IKN #698Premium

The IKN Weekly
Week 698, October 2nd 2022
Contents
This Week: In Today’s Edition, Welcome to Q4! (just the same as Q3), Kwasi in the Khazi.
Fundamental Analysis: Revisiting Abrasilver Resource Corp (ABRA.v) (ABBRF).
Stocks to Follow: Pure Gold (PGM.v), Minera Alamos (MAI.v), Minera IRL (MIRL.cse), ATAC
Resources (ATC.v), Superior Gold (SGI.v), Goldshore Resources (GSHR.v).
Copper Basket: Overview, Nevada Copper (NCU.to), Element 29 (ECU.v), Meridian Mining
(MNO.to), Copper Mountain (CMMC.to), Regulus Resources (REG.v).
Producer Basket: Overview, Sandstorm Gold (SAND) (SSL.to).
TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Manitou Gold (MTU.v).
Regional Politics: Brazil: Lula and Jair to run off on October 30th, Colombia: Juan Miguel
Durán steps down from the National Mining Agency, Argentina and the debate over the “Mining
Dollar”, Peru plays nice with its mining industry.
Market Watching: Deferred.
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
 We do plenty on copper this weekend in The Copper Basket, which last week suddenly
decided to scrub away its negative sentiment and start looking on the bright side of the
equation. However and conversely, several of the juniors we watch via the Copper
Basket list had negative news and sold off.
 As for the main event this week, the fundies section is given over to a revisit to
Abrasilver (ABRA.v), a stock I owned for a brief period this year before selling as part of
the policy decision to raise treasury cash and trim the sails. Since then ABRA has
developed well and recently, has out-performed silver sector peers readily. We examine
why and its recent newsflow fully justifies its recent price action.
 A better week for our sector, with gold up and the mining companies putting in a
welcome relief rally, but today’s intro reiterates why KEEP POWDER DRY is still the
most prudent course of action and this house’s best advice…for the time being at least.
 As always, plenty of other bits and pieces in the edition, including the results out of the
big Brazil election vote today, the wait for Top Pick Minera Alamos’s CdO 43-101 and
how it’s almost with us, a note on the new and small spec trade in Pure Gold (PGM.v),
and a little more on the way Sandstorm (SAND) let its backers down last week. But one
small segment worthy of your eyeballs and a potential start of your DD is the
continuation note on Manitou (MTU.v) in today’s TinyCaps section. High risk tolerance
required, but there seems to be something brewing.
Welcome to Q4! (just the same as Q3)
Hamlet: Madam, how like you this play?
Gertrude: The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Hamlet, Act 3, Sc2
1

Welcome to the fourth quarter of 2022, ladies and gentlemen readers of The IKN Weekly, as
we gird loins, prepare to shout “good riddance” to another awful year for world news events
and poorly performing mining stocks (Canadian tax loss season looms again). And you thought
2020 was a bad one for the planet, didn’t you? The week was marked by a continuation of the
same Fed jawbone and that’s no surprise, but what caught this desk’s eye was how its normal
Kabuki Theatre show went HyperKabuki. This report (1) did the hard work of harvesting
soundbites and is worth a read for the detailed context of each, we just make a list:
"Monetary policy will need to be in a restrictive stance, with real interest rates moving
into positive territory and remaining there for some time." Cleveland Fed President
Loretta Mester, Monday.
"Returning inflation to target will require further tightening of monetary policy, as
signaled in the recent FOMC projections. It will be important to see clear and
convincing signs that inflation is falling, and I will continue to assess the range of
incoming data." Boston Fed President Susan Collins, Monday.
“We always watch global market developments, but we’re focused on U.S. markets
and fundamentals and think we’re determined to get to right level on policy rate to put
downward pressure on inflation. So other central banks will have to react to our
intentions.” St Louis Fed President James Bullard, Monday.
"We’re looking at something like another 100 to 125 basis points of rate increases this
calendar year." Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Tuesday.
“I’m completely resolute to bring inflation down. We bring the rate up and then we hold
it. So we're talking about restrictive policy for awhile until we see inflation go back to
our 2% goal.” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly, Thursday.
"Monetary policy will need to be restrictive for some time to have confidence that
inflation is moving back to target." Fed Governor Lael Brainard, Friday.
“Our rate and balance sheet moves will take time to bring inflation down. But the Fed
will persist until they do.” Richmond Fed President Barkin, Friday.
Count ‘em up, folks. Yes indeed, that’s seven Kabuki actors taking their turn to address the
audience last week and all of them quoting directly from Jay Powell’s well-worn script: “We
really, really, REALLY, BUT REALLY aren’t joking, people.” And while on the subject, it’s not the
first time I’ve used that quote from Shakespeare to lead-in an intro note. It came to mind while
reading that compendium of Fedspeak, all packed into the last five working days.
We also have the US BLS September Employment Report coming up this Friday and as things
stand this weekend consensus is +250k NFP jobs and the headline unemployment rate to stay
steady at 3.7%. As usual, this key macro moment has the ability to move the market but as
noted last weekend in IKN697, we’re now in an upside-down world and the consumer Price
Inflation (CPI) data due a couple of weeks’ time on October 13th is the most important dataset
in our inflationary days. Any notable drop in the rhythm of inflationary pressure will also take
pressure off the Fed to raise its baseline sharply which, in turn, would fuel the “Fed Gonna
Pivot” narrative and that would be bullish for metals, be in no doubt.
As for gold and despite the pick-up in prices last week, sentiment for ownership among the
great and the good of Wall St. remains firmly in the dumpster. Bullion inventory at the world’s
biggest gold ETF (GLD) dropped to a new post-pandemic low of 939.7 metric tonnes (mt) and
with no new buyers even as the price of the metal rallied, our tracking ratio dropped back to
6.08X and refuses to lift away from the 6X Washout Zone (we zoom in on this year today):
GLD gold holdings, 2022 YTD (metric tonnes)
1140
1120
1100
1080
1060
1040
1020
1000
980
960 940
920
900 2
22/1/3 22/1/31 22/1/32 22/2/2 22/2/21 22/2/22 22/3/4 22/3/41 22/3/42 22/4/3 22/4/31 22/4/32 22/5/3 22/5/31 22/5/32 22/6/2 22/6/21 22/6/22 22/7/2 22/7/21 22/7/22 22/8/1 22/8/11 22/8/12 22/8/13 22/9/01 22/9/02 22/9/03
mt 7.00 GLD: Inventory/Price Ratio, 2022 YTD
6.90
6.80
6.70
6.60
6.50
6.40
6.30
6.20
6.10
6.00
5.90
5.80
5.70 5.60
source: SPDR GLD data 5.50
13/21/1202 01/1/2202 02/1/2202 03/1/2202 9/2/2202 91/2/2202 1/3/2202 11/3/2202 12/3/2202 13/3/2202 01/4/2202 02/4/2202 03/4/2202 01/5/2202 02/5/2202 03/5/2202 9/6/2202 91/6/2202 92/6/2202 9/7/2202 91/7/2202 92/7/2202 8/8/2202 81/8/2202 82/8/2202 7/9/2202 71/9/2202 72/9/2202
Source: SPDR data, IKN calcs

However, PM stocks did well and rallied as a group as bargain hunters moved in, with GDX
rising a useful 7.5% on the week and the junior tracker GDXJ rising 9.1%. This tells us that
money is happy to move in and out of the equities on
a speculative basis, but it by-passes gold bullion
completely in both directions. The moves are cash-to-
stocks-to-cash (or Treasurys) as the safe haven and
that shows in the chart published to the blog Friday
(2) under the title “The Gold/USD Rorschach”,
comparing the gold continuous contract (GC00) to the
US Dollar Index (DXY) (right). We know gold normally
trades as the “anti-dollar”, but the near-hermetic
Rorschach pattern spread over ten days only happens
when one of the two issues is trading s neutrally as
possible and all moves come from the mirror image. In
this case, gold is unresponsive while the USD goes
through its moves and as we know the DXY went through
another of its Top-And-Drop patterns last week, the nominal
recovery in the gold price was only in USD terms.
All that brings us to the sharp end of the issue and the
same question as in many previous weeks: Do we “fight the
Fed” and assume there’s a pivot going to happen, or do we
take the wise course of action and notice how many traders
have been ruined by trying to dictate or even impose
monetary policy on the US Federal Reserve over the years,
no matter how illogical its policies may seem to the
outsider. The move up in the price of gold is certainly
welcome, but it’s very difficult to read in “The Pivot” because last week was all about the USD.
If the bigger money truly thought the Fed was on the cusp of “Doing a Bank of England” and
re-starting its QE program (see below) you would see money moving out of the USD and into
gold bullion, not just around it in moves to speculate on the underlying PM stocks. The
complete lack of leverage on the above chart tells us that is not happening…not yet at least.
Therefore and despite having bought a few Pure Gold (PGM.v) shares last week as planned and
stated, the official call from The IKN Weekly remains the same, KEEP POWDER DRY. Rather
boring and repetitive I know, but that’s also a reflection of your author.
Kwasi in the Khazi
It’s not mining, it’s not even the US Dollar but it would be remiss not to mention something
about the financial fun and games we saw out of my native soil of Perfidious Albion. A bit of
deep UK slang in that title too, used to present a showcase of some excellent business
journalism from John Authers of Bloomberg who wrote on the aftermath of the UK’s mini-
financial crisis, set off by new Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s so-called “mini-
budget” of the week before that showed him to have only a mini-idea fo what he was doing.
Authers’ note entitled “The UK Cannot Afford to Look This Ridiculous” can be found here (2)
and it’s highly recommended, as once you see the root cause of the UK Bank of England’s
decision to return to an emergency QE policy you see that the goldbug assumption that this
was only the first of many shoes to drop and contagion would force the Fed to do the same as
well is wrong. Authers breaks down a highly complex situation and explains it well, so that also
means you really need to read his whole note to get the picture but here come two extracts
that cover the crux of the issue:
“The crisis the BOE stepped in to eliminate was triggered by the speed with which
longer gilt yields rose after the government’s “mini-budget,” unveiled by the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng last Friday and featuring steep tax cuts
with no detail of any spending cuts to help pay for them. This had already prompted
several mortgage lenders to withdraw new offerings, an alarming incursion on the real
world inhabited by most Britons.
3

