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Hi, hope someone my point in right direction after I have drawn a blank on google. I am wondering what the BIK situation is from living in part of a residential property that is operated as small hotel/b&b/guesthouse and owned by a limited company. We would be owners and directors of the...

The reason I think it is misleading is because Berkshire Hathaway is unique in that it's run by two of the best investors in history who have a very wide scope of how and where to invest the capital for returns. They're in the business of investing capital, rather than running a department store...

Fair point, I see that now. But whilst I get his argument, I still think it is misleading to use Berkshire Hathaway as an example to illustrate it.

I have read similiar thoughts from Terry Smith before and I remain more inclined to dividend investing. Whilst I understand the argument I think it is a bit misleading to compare fictitious ACME plc's €100 dividend reinvested at 3.5x book value versus actual return from Berkshire Hathaway. I...

@Colm Fagan Interesting. I looked at spread betting and thought that if psychologically you can get past the 'bet' element, essentially it is a platform that offers to lend you money at approx 3-3.5% per annum to invest, with all capital gains and income being tax free. If I was an experienced...

@Colm Fagan when you say you have more than 100% of your portfolio in equities, is that taking account of the leveraged spread bets or do you also have other borrowings to invest like cremeegg?

If one is concerned about the house risk, presumably with a spread bet on an index or ETF you can simply close the position and open another after 1,2,3 years etc or whatever time frame makes you comfortable? Obviously this only works if your bet is showing a profit. i.e no one is keen to lock...

It's a nice idea in theory as a way of holding some ETF trackers I'd like to own, but in practice I don't think I'd have the guts to open a spread bet with a 10 year horizon. Though I guess you could spread your spread bets across accounts to ensure they'd be covered by a compensation scheme...

Presumably spreadbets are not very suitable for long term holders?

I think the size of the position was crazy because it was 100% of his wealth, rather than the value.

I kind of agree with you. But essentially that means I think that somebody was incorrect to trust his own judgement on something he was particularly well informed about, in favour of trusting the judgement of a third party on something he knew nothing about. That seems counterintuitive!

Whilst I agree with you that for the vast majority of investors a tracker is the most suitable investment, I struggle to understand why those who do pick individual shares are rubbished so enthusiastically by those who don't. It does not seem to happen with any other asset class when somebody...

One of the articles I read on this subject that shaped my views was by Terry Smith, fund manager of Fundsmith, writing in the FT in 2015. In summary he said: "If you are a long-term investor you should own the high-quality bond proxies and close your ears to the siren song of those who say a...

@RedOnion apologies, rereading it I see you made your point about interest rates perfectly well, I think I just assumed it was a what's the big deal about dividends question! Maybe I am overly sensitive! I've read a bit on your point which is why I binned some of the big names from the original...

@joe sod can't comment individually on BAT as per site rules but re tobacco stocks in general my view was there is a bit of life left in them. Customers are addicted to the products and the companies are making some progress with new products eg vaping etc. And it would not surprise me if they...

@RedOnion - yes concentrated on dividend stocks and deliberately so; some of the most important parameters when I was looking at individual shares were dividend cover and growth. I understand the debate and I get that if a company pays out a 10p dividend its share price will drop by 10p, and I...

In the event of 20-30% correction, would hold tight, and hopefully reinvest depending on cash position at time. Currently at 5% but will be allowing the income to build up before reinvesting.

So have given everything a lot of thought over the last couple of weeks, I've tweaked a few ideas, and gone ahead and sold the holdings I did not want and purchased the replacements. I'll explain my thinking below, without going into specifics of individual shares. Details of portfolio are...

Yes, that's something I do worry about but the reason I am selling in three years is a) there are significant tax advantages to wait until three years, the property could drop in value substantially by then and I would still be better off waiting b) there are local factors beyond the vagaries...

Does as anybody know what the position re UK ETFs is likely to be post Brexit. The current guidance suggests that they will be treated as CGT and income but that seems a bit too good to be true?!