In this October Monthly Wrap-Up, Craig Hemke for Sprott Money sits down with Lobo Tiggre, the Independent Speculator, to dissect the volatile precious metals markets. Tune in now!
Gold Spot Price Consolidation Shows Strength In Precious Metals
Lobo, founder of IndependentSpeculator.com and a former protege of Doug Casey, began by pointing out the unique nature of this year’s movements. “We just saw a hockey stick…on top of a hockey stick,” he said, referring to gold’s powerful rallies. “To say this is it, it’s going to the moon... it could be, but that’s a big ask.” Tiggre cautioned investors not to get caught up in parabolic price moves without locking in profits, emphasizing that taking profits doesn’t mean exiting the market, but being rational in the face of volatility.
Rather than a dangerous reversal, Tiggre sees the current gold price consolidation around $4,000 as an extremely bullish indicator. “If 4,000 is the new 3,000,” he explained, “that implies like 5 to 6K being the next leg up.” Though not a prediction, this interpretation supports a healthy market with a strong foundation for future gains. Investors are encouraged to track gold spot price here to monitor potential buying opportunities.
Central Bank Demand Puts Floor Under Gold Market
One of the key dynamics holding up precious metal prices this year is relentless central bank demand. “We’ve seen things that in recent years would have caused a major drawdown in gold… but someone with really deep pockets steps in to buy those dips,” Tiggre noted. That someone, he believes, is central banks, not retail investors. With global de-dollarization and waning trust in fiat currencies, central banks are accumulating gold — especially on the dips — placing a secure floor beneath the market.
Tiggre adds that this type of buying doesn’t chase prices higher but serves to stabilize the market. This persistent demand limits downside risk, a feature Lobo finds “extremely positive.” While gold consolidated at $3,500 for months before breaking out again, Tiggre believes the same scenario may be unfolding now around $4,000. The implication? Another leg higher could be around the corner.
However, he warns gold investors not to treat central banks as allies. “They’re not our best friends,” he said, pointing out that these institutions are not committed buyers on a schedule. But the pivot from central bank gold selling to buying marks a structural shift in the market. This change alone, Lobo emphasized, makes it “materially beneficial for gold” and by extension, for those looking to buy gold as a long-term store of value.
Buy Silver: Undervalued And Poised For Catch-Up Rally
Turning to silver, Tiggre offered a surprisingly bullish perspective, despite accusations from some that he’s bearish. “I’m actually quite bullish on silver,” he stated clearly. “Silver is a much more compelling buy.” While gold has already hit a real all-time high when adjusted for inflation, silver remains dramatically undervalued by that metric. “Silver needs to go four times higher to reach a real high… and that’s just using the CPI,” he emphasized.
Tiggre acknowledged the recent squeeze in the London silver market, which pushed prices up temporarily, but he viewed the pullback and current silver spot price consolidation as a good sign. “I’m glad to see silver consolidating in the 40s, not 30s. That’s a profitable price,” he explained. For those mining silver profitably at these levels, the market is in good shape.
He also noted that silver’s dual role as both a monetary and industrial metal — especially given his bullish stance on copper — creates a "win-win" scenario. “If I’m bullish on gold and I’m bullish on copper, how can I not be bullish on silver?” Tiggre asked. This reinforces the case for those seeking to buy silver bars and coins to diversify holdings.
Mining Shares Lag, But Offer Opportunity
Discussing mining shares, Tiggre stressed the importance of profitability in this environment. “If you can’t make money at $4,000 gold, you’re a crappy gold company,” he said candidly. He discouraged investors from falling into the trap of bottom-fishing for cheap mining stocks. “If something is really cheap in this environment, there’s probably a reason.”
While mining stocks haven’t fully kept up with gold’s rally, Tiggre sees that as temporary. He described past movements where gold’s price held strong, and miners suddenly surged as investors recalibrated. “If we’re forming a new floor before the next move up, that’s great,” he said, adding that all the fundamentals still support long-term growth.
Tiggre also highlighted the value of treating bullion as insurance. “Bullion stays there unless I absolutely need it,” he said. For wealth preservation, Tiggre sees bullion as a “rainy day fund,” citing a recent example of a bankrupt crypto investor whose gold cube stake still held value. It’s a reminder that when all else fails, physical gold and silver do their job.
