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Wall Street Was Short Silver. Now It's Going Long | Keith Neumeyer

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Keith Neumeyer says silver's run to $121 this year pushed the physical market to the brink, and that the metal has now found its floor.

Speaking with Kitco News at the Rule Symposium 2026, the First Majestic Silver CEO, who called $100 silver back in 2012 when it traded in the teens, said the spike exposed how thin the real market is. "The whole system was really on the verge of breaking," he said, pointing to surging lease rates, margin calls, and refiners that stopped buying.

After a roughly 50% correction to around $60, Neumeyer said, "I think we've seen the lows," and called the market "two years into a 10-year bull market." He credited silver's move to the US designating it a critical metal, and said the short position that once capped prices, once as high as 800 million ounces, has largely gone, with paper players "now getting on the long side."

Recorded July 08, 2026.

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00:00 - Silver Hits Triple Digits: The $100 Call
00:59 - Parabolic Run and the Fast Correction
03:08 - Why Silver Became a Critical Metal
05:45 - The Deficit and Flat Mine Supply
11:23 - China Demand and Shanghai Premiums
16:55 - The 8-to-1 Gold-Silver Mining Ratio
17:48 - Why Institutions Just Buy the Index
19:41 - Physical Silver vs Mining Stocks
22:13 - Inside First Majestic's Mine-to-Mint
26:48 - M&A in a Down Market
31:23 - Final Takeaways

#Silver #SilverSqueeze #KeithNeumeyer #FirstMajestic #KitcoNews
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Disclaimer:  
The videos are not intended to provide trading advice, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. Kitco News, its anchors, producers, and reporters are not responsible in any way for the performance or actions of any sponsor, advertiser or affiliate of Kitco News. In no event will Kitco and its employees be held liable for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the use of the content in this video.

SPEAKER_00

Kitco news on-site coverage of the Rules Symposium Natural Resource Investing is presented by Paris Mining.

SPEAKER_01

All right, welcome back to the show. I'm Jeremy Staffordin live from the Rules Symposium at the beautiful Boca Ratan Resort here in Florida. Now, almost 10 years ago, my next guest stood up and said that silver was going to go to $100 an ounce and then some. And at the time, silver was about $17 and plenty of people laughed. I even remembered some of those laughs. Well, earlier this year, silver obviously blew past $100 and hit that all-time high of about $121. Now he called it, and then just as fast, it also came to correction territory as sitting there trading around 60 today. So I don't need to ask the guest what the guest whether he believes in silver. He was right. Now the real question is what happens now. Keith Neurmeyer, of course, welcome. Hey Jeremy, good seeing you again. It's been a while. It has been a while. And the last time I saw you, that triple digit was a it was a real thing. I think it was a VRIC. And you had talked about a little bit of the froth in that market at that point during, you know, what could have been a correction coming right after. Nothing surprised you out of that?

SPEAKER_02

It surprised me where it went to so quickly. 121 bucks was, you know, I was looking at my screen at the time, and we were at VRIC together. And uh fortunately the company sold some ounces, you know, in in some fairly high territories up around the hundred plus range. And it was nice, you know, from a cash flow perspective. But uh, you know, that whole move, the the the $50 target was pretty important. And uh, you know, if you look back at time, you know, silver had only seen $35 three times in our lifetime, and that was kind of one of the barriers. Once it broke through $35, the next was $50. And uh usually when you see a double top or a triple top, double tops are uh often fail. Triple tops, if they fail, it's quite negative. But you know, often if a triple top is breached, you see a parabolic move in anything. It doesn't matter if a commodity or a stock. And that's exactly what we saw. But what the thing with a parabolic move is you don't know what the high is where it's gonna stop. So everyone starts guessing, right? You know, 85, 95, 100, 105, 110. I saw people saying, oh, 150, 170, and you know, we're all guessing. Uh uh, but eventually the buying exhaustion does come in and uh the buyers just disappear. Yeah. Because you know, uh there's only so much um on the buy side that's possible. So we saw the correction. Uh, the correction has surprised me how quickly it happened. But like once again, and I've talked about this many times throughout my you know 23 years at uh First of Jessica is the pay it's a paper market. Yeah. And uh, you know, there there was a lot of short covering uh that happened uh in the high 90s or high 80s, right through 100. A lot of people lost a lot of money, a lot of people made a lot a lot of money. But the paper machine has taken over once again, and uh, you know, we see this major correction, about a 50% correction. I think we've seen the lows, not quite honestly. Uh, we've but we need to bounce around. You know, we that the market, the investors, institutional investors need to get used to this kind of new pricing uh regime that we're in, and they may take six months, it may take 12 months.

