IKN #820Premium

The IKN Weekly
Week 820, February 2nd 2025
Contents
This Week: Trade heads-up, In today’s edition, On babies and bathwater, Deja vu all over
again.
Fundamental Analysis: An AbraSilver (ABRA.v) price target.
Stocks to Follow: Libero Copper (LBC.v), AbraSilver Resource Corp (ABRA.v), Minera Alamos
(MAI.v), Barrick Gold Corp (GOLD) (ABX.to), Aftermath Silver (AAG.v), Orecap Inv (OCI.v).
The Copper Basket: Overview, Faraday Copper (FDY.to), Trilogy Metals (TMQ.to) (TMQ), Hot
Chili (HCH.v), Pampa Metals (PM.cse).
The Producer Basket: Overview, B2Gold (BTG) (BTO.to), Agnico Eagle (AEM).
The TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Barksdale Resources (BRO.v), Radius Gold (RDU.v).
Regional Politics: Ecuador: More mining trickery, Ecuador election update: Noboa
consolidates, Bolivia: elections without Evo, Mexico: Business media picks up on Sheinbaum’s
pro-mining stance, Peru: Good news of sorts for 2026, Colombia: Petro throws a hissyfit,
Argentina: The effects of RIGI.
Market Watching: Minera Alamos (MAI.v) leaving the penalty box, Bear Creek Mining
(BCM.v): Until further notice for gamblers only.
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
Trade heads-up
I’m not wasting any more time so, with the news out of AbraSilver (ABRA.v) on Friday clearling
up a significant question mark over company strategy, I will start adding to last week’s opening
trade and build toward a full position as from this week which means my cost average is about
to go up. [EDIT: Due to the late publication, I will not start buying until Tuesday at the earliest]
In Today’s Edition
 The subject of today’s main Fundamentals analysis piece is the same subject as last
week’s main event. Not only did we open our new trade in AbraSilver (ABRA.v) last week
at a very advantageous price, but we only had to wait a couple of days before one of the
main price catalysts was announced. The placement announced Friday was well-received
by the market and marks a clear watershed moment in this stock, so it’s time to do some
more careful numbers, generate a formal price target to add to last week’s strategy call
on the stock and then, once this report is sent, I’m going to buy some more shares. We
got the timing on this one just right, now we take full advantage.
 I’m happy to report that the risk/reward balance in Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v) has
shifted back in our favour. Not only has the company delivered on our list of required
items when put “On Notice” back in IKN810 dated November 24th, but the news Alamos
Gold (AGI) has been awarded an EIA modification permit by SEMARNAT in Mexico is
concrete proof that the country’s permitting regime is coming out of deep freeze. Now’s
the time to position in this extremely undervalued junior gold producer and developer,
before the world realizes what’s about to happen. That’s in Market Watching.
 Also in today’s Market Watching section, we run the ruler over a company we traded with
luck and success in 2024, Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v), as it provided us with plenty to
chew over last week and all at a time when silver looks ready to run again.
1

 Today’s Regional Politics section is a bit of a rarity, because all notes and reports this
week are positive for the mining industry and the political tide moves in our favour in
Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Argentina and, believe it or not, Bolivia. There’s even the
opportunity to poke some fun at the increasingly pompous Gustavo Petro.
Monday addition
It’s another whining excuse for sending this on a Monday evening, instead of its normal
Sunday. Sorry people, the report was 90% done come Sunday evening and on a normal
weekend, there wouldn’t have been an issue but I simply ran out of mental energy after a long
day and, as the 10% missing was the number crunch on the AbraSilver (ABRA.v) and I didn’t
want to make any dumb errors, the decision was discretion over valour.
Please note that the numbers in the tables etc are good as to Sunday, not this evening. Also, I
didn’t update other sections which means, for example, that the “babies and bathwater” intro
op-ed coming up now looks a little out of date, even after 24 hours.
On babies and bathwater
The big business news this weekend is President Donald Trump’s decision to make good on his
threats and trigger the tariffs against imported goods from Mexico (25%) Canada (25% except
fuel at 10%) and China (10%). There’s a little high-level macro in today’s Copper Basket on the
issue, though not much as this publication isn’t the place to find insightful analysis or opinion on
what is, essentially, an international trade spat with a heavy dose of party politics and ideology.
Equally, it’s difficult for a non-North American living in Non-North America to have a worthy
opinion on how this plays out in the real world
We will limit ourselves to one observation focused on the near-term and on our sector of
interest: Tomorrow will likely see a market sell-off, as it surely goes without saying there are
plenty of companies directly affected by a new trade barrier between the world’s biggest
economy and its three largest supplier countries. However, we should expect the effects of a
equities downdraft to affect all stocks, not just those that “deserve” downgrades and those
include our stock in trade, the Canadian junior miners and explorecos, be they connected to
The USA or not. This high likelihood of across-the-board weakness is accompanied by the
likelihood of overselling and the potential for a trepidatious market melting into full-scale panic
sell-off, so students of the market would do well to keep their eyes on the tape for the next 48
hours. When sanity returns, as it always does, stocks such as the market should realize they’ve
thrown out a bunch of babies with the bathwater and juniors and expolorecos that are
fundamentally unaffected (or at worst marginally affected) by the USA’s tariff bickers
Deja vu all over again
Phil: “What would you do if you were stuck in one
place and every day was exactly the same,
and nothing that you did mattered?”
Ralph: “That about sums it up for me.”
Groundhog Day, 1993
If you missed the big news from Gobbler’s Knob this morning, the groundhog Punxsutawney
Phil saw his shadow and that means six more weeks of winter. Anyway, we have the first Friday
of the month coming up this week and that means the US BLS Employment Report for the
month of January and as it stands today (1), consensus is for +17k NFP jobs added and a
headline unemployment number of 4.1%.
In other news from the cycle of mining life, we’re about to enter one of the M&A windows of
the calendar year:
 Majors and Tier 2 are about to report their Q4 financials, with high season the
second and third week of February
 With gold prices high and climbing, most of these companies are building
significant cash war chests. Publication will start the inevitable speculation on what
they will do with the money
2

 Right on the heels is the BMO conference in Florida, ground zero for deal-making
in our sector
 Then comes PDAC, another standard moment to announce buyouts (particularly in
good times for metals prices)
 Then comes the site visit window
 And before you know it, the same companies are announcing 1q25 production
totals.
Or as that paragon of the mining world, Elton John, so wisely said, it's the circle of life and it
moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, til we find our place on the
path unwinding. Okay, enough frippery, time to do some real work.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
An AbraSilver (ABRA.v) price target
It’s fair to say last week’s fundamentals analysis on AbraSilver Resource Corp (ABRA.v). “Buying
AbraSilver (ABRA.v): Three’s a charm”, was well-timed. Not only did we add silver exposure at
what seems increasingly likely to be an
opportune moment, but publishing last week
allowed this desk (and others if they so desired)
to buy in at the discounted prices that showed
up as from last Monday morning:
It was an unexpected bonus which, with
hindsight, had to be connected with the news
that was in the pipeline. Indeed, the cherry on
top of the cake when our rationale for scaling
into the trade was confirmed in spades. Here’s
how we put it last weekend:
“…ABRA’s treasury position is insufficient for
its 2025 plans. Not only will it continue to
explore and develop Diablillos, but it has that final option payment to make and all on
top of the standard corporate burn. With an IKN-estimated 130.7m shares out at the
end of the current quarter and a company that’s never been afraid of going to market
to raise working capital, that’s what we’re about to get from AbraSilver.”
And we didn’t have to wait long, as the news flow on Friday made me look way smarter than I
am. First we got this from ABRA.v (2):
AbraSilver Announces $48.4 Million Financing, Comprised of $21.8 Million
“Bought Deal” Public Offering and $26.6 Million Concurrent Private Placement
of Common Shares
I’m not going to copypaste, as to do it justice would require long excerpts. Please take the time
to read the whole NR, here we’ll limit ourselves to a few comments. To begin, it’s a well-
structured deal that raises the headline amount in two main tranches; a bought deal and a
private placement to two strategic partners already backing the company, namely Kinross (K.to)
(KGC) and the Argentine power generation company now branching into mining (and other
heavy industries in-country), Central Puerto (it quotes on the Buenos Aires stock market). The
placement price of C$2.55 suggests rumours did the rounds early week (lawyers desks are
notoriously leaky) however, this time really was different. What normally happens in the wake
of a discounted bought deal is the share price gets sat on by the market, instead the structure
was roundly applauded and, as seen in the chart above ABRA, rallied to touch the C$3.00 line
3

before settling at C$2.93 at Friday’s close. That added 15c to the price for the week and thanks
to my lucky timing, the shares bought on Monday are already 15% up (see Stocks to Follow).
The market liked the fact that both strategic partners, Kinross and Argentina’s Central Puerto
(both mentioned last weekend’s note as likely participants) were taking shares and indeed,
Central Puerto will move its holding up to the 9.9% line once closed. With those strategic
partners taking 10.434m shares between them, ABRA also offered a bought deal of 8.55m to
the wider market at the same C$2.55 price. The size of the placement brought its own
advantages too, as it’s now clear ABRA has both will and firepower to reach its construction
decision point inside the RIGI time limit (see IKN819). The popularity of the placement was
evident when, just a couple of hours later Friday midday, the bought deal portion of the
placement was upsized (8) 10.231m, this not including the 15% overallotment facility granted
to brokers that will almost certainly fill completely (and if you don’t believe me, look at the open
market share price again. All this is very good news as far as I’m concerned, it lifts the doubts
on ABRA’s plans and makes clear its intentions to develop Diablillos. Its strategic partners are
obviously happy with progress and are putting their money down for more, but perhaps most
importantly, it’s demonstrated the gravitas and market respect needed by a development
project to raise over C$50m at market and leave potential backers asking for more. In one fell
swoop, ABRA has done its bank balance and reputation a world of good. All that means I won’t
be hanging around any longer and while surprises this is happening so soon, I plan to scale into
ABRA sooner rather than later on the back of Friday’s news. And as noted last weekend in the
main strategy note, that means it’s time to put a price target on this trade.
The first job is to update corporate structure data, starting with the expected share count once
this raise is done and dusted. This may need some adjustment and I’m ready to be corrected
on the exact numbers once the placement closes, but if we assume the following…
 Estimated shares out as at end 2024: 128m
 Estimated shares out end 1q25 before last week’s announcement: 130.7m
 The upsized bought deal placement with fully filled overallotment: 11.766m
 Central Puerto buys to 9.9% then uses its right to maintain at 9.9%: 10.02m
 Kinross uses its right to maintain at 4%: 0.86m
…that gives us a new total pro forma shares out of 153.35m and here’s how that looks in our
standard corporate topbox:
Shares out: 153.35m
Options: 6m
Warrants: zero
RSUs: 0.08m
Fully diluted: 159.43m
Current share price: C$2.93
Market Cap: C$449.3m (U$309m)
Approx cash per S/O: 41c
All prices are in Canadian Dollars unless stated. Forex U$0.70=CAD$1
Since last week and thanks to the combo of our new pro forma share count and the 15c
improvement in the share price, ABRA’s
implied market cap has moved from
ABRA.v: Split adj shares out
C$356m to C$449.3m, a difference closing
in on C$100m and quite the lift. The share
count chart has been adjusted accordingly
and if ABRA keeps to its usual ways of
paying the drillers, the share count should gently drift up to 160m come next year.
As for the cash raised, we expect gross
proceeds of C$57.7m and that makes a
big difference to working capital and cash
treasury:
4
259.94 259.94 259.45
999.97 758.18 514.58 653.09 847.19 400.59 760.69 174.79 440.99 449.401 090.601 268.211 269.211 562.311 196.311 693.521 4.521 5.921 53.351 551 751 851 061 061
180
160
140
120
100
80 60
40
20
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2 tse52q3 tse52q4 tse62q1 tse62q2
source: company filings
serahs
fo snoillim

