Precious Metals Stocks: Macro, Charts & First Mining - with Dan Wilton and Florian Grummes

0:00 Very quickly. I'll say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. This is quite an international audience. I think you've got everywhere from Hawaii to Singapore. So thank you everybody for joining us. But I'm sure it's going to be a very, very interesting conversation. I'm lucky enough to have with me today Dan Wilton, CEO and Director of 1st Mining Gold, and also Florian Grumis, Managing Director of Midas Touch Consulting and absolute chart wizard to talk us through what on earth is going on with gold, the macro picture and how it affects mining stocks. Very excited for today's discussion, but I wanted to go through some quick housekeeping before we get into the protein. Really quick, there is a chat function at the bottom of the screen. We've got a lot of material to get through today, but if you do have any additional questions, please do feel free to ask questions in the chat box. I'll try to get to as many as we can during today's session. If you have a meeting request,

0:49 please do feel free to press that button. I'll get you in touch with them afterwards. If for whatever reason I don't get to your question today or I don't hit your meeting request right away, I'm gonna make sure they all get to the relevant team as soon as the event is over. So please don't fret. We'll try to get to as much material as we can today. The final thing I'll say is that today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay in the mid-afternoon Eastern time, so quite quickly after we close today. It'll be on our YouTube channel, but also directly into your inbox and at the same link that you're joining us with right now. But let me get right into the protein. I know before we get into today's discussion, Florian has a quick presentation that he's going to get through. So I'll throw it to you, Florian, to get started and then we'll get into the conversation. Yeah, first of all, welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us here today. It's a great pleasure to come to you. I'm coming to you from Dubai today.

1:40 And yeah, I don't have a lot of time here for my little presentation, but I wanted to make sure that you really understand where we are in the big picture. And I think that's always a very important step you can do if you find yourself in a position in the market that maybe is not going in the right direction, or if things unvolve in a different direction than you were expecting or hoping for. And with the metals, I think it's very clear that we are still in a big secular bull market here. But since end of January, we are in a corrective setup here. That's healthy. That's normal. That was also to be expected Precious metals have been running up quite crazy over the 3.5 years before January this year gold ran up from 1615 to $5,600 in 3.5 years. That's a 250% gain. That's quite a big increase and silver even went up much more so Let's get into these few charts that I have if you can Forward here. Yes, that's my company. That's the presentation for today.

2:50 And there is a disclaimer I'm cooking with water like everyone else. Please take responsibility for your results So that's the very very big picture here We're zooming out in the left corner on you're gonna see gold here at $35 back in the early 1970s. That's a logarithmic long-term multi-decade chart basically. And what I want to show you here is when gold started to run from $35 up to $890 in 1980. That bull market took basically 10 years and it is the famous 1970s. It was not only famous for the disco music but also for inflation and a rising oil price and quite some geopolitical challenges back then. And there are some similarities to the situation we are in right now.

3:36 And as you can see this kind of green box, this gray box in between, that was an interruption in the gold price back then. So gold had run up to $200, then it pulled back nearly 50% down to $100, and from there it went up to $890. And I assume we are in a bit of a similar situation here. We've seen a steep rise since the breakout in February 2024, up to $5,600, and since then we are seeing this pullback. And I think overall, zooming out, maybe in 10 years from now, you will see and realize, like, oh, it's been also just this small little gray box in hindsight. So I think that's what we're living through right now in the gold market But the best is yet to come again from $100 back then in the 1970s gold went on to $890 nearly 9x in the following 6 years following 4 years once the bottom was in in 1976.

4:35 So I think in the long run you're going to see much higher gold prices. And the next thing I want to discuss with you on this chart here is you see another long big red box in the middle of this chart basically after the top at 890 that was the 20-year bear market which then finally led to the lower $250 in early 2000s and from there gold took off to $920 within 10 years rising during the financial crisis and then of course topping out in 2011, followed by another five-year correction, a short little bear market, and then we had another little bear market after the COVID top in summer 2020, down to 16-15, where this last big Leg up started in the gold bull market and as you can see these red boxes are getting smaller and smaller and that is of course because gold is the antidote antidote to the fiat money system that we're living in and The money expansion to fear money expansion works like a financial like an exponential curve basically like exponential function There is no way out of it anymore. And hence These red boxes are getting shorter and shorter.

5:47 And I don't, I mean, I'm not able to imagine, to be honest, seeing gold here in a 5 or 10 year long correction at the moment. I think worst case, maybe another year or another 1.5 years sideways, so slightly lower, is probably the worst case for gold, because all the fundamental drivers are still in place that took gold to 5600 dollars. And hence, I believe we are in something similar like this gray box in the mid 1970s. If you can move on to the next chart, please. You can see here that is on the left side the bull market from 2000 to 2011. And this was also interrupted by these, yeah, I made it in red, these little triangle and kind of wedge correction patterns.

6:34 In hindsight, even the financial crisis in 2008 looks like a small blip. Back then it was quite severe. I remember living as an investor through those times, and of course the mining stocks pulled back severely during that financial crisis. Gold pulled back 33%. But now, in hindsight, it's a small blip. And I believe this is exactly the same that will come out of the current correction, in hindsight, in a few years. It's totally normal that something that runs up quite fast and steep needs to take a breather and take a break and And yeah and rest and recharge and I think that's exactly what's happening right now in the gold market Hence, I don't see too much downside here anymore in the short term. If you could move to the next chart, please.

