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Underexposed - Canadian Stock Journal

  #1 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014

Hi,

My handle is "Underexposed" which makes the title a bit provocative I suppose but I have used this handle for several years now and some people may recognize me because of it.

This is a great site and primarily devoted to American stocks. While I do have a small American stock portfolio as Canadians have unfettered access to American stocks, the reverse is not true. Unless the Canadian company decides to open a listing on an American exchange, the company will be virtually unknown to American investors.

Canadian markets are very much influenced by commodities. For example, in the Oil and Gas and Mining sectors, the Canadian market leads the world in listings of new and established companies.

https://www.tmx.com/en/pdf/Mining_Sector_Sheet.pdf

https://www.tmx.com/en/pdf/OilGas_Sector_Profile.pdf

This especially shows itself in the new listings which can be important as if successful, they either can grow to be substantial companies over time or are takeover targets for larger companies. The NYSE may have a larger market value for their mining stocks but that is simply because they represent more mature, large companies. The junior stocks for O&G and Mining which have more growth potential are better represented in Canada and will be seen by Americans only if they search the OTCB which is the easiest route of entry for Canadian companies into the American market.

The my purpose in creating this journal is to show how I go about selection Canadian stock with side comments at times on how to avoid scams in the Canadian and American market in commodity stocks. I use a mixed approach of Fundamental analysis to identify potential good candidates for investment and the final selection, timing, follow-up is always done with Technical analysis.

I am basically a long term swing (3 to 8 weeks) and long term investor (two months to three years). I don't enter a trade with the idea that it will last x-number of weeks and out. The length of my hold depends on the performance of the stock.

It is my belief that, the longer the hold, the more important Fundamentals play in selecting stocks. I do not "day trade"...that depends on a special skill set to which Fundamental analysis is basically quite useless due to the short duration of the trade making fundamentals not important, as anything can happen in one or two days.

So for my style of trading uses Fundamentals (and I am still learning this type of analysis) picking likely candidates and Technical charting providing market timing and on-going monitoring.

I well set up a spreadsheet where I will allocate myself $100,000 worth of play money. It is not an overly complicated spreadsheet but for the newbie it might give you an idea of how to create one for themselves. I will divide that money into use in 5 sectors ($20,000 each) and select companies in each. I like a minimum of 1000 shares in stocks under $20/share and 500 shares for stocks in the $21-$40/share...I find I don't make money trading for lesser amounts of shares.

By this means we can monitor the good and bad trades I make and comment on them as time goes on. Please make constructive questions and comments as we go...then we can both learn.

My first sector will be Mining - Precious metals

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  #3 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014


Ok ...here we go {deep breath}

Precious metals include: Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium. Contrary to some popular opinion and websites "copper" is not a precious metal.

If you look at websites selling bullion bars, wafers, rounds and coins for the first four metals you will always find a Buy price and a Sell price with generally a 5 or so percent spread in those prices around the current price for the metal. If you look at websites that sell "copper" as bullion you will ONLY see a sell price. That is because they don't want to buy it back as there is no market for resale copper bullion.

I remember talking to a guy on a website who was convinced copper bullion was the way to go. He wanted to invest $10,000 in copper bars. Well first of all, the bars were about $9/lb where the spot price for copper was about $3/lb...but if he still decided to go through with the purchase he would have over 1000 lbs of copper. Where would store this?? in your basement, garage or private storage (the fees outrank its actual worth). If he bought gold he would have had about 6 - 1 troy oz wafers which are safely stored in a safety deposit box. And the only place he could sell his copper stash would have been the scrap market which would give him a 1/3 of what he paid for it.....he did not think it through...

In general, I don't have possession of any physical bullion (other than a couple of oz of gold wafer purchased decades ago). I don't like mutual funds and ETF's that are supposed to have their units backed by gold in their vaults. There are stories that this is not entirely true and if a run were made on these companies they ould collapse like a house of cards.

