Do it Yourself ISAs

QE III

2012-02-09T12:41:00.001Z

No no, not some new luxury cruise liner, just observing that something weird is going on when the day the Bank of England announces it is going to devalue all existing money in circulation by creating £50bn out of thin air, the financial markets celebrate by increasing the value of the pound against every other currency.

So why is that exactly? Was £50bn less than the markets expected to be created out of nothing, or is the UK creating less new money than every other nation? I have no idea.

Think I will go and buy some silver.

Selftrade ISA Offering - £175 ISA bonus act before 30th April

2010-04-15T17:26:00.003+01:00

Selftrade are offering a pretty impressive ISA deal this year, whereby if you invest the full £10,500 in their ISA account by 30th April 2010, you get 10 free trades worth a total of £125 to use during May.

Not only that, but you can boost that by a further £50 by getting me to recommend you. Obviously, I'm more than happy to do this. You can do that by emailing me at alan@doityourselfisa.co.uk using the mail address matching that you want to apply for the account in.

All I can say is, if you're interested act as soon possible. This great offer dies on 1st May 2010. Best ISA offer I've seen so far this new tax year, for sure. In the interests of disclosure I'm happy to reveal that this is where my new ISA money is headed this year, for sure.

The AIGA saga

2008-09-20T13:30:00.002+01:00

One of my key recommendations in my ISA Book is the diverse range of stockmarket-listed ETFs run by ETFSecurities. Reason being, that these inventive ETFs allow you to invest in the indexes tracking a wide range of commodities not normally accessible to normal investors such as ourselves. That includes such common staples as Corn, Wheat, Sugar, Cotton, Oil, Gold and Silver.

Long-term, as governments pump more money into the economy, the price of commodities in these devalued national currencies can only rise. And before you think it's only me saying this, then perhaps you'll listen to the opinion of uber-investor Jim Rogers, in his book Hot Commodities.

Well, shock, horror, this week, as AIG, the huge US insurance company faced financial problems of its own. Ah, but what's this got to do with the price of wheat, you may ask? Unfortunately, AIG manages the ETF soft commodity (Wheat, Livestock, etc.) ETFs on behalf of ETF Securites. A complex arrangement that is hard to follow, and created much uncertainty as to whether we'd even get our money back if AIG went under.

When they resume trading, we can probably expect mass redemptions of these ETFs. Here's a contrarian opportunity of ever I saw it. Funds at the ready, because with so many eager sellers, it could be worth taking a punt, because the US Government has already shown an intense desire not to let AIG fail, and anyway, there is guarantee that we would even lose our money if they did. With any luck, we'll see these ETFs trading at huge discounts to NAV. I think it's worth taking a risk, especially since the alternative is British pounds (for me), or exposing myself to the vagaries and fluctuations of our ailing economy through stocks.

Time to put a bit back in?

2008-09-03T23:48:00.003+01:00

I was surprised to receive a letter recently for a tender offer for up to 40% of my holding in Fidelity Asian Values Investment Trust. While I'm used to this kind of thing happening, I've never seen it happen to Fidelity before, which probably says a lot about the kind of bear market we are experiencing. While I'm not exactly bullish on the future of the developed western world economies, I'm becoming steadily convinced, especially after the Olympics, that, to twist a metaphor slightly, the economic torch for the new century was passed from the USA to China, just as the UK passed it to the USA at the beginning of the 20th century.

Given all this, it's certainly not time to cash in my holdings in this trust at such a depressed price and also a 6.5% discount on the tender under the Net asset value of the trusts' assets. In fact, there may be some uplift in the share price to reflect the departure of less committed shareholders and a lift in the NAV.

Therefore, I'm recommending this trust as a long term BUY, as long as the discount is ten percent or greater. Even better, Fidelity are one of the trust providers that allow you to invest monthly in their trusts free of any brokerage fees, from an amount as low as £50 a month. Highly recommended.

The Hosuebuilders continue falling

2008-06-11T09:54:00.003+01:00

As an aside of yesterday's post, I notice that today Barratt and Redrow have fallen another 16 and 9 percent respectively so far this morning. I don't claim anyone reacted on the basis of my post, as really you should be checking the figures and anybody can see where the UK economy is headed.

