Member Info for Happyhaddock

@ wents - had I have wished to do so I could have gone off on even more of a tangent and come full circle back to where I started by explaining medieval tithe laws and how privately owning a quern stone for grinding your own flour was, for a brief period of British history, considered a form of punishable tax evasion ...

...however there's a point at which eccentric whimsy and a love of trivia crosses a line into what many consider plain weird, even if life is generally much more interesting on the other side of that line ;-)

@wents - a sorry sign of my mis-spent youth - others discovered women, music and alcohol - sadly they were in short supply in my neighbourhood so all I found were reference books. ;-)

" Emoluments (a word HH would appreciate)"

I do have somewhat of a penchant for the etymology of obscure vocabulary - so although utterly irrelevant to the topic of discussion, I believe the term derives from the old Latin verb for "to grind" and relates to the monetary reimbursement a farmer was required to pay a miller to turn their grain into flour. Which in turn is the origin of the expression "the daily grind" to refer to any monotonous and repetitious task done merely to earn a living.

Slimgizmo - In the grand scheme of things two years is a very short period in the typical development cycle of exploration projects/companies. However, if you've been in UFO for over two years as you say you have, then you should be in massive profit as the price before summer 2020 was around one tenth of a penny.

Each to their own and all that, but when investing in such companies I think in 5 year periods, anything within a single 5 year period is too subject to noise and volatility to be affected by deeper fundamentals, so within the bigger picture I wouldn't see 18months of price stagnation as meaningful or significant.

Hi Turbo, I can't speak for norm (though we often share very similar views) but I wouldn't so much say that we are setting the SP solely against profit, more acknowledging that the value of assets that aren't producing revenue is a very subjective thing. So rather than attribute any specific valuation of our own to non-producing assets we've simply calculated an additional value from potential profits from Hanc*ck to add to the value the markets have currently placed collectively on all our assets.

No doubt over time as we advance our other assets the markets will ascribe more value to them, but until they are actually producing and can be valued based upon conventional profit/loss accounts their value will remain a subjective number which is heavily discounted based upon best guesses of when they might start to generate revenue and how much.

Long term (and I know my definition of long term may be greater than many) but I've said before that I feel UFO is a company with the potential to reach a multi-billion dollar mkt cap and a SP above £1, it's just that I don't see such valuations on the visible horizon. There's a heck of a lot of work to be done to get to there from where we are now, but we just have to keep moving forward one day at a time.

In the short term I've said before that I expect our SP to stagnate a little longer and that whilst making price forecasts is a fools errand, I do feel that we may start to see a gradual change in sentiment around April 2023.

@normbeef - difficult to disagree with all you say about everything at this stage being hypothetical and based upon estimates, perhaps the only thing I'd add is that in a ramp up phase of a new operation the tendency is for the initial months to be be very low on production whilst just testing equipment and improving processes; aiming to hit final "target" volumes only towards end of the ramp up period. It's rarely a case of running each month at the same lowered capacity from day one.

UFO have indicated target production volumes once fully operational of roughly 1.25Mt per year (just over 300,000t per quarter) but much less in the first twelve months of ramp up. Of the approx. 750,000t you base your first year calculations on it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that a good chunk of that would be produced towards the end of the first twelve months of ramp up as things get close to operational target levels; which, if starting Spring 2023, could end Spring 2024 . As such it might be that by mid 2023 even if "producing" it might be early days at minimal tonnages for test purposes only and that by the end of 2023 the total for 2023 could still be closer to 500,000t than 750,000t.

That might reduce the figures you come up with a little, however within the overall uncertainty of all the estimated input figures we aren't talking accurate forecasts anyway. Plus although we have spent more than a year talking about increasing our percentage ownership of our iron ore licenses, lets not forget until the paper work is formally signed off we are only half owners of this project and any profits it generates.

Alternatively another way of looking at it is to say in progressing from MRE to becoming an operational miner of a comparable scale/ambition to our hanc*ck project, Fenix added the equivalent of roughly £60m to their mkt cap. then subsequently lost about half of that as ore prices slumped, regaining a little as prices started to recover. So, assuming by that point we have assumed our >90% ownership, comparable growth would take our mkt cap to very roughly £60m-£90m or a SP of 1.3p to 1.9p - but again this is more vague estimates based upon loose comparisons and many assumptions about UFO's future rather than hard facts.

@ normbeef - you been borrowing my hymn sheet to sing from? ... reading your last post made me wonder if I'd written it.

