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I am not contradicting **everything** here.
I am contradicting statements people make that are false, or most probably false that lead to them investing money they will lose and that may encourage others to also invest money since according to you no negativity is allowd. Though, AFAICS this is "Woodford Share Chat" not "Woodford Ra Ra Go Go Go chat".
If someone writes "I intend to buy share X because A, B & C are correct which means it will go up, are you saying its not allowed to state or even show that A,B and C are incorrect because that will hurt the feelings of, or crush the hope, of soemone who may buy it or has already bought it?
Is it not allowed to contradict someone's belief when they say that (for example) now Woodfords gone the shares will rise?
YOu dont think it will help anyone not to throw good money after bad?
You dont think it will help anyone to tell them not to remain invested as the price falls ?
No doubt back in say March when the price was in the whats 60's or 70's you'd have made the same arguments then ?
If your vision of investing is that whats gone down must go up (which seems to be about as sophisticated as your point is) then you shouldn't be investing at all.
Will you be phoning the BBC to complain about Panorama tonight? The FT for their articles on Woodford?
Do you only want a fluffy group where all comments are ra ra about how its all going to turn out OK?
Its Toast...i cant understand why you need to keep contradicting everything people say, i would suggest you are well under water here yourself.
Many people who have lost money are no doubt like my wife hoping there is a little light at the end of the tunnel however long that may be, people posting reasons why this may recover to some degree are welcome, like i said why you need to reply with in my opinion negative comments doesn't help anybody.
Do people know which companies remain in the portfolio?
When you say - "they will continue to trade and maybe do very well", look at the history of WPCT, many of the companies previously held by in WPCT actually stopped trading ! Some stopped just a few weeks after he put a large capital injection in.
And, most of the good companies there were in it have been sold in order to keep the show on the road, increasing the % of poor companies (most likely to 100% now)
You say "buying at around the bottom will see you at least double your money" but thats not based on anything than hope.
It could go to zero (not because theres absolutely no value at all in there but because the wind up costs could be larger than than the value)
If you want to pick a fallen fund, why this one? There must be many others. Whats special about this one?
OK it was run by an incompetent* egomaniac whose gone but whats left is the worst of the companies he bought, the fact he left doesn't help. neitherd oes teh fact whoever takes it over will need money. Woodford wasnt taking management charges from it. So, someone new immediately imposes an extra charge on it thats not there now.
You'd do better off investing in the few good ones he had to sell to keep his ship afloat, at least those have a valuation done by someone other than Link.
* incompetent at picking startups and microcaps. Provably so. What he did at Invesco bears no relationship to what he did at WIM.
It is a guessing game to a certain extent, however these companies may have a total NAV value in them that is well above the SP.
At what stage you buy again is again guesswork. We only had a small holding in the IT which has about halved in value. To be honest we WILL buy more unless there is a dramatic amount of bad news, but we will only buy when it has settled and moved up a notch or two. New management and the NAV being confirmed as about correct will have us adding. We could easily have added at 43p but we waited to see if more sellers bought the price down, which they did. We do not know what it will be when we add, it can easily be in the 20s or even the 10s. All depends on when the sellers stop. There has to be value there and buying at around the bottom will see you at least double your money. The fact the fund is very low does not affect each of the companies it is invested in, they will continue to trade and maybe do very well.
It is a gamble and at what stage you make a bet is up to each individual. How often have you looked at the news paper showing highs and lows and though, "why did I not buy at that very low price?" buying at the bottom or around it with every company will make you money, buying at the top will see you often lose money initially.
WCPT is at a well publicised and significant discout to NAV.
- Theres very little reason to believe the NAV is correct.
A lot of that discount will be attributed to being associated with Woodford.
- No, the discount is attributed to the fact theres very little reason to believe the NAV is correct or in fact anywhere near its actual value.
who has now resigned as fund manager. It is the best thing that could have happened for enabling a partial recovery in the interim.
- That is like saying that now the captain of the Titanic has jumped overboard, everything is golden.
- I suggest you check into Capita who were fined £66M for criminally negligent valuations. Capita became Link. Now look at who is providing the NAV valuations.
