Warren Irwin: Greed and Gold’s Greatest Scam

Tom welcomes back a past guest of the show, Warren Irwin. Warren discusses the valuable lessons from the BRE-X story. He had just graduated from university when the excitement around BRE-X was happening, and it was the poster child at the time being heavily promoted. After investing in the project, it grew significantly, and he decided to go and see it in person. Once he returned to Canada, he started to question the narrative around BRE-X. Numerous people were fooled, including some of the geologists that had worked on the project. He was building a house, and fortunately sold half of his shares near the top of the market. Warren had concerns and immediately sold the other half when the CEO 'fell' out of a helicopter. He shared his concerns, but many were hostile towards him and others stayed in denial. He did manage to talk most friends who invested into selling out of the stock. The mining industry, today, is much better easier to research than in the past. Bulls want to believe, but greed can easily get out of control. Whenever you feel brilliant and superb about your investments, start selling. The markets can be very treacherous, and you have to exercise caution. His approach is to find good companies with new resource discoveries. That is what has brought him profits and money is rarely made by just speculating on the price of gold. People are starting to wake up to the realities of green energy and embrace nuclear. Some additional uranium production is beginning to come online and NexGen and KazAtomProm have quite low costs of production. Every uranium project is quite viable by $75 a pound. He believes modularity will be key to future acceptance of nuclear power. Plants need to be standardized and simplified to an extent to reduce costs by economics of scale. We all need cheap, clean power that is also safe. He believes ESG is one of the nuttiest things to ever happen to the mining industry. There is a lot of fantasy as to how environmental ideas should be implemented. We need resources to build out the electrification of the world, but everything ;needs' to be green already. We're seeing similar things with the oil business, as we demand the Saudi's keep up production while we cut our own. The world becomes completely crazy when politicians and do-gooders become part of the decision-making process. The future will be fascinating, but don't sell your gas or diesel powered vehicle just yet. Talking Points From This Episode Lessons and observations from the BRE-X scandal.Why you should be concerned if you're feeling good about your investments.Outlook for uranium and why high prices may not be sustainable.ESG is a fantasy run by politicians and do-gooders. Time Stamp References:0:00 - Introduction0:37 - BRE-X Red Flags12:00 - Lessons Learned16:24 - Uranium Pros/Cons23:23 - Supply Lag Time27:45 - Picking Equities29:24 - Anti-Nuclear Drivers31:18 - Reactor Costs35:18 - Gold Equities & Price40:24 - Fed Pivot & Resources44:34 - Battery Metals48:40 - Profit Taking?51:37 - Why ESG is Nuts59:44 - Greenification Issues1:06:52 - Wrap Up Guest Links:Website: https://www.rosseau.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigdude6669 Warren Irwin is President and Chief Investment Officer of Rosseau Asset Management Limited. Warren founded Rosseau in 1998, after several successful years of proprietary investing at Deutsche Bank Canada. The firm’s flagship Rosseau Limited Partnership was established on December 31, 1998, and has earned a reputation as a top-performing hedge fund. Mr. Irwin earned a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo in 1987. Upon graduation, he worked as a bond analyst for Scotia Capital Markets. At Scotia, Mr. Irwin developed the Universe Bond Index, the Canadian bond market benchmark, as well as Canada’s first bond index fund shortly thereafter. In the fall of 1989, Mr. Irwin entered the University of Western Ontario’s business school and graduated with...