Member Info for Alas_Smith

I don't really care whether your investment time frame is measured in days, weeks months or decades as these are all variables and should for the largest portfolio be reviewed annually and, progressively more frequently depending on the size of portfolio. IMO, it is only the smallest portfolio that needs the greatest of attention - a bit like a seedling in potting stages before finally released and planted so that effort is given to the new seeds for the cycle to continue.

SMT exisits only in my portfolio to either fill gaps or strengthen holdings in sectors that I am not able to research fully, may have overlooked or simply want to be exposed to so that my short term goal (to be fully invested) is maintained. That the choice of sector is one that is expected to grow and that the managers have a good track record of beating the market is simply incidental.

Provided that the managers generate a better return each year than the FTSE, I am ahead. If, as a consequence of hoding shares in this company it brings my average return greater than 13.5%, I am happy. If my average return remains at 13.5% and the return from owning shares in this IT is lower, then the answer is to sell some or all of holding but to keep an eye on things.

Declared change in the portfolio will reflect in the potential for change in institutional holding declarations. Thus it is important to note where the money is going from 2 sources - the holdings of SMT and the institutional investor of SMT - change in one might reflect change in other.

With the furlough scheme set to close over the next few months, I am rather expecting zombie businesses to hobble on through to Christmas and perhaps into the New Year before beginning to curl up their toes and seek either re-structure or insolvency. Hence I have bought a few shares today for elder son in his ISA.

The return to real world conditions is growing daily and with that, the prospect that any rise in interest rates will be the straw to break a camel for some enterprises.

https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/scottish-mortgage-biotech-stake-spikes-tenfold-as-spac-listing-looms/a1547138?

I afded to my holding on Tuesday. SP has benn pretty perky this week

Shakx7, ASML is the lead manufacturer in this field. https://www.ventureradar.com/keyword/Lithography will provde information on other manufacturers. You will see from these that there is a high incidence of European Makers. Not surprising as the humble start from a shed to their tie up with Phillips has produced excellence in this area. I am not familiar with the process, only with the investment (if that makes sense).

I am pretty certain the there will be engineers that have fostered ideas in one company and either formed their own niche or teamed up with others to have compliementary products. Samsung will most certainly be using machines built by ASML.

Of far greater interest (to me) is the holding in ASML. I do own some shares in that company on my own account. For those unfamiliar with the importance of ASML, the world has a shortage of semi conductor chips and although there are new factories being commissioned at the moment, the only company capable of making the machines that produce the chips is ASML. Each machine costs around $150m and factories producing chips need scores of these machines. A very interesting play indeed.

If you feel that buying shares quoted on exchanges other than London is not for you, it might be worth considering Scottish Mortgage Trust. Aside from an excellent past track record ASML is certainly in their portfolio. Shares in ASML are fairly pricey at approx €800 each.

The shares were marked down for good reason, RNS today has confirmed that the current CEO is retiring and that a search for successor has has just started. It does provide for a potential period of overlap to bring successor up to speed. The shares might be a buy for you, but a hold for me and if I do not like the choice of successor, then a sell.

An interesting company (Novacyt), which I considered a couple of years ago. I chose Elekta instead. Don't get me wrong, I am convinced that the sectors that have the greatest appeal are IT, bespoke medical advances and renewables. My most recent bargains have included disposing of 30% my holding in Nvidia, all of my holding in Deutsche Bourse, Persimmon and Vistry and the strengthening of holding in Montanaro UK, (MTU) new holding in Mitan Micro (MINI), strengthened my holding in Thermo Fisher and a good chunk inot ASML a Dutch company. ASML, is an interesting company as the world is clamouring for microchips. There is only 1 company that makes the machines that produces chips and I am a great fan of monopoly economics. Novacyt has similar appeal.

Sorry to others that this is slightly off topic.

No probs..... it would have accounted for the rise yesterday and, FWIW, I added some yesterday for elder son. Have also added to holding in AUGM (today) and EZJ (yesterday). He is sitting on 13% cash at the moment. He prefers to be fully invested (as do I). UEM has again caught my eye.

