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2017
13 January |
Seasonality dominates holiday
returns
Investors in Australian mining
companies should be extra vigilant around Christmas but
could ignore the market for the rest of the year for
better than average investment returns. |
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20 January |
Steak or sizzle?
‘All sizzle and no steak’ is a well-worn descriptor of
excitement unmatched by product quality and one that springs to mind
when reviewing outsized mining stock returns. |
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27 January |
Deep Yellow secret
growth plans
Deep Yellow directors are offering the
corporate equivalent of smoke and mirrors as an alternative to
giving investors a well-defined business strategy against which
progress can be measured. |
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3 February |
Freefall is
officially over, maybe
The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) has held its global output growth forecasts steady after years
of missing its targets, in a tentative sign of cyclical progress for
the mining industry. |
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10 February |
What happened
to mine closures?
Historically large numbers of zinc mine
closures and production cuts are not panning out as advocates of
zinc-related investments had anticipated. |
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17 February |
Guesswork not good
enough
Ironbark Zinc has moved closer to realising its
decade-long ambition to build a zinc mine in Greenland after getting
the go-ahead from the island's government. |
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24 February |
Catalyst needed to
bust mining funk
Investment
returns outside the leading miners have hit an invisible barrier
since mid-2016 suggesting a fresh catalyst will be needed for
improved outcomes in 2017. |
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3 March |
Where’s the cash?
White Rock Minerals chief executive Matthew Gill claims
unique positioning with a fully-funded gold-mine development on the
back of a promising scoping study but still faces one of the most
common strategic dilemmas for executives in the industry. |
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10 March |
No respect for miners
Miners are too gruff and grubby to command
respect in Australia where tailored suits, lab coats and wigs are
more highly regarded. |
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17 March |
Lithium investors miss bumper trade
Dakota Minerals (ASX: DKO)
traded out of its Lynas Find lithium prospect in the Pilbara into a
strategically superior lithium opportunity in Europe with a
multi-million dollar profit but lost 80% of its market value along
the way. How's that fair? |
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24 March |
The high cost of hubris
Orocobre
investors have remained remarkably supportive despite foregoing
profits amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars from production
delays. The company is another illustration of how resources firms
are more likely to zigzag to success than head in a straight line.
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31 March |
Rate hikes to
hit miners
The US Federal Reserve has commenced pushing
interest rates toward its longer term target in a concerted way for
the first time since rates were slashed in 2009.
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7 April |
Not just another
sheep
Mustang Resources has proposed a radical departure
from conventional industry practice to compensate investors
supporting development of its ruby prospects in Mozambique.
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14 April |
Expert reports fail
test
Independent expert valuation reports are becoming
elaborate games of pass the parcel as participants prioritise
ducking responsibility over analytical quality.
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21 April |
BHP: investors
demand change
BHP Billiton, despite a unique history and
investment market standing, is a scaled up version of a failing
investment model.
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28 April |
Why the
overexcitement?
Orocobre, Western Areas, Syrah Resources
and Independence Group have attracted unusual amounts of short
selling with the first three companies among the four most heavily
shorted of all ASX-listed stocks.
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5 May |
Growth optimism
exaggerated
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has
upped its 2017 global growth forecast and China reported
surprisingly strong first quarter GDP growth. At least, that is what
the headline writers said.
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12 May |
10 things I
hate about feasibility studies
Ten things make me cranky
about feasibility studies, as I discovered recently, when Mining
Journal asked me what flaws really wound me up.
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19 May |
Big numbers stifle
development
Parkway Minerals chief executive Pat McManus
has likened the company’s extensive potash and phosphate deposits in
Western Australia’s Dandaragan Trough to the state’s Pilbara iron
ore resources. But without A$10 million (US$7.5 million), he will be
tempted to go elsewhere.
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26 May |
Better than
nothing, but not enough
China’s One Belt One Road
regional development initiatives may prove too modest to change the
cyclical landscape for the mining industry. |
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2 June |
Bullion or equities?
