blonde poker forum

Hey guys,

For the past 2 years I've been very aware of the need to put away some kind of security for my future, as I'm sure everyone on this board appreciates.  I decided that every month that I could afford it, that I would automatically invest £2k in shares, and also top this up should I have any good months/decent tournie binks.  Really something that I've been doing where the plan is to have a bit of a nest egg in the 5-10 year mark but also with the added bonus of it being money that I can't instantly access and punt should I somehow lose my brains and do my roll.

Have had a pretty decent month so far and looking for a way to invest it.  I haven't yet used my ISA allowance so I added an ISA account to my H&L share dealing one that for now just has the maximum held there in cash.  Been thinking of investing in a FTSE All-Share/100 tracker but really there's so many out there just wondering if anyone has any kind of experience in this

My general strategy so far has been on solid, blue chip companies with a secure dividend.  Generally I just punt around tho, and while I enjoy taking a look at stuff a lot of it goes over my head.  It looks like this so far:

Tesco - By far my biggest holding.  Was just the standard go to share for a while.

AstraZenica - Second biggest holding.  Main attraction was the dividend.

Vodafone - My longest holding, and very happy with its performance.  Somewhat of an emotional share for me as I did my work experience at the HQ and everyone treated me so well.

Centrica - After Ed Milibands interesting comments they took a 5pc drop yesterday.  Can't see any reason for the comments to hurt them long term so thinking about increasing my position.  Thoughts?  Also been thinking of getting into SSE for the same reason.

Rolls Royce - I actually looked into this because of Tikay's love of this company on his diary.

Morrisons - Unsure about this one as is a bit unwise to hold in the same sector as Tesco.  They do tend to target a slightly different market tho.

Sports Direct - Got in end of last and from memory my 2nd best performer in terms of ROI.  Been thinking about selling half there shares and effectively freerolling the other half. Thoughts

Quintain Estates - Followed a tip from a mate.  It is in the London property investment business.  My best performer and  same for Sports Direct really.

Lloyds Banking - One month I just felt like I needed a banking share and picked this one as there was talk of the government selling there share.

Scottish American Investment - Currently my only fund and probably the one I'm most unsure about.  Got some banter value tho with having SCAM as its symbol.

Cheers guys

It looks pretty solid on what you have, without taking too much risk

Do you have any property investments?

I have a house with a mortgage, but as my main source of income is poker, things are a bit tricky om that fromt. I have been looking to getting a new place tho and asked for advice from Eso which had some positive signs and will be looking into moving sometime next year.

Getting into rental properties is something that is a major possibility in 2-3 years but as my immediate future is gonna be firmly in poker I think it's something that is best left to a time when I can dedicate more time to it.

Worth taking the max of £30k in premium bonds. No way of losing the money, on avg perform just under isas (this is worked out by the avg prize money) but the main attraction is you have the chance to win a milli ball and with how you run...

Money saving expert has a calculator for this on the website.

As a personal aside, I was once told that vintage watches were a good investment. You could get a very nice Patek Phillippe watch - say a classic and simple chronograph - for £25k and they would never lose their value (in as much as one can say Never in an investment situation...). Would be low yield, I expect, but the watch is already 60+ years old, so it has seen a fair few market ups and downs off.

Out of my price range, but something I personally would look into, were I to start racking up Herbiemob flags.

This whole area is far from my comfort zone/expertise and I expect property is the best investment in reality. Was just mooting an angle.

No it isn't. 

Jesus

Now THERE'S a good lifetime investment!

"Rolls Royce - I actually looked into this because of Tikay's love of this company on his diary."[/b]

Hi Ryan.

If you have not already purchased them, DO NOT do so now.

They were £2.80 on 2008, & are currently £11.22.

They will steadily grow, over time, but you've missed the boat really as to the explosive growth of the last 5 years. The shares of very big Companies tend to plod along fairly steadily.

RR have a forward order book of £70 billion, & their installed base must be worth, literally, £trillions. All that gear has to be maintained, & spare parts supplied. The average life of a RR Aero or Marine engine is over 30 years, so that is a lot of almost guaranteed future income.

A very solid investment indeed, & a fine company to boot, but all that is in the price, imo.

