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The IKN Weekly
Week 760, December 10th 2023
Contents
This Week: In Today’s Edition, US macro incoming, Travel plans.
Fundamental Analysis: Deferred (and a note on Tax Loss Selling).
Stocks to Follow: Argonaut Gold (AR.to), Minera Alamos (MAI.v, Equinox Gold (EQX)
(EQX.to), Fortuna Silver (FSM) (FVI.to), Soma Gold (SOMA.v), Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v), Aldebaran
Resources (ALDE.v), Amerigo Resources (ARG.to), Contango ORE (CTGO), Surge Copper
(SURG.v), SolGold (SOLG.to) (SOLG.L), Provenance Gold (PAU.cse).
The Copper Basket: Overview, QC Copper (QCCU.v), Oroco Resource Corp (OCO.v), Kodiak
Copper (KDK.v).
Producer Basket: Overview, Newmont (NEM), Wesdome (WDOFF) (WDO.to).
The TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Palamina Corp (PA.v).
Regional Politics: Argentina: President Milei, Brief update on the 2024 Mexico election, The
First Quantum (FM.to) Panama Cobre soap opera continues.
Market Watching: Copper supply and demand thoughts, Heliostar Metals (HSTR.v) brings
good news to market.
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
 No main fundies note today, instead we have plenty on the copper market in both its
dedicated section and in Market Watching, below.
 Also in Market Watching, Heliostar Metals (HSTR.v) has to this point been a typical and
rather tiresome Vancouver pump stock, but last week the company managed to deliver
some real and positive news to market for the first time since its IPO (in my opinion, at
least). It’s the type of stock and story that can gather momentum and though it lost
ground on the week, it’s now on my trade radar.
 A busy week for US macro news, with US CPI the main attraction. Today’s intro.
 It was a horrible week for our featured stocks and we don’t shy away from reporting
the disappointing performances in Stocks to Follow, Copper Basket and Producer
Basket.
 Keep an eye on Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v) this week, there may be some long-overdue
movement in the halls of power in Chile.
US macro incoming
Despite the shellacking taken by gold last week and the unusually volatile action that saw
bullion hit a new all-time record on Monday before getting hacked down (rather than merely
sold down) I remain bullish and constructive on the price of gold. But first we do the rounds of
macro events to come and it’s a busy week in store for US economics news, with potentially
market moving events on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday:
1

 Tuesday: The US BLS publishes November Consumer Price Inflation (CPI, we also get PPI
Wednesday morning), with all eyes on the
rate at which inflation is supposedly dropping
US Consumer Price Inflation (CPI)
in the world’s most important economy.
Current forecasts are for the headline rate to
drop to +3.0%, which would add to our
tracking chart as seen right. We also leave the December +3.5% bar on the visual, as we’ve done all year, as a reminder of the ballpark target set by the Fed at the start of 2023
when inflation was still running hard and the
world was highly sceptical about it coming
under control. So you can say what you want
about the Fed and its agenda, or doubt the
dataset and its fundamentals, but by their own benchmarks the Fed has done what was
required of them and have reeled in price inflation without causing a recession. So far.
 Wednesday: As well as the complementary PPI dataset, this Wednesday sees the results
published of the two day FOMC at 2pm ET, with the now standard presser at 2:30pm.
The market has baked in no change to headline base rates, so all eyes will be on the
communiqué wording and any indications of rates starting to drop in early 2024.
 Thursday: To round off the week’s data dump we get the latest US retails sales, with
forecasts currently baking in a small 0.1% decrease in month-on-month sales. While
likely to be benign, we need to leave room for a market moving surprise because this
month of data includes Black Friday/Cyber Monday and is a rough market gauge for the
way the key seasonal holiday season is going to go for the retail sector.
Of the data over the three days to come, the most important is Tuesday’s CPI (1). A benign
inflation number will not only allow the Fed to announce no further tightening on Wednesday,
but it’s likely to affect the FOMC narrative and allow a more dovish position for rates in 2024.
That’s important for gold, because the drop in real
rates has already driven the metal over
U$2,000/oz (as long as you forgive the market for
last week’s fun) and if early based rates reduction
moves from the realms of theory into likelihood,
gold should duly benefit further. So a big week in
store for gold and one that could make the pain of
the previous five days disappear. In the
meantime, we have to deal with this (right). Ugh.
In a volatile week to remember, the market gave
gold its head overnight in Asia, then pushed back
hard and with 24 hours on the clock, gold was
already lower than its start price. All this even
though nothing really changed on the macro front
and, in the words of IKN759 last week, we still find ourselves entering “…one of the classic
bullish phases for gold, as real rates drop into economic uncertainty” and that “…(r)ecession or
not, gold gets more attractive as the allure of inflation-beating bonds rates drops away.” You
wouldn’t have known that from the way gold traded last week and when the jobs data came in
slightly stronger than the median forecast, there was enough pressure to get gold back under
U$2,000/oz toward the close.
The resulting negative sentiment in the gold, metals and miners’ space over the week was
impressive and increased from Monday through to Friday, with Friday’s downward pressure
merely the cherry on top. It was all as much a product of dashed hopes after the Sunday night
price spike than anything else that happened during the week and brings into question just how
important “sentiment” should be for what is only ever going to be the price that anchors the
baseline of the intelligent and risk-adjusted portfolio (no matter whether you’re a retail minnow
2
4.1 7.1 6.2 2.4 0.5 4.5 4.5 3.5 4.5 2.6 8.6 0.7 5.7 9.7 5.8 3.8 6.8 1.9 5.8 3.8 2.8 7.7 1.7 5.6 4.6 0.6 0.5 9.4 0.4 0.3 2.3 7.3 7.3 2.3 0.3 5.3
10.0
9.0
8.0
7.0
6.0
5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0
0.0
12'naj bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 22'naj bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 32'naj bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced
source: US BLS

or a Central Bank. Sunday’s gold price action was a salient reminder that the financial world is
not about to let gold slip and run hard, there’s too much riding on the instability such a move
might cause and as we saw, it’s all too easy to reel gold back in after a speculative run.
Besides, gold isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be)
about speculative price charges or euphoric
traders high-fiving each other online…let’s
leave those sort of antics to the silver space.
Instead, let’s take one step back and consider
the gold price action over the last couple of
months as, when we do (and last weekend’s
spike aside), that’s a very constructive looking
chart. Even as gold prices increased last week,
gold holdings in GLD vaults dropped back four
and half tonnes to close at 878.82mt, pushing
the Inventory/Price Ratio sentiment indicator
down to another all-time low of 4.58X.
Impressive though that might be, even the
drop in real rates and its standard as one of the financial industry’s more reliable reasons to buy
gold bullion hasn’t been enough for big money to buy into the safe haven. If and when that
changes, gold could really be off to the races.
Meanwhile, the world of mainstream finance continues to ignore gold as a financial instrument.
Despite its price run over U$2,000/oz, GLD added less than 2 metric tonnes to its vaults last
week and remains a full 60mt lower than its 2023 peak at the end of May. The price bump
means the sentiment ratio indicator improved a little, but remains firmly stuck under the 5.0X
line and in complete washout territory.
GLD gold holdings, 2023 YTD (metric tonnes)
960
950
940
930
920
910
900
890
880
870
860
850
840
Indeed, it’s worth zooming out on the Inventory/Price ratio and taking in the last eight years of
data (chart below) to show the clear trend. Until last year, there was a grinding decadence in
the ratio but it had managed to bounce off the 6.0X line enough times to provide optimism. But
the 2023 drop has changed the overall interpretation of this visual and these days, it’s very
difficult to look at the ratio and not see the real long-term story, one of a North American (i.e.
Wall St) market that has turned its back
on gold as a viable investment option.
Be that due to Bitcoin, bonds, a change
in culture, near-term fashion or the
ongoing equities rally, gold is not
bought by the people who used to buy
it. Instead it’s been left to the rest of
the world and their Central Banks to be
the major customer for bullion.
3
32/1/3 32/1/81 32/2/2 32/2/71 32/3/4 32/3/91 32/4/3 32/4/81 32/5/3 32/5/81 32/6/2 32/6/71 32/7/2 32/7/71 32/8/1 32/8/61 32/8/13 32/9/51 32/9/03 32/01/51 32/01/03 32/11/41 32/11/92
mt 5.60 GLD: Inventory/Price Ratio, 2023 YTD
source: SPDR GLD data 5.50
5.40
5.30
5.20
5.10
5.00
4.90
4.80
4.70
4.60
4.50
32/1/3 32/1/81 32/2/2 32/2/71 32/3/4 32/3/91 32/4/3 32/4/81 32/5/3 32/5/81 32/6/2 32/6/71 32/7/2 32/7/71 32/8/1 32/8/61 32/8/13 32/9/51 32/9/03 32/01/51 32/01/03 32/11/41 32/11/92
Source: SPDR data, IKN calcs
9.00 GLD: Inventory/Price Ratio, 2016 to date
8.50
8.00
7.50
7.00
6.50
6.00
5.50
5.00
4.50
4.00
61/4/1 61/13/3 61/42/6 61/02/9 61/41/21 71/41/3 71/8/6 71/1/9 71/82/11 81/62/2 81/22/5 81/61/8 81/9/11 91/7/2 91/6/5 91/13/7 91/42/01 02/22/1 02/71/4 02/41/7 02/7/01 12/4/1 12/13/3 12/32/6 12/71/9 12/31/21 22/01/3 22/6/6 22/13/8 22/52/11 32/32/2 32/71/5 32/41/8 32/7/11
Source: SPDR data, IKN calcs

