Minefinders (MFN) (MFL.to): What has it done to deserve this?

It reported a drab net profit on a bad day to report drab numbers, that's what. Luckily, we took (85% in 6 months) profits on this stock a few days ago at U$16.89 (wish I could say the same for the other stocks left in the portfolio, though).

As it happens, here's what was sent to subscribers re. MFN in a longer Flash update that covered several stocks and the Peru political scene yesterday afternoon. We do get a few right amongst the normality of drab, underperforming picks, y'see.

Minefinders (MFN)
We recently sold around 10% higher than today's close and tonight MFN reported its quarter.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Minefinders-Announces-First-iw-1764354432.html?x=0&.v=1

It looks ok, but it's not great either. The breach between adjusted net profit ($19.0m) which backs out derivative losses and actual net profit of $2.3m was wide and won't make for great headlines. Perhaps a better gauge of the state of financial affairs is working capital at MFN, which rose $8.5m (a tad over 10c/share) from 4q10, which is kind of ho-hum. Our costs profile (mining costs + processing costs + G&A) rose from $16.8m in 4q10 to to $18.5m in 1q11, but the change in the gold/silver ratio to 44:1 makes it look like total cash costs dropped. In fact total gold Eq costs per ounce dropped $2 to $509/oz, but the costs creep is clear to see in absolute terms and in costs per tonne mined (or stacked) terms once numbers are crunched. Overall I'm glad I sold when I did.

Gary and Minefinders (MFN)

What i like about Gary BiiWii is that he's nobody's fool, stands his corner and follows no track but his own. Your humble scribe and the BiiWii dude often bicker about differences (after all, he is a freakin' charty) but on the odd occasion when he and I agree on a subject, or more importantly a stock, it's a signal I take very seriously indeed.

We came to a view on Minefinders (MFN) (MFL.to) a while back at almost the same time, he coming from his starting point and this humble corner of cyberspace from its own murky world of spreadsheets and mumbojumbo. But we called it the same. And so far......well, go see Gary's chart and his words for yourself.

Moral: Do like me and associate yourself with way smart people, because it makes you look far more intelligent than you actually are. DYODD.

Minefinders (MFN) (MFL.to) update

I'm happy with the way this trade is going. Not only that, but we got the timing right too:

Y'see, even a dumbass like your humble scribe gets one right occasionally. Disclosure, long (reco'd to subscribers since November 3rd 2010) and still holding, because the target price is much higher (and it'll get there too).