two medals okay Q two medals um the gentlemen and then the ladies that are working on that project are the same group of people that vended the Corvette property to Patriot right and so Neil mallum of the Rouge geological Consulting right they've done a phenomenal job of just tying up land and securing the best greenstone belts in the region and now they're they're you


know rightfully getting to to to benefit from all of the hard work they put in by being ahead of the Crow and so I think Q2 Metals which has two rigs turning on its Mia property it's a 10 km Trend it's got good grade and samples we're going to see if it's continuous and we're going to see if the grade holds up when they actually starts drilling it but it's it's a pretty substantial shareholding in line I think they're going to be successful okay one one more lithium question and it relates to to


this region so I I believe that there are a chunk of Australian companies that have come over there they've got experience in Australia they're coming here where I think the geology is similar so do they have any kind of edge with that that background absolutely because look the North American especially the retail Market doesn't really have an understanding for these types of deposits as well as the Australian Market does and you see the disconnect sometimes in the buyout offers that a lot a lot of Australian


companies are getting with you know I don't want to say inferior deposits but with deposits that are less Advanced or have more challenging Metallurgy than say a Corvette for Patriot right and when you see a company get a $1.6 billion takeout offer and you see that Patriot barely has a billion dollar market cap and this company over here with the offer doesn't even have a resource yet and has some metallurgical issues that you know are going to have to get resolved and and maybe they will


it tells you there's a disconnect and understanding between the deposit types and I think some of that is just a lack of experience Australia and and and they they the folks over there have a deep understanding of how profitable these deposits can be they're taking advantage of it you know there's a there's there's lithium Wares going on right now with buyout offers every week and you know Gina Reinhardt is famously blocking all of you know the the Australian assets being bought by anybody that's not


Australian right now whether that's intentional or not that's how it comes off see it seems intentional it seems intentional by the way right yeah it does so yeah okay very interesting all right so lithium that's we'll leave lithium there we'll move over to uranium and see what's going on there so uranium we've been talking about it this is one we've been talking about for years not just last year and we've seen prices as you mentioned they're on the rise is


this is this it is this is this to move up are there any setbacks that uranium could have at this point I think the only thing that can derail the uranium bull train at this point is another Fukushima style accident right um and whether that was an accident an engineering flaw call it whatever you want to call it it was really unfortunate and you know obviously it did what it did to the sector for for prong long period of time so I think in this case all of the stars are lined up and I think we have a scenario where


uranium can overshoot I I say to 200 right yeah in the next 18 to 24 months there's a group way smarter than I and then maybe smarter even than Nick I know Nick's super smart right but um but they came out and they're typically a conservative group and they said they think you get overshoot to 300 neither of those has to happen if we just get you know the sustainable price of 100 to 125 which I think is where the median will be we're going to do phenomenally well and the companies that actually


have talent and management teams that have seen these Cycles before and have assets that are real are going to they're going to go up five pole 10 pole in really short order so definitely make that list check it twice and and get exposure yeah yeah maybe we talk a little bit more about strategy here because for people who listen to everyone who is talking about uranium years ago maybe they have already seen some pretty good gains and they might be wondering okay what are my next steps or people right now might be saying wow


it's already moved so what what do I do I am again I I kind of prevised myself and pride myself on being a super simple guy I am very high risk very high reward so I gravitate towards the Explorers right and as long as that spot price is doing what I think it's going to do meaning go higher those explorers if they have decent results they're going to provide the most leverage that's always the case you have to decide as a Speculator in the space what your timeline is and you have to give


yourself the luxury of time to make a mistake because you might guess wrong and so give yourself the opportunity to be wrong for not just a month not just six months maybe a year I've been wrong before on things for six months to a year and then it turns out to be like the best thing I could have done was sit and wait right so you have the Tailwinds you have a rising price you have the utilities that are coming off the sideline soon they're going to renew those contracts they going to drive that


price higher you have funds buying into it it's the perfect storm make a list and then decide what your risk tolerance is and that's going to be different for everybody somebody else might really like the producers because they want to capture the leverage to a rising price neither strategy is wrong it's just really a personal preference right so tell me about your strategy when it comes to the Explorers because I imagine and I'm I'm thinking about exit strategy because I imagine you're not entering


these companies thinking oh during this bull market they will produce and you know all this stuff will happen so what what are you thinking there the very first thing this is how I was taught and it's done wonders for me is speculate on companies that have a share structure that allows for a mistake or two what I mean by that is look at a if if the company is an Explorer with 300 million shares outstanding already and they're just now raising money to go launch an exploration program it's going to be


really hard to capture the kind of price appreciation that a company with made maybe 40 million shares outstanding owned by seven High net worth individuals right is going to give you the Leverage is just different and so for me it's all about share structure who owns the shares does management have skin in the game at what price does management have skin in the game right is it half cent shares or are they actually buying in the market alongside their shareholders and so all of those things to me are


