i-80 Gold (IAUX)
Gold and gold miners are on sale today. The miners are trading lower in sympathy with SSR Mining (SSRM) which is down 53% today on news that it has shut down its main mine in Turkey due to significant technical issues.
i-80 Gold was spun off when Premier Gold Mines was acquired by Equinox Gold. I visited Premier's operations in Nevada in 2019 and came away impressed. i-80 is named after interstate 80, symbolic of the location of the company's assets.
The company has 4 projects in Nevada, and all of them have merit. This is a rarity in the exploration space, but not a surprise since management knows what they are doing. The Lone Tree operation comes with an autoclave for processing refractory ore - the only one in Nevada not controlled by Nevada Gold Mines (the Newmont/Barrick JV that's the biggest producer in Nevada). In a good market, Lone Tree alone would be worth the company's market cap.
The company has also been posting excellent drill results from its other projects.
There is no rule for valuing a gold exploration company. Like spotting the potential of a growth stock that's pre-revenue, the value judgement here is completely qualitative.
I know, like, and endorse the assets and have a good impression of management. We're buying at a sentiment extreme at a very good price, and waiting for time and market conditions to work in our favor. That's really all there is to this buy recommendation, so size accordingly.
Good Trading!
Kashyap Sriram