[Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investingnews decom and here today with me is Peter grandich of Peter grandich and company thank you so much for joining me great to have you here great to be back with you really good to be speaking with you this is my first interview of 2020 for so of course we're going to look forward to the new year and help investors get situated first though I want to take a quick look back at 2023 in particular for gold and look at how it performed over the course of the year if there


were any surprises for you or things that you would want to highlight when it comes to Gold well gold itself did rather well you know uh but for me as I enter my 40th year in around the financial Arena I would suffer for the first time by being on the wrong side of a vicious bare market and that means that I was very long mining shares particularly in the junior sector until the last days of December it was a year you truly would want to forget and uh but uh fortunately enough for as we enter here in the new year uh that looks


to be behind us but I certainly don't think I can mentally or financially afford another year like that so I'm kind of glad that 2020 is be the sense is gone yeah I think I feel the same way and I'm going to come back a little later and ask you about the health of the Juniors because I think that's a really important topic right now when it comes to gold now looking forward to 2024 if we could look at drivers I know that last year when we were speaking you mentioned a couple of important drivers


that you saw which were Central Bank buying and the dollarization trend so wanted to check in and see if those are the trends that you think will continue driving gold in 2024 if there are other elements on the table sure they still are they're still a main factor uh moving gold forward I think the additional now that's come into play obviously is is the geopolitical factors not only because the Middle East as we speak it is a tind the Box there's just no way you could put your head on a


pillow at night and just say listen there's no chance I can wake up tomorrow and be in the middle of major war there's that many potentials there we also now are going to have a uniqueness of what's going to happen with Ukraine it's obvious now that the will of at least in America is not to keep supporting it in the way that it was without America being a major supporter can they continue their fight and then of course there are a lot of other political issues and again the single biggest one and I still say it


and every month I get more Bolder because it looks more appropriate to be this way and that is the coming uh formation of the Brick Nations and realistically with America looking uh out looking in this is not really something where a lot of other Western worlds are going to be uh economies hurt in the manner that the us is going to be and I think it was extremely critical and I think Wall Street has play little heed to it and we'll regret that they did on how important that is and there's


no question that someday soon in the next one to three years they are going to introduce some sort of special currency or way of trading that'll be away from the dollar uh which they've already been doing but I think it'll become more formal and it's going to involve gold in some way that's the only reason for why they have been such aggressive purchases particularly China and Russia and all and uh they continue to be and and so I think all the undercurrents that you would want for gold to continue going


higher I think we easily you know will break through here in the first quarter through the 2100 area and then that's going to just bring in a whole different type of investment mood for gold uh I really think there's a a very strong chance it was a Target I started with seven years ago when it was down at 1300 I said gold can get the 2500 and I still believe that's a reasonable Target that may not come this year but certainly within the next one to two years I think is very viable the other topic that I want to


touch on with you is of course the fed and our last conversation was in June of last year and what you had said at that time was that we wouldn't see the FED go back down when it comes to rates until 2024 and of course we have not yet seen that so I want to ask you what you see coming from the FED as we move into this year well uh I've coined them that don't wor be happy crowd on Wall Street uh for the most part the financial service industry is extremely biased to the long side uh they have this attitude now what


we like to call of a Goldilocks economy and I remind everybody if you ever knew the story Goldilocks first of all first of all it's just a fantasy it's not a true story so don't buy into it from that sense and the original story until they decided to change it was the Bears end up beating four Goldilocks at the end and I think that's going to be unfortunately for those that buy into this Goldilocks economy I don't think the Federal Reserve is in in the mood to raise interest rates much car because there's


so many worse issues for them the higher rates go than what it may help on the inflation side but at the same time I don't think we're going back down to zero or near zero interest rates again and I think that's the big change for people and I think the big change also excuse me is that they're not going to be The Rescuer that everybody or what the fed put used to be called that sooner or later the FED just opens up the spigot prints all sorts of money and stocks can only go higher and higher I


