Member Info for Davius

Exactly what the Independante newspaper said over the weekend, and several announcements from the company this morning. Suggestion appears to be an 18p per share bid. Considering how well the company is progressing anyway it looks like a sound investment.

This looks like a fine little company. Turnover in year to December up 67%, profits up 190%, plenty of contract wins announced in the first 6 months of 2006. The only downsides I can see are a ridiculous spread o f 2.75-3.25p (16.7%!) and hardly any trades, some days with none at all. Recently all activity seems to have been selling, and there has been no contract news from the company since May. The Market Valuation ist £2.56m, with turnover just under £2m. It seems that the company continues to do well, even if the shares do not.

News out today re the share performance. They have a couple of potential blockbuster drugs that could turn them into a billion pound company. The Chief Executive said he could see no reason for the poor share performance, which bottomed out at around 22p recently. They are divesting loss making parts of the business and expect to return to profitability 'in the near term'. Shares have more than halved in the last year. I'm a long term holder (at 39p), but am in again this week at 23p.

Your timing on your purchase of MOB was about as lucky as it's possible to get, the day before the shares jump on a bid approach. I did say that they seemed well undervalued though on Friday, but expected a slow climb back to a sensible valuation. Bids are always difficult to read, I'm still sitting on HMV shares which fell when the suitor walked away. But of course anyone who bought in to Macarthy or BAA on the first indication of a bid is sitting pretty, so it works both ways. I feel MOB is worth something between 80-100p whether or not a bid emerges. Trades in NAD yesterday were more buys than sells, but on low volume. The buys amounted to around £4.5K, sells (only 1) of £2.3K. Good to see such a small spread (0.34-0.35p) though. However, I see they have net assets of £6m (including Investments of £4.75m), meaning net assets per share of 2.8p. It makes no sense that the share price should be so low, even if they are making a loss. A bidder could net a small fortune at 0.35p. I see four shareholders own 40% between them, but that still leaves the majority of shares up for grabs. Directors have been buying shares during July, which is also an encouraging sign.

MOB down roughly 10% this morning, so ditching at 70p was a good idea, in the short term at least. Re NAD, turnover £4m, 7 employees, losses of £310K, capitalisation of £780K. I see that they've just issued another 3.5m shares following the exercise of warrants, which will list in late August, would this not exert a downward pressure on the share price? Clearly you see this as a recovery stock, down from nearly 13p in 2004 to 0.35p now. Prelims due 21st August, you expecting good things?

Having commented on Friday that I could see no reason why these shares were as low as 40p I'm kicking myself that I didn't take a punt on them. But there we go, reminds me of the time I was in NatWest getting a quote for Lilliput Lane shares. I didn't buy as the bank charges on the transaction were really high, two days later the company received a bid and the shares went up 40%. Bid price on MOB 67p as I type, I'd do what GedW did yesterday and sell now I think, if I'd bought them at 40p anyway. They might move higher if a bid materialises, I expect volatility now though, might be further opportunities on this one.

You picked your buys perfectly during the day, right at the bottom of the daily price move. But these are still 90% down on where they were in January. I didn't know anything about this company until a bit of research today, but it seems that most of the current weakness is linked to the warning on problems due to regulations in China. From all the reports I've read I can see no reason at all for the share price to be this weak, Investec changed from hold to buy when the share price hit 60p (a 56% fall) after the China story broke, since then it's dropped to its current 40p(ish) level. With the company capitalised at £24.5m, profits of £9m and turnover of £58m (before any hit due to China) the share price seems way too low to me...

I chucked £10K at these (the benefits of a decent offset mortgage and a willing wife) and was allocated £7K worth. I decided not to sell straight away but wait, get the certificate to my brokers nominee account then sell at the time I thought the share price was peaking. The certificate took ages to arrive, then the broker sent me a form to transfer the bonus share priviledge which I didn't notice and took a while to get sorted, the upshot of which was that the shares have only been transferred to the nominee account. However, this has turned out to be very good news, as the results this week were excellent and the shares have rallied well, rising from 238p on the 14th July to 258p today. With the 5% initial discount I'm now sitting on a paper profit of 17% in just under a month, probably the best deal I'll see this year, particularly considering how low the risk factor was. Any shares bought at the flotation, and any shares given away to qualifying members are entitle to a 5% bonus share allocation if held continually for a full year. I suspect mine won't last much longer as the offset mortgage is in need of the cash. Standard Life shares look to have decent support for the time being, and there's just that hint of a possible takeover should they weaken.

Standard Life was floated today. Qualifying members were allocated free shares. Of more interest though was the offer to invest in more shares (up to £50K worth) at a 5% discount to the set market price. An unusual offer, as invesors had to send in their cheques ahead of the share price being set, which was identified last week at 230p. Therefore the shares could be purchased at 218.5p, a decent enough profit assuming they didn't bomb. Since it's such a big floatation (probably a FTSE entrant), was priced keenly and was oversubscribed (anyone applying for more than £2K received 70% of their application) the share price was bound to open higher, and it's currently around the 243p mark. An investor with entitlement to buy and the enviable position of having £50K (the maximum) of spare caseh would have been allocated a little over 16000 shares, a £3800 profit on a £35K investment. Good work if you can get it. Mine investment was somewhat smaller, but I'll have a smile on my face for the rest of the week. :)

Eirx has 22 Employees, turnover for 2005 was £40K (!) on which it made a pretax loss of £0.88m. With 2.4bn shares in issue the company is valued at £4.68m. There seems to be a rough average of just 6 trades a day, hence the effect a big trade has. Judging from the figures even a modest sell can be well below the ask price (eg a sale of 1.4m share on the 8th June, at 0.15p when the spread was 0.18-0.20p, value of trade £22K). I can't find any record of director dealing recently, and it only has one listed major shareholder with under 5%. It will take a braver investor than me to punt on these, but you can never tell with cancer treatments, one breakthrough and the shares will probably fly.

