Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Jan. 17, 2022
Gold has been strengthening since early December and now is back over $1,800 as the market prices in the Fed's hawking rate hike talk, stocks soften, and cryptos remain weak. We tie it all together.
One of the things we specialize in is private placements, and this episode spends some time on their benefits and how they allow you to multiply your wealth if you can get consistent access to good ones.
LAPD officers ignored a burglary call to chase a Pokemon and other police misdoings.
Cannabis compounds have now been shown to help prevent coronavirus infection in one study.
Plus: What we're watching in the markets.
Table of Contents
0:57 COVID & Omicron Update
4:21 Gold, Bonds, Fed
7:18 Owning the Entire Value Chain: Blue Chips to Private Placements
17:37 LAPD Officers Ignore Burglary Call to Chase Pokemon
28:02 Crypto: Sill HODLing
31:05 What We're Watching in the Market
37:08 Cannabis Compounds Prevent Coronavirus
Gerardo Del Real: Gold is back, above $1,800. The dollar is back below 95. Prince Andrew is not looking so princely. LAPD is at it again, chasing Pokemon instead of burglars. I am Gerardo Del Real, along with my cohost, Mr. Nick Hodge. This is Episode 152 of Bizarro World. Mr. Hodge, how are you doing, sir?
Nick Hodge: I'm doing really good, Gerardo. It was good to see you last week in Austin and host all the employees there. We had a ton of fun. COVID is running rampant, which we'll talk about. It affected us in more ways than one, but nonetheless, we got it done and had a wonderful party and we continue to stay excited for 2022, so here we go. Gold looking good. We'll talk about that too.
COVID & Omicron Update
Gerardo Del Real: Look, it was phenomenal to catch up with most everyone, right? And so to provide a little bit of context for everybody out there, we had a call, meeting of the minds over the weekend to discuss strategy and initiatives and what we expected out of 2022. And prior to heading to dinner, we had one of our employees, his wife tested positive for COVID, literally 30 minutes before we went to dinner. And so that was bad enough because they had flown out. We were all excited to meet. Obviously, they missed out on the dinner and some of the other events that we had planned. But it escalated from there.
That turned into the health practitioner reporting the positive test to the CDC. And then that turned into the CDC putting our employee's wife on a no fly list. Fine and dandy if they're from Texas, but they're from California. So they ended up having to drive back to California in a rental, sick with COVID — not ideal. I felt horrible for them. Luckily, they made it safe, and luckily, they both feel better and are back to 100%. But look, we had another employee that also just wasn't comfortable traveling. And meanwhile, we have California urging healthcare workers to go back to work if they're asymptomatic, even if they're COVID positive.
So again, it doesn't seem like a coordinated policy. It doesn't seem like the people in charge are doing things in a logical, sensical way and the virus is going to virus. So I think eventually everyone's just going to catch something and that's the way we're going to work our way out of this thing, right?
Nick Hodge: We've been saying that for a while. I was saying this thing was going to spread like wildfire as soon as I got back after Thanksgiving. And lots of narratives are imploding and you can see how we're inching ourself towards the end of this. Not only is this very, very mild, but people are starting to get on their own, right? You just mentioned the wavering guidance. You're starting to see people count having caught the virus, as being vaccinated. The NCAA said if you've caught the virus now, you're going to be counted as vaccinated. And so it's working its way toward less hopefully government intervention and more, "If you have a cold and you're sick, don't come to work," right?
Because that's how the world is going to have to get on and you can't continue to close down schools and you can't continue to have kids home and you can't continue to disrupt people's lives for something that has a quite low mortality rate. And that's something that's misunderstood as well. I don't know if you caught it the Bill Maher thing this week, but he was ranting at Democrats who he’s usually typically in favor of saying, "Look, when we take polls, half your people are saying that you got a 50% chance to go into the hospital if you get this virus," and that's crazy, right? Because it's much lower than that right? Like 1 to 5% chance of hospitalization. Even Fauci this week was saying that everybody's going to get it. And so anyway, I think we're continuing to get to the end of this thing.
