1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,200 I mean, I suppose the only frustration for, you know, 2 00:00:02,280 --> 00:00:04,600 people like me when you have these generalists coming into 3 00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:07,640 the space, I mean, it's great on the way in, but they don't like 4 00:00:07,760 --> 00:00:09,960 commodity investing is they they hate the space. 5 00:00:09,960 --> 00:00:12,640 And so, you know, the moment that something wobbles or goes a 6 00:00:12,640 --> 00:00:15,240 little bit wrong, like they sell and sell hard and get out 7 00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:16,600 because they. Never wanted to be there. 8 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:22,960 Exactly right, Exactly right. All right, money miners, we are 9 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:25,160 a man and a half down with Trevor being a good son, 10 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:28,240 supporting his mother up in Singapore for her birthday. 11 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:31,800 But we have Sammy Berege to more than make up for it. 12 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:33,720 Sammy, what a start to the year it's been. 13 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:38,600 First two weeks. It's it was enough to drag you 14 00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:41,480 away from the ashes. You know, the 5th test like the 15 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:43,280 headlines. You know, the first couple of 16 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:45,040 weeks a year, you just want didn't know what was going to 17 00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:47,960 happen next between Iran and gold going through the roof. 18 00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:50,440 And then now Trump wants Greenland. 19 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:52,600 And then you throw some, you know, threatened criminal 20 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:55,480 charges at the chairman and the Fed all mixed up together. 21 00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:58,760 It's yeah, been a pretty good start for hard assets like 22 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:00,400 commodities. Yeah, Yeah, it has. 23 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:04,160 And to, to put it in a bit more context, I mean your, your 24 00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:06,680 returns last year were outstanding across the the two 25 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,560 funds that you kind of managed. So it's not as if we're in the 26 00:01:11,440 --> 00:01:14,840 in, you know, that the very bottom and seen a kind of bounce 27 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:17,760 out of nothing. A lot of fundies in the the 28 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:21,320 natural resources space had had pretty decent 2020 fives, but 29 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:23,280 it's a real continuation of the theme, right? 30 00:01:23,640 --> 00:01:26,280 Yeah, it is. It's, you know, just set like 31 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:30,360 the December quarter last year was quite strong for the entire 32 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:33,080 sector. And yeah, it's a lot of those 33 00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:37,880 themes just keeping on going. Whereas I suppose the one 34 00:01:37,880 --> 00:01:42,560 observation in January is that because the sector has moved so 35 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,400 hard and so fast, it's capturing, capturing the 36 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:50,040 attention of of generalists and investment advisors and, and 37 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:53,560 various other asset allocators who are underweight the space. 38 00:01:53,560 --> 00:01:56,640 And that underweight is hurting their relative returns. 39 00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:59,960 And so, you know, the level of inquiry, you know, just in 40 00:01:59,960 --> 00:02:02,720 January for, you know, getting more money or putting money to 41 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:04,760 work in the space has been quite acute. 42 00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:08,080 So, you know, that can lead to a bit of frothiness. 43 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:10,160 So it's, you know, it can be a double edged sword, but still 44 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:11,280 that's what's happening at the moment. 45 00:02:11,920 --> 00:02:13,600 How far along in that process do you think we are? 46 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:20,480 I think pretty early stage, there was some interesting sort 47 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,080 of recommendations coming out in December about, you know, big 48 00:02:24,600 --> 00:02:28,000 banks advising their, you know, high net worth clients that they 49 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,000 should add, you know, another percent or or so to their, to 50 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,200 gold, for example, is part of their, their asset allocation. 51 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:38,360 And, and across, you know, Europe and the US. 52 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:41,760 Like what that means in terms of gold demand is, is quite 53 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:45,800 staggering. So, you know, if people are 54 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:49,920 looking to, you know, primarily gold, but also secondary, the 55 00:02:49,920 --> 00:02:54,280 other commodities as alternative stores of value to, you know, 56 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:58,120 Fiat currency, well, that process is in, it is in it's 57 00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:00,800 infancy. And again, it can lead to 58 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,920 frothiness, but I think we're, you know, we're closer to the 59 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:06,000 beginning than the end of of that process. 60 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:08,920 Yeah, you see a lot of top investors around the world 61 00:03:08,920 --> 00:03:13,440 talking about a 6020 twenty types of portfolios where the 62 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,320 allocation to gold is, is unlike anything we've seen in in the 63 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:19,080 last 100 years. But it still seems as if we're 64 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:21,040 pretty far away from that actually happening. 65 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:24,120 Yeah, I mean, again, you know, these people aren't idiots. 66 00:03:24,120 --> 00:03:25,560 They don't want to be buying the top. 67 00:03:25,560 --> 00:03:30,200 So, you know, if prices start running away too quickly, I 68 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,920 suspect they'll hold back. But that that latent demand, I 69 00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:37,480 think is still there. So, you know, you'll end up with 70 00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:42,880 higher lows and higher highs as dips continue to be bought, you 71 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,160 know, until some point that the macro changes. 72 00:03:45,160 --> 00:03:48,680 But yeah, I don't think it's changing, you know, materially 73 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,920 anytime soon. So when you when you think about 74 00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:56,440 this period in history and, and what commodities are doing what, 75 00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:59,200 what other period do do you reflect most on? 76 00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:02,160 I know the the 70s is is 1 you've spoken about, but what 77 00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:05,000 what sort of matches and what doesn't match with with that 78 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:07,200 error? Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a 79 00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:08,880 good point. And you know, everybody wants to 80 00:04:08,880 --> 00:04:11,680 sort of find the analogy to give themselves a little bit more 81 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:14,640 conviction in, in forecasting what's going to happen next. 82 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:18,480 And I think the, the environment we are now is certainly has 83 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:22,400 stronger similarities with the 70s than the last commodity 84 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:25,400 boom, which was obviously China demand LED. 85 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,320 Whereas in the 70s, you know, there was a, an energy crisis, a 86 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:36,240 shortage of oil that was, you know, geopolitically lead and 87 00:04:36,240 --> 00:04:38,360 then that, you know, was very inflationary. 88 00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:41,400 And then that flowed into, into a lot of other hard assets 89 00:04:41,840 --> 00:04:45,920 around the world. So, you know, today we've got 90 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:50,120 China and, and the US competing over, you know, various metals. 91 00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:54,040 You know, certainly the, the US has built up huge inventories of 92 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:58,840 copper over the last 12 months. They're discussing, you know, 93 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,560 building strategic reserves of, of rare earths. 94 00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:04,280 And I think there'll be more metals added to that. 95 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:06,640 So they're the echoes that we get. 96 00:05:06,640 --> 00:05:11,160 It's more a a sort of a restriction of flow of 97 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,520 commodities around that's driving prices as opposed to a a 98 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:16,440 traditional sort of demand LED deficit. 99 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,920 That said, I mean going into 2026, I mean demand does look a 100 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:23,120 little bit better than it did in 2025. 101 00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:26,320 So that's helpful. But that sort of de 102 00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:30,960 globalization trade and and you know, restocking event by 103 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:33,360 countries around the world as they look to secure their own 104 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:37,000 commodities, that's really something to watch to determine 105 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:39,760 sort of the trajectory of metals prices on the way forward. 106 00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,880 Yeah, when when we think about how wild the the past year and 107 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:48,120 the past couple weeks have been, the the 70s are really 108 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:52,640 interesting example because oil jumps about four times in in one 109 00:05:52,640 --> 00:05:54,800 year. I think in 1973, over the 110 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,720 decade, gold I think was up 20X from being pegged. 111 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:01,920 Silver goes from like 8 bucks to to to 50 bucks. 112 00:06:01,920 --> 00:06:05,080 So these are these are crazy movements in the in the meadows. 113 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:06,640 Yeah. And it's, and then you think, 114 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:09,480 well, you know what, what brought that bull market to an 115 00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:11,760 end because it went, you know, more or less for eight years. 116 00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:13,400 I mean, there were some spikes along the way. 117 00:06:13,400 --> 00:06:17,280 And it ended when I think Paul Volcker, you know, took up 118 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:20,120 chairmanship of the Fed and then he hiked interest rates to 119 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,080 something like 20% to combat inflation. 120 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:24,440 And that's snuffed out the market. 121 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:28,240 And, and that was that, whereas today, with the amount of debt 122 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:31,880 sloshing around the world, if any Fed chairman tried to do 123 00:06:31,880 --> 00:06:34,840 anything like that, like it would cause massive, massive 124 00:06:34,840 --> 00:06:36,800 issues. So, you know, pulling that 125 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:39,760 interest rate lever is, is going to be much more difficult. 126 00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,080 And, and obviously, you know, Trump's railing hard against 127 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:45,760 against any suggestion that that could take place. 