Rinse and repeat. |
I had honestly expected something from OXB by now Dom, and I based that expectation on what Frank put out last year, but for some reason they are much quieter this year.
If OXB had briefed the analysts then I think we would be aware of broker notes / updates, so that doesn't seem to have happened either.
If OXB can't (or don't want to) tell the market anything at the moment, then what do we expect back from the market?
It soon passes though, and a week on Friday we are one month into our return to profit year.
You know my guess around why they are quiet and why no insiders have bought, but the jury is still out with that one. |
Rinse and repeat.
Up in the morning, close at opening price.... |
We're in one of our phony war periods super - of which we have seen many over the years. Yes we are technically due some kind of mid term update from OXB which might help, otherwise the prelim FY results & webcast are about 3 months away.
You will either lean towards the Novo idea or you won't (which is fine) but I can't ever remember such a long period during which no OXB insiders bought any shares. So something is going on - we just don't know what it is yet. |
I claim no expertise but I guess it's just Blackrock trading on its own account, which it's known to do with its holdings. It would certainly use a bot, which might explain the 'pinging' (if that's what it is - it does seem credible) and the occasional holdings RNS they've produced.
Of course there's also other institutional interest - eg Briarwood, M&G, Ameriprise, Liontrust in recent RNSs - and they could also be trading on their own behalf, with reporting pending a boundary crossing.
I imagine the company uses one of the shareholder monitoring services, so they should have a clearer view of what's happening, but if they do it's guaranteed they're not going to tell us :¬( |
For the trade spotters amongst us:-
266 trades today with 67 of them marked SINT.
I obviously don't know what that means, but it's not normal for OXB. |
The same Mr Black as in Reservoir Dogs? |
' Hi, I'd like to speak to Mr Rock Black please'
' Sure, can I ask who is calling please?'
'Yes It's I.R here, look,we received this email from Hilp, they are all
getting a bit suspicious,can you take the brakes off a bit please' |
 I don't think the company will be able to explain the trade data but the following might help to further compound the confusion!The article below suggests that 1-share trades are often used to test for hidden liquidity. That is, if you buy 1 share or sell 1 share you can see what that triggers in the order book from other algorithmic traders that might give you information that helps your future trades.1-share trades are the most common odd lot trade size, accounting for 9.62% of all odd lot transactions and 3.65% of all trades on NASDAQ in 2012. While 50.41% of 1-share trades result from broken orders, 34.89% of 1-share trades are intentional. We provide substantial evidence that traders use 1-share trades to "ping" for hidden liquidity. In particular, our results indicate that 1-share trades are disproportionately aggressive and also execute against hidden liquidity more than any other odd lot trade size. We also find a relative increase in trading immediately following a 1-share trade. Our results are in line with Clark-Joseph (2014), who suggests that traders may use small, unprofitable trades to detect information from other traders. Specifically, 1-share trades represent the minimum cash outlay necessary to trade, while simultaneously producing the smallest possible effects on a market maker's inventory, and in turn, a security's price. |
Top marks Phil, but I imagine they won't know, would have to ask RBC if they wanted to know, but won't do that because they won't see it as important enough.Opening auction was GBP 77K this morning, then straight into the single share SINT trades. |
Sent this, will let you know any response.
Dear IR,
I hope this email finds you well. I am writing as a long-term shareholder of Oxford Biomedica to seek clarity regarding some recent observations in the trading activity of OXB’s shares.
Over the past several weeks, there has been a noticeable pattern of unusually high SINT trades and apparent price stabilization around certain levels. These trends have raised some questions among shareholders, particularly as they deviate from what we might expect under normal market conditions.
Could you please provide any insights or context that might help explain:
1. The prevalence of SINT trades recently, particularly in high numbers at market open.
2. Whether the company has any awareness of or commentary on the tightly controlled price range seen recently.
As a shareholder, I am confident in the company’s strategy and long-term prospects, but I would greatly appreciate reassurance or guidance on these observations. Additionally, any update on the timing of a trading or business update would be most welcome.
Thank you in advance for your time and assistance. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards, |
I would hope we have someone on the board who understands these issues?
Whatever the answer is however, it is NOT normal practice. It isn't something seen on other shares. Ergo, something devious is going on. |
I make no judgement on this because it might be coincidence and I am not a market expert, but Dom and others have noted how the price seems to be tightly controlled of late and more often than not finishing the day as close to the opening price as doesn't matter.
Today was a low volume day for us (63k shares traded) which was similar volume to the Christmas break daily trading to put that into perspective.
