Rate my shares

[Doobs]

Keep meaning to drop in for an update, so the ARM takeover will be completed by September and my SIPP account will be funded with the cash equivalent of £17 a share. I decided to sell half my holding last month, on the basis that the takeover might not happen, and that if that was the case it would give me the opportunity to buy in for a lower price. As things stand, I expect the takeover to proceed smoothly with no hitches.

Whilst ARM is a notable investment success for me, I am at pains to stress that I do not consider myself a good stock picker. Some of the profits I have made down the years have as much been down to luck rather than judgement. At present I have a strategy of putting 80% of my funds for SIPPs/ISA's into the hands of capable fund managers. Stocks I currently hold are Just Eat, Dixons, NCC Group, Purplebricks and Metro Bank.

Two funds I bought post Brexit are Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Fundsmith, both of which have increased over 10% since the fateful day so I am happy with that. More importantly both these funds have a record of providing solid returns over the longer term and are well respected in the financial world. I also like investing in technology shares and have parked some cash with the Allianz Technology Trust.

Before I go here's a few investment ideas for a Tikay style fund .

Lafarge Holcim - Concrete Solutions company - Listed in Paris and Zurich
Bombadier - Train Manufacturer - Listed in Toronto
Kier Group - Property and Construction - London
Hornby  PLC -  Model Railways -  AIM - London

Ok I got bored after 4 companies, perhaps it's the subject material .  

I thnk Metro Bank could be a  nice long term hold.  I don't know a great deal about shares but as a challenger bank they are pretty decent in the Mortgage market.  They are changing lots of things slowly and they are positive changes so far.  If they become bolder and relax some of their rules they could be a big player in the market soon and that is likely to give them more exposure. 

Looks like a complete bag of bollocks to me.  A loss making bank at a huge premium to net assets.  Talks about a powerful AMAZE culture in the half year results.  Sounds impressive?  Nope, not to me either.

[Lucky]

They often say that when the USA sneezes, Europe catches a cold.  We saw that in action yesterday, with our our markets tumbling due to Hilary's pneumonia.

[4KSuited]

They often say that when the USA sneezes, Europe catches a cold.  We saw that in action yesterday, with our our markets tumbling due to Hilary's pneumonia.

Oh, so that was what caused it! I didn't get round to reading the market reports last night, and this morning I've just been re-reading the match report from last night. I haven't been this happy on a Tuesday morning for a long long time...

Meanwhile, it's useful to regard these relatively baseless sell offs as buying opportunities. One of my best decisions recently was to sell half my portfolio on the eve of the Brexit vote (what I was hearing didn't match what I was reading), and then buy back in on the Monday after. Even then I wasn't sure it was the right decision even with a 25-40% discount, and of course the ride will still be bumpy depending how T May & her new team negotiate the terms. However, I was pleased with her strident "I'm not giving you a running commentary on how the negotiations are going" speech from the despatch box.

I remain a firm advocate of the Construction & Proprty sector, with particular focus on residential. Even after the significant post-Brexit bounce, most of the big players are well off their 12m highs and offer prospective yields of 3%+. I've already mentioned my interest in Galliford Try; more recently I've taken an interest in Henry Boot.

Good hunting, and of course, DYOR

[acegooner]

Keep meaning to drop in for an update, so the ARM takeover will be completed by September and my SIPP account will be funded with the cash equivalent of £17 a share. I decided to sell half my holding last month, on the basis that the takeover might not happen, and that if that was the case it would give me the opportunity to buy in for a lower price. As things stand, I expect the takeover to proceed smoothly with no hitches.

Whilst ARM is a notable investment success for me, I am at pains to stress that I do not consider myself a good stock picker. Some of the profits I have made down the years have as much been down to luck rather than judgement. At present I have a strategy of putting 80% of my funds for SIPPs/ISA's into the hands of capable fund managers. Stocks I currently hold are Just Eat, Dixons, NCC Group, Purplebricks and Metro Bank.

Two funds I bought post Brexit are Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Fundsmith, both of which have increased over 10% since the fateful day so I am happy with that. More importantly both these funds have a record of providing solid returns over the longer term and are well respected in the financial world. I also like investing in technology shares and have parked some cash with the Allianz Technology Trust.

Before I go here's a few investment ideas for a Tikay style fund .

Lafarge Holcim - Concrete Solutions company - Listed in Paris and Zurich
Bombadier - Train Manufacturer - Listed in Toronto
Kier Group - Property and Construction - London
Hornby  PLC -  Model Railways -  AIM - London

Ok I got bored after 4 companies, perhaps it's the subject material .  

I thnk Metro Bank could be a  nice long term hold.  I don't know a great deal about shares but as a challenger bank they are pretty decent in the Mortgage market.  They are changing lots of things slowly and they are positive changes so far.  If they become bolder and relax some of their rules they could be a big player in the market soon and that is likely to give them more exposure. 

Looks like a complete bag of bollocks to me.  A loss making bank at a huge premium to net assets.  Talks about a powerful AMAZE culture in the half year results.  Sounds impressive?  Nope, not to me either.

