Member Info for Alas_Smith

Falling price of gold https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/gold-price/1-year-gold-price-chart-ounce-gbp/

If news is to be believed, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66984944 (and broadly I think it can), it seems that within NATO there is a growing sense of realism that within a defence budget, wages paid to Service personnel is only part of the picture. If you like, the "boots on the ground" and the "will of the people" secure broad boundaries. But boots on the ground are only brilliant if they are able to actually defend, control, retain or regain borders in times of emergency.

This Ukraine:Russia conflict has been waging for not yet 2 years and already, stockpiles for NATO security are at worrying levels. However distasteful war is and no matter from what colour in the political divide, defence of country (and by extension those in a Treaty) mean that supplies need to continue to be supplied to Ukraine for the extremity defence of Nato territory and increased production to ensure all in the NATO alliance to be able to protect that alliance.

It is basic stock control that will use up old stock to be replaced with new. The hope from ordinary herberts such as me, is that the replacement stuff has at least equal effectiveness and in the same or more quantity to that which is being replaced. Cost in the defence of a border is the will of the people and "boots on the ground"

While financial statements may seem confusing, it is because they are formulaic and analysts will feed numbers into their spreadsheets to arrive at a broad starting point. Why not create your own spreadsheet? With a few basic numbers create a chart to plot key information. If profit % are rising then see if it is a fluke or likely to continue. That means reading the notes.

Try and work out whether there is an “identical” business quoted on a different exchange that has similar turnover but valued higher. You might have picked up a gen or a turd.

Find a set of metrics in which to place confidence. Profits rising with reduction in cost is great. Does the compny pay a dividend? How stable is that dividend? If dividnd is paid out, how long do I need to own shares? If dividnd payments have a policy, how long do i need to hold shares for the dividend to cancel the cost of purchase?

My shares became zero cost quite a few years ago. I have never added nor sold shares

If I were starting from scratch and looking for my first 10 holdings, LGEN would be included

DiggerDave, I have no idea if this helps, but investing is supposed to be preparing the foundation for the point when there will be reliance on capital where, based on market performance, assurance of return allows comfortable retirement without worrying about income. We also know that the historic return from investments listed in London, New York, Hong Kong etc are and we also know what the historic yield that long term investing provides for investors. The broad rule of thumb for investors is that expectation is for capital to double every 10 years (8% return).

We don't actually know for certain which companies will double their market capital so we need to have a solid foundation of companies that don't have much change to their market cap but just generate dividends, something boring like LGEN. Next we need to look at the world and take a stab as to what is going to be needed for the present and the future. Food, medicine and technology. Now, food is fickle and is at the mercy of weather, war and distribution, so buying seed merchants is out but buying tractor makers will always be sensible. John Deere is the market leader.

People are getting older so they live and need medicine, so a pharmaceutical company should be in focus. We all need housing, some is rented and others need either to be build or repaired. Timber, aggregate and steel builds the structure but copper provides the wiring and plumbing. Copper is needed for cars and next generation motoring. This means that miners and lumber should be represented in a portfolio.

Anyway...... we can on on with this tack for a book, but what is the argument to own shares in OTB? Well, for me it is for capital growth. I have the foundation covered and that provides 8% capital growth with 1.3% thrown off in addition as dividends. That brings my return to 9.3% BUT my average long term growth has been 13.5%. How come? Well, there is some speculation - not all of these investments come good. Begbies, (bought 18 months ago) an accountancy business dealing in insolvency which should be flying, is at lows so 80% holding sold recently.

Interest rates have usually been at current levels (and were for 60 or so years to 2007) so I have no reason to doubt that there will be little change over the next 2 years or so, but is uncomfortable for some, but people will always want to travel. I am hoping that the bespoke end of travel will be the driver of profits but transitioning from the bucket and spade brigade is tricky. Fortunately competition is contracting in current market.

Why fortunately? Well, this actually is quite a well run business and at present levels provides very attractive entry price PROVIDED the market cap improves. I believe it will, but to hedge my bets I've bought shares in Google as people shop around for a bargain

Traditionally drawing 3% from portfolio provides for

Chunky buy announced today.

