RE: Buys2 Feb 2024 12:10
"why would anyone jump in before test results? Either taking risk make loads money or lose the lot"
You kind of answer your own question, no? It's about expected return, as any investment, and the subjective probabilities for failure and success differ among investors, which is why for many expected return will be highly positive based on their subjective probability. Let's use 50/50 for the sake of the example, shall we? And say in the downside scenario they really "lose the lot", fine, so in the upside scenario let's use something conservative, what was the high of the market cap range when there was no commercial helium find? 180m£ or thereabouts? Let's use that, even though WITH a commercial helium find, market cap should easily surpass past market cap highs when there were none. So you roughly make 3x as much in the upside scenario than you lose in the downside scenario, and with these subjective probabilities have pretty high positive return, at which time it's more a matter of sizing the trade (because yes, given the dispersion of the possible outcomes, you won't size as big as you would if it was -5% downside scenario/+15% upside scenario).
You might have very different subjective probabilities, or other upside scenario market cap expectations, but you should realize why for many people taking a position *right now* can make a lot of sense.