|
Ellis Martin: Welcome to The Opportunity Show. I'm Ellis Martin. Today
we have an interesting interview from Vancouver, British Columbia, with our
correspondent Nancy Massicotte and The Silver Guru, David Morgan.
Nancy Massicotte: This is Nancy Massicotte of IR Pro Communications
and The Opportunity Show. Today I'm pleased to be speaking with The Silver
Guru, David Morgan. David has a Web site, www.silver-investor.com.
These have definitely been some tumultuous times the past year. Do you feel
that the investment market has experienced a turnaround at all?
David Morgan: We've had quite a lift since the November lows. In fact
gold, silver, even the stock market generally, have gotten a big lift in the
last few months, however I put out a market alert to my subscribers saying
that I actually thought this is probably in the topping action for gold and
silver on an intermediate term basis. I still believe this is probably the
case, we had what is called a key reversal Wednesday of last week. We're doing
this interview in early June, so I was a little bit early. I didn't say it
was an exact top, I said it was topping. I still believe that's the case. Longer
term I'm much more bullish than this, but the market's ramped up pretty quickly
here. I think we may need to back and fill for a while.
Ms. Massicotte: Your main focus has been silver, but today you were
speaking on other metals. What are your thoughts on the companies focused on
these less glamorous metals?
Mr. Morgan: I did speak about silver and then I turned it over to Clint
Cox. Clint has done a great deal of research. He's traveled all over the world.
He's been in China several times and he knows the rare earth elements market
as well as I know the silver market. So I gave half of my time to Clint because
Clint actually contributes to my report, The
Morgan Report, probably three or four times a year on rare earth elements.
We keep all of our readers informed in that market. It's a very small market.
It's a little over a billion dollars right now, total, but China has about
95 percent of the total rare earth element market. It seems to be kind of the
hot buzzword up here in Vancouver in June. John Kaiser, who is very studied,
gave a very accurate point of view about rare earth elements. You also have
Jim Dines who has just given himself the title, "the original rare earth elements
bug." We've been on this for about the past two years. We have one company
we recommended that doubled the money or slightly better for our Morgan
Report subscribers, and then we got out of it. We're not afraid to sell
stocks at a profit, and the company has since that time not done nearly as
well. Are there opportunities in rare earth? Yes. Finding a really good company
is a bit of a task, but if we do find one that we like and that meets our very
strict criteria, it will be in The
Morgan Report.
Ms. Massicotte: Do you feel the investor is interested in the return
for the risk in investing in rare earth elements or do you still feel silver
and gold will garner the investor's money?
Mr. Morgan: I think right now you're probably going to see silver and
gold markets certainly get more exposure. Gold certainly is in the mainstream
right now. You very often hear the main commentators talking about gold. Silver
of course doesn't get nearly as much exposure, but it gets some. Rare earth
elements, though, is something that, unless you're involved in the resource
sector, almost nobody really even hears about. With people like Jim Dines and
some of the others coming onboard and starting to talk about it, you start
to learn about it more and more. It is very critical -- similar to silver from
the aspect that it's one of the most critical assets that we have in a high-tech
society, yet most people are undereducated or know nothing about it. So, it
will come to the fore. As far as investment it's highly speculative and risky
right now, but it's very much needed. So again we're looking for opportunities
that make sense, but we're not just willing to jump in simply because it's "rare
earth." There are some companies out there that basically don't know, really,
what they have -- whether it's economic at this point or not.
Ms. Massicotte: Do you still feel silver will outperform gold? Everyone
is touting 1,000+ gold. How high to do you feel silver can reach?
Mr. Morgan: I do believe that silver will outperform gold, and it has
done so since the bull market began in 2003. The ratio at that time was about
80 to 1. The gold/silver ratio is currently around 60 to 1, so it has outperformed
gold although the ratio has been down as low as 50 to 1 in this bull market.
