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(Interviewed by Olivier Garret, CEO,
Casey Research)
Editor's Note: Since Casey Research Senior Metals Analyst Louis
James manages our metals portfolio – albeit with guidance from Doug
and input from the rest of our metals team – and there's an important
opportunity forming in metals at present, we thought we'd turn the tables and
interview our interviewer.
Olivier: Louis, you, Doug, and the Casey metals team have been saying that the
current market weakness in metals presents a great buying opportunity –
perhaps the last, best chance to get on the train before it leaves the
station for Maniaville. But before we get to that,
we should probably start by talking a bit about you. Who is the Mysterious
"L," and why should anyone listen to you?
L: Sure. First
off, when people follow my investment recommendations, they are not
simply following my recommendations, they are
getting guidance from the whole metals team. That includes Doug, of course
– my teacher and my constant counselor. Just last night, we were
discussing via Skype a legal setback that just befell one of our companies.
No matter where either of us is in the world, we can compare notes and get
each other's ideas for options – usually within minutes or hours
– and offer that guidance to readers. But the team also includes David Galland [Casey Research managing director], Bud Conrad
[Casey Research chief economist], Jeff Clark
[senior precious metals analyst], tireless Andrey Dashkov [research associate], and others.
Olivier: That's very noble of you, to give credit where it is rightly due, but I
was hoping you'd toot your own horn a bit…
L: [Chuckles]
Okay, okay, but that's not my specialty. I prefer to let my actions and my
track record speak for themselves. So, the second
reason is that I have spent the last seven-plus years traveling the world,
sometimes with Doug, sometimes on my own, "kicking rocks," as we
say. Every month I check out two or three – sometimes half a dozen
– mineral exploration, development, or production projects. I may not
be the brightest bulb in the box, but I have an excellent memory, and I
remember the rocks I've seen… lots and lots of rocks, all around the
world.
So now, when I see silver-lead mineralization in quartz
veins, or gold, or various types of sulfides that can either be pay dirt
themselves or important indicators of where to look, I often recognize
patterns I've seen before. I know what worked or didn't work, in those other
projects I've seen. I know what questions to ask, what details to check on.
I also know a lot of people in the business and
can check on the track records of new people I meet. And I know a lot about
the local politics in many countries and provinces of countries. I know a lot
not just about geology, but mining and processing as well. And… well, I
know about a lot more things, but a critical thing I've learned is what the
market likes and will respond to and what it won't, under different
circumstances.
Between Doug's experience, mine, and the whole team's, our readers have a great deal of seasoned wisdom
to draw upon.
Olivier: Fair enough. That wasn't too bad, was it?
L: I'll
survive – just don't get any ideas about assigning me to our marketing
team.
Oh, and I should also tell any Japanese readers we have
– or others who follow Japanese pop culture – that I long ago
made my life simpler by signing things just "L." This was long
before the super-detective known as "L" appeared in the Japanese
manga called Death Note.
Olivier: I had no idea… but you are a sort of detective. We send you out
to look for high-leverage, speculative opportunities, and it's your job to go
beyond what the companies want you to see to look for what they might not
want you to see.
L: Ahem. About
those opportunities?
Olivier: Yes, about those opportunities. Why don't you describe the situation?
Then we can get into what to do about it.
L: Right.
Well, a very interesting situation has developed in the metals markets
– especially the precious metals markets. Prices in our sector have
been rising for a decade. That rise accelerated greatly after the crash of
2008, until earlier this year. Doug has lamented in past conversations that
"nothing is cheap – which seems a metaphysical
impossibility." Well, the metals took a much-needed breather after gold
topped $1,900 per ounce last summer, but for the most part, they remain quite
high, at least in nominal dollar terms –if you adjust for inflation,
gold and silver have a long way to go to beat past highs. Metals and mining
stocks, on the other hand, have taken a serious beating, and some are now
genuinely undervalued, presenting us with great speculative buying
opportunities.
