Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
2reincarnated. The revenue was £41.23m for y/e 31 Jan 23. The expected revenue is £37m for y/e 31 Jan 24. Y/e 31 Jan 23 was profitable, just. I am not sure why we should be worried at the moment about the company going into administration, although clearly we will need to see the full figures for y/e 31 Jan 2024 before we can be certain either way. Do you know something that the rest of us should be aware of?
The trading update is a bit of a mixed bag. Potential for the expected major order to fail to materialise is disappointing but (single digit) growth without that order, and decent performance in Florida, are both mildly encouraging. Hopefully the market reaction will not be too harsh, especially given that the share price is already pretty “bombed out”.
Regarding Walp’s comment that the world just has far too many people in it, even that may be resolved relatively soon by the increasing prevalence of natural disasters and the “ambitions” of Russia/China/Iran/North Korea and/or the “resistance” of Ukraine/USA/Nato to “a changing world order”. Whichever of these groups is right or wrong, or whether the truth is somewhere between, is not a debate for this board but the potential risk of a serious military clash between these political groups is clear to most. It is also clear that whatever “benefits” a resulting population reduction might bring are likely to be outweighed by the accompanying collateral damage. The Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” has rarely been more apposite than now.
Definitely good news and, as usual, the share price does not rise. For some reason with this share good news is treated as no news and no news is seen as bad news. It is unclear, to me at least, what is needed for the share price to react to good news in the normal, positive, way. This negativity predated the HAMAS attack, although they have clearly not helped sentiment.
"Markets can be irrational for limited periods of time..". Dead right, and London in particular has been more irrational than most for the last few years. Hopefully the tide will turn soon but I would not hold my breath. There is far too much uncertainty with respect to current and potential future conflicts, and pending elections in many countries.
Am I the only one who is being to think that the only skill of the skilled person is to string out the review for as long as possible? Surely an update, including the costs, progress, interim conclusions and the anticipated completion date, is now long overdue.
At the risk of giving egg sucking lessons, while long term one might expect the share price to correlate with the underlying value of the assets, the share price in the short term merely reflects what buyers and sellers will pay or accept, respectively, for the shares. Any “value” that was attributed to them in 2016 is, therefore, irrelevant. When more people expect to make money from the shares than expect not to, the price will rise. Individual investors will have their own reasons for deciding whether or not the risk/reward balance is favourable but at the moment the falling share price tells us that the majority think it is not. Anyone who disagrees will either need to sit tight, like I intend to do, or cash out and move on.
I have copied this from AmorAmor77's posting on CTL. I hope he/she does not mind but it might be of interest to readers here.
https://stockhead.com.au/resources/high-voltage-lithium-market-recovery-narrative-picks-up-perfect-storm-brewing/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Stockhead%20Morning%20Newsletter-03-13-2024&utm_content=httpsstockheadcomauresourceshighvoltagelithiummarketrecoverynarrativepicksupperfectstormbrewing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20email%20Thursday%20March%2014&utm_content=Morning%20email%20Thursday%20March%2014+CID_94cb727a3efb73de1401d881721fbe2e&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=High%20Voltage%20Lithium%20market%20recovery%20narrative%20picks%20up%20Perfect%20storm%20brewing
A useful link
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
Today’s RNS could be clearer. Apart from the currency being denoted by a question mark, rather than a recognised symbol such SF, £, € or $, it gives the money received without stating what was paid and when it was paid. In short, it is an amateurish announcement that does not provide confidence in the management. Rather than saying that what will be received is at the upper end of expectations, why not give clear figures and let the market decide how good the return is without needing a trawl through historical records to work out what has happened?
RNS today reads, in part, "Duke Capital Limited, a leading provider of hybrid capital solutions for SME business owners in Europe and North America, is pleased to announce it has increased its equity stake in United Glass Group ("UGG") from 30.0% to 73.8% through a £2.9 million secondary share purchase from existing shareholders."
This suggests to me that UGG have significant financial problems at the moment. Any other views?
PCT is about 2935 at the time of writing, which is comfortably above the previous peak of about 2746 at the end of Dec 2021. SMT, in comparison, is about 809 today versus about 1543 at the peak two years ago. If these two funds are in any way comparable, SMT should rise more than 15 to 17%, Strictlyzinc. I would be delighted if it did, but I won't hold my breath.
Looking at this site:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
it looks as if the price of lithium has started to turn. One swallow does not make a summer, and all that sort of thing, but hopefully the bottom has now been reached.
It looks to me as if Pulsiv are producing designs, which manufacturers of power packs and the like may purchase and/or license. Pulsiv's manufacturing appears to be limited to what are effectively prototypes, which demonstrate the feasibility of their designs. They are therefore reliant on manufacturers adopting their designs. Presumably they will get an initial sum for the licence and some sort of royalty on whatever is manufactured and sold. I would be interested to see the detail of this but, assuming I am right, they will not have to pay for any costly manufacturing set up or any work in progress, distribution and sales networks.
Thank you for the clarification, MrAmericano. I am unclear, however, whether your reference to the east applies to Ukraine or Taiwan. Despite recent huffing and puffing over helping Ukraine, it is looking increasingly likely that Europe cannot help materially (aided by deliberate foot dragging by Germany with Taurus, and by France in general) and America won’t help (Mr Johnson in Congress). The danger, as we all know, is that Ukraine will collapse and China will become emboldened over Taiwan. If that happens, any 15% tariffs that a re-elected Mr Trump might apply could be the least of our worries, even if the risk of Russia simultaneously expanding into Moldova and beyond is discounted.
As the old saying goes, we live in interesting times.
On 14 Feb 24 I wrote “RNS on 13 Nov 2023 said "The Phase 1C report is due to be delivered to the FCA, by no later than 28 February 2024. Further updates will be provided as appropriate." So I guess we will get notification that the submission has occurred, or that it has not and hopefully why the date was missed, at about the end of this month.”
It is now 28 Feb and disappointingly there is no update as yet.
It is difficult to judge what will happen with Russia and Mr Donald Trump, Mr Americano. With respect to Mr Hunt, I doubt he will be anywhere near as radical (to put it politely) as Mr Kwarteng. Moreover, even if he were foolish enough to try such wild tax cuts, given the market reaction to those of Mr Kwarteng, he is likely to be replaced by Ms Reeves within a few months. Whether or not she would be an improvement is not for me to say. In any event, the UK economy is too small to cause a global inflation shock so any damage that might be caused by a UK chancellor would be of domestic, rather than of international, concern.