Member Info for CHEQUEMATE

Good morning GG. Here's just a few thoughts before I have to head off to work. Firstly, regarding your last post and director dealings. The directors have been making purchases most months around the middle of the month for some time this year. It may well be that part of their salary is taken in shares, since the purchases seem to be relatively small. Good news all the same I should think. Secondly, and on a much wider thought. Have you thought what effect the result of the U.S presidential election will have on the share market?. With the election now less than 2 weeks away it may be worth thinking about. My personal view, and I may be wide of the mark of course, is that if Romney wins then it may well give the market a considereable (short term) boost of maybe up to 200 points on the day and up to 500 or more on the week because he is seen as industry and business friendly. This may well push the FTSE and other indicies up too. If Obama wins then imo the market may be more subdued with little effect one way or the other. However, should we wish for a Romney victory?, well........I leave that up to you. Personally, I think if you live in the U.S and are white, well off and/or middle earning then it may be ok, but not if you are black, low paid and/or ill. I only mention this because it is a major news story which can/will effect the market as a whole regardless of a companys fundamentals. So, will it effect AIE?.........possibly, but only in the short term imo. Just thought provoking, nothing more. There are still the Eurozone woes to consider of course, which is likely to have a greater impact on the market over here. That is rather quiet at present, but refuses to go away. You are always welcome to bounce any ideas off me and I am pleased you feel you can do that, thanks. i will do what I can to help. I am impressed by a lot of the shares that you have invested in, looking at the fundamentals; it shows you already have a pretty good grasp of things. Of course like all of us you will make mistakes; unfortunately that can hardly be avoided. Right, I have to go.......that four lettered word beckons............WORK!!!. Urgh!. Have a good day. Regards CM

Good evening GG and all Aniters. Sorry to hear the market is punishing you at the moment GG, it happens to all of us, lets hope it turns around. AIE however is performing nicely, better than I expected it to at this stage. No idea why it should have jumped yesterday, nor TRCS for that matter, but it certainly helped to limit the loss made yesterday with GBO and GBG. At times there seems no obvious reason why a share should jump or fall, just have to accept it and if the fundamentals and the story remains strong and unchanged then stay with it. Re. SAA, GG, I am not expecting fireworks with it, more like a plodder but hopefully in the right direction. It meets most of my criteria for investing but is not particularly exciting, and meets the title of Jim Slater's book, "The Zulu Principle - how to make extraordinary profits from ordinary shares". Too often investors go chasing the most flash and exciting shares only to get stung. As stated previously, I felt I needed more diversification in my portfolio, the determinant factor in this case. I will see what happens with an open mind. Please treat any of my "advice" with due care and attention GG. I will never try to mislead, but I can get things wrong like anyone else. As for being called Yoda, well, lol, "honoured I am, but looking better than me he is!". It is hard not to get emotional about the shares we have, it probably happens to all of us. The best approach is to stay totally aloof and whatever we do, never fall in love with ANY share, regardless of how good it has been to us in the past. It has no feeling, does not know us, owes us nothing but sure as wotsit will chew us up and spit us out if we are not careful!. Always consider all options and not get blinkered into only considering the share(s) we have if it starts falling, and be very, very careful of averaging down, remember there are probably better opportunities out there. We are here to make a profit, nothing else. Forgive me if I sound at all patronizing folks and of topic. "Good weekend you must have" Regards Yoda!

