Rick Rule: Gold, Miners and Uranium Over the Next Decade

Concepts and Ideas

Gold as Savings Vehicle

Saving in Gold vs. Speculating in Gold

Rule draws a hard line between people who hold gold as a long-term savings vehicle and those who trade it for near-term gains. As a saver, a lower price is genuinely welcome because it allows more accumulation. This framing removes emotional attachment to short-term price direction and clarifies decision-making.

Real Inflation vs. Reported CPI

Rule argues that official CPI substantially understates the actual purchasing power loss experienced by households. Using a consistent 2020 baseline for a real consumer basket, he estimates 8 to 10 percent annual deterioration -- which makes most nominal bond yields deeply negative in real terms regardless of the stated coupon.

Dollar Strength as a Temporary Gold Suppressor

Because gold is priced in US dollars, rising dollar strength mechanically creates downward pressure on the USD gold price. Simultaneously, rising US interest rates make yield-bearing assets more competitive against non-yielding gold. Rule frames this as a short-term technical dynamic, not a change in gold's long-term purchasing power role.

M&A Cycle in Mining Equities

Strategic (Synergistic) Acquisition

A strategic acquisition occurs when a major buys a deposit within trucking distance of an existing mill or processing facility. The acquirer captures the return on the ore body while also leveraging underutilized mill capacity -- getting two returns on a partially sunk cost. Agnico Eagle's approach in Finland is a current example.

Tactical (Scale) Acquisition

A tactical acquisition is driven not by operational synergy but by the capital markets benefit of becoming larger. Bigger companies with higher market caps and trading liquidity attract more passive and index-based buying -- including recurring bi-weekly payroll deduction flows into pension-linked gold equity funds. Equinox buying Caliber and then Orla illustrates this logic.

The Post-Acquisition Digest Period

After a takeover, shareholders of the acquired company who bought specifically in anticipation of a deal will typically sell into the announcement. This creates a predictable period of sideways price action for the acquirer as that transactional selling is absorbed. Rule expects Equinox to move through this phase before the market reprices the enlarged combined entity.

Portfolio High-Grading After Acquisition

Well-run acquirers use a takeover as an opportunity to sell their second-tier assets from the combined portfolio, retaining only the best. Sales proceeds reduce the effective acquisition cost of the assets they actually want. Rule cites this as a hallmark of well-managed Ross Beaty-style companies.

Negotiating Leverage Through Standalone Viability

A developer with a genuinely financeable standalone deposit has far more negotiating power in takeover discussions than one that needs a buyer to survive. Rule uses G2 Gold in Ghana and Mayfair Gold in the Abitibi as examples -- their ability to credibly threaten to build independently forces potential acquirers to pay a fair price rather than a distressed one.

Uranium Market Structure

Supply Deficit Above Incentive Price

A paradox exists in uranium: the spot price has exceeded the theoretical incentive price required to justify new mine construction, yet new supply has not materialized at scale. The Rook deposit is a prominent example of a project that should have been built but has not. The result is a continued draw on above-ground inventory that is opaque in size but widely acknowledged to be shrinking.

Energy Security as a Nuclear Demand Driver

The 1973 Arab oil embargo drove France and Japan to build large nuclear fleets as an explicit response to energy insecurity. Rule argues the same psychology is returning following Strait of Hormuz tensions in 2026, creating a new generation of policymakers who view stored uranium as the only viable large-scale energy buffer -- since oil, LNG, wind, and solar cannot be stockpiled at equivalent energy density.

Long-Term Uranium Offtake Contracts as a Financing Tool

Uranium mines can pre-sell production to creditworthy utilities 10 to 20 years in advance. Locking in long-term contracts removes pricing uncertainty, which directly lowers the cost of debt capital required to finance construction. This mechanism is what makes a project like NextGen's Rook deposit increasingly buildable on a standalone basis rather than requiring a sale to Cameco as the only exit.

Jurisdiction and Political Risk

The Permanence of Ore Bodies

Rule's philosophical anchor for investing in politically unstable jurisdictions is the geological permanence of the ore body itself. The resource exists independent of surface-level human conflict. When instability eventually resolves -- as it nearly always does -- the deposit remains. This allows patient investors to hold through headline-generating events that cause others to sell.