Uranium And Rare Earths: High Potential, High Risk
While Tiggre remains extremely bullish on uranium, he offers a cautious take on rare earth elements (REEs). “The uranium thesis is much more solid,” he said. The market is now being driven by green energy policy and nuclear adoption, with even New York’s governor recently committing to a gigawatt of nuclear-specific power. However, he warns that any nuclear accident like Chernobyl could severely derail momentum. Still, he’s long uranium and watching for volatility to offer fresh entry points.
Rare earths, on the other hand, are a different story. “There’s no off-the-shelf processing for rare earths,” Tiggre explained. With political control heavily skewed toward China, and the market impacted by sudden government decisions, the sector is highly unpredictable. “The prices are set by political fiat,” he warned.
He acknowledged that investors could make money, especially if they can anticipate moves from Western governments subsidizing REEs, but stressed that this is “much more of a gamble than a rational speculation.” Unlike gold, silver, or uranium, there are no reliable floor levels, and a single news item can tank prices. Those interested in these sectors must be especially diligent with research and timing.
Silver Catch-Up Rally Could Be Delayed, But It’s Coming
As the conversation wrapped up, Hemke reflected on the possibility of silver following gold’s breakout trajectory from earlier in the year. Silver bulls may recall previous spikes in 1980 and 2011, but Lobo noted the current rally already looks “different.” In past surges, silver didn’t stay above $50 for long. This time, he believes the longer consolidation may be a precursor to a more sustainable move higher.
Again, the inflation-adjusted case for silver remains robust. With gold having surpassed its real high, silver still has significant upside room — possibly to $200 or more, according to Tiggre’s calculations. Meanwhile, silver’s industrial demand continues to support prices, especially as green technology and electrification trends accelerate.
“Unless you’re a crappy company, this is not a bad price level,” he stated, emphasizing that both monetary and industrial demand should support a healthy silver market for the foreseeable future. Long-term investors should remain patient and watch the data.
Final Thoughts: Prepare For More Volatility, Stay Rational
Craig Hemke closed the interview by urging viewers to stay tuned for what promises to be another volatile month. Lobo Tiggre reminded investors that while speculation can offer profits, discipline and due diligence are key. “This is Sprott Money, not Sprott Religion,” he quipped, emphasizing that the goal is to make and keep money, not blindly follow any one narrative.
Contact the Sprott Money team to learn more about gold and silver investments.
Craig Hemke (00:00)
Hello again from Sprott Money at SprottMoney.com. We have reached the end of October and what an October it has been. Straight up, straight down, back to unchanged. Wow, it has been a wild one. And so for your monthly wrap up, ⁓ I brought in who I think someone could really wrap it up for us. Again, I'm your host, Craig Hempke and joining me is Lobo Tigre, long time, precious metal natural resource analyst. And I thought, wow, what a great guy to have. Again, as we wrap up October Lover, nice to see you.
Lobo Tiggre (00:34)
Nice to see you, Craig, and long time viewer of Sprott monthly wrap up.
Craig Hemke (00:40)
We've been doing this for a long time, And you know, getting close to the of the year, maybe we can get the old man to come on and do one of these as we wrap up too. be good. You know, my net worth went up a little bit this month, but I bet his has probably gone up a little bit too. ⁓ Anyway, if you want your network to go up, keep stacking that metal. ⁓ Sprott money, of course, should always be on your list of sources to check whenever you're acquiring physical metal. Gold, silver, a place to store it.
Lobo Tiggre (00:54)
This is the fit.
Craig Hemke (01:09)
Go to SpropMoney.com and check all the deals that they always have on their site. But of course you can always just call them too if you want to talk to an actual person, 888-861-0775. Lobo, before we get going, I've known you for a while, but for people that don't know who you are and your background and where they can find your work, please fill them in.
