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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 ...

Investment Trust Discounts at Record Low

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 ...

Survey on voting and nominee accounts

ShareSoc is working on a campaign regarding shareholder rights for private shareholders and it is important for us to obtain the evidence on whether you vote the shares you hold at General Meetings, whether you attend such meetings and whether you receive information from the companies in which you invest. We have therefore sent a survey to all of our members asking them to respond. It is also possible for non-members to complete the survey using the link below (please also ...

Simplifying your life – expensively

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 ...