Member Info for Chatmandu

I'm out at break even price based upon original purchase price.

I've done well in terms of dividends, but should have sold a long time ago.

Being busy with a young family isn't really compatible with AIM shares...

I'm left wishing that I'd trusted my gut and sold out when they first announced share buy backs. I hate the things and it always strikes me as a management ploy to hit their bonuses, rather than something to benefit shareholders.

Now, do I wait and see if there's a dead cat bounce or get out and break even on my average purchase price?

That share buyback appears to have been an abysmal waste of our money. If they'd paid a dividend, the money would be safely in my account. Instead they've bought at 89p and are now 'holding' at 79p.

If you want to sell me your shares for 50p, I'll be very happy to take them off your hands.

"Chat - Don’t you mean what will happen once the artificial ceiling is removed?"

If the company are buying shares every time the price dips below 89p, it is preventing the share price from falling lower than 89p. That is the artificial floor that I am referring to.

When they stop propping up the share price via buybacks, it would suggest that the price is free to fall further - i.e. find its natural market value.

To put it another way, if I said I was willing to buy unlimited shares at 50p, would that create a ceiling or a floor for the share price?

@ian67

I would question what will happen to the share price once that artificial floor, created by the buybacks, is removed.

Hi Quiggers,

Please provide updates on your positions. You timed things nicely last time.

Thanks,

If the share price drops after shares have been bought, then some of that money has been wasted - i.e. the shares purchased by the company are now worth less than the money paid for them. If they'd paid a cash dividend, the money would be safely in my trading account. I'm not convinced there is any benefit to share buybacks.

I think it has been mathematically proven that share buybacks are bad for shareholders - i.e. value destruction. They tend to be good for management, if their bonuses and share options are tied to the share price.

I haven't got the articles to hand, but share buybacks tend to send alarm bells ringing for me.

@twirl

We've already has 1C of the doomsday 1.5C and I can't really see that extra 0.5C killing a billion people.

I was taught at school in the 1990's that London would be underwater by now and Britain would be well on the way to being a small chain of mountains/islands protruding from the sea.

IMHO it is only a matter of time until the wheels come off the Climate Change bandwagon. Their predictions are demonstrably wrong and they have to edit historical data to get things to 'fit'.

I give their doomsday predictions about as much credence as Professor Ferguson's covid hysteria.

Given the volatility in the PGM markets, I'd expect any SLP valuations to be based upon a trailing average basket price of at least a month and maybe even three months.

The increase in PGM prices is clearly good news for SLP, but I won't expect it to feed through to a higher share price for some time.

Car sales are down by 20% compared to 2019.

https://carsalesbase.com/united-kingdom-car-sales-data/

Car sales in 2021 are fairly flat on 2020.

10% of total 2020 car sales equates to 7% of 2019 pre pandemic sales.

I've no idea if the chip shortages have impacted ICE vehicles more than electric vehicles. If so, perhaps all electric demand has been satisfied and ICE sales have been held back? I don't think we'll see the true picture until the end of the chip shortage and the end of the pandemic.

One thing, to bear in mind, is that the UK is a densely populated island - London and the South East especially. Electric cars might work fairly well in Surrey, but I doubt they'd be as useful in rural France, USA, India, etc.

The thing that will drive PGM usage will be an expanding ICE market combined with tightening emissions regulations in China, India, etc. I think this is a mega trend that SLP will ride over the next decade.

I'm very much in the 'don't believe the hype' camp for the Green Revolution. I think the climate change models are even less reliable than Professor Ferguson's predictions of covid doom. None of their predictions from 20 years ago have come to pass - e.g. London under water, no snow ever again in the UK, no more ski season in the Alps, etc.

More sensible nations will pay lip service to the rules and targets until the wheels come off the bandwagon.

Having been burned by RPC's expansion/acquisition spree (although I still finished 'up' by a considerable amount), I'm not interested in expansion unless there is a solid business case.

@Artrader

Thanks for running the numbers and providing your input. It's food for thought and does at least provide an explanation for the share price weakness - it could be completely unrelated to your theory, of course, but who knows how others are calculating fair value?

I think we need to approach this from another angle - i.e. it doesn't matter what we calculate to be the fair value of the company. Our holdings are ultimately valued by others ('the market'), so if they value it at 85p, then it's only worth 85p because you're not going to sell it anywhere else The market's price may change in our favour (I continue to hold), but the price might remain 'unfair', from our perspective, indefinitely.

This is an AIM share in a reflectively small company. How much time do you think analysts are wasting on it? They'll do a quick calculation, apply a discount for South Africa, apply another discount for Omicron and move onto the next company. You don't get to be a market maker by taking risks and offering optimistic prices to small investors.

It might not be good for your prostate, if you wait until the price hits £2.35.

@Tach

Given Velo's previous tantrums, and the wild abandon with which he throws around personal insults, I think I've been quite restrained. Check out his previous comments and then tell me I'm on wrong track.

So it may be a pattern or it may be random and it might go up or it might go down.

A tedious load of claptrap topped off with an insult.

You really do have a fragile ego, don't you? You strike me as the sort of person that can't take the mildest of criticism without throwing a tantrum. The sort of person that goes home and takes things out on the wife. Am I close?

and the tea leaves were wrong (again)...

It would be tempting to say that there's probably money to be made by simply taking the opposing position to the technical analysis brigade, but they're basically rain dancing, so you might as well flip a coin.

Germany might be heading into lockdown. Perhaps that is impacting the outlook for vehicle production?

The world platinum investment council think that we should buy more platinum...

Perhaps we need to accept that SLP doesn't trade on fundamentals and the share price will never be 'fair'?

Has it transitioned from being a growth stock to an income stock?

Was previous share price growth may have been due to momentum with people buying with an expectation of further share prices rises, rather than a reflection of the actual results and quality of the company?

I don't think we'll see any sustained improvement until the end of the chip shortage and an increase in Rhodium prices (if that happens).