Member Info for Alas_Smith

I am not qualified to give financial advice but investment trusts (IT) have different rules from open ended funds. For a start shares are bought and sold much like equities, next the IT is able to lever assets can go long or short etc.

The assets are published from time to time so that not only are they open and verifiable, but investors can see how the fund moves within assets. Most assets are publically quoted and thus have known values. These form the Nett Asset Value (NAV) for the IT. This figure is usually published daily and may show if the IT is trading at a discount or premium to the NAV.

If at a premium, it might reflect the ability of management of the IT to grow the IT, but at a discount, the potential illiquidity of the assets. Where the discount is greater or at a higher premium than is typical, focus might be given for the cause which, in turn, might help in any investment decision.

I hope this provides a little flesh from which to begin to understand whether this IT should feature in your portfolio. It does feature in mine, though my purchase was made last year. It represents about 1.6% portfolio though at the time was 2.5%. Not, because it was a poor choice, but because other holdings have performed very well. I do not like to have any holding representing more than 4.5% of wealth so tend to sell the turgid holdings and re-invest the proceeds. More often than not it means selling 3 holdings, buying 2 and reinvesting any cash thrown off as dividends. I am currently sitting on under 1% cash having transferred some of the remaining holdings from my dealing account to ISA accounts for self and wife.

Fallingknife1 - I have a substantial portfolio with equities, Investment Trusts and Gilts and options all in the mix and although the bulk are quoted in London, many are quoted on the NASDAQ, Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo exchanges. My concern at the moment is building up a discretionary trust that was created in 2015 to mitigate IHT that our prudence, hard work and investment has built. At the same time, we have yet to inherit from our parents and need sufficient liquidity and resilience should their health deteriorate and require care.

Within the sector of healthcare, Tristel is a largish componant in portfolio at 3.02% but other interesting holdings include Illumina, Thermo Fisher and Elekta which is a Swedish Company.

Probably the worst investment decision was Cenes (I used to contribute on ii as The Troglodyte) followed by Graphene Nanochem (I also contributed on ADVFN as Erogenous Jones). I was banned from the latter when my accusation of being stalked and the subject of cyber bullying was not taken seriously. My complaint was upheld but I was banned from their platform - bit harsh after 19 years as a paying customer, but no biggie really. Hence my "handle".

As for selling at the top.... well, I am a bit old fashioned and follow the advice my father gave me , to always leave something for the next man.

S-Moonraker - no idea, BUT, opening stores comes with extra costs - staff, stock, rates, rents, utilities etc - better to strengthen the online presence which has fewer overheads. However, the BONUS from opening stores is footfall for pledges, sales or purchase of jewelry and, of course, to collect foreign exchange.

On the foreign exchange side, far better to concentrate this online, trim margins for turnover volumes, offer secure delivery of cash etc. Foreign exchange competes with Post Offices, banks (despite closing in record numbers) and travel agencies. I would not be surprised if the larger supermarkets have a foreign exchange booth in store for that matter.

FWIW, I thought the update was muted, had a big cheer with the online side but all in all, not an upbeat one for investors to hang their shirts on.

Well, the share price is having an assault on your resistance point, though it seems to me in my interpretation of the charts that the share price is in a defined trend that has been gradually rising for the last 2 years. On the assumption that momentum continues, I see no reason why the share price should fall below its 50 day moving average - and for me, it is more important to run profits than to worry about resistance points.

Should the case to invest in TSTL change so that it is no longer attractive (to me), then I will sell. Of course, should my own circumstances change and I needed to raise cash then MY priority is to dispose of holdings that have turgid performance and TSTL might be included, though very low down the pecking order. More likely I would dispose of any volatile holdings first. Mind you, I have never discovered the perfect time to buy or sell, except with hindsight. In over 40 years in building my portfolio, I have on 3 occasions bought at the very bottom and have yet to sell at peak

As the discount between NAV and the SP has widened, I have chucked a little more into the melting pot. It was interpreted on the trades page as a sell.

Thank you, surprised for throwing a little light on a few questions I raised. So, loan to book at 60% makes sense ( price of precious metal is immaterial ) but there is sufficient margin for profit should the loan not be serviced or the pledge not redeemed.

I fully understand the various channels for sale, but what I would like clarity on is the "churn". And in this context, churn means the number of occasions that the same item is pledged. If pledges are, to all intents and purposes, payday loans, it is a very different prospect from a laundry for stolen property - a bit like buying from one of the original markets where good title was transferred and there were few or no questions on the source

While a few “limited destinations” may become available in May, I suspect that the domestic punter changing cash in RFX stores is likely to want Euro. And although many countries in EU are desperate for hordes of Britons to party in their sunshine, unless the obvious dangers from infection are addressed through vaccine and prevention of spread, currency turnover will be small.

