3401 days ago
To lose one director in December is unfortunate but to lose two looks like carelessness but that is what Volex (VLX) managed, parting company with its FD after just 18 months in the job and with a well-respected NED – with immediate effect - on New Year’s eve. The truth is that this is just not a very good company - my pal Paul Scott put it more succinctly the other day in an enthusiastic daily Stockopedia report. At 70.5p, capitalised at £64 million it is a slam dunk sell.
3467 days ago
Shares in Foxtons (FOXT) have been sliding for a while – the market anticipating that sooner or later London’s poshboy Estate Agent would serve up a profits warning. Last week it duly obliged but even at 158p post warning the shares remain a pretty safe short for Christmas.
The warning was explicit:
3621 days ago
As a long term bear of Kenmare (KMR) I cannot say that a woeful AGM statement today comes as any great surprise. What is marginally more surprising is how its shareholders just lap it all up and come back for more. They are financial sado-masochists. At the AGM today the stock holders will have salivated as they begged Managing Director Michael Carvill “beat me, whip me, thrash me with some broken bit of machinery from Moma, piss all over me and then take my cash for your mega bonus.” Mike then got out his dire AGM statement and the punishment began.
3636 days ago
Oh dear, oh dear, today’s trading statement from Gulf Keystone (GKP) is a bit of a dog’s doo doo. I fear that the bears will enjoy it and having suggested that the stock might be a trading buy on the basis that grossly overpaid CEO Todd Kozel might be about to get his P45, I now revert to my normal sell stance – so far utterly vindicated with the stock having dived today to 91p.
What are the bad points in today’s statement?
Well Todd might not be universally loved by his shareholders anymore and might even have a few “non-fans” on the board but he is clearly not going. That is, on balance, bad news.
Of rather more fundamental concern is the cash position.
3637 days ago
BlackRock Investment Management is one of the biggest and most respected names in fund management and it seems to be dumping blinkx (BLNX) shares at almost any price but it still has a stack more to dump. What is going on?
3643 days ago
This is a train wreck. At 170p Mothercare (MTC) is capitalised at £150 million. But this company is essentially worthless – just look at its balance sheet. My target price is 0.01p and I am being generous because I am in a good mood.
Yesterday Mothercare issued a statement which reads:
3643 days ago
I met up yesterday with a chap who was until recently very familiar with the goings on at AIM listed (*for now) Fijian gold miner Vatukoula (VGM) but naturally I shall not expose my source. Anyhow, he has sold all his shares in Vatukoula and even at 4.55p I suggest that you do the same.
The reason is two fold.
3643 days ago
In the interests of balance I bring you the pre-results “buy” note on blinkx (BLNX) from its house broker Citi. You will see that it has a target price of 175p. The shares are now 86p. In invite you to read the note in full here.. However….
I make a couple of observations.
3644 days ago
Iofina (IOF) today served up a dog’s dinner of a trading statement and now promises regular update on its operational woes, oops I meant progress. Goody Goody. The shares are now 38p and my long term target price remains sod all.
And so to today’s news. Hmm where to start?
3682 days ago
Shares in AIM Cesspit listed Iofina (IOF) tanked yesterday on the back of a profits warning predicted just the day before by yours truly HERE. So guess who has now gone short and why?
3685 days ago
While most shares are making steady progress, the share price of AIM Cesspit listed Iofina (IOF) continues to drift and at 59p it is at its lowest since December 2012. Is something wrong? Almost certainly the answer is yes but since its dickhead of a PR man refuses to speak to me I cannot put the question to it directly, I just assume that bad news is on the way.
At a 59p share price the company is capitalised at £75 million. It has debts of $15 million (more on that later). We still await calendar 2013 results but a grisly trading statement/profits warning in December indicates that cash as at the year end was not a million miles away from sod all. And Iofina continues to burn cash.
Now that leads me to one conclusion
3722 days ago
Back in November I flagged that having puffed its shares up to 11.6p, AIM Cesspit dog tech stock Vipera (VIP) was planning a £500,000 fund raise at 6p. The shares tanked and the placing was pulled. So to plan B.
First up was a trading statement on 20th November 2013 saying that FY revenues would be well ahead on 2012 and 1.4 million Euros. Sounds great. But hang on Henry, first half revenues were 732,000 Euro so this cannot exactly be viewed as a growth situation can it?
3743 days ago
Globo (GBO) serves up a trading statement on Tuesday. My view is that whatever it says matters not a jot. I do not believe that this is an investment grade business. Where the shares go short term I know not. But one day they will collapse. When will that be, I know not. But I would never want to own shares in this AIM Cesspit posterboy. Fund manager Ennismore has a short position and this internal note is a devastating analysis of why it is right to be short.
Ennismore writes:
Globo PLC – UK listed Greek software business (short position)
3767 days ago
I have noted before that the way that AIM Cesspit listed Ukrainian dairy products group Ukrproduct (UKR) announces bad news smells like a six week old pot of cream left in the baking sunlight of the Steppe in August. And so as 90% of share-watchers enjoy their last day off, the company has slipped out another dire trading statement.
You can read my comments on the curious way this company announces the departure of directors, all signed off as kosher by corporate adviser Mr Dick, HERE
Today’s statement confirms what we all suspected. EBITDA for 2013 will be sharply down on 2012. Blame higher milk prices, ripples in the soft cheese market, whatever – it is hard to imagine that doing business in the Ukraine right now is that much fun.
Worse still the heavy debt this company now carries means that the I (for Interest) number has gone up sharply. So what is the bottom line number (i.e. Profit before tax) going to be? I refer to today’s statement.
“Net income will be impaired by the sizeable increase in interest charges arising from the EBRD loan leading to the negative net profitability for the year.”
Put another way this company is loss making. It blathers on about how it “plans to return to positive profitability in 2014.”
You know what? I have made plans for 2014. After watching West Ham lift the Premiership trophy on the final day of the season following a five month run of 3 points from every game with Carlton Cole scoring hat-tricks every match, I am off on a one week romantic break with Cheryl Cole in the West Indies. I cannot wait. Neither, I am sure, can Carlton and Cheryl.
3783 days ago
I have never liked Iofina (IOF) and so today’s shocking profits warning brings some sort of grim satisfaction having published a very bearish piece at 150p back in June
Red flags abound in today's statement.
1.Today we hear that Iodine prices fell in 2013. So why the bloody hell were we not told about this more explicitly before. The company announces operational updates on bring a new facility onstream every other week but surely this is critical information? Whoever does this company’s PR should be publically hung drawn and quartered. As it happens the company’s PR man is Dominic Barretto who is a prize shit so his public execution would make the City a better place all round. But my point is that a company that communicates information in a quite dreadful way, I really do not believe it anymore.
3798 days ago
I had never done a spread bet in my life until eight days ago. But I have just completed my fifth trade – selling Cupid (CUP) at £4 a penny at 54p. My stop is set at 64p.
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Why short Cupid? We have zero earnings visibility here and the recent departure of founder and CEO Bull Dobbie is very odd as Lucian Miers explained here
Anyhow, for me Cupid shares will slump. It is not a matter of if but when.
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You can start spreadbetting small caps with ETX right now HERE but to get up £500 free to trade with you need to open an account TODAY
3802 days ago
I was sitting down with a pal last night and we were trying to work out how much cash Range Resources (RRL) has left. I think the answer would not make pleasant reading if you are long. I am short and cash (or lack of it) is why.
3816 days ago
Oh dear. Oh dear. More grim operational news from AIM Cesspit posterboy Cyan (CYAN) today and all the time its cash is draining away. Which has more chance of surviving past Christmas? The stockmarket cash gobbling turkey Cyan or one of the gobblers on one of Bernard Matthews’ farms? On balance it is Cyan but will it make it to Easter? That is a rather different matter.
3824 days ago
Alecto Minerals (ALO) wins today’s prize for the most misleading announcement from the AIM Cesspit with an RNS headlined “”£1 million placing and funding arrangement”. Has Alecto just secured an additional £1 million? Like hell it has. And is it “pleased to announce” this deal. Also like hell it is. It is desperate for cash and this is really last gasp death spiral stuff.
3824 days ago
Bear raider Evil Knievil started shorting LED Company Dialight (DIA) at 1200p three weeks ago and I wrote at the time that I agreed 100% with his analysis. The stock has opened down 33p at 1033p today after a less than impressive trading statement. Evil says he is “delighted”. We both expect the shares to slump to 600p in due course. Here’s why.
3827 days ago
Another day and another apparently positive statement from Sirius Minerals (SXX) as it tries to maintain interest to keep its equity drawdown death spiral going. But as ever the maths are not all that supporters might have hoped for.
The worlds No 1 mining analyst Roger Bade of Whitman Howard expresses it thus:
3831 days ago
Kenmare Resources (KMR) keeps on promising both operational improvements and that the price of ilmenite will firm up. History suggests that the former is about as likely as grotesquely overpaid managing director Michael Carvill (what will your “bonus” be this year Mike?) winning Miss World. And on the latter…oh dear: more bad news.
3834 days ago
AIM listed Globo (GBO) is a stock that both Lucian Miers and Evil Knievil are shorting. I reckon that it is a slam dunk sell as does the Closet Chartist. But the dark destroyer is top analyst Matt Earl who has today published a seminal piece of forensic analysis. Anyone not selling after reading Matt’s article is mad. And an RNS out today is bizarre.
3847 days ago
Bear raider Evil Knievil and I have had a long chat this morning about Dialight (DIA) of which he is short. The core analysis here comes from Matt Earl – the nemesis of Avanti (AVN) who has got to be the UK’s top forensic analyst and has just signed up to the UK Investor show as a star speaker.
3851 days ago
I once believed in Avanti Communications (AVN). I also used to believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Claus and the idea that West Ham might one day win something again. How naïve. A while back I became a mild sceptic. I am now convinced that this is a colossal accident waiting to happen and should be shorted aggressively. It is my top AIM short to pay for Christmas.
3862 days ago
I have been writing bearish articles on AIM Cesspit listed management lifestyle (oops, I meant to say oil services) group Vialogy (VIY) for more than a year since the stock traded at 2.125p. The Bulletin Board Morons gave me consummate grief. I see the shares have plunged today on the release of dire financials to just 0.68p. My target remains 0.01p for this worthless POS. It has the smell of death.
3919 days ago
Fully listed CPP Group (CPP) shares have rocketed to 16.5p in what infamous short seller Evil Knievil describes as “the biggest bear squeeze I have ever seen”. Evil, aka Simon Cawkwell, remains short and expects the shares to collapse, but admits that they could easily go higher short term.
3922 days ago
Kenmare Resources (KMR) has served up a trading statement which for one shows more steps forward than back. But it is hardly impressive. At least it has managed to persuade the banks to extend debt repayment terms. But ilmenite prices remain soft. The uber excellent mining analyst Roger Bade of Whitman Howard writes:
3929 days ago
Finally shares in Hibu (HIBU) have been suspended ( at 0.175p). The company is seeking a partial debt to equity solution which will see lenders get ALL of the equity in a new company which will retain all the operating assets plus some debt. The existing company is thus left with nothing and is worthless. Its shares have been suspended and investors told it is a wipeout. And some Bulletin Board Morons regard this as a surprise?
3932 days ago
I flagged last week that even before it starts building its proposed mine, AIM Cesspit listed Sirius Minerals (SXX) is going to have to raise fresh equity just to keep going. Given the material uncertainties that now exist one wonders at what price the cash call will be. The shares are now 18.5p but the longer it waits the harder this is going to be. What price a cash call now? 15p? 12p?
You can read my piece of last week here
But things seem to be getting worse.
3935 days ago
There are delays and more delays in North Yorkshire for AIM Cesspit listed Sirius Minerals (SXX). The company says that it has £10 million cash left but if there is no planning approval until 2014 it is only a matter of time before the hat is passed around again and at what price will that be?
I note that the company has not said what trade payables are. So what is the REAL cash position? I wonder.
I have been bearish on this stock for a while and have been right to be bearish. The stock is now 19.25p at what price could it raise money just to keep going, let alone to fund its proposed mine? 15p? 12p? I do not know. But I would remain very short of this one.
I am not the only sceptic.
3939 days ago
Floated on the Cesspit in 2004 new media enterprise SocialGo (SGO) has managed to rack up losses of almost £20 million – funded by placing after placing – during its nine years on AIM. As recently as June 7th as it announced (dire) 2012 results the company was still “talking the talk” but today the joke has moved on a step as this has become SocialGone, to be renamed Tavistock Investments. Fear not there will be many more chances to lose money on this one, the stock is at least 90% overvalued.
3943 days ago
I can reveal exclusively that infamous bear raider Evil Knievil has opened up a short in AIM Cesspit listed Cyan Holdings (CYAN) at 0.35p. Knievil’s old adage is “the best time to kick a man is when he is down” and Cyan is certainly down, if not yet out, following its (lack of) profits warning earlier this week.
3944 days ago
All Governments across the globe have an appalling track record when it comes to picking stockmarket losers when it comes to handing out grants and loans. Ask President Obama about Solara? Remember John De Lorean? And with the EU unable to get its own accounts signed off without qualification you would expect that it would be the worst stock picker of the lot. You would expect correctly.
In light of Avanti Communications (AVN) profits warning today, I offer up a list of PLCs that have secured EU grant funding. It seems like an ideal short portfolio. The list may not be complete but it is a starter for ten.
3944 days ago
Bear raider Evil Knievil ( Simon Cawkwell) has been short of AIM Cesspit listed Avanti Communications (AVN) a good while and after today’s profits warning he says that he remains short, telling me that “Avanti is simply not investment grade material.” Cawkwell says that Avanti may turn the corner but equally it could disappear altogether. He says that he has no intention of closing his short.
3944 days ago
I ask you to cast your mind back to November 2012. The 15thto be exact. It was when AIM Cesspit listed Sefton Resources (SER) announced the acquisition of new oil operating assets in Kansas. It was all terribly exciting stuff.
The company stated that in an RNS of that day:
Competent Person Dr Nafi Onat has made a study of the oil fields in Northeast Kansas for Sefton, from which detailed information was announced on 12 March 2012. Below are some of the key points that he has made on the potential of this area for oil and gas production.
Analysis of 320 wells on 23 McLouth fields reveals initial average production was approximately 27 bopd and 350mcfg per well during the first month of production. Based on completion reports and deliverability tests, initial gas producing fields varied from 150 mcfg to 2mmcfg per day.
Frigging hell. Sefton paid only $200,000 for these assets and what is that about 27 bopd in month 1? Cripes this sounded exciting.
On December 7th 2012 Sefton issued shares to stop it going bust by Christmas. It raised c £700,000. But heck with those exciting Kansas wells surely this was a winner. Hmmmmm.
Now wind forward to this month
3946 days ago
Cyan Holdings (CYAN) is a true posterboy for the AIM Cesspit and after eight years of non delivery it seems that nothing changes with a disastrous announcement from India today – the only real question is when is the next cash call?
To put the true disaster that is Cyan into perspective consider this. The company listed on AIM in 2005. It has to date clocked up losses of £26.5 million. Its revenues in calendar 2012 were a mighty £315,194. And it is not even as if it is on the growth path
3949 days ago
AIM Cesspit listed gold explorer GoldStone (GRL) announced drilling results from its Ngoutou project in Gabon on 4th July via an official release which I, charitably, describe as optimistic. I understand that companies in the “jeux san revenue” exploration game must always put the best spin on life ahead of the next fund raise but there are limits.
3949 days ago
As you may remember, fully listed Office2Office (OFF) issued a dire profits warning earlier this week at 5.31 PM. Its shares duly collapsed the next day to 44p but it is not without friends. Commissioned research outfit GE&CR duly urged punters to buy the stock with a 104p target if only for a 13% yield. You are kidding me are you not?
3951 days ago
Fully listed Office2Office (OFF) served up a trading statement yesterday at 5.31 PM. Yes I missed it and so did many others and the shares have slumped by 45% today to 46p. Analysts at Panmure described the trading update as “dismal” and it is.
But why release it at 5.31 PM after the City has gone home?
3952 days ago
AIM Cesspit listed Amara Mining (AMA) is today’s entrant in the “fantasy world of feasibility studies” with an absolute corker relating to its Baomahun project in Sierra Leone. This is beyond a joke.
The long delayed National Instrument 43-101 compliant Baomahun Feasibility Study is finally out. Amara states that it shows the project to be “robust” and to have a Net Present value of $127 million. At 14p Amara is capitalised at £23 million.
Hello sailor, where do I buy the shares? Oh hang on, wait a second
3953 days ago
Shares in AIM Cesspit listed Verdes Management (VMP) were suspended today at 0.55p because the company had failed to publish its half year report on time. This begs all sorts of questions especially as this company has a track record of putting out statements about its financing which turn out to play fast and loose with, what you and I might term, the truth.
You can read about Verdes and is porky pie RNS statements here
But in light of the latest developments I ask just three questions:
3953 days ago
AIM Cesspit and ASX listed Bullabulling Gold (BLG) is running out of money fast. It needs to raise cash well before Christmas or it is toast. As such it is now issuing upbeat RNS statements to try to get private investors to buy stock to drive the share price up so that institutions come in (at a huge discount) later. And so we have today’s statement offering revised economics for its project at Bullabullabullshit in the land of high culture that is Australia.
3953 days ago
Earlier this year an undercover reporter from the Ukraine Post applied for a job with AIM Cesspit listed Cupid (CUP) and claimed that she was told that she would be paid on a freelance basis to pretend to be a dolly bird interested in dating ugly Western men in order to get them to pony up for a Cupid paid for service. Cupid denied the charge but commissioned an independent review by KPMG to investigate and today it has published its findings.
3962 days ago
I have long been a fan of First Property (FPO) the AIM listed property fund manager and investor but its exposure to Poland is worry as all the signs are that out East the shit is about to hit the fan. I wonder if it is worth the risk of hanging on in First Property? On balance I wouldn’t.
So what is going wrong in Poland? Well it is an emerging markets economy. And there is a growing global liquidity crisis which traditionally sees secondary “growth” markets take a beating. I note that Polish construction activity in May plunged by 28%. That is pretty dramatic and suggests to me that the Polish economy could be set for a rather rocky patch.
3963 days ago
Today's AGM statement from AIM Cesspit listed online dating business Cupid (CUP) throws up far more questions than it answers. It does nothing to ally my bearishness as I have explained in numerous articles on the website and elsewhere. But to get the ball roiling here are two questions for the Cupid-ites to answer.
The first concerns cash.
3964 days ago
If a company has major news it should treat all investors the same and issue an RNS. And with that in mind what the hell is gold miner Centamin (CEY) playing at? Telling a newswire journalist material information so that City investors are up to speed but mug punters without an access to a Reuters terminal are kept in the dark shows a shocking contempt for private investors.
I merely quote
3976 days ago
I have taken Quindell Portfolio (QPP) off my “accident waiting to happen” list as it is now in the slow motion car crash category after a set of prelims that contained some very strange items, followed by two obfuscatory “clarification” statements.
