This week's report lists 114 silver stocks. There are 31 silver stocks that list reserves, resources (and exploration potential.) which I calculate by using my "ounce in the ground" forumula. There are 53 explorers. There are about 30 additional "silver" stocks with incomplete information. Additions & Changes from last week are in bold.
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Because I have a market reach, I also receive a lot of tips about silver stocks. And thus, I believe 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". 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.
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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 essay, Biblical Guidelines for Managing your Money
Kitco reports silver at $6.09/oz. as of Friday, 5:30 PM West Coast US, which was used to calculate the following figures. The CAN $ / US $ conversion factor is .7342. I will use .73 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")
ABX (BARRICK) 0.94 even --infamous hedger (18 mil oz. gold hedged, 3 yrs production) hedged?
CDE (COEUR D'ALENE) 1.4 down --current producer, (gold bonus) in debt.
IPOAF.PK (INDUSTL PENOLES) 1.6 up --current producer, mostly family owned, hedged?
SIL (APEX SILVER) 3.2 up --large zinc bonus, low grades, cash rich--$345 million! in debt
GRS GAM.TO (GAMMON LAKE) 3.4 up --current producer, owns 26% of Mexgold
NBG.V NBULF.PK (NEW BULLET GP) 45 - 127 "exploration potential"
SDR.V SDURF.PK (STROUD RSCS)
ATN.TO ATNAF.PK (ATNA RES. LTD) partners with Expatriate Res.
CHMN.PK (CHESTER MINING)
EPZ.V ESPZF.PK (ESPERANZA SILVR)
GNG.V GGTHF.PK (GOLDEN GOLIATH) --Historic silver district in Mexico
GPR.V GPRLF.PK (GREAT PANTHER)
MMG.V MMEEF.PK (MCMILLAN GOLD)
SHSH.PK (SHOSHONE SILVER)
* KRE.V KREKF.PK (KENRICH ESKAY)
EGD.V EGDMF.PK (ENERGOLD MINING)
PCM.V PAOCF.PK (PAC COMOX RES)
LEG.V LEGCF.PK (LATEEGRA RSCS)
BGS.V BLDGF.PK (BALLAD GLD SLVR)
* AUN.V AUNFF.PK (AURCANA CORP)
SRY.V (STINGRAY RSCS)
TUO.V TEUTF.PK (TEUTON RES)
ASLM.PK (AMER SILVER MINI)
BBR.V BBRRF.PK (BRETT RES)
ROK.V ROCAF.PK (ROCA MINES INC)
MTB.V (Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd)
LSM.V LASCF.PK (Langis Silver & Cobalt Mining Co Ltd)
CBP.V CPBMF.PK (CONS PAC BAY MIN)
* = I own shares Silver oz. "in ground" means and 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 into buying shares in the company at current prices. Here's the math on how to get it. 1. Get a market cap in U.S. dollars. Divide that by the silver price, so the market cap is denominated in terms of silver ounces. Then, divide the ounces in the ground by the market cap as denominated in silver. This tells you how many ounces of silver in the ground you are buying when you give up one ounce of silver in you hand for shares of stock, instead.
(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.
I believe that the two most important numbers that a silver mining company can report are the resources in the ground, and the number of their fully diluted shares. Of course, there is much more to a mining company than that, but without those numbers, it is extremely difficult to even start an evaluation. This report highlights those key numbers, where possible. If you think those numbers are also important, please email the executives of the mining companies you own, and ask them to make sure their numbers are clearly published at their websites.
To quickly "tab" down to the company you are interested in, note the symbol. Then hit "control-F" to "FIND" the symbol below. ___________ If I use a word you don't understand and is not listed in the dictionary at www.m-w.com you can look up the meaning at http://investorwords.com/
------------- WEEKLY COMMENTARY (All new in this section):
This last week showed mixed results for silver stock investors over silver bullion. In relation to silver bullion, 13 silver stocks were up, of the 31 stocks on my first list.
According to several indicators, retail investor sentiment for silver remains subdued since the decline from $8.40/oz.
For example, open interest continues to decline. This means there are fewer silver futures contracts. Fewer people are interested in becoming "paper longs". And the silver price is rising off the recent bottom of $5.50/oz. Thus, dealers are covering their shorts at these "lower" prices. True, prices are lower than they just were at over $8/oz., but I suspect that a lot of these contracts are being covered at a loss from the high $4 to low $5 range.
I would like to believe that a lot of silver investors have realized the immorality and futility of gambling in silver futures contracts, and have decided to become real strong longs who would buy physical silver instead. But, more likely, they have simply given up on silver for now; as they are more likely confused, running scared, or simply disgusted at their own losses.
The reality is that we live in a world that is awash with people who are gambling with their finances. The currency markets, derivatives, and hedge funds, are a huge gamble. If futures contracts for gold are immoral (and I believe I have presented a strong case that they are), then how much worse are futures contracts for unbacked paper currencies?
Please note: a person who bought real silver at whatever price, and continues to hold, has not lost a single ounce of silver. And if you realize that silver is money, then such an investor has lost no money, even though the price for the greatest money in the world is now cheaper, temporarily.
I believe that buying silver is not a gamble, since silver is real wealth, and not fraud, as is paper money. The one who buys silver, or gold, is simply refusing to participate in the larger game of fraud that has deceived nearly everyone else.
Further, investor interest is low right now because I see that my readership is down. Fewer people are reading my reports, and fewer people are signing up to the "look at my portfolio". Fewer people are emailing me their questions about silver.
Therefore, we are running a special offer! If you buy the annual subscription to the look at my portfolio, you will get access to all the articles we have been selling at goldismoney.com! These 9 articles were selling for up to $29 each (recently reduced to $9.95!
------------------ A reader sent me the following bit of excellent information. The subject title on his email was an understatement:
"Good Info--I hope"
Originally sent to Mr. Butler, I told him I'd send this to my 2 other favorite silver writers: Jason Hommel and David Morgan.
Dear Mr. Butler,
I've been reading your comments and signed the petition last year and thought I'd send you more ammunition as you battle market treachery and thievery by the CFTC and others.
In 1940 there were 97,500 metric tons of silver or 3,134,693,250 ounces of silver in U.S. stocks. In 2003 there were 220 metric tons of silver or 7,073,154 in U.S. silver stocks. Lets get to the numbers: we have 442 times less silver than we had 63 years ago, and we have 1/5 of 1 percent from what we had 63 years ago.
At today's current spot price ($5.98 x 97,500 metric tons in 1940)-$18,745,465,635 dollars worth of silver to ($5.98 x 220 metric tons in 2003)-$42,297,460.92. From almost $19 Billion to $42 million we went from wealth to poverty in no time flat as the central bank sold off most of U.S. gold and silver to make certain there would be no return to gold or silver standards in the present or future.
I've noticed when it comes to gold and silver history posted on USGS....most of the data is hard to read and misleading. Included are two attachments that I know you'll enjoy; the first one shows data from August 30, 2002 (silver) that included data from 1939 to 1998 and the second spreadsheet dated February 5th, 2004 (silver 1) with changed and manipulated data minus U.S. Stocks prior to 1967.
Good thing I had already cut and pasted the material before it was changed and saved it to a disk.
Sincerely,
Silver Citizen
Both reports were produced by the following two government employees, who should explain why data for silver stocks was removed and changed.
Henry E. Hilliard USGS Silver Commodity Specialist (703) 648-4970 hhilliar@usgs.gov
Kenneth E. Porter Minerals and Materials Analysis Section, USGS (303) 236-8747 x 232 porter@usgs.gov
The data is provided in Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet format
Here are a few of my observations of the data, and the change in data.
