SharperDingaan

Shush SD

Crypto is no different than any other market. Market manipulation is part of the environment; it shouldn't exist but on any given day most would argue that it is present. It really comes down to degree, and whether the counter party is at least your equal in experience &/or expertise (a Goldman Sachs vs Morgan Stanley). The big difference is that the crypto market is new, and largely the sophisticated vs the not so much. Buying BTC cheap, and not buying when it's expensive is not manipulation. Neither is buying BTC cheap and selling a BTC covered call at a much higher strike, at the same time Before BTC we had the penny stock exchange, and with the same issues. Ya pays ya money, and ya takes ya chances! If this isn't you, go play on a better exchange. SD

De-globalization today is 'friends-shoring', AWAY from the Asian workshops. Of the more commodity type manufactured goods, maybe 50-60% from Asia ordered 8-10 weeks ahead, and the rest from 'friends'. Of the medical type consumables, maybe 50-60% from 'friends'. Of the weapons, munitions, electronics, etc., maybe 70-80%. 'Friends shore' for supply chain resilience, 'off shore' for the bulk lowest quality/cost commodity component of your inventory that turns over roughly every 4-8 months. To escape the commodity trap; either consume the commodity component yourself, or move into higher value manufacturing. China is well known for expanding third-world raw materials production via its 'Belt & Road' initiative, and reaping the benefit as the inflated supply floods the market - collapsing the commodity price. Replace 'minerals' with 'low cost labor', and you get the same result. You and I are going to pay more for our goods - and not notice. Goods prices will just continue to inflate at the current high rate of inflation, while the actual rate of inflation significantly declines. Packagers just package in smaller quantities, we toss less in the garbage, and social service payments automatically rise with inflation(subject to a 12-15 month delay). ESG is a significant driver (EV batteries). With the greater focus on sustainability via recycling and reuse, it is typically much cheaper to recycle at home than abroad (net of to/from shipping costs). Recycle (in bulk) a product with a lot of scarce resources in it (Lithium in EV batteries), and you break the supplier's (China) monopoly. And .... if friends are largely 'local' (EU) ... you also quickly get the scale to make it viable. SD

+1 SD

Utilities are very simple businesses. Revenue is regulated (rate/KwH), interest is a function of the quantity/type of debt, and profit (regulated) a function of the equity invested. Rising costs are recovered via rising rate adjustments, and the more equity you have at risk the more you earn. The more debt and the less equity employed, the less profit the regulator needs to recover through rate adjustment. Assume around a 2 yr lag between when a higher cost is incurred, and when it starts to be recovered through higher rates. Equity slowly rises via a dividend DRIP plus retained earnings, and there is little incentive to do a buyback. Not a lot of risk. AQN got burned using a ALM mismatch strategy. As ST debt refinanced at higher rates, cash flow fell, the share price fell by 50%, and the quarterly dividend had to be cut 40% to stay within AQN's 75% payout ratio. The better solution is a asset sale that both significantly reduces debt, and eliminates debt with interest rates > the regulated return on the asset being sold. Alternatively if the acquisition is successful, it is financed via a new long term debt issuance - large enough to also correct any residual ALM mismatch. Now hated by many, market sentiment is negatively biased, and any upside share appreciation will be very limited for the next year or so. However, by around the end of summer, both the outcome of the asset sale and the acquisition should be resolved, and the business back to 'normal'. Senior management changes at year end, and AQN is back to feeling shareholders love. If it takes 2 years from start to finish, you do very well. It can be swing traded, but the real value-add is in the two-year hold. Obviously the more house money, the lower the cost base on your equity at risk, and the better your CAGR will be. SD

Just a bump. Lot of errors of late, the most recent being the recent Q32022 earnings miss, getting burned on an interest rate mismatch, a forced 40% cut in the dividend, $1 billion+ of assets for sale, and an acquisition in trouble. It's entirely a rate regulated business; at the new dividend and the current price the dividend yield is 5.95%. Good long term prospects, but for the next six months there will be volatility. The acquisition (2nd attempt) has a April 30 deadline, most would expect the odds of success at 65/35 against, and the asset sale reliant upon a BAM stepping up to the plate (at the right price). We hold a significant stub (for retail) that is entirely house money funded from a round trip; likely repeated by mid-year. 3+ years out, AQN may well trade back at 'pre earnings miss levels' - but in the meantime ... volatility will create opportunities. CAGR + dividend yield > 25%. The sooner the return to 'normal', the higher the CAGR. SD

