On Q: Revett, Panther, Great Basin
Output Rises Rouse RVM, GPR, GBG, FVI In Quarter
BIG BET: Bellhaven at 30 cents Canadian
Revett, Timberline, Gold-Ore, Wits, PTM Appear Poised
Xtra-Gold Shares Surpass $1.35 U.S.
Plus: New Orleans In October and San Francisco Hard Assets in November
Heck, they all appear poised for further gains. Still, actual producers (of silver and gold and copper) – actualproducers -- are outpacing the pack.
Not just our Planetary Prospects, either. Many of the producers (and select prospectors) I have visited this year – but have not named as Planetary Prospects – are racing higher this week/this month. These include to a greater or lesser extent Antares Minerals Inc. (TSX: V.ANM, Stock Forum) in Peru, Witwatersrand Consolidated Gold Resources Ltd. and (TSX: T.WGR, Stock Forum) and (OTO: WIWTY, Stock Forum) in South Africa, Fortuna Silver (TSX: T.FVI, Stock Forum) in Peru , Revett Minerals Inc. in Montana (TSM: T.RVM , Stock Forum) and Platinum Group Metals Ltd. in South Africa (TSX: T.PTM, Stock Forum) and (AMEX: PLG, Stock Forum).
Just so you know: I don’t own all of these. But I do own each of the 12 Planetary Prospects. Great Basin Gold Ltd. (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) and (AMEX: GBG, Stock Forum) shares, in the wake of improving Hollister Mine (Nevada) accelerated output, is the standout this week. That South Africa and Nevada miner is a Planetary Prospect. “I think we have some shorts covering,” Great Basin CEO Ferdi Dippenaar tells me from South Africa. “Maybe warrant related?”
Of the non-Planetary Prospects, but among miners/prospectors we have researched and presented here, Antares Minerals is on the Honors List in a two-week valuation shift. (We here at home do not own Antares but have been to the Haquira copper project in Peru, along with CEO John Black and co-founder and interim Bellhaven chief Dr. Paul Zweng.)
I can’t do justice to all of the specifics on the producers’ year-to-year gains in output, grades, mine revenue and lowered expenses. Here are some stray bullets:
- At GBG’s Hollister, some 39,000 (gold-equivalent) ounces were dispatched, or sold, in the recently reported June quarter vs. 6,000 ounces in the March quarter. This is a sequential marvel.
- Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) is recording record-high net income from Mexico as are others, including Endeavour Silver Corp. (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum) and First Majestic Silver Corp. (TSX: T.FR, Stock Forum). Still, the Panther’s Guanajuato operation is lagging internal expectations … “due to grades being lower than estimated in the first quarter.” Guanajuato's $7 U.S. cash cost per silver ounce thus far thus year is way above company guidance of $5.
- Timberline Resources Corp. (TSX: V.TBR, Stock Forum), as it develops its Butte Highlands gold mine in Montana is fortunate to see its contractor drilling units continue to mark “positive net income – for a fifth straight quarter now. I owe CEO Randy Hardy a full report on my visit to Butte. I have yet to purchase Timberline shares.
- Revett Minerals looks like it finally is getting grudging investor respect as a hard-as-nails operator of a steady-eddie silver mine at Troy, Montana. The quarter showed almost $3.5 million cash flow from the Troy Mine even in the face of low silver and copper grades, thanks to the efforts of a small team headed by CEO John Shanahan and biz-dev guy Doug Ward. John Shanahan tells me today (Tuesday), “We are over the hump. Our Q2 grades were as low as we could go and we still generated enough cash to cover us, including G&A. We are few weeks from hitting the C beds, where we will see grades pick up substantially. Our team is mining well and is consistent day-in and day-out, so Q3 will be better, Q4 will be better again, and we are off to the races in 2011 and 2012. The excitement kicks in as we accelerate our exploration program to the I beds, which could see Troy mine life extended from 6 to 15-20 years at good grades.” I own a small number of shares and am looking to raise my stake in Revett. Also: the Rock Creek, Montana, project is making its way through the federal court system.
