My Bet
When I piled into ATH heavily back in January 2021 at an average of eighteen and a half cents, ATH was my vehicle but my big bet was on oil. After doing my research I came to the conclusion that oil would make a comeback. Full stop. Two days after I finished buying, I found out Eric Nuttal bought 10% of ATH. That made me feel good.
At the time, all the oilies were in debt to their eyeballs.
When I searched for my vehicle I was looking for the one that had the best assets, reasonable management, and greatest opportunity to outperform if oil recovered. ATH was only a few breaths from going belly up but so were many others. The wild spending to expand that happened prior to oils collapse put a lot of oilies in harms way. At that point in time one could buy the whole company (ATH) for a hundred million bucks. Shortly after that, oil did start its recovery and thank god for that because all the oilies that were in a position of needing to refinance were just given a chance to live another day. ATH managed to secure refinancing in the fall of 2020 at incredibly poor terms but they had no option other than bankruptcy as no one else could buy them out as the other oilies were in much the same spot as ATH - up to there necks in debt. About this same time Trudeau was throwing fireballs at the energy industry saying he would put an end to oil.
So, between having a near death debt experience and the government doubling down against the oilies they have been very conservative and paying down debt swiftly as oil rose. Last year when oil hit $130 bucks, it was a huge shot in the arm for all the oilies and gave them a chance to get their books back on track. They are all still feeling the effects of the ugly refinancing deals they did but as long as oil stays at or above current rates, the oilies will be generating gobs of cash going forward.
As for ATH, it has performed as I hoped for but it was oil that did all the heavy lifting. If it weren't for oil's recovery, ATH and many others would have failed and I would have lost my investment.
As you can see, my investment horizon has been years and I do not trade at all. I've taken some off the table for toys and helping kids buy houses but that's it.
In the time I've been in ATH I have noticed that pretty consistently, every time there is a quarterly release that many have high expectations and are sorely disappointed when there is no "pop" in share price. I always notice a bunch of new posters pop up right after a Q release making me think that some buy on hope of a "pop" but end up taking a loss because the deep-pocketed plunge patrol knows how to steal their shares at a hefty discount just like what happened the last couple days.
So, I just keep an eye on oil and as time ticks by ATH's debt gets lower, the buy backs continue and the share price continues to slowly push higher.
Thank goodness for oil !
glta