Post on Caras board..

Junior miners into production - banks are not lending.

That was the strong message from two guests on BNN yesterday. Bill Harris of Avenue Investments said this was the theme at the recent Vancouver Cambridge Gold Conference.

Harris seemed a pure mining guy, and fielded phoned-in questions on a range of juniors. He maintained that if bank facilities can't now be counted on, then the equity portion also can't be financed.

Harris' conclusion was to invest only in beaten down miners who have production and cashflow (Lundin, Cameco were two picks).

Perhaps this(alongside escalating production costs and resulting doubts about juniors' ore grades)explains why juniors (as a group) have been languishing. If juniors can't finance the move into production, and seniors aren't now acquiring juniors in significant numbers, what catalyst remains for juniors' stock?

There's always new finds, and Press Releases on the increasing definition of the resources concerned. However, this leads to another conclusion (of mine): for now, well-funded junior explorers are the priority. What Kaimu calls "rob-power" - the ability of a super-promoter to attract funds becomes paramount.

Special cases including McFaulds Lake may be safe places to trade, since they already command large investor interest, and because the best names in Canadian mining are backing the major McFaulds' players.

For most quality juniors, we've been given time to study, and get positioned for their (to me inevitable) ignition and take-off.

This can begin when banks start lending to juniors again (allowing moves to production) and/or when seniors start acquiring juniors in significant numbers. At some point, seniors need to replace reserves, and most have apparently virtually eliminated their in-house exploration capabilities.

John Stephenson of First Asset funds (who spoke of both energy and mining juniors) said to watch for a couple of months of leadership by the financials as an indicator of when the deep freeze is thawing.

Remember, there had been another ominous voice earlier this week on BNN: Paul Van Eeden, who said he had liquidated all but a few small positions in juniors, and moved to cash.

Or does this chorus of grim voices suggest a contrary move coming from the juniors? What do people think?