missB ,I dont think you are trying to shake the tree, you are...

missB ,
I dont think you are trying to shake the tree, you are just trying to make sense of what is happening.
Its "conventional wisdom" to have a stop-loss price set, so that if and when the price falls to that level, a sell order is automatically triggered. The theory is that the price has further to fall, and this is usually the case, as the stop-loss price is carefully chosen.
En masse, this has the effect of accentuating the price fall, as you can imagine.
This is how "day traders" operate.

I'm not a day trader, and I don't bother with a stop-loss.
I buy a mining stock because I like it's long term prospects and I hold Indochine because of it's fundamentals, particularly the Mt. Kare Project.

If one wants to engage in day trading to pull small profits out here and there, one needs to be prepared to get it wrong every so often, even if one studiously studies the world political and economic forces affecting the stock market. Some event will pop out of "left field" to confound us. It's not a game for the feint-hearted.

If one has long term confidence in gold and Indochine, and can afford to hold the shares, and add to them over time, there will probably be a number of future opportunities to buy IDC at good prices, before this stock becomes expensive. You can save yourself the hard work and occasional headaches and, sometimes, the misery of poor trades, and just comfortably follow the company's progress towards becoming a profitable producer.
(That is not to say that one shouldn't sell if the fundamentals deteriorate!)

If we put the money in the bank, the interest rates at the moment are pitiful. The big payoff in holding Indochine may still be 3 years away, but then again a takeover before that could well result in a tidy profit.
Like religion, we have to believe.
Best of luck.
23.