This week's report lists 98 silver stocks. There are 30 silver stocks that list reserves, resources (and exploration potential.) which I calculate by using my "ounce in the ground" forumula. There are 46 explorers. There are about 22 additional "silver" stocks with incomplete information. Additions & Changes from last week are in bold.
If you are an Accredited or Sophisticated investor and want information I may find out about private placement opportunities in some of the very best silver stocks in my opinion, (This is not a solicitation for any stock, and I'm not brokering any securities) email me with PP in the subject field: jasonhommel@yahoo.com I can't tell you exactly which silver stocks to buy several reasons. First, I'm not your broker. Second, too many people ask. Third, if I told you what I was buying as I was buying it, you'd buy, and push the price up against me. If this sounds wrong, it's not. It's common sense, and it's how the market works. People bring what they have to sell to the market place and advertise it. That's capitalism and the free market at work. If you tell me about a silver stock not on this list, I expect that you would have invested in it first. I wouldn't want to put your recommendation on this list, and drive up the price of your hot undervalued silver stock before you buy your great tip! So, buy it first, and then tell the world what you did and how smart of an investor you are and how much homework you did to find your favorite unknown silver junior.
So, because I have a market reach, I also receive a lot of tips about silver stocks. And thus, I may have invested in some of the best ones that came my way. If you believe I may have an edge based on my work and position... then the best way for me to share this with you is to is tell you where I put my money. It's not investment advice. I offer a monthly "look at my portfolio". Try it for a month, and see if it works for you. I do not issue recommendations, and I don't list number of shares or the size of my portfolio, but I will show the top investments in my portfolio, by rank, updated monthly.
Price: $29.95/month or Price: $295.00/year To order: Click here
To read about my religious bias, see my other website, bibleprophesy.org There are two essays near the top of the page that explain why I believe the entire world will return to using gold and silver as money again before the end times. Hint, see Ezekiel 38. To read more about my religious bias when it comes to investing, see my new essay, Biblical Guidelines for Managing your Money
If you want to receive an email notice of when and where this FREE weekly report is published, sign up at GoldIsMoney.com Anyone who signs up will also get a FREE e-book that explains the bullish case for gold and especially silver. If you have studied the silver market at all, then the time has come that you ought to be a teacher, and you ought to explain the silver story to all who will listen. GoldIsMoney.com is designed to help spread the word. I suggest you email the link to your address book.
Kitco reports silver at $7.03 as of Friday, 1:57 PM West Coast US, which was used to calculate the following figures. The CAN $ / US $ conversion factor is .7496. I will use .75 for ease.
How to read the following table: Stock Symbol that works at Yahoo! Finance (Company name) / Silver oz. "in ground"** for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. / valuation price change since last week relative to silver price change (and stock dilution, and resource changes, if any) / additional comments (EXPT is "exploration potential")
* CBE.V CBEFF.PK (CABO MINING) --Historic Silver and Cobalt district
EXN.V EXLLF.PK (EXCELLON RSCS)
EPZ.V ESPZF.PK (ESPERANZA SILVR)
BCM.V BCEKF.PK (BEAR CRK MINING)
NJMC.OB (NEW JERSEY MIN)
HGM.V HOGOF.PK (HOLMER GOLD)
CHMN.PK (CHESTER MINING)
* KG.V KDKGF.PK (KLONDIKE GOLD)
GNG.V GGTHF.PK (GOLDEN GOLIATH) --Historic silver district in Mexico
MMG.V MMEEF.PK (MCMILLAN GOLD)
* KRE.V KREKF.PK (KENRICH ESKAY)
EGD.V EGDMF.PK (ENERGOLD MINING)
LEG.V LEGCF.PK (LATEEGRA RSCS)
SHSH.PK (SHOSHONE SILVER)
BGS.V BLDGF.PK (BALLAD GLD SLVR)
AUN.V AUNFF.PK (Aurcana Corp)
SRY.V (STINGRAY RSCS)
PCM.V (PAC COMOX RES)
BBR.V BBRRF.PK (BRETT RES)
TUO.V TEUTF.PK (TEUTON RES)
ASLM.PK (AMER SILVER MINI)
ROK.V ROCAF.PK (ROCA MINES INC)
CBP.V CPBMF.PK (CONS PAC BAY MIN)
* = I own shares ** = "in ground" counts all "silver oz. in the ground" as the same, but they are NOT EQUAL. Some are more certain and others are more speculative. Some are higher grades, some are lower grades. They range from most certain to least certain such as: "proven & probable reserves," "measured, indicated, inferred resources." This single number next to each stock symbol above represents the approximate number of ounces of silver in the ground you are buying title to when you invest the equivalent of one ounce of silver by buying shares in the company at current prices. (It does not include zinc, or copper, or lead, but it does include gold at a 1:10 ratio of gold:silver.) At goldsheetlinks.com, they add 100% of proven & probable reserves, but only 70% of measured & indicated resources, and only 50% of inferred resources. I don't do that. I count them as all the same.
To quickly "tab" down to the company you are interested in, note the symbol. Then hit "control-F" to "FIND" the symbol below.
------------- WEEKLY COMMENTARY (All new in this section):
I've been producing this report for 6 months now. Week 26! Wow! I have been working very hard during this time, and it has been very profitable investing in silver stocks. During the last 8 months, the silver price has taken off like a rocket, which is extremely significant. Imagine investing at the recent bottom, at $4.50 in June, 2003, and now sitting with silver at $7.03 (after a high of $7.25 mid week). From $4.50 to $7 is a 55% gain. You can't get that in bonds anywhere! Who says the metal pays no interest or return??? Utterly ridiculous!
Yet silver is still cheap. Many other commodies have run higher and faster. Silver is still lagging, and will certainly race ahead at some point, I suspect it will outperform all other commodities. Silver will one day have massive monetary demand, unlike any other commodity except for gold.
Silver continues to march upwards in price week over week. Some of the junior silver stocks have really lagged, and are getting quite cheap. To me, this report is now more valuable than ever, as producing it is helping me to find, and present, so many undervalued junior exploration silver stocks. After all, I do trade on my own advice and valuation methods, and on the best of your silver stock recommendations to me. -----------------------
This week, Ted Butler (see http://www.investmentrarities.com/03-08-04.html ) wrote an excellent commentary, "Bigger Isn't Always Better", that explains that there are 578 billionaires on the Forbes list. These are people who could each, individually, buy all the silver that is known to exist in the world. So, when people ask me, "When will silver really explode up?" the answer is that silver could explode at any time when just one of those wealthy people decides to buy, or when enough little guys decide to buy.
The smaller investor has an advantage over larger investors, because a smaller investor can actually put a meaningful percentage of their wealth into silver. A billionaire can't.
I want to speak of the different concerns of different sized investors for a moment. A very, very large investor has very different perspectives than a smaller investor. There is probably a major perspective change for every change in size of an order of magnitude. That means that an investor who is ten times wealthier than another, probably has very different concerns, as follows. Most people that have brokerage accounts have less than $10,000 to invest. Their concerns will be vastly different from someone who has $100,000 to invest. A person with $10,000 has barely more money to invest than they have to make ends meet, and is likely too busy to really study much about investing, because they are working at a job. A person with $100,000 may have a substantial income, and may still be too busy to study about investing, or it may be an inheritance and they don't know anything at all about investing. A person with at least $1,000,000 to invest is in an elite group of people, one in 30-100 investors, and qualifies to participate in private placements, but is novice at the private placement process, and may not even know they qualify for that. These people are those who fund capital development. A person with $10 million may be experienced at private placements. A person with $100 million to invest is likely not in the silver market with both feet, because it is too small, and their fortune too big. They would likely not want to trust their money to the silver exploration sector, since they would have to put $5 million into each of 20 exploration companies, and many exploration companies barely have market caps that big! Next, we have the billionaires, none of whom could even buy silver, because the bullion market is too small. And finally, we have the multi billion corporations.
To a company like J.P. Morgan, that has trillions of dollars worth of derivatives on the books, and a market cap around $86 billion (@ $42/share), they would not likely consider that being short excessive amounts of silver is any danger. They may be short 100 million ounces, and not be worried. They may have 30 million ounces of silver from the producers pledged to be delivered to them through the futures contracts. They may think they "know" that just like in banking, where less than 1% of depositors ever ask for paper cash at one time, that typically less than 1% of futures contracts ever result in requests for physical silver. So, they may think they are safe. And at the worst case scenario, they may feel that if they had a 100 million oz. silver short position that was put on at $5/oz. goes to $10/oz., then to them it would be like a loss of $500 million dollars. Again, to the big guys, this is peanuts. J.P. Morgan lost many billions loaning money to Enron, billions K-mart, and billlions to South America, without much of a problem. In fact, their stock price has gone up, nearly doubling, and adding $40 billion in market cap since those huge losses!
The concern of firms as big as J.P. Morgan or Goldman Sachs is the continuance of the entire financial system, which benefits them greatly. They want to keep the fraud of paper money creation going as long as possible. That's where they make their money. This is achieved by keeping the price of silver and gold low, or even volatile. Either way suits their needs, since a volatile price for the precious metals keeps people confused and away from the sector, and in paper money.
Once again, this illustrates the importance of buying physical silver. It would not hurt J.P. Morgan to have to do a cash payment to settle silver contracts. They can keep their own silver (if they have any), and print up the money by issuing new shares to pay off their failures in the futures markets. The only thing that will end "the major frauds of the U.S. monetary system" is when people wake up, and demand physical bullion, as they are now just beginning to do.
But the bullion banks are not safe if they are short precious metal, as they may think. They can go bankrupt like anyone else who cannot meet their obligations. In theory, there is no limit to the upside, as prices for precious metals can reach to infinity dollars per ounce in a monetary crash. At present, those big firms are the ones who make the rules, and they change the rules to suit them, such as creating position limits, and ignoring the crys of all of us little people who cry for the end of the market manipulation. However, in the end, it will be those people who have physical metal who will make the rules, and power will shift.
In the past, prices for the precious metals rose after the delivery defaults. In 1933, the banks stopped redeeming dollars for gold at $20/oz. and then the price rose. In 1971, they stopped redeeming dollars for gold at $35/oz. to overseas investors, and then the price rose. If this pattern is any indication, the delivery defaults will occur BEFORE the major price rise. They will likely try every trick in the book to keep the fraud of the dollar alive, until they absolutely run out of precious metal to deliver, or if they feel they can no longer contain or restrain major precious metal demand. We could reach the moment of truth at any time.
Now, the point I'm making about delivery defaults is this... smaller investors may think they can wait until after the delivery default. But if you do that, you will not be able to buy silver in size, if at all, and I would not wait. The reason is that if you wait until after the default, silver could leap up by $5/oz. per day for several days in a row. If it took you 5 days to locate a silver bullion dealer who would take your order under those kinds of conditions, you may miss a substantial portion of the once-in-a-lifetime big move. In fact, I strongly suspect that many local coin dealers will not be selling any silver if the COMEX defaults. In fact, it is already far too late to buy silver in size for the very big investors out there. As far as they are concerned, delivery defaults have already occurred in silver. To them, such defaults are called "position limits".
The potential exists for the shorts to drive the price of silver back to $5/oz. at any time, temporarily. Any investor in silver who is on margin, could be wiped out. But if you own silver free and clear and are debt free, you cannot be hurt, since no matter what happens in the short term with price swings, you still will own all the silver you buy, without losing a single ounce, and the value of silver will never reach zero.
Now, getting back to the benefits of being a smaller trader. As Ted Butler notes well, the smaller traders can buy silver bullion in meaningful amounts for their own portfolio, but the Billionaires cannot. This also applies to silver stocks, but in a different sort of way.
The smallest traders have the greatest advantage over everyone else, because they can buy or sell an illiquid silver stock without creating a major price swing with their buy and sell orders. Therefore, a smaller trader can more easily trade in and out of an illiquid and volatile silver stock. A larger trader like myself, who participates in private placements, does not have the ability to quickly buy or sell. The smallest traders should not "buy and hold", but rather, they should take profits when stocks run up, and swoop in when stocks run down.
If I buy a stock with $50,000, I will often move the price of a silver exploration company up 10-15% if I buy on the open market. And I'd move the price down by that much if I tried to sell. A smaller trader would not move the price much with their buy and sell order. A smaller trader may complain about the high price of $25 commission fees, but the larger trader has a 10-15% commission (or more) when buying and selling, because the buy order and sell order moves the price that much. My problem is that if my "commissions" are so high, I have to really make sure that what I'm buying is really, truly a bargain and "on sale". It does not do me much good to try and trade in and out on 20% price swings, but a smaller trader can really take advantage of such price movements.
Now, when I suggest trading in and out, I mean... trade into other silver stocks, so you keep your exposure to the silver market at all times during this bull market.
The disadvantage of the smaller trader is lack of experience, and lack of time to devote to studying the market to see where the best opportunities are.
My advice for smaller traders just starting out is to make sure you have enough cash on hand for normal life emergencies first, from $1000 to $2000. Then, get silver bullion second--at least as much as your emergency cash fund, or even twice as much, say, about $2000-$5000 worth, at least. Then, put money into silver stocks third. Although stocks themselves are risky enough, there is the additional risk that your broker could go bankrupt. There is nothing as safe as silver bullion, in my opinion, especially if the day may come when you will need something to trade for food during a severe economic depression.
Understanding the different concerns of different sized traders really helps you to understand how and why the silver market is manipulated, and why silver is priced so cheaply. The biggest traders simply do not care about silver at all. Not yet. It is off their radar screen, and it is not even like a fly that may bother a horse.
------------------------ Here's how to buy silver: Go grab your local phone book. Look up "coin dealers". Ask the dealer if they have any "silver bullion", and how much. (Don't buy numismatics, which are collector coins that cost far higher than the bullion or metal content of the coins.) If they don't have silver bullion, they can order it for you. Then, go down to your dealer, and either buy the bullion same day, or give him a money order or cash, and wait for your order to arrive. It's that easy. There are primarily three kinds of silver bullion available from local coin dealers:
1. 90% silver coins mined by the US until 1964: quarters, half dollars, and dimes. They sell close to the spot price, and contain .715 of one oz. per $1 face value, whether 4 quarters, 2 half dollars, or 10 dimes. To find out how much it will cost over the spot price, do the following: Get a price quote, such as, a "bag" of $1000 face value sells for, say, $5100. Then, divide that by 715, and you see how much you are paying for the silver, which, in this case is, $7.13. In this case, this is just right about at the spot price on the day I got this price quote. 2. 100 oz. collector bars, that typically cost anywhere from $50 over spot to 10% over the spot price. 3. 1 oz. "rounds" that also typically sell for just about 10% over the spot price.
The way to get silver close to the spot price is to buy a contract for 5000 oz. of silver from a commodities trader. You are buying a paper promise to get a paper receipt for five 1000 oz. bars in a COMEX approved warehouse. Each bar weighs just under about 70 pounds. There will be shipping charges, and commissions, that will ultimately bring the price up to perhaps 5% over the spot price.
------------------------ Here is an email I received that illustrates an important concept -- doing the hard work when investing:
Hi, The one thing that made me miss out on a few really great plays last year was simple laziness! I forgot the Biblical admonition that you should put 100% into all your endevours. There is no getting around the grind of ongoing due diligence if one wants to keep one's portfolio growing. Slogging through paperwork and websites is not as glamorous as a hot tip, but in the long run one will still be riding the bull while the mo-mo (or momentum) guys have been bucked off long ago.
I do appreciate all your hard work and that a Christian guy is having such a positive effect on PM investors. Between you and Mel Gibson there has been a lot of good discussion generated lately among the financially and spiritually lost.
------------------------ Go see http://www.MARKETOCRACY.COM See the performance of my marketocracy profile of silver stocks, here: http://tinyurl.com/24x2a I strongly recommend that you set up a marketocracy fund yourself. It's better than paper trading, because their computer will keep track of your results and ongoing performance. It will teach you about the importance of diversification, and it will teach you to become a better investor. The first hurdle is that you need to know about 15-20 good stocks, and none can be "pinksheets" and none can be "Toronto" or "Venture Exchange" (Canadian) companies. Stocks must trade on the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, or Bulletin Boards. The discipline of keeping your fund in compliance with the diversification rules (half the portfolio consists of stocks not more than 5%, and no one stock more than 25%) will teach you and force you to sell some of your favorite and best performing stocks when they move up, and then re-deploy the proceeds into stocks that have moved down, or not moved up yet. It is an extremely valuable skill to learn to sell the stocks that are up, and buy the stocks that are down. Diversifying your profits into stocks that have lagged is an especially good idea, and investment practice.
It will also help the entire industry, because if you do that, you will help smooth out prices, reduce volitility, and increase liquidity, all of which helps to invite bigger traders into the sector. The momentum guys who buy stocks because they are moving up, and sell stocks because they are moving down, are the ones who create the volitility, and the opportunity for the investor who buys and sells based on value, instead.
