[Music] [Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and here today with me is Jeff Clark a p prospector thank you so much for joining me great to have you great to be back with you Charlotte thank you for having me really good to be talking with you and as we were saying before we started this we had a a little bit of a hard time coming up with what will we talk about now so that we don't overlap with our talk on stage here at VC tomorrow so yeah try to keep it separate and I hope that that would be available


for people as well sure but I thought I thought what we could do is start with kind of a quick year in review looking back at 2023 I know for a lot of people here at V it was tough year if you were involved in the Juniors so I wondered if you could share highlights or possibly low lights from your your previous 12 months so 2023 I think as any active investor knows was probably the worst year for sediment in the junior mining sector maybe ever at least since the 1990s so if you held on to some of your


positions especially the really good ones and you didn't bail here's something new maybe you should pat yourself on the back because this we're at the bottom of a cycle now in my opinion and so I think things are going to turn and so for 2020 three if you survive the year you know congratulations um now it doesn't mean we shouldn't be cleaning up our portfolios we should always do that but here's the thing you you'll be cleaning up your portfolio even in the great years so um worst year in sentiment I


think that signals that uh sentiment is likely to shift here in 2024 uh at least that's what I'm personally preparing for okay very good I'm happy to hear that so so you're talking about sentiment the worst year for sentiment has it been also the worst year for the companies themselves or is it really kind of that that sentiment that's the problem here well the sentiment is obviously the biggest Factor that's pushed down you know stocks and companies that you know have no reason being you know trading at the


levels that they're trading at now uh so that's the biggest thing uh but that sedent and the exit from the industry has caused some companies that would otherwise be good uh to struggle and suffer and maybe not even make it now because they can't raise money or they can't Advance projects or they don't have enough cash or whatever the case may be so in those cases even if you like the company and the prospects are there if they're if they're not really able to advance their projects here


coming into 2024 you know Unfortunately they may have to go off to the side so uh you know it really depend it's company specific I think would be a good way to say it but it does start with siment so when sediment turns you know we'll have a a different problem our problem then will be that there's too many good companies out there you've got to weed through more of them you know so um but I I think going into 2024 that's when we're going to see a shift and what do you think will be behind that because


I often hear or previously have heard you know when we have gold at 2,000 consistently gold at an all-time high that will get people generalists interested people will come in the sent sentiment will shift so what what is going on that we don't quite have that yet right we've had gold to 2000 sentiment hasn't shift we've had gold you know sneaking and making new little alltime highs you know several times here just by a little bit right that hasn't shifted sediment it's going to


have to be a decisive breakthrough that is sustainable it's going to have to be those two things it has going to be something that's big that goes to 2100 2200 and the gold price stays there or it keeps going once that happens a lot of lot of things are going to change I think sedim is going to change in the mining industry and I think it it eventually that's going to drag silver along and silver of course historically has always passed gold in terms of return so I think that'll happen later


after you know maybe six months you know guessing uh after gold does this but I think that's going to be the key so what's going to drive that we don't know you know that could be any number of things you know so uh I do think that's going to happen this year though and that'll signal a shift in our our little sector and we'll start to see some uh real value and some real gains in the sector and maybe we check in on gold as well since we mentioned gold so when we talked last this is back in November you


said I think a new all-time high that was an easy call to make and we did get there so maybe just a little bit more detail on what you see coming for gold this coming year I do think it's going to break through and go to 21100 22 200 2300 somewhere in that range maybe 2500 we're going to see new sustainable all-time highs in Gold that's the call I'm willing to make for 2024 um and again that's going to drag a lot of things uh back into the sector that are positive it's going to bring


back uh a lot of mining investors it's going to improve companies improve company economics it's going to drag in mainstream investors so uh that's going to be uh that's going to be the decisive thing in my mind and I do think that happens sometime this year okay I also want to check in just briefly on the FED because we always talk about the fed and you've told us before historically that First Rate cut tends to come only five months after last hike so if we were I think 100% by the book that would mean


we get our first cut this month which doesn't seem likely to happen people don't seem to think that again the five month was an average and I think in you know in our context now is the Fed wasn't you kept signaling we may not be done and I I think that was more talk than it was you know really uh an actionable thing they were going to do uh but that does mean we're going to see rate Cuts this year and they've already signaled they're going to do that the question is when and how many Cuts did


they do um here's something interesting though that some research I dug up for Vancouver resource investment conference this year and that is I charted every single rate hike cycle and then I charted every single rate easing cycle and then I at I looked at I calculated Gold's return in every easing cycle okay there's been 11 of them since 1970 so what did gold do every time the FED is dovish and they're they're you know lowering rates or they're not raising rates in those 11 Cycles the gold price


has risen in nine of them so gold likes easing right and that's the that's the cycle we're going into as far as the FED is concerned so in the short term that's our Catalyst the FED is actually our Catalyst in the short term because they're going to go into easing so I think that's going to have implications and and I think it it could be exciting and of course that's just a short-term thing who knows what else could come on the heels of that yes yes we've talked


before about you know those black swans so it could be something that we don't even really anticipate at this point so you mentioned you you put together this data for vac and that was one of the things that I wanted to ask you because I find that you're always kind of deep in the numbers and figure out these little patterns are there any other interesting points like that that you've noticed lately that you would want to share with people absolutely in fact I'll steal this from John halfway at


Sprat but he charted what gold stocks did in the last three easing Cycles when they lowered rates gold stocks didn't go up 10 20 30% they went up they doubled tripled qu Drupal that's gold stocks not gold but gold stocks going up that much just because uh we're in easing cycle gold equities like easing and I think that's what we're going to see that's another reason to be bullish uh on your minors and hold on to the best ones going you know for this year I also want to check in on the recession angle so I


