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SWISS Investor Unveils THESE Critical Insights - (Gold, Silver and Precious Metals Prices) · SILVER / GOLD / $UFD: Surviving Global Economic Shifts | RONS BASEMENT

0:03
There's a lot going on in the gold and silver investment
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arena. Today we have a special guest,
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Claude Bijay. He's joining us from
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Switzerland. He's a successful individual
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investor. Claude, welcome to Ron's
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Basement. Well, I'm happy to be in the
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basement. Some of my stocks by the way,
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are also in the basement. So it's a good, it's a good
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opportunity to talk about that. That's right, Claude, I've said
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many times when the, when the market for the precious metals
0:32
and the precious metal mining stocks really take off, I'll do
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a, a video from the roof of my house as a, as a celebration.
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So, so, so you've been around and you've been very successful
0:42
investing in the precious metal sector.
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Can you tell our viewer a little bit about yourself?
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I'll ask you to brag about yourself a little bit and maybe
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share with us your views on what you see happening right now in
0:55
the gold and silver market. And then I want to share with
0:58
our viewers, well, that we'll then move on to talking about a
1:01
couple specific investments, including first mining gold,
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which is a, an investment that Claude and I share together.
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But, but who is Claude Bijay and and what do you think about the
1:10
gold and silver market, Claude? Well, look, I've been, I've been
1:15
basically managing my own portfolio since 87 and I have,
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you know, I'm perfectly totally independent.
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Nobody pays me, I have no customers.
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So I'm really concentrating on, on, you know, on speculating for
1:28
my own account. And I can tell you that you're
1:32
not always successful. You know, I've done, I've done
1:35
quite well over the long term, but there's been periods which
1:39
were, you know, better than others.
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So you know, your, your style is not always in in tune with this
1:47
with the market you, but you have to keep your style.
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So, so that's the basic idea. Now, so on the on the gold
1:56
market is really, really interesting because you've had
1:59
gold exploding, OK, from the November 20 to low gold is up a
2:04
huge 70%. GDX was up 105 percent.
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I mean, these are big numbers, OK.
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And you know, we, we have Trump coming in.
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So since this little Trump adventure, then, you know, gold
2:18
has corrected about 10% and GDX about 19%.
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So the question now is what's going to happen?
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So my view is that we've seen something similar to the last
2:32
time Trump was elected, the gold went down some 18% and then it
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it flew from 2016 to 2020, gold was up 78%.
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So I don't think, I don't think that the second term of Trump
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will be, you know, much different.
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You know, he's he's somebody who who, who prefers to have the
2:51
lower dollar, who prefers to have lower interest rates and
2:55
who's certainly not going to solve the debt problem or the
2:58
deficits. Yeah.
3:01
We, we, we, we're in the long term bull market for gold.
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OK. What about silver?
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Any thoughts you want to share with us about the silver market
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as well so? You know, silver, look, it's
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very simple. I mean, some things in investing
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are difficult and some things are easy.
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In all precious metal bull markets, silver always
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outperforms gold. So, but of course it comes with
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a caveat because it's more difficult to trade silver
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because it's more volatile. So I would say long term you'll
3:34
do much better with silver. But you know, it's it's a more
3:39
tricky animal. Yeah, yeah, even more tricky
3:42
than gold. Yeah.
3:43
What are your thoughts on the gold mining sector?
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Obviously, this gold has to come from somewhere that's going to
3:51
be demanded in the future. Same thing with silver.
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But if we focus in on the gold mining sector, what are your
3:58
thoughts in terms of how that market has performed relative to
4:02
this big increase that we have experienced in the gold price?
4:06
Well, ask anybody who's been investing in, in mining stocks
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for, for the last decade, they'll tell you it's, you know,
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it's been very, very rough. If you, if you take, if you look
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at the long term chart of, of the ratio of gold miners to
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gold, I mean, you are at all time lows.
4:24
It's incredible. I mean, you're in the, you know,
4:28
very, very solid bull market in gold and the, the gold miners
4:31
are, are not keeping, are not keeping pace.
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So since the, you know, since since January of 22, gold has
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basically gone up 50%. But if you take, you know, the,
4:50
the, the GDX is done not as well.
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And if you take the small caps, you know they're down 38%.
