Category: Stock market

The Dangers of Share Tipping, Alliance Trust and AIM Regulation

Share tipping is a mug’s game. Both for the tipsters and their readers. More evidence of this was provided yesterday.

Investors Chronicle issued their “Tips of the Week” via email during the day. It included a “BUY” recommendation on Conviviality (CVR). Unfortunately soon after the company issued a trading statement which said the forecast EBITDA for the current year (ending 30th April) will be 20% below market expectations. Conviviality is a wholesaler, distributor and retailer of alcohol and it seems there was a “material error in the financial forecasts” in one part of the business and that margins have “softened”.

The share price dropped by almost 60% during the day and fell another 10% today at the time of writing. This puts the business based on the new forecasts on a prospective p/e of less than 6 and a dividend yield of over 10% (assuming it is held which may be doubtful). Is this a bargain?

Having had a quick look at the financial profile I am not sure it is. Although net debt of £150 million may not be too high in relation to current revenues or profits, their net profit margin is very small and their current ratio is less than 1, although this is not unusual in retailers who tend to pay for goods after they have sold them.

(Postscript: Paul Scott of Stockopedia made some interesting comments on Conviviality including the suggestion that they might be at risk of breaching their banking covenants and hence might have to do another placing. Certainly worth reading his analysis before plunging into the stock. He also commented negatively on the mid-day timings of the announcements from Conviviality and Fulham Share which I agree with, unless there was some compulsive reason to do them – perhaps they were aware of the Investors Chronicle commentary being issued).

Another tip Investors Chronicle gave yesterday was on Fulham Shore (FUL) which they rated a SELL on the grounds that “growth looks unsustainable”. They got that one right. The company issued a trading statement on the day which also said EBITDA would be below market expectations. Their London restaurants are simply serving fewer customers. The share price dropped 17% on the day. This looks to be symptomatic of the problems of restaurant chains – Prezzo are closing a number of outlets which I was not surprised at because from my visits it seemed rather pedestrian food at high prices. Restaurant Group also reported continuing negative like-for-like figures recently, perhaps partly because of price cutting to attract customers back. Restaurants are being hit by higher costs and disappearing customers. Boring food from tired formulas is no longer good enough to make money.

Another announcement yesterday was results from Alliance Trust (AT.). This is a company that I, ShareSoc, some investors in the trust and hedge fund Elliott Advisors spent a lot of effort on to cause a revolution a couple of years ago so it’s good to see the outcome has been beneficial. Total shareholder return was 19.1% which was well ahead of their benchmark. There was a lot of doubt expressed by many commentators on the new multi-manager investment strategy adopted by the board of directors and the involvement of Elliott, who were subsequently bought out, but it has turned out very well.

The only outstanding issue is the continuing problems at Alliance Trust Savings. They report the integration of the Stocktrade business they acquired from Brewin Dolphin has proved “challenging”. Staff have been moved from Edinburgh to Dundee and the CEO has departed. Customer complaints rose and they no doubt lost a lot of former Stocktrade customers such as me when they decided to stop offering personal crest accounts. So Alliance have written down the value of Alliance Trust Savings by another £13 million as an exceptional charge. No stockbrokers are making much money at present due to very low interest rates of cash held. It has never been clear why Alliance Trust Savings is strategic to the business and it’s very unusual for an investment trust to run its own savings/investment platform. Tough decisions still need to be taken on this matter.

AIM Regulation. The London Stock Exchange has published a revised set of rules for AIM market companies – see here: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/companies-and-advisors/aim/advisers/aim-notices/aim-rules-for-companies-march-2018-clean.pdf .

It now includes a requirement for AIM companies to declare adherence to a Corporate Governance Code. At present there is no such obligation, although some companies adhere to the QCA Code, or some foreign code, or simply pick and choose from the main market code. I and ShareSoc did push for such a rule, and you can see our comments on the review of the AIM rules and original proposals here: https://www.sharesoc.org/blog/regulations-and-law/aim-rules-review/ and here is a summary of the changes published by the LSE: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/companies-and-advisors/aim/advisers/aim-notices/aim-notice-50.pdf (there is also a marked up version of the rule book that gives details of the other changes which I have to admit I have not had the time to peruse as yet).

