With shares of Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) trading around $77, is WMT an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let�� analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework:
T = Trends for a Stock’s MovementWal-Mart operates retail stores in various formats around the world. The company aims to price items at the lowest price every day. Wal-Mart operates in three business segments: the Walmart U.S. segment, the Walmart International segment, and the Sam�� Club segment. It operates retail stores, restaurants, discount stores, supermarkets, supercenters, hypermarkets, warehouse clubs, apparel stores, Sam��� Clubs, neighborhood markets, and other small formats, as well as Walmart.com and Samsclub.com. Through its retail channels, Wal-Mart is able to provide a variety of products and services at very affordable prices to consumers and companies worldwide.
Wal-Mart is an especially hot place for summer lovers to take advantage of, as it provides a one-stop shop for anything a beach bum�� heart desires.�Customers know that they can get in and out of Wal-Mart quickly and find all of their summer gear at relatively low prices.�One out of three customers give Wal-Mart�� summer products a perfect 10, and 33.8 percent assert that they would be extremely likely to recommend the store. Wal-Mart is undoubtedly looking at a very successful summer sales quarter.�For consumers and businesses looking for one location that contains a wide variety of products and services, Wal-Mart is the spot and will continue to be well into the future.
Top 5 Penny Stocks To Buy For 2015: The Babcock & Wilcox Co (BWC)
The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W), incorporated on March 8, 2010, is a technology innovator in power generation systems, a specialty constructor of nuclear components and a service provider in its segments. The Company provides a variety of products and services to customers in the power and other steam-using industries, including electric utilities and other power generators, industrial customers in various other industries, and the United States Government. The Company operates in four business segments: Power Generation, Nuclear Operations, Technical Services and Nuclear Energy.
Power Generation
Through Power Generation segment, the Company supplies boilers fired with fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, or renewable fuels, such as biomass, municipal solid waste and concentrated solar energy. In addition, the Company supplies environmental equipment and components and related services to customers in different regions around the world. The Company designs , engineers, manufactures, supplys, constructs and services utility and industrial power generation systems, including boilers used to generates steam in electric power plants, pulp and paper making, chemical and process applications and other industrial uses.
Power Generation segment specializes in engineering, manufacturing, procurement and erection of equipment used in the power generation industry and various other industries, and the provision of related services, including engineered-to-order services, products and systems for energy conversion worldwide and related auxiliary equipment, such as burners, pulverizers, soot blowers and ash handling systems; heavy-pressure equipment for energy conversion, such as boilers fueled by coal, oil, bitumen, natural gas, municipal solid waste, biomass and other fuels; environmental control systems, including both wet and dry scrubbers for flue gas desulfurization, modules for selective catalytic reduction of the oxides of nitrogen, equipment to capture! particulate matter, such as fabric filter baghouses and wet and dry electrostatic precipitators, and similar devices, and power plant equipment and related heavy mechanical erection services.
The Company supports primarily fossil operating plants with a variety of additional services, including the installation of new systems and replacement parts, engineering services, construction, inspection, maintenance and field technical services, such as condition assessments and inventory services. The Company offers a range of construction services through a wholly owned subsidiary including erection of utility and industrial boiler plants and installations of cogeneration facilities and pollution control equipment, such as selective catalytic reduction systems and flue gas desulfurization scrubbers.
The Company also provides power through cogeneration, refuse-fueled power plants and other independent power-producing facilities. In this market, the Company owns and operates facilities, supply equipment and serve as contractors for engineer-procure-construct services and operations and maintenance.
Nuclear Operations
Through Nuclear Operations segment, the Company engineers , design and manufactures precision naval nuclear components and reactors for the United States Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.The Company's Nuclear Operations segment specializes in the design and manufacture of close-tolerance and equipment for nuclear applications. In addition, the Company is a manufacturer of critical nuclear components, fuels and assemblies for government and limited commercial uses. The Company also converts or downblend high-enriched uranium into low-enriched fuel for uses in commercial reactors to generate electricity. The Company has also been a provider in the receipt, storage, characterization, dissolution, recovery and purification of a variety of uranium-bearing materials. All phases! of urani! um downblending and uranium recovery are provided at the Company's Lynchburg, Virginia and Erwin, Tennessee sites.
