Member Info for Happyhaddock

I think the Euphoria that often surrounds silver bugs can lead them (us?) to expect too much too soon and to read much in to the tiniest of moves. Some seem to believe that the effects of both Basel III and another silver squeeze may be more immediate than is actually the case. Though that is not to say that both don't have the potential to play an important role in the longer term.

Nevertheless I'll be curious as the the magnitude and duration of any move up and back down in silver price next week as I'm sure that the powers that be won't just roll over and let the price rocket on an another attempted squeeze. After all Basel III doesn't directly prevent the kind of manipulation many accept takes place, whilst the LBMA isn't even bound by Basel III for another six months, time enough to petition for more extensions, alterations and exclusions.

Well more results proving we are looking in the right places, which we kind of new already.

However the markets always seem to hope for some sort of bonanza grades at close to the surface meaning they will almost always be disappointed. If a year from now this is a good as it gets well we'll have problems but if I could use a cheesy analogy.

Think of the journey as coach tour around Europe, we've just reached the first planned stop at services on the M6 en-route down to Dover and yet some passengers on the coach are worrying they might not like the tour because they haven't yet seen the Eiffel Tower or the Collesseum.... Others travel in hope.

@silverhorse, as you say its always sensible to stop and think,

However the balance with any investment is to wait until facts clarify and become certain, but to then pay higher prices for the de-risked investment. Or to research and decide you are happy to take the risk of getting in before then so as to benefit from possible gains that come should confirmation come that an investment has de-risked.

Myself I am confident that a few years from now at least some of our possible projects will have advanced enough to justify patiently holding and riding out any ups and downs along the way. It's a strategy that has so far worked for me having first decided UFO was worth the risk at about 0.1p

UFO certainly presents a much better investment below 1p than it did less than year ago at just above 3p, but you have to accept that any investment in any explorer is inherently risky by nature.

2021 started with UFO's share price at about 1.1p. For the last few months I've challenged predictions of large short term gains by suggesting that the price may stagnate through to the second half of 2021. Over the last six months it has only fluctuated slightly, drifting range bound down to just below 0.9p on this the last day of June.

This post isn't about gloating about my foresight as the above was hardly a radical prediction. The share price had just crashed off a massive spike and would take time for faith and excitement to return. Prevailing macro-economic sentiment was drawing funds back to booming mainstream markets, plus there were huge delays in the exploration sector meaning news flow from all such companies would likely be slow.

The above does however set a precedent for me to offer some personal expectations for the coming months. If you give any credence to my views, then the only thing I would claim with certainty is that the future is uncertain.

Sentiment remains against the exploration sector with no imminent sign of change, and I'm not expecting UFO's share price to shoot up imminently. However, UFO's share price has previously shown a mild correlation with fluctuations in precious metals prices, where gold and silver have usually done well during autumn. Primarily though I believe that expectations of gradually improving news flow from the company could be the biggest mover of UFO's share price over the next six months.

I'm not going to put precise dates or prices to a forecast. I'll simply say that I expect the near future to deliver a bit more volatility to our share price, moves which may slowly nudge us out of the range we've been trading in. I am hopeful of eventually gaining some upward momentum such that later this year I see a possibility of a sentiment driven push towards the previous high of 3p. As we head towards Christmas, and dependent upon how anticipatory price moves are, or are not, matched by real news, I would expect the share price to be flattening off or possibly dipping back down.

Broader macro-economic conditions remain "unprecedented" and of interest, where some are predicting an imminent market crash. I remain alert to the possibility of a deflationary period in the future but I would err towards saying it is not as likely in the next few months as continuing inflation or at least some sort of stagflation/disinflation. If a major crash does happen soon, miners and explorers are unlikely to be immune from the rush to liquidate. However those with exposure to precious metals have historically recovered relative value more quickly than most, even if absolute cash prices of such investments remain down.

So, whilst intentionally a little vague I've put forward my expectations; just don't take them as investment advice. I'm none the wiser than anybody else here, merely a patient yet cautiously hopeful long term holder.

I think if you are interested in the junior explorers it is not hard to find example after example whose share prices have just drifted down slowly for months. Sentiment is out of the sector for the time being and we can't control that.