Gaspunter, as others have said, decisions are there for you to make not others.

The point that you made concerning Broker opinion in my experience is that by the time the general public get to learn of things the cat is out of the bag and it is all too late. Besides, unless you have been comatose for the last 3 years, the world is concerned with renewable energy, healthcare and IT so the money has been flowing into companies in those sectors.

This remains the case. My contention for selling RDSB is that the company managers by ordering share buy backs have no plan to move aggressively into renewables. Too little and too late, hence MY opinion that there are better prospects elsewhere.

To poorgadgee, Stock Markets are not a gamble though it is possible to be reckless and for the impatient considered as gambling. It rather depends on timescale, of course, and a youngster making humble start today aged 21 will probably retire aged 70 and possibly live until reaching their 90's. A 70 year time frame allows for plenty of mistakes to be corrected.

While I agree that the end of 2018 was grim (trade war between US and China), I find it odd that your investments are not in profit. Most had a fantastic 2019, 2020 (apart from the whopping correction from the end of Feb to 23 March) was actually better then average and 2021, although it has been a difficult year with staccato movement should have seen a rise in most portfolio. That you are down in this security suggests to me that you have too much concentrated in Shell to the neglect to the wider picture.

Over the last few decades, I've made many financial mistakes, but I have made many good decisions that have outweighed the bad ones. I am not convinced that owning shares in Shell has advantage. Yes, I know it will be many years before diesel and petrol will no longer be needed, but I am not convinced that the managers of Shell (or any other oil major) have a clue as to the future of energy.

The future is renewables - not only is that the future that the buying public want, but also that which is being enacted through legislation in the worlds major economic regions (US and Europe). And Shell, rather than buying up companies that are at the cutting edge of battery power in whatever format has the greatest advantage to generate cash, has decided to buy its own shares.

This suggests to me that actually the managers have no future proof plan in concept let alone in rollout.

Therefore, after almost a half century of owning shares in Shell, over the next month I will no longer have a pecuniary interest in the company. I could be wrong, but in common with many, the writing is on the wall. As long as there is still a pump to refuel my motorbikes and cars for the next 20 years while I am sufficiently compis mentis to be a motorist in some capacity, then I'll be OK. But life and finance are not always the perfect partnership

There was a little write up on IBST in the Sunday Times today. Won't do the SP any harm.

The most recent information I have is that Interactive Investor is the largest holding in AUGM portfolio and represents about 17%. As the mcap for AUGM is £280m in round figs, my back of fag packet maths, suggests the value of stake in II to be about £47m which is a 50% premium to the stated book value that you note.

The proposed float may mean that some of the seed capital is freed up for new investments but I would hope that it attracts investors in the same way that Hargreaves Lansdown did and becomes a cash cow.

Mike1974, I am not a shareholder but I am an account customer of RMG. There are changes occurring that place huge burden on small enterprise (inder 50,000 units shipped annually) to comply which have been bungled by RMG in rollout and will inevitably lead to fewer accounts.

Beligerents account holders such as my company are oushing back and insisting that if we are to play our part, then a reciprocal approach is needed by RMG. This adds to the costs but does not generate any revenue at all.

Let me illustrate this….. at the mo, we provide suficient volume to have a dedicated manager, volume discount and collection from our offices, Collection is at our discretion so, formthe last 5 years we felt 2x weekly was enough. The changes we are required to make have raised our costs, have been poorly developed by RMG do not fully integrate and are a pain in the rump. This month alone, around 70 hoirs has been spent in the reprogramming of databases only to discover that elements compatible with 1 system are not with the new. This small business is therefore stamping our feet and insisting on a daily and timed collection and field support in the integration service.

I have no idea how manay account customers are in the same boat, but I do know that divertting a van to collect even if there is nothing to proces is causing a cost in data, fuel and time. And, of course, if I have 40 bags of mail to pickup, I will insist that it is collected whether there is space in the van for collections after ours rather than arrange fora dedicated van as I have in the past to spread the load amd balance resource.

