Member Info for ICL1960

Capitalisation is an illusion.

The accounting equation is:

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

where equity is effectively capitalisation.

If capitalisation is based on something solid like tonnes of gold in a vault,

then you can depend on it, but all you can hope for is no surprises to upset the apple cart.

Lehman Brothers no doubt had a capitalisation of billions, until their CDO trading position tilted them into a liability black hole.

McDonalds is pretty steady, until people stop eating burgers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bse-in-scotland-epidemiology-report-2024

It would be ironic if McDonalds issues a statement:

"We do not use Scottish beef in our McDonalds burgers."

With HSBC, I aim to get get to £5 average acquisition price, inside an ISA,

and stop messing with it. Buying and selling incur stamp duty.

The dumb thing with HSBC Investdirect (dealing account) is, you can buy stocks and shares,

but not funds inside the Investdirect ISA. If I wanted to buy funds, I have to open a Global Investment Centre, and open a GIC ISA. What I would have liked to do is to sell some HSBC shares at £9, after the dividend, and buy some bond fund to hold the money, until HSBC drops back down to £4~5. You CAN transfer the money between ISAs, but it's a pain.

Https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/glencore-considers-leaving-london-stock-34710230

"Glencore, the mining giant, has reveaed that it's considering shifting its primary stock market listing from London, potentially delivering another hit to the city's financial market."

"This potential exodus echoes the moves made by other major firms such as the gambling colossus Flutter and the building materials titan CRH, both of which have transferred their main listings to New York within the last couple of years. December also saw FTSE 100 construction rental heavyweight Ashtead announce plans to move its primary listing to New York, underscoring a growing preference for US-based exchanges."

ABDN promotes back into FTSE 100?

Just by bigger companies exiting FTSE.

If everybody put their money into passive trackers, and the tracker managers keep buying the constituents, you get really inflated, i.e. unjustifiably, price to earnings ratios.

Who knows, robo-computer trades could see the momentum from tracker trades, and push it even further.

Let's pray/hope ABDN gets back in , followed by the forced buying from tracker funds.

£2.50 a share would be nice. £3 will be ideal.

For IHT planning. a life insurance person recommended my mother buy life insurance, so when she passes away, the insurance pay out will cover the IHT tax. This was when she was about 65. She had a long life, and passed away aged 92. I dread to think how much she would have paid in insurance premium over 27 years. Through well timed gifting, she did not pay a penny of IHT.

Trusts are fine, until things change, and you want to alter it.

I would try to give the money away, leaving a debt to absorb the assets.

The threshold for HSBC private bank is £1.5million.

If loans count, I would borrow £1m, invest it with HSBC, so it's more than £2m worth of business. That sounds like what Nigel Farage did with Coutts.

Ironically, HSBC refuses to lend money to invest.

The banks are very happy to lend money to private equity to buy Morrisons, Manchester United, etc.

Private equity would buy Thames Water, then strip it by sucking the money out by overloading it with debt. That's what I want to do, so when I die, there is less than £325k left.

No, it's only for super villains equities.

Money tree idea.

HSBC Premier account requires you to keep £50k with them.

"For either an InvestDirect or an InvestDirect Plus account, you'll pay a quarterly account fee of £10.50." So, £42 a year.

The S&S ISA is free.

No custodian fee for keeping shares in it.

No charge for collecting dividend.

If you bought 10,000 shares HSBA at £5, for £50k, you can just leave it there,

generating dividend tax free inside the ISA.

https://www.hl.co.uk/shares/shares-search-results/h/hsbc-holdings-plc-ordinary-usd0.50/dividends

USD$0.61 ~ GBP0.49 which is back to normal pre-COVID.

10,000 shares generates £4,900 a year.

After deducting £42 annual fee, you are left with £4,858 a year, tax free.

The problem with ISA is, you can't bear to withdraw cash, and lose the tax free status.

So you just re-invest the dividends, diversifying if you want to.

Twenty years later, it's easy to end up with £200k.

Now it's £200k in an ISA, but are you really going to take it out, and lose the tax free status?

