Goldtent TA Paradise

ALTA.V

1. silverboom says:

   September 10, 2019 - 12:37 pm at 12:37 pm

   Hope springs. I got saddled with this loser back when Spock was running his “rocks” PF. This thing was so dead I buried it somewhere out on the lone prairie. It goes up much more, I’ll have to backtrack and see if I can find the darn soup can I put it in.

   • Mserr says:

     September 11, 2019 - 6:45 am at 6:45 am

     In short if you have a pfic you maybe be better selling at a loss now
     And avoid all this.

2. Northstar says:

   September 10, 2019 - 1:04 pm at 1:04 pm

   Same here – one of my Spock rocks that fell 97% after I bought it lol.

3. Dave says:

   September 10, 2019 - 1:23 pm at 1:23 pm

   Irrespective of Spocks atrocities, this is a bullish set up

4. Simon says:

   September 10, 2019 - 1:51 pm at 1:51 pm

   I too unfortunately own the dog and the fleas that came with it. Is there any news today? I haven’t found any.

5. Dave says:

   September 10, 2019 - 2:00 pm at 2:00 pm

   You guys are buzz kills, lol!

6. Alex33 says:

   September 10, 2019 - 2:51 pm at 2:51 pm

   Amazing, if these micro caps start exploding like pop corn, we must certainly be in a bull market in Gold mining equities and/or explorers. Nice.

7. Karl says:

   September 10, 2019 - 3:16 pm at 3:16 pm

   Someone (Steins1 ?????) I think put up the chart of ALTA.v fairly recently and I commented that I thought it was somewhat interesting as a chart. However I was somewhat conflicted about commenting on it. Although I break my rules, I do try not to comment about illiquid stocks that I may own or have recently sold so I didn’t.

   In many ways I wish this had been presented as an unknown– something like “Cu explorer-developer” — +/- Brazil location. It is true that someone who knows the company would recognize the chart, but most wouldn’t. Maybe it could be presented even as an unknown without any identification at all with a suggestion that it could be even outside the metals and mining bizz.

   I think there are some interesting things about the chart in the general context that could be commented on, but there is little in the way of chart commentary here.

   I myself have extremely strong feelings and thoughts both ways concerning Spock’s service and have to decide this week about resubscribing. I now have a rather strong grasp of Spock’s strong and weak points. I’ll put it that way. I also have mixed thoughts about ALTA. Since ALTA is illiquid, I feel uncomfortable commenting about its chart for the most part. My single comment will be that a problem with illiquid companies’ charts is that just a tiny bit of commentary here or there–which could be just someone’s apt or inapt comment about its chart–could affect its chart too much => all sorts of potential for self-fulfilling prophesy. I won’t elaborate.

   I do have more thoughts on the chart, but I guess I won’t give them.

   • Fullgoldcrown says:

     September 10, 2019 - 3:22 pm at 3:22 pm

     It’s liquid today Karl.

     I just drank some.

     Intoxicating

     🙂

   • Alex33 says:

     September 10, 2019 - 3:38 pm at 3:38 pm

     My opinion, although I prefer to give none either as Karl, but I did meet management 2 years ago and they promised a lot, had to give 5 year warrants in its private placements and were NOT able to deliver anything. Maybe chart is great, but I have no trust in management delivering. Regarding valuation, the company is cheap at 5MUSD, but this is the same valuation as 2 years ago, even with the share price down 75%, the reason for that is they printed a lot of shares to stay alive and pay for salaries! That’s why I only invest in companies that aggressively advance their properties and put at least 3-5MM$ into exploration in order to create value. BUT of course a bull market lifts ALL boats, so if chart looks nice could be a nice gamble!

     • Karl says:

       September 10, 2019 - 3:52 pm at 3:52 pm

       Don’t rely on me but might be new management now. I’m not going to bother to look. Spock wrote about Alta at length towards the end of the time when the “matrix” was merged into Spock global. I am reluctant to give out what he might or might not have written. I am also reluctant to give out whether “Otto” has commented on it or not in his paid service but in case anyone is interested “Otto” did briefly give out info on it on his public site after Spock’s last description of it, way back when, that did not seem to contradict Spock’s depiction of the situation according to my memory in case anyone wants to search IKN.

       Incidentally, I note several small Cu companies are up today, generally for company specific reasons. I don’t think Cu should be doing well, but a few little companies are.

