Upstream Share Discussion Threads

[master rsi] 29/3/2024 22:44

FRIDAY'S PAPERS

Business and economics

The Times: Governments face years of high debt interest costs even as central banks are poised to cut interest rates in 2024, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The Times: The Bank of England must carry out a ‘long, slow process’ of examining whether inflation has fallen rapidly enough before cutting interest rates, a member of its rate-setting committee has said.

Daily Mail: Lloyd's of London has achieved its strongest annual results ‘in recent history’ after swinging to a bumper profit from a loss the prior year.

Daily Mail: Sales at Boots have been boosted by buzzy skincare ranges beloved by celebrities such as model Hailey Bieber.

The Times: Travelodge has delivered a record performance by surpassing £1bn of revenues for the first time in its 39-year history.

The Times: Electricals retailer AO World has increased its annual profit forecast for a second time amid signs of a recovery in the fortunes.

Daily Mail: EnQuest has recorded another hefty annual loss thanks to the UK Government's windfall tax on North Sea operators.

The Guardian: Morningstar demoted the £25bn Fundsmith Equity fund’s rating from gold to silver, saying the manager’s ill-timed sale of shares in large companies including Amazon and the software firm Adobe had hurt performance.

The Daily Telegraph: The Baltimore bridge collapse will trigger one of the largest insurance losses in history, Lloyd’s of London has warned.

The Times: The production of vans and other commercial vehicles in British automotive plants has hit its highest level since the global financial crisis.

The Times: Debt investors scrambled to sell bonds linked to Thames Water as fears grew about the financial crisis gripping the heavily indebted utility.

Daily Mail: JD Sports’ boss has taken aim at Nike for failing to produce clothes and trainers that customers want to buy.

The Guardian: The European arm of the Japanese clothing and homeware retailer Muji is to appoint administrators, in another gloomy signal for the UK’s struggling high street.

The Daily Telegraph: RedCat Pub Company said it has hired Interpath Advisory to put part of its business into administration as it seeks to dispose of underperforming sites; it is also exploring the sale of a further 14 sites.

The Guardian: The Sellafield nuclear waste dump is to be prosecuted for alleged information technology security offences, the industry watchdog has said.

The Times: The margins being generated by retailers on petrol and diesel are still too high and ‘are not a good sign for drivers’, the competition watchdog has found.

The Daily Telegraph: The founder of troubled music rights firm Hipgnosis has fallen short of music industry standards when advising the London-listed fund, an external report has found.

The Times: Lawyers representing thousands of investors in mis-selling claims against Britain’s biggest wealth management company are charging 40% of damages recovered in fees.

The Times: Michael Gove is trying to use his new powers for the first time to force the owner of a development of flats in Canary Wharf to pay £20.5m to fix dangerous cladding.

[master rsi] 29/3/2024 22:09

FRIDAY'S PAPERS

Share tips, comment and bids

The Daily Telegraph (Questor share tips): HOLD Spirax-Sarco; HOLD Greencoat UK Wind.
The Times (Tempus share tips): BUY Walmart; BUY Chesnara.

The Times: Spirent Communications is the latest London-listed company to find itself at the centre of a transatlantic takeover battle after spurning the advances of one American bidder in favour of another.

Daily Mail: Julian Dunkerton, the chief executive and founder of Superdry, has ended his two-month pursuit of the British retailer.

The Guardian: The Independent will take control of BuzzFeed and HuffPost in the UK and Ireland with the intention to create ‘Britain’;s biggest publisher network for gen Z and millennial audiences’, the publishers have said.

Daily Mail: 888 Holdings is offloading some assets in the US to online sports betting and interactive gaming group Hard Rock Digital ahead of plans to exit consumer-facing operations in the country.

The Times: Take-Two Interactive Software is buying Gearbox Entertainment, the video games developer best known for the Borderlands first-person shooter franchise, for $460m.

The Guardian (Comment): Why UK recession may be deeper than two quarters of falling GDP suggest.

The Daily Telegraph (Comment): How shareholders sucked billions of pounds out of Thames Water.

The Times (Comment): Who will be forced to clean up the Thames Water mess?

The Times (Comment): Why is Thames Water in so much debt? This is what went wrong.

[papillon] 29/3/2024 01:03

Gold and Silver up sharply today continuing their Bullish run.

[master rsi] 29/3/2024 00:20

US close: S&P 500, Dow set new records ahead of long weekend

(Sharecast News) - US stocks were little changed on Thursday but the S&P 500 still managed to notch another record close, capping off its best first-quarter run since 2019.

A shortened trading week and a flurry of key economic indicators kept investors from taking on too much risk during the session, with all three Wall Street benchmarks rangebound for most of the session.

