The metals market has been a sharp warning that things don’t always go up and down. Even though buyers in precious metals are still getting over last month’s blow, one mining executive said that the market’s fundamentals are still strong.
“Even though prices are changing, the world will still need more copper, and gold is still a safe investment,” Warwick Smith, CEO of American Pacific Mining, told Kitco News. “Things never just go up.” The long-term picture doesn’t change, though.
The mining industry gained a lot of speed when gold prices went through a rapid rise from the second half of 2025 to last month. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF has gone up 140% in the last year, while gold has only gone up 64%.
Smith admitted that the market’s mental health had been hurt by how quickly things had changed. However, he added that there is still a lot of value in the equity space in the long run.
He said, “Six months ago, we were trying to get used to $3,000 gold.” “Gold is getting close to $5,000 now, and mining stocks are getting cut in half.” “That kind of swing makes you doubt yourself,” he said.
Even though the price went down, Smith said he doesn’t think gold’s role in the economy as a whole will change. He said that demand for precious metals is still supported by global fragmentation, protectionism, and geopolitical stress. He also said that the January selloff was more about positioning and overextension than a real change in demand.
“There was no real change,” Smith said. “There has been no huge discovery that changes the supply curve all of a sudden.”
Copper: The story is still the same
Smith thinks that copper is still the most interesting long-term story in the metals group, even though gold and silver are both volatile.
“There’s no doubt that copper is the metal to watch.” “There isn’t enough of it in the world,” he said. “I still think this is the start of a real metals bull market.” Copper is at the center of it all.
Smith said he doesn’t think the world’s copper gap will go away any time soon because more copper is needed for things like making homes electric, spending on defense, expanding the grid, and bringing supply chains back to the United States.
“We are all finding out more about how much copper we will need,” Smith said. “And we still haven’t found the mines that will give us the gold.”
He said that permit deadlines are still measured in decades. The grades at current mines are going down. In the past few years, not many big findings have been made.
Smith said, “Nothing new has been found that changes the curve.” “We still have to deal with those problems.”
Changeability vs. Chance
The January correction showed that there is a gap between big traders and small buyers. Volatility is good for hedge funds but bad for regular buyers.
Smith has simple advice for long-term investors: be very picky, focus on companies with strong projects, cash on hand, or reliable access to capital, and keep an eye on the metals cycle over the long run.
He also said that buyers shouldn’t be afraid to cash out when the markets get too good to be true.
“No one ever lost money when they made money,” he said. “Sell a little when things get good.” If you think the market will go up again in the long run, you should reinvest after these big drops.
Smith pointed out that big producers are still in good financial shape, even though there has been a selloff.
“After the last cycle, the balance sheets of mid-tier and major miners are spotless,” he said. “They’re making money.”
In the end, that strength could trickle down to developers and explorers. However, Smith says that junior stocks haven’t seen the full retail rush that happened in previous cycles. He did say, though, that there was still time and that the present correction was like a mid-cycle reset.
Smith said that the drop in January may have hurt feeling, but it hasn’t changed the need for copper or the importance of gold in a time of unstable geopolitics.
“We will have to go back in painful steps along the way,” he said. “But if the main point is that the world needs a lot more copper, which I think it does, then this isn’t the end of the story.” That’s what it is.
