Market Update

General - Foran - Northern Star

Good afternoon

Strong payroll numbers in the States today, but wages rising by 0,2% vs expected 0,3%...BREXIT break-through today...strong GDP-numbers in Japan...and strong import numbers in China - for now, the country is soaking up all available commodities.

14 peacekeepers killed and 53 injured in the DRC....islamist attacking.

Lynas and Pilbara Minerals will be joining the S&P AsX 200 Index from next week, as expected.

Northern Star - taking a big, 16% line in Echo Resources, an advanced gold exploration stock in Australia. This follows St Barbara taking stakes in Peel Mining , and Catalyst Metals . Not many established miners left, which are value enough to launch a bid - hence we have seen quite a few Australian miners taking stakes in exploration companies. The latest one, Echo, is a good story - but also fully valued for what they have.

Foran Mining - did a placement of Mill$ at 49ct/share - that is certainly a pretty good effort - you don´t see placements at a premium to the share price very often these days. The company is now well cashed up and will start drilling straight after the Christmas break. They have ample targets close to their exisiting ore body - we should see some kind of results during January!

Have a nice weekend!

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General - Finders - Gascoyne - lithium stocks

Good afternoon

labor numbers in the States as expected; Industrial Production in Germany weaker than expected - but this is a volatile serious, and strong factory orders yesterday, as well as record high business confidence, assure further growth. GDP in Europe grew by 0,6% QoQ ....World PMI st at a very strong 55.2! This is no enviroment for weak commodity prices!!! I am pretty sure, that we are seeing the bottom now or very soon - and today base metal prices are a little stronger across the board, despite a stronger US$ ( but that correlation has completely changed recently, anyway! ). Cobalt, which is a different kind of animal, as it´s price is almost entirely influenced by the outlook for EV´s, is making a new high at 70.100 US$ or 31.80 US$/lb. Some analyst, I think from BMO, has forecast prices as high as 50$ next year for it.

Gold is not looking nice...economic times around the world are just too good, and even Trump´s glorious idea of accepting Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel doe snot help the gold price! In all sympathy with Israel - he is just a mad bugger and dangerous!

Iron is finally coming under pressure, from a high level, while coking coal is still running! At more than 230 US$/t, producers are making a killing!

Uranium market should be about balanced in 2018 for the first time in years, following some more mine closures early this week.

The Australian Stock Exchange will switch it´s settlement system to Blockchain!!

Finders - the indepedent experts report yesterday valued the stock between 31-and 35ct, which makes sense to me. Director are recommending to NOT accept the takeover bid at 23ct. Today the largest independant shareholder, Taurus Asst Mgt with 11% infoemd the board, that they are NOT planning to accept the 23ct-cash bid. Finders itself confirmed guidance for 2017 of being at the lower end of the expected range of 70-80 Mill US$ EBITDA - which is equivalent of 99 Mill A$ at the mid-point - and equivalent of less than 3x EV/EBITDA for FND´s 74% stake in the project. This would be a cheap takeover indeed at 23ct !!!

Gascoyne - the gold-developer, which recently raised some additional cash at 40ct ( I participated ), announced the long-awaited 60 Mill$ bank financing today. They have to hedge about 35% of production for 4 years - some will not like it, but at 1700 A$/oz and with AISC of about 1000 A$/oz, I think this is only prudent. Todays announcement removes uncertainty. The company will start producing around 100.000 oz for 6 years at this stage, in June 2018. The recent capital raising should see them agressivley explore immediately - the company is run by geologists, and they want to find more gold! The stock is close to fully valued with current reserves of their Dalgaranga project - exploration, and their second gold project you get for free - that´s a good deal, in my opinion. I also like the people running it.

Apollo Consolidated - that´s a story I visited first 15 month ago. Run by a serious guy, Nick Castleden, they have a good gold exploration project in Ivory Coast ( which has some metallurgical issues, at least at this stage ) and a very interesting project close to Kalgoorlie, from which they have repeatedly announced strong exploration results for gold as well. The stock ran away from me and touched 30ct during the first excitement, which was clearly overdone. But the company is well cashed up, and we will see more results pretty soon, I think. The recent correction back to 20ct have this stock made interesting again - the only thing holding me back in the moment is the risk, that gold will re-test 1200 US$/oz, depressing sentiment.

