First Majestic Silver CEO Says Triple-Digit Silver Needed to Cover Supply Deficit

Coming up don’t miss our exclusive interview with Keith Neumeyer, president and CEO of First Majestic Silver Corp. As you’ll discover during Mike Maharrey’s conversation Keith, he is somewhat of a lone wolf when it comes to mining executives because he regularly holds gold and silver on the company’s balance sheet, rather than always selling his mining output onto the open market. Keith discusses this strategy and why he is a firm believer in his product.

Mike and Keith also discuss how the official numbers in terms of the silver supply deficit are significantly underreporting and underrepresenting the true situation when it comes to the availability of above ground silver. And Keith shares why he’s still predicting three digit silver prices as a must in order to draw out more mine supply to cover these deficits.

So, be sure to stick around for a great interview with Keith Neumeyer of First Majestic Silver, coming up after this week’s market update.

The U.S. dollar broke down sharply early this week, slicing through 100 and even touching 98 on the dollar index before rebounding somewhat. With gold coming off its intraday high of $3,500 on Monday night, the dollar has recovered slightly but remains in a steep downtrend since the start of the year.

Frenetic Chinese buying is a major driver fueling this month's gold rally, but so is the rotation of capital out of stocks and bonds into the best-performing asset class of the year, by far.

For the week gold is actually down about 1.4% now to trade at $3,291 an ounce, thanks to another pullback here during Friday trading.

During the first part of the year the Dow:Gold ratio has been breaking down badly however – meaning stocks are doing even worse in terms of gold.

If this key ratio, currently sitting at about 12 to 1, returns to its 2011 low, that points to a 50% further decline in stocks as compared to gold bullion.

Meanwhile, silver is traded mostly sideways this week with a slight upward bias. The white metal currently checks in at $33.13 per ounce, up 40 cents or 1.2% for the week as of this Friday morning recording.

Early in the week, the gold-silver ratio peaked at just over 103:1. That means it took about 103 ounces of silver to buy an ounce of gold.

This is slightly above the 1991 peak and not too far below the all-time high of 123:1 during the pandemic chaos in early 2020.

While the ratio has fallen to 99 as of this Friday's recording, this is still an extremely wide spread from a historical perspective and indicates that silver remains drastically underpriced compared to gold.

More significantly, these wide gold-silver ratios don’t tend to last long. They eventually snap back to the mean. And when that happens, it’s generally a very fast move.

Mining industry geologists estimate there are somewhere between 19 and 20 ounces of silver for every ounce of gold in the earth’s crust. This provides a natural starting point for a gold-silver ratio of 20:1.

From a mining perspective, annual silver production averages around 800 million ounces per year, and gold production is a little over 100 million ounces. (These are rounded numbers.) That would give a gold-silver ratio of around 8:1.

We do know that governments have set gold-silver ratios to control the value of their coinage for centuries. The earliest recorded imposed gold-silver ratio was in Ancient Egypt when the ratio was set at 2.5:1.

The U.S. Congress fixed a gold-silver ratio of 15:1 in its 1792 Coinage Act. This compares to a 15.5:1 ratio set by France in 1803.

A bi-metallic monetary system proved to be unwieldy, and European countries began to demonetize silver in the mid-19th century. The U.S. followed the lead of England, Portugal, Germany, and other nations and established a gold standard in the Coinage Act of 1873.

The demonetization left the gold-silver ratio to float freely. By World War II, the gold-silver ratio had spread to as much as 40:1.

In the modern era, the gold-silver ratio has averaged around 60:1.

As I already mentioned, when the gold-silver ratio gets way out of whack, it eventually snaps back to the average.

From a historical perspective, when you see gold-silver ratios well above that historical average, it tells you that silver is underpriced compared to gold, and there is a strong possibility that silver will go on a bull run to close that gap. Historically, this has often happened in the midst of a gold bull rally, with silver outperforming gold. (Of course, past performance does not guarantee future results.)