128 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:49,720 So it's not clear what's going to bring sort of this sort of 129 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:53,200 scenario to an end. I mean, you know, commodity 130 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:56,680 prices go high enough, you end up with, you know, supply, 131 00:06:56,720 --> 00:06:58,560 sorry, price induced demand destruction. 132 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,480 Like people just can't afford to use the, the commodities for, 133 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:04,320 for all applications. So that brings demand down a 134 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:07,320 little bit. But again, you know, we're, I 135 00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:09,680 think we're at the more much closer to the beginning of this 136 00:07:09,880 --> 00:07:12,400 this, you know, rally than than the end. 137 00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:15,080 Yeah, yeah. Well, love him or loathe him, 138 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:19,120 Elon Musk was tweeting, I think the other day that the silver 139 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:22,200 rally is not good, given the, the kind of industries he works 140 00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:25,240 in as well, how much silver is used as, as one of the top 141 00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:28,400 conductors in, in the world and humanoids and anything else they 142 00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:30,880 want to build battery related. So there's very real kind of 143 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,320 consequences on, on that kind of front. 144 00:07:33,880 --> 00:07:36,840 If, if we look to, to Asia kind of getting a bit closer to home 145 00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,840 from, from the US now it's interesting to see some of the 146 00:07:39,840 --> 00:07:43,360 data and you flag some of the PMI data, which in, in simple 147 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,120 terms, I think people can think of as a lead indicator 148 00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:49,160 potentially on, on metals demand, commodities demand. 149 00:07:49,160 --> 00:07:51,240 What are you sort of sniffing out from there? 150 00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:56,200 I think it's, we're finally starting to see a bit of 151 00:07:56,600 --> 00:08:01,640 traction of the stimulus efforts over 2025 sort of flow into the, 152 00:08:02,040 --> 00:08:03,840 the real, you know, the real world. 153 00:08:03,840 --> 00:08:07,440 And, and, and that's reflected in those PMI numbers for, for 154 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:11,160 Asia. So for March of 25, you know, 155 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:14,200 you had the big sort of, you know, hissy fit over Trump's 156 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:18,400 imposition of tariffs in April. You know, that did impact the US 157 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,880 demand. It did impact Chinese demand for 158 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:25,400 commodities. The Chinese were very selective 159 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:29,120 in how they chose to stimulate their economy to just can't try 160 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:31,840 and keep things on an even queue, you know, more focused on 161 00:08:31,840 --> 00:08:36,520 consumer electronics E VS manufacturing basically. 162 00:08:37,200 --> 00:08:41,400 And bit by bit that stimulus appears to have been, you know, 163 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,600 effective now and we're starting to see Pmis turn positive. 164 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,920 But the other factor, which is a, you know, different from the 165 00:08:48,920 --> 00:08:51,960 last commodities boom is that the delta in Chinese demand 166 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:55,040 seems to be flowing through their exports. 167 00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:59,480 So it's basically rest of world demand as you know as expressed 168 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:03,280 through Chinese exports, which is the area that's surprising to 169 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:05,840 the upside. So you know, this commodities 170 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,360 rally at the moment feels much more broad based from a demand 171 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:13,040 point of view than you know the very China centric rally that we 172 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,520 had through the 2000s which is which is interesting. 173 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:18,200 Yeah, yeah. I mean steel, steel is what 174 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:21,800 comes to my mind like the the the amount that China's 175 00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:25,240 exporting in steel has a bunch of ramifications. 176 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:28,960 But firstly, it tells you what the demand overseas is like and, 177 00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:32,720 and secondly, what it's doing to any other domestic steelmaking 178 00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:36,920 Bluescope here in Australia, the bits that they do produce here 179 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:40,600 and the the Europeans just begging for, for tariff and 180 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:43,200 subsidy type protection for their their industry. 181 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,240 Where, where does that kind of go like yet I don't think you're 182 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:49,560 too far off the mark in thinking that part of this is, is 183 00:09:49,560 --> 00:09:52,160 deliberate from, from the Chinese and how they think about 184 00:09:52,160 --> 00:09:53,720 it. Or is it all just property 185 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:56,760 market collapsing? I think, I think it's a bit of a 186 00:09:56,760 --> 00:10:00,160 bit of both like the, you know, the Chinese construction and 187 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:03,320 property markets been, you know, has been horrible for years now. 188 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:05,560 It's not doesn't look like it's going to get any help either. 189 00:10:06,640 --> 00:10:10,120 But at the same time, like you've had legit growth through, 190 00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:14,880 you know, Vietnam, Indonesia, you know, the ASEAN nations in 191 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:17,600 general. And you know, they, they do 192 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:21,040 have, you know, they're drawing more, more steel into those 193 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,840 countries. And so, you know, I think it's, 194 00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:28,760 it's just, you know, the that sort of population base, which 195 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:31,440 when you include India is actually much bigger than China. 196 00:10:32,560 --> 00:10:35,040 You know, they've their growth has been quite rapid for a long 197 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:38,360 time, but finally it's starting to compound off a, off a 198 00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:41,280 reasonable base and is and is moving the needle a little bit 199 00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:44,240 more. But just on the steel exports, 200 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:48,680 there was a very interesting headline in I think it was, 201 00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:53,960 yeah, first week of January around China requiring any steel 202 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,080 exports to get sort of, you know, federal government 203 00:10:57,080 --> 00:10:59,880 approval before, you know, before they're if they're 204 00:10:59,880 --> 00:11:01,440 allowed to export steel out of the country. 205 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,760 Now that's been, you know, sort of a rubber stamping effort to 206 00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:08,120 date. But as the world becomes more 207 00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:11,360 reliant on China for steel because their exports are a 208 00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:17,200 bigger part of of rest of world demand, if they were to slam the 209 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:19,800 brakes on those steel exports, it would, you know, it would be 210 00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:22,720 ruinous for, you know, construction costs around the 211 00:11:22,720 --> 00:11:25,120 world because, you know, the China exports is having such a 212 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:26,360 big influence on setting the price. 213 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:29,200 And we can see, you know, the amount of leverage they have in 214 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,080 the rare earth market. You know, there is potential for 215 00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:35,480 something similar in steel and possibly an aluminium. 216 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:40,040 So you know this weaponization of commodities could spread and 217 00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:43,040 not say it will, but you know the the mechanisms are there for 218 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:46,800 it to do so. So on on the back of that has 219 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:49,920 has your thinking, I mean, I remember having you in this room 220 00:11:49,920 --> 00:11:55,200 and about six months ago we we were speaking about the all the 221 00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:58,760 checks that our government had been writing to traffic EUR the 222 00:11:58,760 --> 00:12:01,120 Glen cause of the world here in Australia for their downstream 223 00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:03,360 metals processing mainly in the base metal space. 224 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:08,240 And that has all come off the back of the the weaponization of 225 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,120 of this. And it's always a bit murky 226 00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:13,480 because then you're giving money to traffic Euro Glencoe. 227 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:16,480 It's not exactly a stand up Australian producer. 228 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:21,400 But you've if if you are of the view that you need to have some 229 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:23,680 sort of industry and they're the only ones left, what do you kind 230 00:12:23,680 --> 00:12:25,640 of do is so has your thinking on that changed at all? 231 00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:30,760 No, no, I think if anything, it's probably a subset of that 232 00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:35,240 speech by the Canadian PM, Mark Carney, which is, you know, gone 233 00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:37,280 sort of viral over the last couple of days saying, you know, 234 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:40,640 it's a, we're seeing a change in the, you know, the the world 235 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:43,840 order and, you know, all these grandiose arm waving statements. 236 00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:48,000 But, you know, if globalization does start to reverse and you 237 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,760 can no longer rely on the free flow of commodities and goods 238 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:53,520 around the world. And so we go back to an 239 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:56,520 environment where, you know, countries have to be, you know, 240 00:12:56,560 --> 00:12:58,760 to a much greater extent, self-sufficient. 241 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:02,720 That's massively inflationary for for metals prices because we 242 00:13:02,720 --> 00:13:07,480 can't compete with, you know, the refining costs, not the 243 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:09,200 mining like we do mining reasonably well, but the 244 00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:12,720 refining costs we we just can't compete with because our power 245 00:13:12,720 --> 00:13:14,920 prices are too high and going higher. 246 00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:20,400 So yeah, I think that theme, if anything, is strengthening. 247 00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:23,680 So do we just have to be smarter with with who we pick as 248 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:25,680 partners? Yeah, definitely. 