Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

Well it would be better than CRYSTAL, which brought to mind County lines drug gangs.

DorsetLSE - I'd say it depends entirely on how those small/private companies have structured their borrowing.

I don't know about Smithson, but the private companies SMT invests in aren't small in terms of capitalisation.

And I doubt many - if any - will become insolvent. What it MIGHT affect though is the level of valuation they can secure on future funding rounds.

As others have said, whether SMT turns a corner or not is completely immaterial compared to the misery of conflict.

We should all be very grateful that we're governed by incompetent but pacifist buffoons. As opposed to the incompetent warmongering variety.

I'd still urge a bit of caution on inflation. At least in the short term.

Whilst I believe it'll drop on a 12-18 month view, it would only take the Middle Eastern conflict to widen for oil prices to sky rocket. And we all know what energy price spikes do for global inflation......

At the moment, to their great credit, the US in particular is acting as a powerful tension defuser. But it's impossible to say yet whether any uneasy truce (or reduction in inflammatory retribution) will last.

Machin - you're quite right about only suffering a paper loss at this stage.

But personally, I'm not prepared to gamble any more money whilst the two Tims have any involvement.

Good luck with your 700K worth - or whatever you've got. Sounds a lot, but at current prices it would barely pay for the cab home!

Alwaysone - no-one can ever tell that.

And anyone who thinks they can is kidding themselves.

Machin - no, shan't be joining you I'm afraid. Lost quite enough on IMM already thanks. I'm still hoping my more recent purchase eventually comes good. But repeatedly averaging down to try to recoup your losses, whilst individuals as unreliable as the two Tims remain at the helm is just asking for trouble IMHO.

Machin - You ask "Am I crazy?" Answer's yes.

Alwaysone - how exactly can you tell whether it looks like a dead cat bounce or not?

Daft thing to say IMHO.

Chilting - According to the BBC today, "executives at M&S told shareholders they were "not happy" with how the online retailer (Ocado) was performing.

Mr Machin said on Wednesday he was still positive about its potential, although it would take "three years plus" to realise it."

MysticMike - so shock horror, Tim’s predictions come to nowt. For now at least.

And there was me hanging on his every word.

Alwaysone - better than nowt I guess, but we’re really just back to where we were a few weeks ago.

Royal Mail's letter delivery service is now worse than useless in our area. Days on end go by with nothing delivered. Then suddenly - presumably when they feel like it & are running out of space - a whole heap lands on the mat.

In the past, we almost always got post every day. And it hasn't all suddenly migrated to email. We've complained more than once and they just tell us they're having trouble recuiting staff in the area. Which may be true, but isn't really an acceptable answer, now is it.

Royal Mail's solution to this appalling lack of service is just to raise prices every year. No wonder letters are in terminal decline. I wonder how many will ditch Christmas cards altogether this year. Or at least severely prune their list.

This latest Post Office announcement sounds the death knell for Royal Mail longer term IMHO. They arrogantly relied on parcels to keep themselves afloat, taking their eye off the ball when it comes to letters. Their price & service on parcels isn't a patch on their competitors. A few years back, our business switched out of RM completely for its parcel deliveries. And despite moving to Evri (who haven't always had the best reputation), we've experienced far fewer problems. Last Christmas wasn't great, as Evri picked up a lot of Royal Mail's parcel business (due to RM's regular strike action) & they didn't have the capacity to handle it all properly.

But it's since settled down again, has better tracking than RM & is way cheaper. Evri also pays out relatively quickly (within 30 days) on the rare occasions when something does go wrong. Without having to complete a long form, answer umpteen daft questions, produce cost price evidence then wait months for any response - (often culminating in a "computer says no") - which is Royal Mail's pathetic approach.

MrAmericano - with any luck, Misty’s superpowers are telling her (and us) a treat’s soon coming our way, courtesy of SMT.

After all, they HAVE been a bit short on the ground of late.

On a far less serious note, SMT’s managers / PR team do seem to be getting themselves out there a bit more just now. Which possibly indicates they sense a bit of investor unrest. No bad thing if they felt their feet were being held to the fire once in a while.

RPB1 - let’s hope you’re right. I do think LIDAR could be a bit of a game changer here.

Only problem is, IQE’s been “on the verge of going mainstream” since the late 80s.

MrAmericano - well I'm sure we ALL now want to know whether Misty gives SMT a wagging or motionless tail.....

You do that, 5Rings, you do that.

However strong the company, now's not the ideal time to tap up investors with an IPO.

Dallo - fair enough. I stand by my remarks & we seem broadly in alignment, which is good!

If I were you, I really wouldn't pay any attention to these "I bought several million shares for next-to-no pence" type of posts.

For one, you've no way of knowing if they're true. And more importantly, who cares anyway? One person sells, another one buys. Meanwhile the share price continues to drift or tread water.