Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
May 2, 2022
We are now entering bear market territory for the entire stock market. Even the havens, like gold, sold off into the end of April and into May. We talk about how we prepared our portfolios for the carnage we're now seeing, and highlight where we see value. That includes a uranium market update. Why Madison Cawthorn's days are numbered. Plus: A broader media discussion in light of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. And a reminder that most traders have never traded the type of market we're seeing now. It's all in episode 167 of Bizarro World.
5:10 Gold Retraces, Volatility & Treasury Yields Rise, Stocks Approach Bear Market
14:32 Uranium Market Update
20:08 Madison Cawthorn's 'Loaded Gun'
27:49 Of Naiveté and Contrarianism
33:07 Elon Musk, Twitter, and Broader Media Discussion
37:54 Staying Ahead of the Herd
Gerardo Del Real: Markets down. Patriot Battery Metals isn't down. Yields, also not down. They popped back up. Nevada Sunrise Gold might become Nevada's Sunrise Lithium soon. Elon's going Elon. Gold's doing what gold does. A lot to get to. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This is therapy session, otherwise known as Bizarro World number 167. Mr. Hodge, how are you today? It's been a week for me as you know, but I'm happy to be back at it. I've been traveling, got in early this morning. It's good to be back in the therapy session seat. How goes it for you, sir?
Nick Hodge: It's been a busy week here as well. Lots of market gyrations. Volatility is up, growth is slowing. We'll talk about all that. Battery Metals ripping as you mentioned. Specifically, some that you've been talking about, including Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET), which I'll congratulate you on right off the top. We've mentioned that multiple times over the past couple of weeks, it's up. If I'm not mistaken, I did math earlier, over 1300% from where you got private investors in at 16 cents. So, that was just last year and that's good work if you can get it. So, well done on you.
Gerardo Del Real: We get some right, we get some wrong, but man, you get a 1,300%, 1400% move with a full warrant by the way. That forgives a lot of sins of mistaken picks of the past. Right? So, if you can pull one of those off every few quarters, it makes the rest look really, really good. So, a lot of work still to do. A lot of year left. You know how I feel about a pick that I think is going to have the same kind of second half of the year going into 2023. And I know that that's a fluid situation and you may have something in the offering queue here in the next week or two. So, we'll save that for the next week or two.
But before we talk markets, which were down another 900 points today.... before we talk yields, with the 10-year flirting with the 3% level again... I have to congratulate you, Nick. We talked about Mr. Dines here in the last week, and how he was a giant in our industry... And how he was a lot of newsletter writers' favorite newsletter writer as well as somebody that revolutionized the newsletter industry. A true pioneer, a visionary, someone that did things in the old words of Frank Sinatra, definitely did it his way. And I think you have an announcement that I want to let you roll out, but congratulations are in order to you. You want to share the good news?
Nick Hodge: Yeah. I appreciate that, Gerardo. We mentioned Mr. Dines last week. I told you I had the good fortune and honor of helping him grow his readership several years ago, and we had stayed in touch since then. And over the past week, I learned that apparently, he and his office have wanted me and have asked me to take over the two letters in some respect. Let me clarify. I'm not going to be writing The Dines Letter or The Interim Bulletin, but I will be providing service to those people who subscribe to those two letters and hope to do at least half as well as Mr. Dines did over the years with those two respective things: A macro style newsletter positioning, primarily with a little bit of hard money and contrarianism, and then a more alert style service that you get when you need to know things.
So, the letter went out today was the final issue of The Dines Letter was published April 29th. They told readers what's happening. They'll be getting my two letters, Foundational Profits and Family Office Advantage. And like I say, we look forward to welcoming those readers over, hope to provide them a service and am grateful and humbled that he thought of me to do that. And I'm already thinking about how I can go about providing that service because it is, as I wrote in the letter, big flashy shoes to fill. It's a big task to try to take on, but I'm anxious to do it.
Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right into the markets. Let's get right into the markets. Congrats again, I think his readers, I know his readers will be in good hands. I know it's an honor for you. We've talked privately about other responsibility that comes with that honor, but I can't think of a better person to carry that vision forward and provide some good quality research to his long, long, long time readers, present company included.
Gold Retraces, Volatility & Treasury Yields Rise, Stocks Approach Bear Market
Let's get to the markets. Gold tried to get below $1,900 for a day or two. It wasn't happening. $1,900 is the new floor. The ten-year tried to retreat down to the 2.70% level, looked like it was going to go maybe 2.65%-ish. That didn't last very long either. Ten-year treasury yields turned right around and raced to 2.93% the last time I looked today.
Silver had itself a little mini bipolar breakdown. Hey, breakdowns happen, it dipped below $24. And I think last I checked was at $23.50 per ounce. Volatile markets, you've warned and positioned your subscribers and readers very, very well, not just in the resource space, which is my bread and butter and where I feel comfortable, but you've been warning about having better liquidity in a cash reserve for months on end. You front ran this entire move in the Dow, the S& P, and the NASDAQ. And look, the NASDAQ was down 4% today.
I mentioned the Dow tumbling 900 points. It's really amazing to me the disconnect between some of the good fortune we've had with some of the picks that both of us have been lucky enough to benefit from, like Nevada Sunrise Gold (TSX-V: NEV)(OTC: NVSGF), which has tripled from just a couple of weeks ago with the new lithium discovery in Nevada. That still has a tiny market cap. I think it can double or triple from current levels if they continue to prove stuff up. Patriot Batter Metals hit a highe of C$2.55 today. That looks like it's wanting to run to three and then run to C$5.00 if the drill bit delivers. And we know they have lithium spodumene in every single drill hole in the core. We're waiting for assays, we'll see what that means. But I'd rather have it in the core than not have it. And I sure in the heck would rather have it in every single drill hole that they drilled.
Talk to me about the overall indices and gold. And if it's an opportunity and then we'll have a separate conversation about uranium because that's getting sassy to me again. And I like sassy by the way, y'all.
Nick Hodge: Yeah. People are starting to realize. Everyone's got to plan until they get punched in the mouth. And NASDAQ down more than 20% to start the year is getting punched in the mouth for a lot of people who run money and advise on other people' money. So, thank you. Yeah, we sold tech stocks in December. We got defensive. We went into other countries. We went into gold. We've been in staples, which continued to hit highs by the way. Tobacco stocks like Altria (NYSE: MO), actually put in a 52 week high last week. That's better than 20% down to start the year. And they're also yielding over 6%. So, there's ways to navigate this on the macro front by not owning what's going down and owning what's going up. That sounds easy enough. Right?
You also mentioned the cash. I'm a third in cash on the retirement/IRA side of things. And that's not been a bad place to be. We talked about the strength of the dollar last week, over a 00 running to 102. And in fact, leapt to 104 this week on the DXY index. So, just by nature of A) being in cash, I've avoided owning things that are going down. And the value of that cash is also strengthened by nature of the strengthening of the dollar. It could get worse, which I've said a couple of times. The earnings growth is slowing for Q1. Last week I probably told you that it was looking like it was going to be at 6.6% the earnings growth for the S& P. And that was with 20% of the companies reporting. Now, half the companies have reported earnings growth is now negative 1.5%, being drug down primarily by the financials and consumer discretionary, even though earnings for real estate and energy are up double digits.
Overall earnings growth for the S&P is now negative. And again, second quarter could be worse.
Same with GDP. You just saw that the economy was contracting. People acted shocked, blamed it on supply chain and Russia. I've been saying that GDP was going to contract for a couple of months now and could contract even in further in Q2. So, really you're on the precipice of a full on bear market. You're kind of there in the NASDAQ. S&P is knocking on the door a couple more down days like this. The S&P was down around 3.5% at one point today. You'll be in bear market territory real quick.