Lot more to it than this .... A o/g company has incentive to run its inventory down to roughly 7 years at current extraction. So long as EV displaces o/g as expected, annual extraction will progressively decline ... and the remaining inventory will seem to rise - and all with minimal/no ongoing capex - hail the new hero's! But if there is ever a temporary sustained spike in extraction ... the remaining years of inventory drop like a brick. To get inventory back up, the next least expensive mothballed field is re-activated; a very expensive solution (if it can even be done), that requires an additional spike in energy prices to fund it. Lots of blame, in a panic environment, raising the probability of nationalization. Nationalization that the inventory stub can be sold into at an inflated price Very smart, but it isn't going to end well. SD

Over the short-term (0-6 months), oil prices will move primarily according to the supply/demand forecast; inflation has a pretty small and indirect impact at best. More impactful is what happens as a result of oil being increasingly settled in either Yuan or USD. Petroyuan and petrodollars at parity, mean much closer linkage with China's interest rates. How that actually works out being something of a mystery. SD

Agreed, as the CVR currently stands, the value is essentially zero. While technically the CVR could be transferred into a trust, and rights to that trust sold - it is very unlikely. Similarly without a standing bid to make a market, it isn't going to qualify for a regulated account. SD

Think more along the lines of RFP shareholders dumping their CVRs immediately upon receipt, for whatever they can get, while they can get it; the CVR gets bought into the TFSA at close to zero. 9 months later the 'story' changes, and it is slowly bled out of the TFSA at 3-4x what was paid for it. TFSA capital rises, it doesn't fall. The underlying assumption is receipt of a single terminal payment at some unknown future date. Most would expect that it would actually just be Domtar paying back redirected duties (from use of the prepayment) - and only after Domtar has exhausted its own tax shields. 25% for the 'if/when' risk is conservative! Not for everyone. SD

The Chinese experience has been that it both raises the price of 'paper' bills in circulation (so that everyone can anonymously pay for their black market/drug purchases), and raises the local demand for BTC (so that you can keep the accumulated profit anonymous). You are allowed to continue, in return for a portion of that anonymous BTC being paid to one of the states many anonymous BTC accounts. Fail to pay, and you are 'disappeared', along with your operation being shut down (subject to 're-opening' fee, paid by the highest bidder). Everyday business in most of the world. SD

This is no different to a near bankrupt company selling its tax-loss carryforward via a reverse takeover; simply substitute lumber duty for tax loss. Best case immediate use; a tax-loss goes for no more than 12-15% of its nominal value, and discounts at 25%+. Add to that, an additional 40% liquidity discount if you try to exit in volume. The CVP is really a LEAP with a payoff profile very similar to a long dated zero coupon bond; big difference being that it's an equity, and there is no maturity date. Excellent trading sardine on the ongoing gyration of US/CDN lumber duties, and excellent for a TFSA wherein all trading gains will be tax free. But you're swing trading at 5-10% of value, and selling at 60-70%; maybe 2-3x every 3-4 years. Lots of volatility, lots of drama/story, but not for everyone. Quite a bit different to what the SA article would like you to believe. SD

Glad you're back SD

Sorry, but no, I am not going to hint at or publicize it. Do your own DD and back-testing to arrive at the confidence level. SD

Sadly the string ends in the old adages of the bad drives out the good, and never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. Congratulations; we're all the worse off for it. Wachtwoord just expresses the libertarian view, and the ethos that goes all the way back to the creators of bitcoin protocol. To find out just how far out of touch you actually are, refer to the cypherpunk manifesto. "For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one's fellows in society. We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals." https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html Like it or not, real estate can be expropriated at any time, and that is part of the risk. If I own real estate in the US, I just don't think it will ever happen; however, if I own real estate in the 2nd/3rd world it happens everyday. What does expropriation actually mean? your signature, or your brains on the title deed; at the price I gave you - don't really care which. Seizure without negotiation, is just much easier with real estate than it is with BTC. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/expropriated Like it or not, capital markets has had the tools to put a accurate price on BTC for quite some time. It just isn't widely publicized, and is worth a great deal more the more restricted the distribution. Derive it yourself, or take your chances; your choice. Like it or not, BTC and paper fiat currency co-exist as payment polar opposites, each serving different markets. Paper fiat currency is being progressively replaced with CBDC, and the USD as a reserve currency is being progressively replaced with the 3rd of the different types of CBDC. The US is not the center of the universe, and if you believe in privacy - you are very thankful that BTC exists as an alternative. To the short-term trading community, BTC is just another trading sardine. To the long-term orientated community, BTC holds great promise but we're not exactly sure what that is yet - or how it works out. To the Muppet Show peanut gallery it's just entertainment ... until I steal all your money In this thread we have members from all these communities. We take the long term view, and we know how to put an accurate price on BTC; we also aren't the only ones. The real value is the underlying blockchain technology, ability to automate most business processes via the use of smart contracts, and ability to automatically settle via a payment system (BTC) designed for a zero-trust environment. Replacing BTC with CBDC just speeds up global acceptance and adoption, at the price of privacy - a 'reasonable' compromise for the vast bulk of everyday transactions. To participate I either go the blockchain portfolio approach (ie: Overstock), the crypto as an asset class ETF (BTC, ETH, Stable Coin, NFT, etc.) approach, or both. If you didn't know that .... guess who the patsy is. SD

