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

[feed]

4 minutes ago, Cattle Prod said:

People mock eBay, but it's a live market. That is the current price of silver in the UK. I sold most of post 2007 stack on eBay, worked perfectly fine. Most done off site once the intitial transaction went well.

I have an ebay sideline. Toys mostly.  It's been a sellers market for months, every time i think prices can't move up anymore, they do. There are a lot of bored people with cash sloshing around and it isn't taking much for a positive feedback loop to hit.   Silver has me utterly baffled though. 

[Starsend]

1 minute ago, Cattle Prod said:

People mock eBay, but it's a live market. That is the current price of silver in the UK. I sold most of post 2007 stack on eBay, worked perfectly fine. Most done off site once the intitial transaction went well.

That's how I was hoping to sell my physical when the time comes. I have rather a lot of it so was hoping to avoid the eye watering final value fees by asking if they wanted to buy more after the initial transaction. From what I've read eBay have got wise to that trick and are very strict about people exchanging phone numbers now.

I used to sell a lot of silver on eBay over a decade ago, the profit margins were good even with the fees. I stopped when they forced you to take PayPal and the number of fraudulent transactions went through the roof.

[Starsend]

2 minutes ago, Cattle Prod said:

I've moved almost entirely to Interactive Brokers, and I have IG for UK stuff I can't access there. HL for ISA and a SIPP through work.

Any issues at all with IG? Is their platform as good as CMC's?

 

Sorry meant any issues with Interactive Brokers?

[feed]

23 hours ago, Cattle Prod said:

There's an account of it in The Prize by Daniel Yergin, recommended read.

8 part mini series is on youtube. Even seems to be Daniel Yergin account.  

 

[Starsend]

Just now, Cattle Prod said:

No issues. I've only used them for options, and it's fun dealing directly with the market. Sometime you are setting the price, like at a market stall in Camden. Platform is old fashioned but seems to have a very strong back end which is more important.

Thanks. I shall give them a try.

[Castlevania]

20 minutes ago, Cattle Prod said:

I saw that, I'd closed my account with them before that happened. Can't remember why, but I didn't like them anymore despite the booze they sent me at Christmas

OGZD is the one I have too fwiw

How much booze?

[sancho panza]

On 31/01/2021 at 21:21, sleepwello'nights said:

I feel really stupid asking this, why doesn't it add up?

Arithmetically I can't get any total or subtotal from the numbers shown in any year. 

Remember I'm not an accoutnant.

Investopediua is good for definitons.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currentassets.asp

Total Assets:4948+398+99+66+148+205+112=5976 (the 398 is from 1378-980=398)

TCL:507+1961+111+440+903=3922 (the payable/accrued line isn't normally filled in on a lot of balance sheets,so I presume it's inclusion is due to some sort of netting off or an accounting method @Castlevania might be able to enlighten us both)

Total Liabilities:3922+897+37+281+206=5343 (the 897 is from 599+298=897)

 

Schiulmberger for example.

[DurhamBorn]

1 hour ago, Starsend said:

That's how I was hoping to sell my physical when the time comes. I have rather a lot of it so was hoping to avoid the eye watering final value fees by asking if they wanted to buy more after the initial transaction. From what I've read eBay have got wise to that trick and are very strict about people exchanging phone numbers now.

I used to sell a lot of silver on eBay over a decade ago, the profit margins were good even with the fees. I stopped when they forced you to take PayPal and the number of fraudulent transactions went through the roof.

Take a photo of your phone number and add it to a message.

[leonardratso]

how about phone numbers as words? or as wingdings font

[sleepwello'nights]

49 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

Remember I'm not an accoutnant.

Investopediua is good for definitons.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/currentassets.asp

Total Assets:4948+398+99+66+148+205+112=5976 (the 398 is from 1378-980=398)

TCL:507+1961+111+440+903=3922 (the payable/accrued line isn't normally filled in on a lot of balance sheets,so I presume it's inclusion is due to some sort of netting off or an accounting method @Castlevania might be able to enlighten us both)

Total Liabilities:3922+897+37+281+206=5343 (the 897 is from 599+298=897)

 

Schiulmberger for example.

