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And check out oil company SPs. BP, Shell, Premier etc are all off 10 per cent or more from their June highs.

Brent crude has come down from $115 per barrel in June and is now testing $90. That's cheap oil. Wholesale gas has gone the same way. You can blame US fracking success! Basically the US has all but eliminated importing oil. Imports from the Middle East stopped in 2012. All that stuff has to go somewhere. Meanwhile there's no industrial recovery in Europe and China still hasn't properly got going again. Basically ALK's market for its product is oversupplied at the moment. Stick with it though. Winter's coming, the UK nuclear fleet is dodgy and emissions regs rule out coal.

Fourteen thousand share picked up today at a fiver or better. Looking good! Mathsman I'm in QPP too. What a dog's dinner of a stock that one is. Should have stuck with GVC. EPO and ALK are also off their highs but plenty of decent prospects in front of them.

I wasn't worried about the rights. £26 mill at 40.85 is around a 12 per cent of the total cap. I don't think EPO would have secured that price if the results were set to be disappointing. Particularly as Oppenheimer took most of the offer. I also think the growth momentum behind EPO will show in the results and the extra cash will drive global expansion. So all generally good. Which makes it odd that there's clearly a biggish seller around dropping quite chunky parcels off at down to 40p. But I guess it's better they do that before the results not after. If the seller is cleared out then the results should drive the price up. I'm targetting 50p this year then see how the story goes.

£500k dumped at 40p today. Not good! I always get a bit nervous when heavy selling goes on just before results. Hopefully this clears some dead wood out of the way and the results will draw in some more bullish investors.

Several big ticket buys going through today. Looks like it's 500p next stop. Perhaps a selloff when it goes ex-div unless new buyers are in for the longer haul.

There's also the bigger picture re SP drift. The whole market, FTSE, AIM etc is well off its highs and trending lower at present. Crude, wholesale gas and lecy are also trending lower. Add to that the specific 60 per cent drop in ALK's PBT earlier this month and its rights issue didn't help. To the 'rational' investor ALK isn't much of a buy at the moment. Those of us who see the longer term picture should still do well - probably better than Wooly's 46-49 forecast for this winter!

Anyone know when the annual results are out? The initial trading update said sometime in October. Otherwise EPO is drifting back to test 40p. The results promise to be pretty good and the post close update should be optimistic too. Hopefully that will start us back up to 50p which is at least where EPO belongs.

. . .remains the biggest damper on this share. Everything else about it is excellent - its growth strategy, dividend policy, balance sheet etc. Even the fat directors' remuneration is acceptable if they tie their share options to high stock prices. £6 strike prices for the latest block. I'll go with that. The key to limiting downside risk of regulation is to diversify geographically. GVC doing that well now. I'm holding.

Looks like we have!. Very pleased with this stock. Great looking graph - nice steady, consistent uptrend which now looks well set for 700+.

Like you RB I've been watching this one drift. The mid-summer interims were good enough I though - lots of key indicators showing gains. But the lack of recovery in EU and the strength of sterling are bad news for Brammer. But probably not worth the 20 per cent drop from its earlier highs. Divvi not bad at 2.5 yield either. Probably have to grin and bear it till the full year results reinforce the story.

Coal mines give off methane continuously. It's what the old miners - like my grandad - used to call firedamp and unless the mine was pumped, which many were not in the old days, it would gather in pockets and the slightest spark would trigger an explosion. The first workers on a new shift after a working break like Sundays had to push the coal carts through the shafts to clear the gas. That was why they took canaries down the pit with them to check air quality. Getting rid of methane even from decommissioned mines is a cost, which is why ALKs CMM technology is a really great solution. The amount of methane depends on local geological factors, and the more concentrated the gas is the better for CMM recovery. I don't know if you can run CMM burners continuously or whether you have to let the concentration build up again after a while. I'm sure ALK would happily answer that one.

Not a great deal to get excited about in the interims. Another set of steady results but with a few downsides tucked away (reduced DBO numbers, increasing debt, lower sales prices). On the plus side the increase in available capacity is good as its the building of payments for available capacity - that last one's a function of size. Adding a bit more capacity - already planned if they are aiming for 100MW by 2015 - and some decent short term response sales this coming winter should move things along. Unless there's new institutional or raider interest I can't see the SP doing much next few months. Hold or buy on weakness.

Don't like the way this is drifting well below 37p now. I had hoped 40 would be around its new base level. Let's hope for a frosty winter to lift power demand. I'm in for the long run on ALK, have been since below 20p, so well in the black but I reckon this should be minimum 50p and possibly higher. I guess we wait for the finals and hope for strong results and a divvi increase. A couple more capacity increase announcements before then would help too!

50 people produce £2 million in sales! What are they all doing all day?? Somebody needs to do a bit of cost cutting round ULT. That said the prospects look better - I'm parking this one away for another year.

Hardly a few trades gsdog. Almost 40 thousand shares traded today already. Similar yesterday. Not bad for mid-August. Personally I like the idea that directors get well remunerated if the share price goes up. Suits us all. Anyone here remember Barclays' Bob Diamond, who pocketed multi millions while watching BARC fall by half? Although your point about cash for acquisitions is valid. That said I don't think this BoD would have any trouble raising cash on an offering. I'd buy if they said they could expand and keep the divvi.

Dear baysill, I am often enlightened and encouraged by your enthusiastic postings but could you scatter a few full stops around as well - just to give the dimwits amongst us a few clues as to where your sentences stop/start. We might then understand much more of your useful insights.

Two big sales today, seriously outweighed the buys, but trading at 45p as well. Promising!

Not sure I agree Bigzee. The four elements of Man's activities which are under some control of the company are costs, sales, management fees, and dividend. Manny seems to have got to grips with the first one and by recording net inflows (sales) he's stabilised management fees. With the dividend yield still high what's not to like about this stock? Performance fees are the icing on the cake. I don't see this as a sell at all after these numbers. It's probably most affected by the general disenchantment about investing in anything "financial" these days.

These are good numbers and if GVC can keep the momentum up there's 500+ on the horizon fairly soon.