RE: Tara Gold Pricecypher....there are various reasons for stocks moving up or down.
1. Fundamental news. In the case of mining stocks, that means reserves increasing, leases acquired, production increasing, new discoveries.
2. Rumors of something good or bad. May or may not be true.
3. Overall market sentiment, which sends all stocks within a sector up or down.
4. Momentum....investors are sheep. They like to go with the flow. Strong moves up bring in more players that like the fact that the stock is moving up, regardless of the reason.
5. Incomplete information. Investors read a PR and misunderstand it's impact on the company.
6. External factors like Johnny needs braces, Dad died, summer vacation,etc.
There are many more. The stock market is a combination of all these things. As an investor, you have to decide what you are going to use to trigger your buys or sells. You can question why a stock goes up when you can see no reason for it. Unfortunately many times, you will never find out the reason for the move. So you can worry about stuff like that but why?
The more important question is picking an investing style that fits your skills and investing needs. If you use fundamentals, price earnings, ratios, then you don't care if there are random movements. You make your decisions based on the facts. If the price moves for no reason but makes the stock expensive by your calculations, you should consider selling. If a random drop in price makes the stock cheap by your calculations, it should be a buy signal for you.
If you use technical analysis, you probably have an explanation for the price movement because that's what you use to make buy/sell decisions.
Bottomline, you need to find a style and stick to it. Random price movements that don't seem to be reasonable are puzzling but will they help you make more money?
With mining stocks, I would prefer to find cheap stocks based on reserves, profits and cashflow. Unfortunately many mining stocks don't have production or profits. So I try to find near term producers with good fundamentals and probable profits when they do produce. Tara has an excellent portfolio of properties. They have partners who are paying for the exploration and if they are successful, Tara will share in the profits at very little cost.
"but why do some stocks like this seem to just start going up and up when the press releases they are putting out are really based on nothing...?"
Not sure I understand this statement. Public companies are required to keep their investors informed. Every PR cannot have earth shaking content. Many times companies are just reporting on progress and the factual results of drilling or jt venture agreements or acquiring leases. By themselves, these might not create profits but they are all part of the process of moving towards production and profits.
Maybe what you are saying is that you don't know what determines stock prices. In the short term, it is difficult to pin down but over the long run, production, cashflow and reserves will determine the value of mining stocks. Good luck, Bobwins