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Yes, I seem to remember another platinum miner listed on AIM Aquarius was taken over a year or two ago by a neighbouring gold major. Here's another interesting fact. The PGM basket price so far this month is $876/oz, still higher than the average in Quarters 2, 3 and 4 2015. Quarter 1 PGM basket price averaged $879/oz. We've survived at this level before, we are better prepared now that costs have fallen from $571/oz to around $400/oz over the course of 2015 https://twitter.com/AIM_IJ/status/785404438177603584

Thought it worth highlighting Lonmin's trading performance in current markets and pose the question, which is the better bet, SLP or LMI? For a little background knowledge LMI have a value today of £554m ($687m) whilst SLP sit at £23.8m ($29.5m). We are familiar with the USD figures so I'm going to illustrate using the dollar value (although the exchange is pretty volatile right now, this is accurate as of today). Lonmin, the world’s third-largest platinum producer came out last week in response to falling metal prices stating it is producing cash and able to withstand current PGM prices. “Our mantra is to be cash-positive including capex at these current prices,” Chief Executive Officer Ben Magara said in an interview at a mining conference in Johannesburg. Lonmin has cut its workforce by almost 20 percent, or more than 5,400 people as it attempts to reduce unprofitable production following an expensive rights issue in December which raised $407 million but sold at a 94 percent discount in order to pay down crippling debts. Think back two years and Lonmin along with the world’s two biggest platinum miners, were hit hard by a five-month strike over pay in South Africa. This wasn't the first equity raise by Lonmin though. It previously raised $457 million from shareholders in 2009 and a further $817 million in 2012 after police opened fire on striking miners near one of its shafts in Marikana. Once debts had been paid after the December rights issue, Lonmin had $69 million of cash. Magara states “We moved that number to $114 million by May. That number continues to get better.” LMI is prioritising capital on mature, stable, long-life shafts that produce 85 to 90 percent of its output, the company has "22 months of developed ground and developed inventory waiting for mining,” he said. “That gives us the optionality if the market turns. We could recruit more people, bring in contractors.” So their cash pile rose by $45m in the first five months, around $9m per month. Platinum margins would have been stronger in June, July and August. They now have $114m cash at last count, possibly $150m at the end of September although we won't know for a while, the company are valued at $687m. SLP's cash pile rose by $2.1m to $7.2m in the third quarter but fell $0.5m to $6.7m in the fourth quarter as they were hit with a $1.0 million repayment of a 3 month pipeline financing on the sale of concentrate and a further $2.7 million in income taxes. That's around a $1.6m gain in cash over 6 months with soot prices at bottom! The $2.1m cash gain in the third quarter was from a near exact basket price of $860 seen in the fourth quarter. SLP can look forward to a basket price of $950+ in the first quarter results and $1050+ in the second quarter results. We had $6.7m cash at last count and I estimate $8-9m come the next set of results, the company are valued at $29.5m

Also in your tirade it seems you forgot to mention that CNKS recently choose to step up share purchases for the Employee Benefit Trust. This coming at a time when the company's business is drying up, you would think the BOD would be cutting back on spending. The guys in charge sure love taking care of their own don't you think? "On 28 April 2016 Cenkos announced that the trustees of the Cenkos EBT had launched a share purchase plan to buy up to £50,000 of Cenkos shares a month. 102,000 shares were purchased in H1 2016 under this plan at a cost of £142,571. The increase in the size of the Company's EBT reflects, in part, the potential future demand for Cenkos' shares to satisfy share awards under the Company's 2015 deferred bonus scheme." No doubt Zedra Trust Company (Guernsey) Limited will benefit from this arrangement and the employees but no recompense for shareholders sat nursing losses at these 52 week lows. Oh and it states the EBT and other related trusts currently hold 3,171,366 shares at last count worth more than £3m. Not enough for Cenkos who want to share their success through this 'bonus scheme'. In fact we only have to go back as far as March to see the Directors were awarded shares!! So that's SLP and CNKS that "fills its management's boots with shares from profits" to use your words. All Executive Directors participate in the SIP still I guess if you're blinded by a 1p interim dividend coming your way then it's all good.. Meanwhile in the real world net assets fell 38% from £40m to £25m and cash took the brunt of the hit down 58% to £20m. Before you tell me it's still £20m the company need an ever increasing percentage of this to satisfy capital liquidity. Now let's just look at the rest of those results of the company you're happy to hold Profit before tax down 91% to £1.7 million Profit after tax down 96% to £0.7 million Oh but that's okay because money doesn't matter and they were ranked number 2 Nominated Adviser by number of AIM clients and number 3 Nominated Adviser by client market capitalisation by Adviser Rankings Limited's July 2016 'AIM Adviser Rankings Guide'. Great for shareholders, they should be proud. CNKS are struggling to attract business as total funds raised by AIM companies only fell by 30% to £1,931 million in H1 2016, when compared to H1 2015. But even as they are losing business wit revenue down 71% what's really worrying is profits fell much faster. The only saving grace was mention of a number of significant fundraisings slipping into H2 2016. But I envisage a H2 way down on last year as there are no macro indicators suggesting otherwise. Which means further slippage in the weeks and months ahead

