It is now just three months to the end of the year and at the last count my slam-dunk sells were one up and four down. Not too bad, but will I get a clean sweep?

At the not-quite-end-of-July update my five slam-dunk sells had registered three wins, one loss and a draw. As the bear market rally cracks in the wake of Jerome Powell’s muscle-flexing at Jackson’s Hole, how are AIM-listed Tern (TERN), Barkby (BARK), URU Metals (URU), Trafalgar Property (TRAF) and Standard-Listed AIQ (AIQ) doing now?

Albeit a week late, it is time for another update on my five slam-dunk sells for 2022. Last time four out of the five had slipped into the red – is there any further improvement this time?

Having reached the halfway point of the year, it is time to look once again at my five slam dunk sells for the year. At the end of May the scores were 3 down and two up. Has there been any improvement? The not-so fabulous five were Tern plc (TERN), URU Metals (URU), Barkby Group (BARK) and Trafalgar Property (TRAF) of the AIM Casino and AIQ (AIQ) of the sub-Standard list.

AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) has announced yet another roll-over of the particularly advantageous 85p conversion terms on its $500,000 death spiral funding from Boothbay Absolute Return Strategies LP. With the shares currently at 350p in the middle, this is a licence to print money. The giveaway terms are now open to Boothbay until 31 May 2023.

As we reach the end of month five – we are almost half way – here is the latest from my small-dunk sells for this year. The biggest feature of the portfolio is that all the companies need to rattle the tin and whilst that has been less of a problem during the everything bubble, market conditions are deteriorating fast. So I expect a few accidents in the coming months.

I cannot help but notice that a good many of the shares of which I am a bear are dropping at the moment. With some, it is a case of the ramptastic froth being blown away. With others, it is surely a case of gravity asserting itself.

It seems my slam-dunk sells for 2022 – AIM-listed Tern plc (TERN), Catenae Innovation (CTEA), Trafalgar Property (TRAF) and URU Metals (URU) along with sub-Standard listed AIQ (AIQ) is set for a very interesting few days ahead which could see disaster strike for at least two of these companies.

Shares in Aim-listed URU Metals (URU) have been on the rise and this morning the company issued an RNS regarding drilling news from 74.8% majority-owned ZEB Nickel, listed in Toronto (ZBNI) regarding the Zebediela Nickel project in South Africa. The RNS is, natch, very positive but I wonder if it really is.

Tom Winnifrith covered yesterday morning’s non-news of AIM-listed URU Metals’ (URU) proposed listing of majority-owned Toronto-listed subsidiary ZEB Nickel on the joke US OTCQB market. The shares rocketed from 170p to 210p on the news, a 23.5% gain. But the bald truth is that we are talking about a joke market with little liquidity and in any case, I would have thought your average US punter would manage to get access to the Toronto Venture exchange without having to deal with a tin-pot middle man.

My slam-dunk sells for 2021 were, at one point, looking like a barometer for how mad the market was as complete rubbish was bid up and up on the back of just hot air. But as the year drew to a close, this madness started to abate.

Entirely predictably, AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) has slipped out its interim results on deadline day (never a good sign) in no-one-is-watching week, the few trading days between Christmas and New Year. As such it is a fabulous day to bury bad news……and there is, of course, plenty of bad news.

Last night at 5.11pm – no-one-is-watching o’clock – AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) ‘fessed up that it had taken a C$950,000 loan from CEO John Zorbas last June. That, of course, is a related party transaction which therefore should have been disclosed but rules are for little people…

Having posted my five slam-dunk sells for 2021 at the start of the year and watched in amazement as the market bid up complete rubbish, it is time to take stock as the year draws to a close. My sells were Tern (TERN), Catenae Innovation (CTEA), URU Metals (URU) and Yu Group (YU.) – all roll-overs from 2020 – and Trafalgar Property (TRAF), which came in as a replacement for the defunct ShareProphets AIM-China Filthy Forty play Walcom (WALG).

I cannot help but notice that shares in AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) have crashed by 19% thus far today, on no news. Having called it a sell at 405p in August, a sell at  320p in September and a sell at 270p earlier this month, the stock is now down to 190p. Of course, it is still a sell but perhaps it is time for an early Ouzo as the shares have now more than halved.

Tom Winnifrith has plenty more, but here are three shares you just don’t want to own. All look like they should be toast.