If you sign up at marketocracy, you can join the "Hommel silver stock club" which I just started. I don't know whether it will prove to be a popular gathering place to discuss silver stocks, or not.
The whole point of this week's commentary is to help the smaller investors to learn to stop playing the momentum game, and to start investing the "value" way. Buy low, and sell high, and do this repeatedly. Let the volatility between stocks be your friend, and take advantage of it.
His price prediction for a trading range for silver was proven wrong merely hours after his article came out, as silver exceeded $7.10/oz., the top of his trading range and hit $7.15/oz. at the close of March 9th, and hit $7.24/oz. the next day, on March 10th.
Leonard Kaplan was just as wrong a month ago, in his Feb 17th commentary at goldseek.com, when he said that his expected trading range for silver would be up to $6.80. Last time, he was also proven to be wrong in less than 24 hours, just like this time.
I believe his poor commentary on silver, and bad arguments, must be helping fuel the demand. After all, if what he says is all the bears have got to base their investment decisions on, the bears are in deep trouble.
His basic argument is that silver is NOT in short supply. I believe silver is scarce. I recently ordered over $100,000 in silver (over $350k total) from each of three very large and well-known bullion dealers, and none of them had silver in inventory. I got my orders filled, but they all had to order from someone else. I suppose such is common in the silver business, but think about that for a moment. People who make their living, their business, to buy and sell silver, often have less than $100,000 in inventory? That seems crazy to me. A hundred thousand dollars not even enough to buy a home in most parts of the U.S.A. now!
Get out your phone book, and call your local coin dealers. Ask them if they have even $25,000 in silver bullion in inventory right now. The answer is that they most likely do not. I have only been able to find 4 dealers (non COMEX guys) who have over $500,000 in silver. Part of the reason dealers don't have inventory is that there is so little demand for silver from investors. And if there is little or no investor demand today, what in the world is going to happen to the silver price when the trillions of dollars invested in the bond market begins to buy silver to protect their assets?
Mr. Kaplan argues that the speculators are driving the silver market unreasonably high. I disagree. The numbers of open contracts at the COMEX is not significantly different than it usually is. It's right over 100,000 contracts, like it has been for months, even years. According to my memory, at one time, there were over 180,000 contracts in silver back when silver was around $5/oz., and now there are less than 120,000. So paper long speculation is down.
Mr. Kaplan argues that the poor jobs report is what is driving metals prices higher. Again, I disagree. Silver has been screaming higher since June of 2003, not since the jobs report came out last week.
Mr. Kaplan argues that speculators hold paper contracts to buy nearly a year's worth of silver production. Yes, that has been the fact of the situation for a long time, even prior to the price rise since 2003. (100,000 contracts x 5000 oz. = 500 million oz.) But the opposite side is that the shorts have commitments to deliver those 500 million oz., and there is only 52.5 million oz. of silver registered for delivery at the COMEX. I hope the shorts have the difference, the 450 million oz. of silver. Is that much sitting somewhere in a warehouse that nobody knows about? Even if it were, it's not enough to satisfy the real monetary demand when it hits.
Now, are inventories of silver going up, or down? On the COMEX, they have been going up, as Mr. Kaplan notes. In fact, inventories were as little as about 70 million oz. for both categories (registered and eligible) at the COMEX years ago, and now they stand at about 123 million oz. at the COMEX. But what about inventories elsewhere? That is the question. Reports from Europe suggest that silver really is vanishing from inventories. I believe those reports, and Mr. Kaplan does not. I receive many letters from people all over the world telling me that they cannot get even small retail orders filled, without a month delay. People in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, all telling me that silver is in short supply, and that they have to wait months to get silver. Some are even saying that the European dealers and banks will not even take their orders, for fear that they can't get supply, or because silver is being rationed. What? Rationing? YES! What does rationing mean? It means only one thing, and one thing only, short supply.
I believe what is happening is that after a long, long time with little or no investor demand, that a very tiny bit of investor demand is beginning to re-enter the silver market. The previous channels of supply and demand are being reversed. For years, coin dealers would buy more silver than they sold, and so, they would end up shipping silver to the refineries. Now, coin dealers need to locate places to buy silver from, instead of selling it to someone. Everything is changing, and supply lines do not re-open overnight. Selling bullion is an extremely competitive business, with virtually no competitive advantage except for price. The only way to keep prices low, is to search everywhere for a willing and able seller of "retail investor" type silver. If all the dealers go to the same refinery to buy, there is likely going to be rationing, because a refiner only has what he has to sell, and no more. The problem the dealers thus have is that they remain unwilling to bid up the price to well over the spot price of silver to obtain silver for their customers, because they do not understand or believe that silver will continue to head up in price.
Here's another very juicy rumor I've heard. Back in 1980, the average size order was perhaps $2000 for silver. Today, the average size order is more like $40,000. No wonder the coin shops have no inventory, because if someone wants to buy that much, the average customer can take delivery of 1 full contract at the COMEX, and get it cheaper (5% over spot, instead of 10% over spot).
Why are things changing? In 1980, bonds were paying around 15% interest, and metal prices began to decline. People wanted paper bonds, not metal. Today, short term bonds are paying 1% or less, and metal prices are rising. It simply does not make sense to be in bonds paying 1% when silver is moving up over 50% in less than a year due to excellent supply and demand fundamentals, where industry still consumes more silver than mine supply each year.
In mid-2003, nobody wanted to hear about silver, because there was no trend indicating it was the place to be. Flat or declining prices drove people away, regardless of the fundamentals (with the exception of Warren Buffet who bought based on the excellent fundamentals). Now, with rising prices, the price trend is confirming the reports about supply and demand that the silver bugs have been preaching for years. And the mild investor demand is now creating confirming reports of silver's short supply.
Mr. Kaplan is very right about two things. First, the silver market will be driven by monetary demand, which he describes as the "speculative". Second, the silver market is, indeed, small when compared to the monetary world of fiat currencies.
Recently, a news report said that "gold is not liquid," because the central banks could not all sell their gold at once without moving the price down significantly, and that this realization that "gold is not liquid" is what caused the central banks to form the Washington Agreement, where they agreed to not sell more than 2000 tonnes over 5 years, and then renew this agreement this year. However, this same argument is even more true about fiat currencies--that they are not liquid, far less liquid than gold. After all, nations cannot sell trillions of dollars and buy gold without causing a crash of the value of their currencies, and driving up the price of gold to tremendous heights.
Gold may go down to $250/oz., if all the central banks sold gold all at once. But gold will be driven to infinity dollars per ounce if all the central banks try to buy gold all at once. Gold can never go to zero value. Excessive and fraudulent paper promises always return to their intrinsic value of zero.
I believe Mr. Kaplan will be wrong again, and that silver will soon hit or exceed $12/oz. later this year. The silver market is so tiny, and available money so large, that it is inevitable. --Especially now that we have a strong price trend in place to pull momentum investors on board.
Ultimately increased prices will not increase supply until and unless miners mine more. Look carefully over this list of primary silver miners. The vast majority of these miners are explorers that are not producing anything, and they will not be producing anything for a long time.
The cycle goes as follows: 1. Identify a prospective property--takes months. 2. Do due diligence on it--takes more months. 3. Negotiate a contract to buy the property--takes more months. 4. Present the property to your investors who financed the company and then engage in advertising to get the "market value" for the shareholders--takes more months 5. Then engage in a round of financing which requires talks and presentations to investors and plenty of hectic paperwork--takes another month or so. 6. Then go out and contact some geologists to do a report on where best to drill--takes more months. 7. Then hire drilling companies to do exploration work--takes more months. 8. Then hire some geologists to interpret the drill results and do extremely complex computer modeling--takes more months. 9. Then do another round of advertising to get the drill results out to the investing public, so as to be able to do another financing at a reasonable stock price. --takes more months. 10. Then, do a financing for more drilling and if they are lucky, they will eventually produce a report on a resource calculation after a few years of drilling. 11. Then, do another much bigger round of financing to construct a mine, and then build the mine... This all takes a very long time, and it does not even make much sense for large capital investments in mine construction unless and until it can be proven that $7/oz silver is here to stay--and we are not there yet.
No, I predict there will be no unexpected large silver supply coming from the mines anytime soon. A few existing small mines may re-open, and that's about it.
And where is the industry in the cycle right now? Mostly, people like me and you are still trying to identify some of the best prospects to buy, and so are the companies, as they are continuing to buy up silver properties. The silver companies are buying properties, and doing due diligence on them. Very few silver mines are being opened up and producing, and those that are, are adding very little production in comparison to the overall picture of mine supply. ------------------------
Now, enough arguing with Leonard Kaplan. I have been very wrong recently, too. I bought IMR.V at $3.68 Cdn/share, at about the absolute peak about a week after they announced drilling results, about a month ago. Since then, the stock has declined about 40% to as low as $2.18 Cdn/share! So, short term, so far, I have been very wrong. But the only thing I could do was buy more at this new low, and so I did. Even larger traders can buy about $50,000 worth of IMR.V right now (as of Thursday March 11) without moving up the price, and we can buy it while it's cheap. I think it went down because the typical mining stock cycle seems to be that people buy hard right after drilling results are announced. Then, they try and all sell at the peak, and assume the price has topped out, and that the opportunity for quick gains is gone, and so they leave. At the moment, the IMR.V stock price seems like it may be hurt by the market's perception of a lawsuit. I've looked at the news reports on this at mineweb.com, and I don't think the claims have merit, and I think they will be dismissed in court. Even when I was not an IMR.V shareholder, I did not think the claims had enough merit to report in the company profile, (I thought it was akin to mud-slinging), even though a few people asked me to mention it. But if a stock goes down due to investor concerns like these, this is exactly the kind of thing that creates good buying opportunities--when other people panic.
Now, I don't normally say which companies I'm buying, not even to my subscribers who get a look at my portfolio, but in the case of IMR.V, I don't mind, because the market cap is so large, it probably will not affect it if I "spill the beans". It's also a very well known company, and the price for the stock certainly did not move up when I first mentioned I owned shares in IMR.V a few weeks ago.
------------------------ I was quoted here (I don't know the writer, and found this by chance): http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8912850%255E462,00.html Excerpt: Jason Hommel, who produces a California-based weekly silver report for investor clients, wrote last week that silver stocks around the world were cheap because traders had ignored them while prices stayed low - and pure silver-only mining operations simply have not paid over the past 24 years.
General Commentary on Silver (slightly modified from last week):
As the New York Times, January 11, 1859, page 2 said--- "It is well known that the most colossal fortunes the world ever saw have been based on silver mines..." --quote found by Charles Savoie ---------------------------- For news on the New Hampshire Sound Money Bill, that proposes to use U.S. Treasury minted Silver Eagles and Gold Eagles as money see: http://www.nh-inews.org/ http://veritasradio.com/
Current status of the NH bill: The bill will live until the November elections. It'll have a different #, but we now have 6 months or so to get EVERYONE we need on board.
Thanks to you for your efforts. Now, the fund raising part begins so we can take it to the other states ! More on that later.
For now - V I C T O R Y is in sight !
---------------------------- The following dealers have, or regularly keep, over 100,000 oz. silver bullion in inventory: Minimum order: 100 oz. gold or 5000. oz. silver: (These are not places to call for small retail orders. For smaller orders, call Greg Westgaard, 1-800-328-1860 Ext. 8889, and tell him Jason sent you.)
American Coin and Vault 5523 North Wall Street Spokane, WA 99205 (509) 326-7512
California Numismatics (will accept small retail orders, as small as you want.) http://www.golddealer.com/ Richard Schwary 1-800-225-7531
Engles Coin Shop Minimum order: 100 oz. gold or 5000. oz. silver. (317) 875 0614 3520 Founders Lane, Indianapolis, IN 46268
Miles Franklin Ltd. http://www.milesfranklin.com St. Louis Park, Minn. Bob Sichel 1-800-814-3224 They believe their exclusive wholesaler is one of the top 5-6 wholesalers in size in N. America.
If there are any silver bullion dealers who have at least $500,000 worth of silver bullion in inventory on hand, please contact me jasonhommel@yahoo.com , and I will give you a FREE AD, like the ones above, in each week's silver stock report. ----------------------------
The easiest way to buy Comex Silver is through a precious metals brokerage firm such as HSBC bank, or http://www.fidelitrade.com/ that charges around 1% commission, plus delivery fees of about 2-3% depending on how far to ship. Or you could open a commodities trading account with any of the major brokerage houses who are most likely the bullion banks, and take delivery of your contract. There are several problems with this method. First, is the most obvious. These are the paper contracts that are controlling and suppressing the price, that I believe must one day default. Second, the bullion banks, since they are the ones who are likely short silver, will try their hardest to talk you out of placing an order. I have actually had several bullion banks turn me down, and not open a commodities trading account for me when they heard I was going to take delivery of several futures contracts! Their hypocritical excuses are amazing! They will say on one hand that their comissions are too low, and thus, it's not worth their time to open the account for you. And then, they will turn around and also say that you don't want to order silver bullion because the commissions will kill you! Unbelievable hypocrites those shorts! They will also try to scare you with "assay fees" that will be assessed if you try to return 1000 oz. bars to the exchange! But they won't tell you what those fees may cost! I've heard the assay fee is FREE if you use Brinks in LA! My 2004-2009 price predictions for gold and silver: 2004: $595/oz. gold, 50:1 ratio = $12/oz. silver 2005: $1011/oz. gold, 30:1 ratio = $34/oz. silver 2006: $1719/oz. gold, 10:1 ratio = $172/oz. silver 2007: $2923/oz. gold, 5:1 ratio = $ 585/oz. silver 2008: $4,969/oz. gold, 1:1 ratio = $4969/oz. silver 2009: $8448/oz. gold, 5:1 ratio = $1698/oz. silver 2010+: infinity dollars/oz. gold, infinity dollars/oz. silver.
I calculate the gold price rise by guessing that by 2009, M3 will have a "gold-value" like it did in 1980, which is to say, M3 was worth 2 Billion oz. of gold or less. It also assumes M3 will about triple in that time. These figures are conservative, because I see no reason that M3 should be valued more than the gold the U.S. actually holds, which is a mere 261 million oz., not billion. Today, the M3 value is $8870 billion / $425/oz. = 19 billion oz. of gold M3 could buy in theory. The silver:gold ratio is also a very, very vague guess, reflective of monetary demand chasing silver, which is more scarce than gold in above ground, refined form. I have no idea when the ratio of 15:1 will be exceeded, I'm just totally guessing. I suppose it could happen this year or next month for all I know. Of course my real price targets are infinity dollars per oz. for both gold and silver when all is said and done, I just don't know how long that will take, nor what year it will be. But my point in producing the price predictions is to show my bullishness for silver and gold.
---------------------------- Let me say how important it is for silver stock investors to own physical silver. There is $ 334 million dollars worth of silver in the registered category available for delivery at the COMEX. The 59 silver stocks on my list, for which I have information available to calculate market caps, add up to $7090 million as of Dec. 5th, 2003. If silver stock investors move 5% of their silver stock holding to physical silver in the next few weeks, that would be $350 million dollars worth of physical silver, and thus, the silver price would probably hit $10-20/oz. within a few days. And if silver stock investors try to move 20% into physical silver, the silver demand will end the COMEX manipulation tomorrow. We don't need anyone other than ourselves to make "the big breakout" happen at this point.
---------------------------- I wrote an article predicting that Silver Companies will buy silver, and urging Silver Companies to buy silver with their cash, to use silver as money, and sell silver as needed for expenses. See http://news.goldseek.com/GoldIsMoney/1069879327.php
That article is now having an effect! It is being discussed by several large "cash rich" silver companies, who are seriously considering the idea of holding their cash in the form of silver.
Note, there is virtually no monetary demand. Note, the 2002 mine production (585 mil oz.) is greatly exceeded by industrial, photo, and jewelry demand. (838 mil oz.). Note the chart on page five, "Supply from above-ground stocks".
The difference between mine supply and industrial demand was met by a combination of three factors: 1. Government selling, 2. Private selling, 3. Recycling
U.S. government selling is ending, as their stocks have run out, or will run out. This factor will reverse, because the U.S. government will need silver to continue their coin program, and/or need silver when they wake up and decide they need to replenish their strategic stockpile for domestic security. Silver is a war material. China's selling of silver will also likely turn into buying, as China will need silver for continued industrial development, or when they also lose faith in the U.S. dollar.
Private selling has been rapidly shrinking and is now almost ended, and should turn into buying, and become monetary demand. Monetary demand is everything in the silver supply / demand situation. It's not now. Now, it's nothing. But it will become something incredible, because the dollar is dying.
