gold news

 [Music] [Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and here today with me is lobo T CEO of independent Speculator tocom thank you so much for joining me great to have you here always happy to be with you and our dear Inn audience very happy to be speaking with you here in person once again at BR this time and we're going to follow up on our previous conversation back in New Orleans we covered gold and we covered uranium going to get into both of those but I want to start with uranium first because

I think that's where a lot of excitement is and we probably need to get your no hype thoughts on what's going on so the charts G like this there couldn't be any hype could there yeah yeah so we're going to go into I think a lot of things that are going on in the market but where I was going to start is where I'm seeing a lot of headlines and that's around what's going on with kadam prone so I will say this very carefully because they haven't really told us much very yet but they put out that press

release saying 2024 2025 they don't know yet but maybe they miss their production targets so yeah starting there and and what you make of that and and how important that is yeah well let's frame this because the last time you and I spoke I said that in 201 22 my highest conviction trade for 2023 was uranium and in 2023 when we spoke in New Orleans my highest conviction trade for this year 2024 was gold uh because uranium's already gone up all and this Kazam pump thing is since that and I'm

not say okay it's a game changer everything is different great turn around go in a different direction but I think it is very material I don't want to get too arm wavy here um but it's important you take the world's largest and lowest cost producer and you turn it into a potential buyer on the spot Market that's big so that's the equivalent of me jumping up and down by the way but coming from me that was like pounding the table uh uh no it's it's quite meaningful now

this hasn't entirely changed my marching orders because okay I mean spot prices has responded we're up at triple digits $16 a pound well above the incentive price and it's not like Kaz Adam prom said we're not going to be able to produce more it's just we might not be able to produce as much more as we hoped it was a very different thing certainly not less um but the reasons for it this is important you know they can't get enough sulfuric acid now you know most ISR miners they don't even use acid um it's

we won't get to technical on that but you know they use acid to get more of the of the uranium out of the rock and they because of the types of rock they have I'm not too technical Justin could probably explain this better than me but they have to have the acid and they're having trouble getting it you know this at least raises a question about how much production they're going to have and to me the more telling you know they said you know their their rampup plans were challenged right and their guidance

was at risk okay but the thing that really caught my attention was like but don't worry we are going to meet all our contractual obligations regarding what do you mean by that that's why I said potentially you take the world's largest and lowest cost producer Mak it a buyer if if they felt it necessary to say now this is supposition right they didn't say we're rushing we're going to go out and buy in the spot Market but the implication of that statement was you know that don't worry we'll do what

it takes to meet our contractual obligations to me implies we might have to buy in the spot market and perhaps even probably will or else we wouldn't have said it that's a probable statement but this is a big deal and um where does that leave us it leaves me more near-term optimistic on uranium than I would have been for this year I was concerned about high prices curing high prices we have the lowcost producers and projects and Development coming online now as you and I speak there are new uranium mines hitting

first production now right and then we have the secondary Supply we talked about before these funds and things that bought low to sell High we don't know how much they're going to sell all of that makes 2024 something of a question mark but then you throw this new question mark on the supply side it it's it's more interesting to me um and there's potential here this is not a promise it's not a forecast there's potential here that if the situation in Kazakhstan turns out to be worse than

they're saying at the same time you've got the green agenda and climate change par um Panic kicking in this could become a flavor of the day that goes nuts like not sustainably high but just it becomes a flavor of the day and it goes nuts this could happen this year this summer we could be looking at much higher prices could could not a promise on the other hand we don't know about the secondary Supply so I I see it what I don't see is uranium going way down like if it corrects and by the way if it does

fantastic buying opportunity I would take it with both hands because I'm I'm that optimistic about where uranium goes next but if it if it does correct it's not going backward it's not going to $18 a pound it's not going to 50 I don't think it the the long-term contracts being signed won't allow that so I see a lot of downside protection I see a floor under this Market I see at you know the worst likely case scenario is some modest correction and then ramping up again and the potential for a hockey

stick in the underlying commodity which should do great for the stock so I wouldn't want to be short I'm happy to be very long in the space already but I wouldn't chase the stocks okay I think that gives that's a good starting point now we have a number of places we can go I know you said we shouldn't get too technical but I do want to ask just one question about the sulfuric acid so I think as the uranium Market continues moving along these things keep popping up and I think it

