The dropping market cap is a result of sentiment. And sure, that can have a snowball effect; price drops, sentiment drops, people sell, price drops and so on. But, that just means the price overshoots fair value (it generally does this in all companies in both directions once the price gains momentum) and that's why we've run well below fair value IMO.
I think a worthwhile question for each of us to ask ourselves (and not just with AGY now but with any company at any time) is if we had no idea what the price was and hadn't watched Hot Copper posts etc at all for the previous two or three years, but we had been watching the fundamentals, macros and all the announcements very carefully (as hopefully we all have), what would we guess the current share price to be? I'm pretty sure if we had no idea, almost all of us would guess AGY's current share price would be higher than it is. This shows that the current price is low because of contagious sentiment, not fair value/fundamentals.
Sure, the spot price is terrible, but we all know China is manipulating it artificially and I think most would agree the current low is temporarily, so that's not representative of AGY's actual value (unless you think the actual value fluctuates wildly, which like most people I would completely diaagree with you about).
Yes, unfortunately the delays do mean we are losing the early bird status and we'll stand out less. It doesn't really alter our fundamental value, but in terms of sentiment and gaining attention, yes, our profile has diminished. It is what it is.
Canada can do whatever it likes, why should we really care?
Argentina is something of a challenge, sure, but once we have our permits, we'll be fine. I honestly would not want to try to run a business in Argentina. Dealing with that bureaucracy is a nightmare I personally would not want to manage. I'm currently in a communiat country and last week I was in a different communist country. If the red tape issues weren't there I would be thrilled to run a business in either one, but the reality of doing business here, and I have looked into it in some depth which has lead me to avoid stepping into that nightmare, but as an AGY shareholder that's fine, it's not my job, and while it may be horribly unpleasant for whoever is managing the red tape, it's perfectly possible to run a very viable business in these environments, you just have to play the game (I very much expect JZ is playing the game and I certainly know those details could not be made public, especially somewhere like an ASX announcement!).
I agree, it's likely we won't be at nameplate this year. I don't hugely care if it's December or January. Sure, 2022 would have been lovely and July would have been better than January 2024, but early 2024 is better than 2025 and at the end of the day it is what it is regardless of whether something else would have been better or worse.
If JZ had promised we'd be in production by late 2024, we'd all be thrilled about early 2024. Whatever the promise was, the reality's value isn't different, and that's a concept many people struggle to understand.
AGY is ticking all the boxes, just not as quickly as promised. That makes the share price/sentiment worse before it happens, but the reality will still be as valuable as if the time frame guidance had been perfect.
No one seems to be believing we won't get there, they're just crying about it taking longer than we expected. Hey, me too, I wanted to be celebrating on this holiday rather than cringing every time I check the value of my holding, but that doesn't mean the value is destroyed and I can't celebrate early next year when those boxes are ticked. I would only be giving up in despair if I expected the boxes actually weren't going to be ticked and we just weren't going to get there at all. A delay is not the same thing as project failure, but currently you can buy a project everyone agree is set to succeed for the price of assumed high risk of actual failure.
AGY Price at posting:
19.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)