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Greta, Staged Climate Controversies, and Nuclear Energy - Bizarro World 202

Is the bear market in stocks over? Are we still in a commodity supercycle? Is the Fed overtightening? We answer all those questions and more. We also get into the climate debate, how to tune out the noise, and profit from it. Hint: that means nuclear energy and uranium. Plus: Is the current Bitcoin rally the start of a new cycle or a bear market bounce? Check out episode 202 of Bizarro World to find out. 

2:11 Macro Market Update
5:35 Patriot Battery Metals Broken Record: Record Drill Results
10:25 Commodity Supercycle Update
15:50 Is the Fed Overtightening?
22:15 Noise: Trump, Twitter, and Gas Stoves
24:34 Greta, Staged Climate Controversies, and Nuclear Energy
34:39 Crypto: Breakout or Bear Market Bounce?

Gerardo Del Real: I am mining investor and editor of Resource Stock Digest, Gerardo Del Real, here with my partner, Mr. Nick Hodge, who's also an investor and publisher of Daily Profit Cycle. This is the 202nd episode of our weekly therapy session that we call Investing In Bizarro World. We'll talk about the markets. We'll talk to you about what we're investing in, and of course, we'll talk to you about all the crazy stuff that's going on around us. As always, a lot to get to this week. We're going to talk copper. We're going to talk crypto. We're going to talk gold. We're going to talk about how do you know when it's too tight? We'll get into that. We'll talk Greta. We'll talk Trumpster. We'll, of course, talk Patriot Battery Metals. Before we get into all of that, Mr. Hodge, how are you, sir?

Nick Hodge: I'm doing great, Gerardo. I got some sick kids. I think the entire country is sick as we were talking about off air. But other than that, I'm doing pretty good. I happen to avoid the sickness somehow. I guess, strong like bull immune system, so I'm thankful for that. I've got a little girl who's going to cheerleading tryouts tonight, so excited to bring her there. She said she wanted her daddy to watch.

Gerardo Del Real: Good luck with that. Proud daddy moment. Enjoy those. Enjoy them all, man. They go quick. As you know, mine are a little bit older, right? They're 24, 19, and 14, but man, it flies by. Congrats on that front. Yeah, go enjoy the heck out of that.

Nick Hodge: How are you, Gerardo?

Gerardo Del Real: I am well. I am as well as I've been in about a month or so. It was a combination of the thing and then I was also sick during that. I think I either had COVID or I had a respiratory infection like the rest of the world as we were talking about. The timing on that probably could have been a little bit better, but things are going in the right direction. I'm thankful for 2023. I'm glad to get 2022 behind us. There was a lot of good in that year, but there was also some challenges there that were tough to push through, but really excited about 2023. Let's get into some of why I'm excited.

Macro Market Update

Copper touched $4.32. Crypto… we'll talk about whether it's a dead cat bounce or not. Gold in $1933, silver keeps kissing $24, a lot to like. Lithium is holding in there really well. When we look at the broader indices, and we've talked about this for the past year, you've done a brilliant job of setting the table for what the blueprint was going to look like. You actually had a promotion called the blueprint, the recession blueprint, so that you could get prepared ahead of time for the broader indices to sell off. They're down what, 25%, 30% since you made that call?

Nick Hodge: Yeah, the S&P was down 20% in 2022 and the Nasdaq is down more than 30% since it made its highs in the fall of 2021, so it's been a tough go out there for sure.

Gerardo Del Real: Look, we've been preaching, and hopefully it reached some of y'all and hopefully some of you were able to take action on it, but we've been telling you there's things that you need and things that you want. We were talking a bit off air about how it's great to want a blue chip dividend paint stock. You need copper, you need uranium, we need lithium. And so to me, it seemed like the easiest pivot in the world to make. Resources are my niche, that's what my go-to, but it just seemed like it was a clear path to profits. 2022 was a very, very, very profitable one, thankfully. Look, if 2023 is any indication, we're going to have an absolute blast. Let's get into the broader indices and the economy and the recent jobs report, and how that relates to gold because I know you keep your eye on all that stuff. What's your take there?

