Patient Capital

[OLTB]

It was never intended for people who wanted to make a fast buck. It was up over 14% when I first looked this morning so i suppose some have taken the opportunity to get out.

I meant that some investors may wish to try and make a fast buck as they are assuming that there will be a swift bounce in the share price and then sell.

Cheers, OLTB.

[Dod101]

Bouleversee. One answer to your question is that as I said earlier this stuff was dated 6 March 2019, well before the current debacle. It therefore does not help to explain very much. Patient Capital Trust is intended for the long term. I did not buy into it mainly because I do not like managers like Woodford and I was suspicious as he left Invesco as to what he would be doing. He is not a Nick Train nor a Terry Smith, that much is obvious now and I am not claiming any hindsight.

Stock market investment though is more than merely gambling but it can be dangerous when a manager begins to believe his own hype. Furthermore one needs to be looking long term (10 years?) and be prepared for the inevitable problems from time to time.

What should you do with Patient Capital Trust? I would probably wait until the dust has settled and take a look at its holdings then and see if I was happy with them. Personally I would probably wait until the next AGM and get along. It should be interesting and there will surely be detailed questioning of the Board and the Chairman/lady in particular. I would be interested to watch the interaction between the Board and the Manager. Technically the Board appoints the Manager and can therefore also dismiss him. I would enjoy trying to analyse the situation.

OTOH, you may just sell and take the loss.

Dod

[Bouleversee]

It was never intended for people who wanted to make a fast buck. It was up over 14% when I first looked this morning so i suppose some have taken the opportunity to get out.

I meant that some investors may wish to try and make a fast buck as they are assuming that there will be a swift bounce in the share price and then sell.

Cheers, OLTB.

I see what you mean now. So if there are more buys than sales acc. to the figs. you quoted, doesn't than mean that the market makers are picking up and retaining most of the sales? I see they were mostly small trades at around 63p until at 16.27 there was a sale with a value of £25,447 and at 16.35 another sale amounting to £37,567 so whoever had been mopping up all the small sales was perhaps getting out without much of profit unless they had bought on a previous day when the price was lower. I can never understand how it is decided whether a deal is a sale or a purchase since there must surely be both to make a deal. It will be interesting to see what the price does tomorrow.

[Bouleversee]

Dod -

Bouleversee. One answer to your question is that as I said earlier this stuff was dated 6 March 2019, well before the current debacle. It therefore does not help to explain very much. Patient Capital Trust is intended for the long term. I did not buy into it mainly because I do not like managers like Woodford and I was suspicious as he left Invesco as to what he would be doing. He is not a Nick Train nor a Terry Smith, that much is obvious now and I am not claiming any hindsight.

Stock market investment though is more than merely gambling but it can be dangerous when a manager begins to believe his own hype. Furthermore one needs to be looking long term (10 years?) and be prepared for the inevitable problems from time to time.

What should you do with Patient Capital Trust? I would probably wait until the dust has settled and take a look at its holdings then and see if I was happy with them. Personally I would probably wait until the next AGM and get along. It should be interesting and there will surely be detailed questioning of the Board and the Chairman/lady in particular. I would be interested to watch the interaction between the Board and the Manager. Technically the Board appoints the Manager and can therefore also dismiss him. I would enjoy trying to analyse the situation.

OTOH, you may just sell and take the loss.

Dod

I think those moves were the start of the debacle when it became clear that sales were increasing and money would need to be found to pay investors who sold so more liquid assets would be needed. It wasn't that long ago.

I had an appointment this afternoon so haven't sold. I'm still chewing it over and reluctant to realise a big loss in percentage terms. Unfortunately, the next AGM won't be till next May.

[Alaric]

If you try a Google search for
"Neil Woodford risks being kicked off listed namesake investment trust"
you will see an FT article which speculates

The board of Woodford Patient Capital Trust, which raised £800m in what was the UK’s biggest investment trust launch in 2015, has held discussions with its broker Winterflood Securities about terminating its contract with Mr Woodford, according to two people close to the situation.

[Dod101]

If he loses this mandate, it would be catastrophic for the future of Woodford himself surely. Furthermore it would raise another interesting question. What would be the point of the Patient Capital Trust? I suppose as a sort of incubator for young techie firms, considering that that seems to be the background of most of the directors, but even a report like this is hardly going to improve relations between Woodford and the Board.

I think if I were Bouleversee I would now simply sell and move on.

Dod

[runnygum]

I did a Bed and SIPP with my WPCT, its supposed to be long term stuff, so Im happy it sits in the SIPP for a decade or so.

But I agree the WPCT board should boot him off, moving crap to/from his other funds should be off the table unless the trust get them at a deep discount. Definitely not something you want him involved in either way. Arms length only!

[Alaric]

But I agree the WPCT board should boot him off, moving crap to/from his other funds should be off the table unless the trust get them at a deep discount.

I believe the transaction was that they issued new shares in exchange for the assets. As the IT shares were standing at a discount, I think on paper the IT made a paper profit at the expense of the OEIC.

[peka]

A shocking article:

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/nei ... 65641.html

[scotia]

A shocking article:

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/nei ... 65641.html

Its the last part of the article that seems to be somewhat excusing Woodford's folly
"It shows they simply do not have the research available that a big fund house has at its disposal.”
How much do they think it takes to pay a nuclear physics graduate to tell them that cold fusion is snake oil?
In a billion dollar fund they can't afford it? No - its simply that the Woodford team had the arrogance to imagine that they knew better than an expert. Its just as bad as the idiots who caused the collapse of the banks over their inability to understand the mathematics of probability, and somehow imagined that Grade A securities could be generated by simply collecting together lots of mortgages that could never be repaid. Maybe there should be some minimum educational standard which includes mathematical and scientific qualifications before anyone is allowed to work in the financial community. And thinking it over, maybe that should apply to politicians as well.

