ShareSoc Blog
The ShareSoc blog provides news and informal commentary from directors, members and other contributors. Entries reflect the personal views of the authors, which do not necessarily reflect ShareSoc’s formal position. Contributors may hold shares in the companies mentioned. Nothing in this blog should be viewed as financial advice. You may submit comments on blog posts, but ShareSoc reserves the right to remove or edit inappropriate or defamatory submissions.
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The Bank of England had to step into purchase gilts yesterday (28th September) after the bond market looked like collapsing totally. Some £65 billion was spent to do it. This has created panic and uncertainty in the financial community and even affected equity markets.
I will give my comments on these events although I certainly do not claim to have any knowledge of pension scheme management and bond markets. So please correct me if I get it wrong.
Defined benefit pension schemes buy ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
The Bank of England’s announcement of an increase in base rate to 2.25% was just one step in a return to sanity. With inflation nearing 10% why would any idiot lend money at 5% or less as many mortgage providers have been doing. In reality the last few years have seen lower interest rates than have been available for the last 5,000 years.
This has been ...
This article represents the views of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
The Chancellor has taken steps to drive forward the Government’s desire to simplify the personal tax system for individuals. This has included the removal of a new tax charge (the Health and Social Care Levy), the removal of an income tax bracket (the additional 45% tax rate) and the reversal of the 1.25% increase to dividend tax rates from April 2023.
However, in his Statement on Thursday the Chancellor ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Commercial property investment trusts should be a good defence in a market downturn – at least that is what the investment pundits have been saying. As the market heads south I have been selling overvalued tech stocks and retail stocks vulnerable to a recession and reduced consumer spending. Property trusts should be less volatile as although the property market has been changing in some regards, ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Dunelm (DNLM) published their preliminary results this morning (14/9/2022) – I no longer hold them. They were surprisingly good bearing in mind they are a homeware retailer – sales up 16% and EPS up 30%. Clearly the anticipated vulnerability to rising inflation and consumers being hit by a recession has not yet come to pass although forecasts for next year are lower.
They say trading in ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Most investors rely on Earnings Per Share (EPS) as a measure of the performance of a company. In theory it’s a simple calculation based on post-tax earnings divided by the number of ordinary shares in issue as defined by the IAS 33 accounting standard (see link below).
But the number of shares can be affected by the future exercise of options, convertibles and warrants so in ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
Announcements late yesterday and this morning (7th September 2022) indicate that GB Group (GBG) may receive a cash offer for the business from private equity firm GTCR. I have held these shares since 2011 – first purchased at 42p, closed last night at 522p. It’s one of my larger holdings and needless to say I have been very happy with my investment as it has ...
The views expressed in this article are those of its author and not necessarily those of ShareSoc.
PM Truss's proposal is a cap on prices, not on overall cost so people with big houses with large gas consumption will still pay more. Fracking is also being permitted to boost local gas production.
Truss did not give in to calls for this largess to be funded through a windfall tax. She said this would undermine the national interest by discouraging the very investment we ...
This is the personal view of Cliff Weight and does not represent the views of ShareSoc. Cliff Weight is not authorised to give financial advice and nothing in this article should be interpreted as advice.
The 13 year Quantitative Easing* experiment has finished. Between March 2009 and June 2022, the Bank of England bought 57% of the £1.5trillion of gilts sold, according to the FT see https://on.ft.com/3xcx6mL
I feel more comfortable. The laws of economics I was taught at university in the 1970’s ...
FRC guidance on AGMs
The FRC AGM Good Practice Guidance was published in July 2022. Cliff Weight and Peter Parry were members of the working party that helped develop the new guidance.
Cliff said: “This new FRC Guidance is another important step on the journey to wider participation and better engagement between companies and investors. Of course, it does not deal with shareholders who hold their shares via platforms – that issue is being addressed by the BEIS, the Law Commission and most ...
