The last two months were heavy for the shares of Minera IRL Limited (TSE:IRL), (PINK:MRLLF). They fell sharply by 45% – from $1.65 in early March to $1.14 last Wednesday. The end of the past week gave some hope that a change is coming on its way. A change for the good. This coincided with the filing of the latest financial reports of the company.
Perhaps, they provided investors with enough motives to go for a rise in the share price. The rise was small, but its importance was huge. This rise, for now, puts an end to the unpleasant downfall of the stock. Can it put a start to a long-lasting uptrend, however? It is difficult to give a firm positive answer to the question.
Maybe, we should first finish with the positive part of the story, namely the financials announced last Friday. The figures they give courage in abundance to the happy readers:
* 30.7M in cash and equivalents in the end of Marh;
* Rising revenues and gross profit. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2011 is 72% up over the same period in 2010;
* For the Q1 of 2011, the pre-tax profit was $2.5M, compared to $0.6M for the year-ago period. The net income for 2010 was $2.85M.
This is just a tiny part of the positive trends that Minera gladly announced to the public on the last day the past week. The financial reports contain very little negative data. Probably, the long-term debt of $10M is one of the few not so pleasant facts about the company that deserve to be mentioned.
At the same time, Minera’s directors promise investors a bright future – the latest company presentation shows a planned output of 165 thousand ounces of gold at the end of 2015, when the Ollachea and the Don Nicolas Projects are anticipated to be both in the production phase.
We must be patient to see whether these high expecations will prove to be right or they are, probably, a bit optimistic. For the time being, the filed financial reports managed to wake up the stock and discontinue its heavy decline that began in March. Last Friday, IRL moved 3.45% up on a large volume of 1.14M shares – a record in the company’s trading activity for 2011.
