Daily Canadian Stocks Blog

Update:

2006-04-04T13:17:00.000-06:00

Everything is running ever so smootly at stockbullz.com!

Please come visit me there and read my opinions!

Also, make sure to visit some brand new research sites that I have recently built:

latesturanium.com
latestsilver.com
latestgold.com
latestbiotech.com

I know you'll love them and they will make you a lot of money in the near future!

Please Come To Stockbullz.com

2006-03-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, finally the unveiling of the new site: www.stockbullz.com

Please come here as I will stop writing here and simply move everything there.

I hope the move will be straightforward and easy for you.

Once again, here is the link:

www.stockbullz.com

When to Hold'em and When to Fold'em

2006-03-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

-with apologies to Kenny Rogers.

James Sinclair, in his JSmineset.com , says to "sell strength and buy weakness".
This essay by Brian Lundin makes sense to me. There is
traditionally weakness in commodities in the spring and early summer.
Now, or at least, soon would be a good time to buy some select commodities
stocks. ( I am not selling any of my SVM, NUC, or PLY, or the stable of McEwan stocks)
Geopolitical events. of course, could send things for a chaotic spin--the butterfly flapping its wings in the Brazilian jungle causing a hurricane in the U.S. ...)
One quick diversion prompted by the word "Brazilian" (my mind works that way):

Donald Rumsfeld is giving President Bush his daily briefing. He
concludes by saying, "Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" Bush exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching
as the president sits, head in hands.

Finally, he looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion, anyway?"

Now for the Brian Lundin article:

THE PREDICTED GOLD CORRECTION IS IN PROGRESS

Now, for the Good News...

Last week, I predicted that gold seemed ready to slip into a typical springtime correction. The price had become range-bound, unable to mount a serious attack on its recent highs. And the rallies it had managed to put together required substantial support from geopolitical headlines — support that could not be relied upon over the long term.

Thus, I closed my commentary with a warning and a promise:

“Whether it comes in March, April or May, we are going to see at least one more major correction in gold. That’s the bad news. Next week (I promise!), I’ll report some good news.”

It appears that the correction has come in March. Right now, in fact. And, if history is any guide, this year’s version of springtime malaise will last into early- or mid-summer.

But, as I promised, there’s a good news side to this coin, and that is the exceptionally bright longer-term outlook for gold and gold equities.

You see, the Fed’s long campaign of rate hikes is ending soon, if it hasn’t already. While the masses are all caught up in speculation over what will happen at the next FOMC meeting, we should be a bit more far-sighted. We need to recognize that, under virtually any scenario, the Fed will have taken their collective foot off the brake by early summer.

Why do I say that? Because the Fed can’t afford to let the cure kill the patient. The whole purpose behind the campaign was never to combat inflation, but rather to deflate the real estate bubble.

Mission accomplished, and then some: The sound of hissing air is growing ever louder...yet the lagging effects of the rate hikes will continue to impact the real estate market and property values for many months to come.

Already, the economic recovery is in danger. Further rate hikes run the very real risk of suddenly popping the real estate bubble, which would in turn tank the U.S. economy and risk a deflationary spiral.

This is something the Fed — including newly installed Chairman “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke — will not risk at any cost.

So whether there are two more rate hikes, or just one, or simply none, matters little. Because the campaign is ending, and the primary pillar supporting the dollar will be removed...at about the same time as I’m predicting gold will reach its seasonal bottom.

And when that happens, I expect the investing masses, with gold’s late-2005, early-2006 rally still fresh in their minds, to begin plowing back into gold and gold stocks.

In the meantime, I plan on picking up some real bargains as this correction deepens. I suggest you do likewise.

Brien Lundin is the editor and publisher of Gold Newsletter.

Uranium Price Keeps Budging Up

2006-03-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just checked the uranium price for reference and I was surprised to see it now up to $39.50.

It's no secret what is pushing uranium higher but the higher uranium goes, the better for my number one uranium stock: Nova Uranium.

Just check out this chart:

Possible Pattern...

2006-03-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

In recent months we had the chance to see two very large resource investment conferences geared to retail investors take place.

Now from a common sense point of view, at least to me, I would think that with all these individual investors seeing all these exciting companies to invest in, that would create hype for the market and bring it up.

However, the complete opposite happened both times.

The entire week of the conferences and a little while after brought almost nothing but lower share prices.

Then a week or two after, the prices picked up and we go on up.

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself because the PDAC in Toronto just closed its door a few days ago.

But if what happened after the Vancouver conference happens agains, we should begin to move higher towards the end of next week or the week after that.

A possible thing to keep in mind is how little influence the small investor has.

It's the big fishes that control the markets and we have to watch out for that.

Anyways, tomorrow I will tell you the address of the my new site Stock Bullz where we will be moving to. Don't worry, you'll still get the exact same picks and commentary as you got here.

There are some little tweaks that still have to be done but this new site will be pretty amazing. And all the features....

I can't wait to move!

Nova Team Update:

2006-03-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a month or so since I last phoned Nova IR, so I decided to call again for some updates.

IR told me that drilling on the Mont Laurier property should begin on Monday. They have the road set up and the rigs should be coming in very shortly.

He told me a funny story that they had to harvest some of the maple trees on the property before taking them out. It's some quirky Quebec law.

He also told me that drill results will be released in batches of 5. Drilling takes about 3 days per hole and then they're sent to the labs for results.

We should expect the first batch of 5 to be released in 3-4 weeks time.

Since Nova Uranium shares the same IR as Playfair Mining I decided to ask a bit about what's going on there.

He was pretty excited about Playfair in the short term because he said they are very close to releasing a bunch of news releases.

Grey River drilling should begin by the end of March.

However, he also mentioned that they are moving ahead up on their properties up North.

He hinted that there may be some more acquisitions and activity in the very near future.

