Pressure for News Flow not Always Helpful

Resources sector news flow can be counterproductive if it is hurried or incomplete. Botswana Metals’ market value slipped below $4 million on Wednesday despite the company’s development assets being better than average quality with lower than average risk (based on the PortfolioDirect rating framework) and presentations to investors in Sydney and Melbourne this week. The company has a commitment from Botswana’s state-owned mining company, BCL Limited, to fund a full exploration program to source supplies for its nearby smelter. Yet the company's share price is down 50% since 17 April. A maiden resource estimate on 28 April seemingly contributed. Generating news has come at the expense of quality information. Only drilling results from 2014 have been used for the resource estimate, no oxide mineralisation or cobalt is included, geophysical conductors adjacent to the existing resource have been ignored and only 1km out of 2.4km of strike has been tested. Investors would have been better off if the company had refrained from hastily publishing partial data despite the inevitable clamour for news and the bias among regulators to publish prematurely.