(FORTUNE Magazine) – Recession fears stimulated by the October crash have spooked prices of natural resource stocks, which are considered inflation hedges. For example, Minorco, the former Minerals & Resources Corp., a gold and natural resources company, lost nearly 80% of its precrash value, and the shares are now trading around $10. Minorco, which is based in Luxembourg, is not a mining company; it owns equity stakes in other natural resource companies, most of them publicly traded. Needless to say, investors have been scared off these stocks also. Minorco, in which South African industrialist Harry Oppenheimer owns a minority stake, sells over the counter in American Depositary Receipts. Analysts are recommending it because the shares trade at a 37% discount to net asset value. Backing each share is $6 in cash and $10 in stocks. Most of the cash came from Minorco's sale in September of its 14% interest in Salomon Inc., the turmoil-ridden New York brokerage house. The biggest remaining investment, worth about $850 million, is a 29% stake in Consolidated Gold Fields, a British concern with operations in South Africa, Britain, and North America. Minorco also owns 36% of Charter Consolidated, a British manufacturing, mining, and construction group; 30% of Engelhard, a U.S. specialty chemical company; 58% of Inspiration Resources, a U.S. metals concern; and 48% of the Canadian oil company Adobe Resources.

Vahid Fathi, a mining and metals analyst at Prescott Ball & Turben, touts Minorco as a ''cheap, diversified, conservative'' play for people suffering from the inflation worries described in Fortune Forecast. Although management is scouring North America for more natural resource companies to invest in with its $1 billion cash hoard, Fathi does not anticipate a shopping binge. Meanwhile, he expects that the market value of Minorco's holdings will rebound soon with happy consequences for Minorco shares. ''I would not rule out the stock at $18 to $22 by early 1989,'' he says.- J.P.N.