BAL announcement likely on 14Dec, page-16

The rationale for trading halt is to prevent insider trading in a lead up to an announcement. Yes it is a standard senior management function for one billion or 100 billion dollar company to prevent insider trading.

I think BAL announcement tomorrow morning will be positive. I won't be surprised if the short sellers run for cover and drive the price up 5-10% or even higher. Almost 50% of the 96 million shares on issue are tightly held. There is not much floating stock for BAL and this is the reason why price went up so much. This will be one of the reason for price going back up in 6-12 months time.

Be patient and wait for 12 hours for tomorrow's announcement and then wait 12 months for 20-30% return