From Chess Champion to Resource Investor: CEO Technician Runs the Board on Gold, Mining, and Psychology in Junior Resource Speculation

Trevor [00:00:06] And Good Day to you everybody. This is Trevor Hall. It's Mining Stock Daily. And today is Friday August 22nd. I can't believe this month is almost over. Maybe we'll finally get out of the summer doldrums right. It's a little joke. I suppose we've got a great interview today we're actually welcoming somebody for the first time to the podcast. And quite honestly I don't know if this gentleman has done many interviews within the mining media framework but I'm super excited to have him. That's we're going to welcome Robert sin. You may recognize his handles on both CEO.CA and on Twitter but I was able to meet Robert while I was travelling in the Yukon for the Yukon Mining Alliance tour. And one of the things I love about this inudstry, aside from the industry itself and all of the excitement that surrounds it and. How everybody is optimistic about everything all the time even through the bear market it's just the people and you know I had a chance to meet with Robert and he's just a great chap and that's so I said you know you've got a great story to tell and you're just really good work to come on the podcasts. And he gave us some thought and he said Yeah let's do it it's time. So really excited or this interview and I hope you enjoy listening to it. We would like to thank our sponsors for mining stock daily those sponsors includ. Integra Resources, Pacific Empire Minerals, Western Copper and Gold and Minera Alamos. Thank you so much for your support of Mining Stock Daily.

[00:01:45] So without further ado we are going to launch in to the conversation with Rob. Please note if you're listening on Amazon Alexa you are listening to an abbreviated version of. The full conversation came to found basically the other 11 networks where we distribute the content. Thank you so much. Enjoy the interview. Have a great weekend and we will chat with you on Monday.

Trevor [00:02:16] Greetings everybody. This is Trevor Hall and with me I have got a great guest. I don't know if Robert's done many interviews before I don't think he has his I haven't listened to any of his commentary throughout the mining media landscape. With me is Robert Sinn that name may not sound familiar but I'm sure if you are active on a lot of the chat boards on both Twitter and CEO.ca you would recognize him as either Goldfinger or @CEOTechnician. So Robert thank you so much for joining us on mining stock daily. How are you today.

Robert Sinn [00:02:53] Great. Thank you for the invitation I really appreciate it. And I'm glad to be here.

Trevor [00:03:01] Let's get let's get things started. You know I guess have you done many interviews before as you know.

Robert Sinn [00:03:08] I guess I've done two interviews in print and I think I did one podcast last year.

Trevor [00:03:19] OK yeah.

Robert Sinn [00:03:20] So I haven't been interviewed a lot. No.

Trevor [00:03:23] So what's what's what's the reason behind that.  Did you try to like try to stay behind the curtain in the limelight?

Robert Sinn [00:03:29] There was a time when I was trying to be a lot more quiet and that sort of ended last year at some point and now I just I'm fine with talking to anybody and don't don't mind you know having my name out there at all. Yeah. So you know there was a time I was trying to be a little more quiet.

Trevor [00:03:50] Was there a reason behind that or just.

Robert Sinn [00:03:54] Yeah I mean I was involved in a pretty serious car accident in 2012 and there was a lot involved in that. And now that's kind of over. So I'm fine with you know speaking more publicly.

Trevor [00:04:10] Right on. Well I'm certainly glad you welcome the idea of coming onto the show. So let's get started. Let's just chat about resource investing in gold and silver shall we? We are currently in a bull market in both gold and silver what's your current analysis of gold and silver? And we want to talk to you a little bit about consolidation. Did we see a responsible consolidation this week or do you think there's something heavier yet to come?

Robert Sinn [00:04:46] Well you know, the thing in markets and charting and trading is timeframe it's really key to be clear on what timeframes you're talking about. So a longer term time frames I think gold and silver are very very healthy. They're not overbought on the longer term charts and we're just in the last month and a half we're just breaking out of a six year basing pattern. And sometimes those breakouts from those long term broad based bottoms can be really powerful and they can go a lot higher and they can be a lot more violent in terms of the size of the rally than most people would think. So you know in shorter term time frame so like a daily chart or an hourly chart obviously things can get overbought very fast and we will have pullbacks and range bound you know sort of oscillations from time to time and that's actually what we've had the last two weeks especially in the gold mining shares we've actually had a pullback. So even though gold has been hugging sort of above you know fifteen hundred not too far from the highs. Gold mining shares in the last two weeks or so like maybe a little longer than two weeks. They've actually dropped a pullback like 10 percent. So it's actually very healthy. And I actually think that we're probably due for some more upside here fairly soon and the gold miners.

