Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
If Poppy was pre-emptively clearing her share sales with institutional shareholders, they would then be a party to information not made available to all shareholders at the same time. And they would therefore be enabled to take commercial advantage of being a party to restricted circulation insider trading. It is patently ridiculous to assume that Poppy and other company sellers are this naive!
Hooters (Houthis) "surprise" announcement that they will be targetting American ships, not just ships heading for Israel:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Houthis-Will-Target-US-Ships-in-the-Red-Sea.html
Suez Canal traffic:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Suez-Canal-Crisis-A-New-Catalyst-for-Global-Inflation.html
Oilprice.com - Speculation on $110 a barrel But no conviction on this from the majority of analysts:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Traders-Speculate-on-110-Oil-As-Middle-East-Tensions-Escalate.html
PG - Good advice - another version is that you have to remember that the shares don't know that you own them.
Also, you should not always ignore advice, just because it is not necessarily what you want to hear! Behind the company façade growth has slowed to snails pace when they are operating in the fragmented but rapidly growing cyber-security space. All the indications are there that there are issues with the marketing mix: that is the Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Physical Evidence, People, and Process.
BBC - I agree with you that it is a waste of your time reading comments here - what people are incapable of understanding, fails to inform them!
The recent RNS states:
"Ending 1H 2024 with 9,232 customers, year-over-year growth in Darktrace's customer base was 12.9%, with the customer base having grown by 433 since 30th June 2023."
The facts is that Darktrace has a product that is widely accepted in the marketplace - 9,232 customers are highly unlikely to have made similar misjudgements and all be wrong! There have been no published instances of the Darktrace system failing any company, which would be disastrous if it were to happen! Darktrace is well established in the cyber security sector & has a decade of expertise across the World behind it!
But as Lending points out it is growing at Fiat 500 pace, in a market that has been growing exponentially! It may be that potential customers do not relish being the subject of hard-selling techniques (1200 Darktrace staff are engaged on direct marketing and selling activities). They may not like being locked in to multi-year contracts. Darktrace admits that its customer base has only been growing at a pedestrian 12.9% per annum, which is only around 1% a month & way behind its main competitors.
Growth rates were much higher, but have slipped dramatically since shortly after the IPO, and certainly since the higher interest rate environment started to seriously impact business spending worldwide. Or, maybe the competition are more effective in selling their products. Some of Darktrace's sales will be from say a customers newly set up subsidiary buying their products, some will certainly be from customer referrals. BUT, 1200, or more directly employed sales and marketing staff are pulling in only around an extra 90 new customers each month. Has anyone seen a cost of customer acquisition figure issued by Darktrace & importantly how it has changed over time!
What a difference a day makes - Brent at $80.67 a barrel - in tandem with cruise missile futures going up!
What really amazes me is that the OP was barely impacted by the escalating, increasingly provocative, Red Sea & Straits of Hormuz shipping threat, but a point was going to come when the US had to react. It is more than very debateable whether the Saudis, even with 300 combat aircraft could carry out a sophisticated & wide ranging attack like this, or they would have shown their capability in Yemen by now.
A host of conflicting factors playing on the SP: the Saudis reducing oil prices, Angola bailing out of OPEC & Nigeria not very happy (cartels carry within them the seeds of their own eventual destruction), Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iran and soon Mexico etc joining BRICS, Shell impairments - but will they impact buybacks/dividend etc, manufacturing slowdown in China, real estate issues in China, interest rates impacting global growth, impact of interest rates on the Bond markets, attacks on ships in the Red Sea/Straits of Hormuz, mergers and acquisitions in the sector & that is just a few of the dynamics out there!
It is also arguable that the UK would have no meaningful representation in the cyber-security space, Darktrace would not exist & would certainly not have 8,000 worldwide customers, including many major companies if it were not for ML.
He is well established and recognised as one of the worlds leading experts on cyber pattern recognition. There is a lot of credence in the view that Darktrace was a much stronger entity with him at the helm. There are many who believe he is still involved, but on an extremely restricted basis & Darktrace would benefit massively if he returned on a full-time basis at some point following say a successful plea bargain in the US courts.
If you look outside focusing on the prospective upcoming court case in the US, there are very few individuals who could be a direct threat to the US dominance in the cyber-security space. Ask yourself whether it is in the interests of the US Government to either neutralise the threat ML represents, or ideally manipulate the court situation to the point that he starts working for them.
The graphs really tell a story of how effective Wael Sawan's strategy has been over the first year of his tenure. I think this will be further bolstered by a repeated 15% increase in the dividend announced with the Q4 results for 2023 on the 1st February 2024.
I bought some BP shares as well at the turn of the year, like you, because they look to be at the bottom of their travel, & also because speculation is intensifying over a merger with or takeover by Shell. BP is very vulnerable on several fronts, and with the recent takeover activity in the industry, now could be perfect timing for a predator. Apart from some Call Options i have never held BP shares directly since Maggie's privatisation in 1979 - where has the 45-years gone I ask myself!
Statista view of World oil demand, indicates that there is life in the old dog yet:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271823/global-crude-oil-demand/
Worth a read:
https://www.lse.co.uk/news/SHEL/big-oil-enters-2024-strengthened-by-us-industry-consolidation-7cv5wm38x6wfs2y.html
SentinelOne in recently released results state that they have 11,500 customers, which represents an increase of 500 over the previous quarter. Darktrace's recent results revealed a stated 126 increase in the number of customers, based on a customer base of 8,000, over the previous Quarter. Without reaching for a calculator, SentinelOne has achieved greater penetration of the market & has grown its customer base by a factor of 4 x the comparative Darktrace performance;
https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/sentinelone-raises-annual-revenue-forecast-robust-cybersecurity-spending-2023-12-05/
Exact comparisons are difficult because you would need to know exactly what companies had been attracted by each and how big they were, revenue per company, financial stability, commitment to cyber-defence and a 100 other things!
