Gold Newsletter editor Brien Lundin on Why You Simply Cannot Afford to Miss This Year’s 50th Anniversary of the New Orleans Investment Conference, November 20-23

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the one and only gatekeeper of my favorite investment conference. That, of course, being the New Orleans Investment Conference. I'm talking about none other than Mr. Brien Lundin. Brien, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you, sir?

Brien Lundin: I'm doing great, Gerardo. Always a pleasure to talk with you. I'm looking forward to catching up on our annual catch-up at the New Orleans Conference.

Gerardo Del Real: Always excited for it. Thank you again for the invite this year. I can't wait to get out there [November 20-23]. For those not familiar, I always like to start my conversations with you by allowing you a bit of space to provide some context on the conference, the quality of speakers, and how special this year in particular is because it is the 50th anniversary of the New Orleans Investment Conference. 

Again, it's a conference that's near and dear to my heart. But I'd love for you to just set the table for us and let everyone out there that's maybe contemplating coming out what they can expect and why this year is a pivotal year to be there and one that no one should miss if you're able to make it out there.

Brien Lundin: Yes, thank you. It's not widely known, I guess, but those who know, know. If you know, you know! 

This is our 50th anniversary of the conference. The first one was held in 1974 and launched by my mentor and late business partner Jim Blanchard in the early 1970s because he had been fighting since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 to get gold legalized for American citizens. 

A lot of people don't realize it was actually illegal for you to own gold back then. So he was successful in that along with a lot of help from other people in the industry. And so he decided to have a conference to teach Americans how to invest in gold and why. 

He did that in 1974. And it grew and grew. It had a great turnout. And long before we had all of the cable financial networks and the like, this was one of the premier ways to learn about the market and the opportunities in that market.

Over the years, Jim brought in just tremendous speakers like Lady Margaret Thatcher, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, F.A. Hayek, Barry Goldwater. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And I've been trying to continue that legacy since Jim passed away in 1999. 

And we have always focused, and especially in recent years, on getting the top thinkers out there. There are a lot of brilliant people who are posting on social media, primarily on Twitter/X, that are just really wonderful thinkers and analysts who are trying to explain the extraordinary times we are in. 

And that has kind of always been our goal or our mantra to explain what's going on and give information, give intelligence, give analysis that people don't get from the mainstream media.

It's a special event this year because we're celebrating our 50th anniversary. But even more important for the attendees is that it's coming at the very beginning of the next big secular bull market: metals and mining. One that's going to take the gold price to a multiple of today's levels and is going to multiply over and over the values of well-placed, well-managed mining companies. 

And if there's one truth in investing, one unassailable truth, it's that at such a point when a metals and mining bull market is beginning, you need to be in New Orleans at this event because nowhere else are you going to see the experts that can explain what's going on, that can lay out the best strategies, that can give their top picks from the inside, and also have dozens and dozens and dozens of the top mining companies there for you to talk to management and see what they're doing and get their story.

So if you're a serious investor, you have to think hard to find a reason why you can't or shouldn't be at this event. The potential rewards are so obvious and compelling that, for example, in any year, we offer a money-back guarantee. If you don't feel it's worth what you paid for it, we'll give you back every penny of your registration fee. 

And in the 15 years we've been doing that, we've given back registrations to, I think, three people who were just confused about what the event was about. And that's it. So we do it but we don't do it often because people come back year after year because they see the value, and the value is absolutely overwhelming. It's so much greater than the cost, especially in a time like this.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree more. Can we talk a bit about the lineup? I mean, the lineup is top-notch. It's top-notch every year. 

But in a year where geopolitically, fiscally, and economically there's so much volatility — and, by the way, I personally think we're just at the start of that volatility — I think there's going to be the need for guides and people that have seen similar cycles in the past to kind of map out how to navigate what I see as turbulent waters here over the next several years. 

But can we talk about the lineup of people that you have this year because, again, it's top-notch.

Brien Lundin: Yes, in addition to Gerardo Del Real and Nick Hodge, we also have James Grant, George Gammon, Rick Rule, Danielle DiMartino Booth, Brent Johnson, Jim Iuorio, Peter Boockvar, Jim Bianco, James Lavish, Adrian Day, Dave Collum, Alex Green, Bob Proctor, Tracy Shuchart, Avi Gilburt, Lawrence Lepard and dozens and dozens and dozens more. 

It'd take me a while to go through the whole list so I'll stop there. But I urge people to go to our website and see the lineup. It's really like nothing else. We're also going to have exclusive virtual presentations by Tavi Costa and Lyn Alden who weren't able to travel this year to the event. So the value from top to bottom is obvious. 

And really, what's not as obvious is the value you get from your fellow attendees in that the people in this audience are very successful and very experienced in the markets and are very willing to share their ideas and thoughts and they encourage you to share yours. So it's a remarkable sense of camaraderie and intellectual energy at the event. It just has to be experienced to be believed.

Gerardo Del Real: You wrote a piece a couple of days ago, and it was kind of curious too because I wrote an editorial yesterday, and as soon as I was done submitting it for editing, I read your piece and they echoed each other. 

You were talking about the bond market. And you were talking about the trajectory of precious metals in particular and about the direction policy is likely headed and how consequential that is for the precious metals space. It was a brilliant piece. 