Thanks for the kind words - but I only consider myself wise enough to know I'm just as capable as anybody else of making mistakes and losing money.

One pearl of wisdom that has stood me in good stead and which may be worthy of repeating is the notion that if you are excited about an investment the best thing you can do is walk away and come back when you can think about it dispassionately... So, whilst disdain is probably too strong a word to use, the above does explain my general disregard for a lot of what is posted in bulletin boards which at times can be almost exclusively immediate gut reaction driven by emotion rather than calm rational analysis, something I myself can be just as guilty of as anybody else.

Hi,

not a shareholder here but just a quick note of thanks for the kind words about my post elsewhere... I just try to bring a little common sense to bulletin boards at times they seem to lack in such things... of course common sense is a subjective thing but you tend to know if you've hit the right note when a post is so well received.

BB - that seems a fair assessment. The data, along with many anecdotal accounts, implies that far too many go in into markets naively believing they'll make a quick buck, lose a little through their ignorance and then dig themselves further in to a hole trying to rapidly undo that damage.

Those who know just how stacked against them the odds are and the timescales over which companies typically grow or fail may not fair any better, but you can be pretty sure that the informed will be more cautious which may just be enough to tip the balance in their favour. I've often joked that self belief in ones actions comes from ignorance of how much you don't know, and self doubt from a thorough understanding of how much you still have to learn.

I could (some might say I endlessly do) warn of the risk of investing and why UFO operates in one of the riskiest sectors in the market. Either by good luck or by good judgement of all the risks I've bought UFO at the right time and even at current prices my holding is showing me multi-bag profits. It's been close to two years since I last added to my position here and I sense that we may have to endure stagnating price action for a little longer, so whilst the price looks decent value at the moment I'm in no rush to add any more immediately.

That said whilst predicting future price moves is a fools errand I have previously stated that I feel various factors seem to be hinting at a change in sentiment around April 2023 so I've still every faith in UFO as a long term investment. If things move a bit sooner or later then no big deal, part of understanding and managing risks is investing on the basis that many of you predictions may be wrong and then minimising the consequences of being wrong.

BB - you ask about the source of my statistics. A wide variety of places compile data about investor performance in different markets and unsurprisingly no two ever come up with exactly the same figures so the numbers I mention are more loosely representative than a direct quote of any single source.

Many European brokers and public trading platforms are required by law to publish warnings about the percentage of their clients that lose money actively trading. One old list from about three years ago comparing twenty popular brokers spanned from just above 80% to just below 70% losing money. The downturn in markets may have made the current situation worse where the first result Google threw up for me just now was for E-Toro which recently suggested that 80% of their users lost money. No doubt there will be differences between short term traders and long term investors but a more detailed break-down of data wasn't offered just broad brush overall averages.

Larger "establishment" institutions like NASAA the North American Securities Administration Association published data suggesting over 70% of traders lose money. The US securities exchange suggested that 70% lose money every quarter and on average it takes just twelve months for the average day trader to lose all their investment. A study of investor behaviour by the specialist American research firm Dalbar found that the average investor underperformed the markets as a whole for all of the previous 25 years studied, whilst in the most recent year included in their study the average investor lost 9.42%.

The Arizona State University analyzed the performance of approx 26,000 publically traded stocks over almost one hundred years. This study showed that the average stock only traded for about 7 years and then lost all of their money. Out of all those thousands of stocks just 86 of the largest and most well known companies (one-third of 1%) were responsible for half of all market gains, suggesting the odds were against all those who invested in any of the other 25,900 or so smaller stocks. In spite of this statistic almost all private investors show great faith in their own ability to find small overlooked stocks which will beat the markets.

In terms of statistics suggesting much more than 75% lose money, a recent study in Taiwan suggested that over the course of a year only 5% of traders actually made profits. A similar study in Brazil came up with a figure of just 3%.

If you think private investors do poorly then recent American SPIVA statistics suggest that over the last 15 years more than 80% of professional fund managers also underperformed passive market trackers, though I've not seen data for how many actually lost money.

It's a fascinating subject for those interested which you can't do justice to on a bulletin board, but Google really is your best friend if you want to look for a wide variety of articles and statistics to compare.

I've long been sceptical about claims of bullish "rampers" being able to drive up share prices, or of "de-ramping trolls" driving them down. Nevertheless when prices don't behave as expected, some will throw accusations at others before admitting their own expectations were unrealistic. So, let us look at a few facts.