In summary these are positive moves and the AIM market is improving in some regards although it still has a long way to go to weed out all the dubious operators and company directors in this market.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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FCA Action, Shareholder Rights and Beaufort

Better Finance, the European representative body for retail investors have issued a couple of interesting announcements this morning. The first compliments the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for their action over “closet index trackers”. They are investment funds that pretend to be active managers and charge the higher fees that normally apply to such funds, while in practice they hug their benchmark index. Other European regulators have been less than prompt in taking action on this problem it transpires.

It’s not quite as positive as that though as although a number of UK asset managers have voluntarily agreed to compensate investors in such funds at a cost of £34 million, and enforcement action may be taken against others for misleading marketing material, this appears to be a voluntary scheme rather than a formal compensation arrangement.

Which are the funds complained about? I could not find any published list. But back in 2015, the Daily Telegraph reported the following as being the worse ones: Halifax UK Growth, Scottish Widows UK Growth, Santander UK Equity, Halifax UK Equity Income and Scottish Widows UK Equity Income – all bank controlled business you will note.

The second report from Better Finance was on the publication of the final draft of the EU Shareholder Rights Directive. This was intended to improve the rights of individual shareholders but is in reality grossly defective in that respect. Even if implemented into UK law, it will not improve the rights for UK investors. Indeed it might worsen them. For example Better Finance said this: “Important barriers to cross-border shareholder engagement within the EU virtually remain in place, since intermediaries will by and large still be able to charge higher fees to shareholders wanting to exercise their cross-border voting rights (admittedly subject to certain conditions) and beneficial owners of shares in nominee and omnibus accounts will still not have any voting rights (with the exception of very large shareholders), to name but two of the remaining issues.”

Let us hope that the UK Government and the FCA take more positive steps to improve the rights of UK investors which have been undermined by the use of nominee accounts and other market practices adopted in recent years.

Another recent news item from the FCA was about the forced administration of Beaufort Securities and Beaufort Asset Clearing Services. Beaufort specialised in promoting small cap companies such as those listing or listed on AIM to private investors. But the US Department of Justice investigated dubious activities in relation to US shares and has charged the firm and some individuals involved with securities fraud and money laundering. These allegations appear to be about typical “pump and dump” schemes where share prices are ramped up by active trading of the shares by the promoters of companies, such that the prices of the shares sold to investors bear little relation to fundamental value, and then the insiders sell their shares leaving private investors holding shares which the market rapidly revalues downwards. On twitter one person published charts showing the share prices of companies that Beaufort promoted to investors and it does indeed look convincing evidence of abusive practices.

These kinds of share promotions by “boiler rooms” staffed by persuasive salesmen were very common a few years back and they seem to be coming back into favour as there are a number of other companies promoting small cap or unlisted stocks to investors. Regulations might have been toughened, and such companies are more careful to ensure investors are apparently “sophisticated” or can stand the possible risks and losses, but the FCA still seems slow to tackle unethical practices. Should it really have taken US regulatory authorities to take down this company? The FCA has been aware of the market abuse in the share trading of AIM shares for some time but no action has been taken. It’s just another example of how small cap shares, and particularly the AIM market, attracts individuals of dubious ethics like bees to a honeypot.

If you have invested via Beaufort in stocks, are your holdings likely to be secure? As they may be held in a nominee account it rather depends on the quality of the record keeping by Beaufort. Past experience of similar situations does not inspire confidence. It can take years for an administrator to sort out who owns what and in the meantime the assets are frozen. The administrators are PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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It’s a Bleak Mid-Winter

It’s a bleak mid-winter, everybody is hunkering down against the icy winds, Royal Mail have given up delivering post even in the London suburbs, and retailers are suffering. Well no, actually it’s the second day of Spring but the first was the coldest one on record. It’s not surprising that many people have a jaundiced view of the science of global warming.

