Unbelievable Levels of Big Money Interest in Commodities Right Now: John Ciampaglia

Unbelievable Levels of Big Money Interest in Commodities Right Now: John Ciampaglia

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commodity culture sent you and today’s
guest is the CEO of sprout asset
management and the senior managing
partner of sprout Inc he is responsible
for overseeing Sprout’s Public Market
investment strategies and is also the
portfolio manager for the company’s
physical commodity funds we’re going to
be discussing uranium gold silver copper
and more today it’s John chalia welcome
back to the show great to be back that’s
that’s quite a roster of medals to cover
I’m excited yes I’m excited as well but
before we do dive into those medals I
want to start with your views on the
current state of the broad market and
economy I’m wondering what trends and
themes you’re watching right now that
you think investors should be paying
attention to yeah well it’s it’s been
kind of an unusual I would say couple of
years with with most markets and that’s
just because central banks around the
world have had a disproportionate
influence on the valuations of
everything from Real Estate to bonds to
stocks to Precious Metals um and that’s
really because of the pivot we’ve gone
from a period of hyper easy uh money
obviously that was was spurred on by the
covid-19 pandemic and then shifting to
an Era of tightening which we saw
unprecedented in increases in interest
rates and I think it’s important for
people to realize that when you you know
shift interest rates as as dramatically
as central banks around the world have
done that has an incredible impact on
the valuations of assets particularly
long duration assets um and you know
we’ve seen obviously huge uh unrealized
losses in the bond market as interest
rates have gone from basically zero to
you know four or five% or more we’ve had
incredible impact on real estate values
in particular commercial real estate
values which is obviously having a
ripple effect through you know bank loan
books and things like that which have
led to some bank failures stocks um it’s
been kind of an odd market in terms of
you know technology stocks after having
a soft 2022 really were huge winners
last year um and we’re starting to see
some I think Improvement in breath of
stock market leadership but it’s been a
very narrow group of stocks and then on
the commodity front you know we’ve
obviously had um a real mixed bag in
terms of things like uranium being big
winners last year um gold and silver
kind of perking up and waking up after
being in the doldrums for a while um and
a lot of the battery metals and I’d say
more traditional Industrial Metals like
iron or have struggled uh whereas Metals
related to energy transition like copper
have kind of decoupled from from their
more you know uh traditional group that
they that they move with like like iron
which we can talk about so you know it’s
the reason why I’ve been in the business
for 30 years it’s there’s never a dull
moment uh markets are so Dynamic there’s
always things going on there’s always
things to learn uh and I’m very
intellectual curious so um I I never
stop reading and watching markets yeah
no I I’m I’m right there with you that’s
why I love doing the show and talking to
so many experts like yourselves like
yourself getting different opinions
different insights into both the market
in general as well as Commodities you
mentioned uranium there I’d like to
touch on that next a formidable
performance last year I believe it was
the best performing commodity on a
percentage gain basis um also performing
well in 2024 obviously we saw a bit of a
dip in the spot market after it hit
around $100 but I think that’s to be
expected uh the big news in the sector
is basically Kazam prom announcing that
they’ve missed production targets for
2023 and expect to miss in 2024 and 2025
possibly even forcing them to purchase
pounds on the spot Market to fulfill
contracts I wonder what your thoughts
are on that news do you think it changes
the supply demand dynamics of the market
and kind of the thesis moving forward
yeah so you bring up a really important
part of the uranium story and and the
reason for that is quite simple
Kazakhstan is is the largest producer of
uranium in the world with a little over
40% of world production so they they
basically are the equivalent of OPEC in
terms of uranium Supply so as you
because of that the world watches them
very closely in terms of what their
plans are what the production profile
will look like and obviously with the
price of uranium going from the low 20s
per pound three years ago up to through
$100
recently um the world obviously is
waiting for as you would expect a supply
response and that basically happens with
every commodity bull market as the price
Rises it allows more and more deposits
become economic it allows companies to
raise capital and actually bring
production online and that’s you know
obviously very rational economic
behavior so when you have the world’s
largest producer and also the lowest
cost producer because of the type of
mining that they do and I’m not going to
use the word mining but basically they