---------------------------- The following is a "must read": Ted Butler's best ever explanation of how silver is manipulated lower than it should be. http://www.investmentrarities.com/11-04-03.html
Ted correctly points out that a lower price creates excessive demand from consumers. However, Ted Butler does not point out, and neglects to mention, that a perpetually low price also creates lack of demand from investors who are "trend investors".
I think most silver experts over-analyze all the supply and demand factors of the silver market. No factor is more important than monetary demand. The force of photographic demand is like a light breeze compared to the hurricane or tornado of monetary demand. Monetary demand is everything. ----------------------------
Consider the gold market for a moment: Even short selling at the COMEX is nothing compared to monetary demand. The short position most certainly helps to depress the price of gold as the short position is growing larger. However, it adds fuel to the fire if there is short covering, and thus, it can boost the gold price later. But the commercial short position on the COMEX is next to nothing compared to the non-reported "over the counter" trading that is done that does not appear on the COMEX.
(Numbers in metric tonnes, 32,152 oz. per tonne.)
870 tonnes -- the paper position at the COMEX, 280,000 contracts for 100 oz. each. 5,000 tonnes -- the official number admitted that the central banks have sold. 15,000 tonnes -- the number GATA research shows that central banks have sold / or leased. 30,000 tonnes -- the number of official central bank gold, minus either the 5000 or 15,000 tonnes. 145,000 tonnes -- all the gold mined in the history of the world. 2,600 tonnes -- annual mine supply 4,000 tonnes -- annual demand
And all of that is nothing compared to the amount of dollars out there that exist that could buy gold. $20 trillion bonds, $9 trillion M3 = $29 Trillion. A mere 1% is $290 Billion, which, at $500 /oz. is a massive demand of 18,039 tonnes. Do you understand what that means? That means that far, far less than 1% of dollars, in either bonds or M3 can buy gold, because there simply is not that much gold available.
Long before 1% of U.S. paper dollars tries to buy gold, gold will be going up well over $1000/oz., and silver will be headed up over $50/oz.
---------------------------- To scare away investors--that is the entire reason gold and silver are manipulated in the first place. Only the trend investors can be deceived. The problem is that nearly everyone is a trend investor. So few investors understand value. If people knew the facts and used their brains, the available above-ground refined silver would be gone by tomorrow, and the price would be well over $20-50/oz. But don't trust me, follow the urls and check the numbers:
$33,000,000,000,000: World bond market yr end, '01: http://tinyurl.com/vr7u $20,200,000,000,000: U.S. bond market, yr end, '02: http://tinyurl.com/vr7g $11,700,000,000,000: U.S. stock market, yr end, '02: http://tinyurl.com/vr7g $11,038,000,000,000: U.S. annual GDP, 3rd q.'03 est. http://tinyurl.com/vr9y $8,879,000,000,000: M3 (money in the banks) Nov. '03 http://tinyurl.com/vra0 $7,001,312,247,818: US debt, 12-31-'03 http://tinyurl.com/bbp $2,212,000,000,000: U.S. annual budget 2003 $1,860,000,000,000: World gold, 145,000 T @ $400/oz. http://tinyurl.com/vrcc $554,995,097,146: U.S. budget deficit, ending fiscal year, 09/30/'03 http://tinyurl.com/bbp $274,000,000,000: Market Cap of Microsoft http://tinyurl.com/vrcn $180,000,000,000: debt of Ford Motor Co. http://tinyurl.com/vrd1 $104,400,000,000: US gold, 261 mil oz., @ $400/oz. http://tinyurl.com/vsr9 $100,000,000,000: all the world's gold stocks (estimated?) $7,090,000,000: all the world's silver stocks (59 of them on this list, as of Dec. 5th, 2003) $364,000,000: 52.5 mil oz. of registered COMEX silver @ $7.03 /oz. http://tinyurl.com/vrcw
So, what do all those stastistics mean?
For a while I was using M3 and dividing that by the US gold (261 million ounces), which implies the us dollar is 84 times more valuable than it should be, and that gold should hit $34,000/oz. after the fraud is destroyed. Today, I realize I need to add in the Bond market, because bonds are an asset class designed to siphon away and replace real money, which is to say, gold. This gives a price of about $111,111/oz. for gold. At $ 430/oz, this implies that US bonds and paper currency are 258 times more overvalued than gold.
Gold is overvalued relative to silver, because at current prices, it takes 59 ounces of silver to buy 1 ounce of gold. Historically, this ratio was 15 or 16. Given the silver shortage, this ratio will hit 10:1 or 5:1, or even 1:1. Thus, gold is perhaps 66 times more overvalued than silver.
Silver is overvalued relative to certain select silver stocks, perhaps by a factor of 3 or 10 or 20 to one.
Thus, if you multiply all those numbers, 258 x 59 x 10, You will see that bonds and currency are overvalued relative to select silver stocks by a factor of 152,000 to one. In other words, if silver stocks reach their true value, and paper currency disappears as it always does, then you might expect certain silver stocks to go up in relative value by a factor of 152,000 times more than they are worth today. By that time, you should definitely sell the silver stocks, and buy gold.
Can silver stocks really appreciate so much? Is there historical evidence for such a crazy thing? Yes.
See http://www.sterlingmining.com/old.html Excerpt: "CDE rose from penny stock status (.02 in 1967) to an NYSE-listed, $60 per share stock in 1980. In fact, the average share on the Spokane Stock Exchange rose in value nearly 16000% (yes, sixteen THOUSAND percent), as America could not get enough of silver and silver stocks."
CDE rose by a factor of 3000, or 300,000%, and by 1980, the metals boom was stopped short, and paper money's death was postponed. If paper money dies a death that lasts a generation world-wide, then even greater gains should have been expected.
For this reason, a wise silver stock investor should NEVER sell silver stocks for paper cash. A wise silver stock investor who looks for value would never sell a fairly valued silver stock for an overvalued silver stock that traded for hundreds of thousands of times more value than it should be. Likewise, there is no excuse for a silver stock investor to have any cash or money market or bonds in his portfolio for any reasonable length of time, except for when selling one silver stock to raise the cash for another silver stock, or for when you need to raise the cash to buy silver, or a private placement in another silver stock.
So, if you want some fairly liquid alternatives to cash, in case you don't know what other silver stocks to buy at the time, here they are: 1. Buy silver. You can hold silver in an IRA. 2. Buy CEF. Central Fund of Canada, ticker symbol CEF. It's gold/silver bullion fund. It has 50 oz. of silver for every 1 oz. of gold. The fund is fairly liquid, you can buy it as easily as any other stock, and is a good cash substitute. Unfortunately, given the current ratio, about 60% or more of the value is in gold. 3. Buy a fairly large cap silver stock, with fairly large volume, that is still fairly cheap on the list. SSRI is probably the best candidate.
----------------------------
The sheer stupidity of big money not recognizing the value of the world's remaining silver is utterly shocking to the rational mind. Clearly, bond holders are utterly deceived, and totally unaware of the situation. All my readers should understand and know that bonds were originally invented to suck the capital and money (gold and silver) away from the people. Bonds today are a paper promise to repay paper. What a con game! Are bond holders conservative and safe? No, they are fools! There is nothing safe about holding a paper promise to receive more paper when we have been experiencing hyperinflation for the past two and a half years!
---------------------------- And the fund investors who buy paper silver futures contracts instead of real silver are a very odd bunch of fools, for they should realize that nobody can deliver the 800+ million ounces of silver promised in the paper contracts and options that does not exist. It's like the paper longs are betting on the bank run happening, but they all are making sure they get at the end of the long line. Instead, they could go front and center, where there is an open window available where you can go and get physical silver, and nobody is there. Idiots! If you know a bank run is going to happen, and you are actually willing to bet on it, then go and withdraw your money before it is too late! Don't bet on it happening, which, if it does happen, your contracts will be defaulted on! Amazingly blind idiots. Wake up!
How bullish am I on silver? Here's an interesting way to put it: "59 times infinity" dollars per ounce.
I believe the dollar will eventually be destroyed, likely within my lifetime, hence the "infinity" part. I believe the ratio of silver to gold may be equal during a spike, when the market realizes that above-ground refined silver is more rare than gold. Thus, silver may outperform gold by a factor of 59 times better. Currently, the ratio is 59 ounces of silver can buy one ounce of gold or 59:1.
I may end up selling silver for gold, some at the 10:1 silver to gold ratio, some more at 5:1, and I would sell any silver remaining at a 1:1 ratio, that we may hit during a supply/demand crunch during a paper money collapse.
How we can tell if silver is leading gold, or if gold is leading silver? IE, which is going up more, faster than the other? The way you can tell is by looking at the ratio. If the silver:gold ratio is going up (say, from 60:1 to 80:1), then gold is moving up faster (because it takes 5 more silver oz. to buy an oz. of gold. If the ratio is going down (from 60:1 to 40:1), then silver is moving up faster. So, keep an eye on the ratio.
A good website that hosts posting boards for many of the smaller canadian stocks (that Yahoo! finance does not have boards for) is stockhouse.com Click on "Bullboards". ----------------------------
This is a list of primary silver stocks.
I count a company's ounces of gold as 10 oz of silver. Why? Because I have a very strong positive bias in favor of silver over gold.
Given my bias in favor of much, much higher silver prices, then, to me, the grades of silver are far less important than buying more oz. in the ground. More oz. in the ground at a lower cost is the most important consideration for me.
My method is simple. Cost per ounce in the ground. How much do you get (silver reserve totals), and how much does it cost (market cap)? The cost is the market cap divided by the silver reserve totals. Cheaper is better. Buy low, sell high.
Disclaimers, Warnings, and Advice: I have gathered the information below over the course of several months. I believe it is accurate to the best of my ability. I may have made mistakes. I probably did. I'm human. I have collected the information from public sources such as company web sites and public information found at yahoo.com to get the stock prices. This report in no way guarantees the accuracy of the information below, since the information may change at any time. The number of outstanding shares can change as a company engages in new share issues to raise more capital through private placements, or if outstanding warrants (and options) are exercised and converted into shares, or if shares are bought back. Shares can be consolidated, or split. The number of ounces of silver in the ground can also change, as these are often only estimates. The number can also change up or down, depending on drilling results.
This report is not investment advice. This report contains information that may or may not be up to date, and may be inaccurate. I urge you to contact the company and do your own research to verify the information contained in this report.
This report is not an offer to buy or sell any securities. I am not a broker. Only your broker can buy or sell securities for you.
I urge you to consult with your investment advisor to determine whether these kinds of investments are right for you.
I also caution you to be aware of your investment advisor's advice, they are sometimes paid to push things like mutual funds, bonds and other securities that may not be in your best interest to buy. Some investment houses are short physical metal, and thus, they may attempt to strongly discourage you from buying precious metal or precious metals investments. I believe that the propaganda machine in support of frauds such as bonds and the dollar is so strong, that they may even believe what they say when they give bad advice to avoid the safety and protection of precious metals. It is most likely that they simply do not understand the precious metals market as well as you do.
All total estimates of "ounces in the ground" can vary widely. There are "proven and probable reserves" which are the highest category of certainty which is obtained through many drill holes, and then at the least accurate, there are "inferred resources" which are hardest to estimate. Additionally, every miner always has "more silver properties that need to be explored, which probably contain more silver". For the purposes of this report, I have added all those numbers together. It is believed that all these "ounce in the ground" estimates can be profitably mined at $5-6 per ounce silver, or lower. Thus, I believe that when silver trades for $15/oz. or above, that all of these ounces can be mined at a substantial profit.
I may be wrong. (I probably make mistakes in every article, and there have been updates and corrections made each week, especially as prices change.)
Mining is a risky business. You need to be willing to sustain a total loss of your investment for various unforeseen accidents. Silver stock companies can do stupid things to shareholders such as take on debt, or issue more stock at too low prices which reduces the percentage of the company you may own (dilution). Yet, they need to issue shares to raise capital for drilling, and then an even bigger dilution to build a working mine. They may sell YOUR silver too cheaply, or worse, hedge the price of YOUR silver just as it begins to go up if they lock in a price which then proves to be too low if the dollar is destroyed. Mining is a risky business as estimates of assets in the ground can change. There is political risk and environmental risk. They can't franchise the business, are stuck in one location, are subject to government confiscation, or taxes, or union wage negotiations, and corporate looting.
Do your own research. Be responsible for your own investment decisions. Again, please, before investing in a mining company, call up the company, and speak either with the CEO or the Investor Relations contact person.
So, at the very least, check the company web site, read the annual reports, check my numbers, check my math, and email the company. That's what they are there for, to answer your questions, and to speak about the opportunity of the company. Don't trust everything you read over the internet. I am a biased source. I own silver mining stocks. And I'm not a broker, nor an investment advisor. I'm just a private investor trying to make sense of this crazy world, and sharing my information and thoughts on silver companies.
Surely, there are scammers in the mining industry in the past, and there will be scammers in the future. Remember the fraud of Bre-X. The new 43-101 compliance laws put in place after Bre-X will not prevent a "certified" geologist from lying if he feels lying will create a better payoff. The Bible warns, "trust no man", yet at the same time advises us to "cast our bread upon the waters", and to not issue "false allegations" against others. Physical gold and silver provide the "payment in full" as long as the coins or bars themselves are genuine and not fake.
This report may be copied, and transmitted by other people, and may become outdated by the time it reaches you.
I can't tell you how you should invest your money, of course. The reason is that I don't know how convinced you are of the silver bull market, nor do I know how soon you will be needing the money back, so I don't know how long you can wait to see results, nor do I know how much liquidity you need. Nor do I know the size of the money you have to invest. It is very hard to invest large quantities of money in a small market cap stock.
That being said, my investment strategy seems to be working for me, so far. And so, here is how I have valued the following silver companies to make my own investment decisions.
---------------------------- (Market cap is always converted to US dollars and denominated in US dollars because I divide by ounces of silver, which are also denominated in dollars)
The Market Cap is the usual tool to value a company. It is what the company "costs to buy" if you could buy the entire company, all the shares, at the latest share price. It is calculated by multiplying the share price, by the total number of shares that the company has issued. In reality, you could almost never buy an entire company at the price of the Market Cap, but only a small portion. Usually, even small buying pressure, such as trying to buy 1% of a company, can push up the price of a stock by up to 10-50% higher. In my reports, I list Market Cap in terms of millions of dollars as "$75 mil MC".
To calculate the Market Cap, I try to get and use the number of "fully diluted shares". A company creates shares when they sell them to investors in what are called "private placements", or "initial public offerings" (IPO). A private placement is done usually before there is ever an IPO. These usually consist of shares and warrants, sold for cash that the company will need to grow and expand.
The "outstanding shares" is the number of shares that exist out there if you count them all, and it does not count the warrants, which are like options. The investor can "exercise the warrants" which is a right, but not an obligation, to buy more shares from the company at the set price of the warrant.
If the company does well, and the stock price moves up, all the warrants will be, or should be, exercised and converted into shares, especially if they become "in the money", and the warrants are significantly cheaper than the stock price.
Now, "fully diluted shares" is the total number of shares, plus the warrants, counting warrants as if they were all exercised and became fully trading shares. I think "fully diluted shares" is a better number to use to calculate market cap than by using "outstanding shares" as most do.
Finally, I go beyond valuing a company based on Market Cap alone; instead, I value a company by dividing the Market Cap by the assets of the company, which are usually the silver reserves in the ground. Thus, I can get a sense of what you are getting for what you are paying. And then, I denominate the whole thing in terms of silver, and not dollars, to get a more constant measure.
---------------------------- (These first three companies, BHP, GMBXF.PK, and BVN produce a lot of silver, but are way to expensive to buy for the silver exposure for your portfolio.)
BHP Billiton Ltd (BHP) http://www.bhpbilliton.com/ --'produces 40 mil oz. silver annually from one mine' Additional comments: unfortunately, BHP has a 53 Billion market cap, so we can't buy BHP for the silver exposure. IE, $53 Billion / oh, say, 1000 million?????= $53/oz.
Dear BHP: By all means, keep mining the silver if you want the silver exposure, and want to be in the silver business. But don't sell the silver. Keep it. Let the profits of your entire company accrue as an increasing physical supply of physical silver. In fact, do as Buffett did, and buy more silver if you can. It would be infinitely easier for you to buy silver from yourself than it would be to buy 40 million ounces of silver from the COMEX, which, today, might be impossible.