One thing that I really liked was that he suggested that these new releases should have a positive impact on share price.

This shows to me that the IR and management are serious about doing things that they think will best increase the share price.

I already own some Playfair Mining and Nova Uranium but I just bought more Playfair based on my conversation with IR.

"A whole bunch of news releases," as he put it will definetely give us a nice pop, especially in the case of Playfair which is a very speculative stock.

So if you want to speculate a little very short term, look into buying some Playfair.

P.S. It just so happens that Playfair is oversold almost as much as it can be right now. This, along with the fact that they have built up an amazing base here makes them so prime for the next pop to the upside as soon as the news starts rolling out.

Business Edge 3 Stars

2006-03-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

FEATURED PRO: Josef Schachter is president of Schachter Asset Management, which specializes in research on the oil and gas industry. The Calgary firm provides research on oil and gas companies for Maison Placements Canada and other institutional investors.

Schachter's Perspective: "Since the oil and gas stocks corrected, we've been telling our institutional clients to be buyers of oil and gas stocks. We think that the selling has been overdone on the downside and we think we're going to see a significant rally heading into the summer because of (commodity) demand in the summer months, and probably continued sabre-rattling from Iran.

"I think it's possible that with strength in oils and golds (stocks) you'll see 13,000 (on the S&P/TSX composite index, which was recently at 11,758) before the end of the year."

First Star

* C1 Energy Ltd. (TSX:CTT)

* Recent Price: $1.71.

* 52-Week Range: $1.63-$3.45.

* Schachter's 12-Month Target: $3.

* Snapshot: C1 is an oil and gas company with exploration and development projects, primarily in Alberta. The company was formed from the reorganization of Navigo Energy.

* CEO: Hugh Pattillo.

* Head Office: Calgary.

* Vital Stats: Current Price/Earnings Ratio, 17.1; Revenue (last 12 mos), $12.7 million; Earnings (last 12 mos), $2.3 million; Market Cap, $55.9 million; Shares Outstanding, 32.7 million.

* Schachter's View: "This company had a dry well that took the stock down, but we think this will be a $3 stock by the end of the year. They have a hot (exploration) area called Blueberry that they've kept on tight-hole status (not releasing exploration results) because of land sales. But we believe they've had some significant success there and we're waiting to see how the land sales go. Hopefully, then they'll start being more communicative about how they've done there."

* Schachter's Risk Rating: Moderate to High.

* Web Watch: www.c1energy.ca

Second Star

* Find Energy (TSX:FE)

* Recent Price: $9.25.

* 52-Week Range: $2.83-$11.39.

* Schachter's 12-Month Target: $12.

* Snapshot: Find is an oil and gas company with projects in east-central Alberta, west-central Alberta and southeastern Saskatchewan. The company also operates the Blue Rapids gas plant at Pembina, of which it is an 85-per-cent owner.

* CEO: William Davis.

* Head Office: Calgary.

* Vital Stats: Current Price/Earnings Ratio, 38.5; Revenue (last 12 mos), $52.8 million; Earnings (last 12 mos), $8.2 million; Market Cap, $313.5 million; Shares Outstanding, 33.9 million.

* Schachter's View: "This company is now doing 5,100 boe's (barrels of oil equivalent) per day. They've also brought on a plant (the Blue Rapids gas plant at Pembina) that has capacity of 30 mmcf (million cubic feet) per day and it can be expanded from here.

"We think the company could possibly be a takeover this year by a royalty trust and we think the company could be worth over $12 per share (his 12-month target)."

* Schachter's Risk Rating: Low to Medium.

* Web Watch: www.findenergy.ca

Third Star

* Sterling Resources (TSXV:SLG)

* Recent Price: $1.57.

* 52-week Range: $1.11-$2.41.

* Schachter's 12-Month Target: $3.

* Snapshot: Sterling is an international oil and gas company with properties in the United Kingdom, Romania and France.

* CEO: Stewart Gibson.

* Head Office: Calgary.

* Vital Stats: Revenue (last 12 mos), $0; Earnings/Loss (last 12 mos), $2.1 million Loss; Market Cap, $124.7 million; Shares Outstanding, 79.4 million.

* Schachter's View: "In May, this company will be working on a three-well program onshore in Romania and they'll eventually have five wells drilled onshore in Romania in '06. They also have interests in three wells to be drilled offshore North Sea in '06, the first of which will be drilled at the end of the second quarter by (partner) OilExco (TSX:OIL). The prize for the (North Sea) wells is potentially something that could do 15,000 boe's per day of production, of which 35 per cent is net to Sterling. So the upside for Sterling will be about 5,000 boe's per day."

* Schachter's Risk Rating: Moderate to High.

* Web Watch: www.sterling-resources.com

Schachter's Record (past 12 mos): +17.1 per cent. Best Pick: Real Resources (TSX:RER) +62.1 per cent. Worst Pick: Sterling Resources (TSXV:SLG) -12.8 per cent.

Disclosure: Schachter Asset Management has provided research on the featured companies to Maison Placements Canada and Josef Schachter has personal investments in all three companies.

This man is a very good stock forecaster. I will look into these companies he's recommending and see if they're as good as he thinks they are!

Interview With Rob McEwan

2006-03-09T09:06:00.000-07:00

Rather than post the whole article, I'll give you the URL:
It provides some insight into both the Nevada gold situation and
into Rob McEwan's psyche.

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=17698

So far, I'm right on...

2006-03-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

If you were watching your stocks today, it was a very volatile day for sure.

Silvercorp trades today within a range of $2 if you can believe it.

The lowest it went was $10.25 and the high for the day was the close of $12.20.

I think it will open higher tomorrow and go higher from there.

I can see that when looking at the Silvercorp trading patterns, there are not that many shares trading hands.

For our market cap, we still have (relatively) low volumes.

