Earlier today, we proudly announced the launch of our online conference initiative.  We’re starting off that initiative with a bang via our first ever official online conference – The AGORACOM Online Gold and Commodities Conference.  Given the price of gold, oil and other commodities, our timing could not be better.

REASONS TO ATTEND

1.   Participate in a high-quality conference in which you get to watch presentations, interact with CEO’s / IRO’s and listen to great keynote speakers from home.

2.  Unbelievable keynote speakers (see below)

3.  That’s it ….

4.  … and it’s free  (Register here)

PRESENTING COMPANIES

The conference will focus on emerging small and mid-cap resource companies who will present by invitation only and are required to have demonstrated excellence through a combination of one or more of the following:

• Experienced management
• Proven reserves via 43-101
• Strong prospective projects via publicly announced drill results
• Balance sheet strength
• Imminent or actual production.

We are limiting the total number of presenting companies to 50.  Currently, over 25 companies have committed to the conference, leaving approximately 25 spots available.  Presenting companies will be active in industries that include precious metals, base metals, rare metals, oil & gas and clean energy technologies.

REASONS TO PRESENT

1.   A built in audience.  Last year, AGORACOM attracted over 1.3 million investors, 7.9 million visits and generated just under 100 million page views. (Full Story).

2.  AGORACOM content partners include GlobeInvestor, AOL, Yahoo Finance and every Blackberry device on the planet.  (Full Details).

3.  Conference presentations will be posted and tagged on the biggest finance and social media sites on the web.

4.  Present to a global audience, not a local audience.

5.  Our keynote speaker lineup is a killer.  See below.

6.  The price.  Contact Us. You will love it.

7.  Your investment.  No travel, hotels and other hard expenses.

8.  Your time.  No time away from work or home.

9.  Your online strategy.  You need an online strategy that extends beyond a basic web page. (Top 10 Reasons Online IR Will Surpass Traditional IR)

10.  Fill in the blank.  I am sure you have at least one great reason.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

A conference is not complete without investors having an opportunity to hear the views of great keynote speakers.  I can tell you that I am simply blown away by the quality of our speakers and so proud they have elected to speak without any form of compensation.  They Our line-up of speakers already includes:

• Peter Grandich – Chief Commentator, AGORACOM.com
• Eric Coffin – Co-Producer of The Hard Rock Analyst
• Barry Ritholtz (Ranked #1 Financial Blogger In The World)
• Paul Kedrosky (Ranked #2 Financial Blogger In The World)
• Gregor Macdonald – A Rising Energy Analyst And Investor

For complete bio’s and links to their work, please visit our keynote speakers page.

That’s all for now folks.  Look for a lot more information over the next 30 days.  Otherwise, save the date and see you there!

Regards,
George

Good afternoon to you all and hope you’re preparing for a great weekend.  Sorry for the delay in posting but we had some big news released today.  I’ll blog about it right after this post.

Please find enclosed our next installment of Money, Markets and Life With Grandich and George . We covered some great topics in just 25 minutes including:

• This week’s US Jobs Report. Worse than expected but the Dow goes up?
• India’s massive gold purchase
• Gold $1,100 .. where to from here?
• Answering a ton of questions posted by you earlier today on the blog

Without further adieu, here is this week’s show.

For those of you whose Flash player isn’t up to snuff, here’s the MP3:

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW

For those of you who want to download the show automatically, it has now been approved by Apple and available for download via iTunes. In addition, the show has it’s own podcast section on smallcappodcast.com. The latter also contains an RSS feed for those of you that want to syndicate the show on your site.

Have a great weekend and looking forward to your comments.

Regards,
George

Good morning, everyone. Due to Peter’s travel schedule, we are taping today’s show at 12:00 Noon EST. As such, please post any questions you may have in the comments section below.

Thanks and have a great day.

Regards,
George

Peter Grandich on Today’s Market Call

Peter’s Top Picks on Market Call

The more I look at metal prices and Bisha, the more I love Nevsun Resources. Given what metal prices have done of late, I think $3 or under is relatively cheap for NSU shares. Great Basin Gold remains quite cheap given the big bump up in gold prices.

Friday’s employment number is almost certainly IMHO the key to what the U.S. stock market does for the balance of the year. Any real indication that unemployment is easing should give the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” crowd the ammunition to resume it’s march towards DJIA 10,500+. On the other hand (I never like to hedge but it’s the right choice at the moment), a surprise bump up in unemployment should remove whatever hot air remains under the market and lead to a sharper decline. Friday is key!

The floor I spoke of in gold at four digits is now in. Numerous so-called experts, money managers, investors, etc., were either outright bearish, turned bearish or became weak kneed and looked for a correction when gold was around $1,000. They never got a chance to get back in and now the market has gotten away from them. The natural tendency is to try and talk the gold price back so you can justify not chasing to get back in but that has not been a worthy approach for years in gold. The bears have a gigantic problem. Sorry but I won’t lose any sleep over the anti-gold getting their just dessert.

The U.S. Dollar continues to be long on anticipation of a bear market rally but way short on delivering on it. Again, it needs to get above 78 on the U.S. Dollar Index before we change even our short-term outlook.

I still hope to see oil at $85+ in hopes of getting short again. Natural gas is ho-hum.

I continue to like shorting U.S. Treasuries 10 and 30-yr maturities.

Off to Toronto for BNN tomorrow then Montreal Investment Conference.

Good news for NY Jets fans. They can’t lose this Sunday. Wish I could say the same for NY Giants.

Yankees clinch World Series tonight!

Pullbacks and profit-taking can be expected but too many people have missed this breakout and need to get back on board. I’ve said it over and over again, this is a stealth secular bull market. Surprises are to be to the upside.

Off to Toronto for BNN Thursday then onto Montreal for conference Friday and Saturday.

A story that I have written about before is Timmins Gold and its San Francisco mine in Mexico. Timmins Gold is ramping up in hopes of full production before the end of 2009.  The company has begun the leach process and now has gold in the leach fluids. The next step will be to extract the gold using the gold plant on site.  This is planned for the next few weeks. Next year Timmins Gold can be producing between 80,000 and 100,000 ounces of gold at a cash cost of approximately $400 per ounce. The company has been drilling around the current pit and should also have some exploration results before the end of this year.

Timmins’ expansion plan consists of expanding the current reserve and lifespan of the San Francisco Mine, advance its other exploration projects and to make strategic acquisitions all utilizing future cash flow and not by dilution. The recent deal with Sprott was a watershed event IMHO. I’m of course bias due to my working relationship but I feel with the fundamentals finally firing on all cylinders, gold’s big break-out, and the chart on TMM suggesting a close above $.88 could be a break out for the stock, most speculators need to consider the company ASAP.