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AGORACOM Runs 1st Client Ad On Bloomberg TV

Posted by AGORACOM at 12:07 PM on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Good afternoon to you all. Back on February 1st, we announced that our US Investor Relations programs would now include the ability to reach investors via Bloomberg Television and CNBC TV. These incredible tools were made available thanks to our powerful partners at Google, who are now handling offline ad space for the likes of (TV) Bloomberg, CNBC (Newspapers) New York Times (Radio) Clear Channel.

To this end, I’m proud to announce that our first Bloomberg Television began running in mid-June on behalf of our client Futuremedia. About 125,000 people have watched the ad so far and volume on FMDAY is much higher than normal.

Anecdotally, a partner from Washington called to advise they were watch Bloomberg the other day and nearly jumped out of their chair when I popped up on the screen. We’ve uploaded the commercial to YouTube for all to see. The quality isn’t as crisp as the actual playing version but you’ll get the idea.

Suffice it to say that we are really excited about this initiative and expect to be launching a few more campaigns in the coming weeks, including our very own AGORACOM ad. As always, we put our money where our mouth is by using the exact same tools we ask our clients to use.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM SURVEY: Relevancy Of Small-Cap Investor Conferences

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:01 AM on Monday, June 23rd, 2008

Good morning to you all. Last week, I posted my thoughts on the relevancy of small-cap investor conferences and asked for your thoughts on the matter via our simple, 4-question survey.

I’m happy to report that nearly 200 people took the time to participate in the survey (thank-you) and the detailed responses and results can now be viewed here:

For those of you that simply want the highlights, the results were as follows:

  • 60% do not find conferences valuable and get everything they need from the web.
  • Of those 60%, 24% responded they would not take time away from work or family as a reason.
  • Of the 40% that do attend, 70% listed “meeting with company principals” as the #1 reason.
  • Only 11.5% of you believe that small-cap conferences will vanish but 52% believe there will be fewer (but better) conferences.

Interesting stuff. In summary, it looks like the web takes care of all investor information needs but still can not replace personal interaction. I wonder if increased use of video (conference calls, presentations, etc.) would further erode the raison d’etre of small-cap conferences.

I’m also not surprised to see that 52% of investors believe there will be fewer but better conferences in the future.  Like the increased number of bad small-cap listings, we have also seen the rise of too many bad “conferences” that are nothing more than a money grab.

I’m certain (and glad) the slower economy is going to force them out of the business, while quality conferences like those put on by Cambridge Conferences and DealFlow Media will survive and thrive by providing a valuable collaborative experience for investors, pubco’s and industry participants.

Thanks again to everyone that participated in the survey. Much appreciated and I hope you found the results to be equally valuable.

Regards,
George

Are Small-Cap Investor Conferences Becoming Less Relevant?

Posted by AGORACOM at 3:23 PM on Monday, June 16th, 2008

I don’t have any empirical evidence yet but anecdotal evidence over the last 6 months is clearly indicating significant attendee drop-off in small-cap / micro-cap investor conferences across North America. Quite frankly, I am not surprised given the following factors:

  • Online Research Dominates – The majority of research into new investment ideas by small-cap investors is done via the web.
  • Too Big – With upwards of 400-500 pubco booths under one roof, investors typically can not make it through an entire show.
  • Lack Of Focus – With so many companies from so many different fields under one roof, investors don’t know where to begin or how to separate the wheat from the chaff.
  • Inconvenient – To attend a conference, you either have to take off a day of work or give up part of your weekend. Not too many people want to do either these days.

I believe the biggest challenge facing small-cap and micro-cap conferences is the temptation to keep getting bigger. Bigger is great from a revenue point of view but terrible from an attendee experience point of view. The answer is actually smaller but more frequent conferences targeted towards a specific audience. If you need any proof of this, just look at how TechTarget ate COMDEX’s lunch by providing smaller but more targeted conferences, resulting in greater revenues and fantastic attendee experiences.

QUICK SURVEY

I’d like to hear what investors think. You can simply post your comments below, or take part in our simple, 4-question survey.

UPDATE:  The survey results are in and can be found here.

INDUSTRY CONFERENCES ARE STILL VALUABLE

To be clear, Investor conferences are not to be confused with industry conferences that are strictly meant for professional networking and knowledge. For example, the Reverse Merger conference taking place in Los Angeles this week will bring together investment bankers, attorneys and other key professionals from across the world to learn about changing legislation and conduct great networking. In addition, the targeted nature of the event means attendees get a lot bang for their buck.