Just wait until the mining permit announcement. If it goes through like I'm assuming, there should be a big spike in the price.

I loaded up quite a bit of shares of Silvercorp yesterday and I told you that there shouldn't be more than 10% downside.

I was looking at the price mid-day and I had a little doubt but now that the market is closed, I'm pretty sure I'm right.

What Robert Kiyosaki's Investing In:

2006-03-07T18:32:00.000-07:00

Robert Kiyosaki, the famous author and investor, writes a weekly column for yahoo finance. Here is a snippet what he had to say today:

In my opinion, that means getting out of anything else that's "paper with ink on it" -- anything backed by the full faith and confidence of the SS U.S.A. That means I'm very suspicious of stocks, bonds, savings, and mutual funds, especially if they're U.S. dependent. Although I love real estate, I'm suspicious of any piece of property that doesn't generate cash flow today. I don't invest in future appreciation of real estate -- not today, at least.

Today, I invest in assets with tangible value, especially assets that go up in price as the dollar's purchasing power sinks. Today, I have large positions in gold, silver, and oil.

For the small investor, I believe buying silver coins is a safe bet. As the dollar drops, silver will hold its value or go up. I don't recommend buying coins for numismatic value (rarity). A friend has his son buy one silver dollar a week instead of saving money in the bank. As I write this, that's worth about $12 a week. He keeps the coins in a safe-deposit box. It's not big investing -- but it's a great habit.

In today's economic environment, it's better to save silver than to save paper with ink on it, and that includes cash, mutual funds, stocks, and bonds. If it seems unpatriotic to short the dollar and other forms of U.S. paper, then buy a few U.S. silver and gold coins. While I'm bullish on America, I've been very bearish on our dollar for years.

The death of the US dollar should only push the canadian dollar higher but it is nice to have a big shot like him investing alongside.

He mentions silver more than gold because he probably sees there is more upside to sivler than gold. This is my point of view too, of course!

What's on my Mind.....

2006-03-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

1. This may sound weird but I am very happy to see Silvercorp finally pull back. Remember, we went up 46% last week alone and we definitely needed a healthy couple of down days to consolidate and shake out weak hands.

I hope you're not one of the people who were selling today because that would be a mistake. Perhaps we have a bit more downside to go, but I highly doubt it would be more than 10% until a bottom. If tomorrow is down again, I might buy some more. And if it turns around, well that's great.

That's why today I added to my Silvercorp position. It was very easy to get shares so I could tell that many people were just cashing in their gains from last week.

It's not a bad idea, but they will be regretting it when they check out the share price of Silvercorp in a couple months and see it over $20!

2. I started to let you know about the US Gold acquistions yesterday. Qbit was telling me how share holders of the 4 small companies will have their shares exchanged for US Gold shares.

The only trivial thing is that the exchange rates don't quite work out perfectly. You can buy for example Coral Gold Resources and they will give you 0.63 shares of US Gold for every share of CGR you own.

The current price of US Gold is $6.24. In Canadian: $7.18; times .63=$4.52

So technically since CGR closed at 4.14 today, they are trading at a ~8% discount to what US Gold is offering. (If my math there is correct).

I am still baffled as to why this is the case....It seems too good to be true to me. I thought that all these stocks would open much higher this morning but instead they opened down.

That's why I'm not making any moves until I read more information regarding these acquisitions. Just keep in the back of your mind that most trades done for a quick profit, usually end up with a quick loss.

The details to these deals are very murky and unclear if not even talked about. There is no deadline date to close the deals. It's all quite...weird, unprofessional and unprepared...to me.

Maybe I'm just thinking too hard but until I get more information on these deals, I'll wait for US Gold to start trading on the TSX and then I'll look very closely into buying them.

If you're an American investor, I think that buying US Gold over the counter would be a good trade even right now. There are few good gold exploration plays in the US and all it'll take is to have a Barron's article about this company for the stock to go crazy. Somebody else who will pump it in a couple months will be Jim Cramer.

The US media are still sleeping to the commodity market but when they wake up, US Gold will be one of the go-to mania stocks whose stock charts will remind us all of the tech bubble.

US Gold IS Seeking A TSX Listing!

2006-03-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

I was very afraid that I would not be able to participate in the formation of one of the gold companies with the most potential: US Gold.

Today, I fired off an email to their Investor Relations and this is the answer I got to my question:

U.S. Gold will be applying to the Toronto Stock Exchange. We are waiting for our 2005 audited financials before we apply to the exchange. We hope to submit all the documentation in the next 3-4 weeks.

Sincerely,

Ian Ball

This makes me so happy!

I see so much potential in US Gold. I will be doing more research on them but I am quite sure that this will become my top gold stock.

If so, these will be my top 3 stocks for 2006 and beyond:

1. Silvercorp
2. Nova Uranium
3. US Gold

2006-03-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

TORONTO (CP) - U.S. Gold Corp. has launched unsolicited takeover offers totalling $291.7 million for four Vancouver-based companies that are exploring in Nevada.

The Denver-based junior gold explorer is run by Rob McEwen, who resigned as chief executive and chairman of Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc. (TSX:G) last year.

Now, as chief executive of U.S. Gold, McEwen's goal is to create "the premier exploration company in Nevada," and eventually to prepare it for a sale to one of the majors, like Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX) or Newmont Mining Corp.

The market value of his personal investment in the four takeover deals announced Monday is more than $100 million, he told an audience at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada's annual convention in Toronto.

The targets are Coral Gold Resources Ltd. (TSXV:CGR), White Knight Resources Ltd. (TSXV:WKR), Nevada Pacific Gold Ltd. (TSXV:NPG) and Tone Resources Ltd. (TSXV:TNS).

Each of the companies is exploring in Nevada's Cortez Trend, near U.S. Gold's Tonkin Springs property. Monday's offers represent a 25 per cent premium to the closing price of each stock on March 3.

