Member Info for Alfa

I found these comments on Interactive Investor, attributed to Bridgewell; "Imperial Energy - Today's comments, Buying opportunity There have been press comments today about Imperial Energy's reserves audit and licence commitments in Russia. The remarks have been attributed to Oleg Mitvol, the man associated with Shell's sale of Sakhalin to Gazprom. Mitvol is deputy head of the Rosprirodnadzor agency that shares responsibility with other agencies of the Ministry for Natural Resources for monitoring oil companies’ compliance with licence regulations. The issue could be as innocent as the difference between Society of Petroleum Engineering 2P reserves (used by Degoyler & MacNaughton in the recent reserves upgrade) and the Russian equivalent. The Russian reserves estimate is likely to be lower as government approval of the field development plan is required to book reserves, which is not the case with the SPE figures. With respect to the licence obligations, Imperial claims that the necessary environmental standards have been meet. Mitvol made similar comments in December on Peter Hambro Mining (POG) the Russian focused gold producer with the stock losing 30% on the news; however, the stock has recovered from the 777p low to 1150p today. In our opinion today’s share price fall is overdone and represents a buying opportunity. Our NAV is 2004p/share underpinned by 1264p/share for the three main fields now with pipeline connections to main oil infrastruc

It would probably depend on your circumstances. If you had a track record of making money from the market, but didn't have any money to invest, and you could pay the loan back anyway using your salary, I guess you could make it work. Generally, though, it's probably not a good idea, especially if you are trying to make back money you've already lost. A much better option, IMO, is extended settlement, which I use all the time and is effectively a short term loan, but is only suitable if you enjoy short-term trading.

Unfortunately though, after testing, the flow rates from the lighter were shown to be disappointing and it has been plugged and abandoned. On a more serious note, although the large sells are concerning, they haven't affected the sp and as for news, we weren't due anything on Columbia until Q2, which has only just begun, and Monterey wasn't going to be revisited until H2, so relax everyone, they'll come good for Christmas (one year anyway).

Seems my fears of profit evaporation were well founded – the current bid of 7.75p would have pretty much wiped out all of my profit! I'm keeping an eye on it though and if it falls back to my original 7.5p buy price, I'll think seriously about buying back in – if the new well finds oil, it'll be worth a good few pence.

Decided not to be greedy and out this afternoon at 8.65p, a profit of almost 14% after costs in just over a week. Couldn't resist booking a nice first week to the (tax) year and I can now feel happy about it over the weekend rather then worrying about the profit evaporating!! Now if only I could do that every week – my SOLA is looking positive though, so here’s hoping :)

Certainly is interesting, I'd have had about 20% if I'd sold at 9p earlier, but I feel these have further to go, although the bid is down to 8.5p now... Results from the new well in 2 weeks, which is inside my T20, and assuming they are good there is potentially a lot of upside. It showed in the previous RNS that they have a sense of humour when they said that although the well was dry they had "gained some valuable experience", so lets hope that experience means they are drilling where there is some oil this time ;)

It's green for me, but I'll take any colour other than red!! Yes, looking good again today, what was about a 10% loss at one point is back in the black/green/blue. It'll be interesting to see how far these can go, 550p would do me just fine, it certainly seems the confidence has returned. Showing 504.75-509.5 now :)

My buy at 486p last week is looking ok again now, I just wish stocks wouldn't fall sharply the day after I buy them, it happens too often to be coincidence!! With a couple of positive days behind us, hopefully any panic sellers on the fall will be tempted back in on the run up to the results.

CHP picking up nicely with a sea of buys. I bought some on the crash last week at 7.5p, as the fall seemed way overdone, something like 40% on one dry well. Not sure why the rise is happening now, but possibly rumours of success at the next target well?

I've taken a run at SOLA on this afternoon's dip; my first T20 trade, at a fraction under 486p and with the advertised offer at 486p at the time, there didn't seem to be any premium over T10. Only my second time with these having had a short run from 478 to 496 early last month and have been looking to get back in since. Prelims to come this month and I can hold until early May, so hoping for good things here.

