The most-read non-quiz non-Tom article this week is from Gary Newman with  Horizonte Minerals is on the verge of debt drawdown to complete the Araguaia mine – still a Buying opportunity? at No 9 or No 15 including Bearcasts.

I start with proof below of what an "earth mum" I have become and the blue tick issue on Twitter. Then I look at Avacta (AVCT), Chill Brands (CHLL), Wildcat Petroleum (WCAT), Pure Gold (PUR) and ouzo for Nigel and then Argo Blockchain (ARB) a triumph for the forces of good, transparency, honesty and hard analysis. That is to say myself & Boatman Capital. And a disaster for certain named individuals who are drawn from the forces of evil.

By noon thanks to the verbose Peter Brailey we were running late and thus lunch arrived while I did a double act with Boatman Capital which I really enjoyed. Great analysis from him and a few jokes thrown in as we talked about some crooks and some overvalued stocks not run by crooks. And we talked about transparency and short selling.

A week ago interims from drowning in red flags bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain (ARB) made it abundantly clear that it faced a near term cash crisis. Today another sign that it is readying itself for a bailout placing has emerged. But I foresee a problem.

It s just 19 days to Sharestock and I bought the big tent for it yesterday!. It will not just be about shares to short. Peter Hambro will talk about gold and how to play it. Chris Bailey will talk about making money from long only value investing in a bear market and 3 CEOs will face a 15 minute grilling from me, including Optibiotix boss Steve O’Hara and Cathal Friel of Open Orphan. But the short sellers presenting are legends.

Hello Share Mashers. As my grandpappy used to say, it ain’t what you win on shares that makes you a millionaire. It’s what you avoid losing. That’s why it’s so important to listen to bear raiders. The brave souls who speculate not that companies will succeed, but that they will fail. This is so difficult. Much harder than picking the winners I try to do. 

Yes it is just 26 days to the most unusual event in the share calendar – ShareStock. On September 10, sixty to eighty folks will be sitting in tents on an elevated lawn by the banks of the River Dee listening to legends from the investment world give talks and them chatting to them informally, one to one, in the drinks tent.

“Can I do my chat with you via video link?” said the least well-known person attending Sharestock on September 10 as a CEO speaker? “No! You are uninvited” said I. He missed the point about this event, it is personal. You can listen to all the speakers on stage but then collar them in the drinks tent before or afterwards for a one to one chat

Somebody had the cheek to ask if I will record videos of ShareStock. Er, no!

It is back to that Helios deal, which, as Boatman Capital revealed, saw Argo Blockchain (ARB) pay up to $17.5 million for $200,000-valued land. The owners of DPN LLC - bought to acquire the land - were former Argo stockholders. Small world, innit? Now, it gets far worse.

I am pleased to announce the 5^th of our six main stage speakers. Do join us for Sharestock, the share show with an all-day bar, held in North Wales (by 30 yards). Joining me, Gabriel Grego, Chris Bailey, Lucian Miers and 4 CEOs is…

The highlight of this dossier is Boatman demonsrating how Argo’s (ARB) rebuttal of its allegations about a dodgy Texas land purchase made in dossier No 1, just does not stack up. One might even say Boatman shows Argo was telling porkies.  Then there is the really sniffy related party investment in a company in all sorts of regulatory scrutiny because of its involvment with disgraced broker Pello and its “colourful” boss Andy Frangos. And it goes on and on. As Boatman points out, if you believe in electronic tulips there are many ways to play bitcoin without buying into Argo’s forest of red flags. Anyone owning these shares is mad. The dossier is below.

Argo Blockchain (ARB) today ‘fessed that it had briefed someone who appears to be an unemployed fund manager, Anthony Coyle, with price sensitive information some of which he misunderstood and then tweeted it all out.  Argo has this morning addressed some of the errors on the, since deleted, tweets but not some that are accurate and even more damning.  What on earth is a supposedly grown up company playing at?  And now, we can reveal exclusively, that bear raider Boatman Capital has piled in.

Yes, you read that correctly, the US ADR placing of Argo Blockchain (ARB) involved ELEVEN different brokers. Jefferies, Barclays, Canaccord Genuity, Stifel, GMP, Compass Point, D.A. Davidson & Co, Ladenburg Thalmann, Roth Capital Partners, finnCap and Tennyson Securities are the team batting for Argo and will no doubt boast that they raised £82.4 million having targeted just £75 million. But…

Another day and another announcement from Argo Blockchain (ARB) the company that is spending $17.5 million buying some Texas scrub land worth $168,000. It is more green hype which might impress some of the ESG loving millennial fund managers who Chris Bailey is keen on, but cash guzzling Argo refuses to address the herds of elephants in the room.

This 17 page dossier from Boatman Capital of Babcock (BAB) fame is just out this very second and is dynamite. I have repeatedly warned folks that Argo Blockchain (ARB) failed the smell test on a number of counts and that its valuation was insane but even I did not dream that things could be this bad. What is not alleged, but proved, in this dossier is dynamite and the shares should be suspended at once with heads forced to roll over what we now know. Of coursemillenial  ESG freak fund managers are still drooling over the company appointing 3 women to the board the other day. To them that is far more important than a Texas land deal that stinks to high heaven and a legal dispute which suggests the company has not a shred of corporate integrity.  The FCA may well consider a share suspension, ahead of that the shares are a nil brainer slam dunk sell/short This is superb research. Enjoy! 

First up, after I nudged Paul Staines (Guido), we did get that hat tip as you can see HERE. Cheers Paul. I then look at Babcock (BAB), Boatman Capital and the corrupt deadwood press, Minoan (MIN), the fraud Zoetic (ZOE) and its missing results, Kefi (KEFI), Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and the missing shares and then at MyHealthChecked (MHC) where I expect the shares to zoom within weeks but which is causing me to spit nails.

It started in October 2018. Boatman Capital published its first bear dossier on Babcock International (BAB) with the shares at 672p. After yet another dire warning today, the stock trades at just 215p and still looks overvalued.

Boatman Capital has been the scourge of Babcock (BAB) but now shows it is not a one trick pony. Its next target is AVZ Minerals. It is Oz listed but the report is a fascinating insight into the seedy world of mining. We thus bring it to you in full below.

The support services and related sector has had a shocker over recent years and now it appears that two of the remaining (and i use the phrase in an ironic fashion) leading lights - Babcock (BAB) and Serco (SRP) are potentially set to merge, at least as per deadwood press suggestions.  

When bear raiders Boatman Capital savaged Babcock (BAB) with its first report, Babcock tried to play the man not the ball, casting aspersions on its anonymous critics but history has rather vindicated the bears not the board. Now Boatman has produced a second report, focused on the need for further write downs and on the complexity of the company's structure. The report, in full, is below.

Bear analysts Boatman Capital made the schoolboy error of leaking part of its report to the Sunday Times. The deadwood press is part of the problem not the solution. Thus the Sunset Times scuttled off to Babcock (BAB) allowing the company to spin its side and the paper to run a piece slating the bear commentary.  Such is the sordid state of financial journalism in Britain today. Anyhow for what it is worth the full report is now out and Babcock shares are starting to slide despite the company’s spinning c/o the deadwood press…