Sigma Capital Share Discussion Threads

[davidhel] 07/4/2005 16:26

Date search using the same format above i.e. "tuffbet - 7 Apr'02" or whatever? Knowing when you wrote it might narrow it down if you can get down to the season of a particular year on any given BB...

Anyway just a thought. Nice rise - as you say!

[tuffbet] 07/4/2005 16:00

Just noticed the price increase today .

Price predictions are a waste of time but sometimes gut feelings tell you quite a lot about direction which helps with what is no more than an intelligent guess .


In post 1 posted my gut feeling on Sigma ie "I think 25p is on the cards very shortly - we will see"

Hope some money has been made

[tuffbet] 07/4/2005 15:52

davidhel

Thanks for your response . I was trying to find a post I wrote a long way back on a specific stock .

Afew years ago someone told me how to do it using a key word search but I have forgotten how to do it .

I know the stock ok but I have no idea how long ago it was so I need to use a key word type search to get there.

If I find the answer I will let you know

[davidhel] 07/4/2005 14:28

Off topic

tuffbet - concerning your search problem, may I ask what you were searching for? I've been thinking about how you could find something on a thread without a thread number: it's got to be keyword or unique-identifier searching hasn't it? Pick out the BB, there's a search button top left on the grey bar, then pick an identifier that'll narrow down the field...

Can't see any other way of doing it without a specific post-number, short of writing your own search program! (If you do code one btw, please let me know ;-}

[footdocta] 05/4/2005 22:54

Take your point re downside comment but I didn't invest on that premise- All shares have up and downside and of course there are times when you get it wrong but we all want to minimise exposure to downside and I hope this is one such company

Anyway it has looked pretty stable through this shaky market period and as you say the sell had no effect, Also notice there is little volume intra day so looks kind of undiscovered at the mo, a little suprising seeing as IP2IPO's involvement would surely have alerted the wider market- maybe it has and the buys will be forthcoming?

Still hope they continue northwards

[tuffbet] 05/4/2005 15:52

100k shares sold no reaction in the stock price suggests all or most of it immediately found a home .
I am not a chartist but it does look to me that if the price gets through about 26p its got a free run for some time as "sore bears" should be out by then.

[tuffbet] 04/4/2005 23:31

Got to go now - agree with what you say in general but just a friendly word of advice I would never invest on the premise that "the downside from here is minimal " I have heard that a thousand times and its almost always been wrong .

A good piece of advice which I will for the moment attribute to George Soros( but will check that out) goes something like ............. when you find what looks like a good investment start by working out every possible thing that could go wrong and what the likely impact would be - only once you have done that should you seriously think about investing

[footdocta] 04/4/2005 23:04

Thank for the welcome and I am quite happy to be here- The UK wire website is a gem- as the announcements can bring companies to your attention that otherwise you may have missed only to later read it being tipped somewhere, followed by the hype of course...

Now as for sigma- the potential here is huge but as you say patience is the key-its funny because the stock market has changed with the advent of the net- a double edged sword IMO- Yeah sure all can now partake but there are also more traders...

Anyway my point is that I am not a trader, work hard for a living and therefore do not have large amounts of money to throw on a whim, I prefer to put small amoounts into companies that can go somewhere either offering capital appreciation or Divi's (although both is ideal), sure had some dogs (who hasn't) but because the amount put in was small the losses were small and I can live with that.

Back to SGM again- the concept is a very prudent one- spinning out companies from uni whilst retaining a steak- its a win win scenario good for the uni's, the graduates and the country as well.

I hope to purchase some more before long as I reckon the downside from here is minimal- IP2IPO haven't come on board to lose money, they must have seen the potential and whlist there are plenty of high risk, ramped, hype stocks to chase I'll quietly put money into what I see as a tangible company- could all go wrong of course but that's the stock market.

[tuffbet] 04/4/2005 22:37

Footdocta

I agree with what you say about most of the content of BB threads - sometimes I get depressed with the quality but then I think well if thats representative of the "competition" then it must be difficult to not do better than average .

