Why Central Banks Are Hoarding Gold | Chris Mancini

Chris Mancini  0:00  
In the real world, gold is, is necessary even right. I mean like and I think the Chinese central bank is realizing that it's necessary. It's no one else's liability. It can't be hacked. It's in your it's in a vault in Beijing or wherever it is wherever they hold it. And same thing with with Russia, it's in a vault in moths so they do have a lot of gold too. They're also buying from internal sources. So you know, from you know, Russia produced gold so so like, it's, it's necessary it's not even a good thing it's it's necessary to have in this world. And I think there's a reason why Chinese consumers are buying gold and not Bitcoin. And I think that that's because they also liked the idea of having holding it right.

James Connor  0:51  
Hi, and welcome to Wealthion I'm James Connor. And before I introduce you to our guests, just a quick reminder of Wealthions upcoming virtual conference in conjunction with SALT and it goes live on June the first, we have some amazing speakers including Raul, Paul, Lynn, Eldon, Rick Rule, and many more, all of which will help you navigate the financial markets during these very uncertain times. Once again, that's June the first and you can get more details on our website Wealthion.com.

And now, I want to introduce you to Chris Mancini. Chris is an associate portfolio manager of the Gabelli gold fund, and Gabelli. And Gabelli is a bottoms up value fund based in New York with over 30 billion in assets. Chris is focused on the gold sector, we're gonna get his views on gold and also gold equities. Chris, thank you very much for joining us today. How are things in New York?

Chris Mancini  1:45  
Things are beautiful. One of the nicest days of the year, I think so far beautiful, sunny day. Finally, nice not too humid. So I'll take it. Let's lock this in for another three months. I'll take it

James Connor  1:58  
and the gold and silver price are going in the right direction. So we have a lot to be thankful for.

Chris Mancini  2:03  
Yeah, exactly. So well. So gold is doing well. Silver's doing well. So yeah, I mean, that's also good, too. That's, that's, uh, that makes for a nice New York, or, you know, late spring day also.

James Connor  2:15  
So one of the things we try to do a Wealthion is provide investors with insights on how to grow and protect their wealth. And you and your team believe gold is one way of doing that. And I want to begin our discussion right here. Why should investors allocate capital toward golden gold equities? What are the benefits of doing so?

Chris Mancini  2:33  
Well, the benefits of doing so really, it's I mean, big picture, it's a diversifier. So there are lots of circumstances in which you might see the market the stock market go up? Well, you might see the stock market go down and gold go up. That's really what, what, why you want to have the gold and I mean, that could happen in a scenario in which say, right now, if we have like sticky inflation, and the economy starts to pull back a little bit, so in that kind of stagflation airy environment where you'd see profits get squeezed for companies and the stock market would likely decline in that scenario, the price of gold would probably go up, because it would be seen as a store of value. And again, even in this scenario, even more, so a store of value because the stock market's going down. So you want to have it as a diversifier as as a non correlated asset. It makes sense for everybody to have a little bit in their portfolios, at least.

James Connor  3:34  
And I know you're not an economist, but you just mentioned stagflation, and I'm sure your firm has a view on stagflation. Is this a possibility?

Chris Mancini  3:43  
Yeah I mean, I think it's a real possibility, like you said, not an economist, and not really the firm's view. But I think that the possibility is, is for sure there. I mean, we're seeing these persistently sticky prices, it's kind of been built into the psyche down here in the US that that prices will stay high for a while. And that we're kind of used to prices going up. And then we're also seeing a slowdown, we're seeing that consumers being pinched. Number one, I mean, the higher prices do cause consumers to pull back a little bit. And number two, this big huge rise in interest rates from essentially 0% to five and a half percent in around two years is causing consumers to take a little bit of a step back. We're seeing it in the housing market. We're seeing it in in autos, and I think it'll trickle down through to the whole economy. So I think there is a real possibility that we'll see a stagflationary environment.

James Connor  4:38  
So gold has caught a bid in the past year. It's up over 20% on the year and one of the reasons why is because of central bank buying in both 2022 and 2023 central banks acquired approximately 25% of global production. And why have central banks been such aggressive buyers of gold?