1. Most notably, the second report deletes historic data of silver stocks (above ground refined supplies by government and industry) going back before 1967, with the simple excuse that data before that date is "unavailable".
2. The data in the first report for silver stocks, lists a high of 97,500 tonnes in 1940. By 1945, the end of World War II, this number had dropped down to 62,400 tonnes, a number that remained fairly steady until 1960. Apparently, an enormous amount of silver, 35,100 tonnes, was either spent or consumed during the war years.
3. The next big change in silver stocks took place from 1960 to 1967. These were the last years that silver coins were produced by the U.S. Government. They stopped making 90% silver coins in 1964, and made 40% silver half dollars a few years after that. The silver stocks drop from 62,600 tonnes in 1960 to 13,500 tonnes in 1967.
4. Again, in the first report, the numbers of silver stocks do not change much after 1967. The numbers remain fairly constant until 1994, at which time the stocks were 13,900 tonnes. After that, the numbers rapidly drop until the last year in the first chart, 1998, at which time the stocks were down to 4370 tonnes. Remember, the high was over 97,000 tonnes, and we used up over 30,000 tonnes during World War II! I do not know why this change took place after 1994. However, interestingly enough, GATA alleges that their research indicates that gold began to really be manipulated around 1996. Perhaps they begun to dump silver a few years earlier to keep silver prices low?
5. The second silver report has revised data for silver stocks. The numbers are perhaps about 1/10th the size, and only go back to 1967, not back to 1939 as in the first report. They are counting an entirely different set of data for silver stocks. Here are the two different descriptions for the heading of "stocks" from each report:
Report #1: Stocks Stock data for the years 1939–98 were recorded from the MYB. Stock data for the years 1939–98 represent the silver content of various silver materials that were stockpiled in industrial, COMEX (Commodity Exchange Inc., New York), CBT (Chicago Board of Trade), Treasury Department, Department of Defense, and National Defense stockpiles.
Report #2: Stocks Stock data for the years 1967–2002 were recorded from the MYB. Stock data for the years 1967–2002 represent the silver content of various silver materials that were stockpiled at industrial facilities consisting of producers, consumers, and dealers. Industry stock data were not available prior to 1967. Blank fields indicate data were not reported in the MYB or MCS.
Apparently, Report #2 no longer includes stocks of the "Treasury Department, Department of Defense, and National Defense stockpiles".
Bottom Line regarding the historical stocks and the change in the numbers: The U.S. Government now refuses to report historic supplies of silver that it once owned. Why not?
It's as if our current government is trying to change history by deleting it. This is similar to George Orwell's description of a totalitarian government in his book, "1984".
Officially, the current U.S. Treasury position is that they are out of silver, and must now buy silver on the open market for their Silver Eagle coin program.
But what of the Department of Defense, and National Defense stockpiles? Are these classified now for national security reasons? I don't know.
Let's move on to discuss another topic in the data: the year 1980, and it's effects. In 1980, we saw a spike in the silver price to $50/oz. People were in a near panic about paper money, and the price ratio of silver to gold returned to the historic norm of about 15:1, as gold was over $850/oz.
With this price increase, you may think that silver would have been mined left and right in huge quantities. This did not happen. Mine supply actually decreased in 1980 from 1180 tonnes in 1979 down to 1010 tonnes in 1980. In fact, U.S. silver mine production has remained remarkably constant from 1900 down to today. It ranges from about 1000 tonnes to about 2000 tonnes.
There was a significant increase in scrap production in 1980, as 1650 tonnes were produced from scap, up from 1240 a year earlier, and way up from 221 tonnes in 1965. It seems as if there was a lot of scrap production right after we abandoned using silver as coins. But we actually had more scrap production in 1994, with 1700 tonnes, which was a huge increase from the preceding years, listing a mere 162 tonnes for 1993. And this is an interesting year, since 1994 saw a significant decline in silver stocks in the first report!
World silver production also did not significantly increase in 1980. In 1979, world production was 10,800 tonnes, and in 1980 there were 10,700 tonnes. 100 tonnes less! World production was 10,300 in 1977, and 12,100 by 1983. Again, there was not a significant spike in silver production. This should encourage silver bullion investors, and scare silver stock investors. There will not likely be a flood of silver bullion being produced if the silver price spikes up. It will take years of higher prices, and years of work and planning to bring new silver mining production to market.
The next item in the charts that I find very interesting is U.S. "apparent consumption". Our consumption of silver is significantly higher in the modern age than in the early 1900's. Before 1939, the U.S. never consumed over 1000 tonnes, yet today, we consume from 5000 to 6000 tonnes per year. Consumption really took off during World War II, as by 1942, the U.S. consumed over 3000 tonnes per year, never to dip again below that number. Even more interesting is that world production now stands at about 20,000 tonnes. So the U.S. consumes over 25% of world silver production! In 2000, the U.S. consumed 34% of world production!
Furthermore, given our silver consumption, realize that we don't even have any significant monetary demand for silver, as the U.S. general population is still engaged in more "investor dishoarding", than buying, as far as I can tell from reports from silver coin shops.
Finally, what have non-government supplies of silver stocks been doing lately? (The numbers from the second report)? In the last ten years, the numbers have declined dramatically from 912 tonnes in 1993, down to 280 tonnes in 2003. What is 280 tonnes? Times 32152oz./tonne it's a mere 9 million ounces. This is far less than what is reported at the COMEX.
All indications are that we are running out of silver. This is why the price must continue to go up.
------------------------
Because I have a market reach, I also receive a lot of tips about silver stocks. And thus, I believe 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". 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: $39.95/monthly, or $49.95 for a single month, or $295.00/year To order: Click here
If you have any questions about billing or order fulfillment, you need to contact my support staff at support@goldismoney.com and not me. I manage a large portfolio, and I don't have time to process billing requests. I don't bill any cards, my support staff handles all of that. The toll free telephone customer support line is: 877-895-6824. ------------------
Now, I think it's time that the silver community started a letter writing campaign to the editors of newspapers around the world, to tell them about silver. The following links contain email addresses for hundreds of different newspaper's "letters to the editor"
The first two links above have lists of emails, but the third one is awesome because the emails are all in one neat list, so I have copied it to my site, too.
This final link lists the email addresses for about 200 world newspapers, and about 100 U.S. newspapers, so you can email them all at once. You have to copy the list, and paste it into your email, and there are direct instructions on tips for submission of letters to the editor. Most editors, most papers, want letters of 250 words or less, and many also want your full name, address and telephone number. So the task is easy. But if 500 people write letters on the silver market to about 300 newspapers around the world, I believe wonderful things will happen.
Here is a sample letter:
May 21, 2004
Dear Editor,
I'm a silver investor. I believe paper money is fraudulent. There is over 30 trillion dollars, U.S., worth of bonds in the world, but less than 2 trillion dollars worth of gold, according to gold.org.
As of April, 2004, the size of M3, the money in U.S. banks, has reached 9.1 trillion dollars, yet due to fractional reserve banking, the total of U.S. currency and coin in circulation is only 724 billion dollars as reported by treas.gov.
At silverinstitute.org and cpmgroup.com, they each report that silver has been in a deficit for about 15 years, where world mine supply has been about 500 million ounces, scrap supply about 200 million ounces, and industrial and jewelry demand about 800 million ounces. The difference, about 100 million ounces, has come from investor and government selling, drawing down reserves of silver. Known supplies of refined silver are down to about 250 to 600 million ounces. At the COMEX, they are down to 48 million ounces of silver left that is registered for delivery, which you can see at nymex.com.
The governments of the world are printing up too much paper money, and the world is running out of real money, silver. I believe this will lead to the price of silver rising dramatically in value, around the world.
