Hello Share Pushers. The hotel game is a funny old business for share shifters like us. The sector rarely seems to act in unison. Where one chain does well, another doesn’t. And it’s hard to fathom the reasons. Except that you’ll have noticed that some pubs are full whereas the one down the road is empty. For some subconscious causes, one pub becomes trendy and its nearest rival does not. Same with hotels, I fancy...

In this third edition of the ShareProphets Radio podcast sponsored by Riverfort Global Capital, this week, in order I discuss the political threats to the UK stockmarket, interview the UK's best known chartist Zak Mir and then discuss all things Versarien (VRS), the most overpromoted stock on AIM,  with bear raider Lucian Miers. Enjoy. If you like this and can't wait seven days for more of the same you should listen to my Bearcast every day.

We have not heard from Equities First Holdings (EFH) for a while, but regular ShareProphets readers may remember the scandal which emerged five years ago whereby directors of AIM companies announced they were buying shares when, if fact, they were selling vast numbers of them to EFH with the right, but not the obligation, to buy them back. Such fine enterprises as Rob Terry fraud Quindell (QPP – now Watchstone), Igas (IGAS, under Andrew “piggy” Austin), Cloudbuy (CBUY), Angle (AGL), Optimal Payments (OPP) and, of course, IQE (IQE) were all dragged in. Well now Drew Nelson, CEO of IQE has done another deal with EFH – and the announcement stinks. Has the company learned nothing from last time, when all of the above companies had to restate and restate again?

Legendary bear raider Carson Block, aka Muddy Waters Research, is set to publish a bombshell dossier tomorrow at 8 AM GMT. Given the tweet below there is fevered speculation that it is a London listed company and speculation is centring on Neil Woodford dog Burford (BUR) shares in which are off by 15% as I write. Two things to note:

Interior furnishings company Walker Greenbank (WGB) has updated including even “excluding accelerated income under IFRS 15 and income from apparel contracts, core licensing income was up approximately 12.2 per cent”. The shares are though currently slightly lower, at around 86p…

There are dramatic events today at the Greek Hovel. More on that elsewhere and later. In the podcast I look at IQE (IQE) and Equitites First Holdings, at Iconic Labs  (ICON), the SVS fallout, Vela (VELA) and Tertiary Minerals (TYM) and at Sirius Minerals (SXX). And also at share options in general and why I oppose them in all cases.

Cosmetics company Warpaint London (W7L) has updated including that it “continues to see encouraging international sales growth, in particular in the EU and the US”. But what about overall performance? – the shares are currently below 60p, approaching 30% lower on the day. Uh oh…

If I write about anything that is consumer-facing on this website, you can bet somewhere in the text will be a semi-funny joke about why I have not contributed directly to said company's corporate results because I am almost personally post-consumption. Naturally, that does not apply to the rest of the family and because my excuse about the importance of the global corporate earnings season was wearing a bit thin this school holiday, in lieu of a holiday to the Costa del Horrible, the Domino's Pizza (DOM) online capability has recently acquired a new customer…

Analyst David Keller argues that as humans, we want certainty in our decision making and investors like to believe that experts exist that know what will happen. In reality, this is not likely to be the case. Investors and experts tend to be wrong around half of the time. The game is to recognize when you have an incorrect position. Most people take a position and then worry about the risks when things start going wrong.

The longer the signals in capital markets go haywire under the influence of 'monetary stimulus', the bigger is the cumulative economic cost. That is one big reason why this fourth Fed stimulus - in the present already-longest (but lowest-growth)of super-long business cycles - is so dangerous...

You have to have a tiny bit of sympathy for Neil Woodford (just a tiny bit, mind) this morning after yesterday’s market sell-off as the FTSE 100 dropped 2.5%: unless you were in gold (smile….) everything that moved was heading south. So it is little surprise that Woodford’s Income Focus Fund dropped 2.63% in NAV per unit – even if the drop was a little more pronounced...

Hello Share Scrimpers. Sadly, BT (BT.A) is one of my worst long-term investments. I first bought into the outfit when it went into TV in a big way, hoovering up a lot of important sports coverage deals. Even then I had a niggling doubt about whether the viewing public would pay the subscriptions. But at first, I was rewarded with a big jump in the share price as at one stage it hovered around £5. Then came a nasty decline and today the shares are valued at less than £2 a pop...

The FCA has just issued a statement to confirm our story of last Friday that SVS is in special administration. It is full of details on the compensation scheme but the line which stands out is that it acted on a tip-off over where SVS was investing clients’ money. Ouzo time for Tom, then, but sackcloth and ashes for SVS clients...

Previously writing on self-styled “global leader in sustainable LED lighting for industrial applications” Dialight (DIA), early last month I noted argues recovery plans “progress” & “increasingly well positioned”… Er, what about the profit warning? with the shares then down to circa 350p. They have recently been headed back towards 400p, but now results for the first half of 2019…

Pity me dear listeners, I think it is only c20 degrees here in Greece today. Okay I think you are not pitying me are you? In the podcast I discuss Verseon (VERS), Bluejay Mining (JAY), Spud U Like and the minimum wage, Providence Resources (PVR), Lansdowne Oil & Gas (LOGP) and Thor Mining (THR).

Shares in Peel Hotels (PHO) were suspended towards the end of last month as the company was still in the process of finalising its audit and would miss the AIM Rules deadline. It has now published – and the shares are currently around 40p, down approaching 40%...

Having asked for readers tips for 2019 for the amazing prize of a meal with Tom Winnifrith (or the chance to fob it off on someone you don't like) HERE, the following is a monthly update on performance (to be eligible needed to have selected, on a per username basis, a buy & sell pick from the LSE or AIM Casino and the stocks not to have been suspended at the commencement of 2019)...

Neil Woodford is in the press for all sorts of things – bashing by the Daily Mail (another one today), his partner selling his house -The Times which also tells us that he is moving out of biotechs. And on that score, I see that AIM-listed Verseon (VERS) has more than halved in price over the last few days. We’ve not had a statement from the company, although I fancy it is running out of cash quickly, but it seems that someone was very keen to get out last Thursday.

Regular readers will know I am a fan of spin-offs and I loved up the opportunity in Quilter (QLT) which was spun-out of Old Mutual (OMU) a little over thirteen months ago, most recently in this article here. From my original piece it has not been the greatest call but given that any wealth manager is a geared play on the financial markets to some degree (recurring fees are levied on portfolio values typically) there has been plenty of trading scope – getting yourself some Quilter shares for Christmas late last year would have been nicely remunerative. Today's half-year numbers have their good and bad components…

In 2017 the owner of Spud U Like lost £1 million. One senses that 2018 will have been worse. Now the firm has gone tits up with 300 staff now on the dole as a result. There are 4 factors at play: