All Recent Posts « AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

Archive for the ‘All Recent Posts’ Category

First Ever Gold “Backwardation” Could Signal Price Spike As COMEX Runs Out Of Gold

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:28 AM on Thursday, December 11th, 2008

AGORACOM Chief Commentator, Peter Grandich, made a call to BNN to alert them about this article on gold officially hitting backwardation.Â Backwardation occurs when the futures price of a commodity is lower than prices in the cash market.

Forward prices for gold turned negative on December 2nd and, according to Antal Fekete the author of the story, this is the first time it has happened in history (with the exception of contract expiry dates for a couple of minutes).Â Fekete states:

“On December 2nd, at the Comex in New York, December gold futures
(last delivery: December 31) were quoted at 1.98% discount to spot,
while February gold futures (last delivery: February 27, 2009) were
quoted at 0.14% discount to spot. (All percentages annualized.)

The condition got worse on December 3rd, when the corresponding
figures were 2% and 0.29%. This means that the gold basis has turned
negative, and the condition of backwardation persisted for at least 48 hours.“

In addition, demand for gold delivery on December 31 means COMEX may be running out of gold.Â Specifically, 40% of COMEX’s 2.8 million ounces is set for delivery on December contracts but – given the fact not all COMEX gold is available for delivery – this means COMEX supply will fall short if demand for delivery does not change between now and the end of the month.

Why is this taking place? Fekete believes owners of gold are no longer willing to sell their gold at any price. Thus, as opposed to selling on the spot at a higher price and buying it on the futures at a lower price – an easy arbitrage trade – they are choosing to hold onto their physical gold because they don’t believe it will be available for delivery in the future.

Conclusion – a supply shortage in gold can only translate into a significantly higher price.

BNN INTERVIEW

As a result of the Grandich Alert to BNN, John Ing – CEO of Maison Placements – was brought in to talk about the matter further on The Close. You can view the interview by clicking on the screenshot above.

Gold prices broke through $825 today and is up 4 days in a row.

UPDATE #1: Backwardation has hit mainstream, with a discussion on CNBC at 9:30 AM this morning (December 11)

UPDATE #2: Merril Lynch Chief Economist, Dave Rosenberg, was on CNBC this morning and said gold is a hedge against inflation and deflation.Â The only time gold isn’t a good investment is during “perfect” bull markets such as the one we had in the 90’s.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Gold $2,000 | Comments Off on First Ever Gold “Backwardation” Could Signal Price Spike As COMEX Runs Out Of Gold

Evolving Gold (EVG: TSXV) Continues Strong Trading After Last Week’s Results

Posted by AGORACOM at 6:00 PM on Monday, December 8th, 2008

Last week, we wrote Evolving Gold Corp. (TSXV: EVG) (FSE:EV7) a recently added AGORACOM client that announced impressive assay results, including 131m of 2.74 g/t of gold.

As the IR firm, I can’t use anymore adjectives but I do suggest gold bugs take a closer look at the company’s full press release. In addition to the impressive assays, Evolving has about $18,000,000 in the treasury and appears to be catching some interest in the marketplace despite the fact we are in the 2nd week of December:

As you can see, today was another strong day in the markets for Evolving Gold. EVG closed the day up 2 cents to .22 cents on 375,000 in volume. Furthermore, EVG ended the day with a bid ask of .22/.23 with 50,000 on the bid and just 2,500 on the ask. With “assays still pending for holes RSC-008 through 015”, EVG is worth watching very closely.

With respect to the entire space, one of our employees stated “I haven’t seen this much green in my TSXV resource portfolio in quite a while.”

Though it is premature to call this a trend, we hope it’s an indication of what may be to come in 2009 for Evolving Gold and all quality juniors that were ravaged in the past 6 months. I emphasize “quality juniors” because, as readers of this blog know full well, I won’t shed a tear for the extinction of peanut butter small-cap resource companies that had no reason to be public other than to be promoted.

