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The IKN Weekly
Week 664, February 13th 2022
Contents
This Week: In Today’s Edition, Don’t count your Kiev Chickens before they hatch.
Fundamental Analysis: Copper Mountain (CMMC.to) to appear here tomorrow.
Stocks to Follow: Aldebaran Resources (ALDE.v), Copper Mountain (CMMC.to), Palamina Corp
(PA.v), Altipano Metals (APN.v), Discovery Silver (DSV.v), McEwen Mining (MUX), Amerigo
Resources (ARG.to).
Copper Basket: Overview, Marimaca (MARI.to), Element 29 (ECU.v), Kutcho Copper (KC.v).
Producer Basket: Overview, Barrick Gold (GOLD).
TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Golden Pursuit (GDP.v), Latin Metals (LMS.v).
Regional Politics: Peru: President Castillo’s days are numbered, Chile: The next Minister of
Mining talks sense, Colombia: Latest polling figures for the Presidential election, Guatemala and
El Salvador environmentalists join against Bluestone (BSR.v), Mexico’s Supreme Court and
Almaden Minerals (AMM.to) final note.
Market Watching: QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v): No better copper trade today Top Pick
Minera Alamos (MAI.v) and a Santana update.
I remind subscribers that no part of this newsletter can be copied, reproduced or
given to any third party without the express permission of the author.
This Week
In Today’s Edition
 The IKN Weekly is a flexible publication and after due deliberation, I’ve decided to take
advantage of that fact. With one of our main copper trades in Copper Mountain
(CMMC.to) about to report its 4q21 and Year-End financial results tomorrow, Monday
February 14th, today’s main Fundies section is left blank and instead, please expect an
appendix to IKN664 to arrive tomorrow Monday evening which looks at the company
results and considers its potential for the rest of 2022.
 Meanwhile, we steal the headline from your preferred TV news channel and consider
“Rising Tensions In The Ukraine” in today’s intro. Not a subject to which this desk can
profess any sort of expertise, but its affects on the metals markets (and therefore
mining stocks) last week require some mention. Therefore, we limit our comments as
much as possible, trying to remain practical.
 Aside from Copper Mountain and the update for tomorrow, today’s copper stock
coverage includes a look at the Marimaca Copper (MARI.to) in the Copper Basket, but
QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v) with its upcoming newsflow still looks like a better bet to
me. Also in Market Watching, the latest from Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v) tells us of
slow but steady progress.
 In Regional Politics, I hope the note on Peru’s political scene covers enough ground to
convey the most important message, that left wing President Castillo’s days are now
numbered. When the change comes, you’ll want to be long the country.
1

Don’t count your Kiev Chickens before they hatch
It’s impossible to ignore the elephant in the room this weekend, even if the heightened
potential of a Russian invasion (or incursion…or expanded military exercise if you prefer) into
Ukraine isn’t something that a mining writer focused on South American juniors has much right
to opine upon. However, we need to consider the effects of last week’s geopolitical events…
…and for obvious reasons, as when gold does that it’s no surprise to see gold miners do this:
On the week, GDX rose by 6.7% and GDXJ by 8.5% and the big jump Friday may end up being
the inverse of a couple of weeks ago. Back then we bemoaned booking temporarily depressed
prices in print, whereas the weekend’s market snapshot after a volatile Friday. Fortunately,
there’s no need to explain gold’s move with this sophisticated audience, but as the volatile
nature of events is now in the hands of the world’s Top Table politicos we should recognize that
anything might happen in the next week or so. As such, Friday may not turn out to be
particularly representative and something to keep in mind.
Turning to the elephant in the room, what you are NOT going to get from these pages is a view
on whether Putin hits the Battle Button, or on the response he could garner from Ukraine,
Western Europe or NATO. My opinions on the whole affair, from Putin’s motives to NATO’s
resolve, are of zero importance and do you really want to hear from another opinionated voice
about “The Problem With…”? No, didn’t think so. However its effect on metals means the
subject still needs some treatment today and you get to read one generalized point about the
escalating conflict, then a focus on gold.
Point one: Yesterday Saturday morning, I went to Google News and put “Ukraine NATO” into
the search line. The idea was to get a feel for sentiment by reading a few English language
headlines, then perhaps clicking through on one or two promising-looking articles for some
more insight, but the front page of the search return was far more interesting than imagined
2

due to this:
Seriously, are people asking those questions? Wow. Given that level of ignorance, it’s now less
surprising to see Putin’s Russia and its aggression toward a landmass it has historically coveted
and considered part of its whole. Seriously, wow.
And that’s as far as this publication goes on Eastern European politics, or the motives of the
current crop of world leaders. We move quickly on to the only real point I want to make this
weekend using the visual aid below, the chart for long-term spot gold:
We can argue the toss on “long-term” of course, as some would want the last hundred years,
others from the 1929 crash and others still since the end of the Gold Standard, but I’ve gone
for 1978 to date as “modern era” which includes the US inflation pop/Volcker/Hunt Bros and
then the period of calm before the ramp in gold that began maybe 15 years ago. Now for a
small batch of related questions, deliberately posed in no particular order: Does the above chart
show the effects on the gold price of…
…Russia’s invasion of The Crimea?
…the fall of the Berlin Wall?
…The Chinese Student revolution and eventual Tiananmen Square massacre?
…Israel’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities?
…Y2K?
…The Kuwait invasion?
…The Invasion of Iraq by Allied forces?
…Brexit?
…September 11th 2001?
3

All of those were significant geopolitical moments for the world, some of them highly significant
with long-term policy impacts. All made world headlines, all had life-changing effects on least
part of the world’s population and all of them are very difficult to spot on that price chart for
gold. It’s not the first time we’ve made this point, it’s a simple one and it and belies a common
misconception in the market: Geopoliticals do not affect the price of gold. There are of
course several sharp spikes or trough movements for the price of gold along that 45 year time
chart, but they only tend to occur when the world’s financial fabric is altered, rather than its
geopolitical. The Hunt Brothers, The GFC, Covid-19 at Fed moves against inflation (successful or
otherwise) move the price of gold, but only when the political arena affects the financial.*
But that doesn’t mean gold has no role to play and in fact, the Friday knee-jerk move higher is
“why gold”, it’s how the monetary metal hedges your portfolio against the sligns and arrows of
outrageous fortune. Our latest example is Biden’s “distinct possibility” announcement on Friday
and as long as tensions remain high and the Ukraine Question dominates financial markets,
gold will continue to do its thing and protect your net wealth.
Last week was a prime example of how gold does not make you rich, instead it stops you from
becoming poor. So with bullion as your anchor, you can choose to speculate on the
ramifications of the “Rising Tensions In The Ukraine” or if you prefer, let the market alone and
leave well alone until there’s more certainty in the air. That’s the real luxury of gold ownership.
*To add one extra political thought, if Putin does decide to invade Ukraine he probably already knows that in order to
be successful and make the move stick, he won’t want to mess with the West’s financial system. If only for that, the
gas pipeline will remain turned on. Or as Garry Kasparov wrote, Putin’s “A piece, then peace” strategy that takes what it
wants first, then appeases enemies later. Okay, enough politics.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Copper Mountain (CMMC.to) to appear here tomorrow
With the 4q21 and year-end results appearing from Copper Mountain (CMMc.to) tomorrow
morning, along with its Conference Call the same morning, as noted above your author has
made an executive decision. Today you get a mostly-complete edition of The IKN Weekly,
tomorrow evening please expect a second mail and an updated version of this week’s edition,
including an analysis of CMMC’s Q4 in this space.
For those interested in following along with the Conference Call, it happens tomorrow morning
Monday February 14th at 07:30am Pacific Time. That’s 10:30am ET, or 2:30pm in London UK
(and also 10:30am Lima Peru time, for what it’s worth) and here are the dial-in details:
Toronto and international: 1 (416) 764 8650
North America (toll-free): 1 (888) 664 6383
Webcast: https://produceredition.webcasts.com/starthere.jsp?ei=1522823&tp_key=d295f8c194
Until tomorrow.
Stocks to Follow
Friday’s big gold move filtered through to our list, with four losers on the week (QCCU.v,
ALDE.v, PA.v, MIRL.cse) and with none left unchanged, that’s ten winners and the type of
result you’d want from a sector-wide bounce. However and as noted in Producer Basket below,
there’s a noticeable lag between the big rebounds seen in the larger companies and the smaller
names we tend to cover. Assuming the gold bounce follows through in the week to come, we’d
expect juniors to catch up to seniors.
There are still only four stocks on our list showing green ink, with one UNCH on its cost average
and the others in the red showing green since inception, but plenty of those red ink positions
are now close to the surface. It wouldn’t take much…
4

company Ticker this week Avg Price Reco date Current PPS Gain/Loss% Notes
TOP PICKS
Minera Alamos MAI.v STR BUY C$0.21 13-Oct-19 C$0.52 147.6% $1.14 tgt Aug'20, #1 idea
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v STR BUY C$0.83 22-Apr-18 C$0.60 -27.7% $1.30 1st tgt, building now
Recommended stocks (In order of preference)
Amerigo Res ARG.to STR BUY C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.63 19.9% 2022 Cu bet, mgmt change?
McEwen Mining MUX hold U$0.89 2-Jan-22 U$0.89 0.0% 1q22 trade, turnaround story
Copper Mountain CMMC.to hold C$3.40 18-Jun-21 C$4.16 22.4% Sold 1/2 Jan'22 port rebalance
Discovery Silver DSV.v STR BUY C$1.77 24-Oct-21 C$1.72 -2.8% Serious Ag play, 1st tgt $2.75
QC Copper&Gold QCCU.v STR BUY C$0.275 25-Apr-21 C$0.27 -1.8% Now drilling. Adding more
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v SPEC BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.96 33.3% Waiting on drill assays
Trilogy Metals TMQ BUY U$1.84 15-Sep-19 U$1.50 -18.5% S32 suitor, stalled
Strategic Metals SMD.v BUY C$0.42 31-Jan-21 C$0.335 -20.2% Canada land bet+Zn in FY22
Altiplano Metals APN.v SPEC BUY C$0.31 17-Sep-21 C$0.305 -1.6% Cheap entry, 1q22 re-rate
Palamina Corp PA.v SPEC BUY C$0.295 21-Nov-21 C$0.14 -52.5% Au expl in S.Peru, early dusters
Minera IRL MIRL.cse hold C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.075 -61.5% CEO change will move stock
Long-term non-mining hold
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.67 6-Dec-20 C$0.66 -1.5% LT bet, adding slowly
Closed in 2022 closed close price
Great Bear Res GBR.v Jan'22 C$15.83 26-Aug-20 C$28.58 80.5% Bought out by Kinross, print
Copper Mountain CMMC.to Jan'22 C$3.40 18-Jun-21 C$3.78 15.9% Sold 1/2 position in rebalance
2015 to 2021 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
Now for notes on a few of our covered stocks:
QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v): ADDING. A short line to note my intention to add to my
position in QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v) tomorrow Monday. More in ‘Market Watching, below.
Aldebaran Resources (ALDE.v): ADDED. That moment when you’re happy to hold a week-
over-week loser is normally the same moment you add to a position. I didn’t get many because
I wasn’t looking to add many, but also because volume and the market is still thin for the
shares. Still, after (what looked like) a couple of small sellers showed up last week and once the
price was under the Loonie line the bid/ask tightened up at 96c and 97c so, while still very
small stuff a market formed and I picked up a couple of small tranches at 97c and the cost
average (above) and upped a couple of notches. Once ALDE starts publishing its first drill
results from Altar, hopefully I will regret not buying more this week.
Copper Mountain (CMMC.to): Plenty more on CMMC in the update edition tomorrow
evening, today we note the good week for the half
position I’m holding into earnings after the recent
sale. This chart pits CMMC against the copper
producer ETF (COPX) and shows how well this
volatile and popular copper traders’ stock did during
that big move for the metal. Along with the rest of
the market, CMMC also lost ground as from
Thursday afternoon but had enough of a lead to
finished the week up 10.6%.
Whether last week’s out-performance means I get
to regret for selling too early is a question best
answered on Monday evening, rather than this
weekend.
5