249 00:13:25,680 --> 00:13:30,760 And I think I, you know, I think you need to be realistic about 250 00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:35,880 the value of these industries because I think it was one of 251 00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:40,440 the economists saw Kevonik, I think his name is, you know, 252 00:13:40,440 --> 00:13:42,640 came out the other day said, oh, you know, manufacturing jobs 253 00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:44,680 aren't any more important than any other jobs. 254 00:13:44,680 --> 00:13:46,920 And on a superficial level, he is right. 255 00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:48,920 I mean, it's, it's just dollars and cents. 256 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:54,120 However, the, the benefits or the fringe benefits that you get 257 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:57,840 from a big manufacturing industry, you know, do help 258 00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:00,960 lower prices or do facilitate other activities in the economy. 259 00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:08,240 And for example, take the power station in New South Wales and 260 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:12,600 produces I think maybe FIF, no, a bit more than that, maybe 20% 261 00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:16,560 of NSW power like that was built sort of hand in glove with their 262 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:19,360 with the Tomago aluminium refinery. 263 00:14:19,640 --> 00:14:22,440 So it produces power at a very low price. 264 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:25,880 And yes, it supports that refinery going into production 265 00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:30,160 and making money, but it also supports cheap power prices for 266 00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:34,200 the rest of the for the rest of NSW and, and for a very long 267 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:39,600 time, like that sort of symbiosis helped Australia 268 00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:42,400 become a very low power and power country. 269 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:44,080 And, and that helps our manufacturing. 270 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:47,240 So, you know, if that manufacturing dies, then also 271 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:51,400 the demand for those big base load power generation also dies. 272 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:56,320 But that means we end up with, you know, high power costs, you 273 00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:58,360 know, flowing through the rest of the economy, which is a, you 274 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:01,040 know, a bad thing. Yeah, OK. 275 00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:03,960 If we if we change tack now, there's a bunch of medals, a lot 276 00:15:03,960 --> 00:15:05,720 of them are breaking through all time high semis. 277 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:09,080 So I want to go through them because not all the, the the 278 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:11,280 reasons are alike. Some of them are performing 279 00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:13,440 strongly for for quite varying reasons. 280 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:16,760 So Copper, I want to start with what, what are you making of 281 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:20,000 this incredible rally we're seeing there and, and what's got 282 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:23,280 us to this point? Well, yeah, I think as as 283 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:27,080 touched on earlier like that, the big, big stockpiling by the 284 00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:32,600 US of copper has been a a major driver of the of the rally to 285 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:34,160 date. Even copper inventories around 286 00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:36,440 the world have actually been increasing while the price has 287 00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:38,760 been increasing. So that's a bit counter 288 00:15:38,760 --> 00:15:41,720 intuitive. I think the prices are where 289 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:47,160 they are because there's a little bit of concern in the 290 00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:50,920 copper market that those inventories that are within the 291 00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:54,800 US won't be allowed to flow back out to the rest of the world. 292 00:15:55,080 --> 00:16:00,240 Should the sort of LMA price rise above the COMEX price, 293 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,720 which would then incentivize the flow of copper out of the US. 294 00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:07,760 Now if that doesn't happen, yeah, it's throws back to what 295 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:10,520 we're just just discussing and that, you know, countries is 296 00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:11,920 sort of each country for themselves. 297 00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:15,880 But you know, I think that is a bit of a risk to the downside 298 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:18,360 for. I mean, if assuming that, sorry, 299 00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:20,240 assuming the copper does flow out, that's a risk to the 300 00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,040 downside of those prices. But I think it's $6. 301 00:16:23,040 --> 00:16:26,880 You're also going to see it $6 a pound that is see an increase in 302 00:16:26,880 --> 00:16:30,400 scrap supply. So I, I reckon cop is looking 303 00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:34,920 pretty full up here. Where it pulls back to I I'm not 304 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:36,160 sure. I think it probably remains 305 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:40,320 quite elevated because you know, whilst there has been a, a big 306 00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,640 inventory build last year and you know, maybe that's got a 307 00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:47,760 little bit of a head of itself, you know, looking in to 272829 308 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,240 like that structural deficit is, is well and truly there. 309 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:55,160 So, you know, that's, you know, probably a little bit wary, but 310 00:16:55,400 --> 00:16:58,360 in the short term, but longer term, you know, things still 311 00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:01,360 look pretty good. Yeah, yeah, 22 follow-ups, the 312 00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:04,760 first one and I have almost no experience in this. 313 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:06,280 So I'm curious to to hear what you think. 314 00:17:06,280 --> 00:17:10,680 But I've heard with the the inventories that over the past 315 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:12,640 20 years there's been a real change in in where the 316 00:17:12,640 --> 00:17:14,760 inventories are held. So it's much harder these days 317 00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:19,200 to actually surmise what the global state of inventories is. 318 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:22,160 Is this off base or does that sound broadly right? 319 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,760 I think. It is, it is difficult, but 320 00:17:24,760 --> 00:17:29,560 there is also, you know, with a big, big liquid market like 321 00:17:29,560 --> 00:17:34,440 copper, it is worth the while of the various sort of commodity 322 00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,400 consultants and banks and analysts etcetera, to, you know, 323 00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:39,720 try and put some numbers to that as best they can. 324 00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:47,880 So I, you know, I'd, I'd be surprised if that there's any, 325 00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:50,960 you know, if the, if the rounding errors in these numbers 326 00:17:51,360 --> 00:17:53,800 undermine the, you know, the premise that inventories 327 00:17:53,800 --> 00:17:56,480 actually have increased a bit around the world. 328 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:59,360 But yeah, I mean, that remains to be seen. 329 00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:02,600 Yeah. And the second follow up is 330 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:05,560 TCRCS. They've been a huge gift to the 331 00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:09,240 copper miners that we know here. I mean, given given their money 332 00:18:09,240 --> 00:18:11,840 as opposed to the other way around, how long does that 333 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:15,440 continue? I think for a while, I mean the 334 00:18:15,440 --> 00:18:18,600 shortage of copper concentrate doesn't look like it's going 335 00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:23,520 away unless you start to see refineries shut down and sort of 336 00:18:23,600 --> 00:18:28,040 you know reduce that supply demand mismatch, you know by 337 00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:30,000 shutting refineries. And then that should allow the 338 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:32,880 balance of them to get some more pricing power in terms of their 339 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:36,600 TCRC negotiations. Certainly you know, I don't 340 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:39,320 think any anyones building any more copper refineries anytime 341 00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:42,880 soon. So I mean it should you know 342 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:45,120 slowly correct itself, but I don't think it's going to be a 343 00:18:45,120 --> 00:18:47,640 near term event. It'll take time for the, the 344 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:52,200 copper concentrate supply to bit by bit, you know move in excess 345 00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:55,480 of of smelting capacity and at some and at that point you start 346 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:57,840 to see a normalization of TCRC's. 347 00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:00,400 Yeah, yeah. And at this point in the cycle, 348 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,880 are there preferred ways for you to to play the copper? 349 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:04,840 Do you, do you like some of the juniors at the moment? 350 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:07,520 Are you safe in some of the producers or do you think like 351 00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:10,840 copper is such a richly valued place to be at the moment? 352 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:15,040 It's, it's a good question. I mean, you know, if, if a 353 00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:18,400 commodity price falls, you know, doesn't really matter what your 354 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:20,320 exposure is. I mean, everything, you know, 355 00:19:20,360 --> 00:19:23,680 falls a, a reasonable amount, regardless of sort of, you know, 356 00:19:23,680 --> 00:19:25,480 where it's trading for, for fair value. 357 00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:31,520 But I think that the, you know, the, the top tier or the, you 358 00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:34,320 know, better quality development stories are probably where the 359 00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:37,440 value exists in the market today. 360 00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:42,400 So, you know, the developers never really price in spot at 361 00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:43,840 all. So there is certainly there's 362 00:19:43,840 --> 00:19:45,880 discounts to to spot available there. 363 00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:51,880 And you know, because of the shortage of, you know, large. 364 00:19:51,880 --> 00:19:54,400 And when I say large, I mean sort of 50,000 tonne and above 365 00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,520 copper projects in desirable jurisdictions. 366 00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:00,400 I think if you know, any development story that falls 367 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:03,120 into that basket is, is an M and a candidate. 368 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:05,160 And so that's, you know, probably where we'd prefer to 369 00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:07,440 look. Do you do you spend much time 370 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:09,360 looking at the overseas names? Yeah. 371 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:10,720 Yeah. I mean there's, there's not much 372 00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:14,240 left of a of a copper industry in, in Australia due to all, all 373 00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:17,600 the M&A and you know sand fires, you know sits there as as being 374 00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:19,240 pretty richly priced as a result. 