think that' be the big surprise uh if we speak this time next year that the FED did not get into an extremely accommodating position but I also don't think that they have much left at if at all on the interest rate rise what's going to play a role here and and it becomes very difficult for the FED to work walk that tight RPP is the political picture is really going to take hold now in a couple weeks here in the US presidential race and it has all sorts of asteris that we never had before we have one gu person's leading


that's been indicted in five different states we have the other party guy no one even knows if he can get himself up in the morning anymore and we have whole bunch of other issues uh that that are pending uh that that just make this political envirment just so challenging the debt issue and the immigration issue so I don't think the Federal Reserve is in a position to be tremendous tighteners but I also think it'd be mistake to think they're just going to become Loose as a Goose and just go back


to priny money like this though tomorrow I'm glad you brought out the US election because I think that's definitely going to play a role in what happens next year the other topic that I'm hoping we can go over is the one I mentioned at the beginning of the interview and that's what's going on with the Juniors so I wondered if you could comment on the health of the market I know you mentioned we saw some improvements at the end of the year do you think that's going to continue into


2024 what can we expect from the Juniors well the good news is I've been able to manage to wipe off all the blood that I suffered from the my hard uh core be Market we had we had the worst bare Market in the 40 years that I've been around them I think there's some important changes to the if you're going to play the Junior market to appreciate I knew of them last year and I still went against them and it was costly I don't think the Junior market is what it was 20 or 30 years ago I


think it has stiff competition now uh there's 's a lot more speculative ways and the single biggest one obviously is cryptocurrencies there's no question about it whether you're bullish which I'm not or you're bearish which I am that cryptocurrencies and the interest in them particularly as you go down the scale of people's ages clearly took away money that otherwise would have found itself into the Junior market the second thing that I think that happened in Junior market


has become very difficult to be a minor to explore I I like to say that 30 or 40 years ago you and I could have spun a globe let our fingers land anywhere we wouldn't have a difficult thinking we can go to that country and go exploring that's not the case anymore it's really shrunk dramatically and quite frankly it's going to take a lot for Mages especially when you start seeing countries like in Panama and all where in a sense they've taken control or nationalizing minds they' they going to


want to go out and spend a couple billion dollars to build something that may not be theirs in a year or two so I think those two things plus the regulatory juniors are are always mostly hopeful we're hopeful to find something we hope that this deposit may turn into something and yet it it's it it's become really difficult for the marketer uh the people that used to be available that played the Junior market you would go you're going to have a you know great show up there in Vancouver in a couple


weeks and there would have been years ago 500 to a th000 Brokers there now called financial advisors and they all had books of businesses where they were buying and selling Juniors for their clients that's basically a dinosaur there still may be a handful of financial advisors that buy and sell uh junior resource stocks for commissions but that's really come challenging so now that Junior Resource company who used to get three or 500 clients when they got one financial advisor interested has to get to those 300 500


on a onetoone basis it's much more challenging to be in the Junior market these days and all and and and I think also Charlotte that because of how severe the bare Market was we're going to see and we're already seeing it a lot of merges out of necessity this juniors are just not able to fend for themselves anymore financing still a big challenge even though we lifted off the lows towards the end of the year so I I think the Market's more challenging and what's ironic about it


is it's at a time when we have such a big need for Metals you know we used to live in Cycles in the Junior market anymore there are no Cycles we have far more need for Metals than that's currently going to be available and that's in a wide range of metals so it's the best of times but it's also still some of the worst of times for the Junior and that's why I still don't think uh although we're off the bottom I don't think it's got to be a rocket straight up because we're going to need


to go through an m&a period where there's some consolidation in the industry and uh and that'll also be up in in the smaller producers kind of merging together to become bigger ones because that's the only way they can attract institutional investors now so it it it's it's far more challenging than it was 20 or 30 years ago many great points that you brought up there and you know one of the things that stuck up out to me was your comment about how many different directions that


investors can be pulled in whether it's good or bad you know with the crypto there's there's a lot of different things to look at and one thing that I wanted to ask you about so I've been seeing headlines recently about how Costco is selling gold Walmart I think it's even selling gold right now and people are really interested they're they're snapping this up so what do you make of that I know I know gold is not the same as buying a junior resource stock but it seems it seems like there's


