Blame it on Subprime Loans!

So what do subprime loans have to do with uranium and the near-term producers and junior exploration companies we follow? Everything and nothing. What we mean by that is everything is impacted by the subprime loan controversy and its ripple affects through the mortgage, financial and housing markets, as well as its consequent impact upon the commercial paper market and entire asset-backed financial instrument market. Yet at the same time nothing has changed with uraniums or the outlook any of the companies we follow.

What has changed is perception and the market's appreciation of risk. The quants and "Rocket Scientists" on Wall Street armed with their black boxes have succeeded in unsettling all of the markets worldwide.

When the margin calls hit it is only normal to sell that portion of your portfolio which is not marginable, i.e., our junior uranium stocks , most of which trade under $5 per share. Likewise, if you wanted to reduce the risk and beta within your portfolio it would be reasonable to liquidate the juniors. Others have sold uraniums simply because they had such large gains (which might now need to be realized to offset capital losses elsewhere). We see signs of stabilization in both our sector and the overall market. Our gameplan is to stay the course as our investment thesis remains intact.

Pressure...

"Pushing down on me, pushing down on you
Watching some good friends
Screaming let me out
Pray Tomorrow-Gets me higher
Pressure on People-People on Streets
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a Fence But it Don't Work..."

-David Bowie and Queen

We thought that these lyrics from an older song pretty much summed it up. Wall Street and Bay Street have people scared to death, and have people just wishing the markets would be closed. Many of the casual investors at this point have walked away, and even those who did decide to sit on the fence and park their money in a money market account have felt the wrath of the market. Money market funds have been found to contain tainted paper in the form of mortgage backed securities which paid out a higher yield than the fund and allowed the fund management company to turn a profit. It seems that now the entire financial sector is entangled in this sub prime web of deceit that we can finally all begin to relate to the 'pressure' referred to.


The past 3 weeks have gone from ugly, to uglier, and we have finally arrived at ugliest. It is admittedly hard to sit back and watch as the entire uranium sector gets pounded day after day, but in these times research pays off. Luckily we had the chance to escape out of town for a brief vacation, which allowed us the freedom to watch afar and keep away from the day-long market watch we usually engage ourselves in.

Now that we are back in town, and our battery is a bit recharged, let us tell you the reason we sleep very well at night. First off, the bull is alive and well so long as world mine production stays below the world's reactor requirements and there is not a repeat of Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. We have also positioned our portfolio so that it has uranium miners from producers to explorers and everything between. This diversification allows us to play the entire industry and know that even if the explorers find nothing, we will not be left empty handed.

Months ago an article ran on this site warned of the coming implosion of Private Equity, and that it would be a revolt from small investors tired of funding what were really LBOs. The article which included that idea now seems to have come full circle, however not exactly as predicted. Investors did balk at the LBOs, and quit buying the paper which funded the deals, as they had been taken advantage of for far too long, and this is when the pendulum began to turn back. Next the hands which fed this LBO craze decided to cut off funding for the deals in order to protect themselves (those on Wall Street always look out for 'Number One'). This will clear up, but everyone is running scared as a few hedge funds have gone belly up and others are unwinding huge trades. In all honesty, if you look at the number of funds we know have gone under versus those out there...it is a small number, but one which is likely to grow still.

So what is one to do in this market? Honestly, this past week out of town reminded us just what we should also do...NOTHING! That's right, nothing. If you look at the broader indices, and then break it down between large caps and small caps it is easy to see where the selling is. Going over the stats which we missed, it appears that large caps are taking the beating to a larger extent than their smaller brethren. This may fall within the area that everything that can be sold either will be sold, or has already been sold. It is kind of hard to move large numbers of shares of illiquid stocks when no one wants to buy, in fact in this type of market that would be impossible. This was not an original idea from us, but we confirmed that this is what is going on, and when you want to see someone selling in an illiquid market and what it does, well then look no further than the current situation in the uranium equities. We are experiencing the inverse in our current situation, where the smaller, higher risk explorers are being abandoned without remorse and the near term producers are falling with the general market.