Statistics show that most active investors underperform passive market trackers, and that about 75% actually lose money trading on line. A related statistic shows that with the growth of web-based share dealing, the average time an equity is held as an investment steadily fell from over a decade to a few months (under a minute including institutional high frequency trading). It seems logical to assume that those who chose to invest in a company will think more favourably about its prospects than those who chose not to. The narratives of most LSE bulletin boards tend to be dominated by a minority of a company's most passionate shareholders who post many times every day about its potential upside whilst fiercely contesting any talk of downside risk or short term volatility. Yet if prices actually adhered to their narratives predicting imminent growth, how do so many lose money?

Only a few dozen do post on this UFO board, so we presumably have several hundred silent shareholders who don't. Our share price moves up or down with minimal correlation to the often polarised comments written here. This suggests that this board has little influence on that silent majority's beliefs or actions; that most either don't read it or that they give little credibility to things written by strangers on the internet.

UFO have been steadily advancing several projects and actively promoting their potential to be truly transformative for the company over the coming years. This is presumably why our share price is now multiples of what it was when Bill Brodie Good joined us about three years ago? In my opinion this justifies why I have been, and remain, a patient long term share holder in UFO. However, it gives no clues about what the share price may do over the next few weeks.

So does any of the above matter? No single investor can move a share's price but we can each moderate our own expectations by basing them upon facts released by the company rather than the views of strangers. If an investment outperforms your expectations you should have no complaints. If an investment repeatedly fails to meet your expectations at what point do you question if your own expectations are realistic? Or at least ask yourself if you have allowed enough time to fulfil a realistic expectation?

I don't dispute that there may be one or two who naively think that by dominating the narrative here with their barrage of propaganda they can actually move a share's price up or down. However, if there are complaints, I'd suggest they are mostly that prices do not move to meet the wild short term forecasts some make here, not complaints that prices do.

@Max111 - that's my point... we've been getting comments like that for many months but no actual date or detailed statement about exactly what we are still waiting on to finalise the deal.

Given the amount of good news in today's RNS, the one thing that struck me as conspicuous by its absence was something I mentioned only yesterday.

That is it has now been just over twelve months since we first announced that we intended increasing our percentage ownership of our iron licenses, since which we've had odd mentions about being "nearly there" in terms of that deal being done with Winfield. Given how much effort is going into advancing Hanc*ck it would be good to hear that it is now all ours (or at least the >90% ownership the deal promises) as for the time being were are technically advancing a jointly owned project.

Has anything been said lately about an actual ETA for signatures on all the paperwork or some specific detail about what is still needed to get us over the line with Winfield?

In short - great geology but management screwed up.

New management have had to raise a lot of cash to get us out of a mess but we now seem to be pointing in the right direction - how quickly we start moving again I'll leave for others to decide.

@normbeef - with you on that, for a tiny company the size of UFO it doesn't need much to be game changing - if we can end 2023 largely (totally?) debt free and be generating revenue to self fund exploration that will put us in another league compared to where we are now.

In my opinion the potential long term rewards have always outweighed the short term risks here... and as we keep moving forward those rewards keep looking a little nearer and a little more dependable.

also, without wishing to put a downer on a good news day, initial plans were for the first year of production to be a ramp-up year of lower production.

Until we get details about an off-take agreement and up to date costs/prices we won't know for sure what our books will look like, but it may be prudent to assume that any income in 2023 might not be available to fund other exploration work but will go towards covering the initial cap-ex costs of getting in to production.

steady progress and a clear indication of how much is going on behind the scenes.

At some point positive news will translate into positive share price moves ... let's see if that wants to happens today or if the markets want to keep us waiting longer and need even more to improve sentiment?

seems a nice addition, but as has been implied it is extra dilution before we are actually generating revenue.

It also seems that it has been ages that we have been getting "sort of" loose confirmations that we are "nearly there" in terms of "almost finalising" the increased percentage ownership of our existing iron licenses. Would be good to see us nail that down once and for all on the iron projects we are already spending money on advancing .

@Max I believe what I said was that based upon expectations of increasing news flow potentially improving sentiment, I thought the SP may go up in the second half of 2021 but that I wasn't going to put exact dates or prices to any prediction. That if actual news wasn't perceived to live up to expectations then by Christmas the price may have dipped again... as it was the price didn't move up on expectations since which I've been suggesting that as we failed to recover sentiment quickly we may have to endure a long period of price stagnation before things finally pick up for us.

The fact that so many here, myself included, have been proved wrong in our expectations proves the point I made below.

There are however degrees of being wrong in that I've not been endlessly calling almost every move as the start of an explosive and imminent move upwards.