FTSE 100: Up 18%, AIM-All All Share: Up 8%
It would almost certainly be the case that if I was currently Prime Minister of Great Britain, I would be singing and dancing about the way that the FTSE 100 is making record highs every other day. Of course, we have a Labour government which is not big on wealth creation, growth companies, or of course, blokes in pinstripe suits wearing bowler hats. Therefore, the new all time high is almost embarrassing. Every point the leading UK index goes up is a victory for capitalism and a loss for socialism. Luckily for people who hate success, the cost of red tape and total failure of regulation (a failed concept anyway) has more of an effect in the small cap area. They are up only 8% so far this year, as compared to 18% for the FTSE 100. Even worse, while AIM may be up this year, it stands at 777, whereas its record high was back in 2000, at 2900.
How is it possible that after a quarter of a century, all the advances in technology, and increasing scarcity of resources, UK small caps are still in the bin? Well, the answer remains the same. It was difficult to achieve, but powers that be have managed it, and are no doubt very pleased with themselves. The narrative is that we have got to this position not through incompetence / negligence. It has been deliberate, and every day that people pay stamp duty on shares, and every day we continue to have incentives for people to invest tax free in foreign companies shows that the failure of AIM and small caps is wilful. And the reason it is wilful is that it is known the main source of wealth creation is the small cap space.
Luckily, 40 years after I got into this space this is not my problem. It is the problem for a new generation. Good luck. I am presuming you will leave the country, do something else, or nothing at all, rather than fight this particular hopeless battle.
Half Term / The Budget
It was noticeable this week, for those who are sensitive to such things, that there stock market was a little quieter than usual. This is even though arguably October is the busiest business month of the year. But whereas in the good old days one of the best things about working was having an excuse not to take the kids to Madame Tussauds, the zoo, Alton Towers et al to alleviate their out half term holiday boredom. It seems now people can apparently afford the luxury of taking a week off to spend time with the family despite the alleged cost of living crisis. It is in fact reassuring that people are doing well enough to take their foot off the peddle in such a way.
Of course, some of the slowdown could be due to fears / a lack of a commitment ahead of the second Rachel Reeves Budget next month. It is noticeable that we are being softened up / tested on a whole suit of sadistic (if you are a working person) ways of confiscating your cash. Apparently. Ms Reeves has not heard of the Laffer Curve and the way that beyond a certain level of taxation, the tax take goes down. Indeed, I had the pleasure of talking to the great man Dr Arthur Laffer, a sprightly 85 year old, who has graced the Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher and Trump administrations.
Ignoring the Laffer Curve would appear to be as foolish as being told you have a winning lottery ticket, and choosing to throw it in the bin. But while Laffer’s Curve are generally accepted as being a genius discovery, what even he and many have missed is that the likes of Reeves and many of her predecessors may have a different agenda to optimising tax take. Indeed, their desire is to make sure that as little tax as possible is raised, and as much debt as possible is built up. Indeed, we saw that from the first budget. However much any “black hole” is filled by raising tax, spending is doubled to compensate for this. We will no doubt see the same financial self-destruction next month. But as has been said here many times, the rush to economic destruction / wealth confiscation is deliberate. The only goal is to create failure on such a scale that ensures as many Labour voters as possible.
There is no other agenda than this. Alas for this government, and Karl Marx, the concept of Reform, left wing on economics, but right wing on social policy – essentially snapping the left-right split in politics was not thought of 200 years ago. Therefore Labour (old Labour) looks to be looking down the barrel, despite either paying for votes via welfare, or gerrymandering the population via immigration. We may also see in the wake of the next Budget, policies that are so unfair / draconian that aside from even more rich people leaving the country the first signs of a rebellion against over-taxation could be on the horizon.
Stocks Rising On News
As alluded to above, there were perhaps not as many rising stars this week as one might have expected. Therefore, those who did manage to avoid the no shows of half term are perhaps more commended to us than usual. First among these was perhaps ironically, Satsuma (SATS), the bitcoin treasury strategy and decentralised AI specialist. Here we heard a couple of months ago about the company’s £164m fundraise. But we have since heard of the £10m lost over the course of just one month. Such ructions understandably took their toll on the share price. However, this week the company continued its recent getting its act together moves. SATS said it was appointing BDO as auditor. An appointment follows the appointment of Andrew Smith as CFO announced on 14 October 2025 and the appointments of Canaccord Genuity and Latham & Watkins announced on 16 October 2025. All of this is apparently designed to get SATS ship-shape enough to uplist to the Official List. The result so far this week was a 60% share price rise.
Modular housing play Eco Buildings (ECOB) was up another 84%. This was part of a 4x rise for the shares over the past month, as the company does indeed become the Ikea of its space, a term that I believe I coined myself. The joy in the market re ECOB emanates from its Chilean contract (and the deposit for building it) which has a value of approximately €420 million and a total programme of 20,000 homes over seven years. Of course, this is impressive, although not as impressive as the 1.5m homes former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner promised to build. Perhaps the government should call ECOB?
As I stated in a Bulletin Board Heroes video during the week, I was not expecting or even wanting to be discussing the share price chart of inventory monetisation specialist SupplyMe Capital (SYME). This is of course a company which has been the victim of one of the most persistent ongoing personal and corporate defamation campaigns in recent small cap history. And of course, this has been delivered in the full knowledge that the company in question would not have the legal resources or the time to fight back even if the defamation was 100% false. It is difficult to decide whether this either a total failure of stock market regulation, or simply market abuse for shorting purposes? Either way, this week SYME will have given the bears something of a bloody nose as its shares returned to market with a near 2x share price rise. The trigger here was that the company received the final tranche of a $5.2m US funding facility.