7:21 We have the strong support here around $4,000.

7:25 Give or take, it could still test that summer low at 3,940, maybe even 3,900. But I don't see too much more downside here. You can see here on the weekly chart, the stochastic is getting oversold again, similar to what we've seen in the summer. We are seeing that the shorts are increasing their positions dramatically

7:46 over the last few weeks. The mood, the sentiment is quite beaten down. And I will show you another chart and very quickly, the seasonality is also now getting very positive by mid-December. So I believe that we are seeing in the next few weeks, a bottom building set up here in the metals. I think the worst is over already, the downside is rather limited and

8:12 you just have to expect maybe a few more sideways, back and forth, confusing, tricky kind of weeks here until the last FOMC meeting of the year on the 9th of December. Speaking of that time frame, of course, for the mining stocks, there is always this little problem tax loss season in November, but I'm, as an investor, see that as an opportunity. So I'm buying at those current levels here and over the next few weeks I have some more liquidity on the side that I want to basically reapply into the mining stocks. I think that this pullback that basically started now in end of August, thanks to the central bankers meeting in Jackson Hole, if you remember, and their talks about the rate hikes, I think is running out of steam now. I think we're going to see in the next few weeks that the Fed is not hiking rates anymore because they would really wreak havoc in the real economy.

9:13 And we also, I think, see some relief in the geopolitical situation. Yesterday there was a big meeting here in the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey came together meeting in Tehran. They had some diplomatic talks and actually agreed that they have to solve the issue without the Americans. So I think that could bring in some relief. And remember, the main inflationary pressure was, of course, the oil price shock and these rising oil and energy prices. So if the market now starts to price in maybe some,

9:51 not final peace agreement, but at least some relief and some de-escalation in that situation in the Middle East, that could very quickly also lead to less inflationary pressure in the short term. And hence, the Fed will not be forced to rate hikes anymore. And don't forget, even if they hike rates,

10:13 they cannot attack inflation that is created by high oil prices with raising interest rates. So I think there is going to come more and more pieces here on the table that will take out the stress in the markets right now. Don't forget next week midterm election in the US, that's been also a big driver for uncertainty.

10:35 I think that's also going away. And then you have, of course, in the general stock market, the equity markets, you have the usual year-end rally, which starts right after the midterm election. So I think all together it's going to be look better in the next few weeks and I think in 2 3 months from today you will look back and see this now as a buying opportunity. So if we could go to the next chart please. This is the daily chart where I just wanted to show you. I expect a little bit more back and forth, tricky bottom building pattern here over the next few weeks. But usually around the last FOMC meeting of the year, that would be this year on the 9th of December, you're going to see a turnaround in the metals, a reversal to the upside, and then of course, gold will be driven higher by the Chinese New Year, which starts in the second week of February and will last until the 20th of February, and the Chinese will buy a lot of physical gold again.

11:33 And that will lift metal prices and that will also lift the mining stocks. If you could go to the next chart,

11:39 the seasonal trend, usually you have 2 big buying opportunities every year in the precious metals as well as in the mining stocks. One is in June-July and the other one is around mid-December. We're coming very close into that time frame now. And then of course January, February, March usually is the best time of the year for precious metals and mining stocks. That's the time where you need to be fully invested. So I assume the current situation many of the Miners are oversold been beaten down quite severely over the last few weeks. This is a buying opportunity I'm here in the bull camp and If you want to move on to the last chart, I think that I have which is a meme and which really describes very well Where we are at the moment a year ago. We were celebrating the breakout in silver above $50 here We are same price. The mood has completely changed But silver has already been at the moon and is coming back from the moon now testing that Former resistance at $50 for support. I think it's part of the big cup and handle pattern in the silver market I assume overall $50 more or less give or take a few dollars, but overall I think $50 will hold and then Going forward over the next 5 to 10 years. I think silver will run towards. Yeah, 250 $500 That's actually the price target the long-term big price target out of my cup and handle pattern. So in the short term, I think it's an opportunity.

13:05 And I think we're still in a big secular bull market in metals. And yeah, I think everything in my analysis, the puzzle is more or less complete. We need maybe another few weeks, but then we should see January, February, very bullish price action again. Awesome, Florian, thank you so much for sharing your insights. I love the chart wizardry. I always find it super interesting. Now, there's a lot of questions already in the chat, But there's a couple that I wanted to run through with you guys first. Hopefully, it'll cover some of the materials in the chat. But if not, I'll try to get to it as quickly as possible. Florian, one question I had for you just to lead off. And I think the visual of the shrinking red boxes does a lot of work to answer this already. So I do appreciate that. But when you lay that chart over the corrections the past 20 years, do you think this one looks more like 2013 or 2006 or 2008, which were also those 25 to 30% pullbacks that resolved higher?

