Will Comstock crash – or soar?

The upside for Comstock, a solar panel-recycling and biomass-refining group, dwarfs the downside, says Dominic Frisby.

Solar panels in pictures
Comstock is paid a “dumping fee” of $500 per tonne to take solar panel metal.
(Image credit: Ezra Bailey via Getty Images)

When the potential upside of an investment eclipses the downside, you have a so-called asymmetric bet – “the holy grail of investing”, some say. You might risk $1,000. Instead of a “safe” 10% annual return, you might make ten or a hundred times your money – or you might lose it all. Enter Comstock (NYSE: LODE), which trades on the Amex in New York, an exchange for small and medium-sized companies. The stock is very volatile. Now worth $1.50, in 2021 it was flirting with $100. But if it achieves its lofty goals, it might be able to reclaim the $100 mark.

Comstock is not easy to understand, but we’ll start with its assets. This is a Nevada-based, former junior mining company, which took its name from its main property, Comstock Lode. A silver rush occurred there in the 1850s and 1860s. It was where Mark Twain lost his shirt and famously declared that a gold mine is “a hole in the ground with a liar at the top”.

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Dominic Frisby

Dominic Frisby (“mercurially witty” – the Spectator) is as far as we know the world’s only financial writer and comedian. He is the author of the popular newsletter the Flying Frisby and is MoneyWeek’s main commentator on gold, commodities, currencies and cryptocurrencies. He has also taken several of his shows to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

His books are Daylight Robbery - How Tax Changed our Past and Will Shape our Future; Bitcoin: the Future of Money? and Life After the State - Why We Don't Need Government

Dominic was educated at St Paul's School, Manchester University and the Webber-Douglas Academy Of Dramatic Art. You can follow him on X @dominicfrisby