I just wish I'd been doing a bit of spreadbetting on the prices falling still further. At 76p, how much further can Barratt fall? The answer could be zero? Is there some major bad news in the offing?

UK Property Price falls

2008-06-10T11:29:00.003+01:00

Funny how most of the City fund managers right now have turned "contrarian", and mostly seem to be calling the bottom for housebuilding stocks such as Barratts and Redrow right now. Even stranger still, since you'd expect them to be investing in these stocks, why do the daily prices continue to fall so much? Or are they waiting for others to take the bait first?

In my opinion, these share price drops indicate that reported earnings are going to fall through the floor, possibly coupled with asset value writedowns, as various sites, mainly brownfield have their planned developments deferred. I'm currently staying in a 1-bed flat near Bristol while I work short-term there, and out of my block of 4, 2 are completely empty, and one is up for sale, although at £180,000, reality obviously will take some years to settle in in the second-hand market. How long before the likes of Barratt and Redrow have to do 50% off deals (or buy-one-get-one-free?), simply to shift their current stock of city apartments?

Given the number of years reality may take a long time to set in to the mindset of Joe Public. My guess is 2017 might be the year I'll take the plunge on UK property again. Alternatively, the government might manage to stave off a crash, but if so, don't be surprised if your £180,000 is still worth £180,000, but a loaf of bread costs £50.

If that happens, you'll be wishing you'd invested in Gold and Silver instead!

SUCCESSFUL TAX FREE ISA INVESTING

2008-05-09T20:34:00.002+01:00

Time for a sneak inside look at what's covered by the new book SUCCESSFUL TAX FREE ISA INVESTING, by ALAN DUNWIDDIE. Here's the contents page, to give you some idea what it covers :-

Introduction
About Isas
Financial Advisors
Isas and the Tax-free Myth
Inflation
Cash Isas
Investing in Shares
Choosing a Broker
Unit Trust Isas
Investment Trust Isas
Exchange-Traded Fund Isas
Commodity Isas
Gold Isas
Bond Isas
Property Isas
With-Profits Isas
Isa Mortgages
The Future Of Isas
Summary
Recommended Resources
Official Inland Revenue Guidance on Isas

Selftrade mismanage Freedom4 tender

2008-05-07T13:08:00.002+01:00

To Update People on the Pipex/Freedom 4 situation, Halifax did their bit and tendered 85% of my shares, Selftrade on the other hand, mismanaged it and only did 58%, despite me knowing a huge number of their nominee shareholders didn't put their tenders in in time.

I complained about the fact they only tendered 58% when I specifically said tender ALL or as much as possible. The official written reply is :-

"Unfortunately we do not have direct access to the Halifax to substantiate your claim that they tendered 85%..."

Not impressed.

Should Britain Join the Euro

2008-05-07T13:06:00.001+01:00

I used to be strongly in favour of a single European currency, and my partner is from the continent, but after living over there for 3 years, I've completely revised my opinion.

Culturally, Europe is much more socialist and controlling, when compared with the historic British attitude of an island nation based on international trade and financial freedoms, as evidenced by our reputation as one of the best places to conduct international business, and our base as the world's leading financial centre.

Using the old dictum that "he who controls the currency controls the nation", by giving up the national currency, you are also giving up much of the control and handing it to another power, with vested interests of its own.

Fortunately, at this point in time, most Britons realise this and are opposed to the single currency. We all know this, so why even bother going to the expense and hassle of a referendum?

iWebsharedealing

2008-04-19T17:39:00.002+01:00

I set up iwebsharedealing.blogspot.com with the intent of discussing the service (good and bad), provided by iwebsharedealing. I have an account there myself, and now they'd started offering PEPs, I'd been considering switching, but waiting for a good offer.

In the meantime, Google have blocked the blog iwebsharedealing as a potential spam blog. oh well. can only see what they hit upon in the end....

Freedom 4 Tender Offer Messed Up?

2008-04-09T21:55:00.003+01:00

The last ailing moments of probably my most disastrous investment ever, Pipex Communications, aka Freedom4 Communications, has not yet ended.

Recently, the company announced a "return of cash to shareholders" by way of special tender for up to 58% of your holding. Sounds simple enough, although really it was a special dividend, since the value of the remaining shares, holding only the Freedom4 joint Wimax venture with Intel and a 3.6 spectrum licence, has been disregarded by the stock market as worthless.

