Falling Stocks and Ensuing World Chaos- Bizarro World 168

Stocks are still falling as the Federal Reserve increased its effective rate 50 basis points to 0.75-1.0%. The stock market is now down more than 15% for the year as mortgage rates shoot to levels we haven't seen in more than a decade. People can't afford homes and now their 401(k)s and retirement accounts are suffering as well. We're also gearing up for a landmark Supreme Court decision that could dismantle Roe vs. Wade. It's shaping up to be one hot summer. Gold has a been one of the few havens, still up for the year. And you can catch Nick in person on May 17 and 18 at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. We discuss it all in episode 168 of Bizarro World.

1:42 Evaluation of Falling Stock Market

5:44 Roe vs. Wade, Supreme Court Spillover

18:58 Bear Markets & Gold Havens

25:05 Who Does Inflation & Falling Stocks Hurt Most?

31:08 Lithium Stocks & Climate Goals

35:23 Dave Chappelle Attacker Attacked

39:50 Nick at The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, May 17-18

Gerardo Del Real: Jerome. Jerome. Somebody get Jerome on the phone, markets down 1,300 points here at one point. Ends the day down 1000. That's the Dow. We'll get into the NASDAQ. We'll get into the ten-year, firmly above 3% now. Gold, bastion of stability. We're going to talk Madison. Oops. He did it again. The gift that keeps on giving, Madison Cawthorn. We're going to talk Greg Abbott. We'll talk about Dave Chappelle. We're going to talk about Louisiana Republicans and their war on women. They do not like the womans, Nick. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This is episode 168 of Bizarro World. How are you, Nick? We're probably not going to get to most of the stuff because it is a Bizarro World out there. Holy smokes.

Nick Hodge: Can't keep up on the political front, the social front, the market front. Other than that, they're not really affecting my personal life and wellbeing. You got to tune it out, and keep sane what's between your ears and execute with what you're given. So interesting to watch the Bizarro World turn. I'm doing fantastic. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. This will be out the day after that. So hopefully I reminded you to get a card last week. And also my wife's birthday, so happy birthday. And other than that, doing great.

Evaluation of Falling Stock Market

Gerardo Del Real: Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing moms out there. Happy birthday to your wife, Nick, happy belated birthday. I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day. And if you're fortunate enough to still have yours and their great moms, tell them you love them and give them a hug. Let's get right into it. The ten year yield is at 3.08% firmly above three now. I was yelling for Jerome. Honestly, my portfolio is doing fine, but Jerome, Jerome, Jerome, I guarantee you he's getting some calls right now. You had a note earlier today, I thought it was very well written, explaining to paying subscribers how to position in the market. And frankly had they listened to you for the past several months, they would already be positioned.

You eat your own cooking, as I do, and you pulled quite a bit of cash from your financial advisor here a couple of months back, and man, that was fortuitous. And profitable because I know how you've been allocating that, but if people were paying attention, they knew this was coming. You're hiking rates into a slowing economy. There's threats of stagflation. Inflation is persistent. We saw several mining companies this week with CapEx blowouts that just don't look good on the bottom line. And so I know there's a lot there, Nick. Thoughts on the overall indices. I hate to sound like a broken record, but you keep getting it right so I just defer to you on that.

Nick Hodge: As I say, broken records, clocks and blind squirrels. It's good to not be exposed to the market. Certainly the S&P and the NASDAQ have had a rough go of it. S&P really approaching bear market territory, now down 15% for the year. The market went up when Jerome raised rates last week by a half a percentage point, and I should talk more about that, but they were happy for a couple of hours that it wasn't 75 basis points and then the next day the market continued to fall out of the bottom. Interest rates continue to go up, and Jerome says that he's the new Volcker and he's going to keep hiking them, so expect that in the future. Bond yields, as you said, are continuing to reflect that climbing now in the ten-year above 3%. And that remains the head scratcher to me, stocks clearly don't like it.