Most lithium stocks have seen a sizeable correction recently - from Galaxy to Pilbara and Kidman, stocks are down 15% or so from recent highs. Value is showing up as well here - for the foreseeable future, lithium-ion batteries are the only way to run cars and a lot of other things, and while there is a lot of it around, a lot of it will be needed as well! Especially PLS at 88ct looks like good value for me.

Have a nice evening!

Schröder Equities GmbH

Seitzstr.7a

80538 München

Tel. +49-89-4613440-0

Fax +49-89-4613440-10

email: wschroeder@schroeder-equities.com

website: www.schroeder-equities.com

eingetragen im HR München, HRB 166985

Geschäftsführer: Wilhelm Schröder

General - Foran Mining - Galaxy - Mineral Resources - Piedmont - Strike - Genex

Good afternoon

a tax-cut , especially for corporates, in the US seems to be a pretty sure call now...whatever we think about this, it should be good for growth in the US. Counterbalancing this to some degree, are the news regarding Russian contacts of Flynn etc , putting severe pressure on Trump.

A BREXIT-deal seems much closer - relieve for many.

Factory Ordres and Durable Goods Orders in the States fell, but much less than expected.

Metals ended Friday very strong, and are largely unchanged today so far - gold has come under a bit of pressure. The current goldi-locks economy can´t be positive for gold!

Graphite stocks and especially Syrah got a boost today from Syrah´s announcement of a new off-take agreement for it´s graphite, 20.000t, with a large Chinese company. That´s about 12-15% of their production next year. Not sure, how much is left - but I think they might be close to being sold out for next year, with more off-take agreements under negotiation.

Foran Mining - finally, somebody has discovered, that this thing is very very cheap! Glencore have entered into a Technical Services Agreement with the company, Glencore will do a 60-day, comprehensive review of the project as basis for a feasibility study. An infill drilling program will be required, to be jointly designed. Glencore would then be responsible for all engineering- and technical aspects of the feasibility study. Glencore will also assist Foran with the procurement of project finance. Once feasibility study and financing are done, Glencore will get the off-take agreement.

Foran notes the results of the old PEA, which arrived at a NPV7 of 382 Mill CAN$, at prices for zinc of 1.06 ( vs 1,48$ today ) and copper at 3$. The Canadian $ is also substantially lower than today, implying an NPV7 north of 500 millCan$.

There are a few if´s and when´s open here - but this is very substantial announcement on the way to developement, with substantial involvement from Glencore, which would not put it´s name to it, if they would not like it, and if they had not done a lot of due diligence already. This should make Foran fly, I hope! I guess we will hear a bit more detail soon. The next thing will probably be drilling results.

Genex - announced today, that they are in commercial production, and first revenue is flowing from their Stage 1 solar project. This project is being valued at at least half the share price, but obviously, the real value-add will be in the Hydro Project, and the Stage 3 solar project, which is 4x the size of Stage 1. In any case - for a young company, it´s very important to deliver their first project in time and on budget!!

Strike Energy - and another one of my large holdings, which finally gets some recognition: They announced a firm contract with blue chip drilling and services company, Halliburton, to run with the Jaws project, According to Strike, Halliburton has substantial experience with US onshore directional drilling and advanced simulation systems - this is what STX need. Strike expects to be able to announce commercial success , and to potentially convert resources to reserves by drilling Jaws 1. A very slight disappointment for me is the start of drilling on the 14th of February - I had expected rather End January. I hope and believe, that out patience and suppport over the last few years will work out late in the 1st Quarter cy 2019!!

Sheffield - has started early works on it´s mineral sands project in Western Australia. I guess they will wait until 8th of December, which should see a final result of court proceedings by some "dissident" aboriginal, which I expect with high certainty to be in favour of SFX ( after having won in the first two instances! ). In my opinion, this will remove the last bit of uncertainty on their way to development!

