Thought ExperimentI don't look at the risk OR the reward. I look at the risk-reward ratio. So let's do a little thought experiment.
The odds of Pebble getting approved are certainly very low, but they aren't zero. I would guess they are somewhere between 1 and 5 percent, so let's put it at 3. And let's say that it's a $50 stock if it got approved, but allowing for dilution, bankruptcy risk, etc. let's just say it goes back to it's previous level of $20. At 33 cents, that's a 60x payoff on 30 to 1 odds, for a risk-reward of 1:2. Not great, but justifiable for a very small bet, as it arguably suggests that the price is discounted by about 50%.
Now let's imagine that one or more of 4 things happen: (1) the salmon-based economy in the region dries up for reasons unrelated to mining, such as climate change, (2) the Trumpster gets elected to the presidency, overruling the EPA, (3) the price of gold goes to 2,000-$5,000 or more, and/ or (4) the global economy crashes, and the USG decides that all that "deep storage" gold needs to be mined and the (empty?) vaults recharged, rather than jsut sitting back and letting China take over the world.
The odds on any - much less all - of these things happening are difficult, maybe impossible, to calculate. But I would argue that they are much higher than most people assume, and in the event they did, it would move the odds of the project getting approved much, much higher. Arguably, even to near 100%.
Now, you could reasonably call this a lottery ticket, but there are two important differences. First, a lottery ticket is guaranteed to offer far less than even odds. (Unless you take into account times when the pot grows so large that its skews the outcome - in which case, so many fools rush in that it probably overcomes any temporary advantage). But more importantly, the odds of winning with a lottery ticket are so vanishingly small that even a hugely outsized payout becomes, for all intents and purposes, moot.
Some would say that this is precisely the case with NAK, but I am convinced that a VERY SMALL wager would not be a bad bet. And for those that bemoan the environmental costs (as I certainly would), I would say that it doesn't hurt to hedge your bets. You don't want to die either, but that doesn't stop you from buying life insurance. The stock is already sold and you buying it is going to have virtually zero effect on the outcome of the project.
Flame me if you like, gentlemen, but a reasoned argument would be a lot more constructive!