RE:I was going to go on a giant rave about AXR/AXU, but ..."Thoughts? Is HL at the beginning of an uptick?" I think yes, but as usual, flip a coin. HL can fluctuate pretty wildly and I'm in right now. I've completed 3 trades since the conversion (4 including the conversion) and some of them have been pretty gut-wrenching, but all sold well in the black. HL seems to be a swing trade stock, like a lot of them.
Also, a lot of commentators observe that PM stock prices tend to presage a move in the PMs themselves rather than only be a function of the movement of the underlying commodity. The black swan is that when the Dow and S&P drop, everything drops in sympathy.
"I see your point of view in regards it would take $20 +/- HL share price to make up the shareholders losses of the AXU/AXR debacle." I remember making that comment in 2022 on SH! That was based on someone holding AXU at 2.50 CAN down to the 47c USF and not averaging down AXU. I significantly averaged down a lot of AXU so received more shares in the conversion.
"On how to recoup AXU/HL conversion losses is a nice play and it assumes cash on hand and don't mind playing it. :)"
The 9/22 conversion price was 3.82 USF, and I held it until end-March '23 and sold at 6.32 USF. As HL price dropped, on each new trade I just kept bumping up my share count using the cash balance from the last trade. I now have almost double the number of shares received from the conversion, with no new funds added.
...
About your observation on management: so far I'm less cynical; and so far they have been straight shooters. That tends to be the case in a lot of old established companies in basic industries.