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He wasn't a great IR rep from what I could see. And he could have moved on for any number of reasons including being asked to leave without the stigma of actual firing. We don't know. The fact this his departure coincided with a downturn in company fortunes could be meaningful or pure coincidence. In any case I couldn't base a buy/sell decision on it. If the CEO quit that might be a different story. We're talking about the p.r. guy, whose job is to create warm fuzzy feelings about Excelsior, not someone whose decisions actually matter.
I don't know how to predict recessions but I do think copper prices are going to remain high, it's a supply/demand issue that isn't going away. Commodities tend to be cyclical over long time frames and the cycle is upwards and I think likely to stay that way.
There are risks with this but the asset is a good one and the management... well they are not world class but they are not awful either. I'd say if you feel that worried maybe you should sell so you can get some peace of mind. Risk is what it is. I think the worst case is some major in need of copper will buy this for a song and we'll be made whole but not wealthy. Best case is they get the issue resolved and produce copper but as I said, it's another long wait which pisses me off and I'm sure you too. GL to you.
Webinar notes (my opinion/comment at the end):
Twyerould opens with statement that this is the "greenest" copper project in the world. Nice, but the green we want is cash, Stephen.
States they are not producing due to the problems. Mentions Johnson camp. Puts up a slide showing green friendliness of the project
Talks to Triple Flag and other investors regularly, says they fully support the project. Believes they are heavily undervalued, due to the performance over the last 12 months.
Have 20 mil in the bank at the end of 2021.
Rob Winton Senior VP Ops and GM on site comes on, Discusses the site. Mentions the CO2 issue.
Slide showing new pre-feasibility study with CO2 neutralization plant (NP). 1.385b nvp 44.9irr; prepoduction cost 45.1 mil for the neutralization plant. Trials of this in late 2022; possibly could change the criteria and remove the NP and impact Johnson Camp Mine (JCM) restart.
DIscusses well stimulation as alternative to NP, type of fracturing but not same as oil/gas fracking; goal is to dilate existing pathways for CO2 to escape; requires an amendment to EPA UIC permit - estimate this taking months not years.
Discussed JCM open pits, 2022 PEA; 2-3 year mine life. From the slide he showed, at today's CU price the NPV is 27 mil. Capital costs would need to be reduced to make this happen. Updated mine design needs completion before board can make a go/no-go decision on JCM.
Discussed Strong and Harris property. Copper/zinc/silver, NPV 187 mil from PEA at CU $3.50/lb
Back to Stephen;
Shows slide with various goals - Update 43-101, drillling/permitting/design for JCM, S&H drilling, testing well stimulation and raffinate neutralization;
Preferred Path: JCM cash flow to support optimization of Gunnison.
Shows slide showing Excelsior's lousy stock value compared to peers, "because we haven't performed as well as we'd like to." Recapturing this value is "Our whole goal."
Q&A begins:
Has company discussed j/v or takeover? ST: We're not in discussions. We have large copper asset in great jurisdiction, heavily undervalued due to poor performance, in my view that does make us a takeover target. At these prices none of us would be excited about that.
What is plan for S&H? ST: drill some mag anomolies, eventually do infill drilling, convert from inferred to indicated, testing, PEA on open pit mine. Longer term asset. Current focus is entirely on JCM production start.
When will you know results of well stim plan? ST: test takes -1-2 months. Need EPA approval/UIC permit update first. Goal to get approval and complete trial/test by end of 2022
What's the cash burn rate, is a capital raise coming? ST: Likely need a capital raise at some point. Burn approx 1.2mil/mo Nebari willing to provide additional capital for JCM open pit.
What % of planned flow rates have well fields reached by now? ST: small % due to CO2 blocking injection. Water flushing is improving flow rates but doesn't produce any copper. They will cycle acid recovery and water alternately. Water limitations prevent doing this to the whole field. Neutralization path is the possible alternative.
Does the NPV on the open pit include the stream cost? ST: Yes
Has any of the Nebari 15m been drawn down? ST: No; subject to demonstrating open pit as worthwhile
How many people at Gunnison? RW: 50 on site.
