Member Info for Happyhaddock

I'd like to re-post this as most seems as relevant here today as when first written about another company.

Some might cynically say that the focus of a junior exploration company's board of directors is to keep raising enough cash to pay their own salaries. However those directors might say they are there to keep the markets interested in the company so they can raise the funds needed to explore. This isn't easy in a sector noted for endless delays and over-spends, where most projects fail and even simple projects can take many years to progress.

Without lying to the markets or concealing truths, companies are constantly trying to generate enough new enthusiasm to compensate for dilution and impatient market participants who sell up. Consequently good marketing will seek to highlight any positives by exploiting even distant links to fashionable ideas or remote chances of near term good news. All done whilst using caveats and words like "potential" "prospective" or "estimate" that provide wriggle room should people's expectations later fail to be met. In other words, when promoting reasons to be optimistic, directors may be legally forbidden from leading us up the garden path, but they can step to one side whilst encouraging others to excitably run ahead on their own.

I've seen many junior explorers attacked for misleading markets, along with angry accusations of their management exploiting small shareholders by deliberately running a company in to financial troubles so that it can be acquired "on the cheap" by its creditors. Such critics are often emotional individuals who, without adequate understanding, excitably rushed to buy the herd's enthusiasm and then without allowing adequate time to make progress, make losses selling in to their disappointment. Such people need to recognise that most explorer's PR translates as "...we can't confirm anything just yet, but please help us by getting carried away anyway".

Arguably part of the job of a director is the ability to get you to part with your money. Each time you purchase shares they succeed. Consequently every speculator needs the ability to buy, hold or sell shares without being distracted by a company's PR or the emotions of other investors.

You need to understand what is usual for the sector in terms of what is said and when, or even if, it is actually delivered. You must then identify if there are any reasons to believe a specific company may be an exception rather than the norm. This is done by analysing their communications to separate definite and actionable facts from distracting promotional targets and aspirations. Understanding how others may fail at this can help you can better assess if any potential rewards outweigh all the risks surrounding future unknowns. Most importantly you must be able to live with the consequences of being wrong which, as you cannot eliminate risk, often means not speculating with more than you can afford to lose.

Well that was a fun read

Well great as it is to see a fair percentage move up today, lets not forget we've moved "up" to half of our price at the beginning of last month.

Would be great if this were the start of a meaningful change in sentiment, but for the time being it just seems to be part of our natural volatility ... time will tell but I'm neither buying nor selling.

With most BODs there's usually at least one long term member who is clearly in charge and pulling the strings during any change of management. The rate at which all our BOD keep getting turned over seemingly rules out the fact that the one pulling the strings actually sits on the BOD.

As it is clearly not us the small shareholders deciding who forms our BOD, that kind of points the finger at a major shareholder running the show whilst refusing to raise their head above the parapet and identify themselves. Prompts lots of questions about what their agenda is and why folk appointed to our BOD seem don't hang around long enough to even warm their own seat at the table? ... sadly today's news doesn't actually provide any answers to any of these questions.

@ smiller - I'm no expert in copper exploration but my own rule of thumb is that anything below 0.5% is going to be a tough act to make profitable, anything above 1% decent, and anything above 3% a definite cause for further exploration.

However, much like the silver at EH the issue here may be the strike widths; our silver grades are insane but total only a small volume of silver, with copper most seem to be looking for strike widths in excess of 100m.

@Forrest - Ironic turn of phrase you use when BBG's excuse for not investing was he needed to pay for a new kitchen ;-)

Well I've often said that I feel UFO's wealth lies in the long term potential of our non ferrous metals and that there is always a chance that these may deliver a positive share price move before our iron ore does.

I'm not suggesting today's news is likely to deliver a big or sustained share price move, but it is certainly good news that reinforces the notion that our potential extends way beyond our current focus of interest at Hanc*ck.

Well for those shareholders that had already made the decision to stick it out and see what happens there was no bad news in the interview to prompt a change of heart. For those that were waiting on more detail about permits, funding and timescales before making a decision there was not enough there to cause a change of heart either.

All too often with interviews you get the impression somebody has been shoved in front of the public because the public expect an interview, not because the company has anything specific to tell us.

Yayay - in terms of native title I think there is enough expectation that it's confirmation will move the share price, but like so many things here it may be a brief and temporary move if it doesn't come along with all the other news and financial data we're waiting on.

As I've said before the critical thing with developing a mining operation is that EVERYTHING eventually gets ticked of the extensive "to do list". Beyond creating a momentary feel good buzz the exact day any one specific point get ticked off is not so critical in the grand scheme of things.

Well for those that live RNS to RNS we've got more news... just not the news the markets are waiting on.

Whilst anticipation may be building, I think we all know the news that will have an affect is confirmation that everything is finally permitted to go ahead, along with proper financial details about what all this is going to costs and where the funds are coming from. The markets are waiting on being told what ore price we need to achieve to actually throw off free cash flow to invest elsewhere as opposed to simply moving the numbers around a spread sheet so as to imply we may be profitable before allowing for all our expenses.

