Savings and Investments thread

Miserableoldgit

10901.
Thank you. 

fat man on a moped

10832 please

Addick Addict

10464

WHAddick

11111 pls

usetobunkin

I have a few pennies in a Marks and Spencer unit trust. 

Have had notifications about it moving away from HSBC  to New York Mellon. 

As the management team, any one in a similar position? And any thoughts on NYM?

Rob7Lee

usetobunkin said:

I have a few pennies in a Marks and Spencer unit trust. 

Have had notifications about it moving away from HSBC  to New York Mellon. 

As the management team, any one in a similar position? And any thoughts on NYM?

BONY M as we used to call them! (not the band but Bank Of New York Mellon), good fund manager, but does depend which fund ........

golfaddick

usetobunkin said:

I have a few pennies in a Marks and Spencer unit trust. 

Have had notifications about it moving away from HSBC  to New York Mellon. 

As the management team, any one in a similar position? And any thoughts on NYM?

BNY Mellon are a decent fund management company,  but as @Rob7Lee says, it all depends on the actual fund & fund manager running it.

What fund is it ?

Boom

golfaddick said:

usetobunkin said:

I have a few pennies in a Marks and Spencer unit trust. 

Have had notifications about it moving away from HSBC  to New York Mellon. 

As the management team, any one in a similar position? And any thoughts on NYM?

BNY Mellon are a decent fund management company,  but as @Rob7Lee says, it all depends on the actual fund & fund manager running it.

What fund is it ?

BONY Mellon aren’t the new fund managers - just the trustee. The new managers are Isio Investment Solutions.

usetobunkin

Thanks for the info, l am in UK 100 companies. 

I know past performance is no guarantee of future success. 

But I am a not a “savvy “ investor just a Joe Blow with a few pennies to tuck away as my emergency fund. 

So anything that points me in the right direction is greatly appreciated 

PragueAddick

11175 please @Rob7Lee

golfaddick

10897 please

golfaddick

usetobunkin said:

Thanks for the info, l am in UK 100 companies. 

I know past performance is no guarantee of future success. 

But I am a not a “savvy “ investor just a Joe Blow with a few pennies to tuck away as my emergency fund. 

So anything that points me in the right direction is greatly appreciated 

Depends on how much you have invested in it. If less than £10k then leave it there. If more then you might want to look at diversifying. M&S have a couple of other funds & you might want to look at moving half over to their Worldwide Managed fund. At least then you'll have exposure to the US, Europe & Asia rather than just the UK.

But this does not construe advice.....just in case the FCA are reading this 😄.

redman

10,167 

Chaz Hill

PragueAddick said:

11175 please @Rob7Lee

Looks like you could be onto something Prague. FTSE on the climb at the moment 😉

blackpool72

Chaz Hill said:

PragueAddick said:

11175 please @Rob7Lee

Looks like you could be onto something Prague. FTSE on the climb at the moment 😉

The Orange man will soon sort that.

IdleHans

I'm not sure why so many made their guesses so early. I'm keeping my powder dry until tomorrow

robinofottershaw

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

Interesting debate on here over the last few pages and no easy answers.

I know my wife and I would be regarded as being amongst those who politicians like to term as having the broadest shoulders. I appreciate we are fortunate but not necessarily lucky. It required decades of hard work, long hours and sacrifices on the part of both of us, and also making sensible career decisions. 

I absolutely agree with a progressive taxation system, the need for welfare and benefits to provide a safety net for those most in need. I also agree with the principal of a free at the point of service NHS, but I think that increasingly looks problematic. Successive governments have poured billions of extra pounds into the NHS but despite the efforts of brilliant doctors and nurses, it appears that is never enough. 

We have sons in their 30s and 40s who are equally hard working but haven’t necessarily gone into high paying careers, have working partners, are paying mortgages and bringing up our grandchildren. So I do worry about how the next few years will pan out and impact them in the current UK environment. 

Clearly we need to get to grips with our pathetic rate of growth and productivity in this country and need to attract more private investment. As someone said, at the end of the day, it’s primarily the private sector that generates the taxes (be it through corporation tax, VAT, NI or their own employee income taxes/NI) that provides the money the government has to play with it (and no I haven’t forgotten that public sector workers have to pay tax and NI).