Palamina Corp (PA.v): The news last week from PA fits with the way CEO Andrew Thomson
mapped out the company’s 2022 after its recent drill hole dusters. Faced with the choice of
either drilling again at its permitted zone, waiting a while for the next set of drill permits at its
next elected target or stepping back and doing “other things”, PA seems to have gone the latter
route. Last week it announced (1) the start of mapping and exploration work at “Lagos”, a
property outside its main Puno Orogenic belt target, though still located in South Peru and in a
zone currently being explored by other juniors (e.g. Aftermath Silver). This is early stage and
low cost work that makes sense at this stage, it may eventually lead to some type of deal with
a neighbouring property too, but it’s not the type of news that’s likely to move the share price.
With CEO Thomson in Peru soon, I have one of those things that used to happen a lot, non-
Zoom face-to-face meeting, slated with him in the days to come and assuming that happens,
expect notes and thoughts about the direction PA is likely to take for the rest of 2022. My
personal take hasn’t changed and, while obviously not happy about taking a bath on the first
results from the company, the strategy of taking a small foothold position and then seeing what
happens means no serious damage from the first round of drilling at Usicayos. Therefore I’m
okay about holding this trade for the moment, as its current market cap is small and would
provide a ton of leverage (back up from whence we came) on any positive development.
Altipano Metals (APN.v): Last week brought another NR on APN’s development track, with
news (2) on construction of its El Peñón processing facility. We got another suite of photos of
its development (we like), bullet points of milestones and another list of what to expect in the
next couple of months. Of the entire list, this line…
 First copper – gold concentrate
produced (March)
…is the most important. We can therefore assume
improved production and cash flow as from 2q2,
the timescale as expected in our recent update. As
for trading, APN was another of the copper-
exposed stocks showing signs of breaking out of
its recent trading range before the Ukraine-led
reversal sat on its trading.
Discovery Silver (DSV.v): Better news from DSV this week, results from 23 holes as the first
part of its Phase Two drill program that kicks off its 2022 program. The NR (3) gave a highlight
reel including (copypasted)…
 49.9 m averaging 247 g/t AgEq1 from 124.5 m (99 g/t Ag, 0.26 g/t Au, 1.9% Pb and 1.8% Zn)
including 21.4 m averaging 446 g/t AgEq1 (185 g/t Ag, 0.46 g/t Au, 3.5% Pb & 3.2% Zn) in
hole C21-533
 46.8 m averaging 288 g/t AgEq1 from 366.5 m (61 g/t Ag, 0.07 g/t Au, 1.4% Pb and 4.8% Zn)
in hole C21-556
 113.6 m averaging 101 g/t AgEq1 from 160.9 m (28 g/t Ag, 0.09 g/t Au, 0.2% Pb and 1.6%
Zn) in hole C21-555
 165.0 m averaging 92 g/t AgEq1 from 399.8 m (33 g/t Ag, 0.06 g/t Au, 0.7% Pb and 0.9% Zn)
including 31.3 m averaging 141 g/t AgEq1 (58 g/t Ag, 0.07 g/t Au, 1.1% Pb & 1.2% Zn) in hole
C21-545
…and while the best of the intercepts suggest DSV may be able to improve overall grade, the
main objective of this infill program is upgrading inferred into M+I resource, now programmed
for year end. On checking with the company, I learned that resource upgrade may be in the
cards but it’s not the primary motivation and if any modest improvement shows, it would be a
bonus. Instead, Cordero is more likely to grow in tonnage and resource ounces via holes still in
the assay labs, with one interesting zone to the North West in particular.
6

As for trading, DSV improved on the week and bounced back from recent lows, but wasn’t in
the first tier of movers during the Friday surge. We’ve seen the way this stock tends to lag
sentiment previously, only later taking a protagonist role and catching (and passing) peer group
stocks. Overall and while still slightly in the red on this trade I’m a happy enough holder, made
easier by not having any extra silver exposure.
McEwen Mining (MUX): Though slightly underperforming compared to GDX, MUX copied the
pattern of nearly all PM stocks last week and had its own good Friday. However, the negative
showed up post-bell Friday evening when the company announced (4) a new round of financing
and here’s the pay dirt:
The financing consists of a US$15,080,000 (Cdn$19,212,500) private placement
offering (the “Offering”) of 14,500,000 flow-through common shares (within the
meaning of subsection 66(15) of the Income Tax Act (Canada)) priced at US$1.04
(Cdn$1.325) per flow-through common share (the “Offering Price”). The Offering is
expected to close on March 1, 2022 (the “Closing”) and is subject to customary closing
conditions, including approval from the TSX and NYSE.
The proceeds of this Offering will be used exclusively for qualifying Canadian
Exploration Expenditures (CEE) on McEwen’s properties in the Timmins region.
The financing is scheduled to close March 1st, which means the next two weeks may see trading
in MUX crimped. As it’s a flow-through, the higher ticket price is unconnected to the current
trading price (that’s already low). MUX notes that proceeds are to move on the plans for Fox
Complex as laid out in the January 26th.
With those details aside, there’s no
disguising the frustration this new layer of
financing causes your author. The only
positive aspect to this new and unwanted
dilution would be that MUX has grasped the
nettle early and is raising cash before it
needs to, plus gold’s pop will make the sale
easier.
With the opportunity to add to QC Copper
(QCCU.v) now more attractive, I will remain
a holder of the current position in MUX but
the previously voiced plans to add here are
now shelved until further notice. MUX has
given us one too many piece of momentum-killing news recently, what with this and the
problems it has signalled to fully close the McEwen Copper seed financing.
Amerigo Resources (ARG.to): A good week that could have been great. As with many
copper stocks last week,
, late Wednesday and intraday Thursday saw the stock threatening to break out and move
7

much higher before dropping back as the metal’s run reversed (Thanks, Vlady). Please see the
larger copper-the-metal chart in The Copper Basket below to see how the ARG chart shape
closely matches that of the metal, but the week finished with ARG up 5c, instead of the big
move that looked in the cards for a while. With the corporate moves to come, this company is
still very competitively priced to peers and with the dividend policy and share buyback plans in
place, there’s plenty of backbone to the equity now.
Finally, we remind readers that the next key date for the diary is the February 24th financial
results, with the Conference Call on February 28th which should give more details on guidance
for 2022. As mentioned previously, the interesting lag between Q4 results and the ConfCall
includes that weekend and gives plenty of room for the activist shareholders moving behind the
scenes to make some kind of move. As a final note of slight intrigue, last weekend’s pledge by
ARG IR to update and post its “new investor deck to bring it inline with our 2022 guidance” last
week didn’t happen and a week later, we still have the same “Coming Soon” PDF staring at us.
The Copper Basket
After six weeks of 2022, The Copper Basket shows a loss of 1.69% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 Copper Mtn CMMC.to 3.42 210.166 874.29 4.16 21.6%
2 Oroco Res OCO.v 2.04 192.689 389.23 2.02 -1.0%
3 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.77 88.028 339.79 3.86 2.4%
4 Nevada Copper NCU.to 0.71 448.437 322.87 0.72 1.4%
5 Western Copper WRN.to 2.00 151.426 304.37 2.01 0.5%
6 Hot Chili HCH.v 1.53 109.223 158.37 1.45 -5.2%
7 Meridian Min MNO.v 1.18 153.735 150.66 0.98 -16.9%
8 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.84 114.495 109.92 0.96 14.3%
9 Regulus Res. REG.v 1.06 101.845 107.96 1.06 0.0%
10 Kutcho Copper KC.v 0.88 103.94 90.43 0.87 -1.1%
11 C3 Metals CCCM.v 0.16 645.379 74.22 0.115 -28.1%
12 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.58 79.24 49.92 0.63 8.6%
13 Doré Copper DCMC.v 0.79 66.123 49.59 0.75 -5.1%
14 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.34 129.06 34.85 0.27 -20.6%
15 Coast Copper COCO.v 0.13 41.335 5.58 0.135 3.8%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg -1.69%
A modestly positive week for The Copper Basket and with six weeks of 2022 in the books, we
roll out our tracking chart (right) to make the week-over-
The Copper Basket 2022, weekly evolution
week performance easier to cover. Of our 15 stocks, the 4%
balance was eight winners (CMMC.to, OCO.v, MARI.to, 2%
0%
NCU.to, WRN.to, REG.v, DCMC.v, ECU.v) and seven losers
-2%
(MNO.v, HCH.v, CCCM.v, ALDE.v, KC.v, ACCU.v, COCO.v)
-4%
and only one double figure percentage mover in Copper -6%
Mountain (CMMC.to up 10.6%). -8%
-10%
Jan 1st Jan9th 16th 23rd 30th feb6th 13th
However, our junior-focused list didn’t do as well as COPX,
source: IKN calcs
the ETF that tracks the larger copper producers as seen in
this comparative chart (right). This chart also
shows the high volatility of last week, with first
copper moving higher and pushing the stocks up
but then Friday’s war-driven reversal that saw gold
and the PM stocks rally, while copper and other
base metals faded. However, over the ten days of
this chart please note the dead heat between
COPX and GDX at +10%, all while The S&P500
8

