Does anyone remember when the UK had an economy worth investing in?

bowlhead99

ElephantBoy57 said:

eskbanker said:

....which was the subject of the most recent of the previous threads linked above.  Do you think that repeatedly airing the same grievance is useful?

There is a different section for post about the economy, he should post over there.

Unfortunately the 'debate house prices and the economy' and 'Moneysavers Arms' pub chat boards were shuttered shortly after lockdown as moderators and board guides didn't have the capacity to deal with all the reported posts and arguments which fill those places when a pandemic has more people bored or lonely stuck at home and wanting to rant.

As MSE said at the time, the closures were "so that we can redirect our limited resources to those who need us most at this time".

Although they also said, "Please do not post content intended for this board elsewhere in the forum", Chris doesn't have a better outlet to moan about how he thinks the UK economy is going to be perpetually in the toilet while the US (the most capitalist country in the developed world with the fewest safety nets for any average-to-unlucky residents) is clearly going to be better at creating world dominating companies so should be the only place for your investments.

There seems to be little in the way of new thinking, just a clamouring to be heard. We did already hear it though, in many of his 80 previous threads over the last couple of years.

Prism

Thrugelmir said:

CreditCardChris said:

Thrugelmir said:

 the hell are they still private?! 

Number of listed companies has been in decline in the Western markets for some time. Companies no longer need to come to market to raise capital, which is their primary function. Easy enough to raise money privately and not have the cost and hassle of everything that goes with a market listing. 

This may seem unfair but it's the only way us normal folk can get in on the growth of these companies. Otherwise all the profit just go into the hands of private investment companies, most of which are always American. 

Quoted private equity companies are one option. There's a number dotted around if one goes looking. As was discussed recently there's investment trusts such as SMT, MERC and HRI (as examples).  Neil Woodford was slated for investing in start-ups . Yet by value he was one of largest single investors in the sector in the UK. US buyers have happily bought the bones for a pittance since his demise. 

Yup, quietly looking at a 77% return since April on my unquoted UK tech companies when I grabbed a chance at a low price. Maybe if Chris wasn't spending his time complaining and went looking for investment options....

thegentleway

If the UK and its economy are worthless and doomed, why do you chose to live here?

Apodemus

Voyager2002 said:

CreditCardChris said:

 Instead of physical Ocado vans driving around in America delivering. Ocado are forced to sell their software because they cannot expand physically because of UK regulation. 
It is notoriously difficult for UK companies to expand abroad because the UK government is generally against this prospect and wants to keep everything in house under lock and key.

Just in case this was serious: the phenomena you describe have NOTHING to do with UK regulation.

Ocado are actually being very sensible in the way they service the North American market. Presumably they have learnt what happened to Tesco when they expanded there (and no, the debacle was nothing to do with our government.)

I think there needs to be a bit of realism on Ocado - its not reaching a lot of UK yet, so perhaps a bit early for it to expect to conquer far-off lands!

Prism

Apodemus said:

Voyager2002 said:

CreditCardChris said:

 Instead of physical Ocado vans driving around in America delivering. Ocado are forced to sell their software because they cannot expand physically because of UK regulation. 
It is notoriously difficult for UK companies to expand abroad because the UK government is generally against this prospect and wants to keep everything in house under lock and key.

Just in case this was serious: the phenomena you describe have NOTHING to do with UK regulation.

Ocado are actually being very sensible in the way they service the North American market. Presumably they have learnt what happened to Tesco when they expanded there (and no, the debacle was nothing to do with our government.)

I think there needs to be a bit of realism on Ocado - its not reaching a lot of UK yet, so perhaps a bit early for it to expect to conquer far-off lands!

Ocado is primarily a software company going forwards. The run the automation and delivery systems for not only themselves but Morrisons and a bunch of other supermarkets around the world. Geography isn't really an issue.

