RE:ManicThere is nothing even remotely surprising about the way Altagas has traded.
I would like the people on this board to learn one thing about the stockmarket from this story, and that is that share prices follow human psychology, and humans don't behave rationally, they behave based on their emotions.
When Altagas made an overpriced acquisition, sentiment turned negative on the stock, and everyone bailed, retail and institutions. Nobody owned the stock around Christmas, and there was nothing but doom and gloom on the boards.
In reality Altagas owned a few long-term growthy gems; Ripet and WGL. Nobody was talking about the assets, just how badly management had messed up.
Rothschild said you buy when there is blood in the streets, so I bought.
Flip forward a year from now: Ripet has performed nicely and the market sees that WGL is growing at a good clip. Debt has declined all year. And the company starts to tout a five year, 10% per year dividend raise plan.
This brings in a whole different set of investors. The dividend growth investors, not the turnaround investors. And there is far more money in the dividend growth game than there is in the bottom-feeding game.
marketsense wrote: I think Bigkats comments about slitting his throat pretty well sums up the feeling of most
long term investors holding ALA prior to the post New Years epiphany when redemption
slowly began to trickle down from above. Now there is distinct feeling of optimism in the
air as opposed to mass extermination of investors before the New Year. Those that hung
on through that death defying plunge were questioning their sanity but the market has so
many tricks and sadly many holders got tricked into dumping their shares. Somehow there
must be a lesson in all of this and for all of us. I welcome any comments that can help
illuminate this manic turn of events.