Stable vs. Fragmented Criminal Actors in Resource Jurisdictions

Rule's analysis of the Visla Silver situation in Sinaloa hinges on cartel structure rather than simply cartel presence. A stable, consolidated cartel led by a known figure (Guzman) is more predictable and negotiable than a fragmented successor landscape of competing factions. The breakdown of a prior de facto arrangement -- following Guzman's extradition -- created the instability that produced violence against Visla employees.

Implementation

Implementation steps are auto-generated from the transcript content and are provided for informational purposes only. They do not constitute professional advice of any kind. Always consult a qualified professional before acting on any information presented here.

Audit Your Household Inflation Rate

Take your actual household spending categories from 2020 and reprice them at today's rates. Rule's thesis is that real purchasing power erosion for most families is running 8 to 10 percent annually -- significantly above reported CPI. Understanding your personal inflation rate is the foundation for evaluating whether any savings vehicle is genuinely protecting your wealth or simply making you feel safe while quietly losing ground.

Reclassify Your Gold Position

Determine whether you are holding gold as a speculation (anticipating near-term price appreciation) or as savings (protecting purchasing power over years and decades). Rule's framework treats these as fundamentally different activities with different decision rules. If you are saving in gold, short-term price weakness is a buying opportunity rather than a cause for alarm -- this clarity alone eliminates most emotional errors.

Stress-Test Your Bond Exposure Against Real Inflation

If you hold long-duration US Treasuries, calculate the real yield after applying your household inflation rate rather than official CPI. A 10-year Treasury yielding 4.4 percent against 8 to 10 percent real inflation is a real loss of 4 to 6 percent annually. Rule has zero exposure to long-duration bonds and holds only short-duration US Treasuries (two years or less) as a deliberate response to this math. Consider whether your bond duration makes sense under the same calculation.

Map the M&A Wave to Your Mining Equity Portfolio

Rule identifies two types of acquisition targets currently attracting premiums: synergistic deposits near existing mills, and standalone deposits large enough to provide scale to a mid-tier acquirer. Review each mining equity you hold and ask which category it might fall into -- and who the plausible acquirers are. Deposits without a credible standalone build path and without a nearby major make weaker takeover candidates regardless of grade.

Identify Post-Digest Re-Entry Windows After Acquisitions

Rule's observation about Equinox is repeatable: when a takeover closes, shareholders of the acquired company who bought specifically for the deal will sell, creating a predictable window of sideways or soft price action for the acquirer. If you believe in the combined entity's long-term value, the post-announcement digest period may offer a more attractive entry point than the pre-announcement price. Apply this pattern actively as the M&A cycle continues.

Apply a Patient Capital Framework to Jurisdiction Risk

Before holding any resource equity in a politically unstable jurisdiction, explicitly define your time horizon and psychological limits. Rule is willing to hold Visla Silver through years of cartel-related headlines because he has a multi-decade track record doing exactly this in Congo, southern Sudan, and West Mexico. Be honest about whether you can read nightly news about violence at a mine site without panic-selling. If you cannot, the position size or the asset itself is wrong for you regardless of the underlying value.

Build a Uranium Position Around Energy Security Logic

Rule's uranium thesis rests on two independent pillars: a structural supply deficit that persists even above the incentive price, and a renewed geopolitical demand driver in energy security. Neither pillar requires a short-term price catalyst to be valid. If you agree with the thesis, build exposure now at a position size you can hold for 5 to 10 years. Rule's preferred names -- NextGen for deposit quality, UEC for US jurisdiction premium -- give a starting framework for where to focus due diligence.

Use Rule's Public Rating System as a Research Starting Point

Rule Investment Media offers free stock ratings (1 to 10, natural resource equities only) through his YouTube channel and at the Rule Investment Media website. Pre-conference interviews with exhibitors are posted free ahead of the annual symposium. These are not buy recommendations but they provide a candid, experienced assessment of deposit quality, management track record, and positioning -- which can sharpen your own due diligence substantially. The annual symposium live stream (Boca Raton, July 6 to 10) comes with a money-back guarantee.