Thanks.

I am an accountant. Only a grunt though who went through ensuring the accounts were properly constructed and verifiable, not an investment analyst used to working with the obfuscations used to distort the truth behind the numbers.

You've confirmed the numbers don't add up, you have to work through to construct a proper balance sheet by removing the various numbers included to give information needed to compute various ratios.

A simple example is the fixed asset figure of 398. By showing the cost and accumulated depreciation more information can be deduced than the net value on its own. 

I'm still trying to find out why payable/accrued is shown.

 

[Harley]

2 hours ago, Starsend said:

Thanks. I shall give them a try.

Any questions, feel free to ask.  And you will have questions!

[wherebee]

2 hours ago, Starsend said:

Any issues at all with IG? Is their platform as good as CMC's?

 

Sorry meant any issues with Interactive Brokers?

I use them - they are pretty ropey at times in terms of connectivity; a lot of their system upgrades seem to happen when the US is asleep, which is when I am up, so I lose out.  If you are in the UK, maybe better.

For example, I put a trade in last night to pick up some BP on the US opening.  Went to sleep.  This morning, trade was cancelled for no reason I can see.  Actually served me well as the price dropped a fair bit in the meantime, but it's happened more than once.

Their customer service is also pretty shit in terms of resource availability, although the actual quality of advice is 1st rate in my experience - ONCE you get an operator.

 

[Castlevania]

37 minutes ago, sleepwello'nights said:

Thanks.

I am an accountant. Only a grunt though who went through ensuring the accounts were properly constructed and verifiable, not an investment analyst used to working with the obfuscations used to distort the truth behind the numbers.

You've confirmed the numbers don't add up, you have to work through to construct a proper balance sheet by removing the various numbers included to give information needed to compute various ratios.

A simple example is the fixed asset figure of 398. By showing the cost and accumulated depreciation more information can be deduced than the net value on its own. 

I'm still trying to find out why payable/accrued is shown.

 

Which company’s balance sheet is it? It looks like the website that the above is taken from is incorrectly adding it in.  The notes to the accounts should explain it all. 

[Harley]

38 minutes ago, sleepwello'nights said:

Thanks.

I am an accountant. Only a grunt though who went through ensuring the accounts were properly constructed and verifiable, not an investment analyst used to working with the obfuscations used to distort the truth behind the numbers.

You've confirmed the numbers don't add up, you have to work through to construct a proper balance sheet by removing the various numbers included to give information needed to compute various ratios.

A simple example is the fixed asset figure of 398. By showing the cost and accumulated depreciation more information can be deduced than the net value on its own. 

I'm still trying to find out why payable/accrued is shown.

 

I'll say it again, you'll all go mad.  The main problem is a lack of definitions and bases for calculations.  For example, the 5 year average dividend yield is shown as "NaN" where there are not five years of dividends.  Could be four averaged over five but no, "NaN".  Fair enough (maybe) but nowhere is that explained.  Plus each such source treats some things materially different.  See my past post on cash flow numbers for Investing.com.  They provide a great amount of data but I always cross check with another.

[AWW]

2 hours ago, Starsend said:

That's how I was hoping to sell my physical when the time comes. I have rather a lot of it so was hoping to avoid the eye watering final value fees by asking if they wanted to buy more after the initial transaction. From what I've read eBay have got wise to that trick and are very strict about people exchanging phone numbers now.

I always wait until there's a £1 final value fee offer. You're not allowed to list multiples of the same item, so I list 1x tube, 2x tubes, 3x tubes etc. I've found very few people happy to trade outside eBay - I always include my contact details on a card when I post the coins, but not had much contact from buyers by that method.

[sancho panza]

55 minutes ago, sleepwello'nights said:

Thanks.

