competition rolls on, page-52

"Mooroolbark, you have made some bullish statement in the past, what is your current view?" (Velvet)

Bafflement and confusion, primarily. Disappointment at seeing a six figure investment turn into a five figure one.

I strongly believed it would all come together in its own sweet time. I'm one of the 'watched pot never boils' brigade. But has someone turned off the gas? Who can tell? Management are so obdurately opaque.

I still find it hard to believe that things have somehow gone so badly that this thing with all the apparent achievements in strategic partnerships, deals on the cusp of being done, apparently timely products in rapidly growing niches... could simply crash and burn. It just seems inconceivable.

I mean, for a guy like Bouris, his reputation is everything. Can you imagine how Australia, often accused of tall poppy syndrome, would react to TZ hitting the wall? He'd be forced to come down with emphysema so we'd pity him, then flee to a luxurious villa in Spain.

So what is going on? I'm utterly baffled, stumped, stonkered. Doesn't seem to be deliberate manipulation down so that cronies can load up. We'd see the price dropping much quicker on suspicious volumes and odd trades. At the moment it's just attrition combined with no buying support. NO buying support! Not even from us. Fear rules.

Could it be the mother of all announcements is in the offing, with everything coming to fruition simultaneously? The share price action says no. Either that or it's the tightest ship that ever sailed the ASX.

Is QVT calling the shots in a more sinister game than what we're aware of? Maybe, but what's the endgame for them? They already hold a huge parcel of stock. You'd think that simply having a dramatically higher share price would be a simpler and less risky way to make a killing than whatever dastardly plot we can imagine them having hatched. It would be a highly risky strategy for them to deliberately crash the thing to take control of the shell and have it rise from the ashes. There are industry relationships and deals to be considered... messy, complicated. Bad publicity kills deals.

Sometimes it's best to simply invoke Occam's Razor. When confronted with competing theories, go with the simplest one that fits the facts. Unfortunately there are two simple theories that are starkly contrasting.

One is that things are bubbling along okay behind the scenes, taking somewhat longer than expected due to the complexity and size of the deals and the players involved. Management have been guaranteed financial support to tide them over if they need it, so they see no necessity to cut back expenditure too much and are confident revenue will flow soon...

The other simple theory, I'd rather not contemplate at the moment, but it can be summarised by the incorrect statement that 'the market is always right'. Like many oft quoted generalisations there is a grain of truth in it, and it's that grain that is causing a lot of discomfort in my shoe at the moment.

What can we do? Not much. For many of us it is too late to sell. Dumping a large tranche of shares would be a kamikaze operation...self immolation. We've placed our bet, we now have to watch our horse run its race. If it's a three legged donkey then we're cacto defunco, which is a Latin term invented by me for 'stuffed'. So we may as well keep calm and go to the gas chamber with dignity. If it turns out all was well and the last minute reprieve comes, then we can all pretend we were never worried... and there will be much rejoicing in the Kingdom.