It does not mean though, that, as the UK begins to return to work that RFX will not prosper. Sadly, for some, measures in place for the last 12 months to prevent foreclosure or the execution of demands in satisfaction of debts has changed. I thus expect a pickup in the pawnbroking turnover for RFX which will be reflected in the pledge book and cash flows. It may be that the loan period is more volatile, pledge valuations fall or interest rates change. Those are the short term things that might be useful for investors.

I would be interested to learn from any experts in the competence of pawnbroking the typical timescale for a pledge and frequency that the same item is pledged for a loan. Cannot pretend that this is a company that holds long term appeal for me, but one that I hope provides portfolio cover should markets deteriorate.

Since announcing withdrawing from EU in 2016, UK quoted companies have been outshone by those on other exchanges. Finally, with Brexit no longer dominant and vaccine rollout for the viral pandemic in full swing in UK, the case for strong gains from UK companies is compelling.

It helps that Governments around the world are chucking walls of cash into markets to prevent economic collapse. So, although I am bullish for emerging markets there is a better case, IMO for swifter growth in the most important exchanges that are fastest out of the blocks when it comes to returning to “business as usual”.

I ditched my holding in MTE yesterday to strengthen that in MTU. Time will determine the wisdom of this, but the prospects seem to be brightening.

Not at all, it has been downgraded again today with a target of 2000p. Bigger money than yours or mine relies on the slide rule analysis post results. More likely than not simply chucked a load of figures into a template spreadsheet and, voila

Sadly, there is no “rule” for when the best time to buy occurs. We can, though, look at a mix of fundamentals and technicals to mitigate risk, ali1947fish. FWIW, I began to drip money back into ATT on Thursday.

Taking fundamentals first. ATT is an investment trust and is permitted to use gearing to borrow against assets. Assets of publicly quoted companies are known and have valuation and thus under pin the valuation for the trust, the NAV. When the NAV is greater than the valuation for the trust it is said to be trading at a discount. This might reflect the poor management or that the trust is out of favour. When the valuation of the trust is greater than the assets within, it trades at a premium. Again likely to reflct the ability of the management to grow the trust or the sectors that are held.

Where there is a larger discount or smaller premium than is usual, that is a good signal from the fundamental perspective. From the technical perspective, and not one that I use very often, it is simply that behaviours are repeated. If it looks looks as if there is a sine wave pattern, then draw imaginary parallel lines and it provides broad entry and exit points. Similarly, if the SP seems to be is a general trend up or down, there is no reason why you should not make money by combining it with another holding that has a mirror of the same pattern. So technicals help in timing your entry or exit.

Lastly, of course, there are the intangible aspects to owning shares as an investor. Market sentiment, geo political stability, holiday times, fine weather, all have a bearing on prices and dy to day moods. We can use this to advantage, announcement of the first viable vaccine was a good example when it lifted World sentiment. We know there is a shortage of computer chips, we know that data theft brings media frenzy and we know that computing hardware gets old very quickly whereas machine learning and artificial intelligence is just starting its ascendency.

In short, I don’t know if it was a great time to sell when I did at the time and I am not sure that now is the right time to begin to add now. But profits can only be taken when a holding is sold. I declared when the bulk of my holding was sold and the price continued to rise. There was something left for that buyer of my shares.

The mantra of “time in the market is better than trying to time the market” works for me.

Todays issue of Investors Chronicle look at the results on P.40 for FEVR with their weighting receommendation as a buy. Hasn't translated to the SP today. From a technical perspecive as the current price is bleow the 50 day MA and thatseems to be pretty flat, there is no compelling reason to buy at the moment.

Perhaps after Easter attention will focus on the restart for hospitality sector in Europe and USA. I suspect we are many months away from anything similar in mainland Europe. All those I know in Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Finland and Austria are in various degrees of lockdown measure that has seen some things re-open only to close a few days later following fresh (and often unconnected) outbreak.

Politically, leaders around the world are keen to reduce hydrocarbon consumption from oil and gas for energy generation so it makes sense to transition portfolio structure to renewables.

The stated goal for TRIG Is to preserve capital value of holdings and provide long term dividends for shareholders. This suggests to me that this should be a dreadfully dull asset as ballast should markets turn bearish with a pretty stable, range bound share price, low churn of shares dealt and regular dividends thrown off.

I’ll probably continue to chuck money into this over the next few months to raise its value (to me) in my portfolio which, at the moment means averaging down because renewables is the future for energy production, but I prefer to average up thus endorsing my decision to invest in the first place. Had this been in say IT or Consumer Durable sector, I would press the sell button, take loss early and pick another winner.

Renewables is a new sector for me and an Investment Trust seemed the best way to get long term exposure. It does not excite me at all, my previous direct investments in early stage ventures have been a disaster.... GRPH and VLS

The bulk of earnings for FEVR are from US and Europe. Pretty certain that those continents have yet to re-open their hospitality venues in anticipation of either getting their current wave under control (US) or reaching the peak of their 3rd wave (Europe) that is ramping up.

Although the drop was swift, the climb back is likely to be slower and determined by vaccine rollout and political strategy for an economic resumption for citizens to enjoy their lives without restriction of movement.

