Member Info for TigerByTheTail

Opposition demonstration day today in Bamako. Attempts at resolution of conflict between government (+ECOWAS) and opposition seem to have brought no results.
Demos kick off at 11am.

My take on the upcoming dividend announcement is that the share price will adjust so that the yield of the stock is roughly 5%.
So I am assuming the dividend will be around 5 US cents per share (@ 4p), and that this will send the share price to 80p by mid-September.
80p is also - very roughly - a P/E of 5, which should be the minimum that this share is trading at.
I'd add that the share price would also be helped by:
1) A clear future dividend policy, with numbers which helped investors predict future dividends;
2) A clear plan for what to do with the company's cash mountain. I imagine they are looking at acquisitions - there are lots of chrome producers who are in financial trouble right now, and who might be persuaded to sell off their PGM rich tailings dumps. And there are plenty of opportunities in reprocessing old gold tailings in South Africa as well; that uses much the same technology as SLP's current operations.

Hi Visitor and Ragnar!
Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts and numbers. It all adds ups to a powerful investment case, especially when the chrome market turns (which it will, of course).

Hi Miagi!
You're right and wrong - it won't be a major who took over Hummingbird, if it ever happens.
It would be a mid-sized Goldie with existing operations in West Africa, and which wanted to add ounces quickly.
Think B2Gold, Endeavour, Teranga and such like...

I take the point about the recent excellent drill results - there is clearly a lot more gold to be found in the Yanfolila area.
The other thing about the life of mine is that there is a lot of low-grade material which is currently categorised as strip or waste that will become profitable to process at the current high gold price. A drop in the cut-off grade due to a rising gold price could make a big difference in LOM.

Whatever happened about the drill results which intersected the M1 (Marsfontein) kimberlite at Thorny River?
Are we ever going to get a full analysis of them?

Hi Bangrak!
There is a decent technical explanation as to why rhodium is simply irreplaceable in the February JMAT (Johnson Matthey) PGM markets report. It also goes into the long-term structural deficit that rhodium is in - although that information is a bit out of date now (both supply (South African mines) and demand (catalytic converters) have fallen since then).
As long as vehicles are powered by internal combustion engines, and as long as people care about reducing those engine's noxious emissions, then rhodium will be in short supply.

Hi CB7!
I know they weren't huge, but there were several director buys in the spring. Did you miss them?
Also, it's possible (but no more than that) that the current silence from DB has a reason behind it. At this share price, Hummingbird must be an appealing takeover target for fellow West African goldies looking to add ounces (e.g. Endeavour, for one). There may be conversations going on behind the scenes that need to be kept confidential.

Hi CB7!
Yes, Hummingbird were a lot more open back in the days when the mine was being built. Partly that was Bert Munro's doing, who is missed here (but good luck to him at Cora). Partly, that was because Hummingbird, with a then half-built mine, needed to keep its share price high, just in case management had to go back to the shareholders for more money to finish it. Now keeping shareholders involved (and potentially willing to stump up more cash in an equity raise) is a whole lot less important.
IMO, that's a good thing!

Hi CB7!
Well, the last RNS was 2,500 words long, so you can hardly criticise the lack of detail. With better PR management (an eternal complaint with Hummingbird) its contents would have been split up into several releases - one of which would have been headed "Exceptional Drill Results at Yanfolila", another "Rapid Progress at Kouroussa", whilst a third would have touted the implied value of Hummingbird's share of Dugbe, based on Portofino's mcap.
I assume that Dan will give interviews etc. after the release of the interims, which are only a few weeks away. It does occur to me that we are bing held at this level whilst institutional investors trade large quantities of shares. Would you know anything about that?

Remembering that hydrogen hydrolysis uses relatively large amounts of platinum as a catalyst...
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/china-and-eu-vie-hydrogen-supremacy

Hi Bangrak!
I agree about a name change to Sylvania Rhodium. Also that this well-run cash-rich debt-free highly-profitable but unromantic precious metal dumps operation is worth AT LEAST a P/E of 5!

HI Blackfisk!
I think it was only a passing comment in a Vox piece.
But, yes, at this share price, HUM must be a tempting target for a takeover from a fellow West African Goldie. Only I figure any bidder would have to go hostile, as DB and the board won't sell willingly. And that makes it less likely to happen.
My own take on it is that we will have the rise we missed out on yesterday over the next few days. The RNS wasn't well received by the market, but it wasn't that bad. Indeed, the drill results were way better than my expectations.

Hi Tornadotony!
Sad to see you go.
IMO, you're not quite right about platinum demand being entirely dependent on catalytic converters for diesel engines. Investment demand (esp. from Japan) is increasing sharply. And, above all else, platinum plays a key role in hydrogen hydrolysis, which will become more and more important as a green energy storage technology (see Joe Biden's plans). Also, apart from the temporary effects of the Covid shutdown, supply is gradually falling due to mines getting worked out and not replaced. So I'm expecting the Pt surplus of the last few years to turn into a deficit.

Just to point out JLP have an RNS out about new copper projects in Zambia.
Not a word about the Kabwe tailings. At this rate, there will be no capacity left at Sable to process them anyway.

Hi OdL!
Thanks for the posts - much appreciated.
I hope the interims will confirm what you are saying. That is, HUM's management are now "normalising" operations, after the extreme measures they took to cope with the pit wall disaster. (It is all water under the (washed-away) bridge now, but I do wonder how close they came to requiring an emergency equity raise back then. They certainly delayed as many payments as they could, building up this huge pile of trade payables which is (hopefully) now being paid down).
I also wonder if contractors and suppliers were not able to use the Covid-19 emergency to not only charge extra, but also to shorten their credit terms and to force the company to pay up on outstanding invoices.
I think we need to see the interims to confirm this theory, but if this is the case, then the foundations are being laid for a solidly constructed future.

Hi Razor!
Yes, but gold stocks with a bit of a hangover following yesterday's wild party.
Not a bad one considering how much champagne was drunk. It will wear off in a few hours.

A poster on the other board picked up my post about the long term ratio of platinum to gold being about 1.3:1 (with +0.6 correlation), and put up a link to this chart:
https://www.macrotrends.net/2541/platinum-prices-vs-gold-prices
Essentially, the Pt-Au ratio is at an historical extreme right now. And extremes do often tend to revert to the mean...
(I can think of plenty of other good arguments for investing in PGMs, but (IMO) this is worth bearing in mind!

Hi Sotolo!
Yes, I bought (heavily) on the morning drop when the interims came out. I've no idea why it fell like it did then, but I took full advantage.
I've sold my HOC today, and some of the Centamin shares - just to lock in the profit. If I'm being honest, I'm flying blind ATM. I've got no idea what's going on with gold and the bond and stock markets right now. But I've stumbled and blundered my way to a profit, so I'm not complaining.
Only one thing I'd add, which is I can understand why the dollar is weak. But how can the pound be so strong? Our Covid-19 recession is predicted to be about the worst in the developed world. And we still have Brexit to come, and almost no trade deals have been signed. So I'm concerned about a run on sterling when the market wakes up to this.

Gold has gone parabolic over the last few days. And it is becoming headline front page news as well.
Those are two traditionally good indicators that it is about time to sell. How long does the board think this rise can go on for, without some kind of spike and fall back?