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  • UK small caps down a lot over the last week

    an excellent time to buy I think
    I'm mulling selling out of UK, and doing what I steadfastly profess not to do! I'm really struggling to see UK smaller companies growth in the next 12 month or more with the imminent 2nd wave of Covid. I fear UK stocks could remain unloved for longer than I anticipated.

    I was optimistic as we got the virus under control and commerce started rebounding but much less optimistic now.

    I may reduce my exposure to UK SmallCaps, which is currently 50% of my DC pension down to 20% or maybe even switch to US or Global SmallCaps completely until next year and see how it goes. 

    I dunno, will sleep on it.

    The frustrating thing is that Standard Life Group Pensions range of funds isn't overly exciting. I wish they had some Index trackers and a bigger range of funds like they offer for their ISAs


    US stocks are over priced I think

    The US large caps are for sure. I think US smallcaps listed on the Russell 2K are a bit unloved just like UK SmallCaps at present.

    These are unprecedented times we face but I am absolutely committed to being 100% invested in stocks, it's just the diversification mix across markets, regions and sectors I am less settled on.

    my concern with UK SmallCaps is the current 2nd wave of Covid which will make for another 6 months of social distancing and the furlough scheme is ending next month so I can't see an immediate upside at present until the virus is back under control and infection rate declining again. However, smallcaps will recover fast once they start the bounce back.

    Some people advise holding an index tracker that tracks the whole global stock market is the optimal approach for long term investing. Warren Buffet advices regular retail investors to just hold a cross section of American companies in a tracker such as Vanguard's S&P500 ETF for the long term.

    I can't access index trackers with my main pension, the closest I can get to is a fund that tracks the S&P Islamic Global 100 Titans, an index of the 100 largest companies traded globally that are compliant with Shariah investment principles. It's pretty US large cap heavy with some of the usual FAANG constituents but that is a reflection of the current index.
    I'm staying invested as is, no change. I remain 50% committed to UK SmallCaps vis the ASI fund, against all traditional advice I am way overweight on SmallCaps but I'm going to stay put. I had a great year with this fund in 2019 and patience is required.


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  • monquixotemonquixote Frets: 17624
    tFB Trader
    For anyone interested, here is a compelling argument in favour of Index Trackers (ETFs) over Managed Mutual Funds and stock picking as a safer bet for long term investing.



    Great video

    It's very similar to the section on hot streaks in sports from Thinking Fast and Slow. It all comes down to regression to the mean.
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  • Interesting article here from Harry Nimmo, fund manager of the Aberdeen Standard Investments UK Smaller Companies Fund talking about the UK AIM (alternative investment market) stocks and their almost unnoticed rebound through this year.

    The general message from the seasoned veteran of UK Smaller Companies investing is that this is great time to be investing in UK Smaller Companies.

    https://www.trustnet.com/news/7466204/harry-nimmo-the-uk-equity-rally-everyone-has-missed

    Harry Nimmo: The UK equity rally everyone has missed

    10 September 2020

    Veteran fund manager Harry Nimmo highlights the UK equities rally that everyone has missed and explains why his fund will underperform in the initial recovery.

    Post By Eve Maddock-Jones

    By Eve Maddock-Jones,
    Reporter, Trustnet

    While most UK markets remain firmly in negative territory there is one area that has rallied almost completely unnoticed, according to Aberdeen Standard Investments’ Harry Nimmo.

    Having started the year at high levels following a decisive general election result that removed much of the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, the main UK indices have posted significant losses year-to-date.

    But there has been one market that has gone largely unnoticed by many UK investors and is now almost back to where it was at the start of the year: the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

    Performance of UK indices YTD

      

    Source: FE Analytics

    While the blue-chip FTSE 100 index is down by one-fifth since the start of the year, AIM has recorded a small loss of just 0.76 per cent in 2020.

    “So, year-to-date, AIM stocks have done around 20 per cent better than the listed stocks [on the main market],” Nimmo said. “And I think that a lot of people have completely missed that.” 

    AIM, the junior market of the London Stock Exchange, is designed to help smaller companies access capital from the public market to fuel the company’s growth. Launched in 1995 with just 10 companies at an aggregate value of £82m, today the market hosts around 850 companies, which have raised over £115bn during that time.

    Nimmo said that one-third of his £1.7bn ASI UK Smaller Companies fund is invested in AIM stocks.

    The manager said part of the reason why AIM has seen this outperformance compared to stocks on the main market is that it is a growth-oriented sector with “a fair amount of internet and cloud computing technology stocks”.

    These stocks have been major beneficiaries from the coronavirus lockdown and have significantly rallied in recent months as people and companies have relied on the resources to continuing working and communicating during the crisis.

    “A lot of these stocks have done really well,” he explained. “AIM is miles ahead and these are big companies as well, £1bn businesses.”


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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    edited September 2020
    continued:

    Nevertheless, it has been a difficult time for the UK stock market, which have continued to lag their international peers having taken longer to lock down when the coronavirus hit and with renewed uncertainty over Brexit.

    Compared to other developed and emerging market peers the UK is trailing in the coronavirus rally.