Nick Hodge: Yeah, actually not too up to speed on the jobs report. I think that these layoffs are mounting but haven't really culminated in any sort of spillover or blow up moment yet. I think that comes later this year. The indices did this week what I was saying they were going to do last week. We were in the middle of a bear market bounce. The VIX had gone down below 20 and I put out a letter last week saying, "By volatility, this VIX has got an 18 handle on it." We're not even part of the way through earnings season, which is not going to be good.

These economic numbers that are coming out, whether it's jobs like you mentioned or industrial factory output, they're going to continue not to be great. Now, that's exactly what we saw this week. You had a 600 point down day on the Dow, you had the S&P get right up to its trend line and then turn back around, and then you got these companies out there reporting earnings that are absolutely abysmal. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) had their worst miss in a decade this week. Earnings per share were three dollars and change versus analyst estimates over five dollars per share.

Gerardo Del Real: There's less analysts there now too.

Nick Hodge: For sure. Layoffs abound, right? That's what I mean. These layoffs are going to culminate later. Microsoft said that they're laying off another 10,000 people, so it's going to be a tough go for the broader indices. We’re firmly in a bear market despite the hopes, dreams and wishes of the permabulls out there. Markets go both ways, and it's up and it's down, and we're still in that down cycle for the time being. And again, a broken record likely for the next couple of quarters.

Patriot Battery Metals Broken Record: Record Drill Results

Gerardo Del Real: Again, like a broken record, I'm going to continue to preach the commodity supercycle. Look, there's ways to make money in this space. Let's get right into Patriot Battery Metals (TSX-V: PMET)(OTC: PMETF), which just put out one of the best, if not the single best, lithium intercepts that I've ever seen. It was absolutely bonkers. It was 156.9 meters of 2.12% lithium that included, Nick, 25 meters of 5.04% lithium. And oh, by the way, they're drilling out towards the east. They're extending the strike. It's over 2.2 kilometers now. Just for kicks, it seems like the grade is actually getting better over towards the east. It's the perfect setup. No coincidence that the stock is once again on its way to new all-time highs. Like I said it would be when it was six and seven dollars, and then touched five dollars briefly, and everybody was writing in and everybody was on CEO.CA, wondering what I was doing.

I was doing absolutely nothing. I was just waiting for results to come back out to validate the model and to validate the investment thesis, which is still that this is going to end up being one of the biggest hard rock lithium deposits in the world. It has access to cheap, cheap hydropower. It has excellent management. It's got a non-executive chairman that knows how to build $10 billion-dollar companies from a small company. It just doesn't get any better than that. By the way, they have some projects that I absolutely love in their portfolio that they're likely to spin out over the next couple of months. Look, it's the gift that keeps on giving. If you took advantage, and I know you did and you traded that beautifully, I know you got in there and bought. I forget the levels you bought at, but I...

Nick Hodge: More than doubled since I purchased in the open market.

Gerardo Del Real: Right, and that's really the point that I'm trying to hammer home. I know several of you have written in saying that you listen for the Patriot update. The Patriot update is that it’s going to make new all-time highs every month. I think the drilling to the east that they're hitting the sweet spot of that high grade zone. These aren't small intercepts that they're finding. Twenty-five meters of 5% is absolutely ridiculous. Look, I'll say this. I think when it's all said and done, and I've said this to you privately, Nick, I think the CV13s and the 5s and the 8s, and all the numbers, all the CVs, I think it's one giant big lump of rock under glacial till and late cover. If that's the case, it'll end up being the biggest hard rock lithium deposit on the entire planet. By the way, it's happening in a lithium bull market where lithium majors and mining majors are fully cashed up from record profits over the past several years.

