Around the Traps ... with THE FERRET 07:38, Friday, 17 December 2004
Sydney - Friday - December 17: (RWE Australian Business News) - ******************************
Shareholders of OCCUPATIONAL & MEDICAL INNOVATIONS (OMI) will have another nervous day today after the company's new board issued an update last night.
Directors said the review had taken longer than expected because it was important directors clearly understood the "ability of the company to actually manufacture the syringe and scalpel products in commercial quantities".
Now there's a Eureka moment for you!
The shares fell 5c to $1.50 on the day of the annual meeting on November 30 when new executive chairman Ian Fraser told shareholders that, like them, the board wanted to know what was happening with the company's products.
The shares closed at $1.20 yesterday, ahead of the news the company will incur a first-half loss of $2 to $2.3 million.
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A lot of politically correct companies are carefully avoiding the dreaded Christmas word in their bland "season's greetings" cards.
But not BLINA DIAMONDS (BDI).
At the end of its drilling report yesterday it said, "The staff and Board ... wish all its stakeholders a happy Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year".
And the shares rose 1c to 29c.
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The new floats reporter at RWE is going to have his tongue hanging out before the day is over.
After a record year for new floats it's shaping up to be a record week with new listings hitting the market every day and the busiest day being today, when six sets of original investors will be keeping their fingers crossed for stag profits.
And four will be in the first 80 minutes of trading.
Ferret can't remember there ever being six listings in one day, even in the 1970s nickel boom.
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Traders are on tenterhooks after TITAN RESOURCES (TIR) asked for a trading halt on Monday, pending an announcement, and then asked for suspension on Wednesday.
The stock, which was once bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 54c (in April), was slashed from 21c to 16.5c on November 30 after shocking the market with news that WMC RESOURCES had rejected 1,855 tonnes of ore delivered to the Kambalda nickel concentrator from Titan's Armstrong nickel mine as unacceptable.
The shares surprisingly recovered straight away to 22c, but had drifted down again to 17c when the halt was called.
The company said on November 30 the delay in delivering acceptable ore to WMC had affected Titan's cash flow in the short term and options were being pursued to fund any potential shortfall.
"Advanced discussions have been held with potential parties including interests associated with one of the directors of the company," Titan said.
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Following a price slump from $1.93 to $1.53 in MINARA RESOURCES (MRE) early this week, managing director Peter Johnston said yesterday nothing had changed ... "We have a strong balance sheet, we will finish the calendar year with over $100 million in the bank, we're operating at a profit, our safety record has improved dramatically over the past 12 months and the nickel market is expected to remain strong for some time."
But production will be down in the December quarter due to problems now rectified and it was the fall from $1.93 to $1.78 AHEAD of that announcement on Monday which put the skids under the stock to $1.53 on Tuesday.
The shares were up 1c to $1.72 yesterday.
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We wonder if RUBICON AMERICA TRUST, which yesterday announced it had finalised the acquisition of its initial portfolio, is happy with its ASX code ... RAT.
It goes with a CAT (CATUITY) but there's no DOG on the boards.
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ANZ yesterday doubled parental leave from six to 12 weeks, and it can be taken as a lump sum upfront, leave allowance over 12 weeks or half-pay over 24 weeks.
Oh, well, there goes the gain from the previous day's crackdown on fees paid to mortgage brokers.
The leave package was announced by someone titled "Head of People Capital" at the bank.
And here we were only just getting used to heads of Human Resources.
Ferret can remember when they were staff officers.
Heck, he can even remember when there was no parental leave, let alone upfront lump sums for same.
ANZ has had a great couple of days in the market, though, with the shares up a total 43c to $20.38.
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One of the day's strongest performers was ... ARISTOCRAT (ALL) ... again.
It shot up 41c to close at a record $9.40.
That makes it three rises in a row totalling 77c.
Another update on the way?
(Comments and complaints to [email protected] - no requests for advice please.)
