The Real Reason Gold Sold Off This Week | Frank Giustra

Mining financier Frank Giustra says the gold selloff is being completely misread. The smart money, the central banks, never sold. It was the speculators and the loose hands bleeding out, while the structural buyers that drove this bull market never flinched. So is the gold bull market over, or is this the pause before the next leg?

Frank Giustra, founder and CEO of the Fiore Group, joins Kitco News anchor Jeremy Szafron for a wide ranging conversation on gold, the dollar, copper, and the slow rebuilding of the global monetary system. Giustra has founded and financed gold and copper companies for 45 years and has held physical gold since 2001 without selling an ounce.

In this interview: why this is not a normal gold market, the de-dollarization trade that began when the US froze Russia's reserves, the new regime in which gold rose alongside a strong dollar and positive real rates, why central banks are price inelastic buyers, what the Gulf states are and are not selling, the US debt trap and Ferguson's Law, the risk of a dollar crisis, how China's mBridge system and new gold vaults could let trade settle in gold outside the dollar, whether new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will hold the hawkish line or fold, the structural copper supply deficit, and what Giustra says the average person should actually do to protect their savings.

Recorded June 19 2026

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CHAPTERS 
00:00 The Dollar Admission That Set This Up 
01:40 Why This Is Not A Normal Gold Market 
03:00 De-Dollarization And Why It Keeps Going 
05:00 The New Regime: Gold Broke Its Old Rules 
07:00 Why Central Banks Do Not Care About The Price
08:00 Foreign Central Banks And Gold Versus Dollars 
09:00 Is The Gulf Selling Gold? Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan 
10:00 The Debt Trap And Ferguson's Law 
13:00 Could There Be A Run On The Dollar 
14:00 mBridge: China's Gold Settlement System 
17:00 Will Fed Chair Warsh Hold Or Fold 
19:00 The Copper Supply Deficit 
22:00 Freedom Copper And The White House 
36:00 Jurisdiction Risk: Bargain Or Value Trap 
40:00 What The Average Saver Should Do Now 
44:00 The Dinosaur's Final Word

#gold #goldprice #frankgiustra
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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

This week, the President of the United States linked a major foreign policy decision directly to the strength of the US dollar. Now, his New Deal could return billions of dollars in frozen assets to Iran. Asked why he said he would rather have kept the money, then he explained why he didn't take a listen.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Well, the unfreeze, that's an easy one to answer. We have taken a lot of their money. And we have their money. We have taken their money. It's not our money, it's their money. And we froze it. At a certain point in time, I guess we're gonna have to give it back. You know, if we didn't give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

And yet the market moved the other way. The dollar hit its highest since March. Goldman Sachs has cut its year-end gold target by about $500, and gold fell for a third straight week back near $4,100 after January's record of $55.89. So here's the question for this hour. Is the gold sell-off simply the end of a historic run, the way most coverage says, or at the start of maybe a different story, the market is underpricing? My guest has uh bought physical gold since 2001, is never sold an ounce. He says the market has this a little bit backwards, and in a moment we'll put that to the test.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Kitco News in Focus with Jeremy Saffron.

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Yeah, nice to see you again, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Uh now listen, I mean, the headlines this week, and it has been quite the week, they all kind of say the same thing. We got a strong dollar, Iran deal, hawkish Fed, gold down three weeks, and apparently the bull market is finished. So, I mean, what's the mainstream missing here?

SPEAKER_05 2:16

Well, the mainstream is missing the uh the fact that this gold market has not been a typical gold market. This is we're seeing a structural change in the in the gold market that has been evolving over the last number of years. It's basically the debasement trade, um, and fueled by concerns of debt, money printing, um, US uh part partially part uh uh as a as an offset to dedollarization, which was inspired by the United States, you know, seizing uh Russia's uh reserves, dollar reserves, and the the point that that Trump just made in that clip you played, you know, occasionally he tells the truth, you know. And I mean he's saying something the rest of the world already knows, and that's why we've seen this de-dollarization trend and a switch rotation into gold. And that is continuing, and it's gonna continue for a number of years. Central banks work these stri make these strategic moves over a number of many, many years. They slowly, slowly sell their dollars, and they slowly, slowly replace it with gold. So you're gonna see a continuous bid from the central banks in the gold market for years to come. Uh, it's far from over yet.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Yeah, you know, I mean, for 50 years, the dollar superpower was pretty simple, right? I mean, everyone needed it. Now Washington freezes the money of countries it doesn't kind of like the president himself, as you just mentioned, an interesting quote. Just talk to me a little bit, because we know you know the dollar's not going away tomorrow. But how does using the dollar as a weapon kind of speed up its own decline? And and is the wand creeping into this oil trade the real kind of first proof?