I’ve extrapolated just one of the charts (treasury) to estimate how we expect ABRA to burn its
newly fattened treasury position.
70 ABRA.v: Working Capital per qtr
65
60
55
50
45
40
35 30
25
20
15
10
5
0
-5
By assuming an average quarterly burn of around
C$8m (as per its recent history, chart right) then
factoring in the final U$7m (C$10m) option
payment it is set to pay at the end of 2q25 to
secure its 100% ownership of Diablillos, we see
that even if ABRA remains aggressive with the drill
bit it now has the money to get to mid-2026, the
period when we expect a construction decision.
We mention this because, along with several
comments and questions, one person asked me on
TwitterX whether the size of the placement
indicated ABRA may be looking to buy something
or somebody else. That’s highly unlikely, as even though there is probably some comfort money
baked into the raise, particularly now that it’s been upsized, this is all about making Diablillos
into a FS-level proposition in order to raise the capex required or, as is more likely, attract a
buyer for ABRA.
And with that, we now have a exploreco developer with an attractive project, a plan to advance
it to development stage and the money with which to do it all. What’s left now is to decide how
much these shares would be worth if 2025 goes to plan.
A price target for AbraSilver (ABRA.v)
The following begins where we left off last week on Project economics so we’re not going to
repeat the information (except for a couple of charts by way of reminders), please see IKN819
for discussion on the silver and gold production mix and what we can expect by way of annual
margins according to its current 43-101 compliant technical report.
Last week we used five theoretical price decks, here’s the list:
 The ABRA base case of U$20.50/oz silver and U$2,050/oz gold
 The IKN base case of U$28/oz silver and U$2,500/oz gold
 The IKN preferred case of U$30/oz silver and U$2,600/oz gold
 The IKN upside case of U$32/oz silver and U$2,700/oz gold
 The IKN bull case of U$35/oz silver and U$2,800/oz gold
(NB: I made a mistake last weekend in IKN819 and the two words now bold-typed and
underlined were falsely labeled. This week gets them right).
To simplify matters a little, this week we use just four of those cases, to show how ABRA at
Diablillos works over a range of prices:
 The Stress Test price deck, i.e. ABRA’s base case as seen in the recent 43-101 of
U$20.50/oz silver and U$2050/oz gold. This shows how the mine would operate if metals
5
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1
source company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
ABRA.v: Cash treasury per qtr 65
60
55
50
45
40
35 30
25
20
15
10
5
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2 tse52q3 tse52q4 tse62q1 tse62q2 tse62q3
source: company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
ABRA.v: Admin, Exploration/Evaluation expenses
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3
$m
eval & exp
total admin exp
source: company filings/IKN ests

price fell apart and while it’s not the reason to own the stock today, eventual lenders or
buyers of the project care a lot about this metric.
 The IKN base case price deck, of U$28/oz silver and U$2,500/oz gold. We live in strange
times, that those metals prices are a reasonable base case is testament to that.
 The IKN preferred case price deck, of U$30/oz silver and U$2,600/oz gold. This is our
benchmark for today and the price deck at which I’m setting the house price target. You
will note we’re well below current spot prices for both.
 The IKN bull case price deck, of U$35/oz silver and U$2,800/oz gold. Other may consider
my “bullish case” as too low but quite frankly, if you need $50/oz silver to convince you to
buy a silver stock you’re better off looking at other industrial sectors. These prices are
enough to show the blue sky potential as metals prices continue to climb without having to
factor in any extra operating cost.
A Life of Mine price estimate
With the price decks explained, we now run them on two production scenarios. First Life of
Mine (LoM) and in this case, we average annual production for silver and gold over the
Diablillos projected 14 year mine life to come up with a model year, from which we run cash
flow calculations and come up with a price target. Please note the somewhat artificial nature of
this method, as these charts (from IKN819 last weekend) show the nature of metals production
at Diablillos is heavily skewed toward silver in its first years then, as the best silver
mineralization depletes and the gold rich mineral deeper in the system is uncovered, the
production mix skews to gold.
ABRA: Diablillos payable gold, per annum
These cause a front loading of revenues at all price decks, as seen in this chart also from last
weekend’s report:
U$m ABRA: Revenues cases
800 727.69 ABRA base case subtotal
700 IKN base case subtotal
631.93
IKN preferred subtotal
600
upside case subtotal
500 bull case subtotal
530.58
400
300
200
100
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
source: company data, IKN calcs and ests Year
It’s also worth commenting at this point that the current mine plan is extremely likely to change
as time goes on. Anyone who’s been watching the development of the Diablillos resource knows
how quickly it has added tonnage in the last two years (JAC zone et al) and also knows there
are several highly prospective targets waiting for systematic drilling programs (or their first
holes). As such, it’s unlikely (silver) production tails off the way modeled in the January 2025
6
00082 00042 00014 00037 00015 000401 00024 00035 00025 000611 00075 00019 000221 000701
ABRA: Diablillos payable silver, per annum oz Au
140000
120000
100000
80000 60000 40000
20000
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
source: ABRA 43-101 PFS Year
912.4 491.61
115.71
144.01 693.7 218.6 991.31 213.01 744.4 531.2 596.4 983.2 815.1 127.1
Moz Ag
20
18
16
14
12 10 8 6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
source: ABRA 43-101 PFS Year

pre-feasibility study (PFS). However, we also recognize ABRA has to draw a line at some point
in order to demonstrate robust economics and get the mining started, so the PFS exercise is
valid. All that is a long-winded way of saying that this desk believes the economics as shows in
the Life of Mine model are highly conservative compared to what the mine is likely to deliver
over the next 20 years or so.
We move to our modeling and now, with a share count in place and cash for a clear run to the
construction decision, there are fewer variables to worry about. As per the assumptions last
weekend we also err to the conservative side by assuming COGS +15% compared to the ABRA
PFS. This first box shows the average annual production over LoM of 68,643oz gold and 7.36m
oz silver. We assume the total NSR deductions as per the PFS, then a 15% TC/RC to cover
selling costs more conservatively than ABRA’s assumptions:
ABRA: LoM model year revenues by metal type (U$m)
Price decks stress baseline preferred bull
Gold prod (oz) 68,643 68,643 68,643 68,643
U$/oz 2,050 2,500 2,600 2,800
Au revs (U$m) 140.7 171.6 178.5 192.2
silver Moz 7.36 7.36 7.36 7.36
Ag U$/oz 25.50 28.00 30.00 35.00
Ag revs (U$m) 187.7 206.1 220.8 257.6
Gross revs (U$m) 328.4 377.7 399.3 449.8
Total NSR 14.0 16.1 17.0 19.1
TC/RC (U$m) 49.3 56.7 59.9 67.5
Net sales(U$m) 265.2 305.0 322.4 363.2
Sources: ABRA.v data, IKN calcs and ests
At our preferred price deck, average annual net sales come to U$322.4m. We then take that
and run it through our condensed incomes statement model, which includes an average of
U$160m for costs (ABRA assumes U$142m average), U$35 for DD&A (same as ABRA PFS, give
or take 500k), G&A of U$20m average and finance servicing costs of U$20m.
ABRA: Condensed income statement (U$m)
Ag U$/oz stress baseline preferred bull
Sales (U$m) 265.2 305.0 322.4 363.2
Cash COGS 160.0 160.0 160.0 160.0
Depreciation 35.0 35.0 35.0 35.0
G&A 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
fin. Costs 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
Op income 30.2 70.0 87.4 128.2
Exploration 16.0 16.0 16.0 16.0
Tax 3.5 13.5 17.9 28.1
Net income 10.6 40.5 53.6 84.2
Shares out (m) 160 160 160 160
EPS 0.07 0.25 0.33 0.53
Sust capex 12 12 12 12
FCF 0.36 0.55 0.63 0.82
Sources: ABRA data, IKN estimates
Our preferred price deck has ABRA at Diablillos returning an operating profit of U$87.4m per
annum over its 14 year mine life average. And when we put that into our target box and apply
a reasonable multiple…
7

Sales & earnings model U$/oz Au prices Target price & valuation data for ABRA based on
Ag spot (U$) 18 22 24 26 LoM avg production of 7.36m oz Ag and 68.6k oz Au per year
Sales (U$m) 265.2 305.0 322.4 363.2 price target $5.74 based on 6x FCF
Upside to target 96% U$30/oz Ag & U$2,600/oz Au
EPS 0.07 0.25 0.33 0.53 Mkt cap (CAD$m) $450 Enterprise value (C$) $394
FCF 0.36 0.55 0.63 0.82 P/sales (18) 1.47 EV/sales (18) n/a
P/E (18) 44.1 EV/EBITDA (18) n/a
P/E (22) 11.6 EV/EBITDA (22) 3.8
P/E (24) 8.8 EV/EBITDA (24) 3.2
…our model returns a target of C$5.74, representing a 96% upside to this weekend’s C$2.93
share price. As ever, we underscore the conservative nature of this price target that uses
metals price well under spot, costs well above the parameters set in the PFS and a lower
multiple than is common in the silver mining world (and I’ll never really understand why shares
of profitable silver miners command greater multiples than shares of profitable gold miners, but
it’s the way it is).
That provides a reasonable baseline and, as you will see below, it’s the number I’m assuming
as the price target for my trade in ABRA. However, I’m also aware that the project economics
are going to sparkle in the early years and if, as we assume, further resource discovery brings
up production in the mature year to that of its first five, Diablillos would be an altogether more
impressive machine. In order to model that, here’s a second bite at the same cherry using data
for the first five years only.
The parameters are the same as above, except that we use the lower average gold production
in the years 1-to 5 of 58,600 oz Au, then the higher average silver production of 11.67m oz.
This implies an average annual net sales for the five years of U$405.7m using our preferred
price deck:
ABRA: LoM model year revenues by metal type (U$m)
Price decks stress baseline preferred bull
Gold prod (oz) 58,600 58,600 58,600 58,600
U$/oz 2,050 2,500 2,600 2,800
Au revs (U$m) 120.1 146.5 152.4 164.1
silver Moz 11.67 11.67 11.67 11.67
Ag U$/oz 25.50 28.00 30.00 35.00
Ag revs (U$m) 297.6 326.8 350.1 408.5
Gross revs (U$m) 417.7 473.3 502.5 572.5
Total NSR 17.8 20.1 21.4 24.3
TC/RC (U$m) 62.7 71.0 75.4 85.9
Net sales(U$m) 337.3 382.2 405.7 462.3
Sources: ABRA.v data, IKN calcs and ests
The extra revenues from the silver-heavy production in the first years makes a dramatic
difference to operating income, now at U$170.7m and almost doubling the life of mine average
(see above model).
ABRA: Condensed income statement (U$m)
Ag U$/oz stress baseline preferred bull
Sales (U$m) 337.3 382.2 405.7 462.3
Cash COGS 160.0 160.0 160.0 160.0
Depreciation 35.0 35.0 35.0 35.0
G&A 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
8

fin. Costs 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0
Op income 102.3 147.2 170.7 227.3
Exploration 16.0 16.0 16.0 16.0
Tax 21.6 32.8 38.7 52.8
Net income 64.7 98.4 116.1 158.5
Shares out (m) 160 160 160 160
EPS 0.40 0.61 0.73 0.99
Sust capex 12 12 12 12
FCF 0.70 0.91 1.02 1.28
Sources: ABRA data, IKN estimates
And while there’s an argument for using a lower multiple for the shorter time period, in order to
demonstrate the difference in firepower these first years bring to the share price we keep the
6x multiple to free cash flow as stands:
Sales & earnings model U$/oz Au prices Target price & valuation data for ABRA based on
Ag spot (U$) 20.5 28 30 35 LoM avg production of 7.36m oz Ag and 68.6k oz Au per year
Sales (U$m) 337.3 382.2 405.7 462.3 price target $8.73 based on 6x FCF
Upside to target 198% U$30/oz Ag & U$2,600/oz Au
EPS 0.40 0.61 0.73 0.99 Mkt cap (CAD$m) $450 Enterprise value (C$) $394
FCF 0.70 0.91 1.02 1.28 P/sales (20.5) 1.18 EV/sales (20.5) n/a
P/E (20.5) 7.2 EV/EBITDA (20.5) n/a
P/E (28) 4.8 EV/EBITDA (28) 2.2
P/E (30) 4.0 EV/EBITDA (30) 1.9
This scenario makes ABRA shares a triple from here and while that’s somewhat rose-tinted, we
again point out that our model assumes lower metals prices than spot and higher costs than the
ABRA PFS, out one month ago (one that assumes quoted prices at going rates for 80% of its
inputs). Most importantly, this second model shows what Diablillos would be capable of
delivering with additions to the current resource that may not be a no-brainer assumption, but
are highly likely considering the prospective nature of the wider concession and the exploration
success to date.
Conclusion
There aren’t many silver projects that truly stand out as economically robust and with share
prices that haven’t baked in a large percentage of the assumed upside already. The silver junior
world is difficult, with many mediocre projects and/or companies that claim greatness when
they are nothing of the sort. Fundamentally sound resources and companies with an obvious
path to share re-rating and value are very much the exception, not the rules and on the whole,
this sub-sector of the market is one I try hard to avoid for the real investments. Silver juniors
may be volatile, “fun” (of sorts) and can provide rapid share price appreciation over short
periods of time when the metal runs and the market gets it ducks in line, however briefly, but
when those moments happen the silver juniors are best approached as a near-term trade,
rather than a true investment. Recent personal examples include Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v)
last year, a successful quick flip win, or IMPACT Silver (IPT.v) last year and this, to date a
failure (we live in hope).
However, there are exceptions. Last year saw our trade in SilverCrest (SILV) work well and
provide solid gains when Coeur Mining (CDE) came to the same conclusion as us and bought
the company. In AbraSilver (ABRA.v), we managed to swing and miss twice at the trade in
2022 and 2023, but that was before the resource expanded, the PFS showed good economics
and then the latest updated PFS, incorporating the new Argentina RIGI investment laws,
changed the game once and for all. This project is the right metal in the right place at the right
time and thanks to Javier Milei, its project economics have moved up from merely good to
outstanding. It took me time to realize how profound the changes were, as noted last weekend
9

