Well done Next (NXT). Despite the Sunday Times suggesting a retail shocker last Sunday, the waxing and waning of the British weather helped the company to pucker up and generate a positive surprise in its full price sales metric as the company noted in its statement from earlier today:

The real problem that Carillion (CLLN) has its its balance sheet. It clearly needs a debt for equity swap and placing which will see shareholders diluted to buggery. This remains a slam dunk short. But it never rains but it pours. It seems that Carillion may have misled investors.

Finally the Nomad to the China promote created by all round spiv Darren Mercer has had enough - Strand Hanson has quit with effect from January 9 and if no replacement is found by February 9, BNN Technology (BNN) will be booted off the casino. 

Hello, Share Washers. For most of the many years I’ve traded shares, I’ve avoided any company that sells carpets. That’s because there is an extremely long-running trend to ditch wall-to-wall floor coverings (so fashionable in the sixties) in favour of more attractive and hygienic polished floorboards.

In today's podcast I discuss the nonsense at The People's Operator (TPOP), speculate at what happened and ask that the Oxymorons at AIM Regulation do something to stop this happening yet again. I look at Tomco (TOM) and the madness of Mifid, at Clear Leisure (CLP) and more blockchain insanity and at Premier Africa (PREM). I also cover MySquar (MYSQ) where we all seem agreed as to its fate.,

Having earlier noted a return to form in the top shorted London-listed shares as at the start of 2017, how was the performance of the AIM shares then shorted?

Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) is a company which I have been pretty negative on in recent times, and certainly nothing has happened to change my view on it, certainly in the shorter term.

Project management and technical consultancy WYG plc (WYG) has updated having noted in its December half-year report a build-up of working capital in Turkey and that “we expect significant cash receipts from our business in Turkey before the calendar year end”…

With the shares hovering around 3p, anyone holding options in UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) exercisable at just 0.4p but expiring on 31 December 2017 would surely exercise the lot would he not? 

Early each year, we note the top shorted London-listed shares as at the start of the year. How did 2017's perform?

Hello, Share Swiggers. As this stunning website’s most bullish trader, I must be expected to give a rosy forecast for the progress of shares in 2018. And though I began last year by saying the stocks surge would probably last only 12 months, I now extend that perky period until the last quarter of this year. Here are my reasons for believing that the Footsie will end 2018 around 9,000.

The winner of the 2017 prize competition will be revealed tomorrow. We now though open the competition for 2018 - and once again the prize is a meal with myself. If you dislike me, you can fob that meal off on someone else. All you need to do before midnight on January 1st is to post in the comments section below your stock to buy and your stock to sell for 2018 (from the LSE or AIM Casino and the stocks not to currently be suspended). Steve Moore will monitor and report back monthly on how the competition is faring. Good luck all and especially, should they enter, to our favourite semi-naked Quindell & Cloudtag owning twins Hayley & Kate Whittaker, pictured below.

AIM-listed Stanley Gibbons (SGI) published its interims on Friday 29 December – the last trading day ahead of the New Year break. Worse still, it released them at 11.07am on a stock market half day. Talk about no-one-is-watching o’clock. Unfortunately, there was plenty to watch – and none of it pleasant for the company’s shareholders.

Between December 24 and January 2 we are serving up 24 share tips of the year from our team of writers at ShareProphets. The share tips are for paying subscribers only. Next up is a sell tip, the seventh pick from Tom Winnifrith.

In this podcast I look at the threat to free speech & how it does hit financial markets as well as the wider world. I look at the end of the ZIRP and silly money era and how to play it, Unicorn hunting. I look at the advent of a selective bear market, at the unwind of the Consumer debt-fest and how to play that, I look at gold which will, I think shine, in 2018 and how you should play that. And finally I touch on the real threat to your wealth and how to prepare for a Corbyn government.

Between December 24 and January 2 we are serving up 24 share tips of the year from our team of writers at ShareProphets. The share tips are for paying subscribers only. Next up is a buy tip, the seventh pick from Tom Winnifrith.

Between December 24 and January 2 we are serving up 24 share tips of the year from our team of writers at ShareProphets. The share tips are for paying subscribers only. Next up is a sell tip, the sixth pick from Tom Winnifrith.

There are serious economic challenges coming in the near future, and they are going to change all of our lives in ways that we  haven’t even considered yet. Some good, others bad.

OK, I’m breaking all the rules – the deal was two long tips and here I am with a third tip of the year and it is five stocks and they are shorts (or at least avoids). Still, as Cynical Bear knows, rules are for breaking, and in any case we both broke the rules in our suggestions for shares looking for a Christmas surge when we named two, not one.

It's been a relaxing break and we all dread being thrown unto the breach once more tomorrow, but today, take a relaxing view out the window of our final three readers.