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The growing demand for lithium
Chile's Lithium Industry in transitional period
http://www.indmin.com/Article/2753364/FOCUS-Chiles-lithium-industry-in-transition-period.html
Personally, I'm lovin the volatility of GORO right now. EZ $$$$$. You should flip it daily IMO.
Lithium Might Be 2011's Biggest Winner Among Metals
Pop Quiz: This versatile metal, which is light enough to float on water and soft enough to be cut with a knife, has commercial applications ranging from pharmaceuticals to rocket fuel.
If you said lithium, go to the head of the class - and bonus points if you phrased your response in the form of a question, a la "Jeopardy."
Lithium is a unique element that has been endowed with several curious properties. But you don't need to be a chemist to appreciate the fact that this alkali metal has half the density of water, or that it has the highest specific heat of any solid. Industrial manufacturers are willing to pay hundreds of millions each year for these eccentricities.
You don't hear about lithium as you do other raw materials, mostly because it doesn't trade on any of the world's commodities exchanges. But that didn't stop prices from tripling between 2005 and 2009 or producers from spending big bucks on expansion projects to extract even more from the ground and the seas.
The reason for the investment? Lithium is a versatile product with as many uses as duct tape. You can find it in fireworks, aircraft, glass cookware and even medicine cabinets (it's an effective treatment for bipolar disorder).
These applications drum up steady demand each year, but the real magic is that, pound for pound, this metal can store more electric energy than just about any other material. That has made lithium the battery maker's best friend.
Lithium batteries have three main growth drivers - electric vehicles, portable electronics and wind/solar power smart grid storage. That makes a powerful 1-2-3 punch.
The catch: Unlike gold, silver and other metals, it's virtually impossible to invest directly in lithium. There are no lithium trading pits, no futures contracts and no way to take physical possession - the metal is highly reactive and usually stored under a protective coating of petroleum jelly.
But a new exchange-traded fund (ETF), Global X Lithium (LIT), is the next best thing, and investors have been piling in. When I covered the fund's launch for my subscribers in August, it held only $1.6 million in assets. Less than five months later, it has attracted 100 times that amount.
Roughly, half the portfolio is invested in companies engaged in lithium mining and refinery. The big three, Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM), Rockwood Holdings (ROC) and FMC (FMC) are the fund's three largest positions.
These companies have diverse business lines. Last quarter, Chile's SQM sold $34 million worth of lithium products - but fertilizer, iodine, potassium and industrial chemicals brought in $355 million. In other words, lithium accounts for less than 10% of the firm's total revenue.
So these aren't pure plays. But collectively, this trio accounts for about three-fourths of the world's lithium production. And their reserves are located in Chile's high Atacama Desert, where high lithium concentrations mean low extraction costs - and wider profit margins.
The rest of the fund's assets are invested in a well-rounded mix of battery makers - about 15 of them - that include a hefty stake in Ener1 (HEV), whose Indiana manufacturing facility will soon be rolling out advanced automotive batteries for customers like Ford Motor Co. (F), General Motors (GM) and the U.S. Army. You'll also get A123 Systems (AONE), which has recently landed clients such as BMW, Daimler and Navistar.
In many respects, this industry is still in its infancy. So it's difficult to say which technologies will emerge victorious and which will become historical footnotes. That means there will be some spectacular winners in this field, but also some potential losers.
That uncertainty is the perfect environment for a well-rounded fund like LIT - rather than place all your bets on one horse, you can spread it among 20 of the strongest contenders. My money says that several of these will go on to be multi-baggers within the next couple years.
(Note: Shares of LIT have been on a tear; they've steadily gained about 40% since I first profiled the fund in August. The long-term growth is there, but conservative investors might want to wait for a pullback.)
Disclosure: Neither Nathan Slaughter nor StreetAuthority, LLC hold positions in any securities mentioned in this article.
KABOOM!!!!!!!!!!
EZ $$$$$$$$ : )
Thanks. Lithium is hot and MMTE is getting in at the right time.
Is the Developing World Poised for an Electric-Vehicle Boom?
http://www.popsci.com.au/2011/01/is-the-developing-world-poised-for-an-electric-vehicle-boom/
Seth Fletcher
Published on Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at 9:40 am
That's what some experts here at the Lithium Supply and Markets conference believe, and if they're right, it could be good for everyone
If you had to separate the speakers at this year's Lithium Supply and Markets conference into two camps, you could do it like this: There are those who believe that the electrification of the automobile will proceed at a steady, orderly pace, and that over the next 10 or 15 years the world's lithium producers together to mine and process an additional 7 or so percent each year. Then there are those who believe anything could happen–who think this kind of orderly extrapolation is blindly conservative. And generally, these optimists–who believe that there's no telling how quickly electrically-powered vehicles of all kinds will spread, but that it'll probably be far more dramatic than most forecasters expect–happen to do business in either China or India.
