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.
Thank you HN & Co for the great incisive stock tips & talks! Very happy w/ my bit of IVPAF, CLASF & MRLDF bought as a result..
Question: Because the venerable James Dines suggests silver price could in some far distant day match that of gold (during currency turbulence, when he says the mania complete, would be time to sell both), let’s say the JPMbank-suppressed price of silver takes a dramatic leap up just $10 to $28 by April:
What silver-focused streamer, royalty or even exploration/miners might benefit most from sudden 40-50% price jump? Who in general or specific might get the best multiples of instant happiness to their bottom line & share price? Thanks again!
Let me repeat my silver longs, in descending order of leverage to silver prices:
BCEKF…explorer/development play. Riskiest, they have no silver in production.
MAG…looks like a mine but should behave more like a royalty company.
My guess is that AG, HL, CDE, Great Panther and other reputable
miners would benefit similarly to MAG; but I like MAG the best.
SSRI is also OK but I believe they are largely into gold nowadays. For me, outside of MAG, it is six of one, half-dozen of the other. I do not own any silver miner other than MAG, though I can understand if one like this one or that one.
SLW…royalty company, larger cap with some tax problems. If they have a large amount of streams versus royalties, they will have greater leverage. Off hand I do not know the ratio of silver streams vs silver royalties.
PSLV…redeemable bullion trust, should have zero leverage and just mimic the spot price.
PHYSICAL BULLION…insurance, not an investment. Rainy day disaster comfort.
Retail buy/sell margins make it impossible to consider physical as an investment.
scottu, I DO NOT recommend this, but if you want tremendous home run leverage,
you might consider long-dated, in-the-money options on the established silver companies I mentioned.
For example, if SLW is selling at $ 22, look at calls with strikes of $20 or $19.
You have to put up more cash because the options are in-the-money and the time value is high; but if there is a spike, the speculation would return big-time profits.
If you are prepared to lose the money, then an out-of -the-money long-dated
option will explode. But you could lose it all, and don’t forget that.
By way of illustration, see what an SLW January 2018 $30 or $40 call is priced at, and imagine what will happen if SLW goes to $45 in the next six months.
But honestly…if you have the urge to speculate and hit a home run, just buy BCEKF at $2.50. It is a STOCK, it is priced like an option, and it will never expire. If silver goes up 40%, it should be a double or triple no problem, and you don’t need to worry about getting wiped out.
Losses, maybe. But Bear Creek Mining is not going to zero.
Thank you HN for your generous sharing of ideas. Options SOUND tempting because I have a very strong inner voice lately that repeats Silver miners to me. But because I just Don’t understand options, ?in the money, puts, out of the money?, I don’t dare invest my modest resources in them, versus bitcoin which I am minorly invested in. It offers a store of wealth outside currency gyrations & as a safe route to move your money from for example, Point A to Point B country or company without a bank bailin or govt capital freeze robbing you blind. So as bitcoin rises in anticipation of a possible approval (or not) on March 11 of an ETF, I’ll be watching over BCEKF & PAAS etc for signs of breakthrough.. Maybe I’m making wealth building too complicated? 🙂
OPTIONS…If you don’t fully understand them, stay away.
If you have a decent idea of what you are doing, it’s still a good idea to stay away.
If you think you know what you are doing, be very careful…but you are probably better off staying away.
The best strategy is to SELL COVERED CALLS, but it’s not as exciting as buying calls. It’s more profitable in the long run, you can grind out good profits; but it’s like the difference between “three yards and a cloud of dust” versus a 75 yard touchdown pass. Everyone wants the spectacular
play by buying calls and puts, but these are not the percentage plays. The best plays are to SELL covered calls and SELL cash-secured puts.
Bargain alert BCEKF Bear Creek…unless there is bad news I did not see this stock may be at a bargain point, it tanked 20 pct today, now around $2.00…market cap 200 million for 500 million ozs ag inin ground with negative pea costs on account of byproducts
$PAAS…Pan American…speaking of silver mines here’s one I forgot to mention.
http://www.kitco.com/news/2017-02-15/Pan-American-Silver-Reverses-To-4Q-Profit-Hikes-Dividend.html
Since there seems to be almost no activity yet on the dedicated Clean TeQ thread recently set up by hendrixnuzzles, I am cross-posting this $CLQ news here:
Here is a link to Clean TeQ 6-month report for the period ending December 31, 2016, released a few minutes ago. The 35-page report includes a good executive summary of mining and water treatment division activity and goals at pages 4-10.
https://hotcopper.com.au/documentdownload?id=uOMxKKzFkiWRTLKhOROKAxjvSTYO5Qu9yhOZo%2Ftoke92GA%3D%3D
Not sure that this link (which opens to a pdf file) has the full attributes of a hyperlink; you may need to copy and paste it into your browser (I tested the latter method – and it works).
Long $CLQ (ASX)
btl, I must of missed HNs’ post on the ‘Clean TeQ thread’, could someone post a link to it. much appreciated.
Same pls post the link.
http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2017/02/microblog-scandium-cobalt-and-water-purification-cleanteq-holdings/
Thanks hipockets
X2!
btw what about a spreadsheet, forms, and calendar column?
I read this on its website a few days ago while I was doing my DD prior to purchasing this company. It is the document any prospective investor should read. Very compelling business plan, I think this company is a 10 bagger in 5 years, if they achieve what looks to me to be a very reasonable plan. On this document they do what they call an “upside” assessment, for their Syerston project, and the NPV for it is 4-5 times their present market cap. The water purification business looks like a money printing machine. Toxic water goes thru their technology, and clean water plus $$$$ comes out the other side. Chinese water purification plants need to upgrade due to new regulations they are having difficulty complying with. CleanTeQ technology offers the solution. They are looking for projects in the 100 million dollar range, and they are specialized to the mining industry, but also other big markets, and also looking at markets outside of China. In all of their markets [cobalt, nickel, scandium, water purification], the products they produce are projected to be in high demand, and their technology is all super cost effective with super high margins. And they are revving up quickly to get both these businesses going. They are already contracting commitments for all the cobalt and nickel they can produce, and it won’t be long before they get scandium commitments, and by the latter half of this year, or certainly next year, you’re going to see some announcements of huge contracts for big money WP projects, and the stock price is going to just keep going up for a long time in my opinion. I see it as a money making machine, somebody tell me the downsides.
CleanTeQ…I think the plan you are referring to was written two years ago.
If so then they are farther along the development curve.
No, on their website, under investors/compny presentations is jan/2017 co-chairman presentation. That was what i was referring to.
This is going to be an outrageous stock.
It is hard to envision circumstances that will derail it.
There will be tremendous demand no matter what the economy does…there is already a backlog of need for
water purification in the municipal, industrial, and mining sectors, no matter what happens to commodity and stock prices.
Even if cobalt and scandium prices fall,
CleanTeQ will gain because they will be a new and reliable source for it.