We noted last weekend while still in optimistic mode that the day Wall st comes back to gold
and starts hoarding metal for safe haven purposes once again will be the day when it puts in a
serious rally. However, the signals from last weekend were the even a quick U$100/oz added to
the price wasn’t enough to attract speculators in enough size to make the move stick.
Travel plans
Please note that this week your author is travelling and, as internet coverage at the destination
may be patchy for the first couple of days, potentially offline until the weekend. As forewarned,
next weekend’s edition will be “bare bones only” as there’s also a beach and the in-laws to do
instead. Long story short, we have a little downtime in view (and after a five hour plane ride
with a toddler, we may need it). Have a good week and while I’ll be watching the newsflow for
as long as connections allow until midweek (e.g. the Argonaut Gold bought deal closing, see
below) there are no trades planned this time.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Deferred (and a note on Tax Loss Selling)
I could have pretended one of the Market Watching notes was good enough to be this week’s
“main event” but as there something of a hiatus in the market after the flurry of recent
analyses, the Q3 results and now the wait for year end and so forth, I’m giving myself a break.
Only one thing to say: Please be aware of the upcoming Tax Loss Selling period and plan
accordingly. This time last week I found myself sitting firmly on my hands and keeping them
away from the buy buttons on several stocks, this weekend and after last week’s poor market
follow-through, it’s a lot easier to stick to the plan. I raised some treasury via some sales and
want to hold onto it until Christmas is behind us, at which point I’m going bargain hunting.
Please don’t make someone else’s Tax Loss Selling easier by buying into their sales.
Stocks to Follow
Quite the reversal from this time last weekend. It wasn’t a total washout and there are foru
week-over-week winners to report (CTGO, RIO.v, MIRL.cse, PAU.cse). Of those and ignoring
the half cent added to the broken MIRL, the most interesting moves came from Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v
up 21.1%) and Provenance Gold (PAU.cse up 10.0%).
However, there’s no escaping the negativity of last week and all the Stocks To Follow were
losers, with the biggest percentage hits taken by Surge Copper (SURG.v down 17.6%), Mene
Inc (MENE.v down 11.3%), Minera Alamos (MAI.v down 10.8%), Argonaut Gold (AR.to down
10.5%), Equinox Gold (EQX down 10.0%), Fortuna Silver (FSM down 9.9%). In other words,
the big winners from last week went straight into reverse and gave back all or most of their
gains. And that sucks.
We still have 17 stocks on the list, three off the maximum and there’s room to play with as we
enter the last stretch of the year. Six are in the green and eleven are in the red, though I’m
going to cut myself some slack and note that five of those eleven are on the Watch List. In
theory at least, the lower they go the happier I am.
4

company Ticker this week Avg Price Reco date Current PPS Gain/Loss% Notes
TOP PICKS
Minera Alamos MAI.v STR BUY C$0.21 13-Oct-19 C$0.33 57.1% $0.75 first tgt, #1 idea
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Amerigo Res ARG.to hold C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.31 -3.7% Cu price better, will hold
Fortuna Silver FSM hold U$2.92 13-Aug-23 U$3.64 24.7% Finally moved, still want flip
Equinox Gold EQX STR BUY U$4.46 30-May-23 U$5.04 13.0% Leverage trade at U$2k/oz Au
Contango Ore CTGO BUY U$18.70 30-Jul-23 U$21.26 13.7% FY24 production, now moving
SolGold SOLG.to BUY C$0.265 19-Feb-23 C$0.145 -45.3% Cu in Ecuador, M&A tgt
Newcore Gold NCAU.v SPEC BUY C$0.205 23-Oct-22 C$0.135 -34.1% Showing signs of life
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v BUY C$0.83 22-Apr-18 C$0.23 -72.3% Cheap on permit probs, appeal
SPECULATIVE TRADES
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v SPEC BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.85 18.1% drilling again
Minera IRL MIRL.cse avoid C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.02 -89.7% leaving list soon (good)
A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
Likely buy, cheap entry
Marimaca Copper MARI.to WATCH C$3.65 26-May-23 C$3.46 -5.2% showing
Ero Copper ERO.to WATCH C$18.94 22-Oct-23 C$18.39 -2.9% High quality Cu prod, cheap
Argonaut Gold AR.to WATCH C$0.395 22-Oct-23 C$0.385 -2.5% potential fliptrade around Xmas
Soma Gold SOMA.v WATCH C$0.66 26-Nov-23 C$0.61 -7.6% small gold prod in Colombia
Surge Copper SURG.v WATCH C$0.11 18-Jun-23 C$0.07 -36.4% tinycap Cu in BC Canada
Provenance Gold PAU.cse WATCH C$0.085 8-Oct-23 C$0.11 29.4% Idaho gold drill play
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.63 6-Dec-20 C$0.275 -56.3% LT bet, adding slowly
CLOSED TRADES IN 2023 date closed close price
Altiplano Metals APN.v jan'23 C$0.31 17-Sep-21 C$0.17 -45.2% delayed and will dilute soon
Western Copper WRN.to mar'23 C$2.02 13-Nov-22 C$2.32 14.9% sold on reduced M&A prob.
Chesapeake Gold CKG.v may'23 C$3.07 20-Feb-22 C$1.75 -43.0% Closing on legal action news
Amerigo Res ARG.to may'23 C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.48 8.8% sold 20% to raise cash
Amerigo Res ARG.to oct'23 C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.21 -11.0% sold 10% raise to cash
QC Copper&Gold QCCU.v oct'23 C$0.265 25-Apr-21 C$0.12 -54.7% sold raise to cash
Faraday Copper FDY.to oct'23 C$0.79 26-Mar-23 C$0.68 -11.4% sold raise to cash
AbraSilver Res. ABRA.v oct'23 C$0.36 4-Dec-22 C$0.28 -22.2% sold raise to cash
Orecap inv OCI.v oct'23 C$0.04 20-Nov-22 C$0.03 -25.0% sold raise to cash
Western Explor. WEX.v nov'23 C$1.87 9-Apr-23 C$0.60 -67.9% poor trade, cutting loss
2015 to 2022 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
Now for notes on some of our covered companies:
Argonaut Gold (AR.to): Still on the Watch List without buying, last week’s edition included
the “Monday update: Argonaut Gold (AR.to) runs a bought deal” in Market Watching, in which
we ran over the news that had just dropped about
the placement financing that had come as no
surprise to this desk. The ten-day chart is eloquent
on the subject:
We now await the closing of the bought deal,
slated for this Tuesday December 12th. On that, a
reminder that the small overallotment will have to
fully fill in order to send a positive message to
market and anything less than “fully filled” on
Tuesday would imply the deal brokers have been
5

left holding bags. Needless to say, that would not be good. However, the right set of
circumstances would now make AR a reasonable near-term trade option and flip to
market, with the general plan being to 1) buy once the worst of tax loss selling is done and
then 2) sell back to that nice Mr. Market at some point in January, on word of good Q4
production numbers and a Magino on track. However, I wouldn’t like to be long when it files its
Q4 and 2023 year end financials so any trade would be long-closed by then. Watching closely.
Minera Alamos (MAI.v): After the promise of the week before, last week’s trading action in
MAI was a huge disappointment and a reminder
that mo matter what, this company is going to need
some permits popping out for its Santana heap
leach expansion and then Cerro de Oro before its
share price really starts to move back up. The
Friday close of 33c isn’t a total disaster and over
the ten days of the chart (right), MAI is still nicely
up, but we’re once again a world away from the
40c line and where I would have liked to see the
stock into the New Year. We did get news from the
company, as MAI filed its 43-101Technical Report
on Santana to SEDAR last week and while there
were no big surprise sin the main data (those
numbers were already in the NR at the time, we did
appreciate the extra details on operations parameters and particularly the data on Santana met.
It’s worth a closer look for more eyeballs (especially fellow MAI holders and I know you’re out
there) so here’s the conclusion bullets from the met section as seen on pages 158 and 159
13.7 Metallurgical Results Summary and Conclusions
An extensive database of metallurgical test data is available for the Nicho and Nicho Norte mineralized
zones. This includes commercial operation-type results from a 50,000 tonne test heap leach pad
constructed and operated at the site. The key observations from these programs include:
 Gold mineralization appears to be generally well disseminated throughout the host rock, with
little correlation to rock particle-size distributions. There was some evidence that, in the breccia
zone material that exists above the deeper QFP intrusive, some small-scale enrichment may
occur in the fractures between the breccia matrix fragments.
 Overall copper content in the oxide mineralization was low and leaching results indicate that
the extraction of this copper should be manageable using free cyanide-level control (low
concentrations) in the leach solutions, with little impact on overall gold recoveries.
 Gold mineralization in the oxide zones of the deposit responds positively to gold cyanidation.
Residual gold levels following heap leaching are expected to be approximately 0.1 g/t Au or
less. At mined head grades of 0.6 g/t Au–0.7 g/t Au this would equate to gold recoveries of
more than 80%.
 Although more data is available for material from the Nicho Norte satellite deposit,
comparative studies looking at samples from the Nicho main deposit appear to exhibit similar
results.
 Leach kinetics are rapid for particle sizes up to approximately 1ʺ (30 d – 45 d or less).
Although kinetics were seen to slow somewhat at sizes greater than 1ʺ, ultimate gold recoveries
at the end of the extended leach period were similar to those experienced with the finer-sized
material.
 Leach tests on samples of worst-case sulphide material from the Nicho zone exhibited
acceptable gold recoveries approaching 70% at crush sizes of <0.5ʺ (coarsest size used for
screening tests). Further test work is warranted for this part of the deposit to better optimize
actual required crush sizes and to examine the impact of larger particle sizes on overall gold
recoveries.
 Major reagent consumptions are expected to be low (<2 kg/t lime and 0.3 kg/t–0.5 kg/t
cyanide).
We knew reagent use was low and leach kinetics were good, but there are three datapoints to
really like here:
6