This leaves a vacancy and so I have added my old friend Purecircle (PURE) to the list at 355p with a market cap of £592 million. It came to the market in 2007 as the world’s largest supplier of a product called Rebaudioside A (REB A) which is derived from Stevia leaves which are a natural, no calorie sweetener. Basically for every 30 kg of leaves grown, 3kg of crude extract would be produced in the company’s extraction plant in China and then moved to its refinery in Malaysia where it would be processed into 1kg of Reb A, a natural high intensity sweetener (NHIS) which was set to be a mass produced commodity as an alternative or complement to sugar.
That was the plan in the AIM admission document but like most battle plans, the plans you get in such documents rarely survive first contact with the enemy.
3977 days ago
Terry is well rewarded. His basic pay in 2012 was £402,000 and he got a cash bonus of £488,000 making a total of £890,000 up from £407,000. Inflation busting or what?
In addition, there is a note saying that Quindell made sales of £7,000 but bought goods and services totalling £99,000 from Indoor Golf City Limited, a company controlled by twitter obsessed Bob. Indoor Golf City?
3979 days ago
In for a penny in for a pound, another couple of observations on Cupid (CUP), the AIM Cesspit listed company that yesterday issued a statement in which it claimed my comments in an article that day were misleading. In fact it was Cupid that misled in that it deliberately did not address the point I made (cash minus net trade payables on July 3rd) but instead blathered on about cash (ignoring trade payables) on June 30th. Clearly Cupid are a bunch of scumbags. The question is how badly is its core business doing? And my new question is about cash as at July 31st.
3980 days ago
The last time that online dating service Cupid (CUP) commented on an article by me it just noted that it was comment. This time I have been promoted to the rank of “market commentator” in a statement out this afternoon. Next time? “the UK’s top investigative financial journalist?” Needless to say Cupid is talking utter bollocks and that makes its shares even more of a slam dunk short.
Its RNS is in response to an article I posted earlier HERE
Its statement reads: The Board of Cupid plc. has noted misleading comments posted by market commentators speculating that the Company’s cash position is markedly worse than reported in our RNS on March 25th. For the avoidance of doubt the Board would like to make it clear to the market that we expect to have a positive EBITDA in Q2 and that our cash position at the end of June is expected to be in excess of £10m.
Ends.
I start at the end. I discussed its net cash position (net of trade payables minus trade receivables) as at July 3rd – ie after paying the dividend. I did not say that its cash position would be markedly worse at the end of June. Cupid knows this full well because
a) Its PR team lead by uber foxy Bex (happy birthday again BTW) read the final article when it came out
b) Bex read it before it went out as I sent it to her for comment. I took on board two points she made – as I made clear in the piece – but she did not dispute other facts.
Let us assume, to make this simple
3980 days ago
Jim Ellerton, the chairman of AIM Cesspit listed Sefton Resources (SER) blathers on about creating shareholder value. Well here are two killer statistics for you. But first a quote from Sefton chairman Jim Ellerton from 25th February 2013:
“Sefton is accelerating the development of its oil and gas operations both in California and Kansas to create shareholder value.”
And so here are the stats.
3980 days ago
AIM Cesspit listed Cupid (CUP) shares are off again today at 52p. There are some folks who blather on about the yield of almost 6% and the strong cash balance. But what exactly is the cash balance? And is the dividend sustainable? Well let’s do some sums.
On March 25th the company stated that its cash position was £9 million. So far so good. However I note that tax payable at the yearend + trade payables minus trade receivables was c£4 million. So the real net cash position may well by March 25th have been as low as £5 million. Foxy PR bird Bex who spins for Cupid points out that working capital could have moved either way between December 31 and March 25. So the real net cash position at March 25 could be higher. Or lower. We just do not know.
By the way, Happy Birthday Bex.
3980 days ago
Away from the Downing Street Cesspit to the AIM Cesspit, Arian Silver (AGQ) which is also TSX listed has served up another classic statement as it yet again tapped its death spiral facility with YA Global – this time raising £216,000 at 5.0199p. Oh dear what bullshit.
The company says that the cash will be used for “working capital and other costs in the short-term, facilitating the acquisition of the El Bote mill, as announced on 15 March 2013”. Really?
3983 days ago
I can reveal exclusively that at last things are starting to happen on the regulatory front when it comes to AIM Cesspit listed Sefton Resources (SER) – the AIM regulation unit is now conducting multiple investigations into the company.
Sefton has admitted misleading investors as to its oil production levels and trend just 24 hours before a rescue placing on March 6th 2013 – something that is a clear and mammoth breach of AIM rules. It is suing me for libel for accusing it of misleading investors on a number of occasions in recent years. Until now it appears that the authorities have not done anything but that seems to be changing.
I can reveal that last week
3984 days ago
This has been well spun by AIM Cesspit pin-up boy Cupid (CUP) but yesterday’s trading statement was a disastrous profits warning.
On March 5th folks were expecting half year EBITDA in excess of £6 million (up from £5.9 million in 2012). Just 86 days later we are told EBITDA will now be just £2.5 million which means a pre-tax loss. Bear raiders Evil Knievil and Lucian Miers are both short. Their current take:update#sthash.ZHiUiIbm.dpuf
3984 days ago
Kalimantan Gold (KLG) is listed on the TSX as well as the Cesspit and its quarterlies out today tell a familiar story. The only question is when is the next placing? I guess rather soon but then as a company that has passed the hat around numerous times in its long and undistinguished Cesspit career Kalimantan at least knows how to do the paperwork.
In the three months to March 31st 2013 the company booked a profit of $25,151 thanks to management fees for operating the KSK joint venture (mine exploration). In terms of cash it is a rather less happy picture. Kalimantan’s partner funds most of its exploration work but not all and thus Kalimantan boldly states:
3984 days ago
AIM Cesspit listed Cupid (CUP) is starting to unravel far faster than I imagined. A statement yesterday is really pretty grim. It contains three elements which I discuss in turn. But I first refer you to March 5th.
An online business must by definition have very rapid financial reporting functions. It knows how trading is going on an almost daily basis and so can comment on its trading performance very accurately at any point. And on March 5th when announcing calendar 2012 numbers Cupid stated:
Whilst it is still early in the year, we are confident that the business is well positioned for another year of healthy revenue growth, profitability and cash generation.
Wind forward less than three months to May 29th and we now have another statement. Firstly on trading:
3986 days ago
Once upon a time there was a company called Managed Support Services PLC which was listed on the AIM Cesspit. It went tits up. Well almost. Its operations were sold but the shell remained intact with a few liabilities and a tiny but of cash. It became Kennedy Ventures (KENV), an investing company, and it shows the idiocy and unsustainability of this whole AIM game.
Kennedy published its report for the six months to December 31st on March 27 2013. It showed cash of £134,000 and trade payables of £85,000. There were a few prepayments but essentially net cash was £49,000. With directors hauling out £4,000 a month in fees and other PLC costs to consider on top and only one investment (an illiquid unquoted one) you might think that there was a bit of a going concern issue.
Could the auditors state that this company had enough cash to keep going for 12 months? Fear not.
3986 days ago
It is less than four weeks ago when I highlighted the tale of woe at AIM Cesspit listed Scotgold (SGZ) with the shares then at 1.625p. I note that the shares are now quoted at 1p-1.5p so I guess things are not looking up for this dual listed POS Company. But it will get worse.
If you remember this company came to AIM in 2008 and its Aussie management team happily plundered almost half a million quid in fees last year. It has its sole asset, a Scottish gold mine, on a care and maintenance basis as it cannot get funding to develop it. Quelle Surprise.
3991 days ago
How do you keep an idiot in suspense? Assuming he is the sort of idiot who owns shares in AIM Cesspit listed Quindell (QPP) it is by telling him that the annual report is imminent. When will it arrive? Needless to say the company refuses to answer even that question. But one day soon it will arrive and so what am I (as a bear) looking for?
3992 days ago
On the AIM Cesspit unusual share price movements ahead of statements are par for the course. Of course nothing is ever awry. This is a market where a company can issue a statement that it is completely untrue and face no sanction (Verdes – see here) and indeed do a placing 24 hours after issue an untrue RNS (Sefton on March 6th see here) and again there is no sanction. There are no rules on the Cesspit. And that brings me to Arian Silver (AGQ).
Its shares raced ahead in the two sessions prior to lunchtime today gaining some 35% to 6.25p. And then it issued dismal quarterlies with a dire warning that worse may be to come and the shares fell sharply back to 5.5p. Why did the shares move so sharply ahead of the numbers? Who was buying? On what information? As it is an irregular price movement no doubt it is being investigated but clearly nothing was wrong (it never is on the Cesspit) and so nothing will happen.
But let’s not get distracted from the numbers and the accompanying statement. The former are utterly dismal. The latter even worse.
In the first quarter to March 31st the company had a bit of a disagreement with the chappy who processes its silver on a toll basis. And thus revenues were nil. Helped by $700,000 of PLC costs the company racked up a net loss of $935,000. How the xxxx
3992 days ago
Oh dear, the word on the street is that things are going badly wrong at Great Western Mining (GWMO) but apparently the company is saying that “it is all Tom Winnifrith’s fault.” As I go to clear another space on the Mantelpiece for my next trophy let me explain.
On May 10th I pointed out that the balance sheet of Great Western was almost certainly a train wreck. That is to say cash minus trade payables was somewhere between just over nil and minus quite a bit. With no revenues at all it strikes that if it is not already trading while insolvent it soon will be. That as you are aware is a very naughty thing to do and if directors are aware that a company is trading while insolvent they have a legal duty to stop doing so and that means a statement that its shares are being suspended pending clarification. But heck this is the Cesspit so what do rules matter?
Now it is clear that Great Western (at 1.725p valued at £1.12 million) needs to raise material cash to keep going. But that is rather hard to do for three reasons:
3994 days ago
African Eagle (AFE) joined AIM from PLUS in June 2003. Today it is six months away from oblivion. Its rise and fall is a morality tale from the Cesspit. No-one emerges from this tale with any credit. I say this as someone who tipped the stock but a long while ago advised cutting losses. But let’s start at the beginning. This is pretty horrific reading.
African started out as Twigg Minerals on the old Ofex market. At the time it came to AIM it was banging on about its gold assets in Tanzania: Miyabi and Iguribi. But they were not big enough. Miyabi is now part of a JV with African having 25% but still nowhere near production. The other assets were even less spectacular. And so to support fund raise after fund raise (there have been more than a dozen to date) the company started promoting copper assets in Zambia.
Sasare, Ndola, Lunga all were company makers we were told as investors were tapped again and again. That was until the company stumbled on something even more exciting. By 2009 the word was Dutwa – a vast Nickel find in Tanzania. The way to maximise shareholder value was to push ahead with Dutwa (oh can we raise some more money please?) and those other company makers were dropped. African had a new company maker.
3994 days ago
I am still seething at how fundamentally AIM Cesspit posterboy Sefton Resources (SER) tried to hoodwink the market with the way it presented its results yesterday. In a near 25 year career I have never seen anything like it. It is truly scandalous.
I analysed the results in detail here.
The key point is that Sefton issued an RNS which it admitted was not IFRS compliant in that it omitted all the notes to the accounts. The full statement appeared only on its website. Only real anoraks like me bothered to read it. 99.9% of investors just read the RNS.
Thus the RNS boasted of how Sefton was profitable (albeit only just). Nowhere in the RNS was it mentioned that a material amount of the cost of employing staff, directors and consultants was capitalised (i.e. added to the balance sheet as an asset rather than run through the P&L). You only discover that if
3994 days ago
It is hard to know where to start with the 2012 Annual Results from AIM Cesspit listed director lifestyle, ooops meant to say oil production, company Sefton Resources (SER) there is so much in them that begs questions rather than providing real knowledge. But suffice to say: the outlook is grim.
But let’s start with Note 1 which is a Sefton classic: “The summary financial statements set out above have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”). These summary financial statements do not constitute financial statements in accordance with IFRS as they omit substantially all the disclosures required by IFRS. A full set of audited financial statements will be published prior to Sefton’s Annual General Meeting and will be available at www.seftonresources.com”
In other words there are a series of disclosures here which are not on the RNS. But if you go over to the Sefton website all the disclosures are in there. Why go to the bother of producing two separate documents? Er… because most folks will just read the RNS. This is just utterly classic Sefton.
So what little horrors are being hidden away? Well let’s start with note 5.
3996 days ago
AIM Cesspit pin-up boy Sefton Resources is suing me for libel over my oft repeated claims that it misled investors principally with regard to oil output last summer and that this caused its then adviser Fox Davies to do the honourable thing and resign.
3996 days ago
Whilst AIM Cesspit listed Sirius Minerals (SXX) is keen to issue an RNS every time there is good news on its planning application to build a vast mine on the North York Moors it seems rather less keen to broadcast the bad news. So I guess that is my job.
Today I am grateful to a reader in the Grim North who alerts me to the headline in the Whitby Gazette which is now on my list of must read publications.
The headline screams “New mine would be a threat to tourism” and the article reads: Tourism would be hit by a £41 million loss every year as visitors avoid congested roads and a spoil heap the size of Wembley Stadium, caused by a new potash mine, it is claimed
3996 days ago
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. That used to be the catchphrase of Mike Walters in his tipster heyday and boy does it apply to Arian Silver which has just received a very public bottom spanking for filing a non-compliant report from the Canadian regulator. Arian is listed in Canada as well as on the Cesspit AIM market.
Rather than be accused of making it up I just reprint the Arian statement in full:
Arian Silver announces its intention to file a technical report including a summary of operational details and economic factors.
The British Columbia Securities Commission has reviewed the Company’s independent technical report, compiled by CSA Global Limited and dated 23 April 2012, which was published for the primary purpose of updating investors with the results of the 10,000 metre phase 4 drilling programme at Arian’s San Jose property.
The Commission’s review of the 2012 Report identified areas of non-compliance with the Canadian standards of disclosure for mineral projects
3999 days ago
Fully listed gold miner Centamin (CEY) has announced its results from its Sukari Gold Mine in Egypt for the quarter ended 31 March 2013. Total gold production for the quarter was a record 87,016 oz and sales totalled 86,054oz. The gold price received was $1,604/oz, giving revenues of $138.2 million. Cash operating costs were $556/oz and this resulted in a profit before tax of $71.89 million before a loss of $3.087M on the sale of financial assets. There is no doubt that these results were superb. Yes you read that correctly – they were brilliant. But.
There are a few less than minor issues to flag up.
3999 days ago
The PR spokesman for Arian Silver (AQG) and I have just had a curious chat prompted by my prior articles and also by a question posed at the company’s AGM. Let’s get the facts straight here and cut the AIM Cesspit-type bullshit – Arian needs cash fast.
I alleged in a recent article that the company had failed to get a placing away – you can read that here.
At the AGM this article was flagged up, my name was mentioned (oooh er missus: infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me) and the company denied categorically that it had failed to get a placing away.
Er…. Up to a point.
4000 days ago
Once again, AIM Listed Motive Television (MTV) has announced that it has issued new shares. Clocking the RNS statements since interims were published in September there have been no less than 15 RNS announcements entitled “issue of equity or placing”. And Motive has also issued some convertible loan notes. That takes some doing.
So why issue more shares? The latest release says that it is “in response to institutional demand” Oh please…..Is the correct urban phrase LFMAO? The exact wording of the release is:
“Motive Television is pleased to announce that, following interest from institutional investors in the Company’s announcement yesterday relating to the Company’s development of its Tablet TV technology for the UK Freeview platform, it has raised £500,000 through the issue of 3,333,333,333 new ordinary shares of 0.01p each at 0.015p per share (“Placing Shares”). The proceeds will be used to fund an accelerated programme of development for this product and for general working capital purposes. The board has considered the Company’s overall medium-term funding needs very carefully and, given the high level of interest in this development in the UK market and its anticipated value in terms of future sales and profits, it has decided that this fundraising is in the best interests of increasing shareholder value.”
Yeah right. The shares were at 0.03p and institutions were so wowed that they offered to snap up a big line at 0.015p which saw the stock slump to 0.02p today. There are now almost 14 billion shares in confetti-chase PLC in issue.
4001 days ago
I will try to make this the last Quindell (QPP) piece of the week but I have slept on it and the statement of yesterday threw up far more questions than it answered. I am afraid that I must again start with that £15 million loan AIM Cesspit listed Quindell has advanced and which appeared on the year-end balance sheet.
The company says that its share price is driven down by misinformed press speculation. Such speculation abounds when a company declines to answer a simple question or two. To whom was the loan made, why and when and on what terms? I put the question to foxy PR bird Bex (via her assistant) on Monday morning. On Monday Afternoon I put the question to Twitter obsessed CEO Terry via his assistant. In both cases I was promised a call back with an answer. I have to tell you that no such call has been received.
And I am not the only one asking this question. Why the refusal to explain and to answer?
But I move on.
4001 days ago
AIM Cesspit listed Quindell Portfolio has yet again put out a statement saying that there is no reason for its share price tanking other than wicked shorters and the press getting it wrong. Sorry fellows here is a good reason “you do not fxxxxxg well answer valid questions.”
My top question has always been “To whom was the £15 million loan on the year-end balance sheet made and why?” There is no reason why Quindell should be making loans so what the hell is going on. I contacted Quindell via its foxy PR bird Bex this morning and was told I would get a call back with an answer. I have had no such call. Others have asked broker Cenkos. No joy. I tried the company direct. No joy.
And that is the problem with Quindell.
4003 days ago
Some clown bought a stack of shares in AIM cesspit listed CPP (CPP) on Friday sending the shares soaring. This offers a slam dunk free money opportunity as a bear to short the stock at 4.25p-5.25p. Your upside as a shorter at 4.25p is a gain of between 3.25p and 4.25p. There seems no downside risk.
The facts are that Hamish Macgregor Ogston the founder of CPP and 57% shareholder has until May 31st to decide whether to make a bid for shares he does not own. He says he will – if he bids – pay a maximum of 1p per share. He will only hand over that cash if he gets enough acceptances to take him to 75% at which point he will delist the company.
And so under the Hamish option you get either 1p in cash (maximum) or shares in an unlisted company run by Ogston which will – I suggest – be impossible to liquidate. The market price ahead of delisting will thus be c 0.8p-1.2p.
Option 2 is that Hamish walks away.
4004 days ago
Shares in AIM cesspit listed Great Western Mining (GWMO) tanked on Friday after an RNS which – in the wake of the US Oil & Gas (USOP) and Teknomining debacles – simply does not was. At 2.55p and capitalised at just £2 million this company is heading rapidly towards having shares of “toast investment grade.” Its problems are manifest but the history of it and other companies established by Liam McGrattan and cronies is the issue.
With every McGrattan resources promote we start with the big claims. The shares motor ahead. The placings ensue. And then McGrattan steps down from the board to pursue other business interests, run a Paris hedge fund or whatever. Then cronies such as Nial Rind step down. And then with USOP and Teknomining we have now firmly established that the claims made were sheer 100% bollocks.
We have yet to establish how many shares (for which they paid sod all) in USOP and Teknomining McGrattan and his cronies sold, when they sold and at what price. That would be fascinating data I suspect.
