After engaging in his crypto “hustle” for some months, it would appear that Elon Musk re-assuring the market that Tesla (TSLA) has sold none of its Bitcoin holding was a kick in the teeth both for it and for its smaller cousin, Dogecoin. Rather more understandably, crypto miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) saw its shares fall 10p to 138p, although they had fallen to an intraday low of 120p. Clearly, there was some support to be had for Argo given its ongoing move to sustainable energy sources, as well as the news last week that it has signed up to the Crypto Climate Accord, promoting the decarbonisation of the industry. What will be interesting to see is whether not only does 110p post February support hold for the shares, but whether the Woke / ESG brigade turn the screw further by suggesting that crypto mining itself is unethical / non – humanitarian.
Not only does the fall of crypto appear to help equities in terms of the liquidity diverted from digital asset day traders, but it seems even more clear that the former real world mining targets such as Gold. In the small cap space this manifested itself with a 14% jump for Wishbone Gold (WSBN) as the Queensland focused gold explorer. Helping the cause apart from firm precious metals prices has been last month’s news regarding its Red Setter Project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia that a Programme of Works had been formally submitted by its consultants Terra Search to the Western Australian Government's Department of Mines for up to 100 drill holes to depths of 300 metres for a total of up to 30,000 metre of drilling over a 48 month period. Wishbone’s Red Setter Project is located 13 km south-west of Newcrest Mining's Telfer Gold-Copper project with all its associated access and infrastructure.
Sticking with the mining space, and there was fresh newsflow from copper-gold specialist Xtract Resources (XTR). Here we heard that an Induced Polarisation geophysical survey has identified potential extensions to the Racecourse Mineral Resource on the Bushranger exploration project, located in the Lachlan Fold Belt of New South Wales, Australia. The company said that the geophysical survey results were very encouraging, indicating an opportunity for further shallow mineralisation to the north-east of the main porphyry. The deposit also appears to be open down-plunge to the south-east and to the north-west, further increasing the deposit size potential. Shares of Xtract remain just below last month's £5.5m 5.6p placing price - with the churn starting to show some signs of ending. An end of day close above this level could be the sign that a fresh leg higher is on its way.
Next generation investor Pires (PIRI) continues to bask in the reflection of recent star investments Pluto Digital Assets and Low6. The latest revelation to the market was a follow up to an announcement made on Friday 14 May 2021 by London listed venture capital fund Sure Ventures providing an update on its investment portfolio during Q1 2021. Pires has a combined direct and indirect (via its 28% shareholding in Sure Ventures) interest in Sure Valley Ventures of circa 20%. Pires Chairman Peter Redmond said it is pleased with the progress made by Pires' portfolio companies held through SVV, during Q1 2021, including the accelerated growth of companies such as Buymie, Admix and Ambisense.
One of the stocks which has perhaps ironically been rehabilitated in the past couple of weeks is technology investment company Asimilar (ASLR). It had already managed to more than prove its worth with a £7m investment in edtech group Dev Clever (DEV) at 10p. But in the near term Asimilar remains the best proxy to the currently suspended All Active Asset Capital (AAA), off the back of investments which it has in common with its higher market cap cousin. Earlier this month AAA, arguably became victim to the rogue element in and around the stock market which perhaps cannot cope with the success of others. Shares of Asimilar were up 6% at 39p, but still well below the 70p peak early last year, when the story of Mesh / Sentiance / Aaqua was rather less developed than it has become now.
One of the more useful rules regarding the stock market is to look out for placing / fund raising situations where the share price manages to remain at and above the placing price. This has so far been the state of affairs at Zoetic (ZOE). Here the stock should have been “off to the races” following the cancellation of the LDA financing. This is because it is not often that a company will change such an arrangement as by definition, it would be an admission that the deal was not up to scratch. Indeed, the latest news regarding the ratcheting up of “Chill” brand orders over the past 6 weeks, should have added to the confidence in the fundamentals at the CBD group. It will therefore be worth noting if support for the stock continues to emerge at / above the recent 60p placing price.
Shares of sprawling pharma services group Open Orphan (ORPH) appeared to be ending their recent consolidation below 35p – the former resistance area of the October – March period. The stock was up 5%, in the wake of last week’s news that hVivo, a subsidiary of Open Orphan, had signed a £3m contract with Imperial College London, as part of a Wellcome Trust funded initiative to manufacture a SARS-CoV-2 challenge virus. Under this agreement hVIVO will develop a new SARS-CoV-2 challenge virus based on new emerging variants of the virus, which will be used in future hVIVO run human challenge trials to allow direct comparisons of vaccines or antivirals against different COVID-19 variants. Open Orphan stock closed back above its rising 50 day moving average at 36p. Such technical setups can be an indication of a new leg to the upside.