Member Info for Alas_Smith

We live in interesting times. This is an enterprise with an open short position against it. The share price is pretty close to all time lows. The UK economy is not exactly oojah-cum-spiff at the moment and the majority of the population is facing a cost of living crisis. Better chuck a little more at things and review in a couple of weeks

FWIW, I am considering emigrating due to the punitive taxes that are imposed in the UK that are simply propping up governments with muddled strategy, infrastructure which is crumbling, productivity that lags most developed countries, Police that cannot investigate the simplest of crimes, schools, hospitals and public buildings that are falling down, housing that has ballooned in price relative to wages and shrunk in size while we need to pay for inflated pensions of civil servants.

The website I use for capital transfers of foreign exchange is XE.com - competitive with balances under £50k but with transactions greater than £250k much better. If there is a change of Government in the UK and wealth is under focus, it will take a few months, and I have no problem in taking a haircut when selling real estate, the allure of a more attractive jurisdiction is compelling.

Seems my entry point has been followed by a manager.

Fear not. I will never contribute to this board again.

Hopefully, our paths will not cross in businesses in which I hold interest.

Chelsea11, you really are perverse and obtuse. I want to own shares in this company for a long time, perhaps not the almost 45 years that I held Shell, but nevertheless for a long time. In the time that I have spent building up my portfolio, the mistakes that I have made include not cutting losses early. I therefore cut my loss early on BEG to put the proceeds to work elsewhere.

Essentially this is an accountancy company. It deals in companies that are in distress and once appointed makes decisions that have a strict rules. I am confident that the managers know when it is viable for a company to be re-structured and when to wind it up. What they are not demonstrating is the benefit of buying ancilliary businesses.

Please rest assured, I do not propose to engage further this futile justification for my decision to cut losses in BEG. I made a porr decision of timing and have put the proceeds to work elsewhere. That I wish to own shares in this company at a future date is my decision and will not be influenced by you or any other herbert on a public discussion board. If your or my comments are beneficial to others, surely this is healthy, but to be critical of a decision to sell smacks of flawed logic to me.

Somewhat bewildered with your caustic remark, Chelsea11. That I do not share the same contention that the spate of acquisitions are beneficial in the short term does not mean that I am wrong in my analysis or hypocritical in my wish to own shares in this company. That I invest for capital appreciation does not mean that I will not sell those that are not performing well.

I have made no bones about things, the decision to invest in BEG was made some time ago; that the price I paid for the shares was higher than it is currently is a mistake of timing. This remains, as far as I am conerned a business that SHOULD be doing very well with a market capital that is benefitting from business failures. That it is not is perhaps reflective of the competency of the managers directing the company and the decisions that they are taking and it was with that in mind that the decision to cut losses was made.

As far as I am concerned, todays RNS is beneficial to the company (and shareholders) to expand by way of acquisition of core expertise rather than speculative areas in which the company has little core competence. If this really seems to be hypocritical nonsense, I apologise.

The share price has had no meaningful reaction to todays news, and volume of bargains executed reflects this.

At last, an acquisition that makes sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I want this company to do well, it should be doing well as company failures are a broad penalty made worse through squeezed margins, inadequate capital, tightened bank lending, rising wages and all the other negative elements that business juggle with on a daily basis.

As far as my decision to sell was concerned, it enabled me to put proceeds to work and begin to recover lost ground. Investing is not a race and has many influences. BEG remains a business I want to own shares in, but until there is convincing evidence that the market cap is growing, I shall avoid. I also have no problem in buying shares in companies that are at or close to a 12 month high. My purchase last week of shares in Alphabet followed on the heels of a purchase a month or so ago of doubling my holding in Microsoft.

I sold another tranche of shares in NVDA yesterday to bank another very handsome profit. My last tranche bought shares in Siemens and an Investment Trust that is focussed on Europe. I've bunged some money today at Alphabet (parent company for Google) which, co-incidentally is at a 52 week high.

The reason - well, simply that I believe there is more growth from an investment in Google than I do from Nvidia. Both are excellent companies and investing profits from great companies needs to be invested in other great companies. Profits from speculative investments that do well are invested in what I hope to be next years winners. GROW falls into the secondary category.

Time will determine the wisdom of my strategy.

My travel is mainly Europe, but occasinally further afield - I take a Caxton Card which is loaded with different currencies (usually the equivalent of £5,000 in $, € and $AUD. That sort of amount will get my wife and I back to UK from anywhere in the world and cover most emergencies. Generally allow for £300 per day spending money in local currency.

Provided there is internet access, I can always top the card up using a laptop or, if necessary telephone through to Bank to make necessary arrangement. Might be in the minority as I have only been on one package holiday in my life, and that was ghastly and never to be repeated.

Fincent, my understanding of pawnbroking is based on the guidelines from HMRC. Loan duration is usually not longer than 6 months and simple interest is charged, generally 5% per month. This is the equivalent of APR of 70% in round figures.

The average loan is £170 but slightly higher in South England at £250. Look at the results recently published. The pawnbroking side is ticking along very nicely.

Short term might be a little bumpy. There is a calendar point (but like xd and date paid) for declaration of change and the effect that change occurs. It could be to shareholders advantage to be dropping out of the 250 index because the mkt cap was never sufficiently high to merit inclusion in algorithims for interest to own shares.

Rather than worry about day to day nuance, the shares are simply insurance for the future. Many will fail (80%), a few will break even (16%) and just one or two from current holdings will be the superstars of tomorrow.

My money is backing the managers to ditch losers before they fail (taking a haircut in the process) selling off the weaker in the mid range (when it becomes clear that the business is solid but no5 spectacular) and running with the stars of the future.

LesBoy, while all intelligence for an equity is useful to read, it has to be placed in perspective for the reader.

