RE: TUO @ .45 what is wrong with AMK
"What is wrong with AMK?" Good question -- I'll try to answer it.
First of all, comparing AMK to TUO shows that AMK has over 2.4x the number of issued shares. Why is this? Well, partly to fund the drilling activities that AMK needed to earn its interest in Treaty Creek, which is understandable. However, a good part of the reason is because AMK's management felt it necessary to pay themselves WAY above market for a junior exploration stock at this stage of their evolution, and the AMK Board approved the exorbitant salaries. And in order to keep paying themselves through the downturn that saw their stock drop from over $2 in 2007 to under 5 cents in early 2009, they had to do financings at hugely dilutive prices. I'm all in favour of management teams of successful exploreco's making huge coin, but on the exercise of options after they've hit the home run, not by cashing huge paycheques every two weeks whether they (or the reserves) show up or not.
Second, continuing on the theme of "shareholder / management" alignment, AMK's management has often shown a willingness to sell into price spikes themselves. Again, that sends a message to shareholders that in AMK's mind it's mostly about the insiders, not the common shareholders.
Third, AMK's management is heavily populated by people who did not grow up in the industry and who don't have a strong exploration background or a track record of unlocking value for shareholders (including themselves). Their president, who I'm sure is very intelligent and a great person, is a lawyer by background, which means that he is wired and trained to think about averting risk rather than maximizing opportunity. It also means that he has likely become accustomed to a certain level of personal cash flow every month (see first point above). AMK's IR person grew up selling hi-fi equipment at the retail level and came into the job without the kind of background or training you'd want to see in an IR person. And he and the President are brothers, which is great if you're promoting family values but doesn't send a good signal to the market unless both are overflowing with industry knowledge and competence. In short, they're not the Lundin brothers, and I get nervous when I think about them on the opposite side of the table if / when AMK starts negotiations with Seabridge on the tunnel.
Fourth, as an earlier post pointed out, there seems to be some seriously "playing" of AMK's stock that is noticeable by the trading patterns. Twenty years ago, that was just part-and-parcel of owning a precious metals exploration junior on the VSE, but not anymore -- there are a number of companies with equal or better upside that have better daily volumes without anyone playing those games (or at least, with a significantly lower ratio of those games per X volume of shares sold).
Fifth, and last, AMK only trades just over 100,000 shares per day on average. At today's closing price, that's only $22,000 per day of liquidity, and it's tough to build lots of muscle when you can only eat chicken feed. On the other hand, TUO trades about 180,000 shares per day, representing $68,000 per day of liquidity at today's closing price. Not huge either, but still more than 3x AMK's liquidity.
Sorry to be so harsh, but that's how I see it. Most of what I have said is factual, and the rest is simply my view of what those facts mean. I believe that much of the problem that has been highlighted by the difference between TUO's and AMK's share price movements on the same news can be laid squarely at the feet of Mr. Burton and his management team. Replace them, or at least the key ones, with truly competent exploreco managers with successful track records, and this stock doubles quickly and stays there or higher due to the exploration potential of AMK's other properties (the existence of which, to be fair, is a credit to the current management and constitutes their best accomplishment).
Agree / disagree?