Credit deflation and the reflation cycle to come (part 2)

[MrXxxx]

23 hours ago, AWW said:

For some reason, it seems to be verboten in mainstream circles to describe those killed by Covid-19 as "weak",

WLM!

[Napoleon Dynamite]

19 hours ago, Harley said:

Just mentioned this to someone who is more in the know and thinks yours is the main model going forward (maybe those days per month though), lunch option included.  Also suggested more (medically managed) boot camps for the younger entrants to enable them to organisationally and cukturally align as well as career network.  Remember the old Arthur Andersen boot camps in the US for its new grads?

Place I work for has told us similar.  ~4000 office based employees in a financial firm.

Boss said that even when/if covid has gone it's a permanent change going forward. We can do pretty much everything remote, productivity's not been affected, most people like it and there's the potential for large savings on overheads.

A future where we're in the office two or three days a month.

[wherebee]

31 minutes ago, Napoleon Dynamite said:

Place I work for has told us similar.  ~4000 office based employees in a financial firm.

Boss said that even when/if covid has gone it's a permanent change going forward. We can do pretty much everything remote, productivity's not been affected, most people like it and there's the potential for large savings on overheads.

A future where we're in the office two or three days a month.

The challenge is recruitment of new people you don't see daily.  Although I think even then, remote management techniques will be supercharged, and the benefits in terms of costs from no huge offices to rent will outweigh the negatives.  Plus, sick rates should go through the floor.  No more commutes to get infections booming.

[Harley]

10 hours ago, Eventually Right said:

Anybody else holding silver Britannia's and worried that their exemption from CGT will be lost, after the review is done?

Funny I was thinking about this!  A bit worried but more, in terms of impact rather than probability, about the annual allowance and confiscation/regulation.  

My model is a trip into town every few months to sell a coin to live off for which the current allowance x2 is fine.  But those things could impact that.

[The Idiocrat]

2 hours ago, wherebee said:

The challenge is recruitment of new people you don't see daily.  Although I think even then, remote management techniques will be supercharged, and the benefits in terms of costs from no huge offices to rent will outweigh the negatives.  Plus, sick rates should go through the floor.  No more commutes to get infections booming.

Good point. I also wonder what will happen to office politics - there are always those toxic, bitchy people who talk behind people's backs and shit stir about their colleagues. Much more difficult now, although of course not impossible, but the opportunities for a bit of gossip or point-scoring by the coffee machine are now gone. So people can be judged on their work more rather than other people's jealousy and manipulation. He says optimistically (doesn't affect me, I left the corporate world years ago precisely because of the politics).

[CVG]

37 minutes ago, The Idiocrat said:

Good point. I also wonder what will happen to office politics - there are always those toxic, bitchy people who talk behind people's backs and shit stir about their colleagues. Much more difficult now, although of course not impossible, but the opportunities for a bit of gossip or point-scoring by the coffee machine are now gone. So people can be judged on their work more rather than other people's jealousy and manipulation. He says optimistically (doesn't affect me, I left the corporate world years ago precisely because of the politics).

I worked from home for 10 years. I don't think that you'll stop the gossip! However, it should limit some of the wormtongue activity that went on between the office staff and their managers.

[JMD]

5 hours ago, Cattle Prod said:

I've snagged 2 free trees so far this year, it's mad. I got a large silver birch and the neighbour gave me a bottle of wine for doing him a favour! (his quote was lower with the material being left). Maybe no one does manual labour in Surrey, they'd rather pay £45 a bag for it 😅

To atone for my thread derailment, is anyone else in Northern Dynasty minerals? I mentioned it here a while back. Done rather well as a punt, up about 140%, and I was surprised to see Northstar on Twitter mention this morning it had just broken out. Not as under the radar as I assumed.

 

Yes, i bought a small amount. I think you mentioned them around the time i was actively looking to buy a selection of small cap silver and gold miners. Sprott had them as 'uneconomic' end of last year but i wasn't impressed by other Sprott miners ratings so ignored them. Had ND just got a new mine license approval or something? Of course i should have recorded accurately the reasons why i did buy, but if i bought because of your post info., i thank you sir!

[JMD]

23 hours ago, Harley said:

Just mentioned this to someone who is more in the know and thinks yours is the main model going forward (maybe those days per month though), lunch option included.  Also suggested more (medically managed) boot camps for the younger entrants to enable them to organisationally and cukturally align as well as career network.  Remember the old Arthur Andersen boot camps in the US for its new grads?

But didn't they go bust after accounting scandal?, one of the first of the so called 'big 5'. Are you purposely trying to trigger us? 

[leonardratso]

24 minutes ago, JMD said:

But didn't they go bust after accounting scandal?, one of the first of the so called 'big 5'. Are you purposely trying to trigger us? 

EDS was similar, i worked for them long after they ditched this boot camp bullshit, cuckoldry more like, plus i think if you decided you wanted to leave with 5 years then they could charge for all this 'training'.

Outdated rubbish, as you can see those that employed it are long gone and dead, you cant even find EDS on the internet anymore and they were giants in their day.