SPEAKER_01

Uh you know, who knows? But uh and to your point, I mean it got a little frothy there, but even as you know, we sit we said here and hitting 121. I mean, what what do you think the market finally kind of woke up to that they ignored that 14 years since you made the call?

SPEAKER_02

You know, if you look at one thing that was probably the catalyst, it was probably the United States calling silver a critical metal. Uh, because you go to go back and uh that woke up a lot of people, uh a lot of institutions, and you saw the U.S. government start investing in mining, you know, or investing in smelters and and and infrastructural projects and so on and so forth. I think that was uh a big uh uh you know light bulb that turned on for a lot of investors. And and then, you know, it is a very thin market. So when investors started coming into the market, it caught a lot of people off guard and uh though it blew blew up and uh yeah, it went very too fast. But uh it was exciting to see. Uh uh, but yeah, if I was to mention, if I was to pick one thing, that would be it.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I mean, you know, and be honest with people, because but you know, was that $121 spike, was it that blow off top that got just ahead of itself, or do you think it was maybe a little bit of a base camp for something even bigger down the line?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, blow off top would suggest that, you know, everyone is selling. Um and you know, I didn't sell. So you know, a lot a lot of the people at this conference, you know, maybe some took profits, you know, who knows? Uh, you know, I I hope there were people that took some profits on First Majestic, you know, the stock went to over $40 a share, um, you know, which is pretty s obviously significant. I think our market cap exceeded, you know, 10 billion. I think it actually got up much higher than that. Because today we're at nine. Uh so yeah, we got almost a $20 billion market cap in a very, very short period of time. You know, blow-offs, um, you know, I don't know. It's it's you know, blow-offs tend to last longer, you know, like NVIDIA, you know, would I would say, you know, that would be more likely.

SPEAKER_01

Uh but uh a trillion dollar sell-off in NVIDIA. I'm wondering if it's gonna start seeing some of that general capital come over to the metals. Yeah, we hope so.

SPEAKER_02

You know, that you know, that's what happened in 2000, right? You know, when the dot-com uh bubble burst, uh, you know, it uh the NASDAQ hit a record high in March of 2000, and over the next two to three years it cracted 80%. Uh and then, you know, that was the beginning of a 10-year bull market in uh the mining sector. So, you know, that's what I've said this market looks like, but it doesn't happen overnight. You gotta, you know, test these, you know, you test the market, come back, test the market, come back. I mean, you know, that 10-year bull market from 2002, call it to 2012, there was many times throughout that 10-year period where we had major, major corrections. And I think that's what we're seeing right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you know, you the whole thesis is kind of it rests on, you know, the fact that there's a deficit. The world has used more silver than mines for, I guess, six years running, if you start looking at it, something like 67 million ounces short this year alone. Uh, why did that deficit take years to actually matter for the price? And has that changed?

SPEAKER_02

Well, there is above ground supplies that have to come into the market. I think that's what's been happening. But um, you know, you the the supply-demand fundamentals for the metal has not changed today. Or was it any different when silver was trading at $120? The demand is still there. Uh the mine the miners can't produce any more metal, then and we and the industry's proven that. You know, we've had 10 years of flat production from the miners at about 830 diet, 850 million ounces per year. That hasn't changed. You would think, like if you're manufacturing Levi's or or gadgets of whatever, um, and it all of a sudden you could sell your gadgets for twice what you could sell them for a year ago, wouldn't you produce twice as many gadgets? Um, but you know, the mining sector doesn't work like that. You know, we're s we're producing exactly the same today as we did virtually 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and you know, you talked a little bit about that that physical versus uh you know the actual metal. I mean, if we look at it, some of the warning lights, it feels like it's on. I mean, silver's in its deepest backwardation since the 1980s. Uh when the metal you today obviously um cost more than the metals promised for by later days. The lease rates in London spike nearly 40%. So as a producer, uh Shanghai's been paying double digit premiums over the London price, right? I mean, for a producer and you start looking at that case, what is that telling you about the real physical market here?

