Rosbg, you can sheesh some of the recent posts all you want, but the significance of the budget is material.

The expected cost of the road is > $100m. The current market cap of the company is slightly over $100m. The provincial budget is expected to support infrastructure for the Ring. Presumably that includes a road. But the level of support for the road is in question. Would the province pay for none of the road and only give an approval for companies to build it, or would they be willing to pay part, or would they be willing to pay for the whole thing? Hopefully they will pay for at least part, and Noront would be required to contribute a portion of costs, but not the whole thing.

But the difference between the government paying for all, some, or none of a road that will cost as much as the market cap is rather significant. I believe that when a billion dollars was initially announced a couple months ago, a lot of people automatically assumed that the government would shoulder the whole bill. But maybe that won't be the case. I believe that might be one possible explanation for the recent SP decrease, not just the usual conspiracy theories about manipulation.

Sure, manipulation might be one factor, I certainly concur with that possibility. But I also look at the upcoming official budget as a potential factor.

Maybe it's even possible that someone is sending a message to the company, through manipulating the SP temporarily, that not only will the options that would have been vested yesterday be out of the money, they will be nowhere close.

I for one am quite happy with the recent decline, for three reasons:

1. Slightly lowers the number of shares going to RCF for interest.

2. Keeps the share count down because yesterday's options weren't exercised.

3. The low SP makes it easier to keep accumulating small amounts.