WDS up off the canvas

Let’s be honest - it’s been a pretty bleak year so far for WDS. The climate change cloud has hung over the company heavily and the activists have gone feral and impacted sentiment.

Even fund managers have turned on us - superfunds using their holdings to effectively work against bottom line profits rather than in support of them (if only superfund members were awake to this)

It is unbelievable that superfunds can have large holdings and push aggressively for WDS to fast track to being a green energy company. This is expensive and stupid and would drive the sp down to $15 and they know it. How is that representing the best interests of their constituent superfund members? These 'no skin in the game' directors don’t care how damaging it is to the bottom line as long as they look virtuous and green friendly. ‘We’re making WDS accountable” …..yeah with other people’s money you jerks.

Anyway all of this activism has hurt the share price no doubt but the actual cashflow and profits should be doing ok at a Brent price mostly above $US80 this year.

And then there’s this …

Some big positives this past week - a couple of broker upgrades and the Labor government announcement that gas is supported through to 2050 …..well knock me down with a feather …..someone has finally pushed past the conga line of financially illiterate green advisors and got the message through that without gas we’re all cooked (pardon the pun) …..a major backflip from the Albanese government but we’ll take it …..very positive for WDS. Add the fact that the AGM is now behind us (and all the climate plan carry on) with the dust settling and this allows a more rational assessment of WDS as an investment.

All this gives you some belief that the recent low of $27.03 might be as bad as it gets. Going by the bounce off $27.03 to yesterday’s close of $28.63 the market is obviously starting to see some value here.

WDS outperformed the market this past week. It closed the Friday before at $27.28 so that’s up 5% in a week that saw the ASX up 1.6%.

A shame for those that gave up and sold out of WDS in the midst of the AGM madness. The worst time to sell this stock is when it goes through its ‘friendless’ periods.

A strong hold for me right now after a tough few months with a good chance of it pushing back above $30 in coming weeks I think.