This is Money Blog

Trading glossary - or how many words are there for price war?

This just dropped in from the guys at Blue Oar Securities.

''How many words,' they ask, ...'are there for ‘price war’?

''Dynamic pricing’, for example, presumably implies reducing (very seldom increasing) prices to see whether one’s customers or competitors react and ‘testing market elasticities’ usually implies the same.   ‘Re-positioning the offer’ means cutting prices and ‘investing in market’ share usually means the same. 

'With this in mind, when referring to trading, we would suggest the following translations could be useful:
 
'‘Strongly ahead’ = more than 0.5% above
‘Ahead’ = between 0% and 0.5% above
‘In line’ = less than 2% below
‘Flat’ and ‘broadly in line’ = around 2% down
‘Somewhat below’ = more than 2% down
‘Mixed’, ‘challenging’, ‘sub-optimal’ and ‘fast-moving’ = bad
‘Developing’ and ‘strategic’ = loss-making
‘Long-term strategic’ = chronically loss-making
‘Investment’ (in the P&L) = a loss
‘Long term investment’ = hopeless loss
‘Confident’, ‘believe’ and ‘consider’ = hope
‘Tough’, ‘difficult’, ‘uncertain’ & ‘challenging’ = awful.'

Any more? Drop your suggestions in the comments box.

Related

Companies reporting today

Broker views

Director dealings

 

My child trust fund selections: An update

I have written several times on this blog* about my child trust fund selections. Once again, I'd reiterate that my choices shouldn't be considered a recommendation. My strategy is fairly high risk (as you can tell from recent, er, volatile performance). I just want to provide food for thought.

* My child trust fund (May 2007)
My child trust fund (Jan 2007)
My child trust fund (May 2006)

First off, here's how child trust funds work:

You are given a £250 voucher to invest on behalf of your baby. You'll get another £250 when they get to seven and there may be a further, as yet unspecified top-up, when they hit their teens. Each payment is £500 for families entitled to full tax credits. Parents, friends or grandparents can invest a further £1,200 a year in total.  So where should you put yours?

You have three choices:
- A savings account (It's not permanent. You can switch between providers as much as you like). Our tables have the best CTF savings rates.

- A 'stakeholder' account. Charges are limited to 1.5% a year and money is invested mainly in shares-based funds with a little bit in 'safer' investments such as bonds. More money is moved into the safer elements towards the end of the 18 years (it works similarly to a pension)

- A shares account. This is not a stakeholder so will probably have higher minimum investment levels but may have lower charges (especially on investment trusts). It's riskier than the other options as you may be able to pick more adventurous funds that deliver higher (or lower) returns.

What I did:
I have a son, aged nearly five, and a daughter, 18 months. For both of them, I wanted to take risks. I also knew that shares have beaten savings accounts over every 18-year period in the past four decades. In fact, you'd struggle to find any 18-year spell in history when deposit accounts came out on top. Past performance is only a guide (albeit a pretty good one) so I took the plunge and invested in two funds via F&C - the F&C Investment Trust and the Witan Pacfic trust.

The F&C Investment Trust spreads your money in shares around the world (but mainly in the UK) and has very low charges because it is so large. More on F&C Investment Trust.

I then wanted to spice up the portfolio. I have longed expected a downturn in western economies, starting 2008-2010 that may last a decade while tiger economies and the developing world step up the pace (read more on my view here and here).

So how is my eldest doing?

The F&C trust has lost 9.4% over three years and is down 21% over the past year. However, it has beaten its rivals - the average fund from the 'global growth' sector has lost 26% in the past year and 21% over three. Fortunately, it's still up 34% over five years. And that's the first point of stock market investing: taking a long-term view tends to pay off. 

Witan Pacific previously had a storming performance but due to a management change, it was no longer a CTF option so I was forced to sell and reinvest in other F&C funds. I opted for the Pacfic Assets trust and the F&C Global Smaller Companies trust, both of which have strong past performance.

Pacific Assets has let me down, losing 42% in a year against a sector average 31%, and 18% in three years. It turned a profit of 17% over five years, which is of little help to my little girl who only began investing 18 months ago. That's the second reality of stock market investing: you may lose a lot of money.

The F&C Global Smaller Companies fund fared better. It lost 18% against an average 26% in a year, or 22% over three years. Over five years, however, it has turned a 51% profit.