just shows me how much I still don't know so I saw that and I thought well is that going to be a problem for other producers I know not everyone has the same type of mind but is that something we now have to well with two things one is generally no like most people don't acidify the I mean okay copper in citu miners would but most uranium in citu mines don't okay acidify their Solutions so generally no the other thing is it's the supply constraints it's not just a CO or Global or whatever it's political

it's Kazakhstan being near Russia and the roots going through it's so it's a geopolitical issue for them largely and you're not going to have that problem in Australia or Canada okay okay that helps me make sense of that then the other thing I was thinking about you know with the cassad prom news was okay so we have all these other companies that are bringing assets back online where they're increasing their production what does this tell us about yeah okay we said they're not going to hit the same

stumbling block but other obstacles that might come in their way as they start to come L well this is this is this is actually a broad lesson for the entire industry like if I can go sideways for just a moment but to answer this question there are headlines recently talking about how oh gee there was supposed to be a copper Surplus this year 2024 uh and suddenly that's in question because this mind's having problems this one got shut down this has environmental issues this one has operational issues

it's underperforming Chile is having problems and so all these Rosy forecasts on the supply side suddenly they're you know what mining to quote my friend Doug Casey is a is a crappy 19th century choo choo train industry like things go wrong all the time and you look at these fancy pancy Supply deficit projections by these big Global engineering firms and they assume that you know the company says they're going to increase production by x amount this year that they assume that's going to happen where

companies say that we're going to build this mine here's our budget this is when it'll be done that's what the feasibility study says mind are almost never done on budget and on schedule you know you you really congratulate management you send them a bottle of D Pon if they come anywhere close to lering on time and on budget the expectation is that they'll miss one or the other both so I mean that's what's normal and I understand why the the firms making these forecasts they you

know they have to go with the study what else you going to do just guess right you they could just make up numbers so they just go with the studies as a base case but the point is that okay math 101 statistics 101 the bell curve right the the the highest value in the middle of the bell curve is the single most likely answer to be true but how often does the actual answer turn out to be that one never I mean almost it's you know there's all those other numbers on the bell curve so the stud is

like that one answer that's the closest to being right as best you can but it's almost never actually right so back to uranium we you know we have all these you know things never go according to plan and as bad as this is and this 19th century choo choo train industry is as a whole it's worse in uranium because oh radiation is so scary you know any pering issues that you have in general are always going to be worse because people panic there's so much more if not in my backyard thinking

holds mining back and slows it down in general it's 10 times worse than your a just cuz of the irrational fears in the space so yeah I always um take it with a grain of salt or air on the side or lean on the side of assuming that Supply forecasts are always Rosy so yeah uh I'm not sure where else you wanted to go with that question but but one more thing um if you don't mind my saying so in the free uranium report on our website we said and this was a new finding for us that you and I have

spoken about before our new finding was I had thought before that the low hanging fruit the supply that was ready to come back online once we got the right uranium price would be enough to meet the market short term in the longer term we'd be looking at deficits but in the near term hitting the incentive price would cause high prices to cure high prices our new finding in 2023 was actually no that's not enough like even if Kaz Adam prom was able to reach name plate capacity and Cho could get

MacArthur Riv and cigar like fully up to name you know even if all that happened and these developers built their projects on time and on budget even if all that happened it still wouldn't be enough this was our new finding um so the difference though is now we have the secondary Supply and that's a question mark but now we have I I I think I've lost track of your question but now we have the the Kazam prom has become more of a question mark again so I'm long story short I'm more bullish on uranium

this year than I was when we last spoke but the chart just went like that you know don't mortgage the house or sell any of your kids to buy uranium stocks you know have have a little sense of proportion see know buy the dips okay and okay just because you mentioned secondary Supply again and and the question marks surrounding that can you can you go into what you mean there just so I make sure I understand short version is that you had you know sput came along hoovered up all these pounds and all these people oh that's a great

idea right if you're a uranium Bull and you can buy it for $18 a pound or $30 a pound and you think it's going to the incentive price at least it's bu so we had um except for sput you had all kinds of Institutions and even mining companies buy uranium physical with the intention of selling it not the intention of holding it forever it's important difference so if you bought at 30 pound or even sorry $30 a pound or even 50 was not so long ago with the intention of selling it at higher prices

