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I start with the cows, my red face and pain. Read all about it HERE and then urge you to leave the 95% and make a donation to Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks HERE. Then I discuss Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), Neil Woodford and whining underperforming fund manager Nick Train of Lindsell Train
Back in February I concluded about Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) that it was an “absolutely fine company to use if you are an investor, but in my opinion you do not need to buy its shares…carry on avoiding…”. The share back then was about 1100p and today it is below 850p, i.e. levels last seen back in 2013. Spot the rationale for this with revenue falling in an investment market that is unsurprisingly more and more competitive. I will have another look after its full year results in early August, but would still avoid the shares at least until then. Meanwhile, how am I feeling about BT Group (BT.A) shares after the publishing of its full year numbers earlier today?…
A busy geopolitical Tuesday on the markets, but a far from impossible day for anybody (being very boring) and holding a massive FTSE 100 position. A busy UK earnings day too and, whilst I was amused listening to the thoughts of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) CEO earlier, its shares are back above the 50 quid level (as seen – but not maintained – in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and now 2022). Still, I am looking forward to staying at a Regent Hotels and Resorts location (if the lottery win ever comes through). Whilst I wait for this, my thoughts turn again to the company which says it aims ‘to give you all the tools, information and support you need to make the most of your money’, Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.). I am sure many folks stuffed into Woodford funds by Hargreaces as Hargreaves itself sold down its managed fund holdings in the same Woodford funds might not agree with that boast!
Back in early August I observed that there were ‘continuing issues’ at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) which made me avoid the shares. Obviously I still do not own any today and this morning’s update keeps me of the view that the company’s shares are still stuck in a 1400-1800p range.
Remember, I read the ghastly Mail on Sunday so that you do not have to. I discuss its latest campaign backed by Primary Bid and the chancers of Bristol, Hargreaves Lansdown. It is fag end of a bull market nonsense.
Back in May HERE I observed on ‘Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) whose shares have remained stuck in a 1400-1800p share price range over the last year…there is no reason – in my opinion – to own the shares here’. So what do I make of today’s full year to the end of June numbers?
Hello, Share Fanciers. There aren’t many consolations for the pandemic on the financial front. Ok some shares have done better than others. But the Footsie is down least 12% on pre-covid days and it should have risen by 20% given the bull run which was underway just before that. However there’s better news for owners of many penny shares.
It has been a busy last week for markets and UK listed reported names. Next week – certainly on the latter component is not going to be any different, so time to play a bit of catch up.
The most read non-Tom article this week is Ariana – Ozaltin Deal Conditional Agreement Completed, cracking news – last chance to buy? by Nigel Somerville (for an unheard-of ninth week in a row) at a fantastic number four or at number nine, including Bearcasts and Tom’s new shareshow.
A reader of this website who I have known for many years and who is a truthful and honest man is a client of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL). Poor man. He was advised, falsely, by Hargreaves that if he wished to convert Golden Prospect subscription shares (GPS) into Golden Prospect ordinafries (GPM), he had to notify the company by 31 October. Hargreaves then claimed, again falsely, that this date had been extended.
A reader has been contacted by Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) about what is in his acount. No not units in Neil Woodford funds bought on the advice of Hargreaves as its own funds were selling out but certain funds invested in crypto currencies. The letter reads:
I don’t need to remind readers that Warren Buffett has a bit of a track record, having clocked up 20-odd % average gains every year since the stone age. There have been plenty of studies on his success, one of which was the book of “Buffettology” and the aftermath of that saw the launch of SDL UK Buffettology unit trust. Now, from the same people, the Buffettology Smaller Companies Investment Trust is being prepared for IPO on the main list of the London Stock Exchange next week. Might it be worth a punt?
In some ways I feel a little sorry for Mark Dampier, as he sets sail into retirement from fully-listed Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), his copy book indelibly blotted by exceptionally poor calls over Neil Woodford and, as Tom noted today, value crushing Tom Dobell of M&G. But it is not just Neil Woodford where I would have issues with HL’s recommendations, and that brings me to Gold.
To be fair to Tom Dobell, his first ten years running the M&G Recovery Fund were pretty spectacular. That was partly because the market tanked as he arrived and then bounced back. Corks, waves etc but still his record was impressive. Today that all seems a long time ago with news that he is being resigned at Christmas.
More than a million Americans a month opened a brokerage account with Robinhood in the first quarter of this year, most of them new to trading. The attraction: Robinhood charges no commission at all and you need just $1 to open an account. And now, as you can see below, it is coming to the UK this year. Great news or worrying news? It depends who you are. I start with my long held belief that traditional retail brokers like Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) and AJ Bell (AJB) rip folks off with execution only charges that are far too high.