There are however occasional rays of light today for example I read some quite encouraging posts with one lady giving another male poster a bit of a rough time for not telling his fiance that he had blown much of his/their wedding cash on some bad investments .

Anyway back to the subject ie SGM . Many years ago I discovered Prelude Trust (PDT) liked the concept - not as a trade but as a long term portfolio core holding and bought some shares . Over the years I have bought and sold and if you have a look on the current PDT thread you will see that there are signs now that some of the value inherent in the underlying portfolio is about to come to the surface because of shareholder 'unrest" .

Personally I think the management team have done quite well in difficult conditions but as always shareholders expectations are high so there are some who never seem to be happy - I suspect most have themselves to blame for getting over enthusiastic at the wrong time and vice versa .

My satisfaction with Prelude which may now be nearer to the end of its life than the beginning led me to look for similar concepts elsewhere which is how I came accross Sigma (as it happened I did have an interest also in Micap one of their portfolio holdings).

For a variety of reasons I happen to think Sigma is likely to be more successful that Prelude and I actually shifted some of my money out of PDT into Sigma to reflect that.

There are too many reasons why a share can fail to match expectations to say that one can ever be confident of anything - in fact its probably time to get out if you ever feel you are near to cracking it but I have a strong feeling ( no more than) - that Sigma will quite possibly turn out to be the best investment in my portfolio in 2005 ie as I don't know how the markets will fare I am not kidding myself that I am fairly certain Sigma will make me money but, in relative terms I am very confident it will be a winner .

Once I am convinced I have a solid investment the daily movements and even the longer term falls -anything up to 25% - don't bother me so I am patient , which I think is necessary to get the best out of a PDT /SGM type of stock. I do think however that right at this moment in time SGM could be on a roll so I am expecting some healthy short term gains through and past the results - with the usual caveats about the markets .

As far as IP2IPO is concerned it has been on my watch list almost right from the start but I am afraid its one that so far has got away but you can't win them all . I was pleased when I read about the link with SGM because events outwith my control have conspired to bring IP2IPO into my portfolio and as I said earlier I genuinely believe it will be a very unusual win win situation -( I don't know why and I am probably wrong but I have a feeling Artemis have a hand somewhere in this link up ).

Nice to see you on the thread -as you say its quiet but , I see that as quite a positive thing because once the herd have arrived its usually time to move on.

[tuffbet] 04/4/2005 16:26

Remarkabley good buy /sell ratio and share price performance on such a poor day.

Share price now heading into 12 month break out territory and will therefore appear on the ADVFN Toplists when it does - could even be tomorrow.

As mentioned above while Prelude is an Inv Trust the set up is similar and the fact that undervalued assets have eventually been sniffed out there suggests Sigma will also be under the microscope .

Suspect that buying now reflects to me that those who already know about the portfolio and the success already of the floatations are taking positions in advance of the results on the basis that post results the cat will be out of the bag . Why pay more when you can pay less ?


Anyone else any thoughts ?


Its been a good day so I think I will reward myself with a glass of red and some Stilton

[tuffbet] 31/3/2005 18:14

The news today on Prelude Trust (PDT ) is interesting as the company is similar to Sigma . What Evolution's interest shows is that if the value of the underlying assets is not reflected in the share price then eventually there will be some action which will precipitate a narrowing ie a rise in the share price.

Only my humble opinion but it seems to me that a similar gap between the value of the portfolio and the share price of Sigma is developing - if the market is indeed efficient then this shouldn't last too long especially as some well known investors are currently claiming that it hard to find any value out there.

[tuffbet] 31/3/2005 08:40

Interesting link to Vividas - note in particular Richard Branson's involvement
- don't spend too much time watching videos and listening to the music - remember why you are on here !

[tuffbet] 31/3/2005 08:28

Todays announcement re VIVIDAS (see above ) is a great result for SIGMA and significantly enhances its value - I didn't think the IP2IPO announcement , although itself significant , was in itself the only reason for the recent activity - there could be more to come .

