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Tobacco companies

Stocks and Shares ISA , Choosing funds for ISA's, risk factors for funds etc
Investment strategy discussions not dealt with elsewhere.
colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#157942

Postby colin » August 8th, 2018, 3:01 pm

It makes no difference to BATS itself

This is not true, if enough investors choose to not invest then the share price is lower because of that, which means less money to invest into new markets.

Lootman
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Re: Tobacco companies

#157944

Postby Lootman » August 8th, 2018, 3:09 pm

colin wrote:
It makes no difference to BATS itself

This is not true, if enough investors choose to not invest then the share price is lower because of that, which means less money to invest into new markets.

Define "enough". Obviously if some big investment houses boycotted a company it might make a difference. But if it is just a few small investors and the odd ethical fund, then it won't be a measurable effect - there are always more investors and arbs who will step in if the price did drop as a result.

And then there are the increasingly large index funds which, by definition, have to hold everything.

Can you name a company that was critically impacted by a shareholder strike based purely on the perceived ethics of its business sector? Tobacco shares did get hit 10-20 years ago but that was because of lawsuits and increasingly legislation, not a shareholder strike per se.

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Re: Tobacco companies

#157957

Postby Muddywaters » August 8th, 2018, 4:00 pm

tobacco stocks are on some very large company ‘ban’ lists, companies that could easily impact/move share prices

Although this tends to be direct holdings through internally managed funds and doesn’t work on a look through basis (trackers) as this would preclude any index investing (short of creating in house trackers and filtering them, but then that’s a totally different beast). Still the point stands

colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158008

Postby colin » August 8th, 2018, 5:59 pm

Define "enough"


well one could take the same attitude to dropping litter, what difference does it make if I throw my empty cigarette packet in the gutter , who cares about one small piece of litter?

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Re: Tobacco companies

#158018

Postby Lootman » August 8th, 2018, 6:17 pm

colin wrote:
Define "enough"
well one could take the same attitude to dropping litter, what difference does it make if I throw my empty cigarette packet in the gutter , who cares about one small piece of litter?

No, my point was more that your statement was a tautology. Obviously if "enough" investors ditch a share then the share price will fall, because that is baked into the meaning of the word "enough"!

The issue is more whether any major company has suffered such a critical mass of investor selling for the reason of ethical perception alone. I am not aware of such a case, and with index funds becoming ever more popular that seems to be less likely now.

Of course, if a company gets caught in some kind of fraud, like Enron, then investors will bail. But that is company-specific and event-specific, and not related to a moralistic view of its entire sector (Energy in that case).

We may see more political posturing from the pension funds of liberal cities and trade unions. Some funds have pledged to avoid energy companies that frack, for instance. But it has not been a material trend up to now. I own shares in four E&P names that frack and I am not remotely worried.

colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158078

Postby colin » August 8th, 2018, 9:26 pm

The issue is more whether any major company has suffered such a critical mass of investor selling for the reason of ethical perception alone.


No it's not, the issue is that Steve has got rid of his tobbaco company shares and you wan't to use that as an excuse to play meaningless online games.

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Re: Tobacco companies

#158083

Postby moorfield » August 8th, 2018, 9:44 pm

StepOne wrote:The best option I came up with was, if you are that strongly anti-smoking, to invest in BATS shares and donate the dividends to ASH.


... and use your shareholding to vote down any of the company's resolutions you find unpalatable (although, granted, that is unlikely to be meaningful unless you are a large activist shareholder)

A good compromise, StepOne.

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Re: Tobacco companies

#158927

Postby melonfool » August 12th, 2018, 11:14 am

Like Steve, I don't buy tobacco stocks. I accept they are in my ETFs and pension funds and have no desire to totally cleanse my investments as it would actually be pretty impossible.

But I can see his point.

Unlike Steve, I have never smoked, not even once, not even tried it, I think it's totally vile and I object to anyone doing it in public. Though I do tend to think that the majority of people who smoke have agency and can make their own decisions, when I think about tobacco companies, it is not the end product that causes me as much angst as the growing of the plant and the production in third world countries where people are exploited and end up with cancers in their mouths and hands due to working with the stuff - they DO NOT have a choice really. And it is that which stops me wanting to hold it.

