Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Nov. 21, 2022
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 our weekly therapy session, investing in Bizarro World, where we talk about the markets, what we're investing in, and a lot of the crazy stuff going on with a lot of the crazies all around us. This week we're going to talk about the Trumpster. The Trumpster's back, baby. We're going to talk about the FTX collapse and the poor founder's effort to prevent another pandemic being thwarted. We're going to talk about lithium myths. We're going to get into all the craziness going on in the political field, midterms, the fallout. A lot to get to. Mr. Hodge, how are you sir? This is episode 195 of our therapy session that we call Investing in Bizarro World.
4:07 FTX Fallout Continues
12:58 Are Precious Metals Bullish Again?
16:56 Top Lithium Stock Lies
32:08 The Return of the Trumpster Fire
Nick Hodge: That's a lot of episodes. I've been busy as always, getting things done, gearing up for the end of the year, gearing up for the Thanksgiving holiday. So just plugging away, looking at the charts, talking to the management teams. You know how it goes.
Gerardo Del Real: I do, I do. Before we get into the markets, right? And they're interesting right now. There's a lot of interesting, fun stuff to get into, but I'll share a personal story. Those of you who listen to the podcast know my mother-in-law passed in April. My father passed in July. So the wife and I have never been to therapy and we thought hey, it would be cool since we're grieving together to just kind of go try this out and just kind of see what it's like, right? I think everybody at birth should just be assigned a therapist and have somebody to work with, but I've never done it. I'm 44 years old, I've never tried it. I'm super receptive and open to it. I think it'll be healthy. So we tried booking a therapist session, and she did it and the wife and her clicked and I'm like, "I'm all in. I don't know what I'll talk about, but sure, I'm in." And so we're going to go to our appointment, and she calls and she's like, "I have Covid guys. I'm sorry. Can we reschedule?" Sure, sure. So we reschedule and then two weeks later we go to have another appointment. She's like, "I'm still at the tail end of it." So I think it's the universe's way of saying this is the best kind of therapy for me, Nick. I'm just going to stick with this.
Nick Hodge: I’ll start charging you $200 an hour.
Gerardo Del Real: What if I really needed it, was on the verge of jumping off the bridge, and my therapist, who I've never actually met, keeps canceling on me? That would be horrible. So anyhow, for anybody that's going through stuff, I encourage you all, talk to a therapist. I don't know if this stuff works, but I can tell you that a lot of people very close to me have tried therapy, have gone through therapy. It's done wonders for them. So yeah, always good to try something different to better yourself, internally and externally, right?
Nick Hodge: I'll tell you that they're super busy. I was reading an article the other day, I think it was actually by Neil Howe who was the Fourth Turning gentleman, and he was talking about the generation behind the millennials, so-called Gen Z, and how people bill them as fragile little teacups. It turns out some of that is bearing out in the research. They are more likely than older generations to say that they're unhappy at work, that they are injured more mentally and physically and basically we're learning that they just can't deal. They just can't even basically, is the saying.
Gerardo Del Real: They just can't even.
Nick Hodge: But a lot of them are seeking therapy, which is good. Like you said, it's good to have somebody to talk to, but it just made me think of that because you were talking about the therapist, that therapists are super busy these days.
Gerardo Del Real: No, it's kind of funny not funny to me. Everybody asks like, "How are you doing with everything?" I'm like physically we're in the best shape of our life, financially it's been one of the best years of our life. Kids are great, killing it in school, doing great. Our parents just died. Other than that, it's been the most amazing, spectacular year, right? Digest publishing's amazing, Resource Stock Digest is booming. Things are great. I'm excited about the markets, which we'll get to here in a second. So yeah, things come up. So anyhow, I figured I'd share that, and let's get right into it. Let's talk the markets.
FTX Fallout Continues
Gerardo Del Real: We have to start with crypto, Nick. I mean, let's get into it. We talked last week with Chris, who was kind enough to come on and speak to the peasants of the crypto space like myself and explain what a wallet is, and how you can have it independent of these exchanges, and how you can prevent risking your hard earned capital to the likes of Mr. Sam Fried. We're going with Fried? Sam Bankman-Fried.
Nick Hodge: That's right.
