Finally, this weekend and early next week, more copper/gold/silver/platinum/palladium/diamond miners than you can shake a stick at will be in San Francisco at the season's final big-bang gathering of precious metals bankers and executives. The San Francisco Precious Metals Conference is open to the public.

I expect several companies, including Bema Gold (BGO: news, chart, profile) and its subsidiaries, to provide market updates that will justify their rapidly gaining market values. We'll see more than one Canadian company, such as Northern Orion (CA:NNO: news, chart, profile) and Nevsun Resources (CA:NSU: news, chart, profile), that are headed toward American stock-market listings.

Northern Orion, as forecast here by asset manager Frank Holmes, on Friday said its stake in Argentine copper and gold mine Bajo de la Alumbrera produced more than $11 million of operating cash flow in the recent quarter. "A few more quarters like that, and this is one of the cheapest mining stocks out there," said Holmes, whose U.S. Global Investors mutual funds down there in Texas owns a chunk of Northern Orion shares.

Come on by the San Francisco Precious Metals Conference. It's free for those who register. I'll be doing my "act," as Sprott Asset Management's John Embry described my over-the-top presentation from New Orleans a couple weeks ago. I'm on early Monday morning -- in a workshop for investors and a speech later in the A.M. I'll be presenting my two or three best bargain mining stocks, and maybe one technology investment as well.