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You used to be able to increase your purchase price by RPI to reduce the tax due but they abolished that some time ago more is the pity. It did make for some pretty complicated calculations though if you bought and sold a lot.

That is correct.

I repeat a part of my post from yesterday!

"Following the same path again today - initial rise followed by more significant falls. The only deviation from this appears to be an initial fall followed by more significant falls."

Indeed. The article is at best confusing (I didn't point out that they had the date wrong for the new rebar regulations but we live and breathe Vanadium whereas they probably don't).

Interesting. According to this, China's production of Vanadium increased by 3% in 2018 to 84k tonnes. Let's ignore the fact that it is not clear what 'Vanadium' refers to in this context and also the fact that there is NO WAY they know what the production of Vanadium for 2018 was on 2nd January. My question is how has production risen 3% considering the environmental laws against slag imports and stone coal operations together with the reduced Vanadium content of the iron ore used by the steel manufacturers who themselves have experienced environmental shutdowns. Those factors should conspire to reduce the production of Vanadium not increase it.

Fortunately I didn't read any of it. Unfortunately it is the sort of thing that is encouraging me to read/post on this board less and less. Becoming duller and duller to wade through the dross to get to the decent posts.

I have had a quick look at the shipping logs collected by Paludina. I will let everyone know when I have completed an analysis of this (I am going to be busy for the next few hours) but my first pass suggests that the recent shipping data is a legacy of the weak production as a result of the strike. A good indicator of this is to look at the shipping logs subsequent to weak quarters previously. Whilst we don't have much data to work with (and, hence, the results are anecdotal rather than empirical), the 2017 Q4 production numbers resulted in low shipping numbers subsequently.

Whilst I will ponder, I am not sure that these numbers are either sufficiently detailed or complete enough to make a very clear conclusion other than to suggest that they are a lagging indicator of production numbers i.e. they are more representative of previous rather than current production.

I was having a think about the path of Vanadium prices over the last month or so as it has dropped more than I had thought would be the case. Vanadium is a strange market as it is not traded on futures exchanges (for better or worse) so it is very reflective of real supply and demand rather than purely speculative. I have thought for a while that the price was reflective of a stock build up before the rebar rules were implemented in China followed by an unwinding of these as a result of what appears to be widespread flouting of the rules. This certainly appears possible given the price action.

However, there is an alternative explanation. Traditionally iron ore processed in China was relatively rich in Vanadium and this is where the bulk of the production came from. However, in recent times Chinese steel producers have been switching to higher grade iron ore with lower Vanadium content resulting in lower production of Vanadium. Whilst the net affect of this is to reduce the availability of Vanadium on the market the more interesting impact comes when considering steel plant shutdowns (which we are having in China at the moment as part of the environmental controls).

Previously, when Vanadiferous iron ore was used by steel plants, the net amount of Vanadium produced increased during operation so shutting the plant down reduced the supply of Vanadium. However, when low Vanadiferous iron ore is used, the result of shutting the steel mill down is to reduce the consumption of Vanadium. As such, halting production from steel mills has the opposite affect so supply from other sources exceeds demand.

In reality I suspect that we have a bit of both ongoing here with speculative stockpiles being unwind at the same time as reduced demand, hence the drop. One can speculate on how long this will take to stabilise but nothing is guaranteed. However, there are certain factors that will play their part, namely the completion of unwinding stockpiled positions, the return to production of Chinese steel mills and the enforcement of rebar standards. I expect the position to begin to stabilise in January based on the unwinding the stockpiles and my best guess is that the price will rise strongly after the steel mill production returns which is generally considered to be Chinese New Year. Whether this price rise is maintained will be predicated on the enforcement of the rebar standards.

Following the same path again today - initial rise followed by more significant falls. The only deviation from this appears to be an initial fall followed by more significant falls. Whilst the printed trades always suggest an excess of buys over sells, I suspect that the position will ultimately resolve itself with a very large trade being reported. Until then it is likely that there will be more of the same but at some point the relentless pressure will suddenly lift and the underlying buying will exert itself. We have seen that many times in the past, most recently with the rise from 35p to 48p.

I suspect that $1300 may prove to be something of a barrier to further progress, at least for now. But the real mountain to climb is the $1350-1400 region which has capped any gold rise since 2013. Break $1400 and it really is game on but until then this may well be another rise to build up false hopes. Of course, SHG will be generating a fair amount of cash even at $1300/oz.

Well, until we know exactly who is selling, it is difficult to estimate at what point they will be exhausted. There is little doubt that it is skewing the technical picture currently.

The more salient fact is that, whilst today has been allowed to run a little, presumably on the assumption that volumes would be very low, there is still evidence of a background seller(s). Just how long this will continue for depends on the supply of course but I was hoping that the dividend policy announcement would hasten this considerably.

Indeed. But the number of times I have told people that the buys and sells quoted on LSE is not accurate is huge. I am pretty sure that I have told Chartist2 this on several occasions. Yet still they are quoted.

We have someone who bought at 46p and 47p strongly arguing that it is significantly overvalued at 37p (which begs the obvious question....). We have another person (a TA guy who I have the utmost respect for) who posts charts of a standard bubble and BMN which look very little like each other apart from the fact that they are going up at some point (interestingly the BMN chart just shows a classic bull phase movement). We have extracts from Twitter which are then used as the basis of an argument which goes counter to the Twitter discussion. Surely there are better ways to spend a Sunday!

I am sure that I am not the only one who has come across Trojan on these boards and I have never considered him to be a 'troll'.

Erm. So you think that the share price is rising because people are selling for a placing? Is it opposite day?

Every company I have ever invested in it is always Cantor that seems to do the major dumping. I am not sure whether I can recall them ever doing the same on the buy side. Must only employ very miserable people!

Whoever it is that is selling has a deep supply of shares to shift but they tend to do it in such a way as to sharply drop the price. Until it is gone we are likely to experience this gradual weakness. Intriguing to see how the price rose so strongly between 12th and 19th December when the selling stopped and the buying continued. Are they selling in waves or do they have a number to shift within a time frame?

Let's keep it to ARS shall we?

Should be interesting today. Let's hope it is interesting owing to its lack of interestingness!

I suspect that they are doing this in relatively small chunks. By my reckoning they may have got up to 600k at this point. It is likely that we are getting close to the point at which some holders blink and offload their shares. 30p is where I think this will start to happen a bit more actively.