 Particle sizes are of lesser importance for recoveries, so MAI can save on crushing and
dump more run-of mine onto the pads to get the same returns
 The first 70% of gold comes quickly, but we now read that at least 80% recoveries
over time are in the cards. That suggests plenty of bonus production from residual
leaching once the pad is fully up and running.
 The sulphide rocks seem to run very well on a simple heap leach as well, which
provides a instant and significant feed source for the operation.
Before moving on, I’d like to share one piece of feedback received from long-time subscriber
“BH”, who wrote in with this:
Mark, Thank you for the thoughtful exposition on MAI and its latest financials in last
week's issue. One point about your comment that you may reassess MAI as a top
pick. In effect, when Rio2 ran into its permitting problem, you dropped it as a top pick.
Do MAI's permitting issues match the challenges Rio2 has faced? I do not feel I really
know the answer to that question and I'm not sure I get an answer from my questions
emailed to Doug. It seems to me that in his social media appearances that last few
months, Doug has emphasized the increasing likelihood of Santana pad expansion
and hardly mentioned a timeline for Cerro de Oro. Likely that is him trying to help the
immediate stock price but could also mean no similar good vibes from the government
on Cerro de Oro. MAI stock rising by multiples is primarily dependent on the FCF from
Cerro de Oro so permit odds are important for judging this investment. Just thoughts
and always appreciate your approach in your newsletter. Glad you are doing some
recharge time. Nothing like getting away from the computer/phone to spend time with
family and realize life is good.
Thank you, BH. As for the main subject, clearly this permit impasse cannot go on forever and it
would be the main reason to make a partial sale, inm order to free up funds for other trades.
However, MAI would only drop down as a Top Pick depending on the size of my trade and if I
only sell a few (or none at all), it’s staying where it is. If the sale turned out to be more
sizeable, e.g. 30% or 50% of today’s total, I’d then drop it down. It’s a case of “money where
mouth is”.
Equinox Gold (EQX) (EQX.to) and Fortuna Silver (FSM) (FVI.to): I’ve lumped these two
together in the Stocks to Follow notes on a number of occasions recently, we’ve also compared
them to the progress made by SilverCrest (SILV) (SIL.to), the other company recently
suggested as a decent trade on improving
fundamentals but while preferring my own two picks
here. So this chart (right) represents pain and
disappointment. It was no fun to watch Equinox
(EQX down 10.0%) and Fortuna (FSM down 9.9%)
capitulate last week and return the decent gains of
the week before, even worse when the alternative
trade I’d sniffed at and looked over, SilverCrest, did a
far better job of sailing against the headwinds and
showed excellent relative strength.
We’re in December, gold is unusually volatile, there’s
no jumping to conclusions at times like these. Let’s
see how FSM and EQX trade at this U$2,000/oz level in the days ahead before making a real
decision, but we again remind readers that FSM was never set up as a long-term trade and I
will take profits at some point. And yes, it is slightly annoying to recognize how FSM entered my
theoretical selling price zone very briefly two Fridays ago and I didn’t take advantage. As for
EQX, I feel that will be more results-driven and though it normally doesn’t offer a separate
production NR for its quarters, it has done before for the Q4 period (when the wait for the
publication of its financials is much longer) so there’s a catalyst set-up in mid-January, as well
as the continued news from Greenstone and at some point, a first pour.
Soma Gold (SOMA.v): The ballpark conclusion to our closer look at SOMA.v in IKN758, two
weeks ago, was “let’s wait and see”. Its head grade has fuelled the excellent recent quarters,
7

but that can’t last forever and I’ve decided to give SOMA some space and watch to see whether
costs and AISC goes up as it raises throughput in the next couple of quarters. The way it’s
traded since then suggests there is some sort of (soft or hard?) price ceiling on the stock.
Major holder Glenn Walsh has sold a couple of small tranches of his dominant shareholding
position in the last couple of weeks in private transactions, but still owns more than 40% of
shares out. Not a real indicator and nobody can blame the central financial backer from hedging
some of his gains, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v): It tends to march to its own beat rather than follow the tide of the other
mining companies, that’s due to the Chilean government and its pending decision on whether to
permit the Fenix project on appeal, but Rio2 made an
interesting and positive move last week on plenty of
traded volume (right). That was enough to ping my
contacts somewhere in Chile and while I didn’t find
out anything exact, there’s now talk of a Ministerial
Appeals Committee (Comité de Ministros) meeting
the week after next, in the run up to Christmas. Be
clear, that’s not confirmed. If so, then we do know
that Fenix is high on the list of pending cases and it’s
long past time the appeal were heard. Be clear
again, there’s nothing confirmed.
However, we do know two things:
1) The appeal for the Fenix Gold project has to be processed and a decision made
eventually. The time time has been crazily long and the delay painful, but Chile cannot
leave its cases in limbo forever.
2) If the meeting is convened, we’ll get to hear about it beforehand. This is the website to
visit (2) and up to now, the 2023 Comité de Ministros has had seven sittings, as seen
by the seven calls to meetings “Convocatoria Ordinaria” one through seven. So in the
week ahead, I’ll be visiting that page on the lookout for “Convocatoria N°8 Ordinaria”
and if it shows up, one click will show the proposed agenda and which appeals they will
be hearing.
Adding the positive share price action and the jungledrums of “one more Comité meeting
before the end of the year” together and getting the permit for Fenix is a bit too much of a leap
in logic, but equally there’s no smoke without fire and I’m going to be watching for newsflow
out of Chile’s government in the days ahead. Keep an eye on this, it may do something.
Aldebaran Resources (ALDE.v): Your occasional reminder that ALDE is an awful stock to
attempt to trade, so don’t do it. You’re either in for the long-haul, or you’re trying to pick up
cheap stock on stink bids when others lose patience, or you’re looking at better places for
leverage to the copper space than this stock. A good example came on Monday when ALDE
opened up 2c to 90c on about 14k shares, then dumped down to 80c on around 50k shares,
then fiddled around for another two days and then traded big fat zero shares for the last two
8

days of the week.
Amerigo Resources (ARG.to): Although ARG did well enough, its trading over the last couple
of weeks isn’t much more or less than that of the
median for copper producers, the COPX ETF. I can’t
help but notice how it’s becoming fashionable to talk up
copper for 2024, despite its drop last week. Though
always subject to a certain amount of speculation at
this time of year (the same as any other metal or wider
commodity), copper is now threatening to take over the
mantle held by Uranium as The Metal To Pump for the
year ahead (now that U has finally made a move). We
do that a little more in The Copper Basket below, but
here I’ll note that with the latest quarterly 3c dividend
now on its way to my account and the potential for
copper price weakness in the first couple of months of
2024 as Chinese end-user demand flags (normal for the cycle), ARG is a still a potential sell at
this point.
Contango ORE (CTGO): The thin trades and dumps on single sellers continue to make CTGO
volatile, but last week the sellers stayed away and anybody set on accumulation has to pay up.
Meanwhile, the legal action against the project and specifically the 95 tonne trucks being used
by the Peak Gold LLC JV (70% Kinross, 30% CTGO) continues and according to this report, the
court will decide tomorrow Monday December 11th whether to allow the case to continue.
Lawyers for Peak Gold are confident that the case will be closed due to lack of merit, but in any
case the likelihood of an injunction to stop the trucks from rolling while the case is heard is very
low (3). It’s not one I’m sweating on, but it pays to keep an eye on the newsflow anyway.
Surge Copper (SURG.v): There were plenty of others on the week, both in stocks regularly
covered by The IKN Weekly and in the wider exploreco market, but the drop in SURG last week
was typical of Tax Loss Selling season action that is so
prevalent this time of year and that’s something we
should all keep in mind. We underscore that it may be
unfair to pick on SURG, as there are (and will be no end
of tinycaps that will fit this pattern. Look out for sudden
sharp drops on limited volume for no particular reason,
followed by a second and even third leg down. At some
point in the fourth week of December, there will be
bargains littering the floor and you can pick up some
quick flip candidates easily. Or that’s the theory,
anyway.
SolGold (SOLG.to) (SOLG.L): We’re in the run-up to a potentially contentious AGM slated for
December 20th and in what must be a sheer coincidence, we got not one but two NRs out of
the company with updates and news on a couple of its earlier stage projects in Ecuador, the
9

