My most informative takeaways from the 3 days were:Markets:The...

My most informative takeaways from the 3 days were:

Markets:

• The market has been very shaky for metallic commodities / mineral explorers since November, and is not getting any better in the near term
• A lot of small explorers are down to their last quarter of cash
• This has put some in the death-spiral of: 'no money/no activity/no news/no capacity to raise capital or recover'
• The underlying cause of this is last year's massive hike in US/global interest rates
• The trigger has been this year's disappointment that the US economy did not soften as expected, and their interest rates did not start to soften in the new year (although other economies such as UK, Japan, are now in recession)
• Meanwhile, the outlook for the Chinese economy is definitely getting shakier

Metals-wise:

• The distraction that was lithium has well-and-truly done its dash, due to overproduction and slower uptake in electric vehicles
• Nickel is completely on the nose
• Iron ore prices are softer, along with prices of most other metallic commodities
• So metal market investments are now out of favour, as there is a very respectable return from holding cash with a lot less risk

Metals Outlook:

• The only metals likely to see an up-turn later on this year are Copper and Gold.
• Copper continues to benefit from the ongoing global electrification (renewable power generation, EVs and hybrids)
• Gold is still profitable in $A terms if you are a producer, despite higher costs, but the exploration market is struggling to find new investment money
• And gold should be the first to benefit later this year when the US economy finally begins to respond to higher interest rates and soften, as US interest rates do finally start to come down
• The other upside drivers seen for gold are: 1. the shakiness of the Chinese domestic economy due to its reliance on speculative property investments backed by dodgy loans in a locally corrupt regulatory environment, 2. the inclination of domestic Chinese investors to protect themselves by buying gold rather than shakier $US assets, 3. the global conflict risks in Europe and all across the Middle East, and 4. that central banks have been buying and continue to buy significant quantities of gold

Antipa:

• Unlike a lot of other smaller explorers, Antipa still has plenty of cash, has very significant gold and also copper resources, has an ongoing gold resource growth program and is due for what could be a very timely resource upgrade later this year.

• Antipa also hold the outlying t wild card of a possible major discovery from one of three deep diamond holes at Pacman, possible further drilling after geophysical modelling at Tetris, and from scheduled drilling on one of the JV areas (notably IGO's)

• They also have a very promising, potentially large and strategically well-located, near-surface gold discovery at Parklands, in JV with Newmont, who have compelling reasons to rapidly explore this and drill it out this potential major ore source for the Telfer mill.

Bottom line:

• It's probably not a matter of IF there will be a significant rise in the gold price, but WHEN.
• And the consensus is that this is likely later on this year.

• Antipa are well-funded and well-positioned to benefit from any rise in the gold price.
• And Antipa are well-positioned to benefit from the strategic location of the Parklands gold discovery and the urgent needs of Newmont's adjacent Telfer gold mill.

So that was 3 days out of my busy week, but very worthwhile.

Back my real job!