Member Info for AquarianAge

This has been in a pretty agressive downtrend since around April that doesn't seem to be showing any signs of easing. That said it is now starting to look very cheap, but who knows how low this could go? I remember back in around October 2020 when the BP share price went below a couple of quid. There was a lot of doom and gloom here, but I am pretty happy with my sub £2 buys ;)

"The shenanigans going on in this company would make a great Netflix series. Plenty of gullible on this forum to fill up hours of entertainment."

Indeed Kick. Mark my words, a documentary of some sort will one day be made. I look forward to watching it and to Gabriel Grego sharing his prescient wisdom ;)

CEY is worth a lot more than £1.63 a share. I see the price of gold climbing above $3000 an ounce within the next few years. Well, if this goes ahead Anglo Gold have bagged themselves a bargain. Tbh, I would be happy to hold AG shares as they have an impressive portfolio of gold mines accross Africa and adding CEY only strengthens this.

It's a pedantic point I suppose but I define a UK blue chip stock as one that has a market cap of at least £1bn. Burberry, with a current market cap of £2.17bn, still is.

"The lowest price in 15 years ….. is this worth a punt?"

It's very tempting. And Burberry is a blue chip company. However, I find the fashion industry quite tricky as tastes change and many people are fickle in this regard. It's a highly competitive industry, but Burberry has a very strong reputation and it's a very old company. I need to do more research regarding Burberry. Other brands today like Gucci, LV and Christian Doir are currently very sexy, but they also went through lean periods where they were struggling before someone came to turn them around. Does the Burberry company also own any other brands? I ask this as, regarding companies in the fashion space, I tend to prefer companies that own multiple brands like LVMH, Kering or Capri Holdings. They have more of a margin of safety in the event that one of their brands go through a difficult period. However, LVMH and Kerring are both quite expensive although Capri I think is quite good value atm and they own some pretty premium fashion brands like Versace.

EasiWynns,

I am not sure how much, but I can see this simply continuing to drag on and on and on. I do feel sorry for the members of the Lynch family now mixed up in all this mess who did nothing wrong. The simple fact is that in the long run fraud never pays.

I think there is a chance this could go sub £40, but then it can also motor back to £50 plus. I remember when this was sub £20 during the 2015-16 commodities rout and there was a lot of doom and gloom. Honestly, with commodities anything can happen and when I do invest in commodities stocks I prefer to invest in the big companies like RIO.

Just had a look again at the full portfolio of SMT and one holding that has always interested me and doesn't get talked about a lot like Nvidia or Tesla is HDFC Bank - not a tech holding but I believe this is the largest bank in India. It represents less than 1% of the total portfolio, but I think it should be higher as I can see many more years of high economic growth in India to come.

"Aquarian. If QCM were so sure of their facts why did they close their short position so quickly. It was blatant attempt at market manipulation which failed."

I don't know where you ger this "market manipulation" spiel from?

There was no market manipulation. QCM have done several reports over the years on companies suspected of commuting fraud. That's what they do. Darktrace is not an isolated case.

Why did they close their short? To protect their capital. It doesn't matter if one is right. Markets can be irrational and it is important not to lose a huge amount of money.

What I find interesting is that Darktrace never directly challenged any of QCMs findings in their report. And they never answered any of the 27 questions that QCM put to the Darktrace management.

This is a pretty shocking read in The Guardian today regarding Rio's plans to develop a massive lithium mine in Serbia. I wonder who is responsible for sending death threats to the activist?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/22/activist-serbia-rio-tinto-lithium-mining-environment-death-threats

"aquarian, poppy and her bod got *****essential's claims discredited in 2023."

I don't think they did. After QCM published their 70 page report in January 2023, Darktrace simply issued a lame 'non-response' statement to the report on 1st February 2023.

QCM promptly responded on that same date with 27 follow up questions concerning Darktrace for the management to answer.

To date, Darktrace have not responded to any of the 27 questions, which tells me everything I need to know.

"Who cares what Qunitessential thinks..."

I do care. I take fraud very seriously, unlike you.

