May 10 Episode
01:03:43 Share

Welcome to Money Talks. My name is Mike Campbell. Hey, we have a terrific guest planned for you. You know, oil's on the agenda, of course. We've got President Trump saying he wants $50 oil. Not great news for Canada as an export, but I've got Doug Bartoli on to talk about that. He's in play oil. I wanted someone on the ground to tell me what the actual impact of

of that is. And I think he's going to surprise you or maybe not, but he states clearly that $50 oil is not workable. It can't get that low for any length of time. Doug Bartoli coming up. I've also got really pleased to get Jeff Olin back on the show. He's absolutely one of my favorites, a professional in real estate investment. But the key is he uses the stock market

as his vehicle because the stocks can get oversold, can get overbought, and he's in there. But what's especially fascinating is what he's doing in light of the Trump tariffs. He's on both sides of the border. He can play stocks to go up and down. You'll love his latest, plus some specific picks. I've also got Ozzy on with me. I've got Rob Levy talking about gold with those highs and that volatility we saw this week. And of course, Victor will be here shortly. But first,

I don't know how much you like being played, but Mark Carney's visit with President Trump this week made it crystal clear that we were during the election campaign.

The big question, who is best to deal with President Trump? Well, it took precedent over numerous other pressing issues from the myriad of negative economic stats, the fallout from Prime Minister Trudeau called uncontrolled temporary visas to the 8 million Canadians living in food insecurity. Not much of a mention there as Donald Trump took center stage.

And it's going to be interesting how many Canadians are upset with being played by Prime Minister Carney's election campaign rhetoric and what transpired this week at the White House. It went from, remember this, accusing Donald Trump of trying to, in PM Carney's words, destroy our way of life, along with stating that our old relationship with the U.S. is over, while accusing Donald Trump of trying to break Canada.

Well, the rhetoric obviously worked. As David Coletto of Abacus Polling found, and right at the end, he said, the most consistent and powerful predictor of a liberal vote is a sense that Mark Carney is a better choice to manage the economy and deal with Donald Trump. I mean, 49% of voters over 55 prioritize dealing with Trump as the top issue. And Carney led significantly when it came to that demographic.

That's why the Liberals constantly played on the Trump fear, talking nonstop about elbows up while painting Pierre Polyev as the Canadian version of Trump. Despite Trump himself stating he'd rather see the Liberals win and win their new Oval Office this past Tuesday, Trump went so far as to give himself credit for the Liberal election victory. Then when it comes to a about-face Tuesday for Prime Minister Carney,

Well, think about this. From all that rhetoric, he started the meeting by thanking President Trump for his leadership, calling him a transformational president. I mean, really? Thanking him for his leadership and calling him transformational when Prime Minister Carney, in his own words, said he was trying to destroy our country? Is that what the elbows up crowd had in mind?

Well, obviously not. To be clear, I'm not criticizing, by the way, Mark Carney's demeanor in the Oval Office. I think going after Trump aggressively would have been backfired, made things worse. What I'm critical of, though, is the prime minister and the liberal party treating the public like fools. That same mix of calculated messaging and quiet contempt shows up in plenty of other ways.

And stay tuned, by the way, for the Goofy Award. I got another prominent example from the campaign. But there's going to be no shortage of takes over the right approach to Trump. Many of them from weak and subservient to strong and calculating. Well, it's going to split along party lines. You know what? I can't resist, though, giving you one example. Dean Blundell is Cryer Media News contributor. He wrote in quotes, Donald Trump bent the knee to Canadian PM Mark Carney, begging Canada for friendship.

while Carney calmly dismantled Trump's MAGA bluster. By the way, in that meeting, Mark Carney spoke for just over three minutes, President Trump for about 29. But now listen to what President Trump actually said. We don't need their cars. We don't need their energy. We don't need their lumber. We don't need anything they have other than their friendship. I didn't see much begging in that one.

But what the Oval Office visit should remind us, there is no handling Donald Trump. The key statement in the meeting was Trump's response to a reporter who asked, is there anything Canada could do to get the U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods removed? And Trump responded with, no, that's just the way it is. And that would have been the same answer whether Pierre Polyev was there, Jagmeet Singh was there, or Harvey Mandel or Howie Mandel.

That's the one they would have got. Canada's best hope for a tariff deal is that the mounting backlash from the tariffs, both in the public and Republican ranks, puts enough pressure on President Trump to make a deal. And as the UK-US deal this week reminds us, deals are going to get made, including with Canada, and everyone will take credit. We just need to see the details.

By the way, I know I'm always going on about asking you to support Special Olympics from jumping in cold water of English Bay to offering auction items and sponsorship for the upcoming golf tournament. But one thing I'll tell you, this is a far more difficult environment for raising money for charities. It's the uncertainty. It's worse than the pandemic for that. But

but it doesn't diminish the need to help people with intellectual disabilities like Down syndrome or fragile X, autism. So if you or your company can help with auction items and sponsorships, it would make a huge difference. And if you can do that, there's more information by just going to Mike's money talks.ca and it's right there in the homepage.

And by the way, let me just give a shout out to Sagebrush Golf Course and Merritt who answered our request. They stepped up again with a fabulous stay and play package at their golf course, which by the way, is a great golf course. It was designed by former PGA Tour player Dick Zockel and Rod Whitman. That's the guy who designed the very famous Cabot Lodge in, Cabot Links rather, in Nova Scotia. That's a great package, but that's an example of people stepping up, giving us an auction item. You'll get a chance to bid on it.

And as I say, all I can always say is thank you. It's much needed and deserved. There's so much going on in the oil market. Obviously, you know, incredibly important to Canada's economic growth and our economic stability.

But here you've got President Trump intervening again, like he has in many other sectors, but none more important than this. That's why I'm so happy to get Doug Bartoli on with me in Play Oil, who's been doing very well. Doug, do you consider what you've been hearing and reading about with Trump saying, hey, I want $50 oil? You obviously take note of that. Are you worried about the impact?

