Become a Member

Dan Ferris’ Three Picks: “The Best Resource Opportunity of My Life”

"I've waited my entire life for this moment" sez Extreme Value editor

By Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe, December 22, 2014

OK, we’re coming into our very sloooow period of the year, and will be closing down for the holidays after another article or two… but this is a teaser pitch that needs answering. We haven’t had this many questions about a teaser campaign over a weekend in quite a while.

Dan Ferris edits Extreme Value for Stansberry, and he’s the odd man out in that group — he’s the one who likes long-term, deep value ideas and dividend compounding, and I think he’s the only one who eschews stop losses. I’ve seen him speak a couple times and have been covering his teaser campaigns for years, and I’ve learned about a few interesting ideas from him… so let’s see what he’s touting today as he drums up subscribers for his Extreme Value (which runs $750 a year).

It’s actually probably the most aggressive push I’ve seen from Ferris in recent years — it’s not just an argument that he’s found three great buys in the resource sector, and that they’re beaten down, but that they’re in a “perfect storm” because of the confluence of fallen commodity prices, tax-loss selling, the inevitable cyclicality in commodity prices, and the almost as inevitable short-sightedness of individual investors. Here’s a taste of the ad (you can see the whole thing here if you prefer):

“I’ve waited my entire life for this moment

“This situation is so potentially lucrative I’m putting my own money into it.

“It’s an incredible opportunity in the precious metals market- but ONLY if you act BEFORE December 31st…

“The situation unfolding right now is so potentially lucrative that I’ve taken some unusual steps to take advantage of it… not just in my research service, Extreme Value, but also in my personal life as well.

“For one thing, I’ve been pouring my money into a group of stocks that investors and the media absolutely hate. In fact, the biggest Wall Street bank just announced that it would shut down its trading desks that serve big chunks of this industry.

“That’s how much this tiny sector of the market is hated right now.

“You should also know that I’m doing something else I’ve never done before…

“I found a business partner and we’re investing our own money in a business venture specifically to take advantage of this situation.

“And I’m taking yet another big risk with my career.

“I’m staking my reputation as an investment analyst on the insight I’m going to share in this presentation.”

Thankfully, unlike some folks who pitch private partnerships or direct investments, Ferris is not trying to pitch us on his private investment — he’s just using it as an example of his bullishness during this trough (he hopes — it’s not actually a trough until it comes back up again).

His basic argument is that the natural resources sector is going to come blazing back over the next several years, as it has done over and over for decades… so his favorite ideas in natural resources are going to work out really well. That may well be true, though it is of course far from certain… but he also specifically notes that he thinks these stocks are likely to boom by 40-50% in a matter of a month or two as they recover from the end-of-year tax-loss selling that typically brings down most junior resource stocks in November and December.

He talks for quite a while about these cycles of boom and bust in natural resources, which I suspect most of you are pretty familiar with — we won’t go into the detail, but he shows the TSX Venture Exchange composite chart to show the long boom and bust periods, and argues that we’re coming close to another multi-year opportunity partly because he says the Venture (used to be called the Vancouver) exchange has generally had a “well-defined bottom” in the $500-1,000 neighborhood. That market did, FYI, just recently go below the 2008 lows at around C$675 or so.

Here’s some more from Ferris:

“And while these big cycles chew up most crowd-following investors, you can use them to make incredible profits in mining, agriculture, and energy stocks.

“You simply get into booms early and avoid the big busts.

“That’s what we’re doing today.We’re getting in to the next Mega Uranium, with virtual certainty about where they’re headed next…

“…even though it’s an unpopular idea.”

Mega Uranium was one of the boom stocks of the last uranium bubble, just FYI, with gains of several thousand percent. Here’s what Ferris thinks we should do — and it’s not “buy the super speculative picks” like Mega Uranium was…

Are you getting our free Daily Update
"reveal" emails? If not,
just click here...


“Buy multiple rebounding resources at the same time. You’ll limit your risk and greatly increase your chance of capturing the biggest gains.

“Buy genius management. This is the most important rule. Insist on it. Invest with dealmakers who can spot and buy the resource opportunities that you would never be able to make on your own. And…

“Buy companies with an incredible margin of safety, when they’re dirt cheap. If you don’t do this, there’s a good chance you’ll get burned. You must buy ironclad balance sheets – companies that are highly unlikely to ever go out of business.”

He comes back to management brilliance pretty often when suggesting natural resources stocks — much like resources hotshots like Doug Casey or Rick Rule, who bet on people in natural resources because good management really stands out in a sector where bad management and terrible operations are the norm. Ferris sums up:

“I look for managers who are way smarter than me… and way smarter than their peers.

“This is the secret to getting rich in small-cap resource stocks.

