A retired worker who is fully insured can elect to start receiving benefits at any time between age 62 and 65 (or even later). Benefits can start as early as 62, but if you so elect they are permanently reduced by 20%. Here is where the question arises. Is it better to start taking checks at a reduced amount or wait until Normal Retirement Age and receive full benefits? Before addressing the inherent problems with this empirical question, let’s look at some of the factors and considerations.

The early bird who decides to get the worm first gets three years’ worth of checks -36 payments- that the sleeping bird will never see. Thus, it will take some time for the total benefits of the person who waits until age 65 to catch up to those of the early collector. Further, for those born after 1937, Normal Retirement Age is being extended. Normal Retirement Age is currently age 65, yet due to the Social Security amendments, full benefit age will be raised gradually in two stages until eventually reaching 67 in 2027. Thus, the early bird will receive even more checks than the retiree who bides his time for full benefits.

If the early bird also did not need the benefit income and chose to invest instead of spending the checks, the investment income would partially offset the reduced yearly benefit as well as extend the catch-up period for the age 65 collector. Sounds like most people would opt to be an early bird.

There are other factors to consider (as always). Working an extra three years will probably increase the patient retiree’s benefits. This is so because more earnings will be credited toward the Social Security account. Chances are that old low-earning years will be replaced in the benefit equation with a current high credit year. These higher benefits will then shrink the catch-up period.

Delaying retirement benefits beyond 65 until age 70 will also increase the size of the benefit due to a credit provided by the Social Security Administration for such patience. Further, for those born after 1937 who choose to begin receiving benefits at age 62, the reduction-in-benefits penalty is further stiffened from 20% to an eventual 30% in 2022. The hare will feel the tortoise closing even quicker.

Taxation of benefits may also enter the picture. Poor timing of Social Security and other income may result in a good portion of early benefits being subject to inclusion in income and painfully taxed. On the other hand, a lower age 62 benefit may mean that the taxpayer will not meet the “combined income” threshold for benefits inclusion.

Empirical studies have been done which generally arrive at the same conclusion. Early bird collectors are ahead of the game for about 12 to 15 years and then are left behind the higher benefit collector. Thus, where a person is in good health and foresees another 10 + years of retirement life, it is probably better to defer taking benefits until normal retirement age.

Of course, a universal rule for when to take benefits is impractical. Depending upon an individual’s circumstances, it might make more sense to begin taking benefits as soon as possible regardless of the net economic benefit in the future. This brief article is no substitute for a careful consideration of your unique personal situation. Before making any significant retirement planning or tax strategy, consult your financial planner, attorney or tax advisor, as appropriate.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In order to collect social security “old age” benefits, you must be “retired.” Congress has reasoned that if you earn more than a specified amount, you are not “retired” and, therefore, are subject to having some or all of your benefits eliminated. Congress does allow you some earnings before your benefits are jeopardized.

The amount of allowable earnings depends on your age. If you are over 65, there is no limit on the amount you may earn and still collect your full benefit. If you are at least 62, but younger than 65, you may earn up to $12,480 in 2006 before your benefits are affected. The earnings limit is adjusted each year for inflation. If you earn in excess of the limit, you must repay some or, potentially, all of the benefits you receive. For every $2 you earn over the $12,480 limit, you must give up $1 of benefits.

A special rule applies in the year in which you retire. In the initial retirement year, no matter how much is earned for the year, no benefits will be lost for any month in which you earn $1,040 (1/12 of $12,480) or less.

For purposes of the retirement test, “earnings” are defined as “wages” earned as an employee or the “net earnings” of a self-employed person. The earnings must result from work performed after retirement. “In kind” payments of goods or services in exchange for work are considered earnings. Retirement plan distributions, rents, capital gains, interest, dividends and other investment-related income do not count as “earnings” for this purpose. You are required to report estimated earnings in excess of the limits. Benefits are then adjusted to reflect the amount owed, based on the estimate. Actual earnings figures should be reported by April 15 of the following year. Further adjustments may then be made based on actual results.

An example will illustrate how Social Security benefits are reduced when a retiree has “excess earnings.” Mr. Baker is a 63 year old retired carpenter who receives $500 per month in social security benefits. During 2006 Mr. Baker earns a net of $14,000 for some cabinets he makes and sells. Mr. Baker’s Social Security benefit will be reduced by $760 ((14,000 –12,480)/2).

This brief article is no substitute for a careful consideration of your unique personal situation. Before making any significant retirement planning or tax strategy, consult your financial planner, attorney or tax advisor, as appropriate.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Non-qualified deferred compensation (NQDC) is a powerful retirement planning tool, particularly for owners of closely held corporations (for purposes of this article, I’m only going to deal with “C” corporations). NQDC plans are not qualified for two things; some of the income tax benefits afforded qualified retirement plans and the employee protection provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). What NQDC plans do offer is flexibility. Great gobs of flexibility. Flexibility is something qualified plans, after decades of Congressional tinkering, lack. The loss of some tax benefits and ERISA provisions may seem a very small price to pay when you consider the many benefits of NQDC plans.

A NQDC plan is a written contract between the corporate employer and the employee. The contract covers employment and compensation that will be provided in the future. The NQDC agreement gives to the employee the employer’s unsecured promise to pay some future benefit in exchange for services today. The promised future benefit may be in one of three general forms. Some NQDC plans resemble defined benefit plans in that they promise to pay the employee a fixed dollar amount or fixed percentage of salary for a period of time after retirement. Another type of NQDC resembles a defined contribution plan. A fixed amount goes into the employee’s “account” each year, sometimes through voluntary salary deferrals, and the employee is entitled to the balance of the account at retirement. The final type of NQDC plan provides a death benefit to the employee’s designated beneficiary.

The key benefit with NQDC is flexibility. With NQDC plans, the employer can discriminate freely. The employer can pick and choose from among employees, including him/herself, and benefit only a select few. The employer can treat those chosen differently. The benefit promised need not follow any of the rules associated with qualified plans (e.g. the $44,000 for 2006) annual limit on contributions to defined contribution plans). The vesting schedule can be whatever the employer would like it to be. By using life insurance products, the tax deferral feature of qualified plans can be simulated. Properly drafted, NQDC plans do not result in taxable income to the employee until payments are made.

To obtain this flexibility both the employer and employee must give something up. The employer loses the up-front tax deduction for the contribution to the plan. However, the employer will get a deduction when benefits are paid. The employee loses the security provided under ERISA. However, frequently the employee involved is the business owner which mitigates this concern. Also there are techniques available to provide the non-owner employee with a measure of security. By the way, the marketing guys have gotten hold of NQDC plans, so you’ll see them called Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans or Excess Benefit Plans among other names.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you a greenhouse, grow plants. In a hungry world it should be obvious we should grow food producing plants. Rainforests are destroyed for new pasture, but people don’t eat the grasses planted. Grasses, even if wheat or alfalfa, have a tiny capacity to absorb carbon dioxide and expirate oxygen, when compared to great forests. We need to think more in terms of biomass per square foot or acre of surface.

In the Western Hemisphere, the U.S. began the destructive practices of clearing trees for pasture and farm crops and others have seen it as a way to boost agricultural affluence, which undergirds the economic power of any nation. Trees are harvested for construction and fuel as well as pasture and the tree has a very dim future. What the world needs is more Johnny Appleseeds.

Instead of planting trees that are cut down and destroyed for profit, we need to plant trees that are nurtured for harvests that do not require the destruction of the trees. The world needs to plant trees that produce edible crops in every available space. Then it needs to apply high density housing ideas to prevent encroachment on tree habitats with population growth, which is likely to level off and reverse due to prophetic events in the near future.

If the rich insist on harvesting great rainforests, perhaps we can form a counter by reclaiming desert. How does one reclaim desert? One uses irrigation, moving water from where it is to where it is not. We simply reverse the process that creates desert. We start in the fertile irrigated lands adjacent to dry desert, pipe water, collect biomass and plant trees that produce edible crops, increasing local and global food supplies. One acre in four might be devoted to nursuries growing trees from seed, so as to have an ever expanding local supply. As deserts are reclaimed, the food supplies are dramatically increased and there is less pressure to increase family size, as has been proven. In a few generations we could reach a balance among food, populations, biomass and suitable, comfortable housing.

We talk about the rising sea levels that will surely result from the melting of polar ice and fear submerging cities around the world. Yet look at a globe and see how many deserts abut seacoasts. Build solar desalination plants and pipe the water ever further inland and we will find we can easily produce food for shrinking and stabilized populations, especially if we think of producing mainly for domestic consumption and only export surplus. Trans oceanic shipping adds costs and would not occur if poor nations were not deceived by corporate global agriculture into the idea that wealth depends on export. Never did. Never will. If we produce locally for local consumption everywhere, we can end the corporate global marketing madness.

It is not like tree crops prevent the harvesting of seasonal, annual and perennial crops. Trees take time to grow to maturity and are spaced according to their mature size when planted. Lots of open space between seedlings. One can make perimeter gardens around tree wells. Growing table crops or high dollar specialty crops will put the tree spaces into production long before the trees produce. This would water and fertilize the trees so long as the gardens are watered and fertilized. Garden beds around tree wells also reduce soil compaction and speed root growth. Vertical fences of six or eight feet height around trees, protect the trees from high winds and summer sun when planted with vertical climbing crops like tomatos, cucumbers, pole beans, grapes and any vine crop. Make the tree site productive and the tree will also be. It is just a matter of companion planting. No fence material available? Corn, sunflowers and pole beans would still offer a small tree protection and produce useful crops.

In addition to edible tree crops we can plant medicinal tree crops. Ginkgo Biloba and tea tree oil come immediately to mind and I would bet there are others such as olive trees where olive leaf extract has proven to have powerful anti pathogenic traits, not duplicated in science labs. I’d wager the number of medicinal tree species run well into the hundreds.

When natural resources are squandered to feed unnatural, artificially created appetites and obsessions, it appears the earth cannot sustain its present populations at anything near a comfortable level of prosperity. But if resources were properly husbanded, we would find the comfortable carrying capacity or sustainability of earth could readily double what it is presently. The problem has never been too many people. The problem has been profitable waste. In countries where there is not enough food for the people who live and work there, companies are growing crops for export. Edible and medicinal tree crops could make all the difference to such countries and lower global carbon dioxide levels.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Having been trading stocks and options in the capital markets professionally over the years, I have seen many ups and downs.

I have seen paupers become millionaires overnight…

And

I have seen millionaires become paupers overnight.

One story told to me by my mentor is still etched in my mind:

“Once, there were two Wall Street stock market multi-millionaires. Both were extremely successful and decided to share their insights with others by selling their stock market forecasts in newsletters. Each charged US$10,000 for their opinions. One trader was so curious to know their views that he spent all of his $20,000 savings to buy both their opinions. His friends were naturally excited about what the two masters had to say about the stock market’s direction. When they asked their friend, he was fuming mad. Confused, they asked their friend about his anger. He said, ‘One said BULLISH and the other said BEARISH!’”

The point of this illustration is that it was the trader who was wrong. In today’s stock and option market, people can have different opinions of future market direction and still profit. The differences lay in the stock picking or options strategy and in the mental attitude and discipline one uses in implementing that strategy.

I share here the basic stock and option trading principles I follow. By holding these principles firmly in your mind, they will guide you consistently to profitability. These principles will help you decrease your risk and allow you to assess both what you are doing right and what you may be doing wrong.

You may have read ideas similar to these before. I and others use them because they work. And if you memorize and reflect on these principles, your mind can use them to guide you in your stock and options trading.

PRINCIPLE 1

SIMPLICITY IS MASTERY

When you feel that the stock and options trading method that you are following is too complex even for simple understanding, it is probably not the best.

In all aspects of successful stock and options trading, the simplest approaches often emerge victorious. In the heat of a trade, it is easy for our brains to become emotionally overloaded. If we have a complex strategy, we cannot keep up with the action. Simpler is better.

PRINCIPLE 2

NOBODY IS OBJECTIVE ENOUGH

If you feel that you have absolute control over your emotions and can be objective in the heat of a stock or options trade, you are either a dangerous species or you are an inexperienced trader.

No trader can be absolutely objective, especially when market action is unusual or wildly erratic. Just like the perfect storm can still shake the nerves of the most seasoned sailors, the perfect stock market storm can still unnerve and sink a trader very quickly. Therefore, one must endeavor to automate as many critical aspects of your strategy as possible, especially your profit-taking and stop-loss points.

PRINCIPLE 3

HOLD ON TO YOUR GAINS AND CUT YOUR LOSSES

This is the most important principle.

Most stock and options traders do the opposite…

They hold on to their losses way too long and watch their equity sink and sink and sink, or they get out of their gains too soon only to see the price go up and up and up. Over time, their gains never cover their losses.

This principle takes time to master properly. Reflect upon this principle and review your past stock and options trades. If you have been undisciplined, you will see its truth.

PRINCIPLE 4

BE AFRAID TO LOSE MONEY

Are you like most beginners who can’t wait to jump right into the stock and options market with your money hoping to trade as soon as possible?

On this point, I have found that most unprincipled traders are more afraid of missing out on “the next big trade” than they are afraid of losing money! The key here is STICK TO YOUR STRATEGY! Take stock and options trades when your strategy signals to do so and avoid taking trades when the conditions are not met. Exit trades when your strategy says to do so and leave them alone when the exit conditions are not in place.

The point here is to be afraid to throw away your money because you traded needlessly and without following your stock and options strategy.

PRINCIPLE 5

YOUR NEXT TRADE COULD BE A LOSING TRADE

Do you absolutely believe that your next stock or options trade is going to be such a big winner that you break your own money management rules and put in everything you have? Do you remember what usually happens after that? It isn’t pretty, is it?

No matter how confident you may be when entering a trade, the stock and options market has a way of doing the unexpected. Therefore, always stick to your portfolio management system. Do not compound your anticipated wins because you may end up compounding your very real losses.

PRINCIPLE 6

GAUGE YOUR EMOTIONAL CAPACITY BEFORE INCREASING CAPITAL OUTLAY

You know by now how different paper trading and real stock and options trading are, don’t you?

In the very same way, after you get used to trading real money consistently, you find it extremely different when you increase your capital by ten fold, don’t you?

What, then, is the difference? The difference is in the emotional burden that comes with the possibility of losing more and more real money. This happens when you cross from paper trading to real trading and also when you increase your capital after some successes.

After a while, most traders realize their maximum capacity in both dollars and emotion. Are you comfortable trading up to a few thousand or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands? Know your capacity before committing the funds.

PRINCIPLE 7

YOU ARE A NOVICE AT EVERY TRADE

Ever felt like an expert after a few wins and then lose a lot on the next stock or options trade?

Overconfidence and the false sense of invincibility based on past wins is a recipe for disaster. All professionals respect their next trade and go through all the proper steps of their stock or options strategy before entry. Treat every trade as the first trade you have ever made in your life. Never deviate from your stock or options strategy. Never.

PRINCIPLE 8

YOU ARE YOUR FORMULA TO SUCCESS OR FAILURE

Ever followed a successful stock or options strategy only to fail badly?

You are the one who determines whether a strategy succeeds or fails. Your personality and your discipline make or break the strategy that you use not vice versa. Like Robert Kiyosaki says, “The investor is the asset or the liability, not the investment.”

Understanding yourself first will lead to eventual success.

PRINCIPLE 9

CONSISTENCY

Have you ever changed your mind about how to implement a strategy? When you make changes day after day, you end up catching nothing but the wind.

Stock market fluctuations have more variables than can be mathematically formulated. By following a proven strategy, we are assured that someone successful has stacked the odds in our favor. When you review both winning and losing trades, determine whether the entry, management, and exit met every criteria in the strategy and whether you have followed it precisely before changing anything.

In conclusion…

I hope these simple guidelines that have led my ship out of the harshest of seas and into the best harvests of my life will guide you too.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Yes! It is possible and easy to profit whether stocks are up, down or sideways using option trading. If the ability to trade all kinds of market conditions is the doorway to becoming a stock market millionaire, then option trading would be the very key.

In this article, I will outline some common ways by which you can profit from all kinds of markets by option trading. For more free option trading information, you may wish to visit www.OptionTradingPedia.com.Simplewww.OptionTradingPedia.com.Simple Option Strategies for Up MarketsBuy Call Option – You could buy the same number of equivalent stocks for a fraction of the price using call options and profit when the stock goes up. If the stock should crash, you will lose only the small amount you put towards buying the option instead of the whole amount that you would have put towards buying the stock itself.

Sell Naked Put Option – Instead of buying call options, you could sell short put options thereby pocketing the entire amount you made on selling the put options if the stock should go up. Bull Call Spread – A bull call spread consists of buying call options at the money and selling short out of the money call options of the same month. The benefit of this strategy is that you profit when the stock goes up and profit also when the stock stays sideways!

Simple Option Strategies for Down MarketsBuy Put Option – Instead of shorting stocks and risking a margin call, you could simply buy a put option. Buying a put option is exactly the same as buying call options except that you profit when the stock goes down instead of up.Sell Naked Call Option – Instead of buying put options, you could sell short call options thereby pocketing the entire amount you made on selling the put options if the stock should go down.

Bear Put Spread – A bear put spread consists of buying put options at the money and selling short out of the money put options of the same month. The benefit of this strategy is that you profit when the stock goes down and profit also when the stock stays sideways!

Simple Option Strategies for UP or DOWN MarketsStraddle – A straddle consist of buying a call option and a put option at the same strike price on the same stock. This strategy allows you to profit whether the stock moves up or down and is excellent when you are certain that a stock will move greatly soon but isn’t sure which direction that may be.Strangle – Similar concept to a straddle but buys out of the money call option and put option instead of at the money ones in order to reduce the cost of the position.

Simple Option Strategies for Sideways Markets – Covered Call – If you are holding on to a stock that is moving sideways, you could collect “rental” out of it by selling the call option of that stock month after month and pocket the whole amount of the sale should the stock remain sideways.

Short Straddle – Instead of buying call options and put options as described above in a Straddle, you would sell short them instead. In this way, you create an option position which profits when the stock remains sideways.

Are you amazed now at how easy it is to profit in any kind of market conditions by option trading? These are only very few of the many more option trading strategies that you can use to your specific portfolio needs.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Maybe you have a CD that is coming up for renewal and you discover the rate is going to be lower. You could have some stocks or mutual funds that were invested for growth and are thinking about selling some off and re-investing in something that would pay you an income. The only reason you haven’t sold them is that you don’t want to pay the capital gain.

I would suggest including a charitable gift annuity in your list of options.

A charitable gift annuity is a combination of a gift to charity and an annuity. For older people, annuity rates may be 8%, 9% or even higher. Since part of the annuity payment is a tax free return of principal, the gift annuity may provide you with a substantial income. The combination of partially tax free income and the initial charitable deduction makes this planning device attractive.

While this arrangement has its own unique benefits, the rate of return is less than if you had bought a commercial immediate annuity. Therefore, your decision to use a gift annuity should include a desire to eventually leave money to a qualified charitable organization that you have an interest in, such as a church, school, hospital, etc.

Gift annuities are easy to set up. You simply transfer property to the charity and the charity promises to pay a given amount monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually to you for as long as you live. Alternatively, you could elect to have the payments paid to you and another person for as long as you both live. Or you could elect to have the payments made to you for the rest of your life and then to the second person for the rest of their life. But the maximum number of people per gift annuity is two.

Gift annuity rates are set by the American Council on Gift Annuities. Charities don’t have to use these rates, but most do. So you don’t have to out shopping for the best rate. Make your choice based on the charity that you would like to support.

There are two tax issues that you should take into consideration when comparing a gift annuity to your other alternatives.

The first is that if you fund the gift annuity with cash, part of the payment you receive is taxed (as ordinary income) and part of it is not taxed as it is treated as a return of principal. If you fund it with appreciated property, and are the recipient of the income, part will be taxed as capital gain, part as ordinary income and part could be treated as a return of principal and not taxed. However, if you live past your life expectancy, all later annuity payments will be ordinary income.

The second tax issue is that when you give the charity your asset in exchange for a life income, you get a large income tax deduction. For most people, this income tax deduction is so big it cannot be taken in one year. So there are provisions to spread the deduction out over the year of your donation and five more. Your accountant can tell you if this will eliminate income taxes for the next 6 years or not. Chances are good that it will.

Please note that I am only giving general guidelines about taxation. Before you set up a gift annuity, you should sit down with your tax advisor to determine the exact tax ramifications for your situation.

There are a number of charitable gift annuity options and applications. This brief overview has given you some of the basics. If this seems like it may fit, contact the charitable organization of your choice and get a proposal. Then sit down with your accountant and financial planner and have them help you compare a gift annuity with your other options.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Here is an example typical of many people. Mary is 75. She is a conservative investor. She has to be because she has a limited amount of capital. On the one hand, she has to play it safe; on the other hand she needs to get as much income out of her assets as she can.

She has a $100,000 5 year CD down at the bank. It is paying 4.87% interest a year. Given her objectives of earning the most she can, not taking any risk of losing the principal and her concern for the fact that prices at the grocery store keep going up, she has at least two problems.

The first is the fact that the interest on her CD is taxable. In her 15% bracket, 4.87% nets out to 4.14%. Second, her $100,000 is not growing, so her income is not keeping up with the increases in the cost of living.

Can Mary do better?

Most likely she can. She can increase her after tax spendable income without risking her principal pretty easily. She might even be able to increase her $100,000 over time to boot. One of the ways is by using a split annuity.

The concept behind a split annuity is simple. Mary transfers her CD to an insurance company’s split annuity contract. The $100,000 is split into two accounts. The first is an immediate annuity. This pays Mary a monthly income. The balance of the $100,000 is put into a deferred annuity which grows at interest. Let’s take a look at each of these accounts in more detail.

The advantage of the immediate annuity portion is that it can pay Mary a higher income that her CD. Second, unlike her CD, which is all taxed, Mary will pay no tax on a percentage of the income produced by the immediate annuity portion of the split annuity. Assuming a ten year payout, the amount excluded from tax could exceed 80%.

The benefit of the deferred annuity portion is that it grows tax-deferred. This part of the split annuity is designed to grow the total account back to the original $100,000 at the end of the chosen time frame. The net result is more income for Mary without increasing her risk.

That is the basic premise of a split annuity. This assumes using one insurance company’s product: a self-contained split annuity contract.

However, my experience is that you can do better if you use two insurance companies. By shopping around, you can find an immediate annuity that pays more than the immediate annuity portion of a single split annuity policy. Similarly, you usually can find a deferred annuity that pays more than the deferred annuity portion of a standalone split annuity contract. So don’t just stop with having your financial planner go grab a split annuity off the shelf. Have him or her find the most competitive immediate annuity and the most competitive deferred annuity and “make your own” split annuity.

The other advantage of using two products is that some companies offer what’s called a “bonus” annuity. To attract your business, they will give you a bonus for moving your money over to them. The amount is a function of interest rates and the length of the deferred annuity; in general, it can range from 5% to 10%. But the key is that the bonus is paid up front, so you earn interest on both the money you put into the deferred annuity and the bonus right from the get go.

As you have seen above, the plain vanilla split annuity is designed to have you wind up with the same amount of money you started with, but with more spendable income during the annuity time frame. Using a two insurance company approach and a bonus annuity, you could end up with more spendable income and more money. Put these two facts together and it makes the split annuity approach even more attractive.

But can we do even better for Mary? Possibly, yes, if she is willing to take a modest risk.

This alternative would place the deferred annuity portion into an equity indexed annuity. This is a subject all to itself, but let me simplify the definition of an equity indexed annuity by saying that it is an annuity where interest is credited according to the performance of one of the major stock indexes, such as the S&P 500. The annuity can only go up; it cannot go down. If the S&P 500, for example, goes up, the account goes up. If the S&P goes down, the account stays the same. There are some equity indexed annuities that also pay a bonus up front.

If Mary were to choose this alternative, she might be able to end up with an account that is worth more than her original $100,000 at the end of whatever time frame she chooses.

I hope you take away at least two points from this article. First, for the many people who are in Mary’s situation (own a CD and need more income), investigating how a split annuity might produce more income would be a smart move. Second, there are a lot of variables that have an effect on whether or not a split annuity is the best solution.

That’s why there are financial planners. Sit down with one; explain your situation and objectives. Maybe a split annuity will fit the bill.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

One of the things that makes IRAs so complicated is trying to understand the eligibility, maximum contribution limits, contribution phaseouts, etc. of all the types of IRAs at one time. Technically, there are five types of IRAs: Traditional, Roth, SEPs, SAR-SEPs and SIMPLE. So we are going to limit the discussion here to the traditional IRA.

In this article, all of the rules pertain to 2007. Some of the numbers used in the calculation of how much you can contribute to an IRA are subject to indexing. So you need to obtain the proper figures for any year in question.

The determination of your eligibility for a traditional IRA, and the ability to calculate how much you could contribute, are dependent on several things:

1. Your age

If you are under 50, you can contribute a maximum of $4,000 to a traditional IRA. If you turn 50 during the year or are over 50, you can add another $1,000 which is called a “catch-up” contribution. If you turn 70 ½ during the year, you can’t make any contribution.

2. Were you an active participant in an employer sponsored plan during the year?

If so, you still may be able to contribute to an IRA. The amount depends on how much money you made and your tax filing status (single, joint or separate).

Having “modified adjusted gross income” (MAGI) of certain levels requires applying a formula which calculates a gradually decreasing permissible deductible contribution. If your MAGI exceeds certain thresholds, you can’t contribute anything. These thresholds depend on how you file your taxes. Here they are:

Married filing jointly: Up to $83,000 of MAGI allows for a full contribution. Then a phrase out begins as income increases. For MAGI of $103,000 or above, no deductible contribution is allowed.

Single or Head of Household: If your MAGI is $62,000 or above, no deductible contribution is possible. The phase out starts at $52,000, so anything lower allows for a full contribution.

Married filing separately: For a MAGI of $10,000 or more, no contribution is permitted and the phase out starts at $0.

3. Do you live with your spouse or file a joint return and your spouse is a participant in a qualified plan, but you are not?

In this instance, your ability to make a contribution is reduced to zero if you have a MAGI over $166,000. Up to a MAGI of $156,000, you can take a full deductible contribution.

4. Did you receive “compensation” during the year?

Contributions must be made from compensation received. Sorry, if you were unemployed all year, sheltering that big day at the track is not permitted.

5. Do you have cash?

Contributions must be made in cash. You can’t contribute stock or any other type of asset.

6. Do you file a joint tax return and make less than your spouse?

If so, you may be eligible to make a contribution. This rule was originally intended for a spouse who did not work; however, it may apply to a spouse who works as well.

You will need to apply the rules and work through the math. You may find a spouse has no compensation for the year can make the maximum (i.e. under age 50: $4,000) contribution.

7. Did your employer go bankrupt?

The rules here are pretty narrow, but if you qualify you could be in for a nice surprise. You would have to have been a participant in a 401(k) plan with specific attributes and your employer filed Chapter 11. If you qualify, you would be eligible for catch-up contributions of $3,000 for years 2007-2009. And these catch-up provisions apply to all ages­-you don’t have to be 50 or older.

Armed with this information, you should be in a position to determine if an additional deduction is available to you by contributing to an IRA.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

1. I am 72 years young and still working. Can I set up a Roth IRA?

Yes. Unlike a traditional IRA, which does not allow contributions past age 70 1/2, Roth IRAs have no age limitations. You can continue to contribute to your Roth as long as you have compensation.

2. I am married, age 57, file a joint tax return and make $65,000. I am a participant in a 401(k) plan at work and put $5,000 into my own traditional IRA. Can I set up a Roth IRA?

Not in the tax year in question. You already put your regular contribution limit ($4,000) into your traditional IRA along with another $1,000 catch-up contribution which is allowed because you are over age 50. In your case, you have made the maximum IRA contribution. If you put less into your traditional IRA, you could put the difference, up to $5,000, into a Roth IRA.

3. I am single and my modified adjusted gross income for 2006 was $115,000. I have an existing Roth IRA. Can I make a contribution for 2006?

No, you made too much money. For 2006, if your modified adjusted gross income was less than $95,000, you could make a full contribution to your Roth IRA. The rules say if it was more than $110,000, you cannot make any contribution. If it was between $95,000 and $110,000, there is a formula to calculate a partial contribution limit.

If you were married and filed a joint return, you could have made up to $150,000 and made a full Roth IRA contribution. If you were married and your modified adjusted gross income was over $160,000, no contribution would have been possible. For incomes falling between these numbers, a partial contribution determined by a formula could have been made.

Also note the income limits are now indexed; they will be higher in 2007 and beyond.

4. I have an existing traditional IRA and I want to roll it over to a Roth IRA. Is this possible?

It depends on four things: What year it is, how much money you make, your marital status and the type of income tax return you file. If you are talking about a tax year before 2010 and your adjusted gross income exceeds $100,000 or you are married and file a separate return, you can’t convert your traditional IRA to a Roth. Period.

After 2009, these limitations don’t apply and you are good to go. Moreover, you can spread the income tax due on the rollover over tax years 2011 and 2012.

5. I am 55 and have had my Roth IRA for 3 years. I just went on disability and need to withdraw a good portion of it. Is the withdrawal taxable? And since I am not 59 1/2 do I have to pay the 10% penalty tax?

Your Roth IRA consists of two elements: your contributions and earnings. You can take out any amount up to your total contributions tax free.

In order for any earnings withdrawal to be tax free, the distribution has to be a “qualified distribution”. To be qualified, the distribution needs to be made after five taxable years starting with the first Roth contribution.

Then assuming this five year rule is satisfied, you can take out money tax free if you are over age 59 1/2, disabled, or to buy a first home for yourself, your spouse, children or grandchildren ($10,000 maximum). The rules go on to say if you die and your spouse elects to treat your Roth IRA as their own, any distributions would be qualified.

Distributions before age 59 1/2 are subject to a 10% premature penalty tax. However, this tax only applies if the distribution is includable in income. If you take out your contributions, these are not taxed.

In your case, you qualify for one of the exceptions: disability. So there is no 10% penalty tax.

These examples are based on my interpretation of the rules and should not be relied upon as tax advice. The complexities of distributions from any qualified plan or IRA underscore the necessity to consult with a qualified tax professional prior to making any withdrawal.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Saving: A focus on Preservation

Generally, the real meaning of saving is seeking to preserve assets that you accumulate over time. For savers, stability of principal is a higher priority than return potential. A saver tends to be risk adverse and typically stores money in instruments such as savings and call accounts, which facilities are offered by banks and building societies. These types of low-risk vehicles ordinarily offer relatively low potential for return, but the principal and interest are guaranteed. While they may be suitable for your immediate and short-term liquidity needs, they are seldom the best choices for accomplishing your long-term financial objectives, due to their modest potential for returns.

Further, bear in mind that the modest return potential of many low-risk savings instruments might not even keep pace with inflation. As the cost of living increases, you will need more money to buy goods and services and meet your financial goals. Your money should have the potential to grow faster than inflation if you are to gain ground achieving your long-term financial objectives.

For example, suppose you want to purchase an item that currently costs $10 000, and you have $7500 set aside. If you put the $7500 in an account earning a hypothetical five percent average annual total return, you’ll have $12 216 in 10 years. However, if the item’s cost increases with a hypothetical annual inflation rate of five percent during the same period, it will cost $16 288 at the end of the 10-year period. In this example, you are $2500 behind your goal in today’s terms. In 10 years, because of the effect of inflation, you will be $4072 behind. To help make your $7500 grow to $16 288, a decade from now, you would need an average annual total return of about 8.5 percent.

Investing: An emphasis on accumulation

When you invest your money, you are seeking growth. While investing usually involves greater risk to principal than saving, it may offer greater rewards, namely higher return potential. Most investments, such as shares, bonds and unit trusts, may fluctuate in value. African Alliance for instance, offers a wide range of unit trust products, which invest in the aforementioned financial instruments. Apart from individual investors, Pension and Provident funds also utilize such investment vehicles. Investors need to be willing to tolerate the ups and downs, and understand that they may lose principal if their investments decline in value. In exchange for the risk, investors get the possibility of greater income or growth (depending on the investment), and potentially better inflation protection than low-risk savings instruments might offer.

Strategies such as diversification can help manage the risks of investing. By spreading your money among different types of assets, such as equity, fixed-income investments and cash, you can strive for a comfortable balance of risk and return potential that will meet your needs.

Which approach is right for you?

Should you save or should you invest? Your answer may depend mainly on factors such as your financial goals, how much you have accumulated and how much you still need to adequately fund your goals, your time horizon and your feelings about risk.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

No Beneficiary

Not recommended. This mandates your IRA be distributed according to your will, if you have one. If you don’t, each state has “intestate” rules that divide your estate up in ways you wouldn’t ever want.

An IRA with no beneficiary must be distributed within five years. By contrast, a named beneficiary can spread the distribution out over the balance of their life expectancy.

Your Estate

Naming your estate as the beneficiary is the same as not naming one. The rules require a “named” beneficiary. Now your IRA goes through the probate process. This costs money, takes time and subjects your IRA to your creditors.

Why should you pay money to be represented by an attorney and have a judge in some probate court decide whom your beneficiary will be? Why should your beneficiaries have to wait around for your estate to be closed? What if your will is challenged? What if you have a big estate with estate taxes due and the IRS is questioning the valuation of your business? I have seen estates open for as long as ten years as the debate goes back and forth between your attorney and the IRS. The worst case I can think of is your IRA completely eaten up by legal fees inasmuch it may be the only liquid asset.

Your Spouse

This is the most common designation and makes the most sense for a number of reasons.

If the spouse is the sole beneficiary, he or she can elect to treat the IRA as his or her own. This opens up the possibility of delaying the start of the required minimum distributions (RMDs). This could be the spouse’s age 70 1/2, or for a Roth IRA, all the way to the death of the spouse. It also allows further “stretching” of the IRA as the spouse can spread the RMDs over their lifetime plus the lifetime of a beneficiary.

If the spouse is more than 10 years younger than a non-Roth IRA owner, their life expectancy can be used. Beneficiaries other than the spouse, who are more than ten years younger than the IRA owner, are treated as being no more than ten years younger for RMD purposes. This is another “stretching” advantage for naming the spouse as beneficiary.

Children

If children are beneficiaries, they can take the RMDs over their life expectancy. Since the RMDs are very low at the younger ages, the account can grow substantially over the years. For example, a $100,000 IRA could distribute literally millions of dollars over the lifetime of a young beneficiary.

If there is more than one child named, the youngest age is used for RMD purposes. However, if the children are beneficiaries of a trust, the oldest age is used.

Grandchildren

Because grandchildren are even younger than children are, the lifetime income potential from RMDs would floor you. I can show you an example of the same $100,000 IRA used above as an example that would pay out 20 million dollars to a grandchild over their lifetime under the right circumstances.

Naming a grandchild gets into the generation skipping transfer tax area. But each person has a lifetime generation-skipping transfer tax lifetime exemption of $2,000,000 (in 2006). In any case, I would consult a tax attorney to make sure this beneficiary election coordinates with the balance of your estate plan.

A Trust

There may be some good reasons to name a trust as the beneficiary of your IRA. Your estate could be large enough so that you do not want your IRA to be subject to taxation twice. You may want to take advantage of the marital deduction, control where the balance of your IRA goes after the death of your spouse or have a spouse that is not a U.S. citizen.

These objectives need to weighed against the ability of your spouse to treat your IRA as their own with the attendant advantages. If a trust is the beneficiary, the spouse cannot make this election, even if they are the only beneficiary of the trust.

There are other beneficiary options beyond the scope of this article. I hope it is clear that there is no rubber stamp best beneficiary election. Prior to making a beneficiary choice, thought needs to be given to your estate, your family’s circumstances, the rules and your wishes.

