As banks eat dirt, miners rule the world
There may be some penny stocks in the world's 100 top-performing mining stocks, but the aggregate value of the grouping is a respectable $43bn
Uranium stocks as a class have done well, led by First Uranium. Relative newcomer Niger Uranium disclosed earlier this year that NWT Uranium holds 34% of Niger Uranium, a company formed on 17 July 2007, when UraMin and NWT Uranium vended their Niger uranium properties into Niger Uranium. A month after Niger Uranium was established, Areva, a big uranium miner and integrated energy company, paid $2.5bn for Uramin, where John "Ian" Stalker was CEO.
UraMin was incorporated in 2005 to acquire and develop mineral properties, predominantly uranium in Namibia, the Central African Republic and South Africa. Some investors, no doubt, are trusting that Niger Uranium CEO Stalker can sniff out another uranium elephant. Niger Uranium recently published encouraging drilling results from its Henkries project in South Africa.
There are also top performing mining stocks benefiting from corporate action, real or potential or imagined, as seen in Central Sun Mining. Further names include Kalahari Minerals, which holds 39.8% in Namibian uranium play Extract Resources; mining major Rio Tinto has taken a bite of both companies. Aricom, an iron ore name, has also performed strongly on the back of its proposed business combination with Peter Hambro, which currently ranks as Russia's No 2 gold digger, with 2009 production guidance at 460-510,000 ounces of gold, with one of the lowest cash costs gold worldwide, at $215/oz. In the odd proposed combination, Aricom provides "significant iron ore assets on China's doorstep".