now you're on a double and let's say you're one of these mining companies that did this you you did this to have money to build your own mind now now you're at the incentive level you want to build your mind and you're sitting on a double on your how you going to not sell that now so I'm not saying Therefore your am has to crash or anything like that I'm just saying um this hasn't happened before we've never seen this before I know some of my fellow uranium Bulls say oh it's not to

worry they're not going to sell all at once the the price will be fine but we've never been here before we we don't know what's going to happen Okay that's that's it's a question I'm not a bear I'm not saying it's going down I'm saying it's a question mark don't sell your kids into slavery to buy uranium stocks like have some sense of proportion I sincerely hope that nobody does that fingers crossed okay so another another aspect of your r that we

should probably go over is this pending possible ban on the Russian Imports and then the reciprocal possible Russia ban so I know that a lot of people are looking at that Us action as something that is probably most likely going to happen we just don't know exactly when is that how you see it do you see it as a pretty certain thing or are you less sure yeah takes you know I don't I don't know uh yeah honest answer is I don't know if it does happen you I could see the house you know it's kind of funny that uh Biden of

all people is somewhat pro- nuclear now and you know he's pushing for advanced nuclear and so on cuz his constituency a few years ago had been horrified and a gassed but now it's become you nuclear power is green in in a larger larger faction or fraction of that population um so it's it's an interesting time we'll see and people get it you know you got to have if you don't want to go burning Cal you're going to need that uranium so I really don't know what will happen if it

happens you know maybe Justin could explain better how this would work through the right really he's the uranium Insider I I speculate on many things and I happen to be a uranium bull right now long story short um it's probably going to be bullish how it plays out what the details are I don't know but even just a headline like that it's probably going to move spot it's that's just psychology okay um I think now we should probably talk about so one of your recent newsletters you said all right so

now this Kazam prom news has put uranium stocks or at least the good ones back on your shopping list so maybe we can talk a little bit about how what you're doing now and how investors can possibly P the scenario so that they don't get hurt right okay so you know on average the uranium stocks uh are still below their 2021 Peaks and a lot of people are upset cuz you know your aim's up and your a stocks aren't I I think it's actually a mistake to look at the average though the better

uranium stocks however you want to Define that you know see you know they have gone up there there are many of the companies that have a you know mothball production that can be brought online or robust feasibility studies that are building you know these stocks many of them are trading near or at 52- we highs or multi-year highs so it's just not true that the stocks have gone nowhere um if your uranium stock has gone nowhere you need sorry but you need to ask yourself some questions look in the mirror about

your stock selection here because because the price has proved highly material to this to the companies that can actually deliver value to the market like now and in the near term so I'm sorry I just I just get hung up on this because people get all upset about this the stocks haven't moved um what I would do and maybe two answers I am long I'm massively long yes I've taken some profits but I'm still massively long so I don't have to do anything right I can just you know I can

I can go so what I'm personally looking to do is the this Market has been in this whole bull cycle has been as you and I have spoken of two steps forward one step back two steps forward one step back so personally I would look for the next step back I mean this the charts just gone like this right you know nothing goes vertical forever so I would look for the next step back I am looking for the next step back for anything that I missed or or anything that I just like so much I'm willing to put more money at

play in um I have one uranium stock right now that I see as a buy as is everything else it's gone up with uranium so I'm I'm more patient if I had no uranium at all um then I would I would look for something that still has a compelling value proposition I would want at least one stock because you never know it could be tomorrow you know they passed that bill right yeah or whatever something could happen tomorrow so I I would actually if if I had no uranium at all I would look to in in the

next few days to buy something but don't chase anything in a 52- we High you know look for something that still has a compelling value proposition and sorry one more thing dear audience if if you say oh look at that one that hasn't moved at all it's on sale don't buy that one either if there's a stock out there that hasn't moved and the uranium pric is gone like this and this stock the share price isn't moving at all that's a red flag there's something wrong with

that story maybe not but if if it's not responding to higher uranium prices why would you buy that stock because uranium prices are moving it's already shown that it's not moving with uranium so if I had none I would look for something that has started to move it's just not as highflying as some of the others and sorry I don't give free stock tips you know it's like you say on the internet if the service is for free you are the product and I'm not going to do that to

