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Barclays, Tesco and MoPowered

Barclays, Tesco and MoPowered - two big companies and one a typical new AIM company which has yet to show it can make a profit - but all three are under the weather in the last couple of days. Barclays have today (23/9/2014) been fined £38m by the Financial Conduct Authority for failing to ensure that clients money in the investment bank was kept separate from the banks own assets. When I joked in my local Barclays Bank this morning that I ...

The dangers of share tips – Naibu (NBU) and Monitise (MONI)

Well respected stock picker Simon Thompson had to admit defeat with Naibu in the Investors Chronicle on Friday (19/9/2014). This Chinese maker of sportswear has, on an earnings basis, been ridiculously cheap for a long time, but some investors liked the high dividend yield. Simon picked the company for his share pick of 2014 in the Investors Chronicle - he tipped it at 58p in February with these words: "It's not often you have the chance to buy shares in a ...

Diageo AGM and Scottish Independence Postscript

Yesterday I attended the Annual General Meeting of Diageo Plc. Being the day of the Scottish Independence vote, there were some questions on that issue for the board, but all the CEO said was that you can be assured we will fiercely fight for free trade, currency stability and no more tax and regulation. The Chairman said it was for the people of Scotland to decide, even though Diageo is headquartered in Scotland. You know the outcome by now and I ...

Oxford Technology VCTs and Scottish Independence

Today the two Oxford Technology VCTs that were threatened with withdrawal of VCT status have announced that the changes required by HMRC to enable them to retain VCT status have been achieved and accepted by HMRC. Presumably that has required the disposal of some of the Scancell shares that were the source of the difficulty and that has been confirmed in the announcements. This therefore probably concludes the campaign on these VCTs that ShareSoc mounted as there has been an almost complete ...

Quindell judgement

Yesterday (9/9/2014), Quindell announced that the company had won a judgement for libel against Gotham City Research LLP in the London High Court. Gotham simply failed to defend the action or even acknowledge the claim. Gotham had published a 74 page document earlier this year effectively claiming the company was fraudulent but Quindell immediately issued an announcement rejecting the allegations as being “highly defamatory” and “deliberately misrepresentative”.  Gotham also made it clear that they had a short financial interest in Quindell ...