One of the things I wanted to mention, remind me to talk about the VIX, but first we're seeing things that haven't happened since interesting years. That was the first basis point hike since 2000, for example, or houses are now the least affordable since 2006. And if mortgage rates go up another half a percent or housing prices increase, which you and I have talked about recently, just another 5% then homes in America will be the least affordable they've ever been, and people don't like that. So you've already got people marching in the streets for reasons we'll talk about later. We know it hasn't taken much to touch off protests in the United States in the past few years, and summertime is approaching and the Fourth Turning continues to turn.

So I think it's not just the people who are calling him that have his number, but the men in the street and the women in the street, frankly, who are going to be upset with the unaffordability of nearly everything. And so I'll mention the VIX and then I'll shut up. Everything is tough when the VIX is where it is and when the sell-offs are as broad based as they are now. You've seen some weakness in commodities, gold's held up relatively well, as you said, but the valuations are getting out of whack, so you have an opportunity to execute in those things that are holding up while babies and bath water get thrown out, I guess.

Roe vs. Wade, Supreme Court Spillover

Gerardo Del Real: So much I want to get into. I almost want to discount the markets. I don't believe I even touched on the fact and clearly we're going to get into it, the leak of the supposed Roe versus Wade ruling that's coming down the pipeline here in June, and we have protests breaking out all around the country. And I find it somewhat ironic in a very sad, sad way that on Mother's Day weekend, where we're supposed to be celebrating women and we're supposed to be highlighting the influence that good women have on community and on family and on individuals and this planet, that on a week that we're supposed to be celebrating women, fucking Louisiana Republicans want to make abortion a murder charge. They're actually advancing a bill to make abortion a crime of murder.

And again, I don't mean to get into the social stuff right away, but man, Nick, it's going to be a hot summer. And for those of you that know me, I spent my childhood in Chicago, I've moved around quite a bit. In the city and the neighborhoods that I come from, a hot summer isn't talking about the weather, folks. It's going to be a hot summer. It's going to be volatile. And you think the protest from a few years ago were something, if this ruling actually comes to pass, there's a stool of rulings and the legs that hold that stool up are getting clipped. And it has implications for everything from segregation in schools, there's people on the right now looking to challenge the Brown ruling. There's implications for LGBTQ rights. It's broad. Contraception access.

And so for people that just say, "Well, listen, my faith prevents me from supporting abortion," does your faith also allow you to support a bill to make abortion a crime of murder? I just pose the question. And the other question that I pose is why aren't we simultaneously... If reducing and preventing abortion is so important to one base, mostly Republicans, is so important, why aren't we allocating the resources to increase education, to increase contraception, to increase accessibility to safe preventative ways when it comes to dealing with the topic of sex and reproduction? Why are we jumping straight to you get one, it's murder. In Texas here, at Abbott's saying he's going to go back and challenge a ruling now if this ruling comes to pass in June where the state of Texas will no longer pick up the tab for paying for free education for undocumented immigrants.

I come from parents of undocumented immigrants. So it was it's okay for my undocumented immigrant parents at the time to pay sales tax. It's okay for them to pay their own taxes, because whether or not they do it with their own social security number, undocumented immigrants end up finding a way to pay into the system, whether it's their own social security number or not. It's the way of immigrants. When you come into this country, if you want to work, one of two things are happening. Employers are enabling it by paying you cash, and yes in that way you are dodging the system. But if you actually have a shot of one day seeing an immigration process that works, you want to be able to demonstrate, as an undocumented immigrant, that you've been paying taxes and into the system. And the way that my parents did that for a long time was by having another social security number. And when it came time for Reagan to basically grant amnesty, that was one of the requirements at the time, can you show that you've actually paid into the system even if it's under someone else's name? Can you verify that you've been working, that you've been paying into the system, that you haven't committed any crimes?

