The Weekly Dig - Feb 16, 2018

by Mick Carew, PhD, mcarew@haywood.com, Emma Boggio, MSC, CPA and CA, and The Haywood Mining Team

Positive Week for Mining Equities Heading into the Long Weekend

Highlights:  

Precious Metals: After last week’s sell-off of gold and gold mining equities, the price of gold rebounded this week, breaking through the US$1,350 per ounce level on Thursday before settling at US$1,348 on Friday, a 2.3% rise for the week. The rebound in gold came on the back of higher-than-expected inflation figures for January at 2.1% and a lower U.S. dollar, with the latter sliding to a three-year low. The S&P/TSX Global Gold Index finished 5.1% higher while the VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) was up almost 5% for the week. Some of the better performing stocks for the week included Detour Gold Corp. (DGC-T, $28.00 target, BUY rating; up 8%) and Endeavour Mining (EDV-T, $32.00 target, BUY rating; up 7%), while Rupert Resources Ltd. (RUP-V, not rated; up 18%) and GT Gold Corp. (GTT-V, not rated; up 15%) were two of the better performing junior gold explorers this week. As expected, silver followed gold lead, up 1.9% for the week, while platinum and palladium also finished positively, up 4% and 6.7% respectively and finishing at US$1,006 and US$1,048 per ounce respectively.

Base Metals: All base metals were up significantly week over week, making up for all last week’s losses. LME nickel was the most positively impacted metal, up 7.3% WoW, followed by copper and zinc, up 7.1% and 5.5% WoW, respectfully. The LMEX Index finished the week up 6% at 3,464. YoY, copper, zinc, and nickel are up 20.2%, 26.2% and 26.0%, respectively. LME inventories were all down WoW led by zinc down 5.0%, followed by copper and nickel which were both down 1% WoW. Excluding bonded warehouse inventories, we calculate the current days of consumption at 11.1 for copper and 6.4 for zinc. Concerns over the US deficits put pressure back on the US dollar and base metals continue to benefit from its decline in 2018. The 7.1% WoW increase in copper pricing marks it’s best week since November 2016. The base metals equities were up this week led by First Quantum and Taseko Mines up 17.3% and 16.3% WoW, respectively. Hudbay, Trevali and Lundin Mining also showed strong weeks up 7.6%, 7.5%, and 7.4%, respectively.

The Week Ahead: Copper Mountain (CMMC-T, $2.00 target, BUY rating): Q4/17 Financials – Tuesday, Hudbay Minerals (HBM-T, $13.50 target, BUY rating): Q4/17 Financials – Wednesday, Osisko Gold Royalties (OR-T, $19.00 target, BUY rating): Q4/17 Financials – Tuesday, Alamos Gold (AGI-T, $10.00 target, BUY rating): Q4/17 Financials – Thursday.

Click here for the full report                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

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Of the companies included in the report the following Important Disclosures apply:

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