“Invest with the dealmakers. They’re the beating heart of the resource industry. Let them find miners sitting on deposits worth 10-20 times their current market caps.

“Buy at the beginning of an explosive cycle. Use the December Anomaly to potentially get the lowest price. Then invest with the oracles of the industry. Let the world’s most successful resource investors make the deals on your behalf.”

And then, as with all teaser pitches that get us excited, he has to run down his favorite picks so we have something to slobber over… I suspect that these are going to all be names he’s touted before, just with a new “opportunity” as prices have fallen with commodities in recent months, but let’s check out the hints and get some names for you:

Opportunity #1: The Next Great Royalty Company

“This company is, by far, the best opportunity I’ve ever found in natural resources.

“All this company does is identify the most lucrative mining prospects in the world, and trade a small amount of upfront investment for a percentage of all the revenue ever generated at that site.

“It doesn’t shoulder the drilling expenses, or battle with thousands of employees over wages. It partners with traditional mining companies that do that.

“The revenue collected is called a ‘royalty.’

“Acquiring royalty interests is one of the all-time great businesses. The upfront investment is small. And the income keeps flowing for the decades-long life of a mine.”

OK, well that certainly sounds familiar — let’s check the specific clues just to make sure…

“The company I’m recommending today is small and potentially volatile. And it trades on a foreign exchange in Canada. But it’s easy to pick up shares through almost any broker.

“As for my investment criteria – it doesn’t just meet them. It blows them out of the water.

“This company has exposure to gold, platinum, base metals, uranium, energy resources, and agriculture.

“It has an absolute fortress of a balance sheet.

“And most importantly, it’s run by the best resource dealmakers in North America.

“A few years ago this company made a $2 million investment in iron ore. That investment is worth nearly $9 million today. And that doesn’t include an estimated $700 million in royalties they expect to receive over the life of the mine they discovered.

“In the early 2000s, the company spent $650,000 on a uranium-producing site. In 2010 it sold the uranium asset for $210 million – a gain of 32,000%. And it still holds a royalty on every ounce of uranium that will be produced at the site, once they build the mine.

“It paid $14 million for a Canadian property that has since paid out $20 million in cash – and will keep on paying $3 million a year or more for at least the next 15 years, probably longer. All told, I estimate it will collect more than five times its original investment.

“And their latest big deal, just last year, increased their revenue tenfold in a single transaction. How do you think dealmakers like that are going to fare in the next few years?”

OK, so yes — this is Altius Minerals (ALS.TO, ATUSF), a stock Ferris has been teasing in his ads off and on for almost six years now, and one I’ve owned personally for almost as long (I first looked at it in detail after Ferris pitched it as a ‘prospect generator’ in early 2009). That first investment of theirs, the iron ore one, is what’s bringing the company down these days — they staked an iron ore property in the Labrador Trough, where many great Canadian iron ore mines are located, and spun it out into a company called Alderon (AXX), retaining some equity in Alderon and 3% gross royalty on the eventual mine.

Now they’ve had to write off most of the value of Alderon on their books (which is why their income statement has looked lousy of late), and investors have discounted away all those potential future royalties because Alderon won’t be producing iron ore in 2015 or 2016 as originally planned — the project is essentially on mothballs waiting for project financing, and financing is not going to come until iron ore prices rebound substantially and some optimism returns to that market, so it will likely be at least 2018 before they produce anything… and that assumes they do get financing and restart construction at some point next year. That equity stake that Ferris cites as being worth $9 million was worth $30+ million earlier this year, but investors value it at pretty much nothing now. It’s very hard to predict what will happen to iron ore prices, but they probably won’t snap back — prices are down because so much low-cost capacity came online following the China-inspired boom in steelmaking in 2007 and 2008 (the price soared back then as China built empty skyscrapers, which inspired new iron ore exploration), and that low-cost capacity isn’t going away — all the iron ore companies have been clobbered this year, and most of them see prices remaining low for a long time. The government estimate in Australia is now that the price will average $63/tonne in 2015 (they’re in the high-$60s now), which would be as low as they’ve been in a decade or so — and which would almost certainly mean Alderon is not going to jump out of the gate in 2015.

Still, I hold Altius and nibble a bit more on it from time to time because Alderon is not the full story. Alderon is where near-term growth in the royalty revenue was expected to come from, adding perhaps 30-40% to their revenue when that mine went online, but as I look at Altius I think the base level of royalty revenue is not really reflected in their shares now. Their royalty revenue comes in part from Vale’s Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in Canada, which was one of those fantastic early-stage royalty investments made by Altius CEO Brian Dalton many years ago, but mostly from the portfolio of royalty assets that they acquired earlier this year — and announced on Christmas Eve a year ago. Those royalties are on captive coal mines that are run by power companies in Canada, and on large potash mines operated by the Canadian potash cartel companies, and they should generate something like $25 million in cash flow per year at essentially no cost (other than interest on the debt).