there's a comparison there well it's interesting you say that because that was the best lesson that was learned last year because for years we would say it shows like the one that's coming up hey owning mining shares is like owning gold that was a standard line that was said by many so-call experts including yours truly we learned last year that's not the case I think what's happening there is people are recognizing that there is a need for something other than the dollar the


dollar is earmarked to go a lot lower over time for a whole lot of reasons but I think the general public now is starting to appreciate and understand that having something in their hand and counting on it uh is worthy and that's you know when you get these Walmarts and all willing to take a take it as a loss leader so to speak they've managed to purchase his gold a little bit underneath the market and of course they limit it but it brings people into their store I mean they're not interested in


getting in to become bullan dealers it's just a very small part of their business but it was something that got a lot of interest and that helps because just a small increase in the typical demand of gold can add hundreds of dollars to the price so it it is a worthy thing to look at I don't think it's the only reason or the reason to go out and buy gold but it's certainly beneficial that companies like that now are offering gold out at for people to buy in the stores and and so in your opinion are we


seeing at least maybe a small mindset shift there where people are they're looking at gold now more people are getting interested and maybe maybe we see that come over to the stocks at some point in the future yeah I think that's something to be hopeful for I think one thing is clear at least in North America Canada and the US there's at least some individual interest now excuse me most of the interest for years has been in the Far East uh the typical Asian citizen was much easier for them and and


became a way of life of buying physical gold we're here in America listen the don't wor be happy crowd still treats gold and the ownership of it like Kryptonite it goes against because they make their living selling Financial assets but the good news is now more and more people Sidetrack the financial institutions that are handling their own Investments and that's why I think that's been another eight so why they'd be willing to go into a store and purchase gold for themselves yeah really interesting we


are a little bit slow on the upti I think over here in the west but looks like we might be getting there so lots of great information on gold but I also want to touch on uranium with you so uranium is coming out of a great year I think investors who have been in that space are going to be really happy and of course we know that you're bullish on the sector but people have a lot of questions you know after this this year where we've seen such a big increase in the price I think people are wondering


you know will we continue to see that steady rise or are we heading into a scenario where we see more of a spike similar to psychos in the past so curious to get your thoughts on uranium in 2024 so when I first got involved in uranium you know was on either side of $20 and uh companies like camoo were in single digits I thought it was a slam dunk to go up we've had a good move in it excuse me I still believe that my target of a triple digit uranium price which just a year ago didn't seem


possible now as you and I speak with just a few dollars away from it I think the the challenge for the retail investor is this and it's it's why I took the other route and I didn't take the root of Juniors and that is that unlike in other metals where there's a prolific Mount hundreds of different companies producing exploring for it developing it in the uranium Market it's very narrow there's a handful of companies that produce it in a sense that you can play as a producer and then


the rest are all wannabees people that feel that they have good reason to believe that they could find and develop uranium and they may have a good justification but the risk tolerance for people in that is very very limited because it a it's not something that's easily to be done it's not something that people are used to be doing and they're afraid they're going to miss the cycle and that somehow it's going to be like copper like if you don't find Copper in development the next two years


it's going to turn down again and that's where I think they're making mistake that's why I still think there is light at the end of the day for the junior sector of the uranium but it's going to take a $100 plus uranium price bring in that masses for it and that is that the uranium price is going to stay quite high for quite some time there's no question that nuclear energy now has made of 180 people around the world just a few years ago would say not in my backyard now here are begging for


companies to build nuclear plers so they can provide all this power that's going to be needed in this electrification that's coming in the world and so I I think it's going to be longer lasting than most people but for me because I was in from such a low end and have such gains I don't feel I need to first become very aggressive in at this time but I do think it's going to get above a 100 and surprise people to stay there and once it stays there for length of time then I think people are going to be


willing to be more speculative and pay up for the junior side of it but as of now I really have felt that you needed to stay with the few main producers and of course the companies that actually physically buy ownership of it because you know that there are some of these have doubled and tripled already but I still think it's a market that has a ways to go it's just not early anymore yeah and you went kind of exactly in the direction that I was hoping I think a lot of people are wondering okay we've had this big gain


