Catalyst: TNR Gold - McEwen Mining poised for production increase MUX, TNR.v

  Shorts are not feeling comfortable with McEwen Mining any more. Stock is forming the Double Bottom Reversal on the technical side and fundamentals should support this development further now. At the end of February the total short position was reported at the magnitude of 29 million shares, it will be the fuel to clear the 3 dollar level now. As you know, we are particularly interested in Los Azules and TNR Gold's Back-In Right into that World Class Copper project. It will be the next Catalyst for both companies. At the moment market is pricing Los Azules at almost zero for both companies. Any positive developments over there will ignite the short covering rally in McEwen Mining and will reposition TNR Gold valuation in the market place as well.

  Things we are looking forward to: San Juan province glacier audit to be finished on Los Azules after Barrick's Pascua Lama has received green light and moved ahead. New drill results from the Northern Part of Los Azules, where TNR gold has its Back-In Right and new metallurgy tests working on the heap leaching of the lower grade Copper at Los Azules, which could increase the total amount of the recoverable copper and improve even more the economics of this project.

  Any new developments with the prospective buyers for Los Azules will change all the picture overnight. BMO is marketing the project now and we are expecting the research analysts to put their valuations on the Los Azules very soon as well. TNR Gold's Back-In Right independent research valuation could be out next. In the latest PDAC 2013 McEwen Mining presentation on the link below Los Azules Copper project is presented in its full glory and definitely deserves your attention, among other assets of McEwen Mining and TNR Gold.

Rob McEwen Looks For Gold To Keep Rising As Nations Run Up Debt Levels MUX, TNR.v

 As we have mentioned before, BMO Capital market conference is the very good place to pitch Los Azules Copper project for Rob McEwen. BMO is hired by McEwen Mining to market the Sale of Los Azules. Any development on this front will be the Catalyst for McEwen Mining and TNR Gold turn-arounds from the recent heavily oversold levels.

  We think that journalist is off on numbers a little bit, required capitalisation to join S&P 500 is 4 billion as per our research and Rob McEwen was talking about 5 billion in his recent video interview with TFNN.com. 

McEwen Mining Corporate Presentation.

McEwen Mining Provides Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2012 Operational and Development Update

MiningWeekly.com:

McEwen Mining poised for production increase

By: Henry Lazenby

12th March 2013

Updated 6 hours ago

TEXT SIZE

 

TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – McEwen Mining this week said it was prepared for a 24% increase in gold-equivalent production this year, as an optimisation plan was completed at its 49% owned San Jose mine, in Argentina, that would increase processing capacity by 10% from 1 500 t/d to 1 650 t/d, and a full year of production is expected from its El Gallo Phase 1 mine, in Mexico.

The company on Monday reported gold-equivalent production for the fourth quarter ended December 31, totalled 32 220 oz, comprised of 17 578 oz gold and 761 377 oz silver.

For the full year the company produced attributable gold-equivalent ounces (GEO) of 105 050 oz, comprising of 48 876 oz of gold and 2.92-million ounces of silver, which was in line with the company’s 2012 guidance. 

Cash costs totalled $728/GEO in the fourth quarter and full year cash costs totalled $739/GEO, which was below the 2012 guidance of $750/GEO. 

The company had $79-million in cash and liquid assets and no debt as at the end of the financial year.

McEwen said it expected production to grow this year to 130 000 GEOs, comprising 72 310 oz of gold and three-million ounces of silver, at a cash cost of between $800/GEO to $900/GEO.

The company expected all-in sustaining costs t range between $1 200/GEO and $1 325/GEO. All-in sustaining costs include operational, development, exploration, royalties and reclamation costs.

"Last year was significant for McEwen Mining. We successfully merged US Gold and Minera Andes, achieved record production at our San Jose mine, completed construction and commissioned El Gallo Phase 1, published a feasibility study for El Gallo Phase 2, and resolved the litigation surrounding the Los Azules copper project.

