Stocks and shares

padington

Wrong forum I know but I kind of know you lot better over here. Have any of you got any hot tips for the next 12 months ? Where's a good place to sign up to to be notified of new IPO's ? What are you looking forward to being released ? What market trends do you think important to consider ?

I'll be all over uber, if they release. Might like a bit of spotify. Possibly a little Instagram. Kicking myself for not getting Netflix. Think I'll be looking at solely tech companies myself, think it's their time to shine.

With Microsofts new virtual reality around the corner maybe that could be a goer ?

What British companies do you think worth backing ? Is India the next China ?

... And just to make it relevant, do you think your shares will outperform house prices over the next five years ?

All thoughts welcome.

Generali

The best place to get information on upcoming IPOs (assuming you don't have $20k a year to spend on a Bloomberg terminal) is at the various Stock Exchange websites.

From your post it looks to me like you're interested in US tech stocks so this would be a good place to start:

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/activity.aspx?tab=upcoming

If you use a decent broker they may have a service to keep you advised of IPO pipelines. After all, they only make money if you transact and getting you onto IPOs is a cheap way to drive a little extra volume.

China? Hmm. I'd be quite wary of China. At the moment, so many shares are suspended it's hard to call it a market even and if you're investing in individual stocks ('names') then I'd be super careful as there are plenty of companies there that have turned out simply to be vehicles for transferring money from investors to directors.

My favourite Chinese company was Sino Forest. They used to take large investors on due diligence tours and drive them past mile after mile of forest...that they didn't own :rotfl:

There is also a lot of evidence that in EM most of the value of growing companies accrues to owners prior to floating. There should be money to be made investing in China but executing a successful strategy is a different matter.

FWIW, Warren Buffet reckons you should be in the Vanguard S&P500 index tracker.

Apart from that, I like listed infrastructure companies, especially in the US. There is a wall of money that is needed to make good US infrastructure and they are going to have to provide decent returns to attract that money.

And then? London commercial property perhaps? British Land has been an great company for decades and they have some amazing assets you can own a part of.

On the avoid list? Retailers in general, unless they have a really good story to tell. Pubcos have made money for years by ripping off new pub landlords to the industry and there is a huge regulatory/litigation risk there.

TV companies are FUBAR'd. Kids are watching this stuff now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkoIM2y8Opc (SFW)

This bloke puts up 3 videos a day, every day on YouTube and gets easily in excess of a billion viewers a year for commenting on playing Minecraft. If he gets 1/100th of a penny for each view he's doing very nicely indeed.

The kids and teens that watch YouTube and Netflix online are not going to suddenly start watching ITV and Sky when they hit 21. What happened to the newspapers is going to happen to the big TV companies.

I'd also be careful of processed & fast food companies. Again, there's a massive litigation/regulation risk as people get fatter and the calls on Government to 'do something' get ever louder.

Oh, be careful about buying stocks for the yield, that race has been running for quite a long time now and you have to imagine that they'll suffer once (if) the Fed starts to raise rates.

Fixed income? With a third of the market in Government bonds on a negative yield last time I looked (i.e. you pay to lend rather than receiving interest) I'd be very wary about it. Junk bonds might be an interesting side bet if you think, as I do, that the economy is going to get stronger and stronger. Risks remain of course but I think these are looking positive overall.

Sorry about the length of the post. There are just a few thoughts there though.

k12345678

padington wrote: »

Wrong forum I know but I kind of know you lot better over here. Have any of you got any hot tips for the next 12 months ? Where's a good place to sign up to to be notified of new IPO's ? What are you looking forward to being released ? What market trends do you think important to consider ?

I'll be all over uber, if they release. Might like a bit of spotify. Possibly a little Instagram. Kicking myself for not getting Netflix. Think I'll be looking at solely tech companies myself, think it's their time to shine.

With Microsofts new virtual reality around the corner maybe that could be a goer ?

What British companies do you think worth backing ? Is India the next China ?

... And just to make it relevant, do you think your shares will outperform house prices over the next five years ?

All thoughts welcome.

None of the above. All have their potential already priced in. Their ships have sailed.

Mistermeaner

Globally diverse passive trackers for me ala vanguard life strategy or l+g multi.

For a bit of fun Neil woodford offers something a little different.

Personally I would stay away from picking individual shares

chucknorris

ggb1979 wrote: »

Globally diverse passive trackers for me ala vanguard life strategy or l+g multi.

For a bit of fun Neil woodford offers something a little different.

Personally I would stay away from picking individual shares

Same for me, boring trackers only. I don't need or want to take the risk with individual shares.

wotsthat

I buy shares in mature companies with a history of distributing profits as dividends which has been great for a few years now. As per Generali's comments above I do have a worry that future yield will be more expensive to buy although I have no plans to sell current holdings because I wouldn't know what to buy.

The best return I've found is the 40% tax relief on pension contributions so I'm very much focused on my overall contributions - just not sure what to invest them in.

I couldn't tell you the next big thing if you put a gun to my head and I'm quite a poor trader. Probably end up looking at tracker type passive investments with the lowest cost I can find. I'm at a stage where I still very much need to make investment returns but have built a reasonably large portfolio so want to protect what I've already made too.

A bit stuck really.

padington

Anyone know how to get a diverse exposure to the best up and coming tech companies ?

Generali

padington wrote: »

Anyone know how to get a diverse exposure to the best up and coming tech companies ?

Buy shares in a specialist VC group...? No idea which one though.

padington

k12345678 wrote: »

None of the above. All have their potential already priced in. Their ships have sailed.

Really? Uber Have got a poor rep in the UK and hardly anyone I know has tried them but their system is amazing and their cabies love them.

I see uber ads on the buildings come the blade runner future.

Generali

Avoid Gold like the plague BTW, I forgot that bit. Guess what the rest of this graph will look like:



My guess is it's going to trace all the way back down to $500/oz again or thereabouts.

Generali

padington wrote: »

Really? Uber Have got a poor rep in the UK and hardly anyone I know has tried them but their system is amazing and their cabies love them.

I see uber ads on the buildings come the blade runner future.

The cynic in me says that Uber is simply running a large-scale illegal mini-cab service.