RE:RE:Does the "fat lady" really sing tomorrowFlyhi, just for clarity, I never said it was OK to outright lie and deceive. I agree 100% that company executives who lie to and deceive shareholders should be held accountable.
But look around you, man. This sector is full of executives who do that to varying degrees. And they are rarely held accountable. Even the best of them spin things in every news release. They are very good at it - it's their job. That's the environment in which you chose to put your money at risk. You made that choice. Steve Roman is morally (and likely legally) responsible for lying to you. You are responsible for believing him.
Before I ran into Harte, I ran into Steve Roman at Gold Eagle. I made a lot of money on that one, but I wasn't impressed with SR. Exall, his company owned Gold Eagle outright and did nothing with it. In 2002, he gave half of it to Southern Star, run by Robert Cudney, for $160k and a commitment to $2 million in exploration. SR sat back and watched for the next 4 years while Cudney was the operator, did all the work and turned that asset into something big. When the two companies merged in 2006, into Gold Eagle (I owned Southern Star at that point) it was worth $400 million, all on Cudney's work. 2 years later, they sold it to Goldcorp for $1.5 BILLION. Watching that whole thing unfold, and getting a huge payday out of it, it looked to me like SR had a very minor role - he just sat back and stayed out of Cudney's way through that whole period - they were co-CEOs, but Cudney was the brains.
In fact, in spite of the big payday, I didn't even remember Steve Roman's name when I started looking at Harte. So I was a little surprised when my dd here showed his biggest claim to fame (other than shutting down Elliot Lake),was building Gold Eagle into $1.5 billion. He did no such thing - Cudney did that. It was pretty clear to me that the top guy at Harte was one of the many executives in this sector who aren't above enhancing the truth.
All of what I just recounted above is in the public record. I lived through it, so it was easier dd for me than for most investors. But if you are investing in a sector where liars are ubiquitous, and they rarely get punished for it, it is important to never take anything they say at face value.
And if one of them fools you (I've been fooled more than once), own it, and try to learn how to not repeat it.
There's no point in getting mad at a dog for pissing on a tree - that's just what dogs do.