Taipan Resources TPN.V the next African Oil?

Hat tip to Marty on this one.

Taipan Resources resumed trading today after the take over of Lion Petroleum and raising $11,500,000 at $0.50/share. Taipan has secured a couple of big oil and gas exploration blocks in Kenya, the new O&G hot spot.

With the success of African Oil lots of juniors are rushing into Kenya looking for the next big thing.

On the broad strokes it looks like Taipan has an experienced management team with Alec Robinson acting as CEO, he was the former CEO of Centric Energy that was sold to African oil for $60mm.

I stepped in and bought 10000 shares at $0.35/share, a significant discount to the recently closed private placement at $0.50/share.

Taipan completed a $0.08/share private placement for 20,000,000 share back in 2010 with a warrant exercisable at $0.12/share. I am sure some of this financing is being sold into today's market, hence the $0.22/share drop in price from the previous close.

Given the success of African Oil I feel it is worth a few speculative dollars in here, given the discount to the recent financing.

Taipan Resources Inc. has closed the amalgamation with Lion Petroleum Corp. Under the terms of the amalgamation Taipan has issued a total of 20,124,817 common shares to the shareholders of Lion in exchange for all of the issued and outstanding share capital of Lion Petroleum. The company has also completed a non-brokered private placement raising $11.5-million by the issuance of 23 million units at 50 cents per unit. Each unit consists of one common share and one warrant exercisable into an additional common share at a price of 60 cents for a period of five years.

Taipan also announces that it has chosen to maintain a 100-per-cent interest and operatorship of block 2B and that it will not be proceeding with the proposed farm-in by NewAge Ltd. as previously announced in the company's July 3, 2012, press release. Taipan expects to pursue farm-out options in the future for block 2B and this is expected to result in more favourable terms for Taipan shareholders.

Charles Watson commented: "The closing of Taipan's first major transaction and financing is a very exciting time in the development of the company. Lion's block 1 and block 2B onshore Kenya are highly prospective oil and gas exploration blocks with significant potential. With a 100-per-cent interest and operatorship of block 2B, Taipan has a number of attractive strategic options as the company moves closer to its drilling program."

Has Argentina knocked the stuffing out of Pan America Silver

Recent changes announced from the Governor of the province of Chubut has rendered Pan America's Navidad project uneconomical, sending Pan America's stock price on a free fall.

Unfortunately many resource plays are coming under attack from Latin American governments looking for a bigger stake in their resources. In some cases killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

I stepped in today and bought a small (200 share) position as the stock is down over 50% this year. Where the bottom is for the stock price is hard to guesstimate, but at $14.00/share Pan America is on sale. On a simple line chart it looks like $18.00 could be a top for this trade. The old $15.00 price support looks like it could turn into resistance in the very short term.

 

High dividend paying ETF ideas

This is a list of a few dividend paying ETF's that can be suited for those with low risk tolerance. I currently own BMO's Covered Call Utilities ZWU.TO and the iShare Canadian Monthly Income Fund FIE.TO.

Most of the ETF's listed tend have a lower volatility with the exception of the iShare Canadian Monthly Income Fund as it has the bank stocks in it.

Covered call writing helps mitigate downside price movements of the ETF listed but it also under performs on the upside as the  stock gets called away. The dividend tend to be higher in these ETF's as the call premium is collected and added to the distribution.

These ideas are presented as a measure of protection in case there is a serious downturn in the market. The majority of the ETF's are in the utility sector or in preferred shares with some being a hybrid of utilities, preferred shares and bonds.

ZWU.TO - BMO Covered Call Utilities, current price $15.00/share, current yield 7.2%
ZWB.TO - BMO Covered Call Banks, current price $13.58/share, current yield 7%
ZUT.TO - BMO Equal Weight Utilities, current price $16.23/share, current yield 5.2%
ZMI.TO - BMO Monthly Income, current price $15.80/share, current yield 5.13%
ZLB.TO - BMO Low Volatility Canadian Utility, current price $16.00/share, current yield 3.09%
FIE.TO - iShares Canadian Monthly Income Fund, current price $6.20/share, current yield 7.75%
CPD.TO - iShares Canadian Preferred Shares, current price $17.25/share, current yield 4.7%

All these ETF's pay monthly distributions and all have a dividend re-investment program.

Management fees tend to be in the range of 0.5%-1% depending on the ETF, it sure beats what a mutual fund charges. Best of all ETF's are fully transparent to their holdings and trade daily on the exchange with no hidden buy and sell fees.

I tend to stay away from any Horizon products as these are aimed at more sophisticated traders and generally suffer from price decay when held for long periods of time.

This is a small sample of ETF's from Bank of Montreal and iShares. These days there tends to be an ETF to follow just about any sector in the market. I encourage you to learn more about these products by perusing their websites.



http://www.etfs.bmo.com/

http://ca.ishares.com/home.htm
 

A few trading ideas Golden Minerals AUM.TO, CGA Mining CGA.TO and Americas Petrogas BOE.V

A few trades have been successful on Golden Minerals, CGA Mining and Americas Petrogas in the past few weeks. These stocks have all been beaten down and entry points are getting quite clear on the charts as with potential exit prices.

Golden Minerals AUM.TO, AUMN Amex seems to find consistent support near the $4.00/share mark with a bounce back towards $4.75/share. Golden Minerals trades most of its volume in the States so I have added a Canadian and US Chart.

Recent news on Golden Minerals has pushed the price back to the $4.00 mark and at this point I believe all the bad news is out. Production in the last quarter lagged and the Company is not going to give guidance going forward. On the positive side the Company got the balance of their mining equipment out of Argentina which should help production going forward.

