An Exciting Effort At Rocks And Stocks News
The mining sector needs more angel investors, join our network to make this a reality.
Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is how much the mining exploration sector needs more angel investors. I’m making plans to start an angel investor network at Rocks And Stocks News.
The technology sector has a strong network of angel investors that support technology companies early in their development prior to when the bigger private equity firms come in. There is an entire ecosystem of websites that provide platforms for them to congregate.
When I look at these networks for technology angel investors it often shocks me the kinds of companies they invest in. They market themselves as innovative, but in reality I see them like they support new social media applications and other questionable tech startups or crypto currencies. Like the world really needs another social media platform or crypto currency.
I know there are tons of investors globally that invest in various different sectors, in companies at various stages of development to very large companies. From tiny companies in the incubation level all the way up to Wall Street companies. Something that I believe strongly is that many investors don’t really understand how important mining is to making everything work.
Automobiles are going through a revolution as there is a transition to electric vehicles. Many consumers are buying them and thinking about buying them. Investors are putting money into the companies. Yet, I’m absolutely sure that consumers and investors are unaware that an electric vehicle uses close to 700 pounds of metals which is around 60% more than a traditional gas-powered cars.
What is even less well known are the supply and demand dynamics of those metals needed for the electical vehicle revolution to happen. Copper is crucial to not only make the cars run, but also in the network to charge them. Lithium is also crucial for batteries to store the energy to power the vehicles.
Well before electric vehicles came along, copper was under strong demand from modernizing emerging economies. This combination has put a lot of stress on the copper mining sector, mines are being depleted, not enough new mines are being built to replace the old mines and not enough new mines are being found that can be developed into new mines.
In the past, the metals storage facilities like the London Metals Exchange would have weeks or months worth of supply to provide for the global demand for physical copper in their warehouses. Now that is measured in days.
What is clearly shaping up is a supply deficit for copper with the potential for severe supply shortages which will drive copper prices much higher in the future. But, when consumers and investors are considering the electric vehicle revolution they don’t understand the metals needed to make them run, or that the demand is causing serious strain on the supply of those metals.
By extension that creates remarkable investment opportunities in the copper mining sector. From the small exploration companies, to the bigger mine development companies and all the way up to the major mining companies.
When people enjoy their electronic vehicles, computers and other products that use lithium batteries, I doubt they realize that lithium is under rapidly growing demand with severe supply issues.
While the lithium mining sector is struggling to produce enough lithium for all the batteries needed now and look to come up very short in the near future as well as the long term. Which has caused lithium prices to bolt upward in the past couple years.
These aren’t the only metals needed for our modern lives and the desires for consumers to have alternative energy sources. If you were to take an inventory of all the products you use daily, then consider to build them and make them run requires a lot of metals you would start to understand how important mining is to your life.
Precious metals are also under heavy demand with not enough supply. As they are also crucial in several products in the modern world. Plus, they act as monetary instruments that are an alternative when people are worried about the remarkable debt growth globally and relentless money printing.
I contend that the world needs metals mines a lot more than they need another social media application. Yet, the audience for the new technology products is much bigger and the companies are more significantly funded than the metals sector that is absolutely crucial to making our modern lives function.
To emphasize this point, the dollar value of daily trading in Tesla’s stock rivals that of the daily trading in entire mining sector from the biggest to smallest combined.
Major mining companies have strong balance sheets and have no issues funding their efforts. New mine developers have less options and need better funding opportunities and explorers tend to have much more challenges to meet their funding needs.
The smaller new mine developers and explorers are ripe for disruption and needing the help of angel investors. To make this work, angel investors need to be able to filter through the noise to find good homes for their money.
I started my research and reporting career back in 2005. I had started as a consultant to public mining companies in 1993. The reason I started reporting on the sector was I found that a lot of commentary I saw was from those focused on stocks, I call them stock jockeys.
I felt the need for the industry to have more commentary from people that were well informed about the mining sector and where focused on projects. I was fortunate to have worked closely with remarkable mentors in geology, geophysics and geochemistry.
They gave me a well rounded education in what matters when looking for a mine. What I brought to the table was a gift for the gab, enthusiasm for the treasure hunt, and an ability to take complex information and present it so investors could understand what it means.
I’m confident I’m a good filter for mining investors as can be seen in my interviews of mining company executives and my sector reports on Youtube at Rocks And Stocks News and on Substack at rocksandstocks.substack.com.
I would also point our that after a decade long bull market for precious and base metals, that started in 2001 and ended in 2012, the traditional media in Canada pretty much abandoned the smaller companies in the mining sector.
The brokerage houses found technology startups, weed stocks and crypto currency stocks much more lucrative to finance and so their analysts became focused on them and also abandoned the smaller companies in the mining sector.
Mining investors were forced to find commentary online from people like myself using video, podcasts and newsletters to provide them with stock ideas and sector reports. I’m not complaining as this has given me an audience of avid investors in the sector that like to follow my interviews and commentary.
Which brings me back to the plans I’ve been making to create an angel investor network for the mining sector. A good friend of mine gave me great advice many years ago, he said to focus on what people need.
The mining space needs an angel investor network, and investors in the space need a filter to find quality and a way to more efficiently provide their capital to the sector.
In the near future, I will provide more details on my efforts to make this happen. In the meantime, if you are interested in becoming part of my email list for the Angel Investor Network at Rocks And Stocks News drop me an email.
Those on my email list for our angel investor network and paid subscriber on Subtack will get the first notification of the companies we will be bringing forward as candidates, then my main email list will be informed as well.
There is strength in numbers, I can go to candidate companies to negotiate terms for our group of angel investors in private placements.
I can see this growing in two ways for investors to participate. For qualified investors, they can invest in private placements, for those that aren’t qualified we can launch a fund that invests in the sector.
Don’t get me started on the subject of the regulations for investors that are qualified by their income and assets being unfair to smaller investors. But, I mean to make the entire process for investors big and small to become angel investors in the mining space.
All the best,
Allan Barry Laboucan
Founder
Rocks And Stocks News