CLEM CHAMBERS | Market Commentary

In this episode I get down with Clem Chambers, a noted commentator in the world of finance and beyond. He is the former CEO of ADVFN, Europe’s leading stocks and markets website, and a regular commentator on networks like CNBC and Fox News.

Clem talked about why he is drawn to writing - it’s about sharpening his own thinking. Writing forces him to crystallize complex ideas into clear, actionable insights. As he put it, if you’re investing based on tips without understanding the why, you’re gambling, not investing. His golden rule? If you have to ask whether something’s a good investment, the answer is always no. You need to "know" your investment inside out. It’s a reminder that successful investing demands clarity and conviction.

Artificial intelligence is a topic that’s impossible to ignore in 2025. Clem sees AI as a game-changer, not just for markets but for the global economy. He painted a vivid picture of an AI arms race driving unprecedented energy demand. Countries are scrambling to secure their place at the top, burning through coal, oil, and even nuclear power to fuel data centers and AI training. This shift has flipped the script on energy policy—gone are the days of prioritizing energy scarcity. Now, it’s about burning as much as possible to stay competitive. For investors, this means opportunities in energy stocks, from nuclear to renewables, and even in metals like copper, essential for cooling those power-hungry data centers.

Clem notes that precious metals, particularly platinum and palladium are set to rally. These metals, critical for catalytic converters and fuel cells, are poised for a comeback. Clem pointed out their scarcity: only 200 tonnes of each are mined annually, compared to 3,200 tonnes of gold and 25,000 tonnes of silver. If platinum were to return to its historical parity with gold, we could see a 250% price jump. A bold call.

We also touched on rare earth minerals, which Clem is deeply involved in through his work in environmental chemistry. Despite their name, rare earths aren’t that rare, but processing them outside China is a challenge due to toxic chemicals. Clem’s team is pioneering greener methods, which could disrupt China’s stranglehold on the market. For countries like Australia, rich in raw materials, this is a golden opportunity.

Inflation came up as a final topic, and Clem didn’t mince words. He sees it as a deliberate government strategy to erode debt and spur economic activity. Gold, silver, and other physical assets are solid hedges, but Clem emphasized that equities offer the best path for the average investor to build wealth. His advice? Treat the market like a farm, not a casino. Study, stay patient, and don’t chase the latest fad. There’s always another bus coming, whether it’s quantum computing, nuclear fusion, or the next big thing.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Phil: Clem, as an author, journalist and founder, former CEO of advfn, Europe's leading stocks and markets website, Clem is a sought after media commentator and a regular guest on major television networks including cnbc, Al Jazeera, BBC, BNN and Fox News. And a prolific writer. Where did this come from? I mean you write everything from market analysis to fiction.

Clem Chambers: Well, it's funny because people say, well if you know this about stocks, you should be rich. And uh, I live in Monaco and the reason I write this stuff is not to make money out of being paid to write. Although that does happen, it's because it forces you to crystallize your thinking about investment lingss. And a lot of people, they just take tips and they buy stuff and if they make money, well, you know, they don't really uh, know why and if they lose money, they've blame the person told them. But really to invest you have to come up with ideas and theories and then you have to test them. And of course if you have to sit down and write 800 words on an idea, it forces you to actually nail it down and make it clear. Now of course you could write a big low val puff that doesn't making sense when the Lord be to do that. But that's kind of not what I'm about. I'm about writing something that anybody can understand and clarifying the situation so that people go oh, that's what it is, is it? Oh no, I know. And they can say well actually now you've told me how it all works, I don't want anything to do with it or now you've told me how it works, I want lots of that. And if you really don't know what you are doing, you certainly don't want to put your money back it. And as I say to people that say well I was thinking about say platinum as we're going to talk about later, should I buy platinum? And I always say if you have to ask, the answer is always not. And it might be a great pick, it might be a terrible pick. But if you have to ask is it a great pick? The answer is no. Always know. You have to know. And if you don't know you shouldn't do it. And if you know, yeah, well it's worth taking the risk and perhaps being wrong. But if you're in, oh is it, isn't it? Oh I need to ask somebody. It isn't it then the answer is always no. And uh, for me writing articles about investment ideas forces me to be clear and understand what's going on and be have my head completely wrapped around the subject. And of course when you go to the market and that means your chances assess are much higher than if you just then oh, I like that. Oh my gut tells me and I was always say when people say well my gut is telling me this, I say well I know what your guts attached to it.

Phil: It's really interesting though the rise of AI at the moment people are going to be starting to use artificial intelligence to do their investment analysis. And I think the know the old box inside the head, we still really need that to uh, really think about what we're doing. Are you concerned about that? And the way people are going I think being having commitment to what their.

