A short and amusing post for students of the Spanish language

Spotted on a clothes label by sharp-eyed reader 'MV':

Pretty wonderful.

The top three most visited IKN posts this week are...

...in reverse order:

Third Place: "The Angry Geologist double-header". Two good pieces as usual (though check out the update to the AZ post that came out last night). I'm thinking about becoming his agent.

Second Place: "Mexico, Canada, NAFTA, love and mining", an excerpt from IKN403 last weekend that got plenty of hits and some interesting mail feedback too. Thanks for that.
 

First Place: "A 2017 Outlook for gold by Sprott Asset Management". And quite right to see the most popular post of the week concerns the wise words of somebody who actually knows what they're talking about regarding gold, rather than your humble scribe.

Semi on-topic and for what it's worth*, it was a quieter week hits-wise on the blog. A good thing, it would seem that my push to get more of you reading IKN via the free daily mailer has worked. Beats me why you're all so interested in this inane babble anyway, frankly...

*not much

It must be Friday evening, Almadex (AMZ.v) NR edition

Feb 2nd, Almadex (AMZ.v) announces a $2m placement at $1.35. A CEO quote from the NR:

"...given the low cost of drilling resulting from the excellent project infrastructure and our integrated equipment and drill teams, this modest financing will generate a significant amount of work on the ground."

Modesty is a virtue, I hear. So today Friday Feb 9th after market close, Almadex (AMZ.v) increases the placement to $3.5m.

Almadex Minerals Limited ("Almadex" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: AMZ)(OTCQB: AXDDF) is pleased to announce that the Company has increased the size of its previously announced proposed non-brokered private placement financing (the "Offering") to up to approximately 2,600,000 units (the "Units") to raise up to approximately $3,500,000 at a price of $1.35 per Unit.

You know what they say in Vancouver, "If they offer you money, take it". On the news of the original placement AMZ was a $1.46 stock which immediately dumped to $1.30. On the back of the copper sector rally it closed to today at $1.50, so guess what happens next folks? Yup, in Vancouver they also say, "Shareholders, if they can't take a joke fuck 'em."

Still my all-time fave saying

"You can achieve anything in this world, as long as you're

prepared to let somebody else take the credit."

From time to time it comes to mind. Today, for example.

The Friday OT: Britney Spears; Work Bitch

Britney Spears, Katy Perry and all their contemporaries have been documenting The USA's descent into fascism for years, they just don't realize it. They actually think this is avant-garde and risk-taking but it couldn't be more governmentally approved if it came with an ISO-14001 tag.

Physical idealism and cult of the person? Thinly disguised male fantasy porn of female subservience and sexual obedience? Repeated imperatives to reinforce role in society? Facile, easily-digested rhythm? Check the lot. Coming soon, from a gymnasium speaker system near you.

Youtube here.

Wanted! Alejandro Toledo! Reward U$30,000!

I'm not joking. Peru's Interior Ministry has this morning put a bounty on the capture of Ex-President Alejandro Toledo. Seriously. Here's the poster.

He's on the country's Most Wanted list and the S/100,000 reward equates to around U$30,500 at today's forex. As he was in Stanford University yesterday (where he pretends to work as a professor), there's an easy payday waiting for some enterprising student there.

UPDATE: Apparently he's in Paris, France now. Therefore...

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell?
That damned, elusive Pimpernel

Your Porter Stansberry blowhard coward bully update

We now note that the defamation suit brought by Porter Stansberry against IKN has seen 201 days (two hundred and one!!) since any sort of activity or dockets were added. It seems the proven securities fraudster Porter would prefer it all went away.

Porter, your pathetic attempt to gag free speech and the truth about the nefarious way you run your rip-off empire will not work. Preying on the weak is the essence of the parasite and that's all you are, Frank Porter Stansberry, a parasite and a useless addition to humanity. IKN isn't afraid of you and will continue to tell the truth about you, scumbag.

Enrico Giustra is selling Frank Giustra's Gran Colombia Gold (GCM.to) position

The seller of the $100m or so of converts this week? It turns out to be Enrico Giustra, brother of Frank Giustra, working through his recently appointed Haywood desk. Hilarious, he even gets his brother to do his dirty work for him. Haywood too! You really can't make this shit up. Anything but admit failure, eh Frank?

PS: Don't expect to see this information on CEO.ca

Alejandro Toledo arrest time

Just a few minutes ago a national and international arrest warrant was issued for ex-President of Peru Alejandro Toledo, with a mandatory 18 month remand in prison as part of the warrant. He's accused of receiving up to U$20m in bribes from Brazil's Odebrecht (in 14 handy regular payments) in return for the contract to build the Interoceanic Highway.