SPEAKER_05 3:56

Yeah, no, and listen, it the the the world took notice when they s when they froze the Russian reserves, 300 billion or so. And um, you know, who wants to be next? Who wants to be on America's naughty list? I mean, especially these days when Trump wakes up with a whim and you know, and he treats, he's screwing friends and foes alike. He doesn't care which side, you know, he's he's basically taking on the whole world. And you know, people are getting very nervous. So I think that uh that this is cause the the cause of this the de-dollarization was twofold, mostly fear of sanctions, fear of having your assets frozen. Um and and in the China-led system now, uh they're creating a mirror system to the entire West financial system to have the system that exists outside the US dollar system for that purpose. And you're getting many countries joining China, especially the BRICS countries and the Embridge Project, which is creating an entire payment settlement system outside of the US dollar. So, so yes, it's it I think this is uh a wound that's self-inflicted. Uh the other part is you look at uh at the United States and their fiscal status. I mean, it's it's really dangerous. I mean, you these deficits are out of control, the debt is climbing like crazy, you got interest costs that are a trillion dollars a year, interest costs, trillion dollars a year. Um so I just I think people are seeing that the US it has reckless fiscal policy and it also attacks, like I said, friends and foe alike. You know, and so I what would you do? You you would try and find an alternative system. And right now, the only neutral currency in the world is gold. It's the only one that's neutral, that has no counterparty. So that's why you're seeing all these gold purchases.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

You know, I mean, here's here's that kind of uh the real story underneath all of this that I want kind of your read on. I mean, for 40 years, gold traded opposite to the dollar and and to real interest rates. When they rose, gold typically fell. That relationship seemed to break. I mean, in 2024 and 2025, gold ran to a record with a firm dollar and real positive rates, which is not really supposed to happen. And then over that stretch, you know, the IMF, I mean, the dollar's share of global reserves keeps sliding from about 70% to the high 50s, while, you know, some measures gold overtook the euro as the world's largest or I guess second largest reserve asset. So it almost looks like the buyers changed from Western funds to the non-Western central banks. And you talked about it a little bit before about Russia and Azerbaijan and Turkey. I saw Poland picking up this morning. Do you buy that we've moved into a whole new regime for gold?

SPEAKER_05 6:40

Oh, absolutely, 100%. And like I said, the reason gold has gone up in the last number of years, counter to the its relationship with the dollar and interest rates, is because it's central bank buying, global central bank buying, that does not pay attention. They have a long-term strategy. This is a long-term strategic rotation from dollars to gold. And it's moving like the dollar reserves are moving down by about around 1% a year. Very slowly, but 1% a year, they're disposing of these dollars. And so, yeah, no, this is this the original move that took gold from 1800 and then ran it up to about 3,500, 4,000 was all central bank buying. Then obviously, the investors came in and the speculators came in, and the euphoria entered the market, and you saw gold run up to $5,500. And it all happened in a very short period of time. That whole run from $1,800 to $5,500. So naturally, you're gonna see a correction, and we've seen the correction. We're in the middle of it now. Um, so the speculators, the loose hands, the people that bought it for a trade and for momentum are obviously exiting, and this is what's taking the price down. But the central bank buying is consistent, they don't care. They're price in elastic, they don't care. They're just gonna they have a strategic objective to switch reserves from dollars to gold, and that's happening. And and I I think you said something about the the the amount of gold. Foreign central banks own more gold than US dollars now. And and a big part of that reason is because gold's gone up in value. Obviously, the value of those ounces of gold have gone up, but that's who would have predicted that, you know, 10 years ago. But here we are, it's happening.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, to to look east too, Frank. I mean, there's been that persistent premium in Shanghai over the London price faults emptying west to the east for years. Is the real price discovery just now being set by the people taking delivery, not the paper market?

SPEAKER_05 8:44

Yeah, and you're you at times you're seeing premiums and for for physical gold and silver, uh mostly from the Asian markets, Japan, Korea, China, you know, and these premiums sometimes can get quite quite large. So physical is important. The paper gold that we we we're we're accustomed to watching the paper gold market, which is heavily manipulated and and is full of speculators and such. But at times to buy physical and get delivery, you have to pay a premium. And those premiums that the range of those premiums go up and down, but they're they're there consistently.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

Yeah. You know, oil has kind of cratered since this whole Iranian framework came out, this MOU. I mean, Brent's back below 80, down more than 8% just this week. A lot of the world's gold buyers are oil states, and the Gulf in particular, you know, suddenly has less petrodollar cash coming in. And according to Bloomberg, a big rebuilding and defense bill ahead of it. I mean, I guess there's some rumors out there. Are the Gulf states, any other foreigners quietly kind of selling gold to rage cash? Here is the official sector actually backing away.

SPEAKER_05 9:48

No, I haven't seen any of that. I have not seen the Gulf states sell their gold. Yeah, there's been some selling from Russia, which has its own reasons to sell gold. They're excluded from the US dollar system, and they're trying to finance a war, a very costly war against Ukraine. So they had to sell about I think it was about eight tons of gold uh last month. Uh, Turkey had to sell about three tons of gold, I think. They were doing it to protect the lira. The lira was under attack, so they're protecting the lira. And I think Azerbaijan sold a couple of tons as well. But uh all in, the central foreign foreign central banks are net buyers and continue to be net buyers of gold.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

I mean, this comes back to something you've been writing about for years, that the whole dollar system is slowly being almost rebuilt around gold. So I kind of want to go there for a second. I mean, according to the Treasury, the U.S. now spends about $1.3 trillion a year on interest, and it you know it has to be refinanced, I think roughly $9 trillion in the next year. I mean, you point to Ferguson's law, the idea the idea that, you know, uh when a great power spends more on interest than on military, the decline has begun. And you say America crossed that line in 2024. This whole Iran war is the kind of live example, tens of billions spent on something you've argued accomplished, nothing. I mean, the 2015 nuclear deal had not, all of it borrowed. For for the person at home, why does that one crossover matter so much?

