Monthly Archives: September 2016

Wealth Inequality in the USA.

The largest economy in the world is the United States of America. It is also the most generous nation, whenever in the world their is a natural disaster, the USA are the first nation to send emergency aid.

What is happening now in the world, is the growth of the 1%.

The 1% population are now owning more and more assets that the rest of society. A trend that we are seeing all over the world. The concentration of money and assets in the hands of so few can not be a good trend.

5 Year Performance of the FTSE-All Share.

The FTSE-All Share index is the broadest barometer index of the UK’s listed companies.

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?username=&ac=&csi=50100&record_search=1&search_phrase=ASX

Interesting to see the long term trend.

http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-markets/stocks/indices/summary/summary-indices.html?index=ASX&lang=en

on 3rd July 2012 it was 2951

on 4th July 2016 it was 3518

One can see the trend of year on year growth, the benefit of investing in a tracker.

President Obama Quote

President Obama has made a great investment quote:-

Cutting the US Federal deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.”

The Legal and General Sept 2016 Dividend.

On Thursday 22nd September, Legal and General PLC paid 4p to its shareholders

http://www.legalandgeneral.com

Legal and General’s capital consisted of 5,952,449,117 Ordinary shares of 2.5p each, with voting rights.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=67701&p=irol-rnsArticle&ID=2198957

Thus:-

5,952,449,117 x £0.04 = £238,097,964.68

That is £238million paid to it’s shareholders.

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?csi=10055&action=

That is a yield of 6%

The Shell PLC September Quarterly Dividend

On Monday 19th Sept 2016, Shell PLC paid out its quarterly dividend to its shareholders.

It has who classes of shares, Shell A and Shell B.

Shell A

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?csi=133655

Shell B

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?csi=133755
It paid out $0.47 per share for each share, that is 35.27p per share.
Now, Royal Dutch Shell plc’s capital consists of 4,325,899,655 A shares and 3,745,486,731 B shares.

Thus:

Shell A = 4,325,899,655 x £0.3527 = £1,525,744,808.32
Shell B = 3,745,486,731 x £0.3527 = £1,321,033,170.02

Total paid out: £2,846,777,978.34

That is £2.846 Billion paid out to its shareholders in Shell A and Shell B

Picton Property Income

The Picton Property Income is a £375m London listed property investment company owning commercial real estate.

http://www.picton.co.uk/

38.6% in Office space
36.1% in Industrial space
25.3%in Retail and Leisure space.

10 ten tenants are:

1 Belkin Limited 4.2%
2 B&Q Plc 3.1%
3 DHL Supply Chain Limited * 2.8%
4 Snorkel Snorkel Europe Limited 2.5%
5 The Random House Group Limited 2.5%
6 Cadence Design Systems Limited 2.4%
7 Trainline.com Limited 2.1%
8 Portal Chatham LLP 2.0%
9 Stanfords Edward Stanford Limited 1.9%
10  GLH Hotels Limited 1.9%

Total  25.4%

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?username=&ac=&csi=139224&record_search=1&search_phrase=picton

A yield of over 4.5%.

BP’s September 2016 Dividend.

Yesterday, (Fri 16th Sept) BP PLC paid its second quarterly dividend.

http://www.bp.com

The dividend is £0.075578 per share.

The share capital of BP PLC comprised 18,784,467,284 ordinary shares.

http://otp.investis.com/clients/uk/bp_plc/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=233&newsid=778298

Thus

18,784,467,284 ordinary shares x £0.075578  = £1,419,692,468

That is £1,419 Million = £1.419 Billion paid out.

Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility – Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme

On Tue 13th Sept 2016, The Bank of England announced what Bonds it was willing to buy from the market as part of its Asset Purchase Facility.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Pages/apf/corporatebondpurchases/default.aspx

The XLS with all the names of the debt instruments it is willing to buy is here:-

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/documents/cbeligiblesecurities.xls

271 Bonds of a total debt outstanding worth £110,012 million is what makes up this list. It will be interesting to see which institutions who currently own these bonds are willing to sell them to The Bank of England.

They are all famous names what are clearly high quality debtors.

To name a selected few of bonds that The Bank of England is will to buy:-

BRITISH TELECOM PLC (the  world’s most dynamic telecommunications and media corporation)
APPLE INC
ASTRAZENECA PLC
AT&T INC
DEUTSCHE TELEKOM INT FIN
GLAXOSMITHKLINE CAPITAL
NATIONAL GRID GAS PLC
ROLLS-ROYCE PLC
TOYOTA MOTOR CREDIT CORP
TRANSPORT FOR LONDON
VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS
VODAFONE GROUP PLC
WAL-MART STORES INC

So if The Bank of England buys any of these bonds, it then becomes a creditor to these institutions.