SPEAKER_02

Well, we felt it, and uh, because we were getting phone calls from buyers around the world saying, hey, we need some physical right now. Now, fortunately, we have our mint and then we have a vault. Um, you know, there's about 500,000 ounces sitting in our vault right now. So, um, you know, if we get and and uh you know a call from somebody that's willing to pay us a substantial premium, which we did um uh during that spike, we we gave some silver to a group out of the eastern United States. We knew them and we did them a favor, and uh they gave us a pretty good premium to spot at that time. They had the money in our account within a couple hours of doing that deal over the phone, and we had the ounces in a vault or pardon me in a Brinks truck the next morning. Uh so you know we can act quickly if need if necessary, but um there's a real you know the the and you can tell when there's a physical problem, when the lease rates start to go up, when our margins start to go up, and and the traders can take our medal. They're saying we you know we'll we'll we'll buy it from you, but you you're not gonna get paid for a month or two months. And that type of thing was happening. You know, fortunately, you know, and we got margin called in December of 2025 as well, and we had a choice we maybe covering, because we were selling into that rally, you know, and uh and we decided just to pay the margin. Because why would we cover? Uh, because we got a big balance sheet. Our balance sheet was over a billion dollars in the bank, so why would we be caught in a situation like that? So, um, and then we just you know obviously uh delivered into those uh the sales, you know, into the first quarter of 20 of this year.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, how many calls? I was talking to I think it is Adrian Day, and he was talking about how you know China, the the market for solar demand, they'll just get a little bit more efficient. There's nothing really that can replace silver in that demand, but they'll get a little bit more efficient. I mean, were people lining up to make sure that they had a supply so that they were pre-buying it and and what does that mean now?

SPEAKER_02

Well, of course that was happening. You know, we we don't get a lot of clarity on that because you know they we have intermediaries and uh you know we uh uh you know we we can see what the intermediaries are doing. Think about this for a second. So you're a trader in New York and you're getting mine supply from you know your variety of clients, which are mining companies, and you and you have a line of credit of $250 million with a variety of banks, so you know that you could finance $250 million and buy those ounces from the miners, and that's kind of your limit. At $25 an ounce silver, you know, that's 10 million ounces of silver that you that did that you can buy at any given time. And you can you know just trade it, you know, sell it to the commercials, you know, to the electronic manufacturing companies or wherever, or whoever your customers are on the other side of that trade. But at $100 silver, they could they could only buy two and a half million ounces. So that really caused a problem. So there was not only a supply problem, uh the there was also a demand problem. So the whole system was really on the verge of breaking. Um, and that's why we saw the rates, the lease rates go up so dramatically, margin calls coming in, and uh, you know, some of the you know groups out there that you know can't handle margin calls just had to just had to shut down. And uh yeah, another comment I would like to make is you know the retail stores, for example, because you know, people we sell our own silver, and um, you know, people who won you know want to go and sell their silver to a retail store would normally just take it on a heartbeat. And they they have a uh a contact at a refinery where they just pick up the phone and say, hey, I just bought a thousand ounces of silver, I'm gonna ship it to you tomorrow, and they said, No problem. The refining company would just send them a check, even before it was re-melted and and and converted into a commercial uh product. Um but the the refineries shut down. They said we can't finance because we've reached our financial limits, the banks don't give us more money, so we can't actually buy your your silver that you've just bought from this retail guy that just walked into your store. So the whole system was grinded to a halt.

SPEAKER_01

China has been a big buyer, obviously, of silver. I mean, how how how big is that market? And and are they just stockpiling?

SPEAKER_02

I I've I don't know about stockpiling, and you know, there's very little data on that to even you know suggest that I would, you know, know those numbers. But what we do know is China don't doesn't export silver. And uh we also know that they're the largest EV manufacturer on the planet. We also know that most of the you know electronics that we buy, iPhones, computers, you know, microwave ovens, uh refrigerators, you name it, all the electronic gadgets that you know we rely on pretty well get manufactured in China. And so they need to have the silver, and that's why the Shanghai premiums are so high because they need those ounces for their manufacturing sector.

SPEAKER_01

You know, you've long argued, obviously we talked a little bit about the paper markets there, and it dwarfs the real ones. Something like two billion ounces of silver traded on paper every day. Against only about 850 million ounces actually mined in an entire year. So just make that plain for people watching at home that maybe don't invest in the miners or the bouillons. I mean, uh tell me kind of what happens if enough holders demand the real metal.

