I'm not sure any insto's are buying the ASX300, at least not above the 5% reporting threshold. If one looks at the 'Top 20 SH' list as shown in the Ann Report, and one strips out private holdings and SLR board holdings, none of which are recent purchases, then it does not look like a solid register. I would imagine that a 'stock picker' insto would buy an ASX300 stock if it had substantial prospects for growth or income or M&A, which seems to exclude SLR. The expression that comes to mind is the register is very "open".
What I find fascinating and puzzling is the short sale report shown below. While the gross amount of outstanding short on the 11th October was 0.28%, a fraction of SAR for instance, the level short sold stock sold can reach almost 50% on some days. Now the conspiracists would say this is evidence of some entity, using naked intraday shorting, pushing the price down so it (they) can accumulate at bargain basement prices, at teh expense of poor retail SH who are having their 'stops' constantly pressured. It appears to me that this simple strategy is working as the SP is not being defended by SLR nor by institutional buying.
Eventually, a base price will be established, as SLR has fundamental value, and it will become tempting to a low shot buyout by an asset stripper. If only the executive and board had some high price / long-dated options to motivate them to defend the SP and be the M&A agent that would magnify the market cap & catapult the stock into the ASX100 like NST which they like to compare themselves too for the purpose of justifying their remuneration packages. But I don't think they care as they will get their fabulous redundancy payout, come what may, which will be bloated by STI and LTI's.
Like most other long-term holders I would accept a takeover, just to see this board booted out.
Schadenfreude doesn't always result in the rational decision making, but its the only thing on offer from SLR.
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
Column 4
Column 5
Column 6
0
Date
Gross shorts 1
Issued capital
% Capital shorted 2
Trade volume 3
Shorts as % of volume
1
Mon 16th Oct, 2017
16,616
503,771,434
0.00%
1,791,638
0.93%
2
Fri 13th Oct, 2017
181,370
503,771,434
0.03%
743,838
24.38%
3
Thu 12th Oct, 2017
148,989
503,771,434
0.03%
719,262
20.71%
4
Wed 11th Oct, 2017
42,001
503,771,434
0.00%
1,384,401
3.03%
5
Tue 10th Oct, 2017
140,501
503,771,434
0.02%
701,943
20.02%
6
Mon 9th Oct, 2017
398,744
503,771,434
0.07%
1,411,606
28.25%
7
Fri 6th Oct, 2017
143,119
503,771,434
0.02%
900,641
15.89%
8
Thu 5th Oct, 2017
325,873
503,771,434
0.06%
1,351,516
24.11%
9
Wed 4th Oct, 2017
272,292
503,771,434
0.05%
585,764
46.48%
10
Tue 3rd Oct, 2017
245,845
503,771,434
0.04%
1,762,803
13.95%
11
Mon 2nd Oct, 2017
110,728
503,771,434
0.02%
1,902,322
5.82%
12
Fri 29th Sep, 2017
94,380
503,771,434
0.01%
1,023,858
9.22%
13
Thu 28th Sep, 2017
243,412
503,771,434
0.04%
679,332
35.83%
14
Wed 27th Sep, 2017
91,274
503,771,434
0.01%
1,103,739
8.27%
15
Tue 26th Sep, 2017
76,840
503,771,434
0.01%
1,211,196
6.34%
16
Mon 25th Sep, 2017
285,816
503,771,434
0.05%
2,226,490
12.84%
17
Fri 22nd Sep, 2017
367,611
503,771,434
0.07%
2,231,402
16.47%
18
Thu 21st Sep, 2017
341,509
503,771,434
0.06%
2,575,894
13.26%
19
Wed 20th Sep, 2017
273,649
503,771,434
0.05%
1,082,635
25.28%
20
Tue 19th Sep, 2017
99,424
503,771,434
0.02%
1,869,705
5.32%
1 Reported gross short sales. 2 % Capital reported as short sold (non aggregated). 3 Total stock trade volume.
SLR Price at posting:
37.8¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held