Member Info for ICL1960

@Manunited31

Texan storms blow with a Texan drawl, does it?

Strong winds are bad for wind turbines, accent notwithstanding.

Https://www.energy.gov/cmei/articles/how-do-wind-turbines-survive-severe-weather-and-storms

Accessible oil and gas will run out eventually. Does it matter it happens in fifty years, or a hundred years?

Fifty years ago, I asked adults how long will the oil last, and they said maybe fifty years.

Nobody was deluded enough to say it will be five hundred years.

I was around ten years old, and I was wondering what would happen when I get old.

And now here we are: I am old, and the oil is running out.

Our current way of life is built on cheap abundant energy.

When that is gone, nothing you do will bring it back.

Well, you could take over Venezuela and Iran to make it last longer, I suppose.

https://youtu.be/0Tlj_Z3FYPI

Hail, Lord Humongous, aka POTUS.

I was hoping the Mad Max era will begin after I die, but it looks like it's started already.

At least we now know there is a negative correlation with oil and gas prices.

Greencoat UK Wind Share Price

Price 99.75 Open 97.40

Bid 99.70 High 100.00

Ask 99.95 Low 96.50

Change 2.75 (2.84%) Close 97.00

Volume 3,199,056

Memento for Bunsen. Many Happy Returns.

Lets make it official government policy. If you want heating and eating, when gas prices go up, buy UKW shares. For people on pension credit etc., we will rebate the stamp duty to the energy account you supply.

Dividend allowance is £500, so buy ~4,500 shares, or as many as you want inside an ISA.

It's like buying War Bonds, except the interest is a lot higher.

We are all patriots, who are contributing to building national infrastructure.

https://youtu.be/1r94sjdHQ0c

"I acquired a position in UKW in a couple of months ago at an average price of 98p."

That is a little bit suspicious.

Did you start the Iran crisis, pushing oil prices up, causing an energy shortage?

Thank you for driving up the need for wind generation.

Ed Miliband can now demand an expansion of renewable capacity, to mitigate against oil shortages.

We will get more grants and subsidies to build more wind farms.

Funny you should say ten years.

I sold a buy-to-let in 2016, and have indeed been stuffing £20k a year into ISAs.

For ten years.

ISA is like a Taylor Swift concert, you want to go, but you can't get in.

While queueing to get into an ISA, the money is having babies, adding to the queue.

HMRC is like vultures. They are just babies, but HMRC wants dividend tax.

No wonder babies are crying.

# Trades 2,481

Vol. Sold 1,635,228

Sold Value £1.52m

Vol. Bought 2,863,755

Bought Value £2.64m

https://youtu.be/gK6g_tDIyWs

"Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel"

It's a dead end if all you have is dividend and no growth.

I have world index tracker as well, UKW is just part of the mix.

My UK state pension starts in 2030, so notionally I am setting up an income bridge.

The CPI guarantee is supposed to run for seven years, so the whole thing is a good match.

In my mind, I'm planting a money tree. Every three months, it's harvest time.

Elephants know where to go when they die.

It looks like soon-to-be pensioners think alike.

Where we are is:

1. The government can't afford to keep you heating and eating.

2. The employer wants to be rid of the liability of you in decrepitude.

I think people are still hankering for this warm and safe blanket mentality inherited from the Final Salary scheme era. If you can replicate the index linked nirvana of the Goode Olde Days, then all will be well.

If you have a decent pile, it really doesn't matter what you do.

A £million house to live in, a £million in investments, probably a Buy-to-let in the mix.

You are all set.

If you are worrying, it means you are border line secure, or have less, and really need to get it right.

Personally, I find the concept of living to 90+ really unappealing.

I would really like to sign up for euthanasia when I become unhealthy.

It's also an excellent exit plan if you run out of money.

When they find me frozen to death on the street, the council is going to say they couldn't contact me because I was homeless. Also, I was not their responsibility since I had no address in the area. Anything to avoid spending a penny on care costs.

If you insist on eking out your money, all the way to 100 years old, that's over thirty years, the MOST deadly enemy is inflation. This is why a dividend portfolio is a dead end. You must have inflation beating growth to last the course.

Obviously, the state pension will be inflation linked, when that kicks in.

I have topped up my NI contribution, but I left a few years, just in case I might get NI credits.

I have a small Final Salary scheme that just started paying out, which will increase annually, with a cap of 2.5%.

There is a SIPP, with which I will probably buy an enhanced annuity, with escalation (index link).

These three index linked mechanisms provide a baseline income stream.

This is my warm and fuzzy safety blanket.

The rest is available for experimenting.

During the good old days, Buy To Let gave 9% growth, but house prices in my area has been static for ten years. UKW is a REIT, so it's like moving a property investment into another property investment. It even pays the equivalent of rent. The cherry on top is, it's tax free because it's inside a S&S ISA. Previously, BTL mortgage interest could be offset against rental income, but you still have to pay 28% CGT.