I'm pretty sure you're still looking for a recession in 2024 although you know in the outside world outside of the sector there seems like people are really not sure what they see coming right what are you seeing that tells you yeah we're going to get that you know it's interesting because the last six recessions have all been predicted by the negative yield curve we've had a negative yield curve for oh my gosh how long a year and a half or two I I forget how long it's a while it's been a long


time uh and we've not had a recession now I don't discount the fact that the FED plays with their numbers right but um it it doesn't appear here we're going to get much of a hard Landing right now but you know what that could change overnight we could get a stock market crash for some unrelated reason um we could get the recession anyway there's a lot of things that could still happen so I'm not really focused on are we going to get a recession or not I'm focused on do I own enough gold and what mining


stocks do I want to own because they're going to make a discovery IR irregardless of what the gold price might might do or what the economy may do and I think just because you said enough gold do I own enough gold I know it's it's an individual decision but how how can people who are watching DET determine is it enough there was a long-term study done by CPM group and basically what they uh found was that um the best risk reward quotient between how much gold to own was somewhere between 20 and 25% if you owned more


than that you had actually too much risk you know you were too overweighted in Gold if you had less than 25% you didn't own enough and of course we're in a time period where it's very conducive for something to happen economically monetarily in the markets so you want to own at least that 25% that sounds like a lot but that's what the research shows is the best risk reward balance on how much gold someone should own somewhere between 20 and 25% I think that's a lot higher than people might expect to hear


like even even countries don't have that much I don't think in their most countries do not correct right okay very interesting so yeah that's definitely something to keep in mind I want to check in with you you did a talk earlier today here and it was about your top candidates for Mining stock of the year because we I think we need to talk about that because I always kind of want to leave people with what can they do in these SOS so I I don't I don't know you probably don't want to give everything a


we but I wondered if you could share any any highlights or small bits from that yes so um I gave a series of baskets because you always want to own a basket right so had a conservative basket resource basket upcoming resource basket you know um a uranium basket but my top picks the ones that I'm personally overweight are um in the new newsletter which we just started with called the perer prospector after the book um but I'll give away a couple picks there um because I think they're potentially very


exciting uh one is Emperor medals um uh you know my tagline with them is is this the best zip code in all of Quebec and if you look at the map on the website you'll see why I'm asking that uh but the CEO there John Floric is actually he was actually buying shares uh before he was asked to even join the company just as an investment CU he liked it so much then he did some AI modeling actually used Ai and they determined that there's a lot more gold there than the previous models had suggested plus they drilling


plus there's unsampled drill core there's up to like 60 70,000 uh meters of drilling that was never assay so there's probably a high grade core to this with a bulk tonnage asset um it's has a 700,000 ounce um resource now but every indication is this is going to 2 million uh potentially 5 million ounces that's a big deal um especially where they're at they're not going to build a plant they're just going to let themselves be taken over because all the mills in the


surrounding area are desperate for feed they don't have enough ore and they'll just buy this asset regardless of how big it is I think it's going to be a very um good win for us I've had confidence in it it's not a guarantee but I've had confidence that you know this thing is dirt cheap cheap and I think it's going a lot higher so that's one example uh the other one I give real quick is Argentina lithium and energy um most people have not heard of this company um but stellantis is an auto


manufacturer of just dozens of models of cars that we've all heard and we all Drive um they invested 90 million Argentina pesos into this tiny lithium Explorer down in Argentina they're not even in production yet why would they do that because they see enormous potential with this company which is backed by one of the strongest uh management teams in all of Argentina and Mining um this one is a very good bet u m these are both speculations but this is what we're going to focus on and P prospector those


are two examples of of stocks that I have uh you know reasonably high confidence and we're going to win okay thank you so much for sharing and just a quick note so you mentioned AI how it's being used in Exploration I thought that's quite interesting because I've gotten used now to hearing about AI as this bad thing that's stealing money away from potential you know speculators are going over there so is that something you're seeing um often in a lot of cases uh in the mining industry


it's it's increasing but a lot of companies don't have that expertise they don't have the database you know of of Prior work to to to build an AI model you you know this particular emper medals had that and John Floric had the experience of doing that um very successful experience doing that so using artificial intelligence can be a good thing and in this case it's going to probably prove up that there are more ounces there than previously believed okay very interesting I think that wraps


up all the topics that I wanted to cover with you but you know you did mention you're doing something new P Prospect if you want to finish up by telling us a little bit about that what you're doing doing there any other final thoughts I started it because I come to these conferences and I see these great companies like Oh I like that one or oh this will be a good recommendation I say no a lot but I see some that I really like but they're really not appropriate for the gold advisor site because that's


the free site I want to be a little more conservative there um so this newsletter it's a paid newsletter so investors have to subscribe to get it um that's going to be a little bit more early stage a little more risky but potentially more explosive so we're looking for things that going to go 50% in a year double triple 5x 10x that's the kind of thing we're going to do um they will not all work they no one's ever has a 100% success rate uh this is geology and this is prospecting


and this is you know Junior mining uh but I think you know based on the success we had in 20123 we can see a similar success going forward we had uh seven winners in 2023 in the free portfolio so I'm looking to you know uh match that and exceed that in perer prospector okay well I hope to I hope to see you have success there yeah thank you of course and thank you very much for coming on to talk about what's going on with gold and the Juniors really good to have you here I think we'll we'll wrap it up here for


now great thanks Charlotte I really enjoy it thank you very much once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is Jeff Clark 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