202 transactions in total today, but the first 50 trades were 50 consecutive SINT trades and I've never seen that before. Of late there have been quite a lot of those, but 50 nose to tail?
275 shares traded in total over 50 transactions at the start of the day. That's a lot of signalling isn't it?
I looked at the order depth on OXB's secret page to try to find a clue and at close on the bid there were
1,200 shares at 285
1,200 shares at 275
1,200 shares at 270
1,200 shares at 167
whilst on the ask side
1,193 shares at 420
1,200 shares at 423
1,200 shares at 425
1,170 shares at 428
1,200 shares at 429
Surely all the 1,200 orders there by the same person, but why comically low with those on the bid? Is that just a "trick" to somehow keep a lid on things? |
57 SINT trades in the first 2 hours Dom. I think that's a new record for us. |
Which suggests that this is not being treated as a 'normal' stock..... ergo, what is 'abnormal' about it, if it isn't the beginnings of thoughts of a buyout? |
Avalanche of SINT flagged trades again this morning, which suggests to me that the 3 big RNS about holding levels last week aren't the end of this yet. |
"In our view, the reasons for the healthcare sector’s continued underperformance
versus the wider market during December were a continuation of those
under discussion since the election outcome; there is considerable
uncertainty over the regulatory outlook and this is putting investors off.
We have commented extensively on these issues in November’s
factsheet and on the Trust blog, which can be found on the Company’s
website, and remain of the view that the likely outcome is more benign
than feared, regardless of who is appointed by Trump". BBH trust Dec 2024 factsheet.... |
All true that it goes quicker Gareth, but I'm still trying to put off becoming The Major in Fawlty Towers for as long as is possible.
I'd really quite like to be holding OXB when they are at max-capacity and therefore full margin, but as you will have worked out some time ago now, I'm pretty convinced that Novo Holdings will offer our major shareholders enough to buy them out of those rewards early and we will just be observers to it all.
If all the clues which I've stuffed into the Novo H Cluedo envelope are actually something close to their intentions, then OXB is only going to become progressively more expensive this year - so why wait? $11bn is about to return from Novo Nordisk and that's a pretty good war chest with which to go on a spending spree isn't it? |
The good news HST is the older we get the faster the sands fall (I think that is good news?). |
As a wise man (when asked for a definition) once replied "basically, time is the thing which stops everything from happening at once". Wise words there.
You're a very long term holder Gareth and don't need reminders from me, but when almost all of your customers are put on hold with pandemic restrictions (commercial work being allowed) meaning that 87% of your bioprocessing work was for an emergency vaccine - and that then gets stopped early for political reasons. It's a disaster.
No other words, it's just a disaster. Then buy in an AAV vector where the deal is greatly sweetened by guaranteed work from the vendor - who then goes out of business - and in trying to mitigate a disaster you have done the frying pan to fire two step.
This you already know well. But you mention time, and in April it will be 3 years since OXB announced the end of that vaccine production for AZ.
In those 3 years OXB have ditched a lot of costs and let loose Seb whose sales department this year will deliver all time record sales (and a profit). Our USA site not only has lots of non-Homology AAV work now, but is selling LV into north America too.
It took 3 years, but it's fixed now and of course next year there will be even more sales with better than 20% EBITDA margin.
It's a very good story but (as Dom points out) even though OXB seem reticent to blow their own trumpet in public, something must be interesting the people who are happy to spend £20m+ on 5%.
Obviously I see this through the eyes of an OXB shareholder, but the Novo guy seems to drop some huge hints to me.
He wants to double the size of Catalent? What has pure CDMO OXB got to offer?
In Oxford
OxBox - production, fill/finish, warehouse and labs.
Windrush Court - labs.
Harrow House - production and labs.
Wallingford - MHRA approved warehouse.
Yarnton - production, labs, warehouse.
In America
Patriot's Park Boston - production, labs, fill/finish, warehouse, cell bank.
In France
Strasbourg - production, fill/finish, labs
Lyon - production, fill/finish, cell banks.
Now OK, Catalent was 50 sites prior to moving 3 sideways into Novo Nordisk, but we know where he can buy 7 more plus a dedicated warehouse site don't we? |
Tempus omnia revelat, hopefully the sands of time will soon be gone. Exciting times. |
The sharks don't circle if there is nothing for them to kill..... M&G happy to take a profit with their 'trading chunk', still have allbut 5%, Blackrock 5%, Briarwood Chase 5%. Any time there is a seller of any volume it disappears very quickly. Good times ahead!! |
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