Making the most of declining junior miners
Miners are underperforming gold despite getting support from the stock market.
In May South Africa’s mining production decreased 0.7% compared to a year ago with diamonds, gold and other metallic minerals recording the largest negative growth rates says the country’s statistics bureau.
Thursday’s report found that gold was off 14.6%, diamonds were down 19.7% and other metallic minerals collapsed by 32.3%.
The mineral groups with the sharpest gains were manganese ore up by 31.9% and chromium ore with an increase of 22.1%.
“Seasonally adjusted mining production increased by 4,5% in May 2013 compared with April 2013,” wrote the reports authors.
“This followed month-on-month changes of 2,8% in April 2013 and -4,6% in March 2013.
“Seasonally adjusted mining production decreased by 1,4% in the three months ended May 2013 compared with the previous three months. The main contributors to the 1,4% decrease were PGMs (contributing -1,5 percentage points), coal (contributing -1,3 percentage points) and diamonds (contributing -1,2 percentage points).”