I'll refer you to page 8 of the QCM report:

'Autonomy’s rise climaxed in 2011 when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $11.7b. Within a year, HP

wrote off 75% of Autonomy's value claiming that its management had “used accounting improprieties,

misrepresentations, and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics”. '

"Mike Lynch was a creator of wealth, and many of us prospered thanks to him. For myself, I have a lot of respect for him and a lot to thank him for."

You have respect for a crooked businessman who committed fraud? I think the dilligent folk at Qunitessential Capital Management would strongly disagree. Their report on Darktrace and Autonomy from January 2023 is a work of art. It's all there.

10.5% is a very high yield on the bonds - this will only exacerbate Ocado's debt pile.

Ocado has outstanding debt to be repaid in 2025 and 2026.

I think if I had to choose I would rather be a creditor than a shareholder in Ocado as I know that in the future event that Ocado experiences liquidity issues I will have priority over shareholders.

Meanwhile, Tim Steiner continues to sit pretty and cream off the company. He has never been an "all in" founder...

Another reason for me being bearish on Ocado is, in my view, the strong possibility of inflation becoming a real problem again at some point in the coming months. I know that everyone talks about interest rates potentially coming down, but I think unforeseen geopolitical events in the coming months are going to result in huge spikes in inflation and, personally, I don’t see interest rates coming down any time soon. In fact, I see them going up even more to tame this new inflation spike. The world is very fragile right now. 

I mention this, because inflation is not good for Ocado. Some businesses can handle inflation and even benefit from it. Unfortunately, Ocado is not one of these businesses. The company is still losing money and more inflation will simply increase operating expenses. In this respect, the company is vulnerable. 

"Steiner put is neck on the line today and seems hugely confident Ocado that profits will hit before the £1b cash runs out and I think he has a better take on this than you/me or any broker."

I find it rather amusing that for all the uninformed comments on this board about "criminal brokers" etc, no one seems to mind that Ocado has a CEO who has massively enriched himself over the years even after the share price has tumbled from a high of almost £30 to less than £4 today.

You say Tim Steiner "put his neck on the line". Yet Steiner continues to laugh all the way to the bank even after an epic share price fall and many long suffering Ocado shareholders continue to be massively underwater. Shareholders here get slaughtered yet Steiner continues to sit pretty. I think a reality check is needed here!

"These brokers can officially spread FUD without any recourse to the authorities and base their forecasts on total guesswork and hunches it seems, but anyone else that spreads unsubstantiated FUD like that is a 'criminal' according to the FCA."

I don't know where you get this from. I assume that if you buy shares in a company you do so based on your own research as opposed to what some broker says. If you buy shares purely on the latter grounds, quite frankly you deserve to lose money. 

On the subject of Ocado, I am more concerned about the staggering amounts of money the CEO has creamed off the company over the years. I am sure those shareholders who bought shares in this company when the share price was above £25 must be over the moon. I have more respect for CEOs/founders who are truly "all in" - that they will also feel the pain when a company is in trouble, not just long suffering shareholders. 

"Steiner is sitting pretty - he's not been burned like many shareholders and could walk away if they don't keep him on board."

Yep!

Shareholders here really need to wake up and smell the coffee.

"I think the main uncertainty is how they go about raising more funds with interest rates so high and the share price so low."

I think this is a big reason why this company is so heavily shorted. In my view, these hedge funds are betting on Ocado having liquidity issues. My rough estimation is that Ocado currently has in the region of £600m - £500m in cash remaining (which on the surface is a lot of money, but at Ocado this goes very fast) and there is the very real risk that when the crunch time comes and it has to raise money again it will either have to do this via borrowing an at unfavourable rate with unfavourable terms or via a placing at a low share price. 

For me, a huge bugbear and red flag here is Tim Steiner's excessive pay packages over the years and the willful blindness of shareholders to this. And shareholders have been badly burnt investing in this company. Those who invested here when the share price was above £25 are now sitting on substantial losses. 

As I have mentioned before in a previous post, I am not against directors and CEOs getting huge pay packages. If the company is very profitable and generating huge amounts of cash then they deserve their pay packages/bonuses as a reward. Like Tim Cook at Apple. He is worth it. The other Tim is not. 

"I didn't expect it to sink this low, it's a complete surprise."

It's anything but a surprise. There are several red flags with this company, which I've outlined in previous posts.