We will try and put a link up to it but I encourage everyone to look for that piece because it was very well-written. Can you speak to what you're seeing specifically in the bond market right now because I couldn't agree with you more?

Brien Lundin: Yes, typically, market analysts look at falling bond yields as a safe haven phenomenon. Investors are looking for safety so they rush in and they buy treasuries and they drive yields lower. However, sometimes rising treasury yields are a sign of safe haven investing of worried investors. And that is even more profound because the source of their worry when yields go up are treasuries themselves. 

It's not just that treasury yields at current levels aren't commensurate with the risk they present. The risk that investors are evidencing through that behavior is the risk of inflation of the dollar; what they're going to be paid in being depreciated to a large degree. 

And in some cases, it's not even the return they get on their money but “if” they get a return on their money by investing in those bonds. So that's what happens when you see these bond vigilantes, as it were, coming in and driving rates up.

And what's been interesting is that gold should trade in an inverse relationship to treasury yields. When treasury yields are rising, the gold price should be falling. Same thing with the dollar index. When the dollar is strong, gold should be falling. That's the standard operating procedure that most people think is just an absolute truism in the markets. 

But over the past year, we've seen a number of occasions and periods where the dollar has risen, has strengthened, and treasury yields have risen, and gold has risen along with them. And that's because investors are seeking the ultimate safe haven, that being gold. 

They're fleeing for the safety of gold and away from treasuries. And they're also fleeing for the safety of the dollar, which, in itself, is a hedge against a lot of political uncertainty; the US being the last refuge in a lot of people's minds.

So it's interesting that gold has risen this past year — and especially since late February, March — no matter what the dollar index has done, no matter what treasury yields have done, and no matter what anything else has done in the markets. It’s rising because there's a lot of money out there on the margins that wants to have a foothold in gold to anchor the rest of their portfolios given the uncertainties ahead. 

And there's so much money out there, and the gold market is so small relative to all of that money, that it only takes fractions of a percentage of point shifts in allocations toward gold to have, really, the kind of reaction we're seeing right now.

Gerardo Del Real: It's curious and interesting to me, Brien, that statement you just made about how small amounts of capital relative to the amount of capital that's floating around out there — how small amounts of capital are able to influence the gold market in such a profound fashion — because the same could be said for other commodities. 

It could be said for silver, it could be said for uranium. I could go on… but what other sectors are you bullish on outside of the precious metals because, clearly, I think both you and I agree that gold and silver both are headed higher and will continue to make new record highs. 

In the case of gold, I think that'll happen on an almost monthly basis. In the case of silver, it's got some catching up to do, and I expect that to happen in very short order. But what other sectors do you like out there?

Brien Lundin: Yes, I am bullish as well for entirely different reasons. We have the monetary megatrend that's benefiting gold and silver, and we have the energy megatrend that's benefiting uranium. But there's also another megatrend kind of associated with the energy one where all of the base metals, all of the battery/energy metals, just have a tremendous supply-demand story. Really, one of the most compelling we've ever seen. 

I am, as I'm sure you and Nick are also, skeptical about all of the projections you see out there for energy usage, battery usage. I mean, nobody really knows the future to decimal places. But still, if you take all of that and totally disregard it, you have a tremendous demand curve and supply constraints for, say, copper coming ahead just in a base case. 

But then, if you add even a fraction of all of the predictions for electrification of transportation, of the rebuilding of the global electrical grid, you just can't get around the fact that there's so much more copper that will be needed than is available right now or in the foreseeable future.

Remember, copper mines, if they have feasibility studies, they're 10 years away from producing. If they’re discoveries, they're 20 to 25 years away from producing. So we have remarkable visibility ahead into what future copper supplies will be — and there ain't enough of it. 

The price just absolutely has to rise, I believe, by a multiple of where it is today. Copper is a tough one to play, especially in the junior markets like you and I like to play around in. 

But there are some good copper plays out there. And I think that's one of those “set it, forget it” kind of investing things where you find a good company, good management, well-financed, good projects, and buy it, put it away, and come back in a few years and see where it is because that is a market that will be relatively slow to gain steam. But once it does, it will be absolutely unstoppable.

Gerardo Del Real: I couldn't agree with you more. Brien, it's always a pleasure to have you on. Where can people find details… and, of course, we'll put a link up, but where can people find details on the conference, the speakers, the exhibitors, the partners? Where can they go?

Brien Lundin: Yes, very simply neworleansconference.com. There, they can learn more about this year's event and the history of the event. And one key factor is that our room block in the convenient host hotel — the beautiful Hilton New Orleans Riverside right on the banks of the Mississippi River — is closing imminently, so we really urge people to register now. 

They'll save hundreds of dollars on the registration fee by registering now, and they'll also be able to assure themselves of getting into our host hotel.

Gerardo Del Real: I can't encourage people enough to get out there. The conference for me — the networking, the amount of information, the quality of information from the speakers — absolutely changed the trajectory of my career for the better. 

If you can make it out there, it's a fun event, it's a great event, and the staff is phenomenal. Kudos to you, Brien, and congratulations again on the 50th anniversary and looking forward to catching up next month, sir.

Brien Lundin: Same here, Gerardo. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, see you soon. You take care.

Brien Lundin: You got it. Thanks, bye.