Well, the summer has come and gone so a lot to catch up on. I am only just back and in a bit of a daze as yesterday was relaxing by a pool.
I will cover as much as I can in this edition and catch up with stuff I probably missed in the next. I'll try and do the latest stuff first.
I try in the summer not to do much and was away abroad a lot often on iffy wi fi so generally only pressed the button if I really had to.
While I was away Barclays decided to make its website almost completely unusable. I'm sure most of you with Barclays broker accounts are fuming like me.
They were all transferred recently to a new platform. Cue no chance of getting through to customer services.
Many hundreds of angry customers unable to get into their accounts. I managed to get into minebut it takes ages clicking many buttons - the new system is way worse and costs more, thanks!
Those running accounts for others found themselves unable to trade them. I ran three accounts forthe family of a friend who died of cancer and I promised I would take over their ISA accounts. NowI will have to wait weeks for the accounts to be transferred to IG.
Indeed if you want to transfer expect very long waits.
There is total uproar among customers thoughyou would be unlikely to know that. If you wonder why the papers aren't covering it much or puttingout it's "just teething trouble" stories, guess what - Barclays advertises with most of them and theycan't afford to be too critical!
I have sent off my thoughts to the big wigs in which "Piss up" and"Brewery" are mentioned. And some bad words I can't use here.
However it is probably pointless complaining. The call centre staffcould care less and management probably find the complaining annoying interrupting their nicegames of golf.
Sadly we are pretty much helpless. The bigger the company the harder it is to getanywhere. God help us all when amazon eventually becomes the only company left.
I already put my last 2 years of ISA money with IG where you get decent service, a great platform and low costs. Best way to transfer imo is to putthe next lot of ISA money with them. You don't need to spreadbet with them, you can just have a broker account
Go to IG.com/nakedtrader. Scroll down to the bottom click sharedealingaccount then sign up- you can then add an ISA account. Then once Barclays eventually starts to answer callsagain ask for a transfer.
Once you can actually get through I'll be transferring my Barclays isas to IG. Downside is there willbe a long wait due to their incompetence. Upside is once complete I know IG will answer my callsfast or my emails and I love their platform.
The only downside I can see with IG is they don't do stoplosses yet. Though those of you familiar with DMA can place sell orders on larger stocks, prettymuch as good as a stop loss.
Away from incompetence of big companies..
The summer has been a brilliant one for me on the markets.
Look, I know it is annoying! It would be more fun for me to moan about terrible losses but I have had some nice gains and I know it sounds smugand I understand it is irritating to read.
Not sure what to do about it. I will definitely make a big loss on something very soon (perhaps when that North Korean Manchild does something stupid) then you can all have a good laugh and a fun read.
I am even wondering if I should make up some big losses to make it more readable. In the meantime just curse me and delete the site. Maybe that'll make you feel good.
And remember we have loads of crazy pychos in charge of various counties. If something kicks off I can them report heavy losses. Though you may not be able to read it down whatever cave you manage to hide in...
Perhaps on a more serious note the market has done well and a correction can come - make sure you have some kind of exit plan if it happens, we will discuss this a lot with those of you coming to the seminar next Friday. In fact you need an exit plan for every trade.
The main headline over the summer is the bid for Paysafe (LON:PAYS) as I (smugly) forecast.
This was a massive holding for me having held since 171p in the rights issue and I have banked a lot of profit. More in a mo.
Anyway here are more recent buys. I don't see the point of telling you stuff I bought ages ago.
I bought some Paypoint (LON:PAY) which is nothing to do with Paysafe! I thought this one offered some value and indeed it has been as high as 12 quid.
It's got a massive cash pile and growing nicely in Ireland and Romania. There is probably a Paypoint in one of the corner shops near you.
It's a decent business and I wonder whether someone might want to snap this up at a lower valuation and add it into another payments business.
I've bought some Amino (LON:AMO) this week. Came up at a seminar in July and kept an eye on it getting some on weakness.
Lots to like about this one, nice increases in profits forecast, some decent net cash, a good dividend yield and prospects look bright.
Directors have been buying and I bought after shares came off their year high of 220p. I think given a fair wind they should get back there and with a breakout through that then 250 comes into target view.
I also bought Van Elle (LON:VANL) - an engineer which looks a bit undervalued.
It has a strong balance sheet with a tiny net debt. If forecast profits for 2018 are anywhere near right then there could be a 25-30% upside to the shares.
They're the kind of shares that don't do much then suddenly get re-rated.
I also picked up some ITV this week - the shares have been savaged after fears of an advertising slowdown but at this kind of price you do wonder whether the company could get a bid out of the blue, looks like a good time to strike.
I added some more Zytronic (LON:ZYT) - it couldn't manage to get above 600p but may have another go. A nice looking company with a decent cash pile.
Profits are increasing well, and so the dividend. Happy to add and suspect it may become a long-term hold. It does zig zag up and down but the general direction is nicely up.
I also added more NMC (LON:NMC) which has been a massive success and unbelievable just joined the FTSE 100, I wasn't expecting that! I even have some left in an isa I bought in the 500 area so nearly 5x my money there.
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I've shorted Metro Bank . Along with Virgin Money I think these two banks are likely to be hit come any debt crisis. It has opened some very nice branches were others are closing them - but as a business decision not so good. You wonder what's going to happen to this bank if interest rates go up.
Onto sells, as mentioned above Paysafe has made me a fortune and the website too!
This was a massive holding for me having held since 166p in the rights issue and I have banked a lot of profit.
Indeed it is the biggest ever profit in one share banked for the website with a profit of well over £60,000 - and a whole lot more for me personally as I also had some massive spreadbets on it too.
A big slice of the shares were bought only 7-8 months ago, first started buying in late 2015.
It is really nice when a big holding gets the bid - and really it is what my trading is all about, trying to find something someone out there would want to buy. It is always in my mind on buying a share.
So I've sold around 60% of the shares and kept a few just in case of a rival bid. You never know.
Banked the last of the DIA for the site - I made more than £100,000 from this over the years and not sure why I held on to a last few shares bought many years ago. Time to wave goodbye for a final profit of £32,782. (I have kept a tiny amount in my isa as a souvenir)
I sold the high risk Purp as it bashed through target easily banking £4,345. Sadly I sold it too early as it went up another 40p. Possibly might re-enter this potential disruptor. Share shorts were sold - Cake for a profit of £340 and Conviv for a loss of £120. Vec continued to disappoint with one of the main drugs having regulatory problems and have sold most now banking £4,248. While I made a lot on this one over the years could have made a lot more on selling the lot higher up instead of holding on.
Elsewhere over the summer Microgen has burst up - more than doubled quite quickly here. Burford Capital has soared up. Right I have to go to bed for a bit! Be back on the 21st catching up with stuff I may have missed.