When I commented on AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) at the end of August, following the “disposal” of its Zebediela nickel asset to TSX-V listed cash shell (with no cash) Blue Rhino, now Zeb Nickel (TSX-V:ZBNI) the shares were 405p and I said sell as it was an accident waiting to happen. By mid-September they were down to 320p and I still said sell. Now, following after-hours full year results to March, slipped out at no-one-is-watching o’clock on deadline day (never a good sign) – and showing it had net current assets of MINUS $1.5 million – the shares are down again, to 270p – and in my view they are still monstrously overvalued and a sell.

AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) – the firm which prefers to mine its own shareholders rather than anything in the ground, according to Cynical Bear – slipped out its full year results to March last night at 5.35pm on deadline day. Truly, this is no-one-is-watching o’clock, but ShareProphets was watching and the numbers are – again – horrendous.

I cannot help notice that John Zorbas’ AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) continues to slide. At the end of July I noted that the shares, then at 405p, seemed to represent over-valuation to the point of madness. By the end of August the shine had started to come off with the stock at 390p. Now they are 320p – and still monstrously overvalued.

I noted the other day that AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) seemed to be an accident waiting to happen. With a boat-load of death spiral shares and warrants to come at 85p against a then share price of 405p, that was surely enough of a Red Flag, but with its main asset now held in TSXV-listed ZEB Nickel (ZBNI) following a “disposal” which was not really a disposal, whose shares (of which URU holds 41 million of, but mostly held in escrow) and ZEB’s shares sliding alarmingly since the suspension was lifted, the Red Flags were certainly fluttering wildly in the wind.

It has been a busy few weeks for AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU). The “sale” of its Zebediela nickel project in South Africa to Toronto Venture Exchange listed (lack-of) cash shell Blue Rhino (RHNO), now renamed ZEB Nickel (ZBNI) has completed, with Zeb having raised some cash along the way. But it seems that the Toronto market is less than impressed.

My five AIM anti-tips for the year continue to defy gravity. I suggested in my last column on this that perhaps it should perhaps be renamed the Market Madness Index. Anyway, for what it is worth, here is how things stand.

Last night, at 6.02pm – no-one-is-watching o’clock – AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) announced it has increased the death spiral facility with an outfit called Boothbay Absolute Return Strategies from $250,000 to $500,000 – and the bargain giveaway conversion terms which were originally due to expire within 90 days of the original loan have again been extended so that Boothbay can convert at just 85p……with the stock trading at 325p!

Last night, at 5.32pm on a Friday – no-one-is-watching o’clock – AIM-listed John Zorbas outfit URU Metals (URU) issued an RNS related to its death spiral financing package first announced in May last year. It is good news for the loan sharks, but surely shareholders deserve better.

The good news is that we did not have to wait until after-hours on New Year’s Eve for the latest set of Interim Results to September from AIM-listed John Zorbas POS URU Metals (URU). But the numbers are, as predicted, truly awful – it is Red Flags ahoy from this technically insolvent joke company.

And so we head for the end of the year – another traditional time to bury bad news by announcing it when nobody is paying any attention, ie on New Year’s Eve. Top of my list for awful results is AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) headed by John Zorbas, which offered up a dreadful half-year report the day before New Year’s Eve last year which demonstrated it was technically insolvent by a big margin. It will surely be no different this year.

AIM-listed John Zorbas POS URU Metals (URU) has announced the issue of a stack of shares to settle directors’ fees and those of an adviser this morning. That to add to yesterday’s paltry subscription shares raising just £280,000  (before expenses). I would suggest that this latest splurge of confetti shows just how badly screwed the company is.

Well blow me down: AIM-listed John Zorbas POS URU Metals (URU) has rattled the tin and got someone to fork up at 230p per share. Apparently that is around a 10% discount, but given the paltry return for the company it says nothing that is good about the company. A few coins for the electricity meter and, er…..that’s about it.

Shares in John Zorbas AIM outfit URU Metals (URU) are up today on the news of an advisory board appointment. The company announced the hiring of Mr Justin Cocharne to URU’s advisory board and the shares have motored by 6.4% to 250p but I just have one question: how will URU pay for his services, given that the company is quite clearly technically insolvent?

AIM-listed technically insolvent John Zorbas POS URU Metals (URU) announced yesterday that it has for the second time extended the initial 90-day initial notice period on its convertible death-spiral loan by a further 90 days. With the shares at 260p, the initial deal to convert the loan is massively more attractive for the loan shark than the 35% discount that would otherwise apply – so why is URU doing this?

AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) – the one described by Cynical Bear as being happier mining its own shareholders than anything in the ground – has updated on its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) at the Zebediela Project in South Africa. Bear in mind that it announced in April that it planned to spend £250,000 it hadn’t got on this back in April.

AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) – the company which drills shareholders as opposed to anything in the ground, according to Cynical Bear – has launched a new Corporate Presentation. That means its next confetti-fest is now under starters orders…

AIM-listed John Zorbas vehicle URU Metals (URU) has today released its FY20 results. It is “pleased to announce” them, as is Chairman Jay Vieira, but there is absolutely nothing here for shareholders to be pleased about. It is massively technically insolvent and the Going Concern statement is a hoot. And call me old-fashioned, but where has the Nomad signed off on this announcement? Maybe I am going blind, but I can’t see the Nomad mentioned anywhere: surely that it a breach of AIM Rules? Has the Nomad resigned? Should the shares be suspended?

In August I noted that my list of five slam-dunk sells for 2020 was up, rather than down, by an amazing 41% – even though one is now a zero. Earlier this month the gains had been pared back to 25.5% but now, just two weeks later it seems that gravity is finally reasserting itself.

Tom Winnifrith has already laid out his concerns over the state of play with too many stocks being quite obviously overvalued to a massive extent. One such play I have been following is John Zorbas’ BVI-registered (and therefore not subject to the Takeover Panel’s 30% rule) and AIM-listed URU Metals (URU).

I see that shares in URU Metals (URU), a company run by John Zorbas which Cynical Bear observed seemed to be more interested in mining its shareholders than digging anything of value out of the ground, have dropped to just 80p to sell. This is in the wake of the disgraceful fundraise at a massive 57.5% discount (which was advertised as a 24% discount) to its previous 200p share price. That is bad enough, but there are implications of far worse to come.

Tom Winnifrith has already added to my comments yesterday about the ridiculous aluation of AIM-listed Tern plc (TERN), which even after yesterday’s 25% crash and a further 10% drop today is still monstrously overvalued. Tern is not alone, which brings me on to AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) which has been rising steadily from a low point of 90p on 27^th April to the current 200p. So what has been the catalyst for this meteoric rise? After all, URU is – as I have pointed out before – technically insolvent!...

AIM-listed URU Metals (URU) has announced an update on its mining right application as announced on 11 December 2019. Except it was first announced not in December just gone but at least as far back as May last year. Still, never let the truth get in the way of a good story with which to ramp the shares. We are told that...

Once again, as happens several times each week, the word vindication springs to mind. You cannot say that you were not warned countless times, right from the time of its IPO to the near reading of the last rites today, that this crock of shit would end in tears. That moment is almost upon us.

I was going to give the Visual Capitalist charts a rest for a few weeks, even though they are popular, because we don't make them ourselves. But I noticed this morning that they are produced in my hometown of Vancouver. So I looked at their site to see if I knew any one who worked there. I don't - but I saw that they literally occupy the old office space of my last business there. If that's not a reason to run another one, I don't know what is.

On 2 May Management Resource Solutions (MRS) held an investor lie-fest at the offices of its uber expensive PR posh-tards FTI Consulting. It was recorded so hapless Nomad Arden has full access to what was said. I have already detailed, here, a stunning admission by boss John Zorbas which would have seen any normal Nomad resign on the spot. But there was more….

China fraud specialist Paul Shackleton is trying to restore his soiled reputation and personal finances as head of the Nomad team at Arden. But this is proving hard given the activities of Arden client Management Resource Solutions (MRS). Over the weekend, thanks to Winnileaks, we exposed the biggest lie yet told by Management boss John Zorbas over the dodgy as hell related party nest of snakes £1.32 million acquisition of Alerion. In friendship, I have written to Mr Shackleton asking if Arden will quit as Nomad now and explaining exactly why they must. I have cc’d in AIM Regulation.

At the investor presentation on 2 May at the offices of uber expensive PR posh-wits FTI Consulting, which was attended by over 20 sceptical and angry investors, Management Resource Solutions (MRS) boss John Zorbas again showed he was, quite possibly, a liar.

Today at 2PM, Management Resource Solutions (MRS) hosts a teach in for analysts and investors at the offices of its PR firm FTI Consulting. Anyone attending might care to ask if the Takeover Panel has been in touch.

