I'm Charlotte McLeod with the Investing News Network
and I'm here today with Andrew O'Donnell, managing director of SuperChargedStocks.
Thanks so much for joining me today.
Thanks Charlotte, it's wonderful to be here. It's been a fun event and it's great to talk to you again.
Yes, and we're here at VRIC, the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference.
Tell me a little bit about how it's been for you, what you've been up to here.
It's been a great show. Lots of energy, it's pretty upbeat. It's not, you know, kicking at the clouds,
but it certainly is upbeat, and it's been a great show for me as well. It's my first time presenting here.
So I presented [on] the Golden Triangle, or what John Newell and I are calling the Golden Corridor,
and really, really kind of putting our names to that kind of area because we found that both of us had similar picks
up there, and we're pretty excited about what's happening up there.
So it was great just to get out and kind of put that message out there,
and, you know, kind of support the companies I like to work with,
and then also the ones that I'm going to be working with here in the spring as well, some of the ideas I have.
Okay, that's great. Yeah, certainly a hot region, great to hear that you're covering that.
Another really hot topic that I know you're interested in right now is vanadium.
Let's — can you just tell me what it is that excites you about that space?
Part of it is — I have a degree in economics and political science, so I like to look at things at a macro level ...
and vanadium is one of those elements or minerals, metals
that is on the 23 most crucial list that the US has. So that I liked,
and then doing a little bit of digging, along with some rare earth as well.
But with the vanadium we don't really produce any, and we're in desperate need of it.
And — and I was surprised to find how much of it we use
just in titanium, in strengthening steel, just general industrial use.
But also how much of it is a future energy source.
And I was really drawn to that because it has a science component as well as a tech component
and that drew me in even further with, you know, the redox battery and whatnot.
So I got — it got ahold of me pretty quick,
and it's more of a difficult space for people to get their heads wrapped around, but I
like it because if you like cleantech and greentech
then this is a good space to look at. And there's really exciting companies and things happening
this next year that I think you're going to — take away just the pricing action that's been happening
— just that there's a lot of great equity companies that are coming to the forefront.
Yeah, I think our investor audience and investors everywhere are certainly starting to
wake up to the vanadium story. There are — there are so many companies that are coming out
there now as well. So can you — can you explain
— what do you need to look at when you're looking at these vanadium companies?
What are the qualities? Because it's quite different than precious metals or things like that.
Yeah, one of the biggest things is the cost of extraction, so the metallurgy,
so what's the grade and how much is it going to cost to get it out?
That can be a bit tricky, and then of course the — the biggest component is that environmental side
with the — making the oxide. So there's some companies that have very different strategies
and different approaches, which is interesting. Whether you're talking about VanadiumCorp,
which is a Canadian company, or Prophecy or First Vanadium.
All these companies are interesting for their own merits.
And I know there's some more coming on the market soon as well, so
it isn't just kind of compare this one to this one,
it's that — what are you looking for? So I'm going to be doing an article — kind of a side by side analysis
of some of these companies because I'll be presenting at Mines and Money in New York,
and I wanted to have people that — what should I be looking for,
and do I want to be more on the, you know, the tech side of producing the oxide,
or what's the play here? So that's — it's really fascinating because it is, as you said, it's different
than just simply getting it out of the ground and leaching it and moving forward.
But it is so vital for the future of green and cleantech, solar panels, you name it — energy, batteries.
Yeah and aside from being different from precious metals and things like that,
it has this connection to uranium, we've seen uranium companies coming out now
and saying, "oh, we've got vanadium too." So is that a good combination for
investors to look at, or should they be looking at pure play? How should they do?
No I — you know, I like uranium as well. I think one of the problems with uranium is just,
as we face with a lot of mainstream news-type things, is that the immediate gut reaction is negative.
From a general point of view. "Oh gosh, we can't do that."
But if you have the ear of someone to explain to them that this is cleantech,
this is — this is what we need to be doing if you'd like to have energy,
this is a good solution. [Then] people are a bit more open minded to it.
But because of some of the events, whether it was Fukushima years ago, or Uranium One,
most immediate reactions to someone who doesn't understand the space is,
"ooh, I'm not sure if I'm really into that."
