There are many hurdles the retail/individual investor must overcome these days to succeed. We see news on everything from naked shorting to the prices of commodities being manipulated, and its possible that these affect our investment with SLI.Much of this has been discussed here on this hub over the last couple years and it seems more and more instances of questionable behaviour in the markets come to light everyday.

I will have to say that I feel a little offended by the recent term used to describe some hard working clients that invest, "muppets".

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1145875--goldman-banker-slams-rip-off-culture-as-he-quits-job

Read Jim Sinclaires commentary half way down the page of this link;

http://www.jsmineset.com/2012/03/15/in-the-news-today-1132/

There are links on our SLI website under resource, that will take you to the above type of commentary and such. These are some of the forces we are fighting in these markets.

So, I guess I envision myself as a "muppet", sitting here spewing out words through my finger, (thats right, I type with one finger), trying to make the right investment decisions for my family and supporting my investment. I guess I would most resemble "fozzy bear", here are some images of me.

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Fozzie_Bear

So, I am a little guy, like the rest of you here on this hub, and we do the same thing everytime we post here, support and fight for our investment. It seems everyday, we have a new challenge, but amazingly, we seem to overcome them, and stay on course. We continue to hold strong and are putting up one hell of a fight for what we believe in and I guess I get up each day, wondering what new obstacle we will run into today. We are battling for the dream, whether it comes true or not.

I believe the biggest obstacle that has hurt us, was/is the shorting. Lori warned us about this a year or so ago and we had a good discussion here on it and how it was affecting our SP then. I wouldn,t doubt the recent stock price decline was amplified by shorters. We first got wind that we were a target back last Oct or so, when it came out on the Seeking Alpha website.

http://seekingalpha.com/author/alfred-little

I recently found this today, about a shorting hedgefund out of New York;

http://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item.aspx?bid=Z-C%3aSVM-1936296&symbol=SVM&region=C

So, us little guys/gals usually can,t short stocks, yet these big guys can come into our investments and short the life out of them, rape us, and walk away laughing, leaving many people with considerable losses if they sold. Is this right and justified? Everything we have built into our investment gets eroded overnight, more or less, and its the little guy that has to continuosly pay. How long can this go on, the rape and pillage of the little guy or the "muppets"? I believe there are more and more organized shorting groups targeting stocks everyday. I would say these groups are growing in number and are jumping around from stock to stock, pounding them and raking in serious big bucks. A venture stock like us is easy prey, the only support we have is the little retail guy and the shorters know it. The shorters know they are not gonna get burned on these little stocks, because no institutes or long funds will come in and buy, and the only obstacle a shorter would have to worry about, would be the company putting out barn burning news which would catch them in a short squeeze, but that rarely happens. So, the blood money is made and they ride away into the sunset with their saddle bags full.

There are quite a few gold juniors I am noticing lately that have been really beaten up over the last while. Most of these beatings make no sence, like BAT for instance. Look at that stock what happened a couple weeks ago, they came out with a resource estimate, which was good, and their stock plummeted. It did not make one bit of sense, yet it happened, and there are plenty more. You are getting to a point in the markets where it is becoming extremely hard to make money, the fundementals are getting thrown out the window and a lot of DD strategies are unreliable anymore. There is becoming really no incentive for the little guy to participate anymore, if he doesn,t have half a chance at winning.

I believe we have a chance at winning with SLI. Hopefully we will be able to buck the odds and prove up many ounces and get that buyout offer we anticipate sometime in the future. Hopefully Lori can take us to the top and make so many little guys/gals happy and let us see the rewards of supporting our investment. Maybe sometime in the future, all our avatars will be those of victorious Kings and Queens, instead of the beaten up hockey players, that we use today.

IMO

PS; I almost forgot, here is another case of some pensioners losing money,

http://www.stockwatch.com/News/Item.aspx?bid=Z-C%3aCF-1937247&symbol=CF&region=C