What are your thoughts on mining stocks?

atush

My thoughts are mining stocks (individual) may have severe impacts from any global down turns and less demand. but I am in favor generally and hold BRWM now, and have held Antofagasta in the past. Other colective funds I hold have mining stocks in them.

RT was cited in the press for being perhaps oversold/a bargain but I have not investigated it myself.

IronWolf

Wobblydeb wrote: »

How easy would you say it is to determine business model from the annual accounts? Or would I be better off looking for articles in the financial press?

Read their annual reports, it will explain their business strategy and financial strength of the company.

If it doesn't explicitly state a strategy then they probably don't have one, a lot of companies give wishy washy strategies which you should be able to see through as just words. Once you've read enough you'll be able to see immediately the ones with a strong vision. That's not enough though, you need to look over the last 10 years to see if they are capable of executing vision too.

Miners are tough to evaluate, they've all grown revenues very fast over the last 10 years without really needing to make any effort, even a terrible CEO could have done it. Not only do you need to understand the companies, you need to have a rough idea what's going to happen to commodity prices in the future. If you can't do that then you probably shouldn't invest in miners.

darkpool

if the economy comes off the rails commodities and miners will tank. having said that, with QE it's good to have money in commodities.

gadgetmind

BLB53 wrote: »

If you only hold one miner for now it has to be BLT for both long term growth and dividend.

I hold one miner, and it's BHP Billiton for long term growth and dividend.

I bought at 1730p and am expecting divis of close to 4%, which is very higher for a miner. They were even cheaper early last week, but trying to time the bottom is never easy and currently impossible!

atush

What else you buying Gadget lol?

TDM850

Centamin Egypt (CEY LN) is another great gold mining stock. I've put the link directly to the Traders Own fundamental data centre, if you want to look for other firms go to http://www.tradersown.co.uk/quotes.html

BLB53

I bought at 1730p and am expecting divis of close to 4%, which is very higher for a miner.

I was lucky to pick them up around 1100p at the end of 2008. Had a good run since then and I sold some earlier this year to put towards my house move. The price can be very volatile at times but the dividend is secure and growing at around 20% per year.

IronWolf

BLB53 wrote: »

I was lucky to pick them up around 1100p at the end of 2008. Had a good run since then and I sold some earlier this year to put towards my house move. The price can be very volatile at times but the dividend is secure and growing at around 20% per year.

Yes but the thing about BHP is that when I looked at them, their revenue and profit growth has come from the booming commodities prices driven by China's emerging consumption. They haven't actually grown that much in terms of tonnes of ore mined.

I'm doubtful that their revenue growth will continue at such a rate in the future.

BLB53

I'm doubtful that their revenue growth will continue at such a rate in the future.

You may be correct. Here is a recent article on the value investor site which sums up the for and against.

http://www.ukvalueinvestor.com/2011/09/more-mega-cap-value-with-bhp-billiton.html/

gadgetmind

atush wrote: »

What else you buying Gadget lol?

I don't have much on my shopping list at the moment as I'm back where I like to be with cash allocation.

I'm kicking off a new pension in November with a lump sum and need to decide what to hold in there. I'm inclined towards a SIPP holding "growthy" ITs but am also going to try an IFA.