Member Info for CHEQUEMATE

Good evening Pedant. How are you doing?, how is your trading/investments going?. I have just trawled the FTSE All Share Index in the same way as I trawled the AIM Index the other day for possible investments to see what that has come up with. I have only got as far as the first list and need to whittle it down. If you are interested I will post the result for you. Some of the companies I have never heard of so I have no idea what they are involved with; should be interesting to see what they have to offer. Sure there were more companies I have missed. Bear in mind that some of these companies are considerably bigger re. market cap. than my first list and are listed on the main list so have stricter crtiteria for reporting and SHOULD be less risky!,.......yeah.....right (he says)!. GBG inching itself up here. Don't worry too much about the slight fall re. QPP, thought it may happen after the issue of shares; will be interesting to see the effect of the update on 19 March; but will keep my eye on it all the same. You can try catching me on here or the other boards I tend to frequent; I think you know which ones. Here to help where/when I can. Regards CM

Quick post. I am on my lunch break and at the library so limited for time. Just for an exercise regarding some or all of the shares I have mentioned elsewhere and their value (or otherwise). Go to the SOU bb and to the chart page. Ovrlay the SOU sp chart with the following shares for 6 months and 3 months. GBG, GBO, TMZ, QPP, RNO, AMO, MONI, SNCL, SGI, NBL, IDOX, SSP. What does it tell you?. Where is/has been the better value?. You could do the same exercise for the likes of FRR and many of the small cap o & g companies. High risk?, where is the reward?. Just a thought provoker Pedant; just to make us think. Will get back to you later. Have a good afternoon. Regrds CM

Many thanks for post Kidwin, excellent. Regards CM

Pedant - what I now look for, what my research is based on are the following (or most of them) 1. A positive growth rate in earnings per share. 2. A low price earnigns ratio relative to the growth rate. 3. Postitive Chairmans statement in latest update. 4. Small mkt. cap. 5. High relative strength of the shares compared to the market. 6. A dividend yield. 7. Directors should have a significant shareholding. You could also add in that the company should have something new to offer, have a competetive advantage and a reasonable asset position. Some of the points above are more important than others, some are not imperative. Many growth companies do not pay a dividend. You could also add that a company investing much of it profits into research and development rather than pay dividends is worth of consideration; which indeed it is. If you look back at the list I posted regarding potential investments for me, most of them meet most of the criteria above. I seem to find more each day. Incidentally, my list was only based on the AIM all share index. Today, IDOX came up, which I had missed previously for instance. Will I invest there?, don't know.....needs more research. Main concern there is the amount of business is done through local councils; just concerned about any cut backs. What I HAVE DONE though, is to invest further in GBG..........after more research. This has been averaging UP, not down, which is far, far better than averaging DOWN. When I have done that in the past it has generally worked, when averaging down I'm not sure it has ever worked; although I know it can. If a company is genuinely worth of investing in and you have missed it today; the chances are it will still be worthy of investing in tomorrow. If you feel you have missed the boat, then comfort yourself in knowing that there are other companies out there waiting. Nothing wrong with taking on a higher risk share as long as you know that it is and cutting your losses if it goes wrong. I am holding both QPP and TMZ on that basis and bought them before I went back to looking at investing strategy differently. My other holding RNO is based on it being very undervalued and a recovery stock.........so far so good, but as you will know a week can be a long time in investing, and things can change very quickly. Not sure how useful any of my last posts have been, hope they may have been of some use. Have a good weekend to you and your family. Regards CM