SPEAKER_05 11:10

Yeah, so if you map out the rise and fall of great powers over just over the last 500 years, I mean this trend, you can map it back a couple thousand years, but if you just take the last 500 years, around 10 or so nations that were great powers all made the same mistakes. And it was uh uh overextension militarily, too much consumption, not enough production, borrowing of money and then printing of money. Okay, it's always the same pattern. And what the U.S. is doing today is no different than what the Brits did, what the Spaniards did, what the Dutch did, what the French did. It's just it's the same pattern. So uh Nile Ferguson, the the economist, uh came up with Ferguson's law by having studied all of this and saying that whenever he saw that the costs of borrowing by these nations exceeded their military spending, it was the beginning of the decline. And I've been talking about this for 25 years now, that this started back when when the U.S. invaded, after 9-11, when the U.S. invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq. You could see this coming. You know, it was like we're gonna we're gonna start a war on terror. You know, I don't know how you define that. You know, it's a it's a it's it's a forever war on terror, and they spent literally trillions of dollars on that. They bankrupted the country. And I, you know, so far they're hanging in. Um there is a because the the global system is wired with uh US dollars, it's difficult to escape that system. But China's doing its best to create a mirror system. And there are also other hodgepodge type trading systems that are being created to exist outside the US dollar system, which will in turn uh create less demand for US dollars. Okay, and again, this is a this is not going to happen overnight unless there is a US dollar crisis, unless you know we get uh a real panic that let's say over the next few years we start to see the um the annual deficits at $2.5%, $3 trillion.

unknown 13:16

Right.

SPEAKER_05 13:16

Interest rates stay elevated, and you're watching your interest costs. If if if you did to if you tried to finance today's federal debt at 5% instead of what is currently the average of that debt has been uh financed at 3.5% at the moment. But if you took it to 5%, you would be taking paying $2 trillion a year in interest. That is crazy and unsustainable. You it there in my opinion, there may there's a very good chance we're gonna see a US dollar crisis, a run on the dollar, a panic. Okay? And that would change the you know the dynamics forever. That would be but but even if that doesn't happen, I think there's gonna be a slow erosion for the need of dollars. Um already 20% of the world's oil is traded in non-dollar terms. China's obviously demanding and has demanded uh yuan payments for um for the commodities, including oil and iron ore from Australia. So, you know, they're doing their best to create an alternative, but it's gonna be slow unless there's a crisis.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

And and to your point, I mean you're you're not saying the dollar uh dies overnight, and but the real story is kind of quieter. Walk me through it a little bit, just about Embridge. You know, what are the gold vaults China's building? How does gold quietly kind of become you know the world's settlement asset?

SPEAKER_05 14:34

Yeah, uh so I came up with this thesis about five, six years ago, uh, just watching the central bank accumulation of gold. And it seemed to be all of the countries that were mostly BRICS countries in the global south. Okay, so they they started buying around 2010 and slowly, slowly bought more and more, and then it really started to accelerate about three, four years ago. Um, those same countries led by China, and China created this thing called the M Bridge Project, which is a uh it was a pilot project with uh China, Hong Kong, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. And basically it's a payment system that it sits exactly it's a ledger to ledger from central bank to central bank for Forex trading for exchanging currencies. And so those same countries that were in Embridge are accumulating gold, and you had to ask yourself why was this all happening? And I theorized that eventually um when countries are trading with each other outside the US dollar system and they have unwanted currency, because the biggest criticism of D-Dollar people that argued against de-dollarization being real was that what currency are you gonna use? You know, what are you gonna hold? US dollars are the most liquid assets in the world, it's a trusted economy, it's a trusted system, and it's it's it's used in every in the depth of the US dollars is is extreme and it's worldwide. And they said, Why would you know who would sit on unwanted yuan in a trading situation, bilateral trade? And I said, Well, why why couldn't they just settle if you have an a surplus? Let's say, let's take an example, Saudi Arabia and China trading between each other, and they're trading with each other's local currencies. And at the end of a period, Saudi Arabia is selling more oil to China than China's buying goods, uh, that Saudi Arabia's buying goods from China. So what do you what would Saudi Arabia do with all its unwanted yuans? Well, China now allows the exchange of, on the Shanghai gold exchange, the exchange of yuan's into physical gold. And and this this is allowed for governments and institutions. Then China announces that they're setting up these gold vaults. The first one's gonna be in Hong Kong. They want to put up to 22 tons of gold into that. They're talking about doing it in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, UAE, and Switzerland. Why would you have these physical gold vaults in other parts of the world? Well, and my theory is that if the Embridge project works and you have bilateral trade agreements between countries only using their local currencies and their surplus currency, you that country could choose to take physical gold. And that solves the problem. And I think that that's where we're heading.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

Yeah, very interesting, Tom. I got to bring this back to the immediate market pressure because I mean that long-term thesis in in is dollar trust, kind of, you know, debt, central bank gold buying. But this week that short-term hit came from the Fed. Kevin Warsh who's come in, kind of sounding much more serious about inflation, markets suddenly, uh, you know, asking whether the next move is not a cut but a hike. What are your thoughts on the new guy in town?

SPEAKER_05 17:46

I'm betting that he's gonna hike, I'll take the under.

