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The IKN Weekly
Week 775, March 24th 2024
Contents
This Week: In today’s edition, Still no rush to own gold, Apologies and arrivals.
Fundamental Analysis: Mining in Ecuador is a buy.
Stocks to Follow: Western Copper & Gold (WRN.to)(WRN), SolGold (SOLG.to), Adventus
Mining (ADZN.v), Pan Global Copper (PGZ.v), Equinox Gold (EQX).
The Copper Basket: Overview, NGEx Resources (NGEX.to), QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v).
The Producer Basket: Overview, Eldorado Gold (EGO) (ELD.to), Wesdome Gold (WDOFF)
(WDO.to).
The TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Awalé Resources (ARIC.v), Kirkland LDC (KLDC.v), Palamina
Corp (PA.v).
Regional Politics: Argentina: The inflation clock is ticking loudly, Argentina: Canadian regional
diplomacy, Mexico: Conflicting biases in polls, The Peru political soap opera and its new Mining
Minister.
Market Watching: Mayfair Gold (MFG.v) and Muddy Waters, SSR Mining (SSRM): Clarifying
the trade potential.
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
 It’s been a great week. Today’s intro section.
 Our main fundies section this week may be a long and tiresome essay on Ecuador, but
it’s one that I hope will convince you to extend (or start) your exposure to mining in the
country. Opposition to mining projects isn’t suddenly going away, but the new and
popular Noboa administration seems to have found, by luck or judgment, the magic
formula to unlock its sector at the national level and allow jurisdictional seurity for
prospective FDI. We believe Ecuador is about to get an influx of financing cash that will
allow specific projects to be built and want you to be on before that happens.
 We mentioned last weekend that copper might be overbought and in need of a pullback
before running higher, that pullback came all-too quickly last week and sunk the spot
price back to the U$4.00/lb level. The Copper Basket adds a thought or two to last
week’s longer note, but the personal strategy isn’t about to change, it’s time to HODL
copper stocks.
 The TinyCaps Basket continues to rock and we have another live one to report this
weekend as Awalé (ARIC.v) ran like crazy on some good drill assays.
 For my money, there’s no trade yet in either Mayfair Gold (MFG.v) or SSR Mining
(SSRM). But there might be soon. That’s Market Watching.
Still no rush to own gold
Not among the big money player, at least. Last weekend we noted that the main bullion ETF
GLD had seen its first big inflow of physical metal since November 2023 when around 20metric
tonnes entered its vaults. By last weekend a little over 15mt had been added and GLD
inventories climbed from lows last seen in July 2019. Since then and last week, the total
1

inventory climbed another 6.7mt before Friday saw some physical leave and by Friday, the total
had moved up by around 3.5mt on the week to close at 835.33mt.
4.70 GLD: Inventory/Price Ratio, 2024 YTD
4.65
4.60
4.55
4.50
4.45
4.40
4.35
4.30
4.25
4.20
4.15
4.10
4.05
4.00
So yes, inventories moved up for a second week, but if we consider the context of gold’s
market price in the period…
…it seems rather thin gruel, even before someone decided to sell out of a couple of tonnes on
Friday. So despite making record prices as its narrative of a smart play as the Fed moves into
its cutting cycle plays out, the monetary metal is still finding it tough to attract real support
from the deep pockets of Wall St.
Apologies and arrivals
Last weekend’s edition was a bit of a disaster, not only with the lack
of content but, on reading my own words at some point in the week,
the main note on copper was full of basic English errors and even
more typos than normal (and normal isn’t great around these parts).
I hope you’ll forgive me for that poor display, but there was a reason.
This was the reason (right).
Without going into details, a plain-sailing pregnancy suddenly and
unexpectedly became a little complicated in its last week. However,
I’m happy to report that things went well and Hannah (above)
arrived safely and beautifully on Thursday morning. Since then, the
lack of sleep has been for all the best reasons. However, I’m not
quite done with the apologies yet because this weekend’s edition also
suffers from the effects of the arrival of Hannah. The birth wasn’t so
easy and my good lady, while now at home, is still feeling the after
effects of her wonderful work. As a result, I’ve learned that juggling a
newborn, a 2yo and a 15,000 word report on mining isn’t the easiest
2
32/21/92 42/1/2 42/1/6 42/1/01 42/1/41 42/1/81 42/1/22 42/1/62 42/1/03 42/2/3 42/2/7 42/2/11 42/2/51 42/2/91 42/2/32 42/2/72 42/3/2 42/3/6 42/3/01 42/3/41 42/3/81 42/3/22
GLD gold holdings, 2024 YTD (metric tonnes)
900
890
880
870
860
850
840
830
820
Source: SPDR data, IKN calcs 810
800
32/21/92 42/1/2 42/1/6 42/1/01 42/1/41 42/1/81 42/1/22 42/1/62 42/1/03 42/2/3 42/2/7 42/2/11 42/2/51 42/2/91 42/2/32 42/2/72 42/3/2 42/3/6 42/3/01 42/3/41 42/3/81 42/3/22
mt
source: SPDR GLD data

thing in the world and while there’s more complete content, I’m still missing the notes I wanmt
to run on Silvercrest vs Mag Silver and on the Colombian moining scene and why you need to
avoid that country like the plague (and also why Libero Copper (LBC.v) may offer an excellent
shorting opportunity at some point if it contrnues to rise on rumous of permits). However, as
luck would have it the planned note on Ecuador has seen important additions to the story over
the last seven days and has improved as a result, so in this case it was fortunatge to have
delayed it from last weekend to this. And on that subject…
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Mining in Ecuador is a buy
This weekend’s main Fundies edition is basically an extended Regional Politics note, an unusual
choice for an issue’s main event but I think it’s worth giving it the mian showcase. As long-term
readers know, over the years I’ve fluctuated between ambivalent and full anti on the subject of
investment exposure to Ecuador’s mining sector but in the last few months, as seen by a slow
but steady growth in portfolio exposure to the country, there has in my opinion been reason to
give the country some of my more speculative dollars. That’s why we’re long Adventus
(ADZN.v) and SolGold (SOLG.L) (SOLG.to) these days and while it’s been a rough ride,
particularly for SOLG, I’ve never given up hope of a good trade. However, that changes as from
this weekend and this extended note on the forces affecting Ecuador’s mining sector aims to
convince you what I’ve come to believe over the last month or so; that the reforms
happening under new President Daniel Noboa are going to stick. There’s a great
opportunity opening up for trades in Ecuador-exposed mining companies and you’re advised to
be on before the referendum vote happens, April 21st. For reasons why, read on.
The last three weeks have set the agenda for mining in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa and this
coming April will go a long way in deciding whether the pro-mining government or anti-mining
groups, locals and indigenous pressure groups have the upper hand. We’re about a month
away from finding out whether Daniel Noboa has enough political capital to push through
reforms to make Ecuador a more attractive destination for mining FDI and most (but please
note, not ALL) projects in the country. There are several steps to understand how this timeline
has played out. They start three weeks ago and the appearance at PDAC of President Noboa,
with a speech to the conference on Monday March 4th in which he stated his government would
be pro-mining in thought words and deed. We covered this in IKN773 dated March 10th and the
note “Ecuador: Noboa at PDAC and major news on Prior Consultancy”. On that day he also
made mention of the National Referendum scheduled for April 21st and the question that asks
his country to respect international tribunals for industrial disputes, e.g. ICSID/CIADI for trade
agreements (as noted in IKN772 dated March 3rd). But back to IKN773, as that edition also
covered the publication of the “The Manual of the Operation of Prior Consultancy” on March 8th
and that’s turning into a very important piece in the greater puzzle. Here’s how the Ecuador
coverage in IKN773 ended:
“…the government of Ecuador wants to introduce a prior consultancy that’s obligatory but non-
binding. That goes against the directive of OIT169 and is directly against the position taken by its
political and community opposition and without putting too fine a point on it, this document and its
consultancy proposal is fightin’ talk. This will go down like a lead balloon with CONAIE and likely
marks the end of the uneasy truce between the Noboa government and indigenous locals regarding
the mining sector.”
IKN773 understood that document would become a bit of a flashpoint, but with the benefit of a
couple of weeks and seeing how the issues have rolled out (below), it’s becoming apparent that
it was a key piece of a carefully planned strategy. And sure enough CONAIE reacted as
expected, with its first move a press statement published that week, on March 8th. Here it is
(1), below is the main body and demands, below your author’s translation:
3

