Disseminated on behalf of: New Orleans Investment Conference
- The 52nd New Orleans Investment Conference runs October 28 to 31, 2026, at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.
- Sponsor exhibit space has already sold out with a waiting list, and individual investor registrations are running ahead of anything the event has recorded in decades.
- More than 30 confirmed speakers, among them Danielle DiMartino Booth, Grant Williams, Peter Schiff and Doug Casey, will deliver three and a half days of macroeconomic analysis, market strategy, and specific junior mining recommendations.
Ahead of schedule, and ahead of the market
Brien Lundin has spent decades running the New Orleans Investment Conference, which makes him a reliable read on how a given year is shaping up long before the doors open. By his account, this one is coming together unusually well.
“Planning is going very well. We’re actually very far ahead of the game, further than we usually are at this time of the year,” says Lundin, President and CEO of Jefferson Financial Inc. and CEO of the New Orleans Investment Conference.
Sponsor registrations have already sold out, with a waiting list forming behind them. “The sponsoring companies can’t wait to get to New Orleans.”
On the investor side, the numbers are doing something Lundin has not seen in a very long time. “Our individual investor registrations are running far ahead of anything we’ve seen in decades.”
The enthusiasm has a clear source. The seasoned metals and mining investors Lundin talks with have held their conviction through this year’s swings, and they have been steady buyers throughout.
“They’ve been very confident in a long-term trend driven by debt and deficits that are out of control, and by the cost of servicing those debts,” he says. “That argues for much higher metals prices.”
Which is exactly why they are booking flights. “They’re excited to come to New Orleans, because for over five decades this has proven to be the place to find the next year’s winners in a metals and mining bull market.”
There might be two or three of our speakers at another investment event, but there won’t be 30 of this quality, of this calibre.
— Brien Lundin, CEO, New Orleans Investment Conference
A habit of getting there first
The event exists today because its founder, James U. Blanchard III, understood in the early 1970s that the closing of the gold window in 1971 would usher in an era of far higher inflation, and he wanted a venue where investors could position themselves ahead of it. He launched the conference in 1974, the same year his long campaign to restore Americans’ right to own gold finally succeeded.
The pattern set then has largely held, and the people in the room have tended to hear the thesis early. Speakers on the New Orleans stage flagged the savings-and-loan troubles of the 1980s and the tech wreck of the late 1990s. At the bottom of the gold market in 2000, presenters were already describing the new gold bull market about to begin, which turned into one of the great wealth-building runs of that decade for anyone who acted on it. The conference was also early and emphatic on the inflation that followed the extraordinary central bank liquidity injections of 2020.
Lundin is modest about the scorecard. “If there’s one thing you could fault us for, it’s predicting some major events too far in advance, because the timing is always the hardest thing to predict,” he says.
For an investor, that is the practical appeal: hearing a well-argued case while there is still room to act on it.
The roster is the product
Ask Lundin what makes the event work and he does not talk about the venue, the city, or the programming. He talks about who is on the dais.
“Our speaker list is really what drives the value,” he says. This year’s roster is already full, with more than 30 confirmed presenters and no remaining slots. “Unless the Federal Reserve chairman decides to come speak, we can’t shoehorn anybody else in.”
The lineup includes Danielle DiMartino Booth, Peter Schiff, Doug Casey, Grant Williams, Brent Johnson, Peter Boockvar, Jim Iuorio, George Gammon, Dominic Frisby, Adrian Day, Tavi Costa, Dave Collum, Mark Skousen, Lobo Tiggre, Robert Prechter, Michael Green, Brent Cook, Adam Taggart, Nick Hodge, Gerardo Del Real, and Pamela Aden, among many others. Lundin will present as well.
What is notable is how a number of them were found. Lundin spends a considerable share of his year listening to voices well outside the financial mainstream.
“I pride myself on finding the new voices out there, the best voices out there, in the kind of underground media you find on X and YouTube,” he says. “People who aren’t in the mainstream, who are really forward-thinking and presenting good arguments.”