Uh, it's not reality. So I'm not worried about it long-term. I mean, short-term, I think anything could happen. Um, but it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. Uh, I mean, $70 is, is the new 50, right? I mean, prior to COVID, like,

shale or shale oil break evens are $45. Today they're 65 or better, right? So 50 was kind of where the minimum had to be to keep going steady at 45. Well, guess what? It's 65 now. You got to have something higher than that for them to be, um,

wanting to drill in the U.S. So his policies are contradicting each other, trying to get OPEC Plus to put more on and telling drill, baby, drill. But again, the breakeven speak for themselves. I mean, since COVID, the inflation has basically risen the cost to find a barrel of crude now. So it's, again, really difficult to see how that's going to work out.

for any length of time. Well, that's exactly what confused me. We took his comment that he wants it at 50, that he was serious. He was sincere. And I'm going, but wait, 10 minutes ago, you told me you want to be self-sufficient in oil as an example, including from Canadian oil. And I'm going,

Well, you're not going to get any drilling, you know, which part of this equation is difficult to understand. It's not worth it, you know, in many of the different areas to start drilling it at 50 bucks, 55 bucks. Or as you've just said, you better get up to 70 if you want to at least encourage, you know, companies to make the choice. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm going on, but because wasn't that the mistake they made? They kept drilling back and say 214 or whatever, the cashflow went down, didn't get the market for it.

Oh, yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, the industry was boom and bust all the time. It was growth for growth's sake. Again, remember, the US went from 18 million to 13 million barrels, hyperbolic production growth. And we've seen it through the times. But the problem is, if you get the market oversupplied, first of all,

Low prices, you oversupply the market, then you get the bust, right? And the pricing comes down. The high prices, of course, cause demand destruction. You oversupply. It's a boom-bust phenomenon that we had to get out of. And after COVID, we did. This industry is starting to run much better businesses. I

What is our key thing as an employee oil? It's not even growth of barrel oils. It's focused on free funds flow. I don't care if you're employee oil or Exxon Mobil, we're all talking free funds flow. We're not talking growth. The growth for growth's sake of production is not part of the business model anymore. It doesn't add up to what

President Trump is saying. It's such a key point to get, though, is that the business approach, the business model has changed completely. Some lessons learned, as you say, have put the industry on a much more stable foundation, you know, and that they guard their cash flow. They're careful with it and they'll look out and they'll go, this is an environment, I'll keep my powder dry. So presto, is it a case of, I know it's simple, but low prices create higher prices in the end because nobody wants to increase supply.

Well, yeah. As long as demand's there and demand grows, which ultimately we'll get back into a growth mode in the world, and we get rid of the extras. Once we get rid of the extra OPEC plus curtailments...

the gloves are off. I don't know where oil is going. We're going to have a problem. It would be so much better in my mind to be sitting at $75, $80. Let's face it. If it's $75, $80 all the time, there's no more inflation. I think the world can handle $80. The world could probably handle $90, but it's the up and down that causes the problem. That's where it sits.

Hopefully, you know, it figures itself out and it always does, but I just hope it's sooner than later. You know, it's interesting. That's why I love having somebody on, you know, direct responsible in the business with InPlay Oil making investments. You made a, you know, a major investment going back just a short while ago. You know, I'm just interested in how it's changed your decision-making or obviously it's just part of that decision-making thing. And I'm wondering, you know,

Does it impact smaller companies more than bigger companies or vice versa? Or what's the sort of landscape? Because it's easy to say the oil industry, but that's, you know, many parts of that industry.

It depends on how big. Some of the bigger guys are integrated, so they're making on the refining end. If they're buying cheaper oil for the refiners, they make a little there. It's different. The other piece of the puzzle is the large companies, the large caps, they're getting bought by index funds. They're on the radar of big funds.

We're not. We're generally heavily retail focused and the institutions, resource institutions have disappeared and the generalists generally have not come down cap and liquidity levels to our level. So I think it hurts us more because we just don't have as much eyes on us and where the large caps continually have eyes on it. When things look good, they're going to those funds first.

But the good thing we get, we'll get torquey, right? It's just like 21. Like if you were not invested in the oil industry in 21, you, you were going to be well behind the return curve as a fund. Like, you know, for example, we were up 960%. Like, so,

So the funds always come back there. I would say they're kind of like cheap, right? They, once they see, uh, uh, you know, they don't want to be behind the curve and, and, and when things are looking good and we're going to have $80 Royals for the next year, two, three years, that's when they come back. And that's when we see multiple expansion on our cashflow multiples and things. but,

And we're going to be like we get to be the last. But in the meantime, that's why we pay a dividend. And, you know, we're paying people to wait and be patient with us, you know, with the industry as we go. But it is definitely I think it's harder on the small intermediates. And the other thing, of course, you're dealing with, and I want to finish with this, is that you're dealing with a change, not a change in government. In fact, maybe the oil industry wish there was a change in government. There wasn't.

I put out something the other day where Mark Carney had promised, you know, the biggest transformation of the Canadian economy without a single detail. And I don't believe there was a single voter who could have given me a detail. But obviously, in the past, the oil and gas industry has not been supported by the federal government. It's been restricted by the federal government, restricted by, you know, Mark Carney has said he's not repealing the anti, you know, the pipeline bill, which is sort of anti-oil policy.

What does that mean to you? Does that mean you just got to step aside and do business until you see how it sorts out? I mean, there's a lot of information that you need. Yeah. I mean, you know what, like, and that, and that, those policies are all of us, like large and small and, and it hurts investment in Canada. So again, it's the same thing, right? Like, um,

We trade lower multiples than the US counterparts. We have lower debt than them to boot, lower leverage ratios, but we still trade at lower multiples. And of course, we get the benefit of our weaker dollar because we sell with real US dollars, but it doesn't matter. I mean, their policies have not helped us.

But, I mean, we just got to keep chugging through and fighting that fight. And, I mean, again, I think our premier is doing a good job with that on many fronts. But, you know, I know who we elected. I mean, you know, I guess I'll say it's change, but I don't know how much change it is, right? That's where the problem is. But, you know...