In many cases, you should consult a tax attorney. The examples I have used here are my understanding of the rules and cannot be relied upon as tax advice.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Here, however, we are going to talk about how a SEP IRA could allow you to save more for retirement if you have self-employment income outside of your job or have your own business. Business owners are both “employers” and “employees.” For this discussion, we will assume that you are the only employee.

Note: If you are involved in a business with partners or employees, the same percentage contribution is required for all employees who are over age 21, have worked in the business in at least three of the last five years and made at least $450 (2006). Other technicalities may apply.

The Rules

1. You can contribute up to 25% of your compensation, subject to a maximum. This maximum is indexed; for 2006 it was $44,000 and for 2007 $45,000.

2. Assuming the SEP IRA’s tax year is the calendar year, contributions can be made up until April 15th of the following year, when the tax return is due.

3. You can contribute up until you are 70 1/2, but not beyond.

4. Withdrawals before age 59 1/2 are subject to the 10% premature distribution penalty tax unless one of the exceptions apply.

5. You have to start taking the money out (RMDs) at age 70 1/2.

The Benefits

1. SEP IRAs are simple. Essentially SEPS are big IRAs. There is very little paperwork.

2. They are flexible. You can vary the amount you contribute each year from zero all the way up to the year’s maximum contribution limit.

3. The total contribution limit is indexed which allows more to be contributed each year.

4. Employer contributions are generally not subject to FICA (Social Security tax), FUTA (federal unemployment tax) or income tax withholding.

5. As an employee of your SEP IRA, you possibly can make deductible contributions as well. These contributions have the same contribution limits as traditional IRAs. For 2006 and 2007, this is $4,000. If you are age 50 or over, you can add another $1,000. However, if you make too much money, your contribution maximum is either reduced or eliminated.

6. You can be a participant in a qualified plan (for example, a 401(k)) at work and still be able to contribute to your SEP IRA based on your outside income. Again, this is a function of your income and subject to the phase out rules discussed below.

Phase-Out Rules

1. First, these rules apply if you are a participant in another qualified plan. Note that having a SEP IRA puts you in this category.

2. Your income and your tax filing status determine the phase-out. Technically, this is “modified adjusted gross income” (MAGI) which is adjusted gross income with certain adjustments. See your accountant.

3. If you file a joint tax return and have a MAGI of $75,000 or less (2006), you can make a full employee contribution: $4,000 or $5,000 if you are 50 or older. If your MAGI is over $85,000, no contribution can be made. A partial contribution formula determines the maximum permissible contribution for incomes between $75,000 and $85,000.

4. If you file a single tax return, you can make a full SEP IRA employee contribution if your MAGI is $50,000 (2006) or under and no contribution for incomes of $60,000 (2006) or more. Again, for incomes between these numbers, a formula determines a partial contribution limit.

5. If you are married and file a separate return, the phase-out starts at an income of zero. Adjusted gross income of $10,000 or more does not allow any contribution.

These benefits and rules of SEP IRAs are based on my understanding and cannot be used as tax advice. The proper plan will depend on your goals, income, tax filing status, and your participation in another qualified plan. It would be best to sit down with your accountant and financial planner and do the math on all your options.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Seniors hold billions of dollars in deferred annuities. However, my experience is that the average person knows little about the unique advantages of deferred annuities, much less the options they have during the holding period.

When you mention the term, “annuity”, it typically conjures up thoughts of getting a small check in the mail every month from some insurance company. It is viewed as an income.

The vast majority, however, of annuities are of the “deferred annuity” variety. They are accounts designed to grow money over a period of time in a safe environment. Over 90% of deferred annuities are never “annuitized”, that is, converted to that monthly check in the mail.

So let’s take a look at some of the attributes of annuities and, in the process, clear up many misunderstandings about this vehicle.

Tax Deferred Earnings

Deferred annuities provide “triple compound interest.” There is interest on principal, interest on interest and interest on the taxes you would have paid on an investment in a non-tax deferred environment.

For example, 6% which is taxable is equivalent to an 8% non-taxed return assuming a combined federal and state tax bracket of 25%.

Safety

While deferred annuities are not FDIC insured, like a CD with a bank, they are backed by the generally billions of dollars of the insurance company’s assets. No big risks here.

A Competitive Interest Rate

Insurance companies normally set the interest rate for a deferred annuity contract annually. You will find that it is usually one to two points above CD rates. So not only do you get a higher rate but the interest is tax-deferred, unlike a CD where you pay taxes on the interest each year.

Some deferred annuities offer a rate that is guaranteed for a number of years, such as five. If you think interest rates will fall, you can lock in today’s rate.

Minimum Interest Guarantee

When you get to the end of your annuity time frame, if your annuity has not given you at least a minimum of (generally) 3% interest per year, then the insurance company will apply their minimum guaranteed rate. Nothing to get excited about, but at least you know that you can’t lose money and there is a minimum interest rate that is guaranteed no matter what.

No Sales Charges

When you move money into a deferred annuity, 100% of the money goes to work for you from day one. There are no sales charges subtracted from your initial deposit.

No Annual Administration Fees

Some places to park money, like mutual funds, may have fees attached to the administration of the fund. Not so with deferred annuities.

Withdrawal Privileges

This is a source of major misunderstanding. Many people do not realize that their money is not as tied up as they think; there are a number of ways to access funds without surrender charge penalties.

1. First, there is the 10% annual free withdrawal privilege. Each year you can take out up to 10% of your account value free of any penalties.
2. If you ever need to go into a nursing home, most insurance companies will allow you to take out whatever you need with no penalty.
3. If your doctor diagnoses you with a terminal illness, you typically can take out any amount penalty free.
4. You can convert all, or a portion, to a guaranteed income. This can be for your life, your life plus another (i.e. husband and wife) or for a set number of years.

5. There are a handful of new products on the market which will set you up with a pay out at a guaranteed interest rate for the rest of your life, but also allow you to retain control of the principal. In other words, the annuity is never “annuitized.”

The interest rate is typically a function of your age. For example, if you are 65, the interest rate is 5%; 70 would be 6%; 75 pays 7%.

Free of Probate

This feature will vary by state, but in those states in which this feature is applied, an annuity is not included as a probate asset. Hence it is free of any probate fees or any delays in passing the funds to your beneficiaries. The normal requirement, however, is that the annuity must have a named beneficiary.

Free From Creditors

Again, this will vary from state to state. If you live in a state where this applies, this is added peace of mind that the money in your deferred annuity is safe in the event of a financial reversal.

Surrender Charges

Folks who object to deferred annuities usually bring up the fact that there are surrender charges that make getting their hands on the money costly. To a certain degree this is true. In order for the insurance company to go on the hook for the guarantees in the contract, they need to put some strings on accessing the funds.

However, these surrender charges decrease over time. Eventually they disappear altogether. In addition, after you have held your contract for a certain number of years (five is typical), you can take all or some of the money out over a five (sometimes ten) year period with no surrender charges.

The bottom line is that the surrender charge issue can be circumvented in a number of instances. Remember, deferred annuities are longer term scenarios. You certainly wouldn’t want to put emergency fund money or money you are going to use to buy a new car in two years into a deferred annuity contract to begin with.

So there you have it. Ten features of a deferred annuity, which will add to your understanding of this product.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Here, I will focus on rollovers that come from qualified plans such as 401(k), pension and profit sharing plans. The rollover will be to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA. Confining the explanation to a common rollover scenario keeps it simple by eliminating a discussion of the many other rollover situations.

You have worked hard, built up a big 401(k) and are ready to retire. Your plan is to roll your 401(k) into an IRA. What are the rules? What are your choices? What are the cautions?

The Rules

The transfer of assets from your 401(k) to an IRA must be completed within 60 days. Failure to do so within this time frame would treat your intended rollover as a distribution. This would subject it to taxation and, if you are under age 59 1/2, a 10% premature distribution penalty.

If you are unfortunate enough to have your plan assets invested in an institution in bankruptcy, the IRS will cut you some slack. While your money is frozen, the 60 day clock isn’t running. While this may not come into play very often, it’s reassuring to know.

The cleanest way to do the rollover is to do a trustee-to-trustee transfer. If you receive the qualified plan proceeds personally, 20% withholding is required.

Your Choices

Until 2008, you only have two IRA choices to accept your qualified plan rollover: A traditional IRA or a SEP IRA. You can’t roll it over to a Roth IRA.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 provides that rollovers from qualified plans can be rolled over to a Roth IRA starting after 2007. Until then, there is a work-around. You will need to roll your plan assets over to either a traditional IRA or SEP IRA and then roll that into a Roth IRA. In any case, remember that when the assets are rolled into a Roth IRA, they are taxable.

The best timing of a rollover can be a function of several things. A number of people would prefer not to take the required minimum distributions beginning at age 70 1/2. Here’s a way to defer that requirement or eliminate it altogether.

If you continue to work, you don’t have to start taking RMDs until you retire. If that is later than your age 70 1/2, you have followed the rule that says RMDs start at the later of retirement or age 70 1/2 and accomplished your postponement goal.

While you would have to pay tax on a rollover that eventually winds up in a Roth IRA, distributions from Roth IRAs aren’t required until your death. If your spouse makes the election to treat your Roth IRA as his or her own, distributions are not even required until your spouse’s death.

If these facts match your circumstances and objectives, you will want to wait to do your rollover until you actually retire.

The Cautions

There are certain things that cannot be rolled over from a qualified plan to an IRA. They are technical in nature and don’t come up often. Examples would include hardship distributions from a 401(k) plan, loans that are deemed as distributions and required minimum distributions. Nevertheless, I would suggest seeking qualified tax advice prior to your rollover to make sure prohibitions do not exist.

One common limitation, however, is life insurance. If your qualified plan includes life insurance, this cannot be rolled over as IRAs cannot invest in life insurance.

This covers most of the common elements of rolling your qualified plan at work over to a traditional or Roth IRA. Armed with this working knowledge, be sure to sit down with your financial planner and accountant to make sure the transaction is done properly and matches your objectives.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 permanently extended the use of Roth 401(k) plans. Now it becomes more important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of these plans.

Advantages

1. The biggest advantage may be for high income individuals. If you are comparing the Roth 401(k) against a Roth IRA, you will find the Roth IRA has upper income limits. If you are married and file a joint return and your adjusted gross income exceeds $166,000 (for 2007), you can’t have a Roth IRA. The Roth 401(k) has no income limits.

2. You can contribute more. For 2007, you can contribute up to $4,000 to a Roth IRA if you are under 50 and up to $5,000 if you are 50 or over. For the under 50 crowd, a Roth 401(k) allows up to $15,500 and for those 50 and older $20,500.

3. If you are over age 50 and still have some “catch-up provision” contributions coming to you, you can put those in the Roth account.

4. If your employer offers the Roth 401(k) option, you can have both. Simply allocate whatever percentage you want into your regular 401(k) and the Roth 401(k) accounts.

5. Roth 401(k) plans can be rolled over to a Roth IRA or to another Roth 401(k) if you switch employers.

6. Withdrawals from the Roth account can be made without paying income tax or the 10% premature penalty if you have had the Roth account for five consecutive tax years and you are at least 59 ½, disabled, or dead (whoever said the IRS doesn’t drive a hard bargain?).

Disadvantages

1. Your employer may not want to offer the Roth 401(k) option.

If your existing 401(k) plan provides for a Roth election, the plan has to set up separate accounts and record keeping systems for the Roth contributions. This costs money and may be a deterrent to offering the election.

Many 401(k) plans are “boiler plate” plans, especially those for small employers. I think you will see plan sponsors come up with a simple amendment now the Roth option is permanent. From a bookkeeping point of view, it’s just a couple of line item alterations. All in all, I would predict the Roth option to gradually become more available.

2. If your 401(k) plan has an employer match, the match must be allocated to the regular 401(k) plan.

Cautions

1. The rules require money remain in a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA for five consecutive years before it can be taken out without tax. But if you don’t have a Roth IRA already set up to receive a roll over from your Roth 401(k), the five year clock starts running when the new Roth IRA receives the rollover.

So if you are within five years of retirement, you need to think about the ramifications of a new five year period starting fresh. The solution is to plan ahead if you can by rolling your Roth 401(k) funds into an existing Roth IRA. When this existing Roth IRA is at least five years old, you can take the money out without paying tax on it.

Failure to plan ahead may not actually be as bad as it seems. Here is the IRS explanation: If you take money out before the five year required time frame, the amount you take out is taxed at a percentage which represents the ratio of the earnings in the account to the total account. So let’s say you had $10,000 in your account–$9,400 you put in and $600 of earnings­-and you take out $5,000. Here is the math…

$9,400/$10,000 = 94% x $5,000 = $4,700 not subject to tax. The balance of your $5,000 withdrawal, $300, is taxable.

2. One of the advantages of Roth IRAs is they are not subject to the minimum distribution requirements when you reach age 70 ½. Roth 401(k) plans are treated just like regular 401(k) plans are subject to RMDs. So you will want to roll your Roth 401(k) over to a Roth IRA to circumvent this rule.

Whether or not opting for setting up a Roth account in your 401(k) plan would be to your advantage is a function of a number of factors. You, of course, want to make sure your situation and goals match the rules.

The points advanced here represent my understanding of the Roth 401(k) and in no way are to be taken as tax or investment advice. You need to sit down with your financial planner and accountant, have them run hypothetical calculations of projected after-tax distributions from both types of plans and have a clear understanding of the rules of the game before you can make an informed decision.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Everyone trying to make money online is trying to make something, with nothing. This will never work for obvious reasons if you can look at things objectively. You have to have something to be able to make something. Simple as that. If you invented the Ipod, great, you are a millionaire 100 times over (they just sold their 100 millionth copy).

If Ipod was created by a new company as their first product, who would make the most money on the short term scale (less than 12 months)?

The venture capital companies or business angels that put up the core investment in the company to realize the product. Every company with a strong product must capitalize their company to get the first product on the market, and the VC companies makes a ridicules amount of money on seed funding and startups because they are the source of funds for the entrepreneurs with the product, the next cool product. The next 100 million dollar product.

So, am I saying that you have to figure out the next super cool product or service? No. I am saying you should try to get in on the VC level with your investments, since they have the largest leverage on the capital. If you buy a stock today, for $10 a share, and if it went up to $12, it would be great, but what if you bought the same stock for 30 cents and sold it for $12?

Well, it is not easy to be a VC, since it requires access to a lot of money, money we first must earn. But what if you got a chance to add a small investment to a pool that would do seed and startup funding, and take the gigantic percentage increase from the stock on your money directly?

Let’s assume there is a company trying to get a funding of $3 000 000 for getting the product out there, and selling 49% of the company’s equity for 30 cents a share, would you take the risk of a 3000 dollar investment to own shares in that company if the product and idea is good?

I would. And I did. On one particular investment I went from an investment of $4000 and made the exit at the IPO (when everyone else was getting in) I sold my shares for $2,5 each, and I bought them for 10 cents. Please count the percentage on that.

Yes, it is astronomical.

But how did I dare risk $4000 for a product that was only on the drawing table? It was easy for me, knowing the power of Internet and the marketing waves on the Internet, I saw an opportunity that was so good it had problems to fail. Well, you see, if the product is good, it will sell, and by understanding the product everyone that can think for a minute can take the right decision. Risk is higher but the reward ratio is much higher if it works.

Did you know that over 30 different VC companies turned Skype down, they didn’t believe in the product. Skype had a very tough time getting the funds to develop the first versions. Skype was sold to Ebay for an astonishing $5 BILLION. What do you think the down turning VC’s said afterwards?

Skype is a hype, it will blow over. It is crazy how much power the VC’s do have since they are controlling the funds, and they do know each other so they talk to each other. The VC behind the Skype funding, paid about $1M for 30 % of the Skype Corp, and guess if they where happy when Ebay bought it.
But isn’t there a significant amount of risk involved in early investments in companies? Sure, risk is much higher than if you left the money on the bank, or on the stock exchange. But you are looking into a way of making money, and to be able to make money you have to risk certain money to be able to succeed. Risk is somewhat similar to any business; will they make it? Will the product sell? Will it boom? What happens if it just sells and not booms?

The ground rule is, how many ways is it possible for me to make money in this particular investment? Is it all depending on one thing or do they have multiple income streams?

What about track record? They have none, the company is new, remember. It is all down to the product and its market. Why is everyone talking about track record anyway? It is of course risk reducing to get in at a later stage, but reward ratio is then lower. I like the risk, makes it fun, and sure, I would not bet my house, only small money, less then $10 000 for me. If you cant afford to loose the investment, do not do it.

Think of the product, is the product a good idea? is the market good? If so, then it is just a matter of your own financial capacity. You have to have SOME money in order to make an investment. A few thousand dollars should do it. And yes, if you only make one investment the first time, you have an exciting period ahead, when the progress reports are coming in, since you are a shareholder you will get information updates regular.

If it pays off good, if you can sell the shares for $3-5 each and bought them for less than 50 cents, please save at least 50 % of the profit before entering new deals. This is how you get rich over time. There is no getting rich quick thing, it all takes a lot of time and a lot of sense. Do the math and do not get in heavy (with all your got), save the profit and get a less risky investment with some of the profit and let some of the profit go to new equity deals in new companies with exciting products, on the right market.

I cannot recommend anything to you, but I can tell you the truth, it is impossible to make something out of nothing. And when it pays off, it is fun, you feel very light, very energetic and the sunshine around you makes your day beautiful.

If it doesn’t pay off as planned, well you tried, and you do have the shares, most companies will come around so at least you get something back. And there are always new deals to consider. Do you remember the sum Mr Donald Trump was owning 99 banks when he crashed? It was billions of dollars. Where is he now? Oh yeah, he has a few billions in net worth again, and boy that man is a genius, or is he? What did he do? He took risks, thats all what it comes down to, take the right amount of risks and capital at stake, to do the deals that pays off the highest.

There is no secret here, it is common sense, risk and some money at hand.

Are you up for it?

There is even an opportunity for you to get shares, no money down, shares for free. Does that sound interesting? But you have instead of money down, work to do as a reseller instead. Your time for free shares.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Savings Vs Investing

Saving and investing are two different things. When you save you earn interest, when you invest, your money makes money. Saving is for the short term, investing is for the long term. When you combine saving and investing, you’re not only setting money aside, you’re also putting your money to work for you.

You create your emergency fund through savings. This fund is important to protect you if you lose or quit your job and need time to find a new job. An emergency fund is important to save you from any financial crisis and helps you to sleep well at night because you know you are prepared for what might happen.

After protecting your short-term needs through savings, you can grow a portion of you money for long-term needs or generating a steady stream of income to improve your living style. Here’s comes the important of Investing. The main purpose of investing is to use money to make more money for you. Almost all investments have certain level of risk; in general, the higher the risk, the better the potential return. It’s also means that the higher the risk, the higher the potential loses. You may need to take on additional level of risk in exchange for a higher level of return than what you can earn in an ordinary savings account. That’s why the combination of savings and investing are a work perfectly to make your money work for you through investing while protecting you from any financial disaster through savings.

When we talk about investing the money, commonly it means that putting your money into the money markets. Money markets are really mutual funds of cash investments like U.S Treasury bills, CDs (certificates of deposit), and cash, and are managed by professional money managers. Many investment companies that offer a money market account will waive your initial investment if you set you a regular investment plan with them such as $25 or $50 per month. You can utilize this advantage to get your money market account open and put your money to work for you.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As successful HYIP investor you should know golden rules of sure investing. These rules are very significant and I want you to know them at your finger tips before you actually start your investing way.

Think Long-Term: Never ever think or plan to get rich within a short period of time. It is not reality. Usually good HYIP will never pay quite your principal and interest in less than 6 months.

Do not Quit: Winners do not quit and quitters do not win. It is a law of our life. The next step you take could be the winning step but if you quit, you’ll never know how much you are loosing. Just keep investing and learning better ways to better your situation in life.

Be Prepared to Loose: In everything you do in life there are always times when losses occur. Life is all about ups and downs. Use losses or failures as a stepping stone towards greater success and also as an experience to make better investment plans, ameliorate on your strategies.

Diversify: Never put all your eggs into one basket. This is very important rule in HYIP investing. Invest in more than 5-7 programs to create multiple streams of investment income for yourself.

Research and research again: Always conduct your own research too. Always keep your ears on the ground, join HYIP forums, read the FAQs and Terms, read emails sent by the programs you join, check monitoring sites as theHYIPs.net and write their support if there are issues you are not clear on in their terms or FAQs. Ping their domain to define their IP addresses and use an IP search tool or software to determine their location. Do not forget to do a whois search to define if what the programs say in their “About Us” is the same as it is in the search. When you get this information, compare it with what they say about themselves. Also, NEVER sign up a program that is hosted on a free hosting service or sites that use the same scripts. Never reply to any email asking for a confirmation of your username and password.

Protect yourself, your e-currency account(s) and your investments: This is another very important point to note. Avoid using your real names when dealing with programs you are not sure of except when it has to do with receiving your money via wire-transfer where you have to give your full details to the program to enable transfer of funds to your account. Also use different passwords for your e-currency accounts, your email address(es) and your investment programs. This will prevent fraudulent programs from trying to use the same password you used to join them to open your e-currency account(s). NOTE: If you are using e-gold, make sure you apply the security features as explained by e-gold to protect your account.

Avoid Greed: Do not let the human factor of greed take over your investment decisions. The scammers use the human factor of greed to lure you into investing your money with them. From my personal experience, I lost a lot of money due to the fact that I allowed the emotion of greed to do my investing for me. Scammers offer very high and unrealistic interest rates within a very short time. When this happens, you will know immediately that this will not last but the emotion of greed will always tell you to give it a try and this is where your downfall and failures will begin. These scammers might pay you the first time just to encourage you to invest more and when you do, they disappear.

Please take note of these important rules above and you will enjoy investing in HYIP investment programs.
David Vagner helps other people to be succsessfull on HYIP market.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

HYIPs bring me $8289.68 in this month. How did I get this money without work? Answer is simple: I followed my golden rules of HYIP investing. I have compiled a short list of some of the things you can do before investing into a program to make sure you get the most for your money:

#1 – Look at the main HYIP monitoring sites such as theHYIPs.net. Main aspect that you should check it is status of program. If program has status PROBLEM most likely this HYIP will be closed in next 2 days. Look at votes and comments. If it looks like a program has been cheating the ratings by voting for themselves, or it looks like they may have hired a paid voter, then stay away. Check the voters IP, maybe the cheaters were not careful and didn’t use a proxy

#2 – Search all HYIP forums for the name of the HYIP. Maybe, somebody created topic about program which you want. . Look for people’s opinions. Often those who have been investing in HYIPs for some time are the ones with the best insite. If you see that somebody are spamming it is sign of short HYIP. Most importantly, look for complaints of people who have not been paid.

#3 – Do a search on google. Copy small parts (1-2 sentences) of the text from both the homepage and the page with information on how they make their returns. Paste it into the google search bar with quotes around it, and see if anything comes up. A good amount of the time, google will return results that are an exact match, usually a professional traders website. Also, do the same thing with any images of people that are shown to look as though they are the admin of the program. Simply get the name of the file that the image is uploaded as by viewing the properties of it. Then paste this into the google image search. You will be amazed that a lot of the time you will see that the image is a direct copy from another site. This proves that the admin is lying.

#4 Ask the Admin for as much personal information as possible. Also, check out all the information he/she provides. If he/she gives a phone number, then give them a call. If an address is given, then check it out for authenticity by looking at online phonebooks, and other databases. The more information that is available, the less likely it is that the admin will take the chance of scamming hundreds of people out of their investments. It makes sense to email the admin and ask some questions such as: where are you located, how long have you been around, and how do you make your returns. Then compare this information with found one. The common answers you will receive are United States, 2 Years, and Forex trading. Usually if these are the answers the admin is lying to you. About 75% of all new HYIPs claim that they have been paying members offline for over a year. 99.9999% of the time this is a lie. If an investing firm is able to deal with members offline for 2 years, there usually is no need to go online with their business.

All in all, if you follow these steps you will likely be saving yourself a descent amount of money in the long run. They improve your chances of walking away with profits. This tips are not complete list. Full one of golden HYIP rules collected on http://thehyips.net/lessons/.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

All you know that you can made money from investing into HYIP. Online HYIPs rarely provide information to their investors of what is done with their money. This makes it easy for fraudulent programs to succeed. Dishonest organizers can set up a website to look like the other HYIPs available on the net, wait for investors to place their money in their hand and then stop the activity and walk away with the cash.

What exactly is a ponzi scheme

Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes has nothing to do with investments, business or sales. Simply because they do not trade your money or they do not sell you anything. The fact is that a ponzi scheme uses the money of new investors to pay out old investors. Some ponzi schemes are surviving a few weeks and some of them even a few months. But this is for sure they all go die after some time. Why? Because mathematically it is impossible to find new investors. Or sometimes the legal authorities find out the ponzi scheme and close it.

A true Ponzi scheme usually promotes what appears to be a real investment opportunity which investors may contribute to without actually being an affiliate, distributor etc. A pyramid scheme, on the other hand, usually requires that participants make a payment for the right to recruit other people into the scheme, at which point they will receive money.

There are a number of ways to spot a Ponzi scheme from a genuine HYIP opportunity. You can find many hyips on theHYIPs.net Firstly, be wary of schemes that offer a high daily percentage return. If a site offers you 40% a day on your investment, you should question where the funds will come from to make that level of payment. Secondly, although HYIPs often pay you for referring others to their schemes, these payments are often low. If you are offered 10% per referral it is worth considering if that may be because referrals are the only way for the system to keep going. Lastly, look closely at the site and its design and functionality. If you spot a lot of content that looks as though it has been simply copied from another website, or if the design and layout is particularly amateurish, it could well be that the organizers know that it will not be needed for long as the system is only a short term thing to make them money.

Be wary of anything that sounds too good to be true. It probably is if it sounds like it might be. Anyone that promises a guaranteed return in any amount of time is probably not legitimate. There is no such thing as a guaranteed return when it comes to investing money. And on any return there is no guaranteed amount that can be returned. So either promise is someone out to scam you. Common sense goes a long way when it comes to investing money anywhere.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Before we start to discuss the strategies, we should find an answer to the question what is best HYIP. Well, it is difficult to answer because there are various possibilities. For some investors the “fruitful” HYIP is HYIP with huge daily interest, for other HYIPers the “fruitful” HYIP is HYIP with instantly withdraw. Undoubtedly, all these investors are right.

I guess than each investor wishes the “fruitful” HYIP which is online for a long time, not just several weeks or a few months. Moreover, each investor wishes that “fruitful” HYIPs must have fast support. Some HYIPs reply to your questions within 1-2 days and, of course, it is too long! I am a potential investor and I need to get an answer immediately!

Certainly, you can find many answers in FAQ section of a great number of HYIP web sites but sometimes you need information which you can not find there. If HYIP has phone support so it is very good, you can always phone them and get answers to your questions.

According to many experienced online investors, one of the most important things for the “fruitful” HYIP is fast withdraws. No one wants to wait 1 or 2 days till they receive payment. Certainly, everyone wants to get money within few hours. “Fruitful” HYIPs have to pay fast.

All investors agree with me that HYIP security is significant in online investments. Of course, the “fruitful” and prosperous HYIP must have the server protection to guarantee that users’ accounts are safe and secure. Real “fruitful” HYIPs spend a lot of money for hosting and advertising as well as Ddos protection and security.

If HYIP has Prolexic Ddos protection it is a really good sign of seriousness of this high yield investment program because according to online security data, Prolexic Ddos protection costs more than $2000 per month.

Daily interests are the subject of many hot discussions on online HYIP forums because investors have very different opinions. Some people prefer 10-20% daily and other like 1-2% daily. Undoubtedly, the prosperous HYIP invests money into Forex trading and to other contemporary industries. So if HYIP earn money in Forex they can not offer 10-20%. It is impossible and each investor knows that.

Now the time is to discuss ways how to maximize your HYIP. After having found the “fruitful” and prosperous HYIP, the key to having successful investments is to build a safe, diversified portfolio and to extract your own money as quickly as possible. This will limit risk to your capital because if one programme closes, you will still have the others to fall back on.

Before investing in any programme, you should do a little research on it. I mean you should remember the main features of prosperous HYIP, namely daily interests of no more than 2-3%, excellent support, high qualified web site design of the HYIP company and best users’ account protection.

Besides, HYIP scripts are easily to get a hold of and this makes it easier for fraudsters and scammers to operate. One of the things to look for is the programmer’s reputation if they are paying consistently.

When the investor makes any online investment, his aim is to extract his money as quickly as possible. This is because the investor wants to be able to invest using the profit he made from the high yield investment programme to protect his own capital. For example, a typical investment could be $100 then, after 30 days, the investor would extract his own money and re-invest the profits so that he is making risk that he uses “other people’s money”.

Another meaningful thing is that the investor will need to make use of referral systems to explode his profits from his investments. This is when the investor recommends someone to the programme and receives commission for it. This usually creates residual income for the investor which means him the opportunity to invest more of “other people’s money” to make even more cash.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Simplicity. Effectiveness. Security. Perspective. Opportunities. That`s how we can outline the circle of the points, where the difference between two various investment worlds lies. In fact, investor, willing to deposit money, meets much more questions of the individual character.

However, if there`s a difference in some general question, there can`t be any consent in particular ones… so, let`s think, is it worth doing e-business, maybe it`s better to go back to the real life?

The first thing, attracting every investor, willing to make e-money – is simplicity. On any count, the easiest way to buy, sell something etc., not going out of the house is via Internet. To be exact, Internet in particular gives such an opportunity (well, phone as well). So, there is simplicity. Here is Your money on the monitor – do anything You want.

Of course, You can grow fat, but… these are personal problems. The same with investments. If You used Your money right, You can multiple them, not going out of the house as well. Here is the question: is the tale real? And we are ready to answer with confidence: yes, it`s real! But there is just one snag to it. You will have to pay for the simplicity of using the funds and getting income in risk.

Risk – that`s the thing, scaring away many “loafers” and risk in particular is disadvantage of any Internet activity. Whatever You start to do, You can get into trouble. Unfortunately. Otherwise, why would we need to do anything, going out of the house?

We can suppose that lack of security is that very “damper”, keeping the market from epidemic “attack” of anyone who feels like it. Besides, the market itself is ambiguous in a way. There are very profitable and not very profitable investment tools. Not very profitable – opening bank deposit via the portal of this bank. And very profitable – HYIP. And there`s a risk here. You can find many HYIP on theHYIPs.net

It appears because it`s impossible to earn such interests without risking everything. You risk everything to get everything. That`s why HYIP often shoots blank, then smb. looses money. Yes, of course, there are HYIPs in the real world as well, but they need technologies much more complex, and that`s the reason why Internet is the most suitable and fruitful sphere for “risky investment” development.

That`s why in particular, major part of our articles is about how to secure oneself technically and how to become more experienced, communicating with investors themselves.

Though, it`s not all, of course. You can use Your funds at Your own discretion, without giving them to anybodies` hands. In the real life, giving money to anybodies` hands, You may earn about 20% per year, though You won`t be so nervous.

There`s a gradation in the real life from 10% to 20% hence – the risk is increasing. More risk – is criminally. In the life of e-investor there are two gradations. Either there`s much risk and money, or own work. Although, we don`t dispute about the fact that there are also low-yield investment programs. However, what`s the sense, if one can go to the bank twice a year to obtain the notorious security.

Let`s talk about using the funds with one’s own hand. Any possible means, available in the real world, are open for You in the Internet. There are some differences. First, anyone can use them. Second – anywhere, anytime, in any way. So that to exchange USD for e-gold

You need nothing more than an e-gold account. These are also direct investments. Gold is increasing – the funds are increasing as well. And we are not even speaking about FOREX market and buying securities. There`s nothing easier. Excluding some moments – see above.

Now, let`s talk about perspectives and opportunities. First of all, You don`t have to be a prophet to say that Internet is future and working with investments on-line – is just a future lessons teaching. Moreover, now there are much more opportunities on-line that in the real life.

Roughly speaking, even a child can go in for investment activity, in case of having enough willing and knowledge. Now we need only to eliminate the defects, we were talking about and such form of earnings will not just compete, it will be more attractive than investment in the real world! Well then, we are waiting.

On the whole, summing up, we can say the following. If You want a stable, reliable income, You can put Your money to a bank. If You want more income – give it to people, knowing about the trades on securities` market and things like that. If not – Internet is for You.

Besides, it gives convenience to handle the funds. If You are overbold – You can work on the exchange. However, Internet and nothing more is convenient here. There`s no need to go to an exchange, everything is reliable and easy enough. And, it`s even more convenient to buy or to sell something on-line.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In this article I will explain some steps how I find good HYIPs for investing. Before you begin your investment career with certain HYIP, you should do a Due Diligence (DD) check on the program. Listed below is a guide:

Step One

You should use whois sites to find out more about the program. For instance, you can use whois.ws or whois.net. Compare the whois information you have found from the above with the information provided by the program owner on his website. If you find any major discrepancies, you should be extra cautious about the program. The program owner may be trying to hide something from you.

Step Two

Before joining any HYIP, make sure you are comfortable with the program. Study HYIPs. Sign up on HYIP forums. Also do not forget to check theHYIPs.net and status of your favorite program on this hyip monitor. Forums usually are the best source of reliable information directly from other investors, like you. Pay more attention to posts made by more experienced members – they know what they are talking about. Never spam forums – do not post any referral links in your posts unless the forum rules allow that. You will only be banned for spamming. Read HYIP articles and reviews. Pay more attention to HYIP articles, they are written by senior investors and reflect their experience. Search in google for ” scam” – look for negative posts, because people usually post if they get scammed.

Step Three

Take note of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for the program and to which organization its IP Address belongs to. Record their contact information (such as email address) so that in the event of default by the program, you can file a complaint to the ISP against them for internet fraud. If proven to be true, the ISP will most likely cease providing its services to the program. This prevents the program from cheating any more money from innocent members.

Step Four

Should you be the victim of a scam, submit details of the website found from Step One with your electronic payment confirmation number and send a complaint email to the following authorities to alert them of the internet fraud:

1. Internet Fraud Coordinator: ifcc.tp@fbi.gov
2. International Web Police: Director@Web-Police.org
3. ISP Provider (Refer to Step One. Look for the email contact for website abuse of the ISP Provider or the organization that the program IP Address belongs to and file a complaint).
4. Local authority (refer to the web registrant station address, search on the Internet to locate its country authority; such as the state police or any other relevant authorities)
5. E-gold Service (C.C. the email to the program owner)

Use smart investing strategy. Best strategy is to split your investments as much as possible. Invest most of your money in Real HYIPs with low interest and high credibility.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Why has property proved to be the most effective choice?

In Australia and many other places around the world, over the past 50 years property has averaged 10% p.a. compound growth. (Carefully selected properties have averaged even greater returns). Not forgetting that investment properties also generate an income from rent.

Median priced property in Australia has averaged growing at 2 – 4% p.a. higher than inflation, making it a very solid investment.

One of the most effective ways to build riches is to accumulate a portfolio of investment properties (over the space of 7 to10 years) and then let the power of Compound Interest work to your benefit.

The main reason that property can be utilised more effectively than shares as an investment, is due to the added benefit of being able to highly leverage an investment property.

Leveraging is where you use a small portion of your own money along with a large portion of someone else’s money (a bank loan) to secure an investment of a far greater value than you could have, using only you own money.

