Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett resigning as Chairman is perhaps not as big a deal as when he resigned as CEO at the beginning of this year after 60 years in charge. Of course, everyone in the investment area of a certain age only knows Warren Buffett as the Oracle of Omaha with the magic touch. The magic touch is “get rich slow scheme”, and it has worked in spades. Perhaps even more interesting is that it has worked even though the stock market has changed from being a largely industrial / manufacturing companies based entity, to dotcoms and then AI. This perhaps underlines the timeless principles of Benjamin Graham via his book “The Intelligent Investor.” All that is left to say is what a man Buffett has been and one wishes him a long and happy retirement.
Chile’s National Day
This week was apparently Chile’s national day, or two days, September 18 and 18. I celebrated the former day at an investor lunch held by CleanTech Lithium (CTL). What can certainly be said about the company is that after an extended wait, it is finally getting there. We are in the run up to CEOL (Special Lithium Operating Contract), an ASX listing at the end of the year, and hopefully off the back of this, a run up in the share price. CEO Ignacio Mehech, certainly knows his stuff. Having been Former Chile Country Manager and VP of External Affairs for Latin America at Albermarle, amongst other industry credentials, it certainly shows. Also in attendance was Andy Dennan, CEO of another Chile focused company, Halo Minerals (HALO). HALO catches the eye because the tailings nature of its prime asset, Playa Verde in copper and gold. With FID by the end of this year, and production possible by 2028, this is a “speedy Gonzales” as compared to many of its peers.
This Week’s Small Cap Risers
It feels like it has been some time since I charted a company in the run up to a takeover offer. But last weekend I covered Dianomi (DNM) in the Chart Rundown. This was largely on the basis of the classic step progression on the daily chart. The shares had already hit the first technical target at 33p. The call was then that above 33p and a June 2025 resistance line projection the shares could hit 58p by the end of next month. In fact, the takeover news on Friday meant that the shares hit the target by the end of the week, closing at 64p. Although I have always got the feeling that many people are cynical about charting, I now realise at the age of 60 that it is not necessarily negativity towards the squiggles on the screen, but actually just irritation when I get it right. Rather like people trying to stop one being successful, even if they shoot themselves in the foot by doing so.
On Friday I wrote about Oxford Biomedica (OXB), where after the company (erroneously) rejected bid offers at double the current share price at the start of the year, it looks now to be in play one more time. What is interesting is that Astrazeneca (AZN) is being touted as a possible bidder at £10 plus, something which may be rather more palatable to the board of OXB that being taken out by private equity.
Orosur Mining (OMI) may have given one or two holders the jitters in recent weeks as the shares dipped towards 12 month lows at 13p at the start of the week. Indeed, there were some murmurs that the “celebrity” investor who has been championing the shares had lost his magic touch. Fortunately, courtesy of news regarding the El Cedro prospect, the shares rocketed, even taking out my 26p February broadening triangle target right on the nose. This was the target when the shares broken the top of the March triangle at 15p early last week. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one congratulated me on getting the technicals right, instead looking at the news. Fair enough.
Another charting winner which no one has given credit for, even though it was a very punchy call, is the recent rally in Smarter Web (SWC). Here the shares surged in the wake of the Preferred Shares news of September 11. They have since broken the second target line of 49p, and appear set to hit the upper parallel of the line at 74p as soon as the end of next month, while the old 49p level holds.
