capstone mining opportunity

I seem capstone mining has risen above its 50 SMA, typically this gives a bit of movement which can make for a quick swing or two. I personally wont be partaking as I wouldn't touch this monstrosity with the reproductive organ of my worst enemy, but some are more brave than yours truly...

Prometic Life Sciences Update

This was a n ice little flipper for a while before it broke down. It recently went on a bit of a break out and the chart is starting to look interesting again.

I'm going to watch the movement but I suspect that it will bounce along the 1.80-2.00 range, affording some swing opportunities.

 

Most of the biotech stock I had been following/trading have been moving downward without many pullback opportunities in the right direction and the risk was too high. As a result, the blog as suffered from a lack of posting lately as I have felt a general ambivalence to the Canadian markets and what I would consider meager opportunities.

Miners have done a bit better, but with gold hitting resistance at ~1170/oz I believe most companies still are only able to offer thin margins at best, and the good ones running at around 600/oz all in costs are still getting dragged down with the rest. 

I have a number of companies I have been meaning to spotlight ones I think are a bargain deal for those who believe the sector is at, or somewhere near to bottom.

Clearly Canadian is Back

Clearly Canadian was an interesting story. In the early 90s they had over $100 is dales, but by 2010 had little over 10k cash in the kitty and filed for banktrupcy.

Quite the decline. But...I believe it starts to make much more sense when one look at where things started to go back and when Bobby Genovese got on board.

I sent a message to the company asking if Genovese has any current affiliation with Clearly Canadian. The response was an emphatic no.

Price Action on Tribute Pharmaceuticals

If the price action is going up, its going up.

A lot of the Biotech stocks take nice, long, runs up. RX, PLI, and GUD were good ones for me, I'm going to start following TRX.

Calibre News Release

I used to follow this company, even had shares in it years ago. They created a big buzz a few years ago with some nice holes, but the stock suffered from a drop in gold price, mediocre follow up drill results, and a poor market sentiment.

B2Gold got behind them a few years ago, which I guess made sense for the company as they also have a project in Nicaragua. IMG also took a stake in their Eastern Borosi project, which is where the below drill results are from.

Anyways, here is the table...nothing to special, but they might be getting onto something.

Remember Biosyent?

Biosyent was a stock I used to trade with a great deal of success as it moved sideways for quite some time, moving up and down from $10 and $11.

It has broken down.

It made a steady climb from under a buck to over $12. Anyone who got in early obviously did quite well. Just take a look at this chart.

I really liked trading this stock. I knew very little about the company, their products, management etc. It was just easy to trade, although volume wasn't very high.

This is a chart from last year that shows a nice sideways channel that was quite predicable.

This is what it looks like now

You can see that once it broke that $10 support level it fell pretty quickly, The more noticable dips accompanied by bigger than average volume.

It way settle somewhere again, but it looks like the game is over for now.

Checking in on ProMetic

Back in February (this post) I outlined what I saw to be a break out in Prometic Life Sciences. It did, breaking well clear of its 2.10 mark. It made some bounces off of $2.40 and is currently flirting with the line.

So, like any TA post, I'm going to draw some lines on a graph and make predictions. I think it will go up a little, then come down again to the $2.40 zone, and perhaps do it a few more times. Likely good for a few swings.

Victoria Gold Updates Feasibility Study

Victoria Gold has the Dublin Gulch project in the Yukon. Lots of gold and low grade.

They came out with an update on their feasibility study because essentially the OSC requested that they include after tax economic assumptions.

Which they did.

Conveniently enough, their economic projections are still based off a $1325/oz gold price and a wonderfully hopeful notion that $1.00 CAD = $0.92 USD.

Still, these numbers really help the post tax IRR to cling on to that near 20% level of 18%.

Geopolitics and Mining; Guyana Edition

When I first became interested in the mining sector I was focused, almost solely, on a projects technical merit, how many oz Au, at what grade, vein system etc. I looked at drill results, pre-feas studies and just about every other piece of technical data that a company released. When I first became interested in the mining sector... I was only considered whether "Project X" could become a producing and profitable mine at some point in the future.

As I have followed the industry over the years Geopolitics became important. I was really into RoxGold in Burkino Faso, which was touted as being as safe as they come in Africa; then they burnt down Parliament. Costa Rica was the jewel on Central America, then they shut down a few Canadian Companies for environmental concerns.

