Richard,
Sorry for the delay in responding. I've been in the US doing d/d on a couple of companies for possible future inclusion in the newsletter. Also I'm publishing the July newsletter in the next few days so things are a bit of a madhouse...
I think UIC fell for a combination of reasons:
lousy VSE market that dragged down nearly everything
change in personnel that frightens some investors
now absent personnel dumping their stock (or that of associates) and moving on
lack of substantive new developments at UIC
I became of UIC first - believe it or not - through a web program called ChartSmart. This is a database driven charting program. I use it to randomly search for Road-Kill. This was over one year ago. I started buying tiny bits of stock 5,000 - 6,000 shares at a time right about the time my newsletter article on UIC was written. I think the lowest I paid last summer was about .26 I bought little bits pretty regularly until about Christmas time, I think, and paid as high as about .58 In all, I acquired about 100,000 shares in the open market this way at an average of .40
(Pretty crappy being a newsletter writer, eh? I feel people have a right to know my personal holdings.) I also participated in a pp this spring where I bought another 150,000 at .40
What type of information do we all need to make our decisions. I really, really think the biggest thing is to try to get out and meet the management. Impress upon them that you don't want to be BS'd and maybe that you want to here the bad news first. I look at all investments from a negative standpoint first: I try to find things that will make me eliminate it from my list and thus save me time and energy of further d/d.
The response is different for different kinds of investors. Thus a momentum player uses different criteria than I, who am more of a value oriented guy. For me, the stock has to be inexpensive compared to its historical price; company fundamentals improving in the face of a declining stock price; potential for unbridled good news ahead; no major litigation; etc.
How to keep watch. The internet is one great way. I've fallen in love with SI and the service it provides all of us. I think that companies like UIC and Yamana, for example, are good examples of where corporate officers are going the extra mile to keep the public informed of ongoing developments.
All that said, you will never, ever be able to catch ALL the details. Both good and bad details will slip through your fingers and it will cost you money when they do. Sharing info here is one way of minimizing the likelihood of that, so I am all in favor of persons - even those with "negative" perspectives - coming along and saying their piece. The only curious thing about that is, if an investor really is interested in positive appreciation of a stock he simply must have a partially hidden agenda to be constantly bashing it. Why? Every reasonable investor knows that constant bad news or negative commentary will have a negative effect on the market.
So I like hearing good news. And I like hearing bad news, but only if developments back up the news and prove it true. Keep in touch with the company you are interested in ( a phone call at least once each month) and keep in touch with your network (including SI). |