I stay away from exploration companies as they are dream sellers. It takes a lot of work to find out if their dreams are true. I have done a lot of Due Dilligence (DD) for others in chat areas to find out if they are legit and if you have the tools you can figure it out. The problem with exploration activities is that it can take 10 or more years to bring a discovered deposit into a producing mine. You have to be skilled at looking at their drill results...not only for the quality of their grade but the depth of where it is found...a marginally good grade located 300 meters underground is not as good as they will tout it to be. Before that property is viable as a mine there is infrastructure to build such as roads, power, water, processing facilities if done on-site, housing for its workers (perhaps a town) if the mine is remote from civilization...all of this is time consuming and expensive to do.

I prefer producing mines. There everything is in place and they have operating revenue coming in. They may not be profitable yet if they are a new mine but in their financial quarterly reports you should see increasing operating revenue and decreasing debt if they are a good mine.

But the question is....which precious metal mining stock should I look at?

When you have a company which produces a commodity, look at the price of that commodity as the mining company revenues (hence the share price) rise and fall on their commodity price....so lets look at the price charts of the four real precious metals.









Gold looks like it is emerging from doldrums and decline into a bit of a breakout now...the price has broken through that year-long diagonal resistance (purple line) it continued to just recently break through a horizontal resistance at $1280 (at least for today) and has a nicely defined support line (green)....if it continues its rise I see its next obstacle as being that dotted line at around $1360.

Silver which usually lags Gold appears to be nearing a breakout...the price is appearing to be reaching the apex of that wedge....if it breaks through...it would be a confirmation for gold, for me

Platinum is more of an industrial metal than gold and silver though it has a jewelery function too. Its chart shows a breach of the long term resistance but was stopped by a horizontal resistance at about $1460. It is interesting that the previous resistance is now acting as a support....but the price decline makes it not exciting to me at this point.

Palladuim seems to be content to oscillate down a gently constricting channel. This metal is often called the "poor man's platinium as it has many of the same uses....but that chart is not interesting aat this point to me.

I wonder if someone could explain the bottom chart relating to contracts....it seems to my naive look at them that when the price of gold falls the lines narrow and a price rise in gold widens them... Is that a bullish chart or meaningless?

Of all these metals I will look to choosing a Gold mining stock (or two) for my first purchase attempt(s) for this journal

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  #4 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014

It is not easy to choose a Canadian gold stock company. Basically it is sheer number of choices available in Canadian exchanges.

Stock Screener - Overview profitable gold basicmaterials o1 country

{I wish we had a FinViz-type screener for Canadian stocks}

If we select profitable gold companies with share prices above $1 on American exchanges, we get 19 companies total of which 12 are Canadian companies that have elected to list on the NYSE, NASDQ and AMEX. There are more good choices for Canadian companies for Gold mines but they have elected to enter the American market through the OTCB and are considered scams by most American investors....which they are not! For the most part Canadian companies that list BOTH in Canada and the USA are legitimate as it costs money to do this... Scam spotter tip: If a Canadian company lists in the USA but not on Canadian exchanges...it is probably a scam...very high probability IMHO.

Here is a stock screener I like to use on TMX Money which is the company that operates the Toronto Stock exchange. It is simple, free and the information is quite reliable.

This all for fundamental screening for now....I probably will return to fundamentals again in my next post after I use TA to knock down this list of potential candidates down to 4 or 5....the final decision of course will be made by TA considerations

Stock Screener | Search stocks by screener criteria

You can easily add and subtract criteria and I will start with just this simple criteria first

Criteria ........... Condition ............................. Values

Exchange ............... = ............................. all Canadian exchanges
Sector .................... = ............................. Basic Materials
Industry ................ = ............................. Metals and Mining
Sub-Industry .......... = ............................. Gold

Applying this to the above screener gets us 333 Canadian companies to choose from. Now the bulk of those are under $1 and hence are not usually considered good choices. However, if you are skilled at using fundamental analysis you can find some gold nuggets in those under $1 since most mining companies that are start-ups in Canada exchanges start under $1, unlike many USA stocks.