Great Western was a tad different in that as its front man it has Emmett O’Connell who arrived with a half decent reputation. But
4005 days ago
On 9th may AIM Cesspit listed Sirius Minerals (SXX) updated investors on the planning process for its proposed mine on the North York Moors. The RAF has asked a few questions which Sirius says that it will answer. But there was another submission made to the North York Moors National Park Planning Authority which Sirius, er…neglected to detail its release. It is not good news.
At this point I hand over to the ever excellent Roger Bade of Whitman Howard who writes in his morning missive:
4005 days ago
Oh Dear. Oh Dear. Oh Dear. It looks as if the Islamofascists in Egypt are moving a step closer to seizing Centamin’s (CEY) flagship Sukari gold mine, but the company (and its shareholders) are in denial. A statement today reveals the grim tidings.
4007 days ago
Bear raider Evil Knievil and I chatted tonight and he is in celebratory mood following the post results meltdown in the share price of AIM Cesspit listed Quindell Portfolio (QPP). The numbers raised red flags but it is the shocking revelations of how shareholders cash was used to punt on Quindell’s share price that has caused the stock to slump.
I revealed here a while back that Quindell was Evil’s biggest short. Bear raider Lucian Miers also wrote up his concerns about Quindell here on Shareprophets two weeks ago as you can read here.
Is it illegal for a company to use CFDs to bet on its share price going up? Evil tells me that it is not since a CFD is a derivative. However
4007 days ago
We reported here a couple of weeks ago that AIM and TSX listed Arian Silver (AGQ) had tried to get a placing away in the UK and had failed and was thus resorting to tapping investors in the Dominions. The company huffed and puffed and issued an RNS which was very huffy puffy but did not exactly deny our story. Well it could not do so as we had it verified from an investor Arian’s broker tried to tap up …what we said was true.
Well it looks as if the Canadians have as much appetite for the stock as the Brits. That is to say none whatsoever. For today Arian has fessed up that it has been forced to tap its YA Global Death Spiral equity draw-down facility
4007 days ago
Dave Allen, that chap from Father Ted, Oscar Wilde…all great Irish writers of comic prose. And now we can add to that list whichever genius crafted today’s operations update from joke company US Oil & Gas (USOP). Truly you have to be a class one crack-head or have an IQ of less than 15 to own this share.
The statements has all the usual guff about perforations, oil chromograph readings of u[p to 50%, how Ebiana is close to fluid contact points, leprechauns spotted in Nevada with pots of black gold and that sort of encouraging waffle. But er…”average water cut too high for commerciality at present.” Oh cripes, that does not sound good.
Needless to say as the rig is wound down young Brian McDonnell is always keen to put the best spin on it
4008 days ago
At the weekend I exposed how Verdes Management (VMP) a company listed on the AIM Cesspit market had misled investors in a series of RNS announcements as it struggled to say afloat in recent months. I detailed the pay accorded to the main man Adam Webb while the company played “jeux san revenues” with other folk’s cash, that is to say money raised from investors. But where did all the money go?
4008 days ago
At the weekend I exposed how Verdes Management (VMP) a company listed on the AIM Cesspit market had misled investors in a series of RNS announcements as it struggled to say afloat in recent months.
I detailed the pay accorded to the main man Adam Webb while the company played “jeux san revenues” with other folk’s cash, that is to say money raised from investors. But where did all the money go?
4008 days ago
A few weeks ago I reported to the Irish Olympic Committee that I had run 100 metres in sub 10 seconds. Since Ireland has never won a sprint gold, the lads were over from Dublin pretty quick to see me. They expected evidence of this claim like seeing a lean mean running machine. Instead they found a slightly overweight 45 year old man smoking a Marlboro light. I said that I had in fact run very fast down the garden path that morning and had calculated that I was a sub 10 second man but did not have my calculations to hand.
They were a tad disappointed. They did not call me a liar. But when some other folks said that my initial claim was a lie I could not argue. I have not actually done a sub 10 second sprint in my life.
And this brings us to US Oil & Gas which reported to the State of Nevada that its Ebiana-1 well was trucking along at a “producing rate of 60 bopd” prompting officials to visit the site. Produce at 60 bopd and there would be stacks of oil on hand (that is a lot of oil). But there was sod all oil on site. And so US told officials that it was “only a calculated rate” and there were no calculations on hand
4009 days ago
I have not dared look at the Gulf Keystone (GKP) Bulletin Board threads since myself and Zak Mir went openly bearish. The more I look at this the more I am bearish. Bear raider Lucien Miers outed himself as a bear over the weekend and he has dared look at the thread on ADVFN.
None of the points he raised is answered in any way. Instead there is a torrent of abuse for him (and also again myself, Zak and Shareprophets). Lucian thinks we should all now enter the witness protection programme. You can read all of our thoughts at www.ShareProphets.com – we are not deterred and will not be deterred from writing again.
4009 days ago
AIM does not do irony but if it did Verdes Management (VMP) would win all the prizes. This is a typical tale from the Cesspit, directors and advisers keen on trousering the moolah, shareholders screwed and misled. If AIM was credible this company would be put out of its misery at once but the long running farce just keeps on going. No-one gives a damn about rules on the Cesspit.
Verdes, I am not making this up, describes itself thus:
“Verdes Management was established to support UK companies who have encountered difficulties during this economic climate. Drawing on our collective expertise in the City, the Verdes Team have unique resources that enable us to identify weaknesses in UK PLCs and offer independent advice and solutions.”
Fabaroonie. That sound great. Until you note that this company itself has been a total train wreck with its shares plunging from more than 3p three years ago to 0.09p on Friday. The company is – by my estimates more or less out of cash and has debt and is loss making. But at least there is the vast City experience of the board. Would that be the board that has failed to get a meaningful placing away? Has failed to compete on any advisory mandates? That said it had raised money last Autumn but er…did not? That misled investors in at least two RNS statements in the past six months? Yes that board. You could not make it up.
This reminds me of an entry in the “worst letter I wrote” contest.
Dear Jim
Can you fix it for me to appear on It’s a knockout?
4013 days ago
I am expecting that the next statement from Gulf Keystone will be “The company knows of no reason for the decline in its share price.” Well I can pre-empt that by stating that I can think of plenty and today’s cack-handed attempt to reassure investors is one of them. And so here goes with my six reasons why I am increasingly bearish about Gulf Keystone.
I am sure that bulls can answer some of them but not all I suspect. The Red Flags keep coming up on this one and I suspect they will keep appearing. I wrote last week Gulf Keystone and the Smell Test: Fail – I stand by my conclusions of then. But here goes with the questions.
4013 days ago
Fully listed Ruspetro (RPO) is the sort of company that should be on the cesspit AIM market – in fact its track record to date would put even parts of AIM to shame. Although the company – at 39.25p – is valued by the market at £140 million it is in reality already controlled by its banks – the equity is grotesquely overvalued.
As a reminder this was the company that served up a bullish trading statement in late November only to issue a grim profits warning at 6 PM on the Friday of the week between Christmas and New Year. It then announced it would refinance its debt via a bond issue. And then said that it was not going to. It really is a laugh a minute with our comrades from Siberia.
4014 days ago
The history of Australian companies seeking a dual listing on AIM is not a happy one. With a vibrant mining sector in the land founded as a penal company, as a rule good companies have no need to travel to London to tap up British investors via the AIM cesspit. And so that brings us nicely to Scotgold (SGZ).
In the year to June 30th 2012 its five man board (with just 2 executive directors) cost shareholders (in remuneration only) A$640,000 – let’s call that £430,000. That was an increase on 2011. What an annual report does not disclose is the expense claims submitted by directors. But one always suspects that this will add a few bob to the outflow. This company has been kicking around as Scotgold since May 2008 and so lucky shareholders have – over that years funded the board to the tune of, shall we say £2 million. Revenues to date? Natch. Nil. This is a gold development company and as we know – and here I quote the Scotgold annual report: “The company’s aim is to remunerate at a level that will attract and retain high-calibre Directors and employees. Company officers and Directors are remunerated to a level consistent with size of the Company.”
Sure, so what value have these high calibre men (including a company secretary who has 2 other full time positions but still extracted A$166,000 in fees from Scotgold last year) delivered for shareholders? Aha. Oh Dear.
4015 days ago
I described earlier in the week the disgraceful tale of Astar Minerals (ASTA), a sorry saga of investors getting screwed by advisers and directors banking fees. It is the sort of tale that is all too common in the cesspit that is the bottom end of AIM. You can check out the story here but at the time Astar shares traded at 0.35p valuing it at £1 million. Ho. Ho. Ho.
Astar is, of course, worth nothing like £1 million. It has £200,000 cash and every day that goes by the parasites that are its advisors nibble away at that figure. I reckon that the costs of staying on Aim for a year will be c£100,000 meaning that as an investment company it will have to beat Warren Buffett’s long term batting average by more than four times just to maintain its net assets position.
4016 days ago
I want to requisition an EGM for AIM listed management lifestyle, oops I meant oilfield services company Vialogy (VIY) to change its name to Yadda, yadda, yadda PLC to reflect more accurately what this is all about. Today we have more blockbusting non news from this firm, another “big name tie up” but naturally no financial information. Talking of which why was there no year end trading statement?
The news is that Vialogy has signed a co-operation agreement with another big name, with CGC a big French geoscience company which “provides ViaLogy with global sales and services locations, access to CGG customers, assistance in scaling ViaLogy's QuantumRD technology to large geographical areas, and specialized high tech data processing to prepare seismic datasets for QuantumRD. Support in the form of CGG personnel, facilities, past project experience, and assistance with tender submissions are also part of the arrangement. In exchange, CGG will receive reimbursement for services, and will be able to monitor and exploit the QuantumRD technology for its own business and technical purposes, and collaborate on an exclusive basis with ViaLogy technologists.”
Yadda yadda yadda. Another big name tie up but how much cash will this actually generate? Er….
4016 days ago
I tipped Pan Pacific Aggregates once. It was a rotten tip. I thought the company had gone bust but like a vampire in a horror flick this corpse keeps coming back, sucking the life out of investor’s wallets. Its latest incarnation is exactly the sort of shocker one associates with the cesspit at the bottom of AIM.
Pan’s quarrying operations have proved worthless and are to be sold for a nominal sum (my guess $1). And the company, now called Astar Minerals (ASTA) has raised £336,000 at 0.15p. Of that money £20,000 goes to the broker (Peterhouse, a company I know well as it is 49% owned by my former employer), £75,000 goes to pay off defined liabilities associated with those duff quarrying operation and another £45,000 goes to settle other liabilities. What other liabilities? How much of that £45,000 is going on fees to City advisors? Please do tell.
That leaves £200,000 in the kitty.
4020 days ago
Calling AIM listed wannabee iron miner Baobab Resources (BAO) as a sell at 35.75p on February 4th and again on 29.125p on 21st February managed to generate stacks of abuse on the Bulletin Board but with the shares at 13.625p today I have been 110% vindicated. The point is that this company has sod all cash and high bills and that a placing is needed. Fast. The shares remain a sell until its now near critical financing issues are addressed. To both the Bulletin Board Morons and the fellows who run Baobab I ask how is the placing going?
Incidentally Lucian Miers is short of this stock and you can see him explain why in his UK Investor Presentation here.
4020 days ago
AIM listed joke oil company Sefton Resources (SER) is suing myself and my fellow journalist Daniel Levi (aka Brokerman Dan) for libel. It will lose and it knows it. But I can now start to reveal the dirty tricks campaign organised by Sefton in a deliberate attempt to smear and discredit myself and Dan. This will shock you.
Sefton had no need to sue me for libel. It could have issued an RNS to refute my specific allegations. It opted not to because it knows that they are 100% true: This Company has on a serial basis mislead investors. And so it is using vast amounts of shareholders cash pursuing a legal case. It knows it cannot win and that this will be buried in the Courts for ages – it is merely an attempt to silence myself and Dan and to imply that we are telling porkies, to discredit us.
4021 days ago
AIM and TSX listed Galantas Gold (GAL) is, I am afraid to say, investment toast. At 1.375p it is capitalised at £3.54 million but calendar 2012 results out today make it clear as clear can be that a target price of 0.01p is generous.
The company is a small scale producer of gold (with a dash of lead and silver thrown in) in Northern Ireland. The reality is that this company would only ever work if it massively ramped up production and if gold prices were much higher. All figures used in this piece are in Canadian dollars but the currency is kind of irrelevant – red ink looks the same whatever the denomination.
4022 days ago
Gulf Keystone (GKP) is either the cheapest stock on AIM or is a horror waiting to blow. None of us knows which it is but on balance, after events yesterday, I would sell the shares. And for a variety of reasons.
The bull case is that the company sits on c14 billion barrels of oil. A market capitalisation of just £1 billion fails to discount that. Here endeth the bull case. If the company can start to produce that oil (and it targets output of 400,000 bopd by 2020) its shares are dirt cheap.
However, the bear case is extensive. My first contact with this company was when a then NED Lord Truscott oiled up to me to introduce himself. He was a Labour peer who took money from companies for getting legislation changed. Having a creep like him in charge of remuneration and corporate governance was like hiring Jimmy Savile as your babysitter.
4023 days ago
AIM and TSX listed Arian Silver (AGQ) notes that its shares have been falling like a stone and has issued a statement designed to reassure investors.
4027 days ago
Bullabulling (BGL) is the sort of disgrace of a mining junior that AIM could well do without. It is all too typical of the sort of Aussie junior that dual lists both in the land of high culture and over here. It has today ‘fessed up that its open offer to shareholders has, despite some horrifically aggressive share promotion, flopped and this company should be toast before the end of the cricket season. Its shares have slumped by 11% to 3p after today’s debacle but that still capitalises this POS at £10.5 million. My target price is 0.1p by September.
4028 days ago
A couple of days ago commissioned researcher Edison published a detailed buy note on AIM and TSX listed Arian Silver (AGQ) at 9p suggesting that a target price of 16p was achievable assuming that the company raised $21.4 million of debt and $8 million of equity at the then share price to meet its funding needs until it turns cash positive in early 2015. But life is not that simple, especially in an environment when precious metals prices are crashing.
4028 days ago
Reasons to be bearish part 2. The first reason to sell Centamin (CEY) was political – it operates in Egypt where there is zero long term visibility for businesses since the regime change. But there is now a fundamental reason to offload the stock pronto – the maths simply do not stack up. And I warn you that there are some big broker downgrades on the way.
4030 days ago
I know nothing about AIM listed Quindell portfolio (QPP) other than Lucian Miers regards it as an accident waiting to happen (as he explained here.) and that I share his unease at its aggressive manner of stock promotion. Today’s RNS only increases that unease. It is flagged up as “Major contract win with leading UK broker” but… -
4033 days ago
Vialogy (VIY) the aim listed management lifestyle, ooops I meant to say oilfield services group is at it again with another promote the shares announcement. As ever it blathers on about doing work for a big name company (it is Chevron again) but what is this worth? Er……the silence is deafening.
The announcement is classic Vialogy waffle
4043 days ago
AIM listed joke company of the year 2001-2013, Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) has this morning released an independent valuation of its Kansas reserves which can only be described as laughable. It is back to its old pal Dr Onat for this corker. It defies belief that anyone should fall for this baloney but here goes.
4046 days ago
Once upon a time AIM listed CPP (LSE:CPP) was worth almost £500 million. And then the merde hit the fan. I advised shorting it at 26.75p last autumn and was again saying it was a sell at 4.625p a week ago. The shares are now 3.92p and this one will be resolved within two weeks and the BEST you can hope for is 1p. This remains a slam dunk short.
4047 days ago
On 15th February I suggested selling shares in AIM listed oil producer and explorer Gulfsands Petroleum (LSE:GPX) at111.5p. The shares are now 96p. One reason NOT to sell is that Gulfsands is debt free and has net cash but I wonder how much it actually has. A buzz of IR activity of late makes me wonder if there might be a placing ahead.
4048 days ago
Centamin (CEY) has this week announced its calendar 2012 results. There is no doubt that the numbers were impressive. I write that as a persistent bear of the stock. But credit where credit is due – Josef El Raghy and his team did well in difficult conditions. However…
Before looking forwards, I look back. Centamin produced 262,828 oz of gold – an increase on 2011 despite the operational difficulties experience in the autumn as a direct result of the changing political landscape in Egypt. That production generated revenue of $426.1 million and an EBITDA of $233.3 million, resulting in a profit after tax of $232.15 million. However, the company did have an exceptional charge of $33.1 million which reduced the headline profit to $199.038 million. However even that number surpassed the $193.99 million recorded in 2011. It was another record year for Centamin.
4050 days ago
I sense that shareholders in AIM listed management lifestyle, oops meant to say oilfield services company, Vialogy (LSE:VIY) are not exactly my biggest fans. I warned them to bale at 2.125p in the autumn on the basis that the company was ramping its shares with spurious announcements ahead of a rescue fund raise. I warned them to sell again at 1.625p in early February when, lo and behold, there was a rescue fund raise and I warn them at 1.3p to sell again now.
That original article contains the full details of grotesque management pay packages over many years and of half a decade of abject non delivery. If you are squeamish do not read the article but by way of background to what has gone on here you should brace yourself and click HERE
And now for the observations:
4050 days ago
Zoltav Resources (LSE:ZOL) the AIM listed shell last week announced a Reverse takeover in a deal to buy some Russian oil assets. The shares were suspended at 4.6p but the deal is being done at 3.5p and so here is how the maths of the shareholder structure stacks up after the deal:
4051 days ago
I advised shorting AIM listed financial services group CPP (LSE:CPP) back in the autumn on November 21st at 26.75p on the grounds that the bid talks it claimed to be in were just not going to result in any bid happening. And so it came to pass and the shares duly halved. The problem is that CPP’s business model is not working. But it is now getting much worse. Much, much worse.
4051 days ago
Cupid (LSE:CUP) has today issued a statement denying that it the Scottish headquartered online dating agency does anything wrong. I quote in full:
“Cupid plc strongly refutes all allegations that its business model or practices and procedures are in any way fundamentally flawed, inappropriate or illegal. The directors believe that there has been a great deal of misrepresentation and ill-informed speculation in the marketplace and the Company is currently taking legal advice on these matters.”
The critical allegations are those made in a Kyivpost.com article of 15th March. The journalist responsible has confirmed
4052 days ago
If I had £100 for every time that in my 25 year career that a CEO told me “our low share price makes us vulnerable to a bid” I would right now be sitting in a luxury mansion in the Bahamas. Very few CEOs whose company’s shares are on the up say this. But guess what, in the insider dealing infested snake pit that is the City the companies that receive bid approaches are not those whose shares are tanking but those whose shares are going up.
Those companies who peddle that “vulnerable to a bid” line usually do so in the hope that it will drive investors to buy not because they actually expect one. And so I refer to an article in the Scotsman out today (HERE) which blames me for the collapse in AIM listed Cupid’s share price on Friday
4052 days ago
On Friday I executed a volte face on online dating agency Cupid (LSE:CUP). I had tipped the stock but advised readers to sell and go short. Those who followed my tip on my Nifty Fifty website to buy at 185p would have sold at 112p losing 63p. Going short at the same price they would now be 63p ahead as the shares closed Friday at 49p. They have got their money back. But they will end up making money as this stock has a lot further to fall. In my view the potential downside per share is almost 49p.
