Venture Life Share Discussion Threads

[apad] 13/1/2017 17:29

Had another look at PRSM. Couldn't find anything that explained their software approach. A rule based system - the important thing about rules is 'exceptions'?
Why is it different from a spreadsheet?
Taken it off the watchlist (which is now empty) - can't buy a company I don't understand, at some level.
apad

[apad] 13/1/2017 17:22

I don't envy you the complexity of the UK tax return, red.
Doing my Mum's Death Taxes was a nightmare.

Those two dray horses, BOO & FEVR, are hauling my portfolio - now 33% of the total. Asked Josephine whether we should bail out and she said "not unless the story has changed". It hasn't.

apad

[redartbmud] 13/1/2017 13:50

APAD

I see no reason for the drop. Tempted to sell @ £788, but decided to hold to £8+. I hope that I am right. XD on 2 Feb might nudge things along. In the meantime they sit alongside my existing holding. Tey are currently back to my purchase price.

I am trying to submit my tax return online at present. They system was obviously written in the Dark Ages and keeps falling over. What joy.
It will not upload my CGT working sheets, despite my following their instructions to the letter. In addition, it seems to be selective in what it will accept.
I have now given up and am venturing out into the snowdrifts - at present there aren't any here! time to visit my ailing aunt.

red

[apad] 13/1/2017 11:59

EfW, maybe, not such a good deal as I thought (from alphaville).
apad

Four distinct risks in Energy-from-Waste
■ Counterparty risk: Potential renegotiation risk on the Greater Manchester Waste contract – the largest municipal waste contract in Western Europe – suggest Viridor's long-term contracts may not have fully 'de-risked' the pipeline of assets, in our view.
■ Pricing risk: We anticipate competitive pricing pressure as early as 2020E. We forecast capacity will rise c50% over the coming three years and standard rate landfill tonnage continues to decline. We think pricing could fall as low as £10/tonne in 2020E with c22% downside to EPS, even if only merchant (not contracted) pricing is affected. We continue model £70/tonne from 2021E.
■ Execution risk: Viridor terminated its contract with Interserve on construction of the Glasgow EfW due to missed contractual delivery milestones. Pennon is clear there is no risk to the technology, which is different from a recently abandoned gasification project in NE England, but until the project is complete we see some potential risk on delivery. We value Glasgow at £201m (c48p/share).
■ Financing risk: Pennon has cited a new hybrid bond as one potential option to help finance the £252m Avonmouth energy-from-waste plant. The £300m hybrid raised in 2013 at 6.75% was c7% dilutive to EPS. If Pennon does raise a second hybrid to finance Avonmouth, this could be c2-5% dilutive to EPS.

[petersinthemarket] 13/1/2017 10:38

Been an odd post-xmas so far. I thought Santa had finally arrived, but this week he seems to be leaving again. My pf value is hovering as if that's it for this year.
FT8000 certainly doesn't seem very likely, but I'm a little concerned that 7000 is not going to hold either. pete

[petersinthemarket] 13/1/2017 10:29

If there was any other choice I would personally not touch a hybrid with a stick but they are very popular with some folk. I regularly see them around here in SW Wales. They are probably still a bit too expensive for youngsters but my youngest son (now 42) bought a Toyota Prius about 3-4 yrs ago and still thinks it's great. His home/work run is about 50mls and it halved his petrol costs. And silent running too, except for his wild taste in on-board music! pete

[apad] 13/1/2017 09:46

Pete,
The only person I know who bought a hybrid sold it inside a year at a huge loss.
I think I believe that the future of vehicles is electric as much as I believe in anthropomorphic climate change. Mind you, I don't believe in windmills either - but it doesn't stop governments building them!

Dave,
That is one scary company!
BTW it wasn't CGT I had a problem with, but my idiotic calculation of Book Value. I do calculate my Capital Gains, but unfortunately they aren't taxed on The Rock :-)

apad

[apad] 13/1/2017 09:30

Good timing on PNN, red. Why the drop?
Used to love PNN at half the current PER.
apad

[discodave4] 13/1/2017 09:23

On the back of APAD's recent accounting problems!, how about this tidder, FreeAgent (FREE):H1 for 6 months ending 30th Sept 2016:- Revenue +36% £3.6m- Gross profit +38% £3m- Gross profit margin 84%- Net loss £1.3m (half of this was due to share option expense and unrealised losses on a loan facility), also increased marketing spend.Mk cap £42m, just been admitted to AIM in November and raised £8m, net cash on the books £5m.Fairly illiquid but has possibilities (IMO), reviews for their software seem very positive.DDPS APAD - Have contacted them to see if their accounting software deals with CGT, unfortunately it doesn't.

[apad] 13/1/2017 09:04

Renishaw has 22 vacancies. The lowest it has been, by a factor of at least 4, for donkey's years.
Trouble is I don't know how to interpret it!
apad
ps
That must be why my RDSB holding is yielding 10% Pete. I'd better sell it :-)

[redartbmud] 13/1/2017 08:51

Very pedestrian.

