SAF price is rising and demand is growing due to regulation, as can be seen above.
Diesel margins and price also seem to be rising. One would think this should already be visible in the stock price.
I believe Neste’s raw material procurement is also top-notch, so margins should also be in order.
UBS yesterday raised Neste’s target price from 16 euros to 20.50 euros and buy (previously neutral).
There is now incorrect reporting circulating, claiming that the target price has now fallen to 16 euros. For some reason, things have been inverted in the reporting, presumably “accidentally” of course 
. The correct one is therefore 20.50.
Here you can find UBS’s target prices for Neste:
Behind the link, UBS’s commentary on the Neste target price increase:
Wow! $30/bbl Q4 margin for oil products would fantastic!.. In my excel, I have $18/bbl. So, if in real life there is a +$12/bbl, it roughly translates to +250mEur additional EBITDA, if compared to my expectations..
On renewables side, for Q4 UBS is more cautious than me: $467/Mt in UBS’s excel vs $520/Mt in my excel.. After 2 months will see whose excel guesses better.. 
ROAST🔥 this afternoon
Addition:
Here are the questions and themes with timestamps:
00:00 Heikki Malinen
01:00 Neste as an investment target
01:35 Why haven’t you bought the stock
02:10 Management ownerships
03:05 Neste almost in a ditch
05:14 Risks
06:50 Regulatory risks
08:35 Hubris
09:55 Staff morale
11:00 Key experts
13:44 Balance sheet flexibility
16:15 Profitability improvement
17:25 Continuous improvement
19:15 Culture and investment discipline
22:00 Culture eats strategy
23:32 Competition
25:30 Moats
30:20 China
33:38 Regulation and return on capital
35:55 Raw material sourcing
38:50 China tariffs and SAF
40:00 SAF and sustainability
43:55 Singapore refinery and regulation
46:00 Martinez
48:28 Safety
50:40 Return on capital in the future
51:35 Developing leaders
53:25 Which company do you admire
54:35 Where will Neste be in 10 years
ROAST is now also available on Spotify!
OP’s morning review states that the UK is proposing import tariffs of $341-402 per ton on US RD producers in response to the advantage brought by the CFPC (Clean Fuel Producers Credit). The tariff would come into effect in March.
According to OP, this is good news for Neste’s renewable product sales margins next year.
OP published an updated analysis today at 9 AM. Below is a quote from the analysis (which is fully accessible only to OP’s customers):
“Supply-demand balance clearly supports a stronger next year than expected.
In this report, we assess the market outlook for Neste’s renewable products and the supply-demand balance in 2026. In our view, the European markets remain strong with growing demand and limited supply. As fixed-price contracts expire at the turn of the year, the prevailing high spot margins will impact results significantly more strongly than consensus forecasts assume. We raise our forecasts for next year and our target price increases to EUR 27.00 (previously EUR 21.00). The return potential is attractive and our recommendation rises to BUY (previously ADD).”
Also reported this morning, these OP and BoA will probably both support the stock’s movement today:
“Bank of America has upgraded Neste to a buy rating from underperform, according to Bloomberg News (BN).”
I listened to that Verneri’s Neste-Roast, and my eyes were opened too, that Malinen doesn’t have “a penny” of his own money in Neste… The gentleman was quite troubled when Verneri asked twice why Malinen didn’t buy when the price was at seven…
I think this is a good point, and my hair really stood on end when I realized how little the management team is involved in this. And there was no satisfactory answer whatsoever, or even an attempt at one, to this question.
A few other companies I follow have had a similar problem, but there, at least, they’ve managed to explain something about the impact of insider information and the company’s current situation, or “promised” to buy.
Malinen liked to emphasize his long career as CEO; one would think it would then be clear that there would be reason to also own the company he leads…
When Malinen moved from Outokumpu to Neste, he himself said in an interview that retirement was approaching but that he might still be able to complete this one project (Neste). So the move from Outokumpu was quite fast because there wasn’t too much time, and perhaps the investment side at that age doesn’t keep up with such rapid changes. Malinen is now 63 years old, and it is generally recommended for older people to start reducing stock investments and move to less risky assets.
Even Verneri said in the roast that there would have been time to pick up a bit from the bottom.
Certainly a good rule of thumb generally for the older population to reduce risk in investments when moving into retirement, but it hardly applies in this case, especially to the leader of the company in question 
I bet Malinen’s finances and pension are in order, so he could have voted with his wallet if he wanted to. No one is certainly shouting that the man should put Neste into a merciless overweight position in his portfolio for this to have credibility!
Well, that’s not how it goes. Malinen has, in all likelihood, already earned a millionaire fortune during his career. Currently, Malinen earns a basic salary at Neste of about 50k net per month, so he doesn’t need to start cutting down inherited forests just to acquire, say, a couple of hundred thousand euro portfolio of shares in the company he leads.
This is unfortunately common in the Finnish scene, where management and the board claim to drive shareholder value, but then their own holdings are absolutely abysmal.
If one has to sell shares prematurely due to age or unexpected health-related reasons, i.e., during a prohibited period → charge of insider trading.
However, this is a fixed-term, project-based task that will end soon anyway, and the deadline has certainly already been decided among the parties involved. I wouldn’t buy shares in that situation.
It could be that he also has better investment opportunities already existing or being sought.
Surely he also has a better idea of the company’s situation, but I still wonder why it’s asked why he didn’t buy at the bottom. Why didn’t Verneri buy at the bottom, or did he? I haven’t seen the roast, but I’m commenting now anyway… Does the CEO have to know future stock movements and find the bottoms?
Of course it can be, but it has no relevance to this discussion. On the other hand, looking at Neste’s share price development, one might question where better returns could have been obtained, though this is hindsight ;).
What do Verneri’s (Verneri) trades or lack thereof have to do with anything? We are talking about Malinen, who leads the company, and with that comes a certain responsibility and credibility. I’m not entirely sure if I need to start explaining the difference between a company’s CEO owning shares versus a completely random person? I don’t understand your argument
The fact that I mentioned those lows is also a side issue; the point there was mainly that this year Neste’s valuation has been very low, and at such a time, it would have been very natural for the CEO to communicate through their actions that they are on the right track and believe in what they are doing.
No law obliges one to own the company one pilots, but in my opinion, it’s a bit of a “gentleman’s rule” when talking about a large and serious company.
The starting point is always that the company incentivizes management with stock awards or options. Of course, it’s a plus if management also buys shares themselves, but this rarely happens even in international companies.
So, if such a situation arose, Malinen could, if necessary, even pledge the shares as collateral for a loan; that’s no reason not to buy.
Malinen can surely largely decide how long he remains as CEO; I don’t buy this argument either.
According to OP’s morning review, Germany is considering removing the double counting of renewable diesel. Double counting = if you produce renewable diesel made from e.g. waste/used cooking oil, 1 physical tonne is counted as 2 tonnes in mandates, meaning it fulfills the blending obligation with an “oversized” factor. This has reduced the need for actual physical volume.
If double counting is removed, Germany’s renewable diesel’s actual demand could increase by 1.5–2 Mt, which would be clear support for the market and Neste’s business.
Has anyone calculated what such an additional demand of 1.5–2 Mt practically means for Neste on the bottom line?