Evil Diaries

Some you win and some you lose

Some you win and some you lose

1 mins. to read

Ultra Electronics (LON:ULE) looks to me to have gone wrong. I certainly would not buy it and am minded to sell it. Now £12.30. However, for the pension plan I keep on shorting Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA). TSLA is descending into farce and is as close to a gimme as I have ever encountered in the market.…

Idaho is mine

Idaho is mine

1 mins. to read

Phoenix Global Mining (LON:PGM) yesterday reported encouraging drill results for its to-be-revived copper mine in Idaho. Apparently there are further figures due within, say, a fortnight or three weeks. PGM was IPO’ed at 4p about four months ago, raising £4 million. There is £2.5 million left in contrast to a capitalisation of c. £9 million.…

You bet I have

You bet I have

1 mins. to read

HM Government have avoided prescribing betting limits for FOBTs. Instead there is to be a twelve week phase of gasbaggery, styled consultation. The range of permissible maximum bets is £2 to £50. Faites vos jeux. My bet is that the maximum will be set at £50 which in practice is the maximum anyway since even…

No Sex Please, We’re British

No Sex Please, We’re British

1 mins. to read

Quite how HSBC (LON:HSBA) this morning records higher profits I do not know. My personal experience of this bank in recent times not merely on my own account but also that of others persuades me that HSBC has a death wish. ***** Pay no attention to Hexagon AB‘s (STO:HEXA-B) rise on Friday. The fraud is…

Administration beckons at Interserve

Administration beckons at Interserve

2 mins. to read

There is a sequence in things. Take Interserve (LON:IRV) which announced a general cock-up on Thursday last. The shares tanked to 55p at which point I sold short. The following day IRV announced a contract win with DWP. The shares closed at 75p on the Friday. Today IRV announce a contract win at the BBC.…

And the winner is…

And the winner is…

1 mins. to read

I blundered yesterday by buying Acacia (LON:ACA) at 247p after it announced that the Government of Tanzania had come to a settlement with it. Some settlement. Basically GoT had decided to nick ACA’s future earnings by one means or another. So they had started off by a ridiculous claim for back taxes and in effect…

Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia

2 mins. to read

In the light of events in and around Catalonia I reached for George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. It is a truly astonishing book (£6 on Amazon) in that Orwell was only 34 years or so old when he wrote it and here recounts his involvement on the Republican or socialist side in the appalling Spanish…

I must be missing something

I must be missing something

1 mins. to read

I must be missing something but there has been a huge miss or fail on deliveries/completions of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) cars. In normal circumstances this should have pole-axed the share price but in fact there has been only a marginal decline. Very odd. But there is the sweetener in that the short sell opportunity remains and…

It’s starting to get hotter

It’s starting to get hotter

1 mins. to read

My generation laments the passing of Sabrina, born Norma Sykes, named after the daughter of the King of Britain and drowned in the river Severn. She was, she claimed, the Manchester junior breaststroke champion but I think she was kidding: she was surely the world senior breaststroke champion. If in doubt, just look at her…

Gold has perked up

Gold has perked up

2 mins. to read

Rather to my surprise (I needed surprising) gold has perked up this morning. I bought more. If the Catalonians today elect to backpedal on independence the final collapse of the Euro (and thus the perfect backdrop for a vertiginous rise of gold) is deferred. Thus some would say that it is premature to buy gold.…