What is behind the soaring Celtic share price?

For all of this year, up to the 21st May, the Celtic share price had remained at just under 200p. Then, in just over a month, the share price shot up to 256p. This sudden change was the result of a massive increase in the trading of Celtic shares. On Tuesday at the close of play the price was 246p.

The interest for Celtic fans is to try and guess who’s behind all this trading especially in relation to what lies ahead for recently formed initiatives such as Celtic Supporters Limited and Celtic Season Ticket Alliance. The general aim of these fan groups is to build up share holdings that would give the fan base a meaningful voice, at boardroom level. The share buying activities of the Alliance could allow it to have an earlier and more visible impact .

In aiming to give fans a voice through having a board seat, the Season Ticket Alliance would initially try to sign up 10,000 Season Ticket holders then Willie Haughey would put £2 m in a Trust to buy shares. This process would then be repeated till the Alliance had 50,000 members and £10m converted into shares. They will also be asking that shares already held by the Season Ticket holders be aggregated as proxy shares

In February Willie Haughey spoke on Go Radio  about his hopes for the Alliance saying that he wasn’t sure if shares would be available. Then, three months later ( 26th May ) he was really upbeat about progress with the Alliance saying on Go Radio that the uptake had been phenomenal and he confidently said …

I would .like to think that very quickly we can get to 10% ownership of the Club and that should give us a voice

What happened to the Celtic share price in June?

On tracking the Celtic share price as recorded on the London Stock Exchange, the price shot up as follows…

                           200p on 28th May

                           256p on 9th June

This represents a huge rise in just under 2 weeks and indicates very heavy trading in Celtic shares. On viewing the day to day trading there are two consecutive days that show an extraordinary level of trading. 

 Extract from 4th June Trading

  Price (p)               Volume             Trade Value (£)

  249 p                       10                       £24.92

  240 p              366,666                   £879,998

  245 p               45,000                    £110,250

  246 p               48,000                    £118,080

  250 p                      27                         £67.50

 £1.108 m traded for 459,660 shares (in 13 minutes)

Extract from 5th June Trading

           Price (p)               Volume             Trade Value (£)

            243 p                     312                        £758

            249 p              195,000                 £485,550

            248 p              250,000                 £620,000

            £1.105 m traded for 445,000 shares (in 1 minute)

CLICK HERE for daily Celtic trading.

This huge volume of trading represents under 1% of Celtic shares for an outlay  over £2.2 million over 4th/5th June.

At 5pm on June 5 the Daily Record, Sun and Herald all reported that Martin O’Neill had agreed a 12 month deal as permanent manager.

We don’t know who was buying or selling but it was clear that plenty of Celtic shares were available. It’s likely that the sudden rise in the Celtic share price (up 28%) tempted many shareholders into selling and there were many willing buyers, some of them having very deep pockets.

In looking at recent trading levels where just under half a million Celtic shares change hands very quickly it gives us an idea of what we may see when the Alliance Trust enters the Market with it’s first £2 million

Can we watch the Alliance’s first steps in the Market ?

When 10,000 members are signed up, the Alliance Trust will start trading as a buyer with £2  million to spend on Celtic shares. The Alliance expectations are high and they will be hoping to buy about 1% of the shares. If they are on target for this, we could expect to see trading on similar high  levels to those recorded on 4th/5th June.

Finally, in the event of no news from Silent Mike and his boardroom chums, we can at least watch the trading in Celtic shares. For all fellow nerds, I would recommend  checking the trading levels in early July where we could see signs that the Alliance Trust is up and running.

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