The recent activity in Evolving Gold shows that investors will always have an appetite for quality companies.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts | Comments Off on Evolving Gold (EVG: TSXV) Continues Strong Trading After Last Week’s Results

Webcast Of AGORACOM Keynote Investor Relations Speech From PIPEs Conference 2008

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:14 PM on Sunday, December 7th, 2008

AGORACOM was proud to be the Investor Relations Sponsor at The PIPEs Conference hosted by DealFlowMedia in New York last month, which has become the largest and most important event on Wall Street for the small-cap and micro-cap space.

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION – TURN THIS TURMOIL TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

As the IR Sponsor, I gave the keynote IR presentation titled “A Recipe For Success During Market Turmoil”. which is based on our blog post back on October 7th. The post was very well received by clients and non-clients and even cited by IR Web Report as an example of how to turn this period of turmoil into a competitive advantage.

More than just lip service, we’ve followed these principals for our own business and had a record month in October.

For those of you that couldn’t attend, please find enclosed a webcast of the presentation.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Presentations, All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small-Cap CEO Lessons | 2 Comments »

Quick FAQ For Most Recent Upgrade To AGORACOM

Posted by AGORACOM at 7:36 PM on Friday, December 5th, 2008

UPDATED: Saturday 11:30 PM EST

Good evening to you all and thanks for both helping us with bug fixes over the past couple of days and giving us an opportunity to fix them. Overall, reaction has been hugely positive with even the tech support e-mails being supportive and helpful.

Nonetheless, now that we’ve fixed most of the bugs, I will be posting a quick demo video this weekend that illustrates our upgraded features and how they work. In the meantime, I wanted to post the following quick FAQ until the video goes up.

1. What Changes Were Made To The Site?

We added three really important upgrades that members have been asking for over the past few months:

Threaded View – You now have the option to view discussion forum messages in a threaded view.
Top Messages – You can now view the top rated messages (thumbs) by day, week, month and year to date for each HUB
Editing Messages – You now have 5 minutes to edit a message for spelling errors, etc.

2. I Really Miss The Old Format

Once you use the site for a couple of hours, you’ll see the changes are actually quite small but important from a user experience point of view.

Specifically, incorporating threads is of major importance when investors are trying to keep up with conversations regarding important messages. To deliver this, we had no choice but to add a couple of more buttons and options to allow members to choose between threaded and list views.

However, if you don’t use threads and just want to keep reviewing messages in chronological order, then nothing has changed. You just keep reading and clicking “next message.”

3. What Is The HUB Home On Each HUB?

(more…)

Posted in All Recent Posts | Comments Off on Quick FAQ For Most Recent Upgrade To AGORACOM

Small-Cap CEO Lesson: Top 10 Reasons Why Online IR Will Surpass Traditional IR In 2009

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:06 AM on Thursday, December 4th, 2008

Throughout 2008, I’ve provided a series of blog posts titled Small-Cap CEO Lessons. The purpose of the series has been to provide CEO’s with valuable data and information that would beneficially impact their business. In addition, it also served as an education in online marketing. It is one thing to say “you need to conduct online investor relations” and quite another to illustrate how Obama used an online marketing and communications strategy to win a Presidential election.

With the year winding down, new CEO readers of this blog ratcheting up and with every CEO trying to figure out their best plan of attack in 2009, it only made sense to re-visit the best lessons of the year in order to help CEO’s make their best decisions possible.

Yes, I concede that AGORACOM is biased towards online strategies that reach a new, targeted and massive group of investors – but I also have to concede that the data irrefutabley speaks for itself. Moreover, given the fact AGORACOM attraced 1.2 million investors that visited 7.6 million times and read 101 million pages of information this year, it is safe to say our Small-Cap CEO lessons are more than self-serving lip service.

TOP 10 REASONS WHY ONLINE IR WILL SURPASS TRADITIONAL IR IN 2009

1. SEC Gives OK To Websites, Blogs, RSS Feeds and Other Web 2.0 Tools For Reg FD

This story by far ranks as the #1 online investor relations story of the year.

On July 30th, according to unanimously approved new guidance by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC announced that public companies could rely on their websites and blogs to meet the public disclosure requirements under Regulation FD.

If this doesn’t fall under the “enough said” category, then the following quote from SEC Chairman Christoper Cox should do it:

“The use of electronic media is arguably superior to providing company
information the old way. It’s a better way to provide information to most
investors since today it can be presented in interactive format that allows
each individual to click through or drill down to the level of detail that’s
appropriate to him or her.”

