There was an embarrassment of riches for bulls of small caps for the first session of the shortened trading week ahead of the start of 2021. Indeed, it will have made no sense to those who do not believe or understand that we are in the middle of a small cap bubble, as well as Bitcoinmania and a Green / Renewable Energy Gold Rush. This has been the case for some months, but given that the end of December is the traditionally the strongest part of the year – price action has been magnified.
Leading the pack was bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain (ARB), continuing recent already hefty gains with a one day 73% rise. This was a decent way of finally clearing the initial 17p high seen on the day of the IPO some two and a half years ago, with the stock finishing at 33p. The impetus for the rise apart from Bitcoin’s rally was Argo announcing that it has filed an application with FINRA in the US to be cross-traded publicly on the OTCQB Venture Market – making the stock more widely available to North American investors. The plus point on this is that analogous companies in the US are far more highly rated than in the UK. Recent bitcoin banking app IPO Mode Global (MODE) was helped by Argo Blockchain read across adding 10%.
While few have been suggested that Argo Blockchain has been particularly over-rated, it has been interesting to see the rise and rise of stocks which the bears have been suggesting from a half or even a quarter of their present value are over-valued. The first of these was waste plastic to energy group Powerhouse Energy (PHE), which soared another 32% – proving how futile “speeding ticket” RNS’s are in the current environment. The rise also proves how much of an appetite investors have for the renewable energy space, with fellow green plays Verditek (VDTK) in solar energy up 15%, and sustainable aviation fuels developer Velocys (VLS) up 12%. Fuel cells group AFC Energy (AFC) did even better with a 28% rise, with even solid state battery specialist Ilika (IKA) managing another 25% gain to add to a recent massive share price rally this month.
As if to underline the way that 2021 seem set to be a year of tech enthusiasm, recent specialist tech stock risers added to their bull run. Tech investor Pires (PIRI) jumped back to life with a 29% rise, off the back of announcing that multibagger investor Chris Akers has added to his stake in the company. This spilled over to edtech play Dev Clever (DEV) adding 14%, and Asimilar (ASLR), an investor in Dev Clever – understandably up 12%. Immedia (IME), another speculative tech play in which Akers has had announced a stake, rose 8%. On the fintech side, it was noticeable that inventory monetisation group Supply@Me Capital (SYME) spiked 12%, on further consideration of multiple new investors in the company to the tune of 12.2%.
In all the stock market euphoria regarding the new economy, there was even a revival in the COVID-19 plays, given the alleged crisis in the NHS / Nightingale hospital area and swelling case / testing numbers. This led to solid gains for 4d Pharma (DDDD), up 10%, Omega Diagnostics (ODX) up 3% – as it said it would update the market on a self-use test in due course.
