Hello again, raw. Fair enough - I try only to be 'dry' with my...

Hello again, raw. Fair enough - I try only to be 'dry' with my comments (rather than sardonic) but I don't always succeed. Forgive me if I caused you displeasure or even distress; I don't react well to people who proclaim they KNOW what will happen in the future, with the sole intent of putting others off, particularly when some of their proclamations don't accord with the facts. I tend to base my comments on a reasonable understanding of things like accounts and cash flow statements and the possibilities (I don't say probabilities) they signify. I know that's the wrong approach and I'm working on it - it's share price that counts; I've been taught that here and I'm grateful. I have also seen the effects that irrational behaviour (aka panic) can have on otherwise reasonably intelligent people like bankers (ok - that's a wild exaggeration) when they've pooped themselves. It restricts their flexibility and can cause discomfort around the part of their anatomy they use most often to think with.

I have to correct you, raw. Despite my age I don't yet 'dribble'. I think you mean 'drivel'?

Please don't be unfair - I'm bruised too. I bought my first tranche of shares at $2.55 - a week or so before the price fell off a cliff (what was the name of that class action firm again?) but aren't as despondent as you about the situation, despite my average being 87c. I bought too many when the price was $2.50 after noting that 16% of the share cap had been sold short according to the register, when there were only 10% of total shares in the hands of funds and institutions. So I erroneously thought it would be impossible to borrow any more and where had the extra 6% come from anyway - individuals don't lend shares. Internet brokers maybe - surely not?

I digress. I've seen a lot of examples of over-reaction to what seem to be fundamental problems to a company at the time, but which turn out not to be terminally damaging in the end. It's amazing what a transition from cash burn to cash generation can do to sentiment. "Cash is king" is not a saying that should be used lightly. It is startlingly accurate. It is not so much the amount of debt any company has that is important. It is the ability to service and reduce it that usually counts, even if debt reduction is slow to start with.

I don't by any means always call situations correctly - more often than not my timing is not good, because I have an unfortunate habit of thinking there will be fair and I can quickly find myself swimming against the tide (as I and others are doing here). Sometimes the current is too strong but mostly it weakens on positive news and I'm able to get to shore. Price is only the result of supply and demand and if more people think differently to me than agree, I'm up the creek without a paddle, in the short term at least, which doesn't particularly worry me when I'm on my 275ft yacht (bloody staff are damned expensive). My faith in fundamentals prevailing in the end has been steadily eroded by the increasing interference in this commendable theory by pension funds and other institutions, who use shares beneficially owned by private individuals who have no idea of what is going on, much less have given their explicit consent to the practice, to establish short positions that cannot possibly benefit the beneficial owners because they cause destruction of value. Sheer volume of shorting activity (SGH's entire share capital in five trading sessions for instance) can only cause the shares to travel in one direction. Happily, my holding in SGH is by no means my largest - that accolade belongs to my 2.99% holding in Microsoft and 2.91% of Apple (I'm not quite sure which is worth most - maybe Apple? It varies). The 2.6% of Imperial Brands I own pays a decent dividend. There - I've just told a few fibs too. I don't have a yacht.

Please don't tell me shorting is good because it exposes weak companies (I'm not suggesting you're short here or that you ever engage in the practice - genuinely - and have I no problem with spread betting either, because it doesn't influence the market itself - or it wouldn't if spread betting firms didn't use the market to hedge their books); or that shorting provides liquidity, or that lending fees allow pension funds to charge less. Separately established derivatives markets would allow bets on share price direction to be placed - but of course this wouldn't allow participants to 'dope the horse' by dumping millions of shares into a market that can't absorb them, at the same time filling discussion boards like this with messages of 'no hope' and doom and despair. And of course, on the other side of the equation (perish the thought) although whoever is borrowing the shares has (at least in theory) to put up security, what of the position of someone wanting to go long? Actual cash has to be found. Liquidity? When was an illiquid share ever shorted? Pension funds reducing charges? Pull the other one - they bank the cash and pay it out in bonuses.

Governments love it. Regulation? What regulation? Why? It turns people's savings they can't tax into profit in the hands of the shorters and all those bonuses get taxed on top.

Cash is king. And I'm an optimist, which I learned on another board last night is defined as someone who steadfastly refuses to accept the seriousness of the situation he's facing. Can't knock it.

Rant over - where's that bridge?