Member Info for Hexam

Ashley's buying has been the only real highlight of the last year which has otherwise seen continued poor performance and a stagnant share price.

On top of that the company has gone radio silent and this board is also so much quieter than it was last year with just a handful of regular posters and only a few of those actually invested.

The simple explanation is that a once darling investment that has fallen out of favour and out of the spotlight with investors finding interest elsewhere but if you want to stick to your conspiracy theories then fair enough, as you say. each to their own.

"Just shows how unregulated AIM is, this time last year average daily volume was over 8m"

No, it just shows the comparative lack of interest in the stock compared to last year. Speculating that the low volumes are somehow linked to some kind of manipulation just shows desperate, delusional and in denial thinking as well as a complete lack of understanding as to how the market works.

If there is anything to get the market excited in BOO again then volumes will quickly pick up once more.

"If history is anything to go by the Final Results are due out around the end of this month."

They have to report by the end of this month as all AIM companies must report their audited final results within six months of their financial year end. Hopefully they'll be an update on more recent progress alongside the year end numbers.

You seem to have missed out all the Argo specific missteps (the polite word) that mean that they are in no position to take advantage of the next bull cycle.

The only retail investors that will be ‘interested’ and follow ARB are those that haven’t done any research and are just jumping on the BTC bandwagon - and probably not able or willing to invest in the overseas miners for whatever reason. Or are just plain stupid. Sorry to be blunt.

There may well be some short term gains to be made here but anybody thinking this is a decent long term investment should really do some homework or perhaps even just find another hobby.

"Only a matter of time before the lifestyle bragging. Can't help himself!"

looks like SCB has got some competition...

Trouble is that those green shoots have been growing for so long now without blossoming into anything more substantial.

Posters have been banging on about website visits, the growth of the online market, the death of the high street, the turning of the economy etc. etc. for ages now. None of it has shown up much in BOO's actual numbers and until it does I think most will remain sceptical that it ever will.

"Retail aren't even interested yet in ARB or Bitcoin."

That seems a bizarre statement. It was retail that pushed ARB to over £3 and I think it is fairer to say that there used to enormous retail interest but that this has now largely ebbed away.

As for the sp, that continues to defy all logic and is so far enjoying a blue day despite bitcoin's wobble and the company's desperate financial situation. Hopefully you haven't shorted it yet HC?

As for BTC that was powered by retail with the institutions becoming interested only relatively recently.

"Some bad news definitely stiring in the back ground"

Quite possibly, but equally it could just be reflective of a diminishing of interest/loss of confidence that is gathering some more pace now. This board has become very quiet of late (very far from being 'infested'). It really needs some positive news on testing to spark it into life otherwise the continuing drift downwards seems inevitable and the risk is that the sells start to snowball as more people panic. So even if there isn't any bad news on the horizon they just assume that there is.

I can't believe it's a shorting attack as surely then the activity would be much higher (in terms of both trades and posts on this board/other negativity being pushed) - besides the sp is pretty much on its knees already.

I'll try and simplify it for you then micoley.

I don't short full stop. It is too risky for me and I wouldn't know how to anyway.

But even if, as you say, I did put in the research on how to short I still wouldn't do it on ARB for the simple reason of however confident I am of the longer term future (or lack of it) for ARB I have no idea how the sp will move in the short term. The sp could easily double (or more) for any number of reasons - BTC surging massively, significant director buy-in, surprise new Galaxy deal, buyout rumours (an actual buyout seems highly implausible) or other 'rumours'.

Anybody with a short would be crucified even though none of the above is likely to help long term prospects much.

So I'd be an idiot to short something where I knew there is sizeable risk that I could lose big time in the short term.

In other words I don't think this in an open goal at all despite my bleak view on their long term prospects.

In fact I still have some investment here in the stubborn hope of a short-term spike for whatever reason but most has been moved to other bitcoin miners which are much safer (relatively speaking) investments, with actual growth possibilities and where thankfully I have already recovered all my losses from ARB (even if it goes to zero).

You obviously didn’t read HarChris’s post properly as he gave very clear and reasonable answers as to why he won’t short Argo - which happen to be the same reasons I wouldn’t either even though I’m also as sure as I can be that the company has no future beyond about a year tops.

HC - I don’t know the details of the resolutions they were voting on and just assumed they related to payments yet to be made.

If it is past awards though then like you I’m not sure what happens next as Corporate Governance is not an area I’m that familiar with - certainly on this particular sort of thing.

Perhaps 'receive' really means 'accept' in this context? Strange nonetheless.

Yes, the vote on the accounts was what really caught my eye. Not sure what would have been the implications had a few more voted the other way?

I can't easily imagine BOO losing this case but can't understand the reference to 'ring-fenced money'. I'm not aware of any provision in the accounts in the unlikely event they lose so it will not only hit cash but also profits too. On any legal bills just fighting the case they will obviously have something in their general budget for legal costs but they would still clearly be better off if they didn't have to contest it. In any event still an(other) unwelcome distraction.

So hopefully just a nuisance with some smallish, unnecessary cost attached and no more.

My understanding is that the chip they are developing is purely for testing their own ideas and so this does not conflict with the statement of potential deals with chip manufacturing companies for actual use of their methods in production. Whether either comes to fruition is, of course, an entirely different matter.

HC - I think the bit you may be 'missing' is the drop in direct costs - basically electricity/hosting fees. These were around $3.5m per month in Q1 but in May were only $2m. So that's a $1.5m improvement and so whilst revenue has dropped a huge amount the costs have also tumbled.

As CB suggests a lot of this may just be seasonal pricing alongside the (smaller) impact of switching off machines temporarily and any other 'optimization'.

So cash burn is a lot better than the Q1 financials suggest it ought to be.

The $1m CB came up with certainly won't be far off as we know the revenue and (from the margin) the direct costs and it's unlikely the fixed overheads will have gone up much whilst the interest should be a little lower if anything. The only big unknown is any one-off costs they may have been hit with in the month.

Looks about right CB but did you mean $1m?

The 30% certainly suggests a lot of 'optimization' going on in whatever form this takes as this figure is a lot better than the Q1 financials point to it being.

Yes, marginally lower HC. Agree the situation is dire and is worse than expected - just not quite as bad as the numbers at first suggest perhaps.

We can't know what the exact cash burn is (as info is out of date and we can't be sure of the full reasons behind the drop - beyond halving of course) but hard to imagine they have more than a few months left without new funds.

Just ignore Oppie - he's just yet another of those tiresome posters that unfortunately plague these boards who shout their book without much of a clue of what they are actually shouting about.

The Q1 accounts indicated that the direct cash costs of mining would be close to the revenue generated post-halving and therefore to it being uneconomic to mine i.e. they would possibly be financially better off by shutting down rather than mining.

This, together with the phrase used of "optimization of the Company's fleet's efficiency settings" suggests to me perhaps that they have actually reached this point and are shutting down the machines at times when the revenue generated is not even covering the direct costs of running them (let alone all the other costs).

So it is possible the drop in revenue below that expected is due to switching off machines at times when they are better off doing so. Or it could just be weather induced or simply random variation (they are only around a couple of blocks below expectations).

If they are shutting down periodically though to save money it means the cash burn is lower than the numbers would at first suggest.