When I arrived in the UK over a decade ago, I was asked what football club I supported, over and over. 

The answer to that question was far more important than I understood at the time: it would determine, in the questioners' eyes, if I could be trusted, who my friends would be, how hard I was, and a zillion other things. I thought I was being asked what football club I supported. 

Today I explained HERE the mounting Badger scandal at cash-strapped Andalas (ADL) as it gears up for a bailout placing. In this podcast I explain why all involved should be concerned that they are not party to Securities fraud, notably Nomad Beaumont Cornish and broker Novum Securities - home to scallywag Gavin Burnell of Globo (GBO) infamy. This is a real test case for the integrity of the AIM Casino and I explain why.

The AIM market is full of companies that promise the earth from various deals and contracts, yet very rarely do any of them actually deliver what is expected.

I have already flagged up comments by those close to Atlantic Petroleum, which showed that in a desperate attempt to ramp its shares ahead of yet another bailout placing, Andalas (ADL) was over-egging the Badger Pudding. Now Atlantic has gone on the record in a way that exposes Andalas big time and surely Nomad Beaumont Cornish must now force Andalas to issue a correction and stop its misleading pre-placing ramping?

After an influx of broker and tipster research in July, both broker and tipster activity decreased over the holiday period. That being said,Stockomendation still tracked over 1,200 tips in August, contributed by 19 brokers and 36 professional tipsters. Tip activity in August represented an increase of 57% on the number of tips tracked during the same period last year.

Having demanded we bring back this contest, once again Juicin Drumroll fails to win with his nomination. Come on Juicin, we are doing this for you, please try harder. This week's winner of a semi  naked photo of  Britain's top share blogger, before lunchtime, Thirsty Paul Scott, is Daniel Victor. You can see all the entries HERE but Daniel's winning entry, from twitter, is from a Tesla loon:

AIM-listed Bowleven (BLVN) had been making me look like a genius since I tipped in at Christmas at around 31p. The shares rattled all the way up to 40p as the first of two drills off Cameroon at the Etinde prospect commenced, only to collapse down as low as 27.5p when the drill failed. Yesterday the partners announced that the second drill had commenced. All of a sudden the shares are back up at 33.8p – not quite 40p, but a lot better that 27.5!

From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2017 and thus far in 2018 (by net short position %) - and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...

Hello, Share Markers. I admit it. The reason I bought into Whitebread (WTB) a year and half ago was to bag the shareholder perk of one night for the price of two at its Premier Inns. With it came money off at its various restaurants and a voucher for coffee at Costa.

Having demanded we bring back this contest, once again Juicin was beaten by Drunken Sailor in last week's contest as you can see HERE. Drunken now wins a second semi naked photo of Thirsty Paul Scott as his prize. Okay, for one more week I urge you all to post your entries to stop Drunken making it a hat-trick. 

It’s looking increasingly like Elon Musk’s go private “funding secured” tweet on the 7^th August has backfired horribly as Tesla (NASDAQ - TSLA) now trades $40 below the prevailing price before he sent it. I was recently accused of confirmation bias on Tesla, i.e. of looking only at the bear case and ignoring the positives but it is difficult post-tweet to find any bullish case that holds water.

Two days ago we asked you HERE to guess the price of the bailout placing which Frontera Resources (FRR) needs ASAP to avoid going tits up.  And, with the stock still 0.22p to sell, you said…

An intra-day (12:33pm) “Trading update” from Murgitroyd Group (MUR). Such intra-day ‘updates’ tend not to bode well…

In today's podcast I look at Westminster Group (WSG) cursed by its association with ex Tory MP Tony Baldry of 3DM infamy, One Media (OMIP) a worse investment than a Nationwide BS savings account and now cursed with a tie up with the investment abomination that is Nicola Horlick. I also cover Andalas (ADL), shortly to be renamed PumpandDumpPLC

An update this morning from AIM-listed Minoan (MIN) regarding the sale of its travel and leisure division and reduced boardroom fees offers investors good hope that the sale is now, at long last, progressing. This is good news which I suspect will unlock the development of Minoan’s main asset – the Cavo Sidero project in Crete – and I am looking forward to the coming weeks with anticipation.

One Media iP (OMIP) “is pleased to announce a proposed placing and subscription to raise a minimum of £1.9 million of new equity capital at an issue price of 6 pence per new ordinary share, and the proposed issue of up to £6 million of (7% per annum interest from date of issue) loan notes”, including emphasising the placing price “represents a premium of 240 per cent. to the price of 2.5 pence per ordinary share at which Lord Michael Grade and Ivan Dunleavy first invested in the company in December 2017”. Sounds positive then…

When a good company meets the salary expectations of “porker Baldry” of 3DM infamy as its chairman it will inevitably become a cash guzzler. When a bad company finds the loathsome lard bucket at its helm the outcome is not going to be a happy one for shareholders. And that brings us to Westminster Group (WSG) which has raised a paltry £500,000 (gross) today via seedy low grade bucket shop SVS just to keep the lights on until Christmas.

Previously writing on Kin Group (KIN) I noted AIM rules requiring a transaction here by the end of February to avoid shares suspension (within six months of becoming recognised as a cash shell), with there then a further six months to avoid listing cancellation. That takes us to today… and there’s now announced “Proposed Acquisition of Bidstack Limited & Placing”…

Back in the day, the last business day of the month was always a rather important moment for me because it would determine whether I was a hero or a zero in the institutional investor world I used to belong to. Believe me, in the emails and related that followed, the whole investment firm would know whether your Fund had done well or badly. Of course the way to build performance was one month at a time, so a 'good close' to the month was immensely useful. If I was still in that world - and invested akin to my thoughts today - then I would have a big beaming smile on my face, thanks to the news update from my old mucker Whitbread (WTB) whose shares I have been continuously loving up on this website (most recently HERE)…

Hello, Share Sifters. One of my all-time Footsie favourites, Legal & General (LGEN) is growing even bigger. And so I rather fancy will the share price. Ok, in the first six months of this year, underlying operating profit did not improve by much - 5% to £909 million - but that was partly due to pumping more dosh into digital technology which will serve the company well in the future.