Gold: All You Need Know
REPUBLIC OF POP – I am not one for coined phrases, mottos and slogans. In this case: I cave. Wave the white flag Timing rules.
I am back with the classic newsletter that coined the phrase “Melt-Up” for metals equities … and the same one that got me in hot water years ago. The reason why this belongs on CAMBRIDGE CAFE is instructive, I hope, to all of us in the metals biz: conference organizers, geologists, economists, young investor relations peeps, older CFOs and CEOs, logisticians, mappers, writers, researchers, investors.
When I decided to rebirth The Calandra Report, an investment letter that many Cambridge House attendees embraced in a swift year of rising metals equities, 2003, those same resource equities were dead in the water. Just 6 percent or so above the 11-year low they sank to in mid-May of this year (2012)
That was earlier in August. Three weeks ago. Many of us who staked resource prospectors, silver, gold, platinum, copper, HAVE BEEN CRUSHED since March 2011. This spreads to all of us.
For instance, Elko, Nevada, was a boom town when I dropped in 20 months ago to see the team at Gold Standard Ventures. Elko is the place that hosts the Cowboy Poets bash each January. It is at the southern edge of the famous Carlin (gold) Trend, and I swear getting a hotel room was almost impossible in 2010.
Three weeks ago, I returned … and things are sedate. Borderline upbeat, but the buzz is on hold. Hotel rooms are plentiful. Thankfully, so are ribeye steaks at The Star downtown and solid Mexican chow elsewhere.
In our first week of this northern hemisphere summer, TCR signed up about 200 folks at $25 and at $38. Many of them kicking and screaming about the hassle of PayPal. But no one complaining about the price.
Well, we are close to 300 now, and I think the classic investment newsletter and the Cambridge House operation will share one of the wildest, just plain b*lls-out sharpest rebounds in the history of the metals industry. And metals equities of all stripes.
When I meet or spend a day with folks in the metals business who have given it their all for 20 years, 30 years, I get right to it: what are you doing to stay sane? How are you reducing your expenses? Buddy can you spare a dime?
These are people I have known as a reporter, as a broadcaster, as a researcher and as an investor for my entire career: all the big names are there … and the new names, too.
The 40 under 40. The 50 over 50. The 70 over 70. In Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nevada, Idaho, Portugal, Peru … and China, Cambodia, Indonesia. I was congratulating Jim Moore the other day about his successful $250 million sale of Inter-Citic Minerals to a China group.
Mr. Moore, who has been developing the Dachang gold project in eastern China for much of the 2000s, is not celebrating. “These are tough times as you know so hopefully shareholders will recognize the accomplishment that this represents.”
Same with Yale Simpson and his sale of Extorre in Argentina. And others fortunate enough to have demonstrated the virtues of their mineral prospects to larger entities.
As for that timing thing? I think the idea here is to take advantage of what appear to be cheap prices for metals equities, and in some cases other forms of resources (properties, warrants, net smelter royalties, debt). We’ll have the occasional trading opportunity, too: metals, energy, agriculture.
You will hear from TCR 1) when I have done the scrub-work necessary to ensure what in my view will be a profitable Republic of Pop trade or hold; and 2) ascertained no sellers in the shadows will spoil a one-day or one-week profit on the way to a longer-length hold and so-called liquidity, or selling, event. I will be explaining this at Joe Martin’s next show — the one in Toronto at the close of September. It’s free, by the by — the show that is.
I hope this does not sound like a pitch — because we are not screaming for subscribers. We target 500 or so folks who have been attending Cambridge House shows and not throwing rotten tomatoes at me.
The new TCR letter is designed to empower a group of profit-seekers and buccaneers in Canada, the USA, Germany, Colombia, Mexico, Hong Kong and three ex-pats adrift in the kingdom of Cape Verde, northern Africa. I think you will see that my interests have been and will be allied with those of Cambridge House: educating and empowering resource investors.
Please join me in my attempt to achieve some of the very high highs we notched not so long ago in the business of investing. I am not a financial adviser nor am I a broker or a banker. I do not accept fees for financings, and I rarely invest in equity placements. I am a large shareholder in several prospectors in Colombia, Ghana and … well, did I mention Colombia? Also in Quebec and to a lesser extent, Nevada, Mexico, and, to my regret, for now anyway, Tanzania.
The hot water part is relevant, too. I have received negative feedback based on my settlement with the USA Securities & Exchange Commission for trading activity whilst I was producing the original The Calandra Report some years ago. I fuc*ed up; I am sorry. I got greedy. I have said it 10,000 times in print, for broadcast and person to person, on stages and across tables; I paid the price financially and emotionally.
It is OK. Go ahead and flame me. Throw tomatoes. I can catch ‘em. Might I point out that no one ever has questioned the accuracy of my reports? This does not mean I am a guaranteed success; Recently, I loved Great Basin Gold in Nevada and South Africa; I loved Canaco in Tanzania. I saw the projects multiple times. I invested. I got creamed.
My biography and career with the best financial names in the biz, some of which I kick-started, are seen here on this Cambridge Cafe: Thom Calandra.
I am a long-term stakeholder with a view on how to achieve $10 million and more of additional assets in the coming two years. Joe Martin is probably raising his eyebrows at that number. (Editor: Mr. Martin says he is cool with it.) But hey, I did well with the sale of that financial news site in 2005. See the TC bio.
Most of our holdings here at home have been in the portfolio for three to four years. Like all of us in metals, we have lost about 40 percent (revised this week to 33 percent!) of our portfolio value since March 2011. Thank you, Gold Standard Ventures.
In the past five years, I have been visiting prospector sites, researching them, writing about them (mostly for free), and taking market stakes in them, with no discounted stock, side deals or quid-pro-quos. Oh yeah, and speaking at Joe’s shows.
My so-called skin is usually in the game. Not always. Subscribers are first to know when my opinion changes on something specific. I state my exact share positions. I like to give subscribers a week to purchase something … if I do not already own it. Ditto on sales.
I am a partner at Torrey Hills Capital in San Diego, CA, a firm with one of the most developed pedigrees in the business of filling rooms, polishing presentations and evaluating mining properties and talent. I am beholden to none of Torrey Hills’ 25 or so clients. The new TCR is here for subscribers and not for clients of Torrey Hills. Sometimes their paths will cross.
I am not a geologist. I speak at several conferences each year, including those organized by Joe Martin in Canada and Brien Lundin in New Orleans. I am a swimmer, a biker, and a runner. First and foremost, I am a writer. I also have a heart for folks who have dedicated their lives to natural resources and to a lesser extent, drugs (OK, biomedical). Thom Calandra’s bio
If you are interested, please try TCR.Especially if you are not dozing at this point, or furious for that matter. Give me a chance. I know most everyone there is worth knowing in the metals biz.
You will receive TCR via simple email. This is a PayPal button for subscribing.
TCR now $48 a year. SUBSCRIBE HERE. If you detest PayPal, what can I say? Ping me. I hope to occasionally publish dated and abridged TCR reports on the Cambridge House Cafe. See you in Toronto. Thanks Joe.
Your friendly reporter,
Thom Calandra
Tiburon, California: USA
Read an abridged and delayed version of a recent TCR.
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