Good evening GG. Just back from a few days away in Shropshire with the bike chasing some better weather. Are we related?. We seem to think pretty much along the same lines!. It is always tempting to keep an eye on shares we have sold, hoping to prove a point that we were right to sell when we did. A lot of time we are proved right, especially the more experienced we become and start to be able to read the signs of when the time is right to sell. Sometimes we are proved right initially only to see the blighters rise again and pass our sell price, sometimes for no good reason and this can be mightily frustrating. As you rightly say, the best thing to do is delete them from our watchlist once we have sold, unless we are intending to buy back in sometime shortly; but I have to admit, I am guilty of hanging onto shares on my watchlist that I have sold. Perhaps it is macarbre fascination. Don't worry about ASC. Hey, years ago, when ASC first came on the scene, I could have bought them at 9p, yes, honestly at 9p!. But I felt the spread was too great at 7p-9p was too great. Of course, none of us knew what was going to happen, but had I invested £500 then and held..............That's life!. Then again, had I held onto NGL rather than sell at 37p I would have been pretty sick with it now at less than 3p!.......you lose some, you win some and we move on. Like you, I feel I have too much invested at the moment and feel I should sell before I buy. I sold out of RPC recently; they have since fallen back a little more, but I should have sold out 2 weeks earlier to have got the best price. I have bought into SAA with the proceeds, holding a little back. I chose SAA to give more diversification to my portfolio. I don't like the spread, but it is probably due to the few shares which are traded; the market makers have to make their money!. Had I bought into BRY I just felt I would have too much committed to technology stocks. I liked the fundamentals to SAA, but accept it like any share has its' risks. As with any share investment we need to spend time doing our own research to TRY to avoid making those spur of the moment investments because it seemed a good idea at the time and because it was mentioned on the b. boards. The more reading we do, the less likely we are to make mistakes, although inevitably the odd one will creep in, lets hope such mistakes won't be costly and we recognise them early on. Here's hoping for a good week. Regards CM

Hello ADD. Thankfully a quiet day; I can live with that. No, I didn't see those trades, until now. Can't tell if they were buys or sells, could be either. One thing for sure.............it wasn't me!.......... Regards all CM

I see not reason why the share price should fall by so much today on small volume and late on. Could this be an attempt at shaking the tree by the market makers before results are announced on 31 October?. I have re-read the last 2 trading statements, which seem relatively positive. I have looked at the latest director dealings but find them a little confusing; (probably the time of day!), but there seems to be buying, selling and transferring!. Lets hope for a tick up before the results are published. Regards CM

Good evening; hope your weekend is going well. Interesting to read your post. I have completed a trawl of the TechMARK 100, FTSE Fledgling and the FTSE AIM All share indicies looking for potential investments based my strict criteria. The initial list threw up 47 shares but this was whittled down to 10 after considerable analysis last night and a late night!. The list does not include the likes of AIE, GBG, GBO, NET or TRCS (all worthy candidates too) because I already have holdings in the companies. BRY is included in the list although not in the indicies out of interest from your post and does meet the initial criteria. What I have to do now, is delve a little deeper. However, at present, without going further, I am most interested in the likes of SAA, CMS and possibly BRY. I already have holdings in a number of tech shares so to diversify more SAA may be tops, but this may well change. SAA has been thrown up in previous trawls. Too long a list to give you details just now, unless you want me to. Regarding SAG - take a look at the last trading statement/results; hmm, not all roses, few briars in there too. AIE is doing nicely since I invested, up 5% in 6 weeks (approx.). Lets hope for a good week. Hope your week is not pants. Regards CM

