Investing directly in juniors or through the GDXJ ETF?

In a recent essay, Adam Hamilton of Zeallc.com pointed to the strong performance of the GDXJ Exchange Traded Fund since it was launched hardly one year ago by Van Eck. Especially last two months GDXJ is outperforming both the large cap focussed GDX and bullion. No better praise than that of a competitor.

Rechtstreeks in Junior mijnbedrijven investeren of opteren voor de GDXJ ?

Recent interviewde Alix Steel van StreetTV John Doody, editor van GoldStockAnalyst.com, over de goud- en zilvermijnen uit het GDXJ ETF die hoofdzakelijk op US beurzen verhandeld worden.

Videolink: Alix Steel van StreetTV interviews John Doody editor of GoldStockAnalyst.com

John Doody geeft eerder de voorkeur aan een investering in de GDXJ Etf (uitgegeven door Van Eck ) dan aan een rechtstreekse investering in de selectie van mijnaandelen met US-listing. Vooral de drie zilverproducenten behoren tot de achterblijvers in de GDXJ. Bovendien omvat de GDXJ voor ongeveer 50% van de kapitalisatie mijnbedrijven die op de Canadese TSX verhandeld worden.

In een bijhorend artikel van Alix Steel passeren vijf aandelen met US-listing in de GDXJ de revue.

Valuation Metrics of Canadian Gold and Silver Miners

When dealing with mineral rights of mining enterprises, Canada has its NI 43-101 Metal Valuation Report, a standard for mining companies to comply with when reporting on their reserves and resources. Those documents are stored and can be retrieved from the repository at http://www.sedar.com/

• Note: Other major mining nations have similar standards with definitions converging: JORC (Australia), SAMREC (South Africa), SME (US). See "International Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve Classification and Reporting Systems"  

To make thing easier and allow comparison in a glance, the website 'GoldMinerPulse': http://www.goldminerpulse.com/ gives a fair overview of many Canadian Gold Mining Valuations. There are also specific Valuation Reports for the companies reported on. The list is not exhaustive, as a minor retribution is required to include the company and update the statistics on a daily basis.

Index vastgoedcertificaten op absoluut hoogtepunt

De Petercam BRECS returnindex sluit het derde kwartaal van 2010 op een absoluut hoogtepunt af. BRECS staat voor Belgian Real Estate CertificateS. Op 30 September noteert de BRECS index (met basisjaar 1985=10.000) op 61.067 en sinds een maand boven 60.000. De grafiek over de voorbije vijf jaar illustreert duidelijk dat dit steeds een hardnekkig weerstandsniveau geweest is. Tegelijk blijft het gewogen gemiddelde couponrendement net boven 6%, met gemak boven de langetermijnrente.

Naar een verkoop van Westland Shopping

Atenor brengt een bod uit op vastgoedcertificaat 'Westland Shopping'.

Atenor zou  €825 bieden per certificaat. (link PDF Atenor (FR)). De handel werd op 1 oktober geschorst, wegens de aankondiging van het bod. Sindsdien werden 1216 stukken verhandeld, maar telkens aan €830. Het certificaat is relatief illiquide want er werden slechts 38420 certificaten Westland Shopping uitgegeven.

Rather a selling opportunity?

Novagold reached a new two year high yesterday trading up to $9.20 intraday. Is it a buy or a sell?

All considerations

Pro's:

1. + NG quotes at $8.94 at close yesterday Sep 29, an impressive gain over last few weeks, but it stays well below half the November 2007 price level. So there might still be room for further gains?
2. + Back in November 07 we had a gold price of about $800/oz, while we’re over 60% higher now: sure if NG catches up the territory lost on the rise of bullion, we’re in for some nice gains.
3. + After the capital raises (private placements at $5.5 in early spring) investors continued bidding up the price. Apparently they were ready to pay an extra just to be on the same boat as Soros and Paulson. This definitely raises confidence.
4. + NG needs counting on its rich resources, not on operational results. The resource base is interesting for partnerships and new investors all the same. Eventually one of the partners may launch a take-over bid.

 Con's:

1. - Not a single project resulted in a operating mine. Even ‘Rock creek’ where most investments were completed, has been put ‘on care and maintenance’. Geologists are not competent mining engineers nor production managers apparently.
2. - Reviewing the feasibility study (implying higher costs) at Galore creek triggered the suspending of the project and directly resulted in the NG price shashed in half by the end of 2007.
3. - Debt financing the start up of Rock Creek proved detrimental in November 2008 as NG ran out of cash amidst technical problems to get the mine started. The share price dropped below $0.50. Refinancing and raising new capital with new shares sold at $1.20 and warrants at $1.50 dramatically diluted existing shareholders, as the number of shares rose by 80%. By now, the number of shares more than doubled.
4. - In order for Donlin creek to become a working mine, up to 4 billion $ are needed: for NG to maintain its 50% interest in the project, it needs finding 2 billion. The capital raised earlier this year was $175 M: we’re not yet there. Two billion is close to the market cap at the moment.

 Conclusions are all yours.

About the origin of the silver dollar

The Maria Theresa Thaler is probably one of the most famous and well known coins of the world. See also following links:
http://www.theresia.name/en/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_thaler

Maria Theresia thaler, 1780 Restrike

Lucky Junior Mining picks

With some sense of irony one could state: “Junior mining is a mine field.”

Over the last few months, I have been posting just twice on a junior mining company worth taking a closer look at:

Formation Mining: http://gwyde.blogspot.com/2010/06/formation-metals-opnieuw-een-penny.html, and

Genco Resources: http://gwyde.blogspot.com/2010/08/genco-resources-de-storm-doorstaan.html

(Both postings are in Dutch, though some Google Translation activity suggests they might have drawn wider attention.)

Gold mining valuation metrics and its limitations

When comparing gold mining companies, operational key elements, such as cash cost per ounce produced are a key metric. "Cash cost per ounce produced" is a non-GAAP performance measure which provides an indication of the mining and processing efficiency. There is an industry definition called the “Gold Institute Gold Cost Standard” of what is included and how it needs to be calculated. See page 4 of following reference: Gold Mine Cost Report – Q3 2010.

That publication gives a sound idea of how different cash cost can possibly be among operating gold mines. It also points out the continuous rise in cash costs. This has recently been discussed by Scott Wright a senior mining analyst working at Zeal. See: Gold mining margins.

Tubize: een turbo op UCB

De cijfers

Tubize houdt 65 370 000 aandelen UCB aan, goed voor 35.62% van de beurskapitalisatie. Het aantal Tubize aandelen is 44 608 831, zodat één aandeel Tubize 1.4654 aandelen UCB vertegenwoordigt. Dat is dan meteen de hefboom: geen zware 'turbo' genre ABN-Amro en evenmin een stop-loss.

Om die zware positie in UCB te handhaven, heeft Tubize ook 378.2 miljoen EUR schuldfinanciering. Dat komt neer op een uitstaande schuld van 8.4773 EUR per aandeel Tubize. De intrinsieke waarde van Tubize in functie van de koers van UCB is dan snel berekend als: IW = 1.4654 x UCB – 8.4773