Rick Rule

Here, you're seeing a real-time slowdown. Weak prices for oil and gas, despite conflict in the Middle East, says an awful lot about the state of demand.

Yes, could compress prices even more. Tariffs are taxes. In the US and Canada, we are overtaxed. Tariffs also make trade more difficult, but trade makes us richer. Doesn't think Trump actually knows what he's going to do, which makes it difficult to forecast. 

His hope is that this is mostly posturing. Trump makes outrageous demands so that he has a very strong position to retreat from. That's the best we can hope for.

He's watching the "big, beautiful bill", which is big, but it's certainly not beautiful. The arithmetic around the USD is very bad for the US, and very good for gold. On-balance sheet liabilities of the US are about $36T, which is dwarfed by the off-balance sheet ones exceeding $100T. And those numbers are growing. The only way to honour these debts is to reduce the purchasing power of the US dollar, much like in the decade of the 1970s.

Note that he thinks the USD will do OK relative to other currencies. But in absolute terms, the spending power of the USD falls. This budget bill is a classic example of Republican and Democratic log-rolling (there isn't a constituency in Washington for reducing spending; there's only a constituency for advancing the interests of one's own district). Things are going to get worse. This is bad for the economy and its citizens, but good for gold.

Tax cuts without any reduction in spending basically amounts to fraud.

Leveraged call on gold. Very large, undeveloped deposit with very high upfront capital costs. If gold price continues to do well, will ultimately find a partner to put its asset into production. If gold price doesn't do well, value trap.

In his experience, silver is a late mover in a precious metals bull market. Happens when the generalist investor is attracted by the momentum in gold and comes into the precious metals market, and leadership generally changes from gold to silver. He'd expect that to occur because we're in a very endurable precious metals bull market.

It might not happen for a year or two, but you won't need him to tell you when it's occurred. Silver is extremely volatile to the upside when its time comes.

Likes it because it didn't abandon the coal business, which has been a spectacular move on FCF. Very smart leadership. Leveraged to base metals, which could stay soft for 12-18 months due to global economic conditions. Tier 1 mines. Must-own natural resource stock. Many assets in its portfolio are in countries that aren't "investment grade".

Suite of projects should reward investors extremely well over the next 10 yeas.

Stock fell precipitously because of underground stability issues in Congo mine; operation is temporarily suspended as they fix it. Suspects this issue might last 6-8 months; part of the answer involves less aggressive underground mining. Longer term, that complex is nowhere near maturity in terms of copper production. Bringing on world's largest platinum and palladium mine, plus world's highest-grade zinc mine.

The only reason not to own is if you're afraid of the not-insignificant political risk in both South Africa and Congo. Sometimes if the technical aspects of a project are truly superior, you need to stomach the political risk.  He's a very big investor, so there's a lot of bias in his answer ;)

When he looks at the charts and plans, he's unable to tie the drill holes together to make a coherent deposit. Note that his former partner and mentor, Eric Sprott, feels very differently about this one and is a very large shareholder, and he's made a lot of money being right.

Misunderstood. Collection of royalties built around coal, but that's become a much less important part of the suite. Likes that it acquired a lot of royalties before doing that became popular. Cashflow is very well established, now and in future. Under-owned and unknown. He's long this name.

(Disclaimer:  Not only is he a shareholder, but this company is also sponsoring his conference next week.)

Expects the uranium market to do extremely well for next 5 years. Has a permitted mill, which is hard to obtain. Second-best asset in the Athabasca Basin, after CCO. Only reservation is that its project is deep, rather than on surface, using technology he's not familiar enough with to be confident of the outcome. Extremely speculative, he owns a bit.

He'd skew toward this one. Best-run intermediate O&G company in Canada. On most fundamental metrics, WCP is cheaper. It depends on your own investing style. He's often willing to pay up for management that he considers superior. In a 5-10 year timeframe, you can't go wrong with either.

He'd skew toward ARX, as it's the best-run intermediate O&G company in Canada. On most fundamental metrics, WCP is cheaper. It depends on your own investing style. He's often willing to pay up for management that he considers superior. In a 5-10 year timeframe, you can't go wrong with either.

Active in natural gas, traditional oil, and heavy oil. Extremely well run. Another beneficiary should Ottawa develop a pragmatic attitude toward the Canadian oil and gas industry. Greatly aided by exports of LNG on the West Coast.

(Name changed from Africa Oil on 15 May 2025.)  
Bought out joint venture partner in Nigeria. Has begun the process of decapitalizing. Generates substantial surplus cashflow, which it's returning to shareholders via dividends and buybacks. Market is nervous about Nigeria, as it should be. Controlling shareholders have been reducing their ownership. CEO, whom he respected, has resigned.

He continues to own it in the hopes that some of the cashflow can be directed to exploring the extraordinary potential in the country.