Nevertheless, the S&P 500 still finished 0.11% higher at a new peak of 5,254.35. With markets closed on Friday for Good Friday, Thursday was the last trading session of the first quarter - a period which has seen the S&P 500 surge 10.79%.

"At 5,254, the index has risen 11% this year. The last time it beat this amount was the 13.1% return seen in the first quarter of 2019," said AJ Bell investment analyst Dan Coatsworth.

The Dow closed up 0.12% at 39,807.37 - also a new record closing high - finishing the quarter out with a gain of 5.55%; the Nasdaq slipped 0.12% to 16,379.46, but still registered a 10.93% increase since the start of the year.

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 23:43

BOOM 245p 12.50 (5.38%) / Audioboom launches new exclusive podcast partnerships v
Notice of investor presentation

Audioboom (AIM: BOOM), the leading global podcast company, is pleased to announce the continued expansion of its creator network through new exclusive partnerships with top tier podcasts including Pretty X Unfiltered, BDA with Katherine Schwarzenegger, Soder, Omnibus, Do We Know Them?, and George Conway Explains It All To Sarah Longwell.

These shows are expected to contribute more than 4 million downloads per month to the Audioboom Creator Network.

The new content partnerships will leverage the full suite of tools available to creators on Audioboom's platform including AdRip (for inventory creation), Showcase (the Company's ad-tech driven marketplace), premium advertising sales, and automated distribution and marketing services.

BDA is hosted by Katherine Schwarzenegger-Pratt - daughter of Hollywood star and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and wife of movie star Chris Pratt. The podcast examines life as a new parent, with expert interviews and true-life parenting stories.

Soder is a podcast from comedian, and star of the hit TV show Billions, Dan Soder. Alongside the audio podcast, Audioboom will monetise the video version of the show as part of its focus on building YouTube podcast services.

Pretty X Unfiltered is a new collaboration between hosts of the hit podcasts Pretty Basic (Alisha Marie & Remi Cruz) and Unfiltered (Zane and Heath), while George Conway Explains It All, from the team at The Bulwark, examines Donald Trump's legal cases during his run for US Presidency.

The Audioboom Creator Network is growing quickly as a result of the continued signing of top tier podcasts - it now reaches more than 38 million unique listeners each month. As recently announced, Audioboom climbed the Triton Digital Podcast Ranker in February and is now the fourth largest podcast publisher in the US - the biggest podcast market in the world.

Audioboom's CEO, Stuart Last, commented: "We're bringing new political, comedy, culture and storytelling podcasts to the Audioboom Creator Network, highlighting how our platform and services can power podcasting for a wide variety of creators and influencers. Expansion of our podcast partnerships has been integral to us establishing the fourth biggest podcast network in the US - proof that the best podcasts and most talented creators in the industry understand the value our platform can deliver."

Investor Presentation

Audioboom also announces that it will release its Q1 trading update for the period ended 31 March 2024 on 15 April 2024.

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 23:31

ARB 13.50p + 2p (17.09%) ---------------- Argo Blockchain ADR $ 2.17 +0.57 (+35.62%)
Closing on Sale of Mirabel, Quebec Data Center
Allotment of New Shares / Share Capital and Total Voting Rights

Argo Blockchain plc (LSE: ARB; Nasdaq: ARBK), a global leader in cryptocurrency mining, is pleased to announce that it has closed on the previously announced sale of its data center located in Mirabel, Quebec (the "Mirabel Facility") for total consideration of $6.1 million (the "Transaction").

The net proceeds from the Transaction were used to first repay the Mirabel Facility's outstanding mortgage of $1.4 million, with the remainder used to repay debt owed to Galaxy Digital Holdings, Ltd. ("Galaxy") (TSX: GLXY). As of 28 March 2024, reflecting the payment made to Galaxy from the proceeds of the Transaction and inclusive of the ordinary course monthly amortisation payment for March, the Galaxy debt balance is $12.8 million. This is a 63% reduction from the original Galaxy debt balance of $35.0 million.

Importantly, the Transaction enables the Company to delever the balance sheet with minimal impact to the Company's revenue. The Company has completed the relocation and deployment of mining machines from the Mirabel Facility to its facility in Baie Comeau, Quebec, and the Company expects this consolidation to reduce its non-mining operating expenses by $0.7 million per year.

Management Commentary

Argo's Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Chippas, said, "I am pleased to announce the closing of this Transaction, through which the Company continues to execute on its strategy of strengthening the balance sheet and reducing non-mining operating expenses. The Company reduced its debt by $12.4 million in Q1 2024. Additionally, consolidating our Quebec fleet at the Baie Comeau facility allows us to streamline operations and make the most efficient use of the facility and onsite team."

Allotment of New Shares

Additionally, the Company announces that it has issued 460,477 new ordinary shares of £0.001 each in the capital of the Company ("Ordinary Shares") pursuant to the terms of previously granted Restricted Share Units under the 2022 Equity Incentive Plan approved by shareholders at the Company's 2022 Annual General Meeting.