The heart of the darkness, however, was in pension plans. As in the global crisis,
sharp moves triggered an accident for systemically important institutions that had taken
on leverage in an opaquely technical way. It stems, ironically, from an impeccably
prudent and conservative reform. For the last two decades, British pensions in the
public sector and from large companies offering a final-salary or “defined benefit” on
retirement have been required to match assets to liabilities. Intended to ensure that
promises to pensioners could be honored, this in practice meant that pension funds
had to buy a lot of gilts. This successfully bolstered their finances. The following chart
comes from the Pension Protection Fund and shows that both in absolute amount
of money and as a proportion of their liabilities, UK pensions ended last month in good
shape, with assets comfortably enough to meet their promises”
After a chart and some links to other explainers, Authers continues:
“…if you have a large portfolio of very long-dated bonds, a 25% fall in their price is a
serious issue. Second, if you’ve been playing around with derivatives to try to get a
little more return out of the lumpen mass of those bonds, you have a real problem.
Pension funds would enter into swap contracts, using the gilts as collateral. While
the funds’ bet was going well, the counterparty would pay them something. If the bet
turned out wrong, they’d have to pay something to the counterparty. And if the
collateral suddenly and unprecedentedly took a massive fall, the counterparty would
make a margin call.
“By Tuesday, the margin calls had turned into a cascade. Pension funds sold their gilts
to meet these calls, pushing their price down further. In such conditions, the funds also
faced the need to sell other assets that were sufficiently liquid. This is a classic
example of contagion, of the kind that drove the "Lehman Moment" of 2008, when
numerous complex financial products collapsed almost simultaneously. By Wednesday
morning, the BOE faced the prospect of imminent widespread pension fund
insolvencies. This was both unthinkable in itself, and so were the potential systemic
after effects on the economy.
“The swift action was decisive. A 24% rise in the 30-year gilt price has ended this
particular crisis. But I doubt we’ve felt the last of the psychological blow from the fact
that it was pension funds, of all things, that proved to be a critical systemic weak point.”
Shades of the GFC and the way those poor quality mortgage roll-ups almost did for the US
economy back in 2008, this time it was UK funds playing “riskless yield” with UK debt paper
(gilts). So a black eye for the UK economy and tellingly, the rival who lost against new UK Prime
Minister Liz Truss, ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak (who knows his job) predicted exactly this sort of
mess if the new government tried to make the type of swathing tax cuts implemented by this
new government. But last week’s GBP crisis isn’t going to shift Jay Powell into pivoting early, no
matter what your goldbug friends may insist. However and as mentioned in IKN697 last
weekend, it is a good time for citizens of The United States to plan that vacation to see the
sights of Jolly Olde England.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Revisiting Abrasilver (ABRA.v)
Cuiusvis hominis est errare,
nullius nisi insipientis in
errore perseverare
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Philippica XII
As today’s title line notes, this isn’t the first time that AbraSilver Resource Corp. (ABRA.v and
also here at the top we mention its OTC ticker ABBRF, as it’s one of the more liquid and best
traded OTC silver juniors on the lists and a active part of its trading profile) has made these
pages, so today’s note includes a preamble and something of a trade post-mortem for required
context. We go back to, what was in hindsight, one of the worst-timed edition of The IKN
Weekly ever. In IKN675 dated April 24th 2022 we decision to buy three positions. Those trades
were:
4

 Adding to Superior Gold (SGI.v),
 Adding to Chesapeake Gold (CKG.v)
 Buying Abrasilver (ABRA.v)
The idea was to extend exposure to what was at the time a hot market for precious metals
companies. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was by far the hottest world story, nuclear sabre-
rattling was shaking the market and sanctions were ratcheting up. Just a few days before
IKN675 the sector saw some selling and I considered this the buying opportunity and therefore
decided to add to two positions already opened (SGI.v, CKG.v) and also open a new trade in
Abrasilver (ABRA.v). That turned out to be…
…the wrong decision. Hindsight is sometimes a wonderful thing, sometimes more sobering but
there are always lessons to be learned from revisiting and meditating on one’s failed trades. In
this case, the advent of the Fed’s new aggressive stance against inflation changed the entire
market narrative and as seen above, precious metals (GLD and SLV) as well as stocks (GDX,
GDXJ and SIL to cover the silver sector) turned and have stayed negative as the Fed wages its
continuing war (see today’s intro for the latest chapter).
To pick over my decision in IKN675 to buy ABRA a little further, I was already long Discovery
Silver (DSV.v) at the time and with the PM complex looking bullish to my eyes (sigh), decided to
add another tranche of silver exposure to the mix. Here are a couple of excerpts from the
IKN675 write-up on ABRA to give the flavour, if you want more please open that edition (or
shoot me a mail, happy to send a copy by return mail):
Today’s new trade is based on a simple premise; as I think silver is showing plenty of
upside risk and has the fundamentals in place to move sharply higher (see IKN674,
last weekend), I feel the need to add silver exposure.
And…
ABRA isn’t the perfect stock, but it is a cut above the typical mediocrity found in the
silver exploreco, developer and producer sectors.
Errare humanum est. IKN698 back and as May 2022 rolled out the PM sector began to get
bearish in the trend that continues to this day. I quickly got That Sinking Feeling and the
realization I’d over-extended, so after some humming and hahing in the next editions and
letting the feeling grow, in IKN678 dated May 15th the decision was to cut back on exposure to
the market, as seen in the intro note “Trimming the sails” and the main fundies section that
day, “Portfolio Review: Selling some shares and raising some cash.” That edition took a hard
look at each open trade, made adjustments as necessary and when we got to ABRA, here’s the
text:
Abrasilver (ABRA.v): Was Speculative Buy, now SELLING
Bought recently and I regret that fact. This is the test case for today’s decision to pare
back exposure as it involves holding up my hands and saying “I was wrong to buy
this”, selling almost immediately and taking a loss for the pleasure. That is happening
and, when it does, I will remind myself how much I hate silver stocks. Good company,
good project, bad timing.
And even as I write up ABRA today that statement about silver stocks holds true. But I digress
5

and with that, my ill-fated foray into ABRA this year is laid out for your consideration and to
provide backdrop. Despite exiting the position (as well as selling the other silver trade Discovery
Silver (DSV.v) in June, a good decision) I’ve followed ABRA’s progress and with the potted
history complete, we can now get up to date and explain why today’s fundies note on the
company exists.
We begin here, with a 2022 YTD chart that shows the squiggly lines for ABRA (black) as well as
silver sector benchmarks SLV (the silver bullion ETF) and SIL (the main silver miners’ ETF):
The first thing to note is that in general terms, my decision to lighten exposure after the
mistake of late April was the correct one to make, as seen in the way both SLV and SIL have
continued lower (and fwiw, the DSV shares I sold for $1.39 in June are now trading at $0.94).
However, I cannot say the same for ABRA.v and
good for them, as that stock continued to trade
lower until mid-July but then began bucking the
trend. The performance is better appreciated in this
three month version of the same chart (right), as
anyone smart enough to buy ABRA in July would
now be 50% up on their money, you cannot say
that about many silver stocks this year.
The reason for the out-performance as seen above
is the best one any junior exploreco can bring to
the table; drill results. In fact since we last spoke,
ABRA has delivered in fine style at its flagship
Diablillos project in the increasing miner-friendly
province of Salta, Argentina and has opened a second and very prospective exploration front at
one of its second string projects, La Coipita in San Juan province, also Argentina. We now
consider developments at both of those, starting with the flagship and main driver of the
company’s equity value at Diablillos, after which we consider the intriguing early results from
the Coipita copper project:
Diablillos: We went over most of the basics on Diablillos in IKN675 so please use that for
reference purposes, as we’re more interested in what has changed for the better since then.
However, it’s worth repeating a couple of tables and visuals used to give the general story so
here first is the current 43-101 compliant resource for the project:
6

This resource formed the basis for the PEA raised on the project, dated January 2022 and
compiled by the reputable Mining Plus. Being a PEA, there are still plenty of criteria left to
define more accurately and we now know the above resource is likely to change considerably
due to the success of the 2022 drill and development campaign. However at that point and
using the criteria at hand, the PEA came up with these numbers among others:
Those are good numbers on what is bound to the proverbial “snapshot in time” of a resource
that is bound to grow considerably and improve its economics as a result. However, there are
some negatives to factor in, such as the way it used a metals price base case of U$24/oz silver
and U$1,650/oz gold, so its fair to say that the late 2022 “base case” for silver is going to be a
headwind on economics. We also need to take into account the inflationary pulse that has run
through the mining industry during 2022 and the way input costs will invariably rise (that capex
won’t stay under U$300m, that’s for sure. However and using the knowledge at the time, the
January 2022 PEA returned an NPV of U$364m NPV using a 5% discount and an IRR of 30.2%,
which is a big enough percentage to take a few financial knocks and remain robustly profitable.
So far so promising, but the reason to return to ABRA this weekend is to consider what has
happened in 2022 and the likelihood for serious price catalysts in the near future. Back in
IKN675 write-up, as well as the economics and exploration to date we also noted an
impressive new drill assay that wasn’t included in the PEA data, instead had just come as part
of what was at the time its ongoing Phase 2 drill program, with 20,000m of holes planned. That
NR came on April 11th (4) went with this title:
“AbraSilver Reports Best Intercept to Date From Current Drill Program at
Diablillos 140 Metres Grading 301 g/t AgEq (4.3 g/t AuEq)”
In IKN675 I called that “a stonking hole” and quite right, too. It moved the market at the time
and with the Phase 2 program underway, we pointed to the potential for more drill assays of
the same ilk from Diablillos as 2022 rolled out with particular emphasis on the “Oculto” zone of
the project. Oculto was getting plenty of rig metres at the newly discovered “Oculto North East”
sub-zone and a deeper zone of mineralization ABRA was beginning to define known as El
Tesoro (and yes, that does mean “treasure”, as in “buried treasure mi hearties arrr”). As things
turned out, we were right to point to the promising future of the project and that above April
11th was only the start of a series of very strong assay results from Diablillos. After due
consideration, I’ve decided to feature them in an (incomplete) list as they make impressive
reading (your author adds a little bold type to help your eyes to the very best stuff):
 April 27th (5), hole DDH 22-005: 67.5m at 293.9 AgEq (or 4.20 g/t AuEq – comprised of
157 g/t Ag and 1.95 g/t Au), including 17m at 756.8 g/t AgEq
 July 25th (6), hole DDH 22-015: 26m at 2,383 g/t AgEq (34.0 g/t AuEq - comprised of
2,358 g/t Ag and 0.36 g/t Au), including 4m at 9,536 g/t AgEq
 August 3rd (7), hole DDH 22-019: 87m at 357 g/t AgEq (5.1 g/t AuEq - comprised of 346
g/t Ag and 0.15 g/t Au), including 22m at 1,033 g/t AgEq
 August 11th (8), hole DDH 22-021: 17m at 365 g/t AgEq (5.2 g/t AuEq - comprised of 355
g/t Ag and 0.14 g/t Au), including 5m at 1,037 g/t AgEq
 August 11th (8), hole DDH 22-022: 34m at 156 g/t AgEq (2.2 g/t AuEq - comprised of 18
g/t Ag and 1.98 g/t Au)
 August 11th (8), hole DDH 22-024: 43.5m grading 196 g/t AgEq (2.8 g/t AuEq - comprised
7

