Member Info for TheTrotsky

I think Trump killed SEIT 12 months ago. IMHO the writing was on the wall for all to see if you'd wanted to look.

The yield was alluring but the ability to expand it's existing portfolio of US assets was, IMHO, been stymied by Trump's initiatives to curtail renewable energy investment in favour of coal, gas and oil and the NAV of its existing assets was then bought into doubt.

I'm facing a similar problem at GSF but think the fact that the majority of its US assets are in California rather than Texas will help. Democratic California isn't as wedded to Trump's coal, gas and oil initiative as its Republican counterparts in Texas. Time will tell.

I think a couple of people are needlessly hot under the collar about this. Last year they announced on 10 April but in the years prior to that they've announced on 11, 12, 13th etc.

Clearly the timing of the weekend is a factor and once in every 6/7 years the date of the dividend announcement will be reset. I wouldn't be surprised to see this year's on the 16th and the date to then get progressively earlier in forthcoming years. It's the way of the world

I'd just like to thank the US President for being a 24 carat @rsehole.

To think that we might have another 3 years of this (or more if the "king" has his way) just beggars belief.

The man has no morals. To think that he wants to destroy an ancient civilisation like Iran simply because they won't play ball with him is criminal.

The Iranian regime may not be what we here in the west want but it's not for us to choose. I'm not sure now what common Iranians must now think; regime change or defend themselves at all costs against the Devil in the Whitehouse. When you are being bombed indiscriminantly it doesn't really foster goodwill towards the perpetrator(s).

I also feel sorry for the Ukranians because if Trump does now bomb Iranian power facilities and bridges and dares the world to hold him accountable for crimes against humanity, the gloves are off for Putin to attack Ukranian facilities without fear of sanction.

The US President was supposed to be the light of democracy (it's doubtful that that has ever been true but it's always been the slogan) but Trump has put the US in the dustbin.

I'm not sure that the 'bumper" dividend will be quite as much as some people expect. I've pencilled in 4p to 4.5p this year. Interest rates have been falling and I don't expect a repeat of last year.

Judges Scientific (JDG) has just issued its preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2025 today. Like Vicon, JDG's US business is heavily reliant on US research funding and the news coming out of JDG today would not appear to bode well for Vicon's prospects in the US over the last six months. Despite US research funding having been restored by Congress, there still seems to be uncertainty about when federal funds will start to flow again and JDG has, at least, seen a fall in its US orders as a result.

Whether, and to what extent, Vicon is affected by the same trade winds in th US, Trump certainly doesn't appear to be making life any easier for Imogen and her executive team.

Arna, The conflict with Iran started in the middle of Ramadan. If I recollect from their January RNS, they were expecting Ramadan to be the catalyst for new orders and I'm guessing that their sales would be dependent on revenues generated. So, to that extent, the start of the conflict with Iran certainly would not have helped.

Newuncle, This has absolutely nothing to do with accountants, lawyers, advisors etc. This mess can be placed squarely at the foot of one person; at the date of the last RNS nobody had an inkling that DJT and his minions were about to launch an attack on Iran and turn the global economy on its head once again (it came compeletly out of the blue; they were in talks with Iran one minute and launching missiles the next).

MRI's only failing is that it sales are heavily reliant on the Middle Eastern market and, at this point in time, its potential customers just happen to have a lot more important matters on their minds; in that regard MRI is not disimilar to a lot of small companies that are often heavily reliant on one large customer for the bulk of their sales. Expansion of the customer base is easier said than done and can sometimes take many years to achieve; in the meantime, companies like MRI will always remain highly susceptible to events such as this which are either beyond their ability to control or simply come out of the blue without any prior warning.

If you invested in MRI without knowing the potential risks then more fool you. Don't blame others for your lack of due diligence.

I wouldn't disagree and, unfortunately, I'm inclined to think the situation may be set to get worse. Even if Trump can now extract himself from the mess he's created, it's probably going to have a knock on effect on the worldwide economy for the next 12-18 months, making an already difficult trading environment even harder. So, even if OMG has made progress on the trading front at the "interims", it's probaby going to have to caveat its near term prospects because of the Dunce in the Whitehouse. In my experience, the market never reacts well to caveats even when they are both obvious and realistic. OMG will not be alone in being caught in that storm. In the short term, now would be a very good time for OMG to announce some new, sizeable contracts, if it has any in the offing.

OXB is now EBITDA positive and expects this to continue to improve in FY26 and beyond.

OXB is still loss making because of (primarily) non-cash charges (such as depreciation, amortisation and share-based payments).

Both its cash and and net cash are both higher year on year and are expected to continue to improve, subject to any new acquisitions and/or capital expenditure

I think it's more a reflection of where the general market's at; it remains very jittery about the outcome of any negotiations with Iran and, as such, there doesn't seem to have been much resistance to the MMs trying to drop the price first thing (that's normal MM practise). These results had been flagged in advance and, as yet, there's no reports of any large sells this morning and the MMs simply found themselves pushing against an open door.

That's the question. One would suspect that it's not SpaceX

...

