Zak,

Unless you are going to play some arbitrage between the two companies while the merger is pending, or unless you're thinking of getting out prior to the closing, then the AUMN stock price should have our primary attention.

One thing I like about AUMN is one can play options there; I wasn't able to do that with ECU. I've been selling Jan 12.50 puts, and one gets a very nice premium; if one wants to be greedy, one can sell $15's or 17.50's.