in the price how do I play the stocks so for you still looking at those those companies at the larger end of scale that can produce the other question that I had for you is you know have you taken any money off the table in uranium at this point or are you still waiting to see you know that triple digit price and Beyond I've held my core holding and you know that's cago I still think cogo will make a new all-time high I I I do think uh that we're going to have a triple digit price so there's no reason yet to


sell anything that that physically owns physical ownership of uranium I I just think that it goes back to what we talked about before the Junior market is not what it once was and I don't think this still going to be even though we get a triple digit price all boats get lifted so anything that's uranium is got to go up triple digit I don't think that's going to be like it was years ago I think you're going to have to be more selective and of course the hope is that there'll be some


movement of institutional interest down into the the junior sector we have not seen that yet in really any medals we saw it briefly for lithium and as fast as they went up they were more like a bottle rocket you know they came back down and until we still see real Keen institutional interests I think it's just very hard for the juniors to have any sustainability as a group doesn't mean individual stories can't do well but to expect everything to move I think would be a mistake all right okay I think that


makes the uranium situation and your thoughts pretty clear I have what I'm hoping is maybe a fun question but this is something that I've seen investors wondering you know as we've watched uranium have this great year people are asking you know what's going to be the next uranium and not necessarily in terms of wow the price is going up but in terms of that Supply demand situation that has become really good over years and years and now it's finally starting to play out into something very


solid well it's very small I don't know of a lot of areas to play it in but it is something that I've spent the last six months trying to research aggressively and that is the coming crisis in water water is going to become a an extremely important commodity it's very challenging uh unfortunately there's not a there's not a lot of public ways of playing it because it's not like you go out and you drill for water just like you drill for for metal and all but I think what you will start


to hear not only regarding food but in particularly what a needs there's going to be dramatic and and part of the in interest is can we convince people to turn sea water into drinking water now in some countries it's you know Israel particular you know it's used and people have grown used to it it's still quite difficult for people to imagine that here when there's still ample Supply but I think as water becomes more challenging and of course in Canada there's so many lakes you can't imagine


you could be out of water but water in the world itself is going to become a uh a much more uh needed commodity than even now and there's going to be unfortunately a lot of shortage for it and there's going to be obviously political uh uh will put into it and and try to control you know influence areas where you know water is plentiful and that's probably one of the good things that Canada has going for because it has an ample water supply yeah very true although you know we're having a very mild winter right


now and I've I've been thinking about that you know are we having enough rain right now so kind of at the top of mine for me right now I wonder so water that's a great one for people to look at another thing that in my mind at least is kind of associated with that is you know food and the agricultural Commodities is that something you have an interest in you know it's it's it's very challenging now uh that there's a for whatever reason we've watched people like Bill Gates and all you know and and


foreign countries just buying up farmland and it's becoming very concerning now and where it concerns me mostly is more and more Americans are getting on food lines at food banks Working Class People so while the elite still don't have issues more and more people I think are going to face food supply issues around the world and I I'm I'm concerned because it doesn't seem it seems like Farmers have been made into bad people uh you just have you can turn on the news and see many farmers around the world are are


fighting this belief that we have to get rid of cows and all this for climate control and all and I'm I'm worried that too few people are going to be able to control food supply and it's just all part of this world economic for thinking in one world order and this kind of stuff it is real I'm not a conspiracist I don't spend a lot of time in that but I think it's a legitimate concern and and and one of the major reasons why that I really think in the next five to seven years here at least in the United


States we have so many issues that I think are going to cause issues that will rival what it was like to be during our Great Depression because again here you made a very good point food the simplest things that some of us take for granted are becoming more and more challenging for a lot of more people to acquire and not just in third World in so-call Western countries yeah I think these are really important topics to keep an eye on so thank you for going over that the final point that I wanted to ask you about is