Altius is in a bit of a slog now as they have to pay down debt that they took on to acquire these royalties and regain some financial flexibility, but they are pushing to cut that debt level and they do have management that has done well so far at working through cycles, buying on the downturn, and managing cash — they had a huge cash pile for six or seven years before making this acquisition (from that uranium deal, mostly — it sold a uranium project to Paladin for a windfall profit plus a royalty, that royalty isn’t going to produce anything anytime soon, Paladin is still drilling to explore the site, but might eventually be valuable), so the stock does not have that downside protection of $5+ per share in cash anymore… but their royalty assets should provide a stable and very solid base of revenue for decades. I don’t think the solidity and stability of those potash and coal royalties is reflected in the stock price, but it hasn’t been all year so I don’t know if that will change in 2015.

Ferris also persists in thinking that Altius will pay a dividend, which they have indicated is likely at some point:

“The next great royalty company expects to begin paying a dividend within the next few years. Based on my analysis, this dividend will be good for a 10-15% yield on current prices….

“… when the company announces a dividend, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stock gets another big boost. Investors have shown again and again that they’re willing to pay more for a dividend-paying stock.

“I think this unknown little stock will become one of the best income-producing investments in the world over the next 10 years.

“It’s currently trading at a 45% discount to its value by my most conservative accounting.”

I wouldn’t expect a dividend until they’ve meaningfully paid down their debt — this is not a management team that wants to be skating on the edge with their balance sheet, so while they certainly could pay a dividend now from cash flow I suspect it’s unlikely in the near future. They have a substantial stake in Virginia Mines that they seem likely to unload in order to pay down debt, and a year ago I would have said they were likely to ease out of their Alderon equity stake (that’s no longer really exciting with the stock down so far, but Altius’ stake is worth $10-15 million after the price rebounded in the last couple days… though, frankly, Alderon would probably be cut in half, at least, if Altius tried to sell their whole stake), and they are continuing to do the prospect generation work that they always do in partnering with mining companies who want to explore Altius’ staked properties or other assets, including the possible development properties they bought along with their royalty acquisition this year — that brings in occasional milestone or deal payments.

I think it will work out well for Altius in the long run, which is why it’s still a major holding of mine, but I expect a waiting game as they continue to accumulate royalty revenue, pay down debt, and make small long-term deals with an eye to cashing in on the next commodity bull market. There would probably have to be a strong shift in sentiment or a big deal announcement to bring the shares surging by 50% in the next few months.

What else is Ferris talking up for “end of year” buying?

“Opportunity #2: The best resource investors on the planet, by far

“The second investment I recommend you make right away is very similar. It has a slightly different business model with a lot of the same benefits.

“In fact, it’s an even closer fit to the investment criteria I mentioned before.

“On track record alone, it is the reigning champion of resource dealmakers.

“It buys and sells whole companies. A few years ago, this Canadian ‘private equity’ firm invested $55 million (USD) in a privately held coal miner in the eastern U.S. Just 11 months later it sold the company to a massive industrial company. Its share of the sale was $241 million in Canadian dollars, or about $200 million U.S. dollars. That’s a 263% return in less than a year.

“It forms and ‘incubates’ new companies. In 2008, these dealmakers partnered with experts in the oil and gas business to form a small energy company. In the midst of the financial crisis, it was able to buy up Canadian land at absurdly low prices. It invested around $45 million (CAD). In 2012, a larger energy player stepped in and bought the new company for cash and stock worth well over $100 million (CAD) – giving these dealmakers a nearly 155% return in a few years.

“It invests directly in a commodity. In 2008 and 2009, these dealmakers bought over 50,000 ounces of gold and over a million ounces of silver. Their timing was perfect. They had sold these positions by 2013, pocketing more than $35 million (CAD) in gains.

“… the company is currently taking in almost $800,000 (CAD) a month in dividends from a single earlier investment. They don’t rush in, but they’ve definitely got cash to spend.

“One more thing.

“I mentioned before that I found a partner and we’re investing our own money into opportunities that are similar to the ones I’m recommending to my readers.

“But I can only dream of running an investment outfit as good as this Canadian company. If you approached me looking to invest alongside me… this is where I’d tell you to put your money.”

So who’s this one? Well, oddly enough it’s the second “prospect generator” that Ferris teased in February of 2009, Sprott Resource Corp (SCP.TO, SCPZF). This is essentially a private equity firm in natural resources, managed by the folks at Sprott (a big Canadian investment bank founded by resource maven Eric Sprott, Rick Rule is also a Sprott guy now after his firm was bought by Sprott a couple years ago). And yes, they made perhaps the best deal I’ve ever heard of in natural resources when they bought and sold PBS Coals several years ago for a windfall profit of a couple hundred million dollars in less than a year. That was the “company maker” for Sprott Resource, it gave them the capital to make a lot of deals — some of which worked out well, some of which are now worth substantially less than they invested.