It's so ironic to me that we're celebrating, by the time y'all see this it would've been last week, but that the same week we're celebrating Mother's Day, we have what's clearly a war on women. And more importantly, and I said this before, it's a war on women that don't have the luxury or the advantage to fly out and go get an abortion somewhere else. I would love for the mistresses of Republicans in this country to say, "You know what? Fuck this. By the way, I had an abortion. I had an abortion. I had an abortion. I had an abortion," just to expose the hypocrisy, because if I thought it wasn't an attack on women, I wouldn't be so passionate about this issue, but man, this one really gets me hot under the collar, and it's going to be a hot, hot, hot summer. Tthis one gets me going. I can stay on this one for the whole hour if you want, Nick.

Nick Hodge: There's so much to unpack there, and I don't want to beat it too much, but I'll talk about institutions and cycles and libertarianism. We get to a point in the cycle of the system where institutions are tested all the way to their max or fail all the way to their max, and from my point of view, you're seeing that now, whether it's the institution of immigration or the institution of the legality of abortion, or name your institution. From a libertarian point of view, part of the argument is state rights like federalism. Bultimately the responsibility and the wellbeing of the person trumps the rights of the states. So as a libertarian, no matter what the issue is, it's the individual's right, and from a religious standpoint, I don't even consider that because that has no...

Gerardo Del Real: Because there's separation of church and state.

Nick Hodge: Absolutely. Right. And so it's interesting you mention immigration in the abortion thing, because there are some factions who say that preventing the abortions is to have more white babies, that's going down a little bit of a rabbit hole. But anyway, we'll see what happens with Roe versus Wade. The mistresses you bring up are interesting, that certainly happens. And the reasons that women get abortions, my wife formerly worked as a women's health counselor, are things that you don't even imagine. It's not being irresponsible or forgetting to take your pill. Sure, that happens, but it's mistresses, as you say, it's infidelity, it's incest, it's rape, it's the things that there's a perpetrator and the woman or the girl, in fact, is making that decision not because she wants to, but it's because it's best for her, her health, her future, and ultimately society.

As you say, if you're not going to educate those kids and provide for them once they're out of the womb, which is one of the parts of that argument -- that the conservatives love to care for the baby in the womb but then when it's out its on it's own good luck. Those are pretty much my thoughts on the issue. We've talked about the topic before. Can't believe that the Supreme Court is going to overturn it, and obviously interested to see how the states handle it as it goes . I think you can guess which states are going to go which way. And so I hate to say par for the course or that you expect things like this, but gosh, you're in such a tumultuous time politically that all things are on the table, and this is one of them.

Gerardo Del Real: I want to be very specific because there was a lot that was said there. I mentioned Greg Abbot in Texas raising the possibility of challenging the 1982 ruling, which said that states must provide free education to all children, including those of documented migrants. That was Mr. Abbot here in Texas. The same Mr. Abbot who had the dumbass idea of politicizing immigrants and Mexico. And about two weeks ago here, two, three weeks ago, he decided to rally his base, because he is in the middle of a campaign, he was going to go ahead and demand that every truck that came from Mexico be inspected. And so the truck inspections led to standstills that cost both Mexico and the State of Texas billions of dollars.

That ends up turning into Mexico deciding that it is moving a major railway project that's worth billions of dollars to Texas and to Mexico away from Texas, and now it's going to be rerouted through New Mexico. The planned railway is called the TMEC Corridor project. And it's supposed to connect Mexican ports all the way to Winnipeg. And as a result of Abbot grand standing and dog whistling to his right, now that $4.2 billion that it cost Texas over 10 days and $9 billion in GDP is gone. And all of the revenue that Texas is going to benefit from in the increased commerce, that's gone too. The stupidity in this country right now with our politicians is at an all time high, at least in the 43 years of life that I've been living. And so again, I just want to make sure that I'm being clear about who's doing what.