SPEAKER_02

What happened in November, December, January, that's what happens. And uh, you know, a lot of you look you you you look you look at the caught report or you look at some of the stuff that uh the work that Gata does, for example. Um, you know, they you know there was huge short positions, you know, a year ago in silver. You know, and there's different numbers floating around, you know, as high as 800 million ounces of short uh sales. And and uh they couldn't there has to be a physical backing to that position, but there wasn't. But they didn't care previously because they just trade the paper markets. They actually don't even need the physical thing that because they'll just go and buy the paper back. They just trade the paper. But in this particular situation, when there's a run on the metal itself, they actually had to find the metal. Because it would they were losing billions of dollars as it was. So um the the the system, as I said, was on the verge of uh uh breaking down, and I'd love to see it again. I think we will. Um but this time around, the short position doesn't exist to that same degree. So, you know, we do see some in manipulation going on, you know, that you know, they're trying to knock it down as much as they can to, you know, uh load back up again for the next big rally, uh, which is a little bit different because normally they'd be on the short side. I think now they're getting on the long side.

SPEAKER_01

It's an interesting perspective. I mean, we could you we could go back to uh I guess 2015. I mean, you went as far as filing a letter with the regulator, the CFTC, uh alleging that the silver price is kind of being suppressed. I mean, we've covered it on the show as well. They didn't act on it, but make the case plainly for people it'd separate, you know, the kind of the blame. What would actually have to change for the price to reflect the physical reality here?

SPEAKER_02

Well, you'd have to dissolve the paper markets. And uh, you know, the paper markets are so easy for the miners because, you know, we we and also from a corporate governance perspective or know or or know your client perspective, you know, we have auditors and then we have to follow rules. And uh, you know, if we sell our metal to the Bank of Montreal or or whatever, you know, bank we're dealing with, we know the client. We know you know it's a legitimate buyer. You know, if if we get a phone call out of India or to China saying, hey, we want your silver, we can't even sell it to them because we we we couldn't do the due diligence that would satisfy our auditors. So um uh it's okay and again, that's why the premium exists the way it does. So um you the only fix is we as an industry have to get together, like the uranium industry, for example, and say, hey, that we've had enough of this and we're not gonna sell for for the paper price. Uh is that happening? Is there some in the industry talking? Not really. Not really, no. You know, because it's so easy, you know, like you know, an executive can, you know, team, you know, they produce 100,000 ounces of gold or silver and then pick up the phone and call a trader in New York and say, I got 100,000 ounces, they got a check in your bank in two to three days. It's pretty simple. Why why have a why have a sales force of 10 people in your back room looking for buyers? Oh, phoning up Sony or phoning up Samsung and say, Hey, we got a shipment coming. It's just too much work. Uh so it's it's it's not as simple. The current paper system has been in place since the 70s. You know, to unwind that is pretty difficult. But I think on a positive side, they're no longer on the short side as they were before. They're now looking at this metal as, hey, look, silver is actually very important. This is not just a line item on a screen that trades in a range uh that we could trade, you know, peak and valleys. But this is actually a real commodity, and we better pay attention because this commodity is in demand, and with AI coming in, nuclear energy coming in, robotics, and you know, all the fancy electronics that we you know we want to produce, you know, this metal is is needed. And with these deficits, you know, we need higher prices to try to close the gap on these deficits. And you, you know, just going to that point, you would need the current deficit, you would need 10 first majestic just to fill the depth the current deficit. Wow.

SPEAKER_01

And what I mean to talk about just the one first majestic at $60, you're still, I mean, it's still pretty good for your metal. I mean, that's a that's a good price.

SPEAKER_02

It look, it it's not it's not $100, but uh, you know, we have over a billion dollars in the bank. We're cash flowing, you know, over $150 million or a quarter. Um, you know, we're in a great spot. But uh, you know, I I I I wear this t-shirt because I'm a big believer. Um, you know, I predicted that in 2012 and it had it took 14 years to get there. I don't know how long it's gonna take to get back to triple digits, but I'm confident it will.

SPEAKER_01

But I mean, to your point, I mean the ratio question always comes up because there's still a lot of people that watch that gold to silver ratio, you know, and uh right now it takes about, I think, 67 ounces of silver to buy a single ounce of gold. Uh and the long run average is closer to 54. So does that tell you silver is still cheap relative to gold? And do you expect that maybe gap to close a little bit from here?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you know, I know all the historic ratios and so on, but no one talks about the mining ratio. It's a number that I keep coming up time and time again because, you know, and you know, I I I always say, you know, the metal should trade at the mining ratio. If the miners actually took control of the market, the way I say we should be as an industry, uh, you know, we we mine eight to one. So for every one ounce of gold, eight ounces of silver is being mined worldwide by the mining industry. So divide the current gold price by eight, and that should be the silver price.