The takeover process will take a couple of months, McEwen told reporters Monday.

"We would own more than a third of the trend in a very prolific area," he said. "This is a place you have to do big exploration programs, otherwise your timelines stretch out and your chances of finding it are low."

McEwen worked at Goldcorp Inc. for 19 years, before resigning as chairman when Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX) announced a hostile offer for Placer Dome (TSX:PDG), which included a side deal that would see some Placer assets sold to Goldcorp for more than $1 billion US.

He has previously said that philosophical disagreements contributed to his decision to leave the company. "I like organic growth," he said. "I like low cost and I like no debt."

He bought an interest in White Knight before buying into U.S. Gold, and taking up the helm of that company.

On Monday, Coral Gold disclosed that he has also bought nearly one-fifth of that company.

McEwen said his plan is to create a company that has the land mass and exploration budget of a senior gold producer, and the potential upside to the stock of a junior.

He extolls the virtues of Nevada, which, if it were a country, would be the third largest gold producer in the world, behind South Africa and Australia.

Most of Nevada's discoveries have occurred in the Carlin Trend.

The first major discovery in the Cortez Trend - where U.S. Gold Corp. is - was Placer Dome's Cortez Hills discovery in 2003.

"That, to my mind, is the biggest reason Barrick bought Placer. For that property," he said Monday.

Asked whether he plans to sell his firm to one of the majors, McEwen said that if U.S. Gold can make a discovery, "they'll certainly be looking over the fence," adding that "seniors need to take over juniors."

The executive is very bullish about gold, telling reporters Monday that he believes gold prices could be north of $2,000 US per ounce by 2010. That's nearly quadruple what they are now, after a massive price run-up.

A price of $2,000 would be based on speculation, not fundamentals, he added, and it would be supported by industry consolidation.

Despite his optimism, McEwen had a warning for investors in his and other explorers.

"You have to keep in mind, though, that exploration is risky, and your investment could become zero," he said.

I heard rumours about this deal a couple weeks ago but thought that it might be a publicity ploy by McEwen to boost the share prices of those companies and then flip his shares to speculators for a tidy profit.

Turns out I was wrong. U.S. Gold will turn into one serious contender. I think McEwan is taking a big gamble betting so much of his own money on only one region but I think it will play out very well for both him and his shareholders.

He was amazingly succesful with Goldcorp and I think he will do it again with USGL.

Unfortunately for many of us Canadian investors, USGL only trades over the counter in the US.

I will be looking out for a possible canadian stock listing but I'm not sure if that will happen.

Let me repeat, I see huge potential rewards in this deal for USGL shareholders. Just by glancing at the Management Profiles, Land Holdings, I can see triple digit returns in this company.

I will try to write up a nice big report on USGL in the coming weeks. If you are an american investor, buy!

There are few exploration companies with this much potential, especially in the US.

In Canada, we have much more choice for speculation but it still might be a good buy.

I will contact their Investors Relations soon to ask about a possible Canadian listing because if that would occur, this would probably become my favorite gold play in addition to Silvercorp as my favorite silver stock and Nova as my favorite uranium play..

US Gold Official Website

May I Inform You Of A Possible Discovery Of Silvercorp Junior?

2006-03-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right!

I have found a stock that really reminds me of Silvercorp, my current favorite Silver Stock.

Yes, it's a Silver explorer and yes it's properties and focus is on China. The company is called Minco Silver.

Here is a quick description taken directly from their website:

Minco Silver is a Canadian mining company involved in the direct acquisition and development of high-grade, advanced stage silver properties in China. Our focus is to acquire a large portfolio of silver dominant properties in China in the shortest time possible.

Minco Silver's primary focus is our Fuwan Silver Property:

* World-class resource: 129.8 million oz silver inferred.
* 22.4 million tonnes @ 180 g/t Ag

Note: NI43-101 Report completed November 2005

Minco Silver's Mission

To Become China's Leading Producer of Silver

Recent Development Highlights

* Acquired the Fuwan Silver Deposit in 2004
* Formed Strategic partnership with Silver Standard Resources (SSO)
* Completed Cdn$8.3 million financing, including Cdn$3.2 million from SSO
* Completed 43-101 Report - November 2005
* Listing on TSX November 2005 ("MSV")
* Acquired remaining 30% of Fuwan Silver Project

Minco has one large property (just like silvercorp) on which they hope to strike silver: The Fuwan Silver Project.

Here is the information they give in regards to this property on their website:

Location

The Fuwan Silver Project is located approximately 45 km southwest of Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, China and is adjacent to Minco's Changkeng Gold Property. The project is located close to well established water, power and transportation infrastructure.

Ownership

The Nanling JV is to acquire the Fuwan Silver property exploration permit, through Minco China, from No. 757 Exploration Team. The value of the exploration permit has been appraised at 10,330,000 RMB (approximately $1.52 million) by an independent valuator, and confirmed by the Ministry of Land and Resources of China. The Nanling JV is to pay the 10,330,000 RMB for the exploration permit in three installments within 24 months of the title transfer. The balance will be used for project exploration and feasibility studies on the Fuwan mine property

On April 7, 2005, Minco China received three Reconnaissance Survey Exploration Permits from the Ministry of Land and Resources of China, which are adjacent to the Fuwan permit and cover a total 20,515 ha. These permits cover all the prospective ground along the northwest-trending Fuwan silver belt, which extends northwest and southeast of the Fuwan silver deposit and Changkeng gold deposit. Several gold-silver soil anomalies are present within these permits and major silver showings were discovered in the Luzhou and Dieping areas through the systematic follow-up of the geochemical anomalies. The third permit covers silver-copper-lead-zinc occurrences located near the southern margin of the Sanzhou basin. These showings have received only limited exploration.

