Beyond The Fringe

Is the nadir yet to come in our feverish bourse? The AllOrds has caught a severe case of pneumonia from the ailing US economy - yet we think a large part of this malaise may be due to perception rather than reality, apart from our banks who stupidly spread their assets into US home loan Ponzi schemes.

The demands on our minerals and other resources by China and India may keep us from too much pain as the Dow Jones slides into a coma, and perhaps our perceptions haven’t caught up yet with reality. Meanwhile the swarming sharks gobble our treasure at bargain basement prices. We hope Australians see the opportunities also, otherwise the farm will end up just about totally overseas owned at the rate it’s going.

Of interest, we see that alternative energy stocks are doing quite well despite the plunge - CXY and COZ may well do superbly with the inevitable recovery. Novera on the AIM market has just had a takeover offer for twice what we paid for it - this company reclaims methane from landfills in Europe. BPO has slid just 1 cent since our last purchase and the future looks rosy with proposed production of organic termicide Termilone to begin in 2010.

As we are counter-cyclical by nature, we reckon 2009 is the time to buy, buy, buy - wisely, with a view to the sort of world which may emerge after the current depression subsides.

So we’ve been busy. Working. Building. Dealing with immense toothache - why is it the pain stops after one makes the dreaded appointment? Blogging out at Blogshares (which is partially work-related as we survey the machinations and constructions of the blogiverse in all its manifestations). We must have checked out a couple of thousand or more twaddly, whining, dorky blogs now to help clean the rather useful Blogshares index of rotting blog corpses. At this point we’ve collected a truckload of literary and stockmarket blogs.

As the Aussie stock market enters its usual tax loss doldrums, we desultorily survey the real market for some superduper bargains. APG, with BHP now holding an interest, has fallen as the profit-taking traders maul the share price. We are waiting to feast with the other remoras near what we suspect may be the bottom. Our banquet on EVZ a couple of days ago was most satisfactory as was our BPO gulp at 4.6c. EVZ actually breached our projected bottom at 55c yet we are happy with our haul. We now have our beady eyes fixed on BLR and SNU, our little U beauties, for some more accumulation opportunities.

We’re cashed up for the TRF Ironclad float, though with the drop in TRF’s sp, we might do better picking up some more TRF rather than waiting for the Ironclad floaties. Another attractive possibilities is LRL - trading below 60c at the moment.

For some idle fun and relaxation, here’s an amazing site, Flickrvision where one can watch the depressingly plebby drones of the internet upload their mostly ghastly photos to Flickr in real time.

One of our favourite innovative Australian world-beating companies, VCR, has reached an important milestone with the implantation of its 100th Ventrassist Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) in a 27 year old man in Sweden.

Maybe now some of our corpulent major instos and superannuation goliaths will see fit to throw a small, much deserved portion of Australians’ savings where it can do a lot of good.

The 6cm diameter blood pump is an alternative to a heart transplant for people with heart failure.

The surgical procedure was performed by a team led by Professor Lars Wiklund.

Ventracor chief executive Peter Crosby said more than a dozen European hospitals now had been trained to implant the VentrAssist, and the number of implants was growing.

“We will open a logistics centre in the Netherlands in coming months to support our business expansion,” Mr Crosby said.

Clinical trials of the LVAD for approval in the US are currently underway.

We are hoping the LVAD is fast tracked through the FDA approval hoops, though aren’t holding our breath as the US, as usual, will be keen to foster and protect their own homegrown tech, despite VCR being the best and most advanced solution available in the world. Or maybe there’ll be a takeover?

Time to assess the treasure in preparation for reorganisation in view of serious impending opportunities. SNU floats on Tuesday, and we’ll be trying to buy as many as we can cheaply. We feel multiple bids might be in order to maximise our chances of increasing our holding as swiftly as possible. Seems as if most SAU holders, like us, had their requests for entitlements cut back, so we project a massive immediate demand. SAU is now a 3 bagger¹ for us, and it should follow the lead set by SNU.

We will also be taking advantage of our 2 for 5 new share offer to top up our lovely AVX holding. AVX, currently a 6 bagger plus for us, may well be able to fasttrack their Phase 111 trials given their HIV drug’s incredible success in previous trials to date. Then there’s their VRI drug to consider as well. The third opportunity comes with KOR (2 bagger), which will be offering a priority entitlement to their float, where we will already acquire a free 1.6 to 2 share interest for every KOR share held.

Other little darlings this week include TRF (5 bagger), which has performed stunningly on its desk top study projections. U results are expected very soon. We’re hoping for $2+ after this news. Then there’s NTU (3 bagger), for which we await our free oppies.

We missed out on acquiring some MKY, which has U tenements in Queensland, where Beattie is sounding positive about allowing mining. There are gaps to be filled in the MKY chart, and thus we’ll be watching it closely for opportunities.

APG continues to look healthy, consolidating this week around 16c (4 bagger). On firm news about BHP’s interest, it will skyrocket.

¹ “Bagger” = Number of multiples on original price.

And we’re off to a great Monday morning start, with the SAU SNU float closing early heavily oversubscribed. We have strong premonitions of a very exciting listing, and hope we do receive our total priority shareholder allocation.