Gold, Bonds, Fed
Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk markets. Let's pivot back to the markets. Gold is looking healthy. Hate to get into feelings, but the chart looks good. If we can break above that $1,830-$1,835 trendline, I think we're off to the races to $2,000 here soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts. You're more of a technical analyst than I am, but it feels and it looks good.
Nick Hodge: We've been stepping up every week. It was like late December. It's like gold starting to look good, and then early January, gold starting look good. And now it's really starting to look good, especially because you have rates backing away — yields. The US 10-year is saying, "No, I'm not going to break out above 1.8%," and then you have the dollar backing off. And so both of those things are good for gold and I continue to think that you're going to get slower economic growth this year than you saw at the end of last year. And it's just so funny to watch the mainstream media be led by the fed who is 18 months to two years behind and they should be the ones leading the thing, right?
So you had Jerome and Brainard testifying this week and they're saying their mission was to tamper inflation. The number one thing is to stop the inflation that's hurting the American people. But meanwhile, they were saying there was no inflation the entire time they could have been stopping it or at least not making it last so long. So that narrative is behind, is what I've been saying. We have to drill down on that further. You can still see high prices. You can still see some supply chain bottlenecks at the same time that the true market forces that dictate that ahead of the curve are starting to soften a little bit.
And so there's definitely changes going on because gold is getting stronger and rates are looking like they want to get weaker and that's the opposite of what happened in 2021.
Gerardo Del Real: Calling inflation the biggest threat after denying inflation for two years. And by the way, let's be absolutely clear, if you had an advisor or a fund manager or a newsletter writer or whatever, anybody that's in charge of providing ideas, your big boys and girls out there, you make your own investment decisions, right? But anybody that was providing ideas and got the inflation call wrong — they got the transitory permanent inflation call wrong — they cost you a ton of money. Because I mean, it's not to brag and knock on wood, but Nick and I had a couple of good years. And we had a couple of good years positioning and frontrunning that inflation narrative, that inflation was transitory, that it was just going to go away the following month and the following month and the following month. And you'd like to call it inflation profits, Nick, and it's been a solid couple of years. IRS is happy with us.
Owning the Entire Value Chain: Blue Chips to Private Placements
Nick Hodge: Well, we've done it. We've done it by buying those commodities whose prices inflated and we talked about different ways to do that and it's a perfect segue, right? Because we try to differentiate between our products and we try to differentiate between investment strategies and you can buy a copper ETF, you can buy Freeport (NYSE: FPX), you can buy Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO) or on down the line right into the smaller ones, all the way down into the explorers. And we do that in various ways. You make recommendations and Junior Resource Monthly and Junior Resource Trader and we invest privately in some of those companies as well.
So look, lithium prices this week are hitting like all-time highs again as the world is realizing that there's not enough to hit all these battery milestones and clean energy milestones. Look at Ford (NYSE: F) stock for example, as it offers its Lightning and pivots to an electric strategy. These lithium producers are popping off. We've mentioned Critical Elements (TSX-V: CRE)(OTC: CRECF) a couple times, but that's one that's backed over $1.50 today right before we recorded that. I was able to get people at 30¢ with warrants at 45¢ that don't even expire for another couple of months. And so that's the benefit of private deals. And you've done it with other companies as well.
And so we should just talk about that for a second because we both offer services that get people connected to companies that are raising money. And of course, we have to be accredited to do that. That means you either made $200,000 the past couple of years or $300,000 with a spouse, so you have a million dollars net worth, and then you can buy shares directly from the company. And that often comes with advantages, either it's priced at a discount to the market or you get a warrant which you can view as a sweetener to buy more down the road without any risk. And so if you can buy $1.50 lithium company for 45¢ and then sell the shares immediately, that's a good work if you can get it especially if you can do that commensurately with lithium prices hitting highs.