If you invested $10,000 directly into shares that were growing at 10%, then in 7.2 years they would be worth around $20,000. On the other hand if you had used that $10,000.00 as 5% deposit on a $200,000.00 property and borrowed the remaining 95% plus establishment costs. If this also grew at 10% then in 7.2 years your investment would be worth $400,000.00. Meaning that by leveraging your investment you have gained an additional $190,000.00.
Compounding has an even greater power, the longer it is allowed to work. With the above example, if you were looking at a 21.6 year period, then the results are quite staggering.
The un leveraged shares would be worth $80,000 and the property $1,600,000, a differential of $1,520,000.

It is possible to borrow 100% of the purchase price of a property plus expenses by securing the deposit against your own home, so that you don’t need a cash deposit.

Isn’t going into debt a bad thing?

There are two types of Debt. Good Debt is where you borrow funds to secure a capitally appreciating, income-producing asset. Bad Debt is where you borrow to buy a capitally depreciating, non-income producing item such as a car, boat or holiday.

There are many different strategies for property investing, which suit different people depending on their current income or financial position.

A combination of using Good Debt to buy property and then allowing Compounding to do its work – seems to be one of the most effective way of creating wealth. But this is definitely not a “Get rich quick scheme”, on the contrary it is a “Get rich slowly” scheme which works most effectively over a 10 to 20 year period. It takes patience and perseverance, but after having spoken to dozens of other property investors, many of whom have become multi millionaires within the space of 10 to 15 years, I am certain that it is worthwhile.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

We can no longer rely on the government to hand out an aged pension once we retire. We cannot take for granted that at the end of our working life we will be taken care of financially.

The world population is ageing, due to the baby boomer generation, and within 30 years there will be so many retired people, compared to the number of working age people, that it will be economically impossible for the government to afford to provide any reasonable source of monetary assistance for the elderly.

The Australian government has realised this, and that is why they introduced the compulsory employer paid superannuation scheme and are even now beginning to give financial incentives to Self-Funded retirees.

Most of us have never sat down and even considered the ramifications of why the compulsory super was introduced and for many of us it is a matter of too little too late. Even for the young women in our society – who have a full working life ahead of them, they still cannot rest assured of a comfortable retirement.

Why is this? It is because that unfortunately even with contributions at the current level of less than 10%, someone on an average wage who works continually for 30 years, is still going to find themselves trying to survive on an income equivalent to less than $20,000,00 per annum in today’s dollars.

You will notice that I said continually working for 30 years. This is another reason why women are particularly disadvantaged. Firstly because they often have to take up to ten years leave from the workforce to raise children, secondly because women in general earn less than their male counterparts and thirdly because an enormous proportion of the women in Australia, for example, will never have received any superannuation contributions, prior to the compulsory superannuation being introduced, and will therefore not have had contributions made over their entire working life so far, giving them even less to fall back on by the time they retire.

Many women may previously not have thought of lack of superannuation contributions as being a problem, as their husbands may have been contributing to super since they first began work. Unfortunately though with the high number of divorces in this country, it is unwise to rely on the fact that your partner’s superannuation will be there for you in your retirement years and even if a large proportion is awarded in a settlement – that it will be sufficient to sustain a comfortable retirement for any length of time.

All of these factors are why women now more than ever, need to begin taking action to build up a source of ongoing income, that will grow to such an extent, as to be able to provide a secure and happy future for themselves and their children.

It needs to be a source of income that is unrelated to physical work…that is an income that is generated from income producing assets – and not from our personal efforts.
One of the best sources of creating this ongoing income stream is to begin building an investment property portfolio, also aptly paraphrased as bricks and mortar.

We need to start investing in income producing assets now, so that they will have time to grow and develop so that we will be financially independent for our retirement years.

The most important concept to grasp in relation to building wealth for retirement and for creating finances that can be directed toward charities, or helping out your family is that of Compound interest.

In mathematical terms 72 divided by Compound Interest Rate of Return = Years for Money to Double in Value.

Therefore if you have $1,000.00 invested at 10% interest, then the number of years that it will take for your money to double to $2,000.00 is 7.2. It will quadruple in 14.4 years and be worth 8 times as much in just over 21 years.

If your money is invested at 7% interest, then it will take approximately ten years to double in value. If it is invested at 5% it will double in just over fourteen years.

The two most important aspects of compounding are one: rate and two: time. The higher the rate and the longer the time something is left to compound, the greater the final result will be. This is why the sooner we start investing, the better.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

We can no longer rely on the government to hand out an old aged pension cheque to us once we retire. We cannot take for granted that at the end of our working life we will be taken care of financially.

Many nations are now facing the problem of an aging population, due to the baby boomer generation, and within 30 years there will be so many retired people, compared to the number of working age people, that it will be economically impossible for many governments to afford to provide any reasonable source of monetary assistance for the elderly.

The Australian government has realized this, and introduced a compulsory employer paid superannuation scheme and are even now beginning to give financial incentives to Self-funded retirees.

Most of us have never sat down and even considered the ramifications of why the compulsory super, or other government initiatives are being introduced and for many of us it is a matter of too little too late. Even for the young women in our society – who have a full working life ahead of them, they still cannot rest assured of a comfortable retirement.

Why is this? It is because that unfortunately even with contributions at the current level of less than 10%, someone on an average wage who works continually for 30 years, is still going to find themselves trying to survive on an income equivalent to less than $20,000,00 per annum in today’s dollars.

You will notice that I said continually working for 30 years. This is another reason why women are particularly disadvantaged, firstly because they often have to take up to ten years leave from the workforce to raise children, secondly because women in general earn less than their male counterparts and thirdly because an enormous proportion of the women in Australia, will never have received any previous superannuation contributions, prior to the compulsory superannuation being introduced, and will therefore not have had contributions made over their entire working life so far, giving them even less to fall back on by the time they retire.

Many women may previously not have thought of lack of superannuation contributions as being a problem, as their husbands may have been contributing to super since they first began work. Unfortunately though with the high number of divorces in this country, it is unwise to rely on the fact that your partner’s superannuation will be there for you in your retirement years and even if a large proportion is awarded in a settlement – that it will be sufficient to sustain a comfortable retirement for any length of time.

All of these factors are why women now more than ever, need to begin taking action to build up a source of ongoing income, that will grow to such an extent, as to be able to provide a secure and happy future for themselves and their children.

It needs to be a source of income that is unrelated to physical work…that is an income that is generated from income producing assets – and not from our personal efforts.
One of the best sources of creating this ongoing income stream is to begin building an investment portfolio property, also aptly paraphrases as bricks and mortar.

We need to start collecting income producing assets now, so that they will have time to grow and develop so that we will be financially independent for our retirement years.

Property is one of the best types of income producing assets, mainly because through gearing, which is borrowing other peoples money to supplement our own, we are able to control assets of a far greater value, and benefit from the growth on the overall value, including the borrowed portion, in contrast to only benefiting from the growth on the small portion of our own money contributed.

For example, if you have $10,000.00 invested at 7% compounding, then in ten years it will grow to around $20,000.00. If on the other hand you have used that $10,000.00 as 5% deposit on a $200,000.00 property, which grows in value by 7% per year, then after ten years the property would have grown in value to nearly $400,000.00 giving you a profit of almost $190,000.00 instead of a profit of $10,000.00 had you just invested your own money. After 30 years your money alone would have grown to just over $76,000.00 and the geared property would have grown to more than $1.5 million.

This example of course has not taken into account the initial purchasing costs involved to secure the investment property, nor has it taken into account the rental income that you would also be receiving….I have simply used it to demonstrate that the more assets that you can get working for you, the better off you will be.

Furthermore, if you already have equity built up in your own home, it is possible to purchase an income producing property, without even having to outlay any cash whatsoever.

I will discuss this in further detail shortly, but first I would like to explain to you the miracle of compounding interest – because this is the major factor that allows an average person to create a source of immense wealth. It is a little understood concept that can have a huge bearing on your future, once you understand how it can best be utilized.

Compounding is the effects of letting something grow, and then rather than taking away the newly created amount, you leave the whole thing in tact, and allow further growth to take place on the entire amount, and so on. Effectively making it grow exponentially.

For example: If you have $1,000.00 that is growing by 10% per year due to interest received. Then you have two options, you can withdraw the income of $100.00 that has been generated, or you can leave it where it is, and allow it to compound (earn interest on interest),

If you allow it to compound, then in the second year you will get an income of 10% of $1100.00, which is $110.00, instead of $100.00. This may not sound like much, but the longer you leave the money to compound, the larger it will grow. As each year passes it will grow by a larger amount, in fact after 10 years it will be worth $2,593.75 and after 40 years it would be worth a massive $45,259.42. Remember that if you had withdrawn the $100.00 interest each year for the same period 40 years – then you would have received only $4,000.00 and would still have the original $1000.00, being a total of only $5,000.00. This means that by letting it compound you would have earned more than an additional $40,000.00.

One of easiest ways to calculate how compounding interest works with different rates of return is to become familiar with the Rule of 72.

This rule states that “The number of years that it will take for your money to double is 72 divided by the interest (growth) rate”.

Therefore if you have $1,000.00 invested at 10% interest, then the number of years that it will take for your money to double to $2,000.00 is 7.2.

72 divided by 10 = 7.2

If your money is invested at 7% interest, then it will take approximately ten years to double in value. If it is invested at 5% it will double in just over fourteen years.

The two most important aspects of compounding are one: rate and two: time.

The higher the rate and the longer the time something is left to compound, the greater the final result will be.

This is why the sooner we start investing, the better

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The latter is around the corner but it seems like the market is already waking from its summer slumber a little earlier then expected. Perhaps, like the weather, things have become a little out of kilter.

The volatility index (VIX) derived from the S&P 500 stock index options, has been at or near a five year high for the last couple of weeks. This index is a good measure of broad based fear in financial markets and last peaked as the dotcom bubble burst at the seams says Betonmarket’s Michael Wright.

The financial instrument most directly effected by this occurrence is the options market, with buying options becoming a more expensive strategy, while selling options becomes potentially more profitable due to the increase in the premiums at which these options trade. The gist is that selling options becomes more rewarding because of the increased risk and buying options becomes more expensive because of the decreased risk.

While the market has been swinging wildly in both directions, the overall direction has been negative, with the SP500 losing all gains from as far back as May 2007. One of the main culprits for this bit of volatility is the earnings season, which has seen more missed estimates than beats.

Over the last few years it has become almost a norm that companies declared record earnings and forecasted for higher earning for the following quarter. This season however more and more companies are starting to miss their previously glowing earning predictions, and to make things worse are starting to predict slowdowns and lower earnings. At the same time there is a credit worry regarding the hybrid mortgages which were issued over the last few years, like the flex adjustable rate mortgages which resets itself every 3 or so years after the low teaser rate has run out.

There are also other repercussions such as the hedge funds who invest in these mortgages. Bear and Stearns, a giant US hedge fund had two funds collapse, and had to notify investors that they won’t be getting any money from its investment due to its collapse.

All this has been affecting public confidence to a point where traders are sitting in front of their computers with itchy fingers, ready to sell at the slightest sign of a pullback.

With www.Betonmarket.com the average trader can potentially capitalise in the situation and do something that is the equivalent of selling options. With the charts still looking bearish a no touch higher trade could be an interesting proposition. This no touch trade is similar to selling options and compensates a trader if a predetermined level is not reached within a set time period.

One trade to take advantage of current conditions is a No touch 100 points higher than the current spot price on the S&P 500 which yields around 10% ROI within 20 days. This means that if the S&P 500 doesn’t rise 100 points over the next 20 days you win.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

These actions have done little to ease the tension with the market now in the red for the year. Investors have had very little in way of reason to buy other then the fact that the market fell across all industries, thus making some of those equities a potential value buy. The finger of blame is pointing to the loose lending standards from banks and mortgage companies. First in the dock are the hybrid instruments which allowed borrowers who were overleveraged to enter the real-estate market writes Betonmarket’s Michael Wright. ‘Flipping’ houses became a very profitable venture for a couple of years. As long as the market kept going up, more people jumped on the bandwagon. Many of these people had no means of paying for the debt they were taking on, but due to crafty financing were able to get loans. The only risk was that these investors had to ‘flip’ this house quick, before the much higher interest rate was going to kick in. As soon as the market bubble burst and these houses lost value, many of people found themselves owning houses that: a)were worth way less then they paid for them just a few months prior b)the higher mortgage kicker was coming quick, and hence the defaults

The fallout from this bubble will not be limited to financial markets. The U.S. economy and with it, the rest of the world, has the possibility of feeling the negative consequences for quite some time. All this will possibly be reflected in the equities markets, starting with the SP500. The one thing that markets hate is indecision, more than anything they fear the unknown. Right now, nobody knows who is exposed to what. Banks are raising their overnight lending rates and hedge funds are having to sell safer equities to fund their margin calls. This crisis could spread like a virus to all areas of the economy. The one glimmer of hope was an emergency rate cut from the Fed, but this now seems unlikely. Voting member Governor William Poole recently indicated that their job is still not done on beating their primary enemy, inflation. With www.Betonmarket.comwww.Betonmarket.com you can take advantage of this possibly profitable situation. A no touch which pays out when a certain level isn’t touched during the duration of the term seems like the more conservative and thus possibly most appropriate option.

A no touch 100 points higher than the current price of the S&P 500 pays 11% over 20 days. This means that As long as the S&P 500 doesn’t rise 100 points over the next 20 days, you will win. It could rise 98 points, or chop around wildly, but you still win as long as it doesn’t rise 100 points.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

What is a carry trade? A carry trade is when a trader borrows from a currency where the interest rate is low, such as Japan and then converts it into a higher yielding currency such as USD, GBP or the CAD. The difference is called the carry. The trader is now able to invest those funds in either a treasury fund, or into something more risky and potentially higher yielding such as the stock market or hedge funds.

If investing in treasury bonds, the only area of exposure the trader faces is the exchange rate. If the Yen appreciates against the borrowed currency then the trader could face a loss on exchange when he unwinds the trade. However what if he invested in the stock market and the market took a dip? Well the trader now faces pressure from both sides and when both the exchange and the market goes against him, the trader would be forced out much faster, causing him to buy back the Japanese Yen and in turn push the Yen that much higher which causes others to be forced out. This slide could cause the affected markets to fall hard and fast within minutes. Last week, charts of the Yen/ USD & Yen/ GBP compared to the S&P 500 looked remarkably similar.

Recently week the GBP, USD, EURO, AUD & NZD all fell hard against the dollar. They recovered somewhat last week, but this recovery still has some way to go relative to the highs and crucially relative to the stock market. This leads to the idea that the Yen/USD exchange can be used to potentially profit when seeing the US markets slide. There has been a remarkable ‘flight to safety’ recently with yields on short term interest rates plunging with a speed seen very rarely.

The pervasive relative strength of the Yen could be taken as a leading indicator that the stock market falls aren’t done. We still don’t know who is exposed to what in the sub prime quagmire and even if the US do lift rates, it is hard to see the US indices rising past the years highs in a hurry.

With that in mind, www.Betonmarket.comwww.Betonmarket.com has the tools to allow the common trader to profit from this potential weakness. Using Betonmarkets you can use a ‘no touch bet’ which compensates you if a predetermined trigger isn’t touched during the duration of the bet. This means you set a point that you think the stock market won’t hit within a certain time frame and if it doesn’t, you win. The advantage of this is that the stock markets can gyrate wildly up and down but you’ll still win provided you ‘no touch’ level isn’t hit.

One strategy would be to place this ‘no touch’ level 1000 points away from current level of the Dow Jones. Over 25 days this has a 10% return on investment.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

And how many feel the markets performance is neutral?

Actually none of these answers is correct.You see, the market does not perform, you do.You perform!

Sometimes you perform well, and other times you do not perform so well. The market doesn’t perform, it moves.It moves up, it moves down and it moves sideways.

It moves along like anything else that travels in a business cycle.If the market did perform, then you would only be able to make money in an up market.

As you know, it is possible to make money in a down market, and even in a stagnant market.Thus it stands to reason that the market simply moves and you react to it.So, let’s talk about your performance.You have two ways that you can perform, directly and indirectly.

Directly, you pick your own stocks.Indirectly, someone else picks your stocks for you, whether it is your broker or a fund manager.

In the latter case, the fact that you chose someone else topick the actual stock does not mean that the responsibility of a loss is theirs.After all, it was you who chose them.

In the end, it is you and you alone who are responsible for your performance.Consequently, it is your responsibility to become an educated investor.

Years ago, individual investors didn’t have to worry about who was managing their money. Now, things have changed as poor returns from money managers and investment firm scandals have shaken our confidence in these ‘professionals.’

To get a better look at what lies ahead, you have to go back and look at what transpired to get you to where you are now.From there, maybe a clearer path into the future will become visible.

During the Great Bull Market of the 1990’s, many investors, like you, entered the market and reaped the returns of the largest bull market in history.

Everyone, it seemed, made incredibly high rates of return. The market’s incredible, unprecedented move appeared to make geniuses of us all – but in actuality, it masked some major flaws with many industry professionals.It also created a misconception in the general public that all market professionals were experts.

Suddenly, the bubble burst and those flaws were exposed.

Not only did we find out that most of those experts possessed more luck than skill, but we also discovered that some had been cheating us out of our hard earned savings.

Many investors were discouraged with these market developments, and to make matters worse, many had lost significant amounts of money.Not to mention, the prospect of regaining these losses seemed slim to uncertain, at best.

Furthermore, the very people we normally looked to for help in retrieving these losses either lacked the talent to recover them or had lost enough of our trust and confidence that we wouldn’t even entertain the thought of letting them try.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The problem is that most individual investors do not have the knowledge, resources, or time to spend doing their own research, stock selection, execution, and position management.

The development and expansion of the internet has solved part of this problem in that the internet now provides timely information and resources, right at the fingertips of the individual investor.

Earnings reports, income statements, balance sheets, charts, graphs, research, chat rooms, and even CEO video conferences are easy to obtain online.Now, investors have all the tools necessary to make their own decisions.

However, for many the problem still exists.Why? Because, all the tools in the world are no good to you, if you don’t know how and when to use them.The truth of the matter is that most investors are not qualified or properly trained to interpret the use of these tools, and are therefore ill equipped to use them in making their own investment decisions.

So now what should investors do?The answer is to find someone to help you help yourself.Not to make your decisions for you, but to assist you in making your investment decisions and to help educate you as to the `how` and `why. `

You need to become more involved, and the first step in the involvement process is education.

Education is the key to successful investing for the individual investor in the market of the future.

All of us who invest in the stock market know that there are three possible outcomes after we make a stock purchase.

First, the stock can go up and this is generally a good outcome.

Second, the stocks can go down and this is usually a bad outcome.

Third, the stock can go nowhere – which is also generally a bad outcome.

It is bad because not only could you have put that money to use in something with less risk that might have produced a return, but you also incurred commission costs on the way in and out which added to your loss.

So, we see that there are three things that can happen when you take on a new stock position, and two of them are bad.

Now, what if we tell you that by employing a certain strategy correctly, you can improve your chances dramatically?

Instead of having two of three scenarios possibly go wrong, you would have two of three scenarios that could go right.And, the third scenario, the bad one, wouldn’t be nearly as bad.

It can happen by using just one of the many strategies involving teaming stocks with options.

Sound interesting?

Great, but let’s start at the beginning and build a solid foundation first.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

You can take this line as meaning that Wall Street failed to see the dangers, or more sarcastically; that it knew the dangers but ploughed on ahead because the returns were so great. Either way, it highlights the issues at the centre of the recent financial storms, says BetOnMarkets.com’s Michael Wright.

There have been “sub prime loan time bomb” warnings, for a long term before the markets collapsed. However while stock markets kept on going up, such concerns were brushed aside. Equity markets around the world, with the exceptions of the sharp corrections in February and March, had marched consistently higher since the summer of 2006. The Dow Jones broke through its all time pre-internet bubble crash high, while other indices were also at, or near their record highs.

So what changed? It is difficult to pin point a single event that finally caused equity markets to plunge as they did in July and August. It is more akin to a scene in a cartoon when the character runs off a cliff, and keeps on running in mid air until they look down, and then they begin to fall. Whatever actually started the fall, it seems that this “contagion” has spread to many areas that were previously thought to be unconnected.

Mortgage companies have recently been hit with the double whammy, of falling house prices, and rising defaults. The Case-Schiller Home Price Index recently posted a record annual decline. For the first time in a long while, year on year house price changes, were negative in every one of the cities measured. Some major mortgage companies have filed for bankruptcy protection, while others had to draw on their emergency credit lines, as more and more customers have defaulted on their home loans. The industry is going into the 3rd stage of the boom to bust cycle, which is called ‘lawsuits’ with borrowers suing the lenders, and visa versa.

Recently we saw an unprecedented “flight to safety” as investors feared a run on the banks. The complicated way that debt has been parceled up means that nobody really knows exactly who is exposed to what. Investors fled with near panic to assets which have little or no perceived risk attached to them such as US Treasury Bills.

European banks have been particularly hard hit and Alexander Stuhlmann of Germany’s Landesbank was recently quoted as saying that “The German banks’ situation is not uncritical”. The interbank lending rate shot up, as financial institutions eyed each other with suspicion. With lenders raising the margin requirements, some traders had to shore up their margins with either adding more cash, or liquidating their positions at discount prices. Lastly the earnings have been coming in a little weaker then predicted and some companies such as Wal Mart have lowered their outlook for the up and coming quarters.

The big question is whether the US Federal reserve will cut rates as many are predicting and hoping, or whether it will maintain is hawkish stance on inflation. Fed Futures point to the chances an FOMC rate cut as being likely. Assuming that this is indeed the case, more questions arise: If the Fed cut interest by a quarter percent, will it be enough to stem the flow of negative business and consumer sentiment? Will it be enough to power the US Indices back above their recent highs? Will it stop the US housing market slump? Will it stem the rising number of credit card defaults?

The answer to all of the above is possibly yes, but perhaps not in a hurry. The world’s number one economy may indeed go on to recover from this scare, but there may now be too much fear for a broad based rally, as we saw in the months leading up to the recent drop.

Using www.Betonmarkets.comwww.Betonmarkets.com you can potentially profit from this bearish to neutral outlook. By placing something called a ‘no touch’ bet, you can win if the market continues to go down, stays flat or rises slowly. By placing this no touch level above the current price of the S&P 500 you can profit from further falls or an anemic bounce. A no touch bet on the S&P500 with a 30 day term with a trigger placed above the 52 week high or 120 points higher from where it is now returns around 10%.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The bank of England eased the situation somewhat by relaxing restrictions on
the amount of money financial institutions need to hold with the central
bank, encouraging them to lend more to each other. Libor dropped for the
third straight day on Friday, but overnight on Thursday there was a severe
reminder of just why banks were being so wary in lending to each other.
Northern Rock’s fresh profit warning and surprise move to tap the BoE for
emergency funding spooked investors further.

Governor King predicted that banks would move to the more traditional model
of funding lending through deposits. As a reflection of this, some banks
have increased the interest offered in their deposit accounts, but at the
same time have increased the rates charged to mortgage borrowers.

The BoE hinted that if the situation worsens it may act with an interest rate
cut. Until then, with borrowers being hit with a de facto rate hike, it may
not be long before the credit crisis expands to the wider economy. We will
know more about this next week with the minutes from the last MPC meeting
being released on Wednesday and retail sales data on Thursday.

Tuesday 18th of September 18.15 GMT sees one of the most important FOMC
interest rate statements in recent history. It is likely that markets will
grind to a halt coming into the decision and then unwind like a coiled spring
on the announcement. The US Federal reserve has come under intensive pressure
from Wall Street to cut rates to ease the credit crisis.

Yet it is not an easy decision to make, the US housing market has been in
severe decline for a while and householders at the thick end of the sub prime
crisis will no doubt be grateful for a rate cut. On the other hand
inflationary pressures do remain. Oil continues to surge to record highs and
commodities such as wheat have risen spectacularly in recent months. The
latter even prompted a ‘pasta protest’ in Italy, with Italians calling for
the government to do something about the spiraling cost of the national dish.
Wednesday’s US housing starts data and Bernake’s speech on Thursday will both
influence an excited market post rate decision.

Traders at Betonmarkets.com believes that predicting the market in the short
term is near impossible as it so much depends on the US rate decision and
accompanying statement next week. The quarter point cut is the more likely
option for the moment, but even if this is how it pans out, the potential for
another cut at future meetings will be equally market moving. If you were
willing to trade in the face of so much uncertainty, a volatility play may be
the better option with markets expected to move considerably on Tuesdays
announcement in the US. A 14 day up or down trade trades returns around 10%
on the S&P 500 with the triggers set as 1420 and 1525. If the market touches
either of these levels within the next 14 days you win.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

One financial advisor once told: “It does not matter how good of job someone has, if they want to acquire wealth in this life, at some point they are going to have to invest in something.” Investing is very popular thing. Many people consider investment one of the best way to success. Investing is something most people will do during their lifetime. They may invest in real estate, life insurance, stocks, bonds, mutual funds or a simple 401K.

HYIP is one type of investing. We live in a world of information and there is a wealth of information about investing. A lot can be learned from credible websites, you can find books at your local library, join an online investment group, talk to your peers and even sign up for free investing seminars. Many young investors invest in HYIP without knowledge. They rashly put their money in every HYIP (very often new investors invest money in HYIP with big percentages) and look forward to withdraw their profit. As rule, they lost money.

Many new investors get involved in an HYIP because they receive an email with all of these amazing claims for a short-term high yield investment program that will change their life. Many HYIPs are listed on theHYIPs.net. Unfortunately, it is usually the newer investor that cannot see the limit to such investments and goes all in with a large sum of cash. While there is a chance that all will go well and their first big investment will be a huge success, this is usually a setup for a huge loss. Newer investors are often excited by all of the promises and the deflection of suspicion and questioning that they fall prey to a scam, or to a poorly construction HYIP. It is often through a loss of any amount of money that a new investor learns to really research any investment before opening their wallet.

There are also cases where the new investor is so cautious that he or she can end up making a good deal of money through an HYIP because they do not just jump at the first opportunity that crosses their path. Instead, they learn about HYIP and do some research until they find the right program. This can be a great way to start off your investing, although one must remember that there are no promises with HYIP and next time the results may not be as favorable.

Many experienced investors do not hesitate to get involved in the high-risk world of HYIP because they have learned how to tell the difference between a good investment and a bad one. Experienced investors usually have a bit of money put away as well, and while they do not look forward to losing money, they might be better able to afford a loss if the HYIP investment does not go well. Experienced investors know the type of questions to ask, the type of data to look for, and probably know what type of HYIP program will be most beneficial to their investment portfolio. Many such questions you can find on theHYIPs.net. With experience comes the knowledge to more adequately weigh the risks and benefits of any high-risk investment, including high yield investment programs.

This is not to say that the experienced investor will never experience loss through an HYIP, because it happens to investors will all experience levels. Some scams are set up so that even the most cautious fall for the false promises. And, sometimes even the best laid HYIP plans are not as lucrative as everyone first thought they would be. This leads to a loss of money for all involved, no matter their experience level.

It does not really seem to matter what the experience level is, you may win with one HYIP and lose with another. In the world of high yield investment programs you just have to be aware that there are high risks associated with a possible high pay off. While there are no promises to anyone who invests in this sort of program, you can protect yourself a bit by looking into the HYIP before you invest, to get a track record, and be sure that business is conducted in a manner in which you feel comfortable with.

It is up to each investor to decide what HYIP is worthy of the risk and which is not. Remember that any HYIP worth your time will acknowledge the risk associated, if they do not, it is better not to take that much of a risk!

I know how to choose good HYIP for investing, developed my own rules of successful HYIP investment, so I do not hesitate to you about this. All my secrets I revealed in my HYIP course.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The first thing to do with online investing is to start small. If you are new to this method of investing, do not put your entire life savings into an online account. Instead, start with a smaller sum, which should be easier to handle and keep track of. Once you feel confident enough, you can decide to add more money to your online account.

Once they are online, many investors tend to concentrate on stocks, specifically larger, more domestic ones. Most online investment tips note that while these stocks should make up part of your portfolio, they should not be all of it. Also make sure you take into account your time horizon and risk tolerance to develop a well balanced portfolio of stocks, bonds, and cash.

When it comes to mutual funds, most investors are into them for a reason. Most investors do not have the expertise to make their own investment calls on individual stocks. They are also too preoccupied by work and other demands to spend every minute watching the market. You should keep your mutual funds and it will probably be an unwise move for you to cash out your long term fund holdings.

Other online investment tips note that costs may not always be obvious. Even if online broker costs are somewhat lower than those of full service brokers, they can still add up, even if you do a lot of buying and selling. Online broker firms also like to impose a number of other fees and charges that should be studied closely.

When it comes to orders, you should make them work for you. If you plan on doing your own investing, you will need to learn how to use the tools that are available in order to avoid potentially steep losses and to buy or sell a stock at effective prices. This way, you get a good decent return on your investment. Many information on creating own investing you can find on theHYIPs.net

As beneficial as online investment tips may be, problems that you will encounter are inevitable. Investing online is not foolproof. Sure, there will be times when you ca not access your account; you could even be away from the computer when the market makes a major move.

When it comes to online investing, your internet connection could be down as well, or the online firm server could crash due to heavy trading, unexpected software glitches, or another sort of natural calamity. Make sure you are familiar with the firm alternative trading options. This may include automated telephone trading or calling a broker.

The most helpful of all the online investment tips, is to always remember that information is power. If you plan on buying and selling individual stocks online, it is in your best interest to keep yourself as well informed as possible. Do not settle for just the hype about hot stocks.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Vancouver-based exploration company announced October 9 it has two letters of intent (LOI) in hand for gold and copper-zinc properties in Manitoba’s Reed Lake mining district, near the recent VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX.V: VMS) copper discovery.

But Tribune was set up as a uranium company and plans to stay that way, says chief executive Graham Harris.

“We just happened to have a couple of opportunities,” Harris said in an interview. “They came at a good price and they are drill-ready.”

So the Manitoba properties will join Tribune’s Potonico gold property in El Salvador – brought on board initially because vice-president, exploration, Marco Montecinos, knows the region – in a new stand-alone company.

The legal work to create that company may take up to six months, Harris said, and, by that time, as Tribune continues its active search for drill ready properties, he expects to have another non-uranium acquisition to bolster value.

Tribune will have no stake in the new corporation, which will have completely separate management, Harris said. Tribune shareholders can expect shares in the new company in some ratio to their current holdings, for example 1:5, he said.

With plans for a first-quarter 2008 drill program in place once the 90-day period for due diligence is up, work on the newly-acquired Manitoba properties may be well underway before shareholders get a look at that company.

Under the LOIs with W.S. Ferreira Ltd., Tribune can earn a 100% interest in the Quartz Claims, northeast of Snow Lake, Man. and the Green Claims, south of Snow Lake, for $170,000 cash and an aggregate of 500,000 common shares over five years, for each property. The company will also pay a finder’s fee of $50,000 for each property to an arm’s length party, for a total of $100,000, subject to final TSX approval.

Assay results released by VMS Ventures of North Vancouver on Oct. 4 include 10.5 metres of 11.19% copper and 2.50 metres of 15.30% copper from drill hole RD 07-02 on its new Reed Lake project, near Snow Lake.

That project, as well as Tribune’s new properties, lie within the Flin Flon-Snow Lake Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) belt that to date has yielded more than 20 VMS deposits of copper-zinc along with gold and silver, producing ore worth more than $29 million.

The belt’s average 5 million tonne VMS deposit has a gross metal value of more than $1.5 billion.

The Quartz Claims was last drilled in the 1980s by Hudbay Minerals Inc., but Harris said those old results look more interesting today as discoveries over the ensuing years have helped in understanding the geology of the area.

The Quartz Claims cover a 4,800-foot-long electromagnetic conductor, interpreted as lying in a fold axis. The old drill results turned up significant gold mineralization, along with the alternation mineralization commonly associated with VMS. Results from the eastern end include 0.64 oz/t (18.14 g/t) Au over 4.2 feet and 0.43 oz/t (12.19 g/t) Au over 4.5 feet.

The untouched western end of the conductor, with two EM conductor bodies, will be the site of the 2008 drill program.

Old drill results from the Green Claims to the south, straddling the east shoreline of Blue Lake, turned up copper and zinc, including 0.75% Cu over 46.9 feet and sulphide exhalite grading 3.12% Cu and 2.25% Zn over 1.3 feet.

For both properties, “we’ve got some pretty good drill targets based on past exploration,” Harris said.

Work on the 149.5-square-kilometre Potonico property in El Salvador rests in limbo right now as local opposition to mining makes even the first step tricky. “We’re negotiating with the local bishop to gain access to the property,” Harris said. “I think we can come to an agreement with him.”

But drilling programs are underway on Tribune’s joint venture properties in northern Saskatchewan’s uranium-rich Athabasca region, currently home to the world’s largest uranium mine, owned by Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ, TSX:CCO) and minority partner Areva Resources Canada Inc. That mine is producing 18.7 million tonnes per year of 20.5% uranium, the highest grade in the world.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Blue River Project is located near Blue River, British Columbia. Commerce owns 100% of the 500km2 claim group. Infrastructure in the area is excellent, with proximity to rail lines, roads, and power. The first carbonatite bodies were discovered in 1949, when the property was first examined for its vermiculite potential. Commerce acquired the property in 2000 and has conducted bulk sampling, ground geophysics, stream sampling and drilling to date. A 2007 report prepared by independent consultant Gorham has outlined an indicated resource of 8,600,000 tonnes with 208.2 g/t Ta2O5 and 1,372.6 g/t Nb2O5 and an inferred resource of 5,500,000 tonnes with 208.2 g/t Ta2O5 and 1,349.9 g/t Nb2O5. With further drilling, there is a very good likelihood of finding new reserves.

Carbonatites are rare, peculiar igneous rocks derived from deep within the Earth’s crust. They are the host rocks for tantalum and niobium- which are usually found in tandem, along with other Rare Earth Elements (R.E.E.s). Tantalum (named for Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology) is essential in the manufacture of most electronic devices due to its having the highest known capacitance of any metal. According to the company’s website, “tantalum ores are found primarily in Australia, Brazil, Canada and central Africa, with some additional quantities originating in southeast Asia. The average yearly growth rate of about 8 to 12% in tantalum demand since about 1995 has caused a significant increase in exploration for this element”. Niobium (named for Tantalus’ daughter, Niobe) is an additive used in steel-making. Its presence as an alloy triples steel’s tensile strength. This is of critical importance for pipelines, aerospace, and the automotive industry.

Visitors to the project were treated to a presentation by Bill Serjak, the world’s leading tantalum and niobium market analyst. Mr. Serjak expects a double-digit increase in the demand for tantalum over the next two years.

Commerce’s goal is to become the world’s leading source of high-quality tantalum and niobium. The next phase of development involves permitting, and an environmental study conducted by Gartner Lee, a top environmental consulting firm.

The company has also researched processing methods as part of its pre-feasibility preparations. Metallurgical work carried out in 2004 confirmed recovery rates for Ta and Nb of 83 to 97% of contained metal values. These recovery rates give the company a comparative advantage over producers in other parts of the world. Australia’s Sons of Gwalia, currently the world’s largest tantalum miner, has published a much lower recovery rate of 55%.

On the spot market, tantalum usually trades at around $25-$35/lb. The spot market is supplied by small producers in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo – with its attendant instability. These sources are not sanctioned by the UN; the tantalum concentrate that comes from a UN sanctioned country like Australia or Canada is worth twice the price of that on the spot. On a long-term contract from HC Starck, the world’s largest tantalum processor, tantalum oxide will sell for $140-$150/lb. Presently, the world’s largest producer of niobium (from pyrochlore) is the mine at Araxá in Brazil. Niobium is currently trading at around $29/lb– quadruple January’s price.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

“In approximately two weeks time, I expect to receive assay results for samples collected during my visit to the properties,” he told Resourcex Investor on Thursday, “and we are still collecting some samples from the Butarni property. In total, 18 samples were sent to Alex Stewart (Assayers) Ltd., a British lab in Moscow.”

