Taking place a few weeks later than usual — likely to accommodate the US election — this year’s New Orleans Investment Conference saw many resource sector analysts, newsletter writers, speculators and contrarians offer insight on the economy, potential market movements and which commodities to watch.
Hosted by Brien Lundin, CEO and president of Jefferson Financial and editor of Gold Newsletter, the New Orleans Investment Conference first launched in 1975 as the brainchild of entrepreneur James Blanchard, a well-known dealer of fine coins and precious metals and the founder of Blanchard and Company.
Blanchard was fondly remembered at the conference’s 50th anniversary by presenters and panelists, including popular investor and speculator Rick Rule, proprietor of Rule Investment Media.
Rule recounted first attending the event in 1986, beginning his presentation with an acknowledgment of the show’s founder, noting that Blanchard was one of the “most wonderful mentors and best friends of my life.”
He spent the remainder of his 20 minute presentation — ‘Another Bull Market: Don’t Waste This One!’ — pointing out that the precious and industrial metals markets are in an early stage bull run driven by mounting US debt and liabilities.
To address these challenges, Rule expects the US government to print more money — boosting gold.
He underscored the need for a contrarian approach, explaining the difference between beta, the outperformance of a sector relative to the broad market, and alpha, an investment or speculation that outperforms even the beta.
‘If the gold sector does well, beta would be the difference between the performance of gold stocks relative to the stock market in general,’ he said. Alpha would be gold stocks that outperform gold even as the metal is outperforming.
‘If you aren’t a contrarian in this racket, you’re going to be a victim,” he said several times during his presentation.
Rule’s nostalgic sentiment was echoed by economist and author Dr. Mark Skousen, who told audience members that he has been attending the New Orleans Investment Conference since the late 1970s.
Skousen showed several photos of him and previous event guests over the decades.
‘There I am burning my Social Security card, and later I tore up my Medicare card,” he said pointing to a large screen. “And today I am on Social Security and Medicare. So much for tearing up these state-run programs.”
He later quipped that Social Security has yielded poor returns compared to the stock market.
“Let me tell you something — these state-run programs are lousy programs, because for Social Security, if you had invested your money in the S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX), you wouldn’t be getting US$3,000 or US$4,000 a month, you’d be getting US$12,000 a month, which you can live on,” Skousen commented.
A family affair
In addition to the many notable speakers and presenters, this year’s New Orleans Investment Conference was attended by hundreds of investors, with some even bringing their whole family.
“I’m learning a lot from this conference, especially about mining for gold, silver and copper,” said Deven. “Some of the speakers talking about the economy have really incredible insights.”
The teen listed some commodities and assets he is interested in, including Bitcoin, silver and particularly gold.
“Gold’s been around for 5,000 to 10,000 years. It goes back before recorded history, and it’s probably going to be around for the foreseeable future,” he explained. “So I see it as one of the safest investments anyone could make.”
Lila expressed interest in learning more about the intricacies of the resource sector.
“I’m big into real estate, (but) I don’t know a lot about the mining sector, so I’ve been learning a lot about that,” she said, noting that she had visited the Battle Bank booth and is intrigued by the new financial endeavor.
Richard Hunt, an investor from Chesapeake, Virginia, was attending the conference for his fifth time. Hunt, who was accompanied by his son Matteo, noted that sentiment from fellow attendees was positive.
“I see a sense of encouragement for the market tide to change,” he said.
Although many of this year’s presenters made the case for investment in Bitcoin, Hunt prefers more tangible assets.
“I don’t believe in investing in anything I don’t understand,” he said. “I had no regrets not buying it.”
He went on to explain that part of his investment thesis is being able to lie down at night and not worry.
Gold and silver are among his preferred metals, and he also underscored the opportunity he sees in uranium.
“I like uranium because I see artificial intelligence coming aboard. With Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and other big tech companies, they need energy. And there’s not enough to go around,” he said.
When asked what keeps bringing him back to the Big Easy for the annual New Orleans Investment Conference, Hunt pointed to the community of likeminded investors.
“Here there’s a network of people that are doing the same thing that I’m doing,” he said.
“It’s not just about going to the conference, seeing the booths, it’s interacting with people. And from what I’m seeing, people are positive, people are buying, and people are saying, ‘Yes, it’s been down, but I’m going to buy because I see nowhere for it to go but up.”
Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.