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Good Ship Endeavour in Mexico (EXK, EDR) ... Plus: Sandspring & Avanti: Ticker Trax

Thom Calandra, www.thomcalandra.com

0 Comments| May 4, 2010

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Good Ship Endeavour: EXK & EDR

Plus: Candente Gold (CGD), Avanti Mining (AVT), Sandspring (SSP)

OFF TO MEXICO – To see Candente Gold’s El Oro gold and silver prospect and artisanal mine.

But first, these notes:

From President Abraham Drost of Sandspring Resources (TSX: V.SSP, Stock Forum) in British Guyana. As we recall, we toured gold-copper project (a few diamonds there, too) Toroparu in autumn 2009. The stock at $1.30 Canadian today is getting into a neighborhood that looks cheap enough to purchase after a spectacular November 209 IPO. “We are drilling up a storm. There will be a news update coming soon. We are focused on restating the resource sooner than later,” Mr. Drost tells me. We here at Ticker Trax are considering Sandspring as a Planetary Prospect. Its team of Abe Drost, founder John Adams of Colorado and many others have invested 10-plus years into developing the property. Got to love its location: in the thick of the Guyana jungle yet only 150 kilometers or so from Venezuela’s gold-laden Kilometer 88.

Thank goodness – on days like these when nearly everything in the world of natural resources (and life-sciences) is sliding – for Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum). The Mexico silver miner’s stock is among the strongest gainers of 2010 in the category of silver miners. Endeavour’s first-quarter wrap on its financial performance is next week: May 10. Endeavour’s No. 3 fellow, Hugh Clarke in Vancouver, Canada, tells me today (Tuesday): “As you know, we waxed everybody in 2009, but our stock-price performance was desultory in Q1 2010 despite one good release after another. Perhaps it was catch-up time for the other silver companies. On the good ship Endeavour my title is Sgt. Major. (CEO) Brad Cooke is the captain and Godfrey Walton is the chief. Part of my duties is to create order and to maintain discipline. After the poor Q1 stock performance, I have been applying the lash with vigor and the crew has responded. Since April 1, we have been one of the best performers in terms of share performance. Hopefully this will continue and accelerate throughout the balance of the year.” Endeavour Silver and its Guanajuato neighbor, Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum), are Planetary Prospects of this service. The two companies are testing the waters for purchase targets with promising silver assets in North America and in Mexico.

This from Catherine Gignac of Sandfire Securities (www.sandfiresecurities.com) about former Planetary Prospect Inter-Citic Minerals (TSX: T.ICI, Stock Forum). Zijin Mining Group, China's largest gold producer, took 19 percent of Inter-Citic a few weeks ago. Ms. Gignac raised her price target for Inter-Citic’s Canada-traded shares to $2.20. We here at home sold half our stake in Inter-Citic, as reported in previous Ticker Trax reports, at $1.45 or so. We named the company a Planetary Prospect at about 75 cents Canadian in November 2009. The analyst says Zijin’s $18 million will help finance a feasibility study for Inter-Citic’s Dachang Gold Project in way-eastern China. She says the company has excellent prospects for further finds at Dachang. We here at home will be selling the rest of our Inter-Citic shares. Not because there is no little room for further price appreciation. Quite the contrary, it appears. We cannot find the time to keep current on the company and are focusing instead on Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Ghana.

I am late to the game on this. Our March interview with Avanti Mining’s A J Ali indicated the molybdenum mine developer was discussing Asia links to its Kitsault project in British Columbia. Mr. Ali, who uses no periods after his first two initials, laid out the scenario for what will be many hundreds of millions of dollars needed to take Kitsault into production. But thank you American Metal Market (www.AMM.com) for this further information (paraphrased here): Avanti (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) is discussing off-take pacts and investment possibilities with steel mills. An off-take pact guarantees the participant, in this case a steel mill or two, guaranteed delivery of moly, which goes into stainless steel used for pipelines, armored tanks and such. The money needed for once-producing Kitsault is pegged at $641 million Canadian. Avanti plans to borrow about 60 percent. In 2007, South Korean steelmaker Posco spent $170 million for 20 percent of General Moly’s Mount Hope molybdenum mine in Nevada.

We are off to see Candente Gold’s (TSX: T.CDG, Stock Forum) El Oro gold and silver project in Mexico on Wednesday and Thursday. Joanne Freeze’s Candente Gold was the subject of a full Ticker Trax report of its Peru concessions in April. Wednesday is an Independence Day holiday in Mexico. (Please stop the killing of people in that beautiful land.)

I will be chatting at the Las Vegas Money show on Tuesday May 11 – about natural resources, life sciences and safety in commodities. The 45-minute or so presentation is at 12:30 p.m. After that, I return to Colombia on behalf of Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX:V.BHV, Stock Forum), the fresh Planetary Prospect whose activities I will be viewing for a second time.

The Planetary Prospects

There are now 13 of them.

Premium Exploration (TSX: V.PEM, Stock Forum) – Gold in Idaho and Montana. Extremely high grades. Lots of land. California Petsite in Idaho goes for kilometers and kilometers. The Australian fund that bought the bulk of its most recent equity offering still owns it all. Chairman Del Steiner wants to start a drill program that lays to rest any and all doubts about the Idaho prospects. He just needs to raise the cash.

Central Fund of Canada(AMEX: CEF, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.CEF.A, Stock Forum)– Gold and silver repository. Its premiums, being a closed end fund, are rising. Own this one as a money market proxy for real gold and silver – metal that actually might be delivered to investors if ever they want to cash in their paper stakes.

