This has nothing to do with shares or investing or anything. It’s the end of the weekend and we’ve organised a quick pub quiz. Grab your own beer, there are no prizes, and for Pete’s sake, no Googling! Only I get to do that. If you are so inclined, please enter your score in the comments. The highest score still won’t get a prize.

Maybe having a Tory grandee, Lord Willetts, as your chairman means that you are allowed to commit securities fraud with impunity on the AIM Casino? As I exposed yesterday HERE, that is most certainly what Verditek (VDTK) has been up to. Given that it is currently technically insolvent and its shares are being ramped on an industrial scale by disgraced tipster Mike Walters of 3DM, Polly Peck, Minmet, etc etc infamy and others, another placing must be imminent. I have today written to the Chocolate Teapots at the FCA and the Oxymorons at AIM Regulation asking it to try to, for once, stop fraud.

I haven’t written about my little portfolio of dividend muncher stocks for quite some time – 117 days to be precise. At the last count, on 13 April – in the wake of the Covid-crash – my supposedly big dividend payers which were supposed to beat the bank were underwater on a total return basis, including some top-slices, by 9%. So much for beating the bank! So how are things looking now?

Here are five long reads that have nothing to do with shares. Put the kettle on, find a comfy chair. You have the time, don’t you? 

Either way that has to be great for gold

The most read non-Tom article this week is Centamin – cracking Interims & a dividend hike to pay for the Ouzo by Nigel Somerville is at a decent number ten or number 18 including Bearcasts and Tom’s new shareshow. TW Note it is not. Look at No 1!

I start with reflections on how Boris is begging companies to get the workers back to doing a shift at the office. Sory BoJo but in this mess of your own creation you are dreaming. Then it is onto our major expose of securities fraud at Verditek (VDTK) today, where it seems that Old Mother Walters is again batting for the company with a bonkers market cap, no sales, which lies to investors, and which is technically insolvent. What’s not to like? Oh yes and the company’s chairman is a former Tory MP. More red flags than at the May Day rally in Moscow.

I have shares in Bluebird (BMV) and think that at 4.25p they are cheap. They should, IMHO, be trading at 6p and might get into double figures if it can resolve issues with its Aussie, soon to be ex, partners in Korea. But a 34.79p target price, a 69p DCF valuation, is insane as I explained in detail in bearcast yesterday HERE. But that is the target price of Align Research, which owns almost 4% of the shares, and its boss Richard Jennings wants to defend that viewpoint and being a fair man I allow him to do so.

Shares in Verditek (VDTK) have been pumped up to 18p, capitalising it at £52 million, on the back of supposed order wins. But this company is a serial liar in that regard. Its finances are shot so why does anyone buy into the nonsense?

On Thursday, I published a letter, now confirmed as genuine, from the Government of the Republic of Congo saying that Zenith Energy (ZEN) had lost its sole asset, Tilapia on June 4, something it failed to disclose to investors as it secured more funding. Still, Zenith and its newly appointed adviser, Allenby Capital, have failed to address this. Instead, we have a statement on a Cheryl Cole type deal. Let me explain.

Provider of cyber security and strategic intelligence services, Falanx (FLX) has updated its long-suffering investors with news including “sales orders were lower in April and May but began to accelerate from June onwards as organisations respond to Cyber security issues of working from home and its increased risk profile. The board is pleased that this increase in sales has continued into the second quarter of the financial year”…

From the FCA’s spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2019 and thus far in 2020 (by net short position %, those in bold not on the list at the start of 2020) – and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week…

Someone who does not have a Shareprophets subscription (so cannot see what I write or hear what I say) has been in contact to abuse me. The name rang a bell. David Dunham, Daveycaferacer. His latest missive reads:

Hello, Share Bringers. You lucky members of shareprophets.com will know that I have a soft spot for Britain’s housebuilders. Supply can’t match demand and that’s the most powerful driver of share prices you can have. But what about that virus? Well, house prices hit an all-time record last

Healthcare and industrial products group Scapa (SCPA) has updated commencing that it “has delivered FY21 Q1 revenues in the three months to 30 June 2020 well ahead of its COVID-19 scenario plan. Trading in both divisions has also continued to improve into FY21 Q2 to date” – and the shares have currently responded to 122.8p, more than 34% higher…

I start with a few notes on Covid hysteria, referring you to my earlier piece on perceived death rates HERE but also to research showing how pointless wearing face nappies is HERE. I look at R4E (R4E) and how Richard Jennings asks me to explain why Dr Green’s valuation of Bluebird Merchant (BMV) is a joke. I am a Good German and oblige. The shares, which I own, are – I believe – very cheap, but the analysis of Green is piss poor. Indeed it is so piss poor that the journalist-smearing old bastard should be fired at once. I look at Watchstone (WTG), Quindell as was, and its £63 million claim against PriceWaterhouseCoopers filed in the High Court today. I shall happily give evidence for PWC. I comment on Avacta (AVCT), Versarien (DOG), and Red Emperor (RMP).

The gold price is overdue a correction but keeps on going up. Gold shares are also overdue a correction and keep trying to slide – only to be pulled northwards again as the gold (and silver) price heads north. Do I care? Not really, because in a year’s time they will all be substantially higher. But there are some points worth making as I chew the situation over whilst relaxing on the veranda of my log cabin looking out over the woods.

Shares in Power Metal Resources (POW) have moved further higher in the last couple of days, including with “Alamo Gold Project – Exploration Commences” and “Director/PDMR Shareholding” announcements…

Last month I observed that investors in aerospace engines and military supplier Rolls-Royce (RR.) should ‘gird your loins to be tapped for an additional contribution to the coffers’ and noted there would be a lot of homework analysis for investors to be undertaking in late August when the next set of numbers is set to be declared. Well it seems that West Coast activist investor ValueAct does not have the patience to wait as it has dumped its entire holding to crystalise a massive loss. Activist investing is not always a one-way route to profitability…

At no-one is watching O’Clock last night, it was announced that Allenby Capital had agreed to act as Financial Adviser and Corporate broker to disgraced Zenith Energy (ZEN). I have confirmed that at the time of agreeing to act, Allenby had not been made aware of the letter we published yesterday appearing to show that the company had lost its only asset on June 4 and not told anyone while it carried on raising money.