UK 07:47 Wednesday, 23 September 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Hello, Share Splurgers. You’ll have noticed that the once criticised IQE (IQE) is slipping down my sharper colleague Steve Moore’s weekly list of the most shorted shares. Its share price has also risen from its usual 50p or so to 80p. I think I know the reason for the recovery - and it's mainly down to the Covid story.
Hello, Share Pickers. Oh, dear! It’s always worrying when I do this. But I want to bring you news of a company which Uncle Tom has been critical of in the past. He’s done that mainly on the grounds of value. And he’s a value investor. But this company looks to be building better foundations and the future for its particular market looks chirpy...
Hello, Share Shakers. Such is the sparkling reputation of my boss Uncle Tom that to suggest a share he’s been wary off can be a scary thing. But Tom has a different approach to me. I can sometimes favour rather weak fundamentals if the direction of travel is sound. Whereas Tom, as a value investor, regards the balance sheet with more respect. Which brings me to today’s choice for your further inspection...
Hello Share Peckers. As a private share trader, there are two ways to play the Covid outbreak. One is to assume all ships rise on the tide. And that as the virus will go eventually, we just need to sit back. The other is to take advantage of the scary volatility of some stocks at the moment. In other words to buy on the dips and sell on the jumps. So what will you do?
Hello Share Scrappers. Do you view the battered trade and foreign tourist industries as a buying opportunity? Doesn't every battered sector usually come back up? And though the rule can't be applied to every company, it’s often the case that after a disaster comes a bounce. However, I tended to avoid travel companies before the pandemic. And I certainly will now. The current French fiasco is only the start of travel restrictions yet to come. So where should we put our money now?
Hello, Share Chums. I take my life in my hands a bit today with a suggestion that IQE (IQE), the Welsh maker of computer bits, might be worth a tentative look...
From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2019 and thus far in 2020 (by net short position %, those in bold not on the list at the start of 2020) – and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...
I have dropped a note to our good friends the Oxymorons and Chocolate Teapots, of AIM Regulation and the FCA respectively, with regard to AIM-listed IQE (IQE) head honcho Dr Drew Nelson and his recent dealings with Equities First Holdings. It seems to me to be a certainty that he has not come clean over his loan that isn’t a loan, under which he is “obligated” to repurchase the shares he sold yet these deals are non-recourse (so he’s not “obligated” at all), where we were told he had cash put aside to meet margin calls but settled one with more shares, and where his margin call appears to have been reported well after the fact – or it was not the first – when, if I understand the rules correctly, all margin call matters and any other developments in relation to his EFH loan which isn’t a loan should be reported to the market within a few days.
We have heard nothing more from AIM-listed IQE over when head honcho Dr Drew Nelson received the dreaded margin call from Equities First Holdings (EFH) in relation to his non-recourse sale-and-repurchase deal involving (now) over 12 million shares. Yet as I noted on Monday, it seems pretty clear that we have not been told the whole truth and I shall be writing to AIM Regulation on that matter later today. But looking back, it seems there is something else which doesn’t quite match what we were told.
AIM-listed IQE (IQE) boss Drew Nelson’s first deal with US loan-sharks Equities First Holdings (EFH), under which his non-recourse sale and repurchase agreement which was originally misrepresented, ended on a happy note and all ended well. So well that he did another deal last year. Unfortunatley, that seems to have become a little unstuck as today we learn that Dr Nelson was on the receiving end of a margin call. But when?
From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2019 and thus far in 2020 (by net short position %, those in bold not on the list at the start of 2020) – and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...
There will be some who say that shorting a stock because it is exposed to the fallout from Coronavirus and what may well soon be a global pandemic is Tasteless. They probably have no such complaints about going long of a company with a test for the product. I am sure we all pray that this human tragedy ends soon. But the reality is that right now it is growing and, notwithstanding today’s sell-off, many of us reckon the market in certain stocks fails massively to discount the downside risks.
