Here's what I think the deal is, fairchij. I think people may have been requested to exercise their warrants, perhaps through the company or through whatever broker may have gotten them in there. I assume IBK would be involved with the warrants, but I'm not sure. But I think whatever urging the warrant holders got, it may have come with the additional bit of advice, to the effect that, "geez, we've had a great run-up, and if you excercise you'll be able to sell some shares and lower your risk." Which is good advice, and which advice I would welcome if I were a warrant holder.
But if I were asked to exercise warrants as a favor to the company and was told nothing more, and shortly after I did, I got the feeling that a bunch of warrant holders exercised and sold stock and my price share price went down without me getting the same "word" to maybe take a little off the table, well, yes, I'd be miffed. After all, keeping the warrant for as long as possible (or until you need to exercise cuz you need to sell the stock for whatever reason) is generally the most advantageous thing you can do with a warrant. The exercising warrant holders did have to come up with the cash for the exercise.
And I think the selling Thursday and today is more than that required to pay for the relatively cheap exercise price, I think the selling is taking advantage of the rise in price and taking advantage of the retail view, as expressed emotionally expressed on this board, in terms of the expected run-up right up to the event, and, of course, beyond.
The main reason for the EC presentation is no doubt to give POET and its key people a great opportunity to spread the word among the well-heeled, who would otherwise not hear about it at all. But I'm very much suspicious that another, smaller part of the reason was to afford certain warrant and/or shareholders an opportunity to take some very good profit prior to the event. I've seen this type of thing over and over with small companies, mining companies on the Venture certainly come to mind.
Hope I'm wrong about that, as I was hoping POET would be different (in other words, be all about the tech, and not concerned about the market), and if they turn out not to be different, then I have been too optimistic.