BioCryst Pharmaceuticals(NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) – Influenza and leukemia drugs. Gout, too. Biomedical appears to be back in vogue as an investment. I am holding these shares – 72,000 and counting – as The Return of the H1N1 influenza virus plays at hemispheres, nations and regions near all of us.
Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum) -- Silver in Mexico. I expect Endeavour Silver to purchase a publicly-traded silver company this year.

Endeavour Financial(TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum)– No relation to Endeavour Silver. This is Neil Woodyer’s Canada merchant bank that is making a big bet on West Africa. The firm increased its stake in Burkina Faso prospector and producer Crew Gold (TSX: T.CRU, Stock Forum) to 43 percent.

Xtra-Gold Resources(OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) –This is the West Africa gold prospector that might follow in the footsteps of successful Keegan Resources(TSX: T.KGN, Stock Forum) … and Perseus Mining (TSX: T.PRU, Stock Forum) … and Red Back Mining (TSX: T.RBI, Stock Forum). I am just returned from the Kibi. I have data, photos and perspective and on-record analysis from new consultant and structural geologist Bob J. Casaceli of Franco-Nevada that make the case for a two million-ounce resource … and three to five times that amount if the small prospector can locate structural (shear) zones that created these granitoid-hosted deposits. Please see the Library for coverage stretching back to autumn 2009.

Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum): This is Ferdi Dippenaar’s South Africa and Nevada Company. Please see the Library for coverage of Burnstone and Hollister mines.

Candente Copper (TSX: DNT, Stock Forum): Joanne Freeze’s Candente has copper in Peru -- Cañariaco. The seven billion-pound copper project is starting to get the attention of manufacturers and bankers. Yet Candente Copper’s shares sell for a value of only a penny a pound for its in-situ copper. Candente Copper, formerly Candente Resource, is among the cheapest things (based on ore in the ground) on this list, along with Avanti Mining. The Candente companies’ properties in Peru also include poly-metallic prospects that might some day package into a third, separately-traded company.

Candente Gold (TSX: T.CDG, Stock Forum): This separate company’s shares were distributed to predecessor Candente Resource’s shareholders in January 2010. We issued a full report on Candente Gold’s Peru prospects several weeks ago.

Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) – Silver in Mexico. Robert Archer is the CEO. The Panther is on the prowl for assets. GPR’s rising silver grades and low stock valuation compared with other Mexico silver producers make the company a good value here.

Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) – Cheap and aspiring molybdenum mine at Kitsault in British Columbia. Avanti’s Craig J. Nelsen and A J Ali recently raised $17 million Canadian for the company. It is the cheapest proposition on this list. Few in the world of specialty metals will give this company respect until Avanti shows it can line up financing and possibly off-take agreements for the mine’s easily reached moly. (Moly is an important additive in armored tanks – the kind that are used in wars. I don’t want war. I do want Avanti to become the $300 million company its metrics merit.)

Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) – CMJ has one of the widest property holdings in Colombia for such a tiny company: some 300,000 hectares. Bob and Gloria Carrington and Nate Tewalt’s company just reported drill results from its Yarumalito project in Colombia. Good results for the gold and copper prospect … but not great. We might see a joint venture announced in coming weeks or months for one or more of the company’s approximately 20 properties/concessions in Colombia.

Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum): Our newest member. Panama and Colombia. Stay tuned. We here at home now own 1.4 million shares at a price that is higher than its current 21 cents. Our rationale goes like this: BHV is the cheapest thing in Colombia that I know of in the world of copper and gold. Fund manager and geologist Paul Zweng is a large investor. Mr. Zweng’s success rate with high-sulfidation epithermal gold deposits – and copper prospects – is among the best I have seen in eight years. Please see the Ticker TraxLibrary for our reporting on this company.

We here at Ticker Trax cannot and will not address queries about any company or prospect/theme that is written as part of Ticker Trax or our Stockhouse reports but is not a Planetary Prospect. We stand firmly behind our Planetary Prospects and back them with our own money here at home. As for reporting on other companies, ideas are there for all to view and consider. Please do not expect that Ticker Trax will support these subjects with research, on-site visits and so on. Feel free to contact these companies, be they Nevada prospectors, Canada miners or Peru, Colombia and South Africa companies.

For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles – especially this one: Core Box Revealed. Companies whose tours I attend for research purposes pay part or all of my airfare and hotel. This includes Candente Gold’s upcoming analysts’ tour of El Oro in Mexico. I am not there to party.

Ticker Trax

Please visit Stockhouse for a selection of our Ticker Trax research and our password-secure Library for subscribers.

(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom and his family own shares of each of the 13 Planetary Prospects. Thom’s personal holdings are available for all to see on Stockhouse, the Canada publishing company. Subscribers are informed well in advance of any shift in research regarding Planetary Prospects and any purchase or sales decisions. Subscribers always come first.)

Ticker Trax™Please see tickertrax.com to learn more about this wealth service and its Planetary Prospects. For an index of free Thom Calandra articles, please click here. For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles. Please see this one in particular: Core Box Revealed. For the password-protected Ticker Traxlibrary, please see: www.tickertrax.com/Login.aspx.

HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings are listed for Stockhouse members at www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of about 30 public and two private companies. As with each of the Planetary Prospects, Thom Calandra owns Colombian Mines, Xtra-Gold Resources, Great Basin Gold, Endeavour Silver, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Bellhaven Copper & Gold and each of the other Planetary Prospects researched in this and other reports.

THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch and MarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold in 1999 and in 2000. He has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.

For a Ticker Trax Library starting in November 2008, please see our Stockhouse Password-Secure Archives.

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Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE. Copyright 2010 all rights reserved.