Attempting the Impossible Viewpoint

Five key indicators are pointing to continuing downward pressures on industry cyclical conditions, as 2022 ends.  

Investors are reacting with scepticism, verging on disbelief, to investment pitches from company executives. 

Individual investors looking to mining investment conferences for guidance are better off ignoring exhortations to choose winners while spreading their holdings as broadly as possible. 

Daily flows of data, accumulating over many decades, have added market uncertainty, facilitated misinformation and damaged forecasting accuracy. 

BHP chairman Ken MacKenzie painted a weirdly inaccurate picture of BHP at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders earlier this month.  

Several market signals point to a structural shift, and possibly permanent downgrade, in gold equity valuations. 

Growing fiscal risks and a more rigorous application of ESG standards will converge to accentuate demands on the mining industry.   

The Australian government announced a A$150 million spending boost for miners in last week’s budget but no coherent policy to encourage longer term investment commitments. 

Blinded by their own rhetoric, mining entrepreneurs have pushed potentially important sources of capital beyond their reach.

Heavy Minerals chairman Adam Schofield thinks garnet mining is not well enough understood by investors to attract the valuation the company deserves. 

 Unrelenting rises in future metal prices, so often depicted by mining entrepreneurs as a consequence of decarbonisation, are an increasingly implausible outcome. 

Tiger Tasman Minerals chief executive Noor Crookshanks is pushing a diverse portfolio of exploration and development assets as a preferable alternative to ownership of companies with a single commodity or geographic exposure.   

Central bankers might have toughened up their rhetoric, but the chance of sustained policy action is not entirely in their hands. 

ASX listed NickelSearch is the best nickel sulphide exploration opportunity in Australia, according to the company’s chief executive Nicole Duncan. 

Australia’s mining industry, founded on entrepreneurial daring, personal savings and a punter’s mentality, is no longer fit for purpose.

Last week’s Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth showcased, albeit inadvertently, the diverging policy agendas between the wealthy west and mineral rich African nations.

Gold mining stocks have limited appeal for generalist investors looking for growth or value oriented equity offerings.

Evolution Mining boss Jake Klein misleadingly used a bullish prognosis for the gold price as an investment lure as he opened his Diggers and Dealers presentation earlier this month.   

Lotus Resources has left investors guessing about a possible re-start of its Kayelekera uranium mine in Malawi, despite a new so-called definitive feasibility study.

Stavely Minerals chief executive Chris Cairns is a self-described copper bull with a price target of US$10/lb for the metal guiding his way forward.

An optimistic outlook for the global mining industry is inextricably tied to rapidly rising raw material demand and easy money conditions.  Neither is currently evident.

Pope Francis and his Vatican advisers have shown they are just as confused about ethical investing as any virtue signalling atheist. 

Referring ambiguously to “experienced management” is the standard ploy used to avoid addressing fundamental questions about the skills needed to meet investment objectives.

Uranium is being bypassed in the rush to embrace renewable wind and solar energy sources, leaving nuclear power floundering well short of its once anticipated potential.

Corporate executives are not reliable sources of forward looking economic intelligence.

Do women chief executives bring a more complete skill set than their male counterparts to the communication task essential for a strong bond with shareholders?

Mining companies will have to weather unprecedented central bank policy confusion before the benefits of longer term metal deficits begin to flow.

Six stocks, with consecutive years of negative returns, stand out as the most disappointing investments among the universe of ASX listed miners.

The Bangladesh government, feeling itself pushed to the periphery of Australia’s trade policy targets, is urging Australia’s mining industry to give the south Asian nation a higher priority.