Regards,
George

The Small-Cap Elevator Ride Through The Eyes Of A Merchant Banker

Posted by AGORACOM at 3:01 PM on Monday, May 26th, 2008

If you had told me 2 years ago that, in June of 2008, Gold and Oil would be trading over $US 925 and $US 130 respectively, I would have started eyeing super villas on the Greek islands from which to celebrate my impending fortune. I believe a lot of small-cap resource investors would agree.

Now, many of us can’t complain with gains made in the sector over the last couple of years – but they most certainly haven’t been commensurate to what you would expect given the prices of commodities these days.

So What Gives?

If the answer can’t be found in charts, filings, technical reports and general fundamentals, it’s time to put your ear to the ground and listen. If you don’t have such an ear, don’t despair. We found one for you that is willing to share his observations from the inner sanctum.

John Carlesso is the President of Cervello Capital Inc., a Toronto-based boutique private merchant bank with an area of focus in the resource sector. He is a good friend of mine and – more importantly to you – a very well respected member of the resources community. He’s younger than most of the “gray hairs” in the industry – but he is renowned for his integrity and project selection.

Please find enclosed his contribution below as a guest blogger on AGORACOM.

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CHECKING OUT IN THE (NOT-SO-SUPER) MARKET

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
Hunter S. Thompson
US journalist (1939 – 2005)

A writer known for rebelliousness, excess and, arguably, irrational behaviour isn’t what ordinarily comes to mind when contemplating financial markets. But it’s been a booze-worthy elevator ride from hell for most market participants lately, particularly in the smallcap space. And if you’re looking for a serial that’s full of melodrama, panic, despair, heartache, greed, jealousy, villains and some good ol’ animosity toward the Establishment, you needn’t look much further than a quotescreen or the Business section of any newspaper.

This has been mortal combat, blood-in-the-streets type stuff – a point that gets hammered home to me in just about every conversation I have these days. It seems everyone is miserable because they’re down big on something, or several things. That annoying little buzz that began in August eventually became the big sucking sound you’re hearing now that has deflated just about everybody’s balloon. None more so than the smallcaps.

And this makes sense on a certain level. Credit is choke-collar tight, money is scarce, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear perspective on when any of this improves. It all adds up to the market’s loss of appetite for smallish companies that aren’t generating cash flow, and a downright violent, bulimic attitude toward concepts that require equity infusions to continue forward.

At my day job we source, list publicly, finance and help manage smallcap growth companies. A lot of what we do has been in the resource arena. Much like almost everyone else in the game we pride ourselves on the quality of our assets, our people, and our integrity (really, we do!). Which we think makes us different (really, we do!). So how do we make sense of the market hawking a loogie right in our eye every time a positive development is announced?

A well-respected fund manager I met with recently congratulated me on the fundamental success that one of our companies has achieved. He even said he was surprised by it (I think it was meant as a compliment) and that the company was very clearly doing all the right things. His punchline was that, despite seeing far more value in the smaller names, he was selling all of them. Too illiquid and not enough correlation with the bigger picture. So he’s buying names that he doesn’t like nearly as much that will at least give him the opportunity to be active on.

An analyst I recently spoke with told me of his trip to New York to present his best ideas to institutional clients. “Don’t show me any small names” they said unanimously. “But that’s where the most value is” he replied. “Doesn’t matter” they shot back. “The decision’s being driven from upstairs”.

A retail stockbroker I met with last week told me that this is the absolute worst environment that he has seen in his 35 years in business. “Clients are apoplectic because they don’t understand the meaning of risk anymore. They’re down 50% on their bank stocks for chrissakes. There’s no way I can tell them that they should be buying some of the junior miners because there’s good value in them, but that’s what I think they should be doing.”

Is this a tale of insanity? Not really. It’s a process that needs to be worked through and unfortunately the collateral damage inflicted by the nauseatingly overwrought “Credit Crunch” is somewhat indiscriminate.

But all is not doomed and you can write your own happy ending by being very selective in your smallcap investing:

  • 1] If your holdings have experienced management teams with accomplished track records, this is a quality that has never been more critical.

2] If they have assets which are undeniably creating value that someone will pay for in the near future, you can put another tick in the “plus” column.

3] Is the Balance Sheet solid? Not usually the first consideration when investing in juniors during a go-go phase, but again, never more critical than at this moment as it provides the ability to outlast the current lousy environment for financing.

Money is available for and will find these types of companies. Despite the amount of cash sitting on the sidelines being at record levels, it’s just not anywhere near as “available” as it once was, and those who hold it have quickly become very shrewd about the price it comes at. No book is complete without a cliché: the best companies to offer your investment dollars to are the ones that don’t necessarily need them.