Gerardo Del Real: But man, this isn't a liquidity crunch. This is not a story about someone that leveraged themselves to the point of no return. This is a straight up scam. This reeks of just straight up scam top to bottom. I don't know if this gentleman makes it to a cell, I don't wish him bad. I suspect that bodies, and I hate to sound morbid, but I suspect bodies will start washing up on beaches near and far.
Nick Hodge: Out of windows like the Russians.
Gerardo Del Real: Or out of windows. I think there's going to be a lot of accidents here in the next little bit. Again, I'm not rooting for any of this, y'all. I'm just saying this isn't a liquidity crisis. This isn't a situation where he just misallocated capital. It's straight up theft, it's straight up fraud. It's a straight up scam. I joked up top about the headline. This was an actual Washington Post headline that said, "The FTX collapse dooms founder's efforts to prevent another pandemic." And I'm sitting there going, in what fairytale world does the Washington Post, which I'm a fan of, my brother works there, he does real beautiful serious journalist pieces, right? But whoever wrote this other piece, what are you smoking? What are you thinking? Thoughts, Nick.
Nick Hodge: A lot of them. I've been following pretty closely. This gentleman, and as we talked about last week, I had Chris write an article about this guy in the weeks before this went down because I had been hearing the sniffs of the rat — that something was awry with this guy. So you mentioned the Post going soft on him. People were up in arms this week about the New York Times article, which was quite soft on him as well. The Occam's razor description, the simplest explanation, is that he was a major donor to the political left. He had donated some $50 million in the past year to Democratic political causes. So they're saying that because of the money that he donated to those spheres of the world that they're letting him off easy.
You mentioned it was straight up theft. We're learning more things every day. We learned recently that something like a million people are going to be affected by this. Creditors and investors, people that had money tied up. It's very far reaching. They still can't get their money out. And it wasn't just as Chris explained, like they were taking money from FTX customer deposits to allocate to Alameda Research.
Gerardo Del Real: No.
Nick Hodge: We're learning now they were buying houses in the Bahamas. Yeah, I mean, money was going to executive lifestyles.
Gerardo Del Real: And were wiring the money directly to them.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, it's crazy, right? And I don't know if you've read about the head of Alameda Research at all. Her name was Caroline Ellison, and who her father was, I'm sure you've read some of this. So her father was Gary Gensler's boss at MIT. Gary Gensler of course is now the head of the SEC, one of the parties who will be responsible for investigating this and holding FTX accountable. So the web deepens, right? Oh, I should mention Ukraine too, right? FTX was one of the arms that was responsible for doling out or administering some of the donations that were being made through Ukraine. And there's speculation now that that was a laundering front, that not all of that money or any of that money made it to where it was supposed to go in the Ukraine and could have found its way back into people's pockets here in the US to whatever, bribe, stave off getting found out, all sorts of stuff.
So it’s very deep. And now you're seeing other crypto entities go under. BlockFi has gone under, and even the other exchange that was going to bail him out and didn't, Binance, people are now even saying don't have your money in any of these exchanges. Do what I've been saying and do what I did, is have it in a hardware wallet, which is a device that's off the line as it were, that you can store somewhere safe, in a safety deposit box or a safe. So I was writing today that it's funny and sad at the same time, right? I mean, the videos that are coming out about the interviews with this Caroline chick and how she basically didn't know what she was talking about, and him talking about his Toyota Corolla and how he didn't need the Lamborghini and he was a vegan and he was going to donate $500 million next year. Good luck pal, right? I mean, your wealth just evaporized, or evaporated.
Gerardo Del Real: Evaporized, it doesn't matter what word you use.
Nick Hodge: Evaporized, evaporated, whatever. It's gone.
Gerardo Del Real: It went to money heaven. You wanted it to go to the moon folks, it's gone. It's out of there. And again, I don't laugh at the people that lost their hard earned money by trusting this guy. This guy is an absolute thief. I don't understand why he's still running around wherever he's running around. Last I heard he was somewhere in the Bahamas or something like that. I don't understand why he's not in a prison cell. I don't understand why Brittney Griner, the WNBA basketball player is in a Russian penal colony sentenced to nine years for cannabis oil in a vape, and this guy's running around getting a tan somewhere texting dumb shit to journalists about how stupid the Democrats are and how they just believed all of his lyings about how he was going to donate and how he was just doing it mostly to play the game and win and court favor. It's a wacky world we live in, Nick.
