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Silver Stocks Set to Go Berserk - 'These Companies Are Printing Cash': John Feneck

34m 39s

Silver Stocks Set to Go Berserk - 'These Companies Are Printing Cash': John Feneck

In this Commodity Culture interview, John Fennec of Fennec Consulting shares his outlook on precious metals, miners, critical minerals, and the broader market. He describes the U.S. Treasury's August 19 buyback announcement as a game-changing signal for gold and silver investors, comparable to quantitative easing. Combined with weak jobs data and softening inflation, this prompted him to move from a 12 to 14 percent cash position in June to being a net buyer every week in July and August. Silver is his largest holding at roughly 11 to 12 percent of his portfolio. While he respects bolder forecasts, he considers $1,000 silver implausible and instead targets $100 by next year, noting resistance around the $70 to $90 channel. He prefers miners over physical metal for their leverage, highlighting Pan American Silver, SilverCo, Exelon Resources, Denarius Metals, Gold Resource, and iMetal Resources as opportunities. On critical minerals, he is bullish on tungsten due to a multi-year U.S. supply deficit, naming Spartan Metals and Kaz Resources. He also mentions Anchor Resources as a triple-threat oil, gold, and copper play. Fennec warns that stretched equity valuations could lead to a 15 to 20 percent correction by early next year, so he keeps 8 to 10 percent cash as dry powder. He also promotes his September Arizona conference and Fennec Consulting's real-time macro email service.

