Merrill Lynch World Mining Share Discussion Threads

[washbrook] 27/9/2007 11:58

I do not own these at present.
Also I do not own any stocks.
I last bought these the warrants in 1994 10000 at a cost of £3802.75.
My view is the ideal for the falling $.

I will be buying them any weakness.

[arja] 25/9/2007 09:19

good strategy Archie I think . a real selloff in base metal stocks today although RIO and BHP performed strongly in OZ . may be recovery later in day .

[archieandrews] 24/9/2007 18:27

i bought back in to the warrants a few days ago when the premium was approaching zero. for my calculations i use the "Including current year income (diluted for warrants)" figure as net asset value. i presume most of that income bit will be paid as the annual/special dividend towards the end of march 08. as the xd date should be only days before the warrants conversion date in feb 08 (at 478p) i do not expect to be holding the warrants at that time.

[arja] 24/9/2007 16:51

hard lately to know which figure to take for true NAV lately after they changed the way it is calculated . I now have funds ready to buy warrants but I think I have missed the boat !! 161 to 174 is a good % move but I had to satisfy myself with a small CFD position on physical from 635 to 650 for my day trade !good luck tomorrow fellows

[idioterna] 24/9/2007 14:28

Arja,

Whoops, slip of the tongue (thinking about the upcoming US elections I guess), naturally I mean Aunty Evy over at Black Rock. The only data they have for a holdings breakdown is from June 30th.

[bionicdog] 24/9/2007 14:08

A truly stellar performance , especially when you consider that you have to add a fifth of a warrant onto each share to get the true current price , ie another 34p.

[arja] 24/9/2007 13:38

hi Idioterna,
may I ask who "Hilary" is ? MLW chart still looks so good and now NOR territory . I wish I had had some funds in my share trading account to take advantage of MLWT in last few days - it sometimes lags physical but hard to predict ! Still 477p to exercise I think so no time value at present !

[idioterna] 24/9/2007 09:59

Good morning Arja,
Discount to NAV is indeed widening, but not something I really follow on a month by month basis. Expect it'll all even out come January. I just wonder how much exposure Hilary has to BLT, it's looking awfully expensive at £17.38. We've averaged 26% a year since the fund started and now we are up 48% this year. Despite having an 18 year perspective I am tempted to take some profits and reinvest at a later date, the entire sector looks like it's getting a bit ahead of itself. Having said that, I see no signs of a recession or a slackening in demand for basic commoditiies. So I'll probably just sit on the fence and twiddle my thumbs until either the BDI experiences a major pullback or MLW trades at £10.

[arja] 24/9/2007 09:33

hi Idioterna,
MLW looking great on chart but discount to NAV widening again !

[arja] 12/9/2007 20:08

idioterna,
Just got back to the Uk after 9 days in Crimea in Ukraine . Will comment on your interesting points later having had little sleep in last few days ! I see MLW now present the NAV differently and not sure what it all means yet !??

[idioterna] 02/9/2007 20:19

Arja, you can place orders directly on the book with GNI, no need to go through the MMs. In fact for an extra £10 you can even put your order directly on the book with E*Trade, thereby bypassing the MM spread. There can be a few entertaining reactions when you place a big order on a small volume stock just above the bid ;-) Nowadays, we are all Market Makers. Sure SETS is a better system, but it only comes into its own with high volume shares. With low volume it's pretty easy to manipulate a share price, albeit briefly, whether you are a Market Maker in a SEAQ environment or a big instituion in an electronically automated environment. Personally, I am still inclined to believe that the dip in MLW had more to do with the masses rushing to lock in pension profits rather than any active market manipulation.

[chris79] 02/9/2007 18:42

SETS is order driven where people put in different orders - e.g. on the bid side the top bid made be 561 but only for 2500 shares, but the offer may be 562 for 15000 shares. This could be made up of lots of different orders or just one. The lower priced bids / higher priced offers sit behind these and orders are then 'matched'. The strength of the two sides is what people talk about when they say the order books looks good/bad. This compares to say SEAQ where market makers put up a price and size they will deal in - say WINS are 80-84 for a stock and KBC are the only other market maker and are 82-89 the touch price would be 82-84. SETS is for the larger stocks, but more and more stocks are going onto it.