Golden Minerals reported 1500 oz. of gold production and 90,000 oz of silver in the last quarter due to equipment delays.

With 38,000,000 shares outstanding and a stock price of approximately $4.00, Golden Minerals market cap is only $152,000,000 today.

The chart shows current support at the $4.00 mark and a double bottom at $3.50 with resistance around $5.00, trades can be executed within this range.

AUM.TO Chart

AUMN

Americas Petrogas BOE.V hit a double bottom at $1.60/share after the fall out of Argentina's sweeping nationalization of oil and gas/mining assets. It appears the risk premium of BOE has been removed and now the share price is going to trade on fundamentals.

Americas Petrogas has recently spudded another Vaca Muerta Shale well with ExxonMobile this week and also reported 2800 barrels of oil a day production. This news was enough to lift the stock back to the $2.20/share resistance level.

The upper trend is still down but support seems to found around $1.70/share. I will look to pick up another position starting at +/- $1.75/share, if it trades back down there.

CGA Mining CGA.TO is showing support around $1.80 and resistance near the $2.10/share mark. Production problems seem to be behind CGA for now and the Company reported 51,000 oz. of gold production in June. CGA has a market cap of $338,000,000, which makes it seem relatively cheap at these prices.

Anything below $1.80 seems to be a steal and my trading alert is set for anything below $1.82/share.

For all these stocks mentioned I will be using candlestick charting along with relative strength and volume as indicators to my entry and exit points.

Teslin River Resources TLR.V coming up short

Looks like Teslin River Resources is coming up short on the $0.05/share financing. Currently the stock sits at $0.025/share and well offered at $0.03/share and above. ( You know it is tough out there when you can't even sell nickel stock in Vancouver)

The Company should be well into the exploration season on their properties but it looks like it is not going to happen this year.

Is Resinco Capital Partners still in business? Hmmmm.. their stock trades at $0.04/share. Not to worry apparently their Resinco's NAV is $0.0749/share, half price sale on the stock. Time to boot them from the big board.

Maybe I should give John Icke a call, he may need a second mortgage to keep himself floating for the next while.

Back to posting, Tolima Gold

Summer doldrums are here in the market and I have been on holidays and enjoying the Vancouver sunshine while it is not blocked out by grey clouds.

Silly season is upon us in the juniors and my stink bids are getting filled. today I had a stinker in on Tolima Gold at $0.12/share for 10000 shares and I got a fill. As part of the silly season I threw the 10000 shares back out on the offer at $0.16/share and 35 minutes later my account was $380 richer.

Speaking of Tolima Gold the Company spat out a few decent news releases as of late, yet the Company trades at a paltry $14 million market cap.

It seems that Tolima has got a small 100 ton/day mill going and managed to produce some gold. On top of that there was some drill results released. Management even got a quote out of Iamgold. (Scraping the bottom of the promotional barrel)

The San Pablo processing plant, located within the San Pablo concession (the "Plant"), has now been in operation for 6 months, mainly processing low grade material provided by third parties. This has allowed the Company to streamline the processing circuit and to prepare the plant to efficiently process material from the La Bartola and San Pablo mines. The San Pablo mine is right next to the Plant and the La Bartola mine is located approximately 500 meters from the Plant.
The Plant has a current installed processing capacity of 100 tons per day (tpd) and has been operating to date at an average rate of 77 tpd. Production from the La Bartola and San Pablo mines is expected to feed the Plant at its current capacity by July 2012. By that time, all processing contracts for material supplied by third parties will be completed.
As dewatering and rehabilitation of The La Bartola mine has advanced, material extraction began in May 2012. At the same time, development work on the San Pablo mine is being completed, with material being stockpiled since May 2012 as well. Material from the Company's mines is expected to be of higher grade than the third party material currently being processed.
As production of the Company's mines ramps up, a capital investment program to increase processing capacity of the Plant is under way. It includes installing and bringing on line two Denver ball mills (6' x 3') to bring the processing capacity of the plant to 300 tpd. All other components of the Plant are already rigged for such production volume.
With such investment, the Company expects to be processing approximately 150 tpd by the end of 2012, 200 tpd by the end of the first quarter of 2013, and 300 tpd by the end of third quarter of 2013. This capacity increase will result in an acceleration of the Company's original investments plans, which originally called for a 300 tpd of processing capacity at the Plant by 2014. This capacity increase will require an investment of approximately USD$400,000 over the next year. This investment is expected to be financed with the cash flow generated from the plant operation and with the company's current cash.
Jaime Lopez, CEO of Tolima, stated: "we are very excited with the short term production and cash flow potential of our La Bartola and San Pablo mines. In times of complicated market conditions for raising additional capital, such production will allow the Company to continue funding its aggressive exploration plans in its Ancal, Nortol and Remedios projects in the short to mid-term. Also, these mines are an outstanding platform for exploration of our Remedios properties in our quest to identify significant gold occurrences".

 Tolima's July 5th news release is where Iamgold steps in on gold potential for Tolima.

 Mr. Stephen Letwin, CEO of IAMGOLD Corporation, which recently increased its shareholding in the Company to 16.4 million common shares, representing approximately 14% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company, added: "our team on the ground in Colombia continues to monitor Tolima's progress on this project. Tolima's solid technical team and their deep knowledge of the region and the belt where +50Moz of gold resources have been announced over the last few years, make IAMGOLD optimistic in Tolima's future resource potential."

I am attempting to box the market on Tolima by being the bid and the offer at the same time. It is an old trick from the trade floor and as the stink bid gets filled I offer the stock back out below the last offer price. Lord knows I now own enough of this deal. I think I am up to 50,000 shares, but at these prices I am good on loading up.