Their latest half year results are here....

http://www.rolls-royce.com/Images/2013_half_year_appendices_data_pack_tcm92-50022.pdf

I think I may have put you on to Tesco, too. They have barely moved in 5 years, going from around £3.20 to £3.70, & have probably lagged the market, but you get a nice steady, & pretty much guaranteed, Dividend. Tesco will have their ups & downs, but they aint ever going away, or busto. Dull as dishwater as a Share, but solid.

You mention Sports Direct. Been an absolutely fabulous Share, gone from around 50p some 5 years ago to £7 now, but the explosive growth is over, & I'd be bailing out personally. The man who runs it is an absolute total genius, football supporters all think he is dumb, (he sort of owns Newcastle United) but he knows exactly what he is doing.

Good luck mate, & I think you are being very wise locking up this money in shares.

I'll reply as I'm currently in a huge jam on the M1 and won't be making my flight.

Millidonk - have been told the very same thing about my likelihood of binking the jackpot from a few people! Will prob put in a few K for the sweat

Tal - I just couldn't trust myself!

Tikay - got into RR a few months ago at 1000 something so a profit locked.  tesco at various points from 290 to 330. Both are long term.  SD I agree with and think I will reduce to 50pc.  Met Mike Ashley a few years ago in the Palm Beach. Great guy.

You seem to be building up a High Yield Portfolio (HYP), there are about a zillion posts on the motley fool http://boards.fool.co.uk/high-yield-hyp-practical-51676.aspxl http://boards.fool.co.uk/high-yield-share-strategies-51166.aspx on this after steven bland "invented" the idea a few years ago. Loads of bloggers have done the same for example http://monevator.com/a-new-high-yield-portfolio-for-2011/

Vanguard are like the pokerstars of fund management, no share holders so they are not out to grab every single penny from their clients. They tend to be passive not active which tikay doesn't like but if you read this to get the opposite opinion http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-Simpler-Decisions-Results/dp/0273722077 then a Vanguard LifeStrategy fund prob 80% equity does seem like a very good idea to me. http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/v/vanguard-lifestrategy-80-equity-accumulation

Excellent, you are in great shape, & freerolling.

PS - Personally - just me - but I really don't like the notion of investing in Premium Bonds.

Geeeg Bankroll  ;)

Sorry was busy this morning, so will provide a bit more detail on this.

I see a few big problems with chucking big sums at "investments" like the watch (though I could just substitute this with fine wine, works of art, impressive folly on his lordship's estate).

Scotty knows nothing about these items, so somebody who knows a lot about these items is going to sell him them.  This person will make his money by buying and selling such items, so he isn't ever going to let Scotty buy them at a rate that leaves Scotty much opportunity to make a killing.  The most likely result is he is sold the item at such a rate that the seller makes a healthy return on his investment in the watch.  The healthier this return is for the seller, the lower Scotty's return will be.

Scotty's new "investment" produces no income, but it will be worse than that.  When Scotty comes to renew his insurance, he now should reveal he has this very valuable vintage watch.  That isn't going to be cheap to insure, so rather than making money, we lose money every year.

When he sells, he still knows nothing about watches, so he ends up selling to somebody who needs to buy at such a price that he can make a healthy return on his investment.

This is all compounded by the possibility of making forced sales.  If I have money in the bank I can get it easily, if I have it in shares, I can get it easily, but might get punished a bit by selling at a bad time.  If I have one watch, then I can't sell it easily, may get punished by selling at a bad time, and may be forced to sell to the person who has the money to buy that watch right now.  All these things are not condusive to making a decent ROI from watches, fine art etc.

So in life, buy nice things if you like nice things, but don't buy them as investments.

I will try and expand on this.

Scotty has a mortgage, he is probably paying 4% a year long run on this. 
Scotty buys premium bonds and gets 1.3% long run on these.
So Scotty puts 30k in premium bonds rather than lopping £30k off his mortgage, he should expect to lose £810 a year, so to say there is no way of losing money isn't strictly true, in fact Scotty is way more likely to lose money than win money.
Of course he can win the mill ball, every bond has a 1 in 45 billion chance of winning that every month.  You really are better off paying off the mortgage and just playing the lottery for a couple of quid every week (or even a mug accumulator/scoop 6). 

