BC: In terms of a person's portfolio, the exploration side of things is certainly a high-risk proposition, but I think it can be done intelligently. A person needs to really put the work into understanding what exploration is all about, how it works, and then correctly interpreting results. If you can do that you outsmart three fourths of the competition.

I would say half of my portfolio is in the exploration sector. In the newsletter we started, what I called a gamblin' stock portfolio in May, is up better than 140% on six stocks—more if you consider the two dogs I indicated didn't have much of a chance. So it's a good sector for me to be in, and I think in particular gold discoveries are going to be worth a lot more as we move forward. We already discussed the decline in global production and major mining companies needing to replace their reserves. So intelligent investing in the speculative side of minerals exploration is a smart place to be, if you are informed about it.

One thing any investor could do is when a news release comes out or when they're investigating a company, go to the website and see what's there. The website and disclosure provided tells you a lot about a company. Make sure that when a company reports drill results, for instance, that a map's included. They need to report all the drill holes. Often a company reports results from hole numbers 5, 8 and 20. Okay, there's 17 holes there we're not hearing about. Why aren't they reported, and what was drilled in the past? Just seeing how a company discloses information can tell you whether they're honest or not. I think that test alone cuts out half the companies; you won't need to bother with them. If a company doesn't fully report information, assume they're hiding something. Anybody can do that easy test. You don't even need to know what the information means, just know whether they present and report everything.

I've actually written three free reports that are available on my website discussing things to beware of. One's about geologists, one's about drill holes and one's about resources. Each of these is written in such a way that is not difficult to understand and I have tried to throw some humor into it. I think it's certainly worth reading because you can get a sense of the games that can be played.

TGR: Anything else you want to pop in here before we say goodbye?

BC: In summary, I think I'd just say gold exploration is a good sector to be in, albeit only with your risk capital. Exploration success offers the highest possible returns if you are careful; a bit of luck doesn't hurt either. But you have to be intelligent about it.