"Buy low, sell high" – it's easy enough
to say, but how do you actually, reliably, predictably, do it? You buy when
others are too afraid or too illiquid to buy – in other words, when the
market is like it is today.
Olivier: And why is it that way today?
L: Mr. Market
is not a man I can invite to lie on my couch for psychoanalysis. The market
is made of many different players, each with his or her own individual and/or
institutional agendas. Bulls and bears have very different views of what to
do and why at any given time in any given market – and on opposite
sides of every single transaction. That said, what we're seeing now is the
market "telling" us that on average investors expect prices to keep
dropping.
Whether a majority of players think the $1,900 peak we
saw in the gold market was the top of this metals cycle or whether they fear
that might be so, most people just don't understand what's happening in the
world today – or more specifically, what's happening to paper money
around the world today, and the implications of that for all
commodities… and especially precious metals.
I should pause here and point out that
industrial metals are in fact quite different in their market dynamics
than precious metals; the two categories of metals have often moved
contra-cyclically in the past. In other words, a weak economy was and is
bearish for industrial metals but is usually bullish for precious metals, as
fear and uncertainty drives people to seek the safe haven of gold and silver.
Olivier: But when a government prints more dollars, euros, or whatever,
everything priced in those currencies tends to rise.
L: Yes, and
we've seen that in both industrial and precious metals over the last ten
years. But it was gold, not copper, that bounced back from 2008 first and
fastest. And when the economy gets really frightening – which is
happening now as we exit the eye of the storm that started in earnest in 2008
– people are less likely to want to invest in industrial metals and
more likely to want to invest in the safe haven of precious metals.
Especially so for the monetary metals – gold and silver – not platinum
or other rare metals that have not kept up with gold.
Olivier: So, you are not buying any base metals stocks at all?
L: Well, never say never – we could be wrong. So there
are a few "contra-Casey" picks in the portfolio… base metal
plays that should do well if the economy rights itself and another global
economic boom takes hold. That said, we don't think we're wrong, of course,
or we'd change what we think and what we recommend. So almost everything in
the portfolio is in precious metals. We've been focusing on emerging
production stories in particular.
Olivier: I know the answer, but tell our readers why…
L: Because the
heightened level of fear in the marketplace favors the safety of existing
production and cash flow over the raw, speculative oomph of early-stage exploration.
If you're truly fearful of what's going on in today's
world and are not really concerned with making money but rather want to
protect your wealth, you need to focus on buying the metals themselves. As a
matter of principle and prudence, we do recommend buying the physical metals
to all subscribers.
If you want to make money and understand that gold
stocks tend to offer leverage to gold, but are nervous about investing in
today's volatile markets, you probably want the biggest, most stable gold
producers you can find. If they have good growth potential, so much the
better. Jeff focuses on finding the best of the best opportunities in this
area in BIG GOLD.
But the biggest companies' shares are so big that it's
hard for them to make dramatic moves, like doubling production in a year or
quintupling the bottom line. Smaller companies just building their mines can
do this, and we've had a great deal of success betting on them in Casey International Speculator.
Olivier: Does that mean that you're not interested in grassroots exploration
anymore?
L: No, but
that's a kind of speculation that takes a lot of patience. One can hit the
occasional home run that way, bagging ten times one's initial investment, or
even 50 or 100 times the investment in some extreme cases, it's true. But to
get to those great wins, one has to take a lot of losses on all the long
shots that don't work out. The average result of stepping up to the
high-stakes table, if played intelligently – with patience, discipline,
and enough money not to be forced out of the game – is greater yields;
but few people have what it takes and many get burned, giving up too soon,
realizing losses and no home runs.
In a buoyant – not to say frothy – market,
it's easier, because everything is going up. That makes patience easier to
maintain. But even in a bear market, resource investors love a discovery, so
intelligent and disciplined speculation can pay very handsomely.
Olivier: So, emerging producers offer the best mix of risk and reward?
L: Under
current market conditions, that's the sweet spot.
