Having demanded we bring back this contest, once again, Juicin Drumroll failed to win last week and so for the fourth time the semi naked photo of Britain's top share blogger before lunchtime, thirsty Paul Scott, went elsewhere. Come on Juicin this contest is for you please try harder....if you don't win this week we are dropping it.

Hello, Share Rippers. I stick by my general support of High Street banks, believing they’ll claw back at least some of their slashed share prices over the last ten years. But if you’re still smarting over your bank disasters and simply don't trust your dough to them, you might have a look at the much smaller challenger banks.

Hello, Share Swappers. I’m marking the 10 year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers by going on holiday to a current shaker of the world economy - and that’s Russia. I abandon my safe home to my 22-year-old daughter and her boyfriend to risk being interred in Siberia, if Blighty’s relationship with Russia gets worse.

From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2017 and thus far in 2018 (by net short position %) - and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...

RedT Energy (RED) has announced results for the first half of 2018, with CEO Scott McGregor emphasising that the company “has validated its commercial and grid scale energy storage solutions with the recent deals in Germany and with Anglian Water and the UK public sector confirming the suitability of redT's technology for both ‘mega projects’ at grid level and as a long-term infrastructure solution for the Commercial and Industrial sector”…

Debenhams (DEB) and Dunelm Group (DNLM) both featured heavily in the financial press this week and while both had some disappointing news to share, both broker and tipster outlook about the future of both companies was vastly different. This week, we take a look at the respective performances of each, and how tipster sentiment has shifted over time.

First I look at m ore evidence of naughtiness at Tesla (TSLA) as the pithead Elon Musk struggles to make good on his pledge to be Q3 cashflow positive. Then I discuss insider dealing. I think I was an insider but am not sure but could have made a killing on one stock over the past fortnight but I sense others have been less scrupulous than I have been. I discuss how this all happens and and why it is not a victimless crime and what should be done.

A flurry of activity last week saw shares in AIM-listed Minoan (MIN) propelled from 5p to almost 6p, with bulk of the rise on Friday. We know that news on the sale of the travel and leisure business is expected “imminently” and that news on the Cavo Sidero project in Crete could come soon. So does the market know something?

It was a few days in the old country this week. Bundled up in layers, running the heater at night even thought it is still Summer, code switching from London English to a completely different way of speaking. No, I wasn't back in Canada, I was in Scotland.

Is there anything better than sitting back and reading a well-written article on a lazy Sunday? Every week ShareProphets features some long form journalism that you'll find of interest. Grab your cuppa and enjoy these five articles.  

Spanish copper miner Atalya Mining (ATYM) has seen its share price drop back recently, but then the situation has been similar on most producers in this sector and has come as a result of weakness in the commodity price rather than anything company specific.

On today's Bearcast I look at debt, it is like crack but after the highs it always ends badly. I talk with reference to 2008 and the next correction. Then onto Kier (KIE), the spin and the red flags and finally to Nike and its self-inflicted PC own goal. 

Five weeks in and the man who demanded we bring this contest back, Juicin Drumroll, is the runner up in this week’s contest but the photo of a semi I naked Thirsty Paul Scott goes instead to Putneywill – but there were numerous cracking entries, mainly posts by shareholders in UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) who – as you can see HERE – really are true morons.

Sunday morning newspaper perusal highlighted two stories on names I loved up on these pages in months and years past.  The first is ITV (ITV) which I have considered as a buy for a while now due to the combination of cheapish metrics and the value of its growing content business as detailed here.

Having demanded we bring back this contest, once again, Juicin Drumroll failed to win last week but he came second and tried very hard as you can see HERE. So he is clearly desperate to win a semi naked photo of Britain's leading share blogger before lunchtime, Thirsty Paul Scott. So we will give him a fifth and final chance. Can anyone stop Juicin from winning this week? Okay here is the challenge for you all:

Brokerman Dan Levi has again today insisted that Angus Energy (ANGS) is doing a placing. It will clearly have to do one at some stage soon but right now Daniel is being played, as was I last week. I sense market abuse here and once again the name Chris Oil, a man with form when it comes to market abuse and other nonsense, comes to the fore.  As a reminder

In the end the chaps at Nomad Cairn walked from Cloudtag (CTAG) when it was clear that it was a fraud run by liars. Frontera Resources (FRR) is a shit show run by liars and a fallout with death spiral provider Yorkville (YA) today could be the final straw for Cairn – might it resign leaving the (worthless) shares suspended? Or will Frontera just go bust?

