Member Info for Dartron

I did say before results that 170 seemed a fair price, bearing in mind no dividend. Ironically I am now repeating last years investment experience with Halfords - buy in price 1.70 locked in around 1.50. Only last year I had a dividend and saw a lot of potential, which i thought would increase the SP. May well sell these if we get in the 160's. Usual story of while this is a good prospect, there are similar faster prospects also out there. I reckon this could be bought back for 1.60 or 1.70 in a couple of months.

I bought in this week, as I want to be invested in the battery market. I did some reading about EMH, but could not find any timescales for the mine. Are any timescales known at this point? Also, are there any companies I can invest in who are extracting Lithium now? Or nickel? or Cobalt? The article did mention Glencore but in the context of the mine being shut. I think now is a good time to buy in to these companies, but I really want some producers as well as exploration. Thanks.

Morning all, Here is a bit more of the aritcle that was linked yesterday. Not easy to copy it as it is broken up with adverts, but I am pulling out the juicy bits:
Citigroup analysts now expect battery-grade lithium prices to surge by about 42% in 2022 from current levels thanks to “rising conviction” on electric-vehicle demand from new Chinese and European EV incentives as well as accelerating rationalization in supply.
Cobalt faces similar supply constraints in top producer Democratic Republic of Congo due to the pandemic, on top of the shutdown of Glencore Plc’s Mutanda copper and cobalt mine late last year. Mutanda was responsible for a fifth of global cobalt production in 2018, according to Darton Commodities.
In the market for battery-grade nickel, BloombergNEF analyst Allan Ray Restauro expects a tight balance in the next two to three years as demand from lithium-ion batteries picks up. He says there may be a significant deficit as early as 2023 when nickel prices start to recover.
There is a graphic of predicted demand 2019 v 2030.
Nickel 14x
Aluminium 14x
Phosphorus 13x
Iron 13x
Copper 10x
Graphite 10x
Lithium 9x
Cobalt 3x
Maganese 3x

Oops meant 224 seems like support

Bought more HGM as other goldies were spiking this afternoon. These have to go up soon, 224 seems to be resistance at the moment.

First part of article, Nothing you probably dont know. PS, I bought in yesterday.

The market gloom over the metals that will power the cars of the future is starting to lift.

Supply overhangs and then the coronavirus pandemic had crushed short-term prospects for the minerals used to make rechargeable batteries. But new government commitments to green transport in China and Europe, as well as curtailments to mining and future investments, have led to a growing consensus the markets are bottoming out.

Add in the fact that battery technologies are continuing to get cheaper, and there’s reason to be bullish “over the next few years once we get through the current predicament,” said Chris Berry, president of House Mountain Partners, an industry consultant.

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“The European Union, in particular, is essentially rebuilding their automotive supply chains around battery metals, and incentivizing EV adoption,” Berry said in a phone interview. “The Chinese have re-instituted the EV subsidy regime as well.”

Exuberance about the future for electric-powered vehicles led to an oversupply of metals such as lithium and cobalt, sending prices tumbling by more than half from their 2018 peaks. Then just as some optimism was returning to the markets, the coronavirus pandemic triggered a demand slowdown that clouded recovery prospects for those metals as well as nickel.

Battery Boost
Demand from electric vehicle batteries will spur a group of metals

Source: BloombergNEF

While shorter-term forecasts have been reduced, the longer-range outlook remains impressive. BloombergNEF predicts global electric-vehicle sales will return to growth over the next few years, rising from 2 million last year to 8.5 million by 2025, then climb to about 26 million by 2030.

The worldwide market for cathode for lithium-ion batteries, the most common type in rechargeable cars, is expected to reach $58.8 billion by 2024 from $7 billion in 2018, according to a United Nations report.

Those outlooks leave the world’s largest producer of lithium expecting a market turnaround by 2022.

Demand “is starting to come back” with spot prices about at a bottom now, Albemarle Corp.’s new chief executive officer Kent Masters said in an interview. “It will ramp up and use up that excess supply. And in time, there’ll be a play where demand outstrips supply and pricing will change dramatically.”

For lithium, delays of new and expansion projects will help the supply glut. With only a few producers making money at these levels, “you’re starting to see less production of lithium -- a complete contraction of the production of it,” said Andrew Bowering, a director at explorer American Lithium Corp.

I was a speculator, but now that has not worked I am now an investor. Yay.

