Oldtent Archives 2007 - 2008

Always risky to put all one’s eggs in one basket, but I think the best out there use fewer baskets than one might think. 

Greetings, Salutations,….hope all is having a great time. Regret I can not join with you around the table this evening. Keep Hope alive, Keep pressing on. And mostly, enjoy your selves, and the adventure that is ahead. Kinda cool, to think you all are now, “International INvestors’ in the realest of sense. Good to know, not all eggs are in a single basket. Spread out amongst International borders and all.

Somebody raise a Beliken, and stick yer toes in the warm sands. Stand in the warm tropic breeze, take in the night sky above. And if anyone finds time to do a little fishin….well, I would sure like to hear about that. And say, keep an eye out for two Coconut trees, that I might rent to hang a hammock. (grin) Figure, if one day I have to ride the John Deere all the way down to Belize….well, I am probably crazy enough to do something like that. LOL

Best, Farmboy (who thinks to self….I probably done crazier things than that….LOL)

I’m pulling for you; I just think it’s risky to put all your eggs in one basket.  I know you are staying on top of your DD.  I’ve found that a couple of times no matter how good I thought my DD, gut feel or quick fingered trading was — things happen fast which one doesn’t anticipate.   I hope it runs; i remember clearly what happened the last time it ran up to 0.22.  I’m not sure why this micro gets an must air time as it does..but it’s been like that for years.  Maybe it’s the perceived “cheepness” of owning a moonshot?  I owned it for 2-3 years and finally pitched it for a loss.  The metals landscape has a few excellent prospects, many good to poor ones and it’s flat out littered with broken dreams.

Good to read your words tonight. Been holding that one for ….well, it is like some others I hold, too long to remember, and so dust covered….just figure, one of these days….(grin)

MOstly, just good to see your name and post….has been awhile.

Had to explain to Irish once. He, I guess, felt like he needed to keep me up to date with every move, each action. Told him, save the long distance fees. Spend your time in more productive things than trying to keep me ‘up to date’. Told him, I was not the kind of guy who needed a lot of ‘hand holding’ to stay in a comfort zone. Figure, you are sorta like me in that regard. Dont hear from you a lot….but always glad to see you contribute your knowledge and thoughts. Yep.

Anyways, best to you, enjoy your weekend, Farmboy

Irish lost that old sausage down his gullet…….or he traded it for the keys to a golf cart.

I was wondering if you or anyone else in the tent would be able to put the PIGS INDEX on a chart. We could make a simple weekly line chart where we could take Fridays closing price and plot it on a graph to show its movements. There should be a weekly record of your Fridays posts of the, PIG INDEX, to get us started with over 7 months of data so far. It would be fun to compare it to many of the other index to see how good the Gold Tent stock pickers really are. Its just a thought I had when you were comparing the PIGS INDEX to the HUI. A chart would show a visual of its history where the weekly numbers just show the present. I know you put alot of hard work in keeping the PIGS INDEX up and going FGC and to put all those weekly closing prices on a chart, I think, would bring the PIGS INDEX to life and make it real.
Just a thought FGC, all the best…Rambus

Let me tell you my story on CALVF.  First of all my background.  I worked 15 years in environmental consulting for a company whose main client was the General Electric Company.  I did environmental work for three GE divisions, and our company also did due diligence work in the mining industry.   And my job also included permitting major industrial facilities, so I know how to calculate throughput, emission rates, production rates, and I have visited mines and industrial facilities.  I have seen enough technical reports over the years to know good work from shlock work.  Currently, I have my own small business where I write accounting and payroll related software, so I think that I can spot mistakes on balance sheets and accounting reports.

With respect to Caledonia Mining, I have completed the following due diligence: 1) checked their accounting and verified increasing top line over the last several years; 2) verified their assets in the ground through numerical modeling using geological software on drilling data at Nama, at Blanket GG deposit, and at Rooipoort PGE deposit and confirmed their value being far in excess of published 43-101 reports; 3) verified resource diversification of cobalt, gold, diamonds, PGE, nickel, and copper; 4) developed my own economic model of the Nama cobalt project to estimate production costs and confirm economic viability; 5) confirmed that a large institutional investor was buying MILLIONS of shares at the same time I was; 6) noticed the stock was heavily bashed; 7) studied the cobalt market and developed my own supply demand model for World demand which confirmed a supply deficit that would never be caught up if Chinese demand growth remained above 11 percent in cobalt–which it has to date, and through direct and indirect communication confirmed that the CEO is honest.

