The Conservative General Election Victory has generated large movements in stock prices with utility companies and banks some of the major beneficiaries. National Grid (NG.) rose 4% on Friday as the threat of nationalisation disappeared and Telecom Plus (TEP), which I hold, rose 11%. I sold the former some time ago as the business seemed challenged on a number of fronts and regulation of utilities in general in the UK and hence their likely return on capital seemed to becoming tougher. My view has not changed so although foreign investors might be mightily relieved, I am not rushing into buying utility companies today.
The euphoria seems to have spread to a very broad range of stocks. Even those you would think would be negatively affected by the rise in the pound, which will depress the value of dollar earnings, have risen. This may be because US markets have risen on the prospect of a US/China trade deal which was announced on December 13th. This might roll back some of the imposed and proposed tariffs on Chinese products to the USA, and cause cancellation of retaliatory Chinese tariffs, but the details are yet to be settled. This may not be a long-term solution though as it will likely still leave the USA with a very large trade deficit with China.
One noticeable aspect of the euphoria infecting markets on Friday morning was the inability of some investment platforms to keep up. According to a report on Citywire, two of the largest operators were affected with AJ Bell suffering intermittent problems due to a four-fold rise in volumes and Hargreaves Lansdown also experiencing problems. Some of the issues apparently related to electronic prices not being quoted by market makers which was reported as a problem by Interactive Investor. This meant that trades had to be put through manually via dealers who became overloaded.
It is very disappointing to see that yet again a moderate rise in volumes caused an effective market meltdown. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) should surely be looking into this as it is their responsibility to ensure the markets and operators therein have robust systems in place. If there is a real market crash, as has happened in the past, retail investors could be severely prejudiced if platforms fail or market makers fail to quote prices.
Eurphoria also seems to have become prevalent in the market for VCT shares in the last couple of years with figures from HMRC showing that the number of new VCT investors claiming income tax relief reached a ten-year high in 2017-18, up 24% over the previous year. The amount invested increased by 33% and in 2018-19 the amount invested increased again by 1.6% to £716 million. The pension changes such as the reduction in the lifetime allowance and new pension freedoms are attributed as the causes. High earners have been flocking to VCTs to mitigate their tax bills it appears.
But the investment rules for VCTs have got a lot tougher so whether they will continue to achieve the high returns seen in the past remains to be seen.
The recently published HMRC report on VCT activity is present here: https://tinyurl.com/vuro5p8
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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