Yes, there was so much metal around that it was so cheap that it did not pay to produce from known and developed orebodies, much less go exploring for it, so nobody did, for years and years ... this is even more the case for uranium, a metal that may be powering your lights and computer right now, and is likely to in the future
'The cure for ten dollar oil, is ten dollar oil.' - remember somebody saying that five or six years ago, well it's true eh, seems also true that for a time this year and last, seventy dollar oil was the cure for seventy dollar oil ... same thing that powers the farmers' classic hog cycle, tech probably has its counterparts, for instance i believe that once a semiconductor is no longer cutting edge, it becomes pretty much a commodity, subject to wild price swings
Zinc supply/demand trends over the next few years are pretty clear, there is a widening gap ... right now a mine in Snowshoe's backyard, Red Dog, is having its metal show up late, as they had ice problems, they produce all year but only ship in late summer ... so very temporarily, LME zinc stocks are building back a little from a real low level, this won't last of course and soon my mmg.amex will get some recognition as a Very Good Idea, which it has been for years
Nickel not so clear, to me at least ... as i understand it, there was great hope for nickel from tropical laterite operations, but they ran into metallurgical problems or something, and came nowhere near the expected output ... meantime in expectation of that production, new mines and smelters were not developed for traditional sulphide sources ... there may be new production coming, don't know, meantime it's a nice wave to ride, trick is to hop over to zinc plays from the nickel top, month or two down the road imho
Sticking to what you know, right, always a good idea ... but even this barbarian azteca had a good roll or three during the tech bubble, resources being in a bear at the time ... TLC's camp.naz for one, that was a nice little rocket ride one winter ... actually, turned out i knew all i needed to know - a squint 'n guess impression of its chart, and its ticker so i could put in orders -g-
Eñes - one way, is hold down Alt button and put 164 in the number pad, release and bingo - ñ ... all windoze versions have a spanish keyboard option, in the control panel somewhere ... i haven't switched the new computer over yet, so am using the alt-button method [and had to re-learn to type, lol] |