Ironically I have held Metro Bank since floatation, currently sitting on paper profits of 40%. Although we are only talking about 6 months compare the performance of MB with the "profitable" banks. Yes they pay nice dividends but over the last 10 years there hasn't been any capital appreciation.

Loss making companies share prices do appreciate and in my humble opinion, markets see them as "disruptor" in their sector. I have spent a lot of time engaging with Metro Bank over the last few years through business and socially, they are a proper bank with a culture that I can only describe as similar to the likes of John Lewis.

They offer a personalised service that we haven't seen from all the other high street banks for decades. Perish the thought of being on first name terms with your local bank manager! But it works and I am sure in time they will take significant market share and start to turn a profit.

[acegooner]

I am worried about stock market valuations.

Global markets have ignored the true effect of the UK leaving the European Union. There seems to trend away from Globalisation where over the last 40 years where countries have increasingly co-operated with each other both politically and economically. This has been replaced with a rise in popularity of political parties that harbour Nationalistic ideals, not only in the UK/mainland Europe but also in the US with our friend Mr Trump. The consequences for business of this are not good. Add to this the risks of there being a conflict between Russia and the West over Syria or one of the other former Soviet States certainly creates an additional risk that should not be ignored.

With this in mind, I have decided to take quite a defensive approach to my investments over the next year or so. I have sold all of my emerging market holdings in both Russia and India which have provided spectacular returns and replaced them with a dull old plain vanilla multi asset class fund called Troy that holds a large proportion of its money in gold/cash and the rest of the investments are in dull dividend paying stocks that are not as volatile as some of my other investments. I have also increased my allocation to gold in my portfolio overall to 15%. I am a big fan of inverse correlation meaning if the markets do end up collapsing everyone will start piling into gold which hopefully will push its price up further. Gold is seen as a safe haven asset. Of course I could be wrong and if I change my mind I will update this thread.

The proceeds to the ARM Holdings takeover came in this week, having re-aligned my portfolio as discussed above I didn't want to avoid possible opportunities that may exist in the tech sector. IOT and Robotic technologies are the buzz words for investors these days, and I was alerted to a AIM listed company called Blue Prism. After doing some research I decided to have a small punt (less than 1% of portfolio) on the stock which has already nearly doubled since flotation, I think it's an expensive stock but the company has huge upside potential. Hopefully it will be the next ARM holdings but you just never know.  

[strak33]

Really enjoy reading any posts on here so thanks for contributions.

[strak33]

Big day for the banks coming up.

[Doobs]

Keep meaning to drop in for an update, so the ARM takeover will be completed by September and my SIPP account will be funded with the cash equivalent of £17 a share. I decided to sell half my holding last month, on the basis that the takeover might not happen, and that if that was the case it would give me the opportunity to buy in for a lower price. As things stand, I expect the takeover to proceed smoothly with no hitches.

Whilst ARM is a notable investment success for me, I am at pains to stress that I do not consider myself a good stock picker. Some of the profits I have made down the years have as much been down to luck rather than judgement. At present I have a strategy of putting 80% of my funds for SIPPs/ISA's into the hands of capable fund managers. Stocks I currently hold are Just Eat, Dixons, NCC Group, Purplebricks and Metro Bank.

Two funds I bought post Brexit are Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Fundsmith, both of which have increased over 10% since the fateful day so I am happy with that. More importantly both these funds have a record of providing solid returns over the longer term and are well respected in the financial world. I also like investing in technology shares and have parked some cash with the Allianz Technology Trust.

Before I go here's a few investment ideas for a Tikay style fund .

Lafarge Holcim - Concrete Solutions company - Listed in Paris and Zurich
Bombadier - Train Manufacturer - Listed in Toronto
Kier Group - Property and Construction - London
Hornby  PLC -  Model Railways -  AIM - London

Ok I got bored after 4 companies, perhaps it's the subject material .  

I thnk Metro Bank could be a  nice long term hold.  I don't know a great deal about shares but as a challenger bank they are pretty decent in the Mortgage market.  They are changing lots of things slowly and they are positive changes so far.  If they become bolder and relax some of their rules they could be a big player in the market soon and that is likely to give them more exposure. 

Looks like a complete bag of bollocks to me.  A loss making bank at a huge premium to net assets.  Talks about a powerful AMAZE culture in the half year results.  Sounds impressive?  Nope, not to me either.

Ironically I have held Metro Bank since floatation, currently sitting on paper profits of 40%. Although we are only talking about 6 months compare the performance of MB with the "profitable" banks. Yes they pay nice dividends but over the last 10 years there hasn't been any capital appreciation.

Loss making companies share prices do appreciate and in my humble opinion, markets see them as "disruptor" in their sector. I have spent a lot of time engaging with Metro Bank over the last few years through business and socially, they are a proper bank with a culture that I can only describe as similar to the likes of John Lewis.

