Massive Moly Deposit Found in Utah

Morning Miners!

It is 5:56 AM and the Colonel made the coffee double-strong this morning, we've got breaking news buckaroos. Before we tackle that, James Hayter, Marketing Director for Western Lithium, contacted and thanked the Report for Monday's article on their Kings Canyon operation (The Next Big Thing in Northern Nevada?). I have added their link to the Miner's Corner to your right. The lithium story may take a while to develop but could be a tremendous opportunity for our state as demand picks up in the wake of fossil fuel propulsion alternatives. Who knows? There may be some open pit lithium carbonate mining in your future! Stay tuned.


Now for another big story. Reuters reported this morning that Rio Tinto has discovered a massive molybdenum deposit below its open pit Bingham Canyon copper mine southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. There is not much information but here is the link:

Rio Tinto announces massive molybdenum deposit

I checked the Rio Tinto website and they have not yet posted this in their media releases. According to Reuters, the discovery could be "the world's biggest deposit of molybdenum". This will no doubt be a matter of interest for Eureka Moly and our own Mt. Hope project. The Colonel will do some checking and report back as things unfold. In fairness, the Reuters' report gives no information on the moly concentration, time frame or economic viability of this find. One encouraging sign is that General Moly stock is unchanged in early morning trading at $3.18 in an otherwise down market.


Now that we've caught our breath look who just came in the break room, it's the Duke! Yup, it is the end of the month and time to walk the walk in the savings and credit markets. The Report started this check in the blog, Where's The Duke When We Need Him?. The Report plans to continue this monthly review so you can track where we're going as time marches on. Here are today's national averages compared to last month's numbers (WSJ Market Data, 9/30/09):

10-yr Treasury Note 3.291% vs 3.449%, down
Money Market 1.11% vs 1.17%, down (52-wk low, 1.10%)
5-year Bank CD 2.71% vs 2.66%, up (52-wk low, 2.59%)
30-yr mortgage, fixed 5.29% vs 5.32%, down (52-wk low, 5.06%)
15-yr mortgage, fixed 4.66% vs 4.80%, down (52-wk low, 4.66%)
New-car loan, 48-month 7.36% vs 7.43%, down (52-wk low, 6.52%)
Home-equity LOC, $30K 5.74% vs 5.82%, up (52-wk low, 5.03%)


It is a remains discouraging that money market rates are near their 52-week low but CD rates have bottomed and are slowly inching up. The good news for home buyers are lower fixed mortgage rates than last month. In fact, the 15-year rate is sitting at its 52-week low. The 10-yr Treasury hovering around 3.3% tells us that Uncle Ben is still doing a pretty good job in keeping interest rates low and the credit markets stable. As we noted last month, Ben is keeping savers on the Slim-Fast plan.

Let's checkout the Eureka Miner's Million Dollar Grubstake. At the market close yesterday, the readers (yup, that's you) made $191,322.97, that's a 19.1% return on your money since we started May 10th! General Moly still leads the pack, here's the top four out of twelve stocks:

General Moly (GMO) up 72.8%
Freeport-McMoran (FCX) up 31.9%
ArcelorMittal (MT) up 31.9%
Caterpillar (CAT) up 30.2%

Here's the bottom four (worst first):

ConocoPhillips (COP) down 3.6%
Newmont Mining (NEM) down 0.1%
EOG Resources (EOG) up 6.2%
Nucor (NUE) up 7.4%

Strong steel and copper performance and a positive international outlook for Caterpillar have helped the top four although that trend may be weakening for the remainder of the year. Oil has been range bound for sometime now and has limited our two energy companies, although EOG has benefited from the recent rally in natural gas. Barrick (ABX) has come up to the middle of the pack with a 10.3% gain.


Enough talk, let's walk the walk:

CAUTION: 4-WD is ON (the VIX or "fear index" is back above 25, I'm going keep the warning set until we get past Friday's employment report. So for now, off-road conditions for markets possible (what's this?)

Yellow light is ON for possible adverse regulation/legislation (mercury emissions)

Otherwise, all lights are green on the Eureka Outlook Dashboard (upper right, what's this?)

Oil is up $0.34 in early trading to $67.05 (November contract); Gold is up $5.6 to $1000.0 (December contract, most active); Silver is up $0.162 to $16.340(December contract); Copper is up $.0500 to $2.7790 (December contract); Molybdenum is steady at $14.00.

The DOW is down 101.57 points to 9640.63; the S&P 500, down 11.60 points to 1049.01. The miners are mixed:

Barrick (ABX) $37.55 unchanged
Newmont (NEM) $43.61 down 0.27%
General Moly (Eureka Moly, LLC) (GMO) $3.18 unchanged
Freeport McMoran (FCX) $68.58 up 0.38% (a bellwether mining stock spanning gold, copper & molybdenum)

Steel stocks are mixed, (a "tell" for General Moly):

Nucor (NUE) $46.90 up 0.21% - domestic steel manufacturing
ArcelorMittal (MT) $37.19 down 1.72% - global steel producer
POSCO (PKX) $103.50 up 1.61% - South Korean integrated steel producer

The Eureka Miner's Grubstake Portfolio is is down 0.05% to $1,190,914.77 (what is this?).

Cheers,

Colonel Possum

Headline Photograph by Mariana Titus