it wasn’t until ABRA filed its PFS on SEDAR that the penny dropped, but once it had there was
no doubt left. And now, with the company de-risking the next 18 months via a well-structured
and well-received placement, there’s even more reason to get on at any price under C$3.00.
Last week’s purchase at C$2.54 was a slice of lucky timing, but it was also a starter position
that I planned to increase once we knew more about ABRA’s plans to raise cash. We now know
those, we also know they are shareholder friendly and have brought new eyeballs to bear on
this highly attractive development project that’s about to move into the serious phase of its
development. While the company is usre to represent its intention to get to Feasibility Study
(FS) stage and then raise its own capital in order to build its own mine, we all know the most
likely exit is M&A and what’s more there are several obvious candidates as buyers. Kinross
(KGC) has staked its claim in hard cash of course, then Central Puerto has the financial
firepower to add the other 90% to its current ownership and become Argentina’s next precious
metals story. Then there’s Fortuna Mining (FSM), located nearby at the Lindero mine and a
clear fit in financial size, know-how and metals mix. Those and others. As such and with a clear
run to mid-2026 thanks to the raise announced last week, there will be no more hanging
around and I plan to add to my position significantly, with purchases starting this coming week.
Stocks to Follow
Ten of the nineteen Stocks to Follow open positions showed gains on the week (MAI.v, RIO.v,
ABRA.v, RPX.v, PGZ.v, AAG.v, GOLD, IPT.v, MIRL.cse, PAU.cse) with some chunky sized
winners among that group, led by the big percentage move in Pan Global (PGZ.v up 32.0%)
and followed gamely the pleasing efforts of AbraSilver (ABRA.v up 15.4%) and Aftermath Silver
(AAG.v up 10.0%). As for the six losers (EGO, ARG.to, MARI.to, SRL.v, ERO.to, PGDC.v), most
of the changes were small and no real damage was done, the only double figure drop at
Patagonia Gold (PGDC.v down 10.0%). The three unchanged names (OCI.v, SURG.v, MENE.v)
made up the balance.
With the timely addition of AbraSilver (ABRA.v) and loss-cutting sale of Libero Copper (LBC.v)
we’re still at 19 open positions, one under our self-imposed maximum. Eleven stocks are in the
green, eight are in the red and EGO is still the most painful red blob on the table at present.
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$0.32 52.4% $0.70 first tgt
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v STR BUY C$0.80 22-Apr-18 C$0.69 -13.8% Now building Fenix, will re-rate
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Eldorado Gold EGO BUY U$16.55 11-Aug-24 U$15.24 -7.9% oversold in recent weeks
Amerigo Res ARG.to BUY C$1.54 28-Jul-24 C$1.66 7.8% Core copper position
Marimaca Copper MARI.to STR BUY C$3.05 14-Jan-24 C$5.29 73.4% Quality Cu developer
AbraSilver ABRA.v ADDING C$2.54 26-Jan-25 C$2.93 15.4% New silver trade. Adding.
Salazar Res SRL.v STR BUY C$0.08 5-Jan-25 C$0.09 12.5% Ecuador elex/buyout trade
Red Pine Expl RPX.v STR BUY C$0.11 8-Sep-24 C$0.115 4.5% FY25 gold exploreco spec
Pan Global Res PGZ.v SPEC BUY C$0.19 19-Feb-24 C$0.165 -13.2% Cu jr, disappointing to date
Orecap Inv OCI.v BUY C$0.06 4-May-24 C$0.055 -8.3% top fundy value, illiquid
Aftermath Silver AAG.v BUY $0.425 22-Dec-24 C$0.55 29.4% New silver trade going well
Barrick Gold GOLD hold U$15.70 22-Dec-24 U$16.37 4.3% near-term Au fliptrade
Ero Copper ERO BUY C$19.37 22-Dec-24 C$19.46 0.5% near/medium term Cu fliptrade
Surge Copper SURG.v SPEC BUY $0.11 22-Dec-24 C$0.095 -13.6% bulk copper in good address
SPECULATIVE TRADES
IMPACT Silver IPT.v SPEC BUY C$0.30 14-Apr-24 C$0.22 -26.7% Silver spec, added IKN783
Minera IRL MIRL.cse avoid C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.02 -89.7% leaving list soon (good)
10

A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
Patagonia Gold PGDC.v WATCH C$0.02 4-gA-24 C$0.045 125.0% Rio Negro trade op, watching
Provenance Gold PAU.cse WATCH C$0.085 8-Oct-23 C$0.29 241.2% Idaho gold drill play
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.45 6-Dec-20 C$0.125 -72.2% LT bet, adding slowly
CLOSED TRADES IN 2025 date closed close price
Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to Jan'25 C$1.39 22-Dec-24 C$1.68 20.9% nice NT trade, took profit
Libero Copper LBC.v Jan'26 C$0.34 20-Oct-24 C$0.245 -30.0% small spec loser
2015 to 2024 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
Now for notes on some of our covered companies. Not so much this week.
Libero Copper (LBC.v): POSITION CLOSED. Goodbye, won’t be back again. It wasn’t a big
loss in real money terms, but it’s a chastening lesson and one I won’t forget in a hurry, best
summed up with “Stop trying to second-guess scumbags.” The end.
AbraSilver Resource Corp (ABRA.v): POSITION OPENED. We’ve done another long one
on ABRA above today, here a simple line to acknowledge its arrival in the Stocks to Follow list.
The purchase price was an unexpected bonus and as noted above, unusually lucky. The
purchase size was as per the plan, which means I have bandwidth left and I expect to add the
to position in the days to come. When that happens, my cost average will go up.
Minera Alamos (MAI.v): I began writing up a
few notes on MAI.v’s good week here but the
piece grew quickly so, instead of over-stuffing
Stocks to Follow notes, the write-up is down in
today’s Market Watching. See below for more,
here we note the 2025 YTD chart for the stock
and its 28% improvement in January.
A good start to the year and that makes a
refreshing change. More, please.
Barrick Gold Corp (GOLD) (ABX.to): Agreed I
would be better off choosing another Tier 1 to carry my bet on big Q4 numbers from Tier 1
companies and agreed last week’s improvement was nothing to write home about, but things
could be worse as we wait for GOLD to post its quarter and being in the right side of the trade
makes it easier to hold into earnings. That’s all for today.
Orecap Inv (OCI.v): Our tracking table shows a few small alterations but once the numbers
are added up, there’s very little difference in the total and the value of owning this stock
continues:
OCI.v: Marketable Secs, Investments in Assocs, Cash
ticker shares owned(m) PPS valueC$m Cents/share
AE.v 11.78 0.48 5.66 2.3
ARIC.v 7.39 0.48 3.55 1.4
ARIC warrant 4.17 0.28 1.17 0.5
XXIX.v 39.097 0.115 4.50 1.8
MERG.v 5.125 0.035 0.18 0.1
MERG warrant 2.56 0.00 0.00 0.0
MIS.cse 24.709 0.025 0.62 0.2
subtotal 15.66 6.3
Est.cash 1.20 0.5
Total 16.86 6.8
At 247.714 S/O
11

We got some news (4) on one of the company’s lesser considered assets, namely the tailings
deposit at the The Kerr-Addison mine in Ontario. The reason for the NR is that Ontario is in the
process of changing its environmental rules to promote environmental clean-up at legacy
mines, which opens the possibility for easier permitting on tailings reprocessing operations in
the province once the law changes come into effect, later this year. As a result, OCI is going to
take a close look at what it has in its tailings, commission some metallurgy work and if possible,
bring in a JV partner that would option in, giving OCI a free ride on a percentage of its asset. It
is however early days and we on the outside should wait until some sort of formal deal is done
with some OPM before allowing share value to this corner of the asset book.
Aftermath Silver (AAG.v): The run from Wednesday to Friday put 7c on the stock price, but
more importantly it implies a mini-breakout from a stubborn 50c line that was only broken in
the brief period of overbuying when Eric Sprott made purchases and his sycophants made
noise. The action was good and what we want from a silver stock under last week’s move in the
metal, long may it continue.
The Copper Basket
After five weeks of 2025, The Copper Basket shows a loss of -0.46% to level stakes:
Shares out
company ticker price 1/1/25 (m) Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 Atex Resources ATX.v 1.43 274.823 549.65 2.00 39.9%
2 SolGold SOLG.to 0.13 3001.11 405.15 0.135 3.8%
3 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 1.90 169.914 304.15 1.79 -5.8%
4 Trilogy Metals TMQ.to 1.65 160.903 294.45 1.83 10.9%
5 Regulus Resources REG.v 2.05 124.659 277.99 2.23 8.8%
6 Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to 1.47 148.409 246.36 1.66 12.9%
7 Hercules Metals BIG.v 0.55 253.391 149.50 0.59 7.3%
8 Faraday Copper FDY.to 0.74 205.336 147.84 0.72 -2.7%
9 Hot Chili HCH.v 0.67 151.42 90.85 0.60 -10.4%
10 American Eagle AE.v 0.69 167.45 80.38 0.48 -30.4%
11 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.63 119.833 59.92 0.50 -20.6%
12 XXIX Metal XXIX.v 0.11 258 29.67 0.115 4.5%
13 Kobrea Exploration KBX.cse 0.60 35.085 21.75 0.62 3.3%
14 Libero Copper LBC.v 0.315 57.05 14.55 0.255 -19.0%
15 Pampa Metals PM.cse 0.16 83.164 12.06 0.145 -9.4%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg -0.46%
Before jumping in, please note that while collating the percentage change information for 2025
to date to begin the 2025 basket performance
tracking chart (right), I discovered an error in my The Copper Basket 2025, weekly evolution
4.0%
Excel sheet that caused a false reading for the
3.5%
basket average in the first four weeks of this year 3.0%
2.5%
(i.e. IKN816 to IKN819). Therefore, the published
2.0%
averages for The Copper as seen in the previous 1.5%
1.0%
four editions are incorrect, the correct averages
0.5%
are as seen in the chart right (i.e. IKN816 0.0%
+2.61%, IKN817 +2.39%, IKN818 -0.02%, -0.5%
-1.0%
IKN819 +1.09%). Apologies for the glitch, a relief -1.5%
source: IKN calcs
to have found it before the year got too old. -2.0%
Jan1st Jan5th 12th 19th 26th feb2nd
12

Now to this week’s Copper Basket commentary and it was a negative one for the metal, the
copper producers and also our exploreco basket, dragged back into the red on the back of
seven week-over-week losers (TMQ.to, REG.v, ASCU.to, FDY.to, HCH.v, ECU.v, PM.cse), with
the balance tipped against the average by the bigger drops in Pampa Metals (PM.cse down
19.4%), Element 29 (ECU.v down 9.1%) and Trilogy Metals (TMQ.to down 7.3%). There were
also seven winners on the week (ATX.v, SOLG.to, ALDE.v, BIG.v, AE.v, KBX.cse, LBC.v) but of
those, only American Eagle (AE.v up 10.3%) was a big mover. The numbers are made up by
the one unchanged stock (XXIX.v).
The negativity was laid squarely at the door of the Trump tariffs, with copper under pressure
due to the presumed drop off in business if the new US admin makes good with its threats (and
as I write this segment up Friday evening, we’ve just had another round of news reports on
Trump’s “Yes, we’re doing this” declarations today). However, and this must be said clearly,
once you move away from the narrative and look at the price action, it’s not so easy to spot the
effects of the now infamous Trump tariffs on the price of copper. We agree the most liquid and
traded Comex contract (March 25, chart right) dropped about 1% on the week, but that’s not
exactly unusual and as the chart indicates, no trading ranges were broken. Not even very-near-
term ones. So with China now on holiday for the Lunar New Year (Kung Hei Fat Choy one and
all, things will be quiet until February 5th), one cannot help but wonder how much of last
week’s copper negativity was conjecture perception, rather than market reality. Case in point,
this Reuters trade note entitled "Base metals fall as Trump reiterates tariff threat" and dated
Friday January 31st (5), in which the Reuters reporter managed some impressive word
gymnastics in the opening paragraph:
"Following repeated tariff threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, most base metals fell
on Friday. Copper prices are on course for their worst two and a half month period in
recent memory."
We’ll take the tariff issue more seriously below, but I
couldn’t help but laugh out loud on reading that Friday
lunchtime (literally). I mean, take a look at the 12
month chart for copper (right) and imagine the effort it
took that hack to find a way of vomiting his personal
bias into that wire report without including a factual
error. Fortunately, there were more serious
commentators and reporters covering the copper patch
last week, for example this report out Wednesday (6)
which is still skewed toward Tariff-Fear!, but this time
bases its parameters in business reality and gets quotes
to match market sentiment.
Copper prices in London fell to their lowest in three weeks on Wednesday as U.S.
President Donald Trump’s tariff plans continue to crimp the global demand outlook.
Benchmark copper Hg1 on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was steady at $8,989.50
a metric ton by 1017GMT after hitting $8.957 for its lowest since Jan.8.
13