Terry Smith's funds were not recommended to its clients by Hargreaves Lansdown (HL). Those of Neil Woodford were. Of course, that was noting to do with the fees Hargreaves received from the two forms. No, not at all. In his annual newsletter the great Smith has slated Woodford. There is nothing that should surprise ShareProphets readers but it is all good stuff. Smith opines:
There is no doubt in my mind that disgraced Neil Woodford’s revolutionary pallet company RM2 (RM2) should never have got anywhere near the AIM Casino and through keep-the-lights-on refinancings (largely paid for by Neil Woodford with other peoples’ money) it should have been removed a long time ago. But Neil needed the listing as he tried (and failed) to keep within his 10% proportion of investments unlisted limit so despite protestations from within, the AIM listing continued. Well, this morning it is all over bar the shouting.
Roger Lawson of ShareSoc is bang on the money with his comments on plans to sue Hargreaves Lansdown over its shocking behaviour in pushing clients into Neil Woodford's funds. In essence his conclusion is to be wary of throwing good money after bad.
For full disclosure, I happened to find myself in the then very new London offices of M&G (MNG), the fund management spin-off from insurance giant Prudential (PRU) a few months ago. I was helping out a couple of contacts of mine figure out if a couple of their fund managers knew their stuff or not. We will gloss over what I specifically thought...but the other lasting impression from the meeting was that the very nice offices amusingly had intermittent IT problems. It is always thus with a spin-off…
I have written recently about St James's Place (STJ) and its toxic culture but it is time to think about a company with potentially even bigger problems...and that is Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.)...
Link, the ACD, to Neil Woodford’s flagship Equity Income Fund has, after liaising with the FCA, announced that the fund will not be un-gated, allowing investors to redeem units in December, but will instead be wound down. And Neil Woodford’s Woodford Investment Management has been fired with immediate effect. That is the death knell for it. Our extensive warnings, in more than 1000 podcasts and articles since 2015, HERE are now utterly vindicated, Neil is finished.
The accusations of lying, misleading ande of deception are flying thick and fast. I look at Peter Hargreaves of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) and his attempted hit job on Neil Woodford and at claims made by Chris Frazer. Frankly, he cannot be Sirius (SXX).
As it announced pretty decent full year numbers, shamed Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) did its best to pull the sting from the Woodford scandal by announced that CEO Chris Hill would skip his 2019 annual bonus altogether. But with respect the firm talked utter shite…
It is just out – this month’s review of the gating of Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund by its authorised corporate director, Link. The news is not good...
I can tell you two sets of PR advisers who are having a nightmare Sunday morning: anyone involved in running the Metro Bank (MTRO) and the St James's Place (STJ) accounts. Still - via reading this website over the last few months - neither of the PR nightmares will have come as a shock to all you readers.
I covered the May portfolio update from Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) earlier today. Now I turn to his gated Equity Income Fund (WEIF). As a starting point, I note that its borrowings were up to 2.64%. With the fund valued at £3.7 billion it means the gating started with the massive headwind of a bank overdraft of £97.7 million which we have subsequently learned that the bank has demanded settlement of. Not a good start for a fund which was gated the next trading day facing, we learn, almost £300 million of redemptions. So Neil has to find £400 million just to pay that lot off.
Tick-tock, tick-tock….another day and another day of redemptions at Neil Woodfords lesser dog fund. I calculated yesterday morning that his Income Focus fund (WIFF) had closed at £313.8 million on Wednesday and according to Morningstar yesterday the NAV per unit increased by 0.47%. So that should have raised WIFF to £315.3 million before redemptions.
The numbers from Morningstar this morning show that Neil Woodford lesser hound, the Income Focus fund (WIFF), was once again suffering significant redemptions yesterday. Surely the end beckons.
So Neil Woodford has survived to the end of the week without seeing his lesser fund, the Income Focus Fund, gated. It cannot be far off, but yesterday’s numbers released this morning by Morningstar show that the accumulation units dropped by 1.24% and the size of the fund dropped from £339.6 million to £332.8 million which means that just £2.6 million was lost to redemptions – less than one percent.
Yesterday we learnt that Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) had run for the hills with Neil Woodford following the gating of his Equity Income Fund (WEIF), dumping the whole of the £45 million stake held by its house funds in his smaller dog fund, the Income Focus Fund (WIFF) since last Monday. So the redemptions have stopped? Er, no.
