Tip update: 29% Lok’nStore share price increase in 15 weeks

Andrew Hore
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Tip update: 29% Lok’nStore share price increase in 15 weeks

More good news from self-storage sites operator Lok’nStore (LON: LOK) which confirms that core revenues are soaring through a combination of new openings, increasing occupancy and price rises.
Self-storage revenues increased by 21% over the year to July 2021, which is well ahead of forecasts. The first half growth rate was 11%. Over the 12-month period, occupancy rates have increased from 69.6% to 85.8%.
Prices were 8.7% higher by the end of the period, but this will have more of an effect in the new financial year. Prices had dipped in the first half.
There are 13 more sites in the pipeline w...

Director dealings: New name new optimism at Kinovo

Andrew Hore
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Director dealings: New name new optimism at Kinovo

Four directors of Kinovo (LON: KINO) have added to their shareholdings following last month’s annual results announcement. The shares were all acquired at 33.5p each, with a total investment of £135,675.
The buying is ahead of the ex-dividend date of 19 August. The final dividend of 0.5p a share was reinstated at the time of the annual results and is being paid on 22 September.
Chief executive David Bullen and Sangita Shah each acquired 150,000 shares, finance director Clive Lovett 75,000 shares and chief operating officer Lee Venables 30,000 shares.
The four directors own 5.49% of Kinovo with...

Speculation over possible Virgin IPO heats up

Liam Roche
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Speculation over possible Virgin IPO heats up

Virgin held talks with City investors over the weekend

Reports are circulating that Virgin Atlantic is in talks with institutional investors over the possibility of a float on the London Stock Exchange.

Having first launched in 1984, Virgin Atlantic could be set to earn £160m as it positions itself for an IPO.

At present, the airline is 51% owned by Richard Branston’s Virgin Group, while the remainder is held by Delta Airlines.

Sky reported that Virgin held talks with City investors over the weekend which were well received.

If discussions go smoothly then shares could be put up for sale as early as the autumn.

“Richard Branson isn’t known for making small conservative moves, said Laura Hoy, Equity Analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, so speculation about a Virgin Atlantic offering on the London Stock Exchange shouldn’t be shocking. Like all its peers, the airline’s been battered by the pandemic—posting a £659m loss last year.”

Therefore Virgin Atlantic could do with some additional cash to support its balance sheet.

“This is a bit of a strange time to be selling airline shares, though. The sector has been beaten down and pandemic-related uncertainty still lingers. That’s particularly true for long-haul airlines that will be last to see traffic recover. British Airways owner IAG noted that it doesn’t expect to see passenger numbers rise to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 at the earliest,” Hoy added.

A question mark remains over the outlook for the air travel industry. Fully vaccinated Americans are able to travel to Britain without needing to quarantine, however, Brits cannot do the same in the opposite direction.

“The pitch to investors will clearly be the timing of the return to normalised demand and business traffic, with this challenged by concerns over the longevity of government-imposed restrictions,” analysts at Goodbody said in a note. “That debate will be central if the listing is launched as early as the autumn.”

Another Richard Brnason company, Virgin Galactic, put ticket sales for its space flights at a starting price of $450,000 a seat recently.

It follows the news that the company completed its first fully crewed flight to the edge of space last month.

Zephyr Energy share price following completion of Paradox Basin Well

Liam Roche
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Zephyr Energy share price following completion of Paradox Basin Well

Zephyr Energy Share Price

The Zephyr Energy share price (LON:ZPHR) jumped by 10.18% on Monday as the company provided an update from the Paradox basin, Utah. It is the latest spike in what has been a volatile past two months for the oil and gas exploration company.

However, over the past six months, the performance of the Zephyr Energy share price has been outstanding, adding 181.86%. While there is still further information to come from the drilling results, today’s news will be well received by investors in the Zephyr Energy share price.

Successful Results

Having finished its drilling operations at the State 16-2LN-CC well at the Paradox Basin, Zephyr Energy said it successfully located the primary Cane Creek reservoir target.

The AIM-listed company also encountered a number of secondary targets.

Some 4,555 ft of Cane Creek reservoir was penetrated including the lateral part of the well, the energy company confirmed.

Initial results also show hydrocarbon charge across the entirety of the Cane Creek reservoir.

“We hit the Cane Creek reservoir target with success and stayed within that reservoir across the entire lateral portion of the well,” said chief executive Colin Harrington. “Now that we’ve set production casing, we have an excellent well bore from which to complete the well and test production from the Cane Creek reservoir – and the log data gathered during drilling operations will help determine the optimal method by which to do so.”