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None of the the possible disappointments I can think of are sufficient to destroy prospects for the company.
–If scandium development is slow, this would not be life-threatening to the company, it can get along great without scandium.
–the technology is not as effective as advertised and the whole thing is fraudulent. . I just do not think this is the case.
-the Chinese try to rip off CleanTeq
-Competitors come in with equivalent technologies
Hendrix, I find it strange that in their latest presentation, they do not even mention the water project. It seems like that is not really even a focus of the company right now. Information on it is hard to come by. What are your thoughts as to why they totally ignore it?
I’m interested in learning more about the water purification thing and how soon it will be up and going.
I think the topic seems so far afield from mining that the analysts just pass by it. For example, the knowledgeable post initiator in the Hot Copper forum was deep into details of the cobalt spot price and its potential on the value of CleanTeQ, but he discounted the water purification business to ZERO in his stock price forecast. He also discounted the scandium potential to zero, because it was too speculative for him.
I think people will initially miss that the technology of CleanTeQ’s water purification is actually a revolutionary development in mineral extraction. They will not see the connection between cleaning up sewer discharge in China with mineral extraction in Australia. It will appear to be an anomaly.
But my instincts are that the water purification segment, and the use of CleanTeQ’s technology as a mining extraction technique, will be more significant to CleanTeQ sales, profits and cash flows than their cobalt and scandium production together from the Syerston project.
Yet the company is being valued on their Syerston cobalt/nickel (and scandium) potential only; it is considered a small cap mining speculation in some exotic minerals.
The CleanTeQ method is continuous loop, and automated; so it lends itself well to larger feed volumes without tedious filter replacement.
There are no isolated figures to support the assertion that the CleanTeQ method of extraction from solutions and slurries is an efficient mining extraction technique. But…and it is a big “but”…the proprietary extraction method is the method CleanTeQ is actually going to use in the Syerston cobalt/scandium mine. There is a PEA on that and the mill is under production. And CleanTeQ claims that its process is efficient economically for a large range of elements, even though they do not provide details to support the assertion.
Friedland’s style is to understate, be modest, and stick to hard facts. But given Friedland’s track record and credibility, his unabashed public enthusiasm for CleanTeQ and his private investment in it, and the available facts about the company and its process, I am pretty confident that my informed conjectures have enough truth in them to justify my wild enthusiasm.
Long $CTEQF
If you look at the main divisions in the company, and consider the status of their development, some reasonable explanations for their emphasis come to mind.
1. COBALT…this is on the front burner because they are about to start actual production at the Syerston facility and there is already an existing and growing demand for cobalt. So the cobalt sector is the first one that is likely to start generating real sales and revenue. Hence the emphasis on electric batteries and the growth potential there.
The “hard-headed” valuations of the company, short-term, are likely to be most sensitive to the cobalt aspect of their business, because it is the one closest to becoming significant in terms of sales.
2. SCANDIUM…the production of scandium will occur at the same time in Syerston facility as cobalt; but there is not as great an established market for scandium. So investors will remain somewhat cautious about giving the scandium a lot of weight. This will change when CleanTeQ starts announcing offtake agreements with the likes of Airbus and Lockheed. But for now, there are no offtake agreements for their scandium production, nor are there planes and cars and trains announced using scandium/aluminum alloys.
Therefore it is pointless to spend a lot of effort promoting scandium, compared to cobalt.
3. WATER PURIFICATION…the water division is separate. They have announced a binding agreement with a large Chinese entity. This is the main event, there is nothing much more to say unless it is about the progress of this project. My guess is that they will spend every effort making a prompt success of it, it is pointless to promote it, the main thing is to get it up and running, then the results will speak for themselves and contracts will start pouring in.
They do not need to raise investor money yet. They need to commission the plant for which they have a binding agreement, and then get their Chinese connections to start ordering. In water, it is the user base that needs to be stimulated, not the retail investment community.
4. MINERAL EXTRACTION USING CLEAN-iX TECHNOLOGY…the Syerston facility is going to use this technology. When it starts producing cobalt and scandium economically, it will be the proof of the pudding. At this point, words and promotion are superfluous. The plant is under construction, and the results will speak for themselves. Why boast about your ability to extract gold, silver, copper, zinc, platinum, palladium, rhodium, cobalt, scandium, and fifteen or twenty other valuable and rare materials, when you have a project being built that will prove it ?
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Gotta love them. Low on hype, high on delivery.
I think back to Friedland’s interview with Rick Rule (paraphrased):
“We don’t get too concerned with what people say. We just tend to our knitting, do our jobs, and create value for shareholders.”
$CTEQF
Well, I did find this from the file Biotechlong posted above:
“The Clean TeQ Water Division continues to promote and demonstrate our Continuous Ion Exchange Technology (CIF®) with a particular emphasis on the Chinese water market, the largest and most rapidly growing water treatment market in the world. Continuous Ion Exchange (CIF®) provides a water treatment solution to many Chinese industries including power, mining, oil and gas and
municipal.
Clean TeQ has formed a Chinese incorporated joint venture (‘JV Company’) with Jinzhong Hoyo Municipal Urban Investment & Construction Co., Ltd (‘Hoyo’) to pursue water treatment opportunities in China’s Shanxi Province utilising Clean TeQ’s water purification technology. The JV Company has been awarded an initial contract to build, own and operate a Clean TeQ CIF® water treatment plant to treat up to 13,000 tonnes of effluent per day for a 20 year period at a waste water treatment plant owned by Hoyo. The proposed project contract provides for the JV Company to be paid a service fee of 1RMB per tonne of water treated, subject to a minimum payment for 9,000 tonnes per day. Clean TeQ has actively pursued a build, own and operate business model, targeting generation of long term sustainable cashflows and favourable economic returns.
Design and engineering of the plant has been completed and the plans have been submitted to the Shanxi Urban & Rural Planning Design Institute for approval. The approval is expected to be received in the first quarter 2017, with procurement of materials and construction of the plant
anticipated to commence shortly thereafter.
Conventional wastewater treatment plants in China are struggling to meet the new regulations on chemical oxygen demand (COD), nitrogen and phosphorus levels for surface discharge. The CIF® technology will be used as a tertiary treatment, removing COD, nitrogen and phosphorus which allows the plant to achieve surface discharge requirements. Successful demonstration of the CIF® technology and its relatively low cost, is anticipated to open up significant opportunities in the vast market for wastewater treatment plant upgrades.
A number of significant water purification project opportunities have been identified, both inside and outside China, in a number of key markets with a focus on treatment of waste water from mining operations.
Clean TeQ will continue working towards securing commercial contracts in the near future, and
anticipates both the Water and Metals Divisions to produce substantial revenues in the future.”
So that is encouraging. Looking for the construction OK for this pilot plant in China still in Q1, 2017.
