there are several reasons why we own sso, and should own more of it:

pirquitas - this project is so robust that it would be profitable as a tin-zinc mine, but it will produce almost 11 million oz. silver a year, making sso a mid-tier producer overnight.

san luis - 80% interest in a joint venture with esperanza silver, has bonanza grades of gold and silver, should go into production late 09/early 10.

pitarrilla - grass roots exploration found a resource of more than 500 million oz. silver, slated for production in 2011.  this one will still be producing when most of us are dead and buried.

snowfield - 3+ millon oz. gold and plenty of blue sky potential in an area that may turn out to be a mining camp.

diablillos - this project is expected to produce 7 million oz. silver and 700,000 oz. gold a year for ten years, but it has to wait its turn because the projects ahead of it are even better.

berenguela - you never hear about this one, even though it could produce almost 4 million oz. silver for ten years.  it would be the flagship project for most juniors, but sso isn't even developing it yet.

ten more projects with hundreds of millions of ounces of silver resources.  some of these are too small for the attention of sso, but they can be monetized and optioned to other companies.

equity positions in minco silver, esperanza silver, and silvermex.  sso invested $10 million in these companies, and those positions were worth $33 million at year end.

when sso made the decision to focus on silver, none of the companies i mentioned yesterday were in business yet.  sso had the field to itself, and was able to lock up the best silver properties in the americas.  in those days, sso had almost no competition for silver projects.  many of its projects were purchased around 5 cents per ounce.

i remember quartermain saying the goal was to spend no more than 10 cents per resource ounce.  he said he had been offered properties at 20 cents per ounce, but he turned them down because those deals were not accretive to shareholders.

competition for properties increased as those other companies moved into the silver space, so when it was no longer possible to buy those projects, sso turned to grass roots exploration, which is where pitarrilla and snowfield came from.

the head start sso had on everyone else is why we have pirquitas, and the other silver juniors had to settle for high-cost, low-reserve mines that may have been worked since the days of the conquistadors.  sso management was way ahead of the other companies, and that is going to pay off when they start commissioning their mines. 

the fund managers know this, and they would like nothing more than to shake retail guys out of their shares.  they can wear you out with a prolonged decline, or they can scare you out with a sharp selloff.  the trick is to recognize that these dips in the share price are a time to buy, not sell, this stock.  sso will go from junior developer directly to mid-tier producer with a strong growth profile, so even after a 3000% increase in the share price, this company's best days are still ahead of it.