Member Info for HarChris

New low about to be posted but some on here will tell you that the buying pressure is off the chart and the MMs are running out of shares

@Eddie @badboxer there is no right or wrong answer, it depends on whether or not you believe the new partner is going to follow through and the placing goes ahead. If you think it will Argo is safe for the time being, the share price will v likely recover (at least temporarily) to around the placing price (and hence 60% gains to be had).

If it doesn't go through we are seeing 10p or even lower. That's the gamble.

I joined the party this morning. In this very uncertain climate the safest and prudent investing approach is to buy companies free from debt and if possible those with enough cash runway to see through at least the next 6 months and ideally 12 months.

Abingdon ticks those boxes and even better, has cash equivalent to the price in which I got to buy in.

Are you serious? These miners are more or less identical, they have very little that discerns them from one another, no unique IP, just machines that depreciate fairly rapidly and real estate to house those machines. If Argo is unable to generate enough profit over the coming years to pay off its debts ($60m loan notes to be repaid + more likely to be taken on in future) then it will go into administration and the administrators will sell those machines to get back as much of the debt owed as possible.

If this placing goes through I'm pretty confident Argo survives the 12 months, even if BTC were to tank from here (I think hash rate will eventually capitulate if that plays out) but currently I would lean towards them being out of business in the next three years. This sector is very much survival of the fittest, or survival of the richest... there isn't room for dozens and dozens of major entities all doing the identical thing.

Argo knew this and this is why they set out to become a digital asset company rather than bitcoin miner but it simply hasn't materialised and now they are at the back when it comes to the mining. Certainly money to be made from here if things turn around (and there are scenarios in which it can happen) but the odds are stacked against them at the mo.

0134 what you say is only half true though. If they were to drop out of this deal you're right, the value would drop even further but they wouldn't be able to just buy Argo outright without bumping the share price right back up and also, what Argo needs is money so that wouldn't work out very well anyway, they'd still be going under.

The partner has a choice of going through with the deal (and seeing the SP at least rally to something close to what they are paying and hence not losing out too much) or pull out and sink Argo.

Very few on here are questioning bitcoin's staying power, the majority of the bears are more like me and are concerned that bitcoin doesn't recover soon enough to save Argo. We still expect another bitcoin bull run but it's whether or not Argo is positioned to make the most of it or even there to see it.

Finances are evidently very worrisome, they absolutely need the funding from this new partner and if not they absolutely need bitcoin to pick up in the coming months and to then get a placing away to not only keep the lights on but to join in on the way back up.

I don't think that's true at all Chaebol, sure there were a few idiots on here that pumped constantly and tried to shoot down any negative but on the whole there's been all sorts of opinions for a good year now and it has made for an enjoyably board to be involved in. I've been on bb's where almost all negative posts are reported and end up removed, this is far from that.

As for this placing what happens next with bitcoin has got to factor in to the likelihood of the investor following through with their funding, right? I mean if bitcoin were to fall to $15k overnight and the investor doesn't have to cough up $27m for 15% of the company then the chances are they are going to walk away...

If I was holding here right now I'd be praying for BTC to hold up above $19k through this week at the very least.

Just to highlight my earlier point.

Corz new 52 week low today
Bitfarms new 52 week low today
Clean Spark new 52 week low today

I think a lot of the know it alls are talking bolloc** frankly. There's little difference between the approaches miners have taken, they all got sucked into the hype last year, none of them aggressively sold BTC anywhere near the top (some still haven't sold any), none of them prepared for a crypto winter. Some of them did raise more but that was partly thanks to already being on the nasdaq and the premium their share price therefore had, possibly some of the other CEOs had a little more experience than Peter too.

There are plenty of examples but none more notable that Core Scientific. They have expanded so destructively that they are now mining over 5% of the entire network, nearing 50 BTC a day and yet their existence is very much at threat. Corz bought BlockCap for $1.46B for example and yet 9 months later it has been revalued at ~$70m!

