From the comments I've read, Goldcorp is paying $1200 per ounce of Andean's gold. Their counter is that there's probably twice as much gold there as what has been found so far, so they're only paying $600/oz or less.

WTF, eh?

The majors constantly have to buy new deposits to show the shareholders that they're adding value - as well as, you know, to stay in business. The nice thing about it is that if you have any sufficiently large deposit in the world that is heavily undervalued by the market, the first whiff of M&A activity in the sector will make your stock price skyrocket towards fair value.

I saw that on Friday - huge (well, >10%) spikes occurred in the prices of a lot of other S. American gold stocks. Ventana, Minera Andes, and Mirasol were just 3 that I heard about.

Ventana, actually, had over 5x normal volume. And this M&A activity is the reason why - they had been trading at $8.40, but analysts say they're worth $13-$16. An undervalued deposit, large enough for the big boys to want, and worth a big premium to today's stock price: when M&A happens, all those types of companies will see their stock price go up strongly.

I'm trying to see the downside in the precious metals sector right now, and just can't find one. Actually, as a newsletter author told me recently, "as long as you can avoid the obvious Venture scams, it really looks like you'll be able to buy anything and make money now."