don’t do traditional underground or open
pit mining for Uranium they do something
called insitu uh leeching which is
basically a technique where they inject
different chemicals into the ground and
they basically leech the uranium out of
the soil and then pump it back to
surface and separate it it’s a very
different technique than than you know
what Hard Rock mining most people think
of so they have a very low cost
structure and in the last cycle um
Kazakhstan you know went from becoming a
fairly small player on the world stage
in terms of ranium production producing
about five million pounds a
year and they ultimately ramped up
production to uh 6 60 million pounds a
year and and and because they’ve had the
ability to ramp up production to that
kind of scale everyone watches what they
are going to do next and for the last
few years they’ve been on a model of
Supply discipline which basically means
they along with other companies like
camoo have essentially curtailed
production because of sub economic
pricing now last uh September I’m going
to start the story there because when
the price hit $72 a pound after kind of
breaking out from the mid-50s Kazan prom
announced that they were going to
increase production um in 2024 by about
8 million extra pounds and in 2025 by
about six 16 million extra pounds and
that would basically bring them back to
their subsoil licensed capacity and the
world went wow okay they’re flexing up
the signals you know the price signals
are there the demand signals are there
and they’re responding so that was at
the end of September now the price fell
$5 a pound shortly after that news from
72 to
67 and about a week later the price went
back to 72 and just kept on going up to
9 w at the end of the year and I think
the reason why it it it shook the news
off was there was a very high level of
skepticism whether they will actually do
it or able to do it now sure enough we
get to January or so this year and they
announced um well no there’s going to be
a change in production and they
ultimately told us in February that
production for 2024 is essentially going
to be flat and they are no longer
telling us what the plan is for 2025
until August of this year so this is
really important because you know while
8 million pounds this year and 16 the
next are meaningful I think it really is
a powerful signal around what’s really
going on here now the original messaging
we heard from them was we have a
sulfuric acid shortage in country and
remember that’s the chemical I
referenced earlier that they need to
inject into the ground to leech and to
dissolve the uranium uh they said
there’s a shortage and we were they were
going to build a new plant in country
and that is still several years away but
more recently um and I listened to them
on a on a conference I participated in
just last week with the Bank of America
their messaging is completely changed
it’s not a shortage of sulfuric acid
it’s now a new strategy which is value
over volume which is another way of
saying we are G to we’re going to hold
back our production and we’re going to
try to maximize the value we get for the
for the for the production we actually
deliver to the market this is really
interesting so I like to think of it as
heads you win Tails You Win meaning
whether it’s a sulfuric acid issue or
whether they’re just deciding to curtail
production I think net net we get the
same outcome which is we’re not seeing a
flood of Supply response even with the
price of uranium being at $90 in the
SWAT market and term prices having
contract ceilings in the $120 $130 range
and I think that’s really important
because what that means is is that the
bull market will inevitably in our
opinion play out for
longer and that’s exactly what the
industry needs it needs a long
protracted bull market in order to
incentivize the capital expenditures
that will be needed in order to meet the
growing Supply uh required and this is
really important because um we don’t see
where a meaningful Supply response is
going to come for the next four to six
years and and how we come up a four or
six years is quite simple if you think
about new Green Field production so
those are new
mines there are a number of very uh I
think compelling projects that are going
to be built in the cycle but they
haven’t been built and they obviously
have long lead times if you think about
the scenario of okay let’s assume it is
aeric acid shortage issue in Kazakhstan
well we know from previous uh
uh the history that it’s taken them in
in in one case six years to build a new
sulfuric acid plant so let’s just assume
they build the plan in four years and
then they take time to you know drill
and eject and leech so you’re talking
about five years potentially of of
meaningful new Supply coming from
Kazakhstan assuming they need the
additional asset so I think in those two
scenarios we think the bow Market is not
going to see a meaningful Supply
response uh other than all the brown
fields that are obviously well underway
to restarting which has been very
helpful for the mining stocks yeah very
thorough and interesting breakdown there
and you know it’s interesting we’ve also
seen in nier it’s some issues there with
the coup and and with the situation with
