Artemis Resources (ASX: ARV) shares are down 15% today. ARV shares haven’t moved because of any particular announcement - it’s a revaluation of prospects among buyers and sellers of the shares instead. This is just one of those things among exploration miners. Views about prospects, views about certain locations for minerals, even views about certain minerals and metals go in and out of fashion.
There’s definitely something interesting at Artemis Resources: “The point for us to understand here is that this is still at a very early stage. Yes, the right rocks (pegmatites) have been found. Also, some interesting lithium values have been found in some of those rocks. It's even true that this seems to be an extension of a mineral deposit from the claims next door. But that's all we've got to so far. This is not proof that there is indeed a lithium deposit there worth mining.” That was back in July.
Artemis Resources share price from Google Finance.
We can see the effect of that announcement on the Artemis share price there, that move up to the higher level. This is righteous, a chance of finding substantial lithium is worth something. We’ve also more recent news from Artemis: “ Artemis Resources (LON: ARV) (ASX: ARV) (OTCQB: ARTTF) shares are up 16% in Australia today. ARV shares are up on confirmation that there’s lithium in their recently announced find. We should point out that this is still early days in the proof that there’s an economic deposit worth mining there. But it is a positive step along that road. The announcement itself: “A lithium bearing rock chip sample was provided for mineralogical analysis at ALS Global Laboratories. Recent geochemical analysis undertaken by ALS on behalf of the Company reported lithium assays in the range 1-1.8% at Kobe and up to 3.6% Li2O at the adjoining Osborne JV.”
That’s what bounced the share price up to that yet higher level to the right of the Artemis share price chart.
The issue here is not that the information we have has changed. Rather, views about that information have. Without actually polling everyone we don’t know why views have changed but a useful assumption would be that the market is just less excited by lithium exploration miners than it used to be. Therefore values attached to those who might have a viable deposit are lower. Little to do with the specific company and lots to do with general sentiment that is.
