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“The Most Shocking Video on the Internet” (What’s Curzio’s “invisibility cloak” stock?)

Sniffing out the latest stock teased by Frank Curzio's Phase 1 Newsletter as a play on the "Invisible material"

By Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe, August 23, 2012

I had another note in mind to share with you today, but the overwhelming demand for answers about the new Phase 1 promo that started mailing last night has jumped it to the top of my inbox. Frank Curzio’s Phase 1 Investor newsletter, which is the pricey letter published by Stansberry ($5,000, but usually “on sale” for $3,000 or so), is teasing that they have the “most shocking 20-second video on the Internet” … and the stock to benefit from the amazing advances you can see in that video.

So what is it? Well, the video first:

“In a few moments I’m going to show you an obscure 20-second video clip that will likely stick in your mind for days, maybe weeks.

“The footage comes from a foreign news network and was shot in one of the most dangerous countries on earth. There are no disturbing images. But you will probably have a hard time believing that what you are seeing is real.”

What he’s mentioning there is is a video from a Middle Eastern news channel that appears to show a soldier wearing some sort of “invisible suit” — the video is actually from more than two years ago, you can see one of the many YouTube versions of it here:

That’s the four minute version, I’m afraid, you have to fast forward to somewhere around 3:15 or so to see the “invisible man” run across the screen and jump in the tank. I have no idea whether or not the video shows anything high tech or real or it’s just a really bad camera, but there are certainly plenty of researchers trying to develop something like the “cloaking device” the Klingons used in Star Trek or the “invisibility cloak” made famous by Harry Potter. They work in lots of different ways, essentially trying to bend the light (or whatever other wavelength) to make it appear that an object isn’t there.

And they all rely on some sort of nanomaterials to develop flexible, thin, conductive “material” or whatever — which is what this teaser is really about. It’s not about some gee-whiz technology, it’s about … wait for it … graphene.

Which means, I’ll bet that he’s teasing one of the several graphite stocks that we’ve looked at before — after all, there aren’t all that many junior graphite companies with legitimate potential mines, and we’ve written about three or four of them. So what is it?

Here are his clues:

“Over the next several months a ­tiny Canadian company could indirectly benefit from this video’s growing popularity. But time is of the essence, so let me get right to the point…”

[And yes, if you gave me a nickel for every “tiny Canadian company” that’s teased as the next source of a miracle material or a life-changing mine I’d be able to … well, I’d be able to subscribe to Phase 1, I guess]

“… a new kind of substance is being developed.

“Valued at up to $6,000 a ton, this material is said to be the thinnest substance ever discovered.

“In fact, this material is so thin that one layer is invisible to the naked eye. Researchers at Dartmouth University indicate that three million sheets of this material stacked on top of one another would only make a pile one millimeter high. That’s about as thick as a credit card.

“But what’s truly shocking is that this transparent material also happens to be the strongest substance ever measured – 300 times stronger than structural steel and harder than diamond.

“Columbia University Engineering Professor James Hone puts it this way: ‘It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil to break through a single sheet of this substance the width of cling film.'”

Right, so that “new kind of substance” is graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms that’s been formed — in the famous case of the researchers who won the Nobel Prize a few years back — by using scotch tape to peel off a single-layer film. And it really is that crazy strong. But it’s worth a hell of a lot more than $6,000 a ton — the stuff that’s worth up to $6,000 a ton is one of the potential raw materials that can be used to produce graphene, large flake high-purity graphite. Yes, the same basic stuff that’s still in your pencil lead (though that’s not the large flake variety, most likely). Graphite is mined out of the earth just like coal is, and it’s sometimes even referred to as the most purified version of coal, it’s almost all used in steelmaking and in batteries (there’s more graphite than lithium in a lithium-ion battery) and most of it is lower quality stuff used to make high-temperature anodes for steel plants, but the large flake stuff is apparently likely to be useful for making graphene.

