Tim Worstall

It’s possible to think that corporate ESG – environmental, social and governance – investing is a thoroughly good idea. Which is how fashionable society seems to see it right now. It’s also possible to think that corporate ESG is merely a passing fad and an expression of the agency problem – precisely because fashionable society … Continued

CAB Payments was an IPO on the London market back only this summer. It’s also imploded already.  Which is pretty good and matches the very worst performances from some of the Nasdaq despac operations. And IPO is supposed to be very much more verified than a Spac so this isn’t a grand advertisement for participating … Continued

It is indeed true that Gina Rinehart has built a 20% position in Liontown Resources (ASX: LTR) and she’s long been known as a very canny strategic player in the metals business. But that’s not to say that she – or anyone else – is always right in this space. It’s equally possible to believe … Continued

The price of SolarEdge (NASDAQ: SEDG) dropped 27% in one day last week. That of Enphase (NASDAQ: ENPH) followed within minutes by falling 15%. The two companies are not directly related, they’re not – at least not particularly – supplier and customer, or partners. They are in the same sector though. Which is the thing … Continued

Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) just stopped a set of tests for semaglutide, their wonder drug. The share prices of the kidney dialysis companies all dropped 20% within hours. The big question is whether this is the right reaction, too much or too little? It’s entirely possible to argue any of those three cases but the … Continued

The Securities and Exchange Commission over in the US has decided that short selling is one of these nefarious attacks upon the integrity of the markets. At least that’s the usual Democratic Party response to the very idea of short selling. Which is, as we all know, selling something now in the hope of being … Continued

It’s a standard outcome of the standard investing theories that diversification is good. On the fairly obvious grounds that spreading your risks is a good thing to be doing. Yes, yes, this idea really is the killer and yet there’s always that possibility that something will come up to kill it. So, not all eggs … Continued

Yes. Well, OK, we might need a little more explanation than that. Environmental, social and governance investing, ESG, is absolutely, wholly, worth it in one sense, the moral one. As a way to make money well, not so much. Which means that if you’re looking to invest while keeping your soul pure then ESG might … Continued

Pilbara Minerals is great actually, it’s the result of one of the blindingly best mining deals in recent years. Once there was a lithium miner called Altura, financed in the last lithium mining boom of 2013/4. Which found lithium, developed the mine and was doing great right up to the day it went bust. The … Continued

It’s possible to think that the Spac boom is near its end. We can approach this through theory, we can approach it through cynical realism, we can approach it through recent results. This isn’t to say that no Spac (or “despac”) deal is ever going to work but perhaps it’s time to admit that the … Continued

The ways in which values change as macroeconomic conditions change can be complex and not even obvious. One recent one, over the past couple of years, makes older British companies more valuable relative to newer ones. Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that all older companies are now worth more than all new ones. Rather, … Continued

There is much excitement in the cannabis industry as the Federales start to talk about legalisation. Or changing the legal description and restrictions at least. Or something in the run up to an election perhaps. This might not be as wondrous as many a share price seems to assume. The particular and specific is that … Continued

Investing in development pharmaceutical companies is one of those high risk rollercoasters that can be terribly exciting – and, if done right, profitable. But to be profitable it’s essential to understand the structure of how the business works. Precisely because it’s a rollercoaster some managements can be a little more aggressive, to be mild about … Continued

The ghastly problem with mantras about the economy, rules we think are certain, is that they only apply sometimes. A useful macroeconomic trade is to play the FTSE100 to GBP, or pound sterling rate. This does only work one way though – FTSE rising does not change the value of the pound. But the GBP … Continued

The idea that a start up Vietnamese EV maker is worth more than Boeing does tell us that VinFast (NASDAQ: VFS) is over-valued. Well, either that or that Boeing is under-valued of course. But that VinFast has at times been worth more than Ford, GM, Stellantis, at times even worth more than two of the … Continued

Tingo (NASDAQ: TIO) is a company operating in the agricultural and fintech space in Nigeria and other parts of West Africa. Tingo is also the latest target of Hindenburg who insist the entire set up is a scam from start to finish. Well, that certainly plays into all our prejudices about Nigerian 419 scams and … Continued

There’s a revolution a’comin’ in the American insulin market – to the point we need a man on a horse to ride about shouting that “The Biosimilars are Comin’!”. Well, OK, perhaps not quite that inventive but the idea still stands. There’s a radical change about to happen in that market. And it’s not just … Continued

Yellow Corporation (NYSE: YELL) and now, given the Chapter 11 (OTCPK: YELLQ), has managed to prove an interesting contention. Does a union contract – which gets the workforce partnered up with the management – add or subtract value from the company? From this example it would seem that the union is very definitely a negative. … Continued

True, we’ve got to use a colloquial, not legal, sense of the word “steal” here. But the shareholders of Fannie Mae (OTCQB: FNMA) and Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) can indeed now claim that a court has said that their companies, their shares, were stolen from them. Just to make sure here, we are using that … Continued

Techtronic Industries (HKG: 0669) (OTCQX: TTNDF) got accused, a few months back, of fraud. Of course, it was a short seller that made the accusation, and it was one of those slightly complicated to follow things. It was also one of those things where there was no immediate disaster likely for the company. It could … Continued

