Trout,
I empathize with your plight as I am sure most do. The term bagholder is one that is used by many bashers to discredit many an investors decision to get into a stock at a price higher than the stock currently trades at.
In some cases, many investors get hyped and are left holding the bag. I have seen this many times. Companies with nothing to offer but a rising (often times manipulated) share price but with no strong business results or prospects are sold to the moon and crash just as fast.
There were many bagholders during the Moly, Uranium, and Coal manias the past two years. It is what pays the bills of the brokers who rely on volume and commissions.
But bagholding is not always a bad thing. I was a bagholder with Noront from December 2006. In August 2007, many a bagholder with an average between .75 cents and $1.00 (the price at which the highest volume of shares were sold) thought they were left holding the bag when the stock dropped below .29 cents. For no reason other than the market correction. Gold and commodities were hot at this time and we were down 75% from six eight months earlier.
Now we are down 75% from six months earlier.
With a price of .80 cents, it might look like we are bagholders. But in reality we are shareholders.
As an original bagholder, I was fortunate to sell some the .18 cents shares for $4 and $5. (I missed out on the $7 both times). Now I am waiting to sell my $2.56 cents shares for a better price.
If what Noront has in the bag is worth holding, which I believe it is, then I encourage all to put their shares under their pillows and forget about them for a long time. Wishing the share price would go higher will not take it higher. Only a return to higher commodity prices (nickel, copper, platinum) and the end of the current world-wide recession will do this.
My company lost over $1 billion in investment capital this year and our finance guys are extremely conservatives with most of the investments being in income funds.
99% of investors today would be considered bagholders by the shorters and bashers. I would rather be a bagholder than a prison bar holder which is where you will see a lot of people heading once the whole US and Europe bank shorting, naked shorting, and derivative market lot are investigated. One can burn down a house without much attention, but burn down a city and the Feds get involved. Burn down a city in each country and everyone takes notice. Our financial cities have been burned down for nothing other than structural greed fueled by poor regulatory controls. With the upcoming G20 economic summit taking place in Washington on Nov. 14 and 15, there will soon be no where left for the rats to hide.
Bagholder and shareholder,
M1.