of 188 g/t Ag and 0.11 g/t Au), including 4m at 1,423 g/t AgEq
 August 22nd (9), hole DDH 22-037: 155m at 289 g/t AgEq (4.1 g/t AuEq – comprised of
185 g/t Ag and 1.48 g/t Au), including 30m at 609 g/t AgEq
 September 15th (10), hole DDH 22-041: 38.5m at 183 g/t AgEq (2.6 g/t AuEq – comprised
of 119 g/t Ag and 0.91 g/t Au), including 12.5m at 350 g/t AgEq
 September 26th (11), hole DDH 22-045: 127 metres at 646 g/t AgEq (9.2 g/t AuEq –
comprised of 506 g/t Ag and 1.99 g/t Au) including 23m at 2,001 g/t AgEq
 September 26th (11), hole DDH 22-043: 23m at 2,116 g/t AgEq (30.2 g/t AuEq)
That’s an impressive list and the company isn’t hyping itself unduly when stating that Diablillos
is “far exceeding expectations”, as all those headline hits you see above come with plenty of
BTL data that support the highly potential of further resource growth at the project. Those drills
are sometimes infill, sometimes out-step and on occasion new hits in completely different zones
of Diablillos. The above is also a lot of listed information and plenty of numbers to digest, but
once you’ve considered all the lines and appreciated how many strong drill returns we’ve seen
out of ABRA since The IKN Weekly sold and moved on, I’d like you to go back and take some
extra time over the penultimate line item and hole DDH 22-045. Up to September 15th , ABRA
was reporting on the results of its 20,000m Phase 2 drill program (and for the record, that NR
contains details of the final eight holes of the program, all of which hit economic level
mineralization). But the latest NR dated September 26th is something new, as it marks the first
results from the new 15,000m Phase 3 campaign and in the headline Hole 45 includes (and we
quote the company, “…the new all-time highest-grade silver intercept recorded on the Project.”
In fact, that hole in grade/metre terms is almost
certain to make the world top 10 list of drill assay
results for 2022, for any metal and any project,
worldwide. A 127m length of what is essentially 20
oz silver (eq) is stunning. And for the cherry on the
cake, it was cut in oxides, too. While the stock price
did manage to move on the news (ten-day NR
right), its improvement last week wasn’t out of the
ordinary compared with other silver stock peers. If
the timing of that hole had been in any other
market than the current uber-low sentiment bear it
would have shot this stock a lot higher. The gains
would have stuck, too. For what it all means, we
make a final return to IKN675 and some lines from
back then:
“…ABRA is currently putting another 20,000m into its PEA resource in order to expand
and firm up the numbers for the upcoming PFS and rare indeed are resources that
increase in reliability, tonnage AND grade at the same time during this phase. ABRA at
Diablillos is now on course to do just that, so inflation or not is looks as though project
economics will improve significantly in the next 43-101 technical report.”
Indeed, an ongoing exploration and resource definition drill campaign will rarely manage the
trick of improving tonnage and grade at the same time, but that’s what the above drill hits from
Diablillos in 2022 indicate. Also notably, as soon as the 20,000m of Phase 2 was complete the
company immediately embarked on the current 15,000m of Phase 3 and by the look of that
September 26th NR, in the meantime they worked out exactly where they wanted to locate
these next collars. It’s worth reiterating how impressive that hole 45 is in length, average
grade, bonanza grade and at a location that fits neatly into the current open pit shell
assumption. And all in oxide material, too. That’s money.
Which points us to the next major catalyst for ABRA, assuming of course they don’t return some
or other hole that beats even #45. That’s this quarter 4q22 when the company is due to publish
an updated 43-101 resource report and it’s around then that we’ll find out by how much
tonnages and grade have improved. It’s mostly oxide with some transition zone material, but in
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total the current 43-101 on which the POEA is based has a Measured and Indicated tonnage of
41.2mt, containing 90.1m oz silver at an average grade of 68 g/t and 1m oz gold at an average
grade of 0.76 g/t. It’s fair to expect all those numbers to improve and if the company factors in
a lower base case price for silver, the loss of tonnage would only see grade improve rapidly as
the economics begin to centre on the recently discovered and rapidly growing sweet spots at
Oculto, i.e. El Tesoro.
Once the updated resource report is with us, ABRA plans to use it as the basis for its next major
milestone, a Pre-Feas Study (PFS) expected to be published in the first half of 2023. That will
supersede the current PEA in both reliability and with more contemporary input numbers but
with the recent excellent drilling success, there’s every reason to expect project economics will
improve and no matter those lower silver prices.
The bottom line to Diablillos is that it’s probably the most exciting exploration and development
project in South America today, despite its reliance of fickle silver for its main economics. It
already has a baseline PEA from which to work and despite the lower prices for silver and
inflationary pulse seen in the sector since its publication will almost certainly have more robust
economics when its PFS comes around in 2023. That’s due to good, old fashion drillbit success
and a geology team that now has the proverbial tiger by the tail at the project. The string of
impressive assay results and especially the spectacular hole #45 as Phase 3 kicks off point us in
the right direction and silver project or not, we’d all be wise to pay special attention to ABRA
when it reports its resource update later this quarter.
La Coipita: But even that isn’t the end of the 2022 good news from ABRA because it now has
a second string to its bow in the shape of La Coipita. This a large, early stage exploration
property in the San Juan province of Argentina, up in the heights and near the frontier with
Chile. Readers of these pages are likely to know that this is porphyry copper country and
indeed, La Coipita is being explored and developed with that theory in mind. After doing its
baseline work and target generation, this year saw the first drilling done by ABRA at La Coipita
and the initial results from the two holes out in before the Andean winter closed down the
season are worthy of consideration, as seen in the June 28th NR (12) “AbraSilver Discovers
Significant New Copper-Gold-Molybdenum Porphyry System at the La Coipita Project in San
Juan, Argentina”. Here’s the results table from that NR (right):
The latest ABRA corporate presentation is dated September 5th (13), a PDF that’s due updated
with the latest spectacular drill numbers out of Diablillos but in the section on La Coipita, the
schematic seen below gives a good overview of the two holes to date and what they might
mean. Hole 22-001 is the least impressive and after hitting some inconclusive epithermal
veining finally found something of interest at the very bottom of the hole. That’s being loosely
interpreted as the top of the porphyry system by ABRA, but the real interest comes from hole
22-002:
9

It’s still early days at La Coipita, but the hit from the bottom of that 1.2km hole has justified
every dollar spent on it so far (see below). The job at hand now is to design a follow-up drill
program to try and located the centre of the porphyry and according to the company literature;
the next phase is at the planning stage and with the Andean exploration season now at-hand,
we should have news soon.
Ultimately as with all of these mega-large systems, the combination of tonnage, grade and
depth will decide whether they have a viable and economic copper or copper/gold discovery on
their hands here. That will take more exploration and drilling but, as first pass exploration
campaigns go, ABRA is off to a fine start here. As for valuation, it’s still obviously a minor part
of the overall package and the ABRA share price is far more likely to rise or fall on the back of
Diablillos than La Coipita for the foreseeable future, but this has the potential to add value and
there’s always the chance that they get lucky and can outline the next massive Andean
porphyry discovery.
Updating corporate financials
Most of the following charts are straightforward updates from the data compiled and published
in our original note in IKN675 and the good news is that there aren’t any big surprises in how
ABRA has developed as 2022 has run its course. But there are a couple of extra charts giving
more detail on the cash burn breakdown as that’s the most interesting change we’ve seen as
the company accelerates its exploration cadence.
We begin with the boring stuff and balance sheet assets and liabilities. The latter is easy, ABRA
is one of those optimum state explorecos with nothing worth writing home about on its liability
ledger. As for assets, the company still expenses everything so there’s not accrual of fixed
assets as yet, so the totals fall as the cash is burned. 100% normal situation.
ABRA.v: Assets
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
As liabilities are tiny and the books here are simplicity squared, the cash position (below left) is
10
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
$m ABRA.v: Liabilities per qtr
10
fixed 9
other current 8
cash 7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
source: company filings
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
source: company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
LT liabs
current liabs

for all intents and purposes the working capital position (below right). As at end 2q22 (June
30th) ABRA reported a treasury position of C$13.091m and that’s a decent wedge of cash, so
they will be good for the rest of 2022 and into 2023, however…
24 ABRA.v: Working Capital per qtr
22
20
18 16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2
...this next chart below left shows that ABRA is not hanging around any longer on its plans.
With Diablillos now being drilled aggressively and La Coipita with its own dedicated drill
program just started and expected to continue, the burn rate per quarter has moved sharply
higher. ABRA does allay some of that by paying for some of the drilling in shares, but it’s a
minor amount compared to the whole and in 2q22, between the totals for admin and
exploration/evaluation, they spent nearly C$9m. Speculate to accumulate, they say.
We break down that overall cash burn into component parts to see where it’s all going. Above
right is the breakdown of admin, in which we see those share-based payments continue to
make up a fair chunk of the total. However, the increase in G&A is a tell on the more intense
level of activity at the company in the last couple of quarters and Andean winter seasonality
aside, we should expect that quickening trend to continue. Below we have the breakdown for
exploration and evaluation expenses, which we break down into Diablillos drilling/other and La
Coipita drilling/other (plus some very minor money used in other places) in the chart below left.
Here we see how cash burn has accelerated into 2022 and with the Phase 3 drill program
starting where Phase 2 left off, plus a new program planned for La Coipita once the Andean
winter is over, this burn rate is now here to stay. To the right I’ve also cut and sliced the
“drilling only” expenses into quarterly columns to show the acceleration in another way:
11
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
source company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
ABRA.v: Cash treasury per qtr
26
24
22
20 18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
source: company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
ABRA.v: Admin, Exploration/Evaluation expenses
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
$m ABRA.v: Admin expenses
1.8
1.6
eval & exp 1.4
total admin exp 1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
source: company filings/IKN ests
91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2
C$m
other exp
share payments salaries etc
prof fee
G&A
consult fee
source: company filings
C$m ABRA: exploration and evaluation expenses, per qtr ABRA: Drilling expenses only, per qtr
C$m
8
5.0
other
7 4.5
6 other La Coipita 4.0 Drilling La Coipita
Drilling La Coipita 3.5 Drilling Diablillos
5 other Diablillos 3.0
4 Drilling Diablillos 2.5
3 2.0
1.5
2 1.0
1 0.5
0 0.0
1q20 2q20 3q20 4q20 1q21 2q21 3q21 4q21 1q22 2q22
1q20 2q20 3q20 4q20 1q21 2q21 3q21 4q21 1q22 2q22
source: company filings, IKN calcs source: company filings, IKN calcs