I am not going to look for stocks at those low price levels but I will give you some hints on what I look for to find the nuggets within the crap.

1. I don't like mining exploration companies.

They sell dreams and need to tout those dreams to keep their shares in front of the investing public. They do this through publishing drill results periodically and you must educate yourself as to what are good drill results and what are marginal. For example: if they find decent gold but it is 300 meters (roughly 900 feet) below the surface...you are talking an underground mine...expensive to create so the grade of the ore must be worth it.

They develop a property to a point where it attracts interest then they sell it...take the money and move on. The company itself is not a takeover prospect like producing mines...the share prices of an explorer rise until their good find is sold and then they fall back.

2. I don't like companies (usually explorers again) that have NO Debt AND NO Operating Revenue

It takes money to build a mine...lots of money...a start up mine should have debt and it should have a trickle at least of operating revenue. If they don't have either then they are not actively developing the property IMHO and I would expect scam in a lot of cases.

3. However, I look favourably on a start-up mine that has debt that is reducing on a quarterly basis and have operating revenue increasing...even slightly...they don't have be profitable yet...but they look to be on the way

Anyway...we don't discuss < $1.00 stocks here so we will enter a criteria that the price of the stock be >= $1.

But I also don't want a really expensive Gold stock either...long term if you pick a really good gold stock under $15 it can double or triple or more with time. An expensive gold stock may double in price with time but rarely does it get higher that that (a personal preference)

so here are some more criteria to my screener

Exchange ............... = ............................. all Canadian exchanges
Sector .................... = ............................. Basic Materials
Industry ................ = ............................. Metals and Mining
Sub-Industry .......... = ............................. Gold
Price ................. between ....................... 1 and 15
Market Cap ............ >= ........................... $500 million
Earnings per share > .............................. 0
Total Debt/Equity ... < .............................. 0.3

here is the results of the screen....much more manageable 9 companies with low debt and positive earnings with a decent market cap.



I will use TA to knock this down to 4-5 companies, fundamentals and TA again to make the final choice. But that is a later post.

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  #5 (permalink)
 
deaddog's Avatar
 deaddog 
Prince George BC Canada
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Great start to your journal. Looking forward to more.

"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
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  #6 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014

Well we narrowed the selection down to 9 possibles and the next step for me is to compare the performance of these 9 possibilities. I can take any time period I want but I will limit it to the last 2 months as Gold appears to be breaking out for the last 2 months so I want to see who is grabbing the limelight.

I use BigCharts.com for this comparison...I like the way it presents its results.



Well there appears to be 2 clear winners here, and I had hoped to narrow the choices to 4-5 but I cannot do that on the basis of this comparison in performance over the last 2 months. I will eliminate only three stocks here - Yamana Gold [YRI.TO], IAmGold Corp [IMG.TO] and Argonaut Gold [AR.TO]....a hard decision but we must move on.

At this point I want to have a look at fundamentals again.....this time it is the Income statement. I will reduce this selection before doing the rest of the decision making using TA. This may seem like a waste of time to a day-trader as they don't care about fundamentals ...and with good reason since fundamental analysis is useless to this type of trading....but if you want a stock for long term...then fundamentals become more important in the decision process IMHO.

the following are income statements of two companies that I have rejected after looking at them



Detour Gold Corp was the easiest ....turns out this is a new mine and is just starting production...that is why you don't see Operating Revenue in the first 4 quarters, followed with a decent amount of operating revenue but negative Net Revenue...the EPS is negative here on the last quarter but on the quote page it was positive...I checked at the Globe and Mail website and it was positive there as well....that is the problem with fundamental data....we will probably get the next financial report sometime this month so we are operating a bit blind here. Fundamental analysis is not unlike TA in that you are always trending numbers but where we as chartists try to make decisions on current data...fundamental guys make decisions on financial data that is at least 3 months old or more....from what I read the open pit mine has a low grade gold ore and there is only one property for this company...it would be a little like rolling dice on this one...it is worth a watch and is probably over priced give the ore quality and the expense processing the gold.