Stability/invoicing. Every international company bills in various foreign currencies and does not hedge its P&L exposure. It's a routine and accepted business risk, materially cheaper than hedging, and net FX exposures typically wash out over time. BTC is just another foreign currency. Liquidity is a function of asset quality. I hold T-Bills 'cause I know I can sell them easily, and with minimal haircut - even when there is almost no money in the monetary system. As I move down the quality scale, asset marketability declines and the haircut rises. You hold T-Bills, not BTC, if you want liquidity; if the liquidity wasn't there when you needed it, that was on you - you made a bad decision. Fiat currency is only portable if/when your goldilocks nation drops capital controls. Capital controls are enforced in most places, and BTC enables their circumvention. Portability. Security is on you; if one insists on being lax, or simply stupid; one deserves everything coming. Most would treat the inevitable hack publicity as buying opportunities. The reality is BTC enforces individual accountability, there are no regulations to protect you from your own stupidity; whether that be poor security choices, poor understandings, investment immaturity, or just plain laze. As most people just aren't comfortable with accountability, it creates opportunities. SD

Read the data from the public block (immutable) into the data base. Process within the database. Immutability and speed combine SD

Lot of very confused people .... Per the Satoshi Nakamoto paper; BTC is just a payment app using a native coin, blockchain technology and bitcoin protocol. The native coin is BTC, It enables payment is a zero-trust environment, and 'lay' people (you and I) typically refer to it as a currency. We can use a currency BOTH to pay for things AND as an investment. If I live in the US, USD is used to pay for things. However, if I live in a Canada, using USD to pay for things is ALSO AN INVESTMENT - my 'investment' gain/loss is the number of USD purchased x the difference in FX rates when I bought/sold the USD. But I hold the USD to pay for things, its investment and store of value properties are secondary. Same as BTC, nothing more than 'belief' actually 'backs' a USD. A USD bill is not supported by an actual cashflow, it's simply supported by a theoretically proportional claim on the nations net assets and tax receipts, that we 'believe' the Federal Reserve will honor. If OK with the 'In God We Trust' printed on bills - welcome to the USD! and its use as a global reserve currency. If that's a problem - welcome to the ALTERNATIVE of BTC. Like it or not BTC has an IV, and the value depends on why and how long it is being held; the days market price is just the highest IV at the time. The same thing applies to each of the myriad of token on various crypto exchanges. BTC trades for more than a DogSh1te token because it has a higher IV (hedgeable CME futures/options market). Whether you agree or not, is irrelevant. Ultimately, you either 'get' this or you don't. SD

Just because they are bleeding assets doesn't mean that they automatically bankrupt. The fact that they are still in business implies that there is currently more value in squeezing the orange to extract its juice, than simply crashing it. Of course, eventually the juice runs out ..... SD

Not really .. it just takes confidence in your view - right or wrong. If you think something is going to go down, but are not willing to back your conviction by taking action, you have no business doing this. SD