Trading Pnn bought at £7.694.
Ride on the wild side.

red

[petersinthemarket] 12/1/2017 15:45

Gor' luv us, I've been topping up on EMH. I only top up on a riser, not this play the dips lark. The more i look, the more I believe that lithium is the metal to follow. I could be wrong, as Mrs P regularly points out, but look at the evidence massing. A Chinese company bought Australian company Birimian BGS, to ensure lithium supplies. A southern California company is massively increasing its State battery power supply facility using, guess what, lithium. Ford has committed to 6 new models of electric or hybrid electric cars by the end of the decade. IMO EMH is at least 20x under priced at present. Five European car makers are committed to producing electric cars during the next 10years. Daimler and Jaguar are following the same line. LG and Samsung are building battery factories in Europe. At least one Chinese company is building a battery facory in Europe. Germany says no-one in Germany will be allowed to build or own a petrol or diesel car in Germany by 2030. Three major European car makers are rumoured to be eyeing up lithium producers in order to protect their future business. China are already the worlds biggest producers of electric cars and are looking to buy up lithium companies to protect their own business. At the moment there is a goodly supply of lithium around the world but will it be enough for all this? I suppose the main question for investors is which company to follow. I've thrown my hat in the EMH ring. Gor' luv us. Where will it all end? pete

[lauders] 12/1/2017 14:06

Some weakness in GSK after Trump's talk yesterday. How low will they go? Will be intriguing to watch.

[apad] 12/1/2017 11:54

I'm impressed with QTX. Maybe it is being dragged down by TRAK or maybe the sector (highly competitive) is out of favour. On the software front, mod, they develop their own and will only add functionality when sufficient customers need it, so justifying creation and maintenance.
I believe it is a very prudently run company.
I also believe that smaller companies have a place in this market because they can provide data that is immediately useful to the accounts department. I.e. it isn't just a spy-in-the-cab. I.e. bespoke can compete.
I also don't think that the car companies will let the likes of Google into their in-built nav systems. That would be an existential threat for the likes of QTX
Anyroadup, we'll see soon enough whether I am correct.
apad
ps
Must do some more research on off-the-radar Faron:-)

[apad] 12/1/2017 11:35

QTX website:

"With the “window” now open, here’s your chance to transfer to the Award-Winning Quartix system. Already under contract with another provider? No problem – our unique offer allows you to transfer to Quartix even if you have months remaining!

Contact us today to learn how you could TRANSFER TO QUARTIX

01686 806 663
From only £12.90 per month
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NO hidden fees"

[apad] 12/1/2017 11:23

"One of founders of Trakm8 along with his brother Tim, Matt is a highly experienced software Engineering Director with over twenty five years’ experience within the Telematics and Telecommunications industry. Matt now leads the in house Big Data team and is passionate about algorithms, machine learning, computer vision and data science"

[modform] 12/1/2017 11:12

Pj, Route monkey is a stochastic model based on Monte Carlo simulation. You can model the queuing system from a simple Markov Chains simulation. They paid a lot of money for something that imo so simple to simulate. Route Monkey was all a hype imo and not worth that much. I have to say that sadly I agree with TW when he had a go at the purchase of Route Monkey.

[apad] 12/1/2017 10:20

Yeah, good lesson, PJ1. You got out - so many people just hang on in there, despite mounting evidence. It's a classic, well-researched human trait in all sorts of areas. Confirming evidence is accepted and contrary evidence ignored.

Had a quick look at the TRAK board and it seems as if the main cheerleader has gone quiet.

I've just bought more QTX on the dip. I'm expecting a rns in Jan and think that they might be benefitting from £ weakness. I can't explain this share price weakness, so I'm ignoring it.

QTX & TRAK would make a great case study in how and how not to run a business in a competitive environment.

apad

[pj 1] 12/1/2017 09:35

APAD-All quiet on the TRAK BB. Looks as if Route Monkey was a disasterous acquisition for them, which is to result in write down of their asset book. Route Monkey aggressive accounting resulted in Revs being reduced>50% if Im reading it correctly, making it loss making rather then ''immediately'' earnings enhancing.

Lets hope their IP was worth something. Despite taking (reduced) nice profits in TRAK some time ago, a big lesson learned for me.

[apad] 12/1/2017 07:33

More on Lithium.


tiptv.co.uk/stocks-focus-betting-bull-run-lithium/

[redartbmud] 11/1/2017 22:01

Wolf of wall Street about to start on Film 4+1.
Margot Robbie, fabulous, pity Lenny Capricorn is in it as well, little squirt.


red

[petersinthemarket] 11/1/2017 20:04

And another:

Distil- [I hold] TU last year was on the 22Jan2016 - so this years should be within the next couple of weeks. Expected to break into profit this year.
pete

[petersinthemarket] 11/1/2017 20:03

A note for Tiddler watchers:

I took a small amount of European Metals EMH recently. Not enough to keep me awake at night but enough to make me look a bit deeper at the inevitability of a huge bun fight over lithium producers as the world's electric car business gathers pace.

If some stocks are Roulette Wheel this one must surely be Russian Roulette at the moment - just look at these horrible stats from 2016 finals:

Listed on AIM 10dec15
Year end June 30
Mkt Cap £45m
Total assets £4.6m
No profit; just about break even
EPS slightly negative
No dividend
No borrowings
PE Adj -26
ROCE -47%
Net Asset Value/share 1.53p
Net Gearing -40%

However, there's a most interesting publication today on the EMH thread. Implies that one of the three big German car makers might be running the rule over EMH as it potentially has huge lithium resources, it's right on their doorstep on the German border, and they will defo need guaranteed access to lithium, a lot of which is probably going to end up in Chinese hands. Interims due in March.
pete

[thelongandtheshortandthetall] 11/1/2017 16:26

Only currency thought ive had recently is its bad if a company borrows dollars and esrns in pounds and good if borrows in pounds and esrns in dollors. The latter companies may be about to release some positive news.
I am not up to date on enough companies to suggest any worth further looking at but i imagine some local oilers might borrow pounds but sell in dollars.
Cheers

[apad] 11/1/2017 15:13

Indeed!

Just realised that RDSB pays divis in $, red. Makes a difference!

apad