Nick Hodge: Well, if he did it in Russia it might be a different story.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, again, I think there's a lot of bodies and a lot of accidents that are going to happen soon. I guarantee you there's some Russian exposure there and I don't think all of it's going to be friendly.
Nick Hodge: Yeah, we'll see. Like I said last week, when my wife heard the story she said, "He's either going to kill himself or go to jail, right?"
Gerardo Del Real: Or the third option is...
Nick Hodge: That's right.
Gerardo Del Real: Yep. Mr. Jeff Epstein style, right? It's going to be one of those.
Nick Hodge: He’s going to be suicide?
Gerardo Del Real: He’s going to be suicide. And again, I'm not rooting for any of these things, everyone. I just observe what I see and a little bit of history that I read into. That's kind of how these things tend to end. So we'll see how that goes. Narrative and story aside, is there an opportunity? We talked last week, you said you were hoping or wanting to see the $13,000-$14,000 level in Bitcoin and that you might dip your toes back in to the Bitcoin space there at those levels. Are you still wanting to see those levels before you get in there?
Nick Hodge: Watching and waiting. Bitcoin, I'm pretty sure, is going to hit the $14,000 level. Yes, I will be a buyer when it does. It hasn’t yet. It did for like an hour last week. It went to like $14,960 for the wick of a candle, for like five minutes, and then it's been above that since. But this fallout's not done and people are going to need liquidity for the crypto fallout reasons and for just other recession reasons, which I'm sure we'll talk about in other parts of this podcast. But I'm pretty sure Bitcoin's going to go to 14,000. I don't pay too much attention to the other stuff. That's what Chris is for. I'm a Bitcoin maximalist, as they call them. I think Bitcoin is the one true coin. So I don't really dabble in the other ones, but I will be a buyer with a $14 handle, yes.
Gerardo Del Real: Okay. And I know months ago when Chris launched a service we set up a fund. We promised to allocate $50,000, not all at one time because you never go in all at one time, but a little bit at a time, in tranches. Any updates there, Nick? How's that coming along?
Nick Hodge: He's only about half allocated, so he's got seven or eight coins that he's bought. He was recommending buying some last week on the dip. He was talking on the podcast about how Solana went as low as $12 or $14 and if memory serves, that was like a $280 coin a year or so ago, and one of the ones that lots of things are being built on top of, including the most popular NFT platforms and things like that. So he's really bullish on Solana and a couple of other ones, but still a lot of dry powder there that he will deploy and you can follow along as he does in Crypto Cycle.
Are Precious Metals Bullish Again?
Gerardo Del Real: I like it, I like it. Let's get into the gold space. Gold and silver had themselves a good couple of weeks here. $1760 on the gold side. Silver touched that $22 level. Thoughts there?
Nick Hodge: It's getting more interesting, I would say. There are some caveats, but gold and silver look interesting. Silver got above $21. The caveats are that as soon as gold got to three month highs at $1785, which we were saying is the level it sort of had to stick to, it quickly poked its head back in its shell as soon as it touched that. I don't know, I don't know yet. And the other thing I can't figure out yet is where's the dollar and rates going to go? So the dollar was sliding hard and it sort of halted that slide, but now it's consolidating, right? I think it's consolidating for another leg higher. The other thing is bond yields. The 10-year got really soft and the shorter term yields remained really strong. So the yield curve inversion now is the worst it's been since this whole cycle started. The yield curve inversion on the tens and twos is worse than now than basically anytime in the past 35, 40 years, worse than the dot-com bust, worse than 2008. So I'm interested to see if gold can hold up where it is now. I don't know yet is the answer, but it's looking better than it has obviously of late.
Gerardo Del Real: Definitely creating a higher base of support, which is positive. I am concerned that given just how rapid the dollar declined, and I do think, and we've said this for weeks now, that we said it was toppy in the near term, but I do believe that the dollar has another run left in it. A pretty robust one here in the next little bit, maybe the next four weeks or so. I'm concerned that as quickly as the dollar came down from the 114, 115 level all the way down to 106. The gold gains on a percentage level didn't really match that, didn't really match that. If we're going to pair that trait or we're going to hedge one with the other and say that they're correlated, then I would venture to say there's probably more downside for gold. I know the gold bugs don't want to hear it. Again, I think this is just short-term crystal ball stuff that I'm talking about here. But I do see more weakness in the gold price in the short term.
