Member Info for lordloadsoflolly

Seaking1 - Oh dear. It's almost like you don't realise we can see your previous posts. Today you tell us you're "back in". But here's what you said just yesterday: "Tomorrow will be another 4% drop in my silly view ! :-)" and "< 1250 before I will buy". Hmmm.

shandypants2 - it's not a case of being touchy. And I'm quite happy already thanks. So no need for you to try and cheer me up. I just find your repeat button tedious. But hey ho.

basscadet - the mistake IQE made was to announce their search for a replacement CEO so early. It's not market-sensitive, so why not wait until candidates had at least been shortlisted? For a company the (relatively small) size of IQE, 8 months and counting is just ridiculous IMHO.

Thanks basscadet - some interesting stuff there, though a lot has already been known about for some time. I guess the main issues are how much market share II-VI takes from Lumentum and whether IQE can ever get its margins high enough to cash in. The latter should hopefully be addressed by IQE's new CEO, assuming (s)he is ever appointed. One of the longest-running executive searches ever. Announced in November 2020, so presumably initiated some time before then - and still going strong!

DorsetLSE - Surely India having the potential to overtake China doesn't suddenly make China a small market - or one that'll stop growing rapidly. I personally don't see India overtaking China in the foreseeable, but I could be wrong. It'll be interesting to see how SMT reacts to increased Chinese regulation. My guess is that things will settle down within the next 12 months or so, but that fewer new Chinese firms will opt for US listings. I'm fairly convinced that's the main thing regulators are after - Chinese companies listed on Chinese-only exchanges. They say it's to crack down on illegal/risky business practices and to break up monopolies. But when did that ever bother the Chinese?

I hadn't noticed those £11.35k daily trades. Given the timing of yesterday's and the fact the venue of publication is shown as ECHO, I imagine it's market makers re-balancing. But I could be wrong. I don't think it's necessarily all sells either, even if reported as such. Buy & Sell stats are notoriously unreliable, with Buys often reported as Sells and vice versa.

And your point is?

skid35 - agreed. I've a lot of time for SOH, but his choice of investor communication channels is the pits.

Pretty sure you've told us that already shandypants2. Gets kinda boring after a while. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.

Haven't seen his reasons, as I wouldn't dream of subscribing to TW, so I can't comment on his logic. All I would say is he's been predicting the same thing for years. So like a broken clock, he might eventually be right. I am a holder by the way, so I'm not de-ramoing Opti. Just TW.

Cheers oldsid. Looking at SMT's latest holdings @ 30 06 21, there's an interesting shift of emphasis. This probably explains recent price movement de-coupling from NASDAQ. Of SMT's top 10 holdings, 4 are now Chinese (Tencent 5.1%, Nio 4.2%, Alibaba 3.8% & Meituan 3.7%). Its holding in US-based Amazon was around 10% for a while in 2020. Now it's just 3%. So China's clearly where SMT's managers currently see some high growth potential. And given their past performance, who are we to argue! My only concern is that this is higher risk, especially now the Chinese regulators are clamping down on home-grown tech firms. Sometimes just days after they've debuted on US stock exchanges, resulting in an inevitable sudden drop in share price. Didi being just the latest example in today's news. But Tencent & Alibaba have also been affected by this strategy from Chinese regulators.

Not forever, but for the time being with IMM.

MaverickD - that's some loss you're sitting on, if - as you say - you've bought all the way down. Afraid I don't share your confidence. IMM's share price blows with the wind. It's consistently traded between 8p-10p since February. One day up, the next back down. An FDA announcement on Phase 3 might move the dial temporarily, but it would soon settle back down.

robleo - thanks for sharing some of your holdings with us. Obviously everyone's circumstances are different, but personally I wouldn't be too hung up on dividend income. SMT pays a very modest income, but its growth has been stellar. That's what interests me more. High yielders tend NOT to be high growers as well (otherwise everyone would own them). And sometimes yields can be high for a reason (i.e. they're unsustainable, leading either to the dividend being cut or the share price plummeting). I used to enjoy picking individual shares (with mixed results, it has to be said!) & I questioned the need to pay someone else to do this for me. But I concluded that picking individual shares is more risky than holding funds which contain a range of shares, often spread across different sectors & continents. So I've changed emphasis more towards investment trusts. Even if I don't hold many high income payers come retirement, I can always chip away at the capital at, say, 5% a year. Over all, my holdings should still grow enough for the capital to stand still at worst and for me to live very comfortably off my drawings for however long I'm lucky enough to be around.

