Special situation and microcap links

Tools for finding cheap stocks in the UK

These are links I find useful for two particular classes of investment: special situations and microcaps. I’m leaving out mainstream investments because those sites are numerous and easy to find.

Special situations

The Takeover Panel - Click on the ‘Disclosure Table’ link for a list of all current LSE bids. Shares magazine and the Saturday FT both publish lists with more info, such as the terms of the bid, but they tend to be incomplete. The first port of call for merger arbitrage.

Splits Online - A website produced by Fundamental Data, the gurus of the split capital investment trust sector. You can sort by wind-up date - useful for spotting trusts that will pay out soon - and they produce estimates of NAV based on market movements since the last announcement. As ever with data aggregators, it is best to check a number you plan to rely on, and anyone unfamiliar with the weakness of split capital analytics is advised to be careful.

Trustnet - The best site I know for investment trusts, venture capital trusts and closed-end vehicles in general. Sort by NAV discount to find potential wind-up targets.

Telegraph Share Screener- Compared to other countries the UK has a shortage of good, free, internet share screeners. This one is just about adequate, and a search for price-to-book of less than one is a good way to find asset value discounts and distressed securities.

Unquoted & microcaps

Data aggregators rarely bother with unquoted shares and microcaps so the only way to find good ones is to search. Places to start include:

Unquoted - I question the value of the analytics and research but this site has good coverage of PLUS-quoted shares.

PLUS Markets - After AIM, the biggest UK market for unquoted securities, and the best data source on those that it lists.

Sharemark- Small auction market for unlisted securities. I have written about Sharemark here and here.

JP Jenkins- The former parent of Plus (when it was called Ofex) is a stockbroker specialising in weird and wonderful unlisted securities. If you have some shares and no other means of selling them they are worth a call.

If you have other sites to recommend please post a comment.

November 5, 2007 | Filed Under Companies

 

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One Response to “Special situation and microcap links”

  1. Top 10 Links « bert frenso on November 8th, 2007 4:57 pm

    […] Special situation and microcap links: Tools for finding cheap stocks in the UK. […]

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