I am an accountant. Only a grunt though who went through ensuring the accounts were properly constructed and verifiable, not an investment analyst used to working with the obfuscations used to distort the truth behind the numbers.

You've confirmed the numbers don't add up, you have to work through to construct a proper balance sheet by removing the various numbers included to give information needed to compute various ratios.

A simple example is the fixed asset figure of 398. By showing the cost and accumulated depreciation more information can be deduced than the net value on its own. 

I'm still trying to find out why payable/accrued is shown.

 

That's class.Hope I didn't offend with my simple amths answer.I din't knwo.The numbers often don't add up

This is one of the reasons I developed the coma scores and to use in conjunction with 'spray n pray' investing across a sector.

'spray n pray' makes some ceteris paribus assumptions such as

1) they're all at 'it' one way or another

2) they're all at 'it' for a variety of reasons

3) some companies will be worse than others,some better than others

4) some of the numbers are more fudgible than others,some of them less fudgible than others

5) only insiders,sufficiently highly placed,will be aware of where the potential truth bombs are placed and how much dynamite is in them.Even then,there are some businesses eg the banks 2007,where the insiders were the least likely to see the crash coming.

 

I jsut have a rough idea of how to calcualte the numbers that I use.That's about it.I can ping you questions now......

[sleepwello'nights]

11 minutes ago, Castlevania said:

Which company’s balance sheet is it? It looks like the website that the above is taken from is incorrectly adding it in.  The notes to the accounts should explain it all. 

The company is Petrofac. If you look at the balance sheet for most companies on Investing.com the same applies. Most are not straightforward arithmetically so you have to work out what numbers are part of the arithmetic and which are given as additional information. 

Clearly they are not complete extracts from the published accounts, summaries that need interpretation.

[Harley]

27 minutes ago, wherebee said:

Their customer service is also pretty shit in terms of resource availability, although the actual quality of advice is 1st rate in my experience - ONCE you get an operator.

Their message based customer service was quite slow but the reply blew me away in terms of its precision and completeness.  I've used many brokers and some (including those actually using the IB platform) were beyond awful.  And their AI like iBot tool actually works! 

System upgrades are a drag, but then their scope (products and markets) and functionality is awesome.  And cheap, if you choose the correct pricing option!

A shout out for Degiro's interface.  Awesome with full multi-currency details of trades, etc.  Other things not so good but thats the way it is - none are perfect.

Key point is all these options blow away the likes of HL, AJ Bell, etc in various regards (but usually not customer service) but these later ones also offer the ISAs and SIPPS and seem fine for light use.

I've been cautioned here and they are not cheap (especially custody, etc fees) but I may open a Saxo ISA to get some proper international exposure and functionalty.

[Harley]

14 minutes ago, sleepwello'nights said:

The company is Petrofac. If you look at the balance sheet for most companies on Investing.com the same applies. Most are not straightforward arithmetically so you have to work out what numbers are part of the arithmetic and which are given as additional information. 

Clearly they are not complete extracts from the published accounts, summaries that need interpretation.

Be careful with data for dual listed companies.  Don't know why but I get more accurate data (especially ratios) going to the data for the primary listing, Moscow in this case.   Indeed, some secondary listings contain no data and you have to go to the primary.  Type say "Petrofac" into the search bar and the first in the resulting pick list is usually the primary.

[Harley]

19 minutes ago, sancho panza said:

That's class.Hope I didn't offend with my simple amths answer.I din't knwo.The numbers often don't add up

This is one of the reasons I developed the coma scores and to use in conjunction with 'spray n pray' investing across a sector.

'spray n pray' makes some ceteris paribus assumptions such as

1) they're all at 'it' one way or another

2) they're all at 'it' for a variety of reasons

3) some companies will be worse than others,some better than others

4) some of the numbers are more fudgible than others,some of them less fudgible than others

5) only insiders,sufficiently highly placed,will be aware of where the potential truth bombs are placed and how much dynamite is in them.Even then,there are some businesses eg the banks 2007,where the insiders were the least likely to see the crash coming.

