The Evil Diaries: Apple, Mothercare and Totally

The chairman told me about Apple (AAPL on Nasdaq) before the results and that he was short. The chairman has scored. This morning’s DTel’s John Ficenec considers the proposition that Apple may have become too successful for its own good. He is an elegant writer and I suspect, having been a a couple of years too early, that Apple is a great short at $125.

*****

Mothercare (MTC) offer a Q1 trading update. This business looks at long last to be getting the stock market wobbles – it hasn’t half taken its time. As regards the timing of a short I am less certain. But at 200p or more it looks pretty safe to me.

*****

I have lost so much money on Totally (TLY) that, in a sense, it might be best if I were to say nothing. But today’s half year results disclose further, if reduced, losses and also the claim that the board expects to go cash flow positive without raising further capital. Well, it is a claim.

*****

The chairman, a busy fellow, also mentioned Global Resources Investment Trust (GRIT). This started life eighteen months ago with 39m shares issued at 100p. They were issued in exchange for a ragbag of resource stock holdings (with, it must be said, £2.4m of issue expenses). The idea of vending  these holdings was to achieve liquidity. The shares now stand at 13.5p and I today bought 146,000 at 13.5p since net asset value is of the order of 37p. There are some who will still claim that this is not attractive. But the portfolio is professionally managed and this discount is simply too high. I suspect that a double discount obtains here in that the holdings are discounted absurdly into the bargain.

*****

Finally, the BBC have been considering the South African power supply crisis. The infrastructure is described as apartheid era. Had the BBC said that it is pre 1994 or the date of independence with black majority rule there might, just might, be an assumed criticism of black Africans. And that would never do.

The problem is that the Africans decline to think through this problem and get all the bribes paid properly on time to see the new plant at Medupi gets constructed. They are pathetic. As is the BBC.