What I'm trying to tell everyone out there is invest like these companies are investing. There is a reason why they're going after assets that can yield tremendous cash flow in the supercycle. It's because they know that the trend is not a one or two-year trend. This is going to be a decade long trend at the very least of... Maybe not continuously rising prices, but very profitable margins for a very, very long time. Again, when you get something like a Patriot, and look, I just recommended another company to the paid service this past month, I think that one's going to have, on a lesser scale, a similar run if they have some luck with the drill. Look, they have samples, they have lithium spodumene bearing pegmatites, there's a lot to like there. I won't give it all away some of the behind the scenes things because that's for paying subscribers, but a lot of ways to make money in this space. You don't have to be trapped by the major indices, y'all. Get in there and do your due diligence and reach out if we can help.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, that was a world class intercept there. Five percent lithium is incredible and it's drawing comparisons now to Greenbushes and some of these other major lithium miners. Of course, Pilbara, which you mentioned the non-executive chairman, that's where he came from. But even bigger than that, we have to start thinking about not lithium miners but the major international miners of the world, right? The Rio Tintos (NYSE: RIO), the BHPs (NYSE: BHP), because they're cashed up and not making a secret of the fact that they're out looking for lithium projects because of what you just said about the lithium price.

It's going to be long term sustained higher and that provides for good margins for the right projects. If you could get a tier one project like Corvette is shaping up to be, then it's going to be really good as this industrial/base/battery metal bull market continues to play out. I guess that's it on Patriot for me. 

Commodity Supercycle Update

You mentioned commodity supercycle. It's interesting we talked a little bit about it last week. There's a sharp divergence within the CRB itself, within the components of the CRB, where the things you need, which you mentioned the coppers, the lithiums, for example.

Gerardo Del Real: Uranium.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, exactly, are holding up and going higher while some of the other commodities that aren't doing as well, specifically the energy complex. I was looking at a chart of natural gas, it was $10 last fall, the Henry Hub Spot price. It's down below $4 and it's been just what? Four months or so. You've really got to do your diligence and know these commodity prices. I feel like a broken record sometimes, but you were reminding me earlier that people don't look at this all the time or there's people that are just coming into the story. This gold bull market, and we mentioned this recently as well, the stocks are only now starting to catch up. It's really gone under the radar, the move from $1,600 to $1,700 gold to $1,900 in a hurry, and gold needs to push through $1920 to go higher and it's banged on that door a couple of times and see where it closed today.

Gerardo Del Real: $1933.

Nick Hodge: It wants to go through that level, right? Exactly. Yeah, I think things are going to get fun here and they are getting fun. It's nice to look at your account and see it leap up by tens of thousands of dollars a day when the junior equities are going up. That hasn't happened in a bit especially because gold was soft last year, uranium peaked out early in the year and sold off for the balance of 2022, but getting very exciting here again and lots to talk about on the uranium front, so maybe we'll just have a whole section on that here in a second.

Gerardo Del Real: No, listen, let's get right into it. I think you're spot on gold. I think gold breaking through $1920 convincingly and closing there, by the way. It's Thursday, January the 19th, closing above that $1920 level at $1933 after that jobs report. I think that looks healthy and ready to maybe make a run towards that $1984 level. If it breaks through that, we're off to the races, and I think we're off to new all-time highs in 2023. Certain things have to happen. Things don't go straight up. Patriot's a great example of that. You could pick any stock, nothing goes straight up, right? We're going to have blips and we're going to have pullbacks, but the gold market looks as healthy as it's looked in quite some time. Same can be said for copper. We talked about it last week. Again, I sound like a broken record as well, but some of the copper names are starting to recover. The Kutcho Coppers (TSX-V: KC)(OTC: KCCFF) have gone from 17-cents to kissing the 30-cent level. A couple of other names I've seen start to recover, but it's still not happening across the board.

Yes, I have a ton of green in my account, but it's still not every company and it's still not a lot of the companies that already have established resources, but aren't actually providing shareholders or speculators any significant catalyst to get into the stock. It's great to have a deposit that's got tonnage and scale and grade, but if you're not doing anything with it, people forget, people get bored. They have the attention span of what most of us have. There's 3,000, 4,000 companies vying for our attention. People need to get out there and tell their story. Companies need to get out there and provide catalysts for their shareholders. It's not a coincidence to me that the companies that are starting to tick up in the uranium space, in the copper space, in the gold space are the ones that are front and center getting their story out there and really letting people know what the value proposition is when there is a value proposition, and that's a whole nother conversation.

