Did he just completely miss the main reason for the HUI's "poor" performance, or did I miss him talking about it? ===============================================================
Hi PH, Fwiw, amarksp from the Mostly: Classical board had this to say:
My comments on Adam Hamilton article... which I emailed to him...
To: Adam Hamilton Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 3:49 PM Subject: HUI Leverage Article...
Nice article this week, thanks.
There are 2 other points why HUI is lagging POG:
1) Increase in producer cash costs, especially energy costs and sustaining capex cost per ounce. Also, average grade mined has gone down which increases average cash cost/oz. Producer cash costs have increased over $35/oz year to year with energy costs alone causing about half of this increase ($17/oz). Thus, HUI producers net income/cash flow is NOT benefiting dollar for dollar on each dollar rise in POG. Bottom line, the POG has risen about $50 over the past 12 months but cash costs have increased over $35 over this same time period.
2) Many HUI producers and gold juniors have issued significant new shares to finance new mine capex. This dilution results in a lower market cap per reserve/resource ounce as well as market cap per production ounce which is how most gold companies are valued. See: http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=7069
This article appears to highlight that new share issuances have impacted HUI share performance: "A lot of the gain has more to do with stock issues than rising prices. This is seen in a weighted average price per share gain of 6% relative to a market cap gain of 8% since the last day of 2003 until close of trade on Friday. "
Thanks again for your well written article, this is most appreciated.