Potential for brokers Downgrade given the new pricing structure is worst than 2017.
In 2017, the pricing structure was FOB with a new pricing benchmark however now, the pricing is under CIF and CFR terms.
What this means is that GXY has to pay for Insurance and Freight, and responsible for the goods until it reaches the destination port and the ship is docked (ready for handover of goods after clearing customs).
In order to do this, they have to build the cost of insurance and freight into the total price, thereby giving a "Headline pricing achieved for 2018 higher than 2017"
This tells me that the price of lithium concentrate is LOWER (thereby choosing not to disclose it to the market) and rather use the "headline price" instead.
If it was a new benchmark - why hide it. Can see profit forecast being downgraded because of this. Questions will be raised about it.
Perhaps lithium market is cautious.. after all - there has been a lot of talk about Tesla and its massive cash burn - with cash to run out by March 2018 or so without another $$ raising. And given we know that Tesla makes up a huge portion of the demand of lithium, the price of lithium could go south very easily.
If it does, this means that Chinese buyers could very easily Not Accept the clearance of the shipment, thereby no requirement to pay for lithium and forces a re-pricing of the lithium concentrate.
This has happened with many western companies attempting to clear the customs .. so the risk is there.
GXY Price at posting:
$3.72 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