The Company works closely with the DOE-supported nuclear non-proliferation program. This program is assisting in the development of a high-density, low-enriched uranium fuel required for high-enriched uranium test reactor conversions.
Technical Services
Through Technical Services segment, the Company provides various services to the United States Government, including uranium processing, environmental site restoration services and management and operating services for various United States Government-owned facilities. These services are provided to the DOE, including the NNSA, the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Science, the Department of Defense and the Office of Environmental Management.
The Company�� principal operations include managing and operating nuclear production facilities; managing and operating environmental management sites; managing spent nuclear fuel and transuranic waste for the DOE, and providing critical skills and resources for DOE sites.The Company manages and operates complex, high-consequence nuclear and national security operations for the DOE and the NNSA, primarily through its joint ventures. The Company's Technical Services segment's overall activity primarily depends on authorized spending levels of the DOE, NNSA, the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Office of Science, the Department of Defense and the Office of Environmental Management.
Nuclear Energy
Through Nuclear Energy segment, the Company supplies commercial nuclear steam generators and components to nuclear utility customers. In addition, this segment offers a full spectrum of services for steam generators and balance of plant equipment, as well as nondestructive examination and tooling/repair solutions for other plant systems and components. The Company's Nuclear Energy segment fabricates pressure vessels, reactors, stea! m generat! ors, heat exchangers and other auxiliary equipment. This segment also provides specialized engineering and maintenance services and power plant construction. This segment specializes in performing full scope, prototype design work coupled with manufacturing integration. The Company is developing the B&W mPower reactor, a small modular reactor design with the flexibility to provide between 180 megawatts to greater than 1,000 megawatts of electrical power generation (in increments of 180 megawatts) and the capacity to operate for a four year operating cycle without refueling.
The Company competes with Alstom S.A., Doosan Babcock, Babcock Power, Inc., Foster Wheeler AG., Hitachi, Ltd., Bechtel National, Inc., URS Corporation, CH2M Hill, Inc., Fluor Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., AREVA Inc., EnergySolutions, Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corporation.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By The Energy Report]
JH: One of the areas where the U.S. for decades has been the leading technological power is in small nuclear reactors. We've used them on our aircraft carriers and on our nuclear submarines safely and efficiently. The U.S. has an advantage in understanding small modular nuclear reactors. One of the companies that we have followed for a long time that's working on that is Babcock & Wilcox Co. (BWC). There's also Fluor Corp. (FLR), which is working on small modular nuclear reactors. President Obama and the Department of Energy are funding research on the implementation of small modular nuclear reactors.
- [By Michael J. Carr]
The Babcock & Wilcox Co. (NYSE: BWC) is a leader in the nuclear power industry. The company makes nuclear reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers, and even with cutbacks in defense spending, it reported a $2.8 billion backlog in that sector. The company also has a backlog of $2.3 billion in its power generation business segment.