He's deep in the doo-doo. Good. Piece of shit, hope he rots in jail.

B2Gold (BTO.to) (BTG) news

According to two separate sources (thank you both), B2Gold (BTO.to) (BTG) is close to selling its 49% of the Gramalote project in Colombia to AngloGold Ashanti (the 51% owner). It's no secret that B2 has wanted to dispose and monetise its minority position in Gramalote for a while, what's changed recently is Anglo's return to reasonable financial health that's now allowing it to do a deal, plus their new enthusiasm for Colombia and the desire to "get a win" in order to show the country that La Colosa will work.

The final price is the last point of negotiation and they're down to the details, shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to sort out so maybe this is being timed as an announcement for PDAC.

Tahoe Resources (TAHO) (THO.to): Today in Shahuindo...

...there's a three-cornered meeting between Shahuindo mine owners Tahoe Resources (TAHO) (THO.to), very disgruntled local communities and to maintain the peace, representatives of Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mining (MEM). And impressively, the MEM is fed up with TAHO almost as much as the locals are and according to reports from the zone, the MEM will also insist that TAHO makes good on the community agreements it has ignored and refuses to comply to, as well as getting the company to provide necessay compensation for the road disruption brought on by the heavy trucks now going back and forth through small villages, kickig up dust and causing no end of problems for residents in the area (a mini-Constancia or mini-Las Bambas, if you will).

But what's also interesting about today's meting is that locals, at the end of their tether for over a year, have made it plain it's the last chance for these idiots to comply else face road blockades and a mine closure. Frankly they've been way more than patient with Ron Clayton's bunch of clowns.

Imaginary price pressure on copper

Hey, look how the La Escondida strike has pushed up the price of copper:

 

The market is full of complete freakin' idiots who will believe absolutely anything as long as it's written down. Just above them are the group of semi-idiots who will write anything as long as they get paid. This whole "Escondida Strike Will Change The World" copper price stupidity is just one example.

Will Dynacor (DNG.to) finally give us a news release this morning?

I mean, does "Loss Of Major Land Concession Due To Illegal Permit" count as material? Yathink?

Dynacor (DNG.TO): Don't say IKN didn't try to warn you

They be farked.

And if you're wondering just why they're farked, this is the same company-killing issue IKN has been telling you about since October, but now the Peru press are on the case of this highly suspicious and totally illegal deal done by DNG which is now blowing up in their faces. Start here. Then here. Then here. And here. And of course, the laughable Louis James is going to have a lot of 'splainin to do.

Oh look, we're all geniuses again

Gold goes up, your stock goes up, you think you're clever. So remember...

...this is as true today as when it first appeared.

There are people who wonder why I don't reply to their mails

1) XYZ.v announces a shares for debt arrangement with directors and parties owed (etc)

2) XYZ.v announces a 10-for-1 share consolidation

3) XYZ.v changes its name to ABC.v to better reflect the (etc)

4) ABC.v announces a non-brokered private placement (share plus full warrant)

5) ABC.v appears in a paid-for promotion newsletter campaign

6) "Hey, Otto! I think you should have a look at ABC.v! I've heard they've found some exciting rocks on its Orignale Bouffe property and there's a real buzz about..."

Fuck off, Canada.

Gran Colombia Gold (GCM.to): Something fishy going on

First Arata liquidates a bunch of equities, now this (supplied by reader "L"):

Over $100m in converts traded yesterday. Giustra and Holmes trying something to save their disaster investment here?

"Whatever makes you think New Gold (NGD) is strapped for cash, Otto?"

"Ohhh I dunno, just a silly unfounded suspicion of mine I spose...."

This just out:

TORONTO, Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - New Gold Inc. ("New Gold") (TSX:NGD) (NYSE MKT: NGD) today announces that the company has entered into a binding letter agreement with Goldcorp Inc. ("Goldcorp") to sell the company's gold stream on the El Morro project to Goldcorp for $65 million cash (the "Transaction"). The Transaction will provide New Gold with additional liquidity as the company advances the construction of its Rainy River project, which (continues here)

Interestingly NGD carried this asset on its books at U$32m, so at least it's going to look good on the balance. For a couple of months at least.

The Angry Geologist double-header

Two TAG posts this evening:

This one, once again shining a light on Arizona Mining's (AZ.to) elephant in the room problem

And just after your humble scribe's scrawny effort, this one on First Mining Finance (FF.v) at Springpole. Bless his heart.

A 2017 Outlook for gold by Sprott Asset Management

A pretty decent 22 page report by Trey Reik of Sprott Asset Management on gold. First a review of 2016, then a forecast or three for 2017 with thoughts on what The Donald's influence might be and everything. Whether or not it all pans out the way Mister Reik says is up for debate but it's a good and reasonable position, food for thought.