faded back to UNCH. Different routes with the same result, at least as far as a two week period
allows a market snapshot and for more on artificially chosen time periods, see today’s intro. As
for the driver behind copper stock action, the correlation between miners and metals is so
obvious it needs no extra commentary and the visual will do the work:
As a copper bull, I’m the one who tells you the breakout move higher of Wednesday/Thursday
was overdue and the reversal on “Ukraine Tensions” unjustified…that’s what bulls do, after all.
The house bullish case is built squarely on the fundamentals for copper and the strong end.user
demand, the same demand cited by Goldman Sachs once again last week as Vampire Squid
reiterated its “long copper” call and long-term U$15,000/tonne price target. The question marks
against that come from the near-term effects of geopolitical turmoil and then for the medium-
term, whether a newly conflictive world results in lower demand from copper’s dominant end-
user, China. The former caused Friday’s selling and while volatility is likely to continue, its
effects are transitory. Meanwhile, it’s difficult to see how the longer-term market is disrupted by
moves that don’t directly affect the world’s major copper players. Keeping to fundamentals, this
week’s metals market column from Andy Home of Reuters focused on copper, warehouse
inventories and their effects on price, so the note is catnip for your author and required
reading. In it, Home makes many of the points we allude to on a weekly basis, such as the
continued strong demand for copper in China and warehouse stocks depletion, but Home also
looks at the details on LME movements and spots a bullish trading pattern in this section (5):
Much more interesting was the cancellation of 2,500 tonnes at Rotterdam in
preparation for physical load-out.
That's something of a magic number for the copper market right now.
Exactly the same amount was cancelled at Rotterdam the previous three days. Indeed,
it is the twelfth 2,500-tonne cancellation at the Dutch port in a sequence stretching
back to the middle of January.
The only days copper hasn't been cancelled at Rotterdam have been those when the
action has switched to Hamburg at exactly the same rate of 2,500 tonnes per day.
A handful of other LME warehouse locations have also been in action but it's this
clockwork cancellation of European copper stocks that is starting to tighten exchange
availability again.
The early-year rise in headline LME copper stocks has gone into reverse and they are
now down by 10% on the start of January. The amount of copper on warrant has fallen
to 53,600 tonnes, the lowest since November.
Those are the patterns we see when large players are positioning. A columnist such as Home
has editors and compliance desks to get through before publication and will often not be able to
say everything they hear, so it was notable to see his mention of Trafigura a little later in the
report and the mention of how that firm tried to corral the market a few months ago. However,
as we now know the pop in copper prices didn’t last and Friday afternoon saw a very fast
reversion. The reasons offered for Friday’s reversal included Ukraine and general market “risk
off”, as stronger dollar, the pop in US consumer price inflation (CPI) to 7.5%, the influx of
inventory into Shanghai warehouses (see below) and “a general cooling of the China economy”.
In other words, reporters were faking, guessing and supposing but into that mix, we should
9

also add pure market timing reasons. The latter part of last week was when Comex traders
rolled most of their open interest over from the near-dates March contract to the May contract
(which is the chart above). The timing of the rollover coincided with the spike in copper prices
to U$4.70/lb, so you may want to add savvier traders into the mix, people using circumstances
to make the unaware pay up to roll over. Whatever the reason copper is again highly volatile,
gave a stomach-churning ride from Thursday to Friday and the week ahead will help show how
much was traders, how much was market nerves and how much was considered and logical
positioning. This desk believes prices will rise again once logic returns and continues with its
bullish stance on the copper market, but near-term timing is tough to make this weekend.
We move to the regular weekly look at copper inventories:
 The wait is over and world stocks finally made their expected (and somewhat overdue
seasonal spike, with the aggregate up 57,751 metric tonnes (mt) to close this weekend
at 252,482mt.
 It was all about the Shanghai SHFE receiving its post-New Year influx, which is better
late than never but at 66,213mt, shifted its warehouse stocks up to 106,572mt. This is
a big jump and in some commentary quarters, was taken as a reason for copper’s
Friday selling. Only those without a sense of history could think this, the re-stock of
SHFE warehouse inventory simply had to happen at this time of year…or else.
 However, the LME continued to see depletion and one now picked up on by Andy Home
in his note. Friday closed at 74,100mt copper in LME warehouses, down 8,125mt on the
week and without the same influx into Asian warehouses that we saw from SHFE
 The Comex had another minor negative week, down 337mt to close at 71,810mt. In
theory at least, the USA is wresting some price discovery power away from LME.
Here’s the dedicated SHFE inventory chart and over on the right, the 2022 annual spike to
match the previous years has begun. We need a repeat showing in the weeks ahead simply to
return to some sort of normality and the market will more interested in where the SHFE peaks
than its continued influx next week.
Shanghai Futures Exchange Warehouse Stocks, 2014 to date
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
10
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Mt Cu
|
source: Cochilco
Now for notes on a few of the stocks in our 2022 basket:
Marimaca Copper (MARI.to): As a few of you know, the NR out of MARI dated February 9th
(6) spurred this desk into action and your author spent at least some of the working week
updating the house model on the company. The reason for the new interest and fresh eyes on
Marimaca is captured in the bullet points offered in the NR, so here’s a paste-out:
 Drilling commenced, first 5 drill holes complete of the 22,500m infill drill program at the MOD
 Drill pad construction in the southern area of the MOD has exposed zones of copper oxide
mineralization in areas previously considered to be unmineralized (see Figure 1)
 Additional drill rigs are expected to be added in the coming weeks for the MAMIX infill campaign

 MAMIX campaign to be increased to up to 10,000m (from 2,500m) given positive metallurgical
review of potential leachability and the addition of planned step-out holes to the north
 Ongoing review of MAMIX target highlights the potential for additional extensions outside of the of
the recently released MAMIX Exploration Target area (refer to the announcement on 19 January
2022)
 Company will seek to accelerate program where possible to ensure drilling is finished in Q2 2022
Up to last week MARI’s 2022 campaign was focused on resource definition drilling, aiming to
update its oxide resource count by mid-year with a view to completing the major milestone of a
Feasibility Study by year-end. However and as
seen in the bullet points above, MARI is now
looking to expand the resource during the
current drilling, first to the South of the deposit
after discovering significant mineralization via
out-stepping holes and scone from what they
call “MAMIX” resource, the transitory
oxide/sulphide material under the main oxide
mineralization that could be included in the FS
mine plan. A look at the latest resource map as
provided by MARI in last week’s NR shows the
team already had plenty of work at hand in
order to move inferred resource (pink) into
measured and indicated (green/yellow) to bring
it up to FS standard. Now they have two extra
targets for possible inclusion in the M+I total,
all while reiterating the timeline to complete
resource definition drilling by 2q22
That sums up my newly piqued interest in the
company, as the market cap on the PEA oxides
alone has been fairly rich ever since the PEA
were published back in 2019. However, if the
deposit expands and does it in time for the FS,
MARI becomes a more interesting value
proposition, one that could attract the attention
of larger companies for an M&A deal at the
right time. There are potential downsides to the MARI story, included the likelihood of needing
an extra round of financing this year in light of its expanded work program, plus the fact that
despite its best efforts the FS may eventually be put back into 2023 (the company has missed
on timing before). So while initially enthusiastic about this week’s update, to the point of
seriously considering a main Fundamentals report on the stock this weekend, the volatility in
the copper market and the way the first half of 2022 is all about resource compilation (including
infill) made me think again and desist from springing MARI on the readership of The IKN
Weekly from out of nowhere. Add in the doubts voiced by the market at least (see today’s
Regional Politics) around the upcoming Boric government and the personal factor of having
enough copper exposure for the time being and
my cooler head prevailed. I will watch MARI a
while longer from the sidelines instead of
running the deep dive numbers immediately but
all the same, please consider today’s brief
overview as a heads-up on this stock. If it can
expand the PEA oxide resource and get more
tonnage into the eventual FS, its advanced
exploration status and location would make it a
shovel-ready target for a larger market of
potential buyers in 2023 and that’s the right
mix for a successful trade, perhaps starting in
the second half of this year.
11

Element 29 (ECU.v): Subject of the brief note last
week, ECU picked up buyers on Thursday when
copper became the fashionable metal for its 24
hours. So some small speculative cash showing up
during bullish moments, but still not high up on the
market radar.
With Flor de Cobre likely to return strong results from
its first set of drill results as the company twins the
historic holes, a return to a price in the 50s may
provide a decent entry point and trade, even if your
horizons are only near-term.
Kutcho Copper (KC.v): Down 3.3% on the week, we got news of a corporate restructuring of
its deal with major corporate sponsor Wheaton Precious Metals (WPM). Here’s the overview:
The Amendment provides for the settlement and termination of the Company’s debt
instruments (the existing convertible debenture (the “Convertible Debenture”) and loan
agreement (the “Loan Agreement”)), both as amended with Wheaton, totalling in
aggregate approximately CDN$38,400,000 as consideration for: (i) the issuance to
Wheaton of US$7,500,000 of common shares in the capital of Kutcho (the “Common
Shares”); and (ii) the removal of the Stream Reduction, as defined below together with
certain amendments to the Original Agreement as detailed below.
Considered from Kutcho’s side, the deal cleans up long-term obligations on its balance sheet
and makes the company structure more straightforward. Previously, it carried convertible debt
to the tune of $20m, plus a stream on eventual production that dropped to 2/3rds of deliveries
after 5.6m ounces of silver and 51k oz gold had been delivered. Now, in exchange for keeping
the stream at the same level over the life of mine, plus 7.5m shares, plus releasing WOPM from
a $20m payment at the start of production, the converts which were priced roughly at KC’s
current price deck disappear. However, the downside is that wPM will no longer feel the same
sort of loyalty toward its share position and its decent stream on the project may be enough. As
WPM now owns 15.4% of shares out, if the larger entity decides to start selling out of its
position the KC share price would suffer accordingly. A latent threat perhaps and KC’s CEO
Sorace was at pains to emphasize the strong working relationship between the two. Then
again, this publication witnessed at ODEV did to the Minera Alamos (MAI.v) stock price in 4q21.
The Producer Basket
After six weeks of 2022, the Producer Basket shows a gain of 0.54% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 62.02 797.44 50.92 63.86 3.0%
2 Barrick GOLD 19.00 1779 36.79 20.68 8.8%
3 Franco-Nevada FNV 138.29 191.192 27.15 142.03 2.7%
4 Agnico Eagle AEM 53.14 453.5 22.56 49.74 -6.4%
5 Wheaton PM WPM 42.93 450.3 18.90 41.98 -2.2%
6 Gold Fields GFI 10.99 887.72 10.12 11.40 3.7%
7 Kinross Gold KGC 5.81 1320 7.54 5.71 -1.7%
8 B2Gold BTG 3.93 1055.6 4.15 3.93 0.0%
9 Alamos Gold AGI 7.69 392.503 2.83 7.20 -6.4%
10 Sandstorm SAND 6.20 191.4 1.23 6.44 3.9%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg 0.54%
There was a hierarchy of winners from Friday’s gold rocket, which was always going to prefer
the bigger and more liquid PM stocks to our primary focus of juniors. That’s no surprise, but
inside the bigger producers the Tier 2 companies bounced faster than the Tier 1s. Our
12

