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Even a few of our detractors have now come around
I noted at the beginning of this month that AIM-listed Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO) needs to get a fundraise away pronto, but that its shares were threatening to drop below the nominal price of 25p, below which it cannot issue new shares by law. On Friday the shares closed at 24p (mid) and I would suggest that Advanced – or, rather, its shareholders – have a big problem.
The IPO of Oxford Nanopore (ONT) was Christmas came early for the brokers involved.. Raising £1.87 billion of either new cash or from flogging shares for exiting shareholders at 425p will have generated almost £90 million in commission which, even in these inflationary times, will buy an awful lot of coke and upper class hookers. To support such an exercise there were numerous enthusiastic buy notes. So with the shares now at 577p should we believe the bullshit buy notes?
Hello, Share Kickers. There aren’t many sensible strategies in Crazyland that ignore the sound principals of a company that are known as ‘the fundamentals.’ But my favourite ploy falls into this rare category. It’s the fabled financial proverb ‘The Trend is your Friend’. It’s made me a lot of money over the years and when I’ve ignored it, well, it’s cost me a load of gelt, too.
Notwithstanding a £4.2 million placing at 0.2p back in June, UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) is now running on vapours. The question is not if it will do another bailout placing but when? And “news”, I use the term in the loosest possible sense, today suggests that Lyin’ Steve Sanderson et al are preparing to pass the hat around, yet again, very soon. There are already 10.97 billion shares in issue but brace yourself for another tsunami of worthless confetti to be arriving shortly.
Now in its 24th year the annual obscenity that is the AIM Awards Dinner is now just six days away. Tickets cost £200 a pop and Nomads, brokers, lawyers, accountants and PR firms snap up all 1200 of them. It is an osbcene beanfeast for the crony capitalists.
On Monday I revealed HERE that Bahamas Petroleum (BPC) was trying to raise $25 million and had already had to cut the price from 1.4p to 1.2p. Bahamas tried to deny there was a placing afoot via RNS but I published an email in response calling that out as a GREAT BIG FUCKING LIE HERE. Oh dear, it seems that things have gone from bad to worse.
Hello, Share Scrimpers. Opening a letter from one of my brokers I discovered that a company I’d long given up on was paying me a special dividend of 6p a share. As I only hold 13 shares apparently, I benefit by 78p. I wish there was a way of getting rid altogether, but to sell this piddling number of shares would probably cost me much more than I’d get back.
The Sheriff of AIM is surely entitled to a celebratory breakfast ouzo at his hovel in North Wales? On Wednesday I flagged up a profits warning from the Krauts at Siltronic and suggested that IQE (IQE) was likely to follow. Less than 48 hours later the Cardiff dog duly barks. As a long term bear I have repeatedly warned silly sell side analysts, Thirsty Paul Scott and others that this company is a crock…once again I stand vindicated. And so to detail….it is grim.
Once upon a time, with its shares at 82p, Sound Energy (SOU) was valued at c£500 million. But no institutions were backing it, this was just a ruthless private investor ramp. It worked but you cannot keep plates spinning forever and drill failures in Italy and Morocco brought the shares crashing down. Today there was a final kick in the gonads for the mug punters suckered in by CEO James Parsons and others.
There has been a lot of talk on social media recently about a petition to ban the short selling of AIM listed stocks - although it currently only has a little over 3,200 signatures, including a few CEOs, and is well short of the 10,000 needed to even get the government to respond – 100,000 are needed for a Parliamentary debate...
I know. I know. The price of coke and also of hookers is going up. I blame Brexit. What we need are frictionless borders so we can import more of both from Albania to keep the City boys happy. Pro tem that means brokers need to hold their noses (so to speak) and act for anyone. Even proven shysters like Tomco (TOM).
In this week’s article, we review five key trading updates made in November so far, and analyse how brokers and tipsters have interpreted the most recent figures.
This week, we use the 38,000+ stock tips currently performance-tracked on the Stockomendation platform to analyse the relationship between a company’s size and the level of scrutiny it typically receives from brokers and tipsters.
That insolvent Andalas Energy (ADL) is undertaking a placing is no shock. It is insolvent with negative net current assets of at least £400,000 but thanks to some fairly sordid share ramping it has managed to raise a gross £1 million at 0.02p. The ramping of shares in this company with worthless assets is pretty unpleasant but what is laid bare in the news is the sheer greed of City advisers notably brokers Novum – of Jon Belliss and Gavin “I made £750k from Globo - Burnell infamy – and Optiva.