robleo - I should add that H&T is a share where you have to time your buying & selling well. If you'd just bought 5 years ago & held, it would actually have lost you money (excluding dividends). At its current price I view it as fair value, though I last bought in at £2.49 - and £1.96 before that. As mentioned, it's under a bit of a cloud currently due to the FCA review & Covid restrictions. It also has a much reduced loan book currently (so less profit potential), though I expect this to bounce back to more normal levels within the next couple of years. Anyhow, best not clog up what should be an SMT thread with other shares!

robleo - my all-time favourite is Scottish Mortgage. But that's probably mainly down to timing. I invested quite heavily in 2016 at between £3.22 & £3.26 and have most of that still in play. I sold a small proportion a while ago, only to top up again recently at just under £10 & again at just under £11, when the discount to NAV widened to 10% or so. I keep thinking the tech sector &/or US is heading for a crash, so am aiming over the next 12-18 months to get my original SMT investment out, then let the rest ride. I like Baillie Gifford a lot in general. They seem to have few duff funds and their charges are far more reasonable than most (notably Scottish Mortgage). I've a holding in their Shin Nippon fund which has done reasonably (pretty much doubling in 5 years), but has recently been hit by Japan's slow vaccination roll out & rising infection rates. I still think it'll do OK longer term. But with hindsight (a wonderful thing!), I'd have been far better off in their Pacific Horizon IT fund. I generally much prefer investment trusts to OEICS as their unit pricing is more transparent and fees can also be lower. in some cases. I did look at Lindsell Train IT ages ago, but it was trading at a huge premium to NAV at the time, which I thought was unsustainable. That's still the case (though less so than in 2019). I also didn't like the fact that a high proportion of it was invested in Lindsell Train Ltd. Just looked a bit incestuous to me! In terms of shares with a decent yield, I quite like H&T (pawnbrokers). They've been hit hard by the pandemic, but have consistently traded profitably over the past 5 years, seem decently managed (though the jury's out on their new CEO) and yield around 3.25%. They are currently under FCA review for their high cost short term unsecured credit loans. The result is due imminently & could result in a fine. It's also led to them discontinuing this particular business, but it wasn't a huge part of their total revenues. Sadly, I suspect demand for pawnbroker services will balloon again once government handouts fizzle out and shops trade "normally" again. Hope this is useful!

I'd take any reported buys & sells with a large pinch of salt if I were you. Whether they're classified as buys or sells is generally down to guesswork, based on the median price at the time. I've frequently seen my own buys classified as sells and vice versa. Many other posters have reported the same thing (not just with Opti shares).

owls & robleo - Interesting to see Superdry in OWLS' top 10 positive momentum shares over the next 12 months. I had considered buying into them last year when their share price was depressed, but missed out through over-caution. I was very surprised SDRY's share price wasn't hammered even more when they issued a statement last year casting doubt on their ability to survive as a going concern. I still view them as high risk, since their website isn't state of the art, they retain some dependence on bricks & mortar stores, and clothing brands are notoriously fickle. Not sure Superdry is that "cool" any more? In terms of other possible fund/IT candidates for your top 10 list, I invested with Fundsmith Equity in 2016 and it's more than doubled in under 5 years. Not in SMT's league, but a very respectable performance nonetheless - and with reasonable consistency. It's heavily US-weighted though, which could be a risk at current levels. But I've been hearing "experts" warn that the US is over-valued for the best part of a decade now. Luckily I ignored their advice and have benefitted as a result.

basscadet - yes, I am the same poster on both sites - I deliberately kept the name for transparency. Glad you find my posts informative & resonably balanced (albeit with a negative slant currently). Most of the uber-positive posters vanished once the share price slumped & looked like it wouldn't recover any time soon. Sweenoid is almost the last man standing in that camp, but at least we can all learn plenty from his vast technical knowledge of IQE and its markets. My only problem with his postings is that they've proved a hugely unreliable predictor of IQE's share price these past 2-3 years. And I don't much care for his "join the dots" catchphrase or the ticks implying IQE has accomplished yet another mission on its path to riches, as both have proved very wide of the mark so far. But none of us can call the market right all the time (especially when IQE's involved!) My main hope is that the company now rapidly appoints a new EXTERNALLY-SOURCED CEO and that (s)he has the relevant commercial experience (& is given full remit) to shake things up. It's already been around 8 months since they first announced the search for a new CEO, so it's high time they delivered. Tinkering at the edges or appointing from within simply won't cut it when the company is - at best - limping along at the moment.

gotrader - when you say "no dividend till at least then", I take it you're not referring to an actual dividend payout? That, in my view is never going to happen, though hopefully the share price itself may eventually recover.