Red hot mining shares : Author: Barry Sergeant
posted on
May 13, 2009 02:11AM
We may not make much money, but we sure have a lot of fun!
Red hot mining sharesGlobal top 100 miners, by value, have risen by 121% from lows seen late in 2008, and retain leadership of the recovery in world equities. Author: Barry Sergeant
Posted: Tuesday , 12 May 2009
JOHANNESBURG -
Measured on a weighted average basis, the world's top 100 miners, by value, have bounced by 121% from lows seen in the aftermath of the September 15 2008 bankruptcy of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Bros., but remain 53% below high stock prices seen over the past 12 months.
By comparison, the MSCI world equities $, a benchmark for listed stocks of all kinds, across the planet, has risen 40%, or "bounced" from lows seen early in March this year. The MSCI emerging markets $ has jumped by 62% from its lows. The KBW banks index, which aggregates the performance of 24 US banks, has now risen by 129% from its lows, but a broader measure of 80 banks listed across the world has increased from lows by a more modest 98%.
Within the broader resources group, listed primary miners of silver stand out, with an average weighted gain of 244%, led by London-listed Mexican miner Fresnillo, which has so far registered a rise of 523% in its stock price. Looking at mining stocks more broadly, the world's "hottest" 100 mining stocks, with a market value of at least $20m, have risen by 233% on average.
London-listed Norseman Gold (market value: $68m), which mines gold in Australia, has risen by 1 867% from its lows; African Minerals ($ 469m) by 1 722%; Century Mining ($25m) by 1 600%; African Copper ($28m) by 1 686%; La Mancha Resources ($82m), a gold miner in Africa and Australia, by 1 575%; Ivanhoe Australia ($550m) by 1 433%, and so on.
Looking at the world's top 100 mining stocks by value, some of the sharpest recoveries have been registered by stocks that were trashed in especially volatile country markets. Thus Bumi Resources (coal, Indonesia) has risen 800% from its lows, and Uralkali (potash, Russia), by 424%.
Seen over the past 12 months, the best composite stock price performances among mining subsectors have been delivered by silver, zinc, copper, nickel, uranium, tin, and gold stocks, in that order. Measured in absolute terms, the best performances have been delivered by listed stocks specialising in uranium, gold, and silver. Among the top 10 best performing most valuable miners may thus by found Fresnillo, Iamgold (up 338%), Sichuan Hongda (zinc), Ivanhoe Mines (copper-gold developer), First Quantum (copper-gold miner), Shanxi Lu'an (coal), and Eldorado Gold. There are also a number of top performers that may be classified as recovering stocks (from especially heavy debt loads), such a Teck, up 427%.
A Reuters report out on Tuesday stated that "mining shares have turned red hot this year after a disastrous 2008 and are set to keep outpacing other sectors as the top beneficiaries of growing optimism that a global recession will be shorter than feared". This process has in fact been underway for some six months, if listed stock prices are used as a measure.
At this point, the worst performing top 100 mining stocks by value start with the woeful Anglo Platinum, currently in the process of fundamental restructuring as outlined in a presentation on Tuesday by Cynthia Carroll, CEO of parent company Anglo American. Anglo Platinum's stock price performance has been further hampered by the performance of the rand, the world's best performing currency over the past 12 months.
Among the worst performing big miners may be found a clutch of potash diggers: Arab Potash, Qinghai, global leader PotashCorp, K+S, Silvinit, and Mosaic, through, by now, some of these stocks have bounced from lows by 100% and more.
Coal miners, both within and outside Asia, are also represented among the poorer performers, in the names of Coal & Allied, Shenhua, New Hope, China Coal, Consol Energy, and Peabody Energy. Aluminium names are also attracted to the bottom, for now, as seen with Alcoa, Norsk Hydro, Hindalco, Alumina, and Chalco.
There have been worrying performances from diversified miners Anglo American, Exxaro, and ARM, which each have varying degrees of connectedness with South Africa. However, AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields, both run out of South Africa, rank far higher up in the stock price performance measures, and produce the metal that's turned in the best relative performance among commodities for the past year and more.
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