Member Info for MartyPoppins

M91,

OF agreed to repay the loan after the matter had spent years in court and the bank had obtained a repossession order. How very noble of the man.

Another headline in the (Irish) Independent that had caught my eye some time back was to the effect of "Boss Fanning recieves compensation 5 times San Leon's revenue." Clearly the Irish press considers the man to be trash. Can't say I blame them - paid millions year after year (be it in shares or cash) and all he has done is destroy value. Hardly surprising he moved operations to Nigeria.

M10,

3 to 5 years ++ is my definition of long - I have held RDS for well over 10 years (long holdings are much easier when they pay dividends.....). I bought ENQ years ago but left after I reached my price target. Now I just buy the dips and sell the bumps - not day trading but over a few weeks/months, as I was to see a profit of at least 20% on each transaction. Not a fortune but pays for the bus ride into town. Problem is the bumps have getting very low, no matter what the news or world events........

HGM and POLY have also been my two largest gold plays for some time. I have also bought into FRES which I think has been unfairly downgraded by the market vis-a-vis other PM companies. Looking to buy in more PM exposure but the 'inevitable' substantial retracement of pricing keeps on being delayed by world events.

Given the company is run by a man previously sued in Ireland for non payment of a Euro 8m loan and whose portrayal in the Irish press is almost entirely negative; given operations were moved from countries with a rule of law to one where a rule of law is just wistful thinking; given the market obviously sees the company as more a peer-to-peer lender to institutions with such poor credit risk they cannot access capital elsewhere rather than an oil company; and given that the company has already been suspended in the past for an extended period due to an inability to produce financial statements (the result of the complexity of its extensive operations no doubt, although Shell and BP seem to manage OK in this respect), I do not find the latest potential issue entirely surprising. It's a pity the AGM is being held at Oisin Fanning's regular haunt in Lagos, the Shrine , with entertainment and financial advice being provided by 68 of Fela's daughters dancing in nothing but blue body paint and gold ear-rings, as I would be happy to vote as ISS suggests.

Given that most people on this BB claim to be long term investors, I am not sure why so many follow the share price on a daily/ hourly basis. If you are a trader follow as often as you need, if you are a LTH fretting over daily price movement is pointless.

Arguing about performance is really rather useless as it all depends on whereabouts you stand on the mountain (ie. Your buy in price). The 0.001% of investors who bought in the mid 20s think this is a greater share. For people who bought in 4 or 5 years ago, this share is an utter disaster and YTD performance is utterly irrelevant.

Nevertheless IMO it's hard to call a share that falls 90% and then rebounds somewhat (minutely, if based on the original price) anything but a trade. Especially if they end up in Nigeria - the only country in Africa that makes Southern Sudan look stable.

So come on OF, put down the Big Mac and sort this mess out. You put us here (literally).

For what it's worth (nothing to basically all people here, I would imagine), I am not a troll and have probably been invested a lot longer than most of the LSE members currently yelling on this board - my first purchase was at 29.92p....... I invested in this company because I have local knowledge (lived in the region for 3 years) and am aware of the enormous success rate and operational potential for companies operating there. Also management projections seemed 'reasonable' on a very speculative investment. What I did not consider was continual delay (in both operations and communication), repeated poor decision-making and highly dubious information being passed by DS so that one never really had an idea what was going on, or even if what he said was true. The drill fiasco (at a time when reputable oil service companies are begging for business) is the final straw and makes the company look like a pathetic unprofessional joke. I stopped investing in the company and started trading the volatility when the price was in the teens and even made profits (...) but of course totally lost it when DS and his stooges decimated the price from about 12p to 3p, at a time when the vast expectation had been a large price uplift based on coming information. Of course the information was delayed and delayed and delayed and.... so that instead DS turned the expected price rise into a total price-rout. More fool me for staying invested of course, but people who have lived in Congo (either Congo- Brazza or Congo- Kinshasa) are likely to have a greater risk appetite than most......

As for "I have only negative things to say....." My positive statement was in initially buying the share and even averaging down on occasion. But that was then when management was too young to be called incompetent, and the issues they were facing were fairly usual for the region. I nevertheless highlighted on occasion the risk that ALL companies there face in dealing with the State oil company, but of course this was ridiculed by certain posters - wonder if they have ever been to Brazzaville or Pointe Noire? The honeymoon period is long gone and management simply lurches from one self-induced disaster to another. In which case, what exactly do you want to say that is positive on a company that has potential if it operated in even a half a**ed way, but has instead fallen from 27.9p to 3.4p? And this is apparently WITH OIL.

Filtered for expressing the actual situation? How very narrow minded. The rampers here annoy the hell out of me, but I never filter. Learning is free.

