Member Info for W13Ken

Hi, here as a new buyer of KITW after screening for interesting undervalued shares. Bought on Monday and 8% up already so happy about that.

This is the quietest LSE board I've ever seen. Anyone out there?

Yes.

https://www.investomania.co.uk/could-seeing-machines-stock-be-the-next-tech-unicorn/

Went to a couple of non-CPC pubs last night - in Blackfriars and Canary Wharf - and they were absolutely packed all evening. Restaurants had queues too. There are a lot of people out spending money so CPC should have a great year. I'll have to visit their pubs next time.

That's it then, it's over. Such a shame as K3C were my #1 portfolio holding and there were many good years to come. Sold up so over and out.

Maybe see you on the SOS, IQG, ACSO, YU., ZOO, CPC, SEE or GROW boards.

Best of luck to you all.

"...Analysts at SP Angel have a new target of 940p, up from 635p previously. They added: “Initiating a dividend is a strong indication of growth in future cash flow generation by the board. Overall, we believe there is still significant upside potential in this stock for investors, on a de-risked basis.”

https://www.ii.co.uk/analysis-commentary/fifth-profit-upgrade-extends-yu-group-share-rally-260-ii526686

Thanks Sage, good to read your other ideas

Sparky, your instinct is correct I believe. No matter how accurate the Trading Update is - and it should be very accurate - the released info is unaudited. It's only sensible and responsible to wait for the audited results and then to decide IF a maiden dividend should be shared.

I share your optimism for the future, whichever way it goes.

Cheer us up Sage...any positives from you or others?

I'll start. Off-topic for GROW but some of you will know me as a long-time GROW investor so this may be of interest.

Since Sept 27th - near a 12-month low for me and after I got rid of some pharma duds - the ISA stocks have gone well:
CPC: +27%
SEE: +23%
SOS: +39%
IQG : +38%
GROW: +21%
ACSO +49%
K3C: +45%

IQG (GIS software) has been a huge win (more to come there) and as my largest holding K3C is being bought out I sold some and bought into 2 new shares in the ISA portfolio on 19th December: Yu Group (YU.) and Zoo Digital (ZOO). I found both of these by screening in Simply Wall Street

YU (business energy supplier) has been an absolute revelation (up 52% in 5 weeks!) and ZOO (media services for Netflix/Disney etc) is down 3%. More to come from them I think. TUs scheduled this week for CPC, YU., ZOO & ACSO.

Happy news and other stock ideas welcome.

Thanks Klozza, got it out on Twitter for what's it worth but I'm hardly an influencer just yet.

https://twitter.com/W13Ken/status/1616393683179556865

Well it was 20th Jan last year but companies generally avoid releasing scheduled RNS's on Friday so difficult to say.

Has anyone got any theories on that strange 10% spike in the CPC sp last week? It seemed to be on no news and has drifted down since.

As for the TU for the FY, we know there have been a lot of setbacks in 2023 - energy price rises, train strikes etc - but hopefully that is mostly priced in after the sp has dropped through the year. The portfolio of pubs is strong, many people returned to work/going out, we sold some pubs on the way, the World cup boosted late year profits and I believe hotel bookings were good. Expectations are low so fairly positive news will hopefully be rewarded. Fingers crossed.

True, the response has been disappointing but it's worth noting that there should be a Trading Update out very soon (26th Jan last year).

Hopeful that the new clients will put revenue "ahead of expectations" before the March year end.

Yes, excellent news Rivaldo. With the demise of K3C next month, ACSO should become my #1 ISA portfolio holding. I also bought some yesterday in Trading, knowing that they release a Jan TU. This has exceeded my expectations though.

No great insight here - as better-informed opinions are coming from this board - but it shows that the word is spreading on Yu Group and improved results will result in more media coverage.

"...Should I buy?
The electricity supply business is a tough one with tight margins. But, Yü Group is growing, profitable and has no borrowings. And most of its costs are fixed, which means greater sales volumes will quickly feed through to the bottom line.

It’s difficult to assess how much of the firm’s improved financial performance is due to the rise in wholesale energy prices, and how much is due to the skill and expertise of management. The company can’t take any credit for the former, of course.

