Ann: Quarterly Activities Report - June 2015, page-33

I don't know about popularity. There are so many variables at play such as volumes traded, number of shorts, volatility of SP, announcement of news, pumping by brokers etc etc, the list goes on.

At the moment NST has 22.6m shorts outstanding and that equals 3.8% of shares on issue. EVN has 14.17m shorts outstanding and that equals 1.43% of shares on issue. So, whilst all goldies would be attracting the attention of shorters when the POG is going down there is more risk that EVN will get a bigger short attack than NST just on those ratios at present. That will hit the EVN SP if that happens.

Plus, it is all a matter of relativity in points of time and price. For instance, the EVN SP was $1.26 on 17/6/15 when NST SP was $2.22. Today the respective SP are around the $1 and $2.05 marks. That is a drop of 26c for EVN or 20% and a drop of 17c for NST or 7.6%.

EVN has had dilution impact their SP, so that is an important factor. But be mindful there is still more dilution to come upon the settlement of La Mancha (or it Cowal? one or the other anyway).

When all settlements are done for EVN they will be carrying a debt of around $743m and have about 1.4b shares on issue. NST will have around 600m shares on issue. So there is plenty more scope for EVN to have loose shares hitting the market for traders and shorters to play with as compared to NST.

As they say though............... beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

To finish....... I like NST as an investment stock and EVN as a trading stock. But............. the price must be right in both cases.

Cheers