Bit of a perfect storm here for STAF - large re- organisational costs and intangible write offs booked, BREXIT confusion contributing to a very difficult environment given the sector they are in, and a dividend cut. Horrible stuff. However it's not a SXX disaster (now THAT's a disaster) and hopefully will see recovery in time. An acquistion bid (now at a cheaper price) would, of course, accelerate that.

Unfortunately (as a LT holder), Angela's comments have consistantly been far more prescient than certain AAOG rampers who , despite disaster after disaster, have repeated ad nauseam that 'things are looking better from here' while the only indicator that matters - the share price - was clearly showing otherwise.

However matey smiley DS is now gone and perhaps this time AAOG will manage to pick a driller whose rigs don't fall over and which won't take out legal action against the company (couldn't make this stuff up, could you?), so perhaps things might eventually get better. But of couse as ever, today's fall of a further 9% indicates otherwise.

The only difference between SXX and AAOG so far has been that AAOG took about 2 months to achieve for its shareholders what SXX has managed over 2 days. Well actually, the AAOG fall has been considerably greater. Surprise that.

SXX holders were surprised by a 10% fall in the share price yesterday on no news. The news came today and the share fell a further 52% (so far).

Of course the very notion of an information leak at a blue chip company with impeccable internal controls like SLE is unthinkable, but I do hope the recent 2 days of large value reduction is due 'only' to a forced seller and not holders exiting before the release of bad news.

We'll see, said the blind man.

To say that AB is holding down the price in order to buy more is ridiculous. The reason for the (lack of) price movement is more prosaic - no one wants to hold the share ATM. Sad to say (as a now-small holder), but it's been dead money for far too long and there's a big world out there with many more interesting alternatives.

Oh Lord, this share............

Ha ha. Beat me to it....

Shares like PMO up 10% and O&G shares in the US through the roof on Saudi events - and SLE down 5% showing that, unlike other O&G companies, it does not act like a normal oil company and track the price of oil. Again makes me consider that the (not so) recent sweet upward movement in price was purely due to financial games. In which case, management had better come up with some new games.

BTW - what happened to all the hectoring pronouncements that SLE was heading to 50p+? No revisions now it is heading back to the 20s? Perhaps we are not the all-knowing Deities we make ourselves out to be?

US markets open and most O&G shares are though the roof!!!!! And HUR? All of 1%. A shocking performance - especially after the prior recent disappointment. I'm really ticked off and I don't even have a large holding anymor. Many LT investors have had a quasi- love affair with HUR and all its promises for years - I suggest it's time to take on another mistress (and a RDS or BP if it must be in the O&G sector).

Are you serious - this is "the right time for him"? ??? Poor decision-making, an almost total lack of timely communication, dubious information passed when it did come (always with a matey smug smile - you will know what I mean if you have seen interviews...) all resulting in a share price that has basically seen constant decline from inception, even on potentially good news. The right time 'for him' might be now - for the company it was a couple of years ago. Good management takes responsibility and says that 'the buck stops here' - the well- compensated DS ensured that the buck never got beyond him.

I note that the HUR, ENQ and PMO boards now have in total well over 100 posts on the SA attacks and the potential effects on the PoO. Meanwhile the RDS and BP boards have all of 1 comment (....) each. Who said that investors in HUR (and ENQ and...) were not traders at heart!!!!

Now that their deity is gone, the rampers will move on to another company, I hope. Surely AAOG cannot survive without DS!!!!!

20p to 3p - quite a record of price destruction I would say. I don't understand why his departure took so long.

Chinski,

You don't trade all your shares - only a portion (say 30%). On stocks like HUR and ENQ it has been the only way to make money - and if you look at the HUR chart it has been a traders' dream. Remember trading is not necessarily day trading for a 2p profit - it might be over a 4 month period or more.

The latest HUR price debacle (today actually down after finding commercial
oil.....) again indicates that the stock market has lost its head and seems to hardly value financial metrics anymore (except to the negative - see i3E....). If this is the case, LT investment is a becoming a lottery, and taking advantage of the dips and spurts is even more important. And remember this is a non-dividend paying stock - money in HUR is dead money.

With HUR failing to move yesterday after actually FINDING commercial oil (and now falling today.....) and this share utterly collapsing - and continuing to collapse - on just the potential of bad news, it seems that O&G is fairly much a lose/lose sector ATM. I mean, how can HUR discover oil, and the pricing is falling the next day.... As for this share - any buyers over the last few months now basically need a 100% rise just to break even. Financial metrics are pointless in such a market.

Wake me up when the bad dream is over.