Member Info for LordAdam

From observation I think there's only two or three market makers who are keeping a book on Trakm8 ... the spread is usually quite large as we know, often about 10p (4-5% of the SP). The market makers don't seem to keep a very large stock of shares on their books and consequently a few trades can often shift the price quite a bit. When the shift occurs one of the MMs will move their prices up or down ... that will make them over/under priced at one side of the mid price and competitively inside the spread that is being offered by their rival MMs. To the outside world this shows as a narrowing of the spread ... it goes down to about 5p at such times. That means that the other MMs are frozen out of that side of the trading until they in turn move their prices up or down to match. When that happens the spread opens back out again to 10p but now at the higher or lower level. With Trakm8 it happens in slow motion because the trading is usually so thin. On one of these thin days, today for example, virtually none sold, 25,000-30,000 bought, the price can shift very quickly. From observation, a couple of trades of about 10,000 shares can easily move the price by 5-10p unless it they coincide with matching opposite trades. The MMs know the company calendar and their general status in the market place. I think they will not want to be short of shares as we go into the result season and will probably lift the price just as soon as they start to run out of shares to sell. They really don't want to be short of 100-200,000 shares on the day that the price hikes a £1! All in all, with the recent RM contracts added to the pot, it does indeed look very promising for April. My only real question is when will we see the start of the rise? I suspect it will come just after a weekend ... possibly next Tuesday maybe ... Mike Ps. yes it's silly that selling/buying 0.06% of the company equity shifts the market capitalization by about 4% -- just shows you how tightly held this company is!

I agree ... like you I think the market is not only overlooking, but actively ignoring this share at the moment. I think I understand what is happening ... and why. Just posted this over on ADVFN so thought I'd post it here as it might be of interest ... Trakm8 is an extrememly tightly held and thinly traded share. As we've seen in the last few weeeks 10,000 shares either way can easily move the price by 5-10p. It's difficult for the investment houses to get in to any degree without a placement so we're dependant on small investors for share price movement. And that depends in turn on the financial pundits generating interest through regular reporting and comments. In the autumn time the SP was in a steep growth mode which attracted more comments and more PI type investment. Then we had the January debacle. Now I think the pundits are playing a very conservative wait and see game until the results come out. Basically I don't think anyone wants to pin their reputation on saying the JanAffair was wrong even though it was an obvious manipulation of the market. As you say, all the information is in the public domain ... but its not actually priced into the SP as the market is playing a 'lets see' game. Given the past record of the management and the consistency of their style and presentation over the years I feel very confident that this share has to revalue very significantly over the next few months. I'm still holding my target price of about £4+ for this time next year, and 300-350 as we go through mid-April. Mike

BigBadBaz & MoneyGrabber ... actually you're both right in a way. If Shell bought its Sterling in the market at the same time that they fixed the conversion rate then it wouldn't matter. But if as I suspec they fix the conversion and buy the currency closer to the payment date then it could move either in their favour or against them. If they had free choice as to when to fix, when to buy, they could play some interesting games around this question. But the fix date/time is announced well in advance ... if anyone is likely to be doing any manipulation its more likely to be the currency markets as the Shell dividend is a relatively big purchase of pounds from dollars. Of course conspiracy folk will not bat an eyelid at the thought of Shell or anyone else shifting the entire global market for the sake of a few dollars gain! Overall for a company that accounts in one currency and pays dividends in at least two others this seems a reasonable way of going about things. Mike

An interesting, but ultimately, repetitive posting that doesn't really give me any additional information about this share or your thinking on it. Perhaps if you declared your position on/in it that would help. If I could understand where you were coming from, where you are at and where you are trying to get to I might understand better what you are saying. Are you long/short or on the sidelines ... are you waiting to get in or out or just watching? Mike

Actually I think it's totally here or there ... being one holding means it's one brain/head behind it ... and that means one man's take on things compared to a market weighted average ... plus this person has held this short position for the last 2-4 years! During that time the LRE price has been all over the place relative to where it is now. OAM areeither doing in/out trading no the short position, exploiting the volatility, or using it as insurance for the rest of their portfolio. The recent price moves seem to be more due to the normal long-term volatility of the share in the presence/absence of special dividends etc than to the effect of shorting. I suspect that you may get a bite at the 5.00 cherry before the next dividend season comes around! Mike

First glance/read ... excellent ... should be reflected in the share price today and in the short term. Mike

PharmaJohn ... your comment about the buy/sell ratios and the changes in prices prompted me to have a detailed look at the trade lists for recent days. I can get back the last 200 trades, which on a big share is an hour or so, on Trakm8 its a few days. So I grabbed what I could, stuck it in a spread sheet, sorted out the delayed trades so that they were in the right place and correctly indicated as buy/sell for the prices at the time. I came up with the following results: Date, Buy, Sell, Total Volume, Close price, Price change on previous session 29/2/16, 42206, 29680, 71886, 235, -13.50 1/3/16, 53799, 46002, 99801, 240, +5.00 2/3/16, 4493, 13576, 18069, 237.50, -2.50 3/3/16, 53644, 66584, 120228, 230, -7.50 4/3/16, 44953, 52017, 96970, 235, +5.00 7/3/16, 43599, 31723, 75322, 225, -10.00 Total buy/sell over the period was 242694/239582 ... slightly in favour of the buys ... for a 10% overall drop in share price. You're right ... although volumes are not high, there's often a discrepancy between the price movement and the weight of buy/sell orders. The word 'drifitng' is a good one ... you can't steer a drifiting ship, you need 'head-way' to do that and in the relative calm after the new year period we're not currently powering along. I rather suspect that the April period will re-confirm the long term trend and we will get underway again. Mike