And it's not just lithium. Copper was back above $4.50 today I think, showing strength. And so we have deals coming up. There’s one, we're going to offer it to private investors soon. That's in those lines, a PGE deal that has incredible upside that is just really at the beginning of its fundraising lifecycle. So I know you've had success with private placements as well. And the money that I've been able to make from those is what allows you to go to the next level, not just a salary or not just an income from owning a business, but then making three, four, 10 times your money returns on some of these plays, twice if you have warrants. So I'll let you talk about placements for a little bit.
Gerardo Del Real: Look, a real-world example, you have an oil deal right now that is a 10¢ deal to private company. I believe the valuation is something like $2 million at this level. Is that accurate?
Nick Hodge: C$1.8 million Canadian, yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: C$1.8 million. Real-world example. If I allocate $10,000 into that deal, in roughly six months' time approximately, give or take, and correct me if I'm wrong, because it's your deal, Nick, this will IPO likely around the 40¢ level. So my $10,000, if I just sit tight for a couple of months, six months, two quarters, it'd be $40,000. Now, that's not the only upside. That's just going to be the IPO price, right? Then the marketing starts. Then the work really starts. Then the news flow continues. And don't let us catch another wave of energy profits the way that you caught it the last year and a half, because if that's the case and they're able to execute on their business model, this is a stock that has the potential to be $1.50, $2, $3 stock, right?
And so if you're allocating more than $10,000 into any space, it behooves you. You'd be a fool to not spend $3,000 for either Nick's service or my service for access to these deals because you're going to make it back in spades. Now not every deal is going to work out that way. Some will come with a kicker like a warrant. Other deals, maybe you'll make 50 to 100%, but when you're able to have the kind of network that Nick and I have worked so hard for over a decade, that gives you access that personally for me took me years and years to be able to put together and be able to check that accredited investor box and be able to get in the sandbox, as I always used to say, to be able to write those checks on such advantageous terms.
And what allows that for us is the network that we've built up and the early access that we have. You had a great piece that everybody should go read, called Multiply Your Money with Private Investment Deals. I believe it was for Daily Profit Cycle, is that correct, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Mm-hmm.
Gerardo Del Real: And it talked about newsletter writers talking the talk but not really walking the walk, having private placement services that are really crowdfunding services that aren't for accredited investors, where oftentimes the company doesn't even know that these guys and gals are pitching their deal because it's not really a private deal. You're not getting access to anything other than some newsletter writer pointing at things that you could find on your own. That's not access. That's not a network. That's gimmicky and it's whatever, to each their own, but our business model isn't that. It's real access. It's real deals. We're proud of the deals and how we vet them. Doesn't mean everyone works out. Got a pretty damn good hit rate.
Nick Hodge: Certainly everone doesn't work out, but when you're making those multiple returns, they pay for other ones that don't. That's the nature of speculative investing and private placements. And the deals that we closed last year in my private placement service had an average return of over 100% each and we lost in the case of one, all our money. And so that's how it unfolds sometimes, but like I say, that doesn't negate the fact that we buy shares for a couple of hundred thousand dollars and I've made millions and have warrants still to buy more. And you mentioned the sandbox, not everybody's allowed in. I mentioned the velvet rope, and that's not our velvet rope. That's Uncle Sam saying that.
And it's not that I agree with that because who is Uncle Sam to say what's a good investment for anyone, right? And when you can go out there and buy penny stocks in a retail brokerage or whatever it is. So anyway, my beliefs don't matter. The law is that you got to make $200,000 or have a million dollars net worth, and the fact of the matter is a lot of newsletter writers just simply don't have that, right? That's why I say that they're playing dress up, they're not allowed in the sandbox and so you got to get access on-
Gerardo Del Real: Dress up can be fun. But not with money.
Nick Hodge: So check out our services, Hodge Family Office, Junior Resource Insider. You mentioned an oil deal that's open if you get in by the ... I think it's the 21st of January, you'll have time. And then another big deal come in in the PGE space, so stay tuned for that.
