Member Info for luddite

To answer what I think is your main concern , good quality agricultural land in a politically stable country preferably Ireland or mainland Europe is probably the safest asset but it can be a lonely life watching corn grow and the sheep eating grass , I am presently looking at growing Rasberries , have you seen the price of them in the supermarket ? You are right that financialisation has a long way to go , we are in a golden age of opportunity , the HF traders and big banks are nowhere near about to take over the world , the little man in the street still has the advantage over George Soros . Chinas economy may eventually get bigger than the US that seems likely but in my view we will not see 'outstanding derivatives swell to over 50 times what they are today ' why do you think that will happen ? Using derivatives is not gambling or an addiction , used correctly it involves less risk than owning shares , bonds or practically any other investment you can imagine, problem with the UK market is that the little man is offered a diet of CFDs , spread betting , binary trades etc , these are the same as putting money on the horses and most punters lose money.

I wish we could wind back to the times when we just bought the right investment and that was that but in my view we are stuck with derivatives forever , they will not go away and should not be ignored . The next few weeks of debt ceiling nail biting is not that serious , the politicians will sort it out , if not then its not the end of financialisation but the idea they might not sort it out is the turkeys voting for Christmas scenario . We are going to have to leave it that we disagree about financialisation being a natural development of capitalism it seems obvious to me that it is , the concept that I could be wrong is too much for me to take in .

I am not looking for a solution to the problem or headache of Financialisation ( hope you dont mind S instead of Z , I hate American spellings even though its probably an American word and there is no equivalent ?) , as long as its there I want to be on the bandwagon and hopefully jump off at the right time. I remember Ravenscraig steel works being sold for the scrap value to the Chinese in the 1980s , I was livid , my company depended on selling spare parts for it which the Chinese did not want because they could make cheap copies , I will never forgive the politicians that allowed that to happen . I am not a socialist either but the French must have been laughing at the idiotic antics of The Rosbif giving away its family silver to the Chinese for the sole purpose of trouncing the unions . Anyway we are digressing from the fortunes of IAG , I hope you managed to close your short without too much of a loss , my only concern is will we see a dip in October before the Christmas rally up to £4 ?

The modern equivalent of Bob Beckman is Bill Bonners doommongers . I dont agree that financialization is the new business model , its just a natural development , it was bound to happen and its far from run its course . HF trading has its pitfallsbut its mainly computers replacing the market makers for major shares , somebody has to skim off the spread when you buy a share or option , it may as well be the company that owns a big computer . The lone day trader is the one that maybe has a problem with HF spoiling the game but those with a longer time frame have no worries except the odd occasion when HF computers throw a hissyfit and 'computer says no'. The people running and owning HF operations are not that clever , they are not making as much as they had hoped for. The London Whale was an idiot and I like it when I discover that idiots can get a job working in a big bank pressing buttons , I hope they take on more trainees of his ilk and let them play with derivatives , their loss can be your gain , I wonder who now has the $6bn and have they made better use of it than the 'Whale' ? I dont think we can get away from financialization because the global market demand for goods and services has no connection with it , we have the real and we have the virtual . Unilever should not have problems with exchange rates , some global companies self hedge , Electrolux are smaller than Unilever but they manage fine , have a look at how they do it .

You have listed some of the reasons why you need to play the game , you realise you have to keep on playing the game ? If you can manage a 15% annual increase in your equity values then you are winning , this covers inflation plus the loss caused by QE and gives you a real return . As long as it is possible to do this or better and it is then I dont care about HFT , QE , inflation or exchange rates . IAG has more than doubled in a year , I dont care why , all that matters is that it has and that kind of return beats most fund managers and HF trading programmes , volatility is good for small investors provided you make use of it . I read the downwave by Bob Beckman in the early 1980s , I was completely taken in and obsessed by it and waited patiently for the tsunami . I plotted graphs manually for years hoping for forward guidance of the impending crash , I am still waiting 30 years later but now realise its never going to happen the way he predicted but I do agree with some of his ramblings . As for the bank of England I couldnt care less what a bunch of civil servants think , ask them for a level playing field you are joking ? I dont want a level playing field, play them at their own game .

IAG has something I like which is tangible assets , Facebook I agree is very intangible but its probably where the best growth is if the US market were to continue to rise but I think markets are due a sharp correction ( hopefully not before we have had a good run up to Christmas ) . Capitalism is not dead , dont take any notice of Bill Bonners people and the gold bug doom merchants . Whenever a correction does happen these guys will try and claim credit for warning us but they also said China would crash this year and wreck FTSE100 mining companies plus a load more predictions that did not come to pass . The absurd gyrations of markets is normal , its nothing more absurd than speculating on the price of tulips hundreds of years ago . I will hang up me cloggs when volatility disapears from the markets , volatility is your equaliser which gives you the same chance as the big boys . Without absurd gyrations your position in the global financial pecking order becomes absolutely fixed and favours the rich .

