Almonty's Buyback Fails to Halt Slide as Sangdong Ramp-Up Tests Investor Patience
Published on 10/08/2026 at 20:31 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Almonty Industries is discovering that strategic metals demand conviction as much as capital. While politicians in Washington and Brussels keep talking up supply-chain security and critical minerals, the trading floor answers to a different set of rules — and right now those rules are working against the tungsten miner.
Shares in the company fell 4.1% on Thursday to EUR 10.36, with no official explanation or confirmed trigger for the move. The decline extends a bruising stretch: over 30 days the stock has shed 35%, and it now trades 50% below its 52-week high. Since the first tungsten production at Sangdong roughly two weeks ago, the shares have given up 4.8%. Yet zoom out and the picture flips — Almonty is still up 35% year-to-date, a reminder of how much skepticism the earlier rally has had to absorb.
A Buyback That Couldn't Break the Selling
Management has been pushing back against the persistent selling pressure. According to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company has repurchased 2,914,739 common shares for approximately US$48 million since the program began. The buyback is designed to tighten the available float, but it has not been enough to fully reverse the recent downward pressure.
The operational backdrop explains part of the caution. Speaking Wednesday at the International Investment Forum, CEO Lewis Black acknowledged that global ammonium paratungstate prices have weakened noticeably, according to media reports. Softer quotations dampen near-term expectations even when long-term supply contracts are meant to underpin a mining operation.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Almonty?
At Sangdong in South Korea, the technical ramp-up is demanding patience of its own. The processing plant is currently running about sixteen hours a day while the on-site team works through fine-tuning. During installation work there were also incidents in which damaged conduit pipes had to be replaced — the kind of adjustment that is routine in mining but slows the shift to full three-shift operation.
Governance Cleanup and a New Auditor
Beyond the mill, Almonty has moved to clear away distractions. A settlement with Pure Tungsten Inc. produced a corrective statement confirming that Tiger Kim never held a leadership role, board seat or director position at Almonty. His work as an external service provider ended on December 31, 2015. The clarification closes a potentially reputation-damaging dispute and removes a source of confusion for institutional investors.
The company also reshaped its accounting oversight. Following the resignation of Zeifmans, Almonty appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as its successor auditor until the next annual general meeting. Bringing in a globally recognized audit network is more than a box-ticking exercise — it is likely to strengthen the confidence of large investors in the company's financial reporting.
The October 24 Cargo Is the Real Test
All the governance progress counts for little if the mine does not deliver on schedule. Phase one is now in operation, and development of phase two is already underway, with completion targeted for 2027. The first shipment of concentrate remains booked for October 24.
That sailing date is shaping up as the genuine crossroads for shareholders. After the first tungsten output at Sangdong about two weeks ago, the material now has to reach the world market reliably. The stock's sharp 30-day pullback — even against a 35% year-to-date gain — shows how much doubt has crept into a rally that once ran hot.
For investors, the pattern is familiar from any difficult commodity cycle. Building new supply chains outside established monopolies takes stamina, and those who back strategic metals have to stomach the market's nervous twitches while separating short-term price swings from operational progress. The legal cleanup and the arrival of a top-tier auditor have made the foundation steadier than the current selloff suggests. But the burden of proof now rests entirely on execution — and any wobble in the October 24 delivery timetable would leave the stock exposed.
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