Revenue – substantial revenue from both divisions “in the future”. Hope that is the near future!
no position yet.
Niiz…great to hear from you, and thanks for the very informative post. The Shanxi project is really far along. and if it is successfully completed, I would expect water treatment contracts materializing for CleanTeQ like crazy.
If you are interested,don’t wait to long to take a position.
The company has a market cap of only $350 million or so with stock prices under 60 cents.
CleanTeQ will throw off so much cash it will be mind-boggling.
May the ride be steep and long. When it hits US $6, lets all meet on some island.
11 Stunning Visualizations of Gold Show Its Value and Rarity
http://money.visualcapitalist.com/11-visualizations-gold-cubes/
$MRLDF Mariana Resources, BCEKF Bear Creek Mining, CTEQF CleanTeQ Holdings…added to all three long positions today. Sold stock in a different sector to raise the cash.
$MRLDF….Even though I do not want to expand my weight in gold, I think Mariana Resources was too low to pass up under $1.00, and in addition I can rationalize it as a copper play as well as a gold play. Mariana Resources has a one-third interest in a very important gold/copper project that is going to be built. It is a compelling value at current market cap, since there is no question about the deposit viability, the arrival of financing, or the economics of the mine. This thing will be producing in two or three years. You are buying a dollar for a quarter.
$BCEKF…Bear Creek Mining…flash crashed to $2, wanted to buy more, missed out but went longer at $2.24. I now have a pretty large position in BCEKF.
The basics are that they have 500 million ounces of in-ground silver and you are buying at 40 cents an ounce. They have a PEA with negative costs per ounce because of lead credits. This is an option on silver that does not expire.
May take a while to come to fruition, but it will.
$CTEQF…It’s my recipe, and I’ll eat my own cooking, win or lose. I am going to try and build a large position I can live with, meaning I intend to accumulate and add more at advantageous pricing. I think current prices under 60 cents are advantageous. When the wider market will get excited about CleanTeQ is impossible to predict. But when it does, this stock is going to BLAST OFF INTO ORBIT. In the meantime, if it tanks to 35 cents, I’ll be buying more.
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I took economics at some fancy eastern schools, but have on my own come to the conclusion that the markets are definitely not efficient. Public information is there for all, but it is imperfectly distributed, and even rational people who are informed will disagree on the meaning and importance of publicly known facts. In addition, we have come to learn that in today’s world, market manipulation and influencing is widespread and subject to political interference and fiat currency. There are no perfect free markets in the theoretical sense, only approximations of them.
Hence the opportunity for profit, which are based on differences of opinion concerning value, both of the target investments and the fiat currencies used to acquire or divest them.
Thanks for the info, HN. Today I bought some CTEQF at tiny bit under $0.6 and some MRLDF at a tiny bit under $0.96. But yesterday I bought some Cobalt Blue Holdings (Australian COB.au.) at 0.22 AUD. Recently, I also bought some Neo Lithium NTTHF at $1.06 USD and Rock Tech Lithium RCKTF at $0.69 USD. Lately, also some Cobalt Tech Mining CSK.V at $.285 CAD and some Wealth Minerals WMLLF at $1.17 USD. Have you looked at any of these others?
Cobalt and rare metal plays…I have not checked many stocks on fringe metals. I have taken a small position in one lithium stock (Galaxy), and one in cobalt/scandium (CleanTeQ). CleanTeQ has emerged in my thinking as a real opportunity, not just in cobalt and scandium, but in water purification and mining technology.
I think from an allocation standpoint it is not a good idea for me to go with a lot of picks in fringe metals.
Of course there are many that might do very well,
but overall my interest in them is limited because there are too many other asset classes where I would like to diversify.
Of course they are fair game for discussion on this thread, but I will probably not be that active a contributor on them.
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In platinum group metals, $IVPAF Ivanhoe Mines is a sufficient investment for me, given my asset and interest level, because of the Platreefs project. Obviously Ivanhoe also covers me adequately in copper and zinc as well. So I like Ivanhoe for several reasons: I have exposure to copper, zinc, platinum, palladium, and rhodium with one company, which is run by the world’s best mining executive.
The same leadership gives coverage in cobalt and scandium, through CleanTeQ.
Thus I get a lot of varied exposure in metals through two investments under the same manager, in which I have a great deal of confidence.
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Two recent investigations have an interesting technology aspects. The one which has my full attention is the ionization technology at CleanTeQ. I have gone full long on this and intend to add.
The second was White Gold, an exploration play in the Yukon. This company has a helicopter/drone capability for surveying and drilling core in remote locations.
The company is interesting to me for both its mineral prospects and its applied technology; but I have not taken a position.
Thanks for responding, HN — I am maybe overdiversified, but prefer buying numerous small stocks. Lithium is a good play now and cobalt, used together with lithiumin in making batteries,may be gaining strength.
$GRFGR White Gold…exploration speculation and relative values…in a recent post, I put forth White Gold as an exploration speculation. While I consider the fundamentals of the company interesting, I have not gone long and probably will not do so for the near-term.
The reasons are that short-term there are too many other compelling opportunities. On a relative basis, it is hard for me to justify investing new funds into a company like White Gold, which has a market cap of $75 million,
when I see the market cap of $BCEKF or $MRLDF, both of which have very valuable proven deposits and have market caps between $200 and $300 million. Or when I consider the market cap of CleanTeQ and its potential,
which I can buy for about the same price as $GRFGR, which is a speculation.
HN: You have mentioned both $MAG and $BCEKF as your silver exposure. Would you care to compare them as to their investment attributes and potential?
Thanks. –Russ
Sure, but if you search through the threads I have covered both of these previously.
MAG SILVER: MAG has a large claim in the Fresnillo district in Mexico. Recent work shows that a very rich vein, the Juanicipio vein, which is under active mining by Frenillo, runs and extends into the MAG property.
The known mineralization of the deposit is tremendous, and in addition there are very strong reasons to believe that there is a substantial bonanza upside on the same system. The MAG executives are nearly crying for joy in their investment presentations when discussing the geology.
MAG has done a deal with Fresnillo, which is the very lowest cost operator in Mexico and who already has already built two processing facilities near the MAG property. So MAG surrendered a sizeable equity in the joint venture, but MAG has no operational obligations at all…Fresnillo does the work, MAG gets checks.
MAG is a claim holder, explorer/developer, they have minimal operational overhead.
MAG/Fresnillo are tunnelling to reach the new extension, and are likely going to start mining it this year.
All is well presented in the MAG website.
The only thing that makes me nervous is that MAG may spend all the profits on new exploration instead of returning cash to shareholders. But that is what all the miners do. Miners suck. In the meantime, when silver goes up MAG will zoom.
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BCEKF Bear Creek Mining…this is much more speculative than MAG but has a tremendous leverage potential. It is a “metal-in-the-ground” speculation.