[GoSeigen]

It was never intended for people who wanted to make a fast buck. It was up over 14% when I first looked this morning so i suppose some have taken the opportunity to get out.

I meant that some investors may wish to try and make a fast buck as they are assuming that there will be a swift bounce in the share price and then sell.

Cheers, OLTB.

I see what you mean now. So if there are more buys than sales acc. to the figs. you quoted, doesn't than mean that the market makers are picking up and retaining most of the sales? I see they were mostly small trades at around 63p until at 16.27 there was a sale with a value of £25,447 and at 16.35 another sale amounting to £37,567 so whoever had been mopping up all the small sales was perhaps getting out without much of profit unless they had bought on a previous day when the price was lower. I can never understand how it is decided whether a deal is a sale or a purchase since there must surely be both to make a deal. It will be interesting to see what the price does tomorrow.

I think OLTB's figures referred ONLY to HL's own customers' trading, and gave no total pound value of purchases and sales, so I'd say you can read close to nothing from those two percentages. You are right that lists of buys and sells are also meaningless.

I agree with others, and suggest Bouleversee sells at least 40% of her holding into any price strength, and to wait and see what to do with the remainder over the next six months. If the fund price continues to fall then it will validate the original decision to sell.

GS

[StOmer]

As I understand it, the buys and sells data comes from the stock exchange, not HL's own figures. The buy/sell indicator is added by HL as the LSE does not disclose that info. HL attempts to identify the deal based on the price of the trade, some are usually grayed out when the trading range is close and the deal type uncertain.

[richfool]

As I understand it, the buys and sells data comes from the stock exchange, not HL's own figures. The buy/sell indicator is added by HL as the LSE does not disclose that info. HL attempts to identify the deal based on the price of the trade, some are usually grayed out when the trading range is close and the deal type uncertain.

Apologies for this being somewhat off topic as it refers to trades on another trust, ....but.... I have for some time been following MATE (an IT - JP Morgan Multi-Asset trust), and it puzzles me that virtually every trade over the many weeks I have been watching it, is shown as a sell. Surely in reality there must be a buy to match to each sale, unless perhaps if the managers are buying up the sold shares? Even looking at the trading prices, they generally suggest they were sales, as they were at the lower end of the trading range.

[jonesa1]

And thinking it over, maybe that should apply to politicians as well.

A lot of the challenges faced by governments now require a sophisticated understanding of technology and often the science that under-pins it. I doubt that more than a small percentage of the current crop of MPs have that understanding. If they did, maybe they'd think climate change, environment degradation, antibiotic resistance, etc deserved more attention than endlessly rehashing the same discussions about Brexit.

[monabri]

"Update: The board of Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) has held discussions with its broker, Winterflood, about sacking its fund manager, Neil Woodford, according to the Financial Times."

I guess there would also be a name change as well...("Windscale/Sellafield")

https://citywire.co.uk/investment-trust ... ider+Daily

[tikunetih]

A shocking article:

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/nei ... 65641.html

No, I don't think so.

eg.

"It has emerged the business was founded on the back of much-derided claims by an eccentric Italian inventor"

The Trust has been in existence since early 2015, and held Industrial Heat from the get-go I think, so everyone has had literally years and years to look at what was in it. In particular, Industrial Heat's presence in the portfolio has been discussed all over the Internet since about day 1.

So, anyone with the remotest interest in the Trust who didn't already know all of this was simply asleep at the wheel - for years on end!

[peka]

I meant it is shocking that Woodford invested £32 million of other people's money in this garbage in the first place.

[JimPubes]

I am also stuck in WPCT.
I am holding for now hoping things will get better after the dust settles.
That could take a while!

From what I can see from commentators the best regarded share in the fund is reckoned to be Autolus.
The others are a mixed bunch with some absolute dross in there. Woodford clearly lost the plot.

In respect of cold fusion it is interesting that some big money is getting involved;
Bill Gates has invested in a cold fusion company called Seashore Research.
Carl Page; brother of Larry is also dabbling in cold fusion research.
Google itself has funded some university research that recently appeared in Nature. On their first run at it they had no positive results. But it is 30 years since the original cold fusion story broke, so either there is nothing there, or if there is then it is not an easy technology to master.

As far as Industrial Heat is concerned they have funded a number of labs doing this research.
I read in a recent FT article that “the Emerson Collective purchased a $10m stake in the UK-registered holding company of Industrial Heat last year, according to UK filings.”
The Emerson Collective is the organisation founded and run by Ms Powell Jobs (widow of Steve Jobs).
Also interestingly her brother Gregory Powell is now a director of the holding company IH Holdings International Limited.
Rumour has it that Industrial Heat are due to present September 2019 at the ICCF22 in Assisi, Italy.
Maybe they have some progress to announce.

[TUK020]

In respect of cold fusion it is interesting that some big money is getting involved;
Bill Gates has invested in a cold fusion company called Seashore Research.

Need to be careful of what inference you make from this

Gates has also put 100s of millions into a cure for malaria.
He may regard this as an act of philanthropy, helping to fund long shot research for the public good, rather than the expectation of getting any financial return.

[jonesa1]

He may regard this as an act of philanthropy, helping to fund long shot research for the public good, rather than the expectation of getting any financial return.

and he can afford a bit of small change on a long-odds punt. A long-odds punt was probably not what investors in Woodford's fund had in mind.