So what next? I'm going to keep the faith. Both CTF portfolios are spread around different stock markets of the world, which spreads the risk. Ok, it's little consolation in these turbulent times where all markets fall but the fundamental reasons for originally investing have not changed. I'm going to keep repeating a key Warren Buffett mantra like it's an incantation: 'Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful'.

What you should do:
I am happy to take on risk and monitor my CTFs every couple of months - and to also move the fund into safer investments when my children get close to 18. For parents who are not interested in finance (or who have lives to lead), the best bet is to probably pick a stakeholder that tracks a stock market index. Then you don't need to worry about changing managers affecting performance (it should mirror stock market performance).

For parents who are uber-worried about risk then a savings account would be right for them. To get the most out of this, you will need to keep switching to get the best interest. The best accounts still pay nearly 4%.

Before deciding, you should wade through all the info on this site at thisismoney.co.uk/ctf
Our investment correspondent Philip Scott will shortly write a new update of the full CTF investment market, including winners and losers. And he will ask financial advisers where they are investing for their own children. Alan O'Sullivan, our banking man, will also give an update on the CTF savings market, with analysis on which providers have consistently offered decent rates. It will all be included in our round-up next week.

And finally, try this nice decision diagram from the Government...
http://www.childtrustfund.gov.uk/Documents/toolkit_leaflet/toolkit%20leaflet%20-%20low%20res.pdf

Happy investing.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Outlook for investments in emerging markets

Previous blog posts explained my confidence in emerging markets (and more explained here). Yes, the stock markets of these countries were hammered in 2008, having a rougher ride than the US and Europe in some cases. But this is a long-term game.

I believe favourable demographics in the likes of Mexico and Brazil will make these nations economic leaders in the coming decade.

They do not, like Western economies, face rising costs from ageing populations in coming years.

In fact, a large proportion of Mexico's population will reach the peak earning and spending phase (mid-forties) in the next decade. Add to that a cultural trend for more women to work rather than bring up families and you have the ingredients to support healthy economic growth - and therefore stock market returns.

Like Mexico's (right), Brazil's 'population pyramid' is also favourable. You can look up more than 100 countries on the website of the US Census Bureau (a demographer's dream). Compare pyramids for these Latin American countries with the UK's and you'll see what I mean.

Obviously demographics represent just one element that will decide future fortunes - an article in The Economist magazine last week covered the grittier elements. It's well worth a read...
The outlook for emerging markets

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

How the baby boom will stoke the financial crisis

The flames of the economic crisis don't need fanning. But some basic demographic facts mean the blaze will be stoked for at least 15 years.

Fact: Post-war baby boomers (1945-1965) have begun to reach retirement. There was an initial spike in 1946 but the peak of the boom was around 1964 (see below).

Another fact: Male life expectancy has risen from a little more than 70 in 1980 to 77, and is expected to keep improving.

And one more: Average growth in the population aged over state pensionable age between 1981 to 2007 was less than 1% per year. Between 2006 and 2007 the growth rate was nearly 2%.
Source: ONS

The first male baby boomers will reach pensionable age in 2010. Millions of men and women in their fifties will soon move from their earning and spending peaks to earning nothing and spending far less. They will then claw back their hard-earned taxes through state pensions.

Because of rapidly rising longevity, they will be doing all this for far longer than the generation before. 

And another thing - a nascent recovery in fertility rates since 2000 will mean higher education and child-related state benefits.

Proportionally, there will also be fewer earners paying tax while there will be bigger costs related to an ageing population, such as healthcare.

The multi-billion burden of bank bailouts, mortgage protection schemes and VAT cuts, will seem like a squall compared to the perfect storm demographics will create.

In 2002, I wrote of a theory that predicted a property and stock market collapse would begin in Western economies, such as the US and UK, in 2008. It was based on demographics. It suggests that emerging markets, helped by younger demographics, will flourish. I will revisit the theory in the next few weeks, and look at where else UK investors should spread their money. I have shifted some of my investments into Latin America and Japan, for instance. (More on emerging market prospects)

The demographic timebomb should have been tackled in the Eighties and Nineties. Governments, with a five-year electoral time horizon, failed to do so. Labour has actually exacerbated the problem with massive State jobs expansion, which come with expensive final salary pensions. The future liability of these pensions do not even feature in current public finances. It would be illegal for a company to do that.

Labour has pushed through plans to raise the state pension age to 68, between 2024 and 2046. But it's a bit like tackling a blazing building with a water pistol.