Lobo Tiggre (01:30)
Sure. Well, my running joke is that I'm the cheap knockoff Mexican Doug Casey. I worked for the legendary speculator, you know, after Eric and Rick, we've got Doug. Those are like the three bright names in our space. so, yeah, Doug's a great big guy, you know, ⁓ and he was tired of hitting his head on these little old colonial mining tunnels in Mexico and Peru and whatnot. So he sent me in.
And, ⁓ kicked a lot of rocks and I learned a lot about picking stocks, if you'll allow me the rhyme. ⁓ and so now I'm the independent speculator, know, Casey research is no more. ⁓ I went independent in 2018 and, ⁓ you know, I don't, I don't want to make it an adver, advertorial, but just, you know, I have a network in this business that I built with my years with Doug and learning from him. And, and actually I interviewed Eric early on in my career. So.
Craig Hemke (02:02)
I like that, I like that.
Lobo Tiggre (02:24)
A lot of these guys who came before us have contributed to my success. And now, you know, I'm not ready to retire, but I am trying to pass on what I've learned.
Craig Hemke (02:33)
right? Right. IndependentSpeculator.com, correct? And also a great follow on Twitter. I don't follow very many people, but I got Lobo on the list. I think if you're on X Twitter, be sure to check out ⁓ DoDiligenceGuy, right? Isn't that your address?
Lobo Tiggre (02:37)
Thank you.
Yeah, I have to give credit. I know you're referring to the memes more than my brilliant market analysis. And I have a meme master, we have a resident writer who's just really funny, very creative, some of the memes we come up with together. But most of the really funny ones I have to say are him. I'm generally known as a stick in the mud. ⁓ You know, I'm the rain on the parade. But you know, that's what due diligence is for, right? So so, but credit where to do you know,
Craig Hemke (03:16)
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (03:18)
⁓ His name is Kyle Johnson. He's absolutely brilliant and I'm really happy to have him on my team.
Craig Hemke (03:25)
And it's like you said, like I said, it's a great follow. All right. So Lobo, we've had quite the month. ⁓ Gold has kind of followed a pattern for the last year and a half. Once it broke out to new all time highs in March of 24, it's followed a pattern of 15 to 20 % rallies followed by multi-month consolidation periods. This most recent rally took off in late August, early September and
rallied 20 % or so, now seems to be in a consolidation period again. What do you make of gold here within a couple months left in 2025?
Lobo Tiggre (04:04)
I think that's an excellent way to frame it. And I think that's really important because when something pulls a hockey stick, right. And part of my official rain on the parade hat is to point out, hey, this is just gone vertical. Nobody goes broke taking profits. You know, the more extreme the hockey stick, the more likely it is to roll over. Right. And people say, he's got no conviction. He's selling to taking profits doesn't mean exiting the market. It just means locking in your gains. But anyway,
The point is we just saw a hockey stick and we saw a hockey stick on top of a hockey stick. And so, you know, to say this is it, it's going to the moon. It could be, but that's a big ask. And so the reason why I'm stressing this is because there was a, there was a, just a non-zero or a non-trivial, but I think there was a significant chance that, you know, gold goes zooming up. hits some kind of
fulfillment number that Mr. Market has in his head and just decides to sell and that trigger stops. There's a cascading event. So hitting almost 4,400 could have been the thing that sent it back down to 3,400, which would be a great actual level for making money in the business, by the way. But the stocks obviously would tank if that happened. So given that the alternative to what you've just said, Craig, is this massive retreat, you know, too far, too fast.
you know, it would be anything but surprising to see a much more substantial correction. So actually, this is maybe the most optimistic bullish thing I can say this whole conversation is that the fact that gold is wobbling around 4000. I think that's fantastic news, because because the alternative is, you know, went up and then boom, like really boom, way back down. And that doesn't seem to be happening now, even though you know, there's been headwinds, you know, the piece with
Craig Hemke (05:31)
you
Lobo Tiggre (05:56)
with Gaza or peace with China in the trade war, whatever, and gold still holding in there. That is extremely bullish in my view, and it did it at 2000. It did it at 3000. If 4000 is the new 3000, that implies like five to six K being the next leg up next big lab. But that's not a prediction or a promise. I'm just saying, you know, I'd much rather see consolidation before the next move higher, which is what it looks like right now. Then, you know that boom.
