I thought I’d do a brief update on the first of my share ideas for 2018 – AIM-listed Bowleven (BLVN). Brief, because not much corporate news has come out, but there were a couple of interesting TR-1s. Tipped at around 30-31p, the shares were 32.7-32.9p at Friday’s close – it’s higher (good) but I don’t think I’ll be selling yet to cash in the odd penny!

Hello, Share Peckers. I’ve just recently named three of my shares I have high hopes for. So to balance the boat, I’ll now nominate a trio of not-so-hopeful members of my portfolio. Three shares that I plan to sell as soon as the market indicates the best time.

I noted yesterday that Blue Prism (PRSM) was one of the most shorted shares on AIM. And having had a butchers at the numbers I can see why.

It can be difficult just buying and holding a share at times, especially when nothing is really happening with the share price and many of its peers are seeing large rises.

Again Carillion (CLLN) dominates the news and the political class is talking utter tosh with our useless Prime Minister Mrs May leading the way. By way of contrast Luke Johnson is superb in his Sunday Times Column today. Luke for PM before it is too late.

It being the weekend, I thought I would take a break from stock specifics and make a few observations about a brilliant film that I watched recently on Netflix that I would recommend to anyone interested in investing, and particularly short-selling, as it tells the fascinating true story of Bill Ackman’s costly billion dollar short against alleged pyramid scheme, Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).

If you listened to my bearcast of yesterday you will be in no doubt that I am aa big bear of Dignity (DTY) based on some simple maths. I take my hat off to a ShareProphets reader (Buy100ozSilver) for his maths in our comments section. His ( or her) post merits a wider audience.

A note popped into my inbox with regard to the demise of Carillion. At first glance, it seems we’ve all been here before – way back in 1990 (when even Tom Winnifrith was a young man). For Carillion today, read Coloroll then.

It's been 18 months now since I cut the (virtual) cord with Sky TV (SKY) and I can't say that I have missed anything, except a £50 per month-ish bill. It's been replaced by Freeview, at the impressive price of free, and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) at £6.99 per month. 

In today's bearcast I take inspiration from Roger Lawson looking at the sins of KPMG at Carillion (CLLN) and EMIS (EMIS), not to mention Quindell (QPP). What to do?  I look more at Dignity (DTY) and conclude that - having examined numbers from Beyond - the company is fecked. I look at the dumbest snowflake financial journalist going - natch he works for the Daily Mail. And I wonder should one follow the bears, I review the most shorted stocks on AIM and the main market including IQE (IQE), Debenhams (DEB) and Telit (TCM) 

KEFI Minerals (KEFI) has updated on the most recent quarter, including on Tulu Kapi project financing and that “the final Tulu Kapi project models were agreed within the consortium and uploaded into the formal financing data rooms. They show some improvements for shareholders, as compared with recent company guidance”…

Gold is positioned for a major breakout in 2018 and the gold stocks and Silver are not far behind. That is the claim of Jordan Roy Byrne the Technical Analyst at Palisade. In the video below he demonstrates his thesis  by analyzing 6 different charts and the key resistance levels these markets could test very soon.

The current exuberant mood of the market has thrown up some great opportunities for bears as well as bulls on AIM recently. But for bears they are not for the faint hearted. Timing is particularly difficult when shorting rubbish and, particularly in these times, it pays to drip feed into a position and to maintain plenty of margin. Even then it is not unusual for a stock to double against you as happened to me recently with Online Blockchain (OBC)

From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2017 and thus far in 2018 (by net short position %) - and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...

As I anticipated in my RM2 International (RM2) piece yesterday, the December monthly updates finally came out yesterday afternoon and I thought it appropriate to provide monthly updates on The Big Short in conjunction with those each month so here goes. Quick summary: it’s not getting any easier for Woodford.

I see that former ShareProphets AIM-China Filthy Forty play Taihua (TAIH) (note former, as it left AIM via tha HaraKiri route last May) has had an unfortunate missive from Companies House. This, of course, was yet another AIM-China play festooned in Red Flags, but an EGM waved through the AIM delisting as shareholders were told that major shareholders Messers Yin and Liu had signified their intent to purchase ordinary shares from other shareholders after the delisting.

Hello Share Twiddlers. We’re still in a bull phase. And as I’ve argued recently, we could stay in this happy state for most of this year. But even when most sectors are rising, there are some that won’t fare so well. Here then is my idea of sectors which might scintillate and others that may fail.

Goldplat (GDP) has confirmed modification to option terms with Ashanti Gold for the Anumso gold project and a Memorandum of Understanding with Rand Refinery for a proposed full and final settlement agreement...

Though stating the noted balance sheet means the company is able to ride out a trading storm and we continued to like it long-term, the Nifty Fifty opted to play it safe and downgrade to sell on toys, games and giftware group Character (CCT) last month – noting a reliance on recovery amidst self-admitted “tough trading conditions” was already a clear risk and there now the Toys ‘R’ Us UK restructuring too. Today, an AGM trading update…

Carpet and floor coverings retailer, Carpetright (CPR) has updated on trading for the 11 weeks ended 13th January – commencing that “trading in the important post-Christmas period has been significantly behind expectations” and also including “the severity of the decline in footfall over this key trading period and our more cautious view of the outlook for the balance of the year leads to a significant reduction in our full year expectations”. What does this mean in terms of financials?...