Two Juniors on the Fence

 

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I got a question in my comments section yesterday about two smaller Canadian juniors — RBY and BAA  — that we’ve discussed in the past, and which look to be ready to turn back north, or disappear down the drain for the duration.  

Note, even in this wildly successful bull market for gold and silver, there are still doggy outliers with such grandly incompetent management (or who have the misfortune to operate under the purview of such confiscatory national governments) that they have not benefitted in the “rising tide.”   

I often cite the South African DROOY, as an example of said phenomena, but even poorly managed HL and CDE can be placed in that category.   The difference between DROOY and Idaho-based CDE and HL — where I would not invest in the former, but have done so in the two latter — is in nationalization risk.   In this rising tide, CDE and HL, though managed ham-fistedly, might actually become buyout candidates thanks to their assets in the ground.  

DROOY on the other hand, increasingly becomes a nationalization candidate as it’s home nation (South Africa) slides further into the traditional socialist morass under the leadership of the ANC.  Happy World Cup, by the bye, fellahs.

Back to our two small Canadians, who are, again, very low nationalization risks.  With Canada’s strong support for it’s PM industry, they maybe even lower risk than the gold miners of the United States (lol!).   I will show the weeklies to illustrate the long term trends, as usual.    BAA, which just a month back raised over $130mm at $2.05 Canadian (or $1.98 U.S.)  a share, is showing a possible bottoming here, which is not atypical a month after a major dilutive action.

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One quick aside on the major risk of juniors in a gold BULL market (the major risk in a non-bull being that they are actually held accountable for their crappy earnings, lol!).  In a non-nationalizing State environment, the greatest risk to junior investors is in dilution.   Many many many managers of these juniors (rightfully) see an increasing stock price (thanks to speculation) being an opportunity to raise cheap capital.   And even if the capital is not so cheap, the market will assign a discount to it upon a dilutive offering anyway.   Hence, in the case of BAA, we had a large new issue of equity sold at $1.98, but saw the stock pull back (this week!) all the way to $1.61 — a 19% discount from the original offering price.  That’s HUGE in a bull market for gold.

The good news is that BAA is now going to be a much smaller dilution risk going forward, and in fact, one might even say we can take that risk off the table for up to 24 months… which may mean all the way to the end of this bull.  With such a capitalization under their belts, BAA also gains more leverage in an M&A scenario.  Because of the fresh capital, they will not be forced to accept a low bid to monetize their assets, as this offering gives them additional dry powder to do so internally (for the time being).   

Long story short, if you owned BAA prior to this dilutive event, you  are pissed about the set-back (although, if you are like me, you are long used to it in these juniors).   This is one reason to greatly diversify your junior picks, either through a large group of names (as I’ve done) or via ETF’s like GDXJ and SIL (less bang for the buck, but a greater diversifier for those w. smaller accounts).

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The good news is that now that BAA has taken the dilution risk off the table, this may be a good time to begin accumulating at these prices… Note our weekly chart:

We could see this thing drift down another 10 cents or so (which is a lot, admittedly) if there is a consolidation of the latest gold pop, but I think the I-bankers at CIBC World Markets (the underwriter of the shares at $1.98) would be catching a lot of grief were it to descend much lower than the $1.55 range (a 22% discount and home to much chart support).    I may add to my holdings come Monday.

Note:   a large part of BAA’s holdings are in The Democratic (hah!) Republic (ha-ha) of Congo, so there is nationalization risk, but less so, thanks to BAA‘s being a Canadian-resident company.  Ironically, foreign companies– especially those based from Western NATO allied countries — are more immune to nationalization in rogue states, whose loosely held governments are dependent on their income to survive.  In fact, because SA is not a rogue state (i.e., essentially government-less), it actually poses a greater confiscatory risk, thanks to the Dunning Kruger effect posed by imagined competancy  (see Venezuela as a great example, or even the Obama and Bush Administrations), than the tenuous ex-Zaire of DRC.

Also, please keep in mind that while BAA may not be subject to nationalization risk, there’s still higher political risk due to the fighting going on within it’s host state and on it’s border states in the Congo.

Rubicon Minerals’ (RBY‘s) position is a lot more secure, with most of their assets residing in Canada and the U.S.  That said, they too have had a sharp pullback from highs (see chart below).   They had their big dilutive offering (they bought back debt too) in 2009, with over $210 mm in “bought deal financings,” which are essentially privately placed public equity (like PIPES here in the US).

I also like the chart, which seem to indicate a cup and handle, with a subsequent breakout.   Now it seems we are consolidating that breakout and it may be time to “nibble” once again.   I may also look to RBY on Monday.

 

Note, I will be increasingly selling down my non-gold & silver  movers, save for a couple of small positions in UPS and MON and perhaps CREE.   I think we are getting to a point where a concentration in PM”s may be again warranted.  This will be especially true if the dollar starts to break down here, as I think it may.

Best to you all, and I will try to get a piece in on the TRANnies before weekend is out.

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