But the stock market is drifting down and the news from many companies is dire. Let’s review some of those to start with. Note: I hold or have held some of the companies mentioned.

Safestyle (SFE) sell replacement plastic windows. You would have thought households would be rushing to replace their tired and leaking windows in the bad weather but apparently not. On the 28th Feb they announced a profit warning and the share price fell 37% in the next two days. Is that because of difficulties in installing in the bad weather? No, that will come later no doubt. The problem was lack of order intake so far this year. The real problem is “the activities of an aggressive new market entrant” in an “already competitive landscape” – the latter presumably referring to consumers cutting back on big ticket items. Historically the company showed great return on capital and good profits but the old problem of lack of barriers to entry of competition seems to be the issue.

Carpetright (CPR) also issued a profit warning yesterday. They now expect a loss for the year and blame “continued weak consumer confidence”. It seems they need to have a chat with their bankers about their bank covenants, but the latter “remain fully supportive”. I suspect the real issue here is not consumers (most buyers replace carpet in one room at a time so they are not exactly big purchases) but competition, including from Lord Harris’s son (Phil Harris was the founder and Chairman of Carpetright for many years). Other carpet suppliers (such as Headlam which I hold) have not seen such a major impact, but perhaps they are not as operationally geared as Carpetright. Or the bad news will come later.

Many retailers have faced a changing market – the market never stands still, with internet sales impacting many. Both Toys-R-Us and Maplin have gone into administration. The latter have no doubt been particularly hit by the internet and Amazon, but they have also suffered by private equity gearing up their balance sheets with very high levels of debt. Neither seemed particularly adept at keeping up with fashion. Might just be a case of “tired” stores and dull merchandise ranges. But why would anyone buy from a Maplin store when they could order what they needed over the internet (from Maplin, Amazon or thousands of other on-line retailers) and get it delivered straight to their door in 24 hours? In addition, many such on-line suppliers avoid paying VAT so Maplin was going to suffer from price comparisons.

But there has been some better news. IDOX (IDOX) published their final results yesterday – well at least there was no more bad news. They issued previous profit warnings after a dreadful acquisition of a company named 6PM, and the CEO, Andrew Riley, then went AWOL on health grounds. In addition there were problems with inappropriate revenue recognition, a common issue in software companies. Mr Riley has now definitely departed permanently and former CEO Richard Kellett-Clarke continues to serve as interim CEO.

The latest financial figures report revenue up 16% for the year although some of the increase will be from acquisitions. The profit figures reported on the first page of the announcement are best ignored – they talk about EBITDA, indeed “adjusted EBITDA” and “adjusted earnings”. I simply skipped to the cash flow statement which indicated “net cash from operating activities” of £13.4 million. That compares with a market cap at the time of writing of £152 million, so the cash earnings yield might be viewed as 8.8%.

They did spend £24.3 million on “investing activities”, mainly financed by the issue of new shares, last year and much of that might effectively have been wasted. But cash flow going forward should improve. Unadjusted diluted earnings per share were very substantially reduced mainly due to increased overheads, higher amortisation and high restructuring and impairment costs. These certainly need to be tackled, but the dividend was increased which shows some confidence in the future.

The share price perked up after the results announcement but some commentators, such as my well-known correspondent Tom Winnifrith, focused on the balance sheet with comments such as “negative current assets” (i.e. current ratio less than one) and less polite phrases – he does not pull his punches.

Any accountant will tell you that a company with a current ratio (current assets divided by current liabilities) of less than 1.4 is likely to go bust simply because they risk running out of cash and will not be able to “meet their debts as they become due” (i.e. will become insolvent).

