Diary: AFF, CPP, DNO

I'll tell you this for nowt: the market knows how to seriously test your convictions. The last couple of days have been very, um, "exciting" for me.

Yesterday, DNO (Domino Printing Sciences) dropped 12% on anticipation of today's results. A sure sign that the results will be bad, right? Wrong! In the final results RNS, it announced underlying EPS up 9%, 33rd year of sales growth with record profit. Dividends increased by 20%, currently standing at a yield of 3.99%. Come to daddy! It's currently up 12% in trading today - although there's obviously volatility there. Poster on ADVFN writes:

I agree, impressive numbers, though the rate of growth in H2 did slow quite a bit. The main worry must be the segmental dependence on Europe, which seems determined to embrace austerity, and I think that is what is spooking the markets.

 AFF (Afferro Mining) is a minnow iron ore miner that's really been putting my portfolio through the grinder. I had bought after seeing reports about the likely NPV calculations on its resources, suggesting it was severely undervalued. People were getting puzzled about the directors quietness as to its funding arrangement, with everyone wondering if there'd be dilution of holdings, or liquidity problems. Anyway, all that got blown out of the water yesterday when it announced:

Afferro divests interest in the Putu Iron Ore Project for minimum US$115 million cash ... allows the Company to focus on its 100% owned flagship Nkout project and minimises shareholder dilution. With the focus and cash, Afferro will be extremely well placed to enter a new and exciting phase of growth.

115m USD is  64m GBP. The company has a market cap of £57m, plus a lot of resources to exploit. This company looks very undervalued. It rose about 38% yesterday (!), and is down 4% after such a massive runup. I have renewed confidence in this company. The company has a tendency to spike up on good news, but then sag down. I'm thinking of waiting for the dust to settle and top up. Riskier play, and it is a commodity company, but I think that topping up is the right way to go. Unless Europe and China slide into the sea, of course, then not so good.

CPP dived a lot yesterday - about 12% if memory serves. The trading statement made for unpleasant reading:

 The FSA investigation ... continuing to have a material impact... in the UK. A new, non-insured service product ... will not be adopted by business partner.  [In] 2012, there are good opportunities to achieve improved revenue growth compared to 2011. Underlying Group operating profit in 2012 is likely to be significantly lower than 2011

An ADVFN poster writes:

The bottom line is that they have lost millions already due to the lenght [sic] of the investigation and will then doubtless have to pay a fine on top of the lost business.

Stay tuned on this one. It still has high ROE and low price.