Having said all that, this is the good part.  I contacted the author of their 43-101 report after it was released in March, 2007 and complained to its author about being a poorly done, shlock report which the market was not going to like.  Then I found that the author only was given 4 weeks to get it done, which told me that the reason it was a shlock report is that Mr. Hayden didn’t give the consultant enough time to do a proper job.  My conclusion was that he wanted a report that was not going to impress anybody including his competitors.  Then I asked about the discrepancy between HIGH grades in their bulk sampling and low grades reported on the 43-101 report, and concluded that he might be sandbagging on his  cobalt grades.  This was later confirmed when I dug up the old 1996 published drill results which are all but forgotten, and confirmed that the drilling data was indeed better than the 43-101 report results.

Now the frosting on the cake for me was the fact that the market hated the Mugabe regime so badly that it wouldn’t touch this stock with a 10 foot pole, and the stock was sold all the way down to 7 cents.  So I figured that this was the LOWEST risk stock out there with the highest rate of return, so that’s why I shifted out of my other gold stocks and concentrated my stock buying on CALVF.   I have also maintained contact with the company management and have asked questions at the quarterly news conferences, so as a result of this I would highly recommend investment in CALVF and have done so on three stock boards. 

…this one IS close….maybe 2 parties….?

….and ….How does one lose a Sausage which has travelled thousands of miles….?

I’m all for people making gobs of money.  I just put a little caution out there about going ape shite on speculative stuff right now.  I don’t know calvf’s story, but I am certain it’s no slam dunk.

hi everyone,

what happened to the orginal gold $1000 poll?  just voted, now we are tied with lost wages .. irish the tornado hasnt stopped since we arrived.. and he lost the sausage that farmgal2 brought down on the plane for the superbowl party on sunday..sheesh..he will never live that one down..

Cheers ,  AuGirl

very much intellectual capital on deciding on the pros and cons of investing in Barrick.  But I must admit that I was intrigued by JS’s repeated references to this company.  Best wishes, Equiz.

JS says:

“The highest level of the “Pyramid of Power” is the long side of those short sales which are extremely close via agents to ABX.”

” …… they will control ABX who in turn will control all the available gold production by acquisition.”

” ….. with gold trading at or above $1650 the price of ABX will be in the stratosphere.”

“Check the honorary directorship of ABX then hunt all the boards they are presently serving on after which you will need oxygen.”

JS is certainly not advising against owning Barrick!  I cannot see why one could interpret this as not advising to buy Barrick.  Should you buy Barrick?  Not without carrying out all your usual due diligence, IMO.  And Barrick is a huge DYODD exercise!

the key question for junior PM companies which is the terms in the loan agreements.  In my own time, I will come to terms with my ambivalence about Barrick.  I have never owned any of the stock, and presently have no immediate plans to do so, but there is always the nagging thought that wouldnt it be nice to have a piece of the action of the ultimate survivor.

p.s.  someday when I have nothing else to do, I will see if I can find some previous comments by JS which I interpreted at the time as a very positive opinion about Barrick, an interpretation that raised my eyebrows at the time.

Best wishes.  Equiz

…for how they write, the context in which things are written, and what the writer really means.  I this case, I do not believe that JS means “All the Gold production in the world”- what he means is “All the available gold production that comes available due to hedge clauses in loan agreements that go bad.”  That is how I have read it all along.

…..constant communication ineffectiveness going on.

“You mentioned that “I have never seen JS say anything I’d consider as positive about ABX”.  But a couple of sentences later you add that “JS has suggested that they will keep ABX afloat to continue to take over other PM companies” 

I do not see JS as ever having said anything positive about ABX, though he has tried to fill in how and why ABX will not go bankrupt in the near future due to their hedges.  The bankers “keeping some entitiy afloat” is NOT a positive statement, IMO.  It is only a statement of explanation.  In fact, JS had mentioned some PM companies that he owned sometime, ago, but ABX certainly was not one of them.

As far as ABX as an investment, though the PM Bull will float all ships, I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole simply because the risk/ reward is much higher for many other PM companies, IMO.   Maybe a better question for you to ask is this, “How could a PM investor invest in PM stocks and still stay clear of the potential problem that JS presents as to a potential hedge clause in a loan agreement?”