Anyhow, I'm with Halifax and Selftrade on this one, and Halifax got the notification out at least a week earlier than Selftrade. First issue is that many of Selftrade nominee holders are angry at this short deadline of only 2 days to get their reply in, which meant they missed it and have hence seen an 80% drop in the value of their investment!

I'm not impressed either, even though I did get my instructions in, since in my reply I deliberately stated that I wanted to tender ALL, in the event of other holders not taking up the option, yet they have only taken 58% of my holding offline. Ironically, if I had managed to tender the lot at 10p, it'd have been a decent profit, despite the rubbish performance of this one.I used to be impressed with Selftrade, but their offering is falling way behind iweb, especially for ISAs.

Secondly, we come to the Halifax, where my instructions were in well before the date. As of today, mine and many others have seen their entire holdings reappear in their Halifax account, with a huge red mark indicating the whopping 80% loss.

I don't know if this is just an administrative mistake, but I hate to think they "forgot" to tender my instructions.....I await to see if my money appears. These administrative errors could prove to be expensive.......

CHEAP LAPTOP OFFER

2008-03-19T23:27:00.000Z

3 of my favourite things in the entire world are :-

1) Shopping online at reputable net stores
2) Getting a bargain
3) paying NO Sales Taxes to Greedy Goverments

And thanks to my contacts in the industry, Play.com, one of the stars of tax-free shopping, have allowed me to pass on this discount code ACER40, which enables you to claim an amazing EXTRA £40 off when you buy an Acer Laptop from them here.

The laptops are available here on the Play.com site and the code to enable the discount on the laptops is ACER40.

The laptop code is only valid against the four products listed and will expire at midnight on Wednesday 26/3/08.

Pipex communications falls by the Wayside

2008-03-17T00:02:00.003Z

So it's goodbye soon to one of my worst ever investments, Pipex Communications. I'm not usually dragged into hot stocks, but working in Telecoms, I am convinced that Wimax has a big future and when I heard Pipex owned one of the UK Wimax spectrum licences I got a bit overexcited. Not only that, but every seemed rosy since they also had a more respectable hosting side, a blocking vote on the UK Nominet domain name register and a huge business selling domain names, even if you didn't use their hosting.

Sad to say, fast forward two years and the shares are 33% below my purchase price of 9p. The broadband arm has been sold off, and the chairman, Peter Dubens is selling the hosting arm to....ermmm himself, now he's teamed up with Oakley Capital. Interesting! Wonder how much that business will be resold for in a few years time?

Anyhow, us small shareholders have the poor promise of 10-11p for 58% of our shares in a tender offer, with the balance carried forward to loss making Freedom Communications, who remain holding the licence.

My tip is that you remain a holder. People with their shareholdings in nominee accounts may do a lot better than 58% on the tender offer. Reason being that if other shareholders with the same broker do not take up their share, then your share will be pro-rated up.

This approach has allowed me to exit 100% of a company (especially investment trusts), when the tender was for less. I'm not going so far as to say you will get to tender 100%, but you may fancy a small punt to average up.

Self Select ISA deals

2008-02-20T06:10:00.004Z

Up until recently, Selftrade was my best recommended Self Select ISA provider, but events have overtaken their offering. It first started off when TD Waterhouse undercut them with an offer of no yearly admin fee if your ISA balance was £3,600 or more. Fair enough, but I as still slightly in favour of Selftrade, even then, since they allow investment in ETFs on a regular basis without any dealing fee, regardless of how small the amount invested is.

Now, iWeb has trumped even TD Warehouse, by offering no yearly fee, commission of £10 on lump sum investments (compared to SelfTrade's £25), and to beat it all, the thing of most interest to me is the ability to invest regularly at only £1.50 per share dealing.

How long before Selftrade are forced to move the same way? I'm certainly considering a switch to iWeb.

