John Kaiser - Gold Deposits / Cost vs Grade

John Kaiser is a long standing data and analysis driven newsletter writer.......

Platinum Cost Curves

Cost Curves below ......

Who Drives the Price of Gold / ADX indicator for Gold / Golden Crosses / Charles Nenner

Anyone following the gold and mining market is likely to find (perma) bullish opinion at sites like King World News. While they do carry a few interesting interviews it is well to also follow some of the traders who take a more critical view of some of the more dramatic claims of the "gold gurus" and have been more wary of the 2014 advance, without simply being gold perma-bears or sceptics  ........

Deep Mine / Narrow Vein Technology

The pressures on profitability in the mining industry should lead to step changes in innovation and technology. As good grade near surface is harder to find the potential to mechanise high grade deep underground should become more appealing with the right technologies.
Anglogold are making substantial investments to improve South African deep mine economics.
Rocmec discussed narrow vein mining innovations at PDAC.
If these technologies can prove themselves old mining areas may see renewed interest.

Eric Coffin - A New Resource Bull

Eric Coffin of Hard Rock Advisory is one of the more experienced and respected voices in the sector.

Mines & Money Hong Kong 2014

After PDAC the Hong Kong Conference seems to be growing in importance as a melting pot of Canadian, Aussie and UK listed miners chase Asian money.
An apparently long list of over 400 financiers and investment companies attend, though a tidy up of the duplications might look more professional.
And plenty of Exhibitors
Including Miners & Explorers 

Investing in Mineral Discoveries - Steve Todoruk at Sprott

HT IKN ........

Income & Value Investors Look to the Miners

Buying by general investment funds Artemis Income Fund and Old Mutual UK Alpha Fund.

The most significant change has been in the management of the mining companies. The CEOs of Rio Tinto, Anglo American and BHP Billiton have all stepped down. Efforts are being made to bring costs under control and some companies have increased the amount they are returning to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

Following their recent poor performance, valuations are also starting to look attractive and this is gaining the attention of investors...........................................

We are encouraged by the fact that the forecasts and outlook for miners already incorporate falling commodity prices yet the resultant cash flows and dividend potential still looks attractive. 

Mining in Canada - Parets & Brandt - USD:CAD

Currencies - A double edged sword as a UK based mining investor.....

PDAC-14 Leading Stocks - Interactive

The past few years has seen the development of advanced interactive graphical analysis tools reach the mass market. Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" puts Tableau near the top in their analysis.
The dashboard below takes the PDAC stock watchlists (and these rely on google finance data so please always double check) and makes the analysis of stronger performing stocks more visual and interactive. Also note that the datalink is via google / via excel (!!) so I will note the last refresh date here:
Refresh 15th March 2014.
To interact drag the sliders, highlight areas of the chart on the right or click to re-sort the values in the left hand graphs

Learn About Tableau

HT - Inca Kola News - IKN

Thanks to Otto at Inca Kola for recommending his readers to stop by here.

OT - Springtime

Daffodils along York's city walls.

Have we reached Peak Discoveries?

Discussion by Kitco at PDAC.
Brent Cook, Miles Thompson, Catherine McLeod Seltzer, Alex Davidson.

PDAC 2014 News - Reviews and Stock Picks

Catching up on some of the PDAC 2014.

Jurisdiction Risk - Fraser Institute Survey 2013

The Fraser Institutes Annual Ranking of Mining Jurisdictions is published for 2013
Summary HERE

The top 10 most attractive jurisdictions for investment worldwide include (from the top) Sweden, Finland, Alberta, Ireland, Wyoming, Western Australia, New Brunswick, Nevada, Newfoundland & Labrador, and Norway.

How Serious Junior Miners are Separating from the Pack

At the Financial Post.

These companies do not need to have world-class deposits with 10 million ounces of gold or 20 billion pounds of copper. In fact, investors are likely to shun projects like that, because they are too large and risky in the current environment. No one wants to see another Tasiast or (even worse) a Pascua-Lama. All these companies need is an economic discovery and a logical path to production, and investors will take it.

"Projects are being scrubbed down to a nugget that works,

A Tax on Ignorance and Inflation - Pensions and Government Debt

An interesting article by Merryn Somerset Webb in the Weekend FT.

PDAC 2014 - Full Stock Watchlist

This post follows on from the Coreshack watchlist posted earlier.

Brent Cook - Discussion with Scott Gibson

Mining companies have to prove to market they can make money. High grading sterilising deposits. Accumulate the few legitimate deposits and exploration groups. Wake up to too few deposits next year. Identify lowest quartile cost projects.

PDAC 2014 - Coreshack Stocklist

The PDAC convention is the big annual mining exhibition in Toronto, running from Sunday 2nd to Wednesday 5th March.

Association of Mining Analysts - AMA - Gold Miner Cost Curves 2013/14 & Exploration Activity

Two recent presentations from the AMA
State of the Market
Metals Outlook

Global Mine Financing Guide - Mayer Brown - 2014

Part of Mining Journal's "Leaders Series"
A detailed guide to issues in mine financing with round-table discussion involving Ernst & Young, Mayer Brown, SRK and BMO.