I don't care that I am, undoubtedly, worse off as a result, some things just aren't worth it to me. It's of no interest to me who else knows about my decision, in fact, no-one knows really. I don't see the strawman of 'but if you hold x, y and z it's just as bad' being of any relevance to my decision - I expect people say this to make themselves feel better. I do hold Diageo and BAE. I have qualms about the latter, I don't care about the former. In fact, I have some money in my ISA so I might go and top up Diageo.

Mel

colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158956

Postby colin » August 12th, 2018, 12:50 pm

Though I do tend to think that the majority of people who smoke have agency and can make their own decisions,


I don't believe this is true, the majority of people who smoke are addicts and therefore have no ability to choose whether or not to feel terrible when they don't have enough nicotine in their brains. While to a degree they may posses what we think of as free will in the main once they have become addicted free will doesn't exist. We have evolved to avoid situations which make us feel awful, lack of nicotine makes addicts feel awful.

melonfool
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158960

Postby melonfool » August 12th, 2018, 1:09 pm

colin wrote:
Though I do tend to think that the majority of people who smoke have agency and can make their own decisions,


I don't believe this is true, the majority of people who smoke are addicts and therefore have no ability to choose whether or not to feel terrible when they don't have enough nicotine in their brains. While to a degree they may posses what we think of as free will in the main once they have become addicted free will doesn't exist. We have evolved to avoid situations which make us feel awful, lack of nicotine makes addicts feel awful.


I know it's addictive but plenty of people have managed to give up, so it is possible - but I meant not to start in the first place. Despite coming from a family of heavy smokers, and heavy drinkers, I have never smoked and could not even be called a moderate drinker - I can't recall when I last had an alcoholic drink, probably about three weeks ago. So it's not simply 'learned behaviour'. My brother and sister both went on to smoke but sister gave up mid twenties, I think brother does still smoke and he drinks very heavily, so much that my heavy drinking (I consider a min of two beers, half a bottle of wine and some sort of liquer every single night to be 'heavy', but I might be wrong) father remarks upon it! Sister drinks moderately and probably drank more than me in the past but as she's got older has found it causes her problems, so drinks a lot less.

So, why do they start?

colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158974

Postby colin » August 12th, 2018, 2:31 pm

I started when at age 14 they showed us a film on the consequences of smoking to our health, not trusting adults very much at the time who often seemed hypocritical and deluded I thought there must be something in it or why did any one smoke? they had not mentioned addiction in the film and at that time no one as far as i can remember talked about addiction except in the context of Valium and heroin. Believing that the grown ups were not telling us the whole story I thought I would give it try , took 40 years to stop.

I think the process goes something like this, the brain produces a molecule very similar in shape to nicotine , it also produces receptor cells into which these molecules fit into , nicotine can fill those receptor cells and does so , the brain stops producing whatever chemical it is that the nicotine mimics and when these receptor cells start to empty they send signals to the brain that produce symptoms of distress and discomfort which the smoker tries to avoid by having a cigarette. That description is probably not quite accurate but you get the idea.
Most people , and certainly 14 year old boys, find the idea that our day to day behavior is governed by the ebb and flow of chemical compounds a little hard to accept, it's certainly not intuitive.

melonfool
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Re: Tobacco companies

#158977

Postby melonfool » August 12th, 2018, 2:38 pm

So, you agree that even at the age of 14 you had agency and made your own decision to start smoking - you saw the film, decided adults were lying and decided to try it.

I probably saw similar films and did not have the same reaction.

Mel

colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#159094

Postby colin » August 12th, 2018, 9:05 pm

No I do not agree with you .

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colin
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Re: Tobacco companies

#159154

Postby colin » August 13th, 2018, 9:55 am

Mel by your use of the word agency I assume that you mean free choice.
Any one who believes that we are able to make any decision we choose under any circumstance at any time in our life should read some popular science books covering subjects including ; neuro psychology, personality types, behavioral psychology, and evolutionary psychology.
The findings of repeatable and objective studies leave very little room if any for the existence of free will in human actions and decision making.
If we do have some options available to us when making a decision or taking an action then those options are confined to a narrow band defined by the wiring of neurons in the brain.

GrandOiseau
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Re: Tobacco companies

#164145

Postby GrandOiseau » September 4th, 2018, 1:32 pm



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