If I were looking for the worst possible gold stock to buy, worse even than Silverado Gold Mines (OTCBB: SLGLF), Portage Resources Inc (Pink Sheets: POTG) would definitely be on my short list. There is no explanation for the stock trading over 34 million shares yesterday and shooting up from $.11 to $.29 nor for its continued trading today, already over 9 million shares.
I don’t want to waste a lot of my time or yours on this but, given the activity, I thought it appropriate to give it a mention here. So, allow me to give you some basics.
From the Portage Resources 10Q the issued and outstanding shares are 637,200,000 as of April 11, 2011.
- Market cap at $.29 is $184.788,000
- Cash in bank as of Feb 28, 2011 – $533
- Total Assets as of Feb 28, 2011 – $533
- Total mining claims – NONE
- Total properties owned – NONE
This is nothing more than a dormant public shell that has recently changed hands through the transfer of 480 million shares to Paul Luna Belifiore. He paid $20,000 for the stock. Here is his official resume.
Paul Luna Belfiore. Mr. Belfiore is a metallurgical engineer with over 20 years of experience in the mining industry. He has been the director of Alto Petroleo (“Alto”) in Canada since October 2007. As Director, Mr. Belfiore has been in charge of the major agreements and projects for Alto. During the first half of his career, Mr. Belfiore worked in several roles including production contracting and negotiating in various countries in South America with a focus on precious metals. Mr. Belfiore has been a General Manager of Cotomaran Energy, a Peruvian company which is conducting a 500 MW hydroelectric feasibility project on rivers in Peru, since August 2004. From June 2005 to December 2007, Mr. Belfiore was the general manager of Ironman Mining in Peru, where he was in charge of contract negotiations and major drilling programs. From March 2003 until April 2008, Mr. Belfiore was General Manager of Goldmarca in Peru, participating in the Condor project drilling program where Goldmarca drilled one of the best intercepts in gold history with 50 Mts. of 18yrs. In 1996, Mr. Belfiore was promoted to Executive Director of El Misti Gold working in the acquisitions area, where he was responsible of the Sinchao project (USD$12 Billion in metal content) amalgamation and Santa Rosa project. Mr. Belfiore then worked for Brazilian Goldfields as Vice-president of Corporate development and was responsible for identifying, evaluating, and negotiating primarily in the Belem gold belt, Brazil. As an executive officer and director, Mr. Belfiore brings a wealth of management and leadership experience to Portage Resources Inc. and will lead the Company to acquire exploratory geological operations and mineral assessment. Mr. Belfiore is fluent in English and Spanish.
To date his only action has been to indicate he thinks Peru would be a good place to look for gold. That’s it folks.
As a shell, this company is worth around $500k. That would make the stock worth around $.0008 I have no idea what’s up and frankly, I don’t care. This is a play for day traders only. If your not a day trader and preferably a short seller, you want to simply stay away from this. There is nothing here folks…. time to move on.
UPDATE: One of the original properties being used in this pump and dump scheme was known as “Linderos #4.” The company recently revealed in a press release that it had acquired this property from Nilam Resources, Inc. (OTC: NILA). Now it has announced the acquisition of a second Linderos property from Nilam Resources. What they failed to tell you was that in 2010, Nilam resources wrote off their Linderos properties as “impaired”, an accounting term for worthless. Here is how they reported it in their 10Q filed on 3/18/2011.
“On February 10, 2009, the Company issued 20,000,000 shares of common stock on the acquisition of Linderos property. The property was considered to be impaired and accordingly, was written off during fiscal 2010.”
Equally interesting is how Nilam describes itself in its 10Q after it acquired the Linderos property but before it wrote it down to nothing as impaired. “These consolidated financial statements inclusive of the accounts of the Nilam Resources Inc. and its Peruvian subsidiary Nilam Resources Peru SAC. Nilam Resources Inc. (an exploration stage company) (the “Company”) was incorporated under the laws of the State of Nevada on July 11, 2005. The Company is a natural resource exploration company with the objective of acquiring, exploring and if warranted and feasible, developing natural resource properties. On November 23, 2007, the Company incorporated Nilam Resources Peru SAC, in Peru, as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The purpose of the new subsidiary is to hold the Company’s Peruvian properties and to carry on such business in Peru as is necessary to maintain, explore and develop the Company’s properties. Nilam Resources Peru SAC. holds the Company’s rights in respect of the Llippa and Linderos properties. The continuation of the Company is in the exploration stage of its mineral property development and to date has not yet established any proven mineral reserves on its existing properties. The continued operations of the Company and the recoverability of the carrying value of its assets is ultimately dependent upon the ability of the Company to achieve profitable operations.”
The similarity is uncanny really…. and they both came from Quebec… quelle surprise. Day traders continue to enjoy this stock riding it up and now down while those who thought it was something real find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Should they hold and hope or worse yet, buy more, or should they grab their disappearing profits or growing losses and walk away. Never a fun place to be.
Disclosure: I have no equity interest in Portage Gold either long or short nor have I been compensated in any way to write this article. As always, consult an investment professional prior to investing in any stock.
Looks like these days anyone can find a dormant public shell buy some stock and pay a newsletter to pump the share price up.In this case that’s what took place,with 637,200,000 as of April 11, 2011 outstanding, and 480 million shares bought at a price of $20,000 to Paul Luna Belifiore. Right now your asking your self how the hell is the stock trading so high with so much volume, and who the hell is behind it.Well here is the break down going make this simple for everyone.A third party that works for Mr.Paul Belifiore payed a newsletter called PennyRunners http://www.pennyrunners.com/ $1,250,000 for this pump. I’m pretty sure there is also other newsletters on this also still digging to find them.People don’t get caught in this pump it can only go so far, this will not be the next LEXG way to many shares outstanding.