As you may have gathered on Tuesday, Malcolm’s long-suffering wife reckons that he has been spending too much time in The Punter’s Return and so has organised a holiday in Denmark, Sweden and Russia where Mr Stacey hopes to discover the magic money tree and an updated theme for his next novel. We left him on his way to “The Bridge”, but our senior reporter has now updated us on his progress since…

In today's bearcast I look at the danger of a stockmarket crash in light of a tweet from the great Donald Trump earlier today. I cover N4 Pharma (N4P), cue smutty schoolboy jokes as its shares flop, and then I take a detailed look at today's news from Minoan (MIN). If I was a shareholder I would be seething but should I be selling?

Following my piece this morning on Woodford (HERE), I note that Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) published its interims at the rather odd time of 9.45am today which ruins my competition to some extent. Anyway, there is some good news in there that I am happy to report but it still begs a few questions that I am also happy to ask in my general nit-picking way.

As it tries to stop its share price collapsing ahead of its much needed bailout refinancing, Frontera Resources (FRR) has announced another lie-fest, or as it terms it “shareholder update meeting followed by Q&A” on October 4. The City’s top oil analyst Zac Phillips of SP Angel is damning on this POS in his morning email but gets it 100% wrong when he says there is “Only 1 question.”

So how does it all look for Tesco (TSCO) and ITV (ITV) the morning after the night before? Back on Sunday I highlighted my concern about some upcoming strategy updates from these two FTSE-100 names. So what did they say during their investor updates yesterday...and what am I thinking now?

With the end-August portfolio listings coming out yesterday, it is time to update the story and it is not looking any rosier. In fact, quite the reverse. I think matters may be coming to a head here and I reckon Woodford needs a lucky break for once and pretty damn quickly.

Union Jack Oil (UJO) has announced results for the first half of 2018, including to “expect a very active six months for Union Jack with the drilling of the economically compelling Biscathorpe-2 conventional well and the upcoming planning processes to allow the Wressle discovery to move to development”…

Sprott is the world's best known resource investor. If stockmarkets wobble, precious metals usually flourish so this bearish note is "talking its own book". None the less Sprott analyst Tekoa Da Silva makes some valid points in this note just out. Over to the expert...

We have only been waiting three years for this and in the end it came as a complete surprise but a very pleasant one at that. At last Premaitha (NIPT) has settled its patent dispute with American bully boy giants Illumina. This bolt from the blue is great news and now means that a rapidly growing and profitable business will be, at last, valued on fundamentals and that will drive a re-rate which appears to be underway already.

Elektron Technology (EKT) has announced results for its half-year ended 31st July 2018 and that “the board retains its positive outlook for the second half and in delivering results in line with recently upgraded market expectations for the full year”. The shares have responded, er, 7% lower, at 45p – to give a market cap just shy of £84 million…

Virtually every parent will have heard those words from a deeply frustrated small voice in the back of the car … similarly any bullion dealer from investors bemoaning gold’s sideways price action, despite some pretty alarming noises from the news stations.

AIM-listed Minoan (MIN) has this morning finally announced the sale of its travel and leisure business. Hooray – that only took nine months! In many ways the deal is perhaps  a bit better than I had feared, in terms of dilution (the good), but the end result will be that Minoan is still left with £0.9 million of debt (the bad) and with the warrants associated with the loan now dropped to just 3.5p exercise the shares are off by a whopping 30% to just 3.9p and the company tells us it will have to raise more cash (the ugly). 

A couple of months on from the well-received annual results of Versarien (VRS) on 19 July, the share price has risen to even higher levels from when I initiated coverage (HERE), now valuing the graphene part of the business at well over £200 million so I thought I’d pose a simple question to CEO Neill Ricketts – how are those collaborations coming along?

As you may have gathered on Tuesday, Malcolm’s long-suffering wife reckons that he has been spending too much time in The Punter’s Return and so has organised a holiday in Denmark, Sweden and Russia where Mr Stacey hopes to discover the magic money tree and an updated theme for his next novel. We left him having just arrived at Copenhagen airport, but our senior reporter has now updated us on his progress since…

AIM-listed online ladies clothing purveyor Sosandar (SOS) had its AGM today and offered a few nuggets of information which suggest that things are pretty much on track with management expectations. Since we already know that management is “very comfortable” with the forecast numbers offered by house broker Shore Capital (I would translate that as meaning easy to beat!) and we know those numbers (see HERE). So that looks pretty positive. Mind you, we were not offered actual numbers for summer trading as the Adam Reynolds computer keyboard struck again!

An 11:25am “AGM Trading Update” from “the third largest chain of specialist retail carpet and floor covering stores in the UK”, United Carpets (UCG). This an ‘update’ not provided in previous years and now done so intra-day and with there clearly a tough UK retail climate. Hmmm…

I have had one of those days which happen all too often when I think I want to retire. Blame Laurence Smith. All is explained in this podcast. I look at today's news from Premaitha (NIPT) which is certainly a bolt from the blue, comment on the nature of corporate lying, ref Frontera (FRR), cover RM2 (RM2), Optibiotix (OPTI), Sosandar (SOS) and Online Blockchain (DOG).

“Drunken Sailor” commented to me a few days ago; “I would find it useful if you could do occasional reflective pieces on ones that go wrong and any lessons to learn from them.” OK Drunken. Here goes…

Seeing Machines (SEE), the “computer vision technology company that designs AI-powered operator monitoring systems to improve transport safety, has published its audited results for the year to 30 June 2018”. Not ‘pleased’ to do so then? – though I note “highlights” emphasising “five program awards now under contract with global OEMs to be delivered through multiple Tier 1 automotive suppliers” and “revenue up 117% to A$30.7 million”…

Ariana Resources (AAU) has announced that, having recently completed a soil sampling programme at its Ivrindi project, “seven new highly anomalous targets (exceeding 1,000ppm As) were identified within the Ivrindi tenement. Five of the newly identified targets are semi-contiguous over 1.3km and directly along strike of the main mineralised structure at the Kinik prospect, suggesting that the mineralisation continues east of the historic easternmost drill hole”…