Describing itself as “a leading producer and supplier of graphene nanoplatelets based products for use in consumer and industrial markets”, Directa Plus (DCTA) has announced it “has received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the grant of a patent covering the Company's G+ embedded polyurethane membrane”, with the offering “generating considerable interest in the US market”. So what of a current 90p share price?

’Data science and machine learning’ company Insig AI (INSG) has announced “a fourth tranche of £160,000 was drawn down on the convertible loan facility provided by Richard Bernstein… a third tranche of £80,000 was also drawn down on the same day, on the convertible loan facility provided by David Kyte”. So what’s the overall situation here now, with the shares currently at 22p?

I hope this is fairly self-explanatory and that the regulators will launch a swift enquiry if only to show that on the world’s most successful growth market, nothing so tawdry has occurred at that hotbed of scholars and gentlemen that is Tern PLC (TERN) 

Last week the Dark Destroyer agreed to do a conference call with a few fund managers to discuss Darktrace (DARK). Some sad feck recorded the call and passed the recording to the Sunday Times which ran a big story “exposing Matt’s undisclosed short”. If only financial journalists on the deadwood press understood that short disclosures are only visible over 0.5%. So, for Darktrace that would be c. £18 million, way too big for Earl’s Shadowfall oufit. Earl is hiding nothing.

Previously writing on antimicrobial company Byotrol (BYOT), in March with the shares up to 3.15p I questioned the overall performance despite it arguing a significant improvement in product sales. So what of now-announced results for its year ended 31st March 2022?

Almost exactly a year ago, I asked myself “I historically mucked it up on Bunzl (BNZL), so what do I think now?”. I concluded back then that it was a worthy business, which had grown its revenue, profit and cash flow over time but I passed on buying the shares as I was fired up by a bunch of different sectors and corporate names. Though, despite the stock falling about 4% this morning, it is still up over 10% during the last year. So should I be more boring and buy the stock?

Over the weekend I explained HERE why Boohoo.com (BOO) could go bust. Given the shocking corporate governance history here arguably it SHOULD go bust. Boohoo is just a bad actor on the PLC stage. Matt Earl, the Dark Destroyer, was an early critic of Boohoo but even with the shares having crashed to 44p, giving a £560 million market cap, he warns of massive problems ahead and quantifies the extra cash need: £200 million.

Hello Share Scrapers. As previously opined, shares in pet-related outfits are one of my few hopes for profit gains in the near future. Fitting that bill is pet welfare company CVS Group (CVSG). Even in the direst of economic circumstances, people are going to continue spending on the health of their pets. And remember that loads of pets were acquired to slake the lonely pangs of lockdown. Those cats, dogs, hamsters and so on are still enjoying home life. So profits for this expanding company could enlarge.

It is just 12 days to Sharestock when 70-80 folks will spend the day in a tent on a raised garden on the banks of the River Dee. There will be free drinks all day and up to four meals of locally produced food. There is salmon and pike fishing, prize croquet but this day is for those who want to make more money from shares. It will be fun and entertaining with no speaker, least of all me, pulling their punches.

B2B video streaming technology company Aferian (AFRN) has announced results for its half year ended 31^st May 2022 and confidence in second half prospects.

I start with a nasty shock my grandmother, Lesbia Cochrane, got in the late 1920s. This is relevant I suggest that a whole swathe of millenials could be getting a similar shock this year and that is one of many reasons why I pose the Boohoo (BOO) question. I look at its balance sheet, cashflows, shocking G ( as in ESG) and find myself agreeing with ouzo man. Thewn the chart below and what it means for any company including Purplebricks (PURP) , getting some PR dictated puffery in The Times today, exposed to UK housing. Finally it is 12 days to ShareStock. I am off to mow the lawn for the tents next, book your seats HERE

This will, in years to come be seen as a case study in the invisible hand and creative destruction, that is to say capitalism at work. In times gone by when all the sort of poltroons who believe in Modern Monetary Theory also predicted that the bitcoin price would keep on soaring ad infinitum, there was a rush to build new mining plants in places where there was stacks of spare land and good hook-ups to readily available power, i.e. Texas.

At the not-quite-end-of-July update my five slam-dunk sells had registered three wins, one loss and a draw. As the bear market rally cracks in the wake of Jerome Powell’s muscle-flexing at Jackson’s Hole, how are AIM-listed Tern (TERN), Barkby (BARK), URU Metals (URU), Trafalgar Property (TRAF) and Standard-Listed AIQ (AIQ) doing now?

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 a, late-August, bank holiday update on performance (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).

There are three times of the year when I find it hard to write loads of articles about markets and macro stuff.  The first is Christmas (for obvious reasons), the second is Easter because the UK market is closed on both Good Friday and Easter Monday, and the third is the late August period.  After all, hardly any corporate names are reporting, the world’s politicians are sensibly on holiday (and don’t ask me to talk about the new PM push!) and when I tried to write yet another macroeconomic piece yesterday, I found I had already basically said it last Friday!  Fortunately, I noticed a bit of updated fun on Sky News re Joules Group (JOUL) and Next plc (NXT).

Gary Newman is busy on his main job as an angling journalist and is currently at Murchison Falls in Uganda. Apparently this is good place to meet man eating crocodiles but nothing stops our man from wading into the water with his latest catch which, he says, was 199lbs. As you can see below, it certainly looks big enough for a croc's breakfast. As for its lunch....

Wishbone Gold (WSBN) is pleased to announce that it has acquired, for £25,000, a 90 day option to acquire the Anketell project, with Wishbone Chairman Richard Poulden emphasising “Anketell has a discrete bullseye magnetic feature, that is similar to other known mineralised features in the district”.

There is an old fable amongst musicologists described in two questions: a) what is it that we try to learn from the great masters and b) why do we fail. The answers are a) how to get out of a hole and b) because they don’t get into one in the first place. This week the economic masters of our time got into a hole – Jackson’s Hole – and are wondering how to get out. The problem is that the economy is itself in a hole – squillions of unpayable debt and acre upon acre of magic money trees – and there is no way out. The solution, of course, would have been not to sink into such debt, financed by printing money, in the first place – but they dare not admit it.

I start by responding to some of your comments on yesterday's Naked Wines (WINE) podcast HERE. Then onto Liz Truss and why her VAT plan shows she is either dim or bonkers.In stating that inflation can be tackled with handouts rather than, as Maggie knew, with pain all round and, in this case, peace in Ukraine not an endless war, Ms Truss is lying to us all. Then onto the strange death of Cineworld (CINE).

It’s the final Sunday of August, the weather is getting slightly colder. Test your knowledge with our 156th ShareProphet’s Sunday Pub Quiz. Write your score in the comments, there are no prizes, and most important of all – no Googling!