Hi Pic,

Happy New Year all

I empathise with your barn door post entirely....I think I bought into the pm shares cycle too early. If the miners are anything like the dot.com - they took off in around 1996/7 after just slow steady growth before- and it only took 3 years to reach the cycle highs in 2000. Either there's going to be another wait - or the cycle for the PM shares will be gargantuan compared to the dot.coms.. that's the whole sector of course, then developing within the sector are those miners like AUM who've struggled with funding over the 2008-2010 period but are still growing and haven't as yet fulfilled their regular p/e potential.

I've decided to wait it out - when the miners all start to issue dividends - shares should take centre stage again. I think what's been putting off people from mining shares has been constant dilution for takeovers etc . That makes other options more attractive. Issuing dividends is more investor friendly and sounds less risky and stable somehow.

AP