In 2020, when the pandemic caused energy prices to collapse, the company made a post-tax loss of £1.5m.

Wholesale energy prices are now starting to fall. I’m therefore going to wait and see how this impacts on the earnings of Yü Group, before deciding whether to invest."

https://www.fool.co.uk/2023/01/17/are-yu-group-shares-for-me/

Same as I posted before Sparky. It was a short comment in a longer article on the biggest 2022 successes in each of the UK share indexes...

"On Aim, the runaway leader at the top of the screen is Yu Group (Yu), which is an energy and utilities supplier that services the corporate sector. The share price has more than doubled in three months and after a huge jump in expectations for earnings growth this year, analysts predict the next fiscal year growth in eps will still be in the mid-teens per cent. Yet the shares are valued on the not eye-watering multiple of 12 times the predicted 12-month forward earnings. "

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/alpha/2023/01/13/interest-income-gives-uk-banks-momentum/

Just tipped in IC. I hold YU. In ISA but have bought in Trading too.

"On Aim, the runaway leader at the top of the screen is Yu Group (Yu), which is an energy and utilities supplier that services the corporate sector. The share price has more than doubled in three months and after a huge jump in expectations for earnings growth this year, analysts predict the next fiscal year growth in eps will still be in the mid-teens per cent. Yet the shares are valued on the not eye-watering multiple of 12 times the predicted 12-month forward earnings. "

https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/alpha/2023/01/13/interest-income-gives-uk-banks-momentum/

TU out on the same day as last year - even with the purchase of Comsof - and it's a cracker!

Tomorrow will be just 6 months since I bought IQG at 123p - my best stock buy for years. Bought quite a lot more to put it to #2 in the portfolio (soon to be #1) and at 46% up on my average I am obviously ecstatic.

My #1 holding, K3 Capital, is being bought out too cheap but I hope that IQGeo continue to grow for years to come. They have a great management team, industry-leading software and an excellent strategy so I will remain a happy holder.

I'm also optimistic but at the moment I would settle for 800p+ anytime before the end of 2024. There's quite a way to go...

Definitely still hanging on to GROW Steph but the last 18 months have been frustrating. It doesn't seem like the Management team quote know to sell the business when the sp is not rising,

I've bought a relatively small amount in my Trading account at 384p today as the violent sp swings can lend themselves to shorter-term holding.

In my ISA, GROW has slipped down from #1 to #3 by book cost and #5 by value (reflecting its big drop). Still an important part of the portfolio but not as important as it once was. Do you still have 90%+ of your pf in GROW?

If you remove GROW (listed as 354p and P/BV 0.42) from the IC table then the average P/BV is 0.83 so, if we were to apply a similar ratio to GROW we would be at a shareprice of approx 695p, 74% above the current shareprice.

So, is GROW discounted because we don't issue dividends? Is it because we don't issues dividends in troubled market years like this one where we don't realise any sales so there are no earnings to report? Is it because we are deemed to be an "early-stage investor" and therefore more risky?

I've been invested in GROW for a while now and still have faith that the business model will deliver well with some of our holdings but we're not convincing institutional or many private investors. For the last 16 months we have dropped more quickly than similar stocks so interested to hear your thoughts as why our discount is so colossal.

I expect positive news next week. Numerous IQGeo blogs refer to the challenge of getting companies to be bold enough to consider a replacement of their existing out-of-date GIS and there being a generation of GIS specialists that don't want to switch to more non-expert friendly software. We've seen AT&T start a significant trial so would love to hear more on that.

IQGeo have recruited heavily in the last 6 months so hope that new contracts will offset those staff costs.
Overall I'm excited that IQG have modern GIS software solutions, a great management tram, a good business model (with switch to SaaS) and ambition to grow.

They're up 35% for me so far, #2 in my ISA and they're the stock I've chosen in two 2023 stock challenges where you could only choose 1 stock. I'd like to see the company better known among investors this year.

https://blog.iqgeo.com/a-new-approach-to-managing-the-evolution-of-the-elec