Almonty Industries, Standard Lithium, Ford Motors: Want a technology pickup?

Almonty Industries - Tungsten goes to Australia

Today's high-tech producers are confronted with the highest demands on a wide variety of materials. Particular properties of tungsten are indispensable for certain purposes. Tungsten is a silver-white shiny heavy metal of high density, which becomes brittle at very low impurities. It is the chemical element with the highest melting and boiling points. Its best-known historical use is as the filament in lamps and tubes; today, its application is as an alloying metal with superior hardness and density. Tungsten is also needed for many military purposes and can only be replaced by uranium in its applications.

The tungsten content of the continental earth's crust is about 1 ppm or 0.0001 percent by weight, and the metal has not yet been detected in pure form in nature. The most important tungsten ore minerals are wolframite and scheelite, as well as the rarer stolzite and tuneptite. The largest deposits are found in China, Peru, the USA, Korea, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Austria and Portugal. Tungsten ores are also found in the Saxon Ore Mountains. Measured and suspected world deposits currently amount to 2.9 million tons of pure tungsten.

Almonty owns tungsten mining sites in Spain, Portugal and South Korea. The South Korea project will become the largest in the group and is likely to go into production in 2022. All three mines together account for an excellent single-digit percentage of the world's supply, and the abundance in Korea has been able to secure KfW financing in 2020. The Sangdong molybdenum deposit is also exciting, valued at today's prices, it would triple the total Almonty value on the stock exchange. Almonty is now going public on the Australian Stock Exchange in April. The listing could pick up immediately there because the Australians are experts in commodity stocks. We are too, and therefore see last opportunities to jump on the bandwagon at prices around CAD 0.78.

Standard Lithium Ltd - E-mobility is stepping on the gas again

Lithium stocks started 2021 with rocket propulsion and Standard Lithium is one of the big winners with plus 50% in January. Because with the handover to Joe Biden, it is now manifested: E-mobility and investment in green technologies will see another subsidy boost from policymakers. Joe Biden announced his intention to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement as soon as possible and invest a further USD 1.5 trillion in modern, environmentally friendly technologies. The lithium industry is also cheering.

With a CAD 525 million capitalization, Standard Lithium Ltd is one of the TOP 20 lithium stocks on the shortlist. Using proprietary processing technologies and strategic partnerships, the Company is well-positioned to bring the first new lithium project into production in the US in over 50 years. The Company's mining area is located in Southern Arkansas and is the most advanced lithium brine project in the US with a 3.94 million ton lithium carbonate resource. The largest brine production and processing facilities in North America are located in the immediate vicinity.

Standard Lithium is partnering with German specialty chemicals Company Lanxess AG on this project. The partnership is still in the demonstration phase to test the commercial feasibility of bulk lithium extraction from brine. It is a byproduct of the existing bromine production facilities Lanxess operates in Arkansas, USA. Technology "Made in Germany" - this story is likely to continue!

Ford Motors - The Legend Lives

We may assume that the buyer base of an F150 pickup has little in common with that of the Tesla Model S. Here, the solid, hummable sound of a V8 contrasts with the futuristic acceleration wonder of Tesla. However, both vehicles have their own unique community, especially in the USA. If you think about today's green-colored governments' subsidy areas, the purchase of an electric car could also make sense for the F150 fan. He reduces his CO2 footprint in the fleet, and with the F150, he can still be assured for the camping weekend in the mountains, fully loaded and gasoline-powered, to enter the remotest regions. Both vehicles together cost about USD 120,000.

So anyone who philosophizes about the use of motor vehicles today must never forget that consumers are happy to adapt their purchasing behaviour to financial circumstances and, in multi-person households, are also prepared to mix and match. No matter how strongly politics pushes one issue and lacks any ecological competence, the private user will gladly take advantage of one and continue to live out his preferences of a different kind.

Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903, with eleven other investors and a USD 28,000 capital contribution. At an exhibition, he set a new speed record in his newly developed automobile when he covered the distance of one mile on the ice of Lake St. Clair in 39.4 seconds (147 km/h). Convinced by this success, Barney Oldfield, a well-known race car driver, took the car across the country and made the Ford brand a mobility household name in the United States. Today, Ford makes annual sales of about USD 150 billion and is always at the forefront of US new car registrations along with Toyota and Chevrolet. According to analysts' estimates, Ford will profit around USD 4 billion in 2021 and the price/book ratio (P/B) is just 1. According to the forecast, Tesla will also profit around USD 4 billion, but the current P/B ratio is a hefty 35. Let's see which of the two stocks will win the race in 2021: Ford won January - up 33% compared to up 27% for Tesla.