In a press release sent out on November 2nd, Paladin announced the appointment of Garry Korte as CFO. He will begin his new role on November 16th. From the press release:

Garry brings a broad range of finance skills to the Company and we believe his corporate finance, commercial and international experience will add value as Paladin continues to grow.

Earnings Downgrade

Despite the timing, the downgrade of Paladin was unrelated to the hiring of Garry Korte . RBS analyst Lyndon Fagan lowered his earnings forecast by 46%, all the way down to $14.4 million in American currency. The reasoning behind this was his expectation of Paladin not being able to meet production forecasts. He bases his assumption on historical misses and lowered investor confidence. From Fagan:

‘Missing targets over the last two years has resulted in negative sentiment, and a general lack of investor confidence in delivery of future production. In our view, this is the reason the stock is now trading below our fair value.’’

Paladin raised the money via a institutional private placement of 93.45 million shares, priced at $4.60 AU. This represented a 6.1% discount vs closing share prices earlier on September 9th.

The company looks to use the new funds to advance exploration and possibly to fund acquisitions.

The North American markets haven’t reacted to this move with much fervour. Outside of September 8th pink sheet Paladin share volume has remained at average levels.

Quote from chief executive John Borshoff

“Paladin believes that with its balance sheet strength and development expertise, the company is well placed to partner both junior uranium companies and downstream companies seeking to commercialize uranium opportunities.”

It’s been close to two months since we lasted looked in on Paladin Energy. Let’s see how shares have done during that stretch.

Last time around (April 24th) Paladin shares closed at $3.17. Since that time shares have trended upwards on a steady pace. After a stellar earnings report;

Paladin said the result reflected improved operating performance at its flagship Langer Heinrich uranium project in Namibia, where production was up 40 per cent for the quarter to 685.874 pounds of uranium.

And a subsequent volume increase, shares rose. On May 28th shares broke through the $4 resistance level and maintained that level on and off up until June 11th. Over the past couple of days (writing as of June 18th) shares have taken a pretty substantial hit, falling from $4.27 on June 12th to a current level of $3.65, a level that hasn’t been seen in close to one month.

Let’s see what happens with shares over the next five or six trading sessions. Can Paladin continue to ride positive momentum or are investors cashing out on some of the recent 2009 share profits?

Exactly three weeks ago we shared our thoughts on

a street wise gold report update from Seeking Alpha. The report foucessed on a recommendation of Paladin Energy (PALAF.PK). On April 3rd shares closed at $2.68. Today shares finished up trading at $3.14, which is a 17% increase in share value over the past three weeks.

What has brought on this increase? Its tough to pinpoint any one thing but I do see a sharp increase in volume. Average trading volume over this stretch has been right near 200,000 shares per day. The average volume from the week before this stretch (March 28th – April 3rd) was only 58,500. I would image some larger institutional investors have begun to reestablish positions in Paladin. We’ll keep our eyes on PALAF.PK share price and daily volume over the coming weeks.

Recently the Gold Report over at Seeking Alpha took a look at the Uranium industry. What did they say and were they on the money?

Let’s dive right in and take a look at our first quote from the article;

TGR: What are some stocks that you like in the uranium space?
GT: I like Paladin Energy Ltd. (PALAF.PK), it’s a growth company. They’re going to be building production up quite rapidly over the next several years. They really just started, and this year they should do about 2.9 million pounds of uranium production. It should be 6.8 million pounds by 2011 and about 14 million pounds by 2014. It’s one of those Australian deposits that I believe will be coming on stream.

It’s hard to argue with this comment but one does have to be cautious when it comes to Paladin. Paladin has been the “hot pick” for a few years now and has dropped at a higher percentage rate than most of its competitors in the Uranium space. Shares are currently less than a third of the yearly high and volume of late has been extremely low (about 58,500 average this past week). Here’s the next set of quotes;

TGR: Because the government will say it’s all right to add another mine.
GT: Yes, I’m sure they will.
TGR: So you’re counting on that.
GT: There’s nothing like a worldwide downturn to open up governments’ minds. I like the growth of that company.

Growth at Paladin has always been the story. The question is can they deliver growth at a profitable rate that can cantipule the stock back into past ranges. Over the past month Paladin has been a hot item, hitting a low of $1.71 on March 5th and closing at $2.68 on April 3rd. In the short-term can Paladin have another 50%+ month or will it begin to level out. This should be an interesting stock for traders and technical analysis followers over the course of the next month.

Let’s take a quick peak at this week in uranium news and stock price movement.

On the price movement front uranium stocks followed the rest of the market. Of course for once this could be seen as a good thing (for longs at least), as many uranium stocks tacked on 5%+ this past week.

Big news came from Cameco CEO Jerry Grandey this past week. Grandey said that the company is interested in acquiring companies in this battled sector and is willing to spend up to $2 billion in the upcoming months.

Uranium’s spot price is currently trading at $43.75.

A favorite of many stock market analysts, Paladin Energy (PALAF.PK) hit a one month high on friday at a price of $2.15. Canaccord Adams has a $4 price target on shares.

The current supply of uranium from mines is 115 million pounds per year against a demand of around 180 million pounds per year. (hat tip Seeking Alpha)