For reference I have 5k premium bonds and spend zero on the lottery, but at least I know I am a mug, and if you pay top rate tax frequently then it isn't so bad.

I spent way too much time in my past on the motley fool website.  Even though Stephen Bland didn't strictly invent high yield/value investing, there isn't much wrong with a strategy like this.

What Stephen Bland is very right on is people knowing their level of ignorance.  Most people lose a lot of money trading on the most spurious of reasons, just buy, hold and forget wins for most.

I'd certainly look at maxing your ISA every year.  It may not matter much now when you are a non tax payer, but in the long run, you don't want a big CGT bill when you need to sell.

I'd buy each share in reasonable chunks, so maybe looking at 3k in each, so after 2 years you have 6 or 7 shares in your ISA, by 4 years, you have a proper portfolio.

I wouldn't get carried away on Tesco, there is no harm in having half Tesco, half Sainsbury/Morrison.

I have money in banks, I have HSBC, Barclays, RBS and Lloyds.  HSBC are pretty much the safest bet, Barclays always seem a bit spivvy but are probably still safer than Lloyds and RBS.

You haven't got an oil company, something like Shell or BP should be good long run.

Utilities are fine, I wouldn't be rushing in and out just for the sake of a 5% drop.  Was trying to work it out in my head, but 5% doesn't seem a massive over-reaction to what Milliband has said.  Good luck to him putting that through though.

If I had any funds, I think you should be looking overseas, once you have a big chunk invested in your own shares, all you do by buying funds is guarantee losing 1% or 1.5% a year.   Most fund managers really aren't worth it.   

Doobs, I see what you saying, although you are still not losing money on your initial investment with Premium Bonds, you are just not necessarily making the most.

The issues with the mortgage is that what do you do if your house price plummets and you wake up in negative equity? and what if you need access to the £30k immediately as I think Scotty said he wanted.

Good thing with Premium Bonds, available immediately, never lose value and CHANCE of scooping big. Bad thing is they are likely not to produce the biggest yield on your investment.

Glad to see you have some though. Such a degen.

oh, my bad. I think he doesn't want immediate access. Risky for a poker player.. the rest of my points still stand though.

I understand your point but, in my defence:

- the thread is essentially "I have some money and I'm looking for ideas and advice about what to do with it", so unless the response is "put it in X account at Y bank", there will always be reliance on the greater knowledge of others

- I did only post it as a point of mild interest, mainly from a personal perspective (Yes, I would also like a house full of Dalis and Caravaggios...); it wasn't intended to be a "you really should consider..." That really wouldn't be my place.

- I think the situation you describe about buying and selling is a little simplistic, although undoubtedly purely for illustration of a valid point. There is no reason why, with reasonably limited research, you couldn't find a 2010 Rhone, find out what it was worth on the market and learn what yield could be expected over the long haul. As such, you can buy at market price (let's assume the ability to negotiate and choose seller) which, given you would be selling at market price in due course, gives you a return on your investment.

If you know what you are doing in any sphere, you can make better decisions than other people and, thereby, make more money in competition. Hence why OP is looking for somewhere to put his mountains of wonga...

:D

Yeah, but you are losing money, you are losing £810 on average from just paying off the mortgage.  You'd expect to do worse if the comparison was investing in shares.  And though you say you don't lose money, inflation is going to get you for 3% or so too, so your 30k is going to be worth less when you take it out.  You'd be very fortunate to not lose money.

The chance of scooping big really is so small as to render it meaningless (45 billion to 1 is really really small).  

What I mostly do is try and pay the mortgage down and try and max the shares ISA.  Some years are easier than others.

Ryan shouldn't consider a pension yet because of his tax status.

Getting mortgage down is probs a very good idea but you can get stung (as I did), pretty much lost £25k overnight. When house prices crash you are a sitting duck. It's not too bad if you don't plan to sell for a good 10 years as you can just ride it out or better yet rent it out like I did. Just don't want Scotty to think "yea, lump it on the mortgage and nothing can go wrong.."

Fwiw your 45billion to 1 is just for the jackpot.

