Morning all. NB there so made red herrings out there its hard to know what to take notice of or to ignore. Part of the equation is the capital size of a stock, liquidity and ownership of stock. LSE is doubly confusing because they don't publish every trade and they get buys and sells muddled up. Then there are late reported trades as well as deliberately hidden orders. Sometimes I have seen a lot of big trades in relatively small cap companies and the sp doesn't move. Then there are huge moves on either small volumes or even no trades at all.
Director sells can be confusing as they don't need to give reason of which there are many. Divorce, tax obligations, family reasons, health and not least because they know their company is in trouble. The last one probably is actually the least common thankfully.
With the unfortunate AVON directors were buying in only 2 months ago but the company seems to have hit a catastrophic manufacturing malfunction. One of Naked Trader's largest holdings. Notice he hasn't made much comment about that yet.
'Skin in the game' is a strong motivation for many investors but that is far from foolproof as I have discovered to my cost with SWG where directors are heavily committed at nearly twice the current share price.
Whilst momentum is an important factor particularly in short term trading, the most important factor is probably conviction trading in the longer term. It is nearly impossible to get the most advantageous trade whether selling or buying, after all why is someone buying or selling a stock to you? I have watched many professional interviews, The common theme is balance and diversification. Very few hold more than 10% in one holding at book cost. Looking back in may last 2 years of trading I took some unnecessarily large risks which luckily for me worked in a few cases but not all. On reflection I could have had mor conviction in the stocks I was buying and held much longer. I feel I've probably made a lot of paper work and achieved less. On the other hand it takes time and experience to real get to know an ever expanding market.
On the rugby front well done Eddie Jones and his troops. It was plain to see how tired and exhausted the old team was by the end of the last six nations. So this reinvigorated team looks very promising, with at last a proper full back in Steward, but many other stunning new finds too as well as some reliable old faces. Itoji old? Seems like he has been playing forever and probably needs to.
Morning all. I think avoid following anyone is good. I often feel if I did the opposite of what I say I might make a lot more money. Even the experts on Stockopedia writing professionally and Naked Trader say please don't follow my trades. This is basically because the market is so completely irrational. You can never really tell what is happening short term especially if the market reacts to daily news as it often does. NT does seem to have done suspiciously well, always seemingly being stock at the bottom, but does use a mixture of shorts to cover. PS on Stockopedia uses shorts as well , these are traders with portfolios of at least a million I think. Paul is pretty open about having had a bad run on shorts and stocks, which can be a painful combination when they both go wrong. Even good stocks fall in a bad market. I'm not too sure where we are currently. I think Bloomberg described it as 'a market waiting for a reason to invest.' Certainly the current guesswork surrounds inflation, how deep and for how long? In theory when supply chains improve that logically would have implications on restraining inflation. At the moment apparently year old cars are selling at a 30% premium to brand new cars, because you can't actually buy one because they can't source key components to make new cars. Otherwise that wouldn't make sense at all. This a situation of the world unlocking down, the UK's messy divorce and climate change deniers like Lord Lawson being found out. Currently unavailable for comment, this brexiteer still hiding in his chateau in France.
Morning all . And good to see you back M. Not sure you could have done much since the summer. I managed engage in emails with some of the directors of stock I own. Its not easy to get a lot out of them as its its difficult for them to say anything that might land them in the mire if it were deemed price sensitive. Clearly AIM has been indiscriminately sold off with few exceptions. Anic and Cnc being 2 fortunately for me. Whilst strangely the big index has held pretty firm partly thanks M&A activity and obviously the oil sector. How its that pumps are now selling diesel at £1.51. The last time fuel was that price oil was trading at about $140 a barrel., currently about 80% below that now.
Yes T sorry about Dark it could go absolutely anywhere. Its great if you guess right. M&S! Last sold just under a pound. Now they have massive debt and sold down a load of assets. Talking of debt, I did have a little chat with a nice lady at investor relations for Saga. She apologised for not answering me for a couple of weeks as she had been on holiday. Naturally I had to enquire if it was a cruise. Unfortunately not this time but she did go out on Spirit of Discovery on a UK cruise this summer and 'it blew her mind." Is that what all these old codgers get up to! Sh is looking to book another cruise this winter. I better introduce her to Paul from stockopedia because he has also booked a cruise despite seeing his PF dramatically shrink.
Saga has been a bit disappointing compared to Carnival. I can't see why Bookings exceed pre pandemic levels and they nabbed Tesco's chief insurance exec to take over from the lady he had to quit Saga in January for personal reasons. I should think they took their time to get a very good candidate to replace her. So have bought a few more while dangling around the £3 mark even though I didn't get any very helpful information about updating major share holders. Basically there are'nt any apart from sir Roger and a few left over stragglers from pre-placing which I find a tad strange. They went from a 55 million loss last year to .7millio profit this year which I find pretty impressive under their operating circumstances, Just 2 news hips will be pulling in 80 to 100 million year when fully operational. They do however have 500 million loan on ships, which are down as 700 million of assets on the books and bonds of 400 million, ouch! The insurance arm is comfortably holding them above water, so this could be a quick turn round if no hiccups. Any thoughts T? GL all
The major thing about online is there were a lot of young people stuck at home, living comfortably on furlough with not a lot to do but shop online. Its quite obvious really whats happened since. I think all these companies that have expanded off that, packaging, delivery etc could be given a wide berth. Although having said that Ebay and gumtree are set to make a killing off recycling all the stuff that was bought online!
