Traders were spoilt for choice in terms of the bullish contenders to focus on as far as the last full trading day before Christmas was concerned. It was perhaps easiest to focus on the stocks which have done best of late, and continue to rally ahead.
Up another 17% was newly re-focused precious metals and exploration group Wishbone Gold (WSBN). The main plus points currently are the way that the share price has flown since the recent £1.75m placing at 10p, a price that was not revisited after the fundraise was announced – normally a strong bull signal. This has proven to be the case, with the shares now just shy of 16p as the market waits on exploration news at Wishbone’s Red Setter asset. Given the still modest market cap of the company it would not take much of a result from Red Setter to allow for a continued re-rate for the shares.
Shares of tech investor All Active Asset Capital (AAA) continued their recent 2020 victory lap from below 0.2p at the beginning of the year to 15.9p currently, via another 11% gain. The stock has delivered a near vertical move to the upside since last week’s option agreement with AAQUA. It may not do too much harm to its cause that AAA has been described as a “Soonicorn” for 2021, alongside Asimilar (ASLR), Audioboom (BOOM), Dev Clever (DEV), Immedia (IME) and Pires (PIRI) by serial investor Chris Akers.
The tech space was well represented on the stock market leader board, with edtech specialist Dev Clever (DEV) finally consolidating above the key Intrinstic Capital subscription level at 10p. The latest rally for the shares comes in the wake of the company announcement at the beginning of the week. This consisted of a five-year exclusive partnership agreement with Veative Labs and the National Independent Schools Alliance, India’s largest governing body for budget private educational institutions. Dev Clever shares managed to push 11% higher to 11.15p.
As is often the case with the small cap space on the London stock market, where there is one winner, investors try and spot the next big thing. Given the all-star cast on the Immedia (IME) shareholder register, there has been persistent speculation that this stock could be the next to do a “AAA” in 2021. Shares of the multimedia content and digital solutions provider rallied 11% as bulls of the stock pondered the company’s fate.
Fresh from its triumphant IPO of Rincon Resources on the ASX at 20c at the start of the week, with Gunsynd’s (GUN) investee company now at 30c, the investing company announced another new investee listing. In this case it is Angold Resources, which is set to begin trading on the TSX Venture Exchange on December 31, marking the second liquidity event for Gunsynd in a matter of days. Angold has its two core assets in Chile and Nevada.
While the perennial search for liquidity is the main official bugbear for companies trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, perhaps more of a day to day issue are the petty rules -masquerading as regulation. Among these however, there is a badge of honour, the “speeding ticket” RNS. On the face of it ordering a company to confirm or deny the reason for a share price rise is to facilitate an orderly market. In reality it lets off those short of that stock off the hook – at least temporarily. Powerhouse Energy (PHE) delivered its “statement re share price movement” after the previous day’s 60% share price rise. However, it may be that the 10% retracement that resulted in the waste plastic to hydrogen play will not have let many bears off the hook even after forcing the move.
Sticking with the renewable / green space, amidst what is clearly a feeding frenzy in the space, there was an 11% rise in solar panel specialist Verditek (VDTK). Given the recent solid funding round, and a relative dearth of stock market real estate in this space, it may be that Verditek follows other analogous companies off recent lows.
Another clean tech play in focus with a hefty share price rise was Ilika (IKA), as the solid state battery specialist has clearly hit the zeitgeist in terms of the EV market. What helped the bulls bid up the stock to 52 week highs was the way that value wise there is a positive comparison with US counterpart which has a $38bn market cap. Ilika has a rather more modest £234m value currently even after the latest 52% share price rise, so the on-going re-rate appears logical, if only on this basis.
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