14:00 Well, let me first say it's very rare for gold to pull back more than 30%. Okay, that's actually already a 6 Sigma event kind of we've seen 150% pullback and that was from the 2011 top down to 1050 in December 2015 and that was a bear market and it lasted 4.5 years and that came after a ten-year bull market so far We had a 3.5 year bull market I would be very surprised if if gold pulls back 50% here from the top at 5,600. Of course, it is theoretically possible, but I think this 30% pullback that we've seen so far is already, most of it is probably done. I think the downside is very limited.

14:45 And I believe if you want to have a comparison it is probably more likely we are somewhere in between either 2006 or 2008 kind of scenario, but within a bull market a correction Not the end of a of a big leg up and then a multi-year kind of correction. That would be my comparison. Great. I appreciate that. Dan, I've been lucky enough to know you for a while. I know that you lived through a currency collapse in Russia in 1997. And you've said previously that shaped how you think about hard assets. So looking at what moved Gold from under $2,000 to over $5,500 in a few years, how much of that story would you say is different now that it's been through this 28% trotting? I mean, I think if you look at what's causing the moves, nothing is different, right?

15:35 Like we're sitting at a point now where one of the things that I think is starting to kind of show are some of the real cracks in the financial system that no one's paying attention to, but things like private credit.

15:52 It's a significant risk in this economy that a lot of people just, most people haven't even heard of private credit. Most people aren't invested in private credit, but their pensions are. And it's, you know, it's this massive asset class that has really taken over like the real estate market. And one of the things that's really got me

16:14 concerned from a macro perspective is, you know, speaking with some of our friends and some of our shareholders in the US, like, do you know what a 30-year mortgage rate is for like a prime mortgage in the US today? It's like 7.5%. Like It hasn't been that high since the late 90s. So, you know, what I learned as a guy with a commerce degree and an MBA, like when interest rates go up, asset values go down. Right. And we're not really seeing that in the real estate market day to day. But I fear that our 2008 moment, which we've been talking about a couple of these pullbacks here, our 2008 moment might just be kind of bubbling up on the side right now in terms of financial crisis. But beyond that, everything else that got Gold to where it was at $5,600 is exactly the same or worse. You've got no more stability in the world. In fact, you've probably got an escalating war in Russia and the Middle East.

17:23 You've got fiscal profligacy all over the world with absolutely no

17:34 reconciliation of that in sight. You have no fiscal discipline really of any significant government in sight. There's a couple of isolated examples of countries that are balancing their budgets, But by and large, you look at the G7 or the G20 and it's pretty much a disaster.

17:54 And a lack of recognition of that as an issue is the other thing, right? Like people are talking about they're running record deficits And no one's talking about how they bring that deficit down, despite the fact that interest rates, you know, you've seen the US rates, long rates, you know, at 5%. Like there's real, that fiscal economic drag on the economy is going to do way, way more than any oil price shock. And we're not talking about that, but that's the reality of the situation.

18:27 So is there a way that all of a sudden we're going to find a bunch of fiscal discipline. Well, let's just have a quick look at what's going on in Europe in places where people are threatening a modicum of fiscal discipline. It is literally rioting in the streets. They literally had stormed the Bastille.

18:47 This is the stuff that revolutions are made of, right? So I think it's a disconcerting time. And we were talking about this before, my hope and dream for great outbreaks of peace in the world, that hasn't come to pass in the last year. And I certainly don't think we're seeing any great building of global trust either. In fact, I think it continues to go in the other direction. And in a lot of societies like, you know, like the US, like France, like Italy, like we're seeing it on the streets right now. So what does that state of me? It's a really good time to buy gold, right? I think the debasement trade, we're in, you know, the first 5 minutes of the first period of the hockey game.

19:38 We're in maybe the first inning, maybe the bottom of the first, but the fiscal debasement trade is in its early stages. And that, I think, is the thing that is going to provide the real, real spike to Gold that's going to take it up to the levels that we don't really talk about in the industry other than in disaster scenarios. It is kind of remarkable to me how fiscal prudence has just dropped out of the political conversation across the entire West. No party is really tackling it. It's interesting. Florian, I know that you've written previously that correction does not undermine the investment case. You've certainly already intimated that today as well. You also wrote that gold has to be valued differently today than it used to be. What do you mean by that? Just for folks in the room.

20:24 Sure. Just 1 one little add or comment. Sure. If you remember, first term of Trump, he said he will attack the deficit. And it was at 16 trillion. Second term now it's at 40 trillion. OK, so the trend is very clear. That's an exponential function. And you won't be able to turn this around anymore. It's quite the contrary. It's accelerating and further accelerating and it's getting steeper and sharper. So yeah, what I mean by that is I mean gold is basically being remonetized exactly for that reason.

20:58 So it's not primarily an investment anymore where people look at the return on a yearly basis. It's really a flight to a safe haven that cannot be destroyed, that will always keep some value, a purchasing power. And that is something that has no third party risk, which is enormously important nowadays, especially in this completely fragmented world where you have so many different geopolitical interests and players and

21:27 stress on every corner. And I think gold will therefore not necessarily be an investment anymore, where you just look at the return on a year-to-day basis, but more of something where you really can store your wealth and your purchasing power in, and where also governments, central banks, countries, companies can diversify themselves and have something that keeps the value and is not being destroyed like in everything else that many of these people are holding and have to hold. Appreciate it. Dan, I want to talk to you about rate hikes for a second, because the textbook that I'm sure we've all read at one point or another, I'm certainly sure that you did, says rising real yields on a firm dollar hurt gold.

