Won't be posting for a few days.

I'm off to the Atlantic coast for a few days to check out a few things which I have been putting of for a while.

Another Mahdia Gold Post

I've posted about Mahdia Gold in the past, but I would like to do a re-write with added insight.


So, Mahdia Gold has the old Omai mine in Guyana (which was held by Cambior, then IAMGold once they bought out Cambior) which produced 3.7 million ounces at 1.4 g/t over a period of 13 years from two open pit mines, The Fennel Pit and The Wenot Pit. They had some environmental issues which caused them to leave the project.


Sometime after that the property fell into the hands of Mahdia Gold, led by Alan Zaakir. The story requires a bit of back ground on Zaakir and his previous ventures in resource exploration. Taking the most important news bit over the years this is a brief outline of what went down, with his first company relevant to the story, Aztek Resources.

• Fed 25, 2005 - Aztek closes a pp of 1 720 000 shares  at .35 for gross proceeds of $602,000

• Sept 6, 2005 - Aztek signs option agreement for for 80% of the mineral rights to the Mowasi property, Guyana, located near the Tiger River property.

• Nov 14, 2005 - Aztek is halted due to the late filing of audited financial statements. A mapping program is being conducted on the Tiger River property and will be followed up by a sampling program as per the suggestion of Newmong Mining, who made a trip to the site a few months prior.

• Apr 20, 2006 -Alpha One Corporation to aquire Aztek Resources. As qualifying transaction.

• Dec 11, 2007- Aztek terminated agreement with Alpha One Corp. Aztek is "trying hard" to get listed on an internationally recognized stock exchange.

• Mar 26, 2008- Aztek and Wintercrest resources enter into an agreement to undertake an amalgamation of the two companies. Aztek still does not trade on an exchange.

• Mar 28, 2008- The two companies suspend the agreement.

• Mar 07, 2008- Securities commission issue a CTO for failing to issue shares from a past bridge financing. (now that's bad...)

Aztek Resources left their shareholders out to dry. Of all the money they raised, granted not a fortune, not a single meaningful piece of exploration work was conducted. By, of course, management was able to live a decent life style through it all.

So, at some point during this Zaakir formed another company called Wintercrest Resources whose' press releases were often signed under a second (still legal) name. On Dec 2 2009  they did a share consolidation and changed the name to Mahdia Gold. Mahdia Gold then acquired the Tiger River property from Aztek, an issue which has a lawsuit attached to its story line.

"The suit, which was filed at the Kelowna courthouse on Feb. 28, 2012, complains that Mahdia acquired Aztek's 49-per-cent interest in a Guyana property called Tiger River for no consideration. Aztek was supposed to receive 4.5 million shares, but that never occurred. The suit further claims that former Aztek directors allowed the company to be cease traded as part of an effort to conceal dealings with Mahdia."

Alan Zaakir responded to such allegations in an email that got leaked out to various sites. In the response, he talks about the man "getting what he deserves" and other threats. I'm trying to find the email...anyways.

Now we have Mahdia gold. Lets take a brief look at the financing/news history for this Company.

 

• May 14, 2010- Mahdia announces pp of 162,000 dollars at .15. Mahdia said it would use that money to      "run a comprehensive drill program". The release includes information from a survey done by the Guyanese government on the Tiger River property in 1947. Values listed below. Note that it says oz not g.

0.65 oz of gold over 1.3 ft

1.02 oz of gold over 2.0 ft
1.64 oz of gold over 1.7 ft
17.70 oz of gold over 1.0 ft
9.30 oz of gold over 1.2 ft
                            9.25 oz of gold over 1.4 ft                     

• May 19, 2010 - Mahdia to explore Tiger River property. (No exploration work done to date).

• July 22, 2010 - Mahdia Gold announced a PP of $2,000,000 at 0.20 for the purpose property acquiring and capital operating purposes, the release outlines the intention to acquire the White Creek Gold property previously owned by StrataGold, the release mentiones plans for a exploration program                                                                    http://www.infomine.com/index/pr/Pa942231.PDF

• Oct 20, 2010 - Mahdia announces a $500,000 PP at .10 (warrents at .15)

• Jan 5, 2011 - Mahdia signs option agreement for the White Creek Gold property. Press release ends by saying that Mahdia plans to explore the White Creek Property before the end of 2011 to "identify its value". No exploration work on the white creek property has been done.

• Mar 21, 2011- Mahdia announces pp of 1,200,000 at .25 cents (warrents at .45). PP closes on May 3. News release explains that it was oversubscribed and that the gross proceeds of the PP are $3,500,000.

• May 9, 2011- Mahdia acquires the White Creek gold property for $700,000. The property had some preliminary exploration done on it through a joint venture program by StratGold and Newmont. Press release concludes that Mahdia is studying said data and will make it available to the public shortly.

• May 30, 2011- Mahdia acquires Omai gold mine. As well, they acquire historical drill results which seem to outline 1.4 million oz. The press release concludes with a comment on a 5 million dollar PP at .60 with a 1/2 warrant at 1.05. SP shot up to a dollar shortly after the release. This news release also details that the agreement with the Guyanese government does not include any stock transaction. Instead, the company is required the pay $11,500 to the government over 2 years.