Top Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: Compass Minerals Intl Inc(CMP)
Compass Minerals International, Inc., through its subsidiaries, produces and markets inorganic mineral products primarily in North America and the United Kingdom. The company operates in two segments, Salt and Specialty Fertilizer. The Salt segment produces salt and magnesium chloride for use in road deicing and dust control, food processing, water softeners, pool salt, and agricultural and industrial applications. This segment also purchases potassium chloride and sells as a finished product. The Specialty Fertilizer segment produces and markets sulphate of potash crop nutrients and industrial grade sulfate of potash for use in the production of specialty fertilizers for vegetables, fruits, potatoes, nuts, tobacco, and turf grass. The company also produces and markets consumer deicing and water conditioning products, ingredients used in consumer and commercial food preparation, and other mineral-based products for consumer, agricultural, and industrial applications. In ad dition, Compass Minerals provides records management services to businesses located in the U.K. The company operates rock salt mines in Goderich, Ontario, Canada; and Winsford, Chesire, the United Kingdom. It primarily serves producers of intermediate chemical products used in the production of vinyls and other chemicals, and pulp and paper, as well as water treatment and other industrial uses. The company markets its products through direct sales personnel, contract personnel, and a network of brokers or manufacturers? representatives. Compass Minerals International, Inc., formerly known as Salt Holdings Corporation, was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
Compass Minerals (CMP) is a producer of minerals, including salt, sulfate of potash specialty fertilizer and magnesium chloride. This stock closed up 3.4% at $75.60 in Wednesday's trading session.
Wednesday's Volume: 913,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 212,481
Volume % Change: 315%From a technical perspective, CMP gapped higher here off its recent low of $64.24 with heavy upside volume. This stock recently gapped down sharply from around $90 to $64.24 with heavy downside volume. That move pushed shares of CMP into extremely oversold territory, since the stock's current relative strength index reading is 25.78. Oversold can always get more oversold, but it's also an area where a stock can experience a powerful bounce higher from. Shares of CMP are now starting to move within range of triggering a near-term breakout trade. That trade will hit if CMP manages to take out its gap down day high of $78.20 and then once it clears its 200-day moving average at $79.14 with high volume.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in CMP as long as it's trending above Wednesday's low of $73.07 or $72.50 and then once it sustains a move or close above those breakout levels with volume that's near or above 212,481 shares. If that breakout hits soon, then CMP will set up to re-fill some of its previous gap down zone that started near $90.
- [By Brendan Mathews]
Compass Minerals (NYSE: CMP ) is a sleepy producer of a boring product: rock salt. But it has a strong competitive advantage. It owns the world's largest rock salt mine, which luckily is conveniently located near the major deicing markets of the Great Lakes region. This combination of a great mining resource and ideal location provide the company with a wide, crocodile-filled competitive moat.
- [By Alex Planes]
PotashCorp's difficulty sustaining its pricing power is underscored by recent reports from sulfate of potash (SOP) producer Compass Minerals (NYSE: CMP ) , which charged a hefty premium of almost $300 per ton against Potash Corp's prices for muriate of potash. Efforts to move away from SOP sales seem to be the right choice -- PotashCorp peer Intrepid Potash's�SOP sales fell by 37%, while the average price received has slumped nearly 14% in the last quarter. Even ore miner BHP Billiton�has recently jumped into the fertilizer industry with a $2.6 billion build-out of a potash mine in Canada, which is all but certain to produce further downward pressure on potash prices.
Top Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: support.com Inc.(SPRT)
Support.com, Inc. provides online care services for the digital home and small business primarily in North America. Its services and software products install, set up, connect, repair, and protect personal computers (PCs) and related devices that are essential to its customers; and it offers it as one-time services and subscriptions, and as software products to consumers who prefer do-it-yourself solutions. The company?s online care services include installation and setup services; connect and secure services that configure, connect, and establish secure connections between the computer, the wireless network, and supported devices; diagnose and repair services to identify, diagnose, and repair technical problems comprising the removal of viruses, spyware, and other forms of malware; and mobile device services. Its online care services also consist of tune-up services, which optimizes key systems settings for faster start-up and shut-down, loading of programs, and Internet browsing; online data backup; and server and network monitoring and management, hosted email and virtual desktops, and disaster recovery services. In addition, the company offers various software products, such as Advanced Registry Optimizer to identify and repair errors in the registry database on PCs; Cosmos software to maintain and optimize the performance of PCs; Hard Disk Tune-Up that improves the performance of a computer by defragmenting programs and data stored on the hard drive; MemTurbo, which increases available memory and improves PC performance; RapidStart software for removing or delaying unnecessary startup programs, processes, and services; and SUPERAntiSpyware software, an anti-malware technology. It provides its products and services through its channel partners and directly to consumers. The company was formerly known as SupportSoft, Inc. and changed its name to Support.com, Inc. in June 2009. Support.com, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Roberto Pedone]
Support.com (SPRT) is a provider of online care for the digital home and small business. This stock closed up 2.7% to $5.89 in Tuesday's trading session.
