Member Info for toneman

Investinvalue, that's one of the most bizarre posts I've read in a while. You're going to have to expand on how you join up those three names in the same sentence.

Smithy, your enthusiasm for AFC is interesting. A few weeks ago your suggestion was ITMs real value should be £1 which equals about 500m mcap. Coincidentally AFC current market cap is about 500m, so do you think AFC has a bigger future potential than ITM or are you about to call time on AFC. Genuinely interested as you've made a great gain in AFC so wouldn't blame you either way.

I think there are quite a lot doing some rebalancing of their portfolios today having had a few days to contemplate 2020 and consider their expectations for 2021. I have. I had set a holding quantity of ITM that I was determined to carry for the next 10 years, but even at my greediest I didn't expect this price for at least another couple of years. Consequently it made my portfolio a little overweight on ITM. So this morning I sliced off 20% of ITM and distributed the proceeds across another 10 stocks.

I'm trying to keep it a clean energy portfolio where I can and if anyone is interested in my distribution it went equally across PHE, EQT, VLS, CPX, Orsted, Vestas, Siemens Energy, Gamesa, Invinity, and Nexus Infrastructure.

All comments, positive and negative, are welcome.

On Sunday Times you should be able to access 2 articles for free each week if you register.

That's true Lutra, but do AFC have a PEM solution - I'm not sure, I don't know enough about their other technologies. I'm pretty sure you can't just call alkaline and PEM "the same technology". Also, those other market areas are already very crowded with suppliers, Ballard, Powercell, Plug Power, Proton Motor, Cummins, etc. AFC would have to come up with something pretty special to dislodge those names. And I haven't even mentioned their Chinese competitors. I wish no ill will to those invested in AFC, but it's too risky for me.

Lutra, I think that installation experience will be repeated a lot over the next 10 years. Hopefully it will slow down battery EV adoption long enough for fuel cell EV adoption to catch up. I accept that AFC does provide a solution, but it's really just a sticking plaster. The AFC share price will do/is doing well because it combines the hottest two investment topics, EVs and hydrogen. But for investors there I really hope AFC develop another hero product because their current one is precariously poised.

Colonel, your article describes exactly why FCEV and hydrogen refuelling are a better solution.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/561614 ...just a little plug - this thing's not growing fast enough. Need help.

Mucker although I don't like 'hope' as an investment strategy, I am hopeful that it's the same reason we didn't hear about the Snam deal until all signed sealed and delivered. They were in discussion with them for a year and we didn't have a clue.

The other thing they may be waiting for is the government's hydrogen strategy announcement due early next year. Maybe they know something about that and can't disclose it yet? Any thoughts?

What would be quite funny, Ted, would be to watch Elon Musk's reaction to the suggestion of Teslas being recharged via hydrogen. He'd be having kittens. His entire argument for batteries is built around efficiency and grid connectivity. I'm pretty sure he'd struggle with the irony of the need for AFC recharging.

I do understand the need for AFC recharging in remote areas given that the auto-makers are going to force everyone to go down the battery EV route. It's the auto-makers I have an issue with. AFC are just solving one of the many shortcomings of the battery EV decision.

Tedjames, how long before people work out that you're better putting the hydrogen straight into the vehicle rather than the slow process of transferring the power through a wire? AFC technology is pretty redundant in this regard. Doesn't stop people buying up the shares though. I'd be careful though, that could see a whole new reality all of a sudden. Probably got ages yet though so best of luck.

I agree tinlode. I've had no joy yet from Jo Bamford, Fully Charged, James May, Sunday Times, Shell, BP.

Does anyone know how to get this some actual publicity? Clearly that's not my area of expertise.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/561614

Funny thing, Bilbo, MPs saying odd things. I was reading Hansard the other day and in a discussion a week ago Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist said "Given that the life of a boiler is usually up to three years, as each boiler rolls over we hope to be able to install more heat pumps at a natural rate." I'm pretty sure boilers have a lifespan of more than three years. Am I wrong?

I believe it's held under "Other current assets" at the spot price of the date of the accounts. The movement between quarters is also reflected in "Finance income" as either a profit or a loss and unfortunately that's also included in the company's stated pre-tax profit and loss which made Q2 look like a NOK594m profit and Q3 look like a NOK628m loss. In both cases it dwarfs the company's actual operating loss of NOK72m and NOK116m respectively.

Personally I think NEL should keep hold of the shares and support both Nikola and GM roll out hydrogen trucks and the refuelling infrastructure broadly in line with Trevor Milton's original stated aim. Hyundai and a number of other autos appear to be committed to hydrogen trucks now so that minimises the overall risk somewhat at the same time as destroying Nikola's perceived first-mover advantage. But from what we know now Nikola never really had first-mover advantage because they hadn't really developed anything. If fuel cell trucks are going to be the future then someone needs to roll out the infrastructure. In the US that may as well be GM, Nikola, and NEL.

My guess is that it's following the government's white paper released yesterday. The content of it is beginning to be disseminated in today's press. Anyone reading it in more detail would see ITM mentioned.

RH, let's just clear up the NEL/Nikola thing. NEL did invest $5m into Nikola back in 2018. I haven't heard whether they have since sold the stock, so I apologise if I'm out of date. Their lock-in period with the shares only expired 2 weeks ago (30 Nov) and given where Nikola stock price is headed it wouldn't surprise me if they took an early opportunity to sell some or all. Assuming they still have their holding through, it's worth about $18.4m today. So as an investment it's currently fine, but shortly after Nikola went public it would have been worth $88m. That's what made a bit of a mess of NELs finances in the last couple of quarters because it overpowered on the upside and then on the downside.

Very true Bellers. People should learn not to release documents longer than about 30 pages. Nobody has the stamina for much longer than that. It'd feel like a lot more was going on if they released that sort of shorter content once a month rather than huge tomes once every 2-5 years.

ITM get a mention on page 127.

Yeah I heard it. Despite the Fife guest explaining some actual facts about getting hydrogen to homes the Today presenter still pushing the line about it being leaky and explosive. Certainly an uphill struggle.

Sharpeye it all depends where investors see the market cap in the future. It wouldn't surprise me for this company to have a rationally justifiable market cap in 10 years time of £10bn. Starting from £1bn as we were several months ago you'd be forecasting annual growth of at least 25%...quite an easy investment decision. Now at around £2bn the annual rate has dropped to 17.5%...still a pretty good return opportunity. Pushing $3bn you'd drop to 13%, and if we were priced at £4bn today but still my forecast of £10bn in 10 years your annual growth would only be 10%. So in my book a valuation of £3bn today would start to look a bit of a stretch if the £10bn future is still a pretty speculative position. However all the above is pure b***cks if your starting point as in investor is for this company to reach £20bn, £50bn, £100bn...and I've no idea if that's what people out there are thinking is possible. All we know is eventually the future will unfold.

Garry, I like tidal power too and, other than the harsh environment, it's odd that it's taking so long to get going. But as with solar the argument would initially be to pair with battery storage because the tidal power is so predictable and just needs smoothing out over 12h/24h.

I made the point a few weeks ago that the battery argument holds until we have a near permanent excess of renewables at which point it gets problematic trying to discharge your batteries into the grid. In preparation for reaching that limit is one of the real reasons hydrogen storage can be safely applied to all forms of renewables storage - long term seasonal storage is one of the other reasons.