If you look at the volume today of 6.35m shares traded with no announcement in play and as WestTiger1 pointed out in his posting that 1m shares were traded at .105 after match-up, then it is either: Pure Speculation driven up by a large buyer who bought in hard at 1.00pm, when the volume was 1m and 9.6, it was from this point that the stock when into over-drive in terms of volume of 6.35m shares traded.
This is the second highest volume traded in last few years (Feb 2nd 2011 was the biggest, the day of the Austrian Lithium announcement). The only other day that it came remote close was in early april when 3m+ shares were traded. Bigger Traders dont just buy this thinly traded spec stock just because they are bored and want to burn their money.
The alternative reason is that larger buyers have started to lose their nerve and discipline through frustration of not being able to buy larger parcels to make the "top 20" register before the string of announcements.
There is no official announcement yet, but look at my first post today in regards to the hint of reason for the big buying- acquisition of the Li mine will be announced and a resource upgrade of a higher find Its a big blatant hint to all of us smaller faithful "punters", the same as my post in late january 2011 where I mentioned regarding "semi-rare earths", the volumes went unusually high in the weeks before Feb 2.
ECM Price at posting:
52.5¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held