RE: The TSX Venture is Broken. This Hopkins guy is 1) an investment advisor, 2) chairman of national and local advisory committees of the TSX Venture Exchange and 3) a member of several committees set up by regulators and stock exchanges. Do you believe a man in his position would really tell you what the problem is? I don't. And I pretty much disagree with most of the excuses he provided. I believe we are indeed in just another "normal business cycle" and none of us know when or what it will be to pull us out of this funk. These cycles have come and gone for as long as I've been around.
Anyway, the biggest problem I see can be summed up in one word, DILUTION. These two-bit juniors are exceedingly expensive to run. And besides the costs of exploration and development, there are other things that play no small role ---- like exceedingly costly executive compensation & severance packages (remember, these companies all have NO income), costly discounted private placements, discounted and re-priced stock options, cozy party-related transactions and probably three or four more other things that I can't think of right now. And how many of these is Woulfe alone guilty of?
So just how dilutive is it? Anyone willing to have their eyes opened should read the following article. It shows that the number of shares for stocks making up the Venture Index has more than quadrupled since Q1-2008. Pretty onerous environment for any index to perform if you ask me.
"...the constituents in the composite index soared from 13.2 billion in the first quarter of 2008 to 54 billion the last quarter..."
Toronto Venture Exchange, RIP?