That says:
We demand that the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the President of the Republic to abstain
from applying this manual and abandon it immediately, as it constitutes a violation of our right to a
free and informed prior consultancy and consent.
We ask that human rights organizations and the general public monitor this unconstitutional act by
the National Government and demand that it respect the international standards of protection and
development of the rights of indigenous peoples.
We ask that the Constitutional Court and the Public Ombudsman to monitor this unconstitutional act
by the National Government, as it does not comply with rulings emitted and is a violation of the
constitutional judicial order.
We warn the international community and particularly all those states and companies interested in
participating in the exploration and extraction of mining resources in indigenous peoples’ territories
that this scenarios of reiterated, systematic and serious violations of the constitutional right to prior
consultancy for the process of concessions and licensing are illegal and illegitimate, a they are
based on an unilateral interpretation by the executive regarding the regulation of constitutional
rights, once again failing the principal of jurisprudence.
Governments and foreign companies that decide to invest in Ecuador must understand that our
indigenous territories are not for sale or for concession, and that any process validated by this
manual is a pretense and that whatever happens in our territories will only be decided by us.
A week later and acting separately the erstwhile Presidential candidate, environmental activist
and lawyer who did a lot of the legal legwork to stop the Loma Larga/Quimsacocha project in
Azuay from moving forward, Yaku Pérez, announced we was taking the Noboa government to
constitutional court over the contents of the The Manual of the Operation of Prior Consultancy.
This section of this report (2) covers the main reason (translated):
“For Yaku Pérez and a collective indigenous group, the document transgresses
Ecuador0s Constitution “For not having complies with the pre-requisite of a pre-
legislative consultancy of indigenous people affected and also obliged the development
of constitutional rights via the passage of organic laws….The ministerial agreement is
attempting to install a non-binding prior consultancy that may generate greater socio-
environmental conflict.””
A couple of days later, CONAIE announced its own challenge to the Noboa government’s plans
at the Constitutional Court and those cases will now be heard by the body. Please note, Yaku
Pérez has used the Ecuador legal system successfully on previous occasions, most notably
against Loma Larga/Quimsacocha and these challenges should not be taken lightly.
Our final specific date in this timeline is two days ago, March 22nd, when CONAIE held a large
meeting called the “Second National Anti-Mining Encounter” (II Encuentro Nacional Antiminero),
at which they debated and, headed by CONAIE president Leonidas Iza, decided on a 14 point
agenda (3) that includes vociferous opposition to the installation of any type of mioning in the
country, be it “legal or illegal mining”, then “potential marches” and demonstrations against
4

mining (that part of the declaration stopping short of calling for immediate protests to hit the
street, we note with interest). Here’s a quote from this report (4) on the meeting from a pro-
lefty, anti-Noboa editorial standpoint:
“He (CONAIE President Leonidas Iza) warned that there would be a national uprising if
the conditions of violence, criminalization and the imposition of constitutions rules
favouring transnational mining companies are maintained.”
CONAIE also announced it would campaign against the questions in the upcoming National
Referendum, including the petition to recognize international tribunals. A final point to note are
the protests and clashes seen over the last two weeks around the Atico Mining La Plata project,
with first locals complaining that the government had swamped the zone with army personnel,
then a big flashpoint last Wednesday when the government and company ran (what it called)
its prior consultancy meeting with locals. The large contingency of opposition to the mine say
they were impeded from attending the straged/rigged meeting and when they tried to force
their way in, the resulting clashes with the forces of law and order left 17 people injured
(including two police officers) and caused multiple arrests, as well as a quasi battle zone around
the meeting area. This clash was another major point of complaint made by CONAIE on Friday
and to add to the mix, yesterday Saturday March 23rd saw another big anti-mining march in the
zone around the Atico La Plata project, with 500 soldiers watching the event attentively. It
would seem the government had less stomach for clashes this weekend, potentially because
they’d already pushed through a rather one-sided “prior consultancy” meeting.
Summing up so far, we have an acceleration towards conflicts over mining and the Noboa
government is now pushing hard to get at least some of the main projects approved and under
construction. We’ve seen The Adventus Mining Curipamba/El Domo receive its main permits,
now Atico at El Domo is being sponsored by the government and against the clear wishes of
many locals. The other push is with SolGold at Cascabel, a project that enjoys generally better
CSR than the ones that tend to make headlines (Loma Larga, Warintza, La Plata, El Domo) and
last week President Noboa also met the SOLG executive team while they visited the project and
country. All these pro-mining moves and photo ops stand in stark contrast to the opposition to
mining in Ecuador, with clashes leaving bloodied heads and courtroom challenges from legal
teams that have successfully defended their rights on previous occasions.
This movement towards clashes over mining is nothing new, of course: It happened during the
Correa government, the Moreno government and most notably the Lasso government when
CONAIE played a leading role in Lasso’s resignation. However, this time there may really be
different and it’s a question of popularity. All the above enjoyed approval ratings that fluctuated
between mediocre (Correa) and very bad (Lasso, Moreno), so when social conflict came the
general population wasn’t ready to support the incumbent government or their President.
However and in this case, the newly-installed Noboa is riding high in the approval ratings polls,
product of his success in cracking down on narco-terrorist gangs and installing a “Bukele-esque”
prison regime in Ecuador modeled on the prisons now used to contain gang members in El
Salvador. New President Daniel Noboa is riding an extended honeymoon period of popularity in
his country and while the fight is clearly not over, as witnessed this very weekend with the
assassination of Ecuador’s youngest city mayor in an attack wioth all the hallmarks of
organizaed crime, he’s making great progress on Ecuador’s #1 cause for concern and reaping
the benefits from rank and file citizenzs. The Lenin Moreno and Guillermo Lasso administrations
were witness to a boom in organized and narco-related crime in Ecuador and its murder rate
shot up accordingly, but in short time the Noboa-led crackdown has seen murders drop from 40
per day to around 12 per day, with rolling State
of Emergency powers leading the charge. The
success is reflected in job rating polls from
Ecuador’s benchmark pollster CEDATOS (5)
which this month put his popularity at an
impressive 81.4%. Here right is the chart that
went along with this report on the subject, your
author changing the Spanish into English:
5

This extended honeymoon period affords Noboa enough political capital to run with his main
objectives. Combine this with another key point: Noboa doesn’t get a full term as President, as
according to the rules of the “crossfire death” dissolving of Parliament and executive last year,
he merely took over the mandate of Guillermo Lasso. His term only runs until May next year, a
mere 14 months from now and will likely feel even shorter, as Ecuador runs its Presidential
election first round vote in February 2025. Therefore, Noboa finds himself in the special
circumstance of running a popular replacement mandate and enjoying popularity from his
relative success against narco criminals, but with a very short shelf-life. It therefore makes
sense for him to cement his legacy, or at least try to, by pushing hard on economic reforms
right now as in effect, it’s his only possible window of opportunity.
What does this mean for Noboa? Below is how Ecuadorian talking head political analyst Juan
Manuel Fuertes put it during a TV segment recently (6) but, before we get there, please note a
couple of things: Firstly, for a while Señor Fuertes was an under-secretary in the Lasso
government and in that time, was one of the people in charge of the negotiations with CONAIE
after the indigenous protests and marches in mid-2022 that bought the country to a near-
standstill. Those negotiations ended with the deal that the government promptly reneged upon,
causing the second round of social issue that led to the downfall of Lasso. We also know that
Juan Manuel Fuertes at the time under-estimated the political power and resolve of CONAIE
and its leader Leonidas Iza, we also know Fuentes is sympathetic to the Noboa government’s
position and plans to avdance the mining industry in the country. So with that as context, here’s
the translated quote that gets an airing here because even after taking into account his clear
bias against CONAIE, as this desk concurs wholeheartedly with its contents:
“The President is a political actor with a lot of luck and part of this luck, which may
sound like a paradox at first, it’s the crime crisis which has made crime and security the
issue top priority for Ecuadorians. What’s more, if some or other sector tries to threaten
(the government) with its own actions they’ll find it very difficult to raise sympathy for
their cause with the general population because Noboa enjoys a very high credibility
and approval rating thanks to his decision to mobilize the army against the
delinquents.”
Agreed, and it so happens that he’s decided to use his politically brief window of opportunity to
do what any red-blooded capitalist would do, i.e. push for more orthodox free market policies in
his country and it just so happens he’s focused on mining as a top priority, the sector with FDI
looking to get in, but leery due to the sketchy guarantees for investor safety and jurisdiction
issues and suffering bottlenecks galore, due to a social opposition that hasn’t been solved by
any of Noboa’s predecessors, their lack of political capital with the country from low approval
ratings making the issue too tough to tackle. However now we have:
 A pro-business President from one of the wealthiest families in Ecuador
 A President enjoying very high approval ratings due to his ability to tackle crime
 A young, personable and ambitious President (to labour a point) with a limited time in
office and a clear will to impose an orthodox, free market capitalist agenda
 A President looking to add to jurisdictional security and improve the optics of investing in
Ecuador by allowing international tribunals to adjudicate disputes (the Rafeal Correa
government withdrew Ecuador from the World Bank’s ICSID/CIADI tribunal)
 A President actively supporting the mining industry, to the point of speaking at PDAC
 Permits starting to flow from the central government (see Adventus)
 A new law project that looks to blunt the teeth of the Prior Consultancy process by
making it non-binding, i.e. if there’s any dispute or no agreement can be reached “The
State will adjudicate” (and in favour of the project, obviously).
Add to that little list a final point, as this week also saw the formal start of Free Trade
Agreement negotiations between Canada and Ecuador, with the two teams slated to come to a
heads-up agreement by the second half of this year. If that goes well, it would add an extra
layer of judicial security to any Canadian mining company looking to invest in Ecuador.
6

