Member Info for Voiceofreason1

Krak for record i think we both want me to be right today and stock to trend up and mls to trade on close and look awful :)

Krak, while i admit they do tend to do well against average price it seems basically to be completely attributable to them buying a lot on the close (well at least proportionally) we had this conversation before - when the close of day is higher than the average they always do badly but the sad fact (as we are all long) is, if you look at the daily charts of ENQ, we always fall off as day progresses which,yesterday for example, was pretty much standard for sector as oil got punished for some reason i cant fathom personally.

The reality is we’re in the wrong country - i own a small somewhat similar oil company in the US and its flipping flying - so we’re in a sellers market and unless MLs control our bonkers politicians they aint to blame

Rom, i dont know ins and outs of buybacks to be honest - might try and google later but one thing is certain and not really up for debate - they agreed their strategy/percentages with ENQ and AB before they started and since we then had our half year review and they’ve basically continued on this seems to be completely understood by AB who has more slin in the game than anyone!!!

But yes clearly as commented on many times we’re not looking likely to conplete at these low activity levels so clearly the expectation was we’d be more active like last year - and if we kick up then clearly MLs would be much more likely to be active.

The fact is they’ll partially support in negative markets like we have now but should create a lot of upward pressure if markets are more positive for oil stocks in uk. As an example if you have one broker buying 20% of volume this always has less impact than 2 brokers going at 10% (even though its the same in absolute terms) as you tend to see competition for individual ‘prints’ which always ends up punching prices

All my opinion only

Given the difficulty in buying more stock in market in a buyback than the present amount i reckon you’ll get your wish as i would probably guess they’ll try a split approach next time - a la harbour for example

Krak do you see little green men everywhere as well? Honestly your belief in MLs is awesome (and slightly comical sorry to say). All the uk oilers showed similar patterns yesterday (i am long harbour and serica as well). I am not answering these bizarre ‘screams at the sky’ you seem to do anymore after this but just come back to this answer and you’ll get the jist.

In short your paranoia about manipulation on a tiny deal (they pay some traders more than the entire notional of this annual buyback) and them risking censure, fines and the publicity from manipulating a tiny stock when they actually even report their entire trading and price levels achieved is just funny

While we would all like to see them buy more the fact is they are supporting this stock to a degree so keep it up ml’s

On a last note i do laugh at the idea of them going to big clients (as you seem to be fixated with) and saying ‘we have an illegal bit of business for you’ then the hedge funds saying ‘so we buy 5% of the co for around 10m and make 1% profit on that at end of day? Get out!!!’

Aim on your last point - 100% agreed

Kraken - its a great point to be fair - i was disappointed that it was only 15m buyback when announced but makes sense (as you say) thats why it was so low. Volumes last year were simply much better than this year so i’d imagine extrapolated what was possible and basically markets let them down. I dont think mls will complete as it seems clear we are in second phase and they have not changed their speed/percentage of volume so i suspect thats it unless we go crazy if we execute a buy on assets.

Aim i think thats just standard MLs buyback activity coming into close - athough i didnt look closely

We really just need another buyer in market as MLs buying appox 20% a day is def supporting us (and seems clear thats the structure that ENQ agreed with them)

I know there’s some people on here more ‘hope over facts on ground’ thinking MLs are going to ramp the stock but without other buyers in market it aint happening - as quants are always banging on about ‘the fair price of what a stock is worth is the market price as thats the reality of where buyers and sellers reach equilibrium’

Sek i dont know where you get the fact its an obligation as realistically in these miserable volumes its impossible for them to achieve completion without ramping the stock

I hope volumes pick up but without that i think its clear they wont be able to reach the full amount

Unless you know something legally binding its just not realistic (sadly - as i am a holder of stock!!)

Kraken i just checked back only last 2 days of MLs buys to check your ‘always buy on lows not highs’ thesis - so friday they did buy near lows as close was at days low but on Thursday the close was at day highs and guess what? On a day where we opened at 13.06 and closed at 14 - Mls bought at - drumroll please - 13.82 - i believe that debunks your evil genius claims on MLs….

