Here’s an unusual change in focus that reflects the urgency of the world’s food needs: what was primarily a metals and minerals company has at least temporarily expanded into agriculture.

Hinterland Metals (HMI: TSX.V)) announced this week that it has applied for an exploration license for potash in the area of Malagawatch near Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Apparently, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (POT) is already mining potash not too far away near Sussex, New Brunswick. Since the Malagawatch deposits were first identified in 1978, it’s amazing that they haven’t been mined before now.

Given the Chinese demand for potash right now, Hinterland is definitely one mining stock to watch. It was trading around 0.19 (CAD) on Friday, down quite a bit from its 52-week high of 0.30. This means it’s on sale, and I am sure the price won’t stay here long if they start pulling out any sizeable amounts of that power ingredient in fertilizer. They do not pay a dividend. Normally I am not that interested in stocks without dividends, not because I am afraid of taking on more risk or excitement, but because I invest for cashflow. The current agriculture boom, however, is an exceptional historical situation and has me looking at certain growth stocks well positioned to provide the solutions that will be needed in the industry. Hinterland could be one of them.

If you’re bullish on fuel-cells, you might want to invest in the Platinum Group Metals (platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium)

Hinterland has met with quite a bit of success in the last six months, finding and mining platinum and palladium deposits in Quebec over a three-month period, as well as finding copper and nickel on the same property. This past April they also found more gold and silver in one of their Ontario properties. I’m no mining expert, but it looks like they’re on a tear. And of course, if fuel-cell cars and other fuel-cell-powered devices such as generators take off, platinum and related metals will be even more in demand since they are used in fuel-cell manufacturing.

They have an email update list that you can subscribe to from their website, which, aside from the news releases, has a few places where it’s not frequently updated.

Hinterland Metals’ transfer agent is Computershare Canada.

If you are interested in this topic and would like to read more about it, subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the little orange square you see below my site’s logo or on the floating sidetab).  And if you’re already invested in similar stocks I’d love (and so would other readers) to hear your opinions here in the comments section below.  What’s happening with resource stocks lately?  They’ve gone down a bit temporarily.  Let me know what you think.  And thanks for reading!

A few people I have talked to have been wondering about how they can invest in gold. Well, as Jim Rogers once said - once your local newspaper starts talking about how the dog next door just got started in commodites, then it’s probably time to get out. I’ve read more than a few stories from people just waiting for the commodity bubble to “burst.” I’m not really in that camp. Based on my understanding, there isn’t much of a commodity bubble, and there can’t be, almost by definition. Commodities are real, tangible assets. You can’t actually fake the amount of rice or gold in production around the world. Your creative accounting team might be able to sketch up the numbers here and there, but when supply meets (or doesn’t meet) demand, it’s pretty straightforward. This is why I think it’s always a good time to be in commodities. I’m not a market-timer, I just invest for the long run and for current cashflow. I don’t really mind if gold goes up and down over the month, and I don’t pay much attention to it.

A Bank of Virtual Gold

My recommendation for would-be gold and silver investors is pretty simple. Use Goldmoney. Since 2001, they’ve been the leader in the new “digital gold” industry. The best way to describe their service is to think of them as an online bank that deals only in metals. They keep the real, physical metals in their secured vaults (unlike regular banks, which rarely are required to even keep 10% of their supposed holdings on hand), and you log into your online account where you see the electronic totals of the gold and silver you own. And you actually do own specific physical pieces of that gold and silver. It’s not an abstract “pooled” account where everybody’s gold could be anybody else’s. If there were a run on GoldMoney, they’d be able to give everyone their exact bars of gold right away. Your bank can’t even do that.

Located in Jersey, in the Channel Islands (UK), Goldmoney allows you to purchase gold, silver, platinum and palladium in several major currencies. It’s free to open an account. You can purchase in Canadian dollars, then later sell back into US dollars. Or Euros. Or pounds. Or Swiss francs. On top of this, you can even pay for certain goods and services with your gold. They have a list of their affiliates on the site.

Goldmoney is not only extremely secure (quarterly audits and insurance), but they also own several patents for their innovations. Bubble or not, Goldmoney continues to grow at an impressive rate and is going to be here for quite a while. What I most like about the site itself is to read the bi-weekly updates of James Turk, the founder. It’s basically a little blog on the price of gold around the world. Turk is a famous gold-bug. But don’t let such names get in the way of perceiving the great value that a service like this has to offer. I’ll probably say more about Turk and Goldmoney in a future post, but for now, you should really check out the rest of the details yourself. And of course, you’re always welcome to contact me about it too if you’d like more of a personal testimonial.

What do you think? Have you used GoldMoney or a similar service? I’d love to hear about it.