Hi buick n,
I must agree with your characterization of the "analysts" who write these reports. They are in no way to be taken seriously. As you point out, they seem to leave out some rather salient points as it suits their purpose on a given day.
The following is a post that I made a year or so ago after members of this discussion group had read some particulary flagrant nonsense from an "analyst". We all thought it ridiculous then and at the time, I felt compelled to expound on it.
"The various analysts that comment on Noront appear to be only in step with a couple of the important aspects of the play (eg. how the stock is trading on a given day and speculation on the geology). They are however, missing some extremely important components in their analyses.
For example, in the article from Kaiser Bottom Fish, it is conjectured that everything, in the final analysis of the author, should be based upon a decision of whether the management of Noront is principled versus not principled. Actually, if you truly understand the multifarious nature of a mining play then you realize that you must watch for other important indicators that the author does not even get remotely close to thinking about.
One must consider other information that we have regarding road development, other infrastructure, First Nations MOU's, loss of jobs in Ontario, and multi-level government involvement. When you include all of these, it becomes apparent that the author's argument can be virtually dismissed. The point is, there are too many other committments currently being made for this play to be analysed only on the financial and geological tid-bits that we get from the stock market side. To be sure, these are of vast importance, but they do not stand alone in this instance. The analysts are too simplistic in their approach. There is a point in the development of this play (which I believe has been reached), where it becomes apparent that the insiders and the governments have decided that it is moving forward. Only they know the full reasons why, but their current actions regarding the above noted issues, tell us that stuff is going to happen.
I think that if one considers everything that we have gleaned on this board in the past year, the conclusion is that this play is likely past the stage of a so called "pump and dump". It is now more of a matter of how big Noront and the Ring of Fire in general will get. That is why I say, the author of the article has missed too much.
Incidentally, I think that some of the earlier analyses of this play were equally impoverished. Perhaps deliberately so."
I must say that my experience as an mining stock investor is rather limited. However, in that short time I have observed that stock analysts are, by and large, more accurately described as either "stock promoters" or "stock demoters" as determined by the institutions that they work for on a given day. Their analyses are just too transparent and lacking in the many important details required to truly understand the potential of a stock, to be taken seriously. As you can tell, I don't take them seriously. Rather, I would carefully absorb the many details available about Noront that can be sorted from places like this board as well as from the company itself and all of the people who are connected to this complex issue in their various ways. As many have said on this board, "do your own due diligence". Do not take advice from the very people who may in fact be looking to take advantage of you.
RHammer