    However, Nimmo said this is a good time to be moving into UK smaller companies because the market is reaching a “turning point” for the better as it moves into the post-recession recovery phase.

    The UK entered its worst recession on record this year, according to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with GDP falling by 22.1 per cent during the first half of the year, more than double the fall seen in the US.

    However, the ONS data also indicated that the worst may have already passed, with the economy growing by 8.7 per cent in June.

    And if the UK is already in its recovery period then this will be Nimmo’s “turning point” moment for UK smaller companies.

    “In terms of market timing, it isn’t a bad time to invest in smaller companies,” he said. “Smaller companies normally underperform on their way into a downturn and that’s certainly happened over the past two years across the world.

    “It happened in the banking crisis and it happened in – to an extent – with the tech bubble.”

    The fund manager continued: “It’s because they’re on the whole, particularly the more traditional ones, they are more cyclical than large caps.

    “So [they] get hit harder in the pre-turning point phase [but] they actually recover more sharply after the turning point.

    “I’m postulating, but the turning point was actually 19 March this year and we’re past the turning point. So, when the updraft comes smaller companies tend to do better in that phase.”

    However, Nimmo warned that his ASI UK Smaller Companies fund will underperform at certain points in the UK small-caps rally and it will happen during what he calls the “dash for trash” period.

    “There will be at some stage this ‘dash for trash’ phase, where all the most bombed-out companies suddenly start to do well when it’s blatantly obvious that there’s going to be a recovery,” he explained. “It happened in 2009 between March and August.”

    These ‘bombed-out’ companies won’t be found in the ASI UK Smaller Companies fund, said Nimmo, and that’s largely because of Matrix– the asset manager’s proprietary quantitative tool.

    The tool helps Nimmo find the companies with high-quality characteristics operating in growth markets and with positive business momentum.

    Matrix scores and ranks companies based on 13 factors – including quality, earnings growth, momentum and valuation. These factors can help predict share price performance. Each company is then given a score.

    This process steers him away from the low-scoring cyclical companies which are likely to perform well during the ‘dash for trash’ rally.

    In 2009 when this last occurred, Nimmo said his fund lagged the IA UK Smaller Companies benchmark by around 13 per cent, “which under most circumstances [is] a pretty dire result for a fund manager”. Although his fund was up around 32 per cent at the end of that year.

    Nimmo said this isn’t bad news for his fund or its investors because the ‘dash for trash’ is short-lived.

    “Our clients take the view that we rather you provided us with resilience at the difficult markets positions,” he noted, such as during the coronavirus crisis where the fund has held up against its IA UK Smaller Companies peers.

    “And if markets suddenly take off [and] you’re suddenly behind, you’re still ahead in absolute terms and ahead 32 per cent [like in 2009] and that’s a pretty good result,” he said.

     

    Performance of fund vs sector over 5yrs

      


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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    one of the key sectors I have been investing in is REITS
    i.e. commercial property investment trusts

    currently they are massively cheap, and some appear to be extremely good long-term investments, I'm expecting 100% growth in 3-5 years

    Is anyone interested in these? I can provide more info
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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    one of the key sectors I have been investing in is REITS
    i.e. commercial property investment trusts

    currently they are massively cheap, and some appear to be extremely good long-term investments, I'm expecting 100% growth in 3-5 years

    Is anyone interested in these? I can provide more info
    Not something I have really looked into too deeply. In this video from Ben Felix he suggests that buying REITs exposes the investor to the same risk factors as stocks and bonds but with the additional sector specific risk factor that comes with real estate. Performance wise there's not much in it between REITs and stocks, with perhaps REITs beating stock indexes over the longer term.

    My concern with real estate is the impact Covid will have on the future use of real estate. We've already seen large office centric cities like New York face a mass exodus of workers as they work from home and Google now cancelling plans to lease further offices for 2,000 workers in Dublin. It's possibly not yet clear how the use of commercial, property in large cities will pan out post covid so there could be some challenges in that area of the sector.

    Also with many businesses, especially retail and leisure/hotels across the board facing head winds, reductions and closures around the world will put pressure on lettings of commercial property.

    I'm sure long term things will revert to the mean but short term over the next few years there may be some challenges with demand for existing commercial property resulting in reduced rents and so revenues leading to a reduction in new build.

    https://youtu.be/IzK5x3LlsUU




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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    Here's an interesting take on the current stock market volatility we are seeing from Tim Bennet at Killik & Co, it's part 1 of 3.

    September has certainly been a volatile month for stocks with some big 3% swings from day to day at times. Tim suggests that the volatility is going to be around for a while but is not to be feared:

    https://youtu.be/r_3WCslhwlk


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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    edited October 2020
    one of the key sectors I have been investing in is REITS
    i.e. commercial property investment trusts

    currently they are massively cheap, and some appear to be extremely good long-term investments, I'm expecting 100% growth in 3-5 years

    Is anyone interested in these? I can provide more info
    Not something I have really looked into too deeply. In this video from Ben Felix he suggests that buying REITs exposes the investor to the same risk factors as stocks and bonds but with the additional sector specific risk factor that comes with real estate. Performance wise there's not much in it between REITs and stocks, with perhaps REITs beating stock indexes over the longer term.