Background

Silver and gold were discovered in the area in early 1990 by systematic follow up of stream sediment and soil geochemical anomalies identified from surveys completed by the Guangdong Provincial government (Regional Geological Survey Team of Guangdong Bureau of Geological Exploration). The Guangdong Provincial exploration team (757 Geological Exploration Team) conducted trenching and drilling programs between 1993 and 1995 to evaluate the silver mineralization.

Geology and Mineralization

Silver mineralization at Fuwan is hosted primarily within a Lower Carboniferous limestone sequence that is unconformably overlain by Upper Triassic siliciclastic rocks. The Carboniferous and Triassic units are folded into an open syncline that has northeast trending axis. A series of faults oriented sub-parallel to bedding are developed near the unconformity and are considered the main control for the Fuwan silver mineralization and Changkeng gold mineralization. Most of the Fuwan silver mineralization is hosted in the Lower Carboniferous limestone sequence. The total strike length of the mineralization is 2790m and is open to the north, south and southwest. Drill hole ZK2403 intersected 9 separate mineralized zones with most other holes intersecting 3-5 separate zones. Silver mineralization is characterized by fractured and silificied limestone accompanied by calcite and pyrite with minor galena, sphalerite and barite. Minor amounts of chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, cinnabar, and fluorite have also been observed in the mineralized zones. Fuwan can be considered a world-class silver deposit based on its present size and grade.

Work Plan

Minco recently completed a two-hole drilling program to verify drill intercepts returned by the Chinese exploration programs. Results from the first twinned hole returned were comparable in grade and width to the original hole. However, there was a marked difference in results from the second hole with the twinned hole returning a greater width and higher grade than the original drill hole. A detailed comparison of results from this verification drilling is presented in a NI 43-101 report filed on SEDAR. Minco is in the final stages of planning a drilling program that will begin in December and continue though the first half of 2006. This drill program is designed to test the extensions of known mineralization, provide more data so the quality of resource estimates can be improved and test other promising targets within the Fuwan licences.

Minco's closing price on Friday was $3.84. This gives them a market cap just under $100 million. Silvercorp has a market cap of nearly $600 million so Minco is approximately 6 times smaller than Silvercorp.

Here are the details of their share structure:

Issued & Outstanding as at February 17, 2006 25,235,900 (*)
Warrants
Broker Warrants - May 2005 Brokered Private Placement (1) 147,700
Broker Warrants - IPO - November 2005 (2) 92,000
Stock Options 2,615,000
Fully Diluted (*) 28,090,600
(*) includes a total of 14,392,500 Escrow Shares of which 3,720,000 are held by Silver Standard Resources and 10,500,000 are held by Minco Mining & Metals Corporation
(1) Expires June 1, 2007. On or before December 1, 2006 @ $1.25. On or before June 1, 2007 @ $1.50
(2) Expires June 1, 2007. On or before December 1, 2006 @ $1.25. On or before June 1, 2007 @ $1.50

Very interesting to me is that about 20 million shares are in escrow by Minco Mining and Silver Standard and some insiders. That means that less than 5 million shares are tradeable right now! I am telling you, that is a very tight supply. This stock has the potential to move extremely quickly if there is enough good news.

Our first bit of good news came out on Friday which stated the following:

Further to its news release dated December 13, 2005, Minco Silver Corporation (the "Company" or "Minco Silver") (TSX:MSV) is pleased to provide the following update for Phase 1 of the 2006 10,000 meter drill program planned for the Company's Fuwan project in southern China. Infill drilling holes 5 and 7 produced outstanding results averaging approximately 1kg/tonne silver.

To January 22, 2006 (the beginning of the Chinese New Year break) a total of 5 holes were completed aggregating 1244.88m. Silification zones which host most of the known silver mineralization was intersected in all five holes with visible sulphide mineralization in four holes. All core intercepts approximate true width.

Additional assay data for gold, lead and zinc is pending.

The 5th hole (FW 01) was an exploration hole 600m from the main Fuwan Zone.

Drill cores with visible mineralization were sawed in half with a diamond saw and 135 samples were collected from the four completed holes. Drill core samples from holes completed to date (FW0001, FW0005, FW0006, FW0007 and FW0009) were shipped to the PRA Kunming lab for analysis for silver, gold, lead and zinc. The samples were prepared according to Minco's QA/QC procedures, namely each batch of 20 samples included 17 regular samples, 1 certified reference sample, 1 duplicate sample and 1 blank. Total number of the samples sent to PRA Lab was160.

Samples were prepared and assayed at PRA Kunming lab (Process Research Associates Ltd.) with supervision of a certified BC assayer. Silver was assayed with acid digestion and AAS finish. Assay results were further checked at PRA's Vancouver lab as an internal check. Reference materials were inserted by Minco staff geologists as a further assay control. The assay data provided by PRA is considered acceptable.

Drilling has resumed following the Chinese New Year break and will continue to focus on resource expansion in the dip direction and infill drilling.

I have a feeling this is just the beginning of positive drill tests for Minco. More investors may get interested in Minco beginning with ones that see their booth at the PDAC conference this week.

I also remember John Embry saying Minco Silver was one of his favorite picks when I saw him on RobTV a couple weeks ago. John is one of the leading managers with Sprott Asset Management. Although these guys aren't always right, it's not a bad thing to have Sprott along for the ride because I'm sure they'll be able to get some more hype on this company if they want to.

Minco trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol MSV.

Although I will concede that Silvercorp is (still) my favorite Silver Stock, Minco teases me as a nice trade. That is, an attempt to make 120% as quick (a couple months) as possible and then sell half your position for a guaranteed 10% gain plus the potential for much more.

The extremely thin float and other factors I talked about in addition to an incoming stream of drill results lead me to believe that a double within a couple months in not improbable, but rather highly likely.

