Just cannot understand recent SP volatility!

As a Dana shareholder I find it difficult to
find any reason to sell, even at current price. The Company has recently
entered a number of agreements which will have
considerable benefits:-

1. Reserves from 31st December 2003 of 123.7 mmboe
must now be in the region of 200.0 mmboe.( 100 million
North Sea 70 million Mauritana 30 million Russia ).

2. Production will rise to 25-27 thousand boepd in
2005 from 18 thousand in 2004.

3. At 30th June 2004 a Net cash position which will
have been enhanced significantly year to date.

4. Exciting exploration potential.

5. Management that seem to know what they are doing
with an excellent chief executive.

6. Recent deals by other oil companies have seen oil
assets bought at prices between 7-11 dollars a barrel
( see last weeks Investors Chronicle ) Dana must have
a value well in excess of the current 300 million.

I am holding firm and looking towards 800 pence.

Any other views out there?

The only fly in the ointment though is Iran as far as DNX is concerned & as far as the analysts are concerned. That little problem isn't going to go away any time soon.

Well yes, in the sense that it would depress the whole market and oil shares too. But, in this upside down world, the oil price would go up were any action to be taken which would benefit Dana at some point. What chances, a cheeky bid for Dana, ala the one for lonmin today. I'm not surprised Lonmin gave short shrift Xstrata knew Lonmin had been artificially downvalued and were at it. The boards will just wait for value to out. I've just been watching Warren Buffett on CNBC. He looks for inefficiencies and then buys and waits.

I've often thought no-one should be allowed to work in the money markets (analysts, or whatever) until they've invested their own money in a share and held it while it halves. Seeing how you cope under such circumstances gives you fortitude when it happens again. Of course, you have to know what you're doing to buy a good company at a good price initially.

Take heart from Elementis today. I bought at 86 a year ago. It went up to 102 twice I didn't sell , then dropped to about 50p. I couldn't understand it, thought about buying more, didn't , now it's up to 90 today. I'm in profit but I should have trusted my convictions to buy more. I think there's always a part of investors which thinks, if it's dropped almost 50% or so, could there be something wrong, something we don't know about, which produces more selling and sometimes there is. But if you're confident in your research you should be able to sleep at night.

I like the copy of the Intelligent Investor with up to date examples by Jason Zweig, I think it's brilliant. He says that when good shares are 50% down it's like a

SALE Everything half-price, and guess what, great news tomorrow they might drop another 20% price. Wouldn't that be great!

Goldman out with buy/attractive rec today, target 2140p

I expect to see us recovering to the 200dma in pretty quick time (currently 1460p)

Goldman also saying "potentially attractive acquisition target".

A bid on any in the sector would provide a welcome boost, check out lonmin yesterday!

Absolutely! Chances are increasing that it can happen here too. I would like to see a few takeover successes in my portfolio right now ;)

Dana's debt situation is encouraging and following recent finds and rising production, it's dirt cheap. Someone somewhere putting the sliderule over it we hope!

Bought again at 1209 after selling the other day at 1290ish. Hoping for a double bottom! Possibility of it visiting 1050 in which case buy again I suppose

Yes I traded likewise. Bought at 1250 and sold at 1350

Strange that DNX has made much more progress than PMO over the last couple of days.

Dana has said that its results will be released a week tomorrow.

Still dirt cheap along with VPC.

Excellent set of results this morning, looks like the market is gradually waking up to the fact. Plus low debt levels and a lot more drills to come this year.

Record first half production of 43,147 boepd up 67%

Turnover increased by 188% to a record high of 314.5 million

Record Pre-tax Profit of 133.1 million up 138%, leading to Earnings Per Share of 69.95p

More than threefold growth in cashflow from operations to a new high of 193.9 million

Net debt further reduced to 9.0 million, lowering gearing to below 2%

Up 60p great.

I don't have any factual info to base this on, but hearing Evolution out with price target 3260p?

What..???

thats incredible if its true..

most brokers are 2500p plus.....3260 is highest i heard of so far.....anyway even by todays price, this is super cheap right now......market seems to have forgotten about dana

just to remind you:

2/6 Morgan Stanley 2360p
23/6 ABN Amro 2600p
4/7 Exane BNP 2200p
8/7 Credit Suisse 2840 !
7/8 Goldman 2140p
today Oriel add - not sure of target price yet.

Anybody who takes any notice of analysts is mad. The market certainly doesn't take any notice except the day when results are out. It is being traded up to 15 today. Unfortunately with all the red herrings I missed it. It will then drop a bit before the US opens.

As to what it does in the future will depend on oil and the other stocks. If they go up, it will go with them and vica versa. Tis like playing Russian roulette atm.

I don't disagree with your comments, but if broker info, reports/targets are available investors shouldn't be blinkered to it.

Naturally if oil continues it's rebound etc or other oilies outperform we can expect to do the same but what's different here is not only is production increasing rapidly but on the exploration side there are not many others that can match the forthcoming schedule. Already 3 out of 4 finds this year plus gas. There's a very robust drilling schedule ahead and it's this and potential finds which is more likely to drive it higher imo.

US likely to be pretty thin today ahead of long Labor day w/e.