ones that get overshadowed by Cascabel/Alpala. On December 5th SOLG published (4) “Blanca-
Nieves Project Update: New Au-Ag Discovery at La Florida”, then on December 8th we got (5)
“Espejo Project Update: High-Potential Porphyry Cu-Au-Mo Target Identified.” Both interesting
I’m sure, both close to the main Cascabel resource, both offering promise for a better future
and reasons to pick up the larger land package for any large operating miner looking at SOLG,
but…
 Nothing on the resolution of the Strategic Review
 Nothing on a possible deal with Chinese (or other) money
 Nothing about the continued drop in the share price
That’s what really matters here, it will be the main bone of contention at the AGM in two
Wednesdays’ time and in CEO Caldwell doesn’t feel under pressure for his job, he darned well
should do. The NRs last week don’t cut the mustard as mitigation for the 2023 SOLG has
delivered to its shareholders. That includes me, of course, but this desk doesn’t start blaming its
trading woes on the shortcomings of others. In hindsight, giving the Ecuador electoral process
time to play out before making a decision was my major mistake; instead of cutting and
running when (now ex) President Lasso used his “crossfire death” to dissolve parliament and
call new elections, I made the call that Ecuador would get a green light from potential buyers
and SOLG suitors once the election were done. Error.
As a result, I’m deep in a hole and instead of turning around on the exploreco news flow, the
main UK listing continued to drop. Seasonality means this isn’t the time to cut losses, so now
it’s case of roughing out December, seeing how the AGM goes and making a decision on
whether to continue early in the New Year.
Provenance Gold (PAU.cse): Still Watch List only, but I’m running out of reasons not to
open a real position. Gold’s at the right price, PAU has run its financing and has cash to go
exploring, the asset is shaping up well and last week, we got a taster of its plans in its
December 5th NR (6) “Provenance Gold Completes 3D Drone DEM and Orthomosaic Survey in
Preparation for the 2024 Exploration Program at Eldorado” and we always appreciate a prosaic
title. There are three things I’d like to highlight from the NR. First up, the contents are very
geol-specific and we get an overview of what PAU did at Eldorado and what they’re planning to
do with the information gleaned, so it’s best to read the whole thing and digest slowly. Here
we’ll merely feature the CEO comment which went like this:
“Rauno Perttu, Provenance’s CEO and an Oregon-Certified Engineering Geologist, commented
“The drone survey data will be pivotal in providing new and accurate positioning of the historical
data, as well as new structural information, areas of alterations and old workings. This new
information will be fundamental as we model this large, open-ended gold system and we are
excited to unlock the potential at Eldorado.” That’s fair enough.
The second point comes from this part of the “Exploration Update section of the NR gives a
good overview of what to expect from the company in 2024:
The Company is continuing to process its 2023 drilling data, incorporating it into the voluminous
historic drilling, surface samples, and trenching database with the goal of establishing a new
geological model for the project. The data is allowing a three-dimensional model of the large and
open gold system to be completed and will be detailed in upcoming news releases. Additionally,
the Company is using the data to plan its upcoming 2024 exploration efforts. Once the processing
is complete, the Company plans to release a summary of the recently completed 11-hole drill
program as well as outline plans for 2024. The planned multiphase 2024 program may include
both infill and expansion RC/Core drilling to test the continuity of the recognized gold system and
expand the known gold-rich areas beyond the currently known footprint.
PAU is a tinycap with a small team, so they’ll take time to process data but are clearly timing
things to be ready when the cold snap passes over East Oregon. Third and last, PAU has made
a marketing move:
The Company has entered into a Consulting Services Agreement (the "Agreement) with Quantum
Ventures SEZC (QVS), an arms-length company organized pursuant to the laws of Grand
Cayman, Cayman Islands whereby the services to be provided by QVS will include media
creation, marketing strategies, news distribution, and introductions to relevant business contacts
and appropriate strategic partners for a term of six months. In consideration for the services, the
Company has paid QVS an upfront fee of US$60,000. The Agreement may be renewed or
10

extended by the Company and QVS at the end of the initial term.
The consideration provided to QVS does not involve any securities of the Company. Beyond this
specific engagement, there exists no relationship between the Company and QVS.
That’s not a bad thing and the price isn’t too heavy for six months of marketing, as long as they
get value from Quantum Ventures (a promo outfit that seems to specialize in CSE stocks).
The Copper Basket
After fifty weeks of 2023, The Copper Basket shows a loss of 19.92% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/23 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 Solaris Res SLS.to 6.44 148.15 761.49 5.14 -20.2%
2 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.22 92.882 321.37 3.46 7.5%
3 Western Copper WRN.to 2.41 151.597 259.23 1.71 -29.0%
4 Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to 1.92 105.96 160.00 1.51 -21.4%
5 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.78 169.819 144.35 0.85 9.0%
6 Hot Chili HCH.v 0.78 119.455 111.09 0.93 19.2%
7 Faraday Copper FDY.to 0.54 175.2 105.12 0.60 11.1%
8 Oroco Res OCO.v 0.91 216.13 103.74 0.48 -47.3%
9 Regulus Res. REG.v 1.10 124.509 98.36 0.79 -28.2%
10 Pan Global Res PGZ.v 0.46 242.74 42.48 0.175 -62.0%
11 Kodiak Copper KDK.v 1.12 56.2 32.60 0.58 -48.2%
12 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.165 162.815 19.54 0.12 -27.3%
13 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.16 106.25 15.94 0.15 -6.3%
14 Atacama Copper ACOP.v 0.16 35.94 7.55 0.21 31.3%
15 Libero Copper LBC.v 0.155 119.58 2.39 0.02 -87.1%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg -19.92%
Along with the precious metals sector, copper stocks saw
selling last week and as these things tends to go, the
junior explorecos we follow took a harder hit than most
of the copper producer stocks. This bonus ball chart
(right) shows the last ten days of the main copper
producers’ ETF (COPX) versus the main precious metals
producers’ ETF (GDX) and the way industrials improved
on the jobs report compared to o gold & co is clear
enough.
As for our stocks, eight of the 15 were losers (SLS.to,
WRN.to, MARI.to, ALDE.v, PGZ.v, FDY.to, KDK.v,
QCCU.v) and four others unchanged (HCH.v, ECU.v,
LBC.v, ACOP.v), which leaves just three winners
The Copper Basket 2023, weekly evolution
(OCO.v, ASCU.to, REG.v) to buck the trend. Most 15%
of the moves weren’t massive, but there were a 10%
5%
couple of double figure percentage losers in the
0%
shape of Kodiak (KCK.v down 20.6%) and QC -5%
Copper (QCCU.v down 11.1%). -10%
-15%
-20%
Here’s the copper price chart showing the last two
-25%
weeks of action and the peak reached this time -30%
last weekend. As it turns out, the market turned
and turned in the widening gyre, the producer
could not hear the smelter, things fell apart, the
centre could not hold and mere anarchy loosed upon the world.
11
ts1naJ ht8naJ ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5bef ht21 ht91 ht62 ht5raM ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2rpA ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7yam ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4nuj ht11 ht81 ht52 dn2yluj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6gua ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3pes ht01 ht71 ht42 ts1tco ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5von ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3ced ht01
source: IKN calcs

The post facto reasons floated in the trade press often included words “China” and “Demand”
along with “Worries/Fears/Concerns”, in other words the usual catch-alls, but the real reason
was that copper traded in mirror image to the US Dollar, That’s a typical influence on copper,
rather than an automatic relationship, but last week it took over as the predominant price driver
and it’s not a coincidence that copper’s bottom last week
came at the same time as the 104.25 high in the Dollar
Index (DXY), then when the USD weakened on Thursday,
so copper rallied.
In fundies news, we return to the main LME copper contract
page (7) for the first time in a few weeks and the simple
visual of the forward curve (right). Copper remains in
standard contango as both the longer term (above) and
near-term (below) contract trackers show. This “orderly
market” signal differs from the supposed supply squeeze
narrative now doing the rounds in the chat-o-sphere and
long story short, there’s no real reason to expect copper to
rally into the current macro backdrop. For a little more on
the latest round of supply and demand talk, please see
‘Market Watching’ below where we take a little more space
and consider what exactly any copper market surplus or
deficit might mean for the price of copper. This time last
week in IKN759, we rounded off the Copper Basket
commentary with this:
“Bottom line: I remain leery about this copper price
move, the same leeriness I get when those in the higher echelons tell me
there’s no recession on the way. We like the way copper has rallied and
dragged stocks its stocks (such as Amerigo) back higher but there’s still more
to like and believe about the rally in gold than that of copper.
I’m still good with that call, even though with a week under it’s belt it can only be described as
“half right so far”. Yes, I’m still leery about copper and yes, it’s lower than this time last week.
But the late week rally erased the worst of the losses and there’s no doubt that copper
performed better than my own fetish of gold on Friday. However and as noted in today’s intro,
Friday looks like an overdose of momentum and a move on scant fundamental evidence, so
we’re looking for that to unwind in the days to come and if that comes to pass, we’ll see gold
rise from the U$2k/oz line and for copper to find seasonally typical price pressure capping any
upside.
We move to our regular weekly check on world copper inventories with data from Cochilco (8)
and China’s CEIC (9) (as Chile was on public holiday Friday for Immaculate Conception):
 The aggregate of the three world systems rose and rebounded last week, which may
12