- As an aside, ironically, below the "post message" button here is a generic warning from the FCA saying that "posting info that is false or misleading may constitute market abuse".
Yet the FCA has been sat on its big fat lardy **** for a couple of years whilst Link (who have track record in this area) provided info, in the form of the NAV, that was provably false and misleading. False in the case of IH for example and misleading in the case of companies listed on the Guernsey stock exchange to provide fake values for the worth of various companies.
-Those here who attack the messengers and stay invested, or invest more based on believing the NAV "must be roughly right" only have themselves to blame for not fact checking the naysayers here.
Were Capita who became Link fined £66M for negligent valuations?
Is IH an impossible company based on a convicted fraudster ?
What does the fact that Woodford spent £32M on a fraud say about his competence in checking other companies
What does the fact that Link uprated IH by 3.5x say about their competence?
How does Woodford leaving change the value of the companies he bought and has left in WPCT?
The most likely action for the board now, given this company is not profitable since it has no income is to start to wind it up and gradually sell the contents (a fire sale woudl surely mean it would realise nothing after costs)
Anyone who doesn't like this, do you think you can respond on the facts not with playground level insults? Or are you so psychologically tied into your purchase you dare not face the facts? Even though at a sale price of 33p theres still currently some value there you can take?
I bought in on the woodford name like most, but if the NAV report is an, thats the big question here like accurate this is not in too much danger, thats really the big question here.
I am not such a fan of investment trusts although I have a few in my portfolio. The reason being is that an IT can be trading at a huge discount to NAV and still perform poorly if there is no trading volume. The market is littered with examples, however not many are trading at the stated level of discount as this one.
Denial is not a river in Egypt.
"anything that might go up by 60% could go down by that much just as quickly."
i guess you meant that the other way round as justification for hanging on, but it doesn't work that way.
"i think this will move forward once they appoint a new manager"
The manager is not the issue any more. The people doing the valuation and the people who chose the shares are the problem. A new manager wont make Woodfords selection of rubbish companies turn golden overnight, or ever.
"if this was as bad as some are stating on here then they would have suspended trading by now"
Its an IT not a fund, it cant just be suspended it would require (as i understand) a shareholders vote first.
"Although i would like my wife to buy more"
Why dont you buy some, with your own money?
" there has got to be some decent investments in here somewhere."
Why? Seriously, why must there? And to the point, why must there be enough to make it profitable. If they can be duped to buy shares in a worthless venture for £32M (IH) what else can they be duped by? Plus theres' £110M in loans waiting to be called in. Where's that coming from?
Some posters have been warning for years to get out. Dont blame the messenger.
I think Woodfords investment strategy is like pinning the tail on the Donkey frankly. He is spoke to be the expert. I am an expert in rebuilding small engines but I am supposedly not the investment expert Woodford was supposed to be.
Quite right the FCA are a gummy Tiger they wouldnt do anything if a company started hacking into peoples bank accounts. For instance -- they knew London & Capital Finance were running a dodgy and unsustainable business 2 years before they collapsed wiping out thousands of peoples holdings and all they seem to say is "these were unregulated investments" so thats them of the hook even though they approved the company operating in general.
I'd like to think so Peggy, trying to incite extra fear when people are already at breaking point is a simply disgusting!!
You are right with your comments, i am not invested here but my wife is via her pension, she is 60% down and i cant see the point in selling given that anything that might go up by 60% could go down by that much just as quickly.
In my opinion i think this will move forward once they appoint a new manager & team to look after things, by how much is anybody's guess, surely if this was as bad as some are stating on here then they would have suspended trading by now, maybe they will who knows?
Although i would like my wife to buy more she wont, i think it is worth a punt at these prices, like as been said although Woodford as messed up to say the least there has got to be some decent investments in here somewhere. The drop is overdone in my opinion as nobody really knows the true value.
there really are some low life here, not invested but know people who are there gutted at the way this has worked out but, still people on here spouting unfair accusations. I'd think independent valuators have a far better knowledge than people on here saying these companies are worthless. Woodford has made some big mistakes, but he's not a crook or an idiot, and would not be in the habit of buying companies that had no future prospects.
I'm not sure it's difficult to value a total fraud company, IH as a big fat zero.
