Edinburgh Investment Share Discussion Threads

[essentialinvestor] 24/6/2019 14:48

One of the big mistakes Mike is making is on tobacco,
which he describes as one of the 'pillars' of the portfolio.

He's referenced the recent sell of in tobacco stocks as being similar
to 2000. There are very big differences. Firstly, BATS and IMB have taken on
huge debt, so gearing is very different. The sector is increasingly
disrupted by new technology in the form of vape.
There are hundreds of sellers of cheap generic vape kits and liquids,
big tobacco no longer have the monopoly. You don't need to be a tobacco company
to produce these. And the internet provides a means of rapid distribution.
20 years ago the tobacco companies largely controlled distribution channels.

[contrarian joe] 24/6/2019 14:45

Wishful thinking EI,yes larger than average volume support at 569 going back to 2013.Discount around 14%, I wonder if the trust board are considering changing Invesco!!.

[essentialinvestor] 24/6/2019 14:19

A chunky sale gone through under 5.70, people just wanting out?.

[contrarian joe] 21/6/2019 23:55

Rivererman77,If its an income fund paying 4.7% that tells me they are dipping into there reserves,go through accounts you will also find £100m of borrowings at 7.5%,would say p/e ratios are meaningless for valuing a lot of funds.

[riverman77] 21/6/2019 21:46

Not sure that roce is particularly relevant for an investment trust, but agree discount should perhaps be even wider given poor performance. I glanced through the recent annual report and some really poor stock selections.

[contrarian joe] 21/6/2019 21:17

Agree discount not wide enough even though it's at the widest historically,will be tempted if MB is pushed out,has become a liability ,if you go through the accounts they made £50m gross with £15m costs,roce was a derisory 3% ,when you look at it like that makes you realise how incompetent some of these so called professional are.

[essentialinvestor] 21/6/2019 17:27

Given the underperformance the discount needs to be wider to be attractive.
Miniscule buy backs. they can't even do that right.

[andyj] 21/6/2019 17:22

A new three year low and looking at the top ten holdings it is very difficult to see what can turn them around.

[contrarian joe] 18/6/2019 09:20

There's been a big shift out of uk income funds,Invesco have suffered by far the most.

[essentialinvestor] 13/6/2019 10:40

I don't agree that what Mark Barnett is doing is value investing.

He's arguably bought a multitude of value traps ...BAB, BT, CPI, ESL, PFG, REDDE, PLUS500
and many more.

Yes it's not Neil Woodford, but there have been many, many mistakes.

[topvest] 12/6/2019 21:11

Fantastic memo by Howard Marks today

hxxps://www.oaktreecapital.com/docs/default-source/memos/this-time-its-different.pdf

This does reinforce my view that value investing must be on the cusp of doing better sometime soon, although it probably won't feel like it in a stock market crash.

Now is not the time to throw the towel in!

[topvest] 12/6/2019 19:38

Yes, agreed on Plus. Something never quite looked right with it to me.

[riverman77] 12/6/2019 19:36

Agree, some very poor stock selections. I previously held Plus during the bitcoin boom and did very well out of it, but sold once this faded and the new esma rules came in. It was obviously going to crash, but this seems to be the moment that he added!

[topvest] 12/6/2019 19:30

Why is an investment trust of this size releasing its annual results at 2.23pm? This is very unprofessional indeed. What's wrong with 7am like everyone else. Yes, agreed that investment performance has been relatively poor, but MB's big theme's look quite contrarian at the moment. It could do very well, and his performance is less accident prone than Neil Woodford, by some margin.

Looks like the Board are starting to put the pressure on. I suspect he has 1 or 2 years left to demonstrate that the approach is working. I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Value is sure to start outperforming over growth at some point given its on about a 10 year record losing streak.

[essentialinvestor] 12/6/2019 15:26

Had a quick read of results, shocking. Some of the smaller stock selections
have been woeful, ESL, Redde, Plus...it's a long list.
That's before considering CPI and PFG, BATS, IMB, among others.

[essentialinvestor] 06/6/2019 12:00

Underperformed the benchmark over the last 3 years.

[pjw956] 27/9/2017 20:48

now even further south....

[pjw956] 24/8/2017 21:42

looks to be holding too many no growth stocks at present - tobacco going south , big pharma going south and provident - the provi will not survive and I hope edin will take advantage of the stock bounce to get rid of as it will not provide any further divi before finally going belly up in about 6 months.

[killing_time] 22/8/2017 18:45

Not a great day. Before markets opened we held 3.64% of our holdings in Provident Financial which got hit 66%.
We do seem to be heading in the wrong direction over the last few months.

[killing_time] 02/2/2017 19:20

Its Ex Dividend day today. We also seem to be holding a lot of stock like BT,AZN ect which are releasing not very good news. Discount is widening.

[nwalsham15] 02/2/2017 10:31

WTF is happening here? price keeps dripping away, whilst everythings going up?? i thought this was a stock based fund!!??

[philo124] 21/10/2016 15:27

Bats news good for fund.

[philo124] 02/9/2016 19:59

Still going strong. Tobacco stocks up today. Since brexit sipp up 15%.