difference between the truth and whole truth

I'm a believer in PEN, I have a large holding, I've done the hard yards research-wise, and I've written at least a dozen posts receiving 20-30+ thumbs (not a brag, just evidence that I'm a serious supporter of PEN and that I've put in plenty of hours and shared lots of info).

However, as the share price has risen, I've noticed more and more half truths being proliferated, and games being played with words and posts. That's not what I'm interested in. I want the whole truth about PEN, not just some sugar coated pill that makes me feel great now but blindsides me to big losses in the future. It seems pretty obvious, if you like the truth then you should want all the facts not just a carefully selected sample of them. So here's what I see:

Truth: There's plenty of water. Lots of variations of this phrase are repeated all the time in here. Pictures are posted, tables of rainfall data etc, etc. Ok, we get it, it rains in Wyoming just like most other places on the planet. Rain falls on mountains and turns into streams and rivers, plenty of those in Wyoming too. Tick. Rain falls on the ground and permeates into the water table and also into aquifers, mostly at the edges of those aquifers (ie the Black Hills Uplift right near Lance). When someone repeats that the water situation is ok, and that there's plenty of water, and they don't mention unknowns or risks, the implication is that there's no risk.

Whole Truth: There's still significant risk for PEN because we need some of that abundant water to be in the right spots. There's thousands of trillions of gallons of water in the Powder River Basin, but it's all for nothing if the aquifers containing Uranium are dry. Even if they are saturated, it doesn't mean it's economic to recover the Uranium. Low permeability and porosity within a saturated aquifer can make it difficult or impossible to extract the Uranium using ISR techniques.

Truth: Yes, PEN did test the permeability and porisity of ground at Lance, and the results were extremely encouraging. The results suggest that the ground will allow for a very efficient ISR operation and even lower costs and higher margins than required or expected.

Whole Truth: The above is repeated weekly in here (just about everyone will have had it drilled into them by repetition that "Porosity and Permeability are excellent"), and once again the related risks are never mentioned. What needs to be remembered is that these are lab tests of only 4 drill holes out of over 5000! Firstly, pushing water through a narrow column of ore in a lab environment is very different to pushing thousands of gallons of water through hundreds of metres of irregular ground. Secondly, 4 out of 5000 isn't a large enough sample! If you asked 4 people on the street what profession they were, and two were lawyers, would you conclude that 50% of every 5000 people are lawyers? No! It's ridiculous. This is never mentioned, but you can bet if the 4 samples had returned below average results, we'd be getting weekly reminders that 4 samples isn't statistically significant!

Truth: Hartley's has a price target of over 10 cents in 6 months.

Whole Truth: That valuation was based on an exchange rate of 80 cents! The exchange rate was already 85 cents when the research report was published and as of today it's more like 92 cents, with talk of 95 cents and maybe even parity. Have any of the wise ones mentioned the fact that the 6 month target should be falling as Uranium wavers and the Aussie dollar strengthens? Instead, we've been seeing charts posted showing commodity indexes going up. Guess what guys, when the USD goes down, commodities and commodities stocks go up. Should be good for PEN, except the US Govt is planning to dump a large amount of Uranium onto the spot market so in the short term PEN won't get much benefit and may even decline with all the other U stocks. Who has mentioned that? No one. If it's a positive for PEN then pages will be written, if it's a negative, nothing.

Truth: PEN management have hinted that 100m lbs may be achieved at Lance.

Whole Truth: Maybe it will be, but what isn't ever mentioned in here is that the extra mineralisation was expected to come from exploration. So far the drilling program to expand the area of mineralisation has been hit and miss. There have been great Grade Thicknesses encountered, but also a lot of misses. Add on top of that, the ASIC charge (now dropped) against "John (Gus) Simpson" of inflating tree yield figures in a prospectus when he was running Olea, and there's reason to be cautious in getting too excited about the potential upside. Maybe it'll be as good as suggested, but maybe there's a bit of fluff in the estimates. Normally, we could be re-assured by positive brokerage reports, but we also have to take those with a grain of salt because John's brother works at Hartley's, and PEN is a sponsor of ProactiveInvestors. It's not going to be hard to get praise under those circumstances, so caution and skepticism would be wise.

Truth: Gus appears to be is highly competent and has everything under control. He also has a great management team and has made excellent appointments. Personally, I think he's doing a good job, but not a great job.

Whole Truth: Drilling at barber was supposed to commence in September, instead we get historical results for barber. This is not the first promise to be broken. The date initial/final JORC has slipped once or twice too. As for the team he's appointed, I'm not terribly impressed with Warwick Grigor. He presented PEN's case to the Uranium conference terribly, got facts incorrect, etc. He seemed either incompetent or drunk. Either way, it reflects on both Warwick and Gus. Assuming Warwick is a much better analyst than speaker, it'll be interesting to see if Gus allows him to represent PEN again in public. It would be a severe error in judgement in my opinion.

That's just a small taste of the fine detail that is being smoothed over in this room, and for the person who asked, that's some of the reason for my previous outburst. Having done my own research, I can compare it to what is presented in the PEN room on a weekly basis, and it often comes up short of the full truth and appears misleading a lot of the time. Probably banging my head against the wall, but it'd be nice if the room could focus more on the whole truth and less on endlessly repeating half-truths to recruit new buyers and reassure existing holders.

Just remember, it's the truth that counts, not pictures or long posts about how confident someone feels. You can't profit from feelings, but if you correctly assess the truth about PEN, and the risks, then I still believe the rewards outweigh the risks and am much more positive about PEN than this post might make it appear. This is one negative post amongst dozens of positive ones I've written, because I'm sick of seeing what I view as deceptive practices in here.

dt