The bond call has been wrong so far. Have gotten really my ass handed to me across durations, extended and shorter term as well. But the 10-year doesn't want to break all the way out, like hasn't wanted to go above 3%. And in fact, the number you mentioned earlier was a lower high not to where it was a couple of weeks ago. Same thing with oil, which are both important barometers. Those things not wanting to break out are telling you that growth doesn't want to break out either. So, it's continued defensive positioning. We said before, if it was by the dip on the NASDAQ last year, and now the NASDAQ is down 20% for the year... Now it's by the dip on the alternative assets of primarily gold. Gold is showing phenomenal opportunity, not just in the metal itself, but in the miners.
And one thing I wanted to mention was valuations, because I look at valuations and some are just crazy. The numbers they're really mind blowing. Like you look at Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) losing $80 billion of market cap in six months and you start to just let that roll around in your mind like what are things really worth? And then you look at some like gold producing stocks, for example, like mid-tiers. I saw Coeur (NYSE: CDE) mining the other day is down below a billion dollar market cap for the first time since the pandemic crash of March 2020. And at a sub billion dollar mark market cap. This mid-tier producer has a smaller market cap than some exploration stocks that don't even have a resource yet.
All that to say there's opportunities by playing the deeper game in the gold space by using this pullback where everything is down to look what has true value on a relative basis, gold stocks to gold stocks. Because there's some really cheap stuff out there, and I don't think it's going to remain that way forever, even if you get a little bit more downside or gold bounces along $1900 for a little bit because with the VIX where it is, it's tough for stocks to go up anyway. So, if you get that to cool off a little bit, I think you'll see that gold stocks will go back up.
Gerardo Del Real: No, look, and I blinked the last hour and silver went from $23.50 to $22.75. So, silver is below the $23 level. You mentioned oil sitting there at $104, I'm looking at the dollar index, it flirted with the 104 level. It's at 103.21. And gold of course closed right near that $1,900 level at $1,897. You mentioned opportunities in the gold space. Look, I've had subscribers right in and ask about companies like Perpetua Resources (TSX: PPTA)(NASDAQ: PPTA), formerly Midas gold, of course. And I'm going to just call it Midas Gold because I don't like the new name. But that still is one of the best undeveloped gold deposits in all of North America withsome of the best exploration upside of any project that I know of. And here it is trading at a fraction of where I believe it should be trading, even though it's in the boring permitting phase of its cycle.
If you look at that Lassonde Curve and that famous chart that Brett Cook always shows at conferences and that he has on the Exploration Insight newsletter that Joe Mazumdar now owns and writes and manages, it's very simple. Gold refuses to break out. It also refuses to break down. So, gold's kind of boring right now though it's holding up beautifully against the backdrop of a higher dollar, a much higher dollar. And Perpetua's-
Nick Hodge: And higher rates.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, and higher rates. And look, we have companies like Midas Gold, not marketing, not telling the story, just not wanting to mess up the permitting process. And I understand, look, you want to be quiet. You have overall bipartisan support. It looks like you're going to get your permit. The last thing you want is to do an interview or to see an article written that ruffles feathers locally, or ruffles feathers within the administration. So, I completely understand the strategy of go quiet. I do wish it would have foreseen that that's what was going to be the plan and maybe got into another asset, maybe something else in Idaho that could provide some catalysts and news flow.
But if you're a true contrarian and you believe gold is going to break out the way that I do, and you believe that Midas Gold gets its permit, you'd be hard pressed to find better value in a non producer. And then you mentioned Coeur, and we're talking producers, we talked Magna Gold (TSX-V: MGR)(OTC: MGLQF) last week. You'd be hard pressed to find better value for a producing gold stock. So, there's a lot of opportunities out there, which brings me to the uranium space.
Uranium Market Update
Uranium pulled back from the $62 per pound level to the $52 per pound level that it sits at now. And boy, as the pullback in the equities been what pullbacks in uranium equities are. They're pretty violent when they pull back and they're pretty violent when they run hard to the upside. We're in one of those pullbacks. I think Skyharbour Resources (TSX-V: SYH)(OTC: SYHBF) presents deep value. You mentioned it last week, pulled back to the 50 set level. I think that's a phenomenal speculation at current levels.