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So, so that's why I'm interested still in this market is because
5:03
there's still a lot of opportunities.
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Lot of great values. You know, you and I chatted
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yesterday morning and you said something that really resonated
5:12
with me and really stuck with me.
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And we were talking about the junior sector, the the of the
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mine, of the gold miners, the developers and the explorers.
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And you said one of the things that attracts you is that you're
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protected by value. Can you, can you expand on that
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a little bit because that that just really hit home with me.
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Yeah, look, you know, it's always the same thing.
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You know, gold has had a big run.
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So for the investor, for me, for everybody else, you know, what
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do you do? Because gold has had a big run,
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it's correcting a bit. If you're buying, if you're
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going to keep buying the seniors, then you know they,
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most of them have doubled. So what do you do now?
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If you want to increase, if you want to increase your position,
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are you going to buy the seniors?
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But then you know you could. But if you have if the
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correction continues, you know they can easily go down 2030%.
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So that's why I think today the investor is better off to to go
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where they're you're still trading near the lows.
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So that's why I really like the developers.
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The explorers are also an extremely, extremely undervalued
6:31
and some are very cheap, but then you have the exploration
6:34
risk. So for someone who wants to
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increase their position or to rebalance their portfolio, I
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think, you know, selling some of the seniors, I don't have much
6:44
seniors left, so I don't have much leeway there.
6:48
But I think that's the way to go because they're so they're,
6:53
they're so cheap versus the rest of the market that they're going
6:58
to outperform. Yeah.
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Yeah, I'm going to pull up a chart for us to look at here,
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Claude, and I'll be curious to get your thoughts on this.
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This shows how the good This comes from the first mining gold
7:08
investor presentation, which people can check out at
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firstmininggold.com. But it shows the go how the gold
7:14
prices moved but the equities have lagged.
7:16
Any any commentary you can add on this clock?
7:20
Yeah. Well, look, we, we all know
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what's interesting here and, and what's interesting here is that
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we all know why the equities of last, OK, because you have all
7:33
this ESG thing, mining is not in fashion.
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There's a lot of red tape. It's difficult to get permits.
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It takes a very, very long time. You know, 30 years ago you could
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permit a mine in six months in the US Now it's going to take,
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you know, 10 years or whatever. So what I do like is that all
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the negative is known. So the underperformance in my
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mind, you know, should, should stop and now you're starting to
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see, you know, a little trickle of mergers and acquisitions.
8:14
So, you know, look at the look at Equinox, they, they bought
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the, the 40% they didn't own from, from Greenstone, they paid
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600 something I think six, $600 million.
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That's a lot of money. Yeah, Yeah, there that
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definitely has been an uptick in mergers and acquisitions even in
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somewhat up at the development stage level as well.
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You know, you said something earlier, first mining gold is a
8:45
development stage company and I want for our viewer who may not
8:48
completely understand a development stage company
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already has gold in the ground. It's already been discovered,
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it's many times already been defined in terms of how many
9:00
ounces are based are are you know, based upon scientific
9:03
methods, how many ounces are in the ground.
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And that sector like that chart just showed us that we that we
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saw earlier, these junior development companies often
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times are being valued at $10.00 or less per per ounce of gold.
9:19
I mean, is the value really that extreme at this point, Claude?
9:24
Yeah, it's it's as it's never been more extreme.
9:27
So you're at you're at all time lows in most metrics.
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So, so that it's so you know why, you know, why take an
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exploration risk if you can, if you're, you know, you're sure to
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have. I mean, you're mentioning first
9:43
mining. I mean, I love the stock.
9:45
Spring pool is 5 million oz Du Parque is 6,000,000 oz and
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you're paying nothing for it. I think any metrics you take,
9:53
you're at, you're basically at the low.
9:55
Yeah. So and, and, and and and what
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about the fact that these senior producers right now, let's just
10:03
throw the the the story out there.
10:05
They have, for the last 10 years been more focused on repairing
10:10
their balance sheets, getting their balance sheets in order.
10:13
They weren't really investing in exploration or development on
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their own. And every time they pull an
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ounce of gold out of the ground through their mining activities,
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it's gone forever. It's gone from their pipeline.
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So their pipelines are going to need to be replenished.
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And there's only so many companies I know first mining,
10:33
who you and I both have a significant investment.
