Hello, Share Pickers. With cold night drawing in, you can expect plumbers to be busier. Mending worn-out boilers, ancient radiators and leaky pipes brings me to today’s choice for your further investigation.

From my larger cap perspective, a slightly dull regulatory news disclosure crop for the first two days of the business week. I see the plumbing and heating systems company Ferguson (FERG) - whose decision to spin-out its small UK business I supported a few weeks back - puckered up its full-year results which showed between 6-8% growth at both the revenue and profit level, led by the US business (which accounts for around 90% of overall turnover). Despite this, a 10% rise in the full year dividend and comments observing it is 'well-placed' for 2020, at sixty quid a share I cannot get excited – even if it is doing the right thing with the UK business. Otherwise, I have to make a rare analytical foray into the AIM cesspit…

Before the pleasure of confirming that I am still not eating at one of the dining establishments of Restaurant Group (RTN) whilst continuing to recommend avoiding its shares like the plague, a bit of duty calls…

A couple of days after Greene King (GNK) got scooped up by a Hong Kong billionaire, and on the day that Cobham (COB) announced the scheme particulars for its mooted takeover by a US peer, I read that plumbing and bathrooms kit company Ferguson (FERG) is thinking about switching to a US market listing. So woe betide the future of the UK market? In my opinion not at all...but you just have to face facts…

Obviously today's comedy regulatory news update came from Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), but I will leave others to write on that piece of PR puffery... A couple of notches down on the regulatory news angst scale was the acknowledgement by recent dog Thomas Cook (TCG) that - as per weekend press comments - it is in takeover talks (with 18% shareholder Chinese conglomerate Fosun)…

I was running around yesterday talking to a couple of different groups of people about the current market backdrop and broadly concluding that it is patchy but not impossible out there. I even managed (somehow!) not to mention the 'Brexit' word for well over half my chat through...which was certainly a blessed relief for everyone there and me in equal proportions. Anyhow these obligations hindered me from filing any copy and the stock I clearly would have written about would have been Ferguson (FERG)...

The fine office of Wikipedia informs me that: 'Ferguson is a Scottish surname and given name. The surname is a patronynic form of the personal name Fergus. The name Fergus is derived from the Proto-Celtic elements *wiros ("man") and *gustus ("vigour", "force", or "choice"). Well...you learn something new everyday. Additionally as of a few weeks ago it is the new name of the old Wolseley (WOS, now FERG), the FTSE-100 plumbing and heating kit stalwart.