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February 18, 2008

Why Juniors are Underperforming
by Boris Sobolev

Risk aversion is now the prevailing sentiment for investors in the stock and credit markets. Credit spreads are growing across the board. As just one of many examples, the chart below shows a spike in the ratio between the US treasuries and investment grade corporate bonds to levels not seen since 2002.

Investors are moving money from paper assets to tangibles. Hard assets such as gold, silver, platinum, crude oil and various agricultural products (all part of the Reuters-CRB Index - $CCI) are near new highs.

In the natural resource stock arena, this mounting risk aversion is reflected in the underperformance of small cap juniors. In fact, this class of equities began to fall sharply relative to gold in the summer of 2007, at the same time when fears of the systemic financial crisis started to haunt investors.

This has become somewhat of a puzzle for bargain hunters who are invested in junior mining companies and who have been unable to capitalize on the gold price move since the beginning of the financial crisis in the summer of 2007. In fact, risk aversion has become so severe that small caps traded on the Venture exchange in Canada are now at their lowest level relative to gold (real money) since the beginning of the gold bull market.

This spells opportunity. Unless we are on the brink of falling into a depression (the probability of which, in our opinion, is slim to none), patient investors who continue to build positions in extremely undervalued junior mining companies will be quite pleased with their returns in 2008.

This article continues on the theme addressed in two prior publications: Junior Mining Company Credibility in Question and When Will the Juniors Finally Begin to Rally?

Stock analysis and commentary available for subscribers.

Boris Sobolev
Denver, Colorado
www.ResourceStockGuide.com

Resource Stock Guide (RSG) provides a free dynamic database for over 120 gold, silver and uranium companies. Stock, metal and currency prices are updated daily; company resources, costs, finances, etc. are updated within 2 to 5 business days after their release. Premium Services including the Newsletter are also available.

Database content includes but is not limited to:

A broad list of mineral resource stocks representing the most appealing investment opportunities
The various types of Mineral Resources owned by companies
Value of In Situ Mineral Resources broken down by category
Market Valuation of Resources owned by companies
Geography of mines and projects
Wide range of Financial Metrics, Proprietary Benchmarks and Metrics
Company Profiles containing comprehensive data on individual mines, projects, resources, costs, latest news and developments

RSG tools allow our users to sort, group and compare mining companies based on various characteristics. Moreover, these tools help user identify resource companies that are undervalued compared to their peers and have a potential to appreciate in price.

Disclaimer: The above information in this article pertaining to investing, stocks, securities must be understood as information provided and not investment advice. The information provided by Resource Stock Guide is obtained from sources believed to be reliable but is not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness. Resource Stock Guide advises all readers to seek advice from a registered professional securities representative before deciding to trade in stocks featured on Resource Stock Guide or any stocks for that matter. All statements and expressions of the companies featured are not meant to be a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell, or hold securities.