The Grant Williams Podcast Ep. 111 - Ned Naylor-Leyland

**Grant Williams** (0:10)
Before we get going, here's the bit where I remind you that nothing we discuss should be considered as investment advice. This conversation is for informational and hopefully entertainment purposes only. So while we hope you find it both informative and entertaining, please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor before putting a dime of your money into these crazy markets. You're about to listen to a special preview edition of The Grant Williams Podcast, featuring my very dear friend and the manager of a large gold and silver fund, Ned Naylor-Leyland. The subject at hand is precious metals, and particularly silver, which we're going to get into once we get into the meat of the conversation. But in the middle of this fraysy ball running gold, it felt like the perfect time to talk to someone who spends their days immersed in that world. Every episode of The Grant Williams Podcast, including The End Game, Super Terrific Happy Hour, The Narrative Game, This Week In Doom, Shifts Happen, Kaos Theory, and The Hundred Year Pivot is available to Copper and Silver Tier subscribers at my website grantwilliams.com. Copper Tier subscribers get access to all the podcasts, while members of the Silver Tier get both the podcasts and my monthly newsletter Things That Make You Go Hmmm. So, if you're here on the show and you'd like more high-quality content like it, then please make your way over to grantwilliams.com and join our excited community today. And with that, on with the show.
Ah, Ned Naylor-Leyland, my old friend. How are you doing? We've a bit of a behind the scenes stuff here. This is about the third time we've tried to record this, mostly due to my technical incompetence. I'm grateful to you for your patience. I've shown up again to have another stab at it. How are you?

**Ned Naylor-Leyland** (1:53)
I'm great. I think we've spent enough time with each other to know that there's no problem here.

**Grant Williams** (1:57)
I know, but it's very nice you to be so patient with me. Now, before we get into the subject at hand, which is silver and by extension gold, I wanted to give everybody a little background in your time in the precious metal space, because you've been at it a while, and trying to manage money in various corners of the precious metals market is no easy feat. And you've seen several cycles, so just give us a quick parted history of your experience in the precious metal space.

**Ned Naylor-Leyland** (2:22)
Sure. So I first bought gold and silver for myself in 2002, and started to invest for clients initially, pretty much straight after that. And then I've been, as you say, investing, particularly in the mining stocks, in a sort of professional sense, beyond private clients for a fun management business called Jupiter. I run a gold and silver strategy for them. And overall, that's coming up to its 10-year track record. So yeah, it's been a while. In lots of ways, it doesn't feel like it, though, because it's a wonderful obsession. Monetary metals, it's a delightful thing, really. And I suppose it's the third cycle, and here we are again. Although I do think it's a very different situation now, and this feels much more like what we've all been waiting for ages. You know, at least that's what my sense is.

**Grant Williams** (3:11)
We'll get into that, but I'm sure in all the years you've been learning from that, I'm not sure I've ever asked you this question. What was it that made you buy gold and silver that first time in 2002?

**Ned Naylor-Leyland** (3:20)
I read some articles. I think the answer probably though is that I came at the market as a sceptic rather than as a believer. And I've always said to people that, I think if you approach financial markets as a sceptic, and there are people that do that, they're not necessarily that common, versus going into them thinking, I want to make money for myself. Then gold and silver reveal themselves pretty quickly. It doesn't take long. So just reading and being fairly sceptical about the way things are structured. I think it was Adam Hamilton, you'll remember his articles. I think probably it was reading one of his articles.

**Grant Williams** (3:52)
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I'm always fascinated by how people come to it. And you and I are sceptics of a feather who have flocked together. So I completely understand that. I can sympathise with the way you came to it. But it's fascinating to me how, to your point, once you have that realisation of the role that monetary metals play in the financial system, it turns the way you look at the world completely on its head.