It's time for thw ShareProphets Sunday Pub Quiz. Put the kettle on, put your score in the comments, and No Googling!

The most-read non-quiz non Tom article this week is from Nigel Somerville with  ‘The View From The Montana Log-Cabin As Gold Takes A Breather’ at No 13 or No 19 including Bearcasts.

In today's podcast I look at two business failures and the lessons we can all learn from them. In many ways Bulb is a bigger scandal than FTX and it has already cost the UK taxpayer £6.5 billion.

Speciality agriculture and engineering group Carr's (CARR) has issued an update including that “the expected completion date for the group's audit and publication of the group's FY22 audited results is now mid-January 2023, later than the 3 January 2023 deadline required” but that it “has continued to perform strongly”, so what’s going on?

Having asked for readers tips for 2022 for the prize of 1/2 litre of Tom Winnifrith's Greek Hovel olive oil (2022 harvest) HERE, the following is the monthly update on performance with now (just over) one month to go (to be eligible needed to have selected, on a once per username basis, a buy & sell pick from the LSE, AIM casino or Aquis lobster pot and the stocks not to have been suspended at the commencement of 2022).

The corporate governance at Nightcap (NGHT) is - as I have exposed on this website so many times - dreadful. That rather surprises me as the non executive chairman Gareth Edwards is not a bad old stick despite having been a partner at the accursed law firm Pinsent Masons.  One issue that the cash strapped company, now right up against the limit with its banks, and with its rollout programme on hold, is bonuses. I urge Gareth to look at events at Gresham (GHE), which - to make it easy for him - are detailed in full below.

Shanta Gold (SHG) has recently announced that “after further engagement and having taken advice from its financial advisors, the board has concluded that there is no merit in continuing discussions with Shandong and Chaarat, which both parties have accepted”. That ended current bid talks and sees the shares currently down to a 10.5p offer price. However, the company added that it is now “focused on optimising and growing its quality portfolio to continue to deliver long-term sustainable returns for shareholders with a number of value catalysts in train for 2023”. We consider that they can re-spark these shares back to the 16p+ of last year.

Cloudtag (CTAG) was a bulletin board darling which we exposed as a bankrupt fraud on this website numerous times HERE. Eventually the company's Nomad, Liam Murray at Cairn Financial, arrived at the same conclusion and gave his notice of resignation.  However the company then raised £975,000 via broker Novum without telling Novum or anyone else about that resignation. Murray thus resigned with immediate effect and Novum unwound the placing while, with no other Nomad prepared to take on this toxic client, it was booted off the AIM sewer in March 2017.

Hello Share Gatherers. Next year, the UK economy will do the worst of all the G7 economies. So says the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD expects the UK's economy to shrink by 0.4% in 2023 to be followed by minute growth of just 0.2% a year later. Meanwhile, there is strength in many emerging countries. 

Jubilee Metals (JLP) has noted “key milestones achieved in its southern copper and cobalt operations in Zambia” and that, with these, for its prospective northern operations it “expects to receive the final recommendation on capacities from its design teams by mid-January 2023… look forward to updating shareholders in this regard”. So what are the milestones and how significant are they?

Vianet Group (VNET) has announced a partnership which it states sees its “innovative contactless payment solution hardware join forces with Suresite's market-leading acquiring services”, with Chairman & CEO (hmmm) James Dickson “delighted to partner with Suresite in this innovative collaboration proving, once again, Vianet's ability not only to drive new technological initiatives but also to establish new markets for our products”. So what of a share price currently up to 56.75p in response?

On 1 August 2022, having failed to raise $30 million in an equity markets fundraise - as I warred here to hoots of derision from BBMs sitting in their underpants in their parent's basement - , Shield Therapeutics (STX) took out a $10 million loan from 13% shareholder AOP Orphan International AG. Now the clock is ticking on that loan.

The legover reference is HERE. I am still very much under the weather with all the symptoms of covid. I am feeling a bit better but not well enough to do more than a few hours work today. Thanks to Steve for taking care of things. In the podcast I discuss Devro  (DVO) - who said young Steve and I could not tip a waiter? Then FinnCap (FCAP) then finally the dire sentiment towards mining stocks. Is it really that bad out there?

Previously writing on LED lighting, electronic and electro-mechanical systems group LPA (LPA), last year I noted, having written trading warning, argues “victims of our own success”. Really? in March with the shares at 75.5p, that I continued to avoid with they down from 70p. What now, with they above that level following a trading update announcement?

Reader Ouzo man is brave enough to be short of Versarien (VRS) historically this has been a wise move but the shares have surged in the past couple of weeks to 21.5p from a low of c13p.

According to City AM the owners of AIM listed POS bars chain Nightcap (NGHT) are Sarah Willingham and Michael Toxvaerd. Funny, I thought that it was long suffering shareholders who owned this financial abomination where every single person who has ever bought a share and held is now out of the money with the shares trading at just 8p-9p.

On the interweb I came across a recently published front page by MoneyWeek which discussed a story, “Buy Britain…UK stocks are a Black Friday bargain”. I don’t massively disagree, even if it amuses me that 99% of prices were cheaper for any purchasers six or eight weeks ago.

There are folks who think that inflation can be cured without pain. Those are the same folks who urged record money printing during the scamdemic. That is what caused inflation not, as they claim, President Putin. Writer Jesse Felder puts them straight.

Managed IT services, cyber security and cloud hosting company SysGroup (SYS) has announced results for its half-year ended 30^th September 2022 and that “trading for the second half has continued with positive momentum and the board is therefore confident in meeting its full year expectations”. So what’s the detail here?

Describing itself as “a leading provider of technology and services for the global offshore energy markets”, Tekmar Group (TGP) has announced “extension of banking facility… completes the renewal of the group's existing facility and financing arrangements”. So what of a share price currently down to 8.75p?