Member Info for Happyhaddock

Ah yes but inflation is supposed to be "transitory" - that is to imply prices will go up a lot, and then things may slow down such that they may keep going up, just "less quickly".

Who knows how this mess will unfold and who it will bring down, but I'm taking my chance on precious metals and those who produce such things.

I remember one bit of great investing advice I was told years ago... "You don't have to be a big enough player to manipulate the markets to succeed, you just need to to be smart enough to identify and follow those who do".... right now central banks around the globe are snatching up precious metals like nothing else in recent times and that tells me enough.

BB - I don't remember the actual year, but presumably it was late 1970's, there was a point I remember getting over 15% interest on my bank account savings, so I imagine loans would have cost even more...

Obviously since then saving has been discouraged, and debt has exploded. Credit cards and loans have become the default way to pay for almost everything as debt has just become another heavily marketed commodity to be traded, re-packaged and re-sold by big banks.

As you say it is impossible to see a route back that doesn't involve crippling anybody with outstanding debts, which is almost all of society except for the small minority who tend to be in charge of finding "solutions".

@Parkboy - a retrace of the share price is entirely possible but by now we must have shaken a lot of weak hands, plus the type of investor that seems to be drawn to UFO responds more to news about silver than iron ore. So whilst I may be wrong I'd expect any retrace to be a little shallow and slower than those we've seen on news about our Sirius extension, though clearly the price is still slipping this morning.

As for assays back on drilling at EH, then having results by Christmas seems as a good a guess as any. If we are starting drilling imminently then a few of those holes may be drilled by the end of this month and I'd certainly expect all 7 to be completed before the end of September. As for assays; times will depend upon labs and the actual tests being done but under normal circumstances allowing roughly a month from receiving the rock samples wouldn't be unreasonable. Most labs are reporting getting current delays below two months and these seem to be slowly improving, as such results within 3months of completion of drilling seems plausible.

Who knows what may play out between now and Christmas but I'm still happy to stand by my June predictions that increased volatility in the near future would move us out of the approx. 0.9 to 1.2p trading range we'd been trapped in for the first six months of the year (more than one drop to about 0.7p in July may count that as already having been proved correct?). I also suggested that later in the year as we go through autumn I saw a possibility of a sentiment driven push towards last year's high of 3p, but if news didn't arrive to support that move I'd expect to see the share price dropping as we run in to Christmas. This still remains a reasonable looking prediction to me... but as ever these are uncertain times in a normally uncertain sector so there are no guarantees.

@ smiller - you are "singing my tune" there.

Slowly folk here are coming around to the idea that as well as the fact that this is a sector that usually involves periods of waiting, current circumstances mean there are additional delays at the moment making a slow process even slower. That in the grand scheme of things what matters more than the wait is what is eventually delivered.

In the mean time we just have to be patient and trust in what the company is doing more than what the share price is doing, although today both have been positives.

Dip - Like so much to do with exploration it's about risks, probabilities and unknowns.

Buying our own rig now when we aren't cash rich would be a risk and dent in our bank balance, however to become cash rich we'd need to have completed enough of a drill program to have confirmed a resource and somehow put it into production, such that the need for our own drill rig would have diminished, at least for the project with that confirmed resource.

For the time being BBG is being tight with our cash and focusing on spending it where he thinks it can do the most good, so as a shareholder I can't complain at that. However I do see owning and operating our own rig/crew as a sensible step forward in the not too distant future. Even if it is not a way of working many juniors consider it is something I think BBG should look into.

@Dip666 - the other day when I mentioned the possibility of UFO buying our own drill rig, and said we could get something capable for about £500k I was thinking of a dual purpose rig good for close to 2000m deep drilling... they offer a lot of versatility providing you have an equally capable crew that know how to use them.

Well in relation to my previous post, Bill's opening comments in his interview imply he's doing some deep holes to target the deeper richest veins and others at only about 40m.

So that's cleared up that for me very quickly.

Just been doing a bit of simple mental arithmetic and digging through a few old stats.

The drilling plan today amounts to seven holes and about 650m (a fairly modest drill plan to start with leaving much more for the future within our existing permit), that's an average of just over 90m each hole. Much as I trust BBG and that he knows far more than I do about, the geology of EH, I've seen mention in old reports of EH that some of the main veins start at below 80m.

Shallow holes averaging 90m don't give much "extra depth" as a margin of error when chasing unknown underground geology that may be more than 80m down, which makes me wonder if he is already confident of what he will find and where it is, or alternatively makes me think he's working on there being "good stuff" closer to surface.

