Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 19 Mar 2025) - POS, FTC, SQZ, SCT, MNG, FDM, JDG, SAG

19th Mar by Graham Neary

58 comments 6213 reads

Good morning! The Agenda is now complete.

In macro news, the main item today is a Federal Reserve interest rate decision at 6pm (UK) / 2pm (Eastern Time), when the Fed is expected to hold rates at 4.5%.

News filtering is here! Stockopedia has a brand new News Feed. Check out the release notes here.

Today's DSMR is finished, thank you.

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) (£79.7bn)	Statement: AGM resolution	Rio explains why it recommends shareholders oppose a resolution to unify its dual-listed structure.
M&G (LON:MNG) (£5.3bn)	Full Year Results	Adj operating profit +5% to £837m, operating capital generation -6% to £933m. New progressive dividend policy, dividend +2% to 20.1p. Net flows negative	AMBER/GREEN (Graham) Very confident noises by management today and they have increased their cost target by another £10m to £230m. I'm a fan of many aspects of this business but it is a little more complex than other fund managers and does have some very heavy adjustments applied to these results. On that basis I hold back from taking an outright positive stance.
Softcat (LON:SCT) (£3.2bn)	Half-year Report	2024 rev +17%, op profit +10%. 2025: H1 slightly ahead, now exp >10% FY25 op profit growth.	GREEN (Roland) A strong set of figures as this IT reseller continues to win new customers and persuade existing customers to spend more. Upgraded full-year guidance today suggests momentum remains strong. I think this may justify a positive view, despite a fairly full valuation.
Alpha International (LON:ALPH) (£1.0bn)	Full Year Results	Rev +23%, organic +20%. Adj PBT +10%, margin 35%. +ve momentum, confident outlook.
Serica Energy (LON:SQZ) (£542m)	Triton FPSO update	Repairs taking longer than expected. Prod not exp restart before May (prev mid-late Mar).	AMBER/GREEN (PINK) [no section below] (Roland holds) The rusty old Triton is still causing trouble, limiting SQZ’s production. It’s not good news and Serica is working with operator Dana to improve matters. However, I think a more material factor for shareholders at the moment is whether a mooted combination with North Sea rival Enquest goes ahead. My hope is that 25% SQZ shareholder Mercuria will ensure a decent deal in any negotiations. Under takeover code rules, a decision is due on 4 April.
Ferrexpo (LON:FXPO) (£489m)	Full Year Results	Rev +43% due to volumes, EBITDA -30% on lower iron ore prices. Net…

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ezlifeme

19th Mar

ken Re Cavendish (LON:CAV, one insurmountable red flag for me on any Share, thanks for sharing.

A big negative is that Cavendish (LON:CAV) seems to be run for the benefit of the Directors ahead of their shareholders, with profits so far largely swallowed up by Managerial rewards.

Silver Moon

Directors asleep at the wheel, running out of road? I don't hold Cavendish but it's a funny thing, I checked out Wishbone Gold (LON:WSBN) earlier today. It's suspended whilst seeking easier loan arrangements but when I sold out in 2020 at 1.566 pence/share I lost 96.5% of my investment and now the last price was 0.18 pence so it's away with red flags for me.

yadi

Mello 2025

June is a good month for meetings.

Mello is like a Stockopedia AGM!

I meet so many familiar names and it’s great that Ed , Graham, Roland,, Paul, Megan are there along so many brilliant contributors from the community.

The more , the merrier!

boringchess

Looks almost like they're trying to beat it up enough to take it private and put back on the market for huge personal profit after staging a "turnaround"

zho

Decent presentation, in which Gordon and Fraser fleshed out the logic behind changing the revenue model.

Signing the Mexico contract took getting on for two years from initial discussions but much of that time was spent waiting for “budgets to be unlocked”. If they'd had the revenue sharing model in place then Mexico would have been up and running ages ago and they “would probably have extended the contract” by now.

So revenue sharing should enable Beeks to convert their pipeline to contracts faster, perhaps saving 6 months or so for each exchange, as well as (hopefully) increasing revenues from each Exchange Cloud contract by about a third.

They also mentioned that Mexico was the “largest initial order we've ever had”.

Pimlico on Thames

New "news filter"

No comments, so I thought I'd give my thoughts.

Generally positive as it allows suppression of all those share buy backs and the corporate action notification chaff.

From a presentation point, I'd rather have a wider columns for "company" and "announcement" text by removing "Price" from header of Price chg on day, with the header right aligned.

One thing that has always stuck me as an oversight on the Today page is the lack of a Risers/Fallers option for the Stock Rank Movers table. Surely it's just as important so see which of your stock picks have soured or gone rogue, as see those elevated to hero status?

Bouden54

Agree, very positive overall and great to remove all those pesky takeover forms. However, the preset filters appear to filter out some quite important news. Just one example, it filtered out today's placing announcement from Plexus (not a holder, but one I watch out of curiosity) - this came under 'other' so I have removed that filter and will probably need to change a few others.

