With my stock market portfolio picking up in value, the even better news was that Nicola Sturgeon is resigning as First Minister of Scotland. I don’t often comment on politics but Ms Sturgeon was a very divisive leader who chose to push for Scottish Independence in the face of any rational analysis of what might happen to Scotland economically if that was achieved. Even after she lost the referendum vote on it she persisted in pushing for it. She also managed to mismanage the Scottish NHS and more recently fell over backwards over what is a woman.
Whenever she spoke on television I was revolted by her ignorance of the outcome of the policies she was pursuing. Like Sadiq Khan in London, she blamed all her problems on central Government when they were of her own making.
Other good news is that inflation has fallen slightly to 10.1% and the sun is coming out. Crocuses are flowering in our garden and spring is on its way.
In addition I had a phone call from Computershare about my problem with Diploma dividend payments (see previous blog post) and it seems they are going to waive the claimed administration fee. It always pays to complain!
What cheered me up also was reading about the problems of Rolls-Royce (RR.) in Investors Chronicle. The article headlined “Is Rolls-Royce in decline?” and covered recent comments by the new CEO such as “Every investment we make, we destroy value”, “We underperform every key competitor out there…” and “This is out last chance. We have a burning platform… it cannot continue”. What a way to demotivate staff or put a rocket under their backsides.
I worked very briefly for Rolls-Royce 50 years ago and did hold the shares a few years back – sold at 300p in 2015 when they are now 108p. So I missed that falling knife. I sold way before the pandemic hit airline travel and sales of jet engines because I came to the conclusion that their accounting was way too optimistic.
Incidentally I am currently reading a book entitled “Power Failure” on the rise and fall of General Electric who are of course one of the competitors for Rolls-Royce in the aero engine market. I may write a review of the book at a later date. It’s only 800 pages long. Oh so I hate these lengthy tomes when the authors could have communicated their message in so many fewer words.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )