Stillwater Critical Minerals – Exploration Update And Plans For Further Resource Delineation at Stillwater West
Michael Rowley, President and CEO of Stillwater Critical Minerals (TSX.V: PGE – OTCQB: PGEZF) joins us for an exploration update and the further resource delineation plans at their flagship Stillwater West Project in Montana. We start off by getting a recap of the recent drill results that came back completing the first pass assays of the 14 drill holes completed in the 2021 exploration program. Mike reminds listeners that none of these holes were included in the resource estimate from last year, and the company will also be assaying them again specifically for their rhodium values and then all of that will be included in an updated resource estimate to be released early next year.
Next we review the sense of scale found at the three targe areas drilled over the last few seasons, at the Chrome Mountain area, potentially connecting the Hybrid and DR zones there, along with promising results that were returned at both the CZ area, and the HGR target at the Iron Mountain area. The reason the company chose a new name, was to reflect the keen interest from the mining industry and US government on locating and extracting critical minerals, aligned well with the robust suite of energy metals found in the Stillwater West Project, such as nickel, copper, and cobalt, in addition to the precious metals of platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold.
Next Mike pointed out the parallels to the platreef style deposits found in the Bushveld complex in South Africa, as an analog to the type of polymetallic deposit and similar geological events that caused the mineralization. The company has also recently made two personnel hires that are proficient in this type of mineralization that he highlights. Danie Grobler as Vice-President Exploration and Albie Brits as Senior Geologist, where Dr. Grobler and Mr. Brits both have extensive senior level experience from more than two decades of advancing major deposits on the northern limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex. Their experience will be guiding the new targets and drilling to commence later this year.
If you have any follow up questions for Mike regarding Stillwater Critical Minerals, then please email us at Fleck@kereport.com or Shad@kereport.com.
Click here for company news from Stillwater Critical Minerals
I added some more to my Stillwater Critical Minerals position last week, into this market weakness, as it was already deeply undervalued last year when the market failed to comprehend what a robust maiden resource estimate they put out, much less after selling in the commodity juniors this year taking the valuation down to silly levels.
Now that 14 more excellent drill holes from 2021 have been reported, and they still need to be assayed for Rhodium (check out it’s price action today), then all the value added through this drilling hasn’t received any value and those were not even included in the resource estimate put out last year. They are also getting ready to start targeting for their drill program this year, and all of this is just more value creation, making accumulating at these levels an intriguing risk/reward setup. Cheers!
Cheap … but they aren’t alone in the beat down. It is just the indiscriminate nature of the beat down that is crazy. I would like to thank those that are responsible for the price drops in the metals price but they still won’t be invited to swim in my pool.
Yeah, it’s true that most of the resource stocks have been really beat up here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all as oversold based on the value they have in the ground.
For example, there are near a thousand drill plays available, and 95%-99% of them won’t ever find an economic deposit that will become a mine. Many of the drill plays available are uninvestable at this point in the cycle, because all they have is diminishing money, and overpaid management team and B.O.D., and some land with soil anomalies or some IP surveys. That isn’t much intrinsic value. In contrast, there are a small percentage of companies, like Stillwater Critical Minerals, that actually have repeatedly drilled eye-popping economic intercepts, and produced a resource estimate that will very likely be economical and thus eventually become a mine. There is a difference, and currently the good have been thrown out with the bad or ugly, and so this is the time to be accumulating quality while it is on the clearance rack.
As for who is behind the price drops, I think Mike nailed it in this interview above… that most of the selling we’ve been seeing in the resource stocks is from retail… not so much the seasoned high net worth investors, larger companies with strategic positions, or institutional funds, that have much stronger hands and longer term investment horizons. Also many of these stronger hands already bough in during prior periods when the stocks were likewise deeply oversold, and so they are not the ones selling here. The panic sellers are the proverbial bagholders that bought too high chasing prior moves higher, and now are capitulating as we near the lows… same as it ever was.
I mentioned that last week on Tue & Wed that I deployed a lot of my remaining cash going 99% “all-in” because the stocks finally legitimately were cheap. I had moved over a few more funds later in the week and deployed them throughout this week. Also, I’ve blown out some of the more speculative companies in my portfolio over the last month or so, to keep increasing my position sizing in the companies I have the highest conviction in. I went from 92 positions to as of today down to 57 positions, but have improved my cost basis by taking out the trash, and fortifying the horses I’m betting on.