We’ve seen even more dramatic snapbacks in the past. The gold-silver ratio fell to 30:1 in 2011 after rising to over 80:1 during the money creation of the Great Recession in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Some people have suggested that the gold-silver ratio has broken down. However, nobody has been able to point to any structural change in the gold and silver markets to explain such a breakdown.

The reality is the silver market is relatively small—roughly a tenth the size of gold's—which means even modest capital inflows can move the price dramatically.

Silver also tends to be more volatile, often behaving like a leveraged version of gold. During bull markets, it usually outpaces gold significantly.

And unlike gold, about half of silver's demand is industrial. As economic activity rebounds after downturns, this industrial usage picks up, providing additional price support.

It’s worth noting that the supply and demand fundamentals are extremely strong for silver.

Industrial demand set a record in 2024, driving the fourth straight annual market deficit in silver. Silver demand outstripped supply by nearly 150 million ounces. That drove the four-year market shortfall to 678 million ounces, the equivalent of 10 months of mining supply in 2024.

And this was with tepid investment demand. When investors get in on the action, that supply-demand gap could explode.

The bottom line is that silver appears to be on sale. Not to sound like a TV huckster, but these prices probably won't last. Now is the time to take advantage of this historically wide gold-silver ratio. Nobody knows when it will snap back to more normal levels, but if history is any indication, it will. And when it does, it will happen fast.

Well now, without further delay, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview.

Mike Maharrey: Greetings. I'm Mike Maharrey, a reporter and analyst here at Money Metals, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Keith Neumeyer, president, chief executive Officer and director of First Majestic Silver Corporation. How are you doing, Keith?

Keith Neumeyer: Great, Michael, it's a nice meeting you for the first time.

Mike Maharrey: Well, it's a pleasure to have you on the show and looking forward to getting your perspective on the goings on out there. There's certainly a lot of those, but before we dig into the topics at hand, I would love for you to give just a quick overview for folks who may not be familiar of First Majestic. What do you guys do? Can I give you the elevator pitch for the company?

Keith Neumeyer: Sure. Thanks Michael. Yeah, I put the company together 22 years ago. It's been a long time and our first year of production we produced 25,000 ounces of gold, I mean silver, pardon me, back in 2004 and this past year in 2024, we produced somewhere in the order of about 22 million ounces of silver equivalent, which about 60% of that was silver and about 40% of that was gold. We have four producing mines all in Mexico and in 2025, due to a recent acquisition of which I'm sure we'll talk about, will produce somewhere in the order of 32 million ounces, 31 to 32 million ounces, a silver equivalent in 2025, of which about 50 some odd percent of that is silver. About 30 plus percent of that is gold and the balance being lead and zinc we're listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It's trading similar as Ag market cap is about 3 billion or three and a half billion in that range. We've got 5,500 employees worldwide. And yeah, we're one of the most well-known silver companies in the space as far as I'm concerned.

Mike Maharrey: And you have the privilege of basically digging money out of the ground, which is kind of a cool thing when you think about it.

Keith Neumeyer: Especially lately, our cash flows have increased dramatically, our treasuries at the strongest it's ever been in the company's history. And yeah, it's a good time to be a miner.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, fantastic. Well, I'd kind of like to start off just by kind of getting your take on all of the crazy action we've seen in the gold and silver markets. Not really just in the last couple of weeks, but for the last year things have been really strong and we'll focus primarily on silver, and I think there's this perception that silver's kind of been a laggard because it's not done as well as gold. It's not setting new records, but it's still up I think like 12% on the year and it was up comparable to gold last year. However, we kind of saw the silver price sink when the stock market started selling off last week and then it kind of bounced up. It seems to be almost attached at the hip with the stock market in the economy. Is it still that way or is that something you see kind of shifting?

Keith Neumeyer: I think I look at silver as an industrial metal, and I always have, and that's why I put together Silver Company. I could have put together a gold company and I believe gold is currency. I think gold is the granddaddy of all currency.

