Thanks for keeping this site warm , your posts are most appreciated. There must be a lot of (former) FWR folks looking for something to read. Well, it would also be nice to see regular some posters on a site that does not require any pumping. My comments on CLF, and why boring is really beautiful, are:

1) I think you can start by throwing away both the pre-2010 charts, as well as many of the pre-2010 metrics;

2) Look at what resources CLF owned/controlled in 2008, then add in all the deals since then and adjust for more recent pricing;

3) Factor in the Cr plus other things they have their mitts on due to the mega majors focussing largely on financial deals for existing developments. They can have the pick of the junior litter right now in their core areas;

4)Factor in their transparent approach to dealing with juniors and the result that people really like to deal with them;

5)Factor in their highly accepted stock as currency for deal making;

6)Factor in a product focus that does not require massive development capital project by project, substantially reducing risk;

7)Factor in natural locational advantages;

8)Factor in the new broad shareholder base of the index;

IMHO, what you really have is a very high quality growth platform almost perfectly tuned to the growth in Asia. While I feel there are other intangibles, such as not a lot of North American competition in their core expertise areas, the shorts who gambled on charts should probably be hoping for an asteroid.