Things holding Trevali share price backFor any actual new investors, here's my two cents:
1) By far the biggest thing is zinc spot price - specifically, confidence in zinc spot price. It wasn't too long ago that spot was trading at sub-$0.9. That's nightmare territory for Trevali. The exact breakeven number is debatable - some have it as low as $1. Personally, my "sweet spot" is at least $1.15 - as long as spot is above that level, I'm comfortable with Trevali's prospects. It won't be a sexy investment at $1.15, but they will be able to reliably pay down debt while building up their cash reserves. For share price to truly start rising, we probably need spot prices above $1.25.
2) Shares bought while share price was falling. Remember that not too long ago, share price was as high as $1.7. It fell, but not instantly - the drop from $1.7 to the low of sub-$0.1 took a long time. During that time, I, and many others, averaged down, trying to protect our investments. Other investors saw the fall as a buying opportunity, and got stuck with their shares as the price fell below their comfort zone for selling. As share prices go up, there's going to be a huge amount of shares being sold. For those shares to sell, there needs to be enough new buyers that are interested. That's a difficult boundary to cross. Expect to see very large volumes at key price breaks. You can take a look at the chart to see where those'll be, but I expect $0.35, $0.5, $0.7, $0.9, $1, $1.15, $1.3, and $1.5 to be roughly speaking where the important price levels will be. These are roughly where people averaged on the way down.
3) Confidence in Trevali management. Ever since their decision to purchase the two African mines, my personal opinion has been that management has done just about everything possible to mess things up. They had plenty of opportunities to play things safe, but they chose to pursue a very risky avenue. When presented with the ability to protect themselves, they chose instead to spend money recklessly. The share buyback plan was the perfect example of this. Buying back shares produces zero value for the company - share buybacks and dividends are perfect examples of companies having money and not knowing anything better to do with it. Trevali management needs to demonstrate they've learnt from their mistakes going forward - and unfortunately, their plan to raise more capital through further share issuance is not a promising sign. Right now the best thing they can do is just continue working their existing mines and erasing the debt from their balance sheet.