The Russian government has limited research data on the properties in the Magadan Region, under agreement to Golden Reign and more extensive information has been coming out only in recent weeks. Most of the work had been done following World War II and in the late 1980s. The property is held under a 20-year comprehensive exploration-mining licence.

“From what we know about the Dorozhni property,” Pudar said, “they were chasing some high-grade quartz veins. Typically, the gold is coarse. I had a chance to spend several days there and focused on the eastern part of the property where we have recently completed 1.5 km of trenching. We sampled some of those veins, which in 1946 had yielded over six kilos of gold (approx. 20 ounces).”

He said that high-grade gold mineralization occurs at the intersection of northwest orientated structures and the intrusive, hosting quartz veins. Of particular interest is the newly exposed mineralized sediments and breccia zone discovered in a river bed.

Pudar says that this newly discovered breccia zone appears to be 50 by 70 metres wide. “It is the type of target I was looking for. In fact, I brought home some really nice samples, just for show and tell. This new zone has really great potential, but the riverbed has to be totally exposed and properly sampled. There is rich sulphide mineralization within the zone, which is often associated with gold. This zone is considered a primary target for continued exploration.”

The first phase of exploration at the Dorozhni property was initiated this fall. Dorozhni, one of Golden Reign’s two highly-prospective gold properties at Magadan, is located at the headwaters of Dorozhni Creek. Previous exploration work focused on identifying and testing five separate gold-mineralized quartz veins at or near surface. The veins, which have been traced for 380 metres along strike, average between 0.4 to 2.4 metres in width and occasionally expand up to 17 metres wide. The distance between the veins ranges from 15 to 50 metres. Gold distribution is extremely irregular, with the highest reported grades resulting from two separate channel samples, both of which were collected from Vein No 1, of 6,322.2 g/t over 0.1 metres and 2,678.2 g/t over 0.5 metres.

Golden Reign believes that the property has potential for a low-grade bulk tonnage gold deposit. Exploration will test the sheeted vein system within the granite intrusive to evaluate the gold content between veins, with the intent of determining an average gold grade from the vein swarm and the intervening intrusive.

The first phase of exploration was designed to map the mineralized zones and to test whether the gold mineralization is restricted solely to quartz veins and veinlets, or whether mineralization occurs in the surrounding host rocks. Exploration will test the sheeted vein system within the granite intrusive to evaluate the gold content between veins, with the intent of determining an average gold grade from the vein swarm and the intervening intrusive.

The company has established an exploration camp, mobilized equipment and upgraded an existing access road. It has built a new two-km road to provide access to previously untested mineralized zones within the property boundaries. Comprehensive geological mapping, including reconnaissance traverses, and grab sampling have been completed. Assay results are pending and will be released as they become available.

Magadan, one of the world’s richest mining areas, has about 2,000 placer gold deposits, 100 gold ore deposits and 48 silver deposits. Total probable gold reserves in the Magadan Oblast are estimated at 4,000 tons (128,000,000 ounces).

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The role mineral resource development plays in financing repressive, authoritarian regimes is coming up again in light of recent protests by Buddhist monks and others in Myanmar and their violent suppression by the country’s military government. Myanmar produces more than 90% of the world’s rubies—a trade estimated to be worth US$2.1 billion wholesale according to MVI Marketing Ltd. research—and it has also long been the world’s largest miner and exporter of jade, primarily to China.

Mining companies like Vancouver’s True North Gems (TSX:TGX), which is working to develop a ruby and sapphire resource in Greenland, can play a role in breaking the dominance of governments such as Myanmar’s, the world’s largest supplier of rubies and sapphires, as well as jade.

Myanmar’s military government has made a concerted effort to gain control of the country’s lucrative gem trade during the past two decades, jeweler, Fair Trade and human rights advocate Ben Leber of Leber Jeweler Inc. told Resourcex.

“At present, gemstones are the regime’s third largest export, netting close to US $300 million, although the unofficial number is no doubt higher. At present, the military government controls a majority share of every gem mine, controls distribution of licensing and permits, as well as runs the gem auctions in Rangoon. While there are ‘partners’ in the mines, these are most often government officials or close allies of the regime.”

Campaigning for Fair Trade
Prominent jewelers, such as Tiffany’s in 2005, have come out, instituted policies stating that they will not purchase rubies and other gemstones produced in Myanmar and have joined campaigns against them. Jewelers such as Leber have joined organizations like the US Campaign for Burma, the American Gem Society and the Council for Responsible Jewelry Practices.

While the US has instituted a trade embargo on Myanmar, the EU has not. Recently, some of Britain’s leading jewelers have been accused of helping keep the military dictatorship in power by trading in the country’s “blood” rubies.

According to one news report, Asprey, Cartier, Leviev and Harrods are selling Myanmar’s rubies and gems in their central London stores, with some items priced as high £500,000. British Foreign Office sources indicated shortly after news reports broke that Gordon Brown was pressing the European Union to introduce tougher sanctions against Myanmar that would prohibit sales of its gems in Britain.

“A gift of a ruby is meant to symbolize love, but if it comes from Burma the true price is paid in blood and oppression,” said Mark Farmaner, acting director of Burma Campaign UK. “Any rubies on sale in the UK will have been purchased at some point from the military and so will be helping to fund that regime.”

An Alternative Emerging in Greenland
If development plans work out, alternative sources for rubies and sapphires—both varieties of corundum—will emerge in the next few years, offering gemstone buyers and the jewelry industry and alternative source of rubies without the moral stain Myanmar gems carry.

Vancouver’s True North Gems on Oct. 9 announced that it had successfully collected its third, 27.8 tonne bulk sample from Greenland’s Aappaluttoq ruby and pink sapphire resource from the company’s Fiskenaesset Ruby Project, thereby completing its 2007 field sampling program.

Fiskenaesset has thus far yielded individual rubies and pink sapphires weighing more than 80 grams, or 400 carats. Rarer than diamonds, rubies and pink sapphires are valuable gem materials. Although prices vary greatly depending on quality, independent valuations have put a wholesale value of US$3,220 per carat on a 0.69 carat ruby from Aappaluttoq and a US$460 per carat value on a 0.96 carat pink sapphire from Aappaluttoq.

“Our primary focus as a company is now to get a bankable report done on our main occurrence, and the work this summer was the first major step on that route – our past work has shown we have something worthy of advancement, and the feasibility will tell us the economics,” said True North president Greg Fekete.

The company during the past two field seasons has amassed 120 tonnes of mineralized surface material from Aappaluttoq. A total 3.6 tonnes of samples have been sent to Fiskenaesset for processing True North’s gravity concentration plant. Management expects to issue a report shortly.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

I remember when I was starting out I got all the information I could and was all fired up to get going… excited and ready to make millions… I soon realised that this wasn’t gonna happen. Things took time… I had to set up my structures that took time, to be honest it was a pain in the ass…

Then I had to set up accounts with brokers, then talk to finance people I was getting nowhere fast… I was getting nowhere DAMN FAST.

The only thing that kept me going was the belief that all this was worth it. It was a test in a way, to see just how much I wanted to succeed, the only thing that kept me going and pushed me to fill in all those forms, make all those phone calls, do all that paper trading and push on was my mindset.
I knew (thanks to the training I got from Jamie McIntyre) that if I stayed focused and did what ever it took, no matter how futile things seemed that eventually things would go my way.

I really believe that without the difficulties at the start I would more than likely stuffed things up and would not have been able to succeed. The hassles of setting things up and the uncertainty at first are all a valuable lesson on self discipline and it will show you just how much you really want to reach your goals (what ever they may be).

There was for me, a period when I just finished the course of Self Doubt. When I finished the home study course and had all the info it hit me, I no longer had the course to hide behind… I could no longer say “When I finish the course…”
This time was one of the biggest tests I faced. A strong belief in what I had learnt from Jamie McIntyre is what got me through…

When Jamie says people do more to avoid Pain than to gain Pleasure started ringing in my head. At that point I could have said “Nah this is not for me”; “I knew I shouldn’t have bothered with this… ” But I didn’t… I had come that far why not push through the doubt and go the extra step and see what happens??

I’m not really sure what my point is here. But I know that over the last few months there have been a number of new grads who might be in the position I was in almost a Year ago…

(I got Jamie’s course on the 12th of August 2005) So I just wanted to say to anybody who might be going through what I was a year ago to Hold on… Stay focused and Keep PUSHING… there isn’t anything that can stop you succeeding except yourself… We all have the same info we all know what needs to be done… SO GET IT DONE… do WHAT EVER it takes.

Within a few short months you will be putting things into action and you will look back at this moment and say how could I have thought of giving it up…

I know that everybody has it in them to succeed so don’t let anything or anybody stop you or tell you otherwise…

Good Luck

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Preliminary geophysical and geological testing on Teryl’s properties in the region has been promising, and the company has recently signed a contract to begin drilling.

Teryl Resources turned an eye to the Gold Hill prospect in the summer of last year, and a number of indicators immediately urged closer inspection. A report by Frederic Rothermel, PhD, outlined a pattern of mineralization that moved from copper-rich/gold-poorer at the centre of the system to gold richer/copper poorer at the fringes – this pattern is consistent with features of the Carlin Trend in Nevada, which contains over 100 million ounces of gold in proven and probable reserves. This zoning pattern at Gold Hill is unique to the Warren mining district. Geophysical parallels to Lavender Pit are numerous, and further geological testing revealed significant gold values and a copper presence of up to 3% in surface assays.

John Robertson, President of Teryl Resources since 1982 states: “The Gold Hill project is an area which may have the potential to be developed into a large lode-type copper deposit. Our geologist feels that the anomaly is similar to that of the Copper Queen deposit (Lavender Pit).” With regard to possible quantities on the property, according to Robertson, “The sky’s the limit.”

The geophysical parallels to nearby producers are strong and compelling, but there are indicators that this is an unusually rich deposit area for the region. “One of the interesting parts of the property,” says Robertson, “is that not only does it have very similar geophysical data (to the Copper Queen), but when the previous work was done on these targets from the Lavender Pit property and the Phelps Dodge properties, they didn’t get any surface assays – they drilled it based on geophysical data. With our particular property we actually got some pretty high-grade values on the surface, which is very unusual for that area.”

This indicates that the deposit could be even richer than the neighboring targets: “It’s a better target, when you have not only the geophysical targets, but the geochemical targets as well.”

Developing claims in an historic mining district has obvious infrastructural advantages: “(Gold Hill) is very close to previous producing mines, so there is the infrastructure there.”

The property at the Gold Hill prospect currently comprises 248 acres, and the company is actively acquiring an additional 640 acres as drilling begins.

“The time to really capitalize on a stock is before the drilling commences,” says Robertson, “Once Teryl starts drilling, then the anticipation of good results will increase the value of the stock. And if the results turn out to be positive, you could see the stock increase several-fold. The key time for investors to buy shares of a resource company is before the drilling program.”

Alaska

Teryl Resources is also a main property holder in the Fairbanks Mining Division in Alaska. The company holds interest in a number of properties in the region – the Gil, West Ridge, Fish Creek, and the Stepovich Properties – all of which are near or adjacent to Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox mine, the most prodigious gold-producing mine in Alaska, and the True North deposit, also owned by Kinross Gold.

Teryl has spent 1.6 million on exploration on the Gil property, and has defined a resource of 400,000 ounces of gold (10 million tons X 0.04 ounces per ton). The main zone that contains the resource reaches a thickness of 80 ft., and has been traced along a 2,500 ft. length.

The West Ridge property is 100% owned by Teryl, and anomalies of elevated gold in the soil show a presence of antimony and arsenic that is very similar to Kinross’ neighboring True North Deposit (which has a defined reserve of 616,000 ounces of gold at 0.046 ounces per ton gold). Thus far, Teryl has spent $350,000 on exploration of the property.

At the Fish Creek property – 50% owned by Teryl and adjacent to the north to the Gil property – an auger drill program has identified elevated gold presence that suggests that the Gil resource extends into the Fish Creek property.

“We also have some drill targets that we’re planning on drilling in that area,” comments John Roberston. Once deposits are defined, the ore will be readily processed at Kinross’ nearby mill.

Other Holdings

Teryl Resources also has joint venture silver properties, and ongoing revenue from oil and gas projects in Texas and Kentucky.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

With an eye towards limiting exposure to political risk, the company has assembled a portfolio of properties in Tanzania and Malawi in Africa, Canada’s Northwest Territories and Ontario.

Canada
Of particular interest is the Great Bear Lake IOCG property that covers 45,000 acres roughly 400 kilometers north of Yellowknife, and due south of Alberta Star Development’s (TSX.V:ASX) Contact Lake Property.

The Eldorado & Contact Lake claim block now consists of eleven contiguous claims located 5 km southeast of Port Radium on the east side of Great Bear Lake Northwest Territories and 470 kilometers north of the city of Yellowknife.

The area consists of 87,706 acres and is comprised of two distinct areas, Contact Lake North and Contact Lake South. The Eldorado & Contact Lake IOCG + uranium project areas include five past producing high grade silver and uranium mines. In Contact Lake North, the Echo Bay Mine produced 23,779,178 ounces of silver, and 6,900 lbs of uranium, the Eldorado Mine produced 15 million pounds of uranium, and 8 million ounces of silver and the area also included the Cross Fault Lake Uranium mine (Normin NTGO: SENES Report 2005).

The average head grade for the Echo Bay mine was 66 ounces per ton silver and the average head grade for the Eldorado silver — uranium mine was 0.75 % uranium. In the Contact Lake South area, The Contact Lake Mine, the Bonanza and the El Bonanza mines were all former producers of silver and high grade uranium, and are included in Alberta Star’s land package.

Uranium was first discovered in the Great Bear Lake area in 1929 by Gilbert Labine when the Eldorado Mining Company uncovered high grade silver — pitchblende veins at Port Radium. Newly discovered veins at Port Radium, Eldorado and Contact Lake were mined until 1940.

In 1941 the Eldorado Mining Company gifted Columbia University 5 tons of Uranium oxide for chain reaction experiments and the mine re-opened to supply the ore to the United States Government, to develop the Manhattan Project. When the price of Uranium dropped, the mine was deemed no longer profitable and was closed in 1960, and all exploration for Uranium in the area ceased.

Universal’s Great Bear Lake project is geologically analogous to the Olympic Dam deposit at Roxby Downs in the Gawler craton of southwest Australia.

It is an extremely large deposit of copper, uranium, gold and silver, which supports an underground mine as well as an integrated metallurgical processing plant. It is the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world, though uranium represents only a minority of the mine’s total revenue.

The deposit was discovered by Western Mining Corporation in 1975 and started production in 1987. It now belongs to BHP Billiton,(NYSE:BHP) which acquired WMC Resources in 2005. The mine currently operates by an underground mining method called sublevel open stoping, using modern and highly productive mining equipment. The March 2005 mine production rate is an annualized 9.1 million tonnes making it one of Australia’s larger mines. 2005 metal production is thought to be in excess of 220,000 tonnes of copper, 4,500 tonnes of uranium oxide, plus gold and silver. The copper and uranium oxide are exported through Port Adelaide.

Universal’s Havoc Property, located in the Havoc Lake area in the Sibley Basin near Thunder Bay, Ontario is a mid-Proterozoic-age sedimentary basin that has the potential to host unconformity related uranium deposits such as those found in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin, home of the world’s richest uranium mines.

Similarities between the Sibley Basin and the Athabasca Basin have been recognized before but led only to modest exploration of the area in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

The presence of commercial grade Uranium was confirmed in 2005 by Rampart Ventures (TSX.V:RPT). Drilling results included 2.99% U308 over 1.5 metres. . Surface prospecting returned samples of 4.32 % and 5.24 %. Rampart is underway on their 2007 drilling program.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The company’s website describes its recent acquisition of a 90% interest in two key acquisitions with uranium potential in Tanzania. The Madaba and Mkuju prospects cover over 1000 km2 along the extension of the Malawi Kayelekera Uranium zone that Paladin Resources (ASX, TSX.V:PDN) has been developing over the last few years.

Located on map section QDS (Quarter Degree Sheets) 253, the Madaba area is part of Luwegu River Basin of the East African Karoo super group. The Karoo is the African equivalent of the Canadian Shield – a very large, very old geological formation that has been the scene of numerous, rich mineral discoveries.

The Mkuju occurrence is situated in QDS 278/3, 289/1 & 2 and 290/1. The geology consists of mainly sandstone. The richest uranium deposits are typically found in sandstone formations, and are known as roll-front deposits – so named for the crescent shape the uranium (in solution) makes at the interface between oxidizing and reduction conditions within the permeable sandstone or conglomerate host rock. Famous examples of roll front deposits include the Mi Vida mine near Moab, Utah, and the deposits found on the Colorado Plateau. The Karoo super group is known to host major uranium deposits (of both the roll-front and unconformity variety), yet much of it remains underexplored.

The Karoo system in southern Tanzania continues into Malawi and is separated by Lake Nyasa, with the Karoo on the other side of the lake having similar geology. This has been confirmed with Paladin’s discovery of the Kayelekera Deposit (a roll-front deposit), which has a 43-101 compliant current resource of over 25,000,000 pounds of U3O8 . Paladin has recently had its bankable feasibility study approved, and is due to go into production in late 2008.

Historic airborne and ground radiometric surveys carried out over Universal Power’s entire property have revealed over 10 Uranium and Thorium anomalies at Mkuiu. Drilling done by Geosurvey International (GmbH) has returned intersections grading 0.04% Uranium oxide over 11.7m – the richest of which contained 0.122% Uranium oxide over 1.6m from a depth 79.5 to 81.1m.

The company is in the process of completing its 43-101 report on the prospects and expects to have it in hand by the end of the month. A drill program based on the report’s recommendations will be implemented in November.

Tanzania has attracted a great deal of attention recently due to a combination of factors that create a favourable investment climate: inherent mineral wealth, political reforms geared toward the free-market, low labor costs, and, of course, high metals prices. According to the Tanzanian Geological Survey’s website, “much of the present exploration activity in Tanzania is concentrated in gold, base metals, platinum group metals (PGM), uranium, gemstones, diamonds and industrial minerals. Tanzania has excellent geological databases, good infrastructure, attractive mineral policy and readily available exploration services. These factors make investing in Tanzania attractive and cost effective”.

The meteoric rise in uranium prices from $7.00/lb U3O8 in December 2000 to US$138.00/lb U3O8 in June 2007 has turned investors’ attention to new exploration venues, making Tanzania especially interesting as of late. Paladin’s website states that “despite the significant rise in reported uranium prices, world primary uranium production only increased by 2,540 metric tons U3O8 (5%) in calendar year 2005. In fact, in the first six months of 2006, uranium production in the two dominant production centers, Canada and Australia, actually declined by 2,610 metric tons U3O8 (19.5%), demonstrating the fragility of the existing supply chain,”

The Tanzanian acquisitions represent a pivotal point in Universal Power’s development, as it rounds out the company’s portfolio of properties, enabling the company to conduct a year-round drilling program.

For several reasons, this is a particularly auspicious time for investors, who can expect a great deal of news in the coming months. This most recent acquisition, as well as the impending 43-101 and drill program, create a solid platform for the next stage of the company’s growth and diversification. Investors can also look forward to another acquisition – a polymetallic prospect – in the next month or so. The market is reflecting this anticipation, as UNX is trading around its 52-week high, in the $0.70 range.

“We think we have a well-diversified portfolio chasing gold, uranium, and base metals,” said Barry Swanson, the company’s president and CEO. Given that the uranium market outlook is predicted to remain strong during the mid to long term, management plans on continuing its momentum forward. “From a shareholder’s point of view, we’re well positioned in area plays. We have a strong management team….the timing’s right, we’re diversified enough.” said Mr. Swanson.

The company is also exploring for uranium and IOCG (iron ore, copper, and gold) in the Great Bear Lake area of the Northwest Territories, as well as for uranium in the Sibley Basin in northwestern Ontario.

This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The geology of this area is an ideal host for large gold deposits, as was evidenced by the property’s two former operators, including Gold Fields, who were the first to use systemic drilling at ValGold’s Increible 3 concession. This summer, ValGold repeated the former owners’ success, with drill results reported from the company’s “targets of convenience” just last week.

In a conversation with VP of Exploration Tom Pollock and Investor Relations Officer Jeff Stuart, the two explained the significance of expanding the known limits of Los Patos. They showed me several maps detailing the geological and geochemical aspects of what they suspect may be an initial resource in the order of 200,000 ounces of gold.

“Notice that Los Patos is on the Los Chivos shear zone in Increible 3,” Stuart pointed out that these formations are just north of Crystallex’s Tomi Mine, which ships its ore to its nearby 1,350 tonne per day mill, too. The drill holes completed by ValGold this summer are in an orderly, grid-like pattern. Distributed in a heavy line across one map, red patches indicate anomalous areas of soil geochemistry high in gold content (between 400 and 800 ppb).

“Next, look along the shear zone to the west. You’ll notice that Gold Fields only poked a few holes here and there, very short holes too, right in the center of the strongest surface geochem, no matter what the underlying geology suggested. They were just drilling a hole or two and hoping to get lucky.”

The failure of Gold Fields to find a viable resource at Los Patos is a classic gold exploration tale of late 1990’s: The price of gold plunged and the value of foresight – the project had some excellent grades – was not enough to forestall termination. It was too pricey a venture to continue. However, Gold Fields did establish much in the way of useful geological footprint of the area.

The Los Patos gold occurrence was ValGold’s first target this summer. When measured against the potential of the company’s other targets in Venezuela and Guyana, the Los Patos gold occurrence was considered an appealing target, but also one of convenience. The company chose Los Patos to start its South American drill programs because of excellent mineral potential, but also open terrain, easy access, and close proximity to a number of operating mines and mills. With drills, personnel, and infrastructure in place, Los Patos was an ideal warm-up for ValGold’s aggressive exploration program in the Guyana Shield.

The results didn’t really show a lot we didn’t already know,” Stuart said. “They did give [the stock] some volume, and the knowledge that we have a deposit that hasn’t reached its limit.”

Stuart says that most of the check assays are pending on ValGold’s Los Patos drill program, and that the company is so far pleased with the results. “A lot of people never find an economic deposit. Since it’s our first drill program here we’re really happy. The next step will be to announce an indicated resource. In the meantime, we’ve just begun drilling on one of many occurrences at the Mochilla Lineament, which is our primary target in Venezuela. Our business plan is on track and we have many loyal investors who love our story, so things are looking great.”

“Let me put it this way,” Stuart said. “We had two brokers with many years of mining investment experience in our offices this morning wanting to finance us. They looked deep into our data set and stopped us halfway through our pitch to say they wanted the next financing in its entirety. So, yes, we’re really happy.”
Los Patos is located within the Lo Increible 3 concession approximately 20 km northeast of the town of El Callao and 4.5 km northeast of Crystallex’s Tomi gold mine, which in 2006 produced 41,638 ounces at a cost of $175 per ounce. It is one of several gold occurrences found along the east-west striking, 6.8 km long, Los Chivos Shear Zone, all of which is 100% owned by ValGold.
Previous drilling by Gold Fields at Los Patos penetrated a 160 metre-long mineralized zone which varies from 8m to 27m in width and which has a weighted average grade of 1.03 g/T Au.. The 19 trenches excavated in this area, each 40 metres apart, returned grades of 52 metres at 1.81 g/t Au and 32 metres at 1.16 g/t Au, for example. From 1994 to 1999, 151 diamond drills holes totaling 15,431 metres were used to test and further define targets.

The new round of diamond drill holes completed last July consisted of 35 holes for a total accumulated length of core of 9,318 meters. Twenty-eight of the boreholes targeted the main Los Patos gold zones; the remaining seven tested three satellite zones within the concession. These holes outlined up to five parallel zones of mineralization which when averaged with the intervening lower grade material gave zones up to 58.0 metres wide assaying 1.27 g/t gold, almost 100% true width. Assays included 4.75 g/t gold over 17.0 metres and 3.98 g/t gold over 36.0 metres in holes LI307-07 and LI307-11. The gold zone here remains open in all directions.

To the south of the La Increible concessions is the Mochila Layered Complex, which has the potential to host a much larger ore body. These properties are in an isolated tropical jungle area about 30 km west of the major Grand Sabana Highway that connects the towns around southeast Venezuela with Brazil. Access is best served by using either helicopter or river boats.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Goldcliff is spending $1,550,000 in exploration on several of its 100-per-cent-owned properties in British Columbia, Canada. The exploration is being conducted on Panorama Ridge (gold), Ainsworth (silver and molybdenum) and Big Sheep Creek (uranium). The company has also identified new properties of merit for acquisition.

The exploration at the Panorama Ridge property, located in the historical gold district of Hedley, is advancing ahead of schedule with trenching and drilling in progress. The property was a new discovery by Goldcliff who subsequently have excavated 4,276 metres of trenching in 154 trenches and drilled 77 holes totaling 7,621 metres So far this season, an additional 590 metres of trenching in 20 trenches has been excavated and the channel sampling completed. To date, the drilling program has completed over 30 core holes for a total of over 3,000 metres. Goldcliff’s exploration objective for 2007 on the Panorama Ridge gold property is to advance from the gold-discovery-exploration-drill stage to the gold-resource-definition-stage.

Having identified the gold mineralized zones in the previous gold-discovery-exploration-drill stage, the gold-resource definition stage will measure the volume of gold content in these zones. The Company is confident that the gold mineralization encountered at the York-Viking and Nordic gold zones in surface trenching and in drilling represents potentially economic gold grades. The trench samples are in for assay and the core is being cut.

Since 2000, Goldcliff has acquired a total of 4,125 hectares (10,190 acres) at Panorama Ridge. The claims are free and clear of overriding production royalties, Net Profits Interests (NPI) and Net Smelter Returns (NSR). The Panorama Ridge property is 100% owned and operated by Goldcliff Resource Corporation and is located in the historic Hedley Basin.

The Hedley Basin has had a long history of gold production (1904 to 1996) from the Hedley North mining district. During this period, 2,524,313 ounces of gold were produced from auriferous skarn deposits. The Nickel Plate and Hedley-Mascot mines produced more than 97 per cent of the gold from a single gold-skarn deposit (Nickel Plate deposit). Smaller production came from the French, Good Hope and Canty gold skarns. A small amount of gold production came from the Banbury quartz-carbonate veins (Maple Leaf and Pine Knot) located in Hedley Basin South.

The Mascot and Nickel Plate mines eventually fell under the ownership of Mascot Gold Mines Ltd, which traded from a start of $0.45 to a high of $20.63 on Tuesday August 4th, 1987.

In some ways, Goldcliff’s approach to exploration at Panorama Ridge has become increasingly rare: The company started with a property that had seen no exploration work whatsoever. With the price of gold at historical highs, many juniors have fallen back on recycled properties that simply did not have economically viable grades prior to the present bull market. Since no one can say how long a bull will last, such projects have the dubious legacy of being abandoned again once prices return to historical averages. Goldcliff is seeking something akin to the Nickel Plate-Mascot mine, or what they have called a “company maker”.

Director and cofounder Ed Rockel, who was a mine geophysicist at the Nickel Plate-Mascot in the 1980s, explained how his work at Nickel Plate later mirrored results at Panorama Ridge. “The IP survey that I conducted over the old mine workings resulted in the discovery of additional gold mineralization around the old gold workings, that led to the development and production of Mascot’s Nickel Plate open pit mine in 1987. I was responsible for conducting the IP survey over the ground that is now owned by Goldcliff. The IP results are a dead-ringer to Nickel Plate. I think that I know what is going on from the geophysical standpoint on Panorama Ridge based on my experience and interpretation of Goldcliff’s geophysical data.”

On the Ainsworth properties in the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains of the Kootenay Lake region, the airborne geophysical survey program has been completed by Fugro Airborne Surveys Corporation (Toronto, Canada). The survey accumulated 1200 line kilometers of data consisting of magnetic, electromagnetic and radiometric coverage. The preliminary interpretation of the geophysical data has identified several anomalies. A field crew is conducting follow-up prospecting and geochemical sampling.

On the Big Sheep Creek uranium property (a 32,388 hectare claim block underlain by an Eocene Coryell plutonic suite of syenitic to monzonitic intrusive rocks) the airborne geophysical survey program has been delayed and is scheduled for early October. Prospecting and geochemical stream sampling is planned for mid September.

The geochemical stream sampling will be a follow-up to the anomalous uranium values identified by the regional stream sediment sampling program (RGS 1976-1977) carried out by the British Columbia Geological Survey, which returned a number of anomalous uranium values, including two samples exceeding 300 parts per million or 0.03 per cent uranium.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it is entirely possible to be very successful at your chosen career and your family life, while at the same time being very happy in everything that you have and everything that you do. So why aren’t’ more people successful and happy? The answer is so simple that often people look right past it, and never learn the secret.

One way of thinking is that in order to BE, you must HAVE. This line of thinking leaves people thinking that they must have a solid career, a great deal of money, or whatever it is that they think they need in their life, in order to be happy. This is not true at all. You must change your way of thinking, so that instead you think that in order to HAVE you must BE. This line of thinking says that in order to be successful, you must be happy first.

Think about this – most people tell themselves that once they are successful they will worry about donating their time and money to charity. But there is a good chance that those people will never become successful. However, another person will decide to be generous and give back before they are successful. By being the generous, thoughtful person before they become successful they are effectively attracting more people to them because they recognize a generous, good spirited person and they want to spend time with that person.

Think about it, when you are smiling, courteous, generous, kind and all of the other wonderful things that you want to be when you are happy – you naturally attract people to you because they want to be around people who are happy and generous. When you attract people to you and into your life, you are creating a situation when you can create opportunities to make money. Simply by “being” before you focus on the “having” you are creating situations to improve your life.

The law of attraction is very strong, and if you focus on being the type of person that attracts other people, you will soon be able to attract into your life everything that you need and desire in order to be successful!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

For many people who appear to have it all, they are missing one critical thing from their lives – true satisfaction. Many people cannot put their finger on what is missing from their lives, but they know that there is definitely a key element that isn’t there. For many of these people, satisfaction is the missing key.

When we set goals in our lives, that we push ourselves to meet, we earn a sense of satisfaction – the satisfaction of knowing that we did a good job, and worked as hard as we could to attain a goal. So why don’t more people set goals and strive to reach them?

The answer to that question is simple. Most people tend to shy away from goal setting because goals make them uncomfortable. Reaching our goals is hard work, and it can be scary because we don’t know for certain if the goals will be reached. However, If you don’t set goals, you are in essence giving away the power that you have to make your life great and to be completely fulfilled in your life.

All too often we give up on our goals, or just don’t make them in the first place because it’s easier not to. And by giving up on goals, you simply give away that immense power that belongs to you. For example, perhaps you have set the goal to make 2 million dollars in three years, but after year one in your business, you have only make 200k. So you tell yourself that you didn’t get anywhere near your target where you should have been by the end of year one, so you might as well give up-it probably isn’t going to work. When you give up on your goals that easily you are giving away your “potential success” and that “potential satisfaction” that you could have gained.

Life is too short to move through it without sense of real satisfaction. And the secret is simple! Set goals and then do the work to achieve your goals and this will in turn build your own power and your overall satisfaction with your own life! You can’t just “know” something. You have to “do” something. That’s when success and satisfaction come into the equation. Try it for yourself and see!

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Demonstrating a pragmatic optimism, Gill talks about win-win scenarios, “We need to resolve these issues and be realistic about the fact that it is an issue. We are not ignoring it. We’re going to address it and we think both parties would benefit from a resolution.”

While Gill and his team determinedly wade through the necessary formalities to settle the issues with High Ridge, Grenville is progressing toward its eventual goal of production on Silveria. A partner providing a mill will be an important next step to secure cash flow from the project, however, even more important for the Grenville team at this point is to determine the value of the mineralized rock they send through the mill. “Right now the most important part is getting the information back on how valuable that mineralized rock is. Once you’re milling and getting bulk samples back you can tell from twenty tonnes of material – that’s a lot of material to process – let’s see how much precious and base metals we can get out of it,” Gill explained.

Without 43-101 compliant estimates in place yet, Grenville has been gleaning information from historical data, which, though promising, are not deemed to be reliable for resource calculations.

The Silveria concessions cover an area that is home to four past producing mines, the Silveria, Millotingo, Germania and Pacococha mines. Historical records for Germania and Silveria do not exist, however records for Millotingo and Pacococha mines show that the mines began producing in the 1962 and 1964 respectively and both mines closed in 1992. Like many mines around the world at the time, low metal prices contributed to the closings, however in this case, terrorist activities by Shining Path guerrillas created pressure that led to the closure of the mines.

Gill reads the premature closures as good news for Grenville in today’s mining-friendly Peru because the mines still had a significant amount of life left when they were closed. “Those mines shut down in the process of production. They closed because of terrorism issues and safety issues in the area.” For Grenville that means one thing—unexploited potential.

Grenville Gold’s August 2007 43-101 report on the Silveria Project gives us an idea of that potential. About the Millotingo mine it says, “A total of 2.6 million tonnes of mill feed is reported to have been produced…at an average grade of 16 troy ounces per tonne of silver with gold as a by-product…from which a total of 95,000 tonnes of silver concentrates is reported to have been produced, which contained about 39 million ounces of silver and 90,000 ounces of gold…” The same report noted that historical information from Millotingo gave evidence of a remaining 661,000 tonnes grading 12.8 troy ounces of silver per tonne, at the time the mine closed, and cautioned that an unknown amount of that resource has since been depleted through artisan mining.

Historical figures for the Pacococha Mine, which are not 43-101 compliant, report that between 1964 and 1991 8.4 million oz of silver was recovered from 2.7 million tonnes of mill feed. The reserve estimate from historical resources at Pacococha in 1991 was 449,019 diluted tonnes at an average grade of 4.49 oz/tonne of silver. Historical reports for the Pacococha mine also reported copper, lead and zinc reserves.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As per its October 3rd press release, Atomic has signed an amended letter of intent (LOI) with Geo Can Resources Company Ltd. to acquire up to 90% interest in over 1,300,000 acres of uranium property in southwest Tanzania divided into 10 separate licenses. As a result of this amendment, Atomic stands to double the size of its holdings in Tanzania.

In addition to the non-refundable deposit of US$65,000 which the Company already paid Geo Can on July 25th, Atomic paid Geo Can US$300,000 on execution of the amended LOI as well as reimbursing Geo Can for land registration fees of US$42,000.

The agreement is subject to the results of Atomic’s due diligence on the Property (including the preparation of a title opinion and a Technical Report pursuant to National Instrument 43-101) and TSX Venture Exchange (“TSX-V”) approval. The property will also be subject to a 2% NSR royalty, which Atomic may buy out at any time for US$5 million.

The property is located on the on the shores of Lake Nyasa (which, in neighboring Malawi, is known as Lake Malawi) and extends into the Ruhuhu Basin in southern Africa’s vast Karoo Basin system – an area known to contain significant sandstone-hosted roll front deposits. Roll fronts are found around the world and are the type of uranium deposit mined by the in-situ leaching method. Famous examples of roll fronts are the Colorado Plateau and the world-class Mi Vida, near Moab, Utah. The southwestern part of Tanzania offers investors several possibilities for uranium discovery due to the fact that the Karoo Basin and the Usagaran-Ubendian belt host a number of different types of uranium deposits, the most economical of which are roll front and unconformity “vein” type.

