Royal Dutch Shell shares.

itwasntme001

Thrugelmir wrote: »

It's representative of a more general view. Oil has far more uses than many seem to realise. Tomorrow's survivors will need to embrace the new industrial revolution. Consumers and businessess voting with their wallets can soon put a company out of business. Companies need constant revenue to survive. No revenue. No cash generation.

The world still requires oil. It is the backbone of the global economy. Shell also realizes it needs to be more carbon conscious and is investing into new businesses with this in mind.

AnotherJoe

anotherbob wrote: »

Thank you for your response.
I don't need the income from the shares, it usually goes into a Nationwide savings account into which I also pay a regular monthly amount from my (and my wife's) pension income. I use this to help my children, and their children, with occasional crises.
My concern over the RDS shares was twofold; first that they might imminently lose value, and second that my wife and I would like to minimize our contribution to the climate crisis. If we could do this by selling RDS and buying into something less "oily" that would be good, provided we would not be any worse off as a result. Cake & Eat it?

Well, yeh, that would be why we are in the mess we currently are in, would it not?

Sort out what it is you want to do, and then go forward on that basis. I personally dont believe that Shell et al have a future, but heck Ive made bad calls before or been 10 years too soon, so I wont give any suggestions here what to replace it with.

bowlhead99

itwasntme001 wrote: »

But didn't you invest in WPCT - pretty risky way to make capital gains is it not?

Well, I have several tens of investments with exposure to thousands of underlying companies, various world governments and other mainstream and niche asset classes, and I understand more than most, about most of it.

The fact that sometimes I will buy higher risk investments within my broad portfolio is neither here nor there really. I wouldn't suggest to Bob that he hold only one investment outside his pension, even if the market currently thinks the company is worth £200 billion. They may think only £150 billion, or less,
within the coming years, so the fact that the dividend is currently quite good (part of which relates to the fact that US dollars are worth a lot of pounds at the moment) is not necessarily enough compensation to put all your eggs in one basket.

anotherbob wrote: »

If we could do this by selling RDS and buying into something less "oily" that would be good, provided we would not be any worse off as a result. Cake & Eat it?

You wouldn't be any 'worse off' just because you exchanged an asset worth (say) £12,000 for another asset worth £12,000. You still have £12000 of assets.

What might happen is that the new investment might give you a lower level of ongoing income, but it may grow more in capital value, giving the same overall total return over the long term. If the £12000 goes up, there's more to help the children through their next crises, and the overall risk would reduce through diversification. Obviously whether the investment is something you consider more or less 'climate friendly' touches on personal ethics.

anotherbob

bowlhead99 wrote: »

You wouldn't be any 'worse off' just because you exchanged an asset worth (say) £12,000 for another asset worth £12,000. You still have £12000 of assets.

What might happen is that the new investment might give you a lower level of ongoing income, but it may grow more in capital value, giving the same overall total return over the long term. If the £12000 goes up, there's more to help the children through their next crises, and the overall risk would reduce through diversification. Obviously whether the investment is something you consider more or less 'climate friendly' touches on personal ethics.

Thanks for that. I believe my question is answered.

Thrugelmir

itwasntme001 wrote: »

The world still requires oil. It is the backbone of the global economy. Shell also realizes it needs to be more carbon conscious and is investing into new businesses with this in mind.

Current forecasts suggest that the world will still be using oil, coal and gas in 50 years time. Even if the objective of the zero emissions target has been met.

Thrugelmir

AnotherJoe wrote: »

I personally dont believe that Shell et al have a future, but heck Ive made bad calls before or been 10 years too soon, so I wont give any suggestions here what to replace it with.

No requirement for gas to heat your home?

capital0ne

itwasntme001 wrote: »

I would not believe what Carney says - he seems to come out with all sorts of rubbish.

Isn't he leaving soon? :beer:

brewerdave

itwasntme001 wrote: »

OP - did your parents give you a reason or strategy as to why they held the shares? There may be a very good reason to continue holding e.g. maybe one of your parents worked in energy or an asset manager so is clued up about investments.
.

I would suspect that they were obtained when RDS bought up the remnant of BG plc - we certainly got ours thru that route -all that was left of the "tell Sid" campaigns of the late 80s:)

Apodemus

Thrugelmir wrote: »

No requirement for gas to heat your home?

There is, of course, quite a lot of debate at the moment over whether fossil-fuel gas has a future, whether domestic heating should all be electric or whether it is possible to move all the current gas supply over to either biogas or piped hydrogen. There is pressure to stop new houses being designed around gas central heating and move everything over to electric heating. A few new off-gas-grid developments are already being built around dedicated biogas supplies and although there has been very little take-up of district heating systems these work well elsewhere.

I’m still heating the house with kerosene but sooner or later the boiler will need replacing and knowing which way to go is really difficult at the moment in a no-gas area (I may opt for a wood-chip or pellet system).

...and I, too enjoy my RDSB dividends and unlikely to sell any time soon!

C_Mababejive

This is an issue which has been troubling me in recent years for i have a significant holding in RDSB much of which came due to the purchase of BG. I fully realise that conventional wisdom says dont hold big wads in one asset and yet it is such a mega company that keeps churning out dividends reliably. It also trades in a global economic necessity. Of course RDSB has been diversifying hence the purchase of BG and also its interests in developing other streams.


For me though one of the things that brings it home to me is something as simple as running a comparison chart.

Over on HL if i run a comparison with say, RDSB, CTY, HSBC Global strat balanced Acc and finally HSBC FTSE All world index Acc we can see that the cumulative performance over five years for example stacks up as;

RDSB 36.57%
CTY 43.59%

HSBC Gbl strat balanced 54.02%

HSBC all world index 84.91%

So faced with this,why would tyou want to hold a huge wad in RDSB when you can be widely diversified?

I am actually pointing this remark at myself here also !

There may also be other implications.

At a persons particular point in life, they may not want to receive big fat divis courtesy of RDSB because it has tax implications and it may be more prudent to hold the diversified funds instead?

As i say, im learning so if im talking rubbish please correct me..