Member Info for lootgaloot

Setanta1, I can certainly believe what you are saying. Poor regulation combined with MM who are prepared to manipulate price for as long as they can; it does not make for a level playing field.

I repeat that I have no knowledge in this area but if something doesn't sound right I'm going to question it. What you have said makes perfect sense. My issue is with posters who only see price manipulation when the share price goes down. Funny enough, when prices are going up, you never hear any one say that MM are manipulating to achieve a higher price.

My second issue is that the "MM playing games" trope becomes like a religion for some posters. Keep repeating that and you never have to ask the more difficult question "is there something more fundamentally wrong".

Anyway, none of this is specific to INFA and is probably boring for most posters but I find it interesting nevertheless.

I'm not a MM, I don't know any MMs and I don't work in the financial industry. So I cannot claim to be an expert. As I admitted in my post, I'm sure such fun and games do occur. It may have come across that I am a believer in the 'efficient market theory'. This is not the case, I know that human nature and human greed play a role.

We all have our way of understanding the world, perhaps it’s because of my background in physical science (Chemistry) that I see the world as rules based.

In fact a better analogy would be as a game of football. Each player will try to cheat/dive/gain an unfair advantage and may sometimes succeed. However, each player is also constrained within the rules of the game. If it were a ‘free for all’ the game would very quickly descend into chaos.

I cannot believe any system (whether it is a chemical reaction, a game of football or the financial markets) can remain stable without rules or constraints acting upon its participants. Abuses may occur in isolation or over short periods but for a MM to walk down a share price to a fraction of its true value over an extended period of time?

Si_Derman, yes, I’ve seen it many times. The most enthusiastic rampers are often the first to bail out.

I’ve never fully bought into the “market makers playing games” trope. The MM function is to create a market, they make their profit on the spread; the difference between the ‘bid’ and ‘ask’ price. It’s a pretty sweet deal and you can make a tidy profit by operating conservatively. Why take the risk of pushing the price somewhere if the ‘market’ doesn’t agree?

Greed! I hear you say.

Well OK, but with greed comes risk. The MM can try to work the share price down to an artificially low level but they are taking a huge punt. They effectively become a speculator. Drop the price and you risk having to sell your shares at a low price to investors who recognise the true value of the share. Suddenly the MM finds itself low on shares but still with the obligation to create a market. It has no choice but to buy back the shares it sold cheaply but at a higher price. Why take the risk?

It makes sense to me that the MM would prefer zero risk while also taking a nice tidy profit on the spread. The big money comes when millions of transactions are executed per second. It is more lucrative for the MM to create a high volume of transactions. Price distortion will only reduce the number of transactions while taking on unnecessary risk.

In fact the MM isn’t completely immune from risk. Every time it changes the bid and ask price it has to push its luck a little. You could call it price discovery. The art is to keep that risk to a minimum while still making your profit on the spread.

OK, I’m not completely naive. I realise that come 4:30pm everyone clocks off and meets up in the boozer after work. MMs have a few drinks with the traders while rubbing shoulders with journalists. A few nods and winks are exchanged and I agree; it is possible for market insiders to act in concert to manipulate a share price and the MM is a very important actor in such a band of thieves.

But I stand by my assertion that any price manipulation is to swim against the tide of where the ‘market’ determines the price should be. This is my two cents or as BlairPeach said much more succinctly… “An 85% fall in 2019 purely due to manipulation?”

Actually now that I think about it, it sounds legit...

14m new shares = £118m = January placing (£100m) + Thoughtonomy (£20m)

The £40m raised through share allocation to employees and non-employees sounds like a legitimate employee savings scheme? Employees pay in with the option on shares at some date in future.

Distinction between employees and non-employees could be employees based in Warrington and non-employees are the 'digital robotic workers' based in offices worldwide (as per website).

The above is all guesswork dyor.