SPEAKER_04 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:49

Okay, I I I honestly think, no, you gotta understand, he owes his whole gig to the guy that torched the last guy that was disloyal, okay? Um, and I I I just want to see whether his resolve will last after Trump's first tweet complaining about interest rates, which I guarantee you will happen before the midterms. There's no way this administration is going to go into the midterms wanting the rates elevated. And they will sacrifice um inflation to um to get to get their way. So I I I I just uh I don't think that Kevin Wars, dude, despite all of his hawkish narrative, is going to withstand. He was put there by Trump for a reason. And I think Trump will want, he's said it over and over again, he wants lower rates. He wants 1% rates. He may not get 1%, but he's I think he's gonna get much lower than wherever it is 3.5% right now uh on on the Fed funds rate. So I think I I I just don't buy it. I I think that that Warsh will will fold when the time is right.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

It feels like there's something going on too behind the scenes. I mean, you know, they want a quieter Fed, they're gonna tell you less, they're looking at different data. I mean, are they kind of manufacturing something here?

SPEAKER_05 19:07

Yeah, perhaps. I think that the less you say, the more latitude it gives you to do whatever you want. If you spell out your plans, then you're you're kind of boxing yourself in. So they're giving themselves extra latitude to go with how what they feel the necessary move should be at the appropriate time.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

Yeah, listen, you're not just a gold man, and I gotta do a hard transition over to copper because I mean it's it's hit a record above $13,000 a ton earlier this year. I mean, that structural supply deficit, big mines like Grasper, Kamoa, Kakuna disrupted and demand exploding from electrification, AI data centers. We saw that SpaceX IPO, they're gonna need some copper. Are you scouting U.S. copper and gold projects as Washington kind of cuts permitting red tape? Where do you stand on copper today?

SPEAKER_05 19:52

I I love copper. Um, you know, I people see me as the gold guy. Yeah, but it's like you know, when you have two children and you love them equally, but deep down you have a favorite. But I love them equally, copper and gold. So so yeah, copper, the thesis on copper is pretty simple. It's uh and it's well documented. There's gonna be a large supply deficit coming towards us over the next five, ten years. Actually, there's gonna be a probably the best estimate, there's gonna be a 30% supply deficit by 2035. About eight thousand eight tons. And I'm sorry, eight million tons by 2035. And no one knows where this copper is gonna come from, where the supply is gonna come from. Um you know how long it takes to get one of these mines into production, especially a Tier 1 copper mine, which is usually these large porphyries that you see in places like Chile and Peru. Um, those take years to put into production and billions and billions of dollars. So um I I think it's it it there's a very good chance that copper, the only way to fix that supply deficit is to have a higher price in copper and people get people really motivated to to dig the stuff out of the ground. And there's only a few, when you think about it, I think one estimate said that we would need to build um about a hundred new copper mines by 2035 of all sizes, and about 30 to 60 tier one copper mines by 2035. Uh no, outside the majors, the juniors, which usually find and develop these things to up to a certain point before they're taken out. We I only know of four or five tier one billion plus tons of good decent grade near surface, okay, which is gonna be the ones that are gonna be easy to get to, okay. Um where are you gonna get all these copper mines? That's why I'm invested in like I've got my own project as a Columbia, it's called Copper Giant. It's it's over a billion tons now, and I think it could possibly go a lot higher, and it's near surface as a Really good grade. Um, my attitude is you buy these things, you hold on to them, and you wait. Just be patient. They're gonna get gobbled up. The majors have nowhere else to go. They're the the the mines, existing mines, the grades are going down dramatically. Um, so we need new mines with better grades, and there aren't that many of them around. Like I said, we only know of four or five of them that are outside of that are not already owned by the majors.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

So, I mean, uh you talked a little bit about it there, how to solve it. I mean, is this a price problem where copper has to go high enough to force new mines into production, or is it kind of a policy problem where the the West simply cannot permit and build fast enough, you know?

SPEAKER_05 22:39

I th I think I think it's a bit of both. And if you see what the Trump administration is doing, there, they're obviously saying we need this stuff so badly, we're gonna permit these, you know, if they're in the United States, we're gonna really permit them very quickly. And and I'm involved in one that's gonna get floated next week. I think it's gonna get floated next week. It's in the United States. It's gonna be called Freedom Copper. As far as we know, it's the third largest known undeveloped copper project in the U.S. Um and you know, I know that the the management of the company has had conversations with the White House, and they want this permitted very quickly. They don't want, you know, they don't want it to take the two or three or four or ten years that it takes. It's just let's get this done, let's get it permitted, let's get it into production. You know, they're desperate. They don't know where else they're gonna get this copper.

SPEAKER_04 23:24

Is I mean, is is copper kind of that a better risk reward than gold right now, you think?

SPEAKER_05 23:31

I I don't know. I don't I wouldn't put it that way. No, I think that they're two very different animals. Okay, you know, gold mining is very different than porphyry copper mining, which is where you get most of your copper from, the large mines. Um and obviously require the copper porphyry's require a lot more capital than a typical gold mine would would take to put into production. Um, so the economics and and the risks are different. Uh, but I I you know, and and obviously it all comes down to price. Now, copper can easily go from what is it, 620 a pound right now. Um, it could go to say eight, nine, ten dollars a pound. Gold, on the other hand, could pick a number. Gold can go from 4,000 to some crazy number because it's a it's it's part of the monetary system, and and we know that the fiat experiment, as we know it, is falling apart. That experiment's over. And so now, uh so gold has a different upside dynamic potential than copper does. So you buy gold for a different reason than you buy copper.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Yeah, yeah, well said. And I mean you talked about freedom there. I mean, uh if permitting kind of is really changing, does that make the US one of the better copper jurisdictions in the world again, or just less bad than what it was?

