TSX-Venture, Small Caps Kanada: System-Krise läuft auf Hochtouren

Ein Rekordtief jagt das nächste - und nach wie vor alles andere als ein "Ende" in Sicht.

Der Blick auf den "Zombie-Index" TSX-Venture:

Quelle: bigcharts.com

Quelle: bigcharts.com

Quelle: bigcharts.com

FED, Rate Hike Odds: QE4 Only A Matter Of Time? (II)

No comment necessary - credit to @Not_Jim_Cramer:

FED, Monetary Policy: QE4 Only A Matter Of Time? (I)

Drei Charts zum Nachdenken - credit to FRED and ZH:

Quelle: https://research.stlouisfed.org

Quelle: https://research.stlouisfed.org

Quelle: https://research.stlouisfed.org

Rohstoffmarkt, Minenaktien: Interview mit Mining-Analyst Eric Coffin

Aktuelles Interview mit HRA's Eric Coffin, wie immer hörenswert. Feature von CEO.CA:

How veteran analyst Eric Coffin sees the mining market today

POSTED ON OCTOBER 01, 2015 BY TOMMY HUMPHREYS
CATEGORY STORIES,

Mining analyst Eric Coffin joined Kitco.com‘s Daniela Cambone for a brief interview Thursday.

SPECIAL OFFER: Take Eric Coffin’s world renowned Hard Rock Advisory newsletter for a three month test drive for only $9 here.

Coffin would like to see some mining companies stop or cut production to signal to traders and the market that the worst is over for the mining sector.

If copper prices fall below $2, Coffin expects production to “vaporize” and no new mines to be built.

“I think copper may be the first to turn because the copper miners have been historically the smartest at cutting production when they have to and below $2 a lot of them would have to.”

Coffin suggested NevSun Resources as a copper producer with a healthy dividend and lots of cash “if you need to own a base metal miner.”

He was impressed with Kaminak Gold’s recent $22.5 million financing because the biggest placee was the new Electrum Fund (Thomas Kaplan), which recently raised about $250 million USD for investments in the mining sector.

“To turn this thing around, we need guys [like Kaplan] who are willing to put money into strong deals, not just guys who are going to try to warehouse weak projects that might be good if metal prices go up 30%.”

Take Eric Coffin’s world renowned Hard Rock Advisory newsletter for a three month test drive for only $9 here. This is among the best research in the junior sector. Subscribe today if you are even remotely interested in mining..

Quelle: http://ceo.ca/2015/10/01/how-veteran-analyst-eric-coffin-sees-the-mining-market-today/

S&P 500 Futures: Percentage Change since 2005 During Select Time Slices

Unbelievable Chart - credit to Tyler Durden:

Quelle: zerohedge.com

Equities vs. Debt

Sehr wichtiger Chart am Beispiel von Lehman Brothers:

Quelle: Citi Research, zerohedge.com

Gold- und Silber-Minen vs. Gold & Silber YTD: Historische Baisse setzt sich fort

Vor dem Schlussquartal in 2015 ist es Zeit einen Blick zurückzuwerfen:

GLD vs. SLV, XAU, GDX im informativen YTD-Vergleich

Quelle: bigcharts.com

Homeownership Rate for the United States: The American Dream Is Broken

Impressive Chart - credit to FRED:

Quelle: https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USHOWN

Big Picture: Real GDP per capita around the world since 1000 - By Max Roser

Mächtiger Chart - credit to OurWorldInData:

Quelle: http://ourworldindata.org

Minerals and Environmental Engineer Tim Oliver at BNN: Mine economic studies too loose

Klasse Beitrag von Tim Oliver auf BNN heute über ein sehr kritisches und wichtiges Thema im Minen- und vor allem Junior-Mining Sektor - das Video-Interview ist sehr zu empfehlen.

Habe den guten Mann vor kurzer Zeit erst in den USA persönlich getroffen und konnte mich von seinem Knowhow erneut überzeugen. Sein Blog ist hier aufrufbar: http://timoliver.us

Feature von CEO.CA:

Mine economic studies too loose

POSTED ON September 29, 2015 BY Tommy Humphreys

CATEGORY Stories,




Minerals and Environmental Engineer Tim Oliver joins Andrew Bell’s Commodities Television program on Canada’s Business News Network (BNN). Here’s a direct link to the video segment.

