*LONG POST
There are two possible sides of the coin that I see with where we sit today. Investors need to decide which story they beleive and are going to bet on. The way I see it, these are the two main stories. This is all just my opinion:
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STORY A: The "Majors aren't that interested and MS is trying to create something out of not much" story.
People that beleive this story may beleive that all the growth is over. Mark has proven capable of developing and selling a low grade deposit, but is not able to take it past the economic stages and getting it into production. A red flag is that he is missing his own deadlines more and more. Alarmingly, this latest bought deal appears to be actually not delivering what he was promising. A lot of the things he is saying now about a strategic being interested were what he was saying at the same stage with Dumont when he was with RNC. This video hasn't aged very well ...<https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/commodities/video/time-is-ticking-to-get-dumont-nickel-cobalt-project-into-construction-rnc-minerals-ceo~1307843>
At the end of the day, if you are investing with CNC now, you are betting for it to become a mine. Sure, there could be a bump with good drill results, but the 10x possibility is with a buyout or getting into production. The goal of the strategic investment wasn't just to supply us with money; it was also to supply us with credibility to the entire investment community by having a major attached. Potentially, if the strategic was attached when the nickel price exploded this week - our sp could have gone up much more. People who beleive this story may beleive that this is Crawford turning into Dumont all over again. Mark is a very smart Nickel market thinker, but potentially the deposit isn't as valuable to majors as he hopes it is.
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STORY B: The "This project is going to be the MAIN supplier of nickel to North America" story.
Mark has stated this or something like this numerous times in interviews. He speaks so confidently about how this could be the next Sudbury. How can he be so confident? Is he talking to majors and hearing their interest directly? OR is he just predicting what he THINKS will happen and speaks confidently off of that? There is a big difference between the two. People who beleive this story will point out that the nickel market of the last 1.5 years has played out exactly how he said it would. He was saying that the analysts were wrong years ago before anyone else was. He clearly is a very intelligent person that understands nickel at a very high level. The argument could be made that he didn't fail in Dumont - he just ran out of time. The company decided to go a different direction into gold - and his nickel plan didn't prove fruitful fast enough. Now we are seeing the market talk much more about Nickel. Also the question remains, WHERE is the nickel going to come from if not CNC?
This recent bought deal could be a strategic move to eliminate the leverage that the majors think they have over CNC by taking away the need of the company for money. The musical chairs for who is going to get nickel has started, and cnc holds one of the golden tickets. The problem with this story is that all of the proof that majors actually do care is behind closed doors protected by NDAs - which makes investors question if it is happening at all.
I go between believing each story every few hours haha. I am heavily invested. I am actually very happy that we are set financially. But I do need to see some sort of proof from the market that the majors care about CNC or deposits like theirs.
At this point the company is asking us for a leap of faith that what Mark is saying is true. Normally that would be crazy to invest soley in what the ceo says. But this is a unique situation because he is a more knowledgeable nickel expert AND we just witnessed the largest nickel run up in history (and the supply hasn't been solved).
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Good luck everybody'