Clem Chambers: Ideas are, being concerned about new technologies is what people do a lot of. But actually I do think that people should take most of it and AI will m not tell you what's a good stock pick and a bad stock pick even if it was allowed to because the markets are highly random and getting it to work on random stuff. It can't work on random stuff. It can work on non random stuff. And so it's brilliant because you can say oh, ABC company who's a uh, what did he do 10 years ago? Where did he go to school? What's their major product lines? How much sals did they do? Is it going up, is it going down, is it going sideways? Oh they do eggs. Uh, so what's the market for eggs? Like what's the international demand for eggs? What are the expanding markets for eggs? And it will go bang, bang, bang, bang bang. Rather than you have to go looking on the doogle web for hours and hours, you could just cut to the facts that you want really really quickly and you can say well okay then I like these eggs and I like this egg company. List all the five egg companies in Europe and list them,

00:05:00

Clem Chambers: rank them by intelligence of the CEO and buy their share price, um, and actions in the last 90 days. And it will give you facts absolutely quickly and it will give you comparative facts which are incredibly important and really difficult to find out there. So it's marvelous as a research tool because it would absolutely cut to the facts really really quickly. It can read that and um, 10k or whatever is the equivalent in the country that you're in and give you all the key points. You can say hey AI, what's the change in status in this year end from the interim? What are the big moves, which ones should are great and which ones are terrible? Rate that out of 100 and so on and so forth. I like that company list from the top biggest companies in this sector from strong to weak. And then if you're a hedge fund you can go long the strong one and the short one, short the weak one and have a car market neutral position and not have to hire somebody out of a business school at the age of 23 and pay them a lot of money to do for you.

Phil: Yesah, it's interest. Interesting time, isn't it? But speaking of interesting times, what's your general overview of the market right at this uh, point? And because these things move so quickly, I'll date stamp this, we're recording on the 23rd of July 2025 or the 22nd depending on where you are in the world. Yeah, just give us a quick overview of the your view on the economy and the markets.

Clem Chambers: We're in the new era and we're in the era of increasing global stress. We're in an era of revolutionary technological and development which is AI. We're in era ah where there's complete 180 in global governance strategy from um, trying to create some kind of energy poverty and to ameliorate all sorts of environmental issues to running flat out burning all the energy that they could possibly get their hands on so that each country can be dominant in AR or not dominated by another country that's dominate in. So the world is completely changed and AI is going to completely has already is already turning it on its head because AI is energy consumption. And there's no second place in AI there's no limit to the demand, so there's no limit to the future demand of energy. So back changes everything as the old model was. Yes, try not to use so much energy because you have to um, wreck the environment to do it. And you've got to ameliorate your current usage, get it all carbon net zero. And the best way to do that is to really cut back on it sackcloth, cloth and ashes style. And if we don't, we're all going to die. Now. It's like, oh my goodness, if we don't get all this AI going, we're gonna be dominated by the country with the AR and they're gonna eat our breakfast and we're gonna turn into a, we're gonna become subservient to the country with the AI because there's no second place, is there? If you've got somebody with 20% more intelligence than you, you're a dumbo and they are gonna rule you. So you can't let your country be dominated in AI. Well what does that mean then? It means we have to burn a lot of energy to make more A.I. oh, and that means you have to keep upping the output and increaseasing the intelligence because they're going toa do the same. So we're in a never ending AI arms race. Well that changes absolutely everything. And the other thing it changes is one of my um, obscure cobbies in Treasure Hun. Now I'll go into a field, big empty field. And there'd be buttons and buckles and thimbles and coins all over that field. People say, hel, what's it doing in an empty field? Well, people used to live there a couple hundred years ago that was'full of houses. 95% of the people worked on the land. And that's what they did because that's how you got your food. If you didn't have 95% of the people working on the land, you'd starve. Well, along came artificial muscles and their muscles were no longer leaded. Well, they didn't. Well the Luddites thought they'd all starve and everybody would be out in their ear and there'd be apocalypse. But no, they moved to the city. They got more um, highly economic involved jobs and we went into the modern world and all those houses got plowed into the fields and you know, I'm sure they wept as they trudged towards Paris and London. I'm sure, you know, it was traumatic for them in that moment. But from that point in time, people's life expectancy went up from like 35 to now it's 80. And that's purely being because of artificial muscle. Well, now we've got artificial brains. What's that go going toa do? That's going to do the same again, isn't it? Now, the l I saw everybody was going to perish. And in a way they did. All those towns, all those lifestyles, all that way that they would been used to for hundreds and hundreds of years, that will perish. But because they had leverage, they went on to you. They elevated the whole of humanity was elevated. And AI I believe, would do exactly that. And so it's a benign thing, but it'also

00:10:00

Clem Chambers: change entirely, changes the game. And that is as somebody who's of a certain age and I'm not expected to be arounded in 25 years. I've got a generation to have a lot of fun, make a lot of money and, you know, play some very interesting markets.

