Merv's Weekly Commentary 01 Jan 2011

Merv’s Weekly Uranium Review

for week ending 31 December 2010

Merv’s Daily Uranium Index

Market Data for Friday 31 Dec 2010

Open: 257.26

High: 262.34

Low: 255.02

Close: 259.38

Volume: 4246

Note that the volume is an average volume of round lot sales for the 50 component stocks. For total volume, multiply by 5000.

Note that additional charts of the Daily and Weekly Indices were posted earlier and should be viewed during this commentary.

I could get a swelled head from the recent complements but I’ll try hard to keep my cool and continue with the simple stuff. If I really got a swelled head I just might be tempted to get sophisticated and then even I might not know what I’m talking about (and that wouldn’t take much).

Boy, this limited posting sure misses some good moves. The “box” was breached on the up side Wednesday, the first day of Canadian trading. Overall it was a very good week despite the limited trading. Almost half of the component stocks were up double digit, a great many into the 20% and higher range. The ratings in the weekly Table have been quite accurate with only a few missed opportunities, however, it’s better to miss an opportunity than to jump in at the wrong time and lose your shirt. I’ll be back to normal sometime late next week so once more this post is limited.

The Merv’s Daily Uranium Index closed higher on Friday by 1.90 points or 0.74%. There were 14 winners, 31 losers and 5 stocks bumming around not knowing Christmas is over. Cameco lost 0.5% on Friday, Denison gained 0.9%, Extract lost 0.4%, Paladin gained 0.8% and Uranium One gained 0.8%. The best winner of the day was Crosshair with a miserly 4.2% daily gain while the loser of the day was Wealth Minerals with a hefty loss of 18.7%. Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF lost 0.1% while Global X Uranium ETF gained 1.2%.

For the full week (as much as we had) the Merv’s Weekly Uranium Index gained 9.05% (the Daily Index gained 4.89% on the week). The more speculative smaller stocks were on the move. There were 46 weekly winners, 4 losers and no stocks taking the week off. Cameco gained 0.3% on the week, Denison gained 5.6%, Extract gained 6.8%, Paladin gained 1.0% and Uranium One gained 1.1%. The best weekly winner was Wealth Minerals with a weekly gain of 35.0% despite that daily Friday loss of 18.7%. The worst weekly loser was Terra Ventures with a loss of 5.5%. Market Vectors Nuclear Energy ETF gained 0.9% while Global X Uranium ETF gained 3.0%.

As could be expected all the indicators are positive after a good week like the last one. All three time periods retain their BULLISH ratings this week.

The long term charts posted separately earlier show the actions of the Daily and Weekly Indices for the past year. It’s interesting to compare the performance of these Uranium stock Indices versus other market Indices. Most would compare pathetically. The Weekly Index gained 78% since the beginning of the year (much more if we start at the July low). Two Merv’s Indices that did substantially better were the Merv’s Spec-Silver and Merv’s Penny Arcade Indices, each of which had yearly gains of 134% give or take 2%. The Merv’s Daily Uranium Index gained only 42% on the year by comparison. This is almost half the performance of the Weekly Index which has the same component stocks. It just goes to show how important it is to know how ANY Index is calculated to understand what it is really telling you. When anyone (including myself) tells you that the MARKET is doing this or that one must understand what that really means or else one may be in the dark as far as what to do with that information.

Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked again. I do that too often.

Next week should see if the up side is still the way to go or if the uranium stocks are going to take a drubbing. Either would not be a surprise.