Am I concerned? No because examination of the balance sheet tells me that they have £19.8m of deferred income in the current liabilities (see note 18). This represents support charges which have been billed in advance for the year ahead. Such liabilities are never in fact crystalised in software companies. So deducting that from the current liabilities results in a current ratio that is a positive 1.7.

The balance sheet now does have substantial debt on it, offset by large amounts of “intangible” assets due to capitalisation of software development costs which many folks would ignore. The debt certainly needs to be reduced but that should be possible with current cash flow, and comments from the CEO about future prospects are positive. That is why the share price rose rather than fell I suggest on the announcement, plus the fact that no more accounting issues had been revealed.

There are promises of Spring next week, so let us hope that this will improve the market gloom that seems to be pervading investors of late. Even retailers may do better if shoppers can actually get to their shops. We just need the sun to come out for a few days and flower buds to start opening, for the mood to lighten but I fear my spring daffodils have been frozen to death.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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The Art of Execution – Essential Reading For Investors

I am an avid reader of newsletters and the national press on investment matters and noticed a couple of writers recently mentioned very positively the book “The Art of Execution” by Lee Freeman-Shor. I have now read it myself and it’s definitely a book every stock market investor should read. Here’s why:

There are thousands of books available on investment, aimed at both neophyte and experienced investors. They tend to fall into two main groups: those teaching you how to pick out good investments and those explaining how successful past investors have operated. Incidentally reading the latter ones simply tells you that there are many different styles that can be successfully used. But the main problem with the former approach alone, as the author points out, is that even with the most expert fund managers (and the most highly paid), only 49% of their “best ideas” made money when he analysed their performance.

Mr Freeman-Shor managed investors in his role as a fund manager at Old Mutual Global Investors and studied all the deals they did over seven years. Some investors made money for him overall but others did not, and the main differentiator was how they reacted to various circumstances, not their skills in initial stock selection.

Every investor faces decisions. When your favourite stock, where you have a big holding, drops 20% do you cut your losses and sell, or buy more? When another stock rises by 20%, 30% or more do you sell it to realise profits in fear of it falling back? Or do you buy more? Or perhaps you sell some and keep the rest (“top slicing” as it is called)? Do you worry when your portfolio ends up with 40% or 50% in one or two holdings?

Many investment gurus tell you to use a “stop-loss” to avoid big mistakes, but Freeman-Shor explains that many successful managers actually bought more if they believed in the fundamentals of a company. Clearly there is more to this subject of successful execution than the simple rules advocated by many. What really differentiated the successful investors is not how good they were at picking out winners, but how they managed their holdings later. He identifies a few distinct styles which differentiate the winners from the losers.

One of the handicaps of professional investors the author identifies is their unwillingness to take risks in case they get fired for short term underperformance. So they tend to over-diversify and take profits too early. These are bad habits that private investors can avoid.

There is much in this book that I have learned myself from 30 years of investing. But the author identifies the key habits and investment styles than can be successful. Essential reading for any new investor and highly recommended. And also interesting for those already experienced.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Good News – Shares Are Getting Cheaper!

Yes the markets are plummeting, but that’s surely good news. It means you can buy the profits and cash flow that companies generate at lower prices! But the irrationality of investors and their tendency to follow the herd means they often do not pay attention to this good news.

The market turmoil at present is simply one of those sell-offs where investors think that sentiment has turned and it might be a good time to realise some profits. But the projections for the earnings of companies have not changed, nor for the dividends they might be paying in future.

The stocks that have been badly hit are those where the earnings are non-existent and the cash flow negative. In other words, those where growth in revenue is expected sooner or later to generate some profits. Or where speculators are playing a game of “pass the parcel” where they hope to sell to a bigger fool.

So here’s a few companies that suffered today of that ilk: Blue Prism (down 6%), Purplebricks (down 7%), LoopUp (down 7%), FairFX (down 7%), Wey Education (down 14%). These are not necessarily bargains yet as confidence in their future is everything when evaluating such businesses and confidence is fast evaporating from investor sentiment.