I believe longer term, as bizarre as this may sound, that silver will make
it to about US$100.00 an ounce or better, and the reason for that is pretty
simple. Silver already made it to $50.00 an ounce in 1980. At that time there
were about 1.5 billion more ounces of silver available for investment than
there is today. Secondly, the M1 money supply (I'm not talking about all the
credit that's out there and the trillions and trillions of dollars that's just
been added over the last few months but the actual checkbook cash money) available
is about sevenfold higher. So if you've got 7 times the amount of cash chasing
one-fourth the amount of silver, how high do you think the price could go?
Ms. Massicotte: Politically, have some countries been able to support
their mining economy to survive over other countries?
Mr. Morgan: Yes. Labor costs are a very important element in mining
around the world. I'm next-door to Idaho, and in the silver valley that has
some very rich silver mines, the labor costs on that silver are far, far higher
than in Mexico, for example, and Mexico is actually higher than what you would
be able to mine in China. So, certainly it does depend on where you mine the
metal, what the labor laws are and what the government mandates are around
the mining industry.
Ms. Massicotte: This being the start of summer and the old adage of,
Sell in May and Go Away, do you recommend looking for opportunities in companies
that may look good or waiting until the fall to see how they fare in this quiet
time?
Mr. Morgan: Well, Nancy, I'm going to give you a bit of a curve ball
here and say both. I would say the old adage may hold again this year. I'm
always suspicious when I make that recommendation because you know there's
always going to be a year somewhere along the line that proves that statement
incorrect. From what I'm seeing in the market currently, I think from a metals-only
perspective we're probably going to have a wide trading range for the summer.
As to the other part of the question, looking for opportunity? Absolutely.
I was taught early on, and I've proved it over and over again, that there's
always opportunity; it's just a matter of finding it.
So I'll be working during the summer, as hard as ever if not harder than ever.
If there's opportunity there that I feel is undervalued, regardless of the
metal's price I'll make the recommendation. Sometimes you can find that the
price of the metal doesn't matter, and then in other cases you've got to be
a little more careful because the stock does move the metals price. So I look
at everything on a case-by-case basis and make my analysis based on each individual
company.
Ms. Massicotte: You have a plethora of information, David, for new
investors and for experienced investors. How does one get in touch with your
recommendations and reports?
Mr. Morgan: Well, if you're new and you want to explore the sector,
I really don't recommend buying The Morgan Report. I think the best
thing to do is go to the Web site (silver-investor.com) and educate yourself
for free and for fun, because I've posted about a decade's worth of work. I
write weekly. I write usually in the silver space, but sometimes about the
economy, sometimes gold.
I think the best way to make an investment is know what you're doing. A lot
of people jump into the sector because it's hot or their neighbor did it or
there's some other reason that's more emotionally based. It should be logically
based. You should really understand why silver is important and why you want
to make a silver investment.
Once you accomplish that and you want to get specific recommendations, we
do make those, and that's a fee-based service called The Morgan Report that
you can access through the same site, silver-investor.com. I do focus primarily
on silver but we've made a great deal of money in moly, copper, drilling companies,
and also uranium companies. So, I'm not afraid to look for value wherever it
resides in the resource sector, but yes, most of my time is devoted to the
silver market.
Ms. Massicotte: If a company has a project that they would like you
to analyze and consider, how do they get in touch with you?
Mr. Morgan: Best way is just go to the Web site and hit the Contact
Us link. E-mail is usually best for an introduction. A lot of stuff crosses
my desk, as you can well imagine. I basically look for certain criteria: 20,000,000
ounces of silver, not silver equivalent -- 20,000,000 ounces of fine silver
that's delineated by 43-101 or equivalent -- then we could probably start talking.
If it's less than that I'm really not interested. Do I make exceptions? Yes,
every once in a while, but very, very rarely.
Ms. Massicotte: This is Nancy Massicotte of IR Pro Communications and
The Opportunity Show. It's been great speaking with you today, David. Thank
you for your time.
|