"Just some thoughts - whenever I do this I end up wanting to go out and scoop up more shares. How many opportunities are there to buy a new mill, a producing mine, a prospective producing mine, fully equipped and staffed mining operation, and the potential of 10's of thousands of hectares of land in an attractive mining area - for $8 million or 10 cents a share in LBE's case? Then for the other 57 cents a share you get a asset with a 385% IRR! Quite a bargain I'd say."

Bingo! It's a huge bargain. Well worth any potential downside risk. The markets are heavily overweighting risk right now and this presents a great opportunity to pick up wonderful little companies like LBE for a song. Why speculate on oil at $130 per barrel when you can pick up a producing nickel mine for little more than what its capital assets cost? You basically get the cash flow potential and growth for free... and if nickel prices tank and we don't generate much in the way of a return on capital at the start (but more than enough cash to cover our debt obligations), we still get a mill, two mines and lots of potential!

I've disciplined myself to sit on the sidelines for a while and not purchase any more shares, as I don't want to overweight my portfolio in LBE (and give my wife reason to kill me should the unthinkable happen!) but I am definitely tempted. Buying at $0.65 would nicely average down my LBE investment cost/share and I can't see the share price being able to go down much further unless we get some bad news.

I used to believe that markets were mostly efficient in their valuations of share price, but I am seeing more and more why Mr. Buffet says that they aren't. With small companies like LBE, share price is driven as much by "gut feel" and emotion than it is by fundamentals. This presents great buying opportunities.