But graphene is a nanomaterial, produced in scale by using advanced equipment, and at least for many years to come the cost of graphene is likely to come primarily not from the raw material — which might be graphite or could be some other synthesized form of carbon — but from the processing required to create the single-atom-thick sheet.

So that’s my standard spiel about graphene and graphite — graphite is in high demand and prices have risen, but that’s not because of invisibility cloaks and the use in creating graphene stuff, it’s because there’s high demand from steelmakers and electronics makers for the other, current high volume graphite products like batteries, heat sinks, etc.

It’s also, just to make the whole idea irresistible to newsletter writers, another material (like rare earths) where China dominates the market and may create artificially spiking prices if they cut exports to support their own domestic high-tech manufacturing (again, as they did with rare earths — they undercut everyone on price to make rare earth exploration and mining unprofitable outside of China, then used their cheap rare earths to force high-tech manufacturers to do more advanced manufacturing in China by restricting the export of those minerals). It’s not as dramatic as rare earths — China has probably 70-80% of production of graphite instead of 95% plus — but it’s still substantial.

So that’s the back story — Curzio, like several before him, is teasing that the huge potential of graphene means that graphite miners will make a mint if they have the right high-quality assets. So which one in particular is he teasing? Here’s some more from the ad:

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“… the good news is, in a remote area of the world, near the Arctic Circle, a large deposit of this mineral has been discovered.

“And even better news, for investors, is that this mine is controlled by a tiny Canadian mining firm that is set to begin producing in just a few months.

“This is one of the few sources for this miracle material outside of communist China. That makes it not only politically stable, but extremely valuable to the western world.

“As news leaks about the incredible uses of this material, I expect the stock to climb. Based on my conservative estimation it could easily triple in value over the next few years, if not quadruple.

“So how big is this deposit and how much is it worth? Well, here’s where things get particularly interesting…

“The Western World’s $40 Billion Secret

“The mine was initially constructed in 1995 by an entirely different company. But despite being one of the only deposits of this mineral outside China, production was shut down in 2001 due to low demand.”

More clues? You betcha:

“Interest in the mine resurged and after changing hands a couple of times, a small Canadian company purchased the mine in mid-2011 and has been hard at work restarting its production.

“Based on old resource estimates this project has 30-years of steady production. And these estimates were based on drilling that was just 50 meters below the surface. Today, this Canadian company is in the process of a 2,500 meter (over 8,000 foot) drilling program.

“In other words, the actual supply of this mineral could be much, much higher than previously thought.

“With an updated official resource report to be released over the next few months, this stock is ripe for incredible gains.

“In fact, with the recent selloff in the junior mining sector, now is an ideal time to buy a stake in what could soon be one of the largest producing mines of its kind, outside China.

“Again, this mine is not a new discovery. That means unlike most other mining projects in the world, the infrastructure – basic things like roads, water, electricity, processing plants and permits – are already in place. The company does not have to bear those huge costs as a result….

“… this company owns one of the few mines producing this rare mineral, outside China, and will start producing this mineral within the next 18 months … the company believes that this mine could produce up to 13,000 tonnes of this mineral each year. (To put this in perspective, some of the largest mines in the world produce less than 17,000 tonnes of this mineral annually.)”

And he tells us that the company’s assets could be worth $2.3 billion at current high graphite prices … or a minimum of $200 million in a more conservative scenario (prices much lower or lower quality product, produce half as much as expected), which he compares favorably to the fact that the stock currently has a market capitalization of just $60 million.

So that’s a halfway decent slate of clues — which “tiny Canadian company” is he pitching this time around?

Toss it all into the Thinkolator, and we learn that this is … Flinders Resources (FDR in Canada, FLNXF on the pink sheets)

Which has been teased before — by Michael Robinson back before the current iteration of the company was created over the winter, so he can get some bragging rights on that one. The stock spiked up to over $3 on all the attention earlier this year, but has come back down to about $.160, right around where the stock was when it did its last big fundraising in April (of $15 million) to fund the initial development of their graphite mine.

