NEW YORK - This is how my day goes here, as I prepare this evening for my sixth tour of West Africa.
I walk into the NYC Hard Assets show just at Times Square. Bob Moriarty, the 321gold.com writer, hails me down. He is on his way to see Phil O'Neil's Sunward Resources (TSX: V.SWD, Stock Forum) and its Titiribi project in my beloved Colombia.
Bob's kick is kicking dirt on silver. He gets credit for coming close to calling the top in the metal, in my book anyway.
"In January of 1980, the bullish consensus on silver reached 94% and it marked a high for 31 years," he says, all gruff voice as is his custom. "In April the bullish consensus reached 97% and the Sprott Silver Trust was selling at a 26% premium when the highest it had ever sold for was an 18% premium and every dummy in the world has elected himself a silver 'guru.' I think we have seen the top in silver for a long time."
Next I run into Adrian Day, the asset manager from Maryland. We talk about those seven big gold and copper stocks in his workshop. "Look at Yamana Gold (AUY), in some great jurisdictions down there (in South and Central America)," says Mr. Day, still carrying his central London accent after many years in the US "Even active in your Colombia."
Yamana (TSX: T.YRI, Stock Forum) shares are one of the few in my world that are hanging in there through the hardly assets turbulence. (I do not own the shares.)
What else? "Well I don't have anything in West Africa ," Adrian sniffs. But I love Quebec as you know, Virginia Mines (TSX: T.VGQ, Stock Forum)
I interact and commiserate with Wes Adams, who handles corporate development for Sandspring Resources (TSX: V.SSP, Stock Forum) - via email. The company just updated its 43-101 and it is my belief, after seeing Toroparu in Guyana for a second time last week, that the next two holes will "step out" the copper and gold project in a sizable way. I could be wrong. I do not own the shares.
Wes tells me, "Don't think this is about expectations about our resource. The European accounts are selling everything and everything though, as the euro slides."
OK. I swing by and see Robert Archer of Great Panther (GPL and TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) talking to Carlos Baca of Fortuna Silver (TSX: T.FVI, Stock Forum). Bob and I joke about how we are becoming gray panthers. I also tell him thanks for a third or fifth time these past six months for having his stock, which has financed our kids' college gigs in a few years. (So yeah, I still own some GPR and have sold some along the very HIGH way.)
I hear through the grapevine, speaking of Fortuna Silver's mines and developing mines in Peru and Mexico, that that company's shares could be headed to an additional major stock exchange. Carlos has no comment on that. The shares, which I do not own, trade currently in Canada. Don't own it but I have seen its Peru property.
I go outside and snap some photos of the front of the theatre here that is hosting "Spiderman." (See photo here.)
I come back into the show, I see Randy Hardy at Timberline Resources (TLR and TSX: V.TBR, Stock Forum) - and I say hello. I just missed seeing his No. 2, Paul Dircksen, the geologist. Don't own it but I have seen its Montana property.
I leave and head uptown to a Jefferies & Co.'s Tech conference for hedge funds and buy-siders. It is at the Four Seasons Hotel. Wireless is still the theme, I gather.
I go back to my hotel and clean up the email. Nate Tewalt of Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum), of which I own a few scant shares after covering the company intensely in 2009 and 2010, reports it has gosh-zillion grams of gold in samples at its El Dovio project. He tells me, "I just wish we had a better market."
The CMJ is unchanged after the 104-grams-per-tonne samples are published. The shares I mean. I guess that is a plus in this hardly assets market. I am a believer. In metals I mean.
SKED: I am headed to West Africa later this week to see gold, copper and diamond mines. Two of them I have seen previously. Another four or five will be fresh property visits. I will be traveling with a South Africa asset manager and a successful Colorado-based geologist.
Thom Calandra, a founder of CBS MarketWatch and FT MarketWatch, has to rank as one of the most talented financial newsletter writers in the business today. Thom's track record of identifying valuable investments early on, has helped thousands of investors find high-return investments for nearly 30 years. This column first appeared on Stockhouse.com.
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