...
ALL valuations on any asset are whatever a person is willing to pay. ...
Price, even price people are paying and value are too different things. A valuation is a statement of value and doesn't have anything directly to do with price...
To be fair, the value of securities like PETA is mainly speculative, since the underlying value is unknown and is in constant flux. When the difficulty goes up X%, the asset value [hardware] goes down ~X%.* We don't have enough info to predict difficulty. Throw in irrationality and illiquidity of the market, and market price becomes the only interesting indicator.
*Actually a bit more, since there's a floor below which the hardware stops generating profit, i.e. (the cost of hosting+electricity) becomes greater than (the coin mined).
I don't agree, price isn't the only interesting indicator. You have to determine a value of the security that you believe in. It is really value that drives market price over time. It takes time because there will be a large range of views on the value, but if one is even on the correct side of the value one can make good choices about price.
Right now we have too very mild difficulty changes and that has lulled people in to believing we are at the top of the difficulty curve. That might be the case, but it could also be the case we get a big jump again. If we do, PETA will likely see a bigger than justified decrease in price. That is the risk. The other risk is the yield is too low for the price. The dividend today was high at .00002101, but compare that to B.Mine that pays .00002900 per GH/s everyday this difficulty, PETA is low, but priced higher? That is overvalued no matter how you paint it.