Investing in Senior and Junior Silver Miners

by John Stevenson on January 27, 2015

If investing in senior and junior silver miners, you should know what these types of miners have to offer in terms of value and risk. In the area of senior mining, investors can look at income statements and balance sheets and make a fairly good judgment about the company’s value. The situation is different with junior miners where buying silver stock requires looking at charts, the company’s properties, getting to know the management body, and so on. In many of these cases, there is no way of knowing whether a junior miner will make a discovery or not. Some investors just rely on their intuition, but experts recommend gathering as much information as possible. If the management body has done something worthwhile in the small mining sector or in exploration, one can get a feel as to how the company is run.  Another indicator of a sound company is if its management had run or discovered a profitable mining site in the past. manNaturally, investors also want to look at the cash balance and cash flow of junior mining companies. While some of them may have good projects, if their burn rate is three hundred thousand per month, with just under a million in the bank, they will go broke in a couple of months. Unless they find additional financing, this is a likely scenario. One question to ask a junior miner is how long they will be able to stay in business if things do not pick up as expected.

Another important issue is whether the property or project they develop has any potential. Of course, you are likely to get estimates and there is no guarantee that the actual quantities of silver will match these. In fact, geologists, financial controllers, and the management alike will be keen on offering good estimates as to attract investors. While potential is one thing, especially on paper, exploration is not always feasible. For example, the infrastructure costs may be too high or the region may be hard to access, even though the drill results are decent. The situation is different with senior mining companies. Senior miners are more experienced, larger mining companies that own and run existing mines. Given that their mining sites are already established, it is easier for investors to assess how well the miner is going to perform. This comes with fewer surprises and a degree of consistency when it comes to stock prices. Junior mining companies, on the other hand, have to identify different mining sites and explore their potential. There is always a risk that exploration will not result in actual discovery. This can turn quite costly not only for the junior miner but for its investors as well. When a junior mining company opens a mine and begins exploitation, it will often sell the site to a larger and more experienced miner as to ensure higher returns. If the company does not have money to open the mine, however, this is a sure sign of financial losses.

Source: http://silverandgold.biz/

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