Their mine is actually in Sweden, called the Kringel mine, and it was a historic graphite producer that shut down in 2001 due to low prices. They don’t produce the super-expensive ultra-high-purity graphite that’s used for lithium batteries and perhaps someday for graphene (that’s the 99.5%+ pure stuff, apparently), but they say they’ve tested and they can upgrade their graphite to those levels for manufacturers … and they do have a lot of the large flake graphite, apparently, which is priced at more like $2,000/tonne.

And yes, they are “near the arctic circle,” and they’re in a relatively mining friendly area of Sweden, and they have started processing old stockpiles of graphite just this week and say they can restart operations within the next 12-18 months on a more significant scale, so that matches the tease nicely. They also are aiming to produce 13,000 tonnes/year and do say that they have reserves for a 30+ year mine life, and they are close to all the necessary infrastructure and are exploring below the well-established resources that they’ve found at shallow depths, so I’m quite confident the Thinkolator is right this time around.

Does that mean this will be a profitable pick, or a trading opportunity? Well, I have no idea — the market cap is right around $60 million, and the junior graphite stocks with near-term potential production are all extremely story-driven, so there’s no reasonable way of placing a solid value on the stock — if you’re interested, one way to get familiar with the project and what they expect is by starting with their most recent investor presentation here.

The Phase 1 folks will apparently have a conference call with someone from the company management team and industry experts to discuss this stock on August 30, as they tend to do with many of their big new recommendations to add value to what is a very pricey newsletter, but they’re releasing the name of this stock and the special report in it now to current (and new) subscribers, so I don’t know if there stock will pop again on August 30 or not — sometimes it does for a conference call like this, sometimes it doesn’t, I suspect it probably depends on what kind of price recommendations or hyperbole come out in the call, and how far the stock has already popped up by that point.

Because yes, these Phase 1 stocks very often get bumped up by Curzio’s recommendations — particularly when yours truly writes about them and shares the heavily-hyped ideas with a broader audience, the combination can lead to some spikey movements in the share price. That doesn’t mean it will end well if you happen to decide you want to buy this stock today, because often when the attention dies down the stock slips back to the prior “natural” levels, that particular kind of action is pretty much impossible to predict — will another newsletter come out touting graphite stocks? Will one of these companies go bankrupt or massively increase their reserves? Will China increase graphite export tariffs or cut production? Those things can all move these picks, and very quickly, so be careful.

The other graphite picks that have been teased — and will, quite likely, be teased again — are Northern Graphite (NGC in Canada, NGPHF on the pink sheets)with their potential mine in Ontario, and Focus Graphite (FMS in Canada, FCSMF on the pink sheets) used to be called Focus Metals) with their project in Quebec. Both are very similar in size (market cap-wise), in the neighborhood of $60 million, Northern Graphite just released their feasibility study last month for producing for 23 years at about 18,000 tons/year and their optimistic case for the “net present value” is around $180 million and Focus Graphite seems to have the highest-grade deposit and connects their company story more aggressively to the graphene story, they say in their presentation that they can produce 20,000 tons a year for 40 years at higher purity and start producing on roughly that same timeframe, in late 2013 or early 2014. So all three of the potential widely-touted picks are quite similar in terms of resources, production, timeline and valuation, but there are certainly differences in the graphite concentration — if graphite prices spike and the story gets widespread (again), I’m sure all three will move together to some extent, but I haven’t dug into the individual details of each potential mine, nor do I own shares in any of these.

And we’ve been on the graphite track for quite a while with all the teasing that’s been done, so I’m sure that there are many of you who know this story in far more detail than your friendly neighborhood Gumshoe — so whaddya think? Is Flinders your fave for their Swedish graphite, or do you think the Canadian mines are better values? Or perhaps you have some other junior favorite that’s still flying further under the radar that you’d like to stake your claim to? That’s why we have that friendly little comment box below, so feel free to use it to your heart’s content.

