Member Info for LordAdam

Unless there's something wrong with the date/time stamp on your posting you've got the ex-dividend thing wrong I'm afraid. GCP and SSE both went ex-dividend today (Thursday) 21st January. That means to qualify for the dividend payment you have to actually own the share at the start of trading this morning. If you buy the share today you don't get the dividend and so the price is automagically put down by the value of the dividend as the market opens to reflect this. BTW these days nearly all ex-dividend dates fall on the Thursday. Mike

How many extra shares will those who opt for that get (assuming enough people opt for all cash)? the quick answer is that it will depend on some magic formula ... and I don't know what that is. The long answer is that this must be detailed in the full offer document so its bedtime reading for you I'm afraid. Mike

A few years ago, at an evening soiree, I got embroiled in a discussion concerning the local flooding that we had experienced. A chap put it down to the effect of the tide on the river ... I pointed out that the coast was 5 miles away, there was 125 feet difference in height and there were three weirs in the river twixt here and there. But no, the laws of physics didn't seem to make a difference to this situation and for the sake of our hosts I changed the subject. I rather suspect that entering into a discussion with our friend TW would be much the same ... I've read what he says and much of it is just beligerently and willfully misinterpreted. Apart from supplying the wrong accounts in his link and appealing to superstition in that a rival tipsters recommendation proves that the share price must collapse -- he is just wrong on basic accounting/business principles. One example and then onto much more interesting things ... he claims that the BoD's statement that Trak are delivering "strong net cash generation" is "*******s". The basis for this is that he subtracts R&D and capital equipment purchase from the net cash as though they were expenses and not investment for the future. Clearly Trak generated the cash and the BoD wisely spent it on improving the business. Of course they could have paid a dividend (and 40+% would have gone to themselves). Presumably that would have satisfied TW's critera for cash generation -- I know which business model I prefer. NOW FOR SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING ... What's this guy up to? He's not serving any higher purpose to the financial community so what's his game? I can't see how he, or his associates, could effectively short this share. And which big holder would loan him the shares knowing what he's going to do? I think we're dealing with the sort of character who goes round knocking other people's sand castles down because they can't make one themself. In short he won't make anything out of this, but he'll get to feel important for a while. IN SUMMARY ... he doesn't really have a claim, but there are those who will listen, and this has come at a generally bad time for the market as a whole. I believe the board on this one. The accounts are right and proper and I think they will have done their homework about Route Monkey, their accounts, cash flow, order book etc and have already got an integration plan in place for the acquisition. In short the numbers are right and TW is ultimately wrong ... it may be stormy but truth will out, it always does! Mike

Thanks for that input ... you posted it while I was studying and composing my own reply off line. I too had wondered about 1crispin1 especially as the account was opened back in Oct 2013 and he's only made one posting ... um ... kind of tossed a hand grenade in and ran didn't he? The cynical me wondered if someone had created a batch of user names on 29th October 2013 just for this purpose. I wonder if that date/timescale matches any of the postings on other TW targets? Anyway ... shorting Trak ... not sure how you could do that. Traditional share borrowed short would be difficult. All the big investors here wouldn't loan shares out to TW to have him debunk the share price -- they'd loose and be left with a loss on their books when they got the shares back. Don't know if anyone would write a time limited put option on these things -- what do you think? Mike

I've had a chance to spend some time looking at this characters postings, web site, videos, blogs and past history ... can't say that I'm a lover of the man ... far too many references to intercourse, masturbation and faecal material for my liking and a generally flowery, emotive style ... still I don't have to like him ... the real question is, "Does he have anything to say that is of substance?" And now I have the evening to sift through his statements and look at the numbers for myself. Looks like I will be working the night shift. Mike

... well to keep us all amused while we wait for the inevitable recovery that we know is enshrined in Trak's basic business model, their sound management and the solid foundation of the numbers in their accounts I'll explain the LordAdam thing ... Back in 1996/7 when I was working at the Open University I used to browse and chat on the rather simplistic, fledgling thing called the inter net ... just imagine netscape browsers, basic email, bulletin board systems and that was just about your lot. Anyway, come lunch time the only folk around were Americans because the rest of the UK were on dial up modems and calls during the day were expensive :( ... so to keep myself amused I created a chat room for ex-pats who were in the states, and just to keep me and the ex-pats amused we used to string the Yanks along something terrible. The chat room was called "Lord Adam's Castle" but Lord Adam was never there ... he was always in Scotland inspecting the grouse moors ... I played the part of Arthur the butler based on the name Arthur Pendragon and me and the rest of the expats would tease the Americans something rotten if they wandered in. Things like "we're just yanking your chain" ... "I only speak English and a little Merry King" ... come to mind. Later I needed a handle/name for another board ... Arthur Pendragon was taken so I adopted the name LordAdam ... and rather surprisingly, even to this day, its rarely been used by someone else. So I kept it and still use it ... And that's how Mike became LordAdam! There you have it.