If you've made the 46% this week on your Silvercorp shares, perhaps you could think about selling a tiny portion of those to take a gamble on Minco.

Company Snapshot
Company Website

Start Making Your Popcorn...

2006-03-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Because I have found a bunch on interviews with some of Canada's best performing stock analysts.

Jim Dines

Josef Schachter

Michael Levy

Sean Brodrick

Bill Murphy

Enjoy!

New Poll

2006-03-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

I just posted a new poll for all you readers of mine to vote on.

The question is: What direction would you like my site move to in the future?

If you are using firefox, you should see it just to the right of this post, if you are still using Internet Explorer, it might be lost somewhere on the page.

I might take the results into consideration for the new site: Stock Bullz!

Vote away!

BMO Global Resources Conference

2006-03-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

This conference is new to me but since I found they have a bunch of audio clips to listen to, I thought I'd let you know about it.

Follow this link

Some companies of note for us are: Urasia, Paladin and Silver Wheaton.

Silver Keeps on Going Up

2006-03-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

Today Silvercorp had yet another day up. This move is becoming quite odd to me.

I know this is a greatly undervalued stock but it has had so many days in a row now without even pausing to take a breather.

I was chatting with qbit today and he mentioned that Silvercorp is pretty tightly held. I think this is turning out to be very true.

It trades as if 80% of the float is locked away at the back of some people's portfolios. And they will only sell it in a couple years after 100's% return.

Although I have a feeling that much of today's trading was chasers and momentum players. As soon as we get a day where the price goes down, many traders will simply dump their shares. (I can't blame them, on Monday, Silvercorp opened at $9.45. Today it closed at $13.49. That's a 43% gain...in only 5 days!!!!) However, I'm in it for the long run.

You should not be surprised when this happens (pullback). But don't panic with them. We've gone up almost too much too fast. So when this pullback happens, feel free to by some more shares.

I know I've been predicting this pullback for a week or so for Silvercorp but it still hasn't happened. Oh well, I own shares and if you do, we're not complaining!!

Remember, my current price target for Silvercorp is $17 by the end of the year. However, because the market is finally just beginning to discover thier potential, I will probably raise my target price in the coming weeks (if not sooner).

Note: The little localstocks blog here will be replaced very soon by the new web site that I have been talking about. It will be called Stock Bullz. The design is completed but there are still little tweaks and modifications that I have to do to it before I can begin the transition from this to Stock Bullz.

But let me assure you that this new site will be amazing! It takes my unique stock commentary and research and complements it with a truly wonderful and very powerful site layout. Hopefully the transition will be smooth but I know you'll love it!

Silver Crosses Magical $10 Plateau!

2006-03-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

Silver prices moved above $10 a troy ounce for the first in more than 22 years buoyed by strong buying in metal and energy markets.

Traders said investors were also buying into the metal in the hope of a favourable US regulatory ruling on the launch of a proposed silver-backed exchange traded fund. Barclays Global Investors has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list a silver backed ETF, which potentially opens up the silver market to new investors.

The silver price hit $10.14 a troy ounce in New York trade, its highest level since October 1983 and up 39 cents or more than three per cent up on the day.

Silver is up almost 60 per cent since the start of 2005. Prices were boosted this week after a strike at the Fresnillo silver mine in Mexico. Unions agreed to return to work yesterday.

Just thought I'd let you know...

Remember, at the beginning of the year I said that Uranium, Silver and Natural Gas will be the best performing sectors of 2006. The first two are bang on so far in the year.

Natural Gas has been a dump so far but don't worry, next winter will be much colder and so you'll have to be more patient to see that choice play out. Although, you it might start moving soon for the summer driving season. I'm not sure yet, we'll see how it goes.

Are You Watching Silvercorp?

2006-03-02T19:14:00.000-07:00

Why should you be watching Silvercorp? Well today it was up another almost 15%!

Like I've been saying all along, this is the best Silver stock out there right now. It has a very good mix of risk/reward.

Because its market cap crossed 500 million today, it's not that small anymore where it can be fully manipulated and it could go bankrupt in one day.

It's getting to be something with a really good chance of making it big.

Let me just post up a picture of its near perfect chart to remind you how much we've gone up recently:

The thing that is so great when I look at this chart is that the ride has been so smooth on the way up.

Some stocks are so volatile that you can't sleep at night because of their huge price moves up and down.

Silvercorp has been very steady on its way up. I just love it. It's one of these stocks that if you only look at it once a month, it'll always be higher the next time you check it out.

So for today's price movement, it had a lot to do with the news release. To me, it was nothing new. It was mostly all the things I told in the previous IR notes special report. Although this news release shows all the exact numbers and predictions...

The two most important things in this release are not all the numbers but these two statments:

"Work is carried out through Silvercorp's 77.5% subsidiary Henan Found Mining Co. Ltd. The 2006 budget, which runs from January 31, to December 31, 2006, is anticipated to be financed entirely by cash flow generated from production.

In other words, they won't need to dilute the float of take on any new financing. It will all be paid for by cashflow. This is brilliant but you need very smart managing and a very high quality project to be able to do this. Silvercorp has both in my opinion.

The second point is:

"The 2005 program was generally completed on time, or ahead of schedule. Based on the extensive exploration and development work completed in 2005, SRK Consulting has been retained to complete a review of Resources, which should be completed by the end of April 2006 and is expected to substantially increase the last Resource estimate released in April 2005."

I put a lot of focus on past results and the fact that they did everything right and on time in 2005 leads me to be quite confident that everything done in 2006 will be done in the same manner;on time, or ahead of schedule. But even more positive is the fact that in April, we have a very good chance of seeing higher resource estimates. This could do nothing but push our stock price higher.

So can you get the feeling that I'm really bullish on this stock yet? I hope I'm not making it too obvious...