       • Alex33 says:

         September 10, 2019 - 3:58 pm at 3:58 pm

         That’s why technical analysis gets interesting. Maybe Alta’s management is non-delivering, but if they sit on a big piece of land near a competitor that has a copper discovery, Alta can get a nice piece of the action, who knows.

8. Karl says:

   September 10, 2019 - 4:20 pm at 4:20 pm

   OK, as has been commented above, today it is not so illiquid.

   I will comment. I personally don’t mind holding this company for fundamental reasons too much. I couldn’t find the public comment I thought Otto had made, and maybe I dreamed it, but ALTA does apparently have claims in a great region in Brazil, with super Cu and possibly Au prospects, possibly really hot. However Brazil might be problematic, and I am not too fond of it (nor probably is Otto for that matter though I am not certain).

   I think seeing this chart as bullish is a bunch of malarkey. First of all, I personally think the break-out and break-down stuff is WAY WAY overdone in general. My opinion. In the case of companies that don’t trade much, all it takes is a comment here, a comment there, or just some big buyer or seller and there you have your breakout. Moreover a breakout when in the setting of a decline is potentially rather bogus-y.

   However it is possible that some assayer’s cousin has seen a smile, or some exec’s secretary’s sister has seen some late night meetings with execs from an out of town senior and has bought as a semi-insider speculation. It might indeed be set to rocket up.

   Or some minor newsletter writer might have pointed to some alleged garbage sign like a breakout in a penny stock or some dubious graphical jittery line price derivative squiggly line and followers might have as a result bought driving the price to a “breakout”. Then other people will buy the bogus breakout and more will buy that. Bogus, but not bogus, since that will be the price. Soon it will maybe be a “5 bagger” on the basis of the “breakout” and the buying on the basis of the “breakout) (or another 2-syllable word beginning with “b” I could use). So I’m not saying that it necessarily won’t go sky high right now or that the “breakout” is necessarily wrong. One can make lots of money on such moves.

   I am just contending that it is in my opinion a questionable sign in general and an extraordinarily questionable sign in a stock where just a little buying can change price a whole lot and an even more questionable sign in the setting of declining price to around the “breakout” — especially if one does know of fundamental reasons for buying or holding the stock.

   Or so is my opinion.

9. Alex33 says:

   September 10, 2019 - 4:29 pm at 4:29 pm

   My experience is, that it is difficult to make any money on these micro cap explorers, because the reason valuation is so low is that there is nothing discovered yet and no proven resources, so in terms of portfolio management one can only gamble (this is not investing) a small amount on these small micro explorers, like 1% of portfolio, so why after all do the investment? Because, even if it doubles or more, you will hardly feel the impact on your portfolio. I prefer to do DD on bigger market cap stocks that have a valuation 5 to 10x higher and that have proven deposits already. At least then I can allocate 3% or more of portfolio to these names and feel the impact in my portfolio when they discover additional ounces.

   • Karl says:

     September 10, 2019 - 5:07 pm at 5:07 pm

     I have made money, netting out huge losses and huge gains, over the years, but I would not do it again. It is always hard separating luck from skill, but I think I have learned how to do things. I believe it is possible, but I don’t recommend it.

     I had the advantage of having a semi-insider or two take me under their wings in the 1990s. They tutored me somewhat. One was a newsletter writer who had headed the commodities section of a large brokerage. He would ask me what I thought of XYZ company, then give me his opinion. He was particularly interested in garbage versus substance. He had a pretty good sense of who was crooked and who wasn’t, but he got things wrong. I would go to presentation after presentation, so I had that. I got semi-wiped out more than once for further education.

     I think if you know about the geology, if you have a sense of who is who, if you look into their backgrounds, if you study like crazy, you get some sense of things….. After decades I am nearly a total amateur, but I know some stuff. It is clear to me, for example, that I know less about fundamentals than a great number of IKN subscribers, but IKN gives me a lot, and probably something like Exploration Insights (which I don’t subscribe to but which “Otto” says is better than IKN) gives you a lot, even if it’s over your head. The Angry Geologist, which Otto links to, is way over my head, even though I used to be a big geology buff in my younger years, is still educational. Stuff like that. All sorts of stuff is educational. I try to keep track of which companies have done badly, which have done semi crooked or crooked deals, and I try to avoid companies with managements that have pedigrees from those companies. That helps. I think I do well with charts when I bear in mind that “breakouts” are generally baloney (although playable baloney)–or should I write “baloons” to be burst. I look more for curvatures upwards, higher lows and higher lows, companies that do less poorly in downs, stuff like that. I have my own technical tricks, and still I usually do pretty badly often. However by luck I do ok overall and if I had many decades left to live I could do even better.