We've gone ex-div today and, coupled with the rest of the market malaise this morning, the fall does not look out of kilter.

Mkx007, GSF does not produce electricity; it's essentially an arbitrageur. Broadly speaking, GSF buys, and temporarily stores, electricity during the off-peak and sells it back during peak demand. GSF makes its money on the margin between buying and selling. You can't hedge that.

Allfista, Thanks for that insightful response; not. It's my recollection, and I may well be incorrect, that Topps sourced a lot of tiles from North Africa, Morrocco in parrticular (or certainly did at one time). North African countries are not reliant on supplies from Iran! Obviously, tiles sourced from Europe and, say, the Indian sub-continent, as an example, will have been affected.

Gas is not easy to transport in bulk; you need pipelines and not all pipelines give you automatic access to external markets (either by cross-border pipelines, such as Nordstream 1, or via coastal LNG production plants). In the absence of the necessary infrastructure needed to export your gas, the dynamics of the local market becomes totally different. People often wrongly assume that the US, for example, has uniform gas pricing; it doesn't. Pricing on the West, South and East coasts is totally different to the pricing in Central USA because they lack the interconnectors needed to ship gas produced in much of Central USA to external markets.

Bottom line, how badly, or not, Topps is affected depends on where it sources its tiles and whether those producers are subject to international or local gas pricing. The main tenet of my "waffle" was that it would be wrong to simply assume that all countries and producers are likewise affected.

As regards tile production costs, I think the international price of gas is far less important than the local price of gas.

You've got to look at the countries where Topps are sourcing their tiles from and what impact the current war in Iran is having on local gas prices, rather than international prices (gas prices are not uniform). There are many reasons why the local price of gas can sometimes be a lot lower than the international price and less susceptible to price shocks e.g. a lack of access to international gas markets and/or local pricing controls.

If you don't have the capacity to export, e.g. access to pipelines and/or LNG installations, then there's less opportunity for arbitrage and local prices tend to be lower and remain lower as a result because you have limited capacity to increase/decrease your levels of production to affect prices (this is often true of some gas markets in the US MidWest, Africa and South America). Once a "nodding donkey" is operational you have limited control over the flow rate and, short of plugging or venting, you have to sell your gas at whatever price you can achieve and, unless production in the local market is strictly regulated, you often see local prices at the lower end of the spectrum (just above the cost of production).

You also have to consider local pricing controls. Some international producers cap local prices.

Topps may therefore be less susceptible to higher production costs than might have first been thought (depending on where they are sourcing their tiles) but will be susceptible to higher transportation costs and heating costs in their stores. Thankfully we are entering the low season for gas usage in their stores; so the impact of recent price rises may not be too bad if the war is concluded rapidly and the price of oil starts to fall back.

Douvrey, How else would you suggest that they estimate NAV? There isn't an established market place for these type of assets (like say housing) on which to base NAVs. Using long-term price forecasts to estimate the returns from generative assets, such as battery storage or solar arrays, is a long-established basis for estimating NAVs in the absence of actually fielding open market offers every time you want to try and value an asset.

Dadean, What you and Douvrey have failed to appreciate is that its energy pricing that should be in the docks. The UK market has been in disarray for the last few years and the government has done nothing to try and fix it. In an ideal market, prices would be fairly stable. What is conservative when prices are wildly gyrating? Prices in the UK stayed a lot lower for longer than might have been expected and/or would be sustainable (if prices had been allowed to continue at such low levels new investment would have completely dried up) and even now the government continues to game the market (continuing to grant licences for new production capacity despite the grid not being fit for purpose and woefully lacking in investment).

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. I didn't hear you complaining when NESF was, supposedly, deliberately over-estimating the value of its assets

Trumponomics in action yet again!

On the one hand Kim Jong-il and Vlad the Impaler are "friends" whilst Khamenei is/was a mortal enemy and Israel now seems to be dictating US policy in the Middle East. Only last week the US was in talks with Iran! Within a matter of four days the US went from discussion to war and the Trump administration still hasn't given a coherent explanation as to why (Trump and Rubio seem to be at odds to explain why).

Whether the UK was right or wrong not to support the US, I think that Starmer was well within his rights to question the validity of the US's actions and deny the US access to UK-controlled bases.

Trump has to learn that he doesn't have carte blanche to do whatever he wants without explaining the rationale for his actions; it's not suffice to just say that the Iranian regime are "bad people" and expect unconditional support for your actions.

Past intervention in Iraq has been a disaster for most Iraqis, with the possible exception of the Kurds. Saddam was definitely "bad people" but it's highly debatable whether most Iraqis are now better off; they've traded a repressive, secular, authoritarian regime for daily, non-secular violence which has only further increased the resentment towards the West and its constant meddling in Middle East affairs. Will Iran be any different?

SABA can't acquire more than 30% without launching an offer so they are wholly reliant on other shareholders voting alongside them to gain control. At EWI the shareholders have, more or less, fully backed the board's rejection of SABA's proposals (better the devil you know than the devil you don't). SABA are not an operator they are an asset stripper and they are not the solution to our current problems.

I'd broadly agree with your first paragraph analysis.