Oxford Metrics Share Price (OMG)

As usual the devil will be in the detail but, in the circumstances, the H1 results don't sound too bad. Unfortunately both macro events beyond their control (conflict in the Middle East) and US specific issues (the demise of science under the Trump administration) are creating tailwinds. Despite the successful launch of Artemis, the Trump administration has recently announced a 25%+ reduction in NASA's science budge! Don't know whether that will have any direct impact on OMG but it is a sign of how the wind is currently blowing in the US (I wouldn't be surprised if they started re-introducing Creationism to the academic curriculum the way things are currently going). As regards the Middle East and the outcome of Trump's latest "peace" exercise, who knows!

Trump is again talking about slashing science budgets for 2027 (although of course Congress have the final say). Here’s some feedback in relation to NASA…….

NASA faces a 23% cut to its total budget and a 47% drop in funding for its science division. More than 40 projects would be terminated. “It’s an extinction-level event for science,” says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization in Pasadena, California, that advocates for space exploration. “It would undermine and prevent NASA from being the world leader in space exploration.”

Perhaps not directly OMG related but how can that possibly align with the Artemis project the US are busy happy-clapping and potentially (on a small scale), colonising the Moon and mining resources there in future??

Then again does anyone really understand the mind and motives of Trump.

Looks like a lot of interest coming this way today.

Judges Scientific (JDG) has just issued its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2025 today. Like Vicon, JDG's US business is heavily reliant on US research funding and the news coming out of JDG today would not appear to bode well for Vicon's prospects in the US over the last six months. Despite US research funding having been restored by Congress, there still seems to be uncertainty about when federal funds will start to flow again and JDG has, at least, seen a fall in its US orders as a result.

Whether, and to what extent, Vicon is affected by the same trade winds in th US, Trump certainly doesn't appear to be making life any easier for Imogen and her executive team.

I wouldn't disagree and, unfortunately, I'm inclined to think the situation may be set to get worse. Even if Trump can now extract himself from the mess he's created, it's probably going to have a knock on effect on the worldwide economy for the next 12-18 months, making an already difficult trading environment even harder. So, even if OMG has made progress on the trading front at the "interims", it's probaby going to have to caveat its near term prospects because of the Dunce in the Whitehouse. In my experience, the market never reacts well to caveats even when they are both obvious and realistic. OMG will not be alone in being caught in that storm. In the short term, now would be a very good time for OMG to announce some new, sizeable contracts, if it has any in the offing.