have signalled the very bottom is now in. Stocks in the three official world systems rose
by 12,256 metric tonnes (mt) last week to close at 228.486m after last weekend’s
record low close, which must have come as quite a relief to factories looking to secure
their year end stock quota.
 In Shanghai, the SHFE copper inventory rebounded from its record low last week and
added 4,213mt to stocks to close the week at 30,342mt. Still tight but that move took
the pressure off what was starting to look too much like a desperate rush for physical
tonnages for comfort.
 The LME also added tonnes, up 8,500mt on the week to close at 182,750mt. The most
important change in local inventories was in Singapore, where a net 7,000mt arrived
and helped alleviate the tight optics.
 After one week in which Comex bucked its recent trends and added copper tonnes, we
got back to normal last week when its total dropped by 2,437mt to close at 15,394mt.
The dedicated SHFE chart shows that the uptick of 4kmt last week may have been a step in the
right direction for an orderly market, but the line is still bumping along at a very low level.
However, we’re now only three to five weeks away from the moment stocks will start to build in
SHFE, because that’s what they do every year.
SHFE copper inventory levels, 2018 to 2023
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
13
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 2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
source: Cochilco data
Now for notes on a couple of basket stocks:
QC Copper (QCCU.v): As erstwhile shareholders, we waited and waited for QCCU to deliver
its resource update (MRE) for the Opemiska project in
Quebec Canada and finally ran out of patience when
the company missed another of its self-imposed
deadlines mid-year. Since then and as seen in this two
year chart (right), the stock price has continued to
tread water albeit at a slightly lower trading range than
before.
Which brings us to the news and we hear that the MRE
is now “very close” and should be with us at any
moment. If I had to guess, after the extended delay I
wouldn’t expect QCCU is in any hurry to get it out at the
first possible opportunity and with the Christmas season
upon us, it probably makes sense to wait until we’re all back at work in early January before
making a trumpet-like announcement. No special info on exact timing, though, so I’ll be
watching the wires like the rest of you.
Oroco Resource Corp (OCO.v): OCO surprised this
desk by maintaining its price all week and even showing
a bit of strength on volume Friday. Heavily promoted on
social media, this stock is still one of the more marginal

explorecos out there but may become a trade if the momentum grows. I will not be partaking.
Kodiak Copper (KDK.v): Two Thursdays ago and
timed with the rising euphoria in mining stocks at the
time, KDK moved up very sharply on what must have
also been “Drill Assays Coming Soon” chatter from the
promising South Zone. KDK proceeded to retrace along
with other copper stocks Monday through Wednesday,
but then the assay NR appeared Thursday morning and
we got (10) news of “…0.32% CuEq Over 234 m from
Surface within 0.17% CuEq Over 1053m”, which is a
decent length of mineralization but the grade, and you’ll
note its copper equivalent and not just copper, isn’t
going to win prizes. The result is what you see in the
chart right, a full retrace on the week and KDK failing to rally with many other copper stocks on
Thursday and Friday. This stock, Discovery Group or not, has become a major disappointment.
The Producer Basket
After 50 weeks of 2023, the Producer Basket shows a gain of 10.36% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/23 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 47.20 1152.6 45.04 39.08 -17.2%
2 Barrick GOLD 17.18 1761.54 29.58 16.79 -2.3%
3 Agnico Eagle AEM 51.99 488.9 25.05 51.24 -1.4%
4 Wheaton PM WPM 39.08 451.963 21.38 47.31 21.1%
5 Kinross Gold KGC 4.09 1256.1 7.22 5.75 40.6%
6 Alamos Gold AGI 10.11 393.1 5.41 13.77 36.2%
7 B2Gold BTG 3.57 1074.567 3.34 3.11 -12.9%
8 Hecla Mining GFI 5.56 610.491 2.86 4.69 -15.6%
9 Eldorado Gold EGO 8.36 185.73 2.32 12.49 49.4%
10 Wesdome Gold WDOFF 5.53 147.526 0.86 5.85 5.8%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg 10.36%
That “veritable peach” of a week as reported in IKN759 last weekend turned into fruit puree.
Gold dropped, sentiment turned on its heel and all ten of our basket stocks were losers on the
week, from the least worst Kinross (KGC down 3.2%) and Wheaton (WPM down 4.5%) to the
bigger losses taken by Wesdome (WDOFF down 9.6%), B2Gold (BTG down 8.8%) and Hecla
(HL down 8.6%). There was no escape and the moves in our ten were fairly representative of
the wider sector, as our list only gave back a couple of tenths against the GDX benchmark.
We’re still over 6% ahead with three weeks to go and looking good for a reasonable “we beat
the street” result and advantage this year.
The 2023 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and
comparative to GDX control
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
14
ts1naJ ht8naJ ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5bef ht21 ht91 ht62 ht5raM ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2rpA ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7yam ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4nuj ht11 ht81 ht52 dn2yluj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6gua ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3pes ht01 ht71 ht42 ts1tco ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5von ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3ced ht01
The 2023 Producer Basket: Percentage difference
between GDX benchmark & basket (negative = IKN ahead)
4.0%
ikn 2.0%
gdx control
0.0%
-2.0%
-4.0%
-6.0%
-8.0%
source: NYSE, IKN calcs -10.0%
ts1naJ ht8naJ ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5bef ht21 ht91 ht62 ht5raM ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2rpA ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7yam ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4nuj ht11 ht81 ht52 dn2yluj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht6gua ht31 ht02 ht72 dr3pes ht01 ht71 ht42 ts1tco ht8 ht51 dn22 ht92 ht5von ht21 ht91 ht62 dr3ced ht01
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

Newmont (NEM): We did get some corporate news out of NEM, as the company announced
(11) the results of a tendering to retire U$1.65Bn of debt inherited from the Newcrest deal and
got takers for over U$1.55Bn of the paper, which was a good result, a correct use of treasury
and helps clean up the balance sheet for the
YE financials (which will be an interesting
read when they show up in March next
year).
With over a month between us and the
closing of the NCM merger, here’s a look at
the NEM; price chart compared to the GDX
so see the evolution. NEM shares took a hit
on closing as those (Australian?) instos who
decided they’d had enough of the gold
mining sector dumped out. The chart shows
the oversold window and while the worst of
it was done in the first week of the newco,
NEM shares still haven’t recovered totally and
seem to have a legacy lag of around 4% to GDX.
Wesdome Gold (WDO.to (WDOFF): This was the week in which we officially learned (it was
the word on Bush Radio already) that WDO has had enough of the goings on at Goldshore
Resources (GSHR.v). We know that WDO sold them Moss Lake as a valid project and with every
intention of being a good corporate supporter, but the way in which that junior has mishandled
the project became too much. We’ve seen WDO nominated board members retire recently, so
this last week was in character for the new WDO and its new team (12):
TORONTO, Dec. 06, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX:
WDO, OTCQX: WDOFF) (“Wesdome” or the “Company”) today announces that it has
disposed of 31,822,249 common shares of Goldshore Resources Inc. (TSXV: GSHR)
(“Goldshore”), for gross proceeds of $3,182,225 through the facilities of the TSX
Venture Exchange.
Previously to the closing of the Transaction, the Company held, directly or indirectly,
38,418,333 common shares of Goldshore representing approximately 15.5% of
Goldshore’ issued and outstanding common shares.
Following the sale and subsequent to the receipt of 12,500,000 common shares
pursuant to the second milestone payment (See: “Wesdome Gold Mines to Monetize
Moss Lake via Vend-In Transaction With Goldshore Resources”), Wesdome’s
ownership directly or indirectly, stands at 19,096,084 common shares of Goldshore
representing approximately 7.4% of the issued and outstanding common shares of
Goldshore.
The deal WDO struck with GSGHR for the Moss Lake (now called “Moss Gold”, as the style-
over-substance failures at GSHR think the “lake” word is
bad image) project included staged payments with the
company now holding 7.4%, plus another $7.5m of shares
to arrive at the start of 2025, there’s only one thing that’s
going to happen to those shares from here. The money
raised by these sales is minor, but useful for a company
with negative working cap that may be feeling a big of a
cash crimp right now. Please note that WDO also holds a
1% NSR on Moss Lake with a ticket value of $5m, that
might end up changing hands as well.
The TinyCaps List
After 50 weeks of 2023, the TinyCaps show a gain of 15.98% to level stakes:
15

