ANAHEIM,
California — Our TCR report is getting
fresh subscribers this week via thomcalandra.com from Slovenia, Germany, United Kingdom,
India and (naturally), Canada.
In southern California this
week, I confirmed a North America trend whilst we were
depositing our oldest at his university’s frosh orientation week. That is,
freshman (first year) enrollments are hitting fresh highs at many colleges and
universities in Canada and USA. Probably Mexico, Australia, western Europe,
too.
At Chapman University in
cozy Orange, California, the number is 1,800 and rising. A new record. So many
that the candle-lighting ceremony on the closing evening of family activities
this week looked like it could set the entire campus aflame, and the historic
city of Orange with it.
That did not happen, but you
get the picture. Largest group of major subjects this entering class of 2018:
business administration, followed by undecideds, followed by communications,
followed by biological sciences. [By the way, at private ad highly ranked
Chapman University, most of these Panthers will graduate in 4
years, we are told. Even with class sizes that average just 20 students. By
then, gold will be $7,000 an ounce, and platinum twice that.]
Here is what that all this
freshman guff has to do with the fact that Ivanhoe Energy shares
on NASDAQ, having been rolled back, or consolidated 21-to-1 in the past year or
so, are surging Friday: well, none of your business if you are NOT a member of
the paying TCR family.
Still, this being a TCR
Freebie report for those who cannot afford our $129 service, we can
offer these points:
1. The last time this happened,
the original The Calandra Report sparked furious trading of Ivanhoe
Energy (IVAN in
USA and IE
in Canada). I had been covering the energy developer for well
more than a year, traveling the San Joaquin Basin in California, where we
travel through today to go home to Tiburon, California; across
China, and elsewhere. [Wow, I was knocking around in the Basin, checking out
Ivahoe Energy’s wells outside Bakersfield, California, 11 years ago this month.
I was with IE’s David Martin and Leon Daniel, both refugees from Occidental
Petroleum. Our sonny-boy was 7 then. He is so much pick one:
younger; older; than that now.]
2. Back then, 2003, three times the
fully diluted number of shares were trading daily during the FURY. I started
researching the company when the shares were 30 cents or 40 cents — they went
above $4 in short order — less than a year. The drivers were liquid natural
gas; cleaner diesel products; California wells; China
expansion; lots of talk about new LNG technology. And as is the case today, a
very low stock price. Little of the company’s dreams, by the way, happened in
reality.
3. So the shares back then did not get to
where I was hoping they would: $7. Still, I run into professionals and
individuals every week – truth! — who tell me, or e-mail me,
or text me, or even phone me: “You made me a ton of money on The
Energy.‘ or, “You wrecked a financing we were planning for Ivanhoe.” Or,
“You’re a dirtbag, TC, but you did make me a bundle on IVAN.” At its peak, the
2003 fury lifted little Ivanhoe to an $800 million YSD market worth, maybe
more. Don’t recall anymore.
4. I got dinged after all the attention — by
securities regulators trying to police an increasingly frantic Internet trading
of small stocks. That was 10 years ago. I deserved to get dinged, as I believed
I could do no wrong. Now, with our New The Calandra
Report,I no longer own IVAN. Whew! Once
again, back then, when the hoopla started, I was getting calls from sheiks in
Abu Dhabi, China officials in Beijing, individual investors in North Carolina …
you know. They all had bought because I had the notion that Ivanhoe Energy
would consummate its multiplying deals for oil and gas in China, the Middle
East, California, Texas and so on.
5. What is happening today is likely linked
NOT to Ecuador, where the company is active, but instead to
the fact the number of shares is only 17 million after the 1-for-21-or-whatever
(combined for last 12 months or so) … and even a whiff of a transmitted notion
will send the stock soaring. Just like back then: tiny market cap, shares get
way depressed, longtime owners and managers-directors — like Robert M.
Friedland, whose motives I know as a writer and researcher better than
almost anyone on PE* — keep their large share holdings intact: result — stock
soars on Internet-transmitted reports.
6. One more thing: Ivanhoe Energy has
mothballed its Canada projects — just as it did in California those many years
ago; its technology efforts at cleaner fuels and economic harvesting of natural
gas and oil continue. The worth of the company at $30 million USD in today’s
stock market easily will double in coming days and weeks. This
time, The Energy better make good on its flowchart strategies. I am NOT
purchasing this Ivanhoe’s shares this time around, but I do see the upside for
speculators.
There is a case to be made for tracking other
companies that have consolidated their shares in horrific rollbacks that make
money for NONE of the existing shareholders, except those who participate in
the financing attached to the most horrific rollback. One of those, for
instance, is that Colombia disaster story that took advantage
of its shareholders in one of the most destructive consolidations of equity I
ever have seen. Gran Colombia Gold –– an actual miner of gold and
silver that I believed would make good on its production goals and its corporate
governance — whittled its shares to an extreme level whilst rewarding its top
guns and INSIDER SHAREHOLDERS with cheap, albeit paid-for, stock, and oversized
salaries. That was one of the biggest boo-boos TCR and TC has ever made. Yet
the shares are actionable at these depressed levels, and GCM (in Canada) shares
must increase another six-fold for my position to become [holy WTF!] WHOLE.
To close, I’ll offer this too — on our new My Ass Is On The Line campaign for The
Calandra Report via thomcalandra.com.
That is, my ass is not on the line any more with Ivanhoe Energy, and least not
my portfolio ass. But at TCR, we have researched and visited, multiple times,
that other Ivanhoe that is active: the one doing platinum, zinc, gold and
copper in Africa. I do own that one and have since 2003, when Ivanhoe Mines (IVPAF
in USA and IVN
in Canada) was private. The stock is dirtbag cheap; I own it for the
prospect of owning platinum, copper and zinc — simple.
Pretty soon, Ivanhoe Mines likely will split
into two companies, as the Canada-operated company seems to indicate.
MY TCR ass also is on the line with Calibre Mining (CXB in
Canada), a Nicaragua gold and copper explorer with links to large mining
partners. Probably one of four or five natural resource companies I both
research for TCR and own that will triple or quadruple in
coming weeks and months.
On pharma: BioCryst
Pharma (BCRX on
NASDAQ) also has my portfolio and professional ass on the line. It will see its
shares surpass $20 in coming months. … On rubies: well, our TCR family knows
the story on that one.
THE
CALANDRA REPORT: Subscribe**
**$110: Will Recur
Yearly
Disclaimer: This article was posted with the permission
of a third-party contributor and the opinions contained therein do not
necessarily reflect those of Smallcappower. Smallcappower does not endorse
any investment advice provided by these third-party contributors. Please
consult your investment advisor before making any investment
decisions.
Ubika Corporation and its divisions Smallcappower, Ubika
Communication and Ubika Research are not registered with any financial or
securities regulatory authority in Ontario or Canada, and do not provide
nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to any visitor of
this site or readers of any content on this site. – See more at: http://www.smallcappower.com/posts/small-cap-power-disclosure
