RIO - Rio Tinto

[MiningGuru]

Currently above this point. It is making a late afternoon aurge. Now at $94.71

Look slikely to hold above that point and indicate a further push on towards the price target of $105.

 

[billhill]

More rumors about takeovers. This time speculation is that RIO, BHP or CVRD will outbid alcoa for canada's alcan.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/...=62eb2b41-8dd0-42fd-b56c-60125e260708&k=99592

 

[Kauri]

Looks like RIO might be in the very early stages of building a little ledge?????

 

[Kauri]

The short-term part of the trade has closed out a loss, the original and pyramid longer-term trade are still hanging in there. Looks like my original W4 labelling was a little premature... may cost me my longer-term trades... but it happens.. ..

 

[samfisher18]

Found this interesting article at bloomberg:

Diamonds by Linares, Gemesis May Cut De Beers, Rio Tinto Sales

By Danielle Rossingh

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- It may be time to lighten up on Rio Tinto Plc and Anglo American Plc, not to mention Petra Diamonds Ltd. and Firestone Diamonds Plc, if Bryant Linares has anything to say about it.

The 45-year-old Boston native can replicate in two weeks the 100 million years that nature needs to make diamonds from coal, and his success may soon cost the world's mining companies $2.5 billion annually.

Sales of laboratory-produced gems will rise 10-fold to 1 million carats at $2,500 each within three years, compared with $8,000 for a mined diamond, says David Hargreaves, a Cobham, U.K.-based analyst who has followed the industry for 25 years. The stones, created by Linares's Apollo Diamond Inc. of Boston and Gemesis Corp. of Sarasota, Florida, are so fine that De Beers says it has spent $17 million, or about two weeks of profit, to build machines needed to spot them.

``We'd all be foolish if we didn't admit we were a little nervous,'' says Keith Johnson, chief executive officer for diamonds at London-based Rio Tinto, which controls the world's largest diamond mine, called Argyle in Australia.

The man-made gems may hurt profits and margins at companies that dig up the stones, said Andrew Ferguson, who has about 5 percent of his holdings in diamond miners at New City Investment in London, which oversees about $637 million of natural-resource stocks.

Most to Lose

London-based Anglo American, the owner of 45 percent of De Beers, has the most to lose. Anglo says De Beers accounted for $463 million, or 5 percent, of operating profit last year. For Rio, also based in London, diamonds contributed $205 million, or 2.8 percent, of earnings in 2006. Jersey, U.K.-based Petra Diamonds, which mines in South Africa and is exploring in Angola, and Firestone Diamonds are betting their entire future on the gems.

Man-made diamonds are molecularly the same as those panned from Angolan rivers and mined in the Canadian Arctic. Output is set to increase from the current 100,000 carats a year, says Gemesis, which started production in 2002.

That compares with annual production of rough, mined diamonds totaling 155 million carats, three-quarters of which are cut into stones smaller than a half-carat, said Hargreaves, a former head of mining research at London-based James Capel & Co., a unit of HSBC Holdings Plc. One carat equals 200 milligrams; when round, it's 6.5 millimeters across, or almost the width of a pencil-top eraser.

The Gemological Institute of America, an independent assessor of diamonds for Tiffany & Co. and Cartier that's based in Carlsbad, California, started grading the synthetic stones this year to ensure consumers can know the difference.

A Yellow Stone

Fiona McEwen, an advertising executive at McEwen Advertising in Johannesburg, knows the difference and doesn't care. Her natural white diamond was stolen from her finger in an armed robbery earlier this month. She wears a man-made yellow diamond of more than a carat now.

``It's a beautiful alternative and an affordable alternative,'' McEwen said. ``I just couldn't afford an earth- grown yellow diamond. It would be completely out of my reach.''

Synthetic gems can be produced in labs in as little as four days, are on average 40 percent less expensive and have the same chemical, physical and optical properties as any natural rough stone, according to Gemesis and Apollo. Rough diamonds are mined from volcanic-rock structures called kimberlites.

``The industry should be very concerned about this,'' Hargreaves says. ``Synthetic diamonds may not come out of the ground or the sea, but they are the real thing and will pass any test.''

Not so, says De Beers, the world's largest diamond company and which sells machines for as little as $10,400 that can spot the man-made stones.

