What Markets Are Missing: Commodities, AI & the Next Investment Cycle

Recorded live at 121 Mining Investment New York, Lyndsay Malchuk sits down with Edward Meir, President of Commodity Research Group, to explore the forces shaping the next investment cycle. From AI and energy demand to inflation, debt, geopolitics and commodity markets, the discussion examines how seemingly disconnected trends are converging to reshape the global economy. What are investors overlooking today, and which signals could prove most important in the years ahead? 

Featuring: Edward Meir, Commodity Research Group

Guest Host: Lyndsay Malchuk, Apaton Media

Recorded live at 121 Mining Investment New York.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Assay Podcast, where mining meets capital, powered by one-to-one mining investment. Today we are coming live from our event in New York City. Please note this podcast is for information only and isn't financial advice or recommendation to invest. As always, the views you'll hear are those of the speakers.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Welcome back to the Assay Podcast. I'm Lindsay Melchak, your guest host, and today I'd like to start with a simple question. What if commodity markets aren't simply reacting to the world around us? What if they're actually revealing where the world is heading next? Because when most people look at commodities, they see prices. They see gold making headlines, they see oil moving up or down, they see copper, lithium, uranium, and the daily fluctuations that dominate financial news. Yet beneath those price movements lies something much more interesting. Commodity markets sit at the intersection of economic growth, inflation, geopolitics, technology, energy security, and even global trade. They often respond to change long before it becomes obvious to the rest of us. And right now, there seems to be no shortage of change. From rising geopolitical tensions and shifting trade relationships to questions around economic growth, around inflation, energy security, and resource supply, the signals coming from commodity markets may be more important today than they have ever been in decades. So rather than focusing on where commodities have been, we're going to spend the next few minutes talking about where they may be taking us. Joining me today is Edward Muir, president of Commodity Research Group. Edward is one of the most respected voices in commodity research with decades of experience analyzing global markets, macroeconomic trends, energy, metal, trade flows, and geopolitics. His insights are followed by investors, institutions, and industry leaders around the world because he has a unique ability to connect what's happening in commodity markets to the bigger picture shaping our global economy. Edward, it's great to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Thank you, Lindsay. Pleasure to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Well, let's jump right into it. I'd love to start with a prediction from you, actually.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

If we were sitting here three years from today, what's the commodity headline you think everyone will wish they had paid more attention to?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Three years from now?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Three years from now.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Um I would uh that's a good question. I I think uh the commodity headline that uh people should be paying attention to is obviously the oil markets because that is really driving it uh oil is kind of the linchmin uh in this whole commodity universe that you were talking about. Right. Oil is really the key commodity that drives everything else. Absolutely I think there's something like 30,000 products that are made from crude oil. So it has a direct impact on any anything we buy or sell or make. Um and you know, we're really in a uh kind of a transition period trying to move away from oil, but very much in fits and starts. You know, some countries are doing very well, like the Chinese, but we are sort of more uh uh sort of mixed, we have a mixed record. You know, we're we're trying to uh we're moving away from some of the previous initiatives that that were started, like wind, solar, and uh more towards oil as opposed to less towards oil. So uh depending on which country you're in, everybody has a different take on the oil market. Some are embracing it, some are running away from it. And um, so we're in a very kind of a weird period right now, and I think that's gonna stay like this for at least several more years.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

You know, that's a great perspective that you did, because I do remember when oil and gas, you know, was such this boom, and you know, in Canada, Alberta became like the hub to go to, and people were leaving wherever province they were to go into to Alberta. And then something happened, and it just whoosh and it went away. And I think that's where the clean energy started coming in. But like you said, it is sort of a staple thing, it's always going to be there. Depending, you know, there may be changes here and there, but sure the staple of it will always be there.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