I am afraid it is not as simple as adding supplemental tax rates on specific industries or service sectors. Multinational corporations will always have a portfolio of investment proposals to consider over a number of countries and they will make their decisions based on the best economics. My former employers have just announced the impending closure of a UK plant citing a lack of a competitive future for the site due to the UK’s economic and policy environment.

Similarly private entrepreneurs will take their money elsewhere once they start to see a tipping point, so the frequent references to potential wealth taxes are not helping the UK. I read an article last week that named 8 billionaires that had either departed the UK in the last year, or who had announced their imminent departure. My wife is aware of 2 senior execs from the UK FTSE 100 company she used to work for who have suddenly felt it important that they relocate from their London HQ to the UAE because their Middle East operations are becomingly more important.

On the welfare side, we have to be realistic about what can be afforded in a low growth environment. There must be efficiencies. I am certainly not saying we want Elon Musk to be brought in but I have a concern it will be difficult for the public service to self-regulate with regards to efficiencies. That would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Just as an aside I read an article that said the COVID enquiry is likely to cost in excess of £200 million - has anyone done a cost benefit analysis?

I don’t have the answers, but I am afraid political dogma of whichever hue is often the problem when it comes to solutions and when you see politicians squirming to answer questions honestly it just demonstrates why we won’t get out of this easily.

Sorry for the length of this but at least I feel better for adding my two pennies worth.

I get where you are coming from and that has been the messaging over the last 50 years. But, its repeating the same trickle down economics that has failed us for 50 years. Continuing tax breaks and deregulation for the large multinational corporations is what is killing small businesses and the dynamics of our economy. It is the root of our societal inequality. Continuing with the same approach that got us in this mess (or even doubling down on that approach as some want) will not get us out of it. This approach stopped bringing growth in 2008 (Actually well before that but 2008 was its death throes), even when it did bring growth the growth wasnt shared around so only benefited a few. It does not trickle down. Those traditional economic relationships do not hold in the modern world. We need to stop applying economic solutions that were designed for a more traditional economy to a modern economic world.

We already have sector specific schemes for big pharma and digital services. Those companies did not leave the UK or divert investment elsewhere - in fact in the case of the pharma sector until brexit messed up our access to the European market it actually provided an incentive for them to invest in the UK, base their R&D here and other functions as costs were written off against the scheme and so it was the most tax efficient way to invest. Energy companies will not leave the UK and their captive market if we put a similar scheme on them - in fact they will likely invest more in renewables if we make those costs a write off against the scheme. Neither will supermarkets if we put a pricing scheme on essential food items. If we put an operations tax on Starbucks like the digital services tax (still lower than than they should pay in corporation tax) then Starbucks wont leave - and any reduction in offering only leave space for a small independent to fill a gap. We were the world leader on the digital services tax when everyone said it was impossible - we should do the same to any sector meeting those conditions (small number of large companies with oligopoly power making economically excess profits).

There is absolutely the means to do this. We can tackle oligopoly power of these corporations and raise money to reduce the tax burden on small businesses and workers as well as fund public services.

More cash in peoples pockets means due to the Marginal Propensity to Consume that money is more likely to be spent rather than saved or moved abroad, the velocity of money is also higher at the lower end so you're more likely to get the multiplier effect and there you have your much needed growth.

I am afraid unless other countries adopt the same approach you are proposing for the UK, multinationals will, and in some cases, are, prioritising investment away from the UK. I speak from experience. They may not exit completely for various reasons but they will spend elsewhere on new projects where the economics are more attractive. But good luck in the fight against capitalism.

You can say that but in the examples given we did this and they didn't leave, in fact it led to inwards investment. And other countries did follow suit. 

It's not a fight against capitalism because what we are living under is no longer capitalism. Literally none of the main tenets of capitalism still hold, we don't have free markets, we don't have real competition. We are living in a tech oligarchy or monopolism. We have large multinationals and private equity funds picking over the corpse of what used to be a competitive economy and having untold influence over governments and media. We are in a corporate controlled data driven monopoly where artifical scarcity is created in order to drive prices up and extract as much as possible from people before the system collapses.