However, that’s for later and we return to our bullet point list, as the final two are the main
items that have anatagonized the anti-mining indigenous community groups and depending on
the project, have seen protests flare up against what is otherwise a highly popular new
President. There is the initiative that has enviro legal teams going to the the Constitutional
Court in an attempt to block the new mining manual. For those, CONAIE’s Iza is now warning of
a “national uprising”. But would there be? Really?
Discussion and conclusion
We get to the point of this extended look at the political state of play in Ecuador. The success
enjoyed by Daniel Noboa in the fight against organized crime has sent his popularity ratings
soaring and as of last month, he enjoyed the high approval rating for any head of State in
Ecuador since 1979. That fact alone makes 2024 a different scenario to any we’ve seen in the
country in recent times, but when we add the ticking clock nature of Noboa’s term, his clear
propensity to capitalism and his obvious desire to promote capital investment in his country, in
our specific case the mining industry, it’s suddenly a very different playing field.
On the flipside, there is still obvious opposition to many of the mining projects dotted around
the country and on that score, Ecuador is no different to any other “difficult” jurisdiction.
However, Ecuador’s new executive now have a clear opportunity to push through national level
reforms to the mining laws, or perhaps “rulebook” is a better word, as the changes planned
would allow better and a more secure outlook to those companies and projects with the less
polemic projects to advance. In other words, Dundee’s Loma Larga (ex-Quimsacocha), the
Solaris Warintza and Atico’s La Plata are not going to see much improvement in their CSR
acceptance and in practical terms, tyou can award them all the permits in the world but if the
locals oppose the projects they’re alwsys going to be very complicated builds (remote locations
matter).
Back in IKN772 I noted that almost all the questions in the upcoming National Referendum
called by President Noboa are concerned about crime and security issues, but among them is a
rather bland looking question regarding trade. Here’s how it looked in IKN772:
Most of the eleven questions are directly related to internal security issues and don’t
come under the scope of The IKN Weekly, but one question is worth mentioning and
while the exact wording is important in Spanish (the Constitutional Court is keen on
making each question sound as neutral as possible, this translation will suffice for our
purposes:
Do you agree that the Ecuadorian State recognize international
arbitrage as a method of solving controversies regarding
contractual or commercial investment?
If passed, this will bring Ecuador back in line with international standards of arbitration
and would recognize bodies such as ICSID/CIADI for any eventual industrial dispute.
At that time I thought it was interesting enough to report on these pages, but not much else.
However and after the series of events we’ve seen since then, it’s not an exaggeration to say
that the importance of the April 21st referendum vote has grown enormously. At this stage, we
can now assume that Referendum question translated above is a key part of Noboa’s strategy
to get mining projects approved at a national and legal level. Indeed, hindsight also goes a long
way to explain what that outlier of a referendum question is doing buried amongst a whole
bunch of crime-fighting issues that are bound to get plenty of backing in today’s Ecuador. That
April 21st date is now important, as if the question is voted up it will give Noboa the right to
claim de facto popular approval for his pro-mining stance. Along with his strong approval rating,
this would make any “national uprising” call from CONAIE very difficult to execute, certainly
more than in 2022 when CONAIE brought the country to a standstill and clipped the wings of
the highly unpopular Guillermo Lasso.
I also believe CONAIE its politically canny leader Leonidas Iza understands this already. Last
Friday, instead of making overt threats of an imminent national strike the meeting decided on
warning that the issue may end up causing an uprising. There is a call for a “strike in the
communities” this coming Wednesday March 27th, but that’s not a major move and a far cry
7

from getting thousands of members to march on Quito. However, CONAIE is keen on opposing
the referendum and getting its members to vote it down so they have presumably understood
the danger of sending a “You Are Now Covered By International Law When Investing In
Ecuador” signal to sources of mining FDI to their anti-mining plans. The other thing we know
about CONAIE is that as an entity, it’s very good at choosing its battles. We don’t hear about its
opposition to Lundin Gold’s Fruta del Norte mine because in that locality, the mine and its
effects are very popular. We don’t hear it call for massive opposition to SolGold’s Cascabel
because its local CSR acceptance is good enough to allow the project to move forward (and the
project size means it has already spread wealth around, even before becoming a mine). But we
do hear about Loma Larga, Warintza, La Plata etc because no matter what the companies or a
succession of Ecuador governments might say, there has always been either a majority or a
vast majority of locals opposing those projects. Also curiously, up to 2023 CONAIE had the
Curipamba/El Domo project high on its list of projects to oppose but now that has been
awarded permits, it seems to have slipped down its target list. As a result, we expect both sides
of this equation and not just the government to take a keen interest in the results from the
above Referendum question on April 21st and according to the way Ecuador votes, tailor
strategies to match the result.
Which brings us to a prediction for the April 21st referendum. It’s not going to be a lock and
anyone with a memory for Ecuador politics will recall how the referendum called by Guillermo
Lasso was assumed a success by the chattering class and pollsters, right up to the moment
when the results came in and we found Ecuador had voted down all his proposals. But this
time, Noboa is riding a wave of acceptance and a full nine of the 11 questions are aimed at
giving him more powers to clamp down on organized crime and narco gangs, so we should
assume he’s going to win approval for all questions. If so, this will provide a clear message to
the world about Ecuador’s new landscape for FDI. Add this to his pro-mining agenda and his
government’s willingness to award permits and suddenly, any company investing in Ecuador’s
mining sector will have legal recourse to get their money back and even claim damages for lost
earnings if their permitted project fails to happen due to some pesky locals in the future or an
anti-mining government starts withdrawing permits. Make no mistake, April 21st has risen in
importance for the mining sector in Ecuador and if that question is passed by the general
population, it will give the brief-but-popular President Noboa all the political capital he needs to
push through his mining code reforms and open up the country to mining FDI. The industry will
still face plenty of pushback (of course) and we can expect locals around Warintza and Loma
Larga to stop those projects from moving forward, same as before, but those projects with
better CSR credentials will no longer be stopped by a national scene that cannot provide the
investment guarantees that big money needs (Cascabel will cost U$3Bn minimum and that’s not
chump change).
Trade advice
It’s clearly not a riskless trade, but if you are like me and think the April 21sty referendum will
go Noboa’s way, you have a month or so of the current price deck to position long in the best
and most socially acceptable mining projects in Ecuador before the new wave of investment
starts moving them up. In my opinion, the ones to be on include SolGold’s Cascabel and
Adventus/Salazar’s El Domo/Curipamba, unsurprising considering my money is in them already.
There are other options and I wouldn’t scare you off many projects, but do make a point of
warning about the most polemic ones in the country because no matter what changes to
national or international rules happen, the remote and/or thoroughly hated projects such as
Loma Larga, Warintza or La Plata are going to stay that way. Also, the politically smart CONAIE
will choose those battles because they can win them, while allowing Cascabel and El Domo to
happen (as Mirador and Frtua del Norte before them). So the bottom line to this long and
winding strategy not on Ecuador’s political scene as it affects its mining sector is simple
enough: We’re about to get a new playing field for investments in Ecuador and you have a
month to get on before the country starts attracting the big money back to its shores.
The IKN Weekly reiterates its BUY rating on Adventus Mining (ADZN.v) and SolGold (SOLG.to)
(SOLG.L)
8