I think 2023 is going to be a phenomenal year for gold. I thought the end of 2022 would be phenomenal for gold, that it hasn't been bad, it hasn't broken out the way that I thought it would. Given the volatility, and we'll talk volatility in a second. I know that you watched that pretty consistently, Nick. Given the volatility, I think it's held up well. It's certainly outperformed the broader indices, right? But I don't think it's breakout time yet, is what I'm trying to say. Volatility index, I know you watched that like a hawk. Talk to me about that, Nick. What do you see in there? It's perking up?
Nick Hodge: Yeah, I charted it last weekend in Hodge Family Office, which I know you're not supposed to do. I said it was due for a bounce, and sure enough that's what's happened. So that's why you've gotten some of these bigger point days in the S&P. You've seen the S&P down now for a couple of days in a row. Yeah, volatility's coming back into the mix. You've seen some really big retailers have giant swings. I mean, Target (NYSE: TGT) was saying this week that the holidays sales period isn't going to be great. Their stock was down 15% in a single day. That's one of the biggest retailers in the country. Yeah, volatility ebbs and flows and right now it's flowing upward. I don't have a chart in front of me, but I could if you really want to know. But volatility is going back up as we speak and has the past couple of days. Yeah.
Top Lithium Stock Lies
Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about the boogeyman?. Did you see the boogeyman out in full force? Creepy. Lithium, it's going down. Oversupply, all the supply is coming, the demand's going to shit. It's over everyone, the lithium dream is over, the bubble is bursting. That's what Goldman Sachs would have you believe six months after they said the same thing back in June. Mind you, back in June, they predicted a surplus going into year end, a substantial one, which in reality, turned into an 84,000 ton deficit just six months later. Now, they come back and they're doubling down. You got to give it to those guys and gals over there. They're doubling down and they're saying supply is going to far outpace demand and the lithium price is going to start going backwards as early as 2023. This comes at the same time you have lithium auctions from Pilbara at record high prices. SQM (NYSE: SQM) reported earnings. They say they absolutely believe prices will stay high into 2023.
They had a 941% increase in revenues. This is SQM, year-on-year, from Q3 of last year to Q3 of this year. There are raging bull markets out there, everyone. I sound like a broken record every week. It's because I want you to profit from it. Any thoughts on Goldman's little scary spooky report that they try to put out to shake people out? It had a one day effect on stocks and then people called bullshit. Major miners were down 10 to 15% that day and that was it. It was a one day event.
Nick Hodge: Well, I wonder what their game is. If it's typical Goldman, they're trying to get into a position by shaking people out of their position. So that's the simplest explanation. But there's a lot of myths and a lot of misinformation out there about the lithium space. We've talked about some of them from time to time, but it's worth putting them all together once again. You just mentioned SQM and how they see high lithium prices for the next year, or couple of years. You could look at a company called Mineral Resources, which is a leader in the space as well. They're talking about elevated prices through the end of the decade. Elon Musk has said before that he needs the world's entire supply of lithium to make the amount of Teslas that he wants to make by 2030. Sales of EVs and production of EVs are ramping up in China. And while yes, they're looking for different types of technologies, all those technologies are still dependent on lithium.
Even if you go from the lithium nickel chemistry to the lithium iron phosphate, it's still lithium, which we mentioned here before, and those batteries aren't as dense and you don't get as good of a range. There was a big article out from Reuters this week talking about how sodium or salt batteries were going to be the next iteration of EV batteries, and sure, great, but they're saying if you read the whole article, not for at least another decade, and oh by the way, you still need lithium for those batteries as well.
Gerardo Del Real: Imagine not reading the article, Nick. Imagine not reading the article and going, "I'm not investing in lithium stocks because it's over. The bull market has run its course." And then you realize what they're really telling you is you have a bull market for the next 10 years.
