There are many speculative stocks out there all looking for the "next Olympic Dam" or the "next Ok Tedi."
Most don't find much, they keep looking for the needle in the haystack. They have to fund this search somehow, usually by capital raisings where shares are issued at a discount to the current share price. Then the price usually drifts back to the issue price.
Prior to the capital raising they may try to dress up the company with a few company announcements, shareholder presentations, paid broker reports, paid magazine advertorials, stooges posting on stock forums etc. Be very suspicious of a poster who appears to be well informed, writes great informative positive posts loaded with HTML, pictures and maps, usually very well regarded by other posters with lots of thumbs up, only posts on one stock and gains a following of posters.
Announcements from a company take the following form, "We have just found some excellent drill results buried in our inbox, excellent chance of being the next big thing and oh yes, we need some more of your money."
Don't get me wrong, they have to fund the exploration somehow. Some make all their money mining the sharemarket, rather than mining the ground.
If the company doesn't raise the required money, it may eventually dissolve.
You have to sort through all the companies and find the good ones, run by decent CEO's with some decent resource.
You can read HC (watch for the pump and dumps), research, read and understand announcements. Watch for volume and price changes (there are software packages that can search these out.) Look out for the cycles of a stock life which include good announcements, capital raisings and overall market sentiment.
Be careful of stock options maturing in the money, they are often sold off putting the price under pressure. Check 3b announcements.
Species are alot of fun, but be ready to jump off the merrygoround. Don't get caught in an illiquid stock, the price drifts down on low volume and it is impossible to sell more than $1,000 worth of stock without being down 10%.
