RE:Hope for 2024rudinm wrote: Even when hope is a bad investor, it looks look the stock is bottemed out and volume is not great.
Lets see what 2024 brings for Verde ....
Verde went from about $5 to $1 in 2023 for an 80% loss.
The volume by price chart shows high seller volume from Sept into EOY as investors clearly threw in the towel and took sizable tax losses. So, the question is, will these sellers cause a January effect move in the sp as they buy back in or have they moved on?
The enormous reserves, available production capacity, new executive team and potential for carbon sales monetization would argue for some continued interest in the company, especially at a $55M m/c.
The counterpoint of course is we have witnessed a series of ongoing glaring operational failures, 2 years of missed guidance along with a series of misleading NRs that have sullied the company's reputation to such a degree that investor trust has fallen in a similar manner as the chart. Oh and I forgot to mention the large debt burden and onerous rates that require an operational turnaround into the black in a hurry in order to service the debt and meet ongoing liquidity needs.
I am guessing there will be a January effect run in the sp perhaps to as high as $1.40 or $1.50 but beyond the temptation for a nice risk/reward trade opportunity there are just too many unanswered questions to be extremely bullish on the long term.
For us longs, my hope is that going forward we see an executive team that has been given reasonable but solid growth targets that lay the foundation for an operational turnaround. Expecting a new sales/marketing team to come in and grow sales from 400Kt in 2023 to 1Mt in 2024 and 3Mt in 2025 appears to be yet another example of the reputed arbitrary and dictatorial tone of this ceo.
The sales strategy that got this company to its current state was very poor. In hindsight, we can clearly see that the 2022 sales success was due only to the parabolic move in potash enabling a very discounted kforte price relative to KCl, that's it. Sell it anywhere, regardless of proximity to the plant and sell it cheap because margins were so good. So, hopefully we see a major strategic shift and execution of low and high level goals that are based on achievable targets based on reality.
Finally we need a news flow that is based in reality, not fantasy, so reputational credibility can slowly be restored. I realize I've used the word reality a lot but any long reflecting on the last 2 years of owning and following this company is probably hoping for this as well after the roller coaster we've been on.
Apologies for the long rant but as it's year end I find myself reflecting on just what the hell went wrong with this investment in 2023 and what hopefully will get better in the days to come.