Grupo Mexico SA de CV (GMBXF.PK) http://www.gmexico.com/indexi.html 651,646,640 shares (2002 annual report) @ $4.00/share $2606 mil MC "Grupo Mexico ranks as the world's third largest copper producer (copper at $1.24), fourth largest producer of silver and fifth largest producer of zinc." They produced 28.2 million oz. of silver, worth $129 million, in 2002. (P. 5, annual report.) Total value of produced metals: $2527 milllion. (but the company lost money in 2002). They mainly produce copper, 900,000 tons worth $1.5 billion in 2002. Thus, silver, at 2002 prices, is only 5% of their production value. Silver is a by-product for them, not a main product. I don't have silver reserve figures, nor do I see any need to find them or add them, since they are not a primary silver producer, and I don't think anybody would be buying them for the "silver exposure". If we assume 280 mil oz. of silver (ten years reserve for production), then we still don't have anything exciting for the silver alone. $2085 mil MC / 280 = $7.45/oz. cost.
Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (BVN) Minas Buenaventura NYSE:BVN - Peru´s largest publicly traded precious metals company --produces over 10Moz of silver per year --looks way too expensive for the silver alone: 3.6 Billion market cap. -------------- -------------- --------------
HL (HECLA MINING CO) http://hecla-mining.com/ hmc-info@hecla-mining.com (208) 769-4100 110 mil shares @ $7.63/share $839 million Market Cap (MC) near zero debt, cash: $123 mil (Feb., 2004) (est. 2003 production 9 mil oz. silver) (the La Camorra gold mine, 412,000 oz gold.) ... (x 350/5 = 28 mil silver equivalent oz.) San Sebastian silver mine, (proven & probably reserves) 8.7 mil (produced 3 mil) the Greens Creek silver mine (proven & probably reserves) 31 mil (produced 3 mil) Hecla owns just under 30% of it! the Lucky Friday mine (proven & probably reserves) 14 mil. (produced 2 mil) Total silver = 32 million oz. Plus 412,000 oz. gold x 10 = 4.1 mil oz silver equiv. Total silver equiv. reserves = 36 mil oz. (Since my method values silver in the ground as a key asset, I should also value the cash as a "silver asset" which will be "marked to market" if silver goes up, and cash goes down. If HL is smart, they should be able to turn the cash into increased "silver exposure" either through buying silver properties, silver equities, or physical silver.) ($123 million cash / $7.03/oz = 17.5 mil "silver equiv" oz.) 18 + 36 = 54 mil oz. $839 mil MC / 54 mil "oz." = $15.54/oz. You get "approx" .45 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: HL has more oz. than listed in the "proven & probable" category used in this calculation. Vein mining makes reserve calculations difficult, and HL has rarely had more than about a 3-4 year picture of reserves ahead of them in 100 years of production.
I have been counting their papar cash as if it could be silver, but it still does not help boost their valuation much. They are still the most expensive company on the list in terms of cost per oz. of silver in the ground. But if HL bought 18 mil oz. of physical silver, they might end the silver manipulation, and significantly boost their own profitability.
Earth to Hecla: Is silver useful as money, or not? It's a simple question, and your actions speak volumes.
Some have noted that HL stock is now lagging the silver price. Sometimes, they use this as an indicator that the silver price might not continue upwards. I think that's hogwash. I think HL stock is lagging because it is the most expensive silver stock on my list that I know of, the most expensive by far, whether you value by PE ratio, or by resources in the ground. Therefore, the lagging share price for HL may reflect not an anticipation that silver is headed down, but rather, the realization among market participants that HL is overvalued relative to all other silver stocks. After all, that's what that means when HL was downgraded from Sector Perform to Sector Underperform, which happened on Jan 6th by CIBC, which was about the peak on the HL price chart.
Under-priced silver stocks continue to outperform in a shocking way, as share prices of silver juniors skyrocket.
ABX (Barrick) http://www.barrick.com/ 535 million shares @ $21.29/share $11,390 million Market Cap 5.5 million oz. / year gold production. --production hedged out for 3 years, or about 18 million oz. (most notorious hedger of the industry, the "leader") --price of hedges locked in near the market lows, perhaps $340/oz. on average, nobody knows for sure, because Barrick will not say --reportedly, Barrick is trying to "unhedge". --reportedly, they plan to deliver 1/3 of production to hedges, which means they will be hedge free in about 10 years. --the size of the hedge, 18 mil oz. gold, at $400/oz., would be valued at $7.2 billion dollars. At $500/oz, it's $9 billion. --but they claim to be "debt free", if you ignore the gold they owe for delivery, at locked in, low prices. (only true if gold is not money) --cash "rich" of about $1 billion dollars. Silver Reserves reported to be 850 million ounces! Gold Reserves reported to be 86 million oz. (x 10 = 860 mil oz. + 850 silver = 1710 mil oz. "silver equiv." $11,390 million Market Cap / 1710 mil oz. = $6.66/oz. silver You get "approx" 1.05 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Over the years, Barrick has hedged their production, which many claim has helped to depress the price of gold and silver, by artificially adding to supply. (Barrick's promises becoming the extra supply.) The declining price of the precious metals has put other miners out of business, which Barrick has acquired at low prices. If Barrick goes bankrupt due to their hedges, and rising gold and silver prices, then perhaps Barrick's many properties will, once again, be sold at distressed prices.
Barrick boasts a "cash cost" of $189/oz., for gold for 2003, yet their cash has dropped from $2 billion down to $1 billion. It could be due to the hedging, locking in precious metals prices at low prices, and/or hedge covering that explains the monetary loss in the light of their low cash costs.
CDE (COEUR D'ALENE) http://www.coeur.com coeurir@coeur.com(208) 769-8155 or (800) 624-2824 210 mil shares (Issued 32 mil new shares late Oct. 2003) @ $7.04/share $1478 mil MC cash $38 mil (I think this is an outdated cash figure) San Bartolome (Bolivia) reserves 146 mil silver Silver Valley Silver reserves 32 mil silver Rochester reserves 43 mil silver Cerro Bayo reserves 3.7 mil silver Total: 224.7 mil silver (to Produce 14.6 mil oz. silver in 2003) $1478 mil MC / 224.7 mil oz = $6.58/oz. You get "approx" 1.1 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
The first week of January, CDE announced a deal for $160 million in convertable bonds! Beware of debt!
CDE continued to lose money in third quarter 2003, a loss of 10 cents/share, and they realized low prices for silver sales, $4.77. I believe they have hedged their gold production at low prices.
CDE looks like they owe both gold and dollars. A double debt warning for CDE investors!
Again, their listing of ounces is in the "reserves" category (more certain) not the "resources" category, which is less certain. They may have "resources" but like HL and Industrias Penoles, they give no estimates.
I got an email this week complaining to me that I don't understand CDE's exploration potential. True, I probably don't. I just don't see why I should even bother to look, considering their high market cap. Let's put it this way... CDE would need to have an exploration potential to get at least 20 oz of silver per oz. of silver's worth of market cap to grab my attention. For CDE, this means that at 211 mil oz of silver value in market cap, they would need 20 times that in silver exploration potential, which is 4 billion oz. To be honest, I don't think they have that kind of exploration potential, so their valuation does not attract me. And if they did have the potential to find 4 billion oz. of silver, I think we would all know about it, because with CDE's cash, they'd have enough to advertise it to all of us, and it would not be a secret. Honestly, I think the man was just upset because I'm not ravingly bullish on the silver stock he owns.
IPOAF.PK (INDUSTL PENOLES) http://www.penoles.com.mx 397.5 mil shares outstanding (2002 annual, unchanged since 2001) @ $4.45/share $1,769 mil MC 419 proven and probable reserves of silver (from 2002 annual report on website) $1,769 mil MC / 419 oz. silver = $4.22/oz. You get "approx" 1.66 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Industrias Penoles is the world's top producer of refined silver. They actually derrive more revenue from silver than any other source. But they lost money in 2002.
The word late Feb. is that Penoles has hedged several year's worth of silver, that is, they have locked in contracts at set prices. Set when prices were lower. How much lower, and at what price, is anyone's guess. As reported at lemetropolecafe.com, "We know the market is so tight even the world’s largest silver producer, Mexico’s Penolas, wasn’t thrilled about supplying 1 million ounces for a special project with ECU Silver, led by their extremely able CEO Michel Roy."
78.5 million oz. silver refined by the metals division in 2002, and 1 mil oz. gold. They probably refine almost all the silver that comes out of Mexico. They probably produce about 34 mil oz. of silver from their mines annually, and they have expansion plans.
I've heard this stock is tightly held, most is family owned.
Their oz. numbers are "proven & probable reserves", which is much more certain than most of the others which are mostly "inferred and indicated resources." They undoubtedly have "inferred and indicated resources" in addition to the "proven & probable reserves," I just could not find any info on that at the website or in the annual report.
SIL (APEX SILVER) http://www.apexsilver.com/ information@apexsilver.com (303) 839-5060 45,023,760 ordinary shares outstanding. (Jan 30th press release) @ $21.58/share $971 mil MC cash on hand: $205.6 million after Jan 30th share offering. San Cristobal (Bolivia) (proven & probably reserves) 454 mil silver (forecast capital costs for construction to total approximately $435 million) (Produced zero silver in 2002) 7.8 billion pounds of zinc, and 2.9 billion pounds of lead $971 mil MC / 454 mil oz = $2.14/oz. You get "approx" 3.29 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Apex is now the most cash rich silver stock on the list. Over $200 million! Amazing. Their plan, as they have stated all along, is to wait until higher silver and zinc prices to develop their deposit. I wonder if they will be smart, and hold their "cash" in the form of silver bullion while they wait for silver bullion to go up in price? Seems so basic even a child could understand it. One key problem standing in the wayis that there are position limits on paper longs, and thus, APEX could not probably not buy that much silver bullion even if they wanted to. Ironic, isn't it? It is the most natural and sensical thing for Apex to buy silver while they wait for higher silver prices, and doing so would push up the price, but they likely will not act, and almost cannot act due to the problem of scales of size. This, to me, is so bizzare, I cannnot fathom it. I think I understand a lot, but this.... it is simply mind boggling. It's the result of a system so out of balance, it's insane, and the rational mind has no answer for the bizzare things we see today.
Look, COMEX is the last place on earth to buy silver now, in any really big size. Reports are coming in from all over that there is no bullion available anywhere.
My advice to Apex would be to buy every bit of silver they can get. Even hold out a sign, put up a website, hire people to take the orders, and start buying silver, in all forms, at 10% and even 15% above the spot price. Just make yourself become the "market maker" and start buying silver from all over like a sponge soaking up water. Let the silver find you! In the long run, a 10-15% commission is nothing when the trade is this good. There may be position limits at the COMEX, but it's not illegal to offer to pay what you are willing to pay to the free market. Forget the COMEX, and make your own market!
Apex silver primarily has institutional investors.
Apex has a lot of zinc. That's an added bonus that is not factored in to my method of valuation. Zinc prices have been heading up soon, so that's another bonus. Plenty of zinc is especially good if zinc is moving up in price. Zinc is now up to $.51/lb., from a low of about $.35/lb. For zinc prices, see http://www.metalprices.com
And, they are not mining now, but are waiting for higher silver prices. That's also a plus. The management also seems to understand that silver will move upwards a lot. Another plus. Finally, George Soros, Billionaire, owns a bit of this one, just under 10% I read recently. That's another plus, in general, for the silver market if Billionaires are paying attention to it. There are several other zinc / silver plays on this list that investors might also consider: CZN.TO, EXR.V, MMGG.OB (I own all three of these, but not SIL.)
Clifton has a complex JV agreement with Dumont Nickel. In sum, here is what Keith Moeller VP, Clifton Mining Company wrote to me: "If Dumont produces a positive feasibility study on an individual property piece, then they gain a 50% interest in that piece alone, not in the rest of the property. If they spend more than 5 million dollars (US) on any one piece and they produce a positive feasibility study on that piece, then they will gain a 60% interest in that one piece of property, not in the rest. If they stop at any time or fail to produce a positive feasibility, then they will gain no interest in any of our property. Right now we have around 7 different pieces of the property that have "Stand Alone" mine potential. If Dumont stakes or purchases any property within five miles of the joint venture property, then we automatically receive a 50% interest in that property."
My problem is how to quantify that. First, there is the range of potential silver resources. Second, there is the range of potential ownership, which is highly variable, and not subject to the entire property, nor necessarily subject to spending by Dumont, but subject mostly to Dumont doing a positive feasibility study on each of many properties . At the extreme ranges, the values are: 40% to 100% of 105 = 42 - 105 million oz. 40% to 100% of 1000 = 400 - 1000 mil oz. "exploration potential" $86 mil MC / 42 mil oz. = $2.05/oz. $86 mil MC / 1000 mil oz. = $.09/oz. You get "approx" 3.42 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver. Exploration Potential: 78
Additional comments: Note the "exploration potential" is very large.
Clifton has 25% ownership of a biotech firm that makes a colloidal silver. The biotech firm has a patent on a "super" colloidal silver solution made with 10,000 volts that adds oxygen that gives it more powerful antibacterial properties, and is safer since it uses less silver, which would prevent "blue skin" argyria. Normal colloidal silver that you can make at home with 30 volts works to kill bacteria by disrupting the oxygen metabolism of the cell wall, killing bacteria with oxygen. The market for safe antibiotics is in the multi Billions of dollars.
ECU.V ECUXF.PK (ECU SILVER MINI) http://www.ecu.qc.ca/indexen.html ecu@ecu.qc.ca (819) 797-1210 fully diluted shares = 103.3 million (6 January 2003) @ $.59/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.44 $45.7 mil MC http://www.ecu.qc.ca/reservesen.html See the url above for the numbers from the company's website, which are: Proven & Probable & Possible: 7.6 mil oz silver, 93,000 gold. = 8.5 million "silver equiv" using my method of counting gold as 10:1 "Potential" total: 21.2 mil oz silver, 221,000 oz. gold. According to my valuation method, that's 2.2 mil oz. of "silver equiv" for the gold, plus the 21.2 mil oz. silver, for a total of 23.4 mil oz. Exploration potential: From http://www.ecu.qc.ca/english/pdf/Annual_rep.pdf page 6 (or 8), the company says: "Exploration will mainly be targeted to verify the silver-bearing potential of certain properties, in line with the objective of increasing our reserves from 37 million to 100 million silver-equivalent ounces." (note, the 100 mil oz. "silver equiv" spoken of by the company undoubtedly counts gold as silver at the normal ratio, not my 10:1 ratio. Therefore, my 23.4 mil oz. re-calculation is 63% of their 37 mil oz. number, and so, likewise will I count 63% of their 100 mil oz. target) ECU.V is also exploring other gold properties. $45.7 mil MC / 23.4 mil oz. silver equiv. = $1.95/oz. $45.7 mil MC / 63 mil oz. silver equiv. = $.60/oz. You get "approx" 3.60 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration potential = 9.7
MFN MFL.TO (MINEFINDERS) http://www.minefinders.com/ Shares Fully Diluted 34.1 mil (Late 2003?) @ $9.48/share $323 mil MC Cash on hand, Fully Diluted: C$34 million "over 3.5 mil ounces of gold resource and 160 mil ounces of silver" --Dec. '03 silver conversion = 3.5 x 10 = 35 mil + 160 mil oz. silver = 195 mil oz. silver At 70:1 ratio, 3.5 x 70 = 245 "silver equiv" of gold, and 160 mil of silver = 405. 245/405 = 61% of the mineral value is in the gold, 39% silver. At 10:1 ratio, 35/195 = 18% of the mineral value is in the gold, 82% silver. "In addition to the resources already drilled, Minefinders controls a strong portfolio of properties in Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico which have the potential to host new multi-million ounce discoveries over the next few years." $323 mil MC / 195 mil oz. = $1.66/oz. You get "approx" 4.24 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver.
Additional Comments: At 70:1 silver to gold ratio, over half of MFN is in gold, so consider this a significant gold bonus. MFN also now lists their resource figures on their website's main page. I'm sure investors appreciate this. I do.
Additional comments: A one property company. The Carmen gold-silver deposit on their Monterde property in the Sierra Madre belt of Chihuahua State, Mexico. Significant exploration potential.
It was reported by a press release that 16%-17% of KBR.V is owned by silver bull Jim Puplava of http://www.financialsense.com, which I think is a rather solid endorsement of the company.
This $35 million acquisition is a great deal for PAAS, and a minor help for PAAS shareholders. According to the press release above, the silver mine produced 3.5 million ounces of silver a year, at a cash cost of $3/oz., which is great! At $6.50/oz, that's $3.5 x 3.5 mil oz. = $12.25 million per year profit after cash costs! That gives the acquisition a P/E ratio for the mine's acquisiton cost of under 3! What a deal!
Unfortunately, PAAS shareholders are paying way above that when they buy the stock today. After this acquisition, PAAS should have a "2004 silver production forecast to 13 million ounces from 10.1 million ounces and will reduce forecast cash costs to below $ 3.50/oz, bringing anticipated total costs to less than $4/oz for the year." Now, at $6.50/oz, that's $2.5 x 13 mil oz. = $32.5 million per year profit, after cash costs. That gives a P/E ratio for PAAS of about $1000 / $32 = 31. Therefore, considering the two P/E ratios, 31 compared to under 3, PAAS stock is over ten times overvalued compared to other silver mining opportunities that exist in the market, such as the property they just purchased.