Gold Miner Bulls and Bears

Many gold-analysts seem to be seeing positive technical signals in gold and the miners as prices move above 50 and 200 day averages, though plenty expect a retest.

BMO Metals & Mining Conference 2014

The big BMO institutional conference before PDAC.
Expect podcasts in a week or two HERE and links to previous conferences.
BMO's team, transactions and biases.
Last Year's 2013 Metals & Mining Research 200pp company coverage.

Mining's Cycle - Quinton Hennigh

An article dating back to 2012, Quinton Hennigh, an industry geologist who also writes with Brent Cook at Exploration Insights, suggests we should expect a pivot point where gold mining and exploration proliferate.

World Economic Forum - Mining & Metals Scenarios to 2030

 HERE - can't see a publication date but may date back to 2010

Brent Cook & John Kaiser Discuss Markets and Stock Picks

Al Korelin discussion with Cook & Kaiser and others
Interesting to see the different approach of the industry geo, Cook, looking for deposits that work at low metal prices, against the investor looking for leverage to a higher metal price, and the swing from being priced for bankruptcy to profit by Mymikan Capital's Dan Oliver.

Brent Cook - Peak Discovery

A great article by Brent Cook outlining some of the miners' problems which drive him to believe there will be growing demand for quality discoveries and deposits.

Sheldon Inwentash Insider Positions

Inca Kola points to Kip Keen's article at Mineweb discussing the limited volumes coming into the miners on the venture exchange and how the oil dominated venture index can give some misleading signals, as I

Bounces in Hinde's 90 Percent Club

Hinde Capital ran an article in October 2013 listing some of the biggest fallers in the mining sector, down 90% or more from their old highs - HERE
They highlighted that prices were falling below cost of production.
Below is a watchlist of the stocks. A number of things to note.......

$10bn Wall of Funding waiting in the Mining Sector's Wings

Article at Mineweb

“the money is getting stuck in the funds and not being invested, mainly because the fund managers are doing far more comprehensive due diligences than have previously been done and not everyone is managing to jump the hurdles.” Much of the reason for this, Tyler explains, is that there has been a significant difference between the type of returns that have been promised and what has been delivered.“In the past you had to have a good deposit if you wanted to raise funds, but now you have to have a good deposit and good management. In the past we have had good deposits ruined by poor management; it is easy to do the calculations on the geology, it is hard to do the due diligence on management.”

 Investors have said to the majors, stop investing capex in projects which can’t justify a return, start giving back capital to us as your shareholders 

Aussie Miners - Eight Elephants - Tony Locantro / MacQuarie Gold Equities

Article at The Digger follow "Download" for the PDF - or HERE

Regardless of the negativity and paranoia surrounding the junior resource sector, there will still be companies graduating through the ranks to the mid-caps.......even though they are rare

More general review of Aussie Gold Miners - July 2013 MacQuarie Sifting through the Ashes

Roulston & Coffin Gold Stock Picks

Lawrence Roulston discussing buying HERE - .....more

RIU Australian Exploration Conference - Fremantle 2014 & Craig Oliver Award

RIU Aussie Explorer show 19-20th Feb

Programme HERE

Stockwatch list Below

Ernst & Young - Mining M&A - 2013 Trend - 2014 Outlook

Report from E&Y - Summary
Full Report - Includes longer interview with Randy Smallwood of Silver Wheaton.
And this trend in the M&A drivers;

Junior Mining M&A - Silver Standard Purchase Marigold Mine

Silver Standard continue the theme of Junior / Mid-Tier miners buying quality but non-core assets from the majors, in this case the Marigold Mine from Barrick & Goldcorp for $275m

OT - Nineties Night - Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol

Back in the day, when the Blues were the Other Manchester team, playing at Maine Road, while the class of 92 lived the dream at Old Trafford.   How times change.
Oasis Definitely Maybe, the first and the best, the sound of the City.

Full Watchlist of the Venture Index - Poised for Golden Cross?

Bullmarketrun have been calling the turn on the Venture this year.
Some are waiting for volume and clearer signals, some of which may be near. In the meantime the market bifurcation and selective bull market noted by Rule, Roulston and Kaiser is clear with strong leaders and laggards. A full stock watchlist of the Canadian Venture Index $CDNX is included below.

Rob McEwen Interview at Mineweb

Interview HERE

 I like grade. The higher the grade the more attractive the project is to me. I like projects that don't need enormous capital. I look for projects where management hasn't sold royaties or has an inclination to sell them because they're taking away, in my mind, the profit of the industry. 

 I'd say we're either at or extremely close to the bottom and as an investor I'm not prepared to wait to see if the bottom's there because it's very hard to pick it. Because, as we talked about the performance last August, if you you're not taking advantage of it right now, you're going to miss a big part of the move. And when you look at the distance these stocks have to travel to get to their old highs, there's some wonderful numbers in terms of performance that I think we're going to see. 

 

AME BC Mineral Exploration Roundup 2014

After the Vancouver investor show comes the more Geo / Industry focussed AME roundup.
The companies here are presenting to geo-peer review rather than promoters and retail investors.
Many of the exhibitors are service providers to the industry....... more .....