What this tells us is that the $13m in treasury at the end of 2q22 isn’t going to last as long as
many suppose. Yes it’s good for all plans for this
year and probably into 1q23, but after that we ABRA.v: Shares Out
should expect cash to look thin and as a result, we
should expect ABRA to go back to market at some
point in 1q23, maybe even sooner if it thinks it
strategically.
Which brings us to another of ABRA’s weaker
suits, that of share count that has quietly
ballooned to 495.22m as at the latest information
and should top 500m soon enough, even without
another round of financing. That’s a lot of shares
out and while major sponsor Eric Sprott owns
some 12.6% of them, he also declined to exercise 26m warrants priced at 17c in July and that
was a surprise, considering the equity he would have got from them. For a better look, here’s
the revised and updated corporate structure rundown:
Shares out: 495.22m
Options: 25.2m
Warrants: 75.68m
Fully diluted: 596.1m
Current share price: C$0.42
Market Cap: C$208.0m
Approx cash per S/O: 2.5c
All prices are in Canadian Dollars unless stated. Forex U$0.80=CAD$1
This weekend’s C$0.42 share price puts market cap at C$208m (U$154m) and while you’re
getting plenty of company, project and upside potential from that if silver rebounds in a
more serious style and moves above U$20/oz again, it’s not the cheapest junior exploreco in
the world either and a continuation of our chronically negative market would put the share
price under more pressure.
Discussion and conclusion
As Cicero pointed out, “any man can make a mistake (but) only a fool keeps making the same
one”. In some ways I am happy to have made my “error” in spotting Abrasilver Resource Corp
(ABRA.v) (ABBRF) and opening a speculative position on it in April this year, only to close it
again quickly in May, because its upside potential was already making it stand out against the
normal mediocrity that populates the junior silver scene. It also means that since closing the
stock and battening down the hatches for the current bear market storm, I’ve kept a close eye
on the company and its development. But that doesn’t excuse myself from not making any
money on the back of this company’s share price either, so perhaps the real Cicerian question is
whether my mistake was to sell ABRA or to ignore its obvious development and improvement as
a company since then. With two fronts now open, at the plainly exciting Diablillos project and at
the potential porphyry copper discovery now in its hands at La Coipita, there’s a lot to like and
even for me, no fan of silver plays, the compelling nature of the holes coming out of Diablillos
are impossible to ignore. The high grade El Tesoro zone is delivering in spades on its potential
and the outlying zones showing tremendous resource growth upside, but the one that tipped
the balance and got me back writing on the company was the hole #45, delivered last week
and basically ignored by the market.
That was completely unfair, holes like that one come along rarely if ever and alongside the
series of impressive successes this year, mean that the Diablillos resource count is about to
expand in a big way when it comes to the update later this quarter, probably November or
December. We are facing a rare and very welcome situation where even with a lower silver
base case price, ABRA should expand tonnage and grade as well as adding significant by-
product credits via gold to the current resource (which at 90m oz Ag was already nothing to
12
67.942 67.942 67.472 004
82.904 80.724 87.154 47.854 20.574 33.084 53.784 22.594
600
550
500
450
400
350
300 250
200
150
100
50
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 tse22q3
source: company filings
serahs
fo
snoillim

sniff at). With La Coipita as a live second string to add value (or perhaps be the spinco asset on
the day Fortuna Silver or some other company snaps up Dibalillos), those with more conviction
about silver trades than I should be in this stock already and certainly at these current prices.
However (and I know you knew this was coming), my general aversion to silver trades these
days means I am going to take a pass on ABRA for the time being. The current IKN edict to
keep powder dry is the right one and while I was tempted to the point where I buy a few Pure
Gold (PGM.v) for a speculative dab at that company’s near-term turnaround potential, it’s easier
to stick to my guns for the time being and not buy back ABRA, even with that stellar drill hole
from last week and the potential of more like it in the works.
But that’s just me and the real verdict is one you can consider on its own merits. If you like
silver going forward, look no further than Abrasilver (ABRA.v) for the best value exploreco in
LatAm today. This company ticks all the boxes at the moment with cash to go exploring, a
exciting discovery on which its geologists now have a handle and are returning impressive drill
assay after assay, an intriguing or even promising second asset that could be anything and a
low enough profile to have stayed at an eminently buyable price, as long as you are sure that
silver bullion is going to trade more bullishly in the future. That’s the risk you’re taking, but if
you are into silver you’ll want to be long ABRA before it delivers what promises to be a game-
changing resource update later this 4q22 quarter and a PFS that will open a lot of people’s eyes
to what high grade hits can do to an open pit mine project in 2q23. A good company with a
great asset that should be priced much higher than today’s 42c.
Stocks to Follow
A positive week (at last) in which GDX rebounded by 7.5% and GDXJ by 9.1%, but the copper
and base metals sectors didn’t do as well as their precious metals sisters and brothers. With
that backdrop you’d expect our Stocks to Follow list to have plenty of decent winners and while
it wasn’t all milk and honey, there were plenty of big percentage winners in the mix including
Newcore Gold (NCAU.v up 15.9%), Chesapeake Gold (CKG.v up 10.5%), QC Copper & Gold
(QCCU.v up 10.3%), Superior Gold (SGI.v up 10.0%) Altiplano (APN.v up 10.0%), Anacortes
(XYZ.v up 10.0%) as well as honourable mentions for biggest copper trade Amerigo (ARG.to up
7.8%) and biggest personal position of all, Minera Alamos (MAI.v up 6.7%).
With the addition of Pure Gold (PGM.v) to the list last week we now have 17 stocks under
active or Watchlist coverage, three below our self-imposed limit. Just two blobs of green and
that sucks.
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$0.48 128.6% $1.14 tgt, #1 idea on FY22 dev
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Amerigo Res ARG.to STR BUY C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$0.97 -28.7% CheapCu w/low downside risk
Superior Gold SGI.v STR BUY C$0.95 3-Apr-22 C$0.38 -60.0% Needs to improve by Q4
QC Copper&Gold QCCU.v BUY C$0.275 25-Apr-21 C$0.16 -41.8% Now drilling. Easy hold
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v HOLD C$0.83 22-Apr-18 C$0.12 -85.5% Cheap on permit probs, appeal
SPECULATIVE TRADES
Chesapeake Gold CKG.v SPEC BUY C$3.07 20-Feb-22 C$2.00 -34.9% Au leverage, small trade so far
Pure Gold PGM.v SPEC BUY C$0.14 26-Sep-22 C$0.14 0.0% spec turnround trade, Au in Ca
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.67 -6.9% trying patience
Palamina Corp PA.v SPEC BUY C$0.295 21-Nov-21 C$0.06 -79.7% Au expl in S.Peru
Altiplano Metals APN.v HOLD C$0.31 17-Sep-21 C$0.22 -29.0% Cheap entry, plan on track.
Minera IRL MIRL.cse hold C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.09 -53.8% CEO change will move stock
13

A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
Newcore Gold NCAU.v SPEC BUY C$0.51 20-Mar-22 C$0.255 -50.0% potential gold exploreco trade
ATAC Res ATC.v SPEC BUY C$0.095 11-Sep-22 C$0.08 -15.8% V cheap Yukon neighbour play
Electra Battery ELBM.v WATCH C$5.31 20-Mar-22 C$3.83 -27.9% potential battery metals play
Anacortes Mining XYZ.v WATCH C$0.49 22-Jul-22 C$0.55 12.2% potential gold exploreco trade
Goldshore Res GSHR.v WATCH C$0.33 22-Jul-22 C$0.195 -40.9% potential gold exploreco trade
Western Copper WRN.to SPEC BUY C$2.41 20-Mar-22 C$1.75 -27.4% potential copper trade
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.66 6-Dec-20 C$0.53 -19.7% LT bet, adding slowly
CLOSED TRADES IN 2022 date 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
Copper Mountain CMMC.to Feb'22 C$3.40 18-Jun-21 C$3.70 8.8% Sold rest on FY22 guidance
Trilogy Metals TMQ Mar'22 U$1.84 15-Sep-19 U$1.04 -41.3% killed by US permit reversal
McEwen Mining MUX Apr'22 U$0.89 2-Jan-22 U$0.82 -7.9% No 2022 turnaround, cut loss
Abrasilver Res. ABRA.v May'22 C$0.42 24-Apr-22 C$0.33 -21.4% sold to reduce Ag exposure
Strategic Metals SMD.v May'22 C$0.42 31-Jan-21 C$0.30 -28.6% trade flatlined 1.5 years
Discovery Silver DSV.v Jun'22 C$1.77 24-Oct-21 C$1.39 -21.5% Cutting Ag exp.& raising cash
Element 29 ECU.v Jul'22 C$0.58 6-Mar-22 C$0.30 -48.3% sold to cut Cu exposure
2015 to 2021 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
Now for a few notes on some of the covered companies:
Pure Gold (PGM.v): POSITION OPENED. As noted (threatened?) last weekend in IKN697 I
have opened a trade in PGM and taken a small position in the stock.
And to repeat: It’s a small position.
If and when this foothold trade gets bigger you’ll hear about the decision beforehand, for the
moment and even while placing a few gambling
chips on this trade last week I am trying hard to
keep powder dry. As for trading, PGM even did
me the favour of dropping back to the 13c and
14c level and it was easy to position at the 14c
line.
We now wait for the carefully orchestrated
newsflow strategy to start playing out and the
first of the series of NRs, the 3q22 preliminary
production numbers, is likely in the second week
of this month. If it comes next week it would
probably mean good news, what with the way
that tends to travel fastest in this sector of ours.
Minera Alamos (MAI.v): I spoke with MAI President Doug Ramshaw last week and he told
me that the 43-101 for Cerro de Oro is done, it’s in with
the market authorities but they didn’t have enough time
to complete the standard review of contents and
greenlight the publication by the time Friday trading was
done. So Ramshaw misses his September deadline and
that’s his cross to bear, the good news is that we can
now confidently expect the elusive document to show up
tomorrow Monday. I don’t know whether the stock will
be halted or not on the news and I still don’t know any
of its contents, but I know a potential price catalyst
14

when I smell one. In trading, MAI seemed to get the wind behind its sails on Friday and that
may be because of the imminent publication of the CdO 43-101. A good finish to the week and
certainly better than the selling on Monday, which took the stock right back to 42c on several
occasions midweek and even saw it trade briefly at 41.5c intraday. That was a painful personal
moment, as the “double plus” profit I have in this position was under threat for a while.
Minera IRL (MIRL.cse): You would not know it from the company, but local newspaper
reports in Peru tell of a protest both in and outside the Corihuarmi mine of Minera IRL that has
shut down production, with protests centred on supposed water pollution by the company as
well as some locals saying that the company has usurped part of their landholdings. The mine
has been closed for 11 days and according to the news reports, is likely to stay that way until at
least October 5th when the two warring sides are due to sit down at the negotiation table.
ATAC Resources (ATC.v): Without ever placing a
bid or thinking seriously about a purchase, I spent
more than one day watching ATC with half an eye
and thinking about its trade patterns while placing a
little money into PGM. The impression is that for a
stock that traded down at 7.5c and 8c last week it
wasn’t that easy to buy and anytime a bid appeared
the asks would melt away…normal, I suppose.
I see no reason to rush into this stock or pay above
10c, on the other hand you’ll be lucky to get width at
8c.
Superior Gold (SGI.v): Off-radar and unloved, SGI
did nothing on Thursday before a flurry of buying
moved the price up to something slightly (only
slightly) less embarrassing come the close Friday.
This stock owes us production news for Q3 and it has
to deliver improvements on the first two quarters of
this year. Not asking the world, but am asking for
incremental growth and a mine that has its costs
under control.
Goldshore Resources (GSHR.v): More drill results
from GSHR out of Moss Lake last week, with the
Thursday 29th NR (14) and a headline assay an eye-catching “192.75m @ 1.02 g/t Au from
94.45m depth in MMD-22-051.” Not exactly at surface either, but a good width of mineralization
and at the grades you want for Moss Lake.
However (there’s always a but), not only were the other mineralized intersects either patchy,
deep or both…
15

