Member Info for ragnarlothbrok

Hey TBTT... I am indeed very gloomy on the chrome situation. I think the dip in production and stockpiles was related mostly to Covid-related force majeure. Glencore has lowered guidance but hasn't officially made any cuts to ferrochrome production as far as I can tell. Samancor we know has closed a couple of mines. Assore is third in SA but they have been taken private so I have no idea what they're doing. Tharisa is increasing production. What about India? We also have by product production from the UG2 PGM miners. They certainly aren't reducing in this PGM environment. I was hoping production cuts would be a bit quicker and deeper but the fears of supply shortages have not eventuated. I just can't see the chrome price recovering in the next 6 months. I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst

From Glencore HY production:
"The Ferroalloys business has for some time experienced a structurally worsening competitive environment across the South African ferrochrome industry, including via substantial electricity price increases. In January 2020, a consultation process was initiated on the future of the Rustenburg smelter, and in June 2020, a further process commenced across the entire business, to seek a more competitive operating cost structure. This is an ongoing process with all alternatives being considered. "

Comments from IKEA: “We don’t think the strength of the interest in life at home was a pent-up need. Had that been the case we’d have seen a slowdown many weeks ago.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ikea-sales-idUSKBN26R233

But look at the awful reviews on Trustpilot for Ikea https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ikea.co.uk

Those chrome stockpiles are going to take an eternity to work through. It looks like like the best we can hope for from chrome over the next 12 months is for prices to stay where they are and hope that PGM prices stay elevated

They have easily exceeded guidance for PGMs 142koz (v guidance 130-135koz) and chrome 1.34Mt (1.25-1.3Mt). But there was never a good reason why it was so low. The 2021 production guidance is great news and is higher than I had forecast so results in big bump in my valuation.. And shows they are delivering on their growth strategy., Should mean lower units costs and higher margins as well. I am pretty certain we will see a dividend but I'd be happy to see them invest it into growth projects

If EVE can prove that it can at least consistently break even then some of the cash balance will be seen as surplus and be factored into the enterprise value. In my view the market trends support demand and Eve has been demonstrating a better understanding of their return on marketing investment, enough so that they managed to break even for a number of month, so the current market cap of £11m, with a cash balance of not far from that, is a very interesting proposition indeed

Some profitable sales growth in a very competitive market will hopefully be next.

Hey Lemming I'll say make a small amount of money. There are some market trends that support this but you need to be willing to interpret them in a certain way to view them as market tailwinds...

- Reduction in international travel. In 2019 UK travellers spent over £60bn on outbound tourism. This number has significantly reduced, due to job losses but more so due to travel restrictions. How much of that money is being funneled into DIY, homewares etc. My interpretation = ALOT, if you look at the results of companies like Dunelm and Kingfisher. When is international travel likely to recover? Middle of next year earliest and airlines are saying 2023
- Furlough has been primarily determined by lockdown restrictions. Businesses that can operate under these restrictions have been much less impacted by those that can't. Over half of furloughed jobs are in low paying retail and hospitality jobs, many of which are zero hours and part time. Professionals including finance, legal and insurance have been relatively unaffected. My interpretation: Most of Eve's demand does not come from low paid hospitality and retail workers who are most likely renting ?
- Mortgage approvals are at a record. My interpretation: People are moving in great numbers and this is a huge source of demand for beds and home wares
- Savings rates have skyrocketed. My interpretation: As the economy gradually recovers and consumers start spending again pockets of unemployment and closing businesses will be offset by the savings buffer that people have built up
- Competition has diminished. Retailers are going bust without an ecommerce proposition or because of supply chain issues. My interpretation: this is an opportunity for Eve to increase its market share

That's pretty much my summary of the market fundamentals which I think will support Eve performance over the next 6 months. Of course there are also a set of company fundamentals but we all know them already :-)

About 20% seems right. Q4 should be an exceptional quarter for cash flow for THS although they don't report results until 30 November so it will be some time until we see this. Unfortunately the quarterly report is purely operational statistics

Different approach to what I normally take. I'm more a 'buy when it falls to this level' rather than when it increases to a certain level. But its always useful to get a different perspective