Sorry Pedant - sent post before it was finished!. Oh well, to continue..... ......and think, yeap.......sounds good..........I'll buy £x000 of shares; only to find that the sp has spiked on the news and then see it drift down. We then wait for a rns, and wait, and wait, with the sp still drifting down or staying still at best. When the news does come out, if it is good then the sp may recover to somewhere near to where we invested or quite often find it briefly rises only to fall further over the next week and more. This is particularly true of the high risk oil and gas companies and with companies with a very low sp and an enormous amount of shares issued. People will invest in these companies because somehow they think that they will double or more. When things don't work out they take consolation in other posters posting on the bb about how the market makers are manipulating the market, how the next rns will transform the company. They rarely read between the lines. They make the mistake of averaging down, putting more money into the same company, and losing yet more money, thinking if their average can come down then they will make money that much sooner. They are completely blinkered to the fact that there are many other companies out there who can offer a far greater return. They run their losses rather than cutting them. And they do it again and again. One investor is SOU has a million shares at an average of 3p,(£30,000), the share is now at 1.4p (£14,000), he has lost £16000 and yet he stays with it!. Had he cut his losses at 2.4p (20% stop loss) he would have saved £10,000!. That could have been invested elsewhere to try to recoup his losses. If proper research is done in the first place then much of the above, if not all of it can be avoided. Do you see where I am coming from?. Success investment comes on the back of research, and I suppose, if in doubt don't invest......well, when it is by the heart and not the head. Often as an investor you are right when everyone else says you are wrong; particularly on the bb anyway. OK, shortly I will post some guidelines from the book The Zulu Principle shortly; which in my opinion are key. Sorry if I am boring you my friend. CM

Good evening Pedant; hope you are well, including your investments and/or trades. OK, whilst my dinner is cooking, let me try to give you a quick outline of the Zulu principle. Basically, the bottom line is that the more research you can do on any subject (or possible investment beforehand) the far better outcome is likely to be. In Jim Slater's book published in 1992 he states the following: "......I first named this approach "The Zulu Principle" after my wife read a 4 page article on Zulus in Readers Digest. From that moment onwards she knew more than me about Zulus. If she had then borrowed all the available books on the subject from the local library and read them carefully she would have known more about Zulus than most people in Surrey. If she had decided subseqauently to visit South Africa, live for 6 months in a Zulu kraal and study all the avaiulable literature on Zulus at a South African University, she would have become one of the leading authorities in Great Britain and possibly the world. The key point is that the history of Zulus and their habits and customes today is a clearly defined and narrow area of knowledge into which my wife would have invested a disproportionate amount of her time and effort, with the result that she would have become an acknowledged expert. The study of this noble people might not have been profitable, but there are many other very specialised subjects that would hav been very rewarding financially." So, relating it to shares/companies, we could say exactly the same. It is only going into depth to research a company will we truly have a better idea whether or not we should invest. The real danger is that something will catch our eye, possibly a short article at best in a paper about a company and without any research will take a punt and throw hard earned money into it. We might visit the bb on LSE and read some posts about it, which generally are positive, regardless of the true greater picture and think, yeap,

Good morning Chan; thanks for the post, very good of you. No, haven't done anything re NBL nor SGI. Been out this morning only to find both have jumed up. Always the feeling that when that happens you've missed out, but if a stock is strong enough it won't matter too much over the longer term. Difficult to know which way to go. I am on limited funding (aren't we all). Think SGI will move maybe on the back of NBL from investors looking for a similar story. Both companies have posted very positive updates; the main difference from what I can see is that SGI see trading broadly in line with market expectations whereas NBL see ahead of market expectations. If you compare the sp charts since September the pattern is almost identical, although I agree with you about the sp for SGI has been more up and down. Right, where's a coin............heads it's SGI, tails it's NBL!.............that's interesting..........hmm...........can't see the date on that coin........strange head on it as well.......wonder if it's worth anything?. Put it back with the rest of the collection I've got!......................(if only!). Good luck. Thanks again. Regards CM

Topped up here right at the day end, but had finger poised over the buy button over the last 20 mins. only to see ask price rise twice!. Wasn't expecting to top up, but there you go. Just pushed the button with seconds to go!. If things work out then the extra I have had to pay will be insignificant. SGI and NBL will have to wait for another day; doesn't change their potential. Always tomorrow, although funds are dropping............why on earth did I ever invest in SOU and FRR!. The only mistake of making a mistake is not learning from it!......Takes a lot more time making profit than making a loss and to recover any losses. Good luck all. CM

