RE: STAY AWAY FROM APP
For an answer, here an intertesting article in Goldeditor.
Appalache has all this potential. Not forget the conclusion which a management ordinary can change into very qualified, if they HIT a big property or its project succeeds. With the deal that Appalache made with Scorpio, I will still trust them for an other 5 years. Moreover one speaks about production and that the Market was never also bullish for gold. Let us leave time for the patience and not for the frustration. Let's gold to all.
GoldEditor: What are criteria for finding companies with the best chance of success?
Lundin: Lots, too many to talk about here. But some of the most important are finding the right people, plan, properties and timing.
The people in this business can be roughly divided into three camps: the good, the bad, and status undetermined. You want a management team that is both honest and competent. There may be degrees of competency, but to me honesty is an on/off switch. A person is, or isn't...and this is much more difficult for investors to judge. And stick with management teams who have demonstrated some level of success. They are the most likely to do so again. These people must also have the right plan. If their "big idea" is to find a small, high-grade, vein-hosted deposit and bring it into production themselves - run for the hills. Also, generally, I avoid situations where the exploration team plans to bring even large-scale deposits into production themselves, rather than sell it off to a major.
The job of exploration companies is to make discoveries, and reap the benefits. Time is money, and waiting around for a project to be developed and brought into production is overly costly for speculators. Properties can represent the most important factor -- so important that it can nullify all the other factors. For example, a world-class property can make a bad management team look good, while even a top-level team can't make a terrible property work.
You need to concentrate on projects with large-scale potential -- a million ounces or more for gold projects, and 50 million ounces or more for silver. Don't waste your time on any company or project with goals set lower than that, since the market will never accord them much attention.
Roulston: I agree that million-ounce-plus targets can be the quickest way to a big payoff. However, the majors are much slower to react now than they once were. It may take a couple of years to get a project to where a major will pay several hundred million dollars of hard cash.
While my first choice is to own a company with prospects of being taken over by a major, I like several companies that could emerge as mid-tier producers. A company with a capable and experienced development/operating team and a plan to bring on a number of small or mid-size mines quickly could pay off in a big way. I believe that there's big appetite for emerging mid-tier producers, those companies that have the projects and the skill set to convince investors that they will one day be substantial mining companies.