The TSX Venture Exchange has been hammered by a resource bear market and low-cost competition in recent years. Plummeting commodity prices, risk-averse investors and restrictive financing rules have made it virtually impossible for all but the highest-calibre Venture-listed junior miners to raise money. Meanwhile, companies looking to save a dollar wherever they can are opting for… Continue Reading
The junior mining industry and those who invest in it have a friend in Ralph Sultan, the MLA for West Vancouver-Capilano. The British Columbia Liberal politician recently sounded the alarm in the provincial Legislative Assembly about the state of the junior exploration industry and the impediments to mine financing. Citing recent examples (Pretium’s Brucejack, Oyu… Continue Reading
Few majors and juniors are willing to deploy exploration capital in this market but even less are prepared to prospect on virgin ground. One junior Company with a mandate to pursue grassroots exploration is Westhaven Ventures (westhavenventures.com). Westhaven (TSX.V – WHN) is the vehicle legendary prospector Grenville Thomas and his team are using to define… Continue Reading
Via Energy and Gold.com: The chart of 30-year fixed mortgage rates dating back to the early ’70s is a sight to behold: For the last several years American borrowers have been blessed with the good fortune of historically low Treasury Bond yields which have in turn translated into historically low 30-year fixed mortgage rates (a… Continue Reading
Via Energy and Gold.com: Howard Marks, the legendary founder of Oaktree Capital Management, is out with his latest quarterly memo and it is titled “Liquidity”. Marks offers us a treatise on liquidity in capital markets as he delves into the illusion of liquidity that many investors assign to mutual funds and ETFs. He also reviews the… Continue Reading
Via Energy and Gold.com: Eurozone equity allocations have not been this high since 2006 which happened to coincide with a major peak in relative performance of EU equities vs. the world: Meanwhile, the German DAX Composite Index hasn’t been this far above its 50-day simple moving average ever! Not even the 2000 dot-com bubble… Continue Reading
Via Energy and Gold.com: Lets face it, nobody is bullish on the euro, nobody! Even ECB President Mario Draghi probably has a secret short position in the EUR/USD in order to hedge his euro exposure from his salary at the ECB. If the following sentiment chart could fall below 0 it would probably be at… Continue Reading
Via Energy and Gold.com: Tomorrow morning (North American time) the ECB will make its much awaited announcement which is almost sure to include some form of quantitative easing program. A series of leaks this morning, the most market moving of which was reported by Bloomberg, disagrees on the size and duration of the program to… Continue Reading
Many people have said to me in the past month, “I’m going to buy a home.” Or, “What do you think of the idea of me buying a home?” I like the second batch of people. They are my friends and it seems like they are sincerely asking for my advice. And I’m going to… Continue Reading
Torex Gold (TXG:TSX) released the final batch of results from its Media Luna target at the Morelos Gold Project in the Guerrero Belt in Mexico. The company expects to release a maiden resource by mid-September on the Media Luna zone. Highlights of the final holes include 19.9m of 11.56 gold equivalent (8.17g/t gold, 24.53g/t silver and… Continue Reading
Joseph Conway’s Primero Mining (P:TSX) announced its Q2/2013 results this morning and they were impressive. The company was able to achieve what most junior gold producers do not these days; to deliver solid results and raise production guidance for the year. Primero produced over 39,000 ounces at $551/oz Au-Eq (gold equivalent) cash costs. On the… Continue Reading
Capstone Mining (CS:TSX) announced today that it would acquire the right to earn up to 70% of the Project Providencia from Sociedad Quimica y Mineral de Chila S.A. (SQM). The property is somewhat strategic in that it sits approximately halfway between Capstone’s Santo Domingo Project and Anglo American’s Mantos Blancos copper mine. SQM is a… Continue Reading
Lundin Group oil junior, Africa Oil (TSXV:AOI) depended the hole of its Etuko-1 target to penetrate the Lower Lokhone formation and has hit 50m of potential net pay. The company already hit 40m of net pay in the Auwerwer and Upper Lokhone reservoirs, so this increase in depth will be flow tested later this year… Continue Reading
While many people are moaning and groaning about the sad state of the junior exploration market, the smart ones are paying attention and finding out that there are some real speculative opportunities out there. A great example is Colorado Resources Inc (CXO: TSXV). It started 2012 at less than 30¢, drifted lower to start out… Continue Reading
In 1863, electrician Edward A. Calahan invented the stock ticker, a telegraph receiver capable of printing letters and numbers onto paper tape. At first, almost all ticker customers were brokers and bankers. By around 1880, however, the ticker had spawned a new kind of business, called bucket shops… Continue reading at Bloomberg ->