Amazingly, this statement was preceded by the SEC approving the use of electronic shareholder forums on February 25, 2008. You can read the SEC statement here, or watch the following video of Chairman Cox discussing the initiative. Either way, great news for companies that want to eliminate the inefficiencies of the telephone and communicate via community.

If your last or biggest hurdle to conducting a full blown online IR campaign was an unfounded fear of complying with securities regulations, you now have the green light. We knew this years ago and very happy to see the SEC jumped on board.

2. How Obama Used The Web To Attract 3.1 Million Investors, Smash All Records and Win The Election

Any personal politics aside, Barrack Obama is was the equivalent of a small-cap CEO trying to make it to the top on limited resources, including cash, people and supporters. Like you, he was surrounded by Blue-Chip competitors (i.e. Hillary Clinton) that attracted the upper echelon of people and funding.

What did he do? He went grass roots. Using the web, he took his message to the most amount of people while using the least amount of money. The people responded, gave him their support and money. The rest is history.

3. IR Consultant To World’s Biggest Companies Advises “Retail Investor Relations Is Paramount”

When Dominic Jones speaks, we listen. So should you. What’s he telling the world’s biggest pubco’s? If you don’t use the web to reach new investors, communicate with them and build relationships, you’re only reaching a fraction of investors.

4. 28-Year Old Males Are The Most Bullish Investors Today

CNBC ran an extensive survey and found that 28-year old males are today’s most bullish investors. It makes sense given the fact they have the longest investment horizon and, therefore, willing to take the greatest amount of risk. How many 25-35 year old males are in your database? AGORACOM is targeting them via the web right now. Whose audience is bigger?

(more…)

Posted in All Recent Posts, Small-Cap CEO Lessons, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 2 Comments »

AGORACOM Client Hits 2.74 grams/tonne Gold Over 131 Meters

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:36 AM on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Good morning, folks.Â Evolving Gold Corp. (TSXV: EVG) (FSE:EV7) is an AGORACOM client that announced impressive assay results yesterday.Â As the IR firm, I can’t use anymore adjectives but I do suggest gold bugs take a closer look at the company’s full press release.Â You’ll be happy to know that as of this press release, Evolving has about $18,000,000 in the treasury.

Here are some highlights:

Additional assay results from the 2008 Phase One core drilling program at its Rattlesnake Hills project in Wyoming.

Drillhole RSC 007 has intersected 131 meters of 2.74 grams/tonne gold (g/t).

The re-assay of Hole RSC 003 using metallic screen fire assays has improved the results to 2.92 grams/tonne gold (g/t gold) over 146.3 meters. Due to visible gold and high grades encountered in drill hole RSC-003, (see news release 8/9/08), portions of the results were re-assayed using metallic screen fire assay protocols. In the re-assay the 146.3 meter interval has improved from 2.48 g/t to 2.92 g/t gold.

A comparison of specific intervals is detailed below.

(more…)

Posted in All Recent Posts | 1 Comment »

AGORACOM Small-Cap TV On Demand – Breaking Small-Cap And Micro-Cap News

Posted by AGORACOM at 12:25 PM on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008

YouTubeÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Small-Cap PodcastÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â iTunes Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Twitter

AGORACOM TV IS NOW ON DEMAND!

AGORACOM TV Is Available Anytime and Anywhere. Now, You Never Have To Miss It If Life Gets Too Busy @ 9:45 AM EST.

Watch Repeats on YouTube, Subscribe To Our RSS Feed On Our Very Own SmallCapPodcast , Automatically Download OnTo Your iPod Via iTunes Or Follow The Show On Twitter.

If You Believe As We Do That We Are Entering The Buying Opportunity Of A Lifetime, Don’t Miss An Episode Of AGORACOM TV!.

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Small-Cap TV, All Recent Posts, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 1 Comment »

“We Do Everyting” Model Is Dead – Including Investment Banking

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:43 AM on Monday, December 1st, 2008

The Girl Who Had Everything - Saatchi Gallery

Interesting quote from Josh Hamerman Via IR Cafe

The supermarket model of investment banking died a very quick death
this past fall. The future of the industry, many believe, will be fashioned
after the boutiques – firms that focus on just a few key areas, but do so
exceptionally well.

