Minimize

Welcome!

The Opportunities In Energy Minerals

Cory
May 22, 2018

Lobo Tiggre, AKA Louis James, Founder and Editor of the newsletter The Independent Speculator joins me for a look into the energy minerals space. These metals have garnered a lot of attention over the past 2 years. We focus on the individual minerals that Lobo thinks have the best opportunity to continue to move and the ones to shy away from.

Click download link to listen on this device: Download Show

Click here to visit Lobo’s website and consider signing up for his newsletter or free email list.

Discussion
39 Comments
    May 22, 2018 22:15 PM

    Wolf Tiger? huh? While I believe Lous is a pretty smart cat why the strange name change?

    May 22, 2018 22:30 PM

    I’ve got a 2001 diesel VW Beetle. I can go 500 MILES on one tank of diesel. There is no battery driven car on the market that can match this for the price. And that’s with the air condition running full blast. For cold or extreme hot weather like here in Southwest Texas there in NO ELECTRIC car that can match it.

    I plan to buy a Nissan Leaf for puttering around the city for grocery shopping, doctor appts, etc. Beyond that? FORGET IT.

    There has to be a massive shift in battery technology so that it would be found in EVERY CAR and AFFORDABLE for me to get excited.

      May 22, 2018 22:31 PM

      It won’t take batteries in every car to make a huge shift in the energy metals. Even getting to 20%-30% penetration over the next decade would be massive for Lithium, Cobalt, Nickel, Graphite, Manganese and even Copper & Silver for wiring electronics.

      Many of the Asian mandates are for Electric cars, Electric Buses, and eBikes. Most of the major Auto companies including VW are on board with getting a certain penetration in the EV marketplace.

    May 22, 2018 22:49 PM

    It’s been nuts the way Cobalt stocks have been performing

    May 22, 2018 22:33 PM

    #Battery Materials – Day 1 Commodity focus:

    121 Mining Investment Hong Kong – May 17, 2018 #Panel #VIDEO

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OT3TZenB4js&t=1183s

      May 22, 2018 22:43 PM

      Lithium Batteries – from Nemaska Lithium website:

      http://www.nemaskalithium.com/en/lithium-supply/lithium-batteries/

      May 23, 2018 23:25 AM

      I find it amusing that in 2015 and 2016 when I was posting about these trends and how the Lithium miners were going to take off, that almost every time on each blog, people resisted the trend. Sometimes they opposed it aggressively or they just took a swing at Elon Musk and Tesla (which is just a tiny piece of the story) and missed a great investing opportunity.

      Many of the quality companies went on to rally 500% -1500% regardless of what the haters and doubters thought and the trend played out with their full awareness and regardless of their ill-informed opinions.

      In 2017 Lithium miners were one of the few profitable places to camp out in the commodity sector, and yet people scoffed, often while holding on to losing stocks in other sectors that were bombing out. That’s what makes a market though 🙂

      The same thing happened when a few of us started posting about Cobalt on here in 2016 and 2017 and people mocked the concept, and yet many of the Cobalt miners shot up 200-500% in about a year and there were plenty of profits to be had.

      I stopped caring what other people think a long time ago, and have shared ideas regularly on here and other blogs for years to give new investors a starting point. Most of the Lithium and Cobalt companies discussed went on to be huge winners, but instead of investing in them, most just shook their heads and went on to brag about their gas guzzling car of choice. (as if their love affair with a vehicle helped them make any money investing in the resource sector).

      It never made any sense why people worked so hard to try and discredit a trend that is clearly playing out as plain as daylight, and why they just wouldn’t want to profit from the speculative interest when it showed up. It was not surprise when any of those parabolic moves played out, and the stubborn resistance to the trend only cost them huge returns.

      People can continue doubt this trend all they want, and laptops, smart phones, tablets, power tools, Electric Cars, Electric Buses, eBikes, drones, and back up batteries will continue to be cranked out all over the world without their permission.

