Not on your life: That’s the answer most people would give when asked whether the likes of Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong II or Mahmoud Ahmenejad would make sound business partners. With global vital resource supplies increasingly tight, however, unrest in any producing country can affect prices. And the rising wave of resource nationalism--the desire to extract a bigger cut from what’s produced within a country--is far from cresting. Read More

Earnings season is always a tricky time for vital resource producers. Investors are quick to ignore good results in favor of focusing on future projections for commodity prices. And if the numbers are disappointing, it won’t be long before the stocks crash and burn. From our perspective, we’re certainly interested in the headline numbers. More than that, however, we want to know what’s going on behind them. In other words, what’s going to make our recommendations more valuable as companies? Read More

Vital resources are a volatile business by nature. Companies’ earnings are often pushed around by jagged price movements. Meanwhile, investor perception is notorious for both bullish and bearish wild swings. It all adds up to volatile-priced stocks. We can make a lot of money in a short time on the upside. And those profits can melt away even faster when the market mood changes, even with the long-term supply and demand fundamentals exceedingly positive. Read More

Evidence of a slowing US economy is more palpable than ever. Copper prices, on the other hand, hit above $4 a pound this week, surpassing the all-time high reached in 2006. Read More

Our tenure at Vital Resource Investor has now reached the six-month mark, and it’s time to review our performance and draw lessons from the results. To calibrate returns, we’ve used a model that weighs all positions equally, and there’s no cash component. Read More