I urge your readers to verify the statistics I have provided, and to make their own decisions.
Sincerely,
Jason Hommel Grass Valley, USA Goldismoney.com (530) 274 3450
When I sent out my letter above to that list, I received about 70 "undeliverable/delivery has failed" messages. I sent it BCC, or "blind carbon copy", which means it may be interpreted as spam. It may have had more of an impact if I sent out my letter to each address individually, but I just didn't have the time to do that this week. Maybe next month.
I also did not include my full address, which some editors require. But I'd rather keep a bit of privacy in that regard.
------------------ I will be attending the following two mining/gold shows in the next month:
General Commentary on Silver (slightly modified from last week):
The sponsors of the Sound Money Bill in New Hampshire are now looking for donations so they can take this to other states!
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/ -- site temporarily disabled.
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.
Now looking to raise $25,000 to $35,000 for "phase II", to get set up with an office and staff training.. Looking to raise $500,000 for "phase III", to take this to about 5 other states.
Send any donations you can, to: [These are not political campaign donations.]
SOUND MONEY FOR AMERICA, c/o Henry W. McElroy, 15 Iroquois Rd, Nashua, NH 03063 ANY AMOUNT, ANY LEGAL TENDER CURRENCY - U.S. OR FOREIGN !
Video copies of the sound money bill press conference are available for a $35 donation.
For more info, contact Rep. Henry W. McElroy, NH State Representative Sponsor of the bill 603-233-5892
Harvey Wharfield 978-635-9586
We also need assistance with the following.
1. Please contact your local representative to your state government. Find out whether they might support a similar "sound money bill" in your own state.
To contact your state rep to the federal goverment, see http://www.house.gov/writerep/ To contact your state rep to your local state government, you will have to find that on your own. Try searching for "contact state representative california" and replace the name of your state in the search.
2. If you know of any local representaives to your state government, who may be GOOD, LIKE MINDED REPRESENTATIVES, SENATORS, and GOVERNORS, who may like to support, or sponsor, a sound money bill in your state, please tell them about the NH initative. Copy the above, and send it along to them. And call Henry W. McElroy or Harvey Wharfield, and let them know of the other reps who may assist the cause.
3. If you have an email list to people who may be interested in gold and silver as money, or who may be good conservatives, please send out this notice to the list, so the project can move forward!
-------------------------- There are two excellent annual silver surveys that are sponsored by industry.
The two reports present the case that about 500 million oz. of silver are mined each year, about 200 million oz. of silver comes from scrap, and about 100 million oz. of silver comes from investor dis-hoarding, either by individuals or government sources, in order to meet the annual demand of about 800 million oz. of silver by industry & jewelry. This is wildly bullish, because investors are net selling more than buying, and I think the potential of investor demand is huge, and can be measured by seeing how much paper money there is in the world. -------------------------- See my article: Biblical Guidelines for Managing your Money
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 ----------------------------
WHERE and HOW to BUY SILVER BULLION http://www.goldismoney.com/buy-gold.php ---------------------------- 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.
---------------------------- 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 nor investment 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, check the numbers and follow the links:
1,000,000,000,000: 1 Trillion dollars 1,000,000,000: 1 Billion dollars 1,000,000: 1 Million dollars $33,000,000,000,000: World bond market, yr end, '01: http://tinyurl.com/vr7u
$26,400,000,000,000: World stock market, June 2002: http://www.nyse.com/press/1044027443845.html $20,200,000,000,000: U.S. bond market, yr end, '02: http://tinyurl.com/vr7g $11,447,800,000,000: U.S. GDP, 2004 q1 http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/home/gdp.htm $11,300,000,000,000: NYSE U.S. stock market, April, '04 (363 bill/s x $31.14/s ave.) http://nyse.com (See: Market info: quick facts) $9,101,000,000,000: M3 (money in U.S. banks) April, '04 http://tinyurl.com/vra0 $7,183,392,668,476: US debt, 5-18-04 http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm $2,360,000,000,000: U.S. annual budget 2005 http://tinyurl.com/3xbd2 $2,572,160,000,000: Marcos/Phillipine "black/unofficial" gold: 200,000 (to 500,000) Tonnes @ $400/oz. (Book: "Gold Warriors") $1,860,000,000,000: World "official" gold, 145,000 T @ $400/oz. http://tinyurl.com/vrcc $724,174,342,365: Total U.S. paper currency & coin in circulation, Dec. 31, '03 http://www.fms.treas.gov/bulletin/index.html $700,000,000,000: U.S. budget deficit (current). $272,000,000,000: Market Cap of Microsoft (03-2004) http://tinyurl.com/vrcn $222,000,000,000: M3 increase (money in U.S. banks) from Jan 2004 to April 2004 (in three months). $180,000,000,000: Debt of Ford Motor Co. (03-2004) 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?) $75,000,000,000: Money flowed into Equity funds in the first quarter, 2004 $7,090,000,000: all the world's silver stocks (59 of them on this list, as of Dec. 5th, 2003) (Perhaps $10 billion by April?) $6,710,000,000: 671 mil oz. of "identifiable" silver bullion in the entire world, according to GFMS @ $10/oz. $480,000,000: 48 mil oz. of "registered" COMEX silver bullion @ $10/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 68 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 68 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 68 x 10, You will see that bonds and currency are overvalued relative to select silver stocks by a factor of 139,000 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 139,000 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 55% 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 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: "68 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 68 times better. Currently, the ratio is 68 ounces of silver can buy one ounce of gold or 68:1.
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 have made mistakes in the data from time to time. 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). 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.
KGHM Polska Miedz http://www.kghm.pl/en/index.php --KGHM is the world`s sixth-largest copper producer and second or third in silver. 1163 tonnes of silver produced in 2001. 1163 x 32152oz.tonne = 37.4 million ounces of silver produced in 2001 --Copper/Silver mine in Poland. --Market capitalisation is about $1.52 billion.
Compania de Minas Buenaventura SA (BVN) http://www.buenaventura.com/ NYSE:BVN - Peru´s largest publicly traded precious metals company --produces over 10 mil oz of silver per year --looks way too expensive for the silver alone: 3.6 Billion market cap. -------------- -------------- --------------
ABX (Barrick) http://www.barrick.com/ 535 million shares @ $20.67/share $11,058 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." $11,058 million Market Cap / 1710 mil oz. = $6.47/oz. silver You get "approx" .94 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.
About a year ago, perhaps spring 2003, ABX made an announcement about covering 30 million ounces of silver they sold short. Then, a large buyer showed up in the futures contracts for about that amount. I do not know whether, or how, that has yet been resolved.
I expect silver bullion to continue to outperform ABX stock at these prices. CDE (COEUR D'ALENE) http://www.coeur.com coeurir@coeur.com(208) 769-8155 or (800) 624-2824 214 mil shares (Issued 32 mil new shares late Oct. 2003) @ $4.69/share $1005 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) $1005 mil MC / 225 mil oz = $4.47/oz. You get "approx" 1.36 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: A few months ago, CDE announded their intention to try and raise $150 million in the capital markets by issuing shares. I do not believe they were successful in raising any such funds, even in the exceptionally hot silver market for private placements of shares. Therefore, CDE may have realized their shares were overvalued. Interestingly, this week, CDE made a cash and share offer worth $1.7 billion for Wheaton River.
I don't know exactly how CDE could offer $1.7 billion to Wheaton River, given that CDE's market cap is significantly less than that. But I'm also not privy to the details of the deal. Perhaps CDE shareholders have authorized the issuance of a lot more stock? I heard a few weeks ago that CDE shareholders were being asked to approve such a massive increase of issuing new shares.
