Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 23 April 2025) - AGFX, PAY, BOWL, SRB, SUP, BAB, ABDP, SYS1, CRDA, TSLA, THG

Wed 6:05am by Graham Neary

35 comments 5250 reads

Good morning! The FTSE is set to open up by another >1% this morning, over 8400, as the recovery continues.

1pm: I'm wrapping this up for now, thanks everyone!

Companies Reporting

Name (Mkt Cap)	RNS	Summary	Our view (Author)
Reckitt Benckiser (LON:RKT) (£33.7bn)	Q1 Results	“We maintain our outlook for full year 2025 whilst recognising the more challenging macro outlook.”
Fresnillo (LON:FRES) (£7.7bn)	Q1 production report	Started 2025 in line. Full year guidance unchanged. Q1 silver production -8.4% vs Q1 2024.
Babcock International (LON:BAB) (£3.8bn)	Trading Update	FY March 2025 “strong”, rev £4.83bn (organically +11%), adj. operating profit £363m (+17%). Contracted backlog of £10.1bn at 31 Mar 25, versus £9.5bn at HY25.	AMBER/GREEN (Roland) [no section below] Today’s update confirms FY25 results should be largely as expected, with a modest improvement in margins. The FY26 outlook seems positive, with £1.8bn of recent contract wins highlighted. However, with valuations and backlogs up across the defence sector, I think a more interesting issue is whether companies will decide to invest material amounts in creating permanent new capacity. That’s a story for the coming year, perhaps. Right now, I’ve upgraded our view on Babcock by one notch to reflect its positive performance and High Flyer styling.
Croda International (LON:CRDA) (£3.8bn)	First Quarter Sales Update	Rev +8%, Q1 PBT in line. FY25 outlook unchanged, adj. PBT £265-295m (FY24: £260m). Local manufacturing is expected to mitigate tariff impact, but there will be a tariff surcharge for customers where needed.	AMBER (Roland) [no section below] I’ve been waiting a long while for signs that this chemicals group may have reached a turning point. I wonder if today could be that time. Reiterated FY25 guidance suggests a return to profit growth, after two years of declines. The Q1 update highlights sales growth in all three divisions, with improving factory utilisation. I wonder if Croda’s Falling Star styling could soon shift to a neutral or positive style. I’m going to take a neutral view today to reflect the forward P/E of 18 and macro risks, but I’m encouraged by this update.
Quilter (LON:QLT) (£1.9bn)	Trading Update	AUMA broadly unchanged during Q1 at £119.6bn. Net inflows £2.2bn offset by market declines.
Hochschild Mining (LON:HOC) (£1.6bn)	Q1 production report	Peru: solid performance. Argentina: easing of FX controls to improve cost position in long-term.
Ibstock (LON:IBST) (£688m)	Trading Update	Core…

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spmarriott

Wed 11:11am

Hi Bohemia, It’s not one new shareholder, but multiple institutions who bought via the standard book-building process. I’m not surprised by the discount it took to clear the block of shares as this is a volatile small-cap (albeit with a massive following tail wind from the gold price surge in the last year). I hold

yiannos1

Wed 11:17am

Cavendish (LON:CAV)

Whatever they make will eventually end in the pockets of the directors and employees. SBP of £1.5m in the interims for generating nothing!

Another pointless UK small cap listing run for the benefit of everyone except the shareholders. SP will continue to trade downwards with the odd uptick. The cash balance will deteriorate further.

All the best

Monty9

Wed 11:49am

I hold Argentex (LON:AGFX) and don't expect any return at this stage. I was intrigued by the summary dismissal of the Lumon advance - have IFX refused to engage unless they were given an exclusive period? or is the situation sufficiently acute they only have time to deal with one party?

The GBPUSD rate has fluctuated between 1.27 and 1.34 in the last couple of weeks, volatile but not bonkers. The only conclusion I can draw with any confidence is the business has been run with astonishing incompetence.

And what about the Deloitte, the auditor? Clean report signed 2 April 2025!

Monty Carlo

Wed 12:19pm

Auditor - do you have enough cash to meet margin calls in a stress scenario?

AGFX Risk Manager - do you mean initial margin or variation margin, cleared or non-cleared?

Auditor (scratching head) - all the margin you could be called for in a stress scenario...

AGFX Risk Manager - we have a risk model

Auditor - show me

AGFX Risk Manager - here it is, we bought it from a company whose name you will have heard of.

Auditor - do you do have a stress scenario for higher volatility?

AGFX Risk Manager - Yes - here is the report we ran last week....it says £10m is plenty

Auditor - you've rounded the MTM up to the nearest pound and we need you to round it down to match the accounts. Please correct that.

Auditor looks at bank statement, sees more than £10m, ticks box and moves on.

drsanjb

Wed 12:45pm

Does anyone know why TEAM PLC (TEAM) is up 49% today please? Thank you (I HOLD)

chelsea

Wed 1:02pm

I bet the Chairman is not happy either.. bought £120,000 on the apr 11 and other directors bought in April also!

Silver Moon

Wed 1:42pm

So a tempory set-back then and in the case of Serabi Gold (LON:SRB) some profit-taking must have taken place as well. Having held Serabi for some time today's share price has hit my stop loss so I top-sliced Rightmove (LON:RMV) to buy some more. There is nothing quite like being a Contrarian.