375 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:22,720 And, you know, a long way below that there is a sort of a 376 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:27,400 growing group of, of, of smaller producers trying to get up and 377 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,240 running. And, you know, they, they've 378 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:31,760 had, you know, had various struggles over the years because 379 00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:32,960 they've, they've been higher cost. 380 00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:35,880 But yeah, their, their margins would be looking much better 381 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:38,480 now. So you know, there might be some 382 00:20:39,720 --> 00:20:42,400 some opportunities there, but you know, you just always need 383 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,440 to balance that risk and reward with those guys. 384 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,200 All right, next commodity uranium, Uranium has been on an 385 00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:53,120 upward trend again and everyone is bullish in in the space 386 00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:55,240 again. Interestingly, spot has been 387 00:20:55,240 --> 00:20:59,360 buying quite a bit again. So I think they're at over £70 388 00:20:59,360 --> 00:21:02,040 million locked up in the in the vaults. 389 00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:06,160 They're never to be seen again. So yeah, interesting dynamics 390 00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:09,360 with the the term and the spot pricing that we're seeing. 391 00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:13,120 A lot of the the miners once again are being priced very, 392 00:21:13,120 --> 00:21:15,160 very kind of richly. So what do you make of the whole 393 00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:20,920 space? I think uranium is or is 394 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:25,120 enjoying some tailwinds as being a bit of a proxy to the the AI 395 00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:29,720 data center build out and the power requirements that that 396 00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,960 will that needs. And so every time you know, the 397 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,000 all the big tech stocks in the US have a bit of a sell off will 398 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,640 you know, the uranium stocks usually go with it. 399 00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:41,480 So that's annoying and it doesn't have anything to do with 400 00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:43,040 the fundamental supply demand story. 401 00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,160 It's just something to be aware of as as noise you're going to 402 00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:47,960 have the uranium market has to contend with. 403 00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:52,000 But I think that, you know, it doesn't make any sense for the 404 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:53,920 spot price to be below the term price. 405 00:21:53,920 --> 00:21:56,800 You know, if the term market's where all the volume is, you 406 00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:59,000 know, why wouldn't you go and soak up pounds in the spot 407 00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,160 market until, you know, until such a point you get to the to 408 00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,560 the term price. So I think that's, you know, 409 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:06,960 that's probably the first move that we're going to see. 410 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:13,440 And certainly the, the split, sorry, the spot ETF buying will 411 00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,880 help that happen. But beyond that, yeah, I mean, 412 00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:21,960 it's, you know, the, the deficits, you know, are looming 413 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:26,200 and, you know, those reactors or these new reactors, you know, do 414 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:28,800 need to start contracting, you know, a long time ahead when 415 00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:30,480 they're actually starting to to Commission. 416 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:32,840 And, you know, there's still a few years away. 417 00:22:32,840 --> 00:22:35,440 But I suppose a sort of shorter term, you know, these Japanese 418 00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:39,400 reactors continuing to restart and, and other existing reactors 419 00:22:39,400 --> 00:22:42,920 around the world all prolonging their life is probably where 420 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,280 the, you know, the incremental sort of fundamental demand is 421 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:47,880 coming from. But still today, like, I mean, 422 00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,520 we saw with Paladin's quarterly report just a couple of days 423 00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:56,760 ago, like even at $85 a pound and, and yeah, sure, the achieve 424 00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:59,520 Paladin's achieved price was a bit below that, they're still 425 00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:03,720 not making any money. So, you know, for big waves of 426 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,280 new supply to come on, you know, the price doesn't appear to be 427 00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:09,080 high enough just yet. Yeah, it's remarkable how many 428 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:10,760 all in sustainings, all in costs. 429 00:23:10,760 --> 00:23:14,720 We can see at half the realized cross money doesn't drop to the 430 00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:18,440 bottom line. And on the on the macro, it was 431 00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,920 interesting to see Mertz, the the leader of Germany or the 432 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,280 Chancellor acknowledge finally that it was a mistake to turn 433 00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:28,520 off the the reactors. So a bit more of that rhetoric 434 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:30,840 around the world. I think we'll, we'll be saying. 435 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,920 Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's nice that he 436 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,920 finally came out and said so, but yeah, it was an absolute 437 00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:39,200 disaster both for Germany and the environment as well. 438 00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,960 But anyway, Greenpeace can go pat themselves on the back 439 00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,800 because they were championing championing that initiative for 440 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,160 years. One more question on the the 441 00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:50,280 uranium discussion more broadly is the US view. 442 00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:53,120 So they've been quite strategic in how they've gone about 443 00:23:53,120 --> 00:23:55,680 certain projects, certain metals, rare earths last year 444 00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:57,600 for instance. Do you see them doing something 445 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:01,400 similar in the uranium space, picking a national champion? 446 00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,480 I think it's, I think it's quite possible. 447 00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,080 Certainly, you know, in the when you go through the list of 448 00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,080 medals the US seems most concerned about, they've already 449 00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:12,640 underwritten the price for rare earths. 450 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:17,800 I think uraniums quite high up there on the list and so. 20% of 451 00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,560 their their electricity. It's huge. 452 00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,120 Yeah, and, and obviously the demand for, you know, more and 453 00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:25,200 more and more power generation. I mean, Trump just wants to 454 00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,120 saturate the country with as much generation as he can to as 455 00:24:29,120 --> 00:24:32,520 a means of, of stimulating, you know, GDP growth. 456 00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:38,360 So, yeah, it's it's very difficult to sort of forecast, 457 00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,920 you know, what that what shape that might take. 458 00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:45,400 But underwriting an increase in domestic uranium production in 459 00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,000 the USI think is, you know, is a sensible bet. 460 00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:52,560 Like I, you know, I just wouldn't be surprised if they do 461 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:53,360 it. And I think there's maybe a 462 00:24:53,360 --> 00:24:55,480 little bit of expectation in prices that that's going to take 463 00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:57,840 place. But yeah, you know, we wait and 464 00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,720 see, but I think that makes a lot of sense. 465 00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,240 Are there are there any names in the uranium space you you're 466 00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:05,520 holding at the moment you think are still quite cheap or you're 467 00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:07,960 more likely to trim in this kind of environment? 468 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:15,040 It's all, I mean I think most of the you know, the more liquid 469 00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:17,720 names with the exception of you know, things like Kamiko which 470 00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,400 traded a big premium to the rest of the market are pricing in 471 00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:26,320 more or less spot. But a lot of people as a lot of 472 00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:31,160 the sort of the the brokers and banks don't have forecasts going 473 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,760 material materially above where we are at the moment. 474 00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,120 So that's where the opportunity is. 475 00:25:37,120 --> 00:25:39,360 I mean, if you take a view that, you know, uranium is going to go 476 00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:44,200 to 150, well, you know, things look cheap, but you know, that 477 00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,680 requires you stepping away from consensus by by a fair degree. 478 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:52,360 So I think there's there's still more to play out in terms of 479 00:25:52,360 --> 00:25:54,880 what the US is going to do and what that will mean for prices. 480 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:57,440 And that's probably keeping, you know, keeping our holdings as is 481 00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:02,280 for the for the near term. But yeah, if any of that 482 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:04,160 changes, well, you know, we'll change our mind. 483 00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,480 Money miners, I know we've said it many Times Now, but this year 484 00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:11,520 has been a cracking start and last year was just fantastic as 485 00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,920 well. So you might be thinking it's 486 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,040 time to diversify. I know Trev and I spoke about 487 00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,720 this late last year and we might be getting closer to that time 488 00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:23,000 and if you are thinking about that, Exceed Capital is a name 489 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,400 you should think about. Exceed Capital is a commercial 490 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,640 property group out of Brizzy QLD and they have been in the game A 491 00:26:28,760 --> 00:26:30,880 a long time now. They've got alignment, something 492 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,200 we at Money and mine love. 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Massive thank you to Exceed 503 00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,040 Capital for backing money of mine. 504 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,200 Now back to Sammy. OK, Next up, gold. 505 00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:08,840 We might be one or two slips away from gold breaking through 506 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:12,760 5000 US bucks, which is barely believable. 507 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:14,440 Even saying the word sounds kind of funny. 