Should you doubt our reasoning here, look no further than Continental Precious Resources (CZQ), Mawson Resources (MAW), and then like and then take a look at Denison Mines (DML) and Uranium One (SXR). The two explorers have had extremely high volume the past 7 trading days while the large cap uranium companies have seen a modest rise in volume over the same time. Mega and Pinetree have come under intense pressure the past few days with both stocks down around 40%. Most likely due to hedge fund or mutual fund selling in the case of PNP, but in general people are afraid of the market right now. Make no mistake, the streets are awash in blood which is usually a great time to buy however there are still more uncertainties in the market and more blood may spill. Long term traders could enter the market here, but our guess is many will keep their cash on the sidelines until it is clear the credit crisis is over.

You will find no bigger bull out there for the economy, uranium, and stocks in general however I must admit it looks gloomy at best. We could be in store for some very dark days as we sort through the housing/mortgage/sub-prime mess we currently find ourselves in. Uraniums could test their lows for the year which were achieved around this same time last calendar year and the general markets in the US could retest their lows set in February. If we go below those, this could be a replay of the '98 Asian Contagion, and as bad as that was we must all remember how brief it affected our markets. The strong US economy bailed the world out in those times, and now the world may very well pay us back with its healthy economy.

All In!

For quite some time we have been saying that our Canadian uranium stocks had a good chance of going lower by 10% to around 245 for -theinvestar's Canadian Uranium Average. We just closed at 245.9636 after the past two trading days gave many stocks a good haircut. Now we are buyers, strong buyers and believe that buyer's remorse is something that we need not worry about at this time. Many of the stocks which have just led the index down are the 'Blue chips' of the industry, thus indicating to us that for many investors they have, sadly, moved on. Now we invision that over the next week stocks will bottom out and move higher, and over the next month will move higher still. Our guess is that the index will rise by 10% in the next month, based not only on the index and its history but also the individual stocks within the index and their tendencies.

Now we have had our doubters recently, but we are sticking to our guns. Our guess was that Australia would lead us ahead, just as they led us downwards earlier this summer. If you look at the chart, it appears that -theinvestar's Australian Uranium Average has bottomed and in fact is attempting to move forward at this time. So quite honestly, we may be in our lag period and shortly going to follow the Australians higher. Right now news seems to be horrible for uranium, the commodity, but our guess is that it will only get better as fears ease regarding Japan and plans are laid out regarding the Nuclear Renaissance here in North America and abroad. This news is weighing heavily on uranium stocks, much more than it should be, and the problem will be corrected in the near future.

One stock we will be adding to our portfolio will be Energy Fuels (EFR.TO) which has been beaten down recently over mill concerns. They announced that they will seek permitting to build their own mill as Denison seems to be bullying them around (along with BRD.v which is also in our portfolio), but this should work itself out. First Denison has a monopoly on the geographic area, so they better behave or they could face the wrath of the Justice Department. They are operating in a very vital sector to the US economy (nuclear power accounts for roughly 20% of electricity capacity), so one could imagine that the Government has an interest in keeping supply flowing from these new mines and thus increasing supply to the US nuclear plants. In the long run, Denison would be wise to let EFR and BRD piggy-back on their milling capacity so as to avoid competition. EFR has already stated they want to build a mill now, and we hear rumors that BRD may be looking into doing the same. Also, STM is permitting a mill in New Mexico which will be built in part by a Global Fortune 500 company and SXR is bringing its mill in Wyoming online in the near future. EFR has options, and at this price we think it is a buy, so at C$2.38 we will take our initial position.

Our other trade will be the purchase of Universal Uranium at C$1.40, a stock we had looked at before but one in which we own the company it is merging with Silver Spruce Resources. Now we had added shares earlier to our portfolio, but at this point we see the spread between the two stocks widening, so this is our arbitrage play. Should the SSE gold company spin-off be worth much more than the UUL US uranium company spin-off, then the trade will be a wash. Our math indicates that the gold assets are worth more, but not this much more, thus our buying at this time. If you do not like the trade based upon that information, check out the Two Time Zone drill results and you will be a fan if not already.

Mawson Resources will be added to give the portfolio some more exposure to European uranium as well as take advantage of the current price of the stock. At C$1.95 the stock is a bit off of its support, and a distance away from its next support, however with its low float and great properties it could rise higher in dramatic fashion as was seen recently.

