Quote from: Rival on August 30, 2013, 04:57:25 PM

With the price of shares of AM so closely tied to the btc/fiat rate, it is becoming difficult to calculate the correct ROI, and to determine if it is in fact positive.

At $90 per bitcoin, AM shares averaged around 4.5 each. 4.5 * 90 = $405.

At $120 per bitcoin, AM shares averaged around 3.3 each. 3.3 * 120 = $396.

At $130 per bitcoin, AM shares average around 2.9 each. 2.9 * 130 = $377.

Today:

At $140 per bitcoin, AM shares average around 2.5 each. 2.5 * 140 = $350.

This apparent loss of fiat purchasing power as the price of btc increases may be replaced by the dividends. They are only a few dollars at best per week, but there are multiple dividends per price period so the accumulation of dividends might offset most of it. Of course, there are other factors such as other IPO, breaking news, FUD, etc. But a clear pattern is establishing itself. Could it be possible that, just like buying an asic (in most cases anymore), you are better off just sitting on your BTC than you are in investing? Help me out here and show me what I am missing.

You're looking for correlation where none exists. The markets (bitcoin, asicminer) are far too illiquid to draw anything meaningful from it.

Tell me this, what's the total market cap of bitcoin? And what do you think woul happen to that market cap if a single large participant needed to exit TODAY, by placing a market order to sell even $10mm of bitcoins? Or vice versa, we see what BTC trades at, could someone reliably buy $10mm of bitcoin across even an entire day and not move the market more than a little? Either case is doubtful. There is zero liquidity, for either bitcoins or for its largest trading security.

Ie; this morning, I sold $200k of a single tickers share from a clients portfolio. The ticker involved was fairly thinly traced; however, I was able to do so across an hour and the share price fell by 3 cents during that time. I would have taken longer, but was told they had to be out ASAP. By thinly traded I mean total market cap, couple hundred million dollars, and a few thousand shares traded per day.

That sort of trade isn't possible to do in BTC, let alone a BTC denominated security without having a major impact on the market. Welcome to the world of no liquidity. It works now because most people are holding their BTC expecting higher prices. It won't work at all if something forces a major movement out.

Same for asicminer shares; most are held on friedcats person ledger. Should anyone attempt a large purchase or large sale, they quickly burn through the open orders and force huge price movements.

Asicminwr trades at an incredible yield. That its as low as it is is testament to people's uncertainty about bitcoin, about asicminers ability to deliver what was hoped, and more importantly, the sentiment of the last person seeking to make a large purchase or sale.

There's lots of moving pieces, but none of them are based on the correlation between BTC/usd, and all to do with the moves of the last few big players that push prices in extreme directions by doing trades that would be considered to be very small in any other market.