the calm before ....., page-54

A fair and reasonable question:
And I will answer before reading what other posters have written.

1. The share market got Trumped: Up until January, the ASX was still humming on the long bull run. And then Trump started screwing with world trade, and Syria etc. and the world equity markets pulled their heads in. Negative sentiment grew out of increasing 10 year bond rates with the threat that higher yields would divert some investment from equity markets. There was an over-reaction to that contagion which changed the Australian Share Market attitude from "bet on anything that tweets good news" to "OMG, we'll be all killed!!!"

2. Morgan Stanley queered the Lithium pitch: MS released an analysts report (probably written by some wet Harvard Undergrads on work experience) that compared the number of Lithium miners about to hit production (grossly over-stated) with the likely near-term growth in demand for Lithium (grossly understated) and started an oversupply rumor. The echos from that incompetent piece of analysis (widely discredited) are still reverberating and influencing the more nervous beasts in the herd.

3. The expected announcement date for BG Lithium became blurry: AGY had March 2018 as its planned date for announcing production of BG Li (or something equivelent). If you look back on older presentations, you will see how most made that assumption. And, AGY historically have been above average on meeting their stated objectives (let's not be calling them deadlines or commitments, because that tends to stir-up the Hot Copper Tribe). However, it seems that the building of the Stage 1 plant went from being a "bolt it together quickly and switch it on" to being an "all singing and dancing gold plated master-piece", full commissioning and initial tune-up has taken longer than expected. And, to be honest, we've been a little naive thinking it was going to happen faster.

4. The attack of the killer tomatoes: AGY has been targeted by some severe robot trading action (endless 1 share trades) and other nefarious activity, working to cap the share price while faceless, white-cat-stroking megalomaniacs accumulate.

These four-horsemen have chilled the initial 'hot-in-the-nuts' enthusiasm for AGY down to room temperature.

IMO