Member Info for steph

I was told way back on the TW board micro trades are brokers signaling to each other how much they want to buy or sell. Can't find a google reference but it makes sense. It makes no sense for a retail trader such as ourselves as the broker fee makes the margin silly.

Usually appear when movement is strong up or down. Large buyers or sellers don't want to revel themselves lest the market anticipate. Basically a large buyer and large seller trying to find each other and both fearful if they register the full volume they want on the exchange the price will instantly move against them.

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/GROW/portfolio-update-pdt5k3vsuz5xjt2.html

along with whole tech sector GROW dipped bottoming out in March 23. Whole tech sector has recovered pre covid sp's except for GROW. I think this is 100% down to GROW being small and the companies within it's portfolio private. Thus there is an information lag with GROW soon to be corrected by the trading update, finals and broker views.

My amateurish look at the top 10 GROW investments indicate none should have COVID impact.

I am expecting GROW to recover fully its pre COVID SP and catch up with the rest of the tech sector in this regard. Looking at a 2 year average pre covid SP it is around 520. That irons out volatility up and down. Of course NAV per share has been on a strong uptrend so the average of 2 years is not the future. But first recovery and then the future.

SO I am expecting a pretty quick sprint up to 520 on results. Then (with the inevitable short term volatility up and down of course) a steady pace up doubling in sp every 4 to 6 years. This is a continuation of their stated capital growth per share objectives they have met handsomely in the last 3 years and I see no reason within their chosen sector they can not keep up this pace.

So if you can borrow money at zero percent interest and put it into GROW at 20% + return....

I remain optimistic GROW will beat it's own fair value per share target this year and next.

I also think along with Investors chronicle that GROW should be trading at a premium to NAV per share not a discount given the future prospects and the impossibility of having a slice of their holding in fast growing private companies any other way. SO along with organic growth may be some upwards SP rebalancing as investors just get used to grow.

I'd be quite surprised if SP less than 1000 within 3 or 4 years. There you have it a prediction that I can't retract.

of course over a 10 year period that is 100% true. What happens to SP in a year or two is a crap shoot. What happens in 10 years is a strategic evidence based decision.

For me being 100% invested with zero in cash I still need to chose sectors and countries. For now I think technology stocks are on a roll aided rather than fettered by Corona virus. UK builders will get their turn to be stars but may not shine for a year or two first.

My mistake of late was to make some short term bets on oil rather than follow my own stated 2 year strategy. I did not fully understand the underlying equity, the impossible happened and I lost money.

Those recent losses just reinforced all we have discussed on TEF board as deep value investors. Don't invest short term. Look for long term value, have a long hold strategy and ride out the short term dips.

hi terr

agree with all.

I think we are in for 1 or 2 bad years and 8 good years over the next 10. Probably first bad year right now and the other sometime probably by surprise. Might be back to back might not. A lot of bad news priced in right now so a bad year may not mean decreases in SP.

However, anyone putting money into uk house builders now bad year or not will at least double their money over 6 to 8 years, possibly better than that at these low valuations.

I'll pivot back into 1/3rd or more UK houbuilders as soon as Brexit over. I know this will mean selling some favourite technology stock but doubling in 6 to 8 years is a good return. Not dell boy get rich overnight stuff but safe. Nor the doubling in 4 to 6 years I kept touting for TEF but a good return with good odds of it actually happening and low downside risk. Our builders are not going bankrupt or having a near death experiences such as in 2009.

I agree with strictly we are in for a low interest environment for the foreseeable future.

Helps builders as affordability (as measured by earnings price ratio) is permanently up by a factor of 100% from pre 2008. Also the emerging immigration policy where we unilaterally grant professionals right of entry from a wide number of countries without getting the same in return. Stupid representation of UK interests but good for UK housing market as foreign professionals can come in but we can’t get out. Lower paid and skilled workers who will be restricted were not customers of the new homes anyway.

Low interest rates (and inflation above that rate) will flatter UK builders land banks and margins. It will be 10 good years -expect for the first year as we battle covid and Brexit headwinds.

I will reinvest in volume into UK builders (or any UK only share or asset) once Brexit really sorted one way or anouther. We have had a phony Brexit but the real one is coming and no deal is very much on the table and there are not enough white knight Tories left. We are in the less than fully capable hands of Boris, Raab and Priti Patel who will have to move onto Brexit fresh from royally screwing up our covid 19 response. We were once rated as amongst the best in the world for fighting a pandemic nationally. We had the NHS and stockpiles of PPE and the like. Good tools in the hands of bad managers are not much use though. New Zealand has zero new cases of Corona virus and the economic damage and forward prospects (ahead of a vaccine) is much less than ours because of it. We could have been New Zealand but we are now USA.
No deal will harm all UK shares and the threats that are to come will spook the market. SO just as we are recovering from COVID posturing the top Tories will impose more Brexit posturing on us. Like Trump they will blame everyone but themselves further ruining UK’s ever more fragile position of influence and relevance. Under American pressure UK starting to tear up the prospects of much deeper UK China trade which was the one potential bright spot economically in this whole mess. We will be lucky to hang onto the existing trade agreements we have got with China achieved through our EU negotiations from 1985 onwards.