If you have cash outside, earning taxable interest, in shares earning taxable dividend,

incurring taxable capital gains when you sell, are you really going to take the £200k out?

The cash outside is queueing to go in, so you will spend that first.

If you wait, the ISA soon reaches £300k.

The bigger it is, the faster it grows.

What we really need is an equity release loan, with a lien on the ISA.

You spend the money now, and the lender gets the ISA money when you die.

Until you die, the ISA keeps making money tax free.

Ideally, around three years ago, HSBC lends me £1m at 2%, secured on my ISA and other assets. Fixed for ten years, or more.

The loan will reduce my estate, drastically reducing inheritance tax.

All too good to be true, sadly.

Even more tragic, I don't think I will ever withdraw cash from my S&S ISA.

Bought a few shares for a punt.

Order type: LIMIT PURCHASE

Order dealt on: 19DEC2024 at 15:46:51

Dealt quantity: SHS 5,000

Dealt price: GBP 0.45432

I am not paying HSBC or TEN Group for the concierge membership,

even though the Jade membership has been discontinued.

"Additionally, I’m delighted to confirm that your concierge benefit of a glass of Nutty English Sparkling Wine on arrival has been arranged.

Also, restaurants including Simpsons in The Strand, Big Mamma Canary Wharf and Le Caprice at The Rosewood are all opening new sites in the coming months and our proposition team are already discussing concierge exclusive soft launches and priority access, would you like me to keep you updated with these?"

Two glasses of sparkling wine for a restaurant booking of table for two, FREE.

Can't complain because it's free.

Oddly, a booking in December 2024 triggered a confirmation from OpenTable.

Could have booked it myself using OpenTable, but no complementary sparkling wine.

Just don't see how TEN makes money.

Do they get a kickback from the restaurant?

Hoping TENG bounces back to 70p, which will pay for a few nice Sunday Roasts.

Simpsons will re-open soon.

The dividend is showing in my HSBC Investdirect Settlement Account, dated 27th Sep 2024.

Slightly disconcerting, three days late.

The idea of re-investing dividend turns me cold because the tax return.

If it's all inside an ISA then who cares, but outside an ISA, it's a pain.

You have to go back years for how much you bought them for.

Scrip dividend

____________

Presumably you have to pay dividend tax in the year you receive scrip dividend.

I didn't buy them, so are they £0 to acquire?

So, if I sold at £1.66, is the gain £1.66?

The 30 day rule means you can't buy back right away to get a fresh start.

Outside an ISA, I would sell all of one stock, and buy something else, than get into all that tax nightmare.

" Index managers will start buying over a period before addition, carry out block trades, use options/derivatives to hedge the exposure of having to suddenly buy."

That sounds like active management, versus passive tracking.

There are tracker funds that don't actually hold the assets they track, and just use derivatives to track synthetically. It's just that hedging incurs a cost, which skews the tracking.

Promotion back to FTSE 100 is just a speculation. Nice if it did.

Dived in around £1.55.

If I just wanted dividend, could just get some LGEN.

The hope is ABDN will rejoin FTSE 100.

On the way down, the FTSE tracker funds MUST sell.

On the way up, they MUST BUY.

I find this express elevator mechanism pleasing.

With water, Physics says there is something called latent heat.

"Latent heat is a form of internal or potential energy stored by evaporated or melted water. As ice melts or liquid water evaporates, the molecules change state — from a solid to a liquid, from a liquid to a gas, or from a solid directly to a gas. The energy required to melt ice or to evaporate water does not result in a change in its temperature; rather, it is stored through the phase change of the water molecules and can be subsequently released through condensation of the water vapor (through either dew or frost formation or precipitation) or refreezing of liquid water. This energy is termed latent heat since it does not result in a change in the temperature of the water molecules - thermometers cannot measure this energy."

It took me quite some time to realise that condensing boilers are recovering the latent heat of evaporation from the steam. If it was merely recovering heat through the heat exchanger by reducing the temperature of the exhaust steam a little, it's not that useful. It's only by making sure the return flow from the radiators is low enough, so that you get the steam to CONDENSE back into water, that you get the big pay out.

