Just last year, Rio Tinto fought off a hostile takeover bid by the Australian mining kingpin BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (NYSE: BHP) and the board withdrew its support recently for a proposed $19.5 billion investment by the Aluminum Corp. of China or Chinalco (NYSE: ACH) in the company.

I have written favorably about AAUK many times, See: Chasing Value: Anglo American on sale and Chasing Value: Inflation protection with gold & platinum (AAUK), as well as included it in my 2009 stock picks.

Although much has been reported about the potential benefits of a merger between AAUK and XTA, it would be hard for me to formulate any straightforward opinion as to the benefits of this merger for AAUK versus some other deal. For AAUK shareholders, the benefits would have to come over time as the anticipated synergies are worked out, since Xstrata is not proposing to pay any premium for AAUK.

Over the past month, I have been advising readers to develop a watch list so they could take advantage of any potential market correction, and buy in by dollar cost averaging if they feel very strongly about any particular company.

Commodities have been hurt in the past year as the world economy has been contracting. I often emphasized that these will be short-lived opportunities and that the demand for world resources, in addition to the potential inflation created by the substantial increases in money supply everywhere, will drive commodity prices up.

AAUK is the largest producer of platinum and has the largest reserves. Platinum was hurt by the collapse of the automobile industry since it is used in catalytic converters. The industry will not remain down forever and when it bounces back, so will the price of this precious metal. There has also been a flight to gold over the past few years, and this, too, should lend support if gold continues to rise as a hedge against inflation and the weak dollar.

Xstrata is well aware of AAUk's strength in this area and others. I do not know what AAUK would see in XTA that it could not find elsewhere so I would be surprised if any deal would get done without much time and angst.

On the other hand, I expect a lot of deals to be discussed among all the players this year with many of them being executed. I think all of the companies mentioned in this story should be on your watchlist and regardless of what deals are done, all of them will trade for higher prices next year.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of AAUK and ACH. In addition to being "long" both companies I may also trade options from time to time.