the government that’s become murky on
how how that Supply is going to when if
if you know in in for this cycle it will
be able to come online people are
watching watching that very closely and
you’ve got some projects in the
athabaska Basin that are moving towards
production but it’s not 100% clear
exactly when those are coming online so
I definitely hear what you’re saying
there about the potential tightness in
the supply at the moment um talk to us
about the activity you’re seeing in the
uranium spot market right now through
the lens of the spra physical uranium
trust how easy or difficult is it to
secure pounds at the moment and if you
could also shed some light on any plans
for the physical uranium trust for the
remainder of this year that would be
great too so the spr physical uranium
trust obviously has been a a a very
important player in the physical uranium
Market over the last two and a half
years um and that’s just because we’ve
raised a lot of capital we’ve take that
we’ve taken that capital and we’ve
purchased about 46 million pounds of
u308 since the summer of 2021 so you
know we’ve obviously purchased just a
lot of uranium that really didn’t have a
home um utilities didn’t want to buy it
um it was basically sitting with a lot
of Traders a lot of hedge funds A other
financial
intermediaries and over the last you
know almost three years we’ve been
active in the in the market now when we
started buying uranium in 2021 and
2022 um you know there was a lot of
material available because the price was
you know sub $30 for a very long time um
utilities were
purchasing uh uranium under long-term
contracts that was about half of the
replacement rate Contracting level so
let’s just you know just give you a very
simple kind of scenario to illustrate
this let’s say you
need 180 million pounds of uranium to
run your industry every year but you’re
only buying 70 million per year and you
say well how do you function if you need
180 and you’re only buying 70 well the
answer is you had inventories on hand
and you had excessive inventories on
hand and secondarily you also believed
because it was the reality that there
was Al always a lot of material
available for sale because there were
pounds with no homes there were pounds
with no homes uh because reactors were
closing down um they were coming to end
of life they were some countries were in
a in a state of decommissioning what
they had other countries had turned off
many of the reactors such as Japan and
so there was a real overhang of material
that was available so from a utility
perspective there was no urgency there’s
no urgency to buy in the term Market no
urgency to buy in the spot market and
that I think ultimately led to the price
you know basically Meandering around 20
to $28 for for a number of years now
that obviously has changed dramatically
and that’s because energy policies have
shifted back in favor of nuclear nuclear
power and we’ve worked through a lot of
that Supply overhang so when we were
buying uranium in 21 and 22 you know we
um were purchasing uranium from many
different counterparties and we could on
any given day you know make make a bunch
of phone calls and and reach out to a
bunch of people around the world and
sure we could piece together you know a
million pounds on any given day those
days are gone that that is not feasible
anymore and that’s just because one
utilities are back and Contracting under
long-term Arrangements back to
replacement rate Contracting We Believe
or close to it and so they’re back in
the market buying in the term Market
they’re nibbling around at times in the
spot Market a lot of the material that
had no home has been I think sequestered
in in our vehicle and other other
vehicles and as well as some of the
junior ranium miners which have
purchased material so a lot of that
secondary Supply that was slashing
around as is no longer available and
then finally the Japanese I mean
obviously if you didn’t think your
reactor was ever going to come back
online why would you want to keep this
material that you’ve had on your books
for 10 years but with a growing number
of reactors getting permission to turn
on I think it’s fair to say the mobility
of that inventory has has dissipated
over the last year and a half and so the
market is a lot tighter now what we see
in the market is that the price has
obviously had a huge move here from $60
a pound last September we hit kind of
$106 in the spot Market in early uh
early part of of
2024 at that point we definitely saw a
bit of a stall in the price and and the
reason I think is simple we had a bit of
a buyer strike I like to think of it as
people that did not have urgency to buy
because they don’t remember utilities
have inventory they don’t have to panic
they don’t have to kneejerk react and
they don’t need to chase the price
higher I think as the price broke $100 a
lot of you ities and other players went
whoa like we just had a $40 move here um
in four months we are stepping back we
are not going to chase this we’re not
going to push it any higher clearly the
markets become tighter but that doesn’t
mean they’ve left the market what that
means is they’ve pivoted to the term
