That's a nice uptick (although slightly bittersweet in that I had been mucking and aahing about buying some more in the recent dip).
Various shares in my areas of interest are breaking down below long-term support lines as the financial sector fallout continues. I opened a (tiny, 0.025%) position in bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain two days ago on a combination of technical signals that suggest a turnaround. My sell target is 32p.
Lithium I haven't bothered following the reasoning, it'll come back. Cyclical markets doing what they do. * btw you can easily track LME spot and 3-month futures for ferrous and non-ferrous metals here: https://www.lme.com/en/Metals/Non-ferrous
Thanks for posting Pete, be really interesting to see how this plays out. Seems like for the EV market where generally people are looking to be environmentally aware, the green credentials of the raw materials should be easy to bring into play. Is there any currently any market differentiation in oil or other raw products between production with high ESG production vs ‘dirtier’ producers?
Thanks for posting Pete, be really interesting to see how this plays out. Seems like for the EV market where generally people are looking to be environmentally aware, the green credentials of the raw materials should be easy to bring into play.
Is there any currently any market differentiation in oil or other raw products between production with high ESG production vs ‘dirtier’ producers?
Long answer which would involve a rant, so I'll desist. Short version: Just, no! In an ideal world, yes. But that isn't how people are incentivised to purchase products in the real world, and it isn't how the world works. Unfortunately.
Nickel and lithium have tanked over the last 12 months (palladium too, I've zero interest in palladium).Copper/gold/silver are doing well (Filo/Ngex are copper/gold/silver deposits)Nickel is a very interesting one, which I think we'll maybe start to hear about years from now as a pollution disaster. Indonesia, with Chinese funding and technical support, recently cracked how to produce class 1 nickel from nickel laterite using a method known as high pressure acid leaching. This had not been possible until very recently despite some other companies trying unsuccessfully over many years. Consequently Indonesian nickel has been swamping the global market over last 12 months, hence the price drop. But their method is very heavily polluting (and also benefits from cheap coal-powered electricity generation). The issue is the waste produced and how to store it safely, compared to the other ways of producing nickel. We're all using Indonesian nickel in our cheap batteries and in our cheap stainless steel, manufactured with coal power, and the western nickel producers are pissed off that the metals markets which the car-makers and steel manufactures operate within gives no green premium for 'clean' nickel. It's relative, still a big hole in the ground but class 1 nickel from an Australian or Brazilian nickel sulfide deposit is way less polluting than Indonesian nickel using HPAL, from a nickel laterite deposit. Does anyone in the west care enough to demand metal markets put a price premium on the dirty nickel? We'll find out.. By then much of the western nickel production may have closed down because it's too high on the cost curve - as has just happened at Wyloo's Australian nickel operations which shut don this week. https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/forrest-shuts-wa-mines-as-nickel-dominoes-tumble-20240121-p5eyvoAustralian miners are frustrated with the LME’s refusal to create a “green” category within its class 1 nickel pricing structure, and identify the potential for rival exchanges to seize on this and the LME’s own historic nickel woes.The Forrest camp is hopeful UK-based Global Commodities Holdings will emerge as an LME challenger, as well as Singapore-based ABAXX and the CME Group, the world’s biggest derivatives exchange.“The LME is awash with pollutive nickel, which is squeezing out clean nickel from Australian producers,” Wyloo chief executive Luca Giacovazzi said on Sunday.I'd encourage anyone interested in a basic overview of clean versus dirty nickel to have a read of the above article (bearing in mind its a biased (but correct afaik) view by an Australian company in an Australian business paper)A more technical explainer here from woodmac on how Indonesia has cracked using high pressure acid leaching to produce nickel: https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/rise-of-indonesian-hpal/This might be like cobalt, which will work it's way through the public consciousness over years until eventually the average member of the public one day will associate nickel with 'bad things' as they do cobalt, because they read something in the daily mail or heard something on R4. By which time we'll be a very long way down the road (literally in our EV's), and Indonesia will have fucked it's coastal environment. It does make me roll my eyes/laugh/weep that average public in the west have no care to be a little bit more curious about what lies behind the affordability of their cars/machines/buildings/consumables. No western car company is going to rock the boat unless one (or better multiple) governments demand it, and no government is going to rock the boat unless large swathes of the public demand it. Willful ignorance.Centuras Metals (Brazialian nickel sulfide development project, powered by hydro-generated power) are a steal at current price, tanking due to the nickel price sentiment. I'm not invested as I sold for a big gain above $1. I am invested in Premium Nickel but that's a different play, all about potential discovery of a huge underground deposit beneath historic mine workings i.e. an exploration play but with lots of juice due to the infrastructure already being in place from the historic mine (quick/easy buyout, low development cost relative to asset). Assuming their drilling confirms what looks like a huge nickel/copper/cobalt deposit beneath the historic workings, and I obviously think it will.Lithium I haven't bothered following the reasoning, it'll come back. Cyclical markets doing what they do. * btw you can easily track LME spot and 3-month futures for ferrous and non-ferrous metals here: https://www.lme.com/en/Metals/Non-ferrous
Quote from: Fultonius on April 16, 2021, 01:55:16 pmPete, any thoughts on Aluminium Ion batteries?Looked at this some more. An Australian company called Graphene Manufacturing Group listed on the Toronto exchange released news last week about their graphene aluminium-ion battery cells.. If they can scale this up it'd be very interesting. I've taken a small position, missed the recent big rise. Overview: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-range-breakthrough-as-new-aluminum-ion-battery-charges-60-times-faster-than-lithium-ion/?sh=1b401886d287Interview and next steps to market: http://www.kereport.com/2021/05/14/gmg-graphene-manufacturing-group-recent-graphene-aluminum-ion-battery-performance-data-and-the-next-steps-to-get-the-batteries-into-the-market/Video released today on 'cleanerwatt': Links to more detailed information can be found on the CEO.ca GMG board.. if you wade through the 'face-ripping' posts there are some links to good info.
Pete, any thoughts on Aluminium Ion batteries?
I have some money in an HL ISA at the moment which is just sat there. I’ve already opened a cash ISA this year so can’t just transfer it to another. Are there any low-risk investments which you can invest in via an S&S ISA? Fixed rate bonds etc? Or bigger companies paying a dividend which would be seen as fairly stable?
I have some money in an HL ISA at the moment which is just sat there. I’ve already opened a cash ISA this year so can’t just transfer it to another.
I think your person on the phone is probably wrong. You can transfer your old ISA cash to the Halifax ISA. A money market fund is a fund that invests in short term (under a year) very liquid generally ‘safe’ assets like short term gov bonds. It’s almost as low risk as cash but a better return. You’d purchase units (just like buying shares) and the return you’d receive is generated via the price of the fund’s units increasing. Sounds like you’re on the margin of the timescale where I’d consider fixing a 12-month interest rate in a cash-ISA savings account, thereby guaranteeing yourself just over 5% for 12 months. The money market fund will return roughly around whatever the BoE interest rate averages out at over the next twelve months. Could be less than 5% if rates do begin to drop, could be more if inflation reignites and rates remain elevated.
Riiight.. if your existing cash isa is a 12-month fixed rate (I didn’t know this) then it will likely will have had an initial funding window of x-weeks when you first opened the account. Once that window is passed you can’t add any more funds. That’s maybe what your person is talking about. So yeah if that’s the case you wouldn’t now be able to put any more cash into it.