The new Ordinary Shares rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares in issue, and application has been made for the shares to be admitted to the Official List and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange PLC.

Share Capital and Total Voting Rights

The Company also announces, in compliance with its obligations under Rules 5.6.1R and 5.6.2G of the Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules, that as at 31 March 2024, the Company's share capital will consist of 577,616,315 ordinary shares of £0.001 each (Ordinary Shares). All of the Ordinary Shares have equal voting rights and there are no shares held in Treasury.

The above figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they can determine whether they are required to notify their interest in, or a change of their interest in, the Company under the FCA Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 23:01

MARKET REPORT
LONDON MARKET CLOSE: FTSE 100 closes higher at end of first quarter

(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London closed closed higher on Thursday, after a busy day of corporate updates on the last working day of the first quarter of 2024.

Markets in London will now shut for two public holidays, Good Friday and Easter Monday. They will reopen on Tuesday.

The FTSE 100 index closed up 20.64 points, 0.3%, at 7,952.62. The FTSE 250 ended up 74.07 points, 0.4%, at 19,884.73, and the AIM All-Share closed up 1.15 points, or 0.2%, at 743.26.

Over the last five days, they are up 0.9%, up 0.7%, and up 0.4%.

The Cboe UK 100 ended up 0.3% at 795.80, the Cboe UK 250 closed up 0.7% at 17,337.36, and the Cboe Small Companies ended down 0.6% at 14,555.44.

In European equities on Thursday, the CAC 40 in Paris ended flat, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt closed up 0.2%.

As well as the start of a long weekend, Thursday marks the end of the first quarter of the year. In the year-to-date, the FTSE 100 is up 3.0%.

The UK slipped into a technical recession in the fourth quarter of 2023, numbers from the Office for National Statistics confirmed on Thursday.

UK gross domestic product slumped 0.3% in the three months to December from a quarter earlier, unchanged from initial ONS numbers provided in February. The UK economy had declined 0.1% quarter-on-quarter in the third-quarter of 2023.

It means the UK has entered a technical recession at the end of last year, which is generally defined as two successive quarterly falls in gross domestic product.

Eyes have now turned onto the personal consumption expenditures index, which is the US Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge. It is due out at 1330 GMT on Good Friday.

According to FXStreet cited consensus, the rate of core PCE inflation is expected to have been unmoved at 2.8% in February. The headline rate is expected to have picked up to 2.5% in February, from 2.4% in January.

The central bank should either scale back or delay its interest rate cuts in response to "disappointing" inflation data, a senior Federal Reserve official said Wednesday, according to an AFP report.

"In my view, it is appropriate to reduce the overall number of rate cuts or push them further into the future in response to the recent data," Fed Governor Christopher Waller told a conference in New York.

The pound was quoted at USD1.2640 at the London equities close Thursday, up compared to USD1.2630 at the close on Wednesday.

The euro stood at USD1.0803 at the European equities close Thursday, lower against USD1.0823 at the same time on Wednesday. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY151.29, down compared to JPY151.35 late Wednesday.

Stocks in New York were mixed at the London equities close, with the DJIA and the Nasdaq Composite both down 0.1%, whilst the S&P 500 index was up 0.1%.

In the FTSE 100, JD Sports surged 16%.

Lancashire-based, FTSE 100-listed sportswear retailer JD Sports said like-for-like sales rose 4.2% on-year in the 53 weeks to February 3, and were up 8.4% organically on a constant currency basis. Total sales grew 3.6% to around GBP10.5 billion.

As a result, it expects full-year pretax profit before adjusted items to be in line with its guided range of GBP915 million to GBP935 million, but down from GBP991.4 million the year earlier.

In January, the firm cut its outlook to that range. In September, it said it expected to meet market expectations at the time of GBP1.04 billion. The guidance cut sparked a more than 20% slide in its share price on January 4.

Shore Capital retail analyst Clive Black said after the "disappointment" of the January warning today's statement makes for "grounded reading," with no further weakening in the 2024 full-year out-turn and, a firmer basis for financial 2025.

Smith & Nephew lost 4.5%, after it confirmed that incoming Chief Financial Officer John Rogers will officially start the role on April 1.

The London-based medical technology company first announced Rogers' appointment back in November.

In the FTSE 250, AO World rose 12%.

The electricals retailer lifted its yearly outlook, with its move to focus on "profit and cash generation" paying off.

AO World expects adjusted pretax profit to be "at least" at the top end of a GBP28 million to GBP33 million range for the year ending March 31. It raised its outlook to that guidance range in November.

Spirent jumped 12%, after it agreed to a takeover by Keysight Technologies.

