At the weekend we served up a trading tip – buy Leni Gas & Oil (LGO) at 1.17p – as you can see HERE. Call us spivs if you wish but…

If you’re looking for a share that is exciting to watch, then AIM-listed Rare Earth Minerals (REM) certainly fits the bill. This small miner with interests in Mexico, Greenland and Australia, hit the headlines last August with a meteoric rise from a low of 0.04p to a peak of nearly 2.5p in the space of just a few weeks.

Hello Share Fiends: The markets are in a stuck-in-the mud phase, as nobody really knows which direction shares should take. Consequently, the Footsie has been trading in narrow bands on most days. Daily gains have been coming quite steadily, but mostly under 30 points and often a lot lower.

It is time to highlight and celebrate the very worst of AIM with second annual AIM Cesspit awards sponsored by Shareprophets.com. At an awards ceremony and dinner in Clerkenwell on June 30^th (Monday), real trophies will be presented to those who have helped make AIM the Cesspit it is and we will be entertained by guest speakers Lucian Miers and Evil Knievil with The Sheriff of AIm compering the event. There are seven awards.

It's great that the 2014 AIM Cesspit Awards are this year being held once again at The Real Man Pizza Company, Clerkenwell, London. I hope there are chips on the menu this year! The food was rather poncy/rich for my taste buds! The last known case of gout in Northern England was actually a Southerner who relocated for the BBC. I had a thoroughly enjoyable time last year. Not to be taken too seriously it's just a bit of a laugh or if you're from London "Larffff"

The more I’ve looked at Xcite Energy (XEL) recently the more I’ve liked this stock. Last week, I wrote an initial positive response to the company’s AGM presentation. Since then, I’ve watched the share price bump along around the 70p mark. Ideally I am hoping for a sub-65p entry level, but I might be pushing my luck with this. Notwithstanding a market wide retreat, it looks like a base is forming, as investors digest details of the company’s new strategy to commercialise Bentley. 

The U.S. Comex gold futures have declined 2.03% on Tuesday after the U.S. Memorial Day weekend while the S&P 500 Index has risen 0.60% and the Euro Stoxx 50 Index has climbed 1.32% for the week.

Some people fall in love with shares and want to hold them forever. That is not the way to make money. The way to get rich is to buy when the share price fails to reflect fair value and to sell when the good news is in the price. That brings me to a recent share tip Edge Resources (EDG).

Where do you start with the new posterboy of the AIM Cesspit, Tangiers Petroleum (TPET) and news yesterday that it has increased its fundraise from A$5 million to A$9 million?  The whole thing stinks

There is little doubt that the two most bombastic men in the City are Avanti Communications (AVN) CEO David Williams and bear raider Evil Knievil.  The battle continues as we can reveal exclusively.

Top resource broker VSA has initiated its coverage of Egdon Resources (EDR), following its purchase of Alkane Energy assets, at 25.5p with a buy stance and 60p target – this it argues is THE play on UK shale.

The results from Sainsbury (SBRY) for the year to 15 March were far from being a disaster; which was good news given the cloud the food retail sector has been under from those drat German price discounters, who seem to have learnt how to compete on both price and perceived quality. Sales were up by 2.8% - not bad even if the ‘like for like’ sales from the stores that had been open a year or more, were up by a mere wisp at plus 0.2%. The company retained its market share in the year to March 2014.

Hello Share Swivellers: So even when most of the great British public vote to give Europe a kicking, shares still rise. They should have fallen on the news, given that we do so much trade with our Continental friends.

On 19^th May shares in Minoan (MIN) traded at 16.375p on the AIM Cesspit. Then they started slipping and slipping and closed yesterday at 13.625p. Today a placing is announced at 12p. What do I conclude? That crony capitalists in the City are not content with buying stock at a discount but that they also engage in insider dealing. They break the law. Will the FCA do anything to stop the fuckers? What do you think?

I have written before how I understand very fully how Quindell (QPP) CEO Rob Terry wants to hang out with those few people who stuck by him after he presided over the near collapse of The Innovation Group. But there are limits and this brings me to some statements issued by Quindell regarding Quindell Property Services (QPA) which just do not stack up. Rob now has very serious questions to answer.

Another year goes by on AIM. Directors get richer, investors get poorer, the regulators find little to occupy their time with. By any stretch of the imagination, AIM  is not a healthy functioning market and it is too easy to cheat. How long this can all go on is anyone’s guess, but AIM is in desperate need of urgent and substantial reform. Here are my picks.

San Leon Energy (SLE) is trying its hardest to get noticed by the market. Over the course of May the company has issued three RNSs; one director purchase and two updates on Poland referring to farm-in discussion for the company’s Permian/SW Carboniferous Basin play in Poland. And no one gives a damn.

AIM is an incredible source of guaranteed wealth generation, no matter how appalling your performance is. You can watch your share price dive over 75% in the space of twelve months, safe in the knowledge your next windfall is just around the corner. Of course, these rules don’t apply to the poor saps who buy AIM stocks, but rather the boards of directors who reward themselves come what may. Tom has been on the warpath about option awards recently, but in his absence today it is my turn to take up the banner. Step forward now the directors of Max Petroleum (MXP), if you can drag yourself away from the sickbag!

Next month, on June 19th, AIM will celebrate its 19th birthday.  More now than ever before the lazy and spotty teenager, I cannot foresee the AIM Team opening the Champagne.  With the FTSE AIM All-Share Index currently standing at 801 (It kicked off on January 6th 1996 based at 1,000) the market has under-performed virtually any other across Europe over the past 12 months. 

Within a month or so, AIM-quoted Armadale Capital (ACP) hopes to have completed its transformation from a company with interests in cleaning up mines in South Africa to one backing fully fledged gold mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere. Whether this brings about a rehabilitation of Armadale’s shares, which have lost 99 per cent of their value since floating as Watermark Global at 10p eight years ago, with a treatment for acidic water in the mines of South Africa’s Witwatersrand, depends on two projects which the company’s present management is pushing ahead.