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Speaker 1This is the Commodity Culture Podcast, where we interview prominent investors, fund managers, analysts, and company CEOs to give you an edge when it comes to investing in the commodity space. John Fennec, great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Now, we've recently seen gold, silver, and the miners up sharply. This was following news of Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announcing a doubling of Treasury buybacks. Since then, they've even hinted at perhaps even more buybacks ahead. Now, the metals have been chopping sideways since their initial drop after the war in Iran kicked off, much the same story for the miners. Do you think this rally will hold, or are you remaining cautious of a potential reversal
Speaker 2here? I'm always cautious of a potential reversal. That's what makes me a good investor. You can't. You can't trust in everything at all times, especially when you're at war. And our country, my country, is at war. So you have to look at that and say, anything can happen at any time. I know that we've had the luxury as Americans of not having anything on our soil since 9-11. And I lost four friends that day, and I never forget that. And I never forget what I felt like as an investor 25 years ago, and I don't want to ever feel that way again. So, yeah. I mean, let's take the positive, though, Jesse. The positive is Besson showed his hand on August 19th. I mean, this is the U.S. government showing their hand. That is huge news for gold and silver investors, because this is like QE, right? I mean, this is big news. You can see it in GDX and GDXJ since August 19th. And really, the rally started the week of August 3rd, right? I mean, we had a terrible ADP number August 5. That's U.S. job payrolls. Then non-farm payrolls, which was more followed August 7th. Terrible. Negative 23,000 jobs. Great job, America, creating all those jobs. Yeah, the number was 80,000 plus. So, we missed by 103,000 jobs. I mean, and then the following week, CPI, right, comes in at 3.4 versus 3.5. But that's, you know, people forget the month prior, very quietly in July, CPI missed huge. Like, it missed by 0.7%. So, if the Fed is out there saying, we need lower inflation, you're getting it, right? That doesn't make me worried about rising rates. Non-farm payrolls is something that Warsh has talked about. You know, it's a key factor for the Fed. We have zero job growth, you know, going on. And those two factors really made me bullish in late July when I saw the late, you know, the CPI read, Jesse, and then got confirmation on the jobs front early August. So, I've been fully invested here. Like, as of June 30th, we ended with a cash position, right? I'm not going to BS anyone. We had about a 12% to 14% cash position because it's been a rough summer. But in July, I was a net buyer every single week. Same with August so far. And I'm just like, this is when you buy. I mean, the carnage in our sector was pretty substantial. So. I'm very happy to see my investors and your followers hopefully making some money here.
Speaker 1Well, let's focus specifically on silver for a moment as we appear to be potentially on the cusp of $70 once more. We've had some big calls on this show recently, ranging from $300 to $1,000. Perhaps the boldest call by Michael Oliver, who said he believes it's going much higher than $300 within a year's time. He said he wouldn't be shocked to see $1,000. What are your thoughts? I know you're a bit more on the conservative side as well when it comes to price forecasts. I'm wondering where you see silver headed over the course of 2026 and perhaps in that one year time span.
Speaker 2I would be the other side of that. I'd be completely shocked if silver were to get to $1,000 in my lifetime. My hope, you know, I'm completely wrong. I'm successful, Jesse, because I lead people through the short term because the short term creates the long term. When people get on your show or other shows and talk about five years from now, how the hell do they know what's going to happen? Like, we're at war right now. Anything can happen. We could be in World War III next month. Like, you don't know anything, right? Like, please don't pontificate like you're some, like, seer, right? I mean, so all this said, silver is my largest position. It has been for two, three years, right? You know this. I was at 18% silver December 31st. Wow. So I have every reason to agree with Michael Oliver right now, but I won't because I don't see 300 silver. We're at 68 as we record this, right? Like, let's get into the 70 to 90 channel, which is where it was trading for quite some time and then broke down. We broke down to 54 to 55. How many people called that from 121, right? Like, I don't remember anyone calling that stuff. I just remember bulls in the first quarter, right? Like, so again, you have to follow people that have your back and that want to, you know, to help you make money, like, and not just talk about, oh, this number, that number. Okay. You know, um, I hope you're right because I have a huge position, but let's be honest. So over at 54, 55, people were thinking 50, me included, like 50 was the breakout, right? 50 was the all time high in the eighties. And again, in 2011, 12, that is technical, you know, analysis one Oh one, you know, and then the last year, we had a lot of people that were saying, well, we're going to have, we're going to have a lot of people that are going to be in the top 10. And so we're going to have a lot of people that are going to be in the top 10. But I would say from 68 here, I see 100 by next year, for sure. I don't know if we're going to get to the 121 level. That was a parabolic move. You know, if you look at the chart, it was like a hockey stick. So I hope I'm wrong. And we get to 121 again and break through. And I would love to see these kind of prices realized.
Speaker 1Well, I think we also have to put things into perspective. We're knocking on the door of $70 silver. Just go back in time, not even that long ago, maybe middle of last year. If you were to tell people silver, people got attacked for saying silver was going anywhere near $50, even at that time. And here we are at 70, which that brings me to the miners because $70 silver is great for the silver miners. The SIL ETF up around 20% year to date versus silver down around 5%. So that delta between the two is looking pretty decent in my view. It feels like the miners are starting to wake up here. Would you agree? And what names are you? What are you watching in the sector that you think present good value at these prices?
