Tony Benn

A Tony Benn government wouldn't have been perfect, there's no such thing as a perfect government, but we can be absolutely sure that it wouldn't have been stuffed full of incompetent and out-of-touch millionaire rich boys, who rose to the top of politics through inherited privilege, like the current government.

Who is there to take up the mantle?

Morrisons may sell its free hold property

Morrisons (UK Supermarket chain) may sell its freehold property to release cash to the business. I must say I don’t get this, sell off something you need to rent/lease back! OK selling off something you no longer need, but to rent it back, surely you know that whoever is renting it back is going to want to make a profit .. and that means you are going to pay more. 

1. If it’s such a good idea why are not millions of home owners doing the same, selling off their property to rent back? 

A1. Equity release only makes sense if you are planning to die.

A2. Over time the rent/lease costs will go up and eventually you will pay more.

A3. If your income drops you have a financial millstone which you have to feed. If you stop/can’t feed it you have to shut operations, which cuts income further and you get caught in a financial spiral.

2. Do we not remember the care home Southern Cross. Some financial wag thought it would be a good idea to sell off 752 of its care homes and lease them back. The leases went up, they couldn’t pay the rent and this new financial burden (which wasn't there when they owned them) put them out of business (see A2 and A3 above). What Southern Cross failed to realise was that they were a prosperity business providing a service and not a service business that happened to own property. 

Now Morrisons is clearly a supermarket chain, no question. However would it sell of its shelves and lease them back? What about its cold storage, farms etc?  You could boil it down and say a supermarket is simply a logistics company that gets items on a shelf just in time for the consumer to pick them up and put them in their trolley. That is Amazon (well almost) isn’t it? Is that what people want? 

Look at the move to online ordering and home delivery then maybe the long term outlook is simply logistics. But whenever I go to the supermarket they seem pretty busy places, so the physical location is important too. Changing human habits is a lengthy process. Plus the "pickers" don't pick the best, don't make the right substitute etc. So some things to sort out. 

Morrisons have been late to the home shopping market but they don’t need to throw away what they have to make up the gap. They were the only supermarket that new that their beef hadn’t previously run in the 6:30 had Haydock and they didn't make enough of that.  They control/own their food chain, (from farm to slaughter house) who new?  What other fake food is out there? Even without specifics Morissons could become the champions of the consumer and put a burden on their competitors that Morissons have already got covered. 

What Morrisons need is to step up its home shopping a bit, and employ an aggressive marketing agent, not panic and sell off its stores. If Morrisons do sell off their property, then ride the wave as the money acts like a kind of morphine, but remember to get out of any shares as it wears off and A1 kicks in.

New to Stocks and Shares!

I’ve had a few shares in the past, but mainly through privatisation of public industries and employee schemes. I had a limited understanding of how it worked and how the market got the value of a company and more importantly the future value.

I retired at the end of Jan 2014. I have no pension for a year, but no mortgage and enough savings to last a year. (just couldn't stand working for short termist bull sh1ters any more) I spent most of my career selling network services to television broadcaster. The last 6 years analysing where the market was going so that the network could be extended into that country before the broadcasters asked. These were channels like Turner, Discovery, Viacom etc. To do this I looked at their decision making process. It sound obvious, but they were led there by their customers and their customer’s customer. If population was getting richer their disposable income would go up, this would attract companies trying to sell them cars, washing machines, holidays and cosmetics. These FMCG's would spend on advertising and that funds TV channels. Oversimplification but you get the idea.

Having a reasonable pot of savings, some of which I was not going to need until the end of the year and with very low interest rates on bank saving accounts, I decided to look at the stock market as a means to grow this pot.

I’ve spent a little over 5 weeks studying. I collated info by experts and analysts and have a reasonable grasp of the theory now. I made some early investments and have gradually refined my decision making. It is by no means perfect and in a market that is generally on the up its harder to make a mistake, but the latter investments are making more than the earlier ones. There is one exception, more latter.

What I've noticed from the analysts is they look at the numbers. Revenue, profit etc and what the company say in the report. There is some reaction to breaking news, but this is again more about what the company says (profits warnings, sales up, restructuring) than a link to wider information. There are a few exceptions, defence is one, where government budgets link back to companies like BA Systems.Other published deeper/wider analysis seem to be amateurs, like me. This is not to say that professionals get it wrong and amateurs get it right, but the decision is yours, so get informed.

Example of professionals getting it wrong. In Feb 2014 they recommend investing in a company that organises exhibitions in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Ukraine was kicking off and no one new how Russia was going to react, but that was a risk as exhibitors and visitors are likely to shy away. The consequence is this company’s shares fell 21.5%, Which says that investors are ignoring analysts.

On the other hand at the same time the professionals where saying that building companies were not a good investment as the new house market had not recovered yet. But the news was that there was the start of a recovery, there were thousands of homes affected by floods and bad weather and talk of billions being paid out by insurance companies. Hummm! So the share price was low for building supply companies. They would be making money out of supplying material for all those repairs and eventually for building houses. Early days yet, but making steady progress.