I know it's controversial when I say that silver's industrial metal because many people look at silver's money as well. I just don't think there's enough silver around for it to ever become money. Gold is a different story. There's a lot of gold and vaults around the world, and I think gold could easily replace the current financial system under the right circumstances if the governments around the world ever got together and agreed to do such a thing, which in itself is likely not possible. But nevertheless, I just don't think silver is in that same, it should be treated the same. 70% of silvers silver gets used in industrial form of some nature, particularly with electronics. There's over 10,000 uses of silver used to just be used for governments in coinage back in pre sixties, even in Canada, coinage, our dimes and quarters were all silver. And then once the governments got out of that because it was costing too much, photography was the next real big consumer of silver. And then photography then dissolved due to electronics and it took 30 years for the electronics sector to absorb all that silver supply that was left behind by governments and the photographic industry. Now today we have a record low above ground supplies of the metal. We've got record consumption, record deficits. I can get into numbers if you wish to get into details, but the supply demand fundamentals for silver are just outstanding. Better than 22 years ago when I put the company together

And I put it together because I saw electronics gobbling up all the supply solar panels and electric cars didn't even exist 22 years ago.

And those two industries alone are consuming over 30% of the world's supply of silver. And those two industries didn't even, as I said, weren't around a couple decades ago, and there's nuclear energy, people don't talk about it, but a nuclear power plant and governments are now going nuclear again, or at least or at least suggesting they're going to go down that path. A nuclear power plant consumes a ton of silver. I dunno where the silver is coming from. We need much higher metal prices. We need triple digit silver. And I coined that phrase a decade ago. I was the first guy to say triple digit silver, and now other people are starting to come to that same viewpoint. Gold's obviously been on a tear and silver's been lagging behind a little bit.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, you mentioned the market deficits. Let's touch on that a little bit. We just got the official numbers in from the Silver Institute. I call 'em official. They're kind of the go-to in the industry and it was indeed the fourth straight annual market deficit. We don't really need to get into the raw numbers and make people's head spin, but a significant market deficit in the hundreds of millions of ounces. How much longer can these annual supply deficits continue before the price moves dramatically? And how long would it take for silver production to start to catch up?

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah, look, I'm not a big fan of the Silver Institute. First. Maje is not a member of the Silver Institute. We canceled our membership a few years ago. I know the silver market better than they do, quite honestly. I talked to a lot of people in the industry and I'm in contact with the refineries, the smelters. I just came from Japan just last week meeting with one of the largest smelting companies there. And I asked them the question, have you ever received a phone call from the Silver Institute or Metals Focus? Who does the data for them.

They said, of course, they said no, but I asked the same question. When I'm meeting a jewelry company or meeting electronics manufacturing company, I always ask them the same question, have you received a call from Metals Focus? And they said No. So those numbers are all made up. They're complete nonsense. They look at public data and they just make up plugs. The recycling numbers a plug, the investment numbers a plug. They know what the miners produce, they could just add it up. It's all public data. They don't know what the private miners produce because that supply goes into Dubai or other places around the world and it's not recorded. Most of the smelters and refineries around the world are privately owned and they don't report what they're getting in and then they would never want to report it. Even if they did get a phone call, they probably wouldn't tell you what it is. And if you asked BMW how much silver's in one of their automobiles, they wouldn't be able to tell you because no one knows. And it's crazy. So groups like the Silver Institute or Metals Focus, they come up with an estimate of how much silver or gold is in a cell phone and that's what they use. And they try to figure out how many cell phones are sold worldwide and they do the math, but they don't know how many cell phone companies there are in China, there's over a hundred cell phone companies in China.

So, they'll use Apple and Samsung, but they won't use the other a hundred cell phone companies around the planet. So both sides of the equation, they're so far off. It's crazy. It

Mike Maharrey: Sounds like the government.

