Good morning!

Things are winding down for Christmas now, with only a few micro caps reporting today. Personally I still like to pay attention to the markets over the holiday period, because in thin trading, some unusual price movements can occur, and I usually manage one or two profitable trades at this time of year, which pays for the mince pies.

There's also less competition - with many/most investors/traders/brokers sozzled over long lunches at this time of year, then unexpected trading updates can present opportunities that might last an hour or more, whereas in normal markets the opportunity would disappear in a minute or two as people bought or sold more rapidly.

It's amazing how many rubbish AIM companies have unravelled this year. If the oil price stays this low, then I think dozens more rubbish companies will be leaving the market next year too, thank goodness - AIM really is cluttered with complete junk, which makes it far more time-consuming to plough through lists of risers & fallers for example, so I very much welcome the (hopefully) forthcoming clear-out.

Let's hope that the LSE also has a clear-out, of the clowns who currently run AIM, who have allowed it to fall into such disrepute, by creating the structure & ineffective governance which positively encourages fraudsters to flock to the market and rip-off UK investors.

Story stocks

Above all, this year has taught me to stop chasing stories. If you ignore the figures, and instead just chase a promising-sounding story, then it's a virtually guaranteed way to lose money. True, money can be made in the initial surge of excitement (if you buy and sell at the right time), but the money-making opportunity is to do a very quick (days) in and out. The longer you hold story stocks, the more likely you are to lose money. Stories go stale, and in almost every case, actual results fall a long way short of forecast performance.

Look at all the hyped up stuff that crashed back down to earth this year - e.g. Audioboom (LON:BOOM) (which has just changed broker to Liberum, so clearly work has started on the next discounted Placing), Fitbug Holdings (LON:FITB) (which went from 0.4p to 20p, and is now back down to 0.8p), Concha (LON:CHA) (which was just a cash shell…

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