This will be one of the great stories of 2006 and it would be great if you could be a part of it. I am and many others are to, are you?

P.S. If you look at the W%R indicator in the chart here, you can see that Silvercorp is too overbought. That means that we've had a great run over the past little while and there is a good chance that we need to take a little breather. If this happens, I will try to pick up some more shares. However, I thought that this week would be that breather but I was wrong. The fundamentals for Silver and Silvercorp are so strong that it's very difficult to predict down days/weeks because there are so few of them compared to all the up days! I suggest you buy Silvercorp over many days/weeks and cost average your shares...or just buy all you can right away, tuck them in the back of your rrsp and send me a thank-you cheque next year when you've made mad money!

It's a Bull Market You Know!

2006-03-01T16:22:00.000-07:00

Our recent volatility and up/down market movements really remind me of a book I was reading recently: Reminisces of a Stock Operator.

This is an absolute classic containing hundreds of pages of priceless wisdom on how to make money in the stock market.

In one of the chapters, the master trader talks about how he would often see this old man buying stocks on down days. He asked him why he was buying and the man replied with nothing more than "it's a bull market you know."

And I think that's what we have in Canada here today. A full out bull market.

But before you rush out to buy Nortel or Bombardier, let me remind you it's not in all sectors.

The best sectors to be in right now are commodity ones. Everything that China and India and the USA need to grow and live. Things like silver, oil, uranium those are the companies you should be buying.

And although there is some more risk, I think you should be drifting towards smaller cap plays on these commodities. Smaller caps usually perform better than their larger compadres. Sure some of them will go bust but if you can get a couple 10-baggers, you'll be much better off.

So today we just regained everything we lost yesterday. Now the thing to take from this is to buy on the dips. And don't sell when it goes up, just stay on what you own. But when there's a down day, it could be a good time to buy a little more.

For example, today Silvercorp is up 4.1%, Connacher up 3.43%, Arawak up 6.29% and Playfair up 9.28%.

That's a fair chunk of my portfolio and it's looking really good since the start of the year.

I hope yours is looking good too.

If you need some ideas, I think Silvercorp is the best silver stock; Nova is the best speculative uranium play;connacher the best oil sands play;arawak the best kazakh oil play.

If anything, I'd just like to remind you to keep your cool when the market dips. And if you have some extra cash, sometimes it's not a bad idea to buy some more.

If you're the nervous type, just buy some of the best companies in each sector and sock them away and check only once a month on them. Then add to the positions if needed.

So although many of the companies will have corrections and slow times over the next year, I am very confident that they will be much higher at the end of the year.

Tim Hortons IPO Coming Soon

2006-02-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Listen up everybody, the time to get back some of all that money you've spent buying coffee and donuts at good 'ol timmy's is coming very soon. Every Canucks favorite fast food hut is finally going public.

With only 29 million shares going live at first, the price will go up very quickly I'm willing to predict.

If they open at $21, I think they will close the first day at $25 at least.

Tim Hortons, owned by Wendy's, makes more money for its owner than the owner does. Tim Hortons is very profitable and growing very quickly.

Here is an article I read about the IPO today:

Tim Hortons wants to raise more than $600 million in its initial public offering, according to documents filed with U.S. securities regulators.

The iconic Canadian doughnut and coffee shop said it plans to issue 29 million shares, priced between $21 and $23, according to a prospectus filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
3-month trading

At those prices, the IPO would be worth between $609 million and $667 million Cdn.

The IPO is scheduled to go ahead in March.

The lead underwriters are Goldman, Sachs & Co., JPMorgan, RBC Capital Markets and Scotia Capital.

Under the plan, the stock will be listed on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchanges under the symbol THI. The TSX has already given conditional approval to the listing.

Wendy's International Inc. will continue to own 84.65 per cent of Tim Hortons' outstanding shares, or 82.75 per cent if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full.

The company said proceeds from the IPO will repay debt owed to Wendy's.

Wendy's share price (NYSE:WEN) fell 41 cents to $58.25 US on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning.

The coffee and doughnut chain was founded in 1964 by Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Horton and Ron Joyce, a former Hamilton police officer and franchisee of the first store. Horton later died in a car accident after his Italian sports car hit a bridge abutment on Ontario's Queen Elizabeth Way.

The coffee and doughnut chain was bought by Wendy's in 1995 in a deal worth $580 million Cdn. At the time, the private Canadian company had 1,000 outlets across Canada and reported sales in 1994 of $600 million.

In 2005, Tim Hortons earned a profit of $191.1 million on sales of $1.48 billion.

Tim Hortons has proved highly successful in recent years. It now has more outlets in Canada than the McDonald's hamburger chain, and is growing faster than Wendy's in both the U.S. and Canadian markets.

If you want to read that US prospectus, click here. It's kind of difficult to read but that's the best I could find...

How to Buy a Piece of Stockhouse

2006-02-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

I’m sure you have all heard of Stockhouse. There’s also a very high probability that you visit that website quite often. At least I know I do.

It’s not a secret that the Stockhouse website is owned by Stockgroup. However, it seems to be a well-kept secret that you can buy Stockgroup shares on the TSX-Venture exchange right here in Canada.

I’m a pretty well connected guy and I know of many quirky and unusual companies but I only today found out that you can buy a piece of Stockhouse. So how many ordinary investors know of this fact? Very few I would suggest.

But this is to our great advantage. There is an opportunity to buy into the Stockhouse dynasty very cheap, very early.

After all, the stock is only trading at $0.40! The market cap is only $13 million!

If Google can fetch astronomical P/E ratios why can’t Stockgroup?

Well for one (in my brief research on it today), they aren’t profitable yet. They posted a $0.01 loss per share in the last quarter.

But all is not lost. They claim that they have a current record of posting 9 consecutive quarters of increasing revenue. They will soon turn profitable and if they even earn $0.01/share for the next 4 quarters, that will equal at P/E of only 10x. That is very cheap indeed.