10:36
And you know, they, like you mentioned, have two of the
10:38
largest development stage projects in Canada, Canada being
10:43
a very favorable jurisdiction. But these big companies are
10:47
going to need to do something here in the coming years to
10:49
replenish their pipelines. Yeah.
10:52
Well, you know, the story of big companies is usually pretty
10:55
simple. They're always doing the wrong
10:57
thing. So when everything was expensive
11:00
in 2011, you know, they were listening to the brokers, to the
11:04
fund managers. They were all encouraging them
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to do the mergers and acquisition, buy big.
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You want to buy, you want size and everything, you know, then
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comes the, you know, the bear market, 2011, 2015.
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And then the same people are, you know, since then I've been
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saying the opposites. So, you know, one of my
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criterias to judge as CEO is I, I want him not to listen too
11:27
closely to his shareholders and to do, you know, what's best in
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the, in the interest of, of his company.
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So for example, today, what's happening with the, the, the,
11:38
the big, the big senior producers, they're listening to
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the brokers and listening to the, to these big fund managers.
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And what are they doing? What are they saying?
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Well, we want yield, we want dividends, OK, Now when you can
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buy things extremely cheaply, the last thing you want is to
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just to pay out a dividend because you can do much better
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in the, in the, in the real world.
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What else are they saying that they have to reduce that to, to,
12:11
to nothing to, to reduce the, you know, to reduce the, the,
12:16
the, the, the risk. But you can buy plenty of other
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things so cheaply. Why reduce that if you don't?
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If you don't need to, it's buying time still.
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It is. So, so they're doing the
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opposite of what should be done. That's why there's still is very
12:32
little merger than acquisition, but but of course now they're
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building up a huge, huge amounts of cash.
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You've never had, you know, better margins.
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The margins now of the gold, of the gold producers are something
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like 40%. They have better margins than
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any other sector in the S&P. So every month they're reducing
12:57
debt. They're getting more and more in
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the treasury. And one of these days, things
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will change and they'll start to buy, you know, to buy the
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development companies. Yeah, yeah.
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And you know, I mean, I just thought of something, Claude,
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that that as you were speaking, but if the majors actually get
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into a real bull market as well, right?
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Because usually it's the big companies who stock prices go up
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first, they could find themselves from a from the
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perspective of potentially using equity to purchase the juniors,
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They could find themselves, I mean, it could all happen very
13:34
quickly, right? I guess is what I'm saying, Like
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these, the majors could could see big moves in their stock
13:40
price, then they could use equity to buy some of the mid
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tier or development stage companies.
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And what's your experience been? And then and then I want to
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focus in on what you like about first mining gold, which again
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is a sponsor of my channel and one of my my biggest position.
13:56
But what's been your experience in the past investing in this
14:00
sector about how things move? Any stories you can you can
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share with us? Yeah.
14:04
Look, I've, I've invested also a lot in the emerging markets.
14:08
I'm a good friend of Mark Faber. We went to to some strange
14:14
countries when everything was very cheap.
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And my experience is that, you know, it's true that first you
14:22
have the big caps moving, then you have the mid caps, and then
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you have the juniors. But the problem is that you
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never know the timing. In other terms, sometimes the
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lag between the seniors and the juniors is 3 months, sometimes
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it's five years. So usually you're better off
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buying, you know, real if the, if the value is really there,
14:44
you're often better to concentrate on the value and
14:48
then not working, worry too much about the timing because you'll
14:51
make so much more money that even if you have to wait, you're
14:54
going to be OK. Now, of course, recently I, I
14:58
wish I'd done the opposite because I would, I would have
15:00
preferred to have much more seniors in My Portfolio than I
15:04
than I did. So you see, you never get
15:07
everything right. But but the, you know, the
15:11
developer, the development companies are so cheap that, you
15:14
know, you can wait. Yeah, timing is less important
15:19
if you can, you know, have things going up three, 5-10
15:22
times. Yeah.
15:23
Well, I think, and I think you, you, you hit the nail on the
15:25
head. It's impossible for anyone to
15:28
always get the timing right, but it is much more possible to
15:32
always get the value proposition right.
15:35
The idea that there's value in a lot of these development stage
15:39
companies right now, right? Like we can, I, can I, we, we
15:44
can't predict when any company's stock is going to take off.
