" Antimony, Alimony, or Abalone? I'm confused."

" Antimony, Alimony, or Abalone? I'm confused."

Disclosure: DamonSkye Research holds no positions in UAMY at time of publication.

Antimony (def): a trivalent and pentavalent metalloid element with atomic number 51 that commonly occurs in a brittle, metallic, silvery white crystalline form and that is used especially in alloys, semiconductors, and flame-retardant substances.

I went to Webster's for a quick update for everyone who slept through 8th grade science class like I did.

I started out with a great idea and in the middle almost abandoned this whole report. Almost. Luckily for me and you my research assistant Q ( his name is Quinn but I call him Q for Allan Quatermain), saw things even I missed and said "hey boss, what about this angle". I wrote my original thesis and handed it to Q and said "blow all the holes in this". I wanted Swiss cheese because this can't be right. Oh boy did he. Then he did something amazing in blowing my own thesis to bits, he proved it may be stronger than I thought. Hooray for assistants.

I started down this road with a pretty typical approach. The world is at war and it doesn't seem to be letting up. Actually it's getting more kinetic. If this is the case, then logically war metals should go through the roof. That's where Q and I found another fatal flaw in my thesis, Ukraine has taught us that this is tomorrow's war not yesterday's. At that point the question changes to what are the different materials needed to fight today's war vs the 1970's or even the 1990s and 2000's? How will wars be fought? What does the battlefield look like in 5 years? The answer to that is not only drones, but specifically drone swarms. This is the technology every advanced nation is pursuing. The U.S., China, even the always neutral Swiss are hard charging into autonomous drones that are capable of thinking and acting all by themselves. They have the ability to overtake an enemy with speed, maneuverability, and sheer raw numbers. They're also cheap in comparison to the damage they can do, which means they'll probably make more of them than we need, want, or can afford. Oh, did I mention they are unmanned which means no flag draped coffins. It makes more sense than I am comfortable admitting. That being said, what do drones and drone swarms need in truckloads? Antimony, gallium, and iridium. So my thesis must be correct, right?

Q said, "not so fast amigo. What about replacement materials? Grandpa Delbert would tell us there's always 10 ways to Memphis." So off we went into replacement materials. Positive that my thesis is definitely done right here with antimony being over $50,000 a ton. Right? Actually it turns out that may not be true. We may still have another 10 or 20 thousand dollars to go before they start using less efficient replacements. That's room to grow still, but not what we were really looking for. How about the other 2, gallium and iridium?

Unfortunately those wells were drier than the Mojave desert. I couldn't find a single pure play on gallium even with China restricting exports at least till the end of 2026. Iridium was worse. At less than 7 tons in the entire sphere I don't know how you would even make a market on that let alone trade it. Back to antimony. What would you know, I found a little blurb that Q had flagged but we both glossed over. Drones need indium antimonide. I'll save you the science and just say that it's indispensable in infrared detection and super high speed electronics. Both things are critical to drones and specifically drone swarms. So if the thesis is holding again where do we look? What arena do we understand the business model? Where are the opportunities.

I found quite a few pure antimony plays. Some looked good some not so much. One kept standing out as the only true pure antimony play. UAMY. Everything brought me back to this is the bottleneck. The processing is the problem. UAMY has the only 2 smelters licensed to use the hydromet process to turn low grade antimony into military grade in the western hemisphere. One in Montana and one in Mexico. This turned out to be the lynchpin Q spotted that I almost missed. Now we had something that looked good but not great. So, off I went into my due diligence as we all should, and it looked like I missed my window. The stock price had already doubled, tripled, and then some and I was late. Not so fast. Is the market fully pricing in drone swarms or are they still just replaying yesterday's war? After seeing the increase in government contracts, expected revenue growth from projects like the new tungsten deposit (future report?), and a move from NYSE American to NYSE big board already approved and happening (which will bring a whole new batch of money). The thinking was surely some in the market must have paid attention. Some. Was it enough to finally bury this whole idea and move on to better ground? It had to be, right?

Eureka! Q had found the one thing, the detail that the market was missing. The corner fence post that stands the whole thing upright. As it turns out, having the only license to the process that turns low grade antimony (which is what we have in the west), into military grade antimony may be a toll booth worth buying if things keep going the direction they're going. Probable. That's a moat that has legal protection and my vote for the best antimony play. Like everything in life there may always be sharks in the water that can ruin your whole vacation. China may ease export restrictions. Unlikely based on recent trends. Advancement in material science is always on the table. Maybe but also unlikely in a time frame that's important. The world could become peaceful overnight and cut defense spending. Not happening. As far as alimony and abalone, still too rich for my blood.

" All the grain in the world, you still need a mill to make flour"