Could I suggest a couple of small wording changes that I think would meet many of the concerns in this thread:
* Rename "High Yield Share Strategies - General" as "High Yield Shares & Strategies - General" to make it clearer that discussion of both individual high-yield shares and of strategies involving them is welcome on the board. That appears to me to be the situation in practice, and I can't see any harm in making the board title reflect that better.
* Remove "& RULES" from the title of the
locked "BOARD GUIDANCE & RULES - Which High Yield Board?" announcement. Reading through it, I don't see much that is completely unambiguously worded as a rule (i.e. that
must be obeyed) rather than guidance, and this thread has made it clear that moderators are basically expected to treat it as guidance.
An alternative is to put quotes around "RULES", as has been done for "Rules" in this thread's title. But I think it's a less good alternative, basically because some readers don't really see punctuation as significant - so if the word "rules" appears, with or without quotes, they're liable to see statements as rules when they were intended to be guidance. And there are quite a few such statements in the announcement, e.g. those using the word "should". (Very much an aside, but "should" was basically a banned word in technical documents published by my former employer - if their Tech Pubs department noticed it being used, they would normally edit it to "must", making it an unambiguous rule, or find a way to reword in some form such as "It is strongly recommended that ...", making it unambiguously guidance - with sometimes-amusing results when they got it wrong which it was intended to be! And before anyone says, yes, the announcement is not a technical document, but it does share the characteristic of wanting to be as clear and unambiguous as reasonably possible.)
One possible objection to this change is that just calling it guidance might make people take it too lightly. If so, I think a mild strengthening of the sentence "Please abide by this guidance." within the text to make it clear that it is to be taken fairly seriously would be in order.
I would also suggest a few other wording changes to the announcement to deal with issues that I don't think have come up in the thread, but I think are liable to at some point:
* In the first paragraph following the blue "HYP Practical" heading, I would suggest replacing "If selected, ..." with "When selected, ..." or "When bought, ..." to make it clearer that the requirements only apply at the point of purchase and continuing to hold them after that is OK. This is based on having seen some people interpret the corresponding statement in
the TMF definition as a statement about when shares should be held, that therefore said that shares should be sold when they ceased to qualify, when it was only intended to be about what shares were bought. (That statement is "
The type of strategy discussed on this board invests in shares: ... • With high dividend yields, and safety factors ..." in the answer to question 6: the ambiguity is that "invests" can refer either to the
act of investing (i.e. buying) or to the
state of being invested (i.e. holding).)
* In that same paragraph, I would suggest replacing "
At its simplest, it will have at least 15 holdings, none of which should be from the same sector." with "
It should have at least 15 holdings, in at least 15 different sectors, or be anticipated to grow to that size.". This makes it clear that e.g. 20 holdings including up to 5 sector duplicates is perfectly OK, as clarified in this thread; more important, it tells people starting out that it's perfectly OK to discuss a HYP that hasn't yet been grown up to full size (e.g. GDHYP in its first 3.75 years, before it had grown to 15 holdings, or indeed the somewhat longer period until it got up to 15 sectors). And yes,
I am pretty certain that the moderators will exercise common sense on that point - but that's through experience of the last year of TLF, and of many of the same people before that on TMF: newcomers to HYP may well be newcomers to the site as well, in which case they won't have that experience!
* Again in that same paragraph, I would suggest replacing "
A long term buy and hold (LTBH) of these shares is envisaged." with "
The investor should envisage a long term buy and hold (LTBH) of these shares." - just makes it clear that it's about the investor's vision and not that of some unidentified third party.
* In the second following paragraph, I would suggest replacing "
Personal feelings can affect the choice, including ethical considerations. Additional criteria may be used by individuals." with "
Additional criteria may be used by individuals. These include personal feelings, such as ethical considerations, but personal feelings should only be described briefly, not justified or debated at length." This is basically to avoid leaving an open door for ethical debate!
One final comment is that I haven't tried to cover everything in the thread in this post - it's just about some changes that I feel might be relatively non-controversial. For example, I have quite a bit of sympathy for the view that the in-at-least-15-sectors part of the diversification requirement is probably set too high, especially considering that HYP1 doesn't meet it - and not just because it's got both International Hotels and Mitchells & Butlers, as Wizard observed. That's excusable for when-bought reasons: it only bought one such share, namely Bass, which became those two holdings as a result of a demerger (plus some renamings along the way). But it's also got the two miners Anglo American and Rio Tinto, and has had them right from the start. And indeed it did have two banks from the start until Alliance & Leicester was taken over during the financial crisis. But I haven't yet come up with a good wording change to cover that...
Gengulphus
Jackdaww said he wanted to discuss SHARES? Does it matter then whether they are High Yield or not? I have seen threads for shares which also appear on HYP Practical, CNA springs to mind.
