The Movers and Shakers Report - Friday December 4th

A summary of the latest stock ideas and global insights this week from the Stockopedia Community....

Markets & Macro

In the markets this week, the echoes of Dubai World’s request for a debt standstill continued to be felt around the world while gold burst through the $1200 barrier sparking plenty of bubble debate. On that subject, Stockopedia contributor Andrew Butter has published some excellent theoretical analysis on asset bubbles.

The gloom is bearing down on Bill Bonner, but John Mauldin remains optimistic. Other themes were the Treasury battle with RBS, the need to cut taxes, UK commercial property & the rise of India.

Oil & Gas Focus 

Emptyend continues to lead a vocal discussion on the Oil & Gas M&A Thread. Rumours of Exxon circling Dominion Petroleum’s Ugandan assets drove up its share price. Other hot stocks included Victoria Oil & Gas, Soco International (a huge community generated resource), Mediterranean Oil, Tullow, and Nostra.

We launched the inaugural Stockopedia Seasonal Stockpicking Challenge with 290 competitors fighting tooth and claw to pick the three best-performing stocks by February 1st. A lot of interest has been shown in smaller oil plays including: Aminex - with likely newsflow in coming months - and Gulf Keystone - whose CEO was interviewed on CNN about the 10-15 bn barrel potential for their oil find in Kurdistan.

In the Challenge, GlaxoSmithKline‘s swine flu vaccine prospects were talked up, and there's still plenty backing the big banks such as Barclays for a further recovery play.

Mining Watch 

 Iran’s bluster about building 12 more nuclear power stations has served to highlight the tight supply and demand characteristics of the uranium market dominated by Canada, Australia and interestingly Kazakhstan.

There were rumours that Rio Tinto was looking Rossing South, the world's largest undeveloped uranium resource (see Marben’s first-class threads on Extract Resources). 

Speaking of Rio Tinto, EMED Mining featured on the site after this week’s Mines and Money conference and a flurry of recent RNS on its Rio Tinto Mine (the largest known copper deposit in Spain).

Also down the mines, there was debate over the relatioship between WME and Polo Resources. Medusa Mining continued its strong run, now at 232.5p after Stockopedia member p3dr06 noted its potential at 80p back in April.  And for those interested in Coal to Liquid and other uses of coal apart from “just digging the stuff up and burning it”, Mattybuoy’s ever expanding resource on Coal 2.0 is certainly worth a look.

Elsewhere, Ragtrader discussed the prospects for Greene King. Valueinvestor took on specialist residential landlord Grainger and reviewed the options for ETF investing in the UK.  Doverbeach assessed preliminary results for toy design player, Character Group plc, while AtticManTrader analysed the 5 key stages in the evolution of a trader.

What have we been up to?

 Having now closed our fund-raising (hooray!), we have now moved into new offices in Paddington - hence the glamorous picture!

Development-wise, we launched Facebook Connect this week to make it easier for people to register and log in. Plans are afoot to integrate PLUS Markets stocks to the system further extending our coverage.

This week, new contributors include the esteemed Bill Bonner with his Daily Reckoning and Scott Sumner of the Money Illusion. Let us know of any writers you’d like to see on the site.

Our goal is to deliver the news, views and information that’s most relevant to you so keep updating your portfolios so we know what you like,

 

Safe investing,

 Ed, Dave and the Stockopedia Team


Most Recent Articles 

• Victoria Oil & Gas - Three Buses at Once

• Dominion Petroleum - High Risk Oil & Gas Exploration

• Graingers - how much life is there in the old dog?

• Greene King - the brewer CAMRA loves to hate

• Gold Gone Wild - is it all over?

• The recurring gold bubble

• India as the global #1

• Dubai - desert of lost dreams

• Dubai & the Collapse of Finance

 

Most Active Threads

• Oil & Gas Sector: Mergers & Acquisitions

• Extract Resources: The Extract Complex

• Gulf Keystone: Kurdistan drilling

• Niger Uranium: General Discussion

• Aminex: Tanzania