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I wonder what the management would do if we received new cash offer from Hecla $2.50/share for the combined company. After this slap in the face they would start talking for sure...
Nobody wants confrontation and we all know about USGIF upside potential - that's why we are here. It would be nice if the management shared our enthusiasm and told the world about this. For example, after all those "synergy" talks and bashing of Hecla offer (which was not good, of course) how do they feel looking at post-merger USGIF and HL charts? How would your portfolio look now if you sold your USSIF shares at $1.80 pre-merger and put this money into HL @ $4.5 (that's what I did with some of my shares)? While USGIF had a big "upside potential" the rest of the sector just had a big "upside move".
Hopefully we will hear from them this week...
It's funny you are referencing to your reply to my post and conveniently omitted this part:
"Regarding our stock price, now that everyone knows that we are worth more than $1.80 I feel that you are making a very unwise decision!"
Just to remind you: I told the board that I sold half of my USSIF position at 1.79-1.81 (pre-merger). It happened to be very wise decision, don't you agree? As I posted later I rebought most of the shares below $2 (post split). Unfortunately the bottom for PMs didn't help USGIF at all. Have you looked at the chart lately? Oh, maybe you are a pure fundamental's guy? (quote from your "famous" post).
Caesars Report: NWM Mining, Quo Vadis?
http://www.caesarsreport.com/blog/nwm-mining-quo-vadis/
(Sorry, if this was posted already).
What is interesting, in the English version of the letter they omitted the signature, which you can see reading the full Russian version:
http://markray.ru/media/shoigu.pdf The letter was signed by General Director E.D. Sharafutdinova, whose name I mentioned earlier. She is a real director of small company "Markray Ltd" which is fighting for small projects in construction business and selling construction related supplies. You can't find her name anywhere in "American Markray" documents among Marushko's associates. Of course, this doesn't matter because "American Markray" is a fictional company anyway. The management and BOD were never registered with the State of Delaware, state taxes never paid, and the company is "inactive" (dead) according to the Delaware records.
"I knew RX inside and out."
You would do us a favor telling about RX assets and how lucky we are to acquire them. :)
Welcome aboard.
My party started when silver was at $13-14 and gold around $700. No complaints here. I am not a big fun of any PM gurus. Most of them just want to sell you something: either subscription to their services or physical metal which "nobody should sell" (except them, of course). I actually didn't know that Ron Paul used to be a PM dealer. You are damaging his image in my mind.
This is very strange post (your 1st post on iHub). You pooled someone's old message to brag about your success? Plus, you think people, who are buying PMs now, are late to the party? It's not what your idols are telling us. They think the party just started.
My opinion: Sprott always was a part of the problem – he was behind AMEX listing fiasco and he (together with old management) intentionally drove the share price down to make terms of USA-RXE merger acceptable to RXE team. So, what can a small shareholder do about this? I made my contribution to the justice by voting for the right things. So, what else can I do? The merger is done. I can sell everything in disgust (like you did) and keep dropping my unhappiness to the board, or I can try to swim with the flow, whose name is Sprott in our case. As I reported, I sold half of my shares at 1.77-1.81 (pre-merger) and seriously considered selling everything. Now I am back to my full position with some purchases below $2 (post-merger). Yes I don’t mind if Sprott starts moving the share price up. Why would I? Because this is unethical? Have you looked at the market recently? Comparing to “unethical” things that are ruling the market, Sprott is an angel. If one can’t see any positives in this unfortunate merger he/she really needs to sell. I do see them. Yes, we paid high price for new risky assets and new management. But this changed the company from old fashion grandfather’s mine that couldn’t get any respect from the market into the company with some explosive potential if Drumlummon manages to surprise us. You couldn't expect from old USSIF to double overnight. With USGIF it's possible. Of course, the share price has more room to move down too, but I'm taking this risk at this point.
IMO.
It’s maybe a conflict of interest, but probably not that obvious. :) I am not sure Cormark has any legal ties to Sprott anymore. Sprott and his guys have never hesitated to promote their holdings publicly. But I remember how during TV interview one of his associates didn’t recommend investing in US Silver because it’s a “high cost producer.” And Sprott was heavily buying USA.TO shares at that time. Maybe now they will start telling the World how undervalued this stock is.
"Established in 1981 as Sprott Securities, Cormark has evolved into an industry leader recognized for its knowledge and commitment to the mid-cap and emerging growth market..."
http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/cormark
Also, unless there is some kind of merger related calculation errors on CNBC website, Sprott significantly increased his USA.TO position too:
http://apps.cnbc.com/view.asp?country=US&uid=stocks/ownership&symbol=usa.to
Mr. Blasutti bought 17,300 shares at 2.17-2.19 last week. Also insiders were awarded options with exercise price 2.23:
http://canadianinsider.com/node/7?menu_tickersearch=usa
"U.S. Silver used to be such a good solid company..."
