Gold Miner M&A - Goldcorp Hostile Bid for Osisko

The biggest bid in some time stirring opinions. 

Monetary Tectonics - The Tug of war between Inflation and Deflation - Incrementum

A Review by Mish - HERE
Incrementum's 50 page PDF - HERE

Mining Industry Data Consolidation - Forthcoming Merger & Acquisitions

Just over a year ago SNL Financial purchased the Metals Economics Group (MEG)
Today they announced the acquisition of IntierraRMG the other major mining & exploration industry data specialist.

The Golden Dilemma & Goldenfreude - Rick Rule talks big money circling resources and miners

A long paper by Erb & Harvey with many charts exploring gold price drivers (HT King One Eye Blog)

Are we due the final scare? Larry Edelson sees 2 potential moves, final thrust down now or inversion delays until May.

At what point do we see (HT Mercenary Trader)

"The most exciting returns are to be had from an asset class where those who know it best, love it least, because they have been hurt the most."- Don Coxe

More ......

Junior Gold Mining M&A - Monument to Acquire Murchison Gold Project

Monument are in production in Malaysia, holding significant cash and cashflow due to low costs, valued at 0.35 book value and trailing PE of 3.5 (but lower gold prices now!).

Deloitte 2014 - Mining: Tracking the Trends

6th Annual Report on the Mining Industry from Deloitte - HERE
Exec Summary
Full Report

Can we find good management responding to the right investor concerns?

Morgan Stanley Metals Playbook

Dated Q3-13

PWC 2014 Gold, Silver, Copper Price Report

Survey of 150 miners from PWC
Link straight to the Report

Junior Gold Mining M&A - Go Gold Bids for Animas

Go Gold has recently announced bids, first for the Animas subsidiary controlling the Santa Gertrudis project in Mexico, and now for the whole company, for approx $10m, with significant shareholder lockups which followed a counter-offer by Marlin Gold.

Junior Gold Miner M&A - Northern Star Acquires Barrick's Plutonic Mine

News from 23rd Dec 

If the gold price can make a turn north in 2014 the majors disposing of assets will have succeeded in buying high (Equinox!) and selling low. .....more.....

Happy New Year 2014

Joyeux Noël

Carols From King's College - Cambridge - Radio 4

Gold & Mining Stock Picks for 2014

Less around this year ! I shall update more on this post as I find.

Sprott & Asian Private Equity Resource Investments $1.25bn

Sprott announced co-management of a $750m Korean resources fund on 20th Dec-13.

Junior Gold M&A - Asanko & PMI Gold - On Again? - West African Resources

Back in January we saw this announcement as Keegan and PMI Gold looked for a merger of equals in Ghana.

Can Tapering be Bullish for Gold?

Is this wishful thinking from Stewart Thomson? Or can a turn in monetary velocity, Japanese QE, Indian and Chinese reform drive inflation and a rush to gold in 2014?
HERE
Martin Armstrong foresaw the dashing of goldbug dreams but seems to be sensing some of the bearishness necessary for a turn. HERE

Junior Gold M&A - Primero Bid $220m for Brigus Gold

Joe Conway's Primero (P.TO)  have been one of the few precious metals miners to hold onto their market value in the last few years, holding good cash levels over $100m and generating strong cashflows from operations.

Franco Nevada Streams - Teranga Gold in Senegal and Klondex in Nevada

Continuing the African Gold theme, Teranga Gold (TGZ) in Sengal yesterday announced a significant $135m streaming deal with Franco Nevada, retiring debt, and buying out a partner.

Meanwhile back in the US  Klondex announced a $35m financing with Franco Nevada to progress their purchase of the Nevada Midas mill and mine from Newmont.

Junior Gold M&A - Centamin bid for Ampella follows B2 Gold's Offer for Volta in Burkina Faso - Mark O'Dea Discussion

West Africa is seeing significant M&A activity as the gold miners' shift focus to low capex, low cost projects which can make margins at lower gold prices due to higher grades or low cost heap leach projects.

Ernst & Young Mining Eye

Quarterly Report from Ernst & Young
Q3-13 

Rob McEwen Interview

Reported HERE

People are looking at cash flow and margins. The next run in this market is going to be gold moving higher, but it’s also going to be lifted by discoveries and in this type of market, people are saying, “Oh, I don’t want to look at exploration.” But I think right now that’s when you should be looking [at it] because there are going to be some good stories and that’s what has pulled companies out of the doldrums before and they will do it again.

