One thing that troubles me about commentary on Hotcopper is...

One thing that troubles me about commentary on Hotcopper is that, whenever I read 'authoritative' comments about a project or company for which I am actually running operations or doing fieldwork, the things that are postulated by would-be analysts here are invariably so wildly far from the truth as to be ridiculous. People will be counting down the days passed, drilling rates, and the metres drilled towards a mouth-watering geophysical target, and be completely unaware that the rig has not yet arrived on site, the program has been cancelled, and the driller has gone to another job. This certainly makes me doubt my own analysis of companies in which I am not actually involved or regularly speaking with management. (And of course I would never actually comment on a company who's operations I was involved in. That would be unethical and a breach of professional confidence). But it's a sobering realisation, even for one who has spent 35 years in the mining industry and has half an idea of how hard and slow exploration actually is and how many things can actually go wrong.

As far as the expected resource upgrade at Antipa's Minyari-WACA project, the only certain thing I can say is that I really haven't a clue what is coming. They keep a very tight grip on major technical news. We could be in for a big surprise, one way or the other. It is a little bit worrying that the share price is looking surprisingly weak, and as one old broker told me years ago: 'The market always knows..' But as another broker once said to me: nobody EVER has to buy a share, but there is always somebody somewhere who HAS to sell! So who knows? In the absence of news, there will always be those who are forced to sell, and little incentive for anyone to choose to buy. It may just be the attrition of a news-less market. We will have to wait and see.