17-Feb-2020:  It's a hard life out there for many junior precious metals explorers despite a very high $A gold price, as this ABC News article explains (it covers BAR):

07-Nov-2019:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-07/gold-prices-near-record-highs-so-why-are-explorers-broke/11677144

As well as discussing Barra Resources, that article also talks about Metal Hawk who were planning to IPO in December.  That didn't happen.  They are now planning to IPO in 2020 (nothing more specific than that).  They were getting some reasonable media coverage in November and December, but it didn't happen for them in 2019.

I personally think that too many "investors" who have previously sunk a fair whack of their cash into speculative stocks such as base and precious metals explorers and early-stage biotechs (or "life sciences" stories who haven't yet progressed through the regulatory approvals stage that allows for any commercial sales) have been burned badly and they ain't coming back for more.  Not this time.  There seems to be too many easier ways to make money in the market these days than by betting on red or black.  Most of those speccy stocks do have binary outcomes.  The explorers either find something commercially viable or they don't.  The biotechs either have trials that make them or break them, and then the FDA (or European-equivalent regulator or notifying body) either gives them a tick or a cross - EVENTUALLY (it can take MANY years with some companies).  A failing company can sometimes keep raising capital for decades without ever making a profit. 

And that's just the simple stuff.  There are so many other things that can come out of left field and destroy your investment thesis.  Examples include boards being rolled, strategies being radically changed, projects being scrapped and then re-envisioned and redesigned (sometimes for the worse), PFS's, BFS's and DFS's being flawed, company founders and/or the driving force behind a company just quitting and walking away (or passing away) leaving the company heavily under-resourced and directionless, commodity prices crashing (or falling sharply enough to render a previously good project now uneconomic to progress), JV or other partner loses interest and withdraws, input costs rise too much, a last-minute snag (or change of heart) means the company doesn't secure 100% of the land rights that they had expected to secure, and that list goes on for a lot longer, and that's just the base and precious metals explorers (doesn't include the myriad of things that go wrong with biotechs). 

If I sound bitter and twisted, I'm not.  However, I've seen all of that and plenty more, and I've lost money in a lot of those cases.  Luckily (or otherwise), I've made more with some of the companies who've actually had things go well for them and with bigger and more stable companies who were already profitable when I invested in them.  However, if I'd avoided all of those speccy explorers and developers (and early-stage biotechs) when I was younger, I would be retired now at 54 rather than still working.  And I wouldn't be bored.  There's plenty to do. 

Unfortunately I spend too much of my time working for a company to make their shareholders richer instead of all of the other things I'd rather be doing, and could be doing, if I had avoided my biggest losses.  And the majority of my biggest losses have come from those high-risk/high-reward speculative companies that tend to have binary outcomes - eventually.  Most will lose money.  Most of the shareholders who invest in them will lose money.  There are plenty of examples of 10-baggers or better in that space, but those winners are in the minority and the majority of "investors" (or "punters") will NOT manage to pick those big winners. 

Unless I find one of these companies that looks simply outstanding, from both a management and potential upside perspective (just too good an opportunity to ignore, and they come along very rarely), I tend to stay away these days, preferring instead to stick with proven companies - those with long track records of profitability.  There's nothing wrong with the occasional flutter, but it should be with a SMALL proportion of your investable capital and always only gamble what you can comfortably afford to lose 100% of, because in many cases that is indeed the exact outcome.