Craig Hemke (06:26)
So the headline for this, Lobo Tigre says gold's going to six. Right. That happens to me. People do that to me all the time. We're not going to do that to you. I promise. However, to your point, know, gold consolidated at 3,500 from April to August. And it seemed like there was an exodus of the mining shares in June and July. And then once the mining shares figured out, wait a second, we're deep into the third quarter here and price is still $3,500. All of sudden they took off.
Lobo Tiggre (06:29)
That's right. Quick, mate me, bro.
Craig Hemke (06:55)
then gold took off again. We're in that kind of exodus of the mining shares again. What do you think? mean, we make it to November at 4,000?
Lobo Tiggre (07:01)
Well, the stocks are supposed
to give us leverage to the underlying metal. And by the way, this is an important point. When I talk about taking profits, nobody goes broke taking profits or, I have my upside maximizer strategy or, whatever strategy you have, you know, the worst thing in the world would be to be a long suffering goal or silver bull to finally be right and not make any money. You know, this is sprot money, not sprot religion about silver and gold. Right. If the idea is to actually make and keep the money you make,
Craig Hemke (07:06)
Right.
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (07:31)
You have to be rational as you approach these markets. But I'm talking about the stocks. know, bullion, basically, I never sell unless like there's some emergency and I need to dip into my rainy day fund. That's what insurance is for, right? Or maybe some once in a lifetime opportunity. have I have literally done both in my life with my bullion savings. And as you and I are speaking, there's a headline in the right now about this guy, some crypto guy who put who owns a third of a cube like this.
two foot cube of solid gold like Warren Buffett's cube, but but an actual physical cube, it weighs 400 pounds. This guy was about a third of it. And he's he's he's in bankruptcy. So his stake in this cube of gold is up for sale. Maybe maybe let Eric know he might be interested. Bail him out. You know, his his stake is worth 32 million dollars at current levels and
Craig Hemke (08:16)
Yeah, really. Yeah.
Lobo Tiggre (08:26)
I think that really illustrates exactly what I'm talking about. Like this guy's facing bankruptcy. His tokens, know, his NFTs aren't helping him out right now. But he owns a third of the giant cube of gold, this pet rock that's totally useless is is doing its job in this space. So please don't confuse, you when people say, Oh, he's selling gold. No, I'm not selling gold. It's my my bullion stays there unless I absolutely need it for one way or the other. But as a speculator, it's my job to make money in the stock market.
Craig Hemke (08:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lobo Tiggre (08:56)
And to realize those gains, right? So I think it's extremely bullish what we're talking about. If we're forming, consolidating and informing a new floor before the next move up, that's great. All the fundamentals, I think, support that. Like the central bank buying, you know, we've talked about this before. I don't need to wax-trap SOTIC about that. But that is the most important thing to me is that that's a one-way door. That doesn't change.
You know, Trump and Xi kissing and making up doesn't mean suddenly China is going to be happy to have its financial lifeblood flowing through New York. Right. So. That actually limits the downside in my view. I don't think we can count on central banks to chase the price higher, but they do buy the dips. think we have seen this over the last couple of years, and that's really interesting. So I don't want to give you too much click blady headline there, but I believe it or not, I'm.
I'm feeling much, much better about both monetary metals right now than a month ago when it was doing this. When it was doing that, you know, I mean, 10 years ago, we would have been ecstatic to be talking about $4,000 gold, $5,000 gold, right? That we would think that would be it, like we would be arriving at the blow off top. And now that we can be at this level and think of it as just another shoulder before the eventual head. I think that's extremely positive.
Craig Hemke (09:57)
Right.
Yeah, that central bank demand for everybody watching here on Thursdays, record this, World Gold Council was just out today with their third quarter central bank demand report and everything else that goes with it. I encourage everybody to check that out. And again, I was even thinking a little bit, that is the part of it, that what's leading to these stair steps higher is that central bank demand kind of puts almost like a little floor under price. Everybody recalibrates, readjusts to it. And then here we go again. ⁓
as long as that central bank demand.
