Interview with investor & stock trader Michael Taylor of Shifting shares

22nd Mar by Paul Hill

8 comments 1047 reads

Timestamps

On today's live ‘Exchange’, I was delighted to speak to investor & trader Michael Taylor of Shiftingshares.com – including:

00:00 His approach to investing & stock trading.

10:10 Gulf Keystone Petroleum

14:35 Serica Energy

17:35 Renold

20:15 MPAC

24:40 Tortilla Mexican Grill

29:00 Supreme

33:55 Accrol

35:05 Equals

38:55 Reach

40:35 Rank Group

45:45 PCI-Pal

52:50 Avacta

59:00 Argo Blockchain

62:40 Fresnillo

Disclosure : I own Equals, whilst MPAC, Avacta, Supreme & Equals are Vox Markets clients.

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About the Author

Paul Hill

Premium Member

Stocks owned : EQLS, AGFX, Pfizer, Bristol Myers, Roche, WATR, MBH, ASTO, IOM, TR25, ESYS, ELCO, ANCR, IHC, Paypal, PMI & AOM Elsewhere, I'm also paid by Vox Markets (as a contractor) to interview interview fund managers, capital market experts & companies (re EQLS, VRCI, BELL, CSFS, AVG, AVCT, LLAI, VLG, FADL, SUP, ELCO, LORD , MPAC & ONC). I believe all these stocks are clients of Vox.Lastly my 24 year HIT RATE is only 62.5%. Meaning 37.5% of the time I lose money (ie often wrong) - albeit my winners are (on average) 1.7x larger than my losers. Please Do Your Own Research. more »

8 comments

Michael Taylor

22nd Mar

Thanks for having me on, Paul. Was impressed with your knowledge of the technicalities of Avacta as that's certainly above my pay grade, to say the least! Also some good insight on the legislation that will affect Rank.

Paul Hill

22nd Mar

Valuation benchmarks wrt the stocks Michael & I discussed

Paul Hill

22nd Mar

List of FTSE's most shorted stocks

Guybrush

22nd Mar

Hi Michael,

I really enjoyed your talk with Paul. Can I ask if you trade US stocks and if not why not? I have traded UK small caps for a decade, and it was great early on with plenty of multi-baggers to be found, but those multi-bagger opportunities have been dwindling ever since Brexit it feels like. As a technical analysis guy yourself aren't the returns from the US markets multiple times better? That's why I recently switched to US markets for the first time, and with most of my capital tied up in there now. (Before the must buy british thought police start complaining , all my profits go into the UK economy) . What are your thoughts on the US markets vs the UK markets and isn't it the case that the UK is but a pond to the ocean that is the US markets?

Paul Hill

23rd Mar

BTW, does anyone have a firm/considered 'view' either way on the Rank (LON:RNK) Group - ie apart from morality of gambling?

To me, H2'24 could prove to be an inflexion point for the shares. Given the new legislation in the summer - which is set to double the number of slot machines allowed in land based casinos (re Grosvenor).

Plus combined with positive UK real wage growth, stable employment, lower interest rates & more foreign visitors, Rank's results SHOULD (in theory) improve (perhaps materially too)? That's even after allowing for the £4m pa drag in digital from a new UK law to reduce bet sizes for online casinos to £5 or £2 per spin.

Revs8

23rd Mar

Hi Paul, Michael. Really enjoyed catching up on your discussion this morning. Couldn’t agree more on Renold (LON:RNO) . Very recent SP weakness appears to be a retest of previous breakout level (after pension fund stopped increasing its holding).
I also agree that miners offer good value but you picked the wrong one IMO. The charts of Hochschild Mining (LON:HOC) and Centamin (LON:CEY) both look like they have formed significant bottoms with targets that are much higher than current SP. Both seem to be putting recent problems behind them and now have positive news flow including reaping the benefits of investment. Where Fresnillo (LON:FRES) seems to have a couple of years of investment ahead of it. Just my opinion and I’m mostly going on what the candles/chart shape is showing.
Looking forward to the next instalment.

Michael Taylor

24th Mar

Hi Guybrush - thank you!

I was actually thinking of setting some time aside to get started in the US markets in the coming weeks. I did Mark Minervini's course at the end of 2022 and thought it was pretty good.

The UK has been a great place to trade and I think we may be in an early stage bull market, but the reality is cash outflows are going to continue to be a drag meaning PE firms take out the quality (and sometimes on the cheap).

There's no point holding undervalued stocks as they don't pay my bills - only volatility does - hence why I'm going to look to get up and running in the US in the coming months.

I've always been a little hesistant due to the fact that I've only ever traded in the UK, and feel like I understand the nuances better here, but I think there's no reason why I can't trade the US successfully either.. guess we'll see!

Albertos

25th Mar

Think you could be right. Took an initial stake today to see what happens.

In May 23 Shore capital produced a note based on Rank and the proposed legislation (available on ResearchTree) - since it's so old I hope they don't mind me copy and pasting the below:-

"Grosvenor Casinos: The key measure was the effective harmonisation with the 2005 Casino Act which could double the Grosvenor slot machine estate. Further proposals include the provision of sports betting, extending credit to high-net-worth international players and the prospect of cashless gaming. Overall, we see the proposed measures adding at least £20m to Grosvenor profitability at maturity. Longer term, we would expect the estate to evolve materially.

Mecca Bingo: Bingo is set to benefit from the relaxation of the 20/80 rule on higher yielding category B machines. This should allow Mecca to benefit from a smaller, higher yielding and more profitable machine estate, with other measures including the provision of side bets on mainstage bingo. We see the proposals set out as an up to £5m opportunity for Mecca, albeit as much through protecting and strengthening its future prospects.

Digital: The key proposals were enhanced affordability measures and slot staking limits of between £2 and £15 per spin. Given the safer gambling measures already enacted in recent years, we expect the impact to be weighted more towards slot limits. We see an up to £5m impact from the measures announced (6-8% hit to revenues) with a further c£2m hit from the proposed statutory levy. We have been encouraged by the recent momentum in Digital."

Seems very much along the lines you're thinking Paul - pluses and minuses but overall a big plus.

Also the business in general is recovering, being restructured and seems to be a fair turn-around bet.

BWDIK

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Interview with investor & stock trader Michael Taylor of Shifting shares

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Paul Hill

8 comments

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