Member Info for MikG

Liquidity and money has (correctly) deserted the market, so market makers have to find new and innovative ways of fleecing the PIs that keep them afloat. That close last night was scandalous, and I'm glad others noticed it. Not only did they shaft PIs by the open, they then proceeded to drop it to 18 or so (from that 29 close) within the first minute or so of trading.

Essentially they can do what they want, when they want and companies' valuations at this end of the market often reflect the market makers' book and positioning more than the actual company fundamentals. IMO.

Buying and ramping? Really. I generally only comment on the bear cases of any investments I hold, as there is ample ramping on these boards (to counter the likes of yourself) but pie in the sky FCA scaremongering with no substantiation is barely productive. Nobody is trying to help from what I can gather.

Research? Don't make me laugh. What is there to research with every case as individualised as they are, and unique to the circumstances of the bank in question. All you can do is look at precedents and apply an iota of common sense, and look at where those fines typically sit in terms of the banks overall position. As much as there needs to be a public flogging, there will be no intent to set a fine at a level anything other than punitive given Metro's size and role in the sector. It's my opinion and I'll leave it to others to ram their views down others throats, but a fan equal to half the market capitalisation..pfft

Exactly Chris, 44m for a 4 year long series of significant errors.. to a US bank (not our own), and the highest fine ever awarded (£44m). Yet clowns on here would have you believe Metro will see fines 150-200m, or half its market capitalisation. What a farce.

Anyone who thinks that Metro fine will be anywhere near a sizable proportion of their revenues is in doola land. This bank is now a credible High Street presence, with massive deposits and dominating all customer service/satisfaction metrics. As if the BOE / higher authories are going to allow the FCA to decimate them with a fine, that at some numbers touted by bear (hundreds of millions lol) would be tantamount to almost Metro's whole market capitalisation.

Its fear mongering on a scary scale, and no wonder it has eaten the share price as it has. People clearly don't read the news and seem to forget that prominent banks are now protected and looked after by the authorities, not ruined by them.

My little outbursts? What was it you said earlier - some people can't face facts I think it was!? I My only real personal jibe was the naivety you've shown re financial markets in claiming that a share being walked down into oblivion on no volume, with huge Institutional support, is somehow validated, and markets on AIM are efficient. Any market operator would tell you at this end of the market is perceived as the complete opposite of inefficiency, hence the serious moves and re-rates we see that lures the punters in.

You're choosing to make it personal, now insinuating I'm young (flattered btw at my age) to discredit it me and trying claiming I'm at a vast loss here. Whereas of course your 5 years here and being the first to reach for a bulletin board at any semblance of news, whilst not even invested, suggests emotional detachment and that this has been highly lucrative for you ;) I'd suspect as your well aware (or probably not) that this year has heralded all time lows so I'd suspect I'm in a far better position with my entry this year than you've been, given the VWAP over the past 5 years has been multiples of today's price!

I tried to draw a line under it in the last message because as fun as rising to your patronizing and condescending demanour is, I suspect it will detract from the otherwise quality contributions by people not being embroiled by our bickering nonsense on the board. And I have a job to do (in equity research, not corporate financial advisory), so if you want to compare financial market accreditations, then I'll happily do so on a platform where we can be less disruptive.

Addicknt,

You refute everything in front of you, and claim that prevailing price suppression is some sort of validation of your two bit analysis of the situation. You seem to have zero grasp of financial markets and have said in the past something along the lines of "analysts are clueless" which about sums up your investing capacity. If prevailing price is efficient and an accurate depiction of fair value, why does anyone bother buying shares? You buy because markets, especially at this end of the market, can be inefficient and miscalculate fair value, and that I believe is happening here. Not even 0.10% of the share capital has traded today, yet its been marked down 7%, so you think that's a fair representation of the market. Ganfeng have about the lowest average on the II book and paid 25.. yet in exchange for that have to do considerable donkey work to get this project up and running, so of course that price (discount) was warranted. Not one Institutional investor is walking away or selling down.

You disagree and are uninvested, yet choose to keep a close eye here, all the best to you. I have no gripes with that, and don't want you to go away. If you want to try and make out I only want to hear a bull case, again another misguided comment. Any sort of my perusal of my history will see I use this platform to argue the bear case more than the bull of my investments, and I've even said this morning that this board have made another hash of raising money for the umpteenth time.

You wear you "five years involvement" like some badge of honor, as if it makes you a better authority on this company than anyone else. Whereas in reality it just makes you a stale bull, and you seem so set in your ways that my mere challenge of your view, is a big problem to you. Lets just agree to disagree. You can continue to write about companies your not invested in, I 'll continue to focus on ones I am invested in, and I'll buy undervalued stock, and you can sit on the sidelines since the market is always right and there is no price inefficiency on the Alternative Investment Market. ATB.

Agreed with the sentiment of other posters this morning. Addict.. Congratulations on having the fans who welcome hearing the views of someone not even invested, but I generally smell a rat in those scenarios. Seems odd to me that your consistently first on the scene despite not having an investment here. Also seems odd you wanted to draw attention to the funding discussion, which is a reiteration of and referral to the exact numbers previously outlined! (Hence the “funding gap as discussed in feasibility study” chit chat in the rns itself). So I don’t know what’s new and you think people need to read. This is the same news the share price has been punished for for some time now.

You also seem hesitant to note that this minor funding gap is the final part of the puzzle to unlock all the value of Sonora! So it’s like giving someone £2 (yes a negative in taken in isolation) to receive £10 back.

The company post AGM resolution will have every option available to it to unlock the bullion plus NAV of Sonora. As ever I feel this could be handled better, and has parallels with the past horror funding raise. But I can’t change the board and how they go about their business.

Finally some logic wolfi. To those who think the current valuation is justified given a bit of financing to resolve down the line is utter madness. I’d argue the majority of the current capitalisation is covered by Zin alone, let alone cash, and Sonora! Absurd valuation inefficiency.

Starting to feel like the latest in the line of supposedly positive events that will shaft shareholders. What on earth is the point of that system being in place if the shares are constantly marked down to accommodate those buys. Struggling to see anywhere on AIM bar the P&D where shareholders are actually rewarded for risk, and there;s a semblance of fair value. Christ knows where this would be if the broader markets were struggling like they were in Q4 last year. Total mess.

* correction re above “we had a seller in M&G”

Wrong stock. There was no seller here, just a transfer of interest from Prudential to M&G as part of their spin off. Sorry.

Nah, appreciate your view mate, and totally see where your coming from. I've just had a lot of time on my hands lately, and one thing that's really stood out to me is the amount of times this share has gone nuts on volume out of nowhere, with no corresponding RNS.

Looking back its hard to know why as all I can try and do is correspond bursts of share price appreciation to RNS'/material news, and often there is just seemingly little rhyme or reason. Probable reasons are new investors (retail or institutional) taking a position, stake building and maybe getting attention in press or somewhere.

Either way, reversion to fair value/mean is often inevitable, and just like I genuinely believe this was going down regardless post Ganfeng completion outcome (we had a seller in M&G too), I believe we will start to re-rate towards fair value with or without that funding update.

Surely all can see how trivial such a funding gap is at this stage of play? With everyone we have on board, people cannot think there is funding risk - and with Ganfeng on board, I also see little dilution risk. Expect borrowings in some shape or form to materialize givens how close BCN/Ganfeng will be to the starters line at the time. All IMO.

Consistent pattern at the close. Usually unwound by a poor UT pinning the close price below that late day buying burst.

So by that reasoning Bampster, why was this over twice the price when the provisional announcement with Ganfeng was made?

Why 5x this price when the Sonora feasibility was announced, and BCN were broke and not even a semblance of how to finance the project?

But now with the majority of funding sorted, ample funding for the stage of project we are at, a clear path to production and motivated company leading it to production ASAP for their benefit, we now warrant being within touching grasp of all time lows because a small out of financing required down the line has not been resolved? I fathom to get the logic, and think these sorts of throwaway comments encourage the small selling we see from bored & underresearched PIs, which is then responsible for the endless drops on this share.

Ged11 - never..this is consistently, more than I've ever seen, marked down on UTs. That whole spurt to 226, 2% up, was voided by the usual garbage close by the "market makers".

Hard to take seriously talk of "overpromising and underdelivering" alongside talk of selling to SFR for what was a 3x ROI, huge dividend and royalty income streams going forward, and a share buyback! For a minnow on AIM.. a share buyback! When you factor those in, its hard to share your view of "under delivering".

As obnoxious as the share price is, it is hardly the company's fault if millions upon millions of buys don't lift the share price (like the day the buy back was confirmed as passed), and yet 2 grand of sales drop the share price 4% today. The Company can hardly help that, and they've even gone to lengths to move past that by underwriting more than the current market cap via highly liquid SFR shares. Throw in the soon to Cobre IPO, and it becomes another of those AIM headscratchers where unfortunately price is based on what suits the market makers and their books, versus actual fundamentals.

Thanks MrC, and I echo your thoughts re the AIM market in general.