SPEAKER_05 24:52

It would make it less bad. It doesn't the problem the US doesn't have a lot of copper projects available, not not like say Africa or Latin America. We just just you know, there there aren't that many to pick from that are of that size. Like I said, there's only three undeveloped ones we know of in the US that are of that size.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

So, I mean, outside of the meadows, you've been buying energy stocks. I know that Adam, we've seen this little dip on Brent, but uh are you're bullish on uranium for the data center builder. Are you finding any value there? I mean, what's kept you from doing a deal there so far?

SPEAKER_05 25:24

Well, the only thing that's kept me from doing a uranium deal deal is finding one that I like. You know, the last time I found one I liked was 2005. It's a long time ago, okay? They're not easy to find. You good uranium, and we've looked and looked and looked. Maybe we just haven't been lucky or we weren't quick enough on our feet. But our our group, the Fuhrer group, has not been able to find a uranium deal that we thought was worthy of our involvement. Um, so but I would love if someone presented me with one that made sense, I'd be all over it.

SPEAKER_04 25:52

And I mean, on this dip, I mean, uh on the on the miners dip, I mean, uh start with the puzzle. I mean, gold where it is, producer margins are still near record highs. A lot of these companies still trade below the value of the gold that they hold in the ground. And I mean, we always see that volatility in mining. You know, it's kind of cyclical. You saw that dip. Uh, a lot of buying opportunities right now.

SPEAKER_05 26:12

Oh, yeah. You know, this we we may be a bull market, be in a bull market of uh for gold and and and copper, but we're not in a bull market yet for mining stocks, okay? Um, relative to past markets, which I've been very familiar with over here, I've seen quite a few markets over the last 45 years. Um, this is still tame as far as a market. I think most investors, especially in the US, are totally distracted with tech, crypto, AI now, SpaceX, you name it. It's it's whatever the new flavor of the month is, is getting all the attention, all of the money flow. And most North Americans still are not exposed at all to mining. Not at all. A lot of aren't aren't even exposed to gold, physical gold. So this, I think we're really, really early in what will be a very long cycle. And I don't think we've seen you will know when you see the euphoria. I've seen it before. We have not seen anything close to euphoria yet. We've seen a nice run up. Some of the miners had a great run, especially the the senior miners, the majors. Um, I've done very well bye bye, Gnico Eagle, and then I've got my own gold mining companies. They've all done really, really well, but it's not euphoric. Okay, it's not what I've seen in the past where people go like the way that people are going after tech stocks right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:31

You know, that or AI stocks that we haven't seen that in the mining stocks yet. It will come. It will come. I just don't know when. This market could last two, three, five, ten years. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

So, I mean, we see a little bit of MA. I'm surprised we kind of haven't seen more. I mean, where are you actually putting your capital today? And feel free to talk a little bit about your book. I mean, are they majors, mid-tiers, developers, early stage juniors? Yeah, and what what in this market has real staying power, you know, versus what's just riding the tape?

SPEAKER_05 27:59

I think that developers, I think what what my approach, and it's worked well for me. I don't know if it might not work well for everybody, but is to find uh a development project that has huge upside economic potential, but needs to be explored, not explored, it needs to be studied, the economics have to be studied, you know, all of the feasibility stuff has to be done, it has to be fully drilled out. That's where you make your real money. So, what I would say to investors is find those type of projects, and remember, grade and scale are important. Bigger is better than smaller, okay? And so find something that has good management, because again, I've seen management screw up some really good projects. And actually, our Fiore group has done very well by finding, fixing, restructuring other people's screw-ups over the last couple of years. We've done really well by that, and so management's important, sponsorship's important, and so buy something that's got well-sponsored, good management, that has grade and size, and and then buy that and hold it. Just be patient, because these things will get gobbled up. The MA game has only just started, it's just trickled. We haven't seen that. You're gonna see a lot of more MA, majors acquiring intermediates, intermediate is acquiring juniors, juniors merging together to create intermediates. There's gonna be a lot of MA, and I've seen it in past cycles. And I'm it I'm surprised it hasn't happened to the extent that it should happen yet. And I think that part of it is the hangover from the last cycle, which ended in 2012, where there was a lot of MA, people overpaid, there was a lot of silly, silly acquisitions taking place, and then there was the extended hangover from all of that, which lasted many years. And the memory of that hangover still exists. But it's good it with all markets, bull markets cure all sorts of fear, and people will again go crazy down the road, and you will see merger mania, acquisition mania. Uh, it's gonna happen. So buy the juniors with the best assets and just be patient. Buy lots of these things, buy big positions in them, pick the ones you like, and just be patient.

