This item is part of Stockwatch's value added news feed and is only available to Stockwatch subscribers.

Here is a sample of this item:

by Will Purcell

The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Monday was a poor 38-64-163 as the TSX Venture Exchange fell nine points to 985. Polished diamond prices fell 0.2 per cent. Brian Testo's Grizzly Discoveries Inc. (GZD) closed unchanged at five cents on 142,000 shares. Grizzly has been quiet since it expanded its diamond project in Northern Alberta during June. It now holds 90,000 hectares on the periphery of the Buffalo Hills property held by Canterra Minerals Corp. (CTM: $0.11) and Shore Gold Inc. (SGF: $0.295). Aubrey Eveleigh's Zenyatta Ventures Ltd. (ZEN) fell four cents to $2 on 216,000 shares. Zenyatta, $5 a year ago, has spent the summer oscillating near $2 as it plods along with a preliminary economic assessment of its Albany graphite deposit in Northern Ontario. Mr. Eveleigh promises the delayed report will be ready before the end of the year.

Eric Desaulniers's Nouveau Monde Mining Enterprises Inc. (NOU) fell one cent to 23 cents on 316,000 shares. The company must drill four targets over the next 18 months and make token cash and stock payments to earn a 75-per-cent interest in the Waasikusuu diamond project, southeast of James Bay in Quebec. It can acquire the rest through staged payments of $2.5-million. Mr. Desaulniers, president and CEO, who has unsuccessfully promoted rare earth and graphite plays since he launched the company in 2012, touts the "more than 35 years of diamond exploration experience" held by Nouveau Monde's directors and consultants. It is a common but meaningless ploy -- most kindergarten classrooms have over 100 years of life experience after all -- but it is also unnecessary: one director, Jacques Letendre, accounts for nearly all that experience. Mr. Letendre, who joined De Beers in the early 1980s and then became a consulting geologist, began promoting diamond explorers in the early 2000s. (His Majescor Resources Inc. (MJX: $0.04) flamed out in the mid-2000s so Mr. Letendre returned to his consulting career.) The Waasikusuu project is a continuation of one of Majescor's failed hunts. It lies up-ice of where Mr. Letendre discovered arrays of kimberlite indicator minerals in the mid-2000s but was never able to track them to a source. Mr. Letendre can tell a compelling story and he apparently sold Mr. Desaulniers and the rest of Nouveau Monde's board -- who perhaps average a few months of diamond experience between them -- on the story. Mr. Desaulniers, whose diamond exploration experience seems limited to prowling shopping malls, believes that Nouveau Monde has a great opportunity of making a major kimberlite field discovery "for a minor amount of money wisely invested in geophysics and exploration drilling." (Majescor spent considerable sums on geophysics and drilling and found nothing, but Mr. Letendre is undoubtedly the wiser for trying.)

The remainder is available to Stockwatch subscribers.
Sign-up for a FREE 30-day Stockwatch subscription and SEE NO ADS