And I’ll be vacationing for a week or so with Mrs. Gumshoe and all the little Gumshoes, so this is probably the last new article you’ll see until Labor Day … unless something jumps out at me and pulls me off the beach. Enjoy!

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Blackwater
Blackwater
August 23, 2012 12:04 pm

Got my first hype promo from Stansberry earlier this morning. Sent Travis a suggestion that he might want to look into it about 11AM. Got this detailed analysis and ID from the Thinkolater about noon eastern. Now that’s fast response time to me. Thanks Travis for being there. I am a paid up and satisfied subscriber to Stock Gumshoe. I doubt I will bite on this one.

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Al
Al
August 23, 2012 12:41 pm

Do you think that Frank might be using your website to bump up the stock for his subscribers, who have already been alerted to the stock and previously loaded up on shares? It would be fiendishly clever to preload the stock and then leak enough details for you to “discover” the true stock and let the world know about it. Perhaps I’m seeing too many conspiracy theories on the web but it sounds like a good scenario.

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Myron Martin
Irregular
August 23, 2012 1:00 pm

Interesting that this should come out on the day that I get a big payoff on another similar “speculation” on what WAS popular a few years ago. I am referring too Talison Lithium which I pounded the table on for the past couple of years as a high probability investment in the highly touted lithium field. I got my initial shares when they took over Solares Lithium and then bought more with my average cost around $2.00. Apparently one of the biggest players in the industry agreed with me that Talison is a well established if SMALL company with a solid established customer base. ROCKWOOD, one of the biggest players in the industry has just made an offer for Talison @ a 51% premium, $6.50 a share, which I am happy to take.
As to Flinders, it has been on my watch list for several months as is another company yet to IPO with a previous graphite mine in Australia ready to be put back into production as well.
I own BOTH Northern Graphite and Focus and am up nicely on both and I will probably buy some Flinders. If anyone wants a “graphite” focussed one stop shop to invest in, my #1 pick would be ZIMTU Capital ZC-V where Ryan Fletcher has identified the best graphite deposits around the world and bought EARLY, and they are selling them off to various juniors interested in the space, and the company is at a good buy point around .80 and I own shares in Zimtu as well and am considering buying more at this low point.

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apl16
Irregular
August 23, 2012 3:17 pm
Reply to  Myron Martin

This is an interesting coincidence as I was looking at Flinders the other day and was considering a small position. Maybe I will and see if there is a bump.

Off topic, what is your take on Sandstorm’s dive as the market opened, Travis?

apl16
Irregular
August 23, 2012 3:23 pm
Reply to  Myron Martin

Along with the Talison situation, I got a nice bump on my Canada Lithium stock.

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bernhardm
August 26, 2012 6:34 am
Reply to  Myron Martin

Yes, I think, Zimtu is an exellent pick, too. Beside “Graphite-theme” they have holdings in REE, Potash, Niobium, Tantal, Gold in many different Opcos. With their businessmodel, they are building up (step by step) a wide range of intresting investment opportunities in the field of “promising commodities”. I own Zimtu since 2010 and I’m very satisfied with their managment team (Flechter, Olsson, Hodges) and their communication policy!

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Harrison
Harrison
August 23, 2012 1:12 pm

Terrible ad/video from Cursio. Stansberry has promoted this stock for a few years. The mine needs a road, rail line, and power to become effective. Your article does not discuss the financial resources of the company. I hope this video/sales, and your review, kick-start the stock so I can get my money back. (I have doubled down to achieve this.) Regards.

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RoyF
RoyF
August 23, 2012 3:12 pm

Anybody think graphene now might be analogous to aluminum in the circa 1890’s precious metals market?

