Palisades Gold Radio

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Trader Ferg to the show. Trader Ferg is a Full-time Trader and is the Author of the Trader Ferg Substack. The discussion opens with a vivid illustration of emerging fuel shortages, as Trader Ferg shares images of long queues at his local petrol station in Bali, a symptom of diesel and product tightness spreading across Asia. He argues that governments avoid admitting scarcity, instead running down strategic reserves, but this dynamic sets the stage for a prolonged “big refill” cycle that will keep crude and refined products tight for years. He cautions that markets are complacently expecting a quick resolution, while the reality points to sustained supply constraints.

Trader Ferg highlights the investment opportunity in underappreciated energy equities, favoring high-quality, cash‑generating companies with strong shareholder yields, such as Shell, over direct commodity futures. He extends this thesis to thermal coal, which he sees benefiting from Asia’s energy security pivot and substitution away from expensive LNG, supported by supply disruptions and a lack of new investment. The conversation then shifts to gold and precious metals. Trader Ferg remains a long‑term gold bull given the deteriorating US fiscal position, but he emphasizes the importance of diversifying into platinum and palladium. PGMs offer tighter supply dynamics, concentrated production in South Africa, and resilient demand from hybrid vehicles, making them less vulnerable to government confiscation risks that could threaten gold.

Throughout, Trader Ferg stresses aligning investment vehicles with long‑term theses, seeking cheap valuations with double‑digit shareholder yields, and avoiding obvious political targets. He notes the non‑consensus nature of energy trades and the potential for explosive moves in compressed markets like coal and uranium. The episode concludes with a nod to frontier market opportunities and a reminder to position ahead of policy desperation, as governments may increasingly resort to windfall taxes and capital controls.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:30 – Fuel Shortages in Asia

00:02:30 – Rationing and Demand Control

00:03:48 – Strategic Reserves Refill

00:06:36 – Product Shortages Spread West

00:10:34 – Sponsor Message

00:11:22 – Energy Investment Opportunities

00:14:20 – Non-Consensus Long-Term Views

00:16:48 – Playing via Equities Quality

00:21:06 – Shareholder Yield Strategy

00:23:32 – Thermal Coal Asia Thesis

00:28:13 – Gold and US Fiscal Risks

00:44:20 – Platinum PGMs Positioning

00:47:04 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Substack: https://traderferg.substack.com/

X: https://x.com/trader_ferg

Trader Ferg is a Full-time trader for going on 8+ years now. He has a habit of hanging out in hated corners of the market that are considered uninvestable. He enjoys sharing his research and thoughts about possible trades and markets.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Jeff Phillips to the show. Jeff Phillips is a Private Investor and President of Global Market Development. Jeff Phillips sees the current pullback in precious metals and junior miners as a buying opportunity within a longer-term commodity super cycle driven by underinvestment, supply chain concerns, and inflationary currency debasement. He cautions that short-term timing remains uncertain, so maintaining cash and avoiding overleverage is essential. Phillips focuses on junior exploration and development companies, typically entering at $5 to $40 million market caps, and stresses that management quality and share structure matter more than geology alone. He looks for experienced teams with significant insider ownership and long-term shareholders rather than warrant flippers.

Phillips highlights current tax-loss selling as a seasonal opportunity, noting many resource stocks trade well below highs into late fall and often re-rate into the new year. He encourages investors to study 52-week ranges, ensure companies have sufficient cash, and consider whether they seek short-term trades or multi-year holdings. He also discusses emerging artificial intelligence applications in exploration through Geomorphic AI, which uses data fusion and pattern recognition to identify overlooked mineral targets more quickly.

Overall, Phillips reiterates that disciplined speculation, strong management alignment, and long-term conviction are key to navigating the junior resource space.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:48 – Gold Market Consolidation

00:02:50 – Bull Market Thesis

00:05:20 – Investment Methodology

00:08:34 – Sponsor Palisades Goldcore

00:09:22 – Commodity Super Cycle

00:12:45 – Fiat Currency Printing

00:15:30 – Miners Leverage Opportunity

00:18:40 – Tax Loss Selling Season

00:22:10 – Management and Share Structure

00:25:50 – Prospect Generator Model

00:30:15 – Junior Royalty Strategies

00:35:40 – AI in Mineral Exploration

00:42:00 – Final Advice and Opportunities

00:46:24 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Website: Geomorphic AI https://www.geomorphic.ai/