I don't really care whether the individual SP for any holding rises today or tomorrow, provided that my PORTFOLIO as a whole rises over a year to better the returns from the S & P. My benchmark used to be the FTSE, but that became too easy.

The assumptions I have (with roughly 80 holdings that vary from having £10,000 to £50,000 capital exposed in each bargain) is that my MINIMUM goal is to double capital every 8 years to have a return of 12% compounded. Over the last 40+ years I have averaged 13.35% and that includes one when I was down 71% and last year down 22%.

British Aerospace is a relatively new holding for me with my purchase at the beginning of the year. Although my portfolio throws off on average 0.11% each month, I target capital growth over income. I'll lay a few more cards on the table. I have reached the age where I face retirement and I have ramped UP the risk I am prepared to take. And the reason for this is very simple; I am planning for retirement of 30 years to take me into my 90's and that is a long way away.

That the recent purchase seems idiotic to me right now doesn't really matter. There are maybe a dozen, perhaps 20 businesses that are critical to infrastructure. I want to have a very decent holding in each of them. This is one such company; the others, for the most part are US and EU based. I include ASML, NVDA, MSFT, Roche, UNH, ADBE, GOOG etc. And, by way of disclosure, I do hold shares in each of those companies - most pay negligible dividend - and will rely on those (plus the more speculative holdings) to generate growth for portfolio as a whole

DaddyAIM - great post. There has been a TR1 RNS issued today.

In common with many, I am bullish for the future (hence my interest and investment), but I do not have the conviction of steph who is treating this as a binary security. Sure, that might pay off, but for me, I'd sooner get things right with 80/100 choices than put everything on red/black/green/whatever. This is more from the perspective of age, capital that has been accumulated through making more good decisions than bad ones and expensive hobbies that involve horses, my children and a small business that has variable cashflow.

KP15121, this is a very thinly traded equity with minimal broker research. While technical analysis may have some influence on large cap, its benefit on those at the bottom of the scale is reduced.

Tiny enterprises revolve around news and technical analysis is pretty well irrelevent. This is not a holding for widows and orphans.

I recall in the 70's through to the current year that "economists" were utterly hopeless in their forecasts. It was not restricted to inflation/interest rates/employment levels/GDP etc etc ad nauseum.

Markets have ALWAYS in the long term risen, so, whether you like it or not best to be fully invested for as long as possible. Of course, there are times when it hurts but bear markets tend to be very harsh but of relatively short duration. FWIW, I am currently 98.7% invested, but not every holding bought this year is up. I'm still picking duffers, but that is the nature of the game.

Much depends on unforseen circumstances and, for that matter it depends on what the circumstances are and to what extent they were unforseen. US markets are not pricing in a rate cut. UK markets are expecting one, and possibly 2 more rate rises before the end of winter.

Gettingthere67 - good decision when investing in cybersecurity and cloud computing - look also at healthcare, especially those that use AI

Y_H_a_L, I generally pay more heed to those that have a bearish attitude to equity markets, hence engaging in, I hope for others, something meaningful that benefits all of us.

Recessions are quite normal and tend to happen every 10 years or so. We have an extraordinary situation which I hope is never to be repeated in my lifetime or that for my children. Let's just work on facts and very broadly, shall we rather than get into minutiae?

A pandemic (Covid 19) was declared in 2020 and, over a series of a few weeks decision was taken by Governments all around the world to deliberately trash their economy through lockdowns of varying punitive measures. In compensation schemes were devised to inject eye watering amounts of cash for the most normal of lives with a tiny element of cash generated by taxation.

Stock markets tanked but it was short lived - just a few days from February 2020 to late March 2020 to recover the ground. When effective vaccine was announced, it was that which allowed lives to resume to more normal levels (I will ignore the antics of moronic ministers) and things returned to resume the progress witnessed up to to end of January 2020 which brought us all up to a pretty even keel in December 2021.

But, things all changed when Mr Putin unleashed a war at the very point when it became clear that the cost of 2 years of nil receipts funded by 80% wages for a substantial proportion of the workforce needed to be paid for and plans put in place to balance the books. We had an immediate cost of living crisis with fuel prices soaring from the point where oil could not be given away to stupid levels, goods unable to ship and a danger of food shortage. Interest rates rose, and rose and rose. They have probably not yet peaked. The war in Ukraine for most that remained invested thoughout caused falls of 15-30%. For me 22% and not quite with 6 zero's in the number

But, Germany has had a technical recession, our economy is not exactly ripping along but progress excites investors and AI, is here, real and improving. That is why NVDA is doing so well.

When the rich take fright, they return to havens of safety. Small enterprises are not safe. Miners, no matter how large are also not very safe (different argument) and Banks, despite having the appearance of respectability are not that safe either. So where are investors putting their money? Well Gilts (government bonds) and companies that CANNOT go bust - Amazon, Google, Shell etc (I hold shares in all of those companies). ASML (another holding) should be doing better etc

Any recession either here or in USA has been priced in. We are actually at the start of a bull market that, Bob Beckman described in the '70's as an elevator with a lunatic at the controls.

In the immediate "after hours" trading for NVDA, the SP rose around 10%. It had an all time high when markets were open.

I sold x shares to remove capital and the remaining 4x shares are profits and held to run.

We have a fragile and volatile market where there is likelihood of recession in both USA and UK. Recession is the certain method to stamp out inflation

Https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/immediately-stop-using-these-portable-garage-heaters-because-they-are-starting-fires-health-canada-1.6533180

Has a test number from ITRK, but what is not known is if instructions for use are bing followed. Perhaps altering cut-off will be a simple fix? Product recalls generally address specific issues where, as this is a low cost product a change of internal part(s) and new cover is all that is required for a manufacturered refurbished sale.