Good afternoon. Just noticed your posts, sorry haven't got back earlier. Many thanks for the 2 links below; the 2nd. makes some particularly important points, couldn't put them better myself. Excellent job done Pedant. I will get back to you about the Zulu principle, it will take me a little time to think how best to explain it, not that it is difficult. Probably be sometime tomorrow Friday when I have more time. It won't make any difference being a day later. Looking seriously at SGI right now. Bit of a toss up between SGI and NBL. SGI pays the better dividend and is better known, but sp performance over the last year is slightly better for NGL. Have a look at the latest SGI trading update dated 16 January and the key performance highlights Also have a look at the half yearly report from August, and read the Chairmans report. Amongst other things it mentions about a progressive policy on the dividend. Also have a look at the news for NBL, both are very good. Looking at the SGI graph I can see no reason for the fall back in the sp around Sep/Oct. Over the longer term it is very comparable with NBL if you draw one over the other on the charts facility here on LSE. You may be interested to compare the sp chart with the likes of SOU and FRR over the same period........and for any other share for that matter. Gives you an idea of what is better value and what is more speculative. Some very interesting results; include comparison with GBG too. Must go.......catch you later. Apologies for being off topic GBGers. May invest more here too.......but limited funding. Good luck all. Regards CM

Good evening. Have looked at NBL in detail along with a no. of other shares. Question is......do I invest here or in SGI?, both very similar, but SGI pay a larger dividend. I totally agree with your sentiment regarding shakey times. Hmm, what to do?. Regards and good luck. CM

Hello folks, good evening to you. Very quiet on here, last post 6 months ago!. Just invested here today after some pretty detailed research. Pedant - you asked me to let you know the last 10 shares of my research. Well, it was filtered down to less than that, about 7 looking at my list. So, they are/were (in no particular order!); AMO, SSP, GBG, NBL, SGI, SNCL and PEN. That does not mean others were not worthy of consideration, indeed the likes of GBO, SAA, NFC and NET were/could be high up for consideration. The reason why I eventually narrowed it down to GBG, SGI, NBL and SNCL was down to the share price (not too low), the mkt. cap (preferably below £100m), a PEG of under 1, a positive p/e, good director and institutional holdings, a positive outlook and chairmans statement in the last trading statement and/results, a good sp graph, relative strength in the sp, and paying a dividend. Pretty tight criteria. Most shares fell short of the mark some where along the way. I was prepared to be a little less stringent on one or two of the above, depending on the outlook. I also looked on barchart.com for the latest view (not imperative) and looked at any articles in growthcompanyinvestor.co.uk. I could have looked at other sites of course, along with the company's own web site. So, I have invested in GBG firstly, but have a buy order open on SGI should the sp drop a wee bit tomorrow. I am still considering the other shares too. NBL is high on the list along with SSP although that one is proving a little difficult to place an order on online. I can't go into detail of the shares here and now; so take a look perhaps and see what you think. I am around most of the time (usually evenings) if you need me. Pedant - why am I looking at dividends you may ask?. Well, it tends to show a strength in the company for one rather than having to rely outright on sp growth. Let me give you an example. Take a company with a sp of 50p pays a 2p dividend (4% yield). Say over the year the sp rises to 60p (20% growth) and the divi is kept at 4%, that means divi is now 2.4p. BUT the yield on the 50p invested is now not 4% but 4.8%. Should the sp rise to (in time) to 80p (60% growth) and the divi increased to say 5%, the divi yield on the 50p is now 8%!. And so on. Get it right and you score on 2 fronts. My investment 3 years ago in SNR at 35p (now at 180p +) is now pulling in a divi of around 15%!!. HOWEVER, DO NOT, repeat DO NOT, look for a share paying a huge divi as a %, tends to show a company in trouble with the sp have fallen so the divi is higher %. If the company reduces the divi to save money it spells trouble and the sp will likely plummet!. All these details/ratios can be easily found these days on such sites as digitallook.com (a favoured site of mine). Are you aware of the Zulu principle when investing?. If not, when I have more time I will gladly tell you about it, makes great sense. Must go for now. Happy to help if I can. Regards CM