• Aug 18, 2011- Mahdia hires AMEC to assist in completion of a N43-101 report. They also report some litigation issues at their Tiger River property (all 9 blocks), which the company says it considers a "minor nuisance"; a base camp will be built on the tiger river property.(another pp proposal is announces days after which states a 3-8 million will be raised at .40/share and .60/warrent.)

• Nov 18,2011- Mahdia releases non 43-101 compliant historical drill results. First set of drill results seen up until now. Table can be viewed at http://www.cnsx.ca/Storage/1405/128315_Mahida_Gold_Press_Release_November_17,_2011.pdf

• Dec 12, 2011- Mahdia Gold extends the closing on the previously announced PP to January 2, 2012. Release states that they are trying to create relationship with prospective participants who can be benneficial to the companies long term growth. They also announce the mobilization of TRADO drills and equipment to the White Creek property, data from the previous operators has been received and will be used to define new targets.

• Jan 3, 2011- PP set to close for Jan 2 is extended to close on Jan 31. Zaakir is granted 2 mill stock options at an exercise price of .10. SP at this time was 0.18. Release ends by stating that drills are being mobilized to White Creek and the Omai property.

• Feb 16, 2012- John Reynolds joins the board as co-chairman. As well the PP closing date is extended until March 19th, the price of .40/share is dropped to .30/share, warrant price of .60/share stays the same. The Omai project is "officially opened".

• Mar 30, 2012- At the request of the CNSX, Mahdia releases more fulsome disclosure on the details of the White Creek acquisition. The release states some late filings, money was borrowed for the White Creek payment, and that the transaction is at an arms length.

• Mar 30, 2012- PP closes, fully subscribed, at 8 million

• Apr, 26 2012- Press release states that 2 diamond drills are drilling at the Omai site. One focused on hydrology and the other focused on drilling into the ore body in the Fennel Pit.

• Jun 26,2012- Mahdia announces two more drills are being mobilized for confirmatory and twin drilling along the Wenot Trend. The campaign is said the be 6500m over 12-15 holes. In a second release, historical drill results are released, which can be viewed here. http://www.cnsx.ca/Storage/1463/134038_June_26_News_Release_%281_of_2%29.pdf

• June 29, 2012- Mahdia releases more historical drill results, including some monster grades. Of importance, the barren diabase dike is mentioned. The press release states that historical drilling, from 1997, concludes that the dike goes on for a depth of 180m, and that mineralization is intrusive below. (In my conversations with people who were either close to the project in the Cambior days, or actually worked there, their main concern was the Diabase dike. more on this later.)

• Jul 24, 2012 - Mahdia releases NI43-101 geological report, report mentions a number of issues, including the firing of the drill crew due to poor performance. Thereport is later deemed to be non NI43-101 compliant and is now known simply as the AMEC report. The report can be found on Sedar,

• Sep 14, 2012- Mahdia applies for listing on the TSX-V exchange.

• Sep 19, 2012- Mahdia appoints Michael Galloro as chief financial officer.

• Oct 22, 2012- Mahdia announces expansion of its land package in the Omai/Essequibo district. The agreement with South American Mining inc., the vender, will receive an initial $50,000. In total, the agreement for 100% mineral rights over the 21,000 acres will require the payment of 1,000,000 USD and 2,000,000 Shares of Mahdia. This release contains some interesting points, mainly that Omai explansion was closed off the the previous operators.

• Nov 1, 2012- Mahdia arranges a 3,500,000 pp at .25 cents.

• Nov 22, 2012- Mahdia announces the appointment of Gordon Glenn as CEO.

• Dec 13, 2012- Mahdia hires Andre Duchane as mining consultant.

• Jan 3, 2012- Mahdia announces mended terms of the the PP propsed on Nov 1. Each share will now have a .40 warrant exercisable for a period of 24 months after closing.

• Jan 7 2013 - Mahdia announces Gordan Glenn leaves his position as CEO and appoints Donald Gordan as the intern CEO. This comes less than three months after Glenn was appointed as CEO.

• Jan 24, 2013- Mahdia releases 587 acres (the "Shallow Flats Area") to Roraima Investing and Consulting services. It is assumed that they will work the area alluvialy as Mahdia trys to get some cash flow coming in. No resource estimate has been done on this area.

• Feb 8, 2013 - Mahdia releases a corporate update. Can be read here http://www.cnsx.ca/Storage/1516/139433_Mahdia_Gold_Press_Release_2012_update_8213__2_.pdf

• Feb 12, 2013 - Mahdia confirms gold grade of 4.41 g/t over 16.9 m. These are the first results from phase 1 drilling at the Wenot pit. Total grades can be seen here. http://www.cnsx.ca/Storage/1517/139511_Mahdia_Gold_Press_Release_Wenot_Drilling_results_13213__3_.pdf  The results, being mediocre at best, is not the real story here. Its that they were able to discover additional mineralization zones below previously tested targets.

• Feb 15, 2013 - Mahdia confirms gold grades from previously drilled core from the Fennel pit (2006) with confirmatory and supplemental assays. The grades were impressive, including 1.83 g/t au over 78 m; release states that all results are NI43-101 compliant. Full release: http://www.cnsx.ca/Storage/1517/139528_Mahdia_Gold_Press_Release_Fenell_Drilling_results_15213__2_.pdf

• Feb 25, 2013 - Mahida appoints Andre Duchane as COO.

