Chakana Copper - excellent copper/gold/silver project in Peru

The two main negatives restraining the mining indices at present are the weaker iron ore price and the slump in the gold price (though it recovered somewhat by the end of the week). The iron ore price is off by about 28% from its high but there has only been a limited correlation with the share prices. That is fine if the iron ore prices bounce higher from here, but in the absence of such a move, it is only a matter of time before share prices get crunched. Whether that ushers in a bear market for iron ore companies remains to be seen but we are certainly past the peak.

Gold prices have promised and failed to deliver repeatedly over the last 12 months. It is hard to know what to do. One well-credentialed commentator in the USA has described this as a gold bear market. He is looking for one more crunch down that will scare the pants off the bulls, and then he is calling a mighty upswing that will be very profitable for traders. If you panic and sell out, you will miss the big run upwards. Here's hoping he is right.

Leading lithium stocks have been much stronger over the week and rare earths stocks continued their return to favour, with the recent IPO, Australian Rare Earths (AR3), being a particularly good performer. Hydrogen stocks also performed better.

We have gone back to the TSX this week with another very interesting copper/gold exploration story, this time in Peru - Chakana Copper Corp (TSX.V:PERU.V), with a swarm of tourmaline breccia pipes. 

 WeeklyComm14August2021.pdf