(Alliance News) – Andy Burnham will begin his summer cost-of-living tour on Monday pledging to provide “everyday fixes” for rising bills. The UK prime minister intends to spend much of the rest of August travelling the country asking the public how the government can improve their lives.
Officials have said he will be in “listening mode”, with a focus on tackling the cost of living and improving local high streets. Burnham is expected to announce a series of “everyday fixes” to reduce costs, promising to “pull every single lever we can to provide people with some room to breathe on the cost of living”. On Monday, he will accelerate plans to tackle “subscription traps” by requiring companies to make it easier to cancel subscriptions and provide more information about costs up-front rather than quietly auto-renewing them at a higher price.
Comment: “Listening mode” means autumn election mode. “Everyday fixes” means saving the consumer a few quid here and there, so that they can pay more taxes from the autumn again. But at least it sounds good.
ValiRx Plc (VAL), a life science company focusing on early-stage cancer therapeutics and women’s health, is pleased to provide the following updates on its majority owned subsidiary Cytolytix Limited. Cytolytix’s European Patent application “Polyleucine-Based Peptides As Anti-Cancer Agents” (application No. 20793085.0) has received formal notification of the European Patent Office’s intention to grant a European patent. This patent, licensed from King’s College London, forms a key part of the Cytolytix intellectual property portfolio. Once granted, this second European patent will strengthen Cytolytix’s intellectual property position and the Directors believe affirms the investment in the innovative platform ValiRx has developed over the last few years.
Comment: As can be seen from today’s announcement, which is quite a chunky one, the market is well behind events as far as VAL is concerned. The implication of this is that the share price near year lows, and the market cap of £2m are well below what they should be given the progress the company is making, especially on the patent front.
Tertiary Minerals plc (TYM) announced the completion of the Phase 4 drill programme at Target A1, Mushima North Project in Zambia (“Mushima North” or the “Project”) and new preliminary results from portable X-Ray Fluorescence (“pXRF”) analysis of drill samples. Not all pXRF results are available yet and while they remain subject to confirmation by certified analysis, the results obtained to date appear to support the previously reported near surface Exploration Target of 15-30 million tonnes at 40-60 g/t silver equivalent and also the presence of a higher-grade mineralised zone. Mushima North is located in the prospective Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold region of Zambia. Target A1 is a polymetallic, silver-copper-zinc prospect located 28km to the east of the historic Kalengwa copper-silver mine which is currently under redevelopment.
Comment: Given that TYM is supposed to be the new Great Western (GWMO), or is it Guardian Metal (GMET), or perhaps Kendrick (KEN), today’s announcement is just what the doctor, or more accurately, stock promoter ordered. Above the 50 day moving average at 0.06p, the shares remain in recovery mode.
Thruvision Group plc (THRU), a leading provider of walk-through security technology announced that its principal regional partner in Asia has been awarded a contract to deploy Thruvision’s technology across multiple major airports in South-East Asia. The deployment, focused predominantly on airport worker screening and insider-threat mitigation, is expected to generate more than £3 million of revenue for Thruvision.
Comment: Apart from terrorists, we all like a bit of walk-through security, and THRU has been in the frame for an announcement such as today’s for some months. One would presume that given that the shares have been drifting for quite some time, and it is a chunky contract, we should see some decent fireworks for the share price. 1p plus would be nice in coming days.
Strip Tinning Holdings plc (STG), a leading supplier of specialist connection systems to the automotive sector, is pleased to report that it has been successful in the governments DRIVE35 funding programme, facilitated by the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC); “automotive R&D, scale-up, and transformation”. This grant award of £3 million from Innovate UK and the APC will be key to helping the Company scale its UK manufacturing capability, develop specialist skills and deliver Cell Contacting System technology to key partners around the world. The successful award of this grant combined with the Company’s own funding provides the resources needed to meet expected demand from existing contracts in 2027 and beyond together with a platform for further growth. For the grant funding to be committed, the project start up requirements need to have been met and the grant offer letter received.
Comment: A second lottery ticket win for a small cap company in one day, what is the world coming too? Next we shall have Premier African (PREM) getting taken over by Rio Tinto (RIO), or a JV between Tern (TERN) and Microsoft (MSFT).