I wanted to check in on copper so this is a metal that we've talked about before part of the energy transition of course it's known as Dr copper and I'm curious on your outlook for copper in 2024 we know that we need to look at the economy we need to look at what's happening in China if we want to know what's going on with copper so what are your thoughts on 2024 for copper if if if we weren't in this malaise of economic growth we probably would have seen a stronger price because if you


look at what people's expectations on the need for it past the next year or two is so dramatically strong compared to what known supplies are out there you go back to what we discussed earlier I you know it's going to take a five or6 doll price before some major is going to go into South America up a major mountain with all the political and social unrest and risk putting a billion dollars to to develop some copper mind excuse me so I still think the price has to go substantially higher


I would have thought by now we would have been above four but I understand why uh because last year was just a bad year uh all around but I really think once we get above $4 I think we're going to see a lot of momentum flow back into the copper price and probably by this time next year we''ll be pushing back towards the highs that we saw in near five so I I'm still very very bullish on it it's taken a little bit longer but it's also given an opportunity to acquire some projects that got really


marked down way more than than justification if there if there was a particular metal that got oversold in terms of the mining boock and the expiration companies was a lot of the copper plays and they've become extremely attractive in my view it's you know one of them that I own it's my largest holding by far so bullish by because I have to or bullish because I believe in so strongly but I still think copper has a strong upside you know over the next one to three years okay so copper is one that's just


going to take maybe a little bit longer for us and you know just touching back on the economy I didn't ask you earlier but I'll bring it up now so for the US are you seeing a recession in 2024 or do you think that the FED can strike that balance and and engineer that elusive soft Landing uh I you know there's like I said right now we're in the midst of this Goldilocks view on Wall Street because of how the markets ended in uh 2023 I think the political turmoil and it's going to become very very ugly I


mean uh there is no more middle anymore in the United States I can't speak for Canada but you read a left or your right there's no more Center and each side makes to their mind a great argument why the other side needs to be eliminated I mean politics here in the US is so bad that not only do the two parties not be able to sit down and and get any real legislation done that's worth anything but now there's fractions within the parties that can't stand other members of their own party so I don't see how


they're going to be able to handle the enormous problems we have in the US the first being the debt it's it's Insanity now we're spiraling completely out of control on on the amount of debt we're acquiring we have an immigration crisis like it or not uh it's nothing against individuals or people or colors or skin or but you just can't take in 10 or 15 million people uh who really basically coming with their shirts on their back and not expect to be hit you economically and socially and


so I just think that it's very hard for me to see this so-called soft landing and and everybody livs happily ever after uh whether or not there's a recession I don't think is as important there's how much turmoil there's going to be and I think so fewer and fewer people now are moving forward most people will tell you now that they're worse now than it was even before Co that's polls that continue to show in the United States and so that group that's doing well is shrinking and


eventually they're going to be pulled down by the weight of the people that are going backwards and that's how I see the economy developing over the next 12 months more of a slowing down and whether we get technically into recession or not but most people not benefiting from the economy most people starting to hurt because of the economy I think that's a really good distinction you know recession or not what is actually happen happening to to real people so that makes a lot of sense


to me those are all the the topics that I hoped to cover but do you have any final words that you would leave investors with heading into 2024 because it's looking like it's going to be an interesting year so my my my motto is is to be a live chicken versus a dead duck especially after last year taking such a hit uh personally I think you're ever on the side of caution uh it's better to be a year too early than a day too late and I think think people are still on General way overinvestment


equities I think that they they' they've gone that way because they've gone to a lifestyle where they need above average returns in order to keep living beyond their means and it's becoming harder and harder to do and I think as the year develops they'll see they won't have that ability and they'll have more troubles keeping up of what they already have and that's where I really think things will start to tail spin at a time when politically socially and economically things are all going in the


wrong direction and I don't so I don't sell anything that benefits from that I don't have dry food am cabins in the woods even gold I don't sell gold at all unfortunately I in my planting business that I still do in the US most people don't want to hear what you and I just discussed but it is what I see and I'm here to just tell you what I think and and I I appreciate the opportunity to do so well thank you very much to come on to talk about what coming in the next 12 months we'll definitely check in we'll


see how things are playing out I think a lot of what you said really rung true to me so thank you Yen for for going over everything thank you for having me God bless you of course and once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is Peter grandich with Peter grandit and company 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 [Music]