Full Transcript

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[00:04]

Darrell Thomas: Hello everyone, welcome to the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Welcome to VRIC Media, your most trusted voice in metals and mining. I'm your host, Darrell Thomas, and today we have the pleasure of interviewing one of the legends himself, Rick Rule. How you doing today, sir?

Rick Rule: Life is great, Darl. The better for talking to you again. Thank you for having me back.

Darrell Thomas: So, we got to start with gold. Gold's been just kind of trading in the range, and I'm curious your thoughts on the metal and its recent performance. Are you concerned?

Rick Rule: Well, I'm elated. I would rather see gold lower than higher. The reason is that I'd like to own more. There's no price close to the current price that would cause me to sell. It has been and is my opinion that the next 10 years we'll see a fairly ugly depreciation in the purchasing power of the dollar and I think that gold will maintain its purchasing power. So I would like to own more rather than less.

Rick Rule: I think the relative weakness is explainable. US interest rates have been rising despite the Trump administration's best attempts to cause them to fall. Rising interest rates make yield products more attractive relative to gold, because you're getting paid more -- and they also, perversely, increase the attractiveness of the US dollar despite the fact that most of the world is mad at the US. So we're attracting real inflows of foreign currency into US dollars. Given that US dollars are the denominator for the gold price, as the dollar rises in strength, it makes perfect sense that there would be US dollar-based gold price weakness.

Darrell Thomas: Obviously the yields have been rising on the bonds, which means people are selling bonds typically, isn't it? Whenever the yield is rising, but I imagine some capital would flow in to get higher yields. Is that correct?

Rick Rule: Well, what it means is that savers are demanding a higher yield relative to inflation. In this particular circumstance in the long bond market, it's simply a case of investors requiring a higher yield. If you look at the US picture, we were forecasting a $2 trillion deficit this year before the war, and now we're likely forecasting a $2.5 trillion dollar deficit. So it makes perfect sense that investors would require a higher yield to own the long bond.

Darrell Thomas: Would you own the long bond?

Rick Rule: Not me. I own a reasonable amount of US Treasury securities with two-year duration or less. But I have zero interest in the duration risk. You and I have talked before about the fact that I believe that the CPI is not a good measurement for the rate of inflation. The basket of goods and services that your family consumes -- if you use 2020 as a baseline and look at the similar price levels in 2026 -- I bet the deterioration in the purchasing power of your savings is proceeding along at 8 or 10 percent. Not the 2.6 or 2.7 that the government would have you believe. So if you're owning a US Treasury yielding you 4.4, you weren't actually making 4.4. You're losing four or five. Not a pleasant circumstance.

[05:01]

Darrell Thomas: The dollar is losing value compared to real goods -- the price of beef for example looks pretty parabolic. So obviously gold is in competition with people going into the dollar or the yielding assets. I've been parking more capital in the miners and developers. Curious your thoughts on them at this stage.

Rick Rule: I think you're probably in the calm before the storm stage here. Because I think -- and you and I have been talking about a coming mergers and acquisition cycle for a couple years. What's not coming anymore? It's here. And I think you're going to see it increase in frequency. You were at my conference last year when I talked to Amar Aljundi, CEO of Agnico Eagle on stage, and he was talking about synergistic acquisition -- somebody like Agnico Eagle buys a deposit within trucking distance of their existing mill. They get the return on the mine but also leverage an existing asset.

Rick Rule: But you're seeing a different type of acquisition too -- tactical acquisitions such as where Equinox bought First Caliber and now Orla. There's no particular operational synergy between those deposits. They aren't next to each other. But there is a virtue in today's capital markets simply by getting bigger. If you get bigger with a larger market cap and larger trading liquidity, you get more index buying, more passive buying every two weeks when people are having payroll deduction for their pensions. They're every two weeks buying these gold stocks and they're buying the bigger ones more rapidly than the smaller ones.

Rick Rule: There was a recent acquisition where G Mining took over G2 Mining. This was incredible. They were able to pay a 70 percent premium in the takeover and it was still accretive on a per share basis to their shareholders. That's an amazing circumstance.

Darrell Thomas: Where do you have Equinox on your ratings right now with the recent acquisition?