Mr. Oliver is talking about potential red flags in the engineering and economic studies of mineral exploration and development companies.

He says these studies often have no discernible schedule at all. “Each step should be laid out very clearly.”

Oliver would like to see far more detailed cost base explanations to understand where the numbers come from. “There has to be a coherent explanation.”

Oliver also looks out for potential conflicts of interest among report authors.

Here’s the full interview from BNN, which was unfortunately cut short due to technical difficulties.

Source: BNN

Institutional investors looking for independent due diligence on mining projects should contact Tim Oliver (www.TimOliver.us).

Quelle: http://ceo.ca/2015/09/29/mine-economic-studies-too-loose/


Quote:

Nearly half of development-stage NI 43-101 studies surveyed lack engineering rigor: Tim Oliver

Link: http://ceo.ca/2015/09/18/nearly-half-of-development-stage-ni-43-101-studies-surveyed-lack-engineering-rigor-tim-oliver/

Denver Gold Forum 2015: Kehrt Realismus und Aufrichtigkeit bei den Goldminen ein?

Informatives Summary auf The Globe And Mail:

Denver Gold Forum: A refreshing tinge of realism, candour

Special to The Globe and Mail - Published Friday, Sep. 25, 2015 7:51PM EDT - Last updated Friday, Sep. 25, 2015 7:51PM EDT

Can a gold company be all things to all kinds of gold investors? Let’s hear what Goldcorp Inc. CEO Chuck Jeannes had to say at this week’s Denver Gold Forum.

“I think there’s a couple camps out there. One would be the group that continues to believe very much in gold, and in the near term, thinks gold is going up, and is very much focused on our leverage to the gold price,” Mr. Jeannes said in kicking off Goldcorp’s investor presentation. “I think Goldcorp is a very good choice for that camp of investor. We’ve got growing production this year, our costs are declining, we have zero limitations on our exposure to gold price, no hedging, no streams on gold assets, so we give you that exposure.

“The biggest and second camp of investors are those who continue to believe in gold, but are concerned about what the price is going to do in the near and medium term, so you want to minimize your risk of holding shares while you wait for the gold price to recover – and you don’t know when that’s going to happen,” Mr. Jeannes continued. “For that class of investor, I think Goldcorp is a really safe choice. We’re generating free cash flow even at the current prices and below, and we have one of the strongest balance sheets in the business with the only BBB+ rating.”

Well played, Mr. Jeannes, well played. But there really are two kinds of gold companies for these two kinds of investors. And Goldcorp, with all the attributes of safety Mr. Jeannes describes, belongs in the latter camp. They’re the companies (Agnico Eagle Mines is another) that had the luxury of spending a significant chunk of their investor presentations in Denver this week on the quality of their properties and their production numbers.

Mr. Jeannes politely calls the other companies’ profile levered to the gold price, but they’re the ones we can also say are burdened by peak-era borrowings. These companies have to spend most of their presentations talking about the properties they’ve sold, the debt they’ve retired, the costs they’ve cut. (Hello, Barrick Gold.)

As gold has continued its slump from 2011 highs, it’s these levered companies who’ve hurt investors the most, and who may continue to do so if gold keeps kicking around its bottoms. Of course, for the investors in that first camp – looking for a sharp, near-term rebound – the worst performers are the best options.

“There is an irony in this sector,” Adrian Day, a keynote speaker, said. “When you have a very strong market, particularly at the beginning of a very strong market, sometimes what we might objectively think of as the worst companies, the ones with the highest debt levels, the ones with the most marginal properties, are precisely the stocks that do the best,” said the CEO and chairman of Maryland-based Adrian Day Asset Management, a long-time advocate of precious metals stocks. “And so, you can be a pair trader and buy something that’s a very good company and sell short a very bad company. And if you have a very strong move in gold, you suddenly find that your bad company has outperformed the good one.”