Xtract Resources Plc (XTR) provided an update on development activities at the Amghas antimony project in north-west Morocco. The Company has appointed a local mining contractor and a local civil works contractor to advance site preparation, mine access and infrastructure works ahead of the delivery, construction and commissioning of a planned 70,000 tonnes per annum gravity processing plant for run-of-mine material.
Comment: Morocco appears to be the new postcode of choice as far as explorer / developers on the London stock market at the low market cap end. XTR has been keen to finesse its footprint there, in what is a relatively untouched, but major mining jurisdiction.
Kendrick Resources (KEN) provided further portable X-ray fluorescence (“pXRF”) analytical results reporting high LREO grades over substantial mineralised package widths from diamond drill holes TKDD014 to TKDD018 at the Teufelskuppe (“TK”) Project. High-grade results derived from one hole (TKDD014) intersecting LREO mineralisation in the TK4 sill, two holes (TKDD015 & TKDD017) drilled into the TK1 dyke mineralised structure, one hole (TKDD016) intersecting mineralisation in the TK5 sill and one hole (TKDD018) targeting the TK7 sill. All mineralised bodies intersected significant mineralisation of continuous package widths ranging from 36.75m to 10.50m including 2.24 wt% LREO over 36.75m, 2.87 wt% LREO over 33.75m and 4.77 wt% LREO over 19.25m.
Comment: KEN continues to make decent operational progress, which it is keen to deliver to the stock market. This is not surprising as we and the company are presumably waiting for the next big push in the great 2026 share price re-rate that we have already been treated to.
Bluebird Mining Ventures Ltd (BMV), the gold streaming, mining and treasury company, provided the following operational update for July 2026. During the month, the Company continued to focus on the development of its streaming business and the disciplined management of its treasury.
Comment: Alas, it really does not matter what the company says as there is currently a contract out on the CEO from the stock market mafia. One is talking figuratively of course, well, kind of. Not the sort of thing one would want to happen if one was the CEO of a listed company, or otherwise, as it would perhaps spoil years of hard work.
Pensana (PRE) CEO Tim George was one of the few international mining executives invited to a private briefing with the President of the United States Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior State Department officials which outlined the Administration’s support for establishing independent U.S. supply chains for rare earths and other critical minerals. The Administration’s stated objective is to secure reliable, non-Chinese supply of the rare earth elements underpinning defence systems, electrification, robotics and automation. Pensana was invited as one of the limited number of international developers of scale, positioned in the near term to supply rare earths to the U.S. and allied nations.
Comment: Although the Trump initiative will help PRE, if it happens, as he is very unreliable these days, the main thing as we found out last week is that the company is set to benefit from rather more reliable funding from our Qatari friends. Even crackpot commentators have spotting the potential here, Paul Atherley’s presence notwithstanding.
Aurrigo International plc (AURR), a leading international provider of transport technology solutions, announce that it has been awarded £1.43m in grant funding from the UK Government to investigate how autonomous vehicles can be used to make airports safer. The company will use the CAM Pathfinder grant to deploy its Auto-Shuttle® vehicles to complete several routine tasks, including performing security patrols, perimeter inspections and the review of runway and taxiway surfaces for cracks, wear or loose objects that can cause serious damage to an aircraft. The grant forms part of the UK Government’s £150 million CAM Pathfinder programme, delivered by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade in partnership with Zenzic and Innovate UK. All UK Government grant funding is subject to HMG approval.
Comment: Presumably, the government has managed to get all this spare cash from the £100k a year tax trap, or is it VAT on school fees? Nevertheless, being on the government gravy train is great for AURR, and a loose object on the runway for the Air France Concorde Flight 4590 crash would presumably have been avoided with the Auto-Shuttle® vehicles.
Cadence Minerals plc (KDNC) announced that refurbishment of the Azteca processing plant at the Amapá Iron Ore Project has progressed from 77% to 87% weighted physical completion since the Company’s announcement of 27 July 2026. The programme continues to target operational readiness by the end of August 2026. Commercial operations and shipments remain subject to successful commissioning and receipt of the Operating Licence.
Comment: Given the way that we are looking at “operational readiness” by the end of this month, it does seem a little unfair that KDNC shares recently halved from their May 8p peaks. Presumably, there will be somethnig of a charm offensive in coming weeks, starting here in this mention, to attempt to rectify the situation?
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.
