Read this: The real names have been changed to protect the innocent: This was sent to me from a member of my investment group who basically works harder at researching things like this and is better at doing it than just about anyone you will ever meet. He also is a great baseball coach.

Bull,

I have been doing a bit of sleuthing specifically in regards to the institutional positions in Kimber that I was unfamiliar with. We are both very aware of Jim Puplava's and John Embry's affinity towards this company and it is evident in the personal holdings of Jim and the Institutional/Fund ownership of Puplava Securities and Sprott Asset Management (John Embry). However, recently a company, Renaissance Technologies Corp., (hereafter referred to as RTC) has taken an interest in Kimber as well. As of December 31, 2007 they had a 50,000 share position in the company and as of March 31, 2008, they have increased that position over 400% to 250,500 shares. Turns out RTC is one of the largest and top performing hedge fund management companies in the world. They use a strategy employing mathematical formulas and complex computer programs to manage their funds and have done quite well. They don't hire Wall Street analysts, in fact never have. They hire the top brilliant minds in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Programming, Astronomy etc. Turns out they are the envy of most hedge fund management firms as they have posted positive gains year in year out even when investment arms of companies like Goldman Sachs, J P Morgan, etc., have been taking it on the chin. With the help of a good friend and fellow Kimber shareholder, Paul, I have come up with a theory that suggests that there is a fundamental element influencing RTC's investment strategy and its fairly recent foray into PM mining companies. Allow me to first present the evidence. I have hypothesized that a company dedicated to investing solely based upon ultra-technical mathematical formulas, absent of any fundamental influence, would possibly make a sector play. Basically their models and programs have determined that Precious Metals Mining companies should outperform the market over X number of days/months etc. To test this theory, I pulled the SEC record, (published 5/15/2008) for RTC and reviewed their holdings as of 3/31/2008, expecting to see a large basket of positions in different mining companies across the globe. What I found was that RTC had only taken positions in 14 such companies. Here is where it gets interesting. Of those 14 companies, all but one are Canadian owned and 9 have land holdings/projects in Mexico. It gets even better. When I was reviewing their SEC record I saw that RTC had a roughly 12,000,000 share position, (over 2% ownership) in Loews Corp. (hereafter referred to as LC), (a holding company with a market cap of approx. 27 billion), I recognized the name of this company as another institutional share holder of Kimber. In fact, LC has a position of just over 640,000 shares, (nominally, their largest position in a mining company). Having pulled the SEC record as of 3/31/2008 for LC, I reviewed their holdings in the same fashion as RTC's and found that they have taken position only in 14 PM companies of which all but two are Canadian owned, (one is American owned, the other has a Grand Cayman address). Furthermore, 8 of the companies have land holdings in Mexico. In all of this there definitely appears to be a level of fundamental awareness associated with the selections that have been made by these two companies. This is where Paul comes in with his modeling. He explained that multiple mathematical models can be used in tandem with one another and with more abstract models that might take into account, topography, infrastructure, geographic location, political stability, history, the mating habits of hamsters, not just hamsters, but Mexican hamsters, etc., (I am just kidding regarding the mating habits of hamsters), providing the user with a substantial amount of information with which to make solid technical and, to a certain degree, fundamental decisions. He went even further to state that currently the efforts are being placed upon incorporating all of this information and modeling to such a degree that intuitive leaps can be made by the models/programs themselves, this is referred to as Neural Net Methodology, otherwise known as AI (Artificial Intelligence) as it is patterned after the way the brain solves problems and processes data. It even incorporates a learning phase). Regardless, it appears that RTC and LC, this "smart money", and the entirety of their collective arsenals, has not only chosen exposure to precious metals mining companies for their portfolios, they have also identified Canadian ownership and land holdings within Mexico as the sector to be in within the sector to be in within the sector to be in.

Your Good Friend,

Hawkeye

To find an interesting original article on The Renaissance Hedge Fund, go to Reuters: Renaissance Hedge Fund: Only Scientists Need Apply