Labrador Uranium (CSE: LUR) hit a high of C$1.55 when it started trading here recently. I saw it as low as C$0.85 cents earlier today. I think that may be one of the better exploration stories of the second half of this year, which by the way is right around the corner, hence the 'sell in May' crowd front-running it and getting busy in April.
So, if you're a contrarian that doesn't need the liquidity in the next couple of months, or even the next couple of quarters, and you have a cash reserve to deploy speculative capital, my God. You're a hunter. It's like shooting fish in a barrel right now, Nick. It's not hard. You may have to wait a few months to see the fruits of your labor like it took with Patriot Battery Metals. And in the case of Nevada Sunrise Gold, I've been to writing checks since the C$0.03 level right alongside you, Nick, with warrants at C$0.05 cents, broke out today to a high of C$0.22 and a half cents. I think that can be a C$0.50 cent stock here in the next couple of months if they get right back to it and continue drilling and find success. They have an entire valley and it's early days, but so is that market cap. That cap is still very, very minute compared to some of its Nevada lithium peers. Much earlier stage, but man, again, it might have to change its name to Nevada Sunrise Lithium, and maybe spin out the gold or vice versa, spin out the lithium and have a separate vehicle for it. I think that would be ideal given the fact that they also have 20% ownership of the Kinsley Mountain project, which I really like and will see significant drilling in the second half of this year. Nevada Sunrise Gold is starting to look like a phenomenal speculation. It was at C$0.03 cents. It was at C$0.05 cents. It was at C$0.10 cents. But oh, do they love it at C$0.20, and they're going to love it at C$0.40 too because that's the nature of the beast, right?
Nick Hodge: Well, that's a bandwagon or that's a herd running. So, we talk about drinking upstream from the herd or skating to where the puck is. Or you mentioned hunting, the same thing, cutting off an animal working up a drainage or something like that. You got to get ahead of where the markets are going. And we talked about doing that by avoiding the selling and the major exchanges that you're seeing right now. The same thing with getting ahead of the battery metals and precious metal stocks that are going to be the recipients of cash that's looking for a haven after it's gotten beaten up like it has.
With uranium specifically, it's a much smaller market than gold. So, I'd mentioned volatility again and you did as well, and that the swings can be higher to the upside and downside. Skyharbour got below where I thought it would go in a pullback. Encore Energy (TSX-V: EU)(OTC: ENCUF) hasn't got quite there yet, thank goodness since I'm long. But if it does go down to the C$1.20 level, I think it's got incredible value. There's actually a little gap down there on the chart. It wouldn't surprise me that did get all the way down there.
But those are buying opportunities for the long term. So, what did I want to mention with uranium? There was the Sprott bought the equity ETF, the URNM, which was run by North Shore, which is also related to Mike Alkin's Sachem Cove. So, there's lots of ways to play it. I mean, scroll through the equities in that. But what he was saying is that he came from the hedge fund world. I was listening to this broad podcast with the North Shore guy, and he was saying that from a deep value, people-are-going-to-come-running perspective with the chance to make many multiples... uranium is where it's at. But he sort of prefaced that with the volatility as I just did, saying that because it's not only smaller, but the media, this is what I wanted to say, the media is trained to view it with that negative eye. Anything that happens in the uranium space gets magnified. So, he mentioned if there's an earthquake off the coast of Japan, it's automatically like-
Gerardo Del Real: Fukushima 2.0.
Nick Hodge: Right. It's always like the worst case is assumed. And even like I saw there was a new uranium mine that made a permitting advancement in Arizona. And it's like 'government advances uranium mine in near sensitive area' or whatever it is.
Gerardo Del Real: A sensitive area.
Nick Hodge: And what's "near"? So, it's anyway, it combats or it's up against that headwind. But nonetheless, those are the opportunities that allow it to even surpass the gains in gold stocks when that volatility goes to the upside in uranium. And that's coming for a litany of reasons that can continue to unfold.
