This week George and Ian catch up on recent tech newsflow and consider its impact on the UK small and mid-cap tech stocks.

George scans the wider market and whilst somewhat downbeat on the fact that the big boys in IT services are struggling to get back to where they were before the pandemic, at least in the UK the government looks to be spending some of the money it hasn’t got on tech – giving some grounds for optimism amongst the smaller companies, including Made Tech.

Ian scratches his head on Palantir’s business model and ponders just how dependent it is on share-based remuneration and how far and how fast does its non-conformist customer base have to grow to justify 70x sales. He also considers small-cap silicon play, Ensilica, a real tech company with the wrong balance sheet. Share price movements following announcements and forecast revisions suggest that the investors and wider market might have a better handle than the brokers on how the semiconductor industry works.