SPEAKER_04 30:20

Hey, you know, that you bring up a good point. I want to talk about MA for a second, but you know, talk about management. I mean, because the honest knock on miners is they've disappointed gold bulls, right, for decades. They diluted shareholders, they overspent, they lagged the metal. I mean, have you seen management really change this cycle? I mean, they seem like they're keeping some cash. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

Oh, 100%. I mean, I'm uh one of my companies is Aeris Mining, which is in Colombia. We have two gold mines in Colombia uh producing about half a million ounces a year now this year, and we have two other projects in that we own 100% of that we'll be putting in production over the next number of years to take us to a million ounces. And we're we're I'm the management of that company, I'm a shareholder, I'm not on the board, but I know the management of that company is very careful, and they're not going out there acquiring just for the sake of acquiring in this cycle. They're going, well, we can manage our cash flow, we're making great cash flow. Let's use our cash flow instead to build what we already own instead of going out and making acquisitions. We can grow this thing organically without diluting the shares. And I think that that's that's that's the general mentality in the more senior gold mining stocks right now. They're being very, very careful. They're not just going out there to make an acquisition just for the sake of getting bigger. I mean, I think Equinox and Orla did a merger. I'm not sure what was the reasoning behind it. Um, and I'm I I'm not sure whether there were synergies there, but but again, that's that's one in you know what could potentially be many, many companies coming together. And so I I think that it's gonna happen, you know, as the bull market gets more heated and these targets, acquisition targets, get fewer and fewer. As I said earlier, there's only four or five copper targets that are over a billion tons near surface that are not owned by the majors. They're all gonna get gobbled up, all of them, including my company, eventually. You know, and someone's gonna buy them, and you just have to hold on to them.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

Yeah, yeah. It's actually a good point. I mean, I remember seeing you, and I think we were talking to uh copper giant, I think Ian Harris over at PDAC in Toronto. I think it was the last time I saw you, and you you told me that you, you know, the majors they kind of move a little late, that they would rather kind of overpay later than than risk a mistake now. So, I mean, from a perspective of an investor, if that's right, I mean, where does it leave the retail investor? And and what is the real risk in kind of chasing the juniors you think will eventually get bought?

SPEAKER_05 32:46

Well, the the the the risk is always, in my opinion, is you know, you need to study these things carefully, but the risk is always that management makes mistakes. That's usually the risk, is that they they they do things that aren't you know well thought through. Um, but I I I I I said what what I said uh uh uh when I I think I saw you at PDAC um that uh majors would rather overpay and not take the risk. You've got to keep in mind the majors are run by committees. You know, there's no maverick at the top like there used to be in a like say tech with Norm Kivel back, you know, 30, 40 years ago. It was a maverick, he would take shots, you know. Now everybody's afraid to lose their jobs. So they would rather overpay and not have any risk than underpay and take on risk. So they'll let the juniors develop these things, take all of the risk. Sure, the stock price is going to double, triple, quadruple, whatever. They don't care. They'd rather buy, they'll pay higher as long as they don't they know that it's fully de-risked.

SPEAKER_04 33:48

You know, jurisdiction's kind of back in the headlines, too. I mean, this week Russia sold off a top gold miner it had seized from a private owner. Uh, Ghana is is kind of weighing, taking local control of Goldfield's biggest mine. I mean, you have a lot of experience in your career in this as someone deploying capital around the world. I mean, how much does political risk and that threat of seizure now kind of weigh on where you will and won't build a mine?

SPEAKER_05 34:12

Well, that's always been listen, uh political risk has always been part of this business because you're, you know, mining takes place in almost every country on the planet. And we we know that not every country, you know, behaves properly. Or at times they have to do things that you know they wouldn't have done previously just to, you know, just to stay afloat, you know. So Russia obviously is financing a war and is excluded from the dollar system. Gold is very important to them, so I'm not surprised they're seizing gold mines. And and by the way, they they've seized many private assets before within the country when when an oligarch falls out of favor. So that's that's nothing new. Ghana, listen, Ghana's been talking a long time about not taking over gold mines, but by buying the gold and keeping the gold internally by you know building their gold reserves from their gold production. And that I think that that's very smart. That part's very smart. Um, you know, we saw what happened in Mali, you know, in the last couple of years with Barrack. Um these things happen. But typically, they're those risks are priced into the valuation of these companies. Right. Maybe not a Barrack, but if you take a junior, one a junior one junior has a a gold mine in Mali, and another junior has a that's similar gold mine with similar gray, similar size in Canada, they're gonna be priced differently. You know, it's in the price. So, and you're always taking risks. But, you know, I think that, you know, I'm always very careful. I don't think I've ever in my career had a situation. Oh, I'm sorry, I did, Venezuela. We were in Venezuela big time in the 90s and the early 2000s until uh Chavez came in and he basically took our gold mines away from us. And uh one company was called Rosoro, and it it it actually sued the Venezuelan government. Took like 15 years sued in the international courts, won a judgment that got overturned by another court. Um finally they tagged on to the Citco sale that uh you know the Venezuelan uh refinery and and and and and petrol station assets that are in the U.S. were seized and seized by the creditors, including Chevron, and a whole bunch of these companies were were their their properties were taken away from them and you know and sold to pay off that debt. Now it hasn't gone through yet, but I'm saying that, yeah. So I did have that experience in Venezuela when you get a someone like a Chavez who came in in the Maduro or the fall that basically just took away people's assets. They stole them. You know, so it does happen, but it's it for me it's been quite rare. I you know, I've operated in many countries around the world. That that's a very rare occurrence.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Yeah, I mean, you know, some investors would say that that well, as you just mentioned, that risk is already kind of priced in. I mean, these companies trade cheap precisely because the market knows the jurisdiction is dangerous. So, how do you kind of tell the difference between a bargain and maybe a value trap?

