Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

Steeplejack - SMT's volume holding in Moderna will have changed (possibly many times) over time. I'm intrigued how you could possibly know all their buys & sells (& their exact timings) to reach the conclusion you do?

MrAmericano - delighted to hear you're enlisting your terrier's skills for this week's lottery.

Does (s)he have a name yet? If not, may I suggest Winalot?

I haven't watched the webinar (& doubt I'll bother).

I rarely find them very illuminating, unless you like staring into the whites of managers' eyes to try to work out if they're bluffing.

No fund manager is ever likely to say "we stuffed up, haven't a scooby where markets are heading & have even less idea how our fund is placed for the future". Yet in reality - to a greater or lesser extent - every fund faces these sort of uncertainties. Especially at the moment.

I, too, have found LB uninspiring in the past. He just doesn't come across as particularly dynamic. Nor does he instil huge confidence IMHO. I've found TS succinct in his replies, which I guess you could also interpret as arrogance. Let's hope they don't turn out to be another Woodford, who also came across as a calm, "we've got this" kinda guy. Until it became pretty clear the only thing he'd got was a huge problem on his hands.

I personally don't feel comparisons between SMT & Woodford's erstwhile funds have any validity. But the point I'm trying to make is that these in-house fund webinars rarely serve any useful purpose for the majority of existing investors. I see them more as a sales vehicle for potential new punters. After all, to most, Neil Woodford came across in interviews as a successful & credible "safe pair of hands". Which history shows us proved somewhat wide of the mark.

Thanks cm22 - much appreciated!

Though I doubt Baf & TopCatz would agree…,

Seamanp911 - any first mover advantage Lucyd may have had is rapidly being eroded:

https://www.ray-ban.com/uk/ray-ban-meta-smart-glasses

IMHO, their best hope is that they've some proprietary IP one of the other big players really wants & can't easily replicate. Longer term, I see this either being a takeover or a rapid decline scenario. Bigger players with far deeper pockets are unlikely to let a pure play incumbent upstart muscle in for long.

MrAmericano - thanks & good luck to you too. Don't give up on intuition just yet. I'm sure that Terrier of yours can be trained still!

MrAmericano - shame your pet Terrier is unlikely to win you the lottery any time soon. Commiserations!

Cost averaging certainly takes the psychology out of investing. But it doesn't really help with selling. And I personally feel some investors fare better with gut instinct anyway.

Sure, they'll never call the peaks & troughs exactly. And they'll likely be way out at times. But their gut may well help them avoid buying at the very top &/or selling at the very bottom.

That's how I operate anyway. I sold a bit of SMT when it rose above £15, buying back in lower down. As it transpires, I should have sold more when it went above £15 & waited longer before buying any back in. But at least I wasn't purchasing above £15 (or selling at £6, come to that).

Sadly, no-one can ever know the floor (or peak) in any share price.

It’s never anything more scientific than a hunch. Might be right, might not.

At the end of the day, every investment decision’s a calculated gamble at best. It only takes another black swan event (positive or negative) to throw any theory completely off course. Think Covid, War in Ukraine, Israel Palestine conflict etc. etc.

I’m not convinced that was the main reason behind Friday’s rise.

The gold price was almost as high as now back in March 2023, yet HAT’s share price DROPPED about 5% during March:

https://www.royalmint.com/gold-price/

Londoner7 - I think we’re broadly in agreement.

Over all, a high gold price will benefit H&T, though it’s not exclusively one way traffic.

You say there’s a relatively illiquid market for H&T. Could you elaborate on this? Short term price movement certainly seems manipulated by market makers, with the spread often expanding & contracting rapidly within the same trading day. But the FT quotes a HAT free float of 41.45m.

Londoner7 - a high gold price has traditionally been beneficial for H&T.

Though I guess this might be increasingly offset by the higher price they have to pay to buy in new jewellery stock.

From what I recall in their recent updates, sales of new jewellery are becoming more significant. And in a sticky retail market, it might be tricky to pass on the full cost price increase to customers.

Bumblebee1 - trouble is, long term holders aren't laughing much, are we?

Well, Clifford must have really impressed everyone with his recent investor presentation.

The share price has moved - hmmm, let's see now - err - not a jot.

Meanwhile, seeing as you ask, H&T (renowned by baf3 - but no-one much else - for being ethically-challenged) continues to motor, thanks. Up over 4% today at the time of writing and around 20% from when I first tipped it here this Sept.

Isn't it ironic how investing in companies that aim to improve other peoples' lives can sometimes feel like it's messing up yours. Glad I haven't been tempted to add to my TEK holding a second time. Though as baf3 will no doubt swiftly point out, I'm clearly not invested here at all and am simply another dastardly shorter. Even though I can assure you I'm not! Anyhow who really cares what he/others think. Main thing is, I know what's in my portfolio. And sadly it includes TEK. But happily, it also includes a ten times+ higher value in H&T.

When H&T rose to around 450p just before mid October, I said I couldn't see any specific reason behind this sudden rise & assumed the share price was just playing catch up.

Given the short to medium term prospects, I'd always felt it was undervalued when it sank below 400p in Sept and I added then at around 396p.

Well, the catch up continues - with H&T rising another 20p today at the time of writing.

Again, there doesn't seem to be any specific news triggering this movement. And it's uncharacteristic for H&T to be this volatile. I very much doubt there's any prospect of a takeover. But I guess a fund could be doing some stake building. Simply because it likes the company's prospects, yield & conta-cyclical nature. Time will tell.

Either way I'm not complaining. It's one of relatively few shares that's risen significantly over the past 2-3 months, despite general falls in UK & global markets.

Lambo222 - the biggest mistake you make is by taking ANYTHING Tim says/said at face value.

Cm22 - I got as far as the first sentence in your linked article, saying “Tekcapital creates value…”

Soon as I saw that, I knew it wasn’t worth reading on.

I know it's nearly Halloween.

But spooky how all the cheerleaders seem to have vanished into the night as soon as the share price tanks.

Lift going down.

Tambo210 - thanks for your explanation about bonds.

I guess I've felt you can normally do better (medium to long term) either with highish yielding shares (so 6%+ currently). Or by just spreading risk across your shareholdings. Or by locking into long term fixed rate savings when interest rates are high, but look like they're close to peaking (as happened a month or so ago here).

But I take your point about having only a finite annual ISA allowance. And of course, bonds provide a better counterbalance to risk than simply buying more shares (however diversified).

Must be the gambler in me I guess!

Martinu - same here. I might even get into profit on Opti again one day. Still a fair way to go though (sad face).

Baxzaman - I fear you may be disappointed if you’re pinning your hopes on Microsalt to generate an uplift in TEK’s price.

Whilst it’s a totally different business from Lucyd, the same was said by many of the usual exuberant posters on here when LUCY floated recently. And look where that got us.

To become a mass market ‘first mover’, (though I’d question whether MicroSalt truly is), it’s likely to need a lot more capital than their IPO will provide. So the usual story of dilution in exchange for jam tomorrow promises of a bigger future pie could well be the order of the day again here.