22:16 So the Fed allegedly or attempted to hand the market in September or claimed to hand the market. But central banks keep buying into this weakness

22:24 at remarkable rates. So when you're sitting in front of institutional investors, which of these 2 forces do you tell them matters more over the next couple of years?

22:34 I mean, a lot of the institutional investors that we are marketing to are managing dedicated pools of investment capital for the mining sectors. So they usually have their own bias. They're going to be long Gold and just it's a matter of picking where in the Gold industry they want to invest. When we're talking to other investors or more generalist investors, I think the interest rates, I put it to you this way, the difference between a 2% and a 3% interest rate, like on the margin, you're getting a little bit more yield. A 2% interest rate to me says there's not a lot of economic, you know, shock or concern in an economy.

23:25 And there's like not a lot of threat of inflation. We're not there right now, right? Central banks have proven incapable of reining in, you know, both supply led inflation. But it's not just that inflation in the US that's kind of running rampant. It's everything that's associated with technology spend, which has gone from like US$0 to US$0 trillion in a short period of time, which has its own issues and concerns for sure. But I think that in a normal, sleepy, peaceful market, I think that interest rate correlation and, you know, the opportunity cost of your Gold not having a yield on it, which by the way, it was never really true because you could loan your Gold out and you know, Gold lease rates have existed forever. It's kind of a spread issue.

24:21 But at the same time, you know, I think what we are seeing and you pointed it out rightly, that central banks around the world are seem to be refusing to let Gold go below $4,000 an ounce. They will buy it all day long as a gift because they know that their alternative is holding US dollars. And so they're quite happy to trade it out at that exchange rate all day long. But they're also accumulating the longer term benefit of not just what could be happening with the US dollar, but that longer term benefit of control over your own destiny

25:04 by having an alternate store of value. So yeah, I think that that interest rate Gold correlation works in a narrow set of circumstances, which we've lived in for a long time and people started to accept it as a fact. But where you always see these big breakouts in Gold, it is usually either as a response or a prediction of very uncertain times to come. And that's where I think we are right now. I appreciate it. Florian, I got one quick 1 on Silver. I know you brought it up briefly in your deck with, I think, a great meme. But Silver is the one that really got hurt, down more than 0.5 from its record. And as you said, it's in shock, consolidating in that pretty unusually tight range.

25:52 So my question is, as a chart guy, is what is the silver chart telling you that the gold chart isn't? And do you think silver needs to bottom out first for the whole complex to turn around?

26:05 Well, I mean, you always have to be a little bit difficult with the signals coming from silver. It is the smaller brother. So usually The more important signals are coming from gold. The one signal that I take very serious from silver is when it's finally showing up to the party and taking over the mic, so to speak. Right. And that's usually the last inning of a bull run. And that exactly happened last year when it broke out above 50 dollars and then it doubled within less than 3 or something. And that was actually the warning signal that a top is coming in our sector. That's where I really take everything from silver very serious. While on, if it's about the bottoming patterns, sometimes silver is earlier, sometimes silver is later.

26:55 For example, this summer gold bottomed out on the 30th of June, silver needed another 2 weeks and the miners actually needed 3 more weeks. So I'm looking more here right now on gold and how it behaves, but certainly on the technical side, $50 for silver has been at the top in 1980. It has also been the top in 2011 and this has been a huge resistance for 45 years and we broke above this last year in October. Silver rally to $121

27:31 now, it's coming back down and the meme describes it beautifully. I mean, we are at the same price, but the situation is completely upside down. Back then it was like euphoria, breakout, the charts were already getting overboard. We were running into that last inning of a bull run. Now we're totally oversold panic bad mood. Nobody wants it anymore. Everybody's giving up and we're again at $50. So actually everything in place for the market now to turn around and move higher and build that base around the $50 level. So I

28:01 think it's important that this $50 let's say 45 to 55 the whole range it could turn around earlier. It could maybe dip intraday below $50. Nobody knows is exactly but this range of this can hold It's going to be strong support now. And from here, silver should turn around and move higher again. And then, yeah, down the road, this huge cup and handle pattern, 45-year-old pattern, should take silver to $250 to $500 in the next 5 to 10 years. So it is an important pattern for silver. But in the short term, I'm more looking at gold. And like Dan rightly said, below 4,000, it seems big buyers stepping in any time it dips below 4,000. Probably institutions, probably Tether, probably a few other big players.

