Topic: How To Invest

Pat: I have re-entered the TSX mining market after two years with speculative stocks Kinross Gold and Seabridge Gold. Your analysis on both stocks, please. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

Kinross Gold, $5.07, symbol K on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $5.6 billion, www.kinross.com), is a Canadian senior gold producer with nine operating mines in the U.S., Brazil, Chile, West Africa, Mauritania and Russia. Kinross is forecast to produce 2.4 million to 2.6 million gold-equivalent ounces in 2013. The company has a big base of mostly unexploited properties, but it has incurred major cost overruns and writedowns as it has tried to bring mines into production. Its biggest challenges are at its Tasiast gold mine in Mauritania, which it received as part of its $7.1-billion acquisition of Red Back Mining in 2010. Kinross is now postponing an expansion of Tasiast that it planned for 2014, and possibly one in 2015, as well. To further conserve cash, Kinross is also cutting its capital spending across most of its other projects. It has also suspended its $0.16-a-share semi-annual dividend payment. Still, the company’s balance sheet is sound, with $1.2 billion in cash and…