Rick Rule: I've moved Equinox back to a five. I need to see them digest the Orla acquisition. You'll recall many years ago when Equinox had fallen fairly rapidly in price -- that was really a consequence of cost overruns at Hard Rock. Once they got Hard Rock tucked away at nameplate capacity, the stock did well. Then they acquired Caliber and the people who held Caliber in anticipation of a takeover sold when it happened. So the Equinox share price went sideways while it digested those transactional sellers. You're going to see the same thing right now -- Equinox trade sideways while the Orla shareholders who expected a sale take their profits.

Rick Rule: My belief is that Equinox will chew through that volume and the new Equinox will do two things. Like all good Ross Beaty companies, they'll use this acquisition and the new assets to sell the second-tier assets through their whole portfolio -- keeping only the best and using sale proceeds to reduce the total acquisition cost. The second thing is greatly increased trading volume. The resultant company will now produce substantially in excess of a million ounces and is no longer an intermediate tier producer. They're about to become a major. And the consequence is they're going to get a lot more index buying even as they upgrade the quality of their portfolio.

Darrell Thomas: Curious if you've got any thoughts on Mayfair Gold. They have 1 million ounces that is a probable reserve and then 3 million indicated.

[10:00]

Rick Rule: Mayfair is one I'm studying. I certainly like the people and I like some of the skeptics who own it -- I like the Muddy Waters people. I may be the only person in the mining industry who does, but I like them. I don't have an opinion yet. On a standalone basis, most people in the world are assuming gold will sell for $3,200 or $3,300 an ounce. I'm assuming gold is going to sell for $5,500 to $6,000. So I can afford to be more generous.

Rick Rule: What I sort of like about Mayfair is that even if they don't upgrade all of that inferred to measured and indicated, and even if the million ounces doesn't ultimately justify the construction of a standalone mill, a million ounces with some more to add is the sort of thing that could easily cause it to be consolidated -- taken over by a neighbor. I know that isn't Mayfair's preference. The story they're telling is that they're going to release a great feasibility study on the million ounces even as they add a bunch of the inferred to measured and indicated categories. That's all great. But what I love is that there's a fallback.

Rick Rule: For 30 years I looked at ounces below a million ounces in the Abitibi and said these ounces have failed during every market cycle to generate enough net present value that they could get financed and get a mill built. But what's happened over 30 or 40 years is that so much infrastructure has been built up there -- so many mills, roads, power, water -- that the bar to new construction is lower. The bar to putting mines in production without a mill if they're within 50 kilometers of an existing mine has gone away. I've been forced to look at the whole Abitibi with a very new lens as a consequence.

Darrell Thomas: What did you think about the new CEO transition -- Drew Anill -- who has experience building mines, worked at Detour Gold and Barrick?

Rick Rule: I think they would prefer to build it. But we will see. It is a nice circumstance where even if you want to sell it, you pretend to build it. You say to the bidders: listen, we have an alternative in today's market with this deposit. We can finance it. We will build it. So if you're going to take it over, you need to understand that we have alternatives and you need to pay us a very fair price. That's what G2 did in Ghana. They had a deposit that worked as a standalone, almost 3 million ounces. G Mining was building a big mine right next door. G2 said: we're happy to talk about being taken over, but we don't need to be. Our project stands on its own. And now Mayfair can say -- we don't just have explorers and financiers. We have people who have assembled teams that have built mines in this vicinity in the immediate past. We have the deposit, the capital access, and the expertise. That's a fairly strong negotiating position.

Darrell Thomas: Dakota Gold.

Rick Rule: Strength to strength. Note, I'm a large Dakota Gold shareholder. So partly I'm talking my own book and Bob Quartermain's been a personal friend of mine for 30 years. So I'm conflicted. The infill hits that they're getting on what would be the open pit deposit are telling. This is going to be a mine whether Dakota ultimately gets taken over by the miner next door -- which is Coeur -- or whether Bob does what he's done in the past and builds it. Open question, zero doubt in my mind this isn't a mine. It depends on a lot of things, mostly the drill bit, whether it becomes a mine or several mines.

[15:01]

Rick Rule: The original exploration concept was that the original Homestake Lode -- one of the largest mines in US history -- continues on echelon and that they could catch other lenses from that deposit. Then there was a discussion of perhaps footwall or hanging wall mineralization. The new deposit came really as a consequence of reimagining the entire district in the context of what Coeur has done with the Warf Mine next door. It's worthy to note that they just hosted a session with the staff of the sitting senator from South Dakota. They're starting now the post-exploration phase -- which is where you line up your political and financial ducks.