    My concern with real estate is the impact Covid will have on the future use of real estate. We've already seen large office centric cities like New York face a mass exodus of workers as they work from home and Google now cancelling plans to lease further offices for 2,000 workers in Dublin. It's possibly not yet clear how the use of commercial, property in large cities will pan out post covid so there could be some challenges in that area of the sector.

    Also with many businesses, especially retail and leisure/hotels across the board facing head winds, reductions and closures around the world will put pressure on lettings of commercial property.

    I'm sure long term things will revert to the mean but short term over the next few years there may be some challenges with demand for existing commercial property resulting in reduced rents and so revenues leading to a reduction in new build.

    https://youtu.be/IzK5x3LlsUU



    the thing to worry about is why they're cheap now, the issues you are describing are the ones we were considering in March, investors know about all that. 

    Bear in mind his advice is for North America, and was given in happy normal 2019

    Different REITs have different balances of types of property. For each one you look at the Loan to value with an assumed depreciation in property value

    e.g. If you're buying a REIT that is selling for 75% less than the current market property value minus Loans with a 25% LTV, then it's hard to imagine that the property prices will drop by 75% in a top UK shopping mall for example.

    Some REITs own flagship malls e.g. HMSO

    Some own offices, usually only as part of the portfolio though

    Sometimes it's different locations, e.g. top-notch bits of London SHB, CAPC


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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    This one is at the higher end of LTV, 58%, so is very cheap. It briefly shot up to double the share price last week

    https://uk.advfn.com/stock-market/london/capital-regional-CAL/chart/real-time
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    This one is only 25% LTV, but is less than half price at present:

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    edited October 2020
    REIT portfolio revaluations this year from official auditors have been around 7-10%, and sales of buldings have been at good prices, there does not appear to be any fire sales

    All my comments here on UK REITs btw
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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    This one is only 25% LTV, but is less than half price at present:

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC
    With a cursory glance, I'm not sure I'm seeing this as a worthy bet. Capital & Counties Properties would have made you money between 2011 and 2016 but has been in decline since. If you have been invested for the 10 years you would have made practically nothing. I'm not sure it's a buy and hold for the long term. 

    What are you seeing to convince you that this a good investment?



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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    edited October 2020
    This one is only 25% LTV, but is less than half price at present:

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC
    With a cursory glance, I'm not sure I'm seeing this as a worthy bet. Capital & Counties Properties would have made you money between 2011 and 2016 but has been in decline since. If you have been invested for the 10 years you would have made practically nothing. I'm not sure it's a buy and hold for the long term. 

    What are you seeing to convince you that this a good investment?


    the value of their assets

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC

    Net Tangible Asset Value PS *291.17p

    you need to look at more than just the historical sp graphs, these are not managed funds, they are direct investments.
    Companies can sell off assets, redistribute cash to investors, borrow cash and buy property, make a big profit on an investment, all these can affect share price.

    Also, the last thing I want to do is buy stuff that is at its peak price
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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    edited October 2020
    This one is only 25% LTV, but is less than half price at present:

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC
    With a cursory glance, I'm not sure I'm seeing this as a worthy bet. Capital & Counties Properties would have made you money between 2011 and 2016 but has been in decline since. If you have been invested for the 10 years you would have made practically nothing. I'm not sure it's a buy and hold for the long term. 

    What are you seeing to convince you that this a good investment?


    the value of their assets

    https://uk.advfn.com/p.php?pid=financials&symbol=LSE:CAPC

    Net Tangible Asset Value PS *291.17p

    you need to look at more than just the historical sp graphs, these are not managed funds, they are direct investments.
    Companies can sell off assets, redistribute cash to investors, borrow cash and buy property, make a big profit on an investment, all these can affect share price.

    Also, the last thing I want to do is buy stuff that is at its peak price
    OK, so how does buying REIT make you money if it's not via capital value increase via the share price like a typical company stock? How do you make money? by dividends?


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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13941
    edited October 2020
    Just had a quick read up on how to value a REIT, it appears quite complex. I think I'll stick with simple equity funds, especially as returns are more or less the same over the long term.

    https://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/030304.asp


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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    Just had a quick read up on how to value a REIT, it appears quite complex. I think I'll stick with simple equity funds, especially as returns are more or less the same over the long term.

    https://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/030304.asp
    It's about balancing your investments
    long-term you might have more in REITs as a lower-risk option

    They usually pay good dividends, but only go up slowly in value as property prices go up.
    However, some REITs have been 85%+ lower in price since March
    So in this case, there are big gains to be made if/when the sp rises back to normal for the properties held

    Some REITs have had to seek more funds, HMSO did a massive, dilution RI, they were the most shorting Uk stock before that, 15% or 20% shorted!
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11903
    OK, my shortlist of REITs is:

    DLN
    GPOR
    CAPC
    SHB
    SLI
    BLND
    SUH
    LAND
    CRC
    HMSO
    RLE
    TOWN
    UAI
    SPDI
    NRR
    CAL
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