Stocks to Follow
On a flat-to-negative week for metals stock, the Stocks to Follow did reasonably well under the
circumastances and even more so if you consider the amount of exposure there is to copper.
Six of our 16 open positions returned gains (MAI.v, EQX, RIO.v, PGZ.v, WRN.to, ALDE.v), two
were unchanged (MIRL.cse, PAU.cse) and eight were losers (SOLG.to, (MARI.to, ADZN.v,
CTGO, NCAU.v, ERO.to, SILV, MENE.v), but there was only one big dropped in the shape of
Contango ORE (CTGO down 15.0%) and most of the bigger positions were winners on the
week, so the personal portfolio ended up in positive territory.
We currently have 16 stocks on our list, four under our self-imposed maximum. Nine of those
are in the green, seven are in the red.
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$0.30 42.9% $0.75 first tgt, #1 idea
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Equinox Gold EQX STR BUY U$4.42 30-May-23 U$5.33 20.6% Leverage trade at U$2k/oz Au
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v BUY C$0.83 22-Apr-18 C$0.375 -54.8% Permit approved, rebounding
SolGold SOLG.to BUY C$0.22 19-Feb-23 C$0.15 -31.8% Avged down Feb'24
Pan Global Res PGZ.v BUY C$0.17 19-Feb-24 C$0.175 2.9% Feb'24 new Cu trade, cheap
Marimaca Copper MARI.to BUY C$3.05 26-May-23 C$3.50 14.8% Quality Cu developer
Western Copper WRN.to BUY C$1.52 26-Feb-24 C$2.05 35.3% Special situation purchase
Adventus Mining ADZN.v BUY C$0.285 7-Jan-24 C$0.28 -1.8% EIA permit received, now dev
Contango Ore CTGO BUY U$18.70 30-Jul-23 U$20.30 8.6% FY24 production, now moving
Newcore Gold NCAU.v SPEC BUY C$0.205 23-Oct-22 C$0.175 -14.6% Showing signs of life
SPECULATIVE TRADES
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v SPEC BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.81 12.5% drilling again
Minera IRL MIRL.cse avoid C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.025 -87.2% leaving list soon (good)
A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
Ero Copper ERO.to WATCH C$18.94 22-Oct-23 C$25.50 34.6% High quality Cu prod, cheap
SilverCrest Met SILV WATCH U$5.62 21-Jan-24 U$6.58 17.1% potential silver trade end Q1
Provenance Gold PAU.cse WATCH C$0.085 8-Oct-23 C$0.08 -5.9% Idaho gold drill play
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.63 6-Dec-20 C$0.22 -65.1% LT bet, adding slowly
CLOSED TRADES IN 2024 date closed close price
Amerigo Res ARG.to Jan'24 C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.34 -1.5% reduced Cu exposure
Fortuna Silver FSM Jan'24 U$2.92 13-Aug-23 U$3.09 3.4% Time ran out on NT trade
Argonaut Gold AR.to Jan'24 C$0.42 17-Dec-23 C$0.395 -6.0% NT specflip closed on poor Q4
2015 to 2023 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:
Western Copper & Gold (WRN.to)(WRN):
Up a penny on the week isn’t much, but any
copper position that manages a gain when the
metal price drops by around 4% is good by me.
Also and as this comparative chart shows, WRN
looks in the first rank of potential movers if
copper rallies from here. The spike on the first
flush after Jay Powell’s dovish presser is
indicative of being on the right trade in this sub-
sector.
9

SolGold (SOLG.to) and Adventus Mining (ADZN.v): See above for more on these two, but
I think the current price deck makes both of these extremely cheap. The catalyst SOLG needs is
a national level green light that would allow big money to become more comfortable with the
idea of building Cascabel for billions and operating it for decades, the Noboa government is
about to provide that green light. As for ADZN, it’s probably not a coincidence that it won’t have
its financing package finalized and a formal green light decision on the building of Curipamba
before Q3 of this year, that’s a timeline that allows the referendum result and its fallout to be
fully understood before the U$300m or so is committed.
Pan Global Copper (PGZ.v): A decent reaction to the met results NR out of PGZ on
Thursday, with a little extra volume and a share price that beat the late week headwinds to
register a weekly win. Please see the NR (7) for details and PGZ offers a lot of tables and data,
here we’ll limit our quote to one of the subjects mentioned in the CEO comments of Tim
Moody:
“As compared to the average of deposits within the Pyrite Belt, the La Romana mineral
deposit has demonstrated lower energy requirements for both crushing and grinding,
coarser liberation sizes, as well as superior performance in the flotation process for
copper.”
That’s the type of message that gets sent less to retail and more to its interested neighbours
who are already working the zone and mayt be looking to expand operations and enjoy
economies of scale.
Equinox Gold (EQX): This is the chart we always wanted from EQX at U$2,000/oz+ gold, it
finally happened at U$2,150/oz.
EQX has always been about the fabled and Utopian “leverage to gold”, thanks to its high
average cash cost per ounce. That’s now working in its favour and as well as comparing it to
GDX, I’ve added in Fortuna Silver over the last ten days to show we sold the right one this time.
10

The Copper Basket
After twelve weeks of 2024, The Copper Basket shows a gain of 5.83% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 NGEx Minerals NGEX.v 7.16 186.824 1668.34 8.93 24.7%
2 Solaris Res SLS.to 4.13 179.221 763.48 4.26 3.1%
3 Los Andes LA.v 11.80 29.53 344.02 11.65 -1.3%
4 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.43 93.11 325.89 3.50 2.0%
5 Hercules Silver BIG.v 1.38 231 210.21 0.91 -34.1%
6 Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to 1.75 109.17 146.29 1.34 -23.4%
7 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.89 169.819 137.55 0.81 -9.0%
8 Oroco Res OCO.v 0.375 222.86 120.34 0.54 44.0%
9 Faraday Copper FDY.to 0.63 175.97 109.10 0.62 -1.6%
10 American Eagle AE.v 0.26 108.87 67.50 0.62 138.5%
11 Kodiak Copper KDK.v 0.58 63.93 35.16 0.55 -5.2%
12 C3 Metals CCCM.v 0.61 61.885 26.61 0.43 -29.5%
13 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.12 173.7 21.71 0.125 4.2%
14 Camino Min COR.v 0.07 206.66 15.50 0.075 7.1%
15 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.18 106.25 14.34 0.135 -25.0%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg 5.83%
Considering the reversal we saw in copper the The Copper Basket 2024, weekly evolution
metal, the junior explorecos we follow held up 8%
6%
fairly well in general terms and our representative
4%
Copper Basket is doing a good job of taking the
2%
pulse of the sub-sector this year. Of our 15
0%
component stocks, six returned week-over-week
-2%
winners (NGEX.to, LA.v, ALDE.v, OCO.v, CCCM.v, -4%
COR.v), one was unchanged (BIG.v) and the -6%
remaining eight lost ground (SLS.to, MARI.to, -8%
ASCU.to, FDY.to, KDK.v, AE.v, QCCU.v, ECU.v)
but notably, there were no price collapses of the
sort we’ve become used to in the last couple of
years whenever copper loses ground. Instead, the losers dropped on the tide rather than a rush
for the exit door and the only double figure percentage mover on the week was the win
registered by Camino Minerals (COR.v up 15.4%), though admittedly that was a move of a
single penny without widespread interest (amazing what $20k worth of business can do to a 7c
stock). So the basket trakcing chart registers a small pullback but at +5.83% for the year and
seven winners on the list, that’s not bad considering the copper price action.
Talking of which, here’s one of the segments from last week’s main fundies piece on copper
that didn’t have any typos, in which we summed up how the copper market was shaping up
“…we enjoyed the copper run last week and there’s plenty of evidence of the metal having broken
out from its long-term range, but at the same time we still don’t have ducks fully in-line. Supply of
concentrate to Asia is certainly restricted and the number of smelters now competing for feed has
caused a flurry of headlines in the last two to three weeks, including the decision from a group of
said smelters to slow production and apparently restrict supply of finished copper to end users.
However, away from the smelter bottleneck there’s still little evidence of a demand surge and with
SHFE inventories beating last year’s levels and the Yangshan premium failing to signal tightness,
the rising dollar may now stop copper’s run.”
I’m unhappy to report that turned out to be the right call. Here’s the last ten days of our
benchmark for the copper market, the near-dated Comex futures contract (HGK24), the one
with the most volume and open interest:
11
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42
source: IKN calcs

We closed last week’s strategy piece on copper last week by opining that the “…move in copper
was timed nicely and looks powerful enough to hold, at least above the U$4.00/lb line”.
Hopefully that turns out to be right, because the shift back to the U$4 line was swifter than I’d
imagined. We’re about to find out if Friday was an overselling moment, but the frustration
among the copper bulls was palpable last week and plenty of “How Is This Possible!?!?!?” talk
from people who continue to point to the upcoming supply deficit.
The answer is: Demand! It’s not the first time we’ve gone over this, neither is it the second and
it got plenty of mention in last week’s main note (e.g. “…we may see some near-term weakness
in copper if demand doesn’t match the most bullish of expectations…”). It’s the missing link and
last week we went over a handful of indocators pointing to flaccid current demand, primarily in
its major market China. For sure that’s also seasonal, but it doesn’t make it any less true and
it’s a timely reminder copper is a bona fide, real life dyed-in-wool commodity, rather than an
asset class like gold. The future has less impact on copper’s current valuation because it’s
heavy, cumbersome, costs money to store and is not an end in itself but a means to an end.
Long story short, there’s a good reason its futures curve looks like this (8):
So before we hand it over to Andy Home of Reuters to comment on the way SHFE inventories
have re-stocked hard in this season, we remind readers there are three main factors that affect
the price of copper:
 Supply: We know there’s a shortfall baked into the future
 Demand: The current incognito
 The US Dollar: A benchmark fungible metal priced in USD, if the Greenback
strengthens against world currencies (e.g. Chinese Yuan) it costs more in local
currency for a tonne of the stuff.
12

