Runaway Debt & Deficits + AI Buildout = HUGE Demand For Hard Assets | Jonathan Wellum

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**Jonathan Wellum** (0:59)
If you look at the debt to GDP over just over the last five years in UK, in Germany, in France, in Italy, in Japan, it is skyrocketed. It just skyrocketed at them. It's going exactly the wrong way. The United States also, of course, has been going the wrong way. So we're in Canada and we have no economic growth. In fact, we have seen a shrinkage of GDP per capita because we've been increasing so much immigration into our country and the GDP isn't growing, so on a per capita basis, it's shrinking.

**Adam Taggart** (1:36)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money, I'm Thoughtful Money founder and your host, Adam Taggart. I'm very pleased to be sitting down today with Jonathan Wellum, the head of Rocklinc Investment Partners. This is one of the financial advisory firms endorsed by Thoughtful Money, specifically they are endorsed Canadian provider. Jonathan, how are you doing today?

**Jonathan Wellum** (1:55)
Doing very well, it's an exciting day. We've got a new record close on the Comox Gold, over $4,000, I think the last I looked just right before four.

**Adam Taggart** (2:04)
And Jonathan, I know that gold futures have crossed $4,000 an ounce. Has SPOT itself crossed $4,000 yet? Do you know?

**Jonathan Wellum** (2:10)
SPOT was trading just a few moments ago at $39.80, so very close, up about $20 today, again, just before the close.

**Adam Taggart** (2:20)
All right, spinning distance. Well, look, folks, we're going to talk about a lot of things today. Jonathan was very kind enough to drop what he was doing and come record with me today.
It's a Wednesday. This was supposed to be one of Stephanie Pomboy's appearances. She's had a couple of curveballs that she's been having to deal with. She feels terrible about having to push out her return to the channel, but she's hoping she's going to be able to make it next week. Anyways, just wanted to let you know what's up with her, but thankfully, Jonathan was willing to step in to the void here and fill it for us. First off, let's start with the precious metals, Jonathan. First off, kudos to you because you have been quite a supporter of owning precious metals in your portfolio for a variety of reasons, some of them defensive, but I think much over the past year plus, you'd said that you thought there was a lot of opportunity for precious metals to rise and they have. $4,000 notes for gold, that is a phenomenal year so far for gold. I want to say it's up 45 percent so far here to date.

**Jonathan Wellum** (3:24)
Yeah, it is. Well, as of the end of September, it was up about 41, but now I think it's about 46 percent or so year to date, which is phenomenal. I think it's the best return since 1979 in terms of an annual return. So that is a great return. No question about that.

**Adam Taggart** (3:39)
No question about that. And of course, that's just for gold. Now, silver has had an even better performance so far this year, and the miners have done phenomenally well. I haven't looked at GDXJ this week, but looking at it about a week ago, it was up well over 100% year to date. And I know that the miners have been a big part of your investment strategy is having a material percentage of the Rocklinc portfolio in a couple of really good, high-quality miners. I've got to imagine that has paid off very well for you so far this year.

**Jonathan Wellum** (4:11)
Yeah, it's been amazing, as you would expect. Nego Eagle has been really a major holding now for a number of years just simply because of the quality of the management, the quality of the assets, the political stability in terms of where they're located. And it's quite interesting if you actually look at a company like Nego Eagle and you look at the free cash flow yield currently, even though the price of the stock has gone, you know, it's tripled over the last couple of years, it's still trading the free cash flow yield at a higher rate than it was three, four years ago. And if you actually factor in maybe forty five hundred gold, fifty silver, which isn't crazy over the next year, if you are bullish on the on the metals, you can really justify like a nine, ten percent free cash flow yield in some of these stocks. What it's telling you is that they're incredibly profitable, that with the increase in gold going up a couple of thousand dollars here, that's all going to bottom line to really well run companies. You know, the costs have really been maintained by some of these firms. And the free cash flow growth is absolutely astounding Adam. So, we look at some of these companies, and they're probably trading at similar net asset values even after they've doubled than they were before simply because the price of the commodities have gone up so much.