SPEAKER_01

I gotta ask you, I mean, when you're looking at production here and you and you're sitting here, we've been talking about the generalist money maybe not coming to the market, but at $100 silver, I mean, were the institutions calling? Are you starting to see any inflows on that side? Were they or were they the first ones to sell?

SPEAKER_02

They didn't own any to begin with. Um, you know, the the institutions tend to buy indexes because they don't want to do the work. You know, um, can you imagine a fund manager who's you know managing, you know, $10 billion or whatever, and he's you know been given an allocation of a billion dollars to put into the mining sector. What's the easiest trade for him? Just phone, you know, you know, go buy the GDX or go buy the GDX shave. You know, why have a hundred you know CEOs walk through his office and he has to do due diligence on all these different mining companies and then try to pick one? Now he doesn't know what mining is for one thing and how to pick a good mining company. So the risk for a fund manager to pick a miner is is too high. He he might lose his job if he all of a sudden picked the wrong ones or the group of the wrong ones or whatever. Um so no, it's it's it's unfortunate that's the way it is. Um, you know, we need to see that change. And I've said many times to the you know mutual funds, the pension funds of the world that they should have a permanent allocation to the mining sector, you know, whether it's 5% or 10%, whatever the number is they're comfortable with. And they divide that up, you know, between the different metals, you know, um uh and and just have a permanent investment. So they uh because they they tend to always come in at the top and sell at the bottom. I've seen it happen so many times, and they get burned and and then it takes them the whole next cycle to come back into the uh uh industry again or coming back into the sector because they're afraid of it. They don't understand it. Uh and and uh um you know if it only just follows some of my advice, I think they would uh be much better off.

SPEAKER_01

I gotta ask you, I mean, just for the regular folks, not the institutions back home, I mean, if we're thinking about the medals versus the miners, for a regular person, give them the honest trade-off. I mean, owning the silver itself uh versus maybe owning a silver miner, right? I mean, what does what does each get you? What's the risk in each?

SPEAKER_02

Well, you the the the miners are gonna be you know more volatile and uh you you you have to be very selective. Um, you know, we see I don't know how many companies here at this conference, but uh, you know, it's tough to pick and choose. Uh but uh you know if you're if you're bull bull on the metals, gold or silver, it's easy to buy gold and silver. Um and it's it's you can just put it away somewhere and it's not it's not gonna go anywhere. Um but a mining stock, it could go bankrupt, unfortunately, and that and those types of things do happen. Or or you know, if it's uh it's an expiration company, they could, you know, either you know miss, or maybe you'll be lucky enough to get a one that you know is becomes a 10-bagger. And it does happen. You know, there's lots out there. And so, you know, personally, I I'm a very high-risk uh investor for my own portfolio. Now, not so much for First Digestic, we're quite conservative. But um, so I love owning the expiration companies, and I I love I love you know having you know a portfolio of 10 to 20, you know, juniors, and uh, and uh, you know, every every couple years I'm lucky, and you know, one and one of them goes up five to ten times, and you know, that pays for the ones that you know didn't do very well. Uh I'd suggest you know the you know the institutions do a similar type of strategy, but you know, you don't have to go down that far. You know, you you could pick the you know the dividend uh payers like ourselves or you know, there's others in in Eco Eagle and you you know you know the list of uh miners out there.

SPEAKER_01

Uh but uh 50% discount, I mean, you know, it's it almost feels like it should be like a consumer product. I mean, if something else was on sale for 50% off, people would go and pick it up. Are you seeing that? I mean, I'm watching the markets today, the bids aren't quite there for the general uh equities on the mining side. When do you think that's gonna turn over?

SPEAKER_02

I think it is happening now, you know. I I because you know, we've you know, just talking to traders that I talk to. Um I know the institutions felt um that they missed the market. You know, the silver went from basically 35 and you know July, August to you know 120, as we know. Um, and and they were caught completely off guard. I think everyone's pretty well caught off guard. So very few people participated in that big move. Uh, and that now we've got a 50% retracement. And you know, I know that there's funds out there now, seriously considering, and I know they're already buying.