Tuesday's Range: $5.67-$5.92
52-Week Range: $3.67-$6.28
Thursday's Volume: 304,000
Three-Month Average Volume: 377,189From a technical perspective, SPRT spiked higher here right above its 50-day moving average of $5.51 with decent upside volume. This move also pushed shares of SPRT into breakout territory, since the stock took out some near-term overhead resistance at $5.80. Shares of SPRT have been uptrending for the last month, with the stock moving higher from its low of $5.01 to its intraday high of $5.92. During that uptrend, shares of SPRT have been consistently making higher lows and higher highs, which is bullish technical price action.
Traders should now look for long-biased trades in SPRT as long as it's trending above its 50-day at $5.51 or above more near-term support at $5.43 and then once it sustains a move or close above Tuesday's high of $5.92 to its 52-week high at $6.28 with volume that hits near or above 377,189 shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then SPRT will set up to enter new 52-week-high territory above $6.28, which is bullish technical price action. Some possible upside targets off that move are $7 to $8.
Top Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: China Automotive Systems Inc.(CAAS)
China Automotive Systems, Inc., through its interests in Sino-foreign joint ventures, engages in the manufacture and sale of power steering systems and other component parts for the automotive industry in the People?s Republic of China. It offers a range of steering system parts for passenger automobiles and commercial vehicles. The company provides 4 separate series, 307 models of power steering, including rack and pinion power steering, integral power steering, electronic power steering and manual steering, steering columns, steering oil pumps, and steering hoses. China Automotive Systems, Inc. was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Jing Zhou City, the People?s Republic of China.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Richard Schmidt]
We admittedly bought into China Automotive Systems (CAAS) too soon. The stock is still down from our original recommendation price, but the future looks very bright.
- [By Richard Schmidt]
China Automotive Systems (CAAS), which makes auto systems and components, reported record-high net sales for the third quarter. The report excited investors, who bid the stock up about 30% for the month.
Top Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: Siebert Financial Corp.(SIEB)
Siebert Financial Corp., through its subsidiary, Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc., engages in the retail discount brokerage and investment banking operations in the United States. The company provides Internet and traditional discount brokerage and related services to retail investors; independent retail execution services; and retail customer services. It also offers various self-directed retirement accounts, for which it acts as agent on various transactions; and lends customers a portion of the market value of certain securities held in the customer?s account through its clearing agent. In addition, the company, through its other subsidiary, Siebert Woman?s Financial Network, Inc., provides products, services, and information to serve women?s financial needs. Further, Siebert Financial Corp. offers equity execution services on an agency basis, as well as equity and fixed income underwriting and investment banking services to institutional investors, and issuers of equity a nd fixed-income securities. The company provides its discount brokerage services through a broker on the telephone, through a wireless device, or via the Internet. It maintains seven retail discount brokerage offices in New York; Jersey City, New Jersey; Boca Raton, Surfside, West Palm Beach, and Naples, Florida; and Beverly Hills, California. The company was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Jon C. Ogg]
Muriel Siebert, founder of Siebert Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: SIEB), passed away over the weekend. Many new investors may not know her nor may they know just how important and influential she was on Wall Street and in the financial services industries. Ms. Siebert died at the age of 80 years old, and we wanted to list some of her accomplishments that have led to at least more equality among women in what had been a men-only club before she came on the stage.