Dundee Precious Metals is a little to variable with alternating good and bad quarters for operating and net revenue.

I had to make a choice and these two were the worst IMHO



Of the 4 remaining candidates I am leaning toward Primero Mining but we shall next look at a bit of risk/reward in the TA

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  #7 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014

ok...time to make a selection

I use 4 charts to come to a consensus rather than show the graphics in the post I will show the links and then a summary I will show the stocks in order of current closing share price

B2Gold [BTO.TO] $2.79

P&F chart

https://stockcharts.com:443/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=BTO.TO,PLUADANCBO&pref=G

Comment: currently challenging a support at $2.75...diagonal resistance at $2.95(weak)...stronger resistance at $3.15 to $3.25


Breakout chart

BTO.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: I really like this chart. There was a breakout on Jan 11...note the lead in by Slow Stoand MACD (both strong), then the trigger for a purchase with strong positive slope of BBwidth on Jan 11. That run ended on Jan 27 with all three indicators in decline.....the stock price was in consolidation since then and after falling to the 20day SMA (normal) it continued its climb as the Bollinger Bands (BB's) tightened as indicated by the BBwidth falling back to the previous trigger.....it is setting itself up for another breakout to the positive IMHO

Sentiment chart

BTO.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: Another great chart...the share price follows the CMF and that is bullish right now. The RSI has a nice gentle positive slope since early Dec...not extreme excitement yet (mildly bullish)...the ADX is gaining strength with diverging bullish DI+/-

Ichimoku chart

BTO.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: Pretty good chart here too....the share price has blasted above the red cloud this year with nice expanding gap between the thin blue/red lines (I never remember these)...could the On Bal Volume be any more BULLISH and the CCI is solidly green

***************************************************************************


New Gold Inc [NGD.TO] $6.28

P&F chart

https://stockcharts.com:443/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=NGD.TO,PLUADANCBO&pref=G

Comment: Not a good looking chart at all....bearish after falling back from a resistance at $6.55...there are some minor supports below 6.30 but the major one is at $6.05...has a lot of work to do before this is bullish.

Breakout chart

NGD.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: Well this chart looks better than the last....note how low the BBwidth is...the Bollies are ready to pop soon...the Slow Sto is fine but the trend of the MACD looks negative to me....it is a watch only for me in this chart....

Sentiment chart

NGD.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: the CMF is fine but looks topped out....the RSI has been slightly neg since mid January neutrally bearish and the ADX DI +/- looks topped out.

Ichimoku chart

NGD.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: the Ichi looks topped out with the thin red/blue lines converging...On bal Volume looks good but the CCI is very iffy.

***************************************************************************

Primero Gold Inc [p.TO] $7.00

P&F chart

https://stockcharts.com:443/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=P.TO,PLUADANCBO&pref=G

Comment: very bullish chart however it is approaching a resistance at $7.80 and looking at another chart it seems that this stock has had a problem passing $8.20 which was back in 2010. Investors have elephant memories about these things...I would want to see a strong break through $8.00 before I would put money here. Strong support at $6.30

Breakout chart

P.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: On the surface this looks bullish, but the share price has been over the upper Bollie for 3 days ...I think there will be a pullback soon (Feb 13)....the Slow Sto is fine as is the MACD...the BBwidth maybe ok though it is not a strong breakout

Sentiment chart

P.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: note how closely the share price mirrors the CMF...well the CMF plummeted yesterday...will the share price follow as before??? RSI looks fine ADX DI+/- good good too but has that divergence topped out?