Hello gardengirl, hope you have had a good day, or at least reasonable. The market has not been particularly kind today overall, it has more worries on its' mind, so I hope your investments haven't been hit too much. Re. The Zulu Principle, yes, if you can get a copy then I would definitely say it is well worth it. However, it was written before the internet was in existence so it is therefore in places out dated, particularly when it refers to speaking to ones broker and where to get charts and records from etc. We now have the luxury of so much information from the internet and don't need a broker in that respect. Much of the basic information and advice is very much as valid today as the day it was written. It's not too hard a read either. My advice (can I give that?), on investing in any share is - if in doubt (reasonable doubt) don't. There will always be a degree of doubt I guess. In my experience it is not the buying of shares which is the hard part, it is always the selling, but we need to spend the appropriate time doing research before investing. I have trawled through the complete FTSE All Share and AIM All Share indicies on a few occasions looking for investments, initially reducing it to a list of about 30 or possibly 40, but pretty quickly reduce this to a short list of about 10 or 12. Then far more detailed research has reduced this list to around 6. To be honest I'm not sure any share has met all my criteria, but there are usually a few which get pretty close. Occasionally, a share like AIE can escape my attention. If it is of any consolation to you, I also invested in BLNX. I bought in at 99p, saw it rise to 150p+ but didn't sell out believing there was more upside, even when it started falling back, eventually selling at 90p!, not a huge loss in itself but losing all profit. The writing was on the wall though and I just didn't see it or WANT to see it. But I have made some far worse mistakes. At one point some years ago I was so far down financially in shares I didn't think I would EVER make it back to profit overall. I have to say, reading and studying the Zulu Principle has made the world of difference. Your basic list of checks is good. I would add a PEG ratio of less than 0.75, director holdings, preferably the company offering something new with high barriers to entry and EXTREMELY important, a POSITIVE chairmans statement in the last trading update or within the latest results. If there is anything negative in the statement/results DO NOT invest. Make sure the outlook in the statement/results too is ok. Beware of any profit warnings.....they tend to come in 3s. The profit warning may be dressed up, and need to read between the lines. I will wait and let you do any reading you need to before taking up more time here. Any questions please do feel free to ask; if I can answer I will, if I can't I will let you know. Have a good evening. Regards CM

Good evening gardengirl, thanks for the post. It's alright, I will be flattered not scared; just co-incidence we have holdings in same shares, lets hope it will be a happy co-incidence. Strange day really, a no. of shares including GBO and GBG were well up this morning only to finish slightly down or unchanged. Seems like there is a battle going on to break through, battle of wills. Then there is AIE, if you look there has been a large number of very small dealings this afternoon done on an automatic execution. I have no idea what that suggests, strange. Most of my portfolio, like yours, is more small to mid cap. The largest mkt. cap I have is RPC, then AIE, the others are valued at 100m (GBG) or less. There are reasons for this, notably that the largest mkt. cap shares don't tend to "gallop" with their share price, or as quoted in Jim Slaters' book, "The Zulu Principle" elephants don't gallop. it is the smaller caps. that tend to move more; the trick (less than the art) is identifying those shares, doing the research to give oneself the best opportunity to make profits, rather than gambling or going on gut feeling (never a receipe to anything but losses). Should you be interested I will be happy to give you the strict criteria from the Zulu Principle I use to do my research on before contemplating any investment. Of course there is no guarantee of success, but I have found that more often than not it has led me to be able to sleep at night with my investments although there are the nervous times too. I've made too many mistakes in the past; if I can help others to try and avoid making the same mistakes then it would be good; not that I am an expert by any means. Whatever you do must be your decision; I am not here to persuade, just help if I can. Regards CM

So, you have come to join me in AIE as well as GBG and GBO!. Could feel like I am being stalked, better watch over my shoulder eh?. I invested at around 128p on 23 August, having done a lot of research to see if AIE met (most) of my strict criteria before investing. There has been little movement in the time since, but that is nothing to be concerned about. I think this is a good company with excellent fundamentals, take a look at the operating margin, ROCE, dividend cover, P/E, PEG, operating profit and EPS. This isn't going to set the world on fire, but this is a great share (at present) having studied the Zulu Principle, extraordinary profits from ordinary shares. I can sleep with this share (in a manner of speaking), always a good test. When I wake up screaming only to find I haven't been asleep, then that will be the time to sell!..........or when the story changes. Good luck all. Regards CM

Good morning folks. 90.385 Sell 91.38 Buy at 08.10. A good start. Have a good day and weekend. Regards CM