Believe it or not AIM PLC directors are meant to be deemed by their Nomad to be “fit and proper” individuals to hold such a post. Don’t all laugh at once. And that brings me to John Zorbas the boss of insolvent Management Resource Solutions (MRS) which is happy to lie to investors.

AIM regulation has acknowledged that it has received my formal requests to investigate lies told via RNS and the related party nest of snakes at Management Resource Solutions (MRS). At the centre of it all is 10% shareholder and noted market bad boy Leon Hogan. Now thanks to Winnileaks here is something else for regulators to consider...potential market abuse.

If an AIM listed company lies to its Nomad and to the market the Nomad should quit on the spot. Thanks to Winnileaks we bring you an email exchange below which shows that Management Resource Solutions (MRS) told a monster lie this week. The end should be nigh. I have alerted the Nomad, AIM Regulation and the FCA.

During the weekend in three separate articles I have detailed what an insolvent can of worms is AIM Cesspit listed Management Resource Solutions (MRS) and asked questions that need answering about its latest £1.32 million all share acquisition. The company has failed to answer the matters raised and its shares have plunged another 25.4% to 2.35p today. I have thus written to Nomad Arden demanding that it suspend trading in the shares at once and why. The letter is below. 

Yesterday I explained why Management Resource Solutions (MRS) was technically insolventand why its propsed £1.32 million all share purchase of drone start up Alerion was a joke that no respectable Nomad would have signed off on. But it gets worse and there is another massive question for hapless Nomad Arden to consider....

It’s time for my monthly look at this motley selection of AIM wannabes. A few positive pointers but they all remain resolutely out of reach for the time being; although after a false start at Vast Resources, I sense the wonder VR app at EVR Holdings is taking the lead.

Occasionally a company which looks dead and buried does actually manage to turn things around, and I’m starting to wonder if that will be the case with Management Resource Solutions (MRS).

I’ve been a bit preoccupied in recent weeks with a certain fund manager so thought I should catch up with a few old friends on AIM this weekend but it transpires that not a lot has actually happened. It made me realise more than ever that AIM is much more about the travelling I hope than the arriving. Accordingly, I thought it was more appropriate to write a piece heralding the 7 Mythical Wonders of the AIM Casino instead.

And there we have it. Today’s announcement of the placing at Altona Energy (ANR) to raise £735,000 at 0.5p completes a very successful, oft–repeated, operation at the lower end of AIM, namely the placing, followed by the industrial-sized ramp, followed by the placing – the “PRP”. It is worth looking at in closer detail.

I laughed at last week’s announcement from URU Metals (URU) concerning the acid leaching results but I wasn’t necessarily going to comment on the meaningless tripe. However, I feel I almost have a moral duty to counter the “Speculative Buy” nonsense from its corporate broker, Beaufort Securities, so here goes.

Anyone who follows the lower end of AIM will have spotted the recent excitement and massive share price increase at Altona Energy (ANR) following a heavily discounted keep the lights on placing at 0.05p on 13 October. I couldn’t help but notice the name of John Zorbas cropping up and suspect that he has found something new and shiny to get excited about.

As expected the full year results for URU Metals (URU) came out on the last possible day yesterday and, also as expected, they didn’t provide any answers to the questions I raised in my preview piece (HERE). However, that didn’t stop John Zorbas finding something new to get excited about and distract investors about the pitiful lack of progress here.

I’m expecting URU Metals (URU) to issue its end of year results on the last possible day  on 29 September, next Friday week, and am also expecting a sleight of hand masterpiece from the CEO, John Zorbas, who loves to distract from the real issue here, namely an uneconomic mine. Here’s a contrast of what I would like to see in the results and what I expect to see.

I won’t claim to be a mining expert and will leave the technical analysis to Gary Newman who is much better at that sort of thing (see HERE); however, with the odd looking share movements and the Zorbas connection, I couldn’t resist digging through past RNS’s to find something ridiculous and what was clear is that this isn’t really a mining company at all, unless you think rinsing shareholders of cash counts, of course.

URU Metals (URU) seems to have this RNS lark cracked – if the market hates the first one that you issue, then just word it slightly differently and release news about the same project again the following day. You really couldn’t make it up!

I’ve been watching the share price of Mercom Capital (MCC) rise recently with interest wondering what is going on behind the scenes. Following a further 30% rise yesterday to 13p, a couple of after-hours RNS’s shed a bit of light on the situation….but also raised plenty of questions. In any event, there should be a bit of fun and games for the neutral to enjoy.