The opportunity was missed to introduce solutions that would make an impact on the problem. Politicians will now be falling over themselves to keep happy the UK's biggest largest demographic - the over-60s.

Generations X and Y will pay higher taxes and might see a long-term fall in living standards. This financial storm is just beginning. 

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Don't miss
- A summary of the financial crisis so far
- A summary of the stock market crash so far
- Beware all predictions and theories (including mine)

Germany vs UK: Gordon Brown’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy

Germany's attack on the UK shows not everyone is a fan of self-proclaimed economic superhero Gordon Brown

There is a certain irony in Gordon Brown’s  announcement that he had ‘saved the world’, arriving on the same day the German finance minister Peer Steinbruck made it clear not everyone is buying into the ‘Brown’ plan.

Prime Minister Brown overstretched himself slightly in the House of Commons on Wednesday when he accidentally claimed: ‘We not only saved the world…’
He swiftly corrected himself to ‘saved the banks…’

Whether this was a simple mistake, or a Freudian slip by a man starting to believe his own hype, the cat was out of the bag and a cracking political gaffe was made. 

Superhero Brown has probably shrugged off the mirth surrounding his bold claim by now, but he will find it harder to distance himself from the Germans’ attack on his economic policy as PM and in his previous ten years as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

To borrow from Monty Python, the gist of the criticism was ‘Brown’s not the messiah, he’s a very naughty boy.’

This attack on Britain’s borrow and spend attempt to dig its way out of a borrow and spend hole, came in an interview with Newsweek magazine, where Germany’s finance minister Peer Steinbruck accused the UK government of ‘crass Keynesianism’.

He said: ‘The speed at which proposals are put together under pressure that don't even pass an economic test is breathtaking and depressing. Our British friends are now cutting their value-added tax. We have no idea how much of that stores will pass on to customers. Are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs £39.10 instead of £39.90? All this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off.’

The firing of this broadside just ahead of an EU summit on an economic stimulus package was no coincidence.

Brown deserves credit for eventually moving into action during the banking crisis and at least standing by a plan, even if it was one simply borrowed from Sweden’s early 1990s problems.

However, his grandstanding since then, as he tries to rebuild his political status, must be wearing thin for economies such as Germany.

The Financial Times points out today: ‘Mr Steinbruck is naturally irritated at calls for a fiscal stimulus that would plunge Germany into the red.
‘These exhortations are especially galling since they are being led by Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister. When he was chancellor of the exchequer, Mr Brown delighted in lecturing European finance ministers on why they should follow his example, even as he turned the fiscal surplus which he had inherited into a structural deficit.’

The blame for the financial crisis is typically laid at the feet of the US sub-prime collapse. But the root of the current economic crisis lies with the financial services industry and until very recently, Brown would proudly boast the London was the financial services capital of the world

Two years ago, in a speech to an enterprise conference as chancellor, he said: ‘I want to congratulate businesses here on their drive, global competitiveness and innovation which have made the City of London alongside New York the leading financial centres of the world.’

Unfortunately, it was this innovation that holed the financial system below the waterline.

To genuinely prudent economies such as Germany, Brown’s reinvention as the man to save the global economy must be like watching him go round breaking windows before announcing he has the best plan for fixing them and could he have some money please.

However, while the Germans are right to prick the UK’s ego, they do need to start spending, as the world stares into the rapidly deepening pit of a harsh recession.

The FT points out that Germany is the world’s largest exporter and is expected to run a current account surplus of 7.3% this year. It built up its riches by selling its high quality goods to economies such as Britain, where demand was fuelled by debt. Now easy credit has dried up, demand for German goods is falling and the country has money to spend.

Germany is right to resist attempts to get it to sign up to a UK-style borrow and spend binge, but it is time for Europe’s giant economy to get a bit less prudent for its own sake and others.

After all, while it provides a great opportunity for schadenfreude, it isn’t much fun being the only rich man in a room full of paupers.

- Simon Lambert, assistant editor, This is Money

- Germany vs the UK: Economies head-to-head

- Should the UK join the euro?

- How much more will your holiday cost

Is this 0.99% mortgage rate the cheapest ever?

Is this the best mortgage rate ever? Lucky borrowers who decided to take out a Cheltenham & Gloucester tracker rate mortgage in September 2007 are paying just 0.99% interest.