important when I decide who am I going to write a check for the share structure tells me how a company feels about its shareholders and if it's a good solid share structure if it's high net worth individuals not too many funds because the funds are allocating other people's money right they're not allocating their own so it's a lot easier for them to make a mistake with somebody else's money than it is me making one with my own um all of that is is is is is important to me so share structure first


before assets and before management and then management Perfect all right so I have not forgotten about gold I will ask you about gold before we're done but lithium and uranium they're definitely on the energy side and what I hear from a lot of people who are interested in one part of the energy sector is that they're actually interested in all of it so including oil and gas maybe coold things like that so in energy are you are you spreading yourself around in that way as well or are you keeping it


in the lithium and your radium for me lithium and uranium because I actually really understand those markets for whatever reason right I don't pride myself an expert in those markets but really understand them and and I got a really good handle on the management teams in the regions that I'm actually investing capital in and so good access to them really good understanding of their business model understand the region well jurisdiction is becoming key more and more every day you're seeing


companies that are having their projects nationalized on a whim right you have a situation with a copper company in tanm on a stocks down 50% in one day you wake up and 50% of your capital is gone because the government decided to make a decision that wasn't beneficial some the shareholders and so I want good jurisdictions I want exploration upside I want good share structures and I want management teams that know what they're doing in what they're trying to do and they have a history of success in that


so yes I'm ke to those okay sense no it makes sense it does make sense so just going back to Gold so you mentioned now is the time right and you talked a little bit about your reasons for thinking that anything you would add to the gold story things you want investors to know about why they really should start to consider right now you know the most impressive thing to is the Fed has you know mortgage rates essentially right they've manipulated those up to about 8% you have 5% interest rates you


have a Fed that says I don't I don't believe it but the FED says it's going to continue to be very hawkish I think the market will force the fed's fa hand eventually that may be a year away right despite all of that and a dollar index that recently hit 107 gold is near $2,000 and within you know 10% of its all-time high that is as imp and resilient to me as I've seen in the gold space in quite some times and is why this year I'm actually happy to be here and talking about gold and not


just lithium and uranium because like last year was a different story the dollar Index was somewhere around between 94 and 98 Gold couldn't catch a bid and that told me it wasn't time opposite Rings truths in it right dollar Index near 107 and here gold is wanting wanting to break 2,000 again it did recently and it wants to break alltime highs and that's what it's going to take to get the retail segment back speculated and get that Capital back into space yeah that that is what I keep


hearing for sure okay so as we're as we're finishing up maybe a fun question I think it will be fun with you because I have a feeling you're going to have a different answer than than than most as I you typically do with stuff yeah so we'll see so if you the question is if you had to choose an asset to hold for five years and you're looking for the the biggest appreciation what would you choose it can be a commodity it doesn't have to I have to hold it for the entire 5 years yeah for the purposes of this


yes copper copper we didn't even talk about copper copper let me explain why so I think lithium has a great you know set of fundamentals I think we're near a bottom but it's going to continue to be volatile and I would hate to hold it for 5 years and I hold it through another consolidation right with uranium uranium markets are so volatile and violent to the upside that we could get that $200 spot price within the next 18 to 24 months and then pull back to that $25 level and then just settle there and


then the market gets bored and the capital leaves cuz it's bored and that might happen with my five fiveyear matures right yeah yeah yeah copper has the best midterm fundamentals I have seen in quite some time the way uranium did three years ago the way lithium did to me seven years ago that's copper to me right now I can go to sleep today and I I have a lot of copper exposure that I'm at it'll a past year okay copper would be the one I think in five years we wake up copper is at least double


today's price okay we did we did get a different answer than everybody else so that's perfect you're welcome thank you okay okay as we're finishing up any final advice for investors right now we're heading into the end of the year new year is coming pretty soon what should investors know pick your sector pick your management teams dissect share structures ask questions this is the bottom folks for a lot of these Commodities we have a lithium bull market that's about to reheat we have a uranium bull market


that's shooting we have a bull market that's about to restart silver will catch up eventually as it always does copper might be a year year and a half away but that's coming it's a beautiful time in the commodity space and it might get really tough in the overall indices given you know some of the macro factors I play right now so it's a great time to really get to know the different sectors and make your list and start start start adding to it okay all right this is a good place to wrap it up thank you so


much for coming on to talk about all the various different Commodities that I have not been speaking with to everyone else thank you very much always a pleasure Charlotte thank you for having me of course and once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is chardo delal thank you for watching if you like this video make sure you subscribe to our Channel we'd also love to hear your thoughts so leave us a comment below we'll see you next time