Measure what share of a company's announcements report an actual result — drill intercepts, resource updates, economic studies — rather than corporate housekeeping. It separates the companies exploring from the companies announcing.
Exploration companies communicate constantly. They have to — raising money requires visibility, and visibility requires a steady flow of announcements. But there is a large difference between a company announcing that it has hit twelve metres of good grade, and a company announcing that its chief executive will be attending a conference in Zurich.
Both arrive through the same channel, in the same format, with the same air of significance. Read enough of them and the distinction blurs, which is precisely the effect a promotion-heavy company depends on. A newsfeed that looks busy feels like progress.
Every release is classified by type, so the distinction can be measured rather than sensed. This tool reports, per company, what proportion of announcements report a genuine result — and compares it against the sector, where only about a quarter of junior mining news does.
The signal percentage is the share of a company's releases in the window that report drill results, a resource update, or study results. Everything else — financings, appointments, grants, conference attendance, corporate updates — counts as noise. The word is not pejorative; these announcements can be necessary. They simply do not tell you anything about what is in the ground.
The comparison against the sector matters more than the absolute number. Roughly a quarter is normal. A company well above that is spending its announcements on results; a company well below is spending them on itself.
Total release count is the context that stops the ratio being misread. A company with a high percentage across a handful of releases is not demonstrating much, which is why very quiet companies are excluded entirely.
Above the sector average is the simple reading, but the more useful signal is the combination of ratio and volume. A company with a high ratio and a healthy number of releases is drilling and reporting. A company with a high ratio and very few releases is probably doing one programme a year and going quiet in between — not necessarily bad, but a different proposition.
The pattern that should give pause is a high volume of releases with a low signal ratio. That is a company generating attention without generating results, and it is the profile of an issuer whose primary activity is raising the next round rather than spending the last one in the ground.
Read the ratio alongside the capital structure. A company announcing frequently, reporting little, and steadily issuing shares is telling you what it is. The Dilution Tracker supplies the other half of that picture.
Every press release we hold is classified by type. Three types count as signal — drill results, resource updates, and study results — and the ratio is the count of those divided by total releases over the window. Companies with fewer than ten releases are excluded, because a ratio computed on a handful of items is noise itself.
The limits worth knowing:
Three categories of announcement count as signal: drill results, resource estimate updates, and study results such as a PEA, pre-feasibility or feasibility study. Everything else counts as noise — financings, management appointments, government grants, conference attendance, and general corporate updates. Noise is not a judgement about whether the announcement mattered, only about whether it told you anything new about the deposit.
Across the companies we track, only about a quarter of junior mining announcements report an actual result. That makes roughly 25% the sector benchmark, and it is a lower bar than most investors assume before they see the number.
No. The ratio measures what a company reports on, not what it found. A company diligently publishing consistently disappointing drill results will score well. Treat it as a filter for whether the company is doing exploration work at all, then assess the results themselves.
Because a percentage computed on a very small number of releases is unstable — one announcement either way swings it dramatically. Companies below ten releases in the window are left out rather than shown with a misleadingly precise figure.
Yes. A company in permitting or construction has little drilling to report, so its announcements are genuinely corporate. The ratio is most useful when comparing companies at a similar stage — one explorer against another — rather than across the whole sector.