Our final addition will be Santoy Resources (SAN.v) at C$.80, which is already in our portfolio as well, however the stock is unloved right now. They may have the southern extension of the Two Time Zone area (the SSE/UUL property) and the market to this point has been unreceptive to those drill results. The company has a JV with Mega on some highly prospective ground in the CMB, including an area which is believed to host an extension of Crosshair's 'C-Zone'. The company will begin drilling south of Two Time Zone at the end of August, and the geologists believe that they have a handle on what the geology of the area looks like.

We are going to flash our buy signal here, and add to our portfolio here with these stocks. We like SXR, DML, PDN, and LAM at these prices as well, however we go for the home runs and believe that our new additions will provide us with the next group of large percentage gainers for our portfolio. These purchases will leave us with 0% allocated to cash at this time as we believe the bottom is at this point, give or take a few points of course!

Born to Run

We must say that last Thursday we were pleasantly pleased to see the news regarding Oilsands Quest (BQI) a company we have been bullish on for over a year. The company released management's estimate for the Axe Lake Discovery Area as well as surrounding exploration areas. Management believes that the Axe Lake Discovery Area (Axe Lake) holds 1.4 to 1.5 billion barrels along with an estimate of 0.7 to 1.3 billion barrels as an additional resource. This will serve as our estimates going forward until the independent consultant's estimate comes out in Fall 2007. Regarding the company's other Saskatchewan permits (those to the south and northeast), management estimates that there is a potential 3.0 billion barrel resource present. In the new permits that the company obtained in Alberta (these permits being adjacent to BQI's Saskatchewan permits) the company estimates that on two townships the resource potential is approximately 4.5 billion barrels. So, if one were to take management's estimate for Axe Lake (2.5 billion-when rounded, as suggested by management through their press release) and add it with the estimated potential for the south and northeast areas (3.0 billion) with the Alberta estimates to-date (4.5 billion) we arrive at the potential for 10 billion barrels of oil! Personally, I believe that Oilsands Quest is worth $20 per share, as stated numerous times over the past year. With this resource estimate we could be on our way to that very number, however getting to $10 is going to be a very tough feat in itself.

My philosophy regarding investing is that sometimes you have to read between the lines, as well as have a long-term memory. Many people possess only a short-term outlook and do not believe in their research or ability to buy stocks based on future trends. These are the people who are going to make going through the $4, $5, and even $6 ranges much more difficult than should be. Many investing books (those from the great traders of times past) tend to portray stocks crossing $100 as uptrend stocks and on their way to $120. Well my bet is that this stock will have some tough times crossing the $5 barrier, but after $6 it should be on its way to $10. Once at $10, the stock should spend some time on its way to $20.

Now every time I make a prediction like this, my mailbox gets filled with emails saying how crazy I must be. But please hear me out. First, the company has mentioned in conference calls that they are looking for a Joint Venture partner for the Axe Lake area and I think that this partner may get a decent deal in return for a large cash buy-in. In other words, BQI will get some cash in return for a smaller portion of the project, but this first project is key. With this project, a plant will be built along with a pipeline to connect to the main lines in Alberta. This infrastructure for Axe Lake will lower the costs on further projects that the company can bring online through continued drilling (what the cash could pay for), thus making more areas of their exploration land economical. This is all hypothetical, because neither I nor the company has any idea of how a JV will or should be structured at this time, and will probably only know when the JV is finally put together.

When people finally begin to discover this stock, which currently sports a market cap of almost $1 billion, I think they will fall in love with it. Currently each of these barrels is worth only $.10, but for patient investors we could see this increase dramatically over the next few months. In any natural resource stock, resources are valued at their lowest level after first discovery. However, as those resources near production their value grows exponentially as investors have reason to believe that they will be extracted and thus monetized. Look no further than our uranium stocks, any company that has, or soon will be, bringing new mines into production saw their price skyrocket in anticipation of this. We shall be patient regarding BQI because we see some good news ahead. Here is what we see in the months ahead:

1.) Independent Consultant's estimate for Axe Lake
2.) Potential JV
3.) Further Drilling (keep in mind that all drilling to date has been over 70% successful!)

