Have been reading some of the posts this weekend re the frustrations with TM1 & would like to add my 2 cents.
It’s frustrating holding a stock & watching it go nowhere other than drift down. It’s even more frustrating when this occurs because assays aren’t being released in a timely manner (especially after the stuff up with delays first time around). Yet the cherry on the icing of frustration is when you watch stocks double & triple (& more) whilst your stock drifts down & is seemingly manipulated by bots in this process.
As I see it, you have 1 of 3 possible options: sell; hold; buy more.
However, before making that decision, we should try to analyse the facts as objectively as possible so as to make an informed decision.
The last time we had our day in the sun with TM1 was almost 8 long months ago. Since then, irrespective of positive news flow, of which there has been plenty IMHO, being a TM1 holder has been an exercise in frustration.
Personally, and I stated it on this forum; I was (let’s put it politely) annoyed that the company raised the $6m when it did, at the price it did, and through the broker it did.
Those who would disagree with me will point to the fact that the company was trading at less than half the price of the CR just a few days before that CR & is half that price again today. Similarly, there are many who subscribe to the school of taking money when they’re throwing it at you, as we all know that exploration companies are money pits until they’re not.
Re the broker used, putting 2 & 2 together, I think I have a pretty fair idea as to why they were given the gig. However, I will go to my grave with the belief that the stock was sold into the close when those in the know were already locking in their profits knowing that a placement was imminent. There was no reason for it to close at 7.3 after hitting a high of 9.6 other than for that fact. Anyhow, that is water under the bridge.
Since then, Thomas has done everything by the book. Drill programmes executed in a timely manner with assays received confirming the prospectivity of Dante, promoting as required & growing the company’s footprint in the region. Yet, all this has fallen on deaf ears to the market. Why?
For starters, let’s cut out December & January as they’re almost always dead months from a market perspective. There is no doubt that assays have not been received in a timely manner yet again. That is on the company. If the lab used can’t do the job on time, there are other labs around.
Only Thomas knows why he has persisted with this lab. Perhaps it has something to do with the multi-element assay requirements TM1 have due to the polymetallic nature of Dante, but that is solely conjecture on my part. I don’t speak with TL but have no doubt he is at least as frustrated as us re the situation; the difference being that he’s in a position to rectify it.
It definitely hasn’t helped the Dante narrative that BHP decided to mothball Nebo-Babel before even completing the build out.
On the flip side of this, at least as I see it, $500m has been sunk into N-B already, with much of that infrastructure benefitting Terra. Similarly, should Terra continue to come up with the goods, it may become a takeover target for BHP that would help it recoup the $500m invested.
As I see things, the main arguments against TM1 are that it’s not economic due to its distance from infrastructure/rail/port etc. & that an economic metallurgical flow sheet for the metals abundant in the reefs won’t be configured.
Given that the company has Evan Kirby working on this & his expertise lies in the Bushveld, I see little risk in him not finding an optimal & economic way to exploit Dante. From a market perspective, almost as important as this flow sheet will be the company’s ability to quote assays as a AuEq &/or CuEq number, which is something investors understand much better than the current format.
Assuming a positive resolution to the met work, it should be a game changer for TM1. When the market will discover this is the $64,000 question. I hope it’s sooner rather than later.
FWIW, I ran some assays through an AI programme a few weeks ago & (from memory) was given an average AuEq of 3.56g/t & CuEq of 2.3%. Now imagine the company being able to report consistent shallow assays in this format rather than the current format.
Thomas will be at RIU this week beating the drum, so expect a new slide deck to be released on the 20th and, as is so often coincidentally the case, assays tend to arrive around conference time too.
I also saw on the RIU site that Tribeca are doing a conference in Singapore from 1 April. I recall that Thomas presented there last year & given Tribeca’s substantial holding in TM1, I’d expect him to be there again this year.
It’s not uncommon for exploration stocks to be unloved before suddenly attaining a rerating, often almost overnight. By the time all assays are released, TM1 should just about be drilling again.
Most of the speccy interest on ASX at the moment is in the gold stocks. TM1 is not a gold stock. However, TM1 does have plenty of vanadium & titanium as well as other valuable metals. And there have been stocks with solely these metals that have performed admirably.
I’ll finish off with a Warren Buffett quote: "If they buy a stock and they think if it goes up it’s wonderful, and if it goes down it’s bad. We think just the opposite. When it goes down we love it, because we’ll buy more. And if it goes up, it kills us to buy more.”
I hope we need just a little more patience before we have a lot less frustration.
Add to My Watchlist
What is My Watchlist?