Top Supermarket Companies To Invest In Right Now: Gold Fields Ltd (GFI)
Gold Fields Limited (Gold Fields) is a holding company. Gold Fields is engaged in gold mining and related activities, including exploration, extraction, processing and smelting. Gold Fields is a producer of gold and holder of gold reserves in South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Peru. In Peru, Gold Fields also produces copper. Gold Fields is primarily involved in underground and surface gold and copper mining and related activities. Gold Fields also has an interest in a platinum group metal exploration project in Finland. Gold bullion is its principal product, which is produced in South Africa, Ghana and Australia and sold in South Africa and internationally. In addition, Gold Fields has gold and other precious metal exploration activities and interests in Africa, Eurasia, Australasia and the Americas. The Company holds 34.9% interest in Rand Refinery Limited.
On June 22, 2011, Gold Fields acquired the 18.9% interest of IAMGold Corporation (IAMGold), which increased Gold Fields��interest in each of the Tarkwa and Damang gold mines from 71.1% to 90.0%. On April 15, 2011, it acquired further interest in Gold Fields La Cima S.A.A. (La Cima). During the year ended December 31, 2011, the Company acquired a 21.8% interest in Timpetra Resources Limited.
KDC Operation
The KDC mine is located in the Gauteng Province of South Africa in the Far West Rand mining district, some 60 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg. KDC is consists of the Driefontein and Kloof mines. In 2011, KDC produced 1.1 million ounces of gold. KDC is consists of 13 producing shaft systems that mine different contributions from pillars and open ground, five gold plants of which two process mainly underground ore and three process mainly surface material. The KDC operation is engaged in both underground and rock dump mining. In total, during 2011, there were 13 fatalities at KDC. Of these, five were due to seismic related falls of ground, five resulted from gravity related falls of ground, two related! to tramming operations and one related to a person falling from height.
Beatrix Operation
The Beatrix operation is located in the Free State Province of South Africa, some 240 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, near Welkom and Virginia, and consists of the Beatrix mine. Beatrix operates under mining rights covering a total area of approximately 16,800 hectares. Beatrix is an underground only operation. Beatrix has four shaft systems, with five ventilation shafts to provide additional up-cast and down-cast ventilation capacity and is serviced by two metallurgical plants. It is a shallow to intermediate-depth mining operation, at depths between 700 meters and 2,200 meters below surface. In 2011, Beatrix produced 0.347 million ounces of gold. Beatrix is managed as three operational sections: the North Section, the South Section and the West Section. The Beatrix mine is engaged in underground and surface mining. It had five fatalities at Beatrix, in 2011.
South Deep Operation
South Deep is situated adjacent to KDC, in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. South Deep is a capital project and remains a developing mine. South Deep is engaged in underground mining and is consists of one metallurgical plant and two operating shaft systems, the older South Shaft complex and the newer Twin Shaft complex. The South Shaft complex includes a main shaft and three sub-vertical (SV) shafts, two of which are operational. The Twin Shaft complex consists of a single-barrel shaft and an adjacent bratticed ventilation shaft, or the Twins Main Ventilation Shaft. While the Twin Shaft complex forms the center of production and capital development activities, opening up, equipping and diamond drilling operations are being conducted in the South Shaft area in order to access new mining areas.
The South Shaft complex operates to a depth of 2,650 meters below surface and the Twin Shaft complex operates to a depth of 2,995 meters below surface. In 2011, South Deep! produced! 0.273 million ounces of gold. During 2011, the South Deep plant treated an average of 0.2 million tons per month (excluding Kloof mine toll treatment) consisted of an average of 167,000 tons per month of underground material and 31,000 tons per month of surface material from South Deep.
Ghana Operations
Gold Fields Ghana Limited (Gold Fields Ghana), which holds the interest in the Tarkwa mine. The Tarkwa mine is located in southwestern Ghana, about 300 kilometers by road west of Accra. The Tarkwa mine consists of several open pit operations on the original Tarkwa property and the adjacent southern portion of the property, together with a heap leach facility, referred to as the North Plant Heap Leach Facility. The capacity of the facility is 3.3 million tons per annum. The total treatment capacity including the North Plant, the High Pressure Grinding Roll Facility and the carbon in leach (CIL) Plant is estimated to be 24 million tons per annum. The Tarkwa mine operates under mining leases with a total area of approximately 20,800 hectares, the entirety of which are surface operations. In 2011, Tarkwa produced 0.717 million ounces of gold, of which 0.576 million ounces were attributable to Gold Fields.