Many here seem to reckon on our iron being our big money spinner, but I've always felt that whilst iron may be our fastest route to generating an income, that silver will be where our wealth lies.

Today hardly confirms the above, but the share price does seem more willing to move on news relating to our silver than our iron, so perhaps I am not alone in thinking this.... of course there's a lot of unknowns and years of work between here and being able to claim bragging rights on calling this correctly. So, as ever, I'll just watch and wait as the share price does its own thing as who knows where we may end the day let alone the year ,or the next year (though I am hopeful of some sort of move up this autumn).

Nice to finally see some news about the play I'm really interested in...

I've used the phrase before but I'd like to see EH looking like swiss cheese filled with drill holes as it screams potential.

As for the SP, as smiller says that will continue to keep doing its own thing until we have some hard facts to justify the market revaluating the situation so we'll probably see a few more ups and downs on today's RNS.

@smiller - I'm always wary of inferring too much about one company's possible deals based upon what others have negotiated, but it is nevertheless natural to do so. In this case the obvious similarities are the approx. similar DSO grades in a similar location.

Assuming all things equal the price mentioned for Redhill Iron of AU$400m for their 40% stake in 820mt DSO equates roughly to £600k per million tons (UK sterling) ... if we take the current upper estimate for UFO's iron ore of about 245mt that leads to a mkt cap of roughly £150m or a SP for UFO of about 4.5p, or at the lower estimate of 70mt or iron or for UFO which most expect to be easily exceed, a mkt cap of about £40m equivalent to a share price of around 1.5p. Of course grades probably won't work out to be exactly equal and I don't know about how transportation/access costs or other variables may impact upon any deal we may be offered by any prospective partner as far too much at this stage is speculating about unknowns.

One point that did strike me that others may not pick up on having read their press releases was mentioning that they first accelerated exploration for iron in 2005... that is it seems as if it was 16years ago they were at the point UFO are at now... I don't know all they've been doing over the last 16years to get to the point of now having a defined resource for sale, nor how long it might take UFO to proceed, but I often make the point that folk here have very optimistic ideas about how quickly things may proceed for UFO.... So if using Redhill as a comparative example my starting point would be to research why things have taken as long as they did to get to a deal before getting excited about any numbers and prices connected with that deal.

Just my usual cautious view for others to do with as they please.

@starbright - I can see that there is a disconnect, I can also see the sense in arguing that if gold prices are up then those producing it should start to see larger profits, leading to increased share prices. Similarly when gold is down the share prices of producers may start to go down... so some degree of correlation may be expected. However it is also true that the first half of your five year chart may show stronger correlation because of not much happening, while the second half has shown some erratic yet significant moves in gold prices which the juniors could be said to still be adjusting to before re-finding a stable correlation.

In terms of relative performance and subjective decisions this discrepancy in the charts you link could be corrected by the price of gold dropping further rather than juniors being seen as undervalued and needing to climb higher. Gold has been falling over the last 12months and is also down since the start of the year about seven months ago... perhaps, in spite of all the predictions about gold's phenomenal future and having hit ATH this time last year, investors are waiting to see where gold actually settles before deciding that junior explorers should be worth a lot more than they have been in the past.... After all charts tell us all about the past but guarantee nothing about the future.

At the end of the day not all explorers are chasing precious metals. Many mineral explorers saw huge increases in their share price at the end of last year, since then many have lost most of those gains and returned to much closer to where they started.... I remain patient and hopeful but we all know that what we deem to be a fair value depends upon how we value a company or sector's future prospects. Valuing any future unknows will always entail significant subjective assessment.

@starbright - I think you are missing the point I'm making. Clearly the sector is measurably down from recent highs and the start of the year, but equally those highs were up a lot from where they were only a short time before hand.

The subjectivity arises in what you define as a normal level, which has implications on how you judge where the sector is now. If you define late 2020 as "normal" then we are massively down on that normal. If you treat late 2020 as an abnormal spike under abnormal circumstances then we are more or less back to where things were before that big spike. Hence my distinction between "down" implying actually below normal, and simply "not up" implying no longer at an extreme high.

Knowing the sector is down 10-20% from the start of the year when that was considered a period of abnormal highs tells us nothing about whether the sector is still too high, about usual or down too low.

"Whole sector is down" - whilst this is true it's a subjective judgement the extent to which it is "down" or simply "not up".