market and the term Market has moved up
$40 to $50 in terms of its band so we’ve
seen a commensurate move in pricing in
the term market and we’ve seen
significant ific activity year to date
in the ter Market with lots of active
utilities trying to buy uranium to
secure their long-term needs so so
what’s happened in the spot Market the
price has kind of corrected from a high
of
106 we saw the market dip as low as $84
and right now we’re sitting at 90 as
soon as we hit 84 we saw buyers come
back nibble away you know we were able
to raise capital and we’ve been buying
as well I think we’re at
750,000 pounds year to date so we’re
nibbling
away um we do have a little bit of cash
so that’s a positive thing so I would
say the market in terms of activity has
has thinned out I think most of it is
because of price sensitivity and some
reluctance to keep pushing the price
higher at the end of the day the way I
like to think of it is you only can kick
the can down the road for so long you
need to come to Market whether that’s in
the spot Market or in the term market
and you need to ensure you’ve got
sufficient inventories so that your you
know your power station will never be at
risk of ever not having fuel which the
industry is very good at ensuring that
does not happen well let’s shift to gold
now obviously very exciting times for
precious metals investors the gold bugs
have been Vindicated where we’re at
alltime highs and unlike the end of last
year where it just Rose temporarily and
came back down it seems to be a
sustained move um what are your thoughts
on Gold’s rise here is this telling us
something about the economy and are we
in the early stages of a long-term
precious metals bull market how high do
you think we could go from here yeah
well it’s I think you you summed it up
really nicely that gold is is finally
being Vindicated you know after hitting
an all-time high in you know the latter
half of of 202020 and US Dollars it
really kind of went to sleep and was
consolidating those gains in a tight
range I guess I’m going to I’m going to
spray a whole bunch of kind of comments
at you about it what’s interesting to us
is that um in every other currency gold
is hit an all-time high um long ago the
hold out was US Dollars and let’s face
it um King dollars is still King Dollar
but something has obviously shifted to
waken Gold up and I would say it’s I
would say it’s two main catalysts one
the the FED pivot in November of last
year was very meaningful for gold um now
the FED is not cut rates yet but the FED
has signaled that the tightening is done
and that the next set of moves are going
to be lower and that’s very important
for gold it you know there are6 trillion
dollars sitting in US money market funds
alone and so as rates start to normalize
and come down over the next let’s say 12
to 18 months
money is going to be on the move and so
I think that’s important we think the
pivot was a clear kind of inflection
point where gold started to behave
better and and move higher now it’s not
just the FED um we have seen a number of
central banks basically signal they’re
done with their their quantitative
tightening and they’re going to start to
move to easing which I think from a
macro perspective is going to be very
bullish for gold uh the second main
driver has been central banks acquiring
huge amounts of gold over the last two
years and this is really being driven
first and foremost by China um I used
the term in an on an interview on Friday
um to describe the Central Bank buying
by China as ver as as them having a
voracious appetite I’m going to use it
again but they really do and really what
is this about it’s about a rotation away
from us treasuries to hard assets that
they can store value with in their own
country
I think governments around the world
let’s let me correct my statement
certain governments around the world
that witness the freezing of Russian
Assets in 2022 had a a bit of a wakeup
call to say um if it’s that easy for
other nations to freeze hundreds of
millions of dollars of our Assets in the
in the financial system maybe we don’t
want to have all those assets in the
financial system so how do you take
assets out of the financial system well
it’s pretty easy you exchange your
dollars you exchange your treasuries for
gold and you store the gold in your
country nobody’s freezing those
assets so if you think about what
China’s doing um I think this is part of
a longer term Trend where they’re
basically rotating their enormous
stockpile of us treasuries which they’ve
been holding for a very long time and as
those treasuries mature they’re simply
rotating the capital and putting in
physical gold and we think this trend is
going to continue and the reason is
simple they are still sitting on a
massive stockpile of us
treasuries if you look at Chinese retail
investors they’re doing kind of the
similar thing they’re going back to the
traditional cultural store of value
which is gold and why well because the
real estate market which clearly was a
bubble has burst that store of value
does not look as attractive to them the
stock market does not look like a a
great store of value because it’s been a
terrible perform warmer for a number of