Gerardo Del Real: It's free money, 10¢... 40¢ and then maybe higher. I don't know much more I can possibly simplify it. I'm a pretty simple guy, I like to say. I like to make things as simple as possible. It's free money. Y'all can take it if you want it. Let's pivot back. Let's talk about the dollar. We had a pretty pronounced move lower, right? It breached 96 and it went right through 95. And right now, it's hitting that 94.82 level and flirting with 95 again. I personally don't think it's sustained. I think it's an opportunity to buy dollars as crazy as that sounds. Eventually, everybody knows how I feel about dollars and what most fiat currencies, they'll go to their intrinsic value, which is paper.
But in the short term, I actually think there's an opportunity there and I was encouraged by the fact that it didn't take the dollar coming back down to that 94.75, 94.82 level in order for gold to breach that $1,800 level again. It actually went up just a tad bit before that, so it front ran the dollar in that aspect. Talk about the dollar.
Nick Hodge: What's the opportunity you see?
Gerardo Del Real: I think we're back at 96 here soon and maybe even 97. I see geopolitical tensions. I see everything that's going on and with Russia and the Ukraine and Kazakhstan. And I think capital is rotating out of tech and I think capital is rotating out of foreign currencies. And again, I think the dollar is the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry basket, right? I think if you compare it to anything else, probably the best thing going right now as far as currencies go.
Nick Hodge: And you have the fed saying that they're going to slow the rate of purchases and tighten, hawkish talk or whatever, which should strengthen the dollar. We'll see when GDP starts coming out, but for now, that looks like the move.
Gerardo Del Real: I like it and I also think the move is to get ready for higher gold prices and I think the move is some of those better names that have been thrown out, babies thrown out with the bathwater start nibbling. I know I've been saying that for a couple of months, but rather be a couple of months earlier than a couple of months late. You saw it with the uranium space.
Nick Hodge: There's a lot of cheap names out there, even big names. I bought some Kirkland Lake (NYSE: KL) today or at least put a bid in. I don't know if it was filled. And on down the line, right? You see deals still getting done. You see producers still not getting the proper market valuations that they should relative to the earnings and the production that they're posting, especially if yields continue to shy away from their recent highs. I think the climate is very good for gold, and so yeah, I'm getting more bullish there for sure.
LAPD Officers Ignore Burglary Call to Chase Pokemon
Gerardo Del Real: Good. I want to talk about the LAPD officers that were chasing Pokemon instead of responding to a burglary. We'll get into that a little bit because I'm sitting here thinking. You know my silly brain and my childish sense of humor. You remember that show Cops where they would get the camera, they would follow the people that they wanted to arrest. They made mostly poor people look like assholes, right? It's really what it was. Whether you were a black or Hispanic or white, it really didn't matter. They really made it a point to make people of lower incomes because crime never occurs in high-end areas, right? They never went to a high-end area. It was always like the projects or the low income area.
But anyway, I was thinking about that show and then I was thinking about our podcast and we highlight so much bullshit with officers that our show or podcast is like Cops but in reverse. We profile and chase the cops around the country, citing all of their misdeeds. And it's not my fault. You all keep fucking up.
Nick Hodge: That's what I was just going to say. There's so much fodder that it's not hard. I know a lawyer on Twitter that has a habit or one of his hobbies is posting stories where police either are beating their wives or shooting dogs. He was all over this one, right? And so there's always a story where the cops are fucking up and sometimes it's funny where they're chasing snagaloo or whatever the fuck they were doing, but sometimes it's not funny. So I don't know if you want to talk about that now or later.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, might as well get into it. We'll talk crypto in a little bit. So two LAPD officers just got fired, right? These assholes. There was a robbery call at a Macy's, right? And a lot of the good officers responded to the call and they got out there. And these two guys, I'll get the names it's Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were on foot patrol when the robbery call comes in. And instead of rushing over with their fellow officers to help the citizens that were being robbed, these assholes ignored the call, responded with a simple, "No," is what the article says and then concealed the fact that they were running around chasing Snorlax, which I guess is a Pokemon character with their phone.
