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The Morgan Report
Precious Metals Warrants
Interview with Dudley Baker

David Morgan
Editor:
The Silver Investor
Nov 30, 2006

In this month's issue of The Morgan Report, we have asked Dudley Baker, owner/editor of Precious Metals Warrants, to share some information about his service for our readers.

David: Dudley, could you provide my readers with some basic information on your service?

Dudley: Thanks for allowing me to share with your readers some information about Precious Metals Warrants. To your credit, you are one of the few analysts/newsletter writers familiar with warrants, so my big challenge is educating the investment community as to what warrants are, and why investors should consider including them in their portfolios. My service is an online market data service in which we provide the complete details on all warrants trading on the U.S. & Canadian exchanges for the mining and energy companies.

To begin with some great credible news on warrants, I suggest reader's review the recent article by U.S. Global Investors, titled, Anticipate Before You Participate: Part 2. This article explains how U.S. Global uses long-term warrants in their investments.

Currently in my service, I do not make any recommendations of warrants to purchase and thus I do not compete with any of the other investment services, but rather I consider my service a must-have complimentary/companion service. Meaning, if you subscribe to a newsletter, i.e., Silver-Investor.com then perhaps, before you purchase any of the recommended stocks, you first ask the question, "do any of the recommendations have warrants trading?" Is so, then how long is the life of the warrant before expiration and what does the current leverage look like? This is where investors need my service, as I provide all of this information, and update the leverage calculations each week.

Take myself as an example as a typical investor. I subscribe to many of the well known investment services, such as yours, all of which make recommendations. With our assistance, you will have at your finger tips all of the companies which have warrants trading, all of the details, the current leverage calculations, links for quotes, charts, and much more.

David: Dudley, exactly what is a warrant and are they something new?

Dudley: Very simply, a warrant is a security issued by a company giving an investor the right, but not the obligation, to purchase the underlying common stock at a specific price and expiring on a specified date in the future. Sounds a lot like an option or leap doesn't it? Well, yes and no.

Most options have a life of 90 days to a year and LEAPS may have a life of 1 or 2 years and they both are traded on the CBOE. The statistics that I hear are that 80%-90% of these investors lose their investment. Why? TIME. The clock (time) is ticking on your investment dollars and working against you.

Warrants on the other hand will trade very similar to the common stock and some of the most recent warrants issued have a life of 5 years. These long-term warrants allow you to invest vs. speculate as those warrants with a long life of 2 years or more with give you much more TIME for this bull market to mature. With long-term warrants time is now on your side. By purchasing warrants an investor can increase leverage and actually decrease the risk over purchasing the common stock.

Warrants are definitely not new as they have actually been around for decades. Back in the 1960's & 1970's, there was a service, The RHM Warrant Survey. It seems they went out of business in the late 70's or early 80's, and few of us remember them except for me, Martin Weiss and others around 60 years old.

David: Why do you think the investment community is in the dark on warrants?

Dudley: For some reason, warrants have just not received the attention they deserve as an investment vehicle, in my opinion, due to the lack of knowledge and information, and for no other reason. It seems options, leaps and futures have captured the attention of investors, but warrants were left out. So, when I started my market data service in March of 2005, I was shocked to realize that most investors and analysts didn't even know what I was talking about. Now I have incorporated much information on warrants, how to trade, etc on the web site to assist with this education for investors.

David: You said that you do not make recommendations on which warrants to purchase?

Dudley: Correct, I have considered a 'premium service' giving specific recommendations but not yet and maybe never. What I provide to subscribers is our 'Top Ten Highest Leverage Warrants' updated each Friday. While these are not recommendations, they provide a great starting point for investors interested in warrants.

David: Where is the market for the warrants? In other words, where do they trade?

Dudley: Let me first say there is a great misconception that Canadian mining shares and warrants cannot be purchased by U.S. investors. I have no idea how other analysts have arrived at this conclusion, but I can say that this is definitely false. I personally own approximately 100 different mining companies and many warrants, most of which are Canadian companies and I have no problem buying them through my U.S. discount broker.

Virtually all securities in the world are assigned what is known as a CUSIP number. Any broker given this CUSIP number for any warrant can get the correct symbol to input the order. We furnish the CUSIP number for each warrant in our warrant database. Remember that nearly all of the warrants are on Canadian companies but this is not a problem for U.S. investors, as the orders are executed in the OTC market.