Nick Hodge: Exactly. Then there's even worse stuff that I see, real pie-in-the-sky stuff. Like people saying “the lithium cathode is done and other forms of the cathode are going to take over.” It's just not the real world. It's not the world we live in. It's not the world you should be investing in. When you look at the battery plants that have been announced across the entire world, the South Korean manufacturers, Hyundai, LG, to Panasonic and Volkswagen, and what GM and Tesla are doing, and Ford here in the United States, it's all lithium-based batteries. The billions of dollars that you've seen announced in deals, they're all lithium battery facilities.
What's the other thing I see? Oh, I see some stuff about the fires, right? You talk about a boogeyman. “Oh the fires, it's going to mean the end for lithium.” It's like no, it’s really not. One, they're committed to this technology. Two, there's new technologies on the way, and I'm not going to tell you the company because I own shares and I want to recommend it, but that are working on producing cells so the way the electrolytes flow they don't cause a fire even if they're pierced, even if you put a nail through the cell — they self extinguish because the electrolytes won't be able to flow because of the way the cells are created. So they're working on curing those problems. Those problems are easier and cheaper to cure than switching the entire inertia of a global supply chain that is now committed to using lithium. Oh by the way, the fires aren't even a big deal and typically affect lower quality batteries that are found in scooters and e-bikes. So that whole narrative is out the window if you want to live and invest in reality, which is where I like to dwell.
Then the other thing is lithium recycling, which I've touched on before, and I see people say “recycling is going to make it such that we're not going to have to mine as much lithium.” Well, that's not true either. Maybe I'll read for you from an IEA report right now that says “the amount of spent EV batteries reaching the end of their first life is expected to surge after 2030.” So we're in 2022, heading into 2023. “And that comes at a time when mineral demand is set to still be growing rapidly. This is directly from the IEA now. And they say “recycling would not eliminate the need for continued investment in new supplies, but we estimate that by 2040 recycled quantities of copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt from spent batteries could reduce combined primary supply requirements for these minerals by around… wait for it… 10%.” 10% by 2040 we're going to be recycling.
Then just one more thing is the last myth I want to dispel about lithium is I see that you should be investing in the automakers. It's not really a lithium myth, but I hear people say “this new lithium car company or EV car company is going to beat Tesla, or this is going to be the end of Tesla.” Again, if you read the reports, the automakers are struggling because their margins are going down because they're paying more for the what? The lithium, which is in all time record highs at $70,000 a ton. And as you said before we started recording, there's forecasts out there that go to $95,000 a ton of lithium. So I know I'm taking up a lot of mic time here, but ...
Gerardo Del Real: No, this is important. I want to drive the point home to speculators and investors that while you wait for gold, and the base metals, and silver and all these metals to catch up, and they will everybody, they will. There's a time and a place to make money with those. But in the meantime there's raging bull markets like lithium where you can be making money hand over fist, and we've done it all year. You know, Nick, we've had a phenomenal year with our lithium plays this year. So no, please continue to take up some more time.
Nick Hodge: Well the last point is that the forecasts say that we have to mine 25 times more lithium by 2050. So in order to do that, lots of new mines have to come online and they take time. It's why the quality projects are being rewarded. You're in one that you financed at 16-cents and again in the 30-cent range, and that's gone to $7 or thereabouts, has pulled back a bit. I'm in one that I financed 30-cents with warrants at 45-cents. That stock's gone to $3 and just got a permit. When you talk to management, they can't hold the door for as many people that are knocking on it trying to partner with them to give them money to build the mine, because why? For all the things we just mentioned, there's not enough lithium to go around. It's not like these auto makers are banging down the door of different cathode materials companies. There's no graphite cathode, there's no salt battery ready. They're banging on the door of the lithium producers and the upcoming lithium producers. That's where the capital is flowing to and that's where your capital should be allocated.
Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Now, if you don't want to take it from Nick or myself who have done very well this year with lithium, I don't know what else to tell you, but I will tell you this. There is a gentleman by the name of Joe Lowry who I had the pleasure of meeting back in 2016 in Argentina, and we met briefly. I don't want to sit here and make it sound like this guy's my best friend or we talk on a regular basis. He's not somebody who I can just call, but met the gentleman, straight shooter. I think he found the same in me. We had a situation where we were looking at a couple of projects over there with Lithium Americas and Advantage Lithium back then, which was nearby and had an asset that was bought by Orocobre. And long story short, he just gave a speech and this is the price forecast that he presented. He thinks that we could have a $97,000 a ton tag, that's US, up until 2027. He says the base value will be right around today's level, right around the $80,000 level is where he sees it. Now for context, everybody, lithium carbonate prices were at just over $10,000 back in 2019. So that move from $10,000 to $80,000, most of the retail space still hasn't caught on. The only reason you and I have done so well this year with our lithium plays Nick, let's be frank, is because we got in really early, right? We got in really, really early. Even those stocks have consolidated a bit. Your pick, which you've brilliantly rode all the way up, has broken out to new highs on news of that permit, but there is a lot of runway left. If we get a 2023, 24, 25, 26 and 27, that's five more years of rising prices.
