There is indeed a lot more fear now than there was in the early...

There is indeed a lot more fear now than there was in the early 2000's. It's all about career risk for institutional shareholders, which are the main buyers/sellers of RIO shares. Fund managers invest with career risk on their minds rather than solid fundamentals when investing in stocks.

Put simply, even if RIO might rise 100% in 5 years time, if it's going to fall say 20% in the next 5 months, fund managers can't invest in it or they'll underperform badly relative to their peers and lose their jobs and careers.

Good opportunity for the smaller guys to load up though.

FYI - 2002 facts and figures for RIO. http://www.riotinto.com/documents/ReportsPublications/2002_Financial_dataBook.pdf

Very interesting if just to compare how large RIO has grown over the years.