28:51 And hence, 4000 seems to be a really strong support. Great. No, appreciate it. And I know there's lots of questions in the chat. Just bear with me 15 minutes and we'll get to as many of those as we can. But Florian, I want to stick with you talking about the miners, because producers are generating more cash than they ever have at $4,000 gold. It's really remarkable how much money these producers are printing. GDX is still down on the year. Technically, where does the miners index sit right now relative to its July low? And what would a break of that low actually mean for the sector at this point? Yeah I think, let me say something first. Somehow everything is strongly correlated in our sector. And that's also true for the general markets that just because the miners making huge amounts of margin and money right now, it doesn't mean that their stock prices need to go up. If the metal prices are falling, that affects the mining stock prices more than actually wonderful economic data

29:56 and good balance sheets in the short term. That's what it is, unfortunately. And I feel for Dan, he's doing everything like he laid out, excellent management job and gold is down and hence the stock is down and then investors believe like something's going wrong in the company. But it's not true. The market is, our sector is so tight and it is depending on liquidity. And if investors pulling money out, it is what it is. And we have to accept this. And these are periods we have seen beautiful run ups and great times also. And that's That's something people need to accept. It's part of the game. Okay, first of all. And second,

30:35 I think that the GDX and the miners overall are very oversold right now. You rightly pointed out that from a balance sheet perspective and from an economic perspective, they are all in great shape. Actually, probably the best value place you can find in the stock market nowadays. While most of the big AI companies are just burning through their money and creating huge amounts of debt load, the miners are actually true value plays nowadays. And it's enough that gold hangs around 4,000 and they still make wonderful returns here. And so that alone will, of course, spill down into our sector further and further, because all these big mining companies have to refill and replenish their resources and reserves. So that is underway already and it will, I think, intensify over the next few years.

31:26 And from a technical perspective, Again, the GDX is very oversold. I have an oversold daily chart, an oversold weekly chart. It came down hard from that summer rally, but the bounce before in the summer, like June, July bottoming pattern, and then this bounce that we've seen in 3.5 weeks. Actually, the miners strongly outperformed gold and also silver especially. And right now, they're still holding up much better than silver and also better than gold. We are not really closely trading to the summer lows. So I think the miners are already reflecting that these high metal prices are simply very bullish and very healthy for the whole sector. There is still a lot of money and liquidity in our sector.

32:16 And hence, that's actually often a good indicator of the miners holding up better than the Gold price itself. One of the things that I'd point out to that front, though, our friend Ronnie Stifler put out in their monthly report for October showing GDXJ outflows. And September was, if you go back over the last 10 years, September was a top 5-month in the last 10 years of outflows from the GDXJ. It's just remarkable how quickly people seem to turn off on this sector, right? Like in this whole period that we've seen, you know, pretty remarkable share price movements as the Gold price has gone up. You've still had 70% of those months you've had outflows out of the GDXJ.

33:15 This has been a rally that the equity investor has not believed, right? By and large, still voting with their own dollars. Like as the value is going up, people have been taking money out of the sector, which is remarkable. So I would tell you that we, we haven't even started a bull run in the equities yet. We've seen a couple of flashes of it. If you look back to last October through like January, those were those days which you know when you're in a good sector push, because people are coming into the sector and everything is going up, you know, 3% to 5% a day. It can be pretty remarkable.

34:00 But just people need to keep in mind that through all of this Gold run, really from, you know, from, well, call it 1600, like just post-COVID Gold run up to 5600.

34:18 And most of those months, people have been, investors have been taking money out of the sector rather than having the money come in. So, you know, it's the great Paul Morris, our favorite moracle often says that, you know, one of the big things that is going to be the driver here is sentiment. And the sentiment, and I can tell you, other peer companies and developers,

34:43 a lot of us have seen our share prices go down 40% over the last month on 0 fundamentals and a pullback of Gold to US$4,000. Again, still pretty healthy levels that remind those of us that are 1st mining shareholders, that's 30% higher gold price than we've run our economic studies at Springpole on. So, yeah, I think it is that sentiment part of the movement of the commodity price And that sentiment part of money flows into, and especially out of the equities, which seems to have been the driver and not the fundamentals. Yeah, right on. And I do want to get into first mine release specifically now. And I've got questions for both of you about it. But Dan, the SpringPool PFS was built at $3,100 Gold and the market was already pricing it, in my opinion, a comically small fraction of that NPV when Gold was $5,000.

35:43 Now that Gold has come back towards you, Dex, still above, Has the market's view of a late-stage developer actually changed? Or do you think the stock just kind of tracks the metal regardless of project economics underneath? Is it just the animal spirits running the show? No. I mean, I think you need to look over the last couple of years and our share price has gone from, you know, $0.12 to as high as $0.95 or whatever, and settling now in that $0.60 range. You know, as Florian was saying, you face certain technical hurdles when your share price goes up 5 or 6 X. And I think that's fine. You know, it's a natural kind of cycling out of the shareholder base for people who are there for, you know, what we really see as the next near-term move in the share price. I think our share price move up has been entirely driven on fundamentals and has been entirely driven on us doing work and de-risking the project and hitting milestones. And that's our federal EA approval at the end of June. And it's the agreements with communities that we announced at the end of August.

37:03 Major, major, major de-risking moments for a project development. I mean, Springpole is sitting today as the only big Gold project in Canada with not both our environmental assessment approvals yet, but with our federal environmental assessment approval. Provincial should be coming in the next month here. But it's the only one with those approvals that's not built yet or not in construction. It's remarkable. There is a real scarcity value in this, but we recognise that for certain investors, we just need to keep going. We need to demonstrate the path forward for the project. And that's going to be the provincial approval.