I owned Sprott Resource for a while, too, but lost faith in management’s acumen when they started and then canceled a hefty dividend within eight months last year — the stock stayed right around the $3 price where I had sold for a while, but has fallen back down dramatically now with the collapse in natural resources. They went through a management change a couple months ago and subsequently “fixed” their balance sheet by selling gold and paying off debt (that’s not reflected in their numbers yet, if was after quarter end) and they have made a few other transactions this year — including a partial exit of their big natural gas company (now called Long Run Exploration, LRE.TO) and a re-bet on those PBS Coals assets that are beaten down again, essentially betting that metallurgical coal (which is driven by steel demand, not unlike iron ore) will rebound.

I haven’t done the “sum of the parts” look at their assets in over a year, so I’m not sure where I’d put their value right now — at the moment, Sprott Resource is trading at about half of book value… but that’s based on their fair value assessments and the value of their publicly traded investments as of September 30. Their publicly traded investments are down an average of about 50% since September 30, presumably the “fair value” of their private investments has fallen similarly — Sprott Resource Corp itself was down more or less in line with those public investments, though it did bounce back a bit in the last week.

My initial impression is that Sprott is getting back on track a little bit, cutting leverage and trying to be opportunistic again, but the value of their investments really has to bounce back in order for them to start really growing again — much of that value is still in energy, so if oil and gas spike back up that’s probably the only real opportunity for an immediate bounce (absent a surprise deal of some kind), but I don’t really know all that much about their exact positioning right now… you can see their most recent investor letter and quarterly report for more detail, but do keep in mind that the market has shifted dramatically since those numbers were pulled at the end of September.

After the end of September, they changed management, sold their gold, paid off margin debt, and boosted the cash balance, so things are quite different now. My feeling is that this is much more of a short-term commodity price rebound bet than Altius, if things improve sharply for oil and gas or coal next year, Sprott will probably bounce more aggressively.

Ferris is clearly pretty optimistic, he closes out his Sprott Resource tease with this:

“It’s cash-rich, and the geniuses at the helm are staring down the best moneymaking opportunity of a lifetime.

“They’re like kids in a candy store, and I expect the share price to rise 5x-10x in the next few years.”

OK, and there’s one more:

“Opportunity #3: The overlooked ‘Berkshire Hathaway’ of resources

“I recently sent my readers an urgent special report about a potential triple-your-money opportunity.

“This situation involves a small company that’s very similar to Berkshire Hathaway. It’s run by a brilliant investor who buys up the world’s great assets in ‘fire sale’ situations, and turns them around for huge profits.

“I actually recommended this company once before, more than a decade ago.

“Back in 2003, I wrote: ‘There exists, right now, an opportunity that’s very similar to buying Berkshire Hathaway 30 years ago… and it’s still cheap enough to make a fortune on.'”

Well, we don’t need any more to name that one for you — this is MFC Industrial (MIL), which Ferris did call out as “similar to buying Berkshire” in a teaser pitch back in June. I own some shares of this one, too, and have suggested them to the Irregulars in the past — this is the former KHD Humboldt Wedag and Terra Nova Royalties, it has evolved into becoming a “glencore junior” — establishing an international network of commodities suppliers and distributors, and also vertically integrating to some degree with some commodity production investments (particularly their big natural gas acquisition of a year or so ago, which has worked out well so far).

And MIL also has the same drag as both Altius and Sprott Resource: Steel demand isn’t enough to drive up iron ore (or metallurgical coal) prices. one of MFC’s major assets is a royalty on the Wabush mine that was recently closed down by Cliff’s because of high costs and falling iron ore prices (near Alderon’s proposed mine, coincidentally enough), so their royalty payments drop dramatically when the mine isn’t producing (there’s still a minimum due from Cliff’s, but it’s far less than what they earn when the mine actually produces iron ore). MFC was in talks to possibly acquire or restart the mine, probably with a partner, but those talks apparently fell apart.

I continue to hold MIL, though it’s a very small position — they have decent cash flow, a good merchant banking operation and solid revenue from their commodity selling companies, and there’s still some big upside potential from their natural gas assets as they partner out development of gas fields to partners, and maximize the productivity of their processing plant. I don’t expect it to snap back quickly unless something big happens with the Wabush mine, but they pay a decent dividend and they have been good long-term builders of equity value, so I’m still holding. I haven’t bought more recently, even with prices low, since I’m much more confident in Altius’ cash flow over the next couple years, but I do like management and the company is very small (market cap around $450 million), which gives them some opportunity to snap back if they make a substantial deal with either their iron ore or natural gas assets, and they do trade at a steep discount to book value even after spiking up a bit in this recent recovery rally.

