Around the Traps ... with THE FERRET 07:25, Tuesday, 11 January 2005
Sydney - Tuesday - January 11: (RWE Australian Business News) - ******************************
POLARIS METALS (POL) played "hey, look at me" yesterday.
The company put out a press release saying, "Lake Jeffries prospect boosted by WMC RESOURCES/FALCON MINERALS Collurabbie Hills results".
It seems to have taken Polaris a long time to get around to plugging Lake Jeffries.
After all, the Collurabbie Hills bonanza was announced two months ago.
Actually, the market was a bit slow then as well with its reaction in Falcon Minerals shares.
The stock was 18.5c when it called a trading halt and rose only 1.5c to 20c in the first reaction to the announcement on November 10.
The shares gradually built up a head of steam, however, and sizzled ahead to $1.47 three weeks later.
Falcon fell back under profit-taking to 69c on December 14, where the pendulum swung to buyers again.
It was up 2c to 91c yesterday.
Polaris says its 100 per cent-owned Lake Jeffries tenements are 25km from WMC/Falcon's Collurabbie Hills, an exciting new find of nickel, copper and PGE mineralisation.
It says a strongly magnetic body (possibly ultramafic) on the projected NNW trend of mineralisation reported by WMC crosses the eastern boundary of Polaris's Lake Jeffries tenements and represents a 10km exploration target.
The news was good enough to push Polaris up 0.3c to 18c.
*****
HUTCHISON (HTA) shareholders must be grinding their teeth.
Their company's 3 Mobile shelled out big time as a generous sponsor at the Tsunami appeal cricket match in Melbourne yesterday.
However, we are sure we heard our esteemed Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, commend "3M" for its generosity, a company better known for abrasives, Post-its and sticky tape.
*****
It's difficult to keep track of what power companies attach to words.
We've often noted how companies regularly throw around words such as "extremely" and "excellent" while small mineral explorers give "high grade" and "very high grade" a hiding.
Now MULTIPLEX (MXG) has given the London papers a hiding for ignoring some of its words.
The construction (building, not sentence) group complained The Times and the Financial Times had both reported Multiplex was considering a listing in London as one of several restructuring options.
"The articles failed to include a statement that transferring the primary listing of Multiplex to London was 'a remote possibility', and without the inclusion of this statement the wrong impression may be gained," the company said.
This is a bit like yesterday's piece we had on the statement by WMC RESOURCES (WMR) saying the Xstrata was "Materially Inadequate", which had us wondering how more or less inadequate that was from the more usual description of unwanted offers as "totally inadequate".
With Multiplex it's a case of how much remoter than "possibility" is a "remote possibility".
The remotest remote would be just before it all became an "impossibility", we suppose.
Which is what seems to have happened.
Multiplex now says a transfer of primary listing to London "is not under consideration".
*****
Now we've seen everything.
Kaolin miner MINERALS CORP (MSC) yesterday made an announcement of the fact that it was starting a public relations campaign.
No doubt a lot more announcements will follow as it seeks "better recognition and a better understanding of the value and the future prospects of the company".
It seems to be working already.
Minerals Corp rose 0.5c to 8.4c and went as high as 8.8c.
*****
In recent months there's been a string of companies making share placements which have knocked the market price because the new shares have been issued at solid discounts.
The fact that these placements usually go to instos and sohisticated investors further riles ordinary shareholders who have to cop a lower share price.
But the opposite can happen too and intending placement makers should take heed.
LUMACOM (LUM) yesterday announced a placement to "a small group of sophisticated investors" at 12c when the shares were 9.9c.
Not for long, though.
Lumacom immediately shot up to as high as 11.5c.
*****
We read a piece in the weekend papers that surfwear was booming.
The story quoted one young female person as saying she regularly spent $200 of her $460 income on surfie tops and shorts.
This makes BILLABONG INTERNATIONAL (BBG) a licence to print money.
The market's already onto the case, of course.
Billabong, $6.85 a year ago, yesterday hit a record $11.71 before closing at $11.70, up 19c for the day.
At the annual meeting in October the company revised its EPS rise expectations from 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
That will make EPS about 56c this year, putting Billabong on a future p/e of almost 21.
This is pretty steep but who cares if carefree young things are throwing all their hard-earned at the company's products.
(Comments and complaints to [email protected] - no requests for advice please.)
