Hi bonzo. I hold both Aurion and Firefox as well, and believe they are both solid projects, as is Rupert resources that has led the charge higher in Finland recently.

With Aurion, they are coming out of a tough period (for the reasons Dave Lotan reviewed as the “cold cards” the company was dealt for a time), but they’ve show in the past they have the high grade goods, and in particular if they can hit on some of the regional drilling and find some areas even more prospective than Aamurusko, then it will highlight their district scale potential. Also, I’m personally very interested to see how B2Gold does on their JV properties with Aurion, and their drilling starts up later this month.

In the short-term, there is likely more upside in Firefox Gold, with the Quinton and Crescat interest, and it being a newer story for most market participants that is gaining traction. If they hit with the drill bit, with all this renewed interest in Finland, then I could see Firefox really put on it’s dancing shoes.

All three of these companies (Aurion, Rupert, Firefox) are still quite prospective for continuing to make more eye-popping discoveries. I still will tip my hat to the fact that when Aurion found those high-grade boulder fields, and brought the majors up for site visits, that is really what kicked off this gold mining cycle in Finland, and then Rupert’s recent exploration successes are what hit the turbo-charge button.

This seemed like a good time to bring Aurion on, because after a tough 2 years, they are ready to go out and really start pushing the exploration envelop once again on a number of known and new targets, which could be a good catalyst.

There was also the personal tragedy that the prior President and CEO Mike Basha endured, and he has recently stepped down from some of his management roles (but still is involved with the team as Technical Advisor) and he has passed the baton of leadership over to the new CEO Matti Talikka.

This could be an exciting time for Aurion to come back out to the market with a renewed zest for exploration further testing the thesis that they began proving out a few years back. We’ll follow along as some of those drill assays come back in and see how things develop from here.

Hi aghead. As for AXU Alexco, it has been beaten down, as their rampup to commercial production as taken longer than expected (not a surprise in the mining industry), but nothing really fundamentally has changed in the story.

Alexco still has all the high grade Silver ounces in the ground, along with Lead and Zinc, the new deposits like Flame & Moth and Bermingham / Bermingham Deep to keep expanding, the mining declines are in place, and the mill is (and has been) built. The story hasn’t changed much over the last year, and Silver prices have held onto most of their gains from the mid $teens to the mid $20s, so their operational margins still look great.

The weakness may not be over quite yet, but if resource investors liked AXU last summer at much higher prices, and nothing has fundamentally changed in the company, projects, resources, mines/mills, or metals price, then they’d be wise to take advantage of corrective moves like this. Personally I just added some more shares to my AXU position 2 weeks back on July 23rd @ $2.07. If we see more weakness from here then I’ll throw another log on the AXU fire, and await commercial production in Q4 from Flame & Moth.

Proves there are at least two others in the world interested in the gold market; at least one buyer and one seller.