Each year Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, surveys the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is part of his 24th annual Top Picks Report.
Taseko Mines Ltd. (ASE: TGB) is the favorite speculative play for 2007 from Tom Bishop, editor of BI Research. He notes, "After living hand to mouth for five or six years during lean copper and gold prices, Taseko bought the Gibraltar mine, which it picked up for a song when copper was down in the low $0.60/lb range.
"Today copper is around $3/lb, the mine is back into production and now its cash stash, including proceeds from a $30 million convertible, is steaming towards C$100 million. The company just added about 38% to its mineral reserves, which now stand at 256 million tons (equating to a 15-year mine life) grading 0.32% copper and 0.01% molybdenum.
Note the molybdenum alone adds over $20 million to revenues annually. The company is upgrading and expanding its Gibraltar mill/production facility, and will be moving to a higher grade softer ore part of the ore body in 2007. Therefore, with mill improvements I expect production to increase 20 to 30% this year and generate about $0.65 to $0.70 of cash flow, which is not bad for a company trading at $2.60.