Olivier: What if the naysayers are right, and the
$1,900 peak was the top?
L: Then we'll
have been thrown an exceptionally unusual curve ball: a bull market without a
Mania Phase. But I'm not counting on a mania just because "there's
always been one." I'm expecting it because the amount of fiat money
creation that has already gone on since 2008 makes it all but inevitable.
Moreover, all the world's bigger governments have joined in "the race to
the bottom" in paper currencies. In other words, the money creation so
far was just an overture. In spite of price destruction in certain asset
classes, major inflation is on the way, with hyperinflation in the world's
leading economies quite possible. That's going to make the coming mania not
just one for the record books, but one that could truly dwarf any mania you
could name in all of recorded history.
Olivier: Sounds a little extreme.
L: So is the
debasement of the world's reserve currency. The destruction of the US dollar
doesn't just affect the US, but the whole world. We are, unfortunately,
living through a period that will be a highlight in history books for many,
many generations to come.
But suppose I'm wrong and Obama has saved us all from
excessive debt and stupid spending by adding more debt and encouraging more
stupid spending. Even if this were so, the amount of fear and uncertainty
already wracking the global economic system makes it likely that precious
metals prices will remain high for years to come, and that means that the
profitable producers should continue cranking out profits and attracting
market attention.
For industrial metals, that scenario is even better,
because demand should increase, even as supply continues being squeezed by
higher taxes, royalties, and regulatory burdens – not to mention
"not in my back yard" thinking that is chasing mining to ever more
distant and inhospitable (for investors) lands.
Silver, it's worth noting, benefits from both
scenarios; unlike gold, which has very little industrial use, silver is also
an industrial metal and gets used up in all sorts of manufacturing processes.
It's also largely a byproduct of big base-metal mines (there's almost no pure
silver production in the world), so the supply crunch we see ahead affects it
much more than gold. Silver has become the win-win metal.
Olivier: But wouldn't silver get hit harder than gold if we're right about more
economic trouble on the way, precisely because it's also an industrial metal?
L: Yes. It sure
did in 2008. And if it does, that should be a fantastic buying opportunity,
because if gold really takes off, silver will follow at one level or another,
regardless of industrial demand.
Olivier: What if metals don't take off into a mania, but just continue in a
highly volatile range for some time to come?
L: Again, the
producers should do well regardless of the specific scenario. The good ones
have gross margins approaching 50-60% – some really low-cost producers
have margins over 80% right now. But there's potential joy for the successful
explorers, as the producers always need to replace their depleting reserves,
and the lowest-risk way to do that is to take over a smaller company that has
done all the hard work of making a discovery and proving that it's economic.
Olivier: Some of those high-margin producers might become takeover targets as
well.
L: Sure.
Substantial and profitable production is always attractive to bigger fish,
but they can be picky. Generally, annual production needs to be about 100,000
ounces of gold or equivalent per year, and there needs to be more than five
years of mine life left in current reserves, hopefully with brownfield
exploration upside visibly imminent. Such a company, operating in a stable,
pro-mining jurisdiction is a good candidate for consolidation, which usually
comes in the form of a takeover offer at a premium for existing shareholders.
Olivier: And the explorers? What makes for a good takeover candidate among them?
L: Size
matters there. Basically, when I look at an earlier-stage company, I ask
myself: "Would a major mining company want to buy this?" For the
answer to be "yes," they have to be working on something big enough
– or potentially big enough – to interest a major. Generally,
that means multimillion ounces: a good five million ounces or more definitely
puts a project on the majors' radar screens. They might reach down for
something smaller, if the grade is unusually high, or if the project is
located near their existing production and they can see it as something of a
satellite operation.
Olivier: But it's more than size, of course…
L: Of course.
They are not in the business of cool science projects. The thing needs to
have clear economic potential – or better yet, a bankable feasibility
study showing high Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. Political
risk is a big factor as well. The majors are highly risk averse, and will
usually opt for easy over gutsy.