I take offence at the suggestion that the fish stinks ;-)

Long ago the scoping study suggested the cap. ex. for Hanc*ck might be around 30million, then things switched to making claims that they had found savings to bring that down to about 20million.

Just recently there's been focus on negotiating the potential "uplift payment" to Windfield metals and this has coincided with suggestions of estimated cap. ex. costs returning to 30million.

Just wondering if there might be a clue in there or might the two be unrelated?

Yayay, my whole life could be said to be one long series of bizarre incidents ... simply sticking on a theme, nuns are almost always some of the most interesting people you can spend time with...

I once recall witnessing a group of nuns performing a Maori haka whilst facing off against a group of Roman Centurians driving a WWII willys jeep. I'd like to attribute that to drinking too much, but I'm tea total and was stone cold sober ... so that's just another example of the company my wife and I keep.

Whilst this sounds like the start to an odd joke, quite literally I've just returned home to find the house full of nuns and librarians!

Nor is this some sort of fancy dress or costume event ... such is the company my wife keeps they are real nuns and librarians!

... never a dull day.

@cj ... whether you consider me a troll or not is hardly relevant but I will respond.

You claim the only question is whether permission to mine will be denied. For me the more pressing question has always been whether Hanc*ck will be able to throw off free cash flow at what ever point in the future it eventually gets permitted.

Whilst volatile iron ore prices are currently doing OK the experts keep arguing over the future , where I've seen long term forecasts spanning from below $55/t to above $95/t. At present we only have an estimate of Hanc*ck's potential FOB costs. We don't yet know how overseas shipping, G&A payments like consultancy/legal fees, financing costs, royalties and board salaries may add to our outgoings. Regardless of the quantity or quality of ore in the ground, there is much uncertainty over when our next fund-raise may occur, when Hanc*ck may get permits to start work, when it may hit target production volumes, or how any revenue generated may compare to monthly sustaining expenditure, initial capital costs, or any "uplift payment" still to be agreed with Windfield Metals.

My hunch is that things may eventually end up just the right side of profitable, and even a small income will benefit us. However the margin of error on any current calculation of future profitability remain sufficiently huge as to render such estimates pointless.

I've always maintained that I took a speculative position here for the long term potential of our non ferrous metals. At present we are gambling on what the numbers for our iron ore may look like in the future.

@ Bishop ...

You of all folks should know that faith is something that cannot be reasoned with, it exists in the absence of evidence not because of its presence.

Some here have faith UFO will prosper, whilst many just seem frustrated by the current lack of certainty... but acting before all the facts are known is what separates speculation from investment and why accepting bigger risks can deliver bigger gains if things do go in your favour.

Those shareholders here that have faith believe they have invested, those shareholders without faith believe they have speculated. Those with faith will accept nothing but their own version of the future, those without faith look to explore as many possible outcomes as they can to weigh up risks and probabilities.

Some might say their blind faith is the better system if it stops them from making reckless overly emotional "knee jerk" decisions they later regret, others accuse blind faith for leading people in to making overly emotional decisions in the first place.

All that matters is that at the end of the day people can live with the consequences of their own actions... the amount of overly emotional vitriol currently to be found on this bulletin board suggests many are struggling to live with the possible consequences of their own actions, however they came to make them.

There's a kind of irony that our management have signed a deal where, to avoid paying a fortune in extra fees to do anything with our iron ore, we have to persuade folk that there's no extra increase in value to be found by mining it. Yet if they succeed they will likely alienate (OK a cheap pun I know) anybody interested in financing or investing in such a project.

Paying for a bankable feasibility study was always likely to be part of any deal with AA, if not a sensible precaution for us, but I wonder how much pressure is being brought to bear by Windfield in terms of properly assessing the profitability and value of Hanc*ck so as to extract a "fair" fee from us.

Construction progressing on budget seems good news in a sector noted for delays and overspends.

A >2month permitting delay whilst not positive is more or less a trivial rounding error in the timescale typical of this industry's red tape.

The market's knee jerk over-reaction this morning is more or less inevitable but in the grand scheme of things, will we look back on today's news as a key or decisive point in GWMO's history, or merely an acknowledgment we are still plodding forward?

i'm no geologist so do your own research if this sort of stuff interests you... however...

pegmatites are a co****ly crystalline type of igneous rock that are quite common. pegmatites can contain mineralisation but it is by no means a certainty. sometimes that mineralisation may be of rare or valuable minerals. sometimes there may be enough rare minerals across a large amount of rock as to comprise an economic ore body rather than a scientific curiosity.

alien metals have announced they have identified what they have described as "potential pegmatites" within their land holding, they have also used the phrase "lithium prospectivity" and in an estimated timetable they imply that next year they might re assay some existing cores.

others must decide for themselves how to respond to the "potential" to find lithium, how "early stage" things may be and how that may impact upon ufo's performance over the short or longer term.

"don't look at what my right hand is doing ... I'm waving something shiny in my left!"

Kudos to our company's PR machine for so effortlessly distracting attention away from recent share dilution, investor disappointment and anger.