It's hard to watch the share price of companies you believe in stagnate if they have been making good progress, all the more so if that takes you from paper profits to paper losses.

However, that is the nature of exploration, even the best companies that go on to be very successful typically experience periods of big drops of more than 50% from interim highs. At the end of the day we either dismiss the price moves as short term and temporary and wait it out , or we move on elsewhere.

@silverhorse - the only one true fact is that nobody here knows for certain what the future holds we are all just speculating - as the old saying goes you pays yer money and yer takes yer choice!

@silverhorse - short term EH isn't likely to move our share price much at all, but that's hardly the point if you aren't thinking short term.

I may be wrong but I'll stand by my statement that short term our first profits come from iron but long term our wealth comes from silver, where EH is only one of our silver projects.

@silverhorse - of all our licenses I'd choose EH and environs rather than our iron ore fields, though it's looking like the sirius extension may be the first to generate us an income.

@ 5x5 in terms of silver prices at the point we are actually doing something with our silver, then I'm making no predictions. It may have doubled as you say, but it may be lower than where it is now or could be tens times what it is now. The silver market is a law unto itself that is irrational enough to prove everybody wrong pretty much all of the time. I'll simply say I wouldn't want to be late to the party 'cause silver can party hard and fast once it wakes up and it's not short of invitations to drag itself out of bed at the moment.

@Paul - a not so concise, but useful, summary for those who don't otherwise follow the silver market and know these things.

I've said for some time that whilst iron is UFO's short term ticket to profits, long term our silver is more likely the route to wealth. This may be an odd thing to say given the current disparity between the current valuations of our iron and silver.

However as your articles explain silver is a very very tiny market compared to most others. I've heard it said that a global giant of a company like Apple could currently buy the the world's entire silver industry out of their free cash without needing any kind of loan or fund raise (yes the whole silver market really is that small and undervalued at the moment).

However silver is used in a growing number of modern technologies making it indispensable, plus at present there is effectively no monetary demand for it (the number of silver bugs may be growing but they (we?) are still a very tiny majority of the worlds population) . It may not happen as soon as others have been predicting, after all silver bugs have been waiting decades for "THE" big move, myself only one decade. However if the markets wake up to the fact there just isn't enough of the stuff for the economics to make sense at current prices who knows where prices may go in the scramble to get hold of it before it ends up being effectively unobtainable. In all likelihood there's already less available above ground silver on the planet than above ground gold...

If you treat silver as more useful than gold and less available you can imagine where prices COULD get. Not saying prices WILL get there , but even a tiny percentage of such possibilities amounts to huge price increases.

@ smiller, I've some familiarity with the chemistry going on inside a blast furnace, having been required to teach such things in the past, plus if you've ever spent time in an operational steel works you never forget the intense heat of pouring tons and tons of liquid iron.

Primarily you are looking at using coke (plus regulated air flow and intense heat) to generate carbon monoxide to reduce iron oxides to get the iron out of the ore, producing carbon dioxide as a waste product. Where as a producer the greater the iron content of an ore presumably the more profitable the process. Impurities such as silicates are typically removed using something like limestone to react and form vitreous sl*g which can be drained/skimmed off.

Knowing the exact amounts of silicates may be useful to judge ratios when blending your ore , coke and limestone but I'd be surprised if knowing the detailed chemical break down of the impurities made enough difference to the overall economic considerations. That is to say you can infer much of what you need to know simply from assuming what isn't iron bearing is going to be impurities to remove. The difference between a 50% ore and a 60% ore is more likely to vary simply in the amount of impurities than too greatly in the chemical make up of the specific impurities.

previously sensored on on the word sl*g - namely vitreous waste material

@944Turbo - Out of curiosity, what about all the additional "impurities" like silica content in the ore interests you beyond the primary iron content.

I can see the info being useful if setting up a blast furnace and needing to work out or predict how best to flux and prepare for excess **** production. As somebody with a background in experimental archaeology I'd be curious even if just setting up an old bloomery to extract the iron, but from an investment perspective I'm not sure of the relevance of the data?

Cheers HH

@ 944 Turbo the amount of info companies release (beyond minimum legal requirements) depends upon how they perceive their typical punter.