Gold Fund Top Holdings

Some live links to Top Gold and Mining Mutual Fund Holdings - See Side Bar at Bottom Left of this blog for more links

Gold Miners with Cash and Other Fundamentals

Y-Charts have a nice screener which plots scattergraphs of Balancesheet, P&L and Cashflow fundamentals

New Exploration Techniques - Going Deeper Under Cover

My Own Market Narrative pointed out THIS ARTICLE
John Kaiser often discusses the enormous potential for discoveries deep under cover in Nevada, in the gravel filled valleys. Rick Rule has discussed the potential for discoveries under cover in Mexico. These newer techniques may be the spur to junior discovery of the next "Big Anomaly". Landholders in large districts with potential become more interesting. The best geological teams might explore, more economically, over larger areas, with less stock dilution using these techniques. Maybe this is how miners return to rich ore, maybe deeper high grade discoveries put at risk the low grade open pits. Maybe the old mining districts in good jurisdictions can be re-explored in preference to exploration in remote areas with no infrastructure or bad government.

Rick Rule - on Hubris & Bifurcation (plus Stock Picks)

An interview discussing his familiar themes HERE
Also a Transcript of another interview HERE
Plus a lengthy list of stocks discussed in August and older picks at Stockchase

Mines & Money London - Dec 2013

Investorhub     Exhibitors  -     Stocklist

Discussion - Day 1       Day 2

Gold Miner Cost Decreases to Come ?

The industry is under enough pressure on all fronts that the weakest companies could fail. All should aggressively reduce costs, the scramble for people and resources in a hot sector should be gone. With this in

Bob Moriarty 10 Mining Picks

Bob Moriarty has a long record in the gold and mining sector, he takes sponsorship and holds stocks and always makes clear he is biased. He discusses his favourites HERE

Go back and review his articles over 11 years HERE

Scotiabank Global Banking & Markets - Annual Mining Conference - Toronto - 3rd Dec 2013

Senior industry names attending with some 'themes' for discussion - HERE

Archived webcasts at Scotiabank - Day1 - Day 2 - Register HERE

• Goldcorp Transcript
• Barrick - Transcript
• Silver Wheaton - Transcript
• Eldorado - Transcript
• Kinross - Transcript
• Silver Standard/Pan American Silver / Tahoe / US Silver & Gold - Transcript

The Canadian Venture Index - Bre-X

A recent Eric Coffin presentation pointed to a long run chart of the Canadian Venture index. (the chart can be run at Marketwatch).

Comex Gold Claims Per Ounce

There is fierce debate as to how significant this is. The best I can say is there looks to be a significant increase in claims per ounce recently. (Update 21/12 - Longer term chart now updated by Jesse showing that this ratio is dramatically out of line with historic levels.)

Tracked by Jesse

Adrian Day, Jim Dines discuss Junior Miners with Rick Rule at San Francisco Metals & Money 2013

From the San Francisco Metals & Money Conference

Michael Shaoul - Gold to $1000 ?

A number of commentators point to support for gold around $1000.

Eric Swarts - Gold & Silver Reflation Trade

Over at Market Anthropology Erik Swarts makes a call for bottoming in commodities and the precious metals. Having pointed to the 2011 top, and stood aside since, not suckered by the interim bounces like so

580 Global Gold Deposits > 1m oz

An update to the analysis of global gold deposits >1m oz by NRH and Visual Capitalist, including oz, grade, ownership, jurisdiction and production status.

GDX / GDXJ Lows? - Franco Nevada's Assets

Franco Nevada's performance over the past 2 years stands out dramatically from the rest of the PM Market as they deliver on growth. Chairman Pierre Lassonde is widely respected in the industry.

Cook, Coffin & Kaiser in Discussion Nov-13

Jay Taylor in discussion with Brent Cook, Eric Coffin and John Kaiser.
short notes below.....

Jay Taylor - Newsletter Sample Sept 2013

A free sample of Jay Taylor's letter from Sept-13. He is one of the more gold-bug writers and note the disclaimers....

Mining Jurisdiction - Behre Dolbear Report 2013

Australia, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, US    top the table again.

Linked  HERE

I see Otto at Peru based Inca Kola is distinctly unimpressed with their South American views !

Barrons - Gold Mining Merger Wave? - Cowen&Co Miner Market Cap vs PNAV

An article at Barrons discusses the likeliehood of Gold Mergers as miners look forward to production falls after 2017 - HERE
Includes the nice graph below comparing market cap and valuation highlighting the senior and junior producers and developers