The dream is, UKW pays 10% for seven years, and return to NAV.

I still won't die happy, because HMRC will get 40% IHT.

I pay for my own retirement, and they still get 40%.

Dubai is busted as a tax free heaven. Drat.

I bought around £1.55, so the dividend is ~9%.

Where do you get a deal like that?

Selling just means losing money on capital gains.

and then you buy something that pays less dividend.

Don't forget stamp duty.

Joke is, capital gains is reset to zero on my death, but Rachel Reeves gets 40% IHT instead.

How about a tax allowance for good behaviour?

If I was naughty, the trial would cost money, prison place would cost money,

surely it makes sense to give me a discount.

If I don't smoke and live healthily, I save the NHS a packet:

DISCOUNT! DISCOUNT!

I am done buying.

Need to do a bed and ISA in April, to move some earlier buys into the ISA.

If it's a sell and buy, Rachel Reeves will get a second bite at the stamp duty cherry. Drat!!!!

One of the ideas of buying UKW is it can recover to NAV, around £1.30 .

I would rather the share price hovers around £1, to remove the temptation to sell.

Ideally, I won't be selling for years, just take the dividend tax free, and make Rachel Reeves angry.

She did get some stamp duty when I bought, that's enough.

Frequent trading just makes THEM happy.

I find the phrase "having more than one string to your bow" somewhat non-sensical.

For an archer, having more than one string would make the bow unusable.

They say a global index tracker returns around 10% long term.

The only problem is, you can have a run of bad years (sequencing risk),

i.e. you are in draw down, and the portfolio not only doesn't grow, it shrinks.

That is what an annuity counters.

Diversification is what we need.

I have a small final salary pension that just started paying out.

Previously, I would have kept the SIPP for draw down, because it's inheritance tax free.

From April 2027, it will attract 40% IHT. Scream!!!!

Now I am inclined to buy an enhanced annuity, just to deny Rachel Reeves the pleasure of her 40% cut.

I suspect the insurers expect you to live longer if you leave it till you are 75.

How ill can you be if you can survive to 75?

Pull the other one, you hypochondriac.

So, apply for an enhanced annuity before I turn 70, preferably index linked.

Cough a lot when applying. Wink, wink.

"You did not mention that income from an annuity is then taxed. This income here in a SIPP is not."

You mean it grows tax free, until you try to draw down. Agreed.

If I get employer contribution, it would makes sense to do it inside a DC pension.

Since I don't, I am buying the UKW inside an ISA.

"Are you an ex ICL employee dating back to 1960? Makes you pretty old!"

ICL1960S was a mainframe computer, with 64KB magnetic core store (before transistor RAM).

The operating system was called MAXIMOP. Architectural support for code sharing, which made multitasking possible. It was my first introduction to computing, in Secondary School. I got an A in "O" Level (GCSE) Computer Studies.

Sadly, ICL was bought by Fujitsu, and produced the Post Office Horizon software.

In one of the old manuals, an error code was defined as "spurious return characters"

https://m.ok.ru/video/1805536332468

"Don't forget to adjust for the nominal factor!"

Obviously, they forgot to adjust for the nominal factor when they designed Horizon, and failed to ignore any spurious return characters. They probably divided indivisible operations when using a distributed database as well. They just don't make software engineers like they used to any more. Bunch of app tapping wannabe programmers who don't know the difference between re-entrant and relocatable code.

I find UKW a potential pension plan fantasy come true.

Recently, annuity rates are hovering around 7%, due to the higher yields of long duration bonds.

That is, you give Legal and General (or Canada Life, etc.) £100k, and they promise to pay you £7k a year, fixed, until you die. If you wanted index linking, you might start from £5k a year, with annual increase. With annuities, all sales are final, once the deal is made, you don't get the £100k back.

Let us assume UKW doesn't fold up, and keeps pumping out dividend as expected.

2.59p quarterly is 10.36p annually. At 97p, that is 10.68% yield.

The annual up-lift by CPI means it's potentially better than an index linked pension, which is probably capped at 2.5% increase a year.

Compared to an index linked pension:

Rate 10.68% vs 5 %

Annual Increase CPI vs 2.5% max

The trump card is, you can sell the UKW shares when you want you money back!

No chance with an annuity.

It even pays out every three months, providing a regular income, if you want it.

For a pension in draw down, you can take the cash, or re-invest the dividend.

Obviously there are no guarantees with a REIT.

In fact, REITs are plastered with warnings.

Sophisticated investors only, novices don't go there.

As part of a portfolio, it has a place.

"As from 1st December 2025 the FSCS protection limit was raised to £120k per account."

