Coming quarterly results...A bump at the opening, surely reflecting the revived takeover hopes following the nice metrics from the Surge Energy sale of assets.
This board has gone out of control. There are the long suffering shareholders (sadly I am one of them), the shorters (well done guys), and the newbies (hoping for a quick double with a takeover).
Lots of heterogeneity, lots of anger, lots of hope...what can we say at this point? As many long-sufferers, I did not sell and now I am "stuck" with this position, hoping for a takeover. Clearly not an investment strategy. I have learned from my LTS mistake but in the meantime, I am still stuck with it.
The biggest lesson is to not invest where the management team lacks talent. This firm has been mismanaged for years now; way before the oil price crash. I first invested when the market panicked with their convertible debt back in October 2011...my position quickly doubled in value as it was clearly a misplaced panic. However, the fact that such a large firm could allow itself to be run down like that should have been a warning sign.
Now, four years on and having lost an insane amount of value on the position, I am in the behavioral no-man's land of regret avoidance...losses hurt much more than gains and realizing them is admitting total defeat.
The fact that the stock has not bounced back much lately despite much better pricing on the oil front is telling. Their debt being USD denominated is hurting them massively. Investor money has gone towards high quality firms (AAV, CLR, SGY, etc.), LTS is in critical care...if oil prices rebound, they can survive this crisis. It pains me to see them sell all their best assets. Clearly no vision there just desperately trying to save the ship. Needless to say I voted against the entire board. But, like many, I still hold in the hope of a significant premium on a takeover or some sort of major asset sale. Crescent, Vermillion, time to make your bids and put us out of our misery!