Of course, no one wants to be seen as a bad company, and the presentations this week in Denver showed a refreshing realism. As we’ve detailed, the message from miners over the years has taken a journey from the “gold bug” days when equity investors cared more about the price of bullion than the performance of the companies pulling gold from the ground. As ordinary investors began to buy into the sector, miners began to talk about return on capital cash flow, and dividends.

That was at $1,700 (U.S.) per ounce. At Friday’s close of $1,145.60, down $8.20, companies have instead honed their message to pitch investors on their survival instincts. “Disciplined” was an exceptionally popular adjective in the presentations, such as Newcrest Mining Ltd.’s reference to itself as “disciplined cost managers.”

A trip to the table that held the old-fashioned printouts of company presentations revealed that Alacer Gold Corp. is a “low-cost producer with growth,” while the Sierra Metals Inc. handout says it’s a “low-cost producer with exciting growth potential.” Right next to it, Dundee Precious Metals Inc. is “building a low-cost gold producer,” which suggests it may not be quite low-cost just yet. (Royalty company Franco-Nevada, which paces the industry in shareholder return, stuck a thumb in everyone’s eyes with the title “the gold investment that works,” i.e., all the others don’t work all that well.)

Keynote speeches at the Denver Gold Forum have often featured aggressive bulls on gold prices such as Franco-Nevada’s Pierre Lassonde (2012) or Martin Murenbeeld, the chief economist of Dundee Capital Markets (2014). This year the forum brought Jeffrey Christian, managing partner of commodity-focused CPM Group.

Mr. Christian is a long-term bull – he sees gold prices moving “sharply higher” in the long term, with strong demand from investors and central banks as mine production falls. But for the next two years, he says, there may be “relatively weak” gold prices, with no financial or economic crises stimulating demand and continuing mine production. By the numbers: the CPM forecast sees gold prices remaining below $1,300 an ounce through 2019.

Meanwhile, the new reality is also creeping into company presentations. Where miners, as recently as a year ago, seemed reluctant to present scenarios where gold traded consistently below $1,200, Barrick presented a slide this week showing what it would do not only at $1,000 an ounce, but also $900. (Measures such as part or full suspensions of production at non-core mines, more head count cuts and changes in stripping and processing.) To be clear, Barrick is not predicting $900 gold, just selling itself as a survivor if things get worse. But are the people who believe that listening? 

Let’s return to Mr. Jeannes:

“I suppose there’s a third class of investor out there who thinks gold is going down and is staying down,” he said. “I’m not too worried about that guy, because they’re not [at the Denver Gold Forum] this year anyway. I think that would account for the [8 per cent] lower year-on-year attendance.”

Quelle: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/gold-prices-bring-out-refreshingly-positive-candour-at-denver-forum/article26551498/

Dunkle Wolken am Horizont: Entwicklung der Bauholz-Preise in den USA signalisiert signifikanten Wirtschaftsabschwung

Sämtliche wichtige Indikatoren signalisieren in den USA seit geraumer Zeit eine zunehmende Schwäche der inländischen Wirtschaft.

Die Performance der Bauholz-Preise spricht hierbei besonders Bände. Auf Sicht von 12 Monaten sind die Holzpreise im Zuge des globalen Rohstoffpreis-Crashs um mehr als 1/3 eingebrochen.

Credit to Zerohedge.

Quelle: zerohedge.com

Quelle: zerohedge.com

Quelle: zerohedge.com

DuSolo Fertilizers: Against All Odds?

Phosphat-Produzent DuSolo Fertilizers (TSX-V:DSF) steht wie 95% der Junior-Miner an der Börse stark unter Druck (siehe Benchmark-Chart unten).

Doch nicht nur der historische Bärenmarkt in der Rohstoff- und Junior-Miningbranche belastet DuSolo. Druck kommt von allen Seiten gerade in Brasilien. Der einstige Wachstumsstar in Südamerika hat mit enormen Problemen zu kämpfen. Die Wirtschaft ist in eine Rezession gerutscht und in der Bevölkerung wächst weiter der Widerstand gegen die hoch kontroverse Regierung. Definitiv gegenwärtig kein einfaches Pflaster für Rohstoffunternehmen, die in Brasilien Projekte betreiben.