Now the MAG deposit is metal in the ground, but with MAG the facility is built, the vein is being mined,they are digging a tunnel towards the MAG deposit, and there is already a competent miner
operating there. None of this is in place on the Bear Creek deposit, Bear Creek is years away from production.
Still, BCEKF warrants attention on account of the fact that their asset is proven to be about 500 million ounces,
and they have completed a lot of homework, mainly a Preliminary Feasibility Study. This study shows that in the first three years of production, there will actually be a cost of silver production LESS THAN ZERO, because of the by-product and co-product credits. They are going to get a lot of lead, in addition to the silver. So on a cost-per-ounce basis, Corani will have no costs for the first three years per ounce of silver produced.
One concludes that the deposit will be attractive to someone, especially when silver prices go up. But there is no silver production, no mine, and no deal to build a mine. Bear Creek is a development speculation. You are speculating that 40 cents per ounce is a good price to pay for 500 million ounces of silver in a remote location in Peru, and that someone someday is going to mine it and get a lot more than 40 cents an ounce.
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The valuation of Bear Creek also gives zero value to the large Santa Ana deposit, which was confiscated by Peru and which Bear Creek is in process of international arbitration to recover. A ruling is expected this year.
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Other things I like about Bear Creek are the management and the head office location. Bear Creek has a woman in a top spot (Catherine Seltzer-McLeod). She must be excellent to survive and excel in this field…she is the only woman I have seen as a top operational exec in the mining business. And the Bear Creek Mining office is at 400 Burrard Street in Vancouver…on the same floor as Sandstorm Gold. So it’s dollars to donuts they will be able to get financing and do a great deal when the time comes; and my guess is that Nolan Watson and crew will be involved.
Long $MAG. Long $BCEKF
HN Your writeups are great reads. You should consider writing a newsletter.
Thanks, Hedy. I will ask you for a testimonial if I ever do anything.
I’ll give you a testimonial, too. 🙂 I agree with Hedy! It is unusual to find both excellent analytical skills and excellent writing skills in the same person.
HN: I found your other references, but this was great. I Like the SAND connection. Now thinking to add more SAND. Also have $ISVLF, active miner with no debt. It was an old Weiss Group Analyst reco.
russw…my silver exposure is wider than MAG and BCEKF.
I also hold SLW, PSLV, ands physical silver. But for those looking for investment vehicles, at the moment I consider MAG and BCEKF to be very good picks.
My first priority in silver was to own physical silver. But this is not an investment or speculation of the type discussed on this forum. I consider physical silver as insurance for social and financial chaos.
February 16, 2017 17:26 ET
Colorado Announces Non-Brokered Financing for Up to $5M
http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/colorado-announces-non-brokered-financing-for-up-to-5m-tsx-venture-cxo-2196787.htm
When and if the price of silver goes crazy, does anyone know of a less expensive element that could be substituted for silver?
Silver as an element used in a Solar cell,whose costs have dropped 25% in 2016.
Depends upon the use: copper could be for electrical uses though slightly less conductive but not the reflective properties of silver. Silver halides are photosensitive which is the basis for its use in X-ray and film photography, still import for use though certainly down in the advent of the digital camera age.
I posted a reply to HN earlier but got no response — so here it is again, copied and pasted below:
Thanks for the info, HN. Today I bought some CTEQF at tiny bit under $0.6 and some MRLDF at a tiny bit under $0.96. But yesterday I bought some Cobalt Blue Holdings (Australian COB.au.) at 0.22 AUD. Recently, I also bought some Neo Lithium NTTHF at $1.06 USD and Rock Tech Lithium RCKTF at $0.69 USD. Lately, also some Cobalt Tech Mining CSK.V at $.285 CAD and some Wealth Minerals WMLLF at $1.17 USD. Have you looked at any of these others?
I could add several more cobalt and lithium stocks that I own if there is any interest.
Hi Pags, posted a reply above; sorry, but for the time being I decline to do a lot of analysis on your picks, explanations above.
Cordially
russwkennel…my post from a month ago on MAG Silver, edited;
also recommend you look at the MAG website.
***
Hi Rocket,
A few things about MAG:
Their property is in the top silver district in Mexico. It was smack in the way of the of the Juanicipio vein, which is a major asset and operating mine of Fresnillo. Fresnillo already has two plants near this vein.
Fresnillo is THE low cost operator in Mexican silver. MAG forecasts $6.61 cost per ounce. This is low. Really low.
MAG has no operating risk or expense on their own. By partnering with Fresnillo MAG farms out all the operational tasks to Fresnillo. So they are like a royalty company. No overhead. Fresnillo has 56%, MAG has 44%.
MAG has the capital needed for the expansion.
The new shafts that are needed to reach the ore are nearly complete.
Silver will come from this in 2018.
In addition to this…they have just discovered the Valdecamas Deep deposit.
It is a larger, richer deposit JUST UNDERNEATH the Juanicipio vein. So the infrastructure and mine shaft needed to get at this new deposit is already in progress with the most efficient miner in Mexico.
MAG checks all the boxes. The silver in the ground is a reality. The deposit size and grade are fantastic. Low costs, financing for the mine is in place. Top operational management. Low jurisdiction risk, no construction risk, minimal financing risk. And, there is phenomenal expansion potential.
*****
No speculation beyond the presently known facts is needed make me an enthusiastic buyer of MAG. They already have plenty of proven silver.
However, I am going to “gild the lily” by explaining a speculation, as I understand it, from the MAG’s chief geologist:
The geology of the MAG deposits is pretty complex. The mineralization process occurred several times, with the good stuff being injected from molten upwellings
that occurred at several different occasions. There are multiple overlays and intersecting veins, making the whole deposit rich and complex.
Usually the mineral veins in the Fresnillo zone get poorer in grade the deeper they go. They kind of peter out at a certain depth. But the MAG deposit showed the unique characteristic of getter BETTER the deeper they drilled. In fact, the discovery of the Valdecamas Deep vein was made on drill holes that were expected to “close off” and define the limits of the target vein…it was presumed that the drill results would show deteriorating size and grade, and MAG would consider the limits of the deposit as defined. But instead, down deeper they found the Valdecamas Deep deposit, which is an even better deposit than the one they were working on.
Now there are several other geological clues that these guys look for that help them understand if they are at the top of something good or not. From these geological clues, and with the understanding that there have been multiple and repeating mineralizing events of similar nature in the deposits, the MAG geologist has come to believe that there is a true “mother lode” of metal that was the source for all the good stuff that got injected into the veins they have discovered. The best way to describe it to non-geologists like you and me is that Mr. Geologist believes there is a big bulb of formerly liquid metal that supplied the stuff that was squirted upwards at different times into the known deposits.
MAG does not need further discoveries to be a viable investment. There are already TWO first-class deposits with financed construction and operations are in progress. And I repeat, the existence of this “mother lode” is purely speculation.
