Rick Rule needs no introduction at this point, but just briefly; he is a veteran resource investor and lender. He is best known for helping to build Sprott U.S. Holdings, running Rule Investment Media, and now launching Battle Bank. In this interview, we discussed silver’s shift from “hated” to merely “unhated” and Rick explained to me why he’s selling some of his exposure to speculative silver names while still holding higher-quality producers, developers, and streamers. He also layed out his sell discipline, defended the royalty/streaming model as poised for larger copper-linked deals, and detailed where he’d position in silver if he had to buy today. In the latter part of the conversation, we talked about the really hated nickel, platinum’s asymmetric setup, some of his gold portfolio strategies, the timing gap between precious and industrial metals cycles, and the obvious yet ignored capex/inflation math.

TLDR

1. Silver’s sentiment flipped, Rick Rule is taking profits.
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   Silver has moved from “hated” to “unhated” which, in Rick Rule’s playbook, means the easy speculative money is largely behind us. He still sees upside and hints leadership may be rotating from gold to silver, but he’s trimmed roughly one-third to one-half of his speculative silver equities while holding higher-quality positions (he named Pan American, Wheaton) and select producers (he named Fresnillo, Peñoles, Buenaventura). Essentially, he’s just supplying stock into strength. Doing what the market makes easy for him and exiting explorecos with no resonable path to cash flow.
2. Speculating is about probability/valuation discipline, not a chart tic.
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   Exploration is about “answering unanswered questions.” Rick Rule assigns a probability, time, and value to a “yes,” and if the market grants the “yes” valuation before the answer exists, he sells and free-carries. He also reads financings as signals. For example, when juniors swap big chunks of equity for cash, management is telling you they value cash more than their own stock. The way Rick does it is to harvest a quarter to a third of his position when he’s been paid “too much, too fast.” He calls this the “point of no concern,” because he can let the rest ride without risking any of his initial capital.
3. There is still value to be found in quality silver names, though not as obviously.
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   I asked Rick what he would do if he must be long silver beta right now. He said he would favor high-quality developers such as (but not limited to) Abra Silver and Vizsla Silver. He added that he’d be looking for durable cash-flow platforms such as (but not limited to) Pan American and Wheaton Precious Metals. Rick’s said he was predisposed to Aya pending management’s rebuttal to a short report (which has already happened, btw). Jurisdictional risk is to be priced, not avoided. If you’re not in Mexico/Peru, you’re not really in silver. Yes, those jurisdictions have real risks, but they can be priced, according to Rick. On royalties and streamers, he disputes the “no more big deals” view. Copper’s $150–200bn build-out and sovereign equity ambitions should catalyze $1bn+ precious by-product streams, which he thinks is prime territory for Franco-Nevada and Wheaton.
4. Nickel sulfides is hated now, platinum is starting to look asymmetric.
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   Rick Rule prefers advanced nickel sulfide stories with real drill density over penny hopefuls. He mentioned Centaurus (Brazil) as a prospective tier-one, lowest-quartile cost asset, while acknowledging risk. He also noted Talon/Canada Nickel/FPX might be worth the look but didn’t have a strong opinion. Rick Rule’s nickel thesis is that Indonesia’s laterite externalities and energy intensity plus higher oil prices (which he expects), will lift nickel’s cost floor over a 2 to 3 year horizon. He invests on five-year clocks. In PGMs, he likes the skew. ICE demand persists, supply is concentrated (SA/Russia), and platinum’s tiny converter cost makes price inelastic.
5. Precious bull now, industrial bull later.
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   Rick sees a softer global economy delaying an industrials upcycle by 2 to 3 years even as long-term shortages loom (oil/gas/copper/nickel in 5 to 6 years). He believes inflation runs closer to 8 to 9%, compounding capex and raising incentive prices for capital-intensive mining operations (such as large copper porphyries). This makes him believe that long-life existing assets are undervalued. For gold Rick has also trimmed his juniors by 25 to 33% into liquidity, but structurally expects a ~3x nominal gold move over a decade as the purchasing power of the dollar erodes. He’s adding Franco/Wheaton and growing 12–15% IRR senior secured mine-build loans. Though briefly, Rick also mentioned that he is bullish on oil and he flaghed Exxon as an “underpriced cash machine”.

Rick Rule Silver Stocks Interview

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