The gentleman that talked about Brown versus Board of Education, that's the 1954 case that ended racial segregation in public schools, that guy's name is a guy on the far right named Peter Brimelow, the founder of VDARE website, who The New York Times is linked to, surprise, surprise, Fox News host, Tucker Carlson. So he immediately thought the same thing that a lot of people on the extreme right think, that Roe versus Wade is going to be critical in preventing contraception and challenging that, going and fighting so that undocumented immigrants don't have access to education, going and fighting so that LGBTQ children aren't being taught in school and possibly even challenging same sex marriage in this country. It's a lot, Nick. It's a lot. And I know this is what Fourth Turnings do. And the last time there were major rights in this country we talked about how there was no way that was the last big one, because after it was all said and done, and Biden won the election, and after the insurrection, the riots on the Capitol, it felt like it didn't boom enough. I think this one's going to boom enough.

Nick Hodge: We're going to see. What's the Tree of Liberty need? The blood of patriots. And there's often violence in Fourth Turnings, typically large wars. We've talked about this before. Not that we were calling for that. But the other thing I'd say is it hasn't come to completion yet. And there's another book, by the way, Neil Howe is putting out a new book, which is fantastic because the Turning has grown long in the tooth, the deadline's been extended for reasons that we've discussed, people living longer, octogenarians staying in office longer and the younger generation taking longer to come of age and supplanting or taking over the decision making as it relates to policies. So that's what I was going to say is that Biden ain't it. You get a Gray Champion, but you need someone from two generations removed to become a leader.

I haven't identified who that is going to be yet, but it's important to note that the challenges that arise need to be met with and dealt with. And I've said this before, how they are determines what happens for the next 20 years. So while we say that these things are turbulent and expected, the failing of institutions, it's not to say that they're automatically defeated when a new generation rises up. Someone has to defeat them, and I don't see that sort of coalition being developed, at least not yet.

Bear Markets & Gold Havens

Gerardo Del Real: Back to the markets. It's really, really encouraging to me to see gold near the $1,900 level given the fact that the dollar index (DXY) is almost at 104 and the ten-year is at 3.06%. We saw the correlation between the ten-year and gold, you could put a chart and it was just if one was up, the other one's down, and vice versa. It's really, really, really encouraging to me to see gold hang in there the way it's held in there. Thoughts on the gold price, Nick? I know you touched on it briefly there in the intro. Glad you have some.

Nick Hodge: Across the value chain. Buy gold, it's one of the things that's held in there. We can talk about lithium in a second. Gold stocks have not done what they should have done relative to the gold price. They haven't shown their leverage. You're getting buying opportunities here across, like I say, the value chain. So of course you have your physical, you might own your paper physical, your GLD. I've talked about GDXJ. Even the miners have sold off though, the majors. So we should start there like Sibanye (NYSE: SBSW) and Agnico (NYSE: AEM) and even Barrick (NYSE: GOLD) as it raises dividends are cheap. And then down to the mid-tiers because you mentioned earlier, I'm pretty sure you were talking about IAMGOLD (NYSE: IAG) when you were talking about the cost overruns. So there's opportunities out there because things are selling off.

Let me talk about silver for a second, because it's decoupling a little bit. Hecla, which I was up 30% on, I've mentioned on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, is backed to only up maybe 5% in my portfolio. As silver stocks have come down, you've got silver down around $22 and wanting to be more of a commodity. Whereas gold is the currency or the haven. So other commodities look relatively weak as well. Copper and things have softened up. You interviewed Rick Rule recently, and he made a wonderful, long term bullish case for copper, but that's not to say it and other commodities including silver can't sell off in the interim or in the short term. So gold looking strong, I'd say.

Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. You touched on lithium. My two biggest positions are Nevada Sunrise Gold (TSX-V: NEV)(OTC: NVSGF), which should change its name, by the way, to Nevada Sunrise Lithium or spin it out, and Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF). I don't think it's a coincidence that both of those have held up very, very well despite the volatility in the markets and despite the softness across a lot of the resource stocks. I read a quote earlier that cracked me up, switching back to the Fed, it said, "Clearly the Fed wants everybody that retired last year on big 401k gains to come back to the workforce." And I know that shouldn't make me laugh, but for some reason it does. I think it's hilarious. And that's @NorthmanTrader if you want to follow him on Twitter. He's a great follow, he's absolutely hilarious. But no, look something's got to give. And either the Fed's going to blink or the market can go down. Again, you wrote beautifully earlier today. What are the COVID loads? Another 50%, right?