My mate a couple of years back signed up to some conversion shit, i told him it was shit but he was desperate for a job, he did say they would charge him for training if he left within 2 years, he did they didnt was all hogwash. I had a look through the training, complete balls although yes the courses would have cost him plenty if he did them outside of work, however they were all outdated rubbish with limited certification life and a requirement to renew every 2 or 3 years. Just a scam to be honest.

[Majorpain]

1 hour ago, JMD said:

Yes, i bought a small amount. I think you mentioned them around the time i was actively looking to buy a selection of small cap silver and gold miners. Sprott had them as 'uneconomic' end of last year but i wasn't impressed by other Sprott miners ratings so ignored them. Had ND just got a new mine license approval or something? Of course i should have recorded accurately the reasons why i did buy, but if i bought because of your post info., i thank you sir!

They are about to get environmental approval for the mine, considering you could pick up $1T of resource (current prices) for less than $200m of market it was always going to be on the tasty side if you could get lucky.  

[Castlevania]

1 hour ago, leonardratso said:

EDS was similar, i worked for them long after they ditched this boot camp bullshit, cuckoldry more like, plus i think if you decided you wanted to leave with 5 years then they could charge for all this 'training'.

Outdated rubbish, as you can see those that employed it are long gone and dead, you cant even find EDS on the internet anymore and they were giants in their day.

My mate a couple of years back signed up to some conversion shit, i told him it was shit but he was desperate for a job, he did say they would charge him for training if he left within 2 years, he did they didnt was all hogwash. I had a look through the training, complete balls although yes the courses would have cost him plenty if he did them outside of work, however they were all outdated rubbish with limited certification life and a requirement to renew every 2 or 3 years. Just a scam to be honest.

I thought most of those induction courses were just massive piss ups.

[Eventually Right]

14 hours ago, wherebee said:

well, holding a non documented, non traceable hard asset that you can sell informally with no paper trail.

I can see why you would be worried.... 

Haha, you’re probably right for the small amounts I hold.

my thinking was that if some on here had significant holdings of them (say 500+), and things play out as Durhamborn has suggested, then there might be a short term-say 6 month- window, where they spike from say $200 to $300. 
 

if prices spiked right now, and you were looking to offload a large holding under the present tax system, no probs if HMRC ever come sniffing around.

I figure would be easy to offload a large holding slowly, keeping under HMRC’s radar, but if you wanted to do it in a matter of months, might be more difficult.

[Eventually Right]

5 hours ago, Harley said:

Funny I was thinking about this!  A bit worried but more, in terms of impact rather than probability, about the annual allowance and confiscation/regulation.  

My model is a trip into town every few months to sell a coin to live off for which the current allowance x2 is fine.  But those things could impact that.

I don’t have that much in Britannias tbf, so your model sounds good! 

I’m currently sitting on an (uncrystallised) capital gain from using LEAP options on miners and miner etfs.  Most of them don’t expire for another 18 months, and I was planning on letting them ride, as gold/silver seem likely to keep rising in that time frame.  

But if Rishi might double the amount of tax due of them overnight, at the autumn budget, as some commentators are suggesting, it might be sensible to sell them early. (Appreciate this is very much a 1st world problem btw, I’d just object to paying 40% tax on something high risk, that I’d put already-taxed earnings into, and could easily have gone to zero)

[MrXxxx]

Q. with several parts) :

Where do I find out how much a companies shares are being shorted?

How is it measured? I.e £s, % of NAV etc.

Whats is considered a normal/high value?

Thanks

[DurhamBorn]

17 minutes ago, Eventually Right said:

I don’t have that much in Britannias tbf, so your model sounds good! 

I’m currently sitting on an (uncrystallised) capital gain from using LEAP options on miners and miner etfs.  Most of them don’t expire for another 18 months, and I was planning on letting them ride, as gold/silver seem likely to keep rising in that time frame.  

But if Rishi might double the amount of tax due of them overnight, at the autumn budget, as some commentators are suggesting, it might be sensible to sell them early. (Appreciate this is very much a 1st world problem btw, I’d just object to paying 40% tax on something high risk, that I’d put already-taxed earnings into, and could easily have gone to zero)

Dont worry,i know an Indian fella who can take to Manchester and get 10% under spot.They melt it all down with scrap gold and send to India.

[kibuc]

1 hour ago, Majorpain said:

They are about to get environmental approval for the mine, considering you could pick up $1T of resource (current prices) for less than $200m of market it was always going to be on the tasty side if you could get lucky.  

What's the capex and opex, though? Their corporate presentation is very heavy on resource & production size and veeery thin on costs. 

I'm asking cuz when I see things like "new gas plant on site" and "new 160 mile gas pipeline with under-sea crossing", I usually hide my wallet. 

[BurntBread]

On 17/07/2020 at 12:20, AWW said:

There's an argument that we should absolutely move to a 3-day week. The industrial revolution saw us stop working 14-16 hours, 6 days a week. However the computing and communications revolution has seen us stay on a 40-hour week, but one that includes about 15 hours of useless meetings, [...]

