What is the Crux Investor Index?

The Crux Investor Index (previously known as Crux Score) was until recently an internal rating that Crux Investor collectively produced amongst our pool of expert industry analysts in order to keep a current overview of the natural resource market, the opportunities for investment that exist and the companies that we would like to engage for interview.

We are now making Crux Investor Index (CII) public to be used as further data point that readers of our website can use to help them navigate the plethora of miners and investment opportunities that the natural resource space offers-up.

How And When Is Crux Investor Index Calculated?

The Crux Investor Index is a weighted average score out of 10, derived from our team of analysts. The rating is updated on a quarterly basis or whenever there is:

1. A public news release that materially changes the outlook for the company
2. Where we have interviewed and published an interview with the company the contents of which causes us to review our score

Whichever comes first.

The areas of assessment that are considered when deriving Crux Investor Index include (but are not limited to): Commodity Price Risk, Community Relations, Jurisdictional Risk, Geological Risk, Financial Demands, Technical Risk, Operational Risk and Management Track Record (Both delivery to plan and in returns to shareholders, as well as communicating their execution to the market effectively).

Our indexes reflect our long-term investment outlook, which, as of now, remains broadly bullish on most commodities over the medium-to-long term. This conviction is deeply rooted in our value-driven, fundamentals-oriented investment approach. Our rating system encapsulates this philosophy by factoring in an array of quantitative and qualitative measures. However, it's important to note that our methodology may not suit everyone's investment style or time horizon. For instance, some investors might identify companies with low Crux Investor Indexes that are currently offering high returns, possibly due to unusual events or special arbitrage opportunities.

Crux Investor Index Distribution

At the time of writing (January 2025), our analysts have evaluated and awarded more Indexes at each level to companies yet to interview with Crux than those we have engaged with Crux, demonstrating our desire to be fair and thorough - a "whole of market" approach which we think is essential when trying to assign relative value.‍

3 Current Characteristics of Crux Rating

1. Overall, indexes skew towards the lower end of the range than the top. In fact our team has awarded more than 64% of companies with an index of 4 or lower. Only 9% of companies have been awarded a 7 or more. This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone that is familiar with the sector over time.
2. Of those companies that we currently evaluate highly, with an index of 8+, more than 66% are later stage developers or producers.
3. 1.3% of companies are yet to be evaluated by our team. Our plan is to evaluate them during Q1 2025 that we have full coverage going into Q2, though with new entrants to the market, we fully anticipate that 100% coverage is likely not attainable; ~99% is pretty good though we think

The Display Of The Index & Development Stage

The Crux Investor Index is displayed as a number, alongside an icon which denotes the company’s most advanced stage of development for an asset. So if a company has a producing asset and 3 exploration targets, the most advanced stage - production, is denoted for the company. We choose to show the stage of development alongside the index as we think it is instructive to think of indexes as related to a company’s stage of development - after all, a 8/10 primary producer company has a set of considerations that have led us to evaluate that index, which are quite different to an 8/10 primary explorer.

Where we don’t show a stage of development icon for a company, this might be because it is not clear from their public data (perhaps they are newly formed, or are yet to have purchased an interest in an asset), or our data is yet to be updated. If it is the latter case (our bad), we hope to have updated our development stage data by the next time the rating is reviewed.

Disagree with Crux Investor Index?

As an internal assessment metric, we are under no obligation to change our index based on external pressure; but with so many companies covered by our highly capable, but small, team of analysts, our data can get out of date, and we will make mistakes from time to time. If you want to get in touch to notify us of some publicly available news that you believe might lead to us appraising Crux Investor Index for a particular company, you can do so via this form.

The Crux Investor Index is an internal assessment metric has been provided based on our own team's investment and interviewing funnel remit. We encourage readers of the site to conduct their own due diligence when appraising companies with a view to investing / divesting. Crux Investor accept no responsibility for the investment decisions taken based upon The Crux Investor Index.

Last updated: 30 January 2025