company ticker price 1/1/23 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aurelius Min AUL.v 0.07 49.787 1.00 0.02 -71.4%
Coast Copper COCO.v 0.045 64.001 2.88 0.045 0.0%
District Metals DMX.v 0.075 86.891 15.64 0.18 140.0%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.13 69.962 5.60 0.08 -38.5%
Manitou Gold MTU.v 0.02 344.568 18.95 0.055 175.0%
Nine Mile Metals NINE.cse 0.29 57.025 7.98 0.14 -55.2%
Palamina Corp PA.v 0.08 65.285 6.20 0.095 18.8%
Precipitate Gold PRG.v 0.075 130.367 7.82 0.06 -20.0%
South Star STS.v 0.55 40.129 26.89 0.67 21.8%
Viva Gold VAU.v 0.14 106.721 13.34 0.125 -10.7%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg 15.98%
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 2023. 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.
It was negative down here in TinyCap world too, with TinyCaps, 2023 weekly tracker
50%
just two winners from our representative bunch of 45%
ten stocks (LMS.v, NINE.cse) and four losers (PA.v, 40%
35%
PRG.v, STS.v, VAU.v), with the others unchanged.
30%
The biggest loser was Palamina Corp (PA.v down 25%
20%
20.8%) and you get a little more on that stock
15%
below. Looking forward to refreshing this list for the 10%
5%
first 2024 edition and that’s not so very far away 0%
now.
Palamina Corp (PA.v): Above, we picked out SURG
as an example of the damage that can be done to a
microcap share price on low volume selling at this time
of year. Here’s another one and with PA’s
fundamentals improving rapidly (decent cash treasury
and drill permits finally in-hand), there’s no reason for
this stock to trade at this price aside from the scratchy
market dynamics. This stock will remain as a
representative in the TinyCaps list in 2024 and as a
past owner of a trade that lost money, I’m looking at it
again with the view for a potential trade. As half of
that market cap is now covered by cash, it looks very
cheap at this level.
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.
16
ts1naJ ht51 ht92 ht21 ht62 ht21 ht62 ht9 dr32 ht7yam ts12 ht4nuj ht81 dn2yluj ht61 ht03 ht31 ht72 ht01 ht42 ht8 dn22 ht5von ht91 dr3ced
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

Regional politics
Argentina: President Milei
The biggest political event in South America this weekend was the ceremony and investiture of
Javier Milei, now the new President of Argentina. Along with several unsubtle protocol signals,
such as the way he didn’t invite many of the region’s Left wing governments and Presidents to
the ceremony (and did invite Lula da Silva, who refused the invitation), but did get Hungary’s
radical right wing Viktor Orban to attend and in a meeting between the two yesterday Saturday
(13), the two leaders discussed “political co-operation to make the fight against the
international left wing more effective.” That the pro-Putin Orbán exchanged words with Ukraine
President Zelenskyy (also in attendance) at the ceremony captured more international newswire
column inches (14) isn’t a surprise, but it’s clear Milei was doing all he could to send a a
message to the wider world of how a real live right wing government with a libertarian bent had
taken power in Argentina.
As for his first speech as Head of State, he didn’t do the formal stand-up-front-of-Congress
affair that’s typical on these occasions in Argentina, but did make an impromptu speech from
the balcony of the Presidential Palace (the Casa Rosada, i.e. “Pink House”) as well as fielding
questions from the press. For those, we’ll turn to Reuters (15):
"There is no alternative to a shock adjustment," he said on the steps on Congress after
taking the presidential baton and sash, with crowds of supporters cheering despite
Milei saying the economy would worsen in the short term. "There is no money."
Milei, 53, a former TV pundit who shot to fame with expletive-ridden tirades against
rivals, China, and the pope, is taking over from Peronist leader Alberto Fernandez,
whose government was dogged by failures to rein in soaring prices.
"The outgoing government has left us on track towards hyperinflation," Milei said. "We
are going to do everything we can to avoid such a catastrophe."
While the speech was light on details, he said key steps would include a fiscal
adjustment equivalent to 5% of the country's GDP through cuts that he said would fall
on "the state and not the private sector."
And…
Milei takes over from unpopular outgoing center-left President Fernandez, but will need
to negotiate with rivals as his libertarian coalition only has a small bloc in Congress. He
has allied with the main conservative grouping.
That has already had an impact. He has moderated his tone in the last few weeks,
packed his first Cabinet with mainstream conservatives rather than ideological
libertarian allies, and on Sunday he did not mention dollarization in his speeches.
Speechifying done, Milei then signed his first executive order and did what he said he’d do all
year, slashing the public ministry count from 21 to 9 offices. We’re yet to see how many actual
jobs are lost in the move because this executive order is more about fusing ministries into one
another and setting up a hierarchy of posts (e.g. the new Minister of the Economy, a well-
established right wing politico Luis Caputo, finds himself as the new “Superminister” of the
country with portfolios that cover many industrial sectors including mining. And while on our
focus subject for a few lines, we need to round off the mini-soap opera that the designation of
Milei’s Secretary of Mining turned out to be. In IKN 758 two weeks ago we mentioned that one
Sergio Arbeleche, a respected lawyer in Argentina’s mining world, had been tapped for the job.
But that intel changed and in IKN759 last weekend, the word on the street was that Arbeleche
had stood down from the nomination and Energy Secretary in the outgoing Fernández
government, Flavia Royón, would take the role of Secretary of Mining in the new Milei
government. However, that’s changed again and on Friday we learned that Royón was out and
indeed the first pick, Sergio Arbeleche, would become the new Secretary (i.e. Minister under
the FinMin) of Mining. That’s now confirmed (happy to say).
Back to today’s events and for sure Milei will get his honeymoon period, not least because
Argentina the country is about to go on six weeks vacation. The Christmas period is
immediately followed by January and the month when half of Buenos Aires moves to the beach
resorts to the South or (if you have more cash) Uruguay, so even with Presidential decrees and
political moves in the next couple of weeks, the reality of serious prices hikes for basic goods
17

and services in Peso terms are yet to hit the back pocket of the rank and file. As from perhaps
March, the cruel reality of a President with a radical agenda and no real Congressional support
will show.
Brief update on the 2024 Mexico election
We ran a primer a few editions ago on what promises to be the most important LatAm election
day in 2024, the Mexico General Election scheduled for June 2nd, at which the region’s second
largest economy will elect a new President for the next six years, as well as brand new
members of Congress for all the upper (128 seats) and lower (500 seats) house jobs. The “pre-
campaign” period has now begun and we now know that Mexico is almost certain to elect a
woman as its next President, as the only man left in the national race, one Samuel García,
recently announced he was standing down from the race. That, in essence, leaves just two
candidates for the top job:
 Claudia Sheinbaum, now confirmed as candidate for the ruling Morena party coalition.
She’s AMLO’s dauphine (Mexican Presidents cannot be re-elected) and an experienced
high-level politico, formerly the mayor of DF Mexico (Mexico City).
 Xóchitl Gálvez, the chosen candidate for the right-leaning hotchpotch PAN/PRI/PRD
alliance (and that “happy family” is a story in itself). Xóchitl (pronounce it “Zo Chill” and
you’ll be close enough) is also an experienced politician and currently a member of the
Senate, Mexico’s upper house of Congress.
As for the polling and chances, this English language AS/COA article (16) has recently been
updated with the latest polling figures and does a lot of cutting and slicing in a range of charts
and visuals. This is the most basic chart from the note, click over for more:
The visual speaks for itself, ruling government candidate Claudia Sheinbaum is in a clear lead
even though it’s dropped slightly from the October reading. While not quite a shoo-in as yet,
there’s no doubt who is favourite in this race and it’s going to take a lot to displace this front-
runner from the crowd-pleasing Morena party of AMLO, what with only one other real
alternative out there.
The First Quantum (FM.to) Panama Cobre soap opera continues
This time last week, our note on this ongoing issue closed with these words:
“…there is a baseline to the share price drop and that seems to have been
reached, but for the time being I don’t see a scenario under which FM rallies
to a level that would offer enough reward for any speculative trade. As far as
this desk is concerned, this story is one worth revisiting in May next year and
not before.”
The bit I got wrong was the share price having
reached some sort of bottom, because as the
Canadian Dot Tee Oh ticker shows (right), FM
dropped away from our line in the sand of C$11 to
C$11.25 and traded negatively all week, closing
Friday at C$10.40. However, the rest stands and sink
18