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah, it's a very secretive industry. They're none of these manufacturers, even if they're not going to tell you the computer I'm sitting in front of right now, it's an IBM ThinkPad. There's no one at IBM that knows how much copper's in this thing, how much silver gold is in this thing because it's all OEM. So IBM hires a hundred different manufacturers around the world and they buy all the chips and they bought, they all have the screens and they buy everything there is to put together a computer and they just assemble it. And no one ever figures out how much is in each one of the little components in that Ottoman dealer in that computer, so no one knows. So consumption is way underestimated, and I think production's also underestimated.

Mike Maharrey: So you're arguing that the supply deficit's actually even bigger than what we're getting from these official numbers. Am I hearing that right?

Keith Neumeyer: I think so. Yeah. I just walked through a refinery just last week and they're scrambling. They can't get enough metal and there's a big problem because they need the metal supply industry and they're scrambling looking for supply.

Mike Maharrey: So, is this why you're kind of arguing that we need triple digit prices to bring that back into balance? Is that kind of what you’re thinking is on that?

Keith Neumeyer: Well, it is interesting. I've listened to, and I've heard this number before, but it's just another mining company. I listened to a presentation, there's about six months ago, and they had done some work on how long it takes from drill bit discovery to actual balances being produced out of a mill, and the average is 18 years.

It depends on jurisdiction of course and everything else. And some mines take much longer and some of course take less, but nevertheless, that's a long time. So there's a lot of money that's got to be raised along that process. You start as an exploration company, you drill a hole and if you hit something, you got to spend more money, you drill more holes and then hopefully you get enough holes drilled and you build a resource where you've got enough metal there to make it economic, to build a mill, but you got to get permitting along the way, which in itself is quite the challenge with governments around the world these days because everyone hates mining. And then you got to raise the money and it's got to be money that's sticky money because it's five year money, 10 year money kind of thing. And so that's very unique type of investor that invests in projects like that. And then eventually you get production. So here with something in the order of 600 million ounces of deficits over the last four years, five years, and how are we going to plug that deficit? You need triple digit silver just to motivate the mining companies to start investing a game because the mining companies aren't going to make the investment because there's just so much risk in it. You look what happens around the world. Look what happened in Panama last year where copper mine got shut down

Or Guatemala or wherever around the world, a mining company spends hundreds of millions of dollars on an operation to get it up and running, and the government turns in and just takes away your license and the banks get tired of it and they just stop financing it. And that's why I know one of your questions coming up is why the mining, why the miners lagging the metals? And this is one of the reasons is because the institutional investor out there, they look at the sector, it's quite risky and it's a tough industry for them to wrap their heads around.

Mike Maharrey: And you're operating in a significant environment of I guess, regime uncertainty and not just in one country, but in many, many countries when you're operating mines in different jurisdictions and whatnot. So that's got to be difficult for you as a planner trying to navigate this. The issue of tariffs, is that really, has that been a challenge for you to navigate in terms of trying to pave a way forward? Because it seems like we don't really know what's going to happen from one day to the next on this stuff.

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah, jurisdictions is obviously one of our key issues when it comes to investing anywhere. And we don't invest outside of North America and we won't. I've got small investments in juniors that dabble in places like Peru or Argentina or elsewhere around the world. But the copper company I put together back in the early nineties was in Africa and it did quite well. It's one of the top copper companies even today after I left over 20 years ago. But I just don't want the headache of being in one of these jurisdictions. I'll let other people do that. Mexico for me, I think is about as risky as I want to get. There's parts of the United States I wouldn't invest in, and there's parts of Canada I wouldn't invest in either, but I think North America is probably the safest jurisdiction in the world to invest in. Maybe Australia would be up there as well. But yeah, anyways, when it comes to tariffs, we've been watching, everyone else has been watching and Trump one day says Trump, he says one thing one day and then he says something the next day and we're kind of on the edge of our seats wondering, okay, what's coming? So far it hasn't affected us. Supply chains are getting a little bit wonky because people are concerned

About shipping stuff and they don't know if they're going to get hit or not. And I just read an article this morning that something like 30% of Americans have held off on major purchases because they don't know what's going to happen with the economy. So I dunno, hopefully this is a short-term phenomenon. Hopefully things snap back and we get back to normal, but we haven't been affected negatively at this point.