So… in the end we have no great surprises, but three stocks that Dan Ferris has suggested at one point or another in the past few years — and, in this case, three stocks that I’ve owned in the past and two that I own now. I don’t know about making a big bet on timing the recovery of the natural resources sector over the next couple months, though it looks like there’s pretty strong sentiment about that among several newsletter pundits in recent weeks (and the stocks have in some cases bounced back a little bit after recent selling pressure).

Dan Ferris isn’t hype-crazy most of the time, and I expect he really does believe his strategy has a great chance of success… but this is a fairly dangerous sentiment for wounded investors:

“If you’re like most investors, you’ve made some mistakes in recent years…

“Maybe you waited too long to sell in the crisis of 2008.

“Maybe you didn’t get back into the markets in the spring of 2009, after the markets bottomed. Heck, maybe you still haven’t gotten back in with two feet and you’re kicking yourself.

“Well… now you’ve got a rare second chance. You’ve got the opportunity to wipe away all the mistakes you’ve made over the past few years. All with a single opportunity in a single sector of the markets.

“You now have a chance to make 500%-1,000% in the next few years by following the exact strategy I’ve just laid out – an opportunity to recoup all of your losses in a short time… and become extraordinarily wealthy in stocks.”

So that sentiment, which I hear elsewhere in the natural resources space, scares me a little bit — but it doesn’t mean that he’s wrong, just that I think language like this tends to get people to make big “bets”, and I’d be very nervous about betting big on any strong assertion about what will happen in any two or three month period. I tend to agree that natural resources and commodities should recover as the cycle cycles, but the idea that we can predict when that might be is probably foolhardy…. and I mean that in very broad strokes, it’s quite possible that iron ore doesn’t recover this year or next year or in five years, as we saw from the rise of China in the mid-2000s these markets can change sharply and reset assumptions for a long period of time — iron ore prices were in a 30-year decline until China’s demand started boosting the price in 2002 or 2003.

What does that mean? Yes, I think the odds are pretty decent for these companies — but they are not guaranteed to bounce back in January or February, and they are certainly not guaranteed to rise by several hundred percent in the next few years (Ferris didn’t use the word “guaranteed”, to be fair). I think Altius and MFC Industrial probably will do well over the next five years, assuming that global economic growth and the trend toward further urbanization and industrialization doesn’t disappear, but “probably” doesn’t mean “take out a second mortgage and go all-in!”

That’s just what I think, though — it’s your money, so what’s your call? Do you think this is a rare opportunity in these resource stocks? Let us know with a comment below.

Irregulars Quick Take

Paid members get a quick summary of the stocks teased and our thoughts here. Join as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today (already a member? Log in)
guest

12345

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

41 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
tomt
tomt
December 22, 2014 1:55 pm

Well put Travis,
Its my view the natural resource slump is partly geopolitically driven, perhaps mostly geopolitical. The trends in place continue and are at or approaching technical extremes in many cases. That won’t matter if the current geopolitics remain in place, but if this fragile
situation is rattled, we could easily see dramatic shifts in markets.
Ferris is betting on the DEC tax loss effect which he says has an 84% chance of reoccurring, but its the stability of geopolitics (cheap oil, strong dollar, sanctions, etc.) that will determine market outcomes in my view, and I doubt this situation will continue much longer given the pain much of the world is suffering. We’ll see eh?

Add a Topic
359
fabian
fabian
December 22, 2014 2:10 pm

It’s fundamentally a question position sizing. If you’ve funds you can fire and forget, why not. However, I go hit with these resource stocks in 2012. I couldn’t believe that on one hand we were in a recovery and on the other, steel, coal, copper were going down. And that was 2012. We’re way farther in the economic cycle and I don’t think these stocks are going to rebound soon and that is if they don’t go bust before any rebound. Finally, these are supposedly the smartest of the smartest (I’m always wary of the combination smart and speculation) and they still make big mistakes. There is another guy in the Stansberry pool, his name is Sjuggerudd (pardon the spelling). His mantra is to never buy anything that dropped before there is an uptrend. I think it’s wise advice.