Why was CO2 issue not anticipated? ST: We knew it would form, did some design mods during design phase to account for it, unfortunately the experts involved did not believe the CO2 would accumulate in bubbles of a size that would block flow. Impact was underestimated.
Technical discussion of flow rates/CO2/water/tech ensues, not going to recap point by point, starts around 45 minute mark if you're interested.
How long to build NP if needed? ST: 9-12 months
How confident are you that you will fix/get into production? ST: We're really confident. It's going to take time. Hard to talk about when CU is $4.60. Time is your enemy on cash flow and we want to capitalize on the high prices. We're confident we can solve the problems. Looking at other solutions like drilling more/smaller wells closer together to reduce CO2 distance traveled.
Webinar ends.
My thoughts--these are just my opinions, ymmv: I have confidence in Stephen Twyerould, but the time delays and risks are likely to take this stock down further in the months ahead. A price in the US $.10 range at some point wouldn't surprise me. A capital raise ought to happen sooner rather than later if I am correct.
To answer the OP, I don't think a webinar is going to move the stock price. Copper production nearing the stated goals is what will do that but it looks like we are as much as 2-3 years out from that now, which is really frustrating for investors who've already waited so many years. However, I would not put this in the category of many juniors which are just endless story stocks with no real value. Solving the tech issues will make this a legit producer and earn a profit for shareholders.
Question is how long do you want to wait? I'm underwater at current prices so options are take a loss or wait. For now I'll wait as the big players involved in this have a stake as well and I remain confident that management is serious and not playing us. I don't think anyone involved is ready to accept a lowball takeover offer.
It sounds more to me like someone just trying to light a fire under EXMGF which imo can only be a good thing. It barely rises to the level of a nuisance suit otherwise.
Interesting.
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The relative performance chart below of Excelsior compared to Copper shows that – while copper recovered nicely – Excelsior significantly trails copper in price recovery. In my opinion, that creates a good opportunity for a dramatic rebound once good news is released regarding Excelsior’s ability to recover copper from the mine.
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Agree, with the copper rally looking tired/topped out there is a buying opportunity coming, just hard to figure the timing. Thinking Dec/Jan but "always hard to know, where the price will go." ;^)
NukeJon,
Thanks for letting us know that the stock is about to "explode" at .35 cents. Is this going to be the same type of explosion as the ones at .50, .70. .85, 1.05, 1.35, 1.60, 2.00, 2.20, 2.50, 2.85, and every other one of your past predicted explosion points from several dollars on down to today's penny stock territory, or will this one be different?
It's vitally important to know because I make all my investing decisions based on your posts because they are so long and seem so brilliant but frankly brother, I'm flat broke now. Too many explosions!
Part of all that is the big mistake that small investors make, and I've been guilty of it myself in the past. And that is getting married to a stock. So the opportunity to sell out a profit comes and goes, not to return. And then bagholders look at their stock wedding ring and say "my bride will bloom so beautifully some day... I just know it because of reasons a/b/c/d" but in most cases that day never comes. The oft-touted greatness of anatabine science, even if it pans out, is simply not enough to guarantee business success, because there are so many variables involved. Star is a very long longshot at this point.
But pumping dreams of riches is usually the theme-wedding of the month in the world of penny stocks. I've been told hundreds of times on this board (mostly by one guy) that the stock is about to EXPLODE! Someday, someday, lol.
Even if that were the case, the discovery of anatabine doesn't automatically translate into success for Star. Are you able to discern the difference between having a great invention and actually making money with it?
Business incompetence has ruined many "sure things" in the past. And Star has been pretty much nothing but incompetent for years, being run by a con artist and his sidekick lawyer as they both vacuumed up a million dollars a year in shareholder money to maintain their rich lifestyles.
Time will tell if Mullan/Chapman can a) come up with a drug that is marketable and b) get it to market before financial ruin sets in, which might mean such events as a fire sale of Star's patent licenses to someone else, aka longs hold the bag, AGAIN.
