Good afternoon
Trump has been bullsh….g the US public on Coronavirus - that will bring his appauling handling of the corona virus back into focus.
Labor market in the US softher than expected.
Producer Price Index in the US pinting to some inflation in progress….that helped gold to get off the ground - now up by 15$ to 1960 US$ - and also the Euro - the US$ is now trading at 1.195 against the Euro. - and also base metals, which were pretty weak early this morning , about unchanged early afternoon, and slightly weaker at 5pm our time. Gold and base metals are mirrowing price changes of the US$ in the moment
Vale is closing Goro for good. This nickel mine has been a major desaster for them, and for previous owner Inco - costing billions for both companies. The effect on the nickel market is limited - 20.000 or 30.000t p.a. and much smaller, that what NPI production is doing in Indonesia. But the ramp-up of EV-production is starting to have a meaningful impact…and Goro produced the “real” nickel, not NPI.
Lagarde does not currently see the need to do more.
Equity markets quite volatile today - opened strong, now slightly weaker except for NASDAQ…
Resolute - workers at Syama are on strike with regards to some COVID-related sackings. I think a strike could be tough for RSG , as the plant is pretty sensitive and to clsoe it down would create quite a difficult situation, I believe. It´s also coming at a time, when the company is ramping up it´s by far most important asset…not good at all. The stock has a bad Karma for me…I know that this is very irrational - but it just does not feel right somehow!
Carawine - I listened to a Zoom-call today. Good story, at a relatively low market cap of 22 mill A$ - but with only about 1.5 mill A$ in cash. Four project areas: Victoria, where they have the Jamieson project, and where they are hunting - like a lot of explorers - for a new Fosterville. They have had multiple strong intersections here for gold, and this has been the main project being explored by themselves. 67m with 3g/ 43m with 4,2g / 11m with 10g / 101m with 1,4g give the wrong expression, perhaps - they sound like a poetntially large project. But what they have found so far ( I believe, and I am not a geologist ) would not amount to say 500.000 oz or something like that, i.e. warranting a stand-alone operation. But they are tying to find ( and have strong indications of- ) a porphyry ore body at depth, which , if found, could be very much larger. So this is very interesting! The second group of projects is in the Paterson Province, where they have two JV´s - one with RIO, spending 6 mill A$ for 80%, one with Fortescue, spending 5,5 mill$ for 75%. This is obviously still very hot ground - only yesterday Newcrest announced 300m at 0,99g gold and 0,07% copper from Haverion. Thirdly, tehy have a JV with IGO in the Fraser Range, where IGO is earning 70% by spending 5 Mill A$. And not lastly, CWX just announced a larg ground aquisition in the Tropicana belt, where previous exploreres have done limited work, but had some good drilling results.
A lot of interesting irons in the fire for a small company - and they certainly need money to fund this, which they have never really had. I would like these guys to raise 5 mill$ to be able to do some meaningful work! Looking at their cash position, that cannot be far away - but in the meantime, the stock might well trend higher. So I think for private money, it´s worthwhile to have a foot in the door here - for insto´s it´s too small to buy some in the market.
Have a nice evening
WS