The two most popular IKN posts of the last week...

...were this one that contained KCs wonderful chart, shown again here:

"This is a deceptively simple philosophy that I have been working on and fine tuning for most of my life.  I am delighted to say that I believe I have refined it down to its essence- - sufficiently to share it with a select band of friends that may appreciate its elegance and simplicity."

Then this one, featuring Brent Cook and Mickey Fulp getting interviewed by the Kitco girl at a bar, JDs on ice at hand. Again shown right here.

Faster than light neutrinos

So let's see...

1) Scientists confirm that neutrinos do indeed travel faster than light
2) They then find a way of controlling a flow of neutrinos.
3) This controlled flow is then used to design a messaging system (it can be pretty simple, e.g. one burst of neutrinos is a 1, a double burst is a zero, binary computer systems take it from there)
4) As soon as the messaging system is understood it's used by somebody in, let's say, 2025, to send a message back to the person who invented the neutrino-control-and-messaging service on, let's say, May 23rd 2012.
5) The message sent back in time alerts us to a pending catastrophic event in, let's say, 2018 and how to avoid it.
6) We in 2012 take the necessary measures to avoid the event, thus it never happens.
7) This then negates the need for the message sent in the year 2025 to the year 2012.
8) Which means the message is never sent.
9) Which means the catastrophe is not avoided and it happens.
10) Wait a minute.....

UPDATE: When hitting the publish button on this guff'n'nonsense, I wondered how long it would be before someone took the bait. Didn't take long.... By the way, the 5th rule of the internet is that irony doesn't travel.

UPDATE 2: Oh, just in case you haven't heard it yet here's the neutrino joke:

The barman says, "Sorry mate, we don't serve neutrinos in here."

A neutrino walks into a bar.

Gold (GLD) vs Silver (SLV) vs Gold Miners (GDX) vs Juniors (GDXJ), ten day chart

We've featured this comparative chart a few times in the last week, basically to keep an eye on how the miners have been doing compared to the metals.

Today we update, basically to scare the bejeez out of you.

That is nasty.

The Friday OT: Don Henley; The boys of summer

This is not one of any number of cover versions, this is the original song. This is the one that had me playing it over and over way back when pals of mine were into the music I was supposed to like. It's also an oblique tribute to gold today, as Gary and those who follow his wonderful blog will get the "...will be strong after the boys of summer have gone" reference, I'm quite sure.

Don't look back, you can never look back

Setty uncovers a LatAm oil & gas fraud

Not just iffy and doubtful practices...nah Setty doesn't mess about and just goes straight for the 100% outright criminal fraud scam operations...ones such as Arevenca

Read all about it here, because it's one helluva good post.

Mergers and tickers and teeth

With the news that the US Gold (UXG)(UXG.to) and Minera Andes (MAI.to) merger rip-off has been pushed through by Rob McEwen, we now open our latest competition. It's up to you to decide the new ticker symbol for the fused company, now called "McEwen Mining". Here are the choices:

1. YES.to
2. LOOKATME.to
3. EGO.to
4. MAC.to
5. MACDADDY.to
6. ROB.to

UPDATE: We've received good suggestions, including "LOL.to", "ORLY.to" and "STFU.to" and some that cna't really be reprinted because I'm in enough trouble as it is

Answers on a postcard please (or suggestions for even better ticker symbols) to:

Otto Rock
Lying in a dentist's chair
Gazing up a nose in despair
right here

(at least the attention is personalized)

And yes, that also means that posting will be light today. And no, that isn't the logo of the dental surgery where I'm planning to spend my morning, it's just a funnier one. Have a nice day and enjoy gold's rollercoaster of love

Chart of the day is...

...gold, dailies:

How's your stomach?

Four burning questions on today's market action (with two answers)

1) Who is Eric Sprott going to blame for silver's drop this time? The Martians?

2) Which of your equities positions will go green first? I know which one looks most likely in my port and I'm guessing it turns away from the dark side about 1pm EST.

3) How do you confuse an Austrian? (Answer: Ask him why the dollar has been strong recently)

4) What's the best video to sum up this morning? (Answer below)

By the way, subbers; Re this morning's flash update already bot a few, but more to go. Still careful fishin'

UPDATE: FWIW, the suspected bouncer was a double figure loser this morning, but even though it's now only 1% down it didn't make it into the green....so a fail is a fail.

OT: Today's handy twitter tip

Top tip! If you secretly employ ghost writers who pretend to be you on Twitter and you then fire one of them, ALWAYS REMEMBER TO CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. This from the twitter a/c of some zero called @markdavidson today:

Totally pwned!