Trump has said he would announce 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Feb. 1
unless the countries help to tackle the twin issues of U.S. fentanyl trafficking and
immigration. On Monday he said he would impose tariffs on aluminium, copper and
steel.
"There is currently a lot of uncertainty regarding tariffs in the U.S. and potential
retaliatory actions, particularly in China, and the market is highly reactive at the
moment," said Alice Fox, global metals strategist at Macquaries.
"The introduction of tariffs could negatively impact global growth and therefore copper
demand, but we continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds.
Cut to this weekend and Trump’s enactment of tariffs, with 25% now slapped on goods
imported from Mexico and Canada, then 10% from Mexico and as far as we know at this time
general tariffs on all goods. It’s across-the-baord and showtime has begun. The effect of these
tariffs is subject of hot debate and it’s not easy to separate the math from the ideology, but one
person I trust for macroeconomic data is Brad Setser of the normally right wing think tank CFR
(and for what its worth, an erstwhile collegue of your author even though our paths diverged
many years ago). The following (7) was his immediate reaction on Twitter to the news that
Trump was not backing down. His script is written in “layman economics” and shouldn’t be too
difficult for this audience, but there one term he uses that might need definition. The “just-pay-
it” cost is the raw cost of any extra levy (tax, tariff, royalty etc) and assumes that in the case of
country to country tariffs, the import country doesn’t retaliate, or try to get round payments, or
move to negotiate exceptions etc, instead they “just pay it” at the rate demanded. Here’s Setser
(grammar gently brushed by your author):
To state the obvious, a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on China, if sustained,
would be a massive shock; a much bigger move in one weekend than all the trade action that
Trump took in his first term. The just-pay-it cost of the tariffs on Mexico and Canada would be
about 0.8% of US GDP (imports are ~3.2% of GDP). The just-pay-it cost is crude, but is usually a
pretty good rough guide the actual impact as many effects offset.
The 10% tariff on the 1.5% of US GDP that the US still imports from China ($400b or so in the
US data) adds another 15 bp of GDP to the total, and brings the total just-pay-it cost up to about
1% of US GDP (leaving out retaliation). As there aren't any offsetting tax cuts right now, this is
basically a % of GDP regressive tax hike (it’s hard to get around a tariff suddenly imposed unless
you try to wait it out)
By comparison, the full Trump 1 tariffs on China amounted to a 15 pp increase in the tariff level
(from 3 to 18%) on 2.6% of GDP, or a 0.4 pp of GDP tariff hike in just-pay-it" terms. and that tariff
was phased in over 2 years. So this is easily 2x bigger in economic terms than all of the Trump
term 1 tariffs on China.
The biggest single action in the US-China trade war was raising "list 3" tariffs from 10% to 25%.
That impacted $200b of imports: the just-pay-it cost was $30b (15 bp of GDP back then). The
10% tariff on $400b from China is bigger in dollar terms and comparable in GDP terms. These
tariffs are all intended as "leverage" (even the 10% tariff on China) so they may not be
permanent and may not have the full annual impact, but make no mistake, this is a major tax hike
and this analysis also leaves out retaliation
And one little tidbit; the 10% across the board tariff will hit $40-50b in iPhone imports. The import
cost of a phone is around $400 a phone, so less than the retail cost. We’ll see what Apple
chooses to do with its prices, ut an across the board tariff means hitting the goods (iPhones,
many toys) that Trump's term 1 team intentionally left out their lists, for various reasons (Tim
Cook's lobbying, a desire to avoid raising consumer prices before Xmas, etc).
Long story short, according to Setser The USA just added 1% of GDP headwind to its economy.
What the move from tariff threat to reality does to the copper market is yet to be seen and I
have to be honest, in real world terms I don’t expect this to be much of a headwind. However,
our world is one of perception as much as reality and we should expect a negative kneejerk
when markets open tomorrow.
Moving on, it’s the end of the first month of 2025 and time to run our regular check on the
long-term copper inventory charts. There isn’t much to report in the main graphics this time…
14

Key Cu inventory aggregate, 2012 to date
1000000
900000
800000
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
15
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj pes von 42naj ram yam luj pes von 52naj
Mt Cu
Comex
Shanghai
LME source: Cochilco
Copper inventories: percentage held per exchange
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj pes von 42naj ram yam luj pes von 52naj
LME Shanghai Comex source: Cochilco
…as both Shanghai SHFE and London LME have remained fairly steady, as normal in a January.
However, the rise and rise of Comex stocks is notable, particularly in light of the developments
this weekend:
Comex copper stocks, 2019 to date
110000
100000
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
91
naj
bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 02
naj
bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 12
naj
bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 22
naj
bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 32naj bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 42naj bef ram rpa yam nuj luj gua pes tco von ced 52naj
mt Cu
source: Comex
With nearly 90kmt now under roof, Comex has more copper stored than at any point since
Covid (though there’s still a ways to go to reach the recent record of 225kmt seen in early
2018). We know that since the Trafi stockout scare of March last year Comex has built its
position (most probably Trafi as main owner) and we also know that a significant portion of the
copper now in The USA came from Chile and has been diverted from its normal markets in Asia.
This is a dataset that’s worth watching if the Trump tariffs embed and become part of the long-
term economics backdrop of North America, as we’d expect to see stocks drain as other imports
become more difficult and/or expensive.
With the monthlies done, we check out the weekly changes in copper inventories via our
regular section, data as ever from Cochilco:
 World copper stocks had a very quiet week, with China’s New Year dominating the
scene and trading very thin. That reflected in warehouse movements, with an
aggregate drop of 981 metric tonnes (mt) on the week to close at 443,226mt.
 The SHFE was closed for business due the Lunar New Year, stocks remaining
unchanged since last weekend at 98,049mt.
 A small drop for LME copper stocks, down 1,400mt to close the week at 256,225mt.
 Comex copper stocks added a small 419,closing at 88,952mt.
The dedicated SHFE chart shows the 2025 thick back line (left) now approaching the moment
at which stocks tend to jump higher, once the New Year is done. Not much else to report here

this week, copper stocks don’t have a strong signal at the moment and we remain in monitoring
mode.
SHFE copper inventory levels, 2019 to 2024
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
16
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 2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
source: Cochilco data
Now for notes on some of the basket component stocks:
Faraday Copper (FDY.to): More drill assays from FDY last week, with another six holes
reported from the current focus area for resource expansion, southwest of the old Mammth pit.
The results were reasonably good and to sum them up in a couple of lines (unfairly), a
continuation of the result we reported in IKN816 last month that looks set to expand the
resource package at the American Eagle underground zone of Copper Creek. However, what we
didn’t get were any sniffs of a mineralization zone at shallower depths that couple potentially
allow more economical access to the known resource. I’ve added a red box to this graphic from
the NR to show where FDY is meeting success and adding good tonnes to the known resource,
that zone opened up by hole 86 a few weeks ago. I continue to prefer FDY to its near-ish
neighbour, Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to).
Trilogy Metals (TMQ.to) (TMQ): Buy the rumour sell the news? There’s a limit to any
speculative run and TMQ’s may have come with the
publication of the the “UNLEASHING ALASKA’S
EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCE POTENTIAL” on
January 20th and noted in IKN819 last weekend. At
that point the Canadian listing topped the C$2 price
for a couple of days but this week was all about
taking profits. The six month chart shows where
TMQ has come from on the back of Trump’s victory
and his pledge to untie Alaskan red tape and allow
economic progress to take preference over
environmental issues.

Hot Chili (HCH.v): The progress report published by HCH last week included a few new holes
that didn’t tell us much that was new, despite the splashy presentation, but the NR is worth
noting because the company put us on notice that the PFS is now close to complete. That’s a
potential catalyst for the stock price, as the last time HCH delivered an economic study, i.e. the
PEA in June 2023, the stock price rose over 50% in short order. This time around and with the
“cost” of the water delivery now farmed out to its spinco, they may have even more sequins to
throw at the market. There may be a fliptrade here, so keeping eyes peeled.
Pampa Metals (PM.cse): Back in IKN817 we reported how speculators had piled on to PM on
the back of the “visual assay” NR featuring talk of diamond drill holes 04 and 05 from their
2025 campaign, descriptions of holes 04 and 05 and
photos of holes 04 and 05…everything except the lab
assays, which were pending. At the time we bemoaned
the fact that this tinycap CSE exploreco had decided to
join the ranks of the “visual assays” pump artists but
there now seems to be pushback on the original promo
pump. This weekend’s 14.5c share price is the lowest for
almost a year and with the likelihood this company
“selectively disseminates information”, what with its
decision to pump on photos alone tipping its hand on
true intentions, those pending holes may not turn out to
be all they were cracked up to be.
The Producer Basket
After 5 weeks of 2025, the Producer Basket shows a gain of 10.24% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/25 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 37.22 1152.6 49.24 42.72 14.8%
2 Agnico Eagle AEM 78.21 497.971 46.28 92.94 18.8%
3 Barrick GOLD 15.50 1748.05 28.62 16.37 5.6%
4 Franco-Nevada FNV 117.59 192.119 26.12 135.96 15.6%
5 B2Gold Corp BTG 2.44 1313.11 3.18 2.42 -0.8%
6 Eldorado Gold EGO 14.87 204.909 3.12 15.24 2.5%
7 New Gold NGD 2.49 790.9 2.39 3.02 21.8%
8 OceanaGold OGC.to 3.98 708.074 2.15 4.34 9.0%
9 Sandstorm SAND 5.58 296.844 1.74 5.85 4.8%
10 Wesdome Gold WDOFF 8.98 148.95 1.47 9.90 10.2%
All prices and stock quotes in U$, except share price of OGC (in CAD$) Port. avg 10.24%
Another relatively poor showing by our Producer Basket, capping off a weak first month
compared to the GDX benchmark. We still saw nine of the ten move up on the week with just
Eldorado Gold (EGO) down (grrrr…see above) but the performance was lackluster and as the
tracking chart shows in its 2025 debut, we’re now nearly 5% behind and that’s a bad show.
The 2025 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and The 2025 Producer Basket: Percentage diff. between
20% comparative to GDX control GDX benchmark & basket (negative= IKN ahead)
6.0%
18%
16% 5.0%
14% ikn
12% gdx control 4.0%
10% 3.0%
8%
2.0%
6%
4% 1.0%
2% source: IKN calcs
0.0%
0%
Jan1st Jan5th 12th 19th 26th feb2nd
Jan1st Jan5th 12th 19th 26th feb2nd
17 source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

