Editorial Excitement at last

Fortunately, there is still a wealth of individual investors who recognize the opportunity in mining stocks and are willing to assume the risks. It’s those individual investors in places like Trail, B.C., and Timmins, Ont., who are causing the commotion over the latest stock play.

The impetus has come from the massive sulphide deposit by Aur Resources on Societe Miniere Louvem’s property near Val d’Or, Que. Those two stocks have consistently been among the leaders on the blue-chip Toronto Stock Exchange for the past six weeks in terms of volume and value traded. Yet the only general circulation journal that has described the discovery in any detail — indeed, the only journal that has reported assay values at all — has been The Northern Miner. If any industrial stock had experienced such trading activity, you can bet the business section of every newspaper from Victoria to St. John’s would carry a rehashed report from one wire service or another.

Mining results are different. It seems no one understands them — except the investors who apparently have made potfulls of money. Aur has shot from $2.95 to over $10 and Louvem has gone from 57 cents to almost $7.

And those two stocks aren’t alone. There are plenty of others riding on the coat tails of those two — some with fairly legitimate claims to being part of the excitement, some with less obvious claims.

But even if the whole world hasn’t stood up to take notice, it’s good to see some excitement back in the market. That’s what has been missing for the past two years, a good old-fashioned stock play that can only come from junior mining stocks. (They used to be called penny stocks, but inflation and the pursuit of a more dignified moniker have led to such terms as “mineral exploration sector.”)

We have said all along that there are no guarantees on how a discovery like this will pan out given such preliminary information as what is currently available. But that’s the very attraction of junior mining stocks. The initial results are exciting and that is why investors are willing to take substantial risks. They see the potential for even more substantial rewards.

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