Share tips thread

[donkamio]

looks like its getting back to normal price. As stated it was a blog report rather than a bonafide investment house making the statement.

[Esseesse]

I take it that QPP was mostly responsible for the movement in the AIM All-Share Index?

https://www.google.co.uk/finance?q=INDEXFTSE:AXX&a...

[trashbat]

AOK said:

Agreed, not something to get into long term based on the uncertainty. But to double up on any spring-back before the market shuts to recoup some losses was my thought process.

Almost all of my large AIM losses came from trying to predict the magnitude of a short term uptrend that had already begun - i.e. climbing on board during a spike - which turned out to be a fool's errand. I suggest that the same error is very likely when trying to predict the magnitude of what's currently a very short term downtrend.

To put it another way: if you take any other company, and were about to release a similar report about them, would you bet on the precise percentage drop it'd cause?

If not, how sure are you that 32% is the figure here?

Just my 2p; I'm sure there's money to be made from this somewhere.

[Shnozz]

Esseesse said:

trashbat said:

It seems like a pretty terrible idea to me, unless you can be sure that the majority of Gotham's complaints aren't legitimate.

(disclosure: I've never held a position in QPP)

I agree. (I have held a position in QPP a few months ago for about a week)

Right now there's too much uncertainty for me, you could gain or lose half of your money by tomorrow. A gamble.

ETA: Scary stuff though. Congrats to the large holder on here who got out all/mostly (?) a few weeks back.

I do still have a small amount of skin in the game but reduced from 460k shares to just over 50k. I don't take pleasure in witnessing others losing on this, however, and the gotham report raises some valid concerns, particularly having regard to Mr Terry's former "issues" at TIG which many hoped would ensure he would walk a very clean path this time around having learned his lessons.

The AIM market (and at times the FTSE) can be volatile and, without meaning to sound like the "blinkin MM's" posters on share forums, can fluctuate wildly. Quindell are attempting to corner a market and have built up businesses in every stage of the chain to retain business within and extract profit at each stage. In doing so, they have had some big businesses sign up, who in turn would have had to do degree of DD as to the capability of QPP to carry out those contracts.

There are some worrying facts in that statement, particularly given the history of TIG. I'd like to see a very transparent response. Without that, I would expect the City would remain extremely cautious and without a significant tranche of institutional investors then it's always going to be at the mercy of PIs and the massive swings.

As an aside, the golf club/country club was sold off and is now called Skylark. Whether it was used as a corporate purchase to rename and launch the insurance outsourcing business is of course another matter. Ironically, it is TIG's offices that are based within a stone's throw of the golf course, albeit Quindell's offices are only half a mile up the road.

[B17NNS]

The Board of Quindell Plc (AIM: QPP.L), is aware of the publication today by Gotham City Research LLC. The Board rejects the assertions raised in this note and considers the note to be highly defamatory, deliberately misrepresentative and entirely rejects the conclusions that are made. A more detailed response shall be announced before the end of this week. In the meantime the Company is also consulting its legal advisors on what immediate action can be taken against Gotham City Research LLC and is reporting coordinated shorting activity to the appropriate authorities.

In the Company's annual results for the year to 31 December 2013, released on 31 March and prepared following the appointment of the Company's auditors, KPMG LLP, Quindell reported revenue of £380.1 million and profit before tax of £107.0 million. Since that time, the Company has released a 2014 Q1 trading statement, which referred to gross sales for the Group totalling £162.9 million and the Group having cash at 31 March of approximately £150 million. The Board remains confident of meeting or exceeding market expectations in all key performance indicators in 2014 and all other initiatives being pursued remain on track.

[vescaegg]

And someone a few weeks ago called me an idiot for suggesting QPP was being manipulated. A 50% drop in an hour would again suggest that to me.

Has anyone read the source of that article? It doesnt lead anywhere, its almost just like someone's blog! Bloody worked though. I was £9k down at one point today; thank god I held.

Back up to around 30p now from hitting 18p! Unbelievable.

RNS wholly refutes the article; should have come sooner than it did though.

[B17NNS]

vescaegg said:

Has anyone read the source of that article? It doesnt lead anywhere, its almost just like someone's blog!

Similar to what happened to BLNX.

[Jonboy_t]

vescaegg said:

And someone a few weeks ago called me an idiot for suggesting QPP was being manipulated. A 50% drop in an hour would again suggest that to me.

Has anyone read the source of that article? It doesnt lead anywhere, its almost just like someone's blog! Bloody worked though. I was £9k down at one point today; thank god I held.

Back up to around 30p now from hitting 18p! Unbelievable.

RNS wholly refutes the article; should have come sooner than it did though.

I'm completely with you on all that!