 

I jsut have a rough idea of how to calcualte the numbers that I use.That's about it.I can ping you questions now......

Bookkeepers tell you the numbers, accountants ask you what you want, and cash flow is closest to god!

[wherebee]

22 minutes ago, Harley said:

Their message based customer service was quite slow but the reply blew me away in terms of its precision and completeness.  I've used many brokers and some (including those actually using the IB platform) were beyond awful.  And their AI like iBot tool actually works! 

System upgrades are a drag, but then their scope (products and markets) and functionality is awesome.  And cheap, if you choose the correct pricing option!

A shout out for Degiro's interface.  Awesome with full multi-currency details of trades, etc.  Other things not so good but thats the way it is - none are perfect.

Key point is all these options blow away the likes of HL, AJ Bell, etc in various regards (but usually not customer service) but these later ones also offer the ISAs and SIPPS and seem fine for light use.

I've been cautioned here and they are not cheap (especially custody, etc fees) but I may open a Saxo ISA to get some proper international exposure and functionalty.

yes to all of that.  

Re fees - I don't think they're all that bad.  Obv if you are comparing to a free app like robinhood they'll look expensive, but you get what you pay for.  What I did like is that when I had a complex instrument to unwind which couldn't be done normally (because of a change of residency), they walked me through it in real time and made it work.  

I don't mind a little skim off the top if they are going to be there when you need them.

I also suspect that in a BK, some of the cheaper platforms will fall over when you need them; some might even fail and end up in a MF global nightmare.  If IB goes under, it'll be last in a long line and we'll all be fighting for ratmeat, in my view....

[Harley]

14 minutes ago, wherebee said:

Re fees - I don't think they're all that bad.

IB fees are great, at least tiered pricing.  Saxo's are the relatively expensive ones.  Agree about getting what you pay for and service in a BK.  I also needed help on a complex matter and IBs range of solutions was excellent.  I can live with the clunky TWS interface, especially if I use the portal or app instead!  What I don't get with TWS is the pics show this nice smooth display but mine's very 1980's Pacman like.

[wherebee]

3 minutes ago, Harley said:

IB fees are great, at least tiered pricing.  Saxo's are the relatively expensive ones.  Agree about getting what you pay for and service in a BK.  I also needed help on a complex matter and IBs range of solutions was excellent.  I can live with the clunky TWS interface, especially if I use the portal or app instead!  What I don't get with TWS is the pics show this nice smooth display but mine's very 1980's Pacman like.

I just use the portal as the TWS does not like my very old setup and has breakdowns all the time if I try.  And yes, it is very 1980's.  But I think IB are fine with that - it's a slight barrier to entry and probably the more your customers want flashy smooth graphics over functionality, the more they raise queries and increase costs?

[Starsend]

3 hours ago, AWW said:

I always wait until there's a £1 final value fee offer. You're not allowed to list multiples of the same item, so I list 1x tube, 2x tubes, 3x tubes etc. I've found very few people happy to trade outside eBay - I always include my contact details on a card when I post the coins, but not had much contact from buyers by that method.

Do these FVF offers come along fairly often? Been a decade since I sold anything on there.

[Harley]

6 hours ago, wherebee said:

I just use the portal as the TWS does not like my very old setup and has breakdowns all the time if I try.  And yes, it is very 1980's.  But I think IB are fine with that - it's a slight barrier to entry and probably the more your customers want flashy smooth graphics over functionality, the more they raise queries and increase costs?

 

6 hours ago, Cattle Prod said:

I don't care as long as trades execute, and at the best price

Agreed, but I was hoping you guys were going to tell me I was doing something wrong!  I've spent ages with the TWS settings and my computer.  I've started using phone apps for most firms I use and this seems to be where they're put their £investment, although maybe things like TWS would be better in a BK and I worry about security.