So they get caught for this, right? They tried lying about it. They get caught. They're put on suspension. And not realizing that they were being recorded because they were recording themselves, right? It was the body cam footage. And so when this is investigated, they're put on paid leave for a bit. A Snorlax popped up is what the body cam shows. You hear them saying, "Oh, shit, it's a Snorlax," and they go chasing the Snorlax. They appealed this, Nick. These two had the nerve, had the nerve to appeal not chasing burglars and chasing Pokemon. And of course, they lost that appeal thankfully and they were lawfully fired and terminated on the spot, but oh, man, oh, man.
Nick Hodge: You say, "Of course they lost the appeal." But I can only imagine the things that have gotten buried over the years when police use their qualified immunity to get away with things. There's a couple of things running through my head, right? We talked last week about the guy who was driving 80 miles an hour with one hand to a burglary or carjacking that he wasn't going to solve. So maybe in this case, someone was safer because the cops sat in their car when they chased a Snorlax or whatever, right?
Gerardo Del Real: You know what the basis for the appeal was, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Let me hear.
Gerardo Del Real: They didn't know the conversation was being recorded. Can you imagine being in court, and telling the judge some stupid shit like that like, "Your honor, I didn't know they were watching and recording it"? Oh, man, anyhow, we'll put the link with the article. It's funny, not funny, but again child and sense in humor and all, I found it hilarious.
Nick Hodge: Boys in blue, thin blue line and all that, right? Sworn to protect. And I'm not done yet, a couple of more points I wanted to make because this is an important theme and one that I don't shy away from. So a point that is worth repeating is that police don't solve the majority of crimes anyway. They go unsolved. Also, now for the first time a couple of years ago, police stole more than robbers did through police interdiction and civil asset forfeiture. There's been more dangerous cases where police have shied away from interaction including one famous school shooting, I'm thinking of, where an officer had a chance to intervene.
And then just this week, there was a final report out about the Gun Trace Task Force in Baltimore and all the dirty shit those motherfucking cops were doing for years while the police department knew. Well, one cop ended up shot in the back of the head and they, "Don't know who did that." But thankfully others got arrested, but the police department knew. In the one case the officer had 12 serious complaints about him in the last year and was still allowed to be on the street with a gun. He was planting guns and drugs on people. So they were pulling people over and robbing them and following them back to their house and robbing them. And so anyway, so thankfully is right that this came to light, but there's more.
Gerardo Del Real: There's more. Look, again, I said we're like Cops but just the opposite, Cops in reverse. There's a Texas sheriff that's under investigation here in Texas. The Texas Rangers raided his office for robbing immigrants at the border of cash and vehicles, just straight up taking them. Do you know how big of an asshole you have to be to get the Texas Rangers to come and raid your police department and actually charge you? Usually they're buddy-buddy and it's see no evil, hear no evil. It's got to be really flagrant for the rangers to come in and say, "All right. Enough is enough. We're not letting this happen anymore." It's crazy.
Nick Hodge: It was immigration officers or like small town officers?
Gerardo Del Real: No, this is like a rural sheriff that's right on the border, right? And so what he would do is he would wait for immigrants and he would pull them over, use his siren, pull the badge out, and whether or not they were doing anything wrong, he would just take their vehicle and take their cash or threaten to deport them and call law enforcement, which again brings up another serious issue. I'm all for legal immigration because I came here. Well, mine wasn't even legal immigration. My parents crossed the border illegally, right? But they were looking for a better way. They wanted that upward mobility that America offered at the time and so we made it. Eventually, they became citizens and here I am.
But I don't want dangerous criminals, whether they're immigrants or not, here either. So let's make the assumption that this sheriff pulls over an illegal immigrant who is a violent illegal immigrant, and instead of doing a proper background check, seeing if this person should even be allowed to go on, the sheriff just looks the other way if the guy's got a nice truck and some cash. How is that protecting your community? That's insane to me. So I'm glad he got arrested. I'm glad he's being charged. And I'll follow this and I'll get back to everybody, but again, I could go on forever. I could go on forever.
