Sunday, January 28, 2007

Zyzygy

God and religion have featured much in my recent musings but unfortunately,
mammon cannot be excluded from human lives, especially
those of pensioners, where all too often, poverty and unhappiness
follow after a lifetime of toil.

For self employed people in the UK, providing for pensions in old age
is harder than for many. One has to use self employed income
for everyday living but then twice a year, to dig deep to pay what
seems like a huge % of money, that has not even been received from
clients/customers yet, to the government for its over sized tax spending.
This leaves little left over for investing for old age. Unfortunately
to make a little money into a large sum, often entails investing risks.
Pevious generations used to advise private individuals to diversify their investments
as regards shares anyway, over a large wide spread.
This advice may still hold good but I'm currently wondering if thoroughly researching
into a companywhose services etc meet my personal ethical criteria yet are appreciated/needed by society and whose finances and management seem good; then putting a good % of the available savings into that,
is more likely to propel my savings to the multi% gain level needed for old age
than the traditional wide but thin investment spread?

This like any other "all eggs in one basket" aspect of life, creates some obvious
difficulties. Less obvious are those illustrated by my letter this week to the
editor of a personal investment magazine, about a company called
ZYZYGY which is listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM section (epic: ZYZ).
The letter read:

"Zyzygy is an AIM listed microcap investment company.
Its December 2006 results showed profits
more than doubled to £1,058,000 and a maiden dividend paid.

A significant Zyzygy investee is Nicetech ltd, about which the December results
stated: "NiceTech have now secured their first major contract with an internationally
renowned media corporation, as well as having produced their
first on-linecomputer game which will soon be available for sale to the public."

No mention in any investing media, not even ...Magazine, of these great results
and with flotations of Nicetech and another Zyzygy investee Marinetrack (ship
security and tracking company) expected in the first half you (or I anyway)
would have expected the shareprice to go up. Instead it has fallen, to
0.39p to buy. I've been adding at this price. Profitable dividend paying
companies listed on AIM ,are quite uncommon these days so why
are Zyzygy's results not considered at all newsworthy for investors?"

The problem that I did not forsee is that in the world of shares,
sometimes what is fashionable and in the public eye seems to
make for a better investment than an almost unknown company
the shares of which languish at the foot of the alphabetical lists.

Still, patience is another investing virtue so maybe in times ahead,
I'll have some 'reaping reward to those who wait' type news to
muse over.

No investment advice intended and anyone interested in shares
investing should always do and rely upon their own research.

5 comments:

  1. Sharecrazy's Joanna was good enough to post the letter on the SC site as it appeared in this week's edition of the magazine; with the editor Jeremy Lacey's quip in response reading:

    Editor replies: With the huge
    number of stocks now listed on
    Aim, it’s impossible to report on
    all the results and sometimes
    interesting ones slip through.
    Thank you for bringing Zyzygy to
    the attention of fellow-readers,
    Jerry."

    "

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thursday and Friday saw some hectic activity in
    ZYZ share trading with panic selling at very low prices followed by some opportune buying
    but ending up all square. The buyers seem to have the edge so I hope that there will be some news soon
    to reward those who have held
    ZYZ shares for longer than a day or two.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good to see the involvement of the BBC announced on the 9th February:

    "Zyzygy plc is pleased to announce that NiceTech Limited, in which it holds a 41
    per cent. interest, has been awarded a contract to develop a massively
    multiplayer online game, Tronji, that has been commissioned by the BBC. This is
    the contract with an internationally renowned media corporation referred to in
    the Company's annual report and accounts for announced on 22 December 2006.

    The full text of the announcement released by Ragdoll Worldwide Ltd (a joint
    venture between award-winning children's television producer, Ragdoll, and BBC
    Worldwide) is appended below..."

    ReplyDelete
  4. And wonders will never cease
    ZYZYGY is tipped in today's
    Investors' Chronicle as a "speculative buy". Good article as well. IC must be quite influential as some 19million
    ZYZ shares traded whereas often there are hardly more than a couple of thousand.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well I had written this lot off to experience following ZYZ's delisting from LSE AIM market.
    Just possibly though all may not be lost as the
    ZYZ board have consolidated the shares and are
    now talking of new investment and re-listing on the small London PLUS market.

    ReplyDelete

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