37:50 That's going to be movement towards the Feasibility Study. That's going to be adding to the team. That's going to be a bunch of work, other detailed technical work and detailed engineering that's going on on Springpole right now. And then we've got a 6Moz Gold project in Quebec that's absolutely not priced in on our stock price right now. So that's the comical and somewhat frustrating part. But, you know, the value is there. So we can only control what we control as a team. And that's, you know, we're well funded to get to where we where we need to get to in the next 12 months and just continue to do the things that add value to this project. But you know, this pullback is an absolute gift to an investor, right?

38:42 Like you we've gone from being valued as our share price approached $1, being valued at $70 an ounce, which is still probably 4X cheaper than what the mean of companies at this stage would trade at. But today it's $50 an ounce. That's the way that we kind of look at it. We had a bunch of investors who came into our financing and it was at an $0.84 share price. And we're very, very thankful And we're very confident that the fundamentals and us executing on the plan will get the share price much higher than that. I appreciate it. Florian, I want to shoot it to you for a question of where we are in the market right now, because I know Goldfields just made a pretty dramatic US$27Bn

39:35 hustle run at Northern Star and got rejected. It's exciting news, obviously. When you see the majors paying up for ounces while the metal is correcting, what does that tell you about where we are in the cycle right now?

39:51 It tells me that we are somewhere in the middle of a cycle and not in a bear market or something. That's I think the most important part of it. And by the way I mean using that information I mean if you remember 2011 and the frenzy that we had back then in terms of M&A, we haven't seen anything like that yet. So it's pretty clear that we're somewhere in the middle of a healthy correction or within a bull market and the best is yet to come here. I think that's pretty clear.

40:23 Right on. Dan, I think this question will answer a lot of the stuff in the chat, not everything of course, I'm still going to get to you guys in a few minutes. I know CapEx at SpringPool is around 1.1 billion US and you've been pretty clear you want a partner to build it. In a market where the majors are being this aggressive on producing assets, there's a permitted 5Moz project in Ontario. A lot of checkmark boxes. Does that get more attention or less right now? I mean, I think it gets more. I think

40:54 for us, there has always been a natural and healthy scepticism about the timing and the binary risk of us ever getting environmental assessment approvals at this project, by nature of the fact that deposits in the Bay of the Lake. And I think a lot of investors have thought, I don't think we know, they told us that they were going to wait until you got those approvals before they were really going to look at this as an opportunity. They didn't mind missing the US$7 an ounce to US$50 an ounce run, which we kind of have now. We had the confidence that we were going to get there by virtue of the fact that we were day-to-day moving it forward and day-to-day building the relationships with the communities and day to day working with the communities and their evaluation of the project. And, you know, we're very happy that we've got to a good spot with aligned interests and moving forward with the communities that we're working with.

42:06 I think this is a situation where the scarcity value of A, 5Moz projects, because there's not that many of them in the world, let alone in Canada. And B, something that you have the opportunity to put a shovel in the ground before 2030, Like you can actually plan for it in your next 2 or 3 years at a time when, as you just said, all of these companies are generating record levels of free cash flow. And yes, they have some marginal expansion opportunities at their own projects, for sure, they always do, but at some point

42:52 every one of these companies is going to want to or need to add more to its production profile. And since we've heard for a long time, like everyone wants to own a project in Canada that's producing and you just have to look around to, you know, the commentary that's coming out today on Cote, on, You know, the island complex, which has Maginot on Valentine, on Greenstone, on Rainy River, on Detour. Like every one of these projects were a total disaster at one point in time as they were, you know, getting built or threatening to get built. I remember when I started here in 2019, investors telling me, you're crazy. The world doesn't need another 1g ore body in Ontario because Cote is not going to get built and Maginot is not going to get built and Greenstone is not going to get built.

43:48 And Valentine's not going to get built. Well, here we are. Right. Not only are those projects built but they're kind of the best assets in the Gold industry right now. And so, you know, what's going to change? Well, at some point, we just keep marching the project towards these critical milestones. And the one thing I'd tell you is, we as a company have a very different set of opportunities in front of us when we're sitting today just sub 1 billion market cap. I think at the time we go to build this, when you have all of your financing lined up, I'd be disappointed if we're not multiples of

44:28 the market cap of where we are. And then to have to go raise a few hundred million dollars of equity, it becomes a lot less daunting a task. So, you know, in the end, you can only control what you can control. You know, as I spent 20 years as an M&A advisor and 5 years as a private equity investor, you know, finding a partner or selling a project is an outcome. It's not a strategy. You can only focus on what you control. And what we control is 2, 5Moz plus Gold projects in a couple of the best jurisdictions in Canada with a great mineral endowment and growth opportunities. And you know, a very unique position of one of those projects being in a position that we believe you can get a shovel in the ground in like 18 months time.

45:19 Because you look around the world and there's just not a lot of those right now. So yeah, I mean, I think the best days are ahead. We've got all the money we need to do to get to a feasibility study to get through the detailed engineering and the permitting process and get to that construction.