What should one do when the market is falling? One thing to bear in mind is that you can never know how far the market will fall, or when it might start to recover. Don’t try is my answer. Just follow the trend – the trend is your friend as the old saying goes (author unknown). In other words, you should not be buying when everyone else is selling because trends can persist for an unexpectedly long time. You need to wait until the market, and the individual stocks you are looking to buy, really, really do look very cheap on fundamentals. We are surely a long way from that point at present.

I shall wait to see if any bargains appear.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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The Market, Renishaw and ASOS

We seem to be in one of those markets where investors are nervous because of a few big failures, some market commentators being bearish and the uncertainties caused by Brexit. While some of the “hot” stocks continue to power upwards, and the overall market trend in the UK is still positive, it only takes the slightest ripple to cause some stocks to fall sharply. That particularly applies to those where prices seemed to have got ahead of fundamentals.

Yesterday (25/1/2108) Renishaw (RSW) issued a trading statement. The figures were positive with adjusted earnings per share for the last 6 months to end December up by 75%. Forecasts for the full year were given as profit before tax to be between £127m to £147m which on my calculations matched the consensus forecasts of analysts for the full year. The share price promptly fell by 14.5% on the day.

Why the abrupt fall then? Well another announcement on the same day from the company contained the news that Sir David McMurtry, founder and Executive Chairman (age 77) was handing over the CEO role to William Lee (age 42). But Sir David is remaining as “Executive Chairman” with responsibility for “group innovation and product strategy”. No great change in reality then! Will Lee joined the company in 1996 so the culture is not going to change is it. Perhaps investors were disappointed that Sir David is not handing over more responsibilities with a view to retiring. Who knows?

Renishaw is in the business of selling metrology products and other high-tech engineering solutions such as additive manufacturing. It has a very global spread of revenue and is benefiting from the falling pound. But it was on prospective p/e of 34 for the current year before the price fall, which is now more like 30. Perhaps investors suddenly realised that the price was high, and succession issues remained.

I have been following the bad habit over the years of selling Renishaw when I thought the price was too high, and buying it back when it retreated. That’s probably cost me a lot of money in the long term. But as the price has now fallen back to well below when I last sold some shares, I bought them back today.

Another company with a trading statement yesterday was ASOS (ASC). This is not a company I currently hold but I have briefly in the past. ASOS reported group revenue for the 4 months to end December up 30% with a particularly strong showing in the EU. Even the UK improved by 23% when most other UK general retailers are reporting dire figures. It rather demonstrates the way the market is changing with shoppers, particularly the young, moving on-line.

But they do have a few more elderly customers. For example I recently bought a fedora hat from them as I thought it interesting to try out their service. Certainly a low price and very quick delivery but otherwise unexceptional in terms of “user experience” and could even be improved.

The share price rose 3% on the day and for the current year and next the prospective p/e’s are 73 and 59. There are many on-line competitors (Boohoo is a similar one in terms of target customers which I hold), and not many barriers to entry so I find it difficult to justify such high valuations years into the future. So I think I’ll stick with shopping with them rather than buying the shares.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Want to Get Rich Quickly?

Do you sincerely want to be rich? That was the sales slogan used by fraudster Bernie Cornfeld which attracted many. Or perhaps even better, do you want to sincerely get rich quickly? That is in essence the sales pitch used by many promoters of CFDs (Contracts for Difference).

CFDs are geared investments in stock market shares, bitcoins, commodities or any volatile instrument where you can magnify your profits many times. Or of course magnify your losses. You can, to put it simply, lose all your money and very quickly. Last week the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wrote a stern letter to CFD distributors saying in essence that their review revealed substantial failings in the rules that they should have been following.

