Member Info for Libero

Completely agree with your assessment of Fortune. He’s the most amazing CEO in many respects but perhaps doesn’t have the razzmatazz the market seem to love.

He reminds me of someone I have to negotiate and work with in a professional manner who sometimes go v quiet and it leads me/others to think he’s not doing anything when actually he’s beavering away and making progress, he just doesn’t communicate it until he’s hit some major milestone or completed the job entirely. I find his lack of communication annoying but actually he’s great at what he does.

It’s fascinating to hear that he couldn’t answer the question re moving off AIM - that says that plans are already in place!

If you look at the 2019 Results RNS carefully you’ll see that the company spent $1m already on preparing for the JSE listing. It doesn’t mention anything about a main market listing but it shows that the company is preparing to finding a better market in order to be valued more fairly. Which I find hugely encouraging!

Give it time guys, it’s eventually going to become good here. Very very good!

Thanks for sending that email to JM and sharing it with us (even though it doesn’t look like you were meant to!)

However the sentence JM says here concerns me a little - where has he heard that? Why were the MMs expecting an issuance of new shares?

“I also suspect some short covering as some market makers may have been expecting an issue of new stock to pay for the Energy deal.”

Otherwise it’s a super positive email. It sounds like JM knows the results are gonna be really good, he believes V prices will increase this year, etc, so there’s plenty of reasons for optimism.

If the 1.5m sell deletion is down as a sell we’ll have a new blue start tomorrow morning and the mood on the board will improve.

And of course if I hear back from the FCA, the London Stock Exchange, or SP Angel in response to my email I’ll obvs let you all know

Best of luck all : )

Yes, I'm a regular reader of the Private Eye who jokingly refer to the FCA as the "Fundamentally Complicit Authority," so I'm not expecting much, but it can't harm the cause. Even if we can spook the MM to stop ****ing us around for a few weeks it'll be good!

#GetOffAIM

I've decided to send the below email to the following email addresses:

contact@spangel.co.uk
market.abuse@fca.org.uk
reportabuse@lseg.com - interestingly this email did not go through!
aimregulation@lseg.com

Feel free to do something similar / copy this in so this is not something they can ignore.

"Hi,

I’m a private investor who owns some Bushveld Minerals (LON: BMN) shares, and I’ve noticed unusual trading activity in recent weeks where very large sells are reported only to be deleted later on the same day or the next trading day.

For instance, there was a £200.63k sell around 9am this morning which then resulted in the share price declining 6.48% by the end of the day. Then, as soon as trading hours had finished, the £200.63k sell was ‘deleted.’

05-Aug-20 09:02:14 13.375 -1,500,000 Buy* 12.50 12.75 -200.63k O

I am unsure as to whether a sell deletion then counts as a buy (?) but, even if it does, it would still be a form of market abuse because it was evident that many private investors sold shares they otherwise wouldn’t have, possibly because they panicked upon seeing this £200k sell reported which dwarfed all other trades today, and therefore it would still have an unfairly negative impact on the share price.

Having had a quick look at the London Stock Exchange rules (https://docs.londonstockexchange.com/sites/default/files/documents/n0519_attach1.pdf), it appears as though it may breach rule 1400 (restated below for ease) since the sell was made during regular trading hours and, on the balance of probabilities, I believe this sell was made with the intention of deleting it thereafter.

"Entry and deletion of orders All orders entered on to the order book are firm. While the Exchange understands that trading decisions of member firms may change, member firms should not enter orders into the auction or during regular trading with the intention of deleting or otherwise amending them before execution. This can give a potentially misleading impression of the level of liquidity in the market or the likely auction uncrossing price and volume to other participants. Such activity may constitute a breach of rule 1400."

I understand this is merely one instance but these ‘sell’ trade deletions are occurring on an almost daily basis for the past few weeks I’ve been keeping on eye on this (possibly longer); and I believe it is unfairly forcing the share price and sentiment downwards.

I also understand it may look rather insignificant when we are trading about penny shares but I would urge you to investigate this because there are hundreds of private investors like myself who (rightly or wrongly) have invested a good chunk of our life savings into Bushveld Minerals; many of us are concerned whether the share price is being manipulated; and this instance is a good illustration of how the rules are possibly being ignored on an incredibly regular basis.

Hope to receive a response from you soon.

M

"When contacting the Exchange to request the deletion of an order or quote, the authorised person must provide the following information: • the name of the member firm; .... the reason for the request (e.g. system problems, building evacuation). For single order deletions (up to a maximum of five), the member firm must also provide the Order ID. If this is not available, the member firm should provide: • the name of the security; • whether it is a buy or a sell; • the price and size; and • the time the order was entered.

If a member firm requests the deletion of more than one order in a single security, each of the orders will count towards the maximum allowed number of five order deletions. The Market Supervision department will normally delete all orders within a particular segment. However, upon application, the Market Supervision department will consider the deletion of individual orders providing the total of individual orders does not exceed five."

So it sounds like deletions are only meant to be done in exceptional circumstances. Whereas we've had order deletions almost every day for weeks.

Also seems as though there is only meant to be a maximum of 5 order deletions. Not clear what timeframe (per day, per year, etc) but I wouldn't be surprised if there's been abuse of this rule too.

Interestingly the London Stock Exchange provides a phone number in order for MMs to contact them in the event of a problem...

