graphite / graphene

the hottest market sector right now? yep, u got it: graphite / graphene ... it melts at 3,700 degrees celsius :-)

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?

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

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 

GATA? GOLD!

bill murphy + james turk + peter boehringer = great presentation in munich yesterday :-)

source: http://gata.org

bill murphy (GATA.org) speaking + peter boehringer (DEG) sitting

james turk (goldmoney.com)

folks, gold is abt libertarianism, freedom, free markets, austrian economy, honest money, peace, minimization or even elimination of fraudulent systems like paper money / bailouts / quantitative easings / corrupt governments / states + their small dirty central banks and the like, u know? well, the evening was abt all of that and of course abt meeting other paranoid fellow gold/silver bugs, few other well known gold scene folks like dietmar siebholz + dimitri speck, few old buddies and some new folks as well ...

what did i liked most? well, it was again james turks speach ... even if i already know the content of his slides backwards, i simply like the clear and easy to understand messages of that really gifted public speaker ;o)

on the other side, there was too much upset and too much time spent on the 'evil' manipulation (to the DOWNSIDE) of the gold and silver markets by the bad, bad, bad bullion banks, FED, FEDs buddies like jp morgan chase, abt the recent CFTC hearings, etc ... i cant hear that stuff any longer, do u believe me? gold is a political metal so of course there is some manipulation out there, but e.g. the currency + bond markets are manipulated much much more esp. by the corrupt central banks via the official 'interventions' which means buying/selling huuuge amounts  of the given currency (= direct manipulation) or by willfully setting the interest rate for a given currency (= indirect manipulation), so what? if the demand for physical gold + silver would be stronger the price of gold + silver would be higher! it is really as simple as that, u see? well, the futures markets generate 'paper' demand for the underlying commodity (gold, silver, wheat, etc) which is not met in the physical market and thus are imho the future markets itself the manipulators of  the 'paper commodity' prices to the UPSIDE, of course!

guys, anyway, lets go buy some cheap 'manipulated gold+silver and say thx 2 evil manipulators like JPM & Co for providing this huuuuge buying opportunity, will u?

btw, im involved in the silver market with many ups and downs since 2005. the price was $7 per ounce back then .... the price 2day? $48 per ounce, which is +600% in 6 years!!! of course u can bother your calculator if u wanna some more precise numbers, im both too lazy and too stupid to get it correctly, anyway. what the hell is the price of gold? $1,563 per ounce = all-time-high, reached in the late trading hours on a friday, the day before weekend!!! (again 3 exclamation marks in order 2 show ya the importance of this 'event') ... what abt the production costs ('cash costs') per ounce of silver? the most silver producers out of mine stock portfolio produce between -6 (silvercorp metals) and +13.5 (u.s. silver in 2010) dollars per ounce, my average mexican producers get the silver for $7 per ounce out of the ground, i think. pls dont think the 'minus' 6 was a mistake, it wasnt. the silvercorp guys sell their zinc, lead, copper and other stuff, earn 6 bucks and on top have all silver 4 free ... what abt the silver price manipulation to the upside? lol

what was the most valuable insight 4 me? well, i really enjoyed speaking in-depth to a fellow junior mining companies investor i know for years .... and i think now i know why are our favorites and the whole portfolios struggling like hell despite the record high gold / silver / copper prices and why both of us fear the 2008 crash could happen again :-(  ... the reason is so simple and so sad at once ... btw, the most real reasons are really simple ... well, here we go: my buddy has no additional money to invest and neither have i :-((( ... got it? the 'old' investors have no money left and there are for sure no new investors out there! logical, isnt it? no wonder that on a normal or even on a strong trading day stay the share prices of the junior miners flat and on a weak day they are cheap like an unwanted pet. OMG!!!!! (5 exclamation marks, no comments)

pls dont bother me with questions abt the weak performance of industry leaders like barrick, newmont, gold fields, kinross, goldcorp, yamana ...  i think, all of them are below their 2008 highs. folks, the gold price was $700-$800 then, i believe. shame on them!!! imho they will not advance too much until they change their shareholder-damaging financing via convertible bonds (all institutional investors sell the stock if the convertible is some 5-15% above their purchasing level) and/or start paying ATTRACTIVE dividends for us owners ... btw, im going 2 sell few of them in the next market upswing and thus vote 'no' with my money to teach them a lesson, u know?

cheers!

.... finally, pictures uploaded: gata @ picasa

ps: sorry 4 that much senseless gossip up there! of course u shouldnt get 10,000 bad dreams abt gold / silver / money / state defaults / monetary reforms / riots in the street and the like! just live  ... and let live ... and pls do some good 2 humans and nature => an excelent 30 seconds eckhart tolle video included, a great message, enjoy ;-):

(addendum june 2011 ~ link 2 bill murphys presentation 4 hard core gold/silver bugs, 22 minutes, but im not going 2 hear it. why not? first cos ive been there and thus heard it already, 2nd because im not sure abt the good quality of recording ... well, bill spoke sometimes too quiet ... here we go: bill murphy in munich )