Today's valuations are going to seem meager compared to what they'll be years from now. I see a scenario where there's aggressive M&A, where automakers, chemical companies and other mining companies, traditional energy companies are writing checks at significant premiums. So I encourage everybody to do some due diligence. If you don't want to hear it from Nick or myself, look up Joe Lowry. They call him Mr. Lithium for a reason. He's been at this for a very long time. Yeah, I know he was in Australia here recently. I know Blair from Patriot Battery Metals (TSX-V: PMET)(OTC: PMETF) was in Australia recently. I'd be curious to see if maybe those two had a chance to connect. I did see a picture on Twitter with Mr. Lowry wearing some Patriot Battery Metals swag. I'd be really curious to see what somebody as conservative and respected as Joe Lowry has to say about the Corvette district with Patriot Battery Metals. So anyhow, you have some good resources there folks to do some due diligence. If you don't want to take it from Nick or me, look up Global Lithium LLC founder Joe Lowry. He's as good as they get when it comes to the lithium space.
Nick Hodge: I'm going to keep going for one more second.
Gerardo Del Real: Have at it.
Nick Hodge: You mentioned Advantage Lithium. Two points I want to make. One is that this isn't our first lithium rodeo. I was involved, and you mentioned lithium carbonate prices were $10,000 a ton in 2019. Yeah, there was a lithium run back from 2017 timeframe. That was sort of the first lithium boom, right?
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah.
Nick Hodge: Where you and I began to cut our teeth in this sector. I went out to Nevada, poked around the projects there, the Albemarles, which is the biggest producer in the world, and Lithium X, which by the way we made like, I don't know, 1500% or 1600% gains and financed it at 15-cents and it was bought out for over $2.30. You talked about Advantage Lithium. That was taken out by Orocobre, which since merged with Galaxy to create the company called Allkem, which I still own shares of and are at all time highs near C$14.00. We financed a company called Millennial Lithium, I did at least, at 65-cents that went on to be bought out for many, many dollars in a bidding war. It's not our first round in the lithium space when it comes to selecting lithium winners that are going to eventually either go into production or be taken out by the larger producers.
The second thing I'd mentioned before we wrap up on lithium, is when I look at these other promotions out there, some of the things that I said before, like you “got to look at this cathode company, they're replacing lithium.” Well okay, I can subscribe to these letters, I can look at what the cathode company is. It's near 52 week lows and the chart goes down into the right, whereas the lithium miners go up into the right. Or I look at the car company that's going to put Tesla out of business because they're the next electric vehicle manufacturer. Okay, that was a SPAC deal that blew up, and when all the specs blew up and it too was trading your 52 week lows. Literally, what the fuck are you talking about?
Gerardo Del Real: You know what's funny to me about everything you just said, funny, not funny? I think of 2016 and I think of 2017 and I think about that run and the exact same stories that are being recycled now are being recycled from those days. It was the death of Elon. It was how this new technology's going to put the lithium ion battery in its grave. It was how you've missed the run. And I'm telling you folks, if you think Patriot is expensive at C$5.50, you're going to hate it at 30 and $40, because you're going to say that little loud Gerardo Del Real guy and his tall hunting mining buddy Nick Hodge were telling me I should buy some more Patriot Battery Metals, but I couldn't justify seeing it go from 16 cents to C$5.50 today and buying at that level. I'm just telling you folks right now. Look, buy it, don't buy it, I don't care. I have my position, I'm happy with my position and I'm going to ride that baby as long as I can.
Nick Hodge: The stories are being recycled, but you know what's not being recycled? Lithium batteries.