I have a story about a Kentucky prison guard. A Kentucky prison guard who sexually assaulted an inmate in his van, was caught doing it, went to court and the judge, because the prison guard knew somebody in the parole and probation department and had contacts in law enforcement, told him he could either go to jail or enlist in the Army in 30 days. Why would you send them to the Army when we already have a sexual assault epidemic within our ranks, that top brass has been trying to filter through and clear out for years and done a poor job, I should say, right? Done a poor job. That judge should be looked at.
Judge Thomas Wingate gave this guy a 12-month sentence and said, "You'll be on probation for two years if you just reenlist with the military within three days, no jail time for you."
Nick Hodge: He needs to be removed from institutions-
Gerardo Del Real: And society.
Nick Hodge: Not given an option of which one to go to.
Gerardo Del Real: I was going to start this podcast with just a bunch of alcohol bottles because is the whole world just batshit crazy drunk? It is insane out here. I could keep clicking through our little list. I'll stop because I can go on forever with this stuff, but it's just getting weirder and crazier and more bizarro. And we make light of some of the light stuff when you're chasing a Snorlax. We only make light of that one because no one was hurt luckily as a result of the negligence of the officers. But look, when you're getting women sexually assaulted and you're caught and then the justice system in America's response to that is to either release this person back into society or send them into a an institution like the army, so he can go fondle and rape and sexually assault, molest or whatever the hell he was doing when that's been enabled by a judge. Can you imagine being a woman right now?
Nick Hodge: I know you do it for the hoes, but that's of their own volition.
Gerardo Del Real: That's of their own volition. Right. I'm still feeling jolly, everybody, so it's Santa, spreading the holiday cheer. A lot of crazy shit going on out there, guys. It's getting wilder, so perfect segue to crypto. Still HODLing?
Crypto: Sill HODLing
Nick Hodge: What do you want to talk about? So yeah, I'm holding my Bitcoin and my Ether and my Solana which-
Gerardo Del Real: Solana. I hadn't heard about that.
Nick Hodge: We got a little bit of Solana, and I might speak for Chris. We'll have to have him on now that we're doing a video. But lower transaction fees and lower base prices for the NFT's that are on the Solana platform versus the Ethereum platform. Clearly weakness in the major cryptos, Bitcoin pulled back to $39,000 at one point, back up to $40,000. Similarly, Ethereum down to around $3,000, and it could be a bit more weaker from here. You've got talk of cracking down from Washington, talking about reining in some of these companies and things that are taking advantage. And I always loved that one side of that argument where politicians and officials and economists always throw in the nefarious activity that's done with crypto. It's like, "What do you think like the mafia does?"
Gerardo Del Real: Do the dollar now. Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Anyway, so yes, still HODLing. Sold my position in the fun that was tracking bitcoins pricing. That's like the difference between the gold in the safe and the paper gold, right? So hold the Bitcoin, hold Ethereum and starting to look at NFT's, but clearly like I said at the beginning of this podcast, last year you had rates going up and gold going down and now that's inverted a little bit where rates are shying away from breaking out and gold is straightening and that is putting the pressure on cryptos. That's the main thing, and of course, you mentioned last week the electricity thing, right? So there's the Kazakhstan thing which is still unrest, is out of the headlines now, but well over 100 people dead at this point. And so that's where some of the crypto mining had moved from China, and there's electricity trouble around the world even affecting aluminum smelting and things like that. So I'm giving you a non-answer, but the yeah, HODLing my cryptocurrency. And really waiting, because the next few weeks, we're going to have Chris up and running in earnest. So we'll let the expert do the talking and he wants to hear my rambling about it. Well, you will, but it'll be more educated because we have a premium service up and running that I can steal stuff from.
Gerardo Del Real: So last time that China announced that it was cracking down, and the next thing you know, you got that run up to 60,000. Do you think this is a similar type of pullback within a bull market?
Nick Hodge: It's definitely a pullback. I think you have a floor. Let's pick Bitcoin, right? $39,000 is a buying opportunity. I'm not shying away. Yeah, for sure.
Gerardo Del Real: All right, I like it. I like it. What are you excited for in the market here this coming week?