45:39 Awesome. No, thanks Dan. I appreciate it. I tend to agree that better days are certainly ahead. Florian, I want to get your perspective on FirstMind before we broaden the set a bit more. I know you obviously watch the stock alongside the metal. From a pure chart standpoint, what do you want to see from a developer's stock during a correction like this before you'd say it's set up for the next leg? Well, I mean, ideally, you see what 1st mining exactly is doing right now. I mean, it's been pulling back to its 200 day moving average, which is sitting currently around 63 cents. It came down a little bit further, but overall, it seems to hold that moving average. It is making higher lows and higher highs. Don't forget 1st mining made a new high in the summer while gold was not making a new high. So that's also going into the direction of what we just talked about, that actually the miners are probably also taking over here the lead overall in a bigger time frame, not only just over the summer but probably in the bigger scheme of things.

46:42 And I think it's a healthy, Maybe a little bit painful, but healthy pullback here. And I think if 1st mining can hold here around this 200 day moving average, let's say 55 to 65 cents, that would be wonderful. We have an oversold setup. So I like that. I like the fact that we have a series of higher lows and higher highs, where it's a clear uptrend. And it's part of getting to a 10-bagger. You have to sit through these pullbacks, unfortunately. That's part of the story. They don't feel really comfortable during those times, but you can average in during it. And in hindsight, you will always be very happy that you hold on to it and actually increase your position during these pullbacks. So I think it all looks pretty healthy and pretty normal overall. It's part of the game if you're an investor in the mining stocks.

47:36 So I think the chart looks good. It is oversold. It's an opportunity here right now in my opinion.

47:43 I appreciate that Florian. Dan, I got a question for you that's going to combine some of the questions in the chat and 1 that I already kind of had. And that's obviously so many milestones have happened recently. You've got 8 and 1 0.5 years environmental assessment done at the federal level. You have agreements signed with Cat Lake, Laxsoll, Slate Falls, feasibility studies, and you're funded up until it lands in mid-2027.

48:05 And the Provincial EA is, as I understand it, still imminent. That being said, the stock is down. A lot of people in the chat are asking if that is just the macro things that we've talked about so far at the beginning of this conversation. We're off to something structural at 1st mining. So I'm going to throw it to you to speak about that disconnect just to speak to the folks in the chat. First of all, I hope everyone recognizes that the management team and the board and particularly Keith who is the largest single shareholder all share this pain. This pullback has had meaningful, meaningful impact on, you know, my and maybe less meaningful on Keith's net worth, because his is a lot bigger than mine, but it's, you know, massively impactful on mine. We're not happy about it, but at the same time, I think we are focused on the things that we need to do. And importantly, we're funded now with $75M on the balance sheet.

49:07 We're funded to get to these real milestones that when we hit those, we have every absolute belief and confidence that we will be achieving valuations similar to what our peers are. And if you look at that, the peers that are in construction right now in Canada and the US, would range between $250 and $650 an ounce. Right. They'd be trading at 0.6 to 0.8, 0.9 times their net asset value. Well, like That's still a long way from 50 bucks an ounce where we are today, right? This pullback is, yeah, I mean, if it was just us, you know, I'd feel worse. The misery does kind of love company.

49:58 You know, the whole developer sector has pulled back, you know, by 30%. We look in our peer group and we're still in the second quartile of performance in our peer group since the beginning of the year. So yeah, none of us are happy about it, but we are laser-focused on

50:18 building up the team because we've got a lot of work we've got to get done in the next year. B, getting this provincial EA over the line. C,

50:30 driving on on that feasibility study at Springpole. And then D, actually doing a lot of the long lead time work that I think is going to have 2027 be a bit of a year of great reveals at DuParquet. When a lot of people aren't really expecting what's coming there, it's not like we have this other asset that's maybe 1 day something's going to happen with it. We are planning on putting DuParcay into the environmental assessment process with a project description in Quebec in 2027 and filing a full environmental assessment in Quebec in 2028.

51:10 The benchmark that against most of the other 5Moz plus Gold projects in Canada, that actually puts DuParquet not that far behind Springpole and kind of ahead of pretty much everyone else. And the one thing that I'd point out is like, it also is being done by the team that, let's look at the last 12 years of track record, They spent, you know, Steve Lines and Megan and Shane spent 6-years permitting Greenstone, which was not an uncomplicated process, but from 2014 to 2020, from Scoping Study to construction permits. And they joined us at 1st Mine and Gold and they spent the last 5-6 years permitting Spring Pool, which a lot of people said was not going to be possible.

51:56 And so, you know, we're there with the Federal, we're imminent on the provincial. We got the agreements with communities and now that team is pivoting to a project that's larger than Spring Pool and located in generally an easier place to work with much better infrastructure around it. So yeah, like I think for all that we understand and share the frustration on this pullback, like I think it's a gift. It's an absolute opportunity And it's why you're seeing Keith exercising warrants. It's why you're going to see, you know, all of us exercising warrants and settling our RRSUs before the end of the year and adding to our positions, right? Like we're here and we continue to believe this is a massive opportunity.

52:49 The difference is, you know, the investors who came in in 2019, you know, were setting themselves up for quite a wait. People coming in today, like the number of catalysts that we have in this company in the next 12 to 18 months is bigger than any other Gold developer pretty much anywhere. Because we have 2 projects that are going to each go through these very, very catalyst heavy periods. So absolutely understand and share the frustration.

