SHARES ALIKEC@ Ltd, one of the sillier-named companies on the...

SHARES ALIKE

C@ Ltd, one of the sillier-named companies on the ASX, has gone from making spectacles for others to making a spectacle of itself.

Last week it copped its third speeding ticket in eight months from the exchange since it expanded its activities from optical gear to the world of minerals.

The exchange jumped in last Wednesday, pointing out that C@'s shares had gone from 6.5� to 15.5� in 10 days, with volume accelerating to represent about 40 per cent of total issued capital.

Since C@ responded by attributing the excitement to some fat coal seams intersected in two drill holes on its Mongolian leases, the stock has edged up even higher to a peak of 18.5�, before settling back to 17� yesterday.

Shares equivalent to about 30 per cent of its equity have also changed hands since then. Insider would hazard a guess that a small portion of the stock being traded related to some vigorous exercising of the group's 1� options since May.

Only 20 million options out of nearly 170 million have been turned into fully-fledged stock in that time, which would seem to defy logic for Insider - after all, who would not chase a seventeen-fold return? The back-of-the-envelope suggests that those who have exercised are probably $3 million up - and the remainder are theoretically about $22 million in the money.

An investor, Peter Ekstein, did submit a substantial shareholding notice, laying claim to 33.5 million shares as of July 1 from buying begun in January, but that is just a fraction of the turnover

Cheers

Sheeza