Member Info for Boyobach

I've been in and out of PFC since it was around £15 in 2013, Modestus, along with plenty of other oil (not services). My most recent success with it was when it last hit 470 in 2019.
I’m neither pessimistic nor starstruck as far as PFC is concerned - it is what it is: either a turnaround story waiting to happen or the other thing.

I utterly agree with you Pokerchips and appreciate your objective comments.
If PFC was genuinely as good an investment v risk prospect as some here believe then the Hedgefunds would be much less interested in it. Just a glance at PFC's sp over the last eight years tells you that it was overvalued long before the SFO came on the scene.
Hopefully the funds have tested the recent bottom thoroughly - although people probably thought that at 380, nearly four years ago.
To some extent, they are protecting investors here from buying at an over-inflated price. Who would want to be long in Gamestop at the kind of prices that Wallstreetbets achieved - or at any price come to that?

I'm not inclined to think that an emotional response to the shorters - justified as it may be - is necessarily helpful. Better understanding about how they operate might help but there seems to be little real information available.
In terms of avoiding the need to report changes in their net-short positions, the funds have a great deal of flexibility to open and close their positions during the day. 0.1% of PFC (the level at which a report must be generated) would be about 346k shares wouldn’t it? This merely represents the maximum difference between the open and close net positions that would trigger a report. And if they were about to exceed that limit for a day or two, I’m sure that a ‘bed and breakfast’ approach would legitimately fix that.

My point here is that ‘short tracker’ information seems of very limited use in terms of providing transparency about a funds activity. What happens intraday is anyone’s guess. It is obviously possible for funds to stimulate or encourage a rise, short heavily and then cover almost immediately, possibly causing the kind of move we saw on Thursday morning, which may well have been set up the day before when the Gamestop story was driving a ‘beat the shorters’ mentality https://invst.ly/tn2h4 . The funds would have been well prepared for a push upward and may even have added fuel to it. Whatever the truth, Thursday’s drop certainly brought the sp sharply to heel.

Providing an sp does not rise too rapidly and beyond their control (as happened with Gamestop), I have little doubt that funds can manage a rising sp whilst maintaining their net short positions. I guess, under those circumstances, there could be a characteristic tendency for the sp to rise to peaks during the day but fall off towards the close as short positions covered during the day are re-opened in order to restore the net position: https://invst.ly/tn2kl . There’ll be a lot of tools in the Hedgefunds’ box methinks.

A curious week in many ways, as bunks points out. G ultimately came out top of the pack despite falling below 2.7xOP:
https://invst.ly/tmz40
G appears to have touched 143 for a nanosecond on Thursday and, as bunks said, it would have been well nigh impossible for anyone to nab it at that price: https://invst.ly/tmz4p
I had frankly lost the appetite to buy anyway - given the negative vibes in the market. I think I prefer cash at the moment and was also a bit distracted with PFC (Gamestop firing up a lot of shorter vigilante talk on that board this week) . I also thought I’d look at the old ‘peak OP’ chart to get a reality check on G versus the others since oil was at $86: https://invst.ly/tn1eg
It’s so easy to pick out the perfect ‘sell’ points for G in retrospect isn’t it? But, to be fair, G is second only to Chevron by this measure. Not sure why PMO is there - maybe to make the others look good?

OK Auson - two points:
I don't recognise the reference to the actual % amounts on loan or saying anything about what it might be at the end Jan - so that must be someone else.

Regarding the Net short 3.1% you've quoted then it would be good to know the source. If it's genuinely the amount that is 'short' at the end of today then, yes, I'd agree that any stock they are holding would need to be added to show the full borrow.
They may of course also have a separate holding in their own right. I've never assumed that funds short all the stock immediately upon borrowing it and then return all of it immediately they have covered the short. My understanding is that they can trade any borrowed stock as they wish whilst it is on loan to them. I am not clear about the exact rules concerning declaration of their net short position. Obviously, the only way they can profit is if the loaned shares fall in value at some point over the period they are borrowed. I think the debate here is what happens once they have covered their initial short. There seems to be a supposition here that Blackrock have not yet totally covered their short since PFC first fell below 120. I'd find that hard to believe, bearing in mind that it fell a lot further than that and they've had plenty of time since to re-acquire what they needed to cover it without driving the price back above 120. I may be wrong but the price has appeared to be 'under control' since it started back up from 102 and, whatever small PI's like us may think, the Blackrocks of this world very rarely mess up when a gift like the SFO news comes along. ATB

you can be damn sure they sold it straight to market and didn't hang on to it to trade with.....
I don't make any assumptions, Auson. Maybe you are right but I think the game is a lot more sophisticated than you, me or the other punters here comprehend.
All we know is that a percentage of shares are out on loan. We are not even sure of the exact percentage. If I had a big bunch of PFC shares at my disposal and some negative news suddenly came out then, yes, I'd probably do a big sell and immediately re-acquire over as short a period as possible without driving the price back up too much. Having now secured all the shares at a low price (which I actually don't need to return till I'm ready) I'd trade tranches of them in a controlled way during the cycles on the way up, alternately shorting and buying. I'm sure the pros do it very efficiently with a team on the screens.
I wouldn't bet against them, despite the Gamestop thing. The Hedgefunds lost control of the rising price, I gather, but that means that some of their 'opponents' could get left high and dry as the price collapses back to reality.

