Golden Minerals Company

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the merger of ECU Silver and Golden Minerals, to the day. Considering this, I thought it appropriate to briefly review the events of the last two years regarding what has now been amalgamated into Golden Minerals.

If you look back at the share price of ECU on 20 June 2011, after their Nazas property announcement, the share price of ECU was 1.01 and the company had nowhere to go but up, it seemed. After all, it was looked upon favorably by most analysts, many luminaries in the PM space, had hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold and silver and the world was its oyster.

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/15603/ecu-silver-finds-new-gold-and-silver-zone-on-nazas-property-15603.html

Enter Golden Minerals. Despite ECU having its normal sort of problems which would be expected to beset a junior explorer from time to time, it was chugging along quite nicely, it seemed. But upon the announcement of the union of these two "equals" the share price of AUM began a long, grinding decline which has not stopped to this very day. We are now at a point where, after a slide from more than $20, we are only a dime or so above the all-time recent low for this company. I would be very surprised if we held a buck for long.

ECU is now worth a pre-union .06 which is less than 6% of its value on 20 June 2011. Likewise, Golden.

If one looks at the chart action of Golden after the announcement was made but before the unholy union was consummated on 2 September 2011, one sees that the share price of Golden immediately began its long descent. At one point it was worth almost $30. At the time of the announcement, about $20. When the two were joined, $14 more or less. Clearly, the investment community did not like this amalgamation and still does not, regardless of the zeal of Sentient or any other shareholder.

I think it is very telling that at no time during the past two years did Golden, so far as I can tell, establish any form of up-retracement. It has been all downhill. More concerning, during this past August the "good ones" like McEwen Mining and Cayden Resources, to name but two, have bottomed and established strong uptrends in anticipation of the expected steep rises in the metals. Notice, I said the "good ones." AUM during this seminal month not only did not establishe any uptrend at all apart from one or two teaser days, it actually accentuated its downtrend.

Recently on this board, we have discussed the many errors management has made. I brought up management as an issue months ago but was chastised for daring to do so. No one listened. One brain trust even falsely accused me of making up derogatory tales about the company so as to buy the share cheap. Let me tell you something, this company does not need anyone to make up tales about it to lower the price. It is doing that very nicely on its own. It amazes me that all of these botched maneuvers are so tolerated by many shareholders who are watching their investment wither to naught and yet saying nothing.

gwr1 a few days ago did a commendable job in cataloguing the company's many errors, pointing out they would not take advice, would not listen, etc. They wasted a lot of money. Now mind you, these were not uncontrolled "bolts from the blue" or other factors over which they had no control. Many, not all, of them were within the purvey of management to prevent by doing things differently, doing them correctly. These things they failed to do. So how exactly are they NOT to blame for the state the company is now in? If this is not incompetence, then what exactly is it?

http://agoracom.com/ir/GoldenMinerals/forums/discussion/topics/583788-latest-from-sinclair/messages/1831554#message

I stated I had a substantial position in this company through ECU which I have held for years and I do. I want it to prosper to the full extent it can. But I continue to see no evidence of that. I continue to believe management is either fishy or incompetent, assuming the company has the goods in the ground, which Micon said they had, but which apparently was not good enough for Jeff et al. How else do you expalin this debacle? It can NOT be blamed any longer on a bad market as others are now beginning to prosper while this thing continues to tank.

When Ag hits $30/oz., if this thing does not start to move and move big, it ain't going to. For all of our sakes, I hope that it does.

Many of you did not listen previously. Are you listening now?