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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (89135)	2/1/2001 10:14:08 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

M, It is a classification that folks who buy mining stocks use. It is similar to large cap and small cap stocks, though not nearly as well defined. A major gold company is of a certain size, has name recognition, and usually has a number of diversified properties. Examples of majors in North America include Newmont, Barrick, Placer Dome and Homestead. There are more juniors in Canada and Asia than in the U.S. However, when we look at the size of South African gold mines, even the large cos. I mentioned above look kind of junior in comparison. Juniors sometimes have only one mine and sometimes just a lease. The majors do hedging against production so that they usually make money even when gold prices stink. The juniors usually get killed when gold prices decline, though a hot strike means infinitely much more to a junior than to Anglo American. Anglo American's workers walk out with more gold on the bottoms of their shoes than some juniors have in their mines. <BG> The terminology is also used in platinum group mining. I have played Impala since it was called Impala instead of Implats. Ditto for Rustenberg, which I think is now part of the Amplats giant. These are majors in platinum group mining. I have also played Stillwater Mining a few times, and very happily. But SWC is a junior in this industry. The funny thing is that SWC sells at a higher PE ratio than Impala or Rustenberg. <g>