looking at the top 10 companies in GROW's portfolio I can't see one consumer, hospitality or travel facing company that would be impacted by covid. Most I expect benefit by covid work from home and ICT spending trends. These top 10 represent about 2/3rds of GROW's portfolio value.

at number 5 SMAVA a German peer to peer loans website should be unaffected by COVID. Business may be up

at number 6 uiPath: Robotic Process Automation for companies should be unaffected. Maybe business up.

at number 7 lyst on line luxury clothing shopping. Business should be up on covid.

at no 8 Perkbox Insights is the next generation of employee engagement survey, enabling you to gather and act on employee feedback in a transparent and meaningful . Cant see why business would be down on covid. May be up.

at no 9 mfiles Future-proof your business by enabling secure out of office access to documents and information. Good for work from home - should be well up on covid.
at no 10 : ledger
Ledger: Hardware Wallet - State-of-the-art security for crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Monero and more. Give yourself peace of mind by knowing that your cryptocurrencies are safe. Should be unaffected by covid.

UiPath is a leading Robotic Process Automation vendor providing a complete software platform to help organizations efficiently automate business processes

I’ve mostly pivoted out of Uk builders for the first time since I started in 2007.

Into tech stock, Drapier espírit, polar capital, biotech growth trust, go group, novacyt, etc

My favourite and largest holding is Drapier but the others have performed better so far post Covid.

I thin Uk builders will struggle for a couple of years

Covid is bound to reduce selling prices for at least a year or two. Not enough to put any in financial difficulty as in 2009 but enough to reduce earnings and margins.

That may be priced in but I don’t think the no deal brexit lunacy at the top of the party had been priced in. I think we will get the destabilizing effects of threatening no deal all over again just when the housing market has started to stabilize from Covid.

Nation of lions led by donkeys.

I once proudly had 100% of my investable income in Uk stocks and assets. No longer. Don’t think the lot we have are competent.

https://www.ravenpack.com/blog/coronavirus-news-analytics/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2020/04/27/impact-of-lockdown-on-gaming-stocks/#7d9843963920
peak games should be doing very well under lockdown. It is GROw's no 3 by pervious capital value.

I'd imagine trust pilot doing well. More on line shopping and thus reviews used.

As previous post Grwo's no 1 graphcore should be unaffected.

GROW's no 4 should also be doing well under corona virus. Indeed here is an example of raven pack analysis on covid 19. It wil not be a financial victim to be sure.

I could keep going down the hierarchy of portfolio but suffice to say that any that might logically be seriously impacted are not large holdings. I think we are in for an upside surprise on the trading update.

https://www.ravenpack.com/blog/coronavirus-news-analytics/

I phoned investor relations on when trading update and finals will be released.

Final delayed a bit as PWC being extra cautious on the valuations. So maybe late June.

Trading update expected within a week or so.

I expect the trading update to say no material change from pre covid growth. Obviously a few companies will have lost sales but others gained.

GROW portfolio concentrated in medium sized tech companies so not any special government help at the moment but as with the global tech sector probably trading well and don't need it.

Real new start ups who are still under 100 employees will get lots of easy loans right now across EU and this will put more start ups in the pipeline for GROW to support and profit from but that does not help GROW valuators in the short run.

An example of portfolio holding since half yearly update:

https://www.graphcore.ai/posts/microsoft-and-graphcore-collaborate-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence
https://medium.com/startupoftheday/an-ideal-ai-processor-from-graphcore-d3bc0157e4bb?source=rss------ai-5

https://draperesprit.com/investors/plc/regulatory-news

Worth rereading PDF covid impact march 23 update.

It is not a profit warning. Indeed it is a statement that the medium term value is unaffected by COVID and that any short term funding needs are covered. As the underlying companies are mainly private companies reasonable assessed value is medium term in nature (the last investor to buy shares plus reasonable performance based upgrades) -unless there is some panic on fund raising and thus some fire sale of shares to keep going. But the update says that is not going to be the case.

There is a small part of the portfolio (under 7%) that may have sales impacted such as software solutions for travel, leisure and hospitality industries.

Many parts of GROW portfolio may directly benefit from COVID acceleration of artificial intelligence, home working and digital solutions for medial and business. Business' ICT capital budgets must be skyrocketing and give them flex to experiment. This is not a classic recession where all capital budgets contract including ICT. Technology firms worldwide have not on average seen any stock market retrace (after the initial dip) as business for them is up. Covid has accelerated trends towards ICT and money is being pumped into business right now due to central bank printing and some hidden monetization of debt.

Hopefully this will more than balance the 7% that may have sales decreases.

Basically as expected not much negative covid impact on the types of companies GROW own.

Final results last year was June 4th. This year date not announced but I expect similar. Probably not an update now before then. Mid to late April would have been the slot for an update.

I trust update will combine year end results and some forward guidance based on a late may 2020 survey.