They do not know if the deeper mother lode exists. It is a speculative theory by the geologist. But this concept fits the facts, and MAG and Fresnillo are drilling for it and looking for it. If they find it, it will change MAG and Fresnillo from being good silver plays into being “lifetime investments”.
Long $MAG, looking to add to my position.
Also in silver, long $SLW, long $BCEKF, long $PSLV.
Not really shopping for other silver speculations.
ENERGY DEPENDENCE…out of the frying pan, into the fire ?
When the price of oil collapsed, I was fortunate to have exited most of my big oil positions. At first I was tempted to bargain hunt, but the depth and severity of the move made me very nervous about a “sea change” in oil, gas, and energy in general; and the uncertainty of the situation and the complexity of the sector kept me from taking new positions.
Since then, I have read many articles that indicate that the United States has, to a large degree, achieved the national objective of becoming independent of foreign oil. And regardless of one’s political feelings, it appears that new policies will further that objective…besides any overt rhetoric, recent action on the Keystone pipeline and friendliness to the coal industry are two important clues.
As I became interested in hard assets, especially metals, I was uneasy with my investment void in energy. I am somewhat drawn to the “energy metals” uranium and lithium, but in general was not terribly comfortable with the opportunities there and remain only tentatively invested in uranium and lithium.
My interests in mining and hard asset led me from gold and silver producers to other metal opportunities, and I came upon on Ivanhoe Mines as an excellent investment opportunity in copper, zinc, and PGM metals. I remain aggressively long in $IVPAF and very confident of the position.
My interest in Ivanhoe and in its chaiman Robert Friedland led me CleanTeQ, an Australian microcap. After taking a small position as a scandium speculation, I became increasingly fascinated by this company and its prospects, and have reviewed as much of the information as I can find about it while modestly increasing my position in it.
My original interest in CleanTeQ was mining-oriented: CleanTeQ has a unique project for a mine in Australia that will produce scandium as a co-product. At the time of the original investment, my intention was to make a small speculation in scandium, a metal that has a potentially large application aerospace and aviation.
It was only later that I learned that CleanTeQ is regarded by many primarily as a cobalt producer; and that other analysts regard CleanTeQ as a technology play in water purification.
At that point I decided to start a thread devoted to CleanTeQ. That thread is still active, although it does not appear prominently in the Stock Gumshoe search menus. I revert to this thread for this post only because I think that what I have learned about CleanTeQ has implications for the larger energy sector.
The focus on cobalt as a mining product at CleanTeQ is justified by persuasive data about the industrial efforts for electrification of motor vehicles. There are pages and pages of charts and data in investment presentations by Friedland and on the CleanTeQ website that support the idea of exploding battery use world-wide, and the corollary need for cobalt in nickel-cobalt batteries. For the most part, I find the data and forecasts to be credible.
The data show that battery use and consumption is planned by both governments and major mega-corporations to become a major factor in energy generation.
And what is striking is the degree to which battery production is concentrated in China, Korea, and Japan. In conjunction with this concentration is a major effort by the same national entities to acquire sources of raw materials needed for nickel-cobalt batteries.
In other words, we may have achieved independence from foreign oil; but we are headed towards dependence on China, Korea, and Japan on battery power.
Remaining long on CleanTeQ. No position in oil and gas. Small positions in uranium and lithium.
I recommend CleanTeQ website and investor presentations by Robert Friedland
for perspectives on energy production, the environmental impact of energy production, and the importance of nickel and cobalt to the coming transportation and energy landscape.
Good points hn.
CleanTeQ is RF’s forward looking company. I also, maybe like others here bought a position early on, mine was at C $58.5 cents to be precise. Since then added a far bigger position at C $71 as seeing something I really believe in I tend to jump in with both feet first. Worked with Ivanhoe for me.
One minor spelling correction?? – “that support the idea of exploding battery use world-wide, sure you don’t mean “exploring” ?
(Thought best clarify after the Samsung battery fiasco ha ha….)
Yes I have found it difficult to locate the thread. Usually find my way in via the new post or previous in my email box. Bit long winded but there it is.
If you have trouble finding the Scandium, Cobalt and Water Purification thread dated February 6, send an email to Travis and complain.
I don’t know why it does not appear in Recent Discussions. Nor does it appear in Reader Started Discussions.
Travis does not like politics, and mine in particular; and I must say I feel suppressed, despite lip service to free speech. But the website belongs to Travis and he can do what he likes.
Hendrixnuzzles, To locate articles, one simply clicks on the avatar (picture), located to the left of every post. To be fair to Travis, there’s probably been 50 or so discussions created since the scandium article was presented.
Thank you for sharing with us. Best2You&ALL
Thanks, Ben. Been a subscriber for a while but didn’t know about clicking on the avatar to get author articles.
In your research on battery production, and your find of concentration in Asia, where does Tesla fit in? And the future is not just electric vehicles, but also battery operated homes [see link]. I’m sure Cleanteq will have no problem selling all their cobalt, they probably lock up contracts for all they can dig up before they scoop up a spoonful. And probably for prices way higher than now as demand pushes supply. I suspect they will have a good market for scandium as well, if it makes aluminum both stronger and lighter, there will be more applications then just aerospace and transportation. I think the water purification technology, which seems to offer considerable savings to the user relative to previous options, their ability to handle mega-sized 100 million dollar type projects, and the high margins on the service, a big chinese and unlimited international market, that is what is going to make this stock a 10-bagger, the mineral business is awesome, but fairly projectionable, while the amount of 100 million dollar contracts for water purification has no ceiling, above which they are able to process the business.
http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-about-tesla-powerwall-2-battery-2016-11/#in-2015-tesla-unveiled-the-powerwall-a-rechargeable-lithium-ion-battery-weighing-roughly-200-pounds-that-you-can-mount-on-your-wall-panasonic-makes-the-cells-for-the-powerwall-while-tesla-builds-the-battery-module-and-pack-1
Renbycage, responding to your questions and discussion points.
1. Tesla is a leader and gets lots of press and is obviously on the vanguard. But the bigs are not far behind, Daimler, VW, BMW, Toyota are committed to major shifts to electric vehicles. Friedland’s presentations are good places to get some idea of what is going on. And as a state objective, the Chinese are going all-out for electric busses, bicycles, and other vehicles.
Unfortunately the alliance of interests between European industrialists and the Chinese state adds to globalist speculation about the direction of things, but that is another topic dangerously close to politics. And at least CleanTeQ has a stated goal of removing environmental burdern from the globe, so it is an environmental cause I can get excited about, unlike global warming.
2. I agree that CleanTeQ will have no problem at all with offtake of either cobalt of scandium. I have some insight on this that I will publish next week.
3. I also agree that that CleanTeQ will have real blue sky concerning water purification; which topic I also have some information coming next week.
Lots of blue sky ahead for CleanTeQ. Long.