So, after all this time, and all the million the amount of work includes a feeble drill program and a non 43-101 compliant technical report. Meanwhile, Zaakir was bringing in Salaries which ranged from $750,000 to 1,000,000 / year. Robbery!


Eventually, I suppose, there was some internal struggle and Zaakir got booted. Andre Duchane become CEO and investors thought that the future looked bright. But, by this time, all those who had given them money in the past had been burned to many times to even accept a call from these guys.


Further, the current investment number is 15 million dollars to get the project moving. For how poor management has been they could actually start a mining company for very little, given the infrastructure in place at the mine. But still, they have burned through so much money, with so little to show for it, that any further financing would dilute the hell out of this stock to ridiculous levels.


Case in point, another name to avoid at all costs..... Alan Zaakir (and perhaps David Bending, as he has been his "qualified person" through-out all these years of scummery and scam)

Evening Humor and Disgust

Lets begin with the story posted over at IKN about Bobby Genovese lending Liberty Silver $1,000,000 at ridiculous terms. So basically, BG Capital will lend a bit of the money they scammed at an initial rate of 11%, and an annual increase of 5% in event of default. There is little chance a company like Liberty Silver will be able to pay it back...and you know what that means.


As well, I liked the portion of the press release which reads...


" The Company is also pleased to announce that Andrew Malim has been retained to assist Liberty in the formation and execution of a plan to advance the development and future funding of the Trinity Project. Mr. Malim will report directly to the Liberty Board."

And...

"Mr. Malim is an experienced corporate finance executive and entrepreneur with over 35 years dedicated to the financing and management of mining and technical companies."


Yes, the same Andrew Malim whose highly decorated resume is decorated with such achievements as Gold Point Energy (delisted), Bryden Ventures (delisted), Explor Resources (with a grand 46k in the bank trading at 0.025), and Canyon Copper Corp.



Next, El Nino Ventures closes (final tranche of) PP for $317,000. Remember El Nino, who used investor money to finance such necessary corporate activities as a fishing trip? Whose' Congo financials read 2 mill less in exploration expenditures than their Canadian filed financials? Well, they've got more money this time.

By the way, the hearing for these allegations should be ending this month.


Ahh......Just another day at the venture exchange.

Me Writing About Gold With a Tinfoil Hat On

So...yesterday gold changed its 13xx jacket for the psychologically important 12xx jacket. And, what a day to have done it. Even amidst a "government shutdown" markets are up, the dollar down. and  still PMs are down. Golds' daily cycle was dead faster than it could mean anything upon breaking through the 1290/oz mark... thanks to the all to predictable pre-market dump which we have all grown accustomed to walking up too. Its up above the 1300 level today, much to my surprise. It seems that most days after a break through an important level we will see a day or two more of falling prices. These last 2 days have really hammered it home for me, gold is in a strong side-ways move (which I suppose is better than down).


Whenever this happens, the interwebs (at least the parts of it associated with gold) chime up with the calls of manipulation. Honestly, I'm sure it is being manipulated but by whom, and exactly how much, I cannot say. Lets embark on a little conjecture for a moment. Conjecture which, I would like to make clear, has no clear point nor agenda and are only musings on the mantras which are commonly spoken following any major price drop.


"Its the Feds!!"..."They don't want us to invest in gold, but rather their worthless fiat paper!!". I mean, I'm pretty sure that's right just based on the fact that they are doing more "investing" in the American dollar than anyone else. That being said, the USD is not measured against gold but rather other currencies...or, perhaps more accurate, other currencies are measured against the USD. But, lets just go with the argument for a moment. Strangely enough, although currencies are not measured against gold, foreign banks (so I have heard) like reserve currencies based on a number of things but, at least partially, a currency backed by something. So...what would happen if the Fed managed to manipulate the gold down to $1000/oz, which would cause huge demand in the East. This, coupled with the Wests' apparent lack of appetite for gold as an investment would send gold out east (Yes...this is already happening). It seems counter intuitive to devalue gold, send it east, and allow Eastern nations to back their currency with all the gold the west is throwing to the curb when you are, supposedly, manipulating the gold price to prop up the dollar? It would make a lot more sense, to me anyways (I know very little) if they were manipulating it down, scaring people away from gold, picking up a bunch of gold at bottom rates to re-stock the vaults and actually back their currency with lots of cheap gold. Then, slowly release it into the market at a rate lower than demand and run it up to whatever they saw fit. I mean...didn't that kind of already happen once. At least time you can make money and its not flat out illegal to own gold. 



I know...I just said that the USD is not measured agains't Gold, and then I kind said it is...but their not the same thing.

I suppose, as well, you could make the argument that investors are turning away from gold because, from a western investment stand-point, it hasn't really been doing what it is "supposed" to do; acting as a hedge or harbor. I suppose, you could make the argument that its because of all dat manipulaton, but GLD, in my opinion, is a very good indicator of western sentiment/interest in the form of demand, which, as the chart shows, is falling.



I enjoy a good dose of healthy conspiratorial speculation as much as the next guy but I don't really have an opinion or strong belief either way. If you stuck my in a room and played Justin Bieber records until I gave an opinion I would say that its big players setting themselves up for big gains who are responsible for the all so transparent early morning dumps. That they have recently tried to get it back down to the 1179 level and start from there, but they couldn't, or haven't been able to yet. Beyond that, I think the sentiment just isn't there.