DuSolo Fertilizers versucht aktuell eine Finanzierung über 2,5 Mio. CAD zu stemmen (NR#1, NR#2), um das Business in Brasilien aufrecht erhalten zu können. Sollte das DuSolo gelingen, wäre es in jedem Fall ein weiteres, starkes Vertrauenssignal. Hinter der kanadischen Firma stehen nach wie vor starke Geldgeber, die bis dato einen strategischen und langfristigen Blick hatten.

An der operativen Front bleibt DuSolo in jedem Fall aktiv. Vor kurzer Zeit wurde eine Akquisition eines neuen, hoch-gradigen Phosphat-Projekts bekanntgegeben.

Langfristige und strategische Investoren können sich die Firma auf jeden Fall mal auf die Watchlist legen. Denn wie in jeder Krise, lauern auf der anderen Seite auch große Chancen. Sollte DuSolo erfolgreich Geld einnehmen und sich die Lage in Brasilien beruhigen, hätte der tief gefallene Aktienkurs massives Erholungspotential.

Only time will tell.


Quote:

DuSolo seeks to acquire Sao Roque project in Brazil

2015-09-09 17:40 ET - News Release

Mr. Darren Bowden reports

DUSOLO ACQUIRES NEW HIGH-GRADE PHOSPHATE PROJECT

DuSolo Fertilizers Inc. has entered into an agreement with Mineracao Batalha e Participacoes Ltda. to acquire the Sao Roque phosphate project in southeast Brazil. 

The project's highlights include:

• Located within the agribusiness region of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo states, with many coffee, orange and sugar cane (ethanol) plantations in the surrounding area;
• At-surface, high-grade phosphate mineralization identified with multiple grab samples from outcrops confirming greater than 20 per cent phosphorus pentoxide;
• Geophysics anomalies very well defined and confirmed by surface sampling;
• Close proximity to infrastructure, including roads, rail, water and power, and existing fertilizer producers; city of Piumhi is 40 kilometres from the project;
• A 70-per-cent interest earned through commitment to invest in exploration and project development; no direct payment to joint venture partner.

"Sao Roque is an excellent addition to the company's portfolio of projects. With this acquisition, DuSolo has phosphate assets throughout the Cerrado, one of the world's fastest-growing agricultural regions," said Darren Bowden, chief executive officer. "Despite the current downturn in Brazilian fertilizer demand, the company remains optimistic about demand recovering in the mid to long term and therefore continues to pursue its expansion strategy within Brazil."

Under the terms of the agreement, DuSolo will carry out an estimated $100,000 (Canadian) drill program in lieu of payment to the JV partner. The company will drill a minimum of 200 metres to test the thickness and extension of the mineralized profile. Contingent upon receipt of positive results, the parties will then form a partnership with participation interest allocated at 70 per cent to DuSolo and 30 per cent to the JV partner. The newly formed partnership will carry out an exploration program aimed at defining a resource that can be added to DuSolo's future development pipeline. The cost of exploration will be financed in full by DuSolo, while any future production costs will be distributed amongst the partners in accordance with their participation interest. At any given time, DuSolo can choose to end the partnership or, alternatively, exercise a call option to acquire the remaining 30 per cent for a cash payment of $3-million (U.S.).

We seek Safe Harbor.

Quelle: http://dusolo.com/investors/news-releases/release.php?source=/article/xml&id=1987412

Quelle: stockwatch.com

Quote:

Die gegenwärtige Unternehmenspräsentation.

Quelle: dusolo.com

Quelle: dusolo.com

Wegen Rohstoffpreis-Crash: Großer Kohle-Produzent in China feuert 100.000 Minen-Arbeiter - Ist die harte Landung da?

Krasse News aus China. Jedoch ist die kontroverse Massenentlassung andere als unerwartet - vor allem im Hinblick auf den Verlauf des Kohlepreises, der aufgrund eines erheblichen Überangebots (inkl. schwächelnder Nachfrage) erst vor kurzer Zeit ein neues 10-Jahrestief markierte..