Nick Hodge: That's it. Yeah. The S&P was down around 2000, 2200 when the depth of the COVID crash, and so you're still at 4,000 S&P, about 4,000 S&P so, yep, 50%.

Gerardo Del Real: So I pose the question to everyone out there, because I have a lot of acquaintances now and friends coming and asking me how are you doing? How's your portfolio? It's great. It's fantastic. And it doesn't mean they're all winners, but overall it's holding up really, really well and there's some definite breakouts there. But when I have friends starting to ask, I always pose the question to them, if your downside potentially is still 50% in the overall indices, why wouldn't you just speculate at least a little bit of that in the resource space where your downside is always at least 50%? Some of my biggest wins have gone down 50%. You and I will write a check, and then a year later, nine months later, we're up two, three, 400, 500%.

That's just the way that space works. It's my bread and butter, so I'm talking my own book. But if the risk reward proposition now in the Dow, in the NASDAQ, in the S&P 500 is a similar risk reward position as some of the riskier junior resource stocks, it might not be the worst thing in the world to pull out a little bit of that capital and start allocating it, trying to hit a couple of home runs. And obviously tread carefully and find some guidance. And again, I'm talking to our own book here in this case, but am I wrong in looking at that and saying, "Well, if the risk is the same, then why wouldn't I give myself an opportunity for 100% gains over here?"

Nick Hodge: Well, there's more downside than upside in the broader indices until earnings growth and economic growth expands. On a daily basis, I'm talking about. There's more downside than upside until those things change, which could be on a daily basis for several quarters. And so having some exposure to the precious metals makes sense. I'd caveat that with individual needs vary and liquidity can be tough to come by in the smaller names of the resource space. So keep that in mind when investing, but you can reflect the junior names in other ways I've talked about the VanEck Junior Gold Miners (NYSE: GDXJ), for example, you can do it with ETFs. That's not the pure Colombian, it's cut down, but the returns are going to be similar when gold goes back over $2,000.

Who Does Inflation & Falling Stocks Hurt Most?

Gerardo Del Real: "Pure Colombian" is great.

Here's another headline from CNBC. I get amused. I don't watch CNBC all day like a lot of people do, but I do like popping in. And today I was expecting, when the market was down 1300 points I checked in just to see how many boxes there were. They always have the crisis sceen.

Nick Hodge: They probably had a banner up and everything.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. But they didn't even have the boxes yet. I'm sure there's an emergency show being called right now and prepared, but here's a headline from CNBC right now, "Unretirement is becoming a hot new trend in the sizzling US labor market." Which is a really sneaky way of saying people are hurting and are having to come back to the workplace because retirement isn't as affordable as it once was, and it's due to inflation in part. And that's directly central banker's fault. And so when we talk about these turnings and these institutions, and we hammer that point home, and we sound like broken record players, that's because it's real and it's true. And unretirement isn't a real thing. It's people are hurting out there. And again, what gets me the most is it's the average Granny Smith and the average Joe the Plumber that's really going to get taken to the woodshed if you see a 50% drop in 401ks all around the country.

Nick Hodge: I thought about these two houses that were for sale on Spokane, while you're talking about that, I tweeted out this week. So Spokane has a river that runs through it and I always look at what's for sale or what's come for sale in the past week just to see what the prices are in the neighborhoods and things like that. So I saw the other day on one side of the river there was this trailer park, and there was a double wide that was for sale for $150,000. And then on the other side of the river, the houses could probably see each other, there was a neighborhood with single family homes, four bedroom, three baths, whatever it is, five bedrooms, three baths, nice houses, selling for $1 million. Right across the river from each other, $150,000 for a trailer, a million dollars for a single family home in a neighborhood.

