The rise of the miners.

Interesting mining tweet today from mining.com concerning a Canadian Junior, Aston Bay who is in talks with a major (10bn+) miner for a JV and confirms my thoughts of things going forward.

It was kicked off a couple of weeks ago, when one of the big four majors made the comment that it had finished cost cutting and delaying production and would start the treadmill up again and investing….

Along with a spate of potential mergers in other industries and a pick up likely in India, China and the US going forward, we are starting to see the turn in the cycle.

So what does this mean for investors in miners on AIM ? Well I’ve been very honest and I only have one active miner/explorer in my PF atm (I am not including OXS as I see this as a pure litigation play). Miners have been out of favour for a while particularly gold miners with PI’s selling into any good news and little liquidity or new money with any good news = a falling SP.

If majors are on the prowl again this will surely start to pick up, but not as a sector en-mass there is still too little leaving the masters table for that. Not for Gold plays imho. I cannot see a single gold centric AIM explorer with grades good enough to attract the majors or even the midfield companies.

Instead it will be the large deposits or more valuable commodities that will attract the eye of investors, particularly cash strapped ones, world class resources or where the target has an uncomplicated large % holding of the play in question…. Read copper, zinc, lead, possibly silver, lithium, heavy minerals etc.

Small explorers with good news and quality plays that fit the bill will likely see large rises over the summer and into the autumn, I won’t mention any names but with a bit of research miners might actual pay off for once……