Renbycage, HN has got it right. I also have a psotion in $CTQEF, I’m it for the water purification and scandium. My Cobalt stock is $ECSIF, they should be producing by years end and their primary metal is cobalt. Where is does Tesla fit in Elon Musk is a visionay and recognized that the best way to improve EV sales was to improve vehicle range and lower price. The gigafactory will help do that, Musk has also stated that the material for the gigafactory will be North America sourced. There is more than one type lithium battery by material used. IMO lithium is not the best choice for a home storage battery. If you haven’t found the column on storage batteries there is a lot of good information there on batteries and EVs;
http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2016/07/microblog-storage-of-electricity-batteries-big-image/
Regarding Tesla, I do understand the field of electric vehicles is littered in players, but don’t they have a huge focus on battery production and battery innovation? Aren’t they leading the vision of battery powered homes? Just a quick peek on their website seemed to indicate to me their batteries are lithium ion, but I will delve a little deeper when I have the inclination. Anyway, it just popped up because of what HN wrote about batteries, and Asian dominance. Its kind of irrelevant to Cleanteq. I really look forward to more promised info from HN on Cleanteq businesses. I am fascinated with this company, they just seem to be positioned so sweet for multiple high demand businesses [with steep growth arcs], I am looking forward to increasing my understanding of their technology, which seems on the surface to kind of separate and sort specific elements out of a variety of toxic solutions and sludges, and some of these recoverables have resale value, perhaps in some situations actually pay for itself. I am looking forward to learning more about their technology and how it works. It seems to have a lot of applications that are potentially very profitable. I am also looking forward to learning more about their business model for their detox technology. Just some preliminary poking around, it seems like a company would pay for and own one of their, for better words, detoxification platforms, and Cleanteq would get paid somehow by the quantity of water processed. And that these payments go on for the life of the project, which can go on indefinitely, so once they get these contracts, they will pay out long term. I think their syerston project, when it is properly valuated, is good for 3-4.5 times their present market cap, just a guess from quick numbers processing in my head. But once this 270 mil market cap company starts signing some of these 100 mil type long term water purification contracts with high margins, this is going to be a huge growth stock IMO.
What’s interesting to me is, I think this company stated off more as an industrial air purification business, and began to drop that as a focus, as there is a lot of competition in that area, to focus on these applications of their technology which are more promising. Air purification is a fantastic business. I know a guy who does that, when properties are sold, they usually undergo various tests for things like mold, asbestos, and other toxins, so he has this machine he throws in his car, drives all around on these contracts, pushes the on button on his machine, it does its thing and spits out a reading, and he makes thousands a day like this. If they find something, that is a whole other business to clean it.
Precisely, Tesla is a high-profile leader but it is irrelevant where the materials are sourced for their batteries as far as CleanTeQ is concerned. Daimler, VW, Samsung, Toyota et al will follow into EVs.
My understanding is that Panasonic is doing the heavy lifting for Tesla on batteries. Clearly Tesla has a huge interest in battery development but I believe they are working with Panasonic to achieve their objective in batteries. I may be wrong about this, I do not follow Tesla closely at all, just solved a Rickards teaser on them but didn’t go long.
Tesla will contribute to world-wide demand for lithium, cobalt, and nickel, and I will applaud if they source in the USA even if they do not dominate demand for raw battery materials.
I love Tesla as a company, but not as an investment. They are in the phase of spending tens of billions of dollars investing in super high level concepts, and may become the next “apple”, but I specifically do not want to take on debt in my portfolio. Debt [government, corporate, individual] is why I own gold mines and gold in the ground on every continent and god knows how many countries.
Renby, you are seeing it the way I do. The elements to the business seem disparate, but they are really well-connected.
The whole company is based on some incredibly high-level concepts, and frankly I am somewhat astounded by the strategic sophistication of the whole thing. It is a thing of brilliance, a thing of genius.
The CleanTeQ management is very careful in what they say and don’t say. They are quite modest in their claims. But “hidden” in plain view, there are some amazing facts that are presented in the most modest and matter-of-fact way and which I believe will make this stock one of the best investments I have ever made.
The CleanTeQ management is very careful in what they say and don’t say. They are quite modest in their claims. But “hidden” in plain view, there are some amazing facts that are presented in the most modest and matter-of-fact way and which I believe will make this stock one of the best investments I have ever made.
Fully agree… a thinking man’s mining or should I say energy company of the future. Btw I emailed Travis with regards to my difficulty in finding the new thread Scandium, Cobalt and Water Purification thread.
Clicking on HN’s avatar will open a page listing all of his microblogs.
Yes, “Exploding battery use” is a pretty comical misstatement. There’s no use for exploding batteries, they are not desireable. But the exploding demand for batteries will be good for CleanTeQ.
In passing I have also read that the increasing length of battery life also adds major demand for the component raw materials. I also neglected to mention that I believe that Panasonic is the battery supplier to Tesla; I do not know if the batteries will be manufactured or assembled in Nevada, but Panasonic is a Japanese company.
Hn , does this only trade in Aussieland? Likely my limited brokerage platform but that I cud ask? Thank you
In the USA it is on the OTC pink sheets as CTEQF. Some brokers will get it for you, others will not. It is pretty far down the food chain.
Looking at my resource portfolio, mostly gold stocks, I have 13 stocks, 6 speculative penny stock explorers accounting for 19% of my portfolio, 3 streamers accounting for 49%, 3 what I call mids at 20%, and in its own category cleanteq at 12%. Since this is my poor excuse for diversification, I am going to track these categories separately, with particular interest to how my penny stocks perform as a group. I don’t expect to make any trades for the next 12 months, unless there is a good reason, and if we have to go thru another reverse rollercoaster ride [the weeeee part at the beginning], so be it. My real diversification is gold/real estate/cash/my business. I don’t like the stock market in general right now, I think its downside is way more scary then its upside is exciting. I like gold for a lot of reasons, total world debt, paper currency devaluation due to monetary policy, its cyclical nature and apparent direction change after a long decline, the imbalance between paper gold and physical gold, and especially its safe haven value in a world ripe for all kinds of shocks, black swan events, and fear/panic possibilities.
Long in present order of value
SAND, RGLD, CTEQF, IVPAF, FNV, SA, KLGDF, MRLDF, TLRS, CANWF, CLASF, SSVFF, MWSNF
Renbycage, my outlook is similar, although I have no business other than rental real estate. There is a little debt there as a dollar hedge but not a lot.
In stocks I do own some clinical biotechs from Dr. Kss’ threads, but my results in total are not so great and the class is really pretty speculative. Large positions in ARTH and RGLS, maybe 10 others.
More in real estate by far than any other asset class. Not a lot of cash but I do own physical metals.
Resource stocks have been identified in the threads.