Your chances of winning a prize are 26,000 / 1 and some of the other prizes are well worth winning.

August's prize breakdown:

Prize band   
   £1 million   1
    £100,000   3
    £50,000   6
    £25,000   11
    £10,000   30
    £5,000   58   
        £1,000   789
        £500     2,367
   £100   11,891
    £50   11,891
    £25   1,724,014

No harm in putting £25k on mortgage and £5k in premium bonds for easy access and a degen urge quelling.

Surely you lost £25k on your house value regardless of how much the mortgage was?  So paying off the mortgage makes no real difference?  You can't just hand back the keys and wipe out the debt if you have 25k in premium bonds or in an ISA.  Of course something can go wrong with buying houses, but Ryan is already passed that stage.

People saying nothing can go wrong with any investment are usually wrong.

On your premium bonds point, it is just less than a billion to 1 to win £10k+.  People are pretty bad at doing odds, but I'd suggest that you are more likely to die than get a 10k prize on your premium bonds, and you aren't at all likely to do that either.

But yes, you need rainy day money etc, so may as well be in premium bonds, which is kind of why I have 5k there.  Though if I was less lazy, I'd have it in accounts that gave me better interest.

When working out how much cash I have, I include bank accounts, poker accounts, gambling accounts and premium bonds.  I don't include shares, simply because I don't really want to be touching the ISAs unless really desparate.  Despite this, if really needed I can get money out of a shares ISA in about 3 working days, so it isn't that difficult.  But I can always be forced to sell at a bad time, which is the downside.

 

With the returns on premium bonds about half of what inflation is, you are basically losing money with them, pay off your mortgage instead.

I work for a pharma company, most of the big companies like AZ are struggling because of blockbuster drugs coming off patent and them not being replaced by new money spinners, there is also heavy downward pressure of drug prices by governments making it harder still. Even though I work in that sector I'm not sure I'd be investing lumps into it. The next big thing in medicine is stem cell research and gene therapy, over the next 20 years and beyond you are going to start to see cures or at least big remissions in some diseases because of this technology, they will be able to charge huge money for this. Even if it costs £50k to cure a patient of diabetes, this will be cost effective to do so, these new technologies will be huge. The companies developing these are the ones to look at, the problem is binking the right companies who win the race.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLocKzC80gk

Hmmm someone beat me to this...
To essentially second what's been said here, I also work for a large pharma company.
When investing in pharma companies you need to look primarily at their R&D pipeline and the longevity of the patents of any of their 'blockbuster' drugs... Those that bring in the majority of the revenue for the company.
Happy to talk over pm if you want to learn anymore 

Not sure this is at all true, people who work for companies aren't always the best judges of their companies investment potential.  I could find a whole host of reasons not to invest in any of the shares I own, and I still invest.

I first invested in GSK maybe 10 years ago, and there were the same issues raised about the lack of blockbusters in the pipeline and Government trying to force down the prices of drugs then. 

I think I paid about 1100p a share.  10 years on, they are 1598p a share and pay me an income of 74p a year.  Even if GSK do reach a stop, you still get that 5% or so yield to stop you getting too grumpy.

As I said earlier.

What Stephen Bland is very right on is people knowing their level of ignorance.  Most people lose a lot of money trading on the most spurious of reasons, just buy, hold and forget wins for most.

Well I'm not talking about the company I work for as you cannot buy shares in them, I'm talking about the industry as a whole. Medicine is so far advanced now that the cupboard is not exactly bursting going forward, the sales of most of the top companies have declined slightly in recent years because of this. I am privy to info than people outside the industry can't won't see unless they make a special effort. Anyway up to you what advice you take on board, but there are better areas to invest than pharma companies currently imo unless there are specific reasons to invest in a particular company.

Turnover is fairly flat.

ROI from my holding about 9% a year.
Forward p/e 13
Expected dividend yield 5%+

The company isn't priced for massive growth, it is priced to give "mugs" like me my 9%.

Thanks guys. A lot to think over! Will be looking more in depth when I have time but please keep thoughts, ideas coming. Really appreciate it and I'm sure some if my peers who are railing have prob learnt a thing of 2 as well.