Biosyent Positings

Biosyent is a bio-science company trading on the venture exchange under the symbol RX.V


Don't know much about the company other than what a quick look at their website and financials can give. Didn't research management history, but...they seem to be making money.


Funny enough, this company was brought to my attention by a post by PS Dave over at vancouver venture (read the post here) where he writes the company off as a typical V pump job.


I looked at the chart and, regardless of what they are actually doing, doesn't mean you can't make a few bucks regardless.

Now, there are a couple things I take note of. First, stock is still far above its 50DMA and the 10 day looks to be re-crossing below the price.

Second, the volume has been highest at the same price point, roughly 2.25, which the price has recently bounced off.

RSI (I've chosen a length of 10) is well below 30 on a strong down turn indicating that the stock is oversold.


I'll be watching Monday and possibly Tuesday for some further confirmation.

Sabina down

We saw sbb break down through a good support level of $1.00 last week and through a weak support level of around 94 cents (interesting how it bounced off that level and did make it back up to the 1.00 mark on a intraday high) the other day.


I don't usually include any indicators or oscillators on my charts but I want to point out that the two which I like the most for determining overbought/oversold don't give a lot of hope for a quick swing up. I'm thinking it will drop down to low 80s/high 70s before going back up. That being said, the Bollinger bands do seem to be tightening.


Of course, another thing to consider is that this breakdown was on relatively higher volume (yes, I apologize for the ellipse used to point out the classic volume pattern, but the semi circle wasn't working well for me) and the pattern is often indicative of renewed interest. Although, I have little experience with observing this pattern on a down swing (which I guess begs the question what I even bothered to talk about it...but maybe you know). That being said, we have seen these patterns on 2 of the three break-outs, although in less idealized form.


Another thing to consider is those fuckers from Dundee, who own like 11 percent of this thing, just like to dump shares these days, doesn't matter of what.

Predictions: I predict, based on absolutely nothing, that we will see price action somewhat mirror the price action which occurred in late June, although I predict that it will be on much lower volume and the price will drift down a bit further before going back up.

And, without much further a due here is the chart

 

Barkerville Gold get 15 Mill from Eric Sprott

Remember this company? The company who reported those phantom 10.6 million oz Au? You know, that estimate that no-body, not even the "qualified persons" could explain how it had been calculated.

The company who raised just over 1 million dollars, spent less than 20% of it on exploration and 60% of it on management/consulting fees.

The company whose CEO, Callaghan, paid over 6 million in fees to companies owned by him and gave his two kids a salary totally $52,000 between the two of them (his son got more than his daughter)

The company who then upon realizing they had no more money to give themselves did a 5:1 consolidation

Somewhere along the line they also got kicked off the V.


Its funny because basically, Barkerville is offering up everything and all for the loan. Which, as IWNATTOS asks, why not just keep the money? Sure, Sprott will be getting gold at a premium in this "Gold Loan Facility" but...does anyone know if they even have any gold?

Interesting to note that you can squander investor money for your own personal gain, lie about a resource, get kicked off one of the shittiest exchanges around, and still receive 15 mill from a respected name in the gold-bug world....

Yes, that's what I was thinking as well Rotoscoped Keane Reeves....


Well, read here and let me know what you think.


Further thoughts.....


The errors and thievery of this company is an old story, and many blogger wrote about it when it all came to surface. Barkerville Gold has served as a single example of greed on the venture exchange, but also stands as a grander metaphor of the state of the industry in itself. The regulators nor the executives who pollute this exchange do anything to ensure that their supply of funding continues on for another day. Whether it be the out of touch, non-reality based, regulations which have done nothing to stop the gluttony of greedy management, or the management themselves whose only aim is to see how much money they can get from the industry (before buying another house in West Vancouver) it doesn't matter. The fact is, they've dun goofed and fucked it up for a lot of us who really want to invest in junior resource projects based on their geological and economical merit. The Venture Exchange has become the Canadian Pink Sheets, and that was never its purpose.


They talk about a "cleansing" and it can't come soon enough.

Ginguro Exploration out with new results

I've been looking at this story a bit for a while. They have done some nice exploration work on a very interesting property.


Basically, they are calling it a Paleo-Placer deposit, in which an old placer deposit of gold mixed in with gravel/sediment which then hardens into rock. These types of deposits are typically higher grade and can be cheaper to extract. In this case, they are saying that the gold never solidified with the gravel/sentiment medium with which it is in, which (given an economic resource) would make it even cheaper to extract.


Granted, they are doing mostly sampling work right now...not the most exciting stuff as far as the markets are concerned.


I don't know as much about it as I would like, the team is a team of Geologists and has neglected the IR portion of their project a little (which is not necessarily a bad thing if you want to get in early), but I will be reading more over the reports as I find more time... Read news here.


This play reminds me a little bit of the Wingdam project that Omineca is under taking (eermm....trying) at the moment. Basically a buried stream of placer gold that was to deep for the gold-rushers to pan.