Notes: I am working on a small article about Peru, sourced almost entirely by native Carlos Baca at Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. (TSX: T.FVI, Stock Forum). Fortuna’s stock performance also deserves Honor Roll recognition this month -- in light of the company’s continued success at Caylloma, a silver, zinc and copper mine at approximately 5,500 meters altitude (and yes, I have been there). … The ticker for Serafino Iacono’s new Gran Colombia Gold, once it starts trading, will be TR, the old Tapestry Resources (TR). … Little to report on Candente Copper Corp. (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum)and itsCañariaco project in Peru. Company founder and geologist Joanne Freeze tells me this week she has several irons in the fire. This is the only project among all of our Planetary Prospects I have yet to see. … I think Xtra-Gold (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum)is inching closer to another stock market listing. The company’s CEO, Paul Zyla, declines to comment. The Ghana gold prospector’s shares surpassed $1.30 today (Tuesday). … Finally, Bellhaven Copper & Gold Inc. (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum)shares, CEO Paul Zweng tells me, look like they are “double-topping.”Dr. Zweng is the reason, along with Patrick Abraham of Panama and Julio Benedetti of Panama, that we own 1.4 million shares of Bellhaven here at home. Paul Zweng is a co-founder of Antares Minerals in Peru. He tells me, “Two sell-side reports have come out on Antares this month -- one by CIBC and one by Dundee -- that have helped to increase awareness in the stock. I have been warning (CEO) John Black about the dangers of a double top forming regarding ANM's stock chart. Fortunately for ANM, the share price has blown through the top on high volume. Looking at BHV's stock chart, I now have the same prospect facing me; a double top is forming here as well. I hope to have ANM's success.”
NEW ORLEANS & SF: This autumn I will be making two or three appearances outside of prospect tours. One of them is in New Orleans, where I appear each year at Brien Lundin’s New Orleans Investment Conference.
If you’d like to join our Stockhouse and Ticker Trax audience at the late-October show, please register and pay up at this link: REGISTER FOR NEW ORLEANS. You get a discount on the price at that address. And I have something special planned for New Orleans. It’s my favorite investment show – along with the longstanding San Francisco Hard Assets conference in November, when I will be presenting a workshop.
STUFF: Our Ticker Trax landing page has more stuff, videos included. Please see: https://stockhouse.com/TickerTrax/Default.aspx.
For more on all of the Planetary Prospects, please visit our Ticker Trax Library.Ticker Trax™ is in place – and thriving – because its fiscal loyalty is to subscribers who are looking for radically cheap investments. Our service, started in November 2008, researches a select group of Planetary Prospects™ with legitimate shots at rising 1,000 percent or more in the span of two years, maybe less and maybe more.
Planetary Prospects
There are 12 of them. Please visit www.tickertrax.com and search our landing page for details on the start of coverage for individual Planetary Prospects and the entry price. In addition, Xtra-Gold Resources is a preferred client of Stockhouse, distributor and publisher of this Ticker Trax™ report. We here intend to report good and bad on our Planetary Prospects; we are considering eliminating one of the current 12 and replacing it with something more worthy of our research time.
- 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. We here at home are holding these shares – 80,000 and counting. There is no risk of a dilutive financing. There is a risk of Type A H1N1 remaining the dominant seasonal flu virus for several years. Alas, it seems that few investors besides Ticker Trax believe it. (Please view: Stockhouse exclusive article.)
- Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum) – Silver (and gold) in Mexico. I expect Endeavour Silver to purchase a publicly traded silver (or silver-gold open-pit) company this year. Most metrics, including costs, cash flow (a net profit for the three months vs. a year-ago loss), silver and gold output, are improved markedly. Brad Cooke and his team realize they have to show their audience its exploration activities are vibrant enough to hurtle the small Guanajuato and Durango company above 5 million ounces of silver equivalent per year. Please see the list.
- Endeavour Financial (TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum) – No relation to Endeavour Silver. This is Neil Woodyer’s profitable Canada-traded merchant bank that is making a big bet on West Africa. … in the form of Crew GoldCorp. (TSX: T.CRU, Stock Forum) and Etruscan Resources Inc. (TSX: T.EET, Stock Forum). Etruscan is said to be flipping out a rare-earth investment in the autumn. EDV shares, even with a three-month steady climb, trade at a discount to the value of securities owned by Endeavour Financial. The company’s book value is about twice the current share price. It intends to purchase all of Etruscan.
