Before the boom, the junior mining companies that include most of the Toronto listings had suffered a long dry spell.

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However, ahead of this race, you would not have found many who would have thought the Wave would win since the Wave, despite their name, has had a long dry spell of wins.

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"That's partly because we've been through a pretty long dry spell of IPOs and exits, " he says.

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That was a brave wager, because the company had built itself on big deals, and has gone through a decade-long dry spell when it comes to inventing new drugs. (See this piece, Drug Drought, from 2007.) Kindler stuck with this idea, even after the biggest drug in his pipeline failed five months into his CEO-ship.

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Her appearance was followed by a downpour, an event all the more impressive because it had been preceded by a long spell of dry weather.

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Last year, India received less rain in the first half of the June-September monsoon season than usual, hitting western India, which has endured a two year-long dry spell, particularly hard.

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