Citywire has reported this afternoon that Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) has exited its position in Neil Woodford’s smaller dog fund, the Income Focus fund with regard to its house Multi-Manager funds. This, after dropping the fund from its Wealth 50 last week and telling investors there that if the income was not important to them they should consider their position.
Over the last five articles looking at the Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) multi-manager funds I have found two cases where they were selling Neil Woodford’s flagship fund, the Woodford Equity Income fund, whilst retaining it on the recommended Wealth 50 list, one where the jury is out and two where there is no case to answer. I now move on to the Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Balanced Managed trust (HL MM BM).
Over the last four articles looking at the Hargreaves Lansdown multi-manager funds I have found two cases where they were selling Neil Woodford’s flagship fund, the Woodford Equity Income fund, whilst retaining it on the recommended Wealth 50 list, one where the jury is out and one where there is no case. I now move on to the (relatively) much smaller Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Strategic Assets trust (HL MM SA).
Over the past three articles it has become obvious that two out of the three Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) multi-manager funds I have looked at were dumping Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund (WEIF) even though the funds themselves were growing, whilst HL was still promoting WEIF to its private clients. The third I felt was too close to call. In part four I look at the Hargreaves Lansdown Multi-Manager Special Situations Trust (HL MM SS).
This morning’s data from Neil Woodford’s Income Focus Fund (IFF) must be a worry as redemptions are still piling in. How long can it be before liquidity dries up and the fund is gated, like its bigger brother the Woodford Equity Income Fund.
A recording glitch. The hot rumour is at 20 minutes, ignore the gap beforehand. Elsewhere, I look at Neil Woodford, Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT), Eve Group (EVE), Xeros (XSG), RM2 (RM2), Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), BlueJay (JAY), Thomas Cook (TCG) Agronomics (ANIC) and the sodomising of Mail on Sunday reader;s portfolios by prize shit Ben Harrington and at Avereso (ASO).
In part one of this series I showed that the HL Multi-Manager Income and Growth fund had been dumping Woodford Equity Income fund since the end of January whilst HL was still recommending Woodford via its Wealth 50 list. Part two – the HL MM Equity and Bond fund was inconclusive, although I did show that its % allocation had fallen. In part three I look at the HL Multi-Manager UK Equity fund (HL MM UK Eq).
Yesterday I showed quite clearly that the Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) Multi-Manager Income and growth fund has been dumping Neil Woodford’s sunken flagship Equity Income Fund whilst HL retained Woodford on its Wealth 50 list of recommended funds offered to its private investors. This was in terms of cash value, in terms of the % of the HL fund and in terms of the number of units in Woodford’s fund – yet all the while the HL fund had been increasing in size. Today I move on to the HL Multi-Manager Equity and Bond fund (HL MM E&B).
I said the debacle involving the gating of Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund was going to get messy and it gives me no pleasure at all to write this article because I am myself a client of Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.). But the question has to be asked: has Hargreaves been selling Woodford’s Equity Income Fund whilst at the same time advising clients to buy it.
I start with Bryce Elder at the FT. What a knob. Then it is onto new explosive revelations about Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) was selling Woodford funds for months while urging its retail clients to buy.
I have warned in the strongest terms that Neil Woodford’s Income Focus fund (IFF) will be gated and repeat that warning today. Last weekend I warned that the noose was tightening over EIF (call me Mystic Meg) and today I give the same advice on IFF. In the light of the suspension of Woodford’s flagship Equity Income fund (EIF) on Monday, I warned that the rush to the exit at IFF would be extreme and this morning’s figures bear that out with bells on.
In today's bearcast I look at the 5.6 million questions Mark Dampier has to answer in the wake of the collapse of the Neil Woodford empire. I also look at how the contagion could swamp one of Hargreaves Lansdown's (HL.) own fund of funds unit trusts and at the massive COIs at Hargreaves which the Woodfiord scandal reveals. I look at Redde (REDD), Surgical Innovations (SUN) and give a direct answer to Roger Lawson as to why I will continue to call out the corrupt and useless deadwood press even if it means no coverage of the achievements of this website. It is called feeling comfortable with yourself, Roger, for telling it as it is. Postscript: Late tonight it has been announced that shamed Dampier is to "retire".
Well, the Income Focus Fund hasn’t been suspended yet and nobody’s sacked him today. Ooops TW Correction, it has just em erged that the mandate to manage the £330 million Omnis Fund has been terminated by Openwork. Woodford is utterly toxic. So, as Nigel was saying, until late this afternoon no-one had sacked Neil Woodford so that counts as a good day....
