Just wanted to shed some light on the recent ATB story. There are strict rules that apply to banks in their dealings with investment customers. I learned of this when I helped see to my mother's investments.

With an Investment Account at a bank, (please don't confuse this with a bank's brokerage or a discount brokerage) there is an onus on the bank to ensure that the customer in investing in a suitable manner. In mom's case, we wanted to get her into a dividend fund, so equities of financials, pipelines, utilities, telecoms, all the big companies that have a stable income from which to pay mommy. The banker had to be sure that mom was fully aware of what she was investing in and that her investment could increase or decrease in value. It is because people, especially the older generations, perceive that the money they have with the banks is 100% safe that banks need to be very cautious about allowing investments in certain vehicles. Junior stocks are by definition high risk / reward investment vehicles. The banks do not have a choice in this, it is the rules that they work under. The sentence about customers "attempting to purchase SLI stock with little or no previous experience in equities " is very significant. The rules would prohibit ATB and other bankers (again not brokerages) from placing their clients is such an investment unless the client could demonstrate that he / she is fully aware of what it is they are investing in and could do so with money that they are not reliant upon.

One can always open a discount brokerage account and buy anything one wants. In fairness, the ATB memo did indicate this.

While I do not agree with the parts of the ATB memo that talk about the virtues of SLI in particular, the remainder is quite correct and applicable to any junior company's stock.

Speaking personally, I have to agree that SLI is not the right thing to buy as one's first venture into stock investing. Not because I don't believe in St. Elias, but because it is a volatile stock and subject to swings in SP that may well be outside of what a new to investment person may be comfortable with. These persons may also be inclined to, at the behest of their banker, place a stop loss order. We should all be aware of how one can be robbed by such a move.

I doubt the ATB memo caused this week's run on our SP. I think the market is much larger than any effects by one of the smaller bank's investment account clients that received the memo. Still I felt it important to put some perspective on the matter.