We all know the phrase, go woke, go broke. But as investors – or, if we refer, speculators – what matters is how true this is? We can all find the occasional example of any contention we wish to make – what matters is whether we’ve found a pattern. Patterns, by definition, are things that … Continued

Imagine if it were possible to invest in something you knew, absolutely, was a mistake. And yet still make money. Well, no, you can’t – investing would be the wrong word. Speculating on a mistake being made by others yes, that does or at least can work. As with this little flurry in American Superconductors … Continued

Bonds have been a sure fire money loser these past couple of years – at least fixed coupon have. Anything with a fixed coupon always does lose out when there’re either rising interest rates or inflation. But now there’s that idea that the rate cycle has peaked. So, is it time to get back into … Continued

Russia is trying to renege on the deal to allow Ukrainian grain out through the Black Sea ports. India has just banned exports of the common grades of rice based upon climate problems – or perhaps weather, who knows what they call it these days. That means that our speculative energies should turn to food … Continued

Polymetal (LON: POLY) (NASDAQ: AUCOY) (NASDAQ: POYYF) is about to delist in London (the two American quotes are really gone already) and will pop up again as a Kazakh domiciled and quoted company. At some future but as yet unknown date.  This gives us all a wondrous speculation. But one which is of high risk … Continued

This is one of those really annoying – but unfortunately true – things about investing knowledge. Not everything we know, know absolutely, can be traded upon. Sometimes, obviously enough, that’s because we’re barred by law from trading on it. There’s a massive price difference between Polymetal (MCX: POLY) in Moscow and the quote that’s just … Continued

It’s been about a year since we were told that the US stock market really only rises at night. This is one of those things that shouldn’t really happen but then folk can be weird at times and it seems to be that this is in fact true. During normal trading hours the main US … Continued

Rainbow Rare Earths (LON: RBW) is a small cap (£50 million) London listed rare earths adventure. It looks like it’s actually going to work too, which is nice. But it’s also an excellent example of why we’re simply not going to run out of any particular metal or mineral that we’re interested in. We can … Continued

As we all know the lithium market – that “white gold” – is the new hot thing. So much so that we’ve microcaps like Western Yilgarn (ASX: WYX) rising 50% because people on the next property over found the right sort of rock that might have lithium in it. No, really. There’s a frenzy going … Continued

International Airline Group’s (LON:IAG) – or as we all still call it, BA – next results come out on 28th July. We’ve just had their Q1 results here. Things are obviously getting better, the recovery from Lockdown is happening. But what we really want to know is how far is that comeback going to go. … Continued

C3.ai (NYSE.AI) and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) are the two major stocks that people are using to bet on the AI revolution. As Paul Graham points out, this might not be the best set of possibilities: “AI is the first big new wave of technology we’ve had since start-ups started going public much later. The result … Continued

Darktrace (LON: DARK) has long had a rather fragile share price. In part this is simply because it’s something of a hot, go-go, stock and therefore any contrary news hits the price hard. When prices are based on dreams and assumptions about the future then anything that deflates the balloon hits hard. As we’ve noted … Continued

Premier African Minerals has achieved something that few thought possible – brought a patch of bush into lithium concentrate production in under 8 months. That really is remarkable and they have indeed achieved that at the Zulu Project in Zimbabwe. They’ve also got a horrible, horrible, financial problem here. It is about, vaguely, possible that … Continued

PREM is just the latest example of why it’s so essential to read the details. Premier African Minerals (LON: PREM) pulled a little trick last week that should be used as the poster child for why we should always, but always, read the details. PREM had a rights issue. Well, nothing wrong in that, they’re … Continued

MNK was up 435% on Friday – this is option-like price movement. Mallinckrodt (NYSEAmerican: MNK) jumped 435% on Friday. Which is the sort of price behaviour we expect from options, not from major corporations. The reason for the volatility – not for the price movement, the volatility – is that in effect MNK stock is … Continued

Atlas Lithium (NASDAQ: ATLX) could be one of those rare and truly grand investing opportunities in the junior mining space. Someone does, after all, have to find the motherlode sometimes otherwise where would the very phrase come from? One the other hand it’s possible – as some allege – that Atlas Lithium is an over-hyped … Continued

Things do sometimes go wrong, as WANdisco (LON: WAND) and Alphawave (LON: AWE) have just shown – with an able little assist from Altyngold (LON: ALTN). More specifically things sometimes go wrong with the accounting within a company. As is the case with all three of these. However, sometimes – just the sometimes – there’s … Continued

Atlantic Lithium (LON: ALL) is one of those shares that justify the AIM market in London, or the similar parts of the TSE and Vancouver exchanges. There needs to be somewhere that junior (ie, not yet producing) miners can go get the necessary capital. Someone, somewhere, has to pay for the exploration and proving work … Continued

CXApp (NASDAQ: CXAI) was quite the exciting stock last week, jumping from $1.33 to, at one point intraday, $50 or so. It fell off from that, obviously enough. Quite why the massive excitement no one is really quite sure. A recent Spac deal it does something with AI and perhaps that’s enough to get the … Continued