Golly its got noisy in here ... anyway, here's some down to earth maths to help re-establish some reality. I have a copy of the significant shareholders from September, and there's the one on the company website which is dated 13 January. Comparing the two reveals that the directors holdings have remained exactly the same. In percentage terms there's been a slight reduction due to the dilution that occurred over the Christmas period with the placement. All the other major holders also remain the same with the exception of Hargreave Hale Ltd who reduced their holding last year (see the appropriate RNS) -- at the time they also trimmed holdings in other AIM companies as part of rebalancing operation. Essentially nothing's really changed ... 46% of the shares are held by the BoD + significant holders. Which of course is why we have this lack of liquidity. Mike

When it comes to reading accounts and deciding if they are rubbish or not I'll put my money on John Watkins and his fellow directors. Interestingly ... yesterday, 19th, the appointment of John Watkins and James Hedges as directors of Route Monkey was announced at Companies House. I can't see them putting themselves in that position unless they are fully satisfied that things are fully in order.

iWeb, professional as always, give you the full range of Options (Including the type A/B ones). My understanding of the extra cash/extra shares question is that shares *will not* be bought/sold on the day to satisfy demand. Rather its a purely internal reallocation of shares/cash amongst those choosing those options. IE if you want all cash it depends on someone else wanting extra shares (your shares) and giving up their cash. The capital gains situation is complicated ... within an ISA you're home dry of course ... outside its a mess. Try the HMRC site for the gory details (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/capital-gains-tax-share-reorganisation-takeover-or-merger). It's not correct to say that choosing the shares only option avoids the CGT. It doesn't, it just defers or delays it until you sell your RDSB shares later. It depends on how much you paid for your BG shares whether you are into a technical CGT gain or loss -- for me I'll be able to declare a small CGT loss and offset that against other gains. Mike

Looks like someone got taken advantage of at about 8:20 this morning ... that big dip points to someone selling a largish bundle of shares -- and probably getting less than 270 for them! I suspect somebodies going to feel pretty miffed in a few weeks time. Mike

Yes the date does make a difference. It's very confusing but the MMs have the right to delay the posting of any trade that is larger than the market size (3000 shares). For 2x (6000) I think its an hour for more its longer and on big trades of 25,000 it would appear that its a couple of days. That's confusing enough ... but at least the date and time of the trade is still correct so in theory you can sort it out. BUT the trade list doesn't contain the bid/ask prices at the time, they are put in when the trade is put into the public list on the lse site and they are the ones that are current at the time of the posting, not the ones at the time of the actual trade. So a delayed transaction is not reliable in terms of buy/sell indication ... to find out what really happened you have to go back to the past time of the trade and look at the bid/ask price there to decide. Turns out that those two big trades of 25,000 were sells ... the bid/ask at the time was something like 300/315 ... so they lost quite a lot for the size of the parcel they were shifting. I'm still looking for that big trade from the morning of 14/1/16. If it was big enough it could be a day or two yet before we see it. Mike

Apart from how thin the market is in Trakm8 and how smallish trades can move the market a great deal there's another complicating factor. A lot of folk use the Google Finance pages to keep an eye on their shares ... its convenient and very importantly carries live prices for UK equities. But there's the rub ... it's pretty good generally but on Trakm8 it doesn't show the mid-price. Trades are so few that it normally shows the price of the last trade and with the big spreads that we have here then it can create the impression of a wildly oscillating share price ... up 5% one minute then down 5% the next. For folk who aren't sure about what's going on and aware of how the price is being reported it's probably very worrying ... plus if you just look in briefly at coffee time or lunch then its 50/50 as to whether you are up 5% or down 5%. All in all it doesn't make for a stable market! Mike

Make a note of the date and time ... 14 Jan 08:38:00 ... and keep an eye on the trade list later today/tomorrow. I rather suspect that a delayed trade will be posted either later today, this evening or tomorrow that will explain the sudden shift in the price that occurred just after that time. It'll be interesting to see how big it was. Mike