Lobo Tiggre (10:48)
that
it's really striking. see, sorry to jump in, but you see things that in recent years would have been, you know, causing a major drawdown in gold and then echoed in silver. And somebody with really deep pockets steps in to buy those dips. I don't think that's you and me going down to the coin shop writing and buying another round. ⁓ Whereas if you're a central bank, and you've been told by the you know, you're
Craig Hemke (10:50)
No, go ahead.
Yeah.
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (11:12)
your powers that be your marching orders are we don't trust the dollar. We need to diversify. You need to start accumulating gold. What are you going to do? You know, chase the highs. Of course not. I mean, my mentor, Doug Casey, has had unkind things to say about the intelligence of the average central banker. But but they're minions who are in charge of implementing the policy. Of course, they're going to be buying on the dips. So I just see this as. It's really important. And if you want to make a case that this time is different, famous last words, blah, blah.
But this actually is different. If you and I have enough silver in our hair to remember the central bank gold selling agreement, remember, we're not going to sell more than 500 tons a year, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, the concern before was the central bank selling. Oh, so yeah, that is kind of different if we're if we're in buying mode. But one thing I will say, dear gold bulls out there and silver, but the central banks aren't really accumulating silver. But I mean, which of us is not
Craig Hemke (11:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lobo Tiggre (12:12)
suspicious of the motives and the trustworthiness of central banks. I don't want everybody to go out and hang their whole thesis on, yeah, Lobo says the central banks are the reason to buy gold. No, that's not what I'm saying. And they don't have a mandate to buy every week or every month or whatever. We've seen China disappear from the market for a while. these are not our best friends. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that that flop from selling to buying and the
Craig Hemke (12:16)
Yeah.
Yep, yep.
Lobo Tiggre (12:42)
part of the de-dollarization trend, all these macro global geopolitical and financial trends. There is a real change in the world and it is materially beneficial for gold and that typically gets echoed in silver. Even a very few central banks are buying silver, only a couple.
Craig Hemke (13:00)
Well, Solomo in that vein of is this time different? I mean, I look at the chart of silver and I, you know, my Spidey senses go off, right? Because I remember 2011 and I was 14 in 1980. And so you see that, boy. ⁓ However, with that said, I mean, we've seen silver go back just a few weeks ago, make some new nominal all time highs. We've seen copper here do the same recently. ⁓
Is this time different? Is silver going to follow through, do you think, like gold? Gold broke to new all-time highs 18 months ago and has since doubled. Is silver now? Keep this name and catch up.
Lobo Tiggre (13:39)
Yeah, so
let's drop this this time different thing we've made a case for you know, some things don't change. The dangerous thing about saying this time is different is obviously the world changes, right? But what's dangerous is when people want to say that like something has changed in human nature, or in the nature of markets, like trees can grow to the moon now where they couldn't before like that's that's what's dangerous when people say this time is different with
that can get you in trouble when you're saying, well, the rules no longer apply. And that's not what we're saying. I'm still looking even with gold and silver miners, I'm looking for profitable companies like if you can't make money for $1,000 gold, sorry, you're a crappy gold company. There's no other more technical way to put that. And similarly at silver, I silver, the mines that are in operation now, you know, they were designed at like $15 silver.
Craig Hemke (14:33)
Hmm? Yeah?
Lobo Tiggre (14:34)
or less, it's not so
long ago that you know, especially the long in the tooth minds. So they, they have to be either printing cash and if gold and silver are real money, right, like almost literally, like they have to be either printing cash or they're doing something very wrong. And on the making money side, like this is actually the market giving you a gift. If you're a speculator in the stocks, there's a temptation to say, they've all run up, what's still on sale? What's cheap?
Well, if something is really cheap, or if the company is not delivering in this environment, that's not a bargain. That's not a deal. This is when we just climbed a hockey stick. That's not the time for bottom fishing. If the entire market is telling you there's something wrong with this company and you don't see it, I mean, have a little humility here and maybe consider that maybe there's something wrong with that company, even if you don't know what it is. Sorry, I'm getting distracted with silver. I mean, it's relevant because if you've got a
Craig Hemke (15:26)
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (15:35)
a crappy silver company that's not doing well in this environment. That's not a that's not a buy. As far as silver itself, we did have the physical squeeze in London well documented, I don't need to go in at length about that. That was obviously not going to last forever. I say obviously some people argued, well, mine production would never catch up. But you know, there is silver above ground that could be brought to bear. And it's not just grandma's old tea set, right?