The problem is that the share price isn't determined by the views and opinions of people from outside the industry though.  It is determined by supply and demand which is, to a very great extent, led by the opinions of analysts who are effectively inside the industry and speak every day to the CEO's and CFO's of the pharma companies and do make that special effort to analyse those things that appear hidden to the lay observer.

This is excellent advice. Great post Doobs

If you got the money spare, get the mortgage paid off, you save sooo much money in interest payments being reduced. Will also make it much easier to get a new mortgage if you have lots of equity and a good history of paying chunks off.

I paid my mortgage off on my first house and lenders were falling over themselves to offer me a mortgage when I bought a bigger place

I agree with a whole heap of what you mention in the thread but surely these statistics have a great deal of variance attached to them?

I heard desire petroleum r a good buy

they gonna find chunks of oil soon

Lol

Well forward P/E and dividend yield not so much, long returns well massively so. 

You can cut your variance down by buying lots of shares, buying safer shares, buying shares in different sectorsand buying higher yielding shares.  You can't remove it.

As examples, my portfolio which was mainly built on similar principles to the ones linked to on fool.co.uk lost half its value over a couple of years not, and it wasn't that long ago.  I have bought one share that lost 75% of its value in 2 days, I bought another that it took me a day to realise I had likely lost all my money.  Both of these were bought when a lot of the risks were known, but you can still never be sure.  That lot at RBS flat out lied to their investors for a long time.  And Paul Ho remembers the last shares thread we had here. 

Well i did well when i got 404 shares from the place i work at NEXT,i paid 17.83 for each, there at 51.50 at the moment,

Thoughts of buying chunks of penny shares?

There is money to be made from properly investigating and investing in small cap shares.  That isn't the same thing as saying there is money to be made from following penny share tips.  In fact they are miles apart as investment strategies.

You could buy a nice watch for that...

Italics = Makes sense.

Bold = Systematic and non systematic risk etc, all parts of my degree. I know enough to know I don't really know anything but your views back up much of my own beliefs from my studies and outside reading. Stock market wizards <3

Firstly you should invest in one of my movies, great gamble/investment

Secondly please smile in at least one picture.....!!!

Thirdly we're looking for a posh lad for one (I promise it won't be as bad as Dead man running, real blunder) so come audition  ;)

Royal Mail anyone?

Defo undervalued - which the gov needed for corporate cash.  News this morning said, some analysis reckon could be under-valued by up to £1b!

Small investors have until Midnight tomorrow to buy.  Minimum £750

Share price released on Friday.

For a short term investment, A++...

Without sounding like a complete moron- how do I buy Royal Mail shares. Can someone just tell me what I need to do please

Don't worry obviously found it

Don't use gov site if you have access to a broker account that makes purchase possible.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/article-2446479/Its-robbery-Royal-Mail-share-buyers-face-big-choose-sell-Governments-dedicated-website.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/shares/10360215/Royal-Mail-shares-How-to-buy-at-the-last-minute.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10340710/Royal-Mail-privatisation-shares-A-list-of-stockbrokers-and-their-costs.html

Whilst you are likely to make some money, it isn't likely to be much.  I went in my ISA and just clicked £1500.  I will likely get £500 tops, that will be worth maybe £600 at issue.  I wouldn't go selling lots of other stuff in the hope of getting a 50k allocation and making 10k.

Of course if it makes you get an ISA it can't be a bad thing.

You reckon everyone will get 33% or so Doobs of what they apply/buy? and make 20% on that portion?

No I reckon everybody who asks for any decent allocation gets clobbered, particularly those that go very high.  I am pretty sure that is what happened in the past, though can't remember the exact allocations.  The grey market price is something like 20% higher than the indicative price.

I think £750 bids will get full £750 worth, bit like Water privatisation but big bids might get sod all :)

Whats the optimal number then? Whats considered too big etc?

£750 in your name £750 in your wifes name etc?

are you looking for long term investment or just a quick return?

I get feeling everyone's in for a quick sell of whatever they get?

British Gas allocations from Hansard

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1986/dec/08/british-gas

100 100
200 200  
300 300  
400 400
500–700 400  
800–1,000 500
1,500 600
2,000 800
2,500 1,000  
3,000–5,000 1,200
6,000–10,000 1,400
15,000–100,000 10 per cent
150,000 or over 7 per cent.