If I had more cash personally, then I’d be deploying it on days like today as hardly anyone is going to catch the exact bottom (like Brien Lundin outlined at the end of his interview with us today), but these spike capitulation lows are the times to aggressively accumulate. What the heck is the point of the cash if one is not going to be opportunistic when deep valuation arbitrages show up? The sad part is that when things bounce and start ratcheting up 50%, 100%, 200%, 300%, then some of those investors will still be sitting on that cash and be forced to chase things higher. Then if things move up too quickly they’ll complain about that and say they “missed it” or “it’s run too high now so they aren’t chasing it here” — just like they did with copper stocks… just like they did with uranium stocks…. just like they did with lithium stocks….
It wasn’t that long ago that we had that crazy pandemic crash sell-off from late Feb – April of 2020, and in March, when I mentioned repeatedly I was scraping around the couch cushions looking for spare change to throw everything I could at resource stocks in March of 2020, there were so many doing the exact same thing they are this time…. .cowering in cash, selling at the bottom, and snubbing their nose at some of the best valuations on sale that we’d seen in years.
All we heard during that wash out, several times a day was the “You don’t want to try and catch a falling knife” tripe from the trading consensus lemmings. It was the same in the fall of 2018, or in January of 2016, when we joked we were holding our noses and buying more silver stocks and gold juniors. As a result, hardly anyone was actually accumulating the stocks when the prices were truly “low.” I remember how lonely it felt to be one of the few buying those times, and how people that sucked at investing kept warning me not to be buying there. Yeah… OK.
Their fear prevented them from accumulating insanely good value. It is no different now. Most investors fail to buy low, or to sell high, and their emotions usually have them doing the exact opposite of that.
Maybe we still have a bit more of the correction to go throughout July or August (which synchronistically are seasonally a time where gold and mining stocks have bottomed over the last 30-40 years, barring the last 2 wacko years). Accumulating here may still involve 10% or maybe 20% more downside risk, but not accumulating here may risk 200% -400% upside. I’d much rather be a little too early, than too late.
Yes … what he said. I am to the point where I am making trade offs and hopefully for the better. If and when we get movement, that will spurn some more trades. Some start sooner than others, but some will be clearly moving better than others and deserve more investment as things go upward. Some will need profit taking. Some just dumped.
Ditto EX……….. on the upside……. just taking it all in……
Double ditto you two. Ever Upward!
PGE is one of my strong holdings too, for whatever that’s worth, haha.
Nice to be in good company with you Dan!
$18.44 silver
$1844 platinum
Like duh………
🤑
oops……… platinum…. $844……. 🙂
No worries OOTB… What’s a thousand dollars really amongst friends? 🤠
. 🙂
I hope The Dow doesn’t hit 29,000, I am superstitious, of course it will and soon! DT
“We speak our world into existance,” as the saying goes.
dt; the odds of the dow hitting 29,000 is very high.
Doc, You have to wait to the end of the journey to reach easy street, and wait, and wait………..LOL! DT
I am getting a headache …
Lake, the best remedy for a headache is to take two aspirins, place them on your forehead, and smash them with a rubber mallet! DT😜
Sometimes backing away from the glowing screen, and newsflow, and numbers, and other such minutia, and then getting some fresh air with a nature walk, while downing a glass of water is a nice way to ease a headache.
Just another option over the rubber mallet to the head aspirin smash method. Haha!
DT
It worked. How do you get blood stains off a rubber mallet?
Haha! Good one Lakedweller2. 🙂
Steve Penny puts out a lot of great content and interviews on a number of platforms and also to his followers. I personally have a lot of respect for the man as a person, and for his considerable knowledge that he shares with so many.