      Investors that scoffed at Energy Metals or Battery Metals over the last few years completely blew an easy way to make multi-bagger returns in Jr Resource stocks, when many commodities were still trying to get off the mat.

      Tragic comedy.

        May 23, 2018 23:16 AM

        One’s money can’t be everywhere, Ex, and those who went heavily into silver stocks instead of lithium in 2016 easily did as well or better. In fact, SILJ crushed LIT for the first half of that year. Gold and silver are the “pure plays” when it comes to the Fed/government-caused distortions that have driven commodities since 2016.

        So I found it amusing that some investors held so little exposure to the pm stocks and so much exposure to various other commodities at the start of 2016 and sold too much of their pm stocks way too soon.

        People love stories but it is ultimately Fed policy that turbo charges commodities when the whole complex is doing well. Remember all the “peak oil” fools of the last decade? LOL!

        Musk, btw, thoroughly deserves any “swings” one might take at him and lithium cars suck! 😉

          May 23, 2018 23:21 AM
            May 23, 2018 23:28 AM

            Like zinc and the other non-monetary commodities, lithium did better after the PMs had peaked.
            LIT gained about 75% following SILJ’s peak but still only tripled in 125 weeks. Compare that to SILJ’s quintupling in just 29 weeks…
            http://schrts.co/nyTxo7

            May 23, 2018 23:26 PM

            One of the bigger differences with Lithium miners versus Silver miners is that most of the remaining Silver miners are the survivors and as a result are well run or legitimately have something tangible in the ground (so the SILJ components were primed to outperform in the 2016 rush); where the constituents in the LIT at that time in 2016 were either large chemical conglomerates like FMC or Albamarle or SQM or batyery companies and there was only a spattering of true Lithium miners in that ETF. So comparing those from only 2016 is a bit apples and oranges. If you look at the moves of real Lithium produ ets or developers back from late 2015 into 2016 & 2017 like Galaxy Resources, Nemaska Lithium, Orocobre, Lithium Americas, Critical Elements, Wealth Minerals, Lithium X, etc… then their gains were just as epic as most Gold or Silver miners.

            In addition, I consider the Battery metals like Lithium or Cobalt tied more to the energy narrative than just regular commodities. Now components like Copper or Nickel are more correlated to the commodity sector and base metals (despite pundits trying to attach them to the Energy Metals narrative.

            May 23, 2018 23:45 PM

            Sorry for the typos as I normally post from computer and struggle typing from my phone.

            That should have said “if you look at the moves of real Lithium producers or developers in late 2015/2016 into 2017, then theirs gains were just as epic as most Gold & Silver miners.

            May 23, 2018 23:52 PM

            As most here know I’m a huge fan of Jr Gold and Silver miners, but in late 2016 and most of 2017 they didn’t do that great. Yes there was the seasonal Q1 run in early 2017 and the late August into September seasonal rally, but I was sure happy to have non-monetary metals like Lithium, Cobalt, and Zinc in 2017. I actually rotated winnings out of those sectirs and into the PM stocks at several points last year. Diversification allows for good value arbitrages year after year.

            May 23, 2018 23:31 PM

            sectirs = sectors

            May 24, 2018 24:01 AM

            >> Here’s a chart of Impact Silver priced in Galaxy Resources (both Jr producers and explorers) that sums up the action a bit better:

            http://schrts.co/qnBLEx

        May 23, 2018 23:53 AM

        Generally speaking, the gold/silver miners are once again a better place to focus one’s efforts than lithium stocks.

        SILJ:LIT weekly…
        http://schrts.co/YvoM18

          May 23, 2018 23:37 PM

          For the medium term I agree with you, but in the 2nd half of 2016 and in 2017 Lithium miners crushed the PM stocks.

          My point was that if resource and energy investors had diversified into Lithium miners (not the terrible LIT ETF) in late 2015 and 2016, then they would have beat most of the general stock indexes and in late 2016 and most of 2017 most of the PM miners.