Chris Mancini  4:58  
Yeah central banks have been buying because Primarily the Chinese central bank is the biggest buyer. And the reason that they're buying is because they saw what happened to Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine. The United States and European countries essentially confiscated Russia's Dollar and Euro denominated reserves. So around $500 billion of total reserves were essentially taken from Russia and the way that the US and the European countries were able to do that was through saying that, that we weren't going to pay Russia back. So Russia owned US Treasuries, and essentially, so or not essentially, in actuality, had lent us government money. And so what we said to Russia was, okay, look, you made it Ukraine, we don't like this, we are not going to pay you back on that money that you lent us. So China, saw that happen, and for lack of a better term, I think, started to freak out and went and went, Wait a second, you know, we have a trillion dollars of treasuries, there's a distinct possibility here that if we do something in Taiwan, or, you know, if we do something that just that the US doesn't like, they could say, we're not going to pay you back. And so China's diversifying out of dollars into gold, and that's also trickling through the rest of the world central banks that hold dollar based reserves. They're saying, look, look if it could happen, right, like, if we own treasuries, it's, it's a liability of someone else. Right. So so we need to watch out for that. So there divert other central banks are also diversifying out of dollars in it to go.

James Connor  6:40  
So that's what central bankers are doing. You and your team, you speak to investors, both large and small institutional investors, pension funds, etc. What are they doing?

Chris Mancini  6:50  
I mean, it doesn't seem like they have any interest, frankly, in gold. I think that in the US specifically, we're seeing this real tech boom, this AI boo. And, you know, I think, although the pension funds like to say that they're very diversified, and in that they, and that they're looking for non correlated assets and things like that, I think that, you know, they also tend to, to follow trends and the trends right now are in tech and stocks generally. And private equity. That's obviously a big trend. And that's done very well. So I we're not seeing any interest right now. For gold or gold mining equities, which is what we do more specifically.

James Connor  7:34  
So gold's done relatively well, their shares up over 20%, trading somewhere between 23 to $2,400. What's your view on the longer term target price? Do you think it's still has more room to go on the upside?

Chris Mancini  7:49  
I think that the really interesting thing about gold is that it's done so well, this year, notwithstanding the fact that there have been big withdrawals or redemptions from gold backed ETFs. So the GLD is the biggest physical gold backed ETF in the US. And that seen enormous redemptions this year. And that's a source of supply into the market. So we've seen this big source of supplying to the market, and the price of gold has still gone up. So I think that if and when we do see that trend, turn and the gold backed ETFs starting to add gold, I think that gold will definitely have another leg up. And you know, what could cause that to happen might be, again, a view that there's going to be the stagflationary environment in the US. But yeah, I think that if and when that happens, goal could definitely go to the, you know, from 2400, up to 2700, 20, 2800, something like that, for sure.

James Connor  8:48  
I want to get your views on silver now. It's finally above $30, announced touch wood. And it's up over 30%. On the year, what are your thoughts on silver? And do you think it keeps going?

Chris Mancini  8:58  
I think silver, you know, Silver's the poor man's gold really, at the end of the day. So when we do see this, like gold have a run, silver tends to have beta to the gold price of silver tends to, like, catch up to gold on the upside. And I think that that happens, like so gold tends to move first. And silver tends to catch up. And I think the reason that that happens is because silver does have a very big like, retail following, I think within the US. So I think that, you know, people really see that they could buy, you know, one ounce of gold for $2,400. Or they could get at this point and forget the exact ratio and have something like 85 You know, one ounce silver coins and it feels nicer to hold 85 ounces than to hold one ounce for $2,400 which is a substantial amount of money. So So I think what happens is there is this demand for silver from retail as as the price of gold goes up. And I think that if the price of gold keeps going, I think silver will do better than gold.

James Connor  10:10  
And so we have gold trading at or near all time highs, but silver is nowhere near it. I think $50 is the all time high. And if you were to adjust that for inflation, it would be significantly higher. But do you think we take out $50 Here in the next year or two years?

Chris Mancini  10:27  
I mean, that's that that's a big move, you know, from 30 to 50 is a huge move. I mean, I don't know if we'll do that. I mean, I remember when it was at 50. And that was, you know, there's a lot of speculative hype around that at the time. That was when, like you said, there was also a lot of speculative hype around gold at the time. I think that, you know, if gold goes to 3000, like above 3000, then I think that we could see silver short touching, like a 45 range. Definitely.