Just two examples, but I learned that most of the world is a volatile place, where things can change quickly and without much warning, especially when your interest in a country stems from the investment you made in a Junior miner and not any actual interest in a countries political climate per se.

Now as anyone who occasionally browses this blog is surely aware of, I follow a sketchy little company called Mahdia Gold (read here for back story). These guys were the guys who were going to re-open the old Omai mine, process the tailings left behind, and further quantify the historical drill results they inherited to NI 43-101 standards. Of course, none of this ever happened, but I have covered this whole ordeal in depth.

Al Zaakir, the companies head honcho, was able to maintain the property, doing very little, re-negotiating payment deadlines, pushing unpaid wage scandals to the side. He was the target of a lawsuit, paid himself excessive amounts of money for his position, took a multitude of stock options but continued fairly untouched, in spite of the fact that even the companies legal obligations to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) were continuously unmet.

The reason for this is simple; Political connections. Guyanese politics have been dominated, for 23 years, by the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP). The PPP's official stance was to transcend race. class, education, etc but in reality, the party is supported by, and operates for, the Indo-Guyanese (Guyanese people with either Indian or Asian descent....yes this country is located in South America). The PPP held power from 1992 too 2015; 23 years. In this time, the other demographics, mostly people of African descent, routinely complained of being marginalized. In the 23 year rule of the PPP Indo-Guyanese prospered over those Guyanese of African descent. Al Zaakir was Indo-Guyanese.

This year, an conglomeration of  six parties called the Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change, led by David Granger (a man with an interesting history in his own right) unseated the the PPP by roughly 5000 votes.

The political landscape has changed in Guyana. Everynow I stroll the wasteland that is Stockhouse.com Bullboards and read the MGD board. Those with the last shred of hope are giving up as they begin to realize the importance that this change in party has on the Omai project. I doubt the new party will allow it to be a marketing piece used to line the pockets of a few well connected Indo-Guyanese any longer. Mahdias form 7 is still not out and, past their payment dates, I think it is finally the end in this sad, drawn out saga.

Sunday Funday

Well. it seems I post more and more items unrelated to the actual theme of this blog...but its mine.

I played FarCry, thought it was fun.

Here is a guy playing it with funny commentary. Well worth the nine minutes (assuming you have nothing going on in your life).

Sabina Release Feasability Study

A lot of people were waiting for this and it was, all in all, quite impressive.

I no longer hold a position in SBB, but have been in this stock a great number of times. I've held it for fundamental reasons, and I've traded its swings a while back when it was fairly predicatble around the$1 mark.

The stock was even yesterday on the news, but gained a bit today. I plan a decent entry as I was worried about cash costs in the northen environment, but I guess the high grade makes it quite economical.

Another note for those out of the loop, Rob Pease is no longer the CEO after a numer of years with the company. Stepping in is Bruce McLeod; the man who sold Mt Milligan to Thompson Creek Metals. below is a list of the basic highlights. You can read the release here.


-The Project could generate a post-tax IRR of 21.7% and net present value ("NPV") (at 5% discount rate) of $539 million

-The Project could generate Life Of Mine ("LOM") post-tax net cash flow of $914 million on gross revenues of $4.5 billion with a payback period of 2.2 years (from start of operations);

Processing rate of 6,000 tonnes per day ("tpd") could produce an average of ~346,000 oz Au per year (post commencement of commercial production)

-Average production of 413,000 oz Au in years 1 through 4;

-Majority of production from open pit;

Initial capital estimate of $695 million and sustaining capital estimate of $529 million (including closure);

-Total LOM cash cost estimate of US$535/oz Au (including third party royalties, refining and transport). LOM all-in sustaining cash cost estimates of US$671/ oz Au LOM (including sustaining capital);

-A total of 19.8 million tonnes of ore could be milled over 10 years with a LOM average grade of 5.70 grams per tonne ("g/t") Au and metallurgical recoveries of 93%;

-Base case assumptions of delivered diesel price of $0.94/L for power generation; and
Open Pit strip ratio of 7.2:1 over LOM.

I don't like Tuesday very much and....Vicente Amigo

Well, its Tuesday, and the weather is nice. So, some random hipster IPA from the liquor store and flamenco in the back yard.

You should check this guy out if you haven;t already...