you but that's what I would look for okay so I wondered if maybe we can look at the rest of your shopping list of course not naming names but we've got Uranium on there I know that gold stocks are on there and so I guess one thing so you said if you have a uranium stock and it hasn't moved you need to take a look and figure out what you've done wrong does the same apply to gold or if you done yeah let's be ni well okay I I don't mean to be that's my job I'm I'm

the right on the for I'm supposed to be the nice person but for gold stocks is is it the same story because I know a lot of people here this seems to be the question of the conference that I'm sharing a lot is when will my gold stocks move well so and we touched on this last time we spoke I do see it as an opportunity that the gold stocks as a class are you know Gold's gone like this and the gold stocks have gone like that or actually Gold's gone sideways in the last three years if we take it to four

years or five years Gold's gone up but if we look at the last three years at sideways and the stocks haven't done anything I do see that as an opportunity I do think Gold's going to go higher I don't think Gold's going to come down to meet the stocks I think the stocks going to come screeching back up to meet gold and so the fact that the stocks are on sale is a good thing but this same issue though if I'm I'm as a buyer I'm looking for a gold stock that is responding like

if if Gold's gone up and the stock hasn't moved that's a red flag even in the space but if it's gone up but just nowhere near as much as gold then it shows a it is responding to higher gold prices but it's still a deal that's what I'm looking for okay I think that's very actionable if people can figure out how to implement that so the rest of the shopping list so we knew we knew already gold and uranium anything else that you can share there we I'm still in the expectation

that we will get this hard Landing I'm still seeing that the worst of the global recession I think we are in a global recession I think the US will not be spared and I think the worst is still ahead of this so that means no oil no copper no lithium no Industrial Minerals at all until and I and I I don't think anybody can time the market I'm not saying I'm the guru who will know when the bottom is in nobody knows but right now the preponderance of evidence tells me that the bottom is likely in front

not behind us and when I can feel confident that that has flipped not for sure not that I'll know where the bottom is but it's probably behind us that's when I'll look to buy these things that are necessary the demand's going to be there for years if not decades ades I'm I'm extremely bullish on oil as unpopular as it is because it's it's obvious it's going to take far longer to wean the world from oil than the powers that be want but the but the industry is

already stared for Capital that's a that's a perfect setup for higher oil prices after the recession and I like copper on that basis I like lithium too but I want to watch it you know and I'm um yeah um other things we'll we'll see we'll have to see but the good news here is that in a situation like this where you're looking at a recession bottom and going up this is not typically a v-shaped situation you know where suddenly everything takes off usually you carve out a bottom in a situation

like this and that means there'll be time when it starts to look like hey we we need to add some of these Industrial Minerals to our shopping list there will be time to build positions it's not like a day late is way too late you know we will have months I think and then and then we will have years to profit so don't rush okay okay I just wanted to make sure we're not missing any other now things but I think yeah no right now no uh I mean no not right no no if I'm dead wrong if if team no

Landing forget soft Landing team no Landing is right everything's fine hunky dory's strong labor strong spending look at that record not record look at that great increase in retail spending in December never mind that we charged it all on credit cards and buy now pay later right you know let's say lobo's dead wrong and the and the and the market goes up this year if you believe that if you can convince yourself that this time is different and all those leading indicators are all wrong then yeah you

would make your own call and you you know I if I believed that I'd be buying oil now I'd be buying copper now lithium not so much I would want to see the EV makers coming back and start ordering again um but that's not one it I I think we're still yet to go through the ringer okay yeah so team hard Landing still here and I remember okay your thesis for the fed this year I'm going to check my notes to make sure I hopefully get it right so you were saying it won't cut because

it's a winning it'll cut because something's broken and now we seem I know nothing is said in stone yet but we seen like we're set to come down of the fed's own accord so what is going on there does the FED know something no so I no they don't nothing they're like Sergeant Schultz I don't ning i s no no um so there's a you know my thesis was that the FED would break something else right okay right and and we haven't seen that in a big way yet so if that doesn't