With the terror threats from Trump and everything there, there seems to be a lot more unity within the country to get resources to other people in the states. Now, does that get through to that? Yeah, with this government, that's the million-dollar question, right? I was talking earlier to some guys, and the bottom line is,

The proof will be in who he puts in his cabinet in some key positions.

in our minds here. Well, I'll be seeing you and the rest of the industry is going to keep a close watch. But, you know, it was funny. I'll just finish with this just because I had to smile when the immediate announcement of the tariffs came in early February and people who had opposed the oil and gas industry and fought hard against it, all of a sudden were saying it was our most important weapon in the war with Trump. And I predicted that, I think, well, that it would last 10 minutes. But,

But yeah, I mean, it's a wait and see attitude, but that does not benefit an economy that is already sliding, capital investment problems, competitiveness problems. So I think, you know, they have a huge, what I think is not understood well. There's a credibility problem. We can be as hopeful as we can, but would you believe the guys? It's got to be from Missouri. You got to show me at this point because of that track record.

Oh, yeah, exactly. You're bang on. Like, we'll see. You know, I mean, we're hopeful. But, right, it's like proofs of the pudding coming soon. So that's where we're at. There we go. Doug, it's great to talk with you as always. And I do appreciate you finding time for us. Hey, pleasure. Anytime. And good luck with InPlay Oil. Done very well. Stable dividends, etc. Check it out. InPlay Oil. Doug Bartoli.

For the quote of the week, just a little walk down memory lane. You know, in 2018, Canada and the U.S. also had a tariff dispute. That was the first Trump presidency. Well, it's interesting to go back and review what was said at that time. I'll start with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said in quotes,

There is certainly a level of clarity for Canadians, for businesses, for everyone across the country that we need to diversify our markets. We need to ensure that we are not as dependent on the United States. We got another one from Jim Carr. He was a minister of international trade diversification who stated, diversification is a national imperative. Trade diversification is a critical plank to our competitiveness.

End of quote. Well, I think we all know not much was done. I mean, the U.S. is still our dominant trading partner by far. Obviously, there's so much talk about what's going on in the market, but I wanted to talk also one of the most popular markets is to talk about real estate.

That's why I'm so pleased to have Jeff Olin on with me. Of course, Vision Capital, who does tons of business on both sides of the border, but also can play the market to go down. And I'll tell you from our audience's point of view, he's made him a lot of money in the past when a sector goes sour. So I thought perfect guy to get his perspective on. Jeff, thank you for taking the time.

Thanks for having me. Good morning to you. Now, let's start with, again, how can we not? The impact of the Trump tariffs, the uncertainty that that's created, impact on business on both sides of the border.

Yeah, it's obviously the elephant in the room. And I think even bigger picture, respectfully, the orange haired guy south of the border is even a bigger issue. That's just one of many things. And frankly, I think every asset class globally needs an additional risk premium associated with them for the foreseeable future during this presidency, because there's no telling what's going to happen tomorrow. To your heart of your question, tariffs, the elephant in the room in Canada and elsewhere.

You know, the advantage we have at Vision is we're not passive investors. We're active investors. And we can focus on those sectors. And our base case at Vision today is a recession. So we're not here to be bulls for real estate. Our base case right now is a recession. As you know, we've been at per capita recession in Canada for years. But bigger picture, our base case is a recession. So we're focusing on themes.

that don't have exposure to either recession

or tariffs, and we can do that in public markets. And similarly, we're also looking at sectors, as you alluded to, that are going to be troubled by recession and tariffs, and we have the advantage of being short to benefit from price declines in the securities. Yeah, and just a reminder that Vision Capital makes their real estate investments within the stock markets.

You know, and of course, that advantage is instant liquidity. That would be one thing. But you can also then evaluate whether, hey, this thing's way overvalued or this thing's way undervalued. And that's why you've managed to post gains every single year in operation. And I just think that's an important thing for people to understand. I think it's an important advantage for you guys that that's available to you.

Yeah, that is certainly an advantage of being in public markets. You know, we can buy, you know, our mantra is we buy real estate cheaper in the stock market than one can in the property market. We get professional management, we get corporate governance, we get geographic diversification, we get property type diversification. Nobody calls us in the middle of the night to fix the heater.

And we have liquidity, so we can be nimble. And as we said, if the fundamentals are negative or deteriorating, our valuation is too high, we can take advantage of that by being short. What do you like right now? I mean, first of all, let's start either geographically or sector or whatever. I mean, what occurs to you when you're sort of saying, hey, there's some opportunity here that our team is looking at?

Yeah, I mean, we're always pretty focused, as you know, on the long side. So today we like necessity-based grocery-anchored shopping centers. You know, whether it's good times, bad times, people need to eat. So those, not fashion, but the grocery anchor is key. And then you look at the ancillary tenants.

I mean, you can't get your shoes fixed online. You can't get your nails done online. You know, you can't get your teeth cleaned online. So the ancillary tenants are not susceptible to e-commerce. That's one sector. We'd like seniors housing, um,

where you have demographics in your favor. You've had a significant shortage of supply. As we touched on the precursor to our chat today, none of us are getting any younger. And this is a sector that's done really well coming out of some of the challenges of the pandemic with occupancy going up. We like data centers. I mean, this is something your listeners can't do without.

in the property market. You know, you wake up every morning and you read the Wall Street Journal or the Globe and Mail and there's some institution that says, I got to be in data centers. We say, how?

How exactly are you going to do that? You don't have any development capability. You don't have any global technology relationships. This is a sector with explosive growth and there's some really well-managed public entities that in light of what's happened in global macro, you can now buy them at compelling values. We like manufactured housing communities. This is affordable housing.

This sector has never had, ever, 12 months of declining net operating income, including the Great Recession. So those are some of the sectors that we like and we have exposure to today at Vision. By the way, is there a difference for you looking at the U.S. markets versus the Canadian markets? Because that's where you're hunting, forgive that expression. Absolutely. So we say that our blood at Vision is supply and demand.

by property type, by geographic region. Some of the cliches you hear in real estate, we believe are nonsense. Location, location, location. You know, you could have had, as you've alluded to, office buildings in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, or San Francisco, California, the best located buildings. How's that going for you? Not so good.