Get yours right here. Free and direct download.

Hiding the fatal flaw from retail idiots, First Mining Finance (FF.v) at Springpole edition

I really enjoyed yesterday's news release from First Mining Finance (FF.v) about Springpole. Remember when FF.v was going to be a "Mineral Bank", buy up cheap land, hold it for minimal cost, flip it out? Well these days they're spending on twinning holes and next they're going to spend on a "revised PEA" (a.k.a. keep asking until you get the answer you want to hear). But the best bit isn't what they told us, but what they "forgot" to mention about Springpole, that bit about how it's under a very large and deep freshwater lake stocked with protected sturgeon and other assorted fishies you don't get in your average Canadian lake. Here's the view from the mine campsite*:

Cue Python!

"Listen, lad. I've built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. All the kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. An' that's what your gonna get, lad -- the strongest castle in these islands."

That's Donnelly near the window, Keith in the foreground.

*Seriously, I'm not joking, that isn't just a stock photo of any old lake, that really is the view from the camp at Springpole as supplied by A. Reader who's been on a site visit there.

Minera IRL: For those of you wondering...

...just why the self-serving crudballs who made up the previous board of directors were so slow in getting the company back listed on stock exchanges and why Derrick Weyrauch and his band of suited thieves hatched their sneaky plan to emit tens of millions of shares at CAD$0.07 apiece to his friends in December 2016, please note that Minera IRL traded at CAD$0.22 this morning, early February 2017.

And remember that Diego Benavides saved long-term shareholders from being diluted by these Canadian criminal shits by opposing their selfishness and two-faced double dealing.

The GLD gold inventories chart shows a tide change

Data from here, but this visual is the picture of a thousand words:

GLD has added 19.58 metric tonnes of physical gold to its vaults in the last four trading days.

The bullshit you're going to get from Argentina at PDAC

This from IKN403, out last Sunday:

Argentina: The Federal Mining Agreement in the spotlight

Last week, much to the dismay of the Macri government and the secretary of mining Daniel Meilan in charge of the initiative, a draft copy of the Federal Mining Agreement (FMA) was leaked and published on Argentina’s trade paper site, Mining Press (15). That link will take you to a PDF of the whole thing (stamped confidential on each of its 18 pages) so peruse it at you own leisure. What I can tell you after reading the draft a couple of times is that the document is a poor sort of agreement in real terms. What they’ve clearly tried to do is get an agreement to which even the most reactionary and traditionally anti-mining provinces of Argentina such as Mendoza, Rio Negro, Tierra del Fuego and Chubut can agree to. Which is fine, as above all the national government wants a piece of paper signed by all 23 provinces of the country which they can then show to the world (the plan is to have it signed before PDAC and show it there) and say, “Hey everybody! Argentina is now one big flat level playing field! We all agree on mining!”.

Which is, of course, bullshit. The lax wording of the document may indeed allow places like Chubut to sign on (though it’s still not a certainty), but when they try the next stage of taking this Federal Mining Agreement (FMA) to the national Congress and designing laws that will govern mining over the whole country, the reaction of any province that doesn’t like any of the clauses the nation tries to shove down its throat will be predictable and obvious, “We didn’t agree to that!”, and the whole FMA is shown to be the worthless document that it is. Style over substance, it’s the Argentine way.

x

Two IKN policy decisions for the next four years*

It's going to be impossible to avoid the subject from time to time, of course. He will say and do things that will affect markets, sector financials, foreign policy and what have you from time to time and the T-word is not going to be banned from these pages, that wouldn't be right. However the all-pervasive way in which he's taking over newsfeeds, TV reports and print headlines is all too much, it's gone way over boring. Therefore and with context explained here are the policy decisions:

• The word "Trump" will not appear in the title line of an IKN post at any point in the next four years*.

• IKN will not link to any story, report or article that uses the word "Trump" in its headline in the next four years*.

Thank you for your understanding.



*Minimum, it's potentially eight. Or a thousand, of course.

Mining PRs and the Ottotrans™, Part 99

 

We're up to edition number 99 of our occasional series in which we take the linguistic pretzels thrown at us by junior mining companies and make sense of it all. Today's edition comes to you courtesy of Tinka Resources (TK.v):

This is what they wrote:

VANCOUVER, Feb. 6, 2017 /CNW/ - Tinka Resources Limited ("Tinka" or the "Company") (TSXV: TK) (OTCPK: TKRFF) confirms, at the request of IIROC, that the Company's management is unaware of any material change in the Company's operations that would account for the recent increase in market activity. 