Craig Hemke (16:01)
Right. ⁓
Lobo Tiggre (16:03)
⁓ I understand that actually it wasn't so much flights reversing from Chicago and New York to London, but actually China that stepped in with silver to help London out. So I think it was, it was, if not entirely predictable, it seemed likely that that squeeze would not last. And here again, I, you know, people say, I hate silver. I'm a bear on silver. I'm not a bear. I'm trying to be a realistic hunting wolf looking for opportunities really.
Craig Hemke (16:13)
I've seen that too.
Lobo Tiggre (16:32)
But the interesting thing about this is like when that silver squeeze was happening, the physical squeeze and silver goes screaming up to 54 bucks an ounce, long suffering silver bulls are celebrating. But I'm like thinking, wait a minute, when silver starts catching up to gold, even your most diehard silver bull will tell you silver lags at first and then catches up or more than at the end of the bull market. So if this is that catch up phase, that means it's the end of the bull market. And I don't think so. I'm a fundamentalist, not a technicalist.
But even with gold over 4,000, I look at the world, the central bank buying, the money printing, the inflationary agenda in the United States and Europe, even China promising, almost like Mario Draghi, I'll print all I have to get inflation going again. All of this is extremely bullish for monetary metals, other metals too, just commodities, anything real actually in this world. So I remain bullish on silver, ⁓ but that
temporary surge on the basis of this London squeeze, I'm glad to see it resolved. I'm glad to see silver consolidating the 40s, not 30s. Right? You know, that's a profitable price for these companies and for the better projects out there. There's nothing wrong with $40 silver in terms of the business of mining this stuff right now. Don't take me wrong. I'm not saying I don't want it to go higher. I'm just saying, unless you're a crappy company, this is not a bad price level. So but what so so the takeaway though, Craig is that
Craig Hemke (17:38)
right?
the
Lobo Tiggre (18:00)
If silver going vertical meant that we were approaching the final blow off top, yeah, we'd all make a lot more money in the next couple of weeks, but that would be it. And then we'd probably be looking at a multi-year bear before the next leg up. So the fact that it corrected, you know, it got ahead of itself and now it's pulling back and the GSR widened again, know, silver bucks hate that. But I think this is very good news in terms of the health and outlook of the overall bull market for monetary metals going forward.
I don't want it to end now yet. I'm not ready yet. know, right? Mr. doesn't care what I want. That's not important what I want. But my analysis of the market is that we shouldn't actually be topping out yet. And so I'm glad to see the data backing me up on this.
Craig Hemke (18:33)
Right, right.
Right. Right. And you know, gold in that period when it was first trying to break out from early December of 23 to February 24, it just kept banging up against the all time highs. And then once it got going, it really got going, obviously. So it'll be interesting to see now if silver can't pull that same kind of pattern over the next year.
Lobo Tiggre (19:07)
And by the
way, for long suffering silver bulls here, note that the spike 14 years ago, and the spike in 1980, those are intraday highs. I mean, the zip up and down on either side of those was extremely sharp. So the fact that silver stayed over 50 for more than a week. That's already different. Like that is different this time. And I think that's actually quite encouraging. Oh, and one other thing.
Craig Hemke (19:24)
Right. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lobo Tiggre (19:36)
Everybody says I hate silver, but it is a mathematical fact that gold has hit a real all-time high if you use CPI, and I know it's CPI, blah, blah, but it's a conservative case, right? If we use their number, they can't criticize us for using it. So if you adjust gold for CPI, we have hit a real all-time high, even including the 1980 peak. That is far from the case from silver. So if I'm bullish on monetary metals, but I'm nervous about chasing gold over 4,000,
Silver is a much more compelling buy. literally needs to still even from 50, it needs to go four times higher to reach a real high. And that's even just using the CPI, nevermind a real inflation adjuster. So, you know, I'm actually quite bullish on silver. And by the way, I know you mentioned it earlier, but I'm also bullish on copper. And silver, as we all know, has an industrial side as well as a monetary side.
