Hi MajorD!

When ECU ran to $1.40 on almost no news, I would suggest that it happened BECAUSE the shorts were forced to cover, driving the price up in the process. So there are likely many naked short shares again in the float that could cause the next meltup on any positive news.

As for the financial results, it is not whether ECU turns a net profit that is of interest to me, but how much production they can crank out and hopefully we get enough cost info to draw a conclusion on whether the cash flow situation is improving. If the market is encouraged that the company is able to be self-funding, regardless of whether that income is credited to cap-ex or not, then I think there will be much stronger confidence to own this stock.

So far I think the shorts are dumping enough stock to contain the share price and prevent any buyers from getting aggressive, while the market consolidates and the metals correct. If we do get a rush of buying I the shorts will have their hand forced and will have to cover, driving the share price back up. Alternately, if the market goes right on its ass and the first round of drilling is unimpressive, then I think the shorts win and they will be able to cover on high volume dumping by fed-up longs.

cheers!

mike