The result, he argues, is a faculty that cannot be assembled anywhere else. “I’d encourage people to look at our speaker roster. There might be two or three of our speakers at another investment event, but there won’t be 30 of this quality, of this calibre. That’s our secret sauce.”
That confidence is borne out by how attendees rate the experience afterward. “Anyone who’s a serious investor looking to gain serious insights always comes away feeling like they’ve gotten many, many times their money’s worth,” he says.
From the top down to the drill hole
The programming follows a deliberate structure. “We tend to start at the top and drill down,” Lundin says. “We do macroeconomics, individual markets, and we do naturally have a big emphasis on metals and mining.”
Across that range, attendees get four distinct things: a read on the global economy, forecasts on where current trends are leading, strategies to protect themselves and build wealth in volatile times, and, at the sharp end, names.
“You’ll get specific junior stock recommendations from some of the leading minds and newsletter writers in the industry, who have a lot of contacts and really know what’s going on and what the next big deals are going to be,” says Lundin.
Nothing is lost for anyone who has to step away, either. “Every minute of our event, from workshops to panels to general session presentations, is video recorded and available to all in-person and virtual attendees.”
There is also a bonus on this year’s calendar. The 2026 conference wraps on Halloween, which in this particular city is a genuine bucket-list experience. The schedule has been arranged so that anyone who wants to get home in time to take kids or grandkids trick-or-treating can do so without missing much, while anyone who stays gets New Orleans at its most theatrical.
Half the value is sitting beside you
Between 500 and 600 individual investors typically make the trip. Add speakers, sponsors, and company representatives, and the number lands around 1,000. Lundin expects considerably more this year.
They are, by his description, a remarkable group to spend a conference among. “They’re usually fairly affluent, but they’re self-made. They’re maverick thinkers, independent thinkers, with self-directed portfolios, and they’re typically intellectually curious. They’ll come to sessions beginning at 7:00 in the morning, and they’ll still be in a workshop at 9:30 at night, taking notes.”
“The intellectual ambiance at our event is something you don’t experience anywhere else,” he adds.
That density of experience turns the hallways into a second program. “One of the biggest benefits of our event is sharing ideas with other attendees. By virtue of the fact that they decided to attend and are expending a good bit of money to get here, they self-identify as smart, successful, active investors with ideas of their own, and everybody has always seemed very willing to share those ideas.”
Working the floor
The exhibit hall is where the macro thesis gets converted into tickers. This year it will be packed with roughly 120 sponsoring companies, and it filled early enough that Lundin’s team is now working a waiting list.
Between 80% and 85% are junior mining companies. The balance is a mix of money managers, coin and bullion dealers, real estate investment firms, and speakers with their own booths, a combination Lundin describes as a bit of an investment bazaar, though one weighted decisively toward metals and mining this year.
“They’re largely junior mining companies that, by their very attendance, have demonstrated they have very smart management teams,” he says. “We have a track record of hosting companies that end up being some of the biggest winners of the following 12 months, and I think it’s apparent that’s going to continue this year, by the calibre of the companies attending.”
A long inheritance
Lundin did not set out to run one of the world’s most enduring investment events. He was initially hired as a junior copywriter at Blanchard’s coin and bullion company and, as he tells it, simply outlasted everything else. “I was kind of thrust into it,” he says. “I ended up as the lone survivor of the whole thing.”
Blanchard became his mentor, friend, and business partner. When Blanchard passed away in 1999, Lundin took over the company, and he has now chaired the conference longer than its founder did.
“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” he says. “And it’s timely, because this is the area of investing that is necessary and will be the big winner of the future.”
Lundin credits the operation to the people who run it. “I have a great staff,” he says. “Absolutely incredible.”
Fifty-two consecutive years on, the conference has seen every kind of market there is. This October, with the floor sold out and the roster full, the room should be a very exciting place to be.
Registration for the 2026 New Orleans Investment Conference is open now at neworleansconference.com.