Rick Rule: And if one wants to fantasize a little bit -- Bob Quartermain is also one of the powers behind Hemlo, another major mine in Canada. What would happen if you merged Dakota -- the old Homestake mine -- with Hemlo, one of the largest producers in Canadian history? I'm not saying this is going to happen. But that would be a very easy way to attract a lot of passive buying from two shareholder constituencies that are already joined at the hip through the involvement of Bob Quartermain.

Darrell Thomas: Where do you have Dakota ranked currently?

Rick Rule: I have Dakota as a four. I have Hemlo as a five.

Darrell Thomas: Vista Gold. What are your thoughts?

Rick Rule: I have Vista as a weak six. Vista has a big deposit, Mount Todd. I know it well -- I helped buy it for Vista back in the Paleolithic. It works at this gold price but it's not going to be easy and not going to be cheap. Very hard rock, reasonably low grade, pretty good metal energy, but the work index on the rock is massive. The current team has been trying to finance that thing to production for a long time. The lack of any definable progress financing that thing in the gold price environment we're in, given the evident size of the deposit, has me concerned. Various people, myself included, have spent exploration dollars there trying to make it bigger, and we haven't. I suspect what you see is what you get with that deposit.

Darrell Thomas: Visla Silver.

Rick Rule: If I didn't own so much, I'd buy a little. That's the third, fourth, or fifth best undeveloped silver deposit in the world. And it got whacked for good reason. There were negotiations, I suspect, between the company and the gangster cartels that really run rural Sinaloa. As a negotiating tactic, the cartels kidnapped and presumably murdered 10 Visla employees. The Mexican government was grievously embarrassed by this and has loaned the company $10 million in effectively interest-free working capital. They've ostensibly stepped up security. Historically in Sinaloa, the cartels have outgunned the Mexican government, and when they haven't been able to, they've bribed the government troops.

Rick Rule: What went wrong, I think, is that there was a very stable cartel in place run by Guzman. Guzman is now an involuntary guest of the US government. And his formerly stable cartel is broken into two predominant factions -- one run by his sons and the other by former henchmen. I think Visla had the very bad fortune to have what was probably some existing arrangement that everybody could live with, now in a very unstable arrangement with new demands from probably less competent, less experienced counterparties. And unfortunately the circumstance descended into violence.

[20:01]

Rick Rule: I've invested in politically and socially sensitive areas for a long time. I invested in southern Sudan during that war. I invested in Congo during their war. This is going to sound very cynical. But the truth is that I learned in Congo the copper had been emplaced about 45 million years ago and the copper was ambivalent as to the stupidity of the people that were killing each other on top of it. After they got exhausted killing each other and came back to being peaceful, the copper was still there. And I'm still invested in that copper. And I likely will be invested in Visla -- and Visla Royalty, now Elemental Royalty -- after the current round of disputes with the cartel is done.

Rick Rule: Your listeners are going to need to ask themselves: if it takes two or three years, do they have two or three years worth of patience? Are they willing to own Visla and watch the nightly news where it's likely sometime in the next year 20 or 30 cartel bodies get dropped? It takes a certain sort of equanimity to own stock and watch that circumstance on TV. Because I've done it for so long, I'm willing to do it. But your listeners need to have a discussion with themselves as to whether they can psychologically bear that form of risk.

Darrell Thomas: Obviously buying hate is something you love. The price fell off significantly -- it was in the low $3 range for a while and I looked today and it was just over $4.

Rick Rule: You need to regard it as a speculation. Even hypothetically if they made a deal with the cartel, it's highly unlikely that Visla issues a press release saying "new peace accord with Sinaloa cocaine cartel." That's not the kind of news release you're going to see. You don't brag about committing a felony -- you do it quietly. And until there is some sort of demonstrable de facto peace, it's going to be difficult to finance that thing into production. So anybody who buys it today at $4 needs to be prepared psychologically to own it for two or three years. If you're buying it because you think it's going to be up before the next PDAC in March, forget about it.