The bullish supply outlook is not a cause for debate. The jury is still out on demand. So when
then USD strengthened last week in light of the Fed’s dovish outlook, copper was always going
to react negatively. As much as I’d like to say that all ducks are in line, we’re not there yet.
Now we hand over to the inimitable Andy Home who agreed with this desk’s view on this year’s
SHFE copper inventories in his weekly column, “Copper registers strongest seasonal Shanghai
stocks build” (9):
ShFE copper stocks have mushroomed from just 30,905 metric tons at the end of December to
285,090 tons.
The scale of this year's seasonal surge has been the strongest since 2020, when registered
inventory peaked at 380,085 tons. The New Year holiday period that year coincided with the first
wave of COVID-19 lockdowns and the resulting slump in Chinese manufacturing activity.
This year the jump in exchange stocks likely reflects the combination of fast domestic production
growth and higher imports.
The country's output of refined copper rose by 9.0% year-on-year in January-February, equivalent
to an extra 159,000 tons, according to local data provider Shanghai Metal Market. Imports rose by
2.6% over the same period.
Add to that the new supply of scrap now making a difference in China. This report (10) entitled
“Korea struggles with surging copper scrap exports to China” adds an extra angle that doesn’t
always occur to a guy who spends his week worrying about Andean Cordillera porphyry
deposits:
South Korea’s nonferrous metal industry is scrambling for the procurement of copper
scrap as China, the world’s top copper consumer, has taken advantage of a Korean
tax loophole to aggressively import the valuable scrap metal from the peninsula.
Copper scrap exports to China were forecast to nearly double to 24,967 tons in the first
quarter of this year from a year earlier, according to the South Korean customs office
and the Korea International Trade Association on Monday. That was likely to account
for 73% of the country’s total copper scrap exports.
Scrap shipments to China had already quadrupled to 67,043 tons last year from 16,340
tons in 2020. But the volume was estimated to be up to about 100,000 tons as some
copper scrap was shipped to other countries such as Thailand and Malaysia for
refining and eventually moved to the mainland, industry sources in Seoul said.
South Korean scrap copper supply into China is clearly a booming business and while 100kmt
isn’t much of a dent in the 14mmt or so that China consumes, it’s part of the demand tipping
point for sure. Now for the updated data on those copper inventories, data as usual from
Cochilco:
 It looks as thought the seasonal inflection point has arrived. The aggregate for the
three official world systems rose by a thin 5,763 metric tonnes (mt), closing at
426,938mt.
 At the Shanghai SHFE, we seem to have found the annual peak. Copper stocks dropped
by 1,305mt to close at 285,090mt and while there is the potential for another upmove
next week all signs point to the top being in and see the charts below for more.
 The LME added 6,550mt last week as 5,825mt landed in Rotterdam and 3,000mt in
Singapore. Those two warehouse sites now hold over 50% of the 113,850mt under
LME roofs this weekend.
 The Comex added 508mt to close at 27,998mt. No biggie.
The first of the two dedicated SHFE charts is the best to show the top now forming. This time
last weekend this was starting to flash a bearish signal on demand but assuming we’re about to
follow the pattern set in other years and roll over now, it could have been worse. Still, this is
the highest peak since the weirdness that went on in the first quarter of the Covid year in
China.
13

SHFE copper inventory levels, 2019 to 2024
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
14
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 2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
source: Cochilco data
Shanghai Futures Exchange Warehouse Stocks, 2014 to date
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
31'13ceD dr32 ht51 ht7 ht03 dn22 ht71 ht9 ts1von ht42 ht71 ht01 dn2tcO 7102ts1naJ ht62 ht81 ht01 dr3ced ht52 8102ht72rpa ht91 ht11 9102
dr3bef
9102ht82rpa ts12 ht31 0202ht5naj 0202ht92ram ts12 ht31 0202ht6ced ht82 dr32 ht51 ht7 2202ht03naj 22ht42rpA ht71 22ht9tco 3202
naJ
ht62 ht81 ht01peS dr3ceD ht52beF
Mt Cu
|
source: Cochilco
Now for notes on just two our basket stocks:
NGEx Resources (NGEX.to): There were a couple of larger moves in percentage terms, but
for me the best performance on the week came from the 10c added by NGEX under what
would normally be difficult sector circumstances. This is a good signal for “The Lundin Plays”
and for the copper explorecos in general, we need market leaders to lead at these moments,
relying on penny moves by tinycaps won’t get us anywhere.
NGEX also delivered its 4q23 and YE financials on Friday evening and there’s no need to go
depe into the weeds on this one, so here’s a small secreenshot from the cover NR:
With cash at C$59.5m at year end, a total burn of C$49m in 2023 (mostly exploration, with
$2m/qtr G&A) and a 2024 program that looks roughly equivalent, this tells us that NGEX is
cashed up nicely for 2024 and will be able to do its thing without further dilution. Presumably at
Lunahuasi. However, this also points towards my own problem with NGEX as a trade, as a
market cap of C$1.668Bn and total assets of C$81.293m means there’s an awful lot of
unrealized equity in the current stock price. Now for sure The Lundins and the project may
deserve that, but I can’t help but think of the complications compared to that price. In NGEX
we have a large, low grade Los Helados…

…and while 17.6Bn lbs copper and 10m oz Au is nothing to sniff at or discount out of hand, that
cut-off compared to the CuEq grade tells us the costs are relatively high as well and the gold
ounces are an integral part of the project economics. Meanwhile, the plan is clearly to bump up
grade from Lunahuasi, but not only is that a logistically difficult number of Kms away, but it’s
also on the Argentina side of the high Andean border, a detail that brings all sorts of
complications to the table. Be clear that I’m not saying NGEX is an impossible order, but I am
saying that it’s trickier than meets the eye and won’t just be a “hey, just blend it all together
and sell to the Japanese” proposition. All in all, Filo (FIL.to) looks the better option at this point.
QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v): The two things on my mind about QCCU are:
1) Its Feb 14th NR entitled “QC Copper Intersects ‘Opemiska Style’ Mineralization Along Cooke-
Robitaille Corridor, Confirming Opemiska Resource Expansion Potential” (11) that went with the
recent annoying trend of announcing visuals instead of waiting for assays. At the time we
mentioned on these pages that the potential here is interesting and has the potential to change
the game for this stock. We’re now six weeks
down the line from that NR, so if those assays
are good we should get news soon.
2) The game is sorely in need of a change, as
this three year chart shows (right). That’s a very
big flatline and I should know, I held shares in
QCCU for much that inertia period. A breakout
would be a perfect situation and let’s note how
we’ve seen recent move from “Ore Group”
connected stocks such as American Eagle (AE.v)
and Awalé Resources (ARIC.v), so it might be
QCCU’s turn. All the same, it would only need a
return to the previous flatine 15c-17c range to
represent a gain of between 25% and 36% from this weekend, so at 12.5c there’s even the
chance to flip a few. We await that NR.
The Producer Basket
After 12 weeks of 2024, the Producer Basket shows a loss of 1.40% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 41.39 1152.6 38.92 33.77 -18.4%
2 Agnico Eagle AEM 54.85 497.971 27.71 55.64 1.4%
3 Barrick GOLD 18.09 1756 27.25 15.52 -14.2%
4 Franco-Nevada FNV 110.81 192.119 21.97 114.38 3.2%
5 Pan American PAAS 16.33 364.439 5.04 13.84 -15.2%
6 Lundin Gold LUGDF 12.64 237.68 3.18 13.37 5.8%
7 Eldorado Gold EGO 12.97 202.472 2.72 13.41 3.4%
8 Hecla Mining HL 4.81 617.768 2.61 4.23 -12.1%
9 Dundee PM DPMLF 6.43 183.278 1.32 7.19 11.8%
10 Wesdome Gold WDOFF 5.83 148.95 1.04 7.01 20.2%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg -1.40%
Three weeks of gains came to an end last week, as GDX dropped 1.0% and erased the gains
seen in the post-FOMC blood rush, this despite seeing gold bullion hand on better after hitting
its U$2,200/oz record price midweek. Gold returned a small week-over-week price gain (GLD
proxy up 0.3%). As for our basket of ten, our average dropped by slightly less than the GDX
benchmark, thanks mostly to having two useful winners (LUGDF, EGO) that managed to swim
against the tide. The other eight were losers, but the drops weren’t heavy and mostly between
15