Trevor [00:06:27] Do you see any difference in in volume or price activity between the U.S. trade the companies traded on the U.S. exchanges compared to the Canadian exchanges?

Robert Sinn [00:06:39] What do you mean exactly? You're talking about the smaller I you know explorers or you're talking about the miners?

Trevor [00:06:47] The explorers. Excuse me.

Robert Sinn [00:06:48] Yeah yeah. There definitely is a difference in volume I mean I don't trade on the OTC basically ever. So if a company is on the venture I buy it on the venture. I don't screw around. You know with OTC because it is it's it's not you know liquid. The spreads are usually extremely wide and there's just no point. You know you should buy you know venture stocks on the venture.

Trevor [00:07:21] What is your key levels of resistance you're looking at when it comes to gold right now?

Robert Sinn [00:07:26] Okay. So gold in dollar terms sorry about gold futures by the way. So the the most active contract right now is trading about $1510. So I'll be talking about that price sort of peaked out at $1546. And it's pulled back a little bit. We even had a short move under the fifteen hundred level. But you'll notice on the daily chart gold has not gone back under $1500 level on a daily closing basis and that's quite important in my opinion. So $1550 you know last round number sort of my big upside level right now. And if gold can get above that especially on a closing basis I think it would be really important because then we're we're starting to then talk about you know fifteen hundred is now the downside. You know support level and we're sort of making more progress to the upside then. As far as key support right now I think $1440 is a big downside level. I would not want to see gold get back under $1440. Especially on a weekly basis. I think $1440 years is really key.

Trevor [00:08:54] I want to ask you, we've seen a lot of big money people that you know for popularity like a Ray Dalio cam out weeks ago and said gold is a good investment. We've seen a number of high level key hedge fund managers come out in the last week actually and say the same thing. From your observation are we seeing more and more interest in gold and silver as a safe haven on the back of more recession talk throughout the main media here in the United States?

Robert Sinn [00:09:29] Yeah I mean I think that there definitely is more interest in the last two months in gold and silver especially gold as sort of a safe haven. And I think you know the funds have been piling in probably since the end of June. I think you'll be seeing a lot of buying from hedge funds. You can see gold futures the you know hedge fund net length is probably somewhere on the order near it's all time highs. So it's taken them tens of billions of dollars of buying to get to where they're at now in terms of net length. So it's had quite a big move but it's important for people to realize that that's how you know bull market works. You have to have strong buy. You have to have high levels of sentiment and speculative you know links in gold futures. That's what makes a bull market and it will often stay near overbought for months as opposed to a bear market where the price will keep slowly grinding lower and people will stay bearish for years. You know in a bear market yeah.

Trevor [00:10:59] So let's talk about this bull market we're currently in. If we look at the major producers the mid tiers and the junior explorers in your mind where is each one of those in its cycle?

Robert Sinn [00:11:15] So you know I've been in this sector for almost 20 years now I sort of got involved in 2002 timeframe when my father was starting to really get very aggressive in terms of buying gold mining shares and gold itself. His timing as it turned out to be very good for a while and so I always think back to that bull run from around 2003 to 07 and how that sort of played out. And what happened back then was the big gold miners had the first move. From 2003 to the end of 04 there was a tremendous rally in the biggest gold mining stocks. And you know Newmont Mining was trading at 60 times earnings at 60 times earnings in 04 because the market was pricing in a gold bull and the basically the valuation of some of these big miners got carried away in the first year of the move. And you could go back and take a look at some of those charter. It's a lot of the big gold stocks didn't really move up that much morefrom that first big big run. You know so the biggest gains were in that first year or two. The juniors sort of got into the party in 06. I mean like that's when things really got good for the tiny stocks where we saw 10 baggers all over the place and even the crappy Juniors that had projects that were never going to be a mine. We saw a lot of those run in 06. I think May of 2006 was sort of a sentiment peak in the juniors. So yeah. So what happened back then was the big stocks first smaller stocks smaller companies move less and I think that's what we're going to see again. We've seen the large market cap companies start to move up quite a bit. Nothing like in 04. So I still think we're pretty you know we're in the early stages of this move but it's not it's not late in the move in the juniors honestly have barely moved. I mean we've had a little blip a little tiny blip but it's nothing like a bull market move.

