I was thinking about Soly's recent explanation about how large-scale investors often go about purchasing a large number of shares at a knock-down price and remembering the excellent radio interview he once linked to talking about how easy it is to manipulate penny stock prices.

Then I got to thinking about the recent posts led by Superspazz about the absolute craziness of the current SP. It's as though the farm-out deal was only a dream and we're in the same position as we were after the parting of the ways with Hess.

And this despite Falcon being more in the spotlight than ever before, with coverage by various analysts and regular press releases and roadshows.

And therein lies the rub, I believe. When I first bought into Falcon 6 years ago the company was pretty much flying under the radar - there wasn't much publicity and no analyst coverage whatsoever. Whilst I understand that the nature of the stock market has changed, with buy and hold being a thing of the past and investors seeking instant gratification, I believe our current woes are for the most part an unfortunate side effect of coming to the attention of much larger numbers of the kind of players that have the power to manipulate the share price to its current level.

A small retail investor, hearing about Falcon and toying with the idea of buying some shares, is going to first look at the recent price history and run for the hills. Which I'm sure is the intention.

But along with most of us on this forum, I'm in this for the long haul and my gut tells me we'll all be very well rewarded.