Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[boldie]

Morning all.

1) Happy New Year.

2) Glory be, Christmas & New Year is over at last, proper life, & work, can start again.

3) What does "tez" mean, please?

4) What does "yo" mean?

Morning good Sir.

1; Happy New Year to your good self.

2; Happy days.

3; Not very good (crap, shit, awful etc.)

4; Hey.

See? I am down with the kids' lingo.

[RED-DOG]

At least they had the good grace to use an upper case "G"

My fave one (I have a pic somewhere) reads "No gypsies or dogs!"

This drawing (I assume drawing), Tom, accompanied an Online article which is far too gross to link to here, but I'll send you the link via PM.

Thank you for that Tony. I've seen some of this stuff before, but not all of it.

I will pass the link on to anyone who requests it.

Yes please Mr Red.

Sent.

[tikay]

Morning all.

1) Happy New Year.

2) Glory be, Christmas & New Year is over at last, proper life, & work, can start again.

3) What does "tez" mean, please?

4) What does "yo" mean?

Morning good Sir.

1; Happy New Year to your good self.

2; Happy days.

3; Not very good (crap, shit, awful etc.)

4; Hey.

See? I am down with the kids' lingo.

yo = hey?

As in, "gay bet to induce shove, hey"?.

Makes no sense to me at all.

[boldie]

Morning all.

1) Happy New Year.

2) Glory be, Christmas & New Year is over at last, proper life, & work, can start again.

3) What does "tez" mean, please?

4) What does "yo" mean?

Morning good Sir.

1; Happy New Year to your good self.

2; Happy days.

3; Not very good (crap, shit, awful etc.)

4; Hey.

See? I am down with the kids' lingo.

yo = hey?

As in, "gay bet to induce shove, hey"?.

Makes no sense to me at all.

Yo means several things really.

As in "Yo, TK!" it's "Hey TK!"

"Gay bet to induce shove, yo" in that case it means something closer to "man" or "bruv" (also popular with them kids today)

[boldie]

At least they had the good grace to use an upper case "G"

My fave one (I have a pic somewhere) reads "No gypsies or dogs!"

This drawing (I assume drawing), Tom, accompanied an Online article which is far too gross to link to here, but I'll send you the link via PM.

Thank you for that Tony. I've seen some of this stuff before, but not all of it.

I will pass the link on to anyone who requests it.

Yes please Mr Red.

Sent.

Thanks Mr Red.

Not light reading for an early morning this one but recommended reading for everyone nonetheless.

[kinboshi]

Oh how I tried to keep quiet..but have failed again as I soo often do....<snip>

Great post boldie.  Glad you couldn't keep it shut. 

[boldie]

Oh how I tried to keep quiet..but have failed again as I soo often do....<snip>

Great post boldie.  Glad you couldn't keep it shut. 

QFT...and for future reference...

[Snatiramas]

Oh how I tried to keep quiet..but have failed again as I soo often do....<snip>

Great post boldie.  Glad you couldn't keep it shut. 

QFT...and for future reference...

I have kept quiet and will continue to do so....

[tikay]

I took a look at the prices of some of my shares last night. Not a good idea.......

I invested in Shares througout the Eighties & early Nineties, these were to be my Pension, my nest egg, my parchute in case things ever went badly wrong for me. So I bought them for the Long-Term, to keep, not to trade in & out of.

I took a shine to a Property Company in the early eighties, they had just built "Festival Park" near Stoke-on-Trent & the Octagon Centre in Burton-on-Trent. St Modwen was run in those days by a guy I knew from business (construction) by the name of Stan Clarke. Stan, via St Modwen, went on to buy Uttoxeter Racecourse, (he had his eye on some of the land for Housing I suspect), then Newcastle Racecourse, then 7 others, all eventually to become demerged from St Modwen & form "Northern Racing Ltd". Stan became "Sir Stan", & he eventually passed away in 2004.

St Modwen invented the term "hopper", as in Land hopper, in that they purchased strategic bits of land all over the place, & then "stuck it in the hopper" for development when opportunities arose many years down the line.

St Modwen specialised in "brownfield sites", that is to say, derlict factory sites, & such like. For example, they own the land upon which Longbridge Car Plant sits, & are developing it in bits & pieces.

They are incredibly prudent with their Accounting, & have a mission statement to increase their Dvidend by 10% per year, which they achieve with plenty to spare, after 15 years of successive increased profits. As at April 2008, net assets per share were £3.87 - note that figure, £3.87.

I paid 40p each for 4,000 of the Shares in, I think, 1981, so they cost me £1,600.

The Share Price increased steadily over the years, & I was always thinking "wow, I'll sel them when they go up another ten bob".

In 2006, they peaked at around £7, making my holding worth £28,000.

In August 2007 they were steady at £6.50. By October 2008, they zoomed down to £2.50, & by November saw a low of, wait for it.......£0.67!

They closed the year at £1.17.

So my £1,600 Investment (excluding handsome dividends every year) rose to as much as £28,000, fell in November to £2,400, & are now valued at just under £5k. Blimey. Depends how you look at these things, I suppose. I've either "lost" £26,400, or "made" £3,600........but I still have them, so who knows where they will end up? I know if I were liquid, awash with cash, I'd plunge into them now, big time. They own 20,000 acres of land, & land is no longer being made.

