Diversifying with Small and Large Miners

In the past few months, I have been busy trying to diversify my portfolio to a certain degree. This was highly necessary as a great part of my portfolio was in mining stocks. I usually do not buy the very risky junior miners - which does lower my risk profile - but having too great a share in mining makes your portfolio very volatile.

I sold Yamana Gold (AUY) earlier this month at $12.65 as the technical picture started to become a bit more cloudy. This was followed by the announcement of a proposed three-way deal with Northern Orion (NTOWF) and Meridian Gold (MDG), which made the stock drop to the lowest close of this year at $11.12.

Among my current mining favorites are still Endeavour Silver Corp. (EXK) and uranium miner Uranerz (URZ). These will stay in my portfolio, whilst other miners I may sell off in the coming months.

Aurizon Mines (AZK) may be added to this. I sold AZK last week at $3.90 as I expected there to be some resistance around that level. I might buy back at a later stage. I also sold El Dorado Gold Corp. (EGO) last week at $4.80. To replace these miners, I am specifically looking out for alternative energy stocks.

One of my favorites is still the sluggishly moving Evergreen Solar (ESLR), which I believe is suffering from a temporary correction in a multi-year uptrend to be followed by a higher peak - well past the previous high of $17.50. I bought this stock in February of this year around current levels. Before that, I benefited from the 2005/2006 uptrend that took it from $8.60 to $15.00. Even though this month I sold Beacon Power Corp. (BCON) at $1.50 (bought at $0.89). I'm not giving up on the stock, rather it was purely a move to safeguard some profits. I plan to get on the Beacon train again at lower levels.

The excitement surrounding Beacon Power Corp. is triggered by growing interest for the company's flywheel technology, which I believe will grow further from this point. However, the current hype cannot be argued by numbers. Beacon Power is still not making any money and therefore any gains are purely based on prophecies. I do believe in this company, but it will take some time until earnings reports can justify a $1.50 share price. I will continue to keep an eye on the technical picture and will buy when much of the excitement has evaporated.

I am also looking at Fuelcell (FCELL); a company that produces fuel cell power plants that are ideal for the replacement of 'dirty energy' and thereby help reduce emissions. With a number of customers ranging from hospitals and universities to utility companies and manufacturing plants, the fuelcell technology is gaining popularity across industries.

To come back to the mining industry, I added DRD Gold now (DROOD) at $0.78 because of improving technical indicators. DRD Gold remains a very uncertain share to invest in. I see it purely as a speculative buy and I watch the technical indicators very closely to determine whether to buy or to sell. Investors seem to be a bit cautious because of the management change.

Looking at the first quarter, the main issue for DRD is that the reserves are there, but the production is not. There have been too many hiccups in the past few years and even this first quarter showed a drop in production, both in Australasian and South African mining operations. On the positive side, I consider the Argonaut project to have very high potential.

A positive response to the Prospecting Right Application of the company's Argonaut project may be applauded. Once again, I still consider this stock a speculative one. Not a good basis for a stable portfolio but like my earlier purchases of GRZ and KRY, speculative buys are not always bad buys!

Finally, with regard to the indices, I am currently short AEX and short S&P. 1520 will be a critical level for the S&P as will 550 for the AEX. Later this year, I plan to move some of my investments from North America to Europe as I see better growth prospects for European companies.

Full Disclosure: The author holds long positions in EXK, URZ, ESLR and DROOD at the time of writing.