Gear4music Share News (G4M)

(ShareCast News) - Sell shares in waste-to-energy producer Infinis Energy, said the Sunday Times's Inside the City column. When Chancellor George Osborne last Wednesday swept away long-standing tax breaks for Infinis, Drax and other green energy producers in his Budget it was an especially big blow for Terra Firma, the private equity firm that owns 69% in the company and had been looking to sell its stake. Infinis, whose main businesses are onshore wind farms and converting waste gas from landfill sites, closed the week at 145.75p, a drop of 27%.Since the UK general election the company has been hit hard. Two weeks ago, the energy secretary slashed payments to wind farms, making the prospects for some projects in Infinis's pipeline less certain, while the Budget's takes a bite of £5 per megawatt hour out of earnings. The company now believes profits will fall £7m this year and £11m the next. Although Infinis generates plenty of cash and yields a healthy 12%, profits are headed the wrong way and its £610m in loans now represents 30% more than its market value.Avoid the mining sector, suggested Questor in the Sunday Telegraph. After the Shanghai Composite index slumped by more than a third in under a month, wiping out more than £2.2trn in wealth, it couldn't have come at a worse time for a slowing Chinese economy. China has been the world's largest importer of commodities as it fed a huge infrastructure and property building boom, but a slowing economy and the bursting of the housing bubble has seen the prices of copper, iron ore, zinc and coal fall sharply for the past 18 months. But after a recovery in the first half of the year, they resumed and accelerated their fall last week.The FTSE 100's miners Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Glencore and Anglo American will struggle to maintain payouts if commodity prices remain at current levels, with analysts citing Glencore and Anglo as most likely to cut. The two larger miners can weather the storm, but not if prices don't recover.Shares in Gear4music are a buy for brave investors, wrote Midas in the Mail on Sunday. Founder Andrew Wass, a pianist and horn player, spotted a gap in the market for a musical instrument retailer in 2003 and this year has floated his businesss on AIM to target a European market for musical equipment estimated to be worth £4.3bn. Selling a range of 27,000 items via 19 country-specific websites and a showroom in York, the company turned over £24.2m last year, up 37% and with its own-brand offering contributed 29% and international sales grew 87% to £5.5m. Though it is loss-making now, it expects to be profitable in 2016.The £10m of IPO cash has been earmarked to develop the e-commerce site, invest in marketing, extend the product range, pare down debt and open a flagship showroom in London. While its biggest competitors include Thomann and Musicstore in Germany and Woodbrass in France, Gear4music has no comparable group in the UK in terms of market share. Britain has a strong heritage of music production and it is now easier than ever for amateur musicians to record at home. Yet there is no single dominant player in the music equipment market.