Some private investors are as inquisitive and ask the same sorts of technical questions as institutional investors, however many more are not and are more narrative driven. PR and marketing is an odd game in terms of understanding what others respond positively or negatively to.

I suspect somebody somewhere will have decided it is best not to "confuse" the situation by releasing more detail than many ordinary private investors want or would process.

I dare say if most of our shares were traded/held by large mining trusts then we would be getting more detailed releases targeted at informing specialist fund managers.

Just a theory, though if others have a better one I'd be pleased to hear, interesting question nevertheless.

@ napth - I'd hate to think my caution was in anyway responsible for holding back the SP, thought it seem unlikely that there are vast swathes of wealthy investors buying and selling based on my every word.

My caution simply reflected my own assessment of the situation, where so far this year it has proved somewhat prescient as we haven't had the news flow others have predicted, and the news we have had, whilst mostly good, hasn't yet triggered any move up in share price, just a very slow trickle down.

I have however been saying for some time that whilst I expected us to drift range bound for the first half of 2021, I think the second half of the year may be more positive for UFO.

Cheers napth - I know we tend to characterise almost polar opposites of personality types. To me you appear as a little too unquestioningly enthusiastic to the point of cheerleading when opposing negative views, whilst you seem to view me as too cautiously sceptical to the point of negativity for trying to provide balance to very optimistic opinions . Yet if we can keep any little jibes good humoured and polite there's no harm done.

At the end of the day we are both here because we believe UFO will make us decent profits, so we have that in common. If other folk listen to what we both say and assume reality will probably fall somewhere between our views, they may not be too far wrong.

@napth - I'll take it as a compliment if you are implying I have brain the size of a planet...

... though I myself would never suggest I could solve "all of the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe three times over and still have time to compose a few lullabies."

@Max - DSO certainly is a priority and motivation for UFO so I'll not disagree with that statement at all.

Nor do I disagree with the fact the iron ore results we have so far had back are very encouraging .

Much as I have a lot of faith in UFO's potential I'm just naturally more cautious than many so "never count my chickens..." so to speak.

"In an interview 3 weeks ago on 7/6/21, Bill said, “The team managed to send out the first batch of samples about a week ago to the lab in Perth. We are hoping to start getting some lab results back probably in another 3-4 weeks time.”
Therefore, the first batch of results will be due from now til next week.
Then Bill said in the same interview “Howard Baker will start putting together a resource in 4-6 weeks, 6-8 weeks worst case if there is a log jam in the lab.”

@Max111 - I hope you won't take this as personal criticism as I am not questioning the fact many value the effort you put into summarising and collating information for people on this board. I merely like to offer a more cautious counter point to some of the inferences you make from this information. I am not suggesting I may be any more right or wrong than yourself, and neither of our personal beliefs will change how quickly or slowly things progress. I merely suggest that the more cautious and broad an interpretation of statements anyone takes the less likely people are to be unpleasantly disappointed by reality.

You quote Bill using words like "hope" and "probably" in terms of timings for the first lab results, so might it be better not to imply quite so strongly that first results "will" be due in the next couple of weeks?

Similarly in regards to timings for an MRE you quote Bill using the phrase "start putting together a resource" not complete the resource estimate.

If I am wrong about timings my caution will have been in vain, and it may be that others find your interpretations of timescales more probable. However, over the last several months most things to do with UFO have taken longer than others here seem to have predicted.

A maiden resource estimate should be JORC compliant, unless for some reason we decide to use unofficial simpler modelling methods to get some preliminary data out more quickly.

Personally I think the more pertinent point is how soon after the last drill results are sent to UFO from the lab that we actually get such an estimate. Many seem to be assuming that the time scale for getting lab results back is going to be the same timescale for getting a resource estimate.

It may be prudent to assume the team actually need time to process all the drill results, run their modelling calculations, prepare a report and process any relevant red tape first.

It would be great if we do get something before the end of August but I'd rather be cautious and assume it may be somewhat later than this.

Maybe SGZ could sponsor Bellers to go on a "chase the sun" tour to keep that mower in constant action where ever the weather is good and grass needs cutting?

We've been much in need of it's luck over the last few months.