June saw over 1,300 new stock tips and broker ratings captured and performance-tracked on the Stockomendation platform, across 22 unique brokers and 36 individual tipsters. Tip activity in June was almost exactly the same as May, and represents an increase of 51% on the number of tips tracked during the same period last year.
Since we started performance-tracking stock tips on our platform, Stockomendation has captured over 14,000 individual broker ratings. From this, we can draw inferences from broker activity and identify companies and sectors that are busier than we’d typically expect. Out of curiosity, we ran some analysis this week using data from January 2015 to June 2018, to see which sectors receive a higher than average number of recommendations for each month in the year. Our research produced some interesting, and unexpected, finds.
With all the usual rampers including the infamous Big Gib, invited to participate, I can reveal that worthless piece of crap AIM Andalas (ADL), currently 0.019-0.02p, is endeavouring to raise up to £1 million at 0.017p. Methinks there is now going to have to be an emergency RNS at 7 AM. For the story gets even more interesting...
On 17th October long suffering shareholders in Strat Aero (AERO) will be asked to approve a 1 for 10 subdivision of their shares in order to get a refinancing away. But the maths now look so bleak that one asks if the fat lady should pitch up to the GM as she could well be called on to sing very soon indeed. As a reminder...
This is not the first time that Buishveld Minerals (BMN) has engaged in truly sordid and shoddy ramping to get a placing away. Perhaps you remember this expose HERE which allowed me to crack a massively tasteless joke about blow jobs. The point is that pre-placing ramping back last fall left those suckered in with a really bad taste in the mouth. Wind forward to yesterday.
Thanks to a last minute sponsorship from China, where the financial director of Aquatic Foods (AFG) has walked out, we're pleased to open another round of AIM's favourite game show: Who is the Bulletin Board Moron of the Week!? Maybe we could start by naming the brokers who usrged folk to buy this stock? Did the Investor Chronicle tip the shares or is this the 1 China fraud it did not promote?
The revelations this week about how both Teathers Financial (TEA), notably HERE & HERE, and the former manager at Wandisco (WAND), HERE, have pillaged shareholder funds to allow management, their wives and pals to live the high life have been shocking. That the Teathers boys thought racking up a bar tab in one night which was greater than the UK average post tax monthly wage just shows how distorted was their value set. But this is the tip of a very enormous iceberg on AIM and among the crony capitalists who service AIM Companies. And it's all your money. I write today not to expose but to call for specific changes.
I covered IRN-BRU maker AG Barr (BAG) last month, discussing why I thought the company was fundamentally sound despite some recent headwinds. Today, I’m coming off the fence and rating it as a Buy ahead of Tuesday's interim results.
Environmental Recycling Technologies (ENRT) was slung off AIM today. But the former 3DM is not telling you something rather more serious which happened 11 days ago. This is a fraud that is now officially dead;. It has cost mug punters £65 million. I explain why it is a fraud (as I did back in 2005) and I name all of those on the roll call of shame including FSA (now FCA) officials who failed investors, nomads, brokers, tipsters, managers. And I explain my next step - write to the SFO.
Beaufort Securities is joint broker to grossly over-ramped Advanced Oncotherapy (AVO). That means a fat retainer and also a good slug of the commission earned for the regular placings this company needs to keep paying its bloated boardroom payroll and other costs. The commission on the May 2015 fundraise at 8p would have been £1 million. Coke & hookers all round! Except for the shareholders, that is, as the share price is now 5.25p and its going to fall further as the next placing is imminent. So how do you ramp a stock ahead of a placing?
Hello Share Bunnies. Tullow Oil (TLW) shares I've held a long time. Too long, as it turned out. Not many years ago they doubled my outlay in a year or two. Then, like nearly all other big oilers they were hit a year ago, or so by the big black stuff crash. Actually the share had been on the back foot before that. But I reckon Tullow could be on the march again. Over the last few days, the advancing oil price has decided to take a rest. But not for long, I fancy. You can see my reasons in a few recent examples of my modest Shareprophets column.
Why are shares in TrakM8 (TRAK) plunging. This is not a "Winni-wobble." The company needs to make a statement either officially or via its spokesman on earth, Paul Scott. Elsewhere, after a visit to Mistra which was amazing, I look at Gulf Keystone (GKP), death merely postponed, Avanti Communications (AVN ) - ditto - Edenville Energy (EDL) ditto and Cyan (CYAN) where I explain who is shafting Joe Retail: brokers and management.
