Copper: The metal at the centre of everything with William Taylor

**Bryce** (0:00)
Everywhere around us, copper is a part of our lives.

**William Taylor** (0:03)
In the next 10 years, we have an additional 10 million tons of demand for copper. Where is that going to come from? It's not like building a house. It might take you, if you're lucky, 12 to 18 months.
These mines are taking 15 to 20 years.

**Ren** (0:20)
Welcome to another episode of Equity Mates, a podcast where we explore what's possible in the world of investing. If you've just joined us for the very first time, a huge welcome to our community.

**Bryce** (0:29)
My name is Bryce and I'm Ren and today we've got a very exciting interview. We are talking about the medal at the center of everything, copper.

**Ren** (0:39)
Nice, we are.

**Bryce** (0:40)
Sorry, I lost the momentum there. But one thing that hasn't lost the momentum is the copper price.

**Ren** (0:46)
No.

**Bryce** (0:46)
As it just keeps hitting all time high after all time high.

**Ren** (0:49)
That's right. Joining us in the studio is William Taylor. He's the COO and Portfolio Manager at ETFShares, and we're going to be unpacking the ETFShares Global Pure Play Copper Minerals ETF. Ticket is CPPR.

**Bryce** (1:03)
So copper, it has had an incredible run recently. It gets a lot of headlines because of the buzzy things that's associated with AI data centers, the electrification of the grid and the transition to renewables, electric vehicles.
But it is just a metal that is used in everything around us. And demand is rising and supply isn't keeping up. And Bryce, we know what happens when there's a structural mismatch between supply and demand.

**Ren** (1:31)
Price goes up.

**Bryce** (1:32)
Price goes up. And what we want to talk to William about today is what's going to happen from here. Because if we think there's a mismatch now, the forecast about the amount of data centers, the amount of electric vehicles on the road and the like is only going to exacerbate that mismatch over time.

**Ren** (1:51)
Yeah. So a massive thank you goes to ETFShares for supporting today's episode and helping us keep all of our content here at Equity Mates free.

**Bryce** (1:58)
All right. With that said, let's get to our conversation with William Taylor.

**Ren** (2:05)
Will, welcome to Equity Mates.

**William Taylor** (2:06)
Thank you for having me.

**Ren** (2:07)
Now before we jump into all things copper, we like to start with the same question for all of our experts that come on. Can you share with us the story of your first investment?

**William Taylor** (2:16)
Yeah, I'd love to. I think it probably make a lot of people laugh and also relate if this isn't just a coincidence. But my first investment was a gold miners single stock.
It was a company called B2Gold. They are listed in Canada. They're a gold miners operator globally.
What's a really interesting one and probably links quite back to ETFs is, that kind of area of the market and as we know like gold the last three years or so, has actually ripped. But this company has done nothing. It's literally done pretty much flat. Whereas you look at a gold miners ETF on the ASX, for example, and they're in the hundreds of percent up.

**Ren** (3:02)
Yeah.

**William Taylor** (3:03)
My mindset was you hold a stock for 12 months, it either doubles or you sell it.
Yeah. Bold strategy. This one didn't do 100 percent. I held on for a year. There's no moves and then I was like, let's move on to something else.

**Ren** (3:23)
Yeah.

**William Taylor** (3:23)
My investment horizon has definitely increased more than 12 months. That was my first investment, which was definitely a good one to look back at.

**Bryce** (3:33)
That gold story would be relatable for a lot of Australian investors today who have followed the Northern Star v Newmont conversation, where in the past 12 months, Northern Star is down 5% while Newmont is up more than 80%. When you're investing in individual companies, there's the individual company risk, even if they're riding a big fame.

**William Taylor** (3:54)
Yeah.

**Bryce** (3:54)
That's probably a great segue into what we're talking about today, which is copper and the right way to invest in copper. You're obviously biased, but you're going to make the case that the ETF rather than an individual copper miner is the right way to invest.

**William Taylor** (4:07)
I'm going to try.

**Bryce** (4:09)
Let's start with copper because we're hearing it a lot more these days. It's certainly very hyped at the moment.
Why is it having a moment?

**William Taylor** (4:19)
This AI story, it definitely put copper in the forefront of people's minds.