Sprott Junior Copper Miners ETF·Financial Services

The Sprott Junior Copper Miners ETF is rated "Hold" due to compelling valuation but deteriorating technicals and high volatility. COPJ trades at a low 7.6x P/E and boasts a 19% long-term EPS growth rate, resulting in a PEG below 0.3x. Despite a high 11.52% yield and strong 1-year returns, COPJ faces bearish momentum, broken uptrend, and weak seasonality through September.

Key Takeaways While energy investments of all kinds have struggled amid conflict in the Middle East, uranium might offer a compelling long-term opportunity. Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia noted that uranium's fundamentals remain sound, and that it remains far harder to substitute or replace than other metals investors tend to allocate towards.

Sprott Junior Copper Miners ETF focuses on 50 global copper miners, most of which are small and micro-caps primarily involved in the exploration and development part of copper mining. Despite wide bid-ask spreads and high annual turnover, COPJ boffers, exposure to high growth and cheap stocks, and levered exposure to a tightening copper supply/demand dynamic. Growing lead times in mine production is disincentivizing established miners from greenfield investment and driving higher appetite for M&A, which could prompt these junior miners to get acquired at premiummultiples.

Silver is entering its sixth consecutive year of a structural supply deficit, as global production fails to keep pace with the massive demand required for the clean energy transition and AI infrastructure.

Earlier this year, when gold and silver started seeing shakier price performances, some turned to copper as a metal with strong fundamentals backing its rising prices. Now, ongoing geopolitical tensions are causing the red metal to feel a bit of the pain, too.

A portfolio with an underinvestment in copper may not translate to a clean bill of health from “Dr. Copper.” The structural shifts transforming the global copper market is creating explosive growth opportunities in the metal.
The fund will, under normal circumstances, invest at least 80% of its total assets in securities of the index. The index is designed to track the performance of companies that derive at least 50% of their revenue and/or assets from mining, exploration, development, and production of copper. The index generally consists of from 25 to 45 constituents. The fund is non-diversified.
Financial Services
Asset Management
2023-02-02
1.53