Interest rates. Interest rates are important. They're always trumped by supply and demand. So today, for example, we continue to like the industrial sector, even though it's susceptible to tariffs. But we're doing it on a paired, long, short basis. So we're more cautious than the U.S., which has had a lot of new supply and Canada vacancy rates are lower.

And we've shifted away from the big box, major regional distribution centers, which all the new supply has been that big box. That, you know, so-called obsolete real estate, you know, in inner core Vancouver or Toronto, that 20-foot clear height ceiling, which nobody builds, that's getting the highest rent because you can't replace it.

And that's driving last mile e-commerce distribution. And we're avoiding the big regional distribution centers. So we shifted more out of the U.S., more to small bay away from large bay. We like seniors housing more in Canada just because there's been less supply. Occupancy has recovered more quickly. We like manufactured housing everywhere, but you can't buy it in Canada. So we like that in the United States.

And we like grocery-anchored shopping centers on both sides of the border, but Canada is much more compelling because there's been much less supply, and they're just very high-quality enterprises in Canada. So it gives you some flavor. Yeah, I'll ask specifics in a moment, but I just want to get your take on just the evaluations. You know, you get the macro situation, and the whole market comes down at one point,

You know, obviously that must create some opportunities, things you've had your eye on. You go, OK, well, that's a better deal now.

Indeed. So, you know, a couple of frames on that. You know, why do we have the opportunity to deliver, you know, not losing money for our clients, if you will. Yeah. Is that, you know, when you're buying at a discount, you know, one of my former clients used to say, I think I've shared this with you in the past, it's hard to fall out of bed when you're sleeping on the floor. So if you're buying at a 30% discount and now market's correct, okay, now it's a 20% discount. But the bigger picture,

is the difference between real estate and any other asset class is the size of the property market dwarfs the size of the public market. There is an arbitrage between the two. We say we'd rather not compete with Blackstone. We'd rather sell to Blackstone.

which we've done on four occasions in the last five years. So you see, I think the latest data from an independent source, Prequent, is $600 billion of dry powder sitting with the Blackstones and Brookfields private equity funds, fully funded, sitting in cash, looking to buy real estate properties.

As long as there's that demand for real estate properties, our approach of buying at a discount looks kind of interesting. In fact, there was an article in the paper a couple of days ago, you know, Brookfield's, you know, raised the largest fund ever in terms of buying distressed properties. And so it is an interesting time in terms of valuations coming down and making that opportunity on the upside more compelling.

You know, what's fascinating also, I mean, you cover the whole market. When I listen to you, Jeff, over the years and read your stuff, it really does, I think, make such a case why you hire experts, in other words, fund managers. You give a nice flavor of how sophisticated your approach is, but how

complicated the market is. I mean, you know, I simply put it at the beginning, geographical, you know, different types of real estate usage. And of course you've done well with that, but I'm just saying to me, I listen, I go, this is why you get a professional involved because you like the sector and they do all the homework for you and use their expertise. Forgive me for throwing such a big question or broad question out, but you guys have done very well with REITs over the years, you know, both sides of that up, down, you know, different locations.

Can you give me just a quick hit on REITs? Sure. In terms of? Well, just are you seeing opportunities there? Yeah. I mentioned grocery anchored shopping centers. Our largest holding in the fund today is the units here in Canada, First Capital REIT. It's trading around $17. Net asset value, depending on who you talk to, is between $22 and $24 a share, a unit. So 25% to 30% discount.

to the value of the real estate you know close to four billion dollar market cap and you're getting a five percent dividend yield um you know we also like primaris different it's more malls some of the fashion exposure but today you're buying into primaris at a nine percent cap rate a nine percent unlevered

trading at a 26% discount to the value of the real estate and getting a 6% distribution yield. So that's one area, as I mentioned, we like. I mentioned manufactured housing communities. So we own Sun Communities, which is a $16 billion New York Stock Exchange listed REIT. This sector, because of the attractiveness that I mentioned at the outset, typically trades at a big premium.

to the net asset value. Between 2011 and 2021, traded at 24% premium to net asset value. You can buy into Sun today at a 10% discount. There's some activism there. You're going to see transition there. I mean, we mentioned Blackstone.

Six weeks ago, Blackstone spent $6 billion to buy the marina business from Sun Communities and allow Sun to go back to being a pure play manufacturing housing community and RV park enterprise data centers. I mean, from the biggest to the smallest, I mean, we have digital, we have ownership at Equinix, which some of your audience, it's an $85 billion market cap.

You can buy into Equinix today, a leader in this space globally, at a 20% discount to our view of value and a nice sort of smaller cap name. We have something called Digital Core, which is listed in the Singapore Stock Exchange, but their properties are in Toronto and Frankfurt and Tokyo and the United States. You're getting almost a 7% dividend yield.

and a 22% discount to value in data centers. And finally, I mentioned seniors housing. Um, we like Sienna, uh, living senior living, uh, listed on TSX SIA. It's a symbol, um, yield 5.4%, $1.6 billion market cap trading at a discount to net asset value. So those are some of that. We also like industrial on the long side of our pair dream industrial. Um,

You know, this is trading at a 40% discount to net asset value. At $10, you're getting a close to 7% yield on a $3 billion market cap, small bay industrial. In Canada, mostly Toronto, Montreal, and a little bit out west in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.

I mean, wow. I mean, 40% discount for some of the best located industrial properties, certainly in Canada, if not globally. In fact, Prologis, which is the big name in REITs generally, never mind industrial, labeled Toronto as the best industrial market they see globally.

Wow. But there's a great example of the approach you take. I mean, first of all, you have to do the research, then you do the evaluation, and then you can get a dividend kicker. You know, I love, you know, sorry, DigitalCore, you know, because I would never know about DigitalCore. You know, I mean, it's in Singapore, even though, as you say, it's the properties are, you know, in North America and Canada, but I would never have heard of it.