I am still expecting a SP jump up on results. I really don't see a case for us being below the pre covid SP levels right now.

global technology stocks are up even from pre covid levels.

Market less affected than economy due to printing money. Nowhere else for funds to go.

Technology stocks trading well in crisis, some gaining market.

Grow is a quintessentially upstream technology stock. It should fly up to and past pre covid 19 level as most of the majors have already done as soon as the dust settles.

It will be interesting on the update how the constituent parts of GROW's portfolio have fared. March 23 update said little impact and maybe some optimism.

I like duck. Lets hope we are feasting on it after the update and beyond.
GROW is my new isa favorite after I was pushed out of TEF before that matured.

I've got nearly as many on a spread -but with thick margins to cover volatility. I would imagine GROW might be an attractive target for a fund wanting the underlying portfolio but I doubt the existing GROW shareholders would vote to sell for less than 800 even in this market. I suspect most of us are in for the long haul up to and beyond 20 quid.

good luck

I'm about 60% of all investable money into GROW so a very high percentage for such a small firm in a sector that is not my professional specialty.

Very difficult to research GROW. The information is in updates plus a few press releases form some of it's companies it owns. Not like builders who go up or down with a sector or region you can analyze

So I'm betting the farm on a general thesis that it's a great undervalued sector and that GROW will find the best bits of that sector. They have a track record which helps.

I also have Polar Capital which is a global tech fund that has done well. Don't like the 70% weighting for usa tech which I think is overvalued a bit but cant find an equivalent that is EU only and thus on lower P/E's for the underlying assets.

If we are correct it will be the fastest growing sp we can buy

Draper Esprit Confident Majority Of Portfolio Can Handle Covid-19

Mon, 23rd Mar 2020 12:37

(Alliance News) - Draper Esprit PLC said Monday it has conducted a review of its portfolio and believes it is "robust" enough to withstand the economic fallout from the Covid-19 outbreak.

"We are remaining close to our portfolio companies to assimilate the available information as the specific market implications and the impacts of the global governmental support become clearer. We remain well-financed with cash resources to provide support where necessary," the venture capitalist said.

As with TEF this is a share I think will reliably double in sp every 4 to 6 years.
From here I fully expect a sp of 850 plus by July 2022 or only 2 years away. It will have a growth spurt not only due to corona keeping our current sp below 600 but because even 600 is low and is due to a general unease on UK start up technology trusts due to a peer screwing up. That has skewed an already small market downwards and is not related to GROW fundamentals. I don't think grow has remotely exaggerated the valuations of the underlying assets. If anything they have had an incentive to be conservative as they have always exceeded the 20% NAV growth target. What purpose would an exaggerated valuation serve?

Our year end March 31 is an interesting one. Just getting into covid impact. I wish our year end had been April 30 so the real impact (or lack of) could be reported. Still the year end will enlighten and have some predictions of what the underlying companies report as sales and prospects gong forward. I've assumed a jump up on results. Hope I'm right.

July 2022 is beyond covid and for the UK bit of Grow no deal brexit dealt with one way or anouther.
Of course I hope for even more sp growth in the next 2 years than that but just need to make a planning assumption.

I agree with IC that GROW is a fast growing leading edge technology stock and should trade above NAV. The PE is silly as well as any investment formula (PEG or otherwise) that gives weight to growth.

Still got bellway, redrow and other builders but slowly pivoting into nearly all tech

Biggest holdings are GROW, polar and beltway in that order.

I worry on the uk builders that as we start to get over Covid no deal brexit will rear it’s head again.

Also worry trump talking up a trade war and a Cold War will keep all stocks subdued a bit until us election when I think trump will be defeated

Biden a jerk also talking up China tensions but by comparison a saint and good for global markets

no but last year there was an update early may. Probably the same. Enclosed is Jan 16 IC view (pre covid). Fin tec and much of GROW's companies should be left neutral by covid or maybe even beneficiaries.

I am expecting EU start ups are finding easy money in the form of government backed covid impact loans right now -which may give some time to develop products and leverage our equity investment.

I am very heavily invested in GROW as a percentage of my portfolio. Wish I could have gone to AGM and to really meet the staff and some of their target companies. Bit of a black box but the update will enlighten.

IC View

As such, some analysts think Draper's shares should trade above book value. The unpredictable nature of realisations, reliance on private valuations and a strategy to reinvest cash realisations into new opportunities suggest this could be wishful thinking. Then again, net asset value (NAV) per share has climbed by 54 per cent in two years, and Mr Cook reports a “strong pipeline” of deals including both portfolio companies and new investments. A 31 per cent discount to forecast 2021 NAV makes this an underrated story. Buy.

Last IC View: Buy, 472p, 26 Nov 2019

https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/82289/investing-app-freetrade-returns-to-the-crowd
"With any crisis, there are winners and losers, and opportunity. We’re fortunate to be in a business that has been positively impacted by the current market conditions. We’re seeing record signups, customer deposits and investment activity on a daily basis."

https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/tech-trail/investment-tree/cambridge-professor%E2%80%99s-latest-spin-out-aims-reduce-microplastic-pollution