years and so we see Chinese retail
investors going back to gold and you
know they’re they’re incredible Savers
and they have accumulated incredible
wealth so you’ve seen in China also the
Dual effect of not just the Central Bank
buying but also its citizens and it’s
it’s not just the Chinese Central Bank
the Indian Central Bank Singapore
Central Bank the Turkish Central Bank
the Polish Central Bank they’ve all been
big buyers of gold over the last two
three years and we do think this is is a
a a very concerted effort to divers
diversify away from US dollars in terms
of their foreign exchange reserves so we
think this is really important now at
the same time Western institutional
investors have been absent so as the
price of gold has broken out over the
last six months they have continued to
sell their gold Holdings through their
ETFs and we look at all the ETFs
globally as a proxy to gauge
institutional interest and institutional
Holdings in physical gold and with the
exception of a few little green shoots
we’ve seen in the last two weeks they’ve
been they’ve been in net selling mode so
we we chock that up to basically
disinterest and their gold basically
going to China and other central banks
and if Western c um institutional
investors just simply stopped
selling their gold via the ETFs and
actually started to let’s say accumulate
gold again I I think the gold rally
would really get turbocharged here and
and and you know break ever new highs
now central banks are not accumulating
silver but it has awoken from its
Slumber consolidating sideways for a few
years now basically moving in tandem
with gold at least it appears to be um a
lot of people I’ve spoken to say that
silver generally tends to play catch up
in the latter stages of a precious
metals bull market it seems to be
performing a little bit differently this
time around
I’m wondering what you think is driving
the price action of silver and what it
would take to get that metal back to to
alltime highs yeah great question so
you’re you’re absolutely right I mean
silver because it is a hybrid metal
meaning it has a monetary role and it
has an industrial role does not behave
the same as gold um gold is usually the
first
mover and within a few months you see
silver
typically uh move and then kind of
slingshot byold is a typical uh pattern
you don’t really see gold you know
having these explosive moves but you
often see silver have these big
moves so what’s driving silver right now
um we see two things driving silver and
a few things holding back silver as you
mentioned central banks don’t hold
silver it’s just too voluminous to hold
you know huge quantities of wealth uh
and we know because we store billions of
dollars of silver we know how hard it is
to to Vault it and to move it around so
we don’t have the benefit of central
banks um also accumulating silver like
they are with gold um but where silver
is getting a lift right now is twofold
one silver is increasingly increasingly
being used for energy transition and
Clean Energy Technologies and the most
notable obviously is solar panel
channels so about 14% of all the silver
in the world each year is consumed in
solar panels and China just to give you
some some perspective China built more
solar uh capacity last year than the
rest of the world over the last four
years
combined and so I think it’s fair to say
that China is consuming like gold but
for a different purpose larger ever
larger amounts of silver
because it is the most conductive or one
of the most conductive Metals in the
world and it is very important in terms
of uh how it excites electrons in these
solar panels and so we see an ever
increasing amount of silver being used
for for solar we also see that’s so
that’s the big industrial use for for
silver now let’s flip over to the
monetary side um where we see big
increases of silver demand is from
Indian investors India is importing huge
amounts of silver not for industrial
uses for store of wealth purposes and we
see this pattern over and over again
when the price of gold goes to New
highs you definitely see an increased
substitution effect in India where they
can no longer afford gold and they
substitute to Silver which is obviously
a fraction of the price and we’ve seen
record Imports of silver into into India
now let’s flip to Western institutional
investors for silver well unlike gold uh
institutional investors right now are
not overly excited about silver they
just don’t own it to the same degree as
silver and if you just look at the
billions of dollars that are held in
Gold ETFs globally versus the amount in
silver it’s a very small number in in in
silver we see that with our own client
base institutional investors just have
I’d say way more interest and affinity
for holding gold in their portfolio as a
hedge versus holding silver as more of a
speculative investment and Retail
investors uh in terms of silver while
they are very um strong Believers and
accumulators of silver they’ve largely
kind of been muted the last few years as
silver you know tried to break through
$30 back in
2021 and obviously uh hit I think $18
was the was the cyclical low and now
we’re kind of at 28
$28 again and we’re really I think
looking for a confirmation and breakout
