The Weekend Rebel Review, June 7, 2025
No subheading cos I can't think of one!
This is just some thoughts, it isn't investment advice or incitement to buy in any way, just my views - please do your own thorough research. I’m not an analyst, I’m just a private investor looking after my own money. Nothing I do or say is meant as advice or should be taken as such. Here I publish my ideas and research that I have done and discuss the way I invest. Anything written here needs to be verified for its accuracy. Assume any stock I write about I likely own, so my views are biased. Inevitably I will get things wrong, everyone is responsible for their own decision making and what they buy and sell. Subscribing and reading this article means you accept the above and you take full responsibility for your own actions and decisions. Small Cap stocks can be illiquid and very hard to sell at times when demand is weak so caution is required.
Expect some spelling mistakes – I’m dyslexic and in a rush to get this out on a Friday so a bit of a task at times.
Well the Trump, Musk spat certainly made the headlines and caused a bit of market turmoil for some. Trump is going to have to learn that you destroy your supporters at your peril. He has another 3.5 years as President and will need supporters to get his way going forward, he isn’t going to be able to sign executive orders at will for much longer with the courts involved and supporters like Musk and the state of California putting up a fight imo. The markets have stayed very calm though. Is the market getting to sus him out and realising he blusters and then backs down? Wherever this goes, he’s here for nearly 4 more years so markets need to learn to live with it.
In the UK, Rachael Reeves has announced her new spending plans. She seems to have planted a money tree and must have been over-dosing it on Miracle Grow. It seems to be all back end spend on the hope that saying this will happen will stimulate growth. If we get down the line and they don’t have the cash to pay for it I suspect they’ll cobble together som ‘private finance initiative’ like Brown cobbled together to pay on the never never. Meanwhile, economic data for the month showed that apart from construction, her growth plan was failing, over the past month at least.
All this political smokescreen stuff creates opportunities though, Identifying those co’s that investors will perceive likely to do well, before the shares do the bulk of their moving, can be a decent trade. After the Trump/Musk tiff it is good to remember it is all too easy at times to panic and sell out if you hold stocks that are affected. When shares dive it’s easy to sell and cut your losses. It may be the right thing to do at times but in the majority of events, if I have sold while the market panicked I have soon seen the share price above where I sold at. I sell out when others are not selling usually, when I see something in the market that spooks me. Selling into a rush of sells isn’t normally my style. At the very least, if I want to sell I try to sell into intraday strength, those little bounces that you get while everyone panics, but I nearly always buy and sell in tranches to average in and average out. If you were one of those that panicked and sold FTC down at the low 120’s then saw the shares bounce to 145 Tuesday morning then I’m sorry if you got hit. Just remember, stuff like this is also a learning experience and helps you sort noise from fundamentals in future when it inevitably will happen again with a share. One good reason for trading with money you can afford to lose is that you can panic less. When shares fall there isn’t that ‘I’m going to lose money that’s important to me’ moment and you can stay more calm. 25 years ago I was trading with money I couldn’t really afford to lose but knew I was taking a risk so always kept every holding below 5% of my portfolio, unless it one-bagged so fast as to take me well over. When you are a bit more financially secure you can stay more rational. Inevitably, most of these ‘airey’ moments calm down after short term noise and you can usually sell out at a better price if you still want to. I try always to sell in 3-4 tranches, possibly into intraday firmness relatively, then you average the sell price which is nearly always better than dumping the lot in one go. Try having a look at the past chart too. When you see a general up-trend and lots of small pull back you can usually see a larger long term picture and realise in the larger scheme of things, today’s fall is nothing out of the normal on the longer term charts and regular pull backs.
Shipping prices stabilised this week:
While Fear/Greed has been stuck at this level for two weeks, although expect it has dropped after Israel’s strike on Iran – sadly CNN site wasn’t up and running Friday morning.so this was the Thursday number.
Meanwhile the Russell 2000 Small Cap Index is up 25% from the low:
The VIX has hopped up to 21 but it’s a mild reaction imo.
At the middle of the week, Aim was up 25% from the low, in just over 2 months:
I won’t post the charts but all the small cap indexes continue their break outs to new recent highs. The FTSE250 is nearly last July’s high and the FTSE100 is nearly at an all time high – all very positive for UK stocks. But as ever reality always bites you on the Rs when you least expect it. Israel bombed Iran on Thurs night, hitting their nuclear installations. Iran will retaliate and things will likely escalate. There are the things that you have to live with when investing, try not to panic, accept there will likely be short term dips but they will likely also be buying opportunities. With the Indian Airline crash too, that will likely be a bit of bad sentiment for airlines if the oil price rises. Try to stay rational imo. Look back at the long term indexes like the FTSE100 and you will see since Covid, all the big events since then meld into the chart such as Ukraine and eventually we move on again.