CFD products are complex and risky and are not suitable for inexperienced or unsophisticated investors. But 76% of retail customers for CFDs lost money in the year to June 2016 according to the FCA which clearly indicates that there are plenty of suckers out there who are being exploited. One of the many problems that the FCA discovered was inadequate client qualification with many relying on broad descriptions of “sophisticated” and “financially literate”. Indeed, they often relied solely on the client’s words about their knowledge and experience and their qualification to be classed as “elective professional” clients which effectively relieves the seller of any responsibility for the advice they give.

This problem extends not just to CFD providers but historically has been a big problem in the promotion of shares in unlisted companies, the small cap companies listed on AIM and in some overseas markets. If reliance is placed on what the client says about their competence and ability, it’s rather like asking a motorist whether they are a good driver – they will all say yes.

In essence there surely needs to be a better way to tackle this issue. If that cannot be devised then the FCA is likely to get much tougher in policing the market for CFDs.

But the FCA should not be too concerned. If those who speculate in CFDs lose the ability to do so, they’ll just move onto something else like trading in bitcoins or forex – and there are lots of promoters of those around. The problem really comes down to basic financial education. Folks need to learn at an early age that there are no quick ways to get rich. If they do not then they will fall for the latest scam regardless of the actions of regulators.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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South African Politics, Pan African Resources and Mondi

The election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the President of the ANC suggests that the country may be taking a positive step forwards. Under Jacob Zuma South Africa has become riddled with corruption and “state capture” where assets are sold off to favoured parties. Whether Cyril Ramaphosa can become President of the country in due course remains to be seen but it is worth looking at his background.

He has a legal qualification and became a trade union activist. After being active in politics, including helping to develop the “Black Economic Empowerment” policy that affects any company operating in the country, he became a businessman. Indeed he was for a time Chairman of gold miner Pan African Resources (PAF) which I held shares in for a while. This is a company registered in the UK and they hold their AGMs in London, although I don’t recall Mr Ramaphosa ever turning up for one. But with this and his other business interests he should have learned something about business to offset his left-wing sympathies.

There are of course other businesses operating in South Africa that are registered in the UK and the risk of political interference is always at the back of investors minds. One I currently hold is Mondi which is actually dual-listed on both the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. This means it is subject to regulation in both the UK and South Africa (the South African financial regulations are actually very good), but one disadvantage is that a withholding tax is payable on dividends. It holds its AGMs in London.

Mondi (MNDI) is a paper and packaging producer with interests in many countries. Its share price does seem to be affected to some extent by political events in South Africa and one gets the impression that the valuation if slightly lower than other packaging companies for that reason (e.g. a somewhat lower prospective p/e than D.S. Smith). Goldman Sachs recently upgraded Mondi to a “buy” with a 2200 price target.

So apart from wishing Mr Ramaphosa well, investors do need to take into account the political risks of investing in South Africa. But my experience has been positive to date with the ANC seeming to take care not to damage large businesses overtly. However, the general economic trends in South Africa under Zuma have not been good even though the per capita wealth of the country at $11,300 is still the highest in Africa (excepting Mauritius).

A sound economy, rational economic policies and the rule of law are the key to generating wealth. Compare the wealth of South Africans with that of Zimbabwe where it is estimated to be as little as $200!

Perhaps the moral is that politics does matter!

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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A Cautionary Tale from Paul Scott

City AM published an educational story last week which is worth repeating. It covered the investment record of Paul Scott who is very well known in the small cap investment world. He writes very perceptive, and quick, analyses of announcements by smaller companies for Stockopedia with a strong emphasis on the financial accounts. He trained as an accountant and worked for a retailing company as finance director for some years. He then became a professional investor – one might say living off his wits – and reportedly turned £50,000 into more than £5m in a few years. Then the financial crisis hit in 2008/9.

This is what he said in the City AM interview: ““I lost the lot and had to start all over again in the financial crisis. It was horrendous, it ruined my life at the time. I had to sell my house, I lost all my savings, I ended up £2m in debt. It was a catastrophe.”

The article suggests Scott made two mistakes: “One was investing in stocks with low liquidity. The other was gearing up on them through spread-betting. When the crisis hit, he couldn’t get out.”