I see that actually as a win-win thing, not a bad thing. Some people hate it when I say that. silver is money. But if I'm bullish on gold and I'm bullish on copper, how can I not be bullish on silver?
Craig Hemke (20:44)
Right, right. And to the editors of the video, a new headline possibility, Lobo Tigre says silver going to 200. All right, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is this idea of rare earths and uranium. Rick Ruhl got me started on uranium three or four years ago.
Lobo Tiggre (20:52)
It's like 206 and change the last time I ran the math on CPI.
Craig Hemke (21:11)
because it seemed like such a compelling investment thesis long-term. None of this doubling in six months stuff. And now it seems like the world is coming around to that in Rare Earths too. ⁓ The investment possibilities are limited, but there's quite a few. And so far it seems like, at least in that initial run up over the last couple of weeks, especially the Rare Earth critical mineral stuff is like the rising tide lifted all the boats, but that's not like a long-term strategy. In your mind, how does someone assess
⁓ solid investment opportunities in uranium miners and rare earths and critical. Yeah. How do you discern the good ones from the bad ones?
Lobo Tiggre (21:45)
⁓ solid. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Well,
yeah, this doesn't work.
Craig Hemke (21:53)
Good point. You can try. What the heck?
Lobo Tiggre (21:57)
So, well, let's separate things. I think the uranium thesis is much more solid. It's also one metal with, you know, certain off the shelf technology for processing and recovery. And and that is not locked in China. And by the way, with the rare earths, like it's it's not just that they mine them there. It's the processing there and the expertise they've developed there, which is harder to diversify. So uranium doesn't suffer from those setbacks.
And the use case, I used to say every week there's some new bullish headline for uranium. It's almost daily now. ⁓ I think today the big headline that caught my attention is the Democratic governor of New York, Hogle, has talked about a gigawatt of nuclear specific. The green mantle coming onto nuclear shoulders is another one of these game changers. mean, it's absolutely... ⁓
Craig Hemke (22:44)
Yes.
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (22:56)
I think it would take a Chernobyl scale event to derail this. the demand keeps going. And we've seen that the supply, it was reasonable a year ago to ask, well, will high prices cure high prices? There's a lot of low-hanging fruit out there, mothball production, kind of like OPEC, voluntary supply constraint amongst the big uranium producers. We now have an answer to that. And the answer is no. I mean, it's not that they didn't try, but the biggest and the best in the space have failed to meet
their goals and they've moved the goalposts actually. And amongst the juniors, it's been a train wreck. know, most of them have either reduced guidance, push the dates forward, or just not been able to build a mine at all. So I won't go too long down that rabbit hole, but I think like literally, this can melt down if there's a nuclear accident, but that's what it would take to derail the CESAs. Nothing short of that, I think really changes uranium for years to come. I maybe
decades down the road, thorium takes over fusion or whatever, but that's not an investable thesis right now. I really liked the uranium story. The only problem I have there in terms of making money ⁓ is that it's so obvious that the stocks have actually not sold off with the volatility and the spot price. And so finding opportunities has been a bit tough. I'm waiting for another big scare. And they happen. Like just earlier this year, there was that deep seek scare coming out of China and
Craig Hemke (23:58)
Right, right.
Mm-hmm.
Lobo Tiggre (24:22)
uranium
has been sorry, nuclear has been sort of an AI play as well as a green play. And the uranium stocks just got clobbered, like 52 week highs to 52 week lows on that news. And it was completely ridiculous. I mean, it and you know, and many of the better ones have come on to new multi year highs since then just in the last few months this year. So I love it. I'm long already. So I'm not feeling any FOMO. But I'd really like to see another one, you know, volatile.
opportunity like that to buy. The rare earths is much, harder. You know, we say rare earths, REEs, whatever, but it's not one thing. It's a whole suite of different metals, different mixes and different deposits, the light rare earths and the heavy rare earths and different concentrations. So there's no off the shelf processing technology that does this. And, you know, there are multiple projects I can think of over the years where they've gotten as far as a full feasibility study, a bankable feasibility study, and that stuff still sitting in the ground.