“This year will also be an important year for the company. First, we expect to see production grow by 24% to 130 000 GEO, and second, financing and construction of our third mine, El Gallo Phase 2, is scheduled to commence during the third quarter," chairperson and chief owner Rob McEwen said.

The company said the El Gallo Phase 2 was on schedule for construction and would become the company's third and largest mine. 

Four new resource updates were due for release by the end of the second quarter.

The company’s TSX-listed stock on Tuesday traded 7.52% higher at C$2.86 apiece.

Please Note our New Legal Disclaimer on the Blog, including, but Not limited to:

There are NO Qualified Persons among the authors of this blog as it is defined by NI 43-101, we were NOT able to verify and check any provided information in the articles, news releases or on the links embedded on this blog; you must NOT rely in any sense on any of this information in order to make any resource or value calculation, or attribute any particular value or Price Target to any discussed securities.

We Do Not own any content in the third parties' articles, news releases, videos or on the links embedded on this blog; any opinions - including, but not limited to the resource estimations, valuations, target prices and particular recommendations on any securities expressed there - are subject to the disclosure provided by those third parties and are NOT verified, approved or endorsed by the authors of this blog in any way.

Please, do not forget, that we own stocks we are writing about and have position in these companies. We are not providing any investment advice on this blog and there is no solicitation to buy or sell any particular company.

Lomiko Signs a Transformational Graphite Deal with Graphene Labs LMR.v

  

  We have another article on Graphite, Graphene and Lomiko Metals to share today. We are pleased to find that our own conclusions are supported by the industry experts' observations.

Lomiko Metals - New Graphene Play LMR.v

"Lomiko has gained some very important industry media traction with its latest move securing the strategic alliance with Graphene Laboratories. Market has responded to the deal very positively and has sold off lately in line with all junior miners Capitulation stage, as we believe it here. Company now is very well positioned to explore the vertical integration of its Graphite project into the very promising Entry into the Graphene market potentially. The only thing missing is the strong Chinese or Japanese company as a strategic partner for Lomiko Metals with the deep pockets to develop the Quatre Milles and now Lomiko Metals has a very interesting proposition for such potential strategic partner."

ResourceWire.com:

Risk Versus RewardLomiko Signs a Transformational Graphite Deal with Graphene Labs

Kevin Michael GraceFebruary 28, 2013

Graphene: A wonder material that shouldn’t exist.

Just one year ago, graphite was the new black gold. The market couldn’t get enough of it, and hardly a week went by without the announcement of a new graphite company or an old company repurposed to meet what was going to be a critical shortage of supply. Investors bought on the rumour, and one year later, they’ve sold on the news. Paul Gill, President/CEO of Lomiko Metals Inc T.LMR, puts it bluntly, “So many of the small graphite companies are walking dead because there is never going to be a customer for them.”

He explains, “You have Syrah Resources in Australia, which has just put out a huge graphite resource. You have Energizer T.EGZ in Madagascar and Timcal operating in Quebec and Northern GraphiteV.NGC in Ontario. Demand is rising organically at 20% annually, but the amount of supply in the pipeline has blossomed incredibly.”

click for full size

Lomiko got into the graphite game last year. It bought the Quatre Milles Project, 3,780 hectares located 175 kilometres northwest of Montreal. Drilling there hassuggested a potential graphite deposit of 50 million to 100 million tonnes. Gill could have stood in line for project funding with all the other graphite contenders, but it wasn’t an appealing prospect.

And so Lomiko has decided to change its game. Its future will be based not on the provision of raw materials per se but rather on the creation of enduser products, specifically graphene, a carbon allotrope of—all hyperbole aside—almost unlimited potential. To that end, it announced February 12 an agreement with Graphene Laboratories Inc of New York.

Lomiko will provide natural high-quality flake graphite from Quatre Milles to Graphene, which will attempt to develop the means to convert it to graphene at a much lower cost, which would enable widespread commercial usage. The agreement states that Lomiko may provide equity financings exclusively to Graphene for two years, if it meets the criteria of at least US$500,000 within eight months, US$1 million within 12 months and US$2 million within 18 months. Should Lomiko not meet these conditions, it will lose exclusivity but retain the right to provide equity on a non-exclusive basis.