30+ years in resource capital markets; President of Global Market Development and a strategic private investor who has financed more than 100 mineral-exploration companies. An early financier of Patriot Battery Metals — one of the decade’s defining lithium discoveries — and a long-standing backer of critical-minerals developers across antimony, including US antimony developer Perpetua Resources, and rare earths, including heavy exposure to the major rare-earth developers through the 2009–2011 cycle. Deep experience in public-market financings across the TSXV, London AIM and ASX.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes David Hunter to the show. David Hunter is Chief Macro Strategist with Contrarian Macro Advisors. Hunter presents a deeply contrarian outlook, arguing that the extreme bearishness in the bond market signals a major bottom in bonds and a top in interest rates, particularly the 10-year Treasury. He believes the current narrative of an inescapable fiscal trap and higher rates is already priced in, and he expects oil prices to roll over into the $60 range, contributing to a downside surprise in inflation as the economy slows.

Despite this, Hunter maintains a near-term bullish stance on equities, forecasting a final, euphoric melt-up that could push the S&P 500 to 10,000 within months. He notes the unusual phenomenon of all-time highs in major indices coinciding with subdued or bearish investor sentiment, which he views as supportive of further gains. However, this rally represents the terminal phase of a 44-year secular bull market.

Hunter predicts this will culminate in a historic global bust, a deflationary crash potentially worse than 2008-2009, driven by extreme global leverage and derivatives. He anticipates an 80% decline in equities, with policymakers initially reluctant to deploy massive stimulus, causing a severe air pocket.

Following this bust, Hunter outlines a subsequent cycle where massive money printing triggers hyperinflation. This environment will fuel an explosive, multi-year bull market in commodities, with gold potentially reaching $20,000 and silver $1,000 by the early 2030s. He sees the precious metals mining sector as exceptionally undervalued, poised for a tremendous run as institutional investment flows in, supported by disciplined management and strong earnings.

Hunter’s long-term thesis concludes with a final systemic collapse in the mid-2030s when hyperinflation renders further money printing impossible.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:59 – Treasury Market and Yields

00:02:20 – Contrarian Bond Market View

00:04:40 – Oil Prices Roll Over

00:10:29 – Inflation Peaking and Softening

00:12:10 – Equity Markets Bullish Outlook

00:17:52 – Impending Global Economic Bust

00:35:39 – Gold and Silver Performance

00:47:29 – Mining Stocks Opportunities

00:52:24 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

X: https://x.com/DaveHcontrarian

David is Chief Macro Strategist with Contrarian Macro Advisors. He is an investment professional with 25 years of investment management experience and 21 years as a sell-side strategist with robust macroeconomic analysis and portfolio management expertise. His strong macro capabilities, combined with a contrarian philosophy, have allowed him to forecast economic cycles and spot market trends well ahead of the consensus. Intellectually honest, independent thinker comfortable with charting a course apart from the crowd.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Tavi Costa to the show. Tavi Costa is Founder & CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. Costa argues that the U.S. is approaching a fiscal breaking point, emphasizing that current bond yields are unsustainable when measured against record debt levels. He notes that with over a quarter of U.S. debt rolling over in the next twelve months at higher rates, the situation is becoming increasingly asymmetric. He predicts eventual intervention through yield curve control or other mechanisms to suppress yields and weaken the dollar, which would benefit hard assets, mining, and emerging markets.

Costa sees a global sovereign debt dilemma eroding confidence in instruments backed only by military strength rather than tangible assets. He believes this paradigm shift echoes the 1940s but with even higher equity valuations today. Gold’s resilience alongside rising yields signals, in his view, that the market is pricing in an inevitable monetary reset or remonetization of gold. He highlights that gold backing for U.S. Treasuries has fallen from fifty percent to just three percent, implying a massive revaluation would be needed to restore discipline. Geopolitical conflicts are seen as symptoms of overwhelming debt, further fueling the thesis for hard assets.

Costa’s investment strategy focuses on a few concentrated macro themes: mining, Latin America, and energy. He structures his mining portfolio using a three-tier framework combining cash-flowing producers, strategic developers, and bold exploration companies. He finds silver miners particularly attractive due to strong balance sheets and high free cash flow yields. Costa cautions against chasing critical metals purely on narrative, advocating a first-principles focus on business quality. He is launching Azuria Capital with a mining fund embodying this approach, aiming to capitalize on what he views as a generational opportunity in the resource space.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:38 – US Treasury Markets Signal

00:05:05 – Global Debt Issues Explored

00:08:25 – Sponsor Message Bellasets

00:09:14 – Emerging Markets Comparison

00:18:20 – Sponsor Message Palisades

00:19:09 – Gold Reset Thesis

00:27:20 – Geopolitics and Wars

00:32:40 – Latin America Investment Shift

00:35:40 – Portfolio Construction Framework

00:43:20 – Mining Investment Pitfalls

00:49:50 – Azeria Capital Launch

00:57:36 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

X: https://x.com/tavicosta

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/otavio-tavi-costa-76368628

Substack: https://tavicosta.substack.com

Otavio (“Tavi”) Costa is the Founder and CEO of Azuria Capital LLC. He invented a macro model that identifies the current stage of the U.S. economic cycle through a combination of 16 factors.