Craig Hemke (25:01)
Right.
Lobo Tiggre (25:22)
Right. And it's not that the IRR wasn't high enough. It's that even with the full feasibility study, you never really know. Right. You have to build a pilot plant, make sure it works, all that stuff. It's it's big money for uncertain gains. And it's it's been difficult. So, you know, people will, you know, talk about, we have some of the key heavy rare earths, blah, blah, you know, all this stuff. Basically, it's really difficult. No two are the same. ⁓ The prices
underlying prices are also subject to big volatility. The rare earths, anybody with rare earths from their name was seeing a lot of buzz earlier this month. And then suddenly, there was news out of China, and they all fell off a bit of a cliff. Right. And now we've got news as you and I recording, you know, we've got Trump and Xi have have made a deal. It's not really a deal. It's just postponing, you know, the truce, as it were. And China is going to postpone, they say.
Craig Hemke (26:00)
Yep.
Lobo Tiggre (26:21)
their restrictions on the rare earths and the magnets. The details are potentially quite diabolic here. I have no idea how it's going to play, which ones, right? And is it going to apply to the processing or just the minerals themselves? We just don't know. But the point is that, let's say they really open the floodgates. Well, what's going to happen to your rare earth stocks? this is not like ⁓
Craig Hemke (26:45)
right right
Lobo Tiggre (26:48)
you know, copper or even gold and silver. Like there's no, ⁓ there's no sudden news that's going to suddenly tank copper, right? There's no Chernobyl meltdown that can melt down copper. There's no one mine that can open up and flood the world. Like, but with Rare Earths, the prices are set by political fiat. I mean, what is the solution that the Western countries are talking about? Japan, this deal, another deal with Trump. And what's their deal on Rare Earths?
or going to support price floors. Japan doesn't produce rare earths. So what can they do? Well, they can promise subsidies, basically. That's another political fiat. Who's to say the next administration here or there won't change that? Sorry, we can't afford it. So I'm not saying there's no money to be made in rare earths. And certainly in this environment where the United States government is buying stakes in critical minerals companies, we've seen that move share prices. If you can get ahead of that lightning bolt,
Craig Hemke (27:29)
Yep. Yep. ⁓
Lobo Tiggre (27:45)
I don't know how to do that, but if you can do that, congratulations, good luck to you. But you know what the government giveth, taketh away and that applies to all governments. So I'm just my takeaway here is not that you can't make money in this space, but it's very difficult to do in any kind of reliable, disciplined way. I see it as much more of a gamble than the kind of rational speculation that Doug Casey and Rick Roll taught me.
Craig Hemke (28:09)
And the independent speculator dot com is a place where can find that rational speculation. Correct? Are we going to talk about gold and silver and the mining shares? You cover some uranium there too for your subscribers?
Lobo Tiggre (28:22)
Absolutely. Well, you know, I say due diligence, rain on the parade and so on. If you want hype, if you want it's going to the moon. If all you can hear is your favorite mineral is going higher, I'm not your due diligence guy.
Craig Hemke (28:35)
But if you want to go about it the smart way...
Lobo Tiggre (28:37)
Well, thank you, we try.
Craig Hemke (28:41)
there. Lobo, thank you so much. It's been, ⁓ I knew this would be a fabulous discussion. I knew you were the right guy to talk to after the month that we've had. ⁓ All I ask is that maybe we do this again sometimes, because I have a suspicion we're going to have more months like this as we get into the new year.
Lobo Tiggre (28:58)
Interesting times ahead. Thank you, Craig.
Craig Hemke (29:00)
For sure. And thank you everybody for watching. We're going to start a new month here next week. And then month of November is going to be a crazy one. think we, we think we can all anticipate that. So keep an eye on this channel. Wherever you're watching this content or listening to this content from Sprott Money, hit the like or the subscribe button. So you're notified whenever there's new content. Cause it's coming. We got a whole new month of stuff that'll be headed your way as we begin to wrap up 2025. But for now we'll wrap up.
month of October and wrap up this video. Thanks everybody for watching. Thanks Lobo for participating and keep an eye on this channel. We have more content coming for you as soon as we get into November.
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