Add a Topic
1337
Add a Topic
1576
maggs
maggs
December 22, 2014 2:29 pm

It just baffles me…What is the attraction to newsletter recommendations that these people get paid to write? Isn’t the idea to find them before they go mainstream? Everybody has an agenda. The same stocks that were recommended years ago, are now being recommended again and again but this time it’s going to be different? What are the chances of consistently making money on this type of investing (speculating)? Does anyone have any statistics on that?
Resource stocks are for sure boom and bust. Momentum will always carry the day along with the underlying commodity price but there is no guarantee that this deflationary cycle is not going to be a very long event. And these stocks are littered with people at all levels looking to get out. We just don’t have a free market anymore as the Fed has engaged in their own form of price controls and manipulation. We are in very intriguing times! Great website here Travis! Really interesting seeing the passions of investors (speculators) for these types of things. Not my thing but very interesting none the less. Good luck to all and Happy Holidays!

👍 4
Dividend Champion
Guest
December 22, 2014 4:06 pm

I guess if he liked them before and expected capital appreciation over the long hall, then this is an instance of Loving them now that they have been beaten down due to the economy. The economy should recover, so now it’s just a case of looking for stocks that have been thrown out with the bath water. I haven’t explored these 3 much, but based on this article I’d be most interested in Atlus. Thanks!

Add a Topic
540
Larry J.
Member
December 22, 2014 5:36 pm

Another helpful article. You guys really help us cut the cards from time to time. Keep up the great mojo.
By the way……Stanberry’s Doc Eifrig “Retirement Millionaire” also eschews trailing stops.

Happy Holidays…..you’ve earned it!

Add a Topic
1209
mike sanders
mike sanders
December 23, 2014 12:53 am

Now what was Einstein’s definition of insanity??

Ronald E. Baker
Irregular
Ronald E. Baker
May 13, 2015 11:20 pm
Reply to  mike sanders

Stansberry newsletters! You are insane to keep reading this stuff and to expect any real gains. Save your money and cancel them all.

chibana
chibana
December 23, 2014 7:06 am

Travis,
Same old pitch by Dan Ferris reference MIL. Share price has been mostly down or sideways all year. I had 6K shares which I sold for a small loss of $1.3K in the summer. I wonder where his new “triple” base point is? Is it where I previously bought in at $7.62 or $5.20 which it hit last week? There are some positives to this company but tripling in value any time soon (if ever) isn’t one of them in my view.
V/R
Tom

Add a Topic
1020
👍 1417
David
Guest
David
January 28, 2015 10:37 pm
Reply to  chibana

After months of going back and forth I finally jumped in and bought 200 shares of Apple on Monday this week and I will be darn if the share price dropped $4.00+ a share. The next freakin day! Ouch! An $800 loss in one day. Who can EVER know the market? Its just my
luck, I buy in, and the next day share price drops! Today it rebounded, but I sure would have liked to have bought in $4 less per share! The market is like a snake that will flip around and bite you in the tush at a moments notice.

masthead
January 29, 2015 11:14 am
Reply to  David

I have owned, and lost money on AAPL 4 or 5 times over the past 20 years or so. But this time I have resisted the temptation, so I suggest that you hang on, as my non-position will in all likelihood push it up nicely nicely for you.

Add a Topic
45
👍 37
Charlie Dale
Member
Charlie Dale
December 23, 2014 8:04 am

Thank you Travis for all of the clear and concise analysis (exposure) of these newsletter scammers. You are to be commended for helping save many inexperienced investors from betting the farm and losing. Happy Holidays.

👍 21649
goodgriefmike
goodgriefmike
January 3, 2015 6:10 am

Guys, I get the scamming dimension, but, Travis, if I inferred correctly from the article (and I’m relatively recent to your world) you were ‘turned on to’ investing in these stocks in the first place by the original newsletters…. Meaning that some value can be attributed to them IF you apply your own common sense and risk filters?) r’s mike

👍 13
👍 21649
Cautious
Guest
Cautious
December 23, 2014 7:59 pm

Travis,
I bought 200 shares of MFC Industrial (MIL) a few months ago at $7.75 per share. It promptly reversed course and fell to almost $5.00 per share. The last time I checked it was slightly over $6 per share. I like owning it because it pays a quarterly dividend of $.06 per share. My only regret? I wish that I had paid $5 per share for my 200 shares instead of almost $8 per share.

David
Guest
David
January 28, 2015 10:42 pm
Reply to  Cautious

Been there and done that! And have the battle scars to show for it! When this happens, I just buy again- and thus reduce my loss’s. This works of course when buying into a
company that you believe in. I started buying CCJ about a year ago, and never ever
expected that it would be down to where it is today! I am at a $1200 loss. So what am I
doing? Buying more! It is the EXXON of the Uranium Sector! It WILL rebound. It is not a
a matter of WHEN and not IF. And when the “WHEN” happens- those that were smart
to buy this company are standing to make a lot of return on their investment.