400 shares was about £600.

I am guessing that if you go for something like 10k, you'll get 1k and make £200.  
If you go something like 1k, you might get 500/750 and make £100/£150.

This is all guess work, but it seems popular from the press, so I assume the top allocations are going to be scaled back massively.

I had just over £1500 cash in the ISA, so that is why I plumped for it, just in case you think I though about it deeply.  But I did think I could sell £1500 of something else incur £20/£30 of costs and get no bigger allocation.  Of course if I new I'd get that extra £1500 of shares it would be a no brainer.

Probably not, everyone is wanting to sell means buyers market.  I am a buy and hold person with shares, but selling right at the start can't be the best strategy.  Of course if you just want to make a quick buck and need the money to invest on the next Man U game that is different.

Got £2k sloshing around in my SIPP so probably punting that. I don't tend to see my shares until the dust settles so probably hold until first dividend at least. Don't think theres loads to be made tbh

You can apply for an account with someone like share.com - pretty competitive and set one up in about ten mins max. Deposit money and apply for shares in the IPO in around 2 mins - the IPO for Royal Mail features prominently at the moment and the whole thing is very easy

It's ok to apply just on the Royal Mail Gov site isn't it?  That's what I did.

Ha, sure that's fine but too simple for me to notice :-)

If you have time could you elaborate on the Pension comment?

Come into a bit of money have you, Karl?

PS - Very well done. Was hoping you'd get the lot.

Probably got more time now than in the morning.  I'd say contributing to a pension when a non tax payer isn't really any better than as a basic rate tax payer.  The Government gives you some tax relief on the way in, and taxes you on the way out.  It is more complex than that because of tax free lump sums, interaction with benefits and the chance you could get taxed more on the way out etc.

The biggest beneficiaries are this people who pay top rate tax on the way in, basic rate on the way out.  That way your tax relief is a much more likely benefit.  I think someone like Ryan should be hoping he pays top rate tax in the future or gets a job where his employer contributes to the pension, and then considers paying in to a pension.  

This isn't saying he shouldn't save or pay off the mortgage, just there is a good chance he will find a better situation in the future to contribute to a pension than the one he finds himself currently.

Thanks a lot

Ha Tikay - unfortunately I missed out on the pension ladder this time but it is something I've thought about before

Some advice needed.
Bought some shares for the first time ever, impulse buy, bought £750 worth of Royal Mail shares.
Intend to quick sell with strike coming up this year and letter posting on the decline, although parcels booming.
How and when and where and what etc etc do I sell?!

I don't have a broker...

You wont know till Friday whether you have "bought" these. Where did you buy them? You normally can sell them through the same body you purchased them, costs vary obviously. (See earlier posts in thread)

Yeah, applied for them sorry.
Purchased through gov site as had 10 mins lol.

They taken money out my acc :(

Bastards did that when I went to the supermarket the other day.

level?

You get to trade them on Tuesday afaik

The Royal Mail offer is 7 x oversubscribed, which means that the average person should get less than £1000 worth of shares.  This assumes they don't take any from institutions or give the really big applicants zero.

Scotty, go and see someone who is qualified to give you advice on this stuff.  You will get a free hour+ chat with any decent IFA, ask around people you know locally for a recommendation.

If you want to have a go yourself, I would stay away from individual stock picking. Research building a diversified portfolio of index funds, keep an eye on the expense ratios!

Royal Mail shares are a punt, simply that, I would steer clear.

Not much experience in this field at all but reading from afar...

If royal mail shares are 7x over subscribed surely the price is to low therefore once they go on the open market the price will go up? - or is this to simple thinking

Nope, seems fine to me.  Telling people to steer clear of an expected profit on a gambling website seems a little on the cautious side.

Peston sayin that those that apply for £750 should get all their shares and those that applied for over £10k will probably get nothing.  Controversial, but not without precedent as discussed the other day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24471622 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24471622)

According to the government site.
If I applied online by debit card, when will the money leave my account?
The money will have left your account immediately after your application was submitted.

Punt sports, get knocked back.

Try to purchase stock, get knocked back.