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Paul
Member
Paul
August 23, 2012 3:31 pm

You only have to look at rare earths play Lynas to see how the share price comes down once close to production such that earnings can be estimated.
I’m not even aware that there is a shortage of graphite. Did the prices of pencils explode recently ? And there are producing graphite mines. The cheapest entry appears to be Advanced Metallurgical Group (Netherlands), who own Graphit Kropfmuehl AG (Germany).
With a PE of 5 this company is obviously not seen as exploding in profits anytime soon.

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Frank
Member
Frank
August 23, 2012 5:35 pm

That’s no invisibility suit. That’s multicam.

George
George
August 23, 2012 7:14 pm

The earliest posting of this video that I have run across so far is from a little over 4 years ago. One interesting comment is that by circling the person in red, the eye is drawn to the circle, and thus perceives the person to be less visible than they actually are. If you look frame-by-frame, the person is quite apparent, possibly wearing normal camoflage and/or a touched up video.

Ken
Ken
August 23, 2012 8:40 pm

Hi Travis,
I would also like your commentary on sandstorm’s fall today. Is this a good entry point? Thanks, your articles are informative and always entertaining.

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philip
Guest
philip
August 23, 2012 9:00 pm

After all the talk about Graphene I bought into CVD Equipment which makes the machines to produce it,the stock is down although the company has a solid order book and is generating profits.If the readers out there want to look at something different they should check out buchansminerals.com $30billion manganese in the ground,market cap of 8million.

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hullevad
August 24, 2012 3:23 am

I do belive that some materials will be in short supply and therefore great investments in the near future. But graphite is plentifull and regarding graphene I think it will be made synthetically from sugar in a controlled environment. Speculation on a bright future for graphite large flake future “short squeze”? No way!

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IAN NICHOLLS
Guest
IAN NICHOLLS
August 24, 2012 7:56 am

For the potential largest graphene mine with large flakes look at SYR – SYRAH RESOURCES LIMITED on the ASX.

Quote from HotCopper
Trivett described Syrah as the graphite poster company of the moment, with its shares recently soaring to a 12 month high after impressive drill results were released at the Balama project, placing it in a favourable position to raise capital.

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Carlo
Guest
Carlo
August 26, 2012 11:29 pm
Reply to  IAN NICHOLLS

Ian
Great to see someone else knows about Syrah Resources!
As one mineral economist mate said to me after I showed him the info on Syrah, and I quote:
“Geesus, the rest might as well go back to gold exploration.”

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who noze
Member
August 28, 2012 10:05 am

i think gti [graphite intl is the way to go they are working w// the raw matrial

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WallPike
Guest
WallPike
August 30, 2012 7:21 pm

When I put this information into my Thinkolator I came up with Ontario Graphite. I don’t think you can buy stock in the company so I figured the Phase 1 people would get an opportunity to invest in Ontario Graphite.

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Brian Welch
Member
November 12, 2012 1:27 am

I think some of these have great potential for making money. Zimtu, Northern graphite and Focus. Carlson would like to know more about that tiny company in Maryland ? Where to invest on the things being made form the material comming out the door. Will we know before it’s too lat ?

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jmoli
Member
jmoli
May 29, 2013 11:01 am

Whenever Curzio says a penny stock or unknown share is going to soar to the sky, it most likely means it’s time to SHORT it, guys. Curzio has a history of big winners, yes but most of his picks are losers. Very speculative and such an expensive newsletter! FDR.V was not a winner by far; he recommended it on July 12. By Feb 13 the stock was down at -20% (return) but he still recommended it as a buy. The stock was in a clear down trend, any novice tech analyst could tell; but Curzio did not notice it. And in March, he recommended his readers to sell it; the stock was by then at -40% (return). Man, I think Stansberry & Associates has a great group analysts (Porter, Ferris and Sjuggerud, among others). But Curzio… Curzio… He’s a “curse”.