Beeboo23

CreditCardChris said:

grumiofoundation said:

What answers/comments are you looking for that you haven't already been given?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6115092/whats-going-to-happen-to-the-ftse100-when-bp-and-shell-go-bankrupt/p1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6127529/why-do-people-discourage-investing-only-in-the-us-markets/p1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6153922/is-my-portfolio-too-risky/p1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6167099/comparing-the-biggest-us-companies-to-the-biggest-uk-companies/p1

I want the stubborn boomers of this forum to admit the UK economy is a shambles.

I’m a millennial and my UK stocks have been the best performers. Not what I expected but it’s not all doom and gloom. 

Beeboo23

CreditCardChris said:

Blue_Sky said:

CreditCardChris said:

eskbanker said:

Yay, just what this board needed, yet another tedious rehash of all the previous threads about this poster's tiresome obsession with their perception of the UK's economy/market relative to other countries....

As a Brit I was my country to succeed on the economic stage. I want us to start creating "microsofts, amazons, apples, teslas, amds, nvidas, visas, mastercards, paypals (the list is endless) size companies.

When you look at our population size and land area I think we have done fairly well.  Every country with a bigger GDP than ours has a bigger land mass and a bigger population, some of them very much bigger.  Take a look at a list of wealthiest countries and population size.  I would be much more concerned if I was say Russian, how can a country with that size population and land mass with all their natural resources be poorer than little old UK.

We went from a landmass 3.4x the size of America, the largest companies in the world, the strongest currency in the world, the strongest military in the world and the world was falling over themselves to do business here. 

Now look at us, reduced to an island the size Oregon, no tech companies worth mentioning, hardly any innovation or desire to push boundaries in sight, we haven't created a global company in 30 years, our currency has lost 50% of its value against the euro and usd, our military is the weakest in forever and the icing on the cake is nobody wants to come near us with their investment money... Unless they're buying property, which just makes life harder for us citizens.

Tell me again how we're doing fairly well.  

You’ve identified a gap in the market. Why don’t you start a British tech company that will blow tesla and Apple into smithereens. Seeing as you can tell the future it could be some kind of app that lets the user know of the impending doom they’re facing every morning living in such a rubbish country like England.
 Everyone would surely buy it and you could make 1 billion great British pound per minute and rocket Great Britain into its rightful place at the head of the world economy! Then all boomers and millennials and everyone in between would be so grateful and elect credit card Chris as our supreme ruler. I even have an idea for the name of your new trailblazing company. You could blend together the names Chris and Apple...

bowlhead99

Beeboo23 said:

CreditCardChris said:
 no tech companies worth mentioning, hardly any innovation or desire to push boundaries in sight, we haven't created a global company in 30 years, our currency has lost 50% of its value against the euro and usd, our military is the weakest in forever and the icing on the cake is nobody wants to come near us with their investment money... 

 I even have an idea for the name of your new trailblazing company. You could blend together the names Chris and Apple...

To be fair, Chris is sharing the blame - it's not that UK boomers have messed up the glorious colonising done by the Empire, it's simply that with "hardly any innovation or desire to push boundaries in sight, we haven't created a global company in 30 years".

He does say 'we' and takes a share of the blame for not having any innovation, desire or entrepreneurial spirit.  So it would be unfair to label his company as CrAp or Chripple, he is out there every day, gallantly doing the very best he can to contribute to our collective failure as a nation, by investing in a foreign stock index and sitting back doing nothing until it pays him a return.

noClue

lol this is much better than csgo after match chat...

CreditCardChris

dunstonh said:

CreditCardChris said:

Our entire GDP is worth less than two US companies.
Think about that for a second... 

And just think of the scale of the crash that could occur if tech suddenly goes out of fashion.

Not gunna happen I'm afraid, all future industries stem from technology and since America is the master of technology, it seems logical they will dominate in the future sectors too. They're already making great progress with Tesla and SpaceX. 

AI, Robotics, Space mining, Bioengineering etc, all stem from technology and so far America is leading the way. The problem is we don't have the technological drive to build these future sectors. The UK as a country generally has very little interest in creating technology companies, and this is the reason that we'll get left behind in the future sectors.