Commodities have always been cyclical, but today’s mining sector is facing a unique blend of macroeconomic volatility, geopolitical tension, and structural change. In this episode, the FundCalibre team talk to Evy Hambro (pictured) and Olivia Markham, co-managers of the BlackRock World Mining Trust, as they discuss current disruptions like tariffs and trade rerouting, the surprising disconnect between commodity and equity prices, and the rising importance of critical materials like copper and uranium. They also unpack how unquoted investments, royalty strategies, and income diversification are helping to future-proof the portfolio.
Why you should listen to the interview: If you want to understand why gold companies might be lagging despite record prices, how electrification is driving copper demand, or why volatility can be an investor’s friend, this episode offers valuable insights into the mechanics of modern mining portfolios and where the best long-term opportunities may lie.
This interview was recorded on 16 April 2025. Please note, answers are edited and condensed for clarity. To gain a fuller understanding and clearer context, please listen to the full interview.
Interview highlights
Disconnect in the market
“We definitely saw last year, particularly as we moved into the last quarter, that there was really was a disconnect between the commodity prices and the share prices of the companies exposed to those commodities. This is probably most notable in gold. If you have a look last year, the gold price performed very strongly but a number of the gold equities actually finished the year down. And that disconnect, part of it can be explained by things such as higher cost, not as much cashflow generation. But we really saw it as an opportunity and we used that opportunity which has turned out to be quite fortuitous this year by actually adding back to some of those gold equities because of the disconnect and how they would normally trade with that underlying commodity price.
“We saw some similar things happen in copper too, actually. As we moved to that back end of the year some of the copper equities, really started to perform a bit poorly relative to the copper price. To me, I think part of this has to come back to concerns around noise of tariffs and what that could do to global growth. So I think as we’re navigating through this period, we are seeing disconnects between equities and a bit of equity de-rating relative to the underlying commodity prices.”
The benefits of active management
“So although you could have been right to be in gold, if you’ve been in a gold equity ETF, which has huge weightings towards these large-caps, you would’ve underperformed because of that, so many of them haven’t been able to deliver what you had hoped they would be able to deliver.
“I think the phase that we’re going into now though is with gold prices where they are right now, as we’re recording this gold’s at a new high — $3,300 an ounce — gold companies should be printing cash at these numbers. And we would hope this starts to come back to shareholders in terms of dividends. And it’s been really interesting to see a large number of gold equity companies doing share buybacks as well. So there’s a lot of focus on shareholder returns here.”
The copper appeal
“Copper has been an absolutely fascinating market. In the last couple of years as the world has become increasingly focused on electrification, they’ve recognised that copper is almost like a linchpin in that equation because we do need to see a significant amount of supply growth, and that’s a real challenge for the industry.
“I think the long term fundamentals of the copper market look very healthy. You’ll hear lots of companies talking about copper deficits in time, the need for higher copper prices, and I would support, a lot of those positive comments out there. But you’re absolutely right in the short term copper is kind of like the bellwether commodity for global demand. And as you go through an environment of trade wars it becomes just from a macro shorter term perspective, challenging for the copper price.
“It’s been really interesting though when you actually have a look before we kind of had the tariffs being announced, actually just how well the copper price performed. Actually at one point in time, the copper price was up more than the gold price year to date.
“For us when we run portfolios, where we think we can create the most performance is by kind of looking over the medium to longer term. It’s harder to pick those very, very short term trends in commodity price moves. So when we look out on that medium to longer term view, we see some great value in some of the corporates, but we can’t be ignorant to the fact that there’s a lot of volatility in the short term. So I think you’ve got to focus on companies that are pretty well capitalised, they’re still generating positive free cash flow, that can weather the storm as you go through some shorter term volatility and price.”
Conclusion: From geopolitical uncertainty to structural growth themes like AI and decarbonisation, the mining sector is at the crossroads of short-term disruption and long-term potential. Whether it’s through strategic exposure to copper, gold, uranium, or unlisted royalty deals, the BlackRock World Mining Trust showcases a disciplined, insightful approach in a dynamic investment landscape.