15:48
But I think you and I could sit down and look at financial
15:50
statements of a lot of these companies, look at what they
15:52
hold with their assets are, what actions they're taking and
15:56
determine that there is a big value proposition there and big
15:59
opportunity for capital appreciation.
16:03
Now one stock that that you and I share in common and have a
16:06
keen interest in is first mining gold.
16:09
Can I ask you what it attracts you to 1st mining gold?
16:13
What are you excited about with what's going on there?
16:15
Well. I'm I'm very excited about this
16:17
because they have two big assets, OK, which the major will
16:23
have to buy. OK, it's spring polled in
16:25
Ontario, du Parque in Quebec. So you know you're in a great
16:29
jurisdiction. It's Canada.
16:31
But you see I have some experience with this stock.
16:34
I know it's real and it's a really an interesting stock.
16:39
When we're in a bull market, spring pull, everybody loves it.
16:45
And when we're in a bear market, when the sentiment is negative,
16:48
nobody wants to touch it. And you have, they tell you
16:51
crazy stories. So for example, today and people
16:54
will tell you, oh, spring pull, it's under a lake.
16:58
It's, you can't build a mine under a lake.
17:01
Of course you can build a mine under a lake.
17:04
And as soon as the stock is up, you know, people will, will tell
17:08
you, well, in Canada you can, you can build a mine under a
17:11
lake, especially it's, it's pretty shallow.
17:13
So it's no, no, no big deal. So, so that's why I'm attracted
17:19
to to this stock. Yeah, yeah.
17:22
And it, and it was First Mining Gold was founded by Keith
17:25
Newmeyer. They acquired this package of,
17:29
of projects, mostly all in Canada, including the Spring
17:33
pole project, but there's the Du Parquet project in Quebec they
17:37
still own. And I've heard Keith over the
17:39
years mention this in a very positive manner.
17:43
The Cameron project, which is another, I think almost million
17:47
ounce project in Canada. These are, these are gold ounces
17:51
in the ground in Canada. And, and I think it's even more
17:56
astounding if you look at it from a, you know, there, of
17:58
course there's big, you know, opportunity, potential
18:01
opportunity, right. Claude and I are not financial
18:03
advisors. We're not giving financial
18:05
advice here, but there is big opportunity for capital
18:08
appreciation in the stock. But it's important to remember
18:12
too, that just from a value perspective, the amount of money
18:16
that's been invested in these projects over decades and
18:20
decades, right? Is, is, I would imagine would
18:23
have, would, would would add up to being way higher than what
18:27
the current market cap of the company is.
18:29
So this is gold in the ground in Canada that's been defined.
18:33
There's not big, there's no exploration risk.
18:36
It's not like they're the and they are exploring.
18:38
They're they're adding too. But there's already millions and
18:42
millions of Oz in the ground in Canada.
18:45
Yeah, absolutely. That's it's not a new, it's not
18:48
a new chicken, right. They've had numerous studies in
18:52
spring pool. You have APFS.
18:54
So that's pretty solid. You know numbers if you take
19:00
gold at six at $1600, the net present value after tax is $995
19:07
million. If you take it at today's price,
19:11
you know you're somewhere around two 2.5 billion and the IRR at
19:17
$1600 is 29%. So you know, if you add the,
19:22
the, the, the, the, the, the valuation of Duparque, you know,
19:26
the PA at $1800, you're talking about $600 million.
19:30
You know, at today's price it's much, much higher.
19:34
So basically you're, you're paying the stock much less than
19:38
10% of the net present value. So at these prices, I'm willing
19:45
to wait. Yeah, Yeah.
19:47
I mean at these prices, you know, I'll go back to what you
19:49
said yesterday, which I thought was was just almost brilliant,
19:53
right, like buying these stocks at these prices and it's the
19:57
whole sector. I want to, I want to emphasize
19:59
that as well. This is not a individual case.
20:02
The entire kind of junior development sector has been very
20:06
challenged over the last 30 years.
20:07
But you really are protected by value because.
20:11
If you look at a company like like First Mining, yes, as we've
20:15
discussed, there's millions of Oz of gold in the ground in
20:18
Canada, but there's no debt either, right?
20:21
The company has essentially 0 debt.