In other words, Lomiko has hitched its wagon to Graphene Lab’s star. They have the expertise, Gill says, but they need “to capitalize and grow their business. They haven’t released revenue numbers because they’re a private company, but they do have revenue and many customers.”

Gill doesn’t deny that Lomiko, a company with only $150,000 in cash, faces a daunting challenge: a $4-million challenge, in fact. “We estimate a $2-million pricetag to take Quatre Milles to resource estimate, PEA and completion of metallurgy,” he reports. “The $2-million commitment to Graphene Labs is in addition to that.”

How does Lomiko intend to raise the money? Gill replies, “We’ve already been talking to institutions and investment bankers. We have 3,000 shareholders, but what we don’t have is a group that will take it right to the institutions and bring in the $5-million to $10-million financings we’ll need in the future.”

The challenge is great, but the potential rewards are greater still. For as the Daily Mail reported 18 months ago, “Some researchers claim [graphene is] the most important substance to be created since the first synthetic plastic more than 100 years ago…. It is tougher than diamond but stretches like rubber. It is virtually invisible, conducts electricity and heat better than any copper wire and weighs next to nothing.” Graphene has been touted as a superefficient replacement for silicon in integrated circuits and as the catalyst for the creation of computer screens that can be rolled up like paper.

So what is graphene, exactly? Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who won the 2010 Nobel Prize for their work on it, describe graphene as a “material that should not exist,” a “monolayer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice and…a basic building block for graphitic materials of all other dimensionalities.”

Some researchers claim [graphene is] the most important substance to be created since the first synthetic plastic more than 100 years ago. It is tougher than diamond but stretches like rubber. It is virtually invisible, conducts electricity and heat better than any copper wire and weighs next to nothing—Daily Mail

Graphene’s atomic simplicity gives it its strength and makes it the most multipurpose material yet discovered. Geim and Novoselov (both knighted last year) first created graphene in 2004. By the end of 2012, CambridgeIP reported 7,351 graphene patents and patent applications worldwide. The top 10 patent holders include IBM, Samsung, SanDisk and Xerox. Last month, the European Commission, which calls graphene “the wonder material of the 21st century,” announced a grant of one billion Euros to the “Graphene Initiative.”

Elena Polyakova, founder and President/CEO of Graphene Labs, has a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Southern California and first started working with graphene in 2005. “It is actually not one thing,” she says. “Let’s call it an umbrella term.” She explains that there are currently two ways to produce it from graphite: “One route is using chemical separation, and in this case we’ve adapted material called graphene oxide, which is good for some applications. Another route is just to split graphite into so-called graphite nanoplatelets. This material is literally graphite but split into very thin sheets.”

She stresses that, in contrast to competitors, Graphene “is an active company. We have laboratory space and employees and are already producing graphene for sale. Our main customers are in the research and development space.”

Polyakova believes that graphene’s first common commercial use with be in composite materials: “Most likely polymers mixed with graphene where graphene is acting as a filler enhancing the polymer’s properties.” (Such as this announcement from Australia of a compound more bulletproof than Kevlar.)

Why did Graphene decide to ally with Lomiko? Polyakova replies, “When we produce graphene materials, the quality of our samples strongly depends on the quality of the graphite, and so we will incorporate high-quality graphite from Lomiko into our current production.” This, she says, is Graphene’s “short-term plan.” Its “long-term plan” is to “drive down the costs of production.” For example, “Right now, the cost of graphene oxide is about $170 per gram, and for commercial applications, we have to drop it by a factor of 10. I think it’s easily doable, as soon as we scale up production.”

New York-based research analyst Chris Berry agrees that price is crucial. “Most of the graphene that’s actually produced today is made from synthetic graphite, and that’s part of the reason why it’s so expensive,” he says. “The question is how do you scale up graphene production to the point where it’s a commercially viable enterprise where you can invest and make money doing it.”

