Member Info for mick-b

Q: Oxford scientists have said they are so confident that their vaccine will work that they are going to manufacture 1m doses. What will you do to make sure the UK is first in the queue to buy it?

Sharma says this is a reference to the Edward Jenner Institute. He has spoken to them, and is supporting the work that they are doing.

Sir Patrick Vallance says these researchers have done a great job. But there are over 100 vaccine projects around the world. There are at least two, or perhaps three, in the clinic.

But most vaccine trials do not work, he says.

He says you can only use vaccines when you know they are safe.

He says the vaccine can come from anywhere. The domestic effort is being supported. But it might come from somewhere else.

We just need to back lots of horses at the moment.

And we may need more than one vaccine, he says.

Alok Sharma, the business secretary announces a vaccine task force

Sharma says one way to defeat the virus is to find a vaccine.

We need to apply the best of British scientific endeavour to this, he says.

Sharma says government has set up a vaccine taskforce to find a coronavirus vaccine.
He says it will back all stages of vaccine developments.

Another who lost his fight against Coronavirus

1943 - 2020
RIP

1943 - 2020
RIP

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52319576

Half of the 3.7 million PPI complaints were upheld by firms, which took longer to conclude cases due to the surge in claims

By
Michael O'Dwyer
16 April 2020 • 12:46pm
Consumers raced to complain about mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) in the second half of last year ahead of a deadline for compensation claims, data from the City watchdog reveals.

Complaints about the toxic product soared 75pc to 3.7 million in the period from July to December, up from to 2.1 million in the first half of the year.

PPI is supposed to pay out to credit card and mortgage borrowers who get sick or lose their job. But between the 1970s and late 2000s, around 64 million policies were wrongly sold to customers who did not want or could not use them.

Banks are forecast to fork out over £50bn in compensation to customers due to the scandal - more than Britain's annual defence budget - including £22bn from Lloyds alone....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/04/16/city-watchdog-reveals-surge-ppi-complaints-ahead-deadline-last/

Data showed that Chinese GDP for the first quarter - covering the three months from January-March - came in at -6.8%, which is the first contraction since records began. That is worse than economists expected, with a Reuters poll having forecasted a contraction of -6.5%.

But markets aren’t phased. Stocks in Asia shrugged off the news, with the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.7%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rising 3.1% and Australia’s ASX up 1.8%. Europe is also called higher.

US crude futures tumble to $18.87
But not every market is on the rise, with US crude futures falling to their lowest level since 2002 at $18.87.

0.21p buy....of course

21p buy!!

Appearing on March 25 before a parliamentary committee, Sharon Pea****, a senior public health official overseeing infectious diseases, testified that the tests would require only a pin prick in the privacy of one’s home and would soon be available at minimal cost from either local pharmacies or Amazon.
“Testing the test is a small matter,” Ms. Pea**** assured lawmakers. “I anticipate that it would be done by the end of this week.”

After quietly admitting last week that the testing had in fact proven unsuccessful, health officials are now defending the purchase as prudent planning and valuable experience.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/middleeast/coronavirus-antibody-test-uk.html

LONDON — The two Chinese companies were offering a risky proposition: two million home test kits said to detect antibodies for the coronavirus for at least $20 million, take it or leave it.

The asking price was high, the technology was unproven and the money had to be paid upfront. And the buyer would be required to pick up the crate loads of test kits from a facility in China.

Yet British officials took the deal, according to a senior civil servant involved, then confidently promised tests would be available at pharmacies in as little as two weeks. “As simple as a pregnancy test,” gushed Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “It has the potential to be a total game changer.”

There was one problem, however. The tests did not work.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/world/middleeast/coronavirus-antibody-test-uk.html

JUST CONFIRMED!

Of the 14 decent Gold producing Co's on my watch list. SHANTA was by far the top performer yesterday.
While today only SHANTA is showing a loss.
Such is the poor liquidity here, that a few trades can move the price either way.
The massive spread don't help matters either.

Anyway the share price is moving up, now!

ORR is highly speculative.
Terrible long term performance.....click on the 5yr icon here........
https://app.stockopedia.com/share-prices/oriole-resources-LON:ORR
But each to his own....I guess

I sleep well at night holding SHANTA GOLD

by the Government @ around 5pm in the daily briefing.

Chris de Burgh - here for you on german tv 2004 with his daughter, Rosanna Davison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ECE9XFjFo

"Justgiving" deduct 5% of funds raised.
The LLOYDS board use the "Justgiving" site , every year to fund a chosen charity, that the winner of the EOY share price guess, donates to. They raise around £1000 each year depending on how many enters and what they pledge to donate.

Other crowd fund websites deduct much less.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/917206/fashion-retailers-to-see--very-painful--summer-clearance-as-stock-must-go-917206.html

High-street fashion chains Oasis and Warehouse have become the latest big-name retailers to collapse into administration as a result of coronavirus pandemic, though both will continue to trade online "in the short term".
Around 2,000 workers across 92 stores and 437 concessions are affected by the announcement, and 200 will sadly lose their jobs immediately

Hedge funds want EU regulators to scrap curbs on short selling, where managers borrow shares and then sell them, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price before returning them and pocketing the difference. Hedge funds argue investors should be able to make negative bets on market moves, just as other fund managers make bets on prices going up. Critics say short sales magnify periods of panic, and can mean that funds profit while people suffer economic hardship.