Phil: Clem, you mentioned energy during that answer. What forms of energy, uh, are you looking at to power this AI revolution?

Clem Chambers: All possible energy is going to be used. That's why they're reening coal mines in America. That's why they're building a nuclear power plants now. Remember nuclear power? Ten minutes ago it was the scourge of the earth. It was Satan's own parasols. It was the worst possible thing. It was you gonna kill everybody and you go near it and you're gonna get sick and die and terrible things. Right. Uh, and now, oh, need to power. We need to put that on our Rice Krispies. You know, it's like, oh, it's wonderful stuff. Now boys, it girls, we're gonna build lots of that. That's why they're doing that. They're not doing that because theyly like nuclear power. They've done that because the penny has dropped that they need infinite amounts of energy now. And the only real infinite supply of energy is going to come from nuclear. But they won't stop them burning goldal. It won't stop them burning peat or burning oil, burning everything. They will boil the oceans and that will come with big, big issues. And the best way to ameliorate. Well, one of the ways to ameliorate that is going to be platinum palladium catalyst.

Phil: Yeah, well, we'll get ono that. I mean, I was just reading just before this interview about X AI Elon Musk's AI company. And they're just building the vast, vast data centreers, aren't they? Uh, so it's not only that, but it's also the demand for chips as well, isn't it?

Clem Chambers: Yeah. Copper, cooling sheds, water, you name it. It's all about energy. AI is pure energy. Those machines that do the work, uh, that actually do the training. It's not the actual running of AI that's the big hog. It'the actual training, the data. Those things are basically. They might as well be. And space eaters. They are basically electrical short circuits near enough. And they put 500, um, watts into one little one and they got millions of them. So a rat of say, 100 kilowatts of those, um, and circuit boards, which is maybe a couple hundred of them. That's 100 kilowatt, um, heating element. It'fast amount goes straight to heat. So it's electricity equals heat and ar. That's it. There's no other product. And it may a heat. I mean, actually that somebody will come up with a really good use for all that heat and make a fortune. Because actually that's the waste material is heat, which should actually be capturedable and reusable and, and turned into all sorts of good things. I mean, if you were, uh, running a greenhouse that was growing orchids, you'd want toa be next to one of those plantsuse you could get all your heat for free and then'probably ask you to take it away from them, probably pay you to take it away. So there's all sorts of things that come off from this massive energy and need and it's also going to require huge infrastructure that's going to generate huge amounts of energy and there will be large quantities of surplus energy and that will feed back into the economy and that will feed into all sorts of good stuff. So, you know, yeah, it all could go horribly wrong, of course, but what the world we know now is going to be significantly upshifted and by all this ar, uh, and anybody that's used AI to any great extent will see. Oh, look at that. I mean, I write fast when I write my articles, but AI writes five times faster than. So you know, it le me up 500% if I was to use it. You can even write material in my voice. I've written so much stuff, I'm in there, it's captured me. I'm already immortal. In Chap T PT's model, you can say, you know, talk nonsense like Clem Chambers here stling it'll do just that. Super is one of the most important investments you'll ever make. But how do you know if you're in the best fund for your situation? Head to lifeshhera.com.au to find out more. Life Sherpa, uh, Australia's most affordable online financial advice.

Phil: It's interesting and it's an analogy which sort of arises out of it. You talked about the agricultural workers at the dawn of the industrial revolution trudging off into the big cities. How do you think the nature of work now that the workers of the 21st century are trudging off into the world of AI how do you think work is going to change?

Clem Chambers: Well, first of all, uh, people don't really calculate just how quickly people leave university and then retire. Yeah. So if you imagine that you leave university these days that say 25, because maybe some people got to do doctors, et cetera, huh? And then they're hoping to quit at 55, that's 30 years. Well, three years, that's 10% of the workforce. Retir and you saw that with COVID was two or so years of everything stopped. And there was two years of training of various professions that wasn't done. And there was a big hole in the actual throughput of jobs. So actually a generation will go through work into retirement

00:15:00

Clem Chambers: pretty quick. And when you think that Windows 95 was 30 years ago, well, that's a whole generation of workers leaving university and get into retirement. So actually our economy can absorb and change over quite quickly. So by the time people who are just about to enter university or entering university, by the time they leave, AI will have made such an impact that it'be every day. And the thing is, is that people think, well, I used to do a job in this eight hours and this dam machine will do it in an hour. And therefore they're going to get rid of seven out of ten of me and replace me and another seven others with one gothf. But actually what happens is you make eight tons as much, or you make some way more complicated, or you make something in a way more elaborate manner, or you go from horrible placees to boals Sunland. And the appetite under the capitalist system for more and more clever stuff is really what capitalism is s all about. So there'd be a demand for the elaborate output of this elevated economy. There will be no shortage of demand for it. The fact that everybody will have, uh, a Louis Voutitton bag and it will be ties, there'll still be a, uh, super Louis Voutitton bag at uh, ridiculous amounts of money for no apparent reason and people will still be clamoring for it. It will just be a nut shist.