Speaker 2Yeah, I'd love to talk about gold stocks eventually too. But silver right now, let's talk those. I mean, SIL is the large cap ETF you just mentioned, SLVP is an alternative. We own both of those. SILJ is the small to mid cap ETF for those that just want to play ETFs. Those are the three that I use and Don Durant, my partner uses. But when you get into individual equities, Jesse, what's exciting right now is finding development companies in silver that are producing or about to produce because look, you can realize very high prices to your point, right? If your costs, meaning you're all in sustaining cost per ounce is like 30 bucks even, at $70 silver, you're making hand over fist free cash flow, right? I sent out something to my followers on Pan American, PAAS, the large cap silver play when it was at 4650 just after earnings. And I said, "This thing's going to hold 42 and a half. It's not going to hold 42 and a half. 43. And if you don't have a position, you probably should consider one. We already have one." But it literally held right there. That was the low and it just started to move higher. Now it's at 53 and probably going to test the all-time high within a few months here. Bad earnings reports are gifts right now in this sector. Bad is a relative word. These companies are printing cash. So I disagree with a lot of people on Wall Street that our sector has bad earnings. I think they're just looking for cash. They're looking at tech and AI and comparing gold and silver stocks to these ridiculously valued companies. But to give you two, SilverCo, SICOF in the States and SICO in Canada, I talked to Mark Ironto about a month ago. They have two projects that are advanced stage development projects. They literally put on their homepage of their website, "We want to be a 10 million ounce silver equivalent producer within three years." That's guts. I like people that are aggressive. You know this. I like people that are going for it here and Mark is going for it. He has two great projects with low costs out of the ground and he's drilling. Lenegra just came out with news today that they've got a 15,000 meter campaign ongoing with multiple rigs turning. I think that's going to be one to watch. It's trading around $6.30 right now. Another one is Exelon Resources, EXNRF. SICOF in the States and EXN in Canada. I just talked to Sean last week. Stocks at $0.29 US. It hit $0.50 to $0.51 twice this year on heavy volume. That's sort of where major resistance lies. But from $0.29, I think it gets back there by early next year and you make a lot of money from $0.29 to $0.51. want. And the reason I say that is if you look at their July news, they're in Peru where their silver project is. Peru just had a change in leadership. It's pro mining. And we all know what Castillo did to Peru a few years ago was the opposite. So you look for these changes in countries, in the company itself, Jesse. And what's changing at the company level is that these guys just produced their first silver in July last month. So they're going to be a producer of silver and much more so in 2027.
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Speaker 2So silver, as we speak, is about an 11% to 12% position. It was 10.5% as of quarter end. Gold is around 0.6%, 0.7%. It's much lower because I'm young and I'm going for it. I'm buying gold equities. I'm not buying gold. I'm not interested. I mean, look, I love gold and I definitely recommend people will buy it depending on their risk tolerance and their age and everything. But for someone like me, I'm doing the homework on gold equities because I know the leverage is about three to one in a bull market. If you don't believe me, look at the price action since August 3rd. Look at GXJ up 7% to 8% per day when gold's doing 2%. That's three to one, four to one. That's what you want to see. That indicates you're in a bull market again. I'm much more overweight silver. I'm much more bullish on silver going back to 100 from 68 than I am from gold going from 4,600 here to 5,600 quickly. I don't think that it's going to be as easy as people think. We've got resistance at 4,690 right now, which I think we break through. But then you're going to test 4,900. And that's another resistance level. We don't just go right back to the all-time high.
Speaker 1Let's talk about the miners then because they appear to also have been waking up here. GDX up around 20% on the year. Which areas of that market and which names are you tracking that you believe could re-rate to the upside ahead?
Speaker 2So as value managers, we look for things that are mispriced. And Denarius Metals stands out to me as one of the most mispriced gold stocks out there in the development. Trey Lockerbie : Yeah. And Denarius Metals is one of the most mispriced gold stocks in the exploration category. So that one is DNRSF in the States and DMET in Canada. Look at the news flow, Jesse. In June, they announced that they were going to get rid of their debt. And when you get rid of your debt in a shitty time in the market, you are going to get hit. There's no way you're not going to go down in price. And the stock declined. In July, it got consummated. So the last week of July, you can look at DNRSF's chart. It's very easy to see the downward pressure because they had to issue shares for that debt. What the market missed is who owns those shares. The chairman, Serafino Iacono, owns a lot of those shares. Aris Mining, A-R-I-S, a major mining company, owns a lot of those shares, et cetera. I'm not going to go down the whole list, but you get it. 50% or so of that new share issuance is in great hands. And they're not selling anything in the $0.31, $0.32 range. The stock got to $0.295, which is insane. It's trading at $0.455 bid as we enter this interview. I think it goes right back to $0.60 here by year end. They're basically one of the most undervalued gold producers out there. They are producing in Colombia. They are going to produce in Spain by Q1. So really a lot of upside. Look at their revenues. Last year, under $2 million US in this year, they're planning to do about $20 million in US revenues. And then the following year is going to be your big year, 2027, when things just go life's out. And so again, if you're a tech manager and you're seeing something go 10 times up in revenue, you're buying that stock, right? That's what growth momentum guys do. This is a growth stock with a value price. That's how I think about it. And Don Durant agrees. That's one of his top 25 gold picks right now. I'll also mention gold. G-O-R-O. I just interviewed Javier Reyes, the new