20:23
So this is a situation where you know, if you invest money into
20:27
this company or, or any similar companies that that have no
20:31
debt, you're basically buying the assets and and getting in at
20:37
a very attractive valuation. We talked earlier, I think you
20:39
mentioned I hear you know, $6.00 an ounce per oz gold valuation
20:43
at this point. I mean, that is really
20:45
astounding for big projects that the big companies are going to
20:50
need here in the near future. Yeah, I think the near future is
20:55
right, because I think you have to.
20:58
Your readers should your listeners should can, should
21:01
concentrate on the name of the company.
21:03
It's called first mining gold. So I think this will be one of
21:12
the first new production coming that can be acquired by a major
21:20
because the seniors have done really well.
21:24
They're loaded with cash and the, the, the next, the next
21:30
level is to buy the big developers.
21:33
And 1st mining goal is a big developers.
21:36
So of course I have a portfolio. So I have many other developers.
21:40
One thing I do particularly like with first mining is that
21:44
usually the developers are owned.
21:46
I own, are have one asset here you have two gigantic assets.
21:51
So, you know, you have much more diversification and a very
21:55
important point because we never know exactly, you know, what
21:58
gold can can do. I have the impression that we're
22:02
not going to have a big correction.
22:04
I could be wrong. But what's important with this
22:08
company is that since the management is, it is really good
22:12
and then they, there's, there's very little risk in other terms,
22:17
even if you know, the gold price goes down, the stock is so cheap
22:22
that it can go down much more. And if it did, then it's going
22:28
to survive whatever happens because this management has the
22:33
ability to, to raise money even in difficult circumstances.
22:37
They're, you know, they're, they're in the game.
22:39
They've, they've increased their position in the last two
22:43
financing. They own 4.1% of the stock.
22:47
So, you know, you're protected by a bunch of guys who are, you
22:50
know, really good in capital markets.
22:54
Yeah. I know that both Dan Wilton, the
22:57
CEO and Keith Neumeyer, the founder, obviously he's the CEO
23:01
of First Majestic Silver, but Keith Neumeyer founded First
23:05
Mining Gold and he continues to participate in buying the stock
23:11
at, at some points over the last few years in the open market,
23:14
but also in the recent placements.
23:17
You know, I know at one point, I think the one in 2003, 2023,
23:21
excuse me, I think Dan Wilton, this is all publicly available
23:25
information. Invested a half $1,000,000 in
23:29
Keith during that round, invested $1.25 million.
23:35
Both continuing to grow their stake in the company.
23:39
Obviously they have some belief or strong conviction about the,
23:43
the value #1 that the stock price represents, but also, you
23:49
know, the ability for the stock to, to appreciate potentially
23:52
greatly as we, as we kind of move through these coming years
23:57
in the, in the, the gold mining sector starts to get just a
24:03
little bit of, of improvement when it comes to sentiment.
24:08
Yeah, and these guys they're, they're pros, so they, they
24:10
understand the market. So let's say the market is still
24:13
very difficult. They're not going to spend a lot
24:15
of money, they're not going to promote heavily.
24:18
But you know, once the market turns, these guys know how to
24:22
promote. They'll, they'll, the stock will
24:24
go up, they'll promote the stock and then they they can sell at
24:28
the at the great price. That's another ad.
24:31
That's another reason I like this, this management team, is
24:35
that, you know, sometimes CEOs will sell the company too, too
24:41
early at a too cheap price. These guys understand what they
24:45
have, they understand the value of what they have, and they'll
24:49
make the shareholders profit from that.
24:52
So that's an added plus in this situation.
24:56
Yeah, yeah. You know, and you and you
24:57
mentioned earlier the Greenstone mine which Equinox recently
25:03
completed and then then required the remaining 40% of.
25:07
I think it's important to is, you know, we talked about Keith
25:09
Newmeyer, the founder, Dan Wilton, the CEO, but you've also
25:13
got some other top tier people working at this company.
25:16
Steve Lines was instrumental in getting that greenstone mine
25:20
permitted before he joined the first mining team.
25:25
And he has experience, I think even working on the regulatory
25:28
side in Canada. I've met him in person.
25:31
He's a super impressive professional.
25:34
And then you have James Maxwell who's heading up all the
25:37
exploration efforts and kind of piercing together.
