Member Info for Davius

The SP retracted as short termers took profits and long termers took fright :) Rebounded a bit again now, 27-29p with more buys coming in, including a hefty 325K purchase at 29.87p. SP is still below net cash, even accounting for the extra spent on the current drilling.

2-3 @ 30-32p now, plenty of small buys coming in. 6MMs now blue with just one red (MLSB at 25-32).

Well no doubt the salt water is a cause for concern, but for these to have dropped so much does seem to be an overreaction. Their $306m profit on asset disposal was partially retained so that the half year accounts showed a cash balance of $54m. Assuming consistant cash burn that is probably down to $50m now, that's around 46p per share in cash alone. I've taken a T20 for recovery at 28.2p.

15:06 Shares in Mitchells & Butlers PLC were lower midafternoon as Investec downgrades to 'hold' from 'buy' with a price target of 426 pence following yesterday's trading update. At 2.59 pm, Mitchells & Butlers shares were down 2 pence at 399-1/4. 16:18 Further to the Company's announcement yesterday which referred to its intention to conduct a strategic review, the Board of Mitchells & Butlers notes the speculation surrounding potential expressions of interest for the Company. The Board confirms that a number of parties have now made preliminary and tentative expressions of interest in the Company to Citi, its adviser. However, no discussions have taken place and there can be no certainty that any will take place. The shares closed at 473p.

Kalahari moving ahead well this morning on Uranium report: LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Kalahari Minerals PLC said Extract Resources Ltd -- in which Kalahari indirectly owns 36.2 pct -- has reported an intersection from the Husab uranium project in Namibia, which is "unusually high for the Garnet Valley area". It added that the original resource target of 15 mln pounds for the upper range at Garnet Valley is expected to be exceeded, due to the much deeper extensions evident from the programme to date.

Peter Levine has bought 400K shares at 248p. Followers of IEC will know him well. I'd have thought that this was a very encouraging sign, particularly after the other director buying last week.

Out, back in and now out again. I thought the press might be a little more positive and a morning broker downgrade to hold hasn't helped. Will probably keep watching in case of a further retraction but otherwise draw a line under it and move on. Good luck if you hold.

I'd certainly be optimistic of a further rally tomorrow. Managed three buys today, the last one at 227p (although the smallest - shame) and will see what happens tomorrow before deciding whether to move to a hold or (assuming they rise) take profits. DOW still holding on to a 100 point gain, if this can carry through to the close and help us to another rally tomorrow it might help here as bargain hunters look for cheaper stocks. Will be interesting to see any press commentary too. Exercise night for me now, so have a good evening and fingers crossed for tomorrow.

244.25-245p

The are some large numbers in the end of day auction, including a 285K buy at 245p and 90K and 109K sells at 243p. My whole screen is lit up with end of day auctions, down to the very strong market rise I think.

I think that the market makers position themselves with little available stock and then drop their bids to see how low the markets will let it fall before buyers return. At that point they raise their bids to pick up cheap stock, which they can sell into the recovering share price. All highly uncomfortable if you're a PI stuck in the middle, but they don't make profits on static share prices, they make them on trades. 234-238p now.

233-235p, buy volume increasing now, upo to 51K. Short closing time?

A number of buy orders during the auction, SP 225-230 now. L2 still weak but buy volume up from the few K earlier to 29K now. Sell volume still up around 330K though.

Falling knife and all that, sensible to wait before topping up I think. The way this is going it could be sub 200p today. Currently in auction, probably likely to exit at 219-220p or there abouts.

ABN Amro, Severfield-Rowen's broker, noted that some prospects on the group's potential list have been delayed or suspended, and in response it trimmed its 2008 pretax profits forecast to 50.0 mln stg from 52.0 mln and reduced its price target to 431 pence from 620p. "We must not lose sight of the fact that the group is still the dominant player in the UK market, currently still has a record pipeline of work at the Dalton and Watson sites (for the full year) and good visibility for 6-9 months elsewhere," the broker said in a note.

Well I hope you held as they've done very well today. You can sell at 631p now. Nice to be in a blue chip when the markets move ahead so strongly, my only current FTSE250 stock is IEC, though that's up nearly a pound today.

Peter Levine is the Executive Chairman of Imperial Energy and the Non-Executive Chairman of Severfield. Pretty encouraging to see the director buying today, but I can't help but wonder if this companies days are numbered. With the market capitalisation dropping by over 50% since October they could well see the likes of Charter being interested (they made aquisitions last year so will have an eye for an opportunity no doubt).

Bought at 238p to see it rise to the high 240s then fall to the mid 230s. Back to 241p (mid) now. 2007 results should put them on a P/E of slightly over 5 at the current SP, although we could do with further guidance for 2008. Still expected to grow though, and the accounts look healthy, plenty of cash, no debt and a bulging order book. Ridiculous drop in the share price and keen buying shows that someone has been snapping up all of the shares on offer. L2 has been very weak all morning, but if you look closely it's not as bad as it seems. Buy volume around 25K down to 230p, sell volume 188K(!) but only 20K of that is at prices below 250p and sell orders are priced up to 325p.

Did a day trade on Antofagasta today, in low 570s, out high 570s, pretty pointless but with the DOW tanking again I didn't want to run the trade into tomorrow. Then the friggin US stages a 600 point turnaround to finish nigh on 300 points higher, dragging the FTSE futures up by the best part of 150 points with it after the London close. So whether or not the late buys get you excited, the likely jump in the markets first thing tomorrow ought to. I wish I'd kept the trade open! Will be watching to see where they are headed.

Re your question earlier. When shares are moving in price up or down, sometimes you end up with a crossed price. At this point the shares go into auction, usually for a few minutes. During auction normal trades cannot be executed (not strictly true but if you try you'll get well outside the usual trading range) while the various buys and sells are matched. The resultant trades are called 'uncrossing' and marked with a 'u'. After the auction the crossed prices will have left the system and normal trading resumes. Auctions can be used by market makers to pause trading if things are getting out of hand, particularly when share prices are falling. They also appear 'accidentally' when buyers are so keen to get hold of stock they put in a buy order at or above the price of current sell orders (and vice versa). Hope this helps. (missed out on a much bigger profit here, sold out far too early at 63.26p)