Ichimoku chart

P.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: pretty strong Ichi...nothing negative there....On Bal volume is so-so especially after that jump in price in the last few days...CCI looks fine.

***************************************************************************

Eldorado Gold Corp [eld.TO] $7.40

P&F chart

https://stockcharts.com:443/def/servlet/SC.pnf?chart=ELD.TO,PLUADANCBO&pref=G

Comment: very bullish chart however it is quickly retesting a support band from $7.45 to $7.50 so we shall see if it falls further Note it is the second falter this month though a recent recovery. Resistance at $7.70 right now

Breakout chart

ELD.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: what looks to be the beginnings of a breakout seems to be a head fake...Slow Sto is great but MACD might be a lower high...the BBwidth is plumbing a lower point. More consolidation seems to be ahead.

Sentiment chart

ELD.TO - SharpCharts Workbench - StockCharts.com

Comment: I don't really like this chart...the CMF looks topped out and falling, the RSI is flatish and the ADX looks iffy

Ichimoku chart

https://stockcharts.com:443/h-sc/ui?s=ELD.TO&p=D&yr=0&mn=6&dy=0&id=p76266205032

Comment: pretty weak Ichi.......On Bal volume is strong...CCI looks fine. some mixed messages

***************************************************************************


Conclusion

This process is a lot faster than it looks in these posts once you understand it. I would typically do this from start to finish in a couple of hours at most. But thinking how to present this in a logical way has been quite a journey.

these four companies are not bad...they make money but their charts show bull and bear tendencies

I would rank these companies from this analysis as follows

1. B2Gold Corp[BTO.TO]
2. Primero Gold Inc [P.TO]
3. Eldorado Gold Corp [ELD.TO]
4. New Gold Inc [NGD.TO]

So....my pretend order will be for B2Gold Corp. I use an intra day-chart to figure in my entry



the share price is falling as of yesterday but I see a "micro" support at $2.75....

I have allocated $100,000 of capital for this journal of which 1/5th ($20,000) will be allocated to the Mining sector...I won't use all of it on BTO...I will use roughly 50% of that allocation.

I will place a theoretical limit Buy order for: 4000 shares of BTO.TO @ 2.75/share

Consider the order entered at the Bell on Feb 13....if the share price dips to this level consider the transaction completed...if at the end of the day it has not reached this level I may readjust my bid

Hope you enjoyed this process...If there are questions ...fire away

My next purchase may be a base metal mining stock....if that makes sense...I won't go through as much detail as to the basic selection as you now know my approach.....time for some sleep now.

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  #8 (permalink)
 
deaddog's Avatar
 deaddog 
Prince George BC Canada
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: National Bank Direct
Broker: NBD/BMO/Questrade
Trading: Stocks
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
Posts: 1,283 since May 2013
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Thanks Received: 3,962

Where are your exits?

"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
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  #9 (permalink)
 Underexposed 
Calgary Alberta/Canada
 
Posts: 934 since Feb 2014


deaddog View Post
Where are your exits?

I am a long term swing or hold player....I am not a day trader....I will hold the stock...(my entry choice was not the best but I am patient and may adjust it.)

the exit point will be weeks into the future probably...as long as the Price of gold rises this stock should do well.

EDIT @12:30 MST

it is 90 minutes before the close of the day, Gold has had a great day with it climbing over $1300 today

https://finviz.com/futures_charts.ashx?t=GC

I am going to readjust my buy-in point to $2.94 for the 4000 shares of BTO.TO

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  #10 (permalink)
 
deaddog's Avatar
 deaddog 
Prince George BC Canada
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: National Bank Direct
Broker: NBD/BMO/Questrade
Trading: Stocks
Frequency: Every few days
Duration: Weeks
Posts: 1,283 since May 2013
Thanks Given: 183
Thanks Received: 3,962


What do you do when the trade goes against you?

Do you have a computed uncle point where you take a loss?

"The days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days" RW Hubbard
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Last Updated on March 21, 2015


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