“The evaluation of the logs is underway, and we will keep our shareholders informed in the coming days when the output from that analysis is finalised and the method for completing the well is selected.”

Bitcoin price surges amid controversial US Infrastructure Bill

Liam Roche
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Bitcoin price surges amid controversial US Infrastructure Bill

The amendment would specifically pose a threat to Ethereum

The bitcoin price has reached its highest point in nearly three months as the cryptocurrency staged recovery over the past few weeks.

At the time of writing, the price of bitcoin is at £32,968, having been close to £21,000 just three weeks ago.

Other cryptos have joined bitcoin in making a come back, including Ether, which has added nearly £1,000 since 20 July, bringing its market value at the time of writing to £2,243.

The resurgence of bitcoin, and the crypto market more broadly, comes despite the Infrastructure Bill being put forward to the US Senate.

Critics have suggested that the bill would stifle innovation in the crypto space.

Senators worked through the weekend, putting back their summer holidays, to find a compromise on crypto and other disputed amendments.

The amendment would specifically pose a threat to ethereum, the blockchain that supports much of the growing world of decentralised finance.

Balajis Srinivasan, serial entrepreneur and the former chief technology officer of Coinbase, described the bill as “a backdoor Bitcoin ban”, adding that “compliance is impossible”.

“Their intent is to criminalize full nodes, lightning nodes, and most Bitcoin wallets.”

Hargreaves Lansdown share price dives as it warns trading surge will end

Liam Roche
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Hargreaves Lansdown share price dives as it warns trading surge will end

Hargreaves Lansdown says the pandemic brought about a generation of lockdown investors

The Hargreaves Lansdown share price fell by more than 11% on Monday morning as the investment platform warned the pandemic-induced boom in trading may not be here to stay.

The FTSE 100 company added that the pandemic has, however, brought about a generation of lockdown investors.

Hargreaves Lansdown confirmed a record number of customers joining the investment platform throughout the year ending in June.

The Reddit movement focused on Gamestop and AMC stocks were a particular source of demand, as equity dealing volumes increased by 54%.

However, as lockdowns came to an end, the investment platform confirmed that the surge in trading activity did the same thing, bringing about the dramatic fall in its share price seen today.

Hargreaves Lansdown saw its profits fall by 3% compared to the year before to £366m as its costs rose.

During the previous financial year, 83% of new clients were below the age of 55, while 98% of trades on the platform are now being done online.

“This younger mix of clients underpins our future growth because their investment behaviours mirror the trends of previous cohorts: we know what they need from our 40-year track record of supporting clients through their financial lives. As we work with these new clients on similar paths, the lifetime value of our overall client base will increase,” CEO Chris Hill said in his review of the results.

Hargreaves and Lansdown’s total dividend for the year was down 8% to 50.5 pence per share.

Moving forward, the company is expecting to see stronger client activity in the coming year with investment in the client engagement experience on the cards.

“We have delivered a record performance and exceptional growth during an extraordinary and challenging year. Our investment in the scalability, diversity and resilience of HL’s business model has resulted in a record 233,000 net new clients and £8.7 billion of net new business in the period, taking total clients to 1.645 million and assets to £135.5.”

“This has been an extraordinary year and I am proud of how our colleagues responded and continued to deliver to clients throughout this challenging period. We have not furloughed our people, enacted any COVID related redundancy programmes or sought any Government assistance,” Hill said.

Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust invests in floating offshore wind developer

Liam Roche
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Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust invests in floating offshore wind developer

ORIT’s investment entitles it to around a 12% interest in Simply Blue Holdings

Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT) confirmed on Monday that it has invested €7.5m (£6.4m) into Simply Blue Holdings Limited.

Simply Blue Holdings Limited is the parent company of the Simply Blue Group (SBG), a developer of sustainable marine projects focused on floating offshore wind.

SBG has developed a pipeline of over 9GW of floating offshore wind projects to-date, primarily in the waters of the UK and Ireland.

SBG also has interests in wave energy and ancillary interests in sustainable aquaculture, in addition to its background in marine development. The company is headquartered in Cork, Ireland, with offices in the UK and the US.

ORIT’s investment, which is a co-investment alongside another fund managed by Octopus Renewables Limited, entitles it to around a 12% interest in SBG.

Phil Austin, Chairman of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust plc, gave his view on ORIT’s first investment into a renewable energy developer, as well as our first investment in the fast-growing offshore floating wind sector. “This investment will further diversify ORIT’s potential to create capital growth and may in time bring opportunities to invest in construction-ready assets arising from SBG’s development pipeline,” Austin said.