Monty - Good to hear an honest appraisal, CNKS certainly are suffering the effects of loss of confidence to a degree, there hasn't been a surge to collect shares at this bottom. Returning money to shareholders whilst standing by and watching the share price fall to lower lows isn't the mark of a company that acts in shareholder interests. People like Indianna can talk about 8p worth of dividends paid out but fail to mention the share price performance as shares go ex-dividend or as we've just seen, when results come in worse than expected. Indianna - You're being daft highlighting the entire history of SLP. I couldn't care less about it's 10 years of prior trading. All I'm interested in are recent moves from 6.5 to 9.5 and now 8 to whatever the future holds. Ofcourse you're entitled to your opinion on SLP, perhaps this is not the place to discuss it but seeing as you won't post on the proper chatboard I'll reply here. SLP is a low cost producer and turns regular quarterly profits. Production has actually been rising but what you mean to say is it is forecast to decline. It is not yet declining. However management have addressed this and so once Project Echo is underway production will be maintained. Share buybacks take stock out of the freefloat but let's get this straight, we are talking small sums here. There is no dividend as PGM prices have only recently bottomed. The PGM basket price to be reported later this month will be higher than the two previous quarters and the cash position will be significantly improved. As SLP will be investing in new capital spending it's prudent not to throw cash away like CNKS. SLP look better placed going forward to protect future cash-flow than CNKS which saw revenue tumble, profits crash and the dividend slashed. CNKS is valued at £52.4m and SLP at £23.8m today. I know where I would rather be sitting with SLP generating $4-5m cash from operations in the quarter but you stick it out here

RRS reacting well to US Employment figures, even if the gold price is only creeping up. The headline being unemployment rises which should ease pressures for a rate hike this year. The U.S labor market showed weaker than expected readings as the economy created fewer jobs than expected in September and the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose, according to official data released on Friday. Non-farm payrolls rose 156,000 in September, compared to the rise of 167,000 in August that was revised from the initial reading of 151,000. The data missed the consensus estimate for the creation of 175,000 jobs. The jobless rate unexpectedly rose to 5.0% compared to the forecast for it to remain unchanged at 4.9%. Average hourly earnings rose month-on-month by 0.2%, compared to the prior increase of 0.1%. That was in line with forecasts. The increase in wages is being closely monitored by the Federal Reserve for evidence of diminishing slack in the labor market and upward pressure on inflation. The participation rate edged forward to 62.9% in September, from the prior reading of 62.8% Additionally, the private sector created fewer of the new job contracts than expected in September with a total of 167,000, compared to consensus expectations for 170,000. July’s number was revised up to 144,000 private nonfarm payrolls, from the prior reading of 126,000. Government payrolls decreased by 11,000 last month, compared to the creation of 23,000 public jobs that occurred in August, revised from an initial reading of 25,000. Furthermore, the average weekly hours rose slightly to 34.4 in September, from August’s number of 34.3. The reading matched expectations.

Well I did take a look at your other recent posts to see what other clever calls you had made and this seemed like quite a bogey especially when you consider the reasons you posted over there. Funny you place much more trust in this BoD which is systematically destroying the share price. Oh but Cenkos appreciates it's shareholders, which is why the share price continues to nose-dive. A 1p interim dividend isn't really going to make up for that downward correction from 120 last month. I came here to discuss the pitfalls of investing here, not your lack of investor insight anyway so if you can't answer the simple points then don't bother responding. What will stop the share price falling here?

I'm in for the bounce, see the USD index has peaked and commodities are looking to move up now

Nope, that's everything that's wrong with business, hence why this is making lower lows. Good luck with that attitude problem though!

pivot turning

I had a read of the last set of results. Run by schmuks to pay bonuses and dividends for deals. And when business dries up, well the share price tumbles. Why anyone would touch this is beyond me. No clear way back to increasing profits / cash position..

Director buying after closed period a welcome surprise. Think this is cooked now, happy to sit out and see where she settles in a few weeks GLA

Well we dipped under 7000 today but news that Blackrock are buying again likely adding support. Could be worth following their lead and holding a steady gold producer at this price. The macro picture and its effect on the price of gold is a good hedge in the face of uncertainty.

I still think RRS is heading lower but as we saw last month the share price can fluctuate when the FED open their mouths. Gold below $1300 as predicted and bounced off a similar level last seen in mid June. RRS was around 6400 back then. Results will be positive though so there should be a nice bounce on or around results day. It just depends how low this will go beforehand.

