Gold mining

And that appears to be what investors are reacting to today with its share price falling.

I should also mention we are seeing some of our largest gold miners trading ex-dividend today, including Evolution Mining and Northern Star.

So they are both weights as well.

So generally, all of this news is sort of weighing on the gold subsector, which is down by around 1%.

And now we have a silver mine in Idaho.

Or we've got a gold mine in Arizona or Alaska or somewhere else.

There's lots of opportunities out there.

It's just 99% of the exploration companies that we'll talk to you, that you'll see on the market are exploration companies.

Made some money for our early investors there.

And then I went down to Nicaragua to run a small gold mine that was privately owned.

And they brought me in to modernize that operation and expand it.

We did that.

Sold it to a group out of Colombia, Mineros, which they were running a gold mine in Colombia.

Made a lot of money for the owners.

And of course, they were quite generous with me as well.

but the right people looked at it and thought there was something there and did the hard work to put it all together.

I haven't really had a full break to be honest with you.

Though I've been at the sea a lot I've still been working during the day so yeah all good stuff mainly in Egypt or all in Egypt.

All in Egypt yeah well I think for me it's you know I haven't written particularly much over August but it's the phone calls that you get throughout the month and you know obviously you have to answer them And it's always an emergency, I think is what it's like.

And it perennially will be forever and ever and ever.

It's damaging more to UK politics because it's just, again, another example of we can't trust them.

They're not looking after our best interests.

And it used to be that you kept all that stuff hidden under the carpet.

And now it's constantly in limelight because of social media.

welcome back i'm jeremy saffron now two of the biggest gold miners on the planet same three months same gold market we'll show a graphic here newmont generated a record 2.2 billion dollars in free cash flow barrack generated 515 million and it's attributable free cash flow the part tied to barrack's own ownership share was just 141 million dollars so one of these companies is harvesting the other one is building And that's a question hanging over this whole sector right now.

The miners are making more money than they ever have, and the market still won't pay for it.

And my guess has been in asset management since 1992, later on Sprott's precious metals team.

What we teach investors is we start a position in something we have conviction in, and then we add to it on dips.

And this summer is a perfect example, Jeremy.

I mean, if you look at the beginning of the war, let's call it March 1st to August 1st, the HUI was down around 40%, which is similar to GDX, right? I mean, it's the large cap gold miners.

And in that, either the index, HUI or GDX, Newmont and Barrick are components of that.

Right.

And as long as you're comfortable rebalancing, you'll come out in good shape.

Bob, I'm curious about how you think about the role of gold miners versus holding gold in terms of a portfolio.

I know in the ETF, you have a bit of both there, but curious, like, yeah, what's your perspective on miners and actually having that as part of the ETFs?

Yeah, we're very bullish on miners this trip around.

And that's a good thing because we see higher prices for gold.

So we wouldn't want to get involved in that.

Generally, people who haven't looked at the gold miners will see a major change in the management suite and also in the strategies.

Adding to your point, Felix, years ago, the minute they got that second dollar in the door, they were up 5000 feet in the air drilling for the next new thing, whether it was competitive with pricing or not.

at the time as well now it did flag improving sales this year and it's taking steps to try and regain market share and that's what the market seemed to react to most so keep in mind that yes the shares are up today it still is down this year it fell more than 40 in 2025 so it's a lot of work to do

Gold miners have been under pressure today after the price of gold fell sharply.

You spoke about it at the top.

We heard those comments from Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium.

So that's just increased bets for US interest rate hikes.

The markets now think A September Fed rate hike is more likely than not.

So that's why we've seen gold prices and gold miners under pressure.

So the gold subsector down 4.5% today.

Perhaps this is then a great time to talk about the miners.

I, I know you like to spend most of your time on discoveries, but I'd love to get your take on, on the gold miners right now.

What type of opportunity set is that offering when we're talking about this generational bull market for gold, as you outlined earlier? When the gold price rises faster than the cost inputs, what an incredible opportunity that must be.

Well, if you look at the last results, uh, by the gold mines, presented by the gold miners, the free cash flow is off the charts.

The free cash flow of gold miners is even larger now than free cash flow of The Magnificent Seven, the Mag- [laughs] Seven tech shares.

Of course, they have to invest a lot in their data centers now, so their free cash flow is disappearing quickly.

But if you look at the valuations, The Magnificent Seven stocks are still valued, I think, 10 times higher than, uh, the average, uh, valuation of, let's say, Newmont and Barrick.

The last time I checked, Newmont and Barrick, they still have P/Es of around 10, 11, which is dirt cheap.

I might even have to have some tectonic plate shift and some upheaval volcanic activity.

And I'm getting on that because I'm creating the gold mine now.

And we say, oh, no, the gold mine's already created.

All you have to do is get in the zone and you will be inspired to where the gold is that you've already put there.

How about that? And there's gold in them thar hills.