Member Info for dasv

Yes, this is very well respected, well managed and run. Two other options (which I currently hold are First State's Global Resource Fund (25.9% up since 5th May 2007) and JPMorgan's Natural Resource Fund. These also have exposure to Oil.

Nickel has broken $30,000 per tonne (a hefty rise since TMC's sp fell). There continues to be strong demand for Ni from emerging economies esp. China and India. On top of this the Fed cut of 0.5% encourages increased consumption - base metals and oil have all gone skywards. On top of this TMC was shorted on the way down. Perhaps some of those shorts have closed and moved on.

GedW 22 May '07 "I have also seen various projections and calculated my own based on historical data as available." dasv 22May: "My point is SERV is a small enterprise with relatively low volumes of sales. Only some of SERV's sales will include technology from RGG. How much we don't know. But I think we can be fairly certain the deal doesn't mean £10m extra for RCG's coffers in 2008 judging by the size of SERV as an enterprise. Can you post your projections and the historical data you based them on?" Care to grace us with those projections GedW?

don't know if you guys are into the bigger caps but the Fed Cut's put a rocket up metal prices and the big diversified miners are soaring (I currently hold BLT and XTA) but Anglo American, Rio, Vedanta are also worth a look. Nickel is above $30,000 a tonne now. I think the small caps sp's will eventually pick up the rising commodity prices although probably more slowly. I note that LND and TMC are also on the up - whereas BRR and RGM are static. (I hold LND, BRR and RGM).

thanks for link- interesting

no - i have plenty of speculative punts on the go already! I don't know how to value these. The redemption freeze on the funds is for what reason? Will the redemptions lower the sale price of the underlying assets? E.g. if they have large holdings in small illiquid assets and the fund bails out, will the asset devalue? In which case what is the value of the funds? This whole scandal undermines trust and confidence investors might have in this company and it will take some time to rebuild that. But I don't know the impact of the scandal on their balance sheet so am staying well clear.

"Mr Treacher said yesterday he had also opposed the "absolutely bizarre" gift by Mr Homm of €33m of shares in AbCap to the funds in order to AVOID REPORTING losses of 4-5% in Auguest. Mr Homm through a spokesman, declined to comment.

The Absolute Capital Management story just gets better. Yesterday co-founder Florian Homm walked out very acrimoniously. Today, the company said it had had requests for $100m of redemptions and had had to halt redemptions. It also said it had set up a review of the funds managed by Mr Homm, adding: “The preliminary results of this review indicate that seven of the eight Absolute Capital equity funds contain quoted investments which the board believes are not immediately realisable at their stated values due to their illiquid nature.” The shares, off more than 60 per cent yesterday, have halved again today.

Mr Homm’s fall-out with the board follows the departure of Sean Ewing, the former chief executive and chairman of the Mallorca-based hedge fund manager, in July. The 42-year old Irishman was recruited by Mr Homm before the flotation. After reporting a sharp rise in interim profits in July ACMH said it was splitting the role of chairman and chief executive. It also said it had appointed a chief operating officer to handle the growth in business. On Tuesday Mr Homm appeared to criticise the decision to create more management positions instead of paying fund managers more money. “The Board of ACMH did not agree with my arguments that ACMH needs to pay adequate compensation to retain top-level fund managers,” he said. “Nor did they follow my lead in sacrificing personal bonuses and compensation, or in contributing ACMH shares to the funds,” he added.

Florian Homm, the co-founder of Absolute Capital Management Holdings, on Tuesday resigned as co-chief investment officer of the Aim-listed hedge fund, sending its shares down more than 50 per cent. In an open letter to shareholders explaining his decision to leave, Mr Homm said he shared “a different investment and management philosophy from the current and prior management of ACMH.” Mr Homm, who is also the controlling shareholder of ACMH, said he had invested €33m in the group’s funds last month to stem potential losses. He also had given up his bonus for the year to help generate profits. But Mr Homm said the board of ACMH had not taken the same steps to support the business and as a result of this disagreement he had decided to resign. The shares, which listed on Aim in March last year, plunged 60 per cent or 236½p to 153½p.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - EXC PLC reported a widening in first half losses during the first half mainly on account of low sales in its leather garment business and said generating full year profit would also be difficult. The company recorded a pretax loss of 664,000 stg for the period to June 30, 2007, compared with a restated loss of 181,000 stg a year earlier. Operating loss slipped to 670,000 stg from a restated loss of 138,000 stg in the same period the prior year.