I'm also not as down on PW as many others. He's made mistakes sure, the biggest imo in the way he communicated with shareholders and therefore becoming beholden to them (yes shareholders wanted them to gamble, to keep up with the rest, to take on debt etc , this all supported the SP at the time). The failure to secure a ppa is another mistake and that could turn out to be argo's downfall but the the biggest factor is the worse than expected decline in the macroeconomy, the far sharper than expected decline in the price of BTC and the sharp increase in electricity. Even BTC trading between $25k-$30k would have kept Argo comfortably afloat for a while longer and given them time and options.

We wait to see what happens in regards to this placing. I struggle to believe that the mgmt will have fuc*** up to such a degree that the LOI means nothing, that it falls through and Argo itself goes into administration. I doubt that, I expect it goes through and the share price jumps to ~25p and they carry on but of course if it does turn out to be the outcome then PW will ultimately be to blame and there would be simply no defence for such a monumental error...

I know this is slim consolation but I do genuinely feel for you AB, whilst always a risk this last week has been shambolic and has left the company’s future in the balance.

I certainly hope that this turns out to be a huge overreaction and the placing goes through and you recoup the hundreds of thousands of pounds you must be down this week.

I bet there's posters here on huge averages and massive losses who are patting themselves on the back this morning for catching the bottom at 15.8.

Feel awful for all those still in but... wow... this is some bloodbath.

Well my guess of ~22p bottom has been beaten, ugly price action going on that's for sure.

If there is no binding agreement than yes the strategic investor has enormous power to control the near term share price from here, I find it quite staggering if that's the case.

Yes it would be incredibly unscrupulous and immoral to pull the rug now but this is business and a lot worse than this goes on. To short argo before pulling the rug though? That would be illegal I'd have thought.

It just seems to me that he's trying to be as honest as possible going forward and they are therefore not anticipating much demand for their covid tests this winter. Why they expect it to be so low though I'm not sure.

I suppose there's the slight possibility that he's done this to have the option to revise guidance upwards in October/November but personally I doubt we will see that.

Kaeren, I completely agree that it's odd but I just can't see any reason why David would offer such guidance if this wasn't what he was actually expecting? There was no need to give an expected figure for Q4 if there was a decent probability of increasing revenues. Even Q1 2022 which included the huge omicron winter surge only came in at £13m when some of us (including myself) thought we might be seeing the last big quarter at ~£30m.

If anything if revenue from covid products does pick up in Q4 it looks even more amateurish that revenue never comes in anywhere close to guidance.

So argo will be valued at ~$145m once these shares are issued, maybe worth comparing with one of the miners considered by many to be a bargain.

CLSK - 448 coins mined in September, Hash rate up to 4.16 EHs, HODL 594, able to continue expanding whilst selling less bitcoin than they are mining. Market cap $136m today as it reaches a new 52 week low.

The one to watch.

Okay true, nothing is guaranteed, however it does make it extremely likely even if BTC were to drop to sub $15k (others with huge debt will be forced into administration before Argo now / difficulty will drop to make up for it).

As I said before it's highly likely that this action will keep Argo in business into late 2023 and most likely to the next bull run - their existence after that hinges on getting absolutely everything right, both strategically and through good fortune and hence the odds are well against them.

Exactly, it's very common for institutions to sit out during downturns and then take big chunks in a company via a placing, it's far better for them than buying in on the open market.

The share price is only this low *because* of the announced placing and hence in a sense the investor agreed to buy shares at 27.6p when the share price was 35p, a significant discount.

Whilst moving earlier would have been advantageous and probably meant a placing closer to 37p this raise both guarantees survival for the next 12 months and, if in the unlikely event BTC reverses sooner than expected, frees up some funds to expand earlier than otherwise they'd have been able to.

Still, until the funding is closed successfully it's a risk buying, we're looking at an immediate +20% / - 25% scenario depending on the outcome.

At this stage we can't be linking covid with improved sentiment and a pick up in revenue after the half year report just 10 days ago ago included this:

The Company does not expect demand for its COVID-19 products to pick up in Q4 2022 as previously anticipated, therefore, the Board expects Q4 2022 revenue to be similar to Q3 2022 resulting in an anticipated EBITDA loss for the full year of circa £13.5m.