Yesterday, for example, Iggy Tan, managing director of the Australian lithium producer Galaxy Resources, excoriated the analyst from TRU who earlier in the day had predicted that lithium suppliers were on track to produce dramatically more lithium over the next several years than the electric-car-battery industry would require. As a result, many of these suppliers would go bankrupt. Tan called the presentation “spreadsheet bull,” a piece of grossly misguided fearmongering that completely failed to take into account the world's two great wild cards: China and India.
Tan, whose company is set to build an electric-bike-battery factory in China, made much the same argument at last year's conference. Today in China, millions of people get around on electric bikes. Tan expects those bikes to quickly switch from lead-acid to lithium-ion batteries, mostly because of government-mandated weight restrictions. Nearly 30 million e-bikes are sold in China every year. This, Tan argues, is the kind of enormous new market that most analyses of the future of the electric vehicle fail to take into account. And it's an important variable: Arguably the biggest problem with electric vehicles today is that the high cost of the batteries makes them inordinately expensive. What would make the batteries cheaper? Building them on a much larger scale. E-bikes obviously require a much smaller and less sophisticated battery than, say, the Chevy Volt, but they require something much more like an electric-car battery than does a laptop, and a proliferation of the lithium-ion powered e-bike could do very good things for the electric-vehicle market as a whole.
This afternoon the optimism came via India, in a speech by Anupam Bhattacharjee of the Indian manufacturing conglomerate Mahindra and Mahindra. He pleaded with the audience: “Please don't be so conservative” in your expectations for the future. Instead, keep in mind developing economies and what they mean for the EV market.
The thought of infrastructure-poor India becoming a major electric-vehicle market might seem far-fetched, but according to Bhattacharjee, it's not. In fact, the government is already steering the country in that direction. Two months ago, he says, the Ministry of New and Renewable energy announced major incentives for people who either buy an electric vehicle or convert their gas car to run electric. Those incentives include a $2225 credit for the purchase of an EV; 80 percent depreciation of that purchase in the first year (mainly for commercial buyers); a lower road tax and Value Added Tax; and other financial incentives. Charging infrastructure is planned for railway stations, highways, shopping malls. Once built, the Tata Tower residential complex, planned for Mumbai, will have 4,050 EV parking stations. And so on. Currently, Bhattacharjee says, the combined government incentives actually make the purchase of a gas-powered car 42 percent more expensive than a comparable EV. Mahindra is also bullish on conversions–taking gas-powered cars and converting them to run on electricity. He thinks it's possible to convert 1 million gas cars to electric drive by 2020. (One million is a popular number: The Chinese government wants the country to make 1 million electric cars a year by 2020.)
All of these numbers are speculative, of course. No one knows exactly how the electrification of the automobile is going to happen. But as Tan and Bhattacharjee reminded us, the possibilities in the developing world are enormous, and could have positive repercussions for plug-in vehicles everywhere.
Nice job Billy boy. Lithium RULES!!!!!!!!
Closing green today???
Because they got suckered in. Buyback??? LMAO. Let me know when the $27 mil debt is cleared first.
Nice action. Hoping for the same tomorrow. Good day everyone.
5 min looks real nice. Too risky to hold overnight IMO though. My poor GORO : (
Right before market close. Typical of this site.
Not renewing my membership. You people unreliable.
Can someone remind me why I'm paying for this service???
My level 2 isn't working. HELP. Market closes in 30 mins. WTF!!!!
My level 2 isn't working. HELP. Market closes in 30 mins. WTF!!!!
This will continue throughout q1 IMO
Smoke weed every day!!!!
abort imo. eom.
Keeping quiet now per seeker's request. GLTA.
I was wrong...
Bad bad candles. Consider unloading. JMHO. GLTA.
If we break 23.00, may hop back in...
Looking good boys. Ur 10 MA is ur support on 5 min chart.
Shoulda held. Too conservative. Errrrrrrr...
I'm out for now. Very happy. GLTA.
Resistance $22.84????
Lookin good guys. Ride that 10 MA on 5 min chart. Watch that MACD. Keep ur eye on 1 min chart too.
GORO never hit 30. Just trying to help people make some $$$$$.
Here we go....
Moment of truth coming. Which way do we go from here?
Thanks. GORO so predictable. EZ to read the chart. EZ $$$$$$ maker. I love this stock. Volatile for a stock trading this high. Thing of beauty.
Looking to reload. EZ $$$$ today GORO. Just flip like crazy peeps.
22.11
Gl. Talk to Orion. He's all about the options.
Will NOT hold overnight.
Actually, grabbed a position at 21.40...
Waiting for MACD to cross...