James Connor  10:58  
And so why do you think silver is underperforming? Why isn't it trading closer to its all time high?

Chris Mancini  11:05  
I think the issue is that what's driving the gold price is this demand from central banks, like the Chinese central banks and other central banks around the world. There's Eastern demand for gold. So like, whereas I think that in the US, you'll start to see demand for silver, if the gold price from retail, if the gold price really goes in the East, in China Korea. There isn't that same affinity for silver that we have here, it's really gold. So they'll buy a very small little like being, you know, of gold, rather than buy one ounce of silver. So I think that what we have to do is like, and we're and we've seen that there's really no interest for gold in the US very little. So I think that in order for silver really have its run, we're going to have to first see the gold and the ETFs start to go back up. So we're going to have to see again, like the price of gold have another move here from 2400, up to say 2600, something like this, before we see silver really make its move, and that'll be predicated on retail demand in the US.

James Connor  12:18  
One of the unique issues associated with silver is that 75% of all silver comes or is produced as a byproduct. Okay, so copper producers, for example, are very large producers of silver, do you think this also comes into play? And I guess when when when I asked that what I mean is if you have copper trading at around $5 a pound, and you have somebody like Codelco world's largest copper producer, and they're just pumping out as much copper as they can, while they're also producing a lot of silver. And they're just dumping it onto the open market. Do you think this comes into play?

Chris Mancini  12:52  
Yeah, I mean, it, it would but I think they kind of what's attractive about that, that analysis or that dynamic that you just mentioned is that whereas you can see a supply response to higher gold price. So the gold price goes up and then miners say okay, look, we're gonna gold miners say look, we're gonna get some more gold from this area here that we couldn't get before because it wasn't economic, you could see a pretty quick, very quick, but you can see it's, you know, a somewhat kind of time oriented supply response to an increase in the price of gold, you don't really see that for Silver's the price of silver goes up a lot. If it goes to 45. And the price of copper stays at $4.75 a pound. You don't see that supply response from from on a silver  perspective because the copper miners going to keep on pumping out the same amount. So that's what makes the silver dynamic a little bit more attractive, I think even on the upside for silver. Now that being said, yeah, in this higher copper price environment, to the degree that that the copper miners are now doing the same thing that I said the coal miners would do. Yeah, it is a little bit of a headwind for the silver price.

James Connor  14:04  
So I want to talk about valuations now and equities. Mining is we both know is extremely complex business. There's so much to consider when we talk about metallurgy, grade sides, geopolitics and so many elements which impact a company's profitability. And when you look at some of these large producers Newmont for example, the world's largest gold producer, it's up 2% on the year barrack, the second largest producers down 2%. Nico the world's third largest producer, it's up to over 20%. And yet, and we already mentioned the gold it's actually up to over 20% on the year. But why are we seeing this large divergence between the gold price and equities?

Chris Mancini  14:46  
That's that's a good question. I mean, well, the big picture is that in something like well, why the equities have in by and large haven't performed well and why say Agnico has outperformed is because there has been a big increase in the cost of production, so during COVID, it was very difficult as we all know, but it was possible obviously, it worked from home for for mining company, mining companies had a lot of other restrictions placed on them, it just became very, very difficult and very cost intensive, to mined for gold around the world. And so, as the price of gold went up, the cost also went up. So the margins didn't expand as they should have, and, or as they would have otherwise, if if the cost hadn't gone up. So so that's why the stocks haven't done as well. And I think that one thing that from an ego perspective, they're lower cost. And because they're they're primarily in the aperitivi, where they have a work base, that's that's like very friendly, where they have a very good working relationship with their labor force. And they've treated their labor force very well over time. They haven't seen the big cost inflation that some of the other mining companies have seen. So. So that's why Agnico has really outperformed those other two Beric and Newmont that, that you just mentioned.

James Connor  16:13  
And there's also the geopolitical element, as you mentioned, Agnico, they own two of the largest gold mines in Canada. And so a large percentage of their production comes out of Canada, which is very safe, and the rule of law is always upheld. Whereas barrack is more focused on, I guess what you could say more challenging jurisdictions? Is that a big factor?