I believe that PAAS may well be a good investment at these prices. But there are likely much better investments out there. For example, if you think PAAS is going to be a ten bagger from here, because it is a silver company and you are positive on silver, then why keep your money in PAAS? Instead, you should aim to buy the types of deals that PAAS just bought, which might be like a 100 bagger from here while PAAS might only be a ten bagger.
I believe PAAS is one of two silver companies on the list today that is significantly in debt (the other is now CDE).
What if your silver company decides to lock in silver prices at $8, and hedge years of production to "protect the shareholders and provide exposure to the high $8/oz. price," only to watch silver prices head past $25 and past $50/oz? Your stock could get wiped out in bankruptcy, and your investment could go to zero value! This is the danger of stocks! Your investment is subject to the whims of management!
WARNING: PAAS says at their website that they will hedge silver, in order to finance mine construction. http://panamericansilver.com/s/CorporateProfile.asp "Pan American is loath to give away the upside on any of its silver production, especially at current low metal prices, and will do so only to the minimum extent required as a condition of prudent mine financing."
My opinion is that it is NEVER prudent to go into debt, or lock in silver prices to finance a mine. If PAAS cannot raise capital on the markets by issuing shares, then they should not be financing new mine construction. If the market will not support new mine construction, then the market does not need more silver. PAAS and CDE should learn to trust the free market process, and avoid debt.
GRS GAM.TO (GAMMON LAKE) http://www.gammonlake.com/ gammonl@sprint.ca (902) 468-0614 Fully Diluted 58.7 mil shares (Nov 30, 2003) +3.33 mil special warrant financing (Feb 27th, 2004) Fully Diluted: 62 mil shares (Feb 27th, 2004) @ $5.29/share $328 mil MC Total Ocampo Inferred: 1,124,000 oz. gold, 50,438,000 oz. silver Silver equiv = 11.24 mil oz. + 50.44 mil oz. = 62 mil oz. Total Ocampo Measured & Indicated 2,207,800 oz. gold, 108,438,000 oz. silver Silver equiv = 22 mil oz. + 108 mil oz. = 130 mil oz. Total Ocampo Measured & Indicated plus Inferred = 182 mil oz. Gammon owns 26.3% of Mexgold, MGR Since Mexgold owns 185 mil oz. of "target exploration potential", 26.3% of that is 48.6 mil oz. 182 + 49 = 231 mil oz. $328 mil MC / 231 mil oz.= $1.42/oz. You get "approx" 4.95 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. **Note** most of Mexgold's oz. that are added in are an "exploration target" not yet "inferred resources".
Additional comments: Drill results released Jan 7th: http://biz.yahoo.com/cnw/040107/gammon_lk_drill_rslts_1.html At current prices of a 64:1 silver:gold ratio at $425/oz gold and $6.60/oz silver, the resources are worth $1048 million of silver, and $1411 million worth of gold. Cash cost is $85/oz. Life of mine is 7 years.
WTZ WTC.TO (WESTERN SILVER) http://www.westernsilvercorp.com (formerly western copper) --And copper prices are headed up, too, (copper at $1.30) now. info@westernsilvercorp.com Jay Oness Toll Free: 1-888-456-1112 40.1 mil fully diluted (After Dec. 16th 2003 financing) @ $7.35/share $295 mil MC (not actively mining) $14 million Cdn in cash in the till (2 mil + 12 mil financing) no debt From the "SNC Lavalin Resource Calculation" March, 2003. Indicated 158.8 mil oz. silver Inferred 54.6 mil oz. silver Total 213.4 oz. silver. Total 1.94 oz. gold x 10 (at 10:1) = 19.4 silver equiv. The capital cost to get the mine going is estimated to be US $148 million Penasquito silver/gold. 213 mil oz silver. just over 2 mil oz. gold. from Chile/Colrado zone. Brechia zone will double the numbers, and infilling inferred to indicated: probably in Jan will have 500 mil oz. silver, 5 mil oz gold. Exploration potential: 500 mil oz. silver, 5 mil oz. gold, from http://www.mips1.net/mgn03.nsf/UNID/SBAY-5SUBN6 Two other zones that could each duplicate the success of each of the other two. So up to a Billion... oz. of silver as "exploration potential"! Feasibility: 2006-7 production timeline. $295 mil MC / 233 oz. = $1.26/oz. $295 mil MC / 1000 oz. = $.30/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 5.58 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential = 24
Additional comments: Western Silver was formerly Western Copper... Copper now at $1.35/lb!
Note the capital cost to get the mining started: $148 million dollars. WTZ also has the following other metal resources: 3.73 billion pounds of zinc x .50/lb = $1865 million 673 million pounds of copper x $1.30/lb = $874 million 1.3 billion pounds of lead x .40/lb = $520 million
* CZN.TO CZICF.PK (CDN ZINC) (I own shares) http://www.canadianzinc.com/ czn@canadianzinc.com 1-866-688-2001 67.3 mil shares fully diluted as of Dec., 2003 (as stated in the proxy, p.8) 80.2 fully diluted shares as of Feb 2, 2003 @ $1.40/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.05 US $84.2 mil MC $13.5 million cash, Cdn, no debt. not mining ($20 mil needed to finish & start the mine) ($100 mil worth of mining infrastructure in place!) ~70 mil oz. (IN ZONE 3 only!! of 12 zones! This company seems to be greatly under-reporting their silver reserves. Their 18 year mine plan consists of zone 3 only, but there are 12 mineralized zones on the property.) Really, perhaps well over 100 mil oz. silver. $84.2 mil MC / 70 mil oz. = $1.20/oz. You get "approx" 5.84 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: The additional cash from the recent private placements means that CZN will now be able to drill and explore more of their property. CZN likely has much more silver in the ground, and has good profit potential.
I would like the company to privide an estimate of the silver on the rest of their properties, but their mine plan consisted only of zone 3 at the moment. The rest must remain "exploration potential" for now.
To get the mine up and running, they might be able to pay back such debt within 2 years, but I would hope they would avoid debt, and raise the capital as the share price begins to approach US $2/share or more, and do a final public offering between US $2-4/share.
I note several very, very positive things about this company.
1. This was the mining operation set up by the Hunt brothers, the major silver investors in the silver spike to $50/oz. in 1980 who were bankrupted by their own debts and margin calls as a result of the COMEX rule changes and silver short sale manipulation. The Hunts spent $50 million building infrastructure to build the mine. They were 90% complete when bankruptcy hit. The value of those buildings is now $100 million, and the mine only needs about $20 million (CAN) ($15 mil US) to get the mine up and running. That's much cheaper than other cost estimates of other operations. 2. The 70 million oz. of silver estimate is for zone 3 only. But there are 12 zones on the property. The zone 3 estimate is for a 10 year mine plan that involves mining zone 3 at current metals prices. 3. High Grade ores: 12% zinc/ton; = 240 lbs. zinc/ton x 50 cents/lb. = $120/ton for the zinc. 10.1% lead/ton = 202 lbs. lead/ton x 40 cents/lb. = $80/ton for the lead. 6 oz. silver/ton x $6.95/oz. = $42/ton for the silver. 0.4% copper/ton = 8 lbs. copper/ton x 1.30 cents/lb. = $10/ton for the copper. Total: $249/ton! (Prices have been moving up!) Prices accurate as of Mid Feb., 2004 4. My method of valuation: I'm really counting only the silver, not the base metals in my "oz in the ground" valuation. So consider a significant "zinc bonus", and "lead bonus". 5. Zinc and base metals prices are moving up strong. 50 cents/lb. for zinc! Check http://www.metalprices.com/ for updates.
I own shares of CZN.TO
FSR.TO FSLVF.PK (FIRST SILVER) http://www.firstsilver.com/ info@firstsilver.com (604) 602-9973 or (888) 377-6676 38.6 mil shares fully diluted (Jan 2004) @ $1.74/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.30 US $50 mil MC From the Company's main page at their url: "As at December 31, 2001, First Silver's mineable reserves were 12 million ounces of silver and inferred resources totaled 30 million ounces of silver. The mine is developing a 1000 plus meter exploration drift to upgrade currently identified inferred resources to mineable ore reserves and to discover new reserves." 12 + 30 = 42 mil oz. $50 mil MC / 42 mil oz. = $1.20/oz. You get "approx" 5.86 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: This is a high grade, producing miner. The high grades, about 300g/ton, are a plus. They are also actively exploring, another plus.
3rd quarter, 2003, FSR.TO produced 389,154 oz. silver, and 604 oz. gold. and revenue was $2.09 million for the 3rd quarter. They produced at a loss, (a penny per share). They are unhedged, and remain committed to remaining unhedged.
SSRI (SILVER STD RSC) http://www.silver-standard.com/ paull@silverstandard.com (604) 689-3856 or (888) 338-0046 45.4 mil shares (or more), Jan 19th, 2004 (after recent PP) @ $16.17/share $734 mil MC debt free, cash: $Cdn 60 mil not mining or producing 15 silver properties measured and indicated resources totaling 300.4 million ounces of silver plus inferred resources totaling 366 million ounces of silver = 666 mil oz. 2.2 mil oz. gold. Silver equiv = 22 mil oz. silver. (22+666=688 mil oz.) $734 mil MC / 688 mil oz. = $1.07/oz. You get "approx" 6.59 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
SSRI really is the "silver standard". SSRI has the largest market cap this far down the list, which makes it a more attractive target for people with larger amounts of money to invest.
SSRI continues to add to reserves, either through exploring, or through acquisitions. This company seems to really understand the silver story, and helped to educate me as an investor.
I attended a two hour SSRI presentation after the Gold show in SF in late November. For the most part, their properties are very well drilled, and they have a fairly solid idea on how much silver oz. in the ground they have. They started their plan to acquire silver properties and become a "silver company" in about 1993, which explains why they have such a large market cap, and so many good properties with so many ounces of silver.
Some investors like SSRI because of the diversification --SSRI owns many silver properties. I say you can get a similar kind of diversification by owning stock in many silver companies.
* TM.V TUMIF.OB (TUMI RSCS) (TUY Frankfurt Exchange) (I own shares) http://www.tumiresources.com nicolaas@attglobal.net Nick Nicolaas IR (604) 657 4058 23.7 fully diluted shares (Dec. 2003) @ $1.46/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.09 US $26 mil MC 20 mil oz resource up to 50 million oz. silver potential but needs to be explored and drilled. 500,000 gold resource x 10 = 5 mil oz. silver equiv. Debt free, 2 projects in Mexico. Raised $2.7 million Nov. 14, 2003 $26 mil MC / 25 mil oz. = $1.04/oz. ***I'm using this number*** $26 mil MC / 50 mil oz. = $.52/oz. (exploration potential) You get "approx" 6.77 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential: 14 (likely plus more after bonanza silver discovery late November, 2003.)
Additional comments: Tumi soared in late November, after the company announced a bonanza grade silver discovery after drilling. This should significantly increase the numbers for their "exploration potential", but no word yet on the increase. It takes time for the geologists to estimate all of that, but investors went crazy over it immediately.
Tumi is focused on becoming a "premiere junior silver explorer." It's good to see the focus is in the right metal. Doing active drilling to prove up their projects and increase "resources". Nick Nicolaas really understands the silver story, beliving silver has much greater appreciation potential than gold.
Look at: Tinka TK.V (tumi's sister company) A pretty big gold/copper property in Peru (Tumi owns 30% of it)... That could mean significantly increased assets for Tumi.
I own shares of TM.V. ORM.V OREXF.PK (OREMEX RES) http://www.oremex.com/s/Home.asp info@oremex.com Fully Diluted: 24,012,928 @ $1.10/share x .75 US/Cdn = $.825 US $20 mil MC Have $5 million cash in the bank as of Dec. 2003. holds the right to acquire a 100% interest in six mineral properties in Mexico. Oremex will focus on the exploration and development of the Tejamen Silver Property and the San Lucas Silver Property. They are hoping to explore for up to 100 mil oz. silver by drilling over the next year. --Experienced team of geologists and managment that have put other properties into production: Anthony R. Harvey, Chariman, has put 14 properties into production in his 40 year career. http://www.oremex.com/s/TejamenSilver.asp?ReportID=68653 for an inferred resource of 8.4 million metric tons at a grade of 89 g/t Silver (2.86 opt) and 0.2g/t Gold (0.006 opt). 2.86 x 8.4 = 24 mil oz. silver at Tejamen (one of six properties) $20 mil MC / 24 mil oz. = $.83/oz. $20 mil MC / 100 mil oz. = $.20/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 8.47 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential: 35
MGR.V MGRSF.PK (MEXGOLD RSCS) http://www.mexgold.com/ 18.7 mil shares outstanding + 22.5 mil unit financing (x 1.5) (1 unit = 1 share and 1/2 warrant at $2.50 Cdn) 52.45 mil fully diluted @ $3.91/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $2.93 US $154 mil MC inferred resource: 45 mil oz. silver + 1 mil oz gold. 1 mil oz. gold = + 10 mil oz. silver equiv "The estimate does not address significant additional mineralized structures known to be present on the property, or the potential for large strike extensions of known high-grade zones." February Financing was for the El Cubo Gold-Silver Mine is located in the Guanajuato gold-silver district in the Republic of Mexico. Historical reports cite district production at 1.2 billion ounces of silver and over 4 million ounces of gold. With capital spending and upgrades, and expect to produce up to 100,000 oz. gold equiv/year at $190/oz. At $400/oz, that may mean $210/oz. net profit, or $21 million positive cash flow/year, and yet, the purchase price was $21.5 million. Seems like they bought a mine, at a price, with a profit potential, of a P/E ratio of 1. Target to expand the El Cubo project resource to over 2 million ounces of gold equivalent. Given that historic production was 300 oz. of silver for each 1 oz. of gold, I think it's odd that they speak in terms of "gold equivalent". Why not emphasize the silver??? Converting their target of gold back to silver, at their ratio of 65:1, gives 130 mil oz. "silver equivalent". 55 + 130 = 185 "exploration potential" $154 mil MC / 185 mil oz. = $.83/oz. You have an "exploration potential target" of 8.45 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: In spite of the recent very large financing, which nearly trippled the market cap of the company with a very large acquisition, the stock price barly moved.
Gammon Lake is a large shareholder, 26.3%.
Mexgold announced bonanza grade discovery on Jan 13th, 11 kilos per ton silver, over 2 meters. Part of a section of "25.5-metres grading 1.16 grams per tonne gold and 961 grams per tonne silver." The stock moved up strongly mid week, most likely in response to the news.
* SRLM.PK ( STERLING MINING) (I own shares) http://www.sterlingmining.com/ RDemotte@aol.com Ray DeMotte 208/676-0599 just under 10 mil shares fully diluted (early Jan. 2004) @ $12.50/share $125 mil MC ~185 mil oz. reserves + resource, Sunshine alone Quote from: http://www.sterlingmining.com/jun112003.html "The prior operator last estimated the mine reserves at 26.75 million ounces of silver, 10.36 million pounds of copper and 7.05 million pounds of lead (or approximately 28.85 million ounces of silver-equivalent), as well as an additional resource of 159.66 million ounces of silver. " ~100 mil oz. other properties: the 10 sq. miles around the 1/2 sq mile of the Sunshine (rough guess--needs to be explored) even though--these extra 100 mil oz. are in the "explorer" category. They need to be drilled and found, although I've heard of estimates as high as 400 mil oz. total for SRLM.PK $125 mil MC / 185 mil oz. = $.68/oz. $125 mil MC / 500 mil oz. = $.25/oz. (exploration potential) You get "approx" 10.34 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. (Exploration potential is 28. )
Additional comments: I wrote an article on SRLM in late Dec. See: Sterling Mining
Ray DeMotte really, really understands the silver story, and has been aggressively acquiring silver properties. Sterling continues to consolidate its land position around the Sunshine mine.
Sterling Mining acquired the Sunshine mine. Sunshine was one of the big three: Hecla, Couer, & Sunshine. Sunshine went bankrupt. Sterling got the property a few months ago cheap, because they were quick & willing to pay cash. Other buyers wanted to do a full study before making an offer. This company's share price went ballistic as a result. But the company is still way undervalued. Just do the math, people. I own a substantial share of SRLM.PK There were a few great articles written lately for SRLM. See the company web site, above. The best factors, I feel, are as follows: 1. The Sunshine mine is an existing mine that was mining at a profit. The company went bankrupt, not the mine. So there will be no great capital costs for start up, only minimal costs. 2. The Sunshine sits on 1/2 sq. mile, and was never fully explored. Sterling Mining owns 10 square miles of property surrounding the Sunshine, right in the heart of silver country, the location of CDE and HL, the other two big companies at the top of this list. 3. The management of Sunshine understands the silver story. They are on a mission to acquire distressed silver properties at today's cheap prices. See also: December 14, 2003: "In light of the continued low silver price, Sterling has this year begun holding back into inventory a portion of this year's silver coins minted."
