The £3.5m record remains intact to attack

My best ever investment has been Golden Prospect perhaps twenty years ago where I was urged on by my pal, Richard Lockwood, a director and co-founder of the company. Family Cawkwell made £3.5m. Which result struck me as unlikely to be beaten.

However, it nearly was yesterday when the 550,000 shares in Avesco (LON:AVS) that I had picked up for Family Cawkwell, starting at Minus 90p (Minus because I paid 25p and subsequently received a 115p special dividend), got a 650p cash bid. I am however sorry to have to disclose that most of the stock had been sold on the way up. Silly me. And a very good example of selling the good shares to pay for the bad shares. On the other hand, the £3.5m record remains intact to attack. Beats doing the crossword.

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I had no sooner submitted copy to the editor that I was out of pocket on my 10 Yr UK Gilt Dec Future than the Gods intervened. One was Janet Yellen remarking that higher USD interest rates are on the way and the other has been the BoE insisting that buy-to-let investors pay more of their own money and borrow less when acquiring such properties.


This is not because the BoE fancies being a killjoy in relation to the sport of buy-to-letting but because the BoE knows full well that higher interest rates will hit such borrowers very hard such that society may feel compelled to sort out the mess. It’s a signal don’t you know.

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I stared at Churchill Mining (LON:CHL) for another half day or so and decided against all known reasons to buy a further 100,000 at 38p. So far so good.

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Finally, having had my IG Index account closed by some mad lawyer within that organisation some seven or so years ago I managed to reopen it. I celebrated (if that is the right word) by shorting FeverTree (LON:FEVR) at 1,055p. I reckon the buyers are all momentum traders. The trouble is that when the momentum stops how do they get out?