And they had both listed in the past week, because that's how I searched. So the million-dollar one was already pending and the $200,000 one was still for sale. And this is anecdotal, but what I would say is the class that's in a position to afford the million dollar home has that down payment and that wealth divide has created such that, that house could sell, whereas the person who's in the market for the $150,000, $200,000 house is having trouble coming up with that down payment. And as I said earlier, the affordability is nearly the worst it's ever been, so that house has not got a pending offer yet despite most things around here getting sold in a couple of days. I could be wrong on that, but I think that's reflective of what you're saying of that wealth divide, where people's 401ks are down and hurting and real wages, although there's been wage inflation, haven't nearly caught up to the amount that prices have risen, that's the honey going out to the edges of the dish.

Gerardo Del Real: Look, when we talk about house affordability and we talk about interest rates at 30 year fixes at 5.6% right now, six months ago, somewhere closer to 3%. I don't think it's a coincidence that 30% of the housing market is cash buyers. And I think this alludes to what you were mentioning that for that group, for that 30%, they'll continue to buy. It's not going to prevent them. The cost of capital for that group isn't tied to the 30-year fixed, because they're not taking out mortgages. 30% of all buyers are cash buyers. And we talked about this earlier, a year and a half ago when I was upset about it, it was hedge funds buying entire neighborhoods out and then turning back around and renting out the houses for twice what they rented for before.

And so, again, I look at trends and I see legally where this country's going, and I see economically where this country's going, and I see our education system, where that's going, we're definitely in the midst of a turning, it's definitely going to escalate and it's definitely something that I think everybody should have on their radar. Have a little gold, have ways to protect yourself. Those are good things. Have some extra food, buy a generator if you can. Probably not a bad idea.

Nick Hodge: How's the weather in Texas? I heard it's hot.

Gerardo Del Real: We're going to get triple digits this weekend. There's another tornado warning as we speak, so if I cut out here in a little bit or if the signal gets fuzzy, I hear the thunder in the background. But no look, we were in the pool yesterday. We grilled some steaks. The weather was fantastic. We're about to hit 100 degrees. I love the heat so if I can dodge the tornadoes, we're going to be all right this week. It should be fun.

Nick Hodge: Nice. Well, stay safe.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you, sir. Let's talk about something that makes me smile. We talked about Madison Cawthorn last week and we told you it wasn't going to be a one off, and sure enough now somebody released the video of him being naked on a bed rubbing up against another dude.

Nick Hodge: Another one.

Gerardo Del Real: Being crass with a friend as he put it [crosstalk 00:30:33]

Nick Hodge: Three makes a trend.

Gerardo Del Real: One time's a mistake. Everything after that, I don't know, Madison. Oh, Madison, they're going to get you out of here, man. You're going to learn one way or the other. No, look, I don't wish him any ill will. A lot of this seems self inflicted. I wish him the best, but, man, that's messy. That's messy, messy. Let's talk lithium, Nick. That's all I want to say. I don't want to go down the Madison Cawthorn rabbit hole because...

Lithium Stocks & Climate Goals

Nick Hodge: What did I have on the list for lithium? We mentioned some companies already. I guess this is what I want to say. Let me tie it all together. And Texas weather's a perfect jumping point because I was reading this article the other day about how it's supposed to be hot in the Southwest and how they were going to have to rely more on natural gas for the grid, if the grid was even going to hold up. They say it is in Texas, at least for this week. And I was thinking, well, that's not very climate friendly, I thought we were trying to burn less natural gas. And then I was wondering, if it's so hot why can't we just use the solar? And then I saw another article in Bloomberg the other day about "have you heard of this new solar technology called concentrated solar?"