0.1% (FNV) and 2.2% (WDOFF) down, the only real outlier being Pan American (PAAS down
4.6%). At -15.2% YTD that company is almost as bad as Newmont so far this year, its own
variety of damning commentary.
Also please note that quietly and without making many headlines, Agnico Eagle (AEM) has
surpassed the faltering Barrick (GOLD) and it now the #2 world goldie stock by market cap. At
the start of 2023 AEM was almost $5Bn less valuable in the eyes of the market, which is quite a
turnaround in a year and a bit. We know Thornton has recently stepped down from his
Executive Chair position at Barrick, but so far we haven’t heard much criticism about its CEO
and supposed wunderkind of the precious metals sector, Mark Bristow, despite the mediocre
performance of the company under his charge. All the globetrotting private jet trips and his face
popping up in South America one week, PNG the next and Africa all the time (surprise) might
make for good photo ops, but his tenure is not producing the expected results. That’s not a
personal opinion, that’s a simple read of the share price chart.
The 2024 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and The 2024 Producer Basket: Percentage diff. between
4% comparative to GDX control GDX benchmark & basket (negative= IKN ahead)
1.5%
2% 1.0%
0% 0.5%
-2% 0.0%
ikn -0.5%
-4% gdx control -1.0%
-6% -1.5%
-8% -2.0%
-2.5%
-10%
-3.0%
-12% -3.5%
-14% -4.0%
source: IKN calcs -16%
Jan1sJtan7th14th21st 28thfeb4th11th18th25thMar3rd10th17th 24th
Eldorado Gold (EGO) (ELD.to): I’ve made no secret of the my bullish view for EGO this year,
starting in IKN763 when retaining the stock for the 2024 Producer Basket and predicting that
EGO would be able to “Do an AGI” and put in two straight years of sector out-performance. We
diagreed with the market’s negative reaction when it announced its Q4 prodcution numbers and
2024 guidance, we bemoaned its bad luck on the collateral damage caused by thr SSRM Copler
disaster (see Market Watching for a little more on that company) and most recently in IKN773
two weekends ago, predicted good things would continue to happen after crunching its 4q23
and YE financial results. That main fundies section report, entitled “Eldorado Gold (EGO): A
strategic overview for a 2024 mid-cap trade” included (another) inadvertently funny typo of
mine in its final sentence, but when stating that “I cannot think of a better madcap gold
producer proposition out there at the moment” I’m sure you got my message. Hopefully you
laughed under your breath, too. Here’s how EGO has done since IKN773 and those madcap
midcap thoughts:
I wish they could all do that.
Wesdome Gold (WDOFF) (WDO.to): This small comment would have made IKN774 last
Sunday of it weren’t for the way my weekend had been blown into a thousand pieces. Ten days
16
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

ago, large insto holder filed that, as at February 29th, it had increased its holding in WDO by
just over 4m shares and to quote the filing this means TRP now has ”… control or direction over
an aggregate of 22,603,909 Common Shares. As a result, the Investor’s securityholding
percentage of Common Shares has increased from 12.58% to 15.17%.
That’s a significant uptick in its holding and a franking of the positive way Kiena is shaping up
(at last). WDO under-performed peers in 2023 by around 9% (to GDX) but we decided to
persevere with its presence in the 2024 basket and so far, at +20.2% and #1 position of the
ten component stocks, that’s turned out to be the right decision.
The TinyCaps List
After 11 weeks of 2024, the TinyCaps show a gain of 35.39% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aston Bay BAY.v 0.065 221.5 31.01 0.14 115.4%
Awalé Res ARIC.v 0.135 67.27 26.91 0.40 196.3%
District Metals DMX.v 0.170 106.98 36.37 0.34 100.0%
Endurance Gold EDG.v 0.18 150.136 19.52 0.13 -27.8%
Kirkland LDC KLDC.v 0.100 88.625 8.86 0.10 0.0%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.075 71.476 6.79 0.095 26.7%
Palamina Corp PA.v 0.130 71.285 8.55 0.12 -7.7%
South Star STS.v 0.750 48.8 27.33 0.56 -25.3%
Surge Copper SURG.v 0.090 219.21 17.54 0.08 -11.1%
Viva Gold VAU.v 0.120 118.384 12.43 0.105 -12.5%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg 35.39%
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 (though this year I’m making one clear exception and one rule
stretcher). 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, our task is to trawl through the TSXV and find companies that are small but with life in them. The vast
majority of tinycap stocks are broken stories, 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 2024. 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.
TinyCaps, 2024 weekly tracker
40%
Despite the head count of five losers (DMX.v,
35%
EDG.v, STS.v, SURG.v, VAU.v), one unchanged
30%
stock (BAY.v) and four winners (ARIC.v, KLDC.v,
25%
LMS.v, PA.v) going against us, the tracking chart 20%
right shows the massive improvement put in by The 15%
TinyCaps basket last week. That’s because all four 10%
5%
winners were double figure percentage moves and
0%
whole those of Kirkland LDC (KLDC.v up 33.3%),
Latin Metals (LMS.v up 18.8%) and Palamina Corp
(PA.v up 14.3%) were fine and dandy, the big deal
was the gains in Awalé Resources (ARIC.v up 122.2%) on volume after it announced its latest
drill numbers. See below for more on that, but the 2024 TinyCaps Basket is now running hot
with three stocks showing double-plus gains.
17
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

Awalé Resources (ARIC.v): The springer of the week in the entire sector, not just in our
TinyCaps basket:
And for good reason, too. On Monday ARIC published this NR (12) entitled “Awalé Hits Multiple
Shallow High-Grade Intercepts, including 2.4
g/t AuEq Over 75 Meters at the Odienné
Project” the market liked what it saw from the
getgo but as the chart indicates, the second
and bigger boost came when sector
influencers had their say later in the week and
deemed Odienné a real live discovery on the
back of these results. Quite right too and to
quote ARIC CEO Andrew Chubb, the
“…plunging high grade mineralization over
500m of strike, which remains open in all
directions” neatly sums up what we see on all
the drill maps and the assay table.
Please see the NR for the table and all the
visuals, it would be easy to fill up this space with
things you get over there so I’m going to limit myself
to two of the maps for a representative looks. The
data in the NR shows 18 holes reported, very few
misses and a sweet spot as seen in this visual (right)
in the centre of its 1.3km strike length target that
includes the headline OEDD74 hole and its 2.4 g/t
AuEq over 75m, with 1.8 g/t of that from gold. Most of
the “Eq” metal here is copper and as the mineralized
zone is from surface runs, deep and is controlled by a
fault, these returned grades could make for a robustly
economic open pit sulphide mill operation at 1.5 g/t
gold average with by-product kickers on top.
These results and the market reaction from them is
why we bother with the tinycaps, every so often one
of these companies hits and runs, this time it happens
to be one on our radar (though not in our personal
portfolio…so be it. To round off, here’s a reminder of
the starter notes on Awalé in IKN763 dated December
31st 2023 when introducing the 2024 TinyCaps list. It
was the second of five new stocks presented that days
and even though I don’t own any, we got the
framework right and the reasons to follow this stock’s
story have borne fruit:
18

2) Awalé Resources (ARIC.v): There’s plenty to like about this C$9m market capper and it was
already on my Long List for the 2024 basket before no fewer than three of you nice subscribers
mentioned it as a good option (you know who you are, thank you) which made it into something of
a no-brainer to include and follow more closely this year.
ARIC.v has a suite of concessions in its focus geography but also has a clear flagship, the Odienné
Copper/Gold project in Northwest Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast for old-timers like me) in West Africa,
where it’s already generated three targets on the large concession area. Importantly, ARIC has a
big name strategic partner in the shape of Newmont (NEM), which has recently upped its
participation to 15.48% and has an option to earn up 51% of Odienné by the end of next year (will
certainly happen) and that can move up to 65% if NEM funds the Stage Two (likely to happen).
This year ARIC brought in another new strategic partner in the shape of Stephen Stewart’s Ore Cap
(he’s now a director) and also changed its executive management team at the same time. The
trade reminds this desk a lot of the Newcore Gold Enchi property, with the potential to define a
large, near-surface open pit gold resource.
The combo of sufficient cash treasury, a big name sponsor funding 2024 exploration and
development, a prospective looking target, the right metal, a reasonable location (and certainly on
the right side of the border in Côte d’Ivoire) and all at a market cap of under C$10m that would
allow lots of equity leverage under the right circumstances is a good combination and more than
enough to deserve its place on the 2024 TinyCaps list.
The stuff exploreco dreams are made of any that $9m market cap at the start of the year is
now an IKN estimated $26.9m, i.e. a triple, but that’s still cheap compared to what can happen
with a hot discovery play (Snowline is your model). The only potential drag on price action is a
placement and while NEM added almost a million to treasury at the end of last year as it added
to its strategic position, the company has some cash but not mountains. They’ll probably look to
take advantage of this momentum and run a treasury-filling placement at some point but by the
same token, they surely don’t feel pressure to do so immediately so the board will be able to
pick its moment to go to market strategically.
Kirkland LDC (KLDC.v): Unlike the massive volume that ran through ARIC.v above, it took
just 70k shares to move KLDC from 8c to 10c on Tuesday, after which it was all-but ignored by
the market, so 1,500 shares traded on Friday was enough to prop the price at 10c into this
weekend. Volume matters in these stocks and the comparative performances of KLDC and ARIC
last week may seem similar, but in momentum terms they are chalk and cheese.
Palamina Corp (PA.v): Another bigg-ish percentage mpove on thin volumes, but in this case
I Rermind readers that PA and its Usicayos target is the type of story that could reprocude the
gains seen in ARIC last week. It all depends in the Truth Machine, which starts turning once the
rainy season is behind the South Peru region. Be clear, I’m considering a small (repeat, small)
speculative dabble in this stock between now and the first drill results and if that happens, PA
will get its line in the Stocks to Follow list for the second time (longer-term readers will recall
the first was a swing/miss). Heads-up on possible next trade complete.
NB: Please be clear that The Tiny Dogs is NOT a list of recommended tinycap stocks. It is a list of companies with
market caps of under $20m offering a reasonable representation of the wider tinycaps market. It’s possible in the future
I may buy shares in one or several of these stocks, at the moment both my opinion and wallet are strictly neutral.
Regional politics
Argentina: The inflation clock is ticking loudly
Tourists visiting Argentina in the last couple of weeks are sending back a very different
message than those who visited late last year, as the country has gone from bargain prices in
Dollar terms to “about the same as Europe”, according to a mail received by a friend who spent
a long weekend in Buenos Aires in late February. And locals are feeling the pinch more keenly
than any outsider on a visit, as inflation continues to run riot on prices for food, energy and
lodging. The difference under this new Milei government is its fiscal “hard medicine” means no
more salary increases to keep personal income in Peso terms up with inflation and the result is
a citizenry suffering far more than any tourist on a short visit. According to Argentina’s official
19