Phil: So we've segued nicely into sci fi stocks here because science fiction is bleeding into science fact at the moment. Which sort of companies are looking at the may benefit from some of these dynamics that are playing out at the moment.

Clem Chambers: Well first of all what spurred me to write out their last call in Seeking Alpha was that uh, while I was looking elsewhere, while I was trembling under my desk because of the wild man of Washington and there'd been a stock market explosion in quantum um, computing which I have and I'm not the greatest fan of quantum computing. I think it has mathematical difficulties. But anyway that didn't matter. Out came Google and said o we're Google, we've got qubits coming out of our ear. Yayay everyone. Oh my God, oh my God. It's going toa be like AI we didn't believe in it and then suddenly boom, there it was and everything went I completely missed it. And a bunch this quptum stock and it's gone through the roof. And I went oh duh, I missed it, I missed it. I mean you couldn't catch the AI wave really because it was all in the private sector but there's quite a lot of quantum companies out there. And I said I'm not going to miss the next one. Having you said that I did miss the next one immediately because I'm actually these days working in environmental chemistry on rare earth minerals. And all the rare earth minerals companies exploded about five weeks ago and there's me in that business and it's like cobble of shoes, right? I um, haven't got a decent pair of shoes. I missed all the people that are in the very thing that I'm most excited about. I was too busy with my one to go and pick up rare earth amstocks. But anyway, there you go. But there's a whole load of things coming down the line and maybe they'happen maybe they won't happen and you've got to stake them out and you've got to watch just in case somebody comes up with it. And the classic one is I uh, get the wrong way around fusion. Not fission. Fission'what we've got. Fusion is what we want. And you they'd been working on that fore ever and ever when I was a kid they were going to do it and I went oh goody goody. Oh yes, it's coming. It's coming. And here I am an old man. It still hasn't come but you know, all it takes is some guy to go actually if I do this with that oh, it worked. And then bang up with all the fusion companies would go. So you've got to think of all the things that they say is coming that isn't arrived yet. And obviously one of those things is there was s a whole load. You can just pick your favorite. Um, if only they had. There's the fountain of view that they're still looking for. One day they may find something that reprograms your DNA so you don't snuff it. A few years older than me and so you re living to 230 years old or something. And then of course there is the nuclear fusion and there's a whole host of other ones and you just have to keep your eye on them it just in case. Um, and when somebody says oh Google was just invented, you know, this marvelous technology time machine, they'd rather than go oh that's quaint. You should immediately go around all the stocks that are in that field and saying how they're going to crack the code and just buy them because they'll blow up. Because that somebody who has got like Google or Amazon has come on and actually said that. That's the thing. Now of course I've completely forgotten what uh, I listed out as the coming technologies because you know, I've got the idea in my head just watch out for the next crazy bit of technology that hasn't quite made it out. Well, electric cars. How long were they coming for? Yeah, uh, I mean you over a hundred years.

Phil: Clem.

Clem Chambers: Well, I got run over by electric car when I was a child. It was a milk float. It ran me over and then nobody made them anymore. And I think what some of the earliest cars were electric and it took, you know, somebody taking the 100 year old scientist'name

00:20:00

Clem Chambers: and sticking it on the bonnet to actually turn that into a thing. So you have to keep your eyes bu on that because those things can go large. I mean look at SpaceX. I mean he's done a brilliant job turning a clear and obvious thing that nobody else seemed to be able to do into something that is doable. So if there uh, are a group of companies, I mean nanotechnology, I don't think I wrote about nither technology but nanotechnology has always been coming and you've got to watch out for when somebody like, I don't know, Pfizer comes out and says we've got a cure for deafness. That's nanotechnology. And then the moment you see that, go out and put 5% of your portfolio into, uh, nanotech companies and watch them go through the roof in the next three months and then bail out. I mean, don't hold them for long. It's only that everybody's going, you'll be the first in and hopefully you'll be the second la. And that is the way to trade those things. And it was such a pain to have missed the obvious with the quantum stuff. And there's quite a lot of them out there and that are pending. Science pending. I wouldn't say science fiction, I'd say science pending.

Phil: Yeah. And you referred in that answer to rare earths. And of course rare earths aren't actually all that rare. And like you say, it can be like lithium. Lithium was a craze a few years ago. And then the price of lithium has been languishing for a long time.

