Member Info for HarChris

I'll do my best to remember that and see if you pop up next time BMN posts better-than-expected results. I highly doubt it but let's wait and see!

But you are, at least in as much as you wouldn't be here if the results were better than expected and the share price had rallied. So in that sense you are here because you think you have criticism that needs to be heard. You are not here come rain or shine, only downpours.

As for EBITDA rarely being a good metric, that's simply not true for growing small caps, it is essential to see if there is a profitable business hiding behind the expansion. Next year BMN will almost certainly make a profit unless the vanadium market turns majorly south. For that reason comparison of EBITDA will actually be more useful to see how much utility Vanchem Kiln 3 refurbishment has provided as it offers a like-for-like comparison with 2022, whilst the profit figure will be misleading in a sense (as all capex is stripped out).

Calamari, I know you're just here to paint the worst possible picture but I feel I always try to be balanced.

You know as well as anybody else that a small cap, in a year of significant investment and expansion, at least should be judged on both EBITDA and profit. Now you could say 'well if they are always expanding when are they actually going to show a profit?' And I would say, ha but they aren't always expanding, in fact they are halting expansion in 2023 to do exactly that, to post a much needed profit and firm up the balance sheet.

Now not only is there virtually no capex costs in 2023 BMN will also be benefiting from increased scale reducing costs and from output roughly 25% higher than in 2022. So simply taking this year's vanadium price YTD and 2023 delivers somewhere in the region of $45m - $55m profit before tax.

I think that's pretty damn good for a company with a NAV of $149m as it is and valued at $68m.

'The mcap as I type is £59 million. The company’s debts exceed this.'

True but this isn't an indication of just how high the debt is, it's an indication of just how low the market cap is currently.

BMN's assets are now valued at $297m, that dwarfs their debt & liabilities. In fact the PFA debt is long term so what we are talking about is ~$42m short-medium term liabilities vs $297m assets and a soon to be 5000mtV+ operation capable of generating $50m net profit in a healthy vanadium market.

Ridiculously valuation now thanks only to short term thinking and AIM panic.

Chaebol, I was thinking back today to that bet we were going to have. I think you started off by trying to bet AB £5k that Argo's hashrate would be 4.4EH or below by year end and he instead wanted the loser to delete their account.

I stepped in and was willing to bet you £10k on it, although not based purely on trust.

Glad we didn't go through with it!

If you trade a share you will never see the sort of losses that those have in Argo over the past 18 months, equally you will never see the sort of gains that those did in early 2021. There is no one strategy that is better than any other.

Of course anyone buying and selling over the past fourteen months is going to look at it differently, they are going to think 'look at how much better I've done trading than simply holding, it's the way to go!' , well duh, it's been on one long bear market down trend. It is equally possible that the next bull run plays out completely differently to the last, that miners, now established, actually see steady uptrending gains over ~18 months... in that case anyone holding will almost certainly be better off than anyone dipping in and out.

It's simply reductive to take one given period and conclude that a certain strategy is better than another.

Wasn't the Eth merge, if successful. expected to kickstart a major rally? Instead we're seeing month lows?

Completely agree with you B2. Whilst it's obviously possible the investor meeting turns out to be a damp squib once again it's also infinitely better to know that there's the possibility that DA has learnt from previous mistakes and that there are developments in the past couple of months that the management are keen to report and take questions on.

As you say investor meeting vs no investor meeting I'd take the former all day long.

AB I guess the difference with the likes of CLSK and Hut8 that are diluting now is that they're guaranteeing survival through this bear market, however bad it gets. We know that every one of these miners is going to multibag if they make it in one piece to the next bull run so in other words those companies playing it safe are more or less guaranteeing big returns to new investors buying in now (obviously nothing guaranteed*)...

Argo is taking a riskier approach. If the bear market is shorter than expected then sure, you'll see bigger returns but if it's closer to that worst case scenario, well, could see Argo forced to raise 6 months down the road at 25p just to keep the lights on and still they'd be in trouble if depressed prices remained for another 9 months after that.

In the meantime those raising money also have the option to buy the cheap rigs hitting the market.

No right or wrong way to play it without the benefit of hindsight but Argo's strategy certainly isn't objectively preferable.

The half year report will give us an updated cash position (11 weeks on from trading update) and the investor meeting a chance once again to see if they know what they are doing.

DA must have enough pride not to keep scheduling these investor meetings with nothing new to add…

Wealthy boy AB. Were you a big buyer from the 5p days?

Aldebaran is the grim reaper.

Remember this in full year 2020 trading update?
'In addition, the Company continues to support the DHSC and the NHS following the deployment of its rapid PCR testing system, for the contract with the DHSC, announced on 29 September 2020, and the Company is in active discussions with the DHSC to extend this phase of the contract. '

This was right at the peak of the winter wave - how much must novacyt have lost by dedicating resources to the DHSC instead of other parties? The DHSC must have given indication earlier in January that they may be good for a second phase for a statement like that to be included.

The Omega news is good for us imo, it casts doubt on the integrity of the DHSC once again.

What we keep seeing is on every bear rally, on every dead cat bounce, difficulty rising. There will come a tipping point where some of these miners are punished for expanding so aggressively - it’s merely compounding the losses at the mo.

@byp in other words all of them are rallying somewhat off the back of broader positive market sentiment? I don't doubt that is the case.

I've noticed over the past week that the Ask keeps hitting resistance every 2p, at a round number, first at 90 then 92 and now at 94.

Is this sort of thing common?

All being fairly quiet on here suggests a general upward move going on after the panic of last week - the 75p predictions have quelled for now at least.

As amateur as it comes.

The big positive, however, is the confirmation that (the ambitious) operations are developments are on track.

This rise, albeit tempered for now, is exactly what the doctor ordered for Argo.

Looks promising.

Oh fair enough. I mean it hit $25k a couple of weeks ago so isn't too hard to imagine reaching $30k again at some point in the next 3 to 4 months.

As it happens $25k would be enough to see them through the bear market I'd have thought.