HudBay Minerals (HBM) (HBM.to): Touchy feely community relations sure beats hacking 'em to death with machetes

Me? I get all confused about these things. After all what with Hudbay (HBM.to) (HBM) now building its Constancia mine in southern Peru, it's only right that the company reaches out to locals. For example the $10,000 it just donated to a local university to sponsor "The Hudbay Classroom" that'll teach all things mining to keen minds. As part of the promo blurb, the company told us (translated):

"This agreement is part of our framework of responsibility and social inclusion, whose objective is always to provide to the communities where HudBay operates."

Which does compare favourably to the way it used to do business in other LatAm countries. For example at its Fenix project in Guatemala two years ago:

"Just over a year ago, my husband, Adolfo Ich Chamán, was killed by security forces employed at the Fenix mining project in Guatemala – a mining project owned by Canadian company HudBay Minerals. In the afternoon of September 27, 2009, I watched my husband leave our house for the last time. I later learned that mine security forces had surrounded my husband, dragged him through a gap in a fence and hacked at him with machetes. Then the mine’s chief of security shot him in the neck at close range. This attack was unprovoked."

The good news is that since that event, when HudBay employees murdered an anti-mining activist at its mine project in Guatemala, HudBay sold the project to another firm. So that doesn't count any more, right?

Two silver charts

The first one dedicated to those who prefer getting their market news, views and opinions from Zerohedge:

The second one for the rest of you people who prefer to make profits in the markets:

Today's handy stock market hint: It really is easier to make money when you're not an asshole. DYODD

Chart of the day is...

...received from reader 'KC' and comes with the following:

"This is a deceptively simple philosophy that I have been working on and fine tuning for most of my life.  I am delighted to say that I believe I have refined it down to its essence- - sufficiently to share it with a select band of friends that may appreciate its elegance and simplicity."

A Flash update...

...was sent out to subscribers a few minutes ago.

Dudes! A metalheads must-watch

A girl, two boys and a bottle of JD.


 Fun fun stuff, enjoy.

UPDATE: Long-time mail exchanger, rockbrain and cyberpal, reader 'MP' writes in with:

"Whoa! Nice stopes!"

1) A general macro thinkpiece from IKN124, 2) a stock chart 3) an owl

1) Here's the piece that was featured in IKN124, published to subscribers last Sunday September 18th, that talked about the opportunity afforded by beaten down plays with Peru exposure:

Peru’s IGBVL ‘General’ index offers clues to value in Peru

This is a stock market index I watch closely and it’s been mentioned on these pages on plenty of previous occasions. The reason why it’s got my eye is that it combines strong mining presence (Peru being Peru, about 65% of the total index weighting is directly from mining companies) with the volatility of an Emerging Market with good growth, thanks to a country that, macro-economically speaking at least, is running its shop well. It also happens to list several companies that your author follows closely or even owns, but that’s a secondary reason really because all access to those stocks is just as easy via the Canadian, US or London markets.

So to the squiggly lines and the reason for featuring the IGBVL index today. We see that by comparing the Peru index to the S&P500 year-to-date there have been two major periods worthy of mention. The first started around April and finished around mid-July, when Peru’s first possible then confirmed election of Ollanta Humala as its new President spooked the markets and caused some strong volatility. Then the more recent period, from around mid-July to today, is far more interesting in the considered opinion of your author not least because it’s where we find ourselves today. Now we have an IGBVL that’s moving very much in lockstep with the wider world (represented by the S&P500 index) that, in turn, suggests that the market is more relaxed about the way things are in Peru politically.

That’s as it should be, because the fears that many had about Peru’s new mandatory (including those of your author before Humala’s impressive move to the centre post round one voting) have not been realized and it’s becoming clear that business is welcomed and encouraged, as it's a stable playing field for those wanting to invest.

So the expected process of “hey, Peru isn’t so bad after all” has begun, with the first stage that of a market index that has stopped falling and is acting like the rest of the world. This is good, but it also means that there are still Peru-exposed issues that were beaten down due to the ill-perceived political risk and haven’t yet recovered. Your author has his bought-in positions in some of these and this type of bigger-picture strategy note isn’t the place to start touting stocks. We’re all big girls and boys here, DYODD but at least recognize that the consolidation of the Peru macro picture may now be offering decent gains in stocks that haven’t played their catch-up yet.

2) Here's the five day chart of Bear Creek Mining (BCM.v)

3) Here's an owl:

DYODD, dude.

