I am currently trying to sell a car I own as I am giving up driving (a Jaguar XE). So I listed it on Auto Trader.
I got a call from someone allegedly named Brian. He arranged to view the vehicle and I took him and a friend for a test drive (me driving). On the way back smoke appeared from under the bonnet.
I said I would need to get a second opinion on the vehicle condition and they then left but tried to call me again the next day. They clearly expected me to accept a low offer for the vehicle on the basis it was not fit for use.
This was almost certainly an attempt to scam me by damaging the vehicle and then making a low-ball offer. See the internet for details of the “dirty oil trick” which is apparently quite common where dirty oil is poured into the radiator water reservoir. See https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/oil-trick-scam-drivers/
I am pretty sure there was no fault on the vehicle before the incident. But it will cost me as much as £1000 to have the vehicle checked and drained/flushed. I have reported this crime to the police.
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This blog is being closed down soon. I don’t have the energy to maintain it. I have had a major kidney disease for about 50 years and after a transplant from my brother 30 years ago it’s now fading away so I have been on dialysis for 2 years. That is proving very tedious and tiresome so in the new year I will probably volunteer to stop it.
One advantage of kidney dialysis is that it gives you the ability to choose when to die. If I stop dialysis I may die within a couple of weeks. But it’s not quite as simple as that! There are lots of people who want to give me advice and forms to fill out re “End of Life Care”.
In addition I need to tidy up my financial affairs and ensure my executors know where to find things.
I am beginning to envy those people who drop dead from a stroke or heart attack.
Anyway as I shall reach the age of 80 in January and have achieved most things I wanted to in life, commiserations are unnecessary.
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The major financial news yesterday was that Warren Buffett announced his retirement as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway. At the age of 94 that is not altogether surprising. Greg Abel is taking over as CEO.
I don’t personally hold the Berkshire Hathaway shares but shareholders will have been very pleased with Warrens stewardship of the business which has a remarkable performance track record over 60 years. There are several books documenting his investment style but he has always demonstrated humility and often admits his mistakes.
He has given out lots of wisdom in his witty remarks on the investment world, such as ““Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing” – as opposed to measuring investment risk via share price volatility.
Warren Buffett will be sadly missed as an example of how to invest in companies and in the stock market.
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The AIC has launched a Government Petition to change the law so that all platforms give you the right to vote your shareholdings. See https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/716003 for details. PLEASE SIGN IT!
This has been a gaping hole in UK corporate governance ever since the use of nominee accounts became widespread.
You can also read more background on this issue on the Sharesoc campaign page that covers this subject here: https://www.sharesoc.org/campaigns/shareholder-rights-campaign/ which even includes a link to a video with me talking about it. Some action on this issue is long overdue.
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Spring is definitely here. The daffodils and narcissi in our garden are flowering (see photos) and other plants are sprouting. A tip: if you find that squirrels dig up your newly planted daffodils and eat them, switch to narcissi which are smaller but apparently less favoured for consumption.
Spring might be here and this seems to have made the UK stock market look a bit more attractive. It’s probably just temporary optimism as the economy is definitely in the doldrums. I have been purchasing small and mid-cap UK stocks but some of them have then promptly fallen. I must stop reading the share tipping publications! They are full of good “stories” and some of them certainly look cheap but the media rarely give you a balanced view.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves apparently plans to cut public expenditure so as to balance income with current expenditure but will it happen? I doubt it. Socialists have a propensity to spend other people’s money as I recall Margaret Thatcher said. Dismantling bureaucracies such as NHS England and all the numerous other quangos that have been invented in recent years will take both determination and money. At best it will take years to do unless we have a more forceful leader like the USA now has.
The only positive sector is defence where UK and other European expenditure will rise. But expenditure on defence does not make us wealthier. Bombs and shells create loud noises and kill people but they don’t make us richer or improve our lives.
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Just thinking about the economic prospects in the UK turns you into a manic depressive. The pound is falling, the FTSE-250 is falling (which is a measure of UK mid-cap company prospects) and the cost of government debt is rising as the international financial world loses confidence in the UK.
We have bad weather in most of the UK which will depress economic output and very bad snow levels on the US east coast plus wildfires in California. I have fond memories of visiting Pasadena several times which apparently has been badly affected.
National media news is all about negative events while UK politicians are spending time debating whether a public inquiry is required over child sex grooming in the North of England. Personally I doubt such an inquiry would be useful. They are always very expensive, take years to report and there have been inquiries already into the events. The failure of the police to take action is blatantly obvious and this is simply a management issue. The police are now wasting their time on trivia such as non-criminal hate speech while freedom of speech is being undermined.
All of these events detract from the big issue of excessive immigration which is depressing UK productivity and wages.
But all of this gloom and doom will no doubt disappear when spring arrives and should not be an indicator of stock market investment prospects.
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I have just received the latest ShareSoc newsletter and it is not just a bumper edition but with a number of good articles it shows how professional ShareSoc has now become. It’s now an essential read for all private investors.