SPEAKER_05 37:10

Well, you have to be in this business for a while, I guess. You know, I I think that no, thankfully, I I have an organization that does that really well. We have geologists, engineers, corporate finance people, we know how to run models, and we look at, you know, the average investor. That this is why I said earlier, I think the only thing that the average investor can do to compete with people like me is to back people like me and others. I'm not alone in this, obviously. There are a lot of really good mining guys that have had a tremendous track record of delivering, that are honest, that don't, you know, that that basically work very hard to create value for shareholders. So great assets, as long as the asset looks good, good management that has a track record, that's the best you can do. You know, unless you you you're a geologist or an engineer and you're gonna go out on site and look at these things yourself, you know, you you have to you have to kind of trust that the management is gonna do it for you.

SPEAKER_04 38:07

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 38:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:19

No, I think if you look at what's happening in Canada today, um, and the US, but Canada mostly, you know, there's a lot of cap. Whereas a few years ago, it was hard, you know, Canada had actually a bad reputation for permitting, you know, and regulations and you know and all of these things. Now these you know now you're getting a lot of money coming because, you know, in Ontario, especially you're seeing a very mining-friendly province, and you know, and that it's attracting capital. Because everybody now knows that provinces, countries need those metals. So you have to you have to get rid of the red tape. You have to, you know, the the the idea is that you have two agencies permitting, they should streamline it into one agency that permits everything. And you know, there's so many ways to get rid of the red tape. And I think that, you know, as countries get more and more desperate for the metals, you're gonna see, you know, uh permitting made a lot easier.

SPEAKER_04 39:13

You know, d does the U.S. kind of midterms change the calculus at all? I mean, if control of Congress ships, does that slow permitting reform kind of change mining incentives? No.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

No, I don't think so. I think the only thing that would change mining reform is a new administration. Right. Um, and that's not until 2028. We're not gonna know what's gonna happen there. Um I don't think the midterms I don't think are gonna have any impact on permitting and mining. I think the Trump administration has made very clear to the mining industry what they want.

SPEAKER_04 39:41

Talk to me a little bit about to the average kind of person here watching this show as we wrap up. I mean, in the middle of this reset you described, what do they actually do? I mean, not a not a hedge fund, not a mining financier, but somebody trying to just keep their savings from melting away.

SPEAKER_05 39:56

Buy physical gold. Okay, I'll tell you what I do, okay, and then obviously I might have a little bit more, a few more resources than most people, but generally speaking, if you have anything to invest to protect some wealth, I I would put 15% into gold bullion and just forget about it. Just put it away in 15% of your portfolio net worth, whatever, put it into into into into um into bullion and just forget about that. That's your insurance. Um, I would put another 15 to 20 percent into the miners, because that's where you're gonna make your money. You know, you're gonna be able to buy something and sell it higher as as this market continues. Um, and I would be, I'll tell you what I the things I don't do, I don't buy overpriced U.S. tech stocks, even though I've missed a lot of the upside. I don't care. I'm not gonna take that risk of buying something at 105 times future earnings, so sorry, 105 times future revenue.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:57

Because I believe that they're on to something like SpaceX. I'm sure SpaceX is gonna do very well, but it's grossly overpriced. And I think eventually, as the market has a correction, which it will, all bubbles burst, and this has been the biggest bubble in history, and it will burst eventually. And the SpaceXs and all the you know, Nvidia's and all the things that are trading at ridiculous values, great companies, but overvalued. So I don't buy overvalued stocks. I just refuse to. So I look for stocks that are mostly outside of the U.S., that pay great dividends, that have global businesses, great cash flows, you know, and are not grossly overvalued, trade within a certain range of earnings multiple. Um, there's lots of those around. Canadian Prefers has been very, very good to me. Um, I look for dividends. I look for companies that can pay dividends and have paid dividends for a long, long time. I have a good track record. Um I and cash. You have to have some cash. Although I hate cash because it gets eaten away by inflation, and I see inflation as being very sticky, it's not gonna go away. You need cash, and I'll tell you why you need cash. Because we're gonna get a correction, a very big correction in the stock markets. It's gonna be huge. And if you don't have cash, you're not gonna be able to take advantage of that. So I I'm about these days, I'm about 20-25% cash.

SPEAKER_04 42:14

Interesting.

SPEAKER_05 42:15

Okay, I'm just waiting. I'm just gonna wait and see what you know, because I I think there will be a big pullback and there'll be great opportunities.

SPEAKER_04 42:23

Yeah, good time to employ deploy it. Speaking of uh AEM, like Agniko, we saw that run up, took a little bit of a drop, still an amazing dividend, lots of cash. These stocks are still a buy, or are you waiting for one more dip?