Mineral Resources - the smart boys take some money off the table, when things are great! That´s what management have done - MD Chris Ellison sold 37 Mill$ worth of stock ( to keep 400 Mill! ) and Chairman Peter Wade is selling 4 Mill$ worth of stock, to keep 6 mill$ worth. The stock is up about 6-fold since early 2016 - I have no problem with their selling, but the market certainly never likes this kind of thing....stock was down 80ct to 18.77 A$ today. While there are lots of positive voices out there for lithium, you never know, and I would have done the same probably some time ago.

Piedmont - released another round of good drilling results on their US-exploration asset for lthium. This looks pretty certain now to have a sizeable resource. More results are coming. Probably the market would place a premium to this resource, as US-investors always prefer the assets to be in the States. Given recent experience in Indonesia etc, I can certainly understand them ! And Piedmont is very close to existing mines, which might not want to see any competition.

Galaxy - announced a large resource increase for their Quebec-based lithium project. This thing is a while away from a reserve, and a bankable feasibility study + mining permits etc - but it shows us a again, that we should not get too carried away with lithium, as there is a lot of it around!

Have a nice evening

Good afternoon

Chinese PMI surprises on the upside!

According to Reuters, VW has no luck again to secure a cobalt-deal...

West African - one of my top-favourites reported some excellent drilling results: 11m at 11g; 12m at 27g; 13m with 18g and 2.5m at 43g - all at depth, extending the M1 ore body down to more than 500m. 5 drill-holes containing visible gold still need to be assayed. This round of drilling extended the resource, and confirmed the existing grade. Excellent stuff...this very high grade ore body is still growing! 4 drill rigs are currently drilling around the clock - more results also to be expected from new holes over the next 2 month. 23 mill$ left in cash - enough for extensive drilling, new resource estimate in the 1st Quarter 2018,, finishing the bankable feasibility study by mid-year 2018, and some more. I am feeling as confident as ever on this one, and am surprised, that you can still buy them in the low-forties.

Prairie Mining - have made the enviromental application, conducted a poll in the area showing overwhelming support of their project, and is making good progress on finalising cost estimates for the Lublin-based coal mine. The Chinese partners will enter

General - St Barbara - Highfield

Good afternoon

US GDP got revised upwards from 3.2% to 3.3% for the 3rd Quarter, Pending Home Sales strong.

Not much movement in markets at the end of the European day.

Cobalt is trading at a new high - 69 US$, after trading around 60$ for a while. Perhaps successlos attempts by VW to secure long term supply have helped? They at least created attention!

I have to bore you with an amazing story, Santa Barbara:

When I started working back in 1985, at a time of the first gold boom in Australia in more recent history, Santa Barbara moved up by 600% in 2.5 years.

Then things became quiet for a while, and the stock subsequently dived from 5$ to 10ct - only to move up 134x over the following 3 years - but to crash back to 30ct over the next 3 years!

From 2004 to early 2008, the share price increased from 22ct to 5.20$ = 23x over 3 years, doing it again! But you will have guessed it - it crashed , this time taking a bit longer, 7 years, to 7ct! Over the last 3 years, SBM have gone up 46x, to the current 3.22 A$ ( + a dividend ).

A truly incredible history! They have had their AGM today - all chearful, as you will imagine. And for the right reasons - management have done a fantastic job to get the company - mainly, the Leonora Mine, which started production in 1985, then with a 5 year mine life - from heavily indebted and nearly bust, to a cash-rich ( more than 200 mill cash ) and long-life, prime mining asset/company. As I have said before - unless they pull a great aquisition out of their head, the stock is fully valued. Mining is now down to 1700m, and will go to 2000 m or more. Conventional wisdom will tell you, that the mine - and therefor SBM - are currently at it´s best! Mining is not get any easier at 2000m below the ground! SBM have today increased their shareholding in Peel Mining, which is an interesting story - but that is small beer compared to the market cap of SBM.

In any case, the history of the Leonora Mine can tell you all lessons about the vagaries of mining, Mother Earth, good/bad management, and booms and busts!

Highfield - expected, but might have been forgotten by a few: The issuance of 50 mill performance shares has been cancelled. They expired in October and were to be issued only, if full mining approval etc would have been reached at that stage. As these shares would have been dilutionary, good news. The public hearing process has been finished, and ( hopefully), the Enviromental Approval could be issued any day now. We have seen delays before - but this time, I think we should be there. It has been a long time!

Have a nice evening