[anubus] 01/9/2007 13:29

arja could you explain please what a SETS stock is
many thanks.

[arja] 30/8/2007 07:40

Idioterna,
yes, of course there is manipulation in all markets by the big players . But my point is that why have a middle man who takes his sometimes quite big cut and hence less profit for investor or trader or higher loss if losing trade ! It is just " jobs for the boys" mentality sanctioned by the LSE!! No SD in OZ either so not necessary to make about 10% in spec stocks just to stand still as happens in UK ! All stocks should be SETS stocks here but the LSE keep the antiquated system going .

[nephin] 29/8/2007 22:43

I take on board all the observations that you guys are makeing, and by the sound of it some of you posters certainly know a thing or two, but I have also been investing for quite some time and in my opinion - which is just a gut reaction - this share is just too moody to be kosher - that's all.

over & out.

[idioterna] 24/8/2007 10:11

arja - no MMs in Sweden either, but still plenty of market manipulation. Any of the top financial instituion can manipulate entire markets and equities if they want to and if they think it's worth it. It's certainly not the sole preserve of Market Makers in the UK.

[arja] 24/8/2007 09:58

discount to NAV has arrowed considerably which is why it is so hard to trade this stock ! has been about 70p and now about 35p or so . Of course it is all about how investors perceive the outlook for base metal prices but undoubtedly MM manipulation plays a part as Nephin rightly pointed out ! MMs should be nade obsolete for all stocks - no MMs in OZ ever and works well !

[idioterna] 20/8/2007 10:46

Yep - Perhaps I should add that my approach is somewhat biased. I've been holding and increasing my positions for the past 5 years. Indeed, just added a few more shares this morning. I don't intend to sell a single share before 2025.

[jumbo66] 20/8/2007 10:38

agree arch, the share price is in unity with the assets its invested in imho[hd] i hold re jumbo

[archieandrews] 20/8/2007 08:13

nephin - can only agree with recent posters, i don't see anything untoward here

[idioterna] 20/8/2007 07:22

Nephin - Blackrock are not manipulating this IT at all, the exaggerated fall in the share price can, in the main, be attributed to the massive amount of positions sold by Swedish workers with this in their pension funds. This represents a bit of an anomaly among ITs and something I discussed at length in last year's May crash. Nothing to worry about and certainly not a conspiracy, but it does add quite a bit of volatility.

[jimcar] 19/8/2007 20:16

Nephin

Surely the drop in the NAV gap indicates that earlier, with the big discount, IT investors felt that the price of miners was looking relatively high and hence they refrained from buying. After the recent large falls in miners they are looking less overpriced and so are prepared to pay closer to NAV.

[chris79] 19/8/2007 19:15

Nephin

You seem to be making some serious statements about market manipulation.
1. How do you think the NAV is manipulated? (one would assume the figures can only be numerically rather than subjectively arrived at)
2. Why do you think Blackrock's doing it?
3. Where do you get your thing about the £1 difference from? this is an incredibly volatile and until recently well performing IT and a £1 difference would have been a 25% discount a year ago and 33% 2 years ago.

I suggest you are reading far, far too much into the share price movements. Given the volatility we have seen recently i would suggest any differences are just the strange pricings of the market and as an example i twice made good money by trading when the IT had barely moved as the mining sector soared.

[nephin] 18/8/2007 17:05

archieandrews:

What you are saying is quite right, and what I am saying is that the culture of this share has changed over the last four weeks and it has got nothing to do with the recent sways on the markets.

The change is directly connected to Blackrock and the way that they are running this share because up untill recently the NAV was always about £1 ahead of the SP, and then suddenly the gap starts to shrink (the share price does not start to come up to the NAV figure of course - as it should do, the NAV starts to sink towards the SP) And as you say the warrants are now way overpriced.

If you get involved in this share or its warrants just be carefull, it's not a true investment trust anymore - that's all.