My take on the pricing situation with cobalt is somewhat similar...

My take on the pricing situation with cobalt is somewhat similar to the price of Ardea.

People used to seeing it a specific price will come along and go
"WTF - this was cheaper just a little time ago. This isn't right."
So they wait a little to see if it will come back down to where they were used to paying for it.
In the meantime the demand is sky-rocketing
and it looks like they have every chance that the gamble of waiting for a drop won't work.
They will pay a lot more for it soon.

Ardea is being actively accumulated by instos who are just not selling.
Instinet looks to be buying almost at a daily quota without any of their normal HFT tactics.
Same with DB and Merryl Lynch. Completely out of character. Brute force buying.

Its retail that don't see what is going on and have coughed up their shares way too early in the piece.

Personally, I believe Instinet is accumulating for Sprott at arm's length, because if they appeared as sub-holders at this point, then the price would go ballistic.
I think the other instos are wising up to that too and busy paying whatever price they have to put together a position quickly. They are not phased by the options coming into the money.
They are holding out a bucket for them.

A lot of retail got cleaned out in the 50s and the instos probably already have the lion's share of the loyalty options and probably happy to exercise and hold them until this gets quite a bit higher.

It is entirely normal that we will get a lot of negative posters now.
Some will want back in and some will just want to throw a few stones through the window.

It isn't a case of a jump on "No News".
Its a case of the last news sinking in.
The ARL drilling results were superb. Tesla hit the media with the Model 3.
Germany/France/UK bans on ICE vehicles.
More plans for EVs and battery storage hit the news every day.
Cobalt is a vital part of all this story and the supply side situation is even worse than lithium.

In my last list of the ARL resources I even managed to miss a couple out - Scandium, lead and possibly platinum in there too. Ardea is going to be around for the long haul and the plan for further spin offs of quality assets is just too tempting to let go of any of my shares at this point.

Demand for battery materials is getting out of control and there isn't a practical way for cobalt supply to keep up. Ardea doesn't even really need the price of cobalt to be as stratospherically high as it is now. It was already high before it jumped 70% this year.
What would be handy is for nickel prices to run a bit more.

Ardea has 2 resources where the world relies on 2 unstable countries to supply a large amount - Nickel (Phillipines) and Cobalt (DRC). That is a distinct advantage as an Australian supplier.
The new companies dominating EV are very aware that part of their appeal to their customers also relies on ethically sourced materials, and they will pay for that reliable supply.

The rest of what ARL has - lead, zinc, scandium,gold,silver,chrysophase - is gravy on top.