Not so much in the way of detailed comment on the producers this weekend, there will be
plenty to chew over in the next three editions as they return their Q4 and 2024 YE financials, as
well as give their guidance numbers for 2025.
B2Gold (BTG) (BTO.to): With a little good fortune BTG should stop lagging as from the week
to come, as the convertible offering for its 2030 notes (2.75% annual interest) closed in good
style last week (8) with the overallotment facility fully taken, the company raising a total of
U$460m. The conversion rate indicates a conversion price of U$3.17, right where we are today.
So, a rotten deal for previous equity holders is now fully baked in and the fact BTG raised 460m
instead of the basic 400m at least shows appetite to own the name.
Agnico Eagle (AEM): With the Q4 and Ye financial season now getting closer, we’ve noted
the situations in big names Newmont and Barrick, but nothing about AEM even though it’s been
the star of the show so far and with last week’s relative out-performance to the other Tier 1
stocks, is now less than U$3Bn away from wresting the mantle of World #1 from Newmont.
Here’s a reminder as to why, the charts we last ran after its excellent and crowd-pleasing 3q24
financials:
AEM: Revenues from mining operations vs
production costs, per qtr
18
7.5231
7.166
1.1851
6.756
7.9441
1.756
7.4831
9.666
7.9051
1.356
2.8171
3.347
4.2461
4.957
6.6571
5.777
8.9281
6.387
6.6702
0.277
6.5512
7.387
2400
2200
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000 800
600 400
200
0
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3
U$m
Revs
COGS
source: company filings
The magic formula at AEM has been cost control, as best seen in the above chart which shows
how the company has managed to keep a lid on most of the cost inflation while continuing to
deliver the ounces. The result is wider cash margins (below left) and the efficiency is seen in
the chart below right, with operating margins over gross revenues increasing in 2024. Not many
gold mining companies at the big end of the scale can say that.
AEM: Operating margin, per qtr
The TinyCaps List
After 5 weeks of 2024, the TinyCaps show a loss of 1.22% to level stakes:
87.672 18.765 06.355 52.235 06.155 91.825 64.484
59.366 24.329 26.297 48.717 25.658 49.479 00.388 91.979
42.6401 46.4031 69.1731
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3
U$m AEM: operating margin as percentage
of gross revenues, per qtr
source: company filings
%7.94 %9.75 %6.95 %0.65 %0.65 %7.35 %9.05 %1.05 %4.85 %7.45 %8.15 %7.65 %7.65 %8.35 %7.55 %2.75 %8.26 %6.36
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3
source: company filings, IKN calcs

company ticker price 1/1/25 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Barksdale Res BRO.v 0.17 133.87 13.39 0.10 -41.2%
Condor Res CN.v 0.145 141.155 19.06 0.135 -6.9%
Electrum Disc ELY.v 0.13 98.99 12.37 0.125 -3.8%
Endurance Gold EDG.v 0.145 174.5 23.56 0.135 -6.9%
Kodiak Copper KDK.v 0.39 75.92 33.40 0.44 12.8%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.08 96.476 8.20 0.085 6.3%
Mogotes Metals MOG.v 0.13 236.796 33.15 0.14 7.7%
Radius Gold RDU.v 0.085 107.41 11.28 0.105 23.5%
South Star STS.v 0.55 52.64 26.85 0.51 -7.3%
Viva Gold VAU.v 0.14 118.384 17.17 0.145 3.6%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg -1.22%
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 $25m They have to be tiny. In a couple of cases I’ve stretched the
window a little and allowed sub-U$25m market capper in, 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 2025. 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.
Four of our ten component stocks in the 2025 TinyCaps basket were losers (BRO.v, ELY.v,
EDG.v, MOG.v) and that little list included big drops
iin Barksdale (BRO.v down 28.6%), Endurance TinyCaps, 2025 weekly tracker
5%
(EDG.v down 15.6%) and Mogotes (MOG.v down
4%
12.5%), so more damage to report to recent hot 3%
story stocks. There was one unchanged stock 2%
(KDK.v) and that leaves five winners on the week 1%
(CN.v, LMS.v, RDU.v, STS.v, RDU.v). While four of 0%
those five were small moves, the big jump in Radius -1%
source: IKN calcs, TSX data
Gold (RDU.v up 50.0%) made a significant difference -2%
and kept the overall basket drop to a minimum. To -3%
Jan1st Jan5th 12th 19th 26th feb2nd
that end, we debut the weekly tracking chart with
five weeks now under our belt (right).
Barksdale Resources (BRO.v): Live by the pump, die by the dump:
The 10c close gave lie to the tape painting we reported at the end of last week’s more
extensive note on the collapse of the story BRO had been using on the world for the last couple
of months and when the sellers eventually showed, there was nobody to catch the fall and the
10c finish on Friday is a new all-time low for the stock.
19

Radius Gold (RDU.v): We included RDU in the 2025 for two mina reasons. First up, Simon
Ridgway’s mothership company has often found itself
used as a speculative vehicle (no surprise there,
considering Ridgway’s track record) and secondly,
every so often it comes up with a project or story
that’s better than the average dross and this time, it’s
got a decent looking copper target in the shape of the
Tierra Roja project, located in the Arequipa region of
South Peru on the coastal batholith (9). We haven’t
had any news from the company about Tierra Roja in
2025 so far, but that’s never stopped a Ridgway
company from becoming suddenly popular on the
open market and that’s something we saw last week,
as the tranquility of the week before contrasts in the
sudden interest in owning this stock last week.
NB: Please be clear that The TinyCaps list is NOT a list of recommended tinycap stocks. It is a list of companies with
market caps of under $25m 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
Ecuador: More mining trickery
We ran “Ecuador: Mining company trickery” last week and highlighted the dirty tricks being
pulled by the combo of national government and Dundee Precious Metals (DPM.to) as they try
to get a piece of paper from the Ecuador judiciary. It’s an object lesson of the need to soft the
wheat from the chaff and not buying into any old story, as while it’s reasonable to be optimistic
and positive about specific companies exposed to the country as we enter showtime for the
Presidential election, buying any old thing just because it says “Ecuador” on the tin is a fool’s
game. Case in point, last week brought an extra layer of official BS from the third player in last
week’s Loma Larga BS, when President of Ecuador’s Chamber of Mining (CAEM), Maria Eulalia
Silva, gave this TV interview (10) for mainstream media channel Teleamazonas and said that
Ecuador would construct six mines in 2025. I kid you not, that’s exactly how the segment was
framed, twelve months and six mines, easy peasy. As for the mines in question, to quote the
lady (translated), “…El Domo in Bolivar, La Plata in Cotapaxi, Loma Larga in Azuay, later on will
be Cangrejos in El Oro, Cascabel in Imbabura and Warintza in Morona de Santiago.”
The report then goes on to explain that El Domo is the first up and is expected to be a U$323m
investment and to her credit, the reporter then tells her audience El Domo is under construction
and won’t start producing until October next year. We also get news on Lundin Gold (LUG.to)
and its expansion Bonza/Bonza Sur project, 1km South of its operating mine at Fruta del Norte,
with a quote from one of the company guys
Let’s be as generous as possible and call that “optimistic”. By way of a quick reminder, here’s
the list of mines quoted by Ms Silva as about to be built in 2025, along with their owners:
 El Domo: Silvercorp Metals
 La Plata: Atico Mining
 Loma Larga: Dundee Precious Metals
 Cangrejos: Lumina Gold
 Cascabel: SolGold PLC
 Warintza: Solaris Resources
Of those six, El Domo is now underway and all signs are good, though its still in early
earthworks stage. La Plata is a highly controversial mine with large-scale opposition and no
social license, but recent news implies the company has complied with what the government
wants for its permit. Loma Larga we did last week, it will take sleight of hand and sly trickery to
20

get that even permitted, let alone any start of construction. Cangrejos is one of the better
options at this point in time
As for the other projects, we noted in IKN816 dated January 5th in our main Fundamental
Analysis strategy report on the country, “Ecuador is a buy”, that Cangrejos owned by Lumina
Gold (LUM.v) has a better chance than most, with reasonable local support, national backing, a
project now ready to move to development stage and deep-pocketed backers. However, we’re
still a long way from “possible good 2025” and the sudden build-out as sketched by the
sophistic Ms Silva. Then comes Cascabel, the biggest project of the lot and also with a decent
shot of finally moving forward in 2025, but again there’s no way we’d get further than a
permitting green light this year, even in the best of circumstances. Last on the list is Warintza,
which vies for the title of “Most Hated Project in Ecuador” next to Loma Larga. The reason
Warke moved SLS’s domicile from Canada to Zug in Switzerland last year is obvious, it
facilitates a sale to Chinese capitals and gets round the current Canadian government
regulations. However and again, it’s one thing to close a deal and another to build a mine, in
this desk’s opinion Warintza will never happen no matter who owns it.
Ecuador election update: Noboa consolidates
The last official week for voter intention polls in Ecuador brought its normal last minute rush
from the pollsters, including the last readings from the ones that people trust the most and
overall, they must have come as pleasant reading for incumbent Daniel Noboa. This wiki page
(11) has more detail and links to the source documents, for our purposes we go with one line
on each poll and stick with the “Valid Votes” forecast only. These polls were published between
January 24th and January 30th and have different sample sizes and methodologies, but all but
one have the same message:
 Comunicaliza: Noboa 47.1%, González 39.5%
 Ipsos: Noboa 50.0%, González 34.6%
 Informe Confidencial: Noboa 44.6%, González 34.9%
 Negocios y Estrategias: Noboa 37%, González 29%
 Cedatos: Noboa 48.3%, González 32.2%
 MR Analitica: Noboa 32.56%, González 40.95%
Of the six, I’d put most stock in Ipsos, Comunicaliza and Cedatos (the latter known as the gold
standard pollster in Ecuador). As seen, five out of the six predict Noboa in first place on
February 9th, with just MR Analitica (well known for its left wing/pro-Correa bias) predicting the
top two in a reverse order. Also and importantly, note how Ipsos and Cedatos now forecast a
Noboa outright victory in Round One, as the rules of the game in Ecuador are that there is no
need for a second round run off if either a) the winning candidate gets 50%+1 vote or b) the
winning candidate gets at least 40% and has at least a 10% lead over the second placed
candidate.
Drilling down a little on those numbers, this screenshot is from the aforementioned Ipsos report
linked here (12) shows a couple of the tendencies:
Firstly, the increase in Noboa’s lead and first tangible evidence that he might be able to close
this in the first round. Secondly, the way the third placed candidate Andrea González
(mentioned in passing last week) has come out the pack of 14 also-rans and while she’s still a
21

long way from threatening the leaders, she has been chipping away at the support for second
placed Luisa González. That matters, as even if Noboa doesn’t make it to the 50% line he does
look set to get at least 40% of Valid Votes and if so, a ten point lead will be enough to secure
victory.
Our centerpiece report on the Ecuador election, the main Fundamental Analysis note “Ecuador
is a buy” in IKN816 dated January 5th, laid out the case clearly and since then, we’ve followed
the development of this key election for mining FDI in LatAm closely. There has been nothing to
suggest our original call was wrong and plenty to back it up, with Noboa’s lead in the polls
steadily growing and pundit consensus now aligning with our position. For sure this is a LatAm
election and anything can happen, but as things stand the worst case is Noboa in the run-off
(for which he’s also forecast to win by two separate polls in the last two weeks) and the best
case is more Ecuadorians joining in the momentum with a desire not to go through the normal
protracted two-round competition. It’s still too early to call it, but Noboa is now an obvious hot
favourite to remain President of Ecuador and that’s good news for our trade strategy.
Bolivia: elections without Evo
It’s a busy year for election news in South American countries with mining exposure, with
Ecuador up soon, Chile at the end of the year, then the preludes for elections in both Peru and
Colombia in 2026 that are bound to spill into the last quarter of 2025. However, there’s also a
big election on the cards in Bolivia with the first round scheduled for August and, for the first
time in almost 20 years, the opposition to the ruling left wing MAS Party (ex-President Evo
Morales, current President Luis Arce, etc) believes it has a real chance of winning. Last year on
these pages we followed the in-fighting in the MAS Party as Evo Morales tried to get his name
back on the ballot and near-civil war broke out between him and sitting President Arce. That
struggle now seems to be resolved and Evo hasn’t managed to reverse the legal rulings against
him (in fact things have got worse, as they’ve dragged through his past history and have now
opened a criminal case against him for sexual relations with an underage girl; it happened a
few years ago and apparently he’s the father of her child…a long story), so we ‘re set for an
election sans Evo and due to that and the unpopular current MAS government under Arce, the
right wing opposition fancies its chances.
On the subject, last week saw the publication of an early poll from an unlikely source. Marcelo
Claure is one of the richest people in Bolivia and owns several businesses, including the market
leading cellular phone provider. Last week Señor Claure published is privately commissioned
opinion poll on voter intention for the election and here’s the main screenshot (13) with your
author doing a bit of translation:
Be clear, this is privately commissioned poll that was made public by a paymaster with clear
right wing preferences, so we may need to add a pinch of salt. Some 2,000 people were
22