But yes, obviously, I boobooed in not getting out at £7. Finding the right time to exit a Share is always tricky.

I dare not look at my other Shares, it might depress me! I still have holdings in Ladbrokes, BA (a shocker!), BT, BBA/Fibreweb, a few Utilities.

My nest egg plan has clearly gone a bit pete tong.

St Modwen, 40p, to £7, to £1.17. Still, think of the CGT saving! There's always a silver lining, yo.

[tikay]

At least they had the good grace to use an upper case "G"

My fave one (I have a pic somewhere) reads "No gypsies or dogs!"

This drawing (I assume drawing), Tom, accompanied an Online article which is far too gross to link to here, but I'll send you the link via PM.

Thank you for that Tony. I've seen some of this stuff before, but not all of it.

I will pass the link on to anyone who requests it.

Yes please Mr Red.

Sent.

Thanks Mr Red.

Not light reading for an early morning this one but recommended reading for everyone nonetheless.

It's a wholly gruesome read, not to be recommended for the faint-hearted. That picture is so haunting.

[boldie]

Oh how I tried to keep quiet..but have failed again as I soo often do....<snip>

Great post boldie.  Glad you couldn't keep it shut. 

QFT...and for future reference...

I have kept quiet and will continue to do so....

Would actually like your opinion on this one Snatty, assuming you have one and feel informed enough to share it. I quite enjoy hearing a point of view from someone who can express himself well and has an interest in the subject.

[byronkincaid]

I know if I were liquid, awash with cash, I'd plunge into them now, big time. They own 20,000 acres of land, & land is no longer being made

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7905/japanlandpricesef1.png

oil shares ftw atm?

[tikay]

So, mixed fortunes for my Shares down the years.

Unit Trusts were the thing back then, you were supposed to give your cash to City Investment Funds who invested it "wisely" on your behalf across a basket of Shares. For "wisely", read "to suit their own ends". Bollox to that, I'll make my own decisions thank you very much.

I had some stunning successes - Jaguar - in at £2, out at £7, Monument Oil & Gas, in at 10p, out at £2.60 I think. These were "no option" sales, the Companies were taken over for Cash, so I had to sell.

But I came a purler a few times too. Marley, Burns-Anderson, Morceau, BCCI, (ouch!), Lowndes Queensway, all went down the pan & became totally worthless, a complete write off. Still, you can offset CGT by these losses.

I never invested a single, solitary, penny in "dotcom" Shares, got roundly mocked by those who did, when these all rocketed, & I sat & laughed at the idiot investors when every single dotcom share crashed & burned. The PE ratios of these Compnies were off the scale - off the scale, unthinkably bad. The Companies were hopeless, had no business model, & were so bad they invented a term called "burn rate", being the rate at which they used up (burned up) capital. And of course greedy, stupid people all lost fortunes. They deserved to. Read the book "boohoo" to see just how bad these companies typically were at running businesses. Absolutely hopeless. The exceptions, of course, are Microsoft, google (the best of the bunch, by streets), Yahoo, AOL, & a few others.

But I made big mistakes too. Regentcrest was the worst. It was a Property Compny based in the Black Country, & run by the Richardson Twins (not the London gangsters of the same name), but they were a bit "wide", & the Shares I paid 10p for, (10,000 of), reached £3.60 while I was in San Francisco doing an AMA (American Management Association) Course in the late eighties, & when I got off the 'Pan-Am Jumbo at Heathrow they were 1p. £36,000 to £100 overnight. Nice. Another shoelace which broke. It's annoying, but not for long.

Which reminds me, I have a Diploma from the AMA, as the "Outstanding Management Student" of 1984. Very handy in poker & TV it is, too, yo.

[redsimon]

Did you ever put these shares in a PEP or ISA Tony, to mitigate the CGT? (Tho' of course they are useless for crystallising a CGT loss ala BCCI LOwndes et al)


BTW HNY hope 2009 is a good 'un for you and all at Blonde

[tikay]

I know if I were liquid, awash with cash, I'd plunge into them now, big time. They own 20,000 acres of land, & land is no longer being made

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7905/japanlandpricesef1.png

oil shares ftw atm?

Lol, nice graph Byron, thank you. Propably typical right now in any "developed" country.

Oil Shares? Interesting that. I made a bomb from Monument Oil & Gas, so I think I'll leave oil with a nice profit & not go there again, but I am curious as to Oil Shares, & I suppose if I had ready cash (I don't), I'd be interested. I have a hunch that Oil Companies, in the longer term, might all get Nationalised. They are like Gold really - they react violently to political instability, & wars. But it's running out, so the long-term graph for the share picies of Oil Companies MUST be very positive.

The Oil price graph is almost beyond belief. Steady around $40 per barrel for years, up & down a bit, then it rocketed to $140 a barrel in 2008, & fuel prices followed it up. The thread on blonde about petrol prices ran to 50 or 60 pages of moaning & whining. Oil is now back down to $40 a barrel, that must be the fastest price drop of a major commodity ever, & the moaners have stopped moaning about the price of petrol. Everyone is conditioned to think that the "credit-crunch" is a bad thing. Nobody mentions it has upsides, to - stuff is cheaper, our Exports are more competitive, da de da. Like most things, it cuts both ways, it includes both pain, & gain.