25:40
I mean, I think it's also important to, to, to, to mention
25:43
Claude, that like especially at the Stew Parquet project in
25:46
Quebec, there was a lot of money spent.
25:49
I actually visited there about a year and a half ago and there
25:52
was a lot of money spent over decades in terms of drilling on
25:56
that property. I don't have the specific
25:59
numbers, but you know, it was a lot of money and there's a lot
26:03
of data there. But James Maxwell, who was I
26:06
believe with Sabina Gold previously, he's kind of been
26:10
tasked with exploration efforts because there is big opportunity
26:14
also for the company to even expand these big deposits
26:18
through exploration. Yeah, I know Quinton ending
26:23
quite well. And again, you know, when
26:25
nobody, when everybody said that, you know, three companies
26:29
have gone bankrupt on spring poll, you know, he, he, he, he
26:32
understood, he reinterpreted the geology differently.
26:36
And every time he got started drilling, he was hitting and he
26:39
got to 5 million oz. He has always told me that there
26:42
would be 10 million oz there. So there's huge exploration
26:46
potential. So of course, today with these,
26:49
this press price, you know, it's not worth, you know, spending
26:53
money diluting the shareholder to, to drill.
26:55
But you know, these big deposit, once you're in production, you
26:59
have plenty of money then you know, they're usually, they
27:03
usually expand and the same for Duparque.
27:06
I wouldn't be surprised. They could also go to 10 million
27:09
oz. So there's explanation
27:11
potential. And I don't think they'll
27:14
realize that now because it would dilute the shareholders to
27:17
do a lot of drilling. But when you're selling a
27:19
company to a major, they, they, they, they need to understand
27:24
and they want to see that there's exploration potential.
27:27
So even if they pay the right price for the asset, they know
27:31
it can grow, so that's a big plus.
27:35
Yeah, yeah. And you know, and and we talked
27:37
earlier about this two to three-year period recently that
27:40
we've gone through with the with the mining sector, which has
27:43
been challenging for all the companies.
27:46
One thing that I find encouraging in terms of what
27:51
first mining gold was doing during that period, which which
27:54
relates to the point that you just made, is they were
27:57
acquiring more land. They were, I guess it was about
28:00
two years ago was the the point at which they were able to pull
28:04
off this major consolidation which became the Du Parquet
28:09
project, I guess you could call it in whole now in Quebec, like
28:13
they've been busy for the last two to three years.
28:15
There's, you know, just recently they've submitted their
28:19
environmental permit for the spring pole project.
28:23
Like they've been working, working, working diligently
28:27
during this time period to move forward these projects in the
28:31
development stage, right. And, and probably flying under
28:35
the radar. I mean, the market's not giving
28:37
anybody much credit for anything, but it's important to
28:41
recognize that, that the first mining, you know, led by Dan
28:44
Weldon has been doing a lot over the last two to three years.
28:48
Not just sitting on the projects waiting, but really working hard
28:52
to, to, to move these along that I guess the Lausanne curve
28:56
through this development process, which will make the
28:59
company's projects pretend. You know, if we're going to talk
29:02
about acquisition or interest from the majors, we'll make
29:06
these projects much more attractive to the to the majors.
29:09
So I think we're pretty much protected by valuation now and
29:15
there's very few institutions left.
29:17
It's basically mainly retail. I like these situations because
29:21
since it's just a fantastic asset, the funds will have to
29:25
buy and we'll we'll have a great re rating institutions only 12%
29:30
it'll be 50%. They'll they'll have to buy it
29:33
because it's just next in the line.
29:36
OK, so you know, they did very well with the seniors.
29:39
They did well with the mid cap producers.
29:42
Now they'll go to the the developers, the big developers
29:45
first, probably. Yeah, and it, and it, and it can
29:47
be challenging from an investor's perspective.
29:51
I think you and I share, you know, I'm heavily invested in
29:54
the, in the, in the development stage companies, the junior
29:57
stage companies. It can be hard to be a
30:00
contrarian because like you said earlier, right, our your, your,
30:05
your thesis, the value proposition is 100% there, no
30:10
doubt about it. But the timing of, of realizing
30:14
when what we're talking about is everybody else waking up, right?
30:18
Everybody else realizing like, wow, this is where I want to be
30:22
that it's it's hard to predict when that when that specifically
30:25
will occur. Yeah, right.
