(Alliance News) – The UK economy grew strongly in the first quarter of 2026, driven by the services sector, according to data from the Office for National Statistics on Thursday. UK gross domestic product rose 0.6% in the three months to March, accelerating from revised growth of 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and in line with the FXStreet-cited consensus.
On an annual basis, GDP growth in 2025 was unrevised at 1.4%, following revised growth of 1.0% in 2024. The ONS said all three main sectors contributed to quarterly growth in the first quarter, with services output rising 0.8%, production output increasing 0.2% and construction output climbing 0.4%. Monthly GDP rose 0.3% in March, slowing from growth of 0.4% in February but beating the FXStreet-consensus of a 0.3% drop.
Comment: It would appear that taxing yourself to prosperity actually works, and that Starmer and Reeves have done a good job in terms of steering the economy. This makes it all the more ironic that the Prime Minister has leadership challenge issues.
GreenX Metals Limited (GRX) announced that the reprocessing of a historical airborne hyperspectral survey has identified multiple new high-priority tungsten, antimony, and gold targets at the Eleonore North Project in the East Greenland (ELN or Eleonore North). The new targets sit along strike and adjacent to the existing high-grade tungsten and antimony historical estimates identified at North and South Margeries, providing the Company with potential walk-up surface targets to test during the planned field season, which is expected to commence in July 2026.
Comment: Greenland remains one of the most prospective “new” territories for mining, something that was clearly an inspiration for President Trump wanting to take it over. As far as GRX is concerned, it remains a key beneficiary of this fact, although the market still likes to behave it will not be receiving a big payout from its Poland claim.
Catenai PLC (CTAI), the AIM-quoted provider of technology and digital solutions, provided an update on Alludium Ltd, its investee company, following the public launch of Alludium’s venture capital vertical and the associated relaunch of its website at alludium.ai. CTAI said “The VC vertical launch marks our transition from a platform-first story to commercialisation. The VC stack records the deal – but it does not move the deal. CRMs, data tools and AI assistants all sit beside the workflow. Alludium sits inside it. We have a clear customer in VC funds, a proof point already running on live deals, and a go-to-market motion in execution.”
Comment: There has been a decent amount of traction in the market regarding Alludium, something which during the autumn took the shares towards 0.6p versus just under half that now. It should be the case that off the back of the progress being made shares of CTAI revisit the best levels as we go into the summer.
Sundae Bar Plc (SBAR) is actively working on doubling the size of its technology team over the coming weeks through the addition of seven autonomous AI agents designed to accelerate enterprise AI development and operational scalability. The new AI agents will operate alongside the existing development team helping automate large parts of the enterprise AI development, evaluation and deployment pipeline while maintaining human oversight, review and strategic direction. The Company expects the expanded infrastructure to reduce manual operational workloads by more than 80%, while substantially increasing its ability to scale and monetise AI agents for businesses without proportional increases in headcount or operating costs.
Comment: Unfortunately, so far all SBAR’s AI huffing and puffing has gone down like a lead balloon, especially in terms of the share price. Indeed, even in the wake of today’s constructive sounding update, it is apparent that the market remains nonplussed. Perhaps a mention of revenues might help at some point?
First Development Resources plc (FDR), the UK-based, Australia-focused exploration company with mineral interests in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, is pleased to provide an update on preparations ahead of the commencement of the Company’s fully funded maiden Phase I Reverse Circulation drilling programme at the Lander West gold target, part of its 100%-owned Selta Project located in the Northern Territory, Australia. The drilling programme is designed to test recently defined high-priority Au targets identified through the Company’s integrated geological, geophysical and geochemical interpretation programmes along the prospective Stafford Gold Trend.
Comment: Although there have been some signs of life as far as recovery for the FDR share price, it remains the case that the explorer / developer has distinctly underperformed its peers, and actually does not currently appear to be too bothered about this.
KR1 plc (KR1), a digital asset technology company, announced the expansion of its technology infrastructure operations through newly launched activities and strategic investments in the convergence of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and decentralised technologies. KR1 “Decentralised AI represents the most important new opportunity in digital assets. KR1 is positioning early across this emerging stack because we believe Decentralised AI has the potential to become one of the defining investment themes of the next decade, while helping address many of the biggest challenges facing AI today namely privacy, access, resilience, ownership and control.”
Comment: One of the problems that KR1 has had historically is that its area of focus and raison d’etre for investing has seemed to be rocket science. Indeed, just when one might have thought that one understood the company, today it comes up with a new piece of jargon, decentralised AI, for us not to understand.
Cindrigo Holdings Limited (CINH) provided an update on the progress of its interests in German geothermal projects, including updates regarding eligibility of funding support from the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (“BAFA”) under the BEW programme (Bundesförderung für Effiziente Wärmenetze, or Federal Funding for Efficient Heat Networks) across the Eich, Worms and Weinheim licence areas. CINH said “Germany is actively encouraging the development of renewable district heating infrastructure, and the BAFA-administered BEW programme forms an important part of that strategy. The extension of BEW Module 1 eligibility support for Eich and Worms, together with the first-time approval for Weinheim, highlights the continued commitment of the German state to supporting the development of renewable district heating infrastructure which aligns strongly with the development of our geothermal interests.”
Comment: The market liked last month’s update from CINH regarding strategic investor funding, something which has effectively de-risked the company and led to a decent share price turnaround. We see the company building on this momentum with today’s update.
Wildcat Gold Plc (WCAT) provided an update on the Company’s proposed admission to trading of its ordinary shares to the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market, Access Segment. The Company has appointed Guild Financial Advisory Limited in connection with the application for Admission. Subject to a successful application for Admission, a further announcement will be made confirming the expected date for the commencement of trading in the Company’s shares on the Aquis Growth Market.
