Pan African Resources, Investing Strategies and Risk & Reward
 This week at Stockopedia, we spoke to Jan Nelson, the CEO of South African gold mining group Pan African Resources, about his plans to begin producing platinum later this year. With the price of gold now north of $1,500 per ounce, Nelson has quite rightly steered clear of buying up expensive new projects, preferring instead to focus his attention on squeezing out value from existing assets. That strategy should add another 20,000 ounces of gold to the company’s current 100,000 ounce annual flow. With the addition of a low cost, high margin platinum project set to get under way, Pan African expects a surge in profits in the near term. Nelson thinks the project pipeline, financial performance and expected dividend deserve a re-rating in the company’s AIM quoted shares. He achieved it in 2010 but the question remains over whether he can do it again this year.
 In investing, we assessed a series of investing strategies including the contrarian approach of John Templeton, the bargain hunter who searched the globe for companies with low valuations and a strong long-term outlook. We also looked at the track record of momentum investing, involving a strategy of buying prior winning stocks and selling short prior losers which will make contrarian investors wince! Finally, we analysed the theory behind Turtle Trading, which is a mechanical trend-following trading system based on price momentum signals, specifically the 20 and 55 day highs. Among our macro contributors, Andrew Butter looked at how the Greek debt crisis could leanr lessons from Germany’s Weimar Republic in 1923.
 In companies and sectors, following the recent Oil Council World Oilfield Services and Engineering Assembly, we published a summary of a sell-side analyst panel discussion covering key themes in engineering and oilfield services. Valuehunteruk assessed the prospects for the country’s leased pub industry while Daniel Lacalle cast his eye over solar energy – a sector that has proved to be a serial disappointment to investors and one which still languishes against renewables and remains hamstrung by external factors. Finally, Mark Carter looked at how retail investors were dumping commodities stocks in favour of Cable & Wireless,…
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