Globex Mining, Alphabet, Amazon - Hard assets in uncertain times

Globex Mining - New gold zones after drilling delight shareholders

Globex Mining has been in business for over 60 years, making it an old hand at acquiring mineral-rich properties. Whether through optioning, joint ventures or exploration, the team knows its way around the mining business thanks to its many years of experience.

Now shareholders can rejoice as Orford Mining Group has again intersected two gold zones in further gold drilling. The property is optioned by Globex Mining. Specifically, the following results are available: Hole 23-JE-008 in the southern gold zone intersected two surprisingly large gold mineralizations. Hole 23-JE-008 returned the following data: 15.7m @ 1.7g/t Au (21.7 to 35.1m) and 14.2m @ 2.2g/t Au (61.9 to 70.1m). The report on hole 23-JE-009 shows 0.3m of gold mineralization grading 1.2g/t gold.

Orford president and CEO David Christie commented, "The results from the 2023 drill campaign on our Joutel Eagle property continue to demonstrate that the property has tremendous potential in the South Gold Zone and the new North Gold Zone. The continuity of gold grade and thickness in the South Gold Zone is encouraging."

Investors will also be interested to know that another company is moving forward under the banner of Globex Mining. Emperor Metals Inc. has received the required drill permit and selected a drill contractor to begin its first drill program at Globex's 50% owned Duquesne West gold property in Canada's Quebec.

Alphabet - Results solid, but not convincing

Alphabet Inc. reported strong first-quarter results and plans a EUR 63.3 billion share buyback. However, investors are uncertain about future economic developments and are looking for guidance. Alphabet Inc. is in the business of providing online advertising, cloud-based solutions that provide infrastructure and platform services to enterprise customers, providing communication and collaboration tools, and selling other products and services such as apps and in-app purchases, hardware and subscription-based products.

Lisa Erickson, head of public markets at US Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis, stresses that the results so far are not enough to be confident about going forward. "We have had some good earnings reports, but investors recognize that they are not enough to clear the path forward," Erickson explains. Investors are eagerly awaiting more earnings reports, a key inflation reading on Friday and the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting next week.

Alphabet, the parent company of tech giant Google, nearly halted the decline in its advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2023. With advertising revenue of EUR 49.3 billion, Google achieved only a minimal decline of EUR 102 million, or 2%, compared to the same period last year - a result that analysts view positively, as a more significant decline in advertising had been feared. Overall, group revenue increased by 2.6% to EUR 63.2 billion, underlining Alphabet's resilience and strength.

For the first time, the Google Cloud division generated an operating profit. The news pleased institutional investors and resulted in a rise in Google shares in after-hours trading. Group CEO Sundar Pichai expressed satisfaction with the Company's performance in the first quarter, stressing that search is doing well and that the cloud business has momentum.

Further massive job cuts at Amazon

Aggressive cost-cutting across Amazon, driven by CEO Andy Jassy, is a response to projected economic challenges related to slowing growth in its core retail business. To address these challenges, Amazon has taken actions such as a hiring freeze for employees, halting some experimental projects and slowing warehouse expansion. These decisions will help stabilize the Company's finances and keep it in a better position to meet the current economic challenges. Jassy announced last month that Amazon would lay off 9,000 employees.

During the Covid pandemic, AWS saw a notable increase in its headcount. This proved to be a veritable bonanza for Amazon and other cloud providers as numerous businesses, government agencies and schools accelerated their migration to the cloud.

"Given this rapid growth, as well as the overall business and macroeconomic climate, it is critical that we focus our resources on our most important priorities - the things that matter most to customers and drive our business," Selipsky wrote in the memo. "In many cases, this means that team members are shifting the projects, initiatives or teams they are working on; however, in other cases, this has resulted in those roles being eliminated." Whether this will continue to impact the quarterly figures positively remains to be seen. Shares rose around 3% after the announcement.

In the solid mining business, there is encouraging news for investors in Globex Mining. More gold mineralization has been discovered in their network, and Emperor Metals - also under the umbrella of Globex Mining - is starting drill programs again. Those who want to learn more about commodity and hydrogen investments should register for the 7th International Investment Forum on May 10. Registration to the event is free here. For Alphabet's investors, the results communicated so far remain just a drop in the ocean. The future of Alphabet's growth remains uncertain, despite the first operating profit in its cloud business. In order to further stabilize profits, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is continuing to make cuts. There is talk of over 9,000 further job cuts. The US market remains turbulent.