Disclosure: Long BCM.v, entry price $3.80. And the target on the trade is plenty above today's price so not selling yet, either. And while I'm here, I'd just like to thank that dumbass Lobito for the opportunities he offers the rest of us...keep em coming, dude!

Hathor (HAT.to) CEO Mike Gunning on BNN

When this six minute TV interview started yesterday morning, Hathor (HAT.to) traded at $4.06. When it was done, HAT.to went to (and closed the day at) $4.18. Click here and watch it yourself.

Gold (GLD) versus the gold miners (GDX) redux

After yesterday's post, here's the same chart updated to include yesterday's action:

We kinda mentioned this might happen, no? Just sayin'...

Anyway, your humble scribe's wild'n'whacky adventures at the tooth doctor continue today, so posts may again be on the light side.

Chart of the day is...

...the long-term price of diamonds:

50 Years Historical diamond price trend chart
for average One Carat D Loupe Clean wholesale diamond prices

Evolution Graph from 1960 to 2010

Because I had the weirdest dream about this last night. Chart from this page

UPDATE: Via his twitter a/c, @randyduax points your humble scribe towards this diamond robbery story. Utterly fascinating, thanks RD.

Mailbag

Question of the day comes from reader 'FT' with:

"...what's your number one Red Hot Chili Peppers song?"

Answer:

Of all the weird psychological phenomena in the stock market...

...one of the most common that never ceases to amuse your humble scribe is how a stock has to go up by 50% or so before a whole bunch of people realize that it's damned cheap at the new, higher price.

DYODD dudette, DYODD dude.

Gold (GLD) versus the gold miners (GDX)

Oh looky, something's changing all right:

The new element in the picture is called "logic". It eventually prevails.

In other news, your humble scribe would like to mention to his esteemed audience that over the next two mornings he will be looking up the nose of a orthodontist during a couple of 2 1/2 hour sessions of dental fun'n'frolics. In other words, light posting days are here. Please be having you yes the day that is nice yes thank you.

Chart of the day is...

...a poll of three polls taken in September 2011 that show voter intention for the 2011 Argentina Presidential elections, set to take place on October 23rd:

Just so you know, a winner will be declared in round one if either a) any single candidate gets more than 45% of the vote or b) gets more than 40% with the second placed candidate more than 10% behind.

Or put more simply, what part of "Cristina wins" do you not understand?

H/T Ricardo at los huevos y las ideas

OT: A NASA photograph

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it

Somerset Maugham, 'Cakes and Ale', 1930

NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this photo of five of Saturn's moons along with the planet's rings on July 29th 2011. Find out more right here.

(click to enlarge)

A photo that leaves your humble scribe speechless on many levels. Dedicated to Setty on his birthday.

A good paper by Robert L Funk and Francisco Javier Diaz came out late last week, all about Argentina and its relevance to the present-day Greek tragedy (geddit?). It starts like this and your author urges you to click through and read it all, because its argument is more insightful than the usual tosh written about the country. 

Argentina: A little heterodoxy goes a long way

Robert Funk & Francisco Javier Díaz

16 September 2011

A tough, pragmatic mindset has seen an unorthodox Argentine economy move from Greek-style tragedy to relative stability

For most of the last hundred years, those who study the comparative politics of Latin America have been struggling to pigeonhole Argentina, and especially Peronism, into one category or another. They do so at their peril. It is worth recalling that Simon Kuznets, an economist, once quipped that countries could be grouped into four: developed, underdeveloped, Japan and Argentina. Today under President Cristina Fernández the country continues to defy explanation.

continues here

Taipan Publishing pumps Fortuna Silver (FVI.to) (FSM)

Right here.

To be honest, the prose style is all gushing and pumpy and oh-my-gawd-you-gotta-get-on and really not your author's cuppa cha, but the information supplied by the report is pretty solid and factual, so there no real beef from this corner. Anyway, go read it yourself.

Néstor Valqui Matos, surely set to be Peru's rising star member of congress

We at IKN Nerve Centre™ believe that the new congressman Néstor Valqui Matos (Fuerza 2011, the Fujimori party)  is destined for greatness in the newly formed congress of Peru. This is because he has the best possible training for Peru's congress already under his belt, that of being the owner of an illegal and clandestine whorehouse. Here's a translation of this report out today in Peru's El Comercio that tells you what's what:

Member of Congress for Fuerza 2011 Is The Owner Of a Whorehouse in Pasco

Néstor Valqui Matos, who has already been found guilty of pimping, says that the business no longer belongs to him.