Chris Gaydon, Investment Director at Octopus Renewables, added: “We are delighted to be working with Simply Blue, a leading marine project developer with a highly experienced and best-in-class management team. Floating offshore wind is a particularly exciting renewable energy sector which is expected to undergo rapid growth over the years to come and is a key part of government decarbonisation plans in a number of European countries. We believe Simply Blue is very well positioned to capture this growth.”

ORIT is an investment trust listed on the London Stock Exchange, operating a diversified portfolio of renewable energy assets in Europe and Australia. Managed by Octopus Investments Limited, ORIT aims to provide investors with sizable and sustainable dividends, alongside capital growth.

The company produces 502GWh of electricity per year, powering 114,000 homes through clean energy. ORIT estimates that 79,000 tonnes of carbon emissions are avoided as a result of its operations. This is the equivalent to 389,000 new trees.

Overseas buyers still see significant value in the London stock market

Liam Roche
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Overseas buyers still see significant value in the London stock market


The FTSE 100 is down by 0.31% during the morning session on Monday after weak Chinese trade figures and with few other company or economic updates to funnel sentiment in any particular direction.

““Much of the action centred on the M&A arena. Tobacco giant Philip Morris launched a hostile takeover bid of more than £1 billion for inhaler specialist Vectura, a US private equity firm planted the seeds for a bidding war on supermarket Morrisons with a request for extra time to make an offer and a German rival took a stake in takeaways platform Deliveroo,” said AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson.

The continuing acquisitions of public companies in the UK suggests overseas parties still see significant untapped value in the London stock market.

“In the commodities markets both gold and oil took a hit overnight – with the precious metal dropping to a five-month low and crude falling on fears that lingering travel restrictions will hit demand,” Hewson added.

“Given that much of 2021 has been dominated by mounting concern over the impact over inflation and gold has traditionally offered protection against rising prices, fans of the precious metal will be particularly disappointed by its high single-digit slide in percentage terms year-to-date.”

FTSE 100 Top Movers

SSE (3.22%), Severn Trent (1.14%) and Anglo American (0.94%) are leading the way during the first session of the week.

Hargreaves and Lansdown (-9.95%), Smiths Group (-1.69%) and Persimmon (-1.7%) are trailing the pack of FTSE 100 companies on Monday.

Ocado to allow staff to work from abroad

Liam Roche
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Ocado to allow staff to work from abroad

Ocado said that having the opportunity to work abroad was commonly requested at townhall meetings

Employees at Ocado (LON:OCDO) have been told they are allowed to work from any location in the world for one month per year as the company looks to adapt its practices to the post-pandemic world.

Thee groceries delivery company devised the policy in response to its workers who voiced their desire to work remotely during the pandemic.

A number of major companies have been devising their own strategies to deal with worker demands and office rents in the aftermath of the pandemic.

Ocado confirmed that having the opportunity to work abroad was commonly requested at downhill meetings, particularly by people who have family in different countries.

The Times reported that Ocado chief executive Tim Steiner spent a lot of time during the pandemic working from his parents’ home in the Bahamas.

KPMG’S UK-based staff have been instructed that they are able to work in the office for only two days per week, while Twitter’s employees have been told they can work from home on a permanent basis.

However, not all companies feel the sam, as some believe in the benefits of developing employees within a communal environment.

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon rejected remote working as a “new normal” and labelled it an “aberration”.

The Ocado share price is down by 1.22% during the morning session on Monday.

Since 27 January the Ocado share price is down from 2,883p to 1,780.50p, a fall of 62%.

Gold price falls to lowest point in four months

Liam Roche
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Gold price falls to lowest point in four months

Over the course of the last month, gold is down by 5%

Gold prices fell to their lowest point in four months on Monday morning as rumours fly that the Fed could be set to raise interest rates sooner than anticipated.

After gold went below $1,750, it triggered a stop loss sale, bringing it down further to $1,684.

Over the course of the last month, gold is down by 5%.

The recent fall follows jobs figures from the US Labor Department that surpassed expectations, as wages recovered.

The positive results have, however, raised concerns over the possibility that stimulus measures could now be rolled back.

Traders of the yellow metal will now turn their attention to this China’s CPI inflation data today.

China’s CPI is expected to come in at 0.8% year-on-year, while inflation at a producer level is not expected to slowdown, with PPI at 8.8% year-on-year.

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