Trevor [00:13:45] Yeah I think my observation is a lot of the juniors that do have financing and kind of on the back of an Eric Sprott announcement they've been moving pretty good. If they have good drill results earlier in this drill season they've been moving even a little bit better but I'm with you. I don't know if I've necessarily seen a huge move in the junior explorers yet. So I think it takes a little bit of a you know the chemistry has got to be a little bit better right now.

Robert Sinn [00:14:17] Yeah I mean I think a lot of a lot of high net worth investors that I talked to own almost zero mining stocks or they own zero and they don't see this gold move as something that's going to last. They think it's just a temporary three month rally. Right. So the longer gold stays above fifteen hundred or moves even higher I think we're going to see the gold mining shares start to really take hold and see a rally because there will be an acknowledgement that oh this is actually for real and this is a bull market and any of that money from the sidelines there's so much money out there that's not that's not invested in gold or silver or mining stocks at all. And all we need is a small tiny portion of that to come into the sector and we'll have a big impact.

Trevor [00:15:15] Do you think some of that mentality amongst those conversations you've had have change this week alone just because we're talking more recession type dialogue?

Robert Sinn [00:15:26] I mean I don't really think so. I'm not seeing it in the market. I'm not seeing you know money pouring in. The only stocks that are moving are the best ones. You know the ones that have like you know new discovery and there's excitement and there's pie in the sky there's not a broad base move you know higher into the sector and I did you know gold exchange traded funds have had the largest flows in the last month of any sector. There has been some you know money moving into the sector but in the scheme of things it's still relatively small and it's there would be a lot more fun flows to the sector as the bull market plays out. And I still think we're in the first you know we're in the first quarter of the game. There's there's plenty of more left.

Trevor [00:16:21] This is kind of off the cuff question. But yesterday we talked a little bit on the show about the amount of gold that was shipped from Switzerland into London. And it seems to be more gold than what the ETF really needed to cover its allotment. Do you get any thoughts on that or of even following that at all?

Robert Sinn [00:16:39] I don't really follow that stuff. The stuff I do follow is you know central bank buying and I know that's been extremely positive and I expect this year to be even larger than last year and for me as a as a gold investor and a gold mining investor I want to focus on the bigger trends and the big trend is the central banks are buying and the charts tell me that we are just starting a new bull market. And as long as I'm clear on those things then everything else is just you know it just follows that.

Trevor [00:17:16] Yeah yeah okay. So let's move on to a different topic. I actually want to share with you a little bit about the online dialogue I know you're very active on Twitter I follow you on Twitter. I for one am not active on CEO.CA but I know you definitely put a lot of content out there and engage with other like minded investors on that platform. Can you give us a glance of the sentiment online that you're seeing. Knowing that you're pretty active there as well?

Robert Sinn [00:17:49] Yeah that's a great question. I mean the sentiment that I'm seeing is among the gold. You know I'll say gold bug you know to be kind of you know funny they're not necessarily gold bugs but they're investors in the sector who have. Been investing for years. There's some excitement there's some palpable excitement that oh you know this is finally what we're waiting for. And like know a lot of these guys I talked to. They're not selling yet so they've had they've had gains. They've had a good summer but they really firmly feel that this is a much bigger move and I think that's really positive. And some are even buying more. All right. So you know we've seen a big moves in gold but in the grand scheme of things it can be a much larger move still ahead. Right. But also say so. So that's a positive factor. The not so positive factor is I don't see a lot of new investors coming into the space. So even though we've had a rally we had some coverage of the sector in the headlines and such. There is not a lot of new blood flowing into the mining space or even the gold space you know. So and that also tells me it's still early because in the later stages of a bull watch you're going to have is you're going to have the generalist crowd start to come in. People who have never bought a mining stock are going to buy their first mining stock and they're going to buy the one that's the highest price with the best chart that gets the most news coverage. And that will probably be close to a top. All right. But we're not seeing that activity yet. So in a way it's a negative because it shows that there's still not a lot of interest but in a way it's great for somebody who's already invested in the sector because it tells you there's a lot more to come. And obviously if the gold chart plays out the way I think it will I hope it will. There will still be there will be a lot more upside in these stocks.

Trevor [00:20:11] Do you see any similarities now and the same frame. 2007 2008 leading to the. Big recession in 2009? Specifically the gold and mining stocks.