The smaller unit trust run by Neil Woodford, the Income Focus Fund (IFF), has had a torrid time ever since it was launched and trades way below the launch price of the accumulation units. But with Neil Woodford now in the headlines for gating his flagship equity income fund and even his staunchest supporter – Hargreaves Lansdown – suggesting that investors consider their position in IFF, much as predicted on this fine website, it seems that redemptions are running at stampede levels. How long can Neil Woodford survive this before he has to gate IFF too?
If Monday’s events which saw Kent County Council ask for its money back, which forced the suspension of Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund was not bad enough, he has just learnt that St James’ Place has sacked him (oops, there goes a £3.5 billion mandate). Oh, and his best mates over at Hargreaves Lansdown have issued a statement about Woodford’s Income Focus Fund….
The deadwood press was fawning as a pack over Neil Woodford until relatively recently. For a long time myself and other other writers here, notably Cynical Bear and Nigel Somerville, were lone voices in the wilderness though our analysis was spot on. But in recent times Neil has lost most of his makes but some still stayed loyal.
Hargreaves Lansdown has announced the removal of Neil Woodford's Equity Income Fund from its Wealth 50 top picks- no suprises there: HL may have egg on its face but since the fund is no longer tradeable there was no choice. But HL has also chosen to remove Woodford Income Focus Fund as well. Given what has just happened at EIF it is now a racing cert that Income Focus will also be suspended when there is a tsunami of panicked redemptions, Woodford cannot meet, tomorrow.. If you hold some, you had better hope you can get out tomorrow.
Well shock, horror, probe! As predicted on ShareProphets for months, Neil Woodford’s Equity Income Fund has had to suspend dealing in its units with immediate effect, until further notice, to allow time to reposition the element of the fund’s portfolio invested in unquoted and less liquid stocks, in to more liquid investments. You can’t say you were not warned here on ShareProphets – and whilst it may be Ouzo time here for Tom Winnifrith and me, spare a thought for Cynical Bear who unpicked so much (and now has to get his dancing shoes out!) So what now?
As discussed by Citywire, Hargreaves Lansdown’s clients have been voting with their feet on Neil Woodford, despite HL maintaining Woodford’s favoured status as part of its Wealth 50 and buying more for its own house funds. In fact, Citywire goes on to report that HL now holds so much Woodford Equity Income between its house funds and client accounts it is classed as a related party. On Thursday HL produced another Woodford-supportive note and the ShareProphets Translation Service gives its view (original in bold).
As investors settle down for the Good Friday and Easter bank holiday weekend, Neil Woodford has had a fair degree of coverage to assimilate. Articles in The Times and the FT point to Woodford’s sale of £42 million worth of NewRiver REIT (NRR) to his former junior at Invesco – something which ShareProphets readers have been aware of ten days now (it is good to see the dead wood press keeping up!) Meanwhile Citywire reports that the suspensions of Woodford’s stocks in Guernsey may be resolved this coming week although we are not told which way. And Hargreaves Lansdown appears to be standing by its man, still, as it covers the recent results from WPCT – something covered here some two weeks ago.
In today's podcast I look in detail at Managenent Resource Solutions (MRS), Yourgene (YGEN), First Derivatives (FDP) and hapless Neil Woodford and the crashing yield on his Equity Income Fund. How soon will that force Hargeaves Lansdown (HL.) to drop him? And I discuss my plans for weekend training walks as I urge you to become a hero as we surge through 25% of our Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks target HERE
Yesterday's bearcast explained the massive red flag of Neil Woodford having to sell his crown jewelsd, shares in Imperial Brands. Today, his most devoted follower on the sewer that is Fleet Street, Jeff Prestridge of the Mail on Sunday has, after 30 years of loyally kissing Woodford's arse at least once a fortnight, abandoned ship. The ship once swarmed with parasitic and, often unthinking, rats. Now there is just one left, Hargreaves Lansdown. I explian what this all means. If you enjoyed this, almost 100% profanity free, bearcast, follow a bloke from the Grim North who donated enough to buy a whole house in the welfare safari and support the Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks HERE.
I start with the utterly shite journalism of Jeff Presstrip in the Mail on Sunday which disgraces our profession as I explain HERE. Then it is onto Neil Woodford and two issues. First why HL just cannot tell its dumb clients to sell and, secondly, why the yield on the flasgship EIF will plunge from 4.1% today to something starting with a 2 within a year, if the fund still exists. That is by no means a given. If you enjoyed this bearcast, follow Jim Mellon and support the Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks HERE.