Have watched a bitt more. Interesting that Paul says he is not tempted buy more ASC ash is price even though he sold a third of his holding. I think it will be a tough climb back. Clearly a lot of stock had an abnormal lift from the lockdowns which has not only not continued but substantially declined. If I was looking in the retail direction I would probably go with ABF and Primark, who have acknowledge the headwind of inflation but have the scale t roll out a global strategy. Still going to be hard going I suspect al though nearly up 7% on special div news, might be tempted if it falls back after that reaction. I owned a few when they were £3.00 back in the day! Paul has 40 to 50 stocks so more diversified than I realised. That gives him a reasonable chance to counter falls in big holdings like ASC and Boo, but I think it also slows any chance of meaningful gains. I'm down to 15 at the moment with about 20% cash. Growth is likely to be much more pedestrian for the next 16 months I feel .
Morning all. Suffering man flu last few days . Absolutely pole axed. Yes T I did watch some of the interview with PS. I quite admire him he is one of those made a lot lost a lot made it back again investors. He literally borrowed and scraped what he could together to get back on his feet. Looks like he is on a bit of a downward trend again. Trouble is he is quite dismissive of some very good stock as well as being a bit over confident on others especially Boo. I hold CNIC and WHR which have been really great investments for me and he was pretty sniffy about them.He has a huge following on Stockopedia and I suspect many follow him blindly. I tend to avoid stocks that I have consistently failed at. Boo being one of them. They are too wound up in social and financial credibility for me and shares just seem to move on media speculation. How's Dark going . I see Peel Hunt trash them and they crash and Bereberg say they are great and they fly again. These aren't the sort of stock like that are priced mainly on manipulation it seems.
About half my stock are doing very well with one or two doing really badly . I honestly can't explain it so I will just sit it out. Paul was absolutely right about being able to buy more or less anything and it went up two years ago. My accountant has just finalised my tax return and offset nearly all my losses from the financial crash in 09/10 . That's on my second year back in stock trading. So after a rather expensive divorce I'm hoping things have turned a corner. Trouble is you never know whats round the next one! I wish I could say I had learnt something from all this but it doesn't seem to get any easier. The fact is you have to speculate to accumulate and there seem to be increasing unpredictables. I'm sure investing was a lot more straight forward in the nineties. I find its easy to get trapped in the same stock allthe time and I feel its important to keep an eye out for new investments. My second best performing stock is now Anic, very speculative but up about 40% now. Hoping this is the next Musk/Bozo situation. I can't read this market any more, (the inflation card is the next potential problem) so just going to try and be patient and hope my under performers catch up with the good stock and that they keep going up too. GL all
Afternoon chaps. One dodgy market at the moment. More irrational than ever. The main thing that put me off Dark is Michael Lynch ex Autonomy boss ( sold to HP )and co founder of Dark. Autonomy used to trade exactly like Dark, a frigging bucking bronco of a stock. USA don't like getting stung so one Autonomy ex director is in US serving time and I believe there is still an extradition order for Mr Lynch. In theory Dark is conglomerate of Cambridge mathematicians. I imagine them all beavering away in the depths of Mr Lynch's castle never to see daylight again. Just the name suggests they are operating from the other side in some sci-fi black arts movie. Hope I haven't put you off T. I know you are supposed to make money in a volatile market anyone for purple bricks? Thats been a slow death. We have estate agents ringing all the time with clients desperate to buy . Nothing left to sell on the housing markets because the developers are happy sitting on land banks watching the price shoot up apart from having no materials to build with anyway. I thought I was making progress but that all came to an abrupt end except for Anic and its futuristic meat which has just invested 8 million in futuristic eggs, hopefully golden . GL
EQT up 25% on absolutely no news other than possibly a tenuous connection with COP26. Along with CNIC reaching new highs today has repaired some of the damage inflicted on my PF over the summer. Patchy progress but someway to go still to get back to over all highs. Hope you guys have seen some progress too.
