Standard Life Shares

Yorkshireman_3

ReportInvestor wrote:

Opened up at 251p but slipped to 246 to sell by 9.12 am against the FTSE trend .

But rescue to close at 252p by a surging FTSE that closed up 2% (compared to up 1.2% for Standard Life).

Onward and upward we investers in SL have faith --- its off to £3 at least -- hold on to ur hats

ReportInvestor

In the middle of trading @ 249p there was a large sale @ 244p before it immediately jumped back up to 249p. I wonder if that wasn't good old Computershare offloading Tuesday's aggregated postal sales for the last half week?

25-Jul-06
10:55:56
244p
759,184 shares
£1.852M value

If so, this would be another reason for dealing by the internet (as well as the 50% saving on dealing costs compared to the telephone route - which also could include a delay on a premium rate number ).

And the internet is also far better than by post, as you have absolutely no idea of the price you will deal at by post since the deal will occur up to 5 days after you post your instructions . And that's quite apart from any possibility of Computershare dealing for you at a discount to the prevailing price because they are having to place a mega collective deal twice a week.

BUT TAKE CARE ON THE INTERNET

If you are dealing by the internet @ https://www.computershare.com from your Standard Life share account then when entering your details take care with the following:

The peculiar letter/sign immediately to the left of your shareholder reference number is actually a capital I. (Most investors have failed to interpret this .) That capital I is part of your shareholder reference number.
And remember to include a space in the postcode.

Apparently, either failure to include the I or missing a space in your postcode can get you locked out of your account, at which point you have to phone a dreaded premium rate number to put it right - and, more important, you lose control of your investment temporarily.

EdInvestor

BTW, I'd just like to assure Moneysavers that investing in shares through a normal (discount) broker is nothing like this palaver we are having to go through at Computershare :mad:.Indeed it is usually made as simple and easy as possible (simpler, for instance, than online banking).:)

Of course it's not in Standard Life's interest (at present) for people to sell their shares, so that might be why they have forced everyone to use the apparently incompetent and expensive Computershare ( which no-one would EVER choose as their broker if they actually had a choice) .

They might also be trying to suggest to people that direct investment in shares is too complicated for mug punters ( ie us) and best left to the professionals ( ie them) who can manage all this stuff ( and charge us for doing so).

Such an approach would be typical, I think we can all agree.

ReportInvestor

Gorgeous_George wrote:

the price seems to rise when volumes increase. Does that have any significance?

If the price was going down, I suspect there would be a mirror image of volume = movement but in the opposite direction .

You've obviously looked at inter-day prices more closely than me. The day to day price & volume table is as follows:

Date......Opening...High.....Low.....Close....Volume

24-Jul-06 251.50 252.00 243.75 252.00 12,994,607
21-Jul-06 251.00 254.25 247.00 249.00 110,550,040
20-Jul-06 244.50 251.00 241.00 250.75 32,109,240
19-Jul-06 243.50 243.50 238.25 243.25 10,697,369
18-Jul-06 240.25 242.00 237.25 240.50 15,409,962
17-Jul-06 241.00 241.00 235.75 240.25 11,756,178
14-Jul-06 240.50 241.00 238.00 239.00 18,226,816
13-Jul-06 251.00 251.00 241.00 241.00 23,501,236
12-Jul-06 241.75 249.00 241.75 249.00 34,237,304
11-Jul-06 243.00 244.00 238.75 240.00 47,202,876
10-Jul-06 245.00 245.00 239.00 242.50 171,420,224

I think that Friday 21st July was interesting. Why such a massive increase in volume? It was a Computershare mass postal dealing day, but Tuesday 25th July is also a Computershare mass postal dealing day but at 4.30 we've yet to see 10m shares traded. [In fact a late surge took the volume up to over £15m but on a set dealing day, early on, that's still low.]

So was Friday 21st when the mass of "doubting Thomas" individual shareholders finally got round to selling - or was it an institutionally active day?

IMHO the important thing is that the price held up in spite of 110m shares traded.

That suggests that institutional demand for the shares may not have been sated.

And by now, private shareholder selling activity may possibly decline as inertia sets in - helped by this positive share price .

2 million+ shares were bought in 2 trades after 4.30 @ 250p . I think we can safely assume that there was late institutional demand.

It was Mr. Red Braces himself who was the only person to vaguely suggest £3 as a possibility. If it happens I shall respect Justin Urqhart-Stewart a lot more than ever before.

Reuters - FTSE closes positive as some analysts are confident about future trends

mariegriffiths

klondyke wrote:

I didn't have the energy to call them again today - but I had emailed them several days ago and had given up hope of a reply. Response came this pm - they will be sending certificate.

Yippee

Who did you email?
I have written to them and recived no response. :-(

klondyke

mariegriffiths wrote:

Who did you email?
I have written to them and recived no response. :-(

web.queries@computershare.co.uk

Pizza_Man

I sold on day of issue. Don't really want to monitor SL's share price. No idea whether stock market will suffer with oil prices / middle east tensions.

Anyone know what tax implications are for this initial sale? Is CGT the full value of the shares (it's all gain I suppose) or zero since there was no increase once owned. In the latter case would the sale proceeds count as "income" for tax purposes?

I'm a bit confused. I called three IR helplines who couldn't help. C'est la vie.

Insights much appreciated.

(I have a SL endowment which has performed badly and am thinking of selling that too, (now I've got the share allocation) I think there are better investments out there!).

ReportInvestor

Your capital gain = the full value of the sale as you acquired the shares for £0.

Usually within most people's annual £8.5K allowance.

klondyke

CGT is based on the profit (gain), so for free shares, it would be full value, less costs of selling, and any others, gain on price paid, less buying/selling costs.

However, you have an annual CGT allowance of £8000, so unless your profit exceeds that, the dosh is all yours.

klondyke

ReportInvestor wrote:

Your capital gain = the full value of the sale as you acquired the shares for £0.

Usually within most people's annual £8.5K allowance.

Sorry, cross posted but I stand corrected on CG allowance now being £8.5k