Freeman gold is, frankly, one of the worst speculations of my career. This is despite having a multi-million-ounce gold deposit in mine-friendly Idaho with a decent economic study. That's why I got so hurt; if the company had terrible drill results, I'd have sold earlier. If the project economics were terrible, I'd have dropped the ax right away. Instead, we got something that wasn't world-class but good enough to interest a mid-tier producer looking for a relatively high-grade open-pit gold project in the US. But then management stopped exploring, stopped advancing the project toward a production decision, stopped doing much of anything besides the minimum needed to hold on to the license... and shareholders were left twisting in the wind. (I'll remember this.)

I'd had enough of the company acting like a shell quite a while ago, but gold was rising and the deposit has some merit, so I held on for a better exit price. That just happened—apparently as management decided to drum up some interest in a highly dilutive financing—so I took the opening and headed for the exit.

I'm still digesting the lessons from this, but one thing I can say is that I'll likely be much quicker to sell if a company I own shares in goes into hibernation, no matter how much I like the project.