Madison Cawthorn's 'Loaded Gun'
Gerardo Del Real: I'm sorry, this is if you got the kids and you don't want the sexual and you innuendo part of the podcast, everyone, this is the part where you should turn it off. Nick said sensitive area, and I have a childish sense of humor. So, the first person I thought of when you said sensitive area was Madison Cawthorn. This little guy is the gift that keeps on giving. I had a long week everybody. I had some very close family members that passed away. My mother-in-law passed and she's resting and we're at peace with it, but it was a tough week. We talked about Mr. Dines passing and him being a mentor to our mentor. My dad lost a sister, I lost an aunt. It was a busy week on that end of it.
But I got to say Mr. Cawthorn delivered some good laughs in the midst of all of that toughness there. And man, I mean, this kid, we talked about him a couple of weeks ago. He's a young Republican freshman who-
Nick Hodge: He is a kid. Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: He's a kid. He's a kid and he-
Nick Hodge: 26 or something. Sorry.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's roughly 26 years old. And a few weeks ago he made news because he was giving an interview and he said he was appalled. He was appalled that senior members of the Republican leadership had invited him to orgies and even saw one of them do the old 'don't you know I can see you thing', where people do cocaine in front of you and just pretend like they're taking a sip of coffee. And he said he was appalled at the time.
So, Mr. Cawthorn is finding out what happens when you don't invite your fellow Republicans to the orgies. Because then immediately, boom. By the way, I don't think he's getting hit by his Republican peers because he said something. I think it's the fact that they weren't invited and they feel left out of the sex orgies that they're like, okay, little fucker. We're going to teach you how things are run in Washington DC. So, immediately, days later, a picture leaks and he's got lingerie on, he's got the pretty makeup. No judgments, dress how you like. Do your own thing. But don't pretend to be appalled two weeks before at Republican senior leadership, participating in orgies, and then get caught wearing lingerie in what looks like a really fun party by the way.
This dumb ass then takes the loaded gun to the airport. You try it at home and see if you get to go home, everybody. This is not the first time, this is the second time he gets away with this. So, again, the rules are different for them than they are for us. Because if I took a loaded gun to the airport, or if Nick took a loaded gun to the airport and it wasn't claimed and permitted and done according to the rules, I guarantee you, we don't come home right away. So, he did that. He was then caught driving without a driver's license again. And then now, another picture and video leaks of him and his male staffer. And his male staffer is talking about how he's got this desire for him and Madison saying he's got desire for him and he wants to see him naked under his hands. So, there's a picture and a video where his staffer's groping his crotch.
So, again, no judgements here, but don't pretend to be appalled and make call out your Republican colleagues that aren't as sensitive, because you're going to get hit. And I believe it's his own party that's slowly but surely hanging him out to dry, getting him out of here because he doesn't want to play by the rules. What made me laugh this week is that when that picture leaked of his staffer's hands on Madison's genitals, his defense was, "He's my cousin. You guys didn't investigate that?" So, it turns out-
Nick Hodge: What state is he from?
Gerardo Del Real: Missouri, I think.
Nick Hodge: You got a real purty mouth.
Gerardo Del Real: So, after he said, "Hey, did you guys did investigate? This is my cousin." Sure they did investigate. And what they found out is that it's his third cousin. It's different rules for every party and every family. But I think Madison after two probably quits counting and checking. And I don't know why this was his first defense, but this tells you the mind state and the youth. And we've talked about how traders in the market have never seen this backdrop that we're experiencing. There's a lot of 20-something traders that haven't even lived through a recession, let alone a slow down where the Fed says it's hiking aggressively, and credit is over extended, and interest rates are ballooning.
With Madison, he's a 26 year old kid that was an elected official or still is an elected official, and clearly has very little experience about how politics in Washington works. And you could agree or disagree about what they're doing to the kid, but to me, it seems very calculated, very targeted. And I think eventually this kid resigns. I think they're letting him know, "Hey, we have all the goods, so we're going to roll it out a little bit. How far out do you want us to go before you tap out? And oh, by the way, the next person that's in this post invite us to the orgies." That's my take.