Joshua Hamerman, “A Tree Grows on Wall Street,”
Mergers & Acquisitions, December 2008

EVERYTHING KILLED YAHOO…

I personally believe the days of “we do everything” – for anything but retail shopping and Vegas buffets – has been done or dying for some time now. Case in point, we can all agree that Yahoo has suffered for running its operations like Peanut Butter, which led to a Senior Vice-President wrote the now infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto“ in which he summarized the company as follows:

“I’ve heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the
myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result:
a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we
focus on nothing in particular. I hate peanut butter and so should you”

… WHY NOT EVERYBODY ELSE?

Why are the days of “we do everything” over? Quite simply – the web. The web has forced us to become specialized because people are now able to search for specific items to fill their personal or business needs. As a result, people are now trained to demand specialists, not generalists. This doesn’t mean your stuck to one line of business – but it does mean that anything you do must be done very well or, as Hamerman says above, exceptionally well.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Small-Cap CEO Lessons, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | Comments Off on “We Do Everyting” Model Is Dead – Including Investment Banking

AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report â€“ November 2008

Posted by AGORACOM at 12:00 PM on Sunday, November 30th, 2008

AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report â€“ November 2008

We’re pleased to provide you with the November 2008 edition of the AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report.

For those of you who didn’t receive it last month or are new clients of AGORACOM, you can now find an archive of our newsletters on our blog here. For confidentiality reasons, “Off The Blog” items mentioned in these letters are not mentioned in the blog posts.

WHY AN “INTELLIGENCE REPORT”

For the benefit of our new clients, we call this newsletter an Intelligence Report because it provides you with important information, data and trends that impact your business – information that you normally don’t have time to find.Â We often write about these in The AGORACOM Blog, so we call these “On The Blog” stories.

In addition, this newsletter gives you a chance to look into our crystal ball and know what AGORACOM is working on months before the general public.Â You can’t find these tidbits on our blog, so we call them “Off The Blog” and ask that you keep them confidential.

As you know, we move faster than any IR firm on the planet, so knowing what we are doing in advance helps both of us coordinate our activities.Â This is especially true for what we expect to be an extremely fast moving and exciting year in 2009.

In short, greater market intelligence that puts you ahead of all of your peers.

I can’t stress enough my recommendation that you review our monthly newsletter carefully for the purposes of incorporating some of our market intelligence into both your IR and business initiatives.Â AGORACOM is now the largest small-cap IR firm and site on the continent thanks to our effective use of web technology.Â As such, following us will help you achieve your goals.

OFF THE BLOG … Shhhhh

**For confidentiality reasons, the â€œOff The Blogâ€ items are not mentioned in the blog posts as they are only
available to AGORACOM clients**

ON THE BLOG

Throughout 2008, we’ve provided a series of blog posts entitled “Small-Cap CEO Lessons”.Â The purpose of this series has been to provide CEO’s with valuable data and information that would beneficially impact their business.

With the year winding down, it makes sense to re-visit the Top 10 lessons of the year in order to help you make the best decisions possible for 2009.

Given the fact AGORACOM attracted 1.2 million investors that visited 7.6 million times and read 101 million pages of information this year by using many of these techniques, it is safe to say our Small-Cap CEO lessons are more than self-serving lip service.

IN THIS ISSUE: TOP 10 REASONS WHY ONLINE IR IS CRITICAL IN 2009

1. SEC Gives OK To Websites, Blogs, RSS Feeds and Other Web 2.0 Tools For Reg FD

This story ranks as the #1 online investor relations story in 2008. Â Enough said. Â Read more…

2. How Obama Used The Web To Attract 3.1 Million Investors, Smash All Records and Win The Election

Like you, Obama was a small-cap gem surrounded by Blue-Chip competitors who attracted the upper echelon of people and funding.Â Using the web, he took his message to millions of people using the least amount of money.Â The people responded.Â The rest is history. Â Read more…

3. IR Consultant To World’s Biggest Companies Advises “Retail Investor Relations Is Paramount”

When Dominic Jones speaks, we listen.Â So should you.Â What’s he telling the world’s biggest pubco’s? Read more…

