2016 Natural Resource Symposium: A-List Speakers, Sexy Commodities & Words of Wisdom You Can’t Afford to Ignore

“Money is made on the delta between value and price.” ~ Rick Rule – Natural Resource Symposium, July 2016

For those who have never been to an investment conference, it’s time you attended one. If you have the budget, time and desire, the annual Natural Resource Symposium is the best there is when it comes to resource investment conferences.

The Symposium was held at the Fairmount Hotel in the heart of Vancouver, British Columbia, from July 26th to 29th of this year. The full cost of the conference was $899 USD (not including accommodations), but if you’re interested in future conferences, there are plenty of opportunities to lock in at a cheaper price, if you book early in the year.

For those who weren’t able to attend, they also offer mp3 recordings of the entire conference minus Robert Freidland’s speech. The mp3 recordings cost $299 USD and are a great alternative if you couldn’t be there in person.

To get an idea of what you can expect from this annual event, check out their website.

The Theme

With gold breaking out over the last 8 months, it isn’t surprising that there was an overarching precious metals theme at the Symposium. Honestly, though, even in the bear market of the last 4 years, interest has been focused on gold. It’s the sexiest commodity out there.

Besides gold, uranium was represented by Goviex, UEC’s Amir Adnani, and Fission’s Dev Randhawa. Personally, this is what interested me the most because I believe uranium is the next market to change cycles; coming out of the bear market that has slaughtered the uranium spot price to a 10-year low of around $25 USD per pound.

Stayed tuned! Subscribe to my FREE newsletter to receive the upcoming 4-part series on the uranium market. I’ll be discussing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle, world supply and demand, and a few of the companies you may want to watch.

Symposium Speakers

The list of speakers at this year’s Symposium may have been the best yet, with an all-star line up of newsletter writers; Louis James (Casey Research), John Kaiser (Kaiser Research), Marin Katusa (Katusa Research), Matt Badiali (S&A Resource Report); company executives that included Ivan Bebek (Auryn Resources), Robert Quartermain (Pretium), Patrick Anderson (Dalradian), Randy Smallwood (Silver Wheaton); and finally, brokers and resource personalities like Jim Rickards (The New Case for Gold), Trey Reik (Sprott), Peter Grosskopf (Sprott), Doug Casey (Casey Research), and John Embry (Sprott). And the list goes on…

Just like investments, you want to ensure that you’re receiving the best bang for your hard earned buck when you purchase a financial product. I could review each speaker and give a blurb about what they said and why it’s important, but I’m not going to do that. Simply put, Rick Rules’ talks alone were worth the money you’d pay to go to the conference (or to buy the mp3s) – the dozens of other presentations were icing on the cake. Even though much of what he says is the same every time I hear him speak, I always learn something, or better yet, have a ‘EUREKA’ type moment. I can truly attribute a lot of my success in the junior sector to what Rule has said in his speeches.

Rick Rule – Wednesday July 27, 2016 @7am

In total, Rule gave 5 presentations during the conference, one of which was an introduction to the companies that were in attendance. The focus of this review will be the talk he gave on the morning before the main event.

Here’s a summary of what were, in my opinion, the top 3 points from Rule’s speech:

1. Rule believes that the most common mistake speculators make is (transcribed from his speech):

“Every day you don’t sell a stock…for cash, you’ve bought it…If you are not willing to buy a stock that is in your portfolio…with fresh money…sell it.”

Rule made this statement as context for a free portfolio review he did with a prospective client. He reviewed their portfolio and asked why they owned certain stocks, but they couldn’t give a good answer. Rule proceeded to suggest that they sell the stock. The prospective client basically refused and said ‘no, I’m way down!’

To dig into Rule’s comment, every day that you hold a stock it’s like buying it again. If you wouldn’t re-buy the company in its present form and share price, you should sell it. A drop in the share price is like a sale at the mall; if you liked what you bought last week at full price and it’s on sale this week, wouldn’t you want to buy more?
When to sell a company is just as important as when to buy, but even still, I’d be willing to bet that most people are fixated on the buy side instead of the sell.

2. Rule believes the key to junior investing is (transcribed from his speech):

“You add value by answering unanswered questions…the key to making money in this business.”

This point is very important when it comes to determining the potential valuation of a company, as there should be a definite plan for answering these unanswered questions. If you ask the company executive how they plan to accomplish their goal, and they can’t give you a straight answer, walk away, or as Rule puts it, hang up the phone.

Conveniently, I recently wrote a post that examines this topic in greater detail, along with reviewing some of the ideas found in Howard Marks’ book, The Most Important Thing Illuminated.

3. Something that I wish I’d learned from Rule earlier in my investing career (transcribed from his speech):

“When a company’s story changes or your reason to own the stock vanishes…you have to sell.”

My worst loss to date was Banks Island Gold. My mistake? I didn’t sell when the story changed. Banks held two main properties, Yellow Giant and Red Mountain (now owned by IDM Mining). To make a long story short, they had issues at Yellow Giant and missed a payment to Seabridge for the Red Mountain – and they lost it. Red Mountain was the key to the speculation, but I didn’t sell. I still felt they could turn it around. Instead of losing 30%, I hunkered down and lost 95%. Hopefully, I’ve learned my lesson.

Thinking for the Long-Term

Everyone is interested in hearing about junior stock picks, but take it from me, you will make more money in your speculations if you take what Rule says and put it to work. Like the saying goes, give a man fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Early next year, most likely after PDAC in March, you will see the first rumblings of ticket booking for the 2017 edition of the Natural Resource Symposium. I highly suggest you go, or at least purchase the mp3s.

Subscriber Investment Summit

I started the review with sage words from Rule; “Money is made on the delta between value and price.” Well, on October 11 of this year, a conference of tremendous value and the best price in the business – FREE – will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s the Subscriber Investment Summit (SIS), hosted by Tommy Humphreys of CEO.ca, Eric Coffin of Hard Rock Analyst, and Keith Schaefer of Oil & Gas Bulletin.

Book your FREE ticket to check out companies that include: IDM Mining, CanAlaska Uranium and Colorado Resources; just to name a few.

Really, there’s no better way to do your due diligence than by speaking to a company’s CEO and/or other executives. Whether it’s the Sprott Symposium, the SIS that I attended back in the Spring, or any other investment conference, there’s a lot of value to be gleaned from the presentations and one-on-one conversations with the industry’s top minds. Plus, it’s always fun to fraternize with like minded individuals!

Until next time,

Brian