Personally, I think we've pissed away the potential benefits of the computing revolution and, rather than enjoying a lot more spare time, bid up house prices instead.

It's not wholly unprecedented. When I worked in the Netherlands, we had 25 days holiday, then 12 "ADV" days, plus bank holidays (and one extra day if you were over 35, another if over 40, ...).

This is one example where you can see that the Dutch have a slightly closer approximation to democracy than we have here, probably because they have a much longer history of democratic institutions than the UK, dating back to the "water societies" of the middle ages. As an aside, you still obviously have to pay for water services in the Netherlands (to companies which I believe evolved out of these water societies), and the bill I received was striking because it had printed at the top the only sensible company mission statement I have ever read. It said: "Clean water and dry feet".

Back on topic, when I asked about these ADV days, it appeared that they came out of the "polder model" of the 1980's. The rather sketchy explanation I heard was in the big recession, all the unions (the Netherlands gives off a slight whiff of "communism, but done properly") had a word with the government, and eventually were given a choice: The first option was that the recession would run its course, and there would be lots of job losses. Alternatively, if they preferred the second option, there would be 12 extra days of holiday, but for the same pay as before...

[StrugglingMillennial]

Just a quick question for the more experienced traders.

Is a ISA trading account better over a standard one, obviously not having to pay tax is always a winner but is it worth it considering the yearly charge on your account?

Thinking of opening one with Hargreaves Landsdown.

[Eventually Right]

13 minutes ago, StrugglingMillennial said:

Just a quick question for the more experienced traders.

Is a ISA trading account better over a standard one, obviously not having to pay tax is always a winner but is it worth it considering the yearly charge on your account?

Thinking of opening one with Hargreaves Landsdown.

Are there not annual charges on non-ISA trading accounts as well?

It is worth it-especially as they might get rid of the £12k annual CGT free allowance, and up the rate you pay on gains.

HL may not be cheapest stocks and shares ISA though? I use II, but no idea who is cheapest right now.

[Castlevania]

13 minutes ago, StrugglingMillennial said:

Just a quick question for the more experienced traders.

Is a ISA trading account better over a standard one, obviously not having to pay tax is always a winner but is it worth it considering the yearly charge on your account?

Thinking of opening one with Hargreaves Landsdown.

Yes most definitely go down the ISA route

[Castlevania]

1 hour ago, MrXxxx said:

Q. with several parts) :

Where do I find out how much a companies shares are being shorted?

How is it measured? I.e £s, % of NAV etc.

Whats is considered a normal/high value?

Thanks

For U.K. listed stocks https://shorttracker.co.uk 

However it’s collated based on disclosures made to the market. You only need to disclose a short position if you are short more than 3% of the shares in issuance, so is likely to heavily understate the actual amount of shares being shorted.

[Castlevania]

1 hour ago, Eventually Right said:

I don’t have that much in Britannias tbf, so your model sounds good! 

I’m currently sitting on an (uncrystallised) capital gain from using LEAP options on miners and miner etfs.  Most of them don’t expire for another 18 months, and I was planning on letting them ride, as gold/silver seem likely to keep rising in that time frame.  

But if Rishi might double the amount of tax due of them overnight, at the autumn budget, as some commentators are suggesting, it might be sensible to sell them early. (Appreciate this is very much a 1st world problem btw, I’d just object to paying 40% tax on something high risk, that I’d put already-taxed earnings into, and could easily have gone to zero)

Realistically it won’t happen overnight. Changes like this usually start during the next tax year. So invariably you have loads of people crystallising gains before the 5th April and paying up the lower CGT. Net result is that the Treasury collects far more in tax as a one off than they normally would.

[Eventually Right]

7 minutes ago, Castlevania said:

Realistically it won’t happen overnight. Changes like this usually start during the next tax year. So invariably you have loads of people crystallising gains before the 5th April and paying up the lower CGT. Net result is that the Treasury collects far more in tax as a one off than they normally would.

That is my hope, it would be seen as “fairer” by giving people a few months to dispose of their assets at the current rate, whilst giving a short term boost to treasury coffers.

And I’m hoping the chat about equalising PAYE  and CGT rates is just expectation management, so when they halve the yearly allowance, and raise the rate on everything to 30% everyone is relieved, rather than angry.

I still feel it’s a risk though-we're in fairly unprecedented times economically, and by the time of the budget, the scale of the mass unemployment problem may be coming clear, giving Rishi cover to make radical changes.

[Majorpain]

2 hours ago, kibuc said:

What's the capex and opex, though? Their corporate presentation is very heavy on resource & production size and veeery thin on costs. 

I'm asking cuz when I see things like "new gas plant on site" and "new 160 mile gas pipeline with under-sea crossing", I usually hide my wallet. 

Expensive.  But the resource is one of the few big known deposits left on earth, its relatively easy to access and opex should be no problem in an inflationary environment!

I treat it as nothing more than a bet which had paid off, if i can get free shares (like Alexco) and ride it to production/buyout/bust then ill be very happy.

[jamtomorrow]

Obvs gold types like a bit of the old inflation anyway, but rather enjoyed this analogy -