4054 days ago
This article on Cupid was emailed out to users of onefreesharetip.com about an hour ago since when shares in Cupid have fallen by 11p to 101p. I do not normally reprint onefreesharetip.com articles. If you want them sign up to the service and be ahead of the curve. But in response to a few requests I reprint this one. This is a one-off. If you want ideas ( short and long) from a panel of 20 odd share tipsters, bloggers and analysts REGISTER HERE
The article reads:
My colleague Adnan Siddique wrote the other day here that online dating agency Cupid (LSE: CUP) was a binary bet. It was either going to double or crater. I agreed with that analysis and like him thought it was right to buy. We would both now stick with the binary bet call but would both advise selling and – in fact – would open a short position. The current short is, BTW, not 27% but perhaps 6% of the issued share capital. I think that number will get much larger pretty soon. This is not a stock to hold. I got it wrong but having read some fresh material last night am making a 100% volte face on this. What you have lost on the bull track you should aim to recoup on the bear tack by going short.
The bull case for Cupid (me getting it wrong) is presented HERE
4055 days ago
Shares in AIM and Canada listed Aureus Mining (LSE:AUE) trade higher today at 40p post the company’s 2012 results release and an update on financing for the company’s New Liberty gold project in Liberia. However, the shares are still well below the 57.25p at which I called them a post t1ps sell in November.
I wrote about the company three times in November as it was flushed out on a cash call and my detailed analysis has proven pretty much bang on the money
4055 days ago
FTSE 250 listed gold miner Centamin has issued another statement updating shareholders on its legal issues in the Islamofascist Republic of Egypt where is flagship asset, the world class Sukarai gold mine is located. I have never doubted the quality of this asset, merely pointed out since the regime change in Egypt last summer that the political risks are not discounted. That remains the case at 56p today.
The statement issued yesterday reads:
4055 days ago
I had a day off yesterday from Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) the joke AIM listed oil production company that is suing me for libel. But this morning I am sent, by a pal on the West Coast, a little snippet which I thought might interest you. It concerns Thomas (Tom) George Milne who was appointed a non exec director on August 9th. His CV at the time sounded jolly impressive and when I met the fellow on October 9th it was explained to me that he was there to give Sefton’s financial reporting function more rigour. Milne’s CV looks good but..
4058 days ago
Steve Moore and I worked together at t1ps.com from the day he left University. He is a very talented young analyst and a man of utter principle which is why he quit t1ps. He is now working with my on my Nifty Fifty website but also writing off his own bat and I am keen to support that. Apart from anything else he talks a lot of sense. As such I bring you his analysis of JD Wetherspoon. Steve writes...
Interim results for the 26 weeks ended 27th January 2013 from J D Wetherspoon (JDW), the FTSE 250 owner and operator of pubs throughout the UK, showed a 10% increase in revenue and 6.9% increase in like-for-like sales. However, adjusted earnings per share were just 3% up and underlying profitability was actually a few percent lower. The following examines this performance and reviews the investment proposition here…
4059 days ago
To howls of abuse I suggested that AIM listed Sirius Minerals (LSE:SXX) was a slam dunk sell at 27.75p on the day it submitted planning applications for its Potash mining project on the North York Moors. My reasons were multiple. Its ability to gain planning permission was a side issue although an RNS last week makes for interesting reading. The shares are now 24p.
It seems that the North York Moors Planning Authority has asked for extra information in order that it can determine the planning application. Sirius will provide this with a view to still getting a decision by May 21st. But there is another potential fly or two in the ointment:
4059 days ago
I have always believed that Imagination Technologies (LSE:IMG) is a good company. And you have to pay for quality. But you can overpay for quality and right now that is what investors in this stock are being asked to do. The company issued a detailed trading statement on 12 March which should not have provided ammunition for the bulls but the shares are now trading higher than a few weeks ago at 552p. Shorting a FTSE 250 stock right now is a risky business. Money is flowing into the second liners (from bonds) and this pushes valuations to ever more “generous” levels. And so I fully admit to calling this tech stock wrong (short term) as a sell on February 5th at 523p.
4061 days ago
Egypt based FTSE 250 listed gold miner Centamin (LSE:CEY) yesterday gave guidance for 2013 output – that it does so 2 weeks ahead of the publication of 2012 results is a bit odd. Is it a case of getting the bad news out ahead of the next bad news...the results.
The company states that it expects to produce 320,000 ounces of gold this calendar year at a cash cost ( assuming no fuel subsidies) of $700. That would be a 22% increase on 2012 output which is not surprising given that a range of political difficulties scarred 2012 numbers. Of course Centamin assumes that these difficulties (or new ones) will not reoccur. Given the newsflow from the increasingly Islamofascist republic of Egypt, I am not so sure of that. The company reaffirms that it expects output to increase to 450,000-500,000 oz from 2015 onwards. Inshallah.
4065 days ago
In February I published a detailed comment on housebuilder and FTSE 250 constituent Barratt Developments (BDEV), stating that a recent upbeat trading statement meant that then upcoming results should contain no nasty surprises but that for a cyclical company seemingly approaching the top of the cycle, the valuation was simply too high. Now, post the results, the following updates my view…
4071 days ago
This is all so bloody familiar but here we go again with another trading update from Sefton Resources (LSE:SER), the joke company that is suing me for libel. I will offer it an opportunity to broaden that case below since I have unearthed another howler of a statement this morning in which, I accuse Sefton and its plutocrat chairman Jim Ellerton once again of deliberately misleading investors. But first the trading statement.
Dr Ali says that his report on steamflooding in California is making good progress. Specifically that: “ work on the history match stage of the thermal stimulation report is now coming to an end. Dr Ali has advised that he is about to start the cyclical steam matches and various steamflood scenarios which he plans to work on simultaneously”. This would be the report that in the now infamous interims of September 2012 was promised for delivery by the year end. And that which on 6th April was promised for delivery by the end of May. That is April and May 2011.4075 days ago
My twitter feed today is full of tweets from shareholders in US Oil & Gas (USOP) who seem to think they have firm evidence that they are on to a winner. In the immortal words of Don and Phil:”Dream, dream, dream… only trouble is, gee whizz, I’m dreaming my life away.”
4076 days ago
On March 5th the international recruitment agency will serve up its results for calendar 2012 and given that there was a detailed trading statement on January 15th – which flagged up that Q1 2013 would be challenging – it is hard to see there being any great horrors. However, at 425p, on a 2013 price earnings ratio of 26 (or more) there is not a lot of scope for disappointment. There is a bull case as well as a bear case and the debate is an interesting one.
The Q4 trading statement reported fees of £126.5 million which was marginally ahead of consensus. The UK market seems to have stabilised, Asia is trading strongly and Europe (this will not surprise you) not very strongly. On the back of that pre-tax profits should come in at around £65 million (down from £86 million in 2011) which equates to earnings of 14p (down from 18.2p). Net cash at the year end was basically unchanged on 2011 at £58 million.
4077 days ago
Fully listed Russian Oil producer Ruspetro (LSE:RPO) first came to my attention when it issued a disastrous profits warning at 6.3 PM on the Friday of New Year week. It thought no-one would notice? I did. Coming just six weeks after an upbeat trading statement that RNS was a horror. Then there was the announcement of a debt for equity and debt refinancing package. But that fell through too. And today there is another shocker. Those who own shed loads of these shares like my fat friend Evil Knievil keep on telling me that things cannot get any worse. And then they do.
4077 days ago
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Will I get sued for libel for saying that Pursuit Dynamics is a shambles and that those who organised a £5.4 million placing at 3p in December have a few questions to answer? Well hell’s teeth, Cenkos Securities please join the queue if you are offended. The company has today published its results for the year ended 30th September but the new board says that since it will miss its revenue targets for the first half of this year it will be shutting down all its businesses and trying to realise value for shareholders from its IP. Yeah right.
4078 days ago
Today it was the turn of FTSE 250 listed Redrow (RDW) to report its numbers for the 6 months to 31st December 2012 and while some of the numbers look good, some do not and there is a solid case to be made for selling this stock notwithstanding the sharp increase in earnings just reported.
My starting premise is perhaps a little different to most sector followers in that I am bearish on UK house prices.
4082 days ago
FTSE 250 listed, Housebuilder Barratt Developments (BDEV) issued an upbeat trading statement on 16th January covering the six months to 31st December and there is little doubt that the results out next week will contain no nasty surprises. The company has a forward order book equivalent to around four months of sales and as such there is no reason to expect any great change in trading in the second half. Yet with house prices now on a multiple of average wages seem only once before in living memory ( 2007) and with the normal catalyst for a house price correction ( a rise in interest rates) surely only a matter of time the current rating looks untenable.
4083 days ago
I managed to make even more friends in the Bulletin Board Moron community on 4th February when I explained why anyone with half a brain cell should short Baobab Resources (LSE:BAO) at 35.75p. Since then the company has issued 2 RNS releases about its flagship Tete study blathering on with all the usual guff and telephone numbers. Yet the shares are this morning at 29.125p. Oops looks like I was right and the Bulletin Board Morons wrong. Again. So what’s new pussycat? …. There is a placing on the way….You can smell it.
4086 days ago
I seem to have rather riled Sirius Minerals (LSE:SXX ) with a suggestion last week that it urgently need to issue equity. The company has issued a statement today which says that “ The Directors of Sirius Minerals Plc, the globally diversified potash development group, would like to correct current misinformation about the Company’s financing plans for the York Potash Project. As at 31 January 2013, the Company had a cash balance of GBP24 million and no immediate plans for a placement of shares.
The development of the world-class York Potash Project will require multiple financings and these will be carried out when required, when opportunities present themselves and always with the best value to shareholders in mind.”
Ooooh er missus. Whatever you say.
Now let’s look at the facts.
4086 days ago
Hot off the press today is my latest e-book. It is free to order (i.e. it costs you nothing) and is on the ten top stocks to short in London right now. It is published by the chaps at SpreadBet Magazine and you can order it by hitting on the humours little button below.
4089 days ago
A report lands on my desk today from Edison Research on AIM Listed Gulfsands Petroleum (GPX) entitled “The road out of Damascus.” This report was commissioned by Gulfsands ( i.e. paid for) and so one would not expect a bearish conclusion. ‘tis always the way with research reports from commissioned firms ( like Edison or Hardman) or from a house broker – they want to say buy but sometimes just cannot do so. And so you get what is known as a “corporate hold” . i.e. sell. There is no recommendation on the report but with the shares at 111.75p it sets a risked valuation of the stock at 119p. I cannot see why anyone would buy a share for just 6% upside. Any sane investor would sell and switch into a stock with more upside.
4091 days ago
A raft of announcements have been made by Sirius Minerals (SXX) today but amid the verbage the clear drift is not positive. The shares are off – at 25.25p – but the company is still valued at £339 million. That simply cannot be justified.I did suggest that holders at least top slice on January 31st at 27.75p as bulletin board frothed with excitement on news that the company had submitted a planning application for its Potash mine on the North York Moors.
Following today’s news my stance is downgraded to a plain sell
4091 days ago
Supporters of AIM listed director lifestyle (oops sorry I meant oil exploration services) company Vialogy (LSE:VIY) always pin big hopes on the idea that Chevron will announce mega contracts. The penny share dreadful, Vialogy has never actually announced what its two contracts with Chevron were worth but we know that the first was c£40,000 ( or less than Chevron spends each year on toilet rolls for all of its offices). I have no idea how much Chevron will commit to Vialogy’s product but I bet that it will not be much.
4095 days ago
AIM listed director lifestyle (sorry oil services) company Vialogy (LSE:VIY) has – as predicted many times by me ended its Autumn ramp campaign of spurious announcements with a placing. The whole thing stinks and it merely delays the ultimate demise of this POS. The company has raised £1.4 million at 1.25p with punters each getting one warrant at 1.25p for every three shares subscribed for. Now here is why it stinks and why you should sell first thing on Monday morning.
4096 days ago
Calm down, we will turn to our own Avanti Communications (LSE:AVN) next week as it reports results. There is a legitimate bull vs Bear debate here too. But today’s Avanti is a TSX listed miner capitalised at $37 million. It is pure comedy.
4097 days ago
AIM listed GMA Resources (GMA) has just returned from an eight month suspension. A cash shell (with not a lot of cash) following the failure of its last hydrocarbon business venture it has now announced a RTO which will see it owning 90% of two mining assets in Kazakhstan. The shares returned from suspension on February 5th and promptly soared to 0.9p which in effect valued the business at £700 million. That forced the company to issue a statement re-explaining its share structure – in effect saying its stock was overvalued. The shares still trade at 0.24p but are still at least 60% overvalued.
The company plans a 500 for 1 share consolidation. Thus existing shareholders will post consolidation own 1.236 million shares. The vendors of the Kazakh assets will be issued with 148 million shares which on the basis of the agreed RTO values the transaction at £40 million. But on the basis of the current share price the market capitalisation post issue is actually £184 million.
4097 days ago
Steve Moore and I worked together at t1ps.com ever since he left University. He is a very talented young analyst and a man of utter principle which is why he quit t1ps. He is now working with my on my Nifty Fifty product but also writing off his own bat and I am keen to support that. Apart from anything else he talks a lot of sense. As such I bring you a piece he published on Ocado today. Both Lucian Miers and I agree with his conclusion.
Shares in Ocado Group (OCDO), the FTSE-250 online grocer, have jumped higher today on the back of its announcement of results for the 53 weeks ended 2nd December 2012. However, with the shares at a current 115p, capitalising the company at more than £700 million, the following reviews today’s results and considers whether the share price run from 58.5p in November looks to have long-term legs…
The results showed an adjusted pre-tax profit of £1.8 million, from a prior year loss of £2.4 million, on comparative revenue 11% higher. However, on revenue for the 53 weeks of £678.6 million, the statutory pre-tax figure was a loss of £0.6 million as the company recorded £2.4 million of ‘exceptional items’ including “staff and other operational costs associated with the opening of Customer Fulfilment Centre 2 and a non-food distribution centre in Welwyn Garden City”.
4098 days ago
Russian Oil producer Ruspetro (RPO) has served up another shocking statement this morning – its habit of delivering nasty surprises does not change. Having advised a short at 83.5p on January 4th I suggested on 25th of January that having refinanced its debt it was “merely one to avoid.” The shock today is that it has decided not to refinance its debt or to undertake the partial debt for equity swap announced on January 25th. This leaves its cash position looking very tricky indeed and at 50.5p the shares are once again a sell.
The announcement today is brief but shocking none the less. It reads:
4099 days ago
Imagination Technologies (LSE:IMG) is clearly a good company. It is profitable, it is growing its sales rapidly, there is operational gearing and it generates cash and has a net cash position. It ticks all the boxes and is thus loved by investors retail and institutional. But at 523p the company is capitalised at £1.37 billion and on the basis of what is known that share price looks overheated. The shares are a sell.
4099 days ago
For the most hideously overvalued company on AIM, Zoltav Resources (LSE:ZOL) the end is nigh. Today saw news that it has drawn down the second and final £250,000 tranche of a £500,000 loan facility made available by its largest shareholder. That suggests that net cash was down to pretty much sod all. And that makes for grim reading. Yet at 5.85p the company is valued at a quite unbelievable £22 million. This is a joke valuation.
4099 days ago
I spent two years working along Sam Bottell as he worked with minesite.com and oilbarrel.com and he is a good, honest and clever chap. Now that he is starting his career freelance writing as well as an organiser of the UKInvestor Show I have no hesitation in helping him along via this blog as a guest contributor. As such I bring to your attention a share sell tip from TradingResearch Point on Antofagasta. I happen to agree with his conclusion.
A calendar 2012 trading statement published on January 30th by FTSE 100 listed Chilean copper miner Antofagasta (ANTO) did not disappoint us bears. If anything it gave us further encouragement. It is not just that the 2012 numbers were mildly disappointing but that the 2013 guidance is very weak and with the macro outlook for copper unhelpful this is not going to be a good year for the company. Having advised selling at 1328p on January 10th the stance is unchanged now, even though the shares have already fallen back to 1127p.
4100 days ago
After many years of scratching around Southern Africa for a project with real prospects AIM listed Boabab (BAO) appears to have found something that could be a winner in the form of the Tete pig iron/vanadium/titanium target in Mozambique. With iron ore stocks all rallying sharply in the past two or three months on the back of hopes of resurgence in Chinese demand, Baobab shares have raced ahead to 35.75p which values this company at £106 million. This is a stock that has now got far ahead of its fundamental value and I can reveal that last week well known bear raider Lucian Miers opened up a short. That is a good call which you should follow.
4104 days ago
AIM-listed Sirius Minerals (SXX) has announced it has delivered application documents for the onshore mining and mine access infrastructure for its York potash project to the North York Moors National Park Authority. This news on what is a potentially significant development in the UK has helped shares in Sirius – which commenced 2010 at sub 5p and 2011 at sub 14p – slightly higher to a current 27.75p, capitalising the company at £373 million. The following reviews today’s announcement from the company and the investment proposition here
4105 days ago
I flag this with no idea what is behind this but David Lenigas runs Leni Gas & Oil (LSE:LGO) which like Range Resources (LSE:RRL) has extensive interests in Trinidad. Both were mant to present at some shindig but Mr Lenigas tweeted a few hours ago:
David Lenigas @DavidLenigas
4105 days ago
I spent two years working along Sam Bottell as he worked with minesite.com and oilbarrel.com and he is a good, honest and clever chap. Now that he is starting his career freelance writing as well as an organiser of the UKInvestor Show I have no hesitation in helping him along via this blog as a guest contributor. As such I bring to your attention a share tip from TradingResearch Point on Borders & Southern. I happen to agree with his conclusion.
The Falklands oil exploration stocks remain the darlings of the Bulletin Board but the bare fact is that while Rockhopper (RKH) has served up some good news the “field” has disappointed. Yet hope springs eternal and thus a presentation on 28th January from Borders & Southern (BOR) has sparked its shares into life once again sending the shares to 27.75p valuing the company at £133 million.
Borders has in the past enjoyed some success. In April 2011 it announced the Darwin find where initial tests suggested a gas condensate reserve of 130 to 250 million barrels of liquid. Recently the company re-asserted that a mid case recoverable reserve could be 210 million barrels. Note the words could be.
4107 days ago
Shares in all of the Falklands oil plays are ahead today thanks to a presentation by Border’s & Southern (BOR) which seems to have excited a few folk although to me it seems to contain a lot of ifs and jam tomorrow. I remain bearish on that stock but even more so on Falklands Oil & Gas (FOGL) , shares in which are 3% ahead on the Borders hype at 32.5p. I have been a long time bear of this company and would regard this temporary spike as an ideal cue for shareholders to get out for reasons that I explain below.