interviewed between January 5th and 21st and the poll claims a margin of error of +/-2.2%.
According to its blurb, is a representative cross section of Bolivia according to age, sex,
socioeconomic level and location.
That done, we note the fractured state of the race so far with only three candidates polling
double figures. They are current parliament leader Andrónico Rodríguez, right wing mainstay
figure Manfred Reyes Villa and very right wing populist figure Chi Hyun Chung, who has been
making headlines for his hard-line stance on many issues for the last few years. Then come a
gaggle of well-known names in the Bolivian political scene, mostly from the political right wing
and opposition to the MAS government and not all will run (indeed, Carlos Mesa stood down
this very week). Finally, please note the current President Luis Arce way down in the “also-ran”
group at 2%. Of them all, perhaps the most important figure is Andrónico Rodríguez, a sworn
ally of Evo Morales and poised to be Evo’s stand-in candidate. He’s young (36 or 37 years old),
has made his name as the head of the current Congress and if we believe this poll, he’s the
figure that stands between the right-winger who consolidates support. Indeed, in his TwitterX
commentary (14) on the poll he commissioned, Marcelo Claure wrote a level-headed
assessment of the state of the election running that included this (translated):
“…the absence of Evo Morales (ineligible) redistributes his vote preferences between
the candidates, with the lead shared between diverse figures such as Andrónico
Rodríguez and Manfred Reyes Villa. However, the high percentage of undecided and
“other” voters suggests that the electorate is still divided and potentially open to change.
This reinforces the importance of consolidating a single opposition leader in order to
compete (against the government) effectively.”
Bottom line: It’s still early days in Bolivia, but it goes without saying that this election could
provide investment opportunities for mining FDI. The arrival of a right wing government for the
first time in 20 years in one of South America’s most traditional mining jurisdictions would
provide happy hunting for explorecos, junior producers and even larger scale mining companies
and operators. We’ll be watching this election closely as 2025 rolls out.
Mexico: Business media picks up on Sheinbaum’s pro-mining stance
With the news out of Alamos Gold (AGI) (AGI.to) last week (see Minera Alamos in Stocks to
Follow), there’s no need any longer for this desk or others to rely on crossed fingers or positive
vibes about Mexico’s SEMARNAT changing course and beginning to award permits to mining
companies. It also fits in well with our recent covered, mostly IKN818 two weekends ago but
also the way in which anti-mining groups in Mexico had started to gripe about the Sheinbaum
government’s position regarding mining. Today a third (and final?) note in the series and this
time we’ll let generalist business media take ue baton and do the heavy lifting via this report
(15) out of BN Americas last week entitled “Mexican miners optimistic about Sheinbaum's sector
policy”, this time with views from the pro-mining side of the street:
The association of mining, metallurgical and geological engineers (AIMMGM) is optimistic that President
Claudia Sheinbaum will allow for a more flexible sector policy under Plan Mexico, a preliminary version of
which outlined changes and improvements for the industry.
“The fact that it was highlighted that the exploration issue is not exclusive to the Mexican Geological Service
(SGM) generates a lot of confidence,” AIMMGM president Rubén del Pozo told newspaper Reforma.
He added that the lack of official reference to open-pit mining was also a “good sign.”
In mid-January, Sheinbaum presented a preliminary version of Plan Mexico, which includes incentives and
mixed mining investment projects.
Among the highlights, the plan specifies that the economy ministry must reform the mining law within 100
days to allow private exploration and establish a framework distinct from the current one that regulates open-
pit concessions.
Within three months, the ministry should also order the inclusion of social impact statements in all mining-
related activities.
So now you know.
Peru: Good news of sorts for 2026
In all fairness it’s good news period, as the worst-case scenario for next year’s Presidential
election has now all-but disappeared. Last week Peru’s Supreme Court ruled (16) on the appeal
made by Antauro Humala on the lower court decision made in 2024 to ban his political party
and sure enough, the Supreme Court upheld the decision, ruling that his party proposed and
23

diffused “anti-democratic policies” that went against the country’s constitution. The court has a
point; For example, no matter what your personal opinion might be on Antauro Humala’s idea
to impose the death penalty by firing squad on any corrupt politician it’s not an easy one to get
past the judges. With that, his party must now be dissolved (unless it wins an appeal on the
decision, extremely unlikely to happen) and as the inscription limit date for presidential
candidates has now passed, neither can Antauro hook up with another political party and
become their candidate (though he is trying to do that, again via a judicial appeal, with the very
weird people of the small but long-established FREPAP party (17), they are a long story that I
don’t plan on bothering you with unless absolutely necessary). Anyway, long story short and
normal “never say never” caveats about LatAm politics aside, the politically very dangerous
Antauro Humala is now out of the running for President of Peru in 2026 and that’s good news
for the country, for its stability and for FDI looking on. He will be eligible to run for Congress in
some form and if he does he’ll probably win a seat (he
has enclaves of very solid support in provincial Peru,
all he has to do is pick one of those), but as member
of congress the mayhem he could cause is limited.
While on the subject and as a simple heads-up, last
week saw one of Peru’s daily newspapers publish a
commissioned poll and one of the questions was on
preferences for next year’s vote at this very earl stage.
Here right is the table that came with this report (18).
Leading the list is Keiko Fujimori, who still fancies her
chances to make it to the big job (and if she does,
graft in all strata of Peruvian public sector will go off-
scale) second is the current mayor of Lima Rafael
Lópex Aliaga (who makes Elon Musk look left wing),
then comes a famous comedian and impersonator in
the country, Calos Álvarez, who fancies his chances of
“doing a Zelenskyy”. After those we get the list of the
samo samo usual suspects in Peruvian politics and I
felt very sad when I realized I knew who all those
people are…even the asterisk “other” list at the
bottom. Also notable is that even at this early stage
30% of people polled said they intend to either “vote
in white” (i.e. turn up at the polling station in Peru’s
obligatory vote system, but file the voting card without marking a candidate), or spoil ballot, or
not turn up to vote (and pay the fine afterward). That’s its own commentary on the low opinion
Peru’s rank and file has of its political class these days
Colombia: Petro throws a hissyfit
A little extra to add to last weekend’s online spat between Presidents Trump and Petro, when
the US deportee flights carrying illegal immigrants back from The USA to Colombia caused
tensions to rise and for the USA to briefly threaten Colombia with a round of tariffs on exports
to The USA. You probably know the ins and outs of the story so there’s no long-winded repeat
here, instead we report on something Petro said to a meeting of his fellow Colombians later in
the week (19) after getting his online clocked cleaned by Trump and backing down the way he
did. He said the following (translated for gist, as the literal translation loses a little of the
meaning):
“Regarding Elon Musk and Twitter, (it seems) I have. to change networks… I noticed the white
(nationalists), the Aryans in the United States, were happy with the way my exchange with Trump
went. Including the Colombian Aryans, who are not so Aryan. They’re happy because people
they call a rabble and criminals are leaving The USA. We brought 42 Colombian nationals back,
how is Mr. Trump going to tell me that 42 children of Colombia are criminals? He’ll treat hundreds
of thousands of people the same way he treated those 42 people, this is the way they thought in
1933.”
24

And although a gist translation, he really did use the word “Aryan” and mean it in the way he
did, with direct allusions to 1930’s Germany. The living, breathing example of an ego-bruised
sore loser of a twitfight…who just happens to be the Head of State to one of The USA’s
traditional allies in the LatAm region. All good fun, so if you’re wondering just why the new US
administration cut funding to and grounded the 22 US military Blackhawk helicopters used by
Colombia to patrol the country later last week, my money is on a translation of that speech
having landed on Trump’s desk. As a final and personal note, you can say what you want about
Trump (you should know by now I’m no fan), but anyone who makes Gustavo Petro look stupid
online the way he did last week scores bonus points with me.
Argentina: The effects of RIGI
An interesting report (20) out from the established copper/other metals think tank CRU (based
in Chile and London) gives an indication of the positive effects of Argentina’s RIGI tax break
laws compared to other tax regimes in the region. The two big South American players are
Chile and Peru and the tone of the report, as well as its findings, are of a study group that
wants to send a warning message mostly to Chile about the relative attractiveness of its
jurisdiction.
The report compares the average tax burden on mines in Peru, in Chile under the pre-Boric tax
regime, the current Chilean regime and Argentina with and without RIGI. In the case of Chile
and Peru they use real world examples, for Argentina they use the theoretical returns of (what
CRU considers) the five most advanced large copper projects in the country, as Argentina at
present has no operating copper mines. They use Pachón (Glencore), MARA (Glencore),
Josemaría (BHP/Lundin), Los Azules
(McEwen Copper) and Taca Taca (First
Quantum). We can argue the toss over its
choices of projects, but they suffice as a
collective study benchmark. This visual
(right) from the report gives the high-level
conclusion. Argentina under RIGI is a
relative bargain compared to the other
current tax regimes and its own tax code
once its window closes in 2026. Whether or
not Argentina under Milei extends RIGI
beyond 2026 is yet to be seen, but the
savvy copper company would surely want to
guarantee that low 38% burden as every
percentage point can easily represent U$100m on a world class copper mine
Market Watching
Minera Alamos (MAI.v) leaving the penalty box
Here’s a ten-day price chart, with notes:
25

There was the inertia of MAI in 2024, the boredom of the lack of movement, the wait for
something to change on a macro level as Claudia Sheinbaum took over the presidency from
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the growing chorus of “nothing has changed!” from
social media’s peanut gallery, the apparent pivot into The USA with the Sabre Gold deal, then to
top it off the irksome $8.5m bought deal in November which managed to knock the stuffing out
of the little momentum that had started to show late year. It was the last in the list which broke
my personal patience and, while not selling, got me to put Minera Alamos “On Notice” in
IKN810 dated November 24th (the long rant). However, all through that period of drudgery and
annoyance this desk never lost sight of a simple catalyst that could drop at any moment for
MAI, a point repeated on many occasions. Here’s an example, from the MAI.v note in IKN813,
dated December 15th:
“…all it will take is one permit awarded by Mexico’s SEMARNAT for sentiment toward
MAI to change and what’s more, that first permit award doesn’t even need to be for
Santana, Cerro de Oro or any other of its projects. One permit, anywhere to any
Mexico-based mining company, will be enough for the market to decide the bottleneck
is coming to an end.”
The logjam broke last week. The breakthrough came on Wednesday, January 29th, when
Alamos Gold (AGI) announced (21) it had received its permits from SEMARNAT for its Puerto
Del Aire PDA project:
TORONTO, Jan. 29, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alamos Gold Inc. (TSX:AGI; NYSE:AGI)
(“Alamos” or the “Company”) today announced it has been granted approval of an amendment to
its existing environmental impact assessment (Manifestación de Impacto Ambiental “MIA") by
Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (“SEMARNAT”), allowing for the start
of construction on the Puerto Del Aire (“PDA”) project located within the Mulatos District.
This is very good news. Firstly of course for AGI, but the implications are far-reaching and
positive for the entire Mexico mining scene. On January 15th we did see Avino Silver & Gold
(ASM) (ASM.to) receive its final operating permit for its La Preciosa U/G development project
(8) which indicated SEMAERNAT was moving in the right direction, but the permit awarded to
AGI last week was the first EIA amendment permit since AMLO imposed his de facto permit ban
in 2023. While we agree PDA is also an underground development with an environmental
footprint that sits more easily with the current Mexican administration, that must not deter from
the fact that this permit is exactly the type that AMLO’s SEMARNAT refused to grant despite
having all paperwork in order, all observations addressed and all boxes ticked.
It also fits with this desk’s estimated timeline for the re-start of permit flow in Mexico, another
point we’ve made on multiple occasions while covering the whole issue. Among other examples,
stated it clearly in IKN803 dated Sheinbuam won her election, we stated it at the start of this
year in IKN816 dated January 5th (“…(SEMARNAT) may re-start the permit approval process for
mining projects in Mexico at any moment…indeed, my “most likely” window for that has always
been at the start of the new year, where we are today…”) and most recently in IKN818 two
weekends ago in the main Regional Politics note “Mexico: The Sheinbaum government is miner
friendly,” a careful consideration of the way the Sheinbaum government’s five year National
Develop Plan (PND) for the country would affect its mining sector. That note ended this way:
The change in public opinion will need a catalyst moment and this desk will stick to its long-held
opinion that the awarding of a permit for a mining company by SEMARNAT, no matter what
type, project, metal or location, will provide that. That’s the logjam that needs to break and
when it does, attitudes will change. Shouldn’t be long now, thanks for waiting.”
While others may have expected another scenario, one in which Sheinbaum awarded multiple
permits and threw her arms wide open to welcome the mining industry back from the
hinterland, our expectations were firmly set in the real world and, with the Alamos Gold (AGI)
permit award of last week, the scenario is now starting to play out as envisaged. As seen in the
above chart, the AGI news was enough to set MAI running again last week and while we’re still
not back to the type of daily volume MAI enjoyed in the good times, Wednesday’s 453k volume
was the best for two months and aside the spike around the bought deal announcement, the
best since this time last year. Neither should we blamce the stock for the moderate weakness
26