I can only base my views on personal experience from sitting in global planning meetings with colleagues from the USA and elsewhere, working through the ranking of projected future investment on projects from both a strategic and economics viewpoint. Also now in retirement seeing withdrawal from UK operations with heavy investment elsewhere that have more favorable tax and regulatory regimes.

I have no insight into the pharmaceutical industry other than what I read in the news, but I thought Merck and maybe one of the other big pharma companies had recently cancelled some significant investment in the UK. I think that was due to a combination of a lack of support from the UK and a desire to invest more in the USA due to Trump’s tariff threats. Whatever the reason, it is bad for UK Plc in terms of future jobs and possible future tax revenues. 

I don’t disagree that big corps have undue influence. But the UK needs to compete for their investments, because those investment monies will otherwise go elsewhere.

Anyway, you seem to have more insights than me.

I did say "attracted inward investment until brexit fucked our access to the European market". There have been recent moves away from the UK as a a result of that. But those companies do still operate here and as a result of moving that investment abroad will actually pay back more to the government under the medicines pricing schemes as they can no longer write off those costs. Tax can be an incentive to invest.

Its the same way that tech companies kicked off about the digital services tax. But pulling out of the market would cost way more so whilst they will campaign against it ultimately they're still here their data warehouses and facilities still exist and employ people and tax is raised. 

I am simply saying in sectors like energy those companies aren't going to leave if we put a similar pricing scheme on them. They have a captive market for an essential good. If we make any investment they make in renewables or renewable enabling infrastructure a write off against the scheme then it could be a major boost to investment. 

Similarly supermarkets aren't going to leave if we put a pricing scheme on essential food items. Again captive audience and they will still make economically excess profits on everything else they sell.

Just a footnote to this debate from several months ago. I see BP have today announced their intended exit from the North Sea after 60 years involvement in offshore oil and gas production, saying that it reflects its disciplined approach to capital allocation. That is, they will invest elsewhere with lower taxes and more incentives.

The same decision made by my former employees after a similar period in the North Sea, with capital investment diverted to the USA, Africa etc.

cantersaddick

robinofottershaw said:

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

cantersaddick said:

robinofottershaw said:

Interesting debate on here over the last few pages and no easy answers.

I know my wife and I would be regarded as being amongst those who politicians like to term as having the broadest shoulders. I appreciate we are fortunate but not necessarily lucky. It required decades of hard work, long hours and sacrifices on the part of both of us, and also making sensible career decisions. 

I absolutely agree with a progressive taxation system, the need for welfare and benefits to provide a safety net for those most in need. I also agree with the principal of a free at the point of service NHS, but I think that increasingly looks problematic. Successive governments have poured billions of extra pounds into the NHS but despite the efforts of brilliant doctors and nurses, it appears that is never enough. 

We have sons in their 30s and 40s who are equally hard working but haven’t necessarily gone into high paying careers, have working partners, are paying mortgages and bringing up our grandchildren. So I do worry about how the next few years will pan out and impact them in the current UK environment. 

Clearly we need to get to grips with our pathetic rate of growth and productivity in this country and need to attract more private investment. As someone said, at the end of the day, it’s primarily the private sector that generates the taxes (be it through corporation tax, VAT, NI or their own employee income taxes/NI) that provides the money the government has to play with it (and no I haven’t forgotten that public sector workers have to pay tax and NI).

I am afraid it is not as simple as adding supplemental tax rates on specific industries or service sectors. Multinational corporations will always have a portfolio of investment proposals to consider over a number of countries and they will make their decisions based on the best economics. My former employers have just announced the impending closure of a UK plant citing a lack of a competitive future for the site due to the UK’s economic and policy environment.

Similarly private entrepreneurs will take their money elsewhere once they start to see a tipping point, so the frequent references to potential wealth taxes are not helping the UK. I read an article last week that named 8 billionaires that had either departed the UK in the last year, or who had announced their imminent departure. My wife is aware of 2 senior execs from the UK FTSE 100 company she used to work for who have suddenly felt it important that they relocate from their London HQ to the UAE because their Middle East operations are becomingly more important.