With hindsight, this spectacularly low rate from C&G, the mortgage arm of Lloyds TSB, looks like a sign of the pre-crunch times. A two-year tracker rate mortgage at bank rate minus 1.01%, still on offer on 19th September  2007, as the great squeeze rolled into town.

When borrowers took it out they were paying 4.74%, they have now seen the bank rate slashed down to 2% and are paying 0.99% interest.

They would have had to fork out a 2.5% of loan fee, but the rock bottom rate will surely be paying off nicely now.

So, is this the best rate any borrower is paying? Have you got an even lower mortgage rate?

- Simon Lambert, assistant editor, This is Money

- Mortgage lenders prolonging the house price slump

- has your mortgage rate been cut?

Why the commodities super-cycle means my book was worth writing, I hope

This is Money's investing correspondent Philip Scott has written a soon-to-be-released book on commodities. He explains why the commodities super-cyle means the time spent slaving away rather than down the pub will pay off, at least he hopes it will

Writing a book, when you have to do it, in your own time, betwixt all the hours spent here at This is Money, is not a whole lot of fun.

The working week balloons closer to circa 80 hours and, well the less said about what’s left of weekends, the better. Such working hours spent researching and drumming away on a computer keyboard can cause repetitive strain injury, and did. 

I guess the idea of writing a book, being a ‘published author’, must have appealed, at least on some level.  I previously did have my own idea for a book, when I was younger, it involved a boy finding out that he was a wizard and was thrown into a world, where he would eventually lead the battle for good against evil, while simultaneously trying to pass his exams, in all things wizardry. Unfortunately I left the original manuscript in a coffee shop somewhere in Scotland while on a family holiday. Ahem.

The book I have written, entitled; The Commodities Investor - A practical guide to making money from the commodities supercycle, is an entirely different beast altogether.

It is due out in February next year, provided that is, that I can get the final finishing touches, necessary tweaks and what-not, completed and triple-checked in time. As a journalist, I had written a good few articles on the subject matter over recent years.

When I was approached to write the book, I thought to myself, that this will ‘be good for me, a project, a challenge even and it’ll also keep me out of the pub’, which it did, at least around 90% of the time, OK 80%.

The funny thing is that when I started writing in earnest, around late March, the commodities boom was in fifth gear. As 2008 kicked off, both gold and oil reached record highs of $1,000 an ounce and $100 a barrel respectively, and in addition commodities were the best performing asset class of 2007.

From my point of view, this was great, the commodities story was everywhere – front pages were awash with headlines outlining the soaring cost of food as a result of the rocketing cost of agricultural commodities and the price of oil.

But in the back of my mind I felt the boom was reaching bubble proportions and the crunch was really starting to hurt spending. Every asset class has its downturn and commodities are high on the volatility scale.

Oil may have halved in cost since its mid-year high when it was pushing $150 dollars a barrel and gold pulled back significantly too. Other commodities, have also fallen back in value, in some cases significantly, such as in the case of metals. But, as with any investment, commodities must be viewed in the long-term. There is a ‘super cycle’ in the commodities sector, it is being largely driven by the economies of the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China, and their respective thirst for the world’s natural resources.

China has been growing about 10% a year for some time now. It’s a big country, with a massive and rising population. If you think China will grind to a standstill, then investing there and in commodities is not for you. However, the consensus is that China and the other emerging economies of the world will continue to storm ahead, even if they do slow down periodically.

Some experts describe the current state of the commodities super-cycle as suffering from a ‘flat tyre’ and that it will ‘re-emerge to race again.

Chinese growth is slowing but only just, forecasts still anticipate an 8% to 9% GDP rise over the coming two years. In the short-term price fallbacks may be bigger than the market is forecasting but in the medium term the sector could witness a recovery in prices that would make the 2003-2008 commodity boom pale by comparison.

To quote commodity expert Ian Henderson, of JP Morgan Asset Management: ‘Steel is needed to build the new railways, more coking coal is needed to smelt the steel and more energy, whether it be coal, oil or uranium to name a few, is needed to power the railways and the new homes. And all of this has little to do with the relatively short-term effects of credit crunches, recessions and belt tightening around the world as they are largely government mandated projects.’

I agree (but I would say that). I believe that the commodities argument still stands. If you want to know how to invest sensibly in the area, there is a book I can recommend, but it won’t be out until next year - in fact to reserve a copy go to the This is Money Book Shop

-Philip Scott, Investing Correspondent, This is Money

Speed flatmating - the next big thing?