But, you know, you get a nice discount, well, a significant discount, I should put it that way. And then you get a dividend yield of 6.7%, you know, nearly 7%. You know, it's no wonder. No, we love it. I don't think our trader loves it when he has to get up at 2 in the morning to trade the stock, but it's a good thing. Yeah. And then, you know, how do we get through these crazy days? You know, you wake up, you know, in March and April, it's like, wow, this is just really crazy.

And the answer is we have to eat our own cooking. We remember, I wake up like, nevermind the stock market. We own some of the best grocery anchored shopping centers in the world. We own retirement homes in some of the best locations in Canada. We have exposure to data centers with explosive growth. That's, and then we say, wow, tariffs. Well, you know, global international investors aren't going to want to come to the United States. So geez, we shouldn't own hotels. Wait a minute. We're short hotels.

Life science in the United States, you have 30%. So there's three big pockets of life science in the United States. Cambridge, Massachusetts, San Diego, and San Francisco. The biggest by far is Cambridge. You have 30% vacancy in the market today. Another 15% of the inventory is underdeveloped with new construction with limited tenants.

This is going to be ugly. So we're short. Yeah. Fascinating. The other thing, we only touched on it, but I want to because you've got a great track record this way. But it's part of the deal. What have you had, 20, 21 takeovers? You know, stuff you know. We've had 21 takeovers in our portfolio holdings the last 16 years at an average premium of 28%.

So, I mean, that's the value proposition. If you know what I mean, you're looking for value, you see these discounts. That's the other thing we didn't talk about. I want to also make sure people know the, the, the, and maybe help me with this a little bit. Of course, you've got the vision opportunity fund that you launched first. And then, you know, you've got the vision, uh, alternative. Is that what it's called? Vision alternative income fund. So it's perspective space version. Um,

You can buy that in as low as the nomination you like. You get the same, uh,

holdings, the same fees, the same reduction terms in a prospectus where your advisor can point and click and buy it on their desktop without a lot of subscription forms. It's just the democratization for investors through that regulators gave rise to providing that opportunity in 2018 and we provided that opportunity for a

clients starting in 2019. Yeah, great stuff, Jeff, as usual. I know you're busy, but this has just been fascinating. And it always is. I mean, I read a ton of people and I've been around for way too long. But we always appreciate your expertise. And I just think it puts a new perspective for a lot of people listening on the opportunities and how to play it safe, risk averse, but

value-oriented, as you say. I still love it. You said you mentioned it before, but I love it. If you start in the ground, you don't have far to fall. So you can then take advantage of these declines. But as I said right up front, I know for our audience, you also made a lot of money for them playing sectors you didn't like or individual stocks you thought had got way ahead of themselves. So a big advantage for the fund. Jeff, thanks for finding time. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me.

I think I can make the case that gold has been an all-star story for over 20 years, but obviously more recently over the last couple of years. I'm thrilled. It's been our number one recommendation for people on Money Talks, along with things like uranium, by the way, locking in your mortgage four years ago, all of those things. But we continue to watch these record movements. The volatility jumps out.

That's why I'm so pleased to have Rob Levy with me. You should find him at bordergold.com. Rob, you're in the business. You know what it's like, but come on. This week, the volatility, I guess it's just the magnitude continues to increase.

Absolutely, Mike. It knocks you to the back of your seat a couple of times when you see these kind of moves. You wake up overnight or in the morning and see the action in the gold market. You know, once again, we're within sort of touching distance of that all-time record high in U.S. dollars near $3,500 U.S. the ounce. But once again, this week up over $3,400.

the US the ounce. And you have these days when you're up or down around $100. You know, $10 a day used to be a big move. And now you don't get something hedged in time. Look out.

That's what's blown me away. You know, I mean, obviously, and it's, you know, it's normal that people, attention all of a sudden gravitates. And it seems like, does it worry you? I'm just talking not as the, you know, border gold where you do a ton of business with people who want gold and can sell their gold or other precious metals too. But does it worry you just looking at it as a price action? I've been sort of more cautious recently because of the sort of parabolic-like move.

Absolutely. And it's so reactive to everything that's going on in the market. And gold at times can be a thin market. So if everyone crowds into the trade, it can move, as you said, very quickly. So for someone who's a bit of a market maker, buying and selling to customers, it does present challenges for us with some of that quick volatility. And, you know, you get these periods like we're in right now where it seems to cluster a little bit.

and you have a lot of action, you're waiting for things to settle down a little bit. But as you said, yeah, it makes it a little exciting in the day-to-day. Well, yeah, I just want to come back to the overall market, but just your personal experience this week. You know, I mean, are you seeing, or not just this week, I mean, over the recent time when gold's had a more obvious up move, are you getting a lot of foot traffic saying, can I buy it? Are you getting the foot traffic saying, should I sell it?

You know, that's what makes this market a little more interesting is where we had a little more trends of one-sidedness over the past maybe 18 months where we were net buyers or we were net sellers. You sort of see the shift back and forth day to day. And there is new interest in this gold market even at, you know, 3,400 U.S. There's people coming into the market to buy and put on positions. So it's not necessarily one-sided, which can make it a little bit more interesting for us. Not rampant demand at these levels, but there's...

but there's still enough to move some metal. Well, as you say, as you start sniffing, you know, whatever, 4,500 Canadian, you know, per ounce and higher, you know, I can see that it's a significant change. And this is where everyone kicks themselves. Even if they own gold, they say, why didn't I own more? Why didn't I sell three of the children and exchange them for gold? You know? So, yeah, I mean, these are fascinating times. But what I sense a little bit differently here is that

We've been chronicling with Victor, you know, central bank buying for ages, you know, that again, I still go back to, you know, the confiscation of assets, you know, as the outset of the Ukraine war. I always thought that the government freezing bank accounts, you know, the truckers was a more significant signal. And you certainly have a lack of confidence in the system. And man, you know,

as Doomburg said last week, you know, you're seeing a lot of Chinese, let's get out of the treasuries and let's get into something else like gold. Yeah. And as you said, it continues to be the trend. And, you know, I even like to say the de facto bid in this market, you look at recent data and it's the People's Bank of China continuing to amass gold holdings over the past half year with fresh data from April. And it's sort of that

key figure, a thousand metric tons a year. And I think you bring up the key point, Mike, it's the asset without any counterparty risks. So central banks around the world, be it China, be it South America, be it parts of Eastern Europe, it's not necessarily that they have to sell all their U.S. treasuries and buy gold. But as treasuries expire, as their bonds expire and they rotate a little bit out of that fiat currency and continue to be that supportive bid in the gold market, you know,

Amongst all the other stuff that's going on, even to relate it to silver, people can say, how can the gold to silver ratio blow out to 100 to 1? It's the fact central banks are buying gold and they're the bid in the market.