His research is regularly featured in financial publications such as Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, CCN, Financial Post, The Globe and Mail, Real Vision, and Reuters. Tavi is a native of São Paulo, Brazil, and fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. Before joining Crescat, he worked with the underwriting of financial products and international business at Braservice, a large logistics company in Brazil.

Tavi graduated cum laude from Lindenwood University in St. Louis with a B.A. degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and a minor in Spanish. Tavi played NCAA Division 1 tennis for Liberty University.

Stijn Schmitz welcomes Justin Huhn to the show. Justin Huhn is Founder & Publisher of Uranium Insider Pro. Justin Huhn presents a firmly bullish outlook for uranium, describing the current phase as the middle of a long-term secular bull market. The most critical forward indicators, he argues, are the terms in the long-term contracting market, where suppliers are now securing agreements with high floors and often no ceilings, signaling a market where security of supply is beginning to outweigh price sensitivity. He notes that supply has failed to respond adequately to demand, with greenfield projects moving slowly, while a combination of reactor restarts, life extensions, and an unprecedented global build-out of around 80 reactors is underpinning a structural deficit that will persist for five to seven years. A major new demand driver is the entry of hyperscalers and big tech, who are not only signing power purchase agreements but also exploring SMRs, with hundreds of units in planning. Although SMR demand is conservatively modelled to materialize only after 2030, Huhn expects actual construction starts much sooner to trigger early fuel procurement, adding further competition for available pounds.

On the supply side, he dismisses the notion that new mine supply will pressure prices, emphasizing that developers like NexGen are likely to sell responsibly into term markets on similarly bullish terms, meaning extra production will not dent the price trajectory. The spot market has been quiet, but Huhn views current equity weakness as a significant value opportunity, given the deep disconnect between physical market strength and stock prices. He advocates a dynamic trading approach that uses physical market signals, charting, and sentiment to trade around the core long-term bull thesis, which has allowed his portfolio to outperform in this environment.

Ultimately, Huhn forecasts uranium prices well above $200 per pound, supported by inelastic demand and a multi-year supply gap, with the sector poised for a rerating as investors recognise that supply growth is necessary, not bearish, against massive nuclear energy expansion.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:00:50 – Uranium Market Cycle

00:03:30 – Strong Bull Case

00:06:10 – Term Contract Trends

00:09:15 – Forward Market Indicators

00:10:57 – Nuclear Fuel Costs

00:18:15 – Global Nuclear Buildout

00:24:24 – Geopolitical Energy Security

00:28:42 – Small Modular Reactors

00:35:53 – Uranium Supply Landscape

00:36:07 – Mining Equities Opportunity

00:47:35 – Investment Strategies

00:51:45 – Concluding Thoughts

Guest Links:

Website: https://www.uraniuminsider.com

Newsletter: https://www.uraniuminsider.com/newsletter

X: https://x.com/UraniumInsider

Justin is the Founder and Publisher of the Uranium Insider Pro Newsletter. Through the combination of rigorous fundamental analysis and Justin’s thorough understanding of technical analysis, determinations are made for select companies to be included on Uranium Insider Pro’s “Focus List,” as well as the most opportune times for entry or exit.

Justin is frequently asked to offer his commentary on various media forums, including Crux Investor, Smith Weekly, Palisades Gold Radio, Mining Stock Education, and Mining Stock Daily. He also regularly participates in the post-earnings commentary that is broadcast immediately after industry majors release quarterly earnings.

Justin is devoted to bringing value to those that are taking their first look at the uranium sector. Until July 2020, he distributed a complimentary newsletter as an educational tool to those investors seeking to familiarize themselves with the complexities and opportunities offered by the uranium sector and the uranium shares. Regrettably, the Uranium Insider Pro subscription letter’s subscriber growth and breadth no longer allow him to provide this tool.

The success of Uranium Insider has been gratifying, and the emerging bull market in uranium continues to offer an unusually attractive risk:reward proposition for fellow contrarian investors.