For example there is a good article on the merits of shareholder litigation. It is not always wise for shareholders to pursue redress for alleged failings of company or fund management because even if the case is proven any recompense might come out of their own shareholder funds.
But ShareSoc is supporting a legal claim pursued by RGL against Hargreaves Lansdown who continued to recommend the Woodford Equity Income Fund to their clients long after they should have ceased to do so – see https://woodfordlitigation.com/ . Meanwhile Neil Woodford is trying to rebuild his reputation by publishing articles on “Woodford Views” and his latest apologia for the failure of the Equity Income Fund blames Link for suspending the fund without notice and without reason. That may be his view but mine is that holding illiquid small cap speculative shares in such an open-ended fund was bound to be a recipe for disaster.
I never held any of the Woodford funds I am always wary of “star” fund managers. Nick Train is the latest one to come a cropper. Past good performance tends not to persist. Fund managers can have a good performance run by piling into shares while momentum effects and “follow the leader” can mean out-performance against indices for a while.
There is a useful article on DG19 in the ShareSoc newsletter where Paul de Gruchy says “Triple Point [the fund manager] has lost hundreds of millions investing in assets that have not, as a class, slumped in value. It seems to me that it has been the manager’s incompetence and hubris that has done for DGI9. That Triple Point took significant fees based on an alleged NAV of 79p at a time the market was valuing the company at 20p is shocking. Investors have suffered here. There is no merit in the company itself being investigated; it is the manager and the valuers, who sucked up tens of millions in fees, that are responsible”. It certainly looks like a case worth pursuing.
Lastly there is an article on the Digitisation Taskforce who are due to report soon on reforming the UK’s shareholding framework. We certainly need to tackle the loss of shareholder rights from the use of nominee accounts. But at least AJ Bell are making it easier for their clients to vote their shares – see article on page 29.
There is one defect in the ShareSoc newsletter. It omits the link to my submission on the consultation on expanding IHT to cover unused pension funds. It is here:
This may be my last blog post before Xmas so have a good festive season. One of my Christmas presents is a new keyboard. I regularly wear out the keys after two years. Even my latest Rii keyboard which has backlit keys now needs renewing.
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The Roliscon Blog which mainly contains my comments on financial news (see https://roliscon.blog/ ) has been hosted by WordPress for a number of years. It has provided an easy-to-use blogging platform. However I have recently noticed that the “subscribe” function that enabled people to get notifications of new posts stopped working some months ago. I am therefore removing mention of it from past blog posts.
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You can of course easily review the blog for recent posts or search for any topic of interest to you at any time.
Unfortunately the Subscribe function in WordPress no longer works and their support appears to be negligible so I will be looking at alternative platforms which are as easy to use. I already use Wix for the Roliscon web site (see https://www.roliscon.com/ ) so that may be an option but if you have other suggestions please let me know.
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I watched the debate in the House of Lords last night on the concerns of farmers over the new imposition of Inheritance Tax on their land holdings. They were previously exempt from IHT but it is alleged that some “farmers” were using it as a tax avoidance scheme. That may be so but many farmers are really upset about the change that will stop farmers passing on their farms to offspring, or make it too expensive to do so and hence lead to the break-up of farms that have been owned for generations.
There were several good speeches opposing the change which you can hear on the BBC Parliament Channel. The House of Lords is a useful addition to democracy as the Members often have long experience of the issues debated.
Note that there are easy ways to stop the inheritance loophole on farms being used by wealthy investors but the Labour Government is as usual sticking to political dogma that the rich should be soaked regardless of the practicalities or unintended consequences.
Another kick in the teeth for farmers that snuck through in the Chancellors Budget was a new tax called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) which is a tax aimed at reducing carbon emissions – particularly on goods such as cement, fertilizer, iron and steel. Fertilizer is often created from oil and gas but is essential to ensure plants grow. Taxing it will result in more expensive food and reduce the existing small profits made by farmers – see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8v55eqd73o#:~:text=A%20new%20environmental%20tax%20on,been%20produced%20in%20the%20UK.
This is more environmental dogma with dangerous consequences.
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As you may be aware, the Chancellor in her last budget speech announced that unused pension funds would be brought into the scope of Inheritance Tax (IHT) from April 2027. There is a public consultation on this proposal, specifically to cover the administrative arrangements to enable collection of the IHT due on the death of a pensioner, but you can no doubt expand your explanations as to why this is a most iniquitous proposal.
As was said in an article in Investors Chronicle, “IHT on pensions will be a bureaucratic nightmare for grieving families”. It will inevitably slow down payments to inheritors or beneficiaries and will make for a considerably more complex tax system. Steve Webb, former Pensions Minister, said that bereaved families already face “huge challenges in winding up the financial affairs of a loved one”. This proposal will make their task even harder.
Not only will this proposal create needless work for lawyers and accountants, it will also mean more work for HMRC staff. All of this unproductive work could be avoided if the objective is simply to raise more tax revenue.
It is an ill-thought through proposal which has been rushed forward in the Labour Government’s hurry to raise more tax from the wealthy. It needs a rethink.
