Member Info for skier1

Means-tested winter fuel allowance (MT-WFA) is the worst possible outcome for pensioners. It opens the future door to a means-tested state pension (MT-SP). Once these schemes start, they never stop. If you're retiring after 2030, and have more than, say, £250k in cash or private pension, it wouldn't be a surprise if the future £12k state pension is means-tested and tapered down to £0k (zero).

LLOY has tripled since Covid in 2020, and quadrupled if you add in the dividends. LLOY is one of the best-performing shares of the 2020s in the entire world. Fair play to those folks who have stuck with it -- they certainly got a lot of stick on here when they were buying at 20-40p.

Yup, Bloomer "gets" it. Trade deals are vastly overrated, and are more political than economic.

Gunsup,

See post below. Most major world trading countries do NOT have major trade deals with other countries. The vast majority of world trade is done in deal-free countries, and they boom along just fine. China has deals with almost nobody, yet its exports are the largest on planet Earth. What's more, the EU is supposedly the world's freest trading bloc -- but its pathetic 1-2% GDP growth rate is half that of the US and 60-80% lower than China! The evidence -- from the real world -- is crystal clear. Trade "deals" are not important. Traders, sellers and buyers always "find a way" to work together, regardless of international customs. You can even make the argument that international trade "barriers" are an incentive to work harder and "beat the system". Certainly, China has found a way around them -- it will export $4 trillion of goods and services this year, more than the entire UK economy.

That coastal "growth" fund is a sickening bribe and bung to placate the horrific EU fishing deal that allows EU boats to once again plunder UK seas. Just a sickening piece of cynical politics, and a bizarre and grotesque waste of taxpayers' money. Let overseas boats plunder all your fish (lose money), then waste a third of a billion quid on some vague "growth" fund and waste yet more money. The logic is unfathomable, and the "deals" are horrific.

Have said it many times before -- the obsession with "trade deals" is absurd. Wish the tropes would stop. Trade deals are hugely overrated. The UK's no.1 export market (US) has no trade deal. The UK's no.1 import market (China) has no trade deal. The EU's no.1 trading partner (China) has no trade deal. China is by far the world's no.1 exporter and has trade deals with virtually no countries on the entire planet. The obsession with "trade deals" is bizarre, not backed up by real-world evidence, and the tropes need to stop.

People don't realise just how bad the recent three Starmer "deals" really are. They are sickening, one-sided contracts. They should be 50-50. They are closer to 20-80.

* India = India workers get a tax cut in the UK, marking the start of a two-tier UK tax system

* US = tariffs for UK exports are now higher than a month ago!

* EU = unelected Brussels aparatchiks once again control all UK food, while being allowed to plunder UK seas

The "deals" are beyond unfathomable. Literally, beyond unfathomable.

The US is a $30 trillion GDP market, it's a huge +50% bigger than the EU (and rising), forecasted to hit $50 trillion by 2040, along with a staggering $32 trillion stockmarket that's +200% larger than the EU blended stockmarket. To suggest the EU is somehow a better economic bet than the US is beyond preposterous.

Starmer has thrown UK fishermen under the bus, allowing EU boats to plunder UK seas, while UK boats are forbidden to plunder EU seas. Passport queues in the EU will get longer (not shorter) for Brits, because the dedicated UK Brexit lanes will be dismantled. The UK food industry is now a rule-taker, not a rule-maker, handing control to Brussels once again. The EU's share of global GDP has plunged by a third since the turn of the century -- it's nowhere near as important as the Euro obsessives think it is.

UK GDP only grew a tiny +1.1% YoY in Q1 2025. That's well below-trend, and nothing to shout about.

On a quarterly basis, the +0.7% QoQ rate is also well below the +0.9% QoQ rate seen under the Tories in Q1 2024, a year ago.

As always, the pro-left ONS talks up even the slightest Labour gain, and the masses lap it up without questioning. What's more, don't be surprised to see that Q1 2025 growth rate revised down, later in the year, as so often happens with UK GDP numbers 👍

Good to see this continuing to tick up. Rerate underway.

The London stockmarket is a dead duck. Liquidity is drying up, media and analysts relentlessly talk listed companies down, while overseas firms are picking up so many stocks, there will be few (or none) left on AIM by the 2030s. FirstCash is valued at a PE of 21, while HAT was valued under 10 just a few days ago. Why any CEO chooses to remain listed in London is beyond unfathomable. It's just a one-way ticket to failure.

Looks like the Dow should rise 500-1000 points on Mon, provided there are no Trump or Xi surprises. Hang Seng also looks set for 1-2% upside. However, not a major futures reaction so far. Which suggests the market remains slightly nervous.

As for tariffs -- academic studies typically show that tariff flow-thru to retail inflation is nearly always fairly modest. Manufacturers, shippers, ports, wholesalers and distributors tend to absorb the extra costs -- not the end-consumer. The impact on US retail inflation won't be nearly as bad as people think.

Yesterday's US trade "deal" only covers a quarter of all UK-US trade, while cad tariffs remain higher than they were just 6 months ago. The deal is classic "tradewashing" for the plebs who don't understand what's going on.

The UK-India trade "deal" looks a win for India, and a loss for the UK. An Indian worker coming to the UK does not pay -15% NI tax. A British worker exporting whisky to India does pay an astronomical +75% import tax (tariff). The UK in 2024 already has a yawning-30% trade gap with India. This is unlikely to close the gap in 2026.

Global academics have spent half-a-century researching buybacks, and still nobody can agree on whether they work or not. Some say they do. Some say they don't. The buyback debate rumbles on.

The reason so many UK shares fall (even with buybacks) is because of Britain's deep culture of misery and pessimism. We talk everything down. In New York, they talk everything up. When London does a share placement, they place down (below the current price). New York places up. You can see why most UK shares trend down (not up).

Buffett has been (very) lucky to surf a wave of US exceptionalism during the past 70 years of his investment career, when America was always on the up. If he'd been born in the (fading) UK, and had to invest in Virgin Cola rather than Coca Cola, Access rather than Amex, or Amstrad rather than Apple, he'd very likely be bankrupt, not a centibillionaire.

Freetrade, or iWeb 👍

The US shares today are at 4.4p on the Ask, about 20-30% higher than the UK Ask.

Those US OTC listings never see much traffic or shareholder influence. BSFA really needs to co-list or re-list on (bigger) Nasdaq. Almost certainly, on Nasdaq, this would be valued at $1b+ by now. BSFA is an AI biotech unicorn, with unique leather de-extinction tech, broadly similar to Colossal Biosciences, valued already at $10b. BSFA really shouldn't be messing about at this silly $5m level.