Cash £120k

Investment £85k

https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/

"up to £120,000 per eligible person, per bank, building society or credit union."

https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/investments/

"We can pay up to £85,000 per person, per firm."

If you believe what they say on Youtube, some of these trading platforms pretend to sell you shares, but it's actually a short position for them. The idea is that there are buyers and sellers, and they only have to buy or sell shares at the end of the day to tally up. The trading platform makes money on the spread. They also depend on active traders who lose money who buy high and sell low. If a trading platform gives you free trades, they are saying, we want you to trade often, because the more you trade, the more you lose. If you buy at 97p, and sell at 96p, the trading platform never bought and sold on the real market, they just pocket the 1p difference. They don't need to charge you a trading fee to make money.

This presents a possibility where the trading platform hasn't actually bought the shares you thought they did, so there are no shares in the nominee account belonging to you. Hopefully, the cash that would have bought the shares is covered by the £120k limit.

An interesting scenario is, there are £120k worth of missing shares that you should have, or £120k worth of cash that would have bought the shares. FSCS could decide to pay out £85k for the missing shares, and ignore the fact that you had £120k in the trading account, which had been embezzled.

HSBC Investdirect charges a £10.50 Trading Fee.

Interactive Investor Core charges £3.99 Trading Fee, but I got £100 Trading Credit.

I feel safer with HSBC, and the higher Trading Fee is not important if you hold for years.

I wanted to buy some UKW. so here we are.

When the pot gets bigger, I could try out AJBell, or Hargreaves Lansdown.

"icl _ i am with ii and do not rate them at all."

I am getting negative feedback from a friend as well.

I transferred dome ISA cash across to Interactive Investor, and it took repeated prompting and chasing and took five weeks. The II side seems to be staffed by some kind of Energiser Bunny that is very responsive, but manages to do the wrong thing time after time. The HSBC Investdirect side was a bit odd, but at least they won't release the funds unless every little thing is by the book.

Forty years ago, I walked into Lloyds bank, and the middle aged lady counter staff was very correct, competent, and filled you with confidence. These days, you see youngsters who just inspire fear. I am positively surprised when things go through correctly.

The FSCS protection limit (investments) is £85k , so I was looking to spread my pot across more accounts.

I have transferred some cash, back and forth, to test the system, so the automated functions seem to work well enough with II.

The real test of the pudding is getting the dividend out of the ISA.

Vanguard's ISA is Flexible, so if you need some cash short term, you can withdraw some cash, use it, then put it back within the same tax ear, without using you £20k annual ISA quota. Even if the II ISA is flexible, I don't think I should tempt fate by trying to use the option.

Ideally, I can transfer the dividends to the Vanguard ISA, where I keep them handy in money market fund units. The growth is tax free, inside an ISA. Sadly, the government might want to discourage me from using a S&S ISA as a Cash ISA.

Question: Why does Silvio Berlusconi hold lavish Roman orgies?

Answer: He wants to spend all his money before he dies, to avoid 40% IHT!

There is a fantastic retirement plan business opportunity.

Set up a retirement brothel.

Instead of an annuity, you buy board and lodging using your SIPP.

Platinum package includes access to Top Notch Hotties.

Gold package includes exotic pleasures.

Silver package gives you homely comforts, but at least you eat well.

Bronze package provides the very basic, but at least you do not starve.

Unlimited supply of Viagra for all members.

Our motto, "Happy Ending"

No hurry.

My Buys:

12th Jan @ £0.97825

26th Jan @ £0.9647

5th Feb @ £0.978003

5th March @ £0.96

6th March @ £0.9485

Had to open an Interactive Investor account, because HSBC Investdirect doesn't handle UKW.

Even weirder, HSBC Investdirect doesn't handle FCIT either.

With Vanguard SIPP and ISA, you can only invest in Vanguard funds.

The choice of funds available from inside the HSBC Global Investment Centre (GIC) is a little limited too.

I find the extra choice offered by Interactive Investor a bit daunting.

It's funny how people don't think in terms of re-investing the dividend in UKW.

Interactive Investor offers

Dividend Reinvestment £0.99 per trade

I like my number of shares neat and tidy, so the idea of starting with 10,000 shares,

and then it becomes 10,967 shares, then 11,905 shares just sets my teeth on edge.

The UKW dividends will show up every three months, so have to do something with them.

I already have some LGEN shares, which HSBC Investdirect does allow. It looks like the default action is to drip feed the UKW dividend into FCIT shares, because now I can.

Why isn't Foreign and Colonial a fund? I opened a HSBC GIC ISA account, thinking it's time to get some Foreign and Colonial. No, it's not a fund. So, buy some FCIT inside the HSBC Stocks and Shares ISA? No, HSBC Investdirect doesn't handle FCIT. Scream!!!!