General News

Short selling petition

The recent shorting attacks on companies such as Quindell, Blinkx and Globo have dismayed many new investors in UK stock markets. Indeed this is what one of our correspondents had to say: "As someone who has recently taken the advice of many, including government, to invest in the stock market, I thought you might be interested to know that I have quickly realised that the whole thing is a manipulated scam and that I will be having nothing to do with ...

Fiduciary Duty and Intermediated Securities Report – A Bombshell at the End

The Law Commission was asked to undertake a review of how the law of fiduciary duties applies to investment intermediaries and to evaluate whether the law works in the interests of end investors. This followed a recommendation in the Kay Review undertaken by Professor John Kay where he attacked the excessive "intermediation" in financial markets, the lack of clarity of responsibility, the difficulties trustees have in interpreting their duties and related factors that seemed to be undermining the ethics of financial ...

Magna Carta and Bank Nationalisations

There was an interesting letter in the Financial Times on Saturday (14/6/2014) from Prof. Tim Congdon.  As a former Northern  Rock shareholder he pointed out that the latest results from Northern Rock Asset Management (the "bad" part of the bank that was left after the good part was sold off to Virgin) showed underlying profits of £1.16bn. So it has achieved profits of almost £3bn in the last 39 months and is likely to generate a few more billion before the ...

Delays in SIPP and ISA transfers

Last week I complained to Hargreaves Lansdown about the delay in transferring a SIPP to another broker. The receiving broker has been chasing it but to no effect. It has been "pending" now for almost two months and I cannot understand the reason for such a long delay. What do I read on Friday but a number of similar complaints from readers of Investors Chronicle. There seems to be a consistent problem here, even where the transfer should be fairly straightforward. If for ...

Selftrade annoys its customers

Selftrade, the execution-only stockbroker, has annoyed a large number of its customers by sending out a form asking for a lot of personal information about themselves. For example, several ShareSoc Members have contacted us to complain about the intrusive nature of the questions (which they consider a breach of privacy) and about the difficulty in completing the form due to the amount of detail required. It also generated a vociferous series of negative comments on Citywire after they mentioned the story ...

ShareSoc Company Seminar Announcement

Our next seminar at which public companies will be presenting is scheduled for the 8th May in the City of London, with registration starting at 4.00 pm. Four companies will be presenting in May and answering your questions, which are: - Synety (SNTY): Business communication software and services. - Cambridge Cognition (COG): Cognitive assessment software for use in clinical trials, research and healthcare provision. - Netcall (NET): Software products for customer engagement. - Amara Mining (AMA): Gold mining in Africa. Refreshments and a buffet will be provided of course and the event ...

SSE, Centrica and Energy Market Probe

The prices of shares in energy supply companies such as SSE and Centrica fell sharply last year after Labour threats to impose a price freeze for retail customers. For example SSE was as high as 1675p in May 2013, but fell back to below 1350p by November. It's 1508p at the time of writing and has shown a steady recovery in the last new months. That recovery arose because both the Government and the companies took steps to minimise future price ...

At first glance a good budget for private investors

Is the Chancellor's budget good for private investors? At first glance it appears to be so, although more analysis of the detail will be needed in due course because like all Chancellors Mr Osborne's hand outs might be taken away elsewhere in the small print. But there are some very positive things:- The ISA investment limit will be raised to £15,000 with cash and stocks/shares ISAs merged. There is no obvious cap on ISA contributions which was rumoured as a possibility.- ...

Stop losses and shorting – Techinvest caught out with Blinkx

Stop losses are a way that many investors use to limit the downside risk on stock market investments. They help to counter the "loss aversion" psychological trait that encourages you to continue holding a stock because you have fallen in love with it whereas everyone else is seeing it differently, or may have some information that you do not. But as that well respected publication Techinvest has just found out, there is a significant problem when there is an active shorting campaign ...

ShareSoc Company Seminar Announcement

Our next seminar at which public companies will be presenting is scheduled for the 26th March in the City of London, with registration starting at 4.00pm. Three or four companies will be presenting in March and answering your questions, which are: - Pressure Technologies (PRES): Engineering solutions for high pressure markets. - Cambria Automobiles (CAMB): Retail motor dealerships. - MoPowered (MPOW): Mobile commerce applications for on-line retailers. - We also hope to have a fourth company presenting - keep an eye on the link below for details. Refreshments and a finger buffet will be provided of ...

Financial repression to continue

Are you feeling subject to financial repression? You should be because it's the phrase used to describe how the Government reduces it's debts by lowering interest rates to a level that is negative in real terms. Anyone saving in a bank account or building society is having their savings eroded this way because they are not getting a real return. Bank base rate has been at the historically exceptional rate of 0.5% for some time and high street banks are as ...

Hargreaves Lansdown backs down

On the 17th January ShareSoc issued a press release which pointed out that the new charges announced by Hargreaves Lansdown would mean that some investors might face a doubling of costs. See the text of the press release here: Hargreaves Lansdown Double Charges Investors. The particular problem was that anyone holding a mixture of investment trusts, funds and direct shares in a SIPP would now have two separate "caps" on overall charges. ShareSoc was no doubt not the only body that raised ...