Some very interesting posts on here. Thanks particularly to faz and riddler. I haven't done the research that faz has done, but I have noticed that there is no institutional holding of over 3% in MBO which ideally I would like to see. I am sure there is great potential there, but there are so many companies out there to research into that for now, I will put this on my watch list. I have very limited funds to invest, especially after some burnt fingers with SOU and FR recently, so I need to be far more careful what I invest in just now. Feel this just may be a little too speculative for me at this present time........but who knows. Best of luck folks. Regards CM

Thanks, I'll take a look. Sold out of MONI a while ago when sp was falling so will see what is happening here. Not first poster to mention MBO to me. Regards CM

Thanks for the post. I no longer hold any shares in MONI, but for others still holding I am pleased to see they are doing well again. I may be tempted back in at some point. I made some decent profit the first 2 times invested but took a loss the 3rd. time; had I held on I would have been making a decent profit again. I sold out the last time because of market sentiment or so it seemed towards MONI and didn't want to take a real beating. The feeling I have towards MONI is rather like looking at a previous girlfriend going out with someone else and wishing to get back together again, but knowing that it may well not work out and realising it may be left to move on. This is a dangerous game because it spells at getting emotionally attached to a share, when of course it has no feeling towards me, or anyone else!. Re TMZ, well............yes, you may have missed the best entry point, but if a share is really going to do well then there will always be points along the way to get in, without the sp falling back. E.g; TMZ may (ONLY MAY!) rise to say, 20p (not saying it will), in which case 10p would have been a good entry point; none of us know where it will go. If it falls to 5p then 10p will have been a ******* awful point to enter!. It is a gamble without us having the knowledge that insiders do but we can do the best we can for ourselves by doing as much research as we can. My thoughts re TMZ at current sp. Hmm......the placing of so many shares, despite it being to institutional investors etc, should to all intents and purposes dillute the current sp if the market cap is to stay the same. That would probably take it down to sub 9p. BUT......this doesn't always happen. We should know within the next week I think. That could be countered by the perceived potential of the company, so, who knows?. I took a risk by investing more, investing most of what I had left from selling out of SOU. I will post on QPP re. my thoughts on that one. PCI.......hmm......interesting.......I invested in there years ago; won't tell you what happened......it has no real bearing on where it is now. Good luck to you on that one......just keep an eye on it. It is another small cap, high risk/high reward o&g jobby. Re SOU. Well, may have got it wrong (at present) re my forecast. Glad to read you are following your own feelings. Very easy looking back at trading Pedant to say what we should have done, but it isn't easy at the time; most can't sit infront of a screen all day looking for and knowing when the best time is to trade. No way of knowing if you sell at 1.4 it won't keep rising for a better price or if you buy back in at 1.3 it won't fall further.......almost impossible. Good luck. Just follow your head and not your heart. Will post further on QPP bb, Apologies to others for off topic. Regards CM

This is only one day Pedant, just one day. The real test is over the longer term. I am re-visiting my investment criteria after the recent fiasco when I broke many rules of mine by trying to make a quick buck; it went horrible wrong and I should have know better!. RNO fits much better into my strategy. I will post on here from time to time and also on the other boards where I have an interest; you know which ones. To all RNO holders, todays rns was promising, pretty much as I had hoped. May be an update in FT this weekend by David Schwarz........but this is PURELY a hunch.....nothing scientific....I know he likes this share. Don't bet on it please; I will probably be proved wrong. Regards CM