Let me add a disclaimer here. You should be aware of the fact that I sit on the board of several publicly-traded companies in the resource sector, which provides me with some insight that you may not necessarily have and which you may find some value in. My conclusions are my own, but despite my goal of writing objective commentary to chew on, you should assume that my interests are conflicting and reach your own conclusions.

The panic chapter isn’t necessarily over yet. The horror-ride into the abyss may still accelerate before any euphoric form of relief arrives. The sharp yank up will come when the value in the small names with the best prospects becomes too great for the aforementioned big players to ignore. It may take a while but focusing on quality and value will ultimately be rewarded.

In this type of market it pays to be patient and prudent, so make your objective staying in the game without sustaining any fatal injuries. Keep your head. Relax, have a drink and grab some perspective. It could have the makings of a great story some day.

END

Stockgroup Q1 – Their 10 Million Loss Is AGORACOM’s 10 Million Gain

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:07 PM on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Good evening fellow AGORACOMers. Stockgroup (owner of Stockhouse.com) announced their Q1 numbers today and the company continues to lose a lot of money. I’ll discuss those details below.

Stockhouse Loses 10 Million Pages, AGORACOM Gains 10 Million Pages .. But The Numbers Still Don’t Add Up.

The bigger piece of news is that page views on Stockhouse are down 10 million/month. Coincidentally, AGORACOM is now reporting 10.5 Million pages per month.

We’ve been reporting increasing traffic numbers since the launch of our “Investor Controlled Discussion Forums” on October 5th, so we’re not surprised at the correlation. However, what we can’t reconcile out of the Stockgroup Q1 report was the following statement:

Stockhouse ended the quarter averaging 1.06 million unique visitors vs. 0.81 million an increase of 31% and 69 million page views vs. 79 million in Q1/08 vs. Q1/07.”

How do you increase unique visitors by 30.8% but reduce page views by 12.7%? Over a day, or a weekend, or a holiday week, it is possible. But over an entire quarter is simply confusing? You would expect the base of 810,000 visitors would keep reading the same amount, while the additional 250,000 would add extra page views.

So how do you explain a drop in page views? If anybody has an answer, I’m listening.

Stockgroup Continues To Bleed Red Ink

In this quarter, the company lost $1.44 million vs a loss of $557,000 in Q1 2007. The company says this is due to increase costs associated with their new site, as well as, reduced ad revenue as a result of their prolonged beta – but $900,000?

It wouldn’t be such a big number if they hadn’t used the same excuse in Q4, where the company lost $1.1 million and Q3, where they lost $2.3 million. For the entire year, the company lost $5.1 million.

Can you attribute all of this to re-design, etc.? I don’t think so – and I think I’d know what it costs to re-launch a site given the fact we went through it this past fall for a tad less than $5.1 million. Nonetheless, I’ll give the company the benefit of the doubt and see what they can pull off next quarter, the first full quarter of operation under the new site.

Regards,
George

p.s. Sorry for the incorrect logos but it seems the Stockgroup and Stockhouse sites are rejecting any connection with them, so we can’t link to their logos.

Scoping Study Calls For $1.7 Billion In Annual Profits

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:42 AM on Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Good morning to you all. I’m proud to announce that our newest client – Legend International Holdings (LGDI:OTCBB) released significant results from a scoping study on its phosphate projects in Queensland, Australia. Quite frankly, these are the biggest numbers I have ever seen , the highlights of which are included below:

The scoping study was conducted by British Sulphur, a division of CRU International. They prepared initial project capital and operating costs assuming sale prices for phosphate of US$100 per tonne fob, US$200 per tonne fob, US$300 per tonne fob and US$400 per tonne fob.

In March 2008, sales of Moroccan product at US$400 per tonne fob Morocco were recorded. Phosphate isn’t priced on a daily market like gold or soybeans, so you have to take actual market transactions.

Based on $US 400/tonne:

  • Annual Gross Earnings – $US 1.7 Billion
  • 5 Million Tonnes Of Production Per Year
  • Historically Defined Phosphate Deposits of 1.463 billion tonnes
  • At $300 Per Tonne, Annual Gross Earnings – $US 1.2 Billion
  • At $200 Per Tonne Annual Gross Earnings – $US 700 Million
  • Phosphate Prices Driven By Global Agricultural Demand For Fertilizer
  • CAPEX Of $826 Million To Construct Infrastructure

Given the gravity of these figures, I also think it is important to note the producers of the Scoping Study to make sure it is reliable. The British Sulphur Consultants Division of CRU Group has been the leading business consultancy in the fertilizer and inorganic chemical sector for over 50 years. British Sulphur was the first supplier of information to the fertilizer industry, and remains the largest provider of services to the industry.