Clem Chambers: And you see with rare earth, there's quite a lot that's happened there. People say it's not rare and it's not earth. Well, it is kind of rare is. It's not as rare as precious metals, but it is kind of rarish. But people don't can't process it. They can process it in China the way that they process it in China, because it's very difficult to process it anywhere by China the way that that, uh, is processed because it's such a dodgy process. It uses so many really vicious, um, chemicals. And I mix with chemists and when they do it the Chinese way, they wear hazmat suits. They use chemicals that will melt your face off at a distance. So environmentally very expensive if you're in the west, not so expensive if you're in certain places in the world where they don't care so much. But anyway, the stuff that we're working with is actually doesn't use Chinese chemicals, does it? T use Chinese equipment. It's a very's patented, very basic chemistry that al. It's an alkali process and it's an alkali plan, not an acid play. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it is emerging because there are ways of doing it that will be done that will make take rareth out of the stranglehold of China. And they've managed to get themselves all sorts of strategic strangleholds. And that's another big change because up to very recently they've been allowed, encouraged and done a very good job in cornering many, many markets if you go back, say, oh, I don't know, not, uh, 1890, Britain was the workshop or the world. And that's why it was a dominant superpower. It was the workshop of the world. But then America became the workshop of the world and that became the dominant superpowerl well, right now China's the workshop of the world. And you can finish the sentence. And so that is a reality. And unfortunately they're using that like governblers have a very bad habit of doing. They're abusing their position of strength. They're using it to as leverage, which is actually great shame for them that they've done that. It could have just played nice and smiled and just owned the world and gone around and be smiley and nice and kind and not caused any trouble and nobody would have noticed. And they would have go another 20 years down the line and they would have surpassed America and nothing would have happened apart from they'become the richest country, most powerful country, the most successful country in the world. What people don't realize is China has twice as much money denominated in their currency eitheran. There's twice as much dollars of yuan in the world than there are dollars. So already China has twice as much money as America. And that's not American dollars. It's their own currency that other people would want. So they've built up twice as much cash money than America has. They've got four times as many people. So the average Chinese has half of as many much, many ca tax dollars on average as the average American. But nonetheless, if you piled up all that money in a pile, they'got twice as much of it that America has. So the dominance has already occurred. The cat is already out the bag, the horse is bolted and they haven't locked the door. And it may be too late, and maybe it should be late, maybe it's fine. But the fact of the matter is they are the workshop of the world. And the west is going to try to reverse that. It's going to try to build up its industrial base, build up it the face of the pyramid of its economy, rather than say, we don't need the base, we don't need the metals, we don't need the heavy industry, we don't need the light industry. In fact, some of the services we don't even need. We just need the top of the the value add. That's all we need. And of course what they've realized is if you don't control the base of

00:25:00

Clem Chambers: the pyramid and you lose it, uh, everything stops. So but that's complete utter change in the world. And obviously in places like Australia, which uh, are so powerful in raw materials, that's great news because it puts them in fashion. The periodic table is back in fashion now and it's going to stay that way for a very, very long time.

Phil: Yep, we're always good at digging out those minerals, aren't we?

Clem Chambers: But you've got a big up of land there mate.

Phil: That we do. That we do. And we got that lovely red earth.

Clem Chambers: Grass on it to hide what you've got underneath it.

Phil: It's interesting with China as well, the dominance in the EV space which has happened so fast, you know, but they've got this strategic thinking behind it that it's, they want to reduce oil consumption and they want to do it by using EVs and drilling and they're drilling for oil like the deepest wells in the world seven miles under the earth to get the oil out, just to get away from being dominated by anyse anyone else by the price of oil as well. And you know the number they ve I think the US has got 200 something thousand charging stations and 14 million in China. The dominance is unbelievable.

Clem Chambers: Well you see the thing about industry and business and lots of things in America and in the west is that they throw barriers in front of you all the day long. They will tie you up in red tape faster than you say knife. Just what the old communists used to do. You know, if you tie, I mean when I started out in business maybe one day a month would be paperwork. Uh, now it's two days a week for the top management in paperwork. Yeah. And everything has got rules and everything you've got to be careful of. And if you don't do it right you get slapping. And if you don't do it right you've got to have an attitude of criminal basically because it's clear what they tell you you've got to do. And whether it's good idea or not, you've got to do it. And of course if you're sucking out not only on from an attack based point of view but you're sucking out the actual tension and energy of your industrial base with all this stupid rules and all these overheads and the tax load in China is really low. I can't remember what of GDP is like 17% of GDP in Sweden it's 50% ye which is 50% of GDP means government spends 50% of GDP which means there is no GDP in the private sector. It all gets sucked out through taxation. Well if the private sector doesn't get to keep any of its gains. It can't reinvest, can it? So there are absolutely systemic reasons why and things are so glued down in the so called developed world and why if you have a government who's really, really keen for you to go, go, go for it. And um, you're going to get really fast progress and oh yeah, we need a car industry. Yeah, yeah. How about some subsidies? Go off and do that. Yeah, no. Oh yeah, rules now. Just do it. Just do it. Don't get in the headlines and don't be too stupid. Just go on with it. You wantn plant, there it is. You wantn middlef factory? Go on. There's some land. You know, if you want to build, if you had a great idea, you want to build a bit of uh, anything in the uk, anything at all, you'd be lucky if you could do it. Three years. Even if you've got the money, even if you've got the backing, even if you've got a bevy of politicians behind you, three years, you know, you still be lucky.