     However I would not do it over again. One thing is it is too time consuming. The other is if you look into it US tax code might be pretty punitive for non-US companies that are not profitable. I have just been trying to learn about this tax stuff so don’t believe me necessarily. I’m still studying.

     • Alex33 says:

       September 10, 2019 - 5:42 pm at 5:42 pm

       As long as you can deduct yourlosses it seems fine to consider.

       • Karl says:

         September 10, 2019 - 5:56 pm at 5:56 pm

         It may be pretty bad.

         I am highly reluctant to comment so as not to mislead. Some of the easiest to understand resources on You Tube, literally (and I am not exaggerating) have caused me to fall asleep multiple times, maybe as much as 10-15 times each. From what I understand the experts don’t understand since the law and regs are so confused. People are hoping against hope that some off-handed comments will come to pass that the current administration may dump some of the laws, or at least clarify them.

         However — and please take into account all my disclaimers that I may have things quite wrong — my understanding is that under some circumstances with a holding that you have had for a number of years if you do not handle it correctly you are “eligible” for paying interest to the IRS on ordinary income for each year that you have held it and thus you may actually end up having to pay more in taxes to the IRS than the gain you have made on the stock. So you may end up losing money on a winner. I just came across this point this month and am trying to find a tax pro to go over this stuff with me. Most tax pros throw up their hands and tell you to look somewhere else. I can give you references in case you have insomnia. Then maybe you can explain it to me.

10. Mserr says:

    September 10, 2019 - 6:04 pm at 6:04 pm

    My understanding is length of ownership of a stock
    Impacts capital gains. And until you sell you
    Don’t have a taxable event. I recall holding 5 years
    Qualifies for a lower cap gains rate

    • Karl says:

      September 10, 2019 - 7:10 pm at 7:10 pm

      Actually the rules are apparently totally different for many foreign stocks. Look up PFIC (passive foreign investment company). These can include explorecos (or biotechs or dot-coms etc that don’t make a profit for more than a year), maybe even royalty companies. By my totally unreliable understanding if you hold it for less than a month it’s treated like a US stock. Otherwise all bets may be off.

      Some foreign companies are nice enough to state on their websites whether they are PFICs. The vast majority may state in small print somewhere that they have no idea whether they are PFICs so ask your tax adviser who will say it’s too complicated so go find an expert. (One lawyer I consulted said it’s too complicated so just tell the IRS you don’t know but you’re pretending it’s a PFIC–but that could be incredibly expensive I think.) Many companies will simply not say anything and may not respond to queries. It’s hard to blame them, although you might hope the royalty companies would have enough resources that they might be kind enough to get a specialized US tax lawyer to give an opinion for US shareholders.

      For SEVERE insomnia problems (I would repeatedly have to turn videos off to go to sleep) I recommend for background the 1st 3 videos first then a couple of others. For the background videos you have to realize that PFIC laws originally targeted stuff like mutual funds, but then it turned out that small unprofitable startups count and along with them explorecos etc. The law is arcane.

      Generalist soporifics to get you started:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_37sjUJd4Q
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwpHVMEdaX0
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK7qt45CKhE
      (one of these goes into how you can end up paying more in taxes via interest attributed to gains for past years’ capital gains than your gains)

      a shorter summary not on mining companies that probably would not have made any sense to me w/o my having gone through the priors, but maybe it would stand alone for you:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfNh4JU3Fjo

      The only one I found specifically on Canadian mining / explorer developers is

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm4mwc8GXI8

      It looks as if it was a lecture to accountants and tax lawyers. I’m not sure I would have gotten much out of it w/o having gone through the priors, but you can give it a try.

      One comment the lecturer makes is that unlike the case with FBAR* there is no penalty. The lecturer conjectures that perhaps the IRS is hoping that people will be lulled into noncompliance so that the IRS will be able to hit them later–it would be with back interest rate according to my unreliable understanding.

      I stress unreliable. I am desperately seeking help. Just this morning I frantically asked a tax lawyer for some help. These videos could be an evil joke with intentional misinformation and I wouldn’t know the difference.

      PFICS make FBAR* a walk in the park by comparison.

11. Mserr says:

    September 10, 2019 - 7:25 pm at 7:25 pm

    I got an my Rocks concerted into otc stocks listed
    In USA Maybe I dodged a bullet.

