Carl Martin

ASA Limited: A Golden Opportunity

Very good article but I have a few comments to add. Having been in this fund for several years, I know it well. It used to trade at a much greater discount. The present discount has narrowed due to a lot of threatening noises from a powerful group of shareholders. The share buyback program is their idea. ASA was completely against it at first. They are very conservative by nature and mostly hold large cap stocks. They used to be heavily invested in S.A., to the general detriment of the fund's performance. I still own a small position as they are an easy way to get some exposure to PGM'S, however those companies are also in S:A. They tend to track the average and are thereby quite safe, however well known gold stocks have easily outperformed them. Try comparing the fund's performance to AU, GG, AEM and you'll understand. I think you should be aware of the information I have given you, before recommending it to others. I also find it odd that you don't include the top ten holdings, or any performance statistics. The readers have to do all the work that the author didn't do. I thought the deal was for the authors to do all the heavy work and leave the lighter work for the investors. There are also considerable capital gains involved, and some special tax considerations. If you had owned this stock even a short amount of time you would know all this. But I hope you keep up the good work.