Radiometric surveys carried out by Geo Can on the property indicate the potential for uranium. Several anomalous hits of over 3100 cps (cycles per second), including one of over 5000 cps have been recorded.

Other mining companies exploring in the area include Paladin Resources (Malawi), Universal Exploration and Western Metals (both in Tanzania). Located across Lake Nyasa, just 60 km from Atomic’s property PL4514 is Paladin’s Kayelekera Project (a roll front deposit), which has a current resource of over 25,000,000 pounds of U3O8 and is due to go into production in late 2008.

Western Metals, an Australian explorer whose Mtonya property is located in a neighbouring Karoo sequence east of Atomic’s Ruhuhu ground, has recently returned drilling results showing multiple thick subsurface uranium mineralized zones with initial assay results showing high-grade peak intersections of 7 metres at 1,233 ppm U3O8 (including 3 metres at 2,607 ppm U3O8).

High uranium prices have encouraged investors to broaden their horizons and to recognize opportunities farther afield. According to Western Metals, Tanzania represents a worthwhile investment. “Tanzania has an annual growth rate of 5.8% since 2006. The Mining Act of 1998 legislated a clear exploration and mining regime that guarantees against nationalization and expropriation with a fair, predictable tax regime. A Chubb Group World Risk Survey in 2006 had Tanzania in the 10 lowest investment risk countries.”

The Tanzanian government’s Department of Mines section of the national website showcases the government’s efforts to create an investment-friendly climate. It “mark[s] a clear shift in favour of private sector development and market-oriented economic management. With this effect the government has commenced on setting up constructive partnerships to promote private sector enthusiasm and accelerate economic growth. With these changes therefore, the roles [sic] of the government has been redefined from that of owning and operating the mines to that of providing a clear policy guidelines, stimulating private investment and providing support for investors.”

The company plans to complete a 43-101 report on all ten Tanzanian properties by November 1st, with the subsequent initial exploration program to be based on the report’s recommendations. A drill program will follow as soon as possible (prior to year end). Atomic’s near and mid-term goal is to continue to acquire additional land in the Ruhuhu Basin area and along the shore of Lake Nyasa, directly across the lake from Paladin’s Kayelekera Project Deposit. The company also seeks to build alliances and partnerships with key players in the area.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Yale Resources Ltd. (TSX.V: YLL), in an on-going sampling program at the La Verde Grande copper mine in north-western Mexico, has turned up skarn mineralization in an adit about 80 metres south of the main mine entrance.

That adit, running east-west, was thought to be nothing more than an access, says company president Ian Foreman. With the mine workings trending north-east, the discovery of mineralization widens the potential deposit in three directions.

More intriguing, though, is a shaft about 50 metres in. Yale crews measured down 80 metres without touching bottom.

In an interview, Foreman suggested the shaft may be the one described in a report from December, 1919, with a depth of 370 feet (112 metres), passing through a 50-foot body of ore, with evidence of mineral showing in the last 125 feet and, most significantly, with evidence of sulphides.

“We haven’t seen a single grain of sulphides in all the workings and all the samples we’ve taken,” Foreman said, and that suggests the historical shaft may have opened onto an untouched ore body.

The depth alone wouldn’t have been a hindrance to mining. “There are many instances where the Spanish went down to the water table,” he said. But when they hit sulphides, “they didn’t have the technology to get the gold and silver out of the rocks.”

Even a couple of centuries later, the Hermosillo Copper Company, which worked the mine in the early 1900s, would have been stymied.

With no trace of sulphides to date, “we know then there’s a really good chance they didn’t continue mining,” Foreman said. “The ore would have been too difficult to extract.”

Shallower shafts on the site have been explored by someone dangling on the end of a rope, but Foreman balks at the thought of sending anyone down 80 metres or more.

“We’re really wrestling with ‘how do we find out what’s there?’,” he said.
“Are there other workings or are there other levels?”

However, invaluable information could come from one deep drill hole down the side of the shaft. That may well happen sometime next year, he said.

“We now have a much greater level of confidence that we’re going to be able to increase the size of the deposit and we can do that with drilling a single hole,” Foreman said.

La Verde Grande is the largest of six historical mine sites within Yale’s La Verde Project, 45 kilometres northwest of Hermosillo, Sonoro, Mexico. Sampling work has now moved from La Verde Grande to those other sites.

The project covers 2,640 hectares, and, in the continuing search to delineate an ore body for a multi-million tonne open-pit mine, Yale recently staked another 440 hectares on the northeast corner. The new property contains a large porphyry target – La Sierrita Porphyry – with anomalous copper, zinc, and molybdenum values, drilled in 2000 by Freeport McMoran.

“We’re now a long way along the road” to outlining an open-pit site, Foreman said. “We’ve duplicated old assay results. We can see mineralization in the walls (of La Verde Grande). There’s potential beyond the workings for areas we can’t see, for good mineralization.”

The assay results for more than 370 samples taken so far will start dribbling in over the next couple of months, he said. Until then, the best numbers in hand are pre-NI 43-101 figures indicating an historic resource of just under half a million tonnes, grading 2.29% copper, 98.54 g/t silver and 0.38 g/t gold. That rock, before costs, has a value of $228.04/tonne, worth roughly $100 million in-situ.

“We’re now confident we can multiply that several times,” Foreman said.

Work is also ticking along on Yale’s three other Mexican projects. On the Urique Project in the Chihuahua-Sonora gold belt at the northern end of the Sierra Madre, Yale has committed to the second year of its option with EXMIN Resources Inc. (TSX.V: EXM). “We want to be drilling early in the new year” in the north, Foreman said, while exploration in the south will start before Christmas.

On its wholly owned Carol property in southern Sonora State, complete assay results from a wide-spaced sampling finished in July need to come in before Yale can narrow its exploration area.

The company has sampled a large skarn body measuring 1,100 metres by 400 metres in the southern part of the property. The Carol property is about 6 km north of Frontera Copper Corp.’s Piedras Verdes mine, with proven and probable reserves of 191 million tonnes grading 0.36% copper.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Most of the second phase drilling has been in the south and southernmost sections drilled during Phase I as assays for drill cores reported in July show that gold grades and zone width generally increase towards the southern part of the zone. Previously reported assay results for Hole 07JD013, assayed 19 m averaging 7.01 grams/tonne gold, management noted in its media release.

Astral expects to expand the Phase II drilling program based on preliminary indications. “The Phase II drill program is being increased…We’re applying for 4,500 m of new drilling; we’re not going to drill through the winter, but for as long as we can—another 12 to 15 holes minimum before quitting,” Manfred Kurschner, Astral’s president and CEO told Resourcex Investor.

Extended Strike at JJ
When granted approval to increase its Phase II drilling program, Astral will test and confirm the geologic model it is building of the JJ Main gold zone. Management expects to receive word of its amended drilling permit within the next two weeks.

“We’ll have a total of 40 to 45 holes for the second phase, probably 800 m along strike and probably not much deeper than 150 m, though we may sink a few holes as deep as 200-300 m using smaller diameter cores,” Kurschner said.

The 1500 m and 20 drill holes completed during the Phase I drilling program indicated “what seems like a plunging chute to the south where the best grades and widths were encountered, so needless to say, we have concentrated on that southern area with the second phase,” Kurschner elaborated.

Phase I drilling defined the stockwork zone over a strike length of 170 m leaving it open in both directions and to depth. Phase II drilling of 27 holes has increased that to a surface strike length of 540 m.

Overwhelming Demand for Assays, Equipment, Miners
Expected receipt of assay results for Jumping Josephine’s Phase II drill samples has been delayed due to backlogs at Vancouver area labs.

“There are no grades or assays in as yet but the technical team is pleased with what they’re seeing and their perceptions of it…Drilling this many holes it’d be nice to know what they are assaying, but that’s just not possible due to back-ups at the labs,” Kurschner commented. “Results for the first several holes of Phase II are expected in early November.”

Booming metals prices and the heightened level of exploration and development activity is also putting strains on the supply of mining equipment and a premium on geologists, mining engineers, technical and other staff.

South of the Border
In the US, Astral has working interests in five Nevada properties. Its Emmy and Scraper Springs properties are located within the once prolific Carlin Trend, the REF property is located to the southwest in the neighboring Battle Mountain and Eureka Trend, the Roy & Hills property further west and south in the Walker Lane Trend and Gold Springs to the southeast in an area of known gold occurrences.

“There haven’t been any really big announcements from Nevada but there’s a ton of drilling going on…A big strike there could really ignite things,” Kurschner said.

Staff and equipment shortages are also holding back progress on Astral’s Nevada projects. “We’re permitted for four drilling projects but we’ve been delayed due to lack of drills and geologists”

With the onset of the northern winter, Astral is planning to turn its attention to its Bear Creek and Saluda gold prospects in South Carolina’s Slate Belt. “We want to go back to South Carolina and start another round of drilling,” Kurschner commented.

The Benefits of Pooling Resources
Astral is one of six members of the Grosso Group, a management team which was formed to take advantage of the greater efficiencies in common financial, administrative and operational functions that a group organizational structure can provide to each of its member companies.

The Group is owned by its members, with each one paying in its share of capital and drawing on common resources and expertise as required.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The closing of the Honnold acquisition cements ValGold’s commitment to aggressively explore highly prospective targets spread across three regional sections—the Increible, Chicanan and Vuelvan—and illustrates the strength of ValGold’s business plan, according to Jeff Stuart, ValGold’s business development officer.

“These are some of the largest, most prospective gold properties I have seen in an area that has not been explored…Things are just getting started,” Stuart told Resourcex. These include Mochilla, where ValGold on Nov. 1 reported the completion of 1,100 of a planned 4,000 meters of an initial drilling program. Assay results are expected in the next few weeks.

The Honnold Acquisition
Honnold’s concessions are located in a region that represents “probably the best geology in the entire world [for prospective gold deposits]. The entire region is underlain by the 2.5 billion year-old rocks of the Guiana Shield…There are tons of structures just about everywhere you look,” Stuart told Resourcex.

ValGold acquired Honnold Corp., a British Virgin Island registered company, having initially concluded a purchase option agreement last December with three private companies for a cash advance of US$500,000 and the issuance of 5 million ValGold common shares valued at US$ 0.20 per share for the purposes of the Agreement.

On Oct. 26 ValGold exercised the option and paid the Vendors an additional US$ 1.5 million and 15,014, 443 common shares valued at US$ 5 million. The Vendors will retain a 10% free-carried interest in the properties until the completion of a bankable feasibility study on the properties or any portion thereof. They are obligated to provide their prorate share of funding should they elect to maintain their interest in any subsequent project development work. They also retain a 2% net smelter returns royalty interest in the exploration licenses.

ValGold is in the midst or raising equity capital in order to fund exploration work at Mochilla and other prospective targets. The company is about three-quarters of the way through a C$ 3.5 million equity financing, the bulk of which has already been sold to institutional brokers and investors, according to Stuart. Each of the non-brokered private placement’s 10 million units consists of one common share and one-half common share purchase warrant with a C$ 0.60 exercise price and two-year term to expiry.

Roughly 40% of the capital will be invested in exploration and drilling programs at initial target zones within the Honnold properties in Venezuela, Stuart added. Another thirty percent will be similarly used to explore initial target prospects in neighboring Guyana, where the other half of ValGold’s mining rights is located. The remainder will be used for general corporate purposes.

El Callao, Chicanan & Mochilla
A previous NI 43-101* compliant report of the properties within the Honnold concession area stated that it holds the potential for several new world-class gold finds, Stuart related. Gold Fields Ltd. (NYSE:GFI) did some good initial exploration work more than a decade ago but dropped the project due to low gold prices, he recounted. The three private vendors then acquired the properties and placed them in Honnold Corp.

ValGold started exploring the Honnold concession area late last year. It can be divided roughly into two distinct sections, Stuart explained. The northern El Callao Mining District is an area of arid desert and savanna-like country where the Choco 10 gold mine is located. Gold Fields sold Choco 10 as part of a US$ 520 million deal to sell all of its Venezuelan assets to Rusoro Mining Ltd. (TSX.V:RML). Choco 10 has been in production since 2006 and is expected to produce some 150,000 ounces of gold per annum though it has been plagued by disputes with labor and the surrounding community.

Though El Callao is considered the weakest of the concession group in terms of prospects, ValGold has nonetheless identified several targets. The first to be explored has resulted in what management believes may well turn out to be an economically viable discovery called Los Patos.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

It sounds trite, but recent developments around the world have demonstrated the truth behind the saying.

NioGold Mining (TSX.V:NOX) has just finished drilling over 10,000 metres of a planned 40,000 metre drill program on its wholly owned Marban Block property. This initial round of the program is investigating gold mineralization in the area immediately surrounding the past-producing Marban Mine. All of the holes indicated that the geologic features that helped establish the Marban Mine are also present in the ground around the mine.

Certain veined and mineralized sections bear strong similarities to Agnico-Eagle’s (TSX:AEM) Goldex deposit (which contains an estimated 21.4 million tonnes grading 2.39 g/t Au for a total of 1.64 million ounces of gold) located 10 kilometers to the southeast. Follow-up holes are planned.

NioGold first drilled 10,000 metres across 63 holes during its 2006 exploration program.

Jay Taylor, a respected and widely followed investment analyst who has recommended the company to his subscribers, thinks the Malartic Gold Camp is an “outstanding” area to be developing gold resources.

“NioGold, because it’s in a historic gold camp, is surrounded by infrastructure. You have people, roads, power and milling facilities, so conceivably a company like NioGold could prove up a deposit and put it into production in relatively short order,” he says. “I look at it as a less risky exploration play compared to other projects because it’s in such a well developed location.”

The camps presently encompass several active advanced exploration and mine development projects such as Canadian Malartic (Osisko Exploration – TSX.V:OSK), Kiena (Wesdome Gold Mines – TSX:WDO), Midway (Northern Star Mining – TSX.V:NSM), Goldex (Agnico-Eagle) and Lac Herbin (Alexis Minerals). The Marban Block encompasses three former gold producers, namely the Norlartic, Kierens (First Canadian), and Marban mines. These companies collectively produced 592,265 ounces of gold.

The Marban Block project is located in the western portion of the province of Quebec, Canada, midway between the towns of Val-d’Or and Malartic, in the southern portion of what is known in mining terminology as the Abitibi greenstone belt. This area falls within the Malartic Mining “camp”, which has yielded a total estimated 8.9 million ounces of gold – worth US $6.2 billion at today’s prices.

The Marban Block has seen exploration since 1940, and at least 14 different companies have explored and/or mined the property since that time.

The project is the result of NioGold’s consolidation of four contiguous properties in the Malartic mining camp – Norlartic, First Canadian, Marban, and Gold Hawk – and consists of 34 mining claims, three concessions, and one mining lease covering a total of 972.8 hectares.

A report by independent geology consultants Mine Development Associates of Canada has put over 342,000 ounces of gold into a National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource estimate, but the recently announced drill results mean that these numbers are growing.

Besides the Marban Block, NioGold has two other ongoing exploration projects in its property portfolio. Briefly, they include the Camflo West Property, where in 2006, NioGold completed geophysical surveys and drilled 11 widely spaced holes (3,300 metres) testing the sediment / volcanic contact. The drilling uncovered high level intrusives and significant alteration similar to those associated with gold mineralization of the Malartic camp. Values of up to 9.08 g/t Au over 1.2 metres were returned from the drilling.

Located 200 kilometers southeast of the town of Val-d’Or and 50 kilometers north of the Mt-Laurier uranium district, Pump Lake is an early stage project that displays characteristics comparable to the Iron Oxide-Copper-Gold (IOCG) class of mineral deposits. These include the association of iron oxides (magnetite, hematite), copper, gold and uranium and the proximity to intrusive rocks. World-Class examples of IOCG’s are found at Olympic Dam and the Cloncurry district (Australia), Candelaria (Chile), Salobo (Brazil), and the Kiruna district (Sweden).

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

CEO and Director James McDonald, at 46, is one of the youngest men in a directorial role in Canadian mining and boasts a track record dating back twenty years. He started as a geologist in 1983 at Noranda. Then he went to work at Hemlo where he met Richard Hughes, the mining legend and brains behind the Hemlo discovery, one of the largest gold discoveries in Canadian history. This experience seems to be the impetus behind his formidable motivation. As McDonald put it in a presentation featured on Kootenay’s website, “I really got bitten by the gold bug at [Hemlo].”

In the late 1990s, working closely with Hughes, McDonald and Albert Matter formed National Gold, secured the Mulatos deposit in Mexico, and joint ventured with Alamos Minerals. McDonald merged the two companies to form Alamos Gold, which opened the Mulatos mine that is still in production today, producing over 100,000 ounces of gold annually.

McDonald had other successes at White Knight, and Genco Resources (currently producing 1,000,000 ounces per year of silver) where he served as President until 2006, when he stepped aside (he remains on board) to focus his efforts on building Kootenay Gold.

“Part of the reason for creating Kootenay Gold,” he said, “is an opportunity to put together a team of people that I had worked with mostly on a contract basis. In this industry it’s not really the properties, it’s the people that are valuable. If you put the good teams together, you’ll get the good properties and you’ll make the discoveries. You’ve got to have those people.”

With Hughes as a director on the board, and McDonald at the helm, they began to pull together key players in the industry and an exploration strategy. McDonald says about forming Kootenay Gold, “There’s a prospecting family that I’d worked with in various companies on various jobs. I was always looking for the opportunity to put them together in a company to form the core of a good exploration company.”

McDonald and his team carefully selected the west Kootenay region because they considered it to be highly prospective, but underexplored. The mineralized belt, on the American side of the border, has produced over 6 million ounces of high grade gold, but on the Canadian side was somewhat untouched. McDonald put the Kennedys – a family of highly skilled prospectors – to work in the Kootenays where they have considerable knowledge. Their findings allowed Kootenay to stake 45 mineralized claims in the area, every one of which is a new discovery.

So, while generating discoveries in BC, Kootenay’s strategy has been to joint venture with junior explorers to help fund and conduct exploration on the properties. The joint venture partners absorb some of the risk to Kootenay and pay Kootenay in cash and stock. The stock, in this resource market, becomes an appreciating asset. In other words, it’s a win-win situation for Kootenay.

The best development for Kootenay Gold in the Kootenay area so far has been the Jumping Josephine project, which is a joint venture with Astral Mining Corp. Astral has the right to earn a 60% interest in the property. Recent drilling on Jumping Josephine reported on July 12, 2007, returned 19 m of 7.01 g/t gold, including 5 m at 16.42 g/t gold. In an interview with Stanley Hunt on Smartstox Talk Show, McDonald explained the potential at Jumping Josephine. “It’s a high grade system…They’re on round two of the drilling now. Personally, I think they’re starting to drill off a resource now. This started out as a raw prospect. We’ve got an advanced project down in Mexico, which has been our lead project, but this is catching up.”

Northern Mexico has been Kootenay’s major focus. Using the philosophy that it is critical to select properties well and then commit time, work and money, McDonald and his team saw opportunity in Mexico. Their belief is that northern Mexico has potential similar to Nevada in the 1980s – a period that led to Nevada becoming the third largest gold producer in the world.

McDonald said authoritatively, “Mexico is already the number two silver producer in the world. It’ll retake its number one position probably in another year. It’s going to become a major gold producer and you can also expect to see a lot of base metals, copper, lead, zinc coming out of Mexico as well in new discoveries.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Guiana Shield is South America’s counterpart to the volcanic-sedimentary Birimian Supergroup in West Africa, which hosts several large gold deposits, the most famous of which is AngloGold Ashanti’s Obuasi Mine in Ghana. Obuasi produces approximately 400,000 ounces of gold annually. What is perhaps most striking about the Guiana Shield is that it’s one of the last seriously underexplored major geological systems left in the world.

Major gold deposits within the Guiana Shield include the Rosebel mine in Suriname, the Omai mine in Guyana and the Las Cristinas and Brisas deposits in Venezuela. Before closing in 2005, Omai (owned by Cambior, which was bought out by Iamgold) was the largest open-pit gold mine in South America, and produced more than 3.7 million troy ounces (115,081 kg) of gold during its lifetime.

Besides being known as one of the world’s largest exporters of bauxite, Guyana is also known for its gold, diamond and uranium potential. Free market-oriented political reforms in the 1990s and the current breakout gold market have done much to highlight Guyana’s appeal to mining investors.

Although this acquisition stands on the merits of its exploration potential alone, ValGold’s corporate culture is to seek opportunities to “join with good men”. A key component of this deal is leveraging the expertise of Hilbert N. Shields, ValGold’s Guyana country manager, and past vice-president and general manager of Golden Star Resources. He was responsible for that company’s project generation, acquisition, and exploration to feasibility study for gold and diamonds in Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. He was responsible for a US $100 million budget over 13 years with the company and had a technical staff of 45 geo-scientists and 350 local employees. Mr. Shields supervised the exploration of the Omai gold deposit to completion, which currently produces 300,000 of gold annually.

Perhaps more importantly, Hilbert’s team initiated the original exploration by Golden Star on Fish Creek in the 1990s. Now he is eager to return to the Fish Creek site to follow up on the mineralized anomalies he began to work on prior to the downturn of gold prices.

The Fish Creek licence is at the northeast boundary of and adjacent to the company’s Five Star property. This area has a history of artisanal gold mining and is dotted with workings. It is also thought to be potentially rich in diamonds, uranium and copper-nickel and/or platinum group metals (PGM).

The company’s website describes the Five Star properties as being “highly prospective for gold and, potentially, diamonds, uranium and copper-nickel and/or platinum group metals (PGM). Several gold occurrences have already been discovered on the properties including the Makapa occurrence where rock samples have returned gold values as high as 136.0 g/t. Limited drilling at the same occurrence has intersected up to 18.3 g/t gold over 2.0 meters in silicified volcaniclastic conglomerate. Large areas have also seen no work or have good gold stream silt anomalies that have not been investigated. Alluvial diamonds have been found at a number of locations yet very little exploration has been conducted for this commodity. Radiometric surveys have identified several uranium anomalies and layered, intrusive, mafic to ultramafic rocks could potentially host copper-nickel and/or PGM mineralization.”

Golden Star Resources, who worked on Fish Creek from 1994 to 1997, conducted stream sediment and regional soil geochemical surveys, airborne and ground geophysical surveys, detailed soil, rock and trench sampling, as well as 2,780 m of diamond drilling over 20 holes. This preliminary work allowed Golden Star to delineate several anomalous areas of gold enrichment. These appear to be associated with a major regional east-west fault, whose structure crosses the central part of the licence and extends about 40 km west.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Although Goldcliff has thus far focused on reporting drilling results from a few high-grade zones on the property, according to Sanders, Panorama Ridge in fact has substantial bulk tonnage, open pit potential. In addition to the high-grade gold that Goldcliff is drilling, Sanders explains that in today’s gold market the low-grade material at Panorama is becoming economic, and in turn substantially increasing the potential size of the Panorama resource.

“We’ve been focused on the material right around a gram per tonne and in excess of a gram and we’re finding lots of potential tonnage of that material, but that material occurs within an even bigger envelope of low grade material. As these gold prices move higher, that lower grade material starts to become of serious economic interest. It moves into a resource category as you’re able to lower your cut-off grades.”

Focused in British Columbia adjacent to the historic and prolific Mascot Mine, Goldcliff is in the midst of a 10,000m drill program that is slated to wrap up in the spring of 2008 with resource estimates to follow soon after. Results from the Panorama Ridge property, concentrating on the high grade York/Viking and Nordic zones, will arrive over the next weeks and months as Goldcliff’s drilling results make their way through queues at the assay labs.

Highlights published thus far have included 1.56 g/t gold over 40.84m including 3.05 g/t gold over 19.23m and 5.24 g/t gold over 8.56m and 31.2 g/t gold over 0.25m at the Nordic zones. Highlights from the York/Viking zone include 58.27m of 1.01 g/t gold, 38.01m of 1.19 g/t gold, and 27.88m of 1.05 g/t gold.

The Panorama Ridge story began one afternoon in 2000 when geologists Leonard Saleken and Grant Crooker drove up the Nickel Plate Road only four kilometers from the Nickel Plate Mascot Mine near Hedley, BC. There they discovered new logging roads that extended into terrain with favourable outcrop and similar geology to the Mascot Mine area. Saleken and Crooker knew the potential of what they had. Immediately, they checked the records for previous claims. They found none and excitedly began the process of staking ground. Today Goldcliff has over 4,000 hectares in claims at Panorama Ridge and a growing body of significant exploration results.

Geographic proximity to the Mascot Mine is one advantage that Goldcliff has exploited. However, it doesn’t end there. Three members of the Goldcliff team, Leonard Saleken, Chairman and chief geologist, Paul Saxton, director and mining engineer, and Edwin Rockel, geophysicist, worked at the Mascot open pit in the 1980s and 90s when it produced over 1.0 million ounces of gold. Sanders points out that Mascot and Panorama have the same geological setting and same style of mineralization, “so in a sense our guys have already ‘been there and done that’. The whole team has been involved in more than one successful junior where deposits have been developed into ore bodies or companies have been sold to bigger companies. So we do have a lot of experience under our belts.”

Another important strategy the Goldcliff team has executed is the acquisition of two other British Columbia properties. Sanders explains, “the additional assets we’ve acquired in the last year [the Ainsworth and Plug properties] augment the company’s portfolio. While they’re early stage assets, we’re pretty excited about those and they could be a real sleeper value to the valuation of the company.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Recently, several members of the Toronto investment community toured the La Verde project, together with Ian Foreman, P.Geo, President and Julio Lopez, the company’s Exploration Manager. The La Verde project is located 45 km northwest of Hermosilo, Sonora State, Mexico. Yale acquired this project almost four months ago at a cost of US $1.6 million payable over 27 months plus a 2% Net Smelter Return. The property has an historic resource estimate dating from 1989 (which do not comply with NI 43-101* rules) of some 459,000 tonnes grading 2.59% copper, 98.54 grams per tonne silver and 0.38 grams per tonne of gold. Yale is now making considerable progress on updating and expanding that resource.

There are at least five known deposits with historic workings on the property but the company presently has it sights set on the La Verde Grande Mine itself. Walking inside the old mine workings, the blue-green hues make the copper oxide mineralization quite evident. Mining operations at the turn of the 20th century, when the area was last properly mined, utilized steam powered machinery. These limitations meant that only the highest-grade ores were mined. With modern technology and elevated metals prices, Foreman and his backers believe that a wealth of mineable ore remains, long forgotten or undiscovered.

Yale has moved quickly on La Verde. According to Ian Foreman, “La Verde Grande is much bigger than we originally thought.” Yale has reexamined many of the old workings, and has taken some 200 channel samples from throughout the underground workings. Most of these are exploration drifts about two meters high by two meters wide. La Verde Grande appears to be a classic skarn-altered limestone with high grades of copper and associated silver, gold and zinc. “But there may be more to this than just a classic skarn” says Ian Foreman. Within the La Verde Grande Mine, there are four different levels, trending northeast. In addition there is an old working trending due east/west.

The walls of the old workings are covered in soot and bat guano. Some bats still fly through the old mine and give a new challenge to mine samplers and geologists. Yale Resources will try to liberate La Verde Grande mine workings from the bats and persuade them to find a new home.

Yale Resources has come up with an interesting discovery at La Verde Grande with potential important geologic and economic significance. They have discovered a shaft of at least 80 meters in La Verde Grande. Historic documentation and old geological records describing this shaft add a new dimension to the old working. Of particular note is the reference to sulphide mineralization at the bottom of the shaft. All other mineralization in the La Verde Grande Mine is oxide so therefore this is potentially very significant. The other point is that given the challenges of drilling and mining using the steam-powered equipment of that era, it is doubly significant that so many resources would have been devoted to such a development. It would have been a large undertaking to make a vertical shaft with the depth being equivalent to a 26-storey building. There is a challenge of determining what mineralization does occur in the shaft area – being safety considerations and lacking the mythical Spiderman to go down there. One way to decode the sulphide mystery would be to put down a drill hole down parallel to the shaft. The results of this could change the geological concept of La Verde Grande and add a new geological dimension.

The goal at the La Verde Project is to define more clearly mineralized zones, which contain copper mineralization grading 1 to 3 % copper. There is also a sweetener with the silver, gold and zinc content, which all add to increase the value of the mineralization. Once Yale Resources receives all the results of their channel-sampling program, they can establish a drilling program with priority targets. Their goal is to delineate a multi-million tonne resource that is amenable to open pit mining.

Yale has other targets nearby their La Verde Grande project. Julio Lopez, Exploration Manager, together with a project geologist, two junior geologists and two sampling crews have their work cut out for them.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Reed Lake region is an area currently under intense exploration, even by Manitoba’s demanding standards for that description. There are no fewer than 28 other mining ventures, operational and exploratory, in the region and surrounds, according to maps from the Manitoba Mineral Resources Division. The region is currently delivering results for explorers. Tribune’s Quartz Claims are near VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX.V: VMS) discovery hole grading 11.19% Cu over 10.50 meters.

Tribune’s exploration program is scheduled to begin in January 2008. The company’s exploration team has identified multiple high priority drilling targets, and drill equipment has been reserved for the duration of the exploration program.

The Quartz Claims, northeast of Snow Lake Manitoba, cover a 4,800 foot long electromagnetic conductor which is interpreted to lie in a fold axis. The historical exploration data which is very pertinent to Tribune’s operations, and identify gold mineralization ranging from 18.14 g/t Au over 4.2 feet to 12.19 g/t Au over 4.5 feet. There are two EM conductor bodies which have not been previously drilled. Tribune management believes that these two conductor bodies have the potential to host significant gold mineralization.

Tribune has additionally announced the start of its joint venture exploration of the North Shore property of the Athabasca Basin in northeastern Alberta with partner Fission Energy (TSX V: FIS). The program will include additional geological mapping, geochemical sampling and geophysical surveys, with planned airborne radiometric survey and drill sampling of priority targets. Also in the Athabasca Basin, exploration of the Botham Lake prospect, involving an aggregate drill of four anomalies over 4,000 metres, is expected to be completed by the end of the year at a cost of $1.3 million, being part of Tribune’s $3 million expenditure obligations for 2007-2008 under the Option Agreement.

Tribune’s high level of exploration activity and October acquisition of the Quartz Claims are part of an interesting series of events relating to the company. The Quartz Claims holding was acquired at a relatively low outlay, totaling $270,000 cash and 500,000 common shares to be issued over five years.

Also worthy of study are Tribune’s capital management moves. The company completed a private placement of units for $3.4 million in May, 2007, and doesn’t currently intend to raise capital. A previous private placement of $1 million was noted on the TSX in June this year.

These placements indicate that Tribune is keeping its bottom line well covered. The nemesis of mineral exploration is expenditure, and cost control is extremely important. Tribune’s operations are quite extensive for a relatively small cap company, and it’s clear that the management is seeking dollar value for its expenditures, and targeting yield results from its exploration.

The new phase of exploration comes soon after Tribune Uranium’s announcement that it will spin off non-core assets (including the Quartz Claims) into a new company, in which it will not hold a stake. The estimated time frame for setting up the new company is six months.

Tribune was originally formed as a uranium company, and there’s a significant operational, as well as logistic, divergence between uranium and Tribune’s rapidly diversifying inventory of other assets. Structurally, therefore, there’s some glaringly obvious common sense in the spin-off. Uranium is quite unlike other minerals in almost every respect. The exploration, science, regulatory framework, extraction, processing and handling are entirely different, and so is the market.

The uranium side of Tribune’s business couldn’t be subordinated to other interests on an ad hoc basis without some significant dislocation of resources, time, and money. The other commodities also have their own individual requirements, so at almost every level, a separation of functions is required.

In this case, those other assets are also being translated into capital value for Tribune shareholders, at the expected benchmark ratio of 1:5 of their Tribune holdings, as described in a recent statement by Chief Executive Graham Harris. That’s an equitable, and notably very cost effective, method of delineating both operational and equity considerations.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

This latest acquisition adds considerable lustre to Linux’s position in Alaska, as it also owns the Granite Mountain gold-polymetallic-platinum Project– located approximately 80 miles east of Nome, on the eastern part of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula. The company staked a 37 square mile area at the ‘epicentre’ of some of the world’s greatest deposits– surrounded by Teck Cominco’s Red Dog, (the world’s largest zinc deposit) located 180 miles north, Nova Gold’s Rock Creek and Big Hurrah gold mines 75 miles west, their Khotol Silver project 60 miles east, and finally, Northern Dynasty’s massive gold-copper-molybdenum porphyry deposit (the Pebble Project) to the southeast. Red Dog is has over US$20 billion worth of zinc reserves and is producing 500,000 tons of ore annually. Indicated deposits for Rock Creek and Big Hurrah total 670,000 ounces of gold with an estimated Inferred Resource of 100,000 ounces of gold. Northern Dynasty has an inferred mineral resource of approximately 28 million ounces gold and 16.4 billion pounds of copper – certainly one of the world’s finest mineral deposits.

In early 2005, Linux acquired a 100% interest in the property by staking 148 State of Alaska 160-acre mining claims at several locations near Granite Mountain. Work done in the 1960s suggests that the property deserves additional exploration. To date, mapping and geochemical sampling has enabled the company to outline a two-mile mineralized zone with favorable discovery potential. The company’s consulting geologist for the project, Robert B. Murray, is currently completing a NI 43-101 report on the property. In September 2006, a drilling program on the property was completed, testing four separate mineralized zones. Further exploration work to confirm gold and silver values on the property is planned pending additional financing.

The USGS’ fact sheet entitled Regional Geologic, Geochemical, Geophysical, and Mineral Deposit Data for Economic Development in Alaska in the 21st Century confirms the immense base-metal resources of the Seward Peninsula: “Since the gold rush of the late 19th century, it has been recognized that the mineral endowment of the Seward Peninsula, Alaska, is considerable. The well-known placer gold operations have had significant historic production and continue operating to this day. Lode gold production has also occurred. The potential for base-metal deposits (Pb, Zn, Cu) has attracted exploration to the peninsula for decades, but the extent of that resource is unknown. Scattered across the Seward Peninsula, in an area 150 x 200 km, are numerous prospects and occurrences of stratiform massive sulfides.”

Linux also owns a 50% interest in 30 mineral claims known as the Fish Creek Prospect, located in the Fairbanks Mining Division in Alaska. The claims are located only six miles from Kinross’ Fort Knox mill. Linux has a 50/50 joint-venture with Teryl Resources Corp. (TSX.V:TRC) in the Fish Creek claims, in which Linux will spend US$500,000 on the project over three years. Linux Gold Corp. retains a 5% net smelter return or may convert into a 25% working interest. The Fish Creek claims are part of Teryl’s Alaskan holdings, which also include the Gil Project, the Stepovich claims, and the West Ridge property – all in the Fairbanks Mining District. Teryl is one of the main landowners in the district, with holdings contiguous to Kinross’ Fort Knox Project. According to Kinross’ Fort Knox Mine technical report, “the Fairbanks mining district is a celebrated placer gold camp with production in excess of 8.0 million ounces of gold since 1902. Although a significant mining district in terms of total production, it had only limited lode production until the discovery and development of the Fort Knox deposit in the late 1990s.” Fort Knox is the largest producing gold mine in Alaska, with a 4,000,000 oz Au ore reserve.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Uranium ore prices have begun rising again this past month, breaching US$90/lb., after having fallen back and settled around the US$80/lb. level after skyrocketing up to US$138/lb. in June this year from lows around US$7/lb. that lasted decades and prompted mine closings and the curtailment of exploration programs. Lately it’s been sharp run-ups and volatility in oil and gold prices that have attracted the focus of energy and mineral resources investors and the media.