I own shares of SRLM.PK
FAN.TO FRLLF.PK ( FARALLON RSCS) http://www.farallonresources.com/fan/Home.asp (604) 684-6365 Erick Bertsch 73.8 mil shares fully diluted as of Oct 31, 2003 @ $.96/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.72 US $53 mil MC Exploration and development in Mexico. Run by hdgold.com (Hunter-Dickinson) On 4 sulphide deposits out of 16, 29 mil ton grading 89 grams silver/t and 1.57 g gold/t. Conversion: 89 grams x .0353 oz/gram = 3.14 oz. RE: those 29 mil tons, they "anticipate increasing resources to 50 mil tonne range..." 3.14 oz. x 29 mil tons = 91 mil oz. silver 1.6 mil oz. gold x 10 = 16 mil oz "silver equiv". Total: 107 mil oz. silver equiv. (Exploration potential = x 1.7 = 181) $53 mil MC / 107 mil oz. silver equiv. = $.50/oz. $53 mil MC / 181 mil oz. silver equiv. = $.29/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 14 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration potential = 24
Additional comments: Nothing done or drilled on the property since 1999. Why not? Because of low zinc prices: 46% of the price of the metals was in the zinc before prices crashed... The largest componant today is gold, which was surprising to Eric, the IR guy I spoke with. About 1/3 is in silver now.
At today's low metals prices: 2% x 2000 lb = 40 lbs zinc x $.42/lb = $16.8 for the zinc (.37 to .50 lb zinc.) 3.14 oz. x $5.15 = $16 for the silver. .055421 oz. x $385/oz. = $21 for the gold (Assuming 100% metals recovery--which is not likely to be the case. It may range from 60% to a higher percentage, depending on extraction methods used and the particular mineral targeted, which constantly change with technology advancements, and price changes in the metals. By the time a mine like this gets running, perhaps in 5 years or so, things may change to allow even greater metal recovery.)
Speaking with FAN.TO guys, they think reserves of ore could be 50 mil tonnes OR MORE, but that they really don't know, and want to issue conservative estimates. * EXR.V EXPTF.PK ( EXPATRIATE RECS) (I own shares) http://www.expatriateresources.com/ info@expatriateresources.com 1-877-682-5474 Dr. Harlan D. Meade, President and CEO 85 mil shares fully dulted. (Feb, 2004) @ $.48/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.36 $31 mil MC $1.2 mil CAN capital in the til no debt. Mostly a base metals company: Zinc. Also has some silver & gold. Total metal content of the six projects with resources... "Using current metal prices, the gross metal value of Expatriate's interest in the base metals in the properties is approximately US$1.56 billion as compared to US$540 million for its share of the silver and gold." Metal: Expatriate share of the project: Zinc 2.67 billion lbs. Copper 385 million lbs. Lead 202 million lbs. Silver 63.1 million oz. Gold 426,700 million oz. Gold x 10 = 4.3 mil "silver equiv". $31 mil MC / 67.4 oz. silver = $.45 You get "approx" 15 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Significant zinc bonus, about 3 times the silver value. Smelter credits are estimated at about 60% zinc, 25% silver, 10% gold and copper, and the rest, other minerals. My method of valuation puts a value on the silver only, not the rest, so this is a significantly better value than my number shows.
If you call Dr. Harlan D. Meade, President and CEO 1-877-682-5474, ask him to send you an information packet on EXR.V. It contains a good report on why he is bullish on zinc.
I own shares of EXR.V.
RDV.TO RDFVF.PK (REDCORP VENTURE) http://www.redcorp-ventures.com/ http://www.redfern.bc.ca/index.html 42.7 mil shares fully diluted (Sept 2003) + 10 mil shares March PP (March 2004) 52.7 mil shares fully diluted @ $.44/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.33 $17 mil MC http://www.redfern.bc.ca/projects/tulsequah/exploration_resources.html#results 9 mil tonnes indicated and inferred at 107.5 g/t x .03215 = 31 mil ounces silver (3.4 oz/ton low grade silver, with other minerals) (also have significant gold ($30/ton at $400/oz.) and zinc $60/ton at $.46/lb.) 728,000 oz of Gold x 10 = 7.3 mil "silver equiv" = 38.3 mil oz. silver equiv. $17 mil MC / 38.3 mil oz = .45/oz. You get "approx" 15 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: RDV has a "gold bonus". At $409/ gold, and $6.50/oz. silver, it's about $300 million worth of gold, and $200 million worth of silver, or about 60% of the value is in the gold. Since my method really undercounts the gold, this means there is a significant "gold bonus" here. Redcorp Ventures Ltd.: Brokered Private Placement Financing Closed ($3 million)
* ADB.V ADBRF.PK (ADMIRAL BAY RSCS) http://www.admiralbay.com/ info@admiralbay.com 604 628 5642 -- Curt Huber-- Business Development 33.3 mil shares fully dilluted. (March, 2004) @ $1.48/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.11 US $37 mil MC They have $6 million cash. --owns an option to earn 70% interest in "Miera San Jorge's Monte del Favor property in Mexico" "An historical resource estimate based on underground sampling at Monte Del Favor is reported at 17 million tonnes grading 0.85 g/t gold and 224 g/t silver for a contained 123 million ounces of silver and 460,000 ounces of gold." "While this resource estimate is not fully 43-101 compliant, the Company considers that it provides a conceptual indication of the potential of the property." 460,000 x 10 = 4.6 mil "silver equiv". 127.6 mil oz. x 70% interest = 89.3 mil oz. $37 mil MC / 89.3 mil oz. = $.41/oz. You get "approx" 17 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Prior grades hit 2-5 kilos silver/ ton. (2000-5000g/ton. 70-176 oz. ton) Very high grades. The project was never properly drilled with modern methods.
Admiral Bay acquired this option to own a 70% interest in this silver property in June, 2003, and the acquisition did not impact their stock price at that time at all. Previously, they were a gas company, and they still have this other gas project, which may be more than half the intrinsic value of the company according to Curt Huber, who understands the silver story as expressed by Ted Butler and David Morgan.
My valuation method, obviously, does not give any value for their gas projects, which therefore needs to be factored in as a significant "bonus". Company goals for gas production are 2.5 million cubic feet/day by mid 2004, which at $5 would be $12,500/day gross, and target is 7.5 million cubic feet/day by the end of the year, again, at $5 would be $35,000/day gross, or $12.8 mil/year gross.
They are actively digging, drilling, and releasing results in press releases.
I own shares of ADB.V.
* SVL.V STVZF.PK (SILVRCRST MINES) (I own shares) http://www.silvercrestmines.com/ info@silvercrestmines.com (604) 691-1730 25.1 million fully diluted Dec 31, 2003 @ $1.58/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.18 US $30 mil MC $3 mil cash in the til. Indicated resources of silver 30 mil oz. Projects in Honduras. Silver totals are projected to be: 75 - 135 mil oz. (not 43-101 compliant) $30 mil MC / 75 = $.40/oz. $30 mil MC / 135 = $.21/oz. You get "approx" 18 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. (Exploration potential = 32++ oz.)
The project in El Salvador is only 20 km from the property in Honduras, and the property in Guatemala is 15km away, so only one mill will be needed for the three when a production decision is made.
They have been and will be acquiring more silver properties with the money raised in the late November 2003 private placement, which I think is an outstanding way to spend the money.
I own shaers of SVL.V
HDA.V (HUSIF pink sheets symbol?) (HULDRA SILVER) no website Phone: Magnus 1 (604) 261-6040 6.924 million shares out (fully diluted) (Nov or Dec '03?) @ $.59/share x .75 US/Cdn = US $.44 $3 mil MC no debt HDA's proven and probable reserves stand at 161,000 tons of ore grading an average 25.6 ounces per ton silver, and 10 percent combined lead/zinc -- 4.12 mil oz silver, not including the zinc & lead. According to Magnus, the indicated and inferred reserves total about 180,000 tons at about the same grading -- in other words, a further 4 million ounces of silver. ~8 mil oz. silver $3 mil MC / 8 mil oz. silver = $.38/oz. You get "approx" 18 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: There is a significant lead/zinc bonus. "The property could be put into production at a capital cost of Cdn $3.5 million -- with payback of capital (when equity financed) within two years."
* ASM.V ASGMF.PK (AVINO SILV GOLD) http://www.avino.com/ shares@avino.com 604 682-3701 -- David Wolfin 10.9 mil shares fully diluted, Nov. 2003 (with the 4 mil new shares from PP) (proposed PP in late Oct 2 mil units at $1.27 (unit = 1 share + 1 warrant at 1.58) @ $2.08/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.56 US $17 mil MC from: http://www.avino.com/other/goldstock100197.html --in 1997 "How Much Silver Does Avino Have?" "Operations at Avino's silver mine in Mexico are both open-pit and underground. I examined the reserves and interpolated the tonnage into silver ounces as follows: 28-million ounces proven; 50-million ounces probable and 27 million ounces possible." (Not all are 43101 compliant reserves & resources.--that is an old, third party report.) --focus is on being silver company. A plus. They actually have over five silver properties/projects. I'm only have numbers to count for one, the "Avino mine". = 28 + 50 + 27 = 105 Avino owns 49% of that, or 51.5 mil oz. -"not considered reserves under the new Canadian National Policy 43-101" $17 mil MC / 51.5 mil oz. = $.34/oz. You get "approx" 21 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional notes: There are 4 additional silver properties that I don't have numbers for. Consider this a "silver bonus"!!!
Mexican mining law once stated that a controlling interest had to be owned by Mexicans, which explains why they only have a 49% interest. That they don't have a controlling interest is a minus. This law has changed. The mine was operational until the mine went into temporary closure in November 2001. So there is in place an existing mine, with working infrastructure, which is a bonus. There is a need for drilling in order to test the potential that was stated in the feasibility study.
I own shares of ASM.V
GGC.V GGCRF.PK (GENCO RESOURCES) http://www.gencoresources.com/ IR: Rob Blankstein: 604-682-2205, or info@gencoresources.com 11.9 mil shares (Dec. 2003) @ $1.42/share x .75 US/Cdn = $1.06 $13 mil MC http://www.gencoresources.com/reserves.html 484 x .03215 = (15.5 oz) x 2.3 mil t = 35.8 mil oz. silver 2.00 x .03215 = 148,000 oz. gold x 10 = 1.5 mil oz. silver 385 x .03215 = ... x 95k = 1.2 mil oz silver 40+ mil oz. silver equiv. resources 2002 production, 500,000 oz. silver, 9000 oz. gold $13 mil MC / 40 mil oz. silver = $.32/oz. You get "approx" 22 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
CHD.V CHDSF.PK (CHARIOT RSCS) http://www.chariotresources.com/ 45 mil shares fully diluted October 2003 @ $.30/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.225 US $10 mil MC Cello Ccasa (1 project of 4) Resource Estimate - August 2002 31.4 mil oz. silver, 134,000 oz. gold. (x 10 = 1.3) 32.7 mil oz. (Still much exploration work to do.) $10 mil MC / 32.7 mil oz. = $.31/oz. You get "approx" 23 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
* MNMM.OB (MINES MGMT) (I own shares) http://www.minesmanagement.com/ info@minesmanagement.com (509) 838 6050 Doug Dobbs 11.7 mil shares fully diluted as of the March 4th 1.4 mil financing. @ $6.80/share $80 mil MC 261 mil oz. silver resources. Previous drilling spent over $100 million drilling the property. $80 mil MC / 261 mil = $.30/oz. You get "approx" 23 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: As copper moves up 5 cents/lb., it adds $100 million to the value of the deposit.
Mines Management owned 10% of the rights to their property in Montana. The other 90% owner, Noranda, simply gave up on the property and walked away from their mining claim due to "perpetually" low silver prices and political concerns. That explains the rocketing share price. So, the MNMM group got 90% of the rest of the property FOR FREE!--the value of which, and the nature of this transaction has just barely begun to be understood by the market, given the low relative price.
Their property also has about 60% of the value (at current prices) in copper (copper at $1.35/lb.), 2 Billion pounds of copper, and 261 mil oz. of silver. Doing the math: 261 mil oz. silver x $6.70/oz. = $1.749 Billion. 2 Billion lbs copper x $1.35/lb.. = $2.7 Billion. Total value of mineralization before costs to extract: $4.5 Billion.
Copper continues to move up. It's (copper at $1.35/lb.). MNMM is both copper and silver! (Also, consider Western Silver formerly Western Copper) Someday soon, investors are going to rush into copper opportunities, if they are not already. Mines Management will benefit from this.
They do not have an active working mine--which is a minus. They will need to raise capital to get a mine going. Noranda had several estimates for the cost to build a mine and mill, around $250 million. But it could be less depending on how economic they decide to do things. They are working on a feasibility study, and avoiding excessive dilution, which is a plus.
Regarding environmental concerns: Noranda had a fully approved Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that led to successful project permitting, so environmental concerns were not a factor in Noranda's departure of the project in 2002.
UNCN.OB ( UNICO INC) http://www.uncn.net/ Ray Brown, 530-873-4394 70 mil shares @ $.08/share $5.6 mil MC Three main properties: Bromide-- 372,000 ounces of gold? Silver Bell--15 mil oz silver? Deer Trail --287,000 ounces of gold and 27 million ounces of silver... but the lease on the Deer Trail will expire June 1 2004, so they need to raise significant money in about 3 months. 49 mil oz. total. $5.6 mil MC / 49 mil oz. = .11/oz. You have an expiring lease on "approx" 61 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: They need $4 million to exercise their option to buy the "Deer Trail" property. They are considering various options on how to do that. Ray Brown has been in this business a long time, and is excited that he's got a bunch of younger guys working on the property now, and he's encouraged by the upward direction of the price of precious metals.
Explorers deserve their own category, since they cannot be valued by my method of looking at reserves and resources of ounces of silver in the ground. We do not know how many oz. they might have. They are exploring for that.
This list, although at the bottom, in no way indicates that these companies are more highly valued than companies listed above. It is also difficult to categorize a company as an explorer, since all silver companies always hold more silver properties that need to be explored.
(The order is by largest market cap first, not by "comparative value".)
I removed Imperial Metals because I could NOT see that they were a significant silver miner with significant silver resources.
EZM.V EZMCF.PK (EUROZINC MINING) http://www.eurozinc.com/ Fully Diluted: 224,194,196 @ $.70/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.53 $117 mil MC
MCAJF.PK (MACMIN LTD) http://www.macmin.com.au/ 450 mil shares and options (Feb., 04) @ $.20/share $90 mil MC "Total Inferred Resource is 34.5 million ozs silver but the district is unexplored for epithermal silver and exploration to date suggests a district potential of 50 to 100m ozs Ag or perhaps much more." --"Macmin is a silver focussed company" The Texas Silver Project has in-ground resources of 44.5Moz of silver equivalent. (They own some Malichite, MAR.AX) Also, significant gold projects, perhaps several multi-million oz. potential projects.
CDU.V CUEAF.PK (CARDERO RSCS) http://www.cardero.com/ Henk Van Alphen -- President (604) 408-7488 32 million shares fully diluted Dec. 11th , 2003 @ $3.65/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $2.74 US $88 mil MC ($10 million Cdn cash in the till after $5.9 mil private placement closed on Dec. 11th) Speculated resources, or "exploration potential": Providencia -- high grades, could have 100-250 mil oz. Chingolo -- Will finish drilling by secnod week in November -- Henk says, "may have 400-600 mil oz. "exploration potential" in 200-300 mil tons of rock." They got 30-40 grams (1.23 oz.) on the first drill hole, but hope to find 2-3 ounces silver/ton. Please note, "exploration potential" is a non quantifiable, non-regulated, unauthorized type of estimate. It is not 43-101 compliant. Trading decisions should probably not be made on these kinds of shaky estimates, which may be only hype and hope. An investor who wants to be protected by US regulations should wait for geologists to pour over the drill results and produce numbers that comply with 43-101 regulations, that may one day appear in a company press release. (Also, the first time Cardero issued drilling results earlier this year, the stock price was cut almost in half due to lower than expected results. The stock price has since recovered.) Nevertheless, here's how those "exploration potential" numbers work out if you do the math: $88 mil MC / 500 mil oz exploration potential = $.18/oz. $88 mil MC / 850 mil oz exploration potential = $.11/oz. Exploration potential: you might get about 40 - 68 oz. silver for one oz. silver worth of stock.
