Given that you & Crossy are the only Teton fans around here at this point I appreciate whatever company you wish to provide, irrespective of the level of your knowledge!
I'm so glad I stuck with the "Strong Buy" on this turkey in spite of that financing news in the 10KSB. I finally got a chance to talk with Howard about it and he said that they had started that offering way back in the early part of 1Q, when the stock was around $.20. They were at a critical juncture at that point. Do they just sit on their hands and "hope" the stock price goes up so they can raise more money to get the next round of wells going? Or do they swallow hard and take some more dilution in order to keep the drill bit turning to the right?
Howard chose the latter option, and he says that they have decided to cut short the offering in light of the presently higher stock price. Anybody who hasn't already contacted Howard to get in on the offering shouldn't even bother calling at this point.
Howard took a huge gamble that oil prices would remain above $25 so he could benefit from the higher production from these wells. So far it looks like his gamble has paid off handsomely.
In light of the confusion I (and I suspect others) had over the financing, based on the sliver of info we had about it in the 10KSB, it would behoove Howard to start having conference calls after each quarter, where we would have had an opportunity to clear up these kinds of questions all at once, right after the SEC filing was made.
Friday's action was immensely bullish for the stock, given the massive volume that accompanied the strong up-move. I believe its likely that the buying was the result of three things: 1) the early closing of the private placement; 2) folks realizing that the liklihood of the Torch report coming out next week is extremely high and thus this is the last opportunity to buy this stock before the huge potential that this company has, becomes quantified; and 3) the story on the news wires of the major oil companies moving back into Russia.
I feel sorry that my recent posts may have disuaded someone from buying the stock when it dipped after the 10KSB came out. Hopefully you guys can understand that my wavering on this stock is simply the result of a genuine and healthy skepticism of things I saw in the SEC filing. I have been burned pretty badly by these microcaps before, and I guess I've become almost paranoid.
The key thing that is turning me back to being an unequivocal TTPT bull is that they decided to cut short the private placement. This tells me they are really thinking in the best interests of the shareholders (i.e., to minimize the dilution). A lot of other microcap companies would have gone ahead and sold out the private placement even though it was screwing the public investors, putting their buddies in a great position to benefit. The fact that Howard resisted the temptation to do this tells me a lot about the guy and about Teton as a company.
Now all this is great, but it doesn't directly help someone decide whether they should take the TTPT plunge now or continue to monitor the stock for a possibly better entry point in the future. Of course we all want to buy these penny stocks at their lows, right before they've made a big up-move. It makes for great bragging rights on the chat boards, if nothing else.
But sometimes it is better to leave a little bit of profits on the table, especially when there is some uncertainty regarding the integrity and/or viability of the company. And when this uncertainty is resolved in a positive manner, the stock price may well be higher than previously, but then the potential investor has to ask himself whether this higher entry price is worth the added certainty that he has gained as a result of waiting.
Needless to say, I believe that the extra $.10 or so that an investor must pay to own this stock now (vs. a week ago when there was significant uncertainty about the company's financings) is a small price to pay for knowing that you are buying one of those rare Bulletin Board companies with some integrity and with the best interests of its shareholders in mind. |