As well as making decisions as to what to buy, there is also the decision as to what and when to sell. This is harder, as there is a tendency for small investors to hold on to shares as they fall, in the hope that they will turn around. The best way around this is to take the emotion out of it. A bit of research will show that there are several Stops. Stops are price thresholds that trigger you to sell. The first and lowest is called a Stop Loss. This takes the price you paid per share plus the trading cost (buying and selling) plus the stamp duty and is 10% (or whatever you want) below. This means that you will never lose more than 10% on any investment. Couple this with never having more than 10% in any one investment and the most you can lose is 1%.

The next Stop is the ATR Stop. This is the average trading range stop. You have to decide over what period you are going to calculate the average. Some say 40 days and some say 10 days. I’ve gone for 20 days (four weeks). ATR means that if some bad news causes the price to vary (drop) more than it would do on average, you are triggered to sell.

The next one is a Trailing stop this takes the maximum price the stock has got to and says by how much you are prepared to let it fall before selling. I've gone for 7.5%. Each Stop kicks in over time and as the stock goes up in value (hopefully). I’ve only been using this for a short while and not sure what things will affect it (Ex Div) so a little common sense for the time being I think. 

I looked at JBL Risk Manager you get a free trial, but if you are a UK investor it is a pain to use. So I’ve built a spreadsheet to manage these stops (and calculate value). I only update the prices based on the last days ranges and have to cut and paste info in. A good way to get the share price info is a free programme “GimmeFreeData” 

The spreadsheet only takes 15 minutes to update, but it’s not ideal. Its a flat database and adding/removing stock is cumbersome. I will work on developing a small relational database, hopefully importing the data direct. I also want to be able to put stocks in on a “watch” basis as selling stock will give me cash I will need to reinvest somewhere.

I know this all sounds a bit of hassle (and it was to start off with) but overall I’ve made (on paper) 3% return in less than 5 weeks, so worth looking at. The exceptions are one stock is down 8% but one is up 27%. The 27% gain was one that was just a gut feel, with no analysis whatever. Go figure.   

Finally: - 

• Never invest more than you can lose
• Never invest money you are going to need in a few months
• Have around 15 different stocks in a wide spread of industries. (This makes it complicated, but not impossible.)
• Never have more than 10% of you total investments in one stock
• Take into account your trading costs (don't keep buying and sell - it will cost you)
• Never hold onto stocks if they break your Stop threshold.

Market Forces or Government Knows Best?

The government wants to close local hospitals and put them into “centres of excellence”. “Centres Of Excellence” is a title, not a description. They want to do this because it makes for “better treatment” by concentrating the expertise. There is some evidence for this in major/catastrophic ill health such as, cancer, stroke, heart attack etc but far more evidence that early treatment prevents long term complications and speedy recovery. To this end ambulance staff have become paramedics, able to diagnose and administer doctor like treatments. This provides the early intervention while the patient is transported to the hospital. I don’t have the knowledge to know if one counteracts the other, but it seems clear that if you are going to close local hospitals you need to increase ambulances and paramedics to compensate. Anyone seeing this? Ultimately the argument is about efficiency verses community.

Market forces would say that locals are against hospital closures, but government knows best!  

On the other hand shopping is (and has been for some time) gradually moving away from high streets. To purpose built shopping centres and out of town supermarkets and outlet villages/parks, and more recently to online shopping. Why the shift? Convenience. Traditional high streets do not have the choice, are often more expensive and crowded on Saturdays. They are difficult to get to, with one way systems, expensive and labyrinth parking. As high street shops close, so foot fall drops leading to other shops failing. The high street becomes shabby and pubs, cinemas, restaurants start to lose out as the high street stops being a destination. Yet the government (and local government) want to keep the high street open. Suddenly community is more important than efficiency. Why? Money, business rates, VAT and other taxes. You know you are taxed and when you earn and spend money. This is about the spending. Some of this spending tax is direct (VAT) other is indirect, so an element of the price you pay goes to cover the retailer’s rates, tax on their rent payments, the tax and national insurance it pays it staff, the tax on the building, content, and public liability insurance, the tax on the fuel to deliver to and heat/light the shop. The revenues from parking charges, parking fines etc. Buy online from someone like Amazon, Play et al and you don’t pay UK VAT you pay Belgium. Jersey  or other VAT. Its lower and the end price reflect this. Even getting your supermarket shopping delivered saves on fuel, car maintenance, time and stops you passing other shops and that impulse buy. 

The Governments plan is give new shops the first 6 months off from paying business rates. That a great idea, at least for the first six months they won't be losing as much while the high street and shop is empty. Nice pedestrianised areas, just missing pedestrians. Think laterally. free land trains that are also road sweepers, so people can get from car park and up and down the high street easily with bags full of shopping. Come on something imaginative! 

Market forces (people voting with their feet and purses) says close the high street (as they are), but the government knows best!