Phil: It's insane isn't it? Anyway, we better get off for market economics because it's what we got to deal with anyway, isn't it?

Clem Chambers: Uh, yeah, yeah, there it is. And of course inefficient markets give up other opportuniceses as well. So uh, it's a double headed coin and one of those sides is in your favor. And the other thing is if you make money out of inefficiencies, you actually work to get rid of them. Because no inefficiencies is can't last because if the money flows it uh, will flow away from that and you would, you will draw money out of the inefficiency and it ultimately collapses under its own weight. So when you're in the markets and you're making money out of them by exploiting weaknesses in the economics, you are actually part of the cure.

Phil: Ditch the spreadsheets. Share site is Investopedia's top tracker for DIY investors. Invest smarter, not harder. Grab four months free on an annual premium plan at sharesight.com sharesforbeginners. So let's have a look at the precious metals. And there's four main precious metals. Gold, silver, platinum, palladium. But it's the last two that you're particularly interested in at the moment, aren't you?

Clem Chambers: Yeah, I mean, okay, there's just so many pointers that say they're good. First of all you look at gold and you say at'three,200 ounce. Well, a few years ago platinum was one to one for quite a long period and before that it was two to one. Well, okay, let's just go back to parity then. Thank you very much. K, there you are, you've just made a 250% profit. Now you look at them and you go, well why are they so cheap? Why they're so cheap because the internal combustion engine'going away and all these cat converters got a little bit of platinum. Um, and by the time they've all been crushed and put in canisters, are sent back to China for reprocessing, there was going to be a big mountain of platinum and palladium and nobod's going to want it. Okay, well the

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Clem Chambers: internal combustion engine is no longer going away. Yeah, for the previous mentioned AI think, but people would explain it differently or just say oh no, no, no, we're going to do it, but it's going to take a little longer. But no, actually they're going to want all the petrol, they're going to want all the hydro, they're going toa want all the nuclear, they're going toa want all the tidal, they're going to want all the coal and they want all the lignite and want all the sober one want it all, they're gonna want it all, they're gonna keep it all, they're gonna dig it all up and they're all gonna be burning it like crazy. Now that also means what is the cure for that pollution? Well, uh, it's platinum, the palladium that it is an important catalystah.

Phil: Just a clarify, it's to do with catalytic converters in engines for um.

Clem Chambers: Yeah, but not just that, it's a general catalyst also. They're also very important in things like um, and fuel cells. So they're a general wonder metal for environmental issues. Now there's going to be needed lots and lots of environmental and remediation because they're just going to need to deal with all sorts of environmental impacts of this mad AI race. And that AI race is not going to go back in the bottle. Someone says oh, we need to legislate. No, we can't have, uh, the other guys will get it and you'll be sitting under a coconut tree praying for the people to come to give you aid. You have no choice if you're going to be on the first tier and you're not going to be horribly exploited by people smarter than you. So I'm not for it. In fact I see my role as ameliorating that and the sort of chemistry my cheemist are doing uh, is exactly that'ways of lowering the environmental load on all this, on all what's coming. There's no good sitting there moaning about it. It is absolutely inescapable and inevitable. And if half the world said no we're not going to do it, the other half will and you know, and then they'll carry on doing it, wonn't um, they. So anyway it's inevitable. What is needed is environmental remediation and platinum and palladium are ah, two of the core elements in that push. Now if that isn't enough and it is for me, they only, and this is just such an amazing number. They only dig up 200 tons of platinum. 200 tons of palladium every 200 tons. Yeah. Gold 3200 tons. Silver 25,000 tons which is another interesting one because he golds $3200 an ounce and silver is only and um, produced at uh, whatever 3, 25 is an 8. It should be an 8th of $3200, shouldn't it? So it should be like $450 an ounce, shouldn't it? I mean it's.

Phil: Hang on, isn't silver known as the widowmaker Investing in silver that's always alwaysised so much?

