Yet Another Value Podcast Muddy Waters' Darren McLean on investing in the mining sector
15 snips
Jun 3, 2025 Darren McLean from Muddy Waters, an expert in hard metals and mining, offers unique insights into a sector often overlooked by general investors. He discusses the power of unconventional data analysis in uncovering inefficiencies and potential goldmines in mining investments. McLean highlights the ramifications of the brain drain in the industry and why supermajors are hesitant to engage in early-stage projects. He emphasizes that with the right expertise, investing in mining can yield significant returns, steering clear of common pitfalls.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Unique Alpha in Mining Sector
- Mining offers massive alpha because very few investors perform deep, creative data analysis.
- Small pieces of new information can drastically change a company's perceived value unnoticed by most.
Manually Exposing Resource Overstatement
- Darren uncovered that a $1.2 billion mining company was vastly overvalued by analyzing drill hole data manually.
- This hands-on data modeling revealed only a fifth of the gold claimed was likely present, leading to a market collapse.
Shallow Asset Qualification Dominates
- Most investors don't deeply qualify mining assets; they rely on shallow comparisons and arbitrages.
- This leads to poor decision-making and undervaluation or overvaluation based on superficial metrics.
