Good morning!

To get you started, here is yesterday's late report - where due to reader demand, I looked at interims from data company D4T4 - I think it looks worthy of a closer look. Also solid results & an upbeat outlook statement from equipment hire group VP (LON:VP.)

Turning to today - well I've had better starts to the day. Two companies in my portfolio have crapped out today - another profit warning from Interquest (LON:ITQ) (which I'll cover in more detail below), and a fundraising at a 50% discount from Mobile Streams (LON:MOS) - very much a speculative punt - through Primary Bid. This is very interesting, so I'll do a little section on it now.


Primary Bid

Some of you may have heard of this already. It's a new initiative to raise money directly from private investors for listed companies. So rather than being frozen out of the fundraising process, we can now participate.

Looking at the quality of the companies which have used this platform, we're talking about the real dregs here. However, if there's an appetite from private investors to put fresh money into highly speculative (i.e. mostly complete rubbish) companies, then arguably a platform which levels the playing field between PIs and the City, is a positive thing.

I'd much rather have the option of putting my own money into a discounted placing through Primary Bid, rather than be diluted by city insiders getting the cheap shares, and me only finding out after it's a fait accompli.

I think there's also a gap in the market for very small fundraisings, where the fees would be too small to interest any of the main brokers.

Mobile Streams (LON:MOS) - this is a tiny company (in which I hold a long position) which has previously been decently profitable (doing games on mobile phones, ad funded). However, it fell foul of the collapsing currency in Argentina, where its main operations were (still are, I think). For me, this has always been a total punt, not part of my proper portfolio as such. The main attractions were that the company had been entirely self-funding for years, and had not raised money from the market.

Sod's Law then kicked in, and the company has decided…

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