happen before it they get to the point where they start loosening anyway cuz it's these it's this through the Looking Glass economy but if if reported inflation keeps coming down and the FED keeps its rates High then the real rates are actually increased the real rates are the difference between the feds rate and the CPI so if the CPI keeps coming down and the Fed rate is flat that difference keeps getting bigger I.E real rates are getting higher so the policy is actually tightening right it's

getting tighter if they do nothing so if I'm wrong nothing else breaks and just this the situation Contin as it is then yes the FED would start cutting even without you know something breaking or whatever they'll do it just because if inflation continues to go down and you know I know that some of my fellow gold bugs are saying oh it's going to go back up again and it might but it might not you know housing is coming down that's huge Energy prices are coming down that's huge base effects are not as big

as they were last year but they're still actually helping the numbers to come in lower so it CPI official inflation whatever you experience in the store my friends you know the official numbers could still come down and the FED would cut and if they cut it would actually be keeping rates level right they if the if the CPI is going down and the rate tracks it they would actually be keeping rates the same in their Twisted worldview so so that can happen you know by the summer probably even if I'm wrong

about something else breaking I still think something's going to break but even if not then that happens so it'll it'll be interesting and by the way that's typically bullish for gold and this time we're not going into a situation like that at you know $1,000 gold or even $1,500 we're going into a situation like that at $2,000 gold so that's a really interesting setup do do you care to make I know you don't like to do price predictions do do you care but you did tell us an alltime

high was coming which we did have yes do you care to make up gold price that's right we spoke in November so we got an all-time high last year before the end of the year so I was right um but I got to say I was right for the wrong reason is does that really count as a success I can't Pat myself on the back okay we got a nominal all-time high and gold but I said it was going to be because the FED broke something and the fed you know didn't really maybe cast one right so so no I I I I don't

want to pretend to to be more of you know I don't like the prediction racket right so But to answer your question we're going into a situation that looks very bullish for gold either because I'm right about the recession and recessions are very bullish for gold or because the FED is cutting rates and higher rates are supposed to be bad for gold and lower rates are supposed to be good for gold so that's kind of a win-win for gold you go into that at a $2,000 plus or minus gold price I'm not going to

give you a price forecast but I'll say a mere 10% increase like gold was up what 10 15% in 2023 you do that again in 2024 just 10 to 15% you're looking at 22 to $2,300 goal and that is so far above the last nominal High it would be making headlines left and right you look at a 20 or 25% increase and uh you know it would be one of those things that would break the internet right you know it would it would become a me I I would be interested to see gold become a meme okay very interesting

we'll keep the range in mind but we won't hold you too that prediction there I think I think we've gone through what I wanted to touch on with you in terms of uranium in terms of gold but I will put it back to you if you had any final thoughts that you wanted to lead people with for 2024 well maybe not thought for 2024 but or beond oh actually thought for right now you know my marcha right right now right yes it's forget about inevitable not even tell me about imminent I want to know what's happening right now and

something happening right now this is the Inn scoop haven't talked to anybody else really about this on air um the show here often we have these talks and you'll start with you know how's the show and so on I didn't ask you this time and and but I think this materal like it's it's not chitchat who cares how the show's doing sorry jay but this time I think it does matter this show is like twice as busy as it was last year they they filled the whole floor the aisles are packed the

companies are just jamming they're talking to people the energy here I mean energy what a mushy metric how can I measure that I can't but I'm just what it's worth my wolf whiskers sense here it's like my Spidey Sense is like wow this is happening now there these people are here they're shopping they're asking questions people are here to buy stocks I can give you another data point this may sound self- congratulatory I don't mean this in that way but it's just a

data point my business has really taken off the last couple weeks and my business I'm a newsletter writer and and it's sentiment like really I should sell more newsletters when nobody wants to hear about gold or mining stocks or whatever Buy Low sell high right blood in the streets when everybody hates it that's when people should buy uh but no people buy when they get excited and things are moving so for what it's worth you add those together in terms of things that are literally happening

right now if you we use my sales as a barometer and we use this show as a barometer there there if feels like a pivot point it feels like an inflection point something is happen this wasn't happening when you and I last spoke just a few months ago and that's interesting because if the stocks are on sale because of sentiment and sentiment is changing I'll let you do the math okay very very mic drop moment there that's a good place to wrap it up thank you very much really good to talk to you once

again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is lowo great 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 [Music] time