Member Info for esduk

I don't get the paid subscription, which would give me access to the US and European NdPr prices, but I do get the China price for free and that is less than a thousand bucks under the current floor. I assume the premia for US and European product is still in place, it was at the time that I talked through the offering last Summer. Happy to keep people updated if useful though as you say, Neodymium price is a good proxy.

GLR, I assume it's a good nervous aka excitement? If so, I'm certainly feeling the same way. In terms of expectations I don't expect Neodymium to go to the moon as I think light rare earth supply will come online to meet the growing demand over the next few years. Heavies is where the real squeeze will be imo. But a price somewhere between 1m yuan and ATH of 1.5m yuan is massively bullish for all aspects of our business. Neodymium is up 140% from its low in April 2024, and hopefully the bull market continues for a while yet. I don't think this rise has yet been reflected in our SP, so we have plenty of catching up to do.

Velcro, just checking what source you are using for that? As of Friday, Benchmark's weekly update has China prices at over $109k and when I spoke to them previously there was a premium of 10-15% for US product. So I would say that we are either very close to or above the floor now.

There you go SG, someone just put one in for 133 shares...

With neodymium (our main underlying commodity) price up by a third over the last month, there is probably a strong argument that we should be in the 60's/70's, even without news.

Duffdaddy, thanks for confirming and well done on your profit. My co-ordinated comment was intended to mean that the sells (totalling just under 300k) were grouped all around the same time and were therefore likely linked. You have just confirmed that they were.

As for MM bashing, people will aways disagree on the extent of their manipulative behaviour. I have seen enough on AIM over the past 15 years to have conviction in my opinion on this, though given my bias I'm sure I'm also wide of the mark on certain occasions where there is actually a harmless explanation.

I have no doubt in my mind that MM's serve the players that give them the highest fees and that if big players want to enter or exit a position MM's will do their darndest to get the best possible price through whatever means necessary. They know investing, particularly on AIM, is a game of fear and greed and they take advantage accordingly, it's their job. I have also listened to interviews and read articles by ex market makers who have confirmed my general views.

As for the risk, there is of course plenty of risk, but I would say we are massively de-risked compared to where we were just a year ago. We have five different lines of business (Tyseley, Pforzheim, Forth Worth, Songwe and Pulawy), two of which have already been fully funded, one of which has an EXIM debt LOI and a Nasdaq listing for the equity portion potentially later this year, the others enjoying EU CRMA Strategic Project status, with Songwe having received a grant and potential for $100m debt from DFC. The SPAC for MKAR will raise the equity portion for these projects and Pulawy is very likely to follow other CRMA Strategic Project status projects and receive substantial grant funding from the Polish government (using EU funds).

We have proven our technology at commercial scale and are now revenue generating, this was the biggest risk on the Hypromag side of the business.

The RE pricing environment is completely different with neodymium up 89% YoY and talk of price floors.

The macro landscape has completely changed post Trump and the level of political support for what we are doing is off the charts.

So yes, there is risk, but it has reduced massively in the last year and I see virtually zero chance that at least one of our major catalysts doesn't come off.

They through in a 557 share UT at 53.8p just to make our weekly chart that little bit worse. Gotta luv em...

SG, based on the trades reported after close yesterday they dropped the bid 2.5p on the back of some highly co-ordinated selling. Within the space of three minutes we got 2 x 36k, 2 x 28k, a 55k and a 60k, all sells and all reported post close. You can add to those 18k, 17k and 20k sells that were all reported live at the time (although not for me as my live prices weren't working). All very strange imo. Lovely 3p (nearly 6%) spread they are giving us again today...

I certainly don't think we have missed the boat in terms of EXIM, in fact I think EXIM financing for Hypromag USA is pretty much nailed on after the announcement of Project Vault. The US government have only got more serious about domestic supply chains since we got the original Letter of Intent from EXIM last year. We speculated that the Board meeting on Monday might be about our project, it turns out it was about Project Vault. So nothing has changed for the company here, it was just speculation on a chat board.

