Ann: Appendix 2A, page-52

Point blank, the exercise of options did not lead to today's sell off.

It's purely a function of market dynamics. Just look at the chart.
I put a sell in today for 21.5 cents. I haven't moved it. My thinking was today would be the last day of this leg, my target was 22/22.5 using fib extensions off the previous leg. But i thought the move would be in the afternoon, instead it came at open. Since it was going down I elected not to chase it and instead picked up more at 16.5. The time to sell is usually not after the move down.

Anyway, the large number of experienced momentum traders that have been all over this the last few days most certainly and most definitely had exactly the same thinking and they make their money by making sure they aren't the one left carrying the bag. The simple obvious explanation is usually the best one.

Now we consolidate. There is much more to play out for REE and, assuming we are right in our expectations about Cummins Range, there is another $50mill mc, maybe more, still to come. I see this last week as setting up a large flag pole for the next leg, however long it takes.

@Crom Valen, you mentioned banning options. I know that was tongue in cheek but I actually support it. Whilst I buy and trade them, they are a tax on a company's balance sheet. And that, ironically, is another reason that the options are not the cause of this selling. The market factors in the potential for full options exercise into capitalisation.

@readyaimfire, your call to look at director notices is perfectly reasonable, it's good to track these things. I'd wager they won't show anything sinister though. If I'm the director and I'm sitting on options due to expire in the next couple of months, that are well in the money, I'm exercising. But if I don't have the ready cash I'd sell some shares to do it (if not precluded by news flow embargo - usual policy is 2 weeks and we should be getting sensitive news in less time than that) but with the goal of a net gain in position size, which was easily achievable per the following maths:

The average exercise price of all those options was 4.22 cents if I've calculated correctly.
VWAP today was 17.65 cents.
10 million options exercised.
So if enough shares were sold today to exercise those options, it would have required sale of no more than 2.4 million shares - 4.2% of todays trading and only 25% of the shares issued; a strong net gain in holding position (before further sales which I suspect is what you expect to see)