beancounters INDEC (13) prices for the “canasta basica” (basic basket) of items required to live
above the poverty line have gone up by 70% since Milei arrived, with plenty of the most basic
items such as rice (+133%), milk (+123%), flour (+123%), cooking oil (+129%), bleach
(+127%), diapers (+174%) etc up a lot more. It’s one thing to take those rises when your
salary in Pesos keeps rising, quite another when your income doesn’t change. It’s also worth
noting that those earning or saving in Dollars are also feeling the pinch, as even the unofficial
Dolar Blue forex has remained roughly unchanged at around 1,000 to the USD.
This desk has noted the plaudits and warm fuzzy coverage of Argentina in the English speaking
Northern press, with mainstream happy that Argentina is no longer running a massive current
account deficit and amazed at the “progress” under Milei. What they are not reporting is the
growing discontent of grassroots becoming impoverished under his leadership (14). Those of us
who understood the plpan, Milei most definitely included, always knew the front end of 2024
would be a hard moment for his government and he’d have to combat inflation as quickly as
possible, we’re now firmly in the critical period when he has to show that Argentina’s recovery
will be V-shaped and not U, or L shaped, else incur the wrath of those who voted him in. Do
not assume Milei’s government is on solid ground, as his opponents (and there are many) have
been waiting for his honeymoon period to end, we’re now at that point and if he and his team
cannot tame inflation quickly he’ll be in serous trouble. For your model consider the Macrio
Presidency and its outcome, but accelerated.
Argentina: Canadian regional diplomacy
Last Monday, the Canadian ambassador to Argentina visited the newly sworn-in governor of
Argentina emblematic pro-mining province, San Juan’s Marcelo Orrego, the type of protocolar
visit that gets overlooked by sectors such as ours but shouldn’t, as the ambassador in question,
Reid Douglas Sirrs, is one of those highly experienced diplos with a two decade record of
promoting business relationships in several countries. It’s hardly a coincidence he’s been posted
where he is and even less that his visit to San Juan’s governor made regional news. Here’s a
couple of translated excerpts from this report (15):
Reid Douglas Sirrs highlighted the importance of strengthening ties between Canada
and San Juan, particularly in the mining sector, where both regions have significant
experience and resources. “It’s my first visit with the new Governor. We were able to
talk about working together and we talked about our commonalities we have, such as
in mining”.
Later in the same note come Governor Orrega’s translated thoughts:
Governor Marcelo Orreag expressed his satisfaction for the meeting and underscored
the importance of strengthening ties between San Juan and Canada to the benefit of
both regions. “We are committed to exploring new oppotunities of collaboration and
improving our bilateral relationship in key areas such as mining and agriculture.
Though Agro was mentioned there and the meeting notes mentioned other areas of common
trade, such as wineries, there’s no doubt what was the #1 topic on the Ambassador’s agenda.
Mexico: Conflicting biases in polls
A quick update on polling fun and games. All through the pre-campaign and now into the
official campaign season, nearly all major pollsters have put Claudia Sheinbaum of the left-
leaning Morena-PVEM-PT alliance in a clear lead against her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of the
right-leaning PAN-PRI-PRD alliance. All except for one (16), namely polling company “Mexico
Elige” which has Ms. Gálvez and her party as a major paying client, and they have consistenly
called the gap in single digits as they did last Tuesday March 19th, publishing their latest poll
which has Xóchitl Gálvez less than eight points behind the frontrunner. In reply (of sorts), the
next day Mexico’s leading newspaper published its own survey putting Claudia Sheinbaum 24
points in front of Xóchitl Gálvez.
The truth is probably in between and with just ten weeks to go, poll-of-polls summaries indicate
there’s very little away from the Mexico Elige firm to say this is a close race.
20

The Peru political soap opera and its new Mining Minister
Covering the entirety of Peru politics at the moment would take about 20,000 words and we’d
have to begin with the way President Dina Boluarte is now under pressure due to her sudden
appreciation in expensive watches (17). A report out late last week on the way she has
acquired a taste for luxury and expensive watches, including a brand new U$18k Rolex she
wore to a meeting on women’s poverty, then snowballed into reports on how her discolosed net
worth has ballooned since becoming President despite having no other form of income aside
her S/16,000/month (U$4,300) Presidential salary, has hit so hard that her opposition in
Congress is now tabling a motion of No Confidence and is seeking her ouster. While the motion
is unlikely to succeed as too many corrupt members of Congress rely on her keeping her job in
order to harvest their own coin, it’s difficult to underestimate her unpopularity among the rank
and file and Peru is headed toward another social explosion, the only question is when. Since
grasping and then clinging on to power, Boluarte has courted and is upholding the graces of
Lima’s Ruling Families so she gets plenty of institutional support and defence, that includes
Peru’s lapdog media who would have torn ousted lefty Castillo a new one if he had been found
getting rich on the side in the same way. Peru today a disaster waiting to happen, be it via a
dramatic quick end to her term or if she holds on into the next election where Antauro Humala
still waits as a dark shape on the horizon of Peru’s political scene. Feel free to trade the place in
2024 and potentially the first half of 2025, as the next Presidential election isn’t set to happen
before April 2026, but don’t put any long-term capital there until we know what happens with
Antauro.
Now to focus on our sector and the mining sector is something of a miscrocosm of the wider
Peru scene, with a couple of issues that show the juxtaposition of the high-handed Boluarte
administration as it clashes with the real world outside. One is the way Congress managed last
week to vote down a law that would have given police more powers to close down illegal
mining operations across the country (many of which are suspected of sponsoring members of
Congress). Another and probably unrelated issues is how Congressional opposition is attacking
her ministerial cabinet and one in the crosshairs is new Mining Minister Romulo Mucho, who has
to appear before Congress tomorrow Monday March 25th. The motion to interpellate (i.e. bring
in for official questioning) was brought against Señor Mucho by Congress member Jaime Quito,
one of its representatives from the Arequipa region due to the apparent conflict of interests
shown by Mucho in his recent declarations in favour of the contentious Tia Maria copper
project, located in the Arequipa region and owned by Southern Copper (SCCO). It turns out
that Romulo Mucho owns a mining services and drilling company that has done plenty of work
for SCCO over the years, including social outreach and engineering at the Tia Maria project, so
seeing him in a position of power and saying that “Tia Maria must be permitted” on assuming
his new role has angered opponents to the project (and there are plenty of those in the
Areuqipa region). Romulo Mucho now has to answer 17 set questions to the satisfaction of
Congress, else be voted out of his job by said body.
Meanwhile, Romulo Mucho has been trying to woo the private sector by promising to improve
the woefully slow bureaucratic process of permitting in the mining sector. Last week as keynote
speaker at a mining event in Lima (18), he announced a new inter-governmental initiative that
would allow mining companies to apply for permits at a single agency, which would then liaise
with the necessary ministries (e.g. Mining, Water, Environment, etc) for permit approval, the
so-called “single window” application process that governments in Peru have promised on many
occasions but have never delivered. Mucho said in his speech (translated):
“We are establishing an inter-ministerial cooredination, especially with the Ministry of
the Environment, to significantly reduce the time needed for permits and authorizations
for all development projects in Peru, be they mining, infrastructure, hydraulic or
whatever else.”
Which is easier said than done, as history has shown. The basic issue is public sector fiefdoms
inside each ministry, as key public sector offices know exactly how powerful their signature can
be on a permit and do not want to give up their “personal advantage” (i.e. opportunity for
kickbacks) to a new minister and their new broom. Corruption has seeped into every nook and
21