As of yesterday’s close, Legend has a market cap of $US 433 Million.

View the entire press release here.

View the Legend Int’l HUB here.

Regards,
George

Creston Moly (CMS: TSXV) Trades Over 3,000,000 Shares After BNN Interview

Posted by AGORACOM at 1:30 PM on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Creston Moly Logo

Good afternoon to you all. Jonathan George, President and CEO of Creston Moly Corp, (an AGORACOM client) was featured on BNN Power Breakfast today and the company has traded over 3,000,000 shares as of 2:00 PM EST. In addition, the share price is up 7.94%.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to most AGORACOM members given the following facts about Creston Moly:

  • They own Mexico’s largest Molybdenum project (El Creston)
  • NI 43-101Indicated Resource of 169,000,000 pounds of Molybdenum
  • NI 43-101Inferred Resource of 141,000,000 pounds of Molybdenum
  • Mineral Resources at El Creston are open pittable
  • $40,000,000 Financing
  • Mining Rights Fully Secured

If you want to know more about this great story, you should do the following:

  1. Watch the BNN interview below. It is a concise but informative 5 minutes.
  2. Go to the Creston Moly IR HUB here on AGORACOM

Small-Cap CEO Lesson – Your “Personal Business Newspaper” On Google

Posted by AGORACOM at 6:05 PM on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Every time I’ve shown the following to a small-cap CEO, they’ve literally jumped out of their seat and yelled “I want one of those!” (If you’ve mastered RSS Feeds and Readers, don’t bother going any further. If you didn’t understand this last sentence, continue.)

It is that powerful.

What Is It?

Technical Description: Don’t worry about it. I’ll teach you about RSS Feeds, Readers, etc. some other time. All you have to know is this is the web of the future – but you get to learn about it today.

Non-Technical Description: It is the small-cap CEO tool that you have always dreamed about. It turns Google into your very own information gathering spy machine by sucking up every relevant piece of intelligence on the planet (to you) and brings it all into one place – your Google page. No more failed attempts at surfing through more bookmarks than you can ever use. Now, it all comes to you.

But I didn’t know I even had a Google page? You do – you just don’t know how to use it yet.

Can You Describe It? Yeah – but a picture is worth a thousand words.

First, let’s picture what Google looks like when you use it. A big blank white page with a simple search bar in the middle of it. Something like this?

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Now, let’s see what my Google pages looks like. These are just 2 samples. Please click on each image so that you can see a full-screen, clear version:

IMAGE #1 – My Business Category

IMAGE #2 – My Gold & Metals Category

As you can quite clearly see, I have multiple, valuable sources of information streaming into my personal newspaper at Google, 24/7/365. I’ve divided my sources into specific categories. I can’t tell you how valuable this has been in terms of:

A] Providing market intelligence – Information overload is useless. Information that helps me beat the competition is priceless. My personal newspaper on Google is equal to approximately 5 full-time (24 hour full-time) researchers at my disposal.

B] Time Management – We all have 436 bookmarks we’ve amassed over time but who has the time to visit just 3 of them per day? Life is busy, so you shouldn’t have to hop from site to site. Now, you don’t have to.

MY MARKET INTELLIGENCE ADVANTAGES

First of all, to call it an “advantage” is probably the understatement of the year. Advantage implies I have an edge, or better odds. This is outright domination.

Google allows me to create my own “personal newspaper” that only publishes information that I ask it to publish. What kinds of information?

1] Any new search engine or blog results relating to “George Tsiolis” or “AGORACOM” or “ABC competitor”. If anything new pops up in this world about me or my competitors, I know about it. For example, a competitor was recently named in an article concerning the latest SEC e-mail spam crackdown. Priceless!

2] News related to my business. I need to know about any new developments in “investor relations”, “investor relations + TSX Venture” , “investor relations OTCBB”, etc. If an investor relations contract is signed or terminated in North America, I know about it. How valuable is that?

3] News related to Web 2.0. If there is a new technology or application that can help my clients or AGORACOM, I know about it.

4] News related to my clients’ industries. I need to know about news or developments that affect my clients in specific industries (i.e. metals and mining; oil & gas). However, with so much noise out there, I only want to know headlines coming out of 10-20 great sources of info. I don’t have time to surf all of those sites – but I can aggregate each of their headlines onto 1 page and quickly scan them for those few juicy articles that help us stay ahead of everyone else.

