I believe the point Montrose was trying to make is that venture stocks (and IMO ALL stocks actually) are basically just another form of gambling. In reality, even if you buy a blue chip "investment" stock like Exxon the SP is still driven by news a good portion of the time. The market's reaction is the gamble you're betting for or against. If Exxon can't continue on a major project because of environmental concerns or OPEC makes a decision that impacts production it swings the stock like crazy. A lot of those things are out of your control and all you can do is gain whatever information you can to direct your decisions, that is the gambling aspect of the market.

The big difference between venture stocks and blue chips is that most ventures (especially exploration companies) don't generate steady income for anyone to base the valuation on. It's mostly based on speculation and/or comparing the results and company to it's peers and how the market reacted to others' results until such a time that they have a sellable product.

If the company is lucky enough to have cash on hand and/or resources in the ground that provides more data to base the SP on but other than that we're all pretty much gambling, that's just a fact.
With blue chips people consider the quarterly earning and guidance and a billion other factors such as the sector and markets and demand. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of these luxuries to keeps us stable and grounded so we live and die by the drill data and sentiment of what people think the potential is.

If you don't recognize that stocks, especially venture stocks are a big game of risk/reward then you should really take a step back and think about your strategy IMHO. You can have all the data and surveying equipment in the world and the setup can look perfect but until you start drilling you'll never know what you truly have. Just my two cents....if they're even worth 2 cents anymore :S

On a brighter note, we seem to be bottoming (or have bottomed) and I'm hoping for much greener days ahead.

GLTA.
Gamblor.