30:26
So, so that's why I like to to be in stocks where where I can
30:31
average down in other terms, I'm protected by value.
30:35
I have averaged down aggressively and I mean, I don't
30:38
feel comfortable, but I'm feeling OK because it's a
30:44
producer. You can have a glitch, you can
30:46
have a, you know, a dam breaking out.
30:50
Anything can happen here. No production, no risk.
30:54
Yeah. You know, that's a great point,
30:55
Claude, and one that I've thought of in the past, but
30:58
haven't thought of for a while, right?
31:00
That with these development stage companies, it, it, it, it,
31:03
and correct me if I'm wrong on this, but it really is a sweet
31:06
spot because you know, the gold is there.
31:09
You know the gold is in the ground.
31:11
You know what the asset is. You know that the companies are
31:14
working to move the asset through the, through the
31:17
permitting process. But you don't have that risk
31:21
like on the exploration side. You have the risk that that the
31:23
company is going to spend $40 million and, and drill a bunch
31:27
of nothing, right, which can be very detrimental to the stock
31:31
price. And with a producer,
31:34
unfortunately, there's, there's probably more risk even to the
31:37
price of the metal itself. But also, you know, mining gold
31:42
and silver, you know, I talked to a lot of the, the producing
31:45
mining CEO's and I'll tell you like, this is a tough business,
31:49
right? There's, you never know what's
31:50
going to happen. Whereas the developers have
31:53
really kind of a sweet spot. The companies like first mining
31:56
Gold where they, they, they don't have that production risk
31:59
and they don't really have the exploration risk either, But
32:02
they're not getting enough love, Claude, right.
32:05
I mean that's it's. Yeah, right.
32:06
So, yeah, look, not only they have huge, I mean this, these
32:10
are huge assets. Who has, I mean, who has 5
32:13
million ounces, the 6,000,000 ounces in Canada?
32:16
I mean you count them on 10 fingers.
32:19
OK, well, who has two assets like that First mining.
32:25
So, and not only they have the ounces in the ground, but
32:28
basically they're economic because they have the studies.
32:32
So it'll be mines. It'll be mines.
32:34
And their economic at $1600 gold, you said that earlier,
32:39
right? We know that the net present
32:40
value goes up by hundreds of millions for each $100 increase
32:45
in the. OK, so Ron, you talked to a lot
32:47
of people. What are the negatives?
32:49
What do people tell you? Why don't they buy the stock?
32:52
Yeah. Well, I think it honestly, you
32:55
know, Claude, the the biggest reason why people aren't buying
32:59
any of the development stage companies would would be that
33:04
that there there just aren't enough people.
33:07
The people, the people, let me let me rephrase my answer.
33:09
The people that I talked to are buying the development stage
33:13
stocks, but I think it's just a matter of from a, from a more
33:17
macro level, there's just not enough interest in this sector
33:22
yet, right? I had, because it's not been
33:26
it's been somewhat out of favor. I mean, you know, there's no
33:29
other way to there's no other way to really describe it.
33:31
It's unfortunate, but I will say that the people I do talk to,
33:36
and I'm not just saying this because they agree with me, but
33:39
but you know, and I'll say this about you as well.
33:41
The people that I do talk to that do that are buying these
33:44
development stage companies are really smart people, right?
33:48
And also, like you said, people that realize that, that, that
33:53
being right and being early can sometimes feel like you're wrong
33:59
and that it takes patience and realizing what you have.
34:02
I mean, I don't want to go off on a soapbox here, but like
34:05
what? Just from a personal perspective
34:07
and, and I don't know how you feel about this, but if I have,
34:10
if I have $10,000 that I, I need to invest and I'm going to put
34:14
it into a stock, to me it's a no brainer.
34:17
When I look at do I want to put it in Apple computer or do I
34:20
want to put it into a development stage company?
34:23
To me, the value that I'm getting when I compare those two
34:27
and there's risk with Apple, you know, there's risk with Apple,
34:30
there's risk with NVIDIA, there's risk with, you know,
34:33
these high flying tech stocks. And when I compare what I get
34:37
for $10,000, you know, let's say it's $6000 with first mining
34:44
gold. I know I'm getting roughly 1000
34:46
ounces of gold in the ground in Canada.