CEO. He took that chair probably about a month ago. So he was the chairman coming into the CEO role. Something really interesting happened with this one, Jesse. I've never seen this to this extent. So they announced a merger in Q1 between Gold Group, which was G-G-A-Z-F, and Goro, which is Gold Resource, G-O-R-O. And that got consummated in July. Interestingly, the Russell 2000, a major U.S. index, added one of those two stocks on June 30th to their index as a holding. And then on July 17th or 16th, they unceremoniously started to dump shares. And the company called them and said, what the heck's going on? And they said, oh, yeah, we can't hold the merged company. I've never seen this happen. And I'm sure it's happened before, but I've never been in a stock when it's happened. And in two and a half weeks, it was like, oh, my God, we're going to be in a stock. And it was like, oh, my God, we're going to be in a stock. And it wasn't the sentiment. It was just the fact that they legally couldn't hold the new entity. But that stock got smoked. G-O-R-O went down from $460-ish all the way to $1.95. I mean, it's just. So we started to buy it at $1.97. We bought it all the way to $2.83 here recently. We interviewed Javi at $2.67 a share, and the stock's trading at $3.55, $3.60 right now. So it's making a lot of that back very quickly. But again, just a really solid growth story with the combined company. And lastly, I'll mention a small one. Just to underscore, Jesse, that you don't always need to find these 20%, 30%, 40% takeovers to make money in our sector. A lot of people focus on that stuff. iMetal Resources, I-M-R-F-F in the States, and I-M-R in Canada. These guys did a deal where they brought in a strategic investor very quietly in the summertime when people weren't paying attention. And this strategic is called McFarlane. McFarlane owns about. Well, they have about four and a half to five million gold ounces that I'm aware of. I don't own the stock, but they are smack dab next to iMetal in Canada. So literally, walk from iMetal's discovery hole, it's less than a half hour walk to where. McFarlane is finding all this gold. And they share a road. And there's a lot of synergies, right? So them being brought into that shareholder base, the stock went from $0.06 US up to $0.17 US. So again, who cares about these 30% takeovers? The market is saying, oh my God, I didn't realize this stock had so much value in iM-R-F-F, right? It's sitting right next to these guys. So we look for these unusual situations. It takes a lot of phone calls. A lot of work. But you can get paid along the way. And so we like that one as well.
Speaker 1Let's touch on some other metals. You've come on the show before talking about tungsten and timoni. Copper have obviously been doing very well. It's hit multiple new all-time highs so far this year. And a lot of these critical minerals are being overlooked by a lot of investors at this point in time. What is your current read on the whole critical mineral sector and story? And are there any stocks in that area that you're watching right now that you think have a solid impact? I think there's a lot of stocks in that area that you're watching right now that you think have a solid chance of either producing or their explorers moving into development. A story that really catches your eye right now.
Speaker 2Sure. Well, there's a couple. And by the way, I'm speaking at Beaver Creek, September 22nd on critical minerals. I usually speak on gold and silver there. I've been speaking and attending there since 2019. And I went to the conference organizers and said, let's do something on critical because I don't think any of your other speakers are really going to address this. And with Trump's EOs and just all the news flow, I'm like, someone's got to talk about this. It is like, to your point, Jesse, a lot of people still haven't gotten on the bandwagon, which is amazing to me. I mean, I don't know what they're waiting for. But Spartan Metals is one that's interesting in the US. SPRMF in the States and symbol W in Canada. They just announced yesterday that they are starting to drill Eagle, which is one of their new properties. They're very excited about that. Brent Marsh, the CEO, is a geo by trade. And he's telling me like, look, we're going for it here. I mean, the US government, if you look at their June news, they went and hired a group of people to help them get in front of the US government. I thought that was really interesting. Like a lot of these guys wear too many hats, right? In this case, they said, hey, let's hire someone to go get some DOW money, right? I mean, that's smart. So they're on the US government radar as of two months ago. And I think frankly, before that, because I've talked to the US government, as you know, three times this year. And basically, they're saying like, John, we have a two year shortage in tungsten. We already know we have a two year supply deficit. And I think they're being conservative. I think it's more like three years at least. So Spartan is trading at 38 cents US. It hits 69 cents US on good volume back in March. If you look at a lot of charts, Jesse, that we're talking about today, they all peaked around March 1st, right? And, you know, 69 cents, maybe that's not the price, but 38 cents looks too cheap to us. So you know, we're buying that stock. And they're a US play. Another one that's not a US play, but has literally in their description of their company, that they're supportive of the US market. So I think that's one of the things that we're seeing. And I think that's one of the things that we haven't talked about before, which is called Skyline Builders Group. It's a holding company that owns Kaz Resources or will own Kaz Resources here very shortly. They have a big position. They're a very smart guy. We just talked to a name, Paul Mann, who's the executive chairman of this company. The ticker is KAZR. Paul's Cambridge educated, understands like, he's a finance guy, right? He's not like a tungsten. Guy, but he looks at this and says, man, there's some serious problems in the world. And maybe I could help solve some of those problems. When I asked him what his cost on tungsten was, he said, our costs are going to be between 100 and $150 a ton. I mean, we're trading at 2,800 plus right now. So very low cost. Great listing. It's on the NASDAQ. So it's trades with like two cent bid ask. And clearly, I've identified that there's shorts in the stock right now, which I love. The stock was probably at $4 a few months ago, trading at $1.95 as we record this. So we look for these kind of opportunities