…but the company also made them look like serious candidates for a resource and eventual
mining. Now, I’m fine with the general plan at Moss Lake, but just by making the roughest of
guesses on a couple of pit shells…
…I can’t help but feel as though the smaller outline in blue will have a far greater chance of
becoming a real mine, or at least moving forward to PEA or PFS stage, then the massive hole
they’d need to dig and the strip rate it would imply in order to being that deeper stuff into play.
Now be clear, I’m no geologist and never pretend to be one, so if the company can explain why
my conceptual pit walls are simply ridiculous and there’s every reason to include deep 1g/t
material in a 10 year mine plan then I am more than willing to correct myself in print.. I am,
after all, watching this stock with the view to making it a trade if the market turns and
rebounds at some point. But my basic assumptions are also things that a company keen on
marketing itself to retail have to consider and at
least discard if wrong, or explain why a “classic
open pit situation isn’t the way forward here.
The stock managed to put in a rebound last
week and that is both welcome and overdue,
but as this stock has a tendency of rallying into
the bear trend, there’s nothing to suggest the
tide has changed here, either. Way back in April
this year I had a dig at GSHR on the open blog
just after a high-traffic newsletter re-
recommended it to its subscribers (in a version
of “If you liked it at $1 you’ll love it at 40c!”)
and caused the bounce you see highlighted by
the red box. The title line for the post that day
was (15) “At some point the paid pumpers will be right”, which is as true now as it was then,
except for the subsequent price drop. I got that right back then too.
All in all, though GSHR has obvious upside and rebound potential I see no reason to buy that
chart until such time as gold confirms a change in its tidal direction, this stock may be a more
attractive proposition to wait until it gets back above 30c and then but the 31c to 50c move.
The Copper Basket
After thirty-nine weeks of 2022, The Copper Basket shows a loss of 48.42% level stakes:
16

company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 Copper Mtn CMMC.to 3.42 210.166 323.66 1.54 -55.0%
2 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.77 88.118 274.93 3.12 -17.2%
3 Western Copper WRN.to 2.00 151.451 265.04 1.75 -12.5%
4 Oroco Res OCO.v 2.04 203.4 160.69 0.79 -61.3%
5 Nevada Copper NCU.to 0.71 448.437 100.90 0.225 -68.3%
6 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.84 138.401 92.73 0.67 -20.2%
7 Regulus Res. REG.v 1.06 101.85 89.63 0.88 -17.0%
8 Hot Chili HCH.v 1.53 109.223 83.01 0.76 -50.3%
9 Meridian Min MNO.to 1.18 153.735 72.26 0.47 -60.2%
10 C3 Metals CCCM.v 0.16 645.379 32.27 0.05 -68.8%
11 Kutcho Copper KC.v 0.88 103.94 25.47 0.245 -72.2%
12 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.58 79.24 21.79 0.275 -52.6%
13 Doré Copper DCMC.v 0.79 66.123 20.83 0.315 -60.1%
14 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.34 129.06 20.65 0.16 -52.9%
15 Coast Copper COCO.v 0.13 41.335 2.27 0.055 -57.7%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg -48.42%
A slight surprise for this desk, as our Copper Basket filled with largely smaller and junior copper
names failed to rebound with the metal or the larger copper stocks last week. This ten-day
chart of the continuous copper contract (HG00) and the copper producer’s ETF (COPX) shows
there’s still a way to go, but the complex rebounded last week and clawed back most of the
heavy gains of the week before last.
Not so The Copper Basket, which for its own reasons had just four winners (CMMC.to, WRN.to,
QCCU.v, COCO.v) and one other unchanged stock (CCCM.v), which leaves ten losers and that’s
a lot. So are some of the percentage drops seen
by component stock, with the big losers Meridian 10% The Copper Basket 2022, weekly evolution
(MNO.to down 19.7%), Kutcho (KC.v down 0%
14.0%), Nevada (NCU.to down 13.5%), Dore
-10%
(DCMC.v down 12.5%) and Hot Chili (HCH.v
-20%
down 11.6%). This may be due to end-quarter
-30%
adjustments or it may be due to the newsflow
-40%
we saw from some of these companies (see
-50%
below) as they cleaned up their slates for Q4,
-60%
but the result was to see the basket average
drop by around 2%.
As it’s the end of another quarter, we take another snapshot this weekend and consider the
comparative performance of Copper Basket components in 2022 YTD:
17
ts1naJ ht9naJ ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31 ht02 ht72 t6raM ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3rpA ht01 ht71 ht42 1yam ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5nuj ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3yluj ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 t7gua ht41 ts12 ht82 t4pes ht11 ht81 ht52 n2tco
source: IKN calcs

The 2022 Copper Basket components after 39 weeks
18
%5.21- %0.71- %2.71- %2.02- %3.05- %6.25- %9.25- %7.75- %1.06- %2.06- %3.16- %3.86- %8.86- %8.86- %2.27-
60%
40%
20%
0%
-20%
-40%
-60%
-80%
-100%
ot.NRW v.GER ot.IRAM v.EDLA v.HCH v.UCE v.UCCQ v.OCOC v.CMCD v.ONM v.OCO ot.UCN ot.CMMC v.MCCC v.CK
source: TSX, IKN calcs
A desolate scene indeed, with just four “less worse” performers among our 15 basket stocks as
Western, Regulus, Marimaca and Aldebaran have managed to keep losses down…at least
compared to the rest. And while the four companies have plenty of differences in jurisdictions,
level of advancement etc they all have the notable similarity of chasing after big multi-billion
pound copper deposits that will need plenty capex for development and offer large-scale mining
for the eventual buyer. Aside those four, it’s desperate stuff with 11 stocks all having lost at
least 50% and it’s not easy to make much of a difference between this pack of losers. Perhaps
we should point to the relatively out-sized losses suffered in Q3 by Dore Copper (DCMC.v) and
Copper Mountain (CMMC.to) to make others feel a little better, but that’s cold comfort at best.
Moving to the week’s copper macro news, there was a distinct change in tone in the media
wires on copper. Call me cynical as I didn’t buy all the ChinaFears! Doom and gloom in the last
couple of weeks either, but this week also looks like a case of reporters faced with a suite of
numbers they need to justify and pencilling in post-facto reasons, only this time to the upside.
This note (16) entitled “Copper price slump brings Chinese buyers out in force” told us that
“while the rest of the world worries about recession, China is steadily increasing its imports of
physical copper” and fits closely with this desk’s thoughts on how copper is different in this
price cycle and how real demand will save it from the worst of the financial market’s ravages.
Then this note (17) comes with the title “Shanghai copper rises on tight stocks position,
improving demand” and reports on the improvement in sentiment late week, here’s an excerpt:
Copper prices in Shanghai rose on Thursday, as tight inventories and improving
consumption of the metal in top user China lent support.
The most-traded November copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange
SCFcv1 rose 1.1% to 60,830 yuan ($8,453.19) a tonne at 0648 GMT.
The commercial property market in China is badly hurt, but demand for copper from
other areas like infrastructure projects or renewables picked up amid the government’s
policy support and accommodating weather conditions at the end of the rainy season,
said He Tianyu, a copper analyst at CRU.
Tight supply in some areas of China also helped, said He.
Finally, this note (18) entitled “Most base metals rise on upbeat Chinese demand outlook” re-
capped the week after the Friday close, noted the main China macro stat of the week (so that I
don’t have to) and came away with an upbeat tone for the week to come. Your extract:
China’s factory activity unexpectedly expanded in September, returning to growth after
two consecutive months of contraction.
The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) edged up to 50.1 in
September, from 49.4 in August, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
And…
Most base metals rose on Friday after higher-than-expected China factory data buoyed
demand outlook from the world’s biggest metal consumer, with sentiment aided by a
possible ban on Russian metals delivered to the London Metals Exchange (LME).
Plenty of reasons given, but the main one is that real demand for real metal remains really

strong in the country that uses over 50% of the world’s copper. The mooted ban on Russian
metals through LME may happen in the week to come and while it would crimp perhaps 4% of
copper from the world’s main market, we already know where the vast majority of its produced
copper is going and that won’t change. All well and good, let’s see if the collective of metals
journalism looks for reasons or excuses this time next weekend.
There was some more interesting macro news last week however, when Wood Mackenzie
presented (19) on the long-term market for copper and while that entire link is well worth your
time (for one thing, it’s bullish) this chart taken from the presentation gives the idea:
Woodmac is forecasting a slight surplus for 2023 and market neutrality to 2025, but after that
they see a clear and growing supply deficit in copper developing that’s only going to get worse
as the years click on. There have been no end of “Copper Is The Future” op-eds of this style
recently and that’s fair enough, but getting it from an outfit such as Woodmac lends the bullish
view an air of reality. The long lead times needed for the real world of copper/base metals
mining aren’t the same as those used by the market speculator (e.g. me) to make money in
stocks, but at some point the long-term trend is going to prop and push metals prices higher on
a permanent basis. Again, nothing new in this message for a sophisticated audience such as
this one but it’s also the baseline, fundamental reason why your author is bullish copper and
found it so tough to trade out behind the recent price drop. The above chart explains why end
users are keen on securing supply, why inventory levels remain low and why Chinese demand
continues to be buoyant; ultimately, its well documented stimulus measures that are now
kicking in are little more than an exercise in bringing forward demand from future years (at a
cost that the State deems reasonable).
Moving on (before I start sounding too bullish), the end of the quarter is also the end of the
month and that means we run our long-term copper inventory tracking charts, as well as the
regular weekly segment. Here’s the main chart and while there was some slight improvement in
overall stocks levels last month (far right of the chart), the longer trend shows how tight
inventories are compared to the last decade:
Key Cu inventory aggregate, 2012 to date
1000000
900000
800000
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
19
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes
Mt Cu
Comex
Shanghai
LME
source: Cochilco

The percentage split chart shows how the LME is the Daddy and is now close to its typical
upper level for holdings compared with the others. Meanwhile the SHFE is at historical lows.
Copper inventories: percentage held per exchange
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
20
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes
LME Shanghai Comex source: Cochilco
Overall there’s little change on the month so with no further ado, we move to the weekly check
on movements in world copper stocks, data from Cochilco (20):
 There was no follow-up on the inventory increases of the week before last and the
three world systems had an overall neutral week, down just 291 metric tonnes (mt) to
close Friday at 206,667mt. If last week’s near-20,000mt turns out to be a flash in the
pan, it will help the bullish side of the equation no end.
 The SHFE and the LME played arbitrage, it seems. At the SHFE, stocks dropped another
6,438mt from an already very tight level to close the week at 30,459mt.
 Meanwhile at the LME, we had a near equal
and opposite reaction as stocks increased by
6,250mt to close at 135,250mt, according to
Cochilco. Cancelled warrants levels remain
low at just 8,100mt earmarked for delivery.
 Finally at the Comex, a small drop in overall
inventories of 103mt for a total under roof
this weekend of 40,958mt. No biggie.
The dedicated SHFE charts show the continued low
levels but as noted last weekend, the way 2022 has now touched the 2021 line in the second
chart below is an indication of how the market is now getting used the these low stock levels in
Shanghai.
Shanghai Futures Exchange Warehouse Stocks, 2014 to date
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
31'13ceD dr32 ht02 ht51 ht01 ht5tco ht03 ht52 dn22 ht71 ht21 ht6pes ts1von 5102ht72ced ts12 ht71 ht21 ht7guA dn2tcO ht4ceD ht92 ht62 ts12 ht61 ht01 7102
ht5von
ts13 ht52 dn22 ht42 ht91 ht41 ht9 9102
dr3bef
ts13 ht62 ts12 ht51 ht01 0202ht5naj 0202ts1ram ht62 ts12 ht61 ht11 0202ht6ced ts13 ht82 dr32 ht81 ht21 ht7 2202dn2naj ht72 ht42 ht91 ht41
LME: Cu tonnage under cancelled warrant
Mt Cu
|
source: Cochilco
00142 52074 57334 00714 52045 05205 52027 52418 52926 05694 57332 52271 05761 52511 57471 52581 52862 00642 00743 57924 00914 52975 05174 05803 04441 0588 0018
100000
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000 40000 30000
20000
10000
0
dr3rpa ht01 ht71 ht42 1.yam ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5nuj ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3yluj ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7gua ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4pes ht11 ht81 ht52 dn2tco
mt Cu
source: Cochilco

SHFE copper inventory levels, 2018 to 2022
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
21
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 01 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 02 12 22 32 42 52 62 72 82 92 03 13 23 33 43 53 63 73 83 93 04 14 24 34 44 54 64 74 84 94 05 15 25
MT Cu 2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
source: Cochilco data
Now for of notes on a handful of our basket stocks:
Nevada Copper (NCU.to): This stock dumped again on this NR (21) dated September 26ht
which laid out the cruel reality behind the recent corporate structure re-working that saw the
stock rally (to my own surprise). For some reason, people seemed to think that a refi that lifted
the de factor defaulted debt away from the company and benefited its major backers would
leave the share price unaffected and with plenty of upside. Not so, as the re-formulation (if
accepted by all sides) means Lake Titicaca level
equity dilution and a share count that would
balloon from the current 448m to just under
1.2Bn shares out, with Iorich’s Pala holding 56%
of shares out and the other main creditor
Mercuria with 24%.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. If we
suppose 1.2Bn share out and a relatively clean
balance sheet as it moves into 2023, it’s then up
to the company to make good on its operational
turnaround plans and make Pumpkin Hollow
profitable (and that alone would be after many
years of trying and failing). So even if it’s
successful, the market will be in “show me” mode and there’s no reason why this company
should be priced above a C$240m market cap until then…i.e. this share price is going under 20c
(1.2Bn x 0.20 = 240m) and I would expect to see even lower, perhaps 15c, before it starts
bottoming out.
Element 29 (ECU.v): Last Tuesday September 27th ECU.v announced (22) an “Initial Mineral
Resource Estimate for the Elida Porphyry Copper Deposit in Peru” and rather than beat about
the bush, let’s state up front that it was rather disappointing and the market reaction deserves.
Two reasons, with the first one showing up in the main resource table:
The 0.2% Cu cut-off is reasonable, but the overall grade is low (the rule of thumb that stands

your exploreco resource in good stead is that the grade should be at least double the cut). I’ve
included the whole table as well, because we can see how the tonnage drops rapidly as the cut-
off increases (and in fact, Elida would be more attractive if the world thought the 0.10% cut
were robust enough…it’s not). I cannot get away from the feeling that ECU would have been
better off without this early-stage resource marker and should have drilled in other zones of
Elida before drawing this line in the sand. That brings up the final part of the CEO comment
from Steven Stakiw and the potential silver lining to the show:
“Our evaluation of the Elida deposit’s potential is still at an early stage and we see
strong resource growth potential given this initial mineral resource estimate covers only
a portion of our Zone 1 porphyry, one of five porphyry centres we have identified on the
project for testing.”
That’s fair enough, as the attraction of Elida has always been the exploration potential at the
multiple targets at the concession. From the start, these pages liked Elida for its clear growth
potential but that also begs another obvious question and the second new weak point to this
story: Where are 2022 the drills?
Back at the start of this year, the business plan included drilling at Elida in 3q22 and 4q22. We
know Q3 didn’t see any drilling and now Q4 seems
to be a bust as well, with last week’s NR stating
that, “Initial drill testing of the other zones will also
be planned with the objective of further expanding
mineral resources within the Elida porphyry cluster.”
Being at the planning stage as Q4 kicks off is its
own message.
The Elida MRE numbers are mediocre and while not
dead, the company now needs to drill and show
new and better zones exist at the property.
Meanwhile, the way in which ECU has quietly
elongated the exploration program timeline and
deferred drilling at least two quarters (we’ll find out
how long the delay really is in 2023, I imagine) without coming clean on delays with its
sponsors is now a good optic, either. ECU is one of the stocks I cut from the personal portfolio
midyear while raising cash and getting more defensive and though until last week there wasn’t
much difference between the market and my selling price, that’s turned out to be the right
decision. Be clear, if still a holder I would have run out of patience and sold on last week’s NR.
Meridian Mining (MNO.to): Another basket component, another disappointing MRE on a
project, another price drop on the week. This time it’s Meridian and the first 43-101 reading
from Cabaçal, its copper-gold-silver VMS project in Brazil and here’s the headline table from the
NR (23):
While the overall AuEq grade is fine, this is a small overall resource and it’s also notable that for
what was originally a copper project with a gold kicker, it now gets the majority of theoretical
payable revenue from gold. Without the discovery and development of the discrete gold veining
that lays above the main VMS zone, this wouldn’t have worked and while this desk is the first to
agree with the company that this MRE is very early days at the larger and target-rich Cabaçal
project, they haven’t presented the market with any reason to buy into this story on the back of
this MRE. And that, in a market looking for excuses to liquidate positions and go to cash, is
going to dump your stock.
22

Copper Mountain (CMMC.to): The place to go in the literature published by CMMC last week
is the page 231 of the full 43-101 technical report as filed to SEDAR on Friday evening. That’s
where you get the projected cash flow summary (Table 22-3) and the annual production and
revenue projections for the Copper Mountain mine between 2023 and 2052 (or 2055 if you
think the mine will then close, which is unlikely). There are plenty of things to like in the
presented numbers, including the cash flow projections and how the company expects its
growth project to 2028 to be self-funding from cash flow.
Spreadsheet studies such as this one, with all the details and assumptions of variables that a
happy anal yst such as I could ever wish for, are best taken with a pinch of salt and in the case
of CMMC, they have to prove they are capable of performing to guidance again after the mis-
steps of the past three quarters. However and speaking generally, the company is flagging a
good 2023 of production and revenues thanks to a re-up in overall grade and with production
costs slated at U$1.92/lb Cu (pre-credits), they project on keeping costs in line as well. A lot will
depend on reaching cost guidance and of course, the notable volatility in metals prices means
projections could get screwed either way (CMMC uses U$3.73/lb for 2023 and slightly less in
the future years, which is as good a guess as anyone else’s).
It is tempting to value CMMC on the entire mine plan, slap on a reasonable discount rate and
come up with a price target but this company first needs to show it can deliver over three or
eight quarters before getting the privilege of a valuation based on long-term guidance. And yes,
the company looks cheap on this study if you manage to believe every number they published
in the spread, but for the time being CMMC is best considered as a leveraged speculative trade
on the movements of the copper price, rather than a long-term candidate for strong hands.
They do it to themselves, so I’ll watch and hold out for the time being.
Regulus Resources (REG.v): Here’s a screenshot from the Monday dedicated webinar from
REG (John Black also showed up at the “Copper in the Americas” hour, also run by 6ix on
Friday). This image is one of the series that walked through the current REG timeline for
AntaKori. As you can probably make out, the timeline is solid to mid next year with the
company now expected to cross the finish line for the Colquirrumi earn-in in January, which will
leave partner BVN 90 days to
decide whether to pay U$9m or
let REG take control of a large
area of their own backyard.
Therefore, BVN will pay REG
U$9m (take that to the bank).
Then the resource update is
due mid next year and then
things get slightly woolly, with
“district consolidation” coming
with a question mark and then
a PEA at a time to be decided.
Even if you believe REG and its
neighbours, or perhaps some
new player coming in to the region, achieve “district consolidation” in 2023 (and be clear, I do
not) that timeline isn’t packed with price catalyst moments. Those will have to come from the
ongoing drill campaign and so holders need to look out for the day they test the most promising
zones of AntaKori. REG, being the serious junior it is, will continue to develop its program
sensibly and in its own time.
The Producer Basket
After thirty-nine weeks of 2022, the Producer Basket shows a loss of 20.94% to level stakes:
23

company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 62.02 797.44 33.52 42.03 -32.2%
2 Barrick GOLD 19.00 1779 27.57 15.50 -18.4%
3 Franco-Nevada FNV 138.29 191.192 22.84 119.48 -13.6%
4 Agnico Eagle AEM 53.14 454.904 19.21 42.23 -20.5%
5 Wheaton PM WPM 42.93 450.3 14.57 32.36 -24.6%
6 Gold Fields GFI 10.99 887.72 7.18 8.09 -26.4%
7 Kinross Gold KGC 5.81 1296.5 4.87 3.76 -35.3%
8 B2Gold BTG 3.93 1055.6 3.40 3.22 -18.1%
9 Alamos Gold AGI 7.69 392.503 2.91 7.41 -3.6%
10 Sandstorm SAND 6.20 191.4 0.99 5.17 -16.6%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg -20.94%
Up to last week Sandstorm was one of the better performers and had a chance of finishing
3q22 in the green, but last week’s news out of the company (see below) put paid to that. So
instead of our basket of 10 stocks out-performing the +7.5% move in GDX, we under-
performed by half a point or so due to having just nine winners out of ten. Down at the bottom,
Sandstorm Gold (SAND) managed to lose 7.5% week-over-week, a neat reflection of the
benchmark.
As for the other stocks on our list, as they are apparently managed by people who can add,
subtract, multiply and divide they all managed to put in gains on the week, with the best moves
down with the smaller market caps such as Special K (KGC up 13.6$), Gold Fields (GFI up
13.2%), and Alamos (AGI up 10.1%). All in all, a good week and even with the hole blown in
the average by Nolan Watson’s myopia 101 management style, we still have a 2% lead on the
benchmark as we enter the last quarter of the year.
The 2022 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and
40% comparative to GDX control
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
It’s the end of the quarter and in the same style as The Copper Basket above, that means we
take a snapshot of the relative performance of our ten charges and here below is the visual:
In the same way as end 2q22, all ten of
our companies are negative for the year,
but since end Q2 all bar one of the
stocks have dropped further (reflect on
that as we note our ten are currently
beating the street). The least worst this
time is Alamos and AGI is the only one
even close to the UNCH line, then comes
Franco-Nevada and the highly annoying
SAND, after that the median revolves
around the -20% line. As for the worst
performer in the quarter, that was easily
Newmont (NEM) as it lost over 30% and
24
ts1naJ ht9naJ ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31 ht02 ht72 t6ram ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3rpa ht01 ht71 ht42 1yam ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5nuj ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3luj ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7 ht41 ts12 ht82 t4pes ht11 ht81 ht52 n2tco
The 2022 Producer Basket: Percentage difference
5.0% between GDX benchmark & basket (negative = IKN ahead)
ikn 4.0%
gdx control 3.0%
2.0%
1.0%
0.0%
-1.0%
-2.0%
-3.0%
source: NYSE, IKN Calcs -4.0%
ts1naJ ht9naJ ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31 ht02 ht72 t6ram ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3rpa ht01 ht71 ht42 1yam ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5nuj ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3luj ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7 ht41 ts12 ht82 t4pes ht11 ht81 ht52 n2tco
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data
The 2022 Producer Basket components after 39 weeks
%6.3-
%6.31- %6.61- %1.81- %4.81- %5.02-
%6.42- %4.62-
%2.23- %3.53-
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
-30%
-40%
-50%
AGI FNV SAND BTG GOLD AEM WPM GFI NEM KGC
source: NYSE, IKN calcs