Abosso Goldfields Limited (Abosso), which owns the interest in the Damang mine. The Damang deposits are located in the Wassa West District in southwestern Ghana approximately 330 kilometers by road west of Accra and approximately 30 kilometers by road northeast of the Tarkwa mine. The Damang mine consists of an open pit operation with a semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill and CIL processing plant. Damang operates under a mining lease with a total area of approximately 8,100 hectares. In 2011, the Damang mine produced 0.218 million ounces of gold, of which 0.175 million ounces.
Australia Operations
Gold Fields owns the St. Ives and Agnew gold mining operations in Australia. St. Ives is located 80 kilometers south of Kalgoorlie and 20 kilometer! s south o! f Kambalda, straddling Lake Lefroy in Western Australia. It holds exploration licenses, prospecting licenses and mining leases covering a total area of approximately 97,700 hectares. St. Ives is both a surface and underground operation, with a number of open pits, four operating underground mines, a metallurgical carbon in pulp (CIP) plant and a heap leach facility. In 2011, St. Ives produced 0.465 million ounces of gold. St. Ives sources production from a variety of underground and surface operations. Exploration activities are continuing with a view to extending the life of the mine.
Production at the Argo underground mine continued throughout, during 2011. Greater Revenge Complex operation utilizes open pit and lake sediment mining methods. Cutbacks of the Agamemnon and Mars Minotaur Link pits were mined, during 2011. The Belleisle deposit lies in the Greater Revenge Area adjacent to the depleted Mars open pit. The final 20,000 ounces were mined from Belleisle, in 2011 and the mine was closed, in May 2011. Cave Rocks is located approximately six kilometers to the west of the Kambalda West township. The Leviathan open pit is based on the expansion of a pre-existing open pit located approximately two kilometers southeast of the Lefroy processing plant. The mine utilizes conventional truck and shovel mining practices.
Construction at the Athena mine reached commercial levels of production, in July 2011. The first ore extraction from Hamlet occurred, in November 2011. As of December 31, 2011, Athena ahd a life of mine of four years and Hamlet had a life of seven years with prospects of extensions to those lives. Underground mining activities at Belleisle, Cave Rocks and Argo were undertaken under an agreement with Carlowen Proprietary Ltd, which trades as GBF Underground Mining (GBF). Leighton Contractors Proprietary Limited (Leighton) performs the surface mining at St. Ives under an alliance agreement. Leighton provides employees and equipment for mining ore and waste from the! open pit! mines. Agnew is located 23 kilometers west of Leinster, approximately 375 kilometers north of Kalgoorlie and 630 kilometers northwest of Perth, Western Australia.
The Company holds exploration licenses, prospecting licenses and mining leases covering a total area of approximately 54,000 hectares. Agnew operated both an underground and the Songvang open pit, in 2011. Underground mining is conducted from the Waroonga Underground Complex which consists of multiple ore zones. Agnew has one metallurgical plant. Agnew is serviced by sealed road infrastructure to the mine gate. In 2011, the operation produced 0.194 million ounces of gold. The principal production source, in 2011, at Agnew was the Waroonga underground mining complex. The northern cutback of the Songvang open pit commenced, in 2011. The Waroonga Underground Complex includes underground mining of the Kim South, Rajah and Main Lode ore bodies. The mining method involves longhole open stoping with paste filling. Waroonga underground performance averaged 52,000 tons per month, in 2011.
