Wow, talk about old news! I was a bit disappointed when I read about this on the King World News (KWN) blog and then did a google search to see if it was new stuff.
A quick google search shows that this Slim/Fresnillo thing looks like an old chestnut going back to May 2010 ... or even August 2007!
Silver bugs will have to do better than that! It sounds like desperate hype.
Pity. I was thinking about buying some Fresnillo, though I think it might be getting late given the doubling in the last few months. All that upside missed!
Now I am having second thoughts and undecided, feeling a little suspicious of hype, hype, hype.
I have been fascinated by King World News since it started around May 2009 and I think I have listened to every single interview by Eric King on his website. He does get very enthusiastic on gold and silver but I think he overdid it a bit on this one. He has had some brilliant interviews on there over the last year and a half: Michael Berry, Felix Zulauf and, this week for the first time, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, as well as resource industry stars such as Rob McEwen, Pierre Lassonde and Sean Boyd and great commentators such as Rob Arnott, Chris Whalen, Bill Fleckenstein, etc., etc., "the top people in the world" as Eric audaciously announces in his outro. That always makes me smile. He gets some truly excellent scoops but this one might be a bit of a scoop of something else.
Latest hype:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/1/3_Is_the_Worlds_Richest_Man_Getting_Into_Silver.html
,
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/1/4_KWN_-_Worlds_Richest_Man_Entering_Silver_Gaining_Momentum.html
,
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/worlds-richest-man-carlos-slim-entering-silver-fray
Not exactly a scoop when the UK Daily Mail newspaper reported it 8 months ago! A few seconds of research was sufficient to find this!
Carlos Slim to dig deep for Fresnillo
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1273418/Carlos-Slim-dig-deep-Fresnillo.html#ixzz1A6YZeoDO
Mail Online 5 May 2010 ... Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, the world's richest individual, ... busy running the slide rule over Fresnillo, the world's largest silver producer.
By Geoff Foster
Last updated at 10:36 PM on 5th May 2010
"Rumours that a cash bid in the region of £8.6bn or £12 a share could soon be tabled helped the shares jump 43.5p to 807p."
Or try this old rumour from 2007:
Why the silver price is set to soar Aug 09, 2007
http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/precious-metals-and-gems/why-the-silver-price-is-set-to-soar.aspx
"If only a tiny fraction of these millionaires, ultra-HNWIs and billionaires decided to diversify out of their extensive property and stock portfolios and invest even a very small amount of their portfolios in silver it would result in the silver price increasing in price exponentially."
... Blah blah blah, Meaningless drivel.
Rumours, rumours. Now the Fresnillo share price is 1682p according to Yahoo Finance UK on 4 Jan 2011. (Update: since this article, the shares have dropped to 1,339 as of 21 January 2011 at 13:38 approximately. According to Yahoo, the 52 week high was 1768.)
Would not Mr. Slim have done better to deploy his billions in 2008 with silver at $9 or even in 2010 with Fresnillo at 8 quid instead of now at 16 quid in January 2011?!
Do your own due diligence! I'm sure Carlos Slim has. He didn't become a billionaire by following loose talk on blogs, even on the FT, which ought to know better.
I am rather disaapointed in King World News for pushing this one. The FT blog participation is a bit shocking but it shows that the FT blog appears to be merely a rumour mill with no credibility. I also note that none of those who replied to the zerohedge post had even bothered to do the 25 seconds of due diligence necessary to see that the story is up to 3 years of age!
Sometimes, I wonder why the always interesting Bob Hoye of Institutional Advisors who is a regular on http://www.howestreet.com/ makes so much fun of silver bugs. I think I may be beginning to realise the reason!
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