through $30 to confirm you know we’re in
this new market I think what will
ultimately uh push it up into new highs
is we need I think greater institutional
interest we need the return of retail
investors uh because we’re not going to
have that Central Bank buying like you
do in Gold so those are the two investor
groups the the silver in terms of its
industrial use we think it’s just going
to keep getting you know higher and
higher um but you know going back to
Silver I mean gosh silver at the end of
2010 was at $50 an ounce and we’re at 28
you know it’s one of the few Commodities
that is nowhere near its all-time high
um and so we still think silver has the
potential to go for a run here if we
know more catalysts kind of line up
behind it interesting let’s shift to
Copper now another metal that’s been
doing very well this year we saw a lot
of reports in 2022 and 2023 that there
is a massive lack of Supply in the face
of growing demand this looks like it’s
playing out the way that those reports
um had stated obviously it takes a very
long time to bring a new copper mine
online and it’s extraordinarily
expensive we’re seeing a lot of
jurisdictional risk political risk the
Cobra Panama mine obviously um being
basically stalled by the government
there massive copper project we’re
seeing a lot of issues with
jurisdictional risk in a lot of
different countries for mining in
general um this all seems to be very
bullish for the price of copper how do
you see it positioned is this a bull
market that’s just getting started yeah
great intro to copper and obviously
we’ve been we’ve been talking about
copper for the last year and a bit um we
launched our first copper mining uh ETF
in February of 2023 because we started
to see
the market shifting we started looking
at the signals we started to hear the
major copper company or excuse me the
major mining companies signaling whether
they were a diversified mining company
or a gold miner all signal they wanted
to bulk up their copper exposure and we
thought that was really interesting and
I think they’re all signaling that
because they see the long-term
trajectory of copper which is going to
be very important as we move to this
world of Greater
electrification um and copper intensity
and if you think about the technologies
that people are moving towards from a
clean energy perspective and if you just
look at the expectations for energy
consumption they’re all going up and
copper is kind of the Common Thread and
backbone with everything to do with
electrification and it’s not just about
Clean Energy Technologies there’s really
two main drivers here I think the
largest driver is increasing energy
consumption as countries acquire more
wealth if you think about the per capita
per capita energy consum consumption in
an Emerging Market it’s incredibly low
relative to the way you and I live and
it’s it’s quite simple you don’t have an
air conditioner you don’t have an you
know you don’t have all these appliances
etc etc you have very low energy
intensity in your lifestyle
you know as countries grow wealth and
individuals accumulate wealth you see
greater energy consumption you see
greater I would say metal intensity
because you know they buy things they
own things cars things like that so the
Emerging Markets as they continue to
grow wealth are going to consume more
electricity and that consumption of
electricity is going to be very mineral
intensive and then in the west and in
more developed countries we do have the
challenge of increased electricity
consumption albe it much slower but the
focus has really been on adding
electricity sources to the grid that
have cleaner carbon Footprints and that
is obviously everything from solar and
wind and wind farms electric vehicles
nuclear energy all of these things
obviously um require more grid
Transmissions
electrification uh but it’s even things
like heat pumps as we move away from you
know natural gas boilers to heat pumps
all these things are more energy or um
excuse me copper intensive so we see a
wave of different sources of incremental
demand coming for copper and at the same
time the supply side of the story has
been constrained it’s been constrained
by a lot of different factors one I
would say first and foremost is we’ve
been mining the copper for 5,000 plus
years so we’ve been really good at
finding all the easy stuff so I think
that’s the most important thing um two
we haven’t really developed a lot of new
projects for a long time because for
many years the price of copper was kind
of uninteresting um and when you have a
lack of investment in a mining sector or
a capital intensive sector we know what
happens is it’s very hard to to generate
that Supply response just like I talked
about earlier with uranium so we see
some parallels between the
two the copper mines um unlike things
like Gold and Silver Mines tend to be
really large scale and they have very
long lives and so The Upfront investment
in bringing these projects online are
enormous um it’s not unheard of to have
a 10 to 15 billion dollar capex to
develop a new copper mine now that
copper M mine might produce or for 30 or
40 years but it’s a huge upfront cost
and I can tell you investors and