Retail down slightly, but Autocenters up 18%. I became a share holder over a year ago, after using an Autocenter, as I felt it was an area Halfords could expand in to off the back of their trusted brand name. With having to compete with Amazon for retail It just shows that retail is not the future even for retail companies. Not bad results, given the virus situation.

I am considering buying a few more to get my average down from £3.40. But don't see any hurry, expect it will be sub £3 in the short term. Not sure we will see £2.50 but £2.70's sounds feasible for a while yet.

Quite fancied some of these. Does anybody know why these are not available through Best Invest? Keep typing 'LBE' in to buy, but get offered 'MUL' instead. CBA to call them.

I dont think they will reinstate the dividend. Why would they, their core priority is to keep the business running, not the share price. Dividend in good time, but all the while other companies are not paying, even the ones doing ok, wont IMO. DS Smith this week, could have but didnt. Also why I think SP is not a good buy above £1.90. Hope it goes higher as i hold, and will sell, but why would you buy at that level. This time last year, was about £1.70 and paying dividend.

I bet that was something to do with that sneaky 3m buy I wrote about early this week. showed as a sell but wad a buy.

LetsTry, no problem, good to discuss it. I am an invester for over 12 months, and I think if CV19 had not of happened they would have risen back to around £1.80 this year, to push on next year. i was more excited about the car business rather than bikes. However the current circumstances make it far harder to price and predict. I was saying that as other companies have dropped in SP, maybe the reduction here is about fair. I filtered Mr carrots a while a go, so missing half of the conversation.

Dont forget, the market (ftse benchmark) has dropped 2 - 300 point over June. Its not about before the pandemic.

Been thinking the same. We know that the Dividend is cancelled, so maybe no short term investment case here. Wish I had sold out at 154 this morning and took a small loss. Think the results wont lift this much. Perhaps, circa £1.50 is a fair price currently.

They have done really well and protected their staff and business. Prevented 3 infected people getting to site. Better response than where I was working, hence I quit.

I noticed some unusually big trades today for HFD, at 10.30, this snippet shows 2.4 million shares being traded, which shows as a huge spike on the daily volume. These trades show as sells, but if you look the share price it actually went up, just not high enough to go over the mid point. I dont know either way, but my opinion is that these were buys. The share price barely moved around this time of the day, which is weird for 1.5% of the total company shares.

Jun 25 2020, 10:25 154.863 10,411 155.00 156.00 Sell £16,122.78693 O
Jun 25 2020, 10:30 155.25 1,320,000 155.00 156.00 Sell £2,049,300.00 O
Jun 25 2020, 10:30 155.25 1,163,414 155.00 156.00 Sell £1,806,200.235 O

In today's RNS, it says the shares were all sold for £23.00 per share to II's. In my experience, II's always get the shares cheap. Also Hikma has bought some back at £23.00 so I would say that the SP should be above £23.00 Therefore buying opportunity?
I wish I had more money, I could have bought at 22.77. Hopefully back around £24 in a few days?

(Alliance News) - German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim Invest GmbH intends to sell up to 28 million shares in Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC, JPMorgan Securities PLC said on Monday.

The Boehringer shares will be offered via an accelerated bookbuild to institutional investors.

Concurrently, Hikma has committed to buy back up to GBP295 million in shares from Boehringer. The purchase price for the buyback shares will be equal to the sale price for the placing shares.

"Hikma has separately today entered into an agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim pursuant to which Hikma will receive a commitment fee of 2% of the aggregate value of the buy back shares acquired at the buy back price," Monday's release said.

Shares in Hikma closed down 1.0% at 2,480.00p in London on Monday.

Boehringer currently owns 40 million ordinary shares in Hikma, representing a 16% stake. Following the successful completion of the placing and the buyback, Boehringer would no longer hold any shares in Hikma.

In its own statement, Hikma said: "The shares being sold by Boehringer Ingelheim were issued by Hikma as part of the consideration for the acquisition of Roxane Laboratories in February 2016. The buy back demonstrates the board's confidence in Hikma's future prospects. Since its initial public offering in 2005, Hikma has delivered a total shareholder return of approximately 926%, exceeding the FTSE 100 total shareholder return of approximately 105%."

Boehringer Ingelheim has engaged Citi and JP Morgan Securities as bookrunners in connection with the placing. Hikma will not receive any proceeds from the placing.

@Hardup - Had a similar thing happen where I am invested at HIK. Wrote a long post explaining it, so give it a read, it might help.