Chris Mancini  16:36  
Yeah, definitely, definitely. So I mean, when you look at the other thing is, you know, so there is very little interest, as we mentioned, in gold generally, or sorry, even less interested in gold mining stocks. So to the degree that you are a big fund manager in the US managing billions and billions of dollars in something mutual fund. And you want a go to name right? So you'll go and you'll ask somebody, you say, you know, talk to your broker, and say which stock should I own, and Beric and Newmont both have some hair on them, and Agnico really doesn't. And the hair on the barracks story is to a large degree, their exposure in Africa. And Mali specifically is talking about restructuring their mining code. So Eric has a very big mind in Mali. And, and then you see, and they also have a big mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And you know, that actually has political issues all the time. So we know that and then you look at something like Newmont, they're the hair on their story, really, they're in good political jurisdictions that the hair on their story really is that they just completed a merger with Newcrest. And the market doesn't believe the story right now, it doesn't seem or thinks that they did it for maybe the wrong reasons, and not the right reasons. And so the market still waiting to see how that plays out. But for Agnico, there really isn't much here. I mean, like, like you said, great jurisdictions 85% of production from Canada. The other 15% is from a really three mines say around 5% Each and Finland, Australia, and Mexico. So other those are also great jurisdictions. low cost producer pays a dividend created value for shareholders over time. So that's the go to name and that's why it's outperformed so much relative to the other two.

James Connor  18:26  
And when you look at these large producers like Newmont, Beric, and Agnico, what gold price do you think they're factoring in? Because there's no way? It's $2400? bucks or even 2000?

Chris Mancini  18:38  
No, no, definitely not. I mean, you know, when they mind their deposits, they're factoring in more like a $1,400 Gold Price, in terms of where they calculate their reserves. So and that's how they get this big margin now, right? Because notwithstanding the fact that the cost of mining has gone up, the average cost of production in the industry is right now say maybe $1,350 an ounce. And so there is right now on on, on average, over $1,000 per ounce margin. So yeah, I mean, there's there if the price of gold goes up, and the companies and the market gets comfortable with the companies taking a little bit of a lower margin and mining, some some some gold on the periphery of their deposit, say, then there is a lot of upside to these, to these to the valuation of these companies in terms of extending the mind lives.

James Connor  19:36  
But I guess the question I meant to ask was, What price are the gold equities? Factoring in?

Chris Mancini  19:42  
Oh, sorry, sorry. Okay. Sorry, the gold equities? Yeah, I mean, I think that the gold equities are factoring in more like, more like $2,000 An ounce than $2,400 an ounce and, you know, the market just doesn't believe that this price is going to be sustained and Ha so, so I do think that if the price stays here, and the gold price stays here and the company start generating this free cash flow over the next few quarters, and the market starts to see that, I think that the gold miners do have a good 15 to 20% off from here.

James Connor  20:17  
So that's an interesting point that you just made, because we mentioned earlier about how the central banks have been very aggressive buyers. And that's one of the reasons why gold's done so well, in the last two years. But do you think because of the central bank buying, do you think they are artificially keeping the prices high? And if they weren't buying, would the price be a lot lower? Maybe $2000 bucks, maybe $1800 bucks?

Chris Mancini  20:39  
Well, I mean, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think that they are like, I think the central banks are have been, I don't know what they're doing in the market now, because China's gold purchases have declined as the prices has risen. So they're not buying as much per month as they were when the price was lower. So something else might be sustaining it up here. But, um, but yeah, I mean, over the past year and a half, China and other central banks have been like a significant, like you said around 25% baseload demand. If that if that were gone? Yeah, then it would be, you know, deleterious to the market price.

James Connor  21:14  
And Chris, we can't have discussion on gold without talking about Bitcoin, which is sometimes called digital gold or new gold. And, as you know, the SEC approved some bitcoin ETFs earlier this year, they recently approved ether ETF, do you think money is being diverted away from gold into Bitcoin? And do you think a lot of the investors that used to invest in gold are now investing in Bitcoin?