508 00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,280 How do you how do you sort of take into account everything 509 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:22,160 we've kind of seen like this latest kick up from sort of 4400 510 00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,360 where it kind of consolidated for, for a while has been pretty 511 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:28,960 electrifying again on the back of geopolitics and the like. 512 00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,000 So how are you sort of chewing it all up and and digesting 513 00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,600 this? Yeah, it's, it's really, it's 514 00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:41,080 really difficult as a, as a manager to try and you know, you 515 00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:45,400 know, manage your, your exposures to this appropriately 516 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:47,760 because on the one hand we, I mean, we do have a big gold 517 00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:51,360 exposure and you know, that becomes bigger as you, your gold 518 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:55,800 holdings, you know, rally. And I think undoubtedly we've 519 00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,000 had a confluence of quite positive events for gold over 520 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,720 over the last or sorry the first couple of weeks of the year. 521 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,200 And so that's probably added a little bit of froth to, you 522 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,160 know, over and above the, the underlying support for gold, 523 00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:13,120 which is a bit of skepticism that around the, the value of 524 00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:16,080 U.S. dollar and dollars and, and just government debt levels 525 00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:21,240 globally. But every time anyone sold, you 526 00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,480 know, their gold exposures over the last 18 months, two years, 527 00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:29,040 it's been the wrong thing to do. So, you know, I I must admit, 528 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,360 like the melt up in price we've had over the last couple of 529 00:28:32,360 --> 00:28:36,520 weeks does feel a bit like October last year, after which, 530 00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,320 you know, things got a bit overboard. 531 00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:40,680 There were stories about, you know, people lining up in Martin 532 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:43,560 Place to buy physical gold and you know, sure enough, the price 533 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,400 rolled over by, you know, a couple 100 bucks an ounce 534 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,160 straight after that. But here we are back at all time 535 00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,800 highs and the drivers, I think for a high gold price still 536 00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:58,160 remain very much in place. So, yeah, I mean, we just again, 537 00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,000 you know, anything that's looking a little bit frothy or 538 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,800 we, we see, you know, or foresee risks to production and 539 00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:09,760 downgrades, we'd, you know, probably be trimming those as as 540 00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:11,760 as you know, where we see that that opportunity. 541 00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:15,920 But, you know, I think the value in the gold market at the moment 542 00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,480 still sits with the the developers. 543 00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:24,080 And that's because I think a lot of a lot of people in the market 544 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,680 are sort of slow to, you know, run numbers to what, you know, 545 00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,800 what a development proposition might be worth. 546 00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:34,600 And you know, I've did this recently the, you know, you take 547 00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,760 your generic, you know, 100,000 oz producer. 548 00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,000 Oh, sorry, yeah, 100,100 thousand ounce per annum 549 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:42,680 project. So you need about 1,000,000 550 00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,880 ounces in reserve or to to achieve that, you know, I assume 551 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,800 $300 million for for CapEx and you know, even a pretty 552 00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,320 conservative cost of about 3000 bucks an ounce. 553 00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,960 Well, you're going to end up with AMPV for that project of 554 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:01,520 1.41 point $5 billion, you know, but that's not what these 555 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:03,240 development projects are being valued at us. 556 00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,760 It's nowhere, nowhere near it. So, you know, even if the gold 557 00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,200 price was to pull back, you know, a couple 100 bucks an 558 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:13,960 ounce, I think these, you know, projects that look like they're 559 00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,600 able to be permitted, you know, no fatal flaws. 560 00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:21,880 They will, you know, endure in terms of their share price. 561 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,200 And and you know what, we should continue to outperform on the 562 00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:27,240 upside even, you know, even in a bit of a pullback. 563 00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,920 And you're expecting some of the producers to to jump on these 564 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:32,680 opportunities? Yeah, definitely. 565 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:34,760 I mean, there's one of the reasons that I suppose 566 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,560 generalist investors hate commodities is because it's an 567 00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:42,120 industry of depleting assets and modeling that is is difficult is 568 00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,120 different to modeling an industrial company and it just. 569 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:46,920 Doesn't look as good when you don't have the terminal value 570 00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:48,600 that goes on. Yeah. 571 00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,080 You know, you got to replace your resources and reserves, but 572 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:54,960 for producing companies that's becoming cheaper and cheaper. 573 00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,880 I mean, the margins of of some of these gold companies now 574 00:30:57,880 --> 00:30:59,880 start starting to look like software companies. 575 00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:03,400 I mean on the back of the envelope looking at Capricorn, 576 00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,080 which you know, one of the lower cost producers, like they're my 577 00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,200 EBITDA margins are like, you know, high 70s, you know, 578 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,160 possibly touching 80% today with a spot price move. 579 00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,240 I mean, that's, that's like a software company. 580 00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:19,120 But so the CapEx hurdle to replace those reserves because 581 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,040 CapEx and costs aren't going up anywhere near as much as the 582 00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,680 gold price is, you know, it's becoming smaller and smaller. 583 00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:29,160 And so that lends itself to to M&A if they don't, you know, 584 00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:33,000 have the resources themselves. And interestingly with, with the 585 00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,560 Capricorn example, they've been very disciplined about not 586 00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:39,520 recutting the, the ore body and and changing the assumptions 587 00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:41,120 going into that. Do you think we've seen sort of 588 00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:44,080 discipline across the board from the from the producers there? 589 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:48,000 Yeah, I think to to the extent possible, I think you have. 590 00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:53,600 I still feel that throughout the mining industry in general, like 591 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:58,640 the scars of the last commodity boom are still present and the 592 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,080 memory is still there where, you know, people just let costs run, 593 00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,680 you know, unchecked because, you know, revenue, the revenue line 594 00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,880 was growing so much. Whereas this time round by and 595 00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:15,600 large, I think cost discipline is much better and margins are 596 00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,440 you know, they are increasing. Whereas you know, in, in 597 00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,600 previous cycles you sort of saw, you know, the, you know, 90th 598 00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,480 percentile of costs almost tracked the commodity price or, 599 00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:27,800 or the gold price specifically, you know, almost in parallel. 600 00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,120 Whereas more recently gold price you know, has gone sort of 601 00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:36,040 exponential and costs are, are reasonably stable at the moment. 602 00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:40,160 So you know those margins are increasing and you know to your 603 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,240 point that that cost control is much better. 604 00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,640 Yeah, you said Scars of the Last Boom and I couldn't help but 605 00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:49,360 think of Rio Tinto. And I haven't actually spoken on 606 00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:53,400 the show about Rio and and Glencore because it's, it's just 607 00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,160 such a big deal and it's it's hard for a lot of people and 608 00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,520 it's not that meaningful for a lot of people at the smaller end 609 00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,560 of the market to have a strong view on this one way or another. 610 00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:06,000 But are there sort of ramifications of this type of 611 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,120 deal or are there little caveats to it that you think are kind of 612 00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,400 interesting for for investors or or speculators to kind of think 613 00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,120 about? Yeah, I think probably the the 614 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,760 one factor that will jump to particularly institutional 615 00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,520 investors minds very quickly is what the index ramifications are 616 00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,720 for such a merger. Because if you know BH PS 617 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:31,040 waiting in the, you know, all small or the ASX 200 I suppose 618 00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,800 is is monstrous. And so it demands attention for 619 00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,800 people who are benchmarked against that index. 