"IN the long run, the science is the only thing that matters with Anatabine."
What do you mean, exactly?
For a company like Star, there are lots of things that matter. For instance, is management competent or incompetent? The replacement of Williams--an incompetent--by (hopefully) competent management, matters as much or more than "the science", whatever that is. You don't define the term or even put it in any sort of context.
It takes a lot more than science to achieve business success. Star could fail and the supposedly infallible science could be taken up by someone else who turns a profit on it while Star bagholders weep.
I think it's irrelevant. He's a fraud and took shareholders for a ride.
You've perfected the art of argument by vague assertion on this board. Jonnie is a known fraud who's been pursued by authorities on that basis more than once. That you think he's some sort of brilliant medical researcher doesn't surprise me at all. Most of the STSI bagholders would like to give him a piece of their mind, not hang around here pumping his wonderfulness.
Mullan and Chapman are at least legit guys, as opposed to the joke that is Jonnie the conman. If he was still in charge the stock would be testing the real market cap at 10-15 cents. But there appears to be strong resistance around 50-60 cents, where I think it's headed in the next 3-4 weeks, sunshine rainbow pumpers notwithstanding.
It's clear there are some larger holders who will manipulate the stock back above a buck periodically to avoid delisting issues. They'll maintain interest for a year or two to see if new mgmt can produce something worth further investment, i.e. a drug that could get to market. If it looks like they are on track then Rock Creek has a future. If not well, this is just another longshot penny stock in a market full of them. Most don't make it.
At least bagholders are off the Jonnie trainwreck.
The best thing that could happen to this company for longs is a picture of Jonnie Williams in handcuffs being led to a jail cell with a message stating his stock has been confiscated and he'll never be involved in the company again. That would be good for at least a 50% bump in the share price.
Jonnie the conman probably was funneling the marketing money to his relatives or something. I would put nothing past that guy. The real problem is why are sales down 700k/qtr from last summer? Its a near 30 percent drop. Bagholders, even Mullen may not be able to rescue this pig from the crap Jonnie pulled.
Sales are in a downtrend.
Perito is Jonnie the conman's crooked lawyer, the guy who's been at his side going way back. They ran all the scams together. He oughtta be out the door right now. But he and Jonnie own a lot of stock so they can continue to extract money from shareholders.
Definitely good to bring professionals on board. Anything that helps to erase the stink of Jonnie the con man is good.
FightinIrish, thanks for your informative post. The signal/noise ratio here generally skews to noise but this was a welcome exception.
Well Mullan has contacts in the regulatory system, experience with the system and credentials. So at least there's a chance he can guide them past the mess that conman Jonnie created.
Well that's a first. Fortunate timing for Star that crooks Jonnie and Paul were finally removed just before this latest crap hit the fan. At least the company has a chance, however slim, to make lemonade. If it were JW and PP still at the helm, I would say the company was toast for sure.
Oh yeah, ride the ups and downs... thanks. You're just the sort of fellow I'd take investing advice from. To da Moon, Alice!!
Thales, that was about the most succinct thing I've ever seen on this particular board. Hopefully you woke a few people up to reality. Or as I like to say, there's no crying in baseball. Or investing.
Greatpick, there is no mass market product that's a huge success at the price point a bottle of Anatabloc goes for that I can think of. But at 30-40/bottle this stuff could take off like gangbusters if it were marketed right.
As it stands it's a niche product and the flatlining sales are proof of that. It's fine to wait for a drug version but that's going to require among other things a lot of patience and a joint venture partner to finance it, because no reasonable amount of dilution at $1.20-#2.00/share will cover it.
It should be at about a 40/bottle retail price point. Beyond that it becomes something that most people will think twice about just due to price. Mass marketed in Walgreens, CVS, Target, Walmart, etc.
But the last time I made that suggestion I had an "investor" tell me that 90/bottle was a great price and "how could you make money selling it at less than that?!" The math and business-challenged "investors" are as bad as the management. Hopefully JW out the door will change all of that.
Planning to read it later today...