I don't think they could have released a rebuttal any sooner though. The seriousness of the allegations would have meant that lawyers and PR people would need to deconstruct every word. Couple that with the fact it's an RNS so would (I imagine) have to go through certain reviewers external to QPP and it's a very lengthly process. I guess that's why they've realeased a small two finger salute to Gotham now with the promise of a kick in the balls to them later in the week. I particularly like the line about reveiwing the legal possibilities - a retraction by Gotham becuase of the threat of being sued could be golden.

The article/author seems to be just a blog too rather than a bona fide analyst!! Someone on ADVFN posted up every little detail about 'Gotham City' and it appears (to my untrained eye) to be nothing more than a little blogger sat in the states!

[Chris Type R]

And still, we're now sat at 25.5p after being at 40p earlier.

[Fittster]

Jonboy_t said:

The article/author seems to be just a blog too rather than a bona fide analyst!!

Is there a reason why a blogger couldn't have done the same job as an analyst? Some of the 'facts' in his report would be easy to check. He claims the New York address / phone number for QPP are duff, that should be easy enough for anyone with an interest to check.

The address is given as:

Quindell New York
280 Madison Avenue
9th Floor
New York
NY 10016

telephone [phone]
email [e-mail]

I'm not an international globe trotter but Google seems to suggest that a New York number starts 212. Now I fully admit that's not evidence of the whole report being correct but I guess all a Private investor can do is try and double check what's in the report.

Edited by Fittster on Tuesday 22 April 16:39

[Jonboy_t]

Fittster said:

Jonboy_t said:

The article/author seems to be just a blog too rather than a bona fide analyst!!

Is there a reason why a blogger couldn't have done the same job as an analyst? Some of the 'facts' in his report would be easy to check. He claims the New York address / phone number for QPP are duff, that should be easy enough for anyone with an interest to check.

Not really any reason they couldn't, but if they were good enough and, more importantly, [u]able to get it right[/u], they wouldn't be sat behind a screen in their y-fronts - they'd be sat in a big office somewhere staring at their hot receptionist and wondering which Ferrari to take out this weekend.

The author here is unprofessional (look at their website!), factually inconsistent (tabling 2009's numbers as their examples), have a massive interest in QPP taking a dive (they've confirmed they have a large short) and, how I read it, emotionally invested in the situation and letting that drive them (not that I can comment on that one ).

It has all the hallmarks of someone who wants to jump into the big pool but can't quite shake off the arm bands.



ETA - QPP's Corporate HQ is in Fareham in Hampshire, about 10 minutes from my front door - not New York. I guess there might be one in US somewhere, I don't know, but contacting the US address for a company not listed in US? Isn't that a bit odd?

Maybe they would benefit from trying to contact the Legal Services address on the website instead, I bet they'd be happy to respond

Edited by Jonboy_t on Tuesday 22 April 16:48

[DSLiverpool]

Too spicy for me, I managed to get 28.80 and took the loss, I don't have the appetite for this crap. I shall stick to boring stocks in future.

[vescaegg]

DSLiverpool said:

Too spicy for me, I managed to get 28.80 and took the loss, I don't have the appetite for this crap. I shall stick to boring stocks in future.

Im inclined to agree but have lost enough to make it worthwhile seeing if it goes back up rather than jumping now.

On a separate note, HL have been a shower of st today. Suspended trading on QPP for about 2 hours and a lot of people will have lost (or failed to make) a lot of money beacuase of it. I will be moving elsewhere I think - seems a lot of other brokers held up ok.

[DSLiverpool]

I used the Halifax - they took an instruction and executed on the slight upswing

[kiethton]

donkamio said:

kiethton said:

And back it comes....

Great entry point for somebody with steel balls

EFA

Dammit, if only I wasn't stopping myself investing - would have been a good day-trade!

Called the above at 20.5p and had a theoretical exit at 25.5p (went higher in the end) but hey-ho!

On a separate note I may have to curtail my responses in this thread (and exit the fantasy league) going forward as per some other posters owing to a new job with associated trading restrictions, if I don't reply much on here I'll likely be due to that or the fact I've head down at my desk, for the first 6 months atleast!

[B17NNS]

vescaegg said:

Im inclined to agree but have lost enough to make it worthwhile seeing if it goes back up rather than jumping now.

Same. In the time it took me to make a bacon and egg butty I was £5k down.

vescaegg said:

On a separate note, HL have been a shower of st today.

They fall apart when anything like this happens. The exact point when you need them to be on the ball they aren't. If the market collapses I think they'd turn off the phones, shut off the servers and go for a long lunch. I couldn't get a quote to buy or sell at any point on-line. It took 20 minutes to get through on the phone in which time the share had gone from 20p to nearly 30p.