Nick Hodge: There's thousands and thousands of companies. Look, I printed out the sheets of the exhibitors for the VRIC that starts next weekend. That's just at one conference, right? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? I went through and put some red check marks next to the companies that I wanted to go visit, companies either that I own and want an update on, or companies that I've looked at the slide deck a couple of times and want to know more about. I've seen some news releases that piqued my interest and I want to go actually meet the people that are behind it. There's a lot of diligence to be done. It's still very early in the cycle.

There's a lot to like in some of these companies, but like you said, they've got to be doing the work and they've got to be telling people about it. Me over here, not kicking rocks, but kicking tabs in my browser, basically, watching all these interviews, looking at the tweets from the space, from people who do due diligence. Not everybody has the time to do that. That's obviously what you and I do is shift through all the stuff to try to find the good picks. There's a lot of work to do so I'm excited to head up to this conference in a couple of weeks and meet some new companies because I think it's time to start building out the portfolio a little bit.

Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. Couldn't agree with you more. Nick will be there for sure. Stop and say hi. I am making every effort to attend at least for a day and hope to be there. Also, if I am able to make it and you see me up there, drop a line, send me an email, or just say hello if you catch me in person. Love chatting with people at the conferences and getting out there. A lot of work to do for 2023. I'm excited for it. How tight is too tight, Nick?

Nick Hodge: It depends what you're talking about.

Is the Fed Overtightening?

Gerardo Del Real: The Fed seems hell bent. I'm continuing to tighten, and at some point, somebody had asked the question so I figured let it be me. How tight is too tight, right?

Nick Hodge: They're going to continue to hike. It's not even a question. I've said this a million times as well. They're going to hike by smaller amounts from 75 basis points to the most recent 50 basis points to I think there's over a 95% probability the market is pricing in of a 25 basis point or quarter point hike at the next meeting, which concludes on February 1st. That's not a pivot. Hiking is still hiking. It's just hiking by less. They're going to do it until something breaks, probably until several things break. What they want to break is obviously this inflation, the rising prices, the liquidity in the economy that allowed dollars to chase assets and inflate those prices higher.

That's happening, but it's nowhere near a level that they want. You've come down on the CPI from just over 9% to 6.5%, but there's lots of things out there that are still super expensive. There's been a million tweets and memes in the past week about egg prices. I’m the aristocrat guy who has his own chickens. There's a meme going around about how you’re super rich if you have your own chickens. My wife found 14 out in the coop the other day, so if you need some eggs, I'll sell them to the highest bidder.

Gerardo Del Real: Balling. That's a flex, y'all. I know a flex when I hear one. A little subtle one. But that was a flex.

Nick Hodge: Lots of things are still very expensive. We've talked about this too. It hasn't cascaded to the employment yet, which is the other thing. That's the Fed's dual mandate, inflation and employment. They've still got strong employment, so they think they still have room to hike and they are going to continue to hike. How tight is too tight? I don't know. I'll let you know when something breaks.

Gerardo Del Real: Something is going to break. Something always breaks. I was watching, and I know you were watching as well because I heard you say it somewhere, the Bernie Madoff documentary on Netflix, which is excellent. It was just a reminder that something always breaks and it's always for a different reason. The US just hit its debt ceiling limit, and it's not even really news. It's like nobody freaks out about this stuff anymore. It's just like, "All right, they'll figure it out. They'll run the printer." It's a bizarro world out there, folks. I made a note and it was fascinating to me because I know everyone tends to live in the immediate moment, especially with social media. And so I looked at used car prices, which everybody says aren't collapsing. If you look at a one-year chart, sure they're coming down, but-

Nick Hodge: Month over month they're coming down. Yeah.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely, but they're still 43% higher than they were in December of 2019, Nick. Think about that. Again, be absolutely clear, everyone. It's Jerome and his buddies that caused this inflation. We're not going to change the narrative and say they're fighting inflation because it just got out of control and nobody could see it coming. All you have to do is go back three or four years where they were begging for inflation. Begging for it. The mandate they said was 2%, but if it overshot to three or four, they said, "Not a problem. We know we can reign that in." Of course, they can't reign it in. It's not the way things work. I think you're right. I think something's going to break, and I think the market's going to remind them who's in charge here in a little bit. It tends to come from the bond market often. It tends to come from credit default swaps on corporate junk bonds. That's the most vulnerable space. We'll see. Whatever it is, it's not going to be a crack. It's going to be a break.