Having said all that, if you don't deal often and want to invest in ETFs without brokerage fees, you can still get £50 back with this great ISA offer.

expat shop, euroshop, save vat, buy in eu, shop eu

2007-11-24T21:41:00.000Z

Living in Britain, I'd become used to logging on to the net and ordering whatever I fancied from sites like Amazon, VAT-free and no delivery costs, but two years ago, life took me to Denmark (or rather the missus did!), and boy, was I in for a shock! Get this...a 25% sales tax, or MOMs, as it's called here on everything you buy, including food! Even so, after I'd been here a few months, I naively logged onto Amazon to buy a few English books I fancied. Everything looked fine as I added to my basket, but once at the checkout, the price of all the items more than DOUBLED, simply as a result of where they were being sent to.So, get this, Amazon is selling the same goods to you, from the same warehouse, but you have to pay twice the price? Why? Well, turns out it isn't Amazons fault at all. You can blame the EU for this one, and this after all those years of cheek we were sold the EU with the excuse that it was going to be a free trade bloc of one big European Nation. Just because your books are going to be delivered to Denmark instead of the UK you have to pay delivery (okay, that one you can cope with) and an extra 25% sales tax. Ha ha, how I laughed as I gave up on my attempted purchase and prepared myself for a life of no reading ever again.But then I discovered, completely by chance, a rather nifty outfit called Play.com, who based themselves in a small island off the coast of France, called Jersey that has zero sales tax. Better still, these guys even do free delivery to Denmark, and best of all to buy from them (or anywhere else in the world for that matter), is 100% legal, subject to certain limits.Wow, I was like a pig in.....err excuse me. Anyhow, to say the least I was a very happy man and logging on every other night from thereon buying all of the books I could possibly get my hands on to make up for lost time.After this I really got into buying a lot of things I wanted elsewhere in the EU, and once you start getting into this buying abroad off the internet lark you'll realise that Amazon is the exception in charging Sales Taxes at the buyers' rate. Most EU based companies will only charge their local rate, 100% legal again. Well, this little bit of info opened up another new horizon! Blimey, I even found a little-used, SECRET way of buying from Amazon and avoiding the Sales tax. 100% LEGAL again, and you can read about it here as I'm happy to give you this secret for free.Then I started thinking...how many other websites or shopping opportunities are there out there like this? Completely legal opportunities to beat the taxman and keep more of your own money in your own pocket, while buying exactly what you want. Hell, half this stuff isn't even available here! The same probably applies to whatever European country you happen to be living in right now. Am I right?Now, just think about all those people out there who know nothing about these sites. Maybe this even includes you? You come back from the UK with a holdall full of English books or decent underwear (my partner does!) simply because you think you'll never get the chance to stock up again. Well, forget it! Now you can buy from the comfort of your own home with delivery to your door!There is now a site of my favourite online shops! These are personally tested and recommended shops with great prices, a fantastic range, and best of all, free or low delivery costs to Denmark and most of the rest of Europe. You can visit it right now at www.expatshop.eu.

Pound if freefall, but the dollar hides it

2007-11-22T10:54:00.000Z

I must admit that I have been worried about the Pound for some time, what with the trade deficit, budget deficit and now the Northern Rock crisis.

Actually, the trade deficit bothers me least of the problems, as Britain has a large reputation for investing abroad. The others are not so good. especially the Northern Rock crisis, since the implication is the government have magically created the necessary backup reserves out of thin air (is there any other method?)

Now, I notice that in the past couple of months, the Pound has dropped about 6% against the Euro and Danish Krone. This has hardly got a mention, as all the media are going on about the weakening Dollar and the bargains available for those taking a shopping trip to the USA.
So please, Germany and Holland, don't give in to whingeing France and Italy about needing a weaker Euro, and the usual rubbish about generating exports. A devalued currency helps no-one long term.

If it carries on like this, the Euro could become the world's new reserve currency, especially for pricing oil, at least until China is ready to claim its spot.

Just a thought.

As for me, I'm off to browse the internet for some bargains from Britain...

Questions and Answers From The Author

2007-11-21T11:38:00.000Z

This book, by Alan Dunwiddie, is the ideal Isa investing Guide for both beginners and those who have more experience. It is packed full of honest advice on how to invest more profitably.
Here, Alan answers some of your questions.

http://www.doityourselfisa.co.uk/tax_free_isa_uk_fast_track.html

Star Energy Takeover Comments

2007-11-14T20:01:00.000Z

So Petronas have launched a takeover bid for Star Energy, and you did indeed do well if you managed to to get the £3.70 on offer this morning, since that is above the offer price. However, for those who didn't manage to offload at above the offer price you're better off holding to the end, since you won't lose out on the bid-offer spread or have to pay commission when you sell.

