Maven Premium: Emperor Metals (CSE: AUOZ)
Financing: raising up to $3 million by selling units for $0.125 apiece. Each unit comprises a share and half a warrant exercisable at $0.25 for 2 years. I am participating in the financing. If you would like to participate, please let me know your desired allocations by end of day Monday February 26th. Emperor Metals is about two things: the Duquesne West project, which is the prolific Rouyn-Noranda gold belt in Quebec, and John Florek. Florek is a geologist who has worked for several major and mid-tier miners. The thread that connects the work he did at those companies is making better use of data to (1) find more ounces at known deposits, (2) create more accurate resource models, and (3) as a result make mines more profitable. One key example is the work Florek did with Detour Gold, which was struggling to break even at its Detour Lake gold mine. By creating an AI model of the data and then following the targets it pointed to, Florek’s team was able to increase the ounce count through the mill by 20%, which generated $90 – $150 million in additional revenue annually. Kirkland Lake Gold acquired Detour shortly thereafter for the profits this […]
Maven Premium: Strikepoint Gold (TSXV: SKP)
Financing: raising up to $2 million by selling units for $0.04 apiece. Each unit comprises a share and half a warrant exercisable at $0.07 for 2 years. I am participating in the financing. If you would like to participate, please let me know your desired allocations by end of day Monday February 26th. Strikepoint Gold is about to start drilling the Cuprite project for the first time. To summarize the evidence that Cuprite hosts a gold system in three points: Three independent investigations – geologic mapping, geophysics, and soil sampling – all generated precisely the evidence you want to see when looking for this kind of gold system and the evidence all points to the same large target area The project covers the intersection of a series of east-west faults and the western edge of the Stonewall Mountain Caldera. There are half a dozen major gold systems in the area that exist where a major structure crosses a caldera rim Geologists have long eyed this ground because of the obvious alteration across white hills almost beside the highway, but for decades the ground was not available for staking because of its proximity to a rail line that runs […]
The Maven Letter: 21 February 2024
Maven Buys: Emperor Metals (CSE: AUOZ, USOTC: EMAUF). Maven Buys: Global Atomic Energy (TSV: GLO, USOTC: GLATF). Portfolio Table
Silver Stock Investor: February 2024 Midmonth
February 20, 2024 I’ve been trying to get a read on the near-term economic outlook, but it’s not easy. One economic indicator is positive on one day, the next day it’s another indicator that’s negative. Take last week for example. U.S. January CPI was reported, up 0.3% for the month and 3.1% for the year. That was up from December’s 0.2% gain, though down from December’s annual 3.4% gain. Meanwhile, economists had expected a 0.2% gain for month of January, and a 2.9% annual increase. Ok, so now let’s strip out volatile food and gas. What we have is “core’ inflation, which was actually worse, with January prices up 0.4% and 3.9% for the year. That (naturally) caused gold and silver to tank, with gold dropping from $2,030 to $1,990. Silver dropped from $22.80 to $22, but quickly recovered to $23.40 over the next few days. That sudden weakness was not a surprise, because the market was starting to price in later Fed rate cuts, rather than sooner. What was a surprise was the much stronger bounce in silver over the second half of the week as consumer sentiment rose to its highest in about 2.5 years. I think that’s […]
The Maven Letter: Portfolio Table and Updates
Lithium Reckoning. Portfolio Table. Portfolio Updates.
The Maven Letter: 14 February 2024
Last week, I said I was only going to comment on macroeconomics every three or four weeks because rarely do things change enough on a weekly basis to impact a metals investment thesis. The market immediately decided to prove me wrong. So I have a macro article to start, on why it’s clear rates are not going to be cut anytime soon…and why economic strength means that, instead of setting up for a risk-off gold run, we might be setting up for a growth-driven multi-metal bull market that brings gold along for the ride. Then I run through my thesis for buying Scorpio Gold (TSXV: SGN). SGN’s share price ticked up 25% today, annoyingly, but I am optimistic it will ease back some over the coming days, given that the price has bounced between $0.20 and $0.27 for months. I will try to enter around $0.22. There was drill results from Headwater, a new resource from Alaska Energy Metals, a debt conversion for Encore Energy, an idea to test mine at Ana Paula to pay for underground development, and drill results from Vizsla. I will cover those tomorrow. ————————————————————————————————————— The Metals Thesis Shifts What a week. Two […]
The Maven Letter: 7 February 2024
Monthly Macro: Rate Cuts Paused (sigh). Uranium: the Kazatomprom Effect. Maven Buys: Skyharbour Resources (TSXV: SYH; USOTC: SYHBF). Portfolio Table. Portfolio Updates: Artemis, Banyan, Calibre, Cameco, Founders, West Red Lake Gold Mines.
Silver Stock Investor: February 2024
February 6, 2024 I recently spent five days in Vancouver, aka junior mining central, to meet with companies either in the portfolio or being considered, as well as to speak at the Metals Investor Forum (MIF) and the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC). But here’s the single most interesting thing that happened in those five days. At the end of the last day I bumped into one of those new investors in the street that I had met two days earlier at MIF. We’ll call him Charlie. He told me he’s a blueberry farmer in British Columbia, and he’d spent the entire four days listening to newsletter writers, company presentations, and talking with CEOs and geologists. And then he shocked me. Charlie said he was in the process of buying about $40,000 of silver and asked me what I thought. I told him I couldn’t give him any personal investment advice, but that I did think owning silver was a great way to get started in this sector. I also said he would do well to assess his own risk tolerance, and how that was crucial in determining how he might allocate funds across the silver investment space. I also […]
The Maven Letter: 31 January 2024
So Many Portfolio Updates!!! Analysis of news from 12 portfolio holdings
Silver Stock Investor: January 30, 2024 Alert
Silver Stock Investor Alert January 30, 2024 The old SILJ ETFMG Prime Junior Silver Miners ETF was acquired by Amplify ETF Trust, and will now be called the Amplify Junior Silver Miners ETF. But Amplify stopped following the Prime Junior Miners Silver Index, and now tracks the NASDAQ METALS FOCUS SILVER MINERS INDEX, which holds no explorers, only producers and developers. It does seem that even some of their existing holdings were sold to free up cash and rebalance with new names. They clearly threw the baby out with the bath water, and created tremendous opportunity in the highest quality junior explorers. That created big (panic?) selling on January 29, when these names were already suffering from lousy sentiment. The names in the Silver Stock Investor portfolio that seem to have been sold off because of this rebalancing are: Pan American Silver, First Majestic, GoGold Resources, Discovery Silver, New Pacific, Dolly Varden, Kootenay Silver, and Summa Silver. Already, this morning, some of these names are up significantly from yesterday’s close. I think it would make sense for anyone who feels they don’t have the full exposure they wanted prior, to average down in those quality names. I think over […]