on Friday, as for one thing daytrade flippers deserve to book wins if they want to and for
another, the true significance of the AGI permit probably hasn’t clicked with most people yet.
So between us, let’s be clear; The AGI EIA modification news last week tells us is that when a
company with a permit application that’s passed all the checks, SEMARNAT will now sign off
and award the permit instead of sitting on it for political reasons. There are plenty such permits
behind AGI’s in the SEMARNAT bottleneck, applications that have satisfied all parties and are in
essence only waiting for a signature, and as they are awarded so confidence in the re-opening
on Mexico to formal and well-run mining companies will increase. As for our specific trade here,
Minera Alamos has done everything required of it for its Santana pad modification permit and is
one of those waiting on the final signature for that document, then behind that comes the one
that will really change its game, the Cerro de Oro EIA, which counts on all the local support
you’d ever need and zero risk from a negative at any perior consultancy stage.
To return to the “On Notice” rant as seen in IKN810 a moment, it was when I drew a clear line
in the sand on my largest single holding and Top Pick stock. With all the best will in the world,
some things are out of MAI.v’s direct control (e.g. permits) and it wasn’t a case of judging the
company on the vagaries or timing of the new Sheinbaum government, however it was time to
demand better, more shareholder-friendly news from the company after swallowing that $8.5m
placement news from out of nowhere. We made a list, here’s the copypaste from ten weeks
ago:
Minera Alamos needs to do the following:
 File a reasonable 3q24 financial report. We’re not expecting much from Santana
this quarter, but no more surprises.
 Close the bought deal in good order
 Show us the promised production improvement and free cash flow from Santana in
Q4, as advertised
 Reach a mutually acceptable refi deal with Auramet in Q1
 Close the Sabre Gold deal in Q1
IKN820 back and it’s good to report progress on all fronts: The 3q24 financial numbers were
indeed reasonable, with no nasty surprises. The $8.5m bought deal did indeed close in good
order (and at the bottom end of the sale range, which suits me just fine). Santana has indeed
returned production improvement required and, though as yet unofficial, we heard from
company president Doug Ramshaw on that webinar ten days ago (see IKN819 last weekend)
that the mine returned the desired operating profit. This allows MAI the corporate entity to self-
sustain during the build-out process, which is very good. The company has indeed reached a
refi deal with Auramet in Q1, triggering the extension and according once again to President
Doug Ramshaw on the webinar, maintaining a positive relationship with Auramet extend the
partnership beyond that date.
The final requirement in the list, the closure of the Sabre Gold deal in Q1, is almost upon us.
The SGLD.to end of the deal was supposed to close on January 27th and early last week I
checked in with President Ramshaw, who said that there was a little extra bit of paperwork and
legal beagling to do but we’d probably get closure by Friday. As things have turned out (22)
(bold type added)…
“….Sabre has obtained a Final Order from the Ontario Court of Justice (Commercial List) and
closing is now expected to occur on or about February 5th, 2025. The one-week delay is a result of
certain executed and notarized documentation concerning the release of security on title to be in
hand and to allow the last condition precedent to be removed by Minera. It is expected that, within
two to three business days following the completion of the Arrangement, the Sabre Shares will be
delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.”
…we need to wait one more week, but that’s not a major issue. On reading that NR I checked
back ith MAI President Ramshaw who confirmed there are zero issues with the deal, what’s
missing is standard paperwork and rather than rush it, the parties decided to take a couple
more days and do it right. The bottom line is that next week will indeed see the merger of
SGLD with MAI and at that point, the arb comes off the two stocks and MAI should trade more
freely.
27

The bottom line: Minera Alamos (MAI.v) had a good January 2025, up 28% on consistent
buying and not many signs of holders looking to dump back into the market, as was often the
case in 2024. However, last week marked a change in momentum as new buyers moved in on
the news out of Alamos Gold (AGI), there were enough people switched on to what that award
meant for the wider mining sector in Mexico to see this stock get a new round of speculative
buying. And make no mistake, SEMARNAT’s new attitude is no longer the stuff of conjecture or
hearsay as AGI at Puerto Del Aire provided all the proof the reasonable observer requires.
There will, of course, be a sizeable percentage of people who won’t believe MAI is back until it
gets its own EIA modification permit for Santana, there will be others who refuse to believe
until Cerro de Oro gets its own EIA. And there are others who won’t believe a word MAI.v, Or
your author, or anyone connected with its future success says on the matter whatever happens
in 2025 or however high the stock price launches as milestones are hit.
Add to this the improved sentiment and delivery from MAI in the last couple of months, as my
personal “On Notice” checklist of items is now essentially complete. We await exact numbers for
the Santana Q4, we await confirmed closure of the Sabre merger but those are now a matter of
time. Sabre is important as it will lift the market dampers on the stock, Santana is important
because even that small production profile is enough to return MAI to self-sustaining status and
at that point, positive news from Cerro de Oro will be the major catalyst we’ve all been waiting
for (well me, at least). The worst is over for MAI and those looking for strong speculative
upside and low risk downside should position before the current 3-handle on the share price is
left in the past.
Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v): Until further notice for gamblers only
A double dose of fundamental woe from one of the stocks we managed to trade successfully
last year, Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v) and by popular demand (from a couple of you) and with
personal curiosity duly piqued, I thought we could have a look at what went on and try to
gauge whether there was a potential trade on the back of its news. We had two NRs of interest
from BCM last week:
 On Wednesday 29th (23): “Bear Creek Mining Updates Mineral Resources And
Mineral Reserves For The Mercedes Mine”
 On Friday 31st (24): “Bear Creek Mining Announces Q4 2024 And Full Year
Mercedes Mine Production Results”
e’ll consider both separately before tying thoughts together in a concluding paragraph, but first
a comparative ten-day chart:
No matter if you compare BCM against PM producers (GDX), junior producers (GDXJ), silver
producers (SIL), gold (GLD) or silver (SLV), it had a sub-standard week compared to the field.
We also note that BCM was whacked harder on its new resource update news than its Q4
production NR, with the stock price putting in one day’s worth of recovery in between as the PM
rally on Thursday lifted all boats.
Enough preamble. We begin the meat of today’s note and by considering the new gold and
silver resource for the Mercedes mine as announced on Wednesday, the count valid as at
September 30th. Here’s the main table:
28

Those numbers represent a significant drop from the previous overall resource count for the
mine, which was of course the data used when BCM made its decision to buy Mercedes from
Equinox (EQX). Changes include:
 Total M+I gold resource has dropped from 579k oz to 515k oz
 Total M+I silver resource has dropped from 5.14m oz to 4.36m oz
 Aside those data, the inferred gold resource dropped from 128k oz to 65k oz and the inferred
silver resource from 1.167m oz to 0.445m oz.
Then as part of the above M+I resource, BCM also gave us a new proven and probable reserve
of 54k oz gold and 312k oz silver, i.e. about a year’s worth of estimated production at
envisaged rates.
Those are also down significantly from the previous P+P reserve count of 267k oz gold and
2.07m oz silver (NB: Please note that the reserve count is included in the M+I resource count of
the first table). That sharp drop in reserve ounces is important, as it implies BCM will have to
work on the mine resource by drilling and proving up more ounces in order to maintain its
production schedule over the medium and long-term and that means development costs. With
that in mind, let’s consider the CEO comments included in the Wednesday NR, here’s Eric Caba:
“Starting from the ground up, Bear Creek has reworked the geological and block models it inherited at
Mercedes and validated the outcome with external experts. Although Reserves have been lost as a result of
the updated models, the application of more realistic development costs, the sterilization of some areas of
mineralization, and higher operating costs as we switch mining methodologies, we now have a robust model
based on real world costs to work with going forward. Given Mercedes’ long history of converting Resources
to Reserves, we anticipate that as drilling and development continue, much of the Measured and Indicated
Mineral Resources will be converted to Reserves. I am also excited about the number and quality of near
mine exploration targets that have been identified in recent months and look forward to being able to test
these targets with an aggressive exploration initiative in 2025 focused on increasing Mercedes’ Mineral
Reserves and Resources, which we will highlight in an exploration update in the coming weeks.”
I’ve included the entire CEO comment as we can also appreciate the rose-tinted specs used to
present the data (nothing wrong with that, CEOs should look on the positive side) but the bold-
typed sections speak for themselves. Rocket scientists are not required to work out BCM is
about to embark on another round of drilling and capital outlay in 2025 to get Mercedes in
better shape. And before moving on, a final excerpt from the NR, found right at the bottom:
The reduction in both Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves at the Mercedes Mine during the Intervening
Period is substantial and is likely to negatively impact the carrying value of the Mercedes Mine as at
December 31, 2024.
On reading that I was “Ya don’t say”, but we’ll keep in mind for the numbercrunch below. Now
for last week’s second NR from BCM announcing its Q4 and 2024 YE production numbers and
we’ll start with the main event chart:
BCM: Mercedes quarterly gold production
29
1089
07111 36631 83021
2129 5519
87431 82221
4039
15701
7397
Oz Au
20000
18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
2q22 3q22 4q22 1q23 2q23 3q23 4q23 1q24 2q24 3q24 4q24
source: company filings

So much for their constant messaging in 2023 and 2024 about improving Mercedes, BCM
reported a very poor Q4 production of just 7,937, the worst quarter since they took over the
mine. The minor byproduct silver production of just over 55k oz was also below expectations
(but at Mercedes it’s the gold that matters). Under the headline production numbers, BCM
reported missed in both tonnage mined/milled (below left) and grade (below right), the former
blamed on…well, nearly everything and the latter on unexpected grade dilution at the stopes
(another indication of their lack of knowledge about their own asset).
BCM Mercedes: Tonnes mined/milled
As for the problems faced by BCM in Q4, it’s a tidy list and these two excerpts from the NR
cover most bases:
Eric Caba, President and CEO of Bear Creek, states “Production from Mercedes decreased during
Q4 2024 as we continued the transition from mining at San Martin, a bulk-mineable deposit and the
biggest contributor to production during 2024, into other areas of the Mercedes operation. This
transition requires extensive development work, adaptations to new narrow-vein mining methods,
and the deployment of right-sized equipment and specialized supplies, which have taken longer
than expected to procure. Our ongoing efforts to improve efficiency, contain costs, apply
operational discipline and reduce dilution, combined with completion of the transition to narrow vein
mining methods appropriate for future production from the Marianas deposit, are focused on
benefitting Mercedes’ performance in 2025.”
And…
The tonnage of ore mined and processed was impacted during Q4 2024 by delays experienced in
obtaining certain equipment and supplies necessary to transition from the bulk mining methods
used at the San Martin deposit to narrow vein mining methods required to effectively mine at the
Marianas deposit and delays related to unplanned remediation of ground conditions. While as a
result the final quarter of the year saw lower than anticipated gold and silver production, we are
working to resolve both of these underlying factors and improve production accordingly. The
average Q4 2024 gold grade of processed ore was impacted by lower-than-expected grades of ore
mined from the Diluvio and Lupita deposits. Development activity originally planned for earlier
quarters occurred in the final quarter of the year, leading to the substantially higher development
meters achieved in Q4 2024.
In summary, unforeseen delays related to the transition of mining methods and contractors during
the quarter negatively impacted production results for Q4 2024. However, the majority of this
shortfall is expected to be made up in the course of 2025 concurrent with anticipated reductions in
dilution that stem from using experienced narrow vein miners and right sized equipment.
Please note verb tenses used, as in no place does the company report that that issues faced in
2024 have been resolved. Instead they are either being resolved or will be resolved in 2025
(leaving them until December, according to their lawyers and NR proofreaders). Long story
short, if the problems underlying the poor Q4 had been resolved they would have told us but
they didn’t so it’s safe to assume the current quarter is going to be poor as well. As for the rest
of 2025, we then get a repeat of the message in the Wednesday resource calculation NR and
BCM’s plans to spend money on the mine in order to improve it:
Bear Creek is planning an aggressive exploration program for 2025 to test high quality, near-mine
brownfield targets identified in late 2024 through a study that integrated new information obtained
from reprocessing historic aeromagnetic survey data, with ground-based geochemistry, new
geological field observations and a re-interpretation of structural controls on Mercedes
mineralization. The 69,284-hectare Mercedes property is located at the convergence of discrete
porphyry, epithermal & orogenic belts and represents a highly prospective environment that is
largely unexplored outside of the Mercedes mine deposits. Our 2025 exploration plans will be
announced in an exploration update news release in the coming days.
30
1.38 0.221 4.621 2.841 0.821 0.241 0.431 0.431 5.121 1.521 5.321 2.621 0.811 0.631 0.601 0.901 1.39 7.59 9.301 5.201 2.59 2.39
kmt BCM Mercedes: Gold head grade
tonnes mined
160 tonnes milled
140
120
100
80 60
40
20
0
2q223q224q221q232q233q234q231q242q243q244q24
source: company filings
16.2 54.2 11.3 19.2 24.2 04.2 03.3 96.3 32.3 04.3 97.2
g/t Au
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0 1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
2q223q22 4q221q23 2q233q234q23 1q242q24 3q244q24
source: company filings