I am in this stock long enough (since 0.2+ pre-RS) and, if we are talking about management, it has never been a "good solid company". Stupid hedging, reverse split, option plans, insiders selling and talking "we believe in silver" at the same time, etc. Now we have this merger. I vote against US Silver management every year. I voted against merger. I sent written requests about option plans, insiders selling, etc. When you state: "I will start trading this stock" why do you think this is some kind of a threat or act of unloyalty? I have been trading about half of my position since I bought this stock. Every stock is just a trading tool, especially in this market which can crash any minute. And to be absolutely cynical... in this environment I don't care much about management behavior and even company's fundamentals. I care about my account. Period. Have to admit though - I have not done very well with USSIF so far and am slightly in the red at this point, but eventually I will.
My US Silver position is correctly displayed as USGIF on ETrade now, and I can put online orders too. That's all I need at this point. As much as I hate it, the merger is done deal. Learn to live with this or "start trading". We are close to the local bottom right now. IMO.
It's trading in 2.03-2.1 range in Canada today (last trade @ 2.07). Equivalent of 1.36-1.41 pre-merger. As I understand, grey market stocks can be traded if you call your online broker. IMO: It could be an opportunity to pick up a few shares from someone who panicked seeing "grey market" label. I added at 1.98 CAD on TSX yesterday.
It's not "grey market", it's OTC BB. They still need to get approval for OTCQX but I guess the trading should resume soon (tomorrow?)
http://www.otcbb.com/asp/dailylist_detail.asp?d=08/20/2012&mkt_ctg=NON-OTCB
Edit: Well, it's listed in "Other-OTC Issues" category:
http://www.otcbb.com/asp/symbol.asp?issues=AllOther&searchby=symbol&searchfor=usgif&searchwith=starting&x=0&y=0
That's why I said that everything depends on your time horizon. You don't want to go through 2008 type crash again if you are about to retire. My advice to my daughter, who opened 401K a couple of years ago and is very excited to see quick gains, was to put 50% of her money into money market fund, the rest into solid Vanguard fund and keep moving 50% of future gains from stocks to cash in future. They don't have many options to chose but with 25+ years ahead I am sure she will be OK.
I personally like to have access to my money 24/7, so I never opened 401K and closed my small IRA several years ago. My friend-coworker was going to retire in 2009 but lost about 60% of his 401K in 2008. So we still meet at work everyday... not really funny. I believe it will be a run on 401Ks and Money Market funds sometime in future. So the closer to retirement you are the more reasons to take money and run now. As to investing all the proceeds into PMs... It depends. If you are not going to touch it for 10+ years, like you indicated, this probably makes sense. Just my opinion.
This is pretty famous Russian St. George the Victorious gold coin (1/4 oz of 0.999 gold):
http://www.cbr.ru/eng/bank-notes_coins/base_of_memorable_coins/coins.asp?cat_num=5216-0060
and a couple of gold bars with Olympic symbols, probably featuring next Winter Games in Sochi (Russia).
The current market value of the coin is about $450... They are issued by Russian Central bank and, of course, there is no way to determine whose gold was used to produce blanks.
P.S. Just checked RVBR trading volume. It's still zero. I don't know why people don't want to receive the golden gift from Markray?
In many counties gold and silver are already recognized as money. For example, when you visit bank in Eastern Europe and look at the currency exchange table you will see separate rates for "banking metals". Digital money or not, it doesn't matter if you can freely convert it into PMs.
So, our government actually has 2 options: a) recognize that gold is money. In this case there should be no taxes on gold sales because there is no "sales", it's just a currency exchange with corresponding small exchange fees. b) keep pretending that gold is a commodity and luxury relict. Then you can tax it to death. I think they will stick with the second option as long as they can. There will be no confiscation or other extreme gloom & doom scenarios.
IMO.
I actually regret I didn't have free funds to BUY it below $2. One of the advantages of ETrade account - you can buy foreign stocks using "Global Markets" account. I would buy USA on TSX yesterday if I had funds immediately available. Today we are back to pre-merger prices. It's possible that we saw technical bottom yesterday. BTW, insiders bought 10,000 shares @ $1.89 yesterday:
http://www.tmxmoney.com/HttpController?GetPage=SearchInsiderTrade&Language=en&Submit=Submit&QuerySymbol=usa&x=0&y=0
USSIF shares are nothing more than OTC listed ADRs (American Deposit Receipts) for shares of foreign company U.S. Silver. The company doesn't exist anymore, so and its ADRs. New company U.S. Gold & Silver is traded on TSX now under the same symbol: USA. Of course, smart management would apply for both listings (TSX and OTC) at the same time. Apparently this wasn't done. They probably forgot about their little American sister. Anyway, it's just technical delay and shouldn't take too long.
This is a reasonable response, thanks. You didn't answer some questions though. What is the weight of the coin (in ounces or grams)? How will you know the number of shares anybody holds (most of them are on brokerage accounts) and delivery addresses? Why can't you put a picture of the coin (both sides) on your website? Why are you interested to attract investors at $0.002 per share when you have a buyout offer $0.9/sh on the table? Etc. I have many other questions (for example, regarding that sudden 75% ownership of Markray in Magadan), but let's concentrate on the gold gift right now.
OK, thanks. I currently use Firefox. May try Chrome now..
How do you display blog posts in English?