If you can't sell your overvalued shares to the market for cash, then offer them up in exchange for an acquisition! Smart move for CDE!
Even more interesting, Wheaton River was once advertised as a "silver stock". However, after my own very limited and quick analysis, I determined that the silver exposure in Wheaton River was too small to be significant, perhaps only around 10% of the value of the company's metals production, and so, I removed the listing of Wheaton River from my silver reports. After all, this is a silver stock report, not a gold stock report.
My own feelings are that I'd rather own Wheaton than CDE, but I don't own either. I think they are both overvalued. But if I was a large Wheaton River shareholder, thinking to own Wheaton for the silver, I might be happy with the CDE offer. After all, a larger company should offer more liquidity, and make it easier to sell the shares, and get into a better silver stock. And if I was a very large CDE shareholder, I would be happy with the acquisition, since I'd at least get something for my overvalued shares, in addition to the increased liquidity, which, again would make it easier to sell.
A final thought is that CDE may have hedged gold production. They may have hedged more than they would like. Thus, acquiring a producer, like Wheaton River, may be able to help them to eliminate their hedges.
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.
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 expect silver bullion to continue to outperform CDE stock at these prices.
IPOAF.PK (INDUSTL PENOLES) http://www.penoles.com.mx 397.5 mil shares outstanding (2002 annual, unchanged since 2001) @ $4.00/share $1590 mil MC 419 proven and probable reserves of silver (from 2002 annual report on website) $1590 mil MC / 419 oz. silver = $3.79/oz. You get "approx" 1.61 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. 2004 from ECU Mini, who reported to lemetropolecafe.com, is that Penoles has hedged several year's worth of silver, that is, they have locked in to sell mostly all their silver at low 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.
Given the report in March, 2004, that Penoles has hedged silver for two years, I expect silver bullion to continue to outperform IPOAF.PK stock at these prices.
SIL (APEX SILVER) http://www.apexsilver.com/ information@apexsilver.com (303) 839-5060 47.4 million shares outstanding (late May, 2004) (not fully diluted) (derrived from share price & market cap, late May, 2004) @ $18.45/share $874.6 mil MC cash on hand: $350 million after Jan 30th share offering, and March 16th convertable debenture. 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 $874.6 mil MC / 454 mil oz = $1.93/oz. You get "approx" 3.16 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Apex may also have up to 35-50 exploration properties.
March 16th, Apex raises $144 million in a convertable debenture deal to help finance the development of San Cristobal. They now have 350/435, or 80.4% of the capital costs needed for construction. Raising the last bit should now be very easy to do. If, while raising money, they held their cash in the form of silver bullion, they would probably not need to raise any more cash at this point, since silver has moved up over 50%.
Apex is now the most cash rich silver stock on the list. About $350 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 in significant size for sale 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 hit a recent high of $.51/lb., from a low of about $.35/lb., currently at $.47. 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: Canadian Zinc, Expatriate, or Metalline (I own Metalline, but not SIL.)
I do not have an idea on whether or not SIL will out perform silver bullion or not. It's hard to say, because of that huge zinc bonus. I expect most of the other stocks on this list to outperform or significantly outperform silver bullion in the long run from today's prices. GRS GAM.TO (GAMMON LAKE) http://www.gammonlake.com/ gammonl@sprint.ca (902) 468-0614 62 mil shares Fully Diluted: (Feb 27th, 2004) @ $6.73/share $417 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. $417 mil MC / 231 mil oz.= $1.81/oz. You get "approx" 3.37 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. 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) @ $2.15/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $1.57 US $61 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. $61 mil MC / 42 mil oz. = $1.44/oz. You get "approx" 4.23 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.
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" $55 mil MC / 42 mil oz. = $1.32/oz. $55 mil MC / 1000 mil oz. = $.055/oz. You get "approx" 4.61 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver. Exploration Potential: 111
Additional comments: Note the "exploration potential" is very large.
For more info on what's going on with Clifton, see http://www.dumontnickel.com , JV partner. One man suggested buying both Clifton and Dumont to ease the difficulty in trying to figure out their JV agreement.
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.
ABL signs a contract with GNC. (April) Clifton's biofirm's colloidal silver product will be on the shelves of this mass market health food and fitness stores, GNC. Congradulations to Clifton!
MFN MFL.TO (MINEFINDERS) http://www.minefinders.com/ 34.1 mil Shares Fully Diluted (Late 2003?) @ $7.40/share $252 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." $252 mil MC / 195 mil oz. = $1.29/oz. You get "approx" 4.71 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: Pan American of Canada buys Morococha silver mine in Peru for US$35 million 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.
After I have been harranging PAAS in these reports for being in debt for months, they finally rid themselves of their debt by converting their debentures.
PAAS "proudly" reports having $120 million in paper cash, most of which it has had now for over 6 months--ever since they went into debt by $90 million. They still refuse to recognize that silver is money, and they refuse to hold their money in the form of silver.
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.
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.
WTZ WTC.TO (WESTERN SILVER) (formerly western copper) http://www.westernsilvercorp.com info@westernsilvercorp.com Jay Oness Toll Free: 1-888-456-1112 43.3 mil fully diluted (April 2004) @ $7.28/share $315 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 Western Silver Completes Pre-Feasibility Study on Chile Colorado Zone at Penasquito New info: 267 mil oz. silver at a grade of just over 1 oz. per tonne. (an increase of 54 mil oz. over previous est.) 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 Plus, they have 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. $315 mil MC / 287 oz. = $1.10/oz. $315 mil MC / 1000 oz. = $.31/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 5.54 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential = 19
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
MGR.V MGRSF.PK (MEXGOLD RSCS) http://www.mexgold.com/ 52.5 mil fully diluted (spring 2004) @ $4.25/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $3.10 US $163 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" $163 mil MC / 185 mil oz. = $.88/oz. You have an "exploration potential target" of 6.92 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: 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."
* 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 24 fully diluted shares (Mar. 1, 2004) @ $1.14/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.83 US $20 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 $20 mil MC / 25 mil oz. = $.80/oz. ***I'm using this number*** $20 mil MC / 50 mil oz. = $.40/oz. (exploration potential) You get "approx" 7.62 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential: 15 (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 24.2 mil shares Fully Diluted (April 1, 2004) 28.8 mil shares fully diluted (End of May, 2004) after, and including financing? @ $.90/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.66 US $19 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 management 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 silver properties) $19 mil MC / 24 mil oz. = $.79/oz. $19 mil MC / 100 mil oz. = $.19/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 7.71 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration Potential: 32
Additional comments: Oremex Closes $2.6 Million Private Placement FinancingMay 28 "The Company issued a total of 2,890,023 units at $0.90 and 1,445,012 warrants exercisable at $1.10 for a period of 12 months from closing. In addition, 269,940 Agents' Warrants were issued entitling the holder to purchase one unit at $0.90 for a period of 12 months."