While the liklihood for mainland European holiday travel resumens before September (my hunch) it does not mean that travel further afield will be affected. It is quite possible that USA will be a destination for vaccinated travellers though, again my hunch, the first whiff of foreign holidays will re-commence in December 2021 when the European ski season resumes.

Foreign exchange is usually a last minute exercise for most holiday makers and the FX side of things won't recover until first there is assurance for discretionary travel without financial penalty, that travellers will not be subject to intrusive testing and restriction on movement in a foreign country and last that quarantine in return is un-necessary.

In short, Europe needs to roll out vaccine with greater enthusiasm for all viable medicines with more zeal and fewer political shenanigans.

If Abu Dhabi sovereign fund investors bung a few shekels here, it might help the share price. I hope too that there will be some individual winning companies such as AFC in which I have interest to benefit from this news.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56496888

Oddly enough, the line of business that I manage is at the last end of the chain with promotional goods. We send out to the consumers/businesses the gonks, mugs, pencils etc that FOUR supply. I am not in the least surprised that the resutls were poor because most businesses were scratching around with promotions that did not involve capital outlay.

We have started to see the flickers of new business potentially returning, but the appetite for large scale stuff is simply not there at the moment and not likely to be restarted for another couple of months at the earliest. This sounds negative - it is not designed so to be, simply factual based on the enquiries we are receiving. Bear in mind, that we are the last point in the process and we are beginning to get the first few nibbles of business to fulfil beginning in May time.

When the initial lockdown was lifted last year, we had a flurry of enquiries, very much pie in the sky stuff, 90% of which could not work and of the remaining 10% or so translated into orders that started in July to take us through to September. Our feeling (and have been in this caper for 20 years) is that these "enquiries" were from those desperate in marketting teams to hang onto their job that they had to contrive anything to provide the illusion that their role was worth keeping. I would not be in the least surprised if these were the unlucky recipients of P45's hoping to stave off redundancy.

Work is starting to trickle in, but in dribs and drabs. My hunch is that the promotions industry will kick off again in the late summer once Europe has got their 3rd wave under control and their populace vaccinated.

My suspicion for the rise is that the NHS has regained control of Covid 19, not only because treatments are well known but because of the fantastic job that has been done in rolling out vaccines. The consequence is that this has freed up resource so that routine work can re-commence. Appointments are being made (beginning in April) to discuss elective surgery for non-urgent cases.

Not too fussed about the travel element of things in truth, Oldfortyniner, it is that European businesses are going to be behind the curve insofar as economic recovery is concerned. The market is forward looking, therefore, those equities whose principal earnings are domestic (UK, ROI, France, Spain and Germany) are going to be marked down as they are now a few months behind.

Translate this to companies whose principal earnings are in US, China the Antipodes and that will be on the leader board. Not, of course advice, but it makes better sense (to me) to either strengthen holdings in US or reduce those reliant on Europe.

As cash on my account represents 2 % and there is no single holding of mine to account for an amount greater than 3% portfolio capital, I m happy to sweat things out, but where I need to be fully invested, my hunch is to bung money at those involved in China, Emerging Markets, domestic, US and Europe in that order.

FWIW, my connections that work at the sharp end in the rarified atmosphere of politics, Von der Leyan was hopeless in Germany, Merkel is marmite (bit like Thatcher - brilliant at first, but ultimately despised - and Macron simply inept. For all of Johnsons faults, it is impossible to deny his optimism. A bit like Wooster who is reliant on Jeeves. Perhaps Whitty is that charactor?

This evening the German Minister for Health claimed that there was insufficient vaccine in Europe to prevent a 3rd wave. And by this I interpret that the main revenue generators in Europe, France, Germany and Italy are going to have a prolonged pandemic and, most probably yo-yo in and out of lockdown until July.

Sure, it would be easy to point a finger at Brussels not actually commissioning any vaccines when they were in development and then pooh-poohing the AZN vaccine for a couple of weeks. These 2 simple measures have not only left Europe 7 weeks behind the UK in terms of getting people back to work, but most probably 6 months before those countries are in the position in which the UK finds itself.

So, my contention is that this sort of news was a risk that private punters were unaware and the consequence is that the pandemic is far from over. How odd it will be that the UK, in common with our broader historic dependencies, Australia and New Zealand might actually be among the first English speaking nations to emerge battered from a pandemic that has wreaked so much pain and misery to leave such scar.

Basically, although the UK might be putting its house in order, the same cannot be said for Europe hence the general malaise in shares most affected by shuttered economies.

Oldfortyniner, I have been thinking about your comment that "buys" of £16.8m were reported after hours and I am wondering if these actually were buys. If the bargains were executed during the day, around the point where there was a very steep decline, the price might be interpreted after hours as being on the buy side because that is the line of best fit at the point when the bargain was published.

Todays decline therefore might represent the point which is sufficiently attractive to entice buyers and thus clear any overhang that might be in place if my hypothesis is correct.