We have been nibbling at BQI over the past few months and increased our position by 10% over that time. Although these barrels are worth only $.10 at this point, I can take comfort in the fact that the company reported last year that they are adding each barrel at a cost of $.02/barrel. A final thought regarding BQI is that their reserves last year were worth much more than at current levels, and even if the stock were at its all-time high right now, it would still be undervalued based on previous valuations afforded it by investors within the past 18 months. Now one could argue those valuations were in the hope of huge bitumen reserves being discovered, but is that not what we have now done? Only time will tell, but from now until December will be a very telling time for the stock.

Another story that we have our eye on is in Japan. A recent earthquake caused a fire and water leak (the water contained radioactive material) which went into the Sea of Japan. This is the second fire at a nuclear power plant in roughly 2 months (the other being in Germany) with both resulting from acts of nature. In Germany the fire was a brush fire and quickly taken care of, and the German government (currently run by those who wanted to kill all the German nuke plants, before realizing that this was not a viable solution to solving the energy/greenhouse problems) deemed it to be of non-importance, as they have not really mentioned it at any news conferences or in interviews. In Japan however, we now have to take into account whether these plants have been nature-proofed, because we already know that they are human-proofed. We shall keep our eye on this and see how the environmentalists seize this opportunity to proclaim nuke plants unsafe. The water was within the legal limit (by a billionth) for release, so legally there is not a problem here, but once again this is quite important as to how the public perceives nuke plants and their environmental impact.

Forgotten Risks to the Market

The market seems to have treated us quite well over the past week, with investors rushing back into uranium stocks due to geopolitical risks in Africa becoming front page news as well as more bad news regarding Cameco's Cigar Lake. Other good news for metals/mining stocks was the Rio Tinto/Alcan deal, which was at a 38% premium to Alcoa's all stock deal. It now seems apparent that miners are more than willing to shell out their cash to buy assets, which to us indicates a very strong commodities market for years to come.

The Chinese seem to have put an emphasis on investing in African resources over the years, our first memory of this was their investment in Sudanese oil years back, but now they are focusing on African uranium. They recently had a senior mining executive kidnapped, and even shut operations down until the problem could be resolved. Today, the executive has been returned, most likely for a ransom, and it is now business as usual. This is a fairly commong practice in Africa, but one which could become quite annoying as well as much more dangerous in the years to come. Hopefully with these countries getting a second chance with their resource wealth with the currrent booming commodities market, they will invest their money into helping enhance the quality of life of the citizens rather than seeing how much money they can swindle into their own personal sluch funds. Maybe we will see the mining companies do this to an extent, much as the oil companies have done in areas around the world with similiar problems. Investors became complacent about the risks associated with African uranium, but had a rude awakening with this news. African uranium should be discounted as problems such as these can arise at any moment, just think about every time Shell has to shut operations in Nigeria due to rebels interfering with operations. One bright spot for now is Namibia, which we have pointed out numerous times for its uranium wealth and geopolitical stability. Currently the country does not have the same problems as the rest of Africa and is possibly even a better place for business than South Africa (due to SA's rules requiring minority ownership in projects, which is usually just given to an empowerment group).

Cigar Lake is a situation which could get much worse before it gets any better. In fact, one would have to assume this is the case right now, which is why we are not adding to our very small position in the company. We keep that position as a hedge to the general uranium industry as well as to keep some exposure to the market leader. However, our ideal time to buy will be when the company is beginning to actually mine the project, not any time before that. Do we think that the stock has upside potential, of course! This will be due to earnings increasing as a result of their expiring long-term contracts which are grossly under the current long-term market price. I do suspect however, that SXR (now named Uraniumone, but we are using the ticker symbol here) will overtake Cameco as the most profitable uranium pure play miner in the next few years. The Cigar Lake news seemed to be priced pretty well into Cameco's share price, however the general market seemed to have been caught off guard. It allowed for a very interesting correction in valuations as Cameco stalled out, and the newer producers and future potential producers zoomed ahead. It must be noted that SXR and DML led the way upwards from the early morning, and it is only a matter of time before they begin to catch the eye of Wall Street.

