Having traded between around $1800 and $1830 for the past month, on Friday Gold finally gave way and dropped to $1763. Gold Stocks duly followed. So what lies ahead? Further declines, a jolly good  bounce or just flat-lining?

The top non-Tom article this week is Escape Hunt – John currently getting away with this ‘growth’ Story… but for how long? by Steve Moore at number eight or number 14 if you include the Bearcast and Tom’s new shareshow. 

Ian Westbrook is now just £800 from making loathsome Neill Ricketts of Versarien (VRS) sweat in Court in January like the pig he is. Please keep those tenners, twenties and fifties coming in HERE. I look at today’s bombshell on the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and explain why that makes it a slam dunk zero. Then it is Central Copper Resources where I am sending out numerous emails to get its AIM Sewer IPO strangled at birth.

I first commented about Alpha Growth (ALGW) on 8 April 2021 and the absence of a Prospectus in respect of its issue on 8 March 2021 via a placing of 187,500,000 shares at 2 pence per share.  The placing represented over 77.8% of existing ordinary share capital of Alpha prior to the placing.  The broker which organised the placing was Pello Capital which, as of Friday, is operating under restrictions imposed by the FCA, that is to say it cannot write any business at all other than allowing clients to transfer out cash and shares to other brokers.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. 5.36pm on  a Friday evening in August – just as the City dives into its second G&T after a long week, or is already far away on holiday – clearly is a good  time to bury bad news! Fully listed Esken (ESKN) – the former Stobart Group (STOB) – has announced, at no-one is watching O’Clock, that Ryanair (RYA) has decided to chop its operations at Southend airport. It is yet another hammer blow for Esken’s/Stobart’s punch-drunk shareholders. The timing – apart from being announced late on a Friday evening when everybody had gone home – is even more terrible as Esken is in the middle of an open offer alongside the recent placing at 14p. With the shares having already dropped to 16p to sell at Friday’s close, will this news kybosh the whole operation?

On 14 July, a company called Central Copper Resources announced its intention to list on the AIM Sewer. On 22 July, a schedule one announcement came out stating that the IPO was expected ”early August”. In light of what I reveal below, I would argue that if AIM Regulation is to have any credibility at all it must stop this IPO now.

Early in July we noted shares in Europe’s leading floorcoverings distributor Headlam Group (HEAD) looked a recovery buy at a 495p offer price, considering there clear potential for outperformance of forecasts based on the trading momentum and the operational improvement programme being implemented. A “Pre-Close Trading Update” sees the shares currently at 528p. Is there still further upside?

Silence remains on whether the CEO of the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME), Alessandro Zamboni has covertly sold all his shares. If I was him I would because, as I shall demonstrate below, its business model just cannot work. Forgive the deep drill on accounting but if you follow my lead you will see more evidence that Supply has misled investors and is a zero.

OptiBiotix Health (OPTI) has made a “Trading and commercial update” including that sales are ahead of its expectations for the first six months of the year and that it “believes it is in a strong position to meet or exceed its full year sales forecast”. The shares have currently responded up to 49.5p but there looks much further to go.

Hello, Share Seekers. You may have come across a sparkling website called Stockomendation. Among other useful functions, this outfit brings together share tips from all the different sources. Part of the deal is that it supplies a weekly list of the best topical tips.

I look at the shock suspension of trading by the FCA of City broker Pello. I look at Braveheart Investment Management (BRH) and how Trevor Brown has made £7.5 million from pump and dump while mug punters have lost up to 85% on one pump and 60% on another. Finally, tomorrow will see an explosive dossier on the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME). It is a zero.  Meanwhile, Ian Westbrook has now raised £19,105 on the make loathsome Neill Ricketts of Versarien (VRS) sweat like a pig appeal. We need just £895 to hit target so keep those £10 and £20 donations coming HERE

Having been above 100p as recently as April, shares in biopharmaceutical data analytics company IXICO (IXI) are currently further lower at 72p despite a trading update including that “the company has successfully grown its pipeline of new opportunities”. So what’s going on?…

As I explained in bearcast yesterday I have thought Cenkos forecasts for Optibiotix (OPTI) too cautious for a while. Yesterday’s update rather vindicates me. Anhow here is the house broker’s latest note.

Early this year we showed the Shorted AIM shares at the start of 2021. How’s the performance (those in bold remain from 2020) as at the end of July?…

As I write, shares in Braveheart Investment Management (BRH) are 11% off at 27.25p valuing this crock where Trevor Brown is the CEO at £11 million. But now that folks appear to have wised up to the pump and dump activities of Brown, what is fair value? I suggest 5p and here is why.

Analyst Michael Oliver focuses on bubbles in equity markets and says that the S&P indicates a top while momentum is waning. He argues that bear markets typically begin with a gradual arm-wrestling decline and often no crashes, which he expects will occur. Michaels proprietary volatility indicators are now showing a similar pattern that we saw in 2008.

I cannot see a reference to this on the Supply @ME Capital (SYME) website but some folk think it is 26% of the equity. I think it is 0% and following the posting of THIS document, it strikes me as important that the truth be known. If the CEO has dumped his entire holding, why would any sane investor own the stock? I have written to the FCA as you can see below.

I see that Malcolm mentioned the professional services company Capita (CPI), ‘Learning Curve Could Take the Share Price Higher’. Good luck with that one Malcolm because its numbers today unexcite me, especially when you factor in its significant debt and it is still an avoid for me. Another stock I have avoided for many years is London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), which describes itself as ‘more than a diversified global financial markets infrastructure and data business’.

Darktrace (DARK) floated on May 4 at 250p. Great play was made in the lengthy prospectus of how stacks of existing shareholders were locked in, legally bound to hold their shares for 6 or 12 months. Except this is all meaningless gibberish.

Hello, Share Bashers. There are some shares I commend to your further research, while never putting my toe in the water myself. This is not a lack of faith in myself, but the fact that I limit the number of companies I invest in. Otherwise, I’d spread my resources too thin to take advantage of big windfalls. One such company I often praise, and now wish I’d bought shares in, is Tritax Big Box (BBOX).