Peru Operation
Gold Fields owns 98.5% economic interest in the Cerro Corona mine through its shareholding in La Cima. Cerro Corona mine forms part of a porphyry copper-gold deposit situated within the Hualgayoc Mining District in northern Peru. It is located in the part of the Western Cordillera of the Andes, in northern Peru, close to the headwaters of the Atlantic continental basin. Cerro Corona is located approximately 80 kilometers by road north of the City of Cajamarca. Cerro Corona holds mining leases covering a total area of approximately 1,600 hectares and the project was developed over an area of 940 hectares. In 2011, the operation produced 0.161 million ounces of gold and 38,641 tons of copper for a total of 0.383 million gold equivalent ounces, of which 0.159 million ounces of gold and 38,061 tons of copper for a total of 0.377 million gold equivalent ounces were attributable to Gold Fields.
Advisors' Opinion:- [By Brianna Valleskey]
The result is that gold producers are not a particularly exciting part of markets in South Africa anymore, Theron said. Most of the large gold companies, like AngloGold Ashanti Limited (NYSE: AU) and Gold Fields Limited (NYSE: GFI), have internationalized their operations, he said, but still have a footprint in South Africa.
- [By Dan Caplinger]
We've seen the flip side of that trend play out in recent years, as rock-bottom interest rates in the U.S. have encouraged investment in higher-yielding income investments in places like Australia, Brazil, and South Africa. Interest from foreign investors got to be so extensive in Brazil that the federal government imposed a tax on foreign investors in bonds in order to curb demand and slow the pace of the Brazilian real's appreciation. Exchange-rate issues also likely played a role in the health of the commodities markets, as mining giants BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP ) and Rio Tinto (NYSE: RIO ) in Australia benefited from increased demand largely for base metals. Similarly, South African gold miners AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU ) and Gold Fields (NYSE: GFI ) outperformed rivals from elsewhere in the world, benefiting from strength in the South African rand currency.
- [By Itinerant]
Mining companies are most likely to report Cash Operating Costs or Total Cash Costs, except for Gold Fields (GFI), who invented their own cost measure called Notional Cash Expenditure (NCE) in 2008. Presently an industry group is working on the definition of a new cost measure with a work-in-progress name of All-In-Sustaining-Costs or AISC. This is not an entirely new concept since many analysts have been using a similar measure for their work. Various gold mining companies including most majors have started to report their costs as AISC preempting the release of the new standard.
- [By Holly LaFon] ham, who usually eschews gold stocks, bought four gold miners in the fourth quarter, the largest of which is Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI). In 2010, Grantham stated his Buffett-like position on gold in his quarterly letter, saying, ��veryone asks about gold. This is the irony: just as Jim Grant tells us (correctly) that we all have faith-based paper currencies backed by nothing, it is equally fair to say that gold is a faith-based metal. It pays no dividend, cannot be eaten, and is mostly used for nothing more useful than jewelry. I would say that anything of which 75% sits idly and expensively in bank vaults is, as a measure of value, only one step up from the Polynesian islands that attached value to certain well-known large rocks that were traded. But only one step up. I own some personally, but really more for amusement and speculation than for serious investing. It may well work and it may not. In the longer run, I believe that resources in the ground, forestry, agriculture, common stocks, and even real estate are more certain to resist any inflation or paper currency crisis than is gold.��/p>
Gold Fields is a New Zealand-based miner with 76.7 million ounces of reserves, free cash flow of $346 million in the third quarter, a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.42 times, with one of the highest dividend yields in the sector. It is also unhedged and offers full exposure to the price of gold.
Gold Fields is aiming to increase its international diversification. In 2008, 62% of its production came from South Africa, and by 2015 it hopes to reduce that to 40%. South American production is helping take its place, growing from 2% in 2008, and projected to reach 20% by 2015. Australian production made up 18% of its total in 2008, and is projected to grow to 20% in 2015. According to Maplecroft�� Resource Nationalism Index 2012, five of the ten highest-risk countries for mining are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and nationalism has been named as one of the top ten risks in min