SPAC delays are frustrating, we don't know why the PFS / updated technical reports are taking longer than envisaged. I'm hoping it's for a good reason and the Neodymium price increase in the meantime has certainly been a good thing for us. We just have to trust that they have good reasons and double down on patience. I think sitting on your hands right now is the best thing you can do and as Bonker and others point out, we really should be richly rewarded in the next 6-12 months. We don't even need all of our catalysts to come off to re-rate, which is the beauty of it (I think they all will by the way).

Yes the rising Neodymium and other rare earth prices are key. We went from 3p in April 2020 up to 38p in November 2021 mainly on the back of neodymium going from c. 350k yuan per tonne to 1m yuan per tonne. It subsequently went to 1.5m a few months later, but we didn't follow it higher due to missed Songwe deadlines. We're now knocking on the door of 1m again and it is in a clear uptrend. Remember also that there is a premium above the advertised Chinese price for Western supply, which my sources suggest is about 5-15%.

The difference now is that our business is so much more developed and able to take advantage of these prices. They will be reflected in our cashflows for our Tyseley and (soon) Pforzheim plants, they will help with the financing of our Fort Worth plant and they will get us a higher valuation for MKAR.

For Songwe, to be construction ready we really just need the financing to be done as the FEED study is in train. Financing Songwe should be relatively easy at these prices, particularly with a potential price floor, DFC support of up to $100m and potential EU support.

While the prices are key, I want to see Mkango taking advantage of them by actually hitting the milestones they set. We can't guarantee that we will always have the backdrop of rising prices (although we look like we are in a clear uptrend), particularly as the pricing is still largely controlled by the Chinese for the time being. I want us to be making hay while the sun shines and the boys need to get a move on in this regard.

We end the day at 54p mid price / SP despite not having a trade of more than £1k below 54p all day (at least reported so far). That stinks…

I had the Nasdaq down 1.5% or c.350 points at open, before recovering a bit and then going lower again to its intraday low which was about 440 points down. It has since recovered a couple of hundred points. Regardless, MM’s were definitely using whatever excuse to fill the order at 53p. Will be interesting to see the after hours prints.

They were getting spanked since open SG, and whatever happened here was an hour and twenty minutes after that. We actually rose after US open. I've still got no L2 and trades are delayed. LSE website is tosh and always seems to sh*t the bed at the worst moments.

L2 has disappeared for me, right about the time the price went dulally. Bid of 55p down to a bid of 52p in the space of one second, you couldn't write it!

Weird stuff going with both the LSE website and with the pricing.

Some big buys going through here, doesn't look like they are going to get their 53p for the time being.

Yeh depends on how collaborative everyone wants to be, or whether there is more of a winner takes all mentality. We've seen from MP Material's X account that perhaps things over in the US are a little more competitive and less collaborative than in the UK e.g. Hypromag, LCM and Ionic cooperating on certain initiatives. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. But whatever way it does we should get handsomely rewarded.

Wow, they really are trying hard here, but people keep buying. Wish I had some dry powder, but alas no.

I agree that there is a good chance that Will and Alex will not be running the build out of Songwe, I assume they will draft in an experienced CEO for MKAR or that the MKAR assets get taken over by someone else post listing. However, I still don't think USAR would be interested in being a junior partner to Cotec in Hypromag USA. They will want to be in full control of their whole supply chain. I also agree with velcro that JT will want enhance the value of Hypromag USA before any sale, so don't see it happening in the near term unless they get an offer that blows the doors off.

I think that if our company structure wasn't complicated someone may have made an approach for us by now. For our US competitors Hypromag USA would be the main prize, but it is owned c. 60% by Cotec. JT and the directors own about 75% of Cotec shares (last time I looked). This would be an obvious blocker to an easy transaction. I don't think JT is interested in a takeover of Hypromag USA at a 50% premium to current implied value.

The Rns-non shows further progress on the Hypromag USA roll out, but it's not the info that the market is looking for. German commissioning, Pulawy PFS / Songwe technical report / papers filed with the SEC, and Hypromag USA FID / decision to proceed are the items the markets wants to see. EU / US government grants / financing would also be a SP catalyst, as would JV's in Japan, South Korea or Canada. Until then it looks like we'll trade in range.