Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

A far cry from SOH's forecasts of many years ago, placing sales partners into turnover categories of up to £500K a piece. On that basis, we should have had £ multi million annual sales several years ago.

Maidit308 - actually not very difficult at all to work this out.

Share price is currently down 2.25%. So more sells than buys. Simples.

Xviolet - here's hoping that "nice warm feeling" isn't from your money going up in smoke.

Wildbunch - I’ll tell you what good sniping does. It debunks some of the rubbish posted on here, where Tim’s comments are taken at face value, before - wrongly - concluding that everything he promises must now be true & imminent. History tells us loud & clear ‘twas never thus with Tim.

If a healthy dose of sniping prevents even one potential new investor from piling in before fully researching Tim’s track record, then that’s a pretty good outcome in my book.

Only so many times you can promise sunny uplands just around the corner before delivering.

I'd recommend any investor carefully analyses every word Tim says. Then does the exact opposite of what he recommends.

That way, you shouldn't go far wrong. To many, he's a serial you-know-what, who's made a very good living out of it. For himself. And himself alone.

Many will think it does SOH's reputation HUGE damage attending anything associated with TW.

Perhaps he'll think twice in future. Particularly if he was, indeed, given a hard time for absolutely zero gain (other than a sore head).

Gotrader - if you look it up, you’ll see the FCA states every 1% - NOT every 5% - increment should trigger a TR-1 notification. So all still looks very odd to me - and non-compliant.

SFH300 - NS&I's 6.2% offer is bound to be pulled soon. Being state owned, they're legally barred from remaining market-leader for a sustained period, as this could be seen as gaining an unfair advantage from a non-level playing field. With UK interest rates peaking (for now at least), longer term savings rates are likely to drop back slightly, which in turn will impact shorter term rates too.

For those able (& wanting!) to lock up their savings on a fixed rate, I'd currently recommend longer term fixes, rather than 1 year offers. The general consensus is that base rate will stay at - or near - its current level for most of next year. But it's then forecast to drop fairly significantly from late 2024 / early 2025 & beyond. Given the small difference in rates between a 1 year and a 2 or 3 year fix, you might well be better off with the latter. Providing of course a) you won't need your capital in the meantime & b) the forecasts are right!

Gotrader - Like anyone else, Canaccord are OBLIGED to issue an RNS if a 10% holding threshold is crossed.

Walp - yup, I got one of those with Santander too, shortly before they pulled it! 5.08% monthly interest, 5.2% annual.

I also took out a 3 year 6.08% fix with My Community Bank (since reduced to 6.01%), as a hedge against the final 3 years of our base rate tracker mortgage. This currently means the banks are paying ME 0.08% for the privilege of borrowing THEIR money! Which I much prefer to the usual system! And I'm hoping this differential will improve over time, assuming base rate drops within the next 3 years.

I fully accept Ubik_Fresh's point about using cash funds as a hedge within a shares ISA. My provider offers zero interest on cash balances, so if you're going to hold much cash in a shares ISA , Ubik's approach is certainly very valid.

Personally, I tend to use the disincentive of zero ISA interest to remain nearly fully invested in shares. I then generally hedge by using non ISA cash savings accounts. You have to be careful of tax on the interest though. Opting for monthly interest to straddle more than one tax year can help a bit. As can choosing a longer term fix, with all the interest paid at maturity, assuming you'll be in a lower/non-tax bracket by then.

Can't really see the point of paying fees to a fund paying approx 5%, when NS&I currently offers 6.2% with zero risk (assuming the UK government doesn't go bust!) That said, your money's tied up for a year.

But there are also fee-free instant access savings accounts - the best currently paying 5.1% variable.

I've never really understood why you'd choose a cash fund - given the extra costs involved - unless it was likely to outperform traditional savings vehicles.

Given SMT's high US share concentration, I'd suggest at least a small positive short term impact from today's BOE rate hold.

The Fed also held rates, but implied a further rise would follow before the end of the year. Sterling fell as a result, so US companies became slightly more valuable in Sterling terms.

Put simply, if a US company's valued at $1000 & cable's at parity - i.e. £1 = $1 - that company's also worth £1000.

But if cable's £1 = $0.90, that same US company's now valued at £1111.11

Today's fall in Sterling has of course been far less pronounced than the above example. But if sustained, it should still have a small positive impact.

Thordon - thanks for your support, though I really wouldn't worry unduly.

I'm pretty thick-skinned & tend to regard personal slurs & rudeness as a clear sign the other person lost the argument and has nothing further of interest to add.

Oh! Charts. Must be right then. Though I prefer usiing tealeaves myself.

No TopCatz. it's definitely NOT going to happen in a week!

Care to enlighten us as to how you came up with any of those prices? The words "finger" & "in the air" spring to mind.

Tambo210 - I have to disagree with your conclusion that "The discount is ALL (my caps) due to the perception of the Managers' ability to run the fund. Which is negative."

Whilst agreeing that could possibly account for an element of it, it's by no means the whole story IMHO.

Covid & the war in Ukraine have fundamentally changed how assets are valued. When inflation is high, interest rates rise. That makes the cost of capital expensive, which normally hits all shares, as they become relatively less attractive versus, say, a plain vanilla savings account. But it also disproportionately affects growth shares, as they tend to be more capital intensive - particularly start ups.

So there's been a particularly marked sentiment shift away from growth shares (where SMT is heavily concentrated) towards "value" stocks.

I guess you could argue SMT's managers should have seen this shift coming & acted accordingly. But they've repeatedly stated they're not into short term trading in & out of sectors/companies, at the possible expense of longer term gains.

Part of SMT's philosophy is to build long term relationships with companies they rate highly. That in turn opens doors with other similar businesses. Businesses which might be less interested in securing investment from alternative "here today, gone tomorrow" type fund operators.

Only time will tell whether these sort of businesses are the most prudent to invest in. But I think it does help to explain why SMT is sticking to its guns for now.

CaptainPicard - you say you've "been in for six" years. But from memory, you've been a MONTHLY investor in SMT?

If so, anything invested 6 years ago would have been at a price somewhere between around 320p & 420p. So that element would already have generated a decent return. However, for any additional contributions made much after the beginning of 2020, it's a very different story.

Drip feeding money in can be a good way to smooth volatility. But, as your experience shows, it's not infallible. Nor necessarily ideal, if you might want/need your capital back in a hurry.

That’s as maybe, but Weijohn’s Farm Group is a minnow that wouldn’t even register on any chart of the overall US hazelnut market.

Surely the various increases you’ve documented in Canaccord’s holding would have triggered multiple RNSs prior to this one???