Nick Hodge: Interesting. So, I try not to pay a lot of mind to the political noise. So, I hardly knew who he was when you asked me the last time, except that I knew because I had seen the orgies in the headline. I didn't even know about the lingerie pics and I still don't. That was the first time I heard about those, you telling me. But when I saw him going through the security with the gun the other day, I decided to read about him because he's getting way too much press, sort of like you're mentioning. So, I said let me read about this real quick.
Yeah. It took me 15 minutes to decide that this guy's done. He's not going to last much longer. And I think two things,. One, you're going to see that with a large portion of this class of politicians who aren't going to cut it. And as this turning really turns and needs to be wrapped up and concluded that this wheat and chaff is going to be separated, and he's part of the chaff. So, that's that part of it. And then specifically to him, I didn't even know that he was in a wheelchair until I Googled him. I had no idea.
Gerardo Del Real: And it's North Carolina, not Missouri. I misspoke, everybody. My apologies. I want to make sure I don't throw shade at Missouri because Cubs Cardinals rivalry, the whole thing.
Nick Hodge: He was in a car accident that led him to be in the wheelchair. And he was also slated to go to the Naval academy, which is what he pins a lot of his 'America hardy har har' on. And he says back in the day that the accident is what cut off his plan to go to the Naval academy. Except that he was already declined-
Gerardo Del Real: Except that facts.
Nick Hodge: Except that yeah, he wasn't going to go to the Naval academy before the accident. He had already been not invited. His application was denied before the accident. So, that told me all I needed to know about the gentleman, and how it was going to end up for him. Llingerie and stuff aside, he's not going to last too long because it was built on a lie essentially, and it wasn't going to last.
Of Naiveté and Contrarianism
Gerardo Del Real: And again, because my brain is goofy, so I think sensitive areas, I think Madison Cawthorn and his third cousin. And then we talked about the Fourth Turning and young retail traders that have never seen this macro back drop and how they don't know how to trade it. And I don't think it's a coincidence that retail traders lost over a billion dollars on meme stock options. Now, speaking to someone who as a youth thought he was really smart because I got in on the rare earth boom early. I turned, I don't remember the amount, but it was a lot. It was a little bit that turned into a lot in a really short amount of time. I was trading the rare earth stocks. They eventually, a couple of them, Rare Element Resources is the one that stands out to me, became NYSE-listed. So, there were options on it.
I was convinced gold was going to make new record highs in 2009, 2010-ish. And I decided that I was going to start borrowing money and trading options on margin, not just the stocks, but the options as well. And for three months, Nick, I thought, man, I'm new at this, and I've just made more money than I thought was possible with the amount of money that I started with. And then sure enough, we had that second little mini crash and everything kind of came tumbling down and options expired worthless and I learned a very valuable lesson. Well, I think a lot of retail traders, the ones that just lost a billion dollars on meme stock options, are going to learn or have learned a very valuable lesson. And what's your famous line from the New Orleans Investment Conference that you like to use about Bitcoin traders and gold traders and how they're the soldiers of the...
Nick Hodge: That crypto traders and investors were soldiers in training for the gold army. Yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: I think meme stock option traders are also going to be soldiers for the gold army during the next leg up. I think when they shake off the hit that they just took, hopefully they learned something from it. I would be very surprised if they didn't at least diversify their speculative allocation strategy a tiny bit into the gold space. And as we know with the gold space, all it takes is a little bit. All it takes is a little bit. So, I found that interesting. Anything to add on a billion dollars on meme stock options going to money heaven?
Nick Hodge: Just that you got a taste of it in the precious metal space a little bit with that Wall Street Bets, silver short squeeze deal. And even then, experience paid off. I'm not the oldest guy, but I was around in 2008 and nine and 10 and 11. And when I saw the silver stocks doing what they were doing last spring as a result of the Meme Stock Mania, you can bet I sold them some Mag Silver and had subscribers do the same. And the price when I signaled sell remains, I believe, I have to look at the chart, higher than it's been and is now certainly after the past couple of days. So, experience is needed.