Berry argues that a good analogy would be with the lithium-ion battery. “The electric-vehicle revolution hasn’t taken hold because the cars are just too expensive. They are too expensive because the battery is so expensive. If there is a breakthrough in battery chemistry which lowers the cost, then all of a sudden the electric car becomes affordable to an entire demographic that has been priced out of the market. My opinion is that graphene is in a similar situation now.”

Berry also agrees with Gill’s description of graphite juniors being “dead men walking.” He reports, “Just a little over a year ago I was actively monitoring about six publicly traded graphite exploration companies. By December 2012, I was tracking about 80. That doesn’t include some of the private companies, of which there are about 10. I see the number of graphite exploration players heading down closer to six in the coming months, and that’s because the market doesn’t need 80. It might need a couple outside China in the next few years. The frontrunner, if you will, is Northern Graphite V.NGC(and, full disclosure, we own shares in the company). Their CAPEX is going to be only about $110 million to $120 million.”

He concludes, “A strategic relationship, alliance or offtake is a must-have in graphite. Whether or not you do it with an automaker or Graphene Labs, it doesn’t really matter. Once you have it, that’s a huge plus.”

Stephen Riddle, CEO of Asbury Carbons, a commercial graphite producer for 119 years, characterizes the graphite boom as old wine in new bottles. “We experienced the same thing in the 1980s,” he says. “Back then it was due to the refractory industry starting to consume flake graphite. Many of the graphite deposits in Canada have been around for longer than I’ve been alive, and they’ve been through three or four different names. Take this deposit now called Northern Graphite V.NGC. Five years ago, its Bissett Creek Deposit was called Industrial Minerals; 25 years ago, it was called Princeton Resources; and 40 years ago, it was called something else.”

The deal with Graphene Labs sets us apart from our competitors because there is an enduser involved. We’re going to have a customer for the next two years, and we’re going to be able to participate financially in the upside of graphene. And we’re no longer competing with industrial graphite plays. We saw the facts of graphite supply and demand, and they told us we had to change—Paul Gill

Riddle, who has been something of a mentor to Gill, argues that the explosive growth in graphite companies was based on fundamental misconceptions about graphite itself. “The total graphite industry worldwide is about $13 billion to $13.5 billion, but about a billion of this has nothing to do with graphite powder or granular materials. Even though it is graphite, it’s not graphite related to what Lomiko or any of these mining companies are involved in, which is natural flake. Somebody writes an article, and says, look at the new Boeing jet, it has 80% graphite carbon fibres in it. But there is no natural-flake graphite used in making carbon fibres.”

Riddle has a much higher opinion of the viability of a company like Zenyatta Ventures Ltd V.ZEN, which is engaged in purifying natural graphite to a grade that could replace synthetic graphite. Even there, however, there will be hurdles. He asks, “When will the battery companies be ready to make the switch? Why do they prefer to use synthetic graphite at a higher cost? Is it because they trust the controls of the synthetic graphite? Is it because right now the anode part of the battery isn’t their major cost area?”

Investment analyst John Kaiser is as skeptical as Riddle with regard to the growth prospects for natural-flake graphite juniors. As for graphene and vertical integration, “Graphene is a potential future use for graphite, but it’s a bit of a stretch to link graphene innovation to some graphite deposit somewhere in North America or elsewhere in the world. Graphene is a big company space with very intensive R&D required. What are the juniors going to contribute to that equation?”

This is not a question Gill has pondered lightly. “We have to raise money,” he declares. “If we don’t capitalize Lomiko and Graphene Labs, we’re not going to go anywhere.” To Gill, it all comes down to a simple matter of risk versus reward. “We want to be at the high end of this space. That’s where the highest margin is. The deal with Graphene Labs sets us apart from our competitors because there is an enduser. We’re going to have a customer for the next two years, and we’re going to be able to participate financially in the upside of graphene. And we’re no longer competing with industrial graphite plays. We saw the facts of graphite supply and demand, and they told us we had to change.”

