Member Info for RogerMellie50

Happy New Year all,

2025 was a good year on the markets for me, as well as all MSi holders. I'm still heavy cash though- I think there's scope for UK equities to do well this year, but I'm going to take a much more selective approach. Main concern that I can see is a change of leadership in the Labour Party after a rout in the May local elections and Reeves being replaced by an even worse candidate. You know things are bad when you'd actually prefer Starmer and Reeves to stay!

Pharmall - thanks for your tips! Made a nice profit on all of them (CNC 42%, TKO 40%, BPM 10%), but in retrospect I should have let the first two run longer! Yes, it would be nice to cross paths sometime. I'll see what news we get in a fortnight first, but I imagine I'll be at the AGM again in August.

I'm tempted by having a largish punt on Tekcapital when markets re-open - Guident IPO goes well, then should increase Tek's NAV substantially.

Not much of a TV watcher, but I do remember 'Early Doors' - very underrated series.

Cheers, John. Treat yourself to a few sherbets wherever you are!

Merry Christmas all.

John - I hope you enjoy watching 'Still Game' repeats!

Relevance to MSi being?

Start the car!

Defence stocks taking a beating today, BAE down 2.3, Rheinmetall down 4.5% over on Frankfurt exchange, but MSi up 10%.

Evening John,

Broad sell-off in defence stocks, jobbers seem to be taking advantage here. Update in 5 weeks, I agree with Pharmall's reasoning that the line in the RNS about 'allowing more time to prepare accounts' is a load of bobbins and there might be some corporate activity afoot. Good thing with MSi is their clients are multi-national and multi domain (land and see). I remain optimistic for the forseeable.

Agreed, I'd give Leisure stocks a very wide berth as long as Labour are in government.

Interesting you mentioning silver prices earlier. I hold a small amount of gold and silver bullion which I bought 10 yrs ago. I also inherited a sterling silver cutlery set from a relative a few years ago. It's very plain and of no particular antique value (not Jensen etc). Not sure what the general discount is on stirling silver (92.5% pure) compared to bullion? I had an idea that metal merchants offer about 15/20% reduction to bullion spot prices, but may be inaccurate. Tempted to sell the lot!

Interesting you wrote abo

I bought back today in my ISA (1406p) the few that were left in a dealing account which I sold last week (1510p ), so happy with that! Been up and down like a sailor's trousers recently.

Cheers, Pharmall. Been on my radar, was waiting to see if it got under a tenner. Might well pick some up tomorrow, in for a penny etc.

Took advantage of MSi's drop today to finally sell the few remaining shares I had in my dealing account, will buy back in ISA tomorrow.

'200' was always the Finance page on Ceefax, if I remember (and 340 for cricket scoreboards).

Yes, I know what you mean about private clients being seen as a nuisance unless they were loaded. My dad was unusual in that he had a manual job his whole life, but got a lot of work from a stockbroker, and they became good friends. He then encouraged my dad to invest some of his earnings and provided advice for free, essentially. I don't think my dad would have been accommodated by other brokers to the same extent, given how 'small fry' he was. Still, he did well enough to jack in work early and pay a good few years of school fees!

That broker got my dad heavily in to 'stagging' in the early 80s, aided with information about how well subscribed floats were, and 'mates rates' on dealing fees. It was money made from that which he used to build more of a portfolio.

It's a shame retail investing has declined to the state it's in now in the UK. It was genuinely 'transformative' for my dad's finances and security, and has been for me too, and neither of us had/have any type of finance background whatsoever. I very much doubt the new cash ISA restrictions will make a jot of difference. God knows how they're going to define/test for 'cash-like' investments? Will money funds and T-bills be excluded from a Stocks ISA?

Evening John,

That's interesting. A microbrewery bought the Truman rights and brews it now. Not tried it, but I've seen the badges on pumps when in London.

I bought my first shares in 2007, which was in an online ISA, so I never knew the 'old days' without realtime prices and quotes (although I do keep a smaller, execution only account with a broker, whom I either call or email). My dad bought/sold his own shares up until 2015 odd, but he was someone to whom the phrase 'never touched a computer' was literally true, so he always put a call in to his broker. I have childhood memories of him squinting at Ceefax, waiting for the screen to tick over, usually with a wry look on his face!

Wasn't it Grand Metropolitan that bought Trumans and tanked it? Then merged with Guiness to form Diageo. I've been to the old Brewery Building in Shoreditch plenty of times as a friend used to work at a creative studio there.

That's interesting about only reading the AGM statement at the meeting!

My dad was a big one for going to brewery AGMs. There are only a few listed independents left, Thwaites and Shepherd Neame on the Asquis exchange, Youngs on AIM and Fuller's on the main board (although the latter two flogged their breweries). Thwaites and Shepherd Neame still put on a good spead for the AGM, so I'm told.

Does seems cheep. I think I'll buy some BPM next week and lock them in the bottom drawer.

I think I may have got the venue confused. We were discussing the days of AGM jamborees a while ago, and I remember you mentioned a particular company that always used to have a good one?

I saw SRT Marine had an RNS out this morning for their AGM, and I enjoyed this passage:

"The open day is between 09:00am and 10:45am, with the formal AGM and Board presentation starting from 11:00am at the nearby Centurian Hotel. Coffee and home-made cakes are provided throughout the morning and a buffet lunch."

I thought 'shareholder hospitality' had completely disappeared, nice to see it making a comeback! John, what was the company who used to have AGMs at the Cafe de Paris? I remember you mentioning it a while ago...

Are you eating pork scratchings and checking LSE at the same time?

Would hope with that average now your odds are favourable. I know this may sound pedantic, but RC Fornax really need to write their RNSs and company literature in a much plainer, non-inflated/jargony English. I know they're a niche area, but it's off putting to retail. Even the recent RNS, "Public Sector Space"; just say "Public Sector".

SNX looks interesting. Will do some more reading at the weekend, they're certainly not short of any cash!

Was thinking about getting back in to Brian Marsh, saw the RNS today and have come off the boil a bit recently. Do you have any personal views on what fair value is there?

Hi Pharmall,

Hope you're well. Yes, very positive update. I'v been averaging down with MWE, much more than I had planned (42.5 book cost now, and that's enough!) but happy to hold over the next 18 months. Divi's great (reckon 2.6p+ a share in March) and hopefully we should have some good contracts RNSd between now and F//Y results. Shame there wasn't an Investor Meet for Q3, but I'd suggest emailing the company if you have any questions; I've done a few times and they're very responsive (unlike MSI!) Share price is pretty volatile on low free float, doesn't take much volume to move it either way.

On a slightly less positive note - are you still hanging tough on RC Fornax? Saw the placing and retail offer the other day, glad I booked a quick profit before things went south.

Will give SNX a gander, cheers.

Carnage! Be lucky to last 3 days.