The Crawley, England-based test and assurance solutions provider said it agreed to a GBP1.16 billion takeover from the Santa Rosa, California-based manufacturer of electronics test and measurement equipment and software.

Spirent said the offer by Keysight was superior to the existing GBP1.01 billion bid by Viavi, a Chandler, Arizona-based manufacturer of testing and monitoring equipment for networks. Spirent had recommended the takeover by Viavi on March 5.

Amongst London's small caps, abrdn Property Income lost 9.6%, after the real estate trust's shareholders rejected a planned all-share merger with Custodian Property Income REIT, which itself surged 8.1%.

After the market close on Wednesday, API disclosed shareholders had failed to back the proposed merger with CREI in sufficient numbers.

API said the total votes in favour of implementing the merger were 61% of API shares voted at the court meeting, 61% of API shares voted at the general meeting, and 86% by number of API shareholders who voted at the court meeting.

This falls short of the 75% threshold required by value of API shares at both the court meeting and general meeting, and a majority in number of API shareholders voting at the court meeting, API said.

As a result, API intends to implement a managed wind-down as previously announced.

Brent oil was quoted at USD86.56 a barrel at the London equities close Thursday, down from USD85.41 late Wednesday.

Gold was quoted at USD2,221.01 an ounce at the London equities close Thursday, up against USD2,190.33 at the close on Wednesday.

In Tuesday's UK corporate calendar, there are no events scheduled currently. On Wednesday, there are full year results from Hilton Food Group and Impax Environmental Markets.

Whilst markets in the UK will be closed on Easter Monday, there are manufacturing PMIs from the US Canada, Japan and China.

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 22:43

DOW

Finishing 47 points higher

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 16:40

How the UPS are performing during last month

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 16:24

How the UPS are performing today

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 15:34

EEE 7.10p +0.70 (10.94%)

VOLUME AND RISING are bullish and looking for a change of trend with time

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 15:14

DOW

opening higher but now 25 points lower

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 14:14

Upland Resources shares soar as company prepares for Sarawak drilling

(Alliance News) - Upland Resources Ltd announced on Thursday that progress has been in the exploration of Sarawak Block SK334.

The Jersey-based oil and gas company revealed that a team and drill crew has been identified for its Malaysian hydrocarbons project, with contracts currently under review.

Furthermore, a pre-drill work programme has been developed in order to allow for early commencement of activities and expedite the drilling programme.

The company will also on March 31 surrender its offshore UK Licence P2478 to the UK North Sea Transition Authority. Upland said this was not unexpected and that P2478 was designated as a non-core asset by the company.

Chief Executive Officer and Chair Bolhassan Di said: "Full focus is now on our intended high impact drill campaign onshore Sarawak. We look forward to updating the market on the lead prospects for Block SK334 as well as licencing and contracting arrangements in the coming weeks as we scale up development."

Upland Resources shares were up 21% to 3.30 pence in London on Thursday afternoon.

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 12:40

EASTER days the Market will be close

Good Friday March 29Easter Monday April 1

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 12:22

How the UPS are performing during last month

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 12:05

How the UPS are performing today

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 11:42

JOG 165.50p +15p
Jersey Oil & Gas (JOG LN) - Share price fall creates opportunity
Zeus Capital - Daniel Slater, CFA - 28 Mar 2024

Since November, the JOG share price has moderated from a high of 250p to current levels of 149.5p.
This is despite JOG having now made significant progress towards FID on its c.70mmboe Buchan project, with FID upcoming later this year. In our view this share price move is unjustified, with current levels further enhancing the value on offer, and making an attractive opportunity for investors..... more but needs signing in

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 10:48

GOLD $2,212 +21

is on the way up today with a good spike UP already, silver is following the same pattern.
Copper is managing to hold above $4 after breaking through last week.

Intraday ---- Gold -------------- Silver ---------------- Copper -----


1 month ----- Gold ---------------- Silver --------------- Copper -----

[master rsi] 28/3/2024 10:34

International PPL ups dividend and "confident" in long-term prospects

(Alliance News) - International Public Partnerships Ltd on Thursday reported a decline in its net asset value, amid a "volatile macroeconomic environment".

The infrastructure investor said its net asset value decreased by 4.1% to GBP2.9 billion in 2023.

NAV per share fell by 4.1% to 152.6 pence at December 31, from 159.1p the year before.

In London on Thursday morning, International PPL shares were down 1.5% to 123.71 pence each.

The company maintained its target of growing the dividend each year, increasing the 2023 payout by 5.0% to 8.13p from 7.74p. On June 13, a 4.07p dividend for the last six months of the year will be paid, a rise of 5.2% from 3.87p a year prior.

IPPL is aiming for an 8.37p per share dividend for 2024, a 3.0% rise, before a total 8.58p payout in 2025, an increase of 2.5% from the expected level of this year.