AM's best days are behind it, s.mpoe has a potential for huge future growth. As they say, past performance does not guarantee future success.
Why does AM have less potential for growth? As time goes on and bitcoin becomes more valuable both companies should depreciate in value.
If mpex has so much potential then why has only 1 company ever listed on the exchange since its inception more than 2 years ago? (excluding companies mircea owns)
How can mpex be "valued" at ~1/10th of all bitcoins in circulation when practically nobody uses the exchange?
AM is valued at ~60k btc because that is what people think the company might return in dividends in its lifetime and it's not too unreasonable (AM would only have to mine 0.7% of the remaining 8m btc)
Mpoe is valued at 800k btc because without a continuously increasing value, it would be impossible to convinced people to jump in the quicksand.
I don't think anyone (outside the cult of bitcoin-assets) believes that mpex will touch 800k individual bitcoins let alone profit that much.
If mircea opened a lemonade stand and sold 5 cups of lemonade for $2.50 then his lemonade company would be worth several thousand according to mpex investor logic.
AsicMiner was lucky to be basically the first company to produce a working ASIC. But now there are many more people in the market and they just can't repeat the success they had before. Do they even give out dividends anymore?
On the one hand you are focusing way too much on dividend, you should be looking at earnings instead, and on the other hand mining will yield more than 8m btc in the future (due to fees). Overall, the estimate is that mining rewards will go down in the future, while there is no such restriction for trading fees.
Based on historical examples, MP's lemonade stand would raise several thousand. In your example, it would then sell 5 cups of lemonade for $2.50. And then it would be worth several thousand (plus $12.50 - whatever ingredients cost), because it would still have several thousand bitcoins on hand.