Hey, do you know anyone who has Vanadium?

Sometimes in the junior sector you can't find anything serious and actual investment worthy to talk about. In fact, I find most of my conversations with other people concerned with the sector to degrade fairly quickly into poking fun at companies/CEOs/Projects etc. Its, well, to easy...and making a good investment in this sector these days is whole lot difficult.

That being said, every now and then you come across a bit of promo that is so amateurish, so poor, it becomes something special. Here is Micheal Vaughan, a financial journalist, inteviewing Lee Barker, CEO of Sparton Gold. I can't find anything on Micheal Vaughan when searching google. In fact, the results that come up are all linked to Sparton Resources.

This interview contains such epics like

"Thats always the way, all the justice you can afford!"

"That is disgusting!"

"Im seeing alot of news about Vanadium Redux Batteries these days" (wait...really..where?)

"And you might have some of the purist Vanadium in the world"

"Hey, do you know anybody who has Vanadium?"

"Now, I'm not a great scientist but I have not seen a large battery that can store as much energy in an economical way...erm...if your trying to store solar power for example, than vanadium flow batteries"

"china is making a big push to clean up their filthy air!" 

"So...you could do a closed loop project"

"Don't give up Lee, carry on...Land it!"

The interview says that they have received a settlement which will, after legal fees, put about 250k into the companies kitty. They say the settlement is unsatisfactory, which is understandable considering that managment fees for 2014 were $275k, $400k in 2013.

Here is the video...although its not all that interesting.

Lux Ex Umbra

I recommend this blog to my fellow Canadian who are interested in their countries premier intelligence gathering agencies.

So...if that sounds like something you are interested in, go give it a read!

Lux Ex Umbra

A response to IKN

He posted a video of Paco de Lucia playing Concierto de Aranjuez. Something that, it seems, all flamenco guitarists need to play at some point in time, even if it can be a bit boring at times. Then again, you can't really speak of Spanish music without coming to Joaquin Rodrigo eventually. None the less, Paco is a "hero" of mine and I hold his body of work quite dear to me.

As a response, I post the best thing since Paco, Vicente Amigo...All in my humble opinion of course.

Callejon de la Luna is an excellent track from Vicente... pure flamenco...before he got into the more poppy side of things (Un momento en el Sonido is out standing by the way).

I was wrong

I was wrong about both PLI and OCG. It does happen, although I have had a decent track record with these two.

Anyways, just wanted to admit I was wrong

Sueños del Caribe Blog

I was engaged in one of my favorite pass times, trolling the internet, when I came across this blog written by one Ronald Hill.

It deals with the the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, an area which I visited a number of times, but not nearly enough, in my three years living in the country. Most social commentary in Nicaragua is poor, the product of a very small lens of perspective or heavily politically influenced. The potential for quality documentation and commentary on the plight of people in the small, but very diverse country, is huge, but few and far between are those who can offer insight which stems from both involved personal experience and wide perspective.

I recall my first visit to the Southern Atlantic coast nearly two and a half years ago and how captivated I was with the area. It was interesting to see how in such a relatively short distance just how much the country and its people could change. Poverty is abound in every corner of the country, some more than others, but the majority live day to day, consistently in a struggle against the few Cordobas they may carry in their pocket at any given time. In the little neighborhood where I lived, most were in an economic conundrum at any given time, money was a tangible representation of the constant struggle that is life and most, from what I saw, had a difficult time dealing with it.

This still applies to the Caribbean coast, once again some areas more than others, but there does seem to exist a paradigm missing from their pacific compatriots (or, the "Spanish" as they call them), one that allows them become relieved from the pressure of the situation, at least for a period of time. Basically, that laid back Caribbean attitude, where items of stress and hard ship can be dismissed by saying "alright", or one of the other words they seemed to use as a general response.

In point, both those from the Pacific and the Atlantic suffer the consequences of not always having what they need; stealing, violence, and further suffering are a direct result of these situations on both sides, but those on the Atlantic coast seemed to deal with it better.

Like I said, my time spent on the Atlantic coast is not enough, nor was not deep enough, to give any meaningful commentary on the matter, but this guy is, go read his blog if you are interested.

 http://hillron.blogspot.ca/

Prometic Break Out

Anyone who stops by this blog every now and then will know that one of my more recent trade vehicles has been prometic life sciences (T.PLI).