Once you’ve had speed dating, couch surfing and bed dating, what’s next? Well, the next fad you could be hearing about is speed flatmating.

Speed flatmating probably isn’t a craze about to sweep the nation. In fact, its best hope may be to grace a few pub conversations within the M25 and potentially make it into the Sunday papers.

It meshes speed dating with finding a flatmate and involves renters, landlords and flat sharers getting together to knock the lengthy process of finding a new roommate, lodger or tenant on the head while being trendy in a West End bar.

To me this sounds painful. However, a mate who recently spent time looking for a flatshare told me his experiences a while back and they sounded even more painful still.

So, perhaps it is better to settle the questions of what time you get up for work, who uses the shower first and how many pots and pans you have as swiftly as possible with a beer in hand.

And those who’ve taken a rather hefty punt on the London property market may be in need of a lodger about now.

If you fancy a trendy urban flatmate hunt over a few drinks rather than a slow trek round the houses, there’s an event on tonight at Sound in Leicester Square, run by easyroommate.com.

Oh, and just in case this does catch on, remember you heard it here first (possibly).

- Simon Lambert, assistant editor, This is Money

- Buy-to-let tips and advice
- The latest mortgages and homes news

Is property a better investment than gold?

Property investors are on a hiding to nothing according to investment experts. It’s been a pretty turbulent year for just about every asset you can think of and property is deemed to be the big loser by people in the know.

But is bricks and mortar really that bad?

Savers who have put their cash into failed banks have been (rightly) compensated, those who wagered cash on the stock market are given sympathy (although offered no bailout), but buy-to-let has become a dirty word (or phrase) and property investors are often mocked.

Figures suggest however that property investors aren’t necessarily so foolish. Here’s brief glance at the stats for various assets since the turn of the year:

FTSE 100:
- See the latest FTSE data
2 Jan 2008 – 6456.2
27 Oct 2008 – 3852.6
Down 40%

Gold:
- See the latest gold price
Jan 2008 - $840
27 Oct 2008 - $730
Down 13%

Oil:
- See the latest oil price
2 Jan 2008 - $98
27 Oct 2008 - $63
Down 36%

House prices (Halifax):
- See the latest house price reports
Dec 2007 - £197,163
September 2008 (most recent figure) – £172,108
Down 13%

Of course, these figures aren’t really directly comparable. You can’t trade property like you can shares, gold or oil, so you can’t find an up-to-the-minute price – the statistics here are at least a month out-of-date. Furthermore, the falls in the price of shares, oil and gold point to further falls for house prices. And, as the warning goes, ‘past performance is no guarantee of future results’.

On top of this, the crucial difference between investing in property and these other assets is that property requires ongoing spending to maintain it. But, if you have a property that is rented out for more than the mortgage and covers all its own expenses with a little left over, then - on paper - buy-to-let currently looks as defensive an investment as gold.

With figures like these, it’s no surprise that the British public’s faith in bricks and mortar survives a lot longer than their faith in our business, finance and investing experts.

- Simon Lambert, This is Money

Warren Buffett invests... phew

What a relief - Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of our time, has clearly signalled his backing for buying shares now. Writing in the the New York Times yesterday he said he's shifted his own 'personal' portfolio from government bonds into US shares. He's soon to be 100% invested and reminds us again that the market's lowest point nearly always comes before the good news starts to flow. And we're certainly still up to our eyeballs in gloom.

As I said on this blog on Monday, I invested the money I had one the sidelines, inspired by Buffett's old greedy-fearful mantra ringing in my ears. What a delight to see him follow up days later by saying that rule of thumb most definitely applies right now.

I'm not convinced the US is the most promising place to invest (here are my concerns on the US, UK and other developed economies and why I prefer Latin America and Japan) but who am I to start arguing with the Sage of Omaha.

Here is his full letter below - and don't miss the fascinating analysis from readers on the New York Times.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

"The financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds. (This description leaves aside my Berkshire Hathaway holdings, which are all committed to philanthropy.) If prices keep looking attractive, my non-Berkshire net worth will soon be 100 percent in United States equities.

Why?

A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.”

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: “Put your mouth where your money was.” Today my money and my mouth both say equities."

>> Stock market crash 2008: Who predicted it and what next
>> Credit crunch 2008: When will it improve?
>> Financial crisis 2008: How is it affecting interest rates?

- Read a review of a new authorised book on Warren Buffett (and buy it at a discount)