Eat my shorts, Canada

The top Canadian short positions as at April 30th. Thank you reader BF for the headsup.

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Short positions outstanding at Apr. 30/09 (with changes from Apr. 15/09).
Largest Short Positions
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Teck Resources	TCK.B	30907028	-1130592
New Gold	NGD	18332450	2929019
Eldorado Gold	ELD	17111120	30392
Ivanhoe Mines	IVN	15783677	615801
Kinross Gold	K	14581462	-1976018
Red Back Mining	RBI	13137941	-383640
Lundin Mining	LUN	12971093	-2821133
Thompson Creek Metals	TCM	12107626	1716210
Mercator Minerals	ML	8114369	6441664
Sherritt International	S	7948535	-2632410
Osisko Mining	OSK	7791480	-655745
Uranium One	UUU	7763558	-518240
FNX Mining	FNX	5792100	-636781
Agnico-Eagle Mines	AEM	5420162	177736
Silver Wheaton	SLW	4514178	241178
Largest Increase in Short Position
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Mercator Minerals	ML	8114369	6441664
New Gold	NGD	18332450	2929019
Anvil Mining	AVM	2885600	2705347
Capstone Mining	CS	2522166	2359757
Thompson Creek Metals	TCM	12107626	1716210
Largest Decrease in Short Position
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Equinox Minerals	EQN	1973347	-5704853
Lundin Mining	LUN	12971093	-2821133
Sherritt International	S	7948535	-2632410
Central Fund Of Canada	CEF.A	12437	-2222596
Quadra Mining	QUA	835170	-2118314
TSX Venture Short Positions
Short positions outstanding at Apr. 30/09 (with changes from Apr. 15/09).
Largest Short Positions
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Romarco Minerals	R	1550000	48500
San Gold	SGR	1328400	453800
Alturas Minerals	ALT	733333	0
Verena Minerals	VML	536500	536500
Iberian Minerals	IZN	535500	535500
Andean American Mining	AAG	467686	467686
Alix Resources	AIX	350000	350000
Azteca Gold	AZG	300000	290000
New Guinea Gold	NGG	225000	25000
Whitemud Resources	WMK	215932	-620
Forum Uranium	FDC	192000	192000
Columbus Gold	CGT	186500	186500
Evolving Gold	EVG	184500	184500
Constellation Copper	CCU.H	170000	0
Metanor Resources	MTO	160641	-222
Largest Increase in Short Position
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Verena Minerals	VML	536500	536500
Iberian Minerals	IZN	535500	535500
Andean American Mining	AAG	467686	467686
San Gold	SGR	1328400	453800
Alix Resources	AIX	350000	350000
Largest Decrease in Short Position
Security	Ticker	Total Short	Change
Hawthorne Gold	HGC	91900	-609000
Full Metal Minerals	FMM	66000	-497500
African Gold Group	AGG	0	-473814
Gold Wheaton Gold Corp.	GLW.WT	0	-430000
NWT Uranium	NWT	1000	-242000

copper thoughts

I've been musing on these two longview copper charts over the weekend. The first one is the 10 year copper price chart (in U$ per MT), the second one is the 10 year LME warehouse stocks chart:

It's boring being a copper bear (in the short term) and watching the price move from $1.75/lb to $1.95/lb in quicktime. So when markets go against my forecasts, I'm always interested in finding out where my mistakes were made.

My basic in-a-nutshell bear call when the price stood at $1.75/lb or so was "copper won't go up because the price move so far has been monetary in nature and not driven by demand." I can still happily stick with that call, even though China imported a large amount of copper in February. This is because China is clearly stockpiling the metal and it's not satisfying final end-user demand.

However, it's clearly not the whole story. My best guess is that large funds have moved back into copper and are buying on speculation. That strikes me as my own bad excuse for calling the move badly, though....it's so darned easy to "blame the hedgies/PTB/WallSt crooks" etc for any market move that goes against you, isn't it?

Whatever it is, although I'm not comfortable with my mistake I have to stick by my call for the time being as fundamental analysis (my baseline) cannot see any reason for higher copper prices going forward. But be clear, that's more my personal analytical weakness showing than any particular table-banging. Any comments either left below or via mail from people with a view on copper very appreciated.

DYODD

UPDATE: Heather Walsh is one of the better reporters at Bloomie. She filed a report from the CRU conference today that goes under the title "Freeport Says Rally Unlikely To Spark Investment Jump". The contents from no lesser name than FCX CEO Adkerson back up my own position.

UPDATE 2: Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge throws another dos centavos into the debate. I agree here, too. What is it about Sundays and musings on copper, anyway?

SmallCaps 2009

Every year around this time, Canaccord publishes its list of twenty small cap miners to follow in 2009. It's always a funny (haha & peculiar) list and often shows just how little they really know about LatAm. For example, last year they reco'd Ascendant Copper as a pennyplay when anyone with knowledge of the Ecuador mining scene knew that the company was bigtime toast.

This year (and quite impressively), Can'o'corn has already put its foot in it somewhat with the choice of Condor Resurces (CN.v), as on the very same day that the SmallCaps2009 came out CN.v reported dusters from its Brahma project in Chile. And even though it may be the second semi-non sequitur of the morning it makes me feel like quoting Oscar Wilde: "To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

So anyway, here's the list of the twenty stocks Can'o'corn has highlighted this year. You'll note quite a few are just the company talking its own book (the dreadful ITH, for example), some are actually quite interesting as picks (an e-mail friend and I have already noted the intruiging GUY.to has been included, and my e-mail friend noted that Can'o'corn won't have a cat in hell's chance of getting any financing action there so it's fun to see it included)

Banro Corp, Brilliant Mining Corp, Condor Resources Inc, Diamonds North Resources Inc. Extract Resources Ltd, Fortress Minerals Corp, Golden Arrow Resources Corp, Guyana Goldfields Inc, Helio Resource Corp, Intl. Royalty Corp, Intl. Tower Hill Mines Ltd, Keegan Resources Inc, Kivalliq Energy Corp, Lumina Copper Corp, Peregrine Diamonds Limited, Rubicon Minerals Corp, Serengeti Resources Inc, Underworld Resources Inc, Uracan Resources Ltd, West Timmins Mining Inc.

Finally, added to the team headed up by the acceptable Wendell Zerb this year is Eric Zaunscherb, the guy who helped rip off the market with his moronic Aurelian calls while at Haywood (from where he "was resigned" some weeks later) and a few days after getting the stock and the politics totally wrong decided to rip off my own blog thoughts on Ecuador and Aurelian as his own. Fortunately Zaunscherb has been limited to coverage of Canada-based miners by his new employers; a relief all round, I'd venture.

So how can you get your hands on a copy of this 2009 smallcaps report? I have no idea, but maybe clicking on this link might help.