So I think that was a great perspective that you actually just gave us. Uh not the not the gold, not the silver, yeah. Oil and gas.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Now, what are you seeing today that leads you to the conclusion that you have just presented?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Well, uh, you know, oil is kind of, like I said, the driver. Right. Uh the other uh the other kind of uh issue that uh kind of worries me is this massive amount of debt that the world economy has. Somebody likened it to being on financial heroin. You know, everybody is binging on debt. Right. And that is why we are seeing these big moves in uh commodities like gold, like Bitcoin, um uh the stock market. You know, people are trying to find safe havens where they can because they because being in cash and being in currencies is the worst alternative. So you have to kind of find things, but you have to be careful because things could also blow up in your face, as we've seen very often. So it it's it's becoming a very dicey investment uh environment right now, and commodities are playing a bigger and bigger role because they're becoming monetized. I mean, when I started in the business, you couldn't buy commodities very easily. You'd have to open an account with a broker, pay a big commission, buy a futures contract. Now you can buy all of these things on your phone, and everything is is sliced and diced for you so you can buy exactly what you want. And that's fueling a surge of speculative interest all around the world, basically.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one of the things I find most interesting is you know, most people spend their time focusing on what's directly in front of them, and what we're not seeing leads us sometimes to a better outcome. Is there something that you're seeing that is so in focus right now, but maybe something better could be brought into the circuit there?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, uh, I mean that kind of uh I guess leads you to AI. Uh, you know, this is sort of the talking point right now. AI is going to need a lot of commodities. You're gonna need power, you're in you're going to need copper, uh, steel, um, chips, uh which in turn draws on metals. So, you know, that's sort of the next big wave. Uh, and I probably should have mentioned this at the outset in terms of what what's going to be the big headline, but AI is is very unlike previous booms in that people are worried about it, you know, people are concerned. They're they're both eagerly embracing it, but many are are vociferously against it. And uh that's why we're seeing all these protests and and uh a spike in utility bills and a backlash against data centers. So that has yet to play out. This was completely different during the internet boom. During the internet boom, everybody embraced the internet, they loved it. You know, people were buying and selling things, opening websites. Nobody questioned its usefulness. But AI is scaring a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

I think maybe they've learned their lesson when the internet hit. Uh, you know, I do remember the conversations like, oh, this is just a trend and it's not gonna last and all these things. So the there was the novelty around it, and then it started sticking, and then started doing more and more things for humans. Correct. And I think what we're what I'm sort of getting the gist of with AI is people are like, this is the next level of the internet, right? It's just gonna take over everything. Right. And that becomes a very emotional thing. So as an investor, emotions are a really big thing. How are you seeing that on your end?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Well, you see it right now play out in uh look what happened this week or last week. You know, you had SpaceX coming out, you have OpenAI and Anthropic, they're down the road, they're going to be coming out. These are trillion-dollar companies, just unheard of. So um uh, and then you see the chipmakers, you know, uh companies like Micron, Nvidia, uh Sand Disk, all of these are just they're they're trading like commodities, actually, completely wild. Right. Um kind of like gold uh during the heyday. Uh so it it's uh it's it's very difficult to kind of uh separate where you could go, where you could be safe, so to speak, as an investor, but not get caught up in in uh in a trap.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

What about tech? Do you think tech is coming back into play here or fintech even? Do you think that's becoming a bigger play here as well?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Sure, uh I I think so. I think fintech, tech, um uh everybody is kind of enamored with that sector. In fact, if you look at the US, I'm not sure how it how it is in Canada, I guess you're from you're Canadian, right? But um in in the US, most of the investment growth is coming from AI. If you look at the business investment, uh manufacturing growth, all of that, you strip that out, and the economy is not really growing that much. Much of it is coming from AI. So it's quite an incredible paradigm we're in.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Oh my goodness. Well, do you think actually commodity markets they're sending a signal to us that we just haven't picked up yet, then?

SPEAKER_01 9:49

You know, uh commodity markets are uh, first of all, I'm really happy to be in the commodity markets because uh, you know, you always need it. As you said earlier, commodities are not gonna go out of fashion. Everybody needs it. It's not like a flash in the pan or anything like that. So commodities are here to stay. The the problem is, not really the problem, but the the caution I would give to investors is don't fall in love with a certain commodity and think we're gonna run out of this. Because, you know, I've been uh hearing about running out of things for the last 30 years and we never seem to run out. Because don't underestimate the capacity of technological innovation. You know, if something becomes too expensive or too scarce, people will figure a way out around it, either to substitute or to f or to develop another look-alike or to uh re-engineer something. So uh, you know, we we had that in in the case of nickel. Everybody thought we'd run out of nickel because of EVs. But the battery recipe changed, moving away from nickel towards other uh uh composites like lithium, which is what the Chinese are using. So nickel, if you were really bullish on nickel, you would you would have been hurt by now because nickel prices have crashed. Same thing with oil, you know, people were thinking we're gonna we're gonna run out of oil, but fracking came in and just multiplied the amounts of oil that we've been producing.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Isn't that fascinating to see the development of the human psychology and everything? Just let's develop something else and morph into something different. Exactly. It's so fascinating to me. Let's hold it here for one more moment. We hear the word uncertainty almost every day right now. Economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty. When you look across global commodity markets today, what do you think they're most concerned about right now?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