At press time, Lomiko had 66.9 million shares trading at $0.055 for a market cap of $3.7 million."

Please, do not forget, that we own stocks we are writing about and have position in these companies. We are not providing any investment advice on this blog and there is no solicitation to buy or sell any particular company.

Rob McEwen Looks For Gold To Keep Rising As Nations Run Up Debt Levels MUX, TNR.v

 

Update March 1, 2013

Welcome to BMO Capital Markets and the presentation by McEwen Mining on February 27, 2013

  As we have mentioned before, BMO Capital market conference is the very good place to pitch Los Azules Copper project for Rob McEwen. BMO is hired by McEwen Mining to market the Sale of Los Azules. Any development on this front will be the Catalyst for McEwen Mining and TNR Gold turn-arounds from the recent heavily oversold levels.

  We think that journalist is off on numbers a little bit, required capitalisation to join S&P 500 is 4 billion as per our research and Rob McEwen was talking about 5 billion in his recent video interview with TFNN.com.

Rob McEwen: People Will Return To Gold - Will They Return To McEwen Mining? MUX, TNR.v

 "In relation to total market cap of MUX even with additional 50% discount on "Argentina circumstances" gives you an astonishing leverage of at least 370 mil potential Sale value for Los Azules in comparison to 754.8 million market cap of McEwen Mining. Another benchmarking point could be Lumina Copper valuation with, as well depressed, market cap of 379 million dollars as of this Friday.

  New High Grade Copper Intersections from TNR Gold's Northern Part, released Valuation of Los Azules and any hint about potential buyers kicking the tires from BMO can ignite the next rally in McEwen Mining."

McEwen Mining presentation BMO Capital Markets.

Kitco:

Rob McEwen Looks For Gold To Keep Rising As Nations Run Up Debt Levels

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News
Wednesday, February 27, 2013 11:45 AM

(Kitco News) - Longtime mining executive Rob McEwen looks for the price of gold to keep rising with the debt of Western nations.

Meanwhile, his own company, McEwen Mining (MUX), is aiming to begin construction on the El Gallo 2 mine in Mexico later this year, McEwen said. The company is in the permit process. It is also working to secure the necessary financing, considering alternatives such as a joint venture or sale of its copper projects, McEwen said.

He outlined his views on the gold market and provided a status report on his still-young company during the 2013 BMO Global Metals and Mining conference taking place this week in Florida.

McEwen Mining was formed in January 2012 through a merger between Minera Andes Inc. and US Gold Corp. Minera Andes had a cash flow from a 49% passive ownership in the San Jose Mine in Argentina, while US Gold had a development pipeline of projects. McEwen owns 25% of the shares and works for no salary in trying to build the company. He was the founder and former chief executive of Goldcorp.

He spent the first several minutes of his presentation outlining his views on the gold market itself.

“I want to make one thing perfectly clear – it (gold) is a currency,” said McEwen. “If you don’t think of it that way, you should, because it’s going to play a bigger and bigger role in the monetary world. And it’s going to keep going up, too.”

The biggest driver is likely to be the continued creation of debt by governments, the CEO said. While he said debt is occurring throughout the Western world and are not isolated to any one country, he cited the U.S. in particular. “It’s now in excess of $16 trillion,” he said.

He displayed a chart showing the price of gold has climbed since 2002 as the U.S. deficit did likewise. The metal consolidated for a while back around 2008-09, as it is now, before resuming its upward path.

“The White House last February said the debt was going to $26 trillion by 2022, and I think we can say most politicians underestimate how much debt they’re going to create,” McEwen said. “Gold is going to continue tracking that.”

And, McEwen continued, stimulus measures are likely to continue in North America and Europe. The CEO said he still believes gold will eventually hit $5,000 an ounce.

He sees equities as “historically cheap” relative to the price of gold, losing their premium to gold since around 2008-09. Some of this may be investors instead moving into exchange-traded products for gold exposure, but he also cited factors such as capital-expenditure over-runs in the industry.

