It was a complex mix of things that ended with a very surprising share price outcome that was way oversold.

First off the AUM share price was already declining some before the merger as a result of the delay with the PEA and change of development plan at El Quevar. This for me is a good thing because they are going to transition from a 100% under-ground plan to a combination of open pit and under-ground. The more they drilled and evaluated the more they saw maybe they moved to fast on the initial development plan. The market sentiment on this was mixed as it always is when a serious change occurs. But for ECU shareholders it helped lead to this merger which is a big plus for us and AUM shareholders in my view for they acquired, a confirmed second world-class opportunity that was closer to serious production than El Quevar was now going to be.

The other events in no particular priority are mergers create questions because of change; poor precious metals market from late August to now and especially poor share PM share market; ECU brought a short seller to the merger deal; some institutions decided to take money off the table and wait to see how the merger gels; lots of retail shareholders of ECU (even many on this board) dumped their share position or greatly reduced them for a variety of reasons; tax loss selling; new shorts betting the merger wouldn't work, both official shorts and maybe some naked shorts; I know of one major seller from the ECU side (not to be mentioned as this is their business) but most of the main large investors like Galtere, Holt & Shapard Capital Management, Sprott, and some very large private investors remain vested including our largest private investor; some wonder if the mills will ever produce as planned but this is minor to me as the AUM team has extensive operational experience and they wouldn't have invested a penny if they thought this was a concern, actually this was a lay-up to them and they immediately saw the opportunity when they did their DD. The ECU Company explored many options over the previous year and the reason the Golden Minerals merger deal went through was because it was the best approach for ECU shareholders going forward in the long term.

I might add that almost everyone of experience who ever visited the ECU property came away impressed with the opportunity and this includes large investors, major companies, mid-sized companies, letter writers, investment analysts, off-takers, etc. I would guess not one person who doesn't believe the story has ever visited the properties and many, like a couple I won't mention, have never even talked to the company management.

I can say absolutely for certain it was not Michel Roy who sold the stock and certainly not me as I own more than ever before as a result of buying it all the way down post-merger to the very low. My view hasn’t changed even if the market roughed me up since the merger, in fact I’m more positive about the opportunity.

I realize this may be easier for me than others because everyone’s circumstances are different as is their tolerance to stay patient when markets seriously mis-price assets which they do most of the time, either up or down. I have come to the view that markets are rarely right anymore but do get it right eventually and the differences can be huge with lots of volatility.

I will give an example, I am a large shareholder in a company called Orbite (ORT) since a major financing at .45 cents in the fall of 2011. This company has gone from .45 cents to 5.69 then back to 1.25 and then to 3.81 and then to 2.12 and now near 2.90. This was all basically in one year and still the market doesn’t have it right, not even close, yet many shareholders have been flushed and don’t nor can’t understand what is going on, markets rarely get it right with the new algorithms running where technicals and fundamentals mean less and capital flows mean everything, especially who controls those capital flows and how large they are. We know this lesson only so well in the precious metals sector and learned it the hard way with lots of anxiety and stress.