About the options specifically, people were saying it was going to end badly at the time with the GameStops and the AMCs and things. And it was easy to own those stocks when growth isn't doing what growth is doing now. Like last year you had the earnings growth going up and the GDP was being compared to the 2020 lockdown. So, it looked really, really good. And just to bring it back to what we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, now that's the opposite. Earnings growth is and economic growth is contracting, and meme stock short interest stocks certainly don't work in that environment. So, if those people are still in the game, I agree with you, can certainly come into the gold and uranium space as a place to put retail money. And that would be exciting to see. But you got to be careful, I guess is the last point I want to make.
And despite a lot of what you see out there, it's tough to retire on one stock or hit it out of the park with a meme stock. There's a lot you got to do across multiple asset classes and turning $10-, $20-. $30,000 into, I know you're smiling, half a million is wonderful. And doing that multiple times is great. And you and I have had the opportunity to do that, maybe not multiple times. But to see that happen and think we have the opportunity to do that with the market that's setting up here. But for most people, that's not a permanent and sustainable solution. So, whether it's picking speculative lithium and gold stocks, or whether it's avoiding the major turns of the NASDAQ and S&P, there's multiple things you got to do to be a successful investor.
Elon Musk, Twitter, and Broader Media Discussion
Gerardo Del Real: Unless you're Elon Musk. We gotta talk Elon. I mean, I've said it before, he's my favorite billionaire troll. I don't know the man. I don't know him personally. I don't know his business ethics. I don't know his moral compass. I know he's delivered great value to shareholders in all of his companies over many, many years for decades now. And I also know he is fuckin' hilarious on Twitter. So, he bought Twitter (NASDAQ: TWTR). I loved it because there was an analyst that was on just like three days before on CNBC, and he was saying, "the rumors of Elon buying Twitter are just rumors. It's just him getting more free publicity for Tesla to hide what's going to be a horrible Tesla quarter." Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) ends up having a great quarter. The stock ends up shooting up higher. And a day or two later, Elon's basically "funding secured again, I'm buying Twitter." And immediately the tweets. My favorite one was him saying he wanted to buy Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in. And of course-
Nick Hodge: Hire Madison Cawthorn.
Gerardo Del Real: Oh my God. And of course, the delicate flowers immediately. It's beyond me why people on the right and the left get so triggered by this guy. There was something like a mass exodus from the left of people that refused to be on Twitter now that Elon Musk owns it. And I'm saying you're going... Do you realize who else is on Twitter? Are you aware of like a cesspool that Twitter can be? This is what it took to get you out of here. Good riddance. Go.
Nick Hodge: Like all the other boycotts and all the other new social media platforms and we're not going to this store because of X. It's a lot of noise.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. So, look, I think Elon buying Twitter, I think is going to make Twitter funner. I'm looking forward to it. Twitter and LinkedIn are the only platforms I'm on and their business accounts. Although obviously any of you that follow me @RSDigest know that I just put whatever I feel like putting out there in the moment. It doesn't all have to be related to business or the stock market. It's my other version of therapy outside of this Bizarro World podcast. But know look, I think it's going to get better. I think it's going to get more interesting. He had another tweet that was more serious, that said he feels a responsibility to piss off the left and the right equally, and to give them a platform to voice-
Nick Hodge: Good.
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, to voice that anger at him. And if he actually follows through with that, more power to it. You can block anyone. I've never blocked anyone on Twitter. I've been blocked a couple of times, but I've never blocked anyone on Twitter because hey, come, let's have a dialogue in a conversation. I may not respond to you if I think it's beneath me. There's a couple of you out there, one in particular and you know who you are, but I'll see you in person when I see you. Well, I'll just never say your name because you're an attention seeking whore. So, you'll never get a name drop out on me. You're going to have to know exactly that I'm talking to you. Sit there, wonder if it's really you that I'm talking to, and not be able to say anything about it because I'm not going to use your name ever, ever, ever, ever in public unless I see you in person. But other than that, I don't want to block you. Go ahead, put it out there.
