Member Info for Happyhaddock

Metals typically do outperform miners at first, but good miners margins increase faster than metals prices, offering leverage to the metal price. You just have to give enough time for markets to be confident that the increased margins are a new normal and not a transitory flash in the pan

With such volatile metals prices, sensibly valuing precious metals miners has become a guessing game ...

By the time a company can actually put out results of cash flow and profit/loss even for a prior quarter, let alone a financial year, metals prices have moved so much that we know the next set of financial data is going to be so radically different as to make the data you are currently looking at obsolete.

However, if you believe the upward trend in metals prices is going to continue, and there are many reasons to believe this, then there is every reason to believe that at whatever point more data is released, it will likely sustain a higher valuation than the last lot of data ... That's reason enough for me to hold without having to put actual price forecasts on a company.

Well as a promotional exercise that interview did its job in highlighting the reasons to be optimistic, just like lots of previous promotional interviews with lots of previous directors did.

However, as has always been the case, the proof of the pudding will not be words but actions,

All junior explorers survive on marketing potential but they have to deliver on it to thrive... so will this time be different and deliver?

Well this morning's market reaction could prove .... er... shall we say INTERESTING

Clearly we have a dichotomy of views here on LSE between those who are either oblivious of, or willing to overlook, the past because they believe "this time will be different", and those who have heard the "this time is different" narrative many times before and who won't believe anything at all until they actually see it happen.

Regardless it is pretty safe to say that if UFO can't make money out of the commodities sector under the current economic circumstances we clearly don't deserve to be in business ... only time will tell what the future holds for UFO, where no doubt those with the strongest opinions here on LSE will continue to insist that they know what that future holds, whilst those with a better understanding of this risky sector will acknowledge that we can't know!

Why am I left thinking of a high speed game of musical chairs being played to the theme music from Benny Hill?

Any bets on how long this management line up will last at UFO?

@Dip666 - as is so often the case I find your words reflect my own thinking.

Years back I took a speculative punt on UFO based upon the potential of the assets - however knowing how risky the sector is I wouldn't spend more than I was willing to write off as an immediate 100% loss - basically I viewed buying a few very cheap shares as an "early option" on any future success that would allow me a lower average cost should I later decide things had advanced enough to invest proper money.

A lot has happened since then- the market cap of UFO is way higher, but allowing for dilution the share price is not materially higher now, although technically the SP is a whisker higher than when I first bought in.

Nothing about our transient management inspires confidence that this will become the sort of company I want to invest serious money in , but I did say years ago that I joined LSE to study the irrational reason resistant beliefs of the sort of speculators who drive the crazy spikes this sector is know for. With a commodities bull market starting it wouldn't be far fetched to suggest that UFO might get caught up in other peoples' crazy mania - we certainly know it has happened in the past.

After all I bought a lottery ticket today but that's only good for one draw where as the few shares I've held in UFO ... well who knows!

Typo - GRE is greentech's ticker not ERG

Back in December UFO announced a "conditional" JV with ERG, whilst today's RNS still describes ERG as "proposed" partners.

I was aware of ERG's need to raise funds as part of the JV deal which I thought they'd done, but is anybody aware of any other small print that means this JV hasn't yet been formalised despite news of others starting drilling at Munni Munni?

As I've said many times before, I'm always amazed at the conviction posters on LSE have in their own opinions about a sector that is noted for risk and uncertainty. The only thing we can say about UFO with absolute certainty is that we don't know what is going to happen in the future.

UFO had some excellent assets and have traded full ownership of most of these in exchange for making the advancement of them the financial responsibility of related third parties. Whilst not the route I would have preferred there's good and bad in that decision where only time will tell if it was the right thing to do.

Personally my biggest grief with UFO is the lack of management communication. Directors come and go with no explanation as to whether they were simply ineffective and booted out or expertly executing part of some secretive long term plan. Most small explorers announce plans, make attempts to follow those plans and fail through lack of skill, money or simply bad luck. As far as I can tell the biggest reason Alien remains a speculative gamble is we can't tell if we are sticking to our plan because nobody has announced what the plan is... markets don't like this and are understandably apprehensive given what appears to be five prior years of directionless dithering.

There are still reasons to be optimistic about UFO's potential, but also an awful lot of reasons to temper that optimism with a lot of cynical caution.

It seems odd to think that roughly this time last year our BOD put out an RNS stating "In the light of Market conditions for small mineral exploration companies raising money on the Market to support their ongoing operational needs, the Board has come to the decision that its existing operations in Australia do not, in their present state, form a financially viable basis for the Company's listing."

As we continue to wait for drill assays it is curious to note how in a volatile and uncertain sector what was once the latest topic of hot gossip has rapidly become outdated old news as this company has done a complete about face.

"Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level then beat you with experience"

Much as I've held a position in GGP going back many years I rarely post here now GGP has made the transition from a risky speculative punt that needed close attention for fear of what may happen next, to a more stable profitable business.

The wild nonsensical comments characteristic of a certain type of individual are still to be found here as they can be found on all bulletin boards, but there's no obligation to read them or engage with those who post them... you can just sit back and allow a capable management team to move GGP forwards and capitalise on a bull market for commodities, where it is good to see our share price move steadily upwards without the drama and volatility of the small explorers.

... a series of quotes that some may find rather apt...

" if you find yourself squabbling and want to identify the fool who is to blame, just look in the mirror"

"Arguing with fools does nothing but increase the number of fools present."

"Silence is the hardest response for the fool to understand and the most difficult for them to refute."

