A good question to ask might be "who is the natural buyer of the stock right now?"
Some new holders can't own the stock because they don't have an equity mandate.
Many institutions can't buy the stock because the market cap is below $300M USD, $500M USD or $1B USD.
Many institutions can't or won't buy the stock because it trades below $1 USD and $1 HKD per share.
Many individuals won't buy the stock because they're not aware of it, they see too much risk investing in a frontier market like Mongolia and/or they don't want to invest in a dying industry like coal.
Many individuals and institutions won't buy the stock because they've been burned by MCC stock or MCC management before.
Many individuals won't buy the stock because both the long-term and short-term charts look horrible.
Many individuals won't buy the stock because they're making money in much less risky plays in technology and Internet stocks, bank stocks and other larger cap names, and don't see any reason to change what's working.
Many individuals won't buy the stock because the valuation doesn't screen well or really doesn't look that compelling on any basis (price to tangible book, EV to EBITDA, P/E) even after the restructuring.
Many individuals won't buy the stock because they haven't been given a good reason to. It's not like management has been vocal about the upside case.
Of the remaining addressable market of investors, how many do you think have kept close tabs on the restructuring process, read the JPL report, tabulated monthly production figures and obsessed about the latest China-Mongolia diplomatic news?
Honestly, if there are more than 10 people in the entire world closely following this name, I would be surprised.
Suffice it to say, the bears are in control, at least for now. The HK price action illustrates this perfectly -- every decent run up (IMF bailout news, reconfirmed IMF bailout news, production data, etc.) is subdued pretty quickly by selling.