Nick Hodge: Yeah. Well, things are cracking. The consumer is cracking. Look at the mortgage payments. I was reading something the other day that says the average household now with the mortgage rates the way they are, a mortgage payment on an average house is taking up over 40% of their monthly income. The consumer is definitely strapped. The other thing that you're starting to hear murmurs of is commercial real estate. You've seen some of these large funds, Blackstone and others start limiting withdrawals just like the crypto funds were limiting withdrawals. And speaking of Madoff, not that these commercial real estate funds are Ponzi schemes, but they certainly don't like when people are ringing them up asking for redemptions.

You've seen their willingness to turn those off. So between the consumer and some companies not being able to afford rent and mortgage payments, coupled with the higher interest rates that these companies have to borrow and purchase properties at, you can see the writing on the wall there. Property prices are still soft. Yeah, that's one of the underlying things that's going to continue to cause things to break.

Gerardo Del Real: Meanwhile, every day, Joe and Mary can't find eggs, can't afford a nice proper protein-rich meal from meat, can't keep up with the car payments, can't keep up with the mortgage payments, can't find medicine if you get sick. I'm still at the tail end of... I don't take medicine anyhow, but if I wanted some, it was going to be really tough to find whatever it was I had, whether it was COVID or respiratory infection.

Nick Hodge: The shelves were bare. Over the counter and from behind the counter. One of my kids was prescribed some antibiotics. We might have talked about this a couple of weeks ago. The first ones that they got prescribed, the pharmacy simply didn't have, so the doctor had to write a script for a different type of antibiotic, and the pharmacist told me that we got the last one in the store and they weren't expecting more for a couple of weeks. And so definitely, a shortage of antibiotics. Then over the counter, good luck trying to find children's Motrin or Tylenol or children's cold medicine. When we had to buy some in Maryland when we were there for the holiday and I walked into Walgreens, the shelves were bare, man. There was one brand available and otherwise just holes in the shelf where the cold medicine was supposed to be. If you did want that one or two brands that they had left on the shelf, it was $15 for a bottle of cold medicine, and so yeah, symptoms all around for sure.

Noise: Trump, Twitter, and Gas Stoves

Gerardo Del Real: Symptoms everywhere. The Trumpster’s coming back to Twitter is a rumor. That's what Elon said. I just think it's funny, right? No dog in the fight here. Those two need each other. I think Elon goes, "Look at all that advertising revenue that I can generate from just letting Trump come back on," and I think Trump's like, "Well, I tried all the B level social media sites. I tried running my own. I tried A, I tried B, I tried C, Fox turned on me. All these groups are turning on me. I need to get back out there," and so they've made peace, and apparently the Trumpsters are coming back to Twitter. That ought to be interesting. Any thoughts on that, Nick?

Nick Hodge: My thoughts would be that there's a lot of noise out there. Not that Trump coming back to Twitter is noise. The noise is this. "Oh, Elon Musk is taking over Twitter and I'm going to leave," whether you are a conservative or liberal. The conservatives were all going to Truth Social and the liberals were all going to some other one, which I've already forgotten the name of. Why have I already forgotten the name? One, because I probably didn't take the time to memorize it in the first place.

Gerardo Del Real: Probably because we don't give a fuck.

Nick Hodge: Right. Two, because I knew that everybody was not leaving Twitter. They're going to be back there eventually. Twitter is the platform. Yeah, that would be my comment. What were we talking about last week that was the noise? Oh, the House was going to ban the income tax, right? Yeah, okay. I'm not reading that story because that’s not going to happen. 

Gerardo Del Real: The gas stoves. Don't forget the gas stoves. They're coming for your gas stove, Nick.

Nick Hodge: We're not talking about that really much anymore either. Yeah, these stories that it's like they're not banning gas stoves. How many people cook with gas or propane or whatever? Where the fuck are they going to go? What about rural homes that aren't electrified? Whatever it is, man, it's just some of that nonsensical stuff you have to tune out. It will be interesting. I did think he provided some levity on the platform with some of his tweets and the all caps, and just the way he communicates, I think, is entertaining. Plus we're gearing up here for a new election cycle, I would imagine. I love the dog and pony show that comes along with that.

