The good news??Spoke with someone at Paradigm under the condition of anonminity (not an analyst) as they don't generally give info out to the public. Basically, the main situation was that a Hedge fund (which owns 400 positons in junior exploration stocks!) was having to liquidate and to a smaller degree another fund was as well. The good news is this should be the cleanout. (Maybe seeing Paradigm and "Anonymous" on the buy side this a.m. is a sign of that)
The bad news is that there wasn't a lot of short selling in this plummet, so other than a half dead cat bounce don't expect a huge run back up in the near future. Besides MDR he said there were just too many other great bargains out there on junior producers to ignore those. ie. there is a junior gold producer which trades at 5x this years earnings. Explorers will rebound after major/junior producers.
The unknown is the price of gold and the cost of producing an ounce. The feasibility study is expected to yield a positive cost of production number.
I would think this would be a good time to be a cash rich major in the hunt for a bargain. Wouldn't even have to chase a company.
Note to 15002 - not sure about that buyback plan other than to send a signal (make an announcement but don't buy any). If you are serious about it what do you do when you have spent your cash and want to start your own production? You won't be raising much new money in this market.