The CEO said he sees gold stocks as “oversold” at the moment. “It’s cheaper to buy gold in the ground than it is to buy it in a vault today,” he added.

As for his current company, McEwen Mining commissioned the El Gallo 1 mine in Mexico last month and hopes to begin construction in the third quarter of this year on El Gallo 2. Construction will take around a year and the cost is estimated at $180 million, McEwen said. The company would have to raise some $100 million to $110 million. McEwen Mining is also in the permit process for its Gold Bar project in Nevada, hoping to begin construction in 2014.

“So we’re going from 100,000 ounces of gold and gold-equivalent to 300,000 ounces by the end of 2015,” McEwen said. The company announced last month that full-year 2012 output was 105,050 gold-equivalent ounces, with production in 2013 forecast to grow by 24% to 130,000 gold-equivalent ounces.

McEwen said the company has a large resource base of 7 million ounces of gold, 230 million ounces of silver and 18.5 billion pounds of copper, the latter through the Los Azules copper project in Argentina. He said the company has no debt and $65 million in the bank.

The CEO reiterated the still-young company has a goal of qualifying for inclusion in the S&P 500 index in 2015, pointing out that more than $1 trillion is invested by index funds in the S&P 500 but there is only one gold stock currently. McEwen Mining has met five of the seven criteria and is working toward the remaining two -- $1 billion of market capitalization and four consecutive quarters of earnings, the CEO reported.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com"

Please Note our New Legal Disclaimer on the Blog, including, but Not limited to:

There are NO Qualified Persons among the authors of this blog as it is defined by NI 43-101, we were NOT able to verify and check any provided information in the articles, news releases or on the links embedded on this blog; you must NOT rely in any sense on any of this information in order to make any resource or value calculation, or attribute any particular value or Price Target to any discussed securities.

We Do Not own any content in the third parties' articles, news releases, videos or on the links embedded on this blog; any opinions - including, but not limited to the resource estimations, valuations, target prices and particular recommendations on any securities expressed there - are subject to the disclosure provided by those third parties and are NOT verified, approved or endorsed by the authors of this blog in any way.

Please, do not forget, that we own stocks we are writing about and have position in these companies. We are not providing any investment advice on this blog and there is no solicitation to buy or sell any particular company.

Lomiko Metals - New Graphene Play LMR.v

  

  Lomiko has gained some very important industry media traction with its latest move securing the strategic alliance with Graphene Laboratories. Market has responded to the deal very positively and has sold off lately in line with all junior miners Capitulation stage, as we believe it here. Company now is very well positioned to explore the vertical integration of its Graphite project into the very promising Entry into the Graphene market potentially. The only thing missing is the strong Chinese or Japanese company as a strategic partner for Lomiko Metals with the deep pockets to develop the Quatre Milles and now Lomiko Metals has a very interesting proposition for such potential strategic partner. 

  Lomiko Metals represents now not only the Quatre Mills property with "open pit mining potential", but a smooth access to the fast developing Western Graphene market via its alliance with Graphene Labs.

  As you can see from the article below, Paul Gill from Lomiko Metals is on par with Graphite Development industry "heavy hitters" like Focus Graphite. Focus Graphite with its market cap of 67 million dollars represent the completely different universe compare to Lomiko Metals market cap of 3.3 million. Access to the capital will be crucial for Lomiko now. What we like here is that Paul Gill is acting very fast and in line with even much stronger players in the sector. He has the promising  Graphite property and Graphene market Entry now packaged together - his available choices for capital has expanded dramatically and he can be lucky not only depend only on the state of the junior mining exploration market which is pronounced dead by many.

  We like the chart above from Jordan Roy-Byme and his "Time To Buy Precious Metals Now.

  We are looking for a turn-around in Gold and Junior Miners in Gold, Copper, Lithium and Graphite here. They are all priced now for the "End of the World" again as in 2008. With QE not going away any time soon we think that the real messages are coming from China, who are securing the Strategic Supply of materials for the New Economy in the 21st century. They are controlling REE market already, Breaking the Oligopoly in Lithium production, close to controlling Lithium Materials space and Graphene applications will be next.