Yes, my mistake, and you do right to point it out ... actually, my *two* mistakes ... the Q3 divi is now ex-dividend as of November and is being paid on the 14th (tomorrow). For some reason I'd got it into my head that the special was being paid this time around and not in April as I'd entered into my accounts and spread sheets. The declaration of the special is expected to be on 4/2/16, the ex-dividend date on 18/2/16 and payment on 14/4/16. Apologies. Mike

Now that the market has closed and the dust is settling we can have a good look at the trade lists. Yesterday, Tuesday 12th ... there was a trade for 21,000 shares at 301 posted today that actually happened at 14:55 yesterday ... looking at the trade lists for yesterday at about that time it was clearly a sell. The bid/offer at the time was 310/315 and the trade shifted the price down by 5p to 305/310 and then within 5 minutes it was down to 295/300 on no real volume at all. So we can see that a single trade of 15-30,000 can shift the market a lot. No wonder we have a volatile time of it on occasions. I think the market makers are really struggling in this big spread, thinly traded market to find the right level for the price and it shows in the volatility. Mike

289p ... well that's a good price. When the fog clears I think that will look like a very smart move to most. I got some at 297 this morning, 309 yesterday and 327 the day before -- so you can see where my sentiments lie. Some of you will remember the complicated CGT moves that I did last November. Well now I'm doing them in reverse to log a paper gain on the other side plus I usually make a profit on the turn :) Anyway, am I watching the recent moves -- yes ... am I concerned -- no. All the numbers are in place, we're going to have a cracking year from what I can tell. Mike

@Megan1 ... no disrespect, but you need to read up on how the ex-dividend date works. (Otherwise you're going to loose money sooner or later) Basically the GSK shares went ex-dividend on 12 November. If you owned them then you get the dividend on 14 January ... EVEN if you sell them after the 12 November. The price fall due to the paying of the dividends occurred on 12 November last year and won't occur on 14 Jan -- actually there's usually a small increase on the dividend payment day as automatic reinvestment programmes can be relied on to buy back into the share at that time. Read up on it, google and wiki ... for your wealth's sake. Mike

I can't see it either ... Servision are small, £3m cap, have been in a loss making situation for the last 3-4 years and don't seem to have a very good match with Trak's market and modus operandi. Trak are into the big-data, gps, tracking + camera type market whereas Servision are completely the other way around Camera first and then some addons. True there might be some synergies but they wouldn't be revenue enhancing from Day1 and in the past that's been Trakm8's style. Plus they have just acquired a camera technology company and are integrating that into their products etc. Nope, if anything I think Servision is the target not of Trakm8 but of rumour mongers interested in a ramp and dump operation on a penny share which is very susceptible to market manipulation. Mike

You won't see a "We know of no reasons" type RNS from this board ... it's just not their style to either play to the crowd or appease them. Rather the opposite ... with 42% of the company in their own hands they 'are' the crowd. Under their steady guidance the share price has risen from well under a pound to kicking on four over the Christmas period. Believe me they really do have your (and their) long term interest at heart. One of the reasons for the volatility is that with only 15-20 million shares actually in the market place and most of those held by long term investors and institutions any significant sale or purchase (say 5-10,000 shares) will move the market ... I know because I bought 5000 this morning and the price immediately moved up to reflect the buy. Hold tight ... we've seen this sort of thing many times in the past ... the prospects and the numbers are good for the long term and the market has to ultimately reflect this. Mike

I read the following link ... I've read, watched and sometimes followed, Motley Fool for over 20 years and its a very different site and very different outfit to what it was in the early days. If you look at the link and read it through the most telling part for me is towards the bottom and can be summed up with the quote "we at the Motley Fool reckon there are more reliable income stocks on the UK market today. For a top dividend stock with great prospects then check out our BRAND NEW report". In the old days they would have just come out with what else they were thinking of and given some justification for it ... these days it seems that every little flyer, tidbit, commentary type of item leads to some mechanism that is aimed at monetizing the site. These things always give me the feeling that the whole top part of the commentary is there to justify the link to the value added part at the bottom ... as such I'm left feeling that the whole has been devalued by the part. I wouldn't be even slightly concerned by the presence of this item ... I might be concerned for all sorts of other reasons, but it wouldn't be this article ... Mike