IPM: My review of the current situation and this thread.
All of this is IMO or to the best of my understanding:
1. IMO most institutional and large private LONGs are _still_ very LONG. The wild theories here about the institutions are just that. They are also I believe as disappointed as the individual longs here on the recent setbacks, and further delay -- but what I hear from those circles at the end of the day is: "Damnit, now we _know_ there's gold on the property!"
2. I have been attacked and mis-characterized on this thread. I can handle it, and won't be getting sucked in by it now or in the future, nor reponding to every post as some have e-mailed me about. I will once, and only once, set this straight: I have NOT been a cheerleader, happy talker or hyper. My posts were very different from such, and _often_ contained caveats: high risk, spec. $ only, etc... People should not be surprised by this current turn of events holding a Jr miner and a short target. The last time this type of shrill desperation appeared here on SI was on the post-AGM dip to $4 -- and I posted to several people: "If you can't handle this -- get out -- cause you can't handle zero -- and you shouldn't be in Jr's if you can't handle zero. Period. Only play these with $ you can lose..." I've been on the record with my big caveat emptor IF's from day one. That's that.
3. There was a charge of being intolerant of negative voices. That is not true in the least. I have been intolerant of lies, misinformation, gross exaggeration, ego trips, illogical conclusions, reckless paranoid conspiracy theories, and brutal short scripted psychological warfare. I have also been intolerant of a certain _type_ of trader who behave like phony's and hypocrites, whose POSTS are on file cheer leading like hell, hyping like hell, and who e-mail blatantly false "rumors" on stocks like CHIP having a Mintek fire assay. All this behavior when they are long, and then like someone with MPD, their tone turns shrill and posts negative when they are "out" and looking for a new low to get back in. The same people have posted ridiculing buy and hold longs -- though statistics wiil tell you that the vast majority of retail investors are not suited to be traders -- and the vast majority who try -- loose. These same people post how it's understood no one should believe their postings or anyone's -- or invest based on them -- because it's all a trading game. Though one wonders if that sentiment was sincere, why the bother posting and doing those e-mail circuits all the time.
4. I know that my fervor in tearing down the BS of the shorts has caused me to be perceived as too one sided by some -- and that's IMO not entirely but to some degree correct. I chose the side. In my mind it was simple: I had (and still have)a risky investment that can die of natural causes easily enough, and here are these people trying to murder it with unethical and probably illegal conduct. I chose to fight them. During this time I have freely spoken to many thread shareholders that have called me about my IPM worries and criticisms -- and freely offered my home phone to many longs who e-mailed. I have done this discussion off the thread, as is my prerogative, and openly told anyone who asked my reason was the same as Mr. Childres': we couldn't stand feeding the shorts more stuff they could twist , information they could use to conduct sabotage, and that the thread was already predominately negative and all criticisms real and many more imagined were being aired regularly. If one wants to know why my stomach was so turned by the thought of feeding the short's fodder -- just look at Mr. Charters whose first post to the identity of Mountain States was to imply it is a scam lab -- Of course we've now found out they are well qualified and their client list includes a who's who of major mining. This has not been an easy balance for me, but I made it as best I could. I posted with constant caveats, never "happy talked" and occasionally posted to some LONGS to stop throwing silly huge numbers around, or pie-in-the-sky reserve calculations. I did the best I could, and will continue to do so -- which leads me to:
5. Management. Despite the risk of feeding fodder to the shorts, Charters, and the traders looking for lower stock... I will discuss a few things that I need to air. It is not a secret, all the longs I know, Karl, Joe, Chuca, Roger, etc. we all have known since the AGM that management has it's flaws and foibles. Mr. Furlong IMO has been correctly characterized as a dreamer and eternal optimist, to the point where this has perhaps blurred his vision. The Longs I spoke to in the last 6 months felt this was mitigated by IPM bringing in Sam Shaw, then Potter, then Yellich, and finally we were assured Alan Doyle was personally hands on. Obviously this did not or was not allowed to bring the desired effect of focusing and buttoning down the company -- which it clearly needs. There is also something bothering me immensely, that I have yet to get an answer to and will need one: In this post-bre-x low priced gold environment where exploration $ are scarce, I can NOT FATHOM what the heck IPM is doing with a 1.3 million $ _equity_ investment in Namibian Copper on it's books. It is in black and white, glaring at _everyone_ from IPMs recent 10Q, and I think it is going to have to be addressed.
6. Chatters, and Hungry Lion, Zeev and Bill Jackson, the "out" traders looking for buy backs etc. are going to jump on this -- but I urge fellow Longs to keep perspective. I for one am not going to throw out the baby with the bath water. Most Jr. Miners and certainly all the desert dirts have/had management mistakes and setbacks -- even some that eventually went on to become _Majors_. I and many others remain convinced there are plenty of precious metals in the southwest's sands, and it is just a matter of time and focus until they are economically exploited. It is now _proven_ by fire assay that GOLD running as high as .08 exists at Black Rock -- a property that is enormous. This is just the very FIRST fire assay to be run and disclosed by a recognized lab on BRX material -- after a reluctant R+D effort that needs to be -- and can be improved. Mr. Chatters is not posting truth, you've seen it over and over. Hungry Lion and
Greystone are likely David Schechter, your friend who helped take this stock over $10 so he could drive it now to $2... Mr. Schechter has lied and misinformed since his Hedgy1 posts and has always been wrong about metal existing in the desert sands. Longs should keep perspective. We own a $2 stock -- that's all that has happened at this point -- not Armageddon, not the assassination of JFK. Most people would be just as bad off holding Bema, TNR, MAN, Pac Rim or Davison-Tisdale. Don't crown these people trying to be guru's of hindsight. The majority of the institutions IMO still have a HUGE investment in this project and interest in seeing it succeed. If we are depressed we are not rich quick, we need to wake up and grow up. Nothing usually goes as planned, and I have found so often, don't believe the extremes, the truth and reality is usually somewhere in the middle. Here's to moderation and determination, which I will be practicing with my usual discipline of fewer/more informative posts
and less "noise" on the thread.
Lew Green |
