My trip to the SMI in Panama
The Swiss Mining Institute event in Panama City wrapped up this week. I hosted a couple of panels, spoke with Alexander Scanlon from Barton Gold, and caught up Tavi Costa and Peter Schiff amongst others.
The general mood was clearly positive on mining and commodities. Several speakers pointed to strong macro factors behind it.
The situation in Iran has added to expectations of another round of inflation, particularly in energy and food. At the same time, parts of the economy are showing deflationary signs — a tricky stagflation setup.
Latin America came up more than once as a region that could benefit. It’s relatively underexplored, seeing some political shifts towards more business-friendly policies, and generally viewed as lower risk for capital than several other parts of the world.
Tavi Costa described the current environment as the early stages of a commodity cycle, linked to large US deficits and dollar weakness. On the metals side, both gold and silver were highlighted. Central banks continue to buy gold as they diversify reserves. Silver stands out due to ongoing supply deficits and its recent addition to the US critical minerals list. Several producers are currently seeing strong margins.
There was also discussion around copper and base metals. These have lagged gold but look interesting given expected demand from data centres, electrification, and energy infrastructure.
On the financing side, debt, royalty and streaming markets are picking up again after a quiet period. Banks and large streamers are active, and there’s rotation happening on the equity side towards developers and juniors.
A few notes for investors:
Quality still matters — good management, stable jurisdictions and decent infrastructure.
Australia, Latin America and Canada were mentioned as examples.
Developers and mid-tier companies often sit at lower valuations and can offer more leverage as projects move forward.
Silver and copper were flagged as having interesting risk/reward compared to gold right now.
Volatility is likely, and many speakers viewed this as still early.
A handful of companies that came up in conversation: New Pacific Metals, Silver Core Metals, Capstone Silver, Ivanhoe Mines and Sitka Gold.
That’s the main takeaway from Panama. Straightforward stuff, but the combination of macro signals and capital starting to move again makes it worth watching.
Check out stockboxmedia.com for all the media from what was a great conference in a great place.
Until then, Mark
