best of the nickel juniors?

There's been a bit of favourable coverage of TIR recently which has helped support TIR's price in the face of (temporarily) falling nickel prices e.g. the article in the Feb/Mar issue of "Resource Stocks" which forecasts cashflow from the Armstrong nickel mine to be around $1m per month.

With the Zabel and McEwen mines not far behind, Titan should be straddling a real cash cow within the next 6 - 12 months. Armstrong should produce first metal in October and if all 3 orebodies can be brought online quickly as planned, 14 - 15,000 tonnes of nickel per annum is forecast in the article. Even assuming the slightly depressed nickel prices (currently around US$13,000 / tonne) do not improve, TIR should reap a windfall based on this forecast once production rolls - not bad for a stock with only 177m shares on issue.

A very aggressive drilling programme is also currently underway to expand the resource base at McEwen and to follow up the Central Widgie leases. The latter cover the southern half of the former Mt. Edwards nickel mine which produced 954,578 tonnes of ore at 2.72% Ni.

We should have an interesting next 12 months with up to 3 new mines opening and regular drill results to tempt the punters.

The stock price slumped upon news that MD Bill Ryan was leaving this year but now seems to be turning up again. Currently the stock is trading at .45 cents, well below its peak of .60 cents late last year.

No doubt good cases may be made for a few other nickel juniors but TIR is my preferred exposure given its price relative to its near-term potential. I also like IGO, SMY and WSA though I don't have stock in any of these. Conduct your own independent research before acting on any of the OPINIONS given above.

I hold.

R/Gupper