Cardero has three properties in Argentina; actively working on two: Chingolo and Providencia. Chingolo was just measured as twice as large as previously thought. They are trying to prove up these properties.
Providencia also has potentially high grades in several very large conglomerate deposits that can be mined at a profit today. Their property at Providencia was an active mine, but only a few tons/day. But they hope to make a large open pit project out of the main deposit, processing perhaps a few thousand tons/day.
High grades are very important in today's environment, especially if you can buy them cheaply.
They are also acquiring more silver properties, which is another bonus. This is an aggressive silver company. More properties help to alleviate the risk of an explorer.
AOT.V ASOLF.PK (ASCOT RSCS) http://www.bmts.bc.ca/aot/ 1 604 684 8950 39.7 fully diluted. (Nov 2003) @ $.48/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .36 $14.4 mil MC (US) ---- Additional comments: They own 5.82 million shares and 388,000 warrants of Cardero at $.35, which have a greater asset value than their market cap.
5.82 mil shares x $2.88 (US) = $16.7 mil (US) $2.88 - .228 = $2.65 x 388,000 = $1 mil (US) = $17.7 million (US) worth of Cardero $17.7 mil Cardero / $14.4 mil MC Ascot = 1.22 (Inverse: Ascot's share price is 81% of the value of their Cardero Stock)
(I'm listing this one out of order, not by market cap, and next to Cardero, because of their position in Cardero.)
IMR.V IMXPF.OB (IMA EXPL) (I own shares) http://www.imaexploration.com 43.4 mil Fully Diluted shares (May 1, 2003) @ $2.45/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.84 U.S $80 mil MC Exploring in Argentina. $4.5 million cash
Additional comments: Positive drilling results are coming in.
TVI.TO TVIPF.PK (TVI PACIFIC) http://www.tvipacific.com Dianne (IR) Phone: (403) 265-4356 = 344 mil fully diluted Oct. 7th, 2003 @ $.265/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.20 US $68 mil MC "The company has a policy of not hedging or entering into forward sales contracts." Cash flow positive. !!! --> + 2.5 % royalty on "Rapu Rapu" that should be worth about $1 million per year starting within 9-12 months. (a cash source for an explorer is a big plus) 14 projects in the Philippines. Producing a dore bar of 96% silver and 4% gold from Canatuan project with the following: Total silver = 7.1 mil oz silver Total gold = 182,000 oz. gold x 10 (@10:1) = 1.8 mil oz silver equiv. Total silver equiv (Canatuan) = 8.9 mil oz. + they own a drilling company with 20 rigs. + they have a "foot in the door" in China. + many other promising exploration properties in the Asian Pacific.
Additional comments: This company exploded in price from 16 cents to 23.5 cents when they announced that they would be mining in China: "TVI Pacific Inc. Receives Landmark Approval for Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE) Status From Chinese Government". see http://tinyurl.com/vwbw
They are primarily a silver explorer. The bonus is they are a producer, and are cash flow positive, which are both extremely rare for an explorer. In fact, the other producers mostly all lose money!
FCO.TO FCACF.PK (FORMATION CAPTL) (I own shares) http://www.formcap.com/frhome.htm inform@formcap.com 604-682-6229 165 mil fully diluted, March 2004 @ $.54/share x .75 US/Cdn = $.405 $67 mil MC (Recently completed $10 million financing) Very large cobolt property: 1-3 million tons of 0.60% cobalt equivalent Cobalt prices are racing ahead, up to $25- $33/lb. see http://www.wmc-cobalt.com/prices.asp 2000 lbs/ton x 0.6% = 12 lbs/ton x $29.50 /lb. = $354/ton (rich ore) Cobolt is $29.50/lb. recently, up from $9/lb. Formation Capital owns the Sunshine Silver Refinery (near Sterling Mining), worth $50 million. Break even cost $5-6/lb cobolt. The Idaho Cobalt Project is projected to produce 1,500 tonnes of cobalt per annum. = 3,000,000 lbs. production x about $ 20/lb profit? = about $60 mil profit/year??? FCO.TO also owns a few minor silver projects. The cobolt project needs more drilling, and with recent financing, things look bright. Formation capital will be re-starting the Sunshine Silver Refinery--expected in early June.
I own shares of FCO.TO
IAU.V ITDXF.PK (INTREPID MINRLS) http://www.intrepidminerals.com/ scoates@intrepidminerals.com Stephen Coates, Investor Relations (416) 368-4525 40.3 mil outstanding shares 50.6 mil fully diluted w/ Dec. 9 financing (good as of March 4,2004) @ $1.16/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .87 US $44 mil MC $3.2 million cash from Dec. 9 financing. Company's exposure is about half to gold, half to silver in several projects. Joint Venture with BHP Billiton focused on "Cannington" style silver deposits using proprietary BHP Billiton data. (all figures are "exploration potential") El Salvador - 38.5 mil oz. Argentina - 6 mil oz. Total: 44 mil oz. silver Total gold: ~690k oz. x 10 (10:1 ratio) = ~ 6.9 mil oz. "silver equiv" Total: 53 mil oz. "silver equiv". (exploration potential or indicated or inferred, not reserves) $44 mil MC / 53 mil oz. = $.83/oz. Hopefully, you get 8.46 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver.
The stock price exploded, nearly doubling, in response to the news of the above drilling results.
Since this company is about half gold and half silver, the 10:1 ratio really cuts down the "silver equiv" numbers, so keep in mind the "gold bonus" factor here. But it's like that with a lot of the companies on this list, so keep that in mind, and do your own math if you want to use the 70:1 ratio.
MAG.V MSLRF.PK (MAG SILVER) http://www.magsilver.com 28 mil fully diluted shares (Nov. 19, 2003) @ $2.10/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = US $1.58 $44 mil MC
--"MAG Silver Corporation enters the silver market as a powerful force. MAG combines a seasoned management team with two drill-ready geological extensions of high-grade world class producing districts. MAG controls 100% of the Juanicipio property adjacent to the Fresnillo District in central Mexico, currently producing over 12% of the world's silver from high grade underground vein structures."
The geologist, Peter K.M Megaw, is also working with EXN.V, another high grade silver project. Peter's philosophy was that it makes sense to go after very high grade silver projects that will be profitable regardless of the silver price.
CAUCF.PK (CALEDON RES) http://www.caledonresources.com/ Shares Outstanding - 180,721,142 @ .23 at Yahoo! (Mining in China) It trades on the London Stock Exchange, under the symbol, CDN $41 mil MC
* NPG.V NVPGF.PK (NEVADA PAC GOLD) (I own shares) http://www.nevadapacificgold.com/ dhottman@nevadapacificgold.com (604) 646-0188 David Hottman = 43 mil shares fully diluted (Nov 26th, 2003 including recent PP) @ $1.45/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.09 US $47 mil MC (up to $10 million cash in the til from recent PP) Amador Canyon Silver Project: 50-250 mil tonnes silver grades average 4 oz. sil/ ton in the deposit = 200 to 1000 mil oz. silver????? --very speculative at this point. Drilling needs to be done. $47 mil MC / 200 mil oz. = $.23/oz. $47 mil MC / 1000 mil oz. = $.047/oz. The inverse: you "might" get 31 - 150 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver.
Additional comments: NPG.V has 10 gold projects, and one silver-but it may be big. The Chariman, David Hottman, says that 90% of the value of the company is in gold, NOT silver, and yet, I'm buying this company for the silver project of Amador Canyon only, and as if the gold componant was worth nothing. (The gold projects are a free bonus, in my book, and help to alleviate the risk of this explorer.)
Explorer in Nevada. They do not really know how much silver they might they have in the Amador Canyon project. They are doing drilling this fall, 2003, as they just did a $2.5 million private placement, and another $10 million private placement in late November. On the website, for David Hottman's bio, it says he was a founding member of Eldorado gold. "During his tenure, Eldorado's market capitalization grew from Cdn $7 million in 1992 to a peak of Cdn $781 million in 1996." Please note, exploration is risky, and costly.
Now that they are well-capitalized with over $10 million dollars, this company will likely do very well as they drill and prove up the deposits across all their properties.
NPG.V recently decided not to acquire one of the two gold properties they were planning to acquire.
I own shares of NPG.V
* MMGG.OB (METALLINE MINE) (I own shares) http://www.metalin.com/site_map.html metalin@attglobal.net Merlin Bingham 208-665-2002 14 mil shares fully diluted (Oct 23, 2003) insiders buying on 9-10-2003 at about $1.30/share insiders buying on 12-01-2003 at $1.66/share @ $2.97/share US $42 mil MC
Additional Comments: Zinc & Silver in Mexico: Sierra Mojada. Sierra Mojada is a Silver District! Silver: Historic production was 10 mil tons of high grade ore... historic silver production went right "direct shiped" to the smelter, non-milled. It contained 500-1000 grams silver/ton, or 17.65 to 35 oz. ton. This means 170-353 million ounces of historic "high grading," non-milled, production. (Who knows how much silver is left?) That's the question with an explorer.
Zinc: Very high grades: 11.8% zinc. Potentially the lowest production cost in the entire zinc industry due to new "oxide deposit" chemical extraction process as revolutionary as "heap leaching". Exploring for up to 4 Billion pounds zinc.
Project ownership: MMGG terminated the buy-in agreement with Penoles, who went into default, so MMGG now owns 100% of the project! See http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031203/35526_1.html
I believe this is very good for MMGG, since the Penoles agreement made it more difficult to quantify the value the company. Now, it is easier to value the company, and the existing shareholders will own more of the project and profits. It is important to note thatMMGG took the initiative to terminate the agreement. Penoles did not issue a statement indicating any intent to walk away. Penoles' delay or indecision caused them to lose the rights to their buy-in option agreement. Just like if you have an "in the money" option, it's a mistake to let it expire.
(Merlin of MMGG.OB, and Harlan of EXR.V (friends, actually) both have reports that will educate you on the bullish story for Zinc.)
I own shares of MMGG.OB
* OTMN.PK (O.T. MINING) (I own shares) http://www.otmining.com/ --The website has been updated. info@otmining.com Jim Hess Tel: 514-935-2445 8 mil fully diluted. @ $5.50/share $44 mil MC Montana Historic silver production for the Butte district, from 1880 to 2000 was 714,643,005 oz. silver. They think their deposit may be bigger than "the richest hill on earth", which is located near their property, in the Butte district. The exploration potential for this company is astounding, if they are right.
Private Placement Closed. details on the size of the PP, and number of shares involved, will be released when all the paperwork of all participants has been completed. The PP has two unique features to it. 1. A 2 year hold time. 2. The options at $2.50/share will be repriced to $5/share if the share price holds above $7.50 for 90 days.
SPM.V SMNPF.PK (SCORPION MINING) http://www.scorpiomining.com 7.4 mil shares issued + 7.5 mil units (x 1.5) 18.7 mil shares fully diluted? March 2004 @ $2.33/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.75 US $33 mil MC
MAI.V MNEAF.OB (MINERA ANDES) http://minandes.com/ ircanada@minandes.com (604) 689-7017 73 mil fully diluted as of Nov. 2003 @ share $.53/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.40 US $29 mil MC To raise $6.6 mil in recent financing. owns 49% of the resource: "55 mil silver equiv. oz. resource" back in 2001. AT 60:1 silver:gold when gold was about $300/oz., about half/half silver and gold. Estimated: 27.5 mil oz silver Estimated: 27.5 mil oz. "silver equiv" of gold. / 6 = 4.58 mil oz. silver equiv at 10:1 ratio. Total: 27.5 + 4.6 = 32 mil oz. silver equiv. (x .49 (they own 49%) = 15 mil oz.) They will be exploring for more: (The resources may be only 10% of the property.) 2.2 km stretch, open another 2.7, plus 3 other vein systems. significant high grade silver exploration potential. 7000 meters of diamond drilling. Plus a copper project, billion ton ore deposit. $29 mil MC
Additional comments: About half is gold value, half is silver value at 60:1. Minera Andes has several significant bonuses that my method is not valuing properly. First, I undercount the gold, of course, so consider there is a "gold bonus" at current gold prices. Second, they will be doing significant exploration work to increase their resources, and they have recently raised the money to be able to pay for that exploration work. Third, they have a copper project, and copper prices are rising. I moved MAI.V to the explorers list to be more fair to their valutation.
MMM.TO MMAXF.PK ( MINCO MINING) http://www.mincomining.com/ investor-info@mincomining.ca 1-888-288-8288 Fully Diluted Issued & Outstanding 23,133,623 @ $1.80/share x .75 US/Cdn = $1.35 $31 mil MC Located in China 2 gold projects and 1 silver (42% owned). Explorer $31 mil MC
* FR.V FMJRF.PK (FIRST MAJESTIC) (I own shares) http://www.firstmajestic.com/s/Home.asp info@firstmajestic.com 15.8 mil shares fully diluted (Jan 30th, 2004) from http://www.firstmajestic.com/s/ShareStructure.asp?ReportID=67945&_Title=Share-Structure @ $1.81/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $1.36 $21 mil MC from http://www.jaba.com/2003/info/niko_2003_1.html http://www.stockjunction.com/modules/emails/featuredprofiles/FR/majestic_sj.html Up to 80% ownership of the Niko project which is similar to the Naica Mine: The Naica Mine: 4.3%Zn, 5.5%Pb, 6ozAg, 0.01ozAu, 0.34%Cu (5 million tonnes reserves_ = 6 x 5 = 30 mil oz. silver x .8 = 24 mil oz. The Niko project does not have reserves, it is similar to the Nacia, which has reserves. from http://biz.yahoo.com/cnw/040113/first_majestic_mexico_1.html Also, First Majestic acquired the La Parrilla Silver Mine in Mexico, a former producing silver mine that closed in 1999 due to low silver prices. They expect to re-open in 4 months, producing 175,000 tonnes a year at 300g/t silver, which means 1.8 mil oz. of silver produced per year. The cost to mine is estimated at $25-30/tonne, and recovery is 85-90%. Cash costs are expected to be $3/oz. So, if silver holds at $6.95, then $4/oz. is profit, x 1.8 mil oz silver/year = $7.2 million dollars/year after cash costs! Do they understand the silver market? I think so! They linked an excerpt from my free e-book from goldismoney.com " 8 Reasons why silver is a better investment than gold! " see url here: http://tinyurl.com/xyyb $21 mil MC
Additional comments: The other benefit of FR.V is that the company is keen on acquiring new properties. This is where the best money is made for a company in today's bull market in silver, in my opinion. From the home page of the website:
"First Majestic recently announced the acquisition of Le Parrilla Silver Mine, Mexico, which is anticipated to be the first of several acquisitions over the coming months."
I own shares of FR.V
DNI.V DMNKF.PK (DUMONT NICKEL) http://www.dumontnickel.com info@dumontnickel.com (416) 595-1195 56.4 mil shares outstanding @ $.47/share x .75 US/Cdn = $.35 $20 mil MC Dumont still needs to raise and pay several million to clifton for 50%-60% of each property, and there are many properties. (See Clifton for more specifics on the JV agreement.)
Additional comments: Clifton's JV partner, doing active drilling work right now. And recent property acquisitions. I moved Dumont to the explorer category, because I really don't have any idea what percent of Clifton's property they may acquire, which depends on Dumont completing a feasibility study on each property.
SML.V SMLZF.PK (STEALTH MNRLS) http://www.stealthminerals.com Email-Bill@McWilliam.com 604-306-0391 Bill McWilliam, Chief Executive Officer 48,197,893 (August 31- 02) @ $.485/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .36 $17 mil MC
* NBG.V NBULF.PK (NEW BULLET GP) (I own shares) http://www.newbulletgroup.com/index.htm 50 mil shares fully diluted (including 15 mil new PP) http://www.newbulletgroup.com/financial.htm @ $.47/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.35 US $17.6 mil MC NBG.V has a gold deposit in Brazil that's bigger than the silver project in Mexico. http://www.newbulletgroup.com/mexico.htm " If the deposit extends to considerable depth, as do many of the silver deposits in the region, it is reasonable to assume a deposit of 300 million ounces of silver." Stroud Resources, JV partner, lists the deposit at 150-300 million oz. http://www.newbulletgroup.com/April1820022.pdf NBG.V partners with SDR.V NBG.V to get a 50-70% interest. 50% x 150 mil oz.= 75 mil oz., 70% x 300 mil oz. = 210 mil oz. $17.6 mil MC / 75 mil oz. = .235 oz. $17.6 mil MC / 210 mil oz. = .08 oz. Exploration potential = 30 - 84 oz. per oz. worth of shares.
