RE:What am I missingHey MaterialsMan, it would seem that you are missing several key details, yes. I will try to comment on some of what you are missing, but will in all likelihood, still miss several points because there are so many factors at play here that it's hard to comment on all of them. First off, ill comment on the classic "lassonde curve" effect that many here are familiar with. In 2020, when the market got nuclear hot on gold and precious metals, Tudor ran from 0.60 to past $4 per share. The "three amigos" were the talk of the junior sector and I think for the most part, captured the markets imagination. Looking back on it now, I think its fair to say that the share prices of these three companies got a little out of hand, im sure a lot of people were able to make a lot of money in short order. As the market shifted focus towards crypto and away from PM in 2021, many of these hot junior plays started to trade closer to what they should've been trading at. Also, the release of their MRE, while impressive in terms of ounces in the ground, the initial grade was low. I think this caused many investors to hit the exits, perhaps prematurely. There's these two important factors called "metallurgy" and "recovery rates" which is where a company is able to determine if the ore can be extracted from the ground economically. If your recovery rates come back at, say 60%... well that just destroyed the economics of the project. Im not saying that the recovery rates of treaty creek will be that low either, im just giving you an example of what CAN happen. I suspect that major mining companies are going to wait to see at least an indication of what the recovery rates will be like at Treaty Creek before making a strategic investment in Tudor. Now, back to the lassonde curve effect that I was talking about earlier. This is not not always, the case, but more often than not, resource estimates DO NOT satisfy the markets often unrealistic expectations and cause a stock price to fall. At that point, a lot of the "exploration hype" and juice in the play dies off, and takes you to where we are at now. If you believe in the play long term, then you can view this as the "development discount" window and continue to accumulate shares on the cheap. The market has also been rather unfavourable towards gold and precious metals over the past 2 years, which hasn't helped either. The good news though, is on a macro scale, things seem to be changing in a big way and I really do believe gold gets past 2k and stays at those levels in the near future.
Now in regards to Snowline, just like the three amigos did in 2020, it captured the imagination of the market in 2022. There will always be a story or two that does this every year or so. The hype behind snowline was real because they discovered a bulk tonnage, intrusion related, tintina type of gold system along a very long strike length at their Valley project. The ounces of gold are not knock your socks off high grade, but they are close to the surface and tintina gold systems are famous for two things; 1) easily accessible near surface gold, and 2) high recovery rates. Im not at all surprised to see them do so well in the short-term when they basically have uncovered what appears to be a 10-12 million ounce deposit, with an inner core of 2-3 million ounces of high grade gold. It is a classic example of a tier 1 asset in the making. Also, when you factor in their other very promising project (which I believe is called Gracie), you get an effect of multiple lassonde curves stacking on top of each other. I missed the boat on Snowline and am still slapping myself for it. I am not buying at $2.90 level as it is essentially priced for perfection at this point, and a failure to deliver on that perhaps unrealistic expectation will cause the stock to trade backwards and would mean lost money for me. I watch with a keen eye, but in all likelihood will not be buying.
Now back to Tudor, I believe today's update on the resource is very positive and I will never complain about additional ounces being added to the resource, along with an improvement to the average grade of gold. I still think there are several key derisking activities that need to occur before we see the share price reflect the true value of the company (see my above comments on metallurgy), but its clear the company is taking steps towards them. I believe the deposit is still open in all directions, so there is the chance that another majory discovery could occur on-site. If that happens, it will kick some of that lassonde curve excitement back into the play. I still hold my core position here, along with AMK, and am contempt to see this story through to the end. Alas, if you were expecting a moon shot on the updated resource estimate, in all likelihood you will end up disappointed, much like last time. Cheers and goodluck to all.