12. Karl says:

    September 10, 2019 - 8:12 pm at 8:12 pm

    No. Where it is listed is 100% irrelevant. That part is clear. Otherwise it is crazy complex.

    Things like profitability of assets and foreign location of assets are important, but the rules are beyond complex.

    If for fun you want to see a law school academic ranting helplessly at the horror of the rules, see “PFICs Gone Wild” by Monica Gianni of the U of Florida College of Law https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=facultypub

    She did not know about the stuff until her father died and she inherited a bunch of PFICs from her father — a gold bug with stuff like what we own apparently — and had to learn the stuff or at least try to.

    though that was from 2014 and there probably have been some revisions, whether for the better or worse I do not know.

    • Karl says:

      September 10, 2019 - 8:13 pm at 8:13 pm

      at how horror of the rules > at the horror of the rules

      • Karl says:

        September 10, 2019 - 9:02 pm at 9:02 pm

        From the U of Florida College of Law person’s piece, near the beginning:

        My father passed away last year. With the sadness surrounding me,
        I began the task of inventorying his estate and taking action to put order
        in the investments he left. Much to my chagrin, I found that one-third of
        his estate consisted of stock in a foreign corporation that owned gold and
        silver, and much of the rest of his estate was invested in Canadian
        mining companies. All of these investments were passive foreign
        investment companies (“PFICs”). Instead of getting the usual step-up in
        basis for the stock upon death, the PFIC law prohibited a step-up.
        Instead of a simple computation of capital gain on the sale of the
        investments, PFIC rules mandated that the gain was ordinary income. In
        addition, the PFIC statute required that the gain had to be allocated pro
        rata over his entire holding period, taxed at the maximum tax rate in
        effect for the year to which the gain was allocated. With an interest
        charge required to be applied as well under these rules, how could the
        tax on the sale of the investments even be computed?….
        U.S. investors in foreign corporations should always be fully
        informed of the tax consequences of venturing into this realm. The
        investments will be subject to a whole host of special U.S. tax laws that
        would not apply if the investments were in U.S. corporations.[and there may be
        foreign tax laws to complicate things…]
        Throw into this mix the harsh rules for PFIC owners, and
        you have a recipe for a tax disaster.

        • Karl says:

          September 10, 2019 - 9:04 pm at 9:04 pm

          Sweet dreams.

          • Fullgoldcrown says:

            September 10, 2019 - 11:26 pm at 11:26 pm

            Oy Vey Karl

            You have finally opened this can of worms .

            I know this has been on your mind for a long time and now you have finally had the courage to enlighten us.

            I am certain there is a sense of WTF amongst US PM traders who are reading this for the first time.

            I am a Canadian and I also say WTF ?

            I am reluctant to archive this information but I would be doing a diservice to tentsters if I just let it be buried here on this obscure post with 25 comments .

            so off to the sidebar it goes under KARL’s PFIC INFO

            sheesh

13. Karl says:

    September 11, 2019 - 6:21 am at 6:21 am

    Why don’t you remove it from the side bar? That would be my recommendation. More and more people are learning about it — both investors and generalist accountants. From the last of the You Tube talks I cite the expert tells his audience that more and more investors are asking their accountants about it, for example.

    I don’t give a good description of the matter because I don’t understand it and since I wasn’t even thinking I was going to get into it. (Also, there’s FBAR for those who have DRSs listed in Canada–another topic–easier.)

    What I suggest is that we might just refer to the topic occasionally and anyone who knows anything provides info.

    I would hate to have even one word of my own seen as a source of knowledge when I am frantically seeking help myself.

    In the meantime, though people can use search engines for this or other sites. They can copy the You Tube videos and also the reference to the .pdf of the law academic whose head was spinning when she had to deal with the CEF-type thing and the Canadian mining shares in her father’s estate.

    So I think it’s more of a disservice to put it on the sidebar than to bury it.

    If you have to put it on the sidebar maybe consider just putting down the You Tubes and the .pdfs as saying these are temporary references that I have come upon but has anyone found better. I just hate this stuff and am stupid at it.
    ‘

    • Fullgoldcrown says:

      September 11, 2019 - 6:58 am at 6:58 am

      OK …Removed

      It’s shocking how few Miners are domiciled in the USA

      NEM HL CDE and thats about it.

      These may get a bid if this issue becomes more widely understood

      And the Canadian domiciled miners (99%) may take a hit.

      sheesh

14. Mserr says:

    September 11, 2019 - 6:42 am at 6:42 am

    I spent the night reading about this. Frankly I want to vomit

    First question is how do we find out what rocks are PFICs ?

