Member Info for Reckoner

Busy auction there, a large late buy and an RNS about a French asset manager buying 5.3m shares last week.

It’s different for sure in US.
I’m no longer trading as I realised I wasn’t that good at it. So more of a long-term investor now.
I’ve recently opened an account on Degiro which is cheap for dealing and they’re adding functionality all the time. Looks good.

Short answer - Yes.

Longer answer and why I'm not fussed about current short positions.

Firstly, we never know the true total of short positions on a stock. What's reported are only those that have gone above (or just back below) the 0.5% FCA threshold and the overall total is the sum of these "disclosed interests". The total cannot include the many short positions funds and private investors might hold below that threshold.

Secondly, the reported ones on 4D have been going down the last few days. Although we don't know the real total, a change in pattern on these larger ones might suggest a trend on the hidden ones, especially if most shorts are taken by quant funds using similar "reasoning" to each other.

Thirdly, the fact that the recent reported shorts are all quant funds would suggest that there's not much thinking going into these positions and therefore no need to worry about a skeleton in the 4D closet waiting to be revealed and to scupper the SP.

Fourth, going short is a valid thing to do to my mind, in order to maintain liquidity, counteract speculative bubbles which catch out investors and, in some cases, to keep companies more honest (as with Boohoo recently). So it doesn't strike me as particularly worrying that some funds are taking bets on 4D in this way. However, derampers seeking to drive people into selling in order to maximise their profits is another matter entirely.

Fifth, and most importantly, I believe 4D is going places and I think it's going to be an exciting ride. So I'm intending to hold on to this for the long term. The day-to-day SP movements and reported short positions are therefore of no great consequence to me.

Sunny, what is the connection please between the changing short positions and the Oliveira RNSs? I've missed something.

Safy, I’ve used Interactive Investor for US stocks. You can hold cash in dollars and so only need to do the currency conversion when putting money in or taking it out, rather than for every single trade. This has to be outside an ISA though.
For fundamentals I use Stockopedia but it’s pricey and I probably won’t renew it for US stocks.

Zengah at 8:50 this morning:
“ I’ve decided to take a more relaxed approach to posting until required - trust you all appreciate me”
Since then, at least 60 posts of utterly inane tripe.

What did you expect from the Vaccines?

I know...it’s an album.

The other pro is reusing mass spec machines in hospital labs. They are already there, so less equipment required.

I mean Hans.

FTH, Birmingham Uni and Abingdon have a lot of history including a Joint Venture called Bioscience Ventures which was dissolved a few years ago.

My interpretation of the prospectus is that they intend to remain a developer and contract manufacturer, but with increased capacity to exploit the massive demand in LFTs and to tap the US market.

Looks like the NADAL antigen test from a German company called Nal von Minden.

Both swab and spit could be options at present. So developing an LFT kit which copes with the different sample methods. Priority for swab for now. RNS then only required when first TT complete, as promised.

Possible reasons for change late today:

1) Traders waiting for a low SP before buying in. Once a chunky buy went in earlier, some felt the bottom had been reached and the gates opened somewhat. I notice there was a 99k trade and a 52k one in close succession at the start of the rise.
2) Institutions starting to show interest with buys after SITC (i.e. get in now before US ii's raise price in New Year). Not sure how quick they tend to make such decisions.
3) News on Buffett buying into Merck has a knock-on effect to 4D.
4) Shorts closing - although I don't understand the emphasis on this.
5) Combination of some of the above.
5) Something else - any ideas welcome.

Slight correction: they were targeting 30,000 originally.
https://twitter.com/PerditaB/status/1323380729607278596
Started 2 Nov. By 6 Nov they had 20,000 remaining.
Then 9 Nov announced on their way to 60,000.

Good post.
I would add that the great strength for ODX at present is the fact that it can be agnostic on tests.
At this point in time, just when it's needed, all that experience in manufacturing diagnostic tests will stand it in good stead. Whether Abc-19 or Mologic or others come and go (and I hope they stay) it will be a much-in-demand resource for any LFTs, from any developers and from other countries if one or other test doesn't cut the mustard. The developers are tied to their particular tests but ODX don't have to be in the longer term. And they're ramping up capacity to exploit this.

Actually, ODX finished higher than previous close against a strong headwind. Better than most of the other Covid stocks fared.

At close it seemed to be 107p but now it’s showing as 112p.
I see some chunky off-book trades went in after close.
Along with ODX, it appears to have fared better than other Covid stocks today following the vaccine news.

I just took the funnels as being used by the backroom boys and girls to transfer liquid from one container to another. Not sure it implies saliva or not. For instance, a swab sample mixed into a solution might need transferring to another one. Clearly I don't know, but that's how I took it.

I was also wondering about it following the saline tube contract announced on Friday.

The Centers for Disease Control in US (CDC) has recently recommended that saline can be used as an alternative transport medium for viral samples during the C19 crisis as the commercial stuff (made from various ingredients including Bovine Serum Albumin) is in such high demand. If you look for the same saline tubes ordered from Fisher Scientific their website says these are also now in great demand. Saline is recommended only for short-term storage, so it implies rapid turnaround.

The "viral inactivation solutions" Perdita and co. were putting together (as shown on Twitter) are a 70% : 30% mix of ethanol and buffers solution. Not sure where that leaves saline as I don't know the process they would follow and whether the people at Manchester Royal Infirmary who are involved would still need it for the samples before mixing with these ethanol/buffer solutions. I thought salt was considered a bad thing for Mass Spectrometry but I'm not knowledgeable about it.

My guess is the saline tubes are for keeping and transporting swab samples, whether these tests are done at home and then sent off, or carried out at various centres like hospitals. The types of tube ordered suggests some kind of machine testing, but no idea what that would be. It's just the mention of WASP tubes where WASP usually applies to Walk Away Specimen Processors. Could be PCR tests.
The latest 140M order suggests tens of millions of tubes which might tie in with the number of confirmatory tests required following a positive test from an LFT.

Not being an expert, that's as far as I got with this.