53:21 We're all significant shareholders, but just take away from this the commitment and confidence we have in being able to deliver the outcomes that are going to be the things that get reflected in the share price. Because objectively, we're still valued

53:43 5x below our peers where we should be. I appreciate that. And it is kind of wild that you guys don't get credit for the second world-class project that you have. It just never seems to come up in people's measuring of the company. It's odd. But yeah. Roper from the chat asks, based on current resource estimate at Springpole and current market cap of 1st mining. Where does the price per ounce in the ground currently sit if you've got the napkin math ready? Yeah. Ballpark today, $50 an ounce. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Again, as I say, like Peers, late stage development projects, you know, Skeena before it had its environmental assessment approval, was still trading at US$500 an ounce. There is bonafide, very visible 5x to 10x return potential here over the course of, like from here to a construction decision, which we think is a little bit less than 18-months away. So lots of hard work, still lots of stuff we got to get done. There's still a lot of execution

54:50 that's built into that. But you know what we've started thinking about a little bit is just imagine when you have these 2 projects built out, like the productive capacity of these 2 mines at 600-ish thousand ounces a year. Like, do you want to know where that would fit in terms of market cap in this current Gold environment, let alone the fact that we're all talking about how we think the Gold environment is going to improve. But in this current environment, it would situate you somewhere between Artemis and Alamos. Right. Like that's $10Bn to $20Bn of value built out. Now, execution risk, financing risk to get there. Sure, I get it, absolutely.

55:38 But like when you're gonna buy it today for less than 1 billion market cap, it is an absolute gift. So, we remain committed and we keep our head down and do lots of hard work to get there. But, you know, the range of what were, you know, real uncertainties and risks in these projects and in this company have narrowed considerably in the last year. Here you go. Dan, I'll ask you 1 then I'll break up both of you for a fun question to end on. But I'll ask you Dan, famously impossible to answer 1 1st. I know people love those. Brad from the chat asks, If Dan can comment on the level of interest that is or is not there for a suitor to join or outright purchase 1st mining in advancing Springfool? Yeah. I mean, we've had lots of discussions.

56:28 We've signed lots of CA's. I think the industry really wanted to see us get through the EA process and really wanted to see us get to a point of having agreements with communities. And so, Now that we have achieved one of the 2 EAs and the other one is imminent here, and we have the agreements with the communities, now I think you're starting to talk a little bit more practically about timing of work that can get done between now and a construction decision, and really what the development path for the project looks like. So lots of interest. The one thing that we know is there aren't any projects that are just all of a sudden going to jump out of the woodwork and be permitted and ready to build. In Canada, for sure.

57:27 It was 8.5-years to get Springpole through the CA process. We're hoping for everyone that's looking at getting into that process now, those timeframes are going to be shortened. Governments in Canada are working hard to shorten that. Good people really looking at ways you can constructively shorten that. But I would tell you that the good people in government ultimately are not going to be

57:53 the things that are driving timelines. The things that will drive the timelines for developments in Canada is the pace with which you can build relationships and build an alignment of interest with the indigenous communities that you're working with. And that's, it's something that we've worked very hard at. We've landed in a good place, Still lots of work to do, but it's very exciting work as you're kind of building stuff together now. It's very exciting. So, yeah, I wish everyone behind us in the EA process that it's not going to take them 8.5 years. But at the same time, I think I'd have a practical view on if a project's not in the EA process right now, when do you think you're going to get a shovel in the ground? And I would tell you,

58:45 If they have all their baseline data collected and they're ready to submit it, I think 5 years is probably a decent timeframe if you're well-funded to get through it and you have supportive markets to get there. So all that said, I think there's the scarcity value of advanced stage, globally significant projects in tier 1 jurisdictions is at some point going to shine through in our share price. Appreciate that very much. I'm going to conclude on, I know there's lots, actually only a few questions I fully didn't get to, but I'm going to pass those on to Paul Morris, who we'll get back to as soon as possible. But I'll end on what Raziel Zisman called a fun question, but I happen to know from asking it, nobody actually thinks it's fun, except the people who want to hear the answer. They want to know where do you see the price of Gold by year end? Florian, I'll start with you.

59:36 By year end, I would say $4,120.

59:40 Perfect. That's a great, clear answer. Dan, go for it. $4,600. I think Florian's bouncy bottom, I feel like we're going to get through the midterms. That bouncy bottom is going to get less bouncy and it's going to start moving up, would be my sense, into the year end rally. So yeah, 4600. These are the parts people are going to clip on Twitter and post them just so you guys know. But Florian and Dan, thank you so much for the conversation. Florian, thanks so much for the presentation and setting up some charts for us. I know there were so many people in the room. I got to most of the questions, I think, implicitly through our conversation. But if those didn't, I will send them to Paul Morris. And thanks, all of you, for joining. Thank you for behaving. I know there are so many of you in the room. I really appreciate it. I hope everybody has a great end of their day. Talk to you guys soon. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Ciao, ciao.

1:00:30 Everyone. Yeah, take care. Ciao, ciao.