Brinoble, interest rates have been at artificially low levels for the last 15 years. Looking back at history, rates were pretty stable between 6% and 8% and had been between 1950 and 2007. It can be argued that they are sensible currently.

MikeBarso - there was a run on the pound yesterday which affects foreign exchange.

September is usually a poor month (well, has been for me over the decades) but October, November, December and January tend to be the most favourable for investors everywhere.

Exchange of ideas and "conversation" is getting bogged down with irrelevance that includes simply looking at the share price in context with..... err, the share price. Now, I know that seeing either stagnation or worse evaporation of "wealth" is worrying but short term problems are trivial and completely meaningless when placed in a wider context.

If you are building a portfolio yes, it is nice that the price is rising, but better if you have found a tiny seam of copper but the rock surface is getting harder and harder. Well, more often than not once a gold mine has been exhausted, there is an exploratory drill below the seam and occasionally it produces diamonds.

Some claim to have chucked 100% of savings into GROW and seem a little worried. It is not a nice sensation when wealth seems to evaporate; just take a step back and look once again at the company as if you were a new investor. FWIW, I have ploughed the dividends thrown off over the last 6 months in my SIPP into AFC today. Not advice but it is a company I have owned shares in for the last 9 years. Although it represents quite a large proportion of my SIPP, my original 2% purchase in a different part of my portfolio has shrunk to only 0.68% wealth. This holding in terms of my "wealth" is now almost 1%. The portfolio has done better. Now, if AFC were to rise say 20%, it begins to have a very marked effect on my portfolio as a whole and although I might be out of pocket on AFC per se, it is a very good reason to ignore day to day price changes and invest in companies that show great promise and own shares in companies that deliver.

Companies that deliver are those that have stable revenues, reducing costs and substantial margins.

No idea if my drivel helps, but I am not fussed on intra day share price movements for GROW.

Well, I cannot pretend for a moment, Allesandro that I agree with you - where I have some resentment towards the public sector it is in the extremely generous and indexed retirement package. But that, sadly, IMO is the fault of self serving Politicians

There was a short article today in todays paper commenting on the number of pawnbrokers that are being "debanked" under the guise of money laundering. Such liklihood of this hapenning to either H&T or RFX is slender but far from opening the market up to provide choice for desperate consumers, it provides some monopoly economic protection.

Yes, there were issues with pay-day lenders but I am pretty certain that analysis of pawnbrokers records will see the same names cropping up all the time. A little more investigation and those laundering money would be easy to discover.

Gettingthere67, I am not qualified to give investment advice.

Insofar as returns on investments..... well, yes, sometimes, particularly in the short term, holding cash is a brilliant decision. I am still, although in my mid 60's investing for the long term so my investments will need to sustain me in my 90's. My experience of markets is that there will ALWAYS be a few bad years, but more often than not the rises from the better ones will more than compensate.

History has also shown that stock markets in the long term ALWAYS rise so the next thing to consider is the effect of inflation. Stability is the key - rampant inflation will see investors turn to assets of real value which are basically gold and land. 98% of all gold mined is still around today and there is not much in the way of new land being created.

Target therefore has to be not only to beat the market but also outstrip inflation. Cash deposited at 5% return when inflation is at 5.5% means that the value of the cash is being eroded. Yes, the return is broadly guaranteed (there are banking limits) but you need to ask yourself whether you could achieve a return that betters inflation by a substantial margin and within the tolerence of risk that you can accept.

For me, I gave instruction to wealth manager (portfolio under discretionary management since 2012) to increase my risk level to HIGH from MEDIUM HIGH at the point when troops were preparing to invade Ukraine. Poor timing and the penalty of a loss last year was the consequence. There were few bargains executed last year in my portfolio - per haps 5 purchases and 2 disposals. With the receipt of a substantial inheritance received in December, I have recovered half of the "cash" that had been wiped off my wealth, fully subscribed last and this years ISA holdings for both self and wife and had a bit of a buying spree. My share of inheritance is identical to that for my brother and sister. They have purchased 2 apartments as "buy to let" properties whereas I have gifted some to our family trust and have invested the balance either in strengthening holdings or to add more holdings that satisfy my investment brief.