As this morning’s shock revelations about Neil Woodford’s greed and reward for abject failure start to sink in, I imagine that many investors in his funds will be feeling a deep sense of disgust and regret. Perhaps they will blame those who advised them to invest and who, as the performance has gone from bad to worse, to even worse, have told them to hang on or average down. Perhaps the biggest cheerleader has been Hargreaves Lansdown which has just published another blow job type piece on Woodford.
‘Twas the night before Christmas. The man who liked to be known not only for his humility but also for being Britain’s greatest ever fund manager lay back on his disruptive Eve mattress next to his rather flatulent but ever faithful old poodle Dampers. Whilst his companion snored loudly, Neil Woodford was deeply troubled by not just one but a second ghostly apparition that night.
‘Twas the night before Christmas and the man who liked to be known as Britain’s Buffett paced up and down his bedroom, deep in thought. Attending the local carol service at the Church nearest his Country Estate, Neil Woodford felt that he had so much in common with the wise men but like the Shepherds he was this evening of a troubled mind.
Exciting general times in the market...and I am thinking about my assertion a month or two ago in my write-up on Dunelm (DNLM) that I would buy some frilly curtains from my local store if the shares pushed up to the six quid odd level I mused upon...
And you thought the pantomime was over… now unlisted and registered in the BVI the latest developments at Sefton Resources (SER) are, predictably amusing. When Sefton was booted off AIM it had 4.8 billion shares in issue. Until the other day it appears to have had almost 9 billion pieces of confetti in issue. But that is set to change.
iii, aka Interactive Investor, do not seem happy at being called total bastards for changing the terms for holding client money so that clients, that is mug punters like you and I, get more risk and iii gets more money. It says that this is not the objective of what is going on any anyhow other stockbrokers such as Hargreaves Lansdown and the Share Centre are doing the same thing. As such I am happy to clarify " I apologise for saying that iii are total bastards. I meant to say that iii like many other stockbrokers including Hargreaves Lansdown and the Share Centre are total bastards." The iii spokesman is keen that I put this all in context. iii's comments are in bold, my translation service is below.
The Times yesterday ran an article "Investors take aim at LSE’s mistrusted upstart - Stock exchange defends Alternative Investment Market but its critics are losing patience", which it painted as a major attack on AIM. In fact it appears to have found one new critic - Standard Life - which, having done its conkers on Fusionex (FXI) because its fund managers knew better than our writers here who issued repeated warnings, now seems to think AIM has a problem. On which fucking planet has Standard Life been for the past ten years?
The starting gun on the next general election has been fired so unexpectedly that the report has been felt throughout the country. But the first tangible response was a swift rally in the pound, putting pressure on the UK stock market.
Yesterday I pointed out that having once owned 28.8 million shares in Cloudtag (CTAG), Corvus Capital the vehicle of dodgy Andrew Regan now appears to own no shares in this uber ramped fraud. I now draw your attention to page 13 of the last annual report which you can see HERE
Andrew Regan, the man who shot to fame as he was caught at a Motorway Service Station trying to buy stolen documents relating to a bid for the Co-Op, was also the man who brought Cloudtag (CTAG) to market with his Corvus Capital vehicle owning 28.8 million shares (just under 20% of the equity) on admission. But...
AIM is now 21 and new, hard, data from Hargreaves Lansdown shows that, whatever the London Stock Exchange says, it has been a disaster. Over that time the AIM Index has fallen by 30%. By contrast - with dividends included - the FTSE Small Cap Index is up by 220%. Ouch.
Evidence started to emerge four weeks ago of a major problem with the nominee service used by clients of Barclays Stockbrokers, Barclayshare Nominees. There is now a strong suggestion that Barclayshare Nominees and Barclays Stockbrokers have disposed of clients’ physical stock without their permission. This is a shocking turn of events in the New World Oil & Gas (NEW) forward selling fiasco and points to an even graver flaw in the mechanics of the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market. Something like this should just not be possible, but the numbers appear telling.
You would have thought that a firm of stockbrokers would want to see a critical press exposing fraud on AIM so that its clients do not lose money. But it appears that Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) has given into the Bulletin Board jihadists and has joined other companies such as Tesco in refusing to advertise here. The same folk who have sent me death threats, smeared me and the restaurant because of what I write (fraud exposes) are trying to get this website closed down.
OK so I’m a contrarian and as such I am now long blinkx (BLNX). I bought three times on the day of the crash in my mad punting account. (I have this to remind myself of the pain of self-immolation in trading, so I don’t lose track of my customers.) I bought at 40p, 33p and 29p averaging out at 34.1p. Basically, this is where it sits right now. I think it is going up.
