In theory, your points are valid. Ive been there with those...

In theory, your points are valid. Ive been there with those opinions, Ive sat there with shares and going WTF is happening here (over a 1-3yr period as company's go through the scoping study process), there's a MC of $20/60/80mill, in situ resource is 2B +, the price goes nowhere/backwards over 6-12 months as a study happens, it comes out with a reasonable enough NPV of say $600Mill, they might have some basic permits starting, a production schedule in say 2 yrs and the share price just keeps going backwards as financing takes time, testwork always throws in some curve ball, commodity prices move around, etc, etc.

Ive been burnt (and missed a lot but watched people burnt) with the idea that the scoping study adds tremendous value - atleast to the share price - I would suggest going through some recent (and not recent) companies share price charts with the announcement information to see how the norm perform - its ugly reading and seems completely counter intuative. Sure, for a project to get built you need an idea of what it will cost and what it will return. No one should argue with that - it adds project value but it doesnt add share price value in my opinion. My reasoning for why share prices fall is the scoping study somewhat sets a ceiling and brings reality to the story. You mean, Its only x resource, its going to cost y CAPEX and youll only get z return, and thats assuming we jump through the 1000 hurdles still to get through like financing, permitting, commodity prices crashes, oh and itll be years before we actually get free cash flow?

The standard off the street speculator buying penny explorers has no idea what the limits are so drill results, some hype etc always tends to be followed by a down trend when the scoping study happens. I am not saying everyone that buys explorers are blind gamblers, but every exploration has some gamblers in it, and it only takes a small % of them to start selling off and the price goes backwards. Go and look even at the history of Sandfire Resources, a great read on a great discovery story that went into a fairly seemless production. There was SFA money made once the first studies came out and if you bought in at the wrong time you couldnt even make money, and it was a project that actually was built and made a fair bit of cash in the process. I agree the resource is there, but history suggests this isnt the time to buy shares in a mineral company in my opinion only.