  Should our junior mining market turn-around materialise with all other considerations above, Lomiko will represent a very leveraged play in the New Materials market place with applications stretching from Electric Cars with Lithium Batteries to Wind and Solar Power and to mobile devices with flexible displays.

  Next things we will be monitoring for catalyst in this particular play are access to the capital and our awaited turn-around in juniors. Call the company, make your own DD and talk to Paul Gill to make your own opinion, as usual. Interviews below will be the good start.

The Wall Street Analyst Interview with Paul Gill - CEO of Lomiko Metals.

Industrial Minerals:

Graphene Quality will trump quantity, says British IP firm

Lomiko Signs Strategic Alliance Agreement With Wold-Renowed Graphene Laboratories Inc. To Build Vertically Integrated Graphene Business Opportunities LMR.v

 "Interesting...now the Mr Market reaction will be next... And it was very impressive: Lomiko Metals was up 45.5% on the very respectable volume of 2.7 million shares. Now the follow through on this Volume Buy signal will be very important.

  Lomiko is cutting to the chase and moving forward with REE and other special markets approach - you can build this business only if you are integrated into the Demand side of it."

Lomiko's 11 High Grade, Near Surface Flake Graphite Drill Hole Results Indicate Open Pit Mining Potential at Quatre Milles LMR.v

"We like small companies in the Big Trends. It is the very risky proposition, but potential reward can justify it. We have our Big Trend - Energy Transition and Strategic Commodities to make it happen: Lithium and Graphite. We are investing here in the companies who can make it happen."

Dr Elena Polyakova, CEO of Graphene Laboratories.

Please, do not forget, that we own stocks we are writing about and have position in these companies. We are not providing any investment advice on this blog and there is no solicitation to buy or sell any particular company.

Huge buying in gold miners at close ABX, GG, NEM

  

  Frank Holmes: When It Comes To Gold, Stick To The Facts

Rob McEwen: People Will Return To Gold - Will They Return To McEwen Mining? MUX, TNR.v

"Nobody likes to ride the roller coaster which you see on the chart above. Nobody loves Gold any more, "economy is improving", "there is no place for Gold in expanding economic phase" and All Junior Miners are Slaughtered. We have the perfect set up for the new Bull Leg up in Gold and, particularly, in junior miners. Not everybody will survive, only those who have real assets, teams and shareholders backing them will prosper again."

  In our search for the Bottom for the Gold and Gold Miners we have found the news below quite interesting:

Huge buying in gold miners at close

By Chris McKhann (chris.mckhann@optionmonster.com) | optionMONSTER – Thu, Feb 21, 2013

A trader jumped into an enormous number of out-of-the-money calls in gold miners right before the session closed yesterday.

optionMONSTER's Heat Seeker system shows that the three largest option prints of the day came in the final 3 minutes of trade in three names. A trader bought 250,000 January 90 calls in Barrick Gold for their ask price of $0.07. A minute later, he or she bought 156,312 January 80 calls in Goldcorp for the ask price of $0.10. And a minute after that, the same trader purchased 200,000 January 90 calls in Newmont Mining for their ask price $0.10.

The open interest at each of strike was under 5,000 contracts, so these are clearly new purchases. The delta of these options was 0.01 in all three, meaning that they have a 1 percent probability or less of finishing in the money at expiration in about 11 months. So these are relatively cheap bets on these stocks, but the total cost of the long calls is more than $5.3 million--no small change, especially given the very small probability of profit. (See our Education section)

Shares of all three names fell sharply yesterday, with ABX and GG down just under 4 percent and NEM down 5.45 percent. ABX and NEM hit new 52-week lows, while GG was just above July levels. The all-time highs for these stocks came in the fourth quarter of 2011, with ABX and GG around $56 while NEM was just over $72.

It would be a vast understatement to call this an unusual option trade. I have never seen anything like it. "