Don't know a lot about the company to be honest, but its ups and downs were fairly predicable allowing for a number of nice trades, a handful of which I had outlined on here.

Well, it appears that on the back of two good news releases (here  and here ...assuming you consider a drug that is marketed to treat a disease which affects less than 200,000 people good news) to have broken out into new territory; I had expected there to be strong resistance at the 2.10 level, but it did away with that quickly. So, that leaves it at 2.36 and it will be interesting to see where the dust settles. As I look at the chart two possible outcomes come to mind, it either plays off the 2.10 or the 2.00 level, of course I wouldn't put any money (literally) on these predictions.

OceanaGold trade

I'm setting up to take a position in OceanGold in the next day or two. I believe it will swing up from its level of around 2.50 up too 2.80/2.85 in run which will see up and down movement in the 2.50-2.90 channel.

I've played this stock a few times and had it work out all times but last.

Anyone who follows me know I have a handfull I have been posting about in the last two or three months.

Another one I like to trade, PLI, took a good swing up today but I don't currently hold a position in it.

Heres the OGC chart for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

EDIT: looks like they had good financials and they are reporting that they will be paying a dividend of 4 cents/share.

Kind of odd these days to see a miner with a good balance sheet. Read here.

Are the Mahdia Gold Posts Getting Old Yet?

I'm sure they are, but this company is just so fun to kick around the mud..they make it so easy.

That being said, I should clarify that I was once invested in the company as I felt that there was actually a project there. Unfortunately, as I have outlined in some depth before, the company is run by the likes of those who prefer to scam a bit of money out of retail investors then put in some honest work and develop a project. It was a good lesson and digging deeper into the past of some of these guys hiding out on venture/CNSX.

Now, the issue with Mahdia gold has always been its inability to spend the money they raise, something that a few years ago they did in no small amount (even getting Mike Wekerle to drop in 4 mill), on anything actually meaningful. Its been over 5 years now and with over 14 million raised in this course of time, not even a lousy 43-101 report. As I'm sure most would assume, the vast majority has gone to management costs, with Zaakir himself having years where his salary as CEO was close to a million.

I imagine that the end of Mahdia's time with the Omai property is coming to an end. In 2011 they entered into an agreement with the government of Guyana for a prospecting license. In January 2012 they were "officially"awarded the license and details of the agreement were released; the company was the pay an overal sum on $11,500,000 to the Government of Guyana Mines Commission (GGMC). So..go back a few months when the payment was due. The GGMC comes knocking saying they have not made agreed upon payments. Zaakir negotiates and extension, the terms of which were released on December 9th 2014. The terms of the extension state that they have until November 16 2015 to have the ten million paid off...in installments...the first of which is to be made March 15th 2015.

So...in a month and a half's time the company will have 9 months to pay off $10,000,000, assuming they are able to make the first payment come March 15th. The news releases do not state the exact structure of the payments; likely they do not want to scare of any dummys left who think this might be a good thing. Oh...and as per the last financials, the company had 67k cash in the kitty.

Managment "scoured the very difficult and trying financial markets" (their words not mine) for months and the best they could come up with an alluvial gold JV with a local "mining" company. The pictures on their website show just how small time their operation is. Of course, Zaakir has his hand in this company (there is now actually 2 JVs in place...). The company has cited thievery from the projects as reason for the consistantly dissapointing numbers. The highest yield yet was 118.5 ounces. The Mahdia stake in the two joint ventures is 25% and 50%. Needless the say..not a lot of money ending up in the Mahdia bank account.

I'll be paying attention to the March 15th date to see if they end up making a payment or if they defualt. I bet on default.

Checking in on Biosyent

I wrote this post on December 26 in which I outlined what I thought was a biosyent swing trade opportunity. I was right that it would break through resistance, wrong in thinking that it would go through some sideways movement before continuing up, it just continued up.

I exited today. Everyone has their stocks that they play, stocks which they have watched long enough that a certain variety of intuition begins to become clear and is truly a special feeling.

I have been posting more direct trades lately and should take a moment to make it clear that I am not, nor am I qualified to, giving financial or investment advice. Anything I write on here is merely a personal blog which tracks my personal investments, investment opinion (mostly related to the mining sector), and anything else I feel like posting.

Anyways...Updated chart.