Chris Mancini  21:41  
I don't really think so. I mean, now, I mean, I think that the most rational response would be Yeah, you know, like, it's, it has to be to some extent, but I just don't get that feeling like one example that I have to get, I really haven't totally Vegas, but it's funny, my 13 year old son has a game on his phone, where he's poking at, like, the names of like, instead of Mercedes Benz, they call it Mercedes Bands or something like that. And instead of Google, they call it goggle. But all he does is he looks at the chart. And he goes, Do I think the price, the price of this stock, you know, quote, unquote, is going up or down. And like, I go on the train back and forth to New York City, and I see people doing a similar thing, you know, like, actually on their phone betting on stock prices and things like that. And these means stocks and whatever. So I don't think it's the same buyer. For big I think Bitcoin also has people like, you know, doing similar. It's true. And I do think that Bitcoin lovers are going to really get mad at me, but But I do think a lot of it is driven by this, like this momentum kind of day trading on the apps and stuff. Now, you know, it could could gold get that kind of bid at some point? Well, I sure hope so. And could that be manifested in maybe flows into the ETF or something like that? I hope, but, I mean, do I think that it's taking away a lot of interest? I think it is, on the margin, I don't think it's taking away a lot of interest from gold. I mean, it's a different buyer. It's like central banks, like like you're saying, I mean, hopefully pension funds, it's big font. It's not really that that retail buyer.

James Connor  23:24  
I recently had lunch with a portfolio manager in Toronto, and he made mentioned on the fact that he's really concerned about the younger generation and their inability to invest. Nobody, the younger generation doesn't invest any more their traders and that might mean day trading equities meme stocks, or short dated options, or sports betting. It's all really the same sort of thing.

Chris Mancini  23:45  
Yeah, no, I mean, it's it is like, I mean, now I was very tired l ast night, this was like 11 o'clock. And my 13 year old said, Hey, dad, can you help me figure this out, you know, where, you know, what's is this stock gonna go up or down? And, and I wanted, what I want to do is sit and say, look, it's more important to look at stocks or valuations, their cash flows going forward, and whatever. And that's the conversation I'm gonna have to have with him. But unfortunately, I said, you know, what, I don't know, I'm asleep. But, um, but but I think that, that, yeah, it's definitely a concern. And I laugh about it. But but but it is definitely a concern that that, that the younger generation is very focused on just charts and you know, where the staff might be going based on what the next you know, social media hashtag is or whatever.

James Connor  24:34  
So when you look at the performance of Bitcoin, it's up over 60% this year is up 160% last year, and then you look at Gold and you know, it's doing okay, but we're not seeing those types of returns. But do you think like, how does gold compete with Bitcoin in the coming years? And do you think gold is a dying asset class?

Chris Mancini  24:55  
Oh, well, I mean, you know, I think that the big picture is that like in the real world, gold is, is necessary even right? I mean, like, and I think the Chinese central bank is realizing that it's necessary. It's no one else's liability. It can't be hacked. It's in your it's in a vault in Beijing or wherever it is wherever they hold it. And same thing with with Russia, it's in a vault and moths, so they do have a lot of gold too. They're also buying from internal sources. So, you know, from you know, Russia produced gold, so. So like, it's, it's necessary, it's not even a good thing it's it's necessary to have in this world. And I think there's a reason why Chinese consumers are buying gold and not Bitcoin. And I think that that's because they also like the idea of having holding it right. If that way, like the Chinese government can't do anything to well, could they share, but it'd be a lot easier, I think, for the Chinese government to take the Chinese citizens Bitcoin than to take a Chinese citizens, you know, gold bar that he has in his under his floorboard somewhere. So So I think, no, it's not a dying asset class. And we're seeing more and more, that it's becoming more of a necessary asset class, but Americans haven't woken up to that yet. And America really, frankly, is where, you know, in a hyperbolic white America is where all the money is, you know, we know that. And so and so but But Americans haven't woken up to that necessity yet. But I think I really think it's only a matter of time.

James Connor  26:34  
So something else that really stands out to me when it comes to Bitcoin is that there's a lot of champions behind it. A lot of well known investors and Larry Fink, Paul Tudor Jones, Michael Saylor, and I believe even Stanley Druckenmiller have all gotten behind bitcoin. And we really don't see that with gold. Yeah, what do you think that is?

