The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
B2, I reckon that we will all be a lot cheerier soon enough, to make those years worthwhile!
Meant to write "who know no more than us".
PS, the panic is over as I can see it is just Yellow selling out at the same time as talking the SP down. It all makes perfect sense now!
B2, I genuinely just think that it is a large holder (or holders) who no more than us selling out for several hundred percent profit. They get their bonuses and/or profit and they move on.
I agree that it is tiresome but I remain as hopeful as itis healthy to be that the coming days/weeks/months will bring lots more news and new share price highs.
As I posted a couple of weeks ago, there are many updates that are due/overdue and each day brings them closer, with each SP drop just making the recovery steeper.
Personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see an update this week as the company is clearly aware that updates are due and that many people are asking questions as the share price continues to slide.
Haggis, we will have to agree to differ.
Haggis, there has been relentless selling since the Ricardo deal was announced and. arguably, before then. You can call it what you like but it has happened and the SP is now 30% lower than the high at the end of last year and 20% lower than where it got to when the Ricardo deal was announced, when the SP should logically be going up on the Ricardo news and the positive sentiment in the sector. We know that at least some of this is Schroders selling but everything else is of course just speculation.
Obviously, the SP is also a lot higher than 12 months ago but the point is that there has been a drop back and the end result is that AFC's MCap is falling further behind its peers. As you say, none of this should matter in the long term and only time will tell!
Haggis, that is precisely my point. Someone is drip feeding the shares into the market, soaking up all the buys and keeping the SP down as they offload. Without the relentless seller, the SP would setting new highs due to the continued buying demand.
Whatever the case, as BB2's reply shows, AFC are flagging that we should see evidence of the new communications policy "over forthcoming weeks" and if this happens then all the sellers/shorters/whoever should be in the rear view mirror. In the meantime, the selling continues as I type!
Haggis, none of us can know for sure and I am simply giving my best guess as I do not for a moment believe that it is a stream of small investors walking away in boredom in the absence of news as the whole sector booms.
As for shorters, there are definitely plenty of people out there who want to make money out of the SP falling and there are plenty of them on here!
MPO818, there have been over 250million shares traded on LSE and Tradegate at higher prices than this and most of the rest are seemingly quite tightly held. Derampers like you are truly nauseating and you have been that way for many months. Get back into your hole.
I still think that the only logical explanation for the relentless selling is that Schroders (or someone else with a large holding) is drip feeding the market. The unfortunate thing is that this selling has skewed the market for many days due to the relatively low daily volumes combining with a seemingly large number of shares to offload.
Without this seller, AFC should be challenging new highs like most of the sector , especially after the Ricardo news that was sold aggressively into, but to look on the bright side each chunk of shares sold is one step closer to the bounce back. Even as I type, I see more delayed chunks of sells going through and there really can't be that many million more shares to go.
Not now that you have said it, SuperStarr!
More seriously, it is looking like the tide is turning and I suspect that a lot more people will jump onboard if it becomes clear that the big seller has stopped and that the steady buying is starting to have a positive impact.
The relative lack of buying interest on LSE is bizarre, especially given that CWR/ITM/PPS/PHE etc are flying and given that AFC' is lower than before the great news last week. It really does feel like AFC is being walked down and singled out for this without any apparent reason but this presumably means that the walk back up again could be quite sudden. I get the sense that people are waiting for the starting gun to be fired, whether this be more news or just the starting of the buying returning but, in the meantime, I note that the walk down is continuing as I type.
Also good to see AFC listed as both a top rising stock last year and as a high beta stock (meaning it should perform well if the bull.market continues as hoped). No actual detail given though. Same again in 2021 after a wobble at the start?
https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/ideas/2021/01/21/defensives-and-momentum-still-win/
Good to see some decent buying at 75p going on at Tradegate which looks set to beat LSE for volume today.
It feels like it would just take bit of decent news or a positive update/interview to reverse the recent fall back and the inertia could very easily build up quickly again.
I see that we have a tiny bit of blue so I am just checking that everyone will be happy again if there is a blue finish?
From my perspective, this is just more transfer of shares from the impatient to the patient, with Schroders having escalated the process somewhat. After over 3 weeks at higher than this SP at high volumes and more good newsflow, there really can't be many shares left for sale at these levels!
I remember musing about whether the SP was being deliberately sold down to keep it at 18p a few months ago in order to facilitate a strategic stake being taken in the company below that level.
At 74p, I wonder if musing along the same lines will bring £3! Busy musing away...
How fund managers get away with such aggressive selling is beyond me. If they sold gradually into a rise then they would not only make more money for their clients but the demand for shares would stay strong. Aggressive selling loses the clients money and stifles demand by undermining investor confidence. RA literally lost tens of millions of pounds by doing this a few months ago. Utter lunacy!
As one of the world's leading suppliers of rapid EV charging infrastructure, this strategic partnership is fully aligned with AFC Energy's go to market strategy with ABB providing strong and credible access to key customer channels both in Europe and overseas"
________________________
Very promising and let's hope IT gets a lot more communication out soon.
Very positive Proactive Investors article.
https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/amp/news/211982
AFC Energy tapped into growth of hydrogen fuel use
2021-01-18 06:36:00
The fuel cell developer is placing itself at the forefront of the growing hydrogen power market, forecast to be worth around US$2.5trn by 2050
Hydrogen element symbol
Hydrogen revolution
AFC Energy PLC (LON:AFC) is one of the UK market leaders in what is becoming known as the hydrogen revolution, the development of technology that can transform hydrogen into a renewable energy source.
According to the Hydrogen Council, an industry group backed by companies such as BMW and Air Liquide, the hydrogen market could be worth around US$2.5trln by 2050 as part of a push to lower carbon emissions from transport and limit global warming to safer levels.
Hydrogen is seen as a key element of the UK government's recent announcement of a new target for the country to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, which was on the back of a strongly worded report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
With the electricity grid often at full stretch and the CCC estimating that all new cars and vans should be electric within 16 years, “there is no way the grid can cope with that amount of extra demand”, says Adam Bond, AFC's chief executive.
“Hydrogen is the only solution to meet the demand,” Bond said, “and that is why the climate change report mentioned it on almost every page.”
How it is doing
The firm expects the momentum seen in 2020, when it moved into the commercial phase, to continue in 2021 as well.
Its achievements in the 12 months just gone were evident in its first contracts – totalling more than £1mln and already generating income.
Underlining confidence in the business, meanwhile, was an oversubscribed £31.6mln fundraiser. This will help it major deliver projects, aid the development of the new H-Power systems and fund manufacturing scale-up.
One of the projects, work on the off-road electric car racing series, Extreme E, will feature the aforementioned H-Power system as primary power supply, showcasing its potential. The rally is slated to launch in early 2021.
AFC said it is working with leading manufacturers to roll out the technology in the field of integrated off-grid power and ultra-rapid electric vehicle charging solutions.
On that note, in December AFC signed a strategic partnership with Swiss electrical systems giant ABB to develop products for the electric vehicle charger market.
The non-exclusive agreement will see the two companies work together to develop a bespoke high power EV charger that will be sold through ABB's market channels from the second half of 2021.
What the boss says: Adam Bond, chief executive
" [The deal] marks a historic milestone in the commercialisation of our proprietary hydrogen fuel cell as we commence a long-term relationship with ABB.
TBC
That struck me too, Haggis. Either way, there should be a lot more news to come before they are released!
I thought it looked familiar. He posted a positive video 3 months ago too. AFC has done pretty well since then!
https://youtu.be/RssvygsQmDw