The FT on the 19th October 2023, quoted an analyst as stating Darktrace had around 9,000 customers, maybe they knew more about Darktrace than the company does! Otherwise worth a read if you have not seen the article:
https://www.ft.com/content/e8b28244-dd77-463c-aa40-9a316951d4b7
Offshore Magazine sees the lights as all being on Green for appraising Pensacola:
https://www.oedigital.com/news/510198-shell-and-deltic-greenlight-pensacola-appraisal-well
DP - You are dead right the CEO is not just an accountant, although he may do some accounts work. He is perhaps better described as a very experienced corporate financier & has worked at BoD level for many years. Ultimately he will be judged not on whether Deltic's Income and Expenditure account or Balance Sheet etc are produced to say UK Generally Accepted Accounting Practice ( UK GAAP) standards, although this will be expected of him, but on his success in raising the appropriate funding to enable the Business Plan milestones and corporate objectives to be met.
What is Deltic worth?
If another company took Deltic over at around its current market capitalisation of £21.564 million (todays close - on Yahoo). The predator company would immediately get a £6 million cash refund on their investment, plus significant shares in Selene and Pensacola for only a little over £7.5 million each. Plus several other North Sea prospects. Plus a well developed relationship with one of the oil majors.
Whilst they are in the cash hungry phase of development, is it likely that they have had approaches from other companies!
Https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shell-shel-plans-two-well-121000503.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACkod1TrQXTtEJiM4ssNslL0sJgjVLPju4yEqhAkyiqhGaQNxLaFlJEYiXwR4kS_QU7mFaF7nrDM668wHmE5u1FohsRriKVKRerZOhGRPHg45BpsSjxwFYwbI31uHyQqvfzzNVgi4E40TZHUvrBYndQ2rVu9wN_qReGiFJ4l9-pl
Boyo - I largely agree with your statements on Bonds. The point where I think the dynamics change with Chinese Government US Treasury holdings, is that primarily with the increase in interest rates the cost of low-coupon US Treasury bonds has fallen off a cliff leading to serious Chinese losses.
Although this does not change the facts relating to the Bond market that you outlay. By way of illustration: although the coupon remains exactly the same until maturity, if say $1000 worth of Chinese Government investment in 20-year US treasuries fell by half to only being worth $500 - although the coupon is the same, the new buyer of $500 worth of bonds can effectively buy twice as many for an outlay of $1000 & double their coupon receipts through astute buying.
I would see it as potentially inflationary if the Chinese Government was totally committed to maintaining very high holdings of US Treasuries with a coupon rate of return as close as possible to the "newly" prevailing market rate. Because, this would entail buying large numbers of the latest issue US Treasuries at premium rates.
The Chinese Government has been reducing the level of US Treasuries held from the $1.3 trillion it hit in 2013 though, so that it begs the question is this their overall policy? Until now they have been helping to fund the US National Debt in order to enable the US consumer to purchase massive amounts of cheap Chinese manufactured goods!
The Chinese may see a downturn in their manufactured exports & are trimming their holdings of US Treasuries in anticipation. Or following Biden's attempts to weaponize the US Dollar against Russia, they may be trying to de-risk even the possibility of the US threatening anything relating to the best part of a $trillion of US treasuries held by the Chinese.
Ultimately the current chaos in the Bond markets will impact on demand/growth and the world oil markets, with the only safety valve being reductions in interest rates & inflation.
Boyo - I read through your posts and then went back to them. Very informative, great analysis, but the historical perspective is difficult to beat and helps to cast light and sense on the current situation.
Biden is at war with the OP on every controllable or influenceable front. Will the trend line end with the US election? Will there be a significant OP event that throws some of his toys out of the pram. that's the joy and uncertainty of commodities trading.
I think the only thing I would add to your analysis are a few thoughts on China, banks and bonds, that are a bit like part of the background wallpaper to the current economic situation for me. Influences that are largely suppressed by the weird Chinese "command" economy.
Demand, or stimulating it, looks to be a current issue with the Chinese economy. The real-estate crisis alone is a monster as it comprises an estimated 40% of Chinese GDP. They have a massive trade surplus with the US, which because goods are paid for in USD leaves Chinese manufacturers with a massive surplus of Dollars. Their workers then need paying in Yuan, so the Chinese banks exchange the US Dollar holdings of the manufacturers to Yuan for them.
This leaves the Chinese Banks with enormous regular holdings in USD. For decades they have bought "ultra-safe" US Treasury Bonds, making them the biggest foreign holder of US Treasuries after Japan - $1.3 trillion in 2013, but still the best part of a $trillion now. The problem, in common with the US Regional Banks and many others, is that most of their holdings are long-dated low coupon bonds. Compare this with the newer higher coupon bond issues and which would you want?
If the Chinese dump them on the market en masse, the effect will be to force down the price of these bonds, thereby forcing up the interest payment on the bonds, and forcing up inflation. If Chinese labour then became more expensive to the US the US would buy less Chinese goods, which it would take away cheap Chinese imports that benefit US consumers.
The prospect of not containing the contagion from the issues with holding low-coupon bonds, for the Chinese Government, investment banks, hedge funds, and world banks generally, can only be alleviated with lower interest rates & inflation. Until that time it is a spectre at the feast for the bond market & futures market. And this will cast a shadow over any forecasts of rising oil demand for a time.