The link takes me to Next , did you make a mistake ? SSE annual report and accounts contain everything I need to know , Mutley Fool should stick to stuff I dont already know, they state the obvious . I dont care that the div is covered by borrowing as long as SSE do not take on too much debt or interest rates rise . It would need a cut to zero dividend plus a 25% drop in the share price to equal putting the same money in a deposit account five years ago so long term holders are well ahead . The share price will rise, Miliband has a less than a 30% chance of becoming prime minister and even if he gets lucky he will have U turned on this idea long before.

I would not buy I would hold if already in maybe they could get to £4 then sell. I would not want anyone to act on my opinion though as I am only a moderately successful investor on the main markets and a disaster when it comes to picking AIM stocks , if I had any sense I would have sold when they were £6. IAG have had a good run for a year more than doubling , I think they have a bit further to go in the run up to December . I agree with you there are better bets for new money . BA still has the best business and first class but I hate the arrogance of them when I am in pleb class but I suspect that BA and maybe IAG are coming to their senses , the Lord King days are well gone . There is a lot that IAG can do to trim the fat without peeing off the unions too much as if they have any sense the workers still know they are on a good number , they recently successfully reduced Iberia pilots wages and I would think there is more of that to come , the low cost carriers dont have any fat to trim off , they have their backs against the wall . The net asset value per share is about £1.50 so its got be worth more than your 50p/5p estimate ?

I think it will drop to a level that makes it worth buying more , last good buying opportunity was January when it went ex div dropped to around £13.84 on the day then bounced back quickly so at todays price its still well ahead . I would give red Ed odds of 1 in 3 chance of becoming PM, and even if he does previous labour governments have not been negative for power utilities share prices . The utility managements rantings that they will switch the lights out shows they are almost as silly as red Ed , I have no liking for either its just their dividends I like .

ok , if it gets anywhere near £30 I will take the money

I think this upward blip is not likely to be another bid winging its way so soon after the last debacle however another bid is likely sooner or later . I have held SVT for years and there is always another bid on the way but will need to do better than the last one to get me interested in selling .

You must have a bit of a headache by now shorting this at £3 . IAG like most other airlines stopped paying dividends years ago , they are not expected in airline shares . If theres a spike in the oil price due to Syria it will not make much difference as IAG hedge it . I do not like the management even though I have held shares since BA was floated , the tie up with Iberia was really stupid and I can only think the management was to blame for this debacle but I will continue to hold for the time being . I would bring in Ryan on a consultancy basis to show them how to save money but knowing him he would probably go too far ,maybe give free pennies to first class passengers so they can use the pay as you go toilets he would install .

If gold drops to $700 how much do you think the US government or 'them' will be able to buy at that price unless it stays at that price for a long time , I think virtually nothing worthwhile , the conspiracy theory defeats itself .

So this parrot is not quite dead but why did the chairman feel the need to make such a comical statement : Mr Tito Mboweni, the Chairman of the Board of SacOil, commented as follows on the appointments: "I am delighted that this lady and gentleman have agreed to join the board of SacOil Holdings Limited for an interim period. I look forward to working with them in growing this business into a giant pan-African enterprise" I am filled with anticipation not .

Anyone shorting this last week would be seriously out of pocket by now , I do wonder about the sanity of some of these supposedly clever derivatives traders working for the big banks , if this is typical there is hope for the private investor who may be able to make more sensible decisions .

Sorry I thought you meant something else . I think the price is almost nice enough to top up but the FTSE100 drop since May is still not factored into the price so I think SVT will drop some more in the next week unless we see an overall bounce in market sentiment . I see the trend as down , I know utilities are not meant to track the indices but they are affected . I dont know who these big after hours buyers are but I seriously question their judgment , I would like to work for them as they have money to burn .

If it was the same buyer then so far they are down about £2m in 24 hours , I cannot understand how you think you could be right , as a long term investment I think SVT are nearly back at a good entry level even with its exceptionally high pe ratio.

Looks to me like whoever spent £40M after hours is lacking his analytical brain cells so I suppose it could be down to ' the consortium' . The price has not quite dropped back to its pre bid level but I will top up when it does , there is always talk of SVT being a bid target so someone else will be along soon enough , hopefully with more brains than the Longriver consortium .

Looks like good riddance to Longriver for the time being , hopefully they will find a different target to waste their time persuing , upping the offer to £23 would be just another waste of time . What bothers me is how such plonkers manage to get jobs working in investment companies in the first place , perhaps there is yet hope for an old duffer like me , I could have saved them the bother of this useless excercise had they asked my opinion in the first place but there again people do not normally listen much to my advice .

£23 will do the business if there are enough willing sellers but I doubt that there are . I would prefer it if Longriver do walk away , the shares drop back to the long term trend and I can buy some more then in a matter of a few months or perhaps a year or two another Longriver will come along , these bidders are ten a penny but the number of suitable bid targets are rapidly diminishing , SVT will eventually hit £50 with or without a bidder so why sell them at £23 now ?