Clem Chambers: Um, you know that's the. Once upon a time Silver was 5 to 1 to Gold and Nick went 10 to 1 and then he went 20 to 1 and then he went 40 to 1 and then he went 100 to 1 like it is now give or take. Actually not 101 anymore. But yes, yes. And um, Silver is retail gold. Gold is government money for war. Silver is money for problems, for savings for the retail entities. So gold is for war. Silver is what the retail goes for whenco goes for Iran. But platinum pallium I't. Gold is probably going to go to 5000 anywhore. Uh which is horrible news because it's all about global tension. Gold is only driven by governments buying it because it's bullets. Yeah. As we can see, although we've had a little CL pac for a few weeks the need for governors to buy bullets seems to be on a never increasing trajectory. And the currency of war is gold. Because intercot country transactions, when there's a warring F suddenly they don't take paper anymore. They take submarines with crates of gold. So you know, that is the fundamental reason why China's buying so much gold and why all the other countries are bringing it in. Even Poland's loading up on it by not even. I mean, why wouldn't they? They'sat on the edge of them or aren't they? So if you could relate to that or believe that model, you can see that gold is going to continue to go up until all of a sudden somebody says, oh, come on guys, let's just be friends. But I don't see that being soon, do you? So we're going to have at least another two and a half years of increasing tension. Well, that's two and a half years for gold to go from 3400 to who knows where. And silver will go with it and platinum, palladium will go with it because of their fact that there are also analogs, precious metals. And platinum is actually quite good as an analogue to gold because the reason gold is like it is because it's sheer weight and rarity. You know, I tell this story and strange enough, people don't really get it, but when the Americans had a run away from the Philippines because the Japanese were coming,

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Clem Chambers: they loaded the gold onto a ship or submarine, I can't remember which, but one or the other, and they took the silver and they threw it in the bay. They threw away to silver. They just chucked it in the middle of the bay because it wasn't heavier, it wasn't dense enough for them to carry it off. They just chucked it away in the there. And that's the difference. You know, that's why gold is what it is because you can load a huge amount of value to a very small space. And platinum has. And played in also have vac. They're very heavy, very heavy metals. But you know, ultimately, uh, platinum, I don't want to get packed it platinum. No, just send the gold bars, please. So gold is that thing. But platinum, the palladium will go, I believe, one to one with gold. Well, that is'like a very leveraged play on gold. So, you know, platinum even goes to $2,000. It have gone up a lot, but I can see it going one to one. And remember 20 years ago, it's two to one. So it should be $6,000 an ounce. Should be. It could be, would be, might be. But it's 200 tons. That's the D. It's like none. 200 tons. And it's not like rare earth kind of around a place. They've got some in Russia. Well, that's a bit tricky if you want to ne. They've got some in South Africa and they've Got some in America. They're the three major points of production. Now silver, I mean, you know, you dig up jam donuts, it's got silver in it. Everything's got silver in it. Silver's a byproduct for pretty much huge amounts of mining. In fact it used to be a byproduct of lead mining back in the day. And silver is not that uncommon. Even though they only mine 25,000 tons of it, you know, as opposed to 3,000 tons of gold. So it has legs. They've all got the gold's got legs, silver's got legs, platinum, paladum have got legs. And uh, I'm not a precious metal freak. Uh uh, in fact I'm not fan of it at all. I've been brought up ever since a little kid with people raving on about our gold is amazing, amazing golden, you know, atle'amazing it was a dollar and now it's you $12,000 unchanged. You know, Nvidia now there's a thing to hold for a generation. Not the gold, but nonetheless I like assets that are going to go up and in my mind it's a clear and simple and brainless co. Once you understand gold is for war, that is going to appreciate not only go up in value numerically but apprecia in real terms. So you, that's what makes it totally compelling to me. 200 tons a year and I just, I uh, look it up every like three weeks to make sure it doesn. 25,000 tons, not 200, not even,200 tons of each a year. In the age of chemistry, which is where we're entering into.

Phil: What about the role of precious metals and bitcoin in inflation? Do you think we've got still a problem with inflation and should we be hedging against it?

Clem Chambers: Well yes and no. Yes, we're going to have it. Yes, it's going to be elevated. Yes it's a pain and yes it's a problem for people. Inflation is a secondary disease and it's a disease caused by government overspendeding and by the fact that government always grows and grows and grows and grows and grows and can't stop growing and spending, spending, spending, spending, spending, spending. This is something that occurred to me some time ago. Governments done't to say we've sat down for a couple of months and we worked out what we need to spend and this is how much money we need to tax and when we've got the money we're not going to get anym more or if you get more than that, we're going to send it back to you. So uh, this is what we're going to spend? No, they say how much money can we part the people with? And then we borrow on. So they take all the money they possibly can and they spend it all and then they spend more. So that is the methodology that drives the ever increasing likelihood of future difficulties with national and government debts. And the only way you get around that, and it's other good reasons to do it is to have a little bit of inflation. Y what happens with inflation is it it makes the um, an economically active. More active. Uh, yes. And it punishes the economically inactive. But in a way, if you're a government, you want to subsidize what you want because you get more of it and you want to punish what you don't want because you'll gets less of it. So you punish the economic inactive I the savers and the people who are living off of savings and you reward the people that are running around taking risks. So that policy decision for them, secondly, it enables you to erode your debt. It's a slow motion default that nobody notices. So they like that too. And most of us would probably prefer to suffer an amount of inflation for a good economy and the fact that the whole country won't collapse in amounttain of debt sometime in the future. So it's not such a terrible thing. But it's also quite difficult to control it that finalely. But when you've built up a big hole in the ground like you have with COVID because that m

