UK 19:27 Friday, 23 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from ShareProphets). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Recorded at 1 AM to work around the travel plans of pizza hardman Darren Atwater I am shattered after a shift as a waiter, cook, dishwasher and host at Free Speech & Liberty Pizza. I more shift today and then back to sabbatical. But I explain why I was autographing table cards here for Americans late last night. It all tuies in with what this website is trying to do but what crony capitalists are trying to stop us doing - I reveal the latest smears against me from those who resent us breaking news of certain placings. I also say why we break that news. Then I move onto Afren
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Comments
DUCK AND DIVE
Wouldn’t the convicts require a suspension of trading for announcements like Afren made on Friday? At least shareholders now have a full couple of non-trading days to find the news and decide what to do about it. The guy who had to attend a funeral when the RNS came out will not be disadvantaged.
Generally, I approve of major price-sensitive news being disseminated out of trading hours. Arguably 7am Monday would have sufficed but the market maker probably welcomes the longer prep time too. Overall, the market will be more orderly for the news having been released late on Friday.
Congratulations on the AFR call. Was your target price 1p?
Daniel Victor
Perhaps the Afren management may have misjudged this one.The poor shareholders might just work out that buying shares at 1p in the open offer is not a good idea.
Chris
AIM is a shambles and my London solicitor has commented his firm’s clients on IHT are shunning it. It’s a casino except for a few producing companies in manufacturing. In the meantime until the next commodity boom we have the chartists showing quick trades.
Jock
Luke Johnson column: Sunday Times 14th June
“Investing in AIM benefits from tax breaks…. it is the best growth company exchange in the world apart from Nasdaq. And if costs were cut, analyst coverage improved and regulations relaxed, it would be even better. Long may it flourish.”
Perfect illustration of why nothing will change on AIM right there- powerful vested interests do exceedingly well out of current situation…
Woody44
You may not be committing market abuse as you’re not officially inside but you’re certainly encouraging your sources to. If someone is receiving inside information, it follows that someone else must have broken the law.
Everyone hates being diluted but if companies need cash, what other choice do they have? Bucket shops and EFFs exist because no one else is prepared to put their hands in their pocket. Rights issues never raise much money and your attempt to team up with EFF house Darwin has only really raised money for related party company Ascent (these things have been tried and failed on other exchanges so I don’t hold much hope for this one).
AIM is designed so that companies can raise money easily – it’s a growth market and growing companies need cash. That’s why there is no maximum discount and it’s easier to get shareholder authority to raise money than it is on the Main Market.
There are many things wrong with AIM, most noticeably the AIM team does not appear to make an even half decent job of policing it. But if you don’t like the way money is raised, within the AIM Rules, stop whinging and go and invest in Main Market companies.
There is no crime in a company attempting to raise money at a discount yet you seem to delight in leaking it, possible only because someone else has committed a crime. This drives the price and the discount down, thereby destroying existing shareholders’ wealth, making capital raising more expensive and in some cases starving a company of capital. As you’re a journalist, I can understand your delight in getting a scoop but please don’t preach at us that you do it for any other reason. It is disingenuous to claim such leaks protect the private investor or fight against crony capitalists because in reality they damage the private investor and have a negligible effect on the crony capitalist.
Tom Winnifrith
Woody44
A journalist encouraging folks to call him with info is not committing a crime. At least not in a free country. If you dont like that why not FO to North Korea.
You assume my sources have been made insiders. You, of course, have no evidence of that. But if I am not made an insider I have broken no laws at all.
If I stop folks on AIM or the MM from being scalped by pre placing pump ahead of a discounted placing I have done a good job. Or would you rather private invesrtors were rogered?
T
Woody44
Disapproval of a journalist encouraging people to call him with information obtained illegally is a long way from approval of North Korea and I hope was just an attempt at weak banter on your behalf, otherwise it’s a pretty infantile reaction to genuine criticism.
Part V Criminal Justice Act 1993: “An insider dealing offence is committed by an individual who has information as an insider and who… Discloses the information, otherwise than in the proper performance of the functions of his employment, office or profession, to another person.”
Of course I am making assumptions and have no evidence other than logic. Perhaps you could explain it for those less clever than you because logic dictates that for you to be in receipt of inside information, someone must have committed the above offence? It may not be your source, or even your source’s source, but it would appear that somewhere in the chain somebody has disclosed inside information otherwise than in the proper performance of the functions of his employment. How else could information pass from those who are inside to your good self?
It looks like you are the one doing the rogering because it is private investors who feel the pain when the company they own is forced into an even deeper discount because of your 11th hour leak. Blabbing about the price and quantum of a placing only hours away from completion, with specific inside information that has been leaked, is very different from warning that a company has been ramping and a placing looks likely using your own skill and analysis. I think most people would commend the latter and is a good protection for folks from being scalped but I cannot see how the former provides any public service whatsoever.
I am generally a big admirer of yours and I look forward to your bearcast every day. I think you’re doing an excellent job calling out the scoundrels on AIM but your reaction to any criticism suggests that you believe you are above criticism. I do admire the way you allow criticism to be posted but then your reactions are often overladen with swear words and vitriol. On the one hand you allow free speech and with the other you tell it to FO.