          Not everything is about investing in monetary metals or the central bankers narrative. The explosion in manufacturinh of EVs, Electric Buses, eBikes, laptops, smart phones, tablets, power tools, drones, etc.. has little to do with the Gold/Silver narrative.

          The tie in with the miners is that they are extractive industries, where investors must speculate on the value of their resources, the ability of management to execute a cost effective business strategy on mining the assets, and looking for under-valued companies with goo leverage to a rising underlying metal or mineral.

            May 23, 2018 23:38 PM

            Goo = Good

            May 23, 2018 23:02 PM

            Re: “but in the 2nd half of 2016 and in 2017 Lithium miners crushed the PM stocks.”

            Did you look at the SILJ:LIT chart in the comment that you replied to? It makes it perfectly clear that the pm miners got crushed by the lithium stocks — which is why I said the pm miners are “once again” a better place to be.

            Commodities are often out of sync with the monetary metals because they don’t have all of the same drivers.

            May 24, 2018 24:51 AM

            Yes, I saw the link to your SILJ:LIT chart Matthew and said I agreed with your thesis that now the PM miners will start to outperform in the medium term.

            My initial point in this thread was that the Lithium miners were a great place to be starting in late 2015 and through 2016 and even most of 2017, when other sectors like the Jr Gold and Silver miners were doing so hot. The point of this blog’s editorial was about Energy Metals and I was agreeing with Louis James and the premise that it was more than a fad and was a legitimate business trend playing out, and that it was easy for any investors paying attention to capture out-sized gains.

            My statemen was that I was glad I was diversified in non-monetary commodities like Lithium, Cobalt, Zinc in later 2016 and 2017 when the PM miners weren’t doing so hot, but mentioned pulling profits last year in the Lithium miners to be able to rotate into the depressed PM stocks. (so clearly I feel there is now more unrecognized value in the Gold & Silver Jrs).

            I also mentioned a few times above that there are totally different investment narratives driving the Battery metals than the monetary metals. Those comments made it perfectly clear I understood and already stated that they “don’t all have all the same drivers.”

            You’re the one that started responding to my posts about how diversifying across sectors was prudent over the last few years, and proceeded to tell me how great Silver miners did in 2016, which you are well aware that I know and participated in.

            Again, most of the individual companies I was posting about and investing in back then also did great 5-15 baggers from early 2016 and through 2017. I’m not talking about LIT and it was weighted in a bunch of companies back then that had little to do with Lithium or the mining aspect so again, so I don’t use it as representative of what was going on in the Jr Lithium stocks.

            Yes, over time they’ve added more Li miners and pruned out a bunch of the old battery and chemical and electrical companies, but it’s always been a crappy allocation and isn’t the best vehicle to use to compare to Jr miners.

            _____________________________________________________________________________

            >> Here’s a chart of Impact Silver priced in Galaxy Resources (both Jr producers and explorers) that sums up the action a bit better:

            http://schrts.co/qnBLEx

            May 24, 2018 24:42 AM

            That chart tells the same story as SILJ:LIT. Year-to-date, Impact is crushing Galaxy.

            Nothing wrong with diversifying. Commodities in general did very well after gold/silver peaked in 2016 (COPX beat LIT) just like I expected —which is why I told you the following before anything, including the pm stocks, had started to move (1/10/16): “I actually like zinc a little further out so accumulating TV and SMT would make sense.”

            “Not everything is about investing in monetary metals or the central bankers narrative.”
            You’re too much, Ex.

            May 24, 2018 24:45 AM
            May 24, 2018 24:17 PM

            Thanks for sharing your perspectives Matthew.

            We are mostly in agreement about the major concepts, but disagree on smaller nuances in investing. That’s fine and I don’t expect to always be in agreement with anyone, nor do I expect people to always agree with me.

            I appreciate the conversations even if they get a bit testy, and really do enjoy considering your outlook economically/politically/philosophically. Sometimes it is too much for me, just like I’m too much for you. That’s what makes the world go round 🙂