Comment: WCAT’s market cap is well over the £2m needed to list on Aquis, something which actually points to how stupid the £2m rule is. The rise in the share price in recent week’s also reminds us that the company has been subject to ongoing negative commentary, specifically designed to undermine the company for psychotic / amusement / bitter and twisted purposes. It is therefore excellent that these attempts have failed.
Delta Gold Technologies plc (Aquis: DGQ) announced the appointment of Dr Thomas P Davis CEng CSci MIMMM as a Strategic Advisor to Delta and the first member of the Company’s Strategic Advisory Panel. The Panel has been established to support the Board and management in evaluating, prioritising and executing scientific and research investment decisions, including the identification of high-value research programmes, partnerships and commercial pathways.
Comment: It might be thought by some that a small cap company setting up an advisory board is simply an exercise in hubris and jobs for the boys / girls. Indeed, this is normally the case, and likely to be so at DGQ as well. That said, with the shares at new highs, a market cap of £100m, and the provisional patent news earlier this month, one doubts that anyone is that bothered.
Gattaca (GATC), the specialist staffing solutions business, today provided the following trading update for the year ended 31 July 2026. Further to the Group’s interim results announcement on 24 March 2026, contract recruitment has continued to perform strongly leading to the Group trading ahead of market expectations. As a result, the Board expects Group continuing underlying profit before tax for FY26 to be not less than £6.0 million (previous guidance: £4.5 million).
Comment: Shares of GATC have already been in turnaround mode since early last year, anticipating the kind of strong update that the company has served up today. Indeed, it would appear that we are heading for the main 140p plus 2 year resistance over the course of early H2 2026.
TheraCryf (TCF), the biotech company developing new medicines for addiction and other neuropsychiatric disorders, announced that dosing of the first toxicology species in the Ox-1 blocker clinical trial enabling work completed in early May and initial analysis shows that it is well tolerated at very high doses. TheraCryf’s Ox-1 blocker is aimed at treating substance use disorders, a market already valued at over US$70bn per annum. Preclinical data has shown that the Ox-1 blocker has potential class leading performance including proof-of-efficacy in a rodent model of binge eating disorder.
Comment: It is generally being accepted that the biotech discovery space is one of the major beneficiaries of the AI boom, and this actually opens up the way for companies like TCF being able to develop potential blockbuster treatments or treatments for large unmet needs such as binge eating highlighted today.
Watches of Switzerland Group (WOSG) announced a FY26 Trading Update for the 53 weeks to 3 May 2026. Record Group revenue in FY26, driven by US. FY27 growth outlook underpinned by sales momentum and improving profitability. WOSG said “FY26 marks another year of record revenue performance, up 13% in constant currency to £1.8 billion, with growth accelerating across the business and strong underlying momentum as we continue to scale. FY26 Adjusted EBIT is expected to be £152 – £155 million, ahead of previous guidance. I would like to thank my colleagues for their continued commitment to delivering exceptional client service, which remains central to our success.”
Comment: Given that one has anecdotal evidence that it is impossible to buy a Rolex on demand, it is perhaps surprising that WOSG is doing so well. That said, the demand is clearly there, even though one might have thought intuitively that anyone carry a smartphone does not really need a watch. The shares have now beaten last year’s highs, but still have a long way to go to get up to the glory days of 2022 – 2024 and £10 plus.
Fox-Davies Capital re-initiated coverage of Cleantech Lithium (CTL). It has updated its model based on the recently published prefeasibility study and amended the risk factor in light of the recently agreed CEOL
Comment: CTL has made significant progress in recent months, something which has so far not been reflected in the share price. Part of this is the hangover from Metals One (MET1) exiting its stake in the shares, something which the market perhaps decided was sinister rather than simply to pay for a deal it was involved with at the time.
Ariana Resources plc (AAU), the mineral exploration and development company with gold project interests in Africa and Europe, announced further positive assay results from its 2025-2026 Reverse Circulation (“RC”) drilling programme at its 100% owned Dokwe Gold Project in Zimbabwe. AAU said “We have successfully confirmed the presence of a significant extension to gold mineralisation to the immediate NE of Dokwe North at a depth of roughly 100m from surface. The gold appears to extend through the unit identified as being one of the most prospective in the area, and the extension of this unit further to the NE bodes well for future resource development. This mineralisation also occurs in the weathered zone and represents material that would be classified as oxide, making it more amenable to straightforward mining and processing.”
Comment: While we are pleased to receive periodic progress reports from AAU, the main issue remains that it beggars belief that the share price remains with recent ranges despite the recent surge in the price of gold up to $5,000. At the current pace it would need gold to hit $10,000 an ounce to really move the dial.
Tap Global Group plc (TAP), an innovative digital finance hub that brings money payments and crypto settlement services together in a single user-friendly app, is pleased to announce that Tap Earn – the Group’s yield product offering customers competitive variable yields on eligible cryptocurrency and stablecoin holdings – is now available to eligible customers in the United Kingdom, following completion of the relevant final approvals.
Comment: Worthy sounding initiatives come and go from TAP. However, the main issue here is the share price and the way that even a record breaking bull run for the cryptos in the autumn hardly helped the share price. This underlines the feeling that there remains a pesky seller / sellers undermining the stock, “voluntary” lock in or no lock in.
Disclaimer & Declaration of Interest:
The information, investment views, and recommendations in this Zaks Traders Cafe interview are provided for general information purposes only. Nothing in this interview should be construed as a promotion or solicitation to buy or sell any financial product relating to any companies under discussion or referred to or to engage in or refrain from doing so or engage in any other transaction. Any opinions or comments are made to the best of the knowledge and belief of the commentator but no responsibility is accepted for actions based on such opinions or comments. The commentators may or may not hold investments in the companies under discussion.
