Marin Katusa started off the 2018 Vancouver Resource Investment conference off in a battle with Rick Rule and Frank Holmes discussing top picks.
Marin's picks were no surprise to the audience as they are the same companies (dogs) he has been promoting for the past several years.
In case you are wondering about some of Marin's track record this link is a good place to do some due diligence.
At the conference he also mentioned he has over $10 million dollars exposure to each of these companies. At least he has skin in the game!
First up we have Equinox Gold (EQX.V).
Equinox is a roll up of several companies (Trek Mining (Luna Gold, Gold Mountain, JDL Copper), Anfield Gold corp, and Newcastle Gold).
Marin was a previous investor in a few of those and is likely under water and is trying to make things work now and get some cash back.
This one I sort of like on second thought not really as Ross Beaty is now involved as an investor and chairman.
A few red flags on Equinox.
The market cap at $1.26 is over $533 million. In my opinion better companies available at a cheaper MC.Brent Cook has questions about the geology of Aurizona and how well the deposit holds together.Another large float with over over 423 million shares out.Next we had Blackbird Energy (BBI.V). This was actually one of Marin's top picks last year at the show and was promptly down 36% year over year.
Rumors on Howe Street are that Marin is starting to get a little worried as last year he teased his letter with a guarantee that if a stock didn't go up 50% the subscribers would get a year for free (this stock was rumored to be Blackbird).
He even made a public pitch on his website in August to try and get Blackbird bought out with no luck!
A few red flags on Blackbird.
The Canadian natural gas price sucks and is not expected to get better in 2018The float 748.30 million shares out... yikes!Last but not least we have Uranium Energy Corp (UEC:NYSE).
Marin has been promoting Amir Adani companies for it seems like forever.
A few red flags on Uranium Energy Corp (UEC).
The uranium price is a big question mark... I don't think uranium will recover much in 2018. UEC's balance sheet is a little iffy with $20.1 million in current assets with $26.2 million in liabilities including $19.5 million in long term debt.To sum up.... Marin Katusa picks the same old companies, same pitch, and the same result for investors (poor performance if you haven't noticed).
Hey Marin..... time for some fresh picks!
I will be releasing my own picks on this blog soon to see how I stack up............
Marin's 2018 VRIC scorecard
Company Price start (Monday Jan 22 open)
Equinox $1.32
Blackbird $0.325
Uranium Energy $1.65