Right. And they're not buying silver, you know, silver has been a solid performer. I would call that, you know, uh, but yeah, I think that's such a key point you're making, like who is doing the buying. And that's also why I think, uh, you know, I think people should make a distinction in their own portfolios. What is my long-term stuff and what is something I'm more willing to trade in and out of, you know, what percentage of gold, because I think it's two different conversations. I don't think there's anything, uh,

No rationale, nothing changed that would say as a core position you want out of it. Like governments all of a sudden didn't get more responsible. The tensions in China, US didn't, you know, didn't get dramatically lower, you know, so the Chinese aren't going to want to exchange gold for treasury bills, you know, that kind of thing. So that stays, but I think on the shorter term, you know, yeah, I mean, it's hard to look at a parabolic move and then say, I don't think it'll correct. I mean, it may not. I'm just saying it's tough to say that.

No, and I agree with you. And we have these kind of volatilities. And those are the days we see the buyers come into the market. So, for example, Thursday of this past week, and you have gold come down by 80 to $100 the ounce. And people who are watching and saying, okay, maybe I want to dip my toe in, you know, there's your opportunity because you get that little bit of a pullback. But, you know, the other thing, you just go back in the first quarter of this year and you look at some of the market moves we've had or first

four or five months of this year. And the fact that gold has been that sort of beacon of stability in the portfolio. And I know it's been going on for a couple of years now, but, you know, stocks and bonds are moving together. So where is your hedge other than a little bit of the safety of precious metals in your portfolio that prove that they're not correlated to the other asset classes? So, you know, what's the worst case scenario if the gold and silver goes down? Hopefully that means other parts of your portfolio are doing well.

A great point. Now, people can find more by going to bordergold.com. Border Gold, you write a weekly kind of summary of what you're seeing out there. And what a great time to be in the gold business, Rob. And that's why also a great time to be on Money Talks. Thank you. Appreciate you having me. Thanks, Mike.

Time now for the shocking stat of the week. You might remember in January, a Pew Research poll found 78% of Canadians believed their children will be financially worse off than they are. Just 16% said they'd be better off. Well, that echoed an Angus Reid poll from the year before that found two-thirds of Canadians expect the next generation to have a lower standard of living.

Now, if the polling's accurate, this may be the first election where younger Canadians decisively voted and voiced their frustration, especially over affordability and housing.

The generational divide was clear. 52% of voters age 55 and older backed the Liberals, compared to just 34% for those under 55. Well, if you look at Canadians 18 to 34, well, they voted Conservative 41%, only 32% for the Liberals. Even if you raise that age to 35 to 54, it was still 46 to 39%.

As Ron Butler points out, employment participation for the people under 25 is at the lowest level since 2008. Home ownership rates for those under 35, the lowest level in 40 years. While the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver, well, it exceeds around, on average, $2,300 per month last year. Well,

Well, that's like 50% of the after-tax income for most young workers. From 2015 to 2024, real per capita income for Canadians under 35 remained virtually flat. And arguably the most disturbing stat that we all should pay attention to if we care about Canada's future

In 2024, Angus Reid's survey found that 42% of native-born young Canadians are contemplating moving to another country, citing economic challenges and sociopolitical factors as primary concerns. And I can tell you anecdotally, I have two sons in that age group. One is gone forever. The other is getting offers to go. But it's how many of their friends are out of this country now.

And like so many other, though, important issues that didn't rate even a mention during the federal election campaign, this one didn't. And I hope that shocks or at least saddens you at least as much as it does me.

Always lucky to be able to bring in Ozzy Jurek to talk about the latest real estate news, the latest numbers that are coming through. Ozzy, great to see you. But let me just start with something else here. And that is you've been talking and just making people alert to the fact that there, you know, people talk about, are they going to remove the primary residence exemption, you know?

And I love your point that I want to reiterate here because you've got a great YouTube video on it. There's two separate issues around that. Maybe I didn't explain that well, but maybe you could. Well, the first is the principal residence exemption. And it's been my view and your view is it's always been that real estate seems to be in the crosshairs of our government, particularly the tax department.

And so they asked us to register in 2017 our title. And what for, right, if they didn't have a plan? Well, and in my view, it is they're really looking at the resident exemption. And if you take, for instance, right now, if you bought a home yourself, your first home, new home,

and sell it in the first year, you already have 100% taxation. It's already gone. So how easy is that for the government to say, let's make it two years or three, and so it's under attack. But the home equity tax is something entirely different. It means we old people, anybody over 50,

We're squeezing the poor generation and we have to tax them every year. It's a long story, but 1% on a $2 million house, that's 20,000 a year. In 10 years, you owe the government $200,000 and so on and so on. Never mind, you paid all the increase in insurance and taxes and all that to get you to that. So people are very interested in seeing that. My thing was I expected them to really, really go to town on watching that video before the election.

I have most of them. I've watched them right now. I've got almost 10,000 people now. Where were they before the election? Yeah.