620 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,520 If something similar was, you know, if Rio and Glencore were 621 00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:40,880 to get together, you're going to end up with a similar scenario 622 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,480 because it would be a bigger company than than BHP. 623 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,840 So yeah, that's certainly one, one part of it. 624 00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:51,840 But from an operational point of view, I suspect the cultures are 625 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:58,040 quite different between the two. I mean, you know, Rio's got, you 626 00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,680 know, has a has a finger in the pie and sort of in terms of 627 00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,480 African developments via SIM. And do you know how they go 628 00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:06,400 operating in the in the DRC with Glencor's copper mines? 629 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:08,920 There is a bit of an open question. 630 00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:12,400 I mean Glencore seems to do OK, but it is it is tough. 631 00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,320 Very hard to see Rio operate in the DRC. 632 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,000 Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how, you know, 633 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,360 they're very sort of straight laced approach is going to going 634 00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,639 to work in in that country on a number of fronts. 635 00:34:24,639 --> 00:34:27,320 But and then there's another question of what happens to the 636 00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,520 coal assets that Glencore's got, you know, do they get spun out 637 00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:35,360 as a sort of a, you know, Spinco to try and clean up Glencore to 638 00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,440 make it a little bit more palatable to the Rio investor 639 00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:39,120 base? I mean, all these are, you know, 640 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,880 quite sort of open-ended questions, but there'd be some 641 00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:46,000 huge fees on the line for the for the bankers on this merger. 642 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,199 So I'm sure they'll find a way to solve those problems as best 643 00:34:49,199 --> 00:34:51,560 they can. Yeah, yeah, life changing fees I 644 00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,520 think in this one. A couple of the other medals 645 00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,360 I'm, I'm keen to, to touch on PGMS. 646 00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,120 They've really been working and one for us here in Australia 647 00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,600 because it's just not that much exposure on, on the ASX. 648 00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,880 And that's part of the, the charm, if you like, of, of PGMS 649 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,160 because it's South Africa, it's it's Russia, it's these parts of 650 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,120 the world. Have have you played this in, in 651 00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:16,000 any way and do you have a strong view on it? 652 00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:17,480 No, we haven't. I was. 653 00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:19,440 I was getting. Closer and closer to just buying 654 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,080 the physical last year and I didn't pull the trigger, which 655 00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:26,320 is, you know, one of many mistakes that we made a good 656 00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:28,000 year for, for many mistakes. I reckon. 657 00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:29,680 Oh yeah, yeah. But I mean, you know. 658 00:35:29,720 --> 00:35:31,840 You can always be better and you know, should always, you know, 659 00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,720 go through and you know, work out what you know why you didn't 660 00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:37,320 or or whatever to try and not avoid making that mistake again. 661 00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:43,480 But I think for for the for the, the platinum group elements once 662 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,120 again, like similar to what our discussion about copper is that 663 00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:50,960 it it the move in price seems to be investor LED rather than 664 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,320 demand LED. It had probably, I think 665 00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:58,600 probably had some quite tangible foundations in that, you know, 666 00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,480 people came to the view that internal combustion engines are 667 00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:03,880 going to be around for a lot longer than, you know, what we 668 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:05,720 might have thought three or four years ago. 669 00:36:05,720 --> 00:36:08,360 And so that means the, you know, PGE demand for the catalytic 670 00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:10,840 converters is, is going to be a bit more enduring. 671 00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,000 And then, you know, OK, so we need, you know, we're going to 672 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:15,080 need this stuff for a bit longer. 673 00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:18,480 And for a long time, you know, platinum was trading, you know, 674 00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:20,920 well below the cost curve for some of those South African 675 00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,760 mines. And then the investors have sort 676 00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,640 of piled on top of that thematic and push prices quite a long 677 00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,160 way. You know, where does it end? 678 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,320 I'm not quite sure. You know, picking sentiment or 679 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:35,880 second guessing sentiment can be quite difficult sometimes. 680 00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:37,520 But, you know, that's my understanding of what's 681 00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:39,520 transpired to date. Yeah, Yeah. 682 00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:42,440 And and how? About tin, this is 1 We do have 683 00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:47,840 a small little view into here in Australia down in in Tassie with 684 00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,920 with some rich history as well. But the tin market has been 685 00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:53,080 electric to the to start this year. 686 00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:57,040 And there's yeah, there's a whole bunch of different reasons 687 00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,440 why there's lots happening in the in the small pockets that 688 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,240 produce tin around the world. And there seems to be a lot of 689 00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:05,040 attention on it. I think you've got a bit of 690 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,360 exposure from from what I kind of know down in, in, in Tassie. 691 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:09,400 But how are you thinking about it? 692 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,400 I mean this is one has. A bit of a more sort of solid 693 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,680 foundation to it to my think. I mean, there's, you know, the 694 00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:18,920 demand through electronics and data center building out is, you 695 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:23,440 know, it's quite tangible. It's difficult for investors to 696 00:37:24,160 --> 00:37:27,640 move the tin price around because it's, it's a, you know, 697 00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,240 it's not a particularly liquid market. 698 00:37:29,240 --> 00:37:32,160 It's hard for big financial flows to come and to come and go 699 00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:33,960 like, you know, like copper, for example. 700 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,040 And then on supply side, like through, you know, Cambodia, 701 00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,760 Southeast Asia and India and sorry, Burma, I think is the 702 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:44,160 other other countries, you know, had their supply disrupted. 703 00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,080 I mean, you know, that looks like it's going to be long, you 704 00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,480 know, long lasting. And I think there was another, 705 00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,680 there was a one of the larger tin mines just in on the border 706 00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:58,680 between DRC and Uganda. Yeah, that's the one. 707 00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,440 So Alpha Men's mine. In in the DRC, Yeah, yeah, 708 00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:02,720 that's the one. And I mean. 709 00:38:02,720 --> 00:38:06,120 That I think that knocked out something like 5% of global 710 00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,040 supply or something like that. So I was, you know, when you've 711 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,560 got a tight market and all of a sudden somebody pinches, you 712 00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,080 know, knocks out 5%, will buyers tend to start to get very 713 00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,800 nervous and and they will start building, you know, building 714 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,560 inventory to protect themselves against further price rises. 715 00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:24,320 But, you know, that just leads to the price moving anyway. 716 00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,760 So it's, yeah, it's a, you know, positive feedback loop that the 717 00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:29,600 metal's in at the moment. Yeah. 718 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:32,520 A nice little project down. In Tasmania seems seems a bit 719 00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:35,480 easier to manage than yeah, some of the more eclectic parts of 720 00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:36,560 the world. That's right. 721 00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,720 Yeah. So aluminium is one of the other 722 00:38:39,720 --> 00:38:41,960 ones. And this is a a whole supply 723 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:42,840 chain. There's lots to it. 724 00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:47,080 There's the the books that play as alumina aluminium, but it's 725 00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:49,560 it's been kind of hot as well to to start the year. 726 00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,040 It's had people talking about it. 727 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:54,520 And we've got a bit of insight into it in Australia with the 728 00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,640 various parts of the supply chain that we see in Australia. 729 00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,600 I know MMI was a company a couple of years ago that we'd 730 00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:05,400 we'd spoken about, but are you saying pockets of value in in 731 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:07,560 the in the chain? Yeah, definitely. 732 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,200 And I think that it's. You know, the rally and copper 733 00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:14,400 price is probably shown thrown aluminium into sharper focus 734 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:18,840 because there is a, you know, a substitution trade there sort of 735 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,400 at the margins. But also the ratio of copper to 736 00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:26,000 aluminium, which usually sits around I think 3.7 to 4 times as 737 00:39:26,240 --> 00:39:28,280 has blown out as as copper as rallied. 738 00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,720 So you know that starts to look show aluminium as being cheap. 739 00:39:31,720 --> 00:39:36,400 But again, on a sort of a longer term view, the, the interesting 740 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,520 story with aluminium is, is that, you know, for a long time 741 00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:46,360 or for the last decade, your new aluminium capacity has come from 742 00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,560 China, you know, with, with very cheap power. 