He is quite level-headed when approaching risk/reward setups, and he put out a note today that seemed worth sharing as just good advice. It stems around investors having a strategy around different pricing scenarios, and it is spot on. There are 3 different accumulation strategies he reviews and it is good to look inward at one’s own accumulation strategy as to how each of us approaches the markets.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Penny
Trading, Hard Asset Investing
Long-Term “Active Investing” Portfolio
🟢 I’ll post a video update shortly, and will address questions from yesterday’s alert, but I wanted to let you know that I am using much of my remaining cash to add to {for subscribers only, but it was 5 different positions} on today’s big selloff.
Comments from yesterday:
“At the risk of being overly repetitive, below are are the highlights of my personal accumulation strategy. I have a very high risk tolerance and a multi-year timeframe, so am comfortable scaling in on weakness even though short-term downside risk remains.
A more conservative approach is to wait for a technical reversal prior to making additional purchases.
——– Accumulation Strategy ——–
As both a long-term “active investor” and a short-term trader, I employ three different accumulation strategies when scaling in to positions.
🔹Dollar Cost Average: As mentioned above, I buy physical metals on an automated schedule each month, regardless of the price.
🔹Scale In On Pullbacks to Logical Support Levels: When it comes to buying longer-term positions, my strategy is to buy pullbacks to support. This may sound overly simplistic, but our human emotions often tell us to buy when things are technically stretched and approaching major resistance and sentiment is euphoric. Technical analysis gives us an edge in identifying clear support levels, buy points and likely turning points.
🔹Buy Technical Breakouts: A more conservative approach is to accumulate positions on breakouts above resistance. I do this when Swing Trading, but it’s also viable when scaling in to longer term positions in a strong trending market.
Plan ahead, and use a strategy that best suits you. The important thing is to have a plan!”
David Brady – another analyst and thought leader in our sector who I have a lot of respect for shared this in response to Steve’s post. If you are not familiar with David’s work, you can see some of it over at Sprott money as one of their featured writers, on his twitter page, or I believe he also has a subscriber service. In a nutshell David’s been warning investors to be patient, that there would be more downside from a medium term perspective since last year, and he reiterated that for these last few months. David has been holding off deploying his dry powder… until just this week.
Here is some food for thought as to what one of the pros is doing, and it is one of those posts that got me to sit up and pay closer attention, because David is NOT a permabull, and has been driving everyone crazy by telling them his technicals and sentiment readings and quant analysis had him expecting more weakness, and that in his opinion it wasn’t time to buy quite yet. It appears he is now moving PM storage money over into the PM mining stocks.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
David Brady 13hours ago –
“For the first time ever since I started buying physical Gold and Silver in 2015, I am selling some Gold today. Why?”
“Wait for it… to buy more miners, especially Silver miners. Although we don’t know if the low is in yet and it could go much lower, the risk-reward profile down here is ridiculously skewed to the upside imho, so I want as much leverage as possible for what follows. Just an FYI.”
“I’m up to my eyeballs in physical metals, I’m shaving off 10% of my holdings for miners.”
It is nice to know that both Steve and David are deploying money into the mining stocks both this week, and Steve was last week as well. I’ve been doing the same and really got aggressive in shooting off a lot of my remaining dry powder last week, but moved over a few more funds out of deep savings the end of last week and deployed it this week. I also did some horse trading amongst positions, and have reduced down the overall number of positions in my portfolio by about 35%, but rolled those funds immediately into the core positions I’m holding and beefed them up the last 2 weeks for larger position sizing.
Again, I can’t imagine sitting on a ton of cash right now and not having deployed some of it on days like today or what we’ve seen the last 2 weeks. I’ve now added to nearly 30 of my existing positions in just the last 2 weeks, and don’t feel these mining stocks in gold, silver, copper, nickel, platinum/palladium, or uranium are pricey here in the slightest.
Like I’ve mentioned previously, and like both Steve and David mentioned, sure there could still be more downside from here, but things are getting extremely oversold here and very skewed to a fantastic risk/reward setup at present valuations. I’m prepared to stomach another 10%-20% drawdown from present levels, but believe the medium to longer term setup, for people prepared to hold until 2023 to 2024 is a multi-bagger 200%-400%+ returns from the levels we are at presently.
Here is a very revealing Copper spot price – 3 month rate-of-change chart:
Looks like we are getting closer to a point where Dr Copper will set up for a bounce and a reversion to the mean.
Just a few months ago Copper was over $5, and as of right now it’s plunged down to $3.16.