Now with speculative small-cap stocks again riding high, with valuations not based on current fundamentals such as profits and cash flow, but on their future prospects and for their ability to dominate their markets, it is surely again a time to be wary.

Markets are driven by emotions and once a panic sets in then small cap stocks in particular could become very illiquid. Having a major proportion of your portfolio in such stocks may have done wonders for your investment performance in the last couple of years but it is high risk. That is particularly so if you also gear up, and have an undiversified group of holdings – a portfolio of less than a dozen holdings of such companies is positively dangerous.

So the moral is surely never to hold a company on the premise that you can get out if the market turns sour for shares in that company, or in general. Unless you are sure you want to hold a company for the long term, and can afford to do so (i.e. you have not borrowed money to buy it), you should not buy it in the first place.

In addition never let a few holdings dominate your portfolio. And in particular be very wary of companies where there is little trading (i.e. low liquidity). If your own holding is a multiple of the daily trading volume, you’ll never be able to get out at a fair price if there is a crash.

This is what Paul had to say recently in an interview for Stockopedia: “I’ve learnt all my investing decisions the hard way. 2008 taught me that you need to keep an eye on the exit and you need to consider what will happen to liquidity if there is some sort of awful event. Not necessarily a minor event, but if the financial system starts to cave in again – which it might well do. So for that reason, this time my risk management is much better. I’m keeping the gearing lower than it was and I have a general rule that I want to be able to exit every position I hold within a maximum of two days in a bear market. So I position size accordingly. If something is very small and illiquid, I wouldn’t have more than £30,000 – 40,000 worth of it. If it’s nice and liquid then I’ll have £500,000 of it. I think liquidity is so important.”

I would only comment that when everyone wants to exit, shifting even a relatively small amount of stock in small caps can be damn difficult. Having solely small cap stocks in your portfolio can be a risky strategy when mid to large cap stocks will be much more liquid and less volatile. For example, private investors could easily sell their holdings in HBOS, RBS, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley even when they were in dire difficulties.

Diversity in individual holdings, and in company size, are both prudent.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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Chancellor’s Budget and How It Affects You

What follows is a summary of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Budget speech today, and the impact of the tax changes. Private investors were particularly concerned about the impact of tax reliefs in the VCT/EIS schemes following the Patient Capital Review but these are in fact relatively minor (see end of document).

This is a summary of the key points he announced:

  • The Chancellor said we are on the brink of a technological revolution, we must embrace it. Britain is at the forefront, but we must invest to secure it.
  • Regrettably our productivity performance remains disappointing.
  • Our debt interest is too high. OBR expects debt to peak this year and fall thereafter.
  • He maintained his commitment to fiscal responsibility but will use the headroom to prepare Britain for the future.
  • The strategy is to raise productivity and employment in all sectors of the economy. A white paper will be issued on this within a few days.
  • Following the Patient Capital Review an action plan will be published which commits to more funding of the British Business Bank, including £2.5 billion of Government seed funding (to co-invest with private firms). But there will be some restrictions on EIS tax relief (see later).
  • First year VED on cars that do not meet the latest emission standards will be increased. However there will be no “benefit in kind” from the provision of free electric charging of vehicles at work.
  • There will be more support for maths teaching including specialist schools. More maths for everyone! And there will be a tripling in the number of computing teachers. There will also be more “distance learning” support.
  • Universal credits will be paid more quickly and there will be easier access to advances to overcome complaints in this area.
  • The National Living Wage will rise by 4.4% from April (Comment: this will obviously impact employers of large numbers of low paid staff such as retailers and hospitality firms).
  • The Personal Tax Allowance will rise to £11,850 from April and the Higher Rate Threshold will also increase to £46,300, in line with inflation.
  • Taxes on beer, wine and spirits will be frozen (apart from cheap cider). A Merry Christmas to all. Fuel duty will also be frozen.
  • An additional £10 billion of capital investment will go into NHS frontline services. That includes £7.5 billion this year and next, plus there will be a review of staff pay.
  • There will be more attacks on tax evasion. In addition, the anomaly of the indexation of capital gains for companies (but not individuals) will be removed.
  • The VAT registration threshold will be reviewed but it is not intended to amend it from the current £85,000 level for at least two years.
  • There will be amendments to business rates to help smaller businesses.
  • There will be a review of international taxation arrangements. Royalties paid to low tax countries will be taxed and on-line marketplaces will be jointly liable for the sellers VAT.
  • Councils will have powers to tax empty properties, plus the Government will look at barriers to long tenancy agreements.
  • The Chancellor said house prices are getting out of reach. Successive Governments over decades have failed to meet the demand for housing (comment: surely nobody can dispute that). He committed £45 billion in capital and loans to boost the supply of skills, resources and building land. Plus there will be reforms of the planning process/laws. There will also be an inquiry into why plots with planning approval are not built.
  • Seven new town developments are planned with 1 million new homes in the Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Oxford corridor. The plan is to build 300,000 new homes per year.
  • Stamp duty will be abolished on the homes up to £300,000 in price for first time buyers and the same allowance available for homes up to £500,000 in price.