For what its worth, one year ago today, gold closed at $1230. Today, $1230 something. Where will it be one year from today? Strong dollar plus rising interest rates should be terrible for gold. So most likely it goes up. That’s how whacky the world of gold prices are. I listed my reasons why I like gold in a recent post, and I am sticking to that conviction, until something changes my mind. If gold ever goes mania, which is what I am hopeful of sometime in the next 1-5 years, that would be the time to cash in a mega-chunk. One thing in my self evaluation, I see that while the gold price hasn’t moved in one year, my portfolio is up significantly [about 40%] in that time span, after this latest rally. They say its better to be lucky than good, so I’ll take either, as long as it keeps going in the right direction.
Nice return from gold. I too am up a meaningful amount though a major portion is the rise in Copper as well.
I came into my gold position around 1/20/16, with gold at about 1088 if memory serves me correct. And up overall 110% since initiation. That was due to my very good move of way overloading on RGLD at what I thought was irrationally underpriced [28], and scoring a 140%er before cashing 2/3 of it and spreading it out over the sector.
https://hotcopper.com.au/threads/ann-syerston-nickel-cobalt-pre-feasibility-study-completed-clq-ax.2943542/page-171?post_id=21990527#.WKuM8YVOLcs
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/5oruop/youre_not_going_to_be_able_to_build_any_batteries/
While Tesla will continue to be controversial, there won’t be a lot of controversy on the need for cobalt, nickel, aluminum alloys using scandium, waste and water remediation, a cleaner environment, and economical mining technology.
One company that does all these things is positioned pretty well. Carmakers are a dime a dozen.
Tesla, Panasonic no position. Long CleanTeQ.
I was long on January 20 also, the day the market turned. Unfortunately I entered some time before that.
I will share the story, because it is kind of interesting. Call it fate, luck, karma, blessings, or something else…. starting dec/15 was a year of traveling for me, and I had a too large cash position, and was in costa rica investigating potential real estate. Since I was on 100% free time, it allowed me to do what I like to do and that is learn stuff that interests me. My mind requires numbers to process, the same way other people’s bodies require snacks, and at that time, I improved my diet from the junk food of sports box scores, to the more nuanced and flavorful world economy. And the more I studied, the more the renbycage neuro-synaptic-tingling-response was going off like red bulbs flashing and hairs standing up on my body, gold cycle was about to turn, and like tomorrow. From past experience, I have learned without fail, the NSTR is to be acted on. Now the problem is I’m in costa rica, and scheduled to fly to the bahamas for 6 weeks, and I’m not going to get back to california till march. And its not important why, but I need to be back home to access my funds, and then a bit of a delay till I can get the transactions done, so I figure I’ll sweat it out till march, but literally anxious over it. Then came the little piece of magic. I bit down on my breakfast burrito, and cracked a tooth, smack center front. Well that was something I felt I needed to get back to california to take care of immediately, that allowed me to do my full entry into my gold position on jan 20th, instead of mid march, and by the time mid march came around, I was already flying, if I remember correctly, I may have been already up 70%. If I had missed that entry, not sure I would have entered at all. I imagine my trip to the bahamas ruined, while I helplessly watch gold blast off, like I was exploring the asteroid belt, watching the ship home take off without me. Oh, one more thing. The delay on the bahamas trip also resulted in what became the best romance I’ve had in over a decade with a norway beauty. Luck, Fate, Karma, or cosmic blessings? Maybe a bit of all of it.
$ERDCF just passing on some info i came across re Erdene. I don’t really have the expertise to analyze drill results. This guy does. I understand that explorers invest a lot of money doing their exploring, and they have a lot of motivation to get happy drill results. This is from a couple month ago I believe. Here’s the blog link: http://incakolanews.blogspot.co.at/search?updated-min=2017-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&updated-max=2018-01-01T00:00:00-05:00&max-results=50
You Gringos Will Buy Anything, Erdene Resource (ERD.to) edition
Jeesh you guys, gimme a break. Erdene Resource Development Corporation (ERD.to) is 15% up today on 4X average volumes and all due to today’s NR. Oh for sure it sounds cool with its…
Erdene Intersects 110 Metres of 9.3 g/t Gold at Altan Nar Project
…but as they say in American Beauty, look closer.
They. Drilled. Straight. Along. The. Strike.
And you fell for it, dumbass spec momo buyer.
No position or opinion on this. Just for whatever its worth. Its one of the things that is an issue for me with these small miners, often next years paycheck depends on todays drill results. I imagine there are more than one way to make something look better than what it is. Whether that applies here or not I have no opinion.
For the most part, THEY ARE NOT MINERS. They are exploration companies; when they find something, they may become developers. If they hang in there and do it themselves or with a partner, then they might become miners.
But you are right, the payday is off in the future when there is a transaction. If they find something good and prove it to somebody.
Not at all concerned with his skepticism. Where should they drill, if not along the strike to determine the extent of it ? Honestly, it’s good news that there IS a strike. 110 meters at 9.3 grams is very good, and if it was known beforehand then the stock was absurdly undervalued.
As far as geological expertise is concerned, I have none, but I’ll bet the staff at Sandstorm is a lot more qualified than this newsletter writer. Sandstorm has a couple of million bucks in Erdene and Teck has an exploration agreement. A 15% increase on a microcap stock is not an astounding increase in market cap.
It’s not like we are talking about ABX going up 15%.
On the other hand, I agree with his evaluation of Northern Dynasty.
His repulsive insults detract from his analysis and are a reflection on him. Like anyone else, he may be right about some things and wrong about other things. Calling people names doesn’t add to the clarity of the analysis.
He is crude, with a nasty disposition, and likes to disparage. I just discovered his blog, and have been going thru the last 6 months or so. He definitely knows the inside game. I have found his writing to be very enlightening, if you take it for what it is.
He did an interesting piece on colorado resources, back in october I think. Entitled it “another canadian pump and dump unravels itself” and shows the chart of its rise from 2 cents to like 70 cents, then back to 40 [now 22], and documents the companies involved. I’ll look at it more closely when I get a chance.
While one has to make up ones own mind about things based upon all available information, its great to get contrary perspectives from the narrative that floats in your head. Especially when it gets backed up with some facts and documentation.
As far “drilling along the strike”, I can only conjecture that the implication is the drill was “cherry picked” in such a way that it makes it look better than it really is. Whether that has any correspondence to reality, I don’t know.
All drill holes are cherry picked. They are selected to discover deposits, expand them, or define them.
Drilling is very expensive. I don’t think they are selected to
mislead people who purchase stock.
Cynicism in investing is good, up to a point. With someone as cynical as he is, it would be interesting to see the stocks he likes…are there any ?
I will check a little more what this grouch with a chip on his shoulder has to contribute. He does serve as kind of an anti-hype voice in a world where hype is like 50% of the game.
Yes I have no problem with skepticism…another guy who punctures hype balloons is The Angry Geologist.
Both seem pretty pissed off by dishonesty and hype in mining promotion. One should be able to counter the arguments if the story is good.
