Lithium plays write up
posted on
Nov 08, 2010 08:25AM
Edit this title from the Fast Facts Section
I saw this writeup this morning and thought those of you interested in lithium may find it of interest....mentions both RM and TLH. Frog disclaimer....both of which I own. Go Green!
"Some analysts are now WARNING of the dangers of a meltdown in the lithium and Rare Earth sectors, and of course there are PERPETUAL bashers of gold and silver, putting out disinformation, and they have been consistently WRONG for 10 years. CORRECTIONS are a normal and necessary part of the market, what you pay attention to is the TREND LINES, but the naysayers do fool some of the people some of the time. They do have some valid points, maybe 1 in 10 companies are worth investing in, and there are times to play DEFENCE and sell risky stocks.
What my purpose is, by putting my money where my mouth is, is cutting through the extremes on BOTH SIDES to find the most sound investments and particularly I look for juniors that have the resources to be taken over by larger companies seeking to replace their mined reserves by boosting their pipelines with promising resources found by the juniors. I believe in the next 2 years there will be tons of money made through mergers and acquisitions and I will give you one example of a merger/takeover by what I consider one of the hottest stocks in the market right now, it is in my opinion well positioned to keep moving forward
Talison Lithium TLH-V which is an Australian based company, (Toronto listed) with 24% of market share for lithium products, has key contracts to supply Chinese and Japanese companies who are the leaders in production of batteries for hybrid cars, laptops and other electronic devices etc. Cost effective lithium deposits are not that easy to find, even though there are are many "pretenders" attaching the term who will probably never develop a profitable producing facility. Out of 75 or so companies claiming lithium deposits (Rare Earths are similar) there are probably no more than half a dozen with commercially viable holdings that can be put into production in the next 5-7 years, the usual time frame to achieve permitting, feasibility studies, financing and building the needed infrastructure to get into production. The same holds true for Rare Earths I will probably profile next, having found some little known but highly profitable companies with a difficult to duplicate market niche ignored by mainstream analysts. The 1 in a hundred principle also applies to precious metals explorers where the odds are about the same of ever developing a profitable mine.
Talison is currently the ONLY pure play publicly traded lithium producer, so to ensure its supply with BOTH technical and chemical grades of lithium concentrates increasing in demand, Talison merged with Solares Lithium (a stock I owned) with major brine resources in Chile to meet expected demand, projected to grow from 45,000 tons in 07 to world production of 92,000 tons in 08 and demand expected to rise to over 200,000 tons by 2020.
As an indication of the growing interest in lithium generated by the plethora of new all electric or hybrid cars hitting the market between now and 2012, Magna the giant Canadian based auto parts company has recently taken a 13.3% stake in Lithium America LAC-V which is up 60% in the last 2 months. Toyota and Mitsubishi among others are also investing in miners and producers of needed materials to ensure their supply.
The 3 companies currently responsible for 60% of global lithium carbonate production are Chile's SQM (which I have owned in the past, and may buy again, now that it is back in an uptrend) and Rockwood Chemstall ROC plus FMC, but it should be noted that while SQM is a major producer of lithium brines, it is a small part of their total business, so not a pure play on the lithium market.
For investors interested in this hot and growing market there are a few other possibilities; Global X has the first lithium focussed ETF, so if you have insufficient capital to cover all the bases of potential growth, such as battery producers and other leading edge technologies utilizing lithium, LIT-V might be a good bet, I myself recently bought it. Another hot prospect that may well get taken over because of its lithium brine holdings in S. America is Rodinia Lithium RM-V, still under .50c and a likely winner in my opinion, but always do your own due diligence on anybodies picks. For the record I bought it myself this past month @.46c and some analysts consider it a prime takeover target
My favourite however is still Talison, which listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Aug. @ $3.10 (through the takeover of Solares, for which I paid .62) and Talisan's price as of Oct. 15th has risen to $5.39, not a bad return for a 2 months hold! I still consider it in a reasonable buy range given its entrenched position in the market and may buy more. The fact hardly anybody knows about it yet means in a growing market it may have much further to run. I consider it too new in such a hot market to even set a price target, but my rule of thumb is that I sell a 3rd on a 50% return, another third on a DOUBLE, and YES, I have had lots of them over the past 6 months, Talisan could easily be another one from here in the next year.
While Talison may be an exception given its leading market position, in general juniors are NOT a buy and hold proposition, particularly in the type of volatile market we have currently. The mantra to "let your profits run and sell only on a pullback" probably works most of the time for major established stocks, but juniors (my specialty) have a growth cycle that spikes on initial discoveries, major catalysts such as permitting, feasibility studies, increases in NI 43-101 compliant resources, first production etc. but may have long stretches of NO NEWS, which can mean dead money for long periods of time, even with fundamentally sound, well managed companies.
The point is, you can not go broke taking a profit, whether it is 25% or 200% and many times in a growth cycle of a prospective mining Co. they will dilute shareholders with new financings, whether to continue drilling to prove up resources or actually building a mine that can cost millions of dollars. Let me give you a recent example of WHY it is usually not wise to get married to even a good stock and makes sense to take profits when you have them. In early Aug. I bought a few thousand shares of a junior @.66c and only a month later sold my first 500 shares @ $1.19 and then a few weeks later another 500 @.1.23 to essentially get my investment off the table. The price today $1.08, and while it is still a good stock and I would buy more if it dropped below a dollar, I am happy having taken my profits that quickly and hanging on to essentially free shares for future gains. The next news announcement may send it back above my sell price, on the other hand it may go to sleep for 3-6 months or even drop further before rebounding, so I am happy having locked in stellar returns for a short hold.
So what do you think? Even though I am not a registered financial advisor, do you think my track record and investment philosophy is something you could benefit from, learning from my experience as a successful junior mining investor by investing along with me? This first one is FREE, with several bonuses, the next HOT STOCK in the Rare Earth universe has already been picked, do you want to know about it? I would like to see about 200 subscribers to justify the effort, of course I am doing the research anyway for my own purposes which is WHY I am willing to offer a very low cost service considering its proven potential.
Sincerely
Myron Martin"