[25:01]

Rick Rule: What I sort of recall -- when I was first talking to you, Darl, a long weekend was a trade. But experience teaches us that our preferences don't matter. You've learned by now.

Darrell Thomas: Uranium. I want to touch on uranium and then get some of your ratings on companies. What are your thoughts on the uranium market right now?

Rick Rule: I think it's in really good shape. Things move fairly slowly, but what you're starting to see is a new realization around uranium as a consequence of the dispute in the Straits of Hormuz. The French nuclear fleet and the Japanese nuclear fleet were both built as a consequence of energy insecurity that came out of the Arab oil embargo in 1973. And since then people forgot about energy security -- until about 3 months ago. And all of a sudden energy insecurity is first and foremost on a whole bunch of people's minds.

Rick Rule: The only commodity in the world that's energy dense enough to store enough power to fuel Japan for 5 years in one warehouse is uranium. Even if you could buy that much oil or liquefied natural gas, you couldn't store it. And for those alternative energy people, you sure can't store enough wind or solar, and you can't build that big a battery. The only chance you've got is uranium. I think on top of all the other things happening in the uranium business, the renewed sense of energy security and geopolitical security really strongly inures to the benefit of uranium.

Rick Rule: We are not seeing increases in uranium supply despite the fact that at $85 a pound we've passed the incentive price to build new mines. The price of uranium doesn't need to go up in theory to make a couple of deposits -- Rook being an example -- work. But they haven't been getting built. And what that means is that we continue to consume more uranium than we produce. We know that the only non-carbon generating base load fuel that you can build reliably is uranium. On top of that, now you have the added impetus of energy security. This will cause more plants to get built and more uranium to get contracted in the 10-year time frame. And it will be referenced in share prices before 10 years.

Darrell Thomas: Speaking of share prices, what are your thoughts on NextGen?

[30:01]

Rick Rule: I hate the way the management team spends money. It's very difficult for me to square developing a uranium mine with sponsoring Formula 1. But I love the deposit. And despite my criticisms of G&A expense, they have behind the scenes done a good job on permitting. Their relationships with First Nations communities in Saskatchewan from what I understand are good. The baseline work they've done with flora, fauna, and water has been good. They're in the enviable position of having what I believe is the best undeveloped uranium deposit in the world in a really secure uranium platform -- the province of Saskatchewan -- where you have existing political will and regulatory infrastructure to support it.

Rick Rule: And you have these contracts where when you build this mine you can pre-sell to credit quality customers uranium 10 to 20 years out -- which takes the mystery out of pricing and lowers your cost of capital, particularly debt capital, substantially. Ten years ago I would have said this has to be sold to Cameco, and it's really tough to have an auction with one bidder. Now they can say we can build this thing. We can secure enough offtake contracts. And politically now you don't just have to sell it to Cameco. You could sell it to the new Anglo -- the merger of Anglo American and Teck forms a Canadian mining champion easily big enough to buy and build this mine. Or you could sell it to Rio Tinto, who are already in the uranium business and already have an $8 billion potash mine in Saskatchewan. So you have three potential bidders plus the potential to self-build. This doesn't work out anytime soon, though. The feasibility study number is 2.5 years old with at least 10 percent compound annual inflation in the inputs. So after you've bought NextGen, you've got to spend something like $6 billion building the mine. Not a trifling investment.

Darrell Thomas: Where do you have them ranked?

Rick Rule: I have NextGen as a five. If they didn't spend money as extravagantly, I'd have them as a four, maybe a three. I'm afraid they're going to spend away a bunch of my net present value before the transaction takes place.

Darrell Thomas: How about Denison?

Rick Rule: I don't have Denison ranked right now. I'm reviewing Denison. With Denison, it all comes down to: does ISR -- in-situ recovery -- work at depth? We know it works in sandstone-hosted surface deposits, but to my knowledge in-situ recovery has never been tried at depth, which they're trying to do. It works great on a bench scale and there's a lot to like about Denison, including their database and particularly their permitted and operating mill. You don't have to finance or build or permit something that's already operating. Those are really rare. The whole thing to me comes down to ISR.