Fabiola Torre López: Investigation Unit, El Comercio

The night of August 2, the nightlife in the mining district of Yanacancha in Pasco was busier than usual, though this time the ruckus didn't come from the discos and bars that have multiplied in the zone but from around 200 residents who had taken to the streets to declare war on the businesses that, behind the pretense of being normal places for relaxation, were dedicated to the sexual exploitation of women, some of them under-aged.

Two weeks have gone by since then, but the residents' marches and operations by the municipal fiscal have not managed to stop these businesses, amongst them the 'Night Club Discotek Calusa', the biggest nightclub in Yanacancha. Its owner, according to the respective documentation, are no less people than the congress member Néstor Valqui Matos (Fuerza 2011) and his wife Edy Estrada Atencio.

The nightclub is a four storey building located on the road Ángel Ramos Picón, number 311. Since 2001 it has had a licence to function as a discotheque, but in fact it is a location that sexually exploits young women brought from the cities of Huánuco, Ucayali and Junín. The building is constructed to promote, facilitate and cover up this activity: On the third and fourth floors there is a hostal that connects directly to the disco.

A team from this newspaper (El Comercio) recorded on video and in photographs the proofs that in this disco a clandestine centre of sexual commerce was operating.

The parliamentarian Néstor Valqui has tried to hide this business, as well as his own sentence for the crime of pimping handed down in 2008 which does not appear on his sworn resumé presented the electoral authorities when he ran for congress. Continues here.

IKN back. There's more to the story so click through, but it's worth mentioning that just that last part, the fact that he didn't include a judicial sentence as part of his CV, is a crime in Peru and enough to get this guy kicked out of congress.

Welcome to the new Peru, just the same as the old Peru.

Making the Grayd (GYD.v)

I looked at it a few months ago and passed, then didn't look again. Clearly a mistake because it seems Agnico Eagle (AEM) was looking at it around the same time...and AEM didn't pass.

Press Release Source: Grayd Resource Corporation and Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited On Monday September 19, 2011, 6:00 am EDT

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire -09/19/11)- (All amounts expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted)
Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited ("Agnico-Eagle") (NYSE: AEM - News)(TSX: AEM - News) and Grayd Resource Corporation ("Grayd") (TSX-V: GYD.V - News)(OTCQX: GYDRF.PK - News) jointly announce that they have entered into an acquisition agreement, pursuant to which Agnico-Eagle has agreed to offer to acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Grayd at $2.80 per share by way of a take-over bid. The transaction is valued at approximately $275 million on a fully-diluted basis. The offer price of $2.80 per Grayd share represents a premium of 65.7% to the volume weighted average price of Grayd shares on the TSX Venture Exchange for the 20-day period ended September 16, 2011 (the last trading day prior to announcement of the transaction).
Grayd shareholders will be entitled to receive, at their option, for each Grayd share they own either $2.80 in cash or 0.04039 of an Agnico-Eagle share and $0.05 in cash, in each case subject to pro ration. The maximum amount of cash payable by Agnico-Eagle under the offer will be equal to one third of the total consideration (approximately $92 million). The maximum number of shares issuable by Agnico-Eagle under the offer will be approximately 2.7 million (based on the number of Grayd shares outstanding on September 19, 2011 on a fully-diluted basis), or approximately 1.4% of Agnico-Eagle's outstanding shares on a fully diluted basis.CONTINUES HERE

Good job the news wasn't leaked to the chosen few on Friday, eh?

Congrats due to GYD.v and all longs on the stock, but the fun part of all of us here is the precedent AEM has just set. A major has just bought a bulk mining gold property in Mexico (other decent exploration assets on top of that) with just 1.26m oz gold under 43-101 compliance. I look at my juniors portfolio and I like that a lot.

Chart of the day is...

...copper, 60 minute chart.

To quote Alex Ferguson, it's squeaky bum time.

Or to quote a pirate, aaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhh

September 19th is of course....

...International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

You have been warned.

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN124 has just been sent to subscribers. It contains opinions on stocks, tables, charts, links and a total of 14,432 words spread over 30 pages.

Mostly spelled correctly. 

Oh dear, I never tire of that joke.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Police Station

• I miss John's guitar, saying that out loud. Josh is very good and the RHCPs will live on happily while he's on lead guitar, but I miss John.
• As is the tendency in quality albums, it takes more than one listen to get what's going on.
• This track ranks with the very best of the band's music. Sublime.