Chris Mancini  26:56  
I mean, it's, it's the new hot trend. I mean, right? Like they don't like you don't these guys are all kind of they want to stay on the on the cutting edge. Right? They want to be seen as irrelevant. I mean, Larry Fink is trying to grow a business, he's in a very growth oriented business, right. So so you don't really grow by talking about something old grow by talking about new things. I mean, he was the one who really, I think, champion the whole ETF cause and, and, I mean, he's, whatever, you know, laughing all the way to the bank, right? It'll be a lot. You know, what, what he makes in 20 minutes is might be more than I'll ever see in my life. So I'm not knocking the guy. But, it's understandable that that's how they're structured, you know what I mean? And, and that's kind of why they be pushing something new and hot and, and sexy per se, and not something old and stodgy like gold. But, again, I think that we're slowly but surely like waking up. And and when the market does wake up to it, when we do see that there's a necessity to have it. I wouldn't be surprised if they start to get behind it too.

James Connor  28:07  
Yeah that will be interesting to see if that does happen. So we don't really have any big champions pounding the table on it. But one thing I want to get your thoughts on is the fact that Costco, one of the largest retailers in the US 72 million paid members, they started selling gold in q4 of 2023. And now they're selling I believe it's $200 million, with a gold every month and they can't even keep it in in stock. It's going so fast. But what are your thoughts on this? And what does this tell you of the general public? Who is going to Costco and buying one or two ounces,

Chris Mancini  28:40  
The average person, the average person, anywhere, likes to hold things, you know, likes to likes, security, likes the idea of having something of value that they can hold, and they know it'll have value. And that's what that's that's what's being reflected people trust Costco. They trust the brand, they know that what they're getting is actual gold. And so now, you know, it's never really been available like that in the US before, on a retail basis to get gold before Costco, you've had to go to some Yeah, to either go online to some website you've never heard of. Or there's really no other place to like, there's no other way to do it. I mean, you'd have to go like in New York City, you could do it but you go to like we have the diamond district on 47th Street. And you have to walk down these you walk into these back out and I've done it actually, you walk into this little booth. This looks like a back alley place from the 1930s and you talk to somebody that you know, you've never met before and this and that and you get references and it's hard to point is it's it's always been hard to do now that Costco has made it easy and people trust Costco it just reflects the fact that people like to hold things of value in their hands and and And it shows the intrinsic value. And again, it's just the necessity, the necessity of having gold. 

James Connor  30:06  
Yeah, that's a very good point. You got to make it easy because even when I buy gold through one of the Canadian banks, it's a very onerous process. And then when you go to sell it, it's still very complicated.

Chris Mancini  30:19  
yeah, exactly. So just making it easy. And Costco, you know, they've linked into that. I mean, they've hooked onto that concept that look, wow, people actually liked this. And they made it easy. And again, they're, they're trusted, which is extremely important.

James Connor  30:35  
Well, that was a great discussion. Chris, I want to thank you for making time for us today. If someone would like to learn more about you and get your thoughts on gold or learn more about the Gabelli funds, where can they go?

Chris Mancini  30:45  
You can go to gabelli.com you call 1-800-Gabelli and I'd also like to point out that I just I just did an interview with Sean Boyd. We were talking about Agnico. And how great of a company it is. It's the biggest holding in the gold fund. And so on Gabelli TV, if you go to YouTube and type in Cavalli TV, Sean Boyd, you'll find the interview that I did with him and it lays out what we look for in a good gold mining company and also what what it takes to build a good gold mining company. And Sean has been really integral of doing that over time.

James Connor  31:19  
Well, I will be sure to check that out. Once again, Chris, thank you.

Chris Mancini  31:23  
Okay. Thanks, Jimmy. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

James Connor  31:26  
Well, I hope you enjoyed that discussion with Chris Mancini. And it gives you some insights on what's happening within precious metals. We're going to have an even deeper discussion on precious metals and many other asset classes that Wealthions upcoming virtual conference in conjunction with SALT and it goes live on June the first we have some amazing speakers including Raoul Paul, Lynn Eldon, Rick Rule, and many more, all of which will help you navigate these financial markets during these very uncertain times. Once again, that's June the first and you could get more details on our website wealthion.com Thank you again for being with us today. And I look forward to see you again soon.