This means, if the share price is on the edge of promotion back to FTSE 100, some hedge funds just have to buy enough ABDN to push it back up. The forced buy from all the FTSE Tracker funds will create a rocket ship rise, which in turn will trigger momentum (AI computer) trades.

There is pumping, and then there is concerted greed that ends in a self-fulfilling rush on ABDN. ;)

"Div 8p payable 21 Jun 2024.

SP down 27p.

I would be better off by 19p if sold it yesterday."

31cent ~= 25p

Outside an S&S ISA, you could pay capital gains instead of dividend tax.

Depends on how much tax free allowance you have unused.

Regardless of ISA, there is the 0.5% stamp duty when you buy shares.

Since HSBA pays dividend four times a year, you will lose 2% = 0.5% x 4

if you keep switching in and out over a year.

There are dealing charges as well.

Bought some at 63p on the way down.
Would be double at £1.26.
Capital Gains allowance going down, so will sell before April 2023.

HSBC is dis-continuing the Jade program, but it is not clear whether the TEN concierge perk carries on. Depending on assets invested with HSBC, you are either a Private Bank, or Premier customer. I expect Private Bank customers will keep the concierge service, and Premier customers not.

I worked for a company, let's say X, the catering company we used to provide the staff canteen was company Y. Guess what, our CEO, of X, was also a director of Y.

Booking business travel is a gravy train.
I have seen companies having policies that insist you book through appointed agents.
They say this way they get bulk discount, but if you bought a ticket from the airline yourself,
it's way cheaper. When you dig a little, you find the director that forced the policy is also connected to the travel company.

What we want, is for these new TEN directors to be on the board of BP, etc. ,
and make all travel bookings go through TEN. A business class ticket for £2,000 normally,
would be quoted as £3,000 full price, but you get a corporate discount so it's only £2,400.
What a bargain. You get 100kg of luggage allowance, and caviar, if anybody asks awkward questions.

The flaw in the gravy train business model is, business travel is tax deductible,
whereas a concierge service user is spending his own money, with no tax deduction.
So why would they pay extra to book through TEN, if they can get the ticket cheaper by booking direct?
If TEN can handle cancellations and refunds, that's worth something, but I doubt they want to touch it with a barge pole.

Tax rates around forty years ago:

https://resource.download.wjec.co.uk/vtc/2015-16/15-16_20/unit7/TaxRates73-90_resource.pdf

You get what you pay for.

They could move to a subscription model.

Your NHS subscription could be be tax deductible.
Gold service gives you advanced cover.
Silver service excludes expensive treatments.
Bronze service gets you basic first aid, plus a selection of euthanasia.

Mercy killing saves you from a lingering death.

Sign here to agree to the euthanasia.
But my hands were crushed by the machine where I work.
No paper work, no waiver, you just go home and die. Next.

There is supposed to be an income stream from completed installations.
Should provide a basis for rising dividends.
But of course, it's simply syphoned off, away from the shareholders.
When it's wound up, the balance sheet will show plenty of debt.

The schools will still be paying, to somebody else.

In the solar panel rent a roof scam, the original installation company has closed,
but the Feed-in-Tariff cashflow was sold off to another company,
with no obligation to maintain the solar panels.

"After the journalist explained the S&P 500 had dropped 20% this year it would have some impact on London’s stocks. But there was a way to mitigate this……"

So, you buy S&P 500 for £100k, and now you have £80k.
Crystalise the £20k loss, and buy "healthcare and telecoms" in London.

It's like saying you lost money on Red Rum, now bet on Shergar.
It's a sure thing, init?

"A stockbroker is someone who invests other people's money until it is all gone.” — Woody Allen

Looks like somebody set a stop-loss around 60p.
Or is it a bed and ISA?

It looks like, when the going is good, and people book restaurants, it shoots up to £1.20.
When people tighten their belts, so no bookings, TENG plummets.

What happened to Magrathea?

