If the technology sector 'washes out' mining stands to benefit

Watch the flows of cash from one sector to another to see when mining truly turns bullish, said Hedley Widdup, executive director of Australia-based Lion Selection Group. 

On Friday, Widdup recorded Kitco Roundtable podcast with editor Neils Christensen and mining audiences manager Michael McCrae.

Widdup traces the history of the mining booms and busts starting with the mining boom that ended in 1998 due to the East Asian currency crisis and Bre-X scandal.

"[It] was an enormous wipe out of risk money, and it told people instantly you can't put your money in explorers because they're liars," said Widdup.

The dot-com bubble followed in the late 90s.

"It's like [money flowing] from one ocean to another. And whilst it's happy playing somewhere, it is probably not going to inflate anything else," said Widdup.

"I think we've seen a pretty reasonable run of risk money into the mining sector...but we really haven't seen the washout of tech, and if that was to happen, it might be bad for the equity market broadly, but mining would be the beneficiary in the years that follow."

Kitco Roundtable also reprised its interview with Peter Hug, Global Trading Director of Kitco.

Plans to short-squeeze silver to never before seen prices circulated on Reddit. Hug evaluated what it would take, hypothetically, for these plans to come to fruition.