Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. T.IVN

Thanks To 2 Ricks

[chintzy]

Slow day for posts and other guys alluded to their disgustingly large positions so thought I’d post my story.

’Twas in the early summer of 2015 that I became aware of IVN from Rick Rule repeatedly pumping it on BNN Market Call. I began researching and got more and more interested especially from a deep dive on RF and his track record.

And I remember a pivotal day when I came across one of these long-form articles on the outlook for Cu by this guy Rick Mills.

https://www.kitco.com/commentaries/2021-04-29/Bullish-copper-narrative-continues-to-build.html

Prior to that I had just a vague appreciation for the importance of Cu. The article outlined all the applications of Cu to the macro global techno trends that were unfolding and it blew me away. He has written about 20 of these over the years since, all fantastic.

I started reading everything I could on Cu and slowly gained courage and acquired conviction. It was so obviously a cyclical industry and it was so obviously at the bottom of the cycle when nobody wanted  anything to do with it especially a high-spec play in Africa. Copper had been falling for 3 years heading to $2/lb. I began to think that IVN might be something I could really load up on, at a time of max. pessimism for a long-term sit and wait.

The market cap was $5-600 million and the SP hovering around .70.  I recall vividly the time when it made a move up into the .80s  in the fall of 2015 and I wrote it off thinking no way I’m chasing it up, adios. Then came late Q4 and some tax loss selling and it came back down to the .60s. I started buying, 4 different times, 60K
shares at an average of .625. Below RF, below the Rothschilds, probably below even the legendary investors TA1, cashtango00 and alvarez2.

In Jan. and Feb. 2016 it got knocked down to the mid/low .50s briefly and I was suddenly down $5-6K and a minor bit freaked out thinking it could head down to the .30s. Should’ve got more but didn’t and then it quickly turned around.

I still get the willies thinking I almost missed out on this if it hadn’t come back down to the .60s after that minor  move-up.  I gotta confess that my original plan was a minimum 5 year hold without screwing around with any trading or selling but of course I deviated from that and have sold 20K at various times at an average of about$5. Should’ve left well enough alone. Always regrets in investing, always something you could’ve done better. Still have 40K at a deep negative cost though and no dicking around until 2024 or so when Phase 3, a smelter, and Platreef start-up are  imminent with all our metals in bull markets. $25 would be pretty cool for an even $million on my remaining 40K shares. Just like the 6/49 I dreamed of winning as a kid. Roughly $1.1 million on an original investment of $37.5K, pretty wild, an even 40x from .625. I’m actually skeptical on these kind of numbers, 40x, a position valued at 7 figures, a $30 billion market cap all seems extreme but with Cu at $6 and Phase 3 in a few years you never know and our Cu with low contaminants and the highest ESG rating will command the highest pricing.

So Rick is my favourite name, my favourite word and if I ever had kids I’d just name them all Rick. Maybe I’ll change my name to Rick and get rid of the middle and family name, like Indonesians, just “Rick” in my passport as I travel the world pissing away my $million.