No, but it's a key point on both pints. Where were they? You know, I don't mind where people vote, but you should consider what the issues are. And I think this could be a principal issue. And as you point out, it has been. Some changes have been made that haven't been noted by a lot of people. We've clearly seen that real estate is in the eyes of government as a possible cash producer. You know, infamously out in British Columbia, you had the former head of the Green Party who was in coalition with

with the NDP party when they put in the so-called speculation tax. And their own partner in government said it was a cash cow. That's all they were trying to do. So it's a very legitimate thing to be examining. But let's turn to what's going on across the country in the actual real estate market. Because, man, it looks like when you look at the size of the listings growth in so many areas, I mean, it's clearly a shift.

Yeah, it's a combination of lower sales in Toronto, for instance, where sales are down about 24% across the board and condo sales are down 33%. Actually, it's a 10-year low. The lowest, the average was always over almost 35% more than what it is now. And the listings in Toronto are up about 55% and prices are down between 7% and 7.8%.

whether you're on area code 905 or 416. But the point is,

It's a serious downturn. You go to Calgary and you think Calgary is always good, isn't it? Well, sales are down 23% and active listings, Mike, are up a whopping 112%. Now, prices are still up, but, you know, usually when sales go down and listings go up, there's a high crunch. And Edmonton, which has always been a stalwart, saw a down market in sales, some 13%. Listings are up just marginally and prices are still up 8% to 10%.

And no relief in Vancouver either. It's, you know, this is across the country thing. Well, Vancouver is really, you know, we see so many news, but we sold 580 single family homes in Vancouver. Last year, we sold 812. So it's a whopping almost 30% down. But that's not the story.

You go to 2022, we had 959. In 21, we had 1,662. That's the eye-opener, right? And our active listings are up in single-family about 38%. And it's not much different in the Fraser Valley. The interesting thing on prices, single-family homes and prices are down about 8%. But since last June, they're actually down 15%. So we've seen quite a bit of crunch on the price as well.

Well, and again, I mean, the number I would look at is those listings have been exploding. The sales have been, you know, going down and the Toronto market and anything I read there, they say it's a disaster, but the relationship is nobody's going to build. Why would they build an ad product in a market that has as a wash with products? So all of this stuff from the politicians about we're going to build X and Y, it's not going to happen, not in this environment.

You're not supposed to build 500,000 houses at the same time they're attacking the investor and the investor says, it'd be better putting my money in the bank and get 5%. It'd be better off than risking all this. It's okay when we speculate in the stock market. We are good guys, but if we try and get buildings built with our money, that somehow has to be taxed the heck out of it. So nobody is buying and nobody is building.

Just a quick thing on, this is a great market if you're a buyer just because of the level of inventory out there. And I know it's something that you've written about in AusBuzz for years. This is the kind of market that you'd call good from the buyer's perspective, not from the seller's, from the buyer's perspective, when you have this level of

inventory, and it's not some big rush anymore. So, you know, give me a couple of hints about how they should approach it if I'm a buyer in these markets. Oh, Mike, you're so right. I'm glad you brought that up because that's the point. For some reason, we love a market where we pay $100,000 more from the place that the guy is even asking. You know, that's a good market. No, it isn't. Not for the buyer.

If you believe in the future of Canada, and in particularly BC in Canada, and you realize in the last 50 years we've only gone one way over time, and that is up in prices, then you want a market where the realtor has time, where the mortgage broker has time, where the five-year fixed term is under 4%. You've got everything for you, so make that stink. The developer might surprise you and drop it.

Right now, there's several developers offering discounts of $40,000 or $30,000 or a new car. When did we have that before? And you know what happens? Psychology takes over. Nobody's buying. I'm going to wait. And then, of course, it's finished. Well,

Well, I'm stepping in and saying I have confidence in Alberta. Sorry for that. I'm not sorry for it, but I mean, I look around and I think Alberta's, you know, I still think that energy market's going to turn around even further to the good, you know, uh,

We'll see. I mean, we have a new federal government. As we talked to Doug Bartoli earlier, we've got to see a lot of things to really make that assessment. But yeah, I do have confidence in that market. Well, we'll be here to chronicle it, Ozzy, and people can do it on a weekly basis with ozbuzz.ca. But also, as you were mentioning, if you haven't checked out...

you know, the potential tax implications if we have changes. Go to Oz Jurek, but just type it in, Ozzy Jurek, on YouTube. Watch it there. Ozzy, in the meantime, go out and have a great weekend. Thanks, Mike. And I just thought I'd leave this thought with you that rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. And it's just not fair that some men should be happier than others.

I love it. Ozzy's another effort, another shot to get me in trouble. Ozjurik, Ozbuzz.ca. I'm going to go live to the trading desk now. I've got Victor Adair with me. Something you've done on VictorAdair.ca, Vic, is just talk about this huge transition from, you know, I mean, everybody used to say, what the heck is the Federal Reserve going to do? And now they say, what the heck is Trump going to do? I mean, it is a significant change.

It seems there, Mike, for a few years, I was always saying, well, you know, it's all about the Fed. That's that. Nothing else really matters. Well, now nobody even knows where the Fed is, I guess. But it's so focused on Trump. And let's put it this way. Back in the middle of February, you know, the new golden era under Trump, it was going to be American exceptionalism on steroids, you know, and the stock market was at all time highs. And then, you

like on the 7th of April, a couple of months later, after Trump's had his liberation day and put tariffs up to 145% on the Chinese, it's like, holy mackerel, we've gone from pillar to post. The S&P is down 22%. Stock markets all around the world were like that. So the negative sentiment was just extreme. And

And we have come back from that extreme low that we had. So we were extremely bullish back in February, extremely bearish beginning of April, and now we've come back somewhere in the middle in terms of Senate.

We also had, you know, President Trump saying, you better go out and buy stocks. Oh, that was a beauty. That was the headline of the week. The president of the United States is putting out on social media, like the short sentence, better go out and buy stocks. I mean, I can't imagine any other president ever doing that, but it was there. And interestingly enough, it defined the high on the stock market for this week.

Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm just, again, all about Trump. I mean, the impact of that, as you said, probably because no other president's done that kind of thing, you know, and he's been very clear about that in the past. And here, he's just willing to go anywhere. We're going to fire the Federal Reserve president. No, we won't. Yes, we will. You know, it was also all about Trump because not just, you know, the golden era and then the tariffs, but there was this...