We were one of the first people to say that uranium could go to $500/lb., as it was still economical at that price but said a realistic top could be the $400/lb. level as it would still allow for profits from the huge capital requirements for the plants. We took some ridicule for that prediction, that is until others (who admittedly are and were more established began beating the drum to $500/lb. uranium, and even $1,000!!!!) came on board and the price rose from $50 to $130 over the past few months. Our next idea is not that groundbreaking or even going that far out on a limb, however we forsee a boom cycle in the commoditities sector for years to come. Why do we see this? Well, probably because the companies see this although Cameco management would have you believe otherwise. With the most recent merger announced, Rio Tinto will purchase for $43 Billion, Alcan, the Canadian aluminum concern who was in search of a white knight in order to fend off Alcoa (the world's second largest concern). Now usually white knights need not worry about dramatically outbidding the unwanted suitor, but Rio bid up 38% higher the buying price for Alcan, thus chasing away Alcoa. Oh yea, and did we forget to mention it was an all cash deal? Add all of this together and one can understand that Rio's management believes that they can make this acquisistion work, and work very well in the short term as well. After all, if you use your own cash to do a deal rather than stock, one has a reasonable expectation that the cash will be replaced within the near future. Mining stocks have further to go, as do uranium stocks. In the next 3 years we should expect Rio and BHP to move into the uranium sector in a big way, and as only these two companies could.

At this time we are still bullish on SSE (although playing it through their merger partner Universal Uranium), MAW, and adding Continental Precious Metals (CZQ) to our portfolio at the current price of C$2.83.

So Close to the Botton

The spot uranium price seems to have stalled at its current level, quite possibly because it appeared that there would be many willing sellers at these prices. However, although the price stalled, 2 of the auctions were halted and undoubtedly postponed. Eventually these supplies will come to market, but most assuredly the sellers will not be foolish enough to time them back-to-back-to-back as was attempted. Along with the pause, or breather if you will, in U3O8 prices we have also seen uranium stocks not only stall, but break down! In fact, the downtrend is still intact, and after the most recent lows we were about 5% from what we believe will be the bottom this summer.

We could almost smell the blood in the streets on Tuesday, and had Wednesday been another down day to continue the trend we may have thought that the end was near. Instead, Tuesday's sell-off was most likely some funds taking profits, or at the very least moving some money around, and not the margin calls and panick selling that will be required to begin the next leg of this bull run. See the chart for yourself and you will understand what we are talking about. Everytime we have a new low, the market rebounds and so long as that trend continues, the index trend shall continue downwards as well. We will need to literally bottom out and have a pause, because at this point many of the stocks in the index simply appear to be bouncing off of support levels which investors perceive indicate the stock cannot go any lower. We need to see more of these supports broken across the board, and at that time will no the end is near.

We had also begun to scour through our portfolio for stocks to double down on when the time was right, and we had on Monday made a trade on an upcoming merger with one of our Labrador picks. On Monday we purchased what was an initial "nibble" at Universal Uranium thinking that their spun-off properties would be worth more than those being spun off from Silver Spruce (one of our original Labrador picks). It appears that a certain newsletter writer sent out an email to subscribers with a bullish recommendation in regards to Silver Spruce and the upcoming merger. SSE was up roughly 35% on Tuesday, which resulted in it and UUL being just about the only U3O8 stocks ending the day in positive territory. At this point one must take a look at both sides of the trade, and figure out which assets from the spin-off are more desirable, but our main interest is in the Labrador properties themselves. Our belief has always been that one of our picks from our move into the Labrador area would result in 'the next Aurora' and Silver Spruce may be just the stock now. They will own 100% of the Two Time Zone property and have plenty of other property to drill. Only time will tell, however at this time it appears that this is the way to play further exploration in the Central Mineral Belt.

Australia has been in the same funk as Canada with a downtrend that remains intact. Buy on the rumor and sell on the news seems to be the case here as the current downturn began at the time Parliament approved overturning the 'Three Mines Policy'. Denison's second proposal to Omega Corp. may help end the funk, however it is going to take a rich premium to bring the entire market back to life and DML is not the player who will pay a rich price. On the horizon we have SXR making a purchase, but this will not be until after they close the Energy Metals acquisition. They are looking for Australian assets, so they will most likely try and go after an Australian "pureplay" as opposed to an Australian company with assets overseas.