They offer a personalised service that we haven't seen from all the other high street banks for decades. Perish the thought of being on first name terms with your local bank manager! But it works and I am sure in time they will take significant market share and start to turn a profit.

I don't think Metrobank are offering anything much new.  All banks uses to be like that and they moved away from it for a reason.  So the question is can Metrobank do what banks did before, but manage to make enough to more than cover costs. And then can it grow at the huge growth rate needed to justify their lofty valuation against the net assets (the market cap is over 5x the value of assets, which is miles away from traditional banks, and some of that is goodwill). 

It really worries me that they aren't even making money right now.  The other banks profits are held back by huge legacy issues from PPI, other misselling, large employee/pension costs and legacy bad debts, yet some of them still make money.  I know Metrobank have big start up costs, but they have been going a few years now, and the last few years has been pretty favourable since the financial crisis.  Now I could be more confident if the director's spent their time discussing the financials and how they are going to make it work, but their statements are just loaded with corporate bullshit.  Sorry, but I'd far rather to see something more weighty than this if I am going to pay more than 500% of the underlying value for your assets.   

Anyway we've been here before, http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=46283.0.  Desire fell to 10p or so, got merged into FOGL., lost some more and ended up part of Rockhopper.  I could find any number of promising growth stock threads on the old boards at fool.co.uk from back in the day.  So many have them just disappeared to dust.

I don't think Metrobank isn't going to end up like Desire did, and they aren't far off profitability, but they need to be far more than just profitable for me to pay that premium to assets. 

Sure some growth stocks will fulfill their promises, but give me profits/dividends any day. 

[nirvana]

Bit of time today so updated this with current position - still holding all the shares I bought last year - boohoo continues to be pretty exceptional with recent buy notes suggesting a £1.20 target

The other 4 are more or less a wash which is pretty poor picking with the fairly bullish market since Brexit.

Boohoo covers up a lot of sins so happy overall

Click to see full-size image.

[tikay]

Bit of time today so updated this with current position - still holding all the shares I bought last year - boohoo continues to be pretty exceptional with recent buy notes suggesting a £1.20 target

The other 4 are more or less a wash which is pretty poor picking with the fairly bullish market since Brexit.

Boohoo covers up a lot of sins so happy overall

Click to see full-size image.

Are boohoo connected in any way, perhaps as a legacy, with the internet outfit boo.com, which went busto in spectacular style around 10 years ago? There was a stunning book about them, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com



 

[nirvana]

Pretty sure they're not but had never made that link before in terms of name and industry.. worried now :-)

[tikay]

Pretty sure they're not but had never made that link before in terms of name and industry.. worried now :-)

Ha, you'll be fine, you run like Midas.

It's just odd that two near identical business models (Internet, Fashion) have such similar trading names.

[nirvana]

Dumped my BP shares for a small profit.  Have gone into Smiths Group (SMIN) at 958.

Anyone have a good source of accurate and up to date basic info on companies?  For example if you look at "Dividend Cover", bottom of the right hand column, for BP it says 2.83 which is bollocks.  

http://investing.thisismoney.co.uk/quote/BP.

Don't know if this is the DM just not updating or AJBell.  

Missed this first time round or don't  remember it. I work for Smiths Group, no shares. You've had a really good run with these with at that buy price. No secret that SMIN will be massive beneficiaries of the huge devaluation in Sterling against the dollar. Be interesting to see how far they go.

[tikay]

Dumped my BP shares for a small profit.  Have gone into Smiths Group (SMIN) at 958.

Anyone have a good source of accurate and up to date basic info on companies?  For example if you look at "Dividend Cover", bottom of the right hand column, for BP it says 2.83 which is bollocks.  

http://investing.thisismoney.co.uk/quote/BP.

Don't know if this is the DM just not updating or AJBell.  

Missed this first time round or don't  remember it. I work for Smiths Group, no shares. You've had a really good run with these with at that buy price. No secret that SMIN will be massive beneficiaries of the huge devaluation in Sterling against the dollar. Be interesting to see how far they go.

You still working, Glenn? Good Lord, assumed you had retired long ago.

Love to see our Senior Citizens keeping busy.

[nirvana]

Dumped my BP shares for a small profit.  Have gone into Smiths Group (SMIN) at 958.

Anyone have a good source of accurate and up to date basic info on companies?  For example if you look at "Dividend Cover", bottom of the right hand column, for BP it says 2.83 which is bollocks.  

http://investing.thisismoney.co.uk/quote/BP.

Don't know if this is the DM just not updating or AJBell.  

Missed this first time round or don't  remember it. I work for Smiths Group, no shares. You've had a really good run with these with at that buy price. No secret that SMIN will be massive beneficiaries of the huge devaluation in Sterling against the dollar. Be interesting to see how far they go.

You still working, Glenn? Good Lord, assumed you had retired long ago.

Love to see our Senior Citizens keeping busy.

Ha, tap-in but made me laugh.

On an unrelated note Boohoo almost reached the £1.20 buy note target I mentioned 2, yes 2 days ago. Another 5 large in my sky and I'm thinking of becoming a capitalist