“Paragon Entertainment Limited (AIM: PEL), the attractions design, production and fit-out business, today provides a trading update”. Not ‘is pleased to provide’ and intra-day (2:15pm) – Uh oh…

The AIM market in general has been performing badly in recent months and it has been noticeable that the worst performing companies at the lower end of it have been struggling to raise capital.

I start with the issue of fund managers and redemptions and thus forced selling of shares. Not just Neil Woodford, a special case, but generally. I look at this in the context of what corporate newsflow I expect in January.  I also look at Urals Energy (UEN), Telit (TCM) and the FCA, Andalas (ADL) and UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) answering a point posed by our own in house Bulletin Board loon Wildes HERE.

Of course the stock is still hugely overvalued. But as they have plunged from 2p in just a few weeks, for some reason, Big Dave Lenigas has stopped pumping out twenty tweets a day about how cheap the shares are.  Meanwhile the Bulletin Board Morons who lined up to abuse and smear myself and folks like Waseem Shakoor, who warned them, have been lining up to apologise. Not! And thus we have another pic of UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) boss Lyin’ Steve Sanderson in action destroying shareholder value for you to consider ….

It is some time since I offered any comment on AIM-listed Igas (IGAS), following the near-demise of the shares long-predicted in these parts. But last night Igas drew attention to itself by offering up an Operational Update well after hours, at 5.43pm. Talk about no-one-is-watching o’clock! You just know it wasn’t good news…..and it wasn’t!

The fraud that is Telit (TCM) continues to unravel. We already knew that ex FD and CEO Yosi fait was being investigated for selling all his shares in early July 2017 while he was aware of damaging price sensitive information ( a profits warning) – that would be insider dealing. We know that founder, former CEO and the man who is still running Telit via puppet directors, Uzi Katz, is being investigated for not admitting that he was a fraudster and fugitive from justice.  Now it gets bigger.

Shy Bear is a reticent fellow but a short seller currently without exposure to this sector. Having listened to my, most excellent, bearcast yesterday he offers up a few thoughts. I know shy bear well and he is no fool. Ignore these stark warnings at your peril should you be foolish enough to contemplate a spot of bottom fishing. Over to Shy Bear who opines:

Following it previously noted, Allenby a Nomad of choice with some of the few remaining 'Filthy Forty' constituents. Could similar action follow?, here's an update on the current ShareProphets China AIM 'Filthy Forty' situation...

Last Night at 4.39pm – after hours at no-one-is-watching o’clock, ShareProphets AIM-China Filthy Forty member (one of just seven remaining) China New Energy (CNEL) issued a Trading Update. Except the meat of the dish was not about the company’s trading, it was about trading in its shares. We are told the Company is currently considering and assessing all the options available for fund raising in other stock exchanges. Aha - it is voluntary execution ahoy!

Hello, Share Punchers. With fears of Brexit continuing to cancel out the Santa Rally, our thoughts should turn more to that useful hedge against disaster - gold. Now short of buying a few gold bars, which I haven't entirely discounted, by the way, the best way to take advantage of gold is to pick up mining stock. There are a lot of small gold explorers and even producers that I will continue to avoid. But the larger ones might be worth looking into...

WANdisco (WAND) is “delighted to announce our largest ever cloud deal”…

Support services provider to remote locations in Africa and the Middle East, RA International (RAI) has updated including CEO Soraya Narfeldt “pleased with the progress made by RA International since Admission to AIM… we have a strong pipeline of projects across a range of sectors and a project management team capable of executing and delivering larger projects”. So why are the shares currently approaching 20% lower on the day, at around 50p?...

Online retailer ASOS (ASC) “announces a trading update for the first three months of the financial year”. Uh oh – not ‘pleased to announce’ then?...

I start off with news from Woodlarks. Then I ask if shareholders in Frontera (FRR) are all stark raving mad in light of this and question why Alliance News appears complicit in market abuse. Then onto ASOS (ASC), Boohoo(BOO) and Sosandar (SOS). I explain why the three are trading differently and what the shocker from ASOS means for the wider stockmarket. Whole sectors are officially on the bargepole list (although Neil Woodford appears to disagree). 

Back on 24^th October, AIM-listed Yu Group (YU.) issued a devastating RNS regarding accrued income recognition, impairments of trade debtors and the shares collapsed 80%. Then on 5th November the company announced that it had appointed PWC and DLA Piper to carry out independent forensic investigations and promised to update the market in due course. So how about that update?

There were numerous entries to this caption contest as you can see HERE although once again our in-house BB loon Wildes got overly excited looking at pictures of the crazy cat lady Carole Cadwalladr and thus served up a number of utterly non relevant observations. There can only be one winner of the semi naked photo of Britain’s top share blogger (mornings only), thirsty Paul Scott and it is…not Wildes. Instead the victorious caption for the photo below is:

I have a lot of sympathy for the position that many investors find themselves in and that is the fear of missing out. It is a big driver and keeps people at the party far too long...

This morning AIM-listed ASOS (ASC) offered up a disastrous Trading Update noting a significant deterioration during November, that conditions remain challenging and that it was revising downwards sales growth to c. 15% (previously 20-25%), retail gross margins by -150bps (previously flat at 49.9%) and EBIT margin to 2% (previously 4%). Ouch, ouch and triple ouch. Asos saw its shares decline by a whopping 38% in early trading. So what about fledgling minnow, AIM-listed Sosandar (SOS)?

Just over a week until Christmas and no sign of an imminent end yet to sloppy RNS updates. The headlines are going to be taken by the profit woopsie from ASOS (ASC) after it too agreed with Mike Ashley's November retail omnishambles comments of a few days ago and pulled down its growth and margin hopes. Thematically, it is much more than a survivor due to its online focus but it goes to show that it’s not easy out there. Anyhow, for those of you tempted by Sunday's Next (NXT) related musings, the in-price available has got that bit naturally cuter... However it is Scottish & Southern (SSE) that I wanted to write about…