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I know what you mean swampy. My O level in Geology (A grade) only gets you so far...
This is where the ability to talk to somebody face to face is so important. Given half a chance the average CEO will always award themselves 5* unless challenged to justify themselves...
I think somebody below but their finger on it when they said that the market does not believe in the sustainability of the gold price and hence the extreme nervousness around the price of pretty much all goldies and also PGM suppliers like SLS and THS which are even more egregiously mispriced (imo) by the market.
If you look at the POG it is incredibly sensitive to the 10 year yield. The inverted relationship is nearly 100%.
And I say fair enough after all prevailing interest rates are the opportunity cost of holding gold. I note that bitcoin is also becoming increasingly sensitive to this relationship.
What does seem odd though is the price of tech stocks. Yes many make some profit but their crazy ratings mostly expressed in multiples of revenue implicitly point to some otherworldly assumptions. One of which is low to negative rates for the next 10/25 years. Assumptions clearly not held by nervous gold markets.
I can only put this down to the cult of momentum. Investing nowadays is all about finding an incipient meme stock, getting in early, broadcasting like crazy what a great stock this is (don't bother with accounts and the suchlike), what an investment guru you are and then watching the share price go parabolic as late comers join the party and sign up to the cult of YOU!
How long will the cult last I wonder?
Colonel - you and I are old sparring partners and I do respect your opinion but you do over egg the pudding and your correction of my analysis is disingenuous. Let me explain:
Firstly, in looking at their respective cash flows I included cash generated in operations excluding movement in working capital minus tax, minus interest & associated finance costs. Thus dividends were excluded from the calculation and thus SHG was not unfairly disadvantaged in the comparison.
Secondly - bunging in a post balance sheet event breaks the rules of the game. My comparison was the half year in both companies which happily coincide - Dec - June. Your VAT rebate will be reflected in the next 6 months comparison. You can't double count.
I'll not go into a massive response to your points but suffice to say you contradict yourself even by your own calculations.
"SHG absolutely outperforming HUM on nearly every front." Really? Even by your own manipulated calculation for the last six months HUM generated more cash than SHG. That's one "front" knocked down and a pretty important one at that.
I've looked at SHG and someday I might invest but it's loved too much at the moment. HUM is hated (maybe for good reason) but I happen to believe the margins of error favour the latter rather than the former.
Let's reconvene in 6 months...
"TWO new mines coming on-stream
Hum can't match that"
Really?
I suggest you do you own research before you post stuff like that.
Two words Kouroussa & Dugbe
Google them!
@Redhill - the reason SHG can pay a dividend is that they have a lot of cash in their balance sheet. The reason for that was they raised a lot of capital via a share issue. Taking with one hand and giving back with the other...
There is much to like about SHG's results. At least they made a profit unlike HUM! The VAT post event was good to and I think the 4.2m offset was surprisingly not mentioned. As for dividend - meh! As Terry Smith argues it's merely playing around with opportunity costs. Investors shouldn't wet themselves if they get a dividend because potentially they are foregoing profitable investment opportunities now denied to the company because it has paid out the cash.
I thought I'd do a quick analysis comparing both companies for the 6 months. Both have hit problems with AISC so I zeroed in on the one important metric for me - cash generated. I've excluded movements in working capital and all discretionary investment but included tax and interest. The figures are as follows:
Company Op cash generated before wc movements Less tax paid Less interest & fin costs Result
SHG +16.6 -10 -0.8 5.6
HUM +23.2 -1 -1 21.2
For me a clear winner then. As always tax is killing the SHG figures although not sure whether the 4.2m VAT offset is reflected in the cash tax paid of in future payments. If the latter than that should significantly help SHG cash generation.
Toodaloo....
Ha - hindsight is a wonderful thing. If you could guarantee me that we would hedge at the highest rate over a given period then of course sign me in. More like it would be SHG's situation where they signed up for gold at 1300 when they hedged at precisely the wrong moment. Gold miners don't necessarily make good gold speculators.
Fraid you're going to have to live with the risk for the next 12-18 months. It's on a knife edge that no further capital raising is concerned. That's why the stock is so dammed cheap.
No risk no reward
Re: Juxta - personally I would not want to see gold hedged. If you are scratching your head at the alice in wonderland economic and market conditions that currently prevail you probably also believe that gold will benefit when it inevitably goes t!ts up! If you're invested in HUM you're not going to be risk averse so loading on the uncertainty of a future gold price shouldn't be an insuperable extra burden imo
I already own some shares which are down significantly. However, having updated my research and listened to the company presentation I've sunk some more in since I think this is a great company. The FD was incredibly detailed and kept answering my questions before I'd had a chance to put them to him. The CEO really seemed to be interested in extracting the maximum value from the operations and seemed to have a good grasp on the down to earth practicalities on mining and the on site mine manager also sounded confident and impressive.
As for the figures they speak for themselves. Excluding a new prospective license written off, given the current price of gold they are on a PE of 3.5 with at least a 15 year LOF. The dividend is over 6%, they are net cash rich and production is due to rise by 30% with the new central shaft which will enable them to shift ore faster and prospect for more gold.
The only downer was one of their new prospects turned out to be a dud incurring a $3m w/o. Still even that can be seen in a positive light since they have the collective strength of character to admit defeat and not waste shareholder cash.
Happy for the share price to stay at this level since it won't be long I'll have still made a profit versus leaving the money in cash thanks to the dividend.
Asking for recommendations is the 2nd worse thing to ask for. The absolute worse thing is to ask where or what will something be in xxx months time.
As visitor wisely says no algorithm exists that can tell you that. If anybody tells you otherwise then you are about to get scammed. Investing is hard. Hard intellectually and psychologically - that's why fund managers can pay themselves so much. If you think you can do the job yourself then you need to understand the difficulty of the task you face.
Never, never, never think investing is easy it is NOT. Remember an old city adage - "an inch ahead and all is darkness"
If you don't like what I say then I suggest you leave it to an expert or an algorithm, you'll be better off in the long run. As will everybody else on this board
Can anyone suggest a reason why those of HUM are being delayed in the labs in Bamoko whilst CORA seem to be able to produce a steady stream of results from recent drilling?
Decent enough grades going down the mineralised shoot. Looking down the table pretty much every hole intersected gold. When compared with the results of an existing underground miner e.g. SRB they are broadly comparable and indicate that the gold should be able to be mined profitably. Don't forget the prospecting for underground mine is just one of the possibilities they are explore - plenty of other prospects (open pit I believe) such as Gonka
It all increases optionality and thus robustness of the business
Rumour has it that Dan was advised by a mystery expert on the timing of the sale. We don't know his real name but I believe he goes under the pseudonym - Good God it's Gordy!
Hi Kadavul. Swampy is right HUM have definitely stepped up their efforts in the last few months and I think are now comparable to their peers in the amount of information provided and their speed to market. Coincidently or not this all happened are we got together as a group of shareholders and pressurised the management to exactly this. We should be please that what we wanted to happen has largely come to pass. Long may it continue...or else?
As are as CORA v HUM is concerned - you are right it is, in my opinion ridiculous. No doubt CORA are striking serious pay dirt and investors are suitably enthusiastic. However, they are conveniently forgetting the hard graft and many a step twixt cup and lip between discovering the stuff and turning a profit in actually extracting it! Mr Market is however applying double standards to HUM fretting about such things as life of mine, the likelihood of a cash call to finance Guinea in the immediate term and Dugbe in the longer term. However, if HUM can escape the need to dilute at current silly prices then imo there is a real possibility of a sharp turnaround in sentiment with commensurate profits to be had. For me this exact thing happened with AAZ and I see no reason why (if the Board hang tough on not diluting the stock) it can't happen again...
Pleasure prof - I felt like I needed to get it off my chest!!!
Excellent discussion here. Dissenters are essential to get people thinking and debating. I'm not interested in a cult or share fan club. Investing is not easy otherwise we'd all be millionaires but here are 3 big points I'd like to make:
1. commodities ex Iron Ore are all out of favour and the smaller the company and more obscure the production site(s) the more out of favour. Gold is particularly neglected pretty much every junior goldy has bee caned! I note Sotolo has sold some CEY for THS. An excellent idea in theory but as a fellow THS holder he has my sympathy for recent falls.
2. The previous CEY management were as best incompetent at worst crooks. They basically trashed the mine to keep the big lie of effortless profits going for as long as possible. The new management seem to be doing the hard yards i.e. shifting dirt at a great pace. New practices workstreams etc appear to be making an impact in all aspects of the business but it takes time. Mr Market is behaving like a jilted lover and will take time to come round.
3. Gold must stay high whilst management of CEY wrestle the costs down. Keep a weather eye of 10 year US treasuries. The inverse relationship between yield and POG is pretty eerie. The other thing that could sink gold - that barbarous relic - are modern virtual alternatives Bitcoin, NFTs etc. There's a generational war going on with millennials shunning the physical and buying the virtual. There is no law that says gold maintains its role in finance even with thousands of year's of history behind it. If Dogecoin is treated as a serious financial asset despite it being originally invented as a joke, the under 30s could screw us all, so long as they don't run out of pocket money with which to speculate...
I hold both but quite frankly THS is a better stock to hold for the long term - due to it having better fundamentals whilst to trade it has to be SLP. SLP far more than THS and is thus coming up faster. I am in no doubt that ceteris paribus THS will follow albeit at a more leisurely pace...
Good analysis Colonel - I find myself in pretty much total agreement with your post. Where's the fun in that?
The only thing I would take issue is the assertion that Dugbe's in the hand's of the management not shareholders. It's not that we don't have grave concerns as shareholders we do. However, after the Q1 report because of the absence of II (that's a plus for SHG) we collectively contacted the managers representing about 8% of the shareholders. Maybe it was coincidence maybe not but pretty much all our requests were met and a new geologist and COO were appointed to boot.
We've done research on the Dugbe JV and are keeping our powder dry. However, given the figures put out by Pasofino (albeit with a much larger initial investment) it'll be difficult to walk that value back down in the eyes of us investors. We'll see!!!
As far as the sainted EZ is concerned he is a smooth operator. As a former investment banker he would be. Dan is not smooth at all and at times seems to forget he works for the shareholders. However, verisimilitude only takes you so far and that share sale leaves a nasty smell for me at least. Maybe as SHG shareholders you should pursue the share sales. Did the management know that there was a material chance of production guidance not being met from drilling assays when they sold out?
Let the results speak for themselves..
Sorry error is the WISE free cash - £1.5m NOT £15m
2 stocks one generating around 30m USD in free cash with plenty of growth potential is valued at GBP82 whilst another generating as per prospectus £15m with plenty of growth prospect is valued at GBP9300 (WISE & HUM)
Really, what is the point of being numerate nowadays, to me it seems to be a disadvantage.
Well done HUM what we needed was a steady as we go RNS. Keep sweating the small stuff!!!