Falklands remains a Bulletin Board darling ( itself a bad sign)
4107 days ago
Russian Oil Producer Ruspetro (RPO) has announced a partial debt for equity swap and refinancing of its remaining debts. This is good news. However before those who ignored my advice to sell at 83.5p on 4th January after an almost comical well after hours profits warning start to celebrate this company still faces serious issues. The shares have bounced back to 49.5p but while they are no longer a short I would still regard them as one to avoid.
The profits warning was release, as you may remember at 6.30 PM on the Friday of New Year week when nobody was meant to be noticing. Coming less than six weeks after an upbeat trading statement it left the management team with zero credibility and it will take an awfully long time for that to change. I flagged at the time that the company had serious balance sheet and ( lack of ) free cashflow issues and the latest announcement partially solves that.
4110 days ago
AIM listed Chinese joke company Geong (LSE:GNG) is always a bundle of laughs. This is a company that works on projects for 18 months, does not invoice yet books the amounts as income. I have pointed out before that its balance sheet backing is illusory, that its “profits” ho ho ho never translate into cash and that it would probably be out of cash within a year. That was in September. But today the company has served up a stormer of a statement and I have just got even more bearish. This is a classic China bubble story.
4110 days ago
God I am getting old. I knew Aubrey Brocklebank’s dad about twenty years ago. And now I find myself talking to the son. It is rather like hearing the name Potts at West Ham. I think gosh Stevie must be getting on a bit and then realise it is his son Danny on the pitch. Anyhow AB is a fund manager now doing a spot of writing and being a switched on fellow I am happy to help promote his ideas. As it happens his second article as a journalist is once again on Dignity (DTY) which I wrote about the other day as well. We seem to agree. ‘Natch. Over to Aubrey…
Buy and build strategies can, in principle, be a good idea. They can, theoretically deliver shareholder value. The simple idea behind them is that the acquiring company buys a business that trades on a multiple of 5 and by being able to trade on a multiple of 10 has effectively doubled its value; albeit a paper gain only.
Dignity has recently announced the acquisition of Yew Holdings (or at least part of their estate, subject to OFT clearance). In order to fund said acquisition Dignity have raised money at 1060p. At that price Dignity trades at historic EV/Sales of 4.3 and rolling EV/Sales of 3.99 – They have paid an EV/Sales of 5.66 for Yew Holdings.
Making a few assumptions about the business (26% tax rate, depreciation at 3% of sales) we see a net profit of £4m for Yew. Factoring in the Cap Ex, and brokers fees, Dignity paid a total of £60m for this business. This is a Price Earnings of 17.15! When the rolling PE of Dignity was 13.51 (at time of acquisition) it must be questioned how much value this adds to the company? A PE of that level can only be justified when there are significant growth opportunities.
4110 days ago
In the mad world of twitter I receive a tweet from @danpeterpanfan (who is apparently known as the village idiot of share tweeting circles”) stating “You are an imbecile!” All publicity is good publicity I guess, so naturally I retweeted this shining literary gem to all of my followers. It seems that what has aroused the anger of this total moron were statements I made a couple of months ago surrounding AIM listed Zoltav Resources (ZOL) being the “most overvalued company on AIM” or having a “joke valuation.”
The shares were then anywhere between 3p and 3.98p. They are now 4.9p. So according to the Village Idiot, I am now either an imbecile or my articles were misleading as “the value of this company has gone up sharply”. Er… no.
4111 days ago
Earlier this week Afren plc (AFR), a FTSE-250 oil and gas exploration and production company which despite its size remains a darling of the Bulletin Boards, updated investors on its performance in 2012 and its outlook. This review helped the shares up to 152.5p although they have subsequently slipped back to 147p which capitalises the company at £1.595 billion. Chartists will note that 152p proved a resistance level ten months ago and failure to breach that level ( which had been support a ten months prior to that) saw the shares fall back to 100p. But I’d rather burn my West Ham season tickets and start supporting Spurs than become a Technical analyst and so I review the fundamental case.
4113 days ago
My old pal, from my 12 years at t1ps.com, Robert Sutherland Smith is a cheery old fellow (he is 157) with a dry sense of humour. A noted enthusiast for early morning swimming on Hampstead Heath I imagine that he has a few spare hours on his hands right now. Surely he cannot be swimming at present? We will all find out shortly as he starts his new monthly “Pond Life” column here on www.TomWinnifrith.com
So bored as he is he sent me a few of his thoughts on Greggs (LSE:GRG). We both like food and I am a major bear of this stock
4117 days ago
This morning AIM listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) has via its lawyer Pinsent Masons sent lawyers letters to myself and BrokerMan Daniel. Such is the competence of this company that it sent the hard copy to an address that I have not lived in for three years. Luckily it got the email address right.
4118 days ago
UK pub owner and operator and FTSE-250 constituent JD Wetherspoon (JDW) has today provided an update on current trading ahead of its results for the six months ending 27th January 2013, which are expected to be announced on 15th March. The share price has risen from a little over 370p in May to 518.5p at the close today but I am struggling to see why anyone should get that excited about the state of play.
4120 days ago
The Christmas trading reports from the retailers do not make for pretty reading. There are some who simply cite consumer confidence (or lack of it) in austerity Britain. But I would suggest that there are far wider structural changes afoot, ones that make me wonder if some companies really have a raison d’etre at all going forward. If it did not exist already would anyone bother to establish Mothercare (MTC)? Somehow I rather doubt it. Certainly when it publishes its Christmas trading statement on Thursday it will be grim.
Of course not all retailers are doing badly. Before turning to Mothercare’s woes it is perhaps worth looking at Tesco (TSCO) in that its relative success is one of the reasons for the failure of others
4125 days ago
I spent two years working along Sam Bottell as he worked with minesite.com and oilbarrel.com and he is a good, honest and clever chap. Now that he is starting his career freelance writing as well as an organiser of the UKInvestor Show I have no hesitation in helping him along via this blog as a guest contributor. As such I bring to your attention a share tip from him from TradingResearch Point…
I tend to agree with the conclusion
While many small cap miners struggled in 2012 both operationally and as a result of negative investor sentiment, through a malign market, the disappointments were not necessarily confined to the small fish. With a market cap of £13.072 billion, Antofagasta is a company that packs a punch but its size doesn’t necessarily mean it’s immune to operational setbacks. But it also faces a major macro negative. The shares are a sell at 1328p and here is why.
4125 days ago
Yesterday Greggs (GRG), the leading bakery retailer in the UK with more than 1,670 retail outlets, released an update on trading for the Christmas and New Year period (5 weeks ended 5th January 2013) and for its 2012 financial year (52 weeks ended 29th December 2012). This included that the company anticipates that it “will report full year results broadly in line with expectations when we make our preliminary announcement on 13 March 2013”. However there were caveats and with concerns about the UK economy and consumer spending – particularly on the high street, the following is my take on the current outlook for this company…
4126 days ago
Centamin (CEY), the London and Canada listed gold miner operating in Egypt, has announced record quarterly gold production of 85,543 ounces for the period closing December 31st 2012 – taking full year production to 262,958 ounces, a 30% increase on 2011 and above guidance of 250,000 ounces. The shares have responded by currently trading just over 5.5p higher at 49.75p, capitalising the company at just under £550 million. The company emphasises the numbers as “particularly pleasing given the challenges faced during the year” but the announcement also makes clear that challenges remain. The following details my current view…
4127 days ago
I note that your esteemed editor was hoping to buy shares in Ruspetro at sub 60p on Monday following the company’s shock profits warning at 6.30 PM on Friday 3rd January. He was denied as the shares never got that low – they are now 63.25p. But I think the boss may yet get his chance… My helpful suggestion is that he declines to take it. This whole company stinks.
A reminder – On 19th November the company published a bullish trading statement saying that output was 7,853 bopd and that it was on track to hit 10,400 bopd by the calendar year end. Good news all round. Fill your boots. Congratulations to my fat accountant, Evil Knievil who was long (oops!). But then on January 3rd ( a day when few folks were working) the company announced at 6.30 PM (when even those folks were on their fifth pint at the pub) that output was actually 6,540 bopd and that it continued to “experience slower than anticipated production growth due to additional modifications required to surface field equipment and curtailed well completions in December.” It blames “technical challenges in stabilising condensate from hydrocarbons produced.”
4127 days ago
God I am getting old. I knew Aubrey Brocklebank’s dad about twenty years ago. And now I find myself talking to the son. It is ather like hearing the name Potts at West Ham. I think gosh Stevie must be getting on a bit and then realise it is his son Danny on the pitch. Anyhow AB is a fund manager now doing a spot of writing and being a switched on fellow I am happy to help promote his ideas. As it happens his first article as a journalist is on Dignity (DTY) which I wrote about earlier today as well. We seem to agree. ‘Natch. Over to Aubrey…
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” [1]
Price 1,088
Market Cap 5952
Price/Earnings 20.0
Price Book 35.1
Yield 1.3%
Dignity is a much loved small-cap stock. Panmure, N+1 Singer, Numis, and Investec are all bullish on DTY and have buy notes written about it. Only Peel Hunt is less bullish, though not enough to write a sell note. Supposedly this is a very secure and stable business and is deserving of a PE ratio of 20. Certainly from the price chart alone I might have to agree.
4127 days ago
AIM listed Funeral homes group Dignity (FTY) is one of those companies whose shares always look expensive, but then always seem to head higher. You always kick yourself for not buying the stock, after all we have an ageing population and so death ( like taxes) looks a sort of one way bet. As it happens, that is not the case. At a share price of £11.02 the company is now capitalised at £603 million. Is this justifiable?
The group has expanded largely by opening more and more funeral parlours across the country. I had assumed, as I suspect had you, that an ageing population meant that it would have more, er .. customers. But it is pointed out to me that we actually face a bit of a demographic blip. The effects of WW2 and improved health care mean that for the next decade or so the number of “customers” will not actually increase but will fall marginally. It will start picking up again in c2022.
4128 days ago
Director lifestyle (oops I meant to say oil exploration services) group Vialogy (LSE:VIY) needs to raise cash urgently or it is going bust. That is not just me saying that,. That is the bombshell from its auditors that the company snuck out over Christmas when no-one was watching. Its attempts since then to sucker private investors into buying the stock so that it can get a rescue placing away ( at a huge discount ‘natch) display a cynicism which is quite extraordinary. Anyone buying the stock in the market is being exploited shamelessly as I shall detail below.
The shock warning from the auditors came out on December 31st. Yup, New Year’s Eve when no-one was paying attention. I try to watch this company like a hawk but I missed it. The statement is pretty clear:
4129 days ago
I flagged up on the third of January an explicit allegation that fully listed gold miner Centamin (LSE:CEY) was not in fact selling any gold. The allegation was originally not made by an attention seeking share commentator (i.e. me) but by a well regard research analyst in a published note distributed by a respected London broker, viz Fox Davies. If the allegation is true then the implications for short term cashflow/ working capital at Centamin are profound. The response from Centamin? Er…
4129 days ago
Ruspetro (RPO) has already served up a profits warning in 2013 and for its timing as much as its substance it is already in line to win an award for the biggest shock of the year. The share price at the close on Friday was 83.5p, valuing the firm at £278.4 million but given that the release went live at 6.30 PM the stock will be hit hard on Monday. At what point should you buy if at all?
6.30 PM? Yes that is not a typo. To release a profits alert on a 3 day Christmas week is band enough. After hours is poor form. But to sneak it out at 6.30 PM on a Friday when the few people who were at work last week were already onto their third after work pint is quite shocking behaviour. A management team that serves up such an announcement will need to prove itself consistently for a good period to regain the trust of investors.
What makes it worse is what the statement actually said.
4132 days ago
On 20th December fully listed gold miner Centamin (CEY) announced that “following the recently-announced export of gold and resumption of fuel supply, operations have now resumed at Sukari.” The market read this as meaning that output and cashflow generation was now back on track. The shares have thus rallied to 39.3p. But this morning, top broker Fox Davies has published a research report stating “We also understand that gold exports have again been suspended.” Well have they? A RNS statement from Centamin is called for pretty urgently. This is a critical matter but the answer does not matter but the episode reminds us of why the shares are a sell.
The Fox Davies note is pretty damning and I reprint a critical section:
4139 days ago
ave written before about AIM Listed Ireland based Great Western Mining (LSE:GWMO) noting that it shares far too many connections with mega joke valuation company US Oil & Gas (USOP). I note that today shares in Great Western are off by 16% at 2p valuing the company at £1.3 million. It doubt very much that it is worth that much. To me the only question is when shareholders will be put out of their misery by this company running out of cash. Its accounts are presented in an “interesting” manner and so long suffering suckers, oops, I meant shareholders may not have realised how grim the picture is.
4139 days ago
I have always been a fan of Greggs (GRG) the UK’s largest retailer of sausage rolls, puff pastries and all the other sort of comfort food that helped to give me diabetes. The company has always had net cash, benefitted from operational gearing and delivered solid year on year earnings increases. But in 2012 things appeared to start to go slightly awry and the share price has fallen from 550p at the start of the year to 458p. As recently as 7th November I foreasaw a bounce ( at 470p) but I have been reviewing my assumptions about UK consumer behaviour. As such I apologise for that bad share tip, a volte face is on the way.I would like to buy this stock as fundamentally it is a good business serving six million Britons each week. But ….
4142 days ago
A shareholder in Harmonic Energy (ASUV.PK) has spent considerable sums in recent weeks to send out a missive to tens of thousands of UK investors headlined “the one stock you must own before the New Year” with bold claims about how the shares could gain 3200%. In very small print, it is noted that the shareholder is himself looking to sell the shares. Since the company is, according to the latest SEC Filing of December 14, technically insolvent, yet at $1.05, is capitalized at $66 million, this promotion is misleading in the extreme. But it has worked, in that the shares have been heavily traded and have gained 20 cents in the past two weeks. If you hold the stock, this is your chance to sell. Grab it.
4146 days ago
Just a brief note on AIM listed Falklands Oil & Gas (FOGL). Thanked by no-one really I have been warning folks to bail out all summer. And I have remained bearish. My most recent piece was on November 27th when I said that the stock was still a sell even down at a 37.5p share price. The share price is now 29.75p. But it will get worse.
It is always good to agree with a good pal and I have few better friends than Zak Mir. I do not really understand the world of technical analysis but according to him the charts look dire. He has thus published this sell advice today .
It rather chimes in with my own fundamental sell advice published here on November 27th.
I think that makes the conclusion a universal “sell”
4146 days ago
You know that I am a bear of AIM listed oil producer Range Resources (LSE:RRL) but I am nothing if not a balanced sort of fellow and hence this piece. I reckon that the shares are stonking short on the basis of non delivery, peer group relative cashflow multiples and the act that Range’s cash position is less than splendid – I am convinced that it will do a funding at some stage soon.
But others are bullish. Notably the company’s house broker Fox Davies which has reiterated its 25p target share price and buy stance in a research note out today ( 19th December).
My target price is 1.5p and you can read why HERE.
But becuase I am such a decent sort of fellow I offer an alternative viewpoint.
Whether you buy, sell or hold is your call. Have a very merry Christmas.
4147 days ago
Companies should be fairly predictable in the timing of their announcements. On a December year end you would expect results in March, an AGM in May and June, Interims in August/September and a year end trading statement in December and January. There may be news of a big contract win (one of my tips) or a profits warning (one of Zak Mir’s tips like HMV – only kidding Saqib!) – but otherwise the pattern should be predictable and regular. If it’s not it is invariably a bad sign.
4147 days ago
AIM listed board lifestyle, sorry I meant oil technology, company Vialogy (LSE:VIY) has issued a “CEO statement” today which is bizarre. Bearing in mind that this company will be almost out of cash by March it is clearly part of a share ramp campaign ahead of a placing. Before the Bulletin Board morons have a go at me I ask them to consider a) timing and b) content. This stock is a slam dunk sell at a 2.125p share price as its cash crisis intensifies. This statement should alert you to that.
4148 days ago
The Zoltavians are tweeting and frothing away on Bulletin Boards once again. This strange sect believe that a great Roman God will bring them great wealth if they buy shares in a company which, in my opinion, by any conventional measure is one of the most overvalued on AIM! I refer to Zoltav Resources (LSE:ZOL). Their hopes can be compared to my preparing a great meal for Saturday and stocking up at the chemist’s for other “items required” (nudge, nudge wink wink!) in the hope that my email asking Britain’s leading chanteuse, the delectable Ms Cheryl Cole, might secure me a hot date and a night of passion!!! It is just conceivable that the fragrant Ms Cole might drop everything and head round to Winnifrith towers for the night of her life but I concede that it is unlikely… As to Zoltav making folks cash if they buy at s share price of 3.425p, well that really defies belief.
4149 days ago
PrintOnce again, hibu (LSE:HIBU), the company formerly known as Yell, has told investors via an RNS that its shares are worth very little or nothing. The stock is off 18% today but this is not the first time it has warned about this and after a few days folks seem to forget and traders “buy for the bounce”. That might work once or twice and you make a quick turn but one day the shares will be suspended and if you hold the stock you will feel like you are in the middle of Wembley Stadium with your pants and trousers around your ankles. You will be utterly exposed and there can be no get out.
4149 days ago
What do the following companies have in common: Pursuit Dynamics (LSE:PDX), Vialogy (LSE:VIY), Proteus International and Firecrest? Two of the four have sent me lawyers letters about articles I have written. Those two companies no longer exist. I am still writing. So that is not it. In fact all four have two things in common.
4149 days ago
Fully listed gold miner Centamin (LSE:CEY) has served up two pieces of good news in two days. The barmy Sukari army on the Bulletin Boards will be delighted and the share price has raced ahead to 44p. That is your cue to sell. Remember 44p it is important.
4149 days ago
PrintAt last the DOGGR website from the State of California has published the official October output numbers from AIM listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (LSE:SER). And guess what? The number is lower that the company itself was saying in an RNS issued 12 days ago. Hey ho. Happy Christmas chairman Jim Bob Ellerton when are you going to issue a profits (or lack of them) warning?
4149 days ago
Range Resources (LSE:RRL) was forced to issue a statement on 14th December saying that it noted unusual share trading activity and knew of no reason for this but that it plans operational updates within the next few days. Though I continue to believe that the shares are materially overvalued at 3.95p (my target share price is 1.5p) I find myself having real sympathy for the company. I guess it is all that Christmas spirit filtering through even to my black Ulster heart.
4152 days ago
I wrote a no holds barred piece on Centamin (LSE:CEY) yesterday which seems to have attracted a furious response from a range of Bulletin Board morons, cowards and professional Tom Winnifrith haters. Well folks you were wrong and I was right. Tough. All website traffic is much appreciated and so here goes again.
4153 days ago
I first tipped Egyptian gold miner Centamin (LSE:CEY) at 8p on t1ps.com. I advised readers to sell at 137p. I called it bloody brilliantly. In the summer at 67p to 75p I repeatedly urged folks to sell warning that the new Islamofascist rulers of Egypt had changed the game. I was greeted with heaps of abuse from Bulletin Board commentators (mainly here on ADVFN). Well arseholes the stock has almost halved ( again) today to a 27p share price so: a) you lose money and b) it is time for you to apologise. You can post your apologies on the comments section below just as you posted the abuse in the summer.