Mike Maharrey: Well, that's good to hear. One of the things that's really interesting, I think about First Majestic is you guys are one of the few mining companies that hold gold and silver on your balance sheet. Most miners, they dig it out of the ground, they sell it immediately, and you seem to believe in your product or at least its qualities as a wealth protector. So why don't your peers seem to have this same attitude? I mean it seems odd that I said this kind of in jest at the top of the show that you're taking money out of the ground, but in a sense you are. Why don't other companies seem to recognize that? Do you think?

Keith Neumeyer: There are a couple out there that do maybe not on quite the scale that First Majestic does, but certain mining companies produce two different products. You produce a concentrate and without getting too complicated, I might lose people. But a concentrate is just a pile of powder that is a multi-metal black powder that has to get shipped off to a smelter and then burned under very high temperature to separate all the different metals from it. And then that smelter then sends those metals off into industry. It's almost impossible for the mining company to warehouse because that metal is gone. It's sold to a Trader Glencore or trap gura or wherever it goes, or a bank buys it and that metal doesn't come back, so it's gone. Or if you're not producing a concentrate, you're producing what's called a Dore bar, which is a block of almost refined metal, usually silver, gold or a combination thereof. And we could warehouse that.

We just keep it at the mine and put it in the vaults and it sits there. It's on our balance sheet and it's our metal, and then we can decide what we want to liquidate it. And that's what makes it easy for us. We could send it to the refinery and get it converted into a thousand ounce commercial bars, which we also do, and we could leave it at the refinery. Now we've done that many times and they don't mind doing it. And we also have our mint in Nevada. We're the only mining company in the world that has our own mint. 5% of our silver production in 2024 went through the mint and we're expecting 10% of our silver production in 2025 to go through the mint. So we keep inventory at the mint as well. So we have a very flexible business that allows us to do that.

Mike Maharrey: And like I said, I think it's a smart move. I mean, I not real sanguine on the dollar right now, so I would be wary of holding a bunch of dollars for the long term. So it makes sense to keep some of that wealth, for lack of a better word, in actual metal.

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah, well, it's worked for us in the past. I'm sure it'll continue to work for us in the future.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. You've expressed some concerns about the leverage of paper silver and that supply versus physical, and you've also been critical of bull banks. Can you kind of let people know about the concerns? And it's kind of a wonky subject, but it's something I think investors are extremely interested in on how that's playing out in the market.

Keith Neumeyer: I was listening to Andy Shaman the other day on YouTube interview. He did, and my numbers may be quite low, he threw some numbers out there that were much greater than mine. And so I'm going to have to, well next time I'm going to see him in a couple of months, I'm going to ask him this same question that you've just asked me because my data might be a little bit old, but what I generally use is a billion ounces a day that trades in the paper markets and there's 240 trading days in the year. So that's 240 billion ounces of silver paper silver trades in the paper market worldwide. I think his number was twice my number. And so the miners per our producing 830 million ounces, you can divide it out yourself, 240 billion, divide it by 830 million. You got to leverage there of something like 300 at one. So for every one ounce of physical metal that's actually out there, approximately 300 ounces of paper metal are trading in the market and it creates price suppression. And it's not like if you own the bank, you'd probably do the same thing.

They're there to make money and they're there to monitor their own risk and monitor their own book. But if they get a phone call from Sony or BMW or whomever, Tesla, we want 50 million ounces of silver delivered in 2025 to x, y, Z port in the world, the bank's going to happily write you that contract and fix the price for the next 12 months and you get that silver delivered to you to produce whatever you're going to produce with it. And it's in the best interest of that bank to hold that price as close to that trade that they can keep it at. Because if it gets too offside, then all of a sudden they get margin calls and they might have to cover their shorts and then it causes other problems. So then the back office compliance department at the banks goes to the trader and says, what the heck are you doing? We just lost X amount of money on that trade. Then the guy might get fired. Who knows. So stuff like that happens all the time. So that's the market. It's very heavily paper-driven market and it's one of my beefs. I think that to fix the system, they should force the system to hold a minimum amount of physical metal