I have run across a few names where I get the feeling that the hype is overdone. Northern Dynasty is the worst in my book in that respect; Integra Gold is another. This is not to say the companies or management are fraudulent, or that one cannot make money buying or selling the stock, or that they will not strike gold.
From the tenor of his approach he may be more intent on the shenanigans of promoters and shills than the normal person.
There is a lot of that in many industries, and mining is fairly notorious for it. So overall I have no issue with his skepticism…I myself became very disillusioned with big cap miners, and have concluded that “Miners suck”, and I keep that as a mantra when I look at them.
Maybe looking at lots of frauds and scams has pissed him off.
Whatever one wants to say about Doug Casey, I learned something from him that has had a major impact on my selections and due diligence. Casey says that in resource companies, the most important thing is the people. It is no coincidence that many of my picks have connections to certain people whom I have confidence.
It gives a lot of confidence when you are relying on people like Friedland, Watson, Quartermain, Lassonde; and others, like Seltzer-McCleod and Adnani. McEwen is another top guy although I am not long any of his companies.
Of course sometimes we don’t really have known stars in the management. But it helps when you can find it.
$ERDCF…I don’t think a 15% difference in the stock price is overblown…the stock is an exploration speculation. The drill results are very positive.
I tend to look at the market cap, and the cap on ERDCF is about $100 million. So the market cap went from 95 million to 106 million…big deal. Two months a ago Erdene was half of that. The gamble is that they will find a multi-million ounce gold deposit. With the new drilling, the odds are getting better and I still like the bet.
CMHF 2016 Robert Friedland Tribute Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owJFqPfQ9nA
HN, perhaps you could lend me your expertise here…I bought in a small position on $HL on the last upswing, and it’s been flat to down since. It started to gain some yesterday, and I thought it might have potential to make some gains with earnings coming out tomorrow. This morning, they released this:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170222005382/en/
Sorry, not sure how to insert the link. Shares dropped a couple cents at open and 4% on the day. I actually thought there was some good info sprinkled in there, but I’m still learning the numbers of the industry. I realize $HL is not your favorite silver miner, but any thoughts?
cuga40….I do not really have any expertise. Lots of thoughts, but no expertise.
If miners were analysed in the same way as normal stocks, no one would ever buy them. Their numbers really suck. Generally as investments, just remember that miners suck…unless you think there is going to be a major upturn in the prices of the underlying commodity. I agree with the optionality
concept as propounded by Rick Rule…when prices are low, miners chew up shareholder capital, giving no return and depleting their assets. When prices are high, they spend money finding deposits instead of returning capital to shareholders. They suck. But you can make money if you are long the stock
when prices go up.
Having said this, I consider HL to be one of a fairly large number of silver miners that are OK for someone looking for exposure to silver prices. They have plusses and minusses…some have more debt, or are in a better jurisdiction, or have lower operating costs, or bigger reserves, or are supported by this or that fund or ETF, or have a CEO who is better at promoting the company. Today they will have quarterly results that are good or disappoint a little. Yadda yadda. You have your criteria for picks, and you make them.
No matter. To me they are pretty much interchangeable, and are likely to have stock performance that is closely related. If one goes up, they will all go up in similar degrees with some leverage advantage to silver prices.
The key you are waiting for is a major change in the price of silver. Without this, the movements of the stock prices are likely to be inconsequential and pretty random.
Among the names I consider in this group are AG, SSRI, PAAS, HL, CDE, AUY, Fresnillo, Great Panther and MAG.
My reasons for preferring MAG have been explained.
I like AUY also but have plenty of exposure to them through Sandstorm Gold.
Long MAG, SAND
Thanks. Looked like it was probably mostly just a down market day, but $HL seemed to lose more than others, so I wasn’t sure if there was something I was missing.
HN – This is the first time I have laughed at anything you have posted: ” I do not really have any expertise ” If not expertise, it’s the best damn imitation I have ever seen.
It’s more like informed hero worship than expertise.
I have an investment Mount Rushmore. The busts of Friedland, Watson, and Quartermain are prominent. If Arch Therapeutics
goes up another 35 cents then Terence Norchi will join them.
Friedland is an attractive personality who appears to be a self-effacing genius with tremendous vision, and managerial talent.
Long Ivanhoe and CleanTeQ.
Watson is an award-winning accountant with character, strategic vision and principles, and the courage and persistence to implement plans. Long SAND. Long ERDCF. Long MRLDF.
Quartermain is a modern version of a dogged prospector…determined and convinced of the merit of his claim,
courageously overcoming skeptics and naysayers, risking everything, and making the big strike when others said he was barking up the wrong tree. Long PVG.
Norchi seems somewhat similar to Watson, with a touch of Quartermain’s persistence over time. I am hopeful he will achieve a similar success in creating a successful company. Long ARTH.
Hecla Mining has been around a long time starting with its Lucky Friday Mine in the Coeur d’ Alene valley. It has good management and good control of its costs. It has good silver reserves in several mines now and has exposure to gold. If you believe that silver is a good bet for rising in price in the next few months, Hecla is a stable good choice. All miners are relatively volatile in price, but majors somewhat less so than the juniors. If you believe in silver, I would not worry about some price fluctuations in the interim.
When I was in college 45 years ago I got gold and silver fever for a few months and Hecla Mining was my first stock investment. I made a little money but the fever subsided and I went into remission for 40 years.
Didn’t we all HN. I had a brother-in-law who rode silver from$2 an ounce up to $50 an ounce and then back down to $12/oz. back in that time frame.
Regards,
Frank
$SAND earnings call.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/4048537-sandstorm-golds-sand-ceo-nolan-watson-q4-2016-results-earnings-call-transcript.
Nolan Watson doesn’t waste words, he tells me everything I need to know in this call. Still comfortable with SAND in my #1 position..
Just wish there was some sharpies at the conference with some pointed questions.
Get on their email list. They’d have regular calls where people like us can ask questions. Also they are responsive to emails from shareholders
“Investors have a growing appetite for gold in 2017” Money and Markets – Financial Advice | Financial Investment Newsletter
Larry Edelson article:
https://www.moneyandmarkets.com/investors-growing-appetite-gold-2017-84687?campid=92306&em=monica%40thelesliegroup.com
Bottom line: Expect a better buying opportunity in gold and mining stocks AFTER a near-term correction, which should take place between March and May.
I started out with PM’s thru Larry E subscription. Trying to learn and follow, seppin he flips n flops, never says anything firm. If you subscribe long enough and get out with a 15% loss, eventually your investment account will be nil. There are many questions from subscribers that he will never answer. He churns and burns his subscribers, which is similar to all of these newsletter writers. ( Gumshoe not included) Most of them have a degree in journalism with a side of marketing thrown in. It’s like taking advice from Madonna or Streep, would you really?? Like many past subscribers have commented, ‘eventually you will be right Larry’.