You never know what you’ll get once you get into a position. Psychologically, the first few days after one gets into a position is the time that one typically pays most attention to it, at the cost of ignoring the rest of your portfolio.
With the First Uranium debentures example, my execution in hindsight was horrible – they traded as low as 65 cents today. Assuming an execution at that price, it would have resulted in a current yield of 6.5% plus a capital gain of 19.7% annualized if they paid off at par. You add these two and it’s roughly 26% you are looking at annualized, again, assuming a payoff at par 2.5 years down the line.
It appears that this was some frightened investor (likely a fund) that dumped at the bid and wanted to get out of there – now the bid/ask is 68/72 cents.
Unfortunately, looking back at charts is rather useless in terms of market timing and the only question is whether the position is still worth as much as the existing market value thinks it is. I think the debentures are still the better risk, especially at 26%. There are significant operational issues, but there is so much capital locked up in the project that they’ll have to deliver for somebody – whether it’s the equity owners, or whether it’s the debt holders that may eventually take control of the firm.