Against those paper contracts, which they don't have any obligation to do. They can have zero metal against a paper contract, which is complete nonsense like the banks, like a major bank. I think most banks have 10 to one for every $1 they've loaned out. I think they have to have 10% of that money in reserves. So one to 10 ratio, and they should do the same thing in the physical mental Comex should have one to 10 a bank, a short position, be one to 10. If they did that, at least it would be a more visible and more transparent system. And that's the kind of thing I buy push for.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Do you ever see a world in which the actual physical supply and demand dynamics break down that paper suppression that's out there?

Keith Neumeyer: No. It is going to, cause there's people that speculate that there's a huge short position. What's the bank that Bank of America bought back during the, was it Lehman or one of the big banks? I forget the name of it, but they had apparently a huge short position. That was one of the reasons why they went under. And it's speculation. I've seen people talk about it out there, but those are the kinds of things that you really need to happen. But quite honestly, I think it's going to be a supply problem. I think that one of the big electronic manufacturers or maybe the automotive sector, who knows, they're just going to have to stop producing their product. We saw this through Covid where I remember specifically Mercedes had to stop producing one of their models because they couldn't get engines and it was due to the supply chain that broke down for the manufacturing, that particular automobile. Then I heard of other supply chain issues as well during that period.

And I'm sure you have as well, but I think that's going to be what's crack the market whereby there's a delivery system. X bank has to deliver X amount of silver to the whatever manufacturing plant and that bank just can't sell it, and then they go force majeure and that breaks the system and I think that's very likely.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, you're not the first person that I've heard say that, so it's definitely something that's out there kind of top of mind. So, I'm going to get you out on this one. You mentioned earlier that you're in the process of completing an acquisition of another mining company. So what is the new combined company, what's that going to look like and what's kind of a takeaway for investors when they're looking at investments in the mining sector?

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah. Well that transaction's closed. It closed in January. It took almost a year. It was news released in September after several months of negotiations, and it finally closed in January. So our fourth mine is the lowest Gatos silver mine in Chihuahua, Mexico. It adds 10 million ounces of silver production, silver equivalent production to our portfolio. So we go from 21 million ounces, as I said earlier, to about 31 million ounces in 2025. Big cash flowing operation, highly profitable, adds a thousand employees to our roster. Yeah, it's a great mine and it's a long life mine. It'll be around for decades into the future. Huge land package, excellent asset to have in our portfolio.

Mike Maharrey: That's outstanding. If somebody is looking at the mining sector, and this is something that's, that's way outside of my wheelhouse. I primarily focus on the physical and the just buying and holding metals. What are some things that you would look for as an investor if you're evaluating a mining company and feel free to pump company, sure that you feel like it's a strong company. What are the things that make it a strong company that an investor would be interested in?

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah. Well, I think that everyone should own physical metal, gold and silver depends on your investment thesis, but that's my belief anyways. And then if you want a little bit of more leverage, you go to the miners. They're generally gold and silver are fairly well up until the last few months. They're generally not that volatile. It's a good long-term wealth preservation tool. That's why I look at it. I don't buy physical gold or silver to sell it. I buy it as a savings account and I just put it away and who knows what I'm going to do with it, but I have no intent in selling it. But if I buy a mining stock, I'm buying it because I think I'm going to sell it one day. I'm buying it because those shares should go up in price. And of course metal prices need to go up as well.

It is unlikely that a mining stock will go up with gold and silver dropping. That just doesn't happen. So the mining sector is extremely cyclical. So timing it is always a bit of a challenge. You don't want to be buying mining stocks at the top of the market, for example. But if you look at 22,000, 2001 when the Nasdaq peaked at 5,000 and it dropped over the next three years to 800, so it dropped over 85% approximately anyways over a three year period. And that lit the mining sector on fire because all that money had to go somewhere.

