Good morning! It's Paul here.

I've got to be out of my hotel room by noon, so will rattle off as much as I can. Then I'll try to find a cafe that does an all-day breakfast, and has WiFi, to write a bit more.

I added some more to yesterday's report last night, which now covers: Revolution Bars, Johnston Press, Be Heard, Entu, and Walker Greenbank. Here is the link, if you wish to see that completed report.




Purplebricks (LON:PURP)

(at the time of writing, I hold a long position in this share)

This ludicrously highly valued online estate agent often plunges in share price. These have been excellent buying opportunities. So it's a share which I monitor, and tend to buy these sharp dips. The same thing has happened in recent days, with a particularly sharp sell-off yesterday. So I rang my broker to buy some more. I could hear talking in the background, and my broker then made me aware that apparently PURP was about to be exposed for some kind of malpractice on the BBC's Watchdog programme. So I cut my buy order in half. That's a good example of how a traditional telephone broker can add value, by pointing out things I may not have spotted.

My feeling is that TV exposes tend to only have a passing impact on share prices, unless something really terrible is going on. As regards estate agents, most of us probably have a very low opinion of the entire sector. So I really don't see it as a particular problem that PURP has managed to upset some customers along the way. What do people expect, if they're only paying a fraction of the normal price for a service?

As it turned out, the Watchdog programme was fine. PURP seems to have breached advertising rules, forcing it to pull some adverts. Hardly the crime of the century. Their claims were broadly correct anyway, they just fell foul over some details. Furthermore, the undercover filming of 5 PURP agents threw up remarkably little dirt. I think filming any 5 estate agents undercover would throw up plenty of embarrassing things.

The CEO of PURP turned up at the Watchdog studios, and faced the music. He got some good points across, but I think should have been more contrite,…

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