though it has, there’s still no reason to expose cash to a volatile and politically driven situation
before Panama gets the other side of its 2024 Presidential elections.
On that score, the latest from FM and Panama Cobre this weekend (17) is that the company
has filed a demand to re-open its dedicated port facility from the flotilla of small boats that have
blockaded the port for the last few weeks, saying that it will not be able to run essential
maintenance on the mine and prevent environmental damage if they don’t receive essential
supplies soon. The legal issues aside, FM and the government are currently batting the
employment issue back and forth, with the State making a formal request to “progressively
close” the mine and the company filing to lay off 4,000 of its 7,000 strong workforce (with the
understandable protests from those now furloughed). The international tribunal case is now
officially opened (after all the people set to benefit from this mess, and enormously so, are the
lawyers teams) and there’s a type of political stand-off between the tow sides on whether
operations should be totally shut down at this point. FM seems to be aiming to get to the
negotiation table and keeping the mine open and producing (hence its desire to re-open the
port) and while the government of Panama is taking an official “close it down” stance, there’s
clearly a will to get to the same point on its side (though not from its Congressional opposition).
At a guess (and it’s only that), we may limp into and out of the Christmas holiday period under
the current stand-off and if tempers cool a little come the New Year, the two sides may
eventually sit down and open negotiations without the mine being totally shuttered. If that
happens the FM share price would probably rally a little but it’s still an unattractive trade set-up
and not for me.
Market Watching
Copper supply and demand thoughts
There’s been a new focus on the supply demand balance of world copper recently, what with
the forecast made in Q3, by the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) of a projected supply
surplus, now apparently countered by new supply bottlenecks appearing in some of the world
biggest copper players. The sequence of “2024 surplus….no wait!....2024 deficit!” has caused
some noise in the commentariat so I thought this week we’d dive into the numbers a little
further and see if we can’t get more than headlines and snap calls on copper.
Back in IKN751 dated October 8th 2023 we reported on the ICSG findings, including its
preliminary conclusion that “A surplus of about 467,000t is expected in 2024 as a consequence
of additional supply compared to a surplus of 298,000t previously predicted in April 2023.” In
other words, they’d already forecast a surplus for the coming year but, with one thing and
another, decided to add to the headline number. That was a downer for market watchers at the
time but since then, we’ve seen Panama Cobre apparently go offline for the year ahead (we
wait to see how that pans out) and more recently Anglo American last week announce a swathe
of production cuts across its world operations in order to cut costs. As Panama Cobre at full
production is around 360,000mt per year and Anglo’s copper forecast is now down by around
209,000mt, those with the pocket calculators came to their swift conclusions and announced
copper was a buy for the year ahead base don this data.
Which is fair enough but, surprise-surprise, it’s really not as simple as that. For one thing,
basing your futures contract bets on the ICSG report is a bit of a fool’s errand because they are
notoriously inaccurate and nearly always err to the side of an imagined surplus, only to see
reality give us a deficit. Here are the last three years with all data from the ICSG website (18),
comparing forecasts with their own collated results:
 In 2020, ICSG predicted a copper market surplus of 806,000mt. The reality was a deficit
of 605,000mt, a negative swing of over 1.4m metric tonnes.
 In 2021, ICSG predicted a copper market surplus of 160,000mt. The reality was a deficit
of 439,000mt, a negative swing of almost 600,000 metric tonnes.
19

 In 2022, ICSG predicted a copper market surplus of 141,000mt. The reality was a deficit
of 431,000mt, a negative swing of over 500,000 metric tonnes.
In the vernacular, these guys would have trouble predicting which day follows Friday and while
they currently forecast a small deficit of 12,000mt for 2023, we’re currently running at a
109,000mt surplus with three months to go. Let’s now compare these data with the five year
chart for spot copper…
…and consider how much correlation there might be. The “Covid Year” of 2020 was something
of a law unto itself and while its large deficit fits with the copper rally we saw, there were more
direct circumstances playing on the commodities markets at the time. The rally continued in
2021 and that fits well enough, but 2022 saw copper prices drop back off their cliff despite the
world market running a deficit of over 500,000mt. As for this year, we know it’s been a slow
grind lower. So there is some evidence of correlation, but if this were a reliable indicator we
wouldn’t have seen the 2021 that we did. Then if we take a closer look at the monthly supply
and demand data for copper over the period…
ICSG: Refined copper supply surplus/deficit, per month
250
200
150
100
50
0
-50
-100
-150
-200
…there’s a notable pattern forthcoming, with the world typically running a surplus at the start of
every year (this is the period after the Chinese factory re-stock that normally sees SHFE
warehouse inventory balloon as finished product fails to find a final home) that then works off.
This yeas to September has been rather patchy, but there’s clearly more demand pressure as
the years come to a close…that’s the typical copper cycle for you and something we track on a
weekly basis in The Copper Basket (though it’s nice to see the confirmation for a separate
dataset such as that of the ICSG). However and overall, there’s not much there to suggest a
sudden deficit will cause market panic.
Moving on and a lot is also made of the apparent stagnation in copper production but, when
you get granular with the data, that seems to be exaggerated. Here’s the monthly copper
production chart from ICSG data and it shows a clear and gradual increase of supply to the
world market:
20
pes tco von ced 1202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 2202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 3202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes
kmt Cu
source: ICSG

World copper mine production
21
8071 2181 0871 9281 6371 2061 3771 2071 7771 9471 8671 8971 4471 0381 3081 8581 6771 3361 5381 4671 7481 7481 5281 7481 3581 9191 4481 5791 7481 5461 8281 4181 3381 5681 4781 2881 6881
2000
1900
1800
1700
1600
1500 1400
1300
1200
1100
1000
pes tco von ced 1202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 2202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 3202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes
KMT
source: ICSG
This despite decadence in the total percentage of world mine capacity utilized per month. This
chart has its own seasonal ups and downs, but the red trend line shows how the average has
dropped for around 82% of mine capacity utilized to around 78%.
Mine capacity utilized
90%
88%
86%
84%
82%
80%
78%
76%
74%
72%
70%
pes tco von ced 1202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 2202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes tco von ced 3202naJ bef ram rpa yam nuj luJ gua pes
source: ICSG
That’s because Panama Cobre’s recent woes and the Anglo news are not the first bottleneck to
hit the copper market, these are regular occurrences and the copper market tends to roll with
the punches. Or put another way, all the world needs to do to add over half a million metric
tonnes back onto supply is to get that utilized capacity average back yup to 80% for the year
ahead. Just that would turn the market back into surplus, not a single new mine required.
The bottom line: Though the world and this desk uses the long-term supply/demand forecasts
to predict a clear and very significant production shortfall over the medium to long term (e.g.
from there to 2030) and by inference either new mines needed on line or clearly higher copper
prices, it pays to be very cautious when using the near-term data as a prop for your bullish (or
bearish) metals thesis. For sure it’s tempting to do so and the logic stands up to classical Adam
Smith type economics, but as we see above it ain’t necessarily so.
 Other influences, e.g. moves in the US Dollar, can and often do influence the
copper market price more than its own physical trade balance.
 Annual forecasts are notoriously inaccurate and reality tends to the deficit
anyway, something the market takes into account almost automatically these
days.
 The correlation between near-term trade balance and the spot price of copper
is tenuous.
 There are clear inter-annual cycles that must also be taken into account, e.g.
we’re about to hit a couple of soft months for world copper demand and
inventories will rise.
 Etc
Take projected surpluses or deficits into consideration, yes of course, but don’t read too much
into this dataset. The market doesn’t and when copper prices drop (the way they’ve done this
week) despite the apparent imbalance in favour of bulls, don’t be too surprised.

Heliostar Metals (HSTR.v) brings good news to market
It’s fair to say that this desk has been a vociferous opponent of Heliostar Metals (HSTR.v) since
its inception. A resurrection roll back/name change/new project/new management affair from
the previous disaster Redstar Gold, it was brought into being via a deal to buy the Ana Paula
project from Argonaut Gold (AR.to) along with one other troubled asset and “Vancouver
Protégé” (let’s say) Charles Funk put in charge. Nothing untoward there so far, but from the
start the company decided to go the “Sell The Sizzle, Not The Steak” route using an aggressive
paid promotion campaign and sponsoring a long list of newsletter writers and social media
influencers. As far back as May 23 we were pointing this out (19), as the company ran splashy
assay grades and got breathless social media applause from those it was paying. Meanwhile,
we were pointing out that Ana Paula is not some sort of mystery and for over 15 years, its
strong grades and resource were not a big secret. The high grades at the project and the
resource were there for all to see while owned by AR.to, but the major issue at the project was
its geography and social problems, being located as it is in one of the most dangerous zones for
Mexican narco cartel activity in the country and certainly in the South.
But the BS and promo nonsense only intensified at HSTR, most notably in mid-July when the
company decided to drill straight down the known resource zone’s breccia pipe and deliver a
headline of 242m of 9.06 g/t gold as a result. We pointed out at the time that this type of
promo pump hole did more harm than good and would only entice in greenhorns, but (of
course) that didn’t stop the paid promo from waxing lyrical and trying hard to earn their five
figure fees. So as well as being opposed to HSTR and its “Vancouver Special” tactics, as it
conveniently forgot about its major red flag and wowed sector newbies via splashy holes and
paid promos, it’s also fair to say that this desk has been proven right in its opposition to HSTR
to date.
It is, therefore, somewhat ironic to report that a few days a go we got the first real and
genuinely positive news for the company, but it apparently went un-noticed by the market. This
is the link to the December 5th NR (20) and here’s an extended excerpt:
Vancouver, Canada, December 5, 2023 – Heliostar Metals Ltd. (TSX.V: HSTR,
OTCQX: HSTXF, FRA: RGG1) (“Heliostar” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce
the appointment of Mr. Gregg Bush as Chief Operating Officer for the Company.
Mr Bush is a proven mine builder with a strong track record of mine development,
project integration and operations. Previously, Mr. Bush was the COO of Capstone
Mining Corporation for eight years. There, his responsibilities included all aspects of
operations, development projects, and new acquisition integrations for the company.
More recently, Mr. Bush served as the Senior Vice President of Mexico for Equinox
Gold Corp. He was responsible for the Los Filos mine located 30km south of Ana
Paula in Guerrero state. Prior to these roles, Mr. Bush led the development and
commissioning of the Dolores mine in Chihuahua, Mexico as COO of Minefinders
Corporation. He spent seventeen years in increasingly senior roles with Placer
Dome/Barrick. Mr. Bush graduated from the University of Texas, El Paso with a B.Sc.
in Metallurgical Engineering.
Commenting on this appointment, Heliostar Metals CEO Charles Funk said, “Attracting
a mine builder with the wealth and depth of experience as Gregg is a significant step
forward for Heliostar. The company has a clear vision to grow into a mid-tier gold
22