SPEAKER_01

You're, I mean, I think you're the only one that has a mint attached here as well. So talk to me a little bit about that physical side, what that allows for you. And also, if you've been seeing, I mean, you're sitting here at the Rule Symposium, a lot of people still interested in the physical metal itself.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, for sure. And um, you know, but don't forget, um, you know, most of the people that we deal with from the mint are retail investors. Um and retail investors, you know, will chase things that are going up and unfortunately chase things when they go down on the sell side. So there um goes back to my same comment about my my uh comment regarding institutions on how they should be investing. You know, never chase something and always buy something that no one else wants. That's what I like to do personally. So I like things on sale, and right now I'm I'm in the market buying because you know we've had you know stocks down 50%, and these are a lot of these companies are really solid, really good companies. And uh they unfortunately, you know, people get nervous for whatever reason. And you can see just talking to people here, and now this group, this crowd here is quite sophisticated. They've been following mining stocks for a long time. So, but nevertheless, everyone sees that correction. They go, well, when should I buy? Well, 50%, don't you think that's a good time? So they almost have to be pushed or convinced a little bit. But you're right. Um, you know, if it was anything else other than mining stocks or or gold or silver, you know, if a television was on sale for 50% off at you know, Costco tomorrow, you'd be lining up to try to buy one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I find it interesting too because it feels like the cycle has changed. At least, you know, the miners themselves are being a little bit more careful with their capital. They're they're definitely you're seeing a lot more discipline. Um, does that encourage the investors that you're talking to there? I mean, you'd think that they would step up in this market a little bit.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I don't know. It it's um maybe that's the case, but you know, I think we're two years into a ten-year bull market. I you know I I look at this bull uh bull market similar to what I said earlier about the 2002 to 2012 rally, um, and we're in one of those corrections. And um people just generally don't buy when when when stocks are going down. Um, you know, I I just a fact of life.

SPEAKER_01

It's been wild to see. It's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02

But going but going to back to the mint for a second, uh, you know, we we opened the mint in March of 2024, so it's only about a year and a half in business. That's been doing very, very well. Um we we I I opened it or or built it out of frustration because the the whole minting industry is is you know it's very small and um it's hard to you know really manage that site. You know, we'd be sending ounces into these mints and that we would be waiting six or eight months to get our products back into the form of retail products. So we have our own mint now in in Nevada, and uh, you know, it's we're the only mining company in the world that uh does mine to mint. So it's pretty cool. You know, we have you know all these different products on on firstmint.com, and these are this is our own ounces that we mine and then we process into these retail products.

SPEAKER_01

I've seen some people lining up too. You had a couple of a couple of people looking for some silver. Uh finally, because you just talked a little bit about there, that within your personal portfolio, you like a little bit of high risk. How do you manage those emotions? I mean, you're a sophisticated investor, more probably than most people buying at the top and then wondering why their stock prices down. But how do you handle the emotions? Just to kind of, what is it, a cost average?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I do cost averaging a lot. And uh, you know, Rick Rule said, I don't know how many years ago, over probably over 10 years ago, uh, he said when you buy your first position, you expect to be down 50%. That's kind of interesting because you know it you once you make that decision to buy any of these companies or any other company, um, you know, if you've got $10,000 or $100,000 to invest, you know, your first investment should be 10% only of your total uh capital you're willing to put at risk. Then wait 30 days and then put another 10% in. So you know you you spend that allocated amount of money over, you know, six to twelve month time frame. And that way you should get a reasonably good average. And selling is the same way. Um you have to be disciplined. And uh, you know, when a stock is up 3x, you should probably sell a little bit. You know, when it's uh up 5x, you know, sell a little bit more. You know, by the time a stock is up 5x, you should have all your capital off the market or out of that stock. So the rest of that move, you now you have 50% of your position left over. Now that position will be free. It doesn't matter if that stock goes to zero, you'll still have made a profit. So I I'm a very disciplined buyer and I and I'm also a very disciplined seller.