"The Magratheans went into hibernation, awaiting an economic recovery that could afford their services once more. Mostly everyone except Slartibartfast is seen to be in hibernation. Magrathea itself disappeared and its memory soon passed into the obscurity of legend."

If you believe their line, about catering to HNWIs, then you should accept
that these guys can afford to eat, while the rest queue for food banks.

If it does plunge to ~30p again, I'll have some.
The last time it crashed to about 29p.
I bought some, just for fun, and sold around 69p.

I like to use up tax free allowances.

The golden age of Buy To Let came to and end, as this explains.

https://www.which.co.uk/money/tax/income-tax/tax-on-property-and-rental-income/buy-to-let-mortgage-tax-relief-changes-explained-atnsv0j6j782

Hello, capital gains allowance and dividend allowance.

I was so happy when the dividend allowance was £5,000 , in 2016/17 and 2017/18.

Sold a Buy To Let in 2016, before the landlord bashing started,
so had the full benefit of the £5,000 tax free dividend.

Even if you go over the £5,000, basic rate for dividend was only 7.5%.
Rental income would have incurred 20%.

For retirement, you have state pension and private pension to soak up the Personal Allowance.
Ideally you want everything to be inside an ISA, but the rest could be positioned to take advantage
of the capital gains and dividend allowance.

I have been musing over the merit of tax credit for marrying ugly women.
There is Help to Buy for houses, for people who cannot afford to buy a house,
so why not an incentive to help getting people married.
It's not so much means tested, more opinion poll tested.
It's equal opportunity, so applicants get their photo put on www.ugly.gov.uk .
If you get enough votes, you get a voucher.
The person who marries you gets the tax credit.

What I find dodgy about share buy back is, isn't it insider trading?
Who else knows what the shares are worth better than the managers of that company.

Another aspect is, if you buy a share that is 50p fair value for 45p, doesn't that mean the seller lost 5p per share?
He could say he was misled by the information put out by the company, which could be construed as price manipulation.

I want the profit in dividend or capital gains depending on how much tax free allowance I have left.

In the end, they don't decide on returning value to shareholder policy because they give a damn about ME.

The institutional fund manager just has to make a phone call, like "My pension fund doesn't pay capital gains tax,
so I want the return in capital gains."

Does he end the sentence in "PLEASE." or "OR ELSE!"
That is what I want to know.

What we really need to do is to create a new town, say, in Wales, built from scratch.
Make sure it doesn't flood.

London becomes a quaint tourist attraction.
Every house becomes an AirBNB.

When climate change overcomes the Thames Barrier,
and London is inundated, we make it a paradise for Scuba diving.
Make it a treasure hunt. What you dig up, you can keep.
Port Meirion pottery, copper cable.

They PAY to recover the copper.

If you invade, we will slap you with a wet kipper,
but we still want to buy your gas.

When the going gets tough, the tough goes to a councillor,
and talks about his conflicted feelings.

https://www.barclays.co.uk/smart-investor/news-and-research/stocks-and-shares/should-you-hold-aim-shares-in-your-isa/

"There are other tax advantages for AIM investors, whether or not they hold their shares inside or outside an ISA. Most AIM stocks are exempt from inheritance tax (IHT) if they’ve been held for more than two years, and depending on individual circumstances it may be possible for AIM shareholders to qualify for the income tax and CGT reliefs when held via an Enterprise Investment Scheme, or through CGT Entrepreneurs Relief."

The IHT threshold of £325k has been frozen for years, and more and more estates end up paying 40% IHT on the money above the £325k threshold. There are funds that try to exploit this loophole.
On death, capital gains is reset, so no CGT to pay.

So, granny has £400k in assets, she can buy £100k worth of AIM shares,
not die for two years, and the £100k will be free from CGT and IHT. when she does passes away.

So, another possibility is, Mr. Kight has cancer, and the doctor gave him two years to live.

If EVG stays where it is, so £2m is still £2m in two years, he saves 40% IHT on the £2m, that is £800k.
If EVG 20x bags, there is no CGT, that is £40m tax free to his heirs.
Doesn't have to be inside an ISA, either.