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Ruben Barroga
Member
Ruben Barroga
August 30, 2014 11:46 am

love your Stock Gumshoe Publications . Been reading your article everyday.
Thank you.
What is your take on Boron Nitride Nano Tubes ( BNNT ).
Know any company (listed) making this stuff.

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SoGiAm
March 16, 2016 6:45 pm

Flinders Produces High Purity Spherical Graphite With Chinese Partner
9:03 am ET March 2, 2016 Market Wire
Flinders Resources Limited (“Flinders” or the “Company”) (TSX VENTURE: FDR), provides an update on its two key initiatives to produce high purity spherical graphite and graphene to position its 100% owned Woxna graphite mine as a leading supplier to the current and future graphite and graphene industries.

Mr Blair Way, President and CEO states, “The past 12 months has been a challenging time in the resource sector and the graphite market has not been immune. Low graphite demand for the last 6 months has led to deflated prices. Nevertheless, with a tight control on our costs and a focus on value adding strategies, our initiatives provide cost effective means to grow our business and provide shareholders with a realistic vision for the future. With a production-ready, fully permitted graphite mine and processing facility, Flinders continues to maintain its position as the only graphite producer in the junior space that is positioned to react quickly to the anticipated increases in demand.”

The first initiative underway is the High Purity Graphite Project (see Flinders’ News Release August 18, 2015), which seeks to value add to its product stream via working with a strategic Chinese technology partner with a well-established design, build and operate capability in high purity graphite production. The second, the Swedish Graphene Project (“Svenskt Grafen”) (see Flinders’ News Release September 21, 2015), a Swedish-government funded program to research and commercialize the production of graphene from Swedish-sourced Woxna graphite.

Product from the Woxna graphite plant in Sweden was shipped to the Company’s Chinese technology supplier for detailed bench-scale test work to refine our existing high-purity flowsheet (see Flinders’ News Release June 25, 2015). The Company is pleased to advise that our Chinese engineering team has defined a process to upgrade Woxna graphite through standard acid alkali chemical purification techniques to battery grade graphite. Work is now underway to produce a larger quantity of high purity spherical graphite to commercial specifications, for end users to internally test for suitability in their battery manufacturing processes. Meetings with these consumers will take place during Q2 2016. A number of auto manufactures in the European Union (“EU”) are pursuing the development of electric vehicles more aggressively and we believe the Woxna production facility is well positioned to be an integral part of the EU supply chain for battery manufacturing.

The second initiative is the Swedish Graphene Project, which falls under the EU Graphene Flagship Project, a ten-year, EUR1 billion (US$1.1B) project to research graphene commercialization. The project is investigating Woxna’s Swedish flake graphite, and its suitability to produce graphene on an industrial scale. The project is progressing well and it is anticipated that further updates will be provided in the coming months. Woxna, as one of Europe’s two graphite mines, and Sweden’s only graphite producer, can supply domestically sourced natural flake graphite which provides a clear strategic advantage for Sweden.

Flinders also remains in discussion with a number of industrial companies to explore synergies which may exist to help grow the business.

Flinders will be attending the 2016 Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) International Convention and Investors Exchange in Toronto on March 6-9. Please drop by and visit us at booth 2939.

The qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 for the Woxna project, Blair Way, President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company, and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, has reviewed and verified the contents of this release.
On behalf of the Board,
Blair Way, President and CEO
About Flinders Resources
Flinders Resources is the 100% owner of the Woxna graphite mine and processing facility located in Sweden. The fully permitted Woxna facility was restarted in July 2014 and produced natural flake graphite concentrate until spring 2015. Much of this concentrate inventory was stockpiled instead of sold due to declining global flake graphite demand during 2015 that pushed prices to a four year low. The Woxna processing facility can be restarted very quickly (a matter of days), but will remain in a “production ready” status until improved graphite prices return allowing the company to conserve working capital and work on value adding initiatives for the processing facility. Flinders Resources is exploring all available opportunities to enable value adding products and improving the business economics
Forward-Looking Information… Best-Ben

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