Unless some major oil find or planning permission news is coming, there might also be another 10 or 20p per share extra in the offing, and the downside is small, since the chances of Petronas not completing a deal is low.

Certainly confirms, like Ken Fisher says, that there is cash out there for deals, despite the "credit crunch" we are now experiencing.

Gold HYIP Investment scams

2007-11-13T11:19:00.000Z

Please don't ever be conned by those dubious emails or websites offering you the chance to earn 0.5 to 5% PER DAY. Through "e-currency", gold or whatever. They often also chuck in a load of acronyms like HYIP (high yield investment plan), and the like.

I just found this example advertising on Google Adwords.

http://e-currencyprofitshome.com/?gclid=COjug5DY2Y8CFQJxaAodlSaW8g

If anyone can truly find an investment that returns that much per day, the best approach would be to keep quiet until you owned all the money in the entire world, which, with compounding actually probably wouldn't take as long as you think!

There are plenty of sites out there full of sad cases of people who are complaining about how their money has gone, no replies, no money back, etc. Actually, I don't think they are totally to blame because of their naiveity, since none of us ever get the right financial training in school to prepare us for the serious financial decisions we'll have to make in our adult lives.

The other sad thing is that E-gold is often the route for this money because it's harder to trace. I don't blame e-gold in the slightest, as these irreversible payments are a feature of a cash-based society instead of a credit one, but it probably will affect their credibility longer term.

Honest Advice No Price

2007-10-20T20:52:00.000+01:00

Don't forget to visit my investing sites for financial information to help you save money. First, there's Successful Tax Free Investing. Then IT Contracting in Denmark. Then, if you live in the EU, loads of tips on how to Shop Online and Save and finally, visit Invest Gold and Silver to find out how to invest on the two things likeliest to save you from financial collapse in the uncertain future awaiting us all.

Letter Published in Money Observer

2007-10-08T20:07:00.000+01:00

A bit pleased to see a letter of mine published in Money Observer. This is always a magazine I have admired as it is a lot more real and factual than certain other UK finance magazines I could mention. Unfortunately it ain't up on the website yet.

2007-09-22T19:29:00.000+01:00

Poor Mervyn King, I've just been back in the UK coinciding with his public TV question time by a load of naive MPs pretending to be real experts on the world and finance and questioning him about why he took the stance he did with Northern Rock.

Personally, I think he was spot on not to get involved with Northern Rock or any other bank having problems, they should be allowed to stand or fall as independent businesses. Do we bail out every corner shop with a "cashflow" problem? Should we?

A lot of the questioning was very naive, and seemed to be based on what the MPs thought up after reading the morning papers and now we hear that the British Government is to increase the banking deposit guarantee limit to £100,000. Aargh! How easy it is to be generous with the taxpayers money, and worse still, the vague statement that this would be funded by a levy on banks means that actually the decent, well-run banks subsidise the risk-taking dangerous ones. Any large guaranteed deposits scheme only encourages banks to take yet more risks. This is a bit like adding a load of extra Vodka to the punchbowl.

At this moment in time, I would not be surprised to see a repeat of 1925-29, with a huge run-up in stock prices as more money gets pumped into the economy by the Ponzi scheme that is fractional reserve banking, followed by an almighty bang, on a scale of the 1974 90% stock market drop.

Don't sell yet, but enjoy the ride and keep your finger poised on the sell button! (oh, and hold some gold!)

Going back to my earlier article though, I still insist Northern Rock has some assets and would watch to see who makes a move.

Site rejig...Scientific Advertising

2007-09-17T21:20:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I'm no pro, but I think my book at Do it Yourself ISA is well and truly worth the meagre £4.95 price, considering it can save most investors an awful lot of cash.

So I rejigged the sites to hopefully present more of the positives correctly.

Check it out at :-

www.doityourselfisa.co.uk
www.shareisa.co.uk
www.investmenttrustisa.co.uk
www.unittrustisa.co.uk
www.unitinvestmenttrust.co.uk

Or just go ahead and preview (then hopefully buy...but hey, even if you don't I wish you well with your investing decisions.

You can buy or preview it here.

Banking Crisis?

2007-09-16T21:03:00.000+01:00

Banking crises are more common throughout history than people might think. A lot more common.

