Shares in Lonmin (LSE: LMI) have risen by around 8% today, after the company announced the resignation of its Chief Financial Offer (CFO), Simon Scott. The search for a successor is at an advanced stage and Simon Scott will continue to be involved after the interim results release in May in a transitional role.
Hurt in a fall
Clearly, Lonmin continues to be a relatively uncertain business. It has been severely hurt by falling commodity prices and has struggled to maintain investor confidence, as evidenced by its 99.9% fall in share price during the last five years.
However, with a new strategy and a fundraising which should allow the company to deliver on its turnaround plans, Lonmin could continue the share price rise of 70% which has been recorded since the start of the year. Certainly, its outlook remains relatively risky, but with Lonmin due to return to profitability next year, it could be of interest to less risk averse investors.
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Prudent to wait
Also volatile today are shares in Nighthawk Energy (LSE: HAWK), which are 9% lower at the time of writing. That’s despite there being no significant news flow released by the company today, although investor sentiment has been weak since the company announced a reduction in the limit of its borrowing facility. Previously it had been $23m, but it will now be $13m and Nighthawk stated in the latest update that it was consistent with many other operators’ reserve based loans in a challenging oil environment.
With Nighthawk having borrowings of $23m and $2m of cash, it is exploring other options with its lender to address the deficit. For the company’s investors, now is a highly uncertain time and although Nighthawk has an appealing asset base, and the potential to deliver high levels of profitability in the long run, it may be prudent to await further news before buying a slice of the business. That’s especially the case since the resources sector remains cheap and offers a number of other stocks with superior risk/reward ratios at the present time.
Improving sentiment
Meanwhile, shares in Metal Tiger (LSE: MTR) have been up by as much as 6% today and this took their gain to 371% since the turn of the year. Clearly, they have benefitted to a significant degree from the upturn in the outlook for the wider mining sector in that time, with Metal Tiger’s various investments benefitting from improving investor sentiment towards the wider mining sector.
Certainly, there is the scope for further gains in future and in a number of commodity markets it could be argued that the worst of the bear market is now behind us. However, even though Metal Tiger has a relatively well-diversified asset base, it could prove to be highly volatile and may only be worth a closer look for the least risk averse of investors.