SPEAKER_05 42:34

Um, well, Agnico, I was I'm uh I'm thankful I bought it early. I bought it really early and I kept it. And it tripled in price. I mean, it was just incredible. But it is probably one of the best run gold mining companies in the world. So you know, I I like Agniko Eagle. Um But no, I I I I always wait for pullbacks to buy gold or buy gold stocks. And so I have my core positions, and again, I'm I my trading might be different than other people's, but I have my core positions that I don't sell because I'm watching these companies grow. Okay, that's in this box, in this, in this category here. Then I have other ones where I just trade, where I I I I trade the the the run-ups and the dips, and so like I watch the gold market very carefully, and I I know when it's overextended, when it should be pulling back, and I know when it's oversold, and it's you know, I you never time it perfectly, obviously, but I do a lot of that kind of trading just for fun, you know, just to make, you know, make make some extra money while I'm waiting for my companies to mature.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

Yeah, makes sense. Uh okay, well let's uh we're gonna leave you with this. I mean, you you've called yourself a dinosaur and and said that you know there's perks to that, that you you've seen enough uh cycles to kind of know nonsense when you hear it. Leave this with us. I mean, if you if you're right in the the old system's quietly kind of being rebuilt around gold, what does the other side look like for the people who saw it coming?

SPEAKER_05 44:00

I you know, listen, it's always nice to be right and vindicated. Obviously, my biggest concern has always been about preserving my wealth. Um, I like I think you mentioned in the beginning of this piece that I started buying gold 25 years ago and I started writing about gold 25 years ago, and it I it it's been a very good bet. Gold has outperformed the SP in the last 25 years. Most people don't know that, but it has. It's outperformed the SP. So um it's always nice to be right, but I'll tell you what I really enjoy, Jeremy, is that um, because I get a you know, I I I post my articles and I get a lot of comments and on uh on X, you know, I I also post my articles on X, I post them on my blog, and I see the comments that come back at times that are thankful that they listened to what I said however many years ago, made made, you know, made the investments and bought a house or put their kids through college or something. That is really I'll tell you, I love making money for myself, of course. Who doesn't? Yeah, yeah, but I love it when other people make money. I just think that is so much fun. And I love people sending me notes going, thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, I I followed your advice and and I did well. So that it's rewarding. I mean, you know, you know, I've got an ego too.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

Yeah, yeah. Well said, man. Uh okay, listen, uh speaking of your your we should plug your website because you do have some great notes out there. And and you you were talking about a book that you reviewed lately, and you, you know, you kind of made that point that the danger is not always the dramatic collapse everyone imagines, right? It's this slow institutional delay, the bad incentives, the debt. Um kind of the public only realizes it after the system has already changed. So, I mean, how much of that is today's gold story? I mean, not fear of one event, but this slow realization that the older financial order is just not as solid as people thought. I mean, is that is is that clarified?

SPEAKER_05 45:53

Well, yeah, but you know, it's interesting that most people don't understand that we're going through a profound change in the global monetary system. Most people, even if they hear it, they eight, they don't understand it. Two, they don't believe it. They go, how could anything replace the US dollar? That's ridiculous. It used to be Tina. There is no alternative. Oh, I heard all that BS. And you know, and I ignored it because you could see the trends happening, you could see all of the changes happening around the world. The the problem with most North Americans is they're North American-centric. They only look at what what they're what what what is the what are their surroundings, okay? They don't see it's a big world out there with billions of people uh wanting different things. So I I think that we're gonna people are again, most people don't believe that we're in it we're going through this change. And most people won't believe when it happens. They but it may happen, like I said, it may happen very slowly and incrementally, in which case people will you know see it as it's unfolding, or it could happen, we could get a US dollar crisis. That's not out of the that's not out of the uh out of the picture. That could happen. And and you know, that would be that would be scary because the US, I I wrote an article recently called the Petrodollar Police. By the way, go to my my blog has all of these articles, and it's called Frank Justra.com, and I write an article almost once a week. Go to the one called the Petrodollar Police, just to see how the US treat um deals with countries that try and do their business outside of the US dollar, what they've done to them, especially oil-producing countries that try. And and you'll see in this article that I give all the things that happened to Iraq, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, all big oil-producing countries, all of which were either selling in yuan's or made threats to sell in euros or made threats to sell in gold dinars. And what happened to them? They all got taken down. They were all eliminated, except for Iran, which now, you know, they tried, they didn't succeed, uh, and it looks like they failed. But but seriously, the petro dollar, if it goes away, because it was an exorbitant privilege that was given to the US to have their reserve currency, and then the petrodollar, and they've treated that privilege like an abused wife, okay, a battered wife. And um, so I think that uh that we're gonna see this change, but you're gonna see the United States react very harshly to those that try and exit the US dollar-petrodollar system. Okay? Now they can't obviously do that to a China, but they could do it to a Venezuela. They tried to do it to Iran. They certainly eliminated Gaddafi in Libya and and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. So read that article. You'll find very interesting. The facts in there speak for themselves.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

Yeah, interesting times. Thanks, Frank. Yeah, you're enjoying writing, huh? They've been they've been great.

SPEAKER_05 48:56

Yeah, well, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

Yeah, I appreciate your time today. Uh, thanks again. All right, my pleasure. All right, thanks, Frank. All right, that was Frank Justra. The coverage this week, Red, the gold sell-off, is the kind of the end of the run. Frank reads the same week and sees the opposite. Now you decide who's right. Hit subscribe. Tell me in the comments is Wall Street wrong about gold or is the bull market over? I'm Jeremy Saffron for all of us here at Kitco News. Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

Kitco News in Focus with Jeremy Saffron.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

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