A little tip – when the market is selling off heavy and indiscriminately – have a look and see what is going up or what turns positive first. That gives you a good clue as to what is in demand in my opinion. You can get a few good leads and ideas from that. Trading has heavy costs that whittle your gains away, you cannot keep pulling your carrots up to see if they are growing, if you want prize vegetables.
On to stocks
Very little news as far as all stocks go this week, let alone the ones I regularly watch and what there was could be briefly summarised. The summer often is low on news while everyone enjoys the sun. Two things I’d say about that is make the most of the quietness if you can as it rarely lasts that long. Second would be stay alert. When the market goes quiet and everyone skives off in the sun, that’s when great little bits oets overlooked by many and creates an opportunity.
I omitted last weekend to mention Avon Technologies (AVON)’s entry into the FTSE250. Promotion for stocks usually has a positive catalyst but it’s complicated by mid caps and small cap funds selling to rebalance and often by traders that my have bought ahead of the game and sell into strength. Either way, promotion is a good thing and gets a stock on the radar of far more investors.
M&S (MKS)got the majority of its website back up and running this week and the rest should follow before long. That leaves their logistics to get sorted. I know the stores are doing lot of ordering manually and ending up with far too much of some stuff and too little of other goods. I hope they are renewing their IT system that needed upgrading while they do this and kill 2 birds with one stone. They are insured for part of the costs but there will be a hit but this will all be exceptionals in forthcoming results. There is an old saying, ‘any publicity is good publicity’. I think when everything is done and dusted there will be a big advertising campaign and a PR push. The Brits love M&S in general, they are the poster-boy for UK retail. I’ve had people tell me they were going shopping at MKS to show support which I can’t imagine would happen for many UK retailers.
I noticed this week that the Rolex price chart seems to have now made a clear bowl and may be good for Watches of Switzerland but perhaps signals wider confidence in the global economy. Here is the 5 year chart and a 1 year chart, both having a bowly trend now imo.
A couple of interesting bits of Filtronic related news from last week
Virgin Atlantic plans superfast wi-fi that could be powered by Starlink
Airbus deal takes flight for Filtronic
https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/posts/airbus-deal-takes-flight-for-filtronic
But the real news was this:
This order is just £1m short of Filtronic’s entire H1 sales in 2025. I added more on Monday which was a tad lucky but you make your own luck in this game quite often, if you can sort noise from realty and ignore trader panic. Filtronics new automated headquarters has double the capacity of their old facility.
Nat Edington has a great pedigree and is doing a fab job here imo. Quality company? There are not many that hit these numbers on Stockopedia:
Before this order, sales were set to be more than double the £25.4m of last year @ £55m and they say they will exceed that – so 120% sales growth at least in 2026 should be on the cards. Very pleased with FTC personally but sorry for any that got spooked out on the trump/musk spat dive. By Thursday, FTC was making new 21 year highs. Is it just me but this stock feels like the nearest listed company we have to Arm Holdings when I look at the potential, UK global tech leader, etc. Filtronic’s mmWave technology enables faster speeds, lower latency, and greater capacity, essential for new applications with high network demand. Trading update for the year due in a week – powerful buying of the dip this week.
So that’s it, a quiet week but you can’t make things happen, I’m sure there will be some manic weeks ahead by way of compensation and balance. If you want more of a fix on share chat, I am doing a couple of live shows this week.
I will be doing the Mello Monday Bash on Monday evening, the show starts at 5pm, I’ll be on the Bash at 7pm, if anyone watches. If you want to watch the link is here:
Use code Rebel50 will give 50% off tickets. The event webpage can be found here: https://www.melloevents.com/mm160625
I will also be doing Vox Markets Live with Paul Hill at 10am on Tuesday. Lots of great bargain stocks to discuss. You can watch liver here at 1am Tuesday as we discus 15-20 odd interesting stocks and macro stuff:
Lastly – this has all been just my opinion. Do your research then you can feel more confident. It’s like packing your own parachute. I get things wrong too often.
Have a great weekend, I’ll be cooking Chinese alfresco tomorrow night for 8 friends, then more friends for a roast outside on Sunday - got to make the most of this weather and take time to smell the roses as they say.
I hope you really enjoy whatever your weekend brings.
Rebel
Twitter: @rebelHQ
Have you taken a look at GB Group, Rich? Looks decent value and a potential US PE takeover target...
Nice one Rich - Thanks as always - Have a great weekend