[tuffbet] 24/3/2005 14:09

Below is a link to the IP2IPO web site - looks as if they don't speak to the press - in the Alex Ferguson mould ?

[tuffbet] 24/3/2005 07:41

Boost for academic spin-outs

ALASTAIR REED



ACADEMIC spin-outs throughout Scotland could be in line for a significant boost during the coming months after a UK leader in taking early-stage companies to market turned its attentions north of the Border.


IP2IPO Group - which invests in companies seeking to commercialise university technology - confirmed yesterday that it is to collaborate with venture capitalist Sigma Technology in an effort to develop IP commercialisation partnerships with Scottish universities.


IP2IPO has bought a 5 per cent stake in AIM-listed Sigma Technology for £360,935, equivalent to 20p per share. It also has an option to subscribe for a further 5.4 million shares at a price of 40p, which if exercised before the end of June 2006, would see its stake lifted to 15 per cent at a cost of £2.2 million.


Neil Crabb, Sigma's joint managing director, told The Scotsman the collaboration meant Sigma would be able to leverage the experience and knowledge of IP2IPO, which has floated three companies and raised millions of pounds for early-stage businesses since it floated in October 2003.


"In England, there is a developing trend towards increasing participation between universities and commercial companies," he said.


"Through this partnership we're hoping to leverage IP2IPO's experience in our existing relationships in Scotland and bring those benefits into the Scottish marketplace."


The support will include access to senior IP2IPO executives, contacts with Scottish universities and structuring of these relationships, as well as marketing support, Crabb added.


Sigma, which has offices in London and Edinburgh, manages £23m worth of funds for a number of Scottish investors including HBOS, Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, and Scottish Enterprise Fife. It has two venture funds - a seed fund which makes investments up to £300,000 and a later-stage fund investing up to £2.5m - along with partnership status in the £45m Scottish Co-Investment Fund.


Shares in Sigma closed up 3p at 21p, while IP2IPO lost 7.5p to close at 715p, giving it a market cap of about £311m.


From this mornings Scotsman newspaper

[tuffbet] 24/3/2005 07:41

mad4IT

investors often console themselves with picking a company where eg the technological battle is won by that company - but - what the won't admit ,even to themselve is that the company's shares lose value - lots of examples ie ARM, Psion etc

[mad4it] 23/3/2005 23:15

tuffbet - Err, I've always found if you're right you DO make money! I can't see how you can be wrong and make money! ;)

[riddlerone] 23/3/2005 15:45

Afternoon Tuffbet,
thought i might join you with a few today.Results are out on 26th April,so i guess they wanted to get this out of the way well in advance.Wouldnt surprise me if they are actually making a reasonable profit excluding write downs.Whats your expectations?

[tuffbet] 23/3/2005 12:19

Price rise today 13% so far but that only takes the price back to where it was a few days ago ie it hit a price higher than the current level intraday and its not even back to its 2004 high so it's gone nowhere yet - thats why I think 25p is on the cards very shortly - we will see

[tuffbet] 23/3/2005 12:01

As I seem to be the only person on this board following Sigma I thought in the light of the news of the IP2IPO link up this was an appropriate time to start a new thread with charts etc - hope you find this an improvement.

Well well last night on the old thread I said "I smell something is about to happen " so I didn't have to wait long to find out what .

I know IP2IPO well and I think this is a great link up for both companies . For a long time I have thought SIGMA was undervalued and given that IP2IPO has taken an option to subscribe at 40p per share they obviously think so to .

Unfortunately have to go out in 5 minutes so can't post any more right now .

Good rise of 8% so far but I will be surprised if SGM is not through 25p once this news filters out and investors start to look closely at SGM ,its portfolio (see link ) sometimes this link does not work - if that should happen cut and paste it into your browsers url window and it will take you there

[tuffbet] 22/3/2005 22:45

something is going on here I can smell it . I expect major action by he end of April

[tuffbet] 16/3/2005 14:08

sometimes you have to be patient !