Last night at 5.20pm AIM-listed Rurelec slipped out its full year results to December 31 2020. Given that its previous team of directors slipped out of the door since period end, the evening of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle looks like a good time to bury bad news.

It is quite obvious that nobody will be paying any attention tomorrow morning as hangovers are nursed in the wake of England’s attempt to see that football’s coming home this evening. Even schools have been told they can delay opening until 10am tomorrow so at 7am when the RNS system strikes up it will be a classic case of no-one-is-watching o’clock. In short, tomorrow will be a good day to bury bad news. So how many dodgy RNSs will there be first thing tomorrow? Place your bets…..

Having been visited by the Ghost from Christmas Past I got a bit confused and befuddled over the deadline for this year’s ShareProphets Bury Bad News Christmas Sweepstake. Since then, of course, I’ve seen a few more ghosts, including the one for Christmas Present and the bury bad news sweepstake certainly threw up a good few of those (for non-shareholders). So who won?

Bah! Humbug! I’m back with this year’s annual ShareProphets Bury Bad News Christmas Sweepstake. With Christmas falling on Wednesday this year, any corporate news released next week immediately falls into the no-one-is-watching o’clock category. But this competition is about bad news released on Tuesday, Christmas Eve, which companies clearly don’t want their shareholders to know.

On Sunday I offered a prize contest (1/2 litre of Greek Hovel olive oil) for election day – this being to guess how many 'bad news reports' from UK-listed companies were to attempt to be buried on the day and, as a tiebreaker, the number of seats the Tories would win. The result which has been reached is...

Not content with leaving burying bad news on polling day to the likes of Purplebricks (PURP) or Versarien (VRS), this morning – election results day – AIM-listed Anglesey Mining (AYM) joined the fray with its Interims to September. They are truly horrid.

Well Humbug and Bah Humbug to you all! You all want to know who won the Bury Bad News sweepstake. Needless to say, it wasn’t me! The entries ranged from 7 to 50 bad news RNSs on Christmas Eve, but who won – and what was the worst of RNSs?

Having seen a cracking 23 dodgy RNSs released on the last trading day before Christmas as bad news was buried in last-minute Christmas shopping and even then a few were slipped out hours after the markets closed, the totally unbiased adjudication of the Global Shorting Conspiracy has reviewed the releases on the last trading day of 2016 for attempts at burying bad news. You were asked how many there would be, and we have a winner. But first, a round-up of the missives concerned.

We had, according to the totally unbiased  panel from the Global Shorting Conspiracy, a stonking 23 bad news RNSs released on the last trading day before Christmas -  with a couple of stand-out releases from Kenmare (KMR) and TLA Worldwide (TLA) which really took the biscuit. But how many will we see this Friday, the last trading (half-) day of the year? Place your bets….

Bah, humbug! Last year’s final trading session before Christmas saw the RNS system take an early bath, but this year it was in full flow right through to 6.30pm, even though the markets closed at 12.30. So who slipped out bad news as everyone was off doing their last minute Christmas shopping? And who went the extra mile by leaving the release of bad news right into the evening? We had some cracking entries on that score, and we have a winner to announce as regards the sweepstake.

Bah humbug! Christmas is next weekend and so this whole week coming up is already marked on the calendar as no-one-is-watching o’clock. The last trading day before Yuletide falls on Friday 23^rd and thus is the perfect time for a company to slip out bad news and so once again we bring you the ShareProphets “bury bad news” Christmas Sweepstakes. Place your bets…..

Talk about a good day to bury bad news: every media commentator is trying to come to terms with the election of Donald Trump (with the notable exception of our own Tom Winnifrith, who is off to get his new Poll Sheriff’s badge) and so at 3.41pm yesterday AIM-listed Milestone Group (MSG) slipped out a “miscellaneous” RNS. It may have won two big contracts recently but in terms of this RNS, there was nothing miscellaneous about it: this company is in serious trouble.

Old Ebenezer has gone off in a huff: he didn't win. And so it falls to me to reveal the results of the ShareProphets New Year's Eve "bury bad news" sweepstakes. The specially commissioned panel from the Global Shorting Conspiracy has reached its decision after due deliberations over which RNSs qualified from New Year's Eve. The offending releases were as follows:

The City has another opportunity to slip out bad news when nobody is looking tomorrow, New Year's Eve. Actually this whole forttnight seems to be open season at no-one-is-watching o'clock, but tomorrow sees another sweet spot for the PR geniuses to ply their craft in this Festy period. So how many dodgy RNSs will we see tomorrow, New Year's Eve?

Bah, humbug. With Christmas coming up this whole week is classified as no-one-is-watching o'clock. What better time is there, then, to slip out bad news than on Christmas Eve? As such, we bring you the ShareProphets Christmas Sweepstakes: how many bad news RNSs will there be on Christmas Eve?

Tomorrow morning as the General Election polls open I shall be sitting in sunny Kalamata preparing to head out to see the snakes at the Greek Hovel. Fear not Theo Clarke (Con) and Perry Hicks (Con) my postal votes are already in. But on this day many in the City will be away from their desks trying to get the vote out and many investors will be looking elsewhere. In the words of a Labour spin doctor on 9/11 “it will be a good day to bury bad news” and I am told that a number of companies are already planning to do just that.  However…