Robert Sinn [00:20:25]  There is. And I was going to try and keep it secret but you know ask me so I have to say yes. Actually this is not a positive but I'll throw the caveat that I don't think it's going to play out the same way. But in the summer of 2008 the economy was weakening and the banks were in trouble. Obviously it's not the same now but the economy is weakening. I don't think the banks are in trouble but who knows. Right. And the juniors the gold juniors actually were trading down the whole summer. They just slowly started to leak lower. And right now we've seen a little bit of that the last few weeks we've seen the gold juniors start to leak lower even though the gold price is still robust. And I mentioned it to my to my subscribers at the end of last week I said I'm just going to mention this. This reminds me a little of August 2008 doesn't mean it's going to play out the same way. But it's a look oh eerie because of what we're seeing in the broader market and the broader economy. And the way the gold juniors just aren't really getting a pulse. You know even though we've had the gold move that. We would liked to have had right. I mean in May Gold was $1275 and the sector was dead in the water I mean it wasn't moving at all. There was no interest and then we got this $250 dollar rally. You would think there would be a lot more interest in gold exploration stocks not so much. So far.

Trevor [00:22:15] Yeah I remember you told me that story last month when you and I were chatting over a glass of wine I believe but you said it was a really hard time for you as a trader because, as an investor because you had lost so much in your account but you knew this thing was going to rock. And even when some of those stocks were down 60 70 80 percent you is still a hard thing to chew on that you were going to buy more you're gonna buy more because you believed it was gonna go up and certainly enough it did. So I also wanted to say you know what you just said is kind of refreshing to hear because you don't believe the same thing's going to happen. But I also come back and think about that saying is when anybody says that this time's different is when you run well you run away. Yeah.

Robert Sinn [00:23:08] That's a good point. But you know what happened in 2008 was a sample size of one. It's happened exactly once. In the entire history of the world. Right. It's happened once. And so to say you know and we've gone back to 2008 because it was such a shocking violence memorable event. I mean there was there were literally weeks and months in late 2008 early 2009 where people were worried that the money in their bank account was not going to be there the following day was that crazy. And the junior mining sector was ravaged. It was obliterated in October 2008. We're talking about 90 percent drops in basically across the board. There were there was almost no stock that didn't have a very very very large drop in it you know. Yeah. I didn't do well you know at the end of 2008 but I did great in 2009 and that was I guess partially due to my own lack of knowledge and understanding because I was so convinced in the bull case for gold copper etc cetera that I didn't know any better but to keep buying. Right. And I didn't in some way that was luck and in some way I'll also just betting that the world wasn't going to come to an end. You know what you did. Right. Right right right.

Trevor [00:24:53] One of the reasons I'm really glad that you're on mining stock daily is because you know when you and I first kind of sat down and chatted and got to know each other a little bit more you gave me the kind of background story of how you got involved in resource investing. And so I'd like to revisit that and could you give our listeners. You don't have to go the complete death but can you give us the Cliff Notes summary of kind of how you got involved in investing and then starting to manage a little bit of money for high net worth individuals?

Robert Sinn [00:25:29] Yes so around 2002-2003 my father became a pretty big investor in the junior mining sector and gold and he was you know sending me these articles from guys that I talked to now on a regular basis. And I would read about the case for the China bull and China is going to need all this copper and you know nickel and Chinese investors love gold and it was all this thing of you know all about China and how China was going to drive. The bull market in all of the sectors. Right. And it was brilliant because it actually worked for like five years. It was it was the greatest thing ever. So I followed my father. Very closely and I would read all the stuff that he was reading. Talk about the stocks he was buying. And. You know I saw him do really well. I mean from 2003 to May 2006. He made substantial gains in his portfolio across his portfolio. We're talking about four or five fold total across his entire portfolio gain. So he did very very well. And it's sort of that. I was hooked like at that point I was hooked because I said man, you can make this much money and you get to play this game you know called called you know. Investing. And it's fun. It's fun to learn about new companies new projects and then follow the story. Right. But of course that was the bull market run. So that was when everything was pretty much going well. And then of course I got the other side of it in 2008 where I saw what could go wrong. I saw everything that could go wrong in a matter of months. So I got the full taste of the bull market cycle bear market cycle and I learned a lot from that was that it was a great experience and also in 2005 I taught chess to kids because I was a former National Champion in chess and something I did as a side job for several years. It's something I enjoy doing you know I love chess and so I would go to this man's house and he had two sons age 5 and age 7 at the time. And you know after many lessons I got to talking to the father and we started to become close and he would ask me about my life and we talk about his time on Wall Street. And one day he said you know you know let me give you a little bit of money and you know let's see how you do with it because you seem like you're you're very eager and you know you're starting to gain some knowledge and experience so take a shot at it. So I was I was kind of shocked but I said Okay I'm not going to say no to this you know. So I took his money and I traded it for probably about six months. And I did well. So I made him quite a bit and I said Well here you know let me hand this back to you because I think I've done well and I want to go out on top. So here's your money back with some more on top of it. And he was very appreciative and he said All right thank you. Now get access to this account which was in his name and have a lot more money in it. And that's sort of how it all started. Just. Both my father and from this man you know he gave me an opportunity. And my father passed away a couple of years ago but I still talk to this man on a regular basis and still do some work for him. So it's funny how things happen in life and doors pop open when you're you know focused on something and you know you're looking for a good opportunity.