100% upside? I sincerely wish you luck with that.
80% of WPCT portfolio is invested in unquoted companies and the other 20% in small caps. The valuation and realisation of value is very difficult.
Dont expect the FCA to do anything re questionable NAV figures. They can barely hold a crayon. You may as well try to explain NAV to a bored five year old.
Maybe a US style class action to pursue directors could result in payback for anyone investing after 21.9.18
Will investors finally get the message that most mutual and open ended funds are dogs https://contrarianinvestor.net/posts/2019/10/17/will-investors-finally-get-the-message-that-most-mutual-and-open-ended-funds-are-dogs
Agreed. IH was the red flag. Woodford was apparently suckered into buying into IH and then he revalued his holding by +350 % in Sept 2018.
No evidence of any research facilities, research results etc for IH to justify that revaluation or any subsequent valuation put on IH.
Those responsible for that RNS of 21.9.18 should be held to account as the increase in NAV lured investors with the apparent bargain SP discount to NAV
Doubt if he and the rest of the board members will lose much sleep :-
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-6574327/Neil-Woodford-business-partner-pocket-37m-windfall-despite-dismal-2018.html
The exit sign was about 4 years ago, not 1.
When they bought IH it was obvious they could be conned into buying anything.
And the second exit sign was a year ago when IH was uprated 3.5x at that point it was clear something beyond dodgy was going on since that was a company with a literally impossible product.
PB at least was just a company that did *something* and it was open to debate if it would be disruptive.
The only disruption possible from IH was to the credibility of the analysts within WPCT / WIM which brought into question what else they were buying.
How many of you posters follow Tom Winnifrith and his colleagues on *************? If you had, you could have exited WPCT a year or more ago, without loss, as I did. Obviously, I knew when investing that Neil Woodford was investing in Biotech start-ups and he admitted some would fail, but others, he argued would succeed spectacularly and make the losses insignificant. Woodford 'balanced' the illiquid stocks with listed stocks and what did it for me, prompted by Tom, was looking at one of these, Purplebricks. Woodford believed this estate agency had a business model that would 'disrupt' the market and he bought in big, at up to 27% of the equity at one point. Well, I'm older than Neil and found I could not believe this spiel and thus agreed with Tom that Purplebricks was itself far too speculative to balance anything and sure enough, it fell like a stone, as the 'disruption' failed to materialise. I had bought in to WPCT at around 91p and got out showing a tiny gain, but am I glad I did. Thank you, Tom and you deserve many many more readers and no detractors,because what you do is a public service to investors. Panorama, next Monday, I believe..
@bestintown theres a big difference between uber/netflix etc and WPCT.
The former are valued on the basis that their underlying business models will produce money.
WPCT is valued on the basis that its individual components business models will make money.
So you need to take the valuation of each one and add them all up. One, IH, is clearly to anyone but a dupe, worthless, so why trust the valuations of the other components when you know that one at least is clearly valued by people who've been duped, another, Benevolent, has clearly been wildly overvalued, and Proton doesn't look as if it will be profitable so why trust any of the other valuations the same people have made?
I dont think WPCT is the "high risk component of a balanced portfolio" because you dont just want a high risk element by itself. The high risk shoudl be balanced with a probability that their would be a correspondingly potential big payoff. Theres nothing now in WPCT to sugegst that big payoff is there as a possibility. Maybe there was 2 or 3 years ago. When they bought IH, they made it clear how competent they were at valuing companies future prospects, eg not at all.
IT, "...and even one that undeniably works, Proton or whatever its called, now may not actually make money"....neither at this moment does Netflix or Uber but the market gives them a high value................ who knows where WPCT is going...... its just the high risk component of a balanced portfolio......
bestintown, this has been the issue with this for a while; valuations.
They can't be trusted and the majority don't care who's valuing them, after the IH hike.
It's exactly this and Woodford's shuffling amongst his funds and then listing in the Channel islands, which has led to his downfall.
If he was not very well known, the vast majority would be calling him a spiv or even a crook, simple as, because he was desperate and basically cooking the books, at the end, imo.
Whereas the polite consensus is that he's just made disaster, naive choices.