The choice between gold bullion and
gold equities depends on how aggressively investors are prepared to
trade. Those with a longer-term perspective should favour the
physical gold alternative over gold-related equities. |
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9 June |
Investors flee as
Blackham grows
Blackham Resources, now a fully-fledged
gold producer with increasingly well-defined expansion
opportunities, has produced a 10-year share-price return close to
zero. |
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16 June |
Poor
governance? Blame the cycle
Junior miners are letting
governance standards slip as cyclical pressures take their toll on
board independence. |
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23 June |
Impact pushes
the boundaries
Impact Minerals is adding complexity and
risk to share purchase plans in trying to conceal the discount
embedded in its latest offer. |
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30 June |
News flow push
backfires
St George Mining chairman John Prineas has had
a compelling A$10 million (US$7.69 million) incentive to find new
shareholders but his efforts to build share price momentum with
strong news flow have not gone to plan. |
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7 July |
A model
mining code too hard
A universally adopted model mining
code sounds preferable to capriciously applied or ill-defined rules
but the choice is more nuanced and less straightforward. |
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14 July |
Industry
profits surprise government
A A$30 billion (US$23
billion) profit surge from an enlarged Australian resources industry
was a recent godsend for government budgeting but an ominous sign of
future policy-making challenges. |
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21 July |
Policy risks
to hurt miners
Commodity price cycles – always accidents
rather than planned events – are often aggravated by errors in
policy and the mining industry is looking more and more likely to
face such a scenario as we move into the back of 2017. |
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28 July |
The prodigal’s
return
Australia’s BHP (not to be confused with the now
shelved BHP Billiton) is funding a multi-million dollar campaign
urging its fellow countrymen to ‘think big’. |
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4 August |
Drill now, dig
later
Australia’s mining industry is once again poised
for growth as renewed exploration spending plants the seeds of
future expansion. |
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11 August |
Buy Kula, sell
Geopacific!
The Geopacific Resources bid for Kula Gold
threatens to leave a bloodied prey clinging to life with a
frustrated and unsatisfied predator as the less attractive
investment. |
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18 August |
Looks do count
“I don’t like the look of the CEO”, may be as good as any
reason for an investment decision. |
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25 August |
Good times for coal
Whitehaven Coal brought back memories of the good old
days when it published its annual financial results last week. |
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1 September |
Aluminium an
analogy for lithium
Aluminium may provide a guide to how
the lithium market evolves. |
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8 September |
FMG
sets reporting standards
Pretty damn impressive. That’s
my take on the Fortescue Metals Group remuneration report. |
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15 September |
Few winners in
cost competition
Efforts to cut production costs always
loom large in the aftermath of a cyclical decline in industry
conditions but sustaining competitiveness benefits are rare. |
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22 September |
Investors
still shun exploration success
Small exploration
companies face lower share prices even as they add value to their
tenements. |
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29 September |
Indecent
disclosure
Mining companies must follow detailed rules
when describing the dimensions of their mineral resources but enjoy
more creative freedom in the way they portray themselves to
investors on other matters. |
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6 October |
Power crisis at
the door
Australia’s energy policies are friendless as
consumers protest price hikes, panicking governments try to avert
summer blackouts and usually cautious officials characterise the
predicament as dire. |
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13 October |
Investors back Gold
Road ambitions
Gold Road Resources is already planning
for multiple large-scale discoveries while pushing toward its first
gold production in early 2019. |
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20 October |
IMF ducks big
issues
Improved mining industry fortunes now depend on
Donald Trump skilfully husbanding tax cuts through the US Congress,
Theresa May adeptly negotiating a favourable Brexit pact and Xi
Jinping cutting back runaway lending while sustaining Chinese
growth. What’s the chance? |
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27 October |
Transparency is
hard to see
Transparency International Australia (TIA)
has shown it is easier to conjure sources of potential corruption,
even when the chances of it happening are tiny, than to see
transparency when it exists. |
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3 November |
Moment of truth
for Altech
Altech Chemicals shareholders had to give up
A$13 million (US10 million) to raise A$17 million last week even as
the company nears a destiny-defining fork in the road. |
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10 November |
IMARC shuns
investment themes
Australia’s International Mining and
Resources Conference (IMARC) has grown impressively with a
burgeoning emphasis on technology and operational excellence even
while the quality of the finance and investment component has gone
backwards. |
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17 November |
Mustang squanders
investor appetite
Mustang Resources must rejig its
business plans to reconnect with investors after badly misjudging
its ruby marketing strategy. |
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24 November |
More options
than you thought
Buying listed call options over new
shares is an alternative entry to over 120 ASX-listed early-stage
resources companies. |
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1 December |
Risk denial makes
life easier
Mining Journal has ploughed a huge amount of
intellectual capital into the recently published Mining Journal 2017
World Risk Report (feat.MineHutte ratings). What a pity the mining
industry will turn a blind eye. |
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8 December |
China gives
Aspire second chance
Aspire Mining offers rare direct
leverage to China’s ‘Belt and Road’ (B&R) investment splurge as its
once problematic exposure to Mongolia benefits from Beijing’s
ambitious transport plans. |
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22 December |
What's
ahead in 2018?
A loss of macroeconomic momentum is a
worrying sign for mining investment returns moving into 2018. |
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29 December |
Exploration
budgets need attention
Internationally respected analyst
Richard Schodde has pinpointed a challenge for the mining industry:
improve the effectiveness of exploration efforts or fail to meet
upcoming demand. |
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