I think a lot of exploration to producer stocks move in close adherence with cycles, and thus far BCN is no exception. In terms of cycles, we are at the point where we begin our upwards path again towards the prior highs of discovery/feasibility (£1.55 highs hit post feasibility in late 17), and should in theory go on to re-test/surpass those heights. Not sure what the catalyst would be as we might not be entering a massively news rich period, but with that being said, events that most thought would be catalysts for price appreciation (Ganfeng completion etc) have been damp squibs. A cross reference of bursts of increases in this share price to RNS' shows that this can literally move out of nowhere, and ties in to what mrC says about catching some attention, then getting picked up by the masses. I think the time should be upon us soon. GLAH.

"but the market is telling you what it thinks right now. And how often are equity analysts correct? Very, very rarely."

So now AIM is the epitomy of the EMH and all companies are valued correctly, and equity analysts are all wrong... OK.. Absolutely agreed; a good point to bring the exchange to an end.

"You say I'm "oblivious" to recognising the dynamics of project funding. I suggest you have a look at my first post this morning, in which I stated that it was "sensible" to adopt the approach they have outlined. But perhaps you didn't wish to read that? Confirmation bias at work?"

Not confirmation bias at all (hence I welcome the debate with you. no matter how contradictory your posting is). I've garnered that you think the approach they've adopted is sensible apparently, yet consider the missing finance an issue. Where I've intervened is to say its not an issue, in so far as it is how project dynamics work. It would be more of an "issue" massacring the company by raising funds needed a long time from now at a share price near all time lows, when the reality is the further they get down the line and to the cusp of production the more favorable the financing terms should be, from an array of different sources, for aforementioned reasons. The BoD are perplexed by the share price.. Secker would be hung, drawn and quartered if he broke protocol to raise the lot at these shoddy prices, it's like the guy can't win.

"But the only thing to bear in mind right now is the fact that Ganfeng and, by definition the company, both agreed the it was currently worth 25p per share. And the market seems to agree."

Nonsense. I'd love to hear any equity analyst give me a fair appraisal of this company today that derived a 25p share value. That is laughable. You say you've followed this for 5 years, then you'll know that market forces determine this share price far more than fundamentals. Why was this £1.50 a share when the company had one heck of a (to use your words) "funding issue" by having no funding at all!!!??? It was driven by liquidity, speculation, excitement. Now its depressed due to boredom, vastly diminished liquidity across AIM etc. That can turn on a dime.

Ganfeng's price is not a determinant of a fair value. It is the level by which they were enticed, given the extent of expertise they are bringing to the table on getting this project to production. As eluded to earlier, they are not taking a Blackrock et al stance and just stumping up finance - they are playing a pivotal role in the entire operation. A vast discount to fair value on their equity stake is no more than they warrant for providing the functions that they are.

"What I'm saying is that until the finance is actually in place, it is not 100% certain. Surely you can understand that? "

I understand what your trying to say, but I've been clear on my opinion too, namely based on the dynamics of project funding and the reality, which you seem oblivious to recognising. As I've noted earlier this morning, name me one project that is/has been fully funded for all stages at the outset? Who on earth does that, and sits on idle cash for years at a significant opportunity cost. The risk you envisage is Ganfeng, having poured funds in to get to 29.99%, devoting their resources to evaluation, project setup and management, to just what, walk away when the next bout of funding is required? Given where Sonora is on the cost curve, it is actually equally as likely that once all the donkey work has been done and its on the cusp of actual development, majors will be tripping overthemselves to get a part of it. I'd advise Googling "life cycle of a junior miner" and determining where BCN/Sonora currently sits on that curve.

The BOD are transparent, and are perplexed by where the share price sits and how investors are now holding back on this last remnant on finance, when the share price was about 5/6x when there was no funding in place at all!!!

And regarding the "BOD form" , BCN has never had activist shareholders that are amongst the worlds top lithium producers before, so the comparisons are redundant in my view. As you'll well know from preparing or reading financial literature, a key disclosure is "past performance is not indicative of future outcomes". Given the credentials of Ganfeng, this is a paradigm shift IMO and if they don't take it out for a snip, they will at least pay up to see it through. All IMO, which you disagree with and are entitled to, and its been good debating the pros/cons with you.

If you can’t differentiate between financiers and activists committing resources above and beyond their equity stake, then I think your the one missing the point.

You’re presumably also here because you’ve seen the demand forecasts for lithium and the awful cost profiles of most projects. Do you really think when one of the top low cost resources is on the cusp of production, it will struggle for that last bit to get it over the line?