But there are aggressive mid-tiers and even cashed-up
juniors that can add value by buying up smaller companies to consolidate
ownership of key projects or expand production.
Olivier: Can you give us an example?
L: Yes. One of
the better happy endings we've had recently was the Long Canyon project,
formerly held by a small junior called AuEx Ventures.
AuEx was run by the serially successful mine-finder
Ron Parrat, one of our Explorers'
League honorees. He came at a known gold showing in a little-explored
corner of Nevada – one of the best mining jurisdictions in the world
– with a new geological theory, drilled a fence of holes, and, bang,
bang, bang, hit high-grade, near-surface, oxide gold (which tends to be
lower-cost to process) in almost every hole. We put out an alert and bought
shares based on that success in October of 2005, at 55 cents.
Next came a legal challenge
– not because AuEx made any mistakes, but
because the government land claims office did. The result was a joint venture
to explore Long Canyon with the company that had the conflicting land claims.
Then along comes Fronteer Development Company,
which made a lot of money spinning out a large uranium project and wanted to
re-focus on gold. Fronteer bought AuEx's partner, changed its name to Fronteer
Gold, and after a couple of years of great exploration success, ended up
buying AuEx, with a final price of C$6.47. That was
a great win.
But that's not the end of the story. Fronteer was already in our portfolio for other reasons,
and now we liked it even more – we thought Long Canyon and Fronteer's other Nevada assets made it a natural takeover
target, especially for nearby mining giant Newmont. Fronteer
was trading at C$4.96 when we bought it in April of 2006. It went to C$15 a
year later, and we took profits. Good thing too, because it retreated to
about C$2.00 in 2008, when we put an emphatic buy recommendation on it. It
was back up to about C$10 when it took over AuEx.
Then, sure enough, Newmont took out Fronteer, which
ended up at C$14.78.
A tale of two takeovers.
Olivier: A double win.
L: Triple, if
you count the profits we took on Fronteer during
its first brush with C$15.
Olivier: And you think you have more picks with this sort of potential in the
portfolio now?
L: At the risk
of turning this into an infomercial, yes; I believe I do have several with
excellent takeover potential.
Olivier: Well, quite a few of these conversations have been pure public service
announcements. Prices are down, and this is a great opportunity for people
late to the party, so I think our readers can forgive us for wanting to point
it out to them.
L: I hope so.
I really hope so! Did you hear about the UK vetoing the plan France and
Germany had put together to save the Eurozone? The wheels could easily fall
off the global economy at any time. The precious metals are the obvious and
immediate beneficiaries. And for the first time in years, the stocks that
offer the most leverage to that eventuality are on sale relatively cheap
compared to the underlying commodities.
I remember well all the really great buys we had in
2008, but that most investors were too paralyzed or too illiquid to take
advantage of them. We may see an opportunity just like that, or even more
extreme, in 2012. I hope people are listening to what we're saying, because playing
that right could make a life-changing difference.
Olivier: Exactly. We certainly hope some of the readers of this conversation who
don't get your newsletter will subscribe, but even if they don't, they can
still take what you've told them and apply it themselves.
L: True
enough.
Olivier: Anything else to add?
L: I would
stress again that people should buy gold for prudence. The stocks are for
speculation. Also, I agree with Doug that the greatest threat to anyone's
financial security is his or her own government. Internationalizing one's
assets has never been more urgent.
Olivier: Very good. Thank you for your thoughts.
L: My
pleasure.
[There's no better time than now to get into the severely
undervalued precious metals juniors that Louis has identified as screaming
"Buys." Due to overall market weakness, they have been dragged down
with the rest of the market, but they're sure to come back with a vengeance
– providing Casey International
Speculator subscribers with exceptional gains.
Our special holiday deal: For only a few more days, if
you sign up for one year of Casey International Speculator at a
discounted $749, you'll receive one year of the Casey Energy Report (another $995
value) absolutely free. Don't miss this great 2-for-1 offer that gives you full
coverage of both the metals and energy exploration sectors.]
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