The stock market can be an esoteric place even at the best of times. This point was illustrated at the end of the week with at least a couple of social media comments extolling the virtues of exiting COVID-19 tester Novacyte (NCYT) and switching into COVID-19 digital passport group Catenae (CTEA). Given the way that shares of the former were down 39% and the latter up 43% on Friday, it may have been preferable to have gone into this spread trade earlier in the week. However, believers in a permanent state of pandemic, and an infinite number of variants, might regard Catenae as a winner in such a scenario. The rise in the share price suggests that they are awaiting imminent news regarding digital passport trials / contracts.
It would appear that there was something of a delayed reaction in terms of the share price rise seen at MyHealthChecked (MHC), after what appeared to be a transformational deal announcement earlier in the week. Indeed, shares of the consumer home-testing healthcare company were up 26%, after it announced that it has entered into an agreement with Boots to launch the MyHealthChecked™ COVID-19 at-home nasal swab kit and PCR laboratory testing service. Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether there is further upside for the stock, as traders do the math, as far as possible sales of the testing group via Boots’ stores. MHC shares soared 26%.
Another day, another new all time high at 42.9p, and another piece of chunky newsflow from Open Orphan plc (ORPH), the rapidly growing specialist pharmaceutical services clinical research organisation. It announced that its hVIVO subsidiary has officially launched its Disease in Motion® platform. This platform includes clinical, immunological, virological and digital (wearable) biomarker. Open Orphan said the Disease in Motion platform has multiple infectious disease applications that are applicable to a wide variety of end users including big tech, wearables, pharma and biotech companies. DIM is also one of the possible spin offs from ORPH flagged in a recent investor presentation by the company.
As we have seen with Open Orphan, one of the secrets of success on the stock market is to deliver frequent, significant newsflow. Since December this is a mantra which has been followed by vertically integrated graphite group Tirupati Graphite (TGR). In many ways news does not get more significant than the latest update as Tirupati said it has achieved record production and sales in Q1 2021 from its Sahamamy 3,000tpa primary graphite mining and processing operations in Madagascar. Additionally, it continues to advance the development of the first 9,000tpa module of its second project, Vatomina, to support the strong demand for its products and expansion of further capacities. Shares of Tirupati were up 7% and closed back above the key £1 level.
Shares of San Leon Energy (SLE) seem to have joined the small cap oilers in rallying sharply over the past couple of months, from a February floor of 22p to 39.75p currently. The newsflow has also improved with the latest from the independent oil and gas production, development and exploration company focused on Nigeria, noting the announcement made by Decklar Resources. In this Decklar said that activities for the Oza-1 well re-entry at the Oza Oil Field have made significant progress. In September 2020 San Leon announced that it had conditionally agreed to invest US$7.5 million by way of a loan to Decklar. And was subscribing for a 15% equity interest in the company.
It would appear that bulls of Bezant Resources (BZT) have decided that they were very much giving the thumbs up to Thursday’s news regarding the termination of the proposed acquisition by AsiaPhos of MMJV, a 100 percent subsidiary of Mining and Minerals Industries, by way of a reverse takeover transaction. Presumably the feeling is that this event may actually work in Bezant’s favour in terms of an eventual liquidity event or re-rate, especially given recent news regarding the price of copper, especially with regard to the Chile border shutdown. Shares of Bezant were up 14%.
Also, a welcome riser was another copper-gold play, Rambler Metals (RMM) where this week finally saw the churn of nearly 2 months get eaten up. More specifically, after February’s $10.5m placing it has taken this long for traders to chew up the slack of 2.5bn shares. Rambler shares have risen from the 0.3p zone up to 0.37p as traders have been particularly inspired by the idea of the company’s 100 per cent ownership in the Ming Copper-Gold Mine, and its status focus to regain its production profile at 1,350 metric tonnes per day at 2% Cu in the course of 2021.
On the Aquis Exchange, there was another positive delayed reaction from the previous day’s announcement from Valereum Blockchain (VLRM). Shares of the cryptocurrency, decentralized finance (DeFi), and blockchain technology venture builder rose 29% as it said it has engaged specialist North American consultants, Kyudoka Capital Corporation to provide strategic technology advisory services to Valereum for its pipeline of blockchain and DeFi opportunities. Traders were suggesting that the latest news effectively turns VLRM into the next Argo Blockchain (ARB), but at a fraction of the market cap at this stage.
Disclaimer:
Zakmir.com is a purely journalistic website – Zak Mir is a member of the National Union of Journalists. There is no intention here of providing financial advice. It is recommended you seek an independent professional opinion before deciding whether or not to take any action with regard to anything written here.
