Goldigger, I don't think anyone has suggested that they are confident of an announcement being made on August 31st itself in regards to strategic partners, although I guess it is a possibility.
George Jones has put a lot of effort into SDL, and I am sure that he will want to be a part of it, when they announce strategic partners. It just doesnt make sense that he would do all the work, then plan his retirement just before it announced.
SDL have always said mid year, for the announcement of strategic partners. For mine, August 31st is the end of this period. September starts to creep into the end of the year period.
The theory of an announcement prior to August 31st is all based on speculation, however a lot of the peices just seem to be coming together for it.
The biggest most recent indicator you can probably get is the volume of shares traded today. Just when everyone was starting to get cold feet again, out of nowhere there is a massive volume of shares traded, with some extremely large trades going through, parcels worth $1Million were traded a couple of times. The way they were traded also suggests that an announcement is forthcoming. There was a $1 Million dollar parcel traded earlier in the day, then there was a sudden surge of urgency right at the end of trading to break through the massive 20c barrier. With about twenty minutes to go, the 20c barrier looked unbreakable with over 7 million shares to be offload, when in a blink of an eye, they were all gone, and 20c was now over on the sell side. This is not normal trading.
Hope this helps, but I am expecting something Monday, whether it be strong trading, an announcement, trading halt or an issue of a speeding ticket, all are welcome in my books.
SDL Price at posting:
20.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held