General News

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

Post Date: January 14, 2014

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 ...

Investment Trust Discounts at Record Low

Post Date: January 9, 2014

The AIC issued a press release today saying the average investment company discount was now 3.4% - a record low since the figures were first recorded in 1970. The AIC (Association of Investment Companies) represents investment companies such as investment trusts so you can see why they would want to fanfare this figure. Investors in such trusts generally welcome a narrowing of discounts (net asset value versus share price) although it no longer means they can buy the underlying assets on ...

Simplifying your life – expensively

Post Date: December 29, 2013

In the New Year edition of the Hargreaves Lansdown newsletter, founder Peter Hargreaves leads off with this comment: "I am in a quandary. I can't work out whether life just becomes more complicated the older you get, or whether successive legislation and regulation that has happened in abundance during the last 15 years is increasingly making life intolerable. I rather suspect both are root causes of life's complications". I have had similar concerns of late. Having gone through some major technological upgrades ...

VCTs – Stopping the tax relief abuses

Post Date: December 16, 2013

The Government has published its response to the public consultation on share buy-backs in Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs). In particular the proposals put forward were aimed at stopping "Enhanced Share Buy-Backs" where VCTs were buying back shares from investors and immediately reinvesting the cash paid to investors in a new shares issued to the same investors, thus enabling them to obtain tax relief on the same original cash more than once.There was a general acknowledgement in the responses to the consultation ...

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

Post Date: December 6, 2013

You may well be worse off if you are dead. The Government is to clamp down on the payment of state pensions to people who are dead, which is apparently a particular problem when they move overseas upon retirement.Otherwise these are come of the changes and how they may affect individual investors:- As expected, there is to be a restriction on Venture Capital Trust (VCT) "enhanced share buy-backs" upon which there was a recent consultation. In future VCT investments that are ...

FCA Consultation on Crowdfunding

Post Date: December 2, 2013

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is consulting on a new regulatory approach to cover "crowdfunding". Crowdfunding is in essence a direct approach to investors for either equity investments in early stage companies, or loans to similar companies. It has become popular of late due to the emergence of various web-based platforms to collate the interests of many small investors, but can also be employed by companies to make direct approaches to investors. ShareSoc looked at one of the latter examples (Clear ...

Are AIM tech company directors underpaid?

Post Date: November 29, 2013

Grant Thornton have published a report which says that AIM technology company directors do not pay themselves as much as in other AIM companies. Author Amanda Flint suggests the former might feel themselves undervalued and move elsewhere.According to the report, the average total pay package for AIM technology company chief executives was £383,000 last year. That is less than half the average pay across all sectors. And only 36% of technology CEOs received share-based awards compared with 60% of main market ...

A nation of DIY investors?

Post Date: November 27, 2013

Research firm Compeer have reported that funds held by stockbrokers in "execution-only" accounts have increased by 20% in the first nine months of this year. And a survey they undertook of 1,000 investors showed that half of them would invest without taking financial advice (i.e. by using an IFA or taking advice from a stockbroker for example).This growth in the DIY investor community might partly have been driven by the Retail distribution Review that took effect in January of this year ...

The level of speculation in AIM stocks

Post Date: November 18, 2013

How much speculation is there in AIM stocks? Quite a lot based on some figures recently published in a FinnCap newsletter. “Speculation” might be defined as a short term bet on a share price rising or falling. That’s the opposite of “investment” where someone takes a view on the medium to long term returns from investing in a company. These are the figures published by Finncap for the ten most traded AIM stocks in September – based on the percentage of the overall ...

Is this a record – 950 share certificates?

Post Date: November 15, 2013

Yesterday was the AGM of Crown Place VCT. A somewhat unexciting meeting in some ways (a full report can be found here), but it did give me the opportunity to meet someone who holds 950 share certificates for different companies. This is not just unusual, it may be a record. The shareholder had already been to two other AGMs earlier in the day. He apparently handles probate matters for individuals which accounts for this. Another shareholder asked me about the current dematerialisation ...

Top performing VCTs and performance fees.

Post Date: November 6, 2013

Yesterday the AIC published a note on the “dividend stars” and “strongest performers” among Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) now that such companies have been in existence for 18 years. In terms of total dividends paid out since launch ProVen Growth & Income came top with Baronsmead VCT in second place. But investors should bear in mind that some VCTs pay dividends out of the capital of the trust which sometimes just means that investors are simply having the money they invested ...

London Investor Show Olympia

Post Date: October 26, 2013

ShareSoc exhibited at the London Investor Show at Olympia on the 25th October. It proved to be a good show in terms of attracting new members and meeting existing ones even though there is substantial effort in organising and manning a stand. A photograph of the stand is shown to the right - Member Steve Holdsworth assisting at front, Director Chris Spencer-Phillips talking to a visitor. Incidentally the posters we used on the stand were printed by Printed.com – a division of ...

General News

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