That’s a huge move in a base metal in that short an amount of time, and it says a great deal about how the market feels about economic growth prospects, but is also getting pretty oversold down at these levels. Did the macro supply/demand picture for copper really change that much in just a few months?
back in nugt big for me…29.30…using 1 min through 5 min macd ss and OBV plus RSI plus volume on 30 minute testing yesterdays blow down volume…not even close…waiting for /GC to close above 1704.50…glta
/Gc needs 1737 fast to move the macd to confirm…dangerous out there…gulp
type 4 red hammer yesterday daily….a weak hammer signal… but what if today ends w a green hammer type 1 candle…this is a rare bullish signal….what is a mother to do?…lmao
Hi Larry – Thanks for sharing your technical observations with us here at the KE Report. It is much appreciated!
Yes, we’ll see how that candle ends the day at the close…
Even for short term trading, I do not yet like the setup. Another new low looks likely for GDX to me but it will probably get moving to the upside in a few days.
It just looks weak at the moment.
2 hr
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=GDX&p=120&yr=0&mn=4&dy=0&id=p65293566896&a=1188330427&r=1657906904298&cmd=print
NEM also looks weak which is especially not good late on a Friday. Maybe it will suddenly strengthen in the remaining two hours but I don’t like it at the moment…
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=NEM&p=W&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p66129038574&a=1205587517
DXY 10 minute chart…Notice the first small breakdown retraced back up .618 and now the past 2 retraces are only able to bounce .382…This is a bearish condition right here and now…..could change on a dime…glta
yep…that chart is all the reason I need to buy….
https://tos.mx/Y2mQYHt
This day HUI shows price is to the right side of its C to D leg…So relatively strong compared to the A to B leg down…So, this helps it not achieve its target at 1:1 of D @170.15
A lot of similar looking supports in the miners broke lately so I’m not so sure this one won’t, at least briefly.
I don’t like NEM’s lack strength either, especially late on a Friday. Maybe it will strengthen suddenly in the remaining two hours but I don’t like it at the moment.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=NEM&p=W&yr=5&mn=0&dy=0&id=p66129038574&a=1205587517
yep, volumes dying on the ABC up 10 minute…out
Well everything did strengthen into the close but that obviously doesn’t negate the possibility of another dip next week. Even so, the odds favor a higher close for gold next week since this was its 5th straight week lower and the last time we saw a longer run down was in late 2015.
Considering gold’s action today, I think it could easily see 1680 next week and maybe 1655.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24GOLD&p=D&yr=1&mn=6&dy=0&id=p79638292641&a=1051150724
NEM…g on tuesday…ideal….hug the channel down….nem is testing high volume S.L. characteristic of 11/29/21 ….on 2/3rds volume…..
day nem channel…https://tos.mx/Jjo1ytD
Silver:Gold put in a big bearish engulfing pattern which strongly suggests that the short term remains “risk-off” for now.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24SILVER%3A%24GOLD&p=D&yr=1&mn=6&dy=0&id=p45035680072&a=1089132461
Silver:Copper remains on track as it gets closer to completing its biggest low since 2018. It’s up sharply since May and just made a 52 week high for the first time in 2 years.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24SILVER%3A%24COPPER&p=W&yr=7&mn=2&dy=0&id=t9036759025c&a=722623336&r=1657917206365&cmd=print
A new monthly MACD buy signal is imminent and will be the first in 4 years…
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24SILVER%3A%24COPPER&p=M&yr=25&mn=11&dy=0&id=p01738899248&a=1029108470&r=1657917602888&cmd=print
A slightly lower low for Silver:CRB next week would be fine with me.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24SILVER%3A%24CRB&p=M&yr=25&mn=11&dy=0&id=p72611152396&a=1189668128&r=1657917706420&cmd=print
The TSX-V vs CRB fell for 7 months straight last year and is now working on 8 months straight for this year. It only managed to fall for 6 straight in 2008…
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=%24CDNX%3A%24CRB&p=M&yr=18&mn=5&dy=0&id=t1392976040c&a=1191117099&r=1657927822203&cmd=print
Picked up some more. Been eyeing all day long. (Stillwater)