"Beer from Here | "brewed by fussy Bastards". Gage Road Breweries

Back to where we started 12 months ago for the ASX.

 

Resources doing it very tough, and you would have to think commodity prices now at unsustainable low levels, as oil wells and mines close down, there is going to be more pain, and maybe some midterm reluctance to start up again.

And many of these small operations that have debt, now have little prospect of paying it back at current commodity prices.
But for the companies that remain, survive, the outlook is good, regardless of current sentiment.

India and China still have massive infrastructure project’s on the drawing board, talk of the New Silk Road, would indicate there is still going to be a huge future for Iron ore and materials to get the job done.

So I still think the resources boom has a long way to run, but hard to pick winners, and a bottom, plenty of falling knives, in iron ore, gold, oil, nickel, as recent purchase of IGO demonstrates.

 

Gold still doing it hard, but have some Newcrest NCM , and small holdings in Ramelious RMS and Resolute RSG, just as a bit of insurance in case our financial system goes into depression, I still think it’s worth holding, but it’s still looking for  a bottom, frustrating but still think there's a fair chance the barbaric metal will have another run.

So where to from here?

With no growth in ASX for 12 months it’s very much a stock pickers market.

I like looking for disrupters, having spent a bit of time working for GPS-Ag and being exposed to companies like Novariant  http://www.novariant.com/ you see enormous profits  and enormous losses!, plenty of takeovers, but huge profit potential for the innovations that succeed.

And my current health issues with stage IV Malenoma,  have exposed me to the huge potential for profits where drug companies get it right,

embrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo), Ipilimumab (Yervoy) look like they have huge potential, ( I just hope they work!)
The companies that discover and develop these drugs, not only help humanity, but stand with their shareholders, to make a lot of money, and so they should.
The costs are enormous so they need to make a lot of money on the successes as there are plenty of failures.

So let’s go looking, although I am now dependant on some of these drug companies being successful, we don’t have many of them in the Australian market.

And having read about them extensively, I still don’t understand the chemistry and mechanisms at all, I think it would take anyone 10 years to get a handle on it, I’m just grateful we have people that are a lot smarter than me working on them.

So instead I thought I would look at some small caps, that I might be able to understand  that might grow into a bigger fish.

NEA, IPP, MNY, GRB.

So very hard to pick winners, but if you want big growth rates, its where you need to go, but I will limit the total purchases to less than 5% of my capital invested.

Nearmap, NEA.

 

I have been following GIS "geographic information systems" as part of my role as a Salesperson in GPS.

Most cropping farmers now use GPS to steer there tractors automatically, usually to an accuracy of 2 cm, but haven't used the mapping side of the technology to much of its potential at all, Mainly because they have been smart enough to realise that its of little use to micro manage their farm to this extent, if the biggest limiting factor is still rainfall, that they have no control over.

But the technology has enormous potential, and Mearmap NEA, who can now photograph from the air, can look at a development site, or existing infrastructure, and GIS reference it to 2 cm.
Think about it, you don't have to send a surveyor out to measure things, and proposals can be costed and quantified for fraction of the cost.

The interesting new development is that they have recently partnered with ESRI, who are the global leaders in GIS Mapping.

This will give NEA Global reach, so could be quite interesting for this small Australian Company.

 IPP" Purchased some IPP for its exposure to Asia property, could do very well, but fairly risky,if it becomes the Realestate.com of Asia it will do very well.

 

Bought some Money 3, "MNY", payday lender, as they seem to have some growth potential, like Cash Converters, but probably have suffered from the talk of regulatory changes that could upset their revenue stream, and talk of banks pulling their funding.

But there's a big demand for this type of product, as the banks wont do it!

As I am not having much fun with my health, maybe its time to have some fun!

Maybe its time to have some fun and research something important! What could be more important that researching beer, finding a good beer and drinking it.

If I could combine my passion for Beer with my passion for Shares, what could be better than that?

Looking for brewery shares, I came across what looked like a bargain, Gage Road Brewery GRB

Looks like an absolute bargain at .045 cents, what’s going on? How could a brewery be so cheap? 

http://gageroads.com.au/

Not much on the website, and not much info.

Who are they and what do they do?

Their motto is, “beer from here”, brewed by fussy bastards! , I’m starting to warm to these fellows, are they as good as they reckon they are?

Only thing to do, go and do some research!

So went down to Dan murphy’s to look for them, found them, but there weren’t many cartons there, which was a bit of a concern, are they rare, or that good they have sold out?

The little group of 3 cartons stacked next to a truckload of other beers looked very lonely, everything else was there by the pallet load.

How much should I buy, if its good I should buy a slab, if its crook a 6 pack will be plenty.

With Christmas some time away, so a long time before I can unload it onto my brother in law if it didn’t taste well, I thought it best to just buy a six pack.

So purchased a six pack of “Sleeping Giant Indian Pale Ale”, and a six pack of “Atomic”, at least they had interesting names, even if the label looked like it was a temporary one they had used because they had run out of the real ones??

So loaded them up and took them home, as they were not cold I would have to wait for the refrigerator to do its job.
After a couple of hours I couldn't wait any longer, I let the air into one, and tossed it onto my tonsils.
Fantastic, the “Beer from here” brewed by “fussy bastards”, was as good as it had promised. Very impressed.
So nothing else to do but buy some shares, Purchased first Tranche at .045, and yesterday bought some more at .057.
Now at least I have some shares in a company that is I could be proud of, and talk about in polite company.
The serious research is that they are backed by Woolworth’s /Dan murphy’s to the tune of around 10 million dollars with 9.9 million fully drawn, so they will have to pull a rabbit out of the hat, and make every post a winner to survive.
Hopefully the Wollies backing gives us some comfort, but if no one drinks their beer, there probably stuffed.

But there seems to be a good market for craft beer that seems to be growing, and as it’s a pretty good brew, I think they should do well, hopefully emulate “little creatures” success a few years ago.

 

CHEERS, of to have another “Sleeping Giant Indian Pale Ale”,  (for Medicinal purposes of course)