743 00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,000 Because you know, aluminium is basically just congealed 744 00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:55,560 electricity. Whereas China's now has put a 745 00:39:55,560 --> 00:40:00,760 45,000,000 tonne per annum cap on their capacity and they 746 00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:02,680 certainly appear to be sticking to that. 747 00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:08,360 So begs the question, I mean, as demand grows, where is your 748 00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,680 spare? You know, where, where is your 749 00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:12,320 additional aluminium going to come from? 750 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,000 And most people point to Indonesia and you know, the 751 00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,120 potential for them to do, you know, something similar as 752 00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:20,680 they've done with nickel with aluminium. 753 00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:25,520 But Morgan Stanley shot up to Indonesia in in January and, and 754 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,800 their takeaways were that the the power generation is just not 755 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,960 there to really accelerate their aluminium production growth 756 00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:35,960 anytime in the next two to three years. 757 00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:37,760 Like it's, it's going to take a take a while. 758 00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:41,680 So, you know, incremental supply from Indonesia, but nothing 759 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:43,040 much. But at the same time you've 760 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:47,600 seen, you know, S 32 shut down their smelter in Mozambique 761 00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,480 because of high power prices. An open question, what happens 762 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,560 to the rest of or what's left of Australian aluminium production 763 00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,320 due to high power prices again and problems at Brazil? 764 00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:00,520 Yeah, as well. Yeah. 765 00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,640 So it's it's really struggling and. 766 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:05,800 You know, again, because the world's been reliant on China 767 00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:10,360 for so long for it's, it's, it's refining industry there. 768 00:41:10,640 --> 00:41:13,320 We could end up in a world where, you know, aluminium 769 00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,800 prices need to move to such a point that you can produce it 770 00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:23,000 profitably at 100 and 3000 and $40 per MW hour. 771 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,760 Whereas I think the, the Tomago refinery in New South Wales, 772 00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,360 they're power contracts that are about to roll off. 773 00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:31,960 They're closer to $50 per MW hour. 774 00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:36,240 And yes, I mean if, if that if they're the sort of projects 775 00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:39,960 that need to be sustained. Well, the aluminium price is 776 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,000 going to have to move quite a long way to sort of balance 777 00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,800 supply and demand. And just the last point on that 778 00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,520 and it, it applies to copper and it definitely applies to 779 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:54,920 aluminium is as opposed to other other much niche markets like 780 00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:58,760 lithium, which is more or less about 100, sorry 1.5 million 781 00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,360 tonne market, you can bring on decent chunks of supply. 782 00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,520 So if you know Wodgina was to turn like the rest of their 783 00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,560 trains on, I think you add you know maybe 5 to 7% of of global 784 00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:13,000 supply there pretty quickly because it's a small market. 785 00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,840 Whereas with copper, which is a 26,000,000 tonne per annum 786 00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,360 market, or aluminium, which I think is around about a 60 787 00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,360 million tonne per annum market, it's much harder for the supply 788 00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,080 side to catch up. And so you end up with a sort of 789 00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:30,040 an iron ore scenario from the last commodity boom where, you 790 00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,520 know, you've got to build, you know, significant infrastructure 791 00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:35,520 before that supply hits the market. 792 00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:37,440 In aluminium's case, you're going to have to build more 793 00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:41,040 power plants for that supplier to before that supply comes on. 794 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,840 So that just means that the rally, you know, should last for 795 00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:46,720 for a while longer than you know, for them for some of these 796 00:42:46,720 --> 00:42:49,160 niche commodities. Yeah, you measure these things 797 00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:51,120 in years. Instead of instead of months, I 798 00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,160 want to say going to an Illumina plant is right up on the on the 799 00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,600 list. It's just the, the amount of 800 00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:59,880 energy that goes into it. The, the, the process is, is 801 00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:03,160 fascinating. And to your point on Indonesia, 802 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,640 I mean, you, you made the the sort of link with with nickel 803 00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:10,280 and what we saw there with Morawali and the other 804 00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,560 industrial parks, they, they solved the energy problem that 805 00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,120 that nickel process is not short of energy demands either. 806 00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,080 And they just square off a a big plot of land and fit it all in 807 00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,120 there. So you'd have to imagine that's 808 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,640 something that just takes time to work out if they're serious 809 00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:28,840 about this or they can solve it. Yeah, definitely. 810 00:43:29,720 --> 00:43:32,240 Yeah, I mean, they've built, built in, they can knock up coal 811 00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:35,800 power plants reasonably quickly there, Although I suspect the 812 00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,720 like there has been some environmental carnage, you know, 813 00:43:39,720 --> 00:43:42,320 in Indonesia recently. I think that of of a few people 814 00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:47,840 that died due to floods late last year, you know, which were 815 00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:51,040 tied to, you know, mining industry and and the palm oil 816 00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:53,680 industry as well. Not, you know, looking after 817 00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:59,120 their or rehabilitating their land as as as as as well as they 818 00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,560 should have. So, you know, it's not a 819 00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,120 complete free for all, but it still takes time. 820 00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,720 And, you know, it's still, you still need to secure the 821 00:44:09,720 --> 00:44:12,120 additional coal supply for those power plants. 822 00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:14,360 You know, that's becoming a little bit more difficult now. 823 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:18,440 So yeah, again, it is certainly much more likely also will 824 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,000 happen. Like I think definitely it's a 825 00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:24,320 matter of when rather than if, but it's still, you know, a few 826 00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,760 years away at least it seems. Yeah, yeah. 827 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:28,760 All right. Sammy, a couple, a couple kind 828 00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,000 of general ones to to finish off, I'm pretty curious to hear 829 00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:36,880 you, you manage two different funds, one sort of targets the 830 00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:40,360 smaller end of the market and the other the slightly larger 831 00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:42,960 end of the market. But how do you how do you think 832 00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:45,520 about these differently in this in this type of market when, 833 00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,960 when everything's kind of working and what you're, what 834 00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:50,320 you're targeting, what you're avoiding and these sorts of 835 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,640 things? I think as much as possible, we. 836 00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:57,160 Try and we just try and do what we tell our investors we're 837 00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,840 going to do. So you know, the larger fund 838 00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:04,160 that that that myself and you and run is called the strategic 839 00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:08,440 natural resources trust like that is being sold from 840 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,920 inception as being a a lower beta way to enjoy commodities 841 00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:15,520 exposure. And so, you know, we, we don't 842 00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,880 take as as big as swings. We we're in probably later 843 00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:23,160 stage, you know, companies that have, you know, a fairway down 844 00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,040 the D risking path. And so, you know, the returns 845 00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,840 for that one should be more reliable or be it, you know, we 846 00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,880 had a, we had a decent year last year, whereas the micro 847 00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:39,040 resources trust, which I run, I mean, that's more, you know, 848 00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:40,560 feel the wind in your hair type thing. 849 00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:42,320 I will take, you know, bigger swings. 850 00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:46,840 We'll go into earlier stage investments and and you know, 851 00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,920 that worked last year. So we, you know, just ticked 852 00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:52,880 over 100% return for that one. And you know, hopefully we do 853 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,800 something similar again this year, but the returns will be 854 00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:57,760 more volatile for that sort of product. 855 00:45:58,160 --> 00:45:59,720 But we're we're candid about that. 856 00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:03,400 And you know, some investors, you know, are happy to take 857 00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:05,960 that, you know that risk and and hopefully the return that comes 858 00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,400 with it. Yeah, huge, huge year last year 859 00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:09,920 and I can't. Believe we haven't had you in on 860 00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,640 the on the show with the amount of times we've had you on I'm 861 00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:14,960 I'm curious to. Hear the the. 862 00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:17,680 Benchmark there right now because this is a for a lot of 863 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:19,560 fund managers. You've kind of touched on this, 864 00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:24,080 but like gold for instance, if we look at the ASX 300, I think 865 00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,720 it's like 2020% of the it's getting up there the the market 866 00:46:27,720 --> 00:46:33,360 now so and and that's just gold like resources beyond that is at 867 00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,840 at another number of percent. I don't know what the exact 868 00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,680 number is, but if you're, if you're one of those fundies that 869 00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,080 doesn't like to plant resources, you're, you're between a rock 870 00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,520 and a hard place, aren't you? 100% and. 871 00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:48,000 Like last year I felt sorry for calendar 25, the small resources 872 00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:52,000 index was up 70%. You know, that's it's crazy. 