Greta, Staged Climate Controversies, and Nuclear Energy

Gerardo Del Real: Grab the popcorn, folks. Speaking of shows, Greta was arrested.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, this is going to be a whole segment and we'll do the nuclear thing in conjunction with it.

Gerardo Del Real: That was me throwing it up to you, Nick.

Nick Hodge: I appreciate that.

Gerardo Del Real: Bring it home.

Nick Hodge: She was arrested in Germany. There was a group of people protesting a coal mine which, "Well, you should have turned on the nukes," would be the first thing I said, and you wouldn't be relying on this coal so much anyway.

Gerardo Del Real: He means reactors, everyone. Not weapons.

Nick Hodge: Right. Yes, the reactors. If you look at the carbon intensity of the electricity producing assets in Germany, they're not making progress. It's getting worse, the level of carbon per megawatt hour of electricity generated in Germany, because they elected not to fire up the nukes. Anyway, the big story, either earlier this week or late last week, was that Greta was among those who were protesting this new, not new coal mine, I think it was an expansion of a coal mine. Greta gets arrested. She's so passionate about her cause that she's willing to lay herself down and be toted out by the police. All the photos and videos were of her being carried by the police. One police had one arm, other cop had the other arm, and she was being hauled off of the site and then-

Gerardo Del Real: She was struggling and she was being roughed up, and she was like, "Oh, get off me, I’m Greta."

Nick Hodge: This is more of the noise, right? It happens with Greta, it happens with politicians, with the income tax votes that I was just talking about, or the speaker of the house stuff a few weeks ago, even the debt ceiling posturing and stuff like that. Anyway, then videos start to come out of her being all chummy with the cops before this what I'm viewing now as a staged incident. There's lots of photographers standing around and Greta is standing not being towed out by the cops, has a smile on her face, and is seemingly cordial with these people. Then after that, the photo opportunity ensues where they're carrying her out. 100% staged in my mind. That speaks more broadly to the whole climate argument where climate change, fighting climate change, reducing carbon, not argument, but just sort of sector or idea. I'm all for it cleaning up the environment.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely.

Nick Hodge: I'm an outdoorsman.

Gerardo Del Real: I love fresh air.

Nick Hodge: Exactly right. That's one of the reasons that we moved out west. I'm also in favor of truth and not staging things, and not being disingenuous, and calling a spade a spade. There was another video that was circling around this week of this British guy giving a speech about climate change and how all these poor countries in Asia and Latin America, they're not going to let you cap their way of life or cap their upward mobility just so you can feel good about reducing emissions. It was a very good speech, I don't know, four or five minutes long. It made some cogent points. At the same time, you can't in the case of Greta, be antinuclear, anti-mining, and meet your climate goals.

Gerardo Del Real: Can't have the ying without the yang, my friend, as the great poet, Pusha T says.

Nick Hodge: That's exactly right. Look at  renewables. All that stuff still takes mining, which we know. This has been one of our shticks or megatrends for the past couple of years. You need the rare earths and the steel and whatever, the copper, to make all those things, polysilicon and silver. Then for the batteries, we know all of that as well. You can't be anti-mining and pro renewable energy and electric vehicles because you can't have one without the other. To me, it really spoke to nuclear, specifically in the case of Germany, because they literally opted not to turn all their nuclear reactors on and to instead burn more coal, which is just completely nonsensical. The bright side of that is where I wanted to get to is people are finally saying, "That doesn't make any fucking sense." You got to start doing stuff that makes sense, right? Davos was this week, and all the rich people and the prostitutes flocked to Switzerland.

Gerardo Del Real: They had some heavy ass security.

Nick Hodge: Yeah. Anyway, there were actually articles about the number of prostitutes that go there while all the Davos men and women are in.

Gerardo Del Real: They said the going rate was $2,500.

Nick Hodge: Oh, wow. Look at that. That's expensive.

Gerardo Del Real: Twitter. I don't know.