NBI's interim results look okay, the balance sheet is looking less precarious than six months previous but is it offering good future investment value at current levels. In the last HY report cash generation from operations was down almost 50% to £1.7 million (2015: £3.3 million) year on year but this indicator does not capture the efforts the BoD have gone to reducing the company's gearing, debt and improving the balance sheet. Last year at the interims there were 18,589,886 shares in issue, the share price was around 205p for a market value of £38.12m Today there are 26,114,752 shares in issue, at 90p values the company at £23.5m The placing conducted in April has provided a floor at around 75p for now and oil prices are near their 6 month highs, not that that is any great indicator of future direction - "Looking forward to 2017 and beyond, there have been some more reassuring announcements from the oil service majors who form part of our customer base. They rely more on the activity levels in the oil fields rather than the oil price itself and they believe the worst is over and are predicting a return to more positive levels of business in the future." Net debt almost halved to £8.4 million (2015: £16.2 million). The total raised in the placing was £5.3m. The fall in Sterling has also contributed positively, reducing balance sheet gearing "as the majority of our net assets are held outside the UK", According to the company "current trading, despite the decline in revenue, is continuing to generate sufficient cash flow to pay down existing debt as scheduled" What's more encouraging I think is net assets at 30 June 2016 were £43.7 million (31 December 2015: £35.9 million). The rise in the value of net assets comes in the wake of the falling Sterling. This has had a positive impact of £4.8 million on the balance sheet according to the company as more than 90% of net assets were outside the UK. Due to the dilution this equates to £1.68 per share (31 December 2015: £ 1.94). Providing GBP continues to weaken or remains low and the price of oil breaks higher in the coming year which is possible given recent announcements concerning OPEC this would be my preferred play from 80-90p. However worth stressing this is not so much a play on the strength of the business, GBP will likely remain low against most currencies as we creep towards March 2017 when the Prime Minister is s due to trigger article 50. Two exceptional events (placing & BREXIT) changed the balance sheet here. Come year end there will be a clearer picture of free cash-flow and debt reduction going forward. I think £30-35m market value could present itself if GBP stays low.

Probably for the best at this level, it hasn't got much further to go in my opinion.

MBO results came in as expected, but as with all things cyclical people took profits at 4.5 - 5p and who can blame them after the stellar ride recently. All we are seeing is people who don't want to hold over the Christmas period selling out. There will likely be a long wait until next we hear of the financials and whilst they will likely be good, not a lot will happen in the meantime if past performance is anything to go by. The recent expansion into Bangladesh may provide some regular updates though, difficult to tell.

Enjoying the o/t discussion! I completely missed that discover but look at DWHA today :)

The current dividend yield works out at about 4% per annum. They have new "additional blow moulding capability" which they can put to use generating new regional sales. The new management is driving for operational efficiencies in the plastics factories they are targeting scaled increases to the paper box business out of Chesterfield which only turned to profitability late last year. The reason why H116 balance sheet looks worse than it actually is is because of a planned £1.7m one off expenditure. Results from newly acquired Madrox were superb in 2015 and as a result of the improved results, the earn-out element in the acquisition of Madrox increased by an estimated £1.7m. This final element was due to be paid in April 2016. There are no more earn out payments to be made now and in the future. Resin prices have not been kind to RBN and that's partly why in 2015 they lost a large customer. But the value of their Polish earnings has risen when converted to sterling. They have overcome lost contracts last year replacing them with new according to the last FY statement which only came on stream at the end of 2015. So there is much to be positive about, especially at this knocked down price. One last thought. The USD is beginning to weaken this year which is reducing competitiveness of all those exporters of PP products to the US. We've seen for a while now how GBP weakness has impacted RBN however we could have seen the bottom of this trend already. To put it in perspective there was a "24 percent jump in export sales" to the US in the first 7 months of 2016. With domestic prices beginning to stabilise now as the USD weakens then one might expect RBN to benefit from the exchange movements. At any rate we have net assets higher than the current market value even if you remove 'goodwill' from the equation, profitable outlook, reducing loans, new acquisitions experiencing improved growth and a portion of the revenues come from the property portfolio the company owns.

In the January trading statement emphasis was placed on the stronger sterling value in relation to the Polish zloty having a big impact reducing "the reported value of Polish sales (currently 38% of Group sales)". The interim results did not really shine any light on this but we know the percentage of Group sales would have been around 40% due to a generally slow start to the year. Given the increased competitiveness now against the Euro and the zloty we should find new business is more forthcoming. The balance sheet doesn't read that bad compared to H115, adjusted PBT is lower but there are other more important indicators like the reduction in Trade Payables through cash. The only downside to me is an extended wait of 4 months as it's unlikely the company will released anything soon

Sizing up my entry whilst demand is low. Remember annual profitability shouldn't be impacted by the off cost like last time around. For £22m it looks good value to me.