Diamonds and Wars

``All synthetics can be quickly and easily detected,'' Lynette Gould, a London-based spokeswoman for De Beers, said in an e-mailed response to questions. ``Synthetics are a totally different product.''

The growth of synthetic gems has raised concern among diamond-mining companies at a time when public scrutiny of gems from war-ravaged countries is increasing. ``Blood Diamond,'' a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and set in Sierra Leone during the 1990s, heightened awareness of so-called conflict diamonds, gems sold by rebels who control the mines to pay for arms.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is among those accused by the United Nations of financing wars with diamond sales.

Under a 2002 international agreement known as the Kimberly Process, diamonds must be shipped in tamperproof containers with certificates verifying their origin as legitimate sources.

Garage Technology

``The intrinsic appeal of a diamond is its emotional appeal,'' Charles Wyndham, a former De Beers director and chairman of PolishedPrices.com, an Antwerp-based diamond-price researcher, said in an interview in London on May 17. ``Anything that attacks this emotional appeal is dangerous. The industry has got to become much more transparent.''

Apollo was founded in 1990 by Bryant Linares's father, Robert, who holds a doctorate in materials science from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and received a master's degree in business at Fairleigh Dickinson in New Jersey, according to Apollo. The elder Linares, who started his career at Bell Laboratories and worked on the diamond technology in his garage in Boston, is now chairman.

The company has already made more than 1,000 gemstones and is targeting production of ``several hundreds of thousands of carats'' by 2012, Bryant Linares said in an interview. It's also considering an initial public offering to raise cash, he said.

Russian Science

``Man-made diamonds will be the fastest-growing segment of the entire jewelry market,'' said Linares, who predicts so-called cultured gems will be 20 percent of the $74 billion-a-year market for diamond jewelry within a decade. ``This is a product extension. It's like Californian wine production, which helped grow U.S. wine consumption.''

Gemesis, the first company to produce cultured diamonds, was founded in 1996 after U.S. Brigadier General Carter Clarke paid $170,000 for three machines created by a Russian scientist. Clarke moved the table-sized units to the U.S., where he started the company with help from the University of Florida in Gainesville.

The machines grow gems from a diamond seed, which is put under the pressure of 58,000 atmospheres and heat of 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit, close to the melting point of steel.

``The aim is to take 10 percent of the rough market, in value terms, in five years,'' says Stephen Lux, chief executive officer and president of Gemesis, who used to work at Engelhard Corp. ``The sky is the limit.''

`Room for Everyone'

John Teeling, founder and chairman of African Diamonds Plc, a Dublin-based mining company in which De Beers has a stake, doesn't see synthetics as a threat.

``If you meet a woman that you are going to spend the rest of your life with and have babies with, are you going to give her a diamond made in a lab in Pittsburgh or are you going to give her the real thing?'' Teeling said. ``I'd be killed if I did that.''

Synthetics first emerged in 1955, when a team of scientists at General Electric Co. transformed graphite into diamonds, according to GE's Web site. The gems are mainly used in industrial applications, such as cutting tools. About 1 billion carats of synthetic diamonds are produced a year, according to Apollo.

Man-made gems may end up compensating for an expected shortage of mined stones, said James Picton, a diamond analyst with W.H. Ireland Ltd., who has followed the market for three decades. Diamond miners produced $13.2 billion of rough stones last year, while demand was $15 billion, he said.

``At the edge of the market, there is room for these synthetic diamond businesses to thrive,'' said Graham Birch, who helps manage about $8.5 billion of precious-metals equities at BlackRock Investment Management Ltd. in London. ``Look at the balance of supply and demand in the rough market. There just haven't been enough diamond mines discovered.''
From "http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ax6nfaTs6FKg&refer=home"

Just thought it would be helpful information for all rio tinto followers, although it shouldnt be an immediate worry/

 

[Kauri]

Is the RIO take-over/merger speculation going to get another boost... seems like it is the current rumour ... has lifted RIO in the U.K. overnight...

Bullish comments about 2007 earnings by Antofagasta and recurring talk of a tie-up between Rio and Xstrata is lifting the mining sector sharply this afternoon, said Andrew French, a sales trader at E*Trade Securities in London.

Rio Tinto, the world's third-largest mining company ranked by sales, climbed 3 percent.........

 

[Kauri]

Is the RIO take-over/merger speculation going to get another boost... seems like it is the current rumour ... has lifted RIO in the U.K. overnight...

