Financial market strife can lead to some great deals, however the best corporate transactions tend to occur after a few years of strife when sellers are desperate. Deals tend to be at their worst when the buyer is desperate and the seller has not felt much pain from troubled times. It is the latter instinct which is dominant in my mind when thinking about today's news from The Restaurant Group (RTN), that is:

The China gambit did not work out too well. But Concepta (CPT) has a new – very well regarded – chairman in Matthew Walls, its balance sheet has been sorted by a placing and now we are on the verge of real sales and a ramp up towards and into profitability. For the company has now announced that it has received UK CE-Mark certification for its myLotus branded products for women's fertility.

A “Trading Statement” from self-styled “international designers, manufacturers and distributors of innovative floor coverings” Victoria plc (VCP) emphasises early; “The group is realising the benefits of the growth and diversification of the business over the past few years”. A positive trading update then… You what? The shares are down approaching 25%, to 455p?!?...

Hello Share Pilers. I’m going to stick my neck into dangerous custard and suggest that you might look into a share which may have given you kittens in the past. It’s Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP). I have a holding which has decayed over the years to be worth a lot less now.

I have been given a massive run around by Barclays (BARC) today and I hate them with a passion. I have also had domestic issues with flooding. I explain all but am in a foul mood. Phil Hammond is not being straight with us in the Budget. He is a knobhead. I explain a few truths you will not hear from him, or indeed the other lot. At a company level I cover Warpaint London (W7L), I3 Energy (I3E) and Frontera Resources (FRR). Warning this podcast contains very bad language. The only high point of my day was a sweet email from Abbe Aronson - the girl who broke my heart 32 years ago - after this article on the US mid-terms. Abbe, thanks for brightening an otherwise shite day.

In June, previously writing on Gama Aviation (GMAA) I questioned is “flat” trading really “broadly satisfactory”? and noted, despite a share price fall to below 200p, I avoided. Today a “Trading Update” - and the shares currently approaching 18% lower, at 125p…

Mining entrepreneur Ross Beaty reckosn the really good times are coming for we gold bulls. He feels that we have been in a gold bull market since 2015. Gold had a good breakout in 2016, and that seems to be in the first leg of a bull market. Anyone who has invested in gold equities should do very well in the next few years.

Mid September-announced half-year results from cosmetics company Warpaint London (W7L) saw it noting an order book “allowing us visibility and confidence for the full year outturn” and that “prospects are encouraging and Warpaint is well positioned to continue to deliver increasing shareholder value in 2018”. Six weeks later, a “Trading Update”. Should be good then…

Tops are a process and bottoms are an event, at least most of the time in the stock market. If you looked at an ice cream cone’s profile, the top is generally rounded and the bottom V-shaped. That is how tops and bottoms often look in the stock market, and I believe that the market is forming such a top now. Bubbles have been blown and they will pop. The whole global economy is teetering. Bubbles always burst from ‘the outside in’, starting at the weaker places at the periphery before progressing to the center...

Oh dear. Oh dear.  With the disgraced and widely reviled dirty tricks specialist Tim Thompson running its PR Frontera (FRR) was always going to play fast and loose with the rules of the AIM casino as it tried to ramp its shares ahead of yet another bailout placing. Today it announces a MOU which is really nothing of the sort and exposes this promote for the crock of shit that it is. Even the dullards on the LSE Asylum must now start to realise that they have been had.

A brief look at Cairn Energy (CNE) would leave many wondering how on earth the company can be worth its current market cap of more than £1.15 billion. Especially when you consider that although it is an oil producer, in H1 2018 it only averaged 14,400boepd, and there are many others on the market producing those sort of quantities with much lower market valuations. What you would be missing though is the fact that this company has huge future growth potential, both from increased production from its existing Kracken and Catcher operations in the North Sea, but far more importantly from the future development of the SNE field in Senegal and Nova in Norway.

Amazingly Mayan Energy (MYN) CEO Charlie Wood survived an AGM revolt led by Richard Jennings thanks to some extraordinarily odd voting as exposed HERE. The key matter is how in the Deloro deal Mr Wood’s wife has made a killing without risking a cent while Mayan itself put up risk capital. As Zac Phillips notes HERE, that is an outrage and I gather moves are now afoot to sue Wood personally over that matter. But Mayan should head that off by taking action itself. I urge all shareholders to write to Chairman Paolo Amarusso NOW using the email pga@mcgowenfowlercom . Below is a letter from Jennings to use as your template.

AIM-listed immunotherapy cancer specialist Scancell (SCLP) announced last week that the FDA had posed a few questions regarding its application to run a Phase II combination trial for its SCIB-1 skin cancer compound alongside a checkpoint inhibitor. The market saw this as bad news, and marked the shares down heavily – but I’m not so sure it is all that serious.

Hello, Share Flashers. One of the biggest business turnarounds in recent years is how advertising is changing. Though many of us are irritated by the seemingly unstoppable surge of adverts on the telly, the truth is that more adverts are being swapped over to big techies, like Google and Facebook. So it’s not entirely surprising that WPP (WPP), the giant marketing, P.R. and advertising agency, has reported lower revenue for the third quarter of 2018.

It could be that the current market turbulence is no more than an entry point for easily the most successful investment strategy of the last ten years: BTFD (Buy the Fucking dips) but I sense that this time we might be about to discover who has been swimming without trunks.

Can Julie "Lingerie on Expenses" Meyer MBE sink any lower? Pursued by the Maltese Police on criminal charges, under FCA and SFO investigation, owing vast sums to the IRS, HMRC and numerous other creditors can she sink lower ? er yes as we show below.

All things seem to be quiet down at the ranch that is Mayan Energy (MYN) but word reaches Mr Karma that the temperature is about to be ratcheted up there on one of AIM’s most value destructive CEO’s – Charlie Wood. 

After everything that has happened to Patisserie Holdings (CAKE) in recent weeks, it is of little surprise that today's deadwood press includes an article about a potential bidder for the business: 

I start by referring you to a video just up of my labour of love, the Greek Hovel, which you can see HERE. Then I take apart the bullish nonsense about the stockmarket Malcolm Stacey served up yesterday HERE.  Finally I look at IPOs planned for the next few weeks such as that of Sam Smith's FinnCap and broker AJ Bell. Why oh why go now? Surely they are both either mad or desperate? I discuss in detail why both should be avoided like the plague, referring also to the Funding Circle IPO debacle.

Is there anything better than sitting back and reading a well-written article on a lazy Sunday? Every week ShareProphets features some long form journalism that you'll find of interest. Grab your cuppa and enjoy these five articles.