Member Info for hardup

Gazzleberry

Correct. Most of the 750,000 that Brixton quoted arrive here legally.....(work visa's, student visa's, humanitarian etc.....and dependents of all of these groups).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53699511

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023

Gazzleberry

You are not paying any more tax than someone whose wages are the same as your state pension and wages combined. Your state pension is taxable income and is paid gross so if you work whilst claiming the state pension your employer is obliged to take your pension into account as well as your wages for taxation.

2% cut in National Insurance rate.

Well Hunt has confirmed the pension triple lock with pensions rising by 8.5%.

I thought you can open multiple ISA's as long as your total subscription in them all doe's not exceed the annual limit, currently £20,000?

"A move to at least £25k limit would be good."

I would say double it to £40,000!

STP

The article I posted was from 2019 and the gold price was $1,279 per ounce. Todays gold price is $1,999 per ounce!

STP

.Worst deal in UK history..........20 years since Brown sold Britain’s gold!

The Backstory:

In 1999, Chancellor Gordon Brown sought to sell off 401 tonnes (56%) of the UK’s gold reserves. The logic was that gold wasn’t being used as a safe haven as much as it had been before, and that foreign currencies like the US Dollar and the imminent Euro would generate much better returns.

The price of gold in the late 1990s was roughly between $254 and $312 per ounce. A 20-year bear market - since the abandonment of the Gold Standard by President Nixon - had been pushing global prices down. Brown was worried that the price would continue to drop even further, so he sought to sell as soon as possible. At the same time, nearing the Millennium, the US Dollar was getting stronger under President Clinton’s administration, and stock markets were making steady gains as interest in tech stocks grew (into what would become the Dot Com Bubble of 2000/01).

The Sale:

Originally intended to be a secret, the planned sale was brought up in a question for the Treasury in the House of Commons on Friday May 7th. The confirmation of intention from the Treasury subsequently alerted the gold market, and the gold price fell by $10 per ounce. There was also the issue of auctions; 17 were planned, suggesting that the UK Treasury did not expect the price to improve any time soon and were thus looking to hedge their bets and make multiple sales to maximise the money made.

The total sale of the gold bullion sold was $3.5 billion, at $275 per ounce average sale value. It is somewhat ironic that Gordon Brown’s attempts to make as much money as possible from a staggered sale resulted in over $100 million less for the gold compared to when the sale hadn’t been announced, but it’s damning just how much more that gold would have been worth further down the line. Gold was $921 per ounce early in May 2009, which would put the gold sold at $11.8 billion in value - $8.3 billion more than Brown got. The 20-year price rise is worse still, with gold currently at $1,279 per ounce. This would make the gold bullion worth $16.4 billion - $12.9 billion more than was received in 1999.

https://www.bullionbypost.co.uk/gold-news/2019/may/07/worst-deal-uk-history-20-years-brown-sold-britains-gold/

Geofrey

Even with the shares that were re-issued, the net result of this year's buyback is a reduction of 3,118,262,707 shares.

Seany

Nothing has been agreed yet as far as I am aware? And if Lloyds do accept Barclays revised offer, will it actually be an extra £1.16B cash for the balance sheet? Or is it already itemised in the accounts of the loan book as an outstanding loan? Or is it a loan that had previously been written off as a loss?

Brixton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmeUuoxyt_E

Just waiting for the other half of the double act to appear. Guess who? HTE RSOTW SI TEY OT MOCE - HOIM - RDYO

88.......CB's walking a tightrope with what they say......they need to say enough to keep a lid on the markets without sending fear into the markets.

Gate.....Agree it shows that buybacks are working for big US Tech Companies evidenced by their SP growth. But, I think it also highlights that buybacks seem to have a benign effect on the SP growth of large companies such as UK Banks, Insurance companies etc who have a totally different business model to the big US Tech Companies. Which is evidenced by their SP growth in conjunction with buybacks compared to the big US Tech companies.

Gate....."Good US companies that barely pay any dividend but use buybacks instead livestock."

The big US Tech companies that do big buybacks every year have a totally different business model to a UK High Street Bank. Comparing apples and potatoes.

The FED will release the minutes of its November rate setting meeting today. Markets seem to be getting ahead of themselves again anticipating that there will be a sign in the minutes that there will be no further move on rates this year?

Rishi Sunak now saying they are in a position to be able to start cutting taxes.....one day before the budget! hmmmmmmmm! Cue incoming election bribes tomorrow!🤣 🤣

ForensicBloo, you did not put the % increases for 2024 and 2025, the % increases with those forecasts are:

2024.....+18.2%

2025.....+17.5%

2026.....-0.5% (I agree with LTI that the dividend amount given for 2026 was possibly a typo?)

2027....+10%

2028....+10%

So these forecasted increases are going to be well in excess of inflation. One would hope that this will be reflected in higher SP as we go along.

Panderman....."Looks suspiciously like the shares they bought back!!"

To put this into perspective, the Block Listing is for 743,000,000 shares which added to the 525,000,000 already issued earlier this year will take the total new shares issued in 2023 to 1,268,000,000. The total shares bought back and cancelled in 2023 was 4,386,262,707. So the net result this year is a reduction of 3,118,262,707 shares.

ForensicBloo......"Quite poor % increases."

What are the % increases for those forecasts?