Energy and uranium market fundamentals haven’t changed, however. The base case reference scenario for the US Energy Information Association’s International Energy Outlook 2007 is based on worldwide electricity demand increasing 2.4% per year, from 16,424 billion kilowatt-hours in 2004 to 303,364 in 2030, most of it non-OECD nations. Coupled with ever greater resources being devoted to mitigating climate change and significantly cutting back global greenhouse emissions, junior uranium explorers such as Vancouver’s Atomic Minerals Ltd. (TSX.V:ATL) are raising capital and gearing up to follow through on ambitious acquisition and development plans.

From Southwestern Colorado…
Listing on the Toronto Venture Exchange in June, Atomic Minerals owns 932 claims covering 19,250 acres and has signed a Letter of Intent to purchase an additional 1,585 acres on what it considers to be a prime, untapped area for uranium ore prospects: the Dolores Anticline, a large, asymmetrical northwest-trending fold in southwestern Colorado’s Dolores and San Miguel counties.

Located within the Paradox Basin and Uravan Mineral Belt some 30 miles from southeastern Utah’s Lisbon Valley, this area in the Four Corners region was the scene of a uranium boom in the 1950’s after an initial discovery by “Uranium King” Charles A. Steen led to the development of a number of mines. In total, these have produced more than 80% of the uranium mined in Utah—in excess of 103 million pounds.

Atomic management considers Dolores to be the last saltwater anticline in the southwestern US with excellent uranium ore prospects. A recently completed NI 43-101 report confirmed that the claim area, which is approximately 30 miles away from Denison Corp.’s White Mesa Mill, has the potential to host a uranium deposit and Atomic has put together exploration plans for a US$2 million Phase Two drilling program to further explore and define the potential resource.

The Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation of Late Jurassic Age and the Moss Back Member of the Late Triassic Chinle Formation in and near the Uravan Mineral Belt in San Miguel, Montrose and Dolores Counties, Colorado have produced economically significant amounts of uranium ore. Drilling programs on the Dolores Anticline conducted by Hunt Oil and Newmont in the 1970s indicated that the uranium ore-bearing Moss Back Member of the Chinle Formation is present in the area.

Atomic on November 15 announced that it had begun drilling on a first transect of a planned 30,000 feet for the Summit Point and Box Canyon Exploration Projects in San Miguel County.

“Our initial drill hole at Summit Point will be looking for the mineralized zone of the Moss Back member of the Chinle Formation. Upon completion of this hole, we will be working along the flank of the Anticline with the next eight holes. Our rotary drill rig is running 24 hours a day, and this first hole of up to 2100 feet should be completed by Friday morning.”

Additionally, the Dolores Anticline was drilled by both Hunt Oil and Newmont in the 1970s. Drill logs from this wide spaced drilling indicate that the favorable Moss Back Member of the Chinle Formation is present in the area.

Atomic also owns 119 claims spanning 2,460 acres known as the Troublesome Creek property where a potential resource estimated as high as 6-7 million tons U308 grading between 0.08 to 1.14% holds out the possibility of in situ leach processing of uranium channels. Similar potential, as well as mining an unconformity type uranium deposit, exists at the Little Wolford property, where Atomic has filed for a state lease covering 640 acres. Rounding out Atomic’s Colorado holdings, the Beaver Creek property consists of 27 claims spanning 540 acres adjacent to a Newmont exploration project that has reported grades of 0.35-1.33% U308.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Teryl Resources’ President, John Robertson, who acquired the property, expounds a strategy for finding minerals that is simple, effective wisdom in the mining exploration industry. In Robertson’s words, “the key to discovering a good property, any mining property, is to drill near existing gold and copper properties. Always. You want to be in any area where there is known gold or known copper production.”

Given the setting, optimism about the geology at Gold Hill seems fair. The geological conditions suggest a large, disseminated deposit of gold and copper amenable to low-cost open pit mining. In one report, John Shanahan of Resourcex Group cited a geological report on the prospect, commenting, “a report by Frederic Rothermel, PhD, outlined a pattern of mineralization that moved from copper-rich/gold-poorer at the centre of the system to gold richer/copper poorer at the fringes — this pattern is consistent with features of the Carlin Trend in Nevada, which contains over 100 million ounces of gold in proven and probable reserves.”

Hopeful that the Carlin trend comparison is apt, Teryl is moving ahead with exploration on the property. Teryl has employed Diversified Drilling LLC to drill at least three holes on identified, high-grade, surface copper targets. Exploration completed on the project so far has included aeromagnetic survey interpretation and field examinations. This work, and a sampling program that assayed up to 2.54% copper, were used to identify the proposed Gold Hill drill locations.

The advantageously located prospect consists of seven claim blocks including Old Gold Hill, Superior, and Bastion Mines in the Warren Mining District, Arizona. Teryl has the right to earn 100% interest in the property subject to 10% net profit interest.

At all Teryl’s properties, Robertson, who boasts twenty-five years’ experience raising money for companies in the natural resources sector, uses the same recipe for success. “First, find the money for the company; then find an excellent property. Next we start a junior exploration program that we finance ourselves. Once we come up with some excellent results, we will continue to drill, raise more money and bring in a partner and they can develop it further.”

If he makes it sound simple, it’s because Robertson has done it before in both oil & gas and mining. In Alaska, Teryl is one of the largest property owners in the mineral-rich Fairbanks Mining Division.

Teryl has collected properties adjacent or close to Kinross Gold’s True North Property and Kinross’ Fort Knox Mine, the largest producing gold mine in Alaska. Teryl’s Gil property, a joint venture with Kinross, hosts a resource of 400,000 ounces of gold. True to Robertson’s strategy, after doing grass roots exploration on the property, Teryl entered into a joint venture agreement with Kinross Gold to further develop the resource.

Another of Teryl’s Alaskan properties, the 100% owned Westridge property has seen initial exploration including sampling. A news release dated November 2004 reported results that favorably compared the Westridge geology to that of other gold properties in the Fairbanks area. The finding “suggests that gold mineralization within the sample grid may be intrusive related, a similarity shared by several other intrusive-related gold systems the Fairbanks District.”

Teryl’s Fish Creek gold property, a 50% option from Linux Gold Corp, comprises 30 mineral claims adjacent to the Gil property. Teryl and Linux Gold recently announced the discovery of six new geophysical targets on the property. The two companies, according to a recent press release, plan to begin an exploration program at Fish Creek this winter.

The remaining Alaskan claim is the Stepovich silver claim adjacent to Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox Mine where Teryl has 10% net profit interest and Kinross owns 100% of the claims subject to Teryl’s 10% interest.

Finally, oil and gas prospects in Texas and Kentucky provide a financial foundation for Teryl. Robertson commented, “One of the core things for a junior company is cash flow to pay for their administration costs. So having oil and gas properties is helping the company having revenue.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

President of Bayfield Ventures, Don Huston, has recently stated that, “The Rainy River area has the potential of being a major source of untapped major resources. There is solid reason to believe that this area will be the next major gold discovery, perhaps even the largest discovery in all of Canada.”

Such confidence is likely due to the fact that another company Bayfield Ventures has a close working relationship with, Rainy River Resources (TSX.V:PR), recently announced some exciting drill hole results with very strong gold and silver values. These promising drill holes are immediately adjacent to Bayfield Ventures’ property holdings, which are less than 200 meters to the west, known as “B” block and Burns block. Rainy River Resources has indicated that it will announce a much-anticipated NI 43-101 resource estimate by the end of the year.

Bayfield has been drilling in the area for two months, a task made more difficult by the nature of the land it holds, much of which is overlain by swampy terrain, more easily accessible in the winter months. To date, Bayfield has completed approximately 3,500 meters with 14 holes on three properties in the Rainy Rivers area. Management expects to drill an additional 3,000 to 4,000 meters this winter. Bayfield recently announced a 2 million unit financing at 50 cents a share to raise one million dollars, indicating a serious commitment to following up successes that its counterpart, Rainy River Resources, has had next door.

With results still pending from drilling, one can look to Rainy River Resources for an analogy of the mineralization Bayfield’s properties may hold. For example, on November 5, Rainy River Resources announced it had intersected a 4.0-metre wide semi-massive sulphide horizon grading 25.67 g/t Au and 184.14 g/t Ag in a step out hole south of the ODM Zone. On November 13, Rainy River Resources announced that drilling on ODM/#17 Zone continued to intersect strong gold intervals of 11.5 meters grading 5.37 grams per ton gold (ODM Zone) and 8.0 Meters grading 5.50 grams per tonne Gold (#17 Zone East).

Bayfield properties are immediately adjacent and less than 200 meters away from the #17 Gold Zone, close to the #433 Gold Zone, and the new ODM Gold Zone discoveries which, as reported by Rainy River Resources, have demonstrated intercepts of 23.5 meters of 10.6 g/t Gold and 22.6 meters of 17.0 g/t Gold.

With the price of gold still in bull mode, many investors are seeking further protection from the tumbling US dollar in various gold investments. Amid volatility in the financial markets, gold has been gaining popularity among investors, not least of all because of its status as a safe haven. Over the last 12 months the price of gold has increased from around $600 per ounce to $820 per ounce. Many expect a shift to over $1000 per ounce in the coming year.

“Continued dollar weakness, strengthening oil prices and safe haven buying triggered by broader credit market concerns should buoy (metal) prices higher in the forthcoming sessions,” Barclays Capital analysts noted recently.

The deposits currently outlined by Rainy River Resources confirm the area as a major gold camp still in the infancy of exploration, which is well poised to mature into one of the great global gold finds. This new gold camp, with a well-developed infrastructure, accessibility and abundant mineral resources could create substantial shareholder growth for Bayfield investors.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Kootenay’s focus, for now, is the Promontorio Silver Project in the Sierra Madre. . The project is a 37,000 hectare property, situated 75 km northeast of Ciudad Obregon, and is easily accessible by road.

Calculations from a 1973 feasibility report (non 43-101* compliant) describe an ore body estimated at 384,000 tonnes grading 367 g/t Ag, 1.5 g/t Au, 0.12% Cu, 2.80% Pb, and 1.74% Zinc. Chip samples assayed in the summer of this year returned values of 480 g/t silver and 2.51 g/t gold over an estimated true width of 19 meters. As such, the extent and grade of alteration at the surface is suggestive of a substantial underlying deposit.

The results of a Phase I drill program, which tested four different areas of the Promontorio structure, are now being processed with assays pending. Ken Berry, Kootenay’s President told me, “If this drilling that we’re doing right now confirms historic results, we expect to see a tremendous amount of interest. This could be a real company maker.”

Meanwhile, the Kootenay Gold team has a joint venture agreement, whereby Klondike Silver has funded a Generative Exploration Program to secure additional properties for development, primarily in the Sierra Madre of Mexico (see Kootenay April 19, 2007 news release). The parcel of land totals in excess of 500,000 ha and encompasses 30 major targets.

Mining activity in Mexico’s Sierra Madre region is burgeoning. Six years ago, there was no major activity in the area. Today, there are five producing mines in the mineralized belt, with two more coming on stream over the next 18 months. The area has been compared to Nevada in the early 80’s – well known as one of the world’s top gold regions. Mexico is currently ranked second in the world for silver production, and will likely become first again before long, considering the explosion of exploration in the region.

VP of Exploration Dr. Tom Richards heads Kootenay’s team of Mexican, Argentine, and Canadian geologists working in the Sierra Madre. “We’ve got a team of top-quality prospectors,” McDonald says, “but their skills are really brought alive by Tom’s efforts.”

In Canada, the Kennedy family – one of the last families in Canada who all earn an income from prospecting – leads the Kootenay effort to locate new discoveries. “They form the backbone of our B.C. operation,” says McDonald.

Kootenay has seven Canadian properties slated for exploration. The most advanced is the Jumping Josephine Project in the Rossland region of B.C. Kootenay has teamed up with a junior partner, Astral Mining on the 11,800 ha property (see April 12, 2006 news release). By incurring expenditures of $2.1 million and issuing Kootenay 400,000 shares of Astral, Astral has the right to earn a 60% interest in the project.

To date, over 3,000 m has been drilled in the main quartz stock work zone on the property, with a very notable intersection of 7.01 g/t gold over 19 m. Mapping and geochemical data has suggested a strike length of up to 3km. A Phase II drill program, which drilled 50 holes in the main discovery area, is wrapping up now. The first six holes were reported on November 14, including 4 m grading 15.18 g/t Au at the JJ main zone.

“This could develop into another lead project for us,” Berry emphasized.

The Connor Creek project, another big B.C. focus for Kootenay, is an area 16km southeast of Nelson, also highly accessible. Geochemical and geophysical testing in the area revealed a broad area anomalous for gold, copper, lead, zinc, and silver, over a 1.2km by 3.2 km grid.

Kootenay took on another junior partner for its Connor Creek Project, Amador Gold. Amador will earn a 50% interest in the Connor Creek property, provided $1 million in exploration is expended, and 400,000 Amador shares are issued to Kootenay Gold over the next four years.

Ken Berry says, “We’re on the verge of events that could change the whole outlook for the company.”

Joint venture partnerships like those engaged for Jumping Josephine (Astral – “TSX.V: AST”), Connor Creek (Amador – “TSX.V: AGX”), and the Mexican Generative Program (Klondike Silver – “TSX.V: KS”) reflect Kootenay’s overriding strategy.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Financing will cover the seismic survey on the Fayette Oil Field, located in Jefferson County Mississippi, as well as the planned next stage—a 10,000-foot test well to be drilled in late spring of 2008. Production and cash flow could follow as soon as ten months from now.

The objective of the 3-D survey is to survey the Lower Tuscaloosan reservoir at approximately 9,500 to 10,000 feet deep where 37 deep wells have been drilled so far, 29 of which are on the east side and only eight on the west side of the salt dome. Current production from the dome – which totaled 31 barrels of oil per day and $290,085 cash flow for KFG at year end in April 2007 – has all been from the southeast side of the dome. Of secondary importance, the survey will cover several areas KFG has identified with development potential in the Wilcox shallow gas targets.

Salt domes form in marine basins like the Mississippi Interior Salt Basin when salt intrudes into the surrounding rock strata following repeated flooding and draining of the basin. Sediment forms over the salt, burying it. Then, because the salt is less dense than the sediment, it pushes up toward the surface forming a dome. As the salt forces its way to the surface, the surrounding rock bends, forming pockets, or ‘traps’ where oil and gas collects.

The trap around the salt dome is circular, much like when a drop of water falls into a pool and ripples travel outwards in concentric circles. When there is known oil on the east side of the dome, as in this case, there should be oil on the west as well, where KFG expects to find reserves comparable to those already discovered on the east.

The seismic survey will pinpoint exactly where the narrow traps lay, drastically improving accuracy of drilling over previous geology-only technology.

Robert Kadane, President of KFG, says, “These are very narrow channels – 1,000, maybe 1,500 feet wide – and could be about 100 feet thick. It’s very easy to miss, so that’s the reason for the survey. What we’ll do is see where we have half a dozen of these signatures line up on top of each other and that’s where we’ll drill. It’s that simple.”

KFG’s target is 2 million barrels of Lower Tuscaloosa oil, 10 billion cubic feet of shallow gas reserves, and approximately 8 to10 billion cubic feet of deep gas reserves. In addition, secondary reserves, which can be recovered through CO2 injection, account for an additional 80%. Numbers like these inspire Kadane to comment, “If it works, the shareholder value will be increased somewhere in the magnitude of 10 to 20 times.”

With KFG carrying up to 80% of a potential 4 million barrels of oil at today’s price of nearly $90/barrel, the Fayette Oil Field holds a promising risk-reward ratio.

Adding further value to the project is the 50 years of experience Bob Kadane has put in – much of it here in the Mississippi-Louisiana Salt Basin. Since he was digging ditches at 16 years old has worked in virtually every aspect of oil exploration—from finding and developing reserves to selling oil and gas.

Words of wisdom gained from a lifetime as an oilman: “Dance with the girl you brought to the party,” Kadane chuckles. “Stay with what you’ve been successful at. The easiest way to fail is to get involved in a new area you don’t know anything about. I’ve had consistent success throughout the years here so that’s where I’m staying.”

And with pipeline infrastructure in place, low Mississippi taxes and 2.2 million barrels of oil produced so far from the southeast side of the salt dome, Kadane’s focus on the Fayette Field seems well-placed.

This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The region’s mineral riches have attracted the interest of domestic and foreign miners for centuries. Their efforts have been plagued not only by the size and remoteness of this vast region and the severity of its winters, but by a legacy of poorly, even tragically, mounted efforts to exploit its stunning wealth of natural resources, its mineral resources in particular.

That’s not stopping the march of time or progress, however. A new generation of miners is making inroads in Russia’s Far East, including ambitious Canadian juniors such as Vancouver’s Golden Reign Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:GRR), which, through a joint venture with Status LLC, is now developing two gold properties in Magadan Oblast, and may acquire additional mining concessions in other provinces.

Gold mining in Russia’s Far East got its start in the 1820s with the Crown issuance of the first exploration and mining permits. These entrepreneurs, who relied primarily on their natural skills and wits, trudged into the mountains of southern part of the region and prospected mainly by digging test pits, according to Vladimir Kroupnik’s editing of the 1994 book Russian Gold.

Some of these early prospectors, or staratels, such as Masharov – the Napolean of the Taiga – went down in mining legend for their abilities and successes. Their efforts resulted in the Gold Rush of the late 1820s and 1830s as hundreds deposits of alluvial gold were found and thousands of Russians, many of whom were serfs fleeing their masters in search of freedom as well as wealth, flocked to the region. By 1855, gold output in western and central Far Eastern Russia reached 17.4 tonnes.

The Russian government registered 2,955 mining claims and 790 alluvial mines between 1870 and 1899, vaulting the country into the ranks of the world’s largest gold producers, according to Kroupnik. Gold was first discovered farther east in the Amur River basin in 1850-51 by an expedition led by a mining engineer named Metlitsky and again in the Maya River several years later by an expedition led by Anosov, another mining engineer. The first hard rock gold deposit was discovered at Gold Hill, Zolotaya Gora, in 1891, which has been mined intermittently up until recently. The Zeyski, the Amur region’s major gold district, yielded some 66.8 tonnes of gold between 1876 and 1900.

Road of Bones
The lure of vast riches and greed for wealth and power also led to tragedies, exemplified by the Kolyma Highway, or Road of Bones, that traverses the vast region. Built by laborers imprisoned during the Stalin Era, the road is considered a memorial to those who died building it and whose bones were incorporated into the roadbed.

Development of gold, uranium and other mineral resources have taken a heavy toll on communities and the environment. Towns such as Balei and Krasnokamensk are considered environmental and economic disaster zones due to mining projects that took little if any responsibility for the environmental and health effects their operations would have in the region. Residents can only trust that with gold and uranium prices reaching record levels, the Russian and foreign mining companies once again looking to develop Far Eastern Russia’s mineral resources will take better care of the resources they are granted rights to develop.

Gold Mining in Russia’s Far East
Golden Reign is one of a number of Canadian miners looking to develop gold properties in Russia’s Far East today. The company is half-partner with Status LLC, the mining division of Moscow-based CentroCredit Joint Stock Commercial Bank, in the Gold Mining Corp. joint venture, which has been granted comprehensive 20-year mining permits for the Butarni and Durozhni properties in far eastern Magadan province.

The Magadan Region is considered one of the world’s richest mining areas, with gold being the main resource of the region, according to the company. “There are approximately 2,000 placer gold deposits, 100 gold ore deposits and 48 silver deposits. Total probable gold reserves in the Magadan Oblast are estimated at 4,000 tons (128,000,000 ounces),” according to Golden Reign, citing resource estimates published by Kommersant.

“We signed our agreement with Status in June when they received the regional license and then registered a brand new joint venture company called Gold Mining Corp. and transferred the licenses to that company. We have rights to earn 50% of the company and for this year the Russian partner and we each put in US$1 million so we are happy with them and the conditions,” Zoran Pudar, Vice President of Exploration recounted.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

More than just rarity, True North benefits from several strengths unique to the ruby trade. It’s supply of rubies could be certifiably sourced far from the political quagmire that is Burma. It uses innovative methods of exploration and extraction. And True North sees potential high profit margins stemming from low capital costs and a high carat per tonne yield.

Coming from Greenland, in Denmark, a country with an excellent human rights record, True North believes it can guarantee both a predictable supply and an ethical source of rubies. This predictable supply, secure and conflict free source have the potential to have a big impact on the international ruby trade.

In the diamond trade, the Kimberly Process is a worldwide agreement that certifies the source of rough diamonds, and has dramatically reduced the trade in ‘blood’ or conflict diamonds. Trade is now concentrated around certified diamonds. Diamondexchange.ca defines blood diamonds as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments.” Thus far, according to Greg Fekete, President of True North Gems, there are few if any reliable, certifiably-sourced rubies available anywhere.

Fekete explains, “Right now in the global ruby trade most of the trading is done by intermediaries who buy from smugglers or directly from small mom and pop mining operations who flip the material to buyers and wholesalers who then flip it to retailers.” With so many parties involved in the supply chain, it becomes almost impossible to prove if a ruby is a conflict free.

True North can provide a secure certification of the source of its rubies because it is the producer, Fekete says. “That way, we can certify where it has come from. We can certify conflict-free rubies.”

Another boon for True North is that it expects to produce rubies cheaply. By way of comparison, when in production,True North Gems’ profit margins could be higher than most Canadian diamond companies for two reasons. Firstly, to date, True North’s average yield on its ruby project is in excess of 2000 carats/tonne.

“The diamond guys are trying to get something like 1-1.5 carats/tonne,” Fekete says. “So they have to sort a heck of a lot more rock than we do to get their product out. It costs a lot of money to move rock and to crush it and clean it up. We don’t have to have the same volume, and consequently we have a dramatically lower extraction cost, leading to higher profit per tonne.”

Another plus for True North is that it won’t have to build ice roads or use extensive air support to transport equipment, like Canadian diamond miners. True North can ship equipment by boat to its property on the southwestern coast of Greenland, which is ice-free virtually all year.

Like any pioneer, True North is by necessity an innovator. Because mining for rubies in Greenland is a relatively new undertaking, and requires a different approach than in southeast Asia, or other coloured gemstone locales, True North has had to meet challenges with creative thinking. The company has borrowed various extraction techniques from diamond exploration, hard rock and alluvial mining and is using optical sorting for processing – a technology new to both coloured gemstones and diamonds alike.

Fekete says, “It doesn’t create headaches, just problems that need to be solved.” The need to solve problems, which True North has accomplished thus far, is offset by the significant strategic advantages of having a product that virtually no one else has.

On the financial side, True North will offer a product both unique and unprecedented. The uniqueness makes it valuable; the cutting edge breeds invention. In order to create a context for evaluating the worth of its Greenland ruby project, True North commissioned a study of the ruby market by MVI Marketing Ltd. The study showed that the ruby wholesale market is valued at approximately US $2.1 billion.

Also of note, ruby production is stable or in slight decline and ruby demand is expanding due to growing jewelry demand in burgeoning economies in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Of the entire market including rubies, sapphires and emeralds, Fekete says, “the entire coloured gemstone trade is probably over US$5 billion.”

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Astral and it’s joint venture partner, Kootenay Gold (TSX.V: KTN), have now completed the Phase II drilling program at the discovery. The drill program consisted of 38 holes totaling 5,100 metres.

The second set of assays, reported on November 29, appeared to improve upon solid results from earlier in November that returned 4 metres averaging 15.18 g/t gold and included 1 m at 56.4 g/t gold. New assays tested to a greater depth than the first results, and included 12.44 g/t gold over 8m, 7.74 g/t over 5m, and 8.28 g/t over 6m.

CEO Manfred Kurschner is effusive about the ongoing success at JJ, noting that the grades exceeded expectations.

“We’ve only drilled perhaps 60 holes of which we have only reported less than 30, so we have another 32 holes to report,” said Kurschner. “This is a brand-new gold discovery, not a re-worked discovery or an old mine or an old deposit that we’ve revisited. In fact, it’s a brand-new, done-the-math achievement. Then through systematic exploration, we’ve moved it from having the discovery, to trenching, to doing the second phase of drilling, in about a year and a half.”

Jumping Josephine is located in the west Kootenay region of southeastern B.C., in a mining district that has had historical production of more than nine million ounces of high-grade gold, yet has remained under-explored since prior to World War II.

Gold showings were initially exposed on the property during road building for logging activity. After further prospecting in 2003, nine gold showings were discovered on the property. Kootenay subsequently assembled a claim position in the area surrounding and including several small past-producers in the Granville Mountain (Bonanza Pass) area.

Now Astral is earning a 60-percent interest in the 11,785-hectare Jumping Josephine project. The property comprises 24 contiguous mineral claims and seven crown-granted mineral claims optioned to Kootenay by Ralph Englund.

Kurschner says Astral has enough cash to get the company through all of the 2008 work programs at Jumping Josephine. He recently raised over $1 million in flow-through dollars to be spent on its British Columbia properties.

With continued good assay results and a strong resource market, Astral could raise enough money through the exercise of warrants and options to minimize dilution and fund several years of exploration.

In the mining exploration business, a key feature of success is telling the story. Kurschner, an entrepreneur who understands the market, has the ability to tell a story, to raise the money and to assemble a team of people who are able to deliver results.

“People need to keep in mind,” he said, “that with these discoveries, to go from the initial event, which in our case was high-grade trenching results that were put out last December, where we trenched seven metres just over an ounce – 31 grams – that’s the initial event that showed potential. Now, to carry it forward is going to take a lot of drill holes.

“What people need to remember is that 60 holes do not make a deposit,” Kurschner advised. “Some of the greatest discoveries in the world have taken hundreds of holes.”

“We now know that there’s going to be size and dimension to JJ – and it is open – it hasn’t been shut off by drill holes that came up dead. So now, we are able to visualize in a three-dimensional view what is going on underground. It is quite an achievement to do this within one year.”

Astral will benefit, too, from the exceptional infrastructure the area offers. The property is bisected by Highway 3, which links Grand Forks, BC, to the west with Castlegar to the east. The eastern edge of the property is adjacent to the intersection of Highways 3 and 3B, which provide access to the historic mining communities of Rossland and Trail, BC, to the southeast.

The infrastructure includes an extensive network of good-quality gravel logging tracks with vehicular access to all claims. Logging remains active in this area.

Astral Mining offers investors the potential upside of a high-grade gold project that has advanced quickly under the direction of an industry veteran. In addition, Director and vice-president of exploration is David Terry, PhD, has extensive experience in international project management and management of exploration programs for both major and junior mining companies. He was formerly a regional geologist with the BC Ministry of Energy and Mines, and has worked for many mining companies.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Lone Pine Property consists of seven mineral claims over a 1,051-hectare area in the Omineca Mining Division, approximately 15 km north-northwest of Houston, BC, (700 km north of Vancouver). The area is extremely well-serviced in terms of infrastructure. A power transmission line and a gas pipeline both run through the property, with a BC Hydro substation on its western edge. Highway 16 (the Yellowhead) runs through the western corner of the property.

According to the company’s website, the Lone Pine area “extends over several molybdenum showings (Quartz Breccia, Alaskite Zone, Mineral Hill, and Granby, etc.), that have been previously documented in various assessment and government reports (Minfile Nos. 093L 027, and 093L 028).”

There has been a great deal of interest around the Lone Pine area since the early 20th century. As well, much geological, geophysical, and geochemical work has been done on the property in the last 30 years. Previous explorers at Lone Pine include Canex, Molymines, Cominco, Granby, and Noranda. The property has been the subject of several drill programs since the 1970s, and in 1978, a hole drilled in the Quartz Breccia Zone returned 356.3 m of 0.068% MoS2, which includes 154 m of 0.088% MoS2. A second deeper drill hole, drilled approximately one km apart from the Quartz Breccia Zone hole, was drilled in the Alaskite Zone and returned 343.7 m of 0.06% MoS2, including 101.4 m of 0.078% MoS2. It is important to note that past programs were limited to probing shallowly beneath known surface mineralization, and that the extent of the mineralization has not yet been fully delineated.

The last few years have underscored a trend in British Columbia of revisiting and reevaluating old molybdenum showings. Despite the historic interest in Lone Pine, previous explorers were discouraged from pursuing such projects due to low molybdenum prices. However, with molybdenum currently trading at around US $34 per lb., many of these old showings are now economically viable.

“The lithology, alteration and style of mineralization in the suite of samples from the Lone Pine Mo-Cu porphyry prospect are comparable to porphyry-type Mo-Cu deposits on the global scale, “said consulting geologist Dr. Eva Schandl, in summarizing her detailed petrographic report on 18 drill core samples taken from the property.

The company is taking a two-pronged exploration approach. The first phase involved data compilation, line cutting, mapping, and a 3D IP geophysical survey. Interpretation and integration of all data has been completed, resulting in diamond drill targets being selected. The second phase– now underway– is an ambitious drilling program, with four holes completed to date.

The USGS’ 2007 molybdenum fact sheet states that “molybdenum occurs as the principal metal sulfide in large low-grade porphyry molybdenum deposits and as an associated metal sulfide in low-grade porphyry copper deposits.” It is most often found as a byproduct of porphyry copper mining.

Molybdenum has the sixth highest melting point of any element; hence it is often used in making high-strength steel. It is extremely versatile, non-toxic, and is highly resistant to corrosion. Its ability to withstand extreme temperatures without significantly expanding or softening make it useful in applications that involve intense heat, for example– electrical filaments, aircraft parts, industrial motors, and electrical contacts.

Bard has several distinct advantages as a junior moly play. The company’s management are all veterans of the business; its president, Eugene Beukman, is a South African with over twenty years’ experience in the mining business, having gleaned some of that experience as a legal advisor to the predecessor of BHP Billiton. The company focuses its efforts in British Columbia – one of the world’s major molybdenum producers. Another advantage is that it is possible to drill year-round at Lone Pine, compared to other parts of the province that may be subject to major snowfall. The area is also unusual in B.C. in that it has absolutely everything in terms of infrastructure, which does a great deal to defray operating costs. .

The Lone Pine project has enjoyed a great deal of historic interest and has progressed to the advanced drill stage, making this is a particularly opportune time for investors as the company awaits assay results to confirm encouraging historic findings. A few good holes could easily pave the way for Bard’s investors to realize some near-term gains.

The company is at a pivotal stage in terms of development, and its investors could well be quoting the Bard himself in the coming weeks: “Fortune now /To my heart’s hope!/ Gold; silver; and base lead.” (Merchant of Venice, Act II, Scene 9)

This article is intended for information purposes only, and is not a recommendation to buy or sell the equities of any company mentioned herein. It is based on sources believed to be reliable, but no warranty as to accuracy is expressed or implied. The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author except where statements are attributed to individuals other than the author, in which case the opinions are those of the individual to whom they are attributed.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The main attraction at St. Genevieve is its two near-term copper properties, the Zonia and Emerald Isle. Sixty percent of US copper production comes from Arizona; the US is the world’s second largest producer of the key metal.

What will most excite Ascendant’s shareholders about this transaction is the predicted lead time to bring the Emerald Isle property back into production – within 12 months of its initial acquisition, or by late 2008.

If you’ve been watching the newswires, then you’ll know that the direction of the price of copper has been forecast again and again to climb. Some say that by the time Ascendant is producing at Emerald Isle, the price of copper will have reached US $4.08/pound.

At Mining Journal’s 20:20 Copper Day in London, Bloomsbury Metals Exchange expert Chris Welch outlined a prediction that the price of copper would hit $9,000/tonne or $4.08/pound by 2009. Welch’s prediction is founded on the opinion that production estimates are too high because they haven’t accounted for closures and halted projects.

A second presenter at the event, Justin Longley of International Copper Resources, agreed and added that supply “figures also do not take into account the amount of copper or concentrate which is, at any given time, tied up in working stocks, in transit, and being processed.”

Building the case for a new copper high of US $9,000/tonne in 2009, Longley also sounded on demand estimates. StockHouse.com commentator Lawrence Williams explained the dynamic like this: Copper demand is growing rapidly in developing countries like South Korea and Taiwan that are building copper-intensive infrastructures. Williams writes, “In the real growth economies like China and India, this growth pattern has hardly started yet, and should this rise to Korean or Taiwanese levels, then the effect on the supply/demand pattern could be enormous with price development which could make $9,000 copper itself a huge underestimate!”

The primary St. Genevieve asset, the Zonia property, is a past producing mine. Between 1966 and 1975, Zonia produced 33 million pounds of copper. A NI 43-101 report on the property completed in October 2006 estimates an inferred resource of 460 million pounds of copper from 63 million tonnes of ore grading 0.37% copper on average. This estimate did not include certain information from those drill holes where the assay data was not deemed to be 43-101 compliant due to possible difficulties with quality assurance and control.

Numerous pulps from these earlier assays have been found and should allow confirmation of assays for inclusion of this data in an updated 43-101 without the need for significant re-drilling. The company anticipates that these re-assays will both shorten the time and lower the expense of upgrading the classification of the Zonia copper resource. Analysis of these pulps is ongoing.

A project review performed by Gustavson Associates of Boulder, Colorado in August of 2007 indicated that the project would be both economic and expandable. According to Gustavson, the apparent potential to expand upon these inferred resources at depth and along strike and within presently viable stripping limits represents an additional 40 to 50% over the presently defined resource. Gustavson analyzed the permitting, land rights, water availability, infrastructure, drill logs, cores, previous technical reports and resource estimates among other items, and indicated that the Zonia mine and property is economic.

Based on the results from previous metallurgical studies, the resource is responsive to recovery of copper via heap leaching. The Gustavson study supported the conclusion of an existing feasibility study which, although not fully compliant with today’s 43-101 requirements, suggests starting with a SX/EW plant to produce 60,000 pounds of copper a day, over a life of 17 years, with the possibility of increasing either future plant capacity or overall project life.

Gustavson is also confident that final permits, plant construction and mine preparations for production will be achieved in less time than the current projection of 3 years. Therefore, sometime in 2010 Ascendant Copper could be on its way to producing 20 million pounds plus per year of cathode grade copper.

The advanced-stage Emerald Isle property also hosts a past producing mine, at which Ascendant expects to produce 5 million pounds of copper annually.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

In late November, the company announced high-grade assays from the Tower Mountain Gold Property, located in the Matawin Gold Belt, 40 km southwest of Thunder Bay, in Ontario. Intersections of high-grade gold occurred in TM-07-56, where 1.5m graded 58.20 g/Tonne Au (1.697 oz/t gold) and in TM-07-58 where 1.5m averaged 18.70 g/Tonne Au (0.545 oz/t gold).

The drill program was a short run – eight holes – but added a wealth of knowledge to the existing data from seven drill programs comprising 67 drill holes, totaling 16,618 metres, completed between 2002 and 2005.

The news from Tower Mountain is good: mineralization in all eight holes. The data has painted an increasingly attractive picture of the mineralized systems here. To wit: The main vein appears to range from 0.6 to 20 meters in true width, with a narrow high-grade core (up to 160 g/t Au over 1.5 m) and a more moderately mineralized periphery. Even low-grade data here should prick up the ears of savvy investors: 0.94g/t over 106.5 m, for example.

Meanwhile, back in South America, a growing pool of data, including assay results from a 2007 drill program at the Los Patos occurrence in Venezuela, indicates the presence of significant gold mineralization, including substantial near-surface mineralization. The data is also considered “highly prospective” for other minerals, including alluvial diamonds, and preliminary radiometric indications of uranium, copper-nickel and/or platinum group metals.

This is the point where listed miners have to prove their mettle – excuse the pun – and ValGold has adopted a no guesswork approach, utilizing the whole spectrum of survey. Some areas are almost entirely lacking, in terms of market-standard information.