JSLDUK

Wed 1:49pm

Ah I’ve miss read this not a rights issue but a share sale - but why such a negative reaction today if shares are just changing hands.

The Phoenix

Wed 2:25pm

Thats kind of my thoughts John all be it with current US carnage not sure if PE types will be opening their wallets until things settle down (hopefully).

sharw

Wed 2:38pm

Supreme (LON:SUP)

Not a very good market reaction to an in line statement. Roland suggests "..perhaps because today’s unchanged guidance implies an earnings fall in FY26". However that fall was already in the figures so my guess is that we have had a number of "above expectations" statements in the past so being just in line was a disappointment for some.

The Zeus report left numbers little changed as did that from Equity Development that you can read here. They also retained their Fair Value of 225p/share.

Lochinver

Wed 2:40pm

Very good , MC !

I have very little idea what Argentex (LON:AGFX) does, or how they do it. As a lifelong manufacturing specialist, its not a sector I have any knowledge or understanding of.

But I am very interested in learning from the calamitous situation it has found itself in. Can anyone please explain to me, in laymen's terms, what has gone wrong here ?

The company says it has “been exposed to significant volatility in foreign exchange rates ”. Have they really been that volatile ? Personally I only keep an eye on the dollar and euro and, although there have been movements in the dollar, they dont appear to be much different to what has frequently happened over the last 25 years or so ?

Also, could other companies also be facing similar situations to argx ?

jonno

Wed 2:53pm

Judging by the share price of several UK small caps, Mr Market appears to have his sunglasses on this afternoon. It is something Donald said or the tenuous possibilty of a real cease fire in the tragedy that is Ukraine, or just the usual market gyrations?

af20001

Wed 2:55pm

The stock market rally comes after Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon — after the market closed — he has “no intention” to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell despite repeatedly criticizing him and threatening his job security throughout the past two weeks.

The president also told reporters he likely would slash the 145 percent import tax rate he imposed on Chinese goods, and voiced optimism in a trade pact with Beijing.

“145 percent is very high. It won’t be that high, it’s not going to be that high … it won’t be anywhere near that high,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. “It will come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.”

Tortoise investor

Wed 3:01pm

I agree with that concern yiannos1 - SBP basically absorbed all the adjusted PBT in the most recent results. BUT in the good years the share can still multi-bag. In 2019 Finncap made 2.56p of EPS, 4.8p in 2021, 4.5p in 2022 (still comparable EPS figures despite the merger because Finncap and Cenkos effectively were the same market cap). From this level you could be looking at a 4-5 bagger despite the ridiculous share-based payments.

Wed 3:22pm

A £150m market cap with the yearly dilution and the cash burn?

EPS is a manipulated metric that means nothing in real life; especially for companies that are being run for the directors.

Cavendish (LON:CAV) will be something close to zero as the AIM shares and in general the UK small cap will vanish.

Douglas1971

Wed 5:07pm

Afternoon Jonno, have you got any views on the small SP dip of Sabre Insurance (LON:SBRE) which i think by memory you hold too. I can see it’s gone Ex Div but is there something I have missed?

Wed 5:24pm

People really do misunderstand what the job of an auditor is - yes they should test internal controls, but verifying that a stochastic VAR model at a small firm is in the hands of a suitably competent individual, and is being fed with the right data, is really asking rather a lot.

Have a look at what I posted yesterday for a less flippant take on the situation:

https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

WDWombat

Wed 5:45pm

Hollywood Bowl BOWL - well this is a trading update and we really want to see the full interim results but it seems to me that the business is sound, that they are progressing both in the UK and (especially) Canada, and that the drop in the stock price makes the company look pretty cheap. Note that they should again be achieving a decent double digit RoCE. Personally I don't see the need for any further share buybacks (nor do I for any UK companies in fact). I shall be disappointed if we don't see some institutions recognising that despite two awful years during the coronavirus pandemic the company has increased its net profit by more than 70% over the past five years (subject to final figures!). Seems a good value steady eddie to me. (I have a few).

Wed 6:27pm

Thanks Monte C , I’m beginning to get it

I am right in thinking that AGTX have borrowed money from someone to fund buying an asset ( something to do with FX) . The value of that asset has fallen for whatever reason (to do with the Trump nonsense) , and now the funder is demanding AGTX pay more money into their account to cover that shortfall. And in this case, that shortfall is so big that AGTX simply doesn’t have the funds to cover it ? Plus the funder has the rights to take any asset it wants from AGTX to cover itself

Have I got that right ?

Finally ( sorry to be a pain ) what was it, do you think, that caused the business to fall over the edge so abruptly over the last days or week ?

It all reminds me of that excellent film Margin Call !!

Many thanks for your help MC, it’s always really great to have someone who knows something about which I know very little !

Thanks again

eggbaconandbubble

Wed 6:33pm

Mr Neary - I'm a bit disappointed - No write up on Finseta (LON:FIN)

Daily Stock Market Report (Wed 23 April 2025) - AGFX, PAY, BOWL, SRB, SUP, BAB, ABDP, SYS1, CRDA, TSLA, THG

Companies Reporting

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Graham Neary

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