I think those valuations reflect how much hopium was built into...

I think those valuations reflect how much hopium was built into ALK prior to the demerger. People always over value companies that have "exciting" prospects, which was indeed the case back then in regard to both REE and the Boda gold find. You also need to acknowledge that ASM reached $14 following the merger and also the fact that all the REE companies have performed poorly over the past couple of years, as have gold explorers.

ALK is being valued on the basis of its Tomingley production with the massive Boda resource being disregarded. Once ALK gets to a FS stage with Boda/Kaiser, that is likely to change.

At the time of the demerger it seemed to me that ASM had been regarded as having no value because immediately post merger, the new ALK held the same value a previously. In other words, the demerger was successful in releasing value. Events since then tell a different story. Some people recognised the situation and sold out of ASM as it moved to its high but some of them have been seduced into buying in again as it has declined, and kept on declining.