While shares of everything in the camp have drifted lower... and from "lower" in a drift, into seeming "neglect" in what appears a typical bottoming in the miners... now mostly moving nowhere, and mostly sideways for an extended period on longer term charts... all waiting for another round of excitement in gold, before expecting another round of excitement in investors looking for value in the places where gold comes from. The companies haven't all been idle, but, the better ones have been pacing themselves on Plan A, making slow but steady progress while sustaining both focus and effort.
The reality of schizophrenic or manic depressive markets, of course, is why they tend to use bursts of excess enthusiasm to amass a stash of cash to keep them working through the dark days of investing winters... without either, as in Plan B, having a need for continued dilution at lower and lower prices, to keep the lights on... or, as in Plan C, just letting them go out... while being patient awaiting the next round of market mania. Its a useful discriminator to apply now... in both seeking those with "value" others have recognized... and management skill required... in enabling Plan A. Plan C issues simply require a degree of patience many or most lack, while often providing vastly more immediate upside leverage with a reversal off a bottom... as they have shown in the reverse in the downside, thus far... with Plan B costing investors far more dearly than "just" what you can see in the share price decline, as that is paired with ongoing dilution in percentage ownership...
Plan A shares... not only sustain progress, and have more limited downside without dilution... they also allow you to buy others prior enthusiasm at a discount... as the shares and the cash hoard are both priced at a big discount to prior valuation... The best part of that, if timing, management skills, and results of ongoing efforts allow... is that when markets are on the upswing, again... they may not have to rush back in to raise cash at steeply discounted prices... rather than waiting for better valuations before seeking future rounds.
The reality in markets, though... where-ever we are in the market cycle... is that financing requirements are predictable enough... and the "known" in the patterns associated with it... imposes downside risks on those shares... having nothing much to do with timing tied to other events... but in context of the reality that investors with the $ to invest on a scale that matters in re-filling the coffers... always have the ability to command steep discounts in the "wholesale" markets... if less so when the coffers are already full... and the pace in progress is outstripping the burn rate... as the next market mania begins its entry to the on ramp...
So, perhaps... time to sort the list into categories... based on those features... as they condition expectations ? |