4159 days ago
The deluded fools still aboard the good ship Sefton (LSE:SER) were thrown a bone today with news that the pension plan of chairman Jim Ellerton has ponied up £76,145 in a placing at a share price of 1.1044p – this they argue is a huge vote of confidence in the AIM listed oil stock. Er…perhaps not. Is this real cash? The company will not say.
4160 days ago
Unable to get away an equity placing AIM Listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) today announced that it has started to draw down on its Darwin Death spiral (sorry Equity drawdown facility). But the amount drawn down is pitiful. Okay the lights do not go out on March first but death is merely postponed. And with the shares issued at just 1.1044p a mere £648,855 (pre costs) was raised.
First up – is this dilutive? Heck yes. That is another 59 million shares in issue. IN other words the company has just increased its shares in issue by 11.3% to raise a pitiful £648,000 (before expenses). Let’s call that £600,000. But with the shares having been listed at 95p and now trading at a share price of 1.125p investors are used to dilution.
4160 days ago
AIM listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) has released November output numbers which it seems to think are good but as ever the reality is rather different. The bottom line is that this company should be issuing a profits (or lack of them) warning. And of course that it will be out of cash ( and with debt still to clear) by very early next year. My target price for the shares remains 0.01p – the stock closed at a share price of 1.18p today.
The company states that output (before adjustments) was 119 bopd in November. At one level I have to commend Sefton for increased disclosure. Yes I am being complimentary.
4162 days ago
Shares in both AIM listed oil stocks have slumped today. Northern (LSE:NOP) is off by c14% at 54.75p, Wessex (LSE:WSX) by 21% at 4.8p. Not a good day for either. The reason is that the Zaedyus-2 well in Guyane does not appear to have found commercial oil although we will not get full data for another ten days or so – logging starts tomorrow. Though I am a Northern bull I am in a sense vindicated as well ahead of drilling I argued that folks should take a pair trade: buy Northern at 67p and sell Wessex at a share price of 8.375p. If you followed that pair trade you would be a net 24% ahead. That is smart investing.
4162 days ago
I published most of this share tip article earlier on my Nifty Fifty website – where I shall publish a new share tip later today: The Zeadyus-2 well in Guyane has not found commercial oil and has been abandoned. The share price of Northern Petroleum (LSE:NOP) has duly slumped by 14% to 54.75p. This is a total market over-reaction. I have discussed this at length with exploration manager Graham Heard and CEO Derek Musgrove and here’s the score. The shares remain a buy. The same cannot be said for Wessex Exploration (LSE:WSX) which like Northern also has a 1.25% stake in this field.
4162 days ago
I continue to regard AIM listed Pursuit Dynamics (LSE:PDX) as a total joke of a company and the fact that it has raised another £6 million at 3p to keep the show on the road does not alter the fact. This enterprise has consistently had its “world changing” technology out for trial after trial after trial and no-one seems that keen on handing over hard wonga to utilise it. That investors have stumped up £6 million reminds me of the description once applied to someone engaging on a second marriage: the triumph of hope over experience. With the share price now at 3p where does this leave Pursuit?
4162 days ago
AIM listed Fuel cell technology developer and all round eco-green nonsense penny dreadful Ceres Power (LSE:CWR) is not going bust. It has found a saviour. As such my target price of 0p is (pro tem ) looking a bit optimistic. For now. But are the shares really worth 3.01p – the current share price? I very much doubt it. As I shall explain below.
4163 days ago
As you may remember, I advised shorting this AIM listed financial services group at 26.75p on 21st November on the basis that the chances of a bid for CPP (LSE: CPP) happening were zilch. That was because I had taken the trouble to find out that the putative US bidder (Affinion) had no cash. A week later the bid talks were called off which should have paid for Christmas for anyone who took my advice.
4166 days ago
Aim listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) is at it again with another RNS press release which contains a lie. This is such a blatant lie I wonder how anyone can now believe a word that chairman Jim Ellerton or his IR gopher sidekick Doctor Green now says. It is sheer comedy. Of course there is a serious issue in that Sefton desperately needs to issue equity soon. It will – as things stand – be out of cash (but not debt) within two months. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. That is why the stock remains a sell at a share price of 1.18p with a target price of 0.01p
4167 days ago
Tin hat on I offer up a couple of thoughts on our favourite oil and gas joke company valuation play US Oil & Gas (USOP) and a little company on AIM, Great Western Mining (LSE: GWMO). You see they are from the same stable and the connection does not end there. Both companies were set up in Liam McGrattan’s pub in, how can I put this, one of the less salubrious parts of Dublin. It is the sort of place where I try to overcome having an English accent by ostentatiously wearing an old London Irish rugby shirt. These days there are different folks fronting up the operations but if they wanted to they could share on travel expenses as while US’s Brian McDonnell heads off to Nye County Nevada to look for his oil, Western’s Emmett O’Connell heads off to Mineral County Nevada to look for his uranium, gold and silver. And guess what? These two counties are right next to each other.
4168 days ago
Ireland based US Oil & Gas (USOP) – a company which has a joke valuation has today secured orders from the Dublin Courts to secure the names and addresses of certain Bulletin Board posters who, it is alleged, have made defamatory anonymous comments about the officers of the company. I have some sympathy for US in what it has done ( while mainting my view that its valuation is a joke) but I doubt that this course of action will do it any good.
4168 days ago
Those who took my advice to short AIM Listed CPP Group (LSE:CPP) at 26.75p exactly a week ago will be able to collect their handsome winnings by tomorrow morning thanks to an after-hours announcement today. Oh happy days.
4168 days ago
US Oil & Gas (USOP) is one of the most obvious joke companies going. On Bulletin Boards and on twitter its shares are ramped by an army of devoted followers. They are on the ramp again today and the shares are now £1.75 valuing this POS at £72 million. This is comedy. Already the loons are calling it back up to its peak of £6.90 and way beyond once again urging all to get involved before it is too late. If you dare to point out that the emperor has no clothes you are urged to “shut up and stop embarrassing yourself.” Well that does not work with me.
4169 days ago
Having called both Falklands Oil & Gas (LSE:FOGL) and Borders & Southern (LSE:BOR) pretty brilliantly as oil junior shorts my pal the bear raider Evil Knievil and I had a good chat about which of the 90 or so juniors out there are the best shorts now. The odd thing is that despite a series of disasters across the sector, private investors still seem to be in love with a raft of pretty ordinary juniors. The astute commentator Was Shakoor summed it up the other day on twitter “why is it that across a string of wells where there is said to be a 15% chance of success only 5% seem to be successful?”
4169 days ago
Falklands Oil & Gas (FOGL) has today published a pretty disastrous statement on results from its Scotia well. The shares have plunged to 37.5p. I am sorry for those who have lost money but I warned folks to sell this at 67.5p on 19th July and again at 69.5p on 17th September. I also warned folks to bail out of fellow Falklands Play Borders & Southern (BOR) at 32.5p on August 27th. Its shares are now 16.875p. Those siren calls were greeted with hoots of Bulletin Board derision, I am not expecting any apologies or praise today. Perhaps the BB loons will not take note of the new situation today
4170 days ago
Fully listed Egyptian gold miner Centamin (CEY) has today provided a market update on its various woes and at two levels it does not sound good at all. And it is not just me saying this, it seems that some brokers agree. To hoots of Bulletin Board derision I warned folks repeatedly ( when the shares were much higher than today’s 60.2p) that Centamin was a sell. That was not because I dislike the company or have a grudge. This was a stock that I tipped on t1ps.com at 8p but told readers to sell at 134p. It is because life in Egypt has changed irrevocably and for the worse since its revolution. Those who have fallen in love with the stock seem to forget that.
4173 days ago
I have really enjoyed writing about AIM Listed Vialogy (VIY) this week. Nailing a chairman for telling a lie is fun although why he told such a pointless lie defies belief. But on the basis that the company is a worthless, loss making heap of junk that has never delivered and that the chairman, is clearly ramping its stock as it tried to get away its 10th placing since 2007 (a well paid board needs supporting) I liked penning the pieces.
I explain why Vialogy is a screaming short HERE
I nail the chairman for the great Ronald Reagan lie HERE
The reaction when you have a go at companies like this is always the same. At first there is real anger on Bulletin Boards as the believers (those who have bought and bought at every lower prices, calling the board by their first names or initials and regard any criticism as blasphemy) lash out. They do so by attacking the bear writer. His record, stocks he got wrong, anything. They do so often without reading the piece. It was like that with Sefton in the early days. The comments at the bottom of the Reagan piece are a scream: I think my faves are
IStock “leave bob and vialogy they haven’t hurt anyone and are doing fine just
because of your biased article I am going to invest in vialogy tomorrow !
they do not need to prove anything to you ! vialogy one day will become a billion dollar market cap company !
and bob “You sir, are a cock. You are heading to the courts. Bon chance nob head x “
But gradually as you are proved right and the awful truth emerges the anger shifts
4174 days ago
My friend the bear raider Evil Knievil always tells me that if you discover that a chairman or CEO has told one whopping lie, the odds are that he tells lots of lies. And on that basis unless the company has mammoth asset backing and highly visible earnings and cashflows the shares are a slam dunk short. And that brings me to Terry Bond, the chairman of AIM listed Vialogy (VIY) who is – as I shall demonstrate below – someone who just last week told a whopping lie. Since his company has minimal (and fast disappearing) asset backing, and sod all revenues this company is a slam dunk sell.
4174 days ago
I think that my views on fully listed Egyptian Gold miner Centamin (CEY) are well known. For me the great risk is a political one – I trust the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt less than I’d trust an 1970s Radio 1 DJ to do a spot of babysitting. But Fox Davies has another concern: the fuel subsidy.
4175 days ago
What is the hot and sexy word in the world of oil and gas right now? Shale deposits. They are going to transform the world as we know it and so any mention of the s word is bound to get investors licking their lips as if they had just been promised a sure fire night in the sack with the lovely Cheryl Cole. And so if you are a loss making company that needs to raise cash fast what do you do? Yes, issue an RNS headlining the word “shale.” You do not need to mention any pesky details like fees, revenues or cash, the “s” word will do, the shares will move ahead and you can get another placing away. This brings me to AIM listed joke company Vialogy (VIY)
4175 days ago
There are five things that you need to know about AIM listed AIM Listed CPP Group (CPP). None of them should make you wish to do anything other than sell the shares as soon as possible. Firstly the company has just been hit with a £10 million fine by the FSA, secondly its balance sheet is now severely holes, thirdly earnings visibility is nil and finally a takeover approach it says it has received will almost certainly come to nothing. On a risk reward basis that makes the shares a great short at 26.75p – a level which values the group at £46 million. Oh the fifth? My friend the infamous bear raisder Lucian Miers has this down as his top trading short on AIM right now. Lucian is usually right. To the FSA first.
4179 days ago
I have been urged to tip shares in US Oil & Gas all summer. I resisted the urge. Every day an email or a tweet seemed to land one of a dedicated band of believers pointing out how the shares were already a 100 bagger as they headed up to £6.90. The believers reckoned that fair value was anywhere between £15 and £100 per share and that I should get on board as soon as possible. Today they are 89p. They were 35p on Thursday before the CEO embarked on a media blitz to start the ramp all over again. So should I clamber on board now? Er…
4180 days ago
I have never said that Egypt-focused, London and Canada listed, gold miner Centamin (CEY) was a bad company. After all I tipped the shares at 8p on t1ps.com and got my readers to sell at 134p – not a bad result. My problem is that it operates in Egypt. That is the country next to Gaza happily assisting Hamas as the heat gets turned up in the region.
Centamin announced results for the third quarter of 2012 on Wednesday. Despite reporting record quarterly earnings, the share price has continued to decline since.
4181 days ago
Aureus Mining (AUE) was a poorly timed recommendation from my 12 years at t1ps.com and I recommended selling and reinvesting in more attractive gold plays at the start of this month with the shares at 57.25p. Following results for the company’s third quarter (to 30th September) released today, the shares now trade at 50p. Does this change my view?
4181 days ago
Sometimes reality becomes a parody of humour. In my recent spoof downfall video of AIM listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources I ended with Chairman Jim Ellerton suggesting that he had a cunning plan: buy a worthless Kansas oilfield for peanuts, spend millions on it and claim that suddenly he had an asset of value in order to get away another fundraising. Knock me down with a feather, Sefton has today announced details of just such a plan. And its statement is, as ever, grossly misleading. This company is running out of cash fast and my target price remains 0.01p ( at best). The shares today are off again at 1.225p valuing the company at £4.87 million. Now to today’s news and why the statement is so misleading.
4183 days ago
Some posters on Bulletin Boards are so thick they would make the contestants on I’m a celebrity seem like a bunch of Nobel Prize winning economists. A company is obviously bust yet some buffoon manages to find reasons why its shares are cheap. Conspiracy theories abound. Amid the mind numbing stupidity you find the odd gem. Trying to pick out the BB moron of the year is an almost impossible task but here is a contender.
4183 days ago
Apologies to my friends John Teeling and David Horgan who run AIM listed Irish oil explorer Petrel Resources (PET) but the valuation of your company is just not justifiable. At 19.375p the company is valued at £14.4 million. Even the house broker Northland gives a valuation range of 3.6p (base case) to 14p (maximum best case). The share price is simply far too high and here is why.
4183 days ago
I warned you back on 25th October that shares in hibu (HIBU) the online directories group formerly known as Yell were worthless and a stonking sell at 0.37p with a 0p target. Interim results out today do not change that analysis, indeed even the company seems to agree with me.
4183 days ago
AIM Listed Firestone Diamonds (LSE:FDI) was a duff tip from me from my days at t1ps.com. Even when you average gain per tip over 12 years was 42.7% you have losers and this was one of them. I advised bailing out at 6.125p on October 25th. Results are out today, the shares are still 6.125p but they are, I am afraid an open invitation to sell. A piece of broker research from the excellent Roger Bade at Whitman Howard says it all:
4184 days ago
I could not resist. I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night and the urge was just too strong. And so I have created my very own spoof Downfall Video – the Sefton Resources edition. Knowing full well that this will offend all sorts of folks, at least it has made me laugh and given me some pleasure. I hope that you enjoy it at least a bit.
4190 days ago
On October 6th I explained why at 2.205p AIM listed fuel cell company Ceres Power (CWR) was almost certainly worthless. My target price then was 0p and although the shares are up by 42% today at 2.4p the target price remains 0p. The issue is cash. Or rather lack of it. I think the Bulletin Board loons and assorted green investors are well ahead of themselves and here is why.
4190 days ago
A good chat with bear raider Evil Knievil today throws up the fact that his biggest short position right now is online celebrity driven retailer ASOS (ASC) but also that he is looking at another stock that I have already written up as a slam dunk short – more on that later. Those who have followed the great bear will remember that Evil has consistently shorted ASOS ( betting against the lure of Stella McCartney, Kate Moss etc) and consistently got it wrong. His losses over the years on this one must be well into seven figures by now but undeterred he is at it again. But is he right?
4191 days ago
And now for the latest news from Centamin (CEY) vs the Islamofascist Peoples Court in Cairo – the fully listed gold miner has issued another statement (its third) on the ruling of last Tuesday which appeared to take away its key flagship asset, the Sukari gold mine. This is the most convincing statement yet from Centamin and the shares have rallied to 74p. That is another opportunity to sell and switch into a safer play. And here is why.
4194 days ago
War criminal, intern exploiter and former Prime Minister Tony Blair used to take great delight in announcing the same event a number of times in order to “work the spin cycle.” AIM listed penny share dreadful oil explorer Sefton Resources (LSE: SER) is playing the same game with an RNS today designed to show momentum but which shows nothing of the sort. This stock is still virtually worthless – my target price is 0.01p – but let me explain what is going on here.
4194 days ago
Yesterday I warned that Aureus Mining was going to have to raise stacks of cash. The deluge of upbeat RNS announcements told you as much. And I advised selling at 57.5p. This was met with stacks of Bulletin Board abuse from folks insistent that I did not know what I was talking about. I suggest scores on doors after 24 hours: TW 1 BB Morons Nil. As today the company has ‘fessed up saying it plans to raise $80 million via issuing new shares. For a company capitalised at £60 million ($95 million) that is a huge ask and there seem to be all sorts of risks here. I would almost be tempted to go short here. If I own the stock I would sell. Here is why.
4195 days ago
Shares in fully listed gold miner Centamin (LSE:CEY) have resumed trading this morning and are currently 74p. One can make a legitimate case saying that its assets are worth 150p per share. But then there is the reason they were suspended on Tuesday and that is why I would sell as I explain briefly below.
4196 days ago
And so it came to pass on the third day that Centamin (LSE:CEY) issued another RNS insisting that the new Islamofascist regime in Egypt had not after all stolen its Sukhari gold mine. The shares remain suspended because the truth is that no-one has the foggiest idea what is going on. Not even Centamin by the sound of it. If these shares return from suspension what, I wonder, are they worth?
4196 days ago
AIM listed Pursuit Dynamics (PDX) has forever promised mammoth revenues and huge profits. It has never delivered. And as such the technology developer is looking to pass the hat around yet again. But as it admitted today, there is no certainty of success. If it raises cash this merely postpones the inevitable. But I suspect that is an if, and a big if to boot. As such this is farom from a red hot penny share. It looks like an obvious sell and here is why..
4196 days ago
I originally recommended shares in UK-focused business information, events and marketing services group, Centaur Media (LSE:CAU) in October 2009 at 44p on t1ps.com – the website I founded in my bedroom and edited until September 2012 ( delivering an average gain per share tip of 42.7%). But Centaur has been a rocky road – with the shares hitting highs of 73p in early 2011 then, as the UK economic environment bleakened, falling to lows of 28.5p in June of this year. Currently trading at 50.75p, in the following article I review the company’s results for its year ended 30th June 2012 – which were released on September 13th – and take a fresh look at the investment case. Is this a red hot penny share or have we run our course?
4196 days ago
AIM Listed oil producer Sefton Resources (SER) has made two announcements today. I shall turn to its operational guff later but I start with news that (yet again) it has changed its Nomad – its adviser on AIM matters. This is critical and I have exclusive news on this – this change was not entirely voluntary. For the avoidance of doubt these shares remain more or less worthless and at 1.65p are a stonking short. Target price 0.01p. At best. Now to the Nomad.
4197 days ago
Fully listed Centamin (CEY) has now formally responded to the fact that the Islamofascist regime in Egypt has stolen its main asset. Its response is not in any way convincing. It is quite clear that an Egyptian Court has revoked the license yet the company seems to suggest otherwise. On the basis that no-one seems to know what is going on the shares remain suspended. If, at any stage, you can sell I would. Here, in Centamin’s own words is why.
4197 days ago
I first tipped gold miner Centamin Egypt at 8p yonks ago on t1ps.com and banked mammoth gains at 134p a few years ago. Thereafter I was repeatedly urged to get back in. I resisted. My most recent refusal game with the shares at 66.5p on 29th July. This morning the shares have been suspended at 67.5p as what I predicted (action by Egypt’s new Islamofascist regime) has come to pass. It gives me no great pleasure to write this but “I told you so.” So what next?