Trevor [00:29:51] Do you see any similarities between chess strategies and chess strategies in investing?

Robert Sinn [00:29:59] Well in chess you have to be very analytical and be able to spot patterns. That's one of the reasons why I like charting so much because it's about patterns. And I like to spot patterns and think think about all the different possibilities and how things can play out it's also mathematical. And there's definitely a lot of math in the stock market. So there are a lot of parallels.

Trevor [00:30:30] And what about you know you mentioned you were teaching chess. What's your teaching philosophy is there similarities when you teaching chess compared to when you're teaching investing and sharing your information with your subscribers?

Robert Sinn [00:30:45] The main thing I would say is focus on the fundamentals. And keep it simple. So you know when I'm teaching a 5 year old I start with the bare basics. I build the foundation. And from the foundation then I can expand upon that as they get older and you know their skill level goes up. It's the same thing in the stock market. I mean you have to have a firm grasp. On some basic fundamentals and you have like if you're an investor or trader it doesn't really matter which one you are. You have to have a firm grounding in your psychology about bankroll management and risk. And for me that's fundamental. If somebody is not clear on how to manage risk and bankroll management it doesn't matter how good their analysis is on companies or stocks. They're going to have a fatal flaw that's going to come back to bite them in the ass you know at some point.

Trevor [00:31:54] I think one of the things that I learned that I appreciated about you the most from getting to know you was you're not one to be quick to make a judgment or make a decision or even say something you like. You can kind of watch your own train of thought kind of work out while you're having a conversation and I think it's really healthy and it's something that I owe you know. You know I'd lack. Sometimes my filter doesn't work but. But that's really important to know to like especially when you're investing not to pull the trigger so fast but give some serious thought and analytical consideration to what you're doing before you give company a company your money right?

Robert Sinn [00:32:44] Absolutely. I mean I was thinking about talking about what you like about it. You know like an hour ago I was thinking about you know some stuff I wanted to say to you and that was one of them that I see it as traders get older. They become less sure of anything and I don't mean to say that they don't know anything or they don't have skills their skills and their knowledge are probably the largest that they've ever been as they get older however they know that there is a lot that they don't know and they can't know. Because there's only so much we can fit in our brains there's only so much that we can read in a day and there's billions of things going on around the world every single second. All right. So there's like this. I wouldn't say its skeptical. Yes I am skeptical. But it's just more of. I'm okay with not knowing and I'm okay with being in the you know question and not trying to be always with the answer. And I think that's really important for any market participant is to be in the question. And be okay with exploring and learning. And not being sure because I think it's when you are sure of something in the market is when things go wrong. So even though I may own a stock I may be very positive on the outlook for a company. I'm not sure of anything and I'm very clear that I can lose money. The stock can go down. Things can go wrong. The market can change you know. And so that's what. As one gains experience in the markets and in investing there becomes this being comfortable with not being sure. And being and being open to new information.

Trevor [00:34:58] Robert that's that's one of the most mindful things we've heard on this show for quite some time. I think it's a good it's a good spot to leave it and let you get back to your day. I want to thank you so much for your time your insights and your patience.

Robert Sinn [00:35:18] Thanks Trevor.

Trevor [00:35:19] I look forward to seeing you again in Colorado in a few weeks for the Beaver Creek precious metals summit. And how can people reach out to you with any questions or perhaps a subscribing to your newsletter?

Robert Sinn [00:35:33] So on on Twitter I'm at c o technician. So you can follow me on twitter send me a message. And you can also shoot me an email. C O technician at gmail dot com.

Trevor [00:35:53] All right Robert thank you so much. Take care yourself. Well met.

Robert Sinn [00:35:57] Thank you Trevor. Bye bye.

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