Apologies to others for my off topic in last post. CM

A good day here with a good rns. This may see a little fall back tomorrow due to the size of the placement, but I am happy to see the interest from the institutions. I have invested a little more here, and wouldn't be surprised to see an encoraging rns in the near future. Re SOU. Are you still invested?. It has been a bad day today with the rns stating that the well has been abandoned due to unstable rock formations. You are probably aware of the effect this had on the share price. IMO!, there is little if any news in the rns to help the sp rise certainly in the short term although there may be a bounce initially. Experience tells me the sp has further to fall, there is no reason for it to rise. The market does not like bad news or delays and the market will drive this share in the direction it chooses. There will be posters on SOU who will tell you to keep the faith, that there are other wells to be drilled and that one good result will turn the share around. BUT!, the odds are always against a find; I knew that when I took the gamble/risk of investing. There is no guarantee of any find and if SOU disappoints again (which it might), then the sp will fall further faster and from a lower starting point. Where do I see the sp going?........well........I have a feeling it may be somewhere between 1.25 and 1.3p tomorrow, falling to around 1.15p towards the week end, perhaps then hovvering. Should there then be more bad news then it may well fall below 1p. I STRESS this is IN MY OPINION; it is not trying to deramp the share. Why am I telling you this and why not on the SOU bb; well.....because I think you ought to be made aware of the possibility and because I will be shouted down on SOU and it will get lost within all the other many posts that will be on there. Remember what I said previously about having an exit point re. shares; this applies FAR more when the sp is falling!. Don't be afraid of setting a stop loss, know when enough is enough. I think you are sitting on a loss of about 17.5% at present, if that falls to 20% it will require a rise of 25% to get you back to break even; if it falls to 25% it will require a rise of 33%, 50% it will need to double!. . Can SOU do that?, possibly, but only with fantastic results. What degree of loss are you prepared to take?....don't need to tell me.........none of my business...........just putting the thought in your head. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is take a loss and move on. I should have set a stop loss at 1.5p, but got caught out by the news coming out today; that has cost me. I've taken a 32% loss here; I wasn't prepared to take more and got out above the current sp today. Whatever you do MUST be YOUR decision; I am just giving you something to think about. It is NOT my intention to scare you, sorry if I have. Good luck with whatever you do. You can try and catch me on here, where it is quiet, or on RNO, possibly even QPP or of course GBO. Lacey is a good one to listen to on GBO. CM

Sorry, 2nd. paragraph below re mistakes should read........"hopefully not, but possibly) SOU". Also ran out of space and meant to say, I will be on this bb if you want to contact me. Incidentally, "boring" companies could also have related to SNR, (in aerospace etc). I invested at 35p, and despite it falling a little initailly I saw it rise to over 100p before bailing out (wrongly), now it sits at 185p ish, 2 years on. I bailed out due to the general state of the economy at the time NOT on anything company specific. Do I regret selling out?, well, yes (for obvious reasons), but no.....I made a handsome profit. I feel (in my bones), there is a very real prospect that RNO may, just may, follow along on the same lines. Definitely can see this rising to over 40p, and if it gets that far could go higher, quite possibly considerably. But hey......that's "in my bones", nothing, absolutely nothing should be read into that apart from Chequemate is begining to lose it!. For what it is worth; I feel that sometime around the time the next set of results are published, just before or after, there may be an update in David Schwartz's column in the FT. That usually generates interest and has an effect on the sp. Twice previously he has commented on RNO positively. Why do I say this........because he has done so for other companies he has mentioned previously, ie Porvair, SIXT. NOT a reason to invest on the back of folks!. Regards and gla, have a good weekend CM

