jaro_g's  Instablog

well, maybe there are also other hot sectors out there i do not look at (military, nuclear industry, government bonds, ...), but among my commodity based stuff is graphite the only one which performs well recently. so what are the carbon heroes of my portfolio?

• northern graphite
• SGL carbon
• graphit kropfmühl
• focus metals
• strike gold / strike graphite
• zimtu capital
• standard graphite corp

well, standard graphite corp (TSX-V:SGH) was the company which was presented by its CEO, the highly gifted public speaker chris bogart in munich 2day. ive bought few shares (very few) 2 days ago @ CAD 0.61 in order to generate some relationship to its story ... the price 2day? CAD 0.73 with a plus of 13.64% in the early market hours. what the hell is going on? it isnt abt the road-show only? and why did i buy only so few shares? u know why, dont u? of course, i dont really like 2 buy stocks which has tripled in the last few weeks/months, so i just made a small pilot buy and gonna watch this small canadian company from now on.

btw, the main reason ive attended the 2days presentation was dietmar siebholz. folks, thats the guy who called the precious metals rally, the rare earths mania and the graphite madness way before theyve started. so you better listen when dietmar speaks, u see? and yes, his suggestion focus metals from last munichs precious metals show is one of very very few of my stocks which are up since then. imho dietmar is an engineer whos investment approach is often driven by the newest technological developments, so u can be sure the demand for graphite will go up like crazy soon. of course, he told many things where is this stuff going to be used like batteries, green energy, etc and so on. just ask wikipedia, my dear. but if u asked me, we shouldnt ignore the classical lead pencil use case as well. not every blogger blogs via internet like me, there are still many millions paper diary writers out there, arent they? lol

anyway, as long as china cornered the supply side of graphites supply-demand-equation, im not going 2 worry abt any usage of that black lightweight conductive fire resistant metal which looks like plastic 2 me.

what the hell is graphene? some very pure graphite i guess. pls dont ask me any details, u know ive no clue abt technology and i dont care

source: http://www.standardgraphite.com

any additional insights? coming soon or never :-)

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folks, thx 2 TecTonics post here (extracted from: Feb 14, 2012 | Posted by: MiningFeeds.com) i can enhance few graphite basics:

Supply and Demand

The natural graphite market is 1-1.2 million tons per year and consists of several different forms of graphite - flake, amorphous and lump. Historical applications primarily use amorphous and lump graphite, most newly emerging technologies and applications use flake graphite. Of the up to 1.2 million tons of graphite that are processed each year just 40% is flake.

China, India and Canada are responsible for most graphite mining and processing with China producing the lion's share at 70-80%. China's production is 70% amorphous and lower value small flake graphite.

Currently China imports a significant amount of North Korea's large flake graphite production raising considerable doubts in regards to China's abilities to ramp up its graphite supply. Indeed China has already taken steps to retain its graphite resources by restricting its export quota - China imposed a 20% export duty, a 17% VAT and also closed state owned enterprises.

"The days of cheap, abundant graphite from China are over." Industrial Minerals Magazine May, 2011.

It's thought that the increased use of lithium-ion batteries could gobble up well over 1.6 Mt of flake graphite per year by 2020 - only flake, upgraded to 99.9% purity and synthetic graphite (made from petroleum coke, a very expensive process) can be used in lithium-ion batteries.

"Annual flake graphite production will have to increase by a factor of six by 2020 to meet incremental lithium carbonate requirements for batteries." Canaccord research report.
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damn! if u asked me, this graphite madness is more an advertisement/promotion driven sector than a real supply demand issue ... it is simply too hot

you still remember all these 'issues': gold, silver, solar/wind energy, uranium, oil, wheat, base metals, potash, lithium, rare earths, ... of course, there is some need for the stuff, but the promotion machinery runs the prices up like crazy and some time later they fell by 50%-80% ... hmmmm, this could be an exit strategy game, isnt it?

folks, next 'prove' that the graphite market is too hot? there is not enough independent information out there! the most media just copies the 1 or 2 existing analyses all over the web / print media, even the pictures are often the same (e.g. projected demand) ... OMG

btw, if you are interested in some future hot market, you should prolly consider VANADIUM. of course, its also used in batteries, but dietmar siebholz thought that the techn. research isnt that far yet to already proven that this technology would really work fine

Disclosure: I am long ZTMUF.PK.

Additional disclosure: i'm long northern graphite, SGL carbon, graphit kropfmühl, focus metals, strike graphite, zimtu capital, standard graphite corp

what an ugly year at the financial markets!

source: facebook

what the hell happened with me and the markets in 2011? well, the base of my former success, the (steady) rising gold + silver + commodities prices, was not the only difference this time .... unlike the last few years, in 2011 was the gold silver rally in late august unfortunately OVER with an all-time-high @ $1,921 just read my euphoric comment(s) + watch the funny screen shots as the gold price crossed the 1,900 burden ... and later on came the 2008-like-crash in mining stock prices ;-(

if u dont understand why im gonna separate between trading and investing results, its because traders and investors are 2 different species of our dear homo sapiens financialis. just think abt it for a second or two ...

 

traders = paranoid dreamers who fight against insiders, against political manipulators (eg interventions of central banks in the currency + bond markets), often even against fundamental conditions and own believes in order to snap off few bucks out of short-term movements of the financial markets. (jaro gruber)

 

investors = stupid idiots who sell their stocks even for a price next to nothing and then wonder why fell 'the markets' that low (jaro gruber)

of course, both traders and investors if they succeed have to pay taxes, support the society and oppose their ugly bloodsucking speculator image made by politics & mainstream media in order to direct the public outrage away from politicians. what if they lose? easy, then they lose their own money and nobody cares abt them .... go homo sapiens financialis go :)

• my investing account(s): approx 97-98% of all funds; mostly gold + silver + commodity stocks, few energy stocks (esp. green energy), few internet + technology stocks, 1 silver ETF (~ my cash position), 2 different oil call options (one sold in november). PAIN + PAIN + PAIN ... except the first 2.5 months ive felt like in the crashy 2008, u know? there was such a selling pressure in late march, may, july, september, october, november, december ... OMD ;( ... i had to sell few of my positions and few others have been sold by my broker because of margin calls in the sept/oct crash etc and so fort ...  well, the balance of my actions in 2011 was approx plus 60 €uros including my tax loss selling of my silver ETF on xmas eve at a loss of 4.7k in order 2 reduce the tax impacts of my remaining trading/investing profits ... not 2 bad u think? wrong, wrong, wrong my friends ... the problem are the open positions, u know? well, ive lost close to 100k of last year's fictive profits .... it hurts like hell .... of course, i consider my investing account rather as 'numbers' and not as 'money', but 100k could easily buy a new car and leave 50k for additional purchase of mining stocks at these soooooooo depressed levels ... it hurts like hell again ... what to do know? nothing, what else? yep, our 11 years old car cant go into a museum yet and has to survive a year or 2 longer, who cares?

any lessons learned in 2011? the financial markets are not a one-way-road.

my outlook for 2012+ is not much different from previous years ... the fiat money crisis will continue and become worse and worse until the #OccupyWallStreet movement finally replaces the ruling 'elites' by real democracy and the fraudulent paper money system will be replaced by s.th. else, prolly by gold/silver backed currency(ies)

what to say after my whole financial mess is completely revealed and 2011 is in few hours over? what abt a slogan as every year? ok. merry crisis + happy new fear! huhhhhh? not pessimistic enough? ok, my 2nd trial: merry xmas + happy new year + occupy2012, my friends ;-)