The Return of the Trumpster Fire
Gerardo Del Real: Boom, boom, boom. All right everybody, this is the part of our therapy session where we get into politics. So if you don't want to hear us talk about politics, it's been awesome chatting about lithium gold, inverted yield curves, and the VIX. But now we're going to talk about politics because here in America we just had our midterm election, and we now have the results from that midterm election, and we have an announcement. Should we get to the announcement first, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Sure.
Gerardo Del Real: The Trumpster is back baby, the Trumpster is back. The news cycle is about to be lit again. Get ready everybody.
Nick Hodge: I think you're more excited than his base.
Gerardo Del Real: Which is hilarious. I am the son of Mexican immigrants, right? I am the son of Mexican immigrants. I have tons of family in Mexico. My mom's still living in Mexico. We're the punching bag every time Trump needs to scare his base, but somehow there's something about him being back in the public space. Capitol riots, insurrections, and threats to democracy aside, he's an entertaining guy if you can stomach all those things. And the bottom line is the people in charge of investigating all these things still have yet to be able to bring him to account. So the most that I can do is laugh at some of his stuff. So Mr. Trump announced that he will indeed be running for president in 2024, and it was very, very interesting to me. Not the response from the left, which is what it's always going to be, it was the response from big money on the right, Nick, that really stood out to me.
I touched last week on the New York Post and the big headlines about Trumpty Dumpty, and there was a cartoon of a big bloated trump up there. That was interesting to me because obviously that media group and the people behind it have been very supportive of Donald Trump. That to me was a sign that all was not well within not just that relationship but the base, the base of very wealthy donors that enabled his first run and his first presidency. I mean, it seems like across the board DeSantis is the poster boy now. Whatever you think of DeSantis, right? I have no dog in the fight.
I'm curious to see how this plays out. It's been very interesting to me how many wealthy donors have said publicly that they're not backing Trump. It's been interesting to me how many Republicans. Chris Christie, for God's sake, right? You talk hypocrisy, Chris Christie of all people who was begging to be VP, and then got passed up by Trump, came out and said, “No, he's not the candidate that we want representing the Republican Party. If that's the way it goes, it's over for us. That's not going to work anymore.” The 10 election deniers that Trump campaigned for, every single one of those people lost in the midterms here. So look, we have a situation in the US where the Senate is one party's and the House is the other party's. So you're not going to get much done for the next couple of years.
Enter Mr. Trump, enter the Trumpster. It's going to be an absolute show the next couple of years. I think there's going to be a lot of Republican on Republican fire, and I got the popcorn. I'm ready for it, I'm in. We can expect the usual stuff from the left. They have their own implosion going on over there with Pelosi saying that she's not going to run again. But I bring all this up and I'm trying to tie it in together into a Fourth Turning concept because this is the stuff that fourth turnings are made of. You have the right fighting amongst themselves about the next set of leadership status that's going to emerge from that side. You have the left, a generational shift. Pelosi stepping down is no small deal, and it's all happening simultaneously while the financial system is looking more and more fragile by the day, and dangerously close to breaking something that's very important.
I'm not rooting for any of this, but again, what can I do but sit back and get the popcorn and try to make sure that I protect my family, maximize profits for the people that follow our stuff, for my family, keep ourselves healthy and be a good citizen, be a good member of the community? Outside of that, I don't know what else to do but just call it how I see it. Thoughts on all that, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Get your popcorn.
Gerardo Del Real: Popcorn stays ready, man.
Nick Hodge: No, you know I'm pretty agnostic on the politics front. I saw the announcement. I think it's pretty evident that DeSantis is the guy there and that the Trump faction, the MAGA faction is going to be reduced to sort a Tea Party faction or what the Tea Party faction was whenever that was, 10, 12 years ago. They're going to be the fringe and the money's going to back DeSantis. The betting polls say so, and the mainstream of the party says so. I don't really know much about DeSantis, other than like you say, the left will respond how the left responds. The left seems to hate them just because they're Republicans. But yeah, that's the way it seems to be going.
I watched the Trump press conference. You know what I do? On DirectTV they have this news channel where you can see all the news channels at once in little squares. There's like Fox, CNBC, CNN, BBC, whatever, and I see who sticks with him the longest and then who cuts away the soonest, and then I flip back and forth and see what they're saying. It's a good way to just absorb it all and see what they're saying. There was I think Huckabee was on Fox talking about how it was a good speech.