SSRI SSO.V (SILVER STD RSC) http://www.silver-standard.com/ paull@silverstandard.com (604) 689-3856 or (888) 338-0046 51.7 mil shares fully diluted (May 1, 2004) 57 mil shares fully diluted (could bring in another $45 million) as of May 15, 2004 (not sure if this number is right, could not confirm at the website, but it came in a forwarded email from Paul, and I'll use it, because I'm so bullish on the entire sector.) @ $11.85/share $675 mil MC debt free, cash: $Cdn 60 mil As of May 12: The company has budgeted $8.2 million in 2004 for feasibility and scoping studies and exploration of its 15 projects. With cash of $61 million, and marketable securities of approximately $10 million at March 31, the company decided to invest approximately 20% of its cash and securities in physical silver following the decline in silver prices in April and May. Silver Standard now owns over 1.95 million ounces of silver. This silver is held on an allocated and segregated basis and, consequently, is not available to be loaned. not mining or producing; 15 silver properties measured and indicated resources totaling 403.6 million ounces of silver plus inferred resources totaling 446.4 million ounces of silver = 850 mil oz. 2.2 mil oz. gold. Silver equiv = 22 mil oz. silver. (22 + 850 = 872 mil oz.) $675 mil MC / 872 mil oz. = $.77/oz. You get "approx" 7.86 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Congradulations to SSRI for converting some of their cash, 20%, to silver bullion! I wish it was more, but it is certainly a great start! I received plenty of letters about this action, and I was watching the share price like a hawk on Thursday morning, but surprisingly, the share price hardly moved on Thursday morning.
Congradulations also, for now having more resources than PAAS. I'd expect your market cap to soon exceed PAAS which is at $839 million, especially given PAAS management's lack of understanding that silver is money, and can be used as money. If your market cap does exceed that of PAAS soon, it could mean a share price boost of about 48%
SSRI continues to add resources through drilling and acquisition.
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.
CZN.TO CZICF.PK (CDN ZINC) 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, 2004 @ $.79/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.58 US $46 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. $46 mil MC / 70 mil oz. = $.66/oz. You get "approx" 9.23 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.
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 in additional financings.
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 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 headed up? Currently, 45 cents/lb. for zinc! Check http://www.metalprices.com/ for updates.
SRLM.PK ( STERLING MINING) http://www.sterlingmining.com/ RDemotte@aol.com Ray DeMotte 208/676-0599 16.6 mil shares fully diluted (Apr 2004) @ $7.60/share $126 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. " Other properties: Baroness 15 mil -- tailing project, no further exploration potential. Tesorito 17 mil -- + exploration potential sa 14 mil -- + exploration potential Total: 231 mil oz. silver $126 mil MC / 231 mil oz. = $.55/oz. $126 mil MC / 550 mil oz. = $.23/oz. (exploration potential) You get "approx" 11.07 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. (Exploration potential is 27.)
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 had "more than 360 million ounces of production over the past century" and 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. 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."
IMR.V IMXPF.OB (IMA EXPL) http://www.imaexploration.com 49,059,825 mil Fully Diluted shares (May 27, 2004) @ $2.80/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $2.04 U.S $100 mil MC Exploring in Argentina. $4.5 million cash Snowden Reports Over 200 Million Ounces of Contained Silver at IMA's Galena Hill -- May 25th Indicated + Inferred Resource = 243 mil oz. "This resource includes only the Galena Hill deposit and portions of the adjacent Connector zone, and does not include known and interpreted mineralization at Navidad Hill, Barite Hill, Calcite Hill, or along the Esperanza Trend." $100 mil MC / 243 mil oz. = .41/oz You get "approx" 14.78 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Positive drilling results are coming in, and drilling continues.
IMA has many other silver properties, and they plan to spin these off into a new company.
IMA has several joint venture partners in the area in Argentina near Navidad. See Tinka, Cloudbreak, Consolidated Pacific Bay. Other companies are in the near area such as Pategonia Gold, Pacific Rim, and Silver Standard. And, of course Aqualine who, based on their lawsuit, seems as if they think they own the entire area for 50 miles around all their mining claims. That's a total of 7 other companies in the area. And of course, Cardero also has significant exploration properties in Argentina.
About 25 months ago, in report #10, regarding IMR.V, I was writing things like, " $62.15 mil MC / (.30/oz. "Arbitrary Jason Hommel good value" factor) = 207 mil oz. that they had better find to justify the current Market cap. " At the time, I received heavy criticism for this method of valuing this company. Interestingly enough, it turns out that IMR.V did have about that much silver in resources. And it looks like they are in the process of discovering even more. Additionally, these days, it's also increasingly difficult to find silver stocks with resources cheaper than $.30/oz.
Since I owned IMA as of last week, and don't own any anymore, people will want to know why I sold. I had other opportunities present themselves, and my IMA stock was a relatively recent purchase, and I had a small gain overall, which was unusual in this recent decline. I did purchase some IMA as high as about $3.60. But I think my average price was about $2.60. So, I took profits, and plan to redeploy them in another silver stock. Don't ask me which--it's a private placement open to only about 6-9 people, and the stock does not trade at the moment. I should have taken profits in IMA earlier, when the stock jumped up to $3.40, but I was not quick enough, nor did I have a small enough position to sell at the recent peak. Although the long term potential for IMA remains good, I think, remember, some stocks are good for trading.
GGC.V GGCRF.PK (GENCO RESOURCES) http://www.gencoresources.com/ IR: Rob Blankstein: 604-682-2205, or info@gencoresources.com 20+ mil shares fully diluted (April, 2004) @ $1.10/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.80 $16 mil MC --Producer in Mexico. 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 $16 mil MC / 40 mil oz. silver = $.40/oz. You get "approx" 15.17 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional Comments: As of April, 2004, Genco is producing 35,000 oz/month of silver, earning $100,000 Cdn/month, and expects to earn $1,000,000 Cdn/month by year's end by doubling both the tonnage and the grade. Genco is also aggressivly planning on making property acquisitions.
RDV.TO RDFVF.PK (REDCORP VENTURE) http://www.redcorp-ventures.com/ http://www.redfern.bc.ca/index.html 52.7 mil shares fully diluted (March 2004) @ $.39/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.28 $15 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. $15 mil MC / 38.3 mil oz = $.39/oz. You get "approx" 15.55 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)
CHD.V CHDSF.PK (CHARIOT RSCS) http://www.chariotresources.com/ 45 mil shares fully diluted October 2003 @ $.37/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.27 US $12 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.) $12 mil MC / 32.7 mil oz. = $.37/oz. You get "approx" 16.38 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
FAN.TO FRLLF.PK ( FARALLON RSCS) http://www.farallonresources.com/fan/Home.asp (604) 684-6365 Erick Bertsch 77.5 mil shares fully diluted as of April 1, 2004 @ $.60/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.44 US $34 mil MC Exploration and development in Mexico. Run by hdgold.com (Hunter-Dickinson) On 4 sulphide deposits out of 16, 29 mil tonnes of ore grading 89 grams silver/t and 1.57 g gold/t. Conversion: 89 grams x .03215 troy oz./gram = 2.86 oz./t silver RE: those 29 mil tons, they "anticipate increasing resources to 50 mil tonne range..." 2.86 oz./t silver x 29 mil tons = 83 mil oz. silver 1.5 mil oz. gold x 10 = 15 mil oz "silver equiv". Total: 98 mil oz. silver equiv. (Exploration potential = x 1.7 = 167) (Minus: The recoveries on low grade ores such as this are typically not 100%, but may be more like 50-85%, but it also depends on which metal in the polymetalic deposit that they most focus on extracting, and also depends on advances in technology.) $34 mil MC / 98 mil oz. silver equiv. = $.35/oz. $34 mil MC / 167 mil oz. silver equiv. = $.20/oz. --exploration potential You get "approx" 17.58 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. Exploration potential = 30.45
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 in late 2003 was 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.)
The stock once had a market cap of $450 million, Canadian.
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.
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) @ $1.12/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.82 US $27 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. $27 mil MC / 89.3 mil oz. = $.30/oz. You get "approx" 19.97 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.
