The question of a soft or hard Brexit does not lie within UK politics but with the priorities of the EU. The EU’s number one priority is to avoid setting a precedent of successful exits – the UK election result does not change this. What is clear, however, is that Mrs May is no longer in control of the outcome; parliament will decide on whatever deal emerges.

In light of base rate increases in the US, technical analyst Jordan Roy Byrne is getting more cautious on the outlook for gold and precious metals. From a fundamental as well as a TA perspective he explains why in the latest podcast from Palisade Capital.

A “Trading Statement” announcement from Microsaic Systems (MSYS) includes Chairman Eric Yeatman commenting “we are very encouraged with the progress since our 21 March 2017 update, when we introduced our biopharma strategy, specifically around bioprocessing. We are engaging with several of the leading players in the global market for bioprocessing equipment”. However, the statement also includes that “the company now expects its H1 and full year 2017 revenue to be significantly lower than for 2016”. Hmmm…

I have been deeply troubled by the most recent lack of profits warning from AIM listed worthless POS Servision (SEV). My initial view, expressed HERE, is that in not admitting to order slippage from December for almost six months it had committed a massive breach of AIM Rules regarding timely disclosure of price sensitive news. But I fear it may be far worse than that.

Our nominations usually come from LSE.co.uk, ADVFN.co.uk, III.co.uk, and sometimes the FT. But this is the first time that our winner comes from the world of academia. And no, the author is not Tom's sociology lecturing Mrs

The demise of so many Standard Listed companies means that poor Cynical Bear has some big holes in his Sub Standard List X1 squad. But fear not, from God's chosen lands of Northern Ireland here comes Rockpool Acqusitions which will list in early July having raised £1.5 million at 10p.

Hello Share Bottlers. You may, or may not, have noticed that I currently favour insurance companies. And following my own advice for once, I am now sitting on cracking profits on two of the biggest, Legal & General (LGEN) and RSA (RSA). I would still commend both these entities to your further inspection. However, I now turn the spotlight on a smaller, newer and more specialised insurance player.

We're looking for exemplary examples of sheer stupidity from those founts of brilliance; LSE.co.uk, III.co.uk and ADVFN.co.uk. Perhaps if they need a guiding light they might care to look at life inside the basket case that is Jim Mellon's Diabetic Boot Company, as sponsored by most of the other AIM companies Jim runs as Cynical Bear pointed out HERE.  The deadline to post your entries in the comments section below is midnight, Sunday 18 June.

It is five weeks since our last update on the portfolio of seven AIM stocks selected for Marcus Stuttard, the sham sheriff of AIM, to put his money into to show his faith in the system of regulation last September. As you will recall, these were all companies which we had Red Flagged but about which AIM Regulation had done nothing. Last month the losses were 61.7% in about 8 months.

On 25 April this year Optibiotix (OPTI) announced it had delivered a small sale of 100,000 units of its LPDL capsule to Germany's HLH BioPharma Vertriebs GmbH. That must have gone well as we are today told that Optibiotix has signed a three year deal that grants HLH a non-exclusive license to produce, package and commercialise products containing OptiBiotix's cholesterol reducing LPLDL® strain.

Earlier today i showed how Magnolia Petroleum (MAGP) has become a gravy train not just for CEO, not so lovely Rita Whittingham, but for her extended family as well. But when the operations are not generating cash how to fund the gravy train? Shimples: pump the stock with misleading RNS statements and do a discounted placing. Rinse and repeat. Want an example (for there are many)? Here goes.

Bathroom and household equipment and accessories group Norcros (NXR) has announced results for its year ended 31^st March 2017 and that “the board remains confident that the group should continue to make further progress for the year ending 31 March 2018”.

Earlier today I suggested that less than lovely Rita Whittingham ( remuneration $245,438 in 2015 and $303,737 in 2014) would almost certainly be ousted at the forthcoming GM - the maths look grim for her as I explained HERE. But if you were still wavering, did you know about her family on the payroll? Oh yes, this is shocking.

I was going to have my usual weekend dig at one of the many over-promoted pieces of crap on the lower reaches of AIM but thought instead I should lift up my head and look further afield and take a pop at most over-promoted stock in the global markets with a proper superhero at the helm, namely Tesla Motors (NSDQ: TSLA) and the irrepressible Elon Musk.

And so the battle lines are drawn at Magnolia Petroleum (MAGP), the dash guzzling worthless AIM POS founded by Gavin Burnell of Globo infamy. On the one hand there is an overpaid incumbent board led by less than lovely Rita Whittingham and backed by an overpaid army of crony capitalist advisers. On the other side are Even Ainsworth from Nostra Terra (NTOG) and Zac "The Knife" Philips, the City's top oil analyst. Magnolia has accepted that a GM request to outs less than lovely Rita and appoint Ainsorth and The Knife is valid. So what is the voting maths?

Ha ha. We've been waiting for this for weeks, but now Slater & Gordon (who were given all the relevent ShareProphets articles when there was still time to back out) has actually filed suit against Watchstone, nee Quindell, claiming breach of warranty and/or fraudulent misrepresentation for a total amount of up to £637 million plus interest. It almost makes one want to root for Quindell this time.

Orogen (ORE) has confirmed that the second tranche of the secured loan made to Thread 35 Ltd has now been drawn down. The total amount of the loan, which is now fully drawn down, is £250,000.

You would have thought that having not one but two advisers resign because they would not sign off on its lies, being out of cash, having its shares suspended on NEX after being slung off AIM would be enough to kill African Potash (AFPO). But it appears that the holy water, the garlic, the silver crucifix, the stake through the heart and all the other tools in Van Helsing's bag are not enough. But remember, in the end the Count will die.

I previously wrote on restaurant group Richoux (RIC) in April, with the shares at 20p, concluding that there looks much turnaround work to do in an admitted “difficult” period for the sector and with it also placing ahoy, I avoid. The company has now made a “Completion of Subscription & Director Transactions” announcement...

Let's start with the bad news. It really should not be a surprise given the lack of orders announced (until now!) but Concepta (CPT) has confirmed that it will miss full year 2017 sales forecasts. That is the bad news. It has launched a new product and it is a few months behind schedule. These things happen. But...