"Egotistical minds crave the oxygen of attention. Rather than fight them with words suffocate them with silence."

"Fighting trivial battles with inconsequential people is a task for small minds with big egos."

"The only people who look good during a petty squabble are those who resist participating."

Woof woof!

well it is that time again when i look back on my prior predictions and offer my half yearly thoughts on the months ahead.

for over five years this bulletin board's "rampers" endlessly claimed that our so called "flagship" project at hanc*ck would deliver ufo an "imminent" price re-rate. throughout that time i faced insults for highlighting both how volatile iron ore prices can jeopardise small iron ore miners slim profit margins, and for suggesting that ufo may struggle as hanc*ck was a long way off generating revenue; saying that as things typically take much longer than expected, my first date for appraising any progress would be 2025.

by the summer of 2025 our share price had fallen over 95% from 2020's wild spike above 3p, settling in to a trading range around 0.1p. at that point i repeated a prediction i've made many times; that it would likely remain safest to keep expecting more waiting rather than forecast meaningful progress at hanc*ck, and that our non-ferrous metals offered the better chance of good news. whilst this was prescient, i also expressed scepticism of this bulletin board's claims that ufo was just about to "multi-bag on a massive surge in silver's price" from the roughly $36/oz it was around at the time.

ufo's share price did spike up, constituting a "multi-bag" for any who bought below 0.1p and sold on the brief blip to 0.3p. however, i might suggest that our share price spiked before silver's price surge and has been falling as silver rose. that is to say ufo's share price momentarily hit 0.3p in august 2025 when silver was around $38/oz, was about 0.2p as silver broke its record high of $50/oz in october, and ends 2025 back close to 0.1p with silver now at $72/oz.

i still believe that the overhanging performance uplift payment may leave us waiting for meaningful progress at han****. i also question the reasoning behind recruiting a merry-go-round of transient directors, where i am disappointed in how they have diluted both our capital structure and ownership of our non-ferrous metals projects. so, whilst our jv partners must surely be more proactive than our own bod, i remain doubtful that these partners' efforts will fully mitigate the market's lack of trust in the motives of ufo's management.

at a broader level i have always encouraged patiently maintaining a defensive position to hedge against global uncertainty, where recent events continue to emphasise current geo-political and macro-economic mistrust. national leaders try to assure us that all is under control whilst attempting to kick the can far enough down the road to make it their successor's problem. i don't pretend to know how or when this will all come to an end, but those who prepared early should have done very well out of holding safe haven assets over the last six months.

UFO was a very speculative long term gamble when I bought in years ago based upon the potential of management to do something with interesting assets.

Today the potential of the assets is a little clearer, the capability and motives of our management much less clear. I suspect it is a bigger gamble now than back then based upon the efforts of out JV partners to mitigate the intentions of our own management. I've no intention of buying more and averaging up, but much as I have not been impressed by UFO I will maintain the small position I already hold. That said it does feel more like a trader's momentum play now, where those with longer term aspirations may be much safer buying shares in our partners than directly in UFO.

i like to think of myself as well versed in xrf having both studied the theory at uni and operated equipment in labs as part of my post grad work... the greatest inaccuracies tend to be in terms of operator interpretation more than than technical capability of the equipment.

in short it is a spot analysis technique that tells you much about very little, the danger is inferring that what it tells you is also applicable to all the rest you didn't test. much akin to sampling the crowd at a football game and concluding that everybody is aged 42 and called steve, because the person you asked was 42 and called steve.

if a geologist spots something interesting at the surface of a rock core pxrf will tell them what it is, however you need to crush and sample larger amounts of material to get a sense of overall average mineral content in rocks, not just zap the shiny surface flecks that caught your eye... that's why they send away samples to labs to be assayed, but it is good sign that pxrf is showing that what we are looking for is present. the more ****genous the material the greater probability that a spot test is going to be representative of the wider bulk sample.

I've said before that Brad George isn't a natural when it comes to marketing, but his matter-of-fact manner does suit good projects that naturally sell themself... what is perhaps more important than spin is the fact that when he speaks the lack of spin leads you to believe he understands both what he is doing and what he is saying and that they are just getting on with the job.

rare to find an explorer that you feel happy to leave to just get on with things without having to monitor closely for fear your investment may suddenly go up in smoke without warning.

@smiller, some years ago I contacted UFO saying that, whilst I didn't necessarily want individual names and addresses I wondered if they could give me a rough idea of the number of shareholders on the register and the rough proportion of the company owned by "large" or institutional holders and the proportion owned by small retail holders. I couldn't even get a response from them to tell me they me they were unwilling to share that information.

I did then briefly look into my legal rights to demand access to the shareholders register and concluded that whilst listed on AIM, things got complicated because of them being registered through the British Virgin Isles. Although a legal requirement there to maintain a shareholders register, this is seemingly a private document that has to be registered with the authorities only to be accessed by official parties who can demonstrate a legitimate need, not just other shareholders or the general public. Whilst far from clear it did seem to be possible for the company to even refuse access to those official parties if there was any suggestion of dispute where the information may be used against the company.

I wouldn't claim to fully understand the laws out there, but the confusion did reinforce my view of the place as being a tax haven for those wanting to shelter questionable business affairs away from prying eyes ... it was also one of the reasons I never risked more here than I was willing to write-off as an immediate 100% loss. More than five years on the share price is still around where I bought in, the assets still show potential, but its increasingly looking like a short term traders play thing, not something likely to deliver on the long term potential it once showed.