34:48
Yeah, there's a lot that needs to be done to get that gold from
34:51
being in the ground to being mined and sold.
34:55
But nonetheless, the value proposition is there.
34:58
So I think, you know, it, it we're, we're going to see a
35:04
point where people will start to wake up.
35:08
I know I've heard several people say it's, you know, maybe even
35:11
when like if there's a, if there's a big correction in the
35:14
tech stocks. I mean, there is, there's, there
35:17
is so much money out there right now that's been printed and
35:21
everything else that's in, that's in tech stocks, that's in
35:25
just everything under the sun. We don't need a lot, I mean,
35:29
for, for our sector. I know that I think I read this
35:32
morning .5% of the world's financial assets are invested in
35:38
precious metals related investments.
35:41
And you know, it doesn't take a lot to, for .5% to go to 2%, but
35:48
that's four times the amount of money.
35:49
And we know what that would do for stock prices in the in the
35:53
development sector. Yeah, Look, not not too long
35:57
ago, first mining was trading at one point $3.
36:00
It's now trading at $0.13. And at that time the goal was,
36:06
you know, much, much lower. It was I think something like
36:10
$1600 goal. You're at 2600 so you know, the
36:15
stock has corrected a lot. It's, and you, I also feel that
36:19
now there's upside. So in March and it went from,
36:23
you know, $0.10 to $0.18 very quickly.
36:26
And then recently it had a bounce to, you know, around 18
36:29
cents. Also look at the charts.
36:31
It's looking good. I think there's a big, a nice
36:33
little floor around $0.13. So, so I, I think we're there.
36:39
Yeah, yeah. It, it, it certainly feels like
36:42
on from many different perspectives that there, there
36:45
will be a number of factors which will provide a tailwind
36:49
for first Mining Gold and for the whole development sector as
36:53
well. Quad, thank you for joining me
36:56
today. It's, it's a treat to get to
36:58
talk to you and you know, you're in Switzerland and, and I know
37:01
you've been, I don't think that you wanted to brag about
37:06
yourself so much too much, but you've been a very, very
37:09
successful investor over the years.
37:12
So on behalf of myself, on behalf of First Mining Gold, the
37:17
sponsor of Ron's Basement, and our viewer who who was able to
37:21
gain a wealth of knowledge from you, I want to say thank you for
37:24
joining us today. Is there anything that I forgot
37:26
to ask you anything that I, anything you'd you'd like to say
37:29
before we sign on? Well, first thing that we've
37:32
been talking about a lot about First mining, but I want to be
37:37
very clear about that. Nobody's paying me to do this.
37:40
I just do that because I like the stock, I own the stock.
37:44
So of course, if it goes up, I'll profit from this and I was
37:48
happy to join you in the basement.
37:50
And hopefully very soon we'll have some high Flyers and a lot
37:55
of stocks, the big ones, the small ones, the mid caps, the
37:58
developers, the exploration, everything we should be, you
38:03
know, heading for silly season one of these days.
38:06
That's why the, that's, you know, most of the really,
38:09
really, very, very smart investors, you know, the big
38:14
guys like Frank Giustra and so on.
38:17
They, they, they say it's a typical bull market and you
38:21
know, we'll have euphoria. It'll end in euphoria as it
38:25
usually does. So hopefully we'll be right.
38:28
Yeah, you know, we did, we did. We didn't touch on, we didn't
38:30
touch on that. But, but we, but we have seen
38:33
some, some good positive healthy signs on the, on the, on the
38:38
majors, on the big mining companies.
38:41
And usually during, from what I understand during a healthy bull
38:44
market, it takes some time for that to filter down to the
38:48
developers in the exploration stage company.
38:51
So while we may be a little feeling a little frustrated
38:54
right now, anyone who's invested in the junior sector, what we're
38:58
really going through, you know, if we're if we are in a decades
39:02
long bull market is kind of a normal, normal situation.
39:07
Right. But, you know, I tell you I've
39:10
been very frustrated because it's the first time that gold
39:13
goes ballistic without the juniors, you know, going
39:17
exponential. So.
39:18
Following say. Well, we'll see how it it plays
39:20
out. Thank you very much.
39:22
Thank. Thanks, Claude, and we'll look
39:23
forward to seeing you again. Thank you.
39:25
Thank you. Bye.
39:26
Bye.