SPEAKER_01

Now you also run a large company, and so when you're looking at the evaluations that took a haircut as they did, I mean, what are your thoughts on MA? I mean, are you going in at these low valuations? Are people starting to look? We don't stop looking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, I build this business. I'm not a geologist or an engineer, so I'm a finance guy. So I love these kinds of markets. These are the best markets because people are, you know, get concerned, and and uh, you know, this is when sellers come out of the weeds. Yeah, exactly. Right because everyone gets nervous. So I I love to get in there and start trying to pick things up from a personal level, but also on a corporate level. You know, we have we have our list of targets, and uh, we have an MA team, you know, that is very active, you know, going through news releases and looking at assets and you know, meeting management teams, and you know, we do we do that regularly. We don't transact often, but because we're very patient, but uh, you know, it seems like every two to three years we end up end up doing something. You know, we closed the gas house transaction in January of 2025, which was at now a third of our total production. That was a big deal for us, and we're looking for more assets like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, it almost feels like for some they get a little bit scared, but this volatility and these this price action on the equity side, is it a gift for somebody running one of these businesses? I think so.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it it's um, yeah, you know, I as I said, I like buying things when everyone's selling, uh, or or P there's nervousness in the street. And I put first mine and gold together, you know, in 2014, 2015, and I'm the chairman of that company. And uh and I bought eight companies over a 15-month period, and each one of those companies had ounces in the ground trading at less than $10 an ounce at the time, and uh uh and and they're unfinanceable. They they they literally had no money left in the bank, they couldn't get any more money, the insiders couldn't write another check, all the investors couldn't write another check. So we come in and scoop up eight really good companies, and now today First Money and Gold has two five million ounce assets which they're developing and both will become producing minds, in my viewpoint. You know, first majestic is a little bit different because we don't go after expiration or or or or assets that aren't permitted. You know, we we go after assets that are permitted or in production, so it's a little bit of a different market for us, but the same kind of phenomenon occurs.

SPEAKER_01

I remember first my Paul, I saw him here too. It's it's always interesting to kind of see you step into the market when no one else is buying. Which you did for a lot of years before this next cycle setup. Is that something you still have to kind of do? I think so.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's the way you make money. And uh, you know, that's my job as CEO of First Majestic, um, is to make money for our shareholders. And you know, no one likes to see the volatility, and I try to explain it to people. You know, someone unfortunately buys the stock at higher than the current share price, and they go, why, you know, why am I losing money? And it's you know, it is sometimes hard to explain. Um, but uh you if if you're if you don't get spooked out of the market, and it, you know, you have to ask your question, this this particular question. Are you gonna buy, sell, or hold? So if you buy a stock at at 50 cents, let's say, or a dollar, and and and uh the stock is at 50 cents, half the price you paid for it, ask yourself the question, would I buy that stock today? Would I hold it or would I sell it? So you look at the fundamentals. Has the fundamentals changed? Have they improved or are they the same? And if you're willing to pay a dollar for the stock, fundamentals are the same as they were before the correction, then why not add, why not buy some more to bring your inform your average cost down? Um, you know, if if something fundamentally has gone wrong that has caused the stock to go down, okay, then then it might be a seller or maybe a hold. But uh if you ask yourself those three questions, I think it'll do you a world of good.

SPEAKER_01

Now I think I know the answer to this before I let you go, but the triple-digit silver there, are we gonna see it again? And when do you think? Well, absolutely we will. Um I don't know when.

SPEAKER_02

Uh you know, I I'm I'm a little bit nervous about putting um more predictions out there. I was highly criticized when I came out with the triple digit uh uh uh in 2012. And the when when I came out with that prediction, silver prices went straight down. So uh I was highly criticized.

SPEAKER_01

You're good at the technical levels too, though. I mean, uh for the the chart to hit these levels at 126, it means it can go there again.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, and it will. It's just like you know, we saw $50 three times on a third time broke through. You know, maybe we'll hit 120 again three times before it breaks through to go to some other level.

SPEAKER_01

And you'll have some to sell into that market. Well, we'll we'll keep producing as we do. I love it. All right, Keith Neurmeyer, appreciate your time as always. I'm great, Jeremy. Thanks for watching. All right, those Keith Neurmeyer. Here's the takeaway. I'm sitting with a man called Silver, $200 when it was 17 and got laughed at for years, right up until it happens. Now, the medals pull back and I guess it pulled back quite hard. Well, the physical shortage is as tight as it's been in decades. And that gap between what the paper price says and what the real market is doing is the thing to keep your eyes on. Where it goes next, we'll find out all together. As always, these are his views. Do your homework. I'm Jeremy Stafford, coming to you from the Boca Raton and the Rules Symposium. We're gonna be here all week long. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00

KitCo News, on site coverage of the Rules Symposium Natural Resource Investing, is presented by Paris Mining.