Member Info for Daisan

SquirtyFlower,

I confess that I have been thinking along the same lines. Their purchases don't come across as particularly great unless you consider that they have not finished yet. Lending out stock and gradually accumulating more would be a sensible approach.

Of course, we have no evidence for this viewpoint.

Endion,

Yes they do. To quote the first report I found:

"Chinese exports of ferro-vanadium (basis 75% vanadium) totaled 6,142 tonnes in 2018, an increase of 31.1% from the prior year".

China have a history of exporting Vanadium. It is unusual for them to be a net importer.

It seems that they are having another pop at it this morning! Whilst you can't be sure which is a 'short' and which just a normal sell (after all, they are both 'sells') the round numbers and timing are suggestive.

MessDog,

I am no expert on shorting but it would depend on the mechanism used. A simple borrow and sell is open ended I believe.

I suspect that those involved reassess continuously. With the Vanadium price continuing to come under pressure and no strong reversals with follow through buying, they may well think that they can chance their arms and keep their positions open. Indeed, it looks like they are still adding to them so presumably they see more to be gained.

It follows the same pattern pretty much every day. There is an initial take down followed by a gradual rise, an afternoon drop and rise and pressure at the end of the day. Any one who invests on AIM knows that the times to avoid buying and selling are first thing and last thing. But if your aim is to unsettle the share price then these are the best times to trade.

It has been notable that we get selling early in the trading day. The initial direction quite often sets the tone for the day and I see today that we have, once again, a 50k trade on the bell. I don't think that it takes wild imagination to understand what this trade is and yet it will be enough to upset some investors and so achieves its aim.

The one point I would reiterate is that short sellers have to close out their positions in BMN by buying in the market so we should see some buying pressure at some point.

Agreed. This has enormous potential impact for Bushveld Energy's business model.

Why would they provide guidance for Vanchem when the purchase hasn't even been completed yet?

For the obvious reason that the Q1 figure is already known and almost a month's production is anticipated to be lost in June/July owing to the planned maintenance period. I would have thought that this was fairly clear. If you calculate 650 + 290*8 (which allows for the one month maintenance period) you should be able to understand the guidance a little better.

It is probably conservative but that is the best approach. You have to plan in detail for these events, not only from an operational point of view but also from a financial and commercial point of view, so identifying a period that you will not exceed is imperative. If they can get it done more quickly then great but overrunning would have impacts.

Well, I think that many observers (including FM) thought that the price peak in 2018 was unsustainable so it wouldn't be surprising if some took advantage of that. The collapse in the price probably took a great deal of people by surprise as well, especially those that stocked up at well over $100/kg!

I agree with Pdub here. There are only two publicly traded pure play Vanadium producers so it is unsurprising that somebody who was so minded would have a go at them.

A few points:

1. Whilst the headline production figure is somewhat disappointing compared with my expectations (if nobody else's), the March figure looks to be indicative of what we can expect going forwards. Each month may not hit this level but this does set the benchmark now.

2. Sales have clearly been directed towards the US as can be seen by the volume of shipments during the quarter compared to production. This looks to be greater than 60% and does make it difficult to assess the production level based on these numbers alone.

3. They are clearly stockpiling based on the last couple of quarter's sales. Presumably this is to cover the planned maintenance period.

4. I believe that the resource/reserve statement for Vametco may well be being impacted by the changes in the Vanadium price - a key component in such a process

5. The annual guidance looks to be achievable based on the March figure and despite the prospect of the maintenance shutdown.

These figures at least show that the production has stabilized on a quarterly basis whilst providing the prospect of future increases. Based on this quarter and the maintenance period, I suspect that we will see quarterly production of the region:

Q1 - 650
Q2 - 700/725
Q3 - 700/725
Q4 - 750/800

Just to correct the assertion that this is later than any other quarterlies - the Q2 2018 quarterly was later.

Transparency would be lovely but I won't hold my breath. There was clearly something at the time and nothing was printed after hours so presume something will be tomorrow (or whenever!). There would appear to be a large buyer in the background.

It looks like another day when the interesting trades are the delayed ones again. The price rose from 28.25p to 28.5p just before 15:30 which, according to the printed trades, corresponded to nothing whatsoever. I suspect that there was a decent buy around that time which resulted in the change and we should see that later.

It will be interesting to see whether there is some activity towards the end to bring the price back down which seems to be common practice on this and most other shares (presumably the day traders coming out).

I was wondering when our normal 150k sell would pop up this morning and, as if by magic, there it is at 8:27:05. I confess that I have only been noticing them rather than keeping track. Has anyone noted how many shares these trades represent now as there is a reasonable chance that they are from the same entity.

I believe that the 150k was a sell as buys were going through at 29.38 at the time and it conforms to a pattern of 150k sells that we have seen recently. This is a different sell pattern to the 30k and 50k sells that we have also seen recently.

The phrase 'cutting off your nose to spite your face' springs to mind.

Well, it is the end of the week and we saw a series of 150k sells in the last minute a couple of days ago so I suspect that they were discouraging a repeat performance. In addition, they may well have been facilitating the B&I - we have seen this before in the recent past and it wouldn't surprise me if this was the case again.

27p paid. Let's see whether it is followed through.