Rick Rule: I got to say it was a lot easier to own UEC a couple billion dollars ago. That company's done an amazing job. Three years ago that was a company that at the then-prevailing uranium prices couldn't put a uranium project in production. At this uranium price, with the ability to contract uranium and with the amazing balance sheet they have, they could become an 8 to 10 million pound a year uranium producer. You think about the accomplishments of Amir Adnani and his team over the last 15 years -- they've been truly amazing. Amir saw that there would be a financial premium placed on American uranium assets. And not only did he go get them, he developed relationships with regulatory authorities in Texas and Wyoming. He's put himself in a very enviable position. I'm not going to suggest UEC is cheap, but in the political climate we have now, even to the extent that we had a Democratic administration come back in, I think UEC is actually in the catbird seat with regards to US-centric production.

[35:00]

Rick Rule: Uranium Royalty is going to have to be called something else now -- they just did a monstrous acquisition in something that's ostensibly soda ash, Trona. And so in terms of committed capital, less than half their committed capital is in uranium royalties now. You're going to have to see how that plays through the balance sheet. It's going to play through the income statement pretty well because the soda ash is currently being produced. By the way, they got a whole bunch of fee simple real estate -- it's a royalty and minerals package from one of the railroads, Union Pacific or similar, and it came with hundreds of thousands of acres of fee real estate. Now a lot of that real estate is lizard pasture in Utah and Wyoming. But it has some value. I reduced my ranking on Uranium Royalty from a four to a five given the much greater number of shares outstanding and the lower relative value of uranium to the whole.

Darrell Thomas: Okay. Well Rick, appreciate your time. The symposium is coming up next month. Anything you want to share with the audience?

Rick Rule: A couple of commercials if you'll permit me. The first is the conference. A real labor of love for me. We have sold out the live portion this year. It's held in Boca Raton, Florida from July 6 through 10. But we have a live stream portion and we're getting really good at that -- 1,400 people from 33 countries attended live stream last year. We're going to double that number this year. And I'm sure enough that your viewers will like it that I can say this: if for any reason you don't think you got your money's worth, email me and I'll give you your money back. Ours is the only money-back guarantee in the conference business. We've been doing it for 30 years. We've had to refund about one-tenth of 1 percent of the tuitions we've charged.

Rick Rule: If you don't want to give me anything, that's okay too. You can look at my pre-conference interviews -- I've interviewed everybody who's going to exhibit at the conference and all those interviews are posted for free at the Rule Investment Media YouTube channel. Free is a pretty good price -- and it comes with a money-back guarantee too. If you go to Rule Investment Media, you can list your natural resource stocks like Darrell just did, and I'll rank them one to 10. All that's free. No crypto, no tech stocks, no pot stocks -- just resource stocks. And finally, anybody in the United States or Canada that's unhappy with their current bank ought to check out Battle Bank. If you're interested in getting paid interest on your checking account, check out BattleBank. If you're stacking gold and silver and want to access that capital without selling, you can borrow against your gold and silver at battlebank.com.

Darrell Thomas: Thank you for sharing that, Rick. I've actually been utilizing my Battle Bank account -- it's been a long time coming. Encourage people to check it out. You all hit the subscribe button. Thank you all for watching and Rick, thank you for your time.

Rick Rule: Pleasure, sir. I look forward to seeing you in Boca.

AI Master Prompt

The AI prompt on this page is auto-generated from the transcript content and is intended to support further exploration of the topics, concepts, and conclusions discussed. It is provided for informational purposes only. The user is solely responsible for all outcomes resulting from its use.

Master Prompt

You are helping me think through and apply the investment framework of Rick Rule, one of the most experienced natural resource investors in the world. This prompt is based on a 2026 interview he gave at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, covering gold, mining equities, uranium, and individual company assessments.

CORE FRAMEWORK

Rick Rule approaches natural resource investing through several interconnected lenses. First, he distinguishes sharply between saving in gold (protecting purchasing power over years and decades) and speculating in gold (trying to profit from near-term price moves). These require different decision rules. As a saver, lower prices are welcome because they allow more accumulation -- there is no emotional attachment to any particular price level.