Agreed. There is already a huge spec premium built into the price of this stock, it could be a 20 cent stock without that. The almost daily griping about price action and "shorts" here is indicative of people who confuse investing with cheerleading, high school drama class, or an episode of "The X Files". Outside of algo trading penny flippers, no should care about daily ups and downs of a few cents in the price.
However, the company getting JW and PP and their amateur hucksterism off to the side, and someone with industry experience and connections in place is good news in the long run. Question is, with income appearing to have flatlined and needing more capital to pursue FDA approval, how much dilution do we face?
The potential good news on the horizon now would be that bigger players might, at some point after Mullan establishes his plans, see this is a spec biotech opportunity, and build an even bigger premium into the stock than the one we have now.
Unlike the present time where results of tests are met with collective yawns, positive results from testing along an FDA approval track could potentially trigger the price shocks that people here repeatedly, mistakenly think are coming for an otc dietary supplement that sits on a store shelf already, next to the protein powder and valerian root. But all of that depends on many variables and the downside risk is real. A "buzz" about Star having a potential alzheimer's drug would probably yield the biggest potential boost you could hope for down the line.
This stock is still a huge gamble and your point that people here constantly confuse their dreams of avarice with reality is well taken.
He and Perito were drawing a mil/yr for a long time and Perito still is. They vacuumed up plenty of stock bagholder money on the way to today, so the corporate jet is no problemo for a company with no profits.
I know bagholders around here like to do free p.r. for JW. Well this is one case where it might actually have some impact. I would forward that with the 5th paragraph highlighted to every alzheimer's discussion group/board/blog/twitter feed I could find. If I were one of those guys.
He's talking about the same thing he was talking about every time he yelled "short squeeze coming soon" for the last year or more. B.S. flies on this board... like a turkey thrown out of a helicopter.
Obviously you missed last week's pump and dump which was advertised here as the next big takeoff that will make all the STSI bagholders millionaires!
Some guys aren't really investors. They don't really short the stock, or buy it, or anything else. They do get a few pennies any time someone responds to them. So the more you play their (and their master's) game, the happier they are.
Just a thought.
You really shouldn't invest based on that sort of emotionalism, it will kill your bankroll.
I suspect revenue is flat because sales are rapidly transitioning off the Star site and mostly into GNC. Gross margin on a bottle sold through GNC has to be much less than through the Star site.
I thought it was just Jonnie taking no salary. He and Perito were getting a million a year each to run a tobacco lawsuit gambit that turned into the anatabloc play. In either case, it's way too much money for guys running an operation that basically has been lighting shareholder cash on fire and burning it for years.
10Q notes from clown alley, posted there by anatablocrules
Laywers didn't take $1.2M of the $8m settlement they were contractually due on RJR settlement. In negotiations completed just 3 weeks ago they agreed to take their $1.2m out of future royalty payments. Star says there are no licensing agreements "at this time".
Star refers to Hopkins in clear language. Indicates peer reviewed thyroid article as being a "major" accomplishment
Star indicates that USA stuff is not an issue.
Star indicates the legal fees on the shareholder stuff are anticipated to be reimbursed by insurance.
Star has capital and new buy in to carry thru Q2 2014
Star references potential pharma product in a new sentence.
qtr end net sales growth/qtr
12/31/11 913
03/31/12 1069 17%
06/30/12 1448 35%
09/30/12 1704 18%
12/31/12 1966 15%
03/31/13 2507 28%
06/30/13 2521 1%
I recall some after hours price action on the eve of previous quarterlies but yes, this is pretty quiet now.
Days to cover has to be one of the most useless stats out there.
Here's a positive article you might like: http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/The-Star-Scientific-STSI-Spring-is-Coiled/s/via/1789/article/view/p/mid/3/id/417/
This fellow Murphy actually makes a few good picks if his published record is to be believed. So maybe he's right. I'm not big on TA because most practitioners suck at it and produce results akin to crystal ball gazing, couched in vague language that lets them off the hook every time.
But we'll see if Mr. Murphy is a better stock price predictor on STSI than, say, some broken record ihub pumpers who shall remain nameless.