What We're Watching in the Market
Nick Hodge: What am I excited for in the market in the coming week? We have a uranium spin out. It's not going to be in the next week, but I saw that they put a date in the calendar to get that one out. That's another private opportunity you would have had the chance to fund it even before the shareholders of the company from which it's being spun out of. So I'm excited for that. I'm excited to pick my spots on a couple of defensive plays. So this is a little, not sinister, but anyway, I think people are misinterpreting this inflation. I think people are misinterpreting the direction of the market. It speaks to the cyclical nature of things and how people think linearly, like something that's going in one direction always goes that way.
And so we had a nice run of good earnings and good S&P performance and a good tech run. And I think in the next couple of months, it's going to get a little bit harder. I'm not saying the market's going to crash, but I don't think it's going to be that multiple record high after record high in the S&P that you saw at 2021. And so as a contrarian, I'm excited to front run the herd. I'm not excited that it's to the downside, but anyway, that's what I'm excited about. So gold, some utilities perhaps, just having cash. So taking some profits which I should mention. We saw a couple multi 100% gainers already. It's been two weeks, and so that's a good start to the year if you can get it, to be in a position to take advantage of whatever comes your way, especially when there is that little bit of uncertainty when the market is looking for direction. It's good to have options and that means having dollars, owning cash, and that means having to sell some of your positions if you're working inside of a framework, which most people are... or should be.
Gerardo Del Real: I like it. I'll tell you what I'm excited about and I mentioned it last week. There's lab delays with Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: RGDC). I think I hear, I hope that this following week or the week after is the week where we get the results for anyone that's new to Patriot Battery Metals. It's a company that we help finance at 16¢, currently trading at roughly 60¢. They're unto what I think is going to be a significant lithium discovery. We have results from the one hole which were absolutely spectacular, but what we really want to see is strike and continuity and we want to see step outs and hole three is a 500-meter step out.
So if we get the type of grades and the type of widths that we had in that first hole, I think that stock shoots to well above $1 in pretty short order. Tight float, $11 million are going into the ground here in the next couple of months for a winter and then a summer drill program. I think that 11 million might get into PEA by the summertime. And you have some pretty heavy hitters behind the scenes out of Australia that are backing this day on the financial side of it that have deep capital markets experience that will make sure the story gets heard.
So really excited about that. It's my largest position in terms of dollar value. So that's something that we told subscribers a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, with our year end show if I'm not mistaken, right? So you had an opportunity to jump in at 16¢. You then had an opportunity to buy it at 25 and 30 and 35 in the open market. And now here we are at 60¢ and I think it's going to be a quick sprint to $1.00, much like Aldebaran (TSX-V: ALDE)(OTC: ADBRF), which I'm also excited about. It has drill results coming next week or two. I don't think it's a coincidence that we're up 100% on that position. It's quietly gone from 55¢ or just over $1, right? And it's done it in lockstep, right? 10% here, 5% here, 10% there.
If you blink the last two weeks because you're still hungover from New Year's, you just missed 100% run. And if they hit on that step out to what was the best hold they had ever drilled the last time they reported results, and that's again anywhere near what the last time it was. I think that runs $1.50 and $2 really quick as well. So we're positioned well. It's exciting. I'm glad subscribers had plenty of time with both of those positions to get in. It's not something that I picked and then just went up immediately. It's something that you could have stepped into and we've talked about the subscribers on a pretty consistent basis for many months now. So yeah, a lot of good stuff to life.
Nick Hodge: Happy shareholder of Aldebaran here and another private deal that I think I'm pretty sure we have warrant in, 75¢ warrants if I'm not mistaken or 72¢. So another advantage of private placements there and a testament to share structure because that company, I'm pretty sure, is 80% owned by insiders and institutions, a large chunk of which is one big institution, Route1. So when there's not a lot of shares in the float, it doesn't take a lot of volume to make the shares shares go up in a hurry which is what you were just saying.
Gerardo Del Real: And you know what? They're in Argentina, especially the province where Aldebaran is in. It is hot right now. Filo Mining (OTC: FLMMF)(TSX: FIL) had a smoker of a whole earlier this week.