But it's just a matter that they're open to it. So once again, especially in BC,
is if you're an environmentalist and you're behind any ... green or cleantech,
you need to be looking at mining, and specifically you need to be looking at energy mining situations —
which is going to be uranium, it's going to be vanadium and rare earth, so
a lot of these deals, if they're mind together, I think there is a bit of a match there,
whereas it's a little bit different if someone says, "I've got a, you know, a gold-moly play"
it's a little bit different. So I don't see there being a problem with someone having a dual mix there.
Okay. And you touched just briefly on — it's a critical mineral in the United States.
Can you give maybe — like how critical is it? What is the supply landscape like in the US,
how dire do they need it?
Yeah it's absolutely — it's definitely critical.
So it's something that they know that they need, and they simply just don't have. So they're
having to buy it from China essentially. I think it's roughly — my numbers might be off —
but 60 percent of all vanadium comes from China, they produce it.
They have the largest redox battery in the world. They're really pushing things forward,
partly because they can. They don't have to deal with the environmental regulations that we have over here,
but there are companies that are trying to make — there's some that think they may have solved the puzzle
of being able to extract vanadium oxide and not have any carbon emissions.
So if that's the case and they can do it to scale, that's a big game changer. And there's some
companies out there claiming they're close, and they're testing out new technology.
So there's a technology play as well as a vanadium land story and mining story.
That can change things a lot, but we've got pretty tight regulations, which is great,
in North America, and that's held off a lot of actual production of vanadium.
So I like that though because it means that there's a demand. And it's really towards a lot of these
future story-type ideas.
So it's one of these, you know, we're just getting used to it now, we're just getting — you know,
opening up the envelope to it. So that's what I like is that it's got a longer story.
Whether or not it's the short term is fine, it's that we need — we need this.
Yeah just — I'll let you step away from vanadium a little bit.
You mentioned — so this is a clean energy trend, this is the future.
What other trends are you watching for 2019?
One that's totally different is I love esports.
So that I — I got into — actually years ago my nephew had told me about
the site Twitch, and he's like, "did you know that kids are getting paid to play video games?"
I was like, "no, you're out of your mind."
So he — and you know, it was quite a conversation — but he showed me the site,
and I was just — I was baffled by seeing donations — $20, $40, $50 — I was like, "wait a second, what?"
Like these young guys and girls they're — I was like, "wow, look at how much they're getting paid per hour
just simply off donations."
And then you start to see like all the ways they've monetized this, and
some of the research I've read is that they still haven't even monetized it to any degree compared to
something like NFL football even though its worldwide numbers are about the same, or
if not more.
So it's taken off in places in Asia, like gangbusters, and they fill stadiums with people to watch these events,
which is why they call it a sport, an esport. And we really haven't scratched the surface over here.
So that growth — I mean, it's video games, people love video games.
It's going to happen. So I'm — I'm kind of sticking my toes out there
and we'll see what comes of it. But I think that's going to be a big — whoever's talking about that
and kind of getting in that space early is going to be happy.
Okay, that's great advice.
Any other — what would your best piece of advice be for investors this year?
You can go resource, you can go wider than that — whatever you think.
Part of it is there's going to be a lot of pain this year.
So I — I don't shy away from that. I've never been a big fan of the FANG stocks,
and they did a bit of a turnaround there at the end of the year. I think they've got lots more to go.
There's going to be a lot of debt problems. But my advice to people is that
— don't just sell everything. I mean, that's the worst thing you could do.
When there's places that do — that get hit hard, they need to find new sectors and new money.
They need to get that money working for them. And that's where I think with the negative outlook that
a lot of people see out there is that that's positive. It's going somewhere, so
I think that people are open to mining because it's an asset. They go,
"I need to get into resources beacuse it's an actual asset, something I can hold."
And that is the foundation of anything tech anyway. And there's a fundamental shift of green, cleantech
that's not changing, whether it's electrical vehicles, solar panels in California, where it's mandated on new houses.
So all these things are longer-term trends
that I like, and I think that people should be looking at those rather than what's hot.
Like, I don't want to bash on like a weed company, but — I'm not much in that space myself —
but, you know, you should be taking some of your gains in the other sectors maybe, and
looking for undervalued sectors and say, "you know what? This one's been played out, I should be shifting
into something that's — that really has a value and is undervalued."
Okay, well thank you so much, I think we'll leave it there, that was great.
Once again, I'm Charlotte McLeod with the Investing News Network,
and this is Andrew O'Donnell with SuperChargedStocks.
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