Given statistically 90% of the 70 companies who have some Cobalt...

Given statistically 90% of the 70 companies who have some Cobalt on the ASX are down in the last 6 months and Lithium has done similarly terribly, isn't 'little to no confidence' what you'd expect from the market towards a company which exclusively specialises in both?

Yes, some of these companies deserved to have their bubbles burst as people were valuing companies at hundreds of millions of dollars with disregard for the actual future economics and profitability, particularly in cases such as the high capex with slow returns of the low grade Australian laterite deposits.

However, I am sure less than 90% of the companies are garbage so many got dragged down through the mud. As a purely illustrative example even Amazon and Apple didn't resist the effect of the dotcom crisis at all were dragged into the gutter with the rest of the trash to the tune of 93% paper losses from AMZN's peak.

As for directors improving market confidence here, I believe in the short term only drill results and binding agreements will do it while waiting for battery minerals to recover. MTC nailed BCC which is still an extremely rare achievement for a new company after 8 months, I have faith that they can lead the pack with the promised project level agreements too.

As for your comment on the ex MD, what you're guessing is that the EXECUTIVE director left because the NON-EXECUTIVE directors weren't doing (i.e. executing) enough? How much more likely is it that you have it right but with the roles reversed, especially considering the founders got things done with the investment from BCC but the last 6 months under the new MD hasn't seen any transformational deals?