cranny of the Peruvian world so if Señor Mucho manages to keep his job and implement his
reforms he’s sure to win plenty of applause from mining companies in the country. But
whatever you do, don’t hold your breath.
Market Watching
Mayfair Gold (MFG.v) and Muddy Waters
Last Tuesday March 19th, the activisty insto Muddy Waters Capital, run by Carson Block and
famous for a number of short selling trades that made them a lot of money (often on Chinese
companies trading at the time on the NYSE/Nasdaq), announced it was going after the board of
Mayfair Gold (MFG.v) (19):
AUSTIN, Texas, March 19, 2024 /CNW/ - Muddy Waters Capital LLC ("Muddy Waters") announced today that it
has lost confidence in the board of directors (the "Board") of Mayfair Gold Corp. ("Mayfair" or the "Company")
(TSXV: MFG) (OTCQB: MFGCF). Muddy Waters intends to solicit proxies from securityholders of Mayfair for
the purpose of reconstituting the Board and, accordingly, is ceasing to rely on the alternative monthly report
system in respect of Mayfair.
Carson Block, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Muddy Waters, stated "The conduct of the Board has
raised serious concerns that we believe must be addressed promptly. For example, repeated delays on a
number of key objectives appear to have been met with uncertainty about how to proceed. This has eroded our
confidence in the ability of the Board to set realistic goals, establish key strategic targets and align management
with those outcomes. In addition, we have significant concerns regarding the excessive distribution of options,
which we have repeatedly raised with the Company. We further understand that over the past few months, the
Board has resisted granting a seat on the Board to one of the Company's largest shareholders, raising concerns
regarding entrenchment, which is antithetical to our belief that key shareholders of issuers are entitled to board
representation absent clear evidence that they will not act in the best interests of the company."
Muddy Waters has sought to resolve this matter privately and amicably but to no avail. As a result, Muddy
Waters intends to consider, at a minimum, replacing Mr. Harry Pokrandt and adding one additional director.
The next day Muddy Waters disclosed its holding in MFG.v, the SEDI listing noting the
transaction date of May 17th 2023:
That’s the lion’s share of the 14,724,819 Mayfair shares it announced under its control and
interestingly, that total also includes around 1.5m shares owned by Darren McLean, who you
may remember was a VP at K2 Consulting and instrumental in forcing the hand of Newmont
(NEM) and getting the big company to buy out GT Gold (GTT.v) for around $450m. Seeing his
name pop up as a “consultant to Muddy Waters” is most interesting.
The activists seek a board reconstitution at MFG and specifically targeted director Harry
Pokrandt in its initial NR. I cannot blame them for that. The same day as the announcement of
activism, MFG responded in this NR (20) which made early stage defence sounds, but reading
between the lines was clearly a “Let’s Talk” message to Messrs Block and McLean. This is a
story worth watching, as seed investors in MFG reportedly include big names such as Beaty and
Lassonde. If only for the fact that a US fund is finally moving to ruffle feathers in the Old Boys’
club that runs the Canadian junior scene, it’s a welcome development. Watching brief and
depending on how the chips fall, there may be a trade here.
SSR Mining (SSRM): Clarifying the trade potential
Last week’s “SSR Mining (SSRM) and a trade heads-up” was the third note in what may become
a series, so a quick note today with a clarification on what we’re looking for from any trade set-
up. First the updated ten-day chart, which shows…
22

…nothing much has changed price-wise, this despite the ambulance chaser end of the North
American legal profession piling on with class action additions last week. That’s only to be
expected, so seeing SSRM remain largely UNCH against the GDX is a reasonably good signal
that we’re at some sort of floor level.
However, after receiving a couple of mails on the subject early week and to clear up any
misunderstanding, the idea here is not to move in or buy any shares unless and until we get
real changes at board level, i.e. the exit of Rod Antal and hopefully those currently protecting
him. This may mean we miss out on an initial recovery bump as SSRM management are forced
by the powers of capitalism to do the right thing (and not before time, the moral vacuum on
show is rather nauseous), but we’re not going to see much reaction compared to GDX before
that moment. In so many words, we’re looking for SSRM’s large insto holders to force change
at the top. If that comes to pass we won’t get a full recovery to the previous levels, but the gap
should close somewhat.
Therefore the trade set-up: This is a buy on receipt of real news of a real change in the SSRM
C-suite, nothing before that, and nothing if all we get is another round of cosmetic
appeasement as seen on March 8th (21). As this is a weekly missive, we may not get to time it
exactly so if SSRM announces something, assume your author opens a trade effective
immediately with a view to flipping the speculative position back in a few days (or weeks) for a
quick return.
Conclusion
IKN775 is done, we end with bullet points:
 Daniel Noboa’s popularity may come from his success against Ecuador’s crime wave,
but he’s now also set to go down in history as the President who opened Ecuador up
for mining investment and activity. Time to be long Ecuador while the share prices are
still cheap.
 I continue to be highly impressed with Eldorado Gold (EGO), a great rebound from its
“Copler Low”. But there are plenty of other potential trade set ups, depending on how
the cookie crumbles from here. SSRM an example, ARIC another.
 Western Copper (WRN.to) (WRN) is another one that stands out as an impressive
mocve with plenty of support, and in this case, I actually own a few as well.
 Biut avoid Colombia. Seriously.
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
23

Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://twitter.com/CONAIE_Ecuador/status/1766119021479448752
(2) https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2024/03/13/yaku-perez-demanda-inconstitucionalidad-del-manual-de-
noboa-para-la-consulta-previa-en-ecuador/
(3) https://www.telesurtv.net/news/anuncian-movilizacion-concesiones-mineras-ecuador-20240322-0028.html
(4) https://www.prensa-latina.cu/2024/03/22/anuncian-en-ecuador-paro-en-comunidades-contra-la-mineria/
(5) https://www.primicias.ec/noticias/politica/daniel-noboa-aceptacion-alta-cedatos/
(6) https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/politica/daniel-noboa-gobierno-nacional-conaie-leonidas-iza-movimientos-
indigenas-pachakutik-mineria-protestas-ecuador-nota/
(7) https://www.panglobalresources.com/news/pan-global-reports-positive-copper-metallurgy-results-for-the-la-romana-
copper-tin-silver-discovery-spain
(8) https://www.lme.com/en/metals/non-ferrous/lme-copper#Summary
(9) https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/copper-registers-strongest-seasonal-shanghai-stocks-build-2024-03-
22/
(10) https://www.kedglobal.com/commodities/newsView/ked202403180017
(11) https://qccopper.com/news/qc-copper-intersects-opemiska-style-mineralization-along-cooke-robitaille-corridor-
confirming-opemiska-resource-expansion/
(12) https://awaleresources.ca/2024/03/18/awale-hits-multiple-shallow-high-grade-intercepts-including-2-4-g-t-aueq-
over-75-meters-at-the-odienne-project/
(13) https://www.lavoz.com.ar/ciudadanos/cuando-el-estrangulamiento-monetario-no-alcanza-para-bajar-la-inflacion/
(14) https://www.lavoz.com.ar/ciudadanos/cuando-el-estrangulamiento-monetario-no-alcanza-para-bajar-la-inflacion/
(15) https://cholilaonline.ar/2024/03/orrego-recibio-al-embajador-de-canada-con-la-mineria-como-tema-central.html
(16) https://politico.mx/esta-es-la-encuesta-que-mas-acerca-a-xochitl-galvez-de-sheinbaum-rumbo-a-las-elecciones
(17) https://www.infobae.com/peru/2024/03/18/dina-boluarte-tendria-hasta-tres-rolex-costo-de-la-coleccion-de-lujo-
superaria-los-s-84000/
(18) https://iimp.org.pe/institucional/noticias/ministro-mucho-anuncia-coordinacion-interministerial-para-reducir-plazos-
de-permisos-y-autorizaciones-de-proyectos
(19) https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/muddy-waters-intends-to-reconstitute-board-of-directors-of-mayfair-gold-
corp--853517984.html
(20) https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mayfair-gold-responds-announcement-muddy-155200652.html
(21) https://ir.ssrmining.com/files/doc_news/2024/Mar/08/ssr-mining-announces-changes-to-executive-leadership-
team.pdf
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2023
CLOSED TRADES IN 2023 date closed close price
Altiplano Metals APN.v jan'23 C$0.31 17-Set-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-Dic-21 C$1.48 8.8% sold 20% to raise cash
Amerigo Res ARG.to oct'23 C$1.36 12-Dic-21 C$1.21 -11.0% sold 10% raise to cash
QC Copper&Gold QCCU.v oct'23 C$0.265 25-Abr-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-Dic-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-Abr-23 C$0.60 -67.9% poor trade, cutting loss
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2022
24

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
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
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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
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
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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
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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