Interview with Greg Smith of CXB

I'm kind of holding the bag on this one, but I've liked it alot for a while now. Having lived/visited Nicaragua and talking to various people who work there (local alluvial miners, Australian geologist running little drills in the jungle, Canadian Geologists working for tsx companies) there is a hush-hush attitude about just how much gold there is.



Anyways, here is an interview with Greg Smith. Not an overly insightful interview, but I enjoyed it.

Listen Here

Readings for the Day

Honestly...I don't have much. Was busy most of the day.


Victoria Gold Receives QML - How long have they been waiting for this, it has seemed like for ever and a day (read here). Interesting project. Low grade, not bad IRR, good all in costs but a mother of a CAPEX. Where they will find the money without further diluting the, already diluted, stock will be interesting. I did a small write-up here a while back where I expressed my thoughts. Just as a disclaimer, I never ended up buying shares.


Torex Gold CEO on His Promises - I knew they had a decent project but it sounds like...they...delivered on promises...Odd. Here CEO Fred Stanford talks about finding a second resource on the same property, and here are some nice continued results.


JPMorgan to be fined upwards of 700million (for 6 billion in loses) - Its reading articles like that that remind me of how big some institutions can be, and what they can do. Just reading how much wrong doing there is in the article and how criminal it all is...wow. Read here

Sabina down through support

Bounced (roughly) off of support the other day but the upswing was short lived. As I had stated in a previous post, I was getting ready to re-enter but its descent down to the support line was with higher volume than has characterized the average volume of the last two months. For this reason, I decided to hold off as it didn't sit well with me.


The break was over the 3.5% I usually give as lee-way so it was another reason to hold off. I see some weak support at around 90 cents, but I'm not expecting alot. I've seen what happens when this stock goes below $1.00....PANIC TIME!

That being said, this stock responds to noticeable changes in the POG. A good day for gold usually means a good day for Sabina.


(Conjecture aside...what a bargain.

-Over 6 million Oz Au grading ~7g/t
-Permits in place
-positive studies, showing (iirc) roughly 540/oz all in
-In Canada
-Silver royalty worth hundreds of millions (22.5% of first 190 million Oz, 12.5% there after)
-One of the highest grading projects in the Americas not owned by a producer

All for $1.00. Purely on the specs, one of my favorite plays.



(PS: in their corporate presentations, they often provide a chart comparing other high grade project with 5+ million oz in the Americas and they don't use the Roman V when writing the name Pretium...yea, I'd feel stupid doing that as well.) )

Readings for the Day

Anglo pulls the plug on Pebble in Alaska - Remeber when Cynthia Carrol said they would pull out of Alaska if they didn't have local support. Well...they don't have local support. Expensive write-off, but seems like the right decision nonetheless. I recall reading that a big opposition to the project was the fear that if something went wrong it would mean hell for Bristol Bay. Granted...but Alaska, and Alaskan locals, in my opinion, need to realize exactly where their wealth is held. Resources are one of the largest opportunities possibilities in the state. Perhaps the fisheries is deemed more important. Read here.


More news on the Gabriel Resources fiasco - I suppose there is a protest against the proposed mine because it will ruin 4 mountain tops which are "potential tourist areas"...yea, because the tourism stats for Romania are something to be proud of... This is unfortunate for shareholders as so much of this struggle seems to be due to political posturing. A good overview can be found here


Gold Standard Ventures drills 98 meters of 3.26 g/t Au - Press release here. Sounds quite good but it must be noted that this is really a 7 meter step out hole from a previously drilled hole. Not too bad, but should be noted. Stock was up nearly 17% on the day.

Sphere Resources up big on the same news release

Today Gold Standard Ventures released a new set of drill results from their Railraod project. Nice results that are in the same ballpark as the results that really sent to SP off to highs of around $3.

Granted, not all the intercepts were exiting but, as the headline reads, 98m of 3.25 g/t Au. That not at all shabby. Stock is up 7 cents on the day so far at 0.67.


Now Sphere Resources, with their Poker Flats property directly bordering the railroad property (in fact, the border is a mere 75 meters from where GSV drilled these sets of holes), released this today in response to the drill results. Its funny because they released this in response to the last GSV news release on Aug.13 where the company detailed that they are to resume drilling on their Railroad project (funny....I never read that they had stopped drilling). IR team department at its best.


Anyway, the stock has been beating bouncing between 0.03 and 0.035 most of the day. A big gain, especially since less than a month ago shares could be picked up between 0.005 and 0.01.


I've been following this stock for a little while out of curiosity. They have a number of good properties but have never been able to find money to drill them. GSV keeps hitting good grades closer and closer to the Poker Flats border and, after an email correspondence with management, roughly $250,000 more is required to earn their interest. Not a lot of money. In this correspondence, I was told that management has been paying basic fees, which was a main concern of mine.

I have some shares in this, as stated in a previous write up I did, and I sold some off today at 0.03 (using TD) to derisk my position. That being said, I believe, based on a few basic observations, that there is more wind in this movement regardless of any financing news or not. Take a look at this graph.

1.  Remember when the guy on BNN touted this stock as a potential large winning trade, well...thats where you see the 10million in volume on the chart, which sets of heavy support at 0.02-0.025. Another 4.7million was traded the following day at the same 0.02-0.025

2. Today, following the GSV news release 4.3million shares have (so far) traded hands between 0.03 and 0.035 (a large block of 411,000 shares crossed at 0.03 early on). Just look at the volume, the comparative volume of the past six months have been nothing compared to these recent trades between 0.02 and 0.035.