The only problem is that history shows that they only tend to happen to one generation once, and they become so cautious about banks afterwards that it never happens again in their lifetime. Then the next generation forgets about it all over again and the cycle repeats.

So I guess in that score, we shouldn't be surprised at what is happening with the Northern Rock right now. We were probably due one.

Historically, somewhere behind it all normally lies a tangled web of profligate lending by the problem banks. None so truer than now.

I am sure that the British Treasury and Bank of England will hold true with their promises to back depositors with the Northern Rock. But then when you're playing with other people's money (I guess such a payout will be made simply by running a few extra pounds off the printing press), you can afford to appear generous.

Not sure what this will do to the British Pound exchange rate longer term though.

And looks like another reason to hold gold and silver as per the ISA recommendations of the superb new book Do-it-Yourself ISAs.

US SubPrime Worries Hit the StockMarket

2007-08-30T09:06:00.000+01:00

Okay, so the market is having some serious jitters right now about these US SubPrime Loans and who is really holding the debt. Banks are being sold (look at Northern Rock - if I had some spare cash I suspect that one could turn out to be a bargain).

To counterbalance it all, the US Fed and the European Central Bank is pumping billions in to shore it all up.

I don't like the sound of this at all, but consider this...it sounds very similar to the 1925 crisis in which banks, mainly the US Fed, pumped billions into the system. The net turnout of that was that for the next 4 years, the stock market powered ahead, culminating in the infamous "permanently high plateau" of 1929.

On this basis, I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen again, so while I'd still recommend diversification into Cash ISAs and Commodity ETFs, don't sell at the prices currently on offer and keep plenty in stocks, just in case.

Of course, it would probably be better to let it all fall apart now, but governments don't tend to let that happen.

Bonds and property funds on the other hand, I would still ignore.

The Fleet Street Letter : An Independent Review

2007-08-29T10:27:00.001+01:00

Okay, time for a shock confession.

A few years ago, I made the foolish mistake of thinking outside my normal realms of Investment Trusts on huge discounts and low-fee ETFs and started thinking of direct share investments.

Taken in by the "longest published newsletter in the UK...since 1937", I made the big mistake of signing up to the "Fleet Street Letter", or FSL.

While some of the articles on world politics and finances are interesting, the "letter" is basically a 4 page scrap of paper and their direct share tips are the biggest load of rubbish I have ever seen. This for three main reasons :-

1) The tips are recycled from other Agora publications, so by the time they make it to FSL they are no longer fresh or hot.

2) The articles subsequently get recycled into a variety of other publications, so you'll normally get to read them in the end - normally a week or two later in the free email advertising circular "The Daily Reckoning".

3) The letter comes out on a Friday, giving the thousands of subscribers a chance to know what the hot tip of the week is. Consequently, the market makers price up the shares on Monday, knowing that a load of Fleet Street Lemmings will pile in regardless.

Obviously the FSL performance figures are based on prices before this Monday, so there's no way investors can get in at the same price, but hey, it helps the performance figure look good when trying to sell it to new subscribers.

Please let this serve as a warning to anyone thinking of subscribing.

Just check out some of their tips in recent years : Widney, Wagon, Drax, Global Energy Development, Star Energy, Retail Decisions.

I admit to being taken in by the last one. I held the shares anyway, but their article made me think it was time to sell. It wasn't. They advised investors to sell at 140p just before the takeover at 200p!

Back to the world of ITs for me and the occasional direct share of my own choice. (Let the discount be your guide and don't be influenced by others, EVER!)

Where you can buy the new "Do it Yourself ISA Guide" book

2007-08-15T20:25:00.001+01:00

Silly me. Forget to add where you can buy. Thanks to the power of the internet anyone in the world can get hold of this one as an ebook or hard copy, by visiting here:-

Go for it! at the moment you could get £50 cashback for spending just £4.95. How many other places can make a statement like that?

Do it Yourself ISAs

2007-07-26T16:03:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the new blog associated with the website www.doityourselfisa.co.uk

This website was set up to promote a greater understanding of ISAs through the "Do it Yourself ISA Guide" book. Feel free to discuss any ISA-related topics on this blog.

I'll be posting whenever I think of anything new or relevant.

But in the meantime, remember to visit www.doityourselfisa.co.uk