More details on taxation changes.

Changes additional to those mentioned above include:

  • The IR35 rules allowing contractors to avoid being taxed as employees may be tightened further (to follow through changes in the public sector to the private sector).
  • There will be a consultation on reform of the taxation of trusts to make them simpler, fairer and more transparent (Comment: surely a positive move).
  • Individuals operating property businesses will have the option of using mileage rates to simplify their tax affairs.
  • ISA subscription rates will remain unchanged (£20,000 for 2018-2019).
  • Lifetime allowance for pensions will be increased by inflation to £1,030,000.
  • Carried interest transitional arrangements will be removed with immediate effect (so pity those asset managers who will now pay full capital gains tax rates).
  • The restriction of relief on VCT investments sold within six months where VCTs merge will no longer apply to mergers more than two years after the subscription or where they do so only for commercial reasons. This will avoid a trap that investors can accidentally fall into.
  • VCT and EIS schemes tax relief will need to ensure they are investing in assets subject to “real risk” rather than those simply aiming for “capital preservation”. Certain “grandfathering” provisions that enable VCTs to invest funds under older rules will be removed from April 2018.
  • VCTs will need to invest 30% of new funds raised to be invested within 12 months.
  • VCTs will need to have 80% of their funds as “qualifying” investments (currently 70%) from April 2019, but they will have 12 months to reinvest the proceeds of disposals (currently 6 months). This presumably might enable them to smooth dividend payments somewhat when currently they often have to pay out the result of realisations rapidly.
  • EIS rules will double the limit on the amount an individual can subscribe in a year to £2 million, but any amount over £1 million must go into “knowledge intensive” companies. Comment: I await some simple definition of what they might be. Such companies will also have the limit on annual EIS and VCT investments raised to £10 million

I have only included what seem to be the most significant changes in the above. In general there seems to be a policy to avoid rapid and abrupt changes to taxation (which thwart people from planning their tax affairs) which is to be welcomed.

Whether the VCT and EIS tax changes will have significant impact on those vehicles remains to be seen although some of the changes had already been indicated and threats of major changes that had been rumoured seem to have been avoided. This writer expects that the managers of those funds will adapt as they have already been doing. Encouraging investment in riskier assets may increase the risk profile of those companies but might also increase the returns and a large size and diverse portfolio will provide a hedge against the risks.

The full report on the Patient Capital Review consultation has also been published and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/661398/Patient_Capital_Review_Consultation_response_web.pdf

I may provide further comments on that after reading.

In summary I view this budget positively with no unexpected surprises or likely perverse outcomes from unintended consequences we have seen from the surprises announced by previous Chancellors. But it would be interesting to get readers comments – please add.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )

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