Not much of a story.Many investors and traders could read your...

Not much of a story.

Many investors and traders could read your story like this:

1. Made an investment
2. Expected to double my money or more (not exact words but implied) - for no reason other than "shares always go up."
3. Then a big bad wolf in the form of Red5 came and took my company.
4. Because it was valued at $0.495, you assumed there was a law somewhere that meant the price would and could only go up. All this despite you watching the price rise artificially pre MOE and not considering that in itself unusual.
5. Because another company with less production and less Cap reserves you then assumed again, our price MUST go up.
6. You then wrongly correlated the POG with Share Price:
"Generally speaking, the correlation between miners and the price of gold is quite high over the long term. But just be mindful that it's not unusual to see the two diverge in shorter time frames." (etf.com)
or...
"Management can have a tremendous impact on profitability. Good executives can help a miner remain profitable even in bad times, while bad executives may squander a company's profits even during times of record-high prices.
Dividends: One of the biggest knocks on gold is that it doesn't pay any yield to investors. While that's true of the metal itself, gold miners—particularly the larger ones—do pay dividends, and an ETF investor benefits from that."

One final quote:
"With everything taken into consideration, it's clear to see that an investment in gold miners is quite distinct from an investment in gold."
7. Once again finishing with, woe is me.

That's how I read "your story". Maybe harsh, maybe wrong but reading between the lines that what your post boils down to me, in my personal opinion.

My story, is simple. I bought into SLR AND RED5. I REALLY liked the story and management of RED5 so dropped a significant (for me) portion of my money on the table in it, mainly because of management, maybe because of the clockwork like and honest updates MW gave etc. Like Joe elsewhere suggested, the cap raising was a little shock but after careful consideration, I doubled down. My investment stake avg buy in price is now exactly $0.21. I have also traded it from as low as $0.13 and been lucky with that stake.

Instead of complaining about LT, I tried to understand the way he plays the game and this lead me to buying a stake in HMG...already turned it over once in the last week and will revisit it, I am not saying this is smart or right for everyone but it is right for me. The trading plays which I still do with VAU is a few dollars and makes following things in the market fun, that's all.

If you looked at a company and part of your research was to consider the happiness of the current investors, would you buy into VAU with all the smoke from [apparent] shareholders here?

Maybe that's why we are being played...because of the volatility being created around an otherwise sound company with HUGE UPSIDE in my personal opinion. If the tariff issue or other global issues hit the market hard, my war chest is ready to be opened and I won't hesitate to stake it in VAU if the price is right.

You do you.