ValGold’s South American concessions total approximately 3,570 square kilometres, and relate to a geological formation known as the Guiana Shield, which underlies northeastern South America. It is comprised of ancient Archaen and Paleoproterozoic blocks. Geologists are faced with some of the most demanding and potentially rewarding work their field has to offer in these very old structures, where mineralization is complex and highly evolved.

ValGold CEO Stephen Wilkinson, who has three decades of mining experience, provided some useful insight in a recent interview on Smartsox.com regarding the geological and gold mining history of the region. Venezuela’s gold potential was first recognized in the 1890s, when the British military discovered and mined considerable amounts of gold from surface deposits – 13 tonnes of it, according to Mr. Wilkinson, a huge amount for the time.

The Venezuelan holdings comprise three concessions in Bolivar State, acquired from Honnold Coporation in October for $8 million in cash and shares, of which $2 million has already been paid. The company has benefited from a positive exchange rate, where appreciation of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar resulted in a saving of 25% – $2 million – on net outlay.

ValGold has been conducting systematic drills across its concessions, notably the Los Patos Gold Occurrence, where a 7,971 metre, 28-hole program was completed in the summer this year. The company found visible gold in a drill core from this region, reflecting the high-grade nature of mineralization here – just 4.5 km northeast of Crystallex’s La Tomi gold mine.

The Los Patos gold occurrence is actually located within ValGold’s Lo Increible 3 concession and is one of several gold occurrences found along the east-west striking, 6.8 km long, Los Chivos Shear Zone.

The other two Venezuelan concessions are collectively called the Chicanan Concessions: The Carolina and Mochila Occurrences, which comprise a variable geology. The Carolina Occurrence has had some prior exploration, but the primary geological feature, the Mochila Lineament, containing two large gold occurrences, has had no previous drilling. ValGold is currently conducting a diamond drill program of 20 holes in the Mochila Occurrence, expected to be completed soon.

ValGold’s due diligence report for October 9, 2007 contains important preliminary data, and helpful technical information regarding associated geological features and prospects. This was the basis of the ground work for the current Fall Winter 2007 program of ongoing exploration.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The San Bartolomé concession is located in Ecuador, about 20 km southeast of Cuenca, Ecuador’s third largest city. Historically, it is Ecuador’s largest silver producer; between 1991 and 1994, mining interests extracted over one million ounces of silver.

Through grab sampling of tailings and waste dumps from past mining activity, EcuaGold has confirmed the remaining value of past production. Assays ranged from 1,159.5 g/t to 2,032.7 g/t Ag and 2.87 g/t to 5.15 g/t Au, averaging approximately $1087.56 per tonne.

EcuaGold is now poised to take advantage of continued resource extraction from this proven producer. Well-funded for exploration by a recent $6.9 million dollar IPO, a follow up of the assay results is in the works. Topographic surveying and detailed geological and structural mapping are just a few of the activities that will take place to guide future drilling efforts.

EcuaGold focuses its exploration efforts in Ecuador, in regions of proven production. Some of the benefits of operating in this mineral rich country are little known. Today, Ecuador has adapted mining laws that provide foreign investors with the ability to own a 100% interest on concessions over a 30-year, easily renewable period. Six years ago, the government eliminated royalties on mining, to further strengthen the country as a top location for junior exploration companies.

Investors seeking a grassroots deal with plenty of upside will find EcuaGold refreshing. Companies like this bridge the gap between gambling and putting our money into lesser risk ventures with potential for very high returns. Due diligence tells us EcuaGold has a high stake in a land area of proven mineralization, is well-funded, and works in a “mining friendly” region.

Presently, EcuaGold controls a 100-percent interest in 13 concessions in Ecuador, comprising nine distinct projects. In addition, the company has pending applications for 21 more concessions that are associated with three existing projects and two new projects.

Besides the San Bartolomé project, the other two notable projects are the Molleturo, a high-grade polymetallic vein system, and the Curiplaya, a gold-copper porphyry system. Both the Molleturo and Curiplaya Projects have positive NI 43 101 technical reports.

Molleturo has seen substantial exploration that potentially places it on par and certainly within shared geological structures as some other local producers. Historic work here identified two polymetallic veins – the Roman and Isabel Veins – which once again have shown excellent sample grades, including 1,235 g/t and 1,120 g/t silver and 2.78 g/t and 5.05 g/t gold.

Within 50 km is the Rio Blanco Gold-Silver deposit, with indicated reserves of 2,042,000 tonnes at 8.6 g. /t Au and 67.0 g/t Ag, valued at an estimated $250.79 per tonne, for a total reserve value of $512,113,180 at current market prices.

The Curiplaya project is located in southwestern Ecuador near the village of Bramaderos. Like EcuaGold’s other projects it is well-supported by infrastructure. A known porphyry deposit, however, sampling has returned relatively low resource values. In the NI 43 101 report, AC HOWE stated that it was their opinion that “the geology and hydrothermal alteration exposed at Curiplaya may represent the outer and/or upper levels of a porphyry copper-gold system, or possibly a more distal phase of a porphyry epithermal system.” As such, exploration at Curiplaya has the potential to find larger reserves at depth, or in proximity to where historic sampling has taken place.

On September 18, EcuaGold reported initial drilling results from the Curiplaya Project. These confirmed the theory of a large, porphyry-style alteration, and returned excellent grades all around. These included 34 meters grading 1.2 g/t Au and 16 meters grading 2.05 g/t Au. These grades were bolstered by numerous assays suggesting widely disseminated copper with consistent silver credits, too.

To date, 15 drill holes have been completed, and assays have been received for the first 11 drill holes of this 5,000 meter drill program. Drill holes 3-14 tested principally the cores of the Porotillos and Bramaderos intrusive. “The drilling has confirmed a large area of strong, porphyry-style alteration carrying widespread anomalous copper, gold and silver values,” stated Anthony Ciali, President and CEO of EcuaGold.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Wilcox Formation is a known reservoir rock throughout much of the Gulf Coastal Plain, extending parallel to the coastline into southern Texas. The Formation is comprised of sandstone, which was deposited in the ancestral Gulf of Mexico during the Eocene when the shoreline was much further inland.

KFG has remapped all nine zones of the Fayette field. Remapping work revealed several zones with development potential in the shallow Wilcox gas formations. This survey also brought to attention the fact that the west side of the salt dome is virtually untouched.

In 2006, KFG Resources increased its interest in the Fayette field to 49.2%, (42% net) in three leases covering 3,200 acres of the field.

The Fayette field is located on a salt dome. Simply put, a salt dome oil reserve is formed when a cylindrical shape of salt intrudes through the lithosphere distorting and buckling the earth’s crust in its path.

KFG CEO Bob Kadane likened salt dome formations to throwing a rock onto a pane of safety glass, such as a windshield. Concentric rings form around the point of impact. This is exactly the stress response from an intruding salt dome. Concentric rings form as layers of rock buckle and bend due to the forces caused by the up-thrusting salt. When permeable rock becomes capped by impermeable rock, an ideal oil and gas reservoir is formed. And due to the symmetrical nature of the feature, if one side of the dome contains oil, there is a high probability of striking oil on the other side.

“The Fayette field has produced 7 million barrels of oil to date, primarily from the east side,” according to Kadane. “The remaining potential of the field is huge.”

With sub-surface mapping information in hand, KFG resources entered into an agreement with Union Securities LTD of Toronto, Ontario, to act as an agent for a private placement. The initial announcement of an offering was on March 26, 2007. Shortly after the announcement, Kadane decided to delay the offering based on unfavorable market conditions.

Union Securities went forward in September with an offer to sell 20 million units at $0.10 per offering. On October 12, with the completion of the first tranche, 18,055,000 units were sold. On October 22, the second tranche was completed. KFG had achieved its goal of raising CDN$2.5 million.

The capital raised was for the company to have a 3-D seismic survey completed in the Fayette field. This survey was started at the end of October 2007, and will be completed in February 2008. The results of the survey will determine the ideal location for drilling the oil test. The secondary goal of the survey is to determine which wells in the Lower Tuscaloosa would benefit from CO2 injection secondary reclamation.

The Lower Tuscaloosa has produced 2,200,000 barrels of oil. Production history indicates that CO2 injection will recover 80% of primary production volume. Injection, therefore, should recover an additional 1,700,000 barrels of oil; this is in addition to new production that will come from the west flank.

In 2007, KFG Resources’ annual revenue from the sale of oil and gas was $550,328, compared to $760,229 in 2006. The slow down is due to a decrease in the average price of natural gas and oil, as well as the decline in oil production.

At the end of the 2007 fiscal year, the company’s primary producing wells
were located on: the Dale Lease, Concordia; Parish, Louisiana; the Board of Education Wells, Franklin Country Mississippi; and the Weyerhauser Wells, Forrest County, Mississippi. The five wells in these regions comprised the bulk of the company’s proven oil reserves. In addition, the company had three wells in the Fayette Field, Jefferson County, Mississippi.

Kadane and his team have been steadily working toward improving their odds. With an eye toward growth and increased shareholder value, the company is poised for success. The company has acquired a major interest in an untapped resource that appears to have excellent potential. The reclamation project in an area of proven production has a high likelihood of near term payoff, too. The recent attraction of CDN $2.5 million in a private placement will power the team at least to the completion of a thorough technical survey. Add to this oil prices at record highs and KFG Resources is certainly one to watch this month.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Several Canadian companies are prospecting and working deposits in the region. One of them, Vancouver’s Golden Reign Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:GRR) is looking to develop Magadan’s Butarni and Dorozhni gold properties in partnership with Status LLC, the mining arm of Moscow’s CentroCredit Joint Stock Commercial Bank.

Golden Reign on Nov. 13 announced encouraging assay results for an exploratory sampling program carried out at Dorozhni. The 14 representative samples indicate that gold mineralization is not limited to high-grade quartz veins but is also present in intrusive granodiorite bedrock, leading management to believe that the potential exists to develop a bulk open pit mining operation on the property and surrounding area.

A Changed Picture

The 14 Dorozhni samples were collected during Golden Reign’s vice-president of exploration Zoran Pudar’s recent visit to the property to supervise and further direct exploratory channeling, trenching and sampling of mineralized quartz veins.

Most of the samples came from two trenches that extend 1.5 kilometers along the north-northeast slope of Dorozhni mountain. The samples, along with six control specimens, were sent for assaying to Alex Stewart Analytical Ltd. in Moscow, a division of Alex Stewart (Assayers) Ltd. of England. One chip sample, DR-17, from a highly mineralized quartz vein with visible gold assayed 18.69 g/t.

2007 trenching exposed high-quality gold mineralization and visible gold in quartz veins – including some of “museum quality”. More interesting, were samples from a sheeted vein system within an igneous intrusive granodiorite that returned assay results of 2.7, 4.8 and 1.6 grams/tonne, Pudar related. The exposed portion of this vein, ranging between 0.4 and 1.1 meters in width, has been traced over a length of 150 meters, is open in both directions and is yet to be tested by drilling to depth, according to Golden Reign’s Nov. 13 media release.

“The results prove that mineralization is not just limited to quartz veins but extends into the granodiorite intrusive host and opens up the possibility of a bulk tonnage, open pittable deposit…reinforcing our conceptual model for the property. We will wait to receive all assay results from the exploration program, but is certainly a positive indication,” Pudar told ResourceWorld.

Return Trip to Russia

The Dorozhni and Butarni properties are located in Russia’s far eastern Magadan Oblast, located across the Bering Strait from North America, which according to Russian mining authorities holds some 2,000 placer gold deposits, 100 gold ore deposits and 48 silver deposits. Total probable gold reserves in the region have been estimated at 4,000 tons (128 million ounces).

Having an experienced, well-capitalized business partner with connections in Moscow is crucial for foreign companies looking to explore for and develop mineral resource projects in Russia, and Golden Reign has that in Status LLC, the mining division of Moscow-based CentroCredit Joint Stock Commercial Bank. Gold Mining Company LLC (GMC), a newly created vehicle, holds the comprehensive 20-year exploration-mining permit for both the Dorozhni and Butarni properties.

According to the terms of their agreement, Golden Reign has the right to earn a 50% interest in and to GMC by contributing US$ 6 million to assess and develop the projects over the next three years. In addition to providing the properties, Status will incur exploration expenditures of US$2 million over the same period for its 50% interest. Golden Reign raised C$4 million in its IPO last year.

With initial results supporting management’s hypothesis that the potential exists for a low-grade bulk tonnage mining operation to be developed at Dorozhni, Pudar is busy planning his next visit to Moscow to meet with Golden Reign’s partners. Tentative plans for next season include sending earth moving equipment and a drilling rig to the two properties to carry out further exploration and resource definition work.

Golden Reign is working up plans for a 3000 meter drilling program at Butarni – the primary prospect – that Pudar hopes will commence in April 2008 and a 2000-meter program at Dorozhni,. for later in the season.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Yale has assembled an interest in four Mexican projects including La Verde Project and Carol Property in Sonora State; Urique Property in Chihuahua State and Zacatecas Venture in Zacatecas State. They have also assembled a management team fully able to work with the Mexican government as the company President, Ian Foreman, P. Geo, has worked on several projects in Spanish-speaking nations and is fluent in that language while the corporate manager of Mexican operations is a Mexican national located in Vancouver.

The company’s primary focus at this time is the development of resources at the 100% owned La Verde Property. Two crews remain at work in the field at La Verde until Christmas 2007 and the company has established aggressive geophysical and geochemical programs for the coming year in order to identify targets for future drill programs.

La Verde Project, located some 45 km northwest of the city of Hermosillo (population est. 550,000), lies within 2 km of both paved roads and the electrical grid. A good network of access roads can be found throughout the property and adequate supplies, labor and expertise are available in Hermosillo and nearby communities.

The Project area has had a lengthy history of mining activity, dating back into the early 1900s when Hermosillo Copper Company began exploration and production activities and those activities left behind a substantial array of drifts and adits throughout the property which now provide access for current exploration. Some limited mining activity took place at the La Verde Grande Mine in the 1960s with ore shipped for custom milling in Hermosillo. This was followed by exploration efforts by both Exall Mining and Scorpio Mining from 1990 to 2002.

As a result of these activities, a historic resource estimate (non-compliant with present NI 43-101 requirements) was developed which showed 459,551 tonnes grading 2.29% copper (Cu), 98.54 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag) and 0.38 g/t gold (Au). This estimate was based on a limited area covering 18 meters width, 34 meters depth and a strike length of only 110 meters.

Mineralization at La Verde Grande consists of a series of structurally controlled skarn bodies and veins and host rocks are a thick sequence of metamorphosed limestones that are locally intruded by granite and monzonite porphyries, dykes and mineralized aplite dykes. It is also important to note that the La Verde Grande area is located near the southern end of a newly recognized copper-molybdenum porphyry district.

La Verde contains several prospects within the Property, but Yale’s focus is in the area of the La Verde Grande Mine and the El Picacho prospect some 900 meters to the northeast. Historic reports at El Picacho indicate 4.5 meters width over 15 meters averaging 3% copper. El Picacho is also on strike with the La Verde Grande Mine ore bodies.

Recent press releases based on the 2007 sampling program indicated that “…the extent of the La Verde Grande deposit is significantly greater than previously understood. Company geologists have identified additional skarn mineralization.” President Foreman added, “The discovery of this mineralization is significant as it demonstrates that the La Verde Grande deposit is potentially much larger than previously thought.”

According to the most recent release, the company has taken 181 samples from approximately 500 meters of old workings to date and the weighted average of those samples is 1.54% Cu. That grade represents approximately 30 pounds of Cu per tonne which would be valued at just under US$100 per tonne at current prices, with significant additional credits for silver, zinc and gold.

Yale’s program for 2007 has now defined skarn mineralization over a strike length of 250 meters – more than doubling the length upon which previous ore estimates were based – and their work has shown that mineralization is open in all directions.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

As per the company’s November 15th news release, Atomic’s vice-president of exploration, Richard Dorman, says, “Our initial drill hole at Summit Point will be looking for the mineralized zone of the Moss Back member of the Chinle Formation. Upon completion of this hole, we will be working along the flank of the Anticline with the next eight holes.”

This first phase of the drill program involves several stages: crews are preparing and clearing roads, building thirteen 100’ x 100’ drill pads, drilling up to thirteen 2,500-foot drill holes, then doing reclamation work that includes filling in the drill holes. The company has planned a 30,000 foot drilling program based on recommendations contained within the property’s 43-101 report.

The property consists of 932 claims over 24,280 acres, located in both Dolores and San Miguel counties in southwestern Colorado, approximately 30 miles from Denison Mine Corp’s White Mesa Mill. The 43-101 report describes the property as being “associated with the Dolores Anticline, a salt-cored fold structure within the Paradox Basin Province of Colorado and Utah. The Moss Back Member of the Chinle Formation (Late Triassic) and Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) are present within the stratigraphic section of the Dolores Anticline; these are the most favorable host rocks for uranium mineralization in the Paradox Basin region.”

According to Atomic’s website, “the Dolores Anticline is one of the last salt anticlines in the Paradox Basin which has not been extensively drilled to explore for mineralization in the Moss Back Member of the Chinle Formation.”

The Dolores Anticline is located only 30 miles from Lisbon Valley and lies within the Uravan Mineral Belt. Lisbon Valley is the home of the legendary Mi Vida uranium mine near Moab, Utah, discovered by Charlie Steen in 1952. The entire Lisbon Valley produced 49 million lbs of U3O8 from 1948 through 1965.

The Uravan mineral belt is the oldest uranium mining area in the US, and is historically the most productive uranium and vanadium region in Colorado. A 2007 circular released by the Division of Reclamation, Mining & Safety for the State of Colorado documents 1,200 historic mines that produced over 63 million lbs of uranium and 330 million lbs of vanadium from 1948 to 1978.

This district contains the only currently producing uranium mine in Colorado – the Sunday Mine (owned by Denison Mines), near what is now the ghost town of Uravan, Colorado. Today the Uravan belt is experiencing a renaissance, as there are 35 permitted projects for uranium mining in Colorado, and 28 uranium prospecting permits have been granted. Infrastructure in the region is also getting a boost, as Energy Fuels has announced plans to build (pending regulatory approval) what would be the first new uranium-vanadium mill built in the United States in 25 years west of Naturita, some 15 miles southeast of Uravan.

The Colorado Plateau is known for hosting roll-front deposits, which are considered the richest kind of uranium deposits. Roll-fronts are named for the crescent shape the uranium (in solution) makes at the interface between oxidizing and reduction conditions within the permeable sandstone or conglomerate host rock.

The 43-101 report draws a parallel between the regional geology and that of the property: “[based] on the literature review, geologic evaluation of the Dolores Anticline, and a radon survey, it is clear that there is good potential for undiscovered uranium deposits to exist beneath the properties considered here.”

Currently, the world‘s 435 nuclear reactors produce 18% of the world’s power– requiring 180 million lbs of uranium per year. However, only 110 million lbs are being produced annually worldwide. This shortage is highlighted by the fact that some of the world’s emerging economies have shifted their focus from coal to nuclear energy– with China and India being prime examples.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Covering a total of 13,100 claims or 3,275 square kilometers of prime ground, a portion of Silver Spruce’s claims (approx. 5,600) are the subject of a joint venture with Universal Uranium Ltd. (TSX.V:UUL). Universal is funding 60% of the exploration of the properties with Silver Spruce functioning as the operator. As such, this deal is a strong example of the OPM business model – Other People’s Money. Universal shoulders the majority of the exploration risk.

Labrador has been the subject of extensive exploration booms in the past – Voisey’s Bay is surely the foremost example – but the surge in uranium prices over the last five years has caused a veritable frenzy of acquisition. Besides the uranium price, the substantial deposits delineated by Aurora Energy Resources Inc. (TSX: AXU) have demonstrated the immense potential of the area to host ore grade mineralization.

Since 2005, Aurora’s drilling programs within the Michelin and Jacques Lake areas defined a combined measured resource of 5.34 million pounds U3O8 and an indicated resource of 52.54 million pounds U3O8. The total measured and indicated resource is 57.88 million pounds of U3O8, with an inferred resource of 38.03 million pounds U3O8. This 95+ million pound resource ranks as one of the largest primary uranium deposits in the world.

Investors in Silver Spruce are eagerly waiting to see if their company’s efforts bear similarly valuable fruit. Silver Spruce’s first-ever resource calculation is expected before the end of the first quarter 2008, and if drilling results mean anything, it will be a large resource in the millions of pounds.

To that end, on November 26 Silver Spruce announced results from its optioned Snegamook Lake property, which clearly demonstrated the untapped potential of the area. The drilling comprised six holes of a first-pass drill program totaling 1,375 meters. Results included 36 meters grading 149 ppm (0.3 lb/ton) and 24 m grading 186 ppm (0.38 lb/ton). Shorter intervals graded highs of 1.22 lb/t up to a high of 3.07 lb/t over 1 meter. The Snegamook property covers 21.5 square kilometers.

The company’s recently completed $6.3 million financing certainly gives it the financial firepower required to begin serious and systematic development similar to work at Aurora Energy’s deposits. The offering, led by Pacific International Securities as agent, saw 5.5 million “flow-through” units placed at $1.15 per unit. Each unit is comprised of a common share and a share purchase warrant priced at $1.75 that is good for 18 months.

Located in the Postville-Makkovik area of Labrador, approximately 150 kilometers northeast of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, a good portion of the company’s holdings are proximal to the Aurora deposits.

The properties cover uranium in lake sediment anomalies located by the Newfoundland and Labrador government. Anomalous values range from 8 to 98 ppm, with many in the 20 to 70 ppm range, against a background of less than 5 ppm hosted in felsic volcanic, sedimentary and plutonic rocks, with potential for unconformity similar to those in the Athabasca Basin, iron oxide copper gold such as the Olympic Dam or shear-hosted style uranium deposits such as the Michelin deposit.

Of particular promise is the “Two Time Zone”, a 475 by 50 meter area just south of the Kanairiktok River, discovered by a combination of helicopter-born and ground supported electronic measurement. Silver Spruce has now added a second drill to the exploration currently underway in support of a National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource calculation that is being compiled by Scott Wilson Roscoe Postle Associates.

“We continue to be impressed with the strength of the Two Time uranium zone,” said Lloyd Hillier, president and CEO of Silver Spruce. “We look forward to the definition of a resource at the Two Time Zone that will establish Silver Spruce and Universal Uranium as companies with significant uranium resources. We intend to drill through the winter, taking advantage of skidoos for access, which should keep our drilling costs down”.

The Two Time Zone remains open to the north and south along strike and to depth. The host for the mineralization is an altered, brecciated and fractured intrusive, monzodiorite to diorite, with extensive chlorite, carbonate, hematite and albite alteration. The orientation of the mineralization appears to be near vertical to steeply dipping.

Silver Spruce has an all-star leadership team that is led by Lloyd Hillier, president – Newfoundland and Labrador’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2001.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Vancouver-based junior expects to begin work on its Mbamba Bay uranium property in southern Tanzania before the end of the year.

At the same time, Universal Power is two-thirds of the way through a non-brokered private placement, raising a gross of $2.68 million as of the end of November. The company expects to complete the placement shortly, bringing in an additional $720,000.

As well as getting its African project underway, Universal Power is also planning to start work this spring on its recently-acquired Great Bear iron ore-copper-gold property in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Universal Power completed the acquisition of the 45,000-acre property, covering 20 claim blocks, in October. Great Bear, 430 kilometers north of Yellowknife, lies between Alberta Star Development Corp.’s Eldorado South project and Cooper Minerals Inc.’s Terra properties, both of which saw diamond drilling in the 2007 exploration season.

The Great Bear property is geologically analogous to the Olympic Dam deposit at Roxby Downs in southwest Australia. Olympic Dam is a large deposit of copper, uranium, gold and silver, which supports an underground mine as well as an integrated metallurgical processing plant. It is the world’s largest-known single deposit of uranium, although the uranium accounts for only a small part of the mine’s revenue.

And Universal Power has also started geophysical work on its Sibley project in northwest Ontario to identify drill targets for this winter. Universal Power has an option to earn a 60% interest in 217 claims units in the Havoc Lake area, near Thunder Bay.

The Sibley Basin is a mid-Proterozoic-age sedimentary basin that has the potential to host unconformity-related uranium deposits such as those found in the uranium-rich Athabasca Basin.

In Tanzania – based on a recently-completed NI 43-101-compliant report – Universal Power expects its Phase 1 exploration on Mbamba Bay to include geological mapping and sampling, a ground radiometric survey, shallow trenching and shallow reconnaissance air blast drilling of about 100 holes.

Phase 1 is expected to cost about $250,000, with a $400,000 deeper 50 hole, reverse circulation drilling program to follow, depending on initial results.

The 960-square-kilometre Mbamba Bay property, one of two held by Universal Power in Tanzania, is near Lake Nyasa in the southern part of the country. Both Mbamba Bay and the smaller Mbinga property are part of the East African Karoo super group, equivalent to the Canadian Shield in containing rich mineral discoveries.

The regional geology of the area is characterized by Proterozoic, metamorphic crystalline basement rocks that are overlain by younger Karoo sedimentary rocks. The area is prospective for both sandstone hosted and igneous-types of uranium deposits.

The sandstone of the Karoo resembles the sandstone in South Africa and in Colorado which hosts uranium deposits.

Airborne radiometric data, collected in the early 1980s, indicates the granites and gneisses are anomalous in uranium, and represent source rocks for redox-style uranium deposits. The southern margin of the depositional basin, including paleo-channels that cut into the basement rocks, are prospective areas for uranium.

In 1979 and 1980, countrywide airborne radiometric surveys, by Geosurvey International, identified radiometric anomalies in the Mbama Bay area. The highest total counts ranged between 2,000 counts per second to 10,000 cps, and were recorded over a granitic area in the southern part of the project.

Detailed geological mapping, trenching and ground radiometric surveys conducted in early 1980, in the Mbamba Bay area, identified 20 metres of upper sandstone and 40 metres of transitional zone, through total thickness of about 100 metres statigraphical column. This is a geological environment considered highly favourable for roll-front-type uranium deposits.

Roll-fronts are named for the crescent shape the uranium (in solution) makes at the interface between oxidizing and reduction conditions within the permeable sandstone or conglomerate host rock.

Universal Power has carried out an extensive literature review, a reconnaissance ground radiometric survey and preliminary logistical planning. The literature review established a geologic framework, as well as an interpretation of the radiometric anomalies originating from the Geosurvey International airborne survey.

The property examination confirmed the location and the validity of the landholdings. During the field visit, several radiometric readings were taken at the anomaly locations identified by the Geosurvey International survey.

Readings ranged up to 3,100 cps.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Today Teryl Resources Corporation (TSX.V: TRC) Chief Executive John Robertson believes his latest hunches may be just as good.

But instead of a municipality bearing his surname, Robertson – encouraged by positive results from soil samples on Teryl’s Gold Hill property in Bisbee, Arizona – hopes merely to increase revenue and market capitalization for Teryl through further exploration.

It helps that Teryl is now mining in a stretch of desert foothills that once yielded approximately $1 billion in copper.

After a copper boom in the last half of the 20th century, Phelps Dodge Corporation discontinued mining operations 32 years ago in the Warren, Arizona-suburb of Bisbee around the famous Lavender Pit, where the Copper Queen became a mining icon.

The Lavender Pit is now little more than a tourist attraction, but Robertson says existing infrastructure along with excellent geophysical anomalies and geochemical copper values in the zone will go a long way. Just four miles southwest of the original site, Robertson thinks there is reason enough to feel confident about future prospects as Teryl drills its first hole starting in December and continuing in 2008.

Assays up to 2.54% copper were located on the Gold Hill proposed drill locations.

“It’s still a very hot area,” said Robertson. “When you talk about an area that yielded one of the richest copper deposits in history, it’s an exciting proposition to see what we can make of it along with our other holdings in gold and other minerals.”

British Columbia-based Teryl Resources spreads its risk considerably well through a JV project in silver mining in northern British Columbia, a formidable gold joint venture with Kinross in Alaska and modest revenue from oil and gas businesses in Texas and Kentucky.

For the foreseeable future, however, Gold Hill is where the firm will focus a good deal of attention as well as raising capital of about $1 million to unearth what it believes to be a large disseminating deposit of both copper and gold.

The Gold Hill Mine, which got its name from a modicum of gold extracted from sediment scattered throughout the area, includes nearly 249 acres on which there are about14 patented mining claims. There are even physical indicators for where miners might want to look, or have a shot at continuing to excavate, in the form Old Shallow placer diggings throughout the property as well as small shafts, pits and cuts.

Further, Teryl’s geologist believes the geological characteristics of Gold Hill to be similar or at least comparable to the Carlin Trend, just outside of Elko, Nevada. That gold mining district, which is 5 miles in width and stretches for more than 40 miles long, has produced more gold than the any other mining district in the United States. It also resembles the Witwatersrand System, a formation of sedimentary hills in South Africa comprised of quartz, shales and other mineral conglomerates, according to Teryl.

Diversified Holdings

While visions of tons of copper and other minerals that could come out of Gold Hill makes Bisbee, the “it,” property for Teryl right now, the company also sees golden opportunities through its four-site portfolio of advanced gold properties in Alaska’s Fairbanks Mining District, where Teryl is one of the principle landowners.

Its Gil project, on the eastern-most edge of the district in Fairbanks, is a JV with Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX:K; NYSE:KGC) where Teryl gets 20 percent to Kinross’ 80 percent. Just northwest of the Gil property are the Fish Creek Claims, where Teryl has optioned 50 percent optioned from Linux Gold Corp. (OTC BB:LNXGF). Rounding out the portfolio are Stepovich Claims, from which Teryl will get 10% in net profits from Kinross and the West Ridge property, which Teryl owns outright.

Between Gold Hill and the Alaska holdings, Robertson believes he has a good chance of a “pay-dirt” extraction from one of the many claims. With Gold poised to fetch as much as $1,000 per ounce and resource demands for copper and oil in India and China increasing, a good dig could pay dividends for Teryl.

Robertson and his management team believe that at the very least leveraging what it can from mining targets will garner attention from investors and at best will give Phillips Dodge or Kinross Gold the notion of either buying out claims or acquiring Teryl as a whole.

As junior resource concerns go, Teryl’s stock is in solid shape, seeing modest gains Since September and leveling off as the year comes to a close – now pushing a new price ceiling of twenty-five cents per share.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

And while ongoing exploration has helped the company expand the potential resource in Hedley, news from the company elsewhere promises further shareholder growth. At it’s Ainsworth silver and molybdenum property BC’s Kootenay region, several new exploration targets have been identified.

And in early December, the announcement that the company had diversified with a uranium project in southeastern BC.

The uranium announcement comes on the heels of a report from Salman Partners’ predicting that uranium prices may reach $200/lb within the next three to five years due to lack of new supply coming on stream.

Salman Partners’ Senior Mining Analyst Ray Goldie and Research Associate Patrick Donnelly have predicted that uranium prices could reach $200/lb in the next three to five years due to a lack of new mine supply.

Salman Partners’ Senior Mining Analyst Ray Goldie and Research Associate Patrick Donnelly stated that the spot price of uranium will average $102/lb this year, $162.50 in 2008, $186.85 in 2009, and $191.87 in 2010. Goldie predicted that the world’s top uranium producer, Canada’s Cameco, will realize average prices of $38.69/lb this year, $71.92 in 2008, $88.94 in 2009, and $106.25 in 2010.

The new uranium properties consist of four separate claim blocks – Duhamel Creek, Wilson Creek, Mount McGregor and Willow Point – and have uranium values as high as 430 parts per million – 0.043%. These anomalous uranium values are from 6 to 27 times higher than the average uranium value of 16 ppm uranium in the region.

These uranium values are also higher than those found to date at Goldcliff’s other uranium project in the area, the Big Sheep Creek property, where an airborne geophysical survey was recently completed.

High uranium values were first discovered here by the British Columbia Geological Survey during a regional stream sediment sampling program in the 1970s, which returned a number of anomalous uranium values, including two samples exceeding 300 parts per million or 0.03 % uranium.

Adding value at Panorama Ridge

The surface gold trenching results of the 2007 trenching program at Goldcliff’s 100%-owned Panorama Ridge property near Hedley, BC, to date, indicate the two most significantly developed zones – the York-Viking and the Nordic – remain open for expansion.

The trenching program consisted of 29 trenches totaling 1,008 meters of surface sampling, eight of which have so far been reported. Highlights included 19 meters grading 2.15 g/t gold (Au). The gold results expand the mineralization in the northeast towards the Nordic zone.

Of the three zones, the Nordic trenches returned the highest gold values and extended the gold mineralization by 17 meters in a northerly direction, exposing new gold mineralization beyond the known surface showings.

After five seasons of exploration, Goldcliff is expecting this year’s data to define a significant gold resource.

The 10,528-hectare Panorama Ridge property is six kilometers northeast of Hedley and four kilometers east of the past gold-producing Nickel Plate-Mascot mine. The area produced gold continuously from 1904 to 1996, with more than 97% of the 2.5 million ounces coming from the Nickel Plate deposit.

The Panorama Ridge property contains a large surface area of gold mineralization related to silica-iron alteration (skarn) in sedimentary rocks from the Hedley Formation of the Triassic Nicola Group. The gold mineralization occurs over an area of approximately two square kilometers, only 0.72 square kilometers of which (or 36 per cent) consist of the York-Viking gold zone. Thus, the new higher grade results from the Nordic zone represents a significant added value to the company’s investors.

Prior to the 2007 exploration program, the trenching and drilling in the York-Viking zone outlined an area of gold mineralization measuring 375 meters in a northeast-southwest direction and 193 meters.

New Targets at Ainsworth

The Ainsworth property covers 56,997 hectares in the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains of the Kootenay region. The property is located on both sides of Kootenay Lake and includes the historic Ainsworth silver district with 44 million ounces of historical silver production.

This season’s airborne survey covered 910 line kilometers over 16,000 hectares while the stream sediment sampling and prospecting program was a detailed follow-up to the British Columbia Geological Survey’s regional stream sediment sampling program. That program returned a number of anomalous precious and base metal values.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

A relatively new acquisition for Bayfield, the Burns Block is ideally located on the eastern boundary of what Rainy River calls the 17 Zone, which the company is now drilling to delineate an ore body and prove tonnage. The Burns Block lies 120 metres east-northeast of a drill hole (NR0&-189) with intersects of 9.0m grading 6.64 g/t Au between a depth of 439.50 and 448.50m.

“There’s three rules in my business,” says Bayfield President, Donald Huston, “Location, Location, Location.” One need only look at the aerial photo of the region on the company’s website to understand the importance of the Burns Block’s location: its proximity to the noteworthy discovery on the 17/ODM gold zone makes it an undeniably attractive target to Rainy River.

Last month, River Rainy announced that drilling on 17/ODM zones intersected strong gold intervals of 11.5 m grading 5.37 g/t Au (ODM Zone) and 8.0m grading 5.50 g/t Au (17 Zone).

Early in 2006, Rainy River’s exciting drill results on the 17, 433, and ODM gold zones –with intercepts of 23.5 meters of 10.6 g/t Au and 22.6 meters of 17.0 g/t Au – proved promising and helpful for Bayfield’s other three properties in the Rainy River District, Claim Blocks A, B, and C. The results, says Huston, provided them with evidence of the potential of their own properties, and saved the company time and money by helping Bayfield interpret exploration data and determine new drill targets.

The company believes the geophysical properties associated with the mafic/ultramafic rock sequences* identified on the Claim Blocks are similar to those discovered in Rainy River’s adjoining zones.

