Markets
Europe
The FTSE-100 finished yesterday's session 0.10% higher at 7,419.02, whilst the FTSE AIM All-Share index was up 0.43% at 1,029.23. In continental Europe, the CAC-40 finished 0.25% lower at 5,352.76 whilst the DAX was down 1.16% at 13,015.04.
Wall Street
In New York last night, the Dow Jones closed 0.27% lower at 23,526.18, the S&P-500 fell 0.08% to end at 2,597.08 but the Nasdaq finished 0.07% firmer at 6,867.36.
Asia
In Asian markets this morning, the Nikkei 225 is closed for Labor [sic] Thanksgiving Day, while the Hang Seng was 0.04% lower at 29,995.34.
Oil
In early trade today, WTI crude was 0.24% lower at $57.88 per barrel and Brent was down 0.27% at $63.15.
Headlines
Broadband firms must ditch 'misleading' speed ads
Broadband firms will no longer be able to advertise their fast net services based on the speeds just a few customers get, from May next year. Currently ISPs are allowed to use headline speeds that only 10% of customers will actually receive. In future, adverts must be based on what is available to at least half of customers at peak times. It follows research that suggested broadband advertising can be misleading for consumers. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) looked into consumers' understanding of broadband speed claims and found that many were confused by headline speeds that they would never actually get in their own homes. The concerns were passed on to the Committees of Advertising Practice (Cap) which consulted with ISPs, consumer groups and Ofcom to find a better way to advertise fast net services. Most argued that the fairest and clearest way would be to use the average speeds achieved at peak time by 50% of customers. As well as insisting ISPs use "average" instead of "up to" speeds, Cap also urged ISPs to promote speed-checking facilities in their adverts so that users could test out the speeds they were likely to get from any given service.
Source: BBC News
Company news
Altus Strategies (LON:ALS, 8.00p) – Speculative Buy
Altus announced late yesterday that the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between its local subsidiaries and JOGMEC (Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation) in respect to the Tigray-Afar copper-silver prospect, located in Ethiopia, will end on 19 December 2017. The MoA was signed in September 2014 whereby JOGMEC had an option to acquire an initial 51% interest in the project by funding US$2.5m in expenditures prior to 31 March 2016. To date three drill programmes have been completed under the MoA for some US$3m. However, JOGMEC advised that the project does not fit its investment criteria and will withdraw from the MoA. The project is located within the highly prospective Arabian-Nubian Shield that hosts a number of significant VMS-type deposits including Biasha and Asmara gold-copper deposits in Eritrea and the Sukari gold deposit in Egypt. Exploration under the MoA has defined four distinct copper-silver prospects at Tigray-Afar with grades of up to 22% Cu and 102g/t Ag from surface sampling. Rock chip channel results returned 28m at 0.75% Cu, 31m at 0.50% Cu, 4m at 3.22% Cu and 6m at 1.46% Cu. Drilling at Tigray-Afar has returned grades of up to 1.53% Cu over 15.5m, 1.22% Cu over 11.9m and 0.70% Cu over 28.15m. Following termination of the MoA, the Group will retain ownership of the project and data generated under the MoA.
Our view: Whilst the above announcement is disappointing for Altus, it's not unsurprising given that the project did not quite fit JOGMEC's investment criteria of a large district-scale deposit. That said, exploration results under the MoA have discovered four distinct prospects with significant copper-gold and silver mineralisation. We look forward to further updates on the project including a compilation of the exploration data collected under the MoA which could potentially attract another partner to help explore and develop the highly prospective region. In the meantime, we maintain our speculative buy on the stock.
Beaufort Securities acts as corporate broker to Altus Strategies plc
Great Western Mining Corporation (LON:GWMO, 0.93p) – Update
Great Western Mining Corporation provided an update on its M1 copper-gold prospect located in Mineral County, Nevada. In 2016, GWMO signed a cooperation agreement with Crown Point Gold & Silver covering several claims with anomalous mineralisation straddling both company's properties. As part of the agreement, two drill holes, located 100m apart, were drilled over an area of anomalous gold mineralisation from a previous soil and chip sampling programme. The best intercepts returned 2.7m grading 1.5g/t Au and 3.1m grading 1.2g/t Au, with both intercepts coming from drill hole No.1. Anomalous copper intercepts were also found in both holes, including 1.6m grading 0.6% Cu (drill hole No.1) and 1.5m grading 0.1% Cu (drill hole No.2). Drill hole No.2 also had four separate intercepts of 1.5m grading 0.1% Cu.
Our view: Although the above copper and gold intercepts are relatively narrow and low grade, these results suggest there is potential for anomalous copper and gold mineralisation at M1. Exploration results indicate that there are similar geological characteristics between M1 and M2 targets, the latter having seen extensive work to date. We look forward to further updates on the project.
Beaufort Securities acts as a corporate broker to Great Western Mining Corporation PLC