"Market maker systems: In the event of a market maker system problem, the market maker should notify the Exchange that it is unable to update its quotes on the trading system. If system problems persist on subsequent business days, the market maker is required to notify the Market Supervision department on (+44 (0)20 7797 3666, (STX 33666) prior to the start of the mandatory period of each subsequent day."

"Entry and deletion of orders All orders entered on to the order book are firm. While the Exchange understands that trading decisions of member firms may change, member firms should not enter orders into the auction or during regular trading with the intention of deleting or otherwise amending them before execution. This can give a potentially misleading impression of the level of liquidity in the market or the likely auction uncrossing price and volume to other participants. Such activity may constitute a breach of rule 1400."

That 1.5m Sell was made during a regular trading period.

So if it was made with the intention of deleting the trade afterwards (can't see how that wasn't the intent) then it has broken the rules.

HaleSpur,

It might be classified (it should be) but, even so, when it has triggered a whole load of PIs to part with their shares when they wouldn't have otherwise I believe it is a form of market abuse since you can't un-do the effect it had when people thought the 1.5m sell was genuine.

In future, we should ignore these large sells as something that could be undone.

Also I believe we should report this as market abuse. I'm not sure how but am currently reading this to see if there's a way we can officially complain to the regulators.

https://docs.londonstockexchange.com/sites/default/files/documents/n0519_attach1.pdf

What the actual **** ???

Without that 1.5m Sell the share price would be 14-15p by now!

Yeah I agree, they must love this share. Loads of fickle PIs who are easily scared or distracted.

Precisely why I believe getting 1 or 2 IIs on board would be a great idea.

"The South African public company Eskom has recently launched a call for expressions of interest for the construction and maintenance of an 80 MW/320 MWh battery-based electricity storage system in the Western Cape Province. Companies interested in this project financed by the World Bank have until September 11, 2020 to submit their bids.
As part of the Eskom Renewable Energy Support Project (ERSP), the South African state-owned company has released a call for expressions of interest for electricity storage. The call is for companies interested in providing 80 MW/320 MWh battery storage technology at the Skaapvlei substation in the town of Vredendal, Western Cape Province.

Companies interested in the Eskom tender have until September 11, 2020 to submit their bids. The successful company will sign a contract with the state-owned company for the design, engineering, supply, construction, testing and commissioning of the electricity storage system with a minimum capacity of 80 MW/320 MWh. The duration of the works will be between seven and nine months.

World Bank financing
The company will also have to ensure the maintenance of the installation for at least 5 years. The construction of an electricity storage system in the Western Cape Province is also part of the Eskom Investment Support Project (EISP). ERSP and EISP are funded by the World Bank to improve the efficiency of the Rainbow Nation’s power grid.

The electricity storage component of the Eskom Renewable Energy Support Project includes a multi-phase battery installation programme. The first phase, which is the subject of this tender, will require an investment of 7.2 billion rand (over $415 million). Eskom will rely on a loan of 245 million dollars from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Bird), a subsidiary of the World Bank Group."

$415,000,000 for the first phase! WOW!

Largo has doubled in price since it reached its lowest point in March. If we had done the same we'd be close to 18p already.

Additionally IES's share price has more than doubled in the past few months.

The share price is lagging behind but that gap will close. Give it time. At least the fundamentals and the progress being made is all so positive.

Spot on - the MMs are trying many tricks in the book I believe to trick PIs into selling out

...which makes me more confident actually, because it suggests they know something good is on the way!

sending shares falling 6% - a lot for a major FTSE company - and well off yearly highs after they swung to a large loss.

Wonder how they'll respond...

https://www.sharesmagazine.co.uk/news/shares/glencore-scraps-dividend-as-net-debt-jumps

oh blimey, that's a massive difference then!

Either Largo are declaring things in a way which appears to overstate their production by almost 2x OR we should take a leaf out of their book because the stock market seems to lap it up!

SteveG,
Fairly sure Bushveld's vanadium ("Nitrovan" ) trades at a premium already so it'll probably only require V prices to reach $40/kgV for Fortune to get his ideal price of $45/kgV for his vanadium product.

Also Daisydog it's worth remembering how rapidly Bushveld's share price can increase. I've seen it multiple times and just a few months back we saw a ~40% rise in a day on 7th April.

What happened on 7th April to cause that? Nothing.

Says it all really as to how unpredictable the short term price movements can be!

Agreed, you can't let small intra-weekly movements affect your mojo too much. If it does, you're more likely to sell shares and find yourself regretting it as time goes on.

tbf there's loads of different research papers out there on this. Some predicting an average of 37% increases per year, and some more pessimistic like the one I posted, but they're all pointing one way, and that's firmly upwards!

If you look at the number of VRFB projects being announced (or due to be announced) and also look at what Voltstorage are doing (who have generated lots of press coverage btw) it's clear that V demand for VRFBs will rise significantly

And Bushveld is the only vanadium producer on the London Stock Exchange!

Hmm sounds like MM games to push the price up too fast in order to put off those looking to buy in and to encourage selling, in order to then walk the price down and cause some PIs to panic sell, which appears to have worked. As I said yesterday, the best thing to combat this is to hold on to your shares. Once the game hasn't worked for them, the MMs will have to bring the price back up.

Honestly does seem it is still just this 1 large seller holding this back - and perhaps spooking a couple of traders who don't realise what they're selling!

Once the seller takes finally runs out the share price should increase rapidly to 20p again.