mostly around its poorly received 2q22 financials (which I still think got a worse rap than they
deserved and I don’t really see why GOLD got off with far less damage done, but that’s another
story). The tail-ender continues to be KGC but in an ironic twist, Special K is also the only stock
that managed to have a positive 3q22 (though not by much).
Sandstorm Gold (SAND) (SSL.to): I had my rant about this corporate cock-up on the blog
(24) in “Sandstorm (SAND) (SSL.to): Beyond incompetent” on the day the news dropped (in
fact, about 15 minutes after the NR hit, while the visceral reaction was still fresh. So without
going into rant mode again (the title should be enough, link through if you feel in the mood),
let’s merely note that the timing of this bought deal…
“…the Underwriters have agreed to buy from the Company, on a bought deal basis,
15,700,000 common shares (the “Common Shares”), at a price of US$5.10 per
Common Share for gross proceeds to the Company of approximately US$80 million
(the “Offering”). The Company has granted the Underwriters an option, exercisable at
the offering price for a period of 30 days following the closing of the Offering, to
purchase up to an additional 15% of the Offering to cover over-allotments, if any.”
…was almost as bad as the terms included and the
way in which SAND duly watched from below as the
sector rallied without it means that U$80m* has cost
the company around U$200m in market cap.
FWIW I too have also read one of the copypaste mail
replies that was sent out to shareholders by SAND IR,
which tried to explain away the decision in light of the
Fed’s rate hikes (ty reader M) and also FWIW, I
laughed as hard as anyone else. As a previous holder
of SAND shares, I feel suitably fortunate not to be
long into this news as my previous strategy toward
SAND was to coat-tail the bigger money in the stock with the view of SAND being a solid
cornerstone of a mining portfolio. If long, I would have been spitting feathers this weekend.
And again, without lapsing into what I really think about what this deal says about its strategic
vision, it has all the hallmarks of the type of management team I come across all too often in
the junior mining world. The difference is that SAND is supposedly a U$1Bn+ market capper
and trying to attract the sponsorship of serious money. Any more of these moves and the only
attention they’ll attract is the bad type, truly awful corporate management, laid bare by
circumstances.
*More likely U$92m once the overallotment is filled
The TinyCaps List
After thirty-nine weeks of 2022, the TinyCaps show a loss of 35.27% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/22 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aurelius Min AUL.v 0.24 45.836 4.81 0.105 -56.3%
Golden Pursuit GDP.v 0.13 34.638 5.02 0.145 11.5%
Infield Min INFD.v 0.06 48.445 1.45 0.03 -50.0%
Kingfisher Met KFR.v 0.30 103.007 19.57 0.19 -36.7%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.12 57.686 5.77 0.10 -16.7%
Manitou Gold MTU.v 0.06 344.57 17.23 0.05 -16.7%
Melkior Res MKR.v 0.295 24.011 5.40 0.225 -23.7%
Precipitate Gold PRG.v 0.105 129.322 8.41 0.065 -38.1%
Signature Res SGU.v 0.07 238.4 3.58 0.015 -78.6%
Winshear Gold WINS.v 0.08 61.585 2.77 0.045 -43.8%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg -35.27%
25

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 2022. 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.
A better week for the TinyCaps list and while
15% TinyCaps, 2022 weekly tracker
there were still three losers and all of them 10%
dropped big, namely Signature (SGU.v down 5%
0%
25.0%), Aurelius (AUL.v down 16.0%) and
-5%
Golden Pursuit (GDP.v down 14.7%) and three -10%
other unchanged stocks (INFD.v, PRG.v, -15%
-20%
WINS.v), the four winners brought enough to the
-25%
table to tip the balance in our favour. The big -30%
winner was Manitou (MTU.v up 42.9%) but it -35%
-40%
was ably assisted by Kingfisher (KFR.v up
18.8%), Latin Metals (LMS.v up 17.7%) and
Melkior (MKR.v up 4.7%).
Manitou Gold (MTU.v): The assays previously flagged by MTU in early September came back
from the labs last week and were announced in this NR dated September 26th (25), “Manitou
Gold Intersects 208m and 252m at 0.25% Nickel Confirming Significant Nickel-Cobalt Discovery
At Goudreau Project”. Those are genuinely
good holes and with one more to report from
the current scout drill program at this newly
delineated nickel target, MTU now has all the
ammo it needs to push forward with its plans to
spin out its nickel/cobalt/PGE targets at
Goudreau into a newco.
This YTD chart of MTU shows the way it was
sold down to 3c and stayed there for a good
couple of months, despite managing to close a
deal to monetise some of its assets by selling
them to the new Dryden concern (which should
IPO soon). Then the arrows begin, which
denote the string of news surrounding its semi-pivot to nickel exploration:
 First on June 13th, MTU announced the discovery hit of 48m of 0.25% Ni.
 On July 13th they announced more Ni in retrieved drill core and outlined what they
believed to be a “60km structural trend” with promising geology for the new target
metal
 On August 16th, with drilling on two holes underway, they announced the “Intent to
Spin Out Nickel-Cobalt-PGE Commodities” into a newco, dividing up its very large
Goudreau project area
 Then on September 7th it reported visuals on the two holes, both with “over 200m” of
the type of rock you’d want for good Ni assays and announced a third hole in progress
close to the original 48m intercept holes
 Then last week, the results assay that finally managed to move the stock more
meaningfully.
26
dn2naJ ht9
naJ
ht61naJ dr32 ht03 ht6bef ht31 ht02 ht72 ht6ram ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3rpa ht01 ht71 ht42 ts1yam ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5nuj ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3yluj ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7gua ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4pes ht11 ht81 ht52 dn2tco
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

As for the results, you’re advised to check out the whole NR but this section from one of the
maps shows the concept they are working on and, with the results showing wide intercepts of
constantly grading nickel, they may have a real discovery on their hands of a metal that’s
coming into fashion at the right time for the company.
MTU jumped 42.9% on the week, but the YTD chart above shows there’s still no blue sky to the
trading action, even with this potentially game-changing news. There are a lot of shares out
and the overhang of bagholders is likely to create headwinds to the stock’s upside, but at under
C$18m market cap and a plan to spin out “free shares” in what may become an interesting
nickel story, plus the recent Dryden deal that should fund the structure, you’re getting a lot of
optionality for a small priced entry point. We featured MTU in IKN692 dated August 21st in
which went over the plans, considered the Dryden deal for its liquid asset value and came to
the conclusion that it was a high risk play at the 3.5c price of the time but, “…high risk must
also offer high reward to be valid and with this company, you’re now getting plenty of strings to
your bow at a bargain entry point.” That’s still true at today’s 5c price, except that the high risk
of them executing on the plans for a spinco has dropped considerably as the holes reported this
week are real deal intercepts.
For more on this company, perhaps check back on IKN692 but the real place is the company
website. Up big last week and deservedly so, you don’t get to say that very often about a 5c
pennycrapper.
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 are strictly neutral.
Regional politics
Brazil: Lula and Jair to run off on October 30th
The biggest regional politics story by far this weekend is the election in Brazil today Sunday, the
region’s largest and most influential country. We’ll concentrate on the headline Presidential
election and the near straight fight between incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro (very right
wing) and challenger and ex-President Lula da Silva (left wing) and this evening, with 99.99%
of votes counted the preliminary result numbers are (26):
 Lula da Silva: 48.43%
 Jair Bolsonaro: 43.20%
 Simone Trebet: 4.16%
 Ciro Gomes: 3.04%
If confirmed, this means Lula goes into round two as favourite, but the anticipated wave of
protest votes against the Jair Bolsonaro presidency wasn’t strong enough to get him past the
all-important 50%+1 vote majority to win outright this evening. That’s not a big shock, as the
Brazilian presidential election nearly always goes to a run-off, but the real news is that
incumbent President Bolsonaro showed better than nearly all opinion polls had predicted by
27

getting to within 5.23% of Lula. As noted on the blog on Friday (27), the major polling
companies had Lula at least 7 points ahead and some as much as 18, with around half of them
expecting him to win this weekend and without having deep details on the breakdown yet, the
collapse in support of Ciro Gomes, who polled around 9% all year and only got 3% today,
seems to suggest plenty of his supporters voted tactically for Bolsonaro instead of their man. So
we go to the ballotage and Brazil will be red hot for the next four weeks, especially as
Bolsonaro era hasn’t been shy about pushing a “this election is fixed” narrative among his
hardcore right wing support. With shades of USA 2020 in the air, we now have four weeks of
intense politicking and while Lula is still favourite to pick up enough loose votes cast for the
also-ran candidates, particularly the 4.2% who chose Simone Trebet, the scene isn’t quite as
set in stone as many expected and Bolsonaro has a reasonable chance of re-election in a run-
off month that is bound to go highly negative and vitriolic
Colombia: Juan Miguel Durán steps down from the National Mining Agency
Alter taking over from Sylvia Habib in 2020, last week and without warning Juan Miguel Durán
Prieto announced his retirement as President of Colombia’s National Mining Agency (Agencia
Nacional de Minería, ANM) via Twitter by publishing the official letter previously sent to Mining
Minister, Irene Vélez. The letter had nothing but normal protocol wording, but the timing of his
retirement at the start of the Petro presidency and to a Minister who has garnered plenty of
controversy in her short tenure is notable (28).
Argentina and the debate over the “Mining Dollar”
The world of foreign exchange in Argentina is a weird subject at the best of times, so today
we’re not going to delve too far down that particular rabbit hole. Our job is to explain the
debate surrounding the potential benefits and breaks Argentina’s government is looking to offer
FDI in order that they come in and develop its mining sector and for that, we need to get a
handle on one of the mooted ideas, that of the “Mining Dollar”.
The best way of doing so is to consider the current deferential forex rates in the country, as the
“official” rate of 147 Pesos (ARS) to the Dollar sits far below the street rate for the currency, so
so-called “Dolar Blue” that currently
fluctuates around the 280/1 level. It
therefore stands to reason that formal
industrial sectors get a bad deal if they do
business in US Dollars and then have to
exchange their foreign currency for Pesos at
the official rate in order to do their books,
pay their taxes etc. To that end, and in order
to incentivize companies to work inside the
law and use official channels, the
government recently enacted a benefit
scheme for the country’s single largest
export and major US Dollar supply, that of
the soybean industry. During September this
year, the harvest season month in which
most soybeans are moved/bought/sold in the
country, the new government Economy team
under the auspices of “Superminister” Sergio Massa enacted the “Dólar Soja”, or Soybean
Dollar, which allowed those companies liquidating payments in USD to get a preferential rate of
200 Pesos for every USD they banked, thereby cutting evasion and getting more USD into the
country’s official system at a critical time. The initiative was a success, Argentina has seen
U$8.1Bn make its way into Central Bank Reserves from soybean sales during the period, its
foreign reserves boosted and all at a time when it needed to make critical debt servicing
payments to the IMF in order to maintain its side of the recent refi deal with the world entity.
So far so good, but now other industrial sectors have noted the apparent preferential treatment
given to soybean farmers, traders etc and said “Hey how about us?” and those sectors,
unsurprisingly, include the mining sector (which deals almost exclusively in USD for both FDI
28