Good evening Gardengirl; how are you doing?. Thank you for your kind words, very much appreciated. Always nice to hear from someone new on here, welcome. It's good to help pick others up, so again thank you. And thanks for the info. in your post; I may have a look at the website, although I will try and think of something else to do before turning off the light. TheAddict - who is this CHEQUEY?. CHEQUEY!, I ask you, whatever next!. Lol!. Well, you've brought a smile to my old fissog, so thanks for that. Yes, a much better day today thankfully, or at least for GBG, but begs the question why?, not that I'm complaining, I'll take going up on no news as well as having to suffer going down on no news. Yesterday was not a good day for me; not just re. shares. I punctured twice whilst out cycling and although the first one was slow and could have got me home, the second one wasn't and I discovered I didn't have a spare tube with me which I ALWAYS carry with me.........well........not this time. So I was stuck 16+ miles from home, with an unrepairable puncture, late in the afternoon, on a very quiet back road with no public transport anywhere near taking me anywhere near home!. Managed to hitch a lift from someone who co-incidentally was also involved with mtn. rescue. So you see......mtn. rescue aren't just involved with mountain rescue. At least it wasn't raining at the time; just like today when I punctured again!!!. Hey ho!. Wonder if we will see 90p again anytime soon. I'm away for a week now, so I wish you all well and good luck. Regards CM (alias CHEQUEY!)

Reply from John Constantin to my e-mail: As previously indicated, the release of a rns is governed by the rules of our AIM listing. Whilst we may consider that news about the company may be greeted positively, it is more difficult to assess what impact it may have on the share price if an announcement is not supported by any metrics that analysts and investors expect to see with such announcements. In the situation with Huaxia CRIF , we would not be able to support the rns announcement with any further detail if questioned by shareholders (i.e how much additional revenue/profit would GB expect to see in the short/medium term for instance). This in turn could be viewed unfavourably by the market which may in turn have a negative impact on the share price. I trust that you also appreciate that we take advice in relation to any announcement that we make and we must, as an AIM company, heed that advice when given. In respect of future announcements, as the company progresses we will of course we will be making further rns releases, subject to the qualifications regarding content. We will also continue to make marketing releases through our website and trade press on other matters relating to the companys' development. I empathise with your wish for there to be news that positively affects the share price, however we are constrained to act in the interests of all shareholders and also to operate in accordance with the rules of our AIM listing. Regards John So, there we have it. Not a great day all round on the market. Feel like I've been kicked when all ready down with other things too. That's life. Lets hope things turn around generally. Regards CM

Good luck to you. Any profit is good. Have had a look at WSG, but nursing a sore head after today with most shares down. I am invested in GBO which looking at its fundamentals and recent news is an excellent company. Unfortunately because it is based in Greece it gets hit everytime any poor news comes out of there, although it is divesting of its Greek businesses. Very frustrating. Every time we think things have calmed down something rears its ugly head again. Just when I get back into profit, it falls again. Sort of getting use to it, but boy, is it frustrating. Even the best of shares have got hit today, although NET seems to have escaped. Regards CM

Good evening Babbler. Well done on banking some profits. I could have done the same, although with the small holding I have it wouldn't have been much. I was not investing in here for the quick, sharp (or blunt) profit. As stated in my post this morning I have done extensive research before investing; covering ALL shares in both the FTSE All Share Index and the AIM All Share Index. NET was one of the few shares which came close to matching the strict criteria I have before investing. I think it was possibly only the share chart which held me back previously, plus awaiting developments, oh, and wondering if I already had enough invested in the market, which I probably had. I will be happy for this share to make me, what, 10% year end, possibly 20% in 6 months which is far, far more than we can possibly get by investing in a bank or building society!. Of course I would like far more, but steady growth is easier to live and sleep with than a share which I have to live by the seat of my pants. I no longer have the stomach for those shares and there isn't much seat left in my pants these days!. No, those shares have lost me too much money and sleep. Mogie - a share which is truly worth investing in today, will probably still be worth investing in tomorrow. Take a look at the fundamentals for NET, they are very good. If in doubt then the best policy is usually to wait until you are sure about investing. I have less than 5000 shares, happy with what I have. Naturally, there is risk in any share we invest in and NET is no different. Unfortunately the spread can be large on some of the smaller shares. The spread here is over 7%, but the true spread is probably around half of that with the broker taking their best price, making it more bearable and more realistic. Good luck whatever you do. Regards all CM

