I've only been investing in junior exploration stock for about 7 or 8 years. However, I have noticed over that time that a company that makes a significant NEW discovery (as opposed to proving up additional tonnage of an already discovered resource) is able to make some large gains when market conditions are bad. For example, over the last 7 years there have been some periods where mining stock prices were declining fairly substantially, especially during summertime (which is seasonally expected). Nevertheless, when news of a NEW discovery of high grade ore over a significant width was released to the public, I've seen substantial stock price increase of that company, despite the overall downtrend and drop in prices of other explorers and miners.
If you go to www.infomine.com and click on the tab "Investment" you will see that there is a list of "Top Resource Gainers" on the TSX for that day (as well as "Top Decliners"). If you watch the "Top Resource Gainers" for some weeks, and notice the ones that make substantial price increases (e.g., 50% of higher for the day), and do so on substantial volume, and then go and read the press release for that company for that day of the day before, you will find that most of these huge jumps in stock price are due to a significant NEW discovery. And I've seen this happen many times in adverse market conditions.
For the above reason, I'm convinced that drilling of high priority NEW targets is in the best interest of Noront shareholders. I'm even more persuaded in this regard due to the high percentage of accuracy in hitting new finds by our company. Once they figured out, after striking Eagle 1, the electromagnetic signatures that were unique to that find, they were able to, with few misses, determine other high priority targets. Their "batting average" for hitting significant mineral deposits (as opposed to misses) is extremely high for this business, and proves that they've developed the right "formula" for locating and hitting valuable ore bodies.
We are an junior mineral EXPLORATION company. That is what we do. That is what the market expects us to do. By making significant NEW discoveries, like Eagle 1 and Eagle 2, we've seen significant gains in our share price in the past. Bad economic conditions have panicked a lot of people and has resulted in huge stock price drops to all junior exploration and mining companies. The tide pushed us all down, not just Noront. It pushed our stock price, and many others, down to values substantially below the actual values of the ore bodies they own.
However, there are people and funds out there that are holding cash presently. They've sold everything or almost everything because of this great panic and precipitous drop in stock prices across the board. But now they are looking to see what might be a good investment to try and make a profit in these tough times. One of the places they look is the junior exploration sector because a NEW discovery of a valuable ore body has historically been a great way to profit - even in tough economic times.
So, in my opinion, with our geologists' expertise in locating high priority targets and successfully finding high grade deposits of valuable ore, we should not wish for management to be laying off drillers and workmen and idling equipment and hoping that we can wait for a year or two for the economy to turn around. Timidity and passivity will only turn off potential investors. They are looking for an explorer to turn up a NEW find of significance, and we are the company best positioned to do this. As much as we may be disappointed in the turmoil of our company over the past couple of months, we should be glad that our directors have agreed to drill NEW high priority targets this winter. This is what is most likely to take our stock price back up to $7 or beyond.