Nick Hodge: Anyway, Oliver Stone had a film there, which I guess debuted last year. I don't know how I missed it at the Venice Film Festival, but it had a packed house for this film in Davos, so much so that people were sitting on the floor, I read. The film is about nuclear, and why you need nuclear now, and how it's the best fight to decarbonize the energy grid. Then I saw an article in Foreign Affairs magazine this week about exactly that as well, why we need more nukes now. The tide is changing on nuclear, I guess, which is not something new. It's something that's been ongoing, but it really feels like it's reaching a crescendo now where people are saying nuclear is safe, we realize that it's safe. And that's just one of the facets of the nuclear sector that is going to keep it in a bull market going forward. Anyway, I'm blowing a lot of hot air out myself now, but I just thought that this staged incident of getting arrested outside of coal mine was a great microcosm or allegory of a lot of the climate change and renewable energy activists that you see out there. I think I'm going to get paid, very much so on the uranium side.

Gerardo Del Real: That's a fact. I have to say, in the 14, 15 years that I've been speculating in the resource space, I've never seen so many bull markets simultaneously just holding hands next to each other and such value in the space that isn't yet being recognized. It's literally like shooting fish in a barrel. Again, folks, before someone writes in, that doesn't mean we're going to get them all right. It sure in the heck does not mean I'm going to get them all right. But it means if I get more right than wrong, the ones I'm going to get right, I'm going to get very, very right. That makes all the difference when you're constructing a portfolio. Everybody's risk tolerance is different, everybody's needs are different, everybody's timeline is different, so I would ask all of you to take some responsibility for your own investing decisions and define those for yourself. But I can tell you this, there's a lot of phenomenal ideas that I know if I went to bed and woke up three years from now, I'd probably wake up with a smile on my face, and a big one at that.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, sure. I'll give you a free one because we've already taken profits of it in the letter. It's enCore Energy (NYSE: EU)(TSX-V: EU). This is one that I came into a long time ago. They bought a company that I helped finance that did really well. And then rode it even higher for another year after enCore Energy bought Azarga and had readers take profits recently.

Gerardo Del Real: We helped finance Azarga too, hey.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, there you go. That stock is looking good again. They got an NYSE listing approval the other week, and that's the reason I bring it up. By the time this podcast is out, Monday the 23rd, enCore Energy is going to be an NYSE listed company, and there's not a lot of pure play uranium companies listed on the big board in the United States. You've got UEC (NYSE: UEC), which is obviously a great speculation, Energy Fuels (NYSE: UUUU), which we've talked about before, and Cameco (NYSE: CCJ), which isn't a pure play uranium producer now because they've gotten into the reactor side of things and so-

Gerardo Del Real: They hedge their contracts as well.

Nick Hodge: Sprott had a note out last week about UEC and how it's becoming more of a go-to name just for that exact reason. Anyway, lots of things to like in the uranium space, and lots of companies to check out and do due diligence on.

Gerardo Del Real: It's money to be made out there, folks.

Nick Hodge: Denison (NYSE: DNN), I should add, sorry. 

Gerardo Del Real: Denison as well. Absolutely, and I have a few... I still own enCore in the portfolio, so I won't say too much there, but there just simply is a lot of money to be made. It doesn't mean, again, that it's going to go straight up, but just position and do your due diligence and bet on your commodity horse and bet on however many companies it is. I like to keep my personal investments to less than 10 companies, but writing a paid letter or writing a trading service or writing a private placement letter, subscribers want different ideas, so I do feel a responsibility to provide ideas that I think are good ideas and have the potential for, even though they're all higher risk, a higher reward.

Long-winded way of saying there's a lot of resources out there. If you don't like myself, if you don't like Mr. Nick Hodge's work or thoughts or opinions, the Brent Cooks and Joe Mazumdars of the world are reputable, they're knowledgeable, good group of guys. I would absolutely check them out. There's lots of people in the space that do a really good job bringing ideas to the table. It's up to you to hash those out, and again, take accountability for your profits or losses because they're going to be yours ultimately. It's an exciting time, Nick. I'm excited for 2023. I'm really, really looking forward to it, and I'll leave it there. I'll leave it there. I think that's more than enough for a week here.

