Gold and Silver and Hard Assets after Trump’s Inauguration…2017MAKE YOUR PORTFOLIO GREAT AGAIN !
This thread is a continuation of several threads posted previously by the author on gold and silver and hard asset investments. I am still a believer in hard assets. I also believe we are entering a period of inflation with continued dollar devaluation, higher interest rates, and a sluggish economy with chaotic dislocations. I believe there will be a lot of uncertainty and high volatility.
PURPOSE My intent is to find and discuss good mining and commodity ideas. Gold and silver remain a focus, but I want to achieve a more balanced approach still based on tangible commodities.
STEEL and IRON ORE…I believe Trump’s programs will benefit iron ore and steel. Stocks in this sector have been beaten down terribly but are rebounding. I am long VALE, a Brazilian company which is the world’s largest iron ore producer. I have been long Arcelor Mittal but do not have a position at the moment. Anybody know anything about cement and asphalt ?
COPPER, ZINC, PGM METALS…My very best conviction stock is Ivanhoe Mines IVPAF. I am completely comfortable with a large single position in IVPAF to cover these metals. However other investors may be uncomfortable with a small cap in sub-Saharan Africa. So I think it is beneficial to introduce other names even though I myself am not interested. Rio Tinto, Freeport-McMoran, Teck, Turquoise Hill, BHP and others come to mind. Travis, our host, is long Altius Minerals, and I have been also.
URANIUM…I’m bullish but the choices seem pretty limited. My top three investment-grade choices are Cameco first, then Cameco second, or my third pick would be Cameco. After that, you are speculating on small caps, or buying ETFS or funds comprised of Cameco and some small caps. At the moment, I am long Cameco and UEC.
LITHIUM…I am considering a long position in lithium. I have nothing to recommend at the moment, although I am strongly considering Galaxy, an Australian company. And I like Neometals, also an Australian, but it is difficult to get from my broker, who hates it when I want to buy obscure 50 cent companies on small foreign exchanges. If anybody’s got a great battery play, I am interested.
POTASH/FERTILIZER…very interested but they all seem pretty expensive. There has been consolidation but I have considered Agrium, Mosaic, and there is a German company whose name I forget at the moment (K&D? K&S?).
OIL AND GAS…I would like some very good conviction picks accompanied by strong reasons and decent research. This field is so big, we could get completely lost just tossing names around. I am somewhat worried about price weakness in the energy sector but feel that it is worthwhile to develop a point of view on a few companies. I have little experience although I made very good money in the past on XOM and CVX. Currently I would be interested in pipelines, LNG, or any other sector that someone knows something about. In natgas I like OGZPY.
SOLAR and WIND…really not too interested. The results depend too much on politics, the time frames seem too long. But I am not completely closed-minded on it if you have conviction on something.
COAL…same opinion as solar and wind, but the prices are low and depressed instead of hyped and high-flying. I am still stuck with some defaulted Arch Coal bonds that my financial advisor recommended. They went to ZERO. Now they are worth a Starbucks latte and a pastry. And no espresso shot in the latte, either.
AGRICULTURE…very interested. A large sector but really not too many choices if you rule out futures, like I do. I have a few obscure favorites, but no positions at present:
WHGPY (Chinese pork processor who bought Smithfield)
LAND (Gladstone Land, California farmland)
INCPY (Input Capital, a Canadian canola, streaming model).
Open to more conventional picks like ADM and DBA.
GOLD AND SILVER…my picks have been discussed at length previously. I follow these pretty closely. I am long royalty/streamers SAND, FNV, SLW, and OR; miners PVG, MAG; developers SA, CLASF, MRDCF, BALMF, KNTNF, and LXVMF; and I own PSLV and physical bullion. I swing trade big caps ABX and NEM.
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DISCLOSURES. I am a retired executive and an amateur investor. I like both fundamental and technical analysis. I am a medium-term to long-term position player and prefer to discuss stock investment in that context. Please no minute-by-minute reports that oil is now 52.50 down 10 cents and the Iranians may suspend Ramadan next week so you are going long until the afternoon bell.