True, but as long as it doesn't materially affect my transactions it is invisible to me.
It's only an issue if I disapprove of the activity - which I guess is your point?

I'm aware of that SEA7. But they have to make them available to me if I choose to sell them.

So you are saying the shorters added to their positions at 127 ? Why would they need to add?
At any given instant we don't know what they are doing with the stock they have on loan - we only know that they have an amount that they can play with to their hearts content and might short at any time. I'm guessing they sold a chunk earlier near 130 and have reacquired in a measured way so as to control the upward pace - wouldn't you do that? Then wash, rinse, repeat.
Cheapsharesboy seems to understand - a prolonged continuous rise would disrupt the process and, if the price went over a certain threshold would start eating into the profits they've already made. I'm long by the way at sub 110 - so I'd quite like to see the price keep going up but if the pattern becomes very predictable and I've made my target then I might join in the game .

Auson: So they sold at 127 and re-acquired at 116 and it reduced their profits? Hmmm. I don't think so.

How much did the drop cost the shorters? ….. Zip.
Is the sp still well below 160? ….. Yes

The most disappointing thing about today is the absurd notion that a handful of posters here seem to think they may be influencing the sp and that hedge funds involved in shorting PFC are somehow stressed. Plainly, the numbers do not support these fairly ludicrous suggestions. PFC is not Gamestop and this board is not Wallstreetbets. And just as well.
I guess being stuck at home in lockdown can have this effect on otherwise sane people?
The puny 3% opening hike in price was swiftly brought under control by an effortless ‘reset’ in sp from 127 to 116 this morning and then the controlled rise in price has resumed at the same rate as yesterday. Business as normal in reality.
https://invst.ly/tm6zl

Cheers Digby - much appreciated.
As they are not going to tell us the Taq Taq number I’ve pencilled-in $2m
This makes Dec production worth $13.9m, where the previous months of 2020 were netting an average of about $10m, with Nov 2020 production (the last one) being highest at $11.5m. So monthly revenues should be up over 20% on last year at current production levels.
It’s still only half of what they were earning at the end of 2019 (including override), of course.

Gamestop?

Yes Paddy. It's a good day to step back and watch the mayhem unfold.

Three weeks ago on the 7th or in the days following. I sold some around then too.

A weird market today and, despite the obvious downward pressure, G did not drop into the box (15' chart): https://invst.ly/tlu2d
The mood has obviously changed too and the longer term view suggests caution:
https://invst.ly/tlu3t

Are folks here assuming that the pro shorters still need to buy back the shares that were shorted ? They don't need to return them and they've had eight working days since the 15th to reacquire or continue trading them on small margins. They don't make money by sitting on their hands.

A very positive day for PFC, especially given the state of the wider market.

However there was a bit of hype here wasn’t there? - ‘125 Breakout ‘ supposedly ‘confirmed’ an hour before the close. Really? PFC did not break 125 nor did it break out of this week’s trend, not that it needed to, a 20% gain over three days in a hostile market is good going. https://invst.ly/tlt29
As for shorters - they have already made and secured their profits, so no need to worry about them unless they spot further potential. Don’t assume that big money necessarily operates in big tranches, it is possible for professionals to hoover up lots of shares without disturbing the price more than they want to - especially if they start well before the bottom.

Looking at PFC against the relevant indices (I’ve used the FTSE350 O&G and O&G Services, where PFC will obviously be an influential member of the latter) it’s clear that they have dropped with the wider market, so PFC may not be heading back to 170 immediately, perhaps around 140 at present? https://invst.ly/tltbh

As the SFO started their investigation five years ago in March 2016, it seems a waste of time to be speculating about if or when charges against PFC will materialise or what fines - if there are any - will be. SFO activity last year resulted in a couple of other charges relating to Unaoil but not PFC and one senses that they could have been rather final attempts to squeeze out a result. Eventually, there may be nothing to see here, given that the main protagonists may be out of reach as far as the SFO are concerned.

That's a slightly rosy view of PFC isn't it, Sharefall?
Let's face it, the sp has been in a nine year decline, due mainly to the fall in OP, which has simply been accelerated at times by SFO and other events. It may well be undervalued at present but let's not kid ourselves that £10 is likely when £5 represents a very significant challenge:
https://invst.ly/tlp6r