Bayfield first entered into an agreement to acquire the three blocks in November of 2006 and since then has carried out substantial exploration work. During that winter, the company embarked on an early exploration program that consisted of establishing line-cut grids, overburden drilling, till sampling, and conducting very detailed geophysical studies including electromagnetic and magnetometer surveys.

This summer, the company completed a 3,000 metre drill program with five holes on Claim Block A and 8 holes on Claim Block B. Bayfield is awaiting assay results, which are still pending, according to Huston, and will be released when all assays have been received from the lab. Drill work was not conducted on Claim Block C because a good portion of the property is swampland. The company is waiting for the winter freeze, which will enable drilling. For winter 2008, Bayfield is planning an additional 3,000 metres of drilling on the Claim Blocks.

The recently announced three-year term agreement gives Rainy River Resources the option to obtain a 60% interest in the Burns Block after the completion of a $3 million work program, $200,000 in cash payments, and issuance of 60,000 Rainy River shares.

The crucial aspect of the agreement is neither the cash nor the shares – it’s the $3 million in exploration expenditures that has really got Bayfield’s management excited.

“The alliance we’re forming with Rainy River is very important,” says Huston, “and bodes well for Bayfield Ventures in the Rainy River District.”

The deal should have investors excited as well. Not only will Bayfield not be out of pocket for exploration expenses on the property, but the very fact Rainy River is willing to spend $3 million aggressively exploring a mere 80 acres to gain only a 60% interest hints at the tremendous potential of the property. It leads one to believe that the overriding assumption is that the same gold vein that flows the 17 Zone must continue on through the Burns Block.

If this current agreement between the company and Rainy River Resources proves its potential, it is foreseeable that future partnerships may be put into play in regards to Bayfield’s three other properties. Clearly, there is a great potential for lucrative takeover proceedings, too.

But for now, the focus is on the Burns Block. Rainy River Resources has recently drafted a linecut grid with plans to initiate a diamond drill program on the property. A detailed ground magnetic survey is also currently being conducted and it’s anticipated that Rainy River will start the first drill hole before Christmas.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The property consists of 24 contiguous claims acquired by Kootenay and seven Crown-granted claims optioned to Kootenay. The 11,785 hectare project hosts the historical Granville Mountain mining camp – a mining district which has produced over 9 million ounces of high-grade Au, as well as several newly-discovered vein hosted, shear-related gold showings.

Infrastructure support is excellent, as the property is located 40 km north of Teck Cominco’s smelter at Trail and 30 km west of Castlegar. The property’s proximity to Rossland and Trail (both historic mining towns) provides easy access to a local skilled labor force. The added bonus of favourable weather conditions and major highway access allows for year-round drilling at JJ.

Previous interest in JJ focused mainly on the formerly producing Granville Mountain camp. Until 1940, gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc were mined from several workings in the area. After World War II, there was little activity in the area, save for limited production from Albion. The area was explored sporadically from the late 1960s until the early 1990s. Kootenay acquired the property in 2003.

Since May 2006, Astral has broadened its exploration scope beyond JJ’s Main zone, and has started evaluating the new gold showings discovered by Kootenay. Prior to drilling, Astral conducted a property-wide airborne geophysical survey, soil sampling over three areas, further property-wide prospecting, as well as further grab sampling and trenching for some 775 m at the JJ Main showing.

The company has just wrapped up Phase II of drilling, having completed 38 drill holes totaling 5,100.84 m. This year’s drill results are currently undergoing detailed interpretation as management lays the groundwork for Phase III of drilling in 2008. Assay results have yet to arrive on the remaining 18 holes.

The company’s 43-101 report was co-written by Dale Brittliffe and Dr. David Terry, Astral’s vice-president of exploration. They describe a geological setting in which “gold mineralization at JJ is predominantly within auriferous quartz veins, shears and stockworks hosted by mid-Jurassic intrusives or older Mount Roberts Formation rocks….quartz veins can have very high gold grades (Kootenay grab sample BZT-09 up to 558g/t Au). Samples from JJ Main return gold values up to 133.91g/t Au and show a general Pb-Ag-Sb-As (lead-silver-antimony-arsenic) association and to a lesser extent Hg-Cd-Cu. (mercury, cadmium, copper)”

The report further recommends JJ as “a high quality gold exploration property with the potential to host an economic gold deposit. Results of first pass work in 2006 were very encouraging, and support the proposed programme for the 2007 season estimated at CAD$780,000. Exploration work outlined below seeks to evaluate more advanced showings such as JJ Main, provide first pass exploration for showings not yet tested such as Borrow Pit, JJ West and Pb-Zn and also includes work to identify further zones of mineralization between known gold occurrences in favourable lithologies.”

On the financial side, several fundamental strengths highlight Astral’s status as a rising star among juniors. The company’s management has gone to great lengths to minimize risk to shareholders by joining forces with Kootenay. The joint-venture agreement provides an excellent vehicle for maximum returns with minimum financial and political risk. Both companies work only in areas of known mineralization in mining-friendly parts of North America. Astral has assembled a diversified portfolio of properties in BC, Nevada and North and South Carolina. Funding has already been established for Phase III drilling, as the company has recently completed two financings.

One of the best things about this play is its tight share structure– with only 25,134,614 shares fully diluted.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The Fiskenaesset Ruby Project consists of 110km2 of land on the southwest coast of Greenland, about 160km south of the capital Nuuk. True North has an option to own a 100% interest on the claims. The company has actively explored the property since acquiring it in 2004. A mini-bulk sample at the Siggartartulik occurrence taken in 2004 returned 9.73 kg/t total corundum (rubies and sapphires are varieties of corundum), with 1.5% gem and 33.5% near-gem. The gem-grade is 143.76 g/t (718.8 rough ct/t). The company’s final hand and machine sorting of the material from the sample have recently increased the overall grade. A 30-tonne sample contained concentrations of gem-grade ruby and pink sapphire averaging 1,937 g/t (9,685 ct/t).

The objective of the 2007 drilling program, comprising 50 holes on three ruby prospects with a total length of more than 5,000 m, was to deliver a preliminary assessment on the Aappaluttoq ruby and pink sapphire occurrence. One of the positive outcomes of the program was that the company was able to confirm both extensions to the favourable Aappaluttoq Host Zone geology, as well as additional ruby mineralization on surface. Three drill holes at Sarfaq have confirmed distinctive sapphirine-gedrite-phlogopite-pargasite alteration, similar to the Host Zone of the Aappaluttoq occurrence– which is known to contain rubies and pink sapphires.

Independent valuations have priced a 0.69 ct ruby from Aappaluttoq at $3,220/ct, and a 0.96 ct pink sapphire at $460/ct. The best sample contained a large ruby crystal weighing 88g (440 ct), which was carved into the Kitaa Ruby, weighing 302 ct and displaying intricate scenes of Norse oceanic legends.

The company’s 43-101 report suggests that this is just a taste of things to come. It states, “Given the fact that 18 ruby and pink sapphire occurrences are known in the district after only two seasons of reinvigorated exploration, and that the Company has obtained excellent sampling results from three of the six occurrences tested by mini-bulk sample thus far, it is incumbent upon True North to continue the exploration of the Fiskenaesset district”.

This report was released last year and, since then, nine more ruby occurrences have been found at Fiskenaesset, for a total of 29. Over the past three years, 78 tonnes of material have been removed for processing, with 48 tonnes processed to date. Over 65,000 grams of gem and over 129,700 grams of near-gem ruby and pink sapphire have been recovered from the property.

In the wake of tough new sanctions on Burma– the supplier of 90% of the world’s rubies– along with boycotts of Burmese rubies by gemstone manufacturers and prominent jewellery retailers such as Tiffany’s– demand for ethical sources of coloured gemstones has skyrocketed. Nowadays, consumers are willing to pay top-dollar for high-quality, ethically sourced gemstones– as has been proven with the marketing success enjoyed by Canadian ‘Polar Diamonds’. True North plans to apply that same logic to the coloured gem business.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The same logic holds true for exploration companies: Create investor wealth by buying and developing properties where others have failed – due to higher commodity prices, market conditions, politics or lack of courage or skill.

PMI Gold’s (TSX.V:PMV) President Doug MacQuarrie has had his eye on the Asankrangwa gold belt in Ghana, West Africa since 1994 when he co-commissioned the first modern, geophysical airborne survey flown over the belt. The survey determined that the belt was a major unexplored break, equivalent in features and structure to the prolific Ashanti belt located nearby. The major difference being that although virtually the entire belt had been staked by juniors, the Asankrangwa has had far less production than Ashanti.

So when the gold price fell and the juniors began to drop away en masse, MacQuarrie and his Ghanaian partners followed his contrarian instincts and bought concessions along the Asankrangwa, in the heart of the Ghana Gold Triangle, for a fraction of the price they would cost today.

It’s this kind of maverick thinking that put PMI ahead of the curve before the bull market started and continues to distinguish it today.

MacQuarrie plans a mine distinctly different from its peers. Intent on moving to production on its Kubi project, MacQuarrie envisions a small, inexpensive 500 tonne per day operation that targets high-grade gold initially averaging between 12 and 15 g/t, and results in about the same amount of gold produced as in a bulk-tonnage low-grade open pit mine.

Kubi, which PMI acquired in October of this year, has a 43-101* compliant resource estimate of 604,000 indicated ounces of gold and 315,000 inferred ounces. Between 1999 and 2005 the Kubi mine produced 59,000 ounces of gold for AngloGold Ashanti from 500,000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 3.65 g/t.

Before completing pre-feasibility on Kubi, PMI is focused on raising $50 million in project financing to put both the Kubi and Obotan past producing mines back into production as underground operations. The Kubi project is further advanced and PMI will move on it first, developing toward pre-feasibility as soon as financing is in place. The mining lease has already been issued. The mine is located only twenty minutes south of infrastructure at Obuasi, Ghana’s main underground mining district. And because the gold grades are high, MacQuarrie plans to move to production within eighteen months.

Mining high-grade, low tonnage presents the opportunity for lower capital costs, lower financing requirements, and short time lines to production. However, like in the past, when MacQuarrie bought concessions in Ghana at the same time as other juniors were selling off, MacQuarrie appears the contrarian.

“We are serious about putting two mines into production and concentrating on margin,” he says. His model is different. It’s not large scale, and it’s not high tech, but it is potentially lucrative.

And there are side benefits. Mining in a developing country like Ghana, creates the opportunity for providing labour for hundreds of trained but unemployed locals. Instead of spending money on expensive capital equipment such as a jumbo drill rigs which employ few operators, PMI is able to train and pay many unemployed Ghanaians to use and repair cheap low-tech conventional equipment like jack-legs and stopers, while saving on capital costs.

Similarly, instead of processing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of ore in a huge open pit, PMI can keep its environmental footprint light and save on reclamation costs, all for the same net amount of gold. Projects like this, MacQuarrie contends, “are easier to sell to developing countries. You don’t end up having to move families and villages, and provide more and longer term employment opportunities.”

In addition to Kubi, production at Obotan is on the horizon as well. Past production at Obotan on the Asankrangwa belt totalled 730,000 ounces of gold – 590,000 of which came from the Nkran pit with the remaining 140,000 from the Adubiaso and Abore pits.

While there isn’t yet a 43-101 resource estimate for the Nkran project, Golder Associates have been commissioned to prepare one for early 2008. PMI Gold believes there is an exploration target of up to 2 million ounces under the Nkran pit.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Teryl holds a wide range of properties and has major JV partnerships near major producing mines in Alaska, for example, but right now it’s the new property in Arizona that’s showing signs of changing the big picture in terms of assets and potential revenue. Teryl has seven patented claim blocks, totaling 248 acres, in the Warren Mining District, Cochise County, Arizona. The Gold Hill prospect includes the Old Gold Hill, Superior, and Baston mines. The company owns a 100% interest, subject to a 10% net profit interest for the vendors.

The Warren Mining District area was first opened up in the 1860s, and is Arizona’s iconic mining showpiece. The Phelps Dodge Corporation’s Lavender Pit mine, which is only a few miles from Teryl’s property, is one of the global all-time major copper producers, extracting 75 million tons of ore, which produced a billion dollars worth of copper, gold and silver in the process. The Bisbee area, where Teryl is drilling, has been in continuous commercial production for nearly a century.

Interestingly, the Lavender Pit has been reactivated for test drills following copper’s spectacular return to favor as a commodity. Teryl has apparently found the right commodity at the right time. Demand for copper is rising, with China’s insatiable production levels driving the trend and prices.

Teryl’s holdings contain a lot of old small scale works, including pits, cuts, placer digs, and small shafts. Work to date has identified strong indications of a gold/copper pattern of mineralization on the property.

Consensus of opinion at this stage is that the mineralization pattern is similar to proven deposits in Nevada’s Carlin Trend and Teryl’s neighbor Phelps Dodge’s Copper Queen deposit at Lavender Pit. The site is considered to have the potential to be a lode-type copper deposit. That fits with the pattern of mining in the area, where lode mineralization is well known.

(The phenomenon of similar regional deposits isn’t unusual in areas of high mineralization. Australia’s Broken Hill was producing new finds in the mid 20th century, long after the initial major discoveries in the 1880s and intensive searches.)

Teryl is backing that professional judgment, and on December 3 announced that it had begun drilling on three priority targets at the Bisso site on Gold Hill. The company is also in the process of acquiring a further 640 acres adjoining its Gold Hill interests. The expansion and consolidation of holdings is necessary to cover possible extensions of the deposits, and establish Teryl’s significant rights over the area.

The first natural issue for market consideration is financing. The company has a history of getting backing when it needs it. The TSX financing notices since 2002 read like a “How To Finance Your Operations Manual” for exploration miners. Teryl hasn’t had trouble finding backers for selective private placements. It says something for the credibility of the company that after a net loss of $465,000 for the year, the company made a placement for $407,000 in share warrants in August 2007.

More impressively, that private placement backing, which amounts to over CAD $4.3 million dollars in the last five years, is unswerving, despite the hard slog of exploration mining overheads. Teryl’s history indicates a pattern of holding assets, joint ventures, and carefully focused expenditure. Teryl’s CEO, John Robertson, has been running the company for 25 years, which explains the consistency of the company’s approach to business.

From the market’s perspective, the new finds, if realizing their early indications, constitute a potential significant positive change in net asset backing for Teryl’s shares. For the purposes of a formal valuation, Teryl is currently continuing its pattern of holding assets. The company has recently renewed its interest in its joint gold mining venture at Fish Creek until 2009, and retains its other Alaskan gold operations, indicating that the existing asset base is stable and functional.

There are strong potential upsides to the Gold Hill venture. The company has a lot of possible options for how it can develop the Gold Hill property into a revenue stream. Teryl’s joint venture approach, for example would be one possibility. Gold and copper are at historically good prices and commercial interest from the industry can be expected if the ore bodies live up to their promise.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Maybe you know or not that the key to a profitable investment is just a single word – diversify. What do you need to do? It is easy. You should divide total investment among several different HYIPs so as to minimize risk. Only this method will help to save your money from crash. Investing in a single program is risky, because if the program collapses, you lose all your money. But if you put your money into many programs, if one of the programs fails, you will still have money in other programs.

You should create your portfolio as wide as possible. Let me give you example.

If your total investment is around 1000$ then portfolio should include atleast 10 (or even more) different HYIPs. Invest about 50-60% in long term good old HYIPs and the rest 50-40% in new HYIPs. These may include:

Long term HYIPs are those that give around 1.5% daily This HYIPs also have a good track history over 1 year, excellent customer support, professional web design and hosting, etc.

New HYIPs pay around 2-3% daily. This HYIPs also have unique professional web design & certain degree of reliability in other factors. Do not invest in new HYIPs that pay less interest(around 1%daily) with a poor non-professional web design, etc.

You may invest in HYIPs which pay 2-3% daily, have a professional template design & other good features. Chances to be in profit is good.

You may invest in ponzi schemes that give 3-5% daily. Also you can find many HYIPs that offer you more than 10% daily for 30 days or 25%daily for 5 days, etc. It is not real interest. Do not believe in such HYIPs.

Scam HYIPs are run on ponzi schemes. A ponzi is an illegal pyramid system in which higher level members are paid with the investments from newer members. They actually have a short life time. Many people lose money in these scams. Their websites are made from cheap old regular common templates(not a professional & unique design), anonymous contact information, give high interest rates(>3% daily is suspected as a ponzi),have an attractive referral system, etc.

Invest in still higher interest paying HYIPs if you can risk higher. HYIPs such as 7% daily for 60 days or 50% daily for 3 days are real scams. However if you are lucky, you can be in great profits provided you invested while the HYIP was just new. But risk factor is also very high and I suggest not to invest more than 40$-60$ in such high risk HYIPs. It is always better to avoid them.

Now some words about average life cycle of HYIPs:

Extra Long term HYIPs(ponzi & real HYIPs)
Such HYIPs pay about 1-1.7% daily or around 25% monthly interests. They usually last for a long time over up to a year. Invest in these only if it has a good history for about a year because profit recovery is very slow.

Long term HYIPs (mostly ponzi)
They pay 2-3% daily and last for about 4-5 months. Some even last for more than half a year. These are the most optimal HYIPs for investing.

Medium term HYIPs (ponzi)
Pay around 4-7% daily. Last for about a month(sometimes 15 days) to a couple of months.

Short term HYIPs (ponzi)
Pay >10% daily. Last for few days to few weeks.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

For oilmen with the correct experience and some faith in serendipity, high oil prices indicate the opening – or reopening – of giant swathes of land for drilling and production, and the potential for big profits.

I spoke with Bob Kadane, the president of KFG Resources (TSX.V:KFG) about how oil prices have had an effect on one formation in particular – the Wilcox Oil and Gas Formation – and learned a lot about the true story behind petroleum exploration in the US that every investor should know. It’s a fascinating story.

First off, the stakes are huge. While proponents of the peak oil theory may be correct in stating that oil reserves worldwide are increasingly depleted, there is still room for substantial oil production from the Wilcox Formation.

For example, using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey in 2007 estimated 110 million barrels of undiscovered oil, approximately 3 trillion cubic feet of gas and over 500 million barrels of natural gas liquids throughout the Wilcox Formation. Much of that would be contained in Mississippi and Louisiana, where KFG Resources is will soon be drilling.

The Wilcox Formation is located some 6,500 feet below sea level in Mississippi and Louisiana, inland from the Gulf of Mexico. It is just one of many strata of the earth buried underground by millions of years of erosion and land movement caused by wind, water and tectonic motion.

The last time the sand, silt and clay that comprise the Wilcox Formation were exposed to air was about 50 million years ago, during the early Eocene period, when the earth’s poles were covered by forests and the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico lay many kilometers inland from where it is found today.

Huge pockets of oil formed by decomposing plant matter from distant epochs populate the Wilcox Formation, which can be harder to find than other oil reserves due to the fact that the oils are not kept in place by thick shale beds or other rock that are relatively easy to spot using seismic. Instead, the formation is up to 2,500 feet thick, and mostly sand. As such, other, more traditional methods are used to find deposits in the oil rich formation.

Just how rich? Well, as mentioned earlier, USGS has reported more than 100 million barrels of oil plus gas and natural gas liquids geologically proven in the area. But what about the standard petroleum measure of “barrels per acre foot”?

According to Kadane, the standard oil reservoir in the Rocky Mountains might yield from 75 to 250 barrels of oil per acre foot – meaning that one foot of sand over one acre of land would yield between 75 and 250 barrels, depending on such factors as porosity and oil content.

I did my own homework, too: A search of other companies producing oil reveals a high of 400 barrels per acre foot in Nevada, 350 in Texas, 300 in Oklahoma and so on. The numbers vary, of course, and in oil rich areas such as Alberta and the Middle East, they are much higher.

But the Wilcox Formation yields an average of 600 barrels per acre foot, Kadane says.

“I have been associated with some reservoirs that have recovered in excess of 1,000 per acre foot – it’s a high porosity sand,” he noted.

Simply put, Kadane says, “It makes the Wilcox Formation – if you can find it – probably the most profitable return on your investment on shore in the United States. It’s elusive but it makes a very lucrative target once you’re able to pin it down and find it.”

Kadane was born and raised in communities that lay on the earth above the Wilcox Formation. Starting in the 1940s, Kadane’s father drilled the same formation to great success. Kadane recalls his father putting dynamite into a well to get the oil flowing in about 1942 – when he opened the valve, a huge geyser of oil shot some 150 feet into the sky. Kadane still has a 16-millimeter film of the event, he says.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Statistics from the US government’s Energy Information Association’s (EIA) 2007 World Energy and Economic Outlook noted that world electricity generation from nuclear power is forecasted to increase dramatically from 2,619 billion kilowatt hours in 2004 to 2,972 billion kilowatt hours in 2030. And the EIA expects nuclear power generation to increase through 2030 around the world, except OECD Europe, with the Asian market creating the biggest growth.

In addition worldwide nuclear power generation outside of the OECD is expected to increase 4% year on year, between 2004 and 2030. This increased demand, driven by environmental concerns, higher fossil fuel prices and energy security concerns could send the uranium price back upward in coming years.

On the supply side, there is Cameco’s Cigar Lake, which was to come online right about now with an estimated 113 million pounds of the yellow stuff – until the underground workings flooded. This major supply of uranium is showing no signs of coming back online until at least 2011.

Some analysts suggest that even that date is optimistic. Cameron French writing for Reuters on December 12, 2007 said, “With [the Cigar Lake] mine expected one day to supply over 10 percent of the world’s mined uranium, any further [beyond 2011] delays starting production would put upward pressure on uranium spot prices that have already hit a record high earlier this year.”

Buoyed by high uranium prices and price predictions, Atomic Minerals (TSX.V: ATL) is putting its experienced team together with geology in southwestern Colorado that is associated with some of the largest and most prolific uranium resources in US history.

Atomic’s Dolores Anticline project is located in the Paradox Basin and the Uruvan Belt only 30 miles from the famous Lisbon Valley in Utah, and only 30 miles from Denison Corp’s White Mesa Mill, the only operating uranium mill in the United States. The Dolores Anticline is in the four corners uranium area made famous by Charlie Steen who discovered a massive, highly-enriched uranium deposit, which became the Mi Vida Mine in the Lisbon Valley, Utah in 1952. Steen’s was the first massive find in the uranium boom of the 1950’s prompted by government support of the industry to fuel the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Uranium was so prolific in the area in the 1950’s that Moab, Utah earned a reputation as the uranium capital of the world. By 1955 the Colorado Plateau was home to 800 uranium mines. By the end of the boom in 1962 Utah had produced over 9 million tonnes of ore before the government-boosted boom ended with dwindling demand due to the end of the war.

Picking up where history left off, Atomic’s Dolores Anticline project consists of 1,177 claims in the area, totalling 24,280 acres in the Dolores Anticline, an asymmetrical northwest trending fold in the Paradox Basin.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Aton Capital, a major Russian asset management company, has pointed out that Russia’s output of gold still lags far behind other major gold producers.

“The country’s total estimated gold resources are almost 500-mil oz, while output was only 5.9-mil oz in 2004 [and 5.36 million in 2006 – Editor], implying a resource life of 85 years at the current rate of extraction,” the company stated in a report posted on its website. “With the exception of South Africa, resource lives for major producers (US, Canada and Australia) are 15-20 years. This implies there is considerable potential for raising output in Russia, and indeed this is exactly what we have seen.”

And if Russia’s total resource base is considerable, then as a percentage, Russia’s Far East is the place for junior resource companies to be looking for the yellow metal. The Magadan gold region – which is said to be Russia most important area for gold – hosts nearly 2,000 placer gold deposits, 100 gold ore deposits, and 48 silver ore deposits. At last tally, the region had known reserves of 128,000,000 ounces – more than one fifth of Russia’s total.

Russian mining and exploration have had a long road toward real openness since Glasnost and Perestroika were decreed by the then president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. And forefront of juniors making headway in modern day Russia is Golden Reign Resources (TSX.V:GRR).

“We’ve got lots of focus on Russia’s Far East right now,” said Myles. “We’ve taken a lot of effort to lay down roots in the region. I think our most recent sample assays show that we’ve made the right decision in setting up at Dorozhni and Butarni.”

Dorozhni Property
Earlier in the year, Golden Reign completed the first phase of its exploration program at the Dorozhni property, one of two highly-prospective gold properties located in the Magadan Region of Far East Russia. Although historical exploration has focused on high-grade gold bearing quartz veins at or near surface, Golden Reign believes that the property has potential for a low-grade bulk tonnage gold deposit.

Assay results from the initial sampling program originated from two trenches covering an aggregate 1.5 kilometres on the N-NE slope of Dorozhni. Approximately 30 kilograms (over 900 ounces) of gold was historically mined from Vein No. 1, including high-grade pockets grading several kilograms of gold per tonne. Recent assay results from property samples include grades of 1.65 g/t, 2.74 g/t, 4.84 g/t, and 18.69 g/t.

Dipping gently to the northwest, this quartz vein has intense massive sulphide mineralization along the vein selvage containing visible gold. Coarse-grained native gold mineralization is also observed within the vein. Gold grains range in size from 0.5 to 2.0 mm, reportedly reaching a few centimetres in size in some cases.

Additional samples revealed that gold mineralization is not restricted solely to quartz veins but also occurs within the surrounding rock. Others indicated that gold mineralization is likely disseminated through the entire intrusion.

High sulphide mineralization was observed in boulders located in the riverbed of Dorozhni Creek within a stockwork zone roughly 50 metres by 70 metres wide. Golden Reign intends to remove the overburden to allow for proper channel sampling by diamond saw, which should provide a better representation and understanding of this newly discovered zone.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

The news may have taken some investors off guard, who have been watching closely as the company works toward a positive preliminary assessment of its 110 sq km Fiskenaesset ruby project on the southwest coast of Greenland.

The Beluga sapphire property is actually two mining claims comprising 9.9 square km near the hamlet of Kimmiru. TGX acquired the property in November 2003 through an option agreement with Inuit prospectors who earlier discovered the sapphire occurrences.

The Beluga sapphire occurrence is a metamorphic-type deposit – essentially an ore deposit formed under great pressures and high temperatures, where alteration under these conditions twists, warps and folds the earth and can form gemstones.

To date, twelve gem occurrences, including blue, colourless (sometimes called white), pink and yellow sapphire, have been discovered on the Beluga sapphire property over a 2.7 km strike zone.

The Kikturiaq occurrence is located approximately 1.2 km northeast of the main Beluga occurrence. The samples collected from the surface exposure included several sapphires. The largest is an almost complete crystal weighing 27.85 grams or 139.24 carats.

According to company documents, the large sapphire crystal is a barrel-shaped prism with a colourless core and a bright to dark blue outer rim. The gem occurs in three fragments. The largest of the fragments weighs 18.1 grams (90.6 carats), measures 15 mm in diameter and 20 mm in length.

“Clarity ranges from transparent to translucent,” states the report. “Brittle fracturing, overprinted by recent surface weathering, affects the exposed sapphire crystals.”

This is a most significant discovery for True North Gems. The site had been the focus of some previous exploration activity, but was not mentioned in the 2005 NI 43-101 technical report entitled “2005 Report on Field Activities for the Beluga Sapphire Project.” This new discovery “represents the highlight of the 2007 exploration program now completed on the 18.5 km2 Beluga sapphire property.”

True North Gems’ technical team found nine discrete sapphire showings along the 225 metre, arc-shaped Kikturiaq occurrence. The total sample weight collected in 2007 from Kikturiaq was estimated at 1.3 tonnes.

“We are very encouraged that our specialized exploration expertise continues to yield promising targets, such as the Kikturiaq occurrence, which contain commercial-sized sapphires exhibiting mineralogical characteristics similar to the high quality, colourless and blue gem sapphires previously recovered from the Beluga occurrence”, said Greg Davison, True North Gems’ Vice President Exploration. Davidson is also head of the planning and execution of the sapphire exploration and quality control programs at the Beluga Project.

Davidson and his colleagues have also identified four new sapphire occurrences on the Beluga property, including the Imakkuutuq occurrence, which contained six sapphire showings, located 500 metres southeast of Kikturiaq.

With grab samples and six mini-bulk samples from throughout the Beluga project now in the hands of SGS Minerals Services in Lakefield, Ontario, analysis is ongoing.

TGX Acquires Additional Exploration License in Greenland

Due to a string of major successes, the Fiskenaesset Ruby Project in Greenland has been the primary locus of TGX’s successes to date. True North has hit ruby occurrences in fifty percent of the holes the company has drilled – an admirable accomplishment, to be sure.

Fiskenaesset is located on the southwest coast of Greenland, about 160 kilometres south of the capital Nuuk. The property’s three claim blocks cover 110 square kilometres in which True North stands to earn a 100% interest.

Greg Fekete, President, and VP of Exploration Greg Davison, along with CEO and Chairman Andrew Lee Smith, anxious to expand land holdings in the area, last year applied to the Bureau of Mines and Petroleum (BMP) and the Joint Committee on Mineral Resources for Greenland and Denmark for an expanded mining permit. The company announced in December that it had received a license to explore an additional 713 km2, bringing the total exploration package in Greenland to 823 km2.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Goldcliff Resource Corp’s (TSX.V:GCN) share price doubled at the end of December after reporting surprising assays from the Bonanza Trench on Panorama Ridge that included one metre grading 525 grams per tonne (15.311 oz per short ton), one metre grading 168 g/t (4.899 oz per short ton) and 1.5 metres grading 6.16 g/t (0.180 oz per short ton).

The company reported that the five metre sample interval had a weighted average of over four ounces gold per short ton – or 140.21 grams gold per tonne.

These results are significant to investors because they indicate that the successful lower grade deposit the company has been busy defining since 2000 also has some accompanying high-grade components.

According to Goldcliff’s President George Sanders, this model is also backed up by historical data from other past producers. The Nickel Plate mine is located just four kilometres from Panorama Ridge. Between 1904 and 1996, the mine yielded 2.5 million ounces of gold.

“We’ve always thought that there would be and should be Nickel Plate high-grade someplace on the property,” said Sanders. “We’ve now found that high-grade. And the significance of it is a couple points – the first demonstrates that Panorama Ridge is the same geological beast as Nickel Plate Mountain which produced 2.5 million ounces.”

Another important factor about this newly discovered high-grade area is that it occurs with continuity – not just in high-grade veins, but in widely disseminated strata bound gold bodies with “dip continuity”.

Goldcliff had already proved this in 2006, with positive assays throughout the York-Viking Zone. At the time, the company reported, “Of all the 2006 holes, holes 26072 and 26073 are the highlights of the York-Viking zone. Hole 26073 is the farthest hole drilled to the southwest and contains an intersection of 1.49 grams per tonne (g/t) gold over 26.70 metres. Hole 26072 is the farthest hole drilled to the northeast and contains 2.04 g/t gold over 20.10 metres, with a high-grade intersection of 6.73 g/t gold over 4.10 metres.”

Sanders makes another important observation about the deposit. “What we also know from Nickel Plate which is important for Panorama Ridge is they didn’t just have one high-grade bed – they had several. So these things are not singular, they do repeat themselves and sometimes fault offset or have other mineralized beds within the 200 meter sequence.”

The Hedley Basin is a major regional geological feature and is – considering the importance and size of the now exhausted Nickel Plate deposit – relatively underexplored. The Hedley Basin covers some 1,000 square kilometres and is composed of Late Triassic Nicola Group sedimentary and volcanic rocks. According to the authors of Goldcliff’s 43-101 on the Panorama Ridge property, “The basin area, which is relatively under explored, contains rock units with world-class gold deposit potential.”

One of those authors is Goldcliff’s Chairman, Leonard Saleken, who like the rest of Goldcliff’s team, has a history of involvement in Hedley gold exploration and production.

Saleken was exploration manager for a private exploration group in the mid-1980s. As a part of the team doing due diligence for a reverse takeover for Mascot Gold, they analysed the old Nickel Plate Mine data and examined all the stopes (areas from which ore has been extracted), and the high-grade beds that had been mined. They also observed the drilling and drifting that had been done, as well as the gold in the drill holes and drifts which – if they were near surface – would, as Sanders puts it, “make one heck of an open pit mine.”

What they determined was that the mineralized sequence did indeed outcrop on top of Nickel Plate Mountain. Consequently, Mascot Gold went on to open the Mascot open pit mine, which produced approximately one million ounces gold – all this occurred four kilometres and in the same geological setting as is found at Panorama Ridge.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.

Even as the oil price has corrected over the last few days, predictions of increased energy demand over the next several years continue. On Monday, Grant Smith reported for Bloomberg, “the fastest-growing bet in the oil market these days is that the price of crude will double to $200 a barrel by the end of the year.” Yet, even in this encouraging oil market climate, Pennant shares this week are only $0.255, representing considerable upside potential for investors.

Pennant’s Kaybob and Bronson properties, totalling 1,600 acres, are located in the famed and prolific Kaybob oil field in west Alberta. The Kaybob field is considered one of the most prolific in North America.

In September of 2007, Pennant expanded its holdings in the area by successfully bidding for the 640 acre Bronson East property located to the northeast of the Bronson West property.

Adding to its mix for success, Pennant Energy’s senior geologist, James Britton, boasts an 86% success rate for drilling commercially successful oil wells. He has commercialized over 430 oil and gas wells in total. With Pennant Energy, Britton will attempt to locate commercial quantities of oil on Pennant’s Bronson project this winter.

With experts on the team, Pennant employs several sound strategies for both offsetting risk and maximizing the potential for discovering commercial amounts of oil. Pennant’s strategy of partnering with other companies to reduce exploration risk has allowed it to maintain an undiluted share structure with only 16,524,809 shares outstanding. Adding to Pennant’s secure financial position, the company has no debt and a bank balance of approximately $1.5 million, owing to a second strategy of creating cash flow for exploration from eight producing oil wells in the Daly Field in Manitoba.

In order to secure cash flow, in 2004 Pennant earned the right to participate in a low-risk development drilling project with operator Rideau Petroleum on the Daly Field in Manitoba. Agreeing to pay 25% of drilling and completion costs on an initial four wells, Pennant earned 22.5% working interest before payout.

Beginning with the first four wells, the joint venture partnership met with success and they went on to drill an additional four wells, which were also successful. Today, medium grade crude production, from eight wells on the Daly Field, supplies cash flow enabling Pennant to stably venture into higher risk projects that promise higher reward.

Pennant’s recent exploration efforts, focused on the Bronson property, have included several surveys to pinpoint the location of the next drill. In the winter of 2007, Pennant completed a 3-D seismic survey and geochem surveys were done in 2006, and again in the summer of 2007. The Bronson project is a 50/50 joint venture with Austin Developments Corp. (TSX.V: AUL) Austin Developments will complete its earn in by paying all the costs for the drilling of the first well, the Kaybob S#1 which was completed in August of 2007.

3-D seismic surveys, or “seismics” as they are commonly called, use sound waves to locate rock formations in the earth that are associated with oil and gas. Acoustic vibrations are created either by a controlled explosion, or more often, by use of a vibration truck which thumps the ground creating waves that radiate into the earth. The sound waves are reflected off subterranean rock layers. The length of time required for the waves to travel through rock layers of varying densities is used to create a profile of the structure.

With the use of computers, 3-D seismics have becomes incredibly detailed and complex. Billions of data points are compiled to create a three dimensional image of the underground structures thus dramatically reducing the element of chance in drilling wells.

Pennant Energy offers investors the best of both worlds: Positive geophysics and a solid approach to finances. By increasing the odds of success on the exploration side with a proven track record and by reducing risk on the financial side through joint ventures, cash flow opportunities, maintaining a tightly-held share structure and healthy bank balance, Pennant is making the best possible moves in a game where they seem determined to leave as little as possible to chance.

“This article is brought to you by Gus Woltmann”.