Second, Rule treats official government inflation statistics (CPI) as a significant understatement of real purchasing power erosion. Using a 2020 baseline for a real household basket, he estimates 8 to 10 percent annual deterioration -- which makes most conventional bond yields deeply negative in real terms regardless of the stated coupon. This makes long-duration bonds unattractive and gold increasingly necessary as a savings vehicle.

Third, Rule tracks the mergers and acquisition cycle in mining equities as a structural feature of the current market -- driven partly by operational synergy (deposits near existing mills) and partly by capital markets logic (bigger companies attract more passive index buying). He looks for companies that are credible acquisition targets with genuine standalone build optionality, because that combination produces the strongest negotiating position and the most attractive takeover premiums.

Fourth, on uranium, Rule holds a structural supply deficit thesis: consumption exceeds production even at prices above the theoretical incentive to build new mines. The 2026 Strait of Hormuz tensions have added a new energy security layer to uranium demand -- reinforcing nuclear power as the only energy-dense resource that can be stored in sufficient quantities to buffer national energy needs.

KEY PRINCIPLES

- Gold is savings, not speculation. Decide which one you are doing before sizing or managing any position.
- Real inflation for a typical household is likely 8 to 10 percent annually. Measure your savings vehicles against that rate, not against CPI.
- Rising US interest rates and dollar strength mechanically suppress the USD gold price. This is a short-term dynamic, not a change in gold's long-term role.
- In mining M&A, companies with credible standalone build viability negotiate from strength. Companies that need a buyer negotiate from weakness.
- Post-acquisition digest periods (when transactional sellers exit the acquired company) can create re-entry windows for long-term holders of the acquirer.
- Uranium's supply deficit persists above the incentive price -- new supply has not materialized despite economics that theoretically support it.
- Jurisdiction risk is manageable if the ore body is real, the time horizon is long, and the psychological ability to hold through surface-level chaos is genuine.
- G&A discipline matters. Management that erodes net present value through excessive spending (sponsorships, overhead) is destroying value that should accrue to shareholders.

WHAT THIS IS NOT

This is not a framework for day trading, momentum trading, or short-term macro plays. Rule explicitly disavows near-term price prediction. This is not a framework for diversified generalist investing -- it applies specifically to natural resource equities, physical precious metals, and closely adjacent royalty structures. It is not a framework for crypto, technology stocks, or cannabis equities. And it is not a passive buy-and-hold index strategy -- it requires active assessment of individual deposits, management teams, political jurisdictions, and capital structures.

HOW TO USE THIS CHAT

1. APPLY THE FRAMEWORK: Describe a specific natural resource company, deposit, or sector and I will help you analyze it through Rule's lenses -- deposit quality, jurisdiction, management quality, capital structure, M&A positioning, and G&A discipline.

2. STRESS-TEST A POSITION: Tell me about a holding you currently have (or are considering) and I will pressure-test the thesis against Rule's criteria. Where does it hold up? Where does it have weaknesses?

3. REAL INFLATION AUDIT: Walk me through your household spending categories and I will help you calculate a real inflation rate against your actual basket -- and then assess whether your savings vehicles are keeping up or quietly losing ground.

4. M&A SCENARIO MODELING: Describe a company's deposit size, location, and nearest neighbors and I will help you think through who the plausible acquirers are, what type of acquisition it represents (strategic vs. tactical), and what standalone build optionality looks like.

5. JURISDICTION RISK ASSESSMENT: Describe a deposit's political environment and I will help you think through Rule's framework for evaluating whether the risk is manageable -- focusing on permanence of the ore body, stability of the surface actors, and your own psychological capacity to hold through instability.

6. PORTFOLIO REVIEW: List your natural resource holdings and I will give you a Rule-style assessment of each -- not a formal rating, but a structured commentary on strengths, concerns, and open questions.

TONE INSTRUCTION

Be direct, analytical, and grounded in specifics. No cheerleading, no vague reassurance, no hedging for its own sake. If a position has real weaknesses, name them clearly. Help me think more rigorously, not feel better about what I already own.

To begin: what is the primary natural resource position -- or sector -- you want to think through first? And are you approaching it as a saver (long-term purchasing power protection) or as a speculator (near-term price appreciation)?

Creator	VRIC Media
Host	Darrell Thomas
Guest	Rick Rule
Source	youtu.be/YUADgximpFA
Date	2026-06-06