...buy more when it hits 250p

https://masterinvestor.co.uk/trading/chart-navigator-loopup-xaar-n-brown-and-dx/

Production should look something like this:

Chrome YTD 0.997Mt, Q4 0.3Mt, FY2020 1.27Mt
6E PGM YTD 101.5koz, Q4 32koz, FY2020 133.5koz

Sorry don't know what happened there. Somehow I got randomly redirected to some old posts. Disregard that last comment

hydrogen don't those time stamps say July?
There has been precious little volume for the last month

I would say that the NSR maybe a little too sizeable for TRR given its current market cap and potential liquidity wouldn't it? But there aren't that many base metal royalty companies out there, especially those seeking African exposure. APF must be a strong candidate to pick up the NSR ... Its seeking non coal assets and the NSR is much more digestible given its size and cash resources. A royalty over Botswana copper production is a pretty tasty asset

Been a few on here speculating that it was Jupiter which was offloading shares and indeed they were right

Not quite 200p but couldn't resist a little top up

of sells! Stinks of forced selling. I have my finger on the button for some buying below 200p

August approvals at a record high. This bodes well for the entire homewares and DIY industry. Its really surprising how EVEs sales have performed over the last 6 months compared to rock bottom March, April, May, June mortgage approvals. Given no one was moving a lot of the demand over the period would have been people upgrading rather than new purchases.

With very high approvals (and also the rental market picking up) a lot of households will be moving and, combined with the Christmas period, this coming quarter this really should be the sweet spot for EVE

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/mortgage-approvals

Hi Wyndrum, I would never base any investment decisions on websites like Trustpilot but as a private investor I need to use all the tools available to me to try and get ahead of the pack

Sales have indeed fallen however gross profit is flat and the return on marketing spend is much improved. And you really can't downplay the impact on covid. The number of business with rising sales this year is a tiny minority.

If you're after a start-up relentlessly acquiring customers to growing sales then EVE isn't for you. The mattress market is mature so without taking huge chunks of market share by undercutting your competitors on price you're going to struggle to grow revenue. I for one am pleased sales are stabilising and the company is entering the next stage of its journey towards actually making a profit and free cash flow by improving its business focus. I think a £6.5m reduction in marketing costs for a £700k reduction in revenue and no gross profit impact is a fantastic result (and an indictment on previous management!)

I think its a pretty decent bargain that for £13m you get a business with a leading eCommerce proposition with £22m in sales and a good chance to achieve £2m in profit/FCF per year and a shedload of cash for free.

Hey TD Invest, yes that's a pretty good summary and basically reinforces the point that no one has any idea what Loop's forecast looks like. No doubt the uncertainty is hurting the valuation, there are a lot of companies out there with good forecasts and thus less risk so really can't blame funds for recycling out of this with gusto recently.

Where did you obtain the Panmure and Numis estimates? It looks like its only Progressive that is included in consensus as it matches exactly to their forecasts. They all seem very similar.

I would say that on a 10x EBITDA multiple LOOP is punching above its weight at this point in time. It would need to prove up the sustainability of its model and grow revenue and earnings over a longer (non-covid impacted) time period. We have little idea of what a true sustainable earnings figure for LOOP would be. And that terrible dip on the chart in 2019 reminds me of its recent disappointments. But maybe one day that will be all forgotten

Hey Lemming, thanks for sharing, that's some interesting data. I have used the below link and punched the reviews each month into a spreadsheet. I have then subtracted the number of bad and poor reviews (assuming that these are going to be returned) to arrive as a proxy for net sales (ie total reviews - bad/poor reviews= net sales). If I assume that the % of customers who leave reviews remains constant then I can draw some conclusions:

- sales has been steadily increasing this year and September looks to be a record
- the % of total reviews which are bad or poor has been steadily increasing to 13% from around 6% in the beginning of the year. This could indicate an increasing return rate, which may in turn indicate lower margins

It’s a big guess but from this I would say that sales are growing strongly, but the return rate may be growing more quickly. I’m going to do a similar comparison with some other competitors when I get a chance and do a little benchmarking.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.evesleep.co.uk/transparency