Looking good then; if there is likely to be no drawback of T20 over T10, the flexibility is well worth having – a lot of my T10 losses would have been T20 profits. It'll make deciding when to sell more complicated though; if you get a good profit in the first few days, do you sell anyway or hold out for more – I generally tend to sell early, so T20 might be just the ticket. Hopefully TDW will add fill or kill and limit orders to T20, as well as to ProTrader. Cheers for the info.

Davius, with T+20, how did the price compare with the offer at the time – I haven't tried T+20 yet, but noticed when selected it shows a "may incur an additional premium" warning (I'm with TDW too, but on the standard system). Certainly T+20 looks like a good option, but if I'm reasonably confident of a profit within T+10, I would want to pay a T+20 premium, but that of course depends on what sort of premium we're talking. I also notice you can't Fill or Kill on T+20, which isn't ideal as, on my system at least, half the time TDW can't give me a firm price. Any feedback appreciated.

Decided to call it a day (trade); a slender 2% this time, but I'm not entirely trusting this one at the moment and didn't want to wake up to a fall. Still not sure why the fall this morning and even though today has seen mostly sells, the price has risen - so not sure what's going on, but it's making me money, so I'm not going to argue :)

With the attractive offer of 68p I’m back in this morning, I made about 8% from my last buy at 76p, so here’s hoping for a repeat. I can’t see a reason for the fall – there appear to be more buys than sells – maybe there has been a large sell that hasn’t shown up yet. Get them while they’re hot!!

I have to agree with Glue – I sold all of my holding this morning. What we needed here was a takeover, but it looks like from the RNS that the debt for equity is all but signed and Barclays building their holding may be just to make sure they get it past the shareholders. I was very close to selling out yesterday at 22p, but with my breakeven of 26p in sight, I decided to hold out, another days of gains and I would have been there... But never mind, even though I’m at a (nasty) loss overall, I’m better off than before my recent buy at 23.5p, as my next buy at 13.325p more than compensated. I think I’ll concentrate on making it back elsewhere for now, selling ITF on Monday has already got me a chunk back, but I might still be tempted if the price falls back to sub 10p.

It isn't a huge holding, but still it can't be a bad sign, he's not going to flush his money away after all. Hopefully good news ahead and also does this mean there won't be another placing anytime soon? I'm still a big fan of these and hope to see the price in multiples of where it is today by the end of the year.

I’m currently sitting on about a 10% profit after my buy at 76p – it’s been a nice smooth rise so far, so holding for now, but I’ve set a stop loss a few pence under the current price just in case, which I’ll revise up if the price continues to improve. BFC progressing nicely too, although I need 26p for breakeven on that one, but a nice profit here might tempt me to cut my losses there. Into EME today as well, looks like there is some value there at today’s price.

...you guys are making me tired just thinking about it. BFC having a good day, but still some way from my 26p overall average, although 17p would see me in profit since buying back in on the 9th and already showing a nice profit on the ones from the 13th at 13.325. Mulling whether to sell some before the close to hedge my bets, not sure whether tomorrow will be profit taking or a continued rally.

Fortunately after buying on last months dip at 1.685, I sold at 1.71 for a mega profit of £14.72 – which is now looking a lot healthier than the 50+% loss I’d be looking at now – long live extended settlement and that the fact it makes you keep things moving!! Anyway, gambling again today – in at 76p – the fall is looking very much overdone and the chances of a takeover must be at least 50% higher now. Davius, maybe you should bid for them and help improve their range, Soreen malt loaf isn’t what it used to be!

A couple of RNS’s this afternoon show Barclays increasing their holdings from 7.14% on 7th Feb to 10.27% on 13th Mar and again to 12.23% a day later. Other recent releases show Credit Suisse reducing their holding to 2.68% and UBS getting out altogether (I’m not sure of their previous holdings). It’s interesting to see Barclays choosing to average down and their support offers a glimmer of hope!