Astra Zeneca Dividend

Astra Zeneca is the FTSE-100 Pharmaceuticals giant. Yesterday (Mon 12th Sept) it paid out its dividend to its shareholders.

http://www.astrazeneca.com

Yesterday, it paid out 68.7p a share.

The issued share capital of AstraZeneca PLC with voting rights is 1,264,983,797 ordinary shares.

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/astrazeneca/rns/regulatory-story.aspx?cid=1343&newsid=778686

Thus:-

1,264,983,797 x £0.687 = £869,043,868.54

Astra Zeneca paid out £869 million to its shareholders.

http://www.shareshop.hsbc.co.uk/shareshop/security.cgi?csi=10009

That is a yield of 4.4%

Cisco Systems

Cisco is the American technology giant whose electronics, (Routers and Switches) form the backbone to the internet and modern telecommunications

http://www.cisco.com

Worth about $155 bn

http://investor.cisco.com/investor-relations/overview/default.aspx

What is interesting is the financials of the company

http://s2.q4cdn.com/230918913/files/doc_financials/quarterly/Q4FY16/FY16-Balance-Sheet.xls

The balance sheet financials are amazing:-

Cash: $7.631 Billion
Investments: $58.125 Billion

That is $67.756 Billion in pure liquidity.

Long term debt of  $24.483 Billion.

Incredible.

BT’s September 2016 Dividend

Today, Sept 5th, BT plc, the most dynamic, media, broadband, mobile and global telecommunications provider paid out 9.6p to its shareholders.

BT Group plc share capital consists of 9,968,127,681 ordinary shares with voting rights. BT Group plc held 40,523,643 ordinary shares as treasury shares and thus the total number of voting rights in BT Group plc on that date was 9,927,604,038.

http://hsprod.investis.com/servlet/HsPublic?context=ir.access&ir_option=RNS_NEWS&item=2550175486705664&ir_client_id=1281
What this means is that today BT plc paid out:-

9,927,604,038 x £0.096 = £953,049,987.60

That is £950 million in cash that leaves the bank account of BT plc to its loyal shareholders.

HM Government Borrowings: August 2016

Another month, guess what, take a lucky guess, it is the same old story, HM Government, spends more money than it receives via taxes and duties. Another deficit month, thus to bridge the gap, needs to borrow on the bond market.

In August 2016, the HM Government had to borrow money to meet the difference between tax revenues and public sector expenditure. The term for this is The PSNCR: The Public Sector Net Cash Requirement.

There were “only” 3 auctions of Gilts (UK Government Bonds) by the UK Debt Management Office (http://www.dmo.gov.uk/) to raise cash for HM Treasury:-

17-Aug-2016 4¼% Treasury Gilt 2055 £1,250 Million
11-Aug-2016 0 1/8% Index-linked Treasury Gilt 2036 £954.580 Million
02-Aug-2016 0½% Treasury Gilt 2022 £2,500 Million
When you add the cash raised:-

∑(£1,250 Million + £954.580 Million + £2,500 Million) =  £4,704,580 Million
Million

££4,704,580 Million = £4.704 Billion

On another way of looking at it, is in the 31 days in August, HM Government borrowed:-

£171 million each day for the 31 days.

We are fortunate, while the global banking and financial markets still has the confidence in HM Government to buy the Gilts (Lend money to the UK), the budget deficit keeps rising. What is also alarming, is the dates these bond mature 2022, 2036 and 2055. All long term borrowings, we are mortgaging our futures, but at least “We are in it together…

Low Cost Index Tracker Funds

Index Tracker Funds are amazing. Access to the world’s investment market in a single investment instrument

Legal and General have some great funds

http://www.legalandgeneral.com/investments/products-and-funds/index-tracker/

Ethical Trust.
European Index Trust.
Global 100 Index Trust.
Global Emerging Markets Index Fund.
Global Equity Index Fund.
Global Health and Pharmaceuticals Index Trust.
Global Technology Index Trust.
International Index Trust.
Japan Index Trust.
Pacific Index Trust.
UK 100 Index Trust.
UK Index Trust.
US Index Trust.
This man is a good advocate…..