From website: "Blue Prism has over 100 employees plus more than 100 of our own digital robotic workers based out of offices in Newton-le-Willows and London (UK), Miami, Chicago, New York, Austin and San Francisco (US) and Sydney (AUS)"

So, with 200 employees that's £200K per employee (because I'm sure it was distributed evenly). £200K would go a long way in Warrington. Unless your suggesting that these mysterious non-employees have helped themselves to the lions share.

A big one day drop for a FTSE-100 share though. Nothing in the news, strange.

Good question. £23m on the acquisition of Toughtonomy. Not sure about the rest.

When you go on twitter you are engaging with the 5% of the population who are 'activists'. The other 95%, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker will see positives as well as negatives. Don't make it easy for the 5%, anybody can cut and paste from these boards.

Really? We're now calling local people with a concern for their community as "look as if they escaped from the mental asylum". You do realise these boards can be read by anyone? Including locals who may be in two minds re the benefits of the project? The Marine Licence is not in the bag yet and you are determined to make this confrontational with the locals.

No issues for me. Bought several months ago and sold today. Both buy and sell went through as any normal deal on Halifax SIPP account.

Regards VNH as an investment. China contraction will probably have a ripple effect to other SE Asian economies. Chinese GDP is probably way overstated. A property crash, trade war with US and increasing scrutiny of IP theft will drag China into recession imho. Of course they wont admit this but it's effects will be seen across the region.

Tom Winnifrith

The way the ramper boys are grooming helx is hilarious.

Post from dawski37 over the weekend described Islandmagee as “Pitiful, abandoned, decrepit, in dire need of investment of all types, dejected, rejected, hopelessly cut off”.

Apparently all over social media now.

Careful what you say on these boards. Rural Ulster communities are a proud people who know how to dig their heels in if needed. To a local, this discussion board represents the views of ‘big city investors’.

If you want to win friends and influence people show a little more courtesy. The way Leesadee was spoken to also came across as arrogant and at times aggressive.

Speaking as a neutral non-shareholder.

Slavettt, have you even looked at the accounts? Last year revenues of £55m resulting in an operating loss of £26m. What Irene is saying should come as no surprise. In fact, I'm sure we would all find it more interesting if you "ran the numbers" and show us how cash burn is less than £25m.

JD gave no forward guidance on negligible revenues in H1; instead, he was ramping the price with ridiculous claims of 20X current price. While he was ramping he would have known that he planned to exercise his options as soon as they reached maturity. He then allowed the share price to be trashed so that we get today's announcement of 'mate's rates' at 20p in three years time. Is that our price target? This is starting to feel like a boiler room scam.

Now we have JD 'very confident' of achieving revenue targets in H2. Well let's see; fool me once shame on you....

20p in three years time? Great.

he maximum he was allowed to sell and as soon as he was able to.

How very dare you helpful!

Why sir, I challenge you to a duel*. Errrr, no I don't, I'm running away. I'm never posting here again (until the next time). OK, I'm back again; but only to tell you how much I despair of humanity. Did I mention that I demand 30% of an asset that for which I'm not even a legal owner?

Yours truly,
A very stable genius.

* Disclaimer: All bets, challenges and invitations to fisticuffs at dawn will not be honoured but will be met by vague references to as yet unspecified animal charities.

I agree with others a good RNS which puts to bed some of the unknowns. However talk of 30% for PFP is unrealistic. The funding partner will want a majority stake; 60 to 80 percent. Lets say 70%. That leaves 30% to be split between Veloso, Cavaco and PFP. Given that Veloso and Cavaco are the legal owners, where does that leave PFP? PFP are merely an annoying legacy issue which needs to be pacified to seal the deal. If this BOD can get 10% share I'd say they're doing very well.

I'd like to have seen some potential sales figures for this polymeric zinc complex. It sounds like Croda have asked Itaconix to develop an improvement to a material they already use. So Croda must have a pretty good estimate of annual volumes and would surely have communicated this to Itaconix at the beginning of the development work. I can only assume the volumes are not great. Nevertheless, nice to see that Croda regard Itaconix as the 'go to guys' for these development projects.