arrivals and product sales abroad.
The debate began last week when Mining Secretary Fernanda Ávila was questioned at the
Democracy and Development conference organized by Argentina’s biggest circulation national
newspaper Clarín (traditionally right wing and in opposition to the current government).
Minister Ávila replied (translated) (29):
“This (“Mining Dollar”) is something we are talking about. It’s not the only solution for
the sector, because there’s no magic answer for the problems faced by 13 exporting
companies. We are collating data and looking for the measure that would best suit (the
sector).”
The report went on to suggest that although talks between the sides continue, the most likely
solution would not be fixed level of “Mining Dollar”, but there may be a window of preferential
forex rates offered from time to time in the style enjoyed by the soybean sector in September.
Cut to late last week and at a press conference to announce the successful results of the “Dolar
Soja”, FinMin Sergio Massa poured cold water over the mining world’s hopes (and those of
other agro sectors) and here’s how La Nación reported on the event (30):
At this point he (Massa) discounted the idea that the experience of the Dolar Soja and
its preferential forex rate could be extended to other industrial sectors. “As we said
when launching this program, the soybean (sector) has specific characteristics that
gave us the opportunity to offer this benefit and, at the same time, see our fiscal
income strengthen. The reality of other sectors is different, we cannot use the same
logic with them as with soybeans, due to the impact it would have for households in
Argentina.”
So, no preferential rate planned for mining dollars as they move into Argentina, via investment
in assets or sales of product.
Peru plays nice with its mining industry
It was all smiles and touchy-feely happy smiley government people at Peru’s big biannual
mining event, Perumin in Arequipa last week. Though President Pedro Castillo didn’t attend the
four day event (wise call) and his Prime Minister gave one of the keynote speeches (and was
booed around the conference grounds by several hecklers on his way in and out), the star of
the show was new FinMin Kurt Burneo, who told the mining community what they wanted to
hear (31):
“Read my lips, no new taxes.”
That one always goes down well with a group of millionaire business leaders. He made
headlines when announcing the rollback of the previous Castillo government plans to increase
State burdens on mining and told the conference (there’s no reason to disbelieve) that the
royalty and/or windfall tax proposals are now shelved and the industry would not be taxed any
further by the current government. This got full approval of his audience and now Burneo had
their attention, he went on to proposed a three point plan to improve the prospects of Peru’s
miing sector he calls “Plan Impulse Peru”, starting his pitch to the company bosses with
(translated), “The Peruvian mining sector is highly competitive, but could be even better via
better coordination between the public and private sectors. Our objective is the boost and
advance mining projects at their different stages of development.” Aside the promise of no
further State burdens, his three point plan includes:
1) Optimization of regulatory procedures, as well as assigning bigger budgets to key public
sector offices connected to environmental protection and water services. This would
allow permits for exploration and eventual operation to be expedited more quickly and
solve one of the main complaints in the Peruvian mining scene at present, that of
excess “permitology” (a local expression).
2) Incentives to mining investment and the freeing up of investment paperwork, including
a proposal for VAT tax returns on exploration work done.
3) Improved social coverage that would help the public and private sectors work together
to solve community issues. This would also entail mining companies contributing to
29

local funds to improve the lot of communities, but this would likely come for the
reassignment of payments already made by companies to the State, rather than a new
charge.
The government’s novel touchy-feely lovefest toward the mining industry continued with the
speech given by Prime Minister Ánibal Torres, who thankfully for the rest of us managed to get
through a public presentation without referencing Adolf Hitler and the way that German leader
did wonders for his country’s economy (8). Instead and during the keynote closure speech for
Perumin, he exhorted mining companies to continue to invest in the country and guaranteed a
stable and welcoming macro under the leadership of Pedro Castillo, as long as they kept their
side of the bargain and were good corporate citizens toward local communities and the
environment. In his words (translated)
“(Investors) can have complete confidence that their investments in Peru are safe.”
That’s nice. Torres used his speech to announce that his government would soon take
measures to improve the current permitting track and simplify the paperwork required,
particularly for the exploration stages of any project or eventual operation. Also fine, but FinMin
Burneo was someone they trusted and had already won them over. And that was Perumin.
Market Watching
Deferred
This edition has gone on too long already.
Conclusion
IKN698 is done, we end with bullet points:
 When I saw Abrasilver’s (ABRA.v) NR last week it tipped the balance and I knew I’d
need to address the stock’s performance this year again. When Minera Alamos delayed
the publication of the Cerro de Oro 43-101 until this coming week, it felt like
serendipity. Hence, today’s main event. If there’s one silver stock that would tempt me
back to the sub-sector it’s this one, but we’d need 1) a date closer to the resource
update and 2) an improvement in the price of silver between now and then. But wow,
what a hole that was!
 On the subject of Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v), I’m champing at the bit to get busy
on my model and get a better handle on the company with both Santana and Cerro de
Oro revealed and quantifiable. That’s IKN699, next weekend.
 I may be too leery on the PM and base metals markets at the moment, but last week’s
rally isn’t my idea of a turn point indicator. On the other hand I’m destined to miss the
very bottom and buy back on the way up. Watching, but not biting yet.
 Meanwhile, Dr. Copper is still the man to watch closest of all because if he can avoid
the prices predicted by the likes of Goldman, Morgan and Citi, he’ll mark a path out of
the current cycle lows. China’s Keynesian stimuli are starting to gain column inches
among market watchers and with inventories staying low, the real world reasons to
oppose the standard financial theories of recession periods are growing. The jury is out
but for the time being, I remain bullish.
I thank you in advance for any feedback. Our Top Pick stock is Minera Alamos (MAI.v). Flash
updates will be sent if required by events.
I wish you good trading fortune, ladies and gentlemen.
Best wishes, Mark
30

Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fed-speak-recent-inflation-195449512.html
(2) https://iknnews.com/the-gold-usd-rorschach/
(3) https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-tax-report/the-uk-cannot-afford-to-look-this-ridiculous-john-
authers?context=search&index=1
(4) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-reports-best-intercept-to-date-from-current-drill-program-at-diablillos-
140-metres-grading-301-gt-ageq-43-gt-aueq
(5) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/silver-drills-294-gt-ageq-over-675m-at-diablillos--provides-la-coipita-drilling-
update
(6) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-announces-all-time-highest-grade-silver-intercept-at-diablillos-2383-
gt-ageq-340-gt-aueq-over-26-metres-further-extending-high-grade-tesoro-zone---
(7) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-discovers-new-near-surface-high-grade-silver-zone-at-diablillos-
intersects-357-gt-ageq-51-gt-aueq-over-87-metres
(8) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-announces-additional-high-grade-drill-results-in-the-oculto-
northeast-zone-near-surface-intercepts-include-435-metres-grading-196-gt-ageq-28-gt-aueq
(9) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-reports-155-metres-at-289-gt-ageq-41-gt-aueq-in-another-stellar-
intercept-at-diablillos
(10) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-announces-final-phase-ii-drill-results-at-diablillos-including-385-
metres-at-183-gt-ageq-26-gt-aueq
(11) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-announces-further-world-class-drill-results-including-new-all-time-
best-silver-intercept-at-diablillos-of-127-metres-at-646-gt-ageq-92-gt-aueq
(12) https://abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-discovers-significant-new-copper-gold-molybdenum-porphyry-
system-at-the-la-coipita-project-in-san-juan-argentina
(13) https://abrasilver.com/_resources/presentations/corporate-presentation.pdf?v=0.911
(14) https://iknnews.com/goldshore-resources-ghsr-v-at-some-point-the-paid-pumpers-will-be-right/
(15) https://goldshoreresources.com/goldshore-intersects-192-75m-1-02-g-t-au/
(16) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/copper-price-slump-brings-chinese-buyers-out-in-force/
(17) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/shanghai-copper-rises-on-tight-stocks-position-improving-demand/
(18) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/most-base-metals-rise-on-upbeat-chinese-demand-outlook/
(19) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/the-drive-for-decarbonisation-seven-key-charts-from-the-metals-mining-
forum/
(20)
https://www.cochilco.cl/Paginas/Estudios/Mercados%20de%20metales%20e%20insumos%20estrat%C3%A9gicos/Infor
mes-Semanales-2015.aspx
(21) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nevada-copper-provides-restart-activities-010500774.html
(22) https://www.e29copper.com/news/2022/element-29-announces-initial-mineral-resource-estimate-for-the-elida-
porphyry-copper-deposit-in-peru-
(23) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meridian-announces-maiden-mineral-estimate-101500063.html
(24) https://iknnews.com/sandstorm-sand-ssl-to-beyond-incompetent/
(25) https://manitougold.com/news/news-releases/manitou-gold-intersects-208m-and-252m-at-025-nickel-confirming-
significant-nickel-cobalt-discovery-at-goudreau-project
(26) https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-63080081
(27) https://iknnews.com/polling-lula-de-silva-vs-jair-bolsonaro/
(28) https://www.rcnradio.com/politica/juan-miguel-duran-renuncio-a-la-agencia-nacional-de-mineria
(29) http://www.elinversorenergetico.com/el-gobierno-trabaja-en-un-tipo-de-cambio-diferencial-para-la-mineria/
31

(30) https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/massa-aviso-que-no-habra-mas-tipos-de-cambio-diferenciales-y-que-se-
cuidara-cada-dolar-que-ingreso-nid30092022/
(31) https://infomercado.pe/por-que-kurt-burneo-plantea-tres-ejes-para-impulsar-proyectos-mineros-minam-fondo-
sectores-280922-mc/
(32) https://iknnews.com/perus-prime-minister-uses-adolf-hitlers-germany-as-an-example-of-good-economic-
development/
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
32

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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