Although we have not reached a bottom, we are buyers of quality plays at these levels. Mawson, Strathmore, and Ur-Energy are our favorites at this time due to their current valuations, however soon we will be able to deploy our capital across the board to fully reap the benefits of the next rally.

Some Recent News

We have had a lot of news lately, some of which has been big, while the rest has been somewhat ignored. First and foremost we had SXR agree to purchase Energy Metals Corp. (EMC) in an all stock deal. This further establishes SXR as THE legitimate alternative to Cameco for funds (mutual, hedge, etc.) to invest their money in. It will be valued at roughly $7 Billion, will most likely take over Energy Metals' listing on the NYSE/Arca where shares trade under the symbol of EMU. The company currently has production of U3O8 as a result of its Urasia purchase earlier this year, and just opened up the Dominion Project in South Africa, with Honeymoon to soon follow out of Australia. The company is unhedged, so they will be able to present investors with a more compelling growth story than Cameco over the next few years.

Recently we spoke to a high ranking executive with a leading uranium company who is still amazed that Cameco has not become more active. Many within the industry have their doubts for how much longer Cameco can hold out before making new investments in the industry. This is something that we should pay attention to in the future, as it will indicate that the flood gates are beginning to open (no pun intended here). When Cameco begins to invest more freely, there is reason to believe that utilities will begin to purchase physical U3O8 with less regard for price. When the largest pure-play supplier in the industry begins to buy up more supply, it is indicative of the belief that there will be a tight market for years to come and could push the utilities into the markets.

We have not added any new stocks to our portfolio lately as we had been waiting to see cheaper prices, as was indicated as highly likely by -theinvestar's Canadian Uranium Average. After yesterday it appears very likely that we could go lower in the future as we finally broke through the support levels established throughout the year, and what is more it was more than 1% below the previous low. Also of interest would be that U.S. markets are cooling off, which could force some investors to take money off the table here and around the world. This is already taking place as Australia is experiencing a sell-off in its equity markets as a result of New Zealand's surprise rate increase to the 8% level.

Although our portfolio positions are all still intact as we have not sold any positions, our cash position has grown to a very large portion of the portfolio due to our regular contributions. Although we believe that many uranium stocks will retreat in the months ahead, we see some very intriguing plays which we cannot hold out on much longer. One such stock is Mawson Resources (MAW) C$1.91 which at current prices has about C$.41 to the downside, but potentially C$1 to the upside in the next few weeks. If the company can prove up the lbs. they think they have of U3O8, then the stock is currently trading at a ridiculous discount. So we have added MAW at C$1.91, and shall hold whether the stock goes lower or moves upward. Should the stock move lower, we will nimble all the way down and become very aggressive as it approaches C$1.50.

One of our reasons for purchasing Canadian uraniums was that we truly believed that the Canadian Dollar, as well as the Australian Dollar, was undervalued as compared to the U.S. Dollar. The Canadian Dollar has risen dramatically over the past month or so and is now at around US$.94 per C$1, which is up considerably since we proposed the idea of the 'hidden appreciation' potential of these stocks, or our 'kicker'. Then the C$ was at around C$1 per US$.89, so we have seen a 5.6% rise in value of our stocks not indicated by their closing price for those making their purchases in US$. We said earlier that we thought the two could trade on par, and stand by that, however we do believe that a breather is needed and could happen sooner rather than later. If the US raises rates, as the markets believe will happen (although they still are not aware of the reason-inflation or growth), that could halt the C$'s run.

Another story of interest, which went unnoticed by many in the marketplace, was Santoy's news release regarding their drilling operations in Labrador's Central Mineral Belt. The drilling was a success and confirmed a uranium mineralized zone on the company's 100% owned Fish Hawk Lake property. The company drilled 15 holes (via diamond) and hit some form of U3O8 mineralization in each one. In the South Zone, they hit significant values of U3O8 in 10 of 13 holes which we were told in many cases did not exceed 50 m depth. Many of the holes remain open at depth, and the company has realized that this area of the CMB may hold "blind" deposits, those which do not show up on airborne radiometrics.

Our only addition at this time is Mawson (MAW) and we will continue to add on weakness. We are waiting for further declines in the sector before buying some of our other targets, and will notify you once we do begin to make those purchases.