Thanks for the heads up @docmin24, I am new here, so I went back...

Thanks for the heads up @docmin24, I am new here, so I went back and revisited the scoping study release and I see what you mean.


There certainly was a massive pump in the lead up to that announcement, with a big hit taken post announcement, a real buy the rumour, sell the news event. This has become a common manipulative practice on the ASX by traders, particularly in heavy retail stocks, and these scumbags absolutely count on the emotion of retail, and the FOMO they can cause to suck people in, then sell out and leave the retail holding the bags.

It did also co-incide with the rise in the critical minerals sector in early 2022, which would have assisted in pumping the price.

And obviously the study was not what the market was expecting and punished the sp, and some responsibility has to be apportioned to the company.

There is certainly an art to tweaking content and timing, focusing on the strengths and minimising the negatives, while putting out the announcement on a positive day. And before you say thats in breach of continuous disclosure rules ASX 3.1, companies can proof read, peer review, tweak and study results for extended periods, until they have the results or studies going out to the market.

But as per the chart, its not the end of the story.

Pre pump IXR was sub 2c, ran to 5 and post announcement, slipped to 2.5. If it was really bad news, it would have been smashed back down below the pre pump price.If it was really great, in a fair and equitable market, it would have kept heading North.
But we all know, the ASX is far from fair and equitable.

However, over the next few months, the SP then went on to go to all time highs around 8c and I would think that once digested by the market, the scoping study did hold some merit which helped the SP appreciate to ATH's.
There was of course a plethora of announcements that assisted around UK funding, Ionic tech and refinery plans, and I believe the market was waking up to the circular strategy that IXR was trying to put together.

Unfortunately, not enough money was raised when the SP was up, which would have minimised the dilution.

As a management team, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
For the most part, investors hate a CR that is just to keep the lights on or progress current projects.

In most cases a CR tanks the SP and stifles the momentum of a stock....unless its for a profitable acquisition.
Sometimes you can see them coming, sometimes you can't.

One of my other stocks which has previously had a CR at 18c, was met with the usual hostility and anger.
Fast forward 12-18months, and if we didn't have that cash, we would be raising now at 3c, so it was definitely a wise move and one that in retrospect has been publicly applauded.

If they raised at 7 to 8c, investors would still be upset, as it would have stifled the positive momentum.

However, a 30M raise then would have diluted us by 375M shares, way less than the following CR's, and we would be way ahead of what transpired over the last 8months, as well as the SP probably being in way better shape.
Hindsight is a great thing and I bet the management are thinking the same.

Very easy for us to speak in wise tones with hindsight, but I guess they thought they were doing the right thing at the time.

Going forward, I am hoping lesson learned by this new CEO, and hopefully with guidance from the seasoned chairman, they can get us to a point where they restore confidence in the investors and the market.

Because if they don't, we'll be heading down a very dark path