I think uh one thing that's whipping up the commodity markets is the polarization we're seeing in the world. You know, if you go about uh if you go back 10 years ago, the world economy was pretty synchronized. Everybody was kind of growing at the same pace. This is 2015, 16, 17. Um, you know, there was a kind of a synchronicity to global growth. Trade was going on uninterrupted, nobody was questioning the existing system of economic uh growth that we were on. You know, tariffs were kind of non-existent, China was booming, we were doing well, Europe was doing well. Uh, but now everything is splintered. You know, people are all looking inward, including the US, obviously, Canada, with Prime Minister Carney, uh, who I think is has really summarized what's going on quite well in his speeches, you know, talking about the fact that, you know, we really have to look out for ourselves. And we can't be dependent on trading blocks or the uh, you know, uh goodwill of neighbors or things like that. So the world is becoming like that. Everybody is kind of carving out their own space, and I think that's dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

It is dangerous. Yeah, it really it does create such a divide in the world. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Such a divide. And you know, we talk about commodities and how they're not going away, and that, you know, some people they're they're they're taking the risk or they're in they're investing on emotion. There's a lot of uncertainty going around oil and gas, we'll say, coming through the Strait of Hermoose.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

What would be something that you would give advice on to an investor that wants to come into the commodity market or who's in it but still freshly new in it?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Yeah, I I mean, um, it depends on your perspective. I I think, you know, uh given the AI move, you may want to be kind of looking to things like aluminum, copper, uh oil. I'm not so sure about because even with hormuz, you know, people are going to work around it. We already are starting to see pipelines being constructed south of the strait. And, you know, this is going to increase, and maybe in 10 years it's gonna be irrelevant, the strait. You never know. So necessity uh what is it, what's the expression necessity or is the mother of invention or something like that. So if you can't get your oil out of the strait, you go around it.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

That's true, and that's another thing where we talked about where the human psychology will move on. Let's bring this back to investors here. Every market cycle develops a dominant narrative. Everybody starts believing the same story. What's one narrative you're hearing today that you think maybe deserves a second look?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

A second look. Um I think the AI trade might deserve a second look. You know, uh, I mean, I'm not poo-pooing it, it's going to stay. But you know, there's so much money going into the space that not everybody's gonna come out a winner. You know, people are investing billions and billions into data centers and chips and power grids and all that. But, you know, you're gonna have a bit of a shake out uh down the road. So, you know, uh, and it happened during the internet boom and bust, you know, not everybody kind of came out. The internet stayed, but some of the players uh went out of business. Same thing with the railroads. Railroads were a big boom, drew a lot of speculative capital in. Not all the railroads stayed in place, but the the the technology obviously remained with us.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

That's true. If we if we relate that back to mining too, you know, there's a lot of junior companies that they start out, they start out, and they just don't make it. And that's right. In the same with with you know, crypto with everything like that. Sure. It's gonna be the same thing. You're gonna have your juniors, yeah, and some just may not make it.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah. The good thing about the juniors, at least they have high prices now. I mean, it wasn't like this 10 years ago. You know, the prices were very depressed. You you you really couldn't start a mine. Now people are starting mines, but they need capital. You know, nobody's questioning the margins. The margins are there. So if you look at gold costs, silver costs, people are making a lot of money. But you want to start developing and getting the capital and getting the permitting and the environmental stuff, all that takes time.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

All of it takes time.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So uh there's a limited amount of capital to go around.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Well, I have one final question for you.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

You spent decades studying commodity markets. Decades. What's one thing you believe today that you suspect will become obvious to everyone else and we'll save five years from now?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Five years from now, what will be obvious? Well, hopefully, we'll still be all around. We we still will be intact and and uh in good health and robots will not be taking over quite yet. Exactly. Uh robots won't be sitting in my chair next time interviewing you. Um you know it's very hard to say. It's you know, you have to kind of it's why is it hard? Because you know, your mind is accustomed to the way things were, right? That's kind of anthropologically speaking. Yeah, but that's not the way it's going to be. You know, the way it was is might be finished. So now we have to look at a new world, and it it's hard to conceptualize what that is.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for sitting with us today and just having a brief conversation about all of this. I love the fact that we touched on tech, we touched on AI, touched on traditional mining. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

My pleasure, Lindsay. All the best.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

It's often said that markets are forward-looking, but perhaps commodity markets are something more than just that. Perhaps they're one of the earliest indicators of the forces quietly reshaping our world. Not just economic forces, but political forces, technological forces, and even geopolitic forces. The challenge, of course, is that these signals are often easiest to understand in hindsight. So I'll leave you with this thought. What if the most important commodity story of the next decade isn't the one making headlines today? What if it's the one that's quietly developing beneath the surface while most of the world is looking elsewhere? Edward, thank you again for your time and for joining us. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Subscribe for new episodes and visit theassay.com to stay close to the conversations shaping global mining and investment.