So, it left the NASDAQ. It left the high-tech sector, and it went into real assets. It went into real estate and it went to mining. Stocks went in gold, silver, gold went from $240 to $1,800, silver went from five to 50, the mining sector just exploded. There was many stocks that went up 500, 600, a thousand percent over that period of time for suggests extremely well over that period of time as well as most, well the entire sector. And I think that's what's happening again today. I think we're at the beginning of another long-term bull market in the mining sector and the stocks are still lagging, which is normal because the rotation is just underway. And we saw the Dow down a thousand points just recently. And so it was up, it balanced today, but that rotation of capital is happening in front of our eyes and the money is slowly coming into the mining sector.

It's not piling in yet, but I think it's going to start to accelerate. And I'm very optimistic that 2025 to probably 2030 are going to be expanding or outstanding years for the mining sector. So how do you pick mining stocks? You always go to management first. So go to their website, look at the management. I'm 65 years old, I've been in the mining sector for almost 40 years and I built some fairly substantial companies throughout my career. I've created thousands of millionaires and paid off thousands of mortgages and bought many automobiles for my shareholders and not me personally but them. So look, I've created a lot of wealth and that's what investors should look for, guys that of similar type of experience. And there's a lot of the young guys out there I don't want to take away from the young guys that are working hard and trying to real companies. And I'm always trying to find those young guys because I'm always trying to help them out if I'm able to. But it's hard because the mining sector is so small and there's a lot of recycled projects out there. And if you and I are over a beer, I could probably tell you over the last 20 years how many times I've seen the same asset show up in a handful of different companies

Because it fails and ends up somewhere else and fails again and up somewhere else. And so there's a lot of recycled projects out there and you should probably go after the producers first because you have a tolerance level and pick the good ones. And then if you want to have a little bit more risk, go after the developers. And then if you really want to have torque and really want to have the risk, that's where you go after the explorers. But just go to the management teams first, check 'em out and look at jurisdiction. Don't buy nothing against China or Russia or anything like that. But I wouldn't buy a mining stock that has properties and jurisdictions that are politically challenged.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely.

Keith Neumeyer: Yeah. So go after the jurisdictions that are permitable because these mining companies, they need permits and they need to be legally bound permits. They need to be in good jurisdictions where there's a legal structure in place and that these mining companies are protected under law those jurisdictions and there's proper mining regulations in place and protect investors and shareholders and so on. So you cut away half the world just by thinking that. And so I like North America. I think that's probably the safest place to be.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's the whole rule of law, private property rights, those types of things are absolutely essential really for any business, but especially for something like mining that is so dependent on permitting and those types of things that governments get themselves involved in. And I think any government can be problematic, but you definitely want to try to find them more stable. For sure. So where can folks go to find out more about First Majestic if they don't know anything about it and learn a little bit more about the company and maybe see if they're interested in throwing a little money your way?

Keith Neumeyer: Sure. Well, we have a website www.FirstMajestic.com. So first FirstMajestic.com would be a good place to go. We're on Twitter as well. Just @firstmagestic on Twitter (X). I'm personally on Twitter as well. Just @KeithNeumeyer. I usually tweet out most of first Majestics news on my handle. And feel free to go onto the website if you want to call the company. We have a one 800 number on the website. Feel free to call our investor relations department. There's a couple of people there that will be happy to talk to anyone that wishes additional information.

Mike Maharrey: Well, outstanding. I really do appreciate you taking time. I know you're a very busy man and it's really interesting to kind of get an insight into the mining sector, not something we do real often on the show. So I'm sure that the audience got some new information and some stuff they haven't heard about it. And so I appreciate you taking that time.

Keith Neumeyer: Well good, Michael, it's nice meeting you and I look forward to seeing you again.

Mike Maharrey: Alright, well thank you so much.

Keith is a rare bread when it comes to a precious metals mining executives, he actually believes in his product. We wish more mining CEOs were like him.

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