Good morning Babbler from a very wet Cumbria, not stopped raining for 2 days (must know I'm on holiday). Found this share by extensive trawl of indicies looking for strict criteria to be met. Although not all of the criteria was met, most was and NET came up 3 times on the same trawl over a no. of months. Doesn't guarantee anything of course, but most of my other investments based on the same criteria are in profit (hope that doesn't put the mockers on things). Question is, now the news is out, can I, dare I invest what little left I have?. Regards CM

How much spare cash have you got Babbler?. If you and I put enough together we should be able to make a packet if we buy at 26.5p and sell at 27p!. Just need the sell to reach 28p or more and we're in business!. CM

I tend to agree with your last post ADD. I have looked back at the GB website. If you look under news you will find another announcement made on Friday 21 September. None of the items announced on the news page has been followed up by a rns. You have to look under investors, investor press releases to find any rns. What this does throw up is that for the last 2 years there has been a trading update in the 3rd. week of October before the half yearly results are published. I am hoping therefore that there will be an update on or around 15-19 October this year. Until then........well........lets hope things settle down. The fall in share price in May was around 20% from its high. If that happens this time it will take the share price down to 78-79p; but let us not get nervous........(any more than we may be already). No reply to my email; I'm not sure I will get one. Incidentally I have looked up the AIM rules, and under Rule 11, it is quite right what is stated in your post and our e-mails from GB. It does seem a little ambivoulous though. Another thought I have is that should all the news have been released and the share price re-act positively to it, then the share price may be at such a level that it would not be realistic. In other words if the share price was around 120p for instance, the p/e would be substantially higher than what it is now. Would that make sense at this stage of GBs development. To justify that it would need to prove it was worthy of such a rating by achieveing rapid growth in sales and profits. Frustrated and bored on another wet and miserable day here in Cumbria!. Regards CM

I have e-mailed GB again this morning. I was not particularly happy with their reply. I do not believe there has to be an expectation of "substantial movement" in the share price should the news be made public to warrant a release of a rns, any movement (positive) would be welcome and as I have stated to the company it may alleviate the present drift in share price and the value of our holdings in the company. I am not holding my breath as to a reply because the original receipient (Amanda Burton) is on leave for 2 weeks so I have forwarded a copy to John Constantin. If I receive any news I will of course pass it on. Maybe the current share price gives a better more accurate value of the company at this present moment; I did think it got ahead of itself in the high 90s. Regards CM

Thanks for your post. I have just returned from 3 days training with the mountain rescue search dogs. I too have received a reply from GBG. It is worded exactly the same as your reply, to the letter. Sounds like it could be a standard reply so i guess it isn't just you and me asking them what is going on. Well, at least we have an answer, although I am not sure I fully understand it. Are they saying that the release of such news wouldn't be expected to influence the share price therefore they don't need to release it?............hmmm, not sure that arguement is consistent when we read many rns releases made by this and many other companies. Lets see what develops. Solid fundamentals as you rightly say. Regards CM

I don't know how to post a link, but if you go to the GB website, gb.co.uk, and click on news, you will find an announcement released today"GB Group launches ID verification for Argentina". It's a little lengthy so I will quote only the first paragraph: GB Group has announced today that Argentina has been added to its Global electronic ID verification capability. GB Group's ID Verification service for Argentina allows businesses that wish to trade or offer age restricted products to Argentina ciizens the ability to make a decision on the autheniticity of a customers' personnal details which helps to satisfy global compliance requirements all whilst protecting the business from the growing problems of ID fraud, money laundering and financial crime. Again there has been NO rns. I am about to e-mail GBG (again) as to why there has been no rns. This is the 3rd time in a month, news has not been released to the general market. I have not received a reply from my first e-mail yet. I will keep all up to date. However, it won't be until Sunday evening at least since I am away training for the next 3 days with mtn. rescue. At least the day turned around and the share price finished higher. Regards CM