companies are not going to make those
upfront Investments to that scale with a
copper price that’s not attractive
enough to generate the Returns on
investment that these companies and
investors are demanding so you know at
$4 a pound for copper that’s great
that’s a good price for today’s I think
copper mining companies they have very
healthy margins but in terms of like the
Greenfield projects that we need to
bring online in the coming years you
know they all are saying the same thing
it’s not $4 doll that’s going to that’s
going to make it happen it’s probably
five and six and and maybe even higher
so you know we think over time the
copper price is going to slowly you know
grind up to those those types of price
points to ensure we’ve got long-term
security supply so we’re becoming very
constructive on copper it’s a much more
mature Market because we’ve been mining
it for thousands of years it’s obviously
a very large Market you know we produce
over 25 million metric tons a year so
it’s much bigger in size and scale and
dollars so you’re not going to get I
think the explosive kind of changes in
price that you see with some of the
minor metals and more of the N
Industries um such as lithium um and you
know uranium is uranium is let’s say a$1
15 billion doll a year Market versus a$
200 billion market for copper so it’s
going to be I think more of your slow
and steady um
but we think ultimately the price is
higher one of the trends and themes that
has been out there is this rotation of
capital from what many see as an
overvalued broad Market the Magnificent
7 uh into hard Assets in the form of
Commodities a commodity super cycle as
many are calling it do you see things
that way what what are your thoughts do
you think the broad Market could rise
along with commodities do you think we
will see this sort of sector rotation
because every time you think that Nvidia
for example is overv valued it just
seems to go higher the S&P and the
NASDAQ seem to keep grinding higher with
a few blips along the way um what are
your thoughts on that thesis of a
rotation from tech stocks into
Commodities yeah it’s really it’s a
really interesting point um I would say
that we don’t need people to stop buying
tech stocks or investing in tech stocks
for commodity super cycle
to commence and last for many years and
the reason for that is that the amount
invested today in Commodities is so tiny
versus historical levels and it’s so
tiny I think first and foremost because
many commodity markets went through
10year bare markets so if you have a
10year bare Market in nickel or copper
or
uranium why would Capital want to go
there there’s lots of other Alternatives
in the world and capital left
now at some point you can only Kick the
Can down the road for so long you run
mines down you come to end of life you
run down inventories whatever the case
may be and then you have an inflection
point and if you ask us at Sprat the
inflection points already happened the
inflection point I believe happened two
years ago when the world basically made
significant commitments to
decarbonization which are very mineral
intense and second of all the second
Catalyst was the energy crisis that we
had in
2022 after the war in in
Ukraine and the world woke up and said
oh my gosh our energy systems are
incredibly vulnerable to
shocks and that has obviously been a
very powerful Catalyst to a whole host
of again mineral intensive policies and
strategies that we do not think are a
one or two quarter blip we think this is
a one or two decade Trend that is just
underway and if institutional investors
just start to allocate tiny bits of
capital into the sector
you could have an incredible impact
because the sector is so under owned
right now and it takes time for
investors to come back I can tell you
like you know I’ll be very candid you
know we would have institutional
meetings you know three years ago or
four years ago and if you brought the
word up if you brought up the you know
let’s talk about Commodities you like in
sometimes in the meetings they’
literally stop and say whoa whoa no no
no no I don’t want to talk about any of
that stuff like I got so burned in the
in the in the last cycle the the
sector’s dead I’m not interested in that
all these other things are working my
portfolio it literally meant career risk
for these people they just did not want
to touch it or even talk about it now
fast
forward and I can tell you in the last
two to three years at Sprat the amount
of Institutions that we engage with on a
daily and weekly and monthly basis is
unbelievable never in the company’s
history have we engaged with as many
institutions that we do week in and week
out and they are all interested in
learning about Commodities now I’m not
saying it’s across the board in every
commodity but the the renewed interest
in Commodities is really powerful and I
just chalk it up to a few things one
we’re in a new bull market so that’s
thing one because if there are no
returns then nobody cares uh second of
all they’ve finally realized
how mineral intensive these shifts are
going to be whether it’s clean energy
decarbonization energy security
reshoring remanu you know bring
manufacturing back to to to uh local