On the welfare side, we have to be realistic about what can be afforded in a low growth environment. There must be efficiencies. I am certainly not saying we want Elon Musk to be brought in but I have a concern it will be difficult for the public service to self-regulate with regards to efficiencies. That would be like turkeys voting for Christmas. Just as an aside I read an article that said the COVID enquiry is likely to cost in excess of £200 million - has anyone done a cost benefit analysis?

I don’t have the answers, but I am afraid political dogma of whichever hue is often the problem when it comes to solutions and when you see politicians squirming to answer questions honestly it just demonstrates why we won’t get out of this easily.

Sorry for the length of this but at least I feel better for adding my two pennies worth.

I get where you are coming from and that has been the messaging over the last 50 years. But, its repeating the same trickle down economics that has failed us for 50 years. Continuing tax breaks and deregulation for the large multinational corporations is what is killing small businesses and the dynamics of our economy. It is the root of our societal inequality. Continuing with the same approach that got us in this mess (or even doubling down on that approach as some want) will not get us out of it. This approach stopped bringing growth in 2008 (Actually well before that but 2008 was its death throes), even when it did bring growth the growth wasnt shared around so only benefited a few. It does not trickle down. Those traditional economic relationships do not hold in the modern world. We need to stop applying economic solutions that were designed for a more traditional economy to a modern economic world.

We already have sector specific schemes for big pharma and digital services. Those companies did not leave the UK or divert investment elsewhere - in fact in the case of the pharma sector until brexit messed up our access to the European market it actually provided an incentive for them to invest in the UK, base their R&D here and other functions as costs were written off against the scheme and so it was the most tax efficient way to invest. Energy companies will not leave the UK and their captive market if we put a similar scheme on them - in fact they will likely invest more in renewables if we make those costs a write off against the scheme. Neither will supermarkets if we put a pricing scheme on essential food items. If we put an operations tax on Starbucks like the digital services tax (still lower than than they should pay in corporation tax) then Starbucks wont leave - and any reduction in offering only leave space for a small independent to fill a gap. We were the world leader on the digital services tax when everyone said it was impossible - we should do the same to any sector meeting those conditions (small number of large companies with oligopoly power making economically excess profits).

There is absolutely the means to do this. We can tackle oligopoly power of these corporations and raise money to reduce the tax burden on small businesses and workers as well as fund public services.

More cash in peoples pockets means due to the Marginal Propensity to Consume that money is more likely to be spent rather than saved or moved abroad, the velocity of money is also higher at the lower end so you're more likely to get the multiplier effect and there you have your much needed growth.

I am afraid unless other countries adopt the same approach you are proposing for the UK, multinationals will, and in some cases, are, prioritising investment away from the UK. I speak from experience. They may not exit completely for various reasons but they will spend elsewhere on new projects where the economics are more attractive. But good luck in the fight against capitalism.

You can say that but in the examples given we did this and they didn't leave, in fact it led to inwards investment. And other countries did follow suit. 

It's not a fight against capitalism because what we are living under is no longer capitalism. Literally none of the main tenets of capitalism still hold, we don't have free markets, we don't have real competition. We are living in a tech oligarchy or monopolism. We have large multinationals and private equity funds picking over the corpse of what used to be a competitive economy and having untold influence over governments and media. We are in a corporate controlled data driven monopoly where artifical scarcity is created in order to drive prices up and extract as much as possible from people before the system collapses.

I can only base my views on personal experience from sitting in global planning meetings with colleagues from the USA and elsewhere, working through the ranking of projected future investment on projects from both a strategic and economics viewpoint. Also now in retirement seeing withdrawal from UK operations with heavy investment elsewhere that have more favorable tax and regulatory regimes.

I have no insight into the pharmaceutical industry other than what I read in the news, but I thought Merck and maybe one of the other big pharma companies had recently cancelled some significant investment in the UK. I think that was due to a combination of a lack of support from the UK and a desire to invest more in the USA due to Trump’s tariff threats. Whatever the reason, it is bad for UK Plc in terms of future jobs and possible future tax revenues. 