representative 10 stocks show this, as all ten went up on the week but the best moves came
from B2Gold (BTG up 10.1%), Sandstorm (SAND up 9.7%), Gold Fields (GFI up 9.2%) and
Alamos (AGI up 8.6%).
The 2022 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and
10% comparative to GDX control
8%
6%
4%
2%
0%
-2%
-4%
-6%
-8%
-10%
The Friday rally was enough to haul both the GDX control and our IKN Basket into the green
after the poor January, that now has a visual aid in the shape of our tracking charts. There are
still four of our ten stocks in the red and in our current volatile backdrop that could change
again next week.
Barrick Gold (GOLD): With its 2021 year-end and Q4 results due up this Wednesday
February 16th, we preview by checking Barrick’s (GOLD) positive start to the year compared to
peers. This three-month chart of GOLD has a clear before/after moment, the day the company
announced its 4q21 production numbers. That
weekend in IKN661 we noted how headline
production came in as expected but Barrick
delivered lower than expected cash costs, as
well as and guiding well for the rest of 2022.
Our notes in IKN661 ended with, “We applaud
GOLD for its improving costs profile, no mean
achievement for such a large company to be
able to buck the sector trend.”
Cut to this week, GOLD backed up that result
with its NR of February 10th (7) that
announced reserves net of annual depletion
had risen by 1m ounces to 69m ounces (at a
slightly better grade of 1.71 g/t, to boot). A
positive headline number, but the most interesting part of last week’s NR was the short CEO
comment from Mark Bristow:
“While we look closely at all new business opportunities, we believe finding our ounces
is always better than buying them. That’s why we’re still discovering real value at the
end of our drill bits.”
A clear riposte to the recent criticisms directed at the company for walking away from the
Kirkland Lake and Great Bear deals. They include these pages, but my opinion is of zero
importance and there are bigger critics of GOLD these days, for example Ian Telfer (current Aris
Gold chair, and previously of Goldcorp) who at Roundup 2022, took direct aim at Barrick with
this (8):
"Good assets are hard to find and hard to buy. When they become available they seem
way overpriced, but my experience has been that you can't overpay for good assets,"
Telfer told delegates at the AME Roundup 2022 in Vancouver, Canada.
"Barrick is on a mission to tie up the best assets around the world but they keep
running into the price problem. They will never get there if they are looking for assets
using a low gold price. Barrick is on the way to going out of business as competition is
13
ts1naJ ht9naJ ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31
The 2022 Producer Basket: Percentage difference between
GDX benchmark and basket (negative = IKN ahead)
6.0%
5.0%
ikn
gdx control 4.0%
3.0%
2.0%
1.0%
source: Google, IKN Calcs 0.0%
-1.0%
Jan1st Jan9th 16th 23rd 30th feb6th 13th
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

intense and the price always seems too high."
That’s fighting talk and Mark Bristow seems to disagree. So expect the conference call at least
to continue with the new “financial discipline” line from Barrick, but it may include more pointed
remarks and though I’m not normally interested in the minutiae of Tier 1 stocks, I’ll be tuning
into this one on Wednesday. Potentially spicy.
The TinyCaps List
After six weeks of 2022, the TinyCaps show a gain of 2.06% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aurelius Min AUL.v 0.24 37.134 10.21 0.275 14.6%
Golden Pursuit GDP.v 0.13 34.638 4.50 0.13 0.0%
Infield Min INFD.v 0.06 48.276 2.90 0.06 0.0%
Kingfisher Met KFR.v 0.30 84.57 19.45 0.23 -23.3%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.12 57.296 8.59 0.15 25.0%
Manitou Gold MTU.v 0.06 344.47 18.95 0.055 -8.3%
Melkior Res MKR.v 0.295 24.011 7.08 0.295 0.0%
Precipitate Gold PRG.v 0.105 129.322 15.52 0.12 14.3%
Signature Res SGU.v 0.07 238.4 14.30 0.06 -14.3%
Winshear Gold WINS.v 0.08 61.585 5.54 0.09 12.5%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg 2.06%
This section attempts to track the tinycap mining sub-sector of the market, our ten companies
chosen under the following criteria to put together a list representing the state of play in the
sub-sector of tinycap exploration company stocks. At least, that’s the plan.
 Market capitalization of under $20m. They have to be tiny. In two cases I’ve stretched the window a
little and allowed sub-U$20m market capper in that are just over the C$20m level, but the spirit is unaltered.
 A “non broken” stock price and project story. There are literally hundreds of tinycap juniors of the right
size, but it was a particularly depressing exercise to trawl through the whole of the TSXV and find companies
that are small enough, but with life in them. The vast majority of sub-$20m stocks are broken stocks, either
traded to death on the exchange or with projects that are a bust or with entrenched management more
interested in their monthly paycheck than anything else.
 Likelihood of meaningful newsflow in 2020. This connects to the company’s “unbroken” status, as we
want news and potential catalysts from companies with projects that can work.
 Decent management if possible. When you are down among the little guys it doesn’t pay to be too
choosy, but still I preferred companies that have teams or people with good peer reputations.
14% Tiny Dogs, 2021 weekly tracker
The tinycaps remain mostly quiet, with just two
companies up on the week (KFR.v, LMS.v), five 12%
losers (AUL.v, MTU.v, MKR.v, PRG.v, SGU.v) and 10%
three stocks remaining unchanged (GDP.v, 8%
INFD.v, WINS.v). But despite the headcount 6%
against us, the overall average hardly changed 4%
and that’s all thanks to the big winner on the 2%
week, Latin Metals (LMS.v up 42.9%) and we 0%
talk about that one below. -2%
Golden Pursuit (GDP.v): A CTO is never good
news, but when it comes due to the failure of
company to file its annuals then the black mark is also organizational. Neither should it be for
lack of money to pay the annual audit, as the company closed a small financing for $0.667m in
early January. The CTO NR of Thursday (9) states that “The Corporation continues to operate
normally and is working diligently to have the CTO revoked as soon as possible”, standard
wording that suggests administrative delays. We await further news, but certainly not the type
of newsflow to instil confidence in a small exploreco.
14
dn2naJ ht9
naJ
ht61naJ dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

Latin Metals (LMS.v): After a quiet start to 2022, it’s easy to spot on this chart the LME news
day (right). On Monday February 7th Latin Metals
announced (10) that Barrick (GOLD) was optioning
in on the Cerro Bayo, Cerro Bayo Sur and La Flora
properties, which LMS is optioning from the
underlying owner, Tres Cerros Exploraciones SRL,
a private company owned by local geologist
Claudio Lucero, who previously worked with
explorecos such as Exeter Resources (Cerro Moro,
Caspiche) and Mirasol Resources in the region
before going independent around ten years ago.
Tres Cerros is his second private venture, formed
in 2015 to bring together a suite of promising
claims and with Argentina’s outlook as a
destination for grassroots geological investigation
now improving, he is now reaping the rewards of foresight. Clearly, getting Barrick on board is
a feather in the cap of both Señor Lucero and LMS, giving our quoted junior a quasi-free ride as
the middleman in the ownership structure as long as Barrick stays on board.
The optioning deal is standard, staged and allows Barrick to spend what amounts to a rounding
error for its size of company to earn 70% by year seven. However, by that time we’d expect the
bigger company would have learned more than enough to decide whether it wanted to take the
project further or hand back to LMS. The one wrinkle is that Tress Cerros has 60 days to agree
to allow Barrick to become the “sub-contracting optioner” (to coin a phrase) which implies some
negotiations between the three corners are left to complete. If the three parties cannot agree
on the small print, the deal falls.
As we noted when presenting the company at the start of the year, LMS.v as a Henk van
Alphen prospect generator, being an amalgamation of projects in Peru and Argentina put
together from previous HvA companies. The idea of including LMS in this year’s TinyCaps list
was “…to gauge the traction that explorecos and prospect generators in LatAm might get from
aggressive marketing (as) LMS will try to JV out its projects and use OPM to push its share price
higher” and indeed, this deal with Barrick fits that description to a tee. With the news out and
the price pop in the stock, we will now see if LMS can repeat its initial success by finding
partners for any of its other properties.
Finally, as noted on the blog recently (11) I have very little time for the likes of a Henk van
Alphen, one of the raft of exploreco moguls in the Canadian market with “Heads I Win, Tails
You Lose” as a central pillar of his business model. His companies can indeed make swift
market moves and he’s a past master of using the paid promotion world to gain market
traction. However, you cannot trust people such as van Alphen any further than you can throw
them and anyone deciding to use one of his vehicles for speculation needs to go in with eyes
wide open. Caveat emptor.
NB: Please be clear that The Tiny Dogs is NOT a list of recommended tinycap stocks. It is a list of companies with
market caps of under $20m offering a reasonable representation of the wider tinycaps market. It’s possible in the future
I may buy shares in one or several of these stocks, at the moment both my opinion and wallet aretrictly neutral.
Regional politics
Peru: President Castillo’s days are numbered
A subject this desk watches closely for obvious reasons, Peruvian politics is as madcap as it is
complicated and any report on the current state of affairs needs to keep as focused as possible
on our subject matter. In this case, the house task is to explain why the term of President
Pedro Castillo (the guy with the white hat) is likely to end soon, either in his resignation or via a
15

