UK 23:19 Thursday, 5 November 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Hello Share Plungers. Miners have had a really bad time of it. But the thing about bad times is that there are cycles at work and bad times can become good times. The tragedy is that recoveries only rarely equal and, even more unusually, exceed pre-crash levels.
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Comments
Xanderbelle
The 70p price in Dec was AFTER a 100 to one consolidation. So your 1750 share was actually worth 0.7p
Gary Newman
Malcolm,
I would be cautious buying at the level it has now reached, given a market cap back over £500 million – more because of how quickly it has rebounded to that level! When i covered it as a recovery play at 55p i was thinking more in terms of 12-18 months to reach the recent highs we’ve seen. A lot will come down to platinum though and that has had a fantastic bounce from around the 810 area (I traded that from an average of around $825 – unfortunately closed well before it hit 1000 though!), and if we look historically it is unusual for it to be trailing gold by this amount (I suspect that is partly due to the hit it took when the VW scandal broke). With this company it does look to be heading the right way and I’d expect it to return to profitability at this rate, given the cuts it has already made – if i remember right guidance for 2016 was around 700,000oz (just platinum i think, rather than the basket of metals it also tends to use sometimes as a platinum equivalent). The job cuts is interesting, as it certainly helps Lonmin when it comes to its costs, but I do wonder if PIC will continue to hold all of its shares – i suspect it didn’t want that many in the first place as it got left with those not taken up in the RI! Still one i like for the long term.
Good to see that the bounce in platinum also seems to be benefitting another that i know we both liked recently, JMAT.
Xanderbelle,
Yes 100:1 consolidation after the Rights Issue at 1p – those taking up the RI were effectively averaging around 1.35p, or thereabouts, post that event as i think the share price was about 16p when that RI was set. Have to feel sorry for any long term holders given the decline here over the last few years – it is certainly one that in the past i never expected to get anywhere near these levels, but then it had all the labour problems (lost production, mine closures etc) plus a crashing platinum price.