3. Sure, there are enough people trading pennys, but I would imagine a healthy chunk of the investors are investing on the hunch that the financing comes though and a drill program can be complete. Don't let the 10 million number fool you, if they could raise even just 500,000 they are off the races (remember the poker flats, the property of interest after todays news release only requires 250k more to earn in).

Will it happen?.....maybe so, probably not. But either way, I'm pretty confident this upswing has more life in it still.

Further Thoughts.....

     .....On a unremarkable story

Spartan/Sphere/whatever are trying to earn in an initial 51% on the poker flats from currently suspended, soon to be delisted, Mexivada (a company which has been halted and subsequently bumped down to the NEX for not filing financials on their "diamond" project in Africa almost a year ago). Ran, if you could call it that, by Richard Redfern, Mexivada has essentially been a real estate company in the sense that the extent of their corporate activities have been optioning out properties to other penny stock companies and padding their wallets with the initial option payment and whatever shares may be thrown in with the deal. The TMX group gives 12 months after being suspended to file financials. Share-holders haven't heard a peep since the suspension and have been left holding a bag of worthless shares (that they can't even sell)

Now, for Sphere/Spartan to earn an initial 51% they need to spend 500k in exploration, then they can earn in for another 24%. Problem is, they have only 3 months more until the agreement expires. Further, the railroad fault zone can only be drilled until mid november, cutting down their time further.

I was curious, and emailed Malcolm Stevens inquiring about exactly how they plan on continuing as a going concern with only 6k in the bank. He told me that directors and management are paying listing/release fees out of pocket, and that they currently have about 250k in exploration on the Poker Flats. If they could actually raise the money, its quite possible as 150k can go to the CSMAT which only requires 5 days to complete. I actually believe that if they could ever get financing it could be a good project

Some times I'm amazed at exactly how much I know about this story...its funny and depressing at the same time, perhaps time could have been spent better. Maybe I should apply for a IR position at Sphere resources

 

Oh Ben...

The Fed apparently needs more evidence that progress will "be sustained" and, as such, no tapering. Anyone wanna take a guess at the next chairman?


Markets have responded well, gold up $50 on the day. The funny thing is, is what would a couple of billions actually have done. I'm by no means an expert, but what was the fuss about? It would have been a 'modest' reduction at most. So...everything is pretty much back the where it was before the tapering fears really took off.


Give me a tin-foil hat, but it almost makes me believe that it as never really a big consideration. Just announce the news, watch the sheep drive down gold and other PMs, and pick up a nice trade. Probably not.....but thinking in grand conspiracy's gets me off. Big question is, after 3 years of QE are we seeing any notable progress. It has been noticed that the American economy is stabilizing but not growing. Is that just not the affect of QE as temporary crutch?


I'm starting to feel alot less secure about the testing of the $1250 level. But...with that being said...we have seen how easily it has been to heard the POG down, so I'll keep my mouth shut and spend my time analyzing some charts after this big upswing.


And......Peter Schiff was right

Gold jumps quickly today, up around $30

Well, very unexpected. I was expecting the bears to loose the battle at $1300 today and have gold plummet down towards its next zone of support. But...lookey what we have here.

This will be interesting to see how it behaves if/when it gets to its previous support zone at 1348. In normal conditions one may expect it to act as a strong point of resistance, but given the fickle nature upon which it broke it (lots dumped into the night market, down through the zone over the course of a minute) I would not be delighted, and not overly surprised to see it go through without a lot of trouble. It already tried once so far, and was pushed back down pretty quick. I'll be watching for another attack and paying close attention to how it behaves.


Further to that, if it can manage, it sets the stage for technicals of greater significance. Recall the intermediate trendline which was broken upon gold last major decent. Basically, if gold can hold this level, technicals become good decent again.

Checking in on the GDXJ

Its definitely going back down towards its support zone. Given, it didn't require any excellent foresight to guess that it was going down, but still. I do think that this level is of decent, albeit not grand, strength but we shall see. Like I said in my last post on this topic, I think its good for another bounce. Gold seems to be fighting the $1300 level over the last couple of days and the GDXJ is falling towards the line fairly quickly.

After that though, I won't be holding out for a whole lot. The next support for gold is down at $1250 and it doesn't appear to me as a particularly strong one.

Eric Sprott interview from Dec 2010

I was going through my collections of old reports, analysis, and interviews the other day and came across an Eric Sprott interview where he says that 90% of his personal money is in precious metals.

" SW - How much of your wealth outside of Sprott Inc. shares are in bullion and precious metals stocks?

ES - I only own funds and gold and silver. I am probably 90 per cent in precious metals personally. And I don't lose sleep over it."

Read the full (edited) interview here



Not a lot of interesting insight in the interview but I think it provides some interesting hind-sight. I enjoy reading Eric Sprott, of course....it could just be my own confirmation bias and I wonder if hes still sleeping soundly, or how much of his personal wealth is still in PM....assuming this wasn't just a PR stunt for his firm and an honest piece of intellectual discourse

Is Bobby Genovese Finally Going to Get What He Deserves

It looks as if, in the course of the last few day, a number of class action lawsuits have been filed against Liberty Silver and related parties.