that have big deposits that are talking the talk about their relationship with the US and being supportive of the US. Lastly, I'll just mention energy because energy is on the front headlines every day now with us trading for moves. We don't have a lot of oil plays. We have some large cap exposure. We have some oil exposure, but we also have this micro cap called Anchor Resources, which is A-N-K-O-F in the States and A-N-K in Canada. I started buying this stock around $0.09, Jesse. It's trading at $0.27 as we go into this interview. Delaine and her husband own 25% of the float. That's conviction, right? Like the CEO and lead geo. What people miss about this is two things. Number one, they have a 30-year lease on their oil and they haven't even started drilling it yet. And when you drill for oil, it's not like drilling for gold where it might take five plus years to get it out of the ground. It flows, right? So you can be cash flowing way sooner than people think. That's why we dabble in oil and gas from time to time. Lastly, they have gold and copper exposure, which we love both of those metals. So I think they're a triple threat, right? You can win on three different commodities there with a very tight share structure and they just raise cash so they don't have to raise for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1I am extraordinarily bullish on the oil sector. I've been investing in oil and gas since 2021. And I think I've seen a lot of short-term traders crying in their beer on X because they saw this obvious setup with the Strait of Hormuz being closed, perhaps the Strait of Bab el-Mandab. El-Mandab is also going to be closed. This war is not ending anytime soon. Oil is going to 120, 150 next month. So let's throw all the chips in. And I think that over time, those forecasts may in fact play out, but it's a bit of a dangerous game. It's almost like when you're sitting around the poker table and you don't know who the patsy is, maybe you're the patsy in that situation, right? Because there's insiders and there's big money on the other side of that trade who are close to the administration. So I always think, just throwing that note out there, I always think it's dangerous to try to trade around geopolitical headlines. I want to talk about the broad market here because it's the same old story. The big indices keep hitting new all-time highs. And despite insanely stretched valuations, I would guess most financial advisors would still stick their clients in an S&P index fund. Now, you have a lot of experience over the course of your career working with financial advisors in the U.S. I'm wondering any insights you could provide to those financial advisors who are what would it take for them to decide, you know what, this whole 60-40 portfolio thing, it's played out, we need to move on to something else?
Speaker 2It's going to take a lot. And I know that's not the answer your audience wants to hear, but the way the U.S. financial advisor's mind works is they basically will go into what we call model portfolios. And those model portfolios may not be just like a 60-40 like the traditional these days. Maybe, Jesse, they have some alternatives and some other asset classes included, but you're still getting major exposure to things that as a retiree or soon to be retiree, you don't want exposure to at this point. And I'm saying that very confidently. March 2009 to now is an eternity. You've made so much money as an investor. It's been 17 years. Like, please, for the love of God, go to your financial advisor and ask them this simple question. What does the next one to two years look like, Mr. Advisor? Don't ask about what's happened. It's already happened. You have to think intelligently and out of the box. And most investors are lemmings. They don't do this. So the S&P 500 as of March 31st, because I don't have the June numbers off the top of my head, was 40% technology. How are you, at 70 years old, going 40% tech for a large portion of your retirement? What the heck are you thinking, right? So I'm saying that more money could be made in the S&P from this point. However, it's marginal, right? You always have to look at the upside capture and the downside capture. And that's what we do at Fenton Consulting. So when we look at a stock like Denarius, right, the downside capture was 30 cents, right? That's where support was found. So we don't think it's going to break 29 to 30 cents. But the upside's a dollar. So when you're trading at 45 cents, you have 15 cents downside and 55 cents upside. That's stuff that you have to think about as an investor. Go look at the S&P, the SPY, and go look at where your upside is after a 17-year rally. Check it out. I mean, do your own homework. It's not a lot. Now, if you think that if you buy the BS that we are a great American economy that's running on all cylinders and AI is going to continue to fuel this S&P, NASDAQ, Russell kind of move, by all means, have at it. But I just am not in that camp. I think by Q1, you easily see a 15% to 20% correction in these type of vehicles. What I think you need to have happen, Jesse, is not to see what we've seen when we had Liberation Week in 2025, when we had COVID in 2020, which are fast snapbacks. If you don't get a V-shaped recovery, people are going to be like, whoa, I'm not used to this, right? That's what we need for a while. We need some malaise in the broad market so that people are like, oh, look at this. Look at Newmont crushing it on earnings. Look at Agnico crushing it on earnings. These are real companies that have a lot of upside from here. If you believe in gold, it's over.
Speaker 1And how are you thinking about cash allocation at this point in time, given that we could see a correction in the broad market at some point? And I was speaking to my good friend, Johnny Kovacevic, on the show recently, and he said it very succinctly when it came to will the miners and gold and silver also fall in such an he said, when they raid the house of ill repute, they arrest everybody, even the piano player, which I love. So are you keeping any extra cash on the sidelines in the case of such an event to perhaps pick up some of these mining stocks at a bargain?