And I had to bring up the solar roads again because concentrated solar is a 20 year old technology. It's been in the desert since you and I have been going on mine tours for 10 or 15 years. It's the shiny thing that you see all the way, far away from the road that's concentrating the sun's beams onto the array below it to heat up a fluid, to turn a turbine, instead of using a photovoltaic cell to turn the suns rays into electricity. These are things I wrote about 15 years ago. Bloomberg is portraying concentrated solar as a new technology. Anyway, then there was a couple of big shareholder votes at banks last week or two weeks ago, resolutions saying that the banks would no longer be allowed to invest in companies that had carbon emissions or energy companies that generated fossil fuels, and all those initiatives were defeated.

And so it made me think about the progress in the climate movement and what actually moves the needle, the bottom line, and of course that's electric cars, but behind that is lithium. And so that was my long way to get into talking about lithium. But you've mentioned the stocks that have delivered discoveries recently and how well they've done. Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) just today when I got up was biggest stock up pre-market. Others like Allkem (OTC: OROCF), formerly Orocobre, have held up very well. They've had volatility, they've had down days like others, but the charge against a larger index, you'll see that it's held up very well, and so the price of lithium, like uranium, like gold, has held up. And the companies that mine it and look for it have held up as well.

I guess that's what I wanted to say. Occam's razor says that the best solution is usually the simplest, you don't have to think through it too hard. And it's not some new technology, it's not some new battery, it's the fucking lithium ion battery, and you got to mine more lithium to make them. There was another article this week I think in maybe Forbes talking about how we might not be able to mine enough lithium and how there was too few economic lithium deposits in the earth. And I was thinking to myself, this sounds very much like peak oil from 15 or 20 years ago, where we were not going to be able to produce enough oil to meet global demand. And the amount that we were going to produce was going to go down. And then of course the price either goes up to incent new supply to come online, or new technologies are developed to get that oil out of the ground, à la fracking, shale, horizontal drilling, et cetera. And so if the price is high enough, they'll find more economic deposits. There might be some in Quebec under a lake that they can develop if the price is right.

And so I don't think it's a problem of they're not being enough lithium, I think there's a problem of the price not to being high enough or the technologies not being unlocked to get that lithium out. And the last thing I'd say on that is those are starting to happen as well because you'll remember 10 years ago we weren't getting lithium out of clays, and now we're talking about getting lithium out of clays. So, that's it, lithium stocks.

Dave Chappelle Attacker Attacked

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. You know what I learned this week amidst all my anger about this Roe versus Wade thing, and the hypocrisy and all of that? I learned that Dave Chappelle has better friends than Chris Rock. Did you see the video of Mr. Pretzel? For those of you who aren't aware, the slap heard around the world months ago is when Will Smith decided that he had enough of Chris Rock's jokes mentioning his wife. And so he proceeded, during the Oscars, during the Academy Awards, on live television to walk up and slap the right side off of Chris Rock's face. Will Smith was greeted to a standing ovation 20 minutes later when he talked about being a vessel of love, was ushered back to his seat, was given a cold refreshment and was escorted out safely, not by law enforcement, by people that just wanted to make sure he made it to his car safely, because he's a big superstar.

And so if you are a big superstar named Will Smith and you're a guy named Chris Rock, apparently Chris Rock's friends aren't the same type of friends that Dave Chappelle has, because somebody thought that they would go ahead and Chris Rock Dave Chappelle, who was performing in LA. And so this guy comes running out, and this could have been serious because he had snuck a knife into a plastic fake looking gun, and so this could have turned out really, really bad. But a gentleman launched at Dave Chappelle and attempted to tackle him. And that gentleman was met by Dave Chappelle's friends, which included Jamie Foxx, Busta Rhymes, and his security detail who promptly removed this gentleman from his feet, didn't even take him off the stage. They just ushered him to the back in front of everybody and started stomping the living hell out of him.