Morning all from bright and sunny Deal. Thanks for the ditty V. We were only just discussing how often we used to eat kippers compared to now. My brother used to manage a smokerie. I dont know if it was that that put me off, but we dont eat smoked anything anymore, his house did have a bit of a damp bonfire smell about it. Fish is about the only meat we eat now mainly thanks to our fantastic monger in Broadstairs . Better start to the week . GL all
ps I don't know any jelly fish spineless or otherwise! Did have a few of the blue (moon?) variety passing through over the summer. Kept my distance. I do wonder about the sense of my posts sometimes :)
Nez. Sorry to hear about your mum. I'm sure she appreciated your love and care and fortunate that you could both take care of her. Not easy I know from my own experiences. My condolences
UK warns France it may retaliate over fishing row, I feel fish slapping face contest a la Monty Python coming on. Why don't they just do it. Spineless jellyfish the lot of them
Well done on Trade T. A profit is a profit. I managed to stick pretty much to my word and managed to hold off buying too much so have a but of fire power left. It was really hard as their seem so many bargains, The truth is they all got cheaper, so holding off paid off. Could easily have missed out badly. people still talking about the catalyst to crash the market I'm more thinking about the catalyst for the market to take off. Fixing the supply chain would obviously be number one . Getting inflation might be harder but one should follow the other. Economies are still looking quiet buoyant if governments could try and coordinate some kind of action plan rather than political posturing. Feel like I've been on a diet. Actually I have lost half a stone and rather a lot more in pounds sterling but hoping Evergrande will meet the next payment tomorrow so I may break my fast! GL
Morning all. I'm still pretty cautious T, probably always am, but still manage my fair share of daft moves! Someone posted that whilst the Dow hit record highs recently, their mid and small caps have been performing as poorly as ours . Asian stocks retreating again this morning but they do seem stuck in a fairly tight range. I think the general view is we are going through a sticky patch with supply and inflation. I have a few stocks that have been drifting down for a while, but no debt good balance sheets and reasonably strong order books and growth forecasts if they can get supplied with materials.
Dreadful sounding weather in north west. GL
All in a days hobble N and V thanks. Achilles is just healed I hope after about 4 months! Shoulders been a problem but Smokie had downed me a few times! Have to be careful of foxes on night walks because he just suddenly lunges into the darkness and he is mighty powerful. Normally prepared but there is always a moment het catches me off balance.
Hope you are all doing ok. Things do appear a little brighter but don't suppose we have seen the last of profit warnings which seems to include 'inline trading' these days. GL
Morning all. Welcome back T. Yes the stresses and strains of sudden exercise!. Have been suffering too, Mostly from injuries sustained while taking the dog for a walk: torn achilles , cracked collar bone and bruised shin where he decided to charge at me like a raging bull to get the ball some one had thrown passed me but taking route 1! I' m still a nit nervous about evergrande and want o see their commitments met this Friday. IGR is the latest stock to be felled by supply shortage but 50% choosing June seems a bit over done ( I used to own so another great escape for me). Trouble is you need more than escapes to make money. Saga recovery well on back of statement from Sutherland this morning and I suspect that the new theory that COVID infections about to plummet has helped too. Just need a sign that supply chain repaired and chip manufacturing improved and it could get very lively again
Morning brigade
Yes V, its been an interesting F1 so far. Cant say I have followed it as closely this year, but keep tabs on it as after all they helped invent the hybrid vehicle.
Everegrande averted defaulting by a last minute payment. Its becoming a bit like COVID. How long will it last.? They have another deadline to meet on Friday. Trying to offload landbanks and divert cash into EV. Unfortunately they don't even have a model yet never mind sold a car. All very Tesla and there are quite a few of them gliding around backstreets even here now, although there are still hardly any charging points. A few people in terraced houses have a shiny EV and trail a cable out of their front door across the pavement or even the road to their flat vehicles. Not very H&S conscious but so very British! We're going to adopt this new technology if it kills us and our neighbours cos its free country. Probably bought by DFL's who are buying second homes at twice the price they were last year, having saved a package on stamp duty, which I thought was supposed to help people struggling to get a roof, not came the rich richer. Soon going to be like Clarm (Clapham). Actually it already is. Sadly it does make us want to sell up, but then we're just adding to the problem somewhere else. Maybe just go travelling as all the chicks have now literally flown.
nothing too dramatic this week. Monday's going to be an interesting open if Evergrande miss their interest payment on their 300 billion loan again. I think its going to be a managed collapse with any luck. Contagion is a concern, apparently there are about 150 banks involved around the world and they are trying to sell stuff off. At least it won't be a shock out of the blue if they can contain the fall. A lot of Chinese have the pension in it (sp down 80% on Hong Kong exchange) and many will loose the house they thought they had bought. Not good. Anyway on that cheerful note its the weekend. Have good one. Off down Smugglers foe some real ale . My son always asks hows it so cheap to drink in Deal? I just say drink up and don't mention it to the landlord!
Thanks Nick. I'm doing ok myself in that department. I banked a few good profits at the beginning of the year as a safety net that I might need to get out of positions such as have recently arisen. They always say you shouldn't invest on a tax basis, but I think its a fairly crucial part of strategy. Just like other strategies it doesn't always play out well, but neither does holding for ever. You'd need to live for about a 200 years for that to work out! What really peeves me is the who pure gamble (shorts etc) on the markets don't pay tax, those that invest do.
Morning all. V. Looks like the taxman is getting desperate to scrape in money any way they can , they'll be wanting us to pay gains up front and if we don't actually make any then claim losses back later. You should be able to offset different kinds of assets against each other, even earnings in some cases, but its not clear how or why. I do vaguely remember something about upfront gains on profits.I didn't release they had actually been stupid enough legislate it into the tax rules already. Its about as mad as inheritance tax. On any given date that somebody dies the whole is state is valued on that day, even if there is crash the next day.
The whole world equity market now seems to hang in the balance of what happens with the Chinese property market Evergrande which is obviously rife with corruption. Just ridiculous