PLE.V (PLEXMAR RES INC) http://www.paradox-pr.ca/image/plexmarnov2003.pdf 62 mil fully diluted (March 2004) @ $.205/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.15 US $9 mil MC --just acquired 2 silver mines in Peru Total: 1.09 mil gold oz., 28.4 mil oz. silver Total silver equiv: 38.4 mil oz. $9 mil MC / 38.4 mil oz. = .24/oz. You get "approx" 25.17 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
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?) @ $.41/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = US $.30 $2 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 $2 mil MC / 8 mil oz. silver = $.26/oz. You get "approx" 23.59 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."
* MGN (MINES MGMT) (I own shares) http://www.minesmanagement.com/ info@minesmanagement.com (509) 838 6050 Doug Dobbs 12.4 mil shares fully diluted (April 2004) @ $4.85/share $60 mil MC 261 mil oz. silver resources. Previous drilling spent over $100 million drilling the property. $60 mil MC / 261 mil = $.23/oz. You get "approx" 26.43 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. As silver moves up $.50/oz., it adds $130 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 recently at $1.24/lb.), 2 Billion pounds of copper, and 261 mil oz. of silver. Doing the math: 261 mil oz. silver x $5.70/oz. = $1.487 Billion. 2 Billion lbs copper x $1.24/lb.. = $2.5 Billion. Total value of mineralization before costs to extract, $4.0 billion. It was recently a high of: $4.8 Billion. This number increased from around $3 Billion just a few months ago!
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.
* SVL.V STVZF.PK (SILVRCRST MINES) (I own shares) http://www.silvercrestmines.com/ info@silvercrestmines.com (604) 691-1730 25.9 million fully diluted March, 2004 @ $1.04/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.76 US $19.66 mil MC $3 mil cash in the til. Now the Honduras and El Salvador "Resource" totals 43 million plus the exploration potential of 40 - 100 million in Honduras plus Mexico, --see news release from last month, plus drill programs to start in Mexico and El Salvador plus Guatemala another unknown but geologically similar to main property in Honduras and El Salvadore all three are within 25 miles from each other. Silvercrest added 14.3 million oz. of resources at El Zapote, 4-6-04 The range of exploration potential is between 89 - 149 million oz. $20 mil MC / 89 = $.22/oz. $20 mil MC / 149 = $.13/oz. You get "approx" 27.56 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock. (Exploration potential = 45+ oz.)
Additional comments: April 6th: SilverCrest Reports El Zapote Resource Estimates http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040406/65883_1.html --Silvercrest added about 14 million oz. of silver resources in the April 6th press release.
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.
Silvercrest has 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
EXR.V EXPTF.PK ( EXPATRIATE RECS) http://www.expatriateresources.com/ info@expatriateresources.com 1-877-682-5474 Dr. Harlan D. Meade, President and CEO 88 mil shares fully dulted March, 2004 @ $.23/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.17 $15 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". $15 mil MC / 67.4 oz. silver = $.22 You get "approx" 27.78 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: Expatriate has been having positive drill results in the last few months. I expect news soon.
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.
Call Dr. Harlan D. Meade, President and CEO 1-877-682-5474, and ask him to send you an information packet on EXR.V. It contains a good report on why he is bullish on zinc.
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) @ $1.35/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.99 US $11 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" $11 mil MC / 51.5 mil oz. = $.21/oz. You get "approx" 29.20 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.
ABI.V ABMBF.PK (Abcourt Mines Inc.) no website Jeff Tremblay (IR) (418) 575-1169 26 mil shares fully diluted (May, 2004) @ $.19 share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.14 $3.6 mil MC no debt., North of Montreal., 8 mil shares family owned. proven reserves... not ready to be opened, re-opened perhaps in mid 2005? --Past producer, so there's existing infrastructure. --Resource: 18.1M oz silver, 120,000 oz. gold, 303,000 tons zinc, 2,308 tons copper $273 million worth of zinc at .45/lb, $108 million worth of silver at $6/oz, $45.6 mil worth of gold at $380 $3.6 mil MC / 19 mil oz. = $.19/oz. You get "approx" 32 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver's worth of stock.
Additional comments: looking to raise $5 mil to reopen the gold mine. needs $5 mil to reopen the silver mine. (drilling the silver mine planned for summer, 2004) needs $5 mil for the zinc project.
UNCN.OB ( UNICO INC) http://www.uncn.net/ Ray Brown, 530-873-4394 70 mil shares @ $.075/share $5 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 mil MC / 49 mil oz. = $.11/oz. You have an expiring lease on "approx" 57 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. A few explorers may also be producers.
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. IE, everyone is an explorer!
The list above is not a list of producers, the list above is a list of companies with significantly measurable resources in the ground. Those below, generally do not. Or, if they do have resource numbers, the numbers are very small compared to their much larger exploration potential, and thus, they are listed here.
(The order in this list is by largest market cap first, not by "comparative value" of the market cap divided by the resources, as above. However, in a few cases where a company does list their exploration potential, I do provide a number of what that might give you, in terms of silver ounces in the ground, for an ounce of silver's worth of stock.)
HL (HECLA MINING CO) http://hecla-mining.com/ hmc-info@hecla-mining.com (208) 769-4100 118 mil shares outstanding (derrived from the market cap and share price late May, 2004) @ $6.49/share $767.5 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. $767.5 mil MC / 36 mil "oz." = $21.32/oz.
Additional comments: Given that CDE made a share offer this week for Wheaton River, I expect that Hecla will try a similar tactic very soon, and offer shares to acquire another silver company.
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.
Hecla has a net income of $6.2 million for the first quarter of 2004. Annualized, that's $24.8 million for the year, which gives a P/E ratio of 31, which indicates to me that HL is still too expensive of a stock to buy.
Hecla is the most expensive company on the list in terms of cost per oz. of silver in the ground.
I expect silver bullion to continue to outperform HL stock at these prices. EZM.V EZMCF.PK (EUROZINC MINING) http://www.eurozinc.com/ 224 million shares Fully Diluted @ $.62/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.45 $101 mil MC
SPM.V SMNPF.PK (SCORPIO MINING) http://www.scorpiomining.com 52.2 mil shares fully diluted April 2004 (after recent $16 million Cdn private placement) @ $2.58/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $1.88 US $98 mil MC
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 @ $2.83/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $2.06 US $66 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: $66 mil MC / 500 mil oz exploration potential = $.13/oz. $66 mil MC / 850 mil oz exploration potential = $.08/oz. Exploration potential: you might get about 46 - 78 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) @ $.34/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.25 US $10 mil MC (US) ---- Additional comments: They own 5.82 million shares and 388,000 warrants of Cardero at $.35, which usually is a greater asset value than their market cap. Ascot's share price is typically around 80% 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.)
* OTMN.PK (O.T. MINING) (I own shares) http://www.otmining.com/ info@otmining.com Jim Hess Tel: 514-935-2445 12.8 mil fully diluted (May 15, 2004) @ $4.50/share $57.6 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.
MCAJF.PK (MACMIN LTD) http://www.macmin.com.au/ 450 mil shares and options (Feb., 04) @ $.08/share $36 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.
* 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 @ $.47/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.34 $56.6 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
* MMGG.OB (METALLINE MINE) (I own shares) http://www.metalin.com/site_map.html metalin@attglobal.net Merlin Bingham 208-665-2002 21.6 mil shares fully diluted (April, 2004) (only 2 mil options and warrants) @ $2.20/share US $48 mil MC $8 million cash in the til.
Metalline's Sierra Mojada Project Status Report Wednesday May 5 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
TVI.TO TVIPF.PK (TVI PACIFIC) http://www.tvipacific.com Dianne (IR) Phone: (403) 265-4356 378 mil shares fully diluted (April 2004) @ $.17/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.12 US $47 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!