    Between ordinary income and interest costs I’m guessing I’ll
    Possibly end up paying more than the gain

    This is wrong. Just wrong.

    • Karl says:

      September 11, 2019 - 8:43 am at 8:43 am

      I keep getting the runaround myself. Since I wrote the above, I found more runaround in my inbox this morning. No one wants to take responsibility since it is such a mess. I am highly reluctant to give out apparent info since it may well be misinfo. However I am also reluctant not to give what I think I know out. I am more appealing for help than anything else. Somewhere I saw a posting from some lawyer or accountant that the Trump administration has mumbled about getting rid of the PFIC rules. I don’t know whether there is any hope. The accountants I’ve been using tell me get me all the info to fill out the relevant forms and I don’t know where to begin.

      As for finding out which are PFICs a few will tell you they are and even give you info for filling out the form. Most won’t. (Why would they devote money to telling you about some US tax law if they aren’t US and they don’t have cash?) Maybe a FNV will. Maybe if you have a large account at a UBS you can get them to help. I don’t know. I just don’t know where to go.

      Please post, if anyone finds out. Again, as one of the videos states, there’s no fine for not complying, but there’s the possibility that they are not fining so that the interest builds up.

      There’s also the matter of FBAR. I couldn’t get accountants or lawyers to talk to me about it. Look it up. It’s a pain but nothing like PFIC. I learned what I think was right by inquiries to the IRS (who have actually despite their reputation been nice to me when I’ve talked with them). If (a big if) what the reps have said is correct, you don’t have to report anything in a US brokerage or anything in certificate form, but you do have to report DRS that has a Canadian address over a certain threshold. Thus Computershare DRS with a Toronto but not Denver address. Company addresses don’t matter. At least that’s what I understood from IRS reps. They seem to be pretty lenient about letting you go back and reporting prior years though in theory there’s a penalty. All part of the crackdown on movement of assets across the borders–I think possibly relevant to our 9/11 anniversary.

      I learned about FBAR attending a JSinclair presentation years ago. Someone in the audience stated w/o going into details he had gotten into a mess for not reporting DRS. He did not go into details other than urging people not to ignore the matter. No one else said anything, but I started reporting FBAR. You can look it up. It’s almost 100% different from PFIC and much easier. But it takes a while and reporting it may set you up for being inspected for PFIC. I have no idea and my brain is bad for this stuff.

      Help!

      • Karl says:

        September 11, 2019 - 9:00 am at 9:00 am

        Sorry for giving things out piecemeal, but I used FNV as an example since I know zero about whether FNV has addressed the issue. 1-2 other royalty companies in the past at least have refused to come down hard one way or another.

        From my 100% unreliable inexpert impression, if you look at the matter superficially the royalty companies are PFICs. From what I infer, again w/o any reliability, if you dig deeper, they are pretty clearly not PFICs. You would want some nice authority behind you on the topic but I don’t know where you get it. I don’t even know where to go for an exceedingly pricey effective specialized tax lawyer who will give you decisive opinions and back you up effectively. You might want the royalty companies to have an association to hire lawyers in the US to point the matter out or something like that, but no. My impression is of no value. Again, help!

        • Mserr says:

          September 11, 2019 - 9:48 am at 9:48 am

          I moved my shares to otc almost immediately

          I have since bought and sold them regularly
          In past tax years as normal stock sales subject to usual USA guidelines

          Is this because they have been for small amounts and if I was ever actually to make
          Some money would the issue come find me?

          • Fullgoldcrown says:

            September 11, 2019 - 9:57 am at 9:57 am

            I think the fact that there is NO penalty means they will not enforce these arcane rules.

        • Mserr says:

          September 11, 2019 - 10:05 am at 10:05 am

          I moved my shares to otc almost immediately

          I have since bought and sold them regularly
          In past tax years as normal stock sales subject to usual USA guidelines

          Is this because they have been for small amounts and if I was ever actually to make
          Some money would the issue come find me?

15. Mserr says:

    September 11, 2019 - 10:06 am at 10:06 am

    Sorry for double entry. Maybe your right fully
    But this sure has ruined my mood. Just can’t be

    • Fullgoldcrown says:

      September 11, 2019 - 10:27 am at 10:27 am

      Tax people are all about ruining our moods.

      The complexity of these tax codes is ridiculous and SO unnecessary IMO