4. 28-Year Old Males Are The Most Bullish Investors Today

CNBC ran an extensive survey and found that 28-year old males are today’s most bullish investors.Â How many 25-35 year old males are in your database?Â AGORACOM is targeting them via the web right now. Whose audience is bigger? Â Read more…

5. Online Advertising Is Growing During Economic Slowdown Thanks To ROI

With every company on the planet looking to maximize efficiencies, online advertising is growing while traditional advertising (radio, print and television) is falling.Â Why? ROI.Â Stop wasting your IR $ on old fashioned, inefficient IR methods. They don’t work and you’re wasting both time and money. Â Read more…

6. Use Search Engines To Find Things … AND Be Found

Throughout the year I would ask CEO’s “when was the last time you used Google to find something?” and 99% would answer the last 24 hours or less.Â Well, if you use search engines to find things, why aren’t you using search engines to be found? Â Read more…

7. AGORACOM Survey:Â Majority Of Retail Investors Find Conferences To Be Irrelevant

Do you even wonder why the aisles are empty when standing in your booth at most investor conferences?Â An AGORACOM survey of retail investors discovered the following. Â Read more…

8. How To Conduct Proper IR During Market Turmoil

Sure, the markets went through one hell of a rough patch in 2008 – but this is no time to run and hide unless your company was built on a house of cards.Â Here is an example of how one AGORACOM client stepped up to the plate. Â Read more…

9. 93% of Americans Want To Interact With Companies Online

If this title doesn’t say it all, then how about this tidbit.Â 67% of wealthy households are loyal to brands they can interact with online.Â 93% and 67% are pretty big numbers to ignore. Â Read more…

10. Dell Has An Investor Relations Blog…Why Don’t You?

If Dell and their multi-million IR budget feel that Web 2.0 tools are valuable IR tools for reaching retail investors, what do you think you should be doing? Calling AGORACOM hopefully. Â Read more…

CONCLUSION

As you can see, we’re a big believer in data and facts to support any position.Â We trust you now have ample amounts of data to help guide your online IR decisions in 2009.

We hope you found this edition of the AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report to be helpful.Â If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me or your AGORACOM representative for further assistance.

Thank-you and have a great day.

Yours truly,
George Tsiolis

Posted in AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report, All Recent Posts | Comments Off on AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report â€“ November 2008

NEW: Evolving Gold (EVG:TSXV) Joins AGORACOM 100 With $18,000,000 In Its Treasury

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:18 AM on Saturday, November 29th, 2008

I am proud to announce that on November 28th, 2008, Evolving Gold Corp. (TSXV: EVG) (FSE:EV7) was added to the AGORACOM 100. The AGORACOM 100 is an exclusive group of great small-cap companies that provides investors with their first point of research when looking for their next great small-cap investment.

Investors will find Evolving Gold to be a worthy of inclusion in the AGORACOM 100 based on the following:

Evolving Gold has over $18 million in its treasury.
Evolving Gold is focused on its discovery property – Rattlesnake Hills, Wyoming. Assay results for the first seven holes reveal an intersection of 2.92 Grams/Tonne over 146 Meters (RSC 003) and 2.74 Grams/Tonne over 131 meters (RSC 007).
The Company has completed a 15 hole, 6,500 meter drilling program on this property with further assay results coming out over the next months. Evolving has the option to acquire 100% of the Rattlesnake Hills project.
Evolving also has 8 other gold properties primarily in Nevada including a lease agreement with Newmont Mining Corporation on four prospective gold properties (North Carlin District Properties) located within the prolific Carlin Gold Trend (see press release 12/5/2007).

Naturally, as a client of AGORACOM, you expect me to say nice things about the company … but its hard to argue with a junior that has $18 million in the bank during these tumultuous times for the industry.Â The money is an indication of good management and projects that investors found worthy of their hard earned investment dollars.

View Evolving Gold Profile

View Evolving Gold Electronic Shareholder Forum

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts | Comments Off on NEW: Evolving Gold (EVG:TSXV) Joins AGORACOM 100 With $18,000,000 In Its Treasury

Archive for the ‘All Recent Posts’ Category

Categories