Good morning! It's a very quiet day for results & trading statements today. The Futures are indicating a decently positive market open today, with the FTSE 100 forecast to open up 32 points at 6,754, so that should mean we have a fairly relaxing morning.
As mentioned before, I'm looking below my usual market cap cut-off point of £8-10m at the moment, because we're in a very bullish market for small caps, and there have been some explosive moves upwards in the smallest companies. One example in my long term portfolio is Akers Biosciences Inc (LON:AKR), which I bought at 1.25p a little while ago on some positive-sounding newslow, and have been amazed to see them since rise to 3.9p. It was more luck than judgment really, but it certainly whet my appetite for micro (or nano!) caps. The beauty of that type of move is that you can sell some to get your cost price back, then run the remainder for free, whilst looking around for the next one.
I doubt whether Blavod Wines and Spirits (LON:BES) will deliver much of a share price move, but you never know. This company has been soldiering on for many years, failing to gain much traction for its speciality vodkas. It looks like there might at last be some hope, as they today say that they are on target to achieve breakeven in spring/summer of 2014. Shareholders stumped up another £0.57m in a 1p per share Placing recently (23 Oct 2013).
Their interim results to 30 Sep 2013 look pretty pathetic to me - just £1.3m turnover, and a £229k loss. Why is such a tiny company Listed at all? The Listing costs must be around £75k for this half year, so it would surely make far more sense for them to take the company private? Although on the other hand, announcing a de-Listing is the quickest way to destroy shareholder value, as the share price would instantly halve, so it's a tough call.
In terms of strategy, Blavod has cut its fixed costs considerably, and appointed a third-party distributor, so who knows maybe they can yet turn this into a profitable enterprise? I can't get anywhere near the £3.6m market cap in…