Whether they have any factual foundation or not the rumours have given RIO a little boost locally today.... nudging up agin a tentative oversized triangle currently..

 

[Kauri]

Taken the opportunity to move the long-term stop up to the top of what I see as the possible minor W1...

 

[Sean K]

Taken the opportunity to move the long-term stop up to the top of what I see as the possible minor W1...

Kauri, you must be making a killing at the moment! Great work.

What the brokers say, out of interest, with target price:

Credit Suisse......15-Jun-07......Outperform ........... $97.72
Merrill Lynch.......13-Jun-07.... .Buy, Medium Risk .. $100.00
Citi .................06-Jun-07.... .Buy, Medium Risk .. $103.00
ABN Amro ........30-May-07.... .Buy .................... $103.30
Macquarie .......22-May-07......Outperform .......... $93.46
UBS ................22-May-07..... Buy 2................. $108.00
JP Morgan ........10-May-07 .....Overweight.......... $110.00
Deutsche Bank ..20-Apr-07 ......Buy ..................$102.00

 

[Sean K]

I think the rumour mill will keep this cooking for a while, pending any major market hiccups.

1211 [Dow Jones] Mega-merger in resource sector perhaps not far off, says Southern Cross Equities director Charlie Aitken. "With A$10 billion plus of free cash flow and no gearing, you can see why the world is starting to see Rio Tinto (RIO.AU) as an obvious takeover target." Adds, BHP (BHP.AU) remains "a grossly cheap stock on all investment criteria." Favors aggressive buying of BHP, RIO, Fortescue (FMG.AU), Oxiana (OXR.AU), Alumina (AWC.AU) and Kagara (KZL.AU). (DWR)

 

[>Apocalypto<]

I see a small pull back then straight to 100 and more. Unless speculators pull away from the current driver.

 

[Kauri]

I think the rumour mill will keep this cooking for a while, pending any major market hiccups.

1211 [Dow Jones] Mega-merger in resource sector perhaps not far off, says Southern Cross Equities director Charlie Aitken. "With A$10 billion plus of free cash flow and no gearing, you can see why the world is starting to see Rio Tinto (RIO.AU) as an obvious takeover target." Adds, BHP (BHP.AU) remains "a grossly cheap stock on all investment criteria." Favors aggressive buying of BHP, RIO, Fortescue (FMG.AU), Oxiana (OXR.AU), Alumina (AWC.AU) and Kagara (KZL.AU). (DWR)

Hi Kennas,
Agree there will be some consolidation before long, my favourite play is for RIO to be taken out, hopefully by BHP :aus: . Even though there are a lot of rumours floated I think if BHP were to make a move they would wait for the new boss to get in the chair first, and also with so much apparent interest who would want to place the first bid, undoubtably one of the other players at least would come in and knock it over .. much like WMC... now where is that egg on face smilie when you want it....
Cheers
Kauri

 

[MiningGuru]

Opened at above $99 today.

Will be today be the day RIO cracks the $100 barrier?

IMO there is a great chance it will breach $100 sometime today, even if it does not close above this level.

Once it closes above this phsychological level it will probably quickly spurt onwards higher, as nothing will be holding it back.

 

[Kauri]

Bingo...we have a winner...Rio has hit the $100.00 mark... a bit of psychological-selling maybe-or will it power on???

 

[vishalt]

We're part of history folks, a very special moment in the stock market today.

Congratulations to anyone who had RIO, and to its Clifford for leading the company for a solid performance.

 

[MiningGuru]

Just broke past the resistance at $100

Watch it run now!
Now that pysc barrier has been crossed.

I think it will close at above $100 now and quickly move up further over the next few days

 

[Awesomandy]

I think it will close at above $100 now and quickly move up further over the next few days

Ah... closed at a frustrating $99.99 - much like you are on 99 and the umpire calls stumps.

Doesn't matter, it's definitely been a nice ride from around $70.

 

[vishalt]

old news now, looking forward to $110 soon lol

the ASX is too lazy to issue a speeding ticket or launch and inquiry really, HURRY UP AND BID FOR IT BHP

 

[Kauri]

Am now using a Moving average as a stop... for no other reason than I am moving house(I hope ) and will not be able to follow it as closely as I should.
Cheers
Kauri

 

[Kauri]

RIO looks like it may be starting to fly a flag.. even possibly the first stages of a triangle...
...Cheers
........Kauri