I called it the sell America sentiment that was out there because the stock market was down, the dollar was down, gold was at new all-time highs, and bond prices were down. But there was also this thing that it looked like there was capital repatriating away from America back to other countries as people thought, hey, can you still trust the Americans to keep their commitments? And that was very important. That was probably the scariest thing in the market.

Well, and as I said at the top of the show, you know, deals are going to be made like they were with the UK this week. So the market also liked that, that sort of, I don't know if you call it a glimmer of hope, but they're saying we've got negotiations in 15 major countries and then peripheral countries. I think it's clear the deals are going to get made. We'll have to see what the details are. But that fear seems to be leaving the market. You know, the risk on seems to be returned.

Yeah, you know, I obviously pay attention to news items, but I also I trade off of how markets correlate one with the other. And I really think the driving force is sentiment. For instance, Mike, this year, even with the stock market, the S&P down 22 percent, retail never stopped buying.

They kept buying. Then that's important to me. Certainly also in this bounce, we've seen a high level in April, a very high level of corporate buybacks where they came in and bought shares. And now as the market has rallied, people who were shorting it on the way down, you know, they're coming in and they're buying what we call the systematics, the ones that are sort of mechanical trading funds. You know, they're in here buying as well. I think we've kind of got back to kind of a neutral market.

sentiment right now just across the board. And, you know, we'll see where we go from here. And certainly we've got the China-U.S. trade negotiations. Everybody's looking forward to see what happens to that this weekend. You know, there's not going to be any shortage of stuff to trade, that's for sure.

Let's finish quickly. We chatted with Rob Levy earlier about gold and that trading range, which you had been talking about, too. You know, but that was a risk off trade, it seemed like, coming out of Asia. Yeah, going to $3,500. I've been writing in my blog and sharing this with some other people as well.

I think for the last year anyway, the price of gold has been discovered in Shanghai. I think New York and London have just kind of tagged along with that. And, you know, I could go into greater detail as I do on my blog, but that's the nuts and bolts of it. The Chinese have been buying gold like there's no tomorrow. And that's been the most important thing in the gold market, period.

No, they probably chased it a little too much to the upside, and then they will do that. But we'll see. Yeah. And again, traders, long-term, that kind of thing. But I think it represents a fundamental shift. And now, usually, as you know, Vic, you get well into a move, and all the forecasts about it's going to go 25,000 times higher. I never forget that in oil. I'm trying to think off the top of my head if it was 214 or whatever. And they literally had lots of

you know, people with reputations talking about $400 oil, you know, because once you start going and you see it in the downside, you know, you start getting the downside and the Great Depression is tomorrow morning, you know, so that's that sentiment you talk about.

The sentiment in the market gets more extreme, both to the bullish side and the bearish side, or the optimistic and pessimistic, whatever, than it does in real life. That's just how it is. The stock market, the financial markets are more emotional than we are in our everyday life.

Well, as I say, you'll be there to chronicle it, victoradare.ca. There's so much going on. You know, every week is a busy week because of the nature of things. Vic, thanks for taking the time. We appreciate it as always. Time now for this week's Goofy Award.

Let me start with enough already with the talk of Canada joining the U.S. to become the 51st state. Enough of politicians trying to deflect our attention from serious problems within their control. Enough with the media using it as clickbait or a come on to watch the news. Enough of Canadian commentary at weighing in without any sign of doing a smidgen of research. Because if they'd had, they'd know it's pure BS. Started by Trump.

Now, whether he started it with the goal of helping Mark Carney and the Liberal Party, with many in the media only too willing to go along, or maybe it was just typical brand of

S-disturbing to get a reaction. But no matter what, President Trump's motivation, a little homework on our part would have helped. Starting with, Trump doesn't have the authority to admit a new state. Under Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the power to admit new states. Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate would need to pass a bill approving Canada's admission.

On Canada's part, though, we'd need to hold a referendum on whether to dissolve the country. Come on, they'd need a strong majority to be in favour. And there's no sign that even a small minority, and not a single main political party, supports the idea. Practically, it would be a nightmare, though. Canada would have to draft a state constitution that aligns with the U.S.,

We'd also need to align with U.S. taxation, banking, monetary system, adopt the U.S. dollar while dismantling existing judicial, parliamentary, and healthcare system. The U.S. would have to decide on something like bilingualism. In short, a practical nightmare. Make that an impossibility. As I said, it's not like we're lacking serious issues to discuss.

Yet here we are, letting Trump hijack the conversation with such absurd fantasy of making Canada the 51st state. And anyone who pushed that story, especially politicians hoping to score cheap points, and the media treating it like it was anything more than another bombastic Trumpism, should proudly wear the G for the goofy hat.

After all, Trump is the same man, remember, who thought he belonged on Mount Rushmore. He wanted to buy Greenland and warn that wind turbine noise might cause cancer. As I said, enough said. That's all the time I have this week. By the way, I was thinking, though...

Like, where do you, I mean, the mainstream media is just so hamstrung by probably financial and budgetary issues, but where are you going to get the full story? Well, on a regular basis on Money Talks tweets and on Michael Campbell's Facebook, but especially on Five Minutes with Mike, well, we bring you stories and quotes, et cetera, that you're not going to find elsewhere. So I invite you to go to Mike's Money Talks.ca, Mike's Money Talks.ca and click on Five Minutes with Mike.

Join a huge crowd. I'm thrilled with it. And I think you're going to find it's enjoyable. And by the way, the other thing I'm on about all the time, because we do need the help. People with intellectual disabilities need the help. I am the chairman of the Special Olympics Golf Tournament. I'm spending a ton of time on it. It's a

held in Mayfair Lakes out in Richmond, British Columbia on June 12th. But we need auction items. So if you can help or help with a sponsorship yourself or through your business, we would really appreciate it. Just go to Mike's Money Talks dot C and get all the information there and sign up. I look forward to it. In the meantime, I hope you go out and have a terrific week.