Euroz Hartleys initiates LKE coverage A$1.28 target, page-45

JL and JCap got put in their place today with an excellent response from VUL.
Also - for a huge laugh....

From today's SMH/Age:
Labor’s man in Sydney’s eastern suburbs Tim Murray isn’t afraid of a fight with short odds. After all, the activist investor and pugnacious political wannabe has run twice as the ALP’s man in Malcolm Turnbull’s old electorate of Wentworth against Liberal MP Dave Sharma and independent Kerryn Phelps.

But it’s in his professional capacity as the managing director of short-seller J Capital Research that he’s picked a helluva political fight this week. On Monday, the investor released a research note slamming West Australian and Rhine Valley-based lithium upstart Vulcan Resources. A career short-seller, Murray stands to profit when stock prices fall. But it’s unclear whether Murray knew he was wading into battle against a bunch of Labor heavyweights and the country’s richest person Gina Rinehart. Miner Rinehart is Vulcan’s third-largest shareholder. Former Kevin Rudd adviser Ranya Alkadamani is a Vulcan non-executive director, while former Rudd colleague Jessica Bukowski leads its comms and investor relations arms. Bukowski, who used to work for WA’s other mining rich-lister Andrew Forrest, makes up one half of WA Labor’s premier power couple - her husband is federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman. The pair met during their time in the former PM’s office. Cute, huh? Which makes Murray’s crusade all the more fascinating.

“Vulcan Resources is a wannabe lithium miner that reversed into an Australian penny-stock copper miner,” he kicked off. “[Management] claim the project is a twofer: profitable geothermal power and “green” lithium. Neither assertion is likely to be true.” His 24-page report slams Vulcan’s “highly optimistic assumptions” and concludes “many experts agree with us that this project is a non-starter”.

The note prompted a trading halt and a return smackdown signed by Bukowski herself. “It is not apparent that Mr Murray has any technical qualifications in geothermal or lithium extraction … it is clear the report is merely an attempt to profit from “shorting” Vulcan”.

Oops! Looks like J Capital have bitten off more than they can chew this time!