The face that Nick was making is how the guy ended up looking when they were done. So this gentleman had bumps on his head, a black eye, his hands were broken, his arms were broken. He's on the stretcher. He was charged, of course, with assault, taken to the hospital and then taken to prison. Now, I highlight that not because I want to encourage violence, although if you charge at me and I believe my life is in danger, you're probably going to be met with at least a proportionate response and probably a disproportionate response, especially if some of my friends are around, it's probably not going to end up too well for you. But Chris Rock needs better friends, man. The funniest part about the whole thing was Chris Rock was there when this happened and walked onto the stage and took the mic from Dave Chappelle and said, "Is that Will Smith?"

Be absolutely clear, Dave Chappelle also got in there and stomped the living heck out of this guy. A deserved stomping. I couldn't believe it was real. I thought it was one of those Twitter things where people juxtaposed footage and I thought, oh, maybe Dave Chappelle did get tackled, but there's no way that they just stomped this guy out in front of the entire crowd, and there's no way that it was Busta Rhymes and Jamie Foxx. And then there's no way that Chris Rock got on stage and asked if that was Will Smith. It's a Bizarro World, folks. You can't make 2022 up. It's only May. It's the beginning of May. We're not even halfway into the year yet. It's going to be an absolute doozy the rest of this year, everybody. So, that's it. Any thoughts on that? I just thought, again, the hypocrisy of how we treat celebrities versus how we treat just regular folk doing the exact same thing is America at its worst right now, right?

Nick Hodge: Certainly reflective of the time, could be one hot summer, a lot to watch out for not just in the market, but all over the place. Sorry, you said Marketwise (NASDAQ: MKTW), I was thinking of a company with a similar name and wondering how their earnings are going to be here soon. It might be a tough go out there for newsletter sales.

Gerardo Del Real: We're going to see. It should be an interesting couple of weeks, should be an interesting month, should be an interesting rest of the year. Anything else to add, Nick? I could go on and on.

Nick at The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, May 17-18

Nick Hodge: Yes, there is one more thing to add.

Gerardo Del Real: There it is. Where are you going to be? Tell them where you're going to be. I was waiting.

Nick Hodge: The Vancouver Resource Investment Conference I'm glad we got it out because we forgot last week, is May 17th and 18th. Doesn't matter. It's the first couple of days of that week in May, it's in Vancouver at the convention center, put on by Cambridge House. Lots of people will be there. The former president of Mexico will be there, the former prime minister of Canada will be there, yours truly will be there talking about this macro bear market and gold stocks and uranium stocks, we'll be meeting with companies in the portfolio, that we finance, that we own, that are sponsors of Resource Stock Digest. Come on out and see me if you're there, happy to meet you. And The Dines Letter readers as well, would love to meet those folks if they're around. They certainly know by now that they're going to be getting my letter and would be happy to meet them as well. I know there's lots of folks from Vancouver on that list. Use code 'Hodge' for a discount on tickets. 

Vancouver Resource Investment Conference

Gerardo Del Real: I was looking forward to making it. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it, but I'm confident that Mr. Hodge will be able to pull double duty well. And I encourage everybody that's out there to go say hi and link up with Mr. Hodge and catch up on all things everything, Resource Stock Digest, Digest Publishing, The Dines Letter, the markets. I'm looking forward to your presentation, Nick, they're always enlightening. They're always interesting. They're always fun. And more importantly, they're always fact-filled. So looking forward to that. That's all I got. We'll be watching the market. I'm expecting assays from Patriot Battery Metals any day now. That stock has held in remarkably well, putting in brand new 52-week and all time highs seemingly every week. I'm curious to see what the uranium space does here in the next couple of weeks. We've had some really healthy pullbacks. I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on one or two names in that space. And I may have a battery metals royalty company sued that I might start nibbling at, so keep an eye out for that. I'll keep you all posted.

I am Gerardo Del Real, along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was therapy session, man, I needed this one, otherwise known as Bizarro World number 168. I hope all of the moms out there had a beautiful Mother's Day and let's treat our people better, everybody. Say something nice, Nick.

Nick Hodge: Oh, have a good week, everybody. See ya.