China's Hard-Landing Has Arrived: Chinese Coal Company Fires 100,000

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/27/2015 09:43 -0400

• China
 
• Gross Domestic Product
 
• Housing Bubble
 
• Yuan

The global commodity collapse is finally starting to take its toll on what China truly cares about: the employment of the tens of millions of currently employed and soon to be unemployed workers.

On Friday, in a move that would make even Hewlett-Packard's Meg Whitman blush, Harbin-based Heilongjiang Longmay Mining Holding Group, or Longmay Group, the biggest met coal miner in northeast China which has been struggling to reduce massive losses in recent months as a result of the commodity collapse, just confirmed China's "hard-landing" has arrived when it announced on its website it would cut 100,000 jobs or 40% of its entire 240,000-strong labor force.

Impacted by the slump in coal prices, the group saw its loss over January-August surged more than 1.1 billion yuan ($17.2 million) from the year before. In the first half of 2015, the group closed eight coking coal mines most of which had approached the end of their mining lives, due to poor production margins amid bleak sales.

Chaiman of the group Wang Zhikui said the job losses were a way of helping the company "stop bleeding." The heavily-indebted company also plans to sell its non-coal related businesses to help pay off its debts, said Wang. The State-owned mining group has subsidiaries in Jixi, Hegang, Shuangyashan and Qitaihe in Heilongjiang province, which account for about half the region's coal production.

According to China Daily, last year, Longmay launched a management restructuring and cut thousands of jobs to stay profitable, amid the overall industry decline. However, the company still reported around 5 billion yuan ($815 million) in losses.

It has been a dramatic fall from grace for the company, which in 2011 reported 800 million yuan in profit with annual production exceeding 50 million metric tons.

Experts said staff costs remain a major reason for the company's continued heavy losses. That, and the ongoing collapse in met coal prices of course.

Last year its coal production stood at 49 million tons, just 10 percent that of Shenhua Group Corp Ltd, China's biggest coal producer. But Longmay's workforce remains well above that of Shenhua's 214,000 in total.

The announcement came in the midst of Chinese president Xi Jinping's ongoing tour to the United States, where he assured politicians and businessmen that China's economy will achieve the targeted 7% growth in gross domestic product.

It gets worse, especially in a worst case scenario: Longmay also has 180,000 pensioners to take care of, with life-long payments covering pensions and medical insurance, which are also considered a huge financial burden. As China Daily notes, "Personnel is probably its largest cost," said Deng Shun, an analyst at Shanghai-based energy consultancy ICIS C1 Energy.

"Actually many traditional State-owned coal enterprises are facing the same kind of problem. It has become more severe as the industry remains on a downward trend."

Deng also cautioned on the social problems that massive layoffs may cause, suggesting a reduction in welfare or salaries might be a better way to cut back on costs.

The shocking move is a harbinger of more pain for not only the local government-backed and heavily indebted company, with an eventual bankruptcy looking increasingly probable unless met coal prices don't stage a miraculous rebound, but China's entire coal sector, which in recent years has been a source of millions of jobs to China's unskilled labor force.

And as China's commodity bubble bursts, and the fixed-investment surge mean reverts, the coal industry is set to become a source of millions of job losses.

Incidentally, far more than the Chinese stock bubble burst, or even the credit and housing bubble, the implications from mass defaults of coal companies are precisely what is keeping Beijing up at night.

As the WSJ reported in a piece earlier this week, "for decades, an army of migrant workers drove China’s boom times, flocking to its cities to sew T-shirts, assemble iPhones, or build apartment blocks and Olympic stadiums. The arrangement helped millions of poor, rural Chinese join a new consumer class, though many also paid a heavy price.

The paper of record adds:

now, many migrant workers struggle to find their footing in a downshifting economy. As factories run out of money and construction projects turn idle across China, there has been a rise in the last thing Beijing wants to see: unrest."

Because if there is one thing China's politburo simply can not afford right now, is to layer public unrest and civil violence on top of an economy which is already in "hard-landing" move. Forget black - this would be the bloody swan that nobody could "possibly have seen coming."

As for the future of China's unskilled labor industries, the Fifth Element's Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg has a good idea of what's coming..

Quelle: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-27/chinas-hard-landing-has-arrived-chinese-coal-company-fires-100000