Whilst fat bastard Malcolm Graham Wood is paid to ramp shares in Frontera Resources (FRR) by making claims that cannot be verified, the City's No 1 oil analyst Zac "the Knife" Phillips is impartial and, to say the least, not impressed. In his email to clients today the SP Angel guru opines:

I was never taken in by Rita Whittingham's supposedly game changing deal for Magnolia (MAGP) with Western Energy Development. I saw it as nothing more than a way of creating a 29.9% shareholder who would save her miserable skin at an EGM called to oust her after she had stuck her talentless family on the payroll as she mismanaged the company to death. Some were more charitable, such as the City's No 1 oil analyst Zac "the Knife" Phillips of SP Angel, but Zac has seen the light and today sticks the boot in with the shares at 4.65p (post consolidation) and thus still firmly in the minus 99% club. The Knife opines:

Despite the multitude of cheesy ads on the TV begging us to book a holiday I use this regular slot for yet another confession: I have never been on a package holiday. To be honest, I doubt if I ever will...but fortunately the UK economy rolls on consumption preferences far different than my own. Which brings us to the recent comments by both Thomas Cook (TCG) and TUI (TUI), both big players in the travel market.

I took a lot of abuse on twitter recently. My crime, it appears, was forwarding a negative report on IQE plc (IQE) which seemed to me to raise some important questions about the company’s accounting treatment of two joint ventures it had established.

The Bulletin Board knockers and, we are afraid some of you, were predicting a Christmas profits warning from Sosandar (SOS). Oh ye of little faith. The trading statement covering December and January is absolutely stunning. The headline is that net revenues (sales minus returns) exceeded management expectations.

Who's followed the likes of Geong International and co in 'Geong, Geong' and then Gone? Who's in the 'Geong, Geong' stage and what does the 'Filthy Forty' look like now?...

Hello Share Shavers. One of my all-time big successes has been Creightons (CRL), the pocket company which does things to make your car smell better, fake suntans and so on. It wasn’t much more than a penny a throw at one of its darkest stages. Then the City finally woke up to its sterling performance and the share reached 45p. But you have to know when to say enough is enough and I sold a large lump of my shares at 43p. I wish I’d dumped the lot because they fell to 24p.

At the weekend we updated on performance of start of 2018 top shorted London-listed shares. At the commencement of the year we also showed Shorted AIM shares at the start of 2018. Following the recent 'crash', how's also their performance?...

It reminds me of the opening scenes at a big tech conference a few years ago.  The compare asks the first speaker: tell me a bad technology joke. The guy says "Julie Meyer" and the audience bursts out laughing.  Anyhow, for today's comedy from the crumbling empire and you really could not make this up... 

A Trading Update and Notice of Results announcement from consumer goods company UP Global Sourcing (UPGS) including “it should be noted that H1 2017 was an unusually strong period for the group” - this in an update for its half year ended 31st January 2018. Uh oh…

UPDATED: Over the weekend I revealed a potential nuclear landmine that could well blow up the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT).The bad news for the asleep at the wheel nmot so independent NEDS at the Trust is that I have found two more landmines which have been averted but are there more?

Despite the current correction, the market is still in a tremendous bubble that is nowhere close to being fully unwound. Your Pension portfolio and therefore your retirement remains at risk.

Milestone Group (MSG) has announced a memorandum of understanding with Seed Media Limited and Martin Heath with a joint venture that is intended to be owned 50.5% by Milestone. The proposed deal has two things in common with the proposed deal with Black Cactus namely that underlying technology to be used is Blockchain and the fact that Seed Media like Black Cactus is technically insolvent and loss making.

Richard Jennings of Align Research is, to his credit, a great Hellenophile and an even greater ailurophile. He also have some views which are pretty nutso. But his stern words on Nick Trew the CEO of Pathfinder Minerals (PFP) are ones that I have real sympathy with. Jennings reckons that it is black bag time for Trew and is prepared to call an EGM to get his way. I support his call to oust Trew and would urge all shareholders to contact him on the address below to set the wheels in motion. Over to the cat lover who writes:

I think I said it was the 11th today. It is, of course,the 12th and I am off to Salisbury Cathedral with the Mrs and the younger generation to look, inter alia, at the two Whistler glass plates celebrating the lives of my mother and Aunt. Ahead of that I have a few thoughts on Sosandar (SOS), Milestone (MSG), Frontera (FRR), BNN (BNN) and 88 Energy (88E)

TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) has been having a torrid time recently and has pretty much seen its share price halved since the start of November. It has posted some disappointing results, and given that the slide in share price started just prior to the release of the interims around three months ago, it would seem that such figures weren’t entirely unexpected.

Hello, Share Scrummers. When the going gets tough out there in the Big City, as now, the sensible approach is to buy shares in companies which may be hit by the general situation, but which seem as strong as an ox and could be among the first to bounce back in the almost inevitable rally.

Reach4Entertainment (R4E) has served up a trading statement which is, to use the technical term, nonsensical bollocks. But the shares are a very strong hold, at worst, at 1.95p.

At 31 December 2017, Ombu Group represented c2.02% of the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) portfolio being two separate investments of 2.01 % + 0.01%. The principal activity of Ombu Group, according to its accounts, is providing capital and management support to fast growing companies in the fields of industrial technology, energy technology and water technology.

In this podcast recorded in a car park I reflect on new mounting problems for Neil "Nomates" Wooodford and wonder if the demise of his empire will be the Burmah Castrol moment of 2018. I ask if the nutso planned IPO of Soho House is a lagging canary and I reflect on the folly of most acquisitions.