I am not an expert in any of the commodities discussed nor am I qualified to give advice.
Everyone makes mistakes and I make more than my share.Sometimes I change my mind.
When I post, I express my opinions and my positions. These are just that…they are my opinions and my positions. They are not advice or recommendations, which I remind you I am unqualified to make.
Opinions and positions are subject to change at any moment. That is quite unlike the pig-headed and foolish political convictions everybody carries around adamantly, and which change only rarely for unpredictable reasons that have nothing to do with logical thought or reasoned discussion.
Because of this, political developments can be introduced on this thread only when they have a clear bearing on the commodities or companies under discussion.
You are responsible for your decisions, and I am responsible for mine. Caveat emptor.
I would like to operate in a friendly, honest, and constructive atmosphere.
As thread moderator I reserve to myself the role of referee, censor, arbiter, and Grand Poobah, subject to the over-arching authority of Travis, who owns the site and who has on occasion exercised his right to ruthlessly censor and suppress my radical blatherings.
This is a discussion topic or guest posting submitted by a Stock Gumshoe reader. The content has not been edited or reviewed by Stock Gumshoe, and any opinions expressed are those of the author alone.
When i posted the ETF link I should have been more specific in why. The following chart shows how shorts can sell twice the number of total shares in the company, or 2005 short interest. What happens when all those shorts must be unwound and none can be got for any price because they do not exist?
Arch1. Your post about ETFs and this follow up contain VERY important information. Thank you! I had heard (from a Bix Weir video) about how stocks were “sold” multiple times. I believed it, but I didn’t really understand how it was accomplished. Thanks for a very valuable contribution to my “knowledge bank.”
Frank, I too thank you for this post. I have booked marked it to share.
Technology we cannot buy…excerpts from Secretsquirrels’s link on Robert Friedland…edited
[One of Friedland’s biggest passions these days…is a privately held technology company called I-Pulse that he has worked on (about) 15 years with his partner and mentor, Laurent Frescaline, an engineer and scientist focused on plasma physics. Frescaline received France’s Chevalier de l’Ordre National du MĂ©rite for his defence-sector work, cofounded the company with Friedland in 2007. It is 51%-owned by Ivanhoe Industries.
I-Pulse has developed disruptive ways to use electrical energy and has a valuation north of US$1 billion, which makes it a unicorn, Friedland says.
The technology involves the utilization of proprietary components to compress electrical energy in extremely large bursts of power that require very small amounts of electrical energy.
The technology works by repeatedly compressing and releasing pulses of electrical energy in billionths of a second. The extremely high-powered discharges can generate precise shockwaves directed to enhance oil-well production; generate electrical fields that reveal chargeable or resistive mineral deposits, or liquid reservoirs, at depth; shape and assemble metals to previously unachievable degrees or precision, and crush rock containing minerals or gemstones with significantly reduced energy requirements.
In terms of the technology’s ability to shape and assemble metals, Friedland says, it has got the company into the heart of the aviation and automobile industries.
“We have a strategic relationship with one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers and we have a strategic relationship with one or more of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers,” he says, “and it’s gotten us inside R&D labs, inside the industrial-design process, and that has deepened our absolute faith in the transformation coming in the automobile and aircraft industries.”
In addition, the technologies I-Pulse is developing enable more effective exploration for metals, oil and gas, and water through a division of the company called High Power Exploration (HPX), a private mineral exploration company that Friedland heads as CEO. The company’s Typhoon data acquisition system is an accurate and powerful induced polarization and electromagnetic geophysical survey technology.
“We run some of the world’s most sophisticated geophysical exploration programs through using extremely high bursts of electrical power,” he explains. “We utilize our suite of technologies and we use extremely sophisticated machines, the first generation is called Zeus, and the new generation is called Typhoon, and we use that to search for copper and gold and other electrically conductive metals.”
The I-Pulse group of companies also processes the induced polarization and electromagnetic signals HPX gets from that technology and uses it in its software division, Computational Geosciences, based in Vancouver. Computational Geosciences is a world leader in the inversion and manipulation of geophysical data—a key tool for mineral exploration.
“We perform that work for the major mining companies as well as for our own efforts,” Friedland says. “So once we have the raw geophysical data, we are a world leader in the manipulation of that data. So these two technologies give us a long-term strategic advantage in searching for minerals globally and put us in discussions with mining ministers and heads of state and give us a long-term advantage for looking for metals.”
I-Pulse technology also will have a significant impact on how mineral ores are mined and processed, he notes. “In the future, we’ll be able to crush and grind rock with much less energy than we currently require, and with the use of the same core technology, we’ll have a much greater ability to recover metals from rock than we’re currently able to do. So, I-Pulse is the most important company that we’re engaged with as a group.”
Says it all and much more!
Thanks for bringing both to my attention originally….
The future of metals according to Robert Friedland…his favorite metals for investment outlook, in order, are
copper, nickel, cobalt; then platinum, palladium, and silver.
Read:
Ivanhoe-Kamoa/Kakula;
CleanTeQ-Syerston;
CleanTeQ-Syerston;
Ivanhoe-Platreefs;
Ivanhoe-Platreefs.
He is a little like us…he’s somewhat light on the silver. And we see why he might want to sell Kipushi, which has an orebody of zinc that is over 30% zinc. Robert is not so wild about zinc.
Long $IVPAF, long $CTEQF
Thanks hn,
RF has 2 of the most interesting companies that we here can also be part of.
Ivanhoe and CleanTeQ are my biggest holdings in that order.
Long C$IVN
Long C$CLQ
$IVPAF, $CTEQF…I’m pretty much hunkered down with big positions in these two, and a lot of levered precious metals stocks like Sandstorm, PVG, MAG etc. and my favorite exploration and development plays. Still have some positions in biotech, too.
But I am mostly waiting now. Not much trading or repositioning to do until fireworks start one way or the other. This year started great but my lousy entries and recent pullbacks have knocked me down considerably. Still in the black but not like a month ago.
I think your pattern for the year is shared by most in this sector. SAND and CTEQF tanking sucked for me too. Now CTEQF is dominant in my portfolio, and very solid positions in IVPAF, RGLD, SAND. Actually I’m down to 6 holdings only, I had been up to 15. Still have my TLRS and also holding KLDGF. I’m in at great prices on all of that, most of what I sold was in the green with only 2 exceptions, so now just left with the companies I can see holding long term [TLRS i have a half sell target]. Most of my $$$ for this is locked up, so seems like, after a very active phase, I can go passive until something tells me to move.
ironically one of my two losses was mariana, I bought it at 99 cents and sold it at 69 cents a month ago, so I pretty much maxed out on eating sh*t. Fortunately my other successes allow me to laugh that one off. My ledger was desperate for a tax loss, so at least it serves me that along with my poop.
$MRLDF…I was also badly in the red over the summer during the failed coup attempt. I had enough courage to stay long but not enough conviction or guts to buy more.
I have noticed for months that I have a handful of stocks (mostly non-pm) and a larger handful of stocks (mostly pm) that do an almost daily “switch” with each other in terms of gains or losses. One day group 1 is up and group 2 is down, and the next day the opposite is true. I have my positions page (in Scottrade) set to order the list by % gain or loss each day, so the pattern is very easy to spot.
It makes me wonder what is behind market moves. I’m pretty sure that the fundamentals of each of these companies does not change on a daily basis! Is it “sentiment” that bobs up and down almost daily? I would think that the moves are pushed one way or the other by institutional investors, and not by a bunch of little guys like us deciding on a daily basis which stocks they want to buy and sell. Are there that many traders out there?
Someone with more experience, can you shed some light on this strange pattern?
Leslie…
–optimism in paper assets: Stock market up, PMs down.
–pessimism in paper assets: Stock market down, PMs up.