As you say in previous years the company have issued a trading statement 2-3 weeks into April. John Watkins himself in his last interview said that we would probably not hear anything further from the company until April time. So that looks to me to be the next update point. Over the last few years the various updates and results have been getting slightly earlier in the calendar so it may be that we see something sooner rather than later? As most well managed companies know where they're at on a monthly (if not weekly) basis I'd expect the April statement to be a good indication of the formal year end results. As for me ... I've been deliberately keeping quiet on the basis that a period of peace and quiet, with a slight sense of tedium would actually be in the long term holders interests. Mike

Before we get excited about Mr Odey being short in LRE, or anybody else for that matter, we need to remember a few things. The first thing is there's only one fund that is short to any great extent and that is Odey Asset Management which is in for about 6.12% ... there's Blackrock at 0.71% but that's really small by comparison. The second thing is that OAM have been short in the stock since about 2013/14 ... and in January 2015 were short by 4% ... so this is not a new stance for them. Far from gambling on a sudden crash it would appear that OAM are just trading the peaks and troughs to be honest. In short (terrible pun I know) I don't see any need for concern about OAM's current position. Mike

I disagree with the general tone and findings of the article that is quoted. Odey Asset Management have held short positions in BKG since 2014 and recently actually decreased their short position, not increased it as the article implies. Overall OAM are hardly the scintillating agressive shorting outfit that the write up alludes to. More rather they are using the short position to hedge their portfolio against a down turn in the property market ... in other words they are using it as insurance against loss rather than a money making opportunity for profit. Bluemountain and Anchorage are more recent entrants to the list of shorters but their positions are hardly large -- typically 0.50-0.75%. Overall this shorting activity is not really something to be concerned about. It's more likely to be funds covering their backs against BREXIT and uncertainty in the property market than a belief in BKG collapsing specifically. Mike

Webuyanyshare ... I owe you an apology! and here it is ... as there wasn't an RNS for the Honda franchise acquisition I missed it and I rather sarcastically made reference to them in the belief that they hadn't happened -- so I'm sorry. I, and I guess others, would be interested to hear how the trick of knowing about them before the event was done (and that's not a sarcastic question). Mike

The market makers have the right to delay the posting of large trades ... I suspect they have done so with this one. You may need to wait until the close of trade tomorrow to see it posted :( Mike

Well they've issued an RNS now to cover the expansion ... let's see what the market makes of it, but the key features for me seem to be ... Thames Valley, London area ... Premium brands ... good retail sites worth actual money ... paid for from cash ... and, earnings enhancing in the first full year. Mike

New appointment, new division ... signs of future expansion me thinks ... Mike

Threshold bands are reported at 1% intervals above 5% ... FIL have reduced their holding slightly which has taken them from the 6% band to the 5% ... hence the need to file the RNS. They still hold some 20million shares in the company (almost 6%) -- I suspect that they are tidying up or rebalancing their portfolio. Mike

Yes ... A profit is a profit. Being more of a high yield type investor I wouldn't have thought of day trading as a natural choice myself. Still it's an interesting move and one that I shall consider in future. There are some shares that are free of stamp duty and also the PTM levy that would make this type of play easier. I'm not thinking of AIM here but rather companies whose registrar is non UK .. LRE is the one that springs to mind. Mike

So you bought and sold 21,000 pounds of shares to make 185 pounds of profit from which you still need to take your dealing costs (x2) and PTM levy? That game doesn't seem worth playing to me. If you are prepared to go to those lengths then maybe you should be in options?

There is no fixed date ... the offer timetable says that the latest date is 14 days after the effective date (15/2) for despatch of cheques etc. So in theory that means the cheque will be in the post on or before the 29th. I suspect it will be before that but I wouldn't bank on it ... yet. @George123 ... Clarification ... in the days leading up to the offer BG traded at about 850, RDSB at about 2100 ... so there was a substantial premium in the offer for BG holders. For some time now the BG/RDSB prices have been inter-locked by the offer so it's difficult to understand your position/statement about loses ... perhaps if you gave some numbers and dates etc it might shed some light on it. Mike

Proof ... that this is no rout or sell-off ... Having managed to scrape some petty cash together this morning, using one of Baldrick's cunning plans, I tried to buy £10k worth of Trakm8 shares at that rather attractive £2 share price that was briefly on the board. The market makers wouldn't even quote me ... I tried a deal of 5000 shares ... nope they wouldn't take that ... 4000 nope not that either ... I had to settle for 3000 and then the remainder a few minutes later. By which time of course, they'd sussed what was happening and miraculously the price had moved against me by 10p. My moaning about MMs aside ... what this clearly shows is that the current prices are not the result of a disorganised rout or sell-off ... quite the contrary, the MMs are short of shares at the moment despite the impression that they are working hard to create. Half-term is almost upon us ... time for me to go away me thinks ... Mike

On this momentous day ... may I be the first to say 'Goodbye' to all you folk and thank you for your interesting and informative postings over the days, months and years that I've been lurking here. It's been a pleasure and I'm sure that I/we shall see many of you over on the RDSB board (if we haven't already). Good luck everyone ... I do genuinely hope that what ever your postion and what ever your investment style (provided its an honourable, decent, one) that it works out well for you. To badly quote a famous movie ... Go forth and prosper! Mike