In other words, not only are they planning to spend money on the known resource, but there’s
a 2025 budget planned to turn Mercedes into a brownfields exploration story as well. Now for
what that low production quarter means for its upcoming financials, here are a few best
guesses starting with the P+L and the best guess for top line revenues (right) of U$21m (BCM
reports in US Dollars).
BCM.v: Quarterly Revenues
31
1.01
6.62 4.42 3.42 9.91 8.81 2.62 5.72 1.22 7.92 0.12
40
35
30
25
20
15 10
5
0
22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
$m
source: company filings
COGS at BCM tend to be fairly regular with a high proportion of fixed costs, so we’ll keep is
simple and stick to the summary chart only:
BCM.v: Operations overview
180.01 255.1 925.8 455.62 127.32 338.2 304.42 730.81 663.6 182.42 573.41 609.9 988.91 216.41 772.5 508.81 743.41 854.4 371.62 869.51
502.01 235.72
97.61
247.01
831.22
528.51
313.6
486.92
945.61
531.31
12 61
5
40
35
30
25
20
15 10
5
0
22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m
revenues
COGS
diff
Source: company filings
That +$5m result doesn’t take DD&A into account, as what BCM needs is hard cash to fund its
plans rather than worry about the niceties of GAAP. When the non-cash DD&A is factored in,
our estimated gross profit stands at negative $2m and operating earnings at negative $7m
(before any adjustment for the inevitable impairment).
Put another way, in ballpark terms (better data should come with the YE report) even if things
go well in 2025 and a) grade gets back to normal b) throughput improves to the previous
1,200tpd-or-so level c) gold prices maintain and d) costs are kept under control, BCM will be
running at a gross profit of no more than 1g/t gold on Mercedes. Maybe (and I mean maybe)
U$9m a quarter of in-hand cash in a perfect world from which it would have to cover drilling,
sundry costs, Corani maintenance costs and the onerous debt serving currently draining around
$5m/qtr. How BCM covers all its bases and also embarks on an aggressive drilling and
development program at Mercedes at the same time using just organic capital is beyond me.
BCM: Mercedes operations, per qtr
196.3
619.0
840.3-
328.7-
25.0-
676.9-
62.1-
598.5-
623.3-
944.6-
957.6-
56.11-
419.0-
767.4-
933.3
694.1-
426.2-
181.7-
749.5
983.0
2-
7-
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
-12
22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m
gross profit
Op earnings
source: company filings, IKN ests

As for the aforementioned impairment on Mercedes for its downward resource adjustment,
that’s anyone’s guess on how much so I’m going to take a stab at U$15m and see how close
that is come the report. For our purposes today it’s a bit of a side issue so I’m not going to
include all the charts (if there’s good reason, we can check BCM’s numbers out more closely
when the company files its financials next month) but let’s just go with overall assets (as the
fixed number takes an impairment hit) and a breakdown of current assets (that show the most
important metric more clearly, that of cash, guesstimated at U$6m as at end year)…
BCM.v: Assets
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
…then current liabilities and working capital (below). We’ve said it a dozen times before, but
the massive working cap deficit looks worse than it is because most of the “current” liability
charge is in accounting name only and in reality, the converts and payable notes have been
booted to 2029 and beyond. However, there comes a time when the real world breach also gets
too big and with perhaps $22m between BCM and comfort, that time starts now.
Discussion and conclusion
Back in 2024 when we bought some BCM and traded it for a quick profit, the thesis was
reasonably straightforward: As long as we could ignore Mercedes and consider it a net neutral,
BCM’s leverage upside would come from its exposure to silver via its big Corani project in South
Peru. That’s the real reason to own this stock, even though BCM doesn’t and will never have
the money to move it forward alone. At current silver prices, Corani finally makes economic
sense (after many years in the wilderness and as we saw during silver’s run to U$35/oz in
October last year, it offers excellent leverage and a speculative way of playing the Jekyll & Hyde
metal at those moments when exuberance takes over (as it occasionally does with silver).
Corani is still a potential silver play today, of that
there’s no doubt and what’s more, one of these
fine days we may even see a major step up and
buy it from BCM. That would be a great day to
own some BCM shares and in essence, people
who buy BCM shares today are speculating on
exactly that happening (or at least as we did last
year, on it becoming more likely). It would only
take silver to start running again and break away
32
12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m fixed BCM.v: Current Assets
other current 30
inventory
cash 25
20
15
10
5
0
source: company filings
12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m
other current
cash
source: company filings
BCM.v: Current liabilities breakdown per qtr
160
140
120 100
80 60
40
20
0
12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m BCM.v: Working Capital per qtr
other current liab
convert debenture
note payable A/c payable
source: company filings
5.22 9.71 7.43- 5.34- 2.15- 0.06- 5.75-
1.66- 7.98- 2.88- 8.29- 2.39- 0.89-
40
20
0 -20
-40
-60
-80
-100
12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 42q3 tse42q4
U$m
source company filings

from its current U$32/oz ceiling for the cycle to run again and if so, buying BCM today no
matter how bad its financials might be would probably give you a win. To underscore that, the
chart above uses the same comparative lines as seen in the first visual today but stretches the
timeline to six months. On reflection, I got very lucky.
However, I’m not going to partake this time and if you’ve walked with me through the
Mercedes and then the corporate financials, you probably know what I’m about to say. With its
poor Q4, the high likelihood of another poor quarter in 1q25 and no guarantee of any
meaningful improvement for the rest of 2025, we cannot take Mercedes as a net neutral any
longer. We don’t have exact figures, but we do know that a) BCM isn’t making much money
even on a gross cash flow level b) it doesn’t have much in treasury and c) it wants to spend
plenty on Mercedes alone next year. Just Corani costs around U$7m per year in upkeep costs
and the aggressive stance CEO Eric Caba wants to take on resource drilling, brownfield
exploration drilling and sustaining capital expenditure, all with a view of getting Mercedes up to
scratch, it seems near certain that they’ll need to go back to the market and raise capital for the
2025 plans as stand. Either that or come to a new arrangement with creditors to carve out
some more working capital, but either way Mercedes isn’t about to alleviate the weak financial
situation at BCM; if anything, it’s about to make it even worse.
Once we have more information, i.e. its Q4 financials, the size of any capital raise (and whether
it’s successful, structure will be important) and then a better idea of exactly how much BCM
wants to spend on Mercedes this year, it may offer a clearer opportunity and if the company
raises capital as we now suspect, that opportunity of a “neutral Mercedes” + “speculation on
Corani” may come at a lower share price than the mid-30c levels today. However, at this point
there are too many variables and too many things that can go wrong, both operationally and
financially, to consider BCM as a decent risk/reward opportunity on rising silver at the moment.
If you have a higher risk tolerance than your author (I never shirk away from calling myself a
yellow-bellied chicken at times like these) you might want to buy today at these prices because,
if silver shoots higher in the days and weeks to come, we would see a repeat of at least some
of the move made by BCM last year.
As stands today BCM is for gamblers only and, while the reward is there for the taking if the
silver market moves in its favour, the risk is higher than in 2024 when I traded in and out of the
stock. With a C-suite that seems set on using its fixed asset value at Mercedes to raise more
working capital and put a flimsy balance sheet under even more pressure, there area host of
unknown variables at this point. How much drilling in 2025? What cost? How long before
Mercedes is back producing 12k oz gold per quarter? Assuming a capital raise, will it be a share
placement and if so, what size and price? What’s the balance sheet going to look like as at 4q24
with the impairment backed out? Will they be able to procure the equipment and manpower
they require from narrow vein underground mining? Will the grade dilution continue to cause
havoc? All those and more, so at the riskj of missing a trade if silver moves higher in the days
to come, this one is better avoided by all but the most risk averse among you until we know
more.
Conclusion
We close IKN820 in usual style, with a couple of bullet points:
 Minera Alamos (MAI.v) is looking like a real and obvious investment option for the first
time in over a year. Through 2024 I held through despite the drudgery and what turned
out to be significant opportunity cost, but the fundamentals have never gone away.
With the Mexico permitting bottleneck now going away, it’s time for those stellar
reasons to own this stock to come back to the fore.
 The buy call on AbraSilver (ABRA.v) came with more than a little lucky timing, but the
news last week also underscores its investment potential. No better silver trade out
there at the moment and I’m not going to wait on the additions.
33

 It’s somewhat ironic to watch from afar as Trump’s new term of office plays havoc and
disrupts the status quo in North America, while here down at the South end of the
connected landmass the political backdrop is clearing and becoming more investor
friendly by the month. Argentina is getting most of the business media column inches
but, as shown today, there’s a lot of improvement to report from other jurisdictions.
Start with Ecuador, as Noboa is now a clear fave to gain a real mandate.
I thank you in advance for any feedback. Our Top Pick stocks are Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v) and Minera
Alamos (MAI.v). Flash updates will be sent if required by events.
I wish you good trading fortune, ladies and gentlemen.
Best wishes, Mark.
Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/02/schedule-for-week-of-february-2-2025.html
(2) https://www.abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-announces-484-million-financing-comprised-of-218-million-
bought-deal-public-offering-and-266-million-concurrent-private-placement-of-common-shares
(3) https://www.abrasilver.com/news-releases/abrasilver-resource-corp-upsizes-previously-announced-financing
(4) https://orecap.ca/news/orecap-unlocking-value-from-legacy-assets-kerr-addison-tailings-evaluation-announced/
(5) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/base-metals-fall-as-trump-reiterates-tariff-threat/
(6) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/copper-hits-three-week-low-as-us-tariff-threats-cloud-demand-outlook/
(7) https://x.com/Brad_Setser/status/1885410273072140664
(8) https://www.b2gold.com/news-media/news-releases/news-details/2025/B2Gold-Completes-Upsized-Offering-of-
Convertible-Senior-Notes/default.aspx
(9) https://radiusgold.com/news/radius-enters-binding-exclusivity-for-tierra-roja-copper-project-peru/
(10) https://radiusgold.com/news/radius-enters-binding-exclusivity-for-tierra-roja-copper-project-peru/
(11) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM7sHlTeZuI
(12)
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Sondeos_de_intenci%C3%B3n_de_voto_para_las_elecciones_presidenciales_de_E
cuador_de_2025
(13) https://www.ipsos.com/es-ec/intencion-de-voto-en-ecuador-2025
(14) https://www.reduno.com.bo/noticias/andronico-y-manfred-lideran-la-nueva-encuesta-de-claure-rumbo-a-
presidenciales-202513185454
(15) https://www.bnamericas.com/en/news/mexican-miners-optimistic-about-sheinbaums-sector-policy
(16) https://www.infobae.com/peru/2025/01/28/antauro-fuera-de-las-elecciones-2026-pj-rechazo-apelacion-del-partido-
vinculado-a-antauro-humala/
(17) https://caretas.pe/politica/antauro-humala-y-su-posible-alianza-con-el-frepap/
(18) https://www.ipsos.com/es-pe/encuesta-peru-21-ipsos-como-votarian-los-peruanos-si-las-elecciones-fueran-
manana
(19) https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2025/01/29/me-toca-cambiar-de-red-gustavo-petro-dejaria-de-utilizar-x-por-
diferencias-ideologicas-con-elon-musk/
(20) https://www.infobae.com/economia/2025/02/02/mineria-un-estudio-internacional-estimo-que-los-5-principales-
proyectos-de-cobre-le-generarian-a-la-argentina-ingresos-por-mas-de-usd-47000-millones/
(21) https://s24.q4cdn.com/779615370/files/doc_news/2025/Jan/20250129-Alamos-Announces-Receipt-of-PDA-Permit-
_-FINAL.pdf
34

(22) https://avino.com/news/2025/avino-commences-underground-development-at-la-preciosa/
(23) https://bearcreekmining.com/news/bear-creek-mining-updates-mineral-resources-and-mineral-reserves-for-the-
mercedes-mine/
(24) https://bearcreekmining.com/news/bear-creek-mining-announces-q4-2024-and-full-year-mercedes-mine-
production-results/
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2024
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
Equinox Gold EQX May'24 U$4.42 30-May-23 U$5.57 26.0% Took sm.profit, disappointing
Adventus Mining ADZN.v May'24 C$0.305 7-Jan-24 C$0.445 45.9% bot out, nice win
SolGold SOLG.to May'24 C$0.22 19-Feb-23 C$0.165 -25.0% ran out of patience
Western Copper WRN.to July'24 C$1.57 26-Feb-24 C$1.53 -2.5% Sold on regional risk
Contango Ore CTGO Sep'24 U$18.70 30-Jul-23 U$20.23 8.2% Port rebalance sale
Florida Can. Gold FCGV.v Oct'24 C$0.63 21-Jul-24 C$0.71 12.7% failed trade with a lucky win
Bear Creek Min BCM.v Oct'24 C$0.35 10-Jun-24 C$0.67 91.4% took profits on spec trade
American Eagle AE.v Oct'24 C$0.43 25-Aug-24 C$0.69 69.8% taking profit on NT flip
SilverCrest Met SILV Nov'24 U$6.90 31-Mar-24 U$9.76 41.4% sold on CDE buyout
Newcore Gold NCAU.v Nov'24 C$0.205 23-Oct-22 C$0.32 56.1% sold on advisor appt
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v Dec'24 C$0.72 16-May-21 C$2.11 193.1% closed trade, took profits
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
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
35

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-Sep-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
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
36

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
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
37

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.
38