Gerardo Del Real: Oh god.
Nick Hodge: But even Fox was saying that he can't talk about his stump topics about the elections being rigged and being fixed, and the January 6th stuff. They've got to move forward, right? And I think that that party is going to move forward without him. I mean, it was evident in the red wave that never crested. You talk about the Republican parties breaking in two. Well, you've already had Liz Cheney out there for a while now talking anti-Trump. Some of the candidates that she endorsed won over the candidates that Trump endorsed, most notably the Arizona Governor's race. That's the land of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, right? So yeah, I mean, maybe the Trumpster just fades off, but certainly what Fourth Turnings are made of.
The author of that book, Mr. Neil Howe, I think, is working on a new book that will be out next year. So that will be interesting to read. Yeah, like you say, all this is par for the course and is going to last longer than originally thought. The election's not until 2024. One of the other interesting things that doesn't get talked about a whole lot is the political affiliation of the Fed itself, right? Mr. Powell is a Republican. I was thinking the other day, why hasn't Biden replaced him yet? Why hasn't he replaced him with someone that would be more accommodative to rate policy, to not basically force a recession while the Democrats are in office, because that's what's going on. You think about it, and credit to Keith McCullough here, which is one of the first places I heard this, is Powell doesn't have to be what he is. He's worth $100 or $110 million. He doesn't need to be Fed president. He's in there to do something, right? And the something is continue to raise rates.
So you're going to have to deal with that, and it's easy to see a DeSantis that points back at the Democrats and Trump and says, "Well, both these guys sign checks." Which I've been saying for two fucking years. They all signed the damn checks, man. So it's all very interesting and I watch with popcorn.
Gerardo Del Real: Get the popcorn, keep some bullets handy. What else you got on your mind, Nick?
Nick Hodge: Oh, I don't think too much. What else we got to talk about?
Gerardo Del Real: No, I think that's it. I feel much better. I don't think I need therapy now. I've gotten my weekly dose. I will say I hope everybody has a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving or a holiday, whatever it is that y'all celebrate. If you don't celebrate a formal thing, just celebrate being alive, and being happy, and being with loved ones, and if you can't be with loved ones, just celebrate that you're around. I hope everyone has an awesome, awesome holiday here the coming week. We will be taking the week off, so I encourage everybody if they are going to do market related activities during the holiday, I would remind you of Patriot Battery Metals having over 50 holes in the assay lab. It finally has its ASX listing date of December 7th. It's going to be a heck of a birthday present for you, Mr. Hodge.
Then look, I think it's off to the races. I think we're going to get some mouthwatering assays. Blair publicly, the CEO, has stated that 2023 will be the most aggressive drill program Corvette has ever seen. Just a lot of bullish news there. I'll stay on Nevada Sunrise Metals (TSX-V: NEV)(OTC: NVSGF), it's pulled back right to the financing price. I suspect someone that the company let in has probably been selling their shares and keeping the 30 cent warrant. So I think your downside is minimal to nothing at these levels. It's back to 21.5 cents. The last financing that came free trading a few weeks back was done at 20 cents. I think it's an excellent, excellent entry point or an excellent point to add or average down if you haven't already done so. The company's drilling. I expect assays in the next couple of weeks. So a lot to look forward to in December. I'm really excited for it. I hope everybody has an awesome holiday. Nick, anything you want to add to that?
Nick Hodge: No, that's it. Mouthwatering assays, mouthwatering Turkey, and oysters, and gravy, and stuffing and mashed potatoes. I think Thanksgiving might be one of my favorite holidays. You get to have the family, you get to have a couple days off, you don’t have to deal with the pressure or decorations and presents and you just get to sort of eat and be merry for a couple of days. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm here in Washington State, so I just ordered the oysters today. The water is cold, they should be briny, and the ducks are starting to fly as well. So it's going to be a good couple of days.
Gerardo Del Real: Can't wait. Can't wait. That's it everybody. I'm Gerardo Del Real, along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was episode number 195 of our therapy session that we call investing in Bizarro World. Anything else you want to say to the people, Nick?
Nick Hodge: That's it. See you.
Gerardo Del Real: Be safe out there, y'all. Have fun.