General News

The Chancellors Budget – Gin and Tonics All Round!

For private investors the Chancellor's Budget is mostly good, and we can all drink his health in spirits on which the tax is cut. The other good news is as follows: - The personal allowance will rise to £11,000 over two years from which all taxpayers will benefit and the threshold for higher rate income tax will also rise. - There will be a new flexible ISA where you can take money out and then put it back in within the same tax ...

MeetInvest – a Warning

ShareSoc was recently invited to promote a new web service named MeetInvest to our members. The email said that it provides a "tool for selecting stocks using the exact success formula of some of the world’s foremost investors including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Jim Slater or John Templeton". Of course anyone who thinks that Warren Buffett was successful based on a simple stock screening system is surely misinformed, but I thought it was worth trying out and reviewing. The promotional videos are ...

Affected by the Oil/Gas Price slump? Weir, Petrofac and IDOX

I don't think any investor will be unaware that the price of oil has fallen off a cliff in the last few weeks. It was good to hear at the IDOX AGM this morning (26/2/2015) that the impact on their business was relatively minor - they supply engineering management information software plus public sector software and the former does have about 11% of sales in the oil/gas sector. The share price barely moved after a positive announcement in the morning that ...

Closet Index Trackers – Investigations in Progress

Since publishing a previous article on closet index trackers back in December 2014, the topic has received a lot more coverage in the financial press. Closet index trackers are those investment funds that claim to be "actively" managed and charge fees more commonly appropriate to that investment management process, while in reality their funds are so similar to those of index tracking funds that they match the index. The allegation is that they are obtaining higher fees on the pretence of ...

Forex trading and the Swiss Franc

The abrupt change of policy by Swiss authorities to relax the limit on the value of the Swiss Franc against the Euro has caused substantial chaos in foreign currency markets. Alpari, one of the leading forex trading platforms in the UK, has gone into administration and others such as Saxo Bank admitted they would incur losses as a result. In the case of UK listed company IG Group it had some impact on their share price and they had to say ...

Pensioner Bonds on Sale

The new bonds available from National Savings & Investments (NS&I) went on sale today (15/1/2015). Technically called "65+ Guaranteed Growth Bonds", they have been dubbed "Pensioner Bonds" by the media. You need to be 65 years of age or older to purchase these bonds but they do offer a very attractive interest rate in comparison with current bank deposit rates. Interest is either 2.8% per annum for a one year bond, or 4% for a three year bond. The maximum that ...

Royal Mail and Myners’ report on other Government sell-offs

The Government sell-off of a major stake in Royal Mail was controversial in many ways. It proved to be even more so when the placing price of £3.30 was rapidly eclipsed by a market price which rose to as high as £6 although it's been mostly downhill since (at the time of writing it's 420p). The long term holders who were given priority in the share allocation soon turned out to be anything but with 44% of the shares changing hands ...

Law suits – Quindell, Lloyds, RBS and SIPPs

Feel misled by the Quindell board and its advisors? Then there is a new legal action being formulated by Liverpool legal firm "Your Legal Friend". They already claim to have 250 investors interested in pursuing a claim on the basis that statements issued by the board and its advisors show that insufficient care had been taken in relation to the duty of care owed to investors.  At least that's a brief summary of the allegations - see their web site for ...

Chancellor’s Autumn Statement – What’s in it for investors?

The Chancellor's statement yesterday was clearly aimed at the typical house buying, ISA invested, traditional Conservative voter, anticipating the May general election next year. The reform of stamp duty on houses is surely rational, but won't necessarily have a lot of impact on those who already own a house other than at the very top end in London. The share prices of Berkeley Group and Foxton's fell on the announcement but soon recovered. Other housebuilders were viewed as benefiting however. Apart from ...

Closet index trackers – are you paying over the odds?

Organisation Better Finance, a representative body for European individual investors, have raised the issue of " closet index trackers" and their fund management charges. It is suggested that many funds who pretend to be "active" in nature (as opposed to simple index trackers or passive funds) are not in reality because they hold very much the same stocks as index funds. This means that their performance is very similar to index funds. However, they charge management fees that are more like ...

FCA launches campaign on investment scams

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have launched a campaign to warn people about investment scams. They get about 5,000 calls a year from investors about suspected scams and the average investor loses £20,000. The FCA have launched a new web site called Scansmart (see www.fca.org.uk/scamsmart ) which enables you to learn about the warning signs and even provides a menu on which you can check the investment you are considering. The FCA gives the key signs that the investment may be a ...

Directors Pay Up 21%

There can be no clearer indication that the pay of company directors is out of control than the latest figures from Income Data Services (IDS). They have reported that the total remuneration of FTSE-100 company directors went up by 21% last year, based on figures in the annual reports of companies. Although base salaries only rose by 2.5%, the overall increase has been driven by “performance” awards such as bonuses and LTIPs (Long Term Incentive Plans). The 21% increase is of course ...