Good morning. Thank you for your kind comments, they are appreciated. However, I must say that rather than follow me you must make your own decisions (for your own sake!) and most of all dyor. I will try and help where and when I can. I will always try to give an unbias view on things but what I may say or post needs checking because I have to qualify it with IMO (in my opinion) and I am not infallible (if only!). I have made too many mistakes in the past which has cost me a lot of money and sleepless nights. My biggest mistakes have tended to be when investing on a whim or on the spur of the moment and not doing proper research, relying on others comments or things such as brokers target prices; often they have a vested interest. I can still make such mistakes, ie FRR and (hopefully not, but possibly) FRR. If I had just laid down for a moment and let the urge pass then I would be better off than right now, where I am looking at investments to reclaim my losses. Too often we stay invested in a company because, basically we hate to admit we are wrong, have made a mistake. We chose to read into a rns what we want to read, having an over optimistic hat on, rather than sit back and look at it as how the market may look at it, looking for any negatives that may be in there. The sp may go up initially on the back of private investor sentiment, only to fall back when the market tells us how it really is. And then, instead of taking action we take no action thinking it is profit taking and that the sp will recover; often it doesn't. OK, I know this sounds doom and gloom, sorry, I am just telling you how it is. The most active bb on here (LSE), are to do with the most exciting, flash, fast, small cap, low sp companies where investors have the belief that if some share is around 1 or 2p then it is bound to double, triple or whatever and they may well...........but most don't. The spread is much, much greater between buy and sell and sp movement is much greater and potential losses too, it's an attractive gamble. So, what to do?. Well, you know, quite often the best value, prospects, are in the old boring companies, some would argue like RNO. Before I go any further this is NOT, repeat NOT, a ramp for RNO. It may go belly up like any other company, but far less likely to lose you the amount with a small o&g company, BUT also less likely to give you that instant gain which many are looking for. RNO has been around since 1864, they are (I think) the worlds 2nd. largest manufacture of chains and are involved in engineering (not exciting). Have a look at the last interim statement, director and institutional holdings, forecasts etc if you are thinking of investing. That goes for any company. Considering what RNO does, to have a mkt, cap of just £63m and <220m shares in issue offers potential, BUT could be affected by any recession, despite efforts it has stated to try to minimise this. Running out of space here now. Will be on this bb for

Over on this bb pedant, to give GBO a little rest, this is fairly quiet here. Apologies to others because this is off topic,. Re FRR. I would advise you strongly to be careful of FRR at present. If you visit their bb you will find a no. of posters, not knowingly, ramping up the share. IMO this is because a majority of them are sitting on heavy losses, having invested at a much higher sp level and they are desperate to see the sp rise and are grasping every straw they can. I understand how they feel and where they are coming from, therefore I am not knocking them. But, there are some on there who are not seeing the picture clearly and in all honesty don't want to and are misleading others. They have let sentiment take the upper hand. FRR has potential and yes the sp may shoot up.....but.......it has a severe funding problem. A large ii (institutional investor) has recently been selling shares bit by bit and a recent rns has mentioned Outrider Management as another ii who have bought up shares. Problem is that OM is a financial company that specializes in trying to help companies in distress, trying to turn them around, but if they fail will take what they can from bankruptcies (but you have to seek this info out......it isn't there in the rns!). Next rns stated that another company, Yorkville have granted FRR a loan of $1,000,000 to help them financially, but this is to be paid back WITH interest starting after 30 days. Depending on FRR progress they will be given another loan of up to $2,000,000, again payable WITH interest. In the rns it states that if FRR fail to make the required progress they will not get the loan and they will have to reappraise their work programme (words to that effect). FRR have prioritised the building of a gas pipeline to get their gas production to market over drilling more wells or continuing with drilling wells. Do you see why I say be cautious?. Behind the good news of an ii buying shares and the funding is ......who is buying,....and the terms of the funding. Some posters don't want to know this, they only see the good news and don't look deeper. They didn't like me pointing this out and said it was an even better, cheaper buy now and to load up!. Some have literally millions of shares; imagine the losses some are sitting on, gee!. It took me days to look at things in a different light and to bail out, taking my losses. I wish all left in FRR the best of luck. Anyway, each to their own. But as I have stated elsewhere there are better opportunities out there. Hope all is elsewhere. Good luck ............ and of course to all RNO holders too. A little fall back over this week, but I remain pretty optimistic overall. Regards CM