5 Top Mining Videos of 2015

2015 is nearly at an end, and at this point it’s all too clear that the year wasn’t an easy one for most commodities and mining companies. 
Case in point: gold is down about 11 percent year-to-date, and silver is down just over 14 percent since the start of the year. On the base metals side, copper tested the $2-per-pound level earlier this year, while industrial metal molybdenum — recently pegged by BloombergBusiness as 2015’s worst-performing commodity — was down 49 percent year-to-date as of December 17. Meanwhile, oil prices continue to languish, with West Texas Intermediate down 38.6 percent since the beginning of the year.
Yet despite those bleak numbers, a look at the Investing News Network’s five top videos of 2015 shows that investor optimism persists. The five top-viewed videos this year all focus on the opportunity that can be found in today’s difficult markets, and what investors can do to unlock it. Without further ado, here’s a look at the videos.

1. Ross Beaty: ‘This is the Kind of Time to be Buying Metal Stocks’

At January’s Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC), Ross Beaty, chairman of Pan American Silver (TSX:PAA,NASDAQ:PAAS) and Alterra Power (TSX:AXY), gave an overview of his views on commodities. While he admitted to being “fairly bearish on most metals,” he said he was “very bullish on gold” and was anticipating good industrial demand growth for silver.
“You want to be buying when no one else is buying,” he emphasized, adding, “this is the kind of time to be buying metal stocks.”

2. Rick Rule: TSXV Not All Carnage and Wreckage

Rick Rule, founder of Sprott Global Resource Investments, was also popular at VRIC. Notably, like Beaty, he was clear that it’s definitely possible for savvy investors to profit during times of turmoil.
Specifically, he commented that only about 20 percent of the companies on the TSXV should exist. While that makes 80 percent of them superfluous, it also means that “within that 20 percent there are some truly outstanding companies … there are some superb people out there doing some superb work. And what’s great about a bear market is that these guys are on sale cheap.”

3. Rob Chang on the Uranium Market for 2015

Uranium was a bit of a bright spot in the resource space in 2015, though the price increase that’s long been called for has been slow kicking off. At PDAC this past March, Rob Chang of Cantor Fitzgerald explained what needs to happen for the uranium price to start rising, and highlighted a slew of companies that he believes are worth looking at.

4. Rick Rule: ‘Gold Doesn’t Need to Win the War Against the US Dollar’

Rule also made a splash at PDAC, and again took the time to speak with the Investing News Network. At the show, he showed continued optimism about the mining space, and offered an interesting perspective on the struggling gold price.
“I suspect the strength in the US dollar really has to do with the weakness in all other currencies. The idea that the US economy itself is really strong appears to me, as an American, to be a misnomer,” he said, also noting, “I also believe that gold doesn’t need to win the war against the US dollar, it just needs to lose it a little less badly.”

5. Rick Rule: US Dollar is the Most Important Impact on Gold

Rounding out the list is another video featuring Rule, this time speaking from the floor of the Sprott-Stansberry Vancouver Natural Resource Symposium in July. He offered more thoughts on gold at the event, explaining that investors would do well to watch the US dollar for clues about the yellow metal’s fate.
“Until something happens to shake a little bit [of] faith in the US dollar … the gold price will be in the doldrums,” he asserted. And while non-US factors are important for gold investors to watch, he said he believes that “the most important impact on gold is the US dollar.”