RE:Speculative?? Until they are in production, it's a speculative stock, period. Anything that is not yet in production, from salt to coal to oil to semiconducters is speculation until it's producing, and it's priced accordingly.
The only liability anyone on a message board has is if they, say, put a price on a stock and insist its going there without providing disclaimers of any kind or the research justifying the price they, in their opinion, think its going to. People like that can (and have) been held personally liable for people who followed their advice (because absent disclaimers and insistence it will hit a target is considered advice) and lost money doing it.
So, for example, lets say someone buys Atlas Salt at $15 (if it gets there), thinking it will get to $76 because people on a message board insist 100% they have done due diligence and know that it will get there because its a still. Atlas then accepts a buyout at $12 that is voted and goes through.
Anyone who bought at $15 could then make a claim against people who were insisting it would hit $76, and were telling people they were stupid for thinking it would be anything less, and to load up because it will hit $76 or higher, especially if they aren't licensed.
Is $76 possible? I think it's outside the realm of reality for the salt mine on its own. I think $50 was pushing it and only possible in a ridiculous bidding war.
No one is cornering the market with this resource. Nobody is becoming a monopoly with this resource. They are getting a premium, must have resource that will displace foreign imports and increase profit margins, but it's not giving anyone the ability to corner the market. Domestic salt production in North America is roughly 42 million tons. If they hit the upper end of projections first year mining, they increase North American production by 20%, and eliminate the need for foreign imports. That's huge, but it simply makes the buyer a bigger player, not the only player.
Every talks about Stone Canyon buying out a similar resource for over $5 billion. They didn't. They've spent $5 billion buying salt resources, which include entire marketing and retail facilities as well as mines.
To hit $76 on its own, someone would have to bid $6.5 billion (approximately) on Great Atlantic. That means someone is projecting the total 15 year value (because no one bids on the lifetime value of the resource) of the mine, minus startup and ongoing costs, at an immense premium.
K+S bought Morton Salt, mine, facilities, retail, branding the whole thing, for $3.2 billion. Not just the mine, EVERYTHING, and the mine was a small portion of that $3.2 billion deal.
Goderich is part of Compass Minerals, and ALL of Compass Minerals assets, the company itself, has a market cap of $1.41 billion. Good luck if you think paying 4 times the value of ALL of Compass Minerals for a single salt mine is going to happen. They could get three mature, less profitable salt mines, North America's largest producer of magnesium chloride, and lithum production by offering Compass Minerals 3 times their current stock price, a deal shareholders would leap on, and still not pay as much as a $76 share price for Great Atlantic suggests.
I've personally done a lot of due diligence for my own purposes on Red Moon (now Atlas Salt). Before the spin out, I figured $4 to $6 was a good range. After resource estimates increased and with the spinout news, I decided I'd be good with $10-$16. After the spinout, I'll be thrilled with $10-12. If it hits $50 I'd be happy to be wrong.
$76? Someone needs to justify that price with something other than extremely wishful thinking.