Stock price when the opinion was issued
Their big claim to fame was the molybdenum play, which was hot a few years ago. Trying to diversify. Building a new copper mine so when that is up and running, they will probably do better because copper has a better outlook. Still trying to ramp it up and raise money to finish the mine. It will be a challenge in the short term. There are probably better places to be in the metal sector.
Would only go into this if you are willing to take a fairly significant risk. Recently sold his holdings. The balance sheet was giving him concerns. Have gold production coming on, but the gold area isn’t that great. Good company when times are really good, but right now he considers it very high risk.
He has a short position. Covered a while back because of some positive news and then layered back on the shorts. Last quarter they delivered a lot out of inventory so he thinks the moly is shrinking but meanwhile they are building out a copper/gold project. These names tend to underperform heading into production so he waits for results.
80% of its value is in the Thompson Creek mine and they’ve stopped stripping so essentially are not preparing the soil for future exploration down the road. Expansion into gold is a little late for them. Going to run out of the ability to generate cash in about a year’s time if they continue with this program. Primarily a molybdenum producer and steel has been pretty weak.
Seasonality for Molybdenum is similar to that for industrial metals such as copper, silver, platinum and palladium. Moly normally bottoms around mid-November and then moves higher until the beginning of May each year. Chart shows this company bottomed around mid-November and is starting to move up. If it moves beyond its resistance level, it will go to at least the bottom of its trading range in the last part of 2011.
Moly is their primary product. There is worry that China could be the next black swan.