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AIM is no longer a dog, but the mastiffs are the winners

There was an interesting analysis of the performance of AIM stocks in a recent "AIM Journal", a publication sponsored by Finncap.  As others have pointed out, AIM finally changed course after a long streak of poor performance, and the AIM index actually beat both the FTSE-100 and FTSE-250 indices in 2013.If you had invested in the AIM index back when it was formed back in 1996, even with dividends reinvested  you would still be losing money. And that is the case ...

Silverdell Shareholder Meeting Report

There was a meeting attended by about 20 Silverdell shareholders in Beckenham on the 20th January. A report of the meeting is present here: www.sharesoc.org/Silverdell_Shareholder_Meeting_Report.pdfIt covered what was known about the events at this AIM company, where the shares were suspended out of the blue, and delisted 6 months later with not much communication to shareholders in the meantime. The company has announced that the shares are worthless. Also discussed was what actions shareholders might take at this point in time and ...

Hargreaves Lansdown doubles charges for some investors

On the 15th January Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) announced new charges on its investment platform, which is one of the most widely used by private investors. The changes are no doubt provoked by the new rules whereby funds can no longer pass part of their charges back to HL, as a result of the RDR (Retail Distribution Review). But the changes will mean that the annual fees paid to HL by some investors will double. ShareSoc has issued a press release explaining ...

Inflation down the Government says. No it’s up.

The Office of National Statistics have reported that inflation fell to 2% in December 2013. That's the Government's target for inflation even though it has not met it for some years. Mr Cameron said it was "welcome news".Before we all rejoice, unfortunately that is based on only one measure of inflation - the Consumer Price Index (CPI). On the more widely used Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation was actually up from 2.6% to 2.7%. In reality the RPI is probably more ...

Silverdell tips and a meeting for shareholders

It was good to see Investors Chronicle giving the honest background to their worst tip of 2013 in their latest edition - namely Silverdell where shareholders have now been told their shares are worthless after being suspended for six months. They first tipped Silverdell as a "buy" in January 2011 at 7.25p and the share price subsequently doubled. They renewed the positive tip in January 2013 when the price was 17p and the p/e was 8 with gearing at 29 per ...