Congress who “vacates” him from the post (i.e. impeachment by another name). However, this
isn’t just chewing the cud on regional political intrigue, the reason to run a report on Peru’s
present day is good old capitalism. While we are quick to agree that any change at the top
would bring initial and near-term instability for the country and uncertainty to observers, it
would also mean the end of Peru’s recent excursion into left wing politics and become a clear
positive for its overall investment perspectives, its economy and (of course) its mining industry.
There are several factors involved and going into them all would take way too long, so to cut a
very long story short, Pedro Castillo is a woefully inept and naïve politician. As a reminder of the
background to how Peru got its current Head of State, this secondary school teacher from a
small town in provincial Cajamarca got into politics a few years ago, via his activism in protests
run by (traditionally left wing) teachers’ unions fighting for better pay and conditions in
provincial towns. His rise to prominence in last year’s election was almost by default, as the
country looked for viable alternatives to the samo samo awful band of politicos they are offered
every time. Castillo was chosen to lead the hard Communist controlled Perú Libre party because
its main protagonist Vladmir Cerrón was disbarred and by coming over as a complete outsider
to the pig’s trough of Peruvian politics, garnered the provincial protest vote. Then in the second
round run-off he was up against the only politician he could have beaten, as by a freak chance
the much-hated Keiko Fujimori sneaked into second place due to the fracturing of the right
wing vote. As a resul, Castillo won the run-off by the slimmest of margins and, from absolutely
nowhere, became the unlikeliest of Presidents I have ever witnessed in my time in South
America (now 25 years and counting, so I’ve seen a few).
None of that background is new news, but it’s a required reminder to frame the reasons as to
why, as is clear to all, Castillo has failed miserably to step up to the national level. His poltical
naivete is painful to watch and as he knows no other way, from the start has tried to run his
national executive via the type of regional-style Peru politics he came from. That relies on a
small group of close advisors and can work when you’re a regional leader of a small town in
Cajamarca, but doesn’t stand a chance in the national scene dominated by the capital cityof
Lima and its hardened political mindset. Castillo’s first response to the Limeños was to try to
claim he had won a mandate from the (provincial) masses, but that didn’t work because his
true support is perhaps 20% of the population maximum (as seen above, he was elected on
sufferance and not by choice, as most Peruvians didn’t like the idea of Castillo but hated the
idea of Keiko even more). That initial greenhorn move was the downfall of his first cabinet, led
by his own local party member and outright Commie Guido Bellido. The Peru system means the
President chooses his Prime Minister and ministers but in reality, the cabinet fail if it doesn’t
have wider support (it’s complicated) and, as Bellido was as naïve as Castillo he fell. Castillo’s
second pick of Mirtha Vasquez as Prime Minister was more promising, being a clear Lefty, but
with national presence and astute to the ways of the way Peru works. She (along with the
FinMin at the rtime, Pedro Francke) tried hard to move her cabinet and her President to
consensus politics, but Castillo’s naivete undermined his own cabinet once again as he
continued to ignore their advice and go with his “close circle” of advisors. Eventually, Vasquez
had enough and though only wquite recently, it’s the moment Castillo’s problems accelerated
because when Mirtha (and Pedro Francke) departed they took the confidence of the national
left wing with her. The result is and isolated President, with no friends to the right or to the left
outside of his Peru Libre party or his circle of close advisors (often the same).
We now get to the present day, as the last two weeks have seen Castillo’s government move
from simply inept and become a clownshow. In two weeks, we’ve seen two Prime Ministers and
two cabinets of minister picked. The first PM and cabinet fell almost immediately when the
proposed PM, one Hector Valer, was found to have a history of domestic violence against his
wife (now passed on) and daughter including them reporting him to the police (also, reported
fractious episodes with business partners and neighbours who signed a petition to get him
removed from their block of flats, he was that bad). Which brings us to the latest cabinet,
headed up by what’s likely to be Castillo’s last chance PM, one Anibal Torres. He hails from the
same small town as the President and was until last week his Minister of the Interior. Torres
has also been a controversial character since arriving in Lima, but the main problem now facing
16

Castillo is that, with support from the national left wing gone, his subs’ bench is empty of any
real political talent. All he has left is his own abysmal party and its members, which leaves him
wide open to accusations of placing Communists in government. Nobody with a reasonable CV
and career ambitions wants to be cannon fodder for this President any longer, a range of
politicians or experts in their sectors who would normally jump at the chance to run a Ministry
have refused the jobs. As a result, he’s left to choosing people who were promoted into roles
via his own internal party apparatus, such as the new Minister of Mining, one Carlos Palacios,
who got to where he is today by coat-tailing Peru Libre president, Vladimir Cerrón. The new
Mining minister contributed to the Peru Libre campaign funds for Cerrón’s campaign to become
governor of Junin province in 2019. When that was successful, Cerrón rewarded his sponsor
with a cushy job as regional mining director, despite him having precious little experience in
mining. Cut to 2022 and when President Castillo needed and new Minister of Energy and
Mining, with nobody worth their slat willing to take the job he promoted Cerrón’s friend from his
regional post to become the national head of the Ministry of Mining and Energy! That’s not all,
because just a couple of days ago the Vice-Minister of Mining resigned because the arriviste
Carlos Palacios had spent his first day in his new office in Lima handing plum jobs with high
salaries to his own friends from Peru Libre. In his resignation letter (17), the ex VP Mining
wrote (translated) “I cannot or must not be part of the political quota of a party, even less a
source of employment for people connected to political leaders.” And our new friend Minister
Caerlos Palacios is not the only example of how Castillo now promotes virtual unknown to
cabinet level, there are other jaw-droppingly unqualified people now running ministries such as
the Health and Culture. The new Health minister deserves a thousand words alone, being a GP
who pretends to be a specialist obstetrician and who, until recently, was promoting unregulated
and dubious miracle cures such as “Hexagonal (Structured) Water” on Facebook.
To understand where this is all going, we need to touch on the ongoing battle between the
Presidential executive and Peru’s Congress. The conflict between the two State powers isn’t
new, but the Castillo government has exacerbated the bad blood and these days, neither side
disguises the open conflict. The aggressive position of Congress, egged on by members with
grand political plans of their own now shows as “Saving Peru from the Commies”, with rhetoric
including how they will “defend Congress with their lives if necessary” (an quote from Peru’s
current head of Congress, a right-wing middle class Limeña who, if under mortal threat, would
probably send her housemaid into battle first). In reality, Congress’s method is to attack the
ministers appointed by Castillo, as Congress is allowed to object to any minister and get them
to account for their acts by appearing before them and then holding a vote of confidence. If the
vote goes against the minister, they must step down and that fate awaits a good handful of the
latest crop (Minister of Energy and Mining most definitely included). This is now the near-term
future of Peru’s current cabinet of ministers and, once enough of them have been booted out,
the Prime Minister’s role will be untenable. And at that point, with the his fourth cabinet
dissolved in less than a year and an near-empty bench from which to choose, President Castillo
will have the choice of either trying to populate his ministries with another batch of inept
unknowns, or resigning. However, if he tries to repeat the same clownshow the latter choice
will also be taken out of his hands. Another bad cabinet would likely give Congress grounds to
say enough and force a “vacancy” vote against the President himself on the grounds of “Moral
Incapacity” (which is how they got rid of Martin Vizcarra in 2020). In other words and to wrapm
up this segment, President Castillo is now Dead Man Walking.
And that’s the shortened version! The upshot is that at some point soon, Castillo with throw in
the towel and, most probably this year, Peru gets new Presidential elections. In that case it may
seem to the outsider viewer looking in that Peru is back to square one but this time, Peruvians
will be highly unlikely to reach toward the Left wing for their protest vote. We may see some
right wing populist take over, or perhaps a candidate from the mainstream will gain favour on
promises of a return to calmer consensus politics (and for what it’s worth, I think the right wing
businessman and party leader César Acuña is in a good position to take over at the top), but it’s
way too early to start that sort of conjecture. Instead, what we can say is that:
1) The Pedro Castillo presidency is now on its last legs
17

2) If the latest cabinet, led by Anibal Torres, falls it’s likely the end of Castillo, too
3) In the meantime, expect Congress to continue its attacks on Castillo appointed
ministers and make his government a lame duck, even if he hangs on a while longer.
However and despite all that, we should also make mention of the strong recent performance
of Peru’s currency, the Sol (PEN), as Peru is no different to any other LatAm country and the
performance of its currency is a direct proxy to the health of its economy. It’s another of the
points this desk repeatedly makes, that Peru’s economy is not tied tos the fate of its politics.
Well as the quasi-oligarch families that really run the place, 2022 also an adult in control of
Peru’s financials in the form of Cental Bank head Julio Velarde. Now an untouchable figurehead
and Peru’s de facto economic kingpin, Velarde has maintained orthodox monetary policy
throughout this messiest of years and now, with the benefit of strong copper prices buoying
export, has had the room to raise baseline rates (now 3.5%, up another half point last week)
and has kept inflation under control. The wider world of money likes Peru dollar debt and has a
clear understanding that its political turmoil won’t affect the country’s economic future. It’s time
the mining industry understood the same, as once Castillo falls and a “better President” in the
eyes of the outside world is installed, the best entry prices for Peruvian-exposed mining
companies would have gone.
Chile: The next Minister of Mining talks sense
While the Northern world of mining continues to accuse Chile of going Commie (without ever
learning Spanishor listening to what’s being said in the country, the integrants of the supposed
future “Communist Government” of President-Elect Gabriel Boric are disappointing Chile’s left
wing by talking sense about its mining industry. Last week it was the turn of the future Minister
of Mining, Marcela Hernando (PR), who in a TV interview answered claims that the
Constitucional Convention was about to nationalize the mining industry. Much along the lines of
the reality as explained in IKN663 last weekend, Ms. Hernando explained that it’s one thing to
get a militant Left wing proposal through committee, quite another to see that proposal
debated as stands in the main 155 seat Convention and subsequently passed without any
changes. At the very least, she said, any mechanism nationalization would be far removed from
the Utopia of simple sequestration of assets of the private companies working in Chile and
would imply onerous compensation payments, something that we industry-watchers understand
implicitly but needs pointing out to generalist TV audience. She went on to say there was plenty
of discussion left to do and any eventual change in the Constitution was highly unlikely to finish
in the type of asset grab envisaged by the Left wing committees mentioned last weekend (and
only used “highly unlikely” to be diplomatic, in reality she means “never”). She finished her
interview by assuring private capitals invested in mining that there was nothing to fear from the
upcoming Boric government and on that, here’s the final paragraph of this report (12) of her TV
slot translated:
In this way, the future Minister Hernando reassured (private industry) and called for
calm from private investors in the country. “What we are most interested in is having
security. By this, I am referring to when I say that we have to lower the tone of the
conversation, because nobody here is causing a revolution and there’s not going to be
a sort of Storming of the Bastille, nothing of the sort.”
18

Not exactly the counter-revolutionary picture the ignorant are painting for you up North.
Meanwhile, Ms. Hernando has chosen one Willy Kracht as her sub-secretary of mining (i.e.
Veep), who was one of the promoters of the mining royalty law through 2021 and ensured its
push through Congress. However and according to this biography (13), “(He) values the role of
private companies in mining and considers that they should generate chains of added local
productive value and develop in harmony with their surroundings.” So, potentially more
environmentally sensitive than the average government but there’s nothing here to ruffle the
feathers of Chile’s mining sector.
Colombia: Latest polling figures for the Presidential election
With the January vacation period behind it, Colombia is beginning to get serious about its
upcoming Presidential election with polling day set for May 29th. We feature our second
snapshot today, via the latest poll known in Colombia as “the Grand Survey”, a reasonably
reliable poll sponsored by main media channel RCN and newspaper La Republica (1225 polled,
margin of error around 4%) which called it as seen here:
There’s not much change in the pecking order so far, with Lefty Gustavo Petro on 27% (was
25% in the same poll in December) then the number two slot is taken by “voto en blanco”,
those people who say they will spoil their ballot or not put a cross by any of the candidate’s
names. Third place is the upstart oldie Rodolfo Hernandez and the rest are still far behind. So at
this point Petro is still favourite, but as Colombia rarely “votes left” as a majority and the papthy
toward the vote clear, this election will revolve around who gets into the run-off with the poll
leader Petro.
Guatemala and El Salvador environmentalists join against Bluestone (BSR.v)
The plans of Bluestone Resources (BSR.) to build an open pit mine at the Cerro Blanco project
in Guatemala were always going to attract the attention of anti-mining activists and now, with
the company announcing recently to the local press that it has all permits it needs from the
government of Guatemala expect for its
Environmental Impact permit (EIA), the noise
against the project has started to ratchet up (14).
t
BSR submitted its EIA application to in late
November last year and though it contained over
5,000 pages, the Guatemalan Ministry of Mining
and Energy and its Environment Ministry were
both required to make an initial report on the
permit application by last Friday, February 11th.
This would be speedy for any EIA track, not least
one that also requires a complete change in
function from the previous submissions that
19