soil etc etc and they are seeing they’re
connecting the dots they’re doing their
work but some of them are starting off I
can tell you at very low levels of
knowledge and the reason is simple they
haven’t invested in the sector for 10 or
12 years so you’re like okay let’s you
know my job um most week is I do
teachings it’s like let’s do copper 101
let’s do uranium 101 today and so you
know sometimes I’m like oh gosh aren’t
we past this point but it’s important
and we spend enormous amounts of time
talking to institutions recording
podcasts doing webcasts writing research
reports because there’s a real thirst
for knowledge uh and information and
there’s interest and so we want to
capitalize on that we’re obviously
incentivized to do that because we run
billions of dollars in funds that are
focused on Gold Silver Platinum platium
uranium copper uh other metals that
we’re invested in mining stocks private
Investments that we do private loans
private royalties and streams so you
know we’re we’re just immersed in the
ecosystem that brings us incredible
insights and knowledge and we’re more
than happy to share it with people um if
they invest with us great if they don’t
that’s fine too but it’s a process it’s
a cycle
um and what I think what has us excited
is that these Cycles do not last two or
three years they last way longer than a
typical economic cycle commodity Cycles
can last 10 or 12 years and if we’re in
kind of year two or three well you know
we’re pretty excited about the runway
ahead of us absolutely well it’s been a
fantastic conversation John I’m going to
put a link below to the suite of sprouts
ETFs is there anything you could shed
light on about Sprouts activities
anything new you’re up to obviously the
copper fund is fairly recent that’s
quite exciting maybe if you want to talk
a little bit about that or anything else
you think should be on people’s Radars
when it comes to spra yeah well we’ve
been incredibly busy the last few years
and and you know trying to position
ourselves and provide very compelling
and differentiated offerings using our
knowledge in mining and and Mining and
metal to bring you know commod physical
commodity funds to Market passive
indexes that really you know integrate a
lot of our knowledge as well as active
strategies uh everything from in the
mining sectors to physical Commodities
as well so we’ve been very focused we’ve
invested a lot of our own Capital uh as
well and you know and we’re launching
products not just in in the US and
Canada but we’ve also partnered with Han
ETF in Europe uh to bring some of these
strategies to European clients who you
know are are always clamoring and and
chasing us on Twitter to you know please
bring this fund to Europe for us and you
know we’re doing our best now that we
have uranium miners the junior uranium
miners we’ve got our our copper miners
that just launched there and as well as
our broader energy transition material
so we’ve now got four offerings um in
Europe as well of an as well as an Ever
growing Suite of funds um listed in
North America and we’re not done we’re
constantly looking for new ideas um but
you know we’re very selective we want to
make sure the strategies make sense are
we willing to put our own capital in
them um do they have a compelling story
can we provide a differentiated
offering uh but first and foremost you
know as you said it’s about educating
yourself making informed decisions
understanding what you’re investing in
what you own um and we really encourage
people to come to our websites read our
white papers listen to our podcasts sign
up for our webcasts um you know learn
and be informed so that that would be my
party message great I will put a link
below as I said to Sprouts ETFs also a
bit of a plug for the Sprout money
podcast my good friend Craig hempy host
that wonderful program as well so I
encourage people to check that out and
uh thank you once again John for coming
on and sharing your knowledge with the
audience thank you always great to chat
with you Jesse and thank you for joining
us today as a reminder this episode is
sponsored by Ark silver gold osmium
visit them at argo.com and contact owner
Ian everard today at 30726
49441 or by email at Ian argo.com for
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John Ciampaglia brings his unique perspective as the CEO of Sprott Asset Management to bear to shine a light on growing institutional investor interest in gold, silver, uranium, copper, and other commodities. John thinks we’re on the precipice of a commodities supercycle, and the big money out there is starting to flock to the sector in search of outsized gains.

Visit our sponsor, ARK Silver Gold Osmium: https://arksgo.com
Contact them at (307) 264-9441
Ian@ArkSGO.com

Follow Jesse Day on X: https://twitter.com/jessebday

Sprott ETFs: https://www.sprottetfs.com
Sprott Asset Management: https://sprott.com

00:00 Introduction
01:36 Important Trends in Economy & Markets
04:22 Uranium Supply-Demand Setup
12:07 State of Uranium Spot Market
19:13 Gold Forecast
25:03 When Will Silver Hit All-Time Highs?
30:22 Copper Bull Market Beginning?
36:58 Is the Commodities Supercycle Real?

#uranium #gold #silver #copper