I don’t disagree that big corps have undue influence. But the UK needs to compete for their investments, because those investment monies will otherwise go elsewhere.

Anyway, you seem to have more insights than me.

I did say "attracted inward investment until brexit fucked our access to the European market". There have been recent moves away from the UK as a a result of that. But those companies do still operate here and as a result of moving that investment abroad will actually pay back more to the government under the medicines pricing schemes as they can no longer write off those costs. Tax can be an incentive to invest.

Its the same way that tech companies kicked off about the digital services tax. But pulling out of the market would cost way more so whilst they will campaign against it ultimately they're still here their data warehouses and facilities still exist and employ people and tax is raised. 

I am simply saying in sectors like energy those companies aren't going to leave if we put a similar pricing scheme on them. They have a captive market for an essential good. If we make any investment they make in renewables or renewable enabling infrastructure a write off against the scheme then it could be a major boost to investment. 

Similarly supermarkets aren't going to leave if we put a pricing scheme on essential food items. Again captive audience and they will still make economically excess profits on everything else they sell.

Just a footnote to this debate from several months ago. I see BP have today announced their intended exit from the North Sea after 60 years involvement in offshore oil and gas production, saying that it reflects its disciplined approach to capital allocation. That is, they will invest elsewhere with lower taxes and more incentives.

The same decision made by my former employees after a similar period in the North Sea, with capital investment diverted to the USA, Africa etc.

Thats slightly seperate to the point I was making around energy suppliers operating in the UK as opposed to energy producers. They have to be treated as seperate sectors because they are, even with a lot of vertical integration in the industry. As part of the same announcement BP are saying they are continuing to expand their UK supplier business. 

My point was very much about the supplier side of energy not the production side. i.e. an energy supplier isnt going to exit a captive market due to say a windfall tax. because even with the windfall tax the UK energy supply side is one of the most profitable in the world. 

On the production side I don't think its about Tax its about viability. At the High court appeal about opening up Rosebank and Jackdaw (new oil fields in the north sea) both the HMT lawyers and the oil companies laywers agreed that it would be net tax negative to the exchecquer because of the tax breaks and subsidies that would be needed to make drilling these fields viable. The current offer on top of the existing tax breaks includes an exemption from the windfall tax, subsidised capital costs and subsidies speculative drilling until the oil is found. All for 27 full time UK jobs. Its because its a declining basin that has been extracted from for half a centuary - whats left is much less economically viable and harder to find and extract - so requires subsidies and tax breaks. Choosing to invest capital in other parts of the world is a reaction to that, not a reaction to not enough tax breaks and subsidies.

https://www.upliftuk.org/post/rosebank-private-profit-public-risk

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/17/jackdaw-gasfield-north-sea-drilling-andy-burnham

golfaddick

IdleHans said:

I'm not sure why so many made their guesses so early. I'm keeping my powder dry until tomorrow

I was thinking about changing my guess as the Index had been going up this week, although it has a habit of starting high at 8am & falling away during the day. 

Almost got to 11,000 this morning but now at 10920. 

TelMc32

 11,200 please Rob 

golfaddick

TelMc32 said:

 11,200 please Rob 

Might want to rethink that figure 🙂

Market turned tail at lunchtime & finished today down 0.2% at 10875, having been at 10,980 this morning.

thecat

10855 please 

IdleHans

11230 please

StrikerFirmani

11024  Please.

TelMc32

golfaddick said:

TelMc32 said:

 11,200 please Rob 

Might want to rethink that figure 🙂

Market turned tail at lunchtime & finished today down 0.2% at 10875, having been at 10,980 this morning.

Saving this post for New Year’s Eve  😉

Fortune 82nd Minute

11,215 please

The Santa Rally will come into play this year!

ThreadKiller

11017

Huskaris

11,649 please!

IdleHans

Huskaris said:

11,649 please!

Sorry, Huskaris, deadline was yesterday. 

guinnessaddick

Two Premium Bonds holders from Kent and Hampshire & Isle of Wight are celebrating an unforgettable August after each winning the £1 million Premium Bonds jackpot.