Hmm... There is nothing on the Russian news screen, but there is a post on forum made by Marina55 with Russian translation:
http://markray.ru/forum/topic.php?c=0&f=0&t=0&page=2&ind=1
OK, this is very creative:
Aug 14, 2012 - Markray Corp (RVBR.PK) announces that due to the fact signing of the contract on delivery of the new equipment which will allow to increase gold mining in the water environment at least in five times, the Company is glad to declare to the shareholders that on a result of quarter the Board of directors made the decision to give memorable gifts to all shareholders being owners of more than 50,000 Markray’s shares. The memorable gift is the gold coin of 999.9 sample made of gold exctracted by company.
http://markraycorp.com/
Let's pretend for a minute that we believe this PR and Markray really extracts some gold. The questions are:
1. Why didn't they put this in a major news wires? Is it because they don't have money or because they don't want to be tracked in future (it's easier just to shut down the website)?
2. What kind of coin are they going to distribute (weight)? W ithout this information the announcement doesn't make any sense at all. 50,000 Markray's shares is a waste of about $500. For this amount everybody can buy 1/4 American Gold Eagle w/o any troubles.
3. How are they going to ship the coins? Shipping cost? Insurance?
Of course, those are just rethoric questions. There is no gold, and nobody is going to give it to you. They just want you to buy shares.
Based on my experience with stock reorganizations I think most of us won't see new US Silver & Gold shares on our accounts for a week or so... As a result, next several trading days there will be few sellers although everybody will be able to buy new shares. So, we will see a little "technical" rally. Everything will be back to normal after that, and only owners of Scottrade accounts will keep complaining.
U.S. Silver receives "approximately 70%" and RX Gold ~ 30% of the combined company which means 70/30 of combined market cap. The new company will have 60 mln shares. Current OS number for USA and RXE is ~62 mln and ~169 mln shares respectively (plus warrants if you need more accurate estimates). So, 70% means ~0.7*60mln/62mln =~ 0.677 new shares for one USA share. And 30% means ~0.3*60mln/169mln =~ .107 new shares for one RXE share. The slight difference with announced ratios is because I don't count millions of warrants and because it's "approximately 70/30" by the merger announcement.
In short: RXE spreads its new 0.3*60mln ~18 mln shares between 170 mln of current shares, but USA receives ~ 0.7*60mln ~ 42mln shares that should be distributed between 62+ mln of current shares.
I hope they listed all losses they could find to make the next quarter, first quarter of joint company, look like undeniable success.
From another board:
"Apparantly the USA vote was 73% in favor, of those voted, and the RX vote was 90% in favor, of those voted."
I don't know where those numbers from and don't have time to check it now, but they sound truthful to me... USSIF shareholders almost did it. :)
I also put this in a spreadsheet. Based on current combined market cap the share price of newCo is $2.32. To get it below $2 would be equal USSIF SP around $1.34. I think they will defend this 1.35-1.4 level if they really plan to be listed on AMEX.
I don't think they will start pumping before the merger is complete. For now they will try to hide USSIF 2nd qrt results that are due by Aug, 15 (?) IMO, the results are not good and should be lost in the merger papers.
We are not talking about current offers which both are unacceptable of course. But, for example, if Hecla offers share exchange at 2:1 ratio wouldn't it be a fair deal? USSIF under-valuated assets are not going to disappear in this kind of a deal. They would be inherited by new company with plenty of opportunities to USSIF shareholders to benefit in future. As to the achieving this on our own... not with this management. And realistically we can't get rid of these guys in foreseeable future. Tried already...
US Silver ownership:
http://apps.cnbc.com/view.asp?country=US&uid=stocks/ownership&symbol=usa.to
RX Gold & Silver ownership:
http://apps.cnbc.com/view.asp?country=US&uid=stocks/ownership&symbol=rxe.v
If US Silver & Gold keeps current combined market cap after the merger, the share price of the company would be $2.49. Falling below $2 would be equal to current USSIF share price ~ $1.34 (with RXE ~ $0.23), which seem unlikely. So, it's possible that we will see new company listed on AMEX in a couple of weeks after the merger.
BTW, there was an interesting post on another board suggesting that "someone" (Sprott?) has been front-running Hecla's tender offer price all these days by keeping hard bid @ 1.80-1.81 a few cents above Hecla's price. So, they accumulated shares of investors who were ready to accept that cash offer and left Hecla empty handed. Now, when most of the voting is complete, the artificial bid is removed and we are back to "normal" trading.
Great post... As to "USSIF should not being doing ANY deals for equity, now, while the shares are as grossly undervalued"... well, many silver companies (including Hecla) are grossly undervalued too. So, the question is which combination has more chances to get fair market valuation.
100,000,000 shares authorized; 28,939,110 shares issued... seems to be a lot of room for dilution. Of course after the merger they can start using USA cash to cover exploration cost.
I have not done much research but MGN looks risky to me. They would probably significantly dilute us in future. Anyway, for all this to happen USA shareholders need to reject RXE merger first.
NITE was the MM with the highest bid 50 K shares all these days. Today it suddenly dropped to the bottom of the column and isn't bidding at all right now. Just an observation.