teck resources
Happy Creek Minerals, $0.26, symbol HPY on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 24.4 million; Market cap: $6.3 million), moved up earlier this year on positive drilling results from its Rateria property. Happy Creek’s Rateria and West Valley properties include 65 mineral claims. Together, these total 14,450 hectares (or 144.5 square kilometres). These properties are located next to Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper mine property near Logan Lake, B.C. Happy Creek’s exploration is still at a very early stage. But its early mineralization showings, and the proximity to Teck’s mine, give it some speculative appeal....
TECK RESOURCES LTD., $39.78, Toronto symbol TCK.B, rose 5% this week after the company announced that it had signed a new shipping agreement with Westshore Terminals Income Fund (Toronto symbol WTE.UN). Teck ships coal from its British Columbia mines to Westshore’s Vancouver port, which loads and ships more coal than any other port on North America’s west coast. From there, trains carry Teck’s coal to its North American customers, and ships carry it to Asian steelmakers. Under the new deal, Westshore will process 3 million tonnes of coal a year for the next two years at fixed rates. That’s about 12% of the 25 million tonnes of coal that Teck should produce this year....
TECK RESOURCES LTD. $41 (Toronto symbol TCK.B; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 588.7 million; Market cap: $24.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; No dividends paid since July 2008; SI Rating: Extra Risk) owns 22.5% of the Antamina copper and zinc mine in Peru. The other partners are BHP Billiton (33.75%), Xstrata (33.75%) and Mitsubishi Corp. (10%). In light of rising copper prices, the partners plan to increase Antamina’s production by 30%. Teck’s share of the expansion cost is $290 million U.S. To put this in context, Teck earned $337 million (Canadian), or $0.59 a share, in the third quarter of 2009. This project should be finished in late 2011. The partners recently increased their estimates of Antamina’s reserves by 75%. That means its reserves should last until 2029....
UTS Energy Corp., $2.65, symbol UTS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 474.5 million; Market cap: $1.3 billion), owns 20% of the Fort Hills oil-sands project. Suncor Energy holds a 60% interest, and Teck Resources owns the remaining 20%. The project consists of certain oil-sands deposits in Alberta’s Athabasca oil-sands region, around 90 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. The partners plan to develop, mine, extract and sell the recoverable clean bitumen from these deposits. Suncor Energy operates Fort Hills. The company continues to assess the project’s scope, budget and schedule. It expects to announce its intentions by the end of 2010....
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $47.51, Toronto symbol BNS, fell 3% this week, despite reporting higher earnings and revenue in its latest fiscal year. The bank earned $3.5 billion in the year ended October 31, 2009. That’s up 13.0% from $3.1 billion in the prior year. Earnings per share rose 8.5%, to $3.31 from $3.05, on more shares outstanding. If you exclude writedowns of securities, the bank would have earned $3.70 a share. That beat the $3.69 a share that analysts were expecting. The bank’s loan-loss provisions remained high because of the weak economy: it set aside $1.7 billion to cover bad loans in the latest fiscal year, up 176.8% from $630 million in the prior year. This figure will probably stay high until the second half of fiscal 2010....
TORONTO-DOMINION BANK, $65.33, Toronto symbol TD, had to set aside more funds to cover bad loans in its latest fiscal year. However, the bank still reported higher earnings, as low interest rates spurred strong demand for new loans. TD earned $4.7 billion in the year ended October 31, 2009. That’s up 23.7% from $3.8 billion in the prior year. Earnings per share rose 9.6%, to $5.35 from $4.88, on more shares outstanding. These figures exclude several unusual items, including writedowns of securities the bank holds, and costs to integrate U.S.-based Commerce Bancorp, which TD bought last year. On that basis, the latest earnings beat the $5.07 a share that analysts were expecting. Loan-loss provisions jumped 133.3%, to $2.5 billion from $1.1 billion. Revenue rose 21.8%, to $17.9 billion from $14.7 billion....
TECK RESOURCES LTD. $34 (Toronto symbol TCK.B; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 588.7 million; Market cap: $20.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.3; SI Rating: Extra Risk) is a leading producer of metallurgical coal, a key ingredient in steelmaking. It also mines copper, zinc, lead, gold, silver, molybdenum and other metals. The company continues to lower its debt following its $13.6-billion purchase of Fording Canadian Coal Trust last year. It has already repaid a $5.8 billion U.S. bridge loan, and $1.3 billion U.S. of a $4-billion U.S. term loan. As a result, Teck’s long-term debt is now $7.6 billion (Canadian), or a manageable 38% of its market cap. The company holds cash of $1.1 billion, or $1.84 a share....
AGRIUM INC., $53.94, Toronto symbol AGU, has raised its takeover offer for U.S.-based fertilizer maker CF Industries Holdings Inc. (New York symbol CF). CF shareholders will still receive one Agrium common share for each CF share they own. But they will also get $45.00 in cash, up from $40.00 under the old bid (all amounts except Agrium’s share price in U.S. dollars). This new offer expires November 18. Using current prices, Agrium’s offer is worth $95.50 per CF share (or a total of $4.6 billion). However, CF is trading at $79.02, or 17.3% below Agrium’s offer....
You may be thinking of the “231-year-old discovery” of the uses of a certain metal. This was discussed in a recent stock promotion. The metal is likely molybdenum, which is used in stainless steel. Molybdenum prices soared last year, then collapsed, and have now rebounded somewhat. The stock the promotion refers to is probably Thompson Creek Metals, $10.87, symbol TCM on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 139.2 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion)....
Copper continues to attract a lot of attention from investors in commodity stocks. That’s because the metal has more than doubled in price, from a low of $1.25 U.S. in December 2008 to around $3.03 U.S. today. Traditionally, investors have bought copper as a way to profit from general economic growth. That’s because, unlike gold or silver, copper has a wide range of industrial uses. For example, it’s a key element in electrical wire and pipe.