We all know things got crazy last autumn and would inevitably correct back again. I'll be the first to admit I've been surprised at how far it has corrected, so it may be that things have overshot and are down a little form a "normal" level, but the sector feels closer to a normal level now than things did last autumn. Those who joined the sector in the last 12months may only now be gaining experience of what constitutes a "normal" level of (dis)interest in junior explorers.

Consequently whilst there may be a little upside to be had from sentiment settling, I think any big upswing will be dependent either upon another mania like hype hitting the sector, or on individual stocks delivering some real good news to genuinely grow their value.

I'm still hopeful of a bit of positive action with our SP here as we head through autumn, but there are no guarantees.

Whilst I know people are always curious, and at times amused to read about my varied history I'm not sure I could add much of value to a discussion about GGP specifically... in a looser sense I could possibly add a little to a general discussion based upon the varied things I've done in scientific areas on the periphery of this field but nothing of any great detail that others don't already know. As I've said before my main interest here is trying to learn more about investor's psychology after things went crazy with UFO last October, though at the moment so few people post on UFO there's not much to observe happening.

Anyway...

My undergraduate degree was mainly in theoretical science, whilst all my postgraduate qualifications entailed more practical lab. work.

Aside from ten years at Uni as a student I have also been on the payroll of universities and government laboratories. In addition I also helped to set up a research facility for a national museum.

I have spent time in an XRF laboratory analysing the elemental composition of mineral samples to establish their geological provenance.

I have spent time in a laboratory processing ores to extract and measure their metal content.

I have felt the raw heat of tons of molten iron in a steel works as well as having been hundreds of feet underground to feel the claustrophobia of a deep mine.

I have been employed to teach/lecture about such subjects as the workings of a blast furnace or the cupellation process, as well as produce simple educational materials to help others teach about basic geophysical survey methods.

I have had articles printed in international journals and as a result of publishing a privately funded research project I still receive modest royalties from a very obscure reference book I wrote. This explored legislation imposed on the tin working industry of Tudor/Stuart England, along with metallographic studies of period artefacts establishing the extent to which this was actually followed and/or enforced.

In my own studio I still maintain the various kilns, tumblers, centrifuges, and other metal processing equipment and chemicals to allow me to "play around" with modern experimental research that takes my fancy, and I am certainly no stranger to primitive experimental archaeological work casting molten metals and blending alloys having a life time interest in the evolution of various metals working practices.

I am not saying all of the above was a dominant or recent part of my life, or that it makes me an expert in running a minerals exploration company and how to finance one. It would be arrogant, and likely inaccurate, to suggest I know more than others on this board. Nevertheless I think my background helps me better understand some of the work junior explorers are engaged in, which does lead me to advocate a cautious approach that questions some of the highly polarised posts I read here.

All the best HH

@Dip666 I've always been envious of those who had a passion for one thing above all others... many say I don't know what I want to do with my life, which in part is true, but really what I love above all others is learning something new, not just a little bit different but entirely radically different as the less I know about a subject the more interesting it becomes... with time it's harder to find such subjects as you start to relate knowledge/skills from old projects to those needed for new projects.

As for art teachers at school, I told mine art was about individual expression which meant leaving me to do what I wanted (I really was a precocious little oik). I annoyed the hell out of them by spending years ignoring them and still getting the best grades the school had ever got from an art student and then ditching the subject to go to Uni to study quantum mechanics and other theoretical sciences. That said I used to annoy my science/maths teachers at school as well. I remember sitting one external maths exam at the age of sixteen and asking the teacher if it was appropriate for me to do so as I's written the test paper when I was aged twelve (another story for another time.) Then when I got to Uni. I told everybody I was an artist and spent more time sculpting and painting than on theoretical science. I left Uni after my first degree and ended up with a job briefly running a Uni IT dept. before retreating back to Uni as somewhat of a perpetual student for several years.

See I promised to shut up and failed miserably within the space of less than an hour.... somebody change the subject this bulletin board isn't about me.

@944 Turbo - be careful what you wish for getting me to talk about all I've done is easy... getting me to shut up... well that's the challenge.

Almost all of my clients start an enquiry with " I know this sounds weird but..." (it is why they contact me) to which I normally respond that little can surprise me anymore... Case in point was when one day the phone rang and it was Sky TV wanting to know if I could make them small 3D spectacles for the meerkats at London zoo for a promotional campaign... the very job I put down to answer the phone was making miniature eights lens spectacles for tarantulas... so however "odd" that wasn't even a deviation from what I was doing that day. It's not even as if I specialise in spectacles, though I have made specs for my local optician when he couldn't do what he wanted for himself.