Speaker 2Well, I'm a musician on the side, so I take offense with Johnny's comment, but I will say that we're 12 to 14% cash, as I stated, as of June 30th. And that now is probably about 8 to 10%. So I would recommend having some cushion here, have some dry powder, because I don't have a crystal ball. No one does. I think you're going to get some selling in the broad market as early as September into what is seasonally a period of weakness, right? September, October, going back to 1929 are the two worst months for the broad market. So you have that going for you too, if you believe in my narrative, right? And so, yes, to Johnny's point, there's a chance that we see the mining stuff get hit again. But I'm going to tell you what, But that stopped best income on August 19th, followed up by his threats to Iranian partners on the 24th. This is major stuff like this isn't this isn't normal. And that's what you look for as an investor. You look for stuff that's different. Right. And most people are just followers. They don't think independently and, you know, they're just going to do OK in life. You know, we don't want to do OK. We want to do great.
Speaker 1Well, John, fantastic conversation. Tell us about Fennick Consulting. Also, tell us about your upcoming conference, the Commodities Global Expo Arizona. That's going to be September 18th to 20th. How can people get tickets and what's that event all about?
Speaker 2Literally, I'm sitting on my couch July 4th weekend and I'm looking at these prices in the mining sector and I'm like, this has got to be close to a low. I'm going to do a conference. That's where September 18th through 20th was born. And it has been challenging because we're putting this together pretty quickly. But what's been really interesting is when you test the news. You know, we've had a lot of people that have been in the market like Arizona, Jesse, this is where Dondre and I live. You don't know who like is living right around you like we had so many investors come to us and say, man, I've followed you guys for the last two or three years. I'd love to come. We have a lot of investors coming. So if you're a company listening to this, please contact us. We have four company spots left. We're pretty much sold out at the investor level. But, you know, if the right investor contacts me, I'll have my contact info in your show notes. I'd be happy to try to make an accommodation for them. You know, we charge a fee to get in to the public, but we give free passes to commodity culture listeners where we can. And we ask for people to be accredited. Right. We don't want people with twenty five grand that are thinking about investing going to our conference. It's not who we're targeting. We want people with conviction, you know, that are going to say, I get what you're saying and I want to put money behind this. So that's Arizona. We've already booked our events for next year, which is May. Sorry. May 30 through June one. In Washington. Washington, D.C., and then June two through four at the Four Seasons for Lauderdale, Florida, right out of the ocean. So I've done those events now for three and four years, respectively. And those are our two flagship events. And tell us about Fennec Consulting. Yeah, so I'm really excited. I just brought on one of my biggest competitors in my in my lifetime. I trained him twenty six years ago and Garland worked for Bank of America and Goldman Sachs for most of his career. And I worked for JP Morgan, Sprott and Merrill for most of mine. And we'd always run into each other. And we've done a couple hundred events together because when you're on the road together, it's pretty lonely and it also helps save costs. So I just brought Garland on two weeks ago to help me to grow Fennec Consulting and also to help me with the companies that we're talking to on a regular basis and do some research for me because I'm not perfect. I miss things and it's hard in this sector because there's so much going on. And, you know. Life volume month like August that I wanted some help. So if you're an investor listening, what we do differently is we have a real time email service, right? So August five, when the ADP numbers came out, you got an email about it. August 7th, when nonfarm payrolls missed, you got an email within five minutes about that. Like, that's really valuable to people that I guess traders for sure. But investors that want news in their inbox as opposed to reading CNN or CNBC all day, like we're giving you the snippets that are. Helpful on the macro side for our sector only, right? We're not just saying random stuff and we're talking about Scott Beston on August 19th. We're talking about the war on a regular basis. So that's one aspect. The other aspect is our newsletter, which is less cost. And then you have the ability to do paid calls as well. And we don't say buy, sell, hold. But if you're listening and reading through the tea leaves on some of these stocks that we're talking about today, you can tell what we're bullish on. And. And what we're not really bullish on.
Speaker 1Great. Well, I'm going to put your contact info below so people can reach out about attending the Commodities Global Expo, Arizona. That's September 18th to 20th. There'll also be a link to Fennec Consulting so people can check that out as well. John, as always, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2My pleasure, Jesse.
Speaker 1Thanks. Thank you for joining us today on Commodity Culture. Earn up to a 4% annual yield on your physical gold paid in gold ounces through monetary method. Go to monetary dash metals dot com slash commodity to find out how to put your gold to work for you. Link is in the show notes below.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. John Fennec remains cautious about a potential reversal in metals but views the U.S. Treasury's August 19 buyback announcement as a major bullish signal for gold and silver.
  2. Weak U.S. jobs data and cooling inflation readings in July and August reinforced his bullish stance, prompting him to be a net buyer every week.
  3. Silver is his largest position at roughly 11 to 12 percent, and he sees silver reaching $100 by next year but dismisses calls for $300 to $1,000 as unrealistic.
  4. He favors silver and gold miners over physical metal for their roughly three-to-one leverage in a bull market, holding ETFs such as SIL, SLVP, and SILJ.
  5. Specific silver names he highlights include Pan American Silver, SilverCo, and Exelon Resources, citing low costs and strong free cash flow potential at current prices.
  6. In gold equities, he points to Denarius Metals and Gold Resource as mispriced opportunities, alongside iMetal Resources as a strategic-investor situation.
  7. In critical minerals, he is bullish on tungsten plays such as Spartan Metals and Kaz Resources due to U.S. supply deficits and government support.
  8. He recommends holding 8 to 10 percent cash as dry powder for a possible broad-market correction in September or October that could drag miners down temporarily.