Chrisfarrell21

Yes, I posted on this Monday Ken, in response to Topvest pointing out MHA's IPO. I think things could be starting to look up:

"Hi Topvest, yes I saw the MHA one (hadn't seen the other one). I'm interested because Cavendish (LON:CAV) is the broker on both of them, and on the MHA one (which is the much bigger of the two) it is nominated adviser, bookrunner and broker, with a placing and retail offer.

Given it seems to be the IPO market that makes these brokers most of their money, maybe this will mark the turning point in their financial performance. I have a small holding and want to buy more, but (call me picky) I want to see the share price momentum stop going downwards first.

Cheers

Chris

P.S. (edited this) they also did the RC Fornax (LON:RCFX) IPO at the beginning of Feb this year, which was only another small one (£6m raise) but every little helps those poor investment bankers. "

And yes, whilst these are indeed investment bankers, they would at some point have to make some profits for shareholders, as their shareholders (including Vin Murria, a venture capitalist, and a Baron no less!) are not going to accept no returns.

There should be a trading update out in early April (going on last year's RNS), so the outlook statement in that will be all important.

sharw

The 'News Filter' - you say no comments but there are 43 comments on the post about it:

https://www.stockopedia.com/pr...

I find it useful to come in to the Daily Stock Market Report via

https://www.stockopedia.com/di...

otherwise you miss all the other posts.

ken mitchell

I remember your post now you’ve referred to it Chris. Lots of Companies have greedy Directors.

What I find odd is when investors and posters cite just one negative as a reason for not buying a share, like earlier this week when people posted that they wouldn’t buy Marks and Spencer (LON:MKS) because they didn’t like the clothes offering for men.

There are plus and minus points for every share and I look at the investment case as a whole and rarely use just one reason for not buying a share, or for buying it.

Time will tell with Cavendish (LON:CAV) but is there a chance of a better than expected trading update coming? It’s more likely than a profits warning.

Harry Hindsight

I started a comparison withComputacenter (LON:CCC) (not great lost on Value Health (Piotroski F) but then looked at the chart - I call it a God Candle (very bullish). Looked up a Mr Peter David John Kelly. Holds peanuts relative to MC but 32%. Interesting guy. But as us all time to hang up the hat and tax plan for the offspring (or not :).

One to watch and thanks for flagging up.

“Tentatively” add, maybe the yanks are looking for escape boats. Time will tell, I certainly have no clue.

jonno

Nice to see Zotefoams (LON:ZTF) get some recognition for a change. Up 12% on relatively high turnover.

I suspect that the rise is simply a recovery from what in my view is and remains an oversold position. The shares remain too cheap in my opinion.

I bought on the positive trading update in January at around 315p and watched with surprise as the price fell to 262p or thereabouts. I added recently around 267p so pleased with today's rise, as for tomorrow...no idea!

Good thing about Stocko is can do a quick check on a company. 101% margin and no red on the metrics and a good Stock Rank of 70. What’s wrong? Director sale ok tax etc peanuts. But no buying, as you say below the radar. So many, so little time.

Boohoo

Apologies. Long day. Red wine. This is a wealth management site not main stream media.

Dieselhead2

Hi Jonno, there was an RNS out this afternoon saying Schroders had increased their position by about another 7 or 8% more from their previous holding. They now own over 15%. I suspect this may have been due to the Capital Markets Day yesterday. Looking good....

Lochinver

I like Gordon too, it’s good to see someone who is so focussed on the future of his business

A strong character and a major shareholder. I wonder who in the company is a foil to that kind of dominance ? Clearly not the FD who I’m sure is very competent - but ultimately he’s junior and a yes man .

It’s a bit of a recipe for potential pitfalls

I would also add that Gordon has been going through a divorce. Obviously I don’t know the details and I don’t want to know, but these things can scramble your brain for a couple of years at least. From my unfortunate experience .

There are multiple warning signs over Beeks now in my view ….And I’ve not even got into this weeks market update ….!

murrb

Schroders has simply added back the quantity they sold at the end of January, presumably sold into a small short lived spike and bought back at a cheaper price yesterday/day before? #ZTF

Jon F

20th Mar

Hi Ian,

The announcement from Serica Energy (LON:SQZ) states that a return of capital is envisaged as part of the deal. Going forwards, who knows? I haven't really looked at Enquest (LON:ENQ), but it does seem to me that they need considerable development investment, so perhaps the dividend will reduce in a combined entity. The deal does make a lot of sense to me, Enquest (LON:ENQ) have tax breaks, Serica Energy (LON:SQZ) have cash for development and this move would take them away from their UK focus.

Regards,
Jon

Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 19 Mar 2025) - POS, FTC, SQZ, SCT, MNG, FDM, JDG, SAG

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Graham Neary

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