Electrocomponents shares have been performing poorly for a while now. The recent results revealed a big fall in profits, though primarily because of a restructuring. The dividend is maintained at 12.6p making the yield a very impressive 7.18% at todays price of 156p (up 3.75p). Just this final dividend represents a yield of almost 5%, a better return than most savings accounts. However the share price has been just as spectacular in its underperformance. It's at similar levels to three years ago and barely a third off its peak in 2000. The last profits warning was in September last year, since then the company appears to have performed to expectations. Brokers are mixed with their buy/hold/sell recommendations. Overseas sales are growing and the company is planning expansion in China. I'm giving these a punt.

My broker is quoting 0.15p-0.22p. With that kind of spread you need a 37% increase in share price to break even, and that's not including getting your dealing costs and stamp duty back. These were last above 0.26p in December and have only been a little above 0.3p since the huge share price rise and collapse in October with the failed takeover by Langbar. The company raised £1.2m in March via a placing of new shares at 0.125p. The placing of 960m shares represented 145% of the existing shares at the time (661m). At 0.19 the current valuation is £3m. If I'd subscribed to the placing at 0.125p I'd be more than happy to sell now at 0.15p, this has to put a lid on the upside, given that turnover on the shares today, for example, at 800K represents just £1.5K in value.

I see CFN has jumped around 5% (up 12.25p) to 240-241.5 today. After a week fairly static that's a nice bounce, particularly given that the market raced ahead way over 6000 to fall back below it in later trading today. No press release to offer a reason, and no huge trades, just a steady spell of buying from around lunchtime onwards, with the share price going up all afternoon. Given that the peak in the last 6 months was just over 255p I probably won't be buying having missed this jump, but I can see these as a good hold for those that did.

I try to stick to my purchasing rules, mostly. These are that their should be a decent yield (accept for strongly growing companies or recovery stocks), not too high a historical share price (with the same exception re growth), small spread and some reason for an upside (takeover target, expansion plans, etc) Compass seemed to fit in well with these rules (decent yield, bit of a dip in price recently but trading in line with expectations, some aquisitions). I bought at 215p a month ago, price up 5.25 today at 229.25-229.5, although for most of the month they've stayed pretty much static. I don't like to bail too soon, anyone like these shares for medium term?

You read my whole posting before replying? :) I pointed out the 350000 share sale at 14:42 TODAY in the text, and offered the directors share sale as an indication of the START of the price fall. However, having looked into this company in some detail, my opinion is that you have a sound investment, and I'm considering buying these shares for my portfolio.

As a long term view, then yes, the 5 year chart shows the price falling from close to 100p, but this of course includes a discount for a recent rights issue. I wasn't commenting on its long term performance, but the possibility of making money by day trading. The reality is that Skyepharma is a loss making business and the directors are attempting to sell the company. The current consideration is that a break up value has a worth between 40p and 60p (or if you believe reports in the Times from last year up to 70p). If the 'rebels' get their way then a new Chairman will be given a chance, which probably (!) means good news for the share price. If the existing board get an overwhelming vote of confidence then likewise. However, a stalemate will very likely leave the shares in the doldrums. That said, If I'd bought at 39.5p at the beginning of February and sold today at 43p (share price is now up 1.5p) then that is still a good profit on a low price share with small spread. My opinion stands, it's a share on which it is possible to make profits.

On the 23rd Feb the director Gerry Ford excercised a share option and sold 900000 shares at 252p (having bought them at 39.66p - a good day for him I would have thought). This looks to have caused a big fall. However, despite a minor recovery later that week, the shares have continued to decline, and are off a further 8p today, currently (15:40) at 231p-234p (down 10p on the day) on a turnover of nearly 500000 shares. Looking at the price and trades graph for today only, there did not appear to be any big sell early on, just a marking down. However there was a 350000 sale at 14:42, it may be that this was awaiting execution and cause the fall. It looks like the price bottomed out at 232p (mid). There are no listed press releases for today.

I'm surprised that there was no discussion thread for this company, given its recent volatility of its share price. The shares typicall move, between 40p-45p, having fallen from a time in the 45p-55p range at the end of 2005. A failed attempt to sell the company, followed by a further failed attempt to break it up left investors unhappy. An EGM demanded by so called 'rebel' shareholders is being held today, in their attempt to bring in their own Chairman. Skyepharma shares are currently up 1.25p at 42.75-43p. I will be holding my shares pending the outcome of the EGM. A live audio webcast of the EGM is currently taking place and can be accessed via http://www.skyepharma.com