Own opinion.... GXE recognizes that they need to buy something, and that it would go better if they could also issue a block of shares at a much higher price. At the time (Q3 22) they had just come off the high FCF of Q2 22, paid off all their debt, and the market view was that dividends were king. With no debt, and a high dividend, the Gordon model would support a much higher share price, and away they would be. Once the deal was done they could justify dropping the dividend in favor of further development, and maintaining a very strong Balance Sheet. Very rational and hard to fault, but to maintain the dividend it meant committing the company to WTI at a minimum USD 80. Sadly, it hasn't worked out yet. To optimize their WACC GXE needs to take on short term debt, and term it out once they buy something. If you think WTI is going to average > US 80 over 2023 (most people), it makes a lot of sense to maintain the dividend and borrow short term to cover any dividend shortfall; paying the debt back as soon as they generate excess CF > US 80. As/when the market thinks different ... it's an opportunity with a 10%+ cash yield. The reality of course is that small resource companies (o/g, mining, etc.) can only pay special dividends, and only as business permits. And if there aren't many shares outstanding ... it often makes more sense to invest the cash flow surplus in M&A/production versus share buybacks. There is a reason why smaller o/g servicing companies typically grow through M&A and do not pay a fixed dividend on common. However, if Mr Market wants to be manically depressed, we're happy to oblige SD

Welcome to the differential! Net proceeds/bbl = price cap - transport - bribes, and paid in local Yuan/Rupees vs USD. SD

OBE is a very good long term growth investment. Unloved, massive torque to higher prices, 20 cent dollars, etc. Three very different o/g plays, each of which could be a stand-alone company by itself, and each with very good rock. Well run, but ultimately we see it broken up and pieces merging into others in 2-3 years. WCP is a core long term income investment. Well run, continually rising cash yield, and we have been adding for years as opportunities present themselves. Ideally they end up with the OBE Cardium at the end of this o/g cycle. GXE is a speculative investment. Above $80 WTI the current dividend remains affordable, but they really need to buy some better assets/do a merger, take on some debt to do it, and cut the dividend entirely in favor of developing the assets obtained. Lots of good opportunities, but an indefinite ongoing dividend isn't one of them. We know these three very well, and as a result can swing trade for incremental alpha fairly reliably. More than offsets the likelihood that they may not be the optimum choices in todays market. Choose your poison. SD

Good catch. The extra 590K bbl/day (890-300 existing) is 24 500K tanker loads every 3 weeks. Listen to the market, and apparently the only way that Cdn heavy crude gets to US refiners is via pipelines headed south (Keystone, etc.). Shut down Keystone, and you get dirt-cheap heavy crude at Galveston, etc. Little realized is that when TMP comes on-line, Cdn crude can get to Galveston by tanker, or go directly west to Asian refiners with hungrier and much more advanced refineries. Keystone either strands permanently or a deal gets cut to reopen it. And as pipe transport is typically cheaper than boat, and it's a more direct route .... if/when Keystone ever reopens - differentials permanently drop even further. Also little credited at present is Cdn C02 pipeline sequester displacing the o/g 'windfall taxation' commonly seen everywhere else. Ultimately, it's a nod from environmentalists that will eventually translate into tar sands becoming 'greener', and more egress flowing south. Keystone eventually reopening. All of which adds up to the WCSB being a very good place to be over the long term. Closely followed by Newfoundland exporting NGL to Europe. SD

It wasn't Murray; let the poor man rest in peace! It would also seem that the 'manual' got sanitized, and spawned "The Dirty Rotten Secrets of the Small Cap Markets" https://sites.google.com/site/chartinganalysis/home/murray-pezim-rules-of-trading A favorite are these three: 22. THE SPOUSE FACTOR. This could also be a corollary to Murphy's Law for a deal. The wife wants a new house, a new car, etc. And the promoter or insider sells, sells, sells to afford these new toys. Down goes the stock price. 37. THE SECRET OF THE NEWSLETTER WRITER. Any newsletter writer providing ongoing reportage on Canadian mining or small cap stocks has a vested interest, whether disclosed or not. Someone is paying the freight and rarely is it the subscriber. (The writer either has a position or is being paid or hopes to become "famous" by covering a specific stock.) Publishing a newsletter is a very expensive proposition, with a high casualty rate. Look at which "popular" newsletters were published during the late 1960s or the early 1980s and see if any are still being published today. 50. THE ULTIMATE RULE. Paper is paper and cash is cash. The only reason you are holding paper instead of cash is you honestly believe your paper will eventually be worth more than the cash. Amateurs buy paper. Professionals convert their paper to cash. Cash is King. Paper is essentially worthless if there are no buyers. Always marry richer than you are, use media columnist's as 'beaters', hold your core capital in fully paid off houses and treasuries !!! ... and may you never be out of renters! SD