I dont claim to have inside knowledge of their agreed strategy with ENQ but fact is our intraday volumes are rubbish and most of the days volume always goes through on closing auction (or close to there) so an intelligent approach is to trade at this time

You seem fixated with the idea they care about a tiny trade and also that AB (as a massive holder of ENQ) is ok with them ‘pushing’ the stock down. I’m sorry to say thats you just getting emotional about a stock and imagining enemies behind every corner.

The simple fact is for MLs to encourage or even actively drive a stock down with the knowledge that they have of their buy back volumes ( and risk legal and reputational damage for a tiny deal in a tiny stock ) is just laughable if you had any knowledge of the regulators monitoring or the compliance depts that all banks have now.

As to ‘alwsys’ buying near daily lows all the time - i have not analyzed it personally but i’m sceptical its always there. I know algos better than most and if they had an algo thst always buys on the lows they’d be a lot more successful than they are and wouldnt waste it doing buy back trades in small uk oil co’s. Thinking more Nvidea or apple might be better targets!!!!

For avoidance of doubt i dont work at MLs and i am massively long ENQ

Hey Kraken, right you ask a couple of points

1. We know what goes on behind closed doors - i work behind those closed doors (jan i apologize for this - but tiny deals and tiny stocks just dont move needle - and regulators are very very good now)

2. As to driving up price - while buy backs clearly are supposed to be net positive (and the argument is that at approx 20% daily volume the ENQ one is clearly a positive influence). They cant be used as an outright market abuse technique - thats simply not allowed

3 MMs for ENQ it tends to be the smaller guys like Winterfloods and Peel Hunt - clearly guys like Barclays are active as they electronically market make on their retail platform. But if i had a big order i would go to Wins or Peel personally

Lastly the parameters were set and agreed with enq and MLs and 20% participation is definitely impacting stocks like Enq (there are just more sellers)- and lets not forget rishi called the election after this part of buyback was agreed

Actually Jan i tend to agree on boring. Wish my life was more Wall Street and i was dating supermodels inside my first year. My life would be a more gritty noir film about the death of dreams of glory :)

Kraken - i love how much dastardly intelligence you put onto MLs - i can only imagine you’ve never worked equites as its just ludicrous as a concept - on so many levels - i actually laughed out loud when i read your post and sent to an ex colleague at MLs - its really not all Wall Street i can sadly inform you ;). Sad fact is they dont care - and even of they did they couldnt do anything

Maybe i missed the irony but i think point of zeus note is its not as bad as feared

So the reason market has been cratered is the fear of something much much worse - either genuinely thought or fabricated by right wing press trying to engender panic about labour

Me personally? If this is extent of labours plans then i’d be bullish going forward

My take on this is the point has to be RAMMED home to electorate - Labour are doing NOTHING to lower our fossil fuel burning - its not GREEN - because to do that you have to tax the consumer not the companies with zero pricing power

Its a blatant tax grab on uk smaller companies that invest in UK - to fund what may or may not be a waste of cash. The reality is we are offshoring our carbon footprint and going to claim its then a success - even though its actually carbon increasing and also puts us in pocket to regimes we (and labour especially) openly decry

Claire Coutinho has tried to say this but she lacks the populist clarity - she’s been piecemeal on what she’s said (in fairness tories are complicit in this facade with the epl)

I’d love ENQ to add another 10-15m to buybacks as a signal to market they will buy stock at these levels in show of confidence. It isnt really a lot of cash in scheme of things but would be a strong signal imo

I am going to buy some more - honestly all the doom and gloom on here - switch the computer off and just do something else - its a retail stock it moves in mysterious ways - but the buyback is going to last all year and i am half expecting it to be added to as well as a sign of faith

Couple of points -

1. Specific to ENQ - i actually am much more positive on buybacks than most. There is no doubt its made a difference and we know theres a boatload more to do in H2. Its clearly a positive trendline

2. More gov/industry specific - today labour looked terrified when asked if they’d put price of petrol up. It just winds me up that they specifically target homegrown companies and do precisely nothing about the actual problem they are complaining about - ie fossil fuel consumption. Foreign companies are not hurt by this at all so perversely they are incentivising us to import from countries with much laxer environmental regs (and then transporting the stuff which is also burning more fossil fuel) than us and claiming they are championing ‘green’ - its just stupid and i realise the tories cant call them out as they made the EPL but surely on question time or somewhere someone has to question this idiocy. Its like banning knives for kids then saying ‘its ok if you import then from china tho’