For those not familiar with Bobby Genovese let me take a brief moment to explain. Basically, hes some late forties, horse riding douche bag who has spent the greatest part of his "career" running pump and dump schemes on the OTCBB. Actually, its somewhat funny to read his site, which describes him as...

"Armed with high-powered marketing savvy and a penchant for picking winners, Bobby is a self-styled entrepreneur who founded his first company at age 25 with a ninth grade education and a hunger to succeed"


I mean...what the fuck does "self styled" even mean? Granted...under loose SEC over-sight and regulation he has managed to pump mountains of worthless paper to unsuspecting investor but the man has hardly picked any winners. Every company with his name attached to it has been as big a failure as his reality TV show. I have never been long, or short for that matter, in any company with which he has been involved in..but it makes me angry when piece of shit scum-bags like Bobby Genovese are allowed to continue on with their transparent scams in the face of poor, and unequipe, regulations.

Anyways....Liberty Silver has been his latest scam. I won't go into the details of this brutally illegal pump and dump, as it has been covered in other places (read a full report of Genoveses recent a prior scams here...Highly recommended), and it looks as if this time he may get caught. If he will actually get any real sentencing, who knows, but it will be nice to see this piece of shit get publicly exposed as the criminal he is. That being said Thomas Coldicutt, the guy who the SEC is accusing of selling shell companies on the OTCBB, is facing civil fraud charges in the states, so maybe the world will get lucky and Genovese will be the next target.

In the mean time...we will see if these class actions suits target him in any way.




Another heads up...US Tungsten is being ran by a closely associated with Genovese, a guy who has been part of his scams before. Would strongly recommend not having anything to do with this company.

Daily Readings

Gabriel Resources Threatens Romanian Government with a 4bill Suit - Their Rosia Montana Gold project in Romania got a no-go from the Romanian. CEO believes that international investment laws have been breached. This is a monster project. 17.1 million M&I oz Au at 1.04 g/t (including a 10.1 million oz reserve grading 1.46 g/t) and 81 million M&I oz Ag at 5 g/t (including a reserve of 47.6 million oz Ag at 6.88 g/t). Read HERE

First Majestic Writes off its Wirikuta Property in Mexico - Locals were complaining that the project would be on "scared" grounds. Read Here (In Spanish)

Ascot Resources Hits 10 Meters of 33.66 g/t - Sounds better than it is. Look at the drill results here. Its not really over 33 meters. Took 3 meters of high grade mineralization and averaged it out over 33 meters. But...giving their reports a quick look, it is described as high grade gold dispersed between bulk tonnage zones.

Alexandria Minerals Announces $800,000 PP - News release is actually 2 days old, but just wanted to point it out. In an industry in these conditions its impressive to see a PP at twice the retail price without any warrants. Last I checked they had 2 million oz Au in Quebec. First tranche closed yesterday at 10 cents, retail price is 5 cents. Press release here

Ginguro Closes $2.3 Million PP - They sprung in price off of some drill results the other day. This PP was initially priced at 1.2 million, but terms were changed upon high interest. Each share has a half warrant attached. Not a lot of retail people in this play. Read here

Checking up on the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF

When the life-line of the sector, the price of gold, is being tossed around like it is, it can be difficult to be very confident on ones technical forecasts. Still, the GDX is heading back down to its zone of resistance at around $24. I suspect it will bounce off it as gold tries to regain $1348 in the coming days. After that, as I have eluded to, I think that gold will drop further down, testing to waters to which it sank to in July (and even further...I fear).


Needless to say, I think the GDX is good for at least another bounce off of the $24 mark. How far up it will go will depend on how long the bulls can hold the fort at $1348 before its all but inevitable fall.

Gold...Gold...Gold

Its getting kind of tiring. After doing my own analysis I was expecting gold to go back down to $1348/oz then follow its bullish trend from August. But.... it broke through that resistance zone this morning quite strongly, down $42 so far. The seasonal pattern of gold doesn't appear like it is going to hold true this year. Although we still have over half of September left, the technicals are not looking good for a bull run as has typically characterized the month.

But I guess its to be expected. Not enough physical gold relative to whats traded, and what there is is locked up in vaults controlled by the same people. Its ridiculous that when the demand for physical gold is increasing, taking a further toll on the physical supply, we still see a dropping gold price. I know the common theme is that the bankers and government are trying to steer the world away from an abandonment of fiat currency and a debt based economic system, or that big money is trying to move physical gold from west to east in anticipation of the collapse of the western economies...(Whatever, lets just get the charade over with so I can make some money with a few horrendously undervalued PM stocks.)

If in fact it is situation number one, the manipulation of PM prices to stave off the fall of paper/debt based economies, it has me wondering...what is the long term plan? I mean, surely, such manipulation can go on for only so long. Is it to drive the price so far down that it appears as if gold is no longer a solid investment, effectively trying to show that the bull market is over? The fact that a large part of the global gold market is buying for their fondness of the metal itself, and not purely for its investment potential, is an important fact in itself. Demand exists and will exist. A major drive down in price would serve to render a large number of projects uneconomical, or only marginally economical, thus creating a smaller supply and more demand in the face of dwindling supply. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. 

