Thanks for your two cents, Rocky, and I hope that's exactly what happened here.  Over the years, I've seen what brokerage houses can do to share prices - some can play them like Jimi Hendrix did the guitar!

I've got no issue or problem with POET needing/raising money, very understandable.  And the offering wasn't awful, sure, I would have preferred .60 over .55, all things considered, but okay.

So, in essence, my disappointment is fear of the following:  if the brokers played this, then the run-up was orchestrated, but certainly juiced by the news releases from POET.  That would lead me to believe that rather than the market loving the NR's for fundamental reasons, perhaps the market was only slightly impressed by the news, and the rest was the brokers.  

On the other hand, if the offering was conducted as you describe, my fear is misplaced.