Wow.
Been there, done that.
It's why my mantra, now, is "wait for it"...
I sustain a list of things that have passed my basic screening to qualify as "investable"... probably fewer than 0.01% of those that I look at... which list I operate to exclude the wannabees and promotion stocks, etc., including only those with serious, proven management, and properties worth owning... in markets that are "out of favor", where all of the stocks are undervalued... and the question of value is mostly one of survival...
Of course, that is almost a definition of mining and minerals exploration, these days...
And, then, I'm watching over time, waiting... which often reveals, only through patience, risks I'd overlooked or that had been masked... while exposing how many of the even very good and well managed companies with solid opportunities are put at risk of survival by the whims and vagaries of the markets passing fancies. Consolidations of good properties can happen often enough to make me not want to hold the risks, or not more than a few shares as a marker, even when they're validated as worth holding... all due to the nature of the reality in the market risks.
Transitions can often mean good management going by the wayside... being replaced by management you can't trust... as I've seen happen often enough. The quality of the rocks doesn't ever matter that much... if a new management that intends on throwing you under the bus to enable some transition that benefits only them, and not you. So, patience is a virtue... the key virtue... more critical than "picking well"... and even more critical than sorting quality management from the dregs of the market... as one can easily become the other.
Almonty is a decent case in point... the Korean property worth owning, well validated... still having had it ups and downs over time... with improvements in new management... or the opposite... meaning the wheels coming off... a couple of times. And, of course, the trends in the markets driving the price lower, driving the consolidations... requiring investors to have more patience even than the changing cast of managements...
But, then, today ? It obviously is still the same relative "value" in the long term... now housed in a better framework than ever before... and, still, cheaper than it has ever been... while the other value surrounding it seems to insulate it from the risks its has realized a couple times over, already ?
But, it is not a given that the economy must recover, from here... that demand for tungsten can only grow... or that another buyout won't happen, at some point, that subsumes the focused potential in tungsten into the vague mush of some much larger conglomerate, significantly diluting the focused potential upside that exists now ?
Big picture in the economy... suggests we're probably far nearer a peak than a bottom in the "real" economy... and, obviously, in some categories of stocks. Minerals, though, while they aren't near a peak... also may not be facing any near term real demand growth, in a shrinking economic environment... and probably need that to shake them out of the doldrums, and drive scarcity with growing demand, that will make commodity prices rise enough to reverse the market trends, the investment interest, and to leverage the profit potentials.
Hyper-inflation might help to change that outlook... sooner than a real recovery can ?
Still waiting... as one of the core elements of the concept in patience... is to minimize the exposure of capital to those risks that can't be controlled for well enough in the time spans over which events are likely to unfold...
Not holding risk makes the most sense... when the risks are growing faster than any other part of the economy.
So, a timing component... as it makes no sense to ignore the condition of the market, and a company or industry position within it.
Buying low... means not only being patient in the long term, as "wait for it" while watching carefully... but also recognizing that buying and selling, no matter how often you do it, is trading... which is also best optimized by being patient... while applying trading concepts to the markets in the longer term view.
Buying should only be done... on the worst days in the markets... when everything is on sale... and panic reigns, and blood flows in the streets... And, on those days... what you should buy isn't a question you'll be wondering about... given years spent in the effort in shopping ?
When the market does crash... I'll wait for it... and consider picking up a few shares here... as the detritus left over from the implosion of the current asset bubble looks like its begun dissipating...
:<)
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