You couldn't make it up :)

EDIT: No difficulty finding people to play me at poker mind....sigh.

Such a balla, you had to punt more than 10k to get completely not backed.

Everyone else gets £750 worth if people hadn't heard. 

I wish. Technically anything more than £749.10 was a knock back ;)

I sneaked in having done £10k exactly - absolutely by luck rather than design!

Share allocation announced for the Royal Mail shares

£750 to £10,000 - 227 (worth £749.10 at the Offer price)
Over 10k - nothing.

https://royalmailshares.service.gov.uk/publichomepage.aspx

Nice news though if you got some, they went up 38% and are currently at 444p after being slightly higher

closed at 455p. Public trading starts Tuesday, I should think it'll fall somewhat due to a lot of people selling straight away.

225 million shares traded today, i dont think price will fall much on Tuesday unless Stocks generally are down

Just for info - you could sell today and you can sell Monday if yr so inclined. You don't have to wait until Tuesday.

Anyone sold yet? It's at its highest price today isn't it?

478 at time of  righting. Settled down over the last hour.

Ballot announcement tomorrow, strike likely to happen 22/23 next week. 1 day.

This will no doubt have an adverse effect, so while I'm not an expert if your in this for a short time profit, do it today.

I heard a lot of investors don't know what the process is to sell as government haven't announced this yet!

RMG employees get to know the value late today which could take them over the £3k allowance, so some of the benefit will be deferred to 14/15.

One day strikes are just background noise if you are holding long run.  Buying and selling on such events is an ROI killer.

If you are in for the short term, then this isn't going to make much difference, as the possible strike is well flagged.  Just sell when you have worked out how. 

Anybody else sold?  I don't normally sell much, but 540 seems good enough .  Thanks GB taxpayers for taking on the pension liabilities.   Oh wait.

Pretty decent rise.  Still have my shares, not sure what to do to be honest.  Think the dividend pay out so be nice?  When do they do that anyway?  After a year?

Half yearly financials announced on 27 November 2013, End of Year 31 March 2014. Dividend May 2014 probably

Anyone still holding rmg?

Or did they sell ASAP?

Still have mine.  Wish I'd sold at 590 now. 

 I'm holding think they can still go up
Hope they have a good crimbo

Hope so, I've read lots of reports and most of them are saying that it is still undervalued.   They're supposed to be selling off a huge plot of land soon, could be worth quite a lot.

At the end of the day, £750 worth of shares is never going to make me a millionaire.  Could be tempted to sell in the near future if it heads towards 600p and I have my eye on something else to spend the cash on.

whos lumping bitcoins?

Holding and have it to reinvest dividends in further RMG shares

Genuine share mug itt....

I will be shortly getting a decent chunk of shares as part of a redundancy package, if i take them as cash right away i get it free of tax and NICO. I have always fancied dabbling with shares though and i have the option of keeping the shares and transferring to a broker. However, if i then trade them or keep them and then make a profit or later take the money out i will have to pay tax and NICO.  Any advice? Should i just take them now free of tax and buy shares in another company or two?

I don't even Know where to start with shares. How do i access my account, do i need a broker, do i need to set up an e wallet for shares? Is it best to have a shares ISA.?

Any help and advice happily received
Thanks

idiots?

huge +1

http://thepienews.com/news/bitcoin/


good news for bitcoin :P

I just found my Gas shares when I worked for them when it was privatised in 90-91, I got loads free at 120p a share, guess they worth more now lol sell time.

You should check also for dividends you should have received since you got them, might be a nice windfall.

Are your company providing financial advice on the options. Sounds very complicated. I think its better to seek an IFA if in doubt. http://www.unbiased.co.uk/

Guys mental when he describes it as stable. Beyond absurd.

Thanks. No they are not providing advice. Reckon i will just take the cash tax free and pay it off the mortgage.

Tax free cash is always sweeter and I think it was discussed earlier in thread but personally I would pay off debt before saving so a chunk off the mortgage would be best option (if a little boring!).

Any tips for which broker to use? prefer online one that's quick.

Hargreaves Lansdown has always been really good for me.  CS always been helpful if I've had a question and they have a really nice app too.

TD Direct