Add a Topic
520
Sagacious
Guest
Sagacious
December 24, 2014 8:57 am

Congratulations, Travis, on infusing some sobriety into the discussion, which you are so adept at doing. Personally, I think most financial advisory writers who make their livelihood on sales pitches are ethically challenged. Call me a cynic, but I cancelled my subscription to Ferris’ inexpensive monthly when I saw he was still pitching the same special reports for new investors he had written a year prior. While the basic advice he was giving was good, there was absolutely nothing actionable in the whole report covering about 6 or 8 investments since their “buy up to” prices had been exceeded by wide margins in every case, and he hadn’t bothered to take the time to update his recommendations. That told me he was more interested in lining his own pockets than he was in providing truly helpful information to his readers. Cynicism aside, I think your own analysis is much more level-headed, so that perhaps 2 or 3 of the recommendations may be worth investing in now for the long haul, since cycles do repeat themselves eventually, and the resource/commodity sector certainly looks like it is at a bottom. But quick “hyper” gains like Ferris is touting to wrangle you out of a cool $750 to subscribe to his Extreme Value–unlikely, in my opinion.

David
Guest
David
January 28, 2015 10:50 pm
Reply to  Sagacious

This is a sector that is not a quick return sector. This sector is a BOOM or BUST.
It takes years for a boom and when it happens- you get out! And you wait for the bust!
And the bust may take YEARS to rebound! But when the bust hits you take all that you made from the BOOM and you buy like you have never bought before! That is where we are right now with coal, steel, iron ore, and uranium. The BOOM for uranium was in 2007! And the bust came in 2008! Seven years later….SEVEN- the uranium market is poised to POP again! This the safest bet in the world! PEOPLE NEED ELECTRICITY! Uranium is the cheapest form bar-none! And the boom is getting ready to hit! And when it does- Cha-Ching! $$$.

Add a Topic
1337
Add a Topic
3621
Add a Topic
520
Ronald E. Baker
Irregular
Ronald E. Baker
May 13, 2015 11:34 pm
Reply to  Sagacious

Dan Ferris is the best of a bad lot. Anybody associated with Porter Stansberry is tainted from the start. One very typical example: Stansberry predicted that GE would go bust, like General Motors, in 2011 or 2012. He kept on like this until suddenly he fell silent in 2013.
Meanwhile, GE went straight up from about $16 to its present level, while increasing its dividend and acting more and more like the old Blue Ship G.E. Stansberry kept silent ever since. Same story since his polemics on the 3rd Law of Thermodynamics and how First Solar would fail miserably. Look it up: FSLR has been a rocket to the moon since Stansberry’s call. Bad company for Dan Ferris; stay clear of these scammers!

Add a Topic
1020
Add a Topic
388
Add a Topic
1038
sooku
Member
December 24, 2014 9:15 pm

I happen to believe that the oil price bonanza is a strategic move (by the Saudis at our behest), and prices will recover next summer. Sprott looks great in that light.

Add a Topic
359
👍 62
normxyz
Irregular
normxyz
December 25, 2014 1:09 pm

Thanks to falling demand and the oil shale imperatives, we are likely to have an oil glut for some time. Unlike the Russians defending the Ruble, the Saudis can see the handwriting on the wall and are not so foolish as to try to defend the price of oil for the benefit of their OPEC and other producer brethren.

P.S. I also doubt Obama is behind this oil price slump, since it is likely to bring on a renewed U.S. recession — virtually all of the new jobs other than hash slingers and nurses are in the oil fields; see http://www.cnbc.com/id/102292094

Add a Topic
359
Add a Topic
359
Add a Topic
359
👍 8
normxyz
Irregular
normxyz
December 25, 2014 1:13 pm

P.P.S. I too would like to add my kudos for Travis’ great work on this site!

👍 8
tanglewood
December 26, 2014 3:59 pm

For all the people on this thread that think Travis is doing a great job, if you have an extra $49.00 kicking around. I highly recommend joining the Gumshoe Irregulars. You will get to participate in one of the most exciting biotech threads around. Dr KSS explains the cutting edge technology and tells us which companies are the leaders.

Add a Topic
3932
👍 644
hipockets
December 26, 2014 6:21 pm
Reply to  tanglewood

To everybody who is not a member of the Irregulars –You should follow tanglewood’s advice and become an Irregular. Not only will you have access to Dr. KSS, you will become part of a tremendoulsy diverse, hel[pful, and knowledgable group of investors who gladly share their abilities.

Add a Topic
3932
👍 1224
Mike
Member
Mike
December 27, 2014 10:53 pm

I have 2 questions for those of you more knowledgeable of two of these stocks. Is Altius like the Canadian streamers that you need to sign some tax related form to be treated a certain way ( you either know or don’t know what I’m referring too.)
What is the difference between SCPZF and SPOXF?

stromsky
stromsky
December 28, 2014 12:04 pm

Thank you Travis, for cutting through the “fog” that engulfs so many promotions. Its been my experience that some of those people’s recomendations are good, but not worth 500 to 3000 a year. Thanks for a bit of education and helping us avoid some land mines along this road!

