Good afternoon
hopefully, the rethoric is one thing, and the action a different one....Putin has probably understood, that Mr.Trump needs his face saving exercises, but that the US-attack on Syria will be a very limited one. Surprising, though, that France and England have joined Trump! I can find a few reasons for Theresa May to divert attention from home, though! Anyway, the world is a very cynical place these days, and it´s very difficult to find out the truth in many issues!
Retail Sales in the States rebounded nicely - car sales looking especially strong. But growth numbers for Europe continue to be trimmed back - now at 2.2% consensus for 2018. Politics are not helping confidence!
Citibank upgrades nickel on the back of their positive outlook for EV´s to average prices of 13.000/13.500 and 15.500$/t for 2020. Nickel is making new highs today. The boss of Cobalt 27, Anthony Milewski, is talking his book and believes, that market participants are underestimating the dynamic in EV-growth. He sees 30-35% market penetration by 2025. Cobalt continues to trade around record highs around 41$/lb. About time, that Panoramic finishes the recent consolidation! No news here - but the stock is trading 20% below recent highs!
At the copper week in Chile, CRU gave a bullish presentation on copper. They see potentially new alltime highs for copper, unless some new developments will be announced in the short term.
RIO is reported to have some major security issues at their South African mineral sands operation. Good news for their rival Iluka, which made a new high today, and for our little bay Sheffield - but they need to clear their land access problems first!
Mr.Comey sees Mr.Trump as morally unfit to be president...well, nothing new to most of us, but I guess unusual to hear this from the former director of the FBI.
Perseus - their Quarterly was out today. Sissingue comissioning went very well, with very high recoveries and excellent plant throughput. The mine will be terated as fully operational from the qst of April onwards, and will greatly assist in cutting overall production costs, and strong cash generation. But Edikan - while being in line with löast year - has been slightly disappointing to me . AISC of 1100 US$/oz do not leave all that much room for massive cash generation, as I would have hoped. Certainly, at the current 1350 US$/t, the mine is profitable and should generate something like 50 Mill US$ in free cash - but I doubt, whether this will be strong enough to finance the development of Yaoure form cash flow and bank financing. I fear the chances for some additional capital beeing raised sometime in the summer are rising. Nevertheless, it´s very difficult to find a serious gold producer with better leverage to the gold price, and as gold is increasingly feeling like it wants to break out, Perseus should still be a good investment!
Have a nice evening!
WS