We are seeing a few weeks of rest in the junior mining space, and many are predicting a massive rally this fall. Markets move up when there are more buyers than sellers, and down when the opposite occurs. Both the metals, and mining equities markets are extremely well bid. If there is a break in the market it’s likely to be on the upside, not the downside. That is the key message from Rick Rule of Sprott in this week's podcast from Palisade Capital

Ever heard of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande? It’s a brilliant book about how to get things right when you’re performing complex and important tasks - whether that’s flying an airplane, performing surgery, or even making investments.

Prodigious cash-burning machine (sorry, services platform and marketplace group), blur (BLUR) “is pleased to present its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2016”. Hmmm – this with the shares down from a start of the year 17p (and much, much higher when we first started warning) to a current little more than 7p…

All Right. I know I am in incurable bull. But it is an attitude which has served me well over the years. Enough to make a living out of trading shares, anyway. We are in a gradual bull market now. This surprises a lot of folk, because the Brexit vote was expected to hit business hard. And yet - and this puzzles me, too - the Footsie has not been as high as it is now for a long, long time. It’s now only a whisper off its all time high record 

Great news - may father is back home from hospital so I head back up to Warwickshire in a couple of days. Thereafter between him and the Mrs entering the final month it will be less of me, Steve Moore is in charge. Bash him if anything goes wrong. In today's podcast I look at City of London (CIN), IGAS (IGAS), XCite Energy (XEL), Wishbone Gold (WSBN), Nyota (NYO) and West African Minerals (WAFM).

With Toscafund having last month requisitioned a General Meeting to seek the removal of Chairman Jan Astrand from, and appointment of David Shearer to, the board of Speedy Hire (SDY) and earlier this week further hitting out in an Open Letter, the tools, equipment and plant hire and support services company has today published a General Meeting notice - and hit back...

Volution Group (FAN) is another by-product of that IPO glut around 2014, when private equity funds found plenty of willing buyers for a wide range of businesses.

“MediaZest (MDZ), the creative audio-visual company, is pleased to provide shareholders with final results for the year ended 31 March 2016… Best ever financial results with turnover of £3,144,000 and EBITDA profit of £58,000”. Hmmm, let’s take a closer look…

As the share price of Forte Energy (FTE) keeps dropping as the BOS Global RTO approaches, as even long-suffering shareholders think some cash today is worth more than nothing tomorrow, I’ll have one last dig (for now) at something really riling me with this stock and that is the total misuse of the term “Fintech”.

Shares in Edenville Energy (EDL) have been marked lower today at 0.02p on news that the company plans a capital re-organisation such that the nominal value of its shares goes from 0.2p to 0.0002p. In itself this means nothing but the clear implication is that the confetti blizzard of share issuances will accelerate.

Shares in Avanti (AVN) peaked at c50p following the reports in the FT that Inmarsat (ISAT) might have considered a 140p bid, a claim that seems ludicrous given the fact that Avanti is drowning in debt and needs a refinancing within weeks or it is tits up time. The shares have now drifted back to 37.375p today. Folks are starting to panic...perhaps they have looked at the bonds.

The recent low oil prices have not only affected companies producing the commodity, but also others which rely on prices being high in order for their own products to be competitive. AIM-listed Quadrise Fuels (QFI) offers a good alternative investment for anyone who is confident that oil prices will ultimately recover, but who is looking for something a bit different to the traditional earlier-stage oil and gas investments around.

Hello Share Touchers. The medical world is going to keep on expanding as new cures and treatments come on the market in the wake of huge scientific advances these days. I once wrote articles for a big global company on efforts to defeat the common cold. I also wrote a popular book on the subject, called Attishoo.

A trading update for the six months ended 31st July 2016 from Card Factory (CARD) notes “we remain as convinced as ever of the strong growth prospects for the business”, though describes a trading performance “lower than our normal levels”. Hmmm...

It’s been three months since I covered Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Corporation (CCH), the Greek-International bottling company with a monopoly on selling Coke in Eastern Europe, the Eastern Med, Russia and Nigeria.

Marketing services group, St Ives (SIV) has made a “Trading Statement” announcement including that results for its year ended 29th July 2016 “are expected to be in line with current market expectations” - and the shares are currently approaching 24.5% higher, at 122.25p, in response. Hmmm…

Firstly I have a problem with my box set of "The Omen" and ask for your help. I then discuss in light of today's three legal scoops with documents falling into my paws ( Strat Aero - HERE, Iofina - HERE and Golden Saint Resources - HERE) the 3Xs who help investigative journalists do their job and my encounters with all three on Quindell and other cases. At a company level I look at: Card factory (CARD), Iofina (IOF), Noricum Gold (NMG), Avanti Communications (AVN) and xCite Energy (XEL) and i also discuss why Cloudtag (CTAG) shareholders are like a swarm of wasps and what that means.  

Is this the reason that Cyril d'Silva quit as boss of AIM POS Golden Saint Resources (GSR) on 10 February 2016 - a court judgement against him in Singapore for £1.6 million plus interest from 27 January 2016.

I previously concluded on John Lewis of Hungerford plc (JLH) that it was not a surprise, considering the track record and earnings performance and balance sheet position the latest results show, that the shares were further lower at 0.95p. The following updates with them now at 0.92p on the back of a “Showroom closures” announcement, but can investors now be more optimistic here?

AIM Rule 11 states that listed companies must notify investors via an RNS of material developments. But it seems that cash munching, drowning in debt, piece of Turkish Iofina (IOF) does not think the rules apply to it. No doubt it is aware that the Oxymorons at AIM Regulation won't enforce anything so it has opted NOT to tell you about a US legal setback on Monday.