1570 days ago
My first article about the Greek Hovel 2020 is now up and there are a stack more to follow. In today’s podast, I look at Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV), Hammerson (HMSO), Versarien (VRS), and Purplebricks (PURP).
3242 days ago
Each year my friend Richard Poulden produces a very thought provoking New Year Newsletter and the 2016 edition is a stormer. It is also the most pessimistic I have seen yet. Pour yourself a stiff glass of whiskey and brace yourself.
3605 days ago
In today's podcast I refer to the excellent Black Swan 2015 review by Richard Poulden which you should all read. I cover the issue of how low the oil price could go but also what we as investors should assume that it will be. I touch on IGAS and Northern Petroleum (both shorts). And the I look at the issue of what constitutes market abuse in the Bulletin Board Moron community
3648 days ago
Hmmmm. Lots of low grade Aim stocks are flying, the FTSE 100 is nearly at all-time highs, there is a lot of rubbish being spouted about a Santa Rally coming early and I am stuck in Greece preparing to start the olive harvest tomorrow when I should be punting rubbish on AIM making a killing. Right? Wrong.
Clearly sentiment among investors has changed. Fear has been booted out of the building and greed has waddled back in. But is the world really a different place to where it was six weeks ago when Fear was ruling the roost? For me all the Black Swan potential events floated by market commentators as shares tumbled in October were peripheral issues. Sure Ebola could have caused problems if it broke out in Balham or Brooklyn. But that was not my real gripe with the bulls. I still think that one wild card – an ISIL atrocity in NY or London - could spook investors badly.
But my fundamental concern
4275 days ago
My latest article on SME business tips from 24n.biz is now live..
You think that life is going well, revenues pick up, costs are static, your bank manager loves you and then a Black Swan not only offloads on you from a great height but then just launches a kamikaze full frontal attack. It is the unexpected.
About five years ago, the offices of the company I ran at that stage burned to the ground. That was an unexpected early morning wake up call. This week just ended, I suffered the total failure of my laptop so snagging my writing and then the shutdown of the Pizza Oven at Real Man Pizza, my Clerkenwell based quirky Celtic Italian restaurant – that put it out of action for three days. All in all it was not a great week for cashflow generation.
4302 days ago
This is the annual letter sent out by my friend Richard Poulden. This year – as every year – we wil hold a 10 minute debate at the UKInvestor Show – I am not sure of the subject matter yet but it is always sparky. I am not sure that I agree 100% on China but on Europe we are at one. No debate there. Over to Richard:
“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation” – Alan Greenspan, 1966
“Keep a clear head and always carry a light bulb” – Bob Dylan, 1965
Yesterday morning in Dubai was foggy: thick, gooey, 12-metre visibility stuff. As I drove my daughter to school , I said: “Let’s see how many cars we can find driving without lights”.
“Come on”, she said, “no one could be THAT stupid”
“Oh yes they could”, I said, “I’m going for a starter of three”.
Well we found three cars in the space of a few blocks. As we hit Sheik Zayed Road where the traffic in the fast lane was still doing 120km, she said: “OK, this is crazy, let’s go for 8 or 12”.
“That’s fine”, I said, “but I want to go for the big one: I want to find the European Union…. I want to find a bus..or a large sewage tanker”……and we did.
The gurus at Deutsche Bank published a study