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Clem Chambers: created massive systemic and debt, the only way you're going to get rid of it is by having like 5%, not 3% or oh, funny enough, here it is 5. Yeah. And you know, funny enough, if you go uh, oh the wheels are go, going toa come off now just print a load of money paper over it. Don't care whether'inflation just make sure the whole economy doesn't collapse. I don't think anybody's going to say that wasn't a good thing. And that's why they always do it at the end of a war. There's always really high inflation at the end of the war. And of course they would come and say it's not us, we didn't do it. No, it was them. It's that it's not us. No, no, no, of course it's them. Of course it's them. It's only governments could create inflation and only governments can stop it. It's about how much money they create and where they inject it. And if you inject it in an inflation a uh, very inflationary way for every dollar you'll get very inflation and if you inject it in a different way you won't get so much inflation. But nonetheless it's how much money that you are injecting into the system that causes inflation more money than the supplier of goods. So inflation is here and it's not by accident and we're going to have it ah at a high is rate for quite a long time. Now gold, any physical assets are a good thing to have. And if you are supersonic smart and clever, you borrow up to your ears and they hope you don't go bust. And that's what a way large amounts of people got rich is. They go well we're going to findlation, I borrow the money and not only is the national debt going to get eroded way so is my right and who hasn't done that? Who hasn't got a house that's going up in value and against what they actually borrowed the money against. And then oh, I've had a house of 15 years've uh, mortgage is kind of trivial as long as you haven't used it as an atm. Your house all of a sud that mortgage you got 20 years ago is trivial because the inflation has paid off your debt for you. So there's two sides of this and inflation, if you go a deflation and everybody goes oh well I've got enough money and it was only getting worth more and I can't be bothered and it's going to be cheaper tomorrow. And and so deflation tends to have that slowing down of economic activity. And that's why another reason not to have it. But how do you protect yourself from having your assets eroded? Well a economic activity which people say don't I want to go the work o the spot, please me, don't make me be economically active. And I get it, uh, being economic active is stressful and a lot of effort and to get it into productive assets, if you can find them know productive assets are always a good uh, way. Gold of course isn't a productive asset but it will not immediately but over uh, a long enough period it will keep up with value and also with its intrinsic use. Case being for um, global tension it will increase its value. So it's a good place to be. Equities is also a good place to be if you watch your show and skill up on it and realize it's a farm, not a casino. Y and if you are diligent, hard working and you studied the markets properly like Warren Buffett, if you only ever read Warren Buffett and to start to his way, you will not come adrift. But of course people often don't have the discipline. It's way too boly. But anyway know that is another way. In fact, in my belief, the only way that a normal person without a gift can actually become wealthy is through diligent investing in stocks. And there's always good deals and there's always another bus coming along in terms of what you can put your money into. If I missed quantum yesterday, I'll get nuclear fusion in two years or whatever. There's always another bus coming. It's just fine to buy in too high and sell not near enough the top. It's absolutely fine if you do it Boingly. It's the way to go. So the best way to protect yourself from inflation and the easiest way to be economically active is to be a very, very, very, very boring investor.

Phil: Okay, uh, and now just to finish off as I was researching and seeing your FAQs on your website and we men of a certain age who can talk openly about these things. Jeff Wayne War of the World as your desert island disc only just believed.

Clem Chambers: In the Last years and 19th century the human affair been watch from the times world of space I know but.

Phil: Is this edging dangerously towards prog rock? Is it rock opera or prog rock? And another bloated era that was characterised by great inflation as well in music as well.

Clem Chambers: Asarily a child I produced the computer first computer game version of War of awards. I worked with Jeff at his mansion in hertfordshire. I was uh, 21 and I produced the computer game aw all the worlds. Uh so. And yeah, there you go in another life. I was One of the OGs of computer game industry when

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Clem Chambers: companies like Melbourne House were around and that's why yes, War the worlds is forever indelibly etched in my m mind.

Phil: A golden age of prog rock.

Clem Chambers: Clem Chambers uh, it'fabulous fabulous, fabulous piece and unfortunately game wasn't quite so fabulous but I did try.

Phil: Fantastic. Cleim Chambers, thank you very much for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you.

Clem Chambers: Greatrect to be on. Thanks for listening to Shares for Beginners. You can find more at sharesforbeginners.com. if you enjoy listening, please take a moment to rate or review in your podcast player or tell a friend who might want to learn more about investing for their future.

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