The market heads up after an initial small downward push - the chart target for today is 5890.

Chartists of BPO look like they are right at this point about this week being *the* week for a push to the next level. Early trading has gobbled up to 3.8c. Once 3.9c is taken out, there could be a sustained climb to 4.5c. For breakout, BPO has to crack 4.1 and hold. By the end of the day, some sneaky trader dumped several million, dragging the price back down at close to 3.6c, VRAP around 3.8. We may obtain another top up at 2.8c yet.

APG *has* broken out though. 20c annihilated and an assault now on 20.5c. Leak of fabulous BHP news?? Ranging between 19.5 and 20.5 now. Ends up closing on a very healthy 20c!

NAV announces some excellent drilling results - on the rise again. It remains to be seen whether the current share issue erodes any gains.

However, the Ides of March approach - superstitious traders may take early profits this week!

Great buying ops today. Slavishly, the ASX followed the Shanghai burst bubble and the DOW fall off. Our INL bid at 18.5c was filled and we’re now on the hunt for more bargains.

Watching EVZ, AVX, AAQ, KOR, TRF and BLR closely. KOR hasn’t announced the date for entitlement for its 1.62 - 2 shares for 1 in specie distribution, so it’s a highly attractive buy if it drops more. We may have missed our opportunity for more cheap BLR though.

BPO announces definitive low toxicity for Termilone which ann couldn’t have arrived on a worse day. It doesn’t reach our target of 2.8c and probably won’t if the Chinese stockmarket continues to recover. It’s the Year of the Golden Pig now, so the preciouses should recover quickly, not that ours dropped much at all.

What a week of stock triumph this has been! Not only does BLR go through the roof, giving us a nice 4 bagger if we so chose, and we don’t, but our little modest star, TRF defines a sizeable high grade magnetite resource. It closes today at 63c which makes it a 3 bagger for us and more if those lovely free oppies were thrown in. Unfortunately we failed to accumulate more BLR before they ascended out of the 19 - 20 range and will have to wait for a possible drop back. Doesn’t matter, we already have plenty.

We have been accumulating a terrific swag of INL in preparation for their march north during this year as reports of squillions of dollars of payments for their zinc concentrate, for which they have a couple of years forward contracts sewn up with the Chinese, roll in month after month. They may also announce international deals pretty soon too for their vibrant technology. We are hoping for a tripling of the sp by the end of the year at least, and at best $1 may be breached. Fortunately we managed to buy some at the almost low of 18.5 as the POZ hit its nadir, more at 20.5 and even more at 21.5 today.

We have shed some of our not-so-well performing stocks at this point, including UCL, BAR and ASU. We are somewhat regretful about losing ASU as it will probably come good in the near future. UCL was sold at a loss, yet we now don’t have to worry about the effect of war or the foibles of the Iranian govt on this share. The proceeds will be well applied to the forthcoming SAU/SUL and KOR floats, which new stocks will doubtless double, more than justifying our portfolio reshuffle. To add some more spice, we rebuy some WMT at 12c, which happily closes this afternoon at 13c - looks like it might follow the BLR example, so we may as well jump in.

BPO vindicates our accumulation the other day at 2.9c, with a close at trading halt of 3.7c - fingers crossed in excitement about what news is in the offing. Shall we trade some on open or not? AWS is still in suspension, pending a deal with a miscreant who has snaffled 4 hundred grand odd and has to pay it back. This will be sorted soon, we hope.

EVZ seems to be being accumulated assiduously by someone/s - doesn’t breach its new range yet, but we can feel upward movement on its way. The half yearly is due out on March 1 - this could, if a divvy is declared, double the sp.

AVX is holding its ground nicely round 60c - Phase 11b trial results out soon - and there is a decent volume traded every day. Institutions are taking positions well and truly.

Today we decide to sell our WMT before they drop off, which they duly do. Half the funds we use to buy more EVZ, which is likely to do extremely well very soon, especially leading up to and perhaps beyond its March 1 report. Revenue is on target, and decent profit upgrades should be announced. Maybe even more word about divvies. And it’s an ethical share of which we approve.

If BLR drops off, we’ll buy more of them too. It seems the most promising of the baby Us with production possible this year.

AVX breaks out well and truly today - we’re rolling in clover there. Closes on 54.5 and has a high of 59. There are rumours of big pharma interested in apricitabine and well they might be.
If their wonder MRSA drug proves itself too, the sky’s the limit.

Prediction for this week is NWR, which is due an announcement or two. Our record of predictions is somewhat tarnished by our recent failure on RRS - it didn’t even hit 4c on news about a $50m farmin with Canmex. Back to the low 30s. Tree-shaking? probably. Still no signed JV.

BPO has risen finally - whispers of 3M on the forum lead one to imagine a surge toward real value in our favourite stock. AGM coming on the 29th, perhaps with preceding announcements?

Sensibly, we took some profits to make our remaining holdings free carried, and are considering buying oppies to boost our leverage. Alternatively, we’ll wait till the heads drop in price again and continue their accumulation.