In our meeting we discussed the sectors that were likely to benefit investors over a 5-10 year period. Technology for manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, media, cyber-security and IT were the sectors we settled on and geography was USA, Europe, Asia including Japan, Vietnam and India. On the cyber-side of things, I suggested buying shares in Splunk but the decision was made to resist further exposure, but strengthen holdings in pharmaceuticals. 15 purchase bargains were executed. Dechra (sold recently - might have mentioned this) was the decision. Too late to buy Splunk. The proceeds from Dechra have not yet been invested.

No idea if this helps - but I think you are on the right lines with both CRWD and SMCI. Look also at GOOGL (Alphabet A) and MSFT (Microsoft). Both have invested in AI

Well, here we are in what more typically represents the best time for investors, October through to April. Rising valuations are mainly seen in these months though, of course, this is a generalisation.

Investors tend to look on September as a month for assessment. Whch sectors are heating up, which are boiling, which are cooling and which are cold. Cold can be very important for stability boiling are the ones to follow, cooling those to sell and warming ones to buy.

Whether we like it or not, the future winners are probably the tiny companies of today. I believe that IT, AI, ML (machine learning), robotics and communication will be the primary drivers of growth. Of course, they will need miners for copper, lithium etc for raw products and oil for transportation, production and manufacture. For the most part these ventures will be in the northern hemisphere while the resources are generated in the southern hemisphere.

Food, utilities, communications, leisure and staple goods companies are cold. Luke warm will be transportation and storage and real estate and volatile driven by geopolitics and world economics. I’m currently sitting on 4% cash (very unusual). Indecided whether to increase portfolio exposure targetting geography, politics or sit tight. Dither is terrible. This has been a very difficult market for the last 3 years. Hopes for economic recovery through vaccine post covid have been stymied by inflation with the curved ball of Russian war and Chinese high level internal politics. Markets, IMO are flat and directionless where optimism is tempered by pragmatism.

At the risk of seeming perverse, I admit to making many mistakes with investments along the line. I am an opportunist from time to time and if I’m sitting on some spare cash I will dabble with gut instincts. So after massive flooding, I will buy shares in carpet companies and domestic building service hire companies.

I’ve got things hopelessly wrong this time…. With rising interest rates, a cost of living crisis, small companies falling over themselves to go bust, commercial rents at eye watering level, increased business taxation, punitive fines for ULEZ or delays from suppressed speed limits in built up areas that result in cancelled orders plu the myriad of headwinds for enterprises large and small, I thought that bunging cash at insolvency practitioners was obvious.

Of course, a premature decision. It is a correct decision, but the timing is wrong. Once recovery in economy has green shoots, then the collapses will happen and provide growth for pawnbrokers and insolvency practitioners, but in the meanwhile, recovery from Covid is in full swing, the world is adjusting to the fragility of peace in Europe and politicians are realising that national security, negkected for decades is Sovereignity. Ukraine has security in focus.

Technology is essential. But in weaponry lives, land, countries and ultimately liberty is the prize

Years ago, my wife held ARM shares in her ISA which were cashed in on their change of hands. Neither she nor I participated in the IPO last week, despite sitting on some cash at the moment as we have quite a bias towards technology sector. September is often a month of negative return so am taking time to discover weaknesses in our holding (insufficient exposure to India and, to a lesser extent, Europe) and, having determined that, the sectors that either need to have investment or greater weighting.

The St Legers ran yesterday so I expect to place a couple of bargains over the next few days for myself and wife putting cash to work - we have a paper gain this year of 13.92% and expect full year gain of 15.46%. I added to elder sons ISA holding in AUGM on Friday.

The short position is no longer notifiable, so under 0.5%

News determines long term direction, liquidity of shares short term movement.

I’ve cashed in my holding. There does not seem to be any interest from a rival bidder, the SP is in a very tight range and, although I could wait and allow for a natural conclusion, there is an opportunity cost to consider.

No decision on placing of the proceeds, suffice that it has filled our respective ISA wrappers and triggered a capital gain. I’m sure I have a few duffers to mitigate but may good fortune extend to all investors.

Decent RNS which has been well received. Hopefully the short position will soon no longer be noted.

Https://www.shortdata.co.uk/company.php?isin=GB00B7KR2P84

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/data/short-positions-daily-update.xlsx

Added a few more today

A dealing note has just arrived for my buy order today