[vescaegg]

B17NNS said:

vescaegg said:

Im inclined to agree but have lost enough to make it worthwhile seeing if it goes back up rather than jumping now.

Same. In the time it took me to make a bacon and egg butty I was £5k down.

vescaegg said:

On a separate note, HL have been a shower of st today.

They fall apart when anything like this happens. The exact point when you need them to be on the ball they aren't. If the market collapses I think they'd turn off the phones, shut off the servers and go for a long lunch. I couldn't get a quote to buy or sell at any point on-line. It took 20 minutes to get through on the phone in which time the share had gone from 20p to nearly 30p.

Ive never (albeit not been doing this too long) seen anything like the fall we had today. It literally was tens of percent in tens of minutes. About £1.3 billion was wiped off the (£2.3b!!) company at one point.

Now as far as I know KPMG are massive and have carried out a full audit on the company in preparation for the a main market listing, which is supposed to be in only 5 weeks! I refuse to believe they do not have whole TEAMS of people who thoroughly look into all of the claims Gotham came out with today.

Likewise The RAC who did a massive deal with them and Fidelity Investments who recently bought enough to cover 5% of the company and who hold £1.7TRILLION in assets would also have not even remotely considered investing if any of it was true.

One guy with a blog spotted (a lot of!) things which the big boys didnt?

It may kill me and I will be back with my hands up if it does, but im holding.

Edited by vescaegg on Tuesday 22 April 17:21

[Cockey]

The report is a little bit amateurish, but it certainly raises some valid points. Be interesting to see the board's full response.

I initially thought it was an unsubstantiated deramp and saw it as a huge buying opportunity (who are Gotham City Research!). After reading through the report, I'm now not so sure. Staying away for now.

[Condi]

Jonboy_t said:

vescaegg said:

And someone a few weeks ago called me an idiot for suggesting QPP was being manipulated. A 50% drop in an hour would again suggest that to me.

Has anyone read the source of that article? It doesnt lead anywhere, its almost just like someone's blog! Bloody worked though. I was £9k down at one point today; thank god I held.

Back up to around 30p now from hitting 18p! Unbelievable.

RNS wholly refutes the article; should have come sooner than it did though.

I'm completely with you on all that!

I particularly like the line about reveiwing the legal possibilities - a retraction by Gotham becuase of the threat of being sued could be golden.

The article/author seems to be just a blog too rather than a bona fide analyst!! Someone on ADVFN posted up every little detail about 'Gotham City' and it appears (to my untrained eye) to be nothing more than a little blogger sat in the states!

The wonderful thing about the internet is that anyone can post what they like. A blogger sitting at home could be anyone, and may know more or less than you think!

As far as Im aware, there is no legal basis for suing the analyst despite them having an open position. All the information he used will be in the public domain, and he's just joined the dots as he sees them. Unless he has deliberately used misleading, incorrect or sensitive information then he's on solid ground for what he's done. And tbh he's been very clever about it if he shorted and closed out at 18p!

EDIT:

Just a bit of a rant, just looked at the Telegraphs website and the comments from people saying that its market manipulation and Gotham City should be prosecuted. I would argue very strongly against that as once you start introducing laws to silence scrutiny then where do you stop? The person - presumably- has no insider knowledge and so everything he says is his own opinion. Markets are built on opinions and once you start to silence the voices then you are undermining the whole way a market works. Gotham City themselves did not cause the crash, the investors reading it did. Investing in AIM or small market shares is not a game for the faint hearted, if you dont use basic risk management then you may as well go and put £1000 on black.

CRB14 said:

Completely stinks this!

I'm hoping for some kind of investigation here. Who the hell are Gotham City anyway? No doubt they have something to gain from this.

Genuine question, but on what basis?

Edited by Condi on Tuesday 22 April 19:37

[CRB14]

Condi said:

Genuine question, but on what basis?

Edited by Condi on Tuesday 22 April 19:37

On what basis does it stink or that they have something to gain?

Well they openly state on their website that they are not analysts and that upon the release of 'research' that they hold short positions.

They're an LLC hiding behind a proxy address that needs a subpoena to be able to release contact details. This is nothing more than a very well orchestrated attack on a company in order to make significant gains.

I can't prove this but I'm sure this is a group of individuals that carry out the same sort of attacks on companies periodically. They most likely spend weeks or months undertaking the research to discredit companies and directors and on this occasion it has had the desired effect.

I'm not for one minute believing that these clowns - who are not official analysts - have managed to find something in the accounts that KPMG couldn't.

I stand by my claim that this stinks. Sadly I fear there will be little recourse as the damage has been done.