HillSeeker - indeed I am delighted. Goolang, although the lockdown restrictions are lifting, the effects of Staamp Duty Land Tax returning will be evidenced with fewer completions over the next 3 months. Slowdown in new build starts will not prevent the part built houses from being finished to first fix status or homeowners planning alterations to existing dwellings.

....continued

will, or perhaps should a huge rollout of testing to place controls be initiated. And that is where the anomoly lies.

We know the benefits of the the TTG system, we know that there are partners involved, but we do not know the extent to which extremely rapid testing has a take up and this will only be known from a political and perhaps WHO led initiative.

Sorry to ramble.

Disclaimer - I own shares in TTG some of which are held in ISA wrapper and some in my dealing accounts.

Every so often I look at an individual company and try and work out if, with the information I have now determine if it is a company in which to invest for the first time, sell as the company no longer has the appeal it had or hold for the reasons that persuaded me to bung some money at in the first place.

I'm going to disclose a little personal information at this point.

I am well educated but not a high flyer. In fact, my current salary is below the national average and a little above the minimum wage. I have neither inherited money nor won any lottery. My wealth is simply from living within my means, working bloody hard and squirrelling whatever I can save for a rainy day. I have drawn everything I managed to save for rainy days on 3 occasions. I now find myself, the consequence of house price inflation, more good decisions than bad to have accumulated substantial capital (property) and cash (investments) yet am income poor. I actually have an IHT problem (almost £2m nett worth) but with a salary of slightly over £16,000. I have liquid assets (shares in public companies) of almost £800k that as a portfolio is generating considerably over half of my income by way of dividends and considerably more by way of capital growth. I make, on average 12 portfolio changes each year. This is generally one disposal (in whole) and 2 purchases at my average bargain price (£15,000) - 4 sales and 8 purchases. I top this up with my regular investments from income £850 each month. I have few outgoings (no mortgage) but do spend a lot of money on my motorcycles, horses, fine wine, art and skiing.

Disclaimer out of the way.

Is there a compelling reason to buy shares in TTG right now? And before that is considered, perhaps it might be worth asking the question, "Does TTG have an economic moat?". More simply put, "can I lose money?".

For new investors, I suspect the answers are No, No and Yes. But why therefore am I going against logic and added a few more share today - don't get excited it was only £500 worth (please see previous disclaimer)? Well, Mr Market gets things wrong from time to time and I believe that the shares in TTG are not priced to reflect the future, only the past.

We are, whether we like it or not, at the stage in the pandemic where there are medicines to protect. This protection has been rolled out to varying extent to the richest countries and restrictions to movement are beginning to be reduced. I suspect that by the end of September (6 weeks time), for many of us, life will have returned to pretty normal conditions and that is when our guard should be greatest.

Although local protection has been afforded in part to developed nations, spread has not been contained. And to control spread requires testing. My hunch therefore is that only once morbidity (spread of disease) has been controlled ...

Velo - I do not deny that when he took control of the company it was well received by shareholders and basically rescued the company. Restarting a company from life support measure were effective, but either what was in place when he stepped down was hopeless or the incoming CEO was terrible (or a bit of both) was the result of the structure that he had overseen.

Now, it could be argued that BT faces a similar problem though from a near monopoly position and Crozier is an inspired choice. But simply to be so dismissive is frankly, rude. I do not curently own shares in either ITV or BT. Neither are a fit to the current composition of my portfolio.

Crozier oversaw a decline in the SP for ITV during his tenure. Having never watched a game of football, I had no idea of his involvement or whether it was beneficial to advance and promote the advantage of the England side or their placing in world ranking.

Now that the SP has flattenned out again, I am considering whether to add telecoms to my portfolio again. My gut feeling is not, but try always to keep abreast of events on companies that I have followed and made investment in the past.