looked for an underground permit and at that point, international diplomacy began to interfere.
El Salvador is demanding to know why the company has been allowed to move forward to this
stage under its present permits, despite the project having changed to open-pit. In El Salvador,
worries concern water supply as the Cerro Blanco project is located just 15km from the border.
A number of peer-reviewed studies state that water drainage from an eventual mine would
reach the Rio Lempa, one of El Salvador’s largest and most important rivers that provides much
of the water supply for the country’s capital city and surrounding conurbation. Bluestone
Resources (BSR.v) disagrees and points to its own studies that say the mine’s drainage will be
away from the El Salvador side, but that will not stop the EIA application from its now inevitable
delays. Environmentalists were strongly against the development of Cerro Blanco even in the
days when it was owned by Goldcorp and planned as an underground mine and those
objections have not gone away. Here’s one Pedro Cabezas of the organization Centroamericana
frente a la Minería (Central American Front Against Mining) (15):
“For more than 15 years, as Salvadorians we have presented these concerns to
Guatemalan authorities. We have maintained that this mine is a danger to the bi-
national water table. We have evidence and expert opinion that the mine’s
contamination, as proposed originally as an underground operation, could contaminate
the Ostúa-Güija-Lempa valley which is the largest source of fresh water we have and
would affect millions of people. The Lempa River provides water to two-thirds of the
population of Greater San Salvador.”
The pro and anti mine cause is now being taken up by politicians in both countries and Cerro
Blanco has the makings of an international controversy. The current government of Guatemala
has been keen on taking the pro-mining development side, often against the wishes of local
residents around mining projects or operations, with the best recent example the long
controversial Fenix Nickel Mine. That saw its operations suspended in 2020 when a court ruled
that it needed to run a “prior consultancy” hearing with locals before getting its license back.
Late last year, the company along with the Guatemalan government held consultancy meetings
that were widely denounced as a sham by locals, before reinstating the mine’s operating license
a few days later. Local resident have now taken their case to the international courts (16) in
order to seek justice, but that won’t stop the despised Fenix mine from operating in the
meantime. And that’s Guatemala.
Mexico’s Supreme Court and Almaden Minerals (AMM.to) final note
The recent rally in Almaden Minerals (ANMM.to) stock price is less about its improved prospects
in Mexico’s courtrooms or the likelihood that its
Ixtaca project has a future. Instead, the lack of
news from Mexico’s Supreme Court seems to be
playing in its favour as some type of stay of
execution.
However, nobody should mistake inaction for
resolution. This detailed and comprehensive
Spanish language report of the case (18) written
at a specialist Mexican legal website by lawyers
for an audience of lawyers, has the title of “The
Mining Law and Indigenous Peoples: The
Unconstitutionality That Nobody Wants To See”
and sums up the way in which Mexico’s Supreme
Court (SCJN) is fearful of passing judgment on this case (and a couple of others), as it realizes
that any judgement favouring the indigenous plaintiffs would mean a ruling against Mexico’s
Mining Law that may end up setting as powerful legal precedent that stops mining and
economic development in many other parts of the country.
The note is long and deserves full attention but to quote just one segment toward the end,
after explaining that the indigenous community has won its case at all levels of the Mexican
courts, only to see it appealed by the company to Supreme Court level where the judges refuse
20

to hand down a ruling, it states (translated):
The great paradox is that the SCJN tells an indigenous community to use the courts as
recourse, but then does not allow their action to be legitimately processed. It’s a
paradox because under the analysis that the court should favour human rights, the
process shuts the door on the community on those rights in substantive terms and, for
procedural reasons, asks them to use a judicial courtroom to which they cannot get a
hearing.
And with the Almaden case in what may turn out to be permanent limbo, we now suspend our
coverage of the issue until further notice.
Market Watching
QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v): No better copper trade today
As noted above in The Copper Basket, I spent a portion of last week boning up on Marimaca
Copper (MARI.to) and was initially enthusiastic about its latest news as well as its improving
investment potential. However, after a few hours playing around with an Excel file on MARI the
company’s speculation potential at its current price waned. Now don’t get me wrong, MARI is
still interesting so please see above on why MARI is now on the radar as a potential trade later
this year. However, after sleeping on the possibility it became less immediate and one of the
reasons was the comparative potential offered by QC Copper (QCCU.v) at the moment, which
has prompted this reminder on just how much value this stock offers today, with copper
revolving around U$4.50/lb and gold pushing higher. There are two main reasons for my bullish
opinion on QCCU as a long-term investment and as a near-term trade and they’re the classic
ones for a junior exploreco; price and timing.
Regarding price: After last week’s short update in ‘Stocks to Follow’ in which we noted the way
QCCU was trading up during to midweek and
fading on Fridays, sure enough it…did neither
. Here’s the ten-day hourlies chart and while
the stock ran decent volume midweek, it didn’t
go on the same rollercoaster with the rest of
the sub-sector when copper prices did their
thing on Thursday and Friday. Instead it was a
flat week for the stock and while the 27c finish
was at the bottom end of the recent range, a
penny here or there is of no great importance.
This second chart, using the 12 month
timescale and comparing QCCU to spot copper
(HG00= and the copper WETF (COPX) shows
how, within a lick and a spit, that our company has come back to the same price it showed a
year ago. This despite its excellent and market-moving Maiden Resource Estimate (MRE) in
September that saw the stock zoom higher. It’s even lower than the discounted price at which
QCCU raised capital twice during 4q21:
21

With an IKN estimated C$18m in treasury, as well as C$7m in value of Baselode (FIND.v)
shares, you currently get an awful lot of fundamental bang for your buck even before
considering the development to date at Opemiska. But when it comes to the main reason to
own QCCU shares today, that’s also a real-deal project:
There are other tables of the MRE in other places, but this from the 43-101 includes the main
cut-off (yellow shade) for the 81.67 million metric tonnes (mmt) of Measured and Indicated
resource, as well as the 21.35mmt in inferred. It also gives a clear indication of the robust
nature of the project at higher cut-offs and what’s more, QCCU is quick to report that much of
the higher-grading material occurs in the same zones, the crown pillars left over from the
previous historical underground mining operations (the Springer and Perry mines, which
concentrated efforts on mining the veins left the mineralized halo for QCCU) that will provide a
high-grade starter pit for quick capital payback.
The resource uses reasonable copper (U$3.50/lb) and gold (U$1,650/oz) assumptions and with
over 80% in M+I category already, the company can target more of its upcoming drill metres
on expanding tonnage and resource, less on infill. Finally, even at the low end 0.2% CuEq cut-
off the resource displays enviable economics, with the CuEq grade around four times the cut.
That’s the type of margin that makes for robust mining operations with plenty of price leeway.
Summing up price, today you get a company that covers over half its market cap with cash and
marketable securities, then 1.4Bn lbs copper and a gold kicker that contributes another 0.5Bn
lbs CuEq, for a current market cap of (134.3m S/O X C$0.27= C$36.3m. Even without the cash
and FIND.v shares that would be
cheap, but with them you have a
company that is fully funded through
the whole of its 2022 development
season. This brings us to our second
point.
Regarding timing: In IKN662 dated
January 31st (i.e. two editions ago) we
ran a brief report on the webinar
presentation given by QCCU VP Ex
Charles Beaudry, available on this link
22

(19). The visual (above) was part of the note and shows where QCCU is targeting for its first
round of drilling in 2022. These areas are the epitome of “low hanging fruit”, zones in the main
resource that didn’t make the MRE last year due to a lack of drilling but, as noted on the map,
should add both tonnage and grade to Opemiska quickly.
Or put in the words of the NR announcing the 2022 Phase One program (20)
The primary objective of Phase 1 will be to convert additional 'halo mineralization'
within the defined open pit resources as per QC Copper's MRE. The areas of focus
within the open pit resource include the Springer, Perry, Saddle Zones, and the
Eastern Veins. Phase 1 will also target known mineralization within the Perry Depth
Zone, which could form an underground component of an updated MRE.
I firmly believe that one of the main reasons QCCU has slid back to its previous price levels
despite showing manifold advantages to this time last year is its relative low profile at market
so far in 2022. With so many stories grabbing for retail attention, QCCU has slipped off the
radar but this is why the time is now to buy or add, as on consulting with the company on
when we can expect the first results from the 2022 program I was told, “this week”. In other
words, a cashed-up copper story trading at a deep discount, in a political safe jurisdiction and
at the start of its 2022 newsflow that will likely continue all year, is about to deliver its first
numbers from a zone that is bound to add significant resource tonnage (and reduce theoretical
strip rate from an eventual mine operation at the same time.
I plan to add again to my position in QC Copper (QCCU.v) tomorrow Monday.
Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v) and a Santana update
On Thursday February 10th we got a long-awaited update from out Top Pick and your author’s
largest holding, Minera Alamos (21), regarding progress at its Santana start-up mine in Mexico.
The NR was long and went into detail about various aspects of the operation to date but, in
general terms, can be summarized under three headings
Ramp-up of operations
MAI began with hard numbers, telling us it had stacked 9,100 oz gold on the leach pads by end
2021. Of those, a follow-up question I put in with company President Doug Ramshaw told me
that a few of those ounces have already been processed, delivered off-mine and sold before the
end of 2021 thereby improving the cash position. The company is pleased with the leach
kinetics to date, with recoveries at over 70% and cycle time under 30 days, both of those
figures matching our model well.
However, MAI scaled down mining and stacking at the end of 2021 in order to accommodate
the seasonal holiday period, as well as allowing time for the next subject in our list. Operations
are now back and running and while the phrase they used, “Mining rates have approached the
initial monthly targets of 100,000 tonnes of mineralized material”, implies they haven’t made to
to 100kmt/month yet that is surely just a matter of time, as MAI is now beginning to expand
mine operations away from the first Nicho Norte area and include the larger Nicho as well.
Optimization and teething problems
This title covers the most interesting parts of the NR, as MAI is having ‘Good Problems’ as well
as having recently solved a few long-term issues. Beginning with grade, the company reported
that due to higher than expected grade in several areas of Nicho Norte, there has been a
backlog of material that was grading high enough to be sent through its portable crusher
before being laid on the leach pad. The company plan to send lower grade material straight to
the pad and run a primary crush on the higher-grading stuff is logical but also depended on a
rough 50/50 split between higher and lower grades. In reality, the cut off (above 0.5 g/t Au)
has been exceeded by around 70% of the material and as the mine plan dictated that to be
crushed, then crushed it was but that meant a slower than anticipated delivery to the pads. To
remedy this Hollywood Problem, MAI has now decided to move the cut off higher and send
23