Nick Hodge: I got blocked by Brian Stelter at CNN once. I don't really like that guy.
Gerardo Del Real: Congratulations.
Nick Hodge: Thank you. CNN+ just felt miserably. So, I was pretty happy about that.
Gerardo Del Real: Did it ever really get going? I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of CNN. At one time that used to be the one place that I thought, this was a decade or so ago, that I thought I could go and get somewhat balanced views and get a little bit of both. And I thought, okay. And then little by little, like every other media outlet, whether it's on the right or on the left, most of them, it just started really just going downhill. I ended up watching British networks and Al Jazeera for a while because those-
Nick Hodge: BBC or PBS or something.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. You get some good quality work and reporting out of those organizations. And I think, again, speaking of fourth turnings in our institutions and about young Republicans and young Democrats and politicians and law enforcement and all the things that we touch on here, I think that media decay, the moral decay within a lot of the mainstream media, the opinion media, I think it just speaks to why we need such a radical restructuring in so many of our institutions. And I think a little bit at a time. I think Madison's finding out how quickly that can happen. And I think there's going to be more of that for some of the elder statesmen and women in our political arena on both sides of it. And frankly, I'm here for it. I'm here for all of it.
Staying Ahead of the Herd
Nick Hodge: Yeah. And I wanted to, I guess get something off my chest in that respect as well. I see a lot of this "we're at this paradigm shift, things have never been like they are before, like it's make or break time. Things are never going to be the same." And it goes back to that sort of skating to the puck, drinking ahead of the herd. And we've mentioned this before, we wrote for a newsletter for five years whose mantra was all that. And I founded it nearly ten years ago to sort of preach the stuff that people are experiencing right now.
So, if you didn't get the land, if you didn't get the gold, if you didn't position accordingly... I see a lot of crowing about it now from people who are more on the media marketing side of it. So, they're crowing about it for clicks. And it's just like anything else. They weren't crowing about it back then, when it really was time to be preparing. So, don't have a lot of sympathy in that regard. But look forward to continuing to navigating it and coming out of the other side all those things you just mentioned with the institutions. You could sort of repeat for the markets and the monetary system, which is, I think frankly going to be redesigned before our eyes in the coming five or eight years or so.
Nick Hodge: So, yeah, the government is prying. Yeah, the government prints a lot of money. All that stuff is known. Now it's time to, I guess what I'm saying is get past the crying about it and pointing it out and get in there and be a part of it, especially if you've got capital that needs navigating.
Gerardo Del Real: A lot of great places to allocate capital to right now, if you're patient, if you don't need the liquidity right away. Anything else you want to get off your chest, Mr. Hodge? I said the things that were top of mind on my end of it. I think There's some phenomenal opportunities out there. I want to congratulate you again on carrying forward Mr. Dines' vision for free markets and independent research and thought. The uranium space, the gold space, the lithium space, the copper space. Kutcho Copper (TSX-V: KC)(OTC: KCCFF) still dirt cheap. That's a gimme. A lot of places to allocate capital. A lot of good work that's being done now that I think will pay off here in the next three months, six months. Who knows, maybe nine months. But usually when you're buying at such depressed levels, the payoff and the re-rating is so worth it. It's so worthwhile that it's worth being bored for a couple of quarters, and not seeing much to the upside. Anything on your end of it?
Nick Hodge: No. No. We can talk about the climate stuff next week. It sort of ties in to the lithium and uranium. I look forward to welcoming Mr. Dines' readers, and would say that, I guess going back to gold even down at $1,900, it was up today. So, providing that safe haven. But even up four or 5% for the year, it's delivering alpha relative to what's going on out there. So, a boring period for gold is a good place to be, I guess, is what I wanted to remind people of.
Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Well said. That's all we got this week, everybody. Thanks for listening. I am Gerardo Del real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was therapy session, otherwise known as Bizarro World number 167. Go make some memories, go make them off and go make them with people you care about. And let them know it's not a bad way to live, everybody. Say bye for us, Nick.
Nick Hodge: See you, everybody.