873 00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,360 Yeah, it was an on an absolute tear. 874 00:46:54,360 --> 00:47:00,120 So if you are sensitive to the small ords index, which you know 875 00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,760 a large number of funds are and you don't have any resources, 876 00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:08,600 well, it's going to really hurt. And so you're, you're forced to 877 00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,800 cover that underweight. Now, if you've got some resource 878 00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:13,560 investing experience, then yeah, great. 879 00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,720 But if you don't or you're sort of groping around in in the dark 880 00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:21,080 there, but you've got to solve that problem somehow because 881 00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:23,160 otherwise you're going to end up, you know, underneath your 882 00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,080 benchmark and you and you're not going to get paid. 883 00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:30,120 So it just made it all. The outcome for that is that 884 00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:34,480 more money should be flowing into the space as as time goes 885 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:35,560 on. Yeah. 886 00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:39,680 And in a world in which the. The ASX 10, ASX 20 are so richly 887 00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,840 valued like the banks, the con banks of the world at 25 times 888 00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,920 earnings, it becomes a real tough one for for the Super 889 00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,840 funds, all these Aussie fund managers to kind of play Yeah, 890 00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,280 it does and I mean I. Suppose the only frustration 891 00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:55,800 for, you know, people like me and the rest of the commodity 892 00:47:55,880 --> 00:48:00,000 sort of fund managers that that apply our trade is that when you 893 00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:02,400 have these generalists coming into the space, I mean, it's 894 00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:06,000 great on the way in, but they don't like commodity investing 895 00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:08,440 as they they hate the space, if to be frank. 896 00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,440 And so, you know, the moment that something wobbles or goes a 897 00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:14,280 little bit wrong, like they sell and sell hard and, and get out 898 00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:16,120 because they, you know, they never wanted to be there. 899 00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:17,960 Exactly. Right, exactly. 900 00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,800 Right, but and that's fair enough, that's fair enough, but 901 00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:26,360 it does make for a an inefficient market where you 902 00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:28,520 know, a small wrinkle. Can, you know, present us a 903 00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:32,240 buying opportunity, I suppose if, you know, the problem is not 904 00:48:32,240 --> 00:48:35,680 as great as as what a given share price reaction might 905 00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,600 imply, but you know, that's what makes a market. 906 00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,000 So, you know, we take the other side of that reasonably 907 00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:42,640 regularly. Yeah, yeah, totally. 908 00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:44,200 Last one. Because I know you're a busy man 909 00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:47,360 and you've got to shoot Sammy, but humanoid robots, I know you 910 00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,200 like to, to see what the latest is. 911 00:48:50,240 --> 00:48:52,800 And you, you write about them fairly regularly. 912 00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:55,880 And the advancements, particularly in some of the 913 00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,600 Chinese ones, has been pretty astounding. 914 00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:03,200 Now you can you can see a lot from a a YouTube promo video and 915 00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,640 maybe there's a bit more than meets the eye with with some of 916 00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,400 these, but some of the stuff you do see is pretty, pretty 917 00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:11,080 outstanding. So how do you think about this 918 00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:13,560 or when when are you thinking about buying your first one? 919 00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:19,600 I I reckon. By 20-30 I suspect I'll probably 920 00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:22,600 have one in the house and I won't be alone. 921 00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:24,880 I certainly won't be a first adopter, but I might be a fast 922 00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:26,800 follower. How much do you think you'd be 923 00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:27,760 paying? At that point in time. 924 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:32,560 Well, that unitary or the humanoid robot from Unitary, 925 00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,240 which is sort of the price I've been tracking of the, you know, 926 00:49:35,240 --> 00:49:41,160 of all of them for a while now. That's down to $13,500 per unit. 927 00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,040 Is that, is that US? Yeah. 928 00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:43,600 That's US. US, yeah. 929 00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:49,080 But for context, in September 2024 when I first looked at 930 00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,200 that, that same unit was 90,000 US. 931 00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,960 So, you know, it's fallen in price by what circa 80% in a, 932 00:49:57,240 --> 00:50:00,840 you know, say a year and a half at while the functionality of 933 00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,280 these things has been getting better and better and better. 934 00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:05,240 It's like a like the solar chart that. 935 00:50:05,240 --> 00:50:06,520 Just got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. 936 00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:09,240 Except this sounds a lot more complex than the PV. 937 00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,120 Yeah. And I think the challenge for 938 00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,360 the functionality. Of them is that, you know, 939 00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:18,600 unlike the large language models that all the ChatGPT and all 940 00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:23,000 that stuff used for learning and training, the Internet's just 941 00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:25,000 full of text and speech, etcetera. 942 00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,480 So to learn to learn the language is there's a massive 943 00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,240 data set there. A same data set doesn't exist 944 00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:37,760 for how humans move around the home, how you sort of open a, a 945 00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:40,840 washing machine and, and fill it full of clothes, how you fold a 946 00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:42,280 shirt and all this sort of stuff. 947 00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:47,920 So these training models need to be built from scratch and that 948 00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,640 is that's probably the, the rate determining step for the 949 00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:54,160 adoption of these robots is and, and how competent they become 950 00:50:54,160 --> 00:50:57,440 around the house. But it will be, it will be 951 00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,400 solved. And whoever solves it first is 952 00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:04,920 going to be able to roll it into their robots and then put them 953 00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:09,040 into, you know, invite various environments, industrial as well 954 00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,560 as residential. And that will accelerate the 955 00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,920 learning even more so as, as that feedback mechanism starts 956 00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:20,640 to starts to sort of roll. And then, you know, the, the, 957 00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:23,200 the functionality of these things should go, you know, 958 00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:25,000 exponential. And if you really want to get 959 00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,920 hyperbolic about it, you can, you know, go down Elon's sort of 960 00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,120 rabbit hole where he reckons that, you know, there won't be 961 00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:33,560 any surgeons in whatever it is 5 or 10 years time because the 962 00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:37,960 robots will learn to do that job so quickly and, and, and better 963 00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:41,000 than humans can. So, you know, he's obviously 964 00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:45,520 talking his own book, but it's it's not, you know, it's not 965 00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:50,040 completely beyond the realms of of possibility that something 966 00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:52,920 like that could happen. And in 20-30, will you? 967 00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:57,280 Be will will the average person in Perth be jumping into an an 968 00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,800 Uber or DD or whatever that is drivers? 969 00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:02,880 I think the. Technology will definitely be 970 00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:05,280 there. I think in in Perth and and 971 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:07,920 Australia in general is regulation which holds these 972 00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:09,560 things back. I mean, clearly you can already 973 00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,560 jump into driverless cabs in, you know, many cities in the US. 974 00:52:12,560 --> 00:52:16,680 You can't do it here yet, but it's coming for sure. 975 00:52:17,720 --> 00:52:19,480 All right. As always, fantastic. 976 00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:22,080 To chat Sammy, thanks for making the time for us and I'm sure the 977 00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:24,960 the listeners have taken a whole bunch from your your views as 978 00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:26,640 always. Absolute pleasure Jodie. 979 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,240 Anytime, always. Enjoy a a chat with you guys and 980 00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:31,480 a massive thank you to. Our awesome partners. 981 00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:33,800 We hadn't had the privilege of thanking these guys in a little 982 00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:37,080 while, but Sandy Ground support, who we had in the show, Exceed 983 00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:42,680 Capital Intralinks and check out the Focus platform by Market 984 00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:44,680 Deck. Hudaru Money minus Hudaru. 985 00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,520 Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. 986 00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:50,920 If you thought any of this was anything other than 987 00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:53,560 entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read our 988 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:54,080 disclaimer.