Thanks for your comments Coach - summarizes the situation very well. Your posted words stretch right across my screen and are hidden, in part, behind some Agoracom adverts. I overcome the problem by downloading the comments only to a word processing program but I'm sure there is another solution.

18tee has summarized the market timing/time value of money conundrum well. Those who are good at it seem able to recognize when a company like ECU is no longer regarded as an exploration play and is about to become a producer and income generator. Those of us with less time and/or sagacity are forced to buy in early and hang on when we are confident about the long term potential which is certainly the case with ECU in my opinion. I have bee in the market for 50 years and my main regrets in retrospect are those times when I just grew tired of a stock and sold it for mainly that reason. IPSCO was one - I held for a few years at around $15 then bailed because I was frustrated even though I knew the company was well managed etc. I believe they sold out a year or so ago for somewhere in the neighbourhood of $180. Lesson learned.