Summary:

In this Commodity Culture interview, John Fennec of Fennec Consulting shares his outlook on precious metals, miners, critical minerals, and the broader market. S. Treasury's August 19 buyback announcement as a game-changing signal for gold and silver investors, comparable to quantitative easing.

Combined with weak jobs data and softening inflation, this prompted him to move from a 12 to 14 percent cash position in June to being a net buyer every week in July and August. Silver is his largest holding at roughly 11 to 12 percent of his portfolio. While he respects bolder forecasts, he considers $1,000 silver implausible and instead targets $100 by next year, noting resistance around the $70 to $90 channel.

He prefers miners over physical metal for their leverage, highlighting Pan American Silver, SilverCo, Exelon Resources, Denarius Metals, Gold Resource, and iMetal Resources as opportunities. S. supply deficit, naming Spartan Metals and Kaz Resources.

He also mentions Anchor Resources as a triple-threat oil, gold, and copper play. Fennec warns that stretched equity valuations could lead to a 15 to 20 percent correction by early next year, so he keeps 8 to 10 percent cash as dry powder. He also promotes his September Arizona conference and Fennec Consulting's real-time macro email service.

FAQs

The rally followed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's announcement of a doubling of Treasury buybacks, which investors viewed as similar to quantitative easing. The metals and miners then paused after the initial drop when the war with Iran began.

He expects silver to reach around $100 by next year from roughly $68, though he would be shocked to see it hit $300 or $1,000. He does not expect a quick return to the parabolic $121 level.

He is more bullish on silver and it is his largest position, at about 11-12% of the portfolio. His direct gold exposure is much smaller, around 0.6-0.7%, because he prefers gold equities for their roughly three-to-one leverage.

He and his partner use SIL for large-cap silver miners, SLVP as an alternative large-cap ETF, and SILJ for small- to mid-cap miners. These suit investors who want exposure through ETFs rather than individual stocks.

He points to Pan American Silver (PAAS), SilverCo (SICOF/SICO), Exelon Resources (EXNRF/EXN), and Lenegra, a development company with an ongoing 15,000-meter drill campaign. He favors development companies nearing production because high silver prices drive strong free cash flow.

He highlights Denarius Metals (DNRSF/DMET), Goro/Gold Resource (GORO), and iMetal Resources (IMRFF/IMR). He looks for mispriced situations, such as forced selling or a strategic investor entering, where upside outweighs downside.

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