Nick Hodge: I sold my shares. I bought some on the last hole and I've made some money. I sold it, but I looked this week, I was like, "Fuck."
Gerardo Del Real: I think it was 64 meters of 1,250 grams per ton of silver, something ridiculous like that. Congratulations to that team. They're knocking it out of the park.
Nick Hodge: Which is I think a half ounce of gold or something like that.
Gerardo Del Real: Half ounce equivalent if you're using an 80:1 ratio, right? So exciting times there. It should be a fun week. I have a positive story this week. It's not just cops being assholes.
Nick Hodge: Let me hear it.
Cannabis Compounds Prevent Coronavirus
Gerardo Del Real: I love the way this article starts. I'll read it to you verbatim, "That one friend who insists weed has health benefits for everything under the sun could actually be on to something when it comes to one very important disease." The VID, the 'rona-
Nick Hodge: That's right.
Gerardo Del Real: COVID-19. So a new-
Nick Hodge: Oregon.
Gerardo Del Real: So a new study has identified cannabis compounds as a therapeutic agent to prevent coronavirus infections by blocking the virus from entering human cells. It's above my paygrade to explain it to you. There's a really neat diagram in the article that I was able to pull up and find, but what better way to get protection against COVID and Omnicron and the Delta and whatever comes next, right? I was reading another article that said they found some guy somewhere, he has both, he had the Delta and the Omicron.
Nick Hodge: I saw that, Deltacron.
Gerardo Del Real: This poor guy is getting spitroasted by coronavirus. I don't know whether to feel bad for that guy or be happy for him, but there may be a new therapeutic treatment here in the works. I think that will make a lot of people around the world very, very happy in hopes that it can provide future protection against other variants, right?
Nick Hodge: A little self-tooting here, we're, me and the Hodge Family Office, whoever chose to follow me in, a company who's in trials for a synthetic CBD to protect the heart for acute myocarditis which is a result, some people are having that get infected with COVID that are preconditioned to have that myocarditis. And so there's not a good treatment for that and this would be a CBD treatment that they're already in trials for. So a little bit of a relation there, and yeah, good to see the CBD. I believe it was doing the doing more good for the COVID there.
Gerardo Del Real: CBDA, CBDA, that's all I got. Mr. Hodge, anything else you want to get off your chest?
Nick Hodge: No, I think the only thing I felt while you were talking there is a shout out to Bob Saget who didn't get his proper due this week because he died over the weekend. And so the social media cycle left him by. But you started talking about weed and I was thinking about the time he was upset that Dave Chappelle went to therapy for weed in the movie Half Baked, and he was talking about how he had sucked dick for coke. And anyway, loved Bob Saget. Loved Bob Saget in Full House and ...
Gerardo Del Real: I love Bob Saget.
Nick Hodge: That's some Millennial shit, so that sucks. But rest in peace, Bob.
Gerardo Del Real: Rest in peace Bob is right. Betty White right before him. That exact clip that you're talking about with Bob Saget was him. Just for those that aren't familiar with the clip, Bob Saget's acting in this movie Half Baked with Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart, cult classic, right? And he's in a meeting, a drug dependency meeting, and the guy is up there and he's pontificating about his weed addiction and Bob Saget stands up and he says, "Addiction? That's not addiction. I've never had to suck for weed." And it's just an absolute classic to see. Maybe we'll put a link up to it if the team lets us, but yeah, we'll leave with that. Rest in peace, Bob Saget. It seemed like an all-around great guy from all accounts from people of all walks of life and 65 is way too soon and to that in such an unexpected manner and all the best to him his family and his friends out there.
Nick Hodge: That's what I read too.
Gerardo Del Real: That's it. Make the most of it out there, everyone. I am Gerardo Del Real along with my cohost Mr. Nick Hodge. This was episode 152 of Bizarro World. Be happy, be smile, it's short. Enjoy it a little bit, guys.
Nick Hodge: See you.
This transcript is unedited. Please excuse grammatical errors and run-on sentences.