Ann: Major Chinese Lake Project, page-117

Those 'change of Director interests' notices on Tuesday seem to have set the tone for this week, with the share price steadily declining over subsequent days.

There was some interesting interpretations on the significance of this by some posters here earlier in the week. That said, in the short term at least, it is hard to put a positive spin on three Directors selling their shares over two days (although I acknowledge that Robert Schuitema did also purchase some shares).

From my perspective, multiple Directors selling shares is like telegraphing 'Sell Now!' to all holders with weak hands, and thus the dip in the share price over subsequent days isn't so surprising.

Having said that, if the management of this company are even half-competent, they would have been aware of likely adverse impact of these announcements, and I doubt that they would have sold off unless they knew that the share price was likely to remain well-supported.

That might suggest either that (a) the management are aware that there is a large buyer in the background accumulating shares (as was suggested by one poster earlier in the week); or (b) they are confident that more good news is on the way.

Following on from that suggestion that there might be an accumulator at work, I have been keeping an eye on the buying patterns over recent days, to see if there is much evidence to back up this idea.

And indeed, I have noticed that there have been a pattern of large chunks of shares being gobbled up at periodic intervals: for example, today at 12:25:45 some $19,000 worth of shares were snapped up; at 11:19:50 some $21,000 of shares were gobbled up; and a little earlier at 10:55:16 around $34,000 worth of shares were purchased. I noticed a similar pattern yesterday, and this incremental pattern of buying does indicate that a fund manager or another such large investor is probably buying into the stock.

Indeed, I wonder if it might be possible that there could be some kind of understanding between the management of this company and a large buyer sitting on the sidelines: The management would have been aware that the 'Change of Directors interest' notices would have prompted some selling, and this thus may have allowed the buyer a chance to accumulate shares at a lower price than might have been otherwise possible.

So it does seem that a large buyer is at work in the background. But what of the suggestion (I think it was from Chand) that there might be some more positive news pending?.

This is a little speculative, but I think there could be some reason to suspect that there might be some news from Florida soon.

Last Wednesday (Thursday Australian time), the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) announced that it planned to aggressively accelerate the construction of the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir, submitting permit applications that will shave 18 months off this project's expected finish time.

According to this Florida politics blog, the reservoir has been a top priority because it will divert water now being released into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers.Those releases in turn trigger blue-green algal blooms in the rivers, which devastated the economy in Southwest Florida last year.

The extract below is taken from a report on this topic from a local Florida news site last week:

..."This is great. We are moving forward on this reservoir project at full speed ... because it is a crucial component of the overall (restoration) plan," said SFWMD Executive Director Drew Bartlett. "The permit applications are the latest major milestone that will get this project built and its benefits realized in the foreseeable future."

Late Tuesday, SFWMD applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for permits to allow the District to clear a 700-foot-wide strip of land, encompassing about 690 acres on the site of the proposed reservoir project.

The work will prepare the land to build a canal and perimeter levee for the project's stormwater treatment area. The canal will feed water diverted from Lake Okeechobee through existing canals into the 240,000 acre-foot reservoir and stormwater treatment area. The proposed A-2 Stormwater Treatment Area will treat and cleanse water before it is sent to the Southern Everglades.

It is interesting to compare those last few lines, highlighted above, to the comments relating to Florida in the PET Investor Presentation of 23/3/19 (page 19):

Recent Applications- US Wetland/Everglades Trial
Huge potential; Phoslock to absorb Phosphorous before entering Everglades

Is the construction of this Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir the project that this company was alluding to in the March announcement?. It is impossible to say for certain, but it certainly looks like it could fit the bill.

The timing of the recent Director share disposals is also interesting: they sold off on the 6th and the 7th (Thursday and Friday last week).

The permit applications to speed up the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir became known of Wednesday, US time, or Thursday, Australian time: the same day the Directors started selling their shares.

So possibly, that news from Florida may have given the Directors the confidence to sell, knowing that there would soon be more good news on the way soon.