Online wine retailer Virgin Wines UK (VINO) has made a trading update including noting “customers acquired during the Covid lockdown period continue to perform strongly. We were delighted to ship more than 7 million bottles of wine during the period and to deliver sizeable growth in our customer base with strong levels of customer conversion and retention… net cash balance of £13.6m at 31 December 2021”. So then why a current share price of 155p, down 22.5%!?

Whilst we wait for the Bank of England to (sensibly) raise interest rates for the second time since December, the global corporate results season aggressively continues. Whilst I will ignore the volatility in the Meta (aka Facebook) share price dump overnight as I have never invested in the stock, one I do know about is BT Group (BT.A) whose share price is down over 3% today to under a 190p price as I write. So how do I feel about this stock?

Lucian Miers and myself have repeatedly called out Cineworld (CINE) as a compelling short and those who have followed our calls have prospered. But the FT, the home of almost every wrong call in history from backing the UK joining the Euro to selling its gold in 1997, runs a story “Cineworld debt pile set to save cinema operator from bankruptcy.” You might think this is a reason to buy. Au contaire. A resting banksta writes to me to explain.

Hello Share Fans. It’s been a while since I last brought Tritax Big Box (BBOX) before your quizical gaze. Since then the state-of-the art storage company has had a successful fundraising. And for once, this seems a beneficial event for shareholders. The cash raised will be used to buy loads more properties to rent out into a soaring market.

Logistics group DX (DX.) states that it “is pleased to provide an update on trading for the 26 weeks ending 1 January 2022” and that a “pipeline of new business opportunities remains extremely healthy”. Good news?

AIM-listed jam-tomorrow investment company Tern plc (TERN) announced yesterday that investee Talking Medicines had raised £1.59 million from a fundraise – including £400,000 from Tern. The company trumpeted that the value of its investment had therefore headed north from £0.86 million to £1.79 million. Is it time for the TERNers to crack open the Ouzo?

The Mrs reckons that having to do 4 hours of commuting a week for about 30 weeks a year is a fundamental breach of her human rights. How lucky she is never to have experienced the joys of 60 minutes twice a day on the London Underground as so many of us have done. The photo below is a remider of City life pre WFH. Do folks really want to go back to this?

I start with Hitpiece  – the latest NFT scam. Aren’t all NFT’s scams? I discuss the ephemeral nature of contemporary music as an asset class. Then onto Amigo (AMGO) where – with the shares surging – it is surely ‘a mega’ short. Then it is onto regulatory and ethical failure at Braveheart (BRH) and Chamberlin (CMH), the common links being the scumbag Trevor Brown and the scallywags at Peterhouse Capital. Then on to more regulatory failure at Chill Brands (FRAUD) before I take along look at UK SPAC (SPC) and all who sail in her. Finally a few words on Optibiotix (OPTI) where I plan to catch up with Steve O’Hara later today.

Foundry and engineering company Chamberlin (CMH) “is pleased to announce that it has conditionally raised £1.8 million… at a placing price of 5 pence per share with institutional and other investors”… and the shares have currently responded down by more than 27%. So what’s going on?…

Just under a week ago I talked about Headlam Group (HEAD), noting I have been a bit of a fanboy after doubling my holding during 2020 but I had a couple of questions for the company at an upcoming planned conference call (despite last week’s update observing “profit slightly ahead of expectations, with strong cash generation…Early trading in 2022 has been encouraging…has continued to be able to largely mitigate the persisting industry wide supply issues and associated inflationary pressures”). However because it was the first day of February and hence I was a bit busy, I did not make the live call. However – thanks to the power of the internet – I caught up with it earlier today. So what did I think?

It is house broker so it is paid to be bullish and so feel free to ignore everything that follows. None the less, as a loyal shareholder myself, I agree with the valuation in a note out yesterday from Cenkos on Optibiotix (OPTI) commenting on its latest news. The note reads:

Over a month has passed since the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) issued its 31 December 2021 trading update promising inventory monetisation revenue was due shortly.  In January 2022 the sole RNS was the notification of the issue of 594 million shares in respect of the December loan note repayment. I suppose it all depends on what you mean by “shortly.”

It is some time since I last commented on SDX Energy (SDX), in fact it was over 2 ½ years ago when I last hammered the keyboard to record my views on this company. How time flies when Covid lockdowns stop one going to parties. Regardless, yesterdays RNS really was an ouzo moment when one looks at some of the detail. 

Since the Standard List is regulated – no sniggering at the back –  by the wretched FCA, lying to investors about the nature of a transaction is probably not considered to be a problem. Here is a deception and rule breach served up by the soon to be insolvent fraud Chill Brands (CHLL) on December 20 2021.

Hello Share Rattlers. I’ve commended Strix Group (KETL) to you before but lately this maker of kettle bits has not been one of my more illustrious calls. It’s down by a third compared to the second half of last year. But the fall, connected to perceived supply and transport issues together with the rising cost of raw materials, seems to me unjustified.

In today’s bearcast I discuss Cineworld (CINE), Gulf Keystone (GKP), Chill Brands (CHLL), Omega Diagnostics (ODX), Vast Resources (VAST), Joules (JOUL) and the dreadful grammar of the younger brother of London’s worst Nomad, Roland “fatty” Cornish. How many BP’s does Michael think there are 2, 3, 27? 

Previously writing on drinks company with brands including IRN-BRU, Rubicon and Funkin A.G. Barr (BAG), in November with the shares at 520p I concluded that whilst a long-term buy looks cogently arguable, still just on my watchlist. The shares last closed just below 500p, but a trading update today has helped them back across this level – so what’s the latest?…

The good doctor Teeling, boss of Botswana Diamonds (BOD) is, as you many know, the only AIM CEO to have seen me naked. But today it is Dr Teeling who is left exposed having been let down, as predicted here, by the scoundrels at worthless POS Vast Resources (VAST). A good Nomad would have warned him against engaging with such wastrels but Dr Teeling uses the services of London’s worst Nomad, Roland “fatty” Cornish. Enough said.

Another month starts and – no doubt – more corporate share price excitement will be apparent. As a boring active investor with over five years (at least!) before I can access my pension fund, I am genuinely excited about prospects as it is clearly far from being a boring passive investment world nowadays. Here is the less good news though, I doubt if even a third of stocks are even moderately interesting. Clearly we are shifting closer to the world of Japan with ageing populations, high debt levels, boring economic growth progress…and only one in ten of the stocks that you appraise being interesting. And that brings me to today’s updates from James Halstead (JHD) and Joules Group (JOUL).

The real issue with the fraud Chill Brands (CHLL) is that it could run out of cash within two weeks. It is teetering on the verge of insolvency: the FCA IS NOW looking closely at interims from last week which imply that THREE trading statements in 2021 announced, what are now, clearly bogus sales and meanwhile its main ramper, the lying rule breaking John Story who said the shares would go to £25 is bailing as fast as he can. Today we have news from Spreadex.