4200 days ago
Shares in LDK Solar (LDK) have spiked up to $0.86 in recent days on news that it has raised $23 million at $0.86 a share by issuing new shares to a Chinese investor. The deal looks an odd one and the math for LDK still look very poor indeed. I first advised shorting this stock at $1.38 on August 30th and reiterated that advice on September 19th at $1.25 warning then that shareholders equity will disappear by Christmas. It still will and the spike is another opportunity to go short.
4201 days ago
I have addressed on numerous occasions the grotesque overvaluation of AIM listed oil producer Sefton Resources (SER) and its misleading RNS statements. I have addressed its inability to generate cash from operations. But now for the critical question: when does it run out of cash? I now seek to explain, give or take a few weeks, when that will be. This will not take long.
4201 days ago
PrintTo give the Daily Mail credit it has now removed from its website the article suggesting that penny share dreadful oil producer and cash cow (for chairman Jim Ellerton but not for long suffering shareholders) Sefton Resources (LSE: SER) was producing 220 bopd from 20 wells on its Tapia field. We all know (and the Mail knows now as well) that the number is less than 100 bopd from a handful of wells. But the Mail has gone further.
4202 days ago
This has been a shockingly bad tip from me from my 12 years running t1ps.com. The shares have popped up today. And so is this still a red hot penny share?
AIM-listed diamond miner, Firestone Diamonds (FDI), has today announced that a definitive feasibility study on its 75% owned Liqhobong diamond project in Lesotho has determined a post-tax Net Present Value at an 8% discount rate of $335 million (£208 million). This is for a 1.2 million carat per annum open pit operation over a 15 year life of mine. Given, at a current 6.125p share price, Firestone is presently capitalised at just £33.5 million ( and has c£4million of debt as well), the shares ostensibly appear to offer strong value – but is this actually the case? In the following I explain why perhaps not.
4202 days ago
I have been a market reporter. I know how it works. Someone you know calls you with what seems like a good story. You run it. Your team is on the box that night. You file your article. Good job. But just occasionally you are being played. The question is by whom? And unless someone points out how you have been lied to you will trust that player again. So just to help Geoff Foster, the excellent market reporter at the Daily Mail: Geoff, my son, you were kippered yesterday on AIM listed penny dreadful oil stock Sefton Resources (LSE:SER). You may wish to put in a call today to see why.
4202 days ago
AIM listed HIBU (HIBU) today made it explicitly clear that its shares were worthless. The shares are down by a mere 26% at 0.37p but even that values this company at £8.81 million. If you own the shares sell them now. If you are able to borrow stock and go short do so as this is free money.
4203 days ago
Sefton (LSE:SER) groupies are terribly excited that Mohammed El Fayed has picked up 15 million shares (just over 3%) of their company. Er up to a point. And it makes no difference. The stock is worthless. My target remains 0.1p and it is a stonking short. Here is why.
4204 days ago
I have repeatedly warned that for all the Abramovich hype, AIM listed investment company Zoltav Resources (ZOL) enjoyed a joke valuation. It seems as if folks are starting to pick up on this and the shares have now slipped to 3p. But they are still 90% overvalued and are a slam dunk short down to a 0.25p target. Thos who think that this is a Russian red hot penny share are just mad. Here is why…
4205 days ago
I have time and time again asked questions about the utterly misleading statements issued by AIM listed Sefton Resources (SER) about its output in California. It seems that the company just cannot help itself because we now have proof that what it said about September data was misleading. Is it time for another RNS – correction or does the Nomad to this worthless enterprise (Fox Davies) not care about the truth anymore?
4207 days ago
During the past three months I have asked a series of questions of Jim Ellerton the chairman of AIM listed penny dreadful oil producer Sefton Resources (SER). He has failed to produce a satisfactory answer to any of them. I regard the shares, at 1.25p as woefully overvalued – my target is 0.1p. Sefton’s latest tactic is to waste shareholders cash on bullying its critics.
4209 days ago
Shares in both Wessex Exploration (WSX) and Northern Petroleum (NOP) have moved ahead sharply in recent days. We all know why these AIM listed oil explorers are in demand. Drilling is underway of the Zaedyus well in Guyane. This might well be a monster and both companies have a 1.25% stake in it. But the respective valuations are now insane.
4212 days ago
I am indebted to my pal Brokerman Daniel for the link to data on individual wells operated by AIM listed penny share oil producer Sefton Resources (SER) in California as it illustrates exactly why its assets are so utterly worthless. Read this data in conjunction with my most recent article and then think carefully about the issue of capex required to grow output.
And I should warn Sefton that I am not finished with it. I am now going for the kill and as such there is another article on its way later today. Pro tem the target price for the shares ( now 1.175p) is 0.1p. That target may be revised shortly but not upwards.
4215 days ago
I have been a bear of AIM listed penny share oil dreadful Range Resources (LSE:RRL) for some months. I remain a bear with the shares at 4.87p valuing the company at £114 million. But my attention is now drawn to a quite remarkable interview given by CEO Pater Landau with the blogger Brokerman Daniel. Dan is a good fellow but this stuff is extraordinary and makes me more bearish than ever. Dan and I disagree on this one and here is why.
4216 days ago
You know my views on all three stocks. More on Range (LSE:RRL) later but it is still a sell with a 1.5p target after today’s news. Sefton (LSE SER) at 1.16p remains a sell down to 0.1p. At 13p Qihang Equipment (LSE: QIH) is also a sell with a target price of 0.1p. But I note BB comments about these penny share dreadfuls which just nag on about production levels and compare that to the market cap and insist that I have got it all wrong. Well here is why the BB morons need to rethink – and incidentally this applies to all companies.
4217 days ago
Give him his dues, Jim Ellerton, chairman of AIM listed oil penny share dreadful Sefton Resources (LSE:SER) took his public skewering, buggering and abject humiliation with some grace. But, make no mistake, his IR Shindig at London’s Armourer’s Hall last night was utterly disastrous. He might find a few more suckers to buy his stock – some folks are so stupid that they deserve to lose money. But the admissions extracted, the accusations he could not answer and a presentation that is now, I gather on Sefton’s website, and which basically shows why this company is such a worthless POS left objective and experienced observers in no doubt as to where this is heading. Down. I summarise below the main skewerings of an event which has been captured on video which I may release in part shortly. For the avoidance of doubt my target price is 0.1p.
4219 days ago
IM listed oil producing penny share dreadful Sefton Resources (LSE: SER) has today issued an RNS which is (by its standards) half way to being accurate. Even so, it is pretty grim. The shares have plunged by 14.5% to a new all time low of 1.325p but I remain of the view that they are worth no more than a fraction of that. They are now 99% down from the IPO price a decade ago, during which time chairman Jim Ellerton has made millions of pounds from excessive boardroom fees. But the stock will fall again and again over the coming years as Sefton’s true predicament emerges. I shall explain below why this is a conviction sell.
4221 days ago
Ceres Power (LSE:CWR) has been another AIM listed darling of the fuel cell/green pie in the sky sector. Over the past few years it has raised £65 million to fund its dreams but the dream is now a nightmare. There are some who think that this company still has £10 million and is worth something. They are wrong as I shall explain below. The shares have collapsed to 2.205p but my target price is 0p.
4221 days ago
The bad news for Facebook (US:FB) mounts on the earnings front with events at both Zynga (US:ZNGA) and at LinkedIn (US:LNKD) contributing to its woes. Gradually even the most diehard bull must be starting to recognise that there is no earnings visibility at all for Mark Zuckerburg’s company. It is on that basis
4222 days ago
As you may be aware I am not a great fan of AIM listed penny share dreadful oil and gas outfit Sefton Resources (LSE: SER). Its RNS statements are a disgraceful exercise in smoke and mirrors. While investors have lost 98.5% since its IPO as the shares now languish at 1.575p, Chairman Jim Ellerton has trousered millions of pounds over the years. After ten fund raisings in the past three years Sefton is still not generating cash (after bloated PLC costs). I doubt it ever will and frankly I still think the shares are still at least 80% overvalued but Jim reckons that all he needs to do is get the message across to investors. So I am here to help.There is no need for Jim to thank me I am just an all round nice guy. What are you doing on Tuesday 9th October and how would you like a half price pizza as a bonus?
4225 days ago
I tipped East West Resources (LSE:EWR) – the stock formerly known as Ambrian when it was a gold investment company called Golden Prospect at 5.25p back in October 2001. The shares peaked at c60p as the company became an investment bank. Today the stock is back at 11.375p. I was a total git for not bailing out much higher. A total bloody git. There has been the odd dividend along the way but I make no excuses. As things stand, today this one should be sold for a gain of 116% ( dividends would add another 40% or more) but this is still a piss poor result given what might have been. I am so cross. Here is why the shares should be sold even though the June 30th NAV was 17.8p per share
4228 days ago
Hooray. Not headless and filmed in good light. I am getting the hang of this video malarkey. Filmed at Real man Pizza Company with the waiters looking on wondering what I am babbling on about, this is fun.
4229 days ago
Slowly, it is sinking in. Facebook (FB) was floated in May as a growth stock. Forecasts and valuations were based on extrapolating historic trends. But in the new media world, that is impossible. My bear case against Facebook was always that the rating was too high based on historic numbers and that one had to be the metric used given that forecasting was impossible. Rather more quickly than I had expected, recent data is starting to vindicate my stance. I argued here on 28th August that the shares were worth $5, and I stand by that view.
4229 days ago
I have noted before that the valuation of AIM listed investment company Zoltav Resources (LSE: ZOL) is a total joke. Results today suggest that other folks are starting to twig. I am aware that Roman Abramovich’s son is the largest shareholder so that might float your boat but this good ship is going down. The shares now trade at 3.275p, valuing Zoltav at £12.5 million. My target price was 0.5p but I am slashing that and here is why.
4230 days ago
I have never written about this company before but interim results out today from Qihang Equipment (LSE:QIH)are pretty shocking and at 14.75p, the £8.56 million market capitalisation appears to be a total joke. Yup, this is another Chinese stock which brings no credit to AIM.
4232 days ago
Another day and another release from AIM listed oil and gas penny share dreadful Sefton Resources (SER) which is laden with optimism but tells you absolutely nothing. But it does at least appear that there is some movement on disclosure – i.e. it admits that the market was misled but it has not admitted to the big lie. The shares are up on the hype but remain a stonking short ahead of the next inevitable issue of equity to pay chairman Jim Ellerton’s monstrous fees
4233 days ago
JJB Sports (JJB) shares have just been suspended. Administrators have been appointed and the company says that while assets can, and will, be sold shareholders will get nothing. Nil. Rien. Zippo. Surely everyone can understand that?
4234 days ago
You will be aware of my concerns about AIM listed Sefton Resources (SER) shares in which traded at 95p in 2001 and are 1.55p today. The company has yet to comment or issue legal proceedings about my article of Friday which invited it and its chairman Jim Ellerton to explain why successive RNS statements were not lies. This is a company that has raised equity by issuing shares 10 times in the past 3 years. Where does it all go? Have a guess.
4236 days ago
The responsibility for this blog posting lies under contract with me and me alone and so in asking Sefton Resources PLC (SER), its chairman Jim Ellerton and its IR man Michael Green to explain why they have not told lies via RNS statement, I invite them to sue me personally if they feel I am being unfair. I shall see you in court and it will be my pleasure. Should Sefton and the two gentlemen mentioned above not take legal action investors can draw their own conclusions
4237 days ago
AIM listed China tech stock Geong (GNG) is at 5.875p valued at just £2.13 million and according to its AGM statement it has net cash of £2.2 million and it recorded a small profit last year (to March 31st 2012) of £400,000 ( down from £2.6 million) on sales of £9.7 million (£11.3 million). So it is cheap as chips? No. Its numbers look very odd indeed to me and I would not wish to own this stock at all.
4238 days ago
Fourth quarter and full year results out from Manchester United (MANU) on 18th September were marginally below forecast – to miss estimates just a few weeks after your IPO is pretty poor form. Talking of pretty poor form, Manchester United are currently 2nd in the English Premier League but have looked unconvincing against some weak sides so far. At $12.58 the shares are already well down on the $14 IPO price and also on the $13.35 price at which I explained in detail why this was a sell on 27th August. But there is worse to come: my target remains $7.
4238 days ago
Chinese solar play LDK Solar (LDK) announced results for the three months ending June 30th, 2012, on September 17th. The figures were shockingly bad, even worse than analysts had forecast, and the outlook statement offered little prospect of recovery. At this rate it seems likely that by Christmas the company will have negative shareholder funds. At $1.25 (down 13 cents from my original sell advice on August 30th) and still capitalised at $167 million, the stock remains a sell with a target price of virtually nothing.
4239 days ago
Another month goes by and yet again I ask “should you believe a word that AIM listed Sefton Resources (SER) says“?” Data out tonight makes me certain that there is a major issue here and thus, unless Sefton can show that the State of California is inventing production data, I regard the shares, at 1.5p, as a slam dunk sell.
4240 days ago
I warned you all on September 6th that JJB Sports (JJB) was worth 0p a share as when its assets are sold it is unlikely that the proceeds will cover its debts let alone the hefty fees of KPMG etc. I said that anyone who bought was a loon. Predictably the loons berated me. But how much clearer can this get. At 0.28p you should still sell for whatever you can get. This stock is utterly worthless.
The response of the BB loons was a hoot:
4240 days ago
AIM listed oil darling Falklands Oil & Gas (FOGL) has announced the results of its Loligo well and it is bad news for both the company and for others operating in the region such as Borders & Southern (BOR). Reaction from BB and penny share punters has been mixed – some are in love and cannot see or choose not to see the truth. Others write the area off altogether. As ever the truth lies somewhere in between.
I refer, as ever to twitter, to see what the punters say. And so one fellow writes
#BOR came in, #FOGL came in – with more to come from the #Falklands Southern Basin. For all those who held, Nice One !!
And another counters:
Loligo fogl is uncommercial TIGHT SAND so was LIZ a bloody disaster get out while you can I did warn fellow twitter this was not good.
As they say it takes two to make a market.
4244 days ago
China-based Focus Media Holding Ltd. (FMCN) is still the subject of a bid led by its CEO Jason Jiang and backed by big name private equity firms, including Carlyle. Some shareholders have claimed that the $27 a share bid is too low. But the offer is subject to due diligence. This company has been the subject of numerous claims about its accounts not being quite up to scratch in the past, and if the bidders walk, the shares will almost certainly collapse. I advised shorting the stock and detailed past claims on Aug. 30, with the stock at $24.51 on the basis that the downside was $2.49, but the upside could easily be $14.51.
In light of a series of allegations made by the Bronte Capital Blog within the past few hours, I would suggest that this bid is less and less likely to go through. The allegations may well be dismissed by Carlyle, but I would not bet on it. They certainly raise issues. Thus, at $24 the case for staying short has just become quite stronger.
4244 days ago
I have noted before the curious way that AIM listed penny share dreadful Sefton Resources (SER) communicates with its investors. Having advised you to bail at 2p initially I reiterated my sell advice a couple of days ago with the shares at 1.58p after the company issued piss poor interims. But my confusion with the way this company keeps investors updated grows by the day.
I start with its California producing assets and with what production Sefton has historically delivered.
On 6th March 2012 Sefton announced “Currently Sefton is averaging approximately 140 bopd for the month of February (with production as high as 178 BOPD in the later part of the month).”
Well er… not exactly.
4246 days ago
Oil producer Sefton Resources (SER) today announced its half year results which were – as is normally the case with this AIM listed penny share dreadful, pretty piss poor. A marginal increase in production and in the oil price meant that revenues for the six months to June 30th increased from $2.028 million to $2.283 million but since the cost of sales increased by more, the gross profit actually fell from $1.421 million to $1.338 million. What is the heck of pumping more oil if it cuts your profits?
After the predictably high central costs
4247 days ago
JA Solar (JASO) has responded robustly to plans by the European Union to consider tariffs on Chinese solar panels as part of an anti-dumping clampdown but it and other Chinese solar companies such as LDK Solar (LDK) and Trina Solar (TSL) just cannot win and here is why.
4251 days ago
This is not a political piece. As a libertarian I despise all politicians and parties almost equally – Ron Paul being a standout exception. This is a piece explaining the profound implications for your portfolio of an inevitable shift in the attitudes of the governing classes towards global warming.
I do not believe in man made climate change. I shall explain why and why I expect the argument to increasingly go the way of folks like me and against Al Gore and the current consensus. More critically I shall discuss recent events which show why government policies involving writing blank checks to tackle the perceived threat are starting to change and will change rapidly not only across the West but even in China.
4251 days ago
I noted earlier today how the way that AIM listed penny share oil explorer Range Resources (RRL) communicates with its investors is very odd indeed. My attention is now drawn to the way it has communicated with its investors over it operations in the Islamofascist hell hole that is Puntland. This really is curious.
4251 days ago
JJB Sports (JJB) shares now trade at 0.32p valuing the company at just under £1 million. Quite amazingly there are still a few prize loons out there who think this Aim listed retailer is some sort of penny share punt and are “buying for recovery.” They are mad. This stock is utterly worthless and if you can realise enough after trading costs by selling what shares you have you should do so even at this price. This is not a call to short, I imagine that it is very hard to do so but I cannot see how the end game here is much different from 0p.
4251 days ago
I took a fair old beating on the Bulletin Boards after advising you that AIM listed penny share oil explorer Range Resources (RRL) was hugely overvalued at 4.86p following the abject failure of its drilling campaign in the Islamofascist hell hole that is Puntland. Report him to the regulators screamed the muppets. He must be helping Evil who is short (he was not) said others. I was not. But the shares initially traded up to 5.6p which delighted both my critics who argued that I could not tip a waiter but also those who were so in love with the stock that they decided to buy more shares.
One helpful fellow commentated on this blog that I should bury my head in the sand. At least if that was Puntland sand I would not get any oil in my hair but I am afraid that is not my style and so with the shares now back at 4.76p I make a couple of observations.
4252 days ago
There seems tremendous excitement among the Facebook (FB) bulls about today’s announcement that CEO Mark Zuckerburg has agreed not to sell any shares for a year. This is a total red herring. The reality is that Zuckerburg has already trousered billions from share sales. He patently has more cash than anyone can hope to spend in a lifetime. As such, were he even to sell a handful of Facebook shares, this would be seen as a cue for absolutely everyone to head for the exit.
The reality for poor Zuckerburg
4253 days ago
Last week in this forum I flagged up two Chinese solar stocks which were, for all intents and purposes, worthless as investments. A kind reader alerted me to a third company in the same boat which looks like a stock to short with a price target of more or less nothing. I refer to Trina Solar (TSL), which at $4.51, is capitalised at $318.76 million.