producer with Ana Paula as our first operating mine. Gregg will steer the technical
studies, economic analysis and, ultimately, the construction of what we believe will be
the next major gold mine in Mexico. Gregg has completed the steps ahead of the
company multiple times before in Mexico, has experience in the local area where we
operate, and brings a track record of safety, environmental, and production
improvements in his previous roles. I’m excited to push ahead into 2024 as we
continue to grow and de-risk one of the widest, highest-grade gold deposits in the
world.”
Gregg Bush said of his new position, “I am looking forward to joining the Heliostar team
and helping to deliver the Ana Paula project to production. I am excited to help the
team advance our portfolio of projects in Mexico and the US.”
The NR then went on to announce the incentive options/RSU package awarded to Mr Bush. Go
see the full NR for more, but in essence he got a juicy 2m papers for joining HSTR. There’s
more from the new COO on this YouTube link (21), in which Gregg Bush is interviewed and
explains why he decided to join HSTR. Make no mistake, this is genuinely good news for HSTR.
The major red flag at Ana Paula is its regional and community risk, it’s a genuinely dangerous
zone. This desk has followed this project for many years, knows about its high grade (which
HSTR has promoted non-stop this year), its metallurgy issues (HSTR far less forthcoming on
this angle, as the met is best described as “a problem” but not a fatal flaw (as high grade
solves its own issues) but most of all, its very difficult neighbourhood. As a group “mining
people” tend to be brave and ready to look after themselves in the field, but we’re talking about
a locality about which I’ve spoken to ex-workers/contract/consultant hires who have vowed
never to return after having direct and scary confrontations with gang members. So to use the
phrase for a third and final time, it’s fair to say that HSTR faced a major issue in attracting
managerial talent to the project and it’s that which makes last week’s news so important. A
checklist:
 Gregg Bush has the CV you’d want for a real COO. He has the background and experience,
is hands-o and not just some a figurehead office body.
 Not only does he know his Mexico, he knows some of the tough zones in the country such
as Chihuahua (he was part of the Minefinders team that developed Dolores) and
importantly, Guerrero while at Equinox. Admittedly, the EQX Los Filos operation isn’t in one
of the hottest risk zones of Guerrero but it’s the same State all the same and Bush, who
speaks fluent Spanish, will have heard all about Ana Paula in his time there.
 He recently visited Ana Paula as part of the DD process before accepting the job and that
allows us some leeway on the present state of regional risk. You can be quite sure he would
have done his homework on the zone in 2023, so seeing him accept the role is an indication
that things are perhaps improving.
Today’s note is NOT an endorsement or recommendation for HSTR. I still have my issues about
the company and the project, they don’t vanish into thin air overnight and as I explained to A.
Reader (who shall remain nameless) back in July when HSTR was getting the full promo pump,
your actual and self-respecting narco gang doesn’t tend to shake down or extort a single drill
rig and camp of 30 or so people; they tend to wait until the
company has invested a large eight or low nine figure sum
before making their move and getting the maximum bang
for their sawn off shotgun buck. With that said, there’s no
doubt in my mind that the arrival of Gregg Bush has made
HSTR and more attractive speculation and exploreco
project. The company’s medium-term plan is to turn the
highest grade zone of Ana Paula into an underground
mining project, instead of the open pit project it was
previously envisaged as becoming when at other companies
(lastly AR). That makes sense from an environmental
footprint level and we know the grade is good enough to
mine profitably UG, the difference now is that they have real mining talent to take the idea off
the drawing board and get it into a 43-101 compliant report. So yes, after watching the paid
promo pump on this stock all year it was rather ironic to see its share price drop on the news of
23

Bush’s arrival, as it’s the first time HSTR has done something to address the project’s and the
company’s major weak point. The aggressive promo tactics are not likely to abate and that’s its
own double-edged sword, but as from this week I am more interested in HSTR as a potential
trade.
Conclusion
IKN760 is done, we end with bullet points:
 Next weekend’s edition will be even thinner than this one.
 Eyes on Argonaut (AR.to) this week, plus the potential for Rio2 (RIO.v) to wake up
from its over-long slumber.
 I see no reason to abandon the bull gold thesis on the back of what may turn out to be
an anomalous week of trading. It wouldn’t take much from the upcoming macro
prompts to see gold catching a bid once again.
 I will remain leery about copper’s near-term prospects, despite that apparent shift in
market balance.
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
Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2023/12/schedule-for-week-of-december-10-2023.html
(2) https://sea.gob.cl/convocatorias-ordinarias-y-extraordinarias-0
(3) https://www.webcenterfairbanks.com/2023/12/05/alaska-group-seeks-injunction-against-manh-choh-ore-haul-dot-
responds/
(4) https://www.provenancegold.com/20231205-provenance-gold-completes-3d-drone-dem-and-orthomosaic-survey-in-
preparation-for-the-2024-exploration-program-at-eldorado
(5) https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/solgold/news/rns/story/xpoq5jw
(6) https://polaris.brighterir.com/public/solgold/news/rns/story/rggkp0r
(7) https://www.lme.com/en/metals/non-ferrous/lme-copper#Summary
(8) https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/shanghai-futures-exchange-commodity-futures-stock
(9)
https://www.cochilco.cl/Paginas/Estudios/Mercados%20de%20metales%20e%20insumos%20estrat%C3%A9gicos/Info
rmes-Semanales-2015.aspx
(10) https://kodiakcoppercorp.com/news/news-releases/kodiaks-first-holes-at-south-zone-extend-copper-mineralization-
to-mid-zone-and-to-depth-0.32-cueq-over-234-m-from-surface/
(11) https://www.newmont.com/investors/news-release/news-details/2023/Newmont-Announces-Successful-Early-
Tender-Results-for-the-Exchange-Offers-and-Consent-Solicitations/default.aspx
(12) https://www.wesdome.com/English/investors/latest-news/news-details/2023/Wesdome-Early-Warning-News-
Release/default.aspx
24

(13) https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2023/12/10/orban-y-milei-hablan-de-cooperar-contra-la-izquierda-
internacional/
(14) https://www.reuters.com/world/zelenskiy-seen-briefly-talking-hungarys-orban-argentina-2023-12-10/
(15) https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentine-libertarian-milei-take-presidency-with-economic-crisis-focus-
2023-12-10/
(16) https://www.as-coa.org/articles/poll-tracker-contenders-mexicos-2024-presidential-vote
(17) https://www.prensa.com/economia/minera-panama-pide-despejar-acceso-al-proyecto-en-donoso-dice-que-la-
gestion-ambiental-se-complica/
(18) https://icsg.org/press-releases/
(19) https://twitter.com/Mark_IKN/status/1660959594300964864?t=nPcWuDdY1d-eMoLUMi8how&s=03
(20) https://www.heliostarmetals.com/news-articles/heliostar-metals-adds-experienced-mine-builder-as-coo
(21) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfmxY0Bl6yY
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2022
Closed 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
Superior Gold SGI.v Oct'22 C$0.95 3-Apr-22 C$0.24 -74.7% Q3 prod fail was last straw
Goldshore Res GSHR.v Nov'22 C$0.18 23-Oct-22 C$0.34 88.9% Quick profit taken
Palamina Corp PA.v Dec'22 C$0.295 21-Nov-21 C$0.08 -72.9% Clear-out of underperformer
Pure Gold PGM.h Dec'22 C$0.14 26-Sep-22 C$0.015 -89.3% tiny trade on vh risk, went Ch11
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-Apr-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
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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
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-Aug-18 C$0.05 -33.3% tiny trade, made room for new
B2Gold BTO.to feb'19 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$4.05 91.9% Took 1/2 profits, reduce size
Western Copper WRN.to mar'19 C$0.80 20-Jan-19 C$0.81 1.3% Spec trade that didn't work
B2Gold BTO.to mar'19 C$2.11 12-Sep-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-Jan-19 U$4.15 -8.1% Short that didn't work, sm loss
Zinc One Z.v jun'19 C$0.47 14-Sep-17 C$0.025 -94.7% clearing out dead trade
Amarillo Gold AGC.v jun'19 C$0.24 22-Aug-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-Apr-18 C$0.47 -67.8% Failed sm spec on Au. Moved on
Amerigo Res ARG.to nov'19 C$0.91 23-Sep-18 C$0.50 -45.1% worst trade of year, hefty loss
Guyana Goldfields GUY.to dec'19 C$0.94 14-Apr-19 C$0.56 -40.4% taking the loss, financials weak
Tethyan Res TETH.v dec'19 C$0.30 8-Sep-19 C$0.16 -46.7% tiny trade, word of probs in co
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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
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-aug-15 C$0.25 38.9% okay trade, sold on pol risk
McEwen Mining MUX jan16 U$1.09 25-jan-15 U$1.20 10.1% sold due to lack of value
Lake Shore Gold LSG.to feb-16 C$1.10 07-apr-15 C$1.69 53.6% bot out, sold early in process
Atacama Pacific ATM.v feb-16 C$0.19 26-apr-15 C$0.40 110.5% sold for a double on big pop
New Gold NGD feb-16 U$2.06 24-jan-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-jan-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-apr-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-apr-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
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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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