I own shares of NBG.V
SDR.V SDURF.PK (STROUD RSCS) (There is no PK symbol as yet) http://www.stroudresourcesltd.com/projects-santo.html gcoburn@stroudresourcesltd.com Mr. George E. Coburn, President Tel: 416-362-4126 Fully Diluted 69,745,562 @ $.22/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .15 $10.4 mil MC JV partner with NBG.V on Santo Domingo Silver Project in Mexico. 150 to 300 mil oz. exploration potential of the deposit. ownership is between 30-50%, so... 30% of 150 mil oz.= 45 mil oz., and 50% of 300 mil oz. = 150 mil oz. $10.4 mil MC / 45 mil oz. = $10.4 mil MC /150 mil oz. =
* CBE.V CBEFF.PK (CABO MINING)(I own shares) http://www.cabo.ca/ jav@cabo.ca (604) 681-8899 John Versfelt, President Fully diluted subtotal, including shares needed to acquire two drilling companies, which is contingent upon a financing.
= 18,880,436 as of February 9th, 2004 (Post-Consolidated) (Plus a proposed $5 million financing to acquire the two drilling companies.)
@ $1.03/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .77 $14 mil MC Cabo Mining issued a 4 page press release on Jan. 5 detailing their contracts to acquire two drilling companies.
Although I'm generally wary about excessive dilution, this second PP is well-needed. The first $5 million PP was primarily for the drilling companies, and the second will allow the company to explore the Cobalt properties better.
Cabo has exposure to silver, cobolt, nickel, gold, diamonds, and drilling companies.
Regarding the contracts to acquire two drilling companies in Canada: With all the money raised lately by so many companies to do exploration work now that precious metals prices have increased, I think drilling companies will be very busy making money. This will give the company positive cash flow after they raise the money to acquire the drilling companies.
Cabo had a significant discovery, as indicated in a press release on Feb 4. Some of their grab samples have very high percentages of Cobalt and Nickel. One vein grab sample was almost 30% nickel, (2 over 20%), which is at $7/pound. Three samples were over 3% Cobalt, which is at $30/pound.
To learn more about the mining camp town of Cobalt, there is a fascinating article detailing the history of the camp at http://www.cobalt.ca/cobalt/history.htm
I own shares of CBE.V
EXN.V EXLLF.PK (EXCELLON RSCS) http://www.excellonresources.com 87 mil shares fully diluted (Jan 9, 2004 press release) (Previously, I had listed a number of 114 mil shares, which was, apparantly incorrect. I don't know how the mistake was made, or what my source was for the 114 mil shares.) @ $.255/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.19 US $17 mil MC From http://www.smartstox.com/reports/excellon.html indicated = 63,400 t x 2738 g/t x .03215oz./g = 5.6 mil oz. silver inferred = 2100 t x 1,433 g/t x .03215oz./g = .1 mil oz. silver "gross in-situ value of mineralization is $31.4 million." EXN to own 51% of the project. Apex is the joint partner. 51% x 6.2 mil oz. = 3.16 mil oz. (Company expects 114 mil shares fully diluted after takover of Destorbelle, needed to bring project ownership up to 51%) $17 mil MC
Additional comments: "Excellon ...is exploring and developing".... "a Bonanza grade Silver deposit in Mexico." The geologist, Peter K.M Megaw, is also working with MAG.V. From J. Taylor's write up on 2002: "After subtracting capital cost of US $1.8 million, custom milling charges and operating costs, management believes this underground development mine can, over the next two years, generate US $15.8 million or nearly $8 million for EXN's 51% share." The company plans to use these proceeds to further drill and explore the property. They believe the property may contain significantly more silver, as if what's known is only the tail of the tiger; furthermore, they believe they can fund exploration by mining the high-grade silver deposit that has been partly drilled.
EPZ.V ESPZF.PK (ESPERANZA SILVR) http://www.esperanzasilver.com/s/Home.asp 20 million shares fully diluted @ $.91/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = US $.68 $14 mil MC "Esperanza Silver Corporation is solely dedicated to the identification, acquisition and exploration of new silver projects." Looking for high grades.
BCM.V BCEKF.PK (BEAR CRK MINING) http://www.bearcreekmining.com/s/Home.asp 39.2 million shares fully diluted @ $.54/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.40 US $16 mil MC --About 6 properties in Peru (I wonder if Peru presents a significant political risk, given what happened to MAN.TO, or whether that was an isolated case in Peru? I don't know either way.)
NJMC.OB (NEW JERSEY MIN) http://www.newjerseymining.com/ Fred or Grant Brackebusch minesystems@usamedia.tv 21.3 fully diluted Feb. '04 @ $.70/share US $15 mil MC New Jersey Mining Company (NJMC) is engaged in exploring for and developing gold, silver and base metal ore reserves in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of northern Idaho also known as the Silver Valley - one of the world's richest silver districts.
HGM.V HOGOF.PK (HOLMER GOLD) http://www.holmergold.com/ 1-877-859-5200 ask for John Robinson 39.4 mil shares @ $.38/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $ .285 US $11 mil MC
Additional comments: silver in cuba. (final feasibility study completed by Rescan-Hatch) gold in Timmins, Ontario. If there's a final feasibility study done, it either means they should be close to production, or there should be some good data available on a reserves picture.
CHMN.PK (CHESTER MINING) http://www.chestermining.com/ Bill Hoyt, 785-383-9246 " 2.3 million shares outstanding, positive working capital and no debt " @ $4.50/share US $11 mil MC http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031121/215141_1.html Historic estimate: "defined Conjecture mineral reserves of 706,000 tons grading 11.8 ounces per ton (oz/t) silver" -- the Conjecture Mine, with a lease-option agreement signed with Shoshone Silver Mining Company = 8.3 million ounces of silver (leased out) Since Chester will be receiving royalties, it makes it harder for me to value this company. $10 mil MC
KG.V KDKGF.PK (KLONDIKE GOLD) (I own shares) http://www.klondikegoldcorp.com/ 70 mil fully diluted (Nov. 2003) @ $.265/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.20 US 5 year high .30 $14 mil MC
This company has many silver and gold properties. Some of the people are also involved with GNG.V, Golden Goliath.
Klondike has one silver property that could be producing within weeks.
(I own shares of KG.V)
GNG.V GGTHF.PK (GOLDEN GOLIATH) http://www.goldengoliath.com/ 604-682-2950 32.4 mil shares fully diluted @ $.425/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.32 $10 mil market cap
Additional comments: Silver Explorer in Mexico in the the Sierra Madre mountains: Uruachic. Doing active drilling on their silver property, Las Bolas, "in a month" (as of Oct. 7th). They hope to take a collection of old silver mines and make them open pittable. They have some very high grades from chip samples from the tunnels, ranging from 100g to 500g all the way up to around and over 1000g/ton of silver.
MMG.V MMEEF.PK (MCMILLAN GOLD) http://www.macmillangold.com/ 25.6 mil shares outstanding (3q 2003 report June, 2003) @ $.445/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.333 $8.5 mil MC
* KRE.V KREKF.PK (KENRICH ESKAY) (I own shares) http://www.kenrich-eskay.com/ Toll-free 1-888-805-3940 16 mil shares outstanding Use "fully diluted" to be safe. @ $.76/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .57 $9 mil MC Adjacent to Barrick's silver property, which is "the fifth largest silver producer in the world". "The Property was once almost bought by Homestake (which was acquired by Barrick) for $34.5-35 million in 1996."
I own shares of KRE.V
EGD.V EGDMF.PK (ENERGOLD MINING) http://www.energold.com/s/Default.asp Fred Davidson President (604) 681-9501 info@energold.com 16.8 million Fully Diluted (June 30, 2002) @ $.71/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.53 $9 mil MC
LEG.V LEGCF.PK (LATEEGRA RSCS) http://www.lateegra.com Michael Townsend, President Toll Free: 1-866-669-9377 Richard one of the IR guys. 38.7 fully diluted? (Jan 7, 2004) @ $.20/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.15 US $6 mil MC see also Teuton Resources Corp (TUO.V)
Additional Comments: --Bonanza grades. Newmont called them, noticed the property. Flew out a guy. El Tigre in Mexico: gold/silver bonanza style mineralization. Top grades: 62g/T gold 15,500g/T silver historic production, from trenching and surface sampling in late 90's. Cash on hand: $500,000 CAN
SHSH.PK (SHOSHONE SILVER) http://www.shoshone-mining.com Bill Hoyt, 785-383-9246 12 mil shares @ $.70 US $8 mil MC In Cour d'Alene, near CDE, HL, & SRLM.PK
BGS.V BLDGF.PK (BALLAD GLD SLVR) http://www.balladnet.com 16.3 mil shares outstanding (fully diluted?) @ $.53/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.40 US $6 mil MC Bonanza grade "grab samples" in southern Argentina near IMA
AUN.V AUNFF.PK (Aurcana Corp) http://www.aurcana.com/ CEO Ken Booth 604-331-9333 kbooth@aurcana.com 45 million shares (fully diluted) (March 2004) @ $.21/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.16 US $7 mil MC Drilling to commence on high-grade, gold-silver targets. (in Mexico)
PCM.V (PAC COMOX RES) http://www.pacificcomox.com/ 66 mil fully diluted Jan, 2004 (From Dec 11, 2003 press release and 2002 report) @ $.125/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .09 $6 mil MC
BBR.V BBRRF.PK (BRETT RES) http://www.bmts.bc.ca/bbr/ 17.2 fully diluted @ $.35/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.26 $4.5 mil MC Silver projects: Yukon --grab sample of 611 g/t Ag Argentina --samples from 31 to 5640 g/t Ag
TUO.V TEUTF.PK (TEUTON RES) http://www.teuton.com/ Dino Cremonese, P.Eng. President (604) 682-3680 20.6 mil fully diluted (July 28,2003) @ $.33/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.25 $5 mil MC "Management of Teuton and Lateegra are highly encouraged by the prospective results from the Del Norte exploration to date located in the Eskay Creek region"
ASLM.PK (AMER SILVER MINI) 2.75 million shares issued @ $1.30/share $3.6 mil MC Claim between CDE and the old Sunshine mine. JV with CDE subsidiary until 2017. ASLM to receive 20% net royalty, & if silver prices reach $16.50 an ounce or above, the profit sharing goes to 40%. Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
ROK.V ROCAF.PK (ROCA MINES INC) http://www.rocamines.com 14.3 mil fully diluted (July 15, 2003) @ $.21/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .1575 $2.25 mil MC
CBP.V CPBMF.PK (CONS PAC BAY MIN) http://www.pacific-bay.com/ Guilford Brett, IR (604) 682-2421 9.2 mil shares outstanding @ $.17/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = .13 $1.2 mil MC
----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Final Category: Silver stocks FOR YOU and I TO RESEARCH further:
I strongly recommend you try to "get ahead of me," and research these stocks to see if I left out any great values. I probably did. I simply did not have time, or could not yet find information (without using the telephone) on all the two key figures needed to get the "price per oz." in the ground. You need: 1. The number of shares fully diluted x share price to get the market cap. Then, 2., you need an estimate of the oz. in the ground. Usually, I've been finding the oz. in the ground resource estimates right off the company webpages, and I get the number of shares by looking for it burried in the financial statements like the quarterlies or annual reports, which are also usually right on the company webpages. Have fun researching for silver companies, and let me know if you find any good ones, and I'll add them to this list. QTA.V QURAF.PK (QUATERRA RES) http://www.quaterraresources.com/ Jay Oness Toll Free: 1-888-456-1112 # shares uncertain. three main properties in North America @ $.???/share Cdn x .75 US/Cdn = $.53 US
QTA.V is a Sister Company to Western Silver, WTZ above. PXI.V, PNXPF.PK Planet Exploration Inc. http://www.planetexploration.info/mexico.asp Planet holds an option to acquire a 100% interest in the high-grade 7,005-hectare Copalquin gold/silver property located in Durango, Mexico. "Resource estimates on the property have not been calculated since the discovery of the high-grade vertical fault zone, its existence may significantly alter Kennecott's and Fransisco Gold's original target potential of one million ounces of gold and 50 million ounces of silver based on their interpretation of a low-grade horizontal quartz breccia formation."
ATN.TO/ATNAF.PK (Atna Resources Ltd.) 37.1 mil shares fully diluted ??? http://www.atna.com/s/Home.asp The company holds a diverse portfolio of gold, silver, zinc and copper properties in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Chile. From http://www.capitalstool.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4996 37 M shares (fully diluted) (Wolverine) 40% of 2300 Mg Ag = 30 Moz Ag + (Marg) 67% of 340 Mg Ag = 7,5 Moz Ag + (Wolf) 67% of 340 Mg Ag = 7,5 Moz Ag + (Nevada explorations) 40% of ? + (Ecstall) 140 Mg Ag = 4,7 Moz Ag The Wolverine Project is a joint venture between Atna (40%) and Expatriate Resources Ltd. (60%). Legend Mining LEG.AX LGDMF.PK http://www.legmin.com.au/ specialising in exploration and production of silver. Silver at the Munni Munni Joint Venture in the West Pilbara region of Western Australia Email to me said: "Legend Mining just bought a 70,000 ounces per year gold mine in Western Australia."
Mascot Silver Lead Mines MSLM.PK http://www.mascotsilver.com/ Coeur d' Alene, Idaho "Though we have reserves and could conceivably mine them, it frankly makes no sense to do so at current prices. ... The end of the silver bear will bring a number of the now-dormant small companies back to life..."
Silver Buckle Mines Inc (SBUM.PK) Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
Merger Mines Corp (MERG.PK) Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
Silver Bowl http://www.silver-bowl.com/ Coeur d' Alene, Idaho --working to get a new stock transfer company http://www.oxusgold.co.uk/ 216,559,942 Fully Diluted shares oxus will spin off: Khandiza is a high-grade zinc, silver, copper and lead deposit located in the Sariasia region of southeast Uzbekistan. Silver Mountain Lead Mines Inc (SMLM.PK)
Silver Verde May Mining Co (SIVE.PK)
Metropolitain Mines Ltd (MEMLA.PK)
Silver Surprize Inc (SLSR.PK)
Standard Silver Corp (SDSI.PK)
Horn Silver Mines Co (HRNS.PK) (801)-281-5656
Andean American Mining Corp AAG.V ANMCF.PK http://www.andeanamerican.com/ --concentrates solely in Peru Peru currently stands as the largest gold producer and second largest copper producer in Latin America as well as the second largest silver producer in the world.
Articles like this one, that present opportunities like these, can tend to move the markets in these stocks. So, be careful when buying. If you place any market orders at the open for any of these small stocks, you might end up buying at prices that are significantly higher than you intended. Limit orders might be better, but then, you run the risk of your order not being filled if the stock price exceeds your limit. And bid / ask spreads such as 15% on small cap silver stocks are not unusual. Markets can especially be moved given the wide readership on the internet. I've seen markets moved even by small private newsletters such as lemetropolecafe.com and silver-investor.com (I subscribe to both). Some of these stocks can move up 15%, 30%, 50% or even over 100% in a single day. Thus, valuations can change very, very quickly. So, be careful, and re-check the numbers if the prices move up. Do your own math.
Also note, the majority of these companies have an emphasis on silver. Most silver is produced as a by product of other mining, like lead or zinc or copper mining. Those companies that primarily produce other minerals are not featured in this report. This also helps to explain and prove, that silver is undervalued. If silver miners cannot mine silver profitably, and this report shows that to be true, then something is wrong with the silver price. It must go higher.
This report, and my method of valuing silver companies, depends on a much higher price for silver than exists today to be most accurate and most successful. If silver prices go up significantly, my picks will do well. If silver prices remain flat, then many of my picks should not do well.
Several people have told me that they don't get information this good even when they sign up for annual newsletter subscriptions from others that cost from $100 - $300.
The beauty of the internet is that it is helping knowledge to increase, and it is a form of communication that those who commit crimes of monetary fraud upon us cannot control. Please make the most of it, and please forward this on to others.
You can help to make sure you can keep getting this report for free if you sign up at GoldIsMoney.com
Final Disclaimer: I have not received any compensation from any public silver stock company for writing up my weekly report on "Silver Stocks--Comparative Valuations". I own shares of the following 18 silver stocks: IMR.V, KG.V, ADB.V, CZN.TO, MNMM.OB, SRLM.PK, CBE.V, NPG.V, EXR.V, SVL.V, MMGG.OB, TM.V, OTMN.PK, FCO.TO, KRE.V, FR.V, NBG.V, ASM.V. These are required disclaimers by the SEC: whether I've been paid, and what I own. I believe the SEC intended this to be a cautionary note that I own these shares, not as a recommendation or endorsement. I reserve the right to buy or sell any stock at any time. I believe the SEC does not requrie a disclosure regarding finder's fees. Nevertheless, I have begun to receive "finder's fees" from a few companies. SilverSeek.com receives no fees or compensation for publishing this report but does have positions in Vista Gold and Silver Standard.
-- Posted 13 March, 2004 | |
Last Three Articles by Jason Hommel, Gold Is Money
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