I will not rehash the arguments why I am uber skeptical about China, its slumping economy or about the macro-reasons why the oversupply of solar panels is bound to continue. Nothing has changed in that respect since last Thursday
4253 days ago
It is a strange old world and I gather that some folks reckon that there is a bid on the way for AIM listed oil exploration penny share Wessex Exploration (WSX). I bet you 5000 Albanian Lekke that there is not and as such I would rate this stock, at 7.3p, a sell. If you want exposure to Guyane (the only real asset of note in Wessex) I would obtain it by buying AIM listed Northern Petroleum (NOP) at 67.5p.
On 26th March Wessex received a bid from Total at 10p a share. The company said that it was minded to accept. On 12th April Wessex said that having consulted some shareholders it had decided the offer was not good enough and walked. My sources tell me that Total was livid.
On 10th July Wessex managing director Frederik Dekker sold 5 million shares (leaving him holding c92 million shares) at 6p
4254 days ago
There will be some folks who tell you that you must (I repeat must) have exposure to China or India as part of a diversified portfolio. The question such folks ask is which? The arguments are well rehearsed: demographics, GDP Growth prospects, transformation of agrarian economies, competitive advantage. There is a plausible long term case for both which i shall discuss at another time. The issue is whether holding such investments now will make you money and the answer is no. As such I suggest that if you hold units in Anthony Bolton’s Fidelity China Special Situations fund you should sell the lot now at 74p.
4255 days ago
I see that twitter has delayed its planned IPO. Well there is a surprise. After the debacle of the Facebook (FB) flotation I cannot think that investor appetite for new media stock is exactly enormous. My other reason for showing lack of surprise is that I think that Twitter really does not wish to undergo the sort of metrics scrutiny of its user base that Facebook has suffered.
For what it is worth
4255 days ago
The Facebook (FB) stock price fell by 5% on Friday to $18.06 on the back of two leading brokers cutting the valuations (as well as one expert reiterating the bull case) but the downgrades and notes make no sense and there is just no reason at all to pay any attention to anything Wall Street now publishes on this stock. Do not read into this that I am a bull trying to shrug off bad news. I have always been a mega bear on Facebook, starting off with a price target of $7.30 at the IPO and subsequently cutting
4257 days ago
Amid the blind rush to combat global warming, solar energy was seen as a slam dunk growth industry. Investors rushed to risk speculative capital. Governments rushed to spunk taxpayers’ cash up against the wall. And now it is all ending in tears. The only way to make money from solar now is to look for stocks to short before the situation becomes near terminal. In that vein, I offer up LDK Solar (LDK) at $1.38 and JA Solar (JASO) at $0.96. In both cases, my target price is more or less nothing. I am sure that there are other shorts out there in this sector, and I will move onto others at a later point.
4258 days ago
I have written extensively in recent months about how China is heading for a very hard landing indeed (see HERE, and HERE, but also how official statistics from the PRC are simply overcooked – that is to say wrong: see HERE. As each week goes by the evidence that the hard landing is accelerating appears to mount as does the rapidly emerging scale of fraud that has taken place in that country. As such I would personally be cutting my PRC exposure to nil.
4260 days ago
Sincere apologies but thanks to a well known website beginning with A, I have been using the wrong issued share capital in calculating a valuation for AIM listed oil penny share Range Resources (RRL). There are not 1.129 billion shares in issue but 2.357 billion. Oh dear. This does nothing to alter the sell case I have expounded for some days except to make it more pronounced. I have revised the previous articles published to reflect this minor data error on a website beginning with A.
I stand by my conclusion that I would not buy this stock at any price until it agrees a new debt facility as it is almost out of cash. Moreover if that facility is agreed I would only buy at 0.75p or less in order to give me enough upside potential to justify the risk since my estimate of fair value falls – using the correct shares in issue – from 2.4p to 1.18p. Ouch.
4261 days ago
Having enraged half the lunatics who fall in love with small oil shares and post demonically on Bulletin Boards with my bearish remarks about AIM listed oil exploration stocks Range Resources (RRL) and Red Emperor (RML) – and having been vindicated already – it is time to piss off the other half with a few comments about Falklands darling oil penny share Borders & Southern (BOR).
At 32.5p Borders is capitalised at £157 million. Its shares raced ahead on 23rd August after announcing its analysis of the Darwin well drilled earlier in the year. The results are a 46-49 degree condensate with a mean recoverable volume of 190 million barrels. The company will start a seismic programme during 2013 with drilling thus unlikely to take place until 2014. The company is fully cashed up to fund the seismic and its ongoing (not insignificant) PLC costs but to drill it must either farm out the prospect or pass the hat around yet again.
190 million barrels of condensate sounds a lot. But is it?
4261 days ago
The second Puntland well is a duster. No oil. Game over. Consequently you should not wait for the next promote – as soon as you can sell shares in AIM listed oil stocks Red Emperor (RMP), Range Resources (RRL) and TSXV listed Horn Petroleum. I warned you to sell Range on Friday. Predictably I got a stack of abuse (you do not understand, blah, blah, blah) and so I explained again over the weekend (no doubt generating more anger from those who have fallen in love with this share). But now you need to look at this matter dispassionately and simply bail.
4263 days ago
Following on from my comments about Range Resources (RRL) on Friday I have become far more convinced that the shares are, at 4.86p, a sell. You can read the original analysis HERE. There are two reasons for my strengthening view that this is not a stock to own in fact I would wait until the Puntland news is out and then whatever it says go short.
The first is a very odd investor Q&A released by the company on its website. Odd timing, just before the bank holiday and a few days ahead of the Puntland well results which it says will be within days. But
4264 days ago
Everybody knows the price of Facebook stock has fallen to just above $19, nearly half its value back in May, when it first sold shares to the public. But that plunge is nothing compared with the deluge that’s coming.
4266 days ago
I have explained numerous times since Facebook (US: FB) stock IPO’d at $38 a share in mid May why I think that the shares are on fundamentals worth no more than $7.30. Actually it is pretty hard to put any value on this company as there is just so little visibility of earnings. And for that reason alone I am now slashing my price target from $7.30 to $5. And I think that the shares will head there pretty quickly. This remains a stonking short sell opportunity and here is why.
4275 days ago
I explained on Friday why the Manchester United (MANU:US) IPO was, at $14, a joke. I am asked what I think that the stock is worth? I am not sure that there is any terribly scientific answer to that as there are so many imponderables/unknowns, but since most are on the downside I would happy to start with a prediction that the shares could well halve to a share price of $7.
4286 days ago
Yesterday I wrote about how 80% of the customers one firm had paid (on a per click model) Facebook to send over were in fact bots (computer programmes). While there is sod all chance of most of Facebook’s customers (students, teenagers and piss poor Indians) buying anything online, there is zero chance of a bot buying. One thinks that advertisers will be thinking twice about using the services of Mark Zuckerburg’s great enterprise.
But it gets better. The company now admits that 1 on 10 of its accounts are in fact fake. That is to say duplicates ( where someone is so moronic that they need to “friend” themselves as they cannot find enough other morons online to be friends with?), not real (pets, etc) or spammers. You cannot now make any sensible earnings forecasts, the valuation is still crazy and insiders are about to start dumping hundreds of millions of shares onto a market where only the certifiable will buy. IPO $38. Price now $21. Target by Christmas (probably a lot sooner sub $10). As a non shareholder this is getting quite entertaining.
As one correspondent puts it:
“I’m loving this as my colleague took his first foray into investing on the IPO, buying a massive 3 shares. The only thing more amusing would be if he returned home to find Zuckerberg in bed with his wife.”
Why not? Zuckerburg has already screwed the investors, why not screw their wives as well?
4287 days ago
I wrote about an hour ago on TomWinnifrith.com that Facebook stock would trade at sub $10 on Nasdaq by Thanksgiving and that this was perhaps the number one short among global “blue chips.” Uh oh. It just got better for me, worse for the monster Zuckerburg. Some start up in New York ( Limited Run) says that it is pulling its Facebook ads because it found that 80% of those page impressions it was paying for on a click per basis model were in fact from bots (computer programmes) not people. Facebook says that it is investigating. Right. The bottom line is that those earnings models the porcine Wall Street analysts cooked up to justify the $38 IPO are just horse-shit. This stock is heading south fast.
4287 days ago
I have written here a number of times that the Facebook (FB) stock price will collapse. So far so good. Shares in the Nasdaq darling now trade at $21.71 down from a $38 IPO. But folks, it is about to get much worse. Much much worse. This remains a stonking short ( perhaps the No 1 big cap short on this planet) and if you were stupid enough to buy the shares I would get out now. They will have halved again ( or worse) before Thanksgiving.
Why $7.30? Well read my analysis HERE – even at that level it would still trade on a premium rating. But I was being generous with that valuation since. a) the quarterly earnings numbers the other day highlighted to anyone with half a brain cell that there is no real earnings visibility going out for more than a few months and that some key metrics (revenue per user) are already trending south. And b) those law suits from those folks who bought into the IPO and claim they were misled have not gone away. Another duff quarterly earnings statement and a further share price collapse and things could get nasty in the Courts. What profits Facebook actually makes by persuading advertisers to try to sell to its half-witted user base could be swallowed up many times over by legal costs and damages before this is all concluded.
So why the impending share price collapse?4290 days ago
Nasdaq darling Starbucks (SBUX) saw its stock price tank on Friday to a new 5 month low of $47.47 after warning that it would miss full year earnings forecasts. This is not a bad company but I fear its problems are just beginning and as such the shares are still a sell. Short Starbucks – target share price $35 (for starters).
I guess you all know what Starbucks does. It sells pretty bland, milk-filled coffees and a range of other products that do nothing for my diabetes on a grotesque gross margin. It is a brand that does not need to promote itself, we all know Starbucks. Some folks hate it as a symbol of big corporate America. Others love it while most of us treat it with a vague indifference. If I want caffeine I really do not care who serves it up.
4292 days ago
I wrote here on June 5th that my target stock price for Nasdaq darling (and overhyped IPO of the year) Facebook (FB) was $7.30 a share. Results yesterday saw the share price slide again and they are now $26.84 down from a $38 IPO just a couple of months ago. At the time ex-penny share tipster Luke Heron set a $50 target price. That was a good a sell signal as you would normally get. But on this occasion the fundamentals were an even bigger sell. If anything yesterday’s results make me think my target price may be a tad optimistic. This remains a great one way bet.
The headline loss of $157 million is irrelevant.
4304 days ago
Those who short shares, bear raiders are almost universally disliked. And for good reason. Whilst all of us involved in the stock market are ultimately motivated by the desire to make money, at least those of us who buy shares are creating a more liquid secondary market allowing companies to raise capital to expand, create jobs etc. And so we serve some purpose. Those who short serve no purpose in that sense. Moreover when a share you own is being whacked by shorters it is easy to start shouting at your screen, “Damn Evil Knievil/Lucian Miers/ A.N. Other Teddy – you are a: insert the sort of words John Terry might use. But that does not mean that shorting should be banned. Au contraire.
4304 days ago
Well here’s fame for you. My revelation about the networking activities of mining boss Damian Conboy of AIM listed Alecto Minerals (ALO) and Playboy PR girl Lucy Sharp is a trending link on Linkedin. No, I am not exactly sure what that means either and I suspect it says a lot about the rather dry nature of Linkedin rather than the entertainment value of the piece itself. But the story seems to have moved on.
Firstly, Mr Conboy has “unfriended” me on Linkedin. This is a blow. Normally updates about new connections made by mining chaps are so dull. They link up with a new drilling mud producer or some bloke involved in interpreting 3D seismic. Damian provided rare sparkle in this dry world and so I shall miss his updates. I know that this piece will be forwarded onto him by one of his gorgeous, pouting PR babes at St Brides Media so Damian, I ask you publically to “refriend” with me on Linkedin just to brighten up my sad existence.
4311 days ago
A few folks seem to think that my Barclays bearishness is wrong and that this stock is as cheap as chips. Presumably that would be chips from the Casino that is Barclays Capital. We shall see what happens to the share price on a one year view. But to counter the points of the stock market optimists, I offer up a few more thoughts.
The bull thesis is that Barclays trades on a PE of 7, yields 3.75% and has a net asset value of £3.50 per share upwards and that it should thus be bought because all the hoo-hah about rate fixing, Bankster Bob Diamond etc means that the stock is oversold relative to fundamentals. I know this to be the view of the bear raider Evil Knievil and others who are not daft but I disagree.
4312 days ago
I have not got every stock market call right over the past two years. I am as aware as anyone of some of my AIM buy tips that have not done well in this horrid market. But on my big macro shouts, calling the banks as a sell with Barclays (BARC) as my conviction sell was spot on. So what now? I am tempted to grab some cheap google brownies by setting a penny share target price for the stock. That would be silly. That Barclays is a sell for any prudent value investor still holding on is beyond doubt but the problem is that there is such enormous lack of visibility that we just do now know what the share price should be.
4313 days ago
I was going to run with something about Liam Fox thinking about coming out. That is to say about his comments this week about Britain coming out of the EU – I would not you to think I was suggesting anything else. But I just could not get my words out in a straight and open manner.
And so we turn to the man of the week: Bankster Bob Diamond (ex Barclays) for this week’s tastless caption contest. Tweet your suggestions (the more tasteless the better as long as they are remotely funny) to @tomwinnifrith – deadline is 4 PM Monday and the winner gets one of our special Piss off Argentina mugs.
For what it is worth my entry is: “ Yes I did say that Barclays was number 1 for fixed rates.” I am sure that you can do better. Competition, as ever, only open to those following me on twitter
4316 days ago
Yesterday after some bloke no-one has ever heard of quit as Barclays chairman I wrote:
Barclays is no doubt paying some bright PR firm megabucks to “manage this crisis.” So the company started with the idea that Diamond would forego his bonus this year. Now we have the bloke whose name I have already forgotten walking the plank even though he had no idea what was going on. And this afternoon we are being fed the line that the regulators knew about what was happening and thought it was a good idea. This is all aimed to distract us from calling for the head of Bob Diamond.
4321 days ago
News International has announced that it is to massively increase the cost of buying the Sunday Times and Sun newspapers. This is seen by some as good news for Trinity Mirror (TNI) and by others as a prelude to a spinoff of Murdoch’s newspaper interests. I view it another sign of an industry failing to adapt and so in precipitous decline.
The Sunday Times will now cost £2.50. Okay it may have 27 sections and you may need a shopping trolley to get it back home from the newsagents but that seems pretty steep to me. The problem all newspapers face today is that 99% of their content adds very little value to the reader. Home and foreign news, financial news, sport, gardening, cooking, property, lifestyle articles are all available all over the internet. For free. The value added by one particular paper is minimal. The real value add is columnists whose opinions you really wish to read and the odd exclusive. But in order to get that I, as a reader, have to pay the costs of gathering, assembling, printing and distributing all the other stuff which I can get for free online (and most of which is junk anyway).
4321 days ago
The banksters at Barclays have today been found guilty of what is, in effect, market abuse. They deliberately worked systematically to manipulate the LIBOR rate and so screwed millions of customers out of millions of pounds. This is just dreadful and Barclays shareholders will now pick up a bill of £290 million to clear up the mess. The scumbag who runs Barclays, Bob Diamond, and a few senior colleagues have agreed to forego their bonuses this year as part of the mea culpa. But that is not enough. Diamond should go.
4324 days ago
Results are out today for the year to 31st January 2012 for AIM listed media group Vitesse (VIS) – a business that never had the scale to justify an AIM quote and which should never have been listed. Its listing has meant stacks of fees for advisers, has justified executive pay which would not have been allowable in a private company and has screwed shareholders consistently over the years. I guess that is AIM in a nutshell.
The pre-tax loss is c.£500,000 and the operating loss £71,500 with the net cash outflow at £96,527. Does this matter? Well it does when you have zero cash at the year end and when trade creditors of £1.04 million plus debt of £317,000 swamp current assets (of which none is cash) of £745,000. Yet the shares are up this morning – BB loons alert!
4326 days ago
On Friday AIM listed Max Petroleum (MAX) admitted to suffering yet more delays on its flagship well. But worse still it also admitted that it was $54 million in debt and would soon breach its headroom debt facility of $58 million. The company says that in current market conditions ( plus regulatory changes in Kazakhstan – what in Hades that means I know not what) it is finding it impossible to raise equity. And so it must go to its banker (Macquarie) or any other banker. I see that the BB loons are still blathering on about the cash Max generates and its exploration upside. Oh please….
4330 days ago
Some of the moves in the FTSE 250 today are awesome. Home Retail up 25%. Dixons up 12%. Carpetright 7%. These are not penny stocks but billion quid enterprises. This is a short squeeze in action and a warning to all those folk who think that shorting can be a one way bet.
4330 days ago
Adventis (ATG) shares are up 81% today at 0.5p in decent volumes. I am sure that Lucian Miers et al are adding to their shorts. But whoever is buying is a total loon. Just a reminder of the facts.
4335 days ago
In today’s Daily Mail, Geoff Foster suggests here that pretty piss poor results from Walker Crips (WCW) suggest that trading across the sector is dire. Yes he is spot on. There are few IPOs, private investors are not trading actively and so revenues must be down. And as we all know, stockbrokers demand big pay packets and will not change that just because their employer is struggling. However why should this drive mergers as Geoff suggests.
4337 days ago
Well not exactly. Lucian started with a pint of “Village Idiot” – which Evil might think appropriate but is some sort of real ale. I had a pint of cider and then we enjoyed a bottle or two of Rioja. No lager. No kebabs. Just a pleasant night out in Oxford. The Village Idiot is served in the Turf – a pub my paternal grandfather frequented in days when students were not meant to go into pubs – the Turf has 4 potential exits so allowing for rapid escape. One day I shall write a bit more about his student days in the 1920s.
4344 days ago
I do not use Facebook. It seems to me like a tool for morons who cannot read a book, engage in sensible conversation or live away from their screen or phone. In other words it has a vast target market in today’s world. Its shares have plunged from $38 at IPO two weeks ago to $26.90 but I fail to see how they are worth more than $7.30. I would not be tempted to bottom fish.
4345 days ago
I am not sure of my Latin. No doubt my father or Evil Knievil or his father George could do better. What I note is just that very few stocks in London seem to be perfectly priced. At one end of the spectrum there are some ludicrously overpriced bags of huff and puff. I flagged up one such enterprise and explained why it was 90% overvalued earlier today here. But it is not alone – I am sure it is not hard to find another two or three dozen companies that are equally over-valued. And I shall turn my attention to Facebook later. Yet at the other end of the spectrum there are profitable companies trading at a discount to Tangible Net Asset value or even to net cash. This is bizarre.
4345 days ago
AIM listed Zoltav Resources (ZOL) is a company hyped on the back of supposed involvement by Roman Abramovich’s son. At 2.58p it is capitalised at £9.7 million. In early 2011 it raised £2.25 million. It has – as far as we can tell – made six investments in large liquid Russian oil companies and sold three of them. Its PLC costs (not least some very expensive advisers) make me suspect that net current assets are now way below £2.5 million. Even at June 30th 2011 net assets were down to c$2.5 million ( shall we call it £1.6 million). My money is on net assets/cash being well below £1 million by now – hence the recent sale of shares in 3 of the 6 companies it has backed.