Nick Hodge: Sure.

Gerardo Del Real: Do you got anything else? Anything you want to get off your chest?

Nick Hodge: Oh, I don't believe there is. No, we talked about VRIC, we talked about Greta. No, I don't think I have anything.

Crypto: Breakout or Bear Market Bounce?

Gerardo Del Real: Let me ask you about crypto real quick before I let you go. I mentioned up top that we would talk briefly on whether or not this is a dead cat bounce. It's interesting to me that it's rallying in the face of the broader indices going the other direction because the correlation has been so one-to-one almost, right? Again, I'm not the crypto guy at all. That's Chris Curl's job. He did a phenomenal job. You and him did a phenomenal job this week on the call in for his service that he runs, but I'm starting to see a little bit of a divergence. Any idea why? Do you think it's a head fake? Do you think it's sustainable?

Nick Hodge: Let me tell you what Tucker Carlson said first, which I had a good chuckle at. I don't know if you happened to see it. Do you remember the other week when all the flights were grounded because there was whatever.

Gerardo Del Real: Computer glitch.

Nick Hodge: Yeah, with the FAA computer system. I saw Tucker Carlson had a segment talking about how it was hijacked or it was hacked, and that allegedly or potentially, the hackers requested their ransom in Bitcoin, and that the rally in Bitcoin was due to the government having to buy such a large amount of Bitcoin to pay off the ransom people. The fact of the matter is it was a short squeeze. They got squeezed a couple of times, had to come in and cover, and then the smaller accounts got really excited.

In the crypto world, there's like shrimps and crabs and whales, and shrimps own less than a Bitcoin, crabs own one to 10 Bitcoin, and then whales are whales, but it was the shrimps and the crabs who were doing the buying so they got really excited that it had come off of its lows, and we're chasing it up to $21,000. If you follow Keith McCullough, which I obviously do, he puts out the risk ranges. The bottom end of that range has fallen out. It was a tighter range, sort of $16k to 18k, and then $16k to $21k, and now the low end has a $14-handle on it.

Gerardo Del Real: Not so tight anymore.

Nick Hodge: The spread on that range is $14,900 to $21,000 because as volatility goes up the width of the range spans. To answer your question directly, I believe it's a bear market bounce. I think it turns around and goes back the other way as that volatility that we talked about at the top of the hour ticks up in the markets as these earnings continue to come out, and as gold shows itself to be the true inflation and recession hedge. That's just how I see it. I'm on both sides. I am long term Bitcoin in a safe, as we've talked about. And I'm also currently short Bitcoin equities, for example. But I'm all over the place because I also told you I was buying-

Gerardo Del Real: I was going to ask.

Nick Hodge: ... a company that you and I were involved with a couple of years ago that has a data facility in Europe that is partially leased out to crypto miners and was doing a little bit of self mining, but it had fallen all the way down to a penny. If you watch these equities, you know when Bitcoin goes up, like it just did at $21,000, the smaller equities start catching a bid. I put an order in for tens of thousands of shares and a penny, and I didn't get all the way filled, but I got partially filled. Those shares went to three and a half cents the other day. A penny to three and a half cents is good work if you can get it in a week or so. Did you get all that? I'm long and short Bitcoin. Long-term bullish, short-term bearish.

Gerardo Del Real: Sometimes, it goes that way, everybody. Sometimes, it goes that way. Listen, still loving the comments from all of you. Go to dailyprofitcycle.com/subscribe to get all the updates and market commentary directly in your inbox is what I'm supposed to tell you. Shout out to Tim and Megan. That's all I got this week. Be kind to each other. Have a great week, everyone. Do some due diligence. There's a lot of money to be made in this cycle. Figure out who you want to make it with, figure out which commodity you want to make it on, and get to work because it's not going to get any easier for the average everyday Joe and Mary out there, unfortunately. The politicians on all sides are working overtime to make sure that that is not the case, so turn that into a profitable situation for you out there, everyone. Nick, you want to send us off?

Nick Hodge: Pro-marriage tip. Valentine's Day is coming up. Don't forget about it.

Gerardo Del Real: Take care, y'all. Have a good one.

Nick Hodge: See you.