tastes bad...

Every stock has it's own style...its own flavour...

AGY has a taste to it that is not particularly nice right now.

From the outset...and run from about 20c...it was abundantly clear a re-rating of sorts was underway, based soley on their African assets...a common occurrance in these markets.

The first real "bad taste" for me came with the so called "article" back when AGY was first about to break 50c...that was clearly an organised and very much "facilitated" and grubby sting designed to spook the market to pick up stock...one that indicated there was clearly at least one group involved with AGY that was of concern.

I noticed a few certain posters were out in force at that time...even providing links to web pages that were to say the least, very obscure and questionable in nature.

Of course this passed and up she went to a high of $1.34 before once again the traders took control and knocked it back down before yet another rally ensued...this time however, we eventually saw a placement raising some $3m+ at 95c, which in itself considerably changed the landscape for AGY.

It was now being taken seriously by the "sophisticates"...this simple fact, with reference to the charts prior to the trading halt, clearly shows management, insiders, brokers...and anyone else who may have been part of the inner-circle here...were clearly not expecting this result!

I challenge any decent chartists to give an honest assessment of the charts prior to this announcement and suggest the stock was not following a classic upwrads trend pattern, with targets much higher than recent spikes!

I suggest for anyone to post on here they "told you so", and still keep a straight face, is an absolute nonsense...and nothing but a reflection on their poor self esteem and lack of generosity of spirit.

Of course risk was always a possiblilty...this goes without saying...but as such things go, it was by no means a foregone conclusion as some would suggest. I can think of many riskier places, Iran for one...and with Xstrata, BHP and others moving into the region, there are still compelling reasons to keep it on ones radar!

Ask yourselves what sort of people would feel the need to stick salt and pointy sticks in the wounds of others? Poor excuse for humanity if you ask me...and although I have the main contributors on ignore, I can see from some of the responses what they might well be up to.

Like others, this news was a suprise to me...but you get that in the specultaive end of town...as such, you need to make allowances for it. If you cannot do this, do not understand how to do this, or cannot absorb a hit like this...you really should not be "playing" with small-cap specs.

If you decide to do so however...and the potential rewards are indeed compelling...then you need to understand the sector you are dealing with and organise strategies to cope.

Risk can be managed.

I have said this at infinitum...always sell half at 100% profit line! This is a simple rule I always adopt...well nearly always, but certainly one I religiously apply to single asset, specultive resource stocks.

Others may feel this is expecting too much...so come up with your own "protetion rules"...say sell half at 25% profit...this effectively reduces your break even price by the level of the profits you just took!

These simple approacha will help keep you in the game and alive to fight another day...of course, it is of little help if you bought at the top and never got a chance to take your profits...but this is the benefit of recognising value early. To do this, you need to do the research yourself and not rely on others, nor simply follow a stock blindly because it is rising!

The story for AGY was the same at about 20c as it was later...I put to you that most who bought from 50c and higher did so simply because others were buying...after all the stock was rising and technically looked strong...but clearly risk at $1 was much greater than risk at 20c...the story at each however was more or less the same!

So why did some people wait so long to buy? This is the question some should be asking themselves.

I recently did a forward projection on AGY based on the timely progression from milestone to milestone, of getting a resource the size of Musongati to production...we were well on the way to achieving the first 2 milestones and reaching the expected year one returns, namely ratification of the tenement and potential involvement of a major, but it appears we now have hit a glitch at a critical point.

Until these key milestones are met and in particular, until the mining convention is reinstated, it is impossible to move ahead to future milestone events! In the interim therefore, the price will rise or fall based on the markets confidence that this particular event will be ticked off...and not based on the value of Nickel or any other resource type influences.

This is now a play on politics and corporate strategy...and as such, is a completely different proposition now.

Simple really...but determining where the price will move next is much less so and likely to be driven as much by insiders and their particular needs as it is by genuine market perception. We can perhaps take comfort however in the view that some fairly big hitters were not expecting this and are now trapped much higher in the stock...as such, I am confident there will be plenty of tradable swings, which if well handled, should reap enough net points to reduce the recent fall to more reasonable levels.

I took a hit on my residual core position...but that is just part and parcel of what you get from time to time in the markets if you are around long enough...and something every professional understands.

Those who do not, or view such situations as reasons to big note themselves at the expense of others...or worse, push their ongoing and creepy agendas, clearly have never made a living from the markets.

They are the sort who would turn up at a car accident, with fatalities strewn about...and declare..."I told you not to drive in the rain, you only have yourselves to blame"...rather than offer help!

Brimming with honor and integrity this lot...and amazingly, in the face of outright lies, agenda and poor behavior, always managed to find "supporters" with glowing posts???

lol

I really do wish HotCopper would do something about the multi-nic issue...it is entirely out of hand and beyond a joke!

Cheers!