Stockopedia StockSlam - October 2018

26th Oct '18 by Damian Cannon

8 comments 5090 reads

For our latest StockSlam event we decided to try a new and larger venue, wework at Aldwych House, but still in Central London. This gave us the space for an audience of around 75 with plenty of room for socialising afterwards - an essential requirement.

Before kicking off I (couldn't help) noting the sharp correction in global stock markets, which has hit many of us where it hurts. At times like these I often remind myself that I'm in this for the long haul, which means that I don't intend to touch these funds for at least a decade, but that's not true of everyone.

So I did a quick audience survey on investment time horizons to check our demographic with this result:

10% of audience are drawing down money now for expenses
around half plan to use their investment the money in the next 10 years
the rest are looking further into the future

With this in mind I was curious as to how people are reacting to the current volatility. Personally I've added to a selected few of my holdings, where I see particular value, but I haven't made sweeping changes to my portfolio. However quite a few people are talking about how they're fully, or mostly, in cash as they wait for the bear market. Lucky them!

So what were people in the audience doing?

around half are doing nothing
are few (perhaps 10%) are selling to accumulate cash
the rest are hoping to start buying when the dust settles

With most of us hoping to find some interesting and actionable ideas at the StockSlam I believe that the presenters didn't disappoint; all of them did a great job within their allotted 3 minutes and I've tried to give a taste of their pitches with the notes below. Big thanks to Jack and Ed, from Stockopedia, for actually taking the notes though!

Stop press: I'm pleased to say that the next StockSlam will take place at Mello London in November. If you'd like to present, which I thoroughly recommend, please follow the instructions here: https://www.stockopedia.com/co...

K3C (LON:K3C)

Corporate broker - helps small businesses (up to £200m market cap) market themselves to potential buyers
K3C has a StockRank of 84 and is classified as speculative small-cap high-flyer
It has high margins and is a capital light business
Directors own 35% of the company
Reputable chairman in Ian…

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Maddox

26th Oct '18

Hi Damian,
Congratulations to you, Chris and the Stockopedia Team for organising another excellent event. The StockSlam format works very well and proving to be increasingly popular.

Cheers Maddox

clouds

Thanks for organising and sharing the notes. It was an interesting evening.

DMG2305

Thanks for the excellent write up Damian. I think your summary at the top was really useful. It's really good to get an idea of what investors are doing in the current market. A lot of the financial tweeters seem to be holding cash and timed their sales to perfection so it is good to hear that 50% of your audience were doing nothing. I invest pension funds and will not be using them for at least 2 decades and am 100% invested which is frustrating when your favorite stocks are on sale! In the current downturn I've sold a few of my dogs and added to my conviction holds and will hope they continue to compound over the years. Other than that you can be assured markets will have recovered by the time I have accumulated a few more pension contributions and dividends to add or buy a new position but that's life! Regards DG.

Damian Cannon

Thanks for the feedback DMG2305. I know exactly what you mean about commentators on Twitter talking about how they're massively in cash and are sitting pretty as the markets crash (while no one seems to be tweeting about how they're up by x% this week and just about to open the champagne!). It's not that I begrudge anyone their moment in the sun but it is such a reflection of human nature....

Anyway I'm fully invested, like you, and switched a few holdings around last week. Otherwise I'm doing nothing because my plan isn't to try and time the market. Instead I'm staying invested in companies that I believe have a solid future on the basis that in 5-10 years this will be no more than a blip (even if we are just starting a bear market).

That said I read an interesting article this morning which suggested that there's no point timing the market - instead a better strategy is to decide on a shares/cash split for your portfolio (say 80:20). Then if the market falls you'll invest more cash to maintain the balance and if it rises then you'll steadily cut back on your share holdings. This seems like a neat way to handle the market cycle without specifically trying to call the top or bottom.

Damian

Richard Goodwin

Thank you Damian. It was a great evening with interesting investors and stock ideas

matylda

28th Oct '18

Thanks Damian, excellent documentation, much appreciated.

gbjbaanb

1st Nov '18

Local Shopping Reit (LON:LSR) - I note that there's £3.2m from recent sales + £16.4m cash sitting in their hands - which makes 23.7p per share that is "guaranteed".

But they also have 15 remaining properties worth £9.9m still to sell. Now this comes to 12p per share, but that assumes they get the full amount, which is very unlikely. The recent ones sold for a 18% discount, so that'd be more like 9.6p instead, but I imagine they'd want to get rid at almost any cost so maybe a bit less than that.

The question is how much will those remaining properties go for - if they sell for expected 20% discount, that's 33.3p but they could end up going for less. If they sell for a 50% discount, that's all the profit in this share gone.

I'm not sure what the wind-up costs will be, no doubt fat fees will be taken by someone :-(

LANE

2nd Nov '18

Thanks Damian great report

Stockopedia StockSlam - October 2018

K3C (LON:K3C)

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Damian Cannon

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