We are not alone.In the backgound on our investment, larger and larger investments by major corporations are placing stress on resource production; but, the Chinese gov't is manipulating spot prices while pretending that spot prices are meaningful in today's energy metals market. Actual producers ( GXY, ALB etc) keep warning us that spot prices are not the prices parties are agreeing to in actual contracts. Actual prices are much higher than spot prices. Just about every time he speaks, GXY CEO Tse tells us that message and reports free cash flow and profit numbers that re-inforce his own statements about price levels. Share price wise, GXY is getting hammered by shorts who are driving share price levels down so that big investment institutions can buy large blocks for cheap prices. Funny thing is GXY just sold 1/2 of Sal De Vita salar for $280 mil USD and that half of the salar had no even been drilled. The market has ignored that success.
One of my Aussie holdings in LI has such a large short position that using average volume of trading, it would take almost a month of buying to "cover" the short position. That stock might be GXY; but I honestly do forget which one it is.
Another example is PILBF. PILBF has one of the largest LI deposits in the world. Once fully operational it will be the third biggest LI producer in the world. PILBF is going on it's merry way in terms of production quantities and LI concentrate levels being high quality. Share price wise PILBF's share price likewise keeps falling. The other day I took the raw shipping numbers on shipments already made this quarter - annualized them in a conservative fashion and concluded that annualizing them during this shipment build up period drove a share price of 82 cents Aussie. The actual share price is quite a bit lower than that 72 cents or so. Ken Brisden CEO of PILBF says almost literally the same things as CEO Tse about LI prices.
What I have chosen to do is focus on the company's performance and ignore it's stock price. For instance, PILBF is ramping up product TOWARD name plate capacity and is shipping product in steadily increasing quantities. The other day it became known that a HUGE dry bulk shipping freighter was headed to Port Hedlund to pick up PILBF LI. As a share holder I got all proud and happy, that PILBF was finally in the big time. What did the stock price do? It went down so I bought more becuase the qtrly numbers should be strong.
We as CRE shareholders have a unique situation. CRE can self- produce high quality LI by buying a bull dozer, back hoe, crusher, and testing station. The Rose ore sticks right up out of the ground. GPY self produces gold, CCW is near to self-producing cobalt, Next could self produce graphite once it gets the mining license from the Madagascar gov't., Li miners like Altura are largely end running big banks by getting offtake partners to fund their mine construction. CRE can do the same.
Hopefully our guys will announce a deal or a self- production option soon.