If you didn’t know that the AIM market was highly regulated by the FCA, you could be forgiven for thinking that some companies exist purely to generate fees for the directors and brokers.
One of the most honest and decent Nomads in town emails me after a visit to his local Chrurch where he reflects on his service of Mammon. He writes:
In the annual report from the Herald Investment Trust top fund manager Katie Potts does not hold back. Katie sounds like me without the bad language. She states:
Nomad & broker SP Angel has today stated that it will not be sending us any more research and so we can no longer bring you its daily mining note. Why have we been cut off?
Yesterday I asked you to identify the odd one out in the four pictures below: The England Rugby team, David Lenigas, Market-makers Winterfloods and the City Nomads, brokers and PRs celebrating at their annual Christmas party and YOU ALL GOT IT WRONG but there were some good answers anyway HERE.
Earlier today I stated that Motive TV (MTV) was set to raise £400,000 at 0.1p and was passing the hat around. Well almost right, I guess I forced the company’s hand as the shares started to crumble and so it closed the book early and after hours announced that it had raised £350,000 at 0.125p. Given that the shares closed at 0.185p (but were trading at 0.22p as the placing was being done until I ruined the party) the discount is still enormous. This is a 22 billion rum ‘n coke – the statement published shows that someone is avin a bubble.
A free meal for two at Free Speech & Liberty Pizza House in Clerkenwell is the prize in this week's contest. On the 19th the crony capitalists will be celeberating AIM's 20th birthday. How they will celebrate with black tie events, champagne, coke and hookers all paid for you.. the mug punters.
The forward selling of placing shares has been a pet hate of mine for a long time, and I think it is time that the FCA and London Stock Exchange did something to change the rules. The recent situation with New World Oil (NEW) has been an eye-opener for many private investors – judging by the chatter on Twitter and the bulletin boards – and many seem genuinely amazed that this practice is even legal and seems to be the norm!
Tom last night published this charming bear cast. Buried deep within his signature potty-mouthed tirade he made some points, which demand addressing. Tom would have us believe that the poor old forward sellers should be given a gimme by the London Stock Exchange and let off the hook for the appalling losses they are going to suffer, as soon as New World Oil & Gas (NEW) resumes trading. This is wishful thinking for very simple and practical reasons, as I explain below. What is about to happen to the forward sellers of New World’s placement could prove to be the caustic cleansing experience that the Alternative Investment Market is in such desperate need of.
Commenting on the recent quarterly trading statement from online 'fast fashion' retailer ASOS plc (ASC), I concluded that it did little to improve my sceptical view on the valuation – which has been more bearish than what has seemed to be the consensus broker view. The following updates on the broker reaction to the trading update.
I was thinking, as I rode home through ghostly olive groves illuminated by a full moon, about the mindset of Daniel Stewart employees who want to beat me up. My crime is to point out the fact that they have earned vast sums by floating and raising money for frauds, so screwing ordinary AIM investors.
Hello Share Scrunchers. I read in my paper that a woman who bent down to kiss her guide dog good night, and banged her bonce on a coffee table, can now see again. How’s that for a rare good news story!
Yesterday evening I was doing a bit of frigana chopping at the Greek Hovel and I heard a rustling in the bush I was approaching. I know enough by now to realise what was making the noise and beat a hasty retreat. But the stench of corruption on AIM tells me where the real snakes operate. It is a cesspit for crooks and crony capitalists who systematically transfer wealth from the many (mug investors) to the few (themselves). I have had enough of this for one day and am heading back to the fields to face real snakes. They are less loathsome. There is a solution but the London Stock Exchange does nothing. It is guilty of abetting financial crime by its inaction.
This October the Crony Capitalists who make money from AIM will gather to celebrate another year of making money as Nomads, brokers, PR advisers, lawyers and overpaid directors at a lavish awards dinner. The poor investors whose wealth has been transferred to the crony capitalists will not need to get their DJ’s cleaned as awards for “excellence” are handed out. But if any pissed off peasants want to revolt we suggest you nominate now for researcher of the year Mr Kevin Ashton.
Tom Winnifrith is back with a new camera if not a new rugby shirt for his video postcard and he returns to a familiar theme – that of the AIM Cesspit.
Legendary Investments (LEG) has today issued a release headlined “successful placing”. How does it define success? Meanwhile , how I define “talking complete and utter bollocks?”