And this is what it means:

VANCOUVER, Feb. 6, 2017 /CNW/ - Tinka Resources Limited ("Tinka" or the "Company") (TSXV: TK) (OTCPK: TKRFF) confirms, at the request of IIROC, that although we are totally aware Jim Dines recommended our stock to his subscriber's list this weekend and the 20%+ share price pop on 2m+ trade volume is totally due to all his followers piling on at the same time the way sheep always do, we need to run this typical stupid freakin' game of ignorant with the market authorities the way all companies do when this happens to their stock and play dumb in order to keep our lawyers, their lawyers and all the monkeys in suits at the BCSC happy therefore the Company's management is unaware of any material change in the Company's operations that would account for the recent increase in market activity. 

Mexico, Canada, NAFTA, love and mining (from IKN403)

An extract from IKN403, out last night.

Mexico, Canada, NAFTA, love and mining

President Trump had already rescinded TPP in The USA, last week (among many other issues that are keeping the news channels full of conversation material) as expected he turned his attention to NAFTA, the agreement covering Canada, The USA and Mexico, and said he wants to re-negotiate it as soon as possible (and wants to add an F for “Fair” to the acronym to, bless him). On the back of Trump’s new plans, Canada was very quick to tell Mexico that it wasn’t going to be double-teaming with them against the new US position and that it would be looking out for number one (13):

Canada will focus on preserving its U.S. trade ties during talks to renegotiate NAFTA and may not be able to help Mexico avoid being targeted by the Trump administration, Canadian government sources say.

"We love our Mexican friends. But our national interests come first and the friendship comes second," a source said on the sidelines of a cabinet retreat in Calgary, Alberta.

"The two are not mutually exclusive," the source added.

Which sounds great, but it’s not as if Mexico is entirely toothless in any newly negotiated NAFTA (or NAFFTA) and as this op-ed in Mexico’s El Universo points out (14), such re-negotiation may open a veritable can of worms for the Canadian mining industry in Mexico. Here’s a translation of an excerpt from the article:

“Even if the objective of NAFTA was to create one of the largest free trade zones in the world and establish a base for strong economic growth and prosperity for Canada, The USA and Mexico, the reality is that this prosperity has only been for a select few. It’s clear that the bonanza and benefits of the mining industry have not been for communities and towns where the mines are located and that the extractive economic model has created different forms of wealth gaps and increased social conflicts even more, in an atmosphere that was already complicated.

“Due to this, it is imperative to retract the preferential deals offered to the mining industry (by Mexico) and foment new and alternative economic activities.”

...

“In Mexico, we also love our Canadian friends, but we reject the poor practices of its mining companies. Our national interests are first and friendship comes after.”

Be careful what you wish for up there, people.

B2Gold (BTO.to) (BTG) 4q16 production

NR here, chart here:

I had them down for 552k after the Q3 period, they came in with 550k. The Nicaragua ops were the weak point. Guidance for Libertad in 2017 is low, too. Who announces on Superbowl Sunday anyway?

The Superbowl

I'm not the greatest fan of the game, but that was absolutely all-time off-scale epic.

The IKN Weekly, out now

IKN403 has just been sent to subscribers. It has words and pictures.

Behind the Scam: What Does It Take to Be a ‘Best-Selling Author’? $3 and 5 Minutes.

This is really good. Ever wondered how complete idiots get to call themselves best-selling authors? Click that link and find out.

UPDATE: This mail arrives from reader 'P'. Permission granted to add here:

Hi Otto,

It is actually much worse about how these book sellers can get their ratings. You can even manipulate the NY Times. I won't tell you the name of the book but my sister in law is a NY Times Best selling author.

This happened about 2 years ago but her publisher told her to buy 5000 copies of her book on a slow day picked out in advance. Presto, she had a best seller and top ten book. She sold the books later herself while on a lecture tour so in the long run, it didn't cost her a thing. It was a good book and may have gotten on the NY Times list anyway but her publisher told her it was quite a common thing to do to generate some sales and push you on to their list.

I have often wondered if this is how Marin Katusa or Doug Casey get their best seller status. All you need to do is get on the NY Times list for one day to get bragging rights forever.

Keep up the fight, P

The top three most visited IKN posts this week are...

...in reverse order:

Third Place: "Mailbag on Yamana (AUY) (YRI.to) and Brio Gold (BRIO.to)", in which an astute reader connected Yamana scams six years apart.

Second Place: "Minera IRL confirmed on CSE", a popular post because we managed to break the news. IRL started trading on Friday, of course.
 

First Place: "There seems to be some confusion regarding environmental permitting of gold projects in Alaska". Yeah, I had a bit of a rant. Not the first time, won't be the last.