I am on Kidman Resources. Good Lithium hits and awaiting further drill results. Has tripled in price but think it could do that again. http://kidmanresources.com.au/
An update on PLS which is showing indications a big move is brewing. Descending Triangle formation from early May is generally bearish and typical of a reversal. Interestingly there is a Triple Bottom which has decent volume that I would normally consider to be a bullish indicator but in the last week or two upward momentum has faltered again with another lower high and the Descending Triangle probably trumps the Triple Bottom. The triangle pattern is going to come to a head sometime in September or early October and a breakout from this pattern in either direction is likely to be a strong move. So basically, the clock is ticking for PLS. I reckon they need a really nice announcement in the next 4 weeks or so to break out on the upside, because (on technicals alone) if there is no news soon they go for a retest of the 0.43 support level and if they fall through it will be carnage. I've seen other stocks with a high percentage of retail investors get absolutely mauled by panic selling when key support gets broken. I hope PLS isn't one of them but I think the risk is large.
Where can I find the price of Lithium (both current and historical) and Lithium Futures? If there is expected to be huge future demand for Lithium I'd expect to see it in the commodity price. Lithium miners are mostly just leveraged plays on the underlying commodity. Yet the commodity still seems to be small fry on the metals exchanges.... ....something doesn't quite add up for me.
Lithium isn't traded on any commodity or futures exchange, the closest you could get would be an ETF like LIT: NYSE or now maybe the new Aussie one LPI that intends to become a diversified pure play Lithium coy with a "basket" of Lithium investments. This is one reason the explorers have such appeal, Up until the last 12-24 months the entire lithium supply side was controlled by basically three big brine company's, SQM, Albermarle, FMC, but their actual lithium supply came as a by product from chemical and pot ash production and made up only a small part of their total income stream. In order for them to increase their supply of Lithium to satisfy demand, they would also need to increase production of their chemical and fertilizers, which would in turn lead to an eventual price reduction in their main income streams as oversupply of these products occurs. Pure hardrock Lithium production on the other hand is not constrained by such issues, and is able to wind up or down production of spodumene concentrate comparatively easily. China is currently expanding capacity for battery manufacturing, and nearly, if not all new capacity is geared towards spodumene concentrate as the base product. The current and coming demand for lithium is reflected in the spot price, the expansion of capacity, the amount of vehicle manufactures moving into the EV market, buses, trucks, mining equipment, the growth in electricity storage with even grid suppliers now balancing grid loads with lithium storage, and of course the never ending supply of consumer electrical goods powered by Lithium. Supply will not meet demand in the short to medium term, and that is one reason that explorers and miners are getting MOU's and Offtake agreements worth $100's of millions before even the first shovel full of ore is turfed in a truck. The manufactures have no choice but to go straight to the source if they want to maintain production.
Thanks. I guess that's what I'm asking. Where can I find out and track this spot price? To me it is key. Everything else, the "limited supply", "increased demand" and "only a few key players" sounds a lot like the rare earths story back in 2011 or whenever that was. I'm not trying to rain on anyones parade, but people keep talking about these mining companies having great fundamentals (despite no revenue) and I am just a skeptic. I want to understand it better.
Same, to me it's too much like rare earth not that rare, so it like a short term supply constraint issue soon as the supply is up price will go down and all those not pro during might as pack up and go home.
Bugged, have a squiz at this thread (PLS) on HC. Does't explain spot prices, but may help understand valuation a little a better. Add or subtract depending on where you see prices/demand heading http://hotcopper.com.au/threads/npv-undervalued-sp.2846418/#.V8E5tJh96M8
Yeah I totally get the comparison between lithium and the rare earths story, But, and it's a Big But, Lithium is just the one element in this story, not a combination of different ones that might or might not be in demand and require a half dozen different extraction and refinement process' . It's like your just chasing rare cheese and your deposit is only 5% rare cheese 95% Chalk..... as opposed to an 80% rare cheese deposit. (pun intended) Supply forecast from some of the better guru's such as Joe Lowry is estimated to only meet demand by around 2022, and that is based upon current uptake of EV's and Storage. Some others see a paradigm shift occurring within that timeframe that could see an exponential uptake of electrical storage that could even double the current demand. Third world country's that will do away with the need for poles and wire grid electricity for example. And yes IPV, it's not that rare an element, until you try to economically mine it that is. You can't process Mica for Lithium yet, and the amount of deposits that have a decent grade and % of Spodumene (the favoured source) are quite rare. Brine supply has it's own set of restraints for battery supply with issues of contaminants over and above that of upscaling to meet demand as no two brine deposits have the same chemistry type and each requires tweaking of the processing line to produce a pure product. I was as skeptical as anyone when BGS first bought their Goulamina deposit having been burned with rare earths in the past, along with graphite as well, you can also add to that I am a dedicated climate change skeptic and didn't buy the whole EV demand story either. But the numbers speak for themselves, China is not expanding capacity for no reason at all and VW, BMW, Ford, Google, Apple etc etc etc are all getting on board, The Lithium will have to come from somewhere. And for sure there will be failures along the way, some deposits will just not stack up economically, but the ones that do will make a LOT of money over the next decade. As Old Molly would say, "Do yourself a favour" and check it out properly.
