Peter Epstein

Retail (non-professional) investors in Molycorp are playing a dangerous game of chess against professional investors, lawyers, and financial experts with substantially more experience and resources.

The uranium spot price is near a nine-year low. The recent plunge from the mid-$30s per pound to about $28 per pound was a real shocker to many. Are we finally seeing some green shoots, evidence a rebound could be coming?

Cameco is in a class by itself in the uranium business. More than any single company, it's vertically integrated business model gives investors direct exposure to a resurgence of nuclear power.

Peabody Energy used to be the class act of the coal sector. Now, it's suffering greatly along with most coal peers with weak coal pricing. Peabody could be a good investment again, but only if both coking and thermal coal prices stage a rebound.

The gold majors have taken big hits in their share prices but have begun to fix the myriad self-inflicted wounds. Are the majors a buy, or should investors look elsewhere?

Companies that produce uranium for use in nuclear power have had a rough couple of years. The spot price of uranium is down about 50% in the past three years. Will it rebound? And if so, then how soon?

Last year I wrote an article that explained how bad it was in the coking coal business. This year, things are materially worse. Where does that leave players like Walter Energy and Alpha Natural Resources?

CONSOL has massively outperformed peer U.S. coal producers and deserves nothing but praise. It made a bold move away from coal by making a large natural gas acquisition that has paid off big time. But, is the stock still a buy? Well, probably not, and here's why.

Like Rio Tinto and to a lesser extent BHP Billiton, Vale's stock price is closely tied to underlying iron ore prices. But, over the longer term Vale is a buy because it has the staying power to withstand a weak spot price and thrive when the iron ore price recovers.

Coal stocks have bounced off of 52-week lows anywhere from 15.6% for Arch Coal to 35.8% for Walter Energy. Does this signal a turn in the sector or an opportunity to sell?

Teck Resources is a well known coking coal and copper producer with strong assets in low-risk countries in North and South America. It also is a top 3 zinc player. It also holds a 'hidden' asset, which the market may not be giving enough credit.

Natural Resource Partners's 9.2% yield is hard to match in a yield-starved world. This coal and industrial minerals master limited partnership saw some short-term volatility lately, but volatility has settled down, and this MLP is a solid long-term investment.

There have been a number of articles on Cliffs Natural Resources in the financial press lately, most of them bearish. Is it even possible to forecast Cliff's prospects at this point? Or, is Cliffs a price taker and completely at the whim of the iron ore price?

Walter Energy is highly leveraged to coking coal prices, but is also highly debt leveraged. While near-term bankruptcy is not a concern, that does not make the stock a buy. The recovery in coking coal markets will be slow and prices may never approach the highs of 2011.

Alliance Resource Partners is a coal master limited partnership that continues to offer compelling risk/reward. It has outperformed coal peers so handily that it's in a class all by itself and could arguably be compared favorably with non-coal investment opportunities.

The Big 4 iron ore producers are producing flat out and in fact are growing production this year and next, despite the spot price of iron ore falling by 30% year to date. Is this suicide or a prudent strategy?

Nevada is shaping up to be the go-to jurisdiction in a coming wave of M&A activity among gold juniors. Mid-tier miners and majors alike need to replace mine depletion. If companies are willing to buy assets in Africa, surely they will like what Nevada has to offer.

The latest blow to the coal sector was a quarterly coking coal settlement of $120 per metric tonne, a six-year low. The blood is flowing, the analysts are cutting targets -- is this the time to buy?

A logical scenario involving a flat stock market next year with continued ultra-low yield opportunities could be a perfect environment for MLPs to flourish. Natural Resource Partners and Alliance Resource Partners are two energy-related MLPs that could materially outperform stocks next year.

Upon a wide-ranging conversation with a senior executive at Natural Resource Partners, and coal market expert, Steve Doyle of Doyle Trading Consultants, I remain bullish on this master limited partnership's prospects next year and beyond.