Wednesday 28 June 2017

Wednesday 28th June 2017 - Markets today

FTSE100 down 46 points toay, and the portfolio down by £3,400 - just a bit of selling off due to the huge rises in the last few weeks, so it;s good news if you're about to buy, it's all at a little bit of discount! Just like going into your favourite shop and everything is at a 10% discount.

And of course as dividends are paid out a pence per share the value of a share doesn't affect it, but it's bonus when you re-invest the dividends by buying more shares, because they're cheaper, the dividend is the same you get more, and that's compound interest for you.

Be seeing you! - The Prisoner - No. 6

Tuesday 27 June 2017

Tuesday 27th June 2017

FTSE100 was down by 12 points today and the potfolio by £2,100 - just a fluctuation. 

I'm going to be buying Lloyds bank next, by the end of the week to get a nice 6% divi.

Short but sweet today - see ya!

Monday 26 June 2017

Monday 26th June 2017 - The Market

FTSE100 was up 22 points, portfolio up by £734 - going in the right direction

Do you want to earn 5-6% interest - tax free in an ISA or if you only earn £2,000 in dividend income outside an ISA then this is for you.

Buy Lloyds Bank shares, Royal Dutch Shell 'B' shares and BP shares - all will return +5%. I would add an index linked ETF to that mix as well. Its all very easy to do.

So for those of you that are useless at simple arithmetic, that means a couple with two ISA's could stash away £40,000 at say, 5% would be £2,000.

If this had been done last tax year you could double that, £4,000 annual divi income. 

And right now RPI is 3.7% - you are losing £1,480 on that £40,000 if you just leave it in the bank.

The problem with inflation is that the bank does't send you a monthly statement showing how much your losing when inflation kicks in. Sneaky innit!

Friday 23 June 2017

Friday 23rd June 2017 - Market Report

Well, FTSE100 is down again by 15 points, and the portfolio is down by £1,300 - not too bad.

And now the moment you've been waiting for, what's better 3% interest or a 50:50 chance of 30% increase or a 10% loss each year.

Not surprisingly the 50:50 choice is far better, this works out at an annual return of 8.17% - which is why you should invest in the stock market.

How do you work this out?

It's like this:

Over a long period of time you woyld get an equal number of -10% years and +30% years. 

So in two years your return is 0.9 x 1.3 = 1.17 i.e 17% return.

Now 17% return over two years is an annulised return of 8.17%

So go for it, put your savings in a nce balance portfolio, sit back and enjoy a nice regular increase of 8%.

Good luck folks

Thursday 22 June 2017

Thursday 22nd June 2017 - Market Report

Bit cooler today, but the portfolio is still up by £380, while the FTSE100 is actually down by 9 points.

And the answer to the puzzle from last week, well only one more day before the answer and a nice easy to understand explanation.

Till then - happy investing folks

Wednesday 21 June 2017

Wednesday 21st June - Market Report

Another brief one, and no answer yet to that little problem, too hot too think!

Anyway FTSE100 down 24 today and the portfolio is down as well, by £1,400.

Not a big deal, £1,400 doesn't buy much these days!

Just started a regular investment - £2k/month into a bunch of ITs, all at a discount so it's a no brainer really.

Whar is a discount on an IT?

IT is an ivestment trust and sometimes they trade at a values less than their NAV (net asset value).

Still none the wiser, basically it means if the company folded the receivers could sell of all the assets for more than you paid for it so you would actually get more money back than you paid!

Thats why its a no brainer. There's nothing to lose and all to gain, and remember they pay a nice fat divi of between 2% and 5%!

See ya later folks.

Tuesday 20 June 2017

Tuesday 20th June 2017 - Market Report

FTSE100 was down today by 51 points, but the marvels of a balanced portfolio means I'm up a few pounds, £450 to be exact.

And the problem I left you all to think about, well it's too hot right now but I'll publish the answer tomorrow.

And another thing, if you have alarge amount of cash you're not going to be spending anytime soon, then do you know it will be worth 3% less this time next year. Is that waht you really want to do? It's a bit like the bank charging you £3,000 for every £100,000 you keep with them.

In fact I could offer to look after your money and just give it all back to you at the end of the year - no interest at all, oh I would add a little bit, say half the rate of inflation, and I would keep any profit on top of that - deal or no deal?


Monday 19 June 2017

Monday 19th June 2017 - Market Report

Back fro me hols, and its hotter than the black hole of Calcutta in my ofice now so this is going to be short.

We're up £2,500 today, biggest gain is from SWDA £1,119 and the loser is Tritax Big Box BBOX at -£260, a good day today folks.

Saturday 10 June 2017

Here's One to Think About

Say you were offered a pension scheme by your company with two options.

You must pick one and stick to it for 35 years, and these are the choices.

1 Each year £5,000 will be added to a your pot and wii earn 3% per yaer

2 Each year £5,000 will be added to your pot an at the end of each year you flip a coin, heads and it grows by 30%, tails and it loses 10%

Simple isn't it, so which would you pick? Answers next week folks.

Cool - 1965

Friday 9 June 2017

Friday 9th May - Market Reports

Well, it's over, the election that is, and what a shambles that turned out to be.

Where Theresa May went wrong was in relying on the grey vote and then saying we're going to take all your money, your house and oh we're going to cut your state pension.

OTH Jezza promised loads of stuff, free uni for the youngsters, paying off student loans for those that had them, keeping the triple lock for us oldies, and the big one was he engaged with the youngters in their language and media - Twitter and Facebook. Theresa didn't. It worked for Trumpy, so you'd think these 'smart' people would learn.!

