Hot shots ... pulpo ... Chicago
- NYC restaurant: Marea
- Big positions: Quaterra, Apollo Gold
- Chicago show:Tiene todo
- X-tra Gold: (XTGR)
- Houston Lake Mining: Insanely cheap
Ticker Trax™
CHICAGO -- Rich Radez knows The People, my people, want Rocky Mountain spring water with their gold conferences. He poured liberally this weekend.
When was the last time you went to a show and the speakers were two fisting Coors (and my occasional double Grey Goose)? Where the audience knew its flag-nogging tickers as well as, or better than the speakers? Where the moderators were performing Guyana snake tricks with microphone cords?
When the moment of truth from the booth came -- the pregunta all natural resources speakers from here to the Pelham 1,2,3 end of the galaxy shall be required to answer: “What is your largest hard-asset holding?” When that moment came, every writer, geologist and gap-toothed commentator on this suburban Illinois stage took the bid.
Two that stirred me: Jay Taylor's Apollo Gold (AMEX: AGT, Stock Forum) jacking around Ontario and Mexico; DocMike Berry's Quaterra Resources (TSX: V.QTA, Stock Forum)/ (AMEX: QMM, Stock Forum). I own neither but am scrubbing the surface of 'em for minerals as we speak.
The mercenary one, Mickey Fulp, mentioned East Asia Minerals (TSX: V.EAS, Stock Forum) several times. Asset manager Paul Zweng in Honolulu put that Indonesia monster on my sonar months ago. East Asia's Michael Hawkins is the real Miwah, if you catch the Indonesia drift.
But then, so, so on the lift-drift is Mickey, a New Mexico geologist who hunts squirrels and takes a week on-site sizing up his hard-asset prospects. Mr. Fulp's work is available at Stockhouse and at MercenaryGeologist.com. We here at Ticker Trax and Stockhouse are working on a profile of Mercenary Mick on the Mexico beat for later this week. I think it is going to blow us all to Cabo-ville and back. The sentiment is with the pediment ... and that lost shaker of salt.
One more word on the Chicago Resource Expo, which big book broker Rich Radez and his son, Eric, have been staging for 30-plus years. Every once in a while in a blazing market, something catches your eye that is so Belle of the Banquet, and at a price what be so nice, that you get shivers and want to cry. (Yeah, I miss Soupy Sales.)
Houston Lake Mining (TSX: V.HLM, Stock Forum) has so many (to my eye)sublime moving parts in Ontario, you have to wonder how diss ding could be selling for less than $10 million Canadian. Prospecting for platinum at Tib Lake near Thunder Bay, gold at West Cedar Tree and rare earths at Pakeagama Lake, HLM doubles for a piece of South African platinum/palladium reef. (Disclosing totally: I own shares of privately held platinum/nickel/gold group Ivanhoe Platinum & Nickel on South Africa's Northern Limb.)
Mr. Radez, one evening wearing prospector's gear, floppy shorts and all at this Chicago suburban inn, told me on the exhibit floor, "You know, I go see this baby every year up there ... and it ain't for the fishing."
HLM's eight-property Ontario set-piece is prolly worth a look. I'll keep you posted.
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Our planet: Several Planetary Prospects of Ticker Trax issued news, quarterly reports, management re-jigs or property updates Monday (today). Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) published its third quarter results. Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) in moly-land shifted people assets on the board and consummated its share conversion with a now-majority owner, that private equity firm in Denver. Avanti almost surely will be benefiting from the start of moly futures in London come February.
Planetary Prospect X-tra Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) in Ghana just published two very good holes: Hole 60 and Hole 68. (Wow, if my English profs could read me now -- how do you PUBLISH a HOLE?) Allora, I expect the $1 stock ($38 million boiled peanuts U.S.) to triple in short order. Porquois? X-tra in the Kibi Gold Belt will rival, or begin to rival, the success that Dan McCoy's Keegan Resources (AMEX:KGN, Stock Forum)/ (TSX: T.KGN, Stock Forum) is enjoying in Ghana's Esaase District.
Jimmy Longshore and Yves Clement's extra-oomph X-tra has been at this prospecting thing in Ghana for almost five years. Now is the moment when new coverage, in addition to our on-site reporting earlier this year, starts for the USA-listed company. Just W&W: Watch und Wait. (Totally disclosing:I be boosting ownership of the shares this week.)
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EDIBLE QUOTE: Good friend Uncle Dan P. of Toronto and Geneva just called on the phone. He is munching today at Marea, the South Central Park restaurant in NYC that is focaccia cooking -- or is it freaking kicking -- pulpo these days.
In between nibbles of the lobster buratta and some smoked duck with Pacific mackerel, Mr. Dan P. lit up my pinball machine with a line he has told me several times over many years: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different outcomes each time."
I think Dan's favourite delish at this (somewhat pricey) restaurant is the pulpo (octopus) salad spliced with apricots. "The tastes, Thom -- on the seafood especially they are just as good as Quinzi Gabriela in Rome." Yes, we are insane about Quinzi on the pesce for sure. Ci vediamo qui. Soon, too.
Finally:Sandspring Resources majority owner John Adams and his stud family were in Chicago this weekend, hanging in town and in the “bubble burbs” with investors who be looking for some Guyana snake serum. Sandspring (SSP.P) this weekend also was doing the Munich show. So please stay guten tag tuned. The stock does not trade yet but likely will in one more week. (Please see our password-secure Ticker Trax archives for more on Sandspring.)The new gold mining security, built on the Guyana assets of the Adam's family's ETK Inc., also is the subject of an article on Stockhouse. The new ticker might become a window into great Guyana wealth.
That is all for today. Sub-culture of subscribers, I will not be appearing at the San Francisco Hard Assets Show for the first time in many, many years. (I wonder why that is?) Still, we here at Ticker Trax are hosting, with $upport from Inter-Citic Minerals (TSX: T.ICI, Stock Forum) and Bravo Venture Gold (TSX: V.BVG, Stock Forum), a spectacular and now fully booked dinner event that I hope shall fuse cuisine, Lookout Ridge vintage grape and money dishes that will pay off for all Ticker Trax subscribers. That is in two Fridays, I believe.
(Also -- please see:Thom Calandra’s Stockhouse articles.)
(All photos by Thom Calandra.)
For More Ticker Trax, Please See Password-Secure Archives. (Thom Calandra owns each of the 11 Planetary Prospects of this service. He has no interests in any of the other securities or restaurants in this report.)
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