In this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan welcomes Rick Rule back to the show. Rick is the president and CEO of Rule Investment Media, which boasts more than 28,000 subscribers on Substack. With nearly 50 years of experience managing investments, primarily in the natural resources sector, Rick is an authority in the field.

Rick kicks things off by providing his long-term view on oil and gas as commodities, as well as his view on oil and gas stocks. He says that while the price of oil could temporarily decline if the conflict in the Middle East reaches a permanent resolution, current prices could be a glimpse of what's in store within the next four years. And according to Rick, many oil and gas companies are "cannibalizing" themselves by directing money away from reinvesting in their businesses and into dividends and share buybacks, which will impact production in the long term...

Investors are attracted to oil stocks that emphasize returns to shareholders, which is to say, dividends and share buybacks. The companies that are doing that, to the extent that they are diverting money from new project investment and sustaining capital investment, are cannibalizing themselves. And the market seems to favor cannibalization... Many [companies do reinvest]. They're just not as popular as those that don't.

Next, Rick shares his disdain for how government spending and interference have impacted both taxpayers and investors. He personally wrote an e-mail to President Donald Trump to inform him about one of the largest copper deposits in the world just sitting around. It sits on U.S. soil, but we have done nothing to begin production due to regulations. Rick then shares advice for listeners who want to invest during the oil shortage...

If you believe, as I believe, that there's going to be a structural shortage in the oil and gas business beginning in 2029, that's a really simple trade... So one thing that people might do is buy [this stock], if it goes lower, buy a little more, [and] enjoy a decent – but by oil company standards – stingy dividend... If you want to be a bit more aggressive, I think that... U.S. natural gas is a theme that's done well but has more legs.

Finally, Rick explains why "stingy" dividends are beneficial to investors. He goes further and reveals why capital-intensive companies should reinvest in their projects and illustrates why one Brazilian company is set up to disappoint investors who bought shares due to absurdly high dividends. Rick then states that institutional investors have been wrong about oil and gas. Many activists have predicted that fossil fuels will no longer be desired and will soon die out. On the contrary, with the growing need for energy, demand will continue to endure...

I think institutional investors have made a mistake in oil and gas... I think they told people – and I think people believed that the end of fossil fuels was over – that peak oil demand would occur in 2030... Demand for all forms of energy is growing. And this isn't all about data centers. This is about making the poorest of the poor less poor worldwide. A billion people on Earth have no access to primary electricity. I think we'll fix that over 20 years. But that means we're going to need a lot of power. We're going to need a lot of energy. Wind, sure. Hydro, to be sure. Oil and gas, yeah, that too. Even coal.

Click on the image below to watch the video interview with Rick right now. For the audio version, click "Listen" above.

(Additional past episodes are located here.)

The transcript is coming soon.

This Week's Guest

Rick Rule is the founder and CEO of Rule Investment Media. He began his career in 1974 in the securities business and has been involved in it ever since. He is known for his 40-plus years of expertise in many resource sectors, including agriculture, alternative energy, forestry, oil and gas, mining, and water. Rick attended the University of British Columbia, where he earned his undergraduate degree in natural resource finance.