some slightly higher grading material on the Run Of Mine (ROM) circuit, thereby getting to the
envisaged 50/50 split.
This decision will be helped by an other issue recently solved, as (due to Covid-19 bureaucracy
delays, apparently) MAI has only recently received its explosives permits. Until now it has not
been allowed to store mine explosives on site, but going forward it has more explosives on site
that provides better flexibility in day-to-day operations. This, combined with the knowledge and
experience already gained from the initial ramp-up period and blast fragmentation results to
date, means the company is confident of getting better rock fracture per charge which in turn
should improve the recoveries returns of ROM material placed on pad, all without the use of he
primary crusher.
Going forward
Your author is the first to admit that the ramp-up and move to commercial production at
Santana has been slower than expected. However, it will pay dividends to sit back and let MAI
get through its first phase of teething problems and knowledge gathering, as this is the type of
bulk heap leach operation that benefits from hands-on optimization of operations. Once a heap-
leacher has its issues ironed out it tends to run on rails and that’s where we are today, with a
MAI having identified and tackled issues as well as finding ways to improve on its original mine
plan and economic model. Bureaucratic delays have obviously played their part too, but as most
of those now seem behind the company and mining is now back on track after the Holiday
Season, there’s every reason to expect incremental growth from the mine as it moves into
commercial production. Will it declare commercial in 1q22? It seems not and now, 2q22 is
probably more likely but as the company is not tight for cash, it pays us to be patient at this
point.
Ultimately, at some point or another, this crazy game of junior mining investment boils down to
a matter of trust and, in a sector in which rogues and charlatans abound, that’s something the
investor or speculator applies at their own risk. However, when you are dealing with a company
that has always been as open and honest as possible, as well as the management team aligned
with shareholders to the extent MAI is (President Ramshaw is now on his way to owning 7m
shares of MAI, all bought on the open market) then it pays to sit back and let the good people
do good jobs. So despite the delays in getting to commercial production at Santana, I retain
every confidence in this team to deliver on their long-term promises and build the type of
precious metals mining company that I am proud to sponsor, with words as well as cash. The
news from Santana last week was most welcome and I have no hesitation in reiterating my Top
Pick call on Minera Alamos as, once it begins to deliver, the current share price and market cap
will be a distant memory. As for those lucky enough to have room to buy more, now is the time
because if you are not fully bought in to your personal content now, you’ll regret paying up
later as you compete against instos and fund managers for shares.
Fifty-two cents for this company is a drop-dead bargain at this stage of its development.
24

Conclusion
IKN664 is done, we end with bullet points:
 Please expect an updated version of today’s Weekly tomorrow evening, with an analysis
of Copper Mountain (CMMC.to) and its 4q21 period, as well as the key guidance
parameters for 2022. See you tomorrow.
 This hasn’t been the best edition of The IKN Weekly by any stretch of the imagination,
so if you feel as though analysis was a little shallow in IKN664, I’ll probably agree with
you. There are a couple of personal issues on my plate at the moment, so I beg your
forgiveness.
 QC Copper (QCCU.v) is at the right junction of price and timing and will get the money
I’d previously earmarked for McEwen Mioning. As for Minera Alamos (MAI.v) that’s just
a no-brainer buy.
 Peru politics is crazy.
I thank you in advance for any feedback. Our Top Pick stocks are Minera Alamos (MAI.v) and
Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v). Flash updates will be sent if required by events. And be long copper.
I wish you good trading fortune, ladies and gentlemen.
Best, Mark
Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://www.palamina.com/news/2022/2/9/palamina-resumes-exploration-at-the-lagos-silver-copper-project
(2) http://www.apnmetals.com/news/2022/altiplano-reports-on-construction-progress-at-el-pen-processing-facility
(3) https://discoverysilver.com/news/discovery-intersects-247-g-t-ageq-over-50-m-in-phase-2-drilling-at-cordero/
(4) https://www.mcewenmining.com/investor-relations/press-releases/press-release-details/2022/McEwen-Mining-
Announces-Flow-Through-Financing/default.aspx
(5) https://www.reuters.com/business/new-lme-stocks-squeeze-is-creeping-up-doctor-copper-andy-home-2022-02-08/
(6) https://marimaca.com/drilling-progressing-at-the-marimaca-oxide-deposit-mamix-campaign-expanded/
(7) https://www.barrick.com/English/news/news-details/2022/reserves-grow-net-of-depletion-as-barrick-focus-on-quality-
orebodies-delivers-results/default.aspx
(8) https://www.resourcesrisingstars.com.au/news-article/former-goldcorp-chair-sees-barrick-going-out-business
(9) https://www.accesswire.com/688378/Golden-Pursuit-Clarifies-Cease-Trade-Order
(10) https://latin-metals.com/news-releases/latin-metals-and-barrick-gold-corporation-enter-into-earn-in-agreement-for-
exploration-projects-santa-cruz-province-argentina/
(11) https://iknnews.com/world-copper-wcu-v-and-how-paid-pump-coverage-gets-passed-off-as-research/
(12) https://www.elmostrador.cl/dia/2022/02/11/futura-ministra-de-mineria-pone-panos-frios-ante-normas-aprobadas-en-
la-convencion-falta-mucha-agua-que-corra-todavia-bajo-el-puente-tenemos-que-dialogar-muchisimo-todavia/
(13) https://www.pauta.cl/politica/willy-kracht-nuevo-subsecretario-ministerio-mineria
(14) https://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/nacional/rio-lempa-en-peligro-por-mineria-cerro-blanco-guatemala-
elsalvador/925240/2022/
(15) https://sv.boell.org/es/2022/02/07/las-amenazas-del-proyecto-minero-rio-blanco-en-guatemala
(16) https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/indigenous-community-takes-guatemalan-land-rights-fight-to-international-
court/
(17) https://rpp.pe/politica/estado/jorge-chavez-renuncia-a-viceministerio-de-minas-y-denuncia-reparticion-de-puestos-
25

en-el-minem-noticia-1386100?ref=rpp
(18) https://eljuegodelacorte.nexos.com.mx/ley-minera-y-pueblos-indigenas-la-inconstitucionalidad-que-nadie-quiere-
ver/
(19) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNO5cukDNHY
(20) https://qccopper.com/news/qc-copper-announces-phase-1-of-its-2022-drill-program-on-opemiska/
(21) https://mineraalamos.com/news/2022/santana-mine-operations-update-and-optimization-progress/
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2021
Closed in 2021 closed close price
Fiore Gold F.v jan'21 C$0.98 21-May-20 C$1.17 19.4% closed as part of rebalance
Norsemont Min NOM.cse feb'21 C$1.55 6-Set-20 C$0.70 -54.8% Cut loser to reduce Au exp.
Element 29 Res ECU.v feb'21 C$0.49 7-Feb-21 C$0.54 10.2% Cut Peru exposure
Kuya Silver KUYA.cse feb'21 C$1.66 8-Nov-20 C$2.51 51.2% Cut Peru exposure
Pucara Gold TORO.v apr'21 C$0.65 4-Oct-20 C$0.26 -60.0% Cut loser, Peru risk call
Copper Mountain CMMC.to apr'21 C$1.40 22-Nov-20 C$4.18 198.6% tgt hit, profit taken
New Gold NGD may'21 U$0.76 9-Feb-20 U$2.14 181.6% Sold to buy AGC, nice win
Orezone Gold ORE.v jun'21 C$0.79 21-Jun-20 C$1.61 103.8% sold on pop, leaky boat
Wolfden Res. WLF.v sep'21 C$0.30 11-Abr-21 C$0.19 -36.7% Failed spec trade, cut loss
Cartier Res ECR.v sep'21 C$0.32 21-Mar-21 C$0.235 -26.6% Failed spec trade, cut loss
Amarillo Gold AGC.v sep'21 C$0.31 30-May-21 C$0.30 -3.2% Capex story changed: Out
Excelsior Mining MIN.to oct'21 C$0.93 10-Mar-19 C$0.53 -43.0% May return in 2022
Royal Road Min. RYR.v nov'21 C$0.155 17-Mar-19 C$0.275 77.4% Closed on Nica pol risk
Aurelius Min. AUL.v dec'21 C$0.75 28-Jun-20 0.24 -68.0% cut end 2021, failed trade
Argonaut Gold AR.to dec'21 C$2.95 25-Jun-21 C$2.15 -27.1% cut on capex blowout
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2020
Closed in 2020 closed close price
TMAC Resources TMR.to Jan'20 C$3.41 20-Dec-19 C$3.61 5.9% TLS flip play, sold new year
Regulus Res REG.v Jan'20 C$1.10 20-Dec-19 C$1.30 18.2% TLS flip play, profit taken
Bonterra Res BTR.v Jan'20 C$1.90 9-Dec-19 C$1.66 -12.6% TLS flip play, loss taken
McEwen Mining MUX Jan'20 U$1.12 2-Dec-19 U$1.18 5.4% TLS flip play, profit taken
Core Gold CGLD.v Jan'20 C$0.255 7-Apr-19 C$0.305 19.6% arb trade, profit taken
HudBay Min HBM Jan'20 U$3.56 9-Dec-19 U$3.36 -5.6% TLS flip play, loss taken
Midas Gold MAX.to Feb'20 C$0.71 5-Jan-20 C$0.57 -19.7% sm & silly trade
Warrior Gold WAR.v Feb'20 C$0.08 3-Aug-18 C$0.05 -31.3% clean out non-perf sm stocks
Contact Gold C.v Feb'20 C$0.40 19-Aug-18 C$0.18 -55.0% clean out non-perf sm stocks
Sandstorm Gold SAND Feb'20 U$3.73 17-Apr-16 U$7.21 93.3% Sold during port rebalance
NexGen Energy NXE Feb'20 U$1.20 2-Dec-19 U$1.06 -11.7% TLS flip play, loss taken
MAG Silver MAG Apr'20 U$8.95 1-Mar-20 U$10.07 12.5% Sold to cut silver exposure
Alexco Res AXU Apr'20 U$1.69 7-Sep-17 U$1.69 0.0% sold to close Ag exp. in FY20
Bonterra Res BTR.v Jun'20 C$1.62 2-Feb-20 C$1.10 -32.1% under-performer cash moved
Regulus Res REG.v Jun'20 C$0.64 6-Apr-15 C$0.79 23.4% moved $ TMQ/MIN & Au stocks
Great Panther GPR.to Aug'20 C$0.60 21-Jun-20 C$1.10 83.3% Profit taken, good trade
Jaguar Mining JAG.v Aug'20 C$0.42 21-Jun-20 C$0.65 54.8% Profit taken, good trade
Sandstorm Gold SAND Aug'20 U$7.76 10-May-20 U$9.37 20.7% Profit taken, good trade
Integra Resources ITR.v Aug'20 C$2.23 13-Aug-18 C$5.40 142.2% Profit taken, good trade
Wesdome Gold WDO.to Aug'20 C$2.37 14-Oct-17 C$14.82 525.3% last 1/2 of big win closed
INV Metals INV.to Sep'20 C$0.40 17-May-20 C$0.45 12.5% Cut all Ecuador exposure
Cartier Resources ECR.v Nov'20 C$0.155 3-Aug-18 C$0.25 67.7% Exact close price TBA
Tinka Res TK.v Dec'20 C$0.195 19-Apr-16 C$0.195 0.0% Closed on a round trip fail
2015 to 2019 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
26

Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2019
Closed in 2019 closed close price
Atico Mining ATY.v jan'19 C$0.55 24-Jul-16 C$0.32 41.8% patience ran out, made room
Candente Copper DNT.to jan'19 C$0.075 3-Ago-18 C$0.05 -33.3% tiny trade, made room for new
B2Gold BTO.to feb'19 C$2.11 12-Set-14 C$4.05 91.9% Took 1/2 profits, reduce size
Western Copper WRN.to mar'19 C$0.80 20-Ene-19 C$0.81 1.3% Spec trade that didn't work
B2Gold BTO.to mar'19 C$2.11 12-Set-14 C$4.15 96.7% Took rest of profit.
GT Gold GTT.v mar'19 C$1.17 10-Oct-18 C$0.90 -23.1% Took loss. Story changed
NovaGold NG apr'19 U$3.84 13-Ene-19 U$4.15 -8.1% Short that didn't work, sm loss
Zinc One Z.v jun'19 C$0.47 14-Set-17 C$0.025 -94.7% clearing out dead trade
Amarillo Gold AGC.v jun'19 C$0.24 22-Ago-18 C$0.20 -16.7% clearing out dead trade
New Gold NGD aug'19 U$1.44 31-Jul-19 U$1.23 14.6% ST short win thru Q2 earnings
IMPACT Silver IPT.v aug'19 C$0.39 21-Jul-19 C$0.46 18.0% took a quick profit
Fiore Gold F.v aug'19 C$0.34 26-May-19 C$0.56 64.7% Took profit, 2q19 avg
Chakana Copper PERU.v oct'19 C$0.84 22-Mar-18 C$0.16 -81.0% Exploreco trade fail. Want space
Wesdome Gold WDO.to oct'19 C$2.37 14-Oct-17 C$7.57 219.4% Sold half, profit taking
Superior Gold SGI.v oct'19 C$1.46 8-Abr-18 C$0.47 -67.8% Failed sm spec on Au. Moved on
Amerigo Res ARG.to nov'19 C$0.91 23-Set-18 C$0.50 -45.1% worst trade of year, hefty loss
Guyana Goldfields GUY.to dec'19 C$0.94 14-Abr-19 C$0.56 -40.4% taking the loss, financials weak
Tethyan Res TETH.v dec'19 C$0.30 8-Set-19 C$0.16 -46.7% tiny trade, word of probs in co
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2018
Closed in 2018 closed close price
Amarillo Gold AGC.v jan'18 C$0.38 24-Mar-17 C$0.31 -18.4% Cut away losing trade
Riverside Res RRI.v jan'18 C$0.39 27-Jun-16 C$0.31 -20.5% Cut away losing trade
Eros Res ERC.v jan'18 C$0.175 1-Mar-17 C$0.16 -8.6% CEO sudden exit, not good
Excellon Res EXN.to jan'18 C$1.54 9-Oct-16 C$1.66 7.8% 4q17 poor, one too many bad qtrs
Wesdome Gold WDO.to jan'18 C$1.68 15-Dec-17 C$2.06 22.6% Near-term trade block, took profit
Sabina G&S SBB.to apr'18 C$2.06 17-Dec-17 C$1.77 -14.1% Near-term trade, bad timing, small
B2Gold BTO.to May'18 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$3.67 73.9% sold 25% to reduce exposure
Lara Expl. LRA.v May'18 C$0.65 11-Feb-18 C$0.58 -13.8% Spec on Brazil didn't work
Solitario XPL June'18 U$0.72 19-Mar-17 U$0.41 -43.1% Failed trade, may return in 4q18
SolGold plc SOLG.to July'18 C$0.475 19-Nov-17 C$0.415 -12.6% cut, trade didn't perform
Pan American PAAS July'18 U$17.90 1-Jun-18 U$16.30 8.9% modest win on short position
NGEx Res NGQ.to Sep'18 C$1.01 22-Oct-17 C$1.00 -1.0% Closed to reduce Argentina exp
Sandstorm Gold SAND Oct'18 U$3.73 17-Apr-16 U$4.13 10.7% partial sale to raise cash for GTT
Aldebaran Res ALDE.v Nov'18 n/a n/a n/a n/a liquidate spin out of REG
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2017
Closed in 2017 closed close price
Continental Gold CNL.to Jan'17 C$2.68 22-May-16 C$4.17 55.6% trade closed, profit taken
Focus Ventures FCV.v Jan'17 C$0.23 1-Jul-12 C$0.05 -78.3% Give up, a disaster trade
Wesdome Gold WDO.to Feb'17 C$1.72 28-Aug-16 C$3.00 74.4% Target hit, sold, good trade
Belo Sun BSX.to Mar'17 C$0.90 30-Jan-17 C$0.90 0.0% failed near-term flip trade
Lara Expl. LRA.v Mar'17 C$1.15 8-Apr-12 C$1.05 -8.7% cut to make room for new trade
Rye Patch Gold RPM.v Apr'17 C$0.31 2-Sep-16 C$0.32 3.2% cut for doubts & new stock
Cordoba Min. CDB.v Jun'17 C$0.75 15-Sep-16 C$0.63 -16.0% closed
Constantine Metal CEM.v Aug'17 C$0.135 9-Apr-17 C$0.28 107.4% spec trade closed, good win
Red Eagle Min. R.to Sep'17 C$0.67 13-Dec-16 C$0.27 -59.7% IKN's biggest failure in years
Starcore Intl SAM.to Sep'17 C$0.61 10-Jan-15 C$0.31 -49.2% Patience ran out
B2Gold BTO.to Dec'17 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$3.39 60.7% sold small portion for liquidity
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Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2016
Closed in 2016 closed close price
Phoscan Chem FOS.to jan16 C$0.28 29-mar-15 C$0.265 -5.4% Buyout trade, bot but poor deal
True Gold TGM.v jan16 C$0.18 23-ago-15 C$0.25 38.9% okay trade, sold on pol risk
McEwen Mining MUX jan16 U$1.09 25-ene-15 U$1.20 10.1% sold due to lack of value
Lake Shore Gold LSG.to feb-16 C$1.10 07-abr-15 C$1.69 53.6% bot out, sold early in process
Atacama Pacific ATM.v feb-16 C$0.19 26-abr-15 C$0.40 110.5% sold for a double on big pop
New Gold NGD feb-16 U$2.06 24-ene-16 U$2.96 43.7% closed good near-term trade
Sandspring Res SSP.v mar-16 C$0.195 18-oct-15 C$0.32 64.1% Hit tgt, took profit
Teranga Gold TGZ.to mar-16 C$0.54 15-feb-15 C$0.60 11.1% disappointing trade
B2Gold BTG mar-16 U$0.85 13-ene-16 U$1.30 52.9% Separate trade on B2, hit tgt
Dalradian Res DNA.to mar-16 C$0.67 27-oct-13 C$1.00 49.3% Hit target, sold, good win
HudBay Min. HBM may-16 U$4.10 03-abr-16 U$4.36 -6.3% Short trade, poor timing
Nevada Sunrise NEV.v may-16 C$0.185 28-feb-16 C$0.23 24.3% V. small, no big deal either way
Richmont RIC jun-16 U$7.60 01-may-16 U$9.30 22.4% near-term trade, profit taken
INV Metals INV.to jul-16 C$0.25 03-abr-16 C$0.95 280.0% Trade closed on time
HudBay Min. HBM aug16 U$4.98 09-jun-16 U$4.80 3.6% short trade covered, no big deal
Miranda Gold MAD.v oct-16 C$0.125 03-jul-16 C$0.10 -20.0% tiny spec trade, didn't work
Avino G & S ASM nov-16 U$2.00 21-oct-16 U$1.40 -30.0% Abandon trade on bad bot deal
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2015
Closed in 2015 closed close price
Argonaut Gold AR.to jan'15 C$1.47 14-dec-14 C$2.53 72.1% Big gain small time, profit taken
Amerigo Res ARG.to jan'15 C$0.405 20-jul-14 C$0.285 -29.6% Given up on weak Cu prices
Reservoir Min. RMC.v jan'15 C$6.05 18-jun-14 C$4.12 -31.9% sold on Cu downturn
Coro Mining COP.to jan'15 C$0.075 26-jan-14 C$0.035 -53.3% sm, sold on Cu downturn
Fortuna Silver FSM mar'15 U$4.12 10-nov-14 U$3.75 9.0% Short used as hedge
GoldQuest Min. GQC.v mar'15 C$0.26 27-oct-13 C$0.085 -67.3% given up ghost
Rio Alto Mining RIO.to apr'15 C$2.30 07-apr-11 C$3.57 55.2% Top pick, bot out, big win
Timmins Gold TGD jun'15 U$0.60 19-apr-15 U$0.62 3.3% near-term trade, out of time
First Majestic AG jul'15 U$10.51 10-aug-14 U$4.55 56.7% horrible failed trade
NovaCopper NCQ.to jul'15 C$1.05 09-apr-14 C$0.50 -52.4% no more Cu exposure, sm sell
McEwen Mining MUX aug'15 U$0.695 21-jul-15 U$0.92 32.4% Closed nearterm flip for win
Midas Gold MAX.to sep'15 C$0.39 21-sep-15 C$0.35 -10.3% Sm. trade idea that didn't work
New Gold NGD oct'15 U$2.18 23-aug-15 U$3.05 39.9% trade closed, profit taken
Legend Gold LGN.v nov'15 C$0.085 01-mar-15 C$0.035 -58.8% tiny "land grab" idea, failed
Timmins Gold TGD nov'15 U$0.245 20-sep-15 U$0.15 -38.8% small near-term loser
Please note that due to space considerations closed positions 2009 to 2014 are now
available on request, or were published in any edition to IKN553 (end 2019).
Important Disclosure
The information and opinions contained within this report reflect the personal views of the author and therefore all
material within should not be construed as accurate or reliable or be utilized as advice for investment or business
purposes. Independent due diligence and discussions with ones own investment and business advisor is strongly
recommended. Accordingly, nothing in this report should be construed as offering a guarantee of the accuracy or
completeness of the information contained herein, as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any
security or as an endorsement of any product or service. All opinions and estimates included in this report are subject to
change without notice. It is prohibited to copy or redistribute this report to any type of third party without the express
permission of the author.
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