Online advertising is growing 30% every year according to their CEO and he believes that their Stockhouse website will be able to ride this wave.

One more thing that is great for investors is that the CEO claims that Stockhouse has a 90-95% market share on Canadian stock message board traffic. I’m not sure that’s accurate but if it is, that’s a near monopoly. And monopolies are great at rewarding investors.

So while I can’t put out a “buy” recommendation on SWB yet, I can recommend you to put this company on your stock symbol watch list. Like I said, I only started researching this company today so I have a limited database in my head on them. However, in the coming weeks I will try to put more info out there for you so you can decide whether or not SWB would look good in your portfolio.

Company Snapshot

Silver IPO--Maybe Not....

2006-02-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

Reuters news service put out this today:

UPDATE 1-Chile's Codelco denies silver IPO report
Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:07 PM ET

SANTIAGO, Chile, Feb 27 (Reuters) - State-owned Codelco, the biggest copper miner in the world, denied on Monday a newspaper report that the company was readying a $1 billion spin-off of silver assets into a new company to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"It's not true. It's not true that Codelco is going to list $1 billion (of silver assets)," Codelco spokesman Ivan Badilla told Reuters.

Asked whether the company was planning to spin off its silver assets into a separate company without selling shares in that new company, Badilla said "no comment."

Citing unnamed Canadian financial sector sources, Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper said in a report on Monday that Codelco had auditioned investment bankers in New York to lay the groundwork for an initial public offering this year.

Codelco, which produces some 1.8 million tonnes of copper a year, produces only a small amount of silver, as a copper by-product.

Codelco's first mainly silver project, the Puren mine, is to enter production this year. Codelco owns 35 percent of Puren, and two Canadian companies, Placer Dome (PDG.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Kinross Gold Corp., hold 65 percent of the mine through their company Mantos de Oro.

Puren is seen producing some 30 million ounces of silver and 100,000 ounces of gold in its initial, two-year mine life plan.

The mine will begin operating this year and is expected to produce 12.9 million ounces of silver this year.

The company may just be coy.

BTW on a down day for silver, Silvercorp was as high as $10.27, blowing by SLW.

New Silver IPO:

2006-02-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

If this new IPO is succesful, it will help push Silvercorp even higher because it will create more publicity for Silver companies. Nice day up for Silvercorp today by the way!

SINCLAIR STEWART AND ANDREW WILLIS
Monday, February 27, 2006

The world's largest copper producer, state-owned Codelco of Chile, is preparing a $1-billion (U.S.) spin-out of its silver mining assets that is expected to create a new company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The Santiago-based company auditioned investment bankers over the past two weeks in New York as it laid the groundwork for an initial public offering later this year, according to financiers vying for the business. Codelco is capitalizing on the fact that silver bullion prices have doubled in the past four years, with the precious metal changing hands Friday at $9.59 an ounce.

Silver and gold are afterthoughts for Codelco, which produces 40 per cent of the world's copper. The company estimates it will spend $12-billion expanding its copper mines over the next four years, and an IPO of its silver assets would help pay these bills.

At least five Canadian brokerage houses, along with several global investment banks, pitched for a starring role in the IPO, which would likely pay out more than $20-million in fees. Investment bank N.M. Rothschild & Sons Ltd. is supervising the selection of financial advisers, sources said. Codelco is expected to select an investment bank within two weeks, with an IPO to follow.

"This would be a real coup, to have a new, billion-dollar mining company arriving on the TSX," said one Canadian financer pitching Codelco. The new silver company is expected to list its shares on some combination of the TSX, New York Stock Exchange and AIM, an arm of the London Stock Exchange. Officials at Codelco could not be reached for comment.

More than half of the world's mining companies -- more than 4,400 stocks -- are listed on either the TSX or the Calgary-based TSX Venture Exchange.

Codelco does not disclose its silver output, but it is one of the world's top 20 miners of the precious metal.

The Silver Institute, a Washington-based industry association, estimated that the Chilean company produced 9.6 million ounces in 2004, good for 16th place in the ranking of international silver miners.

One of the largest silver-focused mining companies on the TSX is Pan American Silver Corp. It turned out 11.2 million ounces of the metal in 2004, and commands a $1.8-billion (Canadian) market capitalization.

Vancouver-based Pan American also lists its stock on the Nasdaq Stock Market, an American exchange.

Though Codelco is government owned, a company-commissioned study by Goldman Sachs & Co. last year pegged its value at between $24.5-billion (U.S.) and $27.5-billion. In 2004, the company posted a $3.3-billion profit on sales of $8.2-billion, and it has 16,700 employees.

Prior to the 1990s, Codelco had a monopoly on mining in Chile, but the market has now opened up.

In addition to producing silver at wholly owned mines, Codelco has partnered with two Canadian companies on Chile's Puren mine, slated to begin production later this year.

Codelco owns 35 per cent of the project, which is expected to churn out 12.9 million ounces of silver in the first year of operation, and more than 50,000 ounces of gold.

The remaining 65-per-cent stake is held by Mantos de Oro, a joint venture between Kinross Gold Corp. and Placer Dome Inc.

Worldwide silver supply was 879.2 million ounces in 2004, according to the Silver Institute, which also says that demand for the metal has outstripped supply for 14 consecutive years.

Demand for the metal comes primarily from bullion-buying investors, jewellery and silverware manufacturing, industrial applications and photography, with the latter a declining market.

The commodity's hot run in the past few years has come in part on the back of other metals.

A recent Silver Institute report said: "Silver has never really enjoyed the 'safe haven' status that gold possesses. However, its linkage to gold and the base metals meant silver was often an attractive home for speculative capital since it was perceived as likely to ride the coattails of any rally in these other markets."

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