I'll shut up now... I promise!

@Dip666 - I know I am an eccentric that could easily be dismissed as a delusional fantasists where the truth may be stranger than fiction, which is why I suppose so many journalists wish to interview me about my work/lifestyle... most of which focuses on the diversity of things I've done where I'm often labelled as some sort of crazy "renaissance man".

However I don't believe in having or sticking to "core activities", nor do I believe in having natural strengths and weaknesses or the concept of limited capabilities. There are simply things you have already learned to do, and things you haven't yet learned to do. Once you have "learned how to learn" there's not much you can't teach yourself.

By training I am a scientist, yet for the last twenty or so years I've run my own business and call myself an artist for the simple reason it's easier than trying to explain exactly what a freelance polymath does. I've an international client base having worked for various Oscar/BAFTA winners in the entertainment sector, I've done educational work for numerous national museums, I've been involved with PR/promotional work for various international brands and sporting bodies, engineering work for big business, my art and sculpture is commissioned/collected by wealthy individuals around the world including royalty and I've done so much more. Yet I insist on remaining a one man band and still do all the day to day stuff in-house from tax returns and finances to designing and printing my own stationary. I've built my reputation on being the crazy guy people go to when they don't know who else to go to for something nobody would specialise in. Regardless of whether this makes me a decent profit or not I strive to have a different job for every week of my life (and aside from a few big projects I'm slowly getting closer to achieving this). Today I've been doing CAD work on the computer for a heritage architectural project.

I could highlight several "weird" things I've done but in the context of this conversation and things that might entertain others reading this I've never had a great interest in "making money" in the sense of generating profits to pay others to do stuff for me. However I have minted coins for clients, once did some work for a holographic project for a high security printing firm that manufactured credit cards, and as much for the "fits and giggles" just to see if it was possible, I once obtained a 12month license to print money from the Bank of England. (needless to say it came with all manner of clauses and restrictions but I needed it for a project where I needed to manufacture a lot of replica bank notes without actually being arrested for forging currency.)

@Dip666 - you could say the same about many industries - why do local councils sub contract out road repairs rather than employ in house teams, why do huge corporations employ advertising agencies rather than employ in house teams, why do major manufacturers hire separate logistics companies to deliver their goods? All are generating enough permanent work to justify and save money with their own full time specialist staff.

The top brass need to know enough to buy the right equipment and recruit/train/manage/direct the right staff, yet that knowledge is with the specialist contractors who tell everybody that it isn't economic to do it yourself because if they didn't they'd talk themselves out of work...

Somewhat circularly we return to a pet subject of mine as to why anybody works; - the vicious circle that is earning money to pay others to provide you with goods and services because you are too busy working to learn to do anything new for your own benefit.... Most people are psychologically driven to play it safe and stick only with what they know.. presumably the same is true of exploration companies... the few who run their own drill teams are those with prior experience of having already run their own drill teams.

I guess a junior explorer would need to poach/headhunt somebody from a successful drilling company to set up a new in house drilling team, and if these people are already successfully running their own drilling business it would need to be a very good offer for them to go somewhere new.... I'm merely guessing as in truth I don't know why more explorers don't run their own drills teams as the few that do seem to benefit from it.

@Dip666 - as you say where a market opportunity opens up someone will seek to fill it so I do expect that the demand driven delays will be slowly reduced by existing contractors hiring/training more staff and buying more equipment (plus putting their prices up to curtail demand to levels they can meet) . Nevertheless the flexibility and economics of owning your own rig do tend to pay off for those with clear plans to do a lot of drilling.

As for paying for itself "in a while"... . No two holes are the same and technical staff/labour is a big part of the costs of drilling but I've encountered explorers paying over £50k to drill a single deep hole in challenging locations. So if you can save on labour with your own staff who knows over how many holes the brake even point is reached at where it becomes more economic rather than less to run your own rig/crew.

Many know I am invested in various junior explorers and I've seen what can come from owning your own rig(s). Plus as an aside, there is an old saying in this game that "the only sure way of making a profit from a gold rush is to be the guy selling the picks and shovels" To that end over a year ago I invest in a company that contracts out drilling rigs and lab service to the minerals exploration sector. It was never going to be an exciting investment with multi-bag potential like an explorer, but so far it's retuned roughly a 3% annual dividend and seen approx 10% capital growth... so nothing to grumble about.