David: Dudley, from your experience is there a liquid market for the warrants?

Dudley: I'll have to admit that this can be an issue and some warrants are much more liquid than others. In our warrant database we provide a link to the TSX for the current bid-ask prices and also on this TSX page there is a link to the Price History which will show investors the last 30 days of trading activity. For all orders for warrants, as well as orders to buy or sell the small Canadian mining companies, I always recommend the use of LIMIT ORDERS.

David: Say a reader is interested in buying some warrants, will all of the brokerage firms buy them?

Dudley: I believe that ALL of the brokerage firms will accept the orders for warrants, but some times investors may have to educate their brokers. Just as many analysts do not understand warrants, this is also true of many brokers. By first giving your broker the CUSIP number for the warrant, any broker can get a symbol to input the order. It will be necessary for you to call your broker to place the orders for the warrants and it therefore may cost you a few dollars more in commissions but it should not make a significant difference.

David: Do you have any guidelines as to how much an investor should allocate to warrants?

Dudley: Personally, I range from 10% - 20% of my portfolio allocated to warrants. So, I would say a maximum of 20% in long-term warrants. Dave, let me stress here that for those warrants having a short life of less than a year, investors need to be careful so as not to let them 'expire' worthless. I actually prefer those warrants with a life in excess of two years and now many are issued with almost five years. Therefore, I consider these long-term warrants to be investments as opposed to speculation, i.e., options.

David: Could you share with us your background?

Dudley: Are you sitting down? I bring a different background to the investment community. I graduated in 1967 with a degree in Accounting and went directly to work for the Internal Revenue Service. I was an IRS Agent-Team Coordinator (lead agent) heading up the audits on some of the major corporations in the United States. After 29 years and at age 50, I took an early retirement over 10 years ago and any memories (good or bad) have faded with the years. I know that many individuals may not be excited about my background but what should be important now is that I come from a 'numbers' background, giving me the skills to put together this service. I also maintained a real estate broker's license in the State of Texas for 18 years until relocating to Ajijic, Mexico in 1999 and I have many years of experience trading options, leaps, futures, options on futures, stocks and, of course, warrants.

David: Could you provide a few guidelines that you use.

Dudley: I suggest investors keep it simple. If they like the common stock of a company, and if the company has warrants trading, then ask themselves two questions:

  • What is the remaining life of the warrant?
    The remaining life should meet the investment horizon and expectation of the investor; long-term or short-term.

    a
  • What is the current leverage calculation of the warrant?
    I normally look for a leverage of 2:1 or better, but remember our calculations are very conservative and do not reflect any premium being paid for warrants once they are 'in the money', i.e., trading over the exercise price. We update the leverage calculations weekly.

If the investor is content with the answer to the two questions above, then by all means they should purchase the warrants in lieu of the common shares in order to capture the additional leverage.

David: Dudley, how would you recap this discuss for our readers?

Dudley: Let me answer that with a question. Should investors be interested in an investment vehicle that offers

  • Increased Leverage
  • A decrease in your investment dollars at risk (yes, that's correct)
  • Time (much more time than options or leaps ­ up to 5 years)
  • No margin requirements
  • Ability to buy and sell like a stock, thru your brokerage account
  • Incredible opportunities and choices
  • A strategy often overlooked by 90% of investors and analysts

Of course you would be interested, who wouldn't!

Thanks for the opportunity to share with your readers what we offer at Precious Metals Warrants.

David: Dudley, thanks for the great explanation of warrants and your service.

Taken From the November 2006 Issue of The Morgan Report.

-David Morgan
email: silverguru22@hotmail.com

For more information on The Morgan Report - www.silver-investor.com
For more information on Precious Metals Warrants ­
www.preciousmetalswarrants.com

Disclaimer/Disclosure Statement:

PreciousMetalsWarrants.com is not an investment advisor and any reference to specific securities does not constitute a recommendation thereof. The opinions expressed herein are the express personal opinions of Dudley Baker. Neither the information, nor the opinions expressed should be construed as a solicitation to buy any securities mentioned in this Service. Examples given are only intended to make investors aware of the potential rewards of investing in Warrants. Investors are recommended to obtain the advice of a qualified investment advisor before entering into any transactions involving stocks or Warrants.

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