Back in March I observed that I wanted to see the building products supplier and facilitator Breedon (BREE) attempt to cut the price of its deal to buy the UK assets of global behemoth Cemex. Since then the company pushed out some numbers where it may have given no guidance but it noted ‘there is significant pent-up demand to be satisfied in both housing and infrastructure, reinforced by the substantial programme of investment confirmed by the Chancellor’…and remained optimistic about the deal. Well get those calculators out again as today the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ‘raises competition concerns in the supply of building materials in some parts of the UK’…

An announcement from escape-the-room experiences company Escape Hunt (ESC) and the shares currently at 9p, 20% higher on the back of it. Big news then?…

Hello, Share Testers. Let’s have a bit of fun looking at Avacta (AVCT) again. This share is like an irritable fly buzzing around my head. We all know that the company looks hugely overvalued, that is if you strip out the possibility of the company being involved in some major testing operation. Uncle Tom has famously attacked the chances of this ever happening. Yet the share price is quite resilient…

Self-styled “data and technology-driven marketing group”, Next Fifteen Communications (NFC) has updated including “for the six-month period to 31st July 2020, revenues are expected to be up by approximately 6.5% compared with the same period last year to £126m and adjusted profit before tax up by over 16% to at least £20m… driven by our B2B technology focused agencies” – and the shares have currently responded to 447p, more than 21% higher…

When I wrote about Asimilar (ASLR) back in February on its suspension, my last comment was that I sense a car crash coming this way…… This morning the car crash has happened, but it will surely get far worse…

A “Joint Broker Appointment” announcement from Lekoil (LEK), with a 2.95p share price giving a market cap of £15.8 million. Hmmm…

I start with a brief discussion of Rule Britannia where it is clear that the BBC and others (including the Mrs) have not actually read the words or studied their history. I will do a much longer piece on this when back from seeing my father in Shipston. I look at Asimilar (ASLR), All Active Asset Capital (AAA), Mesh PLC, and Chris Akers – a scandal where the unravel is surely underway. I comment on DFS (DFS) and furlough economics, on Iconic Labs (ICON), and on Amigo (AMGO) as well as on Xtract Resources (XTR), where there is yet more good news making you who followed my tip and I who bought shares even richer. Also covered is NoGold who has no gold exposure and lambasts me for tipping gold shares and making you all richer… even more of a miserable old git.

Yesterday we saw AIM-listed Catenae Innovation (CTEA) try to dress up paying for a marketing deal in shares as a good thing when surely the truth of it was that it was out of cash, and worse still the grateful recipient of the shares has to wait for the AGM for approval of increase in headroom. In other words, Catenae is out of cash and out of share-issuance headroom. This morning we were offered a Business Update…

Back in mid-July I noted about the sofa stock DFS Furniture (DFS) that ‘investors can do so much better than this one’. This was driven by the view that ‘a world of more WFH might well be correlated with an uptick in sofa time in front of the TV, but it is not helped by higher unemployment or an enhanced difficulty in paying back those monthly charges on those oh-so-easy-to-obtain four year interest free credit deals’. Well blow me down…DFS has only gone and upped its hopes…

Tipping as a major buy, shares in Wirecard, Europe’s largest fraud and a company every bear on the planet had called out as a fraud, 48 hours before the stock collapsed was perhaps not the greatest day for Ed Croft and Stockopedia. Even worse than the days when the system rated the Globo and Quindell frauds as massive buys. So maybe Stockopedia can redeem itself with a call on mystery Company A which has filed its accounts for calendar 2019.

Shares in closed-end investment company aiming to provide investors with capital growth from a portfolio of companies involved in the gold and precious metals sector Golden Prospect Precious Metals (GPM) reached over 70p last month but have since fallen back and are now at a 65p offer price. With, we consider, top-quality management and the gold bull further to go we now recommend a buy here…

Once again we stumble across someone who makes Nigel Somerville look sane and balanced. Trader Steve Penny claims that  “Commodities have never been so cheap relative to paper assets.” He argues that today is a generational wealth transfer opportunity. His macro thesis is that the national debt is mathematically impossible to repay. History has shown that politicians will always try to inflate away the debt.

Hello, Share Choosers. If you had shares in a brewer or drinks producer like Diageo (DGE), you will have seen your portfolio creak under the virus. For example, Heineken’s first-half underlying profits were down by 52.5%. While the company that does Budweiser and Stella Artois lost 45%. Diageo’s full-year to end June dropped by 14%, still a big blow…

“ECSC (AIM: ECSC), the provider of cyber security services, announces that on 21 August 2020, the company cancelled options over 588,037 new ordinary shares in the company… the company also granted options over 588,037 new ordinary shares to the same directors, PDMRs and company employees”. Sounds suspicious…

London millionaire liberal elitist, our own in-house Euro Loon Jonathan Price, faces house, or should I say mansion, arrest within days. About bloody time. I joke with him on email but I am not sure he sees the funny side. After that digression I discuss Red Rock Resources (RRR) – do you believe Andrew Bell?  – Amigo (AMGO), Sunrise Resources (SRES), Cobra Resources (COBR), and the very odd price movement at joke company Anglesey Mining (AYM). Cheryl Cole gets two mentions in this podcast

In days gone by, the City would have termed James Benamor “a wrong ‘un”. His antics over the last 96 hours in tweeting out plans for him to return to Amigo (AMGO) and at least one statement which is a slam dunk lie only confirm me in the impression that such an assessment would be valid.

Previously writing on branded hostels company Safestay (SSTY), with the shares at 17.5p I questioned “to be well positioned to re-open as restrictions are lifted”?. Now a further update and the shares further lower – at 12.5p – in response…

In yesterday’s bearcast, I explained why suggestions that Reach4Entertainment (R4E) CEO Marc Boyan was considering merging Reach with his private company Miroma should be investigated by the authorities.  Upon reflection, the scandal is potentially even larger than I originally thought. Notwithstanding the fact that two guests at my wedding (Messrs Wray & Yeoman), of which I shall be celebrating the 7th anniversary this coming weekend, are intimately involved with Reach and will be very pissed off with what I am doing, I have now written to the Oxymorons and the Chocolate Teapots and asked them to consider involving the Takeover Panel. The letter follows.

So naughty old Rio Tinto (RIO) then. The iron ore, copper and coal name has fessed up that it was naughty in blowing up some ancient rockshelters at Juukan Gorge ‘and have unreservedly apologised to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people’. After, scrapping some executive bonuses, ponying up A$50 million to ‘attract, develop and retain Indigenous professionals into our company’, as well as giving such groups ‘a greater voice’ in its decision-making process and stating although it ‘cannot change the past…we are absolutely committed to doing better in the future’, right on Rio Tinto, yes?…

Shares in FastJet (FJET) have today left the AIM casino so are now untradeable, as well as essentially worthless. Remaining investors face mega dilution or administration or most possibly both. Having warned folks extensively over the years about an operation first set up to smuggle tobacco and which just could not turn a legitimate cent, I feel somewhat vindicated. But there is more… Citigate Dewe Rogerson and the half to £1 million of shareholders cash spunked on nothing!