Coinbase fever and an associated new high for Bitcoin helped the cause as far as a select band of stocks exposed to this area of the market. Perhaps the dish of the day in this respect was Aquis listed Valereum Blockchain (VLRM) which recently announced its entry into crypto mining, as well as exposure to the US stock market via an OTC listing. VLRM shares closed up 25% to 29p having tripled over the past week.
Also on the front foot with respect to the world of blockchain was Clear Leisure (CLP) as the market continues to warm to the company’s reboot. We were reminded of this with a 15% share price rise, and by an announcement of a General Meeting on May 6. The focus on that occasion will be changing its investment focus away from the leisure and hospitality sectors, to the technology sector; specifically seeking investment opportunities within the high growth blockchain, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence and interactive media sectors. The new name for Clear Leisure will be Quantum Blockchain Technologies.
The strength of the small caps space on the UK stock market since the pandemic struck in March 2020 has meant that one of the winners in the space has been investment / corporate finance group Riverfort Global Opportunities (RGO). The company said that trading has continued to be positive in the last quarter of 2020 with net profit for the year is expected to be in excess of £1.3 million, compared to the previous year’s figure of £623,690 and net assets are expected to exceed £8.8 million compared to the figure as at 31 December 2019 of £7,878,417.
Another pandemic winner came in the form of Audioboom (BOOM) with the podcaster reporting a strong sales performance, helped of course by what has literally been a captive audience over the past year. The company said that Q1 2021 was a breakthrough period for Audioboom, reaching adjusted EBITDA profitability for the first time. Audioboom became the fourth largest podcast publisher by number of average weekly users in the US on the Triton Digital ranker. This positive momentum continued into the second quarter with the company signing advertising bookings representing more than 90% of the existing market forecast for 2021 group revenue.
International natural resources and power project developer, Oracle Power (ORCP) delivered its Q1 2021 update. The company said it has made significant strides forward in both its jurisdictions specifically in Pakistan with the commercialisation framework for its coal-to-gas and coal-to-liquid strategy, and with the exploration campaign in Western Australia the potential for Oracle to discover gold resources in one of the world’s most productive gold regions. CEO Naheed Memon said she was looking forward to providing updates from Pakistan, in terms of clearance from the Ministry of Energy for construction of new power plants. In Australia, Oracle’s work programmes and the start of drilling are set to be in focus over the next few months. Shares of Oracle were up 3%.
Speaking of Antipodean mining, it was the turn of NQ Minerals (NQM) to step up to the plate in terms of the base metals and precious metals producer announcing that haulage of gold bearing material from the Beaconsfield Wetlands environmental cleanup area to the Beaconsfield gold processing plant has now commenced. The company said it now has a fleet of 6 trucks moving a significant amount of gold bearing material from the Wetland area, to the Beaconsfield processing plant area. NQ plans to modify the Beaconsfield processing plant over the coming months to extract the gold from this material as a key component of its mine re-opening plans at the Tasmania operation.
Finally, while we may be in a bull market for small caps, it is still the case that traders can go into a sulk when the newsflow does not exactly go their way. This was the case as far as Hemogenyx (HEMO) was concerned. Shares of the biopharmaceutical group, announcing an update on negotiations regarding the future development of its leading product candidate CDX bispecific antibody for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, seemed to be overly punished. This is particularly the case given the way that the latest news make only be part one of two regarding Globalco, or any other third party.
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