I am pleased to report that level 2 is looking like this 2 4,130 960-965 1,800 1 Bid Vol 85,570 Ask Vol 41,140 Depth 25 Depth 13

0.5% cut in fed rate. Let's see how much of that rise is already "priced-in". It's good news for oil stocks though. If the rate wasn't cut oil was predicted to plummet.

I think I heard right from Jon Snow - the underwriting of NRK's deposits would extend to all other banks in need of credit. AL. has been forced to admit it has NOT approached the BofE for credit. It's PE was at a premium to that of some of its peers, but I see the political intervention into avoiding a contagion of bank runs due to the credit crunch as being positive for AL.'s share price. (All IMHO)

From the FT this weekend, it looks like A&L, Bradford and Bingley and HBOS are similarly funded by the wholesale markets at between 40% and 50% Customer desposits. NRK is down at about 28% customer deposits. You did well to make money today going long on this share.

don't know - I'm not a believer in MM conspiracy theories - think a lot of it comes down to late reporting. Either way, it's great to see some movement in the right direction at last here.

SmartPhreak - buy to let looks pretty dead in the water to me. Problems:- Higher Borrowing costs (see banking sector woes) Lower House prices (see yesterday's news) Rents have not kept pace with house price growth (http://tinyurl.com/37wvjg) Low yields on buy to let have been compensated by increasing equity. Only London and parts of the south east are in this happy predicament. There the yields are especially low however. NRK has minimal subprime exposure too.

a strong bounce today perhaps on the basis of broker targets and share tips? "Against the market’s negative reaction, several analysts have re-iterated ‘buy’ ratings the stock. Ambrian likes the news that capacity could reach 645MW for the 2008 year-end, far greater than its own estimation of 500MW. It said a weaker profit margin was disappointing against a stronger Chinese currency, but believes the company should record ‘significant’ profits this year. ‘ReneSola remains oversold and that even if the company only achieves a proportion of capacity expansion plans in 2008 it will seem excellent value in the sector,’ says Ambrian analyst John-Marc Bunce. Banking group Kaupthing is even more bullish on the company’s prospects with a 784p target price. Expecting the stock to treble within 12 months may seem somewhat ambitious, but Kaupthing notes that sufficient feedstock has been already been secured for the revised target output and is confident of the company succeeding." http://vcab.com/search/vcab-info.aspx?vcabID=8327&page=33&show=info

Hi fourteenhundred, Once again this is being shorted. For what its worth, Investor's Chronicle reckon fair value is about 200p. The lack of future earnings visibility is spooking the market for now. There is even talk of a further dilution on the cards. I think even at these levels one would have to be very brave (or with a long term view) to take a punt. The one thing in SOLA's favour is its low valuation in comparison with US counterparts.

"* Group revenue for the six months was up 35% at £284.2m (2006: £211.1m). * Group profit before tax increased 7% to £33.2m (2006: £31.0m). * Underlying Group profit before tax* increased 27% to £32.5m (2006: £25.6m). * Basic earnings per share increased 3% to 17.8p (2006: 17.2p). * Adjusted underlying basic earnings per share* increased 25% to 17.4p (2006: 13.9p). * Interim dividend increased 20% to 6.0p (2006: 5.0p)." My concern is next year:- it's the outlook that is driving down the property and financial sectors not past figures. On the other hand as I said about 5 months ago on this thread, I'll believe in the impact of high interest rates on revenues at Savills only when I see it. So far we haven't seen it.