Too me, it is much more likely that we are witnessing the stage being set for a number of large, high winning, trades. The manipulation is clear. The daily chart shows the $1348 resistance zone was broken within a minute, with shares being dumped into the thinly traded late night market. We saw this the last time as well....large amounts of shares traded sold into the market late at night where there is no bulls around to defend the POG....not tremendously elaborate, but sneaky non-the-less.

We will have to wait and see if gold tries to relcaim that $1348 level or if it continues its down trend. If the later... I believe that we will see gold go down to the $1200 dollar level.


At least these big attacks leave a number of solid companies sitting around at nicely
discounted prices....Perhaps now, more than ever, it is time to find companies with world class projects and enough cash in the treasury to ride out the storm. Or, play the game the way the manipulators do. Either way, its a shame how many people have lost money investing under the idea of a freely traded market...myself included. But...there is little point, and no intelligence, in trying to play against the market.


I plan on doing a more in depth technical analysis/commentary on the fall of gold starting at the initial large take-down in April. This will happen soon, once I have a better understanding of golds next set of movements.Don't get your hopes to high up though....who really knows what going on...much less me.

CXB JV with BTO

Not that it was really a surprise as decision needed to be made yesterday, but Calibre has granted further opportunity for BTO to earn in on their Primavera project and surrounding borosi concessions.


Will be nice to see this thing drilled out a bit more. After those last trenching results there is a lot of anticipation from those following this story.

IKN Telling It like It Is

Good post from incakolanews about the reality about a number of the capital venture companies in the PMs industry.



 Read it HERE, I highly recommend it.

Spanish Mountain Gold Closes Financing

A few days old...I know, but still feel like its worth posting.


I had looked at this company a number of times but never pulled the trigger. If I recall correctly, they had some issues with financing, first nations agreements, and the grade was not quite what I liked, given the other discounted higher grade projects out there.


That being said, they raised 3 million the other day. The price has crossed the 50DMA recently, and with this news release we may see a more definitive change in direction. I'll be watching this play over the next week.


Click here for the news release.

Dundee buying Sphere

Last 10 trades of the day were from Dundee on the buy.


Stronger support on the ask side of $0.02 than in the bid.


I think that things may be building up for a swing up to 3-4 cents early next week. I still own a number of shares averaged at $0.01. 

Further Discourse on the Trading of SBB

I'm getting ready to re-enter SBB. Problems I'm seeing now though is that the price action may be changing. Instead of tracing back down to the support line at around $1 it may follow the trend line which starts at the low of $0.81. As well, the price has closed right at the 50DMA. Monday will be interesting to see if it goes back above the 50DMA, which I will take as confirmation of a change in price action and a change to the trend line.

Boston Scientific

Go figures...my most successful security over the last year and a half hasn't been a PM stock. Boston Scientific has done well over the last year...just take a look at its one year chart. When I bought the security, I really knew very little about the company....but I liked their chart and entered in between $5.80 and $6.00.


Since then I've been looking at swing trading opportunities in the trend channel that has formed starting at around $7.00. I like the quick breakouts up to the line of resistance.

A post I like from another blogger

More and more the juniors market is giving me quality laughs.


I got a good laugh from this post by PS Dave over at Vancouver Venture. I can imagine the group of executives sitting around in the Vancouver board room thinking of the best picture they can paint with the shit they have to release to their share-holders.

"accounting purposes"....I'm going to use that one...

Miners, explorers, ETFs and the gold price

If the miners fell when gold broke through $1400, what do you think will happen as it falls below $1400? If there is anything that those of us in the junior sector have been able to make sense of these last 2 years its that everything sends the price of PM stocks down. Whether its good or bad news doesn't matter, only depends how much.


Everything I know of is down today...not that I should find that unusual in any regard, but still.


Friday is usually a pretty lack luster day anyway so may just leave my computer and go out for the day.

GDXJ

I don't normally watch the GDXJ because its performed pretty poorly. That being said, I've started watching a few of the indexes and ETFs more closely as we near the "bottom". I created a simple trading channel during the end of June to watch the action for GDXJ... has been pretty true since then, with a minor break in early July (note it briefly played the role of the resistance). I have a feeling that after this third attack, which broke on low volume, the next movement will likely be dictated by golds ability to stay above $1400 then any technical trading.


Note how upon breaking the support level it retested it before breaking through and staying fairly true to the channel.

Sabina Trading

Like I've said over a million times, favorite stock to trade.


I have been doing some minor trading, buying at $1 and selling at around $1.40. This worked well the first two times as the chart seemed pretty simple to read. Generally I'll trade that if a stock breaks a R level on its 3rd attack by more than 3.5% I'll go in long. Volume is hard to judge...sometimes I feel that its the only thing that means anything and other times I feel that it means nothing.


That being said, at $1.42 it bounced back below the $1.40 line. Yesterday, it fell a good 15%....but then again so did almost ever gold/mining stock worth owning even with gold up around $20 to break the $1400 mark.


So, here we are today, up 4.6 percent so far. I'll be watching to see how this behaves closely.


UPDATE: Closed down, like a good deal of the gold stocks, at $1.26 today. As an aside....always nice to watch the senseless dumping that goes on near the end of the day with the GDXJ. I really would have thought that with gold breaking strongly through the $1400 mark we would have seen a big lift in the juniors. That being said, the majors usually turn before the juniors.