ERHE Shoots Up At Open Monday

ERHC Energy (OTC BB symbol: ERHE) shot up $0.03 at the opening bell this morning on high volume at nearly 300,000 shares in the first 20 minutes.

The buying is believed to be driven by the belief the stock was oversold on Friday, when nearly 2.5 million shares were sold versus 1.87 million purchased, driving the price down $0.11 cents. Monday's volume was driven by a variety of factors that may not be relevant today.

At 9:50am EST, the current Bid is $0.595 and the Ask is $0.605 and the volume stands at 312,037.

In the first 15 minutes, 117,382 Buys outpaced 75,807 Sells, with 8,300 shares unidentified. It took 55 trades to move the price to $0.60.

A handful of trades around 10am EST have driven ERHE down as low as $0.57; at 10:05am EST it stands at $0.59 Ask and $0.58 bid, with the last trade at Ask. Volume is at 374,098.

Update, 10:18am EST, 4/18/05: In a strong swing to the positive side, 475,000 shares have traded in the first 45 minutes today, and the price at $0.585 remains highly volatile within a 3-cent range. SwingingK has posted that he got verified information that the "JDA" (sic) is currently meeting, and some investors are happy about that. There is as yet no press release on the JDA Website. The post apparently intended to say that the Joint Ministerial Council, which decides the block awards for the Nigeria-Sao Tome joint Development Zone, was meeting.

Update, 1:38pm EST, 4/18/05: The share price is now up $0.04 at $0.61, after hitting $0.63 five times during the noon hour, and is still hitting $0.62 fairly often on 271 trades at 1:06pm EST. After a heavy imbalance toward buys, the stock is trading roughly even, with 634,881 Buys and 611,351 Sells and 83,231 shares unidentified at 1:06pm EST. At 1:44pm EST, the volume stands at a healthy 1,340,900.

Update, 5pm EST, 4/18/05: ERHE won back 5 cents of its 11-cent loss on Friday this afternoon, closing at $0.62 for an 8.77 percent gain. That was an improvement of $6,152 for the ERHC On The Move portfolio of 123,040 shares, which is now $22,037.33 ahead. The volume at the close was 1,739,000. Of that, 837,471 shares traded as Buys, and 822,296 in Sells, with 83,231 unidentified, in 349 trades - less than half the number of Friday's but three times the recent normal volume of trades.