00:00I was just looking at the year-to-date. This is just year-to-date performance. So
00:04in the past few weeks of January, gold is up 17% already. Silver is up 52% already just in the
00:12first few weeks of this year. Is it possible that this momentum can continue?
00:20Hi, Jumana. I think our view at the moment is that the momentum continues. The fact of the
00:28matter is that we are seeing global shifts that we haven't experienced in generations,
00:35I would argue. Something like the weaponization of the stockpile of treasuries that's held
00:42by Europe and other regions or nations where they effectively at least consider selling
00:51those treasuries to apply pressure back onto the U.S., for instance. Some of those trends
00:59or kind of factors, I think, are going to be driving these precious metal prices even higher.
01:06Yeah. We were looking at a really interesting chart yesterday about central bank holdings
01:12of gold. And for the first time, their holdings of gold in aggregate has overtaken their holdings
01:17of sovereign bonds. Really interesting to see that happen. How owned do you think gold is
01:24and silver by institutional investors? Is there scope for more participants to enter into this space as
01:31well? Yeah. I think that gold as an allocation to sort of a generalist portfolio manager is still
01:41quite low. Our view is that it's effectively some portfolios basically held nothing and others are
01:50maybe a couple of percent. So we're of the view that there's still an increasing appetite for gold
01:58as a safe haven. If you just think about the relative sizes of these asset losses, if treasuries
02:05and the U.S. dollar used to be the safe haven asset and move away from that, the gold market is a lot
02:12smaller. So the relative size of those safe havens, in our view, is going to be what's driving the
02:21moving gold. It's sort of an ancient safe haven. And I think investors are going to continue looking at
02:30that. Yeah. Ancient safe haven. I like that. So obviously, we're very focused on the spot price
02:39moves. But if you want to get exposure to gold, to silver as an equities player, presumably you're
02:46looking at some of the miners. How are you screening for value right now? Yeah. So we invest mainly in the
02:55miners. And so, you know, I think the free cash flow generation at current metal prices are really
03:03compelling. That's definitely a focus for us. And we think that most of these companies, you know, have got the
03:10message over the last 10 years or more, you know, from the last down cycle that investor or shareholder returns
03:20is a priority. So we're seeing, you know, good flow through from free cash flow into dividends. You know,
03:27some of it's going into share buybacks as well. So we think that there's a strong return of free cash flow
03:36that's going to continue to come to share all this. And what's also interesting, you know, is that in our
03:42view, the generalist investor, you know, has only started to focus on that. You know, I think if you can
03:48pay gold equities to some other sectors or some other companies, it's very compelling on the free
03:54cash flow side at the moment. And the stocks are not cheap, you know, compared to something like the
03:59tech sector, for instance. Interesting. Okay. So let me also ask you about other metals, because it
04:09hasn't just been gold and silver, precious metals, but also some of the base metals have really
04:13had a good run to the likes of copper and aluminum. How much of that is just short,
04:20short lived in nature, you know, some, some supply disruptions versus say more structural and the fact
04:27that there really is a lot of demand for these types of base metals for the transition, for the
04:33build out of data centers and the accompanying infrastructure that goes with it.
04:37Well, certainly a part of the move up in copper and, you know, even base metals like aluminum are
04:44driven by the fundamentals. We saw a supply outages last year. I mean, one of the biggest mines in the
04:51world, Grasberg in Indonesia, you know, actually had an accident at a very unfortunate event, but it
04:58basically meant that there was a supply outages for a, you know, the big part of last year, and it
05:04continues into this year. So a large part of the copper move in our view has been driven by the
05:09fundamentals. But at the same time, if we look at the, you know, probably the biggest demand driver
05:16for copper over the last decade or two has been, you know, Chinese consumption. And that looks to be
05:21down at the moment. So, so we do, you know, see kind of a mixed picture for some of the base metals at
05:27the moment. The moves have been fundamental, but, you know, also exacerbated in our view by
05:35something like tariffs, you know, something like, you know, defense spending and security of supply
05:42as well. I think another, you know, interesting commodity is aluminum, where you don't have a lot
05:48of supply addition coming on, you know, in 2026. And so there's still a demand story that's, you know,
05:55supposed to be growing at a healthy clip. And so we are quite constructive in that space. You know,
06:03copper might be, you know, sort of under pressure if the Chinese demand doesn't come back quickly.
06:09But at the same time, the kind of new economy drivers, such as electrification, is obviously also
06:15helping the cause.
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