Anyway to make for not posting yesterday my portfolio was down -£1,570.63

And today it's up again +£4,621.22

So todays winners are
Melrose Industries PLC
MRO:LSE


£7,162.79 +3.39% +1.77% +30.15%
+£234.85
BAE Systems PLC
BA.:LSE


£15,150.97 +2.42% +5.70% +55.25%
+£358.0
iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF USD (Acc)
SWDA:LSE:GBX


+£1,755.97

and the losers are
BlackRock Index Linked Gilt Tracker Fund D Accumulating
GB00B83RVT96:GBX


£9,556.77 -1.50% +1.94% -4.32%
-£145.72

Marks and Spencer Group PLC
MKS:LSE


£3,804.34 -1.80% -3.02% -15.37%
-£69.73

So till the next election, Autumn maybe?

And another thing, I'm going to post a day by day change in my portfolio's value, should make an interesting read. So here goes, a few blanks to fill in tho'.

9th Jun +£4,621.22
8th Jun -£1,570.63
7th Jun -£1,826.73
6th Jun -£122.78
5th Jun -£1,862.85

2nd Jun +£1,717.13
1st Jun
31st May +£261.63
30th May -£1,312.60
29th May
28th May
27th May
26th May
25th May +£1,033.24
24th May
23rd May +£2,532.50
22nd May +£2,247.60
21st May
20th May
19th May  +£1,715.5
18th May -£2,268.80
17th May
16th May +£2,275.7
15th May -£422.00
14th May
13th May
12th May  +£1,347.86
11th
 

Wednesday 7 June 2017

Wednesday 8th June 2017 - Market Reports

Another little slip today, still a jittery market but tomorrow it will get better or worse - depends who wins or is it a hung market?

So the portfolio is down again this time by -£1,826.73

And the Winners are
iShares UK Property UCITS ETF GBP (Dist)
IUKP:LSE:GBX


£4,924.88 +0.89% -2.00% -10.43%
+£43.67
Murray International Trust Plc
MYI:LSE


£6,744.17 +0.90% +1.14% +34.94%
+£59.97

And the Losers
Melrose Industries PLC
MRO:LSE


£6,957.30 -2.17% -1.25% +26.41%
-£154.12
Associated British Foods plc
ABF:LSE


£4,781.70 -1.66% +6.07% +6.34%
-£80.50

That's it, now go out and vote tomorrow - cheers

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Tuesday 6th June 2017 - Market Report

It's been really windy today, but not as windy as the markets. Ater an initial drop it recovered a bit and was virtually flat so the portfolio was only up by a few pounds to +£17.43

The FTSE's went like this:
and that illustrates why a balanced portfolio insulates you from a small drop in the equity indexes. Had you been just tracking the above two indexes you would have been down a little bit today.

And the Winners are
ETFS Physical Gold
PHGP:LSE:GBX


£15,164.63 +1.46% +5.92% +1.51%
+£218.23
Associated British Foods plc
ABF:LSE


£4,862.20 +1.07% +8.95% +8.13%
+£51.52

Followed by the Losers
Melrose Industries PLC
MRO:LSE


£7,111.42 -1.92% -0.51% +29.21%
-£139.44
Murray International Trust Plc
MYI:LSE


£6,684.19 -1.45% +0.16% +33.74%
-£98.14

And my little test portfolio on DEGIRO is losing all tghe way, down about £20 out of £1,000 - this is typical of  a new investment strategy, which is why people get frightened off of investing. As soon as you're down the normal eraction is to cut your losses and sell before it gets too bad.

This is totally wrong, you're just crystalising a loss, while you remain ivested any losses are purely on paper (as are any gains), its only when you sell do you take the profit or loss.

You have to keep your objectives in mind, are you in it to beable to make major purchase in the future, like a car or a house or even a round-the-world cruise. Then that's fine, or maybe like me you're building up a capital sum so that it can provide a sustainable income, I would be looking for about £1,000/month, obviously tax free, this equates to an income of about £1,500 for a person paying standard rate tax and NI, but not taking into account their tax free allowance. 

This would be the case for most pensioners as their occupational pension plus state pension would probably take up most of their tax allowance so any income from investments would be taxed.

In an ISA no tax is liable, and outside an ISA you can earn £2,000/yr in dividends tax free.

If it was in a SIPP then tax would be liable on any income, but don't forget when you put money into a SIPP it comes from untaxed income, so for every £100 in the government adds another £25 - or even more if your a higher rate taxpayer, in fact they would add £66 for every £100 you put in.

So it's your choice - pay tax on the money out (SIPP) or pay tax on the money going in (ISA). It's bit like paying betting tax - pay on the bet or on the winnings. Is that still true? Is there such a thing as betting tax anymore? I think it was 10% either way.

Have good one folks.

Monday 5 June 2017

Monday 5th June 2017 - Marlket Report

So there was abit of a fall on the markets today, jitters on the election and recent events, so the portfolio lst a tiny little bit today -£1,862.85

The FTSE went like this:
 

And my Winners were:
  Melrose Industries PLC
MRO:LSE


£7,250.86 +1.02% +1.44% +31.75%
+£73.39
Marks and Spencer Group PLC
MKS:LSE


£3,800.06 +0.92% +2.08% -12.76%
+£34.82


And the Losers
HICL Infrastructure Company Ltd
HICL:LSE


£3,055.80 -2.37% -1.35% +1.04%
-£74.08
  Costain Group PLC
COST:LSE


£13,361.95 -2.22% -0.53% +33.48%
-£303.68

So the portfolio is all on track to provide a bit of income if I need it and a nice lump sum to pay for any major things later on in life, but until then I'm reinvesting all my income.

Happy days