Add a Topic
282
wkho noes
Member
wkho noes
January 5, 2015 4:38 pm

WELCOME BACK yu were mised

B.D.
Member
B.D.
January 6, 2015 12:47 am

I have to disagree that these are in any way good investments. I’ve followed the Stansberry commodity traders for years. They are nearly always wrong on the trend, except in economies where resources boom like 2008 to 2010 or so. As for Sprott, I suggest you run from anything with that name or Rick Rule associated with it. I see writers ballyhoo those two, and while they may be knowledgeable and talented, I haven’t seen them make money for others for years now.
These are bad investments and will remain so for some time. Think about it–who do these companies have to sell to? If they tanked while the U.S. economy was on the move upward, can you expect change when both Europe and Japan are in recession, China is up and down, Greece is on the ropes, and Russia and the Ukraine are locked together to see who can shoot the other in the foot best? Add to that ISIL and the rest of Middle East disputes, a Pakistan nearing civil war and OPEC market manipulation, who can reasonable conclude there is value here beyond a base to hold for years, maybe a decade or more, like a non-interest bearing bond?

Add a Topic
1488
Add a Topic
1029
Add a Topic
108
👍 21649
David A
Guest
David A
January 22, 2015 9:59 pm
Reply to  B.D.

Rick Rule is the Absolute Commodity GURU in the Resources Sector! BAR NONE!
The man has made MILLIONS. Did you get that? MILLIONS! Dude, you obvious do not have and understanding of the Resource sector! It is a BOOM or BUST sector! No exceptions!
If an individual is going to jump into this sector you are ONLY going to make any money
by buying LOW and selling HIGH, and catching the waves of this sector- but here is the
thing, these trends of BOOM and BUST are often 8-10 years in between! We are in the BUST sector now. Uranium is at an ALL TIME LOW! I mean ALL TIME LOW! It is a sector where MILLIONS of dollars are set to be made when the sector moves into the BOOM!
Investing in this sectors demands PATIENCE for the term. It is not a GET RICH QUICK sector. You BUY when gold, silver, coal, iron-ore, and uranium and at the lowest of the lows! When they are so low, that there is no WAY but up! And you jump in and buy with all you have! And you ride that elevator all the way up, and you sell when the time is sell!
By that time, you make an absolute fortune! If a trader is lucky, he or she may only see this scenario play out twice in his/her life time. If you are lucky three times! So when it happens, you jump on that train and you buy like there is no tomorrow! And when its time to get off the train- Cha-Ching! As for Rick Rule- He is simply the BEST of the BEST!

Add a Topic
1488
Add a Topic
520
Add a Topic
210
Ronald E. Baker
Irregular
Ronald E. Baker
May 14, 2015 12:25 am
Reply to  B.D.

I am Canadian. I know Eric Sprott and Rick Rule. They are charming, very slick impresarios of their own (narrow) self interests. Typical example: on September 15, 2011, Eric Sprott vigorously promoted his physical silver bullion trust fund PHS (NYSE) and PSLV TSX) at US $18.63, some 20% above its NAV of $15.49, during a conference in Toronto, attended by about 350 people. A few days later,I bought it at $15.25, seeing it had dropped to about its NAV, and because I trusted Sprott. He promoted it to a large hotel ballroom full of investors as a “safe” buy and long term hold. A few days later, I discovered that, at the very moment Eric was touting us all to buy his PHS/PSLV, he was quietly selling hundreds of thousands of shares from his personal account each day! Lucky for me, I discovered this in time to get out at $15.98. A few days later it fell to $13.25 and then steadily declined to US $6.58 today. When I met Eric again, some months later, and asked him why he did this, ( in front of several witnesses), he said he decided to sell PHS “because its NAV was 20 % above the market and I needed funds to finance my charities”. ie. Sprott School of Business, I presume. Some business example for all his students! Needless to say Eric was not well pleased with me; nor I with him that day. He got red faced and turned away!

Add a Topic
1488
Add a Topic
443
dcohn
Member
January 6, 2015 1:25 am

I too thank you Travis for a great site.

👍 222
James Madorma
James Madorma
January 6, 2015 10:29 am

This is a website I have been reading for a few months on and off and I am considering signing on as an irregular. I may have missed it, but has Stock Gumshoe written anything onMotley Fools take on the 3 stocks to buy that are behind Apple’s supposed takeover of Television.2 or some such thing?

Add a Topic
5971
modernrock
Irregular
January 6, 2015 2:37 pm
Reply to  James Madorma

done, use the search function on this website

👍 255

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.

More Info  
32
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x