- Xtra-Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) –This West Africa gold prospector 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 Inc. (TSX: T.RBI, Stock Forum). Xtra-Gold shares get little attention on the USA over-the-counter bulletin board and deserve a listing on a commodities-comfortable exchange. The 43-101 report is now published. Let’s hope James Longshore and his team, including new geologist-consultant Robert J. Casaceli and new CEO Paul Zyla, keep moving in the right direction. (Pleasesee the Libraryfor coverage stretching back to autumn 2009.)
- Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) – This is Ferdi Dippenaar’s South Africa and Nevada miner. Real gold at Burnstone and Hollister mines … and prospecting at Esmeralda in Nevada. Great Basin says it has “excellent operational performance at Hollister in Nevada and improved efficiencies at the Esmeralda Mill facility in Nevada.” Ditto for South Africa’s Burnstone Mine. I have been to all of the company’s working properties. GBG is on track to become the next $1 billion market cap gold company. Current cap is $600 million. (Please see our password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
- Candente Copper Corp. (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum) – Joanne Freeze’s Candente has copper in Peru at Cañariaco. The almost 8-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 propositions (based on ore in the ground) in this list, along with Avanti Mining. (Please see libraryfor coverage.)
- 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 in April. Now, we’ve examined El Oro, an entire district and artisanal mine workings about 200 kilometers from Mexico City. I have seen it. I see the potential of the epithermal gold-silver vein system with some 50 known veins. (Please see password-protected libraryfor coverage of El Oro in Mexico.)
- Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) – Silver in Mexico. Robert Archer is the CEO. The Panther just extended one of its veins, called Recompensa, at the Topia property in Durango, Mexico. The company is on the prowl for assets so that it can notch 20 percent yearly gains in output. GPR’s rising silver grades and low stock valuation compared with other Mexico silver producers make the company’s shares look like a bargain. Great Panther’s silver-equivalent output at Guanajuato and in Mexico’s Durango state is benefiting from richer gold harvests. The company’s metals’ production includes byproducts and runs about half that of Guanajuato neighbor Endeavour Silver.
- Avanti Mining Inc. (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) – Cheap and aspiring molybdenum mine at Kitsault in British Columbia. Avanti just hired Bob Jacko of Thompson Creek Metals to manage project development at the mine. When Avanti’s Craig J. Nelsen and A J Ali see this through, Kitsault will be producing about 25 million pounds of the stainless-steel additive each year – for 15 years. That is 215 million metric tons of ore grading 0.085 percent of moly. That works for a world where steel-based moly demand is expected to expand 6 percent or so this year and next. Mr. Nelsen, the Avanti CEO living in Colorado, owns more than 12 million shares of the company. Avanti Mining at a market worth of less than $60 million is the cheapest proposition on this list. Avanti must show it can line up plenty of cash or lending pacts for a project whose total cost probably will run more than $640 million. I have been to Kitsault. Moly is an additive in all types of stainless steel. Avanti Mining is gaining in share value, at long last, as executives purchase shares. Please see Thom Calandra article on Stockhouse.
- Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) – CMJ has one of the thickest property books in Colombia for such a tiny company: some 300,000 hectares. Yet one of the thinnest news flows. Bob and Gloria Carrington and Nate Tewalt’s company has reported drill results from its Yarumalito project in Colombia. The numbers were mediocre. CMJ’s Robert Carrington sayshe and CEO Nate Tewalt of Washington state are considering a joint venture or sale for its Venecia holding in Antioquia. The company also is working on another transaction. (Please see the password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
- Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum) – Panama and Colombia. We here at home now own 1.4 million shares. Dr. Paul Zweng’s success rate with epithermal gold deposits and with copper prospects such as Peru’s Antares Minerals is among the best I have seen in eight years. Dr. Zweng is interim CEO of Bellhaven. Bellhaven owns Las Minas concession in Antioquia, Colombia. (Please see the Libraryfor coverage.) He just appointed a new VP of Exploration for Panama, Tom Drown. Dr. Zweng worked with Mr. Drown in Mongolia.
In Colombia, our speculative target is Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum). We here at home own it. We also own (and have researched and visited since 2008) Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum) of Colombia. I also am a small owner of Caerus Resources Corp. (TSX: V.CA, Stock Forum), a Colombia gold prospector.
We here at Ticker Trax™stand firmly behind our Planetary Prospects and back them with our own patient money here at home.
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 site tours I attend for research purposes pay part or all of my airfare and hotel. Stockhouse and I also pay when necessary.
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 12 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 Trax library, 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.
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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.