Since late last week, I have been getting repeated calls from a “Private Number”. The caller usually hung up before I could answer. Occasionally I heard silence and then he hung up. I say “he” because today he found his voice.

An early this month “Pre-close statement” from DS Smith (SMDS) included “corrugated box volumes in and throughout Q2 have returned to growth… The step-change in use of e-commerce is clearly established across our territories with very high demand from customers for e-commerce packaging as we head into the festive season”. The shares responded higher… but the current share price compares to approaching 400p early this year and, with also a dividend expected for the company’s half-year which ended 31^st October 2020, there looks further recovery value here…

Escape-the-room experiences company Escape Hunt (ESC) “is pleased to confirm that the sites in England, other than those in areas designated ‘tier 3’ under the UK Government’s Coronavirus tiered classification system, will re-open on 2 December” and “digital and remote play games… strong progress” – and the shares have currently responded more than 6% higher to 17.5p. But…

Aquis-listed Rutherford Health (RUTH), the former Proton Partners that Neil Woodford so merrily put his former fundholders on the hook to fund at a ludicrous price, has published its Interims to August 31 this morning. What a shambles!

Hello, Share Takers. How’s this for a spiffing idea? You help organisations that need to make more money by building them internet platforms specially designed to attract the dough. If that body happens to be a charity, like Unicef, for example, then your business idea does the world a lot of good. And if your customer is the British government that wants to bring together hundreds of different companies to make and supply hospital ventilators, then how can you go wrong?

Firstly, we are just £121 short on our Woodlarks appeal target. Will twelve of you donate a tenner and I promise to shut up until February.  Please give HERE. Then I look at gold. Have I got it wrong again? Should I sell? If not, what am I buying? I flag up three stocks which I may nibble at.

Union Jack Oil (UJO) has updated investors with news including that it is to provide a £1 million loan facility to Wressle oil field (Union Jack: 40% economic interest) operator Egdon Resources (EDR), which “as well as providing a commercial return on funds will also assist in the development of the Wressle oil field”, and Wressle “workover being completed and initial oil flows anticipated later in January 2021”…

I know that readers of this website have given so much to Woodlarks over the years. This summer the Rogue Bloggers walk saw us raise enough to ensure that this amazing charity will not go bust despite the lockdown which has been a disaster for it.  Activities are still massively constrained and the Christmas Grotto which brings unbelievable pleasure to 200 severely handicapped or very ill kids each year will have to be a virtual one this year. But it will still cost a few quid…

Analyst David Kranzler of Investment Research Dynamics argues that banks like JP Morgan leverage commodity market options via manipulating prices via massive amounts of paper contracts. This manipulation is a source of massive profits for these bullion banks and is permitted because it benefits Central Banks. These shock and awe hits to the market are designed to shake out weak participants.

Here are five long reads that have nothing to do with shares. Put the kettle on, find a comfy chair. You have the time, don’t you? 

RockRose Energy (RRE) was one of the real success stories amongst AIM listed oil companies prior to being taken over for nearly £250 million, and now its executive chairman, Andrew Austin, has made a return to AIM with a new venture which listed last week.

Welcome to the Sunday ShareProphets Pub Quiz. Find your own beer, sit in the most comfortable seat, and, under no circumstances, can you Google the answer. Only I can do that. There are no prizes but post your scores in the comments for bouquets and brickbats.

I messed up on the subscription shares for fully listed Golden Prospect (GPM), as discussed here. It looked a great play, the maths made sense but unfortunately the timing of the expiry and the Gold correction caught me out. But it looks as though there is a silver lining and despite large quantities of egg on my face, I firmly believe the full shares are worth a jolly good look right now.

The small villains are the uber-spiv directors of Remote Monitoring Systems (RMS), Trevor Brown and Paul Ryan who get a good slating. I, again, ask questions about the timeline of events. The big villain is Sir Phil Green of Arcadia and I ride to his defence and have a pop at one of his critics Sir Stuart Rose formerly of Marks & Sparks (MKS) Finally we are just £400 short on the Woodlarks appeal. Help us over the line and I promise not to mention the charity again until February. Thanks to those who have donated, if you have not you can donate HERE

AEX Gold (AEXG) has updated we loyal investors that further drilling results mean it is “very encouraged” on the ‘Valley Block’ at Nalunaq, Greenland…

St James House (SJH) on Friday admitted that it won’t be able to get its audited accounts for the year ended 31 January 2020 finalised in November 2020, a mere 10 months after its year end and as such its shares will remain suspended until the accounts are published.  It also stated that its interim accounts for the six months ended 31 July 2020 will also be delayed until the year end accounts are finalised.   

Money for nothing and debt for free

Oh dear, as they say, these tweets did not age well after Fridays planning setback. Let’s hope these UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) ramping chumps did not spend all their “winnings” too early. The shares closed the week at 0.145p, down 32% on the day.

It is not just Warren Buffett who comes up with great pithy comments on what is going wrong economically. The quoted line comes from @deanthespleen on Twitter and nicely sums up the economic brick wall the UK faces.

From the FCA’s spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2019 and thus far in 2020 (by net short position %, those in bold not on the list at the start of 2020) – and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week…