AIM-listed Minoan (MIN) has this morning finally announced the sale of its travel and leisure business. Hooray – that only took nine months! In many ways the deal is perhaps  a bit better than I had feared, in terms of dilution (the good), but the end result will be that Minoan is still left with £0.9 million of debt (the bad) and with the warrants associated with the loan now dropped to just 3.5p exercise the shares are off by a whopping 30% to just 3.9p and the company tells us it will have to raise more cash (the ugly). 

In today's bearcast I look at the danger of a stockmarket crash in light of a tweet from the great Donald Trump earlier today. I cover N4 Pharma (N4P), cue smutty schoolboy jokes as its shares flop, and then I take a detailed look at today's news from Minoan (MIN). If I was a shareholder I would be seething but should I be selling?

We have only been waiting three years for this and in the end it came as a complete surprise but a very pleasant one at that. At last Premaitha (NIPT) has settled its patent dispute with American bully boy giants Illumina. This bolt from the blue is great news and now means that a rapidly growing and profitable business will be, at last, valued on fundamentals and that will drive a re-rate which appears to be underway already.

Having demanded we bring back this contest, once again, Juicin Drumroll failed to win last week but he came second and tried very hard as you can see HERE. So he is clearly desperate to win a semi naked photo of Britain's leading share blogger before lunchtime, Thirsty Paul Scott. So we will give him a fifth and final chance. Can anyone stop Juicin from winning this week? Okay here is the challenge for you all:

A couple of months on from the well-received annual results of Versarien (VRS) on 19 July, the share price has risen to even higher levels from when I initiated coverage (HERE), now valuing the graphene part of the business at well over £200 million so I thought I’d pose a simple question to CEO Neill Ricketts – how are those collaborations coming along?

Sprott is the world's best known resource investor. If stockmarkets wobble, precious metals usually flourish so this bearish note is "talking its own book". None the less Sprott analyst Tekoa Da Silva makes some valid points in this note just out. Over to the expert...

In today's bearcast I discuss my coverage of companies where the CEO is a friend. I ask what exactly Purplebricks (PURP) is hiding in Oz and explain why its shares are sliding amid new allegations, I look at Telit (TCM), Tungsten (TUNG), Xeros Group (XSG) and Westminster Group (WSG)

As it tries to stop its share price collapsing ahead of its much needed bailout refinancing, Frontera Resources (FRR) has announced another lie-fest, or as it terms it “shareholder update meeting followed by Q&A” on October 4. The City’s top oil analyst Zac Phillips of SP Angel is damning on this POS in his morning email but gets it 100% wrong when he says there is “Only 1 question.”

Just when you don’t think that the goings-on at Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) can get any more surprising, an RNS comes out of nowhere to make everything right in the world, relating to the unloved holding Industrial Heat. It seems that Neil Woodford can bend the laws of physics after all!

With the end-August portfolio listings coming out yesterday, it is time to update the story and it is not looking any rosier. In fact, quite the reverse. I think matters may be coming to a head here and I reckon Woodford needs a lucky break for once and pretty damn quickly.

Virtually every parent will have heard those words from a deeply frustrated small voice in the back of the car … similarly any bullion dealer from investors bemoaning gold’s sideways price action, despite some pretty alarming noises from the news stations.

So how does it all look for Tesco (TSCO) and ITV (ITV) the morning after the night before? Back on Sunday I highlighted my concern about some upcoming strategy updates from these two FTSE-100 names. So what did they say during their investor updates yesterday...and what am I thinking now?

Following my piece this morning on Woodford (HERE), I note that Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) published its interims at the rather odd time of 9.45am today which ruins my competition to some extent. Anyway, there is some good news in there that I am happy to report but it still begs a few questions that I am also happy to ask in my general nit-picking way.

Given the lowly market cap of Mayan (MYN) any placing will have to be a heavily discounted bucket shop special. In light of that, investors should take heed of an explicit warning from the City’s No 1 oil analyst Zac “the Knife” Phillips of SP Angel. In an email he writes:

With oil prices remaining buoyant and this trend looking likely to continue going forwards, there are still plenty of opportunities to invest in companies in this sector.

Union Jack Oil (UJO) has announced results for the first half of 2018, including to “expect a very active six months for Union Jack with the drilling of the economically compelling Biscathorpe-2 conventional well and the upcoming planning processes to allow the Wressle discovery to move to development”…

As you may have gathered on Tuesday, Malcolm’s long-suffering wife reckons that he has been spending too much time in The Punter’s Return and so has organised a holiday in Denmark, Sweden and Russia where Mr Stacey hopes to discover the magic money tree and an updated theme for his next novel. We left him having just arrived at Copenhagen airport, but our senior reporter has now updated us on his progress since…