Monday, August 16, 2010

Various items

I'd like to express my thanks to Carib for maintaining continuity. There seems to be a certain segment of the investing public who thrive on personal attacks, fear-mongering and other quasi-manipulative behaviour. A pity that the exchange admins don't have the manpower to sort these folks out of the mix. Its nice to respond to one once in awhile, just to sort out their inability to spell, read, write and especially to do arithmetic. I realize, though, that the sorting-out is only an exercise in self gratification: some folks simply prefer to rant on, and clearly have no care for whether they are taken seriously or not.
On a note about our share price: On 23 July, in the premarket, someone somewhere sold an enormous block of stock. We dove from around .46/sh to .38/sh and then recovered by the open. We have been averaging down ever since. Then, last Friday (or thereabout), we hit .38 on the bid. That has formed our support line since. Given our travel around the 200 day MA lately, I'm curious to see how we fare in the next 30 days. I haven't the data to support this other than as anecdote, but I see this in the charts quite a lot. There will be some trade, a seemingly meaningless spike or drop in the course of an ordinary trading day, and three weeks later that is where the stock is. It is also interesting to note that, once that price is reached, there is almost always a trend reversal (we can only hope!) So what does it mean for us?
Management has done, IMO, a great job of bringing the company along, though fumbles and successes, with rather distracted leadership (I can't imagine that the months leading to PK's departure were without some tumult at HQ). And here we are, moving along up the production curve, with our support dead on that 23 July drop, and little if any participation in the Autumn outfitting. If we do begin to experience some positive momentum, I believe that the company ought to fan that flame a little.
So what I think we need, despite the ever-present list of things to do at Lamaque and San Juan, is a distinct effort on management's part to get some positive momentum on the street, as well as at the mines. A PR event. Take all the analysts fishing, and leave the ones who won't play to swim home (just kidding!). This, to my mind, is as important to the company now as the gold. There are too many companies out there with no production, or just where we are, who are getting juiced. Staying focussed on the mine is obviously Job One. Putting some energy into the marketplace, right now, may just be one of the things that turns our charts around.
What do the rest of you think would make a good PR event for the company? I know what we do in my business to get attention, but that would be awfully expensive for a gold mine!

3 comments:

Wingfong said...

I too believe winning over the analysts is very necessary. However, the idea of moving the head office back to Canada as argued by Carib in his posting titled"An Opposing View" dd Aug/6 keeps flashing back in my mind.
Is it possible that sentiment towards the co may be better if the co is more "Canadianised"?. Right now, it looks like a local Canadian who wishes to meet up with the CEO or PB may find it inconvenient (odd too?) as the CEO and IR Director are officially n physically located in the States!
I have no way to gauge or study the sentiment permeating tro the financial, stock brokerages, investing and mining communities towards CMM. But seeing CMM's sp so "bullied, unloved and unsupported" in spite of all the start-up positives and potentials makes me feel that there may be an emotional issue that needs to be addressed. At times it is quite stupifying to realise, as what Chillby had just said--"there are too many companies out there with no production or just where we are who are getting juiced"

bigjohn37 said...

Hi Chillby,
I don't think there is a single PR event for our Company which would turn things around for the share price in one step. PR is a process, and Peter Ball seems to be handling it very well. Perhaps once the new CEO is appointed things will pick up pace. He (She) should start knocking on doors of the major brockerage houses, business journals, business TV shows,etc. After all, we have a good story. By the way, do any of you Blog members think that short sellers are responsible (at least in part) for the lousy sp? If that is the case, I hope they'll loose their shirt when the stock will start to skyrocket (as it surely will one day!)
GLTA

chillby said...

Suppose we all convene on Bay Street and carry placards around in front of Scotia? Seems they have some culpability in the hammering of miners across the board recently (try out the new article posted on the main blog).
How much more theft and BS are we taxpayers supposed to take from bankers, anyway? Bandits in pinstripes.