Re: ecuador mining minister speaks
in response to
by
posted on
Sep 23, 2009 08:45AM
Third largest primary Gold Producer in North America
the value of warrants is made of two parts, the intrinsic value and the time premium. as long as the stock is below the exercise price (as it is now) there is no intrinsic value. the time premium depends on how much time remains before you have to exercise it. since we have four years left, there is plenty of time, but the time premium declines as the exercise date approaches.
as you have seen, the warrant is much more volatile than the underlying stock, which is as it should be. that will change once the warrants are "in the money" when the stock moves above $32. after that, the warrant will lose much of its leverage, and move more or less dollar for dollar with the stock, although it will still be a bit more volatile.
rarely does a retail investor actually exercise a warrant and purchase the shares. if you were to do so, you would also probably simultaneously sell most or all of your shares to avoid having to come up with that much cash. almost all investors simply sell the warrants at the market price, which as you have noted is north of $5.
there is a model for valuing warrants similar to the black-sholes option model, and you can google it if you're comfortable with doing the math. you would plug in the current share price, the exercise price, and the time remaining to exercise, and it computes a theoretical value, which may or may not be the same as the market value. i think the time to sell will be when kinross moves above $32, which i think will be within the next several months whenever gold goes to $1200 and my guess is the warrants may sell in the teens. but once the warrants are in the money, they lose the much of the advantage of the high leverage they currently enjoy. i hope that helps.