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
* NPG.V NVPGF.PK (NEVADA PAC GOLD) (I own shares) http://www.nevadapacificgold.com/ dhottman@nevadapacificgold.com (604) 646-0188 David Hottman 47.4 mil shares fully diluted (April 2004) @ $1.14/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.83 US $39 mil MC $2.8 million cash (April 2004) 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. $39 mil MC / 200 mil oz. = $.20/oz. $39 mil MC / 1000 mil oz. = $.039/oz. The inverse: you "might" get 31 - 156 ounces in the ground for 1 oz. silver.
Additional comments April 2: Nevada Pacific Gold to Initiate 25,000 Feet of Drilling on Keystone, Amador Canyon and Limousine Butte The 200 to 1000 mil oz. of silver exploration potential estimate for the Amador Canyon project is based on the size of the area, which may provide between 50 and 250 million tonnes of ore, times a low grade of 4-6 ounce per ton. 50 mil tonnes x 4 oz/tonne = 200 mil oz., the low end of the target range. 250 million tonnes x 4 oz/tonne = 1000 mil oz., the high end of the range. That target range is the expectation that the geologists are hoping the drilling will prove up. It will likely take several rounds of drilling and analysis of drill results to get a proper resource calculation, and plenty of time.
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 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.
I own shares of NPG.V
MAG.V MSLRF.PK (MAG SILVER) http://www.magsilver.com 28 mil fully diluted shares (Nov. 19, 2003) @ $1.45/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = US $1.06 $30 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.
IAU.V ITDXF.PK (INTREPID MINRLS) http://www.intrepidminerals.com/ scoates@intrepidminerals.com Stephen Coates, Investor Relations (416) 368-4525 51 mil fully diluted (April, 2004) @ $.89/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = .65 US $33 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)
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.
ECU.V ECUXF.PK (ECU SILVER MINI) http://www.ecu.qc.ca/indexen.html ecu@ecu.qc.ca (819) 797-1210 103.3 mil fully diluted shares = (6 January 2003) @ $.40/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.29 $30 mil MC The shares of ECU.V recently stopped trading recently. The exchange wanted them to update their website, particularly their listing of resources and reserves. See ECU Silver Mining Inc. Clarifies and Retracts Previous Disclosure A new resource calculation is expected soon. ECU.V is also exploring other gold properties.
MMM.TO MMAXF.PK (MINCO MINING) http://www.mincomining.com/ investor-info@mincomining.ca 1-888-288-8288 23 mil Fully Diluted @ $1.60/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $1.17 $27 mil MC Located in China 2 gold projects and 1 silver (42% owned). Explorer
MAI.V MNEAF.OB (MINERA ANDES) http://minandes.com/ ircanada@minandes.com (604) 689-7017 Art Johnson 90 mil shares fully diluted (April, 2004) @ $.49/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.36 US $32 mil MC Raised $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: 16.7 mil oz "silver equiv" 15 mil oz. silver + 1.7 mil oz. "silver equiv" of 170,000 oz. of gold. 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. $32 mil MC
Additional comments: Minera Andes plans to "fast track" to production. Expecting $.17-$.18/share Cdn earnings/year, as of April, 2004
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.
* EDR.V EDRGF.PK (ENDEAVOUR GOLD) (I own shares) http://www.edrgold.com/ Hugh Clarke, Investor Relations 1-877-685-9775 23.7 mil shares fully diluted (April, 2004) 25.7 mil shares fully diluted (May 28th, 2004) @ $1.38/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $1.00 $26 mil MC As of May 28th, 2004, they have $9 mil Cdn cash. If all options and warrants are exercised, they will have another $9.8 mil Cdn in cash. They believe they may be a chance they will not need to dilute further to develop current silver production plans at the Santa Cruz Mine. Endeavour is not a "resource" play, but rather, a "production" play on silver. They are listed with the explorers because they do not have large drill results or a resource calculation outlining significantly large resources--they have only around 5 million ounces is all. But so they don't have a "prospective" mining property. Instead, they have a working mine! Like Hecla. http://www.edrgold.com/s/SantaCruzMine.asp --currently producing 600,000 oz. silver/yr. --expect to increase production to 4,000,000 oz. silver/yr
PXI.V PNXPF.PK (Planet Exploration Inc.) http://www.planetexploration.info/mexico.asp 30.8 mil shares fully diluted (Jan. 2004) @ .90/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.66 $20 mil MC 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." $20 mil MC / 60 mil = $.34/oz. Exploration potential: 18 oz. of silver per oz of silver's worth of stock.
* 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) not including recent financing, which still needs approval by the exchange, and when added, will increase the market cap by about $10-11 million or so?
@ $1.10/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.80 $15 mil MC
Additional Comments: Attention Cabo Shareholders: If you want to see the company move forward with the approval of the most recent financing, and the acquisition of the drilling companies, please contact John Verseflet at jav@cabo.ca (604) 681 8899, to get the shareholder approval form.
In the article, I highlight what I feel is Cabo's most imporant asset: control of 60% of the mining camp of Cobalt, Ontario. The "silver capital of Canada" produced historically, over 500 million ounces of silver.
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, drilling companies are now in extremely high demand. Many explorers are saying they are having difficulty finding any drillers available!
To learn more about the mining camp town of Cobalt, there is a fascinating article detailing the history of the silver camp at http://www.cobalt.ca/cobalt/history.htm
I own shares of CBE.V
QTA.V QURAF.PK (QUATERRA RES) http://www.quaterraresources.com/ Jay Oness Toll Free: 1-888-456-1112 60.6 mil shares fully diluted @ $.42/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.31 US $19 mil MC
Additional Comments: three main properties in North America. The main exploration project is the Nieves, near the massive Fresnillo silver mine, owned by Penoles.
QTA.V is a Sister Company to Western Silver, WTZ above. See also Bravo Venture, BVG.V, another sister company, with 34.5 mil fully diluted shares (April, 2004)
DNI.V DMNKF.PK (DUMONT NICKEL) http://www.dumontnickel.com info@dumontnickel.com (416) 595-1195 60 mil shares outstanding (April 15, 2004) does not include options and warrants. @ $.24/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.175 $10.5 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.
There seems to be significant disagreement between Clifton's shareholders and Dumont's shareholders on which company has the better value. On the one hand, Dumont is the aggressive partner, since they are the one doing the acquiring. On the other hand, Clifton is the holder of most of the properties, and Dumont has to pay several million to acquire each of the many properties. This is a very complex deal.
I do not like JV agreements due to the complexity of trying to determine ownership which is contingent upon many unknown factors that might change in the future. One man recently offered me an interesting suggestion. He simply said, "Why not buy both companies?".
EXN.V EXLLF.PK (EXCELLON RSCS) http://www.excellonresources.com 87 mil shares fully diluted (Jan 9, 2004 press release) @ $.165/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.12 US $10 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%) $10 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." That was when silver prices were under $5/oz.! 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.
BCM.V BCEKF.PK (BEAR CRK MINING) http://www.bearcreekmining.com/s/Home.asp 39.2 million shares fully diluted @ $.43/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.31 US $12 mil MC --About 6 properties in Peru
NJMC.OB (NEW JERSEY MIN) http://www.newjerseymining.com/ Fred or Grant Brackebusch minesystems@usamedia.tv 23.9 fully diluted Apr, '04 @ $.55/share US $13 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.