Tooru (TOO) delivered a rather more conventional share price rebound, something which was flagged here on a charting as well as fundamental basis. The reason for the 56% rise on the week was the announcement that Juvela, its gluten free producer, has now increased the number of products that it currently lists in Tesco to eight under the OAF brand, with week-on-week growth being achieved. At the same time, the Company said it is in advanced discussions with regard to listing these products with other major supermarket chains. As we are aware, distribution is key in such rollout plays, and TOO appears to be on the right track in this respect.
Shares of Metals One (MET1) had been on the back foot since the metals exploration and development company revealed widened losses last month. This came after the famously / mysteriously large rally for the shares between February and May this year, from 2p to 50p plus. Now back at 4p, MET1 was up 37% on the week off the back of accelerated production news at its Chilalo Graphite Project in Tanzania, and a binding agreement to treat uranium waste dumps with DISA Technologies. Exciting stuff of course, but perhaps a retest of 50p plus may take a while unless those who delivered the rally chose to return.
Mila Resources Plc (MILA), the post-discovery gold exploration accelerator was up 36% on the week after the company announced that Alastair Goodship, Chief Operating Officer, has recorded an interview providing an overview of the Company’s recently completed diamond drilling programme at the Yarrol Gold Project in Queensland. The shares are up some 10x since the spring, and have been covered here on Zakstraderscafe.com from a technical perspective with surprising gusto. The current call is that above 1.7p the stock could hit former 2022 support at 2.75p as soon as the end of November.
Anyone in the space that Various Eateries (VARE) deserves a medal for bravery in the present hospitality sector destroying environment. It is the owner, developer and operator of restaurant, clubhouse and hotel sites in the United Kingdom, and during the week updated on trading for the 52-week period ending 28 September 2025. The Group expects full-year revenue of £52.4m (2024: £49.5m), +6% year on year and ahead of current market expectations of £50.7m. Profits are set to more than triple to £1.1m and the shares bounced 35%.
As a long suffering shareholder of Tap Global (AQSE:TAP) it has been difficult not to be disappointed by both the anaemic share price performance (through one of the greatest rallies in crypto) and the autistic PR skills to date of management. Indeed, this characteristic and the constant sell into strength of the shares (near 3p) is reminiscent of my shareholding in Audioboom (BOOM), where the equivalent sell into strength pattern recently happened above 700p. But while we wait for a massive premium deal at BOOM, or not, we saw a positive change at TAP. This came from not only the new Non Executive Chair buying shares, but also the announcement of an institutional Bitcoin Treasury Service. While this might sound about as useful as selling swimwear at a nudist colony, TAP was able to reveal a paying customer, London BTC Company, although we are yet to hear news on how much cash this initiative may generate. TAP shares rose 35% and even look at they could be capable of finally breaking key 3p resistance.
One of the things that I think should be ended as far as the stock market is concerned, is companies being forced to release an update to explain why the shares have gone up (so much). This is what we saw as far Mkango (MKA) the recycled rare earth magnets group at the behest of the Canadian version of the FCA, the CIRO. They would appear to be equally good at delivering stock market speeding tickets. Rather satisfyingly, MKA shares initially spiked to a new all time high of 85p.
Stocks Rising On No New News
It has taken a while for the market to cotton onto the opportunity that is Light Science (LST), a state of affairs that tends to be down to a company not necessarily knowing how best to set out its stall. Such situations are not usually helped by the plethora of sub-standard promotional platforms we have these days. However, the week before last the multi-pronged technology and manufacturing business spread over areas such as global food security and fire safety, provided an update highlighting the increasing global opportunity for its AgTech division. The company was looking forward to increasing the existing £45m pipeline in this division and saw its shares rise 34%.On October 13 Tialis (TIA), the mid-market network, cloud and IT Managed Services provider, announced that Ian Smith, a director of the Company, acquired 31,000 shares at 60p. It was clearly a wise move as TIA is now up to 82.5p.
Although Helium One (HE1) has been closer to its childing nickname of “Helium None” for much of its time on the stock market, the prospect of finally being able to wake up and sniff the stuff at least as far as its Galactica investment in Colorado in December is certainly a positive and the shares were up 25% this week. Just don’t mention Tanzania.
A month ago Asiamet Resources Limited (ARS) updated on its limestone resource drilling programme at the Rinjen prospect, approximately 12km north of Asiamet’s flagship BKM Copper heap leach project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. It would appear that the afterglow of the update is still supporting the share price and it rose 25%. One would presume that sentiment is being helped by the overall China blockage on critical metals / minerals and the need for developing fresh supply chains.
At the start of this month Europa Oil & Gas (EOG) said it has extended Phase 1 of the EG-08 production sharing contract. EOG said, “I am pleased to have secured the Ministers approval for this extension which will provide plenty of time to finalise the farm out process for EG-08, where we continue to make good progress. Concurrently, the technical team are working on detailed engineering plans for drilling the Barracuda prospect, which we hope to spud in 2026.” This was enough to deliver a 23% share price rise during the past week.
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.