* Each AGORACOM account executive run their own industry searches for their specific clients

5] Real-Time Market/Economic analysis – I can get today’s headlines from hundreds of sites…but where do you find the best analysis about those headlines? I follow about 20 of the sharpest minds on the web, whose analysis is fed into me all day, everyday.

How do you get one of these? Just ask. This is too good not to share.

Regards,
George

AGORACOM Client – Avalon Ventures – Rings Opening Bell On TSX

Posted by AGORACOM at 12:44 PM on Thursday, March 27th, 2008

I’m very proud to announce that one of our longest and best supporting clients, Avalon Ventures, rang the bell and opened the TSX markets today. Avalon traded on the TSX Venture (VSE in the old days) for 13 years but officially graduated to the TSX on February 28.

They are up on the front page of the TSX.com but probably only for the day, so I took the liberty of posting the picture here for everybody. We also have video of the event that will be coming in over the next couple of days. I’ll post it at that time.

Congratulations to Don Bubar, Avalon’s President & CEO, as well as, his entire team. Don is the star of the show for piloting the company through rough market conditions a few years back – and now ending up on the big board.

During his speech, Don was also gracious enough to thank his management team and supporters of the Company during the resource bear market years. A class act.

Congratulations to everybody that attended at the invitation of Don for their support over the years. We look forward to more great things out of Avalon in the years to come.

For those of you that are new to the Avalon Ventures story, do yourself a favour and take a closer look by visiting their HUB or website.

Avalon Ventures Ltd. is a Canadian junior mineral exploration and development company with a primary focus on the rare metals and minerals that are in increasing demand for environmentally-beneficial high technology applications. These include lithium, tantalum, cesium, beryllium, indium, gallium, rare earth elements (“REE”) such as neodymium and terbium and rare minerals such as calcium feldspar.

UPDATE: We now have 2 videos from the ceremony. One video contains the opening remarks from both Don Bubar and TSX representatives. The second video is a quick interview with me and Don in front of the TSX stock board with the Avalon logo behind us. Both of the videos can be found here.

Regards,
George

SEC Suspends 3 More Companies For Stock Spam and Video Promotions

Posted by AGORACOM at 1:13 AM on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

A loud round of applause please to the SEC for suspending trading in 3 more companies that haven’t adequately disclosed information to investors and have been the subject of both spam e-mail campaigns and promotional videos on YouTube.

The action warrants even further commendation when you consider the SEC probably has its hands full with major Wall Street problems related to the sub-prime debacle.

This isn’t the first time we’ve applauded the SEC for taking action on this very important issue that we are very passionate about ourselves. We consider stock/fax/mail spam a scourge on the industry because it inundates investors with unwanted solicitations, while also hurting the reputation of the small and micro-cap markets.

HIGHLIGHTS OF SEC PRESS RELEASE

The SEC issued a press release with the full details but here are the highlights:

1] The SEC identified the three companies as:

  • NeoTactix Corp. (NTCX – OTCBB)
  • Graystone Park Enterprises Inc. (GPKE – Pink Sheets) and
  • Younger America Inc. (YNGR – Pink Sheets)

2] Trading in the three companies’ shares has been suspended for 10 business days and won’t resume until April 4.

3] “The videos often repeat information in the companies’ press releases and are posted to coincide with traditional spam e-mail campaigns.

4] Each of the companies “inadequately disclosed its assets, business operations and financial condition.

SEC ANTI-SPAM INITIATIVE HAS NETTED 50 COMPANIES, PROMOTERS, SPAMMERS AND INSIDERS

The SEC used the press release to also bring the public up to speed on the effectiveness of its Anti-Spam Initiative. You’ll be happy to know that more than 50 companies have had trading in their securities suspended and the SEC has brought several enforcement actions against the perpetrators behind these companies.

The Result? Spam complaints are down 68% in just one year, from 167,000 to 54,000. Like me, I’m sure you’ve also seen a drastic reduction in the amount of stock spam in your daily inbox (thank god).

CONCLUSION

It’s nice to know that complaints aren’t going into some black hole and collecting cobwebs. The SEC is obviously taking this matter very seriously, so you should do all you can to assist them and eliminate this scourge on our markets once and for all. If you have a complaint, make sure to send it to: [email protected]

Regards,
George

UPDATE: Footnoted.Org (a great blog that reports on the fine print footnotes in SEC filings) has some more details about the video hostess and company behind this latest SEC press release. Interesting stuff.