CMA.V CRMXF.OB (Cream Minerals Ltd) http://www.creamminerals.com/cream/main.htm http://www.langmining.com/cream-mx/ 34.8 mil shares fully diluted (March 31, 2004) @ $.42/share Cdn x .73 Cdn/US = $.31 US $11 mil MC from: http://www.langmining.com/cream-mx/companyProjects_Summary.html Project B: Potential Target: 400m x 500m x 150m x 2.5 t/m3 = 75,000,000 tonnes Say at: Au 0.480 g/t Ag 149.33 g/t Silver only, that's (1 gram = .03215 troy oz.) 4.8 oz./t x 75 million tonnes = 360 million oz. "exploration potential" in a low-grade deposit. $11 mil MC / 360 mil oz. = $.029/oz. (exploration potential) --not a "resource"!!! You may get 194 oz. of silver, per oz. of silver's worth of stock. (Compare to NPG.V)
Additional comments: Another silver property is the Kaslo. "The Kaslo Silver Property encompasses the Keen Creek Silver Belt and is comprised of nine former high grade silver mines"...
* KG.V KDKGF.PK (KLONDIKE GOLD) (I own shares) http://www.klondikegoldcorp.com/ 70 mil fully diluted (Nov. 2003) @ $.215/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.16 US 5 year high .30 $11 mil MC
This company has many silver and gold properties. Dennis Fong is also involved with GNG.V, Golden Goliath.
Klondike has one silver property that could be producing within weeks.
(I own shares of KG.V)
SML.V SMLZF.PK (STEALTH MNRLS) http://www.stealthminerals.com Email-Bill@McWilliam.com 604-306-0391 Bill McWilliam, Chief Executive Officer 48 mil shares (August 31- 02) @ $.38/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.28 $13 mil MC
NBG.V NBULF.PK (NEW BULLET GP) http://www.newbulletgroup.com/index.htm 50 mil shares fully diluted (including 15 mil new PP) http://www.newbulletgroup.com/financial.htm @ $.28/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.20 US $10 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. $10 mil MC / 75 mil oz. = .136 oz. $10 mil MC / 210 mil oz. = .047 oz. Exploration potential = 45 - 127 oz. per oz. worth of shares.
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 87.4 mil fully diluted shares (April, 2004) @ $.175/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.13 $11 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. $11 mil MC / 45 mil oz. = $11 mil MC /150 mil oz. =
ATN.TO ATNAF.PK (Atna Resources Ltd.) http://www.atna.com/s/Home.asp 37.1 mil shares fully diluted (Spring, 2004) @ $.34/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.25 9 mil MC 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 (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%).
CHMN.PK (CHESTER MINING) http://www.chestermining.com/ Bill Hoyt, 785-383-9246 " 2.3 million shares outstanding, positive working capital and no debt " @ $4.00/share US $9 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.
EPZ.V ESPZF.PK (ESPERANZA SILVR) http://www.esperanzasilver.com/s/Home.asp 20 million shares fully diluted @ $.69/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = US $.50 $10 mil MC "Esperanza Silver Corporation is solely dedicated to the identification, acquisition and exploration of new silver projects." Looking for high grades.
GNG.V GGTHF.PK (GOLDEN GOLIATH) http://www.goldengoliath.com/ 604-682-2950 32.4 mil shares fully diluted @ $.33/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.24 $8 mil MC
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.
GPR.V GPRLF.PK (GREAT PANTHER RES) http://www.greatpanther.com Robert Archer, President, & Kaare Foy CFO: 604 608 1766 25.4 mil shares fully diluted April 23, 2004 @ $.54/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.39 $10 mil MC
MMG.V MMEEF.PK (MCMILLAN GOLD) http://www.macmillangold.com/ 25.6 mil shares outstanding (3q 2003 report June, 2003) @ $.38/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.27 $7 mil MC
SHSH.PK (SHOSHONE SILVER) http://www.shoshone-mining.com Bill Hoyt, 785-383-9246 12 mil shares @ $.60 US $7 mil MC In Cour d'Alene, near CDE, HL, & SRLM.PK
* KRE.V KREKF.PK (KENRICH ESKAY) (I own shares) http://www.kenrich-eskay.com/ Toll-free 1-888-805-3940 or (604) 682-0557 16 mil shares outstanding. Use "fully diluted" to be safe. @ $.44/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = .32 $5.6 mil MC Adjacent to Barrick's silver property, Eskay Creek, which is "the fifth largest silver producer in the world". 70% of the rights to The Property was once almost bought by Homestake (which was acquired by Barrick) for $35 million in 1996, and Homestake was going to fund all exploration and development. The buy out ended when metals prices collapsed, and Bre-X hit, and when the majors cut back on exploration budgets to stay alive. This means the market cap of KRE.V may be worth 100% / 70% x $35 million, or $50 million, plus exploration and development costs, to a major mining company, and likely worth much more today, due to inflation of the dollar, and the rise in the price of silver!
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) @ $.59/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.43 $7 mil MC
PCM.V PAOCF.PK (PAC COMOX RES) http://www.pacificcomox.com/ 66 mil fully diluted Jan, 2004 (From Dec 11, 2003 press release and 2002 report) @ $.065/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.047 $3.1 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) @ $.19/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.14 US $5.4 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
BGS.V BLDGF.PK (BALLAD GLD SLVR) http://www.balladnet.com 16.3 mil shares outstanding (fully diluted?) @ $.24/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.17 US $2.85 mil MC Bonanza grade "grab samples" in southern Argentina near IMA. 32 oz./T gold and 22 oz./T silver grab samples.
* AUN.V AUNFF.PK (Aurcana Corp) (I own shares) http://www.aurcana.com/ CEO Ken Booth 604-331-9333 kbooth@aurcana.com 45 million shares (fully diluted) (March 2004) @ $.13/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.09 US $4 mil MC Drilling to commence on high-grade, gold-silver targets. (in Mexico)
ASLM.PK (AMER SILVER MINI) 2.75 million shares issued @ $1.00/share $2.7 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
BBR.V BBRRF.PK (BRETT RES) http://www.bmts.bc.ca/bbr/ 17.2 fully diluted @ $.23/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.17 $2.9 mil MC Silver projects: Yukon --grab sample of 611 g/t Ag Argentina --samples from 31 to 5640 g/t Ag
ROK.V ROCAF.PK (ROCA MINES INC) http://www.rocamines.com 14.3 mil fully diluted (July 15, 2003) @ $.22/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.16 $2.3 mil MC
LSM.V LASCF.PK (Langis Silver & Cobalt Mining Co Ltd) no website Patrick Sheridan Jr. President and Secretary-Treasurer Phone: (416) 628-5936 Langis has 11,565,890 issued and outstanding common shares. (not fully diluted) @ $.21/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.15 $1.8 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 @ $.14/share Cdn x .73 US/Cdn = $.10 $.94 mil MC
--CBP.V is the smallest market cap silver stock that I know of. It is truly a "penny stock".
----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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. TBLC.PK (TIMBERLINE RES)
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
Mineral Mountain Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
Metropolitan Coeur d' Alene, Idaho
Independence Lead 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.
Here are a few more stocks to look up. I don't even know if some of these are silver miners.
Lfex - Lucky Friday Extention Kcpm - King of pine creek Vins - vindicator silver,
Osburn Wallace Silver Valley Resources United Mines APNE ALS Royal Silver Mines (RSMI) Bunker Hill ? Nabob New Era Sidney Signal
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.
Many 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 signup, or unsubscribe, to this report 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 16 silver stocks: CMA.V, PLE.V, PDO.V,AUN.V, EDR.V, KG.V, MGN, CBE.V, NPG.V, SVL.V, MMGG.OB, TM.V, OTMN.PK, FCO.TO, KRE.V, FR.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 require a disclosure regarding finder's fees. Nevertheless, I have begun to receive "finder's fees" from a few companies.
-- Posted 31 May, 2004 | |
Last Three Articles by Jason Hommel, Gold Is Money
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