Member Info for 67Sam

"Exactly, keep calm and carry on"

"Sell a £10k stock down to £5k"

In about four weeks time we can evaluate both of these choices.

"With everyone waiting for the budget would it be prudent to sell/,take profit now or wait, what will happen? Will the market react positively or negatively?"

Ive wrestled with exactly that question for several weeks now, both in terms of my Lloyds shares and also my entire SIPP holdings which are about 80% UK stock, and about 50% of that is in the financial sector. Should I sell it all now and take the lot as cash in a UFPLS because I am filled with dread about Reeves budget? The main reasons I haven't done it is because I think Lloyds are a good long term hold and that I still have a job, with debt fixed at a low rate until end of 2026. I mention that just to make it clear it isn't because I came to the conclusion that banks wont get shafted and it will be a supportive budget for the middle classes. I expect it will be exactly the opposite. Im paying attention to what other people are saying about the budget too. Starmer seems to me to be a day by day politician and really quite a poor strategist.

"Are we drifting down to the budget?"

Yes, I think so. At least the buyback machine kicked in again with 28.5 M yesterday.

"How did he get into Oxford?"

No mention of getting into Oxford on Wiki Lammy?

"Miliband vanished up his pylon" :) One of your better lines MV

Swindon and Wiltshire equates to 1% of Englands total output, so not sure they have their finger on the pulse. In coverage on Radio 4, the broader message form the business sector was described as the total opposite - erosion of confidence solely down to Labours mishandling of the budget timing, coupled with the uncertainties created by their bad news messaging. In my opinion both Starmer and Reeves have looked amateurish in their first 100 days. That includes shooting themselves in the foot with winter fuel payments. Goodness knows how they will handle a real crisis instead of a self made one.

"Negative by closing time??"

Yes, I expect you will be. Personally I think the SP's small gain is holding up quite well.

Gate

"I’m not giving this thieving lot £67,270"

Thanks for reply. Yes, on those figures I agree, taking it now is a no brainer. But this is what I dont understand: Say you take it now, it will still form part of your 24/25 income. What will stop them from changing the rules to limit the 25% tax free lump sum to £100k, and then saying bad luck everyone but black hole etc, that's now effective immediately within the current tax year? Wouldn't you then be hit with the same tax bill anyway? Could they get away with doing that?

Ollerdee

" over the past year" Since they won an election in May 24 you mean? "a new fiscally professional government has steadied the ship" Labour has already authorised increases in national debt to 100% GDP. "once it was clear that they would be taking over from the last bunch of incompetents" I think you're listening to your own echo chamber with that comment. We had an election, Reform split the right. Despite only receiving a third of the votes from a 60% turnout, Labour were handed power. They have continued to underwhelm the country ever since.

S1

"Labour looks rumoured to reduce the tax-free threshold to £100k."

Thanks for reply. Yes, agree re. spreadsheets and have several for comparative purposes. In my case the numbers are well under £100k. In some ways these are fairly straightforward choices for me. The real problem is trying to second guess the budget. It appears that most SIPP providers are experiencing two things. Firstly savers are maxing out their £60k annual SIPP investment allowance; while secondly theres a stampede to take out the 25% tax free lump sum. Steve Webb comments that he thinks it "exceptionally unlikely" that Reeves will try and abolish the tax free lump sum completely. I agree about the absurd level of uncertainty on tax being created by Labours rhetoric. None of their pre-election manifesto commitments can be trusted. And organising an investment summit two weeks before theres any clarity just suggests a mix of arrogance and incompetence.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/pensions-and-retirement/increased-numbers-pension-tax-free-lump-sums-budget-3290648

https://moneyweek.com/personal-finance/pensions/pension-moves-you-should-make-before-labours-budget-raid

Lti

"we don't yet know how quickly they would implement any tax grab"

Thanks for reply. Yes, that is exactly what makes it so hard to decide. Whatever I do, they can pull the rug from under me. Never thought about it this much before, as I've never had to concentrate on clearing debt and focus on retirement planning with this much urgency.

Hahahaha no chance

This is shamelessly off topic. I am considering whether I should take 25% tax free from my SIPP before the budget to pay a lump sum off my mortgage. The prospect of the maximum amount of withdrawal changing is not relevant to me; it is whether or not I will lose the chance to do it at all. I am not considering doing anything to my occupational DB pension, except continue to pay in. I will try and contribute more to AVC's, as I should be able to take all of that tax free when I retire. I am not a higher rate tax payer. I also wonder if I am better off taking an UFPLS of 25% or more instead. I would be tempted to take it all that way, but I assume that is treated as income, so would lift me into 40% tax bracket making me much worse off. Neither do I want to trigger the MPAA. If Reeves were to equalise the tax rebate at 30% for all taxpayers, I would immediately increase AVC's. I don’t understand whether changes made in the budget become effective within this current tax year? I am also concerned that if I access my SIPP before 30th Oct, any tax changes will be applied retrospectively. Any opinions on this are welcome, thanks.

STP

"Tut tut 675, playing the man, not the ball!"

I took a speculative poke at DiviDan because his profile says he's been here seven years and apparently, despite his tone of familiarity, he's only made seven posts in all that time. That suggested to me that it's a second profile belonging to another more regular user. I wondered what would happen immediately after I posted it. The answer was that you popped up four minutes later.

"pricing and trade volume"

Ok, isn't that the same thing as a weighted moving average? I find it hard to believe that neither LBG or MS would ignore a significant macro financial event like a budget, when there are signals that it could adversely affect the banking sector. The alternative explanation is that I am anthropomorphising what is actually just a simple set of rules executed by a laptop thats being operated independently from Lloyds by an American financial services company, for whom this piece of business is a fiver on the floor.

Do they call you "DiviDan" because you're not very bright?

Lti

"they could have completely switched off the Algo until 30th October"

True, but I suspect the operators intervention is more nuanced than simply switching the algo on or off. I appreciate algo's don't anticipate budgets, humans do. However sophisticated the algo might be in its calculation of weighted moving averages, ultimately it only works to the parameters that humans specify. It's maybe not as daft as it sounds, to speculate that the buyback operation is being geared down because of the political implications on 30th? Or did you imagine I was implying the algorithm was locked in a room on its own somewhere, reading the Guardian and thinking to itself "gosh, the budget looks a bit risky, id better back off until November"?

Ant

"The majority of the voters"

I dont want to split hairs, but I think it was c.33% of the votes. https://fullfact.org/election-2024/general-election-result-numbers/

It's just a quirk of democracy they gained such a large majority.

"the remaining £500k"

the reamaining £500M

"paused to stop attention on them ahead of next month budget. The sector must be a Labour Party target"

Yes I think they expect to be a target and therefore anticipate to be able to spend the remaining £500k at a lower share price. That should buy another billion shares or more if Reeves kicks us squarely in the nuts, so getting us very near to a 60 billion share count.