Posting for posterity (& possible referral). This from the Silicon Investor Bre-X board back in the day.
THE BREE-X SAGA
Bre-X...The battle between bulls and bears on SI
by David Zgodzinski
Sunday, May 4. Before the news hit, the Bre-X thread at the Silicon Investor web site had the aura of the Last Chance Saloon at High Noon.
All the suspense of a gunfight in bright sunlight. Everyone knows everything. Nobody knows anything. There was only the waiting until the word - "draw" and the thing would be settled in one second.
The Bre-X saga has been shaped by all the forces of a modern myth, Fear, Greed, Death, Deceit, Struggle, and finally, the Truth.
The amphitheater for this passion play has been the computer screen on desks around the world, as thousands tuned in to the Silicon Investor web site to read all the latest posts. All the world IS a stage, and all the men and women who partook in this discussion group are true players.
In the month prior to the announcement of Strathcona's independent drilling, 10,000 messages were posted to the Bre-X thread. Thousands of different visitors would come to read the postings each and every day. This location on Silicon Investor's hard drive had become, by common consent, the worldwide clearing house for facts, fiction, opinions and emotions about Bre-X.
The Bre-X saga will come to be known as the demarcation of the Internet as the weapon of choice for investors. The thread gained a life of its own. News releases were copied from all sources and left on the thread for all to see. When some important new item hit on TV, radio, or newspapers, everyone at the thread was quickly informed. The Net subsumed all the other media. As it grew in stature, the other media began to look to the thread for fresh information. Rumors on the thread were quoted in the press.
News came from every source. Rumors from brokers, rumors from people in bars or geologists on planes were posted to the thread. Rumors surfaced, were hung out to dry, and began to smell bad, as some members cheered the rumors in their own gung-ho postings and others shot the rumors down.
Plans were hatched to send representatives of the thread to scout the bars around the annual meeting of Freeport McMoran and troll for information. In the future, the threads will have their own sources of information.
Contributors became experts in geology or litigation or market psychology and posted their carefully researched observations.
The battle between bulls and bears got real personal. Disembodied persona did battle, slinging insults and innuendos. Odes and Poems were written. Posters vowed to eat their computers if the reserve results proved other than their predictions. There were nervous little messages of fear and hope. There was pain as investors wrote openly to complete strangers about sleepless nights and how they had bet more than they could afford to lose. There were exultant cries of victory, before any such thing. The unfettered emotions of the players were there for everyone to witness, in sharp contrast to the pervasive pinstriped buy-and-hold blandness pitched by most investment professionals.
The spirit of "open systems", always prevailed. The difference between the thread and the press is clear. Everyone on the thread has an agenda. They are either long the stock, or not. Some might be short. Opinions and facts are always suspect because there is no accountability. Everyone who comes to the Last Chance Saloon knows better than to think that people here are their friends.
But alliances are formed. Group efforts are made to support one argument, or the other. Any accurate information is welcomed and those who present it are thanked.
In the final days before the release of the Strathcona report, Bre-X believers took over the thread with a cultish zeal. An us-against-them mentality was directed at the media which at the same time accelerated efforts to scoop a scandal on Bre-X.
A prime reason for the lack of faith in media coverage was the fact that the media had missed the story when Bre-X was at its peak. At that point, the press was praising the company and no doubts were raised. As the drama unfolded, the press belatedly moved to uncover irregularities.
The Bre-X thread has wound down and eventually only a handful of posters will return to leave a message for old times sake. But one thing will endure. On other threads at Silicon Investor, or another web site or newsgroup, more investors are turning to the Net as their source of investment information. Once they begin to read and post messages and become active in the debate, they are hooked.
The theatre is open. The